001handwritten part didn't match, you know, they cash it for the only cash for the hand, not so change. So, I understand that, but that doesn't always happen. It seems like it's always my problem. I always >> All right, let's uh stand and do the pledge of allegiance >> to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for Wait a minute. 628. Hey, you got to tell somebody I didn't bring You've already signed Jason. All right, we will uh call the meeting. Board of Education regular meeting Wednesday, November 19th to order. It's 6:30. Roll call, please. Balmer >> here. >> Lower Mson. >> Nelson >> here. >> Smok >> here. >> Brick >> here. >> Yates >> here. All right. We have
002a quorum. Item number two, public comments. Anybody sign up for public comments? >> Yes, you did. >> All right. Um, one second. Uh, I'm going to the uh participation board of education meetings. The board of education welcomes public comments during the public comment portion of the agenda. Those who wish to address the board should state their name, limit their statement to five minutes. Comments are not restricted to items on the agenda. However, comments regarding specific student discipline cases are not allowed during open session. Genuinely, generally these type of comments should come to the board only after they've been referred to the teacher, principal, or administrator who is closest to the situation. All other avenues for resolving these items have been exhausted if the issue has not been resolved. You may request to address the board
003usually during close session. In addition, please refrain from using derogatory comments about staff members or students at this time. All right. Hold on just one second. Start a timer. >> Okay. >> Good evening. You all should know me by now, but in case you've forgotten, my name is Alicia Stewen and I'm a parent of four children here in County School District. This is my third time standing here at this podium and I'm going to be blunt. I hope some of you feel a knot in your stomach when you see me walk through that door because you know I'm the one in this community who has the gut to say out loud what everyone else is thinking. The sign out front is supposed to represent education, safety, professionalism, and integrity. But right now, the name above
004that door brings to mind mistrust, criminal behavior, and cultlike drama. And if you've played any part in creating that, I'm here for you tonight. We are past misunderstandings, excuses, and quote waiting for more. information. We now have criminal charges, student data access for years, and emails mocking and belittling a school nurse. We also now have public social media behavior that is absolutely unacceptable for anyone connected to the district leadership. Let me be clear. I am not here to call out every single member. Some of you have acted professionally. Some of you have shown restraint. Some of you are doing the job the way the community expects. And I'm grateful for those of you who have engaged in difficult conversations. But to the board members whose emails are now public and to the board members whose
005spouses are publicly laughing, mocking, and making epste jokes while parents are trying to discover if and why their children's private information was accessed. You are the problem. You violated the code of conduct. Your behavior or the behavior happening in your household reflects directly on your ability to leave. The evidence speaks for itself. Your juvenile tendencies helped create the very environment that allowed this district to stray so far from center. And since some people seem to think this situation is funny, I brought comies. These are the comments calling it a distraction. These are the Epstein jokes. These are the laughing reactions at a criminal investigation involving student data. These are the public reactions of a school board member and another board member spouse. You don't have to take my word for it. There's proof. If you
006think this community is going to tolerate that kind of behavior from people tied to elected leadership, you are sorely mistaken. It is a humil humiliating. It is embarrassing and it is a blatant violation of the Illinois school board code of conduct which requires dignity, professionalism, respect for staff and behavior that reflects positively on this district. And since you clearly aren't hearing it from each other, let me tell you what your own staff is saying. Multiple staff members have told me personally that the morale the lowest it has ever been in this district. Not low, not struggling, the lowest it has ever been. Your teachers are defeated. Your support staff is exhausted. Your nurses are disrespected. And your community is angry. Breathe the room. Walk the halls. Understand that morale has hit bottom. And please, for
007the sake of every single student in this district, do something to fix the problems we are facing. Leadership is missing completely. This district is falling apart. Not because of parents, not because of social media, not because of drama, but because of the leadership failures that happen inside this room. This brings me what needs to be said clearly and out loud. I am calling for resignations, not from the entire board, not from the board, from the members who have done their jobs and upheld their responsibilities. Only from those whose actions, behavior, emails, or household conduct has damaged this district. If you violated the code of conduct, resign. If your conduct has damaged the trust, resign. If your behavior has embarrassed this district, resign. You do not get to embarrass an entire school district and then pretend
008that everything is fine. You do not get to sit comfortably in leadership while staff are telling you morale is in the basement. You do not get to say when your actions or your silence are the reason why parents are demanding better. Omission of expected or required action is the definition of failure. So congratulations, you have failed. Mercer County deserves better. Our staff deserves better. And above all, our students deserve far better. >> Thank you. >> Item three, board comments. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, Deon, my apologies. We have the New Boston Elementary School joining us today. >> Here we are. >> Um, I'm Miss Dway. I teach fifth grade at New Boston Elementary School. I know last month you guys have to see a video of our enrichment group doing announcements and they're very proud
009of it. So, I brought them here to tell you a little bit more about it. You're more than welcome to come watch them create these videos and even take it away. >> Can you introduce yourself? >> Okay, perfect. >> My name is Cooper. I'm in fifth grade at Boston Elementary. I hope our school's announcements. Hello, I'm Casey and I'm in fifth grade at Boston Elementary. I work on filming and editing our short videos that we make each morning to share important information with our school. We include things like the lunch menu. We film our green screen so you can add digital backgrounds. We create backgrounds that match the theme. We learned how to use the iPad to record microphones so heard so professional. We editing software to combine different video segments into one final announcement.
010We learned how to fix mistakes, cut events. We are improving our public speaking because we record ourselves talking to scripts, rehearse, and help each other. learning responsibility because we need to finish the announcements with all the teachers before students pay more attention to announcements for their funual. Our videos help everyone feel connected and it gives us a chance to use real world technology that we might use in future jobs. We hope to be more creative in the different segments we proud that we can make something the whole school. It feels good to know we're helping our school. If you would like to come and watch us record some time, reach out to Miss >> What do you have an example of your joke of the day? >> You remember one? Love to hear it. >>
011I picked this up, but I remembered it. What did No, no, no, no, no. What did Tennessee? >> That's good. >> Great job, guys. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. Thank you very much. We appreciate you coming. So, any board comments? All right. Item number four, correspondence. Do we have any? No. Item number five, approval of the consent agenda. Does anyone have any questions concerning items in the consent agenda? Any request to pull anything? from the consent agenda. >> I would entertain a motion to approve. >> Motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Brick eight seconds. Brick. Motion. The 8 seconds. Roll call, please. >> Nelson. >> Yes. >> Smack. >> Yes. >> Brick. >> Yes. >> Yates. >> Yes. Bulmer. >> Yes. >> All right. Motion carries. On to committee reports. Finance committee. Yeah.
012So, um, we went over the budget, we went over the levy. Um, so the revenue report showing 2 or 21.8 million in revenue. Um, so far 14.6 million of that has come in. Um, expenses, our expense budgets 25.2 million. We got a little bit of a deficit there that we're working through. 2 million has been sent spent. We're about 35% of the budget. We're 33% through the fiscal year. Um the reason of a lot of the expense at the beginning of the year we won't see again the rest of the year. So that may be why we're a little ahead of it. Um we should be. And then health insurance. Uh, we deposited $189,446 into our health insurance account, but we had $265,865 worth of claims uh last month. So, our reserves at the end
013are $393,000. So, any questions about the finance report? Then we move on to building grounds. We have building. Yes, we did. All right. So, they uh looked through the high school project um where that stands and also uh we have the architect working through a 10-year healthife safety study to determine how much we would need to spend to fix those problems and how that stacks up to uh a new addition the school maintenance grant uh new Boston >> oh okay the roof Boston was put in in 2000 so it probably is in need of repair um talk about the courtyards of Apollo kindergarten rooms um then electrical charging stations and then also discuss the changes at the wrestling any questions about the building and grounds committee meeting minutes. Um if not, moving on to item
0147, 7.1, foyer request. There were three foyer requests in our packet. Anybody have any questions about those? >> There was one added after >> there was a fourth Are those requests public knowledge? >> Yeah. >> Who's requesting that information? >> Is that public knowledge? >> Yep. That's uh they end up being part of the record of this board meeting. So, um, we had three, one by an attorney, one by, um, >> WQAD was one. The attorney is >> So, who was the new one? >> Yeah, because I only see three in here. >> Um, it was about purchase orders. We've gotten those before. >> Okay. >> I see every couple months. >> Okay. Any questions about employee request 7.2 board agreements? So, we had our uh training with the ISB uh representative and we came
015up with some changes to our current board protocols. Um most of them were kind of wording cleanups. Um staff addressing the board. We wanted to add in the concerns occur following the completion of the chain of command. So basically making sure that folks follow the chain of command when they're bringing issues to the board. Um and then placing item on the monthly agenda. We put a timet to it but knowing full well that sometimes you know it might be nine days before the next meeting. So but we are stating we should be 10 days prior to the board meeting. And then board members asking questions about agenda items. So if there's something in the agenda that you want more information about or whatnot, um we just require that they go to the superintendent the Monday
016before the board meeting. That way he has time to research it and get the answer to have at the board meeting. And then they would also uh superintendent typically if one person has a question about say something on the bill list, they'll usually respond to all of with the answer. That way somebody else had that same answer, they get the they same question, they get the same answer. And then uh let's see, responding to complaints. When the board receives a an email to the board as a whole, um we discussed designating the vice president to be the one who respond. You drew the short straw. So on board protocols, if somebody sends a whole an email to all the board members, it's the vice president's duty to respond. >> The most emailed you. >> Yeah.
017>> Within 20 minutes. >> Yeah, we'll see. Remote participation in board meetings. Per the open meetings act, members may participate remotely under the following circumstances. Personal illness or disability, employment purpose or business of the public body um or a family member emergency or unexpected child care obligations. So um they can participate remotely by calling in if uh one of those four reason for one of those four um conflict of interest. We just talked about that the board board should be cognizant of business items that present a conflict of interest. In those instances, the board members shall abstain from voting on those issues if needed. Um general reminders can be given. So all of us, you know, it's probably hard not to have a conflict of interest from time to time. And if uh you know,
018sometimes we vote on something that might be a bigger picture item, but it might affect a family member. So, um if another board member thinks about it and gives a gentle reminder to the board member that might be um voting in a conflict, uh it would be nice if the board members give each other a heads up so that we don't break any. Those are the changes that we've um wanted to discuss. If no one has any questions or issues with those, we'll vote on them next month as an action item. >> I did actually have a question. I was at that training and I read that right before I came here, but I don't have my laptop. There's C under one of them. >> Um, >> is it yellow? >> Um, it it's in
019reference to being able to speak to the board in close session. Oh, >> okay. And um my concern was is that the um the staff say admin staff are the only layer they have from the superintendent is the board. So if they have like they can't go to their their teachers and >> with a complaint. So their only avenue if they have a issue with the superintendent is to address the board. And somewhere on there I thought that said that the board didn't have to listen to them. says the board has the right to reject the staff request to speak in close session. >> So the board would vote on that or they talk about that. >> I've never witnessed that happen. >> You've never ever seen an admin to talk to the board. They
020didn't wasn't allowed to do it. >> Admin. So red staff not admin staff. >> It's just weirdness in >> Yeah, we can change it. >> This is a this is a living document. So it's not >> and that's why I would prefer it be correct before >> which number. >> Do you have a do you have some verbage that you can >> we're not voting on. So if you want to email with maybe some wording that you would like to get added to and then we can we can just adopt it. He he'll send it out to the board members >> and if anybody has a problem they can >> Yeah. Because because you know to put a block between admin and the board is >> I mean I feel like they have access to
021>> any other questions. All right. 7.3 IBE school report card. Okay, the report card just came out and it came out for the district as a whole and also for each building. They've been doing that now for 20 plus years, I would imagine. And uh it gives a lot of helpful information. I thought I'd just do some uh you know some typical information that you might find interesting, a little district snapshot. Uh we have 1,251 students. We spend $15,822 per student each year. Uh our low income percentage is 49%. Uh 28% chronic absenteeism. Uh in the district, the state average is 25%. So we're just a little bit above that. We have an 88% graduation rate. The state average is 89. Uh we have a 6% student mobility rate. What that means is the percentage
022of students that move in and move out. Uh ours is 6% of our student population either moves in or out each year. The state average is 7%. And then they gave us a summitive design. They started doing that about six or seven years ago. And so they have uh one, two, three, four, they have five categories. The exemplary schools are the top performing 10% of schools. Then the commendable schools are under that. They're below the top 10% but they don't have any groups that are low performing you know subgroups like disabled students uh you know the the different races and the u boys and girls and low income etc. Uh and then if you're a targeted school, you're above the lowest performing. Uh however, you have uh one group, at least one group who is
023uh performing below the lowest 5%. So we had one school get targeted as the junior high and for the students with IEPs, they did not score high enough on the the state tests. Um they uh and so therefore the state labels you targeted and now they'll for the next four years they'll work through a plan. Then they have comprehensive schools. They're the lowest performing uh and um and then the intensive schools are the lowest performing after four years. They still haven't come up and so then they would be the intensive schools. And uh so we had uh three commendable and one targeted school. And um and so that's basically the highlights of the school report. If you have any questions >> and that's online available. >> Yes. Yes. I would just type in in your
024Google search uh Illinois school report card and it'll take a site and basically just type in your school district's name or the school's name and it'll pop right up and it's very uh easy to read and easy to understand. So I encourage you to do it if you're curious about it. Any questions about the score report card review? >> On to the FY25 audit. >> Okay. Uh the FY25 audit is done. However, they haven't given us the paperwork yet and so we hoping to get it before the board meeting and we didn't. So, we'll just uh >> put it on there for the December. and the uh 7.5 uh FY26 school levy or the county levy. >> Yes. Levy discussion in November. You talk about it. In December, you vote on it. And so, um
025our finance committee the other night bandied about a few ideas. Uh this year, our EAB for all three counties, I don't know if hopefully most people know that the vast majority of our school district is in Mercer County. A little sliver at the top is in Rock Island County and a little bit bigger of a slip uh is on the bottom end of the county in Henderson County. So, but put uh so Mer County's EAV is going up 8.9%, Rock Islands is going up 20%. And uh Henderson County is going up 6%. So, put it all together and you have uh 9.0262% increase with all three counties together. uh it's going up 200 and uh our our whole EAV will be 276 million uh 8,666 that's an increase of 22 million. So uh if you
026would apply the the current this year's tax rate to that you would get uh 13,170,000. If you would apply last year's tax rate, you would get 13,338,000. Our tax rate went down six percentage or six percentage points this last year. Uh well, not six percentage points, it went up 6 cents. And and the reason for that is after we established what our levy was going to be at the December meeting, the EAB went up after that because the EAB is just an estimate for Mercer County and when the final numbers came in, they were higher and because of that then our tax rate went down and it's what's uh commonly known as leaving money on the table, we lost out on $167,000. So uh as I worked the numbers this year um and and talk
027to the finance committee. Uh I think that historically I should also add we've been at the 4.83 uh tax rate level and I was talking to Scott uh Peter he came in today and I've talked to him about an hour on finance stuff and uh he said that historically while he was here they tried to keep the tax rate at 4.84 just tried to keep it steady Eddie right on 4.84 And so this last year went down to 4.77. So um I ran the numbers for the the previous year which is 4.83. And uh if this EAD goes up again after we submit it in December, we're going to be in the same boat leaving money on the table. So one of the ideas I had is I ran a scenario. So if if it's
02813,338,000 expected to come in at the 4.83, 3. I kind of wonder if we should just do a 12% which is 13,525. So it's basically um you know a little less than 200,000 more. And that way if it doesn't go up, if that EAV stays the same, then we won't get that 200,000, but at least we will have been prepared to get the 200,000. And if the EAV does go up, then we'll still be able to capture uh that amount of money that we lost last year. So that's something for you to think about is do we want to ask for a little more than we think we'll get just in case it goes back up or do you want to go back to this year's 4.77 or the year before's 4.84? Uh it would
029be my recommendation right now that we would uh go for the the 200,000 more so that we're sure to capture our maximum tax rate. And I should just add for the the three funds, the education fund, the bond and not the bond insurance, operations and maintenance fund, and the transportation fund. Back in 2009, the voters when they voted on the consolidation, it was do you uh approve a consolidation between Alto and Western at the following tax rate. And the the tax rates were $2.70 for the uh ED fund, 70 cents for the IMRF fund, and 20 cents for the transportation. And I know in Alto it was a 70% yes vote and in West Murray it was I think somewhere in the 60s. And so the voters already approved that tax rate. So you don't
030want to ask for less because you know the financial challenges of today. Um I think you want to keep it where it is. So I that's what I would recommend. Now you don't have to say tonight what you want other than maybe just casual conversation. But I'll run you scenarios at all three of those uh between now and December and you'll be able to to make a decision. The only year I remember us doing this froze taxes governor froze taxes. So we asked more just in case we ever got more. >> Yeah, >> because whatever however froze it, right? I can't remember what the >> Yeah, I don't remember. >> Yeah, we didn't get it because >> and then that's okay, but at least we know we got the most that we could get. pretty
031exclusive extensively. >> Okay. >> All right. On to 7.6 SRO for Apollo, right? >> Yes. Uh uh Sheriff Dusty Terrell called me a few weeks ago and said that he might have a name of someone who could be an SRO for us. He wanted to know if I wanted him to proceed. And um and so I said, well, let me let me run it by the board. And so uh that's why it's on the agenda tonight. We you know, we have a lot of challenges ahead of us. We're going to be you know doing a lot of decision making and maybe some reworking of things. coming months. So, I guess my recommendation is that we hold off hiring an SRO, not because they're not important and not because safety isn't important. Uh, but I just
032think we should hold off at this time as we work through these various topics in the coming coming months and then perhaps if this person is still available or something can be worked out and we decide to move that direction, then we can at that time. But I think things are still uncertain right now and so it would be my recommendation that we hold off. But I just Not that you have to vote on it tonight, but I just hope and get consensus or if you think my idea is okay or or whether you think that's important to go ahead and pursue that. >> And we lost CJ, right? >> Yeah, we have uh Officer Brindle goes between the junior high and the high school. Officer Ford is at the high school. And then uh
033down at uh New Boston, we have Officer Evans. And I don't think anybody's assigned. Chad, you can help me out. Anybody's not assigned. I use I use officer >> four. >> Oh, officer >> from the high school. >> That's where was last year. >> So he's not been here recently. Last year was his last year. >> So you don't have >> the the topic was him being here at some point but they were understaffed at the sheriff's department. So like he's slow and stuff. He'll stop in to check off. So she's she's bouncing between all >> you might want to investigate at least one more person handle this these two campuses can't it's not too far away but I I don't like high We're not taking action. >> Yeah, because maybe the guy's not available
034now or something. I thought we had Yeah, I thought we thought I think >> the years were going by. We were Now the one nice thing this does come out of torque which is flush all the Okay. All right. Um, moving on. Eight action items. 8.1 school maintenance grant. >> Okay. The school maintenance grant has been made available. Once again, they're on quite a streak for offering it every year. Used to be just once in a great while. Now they doing it every year. And that's good. What it is is it's $50,000 from the state. It's guaranteed money, but you have to kick in $50,000. So, your project has to be at least $100,000. Get their 50,000 match. And so, I talked to Doug Giles and I also talked to uh the uh Matt Long
035Neck Longer from Graham and Hyde, the architect. And uh we feel that the nest project to do that's around $100,000 is to put a new roof on New Boston. You know that the the portion of the building that's still in existence was built in 2000. So, that means that shingle roof is shingle roof is 25 years old, which that's probably the max for its uh lifespan. Now, it isn't leaking that we know of, but um >> shingles about 12 years instead of 25. >> Oh, really? Yeah. >> There are leaks. >> Yes. >> Oh, okay. So then, uh >> yeah, then be this summer is when the work would be done. And I I just I've already got the paperwork filled out for the state online. I just need to put Did the board vote
036to approve it? You know, and then if we can show that and I actually have to upload the minutes and then uh that'll be approved and then we can uh get the architect to do this architect thing. >> No. Or is this an >> Yeah, just approve. >> So I would entertain a motion to approve the school maintenance grant for the Apollo or the new Boston Elementary. >> Second. >> Yates motion. Baller second. Uh, roll call, please. >> Smok, >> yes. >> Frick, >> yes. >> Yates, >> yes. >> Bulmer, >> yes. >> And Nelson, >> yes. >> Motion carries. 50 8.2 title. Title N. >> Title four. >> Oh, yeah. That's >> Roman. Um, okay. So, title four, we get title one, title two, title four. Next year with the with the designation, we're
037going to get title one a money. And so, um, right now you can take your title four money and throw it into title one. You can take your title two money and throw it into title one, but you can't go the other direction. And so, right now, we use our title four money to pay for the advanced placement tests. Students who want to take very rigorous courses that are at a college level at the end of the year can take a test. Everybody in America takes it the same day. And so you get a score of one, two, three, four or five. And colleges will accept it as college, you know, as a college course if you get a three, four or five. The high-end colleges like the Ivy League, they'll demand a four or
038five on that. So it's a it's a very good thing for our high achieving students. The test cost $75. We've always picked up the tab on that. And um and then also uh dual credit, that's a different kind of college class. That's where you actually get college credit. Whereas the AP just excuses you from that class when you go to college. Uh dual credit, you actually get college credit. And so we have been supplementing uh that that dual credit uh over years. And the reason we did that was because it was a new concept 15 20 years ago. Not many people knew what dual credit was. All these years later, everybody knows what dual credit is now. And so there's no need to try to create an incentive for kids to take the class because
039they all know, wow, if I'm going to go off to college and I can get some of my course coursework done here, that's great. Uh just a little story, my son Jake took welding here with Aaron Hart and he got six college credits and when he was uh registering for his senior classes in college, they said, "You need six credits of electives and or you can't graduate." And so he said, "Well, I took well high school." I said, "Good enough." And so, uh, he was able to use those, even though he's in a business degree, his welding class is counting. And, um, and so, uh, but but I think that the time to to give incentives for them to take it are gone, but they don't need them anymore because they just, uh, hopefully understand
040it. And, uh, so if we did that, we'd save $26,000 and we'd be able to put that Title 4 money into Title One because our expenses far exceed uh, um, you know, the money that we get for Title One. So that would help uh buffer that a little bit and that would be really one of the first things you do, you know, budgetwise this year to try to improve things. >> Oh, and I I talked to the counselors at the high school about and they're on board. >> I just want to point out one thing we did talk about the finance committee is that still if there's a student that there are avenues to go to. >> Yes. If there's a student that just makes up so much sense that this kid needs to have
041help with this, we will find a way. >> So then the motion is to >> Yeah. motion to um to redirect >> Yeah. to redirect. Yeah. And to end the over there. >> Did you get all that? >> I think so. >> All right. >> I would entertain a motion to redirect title four funding to title one and no longer pay for the AP test or dual credit courses for students. >> Yates makes the motion. >> Second. Roll call, please. >> Yates, >> yes. >> Balmer, >> yes. >> Nelson, >> yes. >> Smack, >> yes. >> Brick, >> yes. >> Motion carries 5. Uh, item nine, administrative reports. So, u start with new Boston Elementary. Do you have anything to add or? >> Uh yeah, we had our dancing fundraiser on Saturday. We had our
042guest judge was okay. Um we raised $11,300, a little bit more open than that. We still got about 100 grand to go. So don't keep them fresh because we're going to need quite a bit more to go to get the preschool playground finished and all the place. Looks good. >> All right. Thank you. Um, junior high. >> Um, I just wanted to highlight and thank Mrs. Boswell working with the high school high school counselor brought in Illinois State Attorney General Specialist for Internet Safety. We had her come in as a guest speaker. Um, we're very quick to give kids Chromebooks and phones where they can use their devices. She was able to get information some of the things out in the high school. Um couple of things. Um the discipline summary on there I just
043wanted to note like we are trying to keep those kids in school. Um which is why those in school numbers are a little higher. Um but that is a growing concern with our lack of actual dedicated space for ISS. Um the fact of the auditorium is not ideal. Um, but moving rooms isn't ideal either throughout the day. Um, and banding choir rooms aren't ideal either. So, it's like the lesser of the two evils. Um, and I also, and I know we are in money crunches, but would love a par or a dedicated person for that. Um, we do a great job of getting subs to cover it, but having a rotating person in a situation like that, I need someone that I can to run a program to make it more beneficial that you know
044what I mean. Um, I wanted to note real quick that we had 18 kids um, who have art in the QC Arts Festival of Trees currently and two of them, Emilyn Miller and Holly Brown, uh, just we just found out this week um, won awards. Uh, one got first place in 2D design and one got an honorable mention in the drawing category. So that was pretty cool. Um, we also have that same internet provider um or presentation uh which does check off one of our state requirements and she does do a fabulous job. Our counselors helped us um set that up. Um we also are in the mix of um having the crisis center come in and do our errand law um presentations. They like to do them by classes. So we have one four
045different ones. One for freshman, one for you know allen sophomores, juniors and seniors. So, I think we have juniors and seniors left. Um, and those have been one this week and one I think the following. So, we're almost done with those. Um, again, that way they can better tailor them for each of the classes. Um, there are some different videos and things like that for the different levels, which helps a little bit with their attention and getting the points across. Um, with regards to AP tests, those were just ordered. Um, so we will in the beginning the first couple weeks of May have 29 students taking 38 AP tests which is pretty awesome. Um, they've been working hard with students on getting stuff set up for Blackhawk classes, meeting with their Blackhawk person. Um, oh,
046and the other awesome news we just got recently was we had nine students selected to our Illinois State Scholars. pretty stoked about that as well. >> Thank you very much. >> Yeah. Something I wanted to highlight is we hosted our first uh book fair and we did a read to succeed night. Our amazing parent educator organized that and we were able to purchase $100 worth of books uh for our classrooms and then we also had some generous like family donors too. And then if they came to the read to succeed night. Um uh we were able to give each preschooler that attended $20 to purchase that night at the book fair. So that was a good way to give kids a chance that maybe usually can't attend a book fair and purchase books. So it
047turned out really good. I think we had 15 uh preschoolers and about 50 in attendance. And Hope Neil from the RO gave a presentation on the importance of reading as a family. So >> thank you Mr. Robertson. >> Yeah. Um I'll start our parent teacher conferences. We had those o in Octo end of October. We had 365 out of 375 show up. So that's 97% of our our parents showed up. So that that was amazing. Um right now we have a food drive going on. Uh so far our families and students have donated 1,162 items. That goes till next week and that stays local to the Alo Food Pantries. So that's good. Uh Friday we have our donuts with grown-ups that our PTO is putting on at 7:15 in the morning where a kid needs
048to come in with a grown-up and have donuts. Give the kids juice, not coffee. The adults can have coffee. So that's all that was. We did that for the first time last year and it was a huge success. So I imagine it will be on Friday as well. And then our winter music concerts, you're invited to those. Um December 10th is our K through2 concerts and then December 12th, our 3rd through 5th. We want to thank the high school because they let us invade their auditorium for that and we fill it up. So, it's pretty >> and going forward and we had the kids from New Boston come. So, principles, I might reach out to you. I've got a couple ideas for the next two months, but I may reach out to you to see
049if there's an organization or group within your uh buildings that might want to come to the board meeting to tell us what they're doing. Devin reached out to me um to do and it was like perfect timing and I I like it. So it gives us gets us to actually see what the kids are doing and their excitement for things. So um the other thing uh the school report card you touched on the graduation rate of 88%. When you look at our most of our classes are less than 100 kids. So if you have one kid not graduating really affects that percent. It's not as it's not as as bad. % seems bad. So you figure that that's maybe student. >> Well, and also when you have a kid who moves away their sophomore year
050and they we don't ever get the records of where they went, you have to count that against your graduation rate even though they might have graduated validator someplace else. They didn't tell us. We got no information goes against that. >> I was going to say Andrea had been working on some of that because she felt that some of that was and not correct. >> Yeah. >> Because of things like that like state >> and that new school isn't interested in getting the old records. >> We also have things to like homechooling and things like that where the records wouldn't >> Yeah. Thank you for the administrative reports. So that moves us to item 10, close session. So I would entertain a motion to go into close session. Yates second. >> Nelson. Roll call, please. >>
051Palmer. >> Yes. >> Nelson. >> Yes. >> Smack. >> Yes. >> Craig. >> Yes. >> Yates. >> Yes. We'll reconvene at 7:30 and close.