001Good evening everyone. Thank you all for coming this evening I would like to call the order of the community unit school district 95 board of education meeting for May 30th 2024 we call the roll, please. This is Dan agar here. Mr. Etienne Mr. Goldberg here. Mr. Hay Here dr. Pinter here mrs. Warren here y'all rise and please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Once again, thank you all for coming this evening a couple of quick Announcements and actually celebrations first of all Happy to announce the girls soccer won their regionals awesome Also, we had a number of top finishers downstate for track and field. We had Connor Strauss Was 11th place in the triple jump Bailin Zitzman was third place in the high jump Riley Betts was sixth place in a hundred meter Alyssa
002I'm sorry. I'm gonna butcher this name Alyssa Konos Koba was seventh in the discus and Then we had a four by 200 relay team which came in 11th comprised of Riley Betts Kendall Flournay Sydney Lapin and Bailin Zitzman also Paige Kutzer came in 13th in the discus two other quick things One is I'm happy to announce that finally today the solar energy project at a Whitney went live We're actually producing electricity as we speak I just saw the numbers were right now that the Sun where it's at we're cranking out about 350 kilowatts of electricity which is About three-quarters of the actual total load of that building when when it's fully occupied So that's fantastic to see and we'll look forward to seeing more of that Also, you know one of the things that we've
003talked about on the board is How do we allow the community to use some of our resources and our assets when we're not using it? One of the things that we're doing this weekend is actually on Sunday this week There's a very large local bike race called the Arlington 500 You'll get three or four hundred bikers out there at least and that is actually going to be hosted at the high school the start And finish will be at the high school starting 6 30 a.m. On Sunday So if you want to come out and do a couple laps of me Kelly, that'd be great Do you have a bike I can borrow? Sure Then I'd be happy to Okay, do we have anybody sign a public comments we have no one signed up. Thank you
004very much So that moved to the consent agenda, please Hey, thank you. Mr. Goldberg I have a few items for you this evening on consent the approval of the Board of Education Open and closed session meeting minutes held on April 25th and May 9th 2024 the acceptance of the Treasurer's report approval of the bills payable list district activities bills payable list payrolls Consolidated plan and then the approval of the stipends for May 30th 2024 the approval of the personnel report which includes the employment of certified staff resignation of certified staff change of non certified staff resignation of non certified staff and then I'm gonna just spend a little bit of time on these next couple the Resignation of administrative staff and really at this time. I just want to thank mr Howard for his service
005over the last five years to our district We're so grateful for all that you have done for us and We wish you the best and I know that this is going you're going to a place that's gonna take good care of you I make sure of that and then number two you're gonna gain back an hour and 20 minutes of drive time every day Which is important to your family. So congratulations to you and Then change of administrative staff if the board noticed we had several Individuals within our system who are taking on some different roles. So we have Brooke Crowley Katie dangler and Dana Laden burger We're really excited that they're going to continue to serve in different ways. And then lastly we have somebody here I'm going to turn it over in a
006minute for employment of administrative staff Dr. Dean Romano is just going to give you a little bit of information about the individual before you take a vote Okay, I'm very happy to introduce the board for consideration this evening Kelly Torrell She has an extensive background in big yellow buses. She started her career as a bus driver back in 2005 And was a driver all the way up through 2017 at which point she then was promoted up into the office as a lead dispatcher and router Then promoted again up into the general manager position over 47 employees and then promoted yet again To another general manager position with over 135 employees And so I would be very excited to share that with you all this evening for your consideration So that would be the consent agenda.
007Thank you very much, ma'am So I need a motion to approve the consent agenda as prepared and presented by the administration. I have that motion So moved second Thank You Natasha, you call the roll, please. Mr. ATM. Yes, mr. Goldberg. Yes, mr Miss Maloney. Yes, dr. Pinter. Yes, mrs. Warren. Yes, mrs. Daniker. Yes So mr. Goldberg at this time mrs. B Sitch is going to present mrs. Twedell with a just a small token of our appreciation and a welcome gift You know given your meteoric rise, I expect you'd be superintendent next time I'm Kelly Twedell. I'm very excited to be here. I want to thank you all for your time your consideration Dean and Julia, thank you for walking me through this process for helping me along the way for keeping in contact You guys
008have been wonderful I'm so excited to start with the district. It's fantastic place to be and I'm just so excited to be part of the team Thank you very much. Thank you. I did want to add Kelly just a couple comments, you know about mr. Howard. I want to say that, you know Phil you've done such an incredible job for us Technology was such a critical part of us making it through the pandemic as we we switched from hybrid to in-person to synchronous and asynchronous Simultaneously really the technology was the backbone that actually made that work So I know the amount of effort that you and your team went through to get us through that in addition to that Just to ensure that we're at the place we're at with our technology or infrastructure and
009your forward-looking Way of making sure that we were were provisioned for the future So gosh and I know you your family has certainly sacrificed by the long drives that you've made over the last five years every day To come here. So I can't thank you enough for what you've done for our district We certainly wish you all the best and and God bless you. Okay, so we are going to move into reports to the board I'm gonna bundle the first time. Oh Sorry super intense report. I just have a little a little piece tonight. I want to share if I can The FOIA is included as typical as a part of the superintendent area You did have a communication that was sent to the board around the fencing That was to go around the new
010playground plan for future installation. And so just want you to know that both dr Romano and Dr. McArdle have been working with dr. Conway Lots of doctors to make sure that our staff understand how we are moving forward and So there are to my understanding there are no further concerns related to our plan We also had a great facilities and business Operations meeting this evening committee meeting and so appreciated certainly both of our leaders from our board Additionally, mr. Habe was able to join us this evening And so the first piece that we spoke about because we did have a couple of visitors We had mr. Dolny and dr. Walsh who joined us. They talked about scoreboards. The board should know that the scoreboards Specifically the stadium the football stadium as well as the baseball
011stadium. They are in need So we are concerned at this point that they won't make it much longer They've gone in and out. We've spent some funds to try to repair them, but They continue to fail in certain areas. So we had a long conversation about different options And so you can see the varying price points on the screen I would say to you as a board and I'm going to ask Certainly our board members to speak to this But the preference of the high school would be that we look at option one Which would be the three hundred and forty thousand dollar price point not the three hundred sixty thousand five hundred So that was one of the one of the options we wanted to make sure that we brought to the board It
012is very similar to other scoreboards going on into other district surrounding districts and certainly districts in Lake County The reason for the expense is just our ability to be able to Showcase what's going on on a much larger screen? It's much more intuitive We would have the option if we would like to be able to ask for Some funding support as long as we were able to put certain logos or names on the on the scoreboard And so I did want to just offer that little bit I'm going to go ahead and let the two board members speak more about that in a moment the baseball stadium option They talked about two options There wasn't a lot of difference in price and really the other one was not really a true option So the forty
013three thousand four hundred would be the price of the baseball Stadium scoreboard and then the May Whitney scoreboard. We do have a partnership with our booster club They are willing to put dollars towards that. We do have $19,400 in our current budget that we could go ahead and put towards it alongside our booster club and then have that scoreboard at May Whitney and So I'm going to turn it over to mrs. Maloney first and let her speak to anything else She would like to share because we had a long long conversation about it. Sure. Thank you. Dr. Gault we discussed at length how What what was happening with our scoreboard now and just understand we are spending a Not insignificant amount of money regularly to repair what we have. So we're putting bad money after
014good in that so That's a concern the part of the project that's very enticing is the opportunity to get sponsorship dollars and Ongoing sponsorship dollars so that we can Potentially fund this outside of taxpayer money The district or Kelly and her team are endeavoring to bring back I'm just gonna say whatever information she's able to by next board meeting the 13th Because there's it's summertime and key individuals may not be available it's hard to commit to the information, but what we the facilities and business operations committee has given them the authority to go out and explore the possibilities of The scoreboards and bring it back to the full board so we will have a presentation to the full board on options and You know Potential Sponsorships and but that we may not have enough information
015on that in two weeks But that's she's endeavoring to do that. So I want to make that very clear that that's not a given That's an endeavor to bring that information back to us. I am excited about the possibilities of using the scoreboard for a curricular event and You know just so like a media and having either a club or Classroom or internships are just like a way to foster skills for our students in that arena because the the the scoreboard is impressive and It could serve a lot of purposes. So once again That she's going to endeavor to bring back information in that regard on that Potential so it's an exciting opportunity That will be brought back to the full board and then mrs. Dan agar you had any comments Yeah, just I want
016to echo what Eileen said and also add that we It was mentioned many times that we value every department at the school district And we recognize that there is a lot in need in a lot of different areas So when we mentioned the more expensive scoreboard it was with the assumption that we wouldn't We would it hope have the sponsorship because we recognize that there's other areas that we can be spending money as well So I just want to make sure that it's not being Unrecognized that we value every single area of our school And then I think it should also be mentioned that we should be that we're really grateful for the booster club to put in $16,000 because that's not an insignificant amount of money and May Whitney's field is also used by
017the high school So I think it'll be great that they have a scoreboard over there as well And then mr. Hey, I didn't know if you had any other comments you wanted to share. I had a question So the the scoreboard we're thinking about for the football stadium would be a large format display Correct video display basically you can show film on it. You can show video on you can show replays on it Essentially, it's like a giant TV. Yeah, that's exactly what we should getting in the future because I've seen like at our local schools where They do is they sell ads, right? Right and that's what we would that's another option But then there's an option to put more permanent sponsorships on the actual board That would be much more costly of a
018sponsorship So we would expect greater dollars, but then have ongoing sponsorships that we would showcase on the screen as well I like the idea of a constant revenue source, which would be local businesses that would want to produce time during the sporting events I think that's a great way to generate revenue and try to offset some of the cost of this thing but right a percent we should leap into the 90s and You know get a large format scoreboard. I love that and the great news is that Especially because of the efforts of the curriculum department. We have some really strong networks already and partnerships So we already have an avenue that we can start looking into right away, which is why endeavor I really appreciate that word because we have to get ourselves in
019front of the right people in a short time frame during the summer So and we will do that. We will work to do that I just don't know how much information we can have by the 13th When would when do we have to pull the trigger in order to have so I'm going to ask Mr Erstad to go ahead and speak to that because there is there is a bit of a runway we need That is correct. It's from when the contract is signed. It's three to four months In talking with this mr Dole may he thought it could be a process that it did not necessarily have to be there at the very beginning of the season But it would be three to four months And as things break we'll continue to have to
020fix them so that our students our student athletes as well as our community Have a working scoreboard and so it is in our best interest to try to do it sooner than later And so it may come down to Coming back to the board and asking for the moneys up front and then we continue to work to gain those sponsorships So just know we're going to do everything we can to have some To understand better the appetite as mrs. Maloney stated during the meeting for those sponsorships It seems unlikely that would be in place to support fall sports Given where we're going to endeavor Right The start of fall sports what we talked about is we have a unique football schedule and that we have no home games during September we have one in August.
021Yes, we still have other competitions. We do we do right, but Exactly good point, but our football schedule is Away most of September. So I like the idea of it being a continuous revenue source Yeah, so it's a repairs or you know a future scoreboard that would be needed in in the future of once this one The lifespan we talked about was 15 to 12 15. Yeah 15 years So it and to Eileen's point about it being a resource for our students in terms of the graphic arts design All those things that they could do. I think there's the This is somewhat new something we haven't done in quite a few years and I know this is covered in policy So can we make sure we revisit policy about that actually we did so it
022will be bring We'll be bringing it back to the board and we did speak to the fact that you know This is a board's decision as to how we want to proceed as it relates to sponsorships More permanent sponsorships are things that need to be approved by the board the regular Sponsorship type activities that would be displayed as either one-offs or could be a repeated Those can be approved by the superintendent currently that the others would need some board support through policy Did you get any input as to why the Booster Club decided to support the May Whitney scoreboard versus the other two? I believe that that's what they asked for because they came close to Getting it to half the price and that's one that we already have the money set up We have
023money set aside that we together we can make sure that we put that one in place almost immediately I suppose it goes without saying and I I think Lisa alluded to that That there are sponsors that we like and sponsors that would raise eyebrows in the community So so I obviously You know Would have been flippant about Examples, but but I suspect the superintendent will be thinking about that as well Absolutely Thank you for the very thoughtful reminder We also had some conversation in committee meeting on our summer list of projects and so appreciate mr Erstad and his team for all of the work that they're doing this summer he did show a few pictures so that we would have a better idea of just the workload that that's needed to remove furniture out of
024our two middle schools and then replace that furniture with New furniture that the middle school staff and committee have selected and so excited about What that's going to look like and excited for our students and our teachers to see that as they return in the fall late summer And then we also talked we had a very brief discussion about the O&M budget update Dr. Romano was able to just kind of share a little bit about electric Costs going up so excited about that solar because that's going to continue to help us in that area But just that you'll notice that there were several adjustments that were made, but the overall dollars remain the same so as you look at that the O&M budget just just understand that and Then we did talk about long-range facility
025plan projects and just some shifts that are being made So the field house is going to be a greater expense. We're able to push that off into further in the future before going ahead with that project and then the administration center as the board is well aware we discuss the the needs in that back corner where the communications department is located and that we are actually able to We found a more creative way to get the cost down and so I At this point, we don't believe we're going to need to come to the board for approval because it'll it'll be under the threshold Which is awesome because that was going to be about $450,000 if you recall nowhere near that so we should be good there and then the MSN flooring project We've moved
026up. We have many set aside for that And so we want to go ahead and take care of that project sooner than what had been originally planned Dr. Romano also shared our Insurance fund reporting with the group and they approved and so we'll move forward and that's how we plan to showcase that information That should be ready At some point in June for us to continue to push that out to the board so that you have a regular Update as to where we're at with our insurance costs Talked about JP Morgan and chase the collateralization is there so there's no worries and then we'll be bringing back some Recommendations for you in June as it relates to the depositories the investment manager dealers and brokers is typical and then lastly Hopefully you saw on social
027media Dr. Sanders did visit our district once again to celebrate all of the efforts in the area of sustainability And came out because we are one of ten districts who were awarded the green ribbon across the United States So again very proud. He was really excited and loved his climb up. May Whitney to see the solar panels on the roof so Very exciting and he was did he like Lyle's shirt is what I want to know I believe he did so But he he's you know I've known dr. Sanders for a really long time and so he's very proud of the work that we're doing in Lake Zurich and Often often uses our district name in just the highest regard so that's all I have for you this evening Thank you, ma'am Okay with that
028we will move on to reports to the board and the first two items I'd like to bundle together which are cash flow and the financial dashboard since they're related Do we have any questions from any of the board members regarding those two items? Okay, hearing none. We'll then move on to curriculum instruction power 95 action plan updates Does anybody have any question regarding that item? Hope you've all read the packet any questions regarding those those are please go ahead Lisa. Yes The first I'd like to make a comment. I was thrilled to see the action item about Furthering the education and mentoring the fact that it encompasses more than just first-year teachers I think is admirable to our district and we keep talking about everyone being continuous learners So thank you for facilitating for everyone
029though question. I had was about the You may not be able to answer it and that's fine I think I asked about the committee that was created for I believe it's career Readiness with our partners the college is it the college and career advisory team Can you give us just some flavor of who's in that committee? I don't have in their meeting actual names of all of the people just an idea some of our partners As dr. Galt said we've worked to increase the partnerships we have and help our students to Get internships But that committee is designed to partner with us to help us better understand what we need to do to prepare our students to launch Not only in internships, but post-secondary as they enter the workforce So what we do with that
030is we have deep conversations with some of our partners our local partners who take our students in internships We talked to them about what do you see in employees and what skills? Do they have that you value and what skills do they not have that they're look that you're looking for that helps us Understand how we continue to work with our students not only to help them have successful internships While they're still with us but to understand the workforce better and understand what employers are looking for as they're hiring Potential employees When we were doing portrait of a graduate we were able to have like County College representative there We had some sort of post high post-secondary representatives there and even Is that someone you've contemplate those type of people have been contemplate as well
031as as like? Apprenticeships tech campus that kind of thing. Okay. Thank you Any other questions on that item? Okay, I have a question Sorry So on the same topic for employability Are you all when you interview folks or ask people out in the community what they're looking for with our graduates? Do they ever say anything about the ability to work in a global society? Does that come up a lot? I wouldn't have that I would have to specifically ask Those people that were working with that question. It hasn't come up, but that doesn't mean that it's not there Okay, it's just something we only see at the college level that when we send our students out They say that like you need you guys need to focus on that more. So just something to think
032about I'm sure you're already thinking about that. So dr. Pinter it is a part of Of our strategic plan and power 95 is a part We had moved away from an actual vision statement to the portrait of a graduate and it is one of our areas in that Okay, next item we are going to have a presentation on which is the language audit Joel well, we are very excited to be here with you tonight to present What really is the culmination of year one of this work? And I do want to be specific in saying that this is year one of this work clicker So what we're going to do today is we're going to talk a little bit about the background We're of course going to honor the committee of which we had a
033really good amount of people who volunteered to help us with this work We're going to talk about the different phases and finally the recommendations as You know this came out of one of our strategic plans in power 95 and this was again year one of our work It's really important for me to help everyone understand That this is the first time that we've hired in my knowledge and it's talking talking to our staff and administrators Somebody from the outside to come in and take a look at our programming our Practices and and the work that we do on behalf of students at ESL students in our world language students When you do that as a district you are hiring that person to provide her knowledge her expertise her Experience and provide you with recommendations Those
034recommendations are recommendations for us to consider As we move forward with our work There's a lot in that report if you read it and dr Marlar had a lot of recommendations for us some of them all of them very very good Some of them will take time some of them will take more studying on the behalf of our team and of our district to Determine if that best meets the needs of our students the work that we do Has to align to our strategic plan has to align to our mission our values our vision and our portrait of a graduate Dr. Marlar used a word and I'm not gonna grab it, but it's something like utopia what she said she gave us was utopia She certainly recognizes and understands that as a district we determine
035how we move forward with those recommendations The other thing I want to say is there are Some conversations that happen during these committee meetings that aren't represented in the report And I'll tell you one specifically and I feel like it's important for me to say this I've heard a lot of feedback from teachers and their voice deserves to be heard as We were talking about world languages and as we were talking about programming for world languages We had discussions about credit bearing courses for world language at the middle school level They had a lot of conversations in some robust conversations Our teachers had a different lens with which they looked at that then dr Marlar did what you received and what the community can read is are both dr Marlar's recommendations as well as the
036recommendations for our staff from our staff What is not in the report is? That our staff wanted us to consider greatly that if we move credit bearing courses to the middle school That we also consider as a district and this would be a board decision, which is why it's not in the report dr Marlar understands the difference between Recommendations that can come from her lens and things that a board of education needs to do regarding policy Having said that the teachers are recommending that the district consider When we have that recommendation of which we do not have that yet that the district consider a four-year almost Mandate for world language. So let me explain that a little bit more in 2829 the state of Illinois intends to make two years of world language mandatory on
037a For graduation it's going to be a graduation requirement in 2829 What our teachers are asking us to consider as we continue this work is if a student earned those two credits at middle school That our board of education consider requiring two additional years at the high school level Which is above and beyond what the state would require of a student We want to acknowledge that We want to make sure that you know that it does not exist in the report But it is work that we will continue to do with this committee next year We will convene a world language curriculum committee we will look at writing curriculum and articulating that through middle school and high school to prepare for the potential of credit bearing courses at the middle school level all of that
038work will happen next year and We may or may not have a recommendation at the end of next year for our board But we will do that in collaboration with our staff. We will reach out to other districts We will do our research and we will make the decision that is best for the students in Lake, Zurich and the community of Lake, Zurich So I just want to be careful to To say that the report that you received are not necessarily everything that we are recommending that we do right now She said five to seven years if If we did everything in the report So there is much more work to be done. This is not the end of the work. This is the beginning of our work It's the end of dr. Marlowe's work.
039It's the beginning of our work and you will have much more to come So having said that I'm going to turn it over to this very very capable group of educators who will walk you through An overview of what's in the report not everything but an overview Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm Anthony Dangler principal of Middle School South I had the pleasure of serving on this committee with all of the folks that served with me This was very very good work. It was a Learning experience to to say the very least for I think all of us in a lot of different ways Which actually was our first our first phase. So our first thing was really around discovery. It was a very very important learning opportunity for our
040entire committee so that when we got to the next phase which was designing We had all the information we needed to make the best decisions possible I want to highlight a couple of things so a lot of the things we looked at we looked at in the Lens of the Wagner's four C's framework So we looked at it through context conditions common disease and culture and I want to kind of just briefly let you know What those things are right? So when we talk about context we're looking at the global state local community the family the district and building so everyone's concerns Expectations and skill demands of our programs in regards to student learning environments. We talked about conditions We were looking at the infrastructure surrounding student learning including things like tangible arrangements of time
041Space or even our resources when we talked about our competencies We looked at the repertoire of skills and knowledge That our teachers may have to influence student learning as well as our leadership to be perfectly honest Speaking for myself and then the culture was that shared values beliefs assumptions and expectations and behaviors that we have related to students and their learning teachers and their teaching instructional leadership and the quality of relationships within and beyond our school buildings So that that we use those four C's and a lot and actually you'll see them throughout each part I saw them throughout the report and how the recommendations were brought forward And then we did a various other things in regards to learning. We looked at legal parameters. We read case studies We looked at different types of
042feedback from our from our different stakeholders We looked at our own validations in our learning and what predictions we might have and our new understandings from some of the activities We had and then we did a data review where we were able to ask different questions around Different types of data whether that be IR data map data our world language numbers our demographics So we really looked at our district as a whole and really understanding what that data told us that really encompassed our learning I'll tell you that was majority of the time we spent together which then led us Quite recently to the design phase Which really is when we took that research when we took those validations that we learned that new Understandings and we started applying them to this part We developed
043our ideal educational framework for supporting all languages based on best Practices and we started participating in the design of our language programs that enhance our students learning and that's the piece that came here At the end and the work that keeps going And so that that that those were kind of in a quick recap our two phases the learning piece was probably the biggest part And and the you know most beneficial. I'm gonna pass it off now for next an Italian I will Go through the recommendations provided from the language consultant in the area of TBE and TPI instruction and then Anthony and Angelique will talk about the recommendations for world language So as part of the discovery phase we read case law Federal and state legislation and then evidence of best practice These were
044all seminal sources that we used To guide our work and develop our understanding Moving forward so we spend a considerable amount of time Reading these sources Next the committee engaged in an in-depth Conversation about belief statements and hypotheses of practice They are represented categorically here into quality instruction Equity and inclusion cultural competency long-term investment the value of multilingualism an early language acquisition You will see that these beliefs statements really highlight the value of multilingualism as well as You can see how they're echoed in our D95 values and portrait of a graduate in order to build competency around instructional that best practice and Instructional approaches related to TV and TPI programming The committee is recommending some professional development around instructional frameworks that would guide Lesson planning for multilingual learners as well as instructional approaches During the
045language audit a few red flags were identified that we need to watch for which include ESL and bilingual access to core curriculum materials The need for a curriculum vetting process for ESL and bilingual programming materials So we can ensure That you know, everyone has access to the same materials and then needing to adopt some more materials for low incidence languages Some other important considerations before I pass it on to Natalia is that dual language instruction was considered? and Explore but at this time the district's demographics don't support the implementation of dual language It is the recommendation that we revisit this in four or five years as we strengthen our bilingual programming to see If that that need in our demographics support that additionally this the recommendations represent that first home or this l1 language is
046transitional in nature meaning as Students develop more proficiency in English the less instruction they'll receive in their first language and That these recommendations are to begin in early primary levels and then roll up into higher and higher levels over time I have to mention that it has been a privilege for me to serve as a parent of multilingual students in our district as well as A multilingual teacher who is serving multilingual students and I'm very proud of all the work that we have done and I'm going to go over about The context related to transitional bilingual program of instruction and also transitional program of instruction Something we need to consider and it's recommended to consider the improving the communication to all stakeholders So we know that all stakeholders know what our district is offering and
047how the programs look like we want to review all curriculum Curriculum that is for adoption and we want to make sure that the needs of multilingual students are met We also want to ensure that MTSS process Is linguistically and culturally relevant as well as the students who have been duly identified? Are receiving both language support and the support as far as the other needs? We want to achieve also the compliance and we want to be compliant with the federal and state Legislation and grow our program well into exemplary status and Especially we want to satisfy the TB requirement, which is currently the state of Illinois requires if There are 20 students or more within the same language in the school The district must provide the transitional bilingual program of instruction As far as the conditions
048we want to utilize the Platform elevation with this which district has adopted two years ago for communication and all data gathering as well as In helping us a designing of programs we want to Provide the equitable space and resources for multilingual learners that are the same as their peers That are not in the program also maintaining the self-contained TBE classes within the 90% of their building average and ensuring that ESL teachers are participating in the PLC's and especially within the next year when we have them PLC initiative the district wide We'll spend a little bit of time on this graphic Again, this is a five to seven year recommendation So in the pink boxes, you'll notice ESL instruction so this this is designed to be very flexible at the middle school and high school level
049Based on you know resources we have and then the needs that we have so under ESL that is English instruction which at the high school levels those students would receive English credit bearing credit towards those courses they are designed to be either mixed grade level or Single grade level and they're self-contained classes taught by a certified ESL teacher an additional recommendation with some programming options for the other Core content areas of math science and social studies again that ESL Course is designed to be self-contained and taught by an ESL certified teacher Where the sheltered instruction is more? More robust in the Content expectations so in that situation that can be a self-contained or a general education setting but what's What's needed in sheltered instruction is to have? Teachers who are certified in both the content
050area and ESL so that could be a teacher co-teaching with a content teacher with an ESL teacher or An ESL teacher who is also certified in that content and then finally as students move towards more proficiency in their English development Receiving that instruction in the general education setting with EL support provided in order to build our competencies it is recommended that we offer training to on language acquisition as well as the acculturation and trauma related to all of our staff members We want to encourage the district-wide pursuit of access proctoring credentials to all certified staff as well as Foster and promote conversations with other entities Whether it's a neighboring districts or Illinois Resource Center or Illinois' tassel Also in order to build the culture We want to make sure that we promote and the shared
051responsibility because we want to everybody know that Multilingual students are not only the responsibility of ESL teacher everybody takes responsibility for them They are assets. They have a lot to bring to the table we want to regularly review our data and our numbers of this population and Emphasize that ESL instruction is a core tier one instruction. It's not the intervention. It's a core tier one instruction. That is We require to provide to our students we also want to communicate the benefits of bilingualism to the students and the families and Use English as second language or English as new language or bilingual teachers instead of EL specialist and And Develop the mission and values and beliefs Okay, I'm gonna go into dr. Marler's recommendations for consideration as it relates to world languages So we talk about
052context we talk about a few things one improving that communication to stakeholders so that there's an understanding of what our programs Our course options are but also again those benefits of bilingualism You know to encourage the desire to take those languages Shifting world language classes from a destination as an elective to more of core academic instruction Potentially creating a position of leadership for specifically for world language teachers And then looking for new innovative and novel ways so that we can maybe look at additional languages more reflective of our student body and Shift the employment needs of that into oral language program in the future to meet those needs And the last one being can we bring some sort of world language instruction into our elementary schools at the fourth and fifth grade level specifically? So
053what conditions do we see so again, it's a five to seven year review of adoption cycle for our curricula Looking at redesigning courses to enhance proficiency increase our enrollment and attain those AP credits and that seal of biliteracy Implementing Spanish language arts classes Introducing sixth grade cultural proficiency elective to foster global citizenship and cultural understanding And then you know providing multilingual with opportunities for language courses starting in middle school But so again those multilingual learners those opportunities as well Schedule regular collaborative PLC meetings between our middle and high school Language teachers that gives that vertical alignment specifically We're talking about bringing the same courses at middle school level as we do at the high school level We do something like that with our math instruction And that's how you benefits those programs a lot for
054those teachers to come together and be able to have that time to look at Data and have those discussions and then revamp the middle and high school schedule to ensure equitable access to our language courses for all multilingual learners And making sure that we can provide that to them So when we talk about middle school world language programming dr. Marlowe's Recommendations for consideration were to have newcomer electives at all three grade levels, but in sixth grade provide that cultural proficiency elective And then kind of shifting what we call our exploratory courses in sixth grade now to that seventh grade level so that in eighth grade They make that decision to take either German French or Spanish For high school credit so they take a full year of that language then at the eighth grade level
055Which brings me to what our high school world language program recommendation would be am I going to go step-by-step? But as you can see they start with German one either in eighth grade or as freshmen and that will kind of determine where they go From there in each of those languages whether they go on to German to CP or honors and so on and so forth But that's kind of what our Recommendation what her recommendation for high school world language programming would look like so when we talk about our competencies We need to offer our world language teachers professional learning opportunities equitable to the opportunities offered to their core instructional teachers We need to make sure they're getting professional learning for their specific content areas making sure that we have the best programs for our
056kids Assure that all world language teachers high school level are trained to deliver AP courses and that our middle school language teachers are invited to this training and given that opportunity as well and Then consider visits to exemplary world language programs so that we can assure that we're getting the best practices in action here And then for a culture we want to encourage students to study world languages beyond that two-year minimum We want to make sure that we have cultural experiences that are valued as an essential component of language learning for our kids and then develop those mission values and belief statements Documented specifically for our world language program in Pass it off to Angelique so part of our our meetings with dr. Marler we had obviously she presented the recommendations that she had and
057We as teachers had some other ideas as to what we would recommend again I'm just going to remind you of what? Dr. Salien said dr. Salien yes Mrs. Oh, sorry Mrs. Stallion said earlier about the fact that these recommendations are sort of hinging upon the consideration by the board of Including two additional years if we were to put seventh grade level one language Eighth grade level two language credit high school credit we would we would Recommend and request that the board consider adding two more years of high school credit And the reason for that is right in our portrait of a graduate almost every single section of it and is Right there. It's about becoming a global citizen. It's about being future-ready. It's about having that Not just learning the language, but acquiring it and
058becoming a speaker and a cultural Someone who understands different cultures and is ready to be like you mentioned earlier Someone who can work in the global world, so That's where this is coming from it's Obviously this would not be something very quick to to happen but I do want to point out that the Formatting on the presentation is a little wonky it didn't come in quite the way that it was in your report So if you have your reports with you page 14 is actually much easier to read So I'm going to just kind of refer to that page It is the same text, but the formatting is much clearer, so we came up with four different Tracks if you will the standard path would be that in sixth grade Students would have these the
059exploratory program that we currently have Except it would change from nine weeks to twelve weeks. They would focus on The languages for twelve weeks each as opposed to nine weeks we would include that Culture within the language courses then instead of doing that cultural exploratory course it would just naturally fall within the the language instruction Seventh grade would be they would then choose after a twelve week exploratory course Which is pretty robust they would get to choose whether they'd want to study French German or Spanish Level one and then eighth grade would be level two so this would be the same pace and rigor as the high school Courses, but in seventh and eighth grade and again just We're continued. We're we're making this recommendation based on the fact that they would then continue with
060extra language in high school So that they're they're really attaining that skill of speaking the language acquiring the the language and culture So then in eighth grade like I said level two if we were to Go into alternate a that's for kids who would come to The middle school with no prior experience of world language so move in students for example students who may have exited from From a resource class or something like that Or if it if a student is having a very difficult time in seventh grade They could move on to either a different language or repeat that level one Just like in high school if you fail a course you can repeat that level one Obviously we wouldn't be in encouraging that hopefully we'd be able to pass those students on to
061level two But it would be more flexible than our current system Alternate be then would be for students starting in ninth grade with no World language experience they would come Straight into a level one course at the high school then obviously if they're coming into our district without any middle school world language experience or any student because They've had two years of a language Maybe they want to pick up another language Maybe they want to start with you know I did French and then I went into Spanish as well And then I took Italian so you know there's kids that just glom on to those languages So this would be that opportunity for those kids to do that as well And then the final path would be for we would call it our Spanish heritage
062path so The language course would be called Spanish language arts it would be on a three-year rotating Curriculum so it could be taught in any order the the order wouldn't matter, but it would be Repeated so that you could take it up to three times and then their fourth year in high school Students could then take the dual credit or AP Spanish language or literature course By all of these levels you can get all the way up to level AP or five by the time you are a senior So it's really giving the kids the the really solid foundation to try to get to those advanced levels and become proficient speakers communicators all of that stuff The portrait of a graduate Do you have any questions for us okay? So first of all thank you
063all for coming this evening Thank you for the comprehensive work Obviously didn't the entire community that was part of this obviously it's an important you know part of our curriculum We really appreciate the fine work. You've done What I'm going to do is ask do any of the board members have comments or questions for the community yes Yes, go ahead Natasha. I was also part of this committee So I would just like to comment begin my comment with saying it was impressive the passion that was in those rooms teachers who were truly Dedicated to making this program better For all of our students for our TBE and TPI students up to world languages I loved that we had teacher buy-in to the point where they created a plan using the experts Information but along with
064their footprints on the ground and their expertise with our district to create something that they thought would be best for our students I Absolutely love that because it's teacher buy-in, and it's with experience of our own students and I think The board and especially me put a lot of value in that and I really really appreciate that you did that and I Think it's just wonderful that we that you are given the opportunity to present that as well As far as the TBE TPI I loved that we talked a lot about or that it was mentioned equitable resources Those teachers that population is growing tremendously and they are in an asset to our community a humongous asset to our country bilingual students if they are fluent in both languages will out Perform out earn and
065be out educate any monolingual students in almost any category So we want these students well educated we need to value them And I think the board needs to make sure that we put our money where our mouth is because they will be a very valuable asset to our community That includes our general ed teachers also being Given support in this area because these students the majority of the time are in our gen ed classroom So I loved that it is discussed giving gen ed teachers access training So they understand why our students are performing where they're at psi-op training. It is invaluable and so helpful I've used it myself and it's just best practice Even if you don't have an ESL cohort in your classroom, it will make you a better teacher I also love
066that it was mentioned that our teachers get Time to learn about immigration and the effects that that has on our students and the trauma that comes with immigrating These students are in our classroom They affect the whole classroom culture So I think it's important that all of our teachers are well educated on immigration and the trauma that comes with that So I love that that was in the report and oh The last thing I love the newcomers class at the middle school level once again These are for kids who come with no language or English language Background and to just throw them into a gen ed classroom with some resource support is It's difficult. It's difficult for the gen ed teacher It's difficult for the EL teacher and it is extremely difficult for the students
067So I love that that is part of our plan to offer some kind of newcomer program A lot of districts do it and it is valuable and then last but not least I also I'm so excited that it was put in there many times the need for teachers to have time to plan and Articulate our program. We are unit district We need to use that to our benefit and that if we can have an EL program that is fully articulated Pre-k through 12 it will benefit our gen ed teachers It'll benefit our EL teachers and most importantly our students and that also goes for world language I mean we have to use the fact that we're a unit district to our advantage and that's a huge advantage the teachers put that in the plan, so
068I love that and I Am really really grateful for all the work that came out as committee It was a lot of hours and all we got little snicker bars and water bottles So you guys did a really good job of staying focused and working hard and I just appreciate it And I'm so glad that I got to be a part of it. So thank you I know I dominated this conversation, but everyone on this board knows how passionate I am about this and I just think language and global citizen Effective communicator it just is everything we're all about. So I'm really excited about this work. Thank you, Natasha Peter Great. Well, it's hard to match that enthusiasm, but um, you know, I it's an area that also is important to me, you know, I
069I guess I would imagine more than one of our board members grow up bilingual. So So I appreciate all of the work that has been done I mean it it's tremendous work and and it certainly is a step forward and I appreciate as you articulated Essentially pushing it further down like in the middle school I like the idea of starting there and and even anticipating what's coming in the future and the requirements and And I saw particularly the sixth grade elective for cultural competency that billed to me Which which helps with global citizenship? I think it's important as we prepare our students to be global leaders again the portrait of the graduate right there That resonated a lot. I You know and those who've known me on the board for a little while could anticipate
070that comment Because I've been talking about it for a while. I'm a little less enthusiastic that I was before when we think of world languages and You know One of my kids that German one did Spanish and one did French and I Don't know how German is a world language And I don't know how the committee Whether that came up at all or whether there was any discussion about that Maybe I mean somebody could disagree with me as to whether or not they think of the three that Germanism one of my daughters did German and when she did it for a while in fact We took it to Germany so that she could experience it more than she came back and pretty soon. She's Doing Spanish instead because she realized it was not as worldly
071as she thought I just wondered Whether that came up at all or whether there were other languages that were discussed and I saw the comment again That we have to look at our demographics and understand our resources at one time I thought of Mandarin, but I don't know whether that's politically correct today, and I Pushed for that for a long time So I'm not going to push for it as stringently as I did before but I do want your thoughts on that Whether you know whether you thought of the languages the three that we have and how worldly is German? so We'll kind of tag team if you don't mind with us time so French German and Spanish are the top three languages across the world as far as What are being taught for? business
072for finance for communication German is huge in the finance industry for example and in automotive etc. So They are the the top three languages if you were to look at what what we're being taught yes Mandarin is up there. It's there's a whole other story that goes behind that We did do a survey. That's part of our work. That's coming. We will be looking at what the stakeholders have Asked for for languages, but right now I feel like we have a very robust program of all three languages and Continuing those and strengthening those I think is where our strengths lie But we have work to do and we do want to look at those operative there is a line in the report that mentions Looking at ways to bring in other languages, so You know
073we would love to I would love to see sign language I would love to see some other languages as well, so but we'll see I don't know It was we did this work actually before we've been started the audit when we took a look at Just our world language offerings knowing that you know We do have people who are asking for more and and we want to give more but we wanted to make sure we also have the right language, which is three of the ones that we teach are the highest and particularly German for anyone going into engineering is The language that they should study at least as we look at all of the research out there and all of the The job market so for right now we believe we're hitting the mark
074do we need to look at some additional languages? Yes, do we need to look at how to deliver those languages when we think about Cantonese or Mandarin or something like that? We've talked about how to deliver that or do we have the staffing to be able to do that to find people who actually? Speak those languages, and we're investigating all that and actually when the state does require two years of language American sign language is one of the considered languages that would qualify under your graduation requirement So that's something we would like to look into as well Yeah, well correct. I also add on to German it is one of the most popular language in Europe And there are multiple countries who's German where German is a you know official language also If I'm not
075mistaken like Zurich was built many years ago by the immigrants who came from German speaking countries And when I was teaching German for a little bit of time right before the pandemic in our High school many of the students when I asked them why did you choose German? They many of them had grandparents who speak that language and I'm I assume that's probably One knowing how important it is for me to keep my language within my kids even though I know that probably their next generation will not maybe speak my language But for them for those for whom German is the heritage language Probably important for the families to keep that language my daughter who's in sixth grade will be choosing German actually Yeah, well, thanks for your defense of German. I'm not sure I'm
076entirely convinced as I said my daughter did it and You know I don't want to hurt my wife, but That's part of our heritage as well, so but but you know I personally Do am I completely convinced that it's on the same level of Spanish? Absolutely, not if somebody was going out out there as I said my daughter did it. She did it in college She continued doing it in college. She we took her to Germany, and then she came back and then realized that Spanish would be a lot more useful for her so she started doing Spanish a whole lot more later, so but but I I will not dispute that in engineering in a lot of areas The German is very very important And I just one other comment to this one really
077just as a culturally sensitive thing World languages, and they're all European, so I mean I just it just occurred to me when I saw that Just a thought Thanks, but thanks for your great work, and I and I appreciate it And I appreciate the efforts that we're doing and going forward. Thank you Peter Eileen Yes, I'll be very quick first of all. Thank you very much for all of your work It's an asset to the community that you have put so much time and effort to it and also an asset to our community is Natasha and your enthusiasm and your passion for this Project and that's so evident, and I am so glad that we have you in defense of German I work for a Swiss company speaking German is an asset if you work
078for my company and My children all took German because my husband's family spoke German as Going back two generations that was their native language, so my defense of German Thank You Eileen Lisa. I was quite surprised reading through this report and I'm very Hopeful for what is going to go forward with our English language teachers I was surprised at some of these red flags And I think a lot of this has been sort of maybe put under the microscope a little bit more magnified because we are having Experiencing non-native speakers coming in with minimal English knowledge at levels higher than kindergarten or first grade and so This is so important What you're doing and and also making it a K through 12 plan And I'm sure what this has to look like at the middle
079school level in the high school level is shifting very greatly So I'm very encouraged to see what's going to come out of this and I think Hopefully it makes your job a little easier as that is is actually articulated through the classes My concern about the foreign language discussion is I think the staff Present a recommendation is quite aggressive We are having to hire a Russian teacher because we have so many Russian native speakers We're having to hire a Polish teacher because we have so many Polish native speakers in our community so reducing sixth grade to just be teaching the culture of Spanish German and French I think Doesn't align with what we're trying to do in the LEL. I mean I'm hearing in this EL You're trying to get the entire community to be
080aware of the cultures of everyone that's coming into our community And so I think that cultural competency training needs to be Broad it needs to include Asian cultures. It needs to include South American cultures everybody and And skipping that because we're trying to go faster to get credit I think is a little bit of a disservice to our community as a whole and that's really what a global citizen is is not Somebody who can just speak one language or two languages really? Well, it's and I guess I get concerned my oldest Languages didn't click for him. He's a very smart kid But making him make four years Making that a requirement what I don't see in here is what about the kid that just it doesn't work for them not everybody can be bilingual not
081everybody can take four years of another language and Do well in it and that's my concern and it's I know most a lot of colleges are now Asking for four years of foreign language, but they are willing to I mean my son did talk to them And they were willing to take his AP human, you know geography was a cultural learning experience and that is Almost equivalent, you know it was sort of like well you can substitute in because that's something your brain can learn and it's Another language is just something that doesn't click and that's a concern here And I I don't see the exit ramp for the kid because I saw kids in middle school That just took the cultural class all three years because they just didn't want to learn another like
082that wasn't What they were geared for and I would argue There's a lot of kids going into a lot of different careers that it's a great nice to have but it's not a must-have and Not having an exit ramp for that is a concern so That's sort of where I'm coming from I see this as being incredibly aggressive and it's fabulous and there's a lot of kids that will thrive with us But there's a portion that won't and my concern is what happens to them And I don't want them to be failures because they just can't it doesn't work and some of it I know is the argument you need to start earlier because the brains more receptive to it earlier So yeah, if we're willing to take this into elementary, maybe we can reverse
083some of that But there's still going to be kids that it just doesn't work So that's sort of where I am on the foreign language piece So if you don't mind, I would like to point out something else that wasn't we didn't report about it this evening But it was in the report about Some language clubs culture clubs. We wanted to call them multicultural clubs, I think in fifth grade and that actually Sort of brings in all of the newcomers all of the cultures And it gets the kids excited about all of the different possibilities So we had talked about the possibility of having High school language students and or teachers come and help facilitate some of the meetings but also to give the opportunity for the EL students to Shine and show their own
084cultures and explain their cultures and things in fifth grade to the kids So to their peers so to kind of give them a place to to showcase and I've done these clubs before in other schools and actually when I first started in district 95 I hosted or whatever Sponsored A multicultural club and it was fantastic. The students absolutely loved it They were able to talk about Diwali and we talked about different holidays from all over the place wholly and different things that Were just so fascinating and so fun for the kids to learn about so we're really trying to that's one of the things in the plan was to recommend having a club a sponsored club that's Established well established in all of the elementary schools. So starting them in fifth grade sixth grade when
085then I do like your idea of maybe having some sort of Maybe there is a way to in You know add more of the culture. That's where miss tell you this was talking about our work is just starting So I love that idea of making it a more global cultural and we've heard the need for that because on the Educational foundation side we've tried to be doing a cultural celebration which is very hard to pull off, but What was brought up by the it was community members? government members administration parents and everything talking about you know in first grade in The months of you know, December and January you're talking about all these different cultural festivals of light and then there's nothing And why aren't we celebrating it in third grade? Why aren't we acknowledging
086it in fifth grade? You know the talent shows sometimes you'll have people do talent based on their culture But it's just so hit-or-miss trying to make something that truly is we have such a wonderful diverse Community and we should be celebrating that and it's trying to figure out what's the right vehicle because What came up in this very first thing was Informing our community which is beyond people that have kids in our school district How diverse our community is and the services we're offering well It should also be celebrating all of those diverse cultures that we have going on and letting the entire community come together To celebrate that this is Warren I will bring back to Mrs. Stallion to make sure that we do look at on and off ramps because that point is
087very well taken And making sure that we are meeting the needs of all students So thank you for bringing that forward and I do just want to just one more quick comment about the the four-year requirement Is that you know if you look at almost any other? Country they're requiring kids to do at least four years of a language Yes, they start in fifth or sixth grade, but most other language most other countries are requiring it So it can be done it may not be done well my husband is French he learned for well he's studied German for six years can't speak a like a German, but He can speak English and he can speak French and it happens. So You know, thank you Lisa mark First off I want to obviously Echo everyone on
088the boards. Thank you to the four of you, but obviously the entire committee for the work I can't imagine the hours that were put into this the report was very conclusive One thing in terms of what miss Warren was talking about if I'm understanding alternate B It does sound like there would be a chance for students to have two years of a let's say Spanish and then move to German So I think that that if Spanish is not Working directly for a specific student. They do have the chance to move to a different one, which I think is key I mean, I know that there's gonna be other Off-ramps as we put it, but I think that that's important to note that you know I am somebody that struggled with learning Spanish, but to learn
089Italian was a little bit easier so it was one of those things where it might not fit for those first two years and you'll know the basics of You know two three languages, but you might not be fluent in it. So that's just something that I think is important to know the one thing I don't see That I'd like to understand a little bit more is you know The resources that are gonna be needed in terms of FTE and obviously classrooms if we're gonna be adding this to the junior high They're to the middle schools You know What does that look like in terms of the number of students or a number of FTE that we're gonna need and are there? Classrooms readily available to fulfill those so mr. Hey, but what I would tell
090you is this is an audit None of that has been even talked about or considered yet And so when mrs. Stallion spoke at the beginning It's important for board members to understand none of this is set in stone we have to walk through a process with our committee to identify which pieces are we gonna put in place and which pieces won't work for us and they may find a Different alternative and so we need to give the time the committee the time. They'll spend all of next year or Probably two-thirds of the year because then they have to bring back a plan to the board And then they'll bring back some sort of plan that will have probably some multi years to it and then in that plan It will very clearly articulate any of
091the financial Expectations that we would we would need to have approved by the board in order to move forward So no additional staff. None of that would happen without the board understanding what the plan is in Conjunction with everything else that we asked for but it's just an audit at this point And then my last thought was you know you spoke about you know our newcomers are coming from various parts of the country I think it would be interesting to look at offering some of those languages as well To kind of you know kill two birds with one stone type of thing where if there we are hiring a Russian teacher But they could actually be the one that's teaching that language to English learner or English speaking students I just think that you know
092wherever our newcomers are coming from primarily it might be important for us to learn those languages as well Because they're living in our district, so but thank you for your time. Thank you Mark Kelly. Yeah great job folks. I think that You basically wrote a dissertation. It sounded like you know whenever I listen to People up there talking about whatever you researched I'm always waiting to hear all the different sources, and it sounds like you just looked everywhere You possibly could so you sound very well-informed great job I wanted to say that one of you said that Multicultural or multilingual students are the responsibility of all faculty and staff and like that just I teach a lot of race and ethnicity classes And I and we hear that a lot too with those types of
093classes where it's like You know oh send that student to diversity equity and inclusion or send them over there And it's like no all students are our responsibility So thank you so much for saying that because it's all of us at this table right all the teachers and Everybody because it is an asset to be multilingual and um and I was thinking too as as Lisa was speaking Oh my kid. I have one kid that I know is not going to be easy for four years of the language I have one that will be able to do it, but it makes me think You know going back to the classes I teach to or sometimes parents are like why does my kid have to learn about that? You know or that's hard a hard topic
094for my child to learn about like racism or something like that and it's like my kid might not experience that but maybe their friends do or My kid is friends with people in this district from all over the world right so I think it's important for him If we have a child that comes here to to this district Who's an immigrant immigrated here, and that child's learning a whole new culture a whole new language. I think my kid Can figure out how to get through those four hard years, so I wholeheartedly Appreciate that you all are encouraging all children To do four years of this because like one of you said you know the world definitely values You know being multilingual, and I think in the United States We're very behind with that and I
095love that our little you know district 95 is like hey Let's let's change the game so great job everybody. Thank you so much Thanks, Kelly, and I'll simply you know echo some of the other board comments Thank you all again for coming appreciate the comprehensive nature of the work the committee did in your presentation this evening and certainly I think you know from a from a cultural awareness perspective that's something I think is important you know with the continue You know the world is becoming a melting pot right and so it's certainly important for all of our students as They leave us to be culturally aware of the world. I think it's really important for language perspective You know I think if you look at our demographics and our projections You'll see that the Eastern
096European languages certainly are becoming more and more prevalent we have for example Over a hundred Ukrainian refugees at the high school alone, right and a lot of them come here Didn't really speak English the good news about all that is we've done a great job with them And I think also think that technology is playing a part I think going forward with you know machine learning and AI we're gonna do much better We're gonna that the tools are available right so I think though You know if we really want to have global citizens the cultural awareness piece is important You know I think Kelly said a few minutes ago We're one of the few countries developed countries anyway where we don't force a second language You go I live near four years and two of
097those in Germany and by the way mine mine doaches are select But But and I will tell you it's certainly a language that in Western Europe is very prominent not obviously so much in Eastern Europe But so I you know I think we have to think about it a bit more The other part of this you heard us talk about is resources, right? So we the board's job is to balance the competing needs we have across all of the things all language is one of those certainly so we certainly look forward to seeing the work you do next year and what your recommendations might be and Our we're gonna have to obviously make tough decisions about how we fund and resource all the competing needs that we have facilities programming etc right and so Our
098number one goal of course is to make sure our students have the best outcomes possibly leave us and so certainly this is an important Component so once again. Thank you all for coming this evening great job and To our teachers especially I've spent time with our administrators, but thank you for being here this evening and and There's a lot more work to do so we'll try to make sure you have better snacks. Sorry. I'm so sorry Natasha Joke in there, I like Snickers Okay, we are gonna move on now item e which is a transportation real estate investment analysis You know that's an item basically saying of course. We're not doing it. Just a little bit of background that one when we contemplated Bringing transportation completely in-house to include Our maintenance we looked at we
099need a transportation facility. We have obviously found that's not affordable at this time So, you know, we're shelving that whole issue So are there any more questions about the transportation real estate investment analysis before we move on? I just have one question Okay, because as you mentioned this was sort of contingent on the idea of bringing maintenance in-house Right has any sort of business study been done on that as to whether it even makes sense This was the business study for the transportation side of it with regards to bringing in-house as you're aware We've signed the contract for a warehouse facility One of the things about that is that we do have the ability to sublease that so should there be a financial package and a special Location that would match up we would be
100able to still have a conversation. I guess I think of this a little differently so when you were showing case one it you know the advantages of Buying a place to be able to park all the buses together. Yes, that was basically it It didn't save us money. It was sort of a nice to have so in my mind If you're actually going to go to that level of getting a separate facility where you can bring all the buses together the way it Economically potentially makes sense is if you also brought maintenance in-house. Yes, so has that even been looked at like is it even worth exploring that or is the cost savings so Well our common animal that it doesn't make sense Well the cost of warehousing has obviously gone up notably in comparison
101to our current facility and that will Exponentially change over time with each year of that so as we take a look at the opportunities associated with a reduced cost for Warehousing it may make sense But that's why the recommendation here is that we would have to see something that is very unique Come up that would match all the components of the work that we did do We will analyzed if we were to combine the two on a single site what that would look like for example, we would need to have 10 acres for example, we would need to have warehousing and Facility for our bus drivers of about 20,000 to 25,000 square feet So we would have to have something very unique become available For it to get even to a point where it would
102make so my mind the capital investment required to do that is so substantial That I don't see us doing this anytime in the near future and the only way it makes sense to me is If the maintenance costs were such that we would save money by bringing the maintenance house versus the plan that we have now Which is using warranties and external service So we don't have any experience in it because we just started keeping our buses longer now So I don't think we're gonna be in a position to even really consider it from a standpoint of what the potential savings would be Until we see one one or two cycles of keeping the buses longer But again given a 20 plus million dollar capital expense It's not happening. I mean, I guess I The
103way I saw it presented was here's step one and step one doesn't make sense But then we would do two three and four, but I'm like just three even make sense or just four makes sense. I mean Okay essentially Dr. Romano's recommendation is that we are not moving forward with it at this time if there is a unique Property that comes available for a very good deal. He would bring that back to the board So he's always looking But we're we don't intend as mr. Goldberg said we don't intend on bringing this is not an active search That's the entire point of the final recommendation here is that it's not an active search If a building that existed on a site that matched up and the financials look good That would be a unique situation
104that would be brought only because it became available But we are not actively looking we have too many competing interests at this point that have great priority Anything else Lisa? Okay. Thank you Next item up is the power 95 energy cost reduction analysis and I Dean I think you had a few words here Yeah, I'm very excited to be able to provide the board with an update on this goal and action plan We have had an opportunity to work with our current partner That's done the work for our May Whitney solar to give us an overall Analysis on what it would look like if we were to take and move towards solar at the high school But a ground mount as you see here in the presentation, and it was also available in the packet
105This was the overview of our fund balance analysis I just brought it in here for context But I did want to kind of move forward to the final sheet if we were to take and do all of the things that we had associated with our Plans which would include the second floor of the high school as well as culinary and we didn't do the transportation center Which you see that we had taken out during our workshop as well as the solar was not included in that We would have about fifty nine percent Projected on fund balance across the four funds Ed fund O&M transportation of working cash Obviously the transportation fund is the largest of those and if we were to not take that into consideration That would also lower the percentage as we had
106talked a little bit about just before the meeting and so one of the things We wanted to keep in mind here When we talk about solar there's two different versions of it And so what we wanted to take a look at is different than what we have at May Whitney This would be a ground mount solar field that would be located in the same space that we had Ironically just talked about which was our operation center that was going to be on the high school property up against the railway on The back portion of the property When you see that you can see that this would be something that would actually provide us with a greater Impact on overall power Generation because of it the fact that it can be in a different angle But
107most importantly what I want to do is kind of walk through the high level components of this and then I'll have a conversation If the board would like to and what potential next steps could be the overall size of the field You can see that we've got The kilowatt hours both on DC and AC seven one point or one thousand seven hundred sixty kilowatt hours on the DC as well as the 1380 kilowatt hours on the AC It would actually provide us with about 45 percent of the power needed to take care of all the needs at the high school Installation estimate is a little over five point five million dollars. We have numerous incentives or rebates so ComEd rebate 440 we'd have an incentive from the solar renewable energy credits of 1.4 almost 1.5
108million dollars, and then there is the Inflation Reduction Act Potential opportunity which is another one point six five million dollars if we were to have all of those Reimbursements or rebates or incentives provided back to us as it's projected at a ninety percent Functionality we would have a nine-year payback on the system if we don't receive the funds from the IRA Money, it would be a 14-year payback Just as a side note the system would run for about 25 to 30 years with a certain level of degradation in the overall a couple things just a note If after the rebates are all received and the incentives are all received this would actually cost the district about 1.9 million just over one point nine three that would provide us with the opportunity to see a Return
109on the investment over the full 25 years after you take a look at that of about five point eight million dollars So we would over 25 years recoup all of the money And if it goes another five years that would represent as much as eight million two hundred and eighty two Thousand dollars in return on the investment over that time period Just wanted to share this out that represents a little over two hundred thousand dollars a year Savings depending upon how we would go about financing the project any questions for Dean on this mark The first thing I have is you know We talked about the inflation reduction act has there been any studies on the success of actually getting that rebate I know the comment one and the record is different, but I'm not
110sure about the inflation reduction at this point We have not actually we're just gone live today with our solar At May Whitney, but we don't have any districts that I've been able to identify that have received those dollars Obviously we are in the pipeline now For that to be provided to us When we did the May Whitney we made the decision without the assumption And that's why I did break that out on the number of years of potential payback And so right now we don't have any examples, but it is anticipated I know Doug you've read through the entire Statute so so somewhere when we comment on that to say that I think We really need to see how may Whitney Performs and we need to see if we actually get the rebates that we're
111counting on before I think we give really due consideration I love this but We we don't yet have the experience that says we're actually going to get this the So the Huntley school district has gone all in on this they have four and a half megawatt Field they put in so they basically can almost power their entire district They made a huge They cut kind of a drug deal where they got a third party to come in and and face look you fund most of it And they're buying the power back from them. It's an interesting arrangement financially, but but but but if you ask them and I have how well They're doing they're pretty happy. They're getting their experiences. They're getting about 85% of what they were promised Those are the kind of numbers
112are actually getting so kind of what I expected you'd actually get from these things But generally speaking other than some reliability issues. They've had with some of the inverters They're generally pretty happy with it So I think it's it's it's actually if we had the money and we could count on getting these rebates Then I'd say it makes good financial sense to do it But I don't think we're in a place yet because we don't have the experience with our current solar field roof Nor do we have we got in a dime back yet from any rebates to say My opinion to say whether or not this is a good thing or not yet, but I love that we're looking at it I think it's a really important thing I believe that solar will continue
113to be a big part of Ways to reduce our carbon footprint overall as a nation as a world But we're not in a place yet. I think to really make an informed decision on this in terms of scale This is about three times the size may Whitney puts out about half a megawatt about 500 kilowatts And so you notice AC and DC there So the only thing that matters is AC DC is just how much energy you can collect on the panels You've got to convert that to AC to be useful both of the grid into the building The only thing that really matters is how much AC you put out and there's a conversion loss, obviously So may Whitney's about a third of this is about three times the size Lisa so when I
114look at this map it appears that there are some practice fields that this will take the place of So can you speak to that and then safety? I'm guessing We need to have some sort of barrier That people don't go running in the solar you got to have a fence around it. Yeah, it would be fenced And this was the field that was being utilized that's been moved over to May Whitney. So this was Practice fields that had been turned as the old JV softball field Okay, but still this is JV baseball. That's still going to be used So nobody can hit I will confirm with the high school. Yeah right now Freshmen and I see many many people walking down that hill So I know it's still that was my concern because I know
115freshmen and frosh Currently practice together and JV and varsity for baseball practice together They use the main field freshmen and frosh use this field But in years past they would separate and I'm worried. We don't have a ton of green space around our high school So would we be handicapping ourselves by taking up? pretty much the only extra space we have as Lisa's kind of mentioning by taking up that field and also How far is that from home plate? Is there issues of baseball's hitting? That those solar panels Because it's pretty it's pretty darn close to the baseball field there Yeah, I'd have to come back with more information regarding Yeah, I mean I'm assuming they can withstand hail and stuff But can then like they would withstand the day they do not like baseballs
116and rocks Anything else in this topic? Look Okay, um, I just want to make sure so I saw those numbers up there and I was just it was quick So, um, you did say we would save eight point three million given if we got all the rebates But if we didn't get the rebates, we've still saved money, right? Over 25 years. It would be about five point eight million dollars if it was to last as projected for 30 years It would be about eight point two eight without them without the rebates including the rebates if we receive didn't get the rebates What would we say? It would be four. I'd have to go back But it would still be a savings over time. Okay. All right. Thank you Thanks again for doing the analysis. I
117appreciate that You know, I could hear the echoes that maybe we could wait a bit to see how may with me too I think maybe it's gonna be do well maybe you know So, you know, I don't think if we're waiting we should wait much more than A long period of time, but you know, maybe six months. We'll get a feel for it I do have a question on the size. Is it is it all or nothing? Because that's the size of the the property that you you're covering the size of Of the scope of the solar panel. Is it is can you take? Can you do half? Yeah, we can do any size up to this this was based off of the space that we were allocating for the potential District operation center and
118so that's why we use this footprint because that's what we were we were looking at utilizing previously So we can do something other than this as far as a configuration or we could take a look at rooftops but again rooftops are based off of The longevity still left in the roof so our middle school South and Isaac Fox site has a long lifespan still available and North and Spencer Loomis are getting a brand new roof. That's guaranteed for 30 years So those would be sites for a roof mount that would be probably more Advantages if we were to take a look at the details associated right? Well, well, hopefully You know, I heard our president said we're not ready Well, we're not ready this month, but maybe we may be a little more ready next
119month for the month after but but so So maybe it's an opportunity to take another look and see for example if if like a portion of the land because I'm sensitive to the green space issue as well and Where and the possibilities of the roof as well to see what other possibilities that we have there and But but I don't think that we should Essentially table it for a long period of time So mr. Etienne both you and mrs. Warren serve on the sustainability committee and this has been a part of that conversation we will be bringing forward some action plans for the upcoming school year and so Not that I can say for sure what's gonna end up making the short list but as you know we've spent time looking at those action plans
120and providing some ideas and suggestions and so what the board can expect is you can expect and some sort of either One or two action plans related to sustainability efforts coming back to the board in July So to your point about a month you might be right We're working on that that's right To I'm dr. Romano. I heard and it's it's a very fair and good question that mr Have asked mark ask which is are there other districts or schools that have in fact tap The the funds, you know, the the the funds and they call it the IRA It's the IRA funds, right? And so I assume we have not been able to identify those here But perhaps if we cast a wider search, I'm sure you'll find a consultant who will help you
121identify Somewhere where somebody have used it because I'd be surprised that no one You know With that part of federal money sitting there that I've not yet utilized it And I can follow back up with the company that we've been working with They're the largest solar installer for schools in the state And so we can work with them to find out if there's been any last I checked which was last week They were not aware of anyone that have been able to see any dollars start to flow. Yeah. Well, we're different We're we're a green ribbon side. So we could do things we could lead the state in so many different ways Yes, absolutely But thank you so much for your work on this and and thank you for doing the analysis and coming back
122because that was What was asked and and we will continue to have discussions on it. Thank you so much and Peter just for your situation awareness my understanding is that there has been some of the rec money that's flowed back, but the Inflation Creation Act money hasn't actually flowed out yet. They're still making its way through the system So nobody's seen any of that yet A lot of people have been asking to get that money, but my understanding is nobody's actually seen that those funds yet Okay, so that's why I think Again, I think we have to do two things one. Let's see how the current feel we have is performing based on expectations Let's see if we start to receive the three different types of rebates We were expecting on the May Whitney program
123Then I think we'll be in a lot better place to make some informed decisions about whether or not it makes sense Financially to move forward hundred percent. It makes sense from sustainability perspective. No one would argue that I think the question is does it make sense for us at this point Financially to consider putting our resources that I don't know the answer I'm just saying we need more data to make that and Mr. Goldberg will be bringing forward Action plans again, which will have costs associated with them. We just had our EL bilingual and World Language Committee that just shared information and there are going to be costs associated as Mark alluded to the Cost of staffing so there will be costs that are going to be associated with that so the board will have
124a wonderful opportunity to look at all kinds of ideas and then to help us to Prioritize and certainly the different departments sitting around this table have priorities within each of their departments that they are excited to share So this is one piece the EL bilingual and World Language is another piece there are going to be some student services, so And Our dollars will only go so far and we'll need to have that conversation And so I'm excited to have that with you in July. Yeah, and I think it's worth Mentioning and Dean did a great job with his fund based analysis fund balance analysis that first of all You know the ester money is gone, right? We don't have any more us or money We spent the last of that all of our referendum promised
125dollar are gone Right we spent all that which is awesome because we did more than we promised we would do for less money Which is awesome if you look at our fund balances right they're dropping and For example Dean's prediction on the Ed fund is we're down at like 52 percent right with all of the things we had planned And so you know I think we need to be mindful of the fact that we have a policy in place Which says we don't want to drop below Aggregate across the funds of 50% not including transportation because that's an anomaly because we stashed money in there to buy buses So I just think we we know that we're looking at maybe 20 more FTE next year Which is a couple million dollars of expense that's ongoing
126and accumulating so I think we just have to be you know We got up. We will certainly want to look at the big picture. I would love to fund all these things I would love to we're just not in a place to do that And so the board will have to come together Look at all the competing needs that we have and we'll have to rack and stack those and make decisions About where we should put the precious resources. We have well and part of it is I would argue I don't think anyone on the board expected May Whitney to go live today. I was expecting it a year ago And so these rebates are great to talk about but if it truly takes two years to actually get this up and going before you
127can even Start seeing it generating it electricity loan alone being able to submit for rebates. That's another cash flow issue You have to think about and I learned in the sustainability committee that evidently there are solar panels on the roof of Middle school north there are but it's there Maybe two or two to four per school because there's one at middle school south and one of middle school north, but it's very small Mr. Goldberg, I do want to go back to something you said about the referendum dollars Especially because we have our print newsletter going out and there's I believe we have a lot of money going out And there's I believe some information in there that I want dr Romano to clarify so with regards to the referendum promise we still have funds that
128are Earmarked for that specifically when we talk about furniture at the high school, right? So those are those are components you are absolutely correct in the fact that all of the bonded money that we received from the levies Associated with the commitment those have been spent down our DSEB has been spent down But we do still have allocations that were tied back to We have a small amount of money left for furniture 24 centrally furniture, and I get that we got that in our plant It's it's several million dollars. Yeah, right, right. Oh as compared to the scope of all these things We're talking about as well beyond that. Yes So I just just want to be mindful of the fact that again Our job is the board is to look at all these competing
129needs take the inputs that we get from our Our leadership team and and make decisions about the best way to deploy those resources So great stuff Dean, thank you so much for what you've done Anybody else have a question for Dean on that topic? Okay, we're gonna move on to discussion without action first item being the 2024 2025 parent student handbook. Good evening So there is a comprehensive memo with all of the proposed changes for your review It is structured similarly as it has been in years past. So the first section is More minor editorial or language updates and the second section is more substantive content proposed updates I will note for the board that Hot off the press yesterday. We got a new updated model handbook, of course I know I've shared this before
130so we'll be cross referencing and making any other required Changes in addition to what is already listed in the memo and I will be sure to summarize those and send those through dr Galt for your review as well. So they were very timely and we were happy about that And then lastly I do want to thank mrs Warren again for serving on this committee as your board representative and we have lots of lively discussion and The summary is there for your review. Mr. Goldberg. Thank you so much Are there questions on this matter for any of the board members? One quick question because I know over the summer there's going to be further discussion about cell phone usage rules So what's Thank goodness. We don't have to print this anymore So when is this expected
131to go live and I would guess that's something that we would update As soon as we had resolution So we will bring it back at the next board meeting for final approval at which point we will start working with mrs Malik's office on translation and uploading to the website and we do have a disclaimer in there that the handbook is subject to change so Even if those final recommendations are not done done by the time it gets uploaded we would have the opportunity to make some updates And we do intend on the cell phone piece To be updated before the start of the school year that we met with the administration today And so I'm anticipating they're gonna have some focus groups and some other things that happen this summer And so that will be
132ready for the start of the school year So this is a relatively live document, which is actually even better Yeah, make real-time changes to it right so it's updated automatically enough to send out You know 2,000 more copies. I Have comments and questions on this if nobody else does okay, Kelly go ahead, okay? I just wanted to say I appreciate the gender-neutral language that you all are implementing. That's great and Also like that you took out the acceptable on snacks. I know that we talked about that last year What the dress code? The items I appreciate this and just we saw this happen at our university very recently and it was like a big thing so The dress code student appearance language expanded to indicate that students may wear items associated with their race ethnicity
133and culture which I am so for But it became a huge thing because you started to get students that were also Wanting to incorporate like LGBTQ stuff or free Palestine or whatever you know and so I just think that You might see some folks trying to bet. I mean, I don't know what your rules would be with those kinds of things I don't know if you consider LGBTQ a culture, but you're going to get people pushing back if you allow the The race stuff, but not the sexual orientation stuff you probably already thought about that so I can clarify and that language is Specifically related to a policy update which mrs. Be such is going to talk to in one moment, and it's really Something that we have allowed all along, and it's meant to
134highlight, but we cannot disallow And so that's not to say that we wouldn't Allow other items associated with free speech rights and things of that nature that you're referencing Yeah, but that part is required specific to policy okay All right, so are we am I allowed to go through these policies right now, or am I jumping the gun? So I would hold the policy next okay, then I will wait for the other questions So if you had anything other specific to the handbook not relationship to the policy Entertain those okay, no dress code would be next so I'll wait yeah anything else in the handbook folks Okay, then given that we'll move on to item B. Which is the policies first reading right? Thank you This is in response to the May policy committee meeting
135that we held following up with the March press Many of the policy changes were related to some upcoming legislative changes regarding title 9 That law is changing and will be effective August 1st So there's a lot of changes throughout the policies taking out the language of title 9 calling it sexual harassment Because the definition of the law has been expanded We actually had some training today from our attorney on it, so that was very timely in addition to that there are some other Legal changes throughout the policies I will point out a couple specific ones related to Bullying which we have already implemented And we've been following the new of the new regulations press has finally caught up to us With their language and model notices as well The other changes are in relationship to
136five-year review or just non substantial that press asks us to review make sure our policies are up To date I will also point out Policy that we brought back related to waiver of student fees we've had some ongoing conversation over the last several months related to this particular policy and again some additional guidance and changes from the state superintendent on the implementation of fees and waiver fees and what can and cannot be Withheld from students that do not have outstanding fees So we have made some changes to that policy as well. And then again, mr Goldberg and miss Warren serve as your board representative. So I would ask you to add anything else you might have Go ahead Lisa a lot of it was the mandatory five-year review or just the changes due to litigation
137The last one the four colon 50 was the one that the board sent back to the policy committee It is The $50,000 amount is in line with what other policies are. So that is what is being proposed now. I know there was Confusion as to whether it should be 50 or 100. So we are Resettled back to be okay. Yes Yeah, I'll just echo what Lisa said We had some very meaningful discussion in the policy committee meeting and all these a lot of them are right out of press language But the one thing we did customize to us was this $50,000 limit. So I think That wasn't the appropriate decision to make Any questions from the boy? I guess Kelly you had some questions lined up and ready to go. Yeah, I do Okay, so
138what is with the dress code language updated to respect to student torso coverage? Can someone just please tell me what that means? So if you read the revised changes Previously it read that no portion of a student's torso could be exposed. It is More Supportive of current fashion trends and what we're seeing in our schools and so allows for some flexibility there And so the language has been adjusted in that way. Oh my gosh, you guys are awesome. Okay, that's so great And then and then I had a question So I was going through and reading all the different policies and some of them mentioned so I think this is a new thing I think we got some sort of update about this legally when it comes to discrimination and harassment on the basis of
139race color And where folks live that's prohibited, which is great, but it doesn't and I think this is just an Illinois thing But it doesn't mention gender identity and sexual orientation and it does so it does in some of our policies But in some of them it doesn't so I'm just curious why it's not consistent across the board. So those were already listed is Prohibited expressly the ones that you're referencing are new to policy So, for example, socioeconomic status academic status physical appearance were not previously Expressly listed and now they are so that's why those are highlighted. Okay, so they are they're all covered. It's just new Okay, got it. Thank you. And then for It was communications to the board there was I don't know if I'm just like fine-toothed combing this too much
140But there is one sentence at the end that I'm concerned about because I think it might be Like it might open us up to legal issues Because one of the questions or one of the statements is there is no expectation of privacy for any Communications sent to the board or its members whether sent by letter email or other means that's just one that Just from like a federal law standpoint like that makes me think about I mean I just think of examples in my head that could happen and when it comes to like people's mail It's a federal offense to like open somebody's mail if it had like if somebody sent me a letter here and somebody else opened it That would be illegal from what I understand So just you know, that's just a
141weird example, but as I read that that's that doesn't Legally makes sense. I believe the reference is because that communication is subject to FOIA And so the the reference is there's no expectation that if something is sent to the board that it would not be subject to The Freedom of Information Act, that's exactly Well, I think hang on so I looked into this deeply and that's I think true Depending on where it's sent depending on so like if somebody sent something here to me I would share it with the board But if somebody opened my mail with my name on it, that's still I'm pretty sure illegal So if somebody sent me something to my house About the board at my house that's different than if it's sent here It's different if it's sent on
142a computer that's a district computer versus my work computer There's way different legalities with who it's sent to whether it's just sent to me or it sent to me and Peter That's a different legality So that's just something that I would say look into that more with the lawyer because the way that's worded I don't think protects us enough. I could be wrong, but you know, we have two lawyers here I have a little bit of background in criminal law, which well, I mean all of these press policies are written by attorneys So yeah, I know there probably is legal references in the footnote that address it But all the footnotes do not go into one sentence. Please look into it. Yeah Yeah, I mean messages. Yeah, you just Well, yeah, just the general statement.
143No expectation of privacy is fairly normal Because because it's this is a public institution, so it's it's that does not mean That people could just open anybody's mail, right? But but but it's been something a little bit different than that So so I think you know if it's read in a way that could be misunderstood That's one thing but but a general language is fairly consistent I would I would imagine and I'm not I'm not the this just as a disclaimer I'm not the district's lawyer. I'm not giving any legal advice whatsoever so so the district could Confer with their own legal counsel. Thank you. We have we have two different groups we can confirm confer with but it is written by Attorneys, but we're happy to bring that to the board's attorney for further
144review. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. I have another question This is for the equal employment 510 Policy I just didn't understand the last point of this it says no this policy However, does not require permit the district to give preferential treatment or special rights based on a protected status without evidence of past discrimination What does that mean? So if there we've discriminated against someone at some point then we can give preferential treatment like just the way I read it was It just didn't make sense to me because that doesn't sound legal either Like you can't give preferential treatment even if you discriminate it. I just don't understand that sense I mean I can That's 510 equal unemployment minority recruitment that's I I don't know where it's on her. It was what I was reading what was
145sent to us You're are you speaking about the actual policy or in the memo? I just know something that was sent to me that I read everything and I take notes on everything I read and that was just one of the I like literally copied it word for word Can you can you just reread which section yeah, it says this policy does not require permit the district to give Preferential treatment or special rights based on a protected status without evidence of past discrimination And I have it under equal employment minority recruitment five point one zero This policy however does not require or permit the district to give preferential treatment or special rights based on a protected status without evidence of past Discrimination yeah, it's just this worded really weird. I don't know that's another thing.
146I would bring to the lawyer Maybe I'll disagree I believe it's referencing The point that while we have a non-discrimination policy and minority recruitment It does not require us to give preferential treatment if that is not Like you know the best qualified can well I know what they're trying to say, but the way it's written is just it's it's just open to interpretation So that's all so mr. Goldberg and mrs. Warren you you need to provide Direction on what you would like us to do with this one it was in five points the last sentence in Yeah, if you keep going scroll all the way down there at the very end Cynthia Right there. It's the very last it's just that last words without evidence of past discrimination like it's just I don't know why
147that's there That's all you can totally ignore me if you want it Well, I just think in this case if we want to get clarification from one of our attorneys in the language It's fine. I think this is a this is language. It's come to us from press right it is We did not make any of our own changes to it so I'll I'll bring both to them and then before we have our next board meeting where we would expect you to Vote we can go ahead and send written clarification. That'd be perfect Thank you Anything else on this book okay, that will move on to item C. Which is the ESP range and wage adjustments Yes, so it is that time of year where we look at our support staff So ESP refers to
148our educational support personnel, which is basically all of our support staff So that includes our bus drivers our paraprofessionals our office staff our maintenance staff All of our educational support personnel This group of employees is not are not contractual employees so every year we go through and we review the pay ranges as well as The handbook for them as well. We did something a little different this year We increase our participation on our committee So we had about 20 people participate this year across different buildings across different positions That was really exciting to have them there Additionally, they spent a lot of time looking at the ESP handbook, which they have not done So before so they were able to provide a lot of feedback on areas that needed cleanup and suggestions for Just language
149enhancements a lot of information of things that they didn't even know that were benefits that were for them that were in The handbook that came to light so it was a really good process for them to go through So that was part of this so as we did that we also look at comparable data For our pay ranges and we look at a couple of different Factors, we look at certain salary surveys for unit districts So those are the same unit districts that we use for comparables for our teacher contracts for our administrator contracts And so we look at positions that are similar keeping in mind when we look at comparable data It's really title based so it's not always a hundred percent apples for apples because a title is a title But we all
150know different positions do different things in different districts. So it's a approximate So we look at those districts and then additionally we are also able to pull some data and we look at neighboring districts So a lot of our unit districts that we compare ourselves are not necessarily Geographically near us and so it is important for us to look at neighboring districts Because statistics will tell us that if we lose staff for retention They're typically going Geographically five to ten miles about from where they live. So it's important for us to look at that data as well So the committee had some time to look at comparable data for several positions and make some Inferences and recommendations and I think overall they were pretty pleased that we look In the ranges that our positions are
151falling at least our starting ranges are falling at about the midpoint to upper midpoint We have a couple of outliers that we know we still have to look through and we also know that positions have changed over time specifically our paraprofessionals we've talked about for the last couple of years that position has Has had significant change over the last several years with expectations and Different things that they're having to pick up within the classrooms and outside of their classrooms as well Our nursing staff has changed dramatically and the requirements that they've had put on their positions as well So those are two that we specifically want to keep an eye on as well so as part of The the review process We also want to make sure we point out all of the enhancements and
152the changes that the board has made and has provided to our Support staff over the last several years And so I've been able to note that for you I think it's also important to note that we've made a very concerted effort to increase our pay ranges over the last several years Not only because we are making sure we will be with compliant with the minimum wage requirements come January 1 2025, but also to make sure that we're Competitive and that we can hire and retain the most qualified staff. So our ESP group has had some pretty significant increases over the last several years both in the pay ranges and then their regular adjustments as well Additionally, the board has been very generous and offering additional benefits to our support staff With the bloom board program
153with professional development and course reimbursement Some changes and how we will be doing holidays coming up where they are now able to Have pay for holidays that are Legally mandated holidays that fall during time periods where they're not working. So that's an additional benefit as well So as we go through this process with them Typically what we have done is about every three to five years We have an outside consultant that works with us and we just do some salary studies where we do more in-depth Review of certain positions and we look to see have the position requirements changed as the market changed And then do we need to make any adjustments? we have not done that in a couple years in a large scale and so one of the Recommendations from the committee is
154that that is something that we may want to embark on next year and it's about time to do that. So From my office budget we will allocate some funds for that with a consultant to be able to come in and do that It is an important process to go through it is a very Time consuming long process that will take the better part of the year. So it's important to start early It's also important to note that we have done a better job I think making sure our staff know not only what their salary is but what their total compensation package is So not only just their salary, but what we're providing with the board is providing in benefits IMRF time off all of those things could that does make up a total compensation package
155So as the board may know Salary increases for our support staff are based on performance And so all of our support staff have to have their annual evaluation due by May 15th And then we take those evaluations and then their increase is based on their performance And so there's two parts to this recommendation. The first part is the range change. So We continue to increase our pay ranges because we need to do that to stay competitive and this will probably be the last time We're asking for a relatively large range adjustment so that we can make that minimum wage Increase by January 1 and above and then we hopefully will be much well position much better positioned Moving forward so we're looking at a pay range adjustment of 75 cents for the pay ranges Which
156means all staff will get a minimum of 75 cent Increase and then in addition to that would be their merit increase based on performance And so in looking at our budget and our available Total dollars we're recommending a maximum merit increase of 2.25 percent so we would take that 2.25 percent and apply it to Whatever their increase was based on their rating and so when we did that for the staff that we currently have increases ranged from 1.49 percent to a 7.54 percent depending on their current salary Which gives us an average of about a five percent increase overall for our support staff, which is aligned to what we have budgeted for the business office So based on that if the board Permits then we will process that with the people with the individuals and
157then bring that forward for your consideration for next year effective July 1 Additionally the last two years the board has also been very generous and approved the bonus payment for our support staff as well as is in the Certified staff contract so we would ask that we continue to do that the next two years of the contract that bonus amount is $250 per full-time employee So we are asking that that be considered to continue for support staff as well And I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank You Julia We've obviously had a lot of discussion about this prior to this and the staffing discussions We've had are there any other questions this evening for Julia on this The bonus are you asking for approval for two years or just one year? Well, I'm asking for
158consideration for the next two years, but I'm happy to just do a year at a time I'm just clarifying We discovered not me The royal we I guess as part of the insurance process that you were doing And the staff went around and actually spoke with the other staff members there was a lot of education and a lot of goodwill that was created by that and I hear you mention your handbook has all of these benefits that people the 20 that I would argue are the You know self-identified most motivated people Participating this weren't aware of is that something that perhaps we need to think about doing at the beginning of next year We've talked a lot about Perks that you can add for this group and the reality is we have such a diverse
159Set of reasons for people to take these jobs Some are doing it to help out the district I mean, I've run into too many friends that are like you saw you needed bus drivers And drive a bus and they're driving a bus, you know That is not was not in their you know 50-year plan here of what they were going to be doing at this point in their life So you have a lot of different motivations for people coming in and some I'm guessing This is also a group that you're discussing that with just sort of but I think that education process could be wonderful Yeah, I think the most valuable thing we did this year was Were all of the insurance committee meetings that we went out to each of the buildings and it
160was really nice to to be able to be in front of people and explain things and have them ask questions and so That is certainly something that we will do. We will make a concerted effort to go to every single building transportation department the facilities department and Go through like make sure everyone knows here's what's in the handbook. Here's the things that are changing that you may not know and One of the other things the committee has asked us to do is do a survey of our support staff Not necessarily just about salary But we did this several years ago to it was more like what what is really important to you because for a lot of them It may not necessarily be the hourly rate. Sometimes it's benefits. Sometimes it's time off. Sometimes it's
161other opportunities. So That's another good way for us to be able to get in front of them and get some information as well. It's wonderful I'm seeing in here too in the the list that you have of things that we've added was a bonus reinstated for attendance and I know I'm not sure if Substitutes are considered to be part of this No Not part of this because we used to do a bonus when it was very hard to get substitutes and we needed a lot of Substitutes we did have a if you substitute we are still doing it. We do do that We have continued that it's been very well received well, and I'm sure you get a lot of loyalty of people Yes substituting for our district. So it does keep them coming back.
162So that is positive Any other questions for Julianna? Yeah, just uh, you know, thanks for the work of Gus great work there You've made that point and and I think it's in the report as well that the past two years we've had some substantial increases, but Where are we after this? In your view in the market are we in your view? Are we like in the top third are we in them in in the top half of all or? You know this area. I mean, I'm just trying to get a sense. I Would say it depends on the position For some positions we are probably In the upper mid to upper Quarter maybe and then for some positions are probably right around in the middle I don't think they're really with maybe the exception of
163the nurses Which I do think that position those positions still need to continue to be evaluated That those positions are typically still on those are probably in the lower quarter. I would say For the nurses yes for nurses. Yeah, and what's our philosophy? Where do we want to be? Where where do we where do we Well, I mean I I say that as a broad broad idea because you know and Companies do that. They do a market analysis and when they do a market analysis They go in Deciding that they're not going to be the top or they are going to be at the top They're going to be in the in the top third or in the top half and and so I'm just trying to get What's our? philosophy as a district in
164terms of How we compensate people where do we want to bracket ourselves? So what the committee came up with a philosophy statement a few years ago and our philosophy is to be in the mid to upper midpoint Between our competitive districts and our neighboring districts the meat to offer me point. Yes. Wow, that's that's a lot of words I I'm not sure what it means 50 to 75 75 percentile. I know it. I know what mr. Etienne right asking to because we we put a lot of expectation and responsibility on our staff and They are performing because our students are performing and I know that you will be pleased when you start to see some of our data Come back. And so what would in my mind what our staff deserves is higher than that
165I agree and I agree because of the work that they're doing you saw and heard from a brilliant committee tonight You know that the staff is working hard and they're doing a great job We our kids are achieving at high levels We are a highly performing district across the state And so when you look at our performance level and then you look at our salaries There is a discrepancy in the level of work that our staff is doing But we also have to look at our budget and we have to make sure that we're being fiscally responsible So I I think that you know, it's a it's a dance a bit But I personally would love to be able to pay our staff more I Just I can't even speak enough about the the work
166that our staff is doing with our students and so We continue to look at it. We continue to look at it up and down the system And so there will always be a need to continue to look at the dollars that we're spending on staff That is our great, you know aside from our students. That's our greatest resource. And so That's where the bulk of our money is spent But as mr. Goldberg reminds me that that compounds and that's a yearly a yearly expense that continues to grow And so that's why we bring ideas to you about how do we improve our revenue sources? How can we make our money go further? And part of the reason we do that is so that we can continue to pay staff at a higher rate, but I
167would say Mr. 18, I'd like to be at that upper in that upper third if we can So I'll say that, you know, Julia's asked to do a salary survey next year. We'll do that We'll get that data back and be able to Determine one data point that we have right now is what's our retention rates, right? And they're good We have good retention rates. I think I think Julie and her team have done a really good job Asking us for the right things for the team not only salary increases, but I think just as importantly benefit increases So if you look at what we've done over the last three years in particular in the benefits area Specifically for the ESP group, I think we've really we've really tried to recognize their value to us
168and really Increase the amount of additional Benefits they get from us and I think well-deserved of course So I feel comfortable wherever I just from the fact that we've done all this work and our retention rates are good But I do think we'll see next year when we get the salary survey back where we stand rather than guess Right. Well, we'll see the data next year. I think Peter and be able to make a better informed decision Thank you. Thanks a lot for the work and Appreciate it. Thank you Anything else in this topic folks? Okay, we'll move on to the last item, which is the disposal of equipment Lyle mr. President Thank you any questions for Lyle on disposal of equipment Okay, wonderful that concludes the regular meeting we will have a closed session
169this evening So I will need a motion to move into the closed session for the following four reasons One the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors 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 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 a 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
170and posted and held in accordance with the Open Meetings Act 5iLCS 120 slash to see one number two Student disciplinary cases 5iLCS 120 slash to see nine number three security procedures school building safety and security and the use of personal equipment to respond to an actual a Threatened or reasonably potential danger to the safety of an employee student staff public or public property 5l CS 120 slash to see eight and lastly 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 findings shall be recorded and entered in the public into the minutes the closed session 5iLCS 120 slash to
171see 11 And I have that motion so most Thank you all in favor. Hi. Okay, you want to post we have to have a yes. Take the role, please Mr. Goldberg. Yes, mr. Habe. Yes, miss Maloney. Yes, dr. Pinter. Yes, mrs. Warren Yes, mrs. Dan agar. Yes, mr. Etienne. Yes, we do not expect to take action coming out of closed session