11-19-25 Regular School Board Meeting For C.U.S.D. 95

001I call the November 19th, 2025 regular meeting of the Board of Education to order. Kate, will you please call the roll? Mrs. Danniger? Here. Ms. Malone? Here. Sorry. Mr. Atian? Here. Mrs. Warren? Here. Dr. Pinter? Here. Ms. Timm? Here. Mr. Goldberg? Here. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, under God, with liberty. Good evening and welcome. Last Friday, our Lake Zurich Bears football team played against Nazareth Academy. Even though the final game didn't go our way, we couldn't be prouder of the effort, determination, and heart you showed all season long. You played with passion, represented our school with pride, and gave us so many exciting moments to cheer for. Losses happen, but the memories, teamwork, and growth you achieved will last far beyond

002the scoreboard. Thank you for inspiring us and setting such a strong example of perseverance and sportsmanship. Thank you. Lisa, do you want to? I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank our entire community. Another role that I play is president of St. Vincent de Paul, which is the organization that runs the food pantry over at St. Francis de Sales Ministry Center. We're one of several food pantries in the area, but I have to say our community has responded so beautifully when they heard that their fellow citizens might have harder time getting food due to SNAP being unfunded in the month of November. The donations have been pouring in not only from our schools that have done drives, food drives, but also our community, for example, Lake Zurich Flames, and cheerleading organization did a big

003food drive last weekend. I know Seth Payne came over and dropped off a whole lot of food last week, and I just want to say thank you to our entire community for in many different ways reaching out to help their neighbors. It really has been a wonderful sight to see and be a part of, so thank you. Thank you, Lisa, for that recommendation, recognition. We will now recognize our student staff and staff of the month. Ms. Malik has prepared a short celebration video to share. Mr. Nardiello, please play the video. Good evening and welcome to the District 95 Board Awards. It is a great pleasure this evening to introduce students, staff, and volunteers who truly represent the values and the vision that support the District 95 mission to empower every learner to achieve personal excellence.

004Tonight we begin with our Student of the Month Awards. Mary Sims, Young Adult Center. Mary participates in the Young Adult Center Pre-Vocational Work Program. She consistently excels in her position at the ELA Township Center, demonstrating many characteristics of the portrait of a graduate. She is an effective communicator, showing excellent professionalism when answering and directing phone calls at the front desk. She sets up their after-school program, follows directions carefully, works hard, and takes responsibility for completing her tasks with quality and accuracy. The staff at the ELA Township Center have expressed their deep appreciation for having her as part of their workplace community. Mary's strong work ethic and cooperative attitude are taking her far, proving her preparedness for the present and the future. Recently, Jackson demonstrated great school spirit while also modeling multiple portrait of a graduate

005traits, including effective communication and inclusivity. There is a decades-old tradition of Fight Song Friday in all high school choir classes. Jackson just happens to know the LZHS Bear Mascot personally. When it was Jackson's responsibility to lead his peers in Fight Song Friday, Jackson left the room and magically the Bear Mascot entered to lead the song instead, which is then followed by a cheer. Because the class has been learning the ASL, American Sign Language, alphabet, the Bear signed the letters M-A-S-C-O-T using ASL while the class cheered. The PE department at Middle School North is proud to recognize Aubrey for her outstanding character demonstrating problem-solving, inclusivity, and collaboration. During a capture the football game, Aubrey noticed that the field needed to be reset after each round. Without being asked, she ran around the field multiple times to

006make sure everything was ready for the next game. Additionally, in the soccer unit, Aubrey not only played competitively but also volunteered to join the non-competitive game to support others. She helped keep the game flowing and made sure to include classmates of all skill levels, showing true sportsmanship and empathy. Jacob Consistently demonstrates the district values and traits embodied in the portrait of a graduate. As a natural collaborator, Jacob practices active listening, values others perspectives and helps create an atmosphere of respect and inclusion in the classroom by working well with anyone with whom he is paired. He approaches challenges with notable perseverance and creativity, refusing to give up until a solution is found. Furthermore, when he is corrected, he handles it respectfully, taking feedback in stride. He has grown into a compassionate, confident leader and his empathy

007and genuine kindness show through. Parker Copstein, fourth grade. Parker consistently advocates for herself and others as demonstrated by the way she looks out for her classmates, ensuring everyone feels included and valued. She shows kindness and leadership by caring deeply about her friends and recognizing when they might need to lean on her. She also acts as a global citizen by taking the initiative to clean up the playground during her recess time, showing respect and responsibility toward the environment. Parker's growth mindset is inspiring. She welcomes feedback with pride and uses it as a tool to improve herself daily. She is always striving to do her best in all tasks and never gives up, even when faced with challenges. Leona Chandler, fourth grade. Leona consistently demonstrates exceptional communication skills by clearly expressing her ideas and listening thoughtfully to

008others. Her ability to connect with classmates and teachers creates a positive and collaborative learning environment. As a global citizen, Leona shows respect and empathy to all. Always prepared for the challenges ahead, Leona embodies a future-ready mindset by embracing technology, problem-solving with creativity, and adapting to new situations with confidence. Most importantly, Leona approaches learning with a growth-oriented attitude, welcoming challenges as opportunities for improvement and showing resilience and determination in all endeavors. Arthur Conk, first grade. As a first grader, Arthur is already developing the skills envisioned for District 95 graduates. He demonstrates active listening and participates enthusiastically. Arthur explains his ideas clearly and invites others into conversations by asking questions. He shows kindness and respect to everyone. Arthur shows an ability to problem solve by independently demonstrating multiple ways for solving problems or showing his thinking in

009mathematics. He possesses a coachable attitude and a goal-oriented mindset by setting high standards for his own work. His perseverance is evident in the time he takes to add details to his illustrations and writing. Diana Martinez, third grade. Diana exemplifies what it means to be growth-oriented as described in the portrait of a graduate. Since moving to Spencer Loomis from an all-bilingual classroom to a fully English-speaking environment, she has shown remarkable perseverance and determination. Diana's language and literacy skills have grown tremendously because of her consistent effort, curiosity, and dedication. She approaches challenges with a positive mindset and is never afraid to ask questions or advocate for herself. Diana's caring nature shines through in her interactions with peers and teachers. Guenglic, second grade. As an effective communicator for students, Diana's language and literacy skills have grown tremendously because

010of her consistent effort, curiosity, and dedication. She faces challenges with a positive mindset and is never afraid to ask questions or advocate for herself. Diana's caring nature shines through in her interactions with her Gwen Glick, second grade. As an effective communicator, Gwen consistently articulates her thoughts clearly and confidently, and her ability to engage with her peers is noteworthy. She listens attentively and responds thoughtfully. Gwen is always willing to help her classmates, whether it's offering assistance or providing encouragement, which in turn inspires her peers to support one another. Gwen's curiosity is evident in her eagerness to learn and explore new topics, often asking insightful questions during class discussions that provoke deeper thinking. She is bright, kind, and hardworking, and is well prepared for the next steps in her educational journey. Moving on to our adult recognitions,

011we begin with our Volunteer of the Month. Suzanne Rinn, Middle School North Volunteer of the Month. Suzanne Rinn exemplifies the district values of collaboration, integrity, and respect through her unwavering support of the MSN music and band, orchestra, and choir programs. She consistently volunteers for long shifts, ensuring events run smoothly and creates a positive experience for students and families alike. Suzanne's commitment to the community extends beyond herself. Her alumni daughter, Emily, often joins in giving back to the programs that helped shape her. Together, they embody the spirit of service and teamwork that defines Lake Zurich Middle School North. Sharon Salmon, May Whitney Elementary Staff Member of the Month. Sharon Salmon is an exceptional educator who serves as May Whitney's advanced math teacher. She doesn't limit herself to that title, as she is also seen as a

012math consultant across the school. Sharon has played a key role on district committees focused on aligning priority standards with high quality resources and assessments to ensure coherence and rigor in math instruction. She is a strong advocate for providing all students with access to challenging mathematical content, inspiring a love for deep problem solving and critical thinking. Sharon's high expectations push students to reach their fullest potential while fostering their confidence and perseverance. Sharon's dedication, collaboration, and unwavering commitment to excellence make her a cornerstone of the math community and a true model of instructional leadership. Finally, we move on to our special recognitions. Jillian Teichman, Lake Zurich High School Special Recognition. We are proud to recognize Jillian Teichman from Lake Zurich High School for her recent recognition as the 2025 Early Professional Art Educator of the Year by

013the Illinois Art Education Association. Jillian teaches photography, digital art, digital design, digital media studio, painting, and drawing. And she also sponsors the LZHS Art Club. The Illinois Art Education Association found Jillian's professional performance, service, and leadership to be exemplary in every regard. Thank you, Jillian, for your diligence in inspiring your students, and congratulations. Congratulations to all of our district 95 award recipients. In a moment, we will conduct our presentation of award certificates. I have a few directions to provide for this recognition. When your name is called, please come up to the board members who will be lined up to my right near the table. Once you are presented with your certificate, please stand in the middle between the tables so that we can capture some photos. Once we finish all award announcements, you will be

014invited to enjoy some cake. At this time, I ask my board colleagues to join me at the award table and would like to invite Mrs. Malek to introduce and recognize these very special individuals. Okay. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. We are so happy to be able to recognize all of you. So, like Mrs. Maloney said, when I call your name, you're going to come up and head right over to the board members to pick up your certificate, then come in the middle, and you're going to remain standing until everybody's up there. And then parents and friends, I'll give you a chance to take pictures. We'll take our picture first, and then we'll let you come up and take some pictures. Okay? All right. Our first person is from the Young

015Adult Center, Mary Sims. Right over to her. Right. And from our Lake Zurich High School, our Lake Zurich High School student is not going to be here until about... Oh, he's here. Jackson, I didn't see you. Lake Zurich High School, Jackson Annis. You must have sped right over here because I didn't expect you for 10 more minutes, so good for you. Middle School North, Aubrey Wade. From Middle School South, Jacob Speciale. From Isaac Fox, Parker Copstein. From Mae Whitney, Leona Chandler. From Sarah Adams, Arthur Cunk. From Seth Payne, Gwen Glick. From Spencer Loomis, Diana Martinez. Our adult recognitions from Middle School North, our volunteer of the month, Suzanne Wren. Our staff member of the month, from Seth Payne, Sharon Salmon. Oh, Mae Whitney. So sorry. So sorry, Mae Whitney. I apologize. And last but not

016least, our special recognition, Jillian Teichman from Lake Zurich High School. Okay, so I'm going to organize these guys. We'll take a quick picture, and then I'll let you guys... Okay, we got our picture. Parents, you can come up if you'd like to take pictures. It's fine. We got a few more. Keep going. A couple more. A couple more. You want to come over here and get it? You got it? Everybody done? All right, it's time for cake, folks. Back of the room, all right? Will school board members and cabinet make their way to the table? Thank you. Anyone signed up for public speaking? Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Dr. Gault. Thank you very much. This evening I have for you the approval of the Board of Education meeting

017minutes, held on November 6, 2025. Acceptance of the Treasurer's Report, approval of bills payable list, approval of the district activity bills payable list, approval of the personnel report, which includes retirement of certified staff, employment of non-certified staff. 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, Peter. 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. Etienne? Yes. The next item on the agenda is the superintendent's report. Dr. Gault? Thank you. This evening I have several items for the board, but mostly celebrations. However, I will start with there were no notable communications. And then we did have a facilities and

018business services meeting this evening. We talked a little bit about school fees, as the board might recall. Typically, as it relates to fees, we've kept things the same. I think we realized in the committee meeting that it's been at least seven years that those fees have remained stable and consistent for families, even though, as we all know, that the cost of items has gone up substantially. So the administration is going to continue to recommend maintaining our current fee structure. There are some new legislation out that is going to require Dr. Romano and team to go ahead and take a look at our current process and procedures, so there will be substantial changes to our practices. He'll have more information for you at a later date. And then we had some lengthy conversation about our transportation

019fleet replacement update. Currently we have six midsize buses with three with very low mileage. Our typical process has been to keep our buses for five years. Dr. Romano shared an extensive list of what that process looks like over time. But I did want to just point out some notable items is that we're looking to move toward six, 15 passenger vans. We're still in conversation about what those vans will be, what they'll look like. And Dr. Romano and team has some more work to do in that area. And then we did also note that in 2026, 27, we are not planning for any replacements during that school year. Our outsourced transportation bidding update, they ran through actually more dates that are on the screen. But really what I wanted to draw your attention to is we

020really start that process November 17th with it coming to the Board of Education for approval or consideration of approval on February 5th or approximately February 5th. And then we had an update on the bid process for the second floor wing renovation. We have some rough estimates right now, but LAMP happened to have a representative there. And our costs appear to be coming in around $6.5 million, which is what we anticipated the second time. The first time we had said we thought it might be $6 million. And then after a very long period of time over a year, of course, prices go up. But we're really, really pleased with the number coming in under $6.5 million. And then I will leave it to Mr. Goldberg and Ms. Staniger if they had anything else they'd like to

021add about that meeting. Thank you, Dr. Goldberg. First of all, regarding the moving to the smaller buses, it makes perfect sense they're more efficient. We're sort of underutilizing the midsize buses that we have now, so it makes more sense to get more efficiency by moving to the smaller vehicles. The only, I think, concern that I personally have is looking at buying used equipment. I'm not a super big fan of that. The team's going to look into the availability versus what it would take to buy new vehicles. So there'll be more to come on this in the future. As it relates to the second floor, I really appreciate all the work the team has done to pull together all the bids. It's absolutely going to be a spectacular space when it's done. And I'm thankful that

022we were able to pull the cost, and at least with our more recent estimates, it looks like we're going to be inside that number, which is fantastic. I look forward to a presentation this evening on a few more details of what that space is going to look like. But I know there's been a tremendous amount of thoughtful work and a large and diverse group of stakeholders that's had a voice in designing that space. So I know that everybody's super excited about having it. Thank you. I would like to add as part of the meeting that I am really proud that our administration and that the board has been able to maintain those fees for six years, I think it is. Seven. Seven years. I think it's incredible as a mom who pays for registration fees.

023It is probably something that our families should be very grateful to. And that's a sign of our really our fiscal responsibility. Thank you. I want to make just one comment about the six 15 passenger vans when I was in college, which was like a thousand years ago. And on a sports team there, we traveled frequently on 15 passenger vans. Their safety record at the time, a gazillion years ago, was very poor and there were many rollover accidents. And so please be mindful of what you're buying. I doubt that those vehicles would still be in circulation, but just be mindful that 15 passenger vans have had a poor safety record in the past. Thank you, Mrs. Maloney. Moving on, we're going to go to really some celebrations. So super proud of our transition students. They were

024able to attend the Lake County transition market and market their business. And so as you can see from the pictures, there was a large turnout from other transition programs across the area. And our product is we dip you dip. And so again, remember and recall that any of you may purchase if you would like some of that dip. And I'm sure our students would greatly appreciate that. And then another shout out for the Young Adult Center. They had feast day. And you can see from these pictures they had a great time having some conversation and good food together. So congratulations again to them for a meal well prepared. We also received some information about our women in STEM club at the high school. And so this just really showcases some of the ways that they

025spend time together. You'll notice that they typically do bring in outside individuals to talk with our kids and really get our students excited about potential opportunities in some different areas of the state. In some different areas that would involve STEM. So engineering, science, architecture, et cetera. And then I did want to just mention that Miss Sirwoka is really instrumental in putting that together for our students. Want to thank Joni's Closet and really want to thank the Lake Zurich District 95 staff who participated alongside Mrs. Malik. Really appreciate this. We helped over 107 families to stay warm this season. And I do want to point out that in our district, we provide for students, but we also provide for infants, toddlers, and parents, et cetera. So it was a really well visited event. And there's a

026lot of need across the district and just so grateful to Joni's Closet for all they do for our families. I wanted to also share and thanks, Mrs. Tim, for the nice little note that you sent our way. But we did have an opportunity to present to the Village of Lake Zurich. They are looking for or they did approve at that evening. I'm trying to remember when it was, but it was this week. And they did end up approving some new multi-unit apartments that are going in or will be going in by the old cinema. We were there not to say whether or not we were for or against. What we really were there to do was to share specific data about our district. And so Dr. Romano was able to share some data. Mrs. Besich

027shared enrollment data. So we talked about usage and capacity, et cetera. And then Mr. Goldberg was able to explain some things in more detail to board members. Really appreciate the team that was there to present. And I think that the families who were in the audience also appreciated us being there. And I'm grateful to the mayor and Mr. Keller for allowing us to be there. And then I want to give a shout out to our school board. You put in a lot of hours and time and commitment. And so I want to thank you for everything you do. You do it selflessly. And I just I could not thank you enough for everything that you do to make this a great district. There's a very small token of our appreciation. And again, give a shout

028out to Mrs. Malik and team. Really, really appreciate you putting these together for our board members. We hope you enjoy it and you wear it proudly. So thank you. Let's give a round of applause for our board. I heard we're getting a raise next year. Pardon. I heard we're getting a raise next year. The last time I checked 50 times zero is still zero. So good luck with that. We do have some important dates that I'll just keep reminding you about. Excited to join you at the joint annual conference this weekend and be able to learn together. That will be an exciting time for sure. And then wanted to just remind you that you did. You should have received an email about the policy audit that we are walking through. And you should have an

029individual meeting, a zoom meeting scheduled with our partner. So please make sure if you did not see that that you take a look for it. And then it's really important that the all day board retreat scheduled for January 24th be placed on your calendar. And with that, I conclude. Thank you, Dr. Galt. Moving on to reports to the board. Ms. Allen, please share your presentation on the 2024-2025 K through 12 student achievement report. Good evening. Tonight I am presenting the 2024 to 2025 K to 12 student achievement report, which summarizes District 95's academic performance and student growth results from the prior school year. Tonight's presentation is part of a three meeting series focused on system wide performance. On November 6th, the board received the Illinois report card results and school summative designations. This evening we

030are reviewing K to 12 student achievement and school improvement plans. On December 4th, we will present the comparable report, which examines our performance alongside peer districts. This report brings together our early elementary IAR and ACT assessment results, as well as advanced placement and dual credit data to provide a comprehensive picture of student achievement across our K to 12 system. I will begin by outlining statewide changes to assessment systems and proficiency benchmarks. From there, I will review achievement results for grades K through 8, followed by an analysis of outcomes in grades 9 through 12. The report will conclude with a summary of our key strengths, areas for continued focus, and the strategic next steps that will guide our ongoing improvement efforts. This year represents an important baseline for Illinois, as statewide changes to assessment proficiency levels

031went into effect. The Illinois State Board of Education recalibrated proficiency thresholds for the IAR and introduced a new framework for the ACT suite. With these updates, our assessment system now offers a more accurate picture of grade level performance and a clearer comparison to national peers. While proficiency remains a key indicator, a central focus of our analysis is student growth percentile, SGP. SGP provides essential context by showing whether students are making expected, below expected, or above expected academic progress compared to students across the state with similar prior achievement. This measure allows us to recognize growth at every achievement level and better understand how effectively our instruction supports all learners. Student growth percentile, or SGP, is a central component of our analysis because it helps us understand not just where students are performing, but how much progress

032they are making over time. SGP measures a student's growth compared to academic peers who began at the same scale score. Importantly, while proficiency thresholds changed this year, scale scores did not, making SGP a stable and reliable metric for interpreting student learning progress. There are two types of SGP reported for K-8 on the Illinois School Report Card. Baseline SGP compares current students to academically similar peers from the baseline year of 2019, providing a long-term reference point. Cohort SGP, on the other hand, compares students only to their current year academic peers, offering a real-time picture of how this group is progressing together. For 2024 to 2025, summative designation and accountability reporting stated is using cohort SGP. This ensures that the growth data reflects the most current comparisons among students with similar achievement histories. SGP is reported as

033a percentile, not a percentage. A percentile of 50 represents the statewide average. For example, an SGP of 60 means students demonstrated more growth than 60% of their academic peers across Illinois. Conversely, an SGP of 40 means students grew more than 40% of similar peers, still showing progress but below the statewide average. A helpful way to think about this is the same system used in child growth charts. A child in the 60th percentile for height is taller than 60% of children their age. A child in the 40th percentile is taller than 40%. SGP works the same way, placing a student's academic growth in context with students who started at the same achievement level. This slide illustrates how SGP accounts for students' starting points by comparing each student only to peers who began at the same achievement

034level. In the example shown, a group of third grade students all start with the same ELA scale score of 740. One year later, in fourth grade, their scores vary. Some students have made substantial gains, while others have grown more modestly. SGP then ranks each student's growth relative to the others who started at that same score of 740. For example, the student whose fourth grade score rises into the upper range of the cohort receives a high SGP, reflecting stronger growth than most of their peers. Conversely, a student whose score increases only slightly receives a lower SGP because their growth is smaller compared to students with the same starting point. By anchoring growth to where students began, SGP provides a fair and accurate measure of progress across the achievement spectrum. It ensures that students are evaluated on

035how far they moved, not on where they started. The district's goal is to achieve both high proficiency and high growth. Proficiency reflects how well students have mastered grade level standards at a point in time, while growth shows the rate at which they are progressing academically from one year to the next. When a school performs strongly in both areas, it signals that students are not only meeting current expectations, but are also on a sustained trajectory toward continued success. In early literacy, our results present a mixed picture. Kindergarten achieved its highest performance since MAP was introduced at that grade level, reflecting strong early foundational skill development. Grade two performance held steady, indicating consistent progress. However, grades one and three experienced declines, suggesting that some students are not maintaining early momentum. These patterns reaffirm early literacy as a

036district priority and underscore the need to strengthen foundational reading and fluency development across kindergarten through third grade. K-3 math results showed strong performance across most grade levels. Kindergarten, first and second grade each reached their highest outcomes since 2021, reflecting solid gains in early numeracy. Grade three experienced a slight decline, but remained generally stable. Taken together, these results suggest that our curriculum work and the math enhancement plan are positively influencing students' foundational math development. ELA proficiency in grades three to eight remained consistently high, even with the implementation of new performance levels. District proficiency ranged from 76 to 85%, performing 29 points above the state average. These outcomes reflect strong alignment to grade level standards and the impact of high quality literacy instruction across classrooms. These ELA outcomes provide a solid foundation for understanding student achievement under

037the new performance levels. To gain a complete picture of student learning, the next section examines how students performed in mathematics across grades three to eight. Math proficiency in grades three to eight was similarly strong, with results ranging from 66 to 77%. District performance exceeded the state average by 32 points, underscoring the positive impact of recent curriculum revisions and the effectiveness of our intervention structures. These outcomes reflect both strong instructional practice and a coherent K-8 math system that supports students in meeting grade level expectations. The ELA growth was above the statewide average overall. Seventh grade demonstrated particularly strong gains, reflecting effective instruction and student engagement. In contrast, eighth grade growth fell below the state mean, indicating that some students did not progress as quickly as their academic peers. This variability highlights the need for consistent instructional

038practices and targeted literacy supports to ensure steady growth across all grade levels. Math growth was notably strong, with the district performing above the statewide average overall. Grades four and seven demonstrated particularly robust growth, reflecting effective instruction and strong alignment between core teaching and intervention supports. These results reinforce the impact of our math intervention model and highlight opportunities to transfer successful structures and practices to literacy, where targeted support can further strengthen growth outcomes. Two key findings emerge when examining performance across student groups. First, all district 95 student groups significantly outperform their statewide peers, often by substantial margins, affirming the strength of our instructional core and support systems. At the same time, internal achievement gaps remain for students with IEPs, English learners, and black students. Closing these gaps continues to be a central priority of our equity-driven

039work, guiding our efforts to ensure that every student has access to the instruction and supports needed to thrive. In mathematics, students from low-income households, students with IEPs, and English learners demonstrated average to above-average growth, indicating that our math instructional and intervention models are supporting meaningful progress for historically underserved groups. In ELA, growth patterns were more variable across these same groups, signaling areas where additional focus is needed. These trends help guide where to further strengthen literacy instruction, differentiation, and intervention to ensure all students experience consistent growth. This year serves as the baseline for ACT suite proficiency under the state's updated assessment framework. District proficiency exceeded state averages by 23 points in ELA and 35 points in math, demonstrating strong foundational readiness and alignment with college and career-ready expectations. These results provide a solid starting point for

040monitoring progress in the years ahead as the state continues to implement its new proficiency model. High school growth results were mixed. ELA growth aligned closely with the statewide mean, with grade 10 demonstrating stronger performance than other levels. In mathematics, growth was above the statewide average in both grades 9 and 10, reflecting solid progress in early high school coursework. Together, these patterns point to opportunities to strengthen instructional supports and coherence in the upper grades to ensure students continue on strong growth trajectories through graduation. AP and dual-credit participation continued to be district strengths. AP participation reached a six-year high, with 88% of students earning a score of 3 or higher, reflecting strong preparation for college-level coursework. Dual-credit participation also increased to 29%, with 98% of participating students earning college credit. These results highlight both expanded access to

041advanced opportunities and the high level of student success within those programs. District 95 continues to demonstrate strong performance across all grade levels. Proficiency remains well above state averages, often by substantial margins, and mathematics growth is a clear area of strength, particularly in grades 4 and 7. At the same time, opportunities for improvement persist in early literacy, 8th grade ELA growth, and among several student groups, including students with IEPs, English learners, and Black students. Our next steps focus on strengthening curriculum alignment, deepening high-impact instructional practices, replicating successful elements of the math intervention model within ELA, and enhancing differentiation to better support both high-achieving students and those needing targeted interventions. These actions will guide our ongoing efforts to ensure that every student continues to make meaningful progress. I am happy to answer any questions the board may

042have. All right, I'm going to go around. Doug, do you want to start? Sure, Eileen. Thank you very much. Aubrey, thank you for coming this evening. As usual, your presentations are excellent. I really like the way you formatted the data and presented it. It was very easy to understand. I had to sort of make my own charts, as it were, from the raw data, which is fine. You know, I think my first comment is there's a lot to celebrate here. You guys have knocked it out of the park when it comes to, you know, we've talked so much about math over the last four or five years. Clearly, your hard work is show bearing fruit, right? You know, at K through eight, I mean, you guys are knocking out of the park. It's fantastic. I

043love that. I believe as those students matriculate through the higher grades, you're going to see those improvements at the high school level as well. I'm sure of that because, again, we spent a lot of calories and resources, you know, working on that. One of the things that stood out to me when I looked across the buildings was there are certain buildings that are significantly higher than other ones, right? If you look across, you sort of average the data across the district. I segregated a bit down to building just trying to understand. And, you know, without trying to point out things, it's obvious to me there's lessons we can learn from some of those buildings. The ones that are doing exceptionally well, clearly there must be data we can gain from those programs as to what

044they're doing to be so effective, right? And I'm sure you guys are looking at that. But I would like to hear you comment about if you've seen any of the strategies that are being employed at those buildings that are so successful and how you're going to spread those to the rest of the district. So I think part of it is the collective efficacy that you're going to hear a little bit later in our school improvement plans. And that's a lot of our schools working together and sharing those strategies. One of the exciting pieces that have happened over the last couple of years and will continue in this year is our teachers going in and observing each other in their classrooms. And that's one of the biggest indicators of a strong school district is that collective

045efficacy. But also that trust between teacher to teacher to open their classrooms and share those practices, be able to answer questions and then be able to take those ideas back into their classrooms. And I believe that what you're seeing in some of these strong results is the product of that sharing of best practices across the district. And so it is going and viewing those classrooms and saying, hey, I saw that your third grade team was doing this. Can we come over and see what's going on and bring those ideas back? And so we do have those with such things as our exemplars looking at how we break down question stems. Our vertical white boards with the BTC model are spreading throughout the district in our higher achieving buildings and our other buildings to share those

046best practices. Additionally, Mr. Goldberg, we also have opportunities for our staff to collaborate across levels. So looking at middle school and elementary, that fifth to sixth. And so we're starting to see some some teachers visiting each other's classes across across that area as well. So I 100 percent agree with Ms. Allen. This is one way to really leverage different practices that may be working, as you had indicated, in different places. Yeah, I think I just wouldn't I would be remiss if I did not say the staff, though, they have the same curriculum across the grade level. So fourth grade, no matter what building you are in, again, it goes back to equity. We our students have opportunities to access very similar experiences. Strategies might look different, but the curriculum is absolutely the same across our

047system. Thank you. Thank you. And then my other comment is and part of a question is and you mentioned your presentation already that, you know, the one of the areas that we certainly could be looking to improve is those subgroups that are underperforming. And this isn't like a new issue. Right. We've talked about this ever since I've been here. You know, so this is a new not a new problem. And the question I have is, you know, and we've if you just go back in time, it's been about the same. You know, we haven't seen it change a lot. And I'm just wondering, in your opinion, you know, what could we do? And obviously, again, the board's purpose is to provide resources to you. So what could we do to help the team to try

048to increase our effectiveness of our education for those subgroups? So I'm going to take that one, Mr. Goldberg. We've been talking a lot about our subgroups. And when you look at subgroups, sometimes those subgroups are very small. And we do have a few subgroups that are quite small. They're spread across the system, buildings and grade levels. When we look at a grade level, we can target curriculum, instruction assessments. We can look at cohorts of students and their experiences. When we look at subgroups, we look across the system and we ask ourselves some different questions, which is what we're doing right now with these subgroups. When did these students enter our system? How long have they been with us? We need to know that because there's a variation there. We need to understand if they're a

049part of another potential subgroup that we need to pay attention to. We need to look at their instructional journey, what courses have they been in, and how have they progressed on their journey with us as learners, and find out if we can start to see some commonalities that exist amongst a subgroup of students. And that's really hard when they're spread across sometimes K-12 and eight different buildings. So it's much more intricate to determine how to affect a subgroup than sometimes it might look like when we're trying to affect a grade level because they're contained in one area, getting one curriculum, similar instructional practices, and similar assessments. Some of the other things we've talked about, and we're in the process of doing that now, we also, we need to look at some of those other factors

050that, and I think we've heard that for a long time. We take a look at socioeconomic status. We take a look at opportunities to learn in the classroom for those subgroups. We took a look at engagement. How engaged are they in their instruction? But how engaged are they in their schools? Are they in activities and clubs? Those are some of the things we look at as well because that's all part of what makes a learner really show progress in their journey. So those are some of the things we're doing now. We've also had some conversations around the table with particularly small subgroups that might be spread really across the system. Is it might be time to talk to kids and find out how they're feeling about being a student here at Lake Zurich. What was

051your journey like? Where are we serving you well? Where can we do better? I think sometimes when we look at students in a grade level, we tend to go to the curriculum and the instruction and the assessments and the teacher. When we look at cohorts, we have to dig much deeper to determine how are we going to move those students in different grade levels, different buildings with different experiences and different needs. So I want you to know that we've had these conversations at the curriculum instruction table. We'll be having these conversations with our principals and there most likely will be an opportunity for us to get out there and have these conversations with our students. I would add that, as I mentioned earlier, the board is going to have an opportunity to have individual conversations

052with Dr. Ayala. Please note that we have brought groups of students together as well to really talk about our policies and how we implement them and what they feel like and look like in our buildings. And as you know, that plays a great factor on those experiences for our students. And so I am excited to get that information as well. I think it's going to help us to continue to move forward. Thank you for the answer. I know the answer is obviously complex and nuanced, and I really appreciate that you guys are aware of this issue and obviously working it. And I'd really like to see us make improvements in those areas. I think we'd be, you know, we have a responsibility to make sure we serve all of our students the best possible way.

053And I think that the data is certainly helpful in guiding us where those issues lie. And I realize that those groups are relatively small and spread across the district. But I think it's a great idea to get with the students and listen to their voice and listen to, you know, their social and their SEL feelings about all this understanding where they think, you know, we could make improvements and how what we could do to help them, you know, be part of the community as it were. I really appreciate that. And, you know, overall, I want to emphasize again, you know, the data is fantastic. I mean, it's really showing the results of the hard work that you guys have put in year over year. And we put a lot of emphasis as we should in

054this area. And I believe that it's definitely beginning to bear fruit. I think we're seeing the results of that. I'm very proud of the work that you guys do every day. And again, you know, our job is to give you resources to make you successful. That's what our job is as board members. So very anxious to hear what you think we can do to play a part to help you, you know, make those improvements. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. Peter. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks for the opportunity to share. I'm kind of waiting for when my colleague here, a teacher, comes out and give a deeper insight. But I'll give my less deep insights. First of all, thanks for doing a fantastic job on this report. You know, more than 50 pages. It took

055quite a while and a lot of data. And the other thing, too, you were fairly transparent. I think that's important. You did not hide the words. So I really, really appreciate that. And there were words. But then there were good things, too. Obviously, on the proficiency area, we're above the state for practically everywhere. And we're doing very well. Lakeshore is a good, very, very good school district. I think we're doing well there. On the growth area, of course, we've talked about that. And I was clear in your report that there are some areas that we need to do better. English learners, students with IEPs, low-income students, and racial minorities, particularly black students. I mean, it's perhaps if you look across the district, black students, by comparison, at the worst compared to any other subgroup, when

056you compare it to the state. So I think that's consistent with what my colleague shared. I think there is a lot more work to do. And I looked at what we're trying to do, data-driven target intervention, vertical alignment. And I said, well, those are really complicated words. So I appreciate what you just shared. These are individuals. And particularly for black students, for example, it's a much smaller pool. So it's not like they're hiding. We can't hide. And so I think some individualized work makes a lot of sense. When I was on a college board previously, that's what they did. I mean, you knew where they were, you tracked them down, and you have conversations with them. And you see how you could help them and provide resources that where they could do better. So I

057look forward to that. I'm trying to see some improvement here. Again, how do you explain why I was looking at this? And a rare thing just jumped out at me, eighth grade ELA below state. Again, yeah, question. Well, the eighth grade ELA portion of IR below the state. In growth. Yeah, did I miss something? Do you have some thoughts on that? So I was actually talking to our principals about this a little bit earlier, and we're diving deeper into what is required of a seventh grade ELA student to demonstrate versus what is required of an eighth grade ELA student to demonstrate when we think about not only the passages they're being given, but the requirements of their writing. And there is quite a big discrepancy or a change in regards to what the requirements are

058for a seventh grader for reading and writing than there is for an eighth grader. And so it's really us digging in, doing that research, building up the opportunities for our staff to see what the requirements are for seventh grade versus eighth grade, and then building in those experiences for our students both through direct instruction, inquiry, and experiences to help ensure that they have that skill. But part of what we see is we have strong proficiency and growth in seventh grade, and so it's just maintaining that for eighth grade. And if you remember in the report, it showed the quadrant, you know, you can have high, high proficient students demonstrate low growth. So they can actually be some of your highest of the high students who are not growing. So when we look at growth, we're

059talking about rigor for each individual group of students or students. So for me to grow, you're going to have to make sure you meet me where I'm at, and you're going to have to get me to the next level in the same way that you might work with a student who is typical on their typical average journey. They are going to be expected to grow, and students who might have some lagging skills are also going to be expected to grow. So growth is very different than proficiency. When we look at growth and when we see that we might have an issue with growth, or we have to go in and say, who's not growing? Now we know that the percentile is low, right? The percentile of growth at eighth grade is low. So what we

060need to ask now is, who's not growing? We'll put them in your quadrants. Are our low achieving students not growing? Are our high achieving students not growing? Are our typicals not? Is everyone not growing? There's still a lot of questions, and I love this line, and we use it a lot. Dr. Galton, I use it a lot. When you have a question, you get extremely curious, and you ask more questions. When we saw that data come through, we started asking more questions. Once we get the answers to those questions, we're going to better understand the problem, and then we can design the solution. But as it looks right now when you see a number, it doesn't tell us who's in that group, and again, we'll go back to their educational journey. Who are these students,

061and what do they need, and where do we go next? Growth, this is the first time growth has been really highlighted, so we have a lot of questions. We're going to do a lot of deep dives into how students are learning in our classrooms, because the proficiency, you were 85% proficient at a grade level, but our growth might not be there. We have to ask more questions. I would add to that that I think all of you had the opportunity to read all of the school improvement plans. There was some lengthy reading for this board meeting. Inside the school improvement plans, you can see some of the strategies that our principals and their school improvement teams have outlined in order to affect positive growth and proficiency. We have some staff in the audience this evening,

062and really appreciate them being there. Here, they've worked very, very hard. They're continuing to dig into the data. As you know, we received the final data from the state more recently, and so they're applying that information to help them move forward with the strategies they've selected, but they carefully monitor those strategies to make sure, are we making the gains we should? And they have progress monitoring tools that help them to identify whether or not what we're doing right now is working, and if it's not, those school improvement plans that they share with you this evening may change over the course of the year. It's all based on the data they're collecting. Well, thank you. I know just this topic alone could take the whole board meeting, and I know that there are lots of others.

063I'll just say one or two things. It's encouraging to see some improvement in the math scores in some areas. Some areas are better than others. The early grades are pretty encouraging, and as we've said, that cohort as it moves through the system, hopefully it just gets better after that. So thanks a lot for a great report, and I appreciate that. And the next year when we come, I think hopefully those subgroups will show us some better picture than we have seen in the past. Thank you. Thank you. Peter, Natasha? I'll keep it short because I know we have a really long evening. I want to congratulate you because there was really good data that came out of this, and like I always like to tell my parents, IAR is a snapshot of one day with

064children, human beings. They're not widgets, so it's always important to keep that in mind, especially in the subgroups that are so small. I think that's really important to note. I also think it's really great data for us to have because it does break it down, and it allows us to compare comparables, and I think that's something that sometimes we can just discard and say, well, ML students, they're going to score lower, but now we have a data point that says, yeah, but our ML students only grew this percentage compared to other districts' ML students, so this is a really, really great data point, and I think a good platform for us to improve on. I also would be remiss to note from an educator's perspective, I actually was pretty impressed with the ELA scores only

065because I know you adapted a new resource, and oftentimes there can be a dip when adapting that new resource, so I'm hopeful that really the growth will start to show itself in the next couple of years, and one of the great things about Benchmark is they have a very, very, very in-depth ML differentiation aspect, so hopefully we also are making sure that teachers are taking that on, too, because that would be a really easy resource to use to maybe grow that section. I will leave it at that. Congratulations. It's a reflection of a lot of teachers working really hard, so thank you. Thank you, Natasha. Alicia? That's a lot of information. Thank you so much for all that work, and thank you for explaining growth versus proficiency. That helps. All of that vocabulary explanation really

066helps. I just hope that we have consistent testing going forward, so you can take this data and work with it for five years at least, 10 years. That is such a strain on how to compare the first graders to the eighth graders, what happened along that route. I don't know what this strange situation with this eighth grade ELA scores or anything, but it seems like those are the third graders during COVID. I don't know what that has to do with anything, but third grade, the big year. Thanks for everything. I really appreciate how hard you've worked to make it understandable for us, so thank you. Thank you, Alicia. Dr. Pinter? Yeah, thank you for this report. As usual, it's always very organized. You do a great job with that, and I would say overall these

067scores are pretty fantastic. As usual, I always say on a broken record when it comes to equity, and none of you will be surprised that I'm going to talk about that again, the EL students, IEP students, low income, and then also black. Several of my colleagues have already spoken up. I just think when we have, I feel like we've come a long way. I think we've come a long way when it comes to having these discussions. In the last three years, it's definitely impressive with how we are now acknowledging that we're going to sit down with children and have these conversations, because who else knows better the student experience than the students that are actually experiencing it, right? I do think sometimes, I think the teachers and the principals, I think you all might be

068a little bit ahead of us as the board. I keep saying this. I think as a board, we are the people that really need to set the tone for this, and I know we're getting there. But I would say, I was speaking to Patricia Linares last night, and I just learned about so many fantastic things that she's doing. If you don't know who she is, I'm sure you probably do, because she seems to know everybody. But she is from Costa Rica, and she was telling me a story about a child within our district also from Costa Rica, and she recognized such great aptitude with this child and spoke up for him and is an advocate for him. And I think as a board, what I've been saying for a while, and I'm sure some of

069you agree, we need people that work within this district that look like the children who are these numbers, because they're people, right? And so students need, again, to see themselves and the teachers and the administration, and that's just something that I think as a board, we could really get behind. I know that across race and ethnicity, you all I'm sure are advocates too for students across race and ethnicity, but again, our children need to see people that look like them and need to see themselves in the amazing people that stand before them as leaders. So that's what I think we can do. I had a question when it comes to, this is just like on the topic of interviewing the kids. When we do that, you don't have to answer or maybe just something to

070think about, but I think when the children are interviewed about their experiences, it would be important who's in the room with them. If they have their teacher in the room with them and they might be afraid to talk about those kind of hurtful things that might have happened to them, that they might not say the same kind of thing, unless there are people in the room that are also maybe experiencing the same things they have. They might not share as much, but I don't know if that's a question or just a comment. Well, I will say this. Before we would ever engage in a focus group with any group of students, we would be working certainly in partnership with Student Services and Dr. McArdle. We would be vetting what we are going to be talking

071about. We would have people in the room that would be skilled and potentially supporting and addressing some of those things that might come up that we don't expect. We would be talking to our teachers, our administrators, certainly our superintendent. So as we talk about potentially having these focus groups, please know that's the beginning idea. We are nowhere near ready to launch some kind of a focus group talking about how their experiences might affect them as students and as learners until we really wrapped around this. And again, it would be in such close partnership with Dr. McArdle and certainly with Dr. Gull before we would ever go out into a building and have conversations with students. And we would involve parents in that process too. But I did want to say, Dr. Pinter, as I shared

072earlier, we have started that process as we look at our policy audit. We've involved students, and to your point, actually in those focus groups, no one from the district participated. It's an outside partner. So Dr. Ayala hosted those. And again, I'm excited to get that information back. I think it's going to give us some really good starting points. And then it will also help us to clarify some questions that we may have from those meetings that would help us to develop further questions. I so appreciate the information and the recommendation. And what I can tell you is we will make sure that we focus, for the focus groups, on who's in the room. I appreciate that. Thank you. Another thing. Oh, some of you were asking about what we can do as board members. I

073mean, do whatever you want as board members. I know that we are given this wonderful opportunity this weekend to go to this conference. And I think the sessions that we choose say a lot about what we really care about. And so there are a lot of equity sessions there. And so if we really care about equity, I think we are so fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from experts in the field on that exact topic. So that's something we could consider. Also, my question, too. I didn't quite understand why. It's funny, because the students, the kindergarten, first grade, when it came to reading assessments, how come kindergarten's just kicking it out of the park? I'm just trying to figure out why they're at 76%. That's an early literacy assessment. It is read to them.

074So it's testing their understanding of language rather than their actual reading ability. So it is not unusual to see kindergarten and first grade scores quite high. And then what you'll see is once that test falls off of reading and they are actually reading, you see drops in scores because now we're testing your ability to decode and comprehend. Two different tests. Makes a lot of sense. Okay. Thank you. Advanced placement at 44% to be improving to that number is really fantastic. So I just wanted to point that out. And then also about a third of our students taking the dual enrollment, dual credit classes is also impressive. So thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you, Dr. Pinter. Lisa? So I have to say, when I was reading this, I had a smile on my face for

075most of the time. This is an incredible report to be receiving as a board member. So first I'd like to say kudos to the grade K through three teachers. The math proficiency numbers are amazing. And I really love, I think Peter alluded to, this is putting these kids on the right path. That we're going to see this hopefully for their entire D95 career. So it was really encouraging to see that at that young level. So kudos to everyone involved on that. Also, I do appreciate the addition of the growth measurement. I like your philosophy about the quadrants and the goal. I guess my question would be, have you plotted our children on that grid to see where we are? It might be something to do. So we do have assessments that do that, but not

076directly related to IAR. So for us to do that for the IAR data, we would have to plot that ourselves. Certainly would be interesting to do that. We have some folks within our system that can do that. But you do have something that plots. I mean, I guess it's nice to say our goal is they're in the upper right quadrant. But I'm like, okay. We're working with one of our third party vendors to be able to do that. We're working with them because of the changes to be able to give us the data that we want for our staff. So that they can be responsive so that we can reach that goal. But we are currently working with our partners on that. Wonderful. Okay. And then I know we've had a lot of talk about

077these subgroups. And I remember in many previous years hearing the discussion and we even saw it again this time. Our N, the N has to be at least 20 students. And we have many categories that fall on and off and on because we have 18 and then we have 22. And I would also say in my mind comparing that to a state average, which has millions of people in the subgroup to our results of 22 kids in a subgroup or even 40 or 50 kids. It's in my mind not apples to apples with what I remember of statistics from when I took statistics way back when. I also have to say that our math growth numbers for three through eight is another reason to celebrate. It's evidence that what the teachers and the staff are

078doing is working. It's evidence that the students are taking in what you're giving them and they're performing. And it's just wonderful to see those those numbers. I have to give a special shout out to the middle school seventh grade team. Both growth numbers being over 70 percent average. That is huge. I almost feel bad for the eighth grade team because I don't know how you top that this year, but I'm sure they will figure out a way. But to see those numbers was just just amazing. Yes. Please extend that to your stuff, Mr. Dangler. I guess when I was looking at high school, when you're looking at proficiency compared to the growth results, you're seeing sort of two different stories. I'm sure you're all looking into that. And that's part of your school improvement plan.

079It does emphasize the need that we need to be looking at both. It's not enough to be proficient. And I would argue, you know, continuous learner is part of our mission statement at one point. And that's really what we want. It was nice to see, though, that math was slightly better than ELA. So the math changes you've made at the high school level, we're seeing the effects, which is always beautiful. Looking at the AP classes, I was happy to see a consistent increase in the students. I'm sure part of that is a byproduct of us taking a more aggressive stance at the automatic advanced class placement, hopefully, and it's doing its job. The kids are doing it and they're being successful. So that was good to see. I was wondering if it's possible on the

080AP chart to add a line that shows the percentage of exams taken. I think we're at like 98 percent. So those that are available to take a test and how many do, I think that shows a huge level of confidence in our students. And then the pass rate shows that they're rightly confident because they are passing. But I just thought that was an interesting number to see. And then the dual credit results are great. Kudos to the staff for increasing the opportunities for kids to actually take this and challenge themselves. Once again, we're seeing a 98 percent passing rate, which is huge. I think both those charts, I was surprised and maybe it's in what's coming in December, but the number of AP classes and the number of dual credit classes. I was just surprised

081not to see that in the chart. So one of the reasons why we did not include that is part of getting that information is schools have to self report that. And so if they don't update their websites, if they don't update the school report card with that information, we can't verify the full accuracy in that information because it's what the schools put out there. So because we couldn't verify the full accuracy in it of it being the most up to date information, we did not include it in the report. Okay. But so if you don't include it in December's report, that makes sense. But could we include it in ours? Because I think that's also some of the reason you have more kids taking AP classes because we've gone from I don't know, I'm throwing

082numbers up 24 AP classes to 40 AP classes. I mean, that's also you're providing more opportunity. And I think that's also encouraging to see that. I didn't see that in the chart. If Dr. Gault would like us to do that, I would just put the caveat on that that it would be more qualitative data than quantitative data. Well, it's just for us, though. For us, we could, yes. I don't know. It's up to you. If the board collectively wants us to do that work, I'm happy to go ahead and put that on. It will not come to you until after we complete the next report, because the next report that Ms. Allen has to complete is extremely time intensive. And I've already moved it up a month for her. Next year. Okay. No, that's good.

083Okay. Thank you. I just was curious. Yeah. No, we could add that to our- I made a note for you. Okay. Thank you. I asked that one. Do we have students- So, for example, I know in past years, students that were in eighth grade but taking algebra or taking geometry, taking a higher level math class would sometimes take the higher level math assessment. If they were taking a ninth grade class, they might take a ninth grade. Do we have that happening? Are all the eighth graders taking the same test? And so we don't have anybody that's- We're going to hit the state level, right? Yeah. Well, no, no, no. For us. For us, they take the- So our algebra students, whether they're taking a seventh graders, eighth graders, or ninth graders, they're taking all the

084exact same test because it's mirrored. You have to do that to be able to get the high school credit. Okay. Okay. No, no, no, no. I'm sorry. The assessment class. Is it for the state test? Assessment class. So if the IIR, is every single eighth grader taking the same IIR as opposed to some higher level? Right. If they're in eighth grade, they take the eighth grade assessment regardless of the course that they're in. The courses that they're in. Okay. Thank you. And then I just want to say, when I was looking at this and it was very eye opening, because it's the first year, you had to compare us to state scores. And when I looked at some of these state scores, I have to say as a citizen of Illinois, I'm concerned. Yeah. We're

085doing very, very well. But when those are averages and I see how well we're doing, I'm like, who's doing that poorly that it's pulling these numbers down? And I just worry about the state of education in Illinois with seeing where some of these kids are performing. It's more than Illinois, unfortunately, Lisa. Excuse me? It's more than Illinois. Yeah. If you look at it nationally, you'd be appalled. But thank you very much. Thank you for making me smile. Absolutely. Thank you, Lisa. Our board has done a very thorough job in their questioning, so I will be very short. First of all, I would be remiss without saying that the report, as always, is outstanding. And thank you very much. And the quality of the detail and the quality that you provide us is unmatched and amazing.

086And I'm talking about all the reports that you provide at this time. And I have to say, I was overwhelmed when I just had to read it. And so your expectation to absorb, analyze, and give it back to us, I'm glad it's you and not me. So thank you very much. I'm very grateful that it comes to us the way it does, and it's tons and tons of work, and I absolutely acknowledge that. The one thing, and this is just because nobody brought it up, and I think maybe because I'm wrong, but it's a thought I had that I think it was the seventh grade math growth was amazing. And then eighth grade math was not amazing. And I, of course, in my mind think, well, got all their growth out in seventh grade. So

087is there something to be said for that? Because if you just think about a seventh grader that grew six inches and then only grows one inch in eighth grade, but his peers grow six inches in eighth grade. I mean, that's not a problem. That's just they learned at different moments. But I think growth is supposed to be every year. I get that. But I just, what's wrong with my analysis? Just clear me up. So one of the things we've talked about is over time, and I think somebody said, you know, that you hope that the assessments will stay the way they are so that we have trend data and we can start to look for patterns. If I saw or anybody saw principals, teachers, directors saw that data consistent, we would have some significant concerns.

088We don't know yet, as you said. Is that a blip? And I appreciate what you said about an assessment is a day. One day, maybe even one hour in a child's career, right? And we put so much on that. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't. I'm just saying it isn't the whole story. So when I look at something like that and I think there's some questions I have, I don't have the answers yet, but I have some questions. But if I started to see that trend after we do, after we make changes, after we respond, after we do things different, and I continue to see that, then I have different questions. This is the first year we've looked at growth the way that we're looking at growth. It's our baseline. So right now we're

089making a lot of assumptions about the data, and we are going to change teaching, learning, assessments to respond. And there is also no good way for us as a district to measure our growth, to track that, to say we're on the right track for the way that the state measures growth because we don't have tools to do that. So we're going to do our best to provide kids what they need, and then we're going to look at it again, and I'm not going to say hope because hope is not a strategy. What I'm going to say is we would expect that that cohort of students when they go to ninth grade is going to show better growth, and that our eighth grade students are going to show better growth. So we don't know yet, and

090that's hard to say. Mrs. Maloney, I would say that there is some truth in what you said as far as all students do grow at different rates, and I think for us we do have to look beyond one single year to understand the whole picture. So there is some truth to what you're saying and how you're looking at the data. You only have one year. So then as we look over time, we can make sure that our students are over time making at least one single year worth of growth that we would expect them to make. And I have a son in that cohort, and that is the cohort we have been talking about for the last three years as being very concerning low because they were second grade COVID. So that seventh grade group

091then made the big jump. So it also could be that academically they had a lot of room to grow because they were, I mean, every year we have looked at that cohort and said they were a little nervously low. And I noticed that because we both have kids in that cohort, so it's that kind of thing you notice. So maybe that's part of it as well. And I would say with the introduction of growth at the high school, we're going to really be able to track cohort growth from third grade all the way up through high school. And so that's going to be really exciting to see how they grow over time and what patterns we can see and how we can address it. Thank you. Thank you for everything. Absolutely. Thank you. All right.

092Okay. The next is our 2026 School Improvement Plan Report. And I think we'll... So we'll welcome our principals across the system. Thank you for joining us this evening. I'm going to ask you to, if you don't mind, before we get started on the video, can you just quickly introduce yourselves? John Walsh, Lake Zurich High School Principal. Tanya Guild, Young Adult Center Principal. Crowley, Principal of MSN. Anthony Dangler, Middle School South Principal. Colleen Conway, Principal at Sarah Adams. Kelly Oliveiro, Principal at Isaac Fox. Maria Moriano, May Whitney School. Kevin Olsen, Seth Payne. And Marie Rothenmaier, Spencer Lummis. We'll just sit here and stare at each other for a while. Tonight's presentation introduces the 2025 to 2026 School Improvement Plans. These plans outline each building's identified priorities, areas of focus, and the ongoing collective efforts aimed at

093strengthening student outcomes across the district. The board will note a focus on the portrait of a graduate. At this time, the building principals will present the highlights of their individual school improvement plans. During the 2025-26 school year, the Young Adult Center will be focusing on fostering meaningful growth in students' employment readiness, independent living skills, and post-secondary planning. For the employment preparation goal, all students will demonstrate increased independence at their assigned work sites and will either obtain or maintain gainful employment, reflecting measurable progress in workplace competence and self-sufficiency. In alignment with the independent living goal, all students will show improvement or sustained proficiency in daily living skills such as food preparation, kitchen safety, and community navigation, supporting their ability to live and function more independently. Finally, through our post-secondary planning goal, students and their families will

094actively advance through the stages of post-secondary plan development and completion, ensuring each student is equipped with a clear and actionable path for success beyond the school setting. Thank you. At Lake Zurich High School, we continue to sharpen our clarity of learning. Across departments, teachers are creating mastery objectives, communicating them to students, having students reflect, and connecting learning to both ACT skills and our portrait of a graduate traits. The following departments have identified specific ACT skill priorities. Math is focusing on functions. Social studies is focusing on central ideas, themes, and summaries. English is focusing on author's purpose, details, and implicit meanings. Science is focusing on experimental design thinking. Students will learn these skills, see how they show up on the ACT, reflect on their mastery, and receive support when needed. The following departments have identified portrait

095of a graduate traits to focus on. Health and wellness, performing arts, and special education will teach and reflect on growth-orientated skills, while innovation and career pathways and world language will focus on being an effective communicator and future-ready skills. All of this work strengthens our portrait of a graduate alignment, reinforces ACT skill development, and supports our building goal of increasing clarity and purpose in student learning. This year, Middle School North has focused on advancing academic growth and student well-being through our school improvement plan. In ELA, we're building on strong outcomes, increasing the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards from 82.1% to 86.3%, a 4.2% percentage gain. Our students are deepening instruction and text analysis and evidence-based writing, supported through coaching with the Illinois Resource Center, and implementing the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol, or SIOP, framework.

096In math, our goal is to raise proficiency from 66.8% to 74.9%, an 8.1% increase. Teams are embedding the standards for mathematical practice and fostering mathematical discourse through instructional strategies to strengthen reasoning and problem-solving. Finally, our SEL goal ties directly to the portrait of a graduate. We aim for 100% of students to identify and connect with the five key competencies through instruction, student surveys, and school-wide experiences that build belonging. These goals reflect our shared dedication to cultivating a learning environment where every student can grow and thrive. At MSS, our school improvement plan empowers students to achieve personal excellence and bring our district's portrait of a graduate to life. In ELA, we're developing effective communicators by strengthening student writing across subject areas. We are creating authentic experiences where students analyze informational text for an author's purpose and

097then use academic discourse and writing to clearly explain their analysis. In math, we are developing future-ready problem-solvers. Students will work collaboratively to construct viable arguments, critique reasoning, and apply skills to authentic mathematical modeling tasks. These opportunities grow their mathematical reasoning and build perseverance. Our SEL goal is the portrait of a graduate. We aim for 100% of students to identify and reflect on all five characteristics. We are building a growth-focused community by directly teaching these concepts and integrating them into our school culture, celebrations, and communications. With these focused strategies, we are actively supporting every student's journey to become their own portrait of a graduate. This year at Isaac Fox, our school improvement plan is grounded in the power of collective efficacy, the shared belief that what we do together makes the greatest difference for kids. Across

098content areas, our strategies are centered on consistency, clarity, and collaboration. In English language arts, students will engage in monthly text-based response tasks where teachers model, guide, and provide feedback using common grade-level rubrics. In math, we're applying the understand, plan, solve, check framework to strengthen problem-solving and reasoning. Students will complete monthly math performance tasks that apply multiple standards for mathematical practices. We'll be learning from one another through ELA and math capacity-building learning walks, which are short, focused peer observations followed by reflection. Our progress will come from our people, the collaboration, reflection, and shared belief that every student can grow and that we make that growth possible together. May Whitney will move our IAR scores in English language arts from 77% meeting and exceeding to 81% by strengthening students' reading comprehension and critical thinking by developing their

099ability to make inferences across grade levels, as well as by increasing students' ability to clearly and effectively communicate ideas through developed narrative, informational, and opinion writing. In math, we intend to move May Whitney IAR scores from 72% meeting and exceeding to 76% meeting and exceeding by sharing problem-solving strategies with peers and utilizing feedback to strengthen accuracy, reasoning, and modeling. We'll also improve our conceptual understanding of fractions, engaging in fluency routines, and then solving fraction problems by using multiple representations to demonstrate flexibility and reasoning and modeling. Lastly, after explicit instruction of a portrait graduate skills, students will get consistent feedback on their growing skills through the use of earning rare tickets associated with each portrait trait. To reach our ELA goal of 82%, Sarah Adams' student writing will be strengthened through the use of common rubrics

100and being provided specific feedback for ongoing growth. We will focus on standards RI1, asking and answering questions, and RI2, identifying main ideas and key details to strengthen student comprehension. Teams will use common language, apply a backwards planning model to guide instruction, and engage in coaching cycles to reflect on student progress and refine our practice. To reach our math goal of 75%, Sarah Adams' staff will embed opportunities for math exemplar writing to help students articulate reasoning and strengthen mathematical communication. Using common rubrics and the race writing model, we will promote clear criteria for success and student self-monitoring. Staff will model precise mathematical language, integrate standards for mathematical practice, and build fluency across all grade levels. To reach our goal of 100% of students identifying the five key portrait of graduate attributes, staff will embed authentic learning

101experiences and recognize students who demonstrate them. Our student leadership team will explicitly model and prioritize examples of developing self-advocacy and effective communication skills to guide all Sarah Adams' students in developing these key elements. In order to reach our ELA goal of 87%, Seth Payne's students will deepen their reading comprehension and written communication by citing precise textual evidence from one or more texts to support claims, compare ideas, and explain reasoning. Staff will engage in professional learning aligned with the Illinois Comprehensive Literacy Plan, focusing on modeled writing. In order to reach our math goal of 78%, Seth Payne's students will solve multi-step mathematical problems by modeling their reasoning and clearly explaining solution pathways using equations, written responses, and visuals. In order to reach our SEL goal of 100% student understanding of the portrait of a graduate, Seth

102Payne's staff will provide direct instruction and frequent connections to the five key areas. Students will participate in lessons, reflections, and recognitions tied to these attributes, strengthening belonging and identity within our Dragon's Color of the World with Kindness culture and house system. In order to reach our ELA goal of 89%, Spencer Loomer's students will strengthen reading comprehension and writing precision through close reading, purposeful vocabulary instruction, and modeled writing across genres. Teachers will use mentor texts, structured discussions, and co-constructed writing to help students make their thinking visible and deepen understanding of complex texts. In order to reach the math goal of 87%, Spencer Loomer's students will build problem-solving stamina by engaging in multi-step real-world tasks that require them to model their thinking and explain their reasoning. Teachers will use math discourse routines, visual models, and small group

103instruction to promote flexible thinking and conceptual understanding. And finally, to reach the SEL goal of 100%, Spencer Loomis will introduce direct instruction and experiences connected to our district's portrait of a graduate traits. Staff will highlight these traits through classroom instruction, classroom buddy activities, and weekly student celebrations that showcase authentic growth and student voice. Thank you for your time and attention tonight. We would like to open the floor for any questions. Thank you. Can I start with Natasha? Sure. Hello, welcome. Thank you guys so much for being here. I did spend a lot of time reading every single one. I told one of you that I had a meeting today with my interventionist team, which is six of us, and one of the people who presented at their board meeting last night said he had a

10450-page document, and one of the teachers said, none of the board members read any of that. I said, no, I do. I read every single bit, and it took forever, and it was very impressive. Some of the goals that you have set for yourself are very high. I noted, especially for math for several schools, where the ones that set it above 5%, I guess if anyone wants to jump in, what makes you so ambitious? Because that's a big target, especially when we are performing pretty high already. I'm speaking to elementary, my people. Actually, in mathematics, sorry, Mrs. Rothermel, it was you. You, I believe, set yours 9% higher, and so there is a lot that goes into that. I would add before she speaks that this has been a regular practice of our school improvement

105teams across our system. They set lofty goals, and they work really, really hard to reach them, and I do believe that's why we sit where we do right now, and it's because of the hard work of teachers and our building leaders who are really striving to make sure all students can perform at high levels. I would say that, like my colleagues here, our schools have high achievement, but it's not the best we could do. We have students who sit in our classrooms every single day who deserve the best that we can give them, all of us here at this table, and so that's what we aim for. I think that's a great answer. I was also wondering more from an administrative perspective. I think these goals are incredible, but as we saw in the last

106presentation, that there's going to be so much more of a focus on growth. So, Will, in the following years, we maybe divert more of our goals towards growth versus performance? The short answer is yes. The long answer is we have work to do to have a tool that's going to allow us to accurately measure it. Again, lots of conversations. We have growth opportunities in the NWA map where we talk about moving across the quadrants. That growth doesn't necessarily align to IAR growth. So although we have a tool that can measure growth on an assessment, it doesn't necessarily hit the mark with growth on IAR, so they're not compatible. So we have some work to do. Ms. Allen is going to certainly be a busy director over the next few years, and we really do need

107to better understand how we're capturing growth and how we're predicting growth, because that really is what we're trying to do here. We're trying to predict achievement based upon our instruction, curriculum, and assessments. Right now, we do not have a measure to predict growth. So that is going to be the next thing that this team is going to have to focus on, because you're going to hear more and more about growth, how we're measuring it, how we're tracking it, and what we're doing about it. Short answer, yes. Long answer is it's going to take a little bit of time. Thank you. And then I would also just really like to note, no questions. I'm really grateful that we're using portrait of a graduate for our SCL goals, mainly because that was a community effort, and I

108think it is important that as a community, we found what we viewed for our graduating students to be portrayed and that we're making sure that that is being addressed from our youngest to our oldest students. Oh, and last thing, I am also very grateful that the Young Adult Center is here tonight. Those students deserve goals, and I think they're worthy goals, and that school deserves to be treated by us as all the other schools are. So welcome, and I'm glad that you have some really great goals. Thank you, Natasha. Peter? Thank you. You know, every year I look forward to this, to see all of your smiling faces. I just get ready with those ambitious goals. But I'm not going to say what I've said every year, because Dr. Galtz could anticipate you could even

109play the records for the last time. So, you know, she likes administrators with ambitious goals, and because it helps us achieve where we are today. And Lake Zurich is doing great. I mean, we have an award-winning district. I mean, I'll tell you, if you ever go on Zillow and you look and see how our schools are doing, it's fantastic. So kudos to you and all of the hard work that you're doing. And I just want to echo the portrait of the graduate emphasis, and I try to picture this. I mean, the whole idea is to develop students through the system, and at the end of the day, in 12th grade, when they get to Mr. Walts and we're giving them their diploma, they look like this. Now, how do you make that happen? And they're

110all individualized, and it's an ambitious goal to have this 100% identified as a good way to put it right now. It's a good start, but you wouldn't find 100% of our graduates exemplifying 100% of this. So I think, but I do think we have to start somewhere, and I really applaud the district for focusing on that. I'm very, very excited about that. You know, we had a lot of material to read and a lot of data, so I'll just ask one question. And maybe you could just pitch in. How did you think you did in your goals last year? Because you didn't mention them there in this presentation. And then how did that inform your plans for this year? Because, you know, as I said, it's a question of love to goals. It's just interesting

111to see how you felt in your own words you did last year, and how did that inform your plans this year? Anybody could? I actually, Kevin, I was going to call on you if you wouldn't mind sharing for the elementary and then middle and high and young adult center, if you have one rep from each of you could say something. Sure, yeah. I mean, it really is about the cycle of continuous improvement. And so we set our goals, and as you mentioned, oftentimes lofty goals. And at the end of the year, we do all, all of us are similar, and we take time to work with our staff to analyze where we fell within our goals, how well we did. Overwhelmingly, I think we all felt a really sense of a lot of success last

112year in a lot of the goals that we had. And I know that Ms. Allen's presentation, you know, showcased a lot of that. However, because we are always looking at a cycle of continuous improvement, we'll take our data from last year, and that helps us to create all of our goals and our plans from this year. So what we might have achieved really well in these certain areas, we're still finding pockets and places, whether it be a grade level or a subject area that we need to focus on, and that's what we weave into our plans moving forward. Yeah, can you be more specific and talk about yourself? Sure, but personally or for my school? Your school and yourself. So how do you feel about where you landed at the end of last school year?

113Right, you're a great diplomat for the entire team, and I applaud that. But if you don't mind. Yeah, sure. And, Kevin, maybe you could also, maybe this would be a great time to also talk to, Dr. Pinter asked a question at the last board meeting related to our five essentials, and you probably could speak to that too a little bit. Sure. Yeah, so, Seth Payne, we felt like we really did make a lot of strides. So in particular, our math scores, we spent a lot of time last year focusing on very specific tasks. We really dove in specifically. I can, as an example, our fifth grade team took a really in-depth look at some of our IAR data, and we have access to some reports that will showcase individual questions and what types of questions

114and what types of skills that align to standards. And so those reports also compare us to our schools across the district and state averages. So we're really able to hone in to very particular skills and then able to identify how we're going to build those skills amongst our students. And some of those tweaks might just be, these are things that may have been addressed later in the school year, and we've got to look at how we're going to align what we're doing to make sure everyone has access to that. Other times, it might be that we need to spend a little bit more time on a skill, and we're able to identify that. And I can just, in my mind, think about those conversations I had with our fifth grade team specifically last year that

115really dove in and bought into that concept. We also, at Seth Payne, as Dr. Gault mentioned, our five essentials data, we saw a really nice increase in that. And a lot of that honestly goes back to something that was said in the last presentation, which was that sense of collective efficacy. And so we really took that to heart last year. We know that there is great gains can be made from teachers learning from one another and getting into each other's classrooms. And so we took that to heart at Seth Payne and across our system. I had teachers go to two or three of the other buildings to watch different teachers in different areas. I know that we had a couple of the other buildings come over and watch some of our teachers or our teams

116and be able to collaborate in that way. And so as a building, that was a really big focus for us last year. And I think that came across in our five essentials data. But also as a system, that's something that we'll continue to work on and look for those opportunities. Well, thank you very much. I know there are lots of you here, and there are lots of my colleagues. And we have a long meeting, so I wouldn't spend too much time. I did want to highlight that what you said, which was very, very helpful. And we've heard that before about your sharing with different schools. And that's always exciting and being able to learn from schools and then being able to have them learn from you as well. Thank you so very much. Thank you,

117Peter. Doug? Thank you, Eileen. Good evening, folks. I know you all look forward to coming here this evening for this time every year. Also, welcome to Tanya, who is a new member of the team this year. So happy to see that we have a SIP for the YAC. I know we identified that last year as a shortfall. And Kelly, you're obviously this is your first time here in front of the Spanish Inquisition. So, you know, I want to say, first of all, I'm really proud of the work that you guys do every day. We just talked about it. We looked at our data and really it's outstanding. So thank you so much. You know, I can't say enough about, you know, you guys are making the difference every day. As the building leaders, right, you

118set the tone for each one of those buildings. And clearly, as our data shows, you're making a difference, right? You know, we can talk about the metrics and the scores and you're all doing fantastic. And I really appreciate that. And I think, you know, tying your SEL goals to the portrait is huge. That's exactly what it's for, the whole purpose of having that. So we had something to look at and say, that's what we want to be. And the fact that you guys have taken that on and are doing that and using that, I think that's fabulous. I love the aspirational goals, I think, you know. And also, look, particularly at the primary levels, and we just saw the scores, you guys are doing amazing work. I mean, your work is showing, you know, showing

119the benefits of it. So keeping those aspirational goals, I love that. You know, Dr. Galt's a big fan of that. She does that to herself every year. And then she relies on, obviously, you folks to actually do the work. But I think it's fantastic. I'm really proud of that. I did have a couple of things that I'm curious about your feelings on. And one of them is, and we've had some talks at the board level about this. I know Angela and I have talked about it quite a bit. I didn't see anything in your SIPs about how you anticipate to use and the benefits of artificial intelligence. It's coming to the classrooms. 100% it's coming to the classrooms very, very quickly. I don't know if any of you guys have looked at, like, the Khan

120Academy and the things that they've been rolling out for the use of AI and ML. But I'd love to hear maybe just, you know, I don't want to take everybody's time, but maybe a couple of you all could talk about that and how you see that being used. So I could talk a little bit up at the high school how we've been using it, particularly as the ACT is new to us, right? We had the first time we took it was last spring. We were taking the SAT before that. So we've been using it to garner ACT type questions, particular to that skill. So a lot of time we're doing something in class, and it could look like when we're working on an ACT skill, we bring in a passage. That doesn't quite fit with

121what we're learning. And using AI, we can pull a passage through AI, come up with questions through that so that it better connects with the curriculum that we're using right now. We also use it to look at our data as well. So we can put our data in there as well, and it can spit out for us a summary of who's doing well, who's not doing well. We've also used it to look at we've had Michael Kramer here. He's created a product as well where we can see what the effect size is between our pre and post assessments as well. So we are definitely digging in to AI. We've had our last Institute Day. We had an hour-long presentation on it where teachers got to take a look at it and how it could help

122them with the SIP. I wouldn't say we're experts at it by any means, but what I'm really excited about is to see our teachers using it. I'd also say, Mr. Goldberg, I did share with the board that one student from the high school was able to come with me and be a part of a focus group at an AI conference. And he spoke very eloquently to how students are being encouraged to utilize it in really positive ways. So, for example, sometimes when you leave the classroom, you may not always remember the complex mathematics that you have been taught. And so they often will access it to help them solve difficult problems and showcase where they might be breaking down in their thinking. But he very clearly articulated as well that about 10 percent of the

123time it's wrong. And so you have to be a discerning user of AI. And I think our teachers really are helping our students to understand how they can better become a discerning user of AI. When it's appropriate to use, et cetera. And then Mrs. Rothermel is going to speak a little bit about elementary, I believe. I had the benefit of walking into a classroom today that was using AI and the students were using school AI to help give feedback with their writing, help boost the structure of the writing, just different types of voice they could use in writing while the teacher was working with a small group at a back table. So there was feedback going on around the classroom, not only by the adult in the room, but also with the use of school

124AI. It was great. Could you guys, anybody could tell me how the teachers are using it to help with developing lessons or materials they would use? Because that seems to be an obvious easy use, right? Yeah. So I know at South, a lot of our teachers picked up on this pretty early. They were pretty excited about some of the work. We were doing this last year. We had some PD around how we were going to use AI, how it can benefit in lesson creation, resources, differentiation. So taking texts and possibly making them at an easier lexile or for some of our other readers. I know I've had quite a few staff members want to go to conferences about AI to figure out how to use it. I had a couple just go recently. They got

125really excited about Notebook LM and what it can do for kids. It's not an option for our kids yet, but the things that will allow them to do, it lets them put all, they can take all their notes from a unit, put it in Notebook LM, and it'll just take the data from those documents and give them study guides, study cards, podcasts. There's a lot of really great tools, and our teachers are just excited to get these things. But as far as planning goes, I mean, I've seen them use it to help them map out what they want to do, create different resources. Differenciation is a big one, because that's a really great way to get some different types of learning materials. We also have an AI committee that Mrs. Finn has been facilitating, and

126that committee of teachers are also really focused on how AI can help in many different areas, and then they take that information back to their schools. So they would be our champions across the system. Yeah, and I would expect to see in the future that you guys would have goals around that, right? Because again, I believe it's effectively a force multiplier, right? We're going to be able to get more efficiency. I've seen demonstrations of AI tutors that come with the kids, and it's phenomenal. And so I've always looked at District 95 as being on the leading edge of many things, right? We've really pushed ourselves from a technology perspective, and I'd like to see us also be on the leading edge of this, because I believe it's a trend that if deployed and used properly

127is really going to be a great aid both to our staff members and our students. So I'm super excited to see how you guys are going to weave this into your SIPs going forward. And once again, I want to thank you all for coming this evening, and I really, really appreciate the work you guys do every day for us. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. Lisa? So Doug touched on this a little bit, the tone that you guys set in your schools. I was super excited. I think many years ago we had started this, having teachers go into other teacher classrooms, and it was interesting having the administrators at the time share with me, this is a very vulnerable thing for a teacher to do. You don't usually have a peer come in, and then you

128sit down and you sort of evaluate what went on, and what are you going to pick up and is good, and I try to do this, and having that conversation. I think COVID probably ended up stopping that for a while, so it's really nice to see that, but to know that you're developing a culture of trust within your school, and actually now I'm hearing it district-wide because you can go from school to school and you have that trust level, that that's a great thing to be doing, so it's really nice to hear that. And also you've developed a culture that your teachers don't go, you want us to do what? Because these are ambitious goals in line with our superintendent philosophy, which I understand. I do have two questions. The first is the point Natasha

129brought up. When I was reading through the middle school SEPs, I thought they were focused on growth, moving people from a growth level to another growth level, and then it felt like the elementaries were focused on proficiency, and the question was why the difference, but then you were saying you didn't think anybody was growth, so maybe I misread it, so I'm not sure. So we do have some growth measures at the young grades, because we can talk about kids moving through the quadrants of math, and we can do that through eighth grade, right? So when we write a growth goal now, what you'll see is something that might say, we will move this number or percentage of students through from this quadrant to this quadrant. It's similar to what the state does, but it's not

130tied. So it's just verbiage? It's just for math. It's only math growth, so it is unique to that assessment and the performance of the students on that assessment, and I think like you had asked, do eighth graders take an eighth grade test? Yes. MAP isn't a grade level test, and we've talked about that. So there are two separate assessments that measure growth completely different, but it gives us some measure of growth, but it isn't a predictor of audio growth. It's not the new way that we're doing growth. It can't be that. So it's more a word play than being different conceptually. It's growth. It's just measured against this particular assessment. So it does not measure the way the state measures it. So that's where we're talking about we're going to have to understand what the

131next iteration of growth looks like in school improvement. We're not there yet, but you are seeing growth goals. Okay. And then I always like looking to see what the SEL goal is going to be, and I like that it's portrait of a graduate, but I have to say, once again, a very challenging goal. I would argue, especially in elementary, to have all of those little kiddos be able to tell you what the five characteristics are of a portrait of a graduate. It was interesting. I don't know if I just saw an earlier version, but I didn't see everybody going for the 100 percent, but I did notice in the presentation that everybody's going for the 100 percent. I do have to give kudos to the middle schools because they're starting higher than zero, one starting

132at 12 and one starting at 13, which I was amazed at that you actually had 12 or 13 percent of your kids who could identify. I mean, that's amazing. We have we have a few early adopters that they had already started connecting the portrait to the learning in the classroom this year. At the beginning of the year, we kicked off the opera. We're operationalizing now the portrait. As you know, we worked really hard on our values so that everybody would understand what our core values are. And now we've moved into making sure that our students understand what exactly is on the wall. Right. And then how that looks in a regular classroom. I can give one example. I think I might have been at Spencer Loomis. I believe I was when I listened to the

133school improvement plan update from her team and one of the educators in there said that she was in a classroom. And it was actually during, I believe, map testing, a first grade student who was bothered by another student who was speaking out loud during the assessment. And the student was an advocate for himself or herself and others by sharing with the student very politely. I really need for you to quiet down because I'm trying to take an assessment. And so our little people in our district absolutely can understand what that means and how it applies to their life as a six year old, as a seven year old, et cetera. And our teachers do an amazing job in helping them to understand that. So super proud. And I remember when we were starting to go

134through the values and trying to define them so you could operationalize them. It's a huge lift on basically the cabinet really kicking that off. And I know you get a lot of input. You get a lot of input. But at least I say the person sitting there with the blank paper having to put the first version down is sort of the hardest. That would have been all of them. So thank you. I love that you're doing that as your SEO goal. That's really great. And it's that we're sort of past everybody has a trusted adult. Everybody knows who they can talk to. Everybody like these things are so institutionalized. They don't even have to be a goal anymore. Really. You're always at 100 percent. So it's nice to see the continuous challenge. So thank you.

135Thank you, Lisa. Dr. Pinter. I do not have that much to say, but I do want to talk for one second. Sorry. Dr. Galt was talking about the five essentials. And I just want to see the climate data. That was so exciting for me to see because I remember three years ago or whatever. I just remember like lots of reds. And this time it's like the worst was like the brown, you know, which was like the second highest level. So especially like all of you did a really great job. But I was so proud of that. And then the leadership scores were pretty high, too. Which was like one of the things that I noticed from a couple of years ago, too. So fantastic. My one question is I'm just trying to understand like the

136science behind how you pick these numbers. You know, especially Marie Rothermel. Like how did you get 9.2 percent? Throughout the years, Spencer Loomis has traditionally had very high achievement scores. And so in order to continue that growth, you have to set the bar high. It just continually gets set high. There is nothing to do with any of my counterparts here, any of the buildings. Everyone sets high goals. So that's how we get there. We take a look at how many students, you know, where do we think we can get to next time by pushing a little bit farther, by taking what we've done last year, continuing that, making some tweaks and adjustments. Where do we think we could possibly go? So how did you get the .2? Like everybody else had like a saltwood number

137and you're like 9.2. I don't know. I'm just curious. Mostly because we're looking at individual students. You know, we're taking a look at where are we with our kids. So, yes. Every student they look at to see where they fall and how they can grow them to the next group. And so they do some quick math and she just left the .2 in. Yeah, I really had nothing else. I just wanted to ask how you got those. So thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Pinter. Alicia? Thanks for coming tonight. I just have to say that teachers are my absolute heroes. And I, like, I don't know, I get a little emotional about this because it's so much work. And I just am so grateful for your expertise, your training, the things you have to

138go through with these kids every day. It's like, it means so much, truly. I'm so excited about the portrait of the graduate being used along every building. And I think it is so important on the local level that we are creating good humans because there is a lot of ugly and scary things that are happening here, next door, down the street in other states. And we have the power to build compassionate communities, loving communities, places where we are culturally competent, that we care about our neighbors who speak Spanish or Ukrainian or Russian or Urdu. I'm absolutely grateful for everything that you're all doing. This is what it's all about. We stick to our mission. We don't get distracted. We focus on the kids. We make a better society. And it creates good people. So thank

139you so much, truly. Thank you, Alicia. All right, I can tell you I don't have questions. I just have comments so you can relax. The Spanish Inquisition is over. But first of all, the level of leadership in front of us is amazing, that you've all done such an amazing job. I hope you hear that a lot because you have. Cornerstone of what makes our district great is right there. And so thank you. The aspirational goals that you've all set just speak volumes. I mean, I think it's a reflection of the... I wanted to say neurosis, but I won't. I think the highest of her. But she sets really high goals. And that's on you guys to match. And so I think we all recognize that you're doing a great job and you're pushing yourself to

140the end level. So I really, really appreciate that. And I don't really mean it enough. I know that. We all look at you when you set these goals going, Oh, my God. But that's where you are. They no longer do that anymore. I say nothing, do I? I just come and the goals are already set. Well, we know why. But thank you. I do want to touch on the SCL. And I was part of the Portrait of the Graduate Committee. And so much community effort, so much just thought. Thought went into those. So it's wonderful to see that they're part of the goal, that they are the goal. I have to say, I am a huge fan of the trusted adults. And I think it had something to do with the fact that you all

141had 100%. And I do have some guilt about that. But I really feel strongly that that is very meaningful. Because I think that there's a ton of kids in our high school that are incredibly engaged, do like 1,000 extracurriculars. And every day they come with their homework done completely well and have it all going on. And then there's a huge contingency that don't and are just not there. And they're the ones after graduation that'll say there's not one chance that I'm going back ever. Except, you know, Mr. So-and-so was such a cool teacher. And I had so much fun in his class. But the rest of the school is so... I think that matters to that individual growing to be a healthy adult. Just having the one. The one person that really made a difference.

142And I'm saying his, but it's his or her life. And so I love that that was part of the goal. So my message is it doesn't have to be a goal, but still strive for that. I really, really, really think that that matters in creating good humans. To have one person in your life that really made a difference. So thank you. Before we go on, I am going to let the building leaders know it is late. And I know you have an early morning tomorrow, so please feel free to exit if you would like to at this time. All right. Our next item is the D-Wing presentation. Ms. Finn, along with others, have provided information regarding the D-Wing project and the next steps timeline. Do any board members have questions for Ms. Finn? D-Wing presentation

143timeline. Any questions? In facilities, wasn't it discussed the timeframe might be moved up a little bit for the approval of the bids? Yes. The intention is that the next board meeting will bring back the bids for final approval. We have preliminary bids that have come in. They haven't been completely vetted yet. The numbers look, as we talked about earlier in the board meeting, look good. They look inside of the numbers we expected. And so the intent is that the next meeting will bring it back for vote. Yeah, and they'll be included in the packet, right? Dr. Galt, the information. Yes, that will be included in the packet. But that doesn't include furniture, right? Can you share the timeline for furniture? Yeah, absolutely. So we're working through that process right now. We've been working with a

144group of high school teachers. And then we have a showroom set up currently in A114 for staff to give feedback. And then we also have student feedback that we're getting over the next two weeks that we'll have that there. We'll be able to take a look at that and then drill down what type of furniture we're really focusing in on. And then we plan to have that order or the finalization of what that setup will look like by the end of the first week of January. And that's plenty of time for it to arrive in time. I know you've had some issues with furniture, and I'm hoping those have been rectified in our supply chain. Thanks. So we will be very early with it. So we anticipate that it will be on time in the

145D-Wing when we're all finished. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. You got the easy night. I did. Thank you, guys. Thank you. All right. All right. Our final report to the board is from Dr. Romano on the IMRF unfunded actual accrued liability financial analysis. Are there any questions for Dr. Romano? I had a couple, shockingly. And I would say that Katie Kaiser is here, as she has done a lot of the research behind this one. Thank you. Cool. You know, I understand that the reason we want to do this is we're making better money on our investments than we get with the IMRF discount rate. And I was just curious, what is the current IMRF discount rate versus our ARR? Do you just – what's that delta right now? So it's very – sorry.

146It's slightly variable each year. If you look, there's – they describe there in the report, there's four different factors that the actuaries use for the report determining that valuation. And then it will come out again each year in December. Yeah, I guess I was just wanting to know what the exact delta was between what IMF discount is and what our return on investment is. So right now our return on investment is – we just had some conversations with PMA with regards to where we are. We had anticipated using about three to three and a half percent for this year, but our trend data looks like we're going to be pushing closer to four percent on the average for the year. So due to the fact that we're having a good interest rate return on our

147investments, it makes this less attractive. So one of the things about this is that obviously when we have lower interest rates, paying down this liability is going to be able to provide us with a better oversight. And I guess what I'm wondering, Dean, is we probably in my mind should set either a policy or have some kind of threshold that says when it gets to a certain point, we automatically start paying this. We should have something in mind, some criteria in mind when we make that decision, right? So I think – and I'll give it back to you folks to tell us what that should be. But I believe we need – just it's a simple calculation. If the IRMF discount rate is this big of a delta from our ARR, we don't do it.

148If it isn't, we should do this, right? Because it's debt. Yeah. And the other thing about it is not just that it's going to be formulaic, which I'm a big fan of, is the fact that when we were taking a look at what our fund balance looks like as compared to the savings on the operational side, we need to take that component into account as well. And that will be something we would look at on an annual basis. But we can definitely put together something when we bring this back next year for a general review with some structure, unless you'd like to see that sooner. No, no, that's fine, Dean. Like I said, this is a liability we're carrying. And it'd be nice to at least have some agreed-upon criteria where we'd say, you know,

149we should pay it down now because of the following – again, I just think it's a simple calculation ratio between the IMRF discount rate and the ARR. It's pretty simple, right? Yeah. We can put something together for that. Yeah. For sure. Thank you. That's all I get. But this is something that we would continue to bring in the month of November for consideration of action in December. Okay. Thank you. I was going to say, this is only something we can act on once a year, correct? The ideal component is that we want to take action in December. It's the latest moment in which we can do that for the earliest implementation. So it's not something we're going to be seeing on a monthly basis where we are? No. This is something that we would –

150It's just a one-shot. Once a year, we look at it. We look at all the variables and we'll set some parameters which would drive some stronger – I think that's what would be helpful is – you gave us all the information, but what we didn't get was this. So we're looking at this compared to this. This versus this. Yep. We can put that together. I think it's a simple ratio. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thank you. Thank you both. All right. That moves us to discussion without action. Our first item for discussion without action is the 2026-2027 fees. Did any board members have questions on this information that Dr. Romano prepared on our fees? I think we all heard good news. Any questions? Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Romano. The next item without action is

151the new course level and name change for 2025-2026. Ms. Finn, Ms. Allen, and Ms. Syke are happy to answer any questions that board members may have. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm just curious on the criminal justice classes. Do they teach criminology, too, in there? Because if they do, those tend to be more transferable from what I've seen. Those are our classes over at the Tech Campus, and so those are name changes that Tech Campus over at CLCA have implemented. Okay. Thank you. I have a question. I love that you did this so that we have every – first of all, with the advanced placement, we have those courses all in place, but also you're hedging your bets on what teacher. If I sign up for something, are you always having everything available, and then when

152the teacher's assigned is when you narrow it down? Can you just explain how that logistically works? Yes. Our course book is updated annually, so we're going through that process right now. Part of that is looking into what we offer and who we have to offer those courses, and we do our best to fill those. We do have instances where we have lower numbers, and it's a class that can be stacked, which means it's with another like course in it. We do do that, but the high school does every effort that they can to fill those courses, and especially when it comes to the AP, or I'm sorry, the dual credit and honors, that's kind of why we brought those forward so that we don't run into that space where we don't have a dual credit

153certified teacher, and we're able to still run the course for the students. Right. Exactly. But is there, and this is what I wasn't clear on, is there a scenario where in a class I could have some taking it for dual credit and some not, or are we trying to make that ... Typically with dual credit courses, they apply through College of Lake County to be in the course, so every student in there will be dual enrolled in College of Lake County or University of Illinois or Eastern Illinois University, depending on where we get the dual credit from, as well as in our course. So they will all be in the dual credit. Okay. Okay. But unless of the example you gave that you have to stack the course to be able for it to run.

154And we have not stacked a dual credit course. You've never had to. Historically. Okay. Fabulous. Thank you. And we do have thresholds that we look at to ensure that we have enough students to run a course. Any other questions? Thank you both. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is discussion with action. The first item for discussion is the approval of the Lake Zurich International Band and Orchestra Trip to Rome. We need to put a motion on the table. May I get a motion to approve the Lake Zurich High School Marching Band and Orchestra Field Trip to Rome, Italy from December 27th, 2025 to January 3rd, 2026. May I have that motion? So moved. A second. Thank you, Doug. And thank you, Dr. Pinter. Any questions for Dr. Walsh? Enjoy your trip.

155Are you good to go? I have to say, as memory serves, the reason we made this additional step that you have to do is going internationally, being up to date on that there's no travel restrictions or anything, which I guess I didn't see in here. So I just want to confirm. I don't think there are. No, there are no travel restrictions. Everything looks great. And we're one of many schools from around the world participating in the Rome New Year's Day Parade. Oh, wonderful. That'll be really nice. Do you get to go? I will not be attending. I'll watch it on TV. All right. Well, hopefully they enjoy their trip. Thank you. It'll be a great time. Thank you. Oh, can you call the vote? Mr. Etienne? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Ms. Tim?

156Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. The next item for discussion with action is the collective bargaining agreement adoption between the Lake Zurich Education Support Personnel Association and the Lake Zurich Community Unit School District 95. So may I have a motion and a second to approve the ratification of the 2025 through 2027 master contract between Lake Zurich Community Unit School District 95 and the Lake Zurich Education Support Personnel Association as presented. So moved. Second. Thank you, Natasha. Thank you, Peter. Are there any questions for Ms. Besich? Great. Kate, please call the roll for approval of the ratification of the 2025-2027 master contract between Lake Zurich Community Unit School District 95 and the Lake Zurich Education Support Personnel Association as presented. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Ms. Tim? Yes.

157Mr. Atian? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Thank you. We are going into closed session for the following reasons. The appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees, specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park, recreational, or educational setting, or specific volunteers of the public body or legal counsel for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee, specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park, recreational, or educational setting, or a volunteer of the public body, or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity. However, a meeting to consider an increase in compensation to a specific employee of a public body that is subject to the Local Government Wage Increase Transparency Act cannot be closed and shall be open to

158the public and posted and held in accordance with the Open Meetings Act, 5 ILCS 122C1 as amended. 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, 5 ILCS 122C2, student disciplinary cases, 5 ILCS 122C9, the purchase or lease of real property for the use of the public body, including meetings held for the purpose of discussing whether a particular parcel should be acquired, 5 ILCS 122C5. May I have this motion? So moved. Second. Thank you, Doug, and thank you, Natasha. Kate, please call the roll. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Ms. Timm? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Mr. Aitken? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. We will not be taking any action after closed session this evening.