001I call the February 5th, 2026 regular meeting of the Board of Education to order. Kate, will you please call the roll? Dr. Pinter. Here. Mr. Goldberg. Here. Ms. Maloney. Here. Ms. Timm. Here. Mr. Aitken. Mrs. Danniger. Here. Mrs. Warren. Here. Mr. Aitken will not be joining us today. Thank you. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to liberty and justice for all. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting of the Board of Education to order. February is a significant month for our district as we observe two important recognitions. First, we join the nation in celebrating Black History Month. This is a time for us to reflect on the invaluable contributions black Americans have made to our history, our culture, and our community, and to reaffirm our commitment to... I'm sorry,
002yes, and reaffirm our commitment to ensuring every student feels seen, heard, and supported in our schools. Additionally, February is Career and Technical Education Month. I want to share my deep appreciation for the work being done between our students and staff to build a bridge to the future. Our Career and Technical Education programs are about more than just skills. They are about helping students find their why and giving them the opportunities to explore high-demand careers. Thank you for your dedication to excellence and for helping us redefine what future ready looks like. Turning to board business, we have a few important governance updates. IASB Governance Award and Self-Evaluation. Our board has the opportunity to reapply for the IASB Governance Award. To be eligible, we must first conduct a formal board self-evaluation. Our IASB representative has two available
003dates for this training, Thursday, April 11th, and Thursday, April 25th. I would like to gauge the board's comfort level with adding a Saturday session in April, specifically for this learning. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. Saturday, April 11th, and Saturday, April 25th. So that would be a Saturday commitment. In addition to our regular summer retreat, those needed at this meeting include all board members and our superintendent, Dr. Gault. Finally, we also have four potential dates for our summer board retreat that Kate will be sending a doodle poll shortly to see which date works best for the majority. As a reminder, this retreat is a critical time for administration to share their action plans for the next school year, the board to confirm the superintendent's goals, and the continued board professional development. Please keep an eye
004on your inbox for the request so that we can get this on the calendar. And so with that, let's move to the first item on our agenda. Well, we have a few challenge coins that were presented. So Dr. Pinter, please share your shout outs. Okay, hi everybody. I have two shout outs today. My first shout out goes to Frieda Noble. I wanted to send the shout out to a reading support specialist at Isaac Fox Elementary School named Frieda Noble. Frieda deserves this shout out because she is a passionate teacher who loves to see her students succeed. When I asked Mrs. Noble what students would say about her if I asked them, she said, they would probably say I'm always excited about teaching and reading books, and I make them work hard. During our time together,
005Frieda told me several stories about children whom she loves working with. There was one child who did not need her specialist services, but still wanted the one-on-one attention with Frieda. Frieda picked out a book and sat with a child and read with her anyway. She made the little girl feel special and encouraged her love of reading. When relating to another child, Frieda talked about a girl who she worked with for four years in order to improve the child's reading. The little girl struggled with decoding and spelling, but after working with Frieda, the child now understands details and has greatly improved her reading comprehension. She and Frieda now chat about their favorite books, including audiobooks that Frieda has introduced the child to. Students realize that it's not hard, scary, or stigmatizing to work with Mrs. Noble.
006They look forward to their time with her and enjoy learning with her. Frieda has also been on the Literary Committee for over two decades. She genuinely adores reading and the joys of seeing children love it too. What I appreciate about Frieda is that she works hard to make sure kids do not feel stigmatized if they need extra assistance with reading comprehension. She makes learning fun and makes reading an invitation to exploring the joy and excitement of another land and make believe in exciting worlds. Not only is Frieda passionate about reading and teaching, but she also cares immensely about sustainability and her club, The Green Team. Frieda, along with another teacher, Alana Butita, started this club together. This club started out with compost bins. Frieda began composting with stocky weeds and slimy bananas, but over time
007she learned to make better compost with her interested and excited students. She then started a club because kids were so enthusiastic about that initial project. At the first club, there were only fifth graders, but now it's so popular that fourth graders have also joined. She teaches kids about how compost reduces waste in the landfill, and she also invites community member experts to her club to teach children several interesting topics related to sustainability. I had the pleasure of being invited to several of Mrs. Noble's Green Team meetings, and I love to see the joy and enthusiasm of all of Frieda's students, all the enthusiasm they have for her, and her knowledge about making our planet the best place for all people and animals. Her club has led to the effort to plant a tree for a
008beloved classmate who had passed away. The Green Team also planted marigolds, wildflowers, and pollinator gardens with the kids. Frieda talked a little about equity as well, and she said, I see the best in all kids and all children have the potential to learn, and when we figure out the support that they need. She noted her appreciation for Joanie's Closet, stating the economic need in our community is eased with snacks in Joanie's Closet. They have normalized getting snacks from the nurse from Joanie's Closet, and everyone has forgotten snacks at some point, so it's not stigmatizing for anyone to feed their bodies. On the district and her coworkers, Frieda noted that she feels great about what the district is doing. This is a district where I raise my kids. I also love the community. She said, I'm
009invested in the community and the schools. I'm retiring soon, but I want to keep volunteering, possibly with the Green Team or the Sustainability Committee, or just by giving back to the community in general. This is my passion, and I have a joy to see all of the support that we give to our students. We have done so much. Lastly, Frieda was also complimentary of her colleagues. She said, Alana Boutita is great. It's wonderful to see her develop and grow as a new and enthusiastic teacher. I enjoy being her informal mentor and working with her on the Sustainability Club. She also noted Kelly Oliveiro is great. She's one of the best and is really good at coaching and knows what it's like to be a teacher. She is a mentor who wants people to succeed. She
010is supportive and loves sustainability. She values the teachers and follows evidence-based practices with literacy. Overall, District 95 is very fortunate to have Frieda Noble as a teacher and a community leader who loves and cares about all kids. She constantly goes above and beyond, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who will be very sad when she retires, but at the same time, also thankful for the strong and caring presence that she brings into the classroom every day. Thank you, Frieda, for your almost three decades of service as a teacher and for being a person who has touched the lives of countless children. We value and appreciate you. Thank you. I also have a second shout-out to Patricia Linares. So I'm a child of the 80s, and it was a time when we drank out
011of hoses and our parents told us to go play outside until it got dark out. We had sleepovers and read in movies at video stores, and we permed our hair, fell in love with MTV, and those of us who were little kids back then, we watched a guy named Mr. Rogers on television. I remember one of his quotes being, "'When I was a boy, I would see scary things in the news, "'and my mother would say to me, "'Look for the helpers. "'You will always find people who are helping.'" This is a shout-out to one of those helpers. Her name is Patricia Linares, and she has been a member of our community for 35 years. Her title is parent liaison, but it really should be more something like superhero on duty 24-7. In addition to
012being a superhero, she's also a certified interpreter and translator. I had no idea the presence of greatness that I was walking into when I first met Patricia at Culver's on a cold November night. As soon as I saw Patricia, she greeted me with a huge smile, and the passion and love that she has for our community was apparent immediately. Ms. Linares works closely and compassionately with families in the community who are in need. She talked extensively about her admiration for those hardworking families, who often work at factories and have several jobs while trying to raise a family in our district. Whether they are hungry, need furniture, clothes, toys, air mattresses, affordable therapy, or toiletries, Ms. Linares delivers. The reason that folks trust Ms. Linares is because she is genuine. She sees herself as an equal
013to every person she works with and sees the humanity in people across race, immigration status, and gender. Her words and actions match, and she makes people feel safe and respected as soon as she speaks with them. She is clearly a kind-hearted person, and that is apparent from some of the quotes she said to me, including the following. Quote, I am blessed to have these parents trust me. I wish I had tons of money so that I could assist people with bigger needs, like rent. She also said, don't volunteer to take pictures of yourself volunteering or to get accolades. Do it because you care. Patricia has represented St. Francis on Thanksgiving Day, and she recently partnered with other local churches. Culver's of Lake Zurk and Cirelli Italian Kitchen and Market in Long Grove in order to
014feed community members in need or lonely. Together, their teamwork helped feed 600 people providing 400 pounds of turkey and many traditional sides like rice and pasta. This event was held at Culver's, and this was Patricia's 19th year doing this. Patricia also advocates for multilingual students and students who have financial needs. She constantly communicates with the district staff and families so that these students succeed despite their circumstances and background. She makes sure that all students have the same opportunities and support. I know that Patricia Linares has inspired me to do more for my community, and I look forward to having her share her acts of kindness to my college students this semester. She will help them learn a little more about how to build compassion in their communities as well. We are living in a time
015when some of us might be questioning where the helpers are. I can assure you they're all over the place, sometimes hidden in plain sight. In this case, most of us didn't know the kindness of Ms. Linares because she follows her own motto to do good for others even when nobody is watching. Thank you for being you, Patricia, and for being an inspiration to me and so many people whose lives you have touched. Thanks for being one of the helpers. Thank you, Dr. Pinter. Awesome work, Ms. Noble and Ms. Linares. And also, I don't feel like you need to sit here through the whole board meeting, but we just wanted to make sure that you knew that because I know sometimes our people are polite, right, and just sit through it. If you want to, you
016can. Ms. Tim, please tell us about your Challenge Coin recipient. Okay, well, we're full of helpers in our district and another one of those helpers is Laura Harvey, who is a special education resource and consultative teacher at the high school. And she is an undergrad from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She had an economics and international business degree. And a couple years into the business world, she thought, you know what, I really just want to be a teacher. So she went back to school and got her master's degree from Northern Illinois. And she said she always knew she wanted to work with kids and her family wanted her to do business. So she worked with kids and she is given 22 years to our district. 18 years of those, she was co-teaching and then she moved
017into working with kids more directly. She felt like she could spend more time with each child and also help the families along the way as an IEP case manager. And so she's just another one great example of people that we are so grateful to have in district 95. And thank you, Mrs. Harvey. Thank you. This week, I was honored to present a challenge coin to recognize Francisco Frankie Lopez, an outstanding member of our transportation team. You know, many times when the board gets letters from our residents and staff and families, it's the not fun kind of letters. In this case, we received a number of letters that were very complimentary of one of our transportation workers. So Frankie has proudly served our district for seven years, beginning his career in buildings and grounds before transitioning
018to transportation in 2024. Since joining transportation department, he has distinguished himself through his reliability, professionalism and most importantly, the genuine care he shows for his students on his route. Frankie has a special way of connecting with the students. He creates an environment on his bus where children feel safe, comfortable and valued. And that sense of security carries with them as they start and end each day. As I mentioned, we received a number of letters about Frankie. I'm going to read a little segment that came from Miss Megan Gow. And she wrote, every morning and afternoon, Frank greets the kids with genuine kindness. He is patient, attentive, and makes every child feel safe, valued and supported. His calming, steady presence sets the tone for the rest of their day. The letter also shared that his admiration
019is echoed by many parents and students along the route. In fact, at the award ceremony, a number of parents showed up. I've never had that happen before where a whole range of parents showed up that were on his route to honor him. And they all mentioned that he's respected, trusted and deeply appreciated by the entire community that he serves. And not only did a number of parents show up to the award ceremony, but a whole bunch of his coworkers came as well and was really, really truthfully heartfelt. So, Frankie represents the best of our district. His dedication goes beyond simply driving a bus. He builds relationships, earns trust and positively influences the daily lives of our students and families. We're incredibly grateful for his service and proud to recognize him tonight for the difference he
020makes each and every day. Thank you, Mr. Goldberg and congratulations, Frankie. Moving on, Kate, is there anyone signed up for public speaking? No, there is not. Thank you. 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 minutes from the open and closed Board of Education meetings held on January 22nd, 2026, approval of payrolls, approval of the annual Microsoft Service Agreement, approval of the personnel report. And this piece is gonna be a little bit longer this evening, which includes stipends for February 5th, 2025, employment of non-certified staff, resignation of administrative staff. And I am going to just point out a couple of things. So the first one is I wanted the board to note that our math division chair,
021Angie Ciekowska, will be leaving us after serving our district for the past eight years to a district much closer to home. And I just know she's gonna serve that district just as incredibly well as she has served ours. She will be greatly missed, but they're very, very lucky. Additionally, our own Ms. Angela Stallion, who does not like to be called out, has submitted her retirement after giving six years of service to our district and then certainly other districts prior to us. She will be, yes, you will be greatly missed. She's saying no. She will be greatly missed, and we just appreciate everything that you have done to lead our district to a position where our students can be the best they possibly can. Our student achievement has gone up remarkably well since you have come
022on board in our district, and we just greatly appreciate your service and wish you the best into retirement, but are also grateful you agreed to stay till the end of the year. So there's that too. She may have had her arm twisted, doesn't she? Maybe just a little bit, but thank you. Additionally, we have some happier news, and so employment of administrative staff. And so we have several individuals who have their families here in our audience this evening that are on the consent agenda as well. So I'll start with Mindy Bradford. She is here this evening. She is being recommended for board consideration for the position of Assistant Superintendent of Business and Operations, as well as our Chief School Business Officer. And that would be starting in July. She has many years of experience, both
023in corporate America as well as in public education. That includes working in Yorkville, Libertyville, and most recently the Hinsdale community. Mindy holds her CPA license, along with an MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Business Management, as well as her CSBO endorsement, which is that Chief School Business Officer endorsement from NIU. We are very, very fortunate to have somebody of her caliber and her excellence to take over for Dr. Romano, who will also be missed as he begins his retirement from public education, pursuing something different. So Mindy, my hope is that the Board of Education will recognize her expertise and approve that appointment. We also have Kimberly Miller, who is here. She is being recommended as the new Lake Zurich High School Physical Education and Wellness Division Chair, which also includes some responsibilities K-12. She
024is finishing her master's in educational leadership to go alongside her master's in teaching and learning. She comes to us with 12 years of teaching experience, as well as experience in school improvement leadership and curriculum development, and we are very fortunate to have her willing to join our team upon board approval. And then lastly, somebody that you already know, Ms. Tina Nowicki is being recommended as the Assistant Principal of Isaac Fox Elementary School after serving this school year in particular as a teacher on special assignment, supporting the building principal, Ms. Oliveiro. She too is completing her master's in education to go alongside her master's degree in education and special education endorsement. Ms. Nowicki has been serving the Isaac Fox Learning Community since 2022, and again, very fortunate to have her on the list this evening, hopefully,
025as the new Assistant Principal of Isaac Fox Elementary School. And that's what I have for you this evening. Thank you, Dr. Gault. May I have a motion to 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, can you please call the roll? Ms. Timm? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. So if you don't mind, I would like for all three of those individuals to come forward at this time. We do have a small gift for you that we hope you will wear with pride eventually, but we have something for you. So this is your moment. You can say what you would like to the board. There is a
026microphone there for you. I'll give you that opportunity. We're gonna get you some help. I just wanna say thank you. I am very excited for this opportunity, and I am loving the idea of being able to work in a unit school district and be able to really combine my knowledge and bring forth what I can for not just the high school, but also for elementary and for middle as well. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I wanna say thank you to the board of directors, as well as the district leadership team for the trust you're placing in me. As a community member, a D95 parent, as you can see, as well as the current staff member, I'm truly looking forward to serving the staff, students, and families in this role, so thank you. Good evening. I
027transitioned to the education, I think the best profession in the world, about nine years ago from corporate America. I always say I wanted to use my skills for good, not evil. And the last nine years have been the most rewarding of my career by far. I've had amazing experiences, but I have to say that when I had the opportunity to meet people as part of the interview process, so that included the business office, it included the administration, it included the board of directors, it felt like coming home. Just the passion, the dedication is really all I'm about. I know that doesn't always happen on the sort of finance side, but really I feel like the luckiest person in the world to be in this profession and to have been accepted in this role, and I
028can't wait for July 1st. All right, the next item on the agenda is the superintendent's report, Dr. Goltz. Thank you again, Mrs. Maloney, and I will echo what was said earlier. This is a great opportunity for you to leave if you would like to do so, otherwise you are welcome to join us for the rest of the meeting, but thank you again. So this evening I have several items for you. I am gonna share my report with Mrs. Stallion as it relates to the teaching and learning board committee, but I'll just get started right away here. We attached the FOIAs to the agenda as typical, so you had an opportunity to read through those. Additionally, you did receive a communication from a parent requesting more information about our inclement weather process more specifically. It was
029related to e-learning options, and so I did have really an awesome opportunity to communicate back with that family member and explain just how valuable in-person learning is to the world of education, and more specifically to our district, and so it's invaluable the amount of opportunities our students have to learn and grow under our awesome teachers in person, and so that is pretty much what I shared. Additionally, we did have the teaching and learning meeting. There were several items. I'm gonna go ahead and have Mrs. Stallion share just an overview of each of the three areas we covered this evening. Thank you, Dr. Galt. I'm going to be brief. We covered a lot in an hour's time. First, we talked about our partnership with ECRA EL Consortium. We have had a longstanding partnership with ECRA. It's
030helped us analyze our data, make decisions, interpret how we are serving our students over the years, and we were invited to be part of a consortium at no additional charge to take a look at our students who receive English language services, so we happily said we'd love to do that because any time that we can get more information about our students and the service we provide, we are more than happy to do that. We are looking at right now the 100 plus districts that are participating. They are gathering much information and data on how students who are participating are performing in different kinds of programming, and they will be sharing that information with us, and we will be coming back to share that information with you in a much more comprehensive way. We will also
031get our own individual district report on our students and be able to look at how our students perform within our programs against how all of the other students within the consortium have performed. So more to come. We do not have comprehensive data yet, so there's not a lot to share, but we did wanna preview this and let you know that we will be coming back to teaching and learning with a much more comprehensive understanding of where we landed. This is a three-year partnership, so I would expect that you will get annual updates on the work that we're doing with ECRA. We also talked about ISBE accountability changes. As you are aware, each year we are given a designation by the state of Illinois, and as the state of Illinois was looking at the benchmark for
032achievement, they also started looking at our accountability. They noticed that we do have some problems of practice that they felt needed to be addressed, so they are currently investigating a change to how schools receive their summative designations. This is a snapshot of where we have been and how we have been measured at both elementary middle and our high school. This is going to be a change if all of this goes through, which we will know later in the spring. It has to go to the state board, then it has to go to the federal government for approval. This will no longer be how our designation is figured. What they are doing is moving to a much more, what I would say, standardized metric to determine our designations. If you remember, only the top 10% of
033schools in the state of Illinois could receive an exemplary designation, with about 70% of schools being in a commendable, and 5% of schools being in targeted. What they have decided to do is make this more standardized so that it's not a moving target, and we've talked about that. We could get a designation score one year and be exemplary. We could go the next year with the same score and be moved to commendable because we missed the top 10% of the state. The state recognizes that there are wonderful things going on in many districts across Illinois, and they want to be able to recognize this, and they want districts to understand what makes an exemplary district. We have used these metrics. We have applied this data to last year's report card, and I can tell you
034that we fared very, very well, so we expect next fall when you receive our report card presentation from the board that we will do very well again, but we will be able to predict what does exemplary mean and what are the targets that we need to continue to hit. So again, more to come. This is not finalized. They are still doing the listening tour. They are still garnering feedback and information from districts, and they will make any final changes. It will go to the State Board of Education in the spring, and then it does have to be approved by the federal government because it must align with ESSA, right? So that is important. Once that's done, we will again be coming back to teaching and learning, and we will have some information about exactly what
035that's gonna look like, then we'll come back in the fall and do some preliminary, and then you'll get the full report in October when the report card is released with these new metrics applied to our summative designations. Here's the next steps, the timeline we talked about, board approval, ed review, and then implemented in October 2026. And then our next steps. You can see where we are and where we will be as we continue this journey of working. We've gone to every listening tour. We've offered our feedback. We're staying connected to the work that's going on so that we can make sure to bring the board and the community the most updated information that we have as the state continues to revamp how Illinois schools receive their designation and how they are measured for the school
036report card. And then we ended with a really great talk, and I think it's so great that it's CTE month because we ended with a conversation about our current pathways and endorsements. What we talked about was what do you need to have to earn an endorsement? You must have six hours of AP dual credit for early college coursework. You must have two team-based challenges embedded within that coursework, and students must successfully complete a 60-hour internship to earn the endorsement on their diploma. We were quick to note, a student can be in a pathway. That doesn't necessarily mean that they will earn an endorsement. If they take the courses and engage in the team-based challenges, but decide not to do an internship, that is absolutely fine, but they don't earn that endorsement. So you can have
037kids moving in and out of pathways and not necessarily earn that endorsement. We talked about our current approved pathways, and you can see them up here. We have five pathways that have been approved by the state board. Within those pathways, we offer 13 different endorsements. So this is what students can earn if they complete those three criteria. We're continuing to look at our endorsements, our pathways, and seeing what our students want, and I would expect that you'll see that grow over the years. These are the top future in-demand careers that are out there right now, health and life science, which is why we keep leaning towards things like biomedical, because those are the careers that are top. Technology and AI, who knows where that will go? I absolutely think within the next three to five
038years, you actually might see an AI endorsement or something like that that students will be able to earn, business and finance, and then, of course, the skilled trades and specialized roles. That's the national information. Now we have some information about our students as we survey them. We can, through School Links, ask questions to our students. You can see that about 79% of our students indicate their intention to go to a four-year university. Another 11% say, we're going to go to a two-year, and I think Dr. Pinter asked a great question. Does that mean they're gonna go to a two-year and then go to a four-year, or are they going to stop at a two-year? We're gonna ask that question, because we need to know that. But you can see, with those two combined, which is
039what we said, the majority of our students are planning to attend either a four- or a two-year university, and another 2.4% have indicated that they're interested in going into the military. And then you can see, when asked, what do you want to do? This is what we get from our students. The top is medical practices. So when we look at what are we going to do for kids, what courses are we gonna offer, and what potential endorsements can we provide, we're looking at what our students tell us they're interested in. That's what drives your pathways. There may be a time where certain pathways are no longer of interest to our students, and they no longer take those courses, and then the district has to make decisions about how we're going to staff those courses. All
040of this is driven by what our students' desire is to do when they leave us. That is our job. Our job is to get them college and career ready, and Pathways is one way to do that. So we had a really great conversation about that. We also talked about our internship data, and you can see that our internship data continues to rise, and I want to give credit to our counselors at the high school and our teachers at the high school who continuously work with our students to help them understand what is at their fingertips to help grow them. You can see manufacturing, engineering, and trades right now is really going up, and we believe next year you're gonna see a real boom in internships. We have a lot of students expressing interest. We're doing
041better all the time at communicating and sharing information and outreach to students and families. There is always an opportunity to do better, but we continue to raise the bar for ourselves, and we continue to expect that our students get what they need in their time here at Lake Zurich. These are some of the ways we communicate that out. We do talk about all of these opportunities at elective nights, curriculum nights, pre-course registration meetings, freshman fame, our counselors again do a great job, and then in our CTE courses, helping our students understand what their opportunities are. In the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, we will continue to partner with the high school and look for other outreach opportunities, and we will ask our parents what's the best way to get information to you. Students, what's the
042best way to communicate with you, and we will always look for ways to be better with outreach and communication, but for right now the numbers are going in the right direction. All right, then we have just a couple more slides. One is related to today. Several of us were able to attend the Chamber's annual membership or member event. It used to be at night. They tried it today during the day, and then they're gonna take some feedback as to whether or not it should be an evening or daytime event, but it was widely attended today. Your representative from the board was Mr. Goldberg, so he was able to join us for that event. The picture here is just a celebration of some of the members of the Chamber as well as the directors at large.
043The board might recall I am a director at large, meaning that it's an opportunity for me to attend their monthly meetings and have conversation about what's going on in our district where I also then can listen to what's going on in the business sector as well as what's going on in the different villages that belong to our district. Great opportunity, and as a reminder, our Chamber does a phenomenal job of supporting our students specifically at the high school as it relates to internships as well as many of their members serve and support some of our programs at the high school. And then have some several dates now listed for you. Joni's Closet Valentine's Day Dance is coming up very soon. I am planning to be in attendance, and again, I always appreciate Ms. Malik as
044well as other staff members' support at that event, so excited about that. The Lake County Sectional Spelling Bee will be hosted at Middle School South, so a special thank you to that building and their staff members for allowing that to take place at their site. There is some work on the part of our administrators related to that, so greatly appreciate their partnership with Lake County ROE. And then the District 95 Annual Art Festival is also the same night, so that's going to be held at Lake Zurich High School. And then we have breakfast from the board coming at the YAC on February 18th. Just a reminder for Ms. Tim and Ms. Maloney that you are joining me at that event. And then the Lake Division meeting, there are several of you who have signed up
045for that. If there's others who want to attend, please make sure that Kate knows and she'll get you taken care of and signed up. That's all we have for you this evening, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Gault. We do not have any reports from the board this evening, nor do we have any discussion without action. So we will move right to discussion with action. The first item is approval of outsourced transportation bids. The Outsourced Transportation Services bid information was provided in the board packet. Let's first get a motion to award the three-year bid for provision of vans and van drivers for special education, supplementary transportation services, provider provided equipment to first alt as presented and to award the three-year bid for bus drivers for special education, supplementary transportation services, district provided equipment to first student
046as presented. May I have that motion? So move. Second. Thank you, Natasha, and thank you, Doug. Are there any questions? I had a question. My question was, are all the vehicles that we'll be using in these services equipped with the GPS transponders like our normal buses so we'll know exactly where they're at on the routes at any time? Absolutely. That gets back to us. So our principle metric for assessing performance in the vendor is, obviously, did you make the metric of on time, right? Yeah, that's our primary metric to make sure that they deliver students to and from school safely, but we also follow things with GPS to make sure that they're there, not only at the schools, but also at their stops. We wanna make sure that our routes are consistent for those students,
047well, for all students, but consistency is key, especially with students with special needs. So we wanna make sure that we are providing that service the same day in and day out with the same driver, with the same aids or monitors, and we really watch that closely, and that's what they can provide. Thank you. One more quick thing is what penalties do we have in the contract if they're not making their metrics? And I assume that we've got specifically called out what those metrics are. Yes, we do. What are the penalties? So we broke it down. I don't have it in front of me, so I can't recite it off the top of my head. I'm very sorry, but we do have very strict penalties in there. We did not have that this current year as
048it was a very quick put together bid process, but we wanted to ensure that going forward that was there. So if they are more than 15 minutes late running for a route, there is a penalty for that. If they forget a route, there is a penalty for that, and I wanna say if they forget, it's like a $750 penalty. Okay. If they don't show up with the right equipment, there's a penalty charge for that. So it's really to hold them to those standards. You know, let me just say, Kelly, that I think you and your staff and Dean have done an amazing job this year managing the chaos that we had around losing our vendor, obviously, and you guys pieced together a situation which kept continuity in our transportation. I really, really appreciate that. I
049know the work you guys went through and the stress that was to make that happen, so thank you. And it seems like we've cleaned that process up now. We have, I think, an approach. Hopefully, it'll provide the best benefit to our families and students in the future. So thank you. Thank you. And Mr. Goldberg, I do want to just make one comment that while there are penalties for not meeting our expectations, the other piece that I would add is that Dr. McArdle, Dr. Romano, and certainly Ms. Fadal, they do an exceptional job working with our partner in making sure that that communication occurs on a regular basis. So if we're starting to see that there might be an issue or we're getting close to an issue, they're meeting with our partner to make sure that
050before we have to issue any type of penalty, there's conversation and there's a plan put in place to support the partner. So I do want to add that, and they did that so well over the course of this school year, very impressive. And I know they did, and I think the penalties are just simply incentives to perform. And that's really what it's designed for. It's designed as an incentive to say, this is what you're facing. I will say that when we reviewed the contracts and the bids that we got back, we took a look at, okay, what will their penalties be if this was what we would have charged them this school year, these penalties, and for both first student and first adults, they would have received no penalties at this point. Yeah, that's great.
051And again, you guys have done amazing work to pull this off again, and I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Lisa. So we've been talking about buying vans, et cetera. I know we have some vans already in house. So I was sort of surprised to see this recommendation for this entity to provide vans and drivers. So can you just clarify, is this supplementing our current staff and fleet, or is this truly, I guess traditionally, it encompassed all of our special education, special needs, student transportation, so is there a shift in focus here? There is not a shift in focus. We currently, right now, own four minivans within the district, and that's what we are utilizing. We utilize three right now for special education routes, and we have one as a
052backup should anything happen. But we have, and we service outsourced right now, 20 routes. So we would not have the amount of vans purchased to be able to run all of those routes, so that's why we outsource a portion of them. Okay, so this is sort of supplementing some of- Supplementing what we can't- Do you use internal drivers to drive? Okay, so- So the ones that we, the vans that we provide right now, those are our drivers and our staff, and it's something we've been able to grow within the department since they've been here, which has been fantastic. It gives us an oversight, and it's our drivers, it's our people, it's our staff, and we get to keep eyes on them, which is always wonderful. And it also keeps our costs significantly less. But we,
053unfortunately, at this time, we can't take on all of it. And I don't think we've ever been able to. I'm just glad to hear, I mean, bus drivers are so hard to find, which is why we've moved to vans, because it's a much larger pool to draw from. But the fact it used, at least as I'm remembering it, all of the special education routes had to be outsourced because there was no way we had the equipment or the personnel to handle that. So it's hearing that we are starting to build up. That staff and the vehicles to be able to do that, I think, is huge, and it's part of the reason you were able to get through this past year so well. It is a huge reason why we were able to get through
054part of this year. And we have this discussion pretty frequently of should we still be housing transportation? And the reality becomes it's the relationships, it's having the people that are our community members transporting our community students. There's a beauty to that, and there's a reliability to that. So it's nice to hear that we're actually decreasing our reliance on outsourcing, but still having strong partners to be able to outsource, because I don't know that we'll ever get to 100%. I mean, that would be sort of nirvana, but you can keep trying. I love that we're moving towards that. I mean, we were not as close 10 years ago, I would argue, to that scenario. And if I could add just one comment to that. You had talked about the fact that we've discussed the acquisition of
055more vans. Right now we have the minivans, not to be mistaken for much larger transit vans, where we can do more. Our goal is to remove some of our fleet of the midsize buses and replace that with larger dually transit vans from Ford. And so it's kind of an interchangeable, but they are different. And so the one component of this where they are using our equipment, those are the larger, heavier duty vans, as well as our midsize buses for that acquisition, and for that part of the bid. It's mostly minivans for our outsourced component. Right. And just to add onto that, I would argue, I like the fact that we're becoming more diverse in the vehicles we have, recognizing that you're being asked to do more than just pick up the kid at their house
056and get them to school and go back. You have athletic transportation, field trip transportation, all of these different needs that the district has that we're asking you to fill. And so having this different kind of equipment makes it more feasible for a lot of those needs to be better filled, maybe, than always with the big yellow bus with no under storage. Where do you put suitcases and cello cases and such stuff? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Kate, please call the roll. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Ms. Tim? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Mrs. Daniger? Yes. All right. Dr. Romano provided the information in the board packet on the Board of Education, joint annual conference expenses. So let us get a motion on the table. May have that motion to
057approve the expenses. So moved. Second. Thank you, Doug. And thank you, Natasha. Are there any questions for Dr. Romano with respect to the expenses for the conference? Okay. Please call the roll to approve incurred board member expenses in compliance with the Local Government Travel Expense Control Act in the amount of $1,105.82 for Natasha Daniger, $1,348.21 for Peter Etienne, $1,660.84 for Eileen Maloney, $1,304.82 for Dr. Kelly Pinter, and $1,596.13 for Alicia Tim, and $1,100.42 for Lisa Warren. Kate, please call the roll. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mrs. Daniger? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Ms. Tim? Yes. All right. The next item on the agenda is the approval of the Lake Zurich School D-Wing AV Package. Dr. Zahr, please provide the board with the summary of the LZHS D-Wing AV Package. Okay. So first
058I just would like to point out that when the board authorized the go ahead for the D-Wing with the price tag of the $6.5 million, that the costs listed in our motion, our recommended motion this evening, did include all of those costs. But however, they're included under the owner's costs, so they weren't bid out under the other bid. And so because of the state law, law, we have to bring anything that's over $50,000 as an owner's cost back to our board. So at this time, we are bringing the AV quote for the D-Wing, which includes such things as projectors, screens, displays, speakers, which are tied into the intercom and all the other AV, microphones, touch screen controls, installation and all associated infrastructure with warranties. And kind of like the crowning piece of the remodel upstairs
059is a centralized digital matrix that will allow us to broadcast in three rooms, three different things, two things in one room, one in another. It allows us for the combining of the AV or the separation as needed and gives us the most flexible use of that space. Thank you, Dr. Zahr. Let's get a motion on the table. May I have a motion to approve the contract for Midwest Computer Products in the amount of $272,750.52 for the high school D-Wing AV package. May I have that motion? So moved. Thank you, Alicia, and thank you, Dr. Pinter. Kate, well, are there any questions? I had one question for our technology director. I would be so sad if you. I know, I hate to disappoint you, Mary. I don't want to do that. My question was, so I
060love the fact that we're moving to a system that has voice and video over IP. I mean, that clearly is the future. I was curious, does the Q-Systems interface we're buying, does it support like Dante and AES 67 standards that you see there? Are we locked in only using stuff that supports their standards? Yep. Mary? Yes, right there. It got passed to me. It is, so it has taken over Crestron for the lead and control panels. So it can be used to control anything at this point. We heard that from multiple vendors. All three originally bid the Q-System. So for ease of use, flexibility, and we just installed this in the workout room if you would like to see it up there using Epson projectors, Apple TVs, and some displays. So we can still bring
061up, let's say, a mixer and then it's Dante or AES 67 and it'll work. Yes. Okay, awesome, thank you. Absolutely. So I know the owner costs encompassed more than just this, but can you give us a sense of when you looked at the owner costs of a half a million, is this close to what you thought this piece of it would compose? Yeah, when we were putting together our owner's costs in the beginning, so they're combined with other owner's costs. I think there's a set aside of close to 800,000, Dr. Romano, for owner's costs. And so the technology, after we got, like the first bid in was close to 400,000, we were afraid it was gonna be. And then after we got all the quotes in, we went with the second bid because of the
062reasons listed in the memo for that kind of level work with the combined matrix system. So when you were looking at the 800 encompassing many different things, is this 272 close to what you thought the technology piece of that 800 would be? Yes, one of the things that we did is we kind of broke out all the different categories, so you'll see us come back in March having a conversation about furniture as well as some of the other components. As long as it's something that's over the threshold, we're gonna bring that to the board. And that was what actually built out our $800,000 ownership costs. One thing to note is we do have some contingencies built into the project for unforeseen, so we do have some flex. But after our actual construction meeting today, we
063felt like we were right on track and even have some opportunity for unforeseen at this point. Wonderful, just wanna make sure there's no big surprises. We smiled at the end of the meeting today. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Anyone else have any questions? All right, Kate, can you please call the roll? Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Ms. Timm? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. All right, the next item on the agenda is closed session, and we are going into closed session for the following four reasons. The appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees, specific individuals who serve as independent contractors, specific volunteers, or legal counsel for the district. Five ILCS 120 2C1. The purchase or lease of real property for the use of the public body, including
064meetings held for the purpose of discussing whether a particular parcel should be acquired. Five ILCS 120 2C5. 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 120 2C2. Litigation when an action against, affecting, or on behalf of a particular public body has been filed and is pending before a court or administrative tribunal, or when the public body finds that an action is probable or imminent, in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the closed meeting. Five ILCS 120 2C11. May I have that motion? So moved. Second. Thank you Lisa and thank you Natasha. Kate, please call the roll. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mrs.
065Danniger? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Ms. Tim? Yes. We will not be taking any action after closed session this evening.