D64 BOE Meeting 9.18

001All right. In interest of keeping us moving along, skip past opening remarks from from me. Um and a motion to regular meeting public. >> Thank you. May I now have a motion to convene the public hearing for the fiscal year 2026 final budget for Park Ridge Nile School District 64. >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Oppose. This is the public hearing conducted by the board of education of community consolidated school district number 64, Cook County, Illinois, pursuant to section 171 of the school code. At the August 14th, 2025 board of education meeting, the board adopted resolution 1368 to post notice of the budget hearing and availability of the budget for public inspection for at least 30 days. The budget was conveniently located both on the

002district's website and available for public inspection in the district office located at 8182 Greenale Avenue 9 Illinois 60714 comments for section 17-1.3 of the school code. I'll reveal the cash balance cash balances for our funds as of June 30th, 2025 as follows. Education fund $25,449,863. Operations and maintenance fund 6,573,358. Debt service fund 1,999,56. Transportation fund 3,960,23. Municipal Retirement and Social Security $974,313. Capital projects 56,885 or $885,78. Working cash 2,92,498 and TOR $36,816. At this time, does the administration have any comments? Seeing none at this time, do the board members have any comments? This time, we will now open it up for any comments from the public pertaining to this hearing. This is about the public hearing for budget. Yes. All right. Seeing none, um, may I have a motion to adjourn the public hearing on

003the fiscal year 2026 final budget and return to regular session? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I thank you. >> Yeah. So, we're excited to do our first school of the year with some very special people um as our administration from Emerson who we'll hear from tonight later on too when we do our tour comes up. So, each month we will highlight a student and a staff member for our shining star award. It's the student and staff member that's chosen from the administration in the school that really highlights the district mission and you get to hear just some wonderful stories. So, I'm going to turn it over to stand to my name is Tessa Shelman and I'm proud to recognize tonight two deserving Eagles. First, the Emerson School is

004proud to honor our shining star Zabake. Zanab's kindness, inclusivity, and passion every day is contagious. Her quiet leadership and genuine care makes a meaningful difference in our school community. The students in the life skills program described Zena as someone who makes them feel important and seen. Zana, thank you for being such a wonderful eagle and we appreciate you. The second slide that we have this evening for you, it's actually written by our students in our life skills program. And then there's a picture of one of our students with [Applause] secondly this evening we are proud to recognize Miss Emmy Paser for her unwavering dedication to Emerson Middle School. Over the years, she has gone above and beyond serving on numerous committees, coaching, mentoring colleagues and students, and continuingly stepping up to our school for our

005school community. She truly embodies our district's mission. Together, we discover, learn, grow, and care. We are grateful for her continued leadership and service. Emerson is lucky to have you. Thank you for all you do. Uh, I just want to say one thing about Emmy Paser. Um, I have known her for nine years and, uh, she is the head girls varsity softball coach at Main South and, uh, girls basketball coach as well and does just a ton of things at the program. She's one of those people when you drive by a school at night at 10 o'clock, you wonder whose car is that? And and I I mean that with with all of the respect and and just the admiration of the world. the amount of time you have put in to the community for all

006of the students here, it's it's unmatched and and your just like who you are as a human being is so infectious and all of these groups that you are in when you talk about someone who's moving the culture um towards that positive end, you are it. You are the standard. So when we say we're lucky to have you, as as Tess was just sharing, holy cow, we lucky to have you. Congratulations. [Applause] >> Great. So, now let's do some pictures in the back and then we'll reconvene the rest of the meeting. Thank you. Public comments. This is the point of the meeting where we welcome public comment. Each speaker is given three minutes to address the board. Comments may be made on almost any matter related to operation schools, but we ask that you refrain

007from making comments concerning individual students or staff members. Board uses this time to listen to community questions and concerns will not respond immediately to request for information. Ideally, the board cannot take formal action on non-aggenda items. Please contact the board president by email if you wish to discuss topic further. Please come forward to the microphone and state your name and comfortable your address. Hello, my name is Katie O'Donnell and I'm a resident of Parkridge. At last month's board meeting, the district policy on bus transportation was updated to add back language allowing for transportation from school to childare for children whose IEP qualifies them for special transportation. The stated rationale for this was to increase the district services for children of working parents. However, it was also determined that the district would no longer provide transportation

008to child care centers that also provide therapy as it has done in the past. In doing so, an important group of children have been left out. Many with significant developmental delays, including those with autism spectrum disorder, require intensive therapy to maximize their growth potential. In many cases, the district is unable to meet the number of hours medically needed for these children. This is especially true at the preschool age, which only offers a 2 and 1 half hour day. Furthermore, one form of therapy recommended by many physicians is applied behavior analysis. This therapy is not offered by our school district. So there is no way to access outside of private therapy. Typical daycare centers are not able to provide the therapy medically required for these children. Staff are not trained to work with special needs children

009and often cannot take children who are not potty trained, have limited verbal skills andor behavior challenges. For many families, private therapy thus serves two purposes. to provide medically necessary therapy. And in the case that a caretaker is not required to be present, it functions as an afterchool child care provider. Much like a traditional daycare, these centers can provide essential services such as supervision, meals, hygiene needs, and social interactions with peers throughout the day. The district's refusal to transport to therapy limits access to those most in need of special education services by often forcing families with working parents to choose between school and private therapy. Ironically, many families need to work in order to obtain insurance coverage for this medically necessary therapy. Last spring, our district passed a multi-million dollar referendum. A strong argument in favor

010of the referendum was to avoid the need to take away school services. So why are we now doing just that? These children already qualify for bus transportation. So transporting to therapy adds no cost and can in fact save cost in both the short and long term. Multiple children can be bus to the same location as opposed to separate residences. And by maximizing access to service, the growth potential of each child can be optimized, potentially reducing the need for services in the future. The district's unwillingness to apply its policy equally discriminates against children with disabilities that have a medical need for private therapy. It violates the Americans with Disability Act and its own policy which states the district shall not discriminate among types of daycare. And this service Certainly not unique to our district. I have

011confirmed that the following local districts offer after school therapy, transportation to therapy. District 62, Displayplains, District 202, Planefield, District 102, Lrange District 28, Northbrook, District 158, Huntley Woodstock, CPS district 146, Timley Park, District 300, Elgangquin, District 15, Palatine, District 34, Gleniew. >> Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? >> All right. Yes. So, we are going to get the slide deck ready and we've actually got our student representatives on the line. Uh, Michael and Dee, can you hear me? >> Yes, sir. All right. Um, I am gonna run your slide deck and uh I will turn it over to you in a moment here, but just to kind of give everybody a little bit of context. It's I was counting the months. It's been about 17 months since we started this conversation about um reorganizing

012where our strategic plan is and having the conversation at this table. And then um last January, our school board and our cabinet members came together to talk through the areas of our district and how they're organized and the work that we all have to do and just how to how to do things better. And then out of that work um came our five focus areas. Um through the spring we've been meeting with different organizations. Basically anytime someone's having strategic planning or continuous improvement conversations in other districts, I've kind of said, "Hey, can I come and show up and latch on to that?" Um and through those conversations and discussions, our cabinet team uh was able to attend the stutter conference in Chicago this uh July and just had a great time hearing from all of

013these districts from all over the country about the work that they're doing. Uh there are some other districts that are neighbors that are also using Stutter. So talking to those those superintendents about the great work there and that is our recommendation today. So, I'll turn it over to uh Michael and Dee uh to walk us through what it would be like to um enter into a partnership with Stutter. We're very very very um excited about the potential and the work that we can do. There's a lot of things that would have to happen after um this approval, but I think it'll be really great conversation for us as a school board, as the community, and all of our uh staff. So, the floor is yours, and I'll do my best to run the slides virtually.

014Okay. Go ahead, Michael. And >> Dee, do you want to kick us off? >> Sure. So nice to be here and thank you for this opportunity. My name is Dr. Deanna Ashby and everyone just calls me Deei. I am a retired repurposed superintendent from Kentucky and now serve as a senior executive of partner development for student ed. I was a superintendent for five years and a student partner during that time and love the work so much that when I retired I decided to go to work for them. So we have been uh so pleased to be able to have these conversations with your district and so I'm going to hand off to Michael who will share our presentation tonight. >> Thank you so much Dei. Good evening everyone. My name is Dr. Michael Crowy. Michael

015is fine. Uh I am a manager of partner development here with stutter education. Prior to this my background actually is in higher education as well as industrial and organizational psychology. Have a true passion for the work of continuous improvement and truly are grateful to be here this evening. Um as we begin Dr. Collins if we move to that our y slide are we good there? Yes. Perfect. It's a little challenging because we don't have a visual and I promised Dr. Collins I would keep this brief. So uh just at a high level, Stuart education has been partnering with school districts across the country, approximately 200 at this point over the last decade or so. Really with a focus on specific uh the specific initiatives of culture and strategy and the marriage of those two to

016create lasting impact for the district, students, communities that are involved. what you if we go to our next slide this is just at a high level um just a snapshot as Dr. Collins mentioned, we do partner with a number of your neighbors. Uh, as you see from that map, we have a number of partners across the country. We do have a cohort of sorts developing in that Illinois area and we are excited about the potential to add Parkidge Niles to that list of fantastic partners and ideally have them presenting on stage like we did Chicago earlier this um this past summer. So, we move to that next slide and Is there any time and you need me to slow down or if you have questions, please let me know. At a high level, because I

017know that we've discussed this at great length, as Dr. Collins indicated, the strategic planning process is highly customized and at the at the direction of the school board, the superintendent, and the district cabinet, of course. But at a high level, we we typically look at a strategic plan as a three-phase development process. That first phase is that gather and anal piece. There's not a set amount of time for each of these. It's just this is the phase of where that's where we're collecting that data, garnering stakeholder feedback, really getting that community input, moving to the next phase, the aim forward. That's where we're reviewing the data with the with the board, with the district, uh, and really developing and um creating those priority areas as you determine them to be. And then finally, that finalizing

018the plan, that's where we uh go back with our feedback and we we go back out to the community and say, "Look, this is what you've identified as your priority areas. Does this seem like a good fit?" And then we put the finishing touches on your strategic plan. Definitely not Stutter's strategic plan. It is Parkidge Niles strategic plan. Uh next slide. This is a sample timeline uh for the progression of our work uh in this process. We typically strategic plan uh on average takes anywhere from six to eight months to complete. That can of course be expedited or slowed down at the discretion of the district. This is by no means set in stone a fivemonth process as the slide would show, but it shows you a natural progression of some of the key tactics

019and techniques that we're utilizing along the way. Moving on to the next slide, you'll see uh this is actually a recent strategic plan with your neighbors, the Waka public schools that we just recently completed. The reason I wanted to highlight this one specifically is as you can see with if you're familiar with strategic planning, the core piece of it is developing those priority or pillar areas, however you want to call them by which you will then action upon as you begin the implementation phase. Speaking of implementation, and this is really where the rubber meets the road. If you move to that next slide, um, student education as an organization will meet a district wherever they want to be met. Obviously, we do on many occasions do standalone strategic plans, a plan on the page as

020it were, but where the where the really the meat and potatoes of the work is that implementation. What do you do with that plan? How do you action on that plan? How do you show that you are succeeding? You know, what are the metrics showing that you're actually making progress towards that plan? These are all things that I assume as a board and as a community you would want to know. That's where these scorecard process comes into play. This is just one tactic and technique that we utilize among others. Leader rounding, 30, 60, 90day conversations, all things we can dive into at another time when we have more time. But at a high level, these scorecards are a short cycle formative measure of to to track the progress based on each of those pillar areas.

021This slide shows you one example from one district. Uh and I like this slide because the the first scorecard, the one that's kind of sitting behind the other is that district level scorecard around those pillar areas with key measures of success. And then as you really deepen that work and hardwire it across the district, you'll see that one on the right, the one that sits on top is a specific school scorecard. And that just shows how it the the work progresses and it does start with that board u and district level feedback and then cascades down through the district. Next slide please. These are just a few of the uh additional solutions that come along with both our strategic plan development and implementation. We are a K12 rounding web-based platform to help you collect the

022data from those conversations as you're garnering that community and employee input. Uh next slide would be our survey offerings. We do offer four different surveys to again really help to gather that data and get a pulse. The following slide is just a sample of the roll out process that we will help walk through walk through with you. Um and then the next slide, the nine principles of operational excellence of organizational excellence. These are the the fundamental principles that pillars that we as an organization found ourselves on and these are all um can be found sprinkled throughout all of our various strategies. You'll see pieces of uh and parts of this throughout. So it's kind of stutter eds as a organization, our pillar areas as it were. So, and then the slides after that, I'm happy

023to go into greater detail if you'd like, but at a high level, it's just a um we offer package pricing along with allocart services menus. We work very closely with you and your superintendent and your your team to develop what we feel is a great and very customized approach for Park Ridge Nile School District 64, which you will see laid out in slides 16 and 17. Um, and at this point that is I mean at a high level that is our work and I'm happy to answer DD and I are both happy to answer any questions or is there anything more you'd like us to go into greater detail about >> um just thank you I think we did a great job on the coordination of the slides so I just want to give myself

024a compliment there >> if I can see it I would agree >> right I I I just wanted to mention that the vast majority of the organizations that do this work don't offer for continuous improvement afterwards. There's kind of a market within a market. So, most of them, they'll come out, they'll come into an organization, and I know District 207 kind of has hired a group that does that. Great. I'm sure they'll they'll do a great job. Um, but after that year, they are not with you anymore. And in talking to some of the uh organizations and the school districts that I think we would aspire to be, uh the the advice was to find someone that's going to really hold you accountable all the way along um the path so that it's not something

025that you veer from or start to add more to and then it actually pulls you away from the things that you actually think are the most important drivers of student success. And so I think for a community like ours who has this incredibly um high level of just kind of um vision for what the school could look like and be. Um, and it's it's our charge to meet that. I think that's why we wanted to go with a longer term to a longer term plan. I mean, I think you heard me say it back in May of like we're really trying to figure out like what kind of health program we're going to get into. And it's less important that you have um you know a conversation around which gym you're going to get um

026a membership from and more important that you actually go every day and do the things that they're prescribing. And I do think uh with Stutter just because of their you know you saw they've got a lot of their own kind of methodology and their theory of action and things that would take place that we would learn from and use but they were also able even in the strategic planning process. I know I've shared I've got some different ideas that are not necessarily what you would consider traditional in that process that I think will be much better for our community. And they were one of the few groups that was like, well, that sounds interesting. We'd really like to partner with you. As opposed to some of the other organizations that were like, yeah, it's not

027us. So, um, I just want to add that as as a questions that any board members have for either us or for their student representatives. 35,000 that's per year >> we budgeted when we were going out to do this we budgeted $50,000 um so this is where this came in they also gave us a because of the long-term contract they gave us a discount and then you know I I sent you the prices but what you're seeing from some of the other organizations you can pay as much as you want for some of this stuffarkable It's a multi-year contract, but we are not locked in. Meaning that if we got ahead of schedule or for whatever reason, we would not have to every single year. >> There's a provision in the contract to get out

028of the contract, >> but then do you lose >> if we stayed with probably, but there's not a There's no there's no design where it's like you're going to be here in year one, you're going to be here in year two. It's just they're they're coming in, meeting with us, talking to us every month in whatever place we're at. >> And I know I asked you, but it might be helpful to explain why um it would be why it would benefit the district to have a consultant or to outsource help on this work. Yeah, I that was a great question actually. So, um when Beth and I were talking, she asked, "Why do you need an outside organization to partner with this, which unto itself is just a really good question to always ask?" And

029so, um in thinking about that, there's there's a couple of reasons. I think the first one is we need a coach in all of the hard work that we do. And this is the most important thing we're going to be working on. This is the core of our mission. this is all the things that we're looking toward to drive student success. And so if this is the one area where we don't have a coach on, I think that puts us in um a less desirable position organizationally. So it's that accountability partner who's always going to be next to us coming in and saying, "You said you were going to do this, did you do that?" Um frankly, on another side, I think when we have a community um like ours who who has means who

030can can decide to do things that other districts just cannot. So we if we wanted to take um an approach year one and then completely stop what we were doing year one and do something different year two because we wanted to buy a brand new math curriculum, our district could probably do that. So I think what ends up happening in districts that look more like ours is that they become less focused because their strategic plans aren't strategic really at all and they're not really plans. more just lists of everything that everybody would like to see. And it becomes really challenging for us from the school's perspective and the district perspective to actually accomplish any of those things at an extremely high level because we're actually being judged on the entire menu as opposed to the

031one recipe that's actually going to increase someone's health or you know um make them better. And I think at the end of the day, um those two factors just coupled with the fact that we don't know what two years from now is going to look like in our school district or three years from now in our school district and um having somebody who's been through multi-stage processes with other districts is going to be really beneficial. So it's a great question. Um, I do think if you asked me, do you feel like you need we need more coaching on the strategic plan process or more of the continuous improvement? I would say way more on the continuous improvement side. I actually think we've got a a very specific some very specific ideas about the way that

032the strategic plan could work in our community, but it doesn't mean that we've got it nailed down and correct. And we do need facilitation on that. So, some of the organizations I was meeting with, the prices that I showed you, it was just for the facilitator. It wasn't for the actual work. They're like, "Well, you're the ones that are going to do all the work. I'm just going to show up to the evenings." I'm like, "You're gonna charge us $20,000 for that." So, um there's just a lot of situations where we were talking to some of these groups or it wasn't didn't feel like it was coaching, felt like there was us doing everything and them just kind of being along for the ride or in some cases like they were going to run all

033the focus groups and they were just going to give everything to us and then we were going to have to write the plan and pay them north of 100 grand. Um this to me in the work that we've done and even just in our partnership meetings has felt much more like a coaching relationship already. So, it fits it fits a lot of the ethos that we're trying to do, but it's a great question. >> Can you um speak a little bit more about in years two through four what the content or need of the like coaching days and coaching sessions look and feel like? >> Yeah, Dee, are you be able to answer that? >> Yes, sir. So, Thank you for that question. So in years two through four, we would focus on uh completion

034of the strategic plan and launching that into the beginning hopefully of year two or the end of year one. And then we would move into the development of the scorecard uh and we would work on that at the district level working toward a goal of cascading that to the school level as um they are ready. We would also do a lot of work around professional learning, developing leaders to develop others, uh closing the feedback loop through um the nine principles that were highlighted in the book that was outlined in the slide deck and really follow those nine principles and really work with the superintendent about what is the the greatest need for professional learning and how can we custom fit that because the work that we do is not cookie cutter. We talk about um

035we go through each of the nine pillars to really look at uh commitment to excellence measuring the important things any surveys that are conducted whether it's our surveys or other surveys that you have and how you roll that out how you really focus on any areas where the district is stuck. I know that many um districts that that we talk to u continually want to recruit and re-recruit their high performers. Uh professional learning conversations for growth for employees, communication at all level. U those are just some of the topics that when we come on site or even virtually that we spend a lot of time uh with district level and school level administrators. So for instance, on the days that we're on site, we may spend part of the morning working with the core team

036on the development of the scorecard and in the afternoon leading professional learning. In between those on-site visits, there will be uh monthly calls where we talk about how things are progressing, where the district needs help, what questions they have, and then we also have opportunity for virtual learning as needed. And then one thing I want to add is that's interesting about stutter is the site visits that are offered. Um I think there's a they're hosting a summit from the the boardroom all the way down to the classroom in EMTT California in October. So if we were using them we could go to that and just see the all the work all the way through. Uh the superintendent that I've spoken with at Gleno Wka will match and now Skooki 68. Um we talked about potentially

037getting together once a month and having our teams come together a couple of times a year to say what are you doing for you? That's where that's where the bread and butter really starts coming out because um it's that idea generation or just um means testing from other organizations that really benefits us. Um so those are those are things that as we go past the strategic plan kind of you know basically a year from now we would be really looking towards. >> Yeah. I think the part that really um one of the parts that I think really excites me is the the translation of the goals um and the activities into actual dashboards that I think will help both really quantify and define what the destination is and what the milestones are so that it's

038really across the organization and across the community and then help us understand how we're doing um against those. And I don't often see strategic planning organizations do that kind of work as part of the regular scope of what they offer. So that's really exciting. And then the implementation support for you know the years afterwards to make sure that you're andor revising the plan to meet those outcomes. >> Ben, when you when you've heard um presentations from other districts that use, do they talk about the leader development portion? Is that something that you see in other organizations that do this work or is that unique to >> um I would say it's a staple across the board no matter what group you're working with. things that I think stutter takes a slightly different approach is a

039lot of the groups are more technical. So they're focused more on the um make sure you're doing these things and I think stutter comes at it they get to that but they come at it from the hearts and minds first. And so the strategic plan and the work that we're doing every year that is the staff's work. It's not the board's plan. It's not the superintendent's plan. It's not the cabinet's plan. It's not the principal's plan. The staff has to feel like this is this is what we do. and they were one of the few organizations who started there and then got to the scorecarding, the technique, um those aspects. And I think in the day and age that that our teachers are in right now, um that's been sorely missing. And I I definitely

040think from a cultural standpoint from our school district and the things that we're trying to do, I think that'll be very well received by their staff. And who doesn't want to read leadership books? I mean, come on. All the stuff. Any other questions? Superintendent. >> Okay. Well, thank you very much, uh, Michael and Dee. Appreciate it. >> Have a good evening. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate the opportunity. >> Have a good night. >> All right. Um, I'm gonna invite uh Mr. Harland to give us a little update on our gen ed transportation situation. >> All right. So, just wanted to give you all um kind of an update on where we're at with our transportation. Um obviously at the beginning of the year, we know kind of with the community regarding um some of the

041difficulties that arose with our regular transportation right before the school year with the company we were working with, the Safeway. Um and I do want to report that we Obviously, right now there's still some things. It's not perfect, but there have been some improvements um especially over the last couple of weeks. Um so, we did hold anformational session for parents to attend. All parents that take regular transportation were invited on August 29th. Um we had about 45 people attend those meetings. Uh they were zoom meetings. We wanted to hold them just because there have been some concerns with late buses, routes u being late. Um you know, drivers not routes not staffed with drivers in the morning and things like that. So, some combination of routes. So, we just wanted to meet with our community

042and let them know that we were there for them and supportive of them and kind of give them an update. Um, at the beginning of the year, we had about five routes that were not covered with a consistent driver. So, we had a sub driver. It seemed like almost every day. We are down to what we believe is one route now that seems to be inconsistent with the driver. Um, they are still working on filling that permanently and right now it's been the same driver in the morning, the afternoon still. um is not covered. Um our biggest uh difficulty has continued to be when sub drivers um are are sitting in the spots, you know, it's difficult for them to navigate our streets and things like that. And um you know, I know when there's

043a high volume of subd drivers, we definitely feel that. I know today we had a subd driver on a route. Um we had a route that was very late. We are being very communicative uh with our transportation company and still um kind of pushing for increased communication with them when routes are running late so that we can send out notifications and also that whenever there is a bus swap because of a mechanical reason or something like that that they update update the here comes the bus app so those can be tracked without updating that on the back end um they cannot be tracked and that is not something that we can do because the transportation company works with that software company to do that so we don't have the access to do that um we

044have had some issues with charters not being covered for things like athletic activities that did arise um we have been very proactive again in our communication with them making double checking, triple checking that those are covered. Um, so we've seen a little bit of growth there and um, ultimately we know that there's still some improvements to be made. We were able to connect a little bit with with the manager that is assigned to us um, which was helpful and um, you know, we're going to continue to work tirelessly to make sure that our families have the best transportation experience they talked about it today at the community coffee as well with the families that were there. So, a lot more is ahead. Um, I just want to also say that Brian and his team are

045doing everything they possibly can. There's a lot of early morning text messages, late afternoon text, lot of sorry, a lot of communication back and forth. So, trying to get the situation to an acceptable place. Is there um are we thinking that staying with this company for the year is the plan or are we pursuing? >> Uh we're having Yeah, we're having conversations about what the if there was an opportunity that might arise to what would that look like and what would that be? So that's going to be an open question probably before the end of the year. And I think one of the big decisions that we'll have probably in a couple of months will be whether or not we go out to reit. >> I know one of the positives of this company was

046that they had GPS's on the bus for the bus drivers to track the route. Are they using that? >> They are not using the GPS that are in the buses as was promised to us >> and that's been communicated with the management. >> Yes. Just uh in terms of leverage um can you let us know if a you mentioned like the charter buses for after school activities were not there. still if they if they do not show >> thanks. All right, some good news. Um, I want to invite Matt up. Uh, you're the first to hear about this, but uh, Matt's been working really hard with his team on on a number of things, and I I'll just turn it over to you, Matt, and you can tell the good news. Good evening, everyone. Um,

047so I'm excited to share that district 64 has earned the consortium of school networking trusted learning environment mini seal for leadership practices. The coast and trusted learning seal program is the nation's only student data privacy framework designed specific specifically for school systems and it was developed in collaboration with as AASA, ASCD, and ASBO, lots of organizations. Um, seal and mark marks a distinction uh and reflects our district's strong commitment to protecting student data privacy and the hard work the district has has engaged around to build and continuously improve a robust data uh student data privacy program specifically with leadership policies like the policies that you all pass and our practices that we put into practice with those policies. Um, we are committed to continuing our focus on student data privacy. And so there are additional

048mini seals that are offered through TLE, focus on business, data security, professional development, and classroom practices. And those are ones that we are going to continue to apply for and hopefully get awarded. This is the first one that we were awarded. There will be an official press release coming, but I did want to share this good news. And I do want to thank the board for your continued support in these student data privacy and cyber security. Questions? So Matt's done a ton to get that recognition. Dan's done a lot too. So congratulations Dan on all that work. Um and so that's we're very happy to share that with the community coming up here. Just a couple of other updates. Uh we're finalizing, not finished yet. You see just a draft right now about what our

049parent series is going to be. Typically that's been situations that have either come up through conversations and discussions with parents or things that we know uh we want to have evenings for in this year. Uh transition's been a big theme. So, we're running a new night for transition to kindergarten. This is going to be for all of our parents out there who have kids like my kid who's going to go to kindergarten and there should there are things that they can do months out that would really set them up well. So, we're excited about that. Um and then we're also talking about a transition to sixth grade night. what would that look like? Um trying to get that really fun time of fifth grade to sixth grade to be smooth, including for the parents because

050sometimes they're transitioning more than the children. Um so we're excited for that. And then you can obviously AI is a hot topic right now. So Matt's um been hard at work trying to figure out how we could provide something uh for for families so they can understand and know just what's happening in our schools, what do we want to happen in our schools, what could be happening at home, and things of that nature. Um, we're also talking about some some other things too that we're still trying to uh to trying to work towards. Inside your uh board packet too, there is the upcoming agenda for October. Just a friendly reminder that's going to be at Lincoln. I'll send you a billion reminders leading up to the evening. So, go to the right school. But we're

051going to walk Lincoln and wow you with the construction there and also go over to Washington. So, definitely wear comfortable shoes that night. And then I've got a request. So, the ISIL program that in that I'm in to Springfield um every couple of months. I'm curious if anybody would be opposed to moving the January board meeting up a week to the 15th instead of the 22 because my ISO program is that um is on the 22nd. And originally I thought like well I'll just keep it and just drive down drive back from Springfield on Thursday and then drive back at night or really early in the morning and I talked to Matt. Anybody have a problem with that? >> No. >> Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um in terms of the rest of the

052stuff in there, every year we have to provide the employment information system administrator and teacher salary and benefits on our website. So we just show it to you. You can see the preview um from our HR office. Beyond that, we've had a really great start to the school year and we're really excited in particular for this being to go show you Emerson here in just a little bit. So, okay, that concludes my fun update and we're ready for board committee reports. Um facilities uh We met for the first time with great group and uh spent a lot of time talking about the construction how it's how it's gone and said we're see that was put into making it uh great and appreciate all the support in doing so. That was obviously primary of our conversation.

053Then we talked about additional supporting our transported and then talking. So I think it was a very successful meeting. I think we spent a lot of time together made some progress. There's a neat chart that's put in here that gives you kind of a high level of everything is concernal issues a lot of success go through renovation programs and I've seen a lot of dysfunction a lot of mess and a lot of Start late, have problems, budget. >> Pretty awesome. All right. Um, education's not here. >> I I am here. Um so ed committee met um we missed Monica but Rachel was there I was there um Dr. Limo and um Alison Dheim was there and Ben and our student friends uh zoomed in so we had a preview of the presentation that you got

054tonight. Uh we were able to ask questions informally and get you know a better feel a little bit deeper than we went over tonight. Um but we were able to get questions answered there and And then when they log off, we could ask Ben, you know, even candidly, you know, a little bit. Um, I don't think that there's anything to really share that we haven't already covered tonight. I think that there was in general enthusiasm for the um for the service that they could provide us. The fact that we budgeted 50,000 and they would come in at 45,000 for the first year and then like Ben said, that um continuing improvement piece that would go on beyond the first year would be really key. Um, then we had a preview of the student achievement report

055and um, I'm not going to steal anybody's thunder, but we've got some good news there as well. Um, and again, the same thing, we were able to get some questions answered. Um, and to Kurt's point, we have a lot to be proud of in that in that area as well. Um, I think that one of the shout outs was for the ELA improvement in the middle school band. Great there. Um, I I think that I'm going to leave it I had questions um partly about things like fast bridge. It's typically for K2 and we give it to K5. And my question was why would we do that? In my head I'm thinking the worst case scenario is we're taking a chunk of time to do more testing. But the good news is it's a very

056very short test and it tests something that doesn't get caught in it sense to do it. It's done once a year. It's a screener for dyslexia. Um It's a screening tool. It takes a minute and it test it looks for things like fluency which is something that map is not able to capture. So it makes perfect sense that we would do both. Um I have other takeaways but I won't I won't take any more time on this. Um and I'll let Dr. present all the other news there. Um and I think that's that's about the recap. I had some other questions to delve into um some stuff in the saber tool that went out this uh in October I believe. Um and uh that's a conversation that I would just love to continue having and

057uh think that we they gave me some background so that we can have that conversation moving forward with a little more district. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you again. Um going to keep this very uh brief and kind of high level because last month we did take time to go through and do really a deeper dive than we've done here in the past regarding the budget. Um there were some questions that came up all in addition to just these couple slides here. Um, all the information was presented to you guys in that board packet, including a breakout of the answers of kind of some of the big questions we had from our from our last board meeting. We dove in. Um, Phoebe and I really had a lot of time. Uh, so, thank you

058to Phoebe for all of her help through this process um to dive into really more the revenue side and a little bit of the expenditures because we we didn't get an opportunity to do that um before our last meeting. And just kind of wanted to show you kind of where we landed with everything with the final budget. The complete final budget is in that board packet. Um, in terms of the operating funds, we are um looking at 97 million 97.9 million of revenue and $92.2 million um of expenditures. So, uh we also included transfers on this. We did not have transfers in our preliminary budget. So, you could see those. Those are to make some of the bond payments from previous bonds that were issued here in the district. Um and the projected ending ending

059balance here. I think the key is as was mentioned before, this is a balanced budget and we are looking to grow our operating fun balance. So, I think that's important to note. When you look at the total fund balance, um, you know, we are projecting a lower ending balance, but this is 100% planned for. So, this year we will be issuing the rest of those referendum bonds. We're hoping, um, close to the beginning of the year um, right now is kind of what we're hoping, anticipating with those. Um, but we are looking at beginning balance of 99 million and ending balance of 66 million. Next year, our revenue will be 142 million. Um, 30 million of that roughly will be with that bond sale that will be coming up. So you look at the operating

060funds, you know, be less than that. Um and then expenditures 175 million which we are planning for because of all the construction that's going to be going on in our buildings the next year. So that is a very high level summary of where we're at, but we're very pleased with kind of where we landed and we're looking forward to moving forward next year and doing this process from the beginning. um you know instead of taking it over midway through so that we can have a deeper understanding kind of where we can maximize um you know our return on our investment in the future. Any questions? I move that the board adopt the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2026. >> Andrew, yes. George, yes. All right. Um, student

061achievement update, Dr. Limo. >> Good evening. Thanks for having me. I love giving this presentation every year because as Beth said, we have so much to celebrate, not only as a staff member, but also as a fellow community member. There's so much to be proud of and it's wonderful to see every single year. Um, today we're going to be taking a look at all of our achievement data from last school year. So, it's really a review of spring 2025. So, keep that in mind. Nothing from this year is in this presentation yet. Um, three things that I want to talk to the board about in our community. Uh, explore our student achievement performance. So, we'll look at early childhood, so our Jefferson kiddos all the way through 8th grade. I'll talk to you about our

062accomplishments, but also some things that we're working on as a cabinet administrator and staff all within District 64 with our with our kids and our families. And then finally, I'll talk to you about some data and how it's going to impact the future and some action steps that we would like to take this year and moving forward, especially as we start thinking about strategic planning. To begin, I always think it's important just to give you a snapshot of last year. We served almost 4600 students in district 64 through Jefferson all the way up to our middle school in 8th grade. Uh 12% with an IEP, about 8% of those students fall under English learners, multilingual learners, which is a little bit higher than it was about five, six years ago, but is really steady um

063right now. There's not as much movement in that that department anymore. Um which is always kind of interesting. see the trends go up and down. And then finally, um I don't know if anyone's aware or remember, we did our channels of challenge gifted and talented review last year. And that data is really showing us that we're serving anywhere between 15 to 20% of our population in that category of gifted and talented included in this data as well. So, just to give you um a little bit of an overview between our achievement and our growth, our targets for this year moving forward, but also for last year, we really want 60% of our population to be meeting growth targets. Now, you're probably sitting there thinking, we want 100% meeting our growth targets, which is 100% true,

064but as you look at our data, we want to make sure that we're achievable in that action. So, we're really hitting that 60% and then moving that bar up every single year. You'll see tonight that we report exceptionally high achievement data when we look at grade level proficiency. It's really, really amazing and I'll show you that in a second. But, as I just said, we want to focus on that higher rate of growth for our whole population. Just to give you a quick summary of what our students uh do take in terms of assessments, and Beth, you did a wonderful job summarizing it. I wanted to clap from my seat because you you you know more than I do. Actually, Alicia and I were both like, "Wow, you're so proficient in it." Now, um our

065early childhood students here at Jefferson t um are assessed in teaching strategies gold. I don't want to say they take that test. It's an observation tool that our teachers use. It's structured around academics, so literacy and numeracy, cognitive gross, and fine motor skills. And it's three times a year, same as the rest of our benchmarks. fall, winter, and spring. For our students in kindergarten, first and second grade, their true benchmark for all those pieces of accuracy, fluency, um curriculum based measures around reading and mathematics is fastbridge, again, three times a year. And then finally, the vast majority of our population um takes NWA MAP. MAP is measures of academic performance and that's also three times a year that assesses achievement and growth in reading and math. So, as Beth so proficiently told us, very different

066measures between fastbridge and map. So, to begin, I'll highlight our Jefferson students, our early childhood three and four year olds who just to keep in mind, our students are here for two years with us. So, if you're looking at this data and saying it's great and it's not curving, the trend is not moving as much up as as we maybe would want, it's because our students are getting two years of that same those same skills for proficiency. So, you'll see we have a 15% increase, which is amazing for literacy. 88% of our students are meeting those growth targets as they leave. And these are in the components of directions, but also summarizing stories and recounting information from something they're hearing from their teacher or something. reading in class. In the same vein, our numeracy levels

067are are just as amazing for Jefferson as well. Uh in the fall, 74% of students were meeting those areas of numerousy and by the end of the year 88% were. So quantifying being able to look at 10 marbles and tell the teacher that there's 10 there in front of them and then demonstrating the knowledge of pattern. Right? So if there's a star, heart, square, circle, they the next four in this succession. I have a three and four year old, so I'm I'm all about the standards for for preschool right now. I I already recounted this, but ju just to keep in mind as you look at that, our kids also come in with really strong background skills already, right? We're really fortunate that our parents are are very knowledgeable the literacy and numeracy skills that

068two, three, four, and fivey olds need. So, coming in really well prepared, but our teachers here are also phenomenal and are able to move those kiddos who don't have those skills yet. Next is our FastBridge data. So Beth mentioned to us students in kindergarten all the way through fifth grade do take Fastbridge here in district 64, but really for grades three, four, and five, we rely on that as a snapshot for fluency, accuracy, sometimes dyslexia, just to make sure that we have really proficient readers. Um, which is why we do look at math a little bit more for second through 8th grade because we're starting to look at comprehension and all of those higher functioning literacy skills. But for students in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, we always um want to focus on that

069goal of having everyone above the 40th percentile. So, if you take a look at that triangle or that pyramid at the bottom of the screen, that is our MTSS pyramid. Tier one is where we want all of our students to live. So, our goal is that we always want 80% of students at the 40th percentile or above. Tier two is when we in district 64 start to think about students who may need more services or intervention in reading or mathematics. And we really want that to stay about 15% of students being between the 25th and the 39th percentile. And then finally, we want about 5% of our students below the 25th because those are students who are going to need tier three intervention or maybe special education services. A great question that was brought up

070in our education committee by Beth and Rachel was why the 40th percentile because it is a high marker, right? 50 the 50th percentile is is average. 40th is just below. That is a standard that we set in district 64. That is where we want our students to be um for the majority of them to be at the 40th percentile or above. So no one's giving that to us. That's a goal that we always hold our students and our our staff to. So, as you see here, kindergarten, first grade, and second grade all at 74%. So, we have a little bit of work to do to get to that 80. We had a new curriculum last year with CKLA and also starting to weave in more of our phonics through foundation. So, something that we'll keep

071looking at. But for math, this group is really really doing a nice job with 80% of our students and 84% of our students at the 40th percentile or above. Second grade, there is no data for fast bridge. We don't give a CBMR for math because they start to take the MAP assessment. So we'll start with map achievement and growth for our achievement rank which is our percentile of how we rank in the nation amongst other districts that take MAP which is thousands and thousands of districts across the country. Um we set our own targets which are between the 87th and 93rd percentile. Those are our district goals. You can see the more specifics in your board report too. Um we are either approaching them or we have been exceeding them. Grades four and five are

072one to two percentile points away from our targets and six through eight are three or four percentile points away from our target. And you'll see that all of those lines are trending up from CO up until now. In terms of growth, we want 60% of our students to be hitting their growth targets. So, everyone hit that or has remained stable over the years except for grades four and five. And I have a chart that will show all of this. But the one thing that I celebrate the most as someone who works here and a future parent is that 88% to 95% of our students in district 64 are at the 40th percentile and above, right? You you you can't buy that data. That is amazing. That that's just phenomenal. I'm so proud of our teachers

073and our kids for showing that that type of success and progress. And I I anticipate that that's only going to move up as we really start targeting some instruction through our strategic planning. This slide here, um this is also our percentage of students at or above the 40th percentile. But you'll notice from fall to spring last year, all of those lines are moving up. That means that our teachers in grades two through eight are taking a look at their kiddos in the fall and saying, "How am I moving these 10 kids up or these 20 kids up that aren't yet at the 40th percentile?" Again, amazing numbers. I I can't thank them enough for all the things they're doing in the classroom with kids. Here you'll see reading also for the MAP assessment. Very similar

074for achievement rank grades two through five. we have either exceeded our target or we are right there one to two percentile points from hitting it and again six through eight is approaching but as Beth also mentioned the six through eight rating data that we'll take out look at in a second has grown drastically in one year um again the 40th percentile and above 80% of our students to 88% of our students are hitting that target which is which is amazing to see in district Sorry. This highlights our middle school data for Emerson and Lincoln and this is for the MAP assessment. So you'll see from 2024 to 2025 the comparison. Uh many of you know we were in a middle school review last year and we talked heavily to our middle school teachers about how

075we're seeing a problem and we have to start addressing that problem and and we're really starting to think very carefully about how to do that with our teachers. Today Tessa, Maria Rahi and I were in every single ELA classroom at Emerson. We even saw some of your kiddos which was really fun. Um, and then on Tuesday, Dave Mina and Tim and I were in every ELA classroom watching, talking to kids, talking to teachers. So, this is a huge focus for us, but the way that this has progressed in one year is really amazing to see. I'm never going to hang my hat on one year of data. It wouldn't be reliable. we we have to give more time, but with our new ELA curriculum adoption, all of the research and learning we did through middle

076school review, and now more time that we're going to have with the new middle school schedule, I just anticipate these numbers going up. But for our eighth graders, going from 38% meeting to 52% is really, really nice to see. Same with our achievement percentile at middle school. You'll just notice over the years the target is in teal. Orange is last year. Our sixth and eighth grade students that has really picked back up since spring of 21 when co was was really impacting us. So here this chart is highlighting our growth target percentages for every grade level at every school. So, this can be a little overwhelming and I'm not showing it to you to memorize anything or or analyze it right now in the moment, but I want to give you a picture of what

077we're trying to do at the school level and the district level, especially as we go into to planning with our administrators this year. All of our principles along with our cabinet team are starting to look at this and say, what grade levels grade levels of students or cohorts of students do we really really need to start looking at? So for example, you may say a fourth grade pocket or a fifth grade pocket that the numbers have been really low at one school versus another. What are they doing? We have to start to diagnose that or what is one team doing versus another with implementation of curriculum and instruction. So I'll talk in a minute about our tier one instruction and behavior teams and this ties exactly into some of this work. While we're talking about

078um NWA map, that was all of our data from last year. Moving forward, um our data is not totally going to be comparable anymore because NWA just reormed over the summer in July. They published those norms. So moving forward, you'll you'll notice that our RIT scores, so the score a student will get on their test 217 250 will report as the same, but the affiliated percentage has now changed. And the summary from NWA um that we've heard over and over again is that districts are seeing a downward trend in their student achievement, but for us it looks better than ever. our ours is all trend trending up which is amazing. So that reorming is also showing an upward shift in our data um because everyone else is is doing worse due to co I'm paraphrasing

079that right but it's it's a good problem for us to have in some aspects. So a perfect time to reorm especially four to five years after co. But one thing to remember is that when we start looking at data this year or do this presentation next year, we really can't compare it to past years. Those numbers are going to look very very different. Um, in the same vein, the Illinois State Board of Education or ISBY also reormed their IR cut scores. They did a very large study from last winter and republished cut scores this summer or about a month ago, I would say. Um, in the areas of ELA and math, they decreased their cut score. So now a student in third grade needs a 735 to be proficient in their grade level whereas they

080used to need a 750. So the test has not changed but the cut score has changed. On the flip side for ISA the Illinois science assessment that cut score has increased. So a student in eighth grade now needs an 812 to be to be mastering grade level content where they used to need a 799. So you can peruse this and kind of look at the old and new, but it gives a good summary of what our students how they're being measured. >> Can I ask you um the rale behind the decision to change the cut scores? Was it because the cut scores better reflected what grade level proficiency was or was there a different reason? So grade level proficiency but the the biggest reason that ISBY talks about for changing scores really came from the

081high school and then started to trend down to middle school. Um they're seeing ninth graders that are coming into high school 4.0 GPA um certain score on PSAT ACT but on IA they're not even close to proficiency. So the cut scores that they were reporting was not matching the rest of their achievement. Right? Students are high performing at their high school. Um they even of studies was a student at Lane. Uh 3.8 GPA, ended up having a 29 on her ACT uh AP classes, well-rounded, but not mastering or showing proficiency on A. So many different uh case studies of students was the biggest piece of research that they showed. >> I can just add the the states all set their cut scores differently. Illinois was And then through multiple years there was a lot of

082clamor about that because we would report out saying these students are quote unquote not proficient but if they move to Indiana based on their scores and then so they just basically tap on what Samantha was just saying twoear study with a lot of teachers saying all right if a student looks like this academic profile with a score in fourth grade what should they what can they do? And as they looked at those things, they said, "Yeah, that's a student who's on track. We're deeming them not proficient." All these other states are saying should change. So listening sessions there's a webinar we can share with you too. It might be helpful just to kind of hear from them. The one that they ran about a month ago. So when we get into more of next month's

083presentation on A which is more on the school report card information. There's also the other part which is the school designations which are going to change next year. So there's a lot of listening sessions about that. I'm going to two sessions about that next week in Springfield. Still some unknowns but it's all it's all essentially trying to better reflect and more specifically reflect the student is ready academically with their So in the same vein, ISBY has also changed their performance levels for I and ISA moving forward. And as Ben mentioned, this this state all all filters in tower Illinois report card, which we'll talk about in November. Um but biggest reason for this change is that the old levels had four or five of them that didn't match up. Now ISA and I are all

084the same at below proficient, approaching proficient, proficient, and above proficient. So there's just four scores now for I which actually if you think about it really makes a lot of sense. The five a little ambiguous at times of trying to discriminate between approaching meets, partially meets when you start to break down the standards from a teacher level, like where is a kid really at? So from here we really start to think about our next steps. Um Alison Dowenheim is not here tonight but she was in our education committee. So she was able to really talk to us about all the work that her and her teams are doing right now. We're so fortunate to have her because she has really revolutionized our MTSS system, our multi-ter systems support. And we really we now have two

085branches of MTSS in district 64. one for behaviorattendance which we haven't started working on yet but we will and then our academic so we have tier one teams in every building that are structured and consistent across all eight schools including Jefferson um that meet I'll show you a graphic in just a second but meet regularly to analyze data at the tier one tier 2 and tier three level this isn't to say we weren't doing this before because we always been providing those services, but this is so much more structured, aligned to our data, and then aligned to our classroom practices. So, we'll we can talk more about this this year, especially as we build the academic framework, but they've really revolutionized the system to have more conversations about student data and then act upon that.

086And I'll show a graphic in a second, but it's all filtered around that cycle of inquiry, too, that Ben has talked to the board about. Um, in addition, we've talked about many of these pieces last year, but just to recap for the board, we'll be in year two of our K2 ELA curriculum adoption. Year one of our grades three through five ELA curriculum adoption, which is really exciting. So, all of our third, fourth, and fifth graders are receiving CKLA for the first time this year, amongst other supplemental materials. We are in our year two, six through eight ELA curriculum adion. So, a lot of assessment and reflection this year with that program. Um, at our middle school level, we're in phase two of middle school review. So, I have about 500 curriculum and instruction reviews

087going on, which is so fun and makes my life the best. Um, and then finally, we have many continued ELA professional development for all of our teachers K through five in the area of CKLA, but then also other instructional practices, including writing. This is the graphic that I mentioned before for our FTSS system. This is an example of our behavior meeting cycles, which is one we started working on last school year in August that we've really honed in on and is going to take effect this year at all of our schools. And then we're building our academic one. Well, we're still doing an academic FTSS structure, but strengthening it. So, you'll notice that we're using inquiry for basically everything that we're doing this year that's going to impact students. So, all of our buildings will

088have half days to look at their tier one data. And then at those other check-ins, they're looking at tier 2 and tier three data. And these conversations include people like social workers, sometimes interventionists, our administrators, um anyone else who support services that touches any of those students who may need it. And then our classroom teachers, which is really, really exciting to see in action this year. That's all I have for you. Thank you for listening. Are there any questions I should just add, we talked in uh committee just a little bit about some of the middle school review pieces that we have going on. Um more specifically, we've kicked off a family and consumer science curriculum and an industrial technology curriculum review this year. And then we have some mini committees that are running in

089the areas of foreign language, technology, physical education. >> Thank you. >> All right. Construction update. I think we've got Enrollment and staffing report. >> Sorry, Joel. >> This is Joel's favorite report of the year. How could you deny him? >> I was like, where you can skip it? That's >> my football game on somewhere, right? >> Thanks everybody for having me here. This is the time of year we uh every year at this point we talk about when our staffing and is um we pick a point in the year which is August 31st every year as our point where we kind of say this is the line. Why we choose that point uh is because historically schools have had to report to the state what is the six day enrollment and usually that falls right

090about August 31st. So that's been our date where we say hey this is where we whatever it looks like on that day that's our snapshot. So for this year on August 31st our enrollment is 4,491 students. Um last year at that point we were at 4,589. So we are down 98 students. Not unexpected. When I was here in February talking about our rollover projection, we actually had a number of 4,479 at that time. So we're up 12 from what we anticipated at that point. So we're actually pretty good. I mean this is what we expected. I will say and I just want to add, we did the demographer report this past year. If he gave us three series, his series A was his most likely to happen. That number for him was 4,746 students. So,

091he was 255 students over what we ended up. He actually has a series B which is kind of when you read his report is if nothing happens uh like he projected that was at 4,474 so it was 17 off. So I think going forward, not only will we continue with the roll over, but we'll probably look at comparing it with his series A because I think right now that his projection of what he thinks is not very close. Not surprised, but so we're down 98 students. When you look at the buildings, you're going to see a pattern that we're pretty much down with a couple of exceptions. But I do want to It's interesting. You can go down students but not drop sections and you can go up students and drop sections. It really just

092kind of depends on where the kids go. And why that works is we have class size guidelines. So for example, in kindergarten it's 22 is our max. If you get 23, you add a section. So obviously if you had 23 and a kid moved out, you lose a teacher. If you're at say, you know, 35 and you lose six kids, you don't section. So, it really just depends on where the numbers are at the grade level. When you lose kids, that determines if you're adding or dropping sections. So, first of all, I want to say when you look at the numbers per grade level across the board, we're pretty much down. This is expected because our enrollment kind of has been on this lower trend um since co and so what we're seeing really is

093these groups moving through smaller groups moving through, smaller groups continuing to come in. So, our numbers have been just across almost each grade level, just kind of these incremental decreases. Um, but when we look at the buildings, we're going to see that Carpenter is one of those examples. They're actually up three students, but they're down a section. So, the additional students were kind of just scattered throughout the building, but they had their biggest drop in first grade, and they dropped a section there at uh We're down 29 students and the biggest drops are in kindergarten and fourth grade and we lost two sections there. Franklin's kind of the weird anomaly. We lost 46 students, but there's no change. And it really had to do with the fact that they were sitting at some classes that

094were towards the top of these levels with four sections. They lost kids that dropped them down, but not enough. So, for example, their first grade is sitting at 73 students. one student over. Um, their second grade is the same way. They're just two kids over. So, it really is they've lost a bunch of kids across the board, but not enough at any one grade level to drop it. So, they're sitting at a status quo. Roosevelt is down 10 students and it's primarily at second grade and they dropped a section there. Washington was projected to lose a section at fourth grade, which they did. But what we saw during the spring was an uptick in kindergarten, which has been something that hasn't happened for a while at Washington. So they actually added enough students where we

095added uh right after June or the school got out in June. Um we had a bubble burst in kindergarten, we added a section. So they ended up going up 22 kids primarily at that kindergarten level. Um, but it ended up being status quo because they were down a section in fourth grade. And then the middle schools, Emerson dropped 11 students and we dropped in seventh grade a section. And Lincoln dropped 27 students and we dropped a section at eighth grade. So overall, we're down 98 students and we are down six sections across the board. So that's kind of what you would expect or hope for when you kind of see that significant drop. So this is early, but if we were to take this and roll it up for next year, we'd be looking at

096a enrollment projection 4,363 or down 128 students. So we got a long way to go. We'll come back in about four months and start talking about the next year, but we are still continuing to see this projection of a decrease in enrollment. Now things can change obviously housing markets, interest rates, all those things that drive up uh enrollment, but as of right now, we're kind of on a downward trend. But when we look at the decrease of six sections, obviously the next thing we're going to look at is staffing. So, but we're looking at staffing in totality across the district. So, we were this past year at 4 almost 4,000 uh 436.96 FTE and that's our teachers, our social workers, counselors, all of those indiv who were really holding classes within the building level. So,

097we did drop six and we absorbed those six through classrooms through retirements, but for the last couple years, we've been trying to finish off um really adding the staff that was in our special ed audit. And this year, we came pretty close, I think, to finishing that off. We've added uh school psychologists so that we have school psychologists at every building. We added instructional teacher or coach. We now have a special ed coach uh just like we have curriculum coaches in all of our major subjects. Uh who by the way is working not only with our teachers but is working with our teacher assistants and just ended up this week uh doing training that I got a lot of feedback from some of our ESPs that said it was really good. Uh and I think

098that's one of our areas that uh for those who don't know our teachers obviously go to school to do this. Many of our TAs don't have the same background. So the instruction coach is really able to give them best practice skills and really work with them on how to handle certain situations that they have not been trained in the past. And then the last one that we added was a social worker for our SLC program. We've been growing that. We've now got it at two buildings at Washington and Lincoln. We had that additional support there. So, while we went down the sections, we've added supports in our student services. So, we're really down uh FTE in our certified staff area because of that filling those needs. Um when we next move to our non-certified staff,

099this is really our building technology department, our OTPs and our BCBAS. We've added three individuals. Again, we knew these were coming. We added a BCBA that finalizes uh now having two, which is the ask in the special ed audit. is an individual who's a behavior analyst or specialist who works with both our certified or I'm sorry classroom teachers and special ed teachers uh to really with some of those more challenging behaviors across the district. Um and we added two individuals in our tech department. One of them I think you've seen uh has allowed Matt uh with Dan helping out has really allowed us to really address the cyber security and to grow that area. The other one has been Carlos who works with our hardware installation. And why that's important is we had to outsource

100that work in the past and that was pretty expensive. So Carlos is able to not only do it cheaper, but with all of the construction going on, he's really able to work with Matt and they're able to figure out when's the best time to get into classrooms, when's the best time to do this and maximize the time. So we added um a position there on the hardware side, but actually saving us money for having to not go out and source that. When we look at our ESPs or our TAs, we're up four. That's primarily again in our SLC program. As we expand that program, those students need a lot of supports and they need additional as we open sections, we're going to need more ESPs. But I want to point out this number would be

101significantly higher if we hadn't re uh allocated the LRCAS at the middle schools because we took those and put them into supporting students in the classroom. Had we not done that, we would have had to hire two more ESPs for the middle school and we re um defined the job role of the LRCTA at the elementaryaries so they can come out not only and support in the LRC but when we need help just kind of these oneoff periods or two off periods they come out and help there. If we didn't do that we would have to hire at least halfimes. So by doing those moves, we have saved two to three, maybe four additional staff in the area. So while we're up four, we could easily be up seven or eight. Um we're status quo

102on custodial maintenance. Uh the administration, we're up by two. We finalized putting a special ed coordinator in every building. If you recall, our special ed coordinators were split between buildings, which became very problematic uh because one of those days in the building is a dedicated meeting day, which means they only had really a day to meet with not only staff, TAs, look at students and work with parents. So now they have uh they're in buildings for the entire week and they're able to really meet the needs of not only our staff but of our families much better. And then um we are status quo on nurses and secretaries. So across the board this year we are up 7.37 total staff across the district. Uh but again these are all positions that we had anticipated in

103their filling needs uh as identified throughout the previous year. So, that being said, um we're in pretty good shape as far as staffing and we've got a couple um ESP positions that we're filling, but we should have those done pretty quickly. All of our certified staff is full um and we're looking forward to being back here in a couple months and already talking about the 26 27 school year. But if you have any questions, I'd be happy to take >> when we were talking about the program and the different units. We talked about one potential benefit being that the district would either break even or save money from potentially not having to pay for students at private, but instead the staffing would be comparable or less in terms of cost. I don't know if we've

104done that analysis. >> Uh we haven't, but we can easily do it because I think Alicia is talking about typically when we out. >> Okay. So about 100,000 per student. The staff and the TAs together for each are going to be significantly less in that regard because you're talking about you know four or five adults in the room but you're also talking about four or five students. So we know right off the bat we have a significant cost savings there but we can get that number specifically for you. It'll probably take a few years for us to realize as we're like starting these programs, right? Thinking about, you know, what you might bring to us later this year might be some additional staff asks as some of those programs start next year, right? >> Well,

105I think there's probably some immediate cost savings that we've seen, but yeah, I think the long term we're going to see substantial cost savings. Very excited. We get to walk soon. Get to walk soon. really excited to be able to share somebody here. So, I know that and I talked about what we're kind of go over tonight and maybe save some of the updates for for next month while we're at >> Yeah, I'll just I'll add one one note to that. We're in the finance and facilities meeting. Um, we said we could kind of do this two ways. Mike could come up here tonight, probably spend a good 45 minutes, if not seven hours, going through everything. Or we could do a really brief overview tonight um and then spend more time actually in the

106spaces with with Mike, Tessa who's waiting in her office right now, uh Matt, Samantha, and Alicia to actually point out some of the things in the space and then we would kind of recreate that at Lincoln in Washington next meeting and then at field later on because it's a lot different when it's like we put this here, here, and here and you're like, I've never been in that room. I would love to see it. So, a little different approach. We thought that would just be better for all of you. Okay. >> All right. >> So, tonight we think that we will focus on playgrounds. We'll give a little update on playgrounds. Um an update on field especially with the addition still ongoing and then Emerson because we're going to go. Um so, so the playgrounds

107right now, all of the playgrounds as far as Carpenter, Washington, and Roosevelt have been completed. Um they've been using them and utilizing them every day at recess and it's great to see. So, we had some some items that we had to uh address while work was going on, some under drainage that needed to be addressed. But luckily, there was contingency built into all of the projects and we were able to move forward with all of that additional work, some extra stone base in the bottom and just some drainage overall that we wanted to make sure was not a problem. So, um those are ongoing. There's some minor adjustments that were being made right now just per some of the building administration as far as just adjusting some swing heights and things like that. So, nothing

108major, but uh they're being tended to. Uh as far as Jefferson, unfortunately, MWRD is still looking at a ground quite yet. And I touched base with our civil engineer today to find out. We're hoping to have some comments by the end of the month, but I think Illinois is giving a little concern as far as weather. We need the weather to stay and above, especially because of the rubber service that's going to be going in. So we get to a point where I think they're thinking maybe October 1st would really be kind of the deadline. If we don't get approval from MWD by then, we may have to pivot and um look to spring to get that work. So we obviously talked principles and administration about that and you know there's really nothing we can

109do as far as that. So we're just kind of wait They tried to push a little bit and um it seems like they just keep coming back with more comments. I mean I feel like since I've been in this position July one, this has been an ongoing topic. So there's been revisions and then back and so we're hoping these are the final comments. The revisions have been done. We're just waiting for approval. But the architect said that you know right now they have a heavy load. They're waiting for a lot of different work being done and so they typically then take the longest amount of time. They'll know the longest that they have to do. So they have two weeks to come back with the review, they're going to take the full weeks. So we're

110kind of at the mercy of them and hopefully we'll get some some good news and weather cooperates and we seem to have a warm fall might be able to still at least get one of them. That was the goal to do it. in summer. We were going to do one at a time just so that the students could still utilize one of the playgrounds while being um moving on to field. Uh field certainly is looking really nice right now. Um we were able to get in there and get all the classrooms remodeled case work. So certainly really really looking good. Um we were able to do interior doors and hardware bathroom updates. I unfortunately did not get to see it in person before all the demo but I got to see a lot of the

111videos and pictures from before and so it is like night in there. It's really looking nice. Um there's ongoing punch work that's ongoing on Saturdays and second shifts during the week. that will continue. Lockers are set to come in at the end of the month and they will be put in over second shift right now. So, um field edition is ongoing. I don't know if anybody's been able to drive by it and see kind of the progress of it, but the brick is is going up. I believe three of the four sides of the building is just about done. We're hoping to have that complete by the end of the week. They've been working Saturdays, too. And then windows will go in. They have to wash the brick. And then you know it will be

112sealed tight and work starts to get bad. All of the roughing work is done. So plumbing, hip. So a lot of that has been put in. There are metal studs up. No drywall yet. There has to be inspction. Nicholas is saying what they're kind of calling for inspection on their latest master plan. So obviously sometimes those things get delayed here and there just depending on some things that pop up but if we would be able to turn that space over to the school you know later after winter break I think would be and then moving on to Emerson which we're going to go walk pretty soon. Um, you know, all of the HVAC in that building was was really done. All of the boilers were replaced. There's new air handler units up on the roof

113and in the mechanical room. There's now air conditioning in the gym, which I think has been a big big bonus for everybody. They've been able to hold some hold some events there and nobody's getting uncomfortable, which is nice. So, um, all new LED lights, also doors, um, flooring as far as most of hallways and corridors were already redone maybe a year or two ago. So that was all still looking pretty good. But all the classrooms um life skills room was was done which is beautiful and that's one of the the stops that we'll certainly make on the tour. Um science rooms are are phenomenal. All three floors now have science science rooms which I believe Dr. Collins said that wasn't the case before. There was only two floors that had science class. Definitely a better

114situation for our students to be able to not have all the way on one side of the building. New signage, new fencing put up around the building which looks really, really nice. I know we've got a lot of compliments about that and um we are just moving along. New fire alarm system and building automation system was also put in and there's going to be some staff training on that starting tomorrow. So, we are ready to go. So, yeah. No, we're really excited and to take any questions if anybody has any, but looking forward to to the next round of of construction. We're starting to have some meetings with the schools for next year already and some plans together so we can tackle everything and get ahead of stuff because we walked into this in July

115and you know there were some things that we just weren't quite sure of but we're making sure that we're part of those conversations this time around. So happy to answer any questions if we have any. >> Can you a little more about the drainage issues. >> Yeah, I think it's just that most of the time. So, I asked the question if they did some boring tests ahead of time. They had not done boring tests, which they did not know what underneath the existing playgrounds, what what was underneath there. And some of them there was a lot more dirt than stone. And so because of that, the wood chips and the mulch hide a lot of that drainage issues because it soaks down underneath it and you don't ever see it. Now with the turf surface,

116it would become a problem. You would see all of that water. So I think that we certainly field that we would like ahead of time just so that we're knowing what's what's going to happen. We need to add some additional money. We're going to have to add some drainage or stone that we're >> real quick. You guys just know what the next few months are going to look like. So October there'll probably similar small update, but then we'll obviously walk Washington, but November they'll probably hear more about what we're doing with bidding and things of that nature with some approval in December. So, anything else you want to add on that? But there's basically from here on out there's going to be some type of final plans for Franklin, Roosevelt, Carpenter, those types of things.

117>> Absolutely. We have about 75% of the drawings for Carpenter. So, I know that they are still working on some details on those, but we've been able to get drawings over to the team so that they can start to look at drawings and what their plan is and kind of where we're going to be with that tur. But yes, our hope is to be able to come back to the board in December and correct. So the bid um will come in November because we want to be able to take advantage of December break. So the hope would be that we would have everything together which I've been meeting with the team the last couple days. They've been going around just doing our six month normal annual surveys and then they will start to take samples

118based off of what the drawings show. So that way we know what to expect. They can kind of help us build a budget for that and then we'll have preid meetings mandatory preid meetings at all sites. so that contractors can see what they're getting into and then we will and then yes ready to walk. All right, let's do it.