3-13-25 Regular School Board Meeting For C.U.S.D. 95

001Good evening, everyone. Thank you all for coming this evening. I would like to call to order the 13 March, 2025 Community Unit School District 95 Board of Education meeting. Kate, will you call the roll, please? Mr. Goldberg? Here. Mr. Hayes? Ms. Maloney? Here. Dr. Pinter? Here. Mrs. Warren? Sorry, here. Mrs. Danniger? Here. Mr. Aitken? Here. Thank you, if you all rise, and please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. We have no inside or public comments, is that true, Kate? Correct. Thank you. Okay, a few brief comments this evening. First of all, I want to thank Mrs. Danniger, Mrs. Maloney, Mrs. Warren for joining me last night at the Lakes Division meeting, IASB meeting. It was a wonderful meeting. At that meeting, this board was recognized for Outstanding Governance Award. We were one of six

002boards in Lake County to be awarded that, so I'm privileged and honored to serve with all of you, and certainly it's great to be recognized for the wonderful governance that we have in this board. It was a lovely event, it was very well attended, and you'll see, for those of you who weren't there at your desks, I've already given you the pins that we got associated with that. We also have a plaque mounted somewhere here in the building, I think, which we get annual recognition pins that go on as well, so it was really and truly a great honor to represent the board last night to receive that, and again, I'm thankful and I'm very grateful for the great work that we do here as a collective board. I also wanna thank the District 95

003Educational Foundation for the gala on Saturday night. Also, that was a very lovely event. I saw most of you there, and that was quite nice. Additionally, talking about the Educational Foundation, they had sponsored this week a couple of author visits, both at Middle School South and Middle School North. Middle School South had Dusty Bowling came and talked to the children about the book that was written, and at Middle School Spencer's Loomis, we had John Coy. That was an awesome thing for them to do as well, so the foundation does such great work for us here. They noted Saturday evening that they've raised over a million dollars since their inception, I think 1.2 million dollars, which is a tremendous amount of money. I know, Lisa, you were one of the founding members of that board and

004that organization. That's another testament to the incredible work you do around the community, and so thank you for that, and thank you to all the board members that serve on that. Again, it's certainly been a big benefit, and if you actually ever get to their website and look at where they actually put their money down, it's really amazing all the things they've touched around the community and around our schools. Really, again, a great organization, much like Joni's Closets, all volunteers, people raising money and putting their time in, really just for the benefit of the community, so really thankful for all the work they've done. Okay, and with that, we'll move on to the superintendent's, oh, we have challenge coins. Peter, I believe you have a challenge coin this evening. Yes, sir. Well, tonight, we have

005the honor of recognizing an outstanding and innovative District 95 educator. Angie Powers, a learning and support coach at May Whitney has gone above and beyond to support our teachers and students in integrating artificial intelligence, or AI, into the teaching and learning experience. Now, Angie is a true partner in education, working alongside elementary students to refine the practices and enhance student learning. In fact, she even came one day and spent her Saturday here with the board to present to the board about how AI is being used in our classrooms. Through her work, Angie has helped teachers leverage our AI platform, School AI, to develop dynamic lessons plans and provide students with valuable tools such as 24-7 one-on-one subject tutoring, and I think that's fantastic. She helps inspire curiosity in both teachers and students, helping educators embed

006AI seamlessly into instruction, using AI as an aid and not as a substitute. Well, you know, I personally think that AI will transform how we live and how we teach and how we learn, and so I'm excited to present this challenge coin to Angie for her great innovative work in this cutting-edge area in our district. Personally, I think the district is doing a fantastic job in this area. We just came from a committee meeting that just solidifies that in my mind, and so I am glad we have people like Angie moving that great work forward. Thanks, Angie. Thank you, Peter. And we'll now move on to the consent agenda. Dr. Golt. Thank you, Mr. Goldberg. This evening, I have for the board the approval of minutes from the open and closed board of education sessions

007held during the meeting on February 20th, 2025, stipends for March 13th, 2025, approval of payrolls, the JAMF annual expense, Apple annual staff laptop purchase, and then personnel, which includes the resignation of certified staff, a change of non-certified staff, employment of non-certified staff, resignation of non-certified staff, and I do wanna just take a moment to acknowledge a name that appeared in the agenda for the board, Linda Howell. Linda has been just an incredible asset to our district over 20 years. I believe we're looking at about 21 years. She will be greatly missed, but we are very excited for her as she embarks on a new journey through retirement. And so congratulations to Linda. And that would be it for the consent agenda. Thank you, Dr. Gold. So I need a motion to approve the consent agenda

008as prepared and presented by the administration. May I have that motion, please? So moved. Second. Thank you, Eileen. Thank you, Peter. We call the roll, please. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Dr. Pincher? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mr. Aitken? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Thank you. Next up is the superintendent's report. Dr. Gold. Thank you. Just to start, board, I wanted to make sure that you were aware it's a lengthy report. In here, I included a lot of the slides from the teaching and learning committee meeting. I'm not gonna walk through each of those, so we'll see if they can keep up with me on the slide movement tonight. But you did receive a communication to the board, and it was in relationship to class size at Isaac Fox. I did want to just let the

009board know that Dr. McArdle was able to reach out to that family and have some conversation, and so I wanted to make sure that the board was aware that district did connect with that family. And then, wanna walk through very quickly, or as quickly as I can. There was a lot shared, as Mr. Aitken alluded to, as it relates to the teaching and learning meeting. We started out with some special guests, and so we had individuals from our Young Adult Center join us, including one of our young adults, and they shared their product that they are currently marketing and selling. And so as we walk through, you're gonna notice that on one of the slides, there is a QR code. We are opening up sales to our Board of Education members, and so essentially, this

010product is a we-dip, you-dip, and so I have about the dips that can be made with their product. So be sure, if you've not tried one yet, be sure to order something from them. But what I was most impressed with is that the students really do walk through a true process of being able to run their own business, and so there's marketing. So you'll see on one of the slides that a student created that marketing tool that's listed right there. They have taste testers, they have sealers of the bags, because each bag needs to be individually sealed. They take in orders, they deliver, et cetera, et cetera. So it's great experience for improving life skills, and it directly connects to employability standards and competencies. So very proud of our students, very proud of our staff

011who are at that facility and supporting our young adults. So there's your be sure to order signal. So all right. We then had some conversation around AI, as Mr. Etienne said earlier. What I did was I placed at your seat so that you'll be able to take a look at this later. But it is the guidance document, and we essentially re-reviewed this document this evening at our earlier meeting. And so I'll give you time to read through that. If you have questions, you certainly are free to reach back out to myself, and if I don't have the answer, I will get the answers for you. But essentially, this committee that has been formed is led by Mrs. Susie Wagner. And a couple of those individual staff members came to your Saturday meeting back in January

012and shared a little bit of information about AI in the classroom. But they've also been working very hard to develop a guidance document that would be something that all stakeholders can use as we're moving forward in using AI in the classroom. So whether it be a student, whether it be a staff member or an administrator, there are expectations that we must follow as it relates to our use of AI. One of the pieces that I'm just gonna quickly provide to you, and we'll see if they can help me find it. I believe it's slide 14. I'll help just a little bit. I think this tool in particular is really, really helpful because it gives a nice visual to everyone, students, parents, and staff, indicating if this is an activity or a learning opportunity that allows

013for full use of AI, if there needs to be some limitations with the AI tool, or if it's not allowed at all. And I think this type of transparency as we move forward with AI in our system is incredibly important to the success of everyone. So I did wanna just point that out. There are many more slides that will walk you through the actual guidance document. All of the work that they did is grounded within both our core values that are posted here in this room, as well as our portrait of a graduate. And so that connection, that strong connection will continue to help us to move forward in a great direction in our district. I'm gonna stop there for a moment and just see if Mr. Etienne or Mrs. Warren would like to add

014anything to that conversation. We spent a lot more time on it. Yeah, I think, first of all, again, I think the district is on a cutting edge, and we are not afraid of it, and that's exciting. We see the benefits of it. We see the concerns, of course, and we have to do it responsibly and ethically, but I think it's great that we're, and Ms. Wagner and her team, and actually the entire committee that works on that deserve a great thanks to being on the cutting edge of this because students are gonna use it. They are using it already, and I'm really, really glad and proud of the district for putting this very comprehensive document together. I agree, we're very much on the cutting edge. There's quite a few schools that are only focused on

015the negative part of AI, that you can't use it for plagiarism or for cheating, and they're really not focusing on the fact that this is here to stay and let's teach our students how to use it correctly and ethically, and this document contains both for family members, for students, for staff members, as well as administrators, so this really is just a fabulous document, and it's a tribute to the team to put this together and be this far ahead in this process right now. Thank you. And so what the board can expect, there are several next steps, and so we're continuing to roll out this document and the expectations that District 95 will have in place moving forward, so just know that that will be ongoing. Additionally, there's gonna be some other tools that they have

016created, and you can expect to receive further email communication from me so that you can experience what those look like. We then took a look at our curriculum development process. We spent a lot of time discussing what this looks like and all of the work that goes into creating a guaranteed and viable curriculum, and so again, I'm not gonna walk through all of these, but what I would like to just make sure that the board is aware of is a couple of things. One, we have committees that are representative committees, so not everyone can serve on the committee. However, we have all areas represented as our teachers walk through a process of essentially aligning our standards, ensuring that our priority standards are very present and understood within these documents. And then additionally, I think one

017of the most important pieces is, if you can go to slide 20, is the creation of Connected 95. There will be a piece of this that will be available to our families online, and so all of our families related to the four main content areas will be able to access what their child would be learning over the course of a year, as well as the approximate timing of that learning as it takes place. And so very excited about this. Our teachers have a different level of access, of course, because they're utilizing this tool to help guide them with their instruction over the course of a school year. So again, really proud that there's a couple of slides that show you what this is going to look like from a parent perspective, and how they'll be

018able to dig in and go deeper to be able to see exactly what some of these standards would mean. If my child was in Algebra 1, for example, these are the kinds of skills that they would be expected to have when they complete X unit. And then I'm just gonna go through some celebrations and some events. And so the first one is we are excited to announce that the Lake Zurich Middle School South had two students, two student athletes who competed at the IESA State Championship, and we had one place first and one place second. You'll see them here. Probably my favorite picture. I think that picture in the middle might be my favorite picture of all time. It's amazing. And so a huge shout out to both Cole as well as CJ. Congratulations for

019their hard work and their efforts. We're very proud of them. I know they were really excited. And then Lake Zurich Middle School North also had a champion amongst their ranks as well. Ryder was able to take sixth place, and so we fared very well at the wrestling tournament, so congratulations to them. Additionally, I just wanna point this out. I believe this might be the first time that we had students participate in the PTO candidate forum, and so thank you to our PTO who put it on, but also for them involving students in that process so that they understand what that might look like and what they might have access to in their future. I also, I'm gonna throw this one to Mr. Goldberg because he had an opportunity just today, and we have pictures of

020it, for the engineering team-based challenge. Mr. Goldberg. I was honored to be asked, I've been asked a few times now, to go over to the high school, work with the engineering students. They get a challenge every year where they have to create something from scratch and they have a contest. This happens to be a air-powered car, and so my job as their mentor was to come in and give them advice on the best way to engineer the solution for it. So I probably get more out of it than the kids do. I love being with them, and just seeing how excited they are, and obviously the incredible brilliance of these young students, and they're all, at least most of them, are planning to eventually matriculate to be engineers. They wanna go to engineering school, and

021be able to work with them at this point in their lives and their careers is fantastic. It's an honor and a privilege for me, so again, I'm just delighted I have a chance to do it. I love it. Thank you for saying yes. We appreciate that very much. And then this next slide shows, live from the heart, Lake Zurich High School Anatomy students actually have the opportunity to participate in a remote-type setting but get to see a real operation going on. We can't really take pictures of the experience exactly because of obvious rules and regulations. However, our students, they really do have incredible opportunities in our district to continue their learning, to inspire them, and to ignite some level of passion in whatever avenue they might be interested in, and this is just one example

022of the exceptional access they have to these kinds of experiences, and again, I commend our staff. It's absolutely wonderful, and I believe that's part of the reason that we've ended up with some blue ribbons, and so I wanted to just showcase to the board, we have been working alongside Mrs. Malik and Mr. Erstad and his team in order, as well as the building principals, to ensure that we're able to brand and showcase our award as well as just the hard work that went into achieving this kind of success, and so you'll notice, I hope, as you're driving by, you'll notice the displays. We have a couple of other things that are gonna be going up as well. Mrs. Malik is working on a podium for each school that also displays our blue ribbon awards, so

023excited about that, and then some other ways to display on the outside of the buildings, so nicely done, it was exciting to see that, and then Mr. Goldberg, you mentioned the foundations gala. I also think, again, it's just so important for us to thank those organizations that do so much for our district, and so we had a great time, both from a board perspective, as well as administrators and teachers and community members, parents, et cetera, being able to come together, enjoy some fun at an event, but also then be able to give to that organization so that, again, they can spend time giving back to our students and our learners and our staff, so a huge shout out to our education foundation, and then lastly, just wanted to make sure that it's on your calendar.

024We have another sip and chat coming up with the board. This one will be strategic planning part two, and then I believe both Dr. McArdle and Mrs. Stallion will be joining me at that event. We have pitch night coming, so I hope that some of you will be able to make that event. Our Lake County awards, we have several staff members who will be acknowledged, and so I hope that you'll be able to come to that event that evening, as well as we have a couple of students who will be the emcees for that event. Graduation, thank you, a special thank you to Dr. Pinter for asking me about that, so I made sure to add that to the list to make sure all of our board members know that we will be celebrating our

025graduates on May 18th at 3 p.m. That will take place in the Lake Zurich High School Stadium. I know we have at least one administrator at the district office who will be celebrating her own child, her last one coming through and graduating from Lake Zurich High School, so it'll be quite an event. And then I did have reserved the date of July 12th for the Board of Education retreat, but I want Mr. Goldberg, this is just our reminder to make sure that we have a conversation about whether or not that date would be acceptable for the board. I'll ping the members. And that's it, thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Call, wonderful. Okay, next up is reports to the board, the first item being the financial dashboard. Do we have any questions on the

026dashboard for this month? Okay, hearing none, we'll move on. Second item is committee updates, I'm sorry, is cash flow. Any questions on cash flow for this month? Okay, hearing none, we'll move on. The next one, which is the one that we will be, I'm sure, talking about for quite a while, is the Empower 95 demographic study and utilization forecast findings. And we have a guest speaker this evening to come and join us. Please. We have a video or a voiceover first, and then we'll be able to take questions. Hello, and thank you for joining us. I'm Matthew Cropper's AI assistant from Cropper GIS Consulting. And I'm here to present the findings of the Lake Zurich School District 95 demographic study and utilization forecast. This study was conducted to provide a clear understanding of school capacity,

027enrollment trends, and building utilization to guide future planning. Let's dive in. Why we're here. Lake Zurich School District 95 engaged Cropper GIS Consulting to complete three key tasks. A school capacity study determining how many students each school can accommodate. A demographic study providing a 10-year enrollment forecast for all schools. A utilization forecast analyzing how enrollment compares to capacity to assess future space needs. Tonight, I will walk through the results of each of these studies and what they mean for the district moving forward. To determine school capacities, we engaged three primary areas of work. One, we conducted on-site visits in January, 2025, meeting with school principals and administrators to analyze classroom usage and space constraints, gather feedback on how space is currently being used, and identify special use rooms, such as resource rooms, music, and art,

028that should or should not be counted toward capacity. Two, we calculated school capacity using best practice class size assumptions, and three, developed a written report summarizing the findings. Calculating capacities. A few important considerations in our capacity calculations. It is important to note that all capacity calculations have utilized student class size maximums and all capacity projections, especially at the elementary level, assume a perfect scenario of just the right number of students to completely fill a grade level with the maximum number of students possible. This is rarely the case and even less so for smaller buildings that fluctuate greatly when a section cap is reached, such as Sarah Adams Elementary School. Looking at elementary schools, spaces like music, art, and resource rooms were not counted in total capacity. Middle and high schools. Spaces such as music and

029art were included in capacity calculations since they often function as regular instructional spaces. However, band and orchestra spaces were excluded. Utilization factor to account for student movement, hallway congestion, and flexible scheduling. We applied 85% utilization for middle schools, 80% utilization for the high school. This utilization factor provides for a clear understanding of how enrollment plays a part in functional capacity for the building. This is shown more clearly on the utilization forecast found later within the presentation. Capacity summary table. The table below provides an overview of functional capacity for each building within the district. This data includes grade levels served, classrooms used by grade level grouping, and total classrooms. Additionally, this chart provides a quick reference to program spaces identified within each building that are used to support students but no included for capacity calculations. This

030breakdown helps us better understand how space is currently being used and where potential capacity constraints may exist in the future. Demographic study. Our demographic study used the cohort component method to forecast future enrollment. This method requires six key data sets, 2020 census data, understanding the baseline population of the district, fertility rates, projecting new births that will eventually enter the school system, mortality rates, factoring in population attrition, migration rates, tracking families moving into and out of the district. Housing development data, estimating future student yield from planned housing, and historical enrollment trends to analyzing how past enrollment has changed over time. Demographic assumptions. To ensure accurate forecasting, we based our projections on a series of key assumptions. Interest rates will stay below 8%, higher rates may slow home sales and enrollment growth, and notably lower rates can

031increase home sales and enrollment growth. All approved housing developments will be built by 2034 and fully occupied by 2035. Private and homeschool participation rates will remain steady. An average of 500 home sales per year will continue for the next 10 years, maintaining housing turnover. These assumptions play a critical role in shaping our forecasts and should be monitored over time. Enrollment forecast summary. Looking at district-wide trends. Elementary enrollment is expected to increase slightly over the next decade due to new housing developments and migration into the district. Middle school enrollment is projected to remain stable with some fluctuations. High school enrollment is forecasted to peak near 1,900 students, but remain manageable within capacity limit. Utilization forecast, methodology. The utilization forecast measures how well school buildings can accommodate future enrollment. Utilization is calculated by dividing each school's enrollment

032by its functional capacity. This analysis helps identify schools that may face overcrowding or underutilization in the future. Utilization findings. As a reminder, the utilization levels below represent the maximum number of students possible for elementary school, which will vary each year based on actual student enrollment. Additionally, 15% of the middle school capacity and 20% of the high school capacity has been removed to account for student movement, hallway congestion, and flexible scheduling. So here's what we found. Elementary schools. Most schools are well-balanced, but May Whitney Elementary is projected to reach 100% capacity in five years before leveling off. Additionally, Sarah Adams Elementary School should be further evaluated for effective utilization as its small size relative to other buildings creates a more dramatic impact for classroom needs as sections are close to capacity. Middle schools. Middle school south

033has more available space than middle school north, suggesting an opportunity to balance enrollment between the two if necessary. Lake Zurich High School is nearing capacity, reaching 100% utilization, which still provides 20% building capacity for student movement, hallway congestion, and flexible scheduling at its peak before declining slightly. This will require ongoing monitoring, but does not yet indicate an immediate need for expansion. Summary next steps and final thoughts. To proactively manage these findings, we recommend monitoring enrollment trends at LZHS and May Whitney Elementary for potential space constraints. Further investigate the unique capacity challenges related to small size of Sarah Adams Elementary School, considering adjustments to middle school enrollment if necessary to optimize space usage. Tracking housing development activity and its impact on student population growth, ensuring that facilities planning aligns with long-term capacity needs while maintaining flexibility

034for future changes. Overall, district-wide utilization remains well-balanced with no immediate need for additional space. However, continued monitoring is essential to ensure that facilities continue to meet student needs over the next decade. Thank you for your time. At this time, I'll hand over the presentation to Mr. Matt Cropper to answer any questions live this evening. Good evening, Matt. I'm kind of surprised you didn't send your AI to speak as well, but we're happy to have you in person, honestly. Maybe in a few years, that'll feel right. Trust me, it'll happen. Okay, so I'm sure the members are gonna have questions. Thank you for the volumous report. It was quite a bit to get through. I think your summary tables, though, are fantastic, by the way. This is really, I think, sums it up. This is great,

035really well done, easy to digest information, so I appreciate that. So, Natasha, we'll start with you this evening. Thank you. It was a deep dive to go into, and the numbers were well done. And I know, I believe you mentioned this before, but in the report for the future prospective enrollments, you said properties that were currently planned and identified to build for residential, but does that include properties that are prospective? For instance, we all know of certain properties that are currently zoned commercial, but there are thoughts of making it residential that could sway numbers. Are those included in these numbers? No, ma'am, we focus mostly on those that are certain, that are active or have been approved and slated for development. We do that because we found, more times than not, that things that are

036prospective, sometimes they lag on, and they could lag longer than what we anticipate, and we would end up potentially over-forecasting enrollment. We do have about, the critical threshold to watch is that number of, the number of home sales and new homes and existing home sales on an annual basis. If you maintain that rate, these forecasts will hold as they are forecasted. If it slows down, then in the housing market slows down, then enrollment's gonna, it's gonna be lower than what we forecasted. Okay, I just wanna be clear. So, for example, I'm thinking of two properties right now. I believe there's one in Hufflin Woods and one in Lake Zurich that are currently zoned commercial, but have perspective to be pretty big home developments. Those are not included, and without those included, we are still looking

037at 101 capacity at May Whitney, potentially 100% capacity at the high school. Yes, ma'am, that's correct. Okay, so that's really important, I think, for our community to understand and for the board to understand, because just for community development sake. And then what was, you know, we've seen in education that self-contained classroom special needs for students continues to grow every year. How is that factored into classroom space in the schools? Well, it's definitely a factor. It's something that needs to be monitored and watched. The needs of students have increased from year to year since I've been doing this business for about 20 years. And so, and as those needs, as the needs get greater, the amount of space that students require becomes greater. And so, you know, you do have special use rooms in your buildings

038that serve students at different capacities, and those have not been counted in the capacity so that we can make sure that there's space available for some smaller group instruction and those educational offerings. As you, if the demand increases and you need more of those spaces, essentially what it would do is lower the capacity of your schools. And that, you know, the school, you could have the same number of students, but if you have greater, more special use rooms that are needed, then the school's gonna feel more full. So it's definitely something that you need to keep an eye on. And monitor and see how that can impact enrollment and utilization of your schools. And Mrs. Daniker, we did have some pretty significant conversations in that area. So I'm gonna ask Dr. McArdle to speak to

039that. So it looks a little bit different by level, but in terms of specialized use rooms, if we think about our programs, our specialized programs at the elementary level, namely May Whitney, as well as Sarah Adams, each of those buildings have the capacity for four or five classrooms just for those programs alone. So for example, May Whitney, with the increase anticipated next year, will have almost one dedicated per grade level. So we're comfortable at present with the amount of space at the elementary level for those specialized programs. When it gets to middle and high, those programs also have dedicated rooms. So for example, self-contained programming at Middle School South has sixth, seventh, eighth accounted for in those spaces within their building. So we did work with Dr. Romano, who in turn shared the information with

040our partner. And so we made sure that students weren't counted in a way that was misrepresentative of the space that was required for those programs. And then along those lines, I think Dr. McArdle, if you could answer that, because the self-contained for sure, we wanna make sure those students are protected and their space is protected. What about students that are pulled out for resource? Are those spaces protected in this count? So for example, if a student is pulled out for resource services specific to special education, at present our providers have their spaces that they can use and then we also have a variety of spaces depending on the building. So for example, Spencer Loomis has porches, it's what they're called. May Whitney has dens. We have small resource rooms around May Whitney. So there's a

041lot of flexible spaces. And I believe those are represented as smaller use spaces in the report that our providers are able to access. So they're not full classroom spaces, but I could certainly pull a group of two or three students to work with them. But that is an area to monitor as well. Okay, great. Thank you, Natasha. Peter? Thank you. I think you did ask one of the questions I was gonna ask. Great job again. Very comprehensive and frankly quite timely because we've had a lot of people asking us about classroom size and what we're doing about it. And so I wanna compliment, I think it was your idea, the school board and the whole board and the administration for doing it at that time. You talked about immigration growth. That is the main reason

042why you may see some population increase. I think you had 121 students, right? Or 2.1% between 2025 and 2030, an additional 52 through 2034 and 2035. I'm just wondering if at some point people stop migrating in because you're built out in Lake Zurich. Is that calculated in your assumptions here? Yes, sir. We did calculate migration. We do have, what we do before we do an enrollment forecast, we study the full population. And that's where we really look at fertility, mortality, migration, all these different components, what they call components of change for demographic analysis. The migration component, we measured about a net 290 people, total people moving in between 2020 and 2025. 25 to 2030, it's 240, it tapers down a little bit. And then at the end of our forecast, it slows down a little

043bit more. But the point is that we do see net in migration and so more people are moving into your district than moving out. And that's due to the new construction that's going on in your district, as well as existing home sales and people aging, empty nesting and home turnover in your existing housing stock as well. Yeah, but right, which is great. But I mean, the corollary to that is is there a point when you just don't have enough more space to build? Well, when you build out, you're gonna be dependent on existing home sales and turnover to maintain that. So usually districts that are fully built out, a lot of it depends on the age structure of the communities and things like that and where they are on the life cycle of housing if

044they're gonna turn over. It's very possible that an area that's landlocked and that they will see some enrollment decline because especially a district that has experienced enrollment growth from new construction. And then when you hit that build out phase, it'll take you a few years for those homes to yield, they'll yield students because new homes, subdivisions typically yield the greatest number of students when they're first built. So a new subdivision has the largest number of students when it's first built and built out and people are moved in. Then as people age, some people stay put, their kids age out, go to college and they don't go. So those yields kind of go down over time. I'd say that something to watch, I would potentially anticipate maybe in the next 20 years or so, you could

045see some enrollment stability and maybe some decline in your district. But a lot of it really depends on what's happening with the existing housing market and the existing housing market is much more dominant of a factor than even new home construction because there's a lot more existing homes in this district and there are new homes that are being built. And so watching that existing housing market and what's happening with that with interest rates and age structure of neighborhoods and communities, that's gonna be a bigger driver of change, especially in the out years when new homes are, when you're built out and you don't have any new home areas to build. Yeah, now my second question. Ms. Donegar already talked about the special needs students and this is somewhat related, the English language students coming in.

046We've seen a lot of students come in from Ukraine and Russia and some Spanish speaking students as well and other parts of the world. I'm just wondering nationally, are you seeing a trend that suggests, obviously we have laws in the state and we have other things that constrain classroom size, but are you seeing a trend nationally that suggests that the classroom size might get smaller? Or is it, or do you anticipate in the next 10 years our current assumption of what the classroom size are in Illinois will remain the same? I think it really depends from district to district on the dynamics of the students and the students that you're educating and where they're from and the needs that they have. I'd say that if your needs increase or students with greater needs goes up,

047then the amount of space that you need is going to go up and so that class size will typically go down. Then an ideal class size will go down if you have a lot more, if you have students that need more specialized and focused instruction than just in the general educational setting. And I would actually, I would say, I wanna go back to something you said earlier, Mr. Etienne. What I would say is that we could even maintain the enrollment, however, when needs go up, typically, as Dr. McArdle indicated earlier, you need more space. And so you need opportunities to go to a different space to access some different types of educational opportunities and then go back into your general education classroom. So it would continue to push our space. Okay, I'm sorry, I just

048have one last question. When I was looking at the data, I saw zeros for the young adult center and I'm sure there is a rational reason that I just missed why that was so. And so maybe I just missed something. I mean, did that the 15 and then zeros, did I miss something? What was the question? I'm sorry. For the projection for the young adult center, the future projections. Oh, why did we not calculate a capacity for that building? Yeah, and your projections for the future for coming years, it looks like we had 15 and zero, zero, zero for subsequent load. It was all 15, it just stayed flat. Is there? Oh, okay. Can I actually add? Maybe there's an obvious answer that I just missed. Yes. It is probably excluded because that population is

049so specific and unique. It's not like we can predict a family with significant needs who would move in who would also choose to stay through 22. So he has current enrollment, but that one I would say doesn't fit into the other modeling that was presented in the report because the population served in that building is so narrow, if that makes sense. Yeah. Correct. Yes, we hold those special programs constant through the life of the forecast because they're subject to how many students you can offer and it's hard to forecast that from a demographic-based perspective. And we do a lot of the same, you'll notice the pre-K enrollment, we hold that constant through the life of the forecast because that can be, there's a lot of preschool age children in the district. And so I always

050tell districts typically with pre-K, as many seats as you offer, you're probably gonna fill it up. And so we hold it constant so that because it's typically capped based off of available space or how much the program can manage. Thank you very much. Thanks, sir. Great work. Yes, sir. Thank you, Peter. Eileen. Thank you very much for the report. It was very comprehensive. The one area that I struggle with, but I know you said that there's a high degree of confidence is how do we predict kids not yet born? Can you just do a deep dive and explain that and then speak to what gives you a high degree of confidence in that prediction? Sure. So our demographers are trained and educated in demography. And so they do a lot of study and they have

051educational backgrounds in doing this kind of work. And doing the birth projections, they look at fertility and they calculate what they call total fertility rate. For the area, they also look at the age structure of the population because there's certain age groupings within the population have the highest proportion or a highest possibility of having children. So they look at that age band of the population in your area. And then they also look at what's happened in the past too and look from 2020 till now and how have things changed and what they've looked at. So they look at the total population and they also look at birth data from the county. And so we look at historical birth information to see how that's been tracking. And so they try to cover as many variables, many

052data points that they can to get a better understanding of what's gonna happen with the youngest children, the birth. And that really is the foundation for growth because a lot of the middle school and high school forecast our students in elementary are already here and they're aging in. But it gets hard when you get to that kindergarten and next year, the next kindergarten is a projection or forecast. But the team that I have, we do this really well. We constantly track our forecast work that we do in other districts across the country. And we try to, our goal is to be within 2% of the district, total district enrollment in our forecasted enrollment at any particular year in our forecast. We typically track very well within that. I think lately we've been in evaluations that

053we've been doing, we've been a little bit on the high side by about 1.5%, somewhere around there. But I know we just finished a study a couple years ago in Fremont, Illinois, and we were running a little bit, we actually ended up being 1.5% low in this year's enrollment. And our forecast was for two years ago. But a lot, and that's because we anticipated housing data, looking at housing subdivision development and the district's enrollment outperformed our forecast because what happened was this one subdivision was one developer, well the developer decided to sell some excess lots to other developers. And so that development built out much quicker than we anticipated. And so a lot of times when we look and study our enrollment, we look at the error and sometimes it's a blip and maybe just

054what we see with growth, sometimes depending on what happens in the housing market, that growth may come sooner or it may be lagged a little bit and come a little bit later. But we have a very high confidence in our forecasts and we track them constantly and we'll be tracking yours as well. And next year we will collect data and look and see how we're tracking in terms of accuracy. And if we start to become above or below that 2% threshold, we start to go back and look at our assumptions. What's going on with what we assumed, what is not happening? And typically it's the things like the mortgage rates, things that are happening with the economy like that or the homes, which also yields, is closely related to home sales activity as well. So

055the home sales market is kind of a, is a real pivotal thing to watch as you, as when I leave this district and you're looking at these data, just keep an eye on the market conditions and things like that. And if things start to slow down, then we'll probably end up being a little too high. But if they start to pick back up, then we'll probably run a little bit on the low side. Did COVID impact any of your data, your previous data assumptions? Absolutely. COVID was the, probably the craziest thing any of us living experienced and one of the craziest things. Most school districts lost about three to 6% of their elementary school enrollment the year after COVID. And this is generally speaking what we've seen across the country. That's been, usually that's concentrated

056in the K through second, K through third grades. The earliest grade, the youngest grades are the ones that we saw biggest drops as a result of COVID. And COVID impacted everybody and it impacted everybody differently. Some did not have as much of a drop as others. We've seen that the urban school districts did not have as much of a drop as the suburban school districts. And so what we do is we have to use COVID as kind of an outlier. And we look, we study your enrollment and we look at what's been leading up to COVID and then we see COVID in the year after COVID. We kind of set that aside and say, okay, this was an abnormality in our world. Then about 2022, we start studying it heavier, more heavily what's happening since

05722 and up till now. And we're constantly tracking return rates from COVID. We had originally thought that there was gonna be about, our first hypothesis is there's gonna be about a 75% bounce back the next year, right? This is in 2021 when we're trying to figure out what the heck's gonna happen with enrollment. But what we really saw was it was not just a quick return to public schools. It was just a slow matriculation back. And a lot of the kids who left public schools because of COVID never came back. And I have a neighbor who they put their kids in private school when COVID happened. And it's, you think about the parent and the child, they put their child in a different setting. Well, it's kind of impactful already to move them to a

058different school. And so then when COVID starts to work itself out and get back, things get back to normal, that the students are already in a different setting, made new friends and sort of adapted to a different environment. So they let them ride through the rest of their years there. But so COVID certainly had an impact. I guess you've sort of already answered it, but was, is there a residual impact going forward? And does that, did that impact your data? That we have? From COVID? Yeah. I think it's, I think that the, I think you're still gonna see some slow, maybe some slow matriculation back. It may be more in the middle school as students may opt for, who are taken out of the public school setting because of COVID. They may be there through

059the K-8 and then you may see more come back at high school. And so, but it's hard to tell. I think that what the demographers are doing at this point is just looking at, that's focusing on the population and the migration. And that, the matriculation back from COVID is just one of probably 20 different things that they're kind of tracking and trying to study to assess what's gonna happen next year or the year after. But overarching, does COVID impact your degree of certainty in terms of the data that you provided us? I think we're at the point now where COVID is kind of working its way into the sunset, hopefully. And I feel like by isolating a couple of years where it was really impactful, we're able to sort of isolate that abnormality in the

060data. And I think we have, I feel like we have good data moving forward to where COVID isn't such a big player like it was two or three years ago. And Kelly, or Dr. Galt, I apologize for not asking this in advance, but it didn't occur to me. Didn't we, in the not too recent past, have more than 2,000 people in the high school? We had 2,200 about four years ago, five years ago. So I guess I'm just trying to sync up that information that we're at 100% capacity with 1900 when we had. But go back to what he said. He's looking at that 100% is of 80%. So I think that that's the piece that you have to remember. So could the high school function with a greater number of students? It could based

061on your report. It has. And it has. Yeah. I don't know if it was at 22. I'm looking at Mrs. Malik. I think it was at 2,100 prior to me coming. So, but we would be able to function. And so just remember, at the middle school level, he's talking about 85%. At the high school level, it's 80%. At elementary, you're looking at a more pure number of 100%. That's correct, yes ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Eileen. Lisa? So I noticed when you were going through the available spaces and the ones that you were excluding, there were some schools that I guess had a classroom open and it's being used for PT or EL or something, which makes sense if I can have a bigger space to operate and I'd utilize it. But that was still

062included in capacity and there's comfort that there's room to move that special out. There's a space for them to move to if that were to happen? In my calculations, I didn't take away any spaces that were used for like PTOT or special services. I didn't take away any of those spaces from or make any assumptions in my study. I felt like every space that they had, they needed and there was not another space. If a school is using, say, a full-size classroom for a special use like that, I typically ask the principal, is there a space that could be used if, say, you ended up with a bubble moving through and you needed more space? Is there any flexibility? What would you do with this classroom? And sometimes they'll say, oh, well, I'll move them

063over to this room and we're looking at the floor plan together and they'll point out that room. So that may- Which is probably where they were before this thing's opened up kind of thing. But there was none of that and none of that happened in this study. There was one, maybe two cases where there was a classroom spaces but in the certain segment of the building, there were no resource spaces anywhere close by. So I can think of one case where there was a smaller room already and I had in my notes that it could hold less than 20 students but it was being used for a full-size, full-grade level. In that case, I set that out and I itemized it as a resource, a special use space just because it was smaller and then

064there were no special use spaces anywhere in that section of the building for them to bring students in for a smaller group discussion. As we've been presented with, just recently looking at redoing the rest of the B wing and the second floor, education is moving a lot towards more breakout spaces, I'm sure you saw those in May Whitney, there's a lot of open spaces where classes can move to or collaborate with another class. How did you treat those kinds of spaces in your calculations? The open collaborative spaces, I don't count into the capacity. Newer designs of buildings, they build in these resource spaces nicely and so it's much harder to calculate capacity of an older building that was designed and built in the 50s because they're double-loaded corridors with just classrooms on both sides and

065back then they didn't have resource spaces so in those cases I have to look and see do we need a resource space. Luckily in your district, even those older buildings, they were progressively designed even as old as some of them are where they have those little nooks, small breakout rooms that are paired, like two rooms have a little small breakout room connected to each sort of paired room and that works really nice and I saw the students in there, I saw teachers having a small group in there and so that gives you a lot of flexibility with that resource and special use rooms but in spaces that don't have that, I typically have to set aside at least one room on a wing or a couple rooms on a wing knowing that kids need that.

066Otherwise they're gonna be on a folding table in the hallway. Which is not what you want. Not what we want. You hate when OT's in the hallway. Right, right. I know we talked a little bit about the self-contained classrooms and that they are reserved and there but those students in those classes are included in your counts, correct? Yes. When you're going into these capacity calculations. The special use rooms, I don't count any class size assumption in those rooms but those students are in the general education classrooms so they are counted there. In the total population. In the total population. Yes ma'am. Thank you. And then it's interesting, I never really thought about tracking the housing sales and I'm also thinking about in our area how we've had quite a few retirement options, local retirement options

067be built in the last decade or so which I think would also contribute to that when you sell your home because you don't want to move away from the area if you have other options. But I'm also wondering, do you take into account any sort of the status of the state? I mean we're hearing about how Illinois is negative with people moving out. Is it truly just seen in these house sales that the sales and purchases are equal or is that sort of how you look at that? We look at the home sales activity and age structure. You'll see in some of our demographic study, some of our tables, we look at the percentage of households 35 to 54, percentage of households over 65. We do have other proxy variables for sort of the, for

068the dynamic of turnover and aging, empty nesting. One of the key, one of the key tables that we like to look at is it's percentage of single person households that are 65 over 65. That's the real, that's one of the key variables we found that the higher proportions of that population are the ones that are most likely to turnover and sell their homes. And so we track the age structure of the population as more so for the turnover assessment than new home construction. But when it comes to new home construction, we definitely like to look and understand what is the type of home that's being built. Obviously something that's 55 or age restricted is not gonna have any children in it. And so we look at that too as part of that. I know we

069have one development that was supposed to be for retirees, but we have young families in it and we have a bus going through there. So it's, even though it's not a rule, it's just the intent, it just didn't actually happen. As was mentioned earlier, we've been getting quite a few questions about classroom size and has always been answered. It's part of our union negotiations. So I'm wondering if administration can partner. I would believe you have a beautiful model going on that if we could look at the impact, I noticed the class sizes that you used are what is in our current contract. If we can be starting to look at the effect, I mean, we're already seeing capacity numbers, which I do understand are not 100%. And of course the kids are never going to

070the perfect number of first graders and the perfect number of second graders are gonna show up. But that's sort of a nice way to get a feel for what would be the impact. I mean, nobody likes redistricting. Nobody likes having to shift stuff around. Nobody likes being in trailers. So I think that helps us potentially to get a sense of what the effect on schools would be if we do start looking at changing those numbers. I am happy to do that work. I can look around the table. I see board members nodding their heads. So we are happy to take that on. Thank you. I just think it's a great tool that you've created that can really help us. Thank you, Lisa. Kelly? I sincerely appreciate a fellow data nerd. Good job. And I mean,

071that was so much respect, but just listening to everybody asking you these questions, you know your stuff. You definitely understand demography. But I wanted to ask you, so how far did you go back with the enrollment trends for Lake Zerg? We typically like to look, usually the demographers want five years of data, five years of historical data. But with COVID, they like to look a little bit before that. So usually around 2018, 19 is kind of like where we from there till now was what we typically like to collect to see kind of what's happened before COVID and then with COVID, what happened in COVID and then now and how have you recovered from that? Okay, so we didn't go back to like 2008, no. We typically don't go back that far, no ma'am. Okay,

072and then, so I know you said for May Whitney that there was like a five year timeframe when we would be at capacity. Did you mention when that might happen for the other schools? I didn't hear that, I might have missed it. Yes, May Whitney is the only elementary school that's going to be at 100% in the utilization forecast. That's anticipated to be around 2026. The only other schools that start to get into the pink or start to get within the 85 to 95% range, Spencer Loomis will peak at about 95% in 28, 2028, 29. And then we do see Whitney is kind of a curve. It's going up, but then it levels back down to about 94% at the end of our forecast. And then the only other school that's up there, Middle School

073North stays at around 90% at around the second five year period of our forecast. And then the high school is just teetering right around 100%, above 95 through the life of the forecast. So I would say that from what I've seen in these data and the results of this is that I don't really feel like there's an immediate need for you to do something to address specific schools overcrowding, but it's just something that I would watch, especially over the next couple years, to see if it continues to grow, like especially Whitney, that's one to keep an eye on. And then there's a little bit of an imbalance between Middle School North and Middle School South. And again, Middle School North is not overcrowded, so sometimes it's best just to let it ride and see how

074it plays out. But if you do see pressures at Middle School North, South has some space that you could possibly leverage with some boundary changes. Okay, and then I understand that you're a demographer. Do you ever have, I'm just curious, people like sociologists or somebody like that who work with you all on, I'm just curious about how we're making plans for the future based on the past, and the past is so different than the present. I think we haven't seen a present like this ever in the history of education and things like the Department of Education being very unstable, the economy being very unstable. I would say the stock market's getting nailed. When we see that kind of data, we know that people don't have usually as many children. And I think we can think

075back to 2008 when people weren't having as many kids because of the housing market crash. So I'm just curious if you looked at any kind of data or data in the past when it comes to really strange times, when it comes to birth rates and then buying houses, do you have any thoughts on that? I'm just curious. Yeah, it's definitely a volatile time. Just for example, the tariff discussion that's going on in the country right now. I think one of my demographers mentioned that. Don't quote me on this. I think he said almost 80% of our lumber comes from Canada. And so thinking about that, new homes, that can impact new home sales. It's definitely increased the cost of a new home if they do get taxed, the tariffs like that. And that can actually

076result in slower sales. And so we're in a time right now where we have to keep an eye on what's happening and watch what's going on and monitor our assumptions to see what may have been violated. When COVID happened, people thought that it was gonna be a baby boom because everybody was stuck at home. But that was totally not the case. We didn't think it was gonna be the case. People were saying that, but people were actually scared. They're like, I'm not gonna have kids right now because I don't know what's gonna happen. So it was quite the opposite. And we saw birth rates actually go down in that time period because of the uncertainty in the world. And also being stuck at home with our relatives all the time and we're like, oh, no

077thanks. Yeah, people thought it was gonna be like the blizzard effect, but it was not. It was quite contrary. Yeah, okay, so I guess I'm asking you, can you read the future? And obviously not, but thank you for- We cannot, but I will tell you that there is uncertainty and we're not sort of in a stable period where I feel like these assumptions are gonna stay through the course of the 10 years, depending on what happens in our country with the socio-political environment. I mean, we have to really watch these and the volatility could affect our forecast accuracy. And okay, one last thing. Do you think it would be pretty safe to say that the birth rate might drop given the kinds of things that are happening now, if they continue to happen? I don't

078think it's, I don't think so. I think the really, the birth rates, the biggest factor in birth rates are women and childbearing age and the proportion of women and childbearing age in any community. And that's kind of the main driver of what they study in terms of fertility. And so it's possible, it really depends, it's hard to say, the magnitude of, or the severity of what could happen or if something, it could really cause a seismic change in people's decisions. But I think that, I think that I don't have any concerns that the birth rates are gonna fall through the floor. I think that they, that what we have forecasted are gonna maintain unless something unforeseen happens. I always tell people like the five years of our, first five years of our forecast, they're pretty

079spot on. The second five years is very subject to impact from unknowns. I mean, I always, every board I say, think about what's happened in the last 10 years. And every time I say that, I always think there's something seismic that has happened in a 10 year window that just kind of throws a crowbar in everything that we're doing. Have to relook at it. Awesome, thank you so much. Thank you, Kelly. Matt, thank you again for traveling down from Minnesota to come and visit us. We certainly appreciate your travels coming to see us. I wanna say again. It's Ohio, Ohio, I'm sorry. Ohio, one of those. It's not too far. Did you drive or fly, by the way? I flew, yes, sir. Okay, good. You know, I think you said it a few minutes ago

080and I think this is a very important thing for us to be thoughtful about. And that is, we've done a number of these demographic surveys over the years. And what we found is, I'm sure your work is just as good or better than anybody's we've had, but the five year error bar is actually very small. It's 1% or less plus or minus, right? So we have a high degree of certainty in the numbers. Obviously there are events that can happen to change it. And I think in our case, and please tell me if I'm right or wrong, the biggest thing that's gonna happen is any swing in interest rates because that's gonna largely drive the housing market, right? If interest rates continue to be high, they're probably gonna remain about where they are. If they

081drop down substantially, we're gonna see a big increase. So I think the thing that we need to monitor to really give us an idea to ensure that we have a good quality of data here is what interest rates are doing. I think that's gonna be the, you know, barring anything like, God forbid, like another pandemic or something. Interest rates are probably gonna drive the buying decisions of people because the biggest single change in our community is likely to be new housing that comes in and turnover of existing housing. And so I do think, one of the things that, and I think Eileen touched on earlier, that is kind of concerning to me is, you know, we did, the high school has been 250 students higher and was that way for quite a period of time

082and we didn't experience any significant issues with capacity. So, you know, I'm a little bit concerned about your number of near 100% with 1,900. Doesn't seem, and I don't know, maybe we're using the space differently than we were five years ago and that accounts for it. I'm not sure. Did you wanna answer that, Dr. Cole? I would just say we're using it a little bit differently since I've been here. We did have some construction going on and so we did flip the way that we were using space on the first floor and the second floor with the library hub and we did reduce the number of classrooms that are on the first floor versus how many were on the second floor previous when we flipped the hub and then the engineering space. Our engineering classrooms

083are much larger than the classrooms we would have had previous. What's the net net change on classrooms? I can't answer that. The D wing is going from, it currently have about 12, I believe classrooms up there is going to eight. That'll be another, that would be another shift. But the classrooms are, they're too small up there right now. So I would say these shifts were good shifts, but they were shifts that we need to consider. Yeah, just kinda understand why, right? Yes. Another factor, another thing to factor is the CTC, the CareerTech students. At any particular time on campus, there's about 100 students that are not there because they're off campus. So when you look at enrollment of a high school, you have to factor that in because they're not, that full enrollment is at

084any point in time is not all at that school typically. And we received our projections again for next year this morning at a board meeting and we're still at about 100. Yeah, I think again, the bottom line is I believe that your data is very solid. I believe that you're good at what you do and I think having this information helps us make informed decisions and I think we have to be mindful of things that could skew the data substantially. I believe right now the principal thing it would skew it would be some radical change in the economic situation which could be higher or lower interest rates or other things. I do think that I'm interested about how you've used 85 and 90% capacity as capacity, allowing space for movement and stuff. I have to

085go back and look at our previous demographic studies to see if that number or number like it was used. I don't remember off the top of my head, but I'm curious is that an industry standard to use numbers like that? How did you arrive at those numbers? Yes, it's something I've used for years and it was actually something that I had seen other professionals do as well. So in my course of doing capacity studies for 15, 20 years I have seen probably more, almost every time, I had a meeting with Harrisburg, Pennsylvania this morning and the architect did their capacity study and they did the same thing, 85% and so I see it very regularly. And so yes sir, I would say it is a best practice. And I think I like what Mrs. Warren

086suggested about doing a sensitivity analysis. If we modify the data in terms of class sizes, what does that do to capacity? It's a nice thing for us to see. Obviously I think you can probably guess what'll happen, but it's nice for us to have that tool so we can look at that as we consider class sizes going forward in the future. What would your recommendation be to us in terms of the frequency at which that we should have you come back and just do a refresh on this? I'd say tracking that 2% is the key thing. Typically we've had districts come back after 10 years say we need another forecast just because we ran out the forecast period. I would say that it really depends on what the district prefers and what you're using the

087forecast for. I'd say more common where every two years or so we do updates for districts because they just wanna have a fresh look and have a fresh perspective on the forecast of the demographic study. But I would recommend five years, every five years. That's what we had been doing is five years. Yeah, I think five years is a good one unless things start to go out of line or start to deviate from the accuracy starts to get a little off. That's when I would revisit and maybe look a little sooner. But five years I think is a good number to target. Okay, well Matt, thank you once again for coming and we sincerely appreciate you and I know this report was fantastic and it's gonna be a reference document for us to use going

088forward as we make important and hard decisions. So thank you. Thank you sir, thank you very much. So we're moving on now to discussion without action, the first item being the disposal of equipment. Good evening Mr. Goldberg and the members of the board and Dr. Galt. I'm here tonight to talk about the disposal of equipment. The administration seeks to dispose of equipment that is no longer needed for district operations. The list includes furniture and equipment that no longer meets the needs or aligns with the district's educational goals. As in previous instances, the district will offer these items for sale through auction, donation, recycling and then regular waste removal process. It's the administration's recommendation to the Board of Education to authorize the disposal of the attached equipment through public auction, donation, recycling to the greatest extent

089and standard waste removal. And I'll turn it back over to you for any questions. Thank you, do you have any questions, any board member have any questions regarding this? Can I just say kudos, Gene, to you and your group for actually putting a link on the website. There's some good stuff on here. There's some cool kitchen equipment. I mean, there's like some nice work chairs for work at home desks and such, that nice mini refridges if you're sending a kid off to college. So thank you for making it so easy for our, and I think our community has been taking advantage of it a whole lot more because it's easier to find and it's a great way, you know, as my daughter loves to thrift, it's a way to thrift. There are good, so thank

090you. Thank you for doing that. So let me ask one quick question as well. Is all the equipment that's on there, particularly the kitchen equipment, the refrigerators and other mixers and such, is it all functional? At one point, we don't guarantee anything works. The mixer- Didn't think there was a warranty. Yeah, the mixer, it's as is, where is, no warranties. The mixer is kind of old, so we're not sure. We were actually talking about it today about plugging it in just to see if it works. Yep, the fridges, when we took them out, they were working, so. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. We'd also like to see if we could add it to consent for next meeting. Unless anybody has an objection, sure. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up

091is the Skyward Financial HR System Conversion. Good evening. We have spoken to the board, I think the last two financial workshops regarding our need to upgrade our financial and HR software. We currently use Skyward. We've used them since 2003. We were notified a couple years ago that they will be migrating to their new version. That's called Cumulative, even though we do not like the way it's spelled. But that is the name of the new version. So we do have to migrate or change systems. So between Dr. Romano and my department, we have worked for the last year and a half or so with exploring other options. We believe it's in our best interest to stay with Skyward and upgrade to the new version. You can see the cost projections here based on their proposals, which

092is significantly less than what we had anticipated when we first began this process about a year and a half ago. The important thing to note with the migration and upgrade is that they do not allow you to go live at key parts of the year. So they will not let you change over during fiscal year end, calendar year end, and other times of the year. So we have narrowed down two dates that we could go live, which would be November 2026 or February 2027, both of which would be fine for both of our departments. We just need to work backwards from there to make sure we have everything in place, and we'll pick one of those dates. We also have a proposal in here to bring over all of our data, which is just an

093additional, it's $1,000 per year. So we are proposing that we bring all of our historical over from the current version, not just the last 10 years. So you could see that potential cost is included as well. We've also worked with our technology department regarding the server and hosting requirements that will be necessary, and they are aware of all the timelines as well. So we would be bringing this back to you next meeting for a motion to approve the conversion and allow Dr. Romano to sign that contract. Thank you, Julie. Do we have any questions for you on this matter, folks? You know, this is a huge project, and I know looking at this saying it's not even gonna be done for a year and a half, but that's a lot of work. So please be

094careful when you're backing into which date you're gonna try to go live, because that's a lot of extra work for a lot of different people, but I do appreciate this is gonna be a great, hopefully it's a win because it's a better system. And they do have a nice migration system where we can start preparing now. We can run reports and it'll already tell us the cleanup that we need to do in order to prepare. So we will get going on a lot of that as soon as possible. Do we, so like when we convert over the data from 2002 going forward, do we continue to maintain a backup of that somewhere? Like, God forbid something happens and we don't wanna lose all that data. Is that, do we do that? Yes, so both systems

095will stay live. And so the Skyward 2.0 will remain as we convert so we won't lose anything, but they have guaranteed that all of our historicals will come over. Okay, anything else for Julie? Thank you very much, we appreciate it. And if it's okay with Mr. Goldberg, I could put this on consent next time? Board members, any issues with that? Okay, yes. Thank you. Okay, next up is the food service update and the 2025-2026 contractual terms. Looks like Joe's coming up. Good evening. This presentation is intended to provide an update of the school food service programs for the 2024-2025 school year. In the spring of 2024, the district embarked on a process to improve the quality and experience of the food service program in district 95. A survey of district 95 families in November of

0962023 guided the priorities set forth in the district's request for proposals. These priorities emphasize nutrition and choice, as well as responsiveness to student needs. As a result of the process, district 95 has welcomed two new food service providers into the schools this year, Quest Food Management Service at the high school and Whitsun's Culinary Group in the elementary and middle schools. As you will see in the upcoming slides, both companies have been fantastic partners in our mission to provide high quality meal service to students. One of the key indicators of a successful food service program is the level of student participation in our breakfast and lunch meal service. As you can see from this slide, nearly all district 95 schools have seen an increase in average daily lunch participation. This increase is most prevalent at the

097middle schools, where student participation has increased 48% at middle school north and 82% at middle school south. In addition to tracking student participation in the schools, a recent survey was sent to all district 95 families asking for feedback regarding their experience with the new food service programs. For the high school program, 80% of the respondents indicated that they were satisfied with the program. 56 of the respondents rated the program better than previous years, with nearly 95% of respondents rating it as the same or better. The survey also requested feedback on the specific priorities established in last year's family feedback and program proposal. At the high school level, over 50% of families rated the program as good or excellent in all four areas of quality, taste, variety, and price. The elementary and middle school food service

098program has also received positive feedback. Nearly 3 quarters of respondents were satisfied with the overall program at these schools. When asked about the progress of the program in the key area of nutrition, 90% of K-8 families indicated that this year's program was the same or better than in previous years. 47% of families rated both the nutritional level and overall program as better than previous years. At the middle school level, families indicated a high level of satisfaction in key indicators of the program. In particular, 73% of middle school respondents rated the variety as good or excellent. At the elementary level, the feedback provided by families indicate a continued desire to improve the quality and taste of the food service program. It is important to note that the K-8 food service program is governed by the National

099School Lunch Program, which stipulates portion sizes, calorie and sodium content, and paid lunch prices. District administration is bringing two proposed changes to the food service program for the 2025-26 school year. At the high school level, 2024-25 meal deal prices have been kept at the same level as the 2022-23 school year. For next school year, district administration is proposing a price increase to align with the recommended meal deal price of $4. This represents a 25 cent meal price increase. It is also important to note that many students may be purchasing items that qualify for the meal deal but are making other selections that cause the price of the meal to exceed this $4 price. Students who are interested in the meal deal should ensure that they select a quest choice meal, indicated with a green logo,

100a fruit or vegetable, and a water or milk. Items such as fries and soda are not included in the meal deal pricing. As part of the National School Lunch Program at the K-8 level, all contracts for food service are one year in length. The district has the ability to renew the contract each year for up to four additional years. Based on the satisfaction of all stakeholders with the service of Whitsun's Culinary Group, district administration is recommending the renewal of the K-8 food service contract with a district cost increase equal to the CPI index. Meal prices for families will be presented to the school board in April once the Illinois State Board of Education Nutritional Division has completed its guidance on meal prices. As part of the efforts to constantly improve meal service to students, district

101administration, Quest Food Management Services, and Whitsun's Culinary Group are collaborating to enhance and inform the overall food service experience for students. The items listed here are just some of the improvements being considered for next school year. We appreciate the ability to celebrate in the great accomplishments the district has experienced in the food service program this year. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. Folks, questions for Joe. Peter? Yes. Great presentation. And I'm glad that you surveyed people and got feedback and the feedback was generally good. It's amazing that you go from year to year and survey your students and they say they like the food. Because sometimes, even if they like it, they just sometimes say they don't. In any event, so that's great. I'm glad to see that the numbers are looking well. I do have, I

102did look at the data and I saw the nutrition piece and you mentioned it in your presentation was like your lowest scoring one. Is there any change that you can do since that, or that the vendors intend to do to address that, that number of concern? Yes, and I will also say before I get started, we are also joined by Siobhan Bolden and Jennifer Malchow from Whitson's Culinary Group. So I thank them for being here and if they have anything to add, they can certainly come up here and respond. In terms of nutritional value, part of the real motion that we made from last year to this year is more made from scratch items, less frozen, less processed foods. That really increases the nutritional value. We also, and I will say Whitson's has been tremendous

103in terms of creating dietary alternatives so that all students have the ability to have everything that's on the menu, even if they have dietary restrictions that don't allow them to have it prepared with the same ingredients as all the other students. Now it looks pretty good, but I still go back to the question, the data still say that less than half of the people think the nutritional value is better. I'm just wondering, am I reading this wrong or right? I mean, if you're enhancing the nutritional value, making it from scratch, if I'm eating vegetables and stuff, why are they saying it's the nutritional value, less than half of them are saying it's not? I think it's important to point out that 80% say the same or better, so 47% saying that it has improved. Yes,

104we would love that to be over 50%, but when you look at 80% saying it has remained the same, some of them might have felt that the nutritional standards were acceptable even prior to this year, so they might have answered it's about the same. And unfortunately, we don't have data from previous years to say how many said that the nutritional values were up to their standard. Okay, thank you. Anybody else? Please. So I know we've talked a lot about at the high school level sort of educating the kids about the Quest Meal Deal, but do we have, and I apologize, I didn't look before, I was looking. I mean, I know that the government, and I'm not even sure which entity within the government, dictates what has to go into a national school lunch, and

105I know you've also encountered more kids needing a second meal, which has caused maybe less choice sometimes at the end of the day. So is there education, and I would argue that would probably fall into the nutritional question too, where's the education for the parents of how the rules are, what are the regulations and the rules that Whitson's has to follow in what they offer? And I'm just sort of wondering if that educational piece might help with some of these perceptions. Absolutely, we can look into, so the USDA governs the National Food School lunch program. They have all the materials on what it takes to constitute a meal, and there's also a rotation schedule that Whitson's works really hard, a 21-day cycle, that for instance, they have to have legumes for a certain amount of

106days within that 21-day cycle. So that goes into their meal planning. They can't have hot dogs and carrot sticks every single day, and yes, we can certainly work on providing links either through our food menus or through our initial page so that families can understand how those are created. Mr. Blomkost, I think to Mrs. Warren's point, there might be some partnerships that we could forge in creating some articles as a part of the principal newsletter to help inform our families. I think that's an excellent idea. Thank you, Mrs. Warren. I think a lot of it is just this unknown, and it's different, and I would argue it's better, but still, when you hit up, my kid loves hot dogs, but when I understand you can only do it every 21 days or whatever, it's a

107lot easier to explain to your child and just set your expectations accordingly. We have two brilliant women's leaders sitting in the audience from Witson's, and I'm quite certain they can help our administrators have some key pieces of information to share with our families. That'd be great, because I know whenever I talk about that you get audited, and if all the pieces aren't on the tray when the child leaves the serving area, that's a problem, and people are like, but my kid doesn't like bananas, and it's like, well, that's great, but the banana has to go on the tray, and it's all those kinds of little things that I think just helps people understand better what's going on. And to your other point, you mentioned about students coming back for second meals, which is a celebration.

108That means they really enjoy the meals. Oh, it's great. And at the same time, we are learning along the process that over time we know which meals the students are responding very favorably to, and may want those second meals so that we can provide enough meals so that that last lunch period can get all of those choices as well. I know, so much of this first year is such a learning process, not only us learning more about Whitsun's, but them learning more about us as well. So thank you very much for being great partners. I know we talked about different things that you're doing through our sustainability committee, as well as our health and wellness committee, and you've been incredible partners, and we truly do appreciate that. Thank you. Joe, first of all, I wanna

109tell you, I know you spearheaded this, and I wanna really send our deep appreciation for all the work you did to pull this off and to bring our new partners in. And I will tell you that I've eaten a few times now at the high school, and I've talked to a number of parents, and I think I can't find anybody who thinks it isn't an upgrade from what we had in the past, right? Definitely. And I think, to the point about educating, part of this is back at the parents and at home. What are good eating habits? And if they wanna order three orders of french fries for lunch, well, okay, I mean. So, but I do think we've made a lot of strides when it comes to offering healthy choices for the kids and

110also a nice variety for our students. So thank you, ladies, I know the great work you guys are doing. Again, I think we've made great strides, doesn't mean we can't get better, of course, but I will tell you that, compared to where we were just a handful of years ago, we've made, the food service is really good. It's funny, when I toured the kitchen there at the high school, the manager who's on site there, lovely man, he was saying, you know, the only thing I could do to increase my sales would be get you guys to close the campus for lunch. Well, okay, well, obviously that's likely not to happen because I asked him, you know, tell me about other local schools that you've been to and what their sales rates are. Well, you guys

111are about where we would expect you to be with an open campus. The only high schools that have a higher sales rate are the ones, and he named a few and I won't name them, who have closed campuses. Well, naturally, if you're stuck in the building, you're likely to buy lunch or suddenly bring your lunch. So I think, you know, I think we've done a great job and again, Joe, I know you put a lot of heart and soul into making this happen and I sincerely appreciate the work that you did for this, so thank you very much. Thank you, ladies, as well for what you do every day. Yeah, and Mr. Goldberg, thanks again for the sustainable efforts that you will be planning to have in the future. I really appreciate that. And I

112hope that you will continue to source enough certain of the foods and what your plans are for the future. Thank you. All right, thank you all very much. One thing to say, all these numbers are going up, which is great, but I just wanted to say, it's nice to see because Siobhan, you just were hired recently, right? And the picture up there, I just have like, she's having so much fun at work, that's awesome. I love to see that, so I just wanted to say, way to go with the picture, that was fantastic. Did anyone else notice that? So anyway. And, no, it was so great to see that, thank you. Yeah. And that day was actually one of, Witson's has something called the pop-ups, and it happens at one school on a certain day,

113and what was that one called? Today we did. The one where you were tossing it around. Oh, that's just the wing, today we did more. So it really increases the excitement when they come with a specialty. Can I ask what tomorrow is? I'm just going to be there. Yeah. Thanks so much, thank you all. Mr. President, with your consent, with your permission, we would like to put these two items on consent for the March 20th meeting. Board, any issues with that? Okay, great, sure, no problem, Joe. Thank you. All right, next up is the middle school course proposal. Thank you, excited to bring this early. If you remember, at our financial workshop, we had this course slated for 27-28. As the memo states, through the work that the teachers were doing on their curriculum, they

114requested that we expedite this and consider bringing this course in in the fall of 25. So, of course, that thrilled us. This would replace the current Epic Game creation, I think that's outlined in the memo. That course was an in-house course with a curriculum created by the teachers. That course served us very well over the years with exceptional instruction and an exceptional delivery of that instruction by our teachers. So, we applaud our teachers for thinking about next steps for students and that next step would be flight and space PLTW. So, we bring that to you tonight for discussion. We'll turn it back to you. All right, thank you very much. Questions for Stallion on this matter? Yeah, just a comment. Did you have anything to do with that flight and space? When I read this.

115No, but if you need somebody to come in and lecture about flight, count me in because I may have a few inputs on that. Yeah, I know you have a certain background in that. Since that, you were a pilot, right, or something? 1800 hours. Yeah, so, well, no, it looks pretty exciting. Can I ask a logistics question? I know we've talked a lot about utilizing Project Lead the Way that it's a nationally recognized program and has great curriculum and instruction. And I know it makes a difference, or at least I believe I have heard it makes a difference when these kinds of courses are listed on a high school transcript. So since these courses are taken before high school, how does that impact, I mean, is the benefit still seen there? Or is it just

116seen that they're on the right track and they can take the ones that are in high school and take on that transcript? It is a precursor to aerospace. If you remember, we had that course coming alongside flight and space in 27, 28, so we were gonna implement flight and space and aerospace engineering at the high school during that same year. This change will actually give our students the opportunity to take flight and space, which is going to give them some foundation. And I do believe it will increase interest in some of those other PLTW courses. We may be coming back to you next year and we may be asking to expedite the next course after implementation of flight and space. And we may implement aerospace engineering a year earlier, depending upon the interest of our

117students and how our students are feeling about those courses. So everything that we're doing, we talk about pathways at the high school, right? You begin to earn a pathway endorsement when you enter high school. However, you build your pathway understanding and your knowledge and your interest in elementary school, which is why we do freshing, why we're looking at programming at the elementary school to grow our students in mathematics and in sciences, give them more information at the middle school so they can make really good informed decisions at the high school level. And hopefully they see those courses as very good options for them at the high school's electives. Thank you. So Angela, you know, a couple things. One, I think one of the first conversations I had with Dr. Gall after she was hired, I

118said, we need PTLW, PLTW. She's like, oh, dog, I would do this. So I couldn't be happier to see us fully embracing this and bringing these programs in. And I'll tell you that about half of the students that I worked with today were gonna go off and study aerospace engineering because I always ask the students, what are you guys gonna do? And I just think this is fantastic. I mean, eventually I would love to see us have the entire course selection available to us and have it matriculated through all of our grade levels. I think that's a long-term goal that I think we all share to have that. But I couldn't be happier to see us bringing this stuff forward. So if you need a guest lecturer, I'm totally available. We're gonna call you. And

119with your permission, we would also ask that this go on consent for the next board meeting. We appreciate your support for all of PLTW. Thank you very much. All right, so we're moving on to discussion with action. The first item being the 2025-2026 geometry resource adoption. So we are back again. A couple weeks ago, we did some wonderful presentations for you with the geometry and the ELA. So we bring both back. We'll start with geometry. Bringing that back tonight, requesting approval for that resource. Upon board approval, we will begin ordering and professionally developing our staff for a new geometry resource to be implemented in the 25-26 school year. Thank you. So I need a motion to approve the purchase of the HMH Intro to Math, AGA 912 Intro to Geometry as the designated high school

120geometry resource total cost of $55,330.49 as presented. May I have that motion, please? So moved. Second. Thank you, Eileen. Thank you, Lisa. Oh, it's Kelly. Oh, I'm sorry, Kelly. Thank you. It's hard to tell. It's just over there somewhere. Would you call the roll, please? Any questions before anybody has any questions? Call the roll, please. Ms. Belloni? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mr. Aitien? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? All right. Next up, the 2025 English Language Arts Resource Adoption K8. Same thing. We brought that a few weeks ago. We're back again to request approval for the K8 ELA Resource Adoption. A lot of work done by teachers. We've already begun to curate some of the resources that we are given for free and start looking at those and professionally developing teachers. And

121upon your approval, we will begin the full order for that resource and start training and getting those materials to staff. Thank you. Sending a motion to approve the purchase of the Benchmark Advanced Adelante as the K5 ELA Instructional Resource at a total cost of $970,081.64 as presented. May I have that motion, please? So moved. Second. Eileen? Thank you, Natasha. Questions? Would you call the roll, please? Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mr. Aitien? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Okay, next up is the Audit Services Contract. Good evening again. I'm happy to bring to you our recommendation for the audit services for the next three years. I wanna thank our evaluation team members, Mr. Goldberg, Mrs. Warren, Dr. Galt, Dr. Romano, and Mrs. Petrowska, who is our district comptroller. We're all

122part of the evaluation team. We read through seven proposals, narrowed it down to three who came in for live interviews, and upon interviewing the three top candidates, it was concluded that we will bring Baker Tilly forward as our next audit services firm. They come with a large range of experience, and they certainly have a lot of experience with the certificate of excellence through the ASBO International Program, which we strive to achieve because we want the highest professional financial standards in this district. I turn it back over to you, Mr. President. Thank you, Joe. Sending a motion to approve the Audit Services Contract with Baker Tilly US, LLP, for physical years 2025, 2026, and 2027 for the total amount of $171,485. May I have that motion, please? So moved. Second. Kylene, thank you. Lisa, questions? All

123right, would you call the roll, please? Mr. Aitken? Yes. Excuse me, Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. All right, thank you very much. Next up is the Empowered 95 High School Furniture. Okay, I am very honored to be able to bring this to the board here this evening. I want to start off with a huge thank you to all the staff members who participated in the process at the high school, all the high school administration, our excellent leadership from our CNI department, as well as our bold services, which is a DLR group subset that helped us to go through this process. As you're all aware, this was the one last standing item from our Forward 95 goals and strategic plan, which rolled into our Empowered 95.

124And again, we're extremely excited to be able to bring this this evening. You'll see here that we have two different vendors that we're recommending purchases from, both of which are providing a cooperative agreement so that we don't have to go through a formal bidding process because that's been done formally through that cooperative for a total investment just under the $2.2 million that we had set aside for this improvement at the high school. One thing of special note is that there was a lot of hard work done to take a look at not only what's happening in the classrooms, but additional spaces to be able to support our teachers at the highest level. That investment has been included in this process. And again, we did come in just under what we had planned as a budget,

125and that was only due to the hard work of the entire team that touched this. Mr. President, back to you. Thank you, Dean. Okay, so I need a motion to approve the purchase and installation of furniture and equipment from Lowry McDonald Company under the Sourcewell Cooperative Agreement for a total cost of $658,748.10. And Frank Cooney Company under the Omnia Cooperative Agreement for a cost of $1,509,119.48 for a combined total of $2,167,867.58. Can I have that motion, please? So moved. Darlene? Second. Thank you, Lisa. Any questions? No, just to comment, I am thrilled because every time this was presented, there was sort of a level one, level two, I forget what you called it, it was levels. And to be able to encompass all of that and stay within budget is a huge win for our

126staff because their working spaces are going to look beautiful and their teaching spaces are gonna look beautiful. So I'm thrilled, thank you. This is a big investment in our staff, right? They're gonna be able to directly use this furniture and our students, and I'll say, by the way, this is the last of our referendum promises to do this, so this really puts a bow around the referendum promises that we had. So I couldn't be happier that we finally reached a conclusion on this, I think it's fantastic. Would you call the roll, please? Dr. Pinter? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mr. Etienne? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Okay, last up is the award of the Architectural Services Agreement. Okay, this evening, you can see that we have gone through the process of

127negotiating with our selected architect partner that has been successful, and I promised that we beat him up, and so the pricing as far as their fees is really good. We joked when we had that conversation because I was quite serious about it. And one of the things I would share with you is that with this this evening, we will be able to continue to move forward on our plans for bringing work towards the opportunity for you to consider a second floor renovation at the high school. Okay, thank you, Dean. Sending a motion to approve an agreement with STR Partners LLC for architect services in the Lake Zurich High School second floor renovation project as presented and authorized Dr. Romano, Assistant Superintendent for Business and Operations to execute the agreement. May I have that motion, please?

128So moved. Second. Thank you, Natasha. Any questions? No, just again, thank you. You've been doing a lot of negotiating, and I'm thrilled to see that we were able to be successful with our first choices, so thank you. Well, let me say a deep thank you to the team. There was a huge amount of effort to get to this point. All the work that was done by the committee that was formed, and to my fellow board members who gave up an entire evening to conduct the interviews and make the decision. So this was an incredible process, Dean, and I know this was your child, you made this happen, and I sincerely appreciate all the effort that you and your staff put into bringing this to fruition. So thank you very much for that. Would you call

129the roll, please? Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mr. Etienne? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Abstain. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Okay, so we will have a closed session this evening, so I need a motion to move into closed session for the following three reasons. One, the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees, specific individuals who serve as an independent contractor in a park, recreational, 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, a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park, recreational, 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

130a specific employee of a public body that is subject to the Local Government Wage Increase Transparency Act may not be closed and shall be open to the public and posted and held in accordance with the Open Meetings Act, 5 ILCS 120 slash 2C1. Secondly, litigation, when an action against, affecting, or on behalf of the particular public body has been filed and is pending before a court or administrative tribunal, or when the public body finds that an action is probable or imminent, in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the closed meeting, 5 ILCS 120 slash 2C11. Lastly, collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or the representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees, 5 ILCS 120 slash

1312C2. May I have that motion, please? So moved. Galin? Second. Thank you, Natasha. Will you call the roll, please? Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mr. Aitken? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. All right, thank you very much. We do not intend to take action coming on a closed session. Thank you all this evening.