001I call to order the January 8th, 2026 regular meeting of the Board of Education. Kate, will you please call the roll? Mr. Aitken? Here. Mr. Goldberg? Here. Mrs. Warren? Here. Ms. Tim? Mrs. Danniger? Here. Dr. Pinter? Ms. Maloney? Here. Both Dr. Pinter and Alicia, Tim are ill or under the weather today, so we will proceed without them. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of the Board of Education, I want to extend a warm welcome back to school and learning after the winter break. We hope that you had a restful and rejuvenating holiday season with family and friends. As we begin the second half of the school year, we look forward to continuing the important work that supports our students, staff, and community. Your dedication and collaboration make tremendous impact, and we are grateful for the time
002and expertise you bring to your roles daily. Here's to a successful and productive second half of the year. Together, we will keep moving forward to ensure excellence in education for all of our learners. Thank you for being here today and for everything you do. 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 session of the Board of Education meeting held on December 18, 2025, approval of payrolls, approval of the personnel report, which includes the employment of non-certified staff, resignation of non-certified staff, and retirement of administrative staff. I do want to just highlight Dr. Dean Romano is making
003an early retirement from public education and going on to do something different in the private sector. I do want to publicly thank him for his service. He has made many, many contributions in the area of finance, and I think one of his greatest talents has been just the transparency and the way that he leads and what he shares with the community and the board, et cetera. Certainly, our financial dashboard demonstrates just one example of what he's been able to accomplish over the years. A special thank you even though he could not be here this evening, a special thank you to him. That is what I have for consent. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as prepared and presented by the administration? So moved. Second. Thank you, Doug. Thank you,
004Peter. Are there any questions? Kate, please call the roll. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Mr. Etienne? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the superintendent's report. Dr. Gault? Thank you. This evening, several items. The first is the FOIA area, which is typical, that's included in the agenda. Secondly, you did receive a couple of communications. The first one, I just wanted to point out you did receive a thank you note from a past employee, so if you did not see that, please check for that. Additionally, there were some parent concerns related to the calendar that is on the agenda for approval. I did have an opportunity to make contact with that person today, and so I believe that I have answered all of the questions that
005were posed. And then we had an opportunity this evening to walk through our teaching and learning committee. We did spend significant time talking really in the area of student services, so thank you to Dr. McArdle for sharing a lot of information this evening. I am going to share just a portion of what was shared this evening, but please know that much of this will be coming to the board in way of reports in the future. And so the first is just an update on our JED partnership. I know that the board is well aware that we have partnered with the JED non-for-profit organization and really looking to that group to help us with in the area of suicide awareness and prevention and youth, and so they did conduct what I'll just call for easy sake
006as an audit essentially of our system. And so very, very impressed with the results of that. You will get a much more in-depth report as it relates to those results from Dr. McArdle at the next meeting, so just expect that. But as a quick reminder, the JED's comprehensive approach for districts are listed here, and so it just kind of walks through these seven areas, and Dr. McArdle did a very nice job of kind of explaining each and every one of these. You'll be able to see this in the notes section later, but to get more information. And then additionally, the timeline and where we're at right now because we have that information, the JED group is really looking at strategic action planning and supporting Dr. McArdle's office in helping us to identify areas that we
007want to focus on and work through over the next probably several years. And so she'll be bringing also that information back specifically in the way of action plans for the upcoming school year, so more to come in that area. And then next steps are kind of listed there, but I think you'll be very pleased with the information within the audit. They found many areas of strength already within our district, super impressed. Even a couple of items that were listed have already been addressed this school year, and then some other opportunities certainly that will help us to grow in this particular area. We talked about MTSS, but I do want to point out more specifically the MTSS conversation this evening at the committee was more specific to a resource that we're going to be utilizing to
008help us to better be able to collect data and information for our teachers and become more efficient. And certainly our greatest hope is it saves time on their side, but also helps them to do their job even better and with greater efficiency. So excited about that, I would say probably the biggest update or one of the most pleasing things to me is that we're going to be able to utilize Synergy as our tool to help us continue to collect information, look at information, and understand some early warning signs, etc. for our students. The reason that that is so important is because it's a tool that we already use in our district. And if the board would recall, and I shared this earlier in our meeting, Synergy is a tool that we really did kind of
009struggle with originally, and now because of the incredible work of our technology department and our data team, we have now really have a very strong partnership which Dr. McArdle was able and her committee was able to access and work from that relationship and build in the next step in utilizing that system even more comprehensively. So very pleased with really with what's going on there. She is using a train-the-trainer model and has started that process with our first group of staff receiving training in August for the start of the school year. She has, of course, because she always does a very comprehensive plan and what that's going to look like and how that's going to translate through this school year and into next school year. So again, more to come, but our fall MTSS team focus
010will be again to start exploring that platform and growing capacity to utilize it to the best of our ability. She lists some next steps and then specifics, more specifics to that MTSS work and the process that we follow within our district is something that we are working with our association on. So again, more to come in that area. And then we did talk about the Lake Zurich Day School and had a very awesome conversation about the successes there. Really in highlight, we had projected that by the end of this school year we were estimating somewhere between 10 and 12 students. Right now we have seven and so or we will have seven and we're just we're pretty much on track, but I would say to the board that it is likely by the end of
011the school year that we may have to add a paraprofessional in order to support our students within that program. There is a legal component that we must follow, so it is something that should we reach nine students we will add. But again, really excited that we're able to provide supports and services to our students on site and within our district. And again, just a really huge kudos to Dr. McArdle and her department as well as the staff that have been in place, been put in place to serve our students in this regard. And then I know that there was some concern and the board received some communication early on related to whether or not we would have to access our Young Adult Center staff. And so I am proud to say that we've had zero
012instances to date where we've had to utilize our staff from that program to support the new program. And so again, proud of those efforts. One thing the board should know is that when we start talking during our financial workshop, we will be having some conversations as it relates to our projections of staff needs to further support that program as we continue to grow into the future. So you can expect more information on that Saturday when we meet as a group. So just know that that's coming. And then just really wanted to highlight some notable items. We did have our Lake Zurich High School student musicians be able to travel to Rome, and so they were highly successful. You can see some of the pictures of performances and their ability to really learn about the culture
013in Rome. They had a great time, is my understanding. And so congratulations to them as well as to the educators who assisted them in that trip and that experience. Also, hopefully you will receive very soon some New Year cards. And remember, these are created by our students. We had several students who submitted artwork and then a message that's contained within the cards. And so they did, oh, you have one at your desk, or your seat, sorry. We did send those all out to staff and community partners. They didn't get each one of the four, but rather one. And so it'll be a surprise as to which one folks get at their homes. And so I do want to continue to shout out Mrs. Malik, because this really was her idea. And what a great way
014to highlight just, again, our talented students, both in the area of writing as well as in the area of art. And then save the date, our Joni's Closet Valentine dance is coming. The board, you should have also received a communication from Joni's Closet as it relates to supporting a basket. And so please make sure that you communicate with Mrs. Maloney if you have questions about that. But tickets can be purchased. And so that is a huge event and a huge opportunity to continue to support students and families in our district that have needs outside of academics. Finally, teachers make a difference. The nominations are due tomorrow. And so if you have a teacher that you would like to nominate in this regard, please make sure. Hopefully the families who are listening, if they haven't already
015done so, all of our teachers are special. And I know that personally in my home, we have a phenomenal teacher that we love. And I'm quite certain Baylor would like to recognize that we have many incredible staff. And so I really do hope folks will take an opportunity to nominate somebody who's making a difference in the life of their children or child. I just received this information recently, but the Lake Zurich Area Chamber of Commerce, they typically had had an evening event to really acknowledge member appreciation. And so we had a very, very nice healthy showing to their event. If you recall, our chamber really does a lot to support our students, most especially at the high school as it relates to supporting our incubator program and internships. And so if you would like to
016attend this appreciation luncheon, it will be on February 5th from 1130 a.m. until 1 p.m. I do plan to be in attendance. If you would like to attend, I ask that you let Kate know so that she can go ahead and get you a ticket. And then again, I did correct the dates from the last board meeting, but breakfast from the board at Isaac Fox, and it will be Eileen Maloney and Natasha Daniger who will be present and engaged in that event. And that's all I have for you this evening. Thank you, Dr. Gault. The next item on the agenda is the reports to the board. The cash flow report was provided in the board packet. Are there any questions for Ms. Kaiser? All right, moving on. Our next report to the board is the
017financial dashboard. Do the board members have any questions for Ms. Kaiser on the financial dashboard? All right, then. There were no items for discussion without action, so we move on to our next agenda item. Our first discussion with action is the policy second read. May I get a motion and a second? So move. Second. Thank you, Natasha. Thank you, Lisa. Are there questions for Ms. Beesidge about the second policy read? Mrs. Maloney, I would only add that I did have an opportunity to communicate with one of the board members who is not here this evening, and so I just want to point out that as we have updates to our policies, I'm going to work with Dr. Zahr, who typically does our board briefs, and just make sure, and Mrs. Malik, that there is a
018link within my newsletter so that folks can access that and just remind them some of the things that were highlighted, especially when policy changes. So that was a recommendation, and I think that was a really good one. All right, thank you. So Kate, can you please call the roll? Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Mr. Aitken? Yes. All right, thank you. Our next item for discussion with action is the 2026-2027 school calendar. May I get a motion and a second to approve the 2026-2027 school calendar? So move. Second. Thank you, Natasha. Thank you, Doug. Are there any questions for Dr. Gault? All right, Kate, please call the roll to approve the 2026-2027 school calendar as presented. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Mr. Aitken? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mrs.
019Warren? Yes. All right, we will not be going into closed session, and I want it on the record that this is probably a record, and I presided over this record just now. All right, yeah, exactly. May I have a motion and a second to adjourn open session? So move. Second. Thank you, Natasha, and thank you, Peter. Those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion adjourned at 632. Mark it.