001Before we get started, let's uh start with the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the standy. All right. um don't really have any opening remarks other than to again welcome all the new board members to the board and looking forward to serving with all of you for the next couple years. And uh let's start with student and staff. All right, we've got a full house tonight. A lot of great things to celebrate. So, we're excited for that. And the first thing we want to do is kick it off with recognition for our special Olympians. So, [Applause] has some slides we're gonna put up there. All right. Hi, good evening. Um, my name is Karen Hes and I did the Special Olympics this year with Amanda Gum. She's my
002co-ach. Um, and I say this every year and I mean it always. Special Olympics is my most favorite day of the year every year. One of the most remarkable things just to see our students out there just doing and having everybody. So, one of the things that makes this possible is that at district 64, unlike most of the other show have volunteers that staff the practices and the events. So, before we pass out some goodies, I want to really take a moment to ackn Mary, Nicole, we're gonna call her Mrs. G. That's what the kids call her at school anyway. Miss Harper, Mr. Kevin Garcia, Christy Wel, Casey Fitzgerald, Lyn Condel. So, I think one of the things that's super remarkable is that the staff in district 64 values this event and they're so excited
003to get out there and they volunteer at their time at practices and at the day of the event. So, now why we do it for our athletes. So, I am going to call up our athletes that are here and we have a little goodie for them and then are we do a picture? Okay. So, then we'll come up here and do a picture if you're here for a picture. So, the first athlete we have is Crouch. She is from Emerson. Another athlete we have here present is Yafet. Yafet is also an Emerson student. Hara is also here. Another we have CC, another Emerson Engle. Here in the crowd and then our last athlete present tonight is Max. And Max is from Lincoln. Lincoln, come on up. So we had a total of 15 athletes that
004were a part of our team. Maya, Julia, Noah, Joey, Ben, Henry, Liam, Augie, Harper, and Reed all participated as District 64 special team. [Applause] All right, next up is Young Authors for having us here. I'm Megan Keer. I'm the curriculum specialist for English language arts in the district. And one of my most favorite days also is the day all the manuscripts land on my desk um for the young authors contest. So each year in grades kindergarten through 8th grade, we invite students to write and submit um a young author story and this year we had over 200 writers submit. Um students are able to co-author or co-author and illustrate with a friend at their grade level. Um coordinators at each of our seven buildings select one manuscript from each grade level at their school and
005send those on to the district as their school winners. From there, just a single manuscript is selected for each grade level to receive the award tonight as a district 64 young author. Each writer here tonight possesses such a talent for storytelling. This year's stories spanned a range of themes from grief to humor, magic to mystery, and to historical fiction. And for the first time, I think ever, we have two sets of siblings here tonight. So, that's that's kind of a fun first. Um, and every year, I know some of you are new to the board. I say this, I wholeheartedly believe we have future published authors in this room. I really hope they look back on today or this year as the moment they realized that their journey was just taking off. Um, I'll invite
006each of them up to be honored for these achievements and we will celebrate them with a certificate and then let the whole community know what their accomplishments have been by handing them one of our uh yard signs. But Chris, I think I'll wait till after you take the picture because they might have a lot to juggle. All right. So, writers in the audience, as I call your name, I will hand you back your manuscript and then you want them over here again. All right. Perfect. All right. We'll start in kindergarten. We have Figora from Franklin Elementary School who wrote The Bird and the Penguin. All right. In first grade, we had um Claire Applin who wrote the I Can Club. She's from Roosevelt School. All right. We have Kora Young, our second grade writer from
007Franklin, who wrote the devastating story of Indigo and [Applause] Scarlet. Our third grade authors, we have a co-authorship here. We have Valerie Hesa and Katherine Smith from Carpenter. All right. In fourth grade, you'll recognize the last name if I said it right the first time. Um, we have Ericel from Roosevelt who wrote When You Wish Upon an Elf. All right. In fourth grade, we actually had a tie. So we had we had Eric and then also Maline Mason from Washington who wrote All right. Another co-authorship and one more sibling here in fifth grade from Franklin Elementary. We have The Super Spies, The Case of the Missing Jewel by Hara Kim and Delaney Young. [Applause] All right. And then on to the middle school. In sixth grade from Emerson, we have Raba Islamogu from Emerson who
008wrote notes from space. Seventh grade, we had another tight tie. Here we have um from Emerson a co-authorship. Let me make sure I have these in order. We have Oh, that's great. Okay. Okay. Gemini Rising by Camila Yanhal Sha and Manisha Magunthan and also Safhina Ali from Lincoln. her manuscript tomorrow. And finally, last but not least, our eighth grade writer was Joya Denny Bimma from Emerson who wrote Angel Dance. [Applause] And for the first time, we found a a writing palooa that the third through 8th grade authors were invited to join last Saturday. So, I have yet to hear how that went, but I hope we can continue to find opportunities for these young writers to celebrate their writing and celebrate with other authors. So, one more big congrats to them. [Applause] So parents, we'll
009make sure that the pictures that we take from Mr. Lily also be shared with you, too. Just so you know, we've got some good photos coming your way. students. We have extra cookies in the back. They're all for you. All right. Now, we're going to move to our school spotlight and the final one of the year and it's Emerson up this month. Is it okay if we do QT first? All right. So, good evening. This past year, Emerson has been redesated for the sixth time as an Illinois Horizon Schools to watch by the Association of Illinois Middle Grade Schools, Ames. Having previously earned this honor in 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, and 2021, it's given on a three-year rotation. Being redesated six times as a school to watch is a significant achievement that reflects ongoing excellence
010in middle grade education. The Horizon Award is often given to schools that demonstrate continued growth, innovation, or serve as an emerging model of excellence. Emerson has consistently met or exceeded national standards for over a decade. To the members of the committee, staff and community, thank you for your commitment to our students. Your investment in our continuous school improvement and your leadership and upholding the standards of academic excellence, equity, and developmental responsiveness. Your hard work ensures that our school remains a place where students thrive, grow, and succeed. We had a two for tonight. Thank you. All right. Um, today I would like to take a moment to recognize someone's who work. Come on down. [Applause] Sophie Ericson is our shining star at Emerson. Talk about you. Ready? Okay. There is not enough words I can just
011say to describe Sophie. She is the picture of Emerson. Involved in so many ways all three years. Sophie has been involved in the All three years she's been in the musical this year. Um band, she's played clarinet since fourth grade. She's been in the choir all three years. Um video game club. Jazz band all three years. Soaring Eagle and um SGA all three years. Our greatest my greatest memory of you Sophie is three years ago when you were a sixth grader and you were one of the two girls who shaved your head for St. fundraiser and that just showed what kind of person you were from the start. Emerson is so lucky to have you amongst their peers and we sent out a survey to all of your friends, your peers and your teachers and
012we said, "Submit one word that describes Sophie to you." And this was our response. Everything up there is true. You're kind. You're dedicated. You're helpful. You're a role model in so many ways for your students. I want to point out one answer though. If you look under the word dedicated in the blue, there's a really, really, really long oneword answer. So, I had to really zoom in on that. One of your peers said, "Literally, the best person on earth, so helpful and always is there when you need it. I could not describe her in one word. So, this is my one word." I think that sums it up. Sophie, you are our shining star. We wish you luck next year. Thank you for all that you do. We have a little [Applause] gift. Can you
013also come down? [Applause] So today I would like to take a moment to recognize someone whose work is often behind the scenes but who impacts is felt by every single person in our school. Our incredible custodian Dio Dio, your dedication, work, kindness does not exist. From arriving early in the morning to ensuring that the school is ready for the day to staying late to fix, clean or lend a hand, you are quite the force that keeps everybody running smoothly. We don't you don't just take care of the building. You take care of the people inside of it. Whether it is offering a friendly smile in the hallway, helping a teacher move a desk, or making sure that classrooms are safe and clean, you show pride in what you do. And it means the world to
014us. You teach us all that something that is very important that respect, responsibility and kindness are shown through actions not just words. We ask that uh we asked the staff to think of one word to describe deal. Each person submitted their word and we created this from their words. Some words that were used were friendly, reliable, caring, patient, and humble. On behalf of the entire Emerson community, thank you. Our school is better because of you. So, please give a round of applause to [Applause] All right. Thank you. Um, this is the point of the meeting where we welcome public comments. Each speaker is given three minutes to address the board. Comments may be made on almost any matter related to the operation of schools, but we ask that you refrain from making comments concerning individual
015students or staff members. The board uses this time to listen to community questions and concerns, but will not respond immediately to request for information. Additionally, the board cannot take formal action on non-aggenda items. Contact the board present by email if you wish to discuss your topic further. Please come forward to the microphone and state your name and if comfortable, your address for the minutes. Good evening, District 64 Board of Education. My name is Katherine Contrus and I'm the LRC director for Emerson Middle School. I have been a middlegrade educator for the past 16 years and my father was an attorney for public library boards for over 40 years. I share this bit of information with you because it has been ingrained in me since childhood that libraries offer opportunities for everyone to succeed. And when
016barriers are put in the way of the opportunities, we step in to advocate for those who cannot or do not know to advocate for themselves. In this My goal is to advocate for our students who stand to lose the most. As a result of budget cuts, district 64 administration has decided to eliminate the middle school library assistant position. This decision impacts the learning and opportunities afforded to every middle school student and middle school teacher in our district. Libraries are one of the few places in a school that benefit everyone all day long across all grade levels and subject areas. This reduction in staff seems out of proportion with the anticipated cost savings and it prioritizes the elimination of a position that interacts with students on a daily basis over positions that do not have student
017contact. We understand that this decision has been made for next school year. However, we would like to keep the conversation open so that you can make an educated decision for future schools. Right now, we anticipate daily scheduling conflicts that will lead to drastic reduction in student and teacher access to opportunities with us as librarians and the materials we curate. Our roles as library information specialists and our spaces as learning resource centers will become less effective. As librarians, we appreciate the information that can be gleaned from research. The research simply does not support this decision, especially in conjunction with the numerous initiatives in our district. I would like to personally recognize Miss Schulman for the support she has shown in trying to make the best of this situation. She is dedicated to finding solutions. Unfortunately, without
018the LRCA, the solutions for how to move forward still leave a detrimental impact on our students. This past fall, our community voted in favor of our district goals to protect our buildings, protect our children, and preserve our future with the referendum. We ask you, the District 64 Board of Education, to consider board policy, the evidence we have provided to detail our concerns and the overall fiscal impact of this decision. We ask you to protect our libraries and the vital support they provide to our students and teachers in future school years. Further documentation has been shared with the to detail our concerns. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Good evening, District 64 Board of Education. My name is Jenna Garber and I am the LRC director at Lincoln Middle School. I'm here today
019to talk about the critical issue that affects every student in our middle schools, the elimination of the middle school LRCAS. I understand that budget constraints are a serious concern and that this decision has already been made for the upcoming school year. I hope that by speaking tonight, you may reconsider this decision in the future. I believe that the decision to eliminate these positions will have a significant and detrimental effect on our students and teachers. And I feel it is my duty to share these concerns with you in the community. Without a library TA, I will be trying to do two full-time jobs at once. I will be responsible for not only my traditional duties of collection development, research support, and instruction, but also the essential tasks that keep the library functioning on a day-to-day basis
020that have been historically assigned to the library TA. These tasks don't simply disappear when a TA is no longer there. They must be done in order for the library to function. These tasks include things like helping students with checkout, resheling books, looking for and repairing damaged books, shelf reading, creating displays, processing new books, providing technology help, and so much more. Because these tasks need to happen in order for the library to function, they will become a bigger part of my priorities, which will make it much more difficult to be a collaboration partner with our teachers. The biggest effect this will have will be on our students, though. With only one person working in the library, we have to significantly the amount and type of access students have to our resources and expertise. Currently with the
021library TA, students can come to the library any day of the week on a pass from a teacher to get Chromebook support, check out or return a book, and get support in finding the right resources for their needs. We can also have classes in the library every day of the week while checkout is happening. Without the library TA, all of that gets reduced. Students will no longer be able to come to the library at any point with a pass. In order to accommodate continuing to have classes come to the library and have time to do the work of two professionals, students will be limited to open checkout possibly only one day a week and we will not be able to have classes coming in every day. We are slashing student access to the library and
022all of its resources almost in half because we will no longer have the staff to support it. In addition to cutting access to all the library resources, this decision is also concerning because we are trying so hard as a district to raise test scores. We adopted a new LA curriculum this year and are completely changing the middle school schedule in an effort to our reading scores. We have various reading goals at both middle schools trying to ensure a love of reading in our students and to help them perform better on standardized tests. Eliminating the middle school library TA position cuts access to the library, books, and support at a time where we as a district have said we need it the most. There is a lot of research that proves having a well supported and
023staffed library greatly increases reading test scores. Yet, it is at this moment that the district decides to remove support and reduce access. We are working with our administrators to come up with a plan where we will continue to do the best we can for our students and our staff with the resources we are given. But this change in resources will significantly impact the support we are able to provide. I hope in the future we can reinstate the middle school LRCTA position. Thank you for your time and consideration. Hi, my name is Liz Kadella. I am speaking on behalf of the PRTAA union as well um for my co-president and I. But I am also speaking to you as a fellow library assistant in the elementary schools and a district 64 parent. I am here to
024ask the board to strongly reconsider the decision to eliminate the LRC positions in the middle school and the unilateral job change to the elementary LRC positions. My co-president and I, Kim and I have worked to establish a positive working relationship with the district admin. One of the reoccurring themes that we have talked about is transparency and unfortunately I'm afraid that it is a one-sided relationship. Um, a little bit of a timeline. About a month ago, our library assistant at Field contacted us and said that she had been pulled into an all ESP meeting and it was announced in front of everybody that her position was changed. This had never been discussed with her. She was completely caught off guard by this decision. It was explained to her after the fact that she would be the
025LRC assistant for half of the day and the other half of a day she would be an ESP for the sped department. We followed up with admin who were very responsive. We had some meetings. Um our follow-up meeting, we were told that this was the decision that was being made. We could choose to impact bargain it, but the decision was made and it was going forward. After that, they announced to us that they were eliminating the middle school positions as well. That was four hours before the librarians were told and about four hours before the assistants were being told. Um, obviously we were told that it was due to budgetary concerns, which we understand and a lot of us supported the referendum and worked on it. Um, our frustration continues to be the lack of
026understanding on what a teacher assistant does on a daily basis. Whether it be a sped TA, a health assistant, or a library assistant. We continue to be an afterthought, and we continue to hear statements from admins such as there are too many TAs. TAs aren't really needed. The LRC assistant offers an amazing opportunity to work with all students. I'm afraid that this decision is made from behind the desks at the district office without involving those who are in the libraries and in our classrooms. Every day, students, librarians work with students direct library assistants work with students directly while librarians are teaching to allow checkout time throughout the day. We often sub when the librarians are out and have knowledge of the position and weekly lessons. So there is no disruption in the lessons that are
027being taught. My daughter developed a love for the library, not only the school libraries, but the public library when Lauren Maloney was the library assistant at London. She and her friends stayed after school to chat with Lauren and learn about new books, and they developed an incredible love of learning because of the library assistant at that time. These positions are invaluable to the district and one of the things that make our libraries accessible. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? All right. Thank you. Um Joel, tenure teachers. Thanks for having me here. One of the highlights of my year is always um meeting with new teachers when we hire them uh in that hiring process. And why this makes tonight a special night for me is it's the fruition of seeing many of the people
028that I've seen come through the front end where we're going over agreements and benefits and those type of things reach the point where they are now being recognized for tenure. Uh for those individuals who are unaware of in public education the first three to four years of a teacher's career is probationary which means that's the point where the district decides do we want to keep them for the long term. It's not an easy period for teachers. And what I mean by that is specifically um they have doubled the evaluations as a tenure teacher. You're trying to learn new curriculums. You're trying to learn a lot of new things um in a short period of time. We do have a robust what we think mentoring program for our teachers. But it's not easy. And why I
029think it's not easy is we have high standards in the district. Not only for from our colleagues, uh the teachers in the building, from the administration, but most importantly our parents, they want good teachers for their students. So I think when we sit here and identify teachers who have reached the point of obtaining tenure, I think this really speaks to the character. uh it really speaks to the fact of their dedication to the craft and the commitment they have put forward for the kids and uh the parents in our community. Now tenure is actually granted um in the fall. You don't get it now because you actually have to start the next school year in which you are eligible, but we recognize the teachers now. Um we're going to read their names, but they the
030actual ceremony they get a certificate. They will be recognized at their buildings in front of their peers so that they can um celebrate with everybody in their building who has a had a part in helping them on the journey to reach tenure. So today I'm just going to read some names, but the celebration and there'll be pictures taken and certificates that will be handed out at the building meetings. either happen now at the beginning of the year. But I'm just going to tell you who those people are very quickly. Um we'll have a nice round of applause and again they'll obtain tenure in the fall. But we have a big list this year. We had quite a number of retirements in the last couple years. We have Nina Abrau is a third grade teacher at
031Franklin. We have Colleen Beer, a fifth grade teacher at Franklin. Natalie Brady, a language arts teacher at Lincoln. Kaylee Breeslin who is a second grade teacher at Carpenter. Um Erin Chesari who is a speech language pathologist at Washington. Allison Dust who is also uh a special education instructional teacher at Roosevelt. Rebecca Finen who's a special education resource teacher at Roosevelt. Uh Jenna Garber who is a library information specialist at Lincoln. Ellen Harris who is a speech language pathologist at Washington. Gino Larouchi, who's an instructional coach at Roosevelt. Kelsey McBain, a second grade teacher at Field. Carolyn Man, a fifth grade teacher at Roosevelt. Rachel Manure, a general music teacher at Washington. Caitlyn McGovern, a third grade teacher at Franklin. Crystal Monosario, who is a math teacher at Emerson. Julie Nimik, who is the certified school
032nurse at Emerson. Carolyn Epsoy who second grade teacher at Roosevelt, Stacy Peter, who is a special education, I'm sorry, physical education teacher at Lincoln. Zack Pop who's a second grade teacher at Franklin. Uh Francesca Ramirez who is a speech language pathologist at Jefferson. Rory Cider who is a social studies teacher at Emerson. Chloe Cernell who's a kindergarten teacher at Roosevelt. Kelly Scogsen who's a library information specialist at Roosevelt. Maggie Sullivan a special education instructional teacher at Roosevelt. Uh Samantha Williams an intervention teacher at Franklin. And Kelly was a first grade teacher in Franklin. So, we are proud of them and we'd like to recognize them for being able to become tenure teachers in district 64. We think it's a great accomplishment and they do wonderful things for kids every single day. Thank you. All right,
033superintendent update. That's okay. This is a little more formal. All right. So, I This is going to be two parts. This is going to be the first part explaining where my goals are and um going into next year, kind of what I'm thinking. And the second part is going to be at the 30,000 foot view of just what's on store for potentially strategic planning and ideas around the future of the school district. Um, super exciting stuff. So, before I jump into anything about my goals, I definitely need to recognize the work of the cabinet team, the principles, and the staff because at the end of the day, they're the ones that are actually doing the work. They're the ones that are working with the students. They're the ones that are working with the teachers, and
034they're the ones that are driving And so I I stand on their shoulders as I present to you and just want to acknowledge the great work that they do every day. They work tirelessly to make sure our kids have what they need. The first goal is to improve academic achievement. Um I have some extremely positive news to report tonight. So our elementary schools were just underneath that for their MAP growth targets. math is still kind of a funky situation where the data has been changed a little bit based on the overarching setup, we'll call it, um from from the assessment company. However, in ELA, um that's what we're using for for these goals right now. Our elementaryaries were just underneath that. And these goals were set up to be pretty audacious, frankly. Our middle schools,
035though, it's the best MAP performance they've had in a long, long time. They actually met that goal, which is wonderful. from our standpoint, we thought that that was going to be extremely lofty when we looked back at their data. So, wonderful job for all of our middle school teachers um and also completing all of the many many meetings that Samantha had to lead, Alicia was involved in a lot of that too with the middle school review. So, we're set up very well for what's going to go into next year. So, that went overarching overarchingly extremely well. um leading the areas of our current strategic plan and I've shared with the board, you know, the maybe the pitfalls that that plan has, but um Adam did a great job again bringing in another balanced budget. Um
036you can see the other things here um that went well. I want to point out the communication strategy from Chris and Matt Tom. Chris has been spending a lot of time uh putting together all our parent square information that will be coming out next year. There should be some communication forthcoming with that. So, we're excited for what that's going to do. amilies for next year. Um, the reason that the board policy dashboard is kind of a yellow is we went through the press plus process last year and if Chris Bark was here, she would just be shaking her head because it took a little bit longer than we thought. We just got the email on Tuesday, so we're official, so we can actually log in and do all of our stuff. That being said, we
037wanted to make sure to oper operationalize all the press policies or um our school policies that the administrative procedures underneath them were actionable. And so we've been doing a little bit of work. I think we've got a lot more work to do on that. Um I'm also going to be meeting with some school districts this year who do their own administrative procedures. They write their own. Many school boards and then administrative groups actually use the IASB administrative procedures, but I'm kind of interested in the their own. They're very good school districts. So, I want to kind of see how they how they do that and maybe bring that back to the cabinet team and see if that's something that we want to adopt. But that helps us make sure that we have internal integrity with
038what we're doing. In terms of number three, this is all the community stuff, the visibility and everything in anticipation of a referendum. Um, I think it went pretty well. So, you can see all the stuff there. I also want to highlight the transparency page. That's definitely something that we are still adding things to as we go. Um, so there's a lot of great resources there. If people want to learn more about our school district, they can they can do that. These are the things that weren't on my goals, but they were definitely big challenges. And we did pass a referendum, so that was that was important. I don't know why I just didn't make that a goal. Um, I also want to acknowledge uh Joel, Adam, and Noel's work in the SSC contract negotiations. That
039went very well. Um, we did have a very, very big conversation about a budgetary shift of 2% over from one area of the budget into capital expenses. Um, and that certainly brought with it some very challenging decisions. We also have some more challenging decisions next year ahead of us as we bring about a plan for full day kindergarten and that being eliminated. So, we have a plan now. We're going to need to adjust it based on where staffing is starting to end up. But, um, that will be what we will be talking about all throughout the fall for next year. So, as part of board policy 810 and 895, I'm supposed to report out every year on just the things that I've been doing to make sure I'm engaging with the community. So, you can
040see those things there. It's done a lot of community coffees. Uh Chris and Chris do a lot of work to make sure um we we put out a lot of information on that. Chris has also done a great job with all the referendum mailers and the advertising. And um we are going to be working on a community mailer that does come out in the fall. We get a lot of good feedback from the mailers. A lot of our community members that don't have in the school, they read that. So when you get the park district or the township report um especially our community members who are maybe um farther away from school age children, that's a good source of information for them to know what are my tax dollars going to and how are they
041being used. So there'll be some things that I know Chris is going to be working on with that. So knowing Chris, it's going to be a 10 out of 10. We're going to be excited for that. I've enjoyed my time at the Parkidge City Council meetings and commission meetings. I'm going to my next one on Monday uh to talk about potential of street parking spots. So, um, but one of the things that we have talked about was just trying to do a better job of talking about the long range things between all the the the governmental group. So, I'll mention that in a moment. And then just a lot of parent involvement um in things like our policy committees and other things. Samantha did a lot of parent involvement with middle school review just to
042try to get their understanding of what they wanted to see. So, we do a lot of this um and we could always do better. So, we're looking for ways to improve that. So I like on good readads when it tells you at the end of the year in December like these are all the books that you read and here's all the stuff and this is what I like to kind of track because it you know when when you get to the end of the year you're always thinking to yourself like did I actually make any kind of impact and what I what am I spend my time doing. So this helps I think all of you just kind of know what do I do all day um and in the things that are happening but
043there was just a lot this year and definitely still tracking um what goes on with parent communications. So over 400 parent communications across emails, meetings, calls, everybody in the city has my cell phone number at this point. So at this point I'm getting a lot of even communication that way too, which is good because then parents have um they feel like they get connected to to maybe an answer very quickly. Um same thing with the board. Always making sure I'm tracking those things. Um you can see, you know, I didn't know if like in my first year if that was going to be the same. It's about the same, I would say. Uh just taking a look at the purple being year one and the lighter pink being year So, a lot of good communication
044there. And then the question I'm always asking is um am I actually getting out to the schools, which can certainly sometimes be hard to do, but for the most part, I would say 186 school visits. I'm pretty happy about that from a superintendent standpoint. I I'll definitely talk about that quite a bit. It's a little bit less than last year. Um I think we had so many referendum events that took me away from the school sometimes, especially in the fall. But, um next year, I think the question is going to be in the schools, what am I doing and how am I using that time well uh to learn about the things that are happening, the ways that I can take that back to maybe decisions or processes that are being made. There we go.
045Some things I'm thinking about next year, three big areas, obviously student achievement, it's what's the next level of that. Um I think one of the things that we did this year well was we started to focus the principles on some type of overarching district goal and kind of let them run a process underneath it. There definitely needs to more work with that. We learned some things. I think um doing things together wasn't as always as aligned as I think it could be. Uh the principles have a lot of good ideas with that as well. So, we'll be working towards that. The strategic plan next year that we would be developing for the future is going to be a really good process. There are some things that many of you have talked to me about. We
046had that wonderful session in January with the cabinet team. this is a great time to really build for the future and do some things differently and not only just the stuff but the how um and so we're excited about that with understanding current reality the future vision and then obviously building the concrete path forward and then re resource stewardship construction is just going to be a huge lift it already is it's on top of everything that you already do um so we're excited for that because the changes are going to be really drastic and I think people are going to be so happy when they see the spaces But it's it's huge. Something will go wrong. It absolutely will. There's no possible way that you run a construction process like this and we have some
047forks in the road that we have to kind of figure things out. So the question is just how do we react? And then obviously trying to settle uh the teacher contract so that our teachers are fairly compensated and have everything they need to do their jobs. That's a big lift because it's a lot of time and it's a good uh trust building exercise for us to sit down and talk about. Okay. So that was part one. Part two is looking at the conversation that we had back in January. And one of the things that we struggle with with our strategic plan is that it's organized around five areas, but the five areas aren't necessarily tied to the way that we do business in the school district. And back in October, I had a scattergram up
048of the strategic plans from our township and comp districts. Basically saying these are the areas that are in all the plans and they fall under these five categories. Once in a while you'll see a sixth. Once in a while these school go from five to four. But student learning at the end of the day we are a school. That's our job. And if you take out student learning you have a lot of other organizations that are not schools. We have to make sure that our students have the culture and the learning environment so that they can have the behaviors ready for their learning. So that's the other part of it that's really important. It goes beyond the classroom at some points, but it's really important in the classroom, too. Our teachers, our teaching assistants, um
049our administrators, our librarians, our school psychologists, our BCBA, you name it. They have to have a great working environment when they come to school, just as if they were working in any other situation. They need to be the things that they need to do. Um, and for our setup, sometimes that can be challenging, but we need to make sure that we're working towards that resource allocation is do we have the money to do that to meet our to meet our goals and are we doing in a way knowing that taxes from where they're at um are being spent wisely. Um, so there's a lot of conversation about that in particular with the referendum. Um, and that's going to be something that we want to highlight. And then finally, it's that last piece of community engagement.
050How are we engaging with the greater community? Not only the community in Parkidge Niles, but I'm thinking about the education market as well. How are we seen in that world when people are trying to say, "Should I apply for a job there or not?" Um, and then how how are we as educators positioning oursel in the greater global sphere and what can we do to contribute to those things too. So very meta from a community engagement standpoint, but definitely something that I get excited about. So those are the five areas. If they're organized like this, doesn't change. Doesn't matter who the superintendent is, the school board, the principles, the teachers, doesn't matter. This is what this is what a school district does. And I think the school districts that are very successful, they keep on
051this road and they just keep going back to the same thing. They don't try to reinvent the wheel. They simplify simplify simplify because our jobs are already extremely complex. So that conversation that we had with the board was super helpful. So what I did was I took the current strategic plan and the things that I know our cabinet team is working on and I tried to reorganize them underneath these five areas. Okay. So I'll just briefly mention a couple of things. So next year the middle school review training is really going to focus on what does instruction look like when you have 80 minutes. And this will be a good opportunity for us to probably rethink some things and take away some sacred cows about how how how construction looks and ultimately what students need
052to learn and what learning looks like. And I think I said this to the cabinet team, I said it to some of you. If you said, are we more of a curriculum based district or more of instructional based district, I would say we lean way more on curriculum. We think right now with our theory of action that if we have great curriculum, we therefore have great learning. That is somewhat true, but we don't spend enough time helping people curriculum that they have go into the instructional pieces. And so that's going to be an area um in particular with middle school, but then overarching building out the construct of what we believe um good instruction, great instruction, exceptional instruction looks like for all of our educators and how do we train on that? Um our student
053services action plan has done a massively awesome job with that. Next year we've got some groups coming on board. The year after that, there'll be more groups coming on board. And then next year is our first full year of CLA implementation. That's our ELA curriculum. We had to pause on a couple of things. Um figure some stuff out this year and Alicia and Samantha did a great job with that and that'll be moving on. So when I say spring, that means by spring we'll have kind of completed this um as we go through student learn. And this is all with this current strategic plan. Allison Darrenheim, our new uh director of student learning in MTSS, has done an awesome job uh leading our tier one teams and then next year that's going to start to
054kick off in the buildings. The principles have done a great job. A lot of our staff have done a great job with that, too. So, we're excited to see that how that impacts learning environment. There's a lot of work to do. Talked a lot about that. Uh behavior and student culture was always kind of the missing element. I would say I put back um those goal areas. The other four areas were represented in some way, shape or form in our organizational culture. The one that was always not was this. So, it'll be good to really lean into this. And and from a staff perspective, this is an area that's really changed. When they say students behave differently, they really do. They need different things so that they can be ready to learn um because of
055a whole lot of societal things going on. So, this is something that we're going to be we're going to be doing. The entire school district is going to be trained on which will help us create um the beginnings of a consistent day for a student as they go to adult to adult and space to space. Right now, we don't have a commitment to that. So, this is going to help us build that commitment out. Um and then Allison and her team is going to be working on the student behavior grid which helps us get really tight on the responses when certain behaviors start to happen. So, we're being fair and equitable across the board for all students. So, really great work in that. We're excited for that. educator excellence. In the new strategic plan that
056we start working on, something that um you gave me direction on too for my goals for next year, Joel will be working on some future staffing plans. So, the models we can start to forecast in the same way that we try to forecast what the building needs are in the same way we try to forecast what the financial needs are. Um that'll be a really great thing for us to have and work with the staff to build. Obviously, want to complete the P contract. We're gonna get it done in winter. Um and then Joel's got he's like a second round of hiring practice protocols that he's been working on with our administrative team. So, um those will be kind of the three things that take up that. Obviously, the uh the contract negotiations are are
057the biggest lift. And then in resource allocation, completing construction, a lot more financial forecasting as we go into next year that'll help us for the future. And then the big one is eliminating full day kindergarten tuition and the plan for that and what that looks like and the decisions that we're gonna have to make. So, it's import The strategic plan unto itself is going to be a community engagement experience. I've got some ideas. I'll explain them in in later times once we have just more time to chew on this. I kind of want to go slow so we have a lot of processing time over the next few months. Um I don't want to just leap into a process and pick a group and go and then get a plan and then move forward. Uh
058Chris has been doing a great job with the communications plan as he does with everything. So you'll be seeing a lot of that stuff start to roll out in the fall. And then this conversation about type of intergovernmental collaboration where at least the the public administrators getting down to business maybe three or four times a year. So us, the park district 207, our friends at the at both cities. Um and really just saying what are you working on? What are you working on? What are you working on? How can we work together? What do you have coming up two years from now? If you got that two years from now that we should be doing this. Those are the conversations that are missing right now and I think our public expects us to be doing
059that. So we're looking forward at doing that. So that's just a brief overview of kind of this is what's going on next year. Now to go even further out, if you take the five goal areas, um let me go back here one second. If you take the five goal areas and you look at any type of organizational um culture, one of the things that I think is very important is to get very specific and tight on what a goal area is, what a value is, what the mission is, what the vision is. If you're going to do belief statements, what are those? Some districts do portrait of a graduate, what's that? You you look at all of these things in schools and it gets complicated very quickly and it can kind of get it's flashy.
060It's almost like, oh, we're doing this and we're doing this and we're doing this and I'm like, I just want to learn better. So, like, what's the most easy thing that we can do knowing that as staff move through their day, it's very complicated and complex. They a lot of time to sit and read these belief statements and think like what does this mean for my kids who are literally coming into my classroom in two seconds. Um so the goal areas because they're specific and they're um really rooted in what we do are very helpful. Values to us and we talked about this as a cabinet team this week. Those are laden throughout all of your goal areas. They're not separate and in some organizations they're developed separately. You develop your goal areas and then
061you do a completely different exercise. You develop your values, you completely different exercise and so on and so forth. Many of you have been to many of those trainings that can feel like you're eating glass. So our values as an organization should go through all of our goal areas, but they're not something that we develop separate from them. And they're kind of your checks, you know, your check and balance against am I doing this based on my values? And if I am, I'm good. It's not going to line up one for one every single time. But if we're going to have values, they should be in all of our goal areas in some way, shape, or form. They should be the lenses by which we see them. And then when you take those values and
062you put them into goal areas, they all have to be missiondriven. Your mission is why do you exist and how do you do what you do? Very simple. All right? So they cannot be outside of your mission. And sometimes I've seen that too. We have a current mission here. We don't talk about it a lot, but our current mission is to foster opportunities for discovery, to engage in a quality education that accelerates learning, to develop skills and and abilities so that we can grow and nurture um interdependence, appreciation of differences, and care for self and others. So, I highlighted the letters in red that you see all the time, which some people thought was our mission, which I'm okay if that's our mission, but that's one of the things that we need to talk about,
063and I'll tell you why in a second once we get into next year. So our mission should be very clear. We should have a lot of understanding around it. People should know at least kind of what it is. I don't think we need to be an organization where everybody can recite it on command. Um but I do think it's important that people kind of know these are the things that we do and they can get pretty close when asked what what is the mission. I think if you ask people what is the mission, I don't think they would say that right now. I think a couple of people would say isn't it the four words? It's the discover care something like that. But I think that most people would have no idea. They would say,
064"I think there's a mission because we're a school, but I don't think it would go much further than that." The vision should be at our best, what should we be? And if there was a best that we can't even imagine, what does that look like? I always feel like the mission is your alma mater. The vision is your fight song. It should be if you were winning everything, what was it? What would it look like? And a lot of school districts vision in my opinion are not visionary enough. Unfortunately, I would put our vision in that mold right now. I read our vision like to provide an engaging curriculum rooted in rigor, exploration, innovation while cultivating interdependent relationships to positively impact the community in the world. It just it's kind of boring. There's not much
065there that looks much different than any other school district. I think we have a lot of resources and a lot of um wonderful people here. Our vision could be so much better. I say this all the time around here. I'm like, if we wanted to be the best we could be, it's really a decision at this point. Like they had like a bingo card that had these words in it. Yeah. And that's the way unfortunately visions usually get created is you get 30 people in a room and then you spend 18 hours works and then you walk away with something that just kind of meets everybody's concepts and needs. Our vision would be to be the best school district in the United States of America by doing X, Y, and Z. That to me is
066a vision that I can get behind. It's exciting. you should be able to like say the vision and be pumped up by hearing it. That doesn't pump me up. So, um, and I'm not sure if it pumps up anybody else because we certainly don't use it. We don't we don't use it in reference when we're making decisions of like what is our vision looking for. So, I do think in the strategic planning process, one of the things that we do have to do is kind of parse these things out. What is our mission? What kind of statue is it? What we've got our goal areas. I think that's better. We need to get tighter on the wording. Let's talk about our values. Let's talk about our vision. So in the popular strategic planning models and
067we're looking at a lot of them right now. This is not a typo. We actually designed it like that. So the current reality isn't even fully there. I think most people spend a very brief amount of time on that. And I think the problem with that is you actually have a lot of work that you can do there um that would set you up later for the for the future. And then they spend a ton of time on mission, vision, values. we're meeting with some of these organizations that do this work as they describe their process. There's a lot of that we spend a lot of time in mission vision does. I'm like ah so I to me it just turns again into this like word smithing exercise and then their planning is actually cut
068short and then you can see what happens over that fiveyear period where some things start off super strong and they just completely go by the wayside. Some stuff never even gets going. Um other things kind of get better as we go but it's just all over the place. Not I would say that's right there is most of education. All right. And then you get to year five and you're like, we need to do it all over again because that was super fun. And then you do a new strategic plan. And I don't think any of us from the cabinet team really have an interest in doing that. So what we would propose is spending more time in the process on really understanding what our current reality is. Some time on mission, vision, values, but it's
069one of those things where I think if we spent an hour compared to it would be about the same result. And then spend a lot more time and a lot more effort on the plan and what does that look like and what are we going to put um in front of something else in sequence and what are we not because that's usually the conversation that does not happen. And then we actually develop and stick to a continuous improvement process which is different for us. We haven't done that before. Um people say aren't you getting better? Yeah, we're getting better. But I'm talking about something that's much more systematic and Um, and that's important. And so the groups that we're working with now that eventually would like to bring them to you are groups that would
070help us throughout this whole thing, which is different than what we've had before. And the continuous improvement pro process, this is just the best chart I could find for it. It's these like many cycles and you have to restandardize as you go. Many of you have worked on, there's a ton of them. Many of you worked on them in some way, shape, or form. Baldridge language or um some other aspects. pretty popular total quality improvement. The way that I look about it for us for continuous improvement, there's a lot of different processes of education. We're trying to pick a we're trying to pick the gym. We're trying to figure out we want to be healthy. We want to get better. And all of them work. It's just what kind of fitness program is going to
071be best for us. Okay? In the same way that when people are talking about improving their physical health is the same way for us improving organizational health. But a continuous improvement process sticks to same of the same parameters as physical health and wellbeing too. So those are the things that I think are really going to drive us forward for the future and we're excited to start to have those conversations at the board level. For the new board members, I just kind of wanted to take a step back and go really big tonight just to talk about it to give you some things to think about um and then maybe open up uh for some conversation. But I'll just leave that um up there. That is the goals um that we're going to be um trying
072to develop. perspective and uh that is my report. So I'll sit down and we can have a little discussion and I really do appreciate uh the time to just kind of think big for a moment and be um really frank about uh the situation that so thank you. All right. Thank you. Did anybody want to say anything about um this is really helpful. I think um I really love I mean we spent a lot um a good amount of time as um the former board and the administration on these goal areas and I think having a set of consistent goal areas that we adhere to kind of over time um makes total sense and I love the idea of putting the current strategic initiatives for next year into these goal areas. so that we can
073even before we do the new strategic plan begin to take that lens and almost practice looking at it from that lens. Um, and I also love the idea of spending more time really thinking about where we want to go and being really tight on that in terms of mission and vision and the planning versus word smithing. the mission and vision and I think my only push is both for next year but also in the strategic plan. You brought this up a little bit in terms of priorization and what not to do and I would push that even further to say that yes there's a set of things we have to do because it's compliance for sure and if we take that aside how can we do fewer things much better. Or how can we take
074a lens of kind of the greatest return on our collective investment of time and resources to ensure that we're really thinking on a fivey year, a year, a quarter, a month basis. so that we're really doing the most important thing that's going to have the greatest impact possible. So said more specifically when I look at even next year um everything that's underneath the B areas makes sense and I'm not sure that if we were to ask the question are these the three things that would have the greatest imp on this goal area that those are the exact three things that would be the answer. I I don't think the board is the right group to make that decision. I think the cabinet is with the staff's help. So I think I think my push is
075I would want us to be freed up from being beholden to a document that we created five years ago and more beholden to we have students and teachers in classrooms next year. Um and a commitment to provide them with the best learning possible. So if there's that we could do more of, less of, do differently because that will yield a better result for that whole area. I rather do that than just do something because it was part and I don't think that's what you're saying, but like this idea of let's take a lens of greatest return on investment is the lens that I would want us to practice next year and definitely deepen and and make sure that we're embedding in the strategic planning process. Anybody else? Um, if I'm repeating what Monica just said,
076I apologize, but I would also encourage not to feel that have to do everything at the same time. said there's a process and planning will be revisited at some point in the future. um things started there's so much excitement I think is developed that there's enthusiasm to attack the entire thing All right. Thank you. All right. Um we have two administrators um who are at their last administrative meeting for us tonight and we just wanted to recognize the great work that they do. I'll do Adam and then when Noel comes back in here we'll do. But Adam, um, we got you a plaque, uh, just as a as a thank you and appreciation for all of the work that you've done for their school district, and we're very excited for you and, uh, Villa Park
07745 um, and the work that they they get to um, see you do there. And so, we just wanted to um, give you this as a a way that you won't ever forget about us ever again um, and um, in your office. But um, you you've done just a ton of stuff and when you about um the construction to uh the financial presentations to transportation to food service to I mean your your office literally touches every aspect of the district. So we just want to say thank you and uh we're proud of you and um we're just uh we're just very thankful that we worked. Thank you very much. [Applause] Yeah. Um, all right. So, the joint annual conference is coming up. Registration is soon. So, I just wanted to remind everybody about that. Um,
078we'll make sure we register you. It's a good time. And then training next Thursday is at 6 o'end I did want to say one more thing. Um I forgot to mention Chris Lily in the uh groundbreaking ceremony and Chris has done an unbelievable amount of work for the referendum. I don't think it would have passed without you, Chris. I really you were so good about so many things. It's hard for me to ever put into words how good I think you are at your job and how good I think you're going to be as you just continent [Applause] before we go on um on the joint I feel like this whole day is like pivoting from one thing to another. So, apologies. Um, on the joint annual conference, um, I think I would love if
079we could try to get as many board members there as possible. Um, I think the first year that I was on the board, um, I think the majority of us went and it was, um, I think a real good opportunity not only see other districts in action and be able to kind of learn more about um just different topics and other districts, but also for the board to really kind of bond with um administration as well. And so um I know it's a big ask because it's I think over Thursday, Saturday, Friday, Saturday um over Thanksgiving and people may have plans. So it's you know I totally understand but if you are able to make it I think trying to get as many of us there as possible. I think I'd love to echo that
080if we can get it's a great learning experience for all of us to see others and other districts also um We don't have any board committee reports. Uh board committee assignments. Um I believe I talked to each of you about potential assignments and there's a sheet in your packet that actually goes through who's on which and the chairs are. So thank you to everybody who stepped up to serve in one or more committees. Uh and for those who uh to be chairs as well. Yes. Action item 25-05-9. I move that the board of education approve the board committee assignments as presented. Second. Motion Rachel seconded. Um any discussion? Klein. Yes. Franken. Yes. Milligan. Yes. Double Day. Yes. George. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Um Adam, uh the last time you talked to us first or
081Noel first. That's right. Yeah. Noel. Um I we got you a plaque that you can hang in your new office and Joliet. We just wanted to say thank you for all the wonderful work that you do and have done to put us in really great shape for construction and facilities. Um, you are very good at your job and um, we know that Juliet's getting a really great person and uh, it's good that it's, you know, closer to your family so you can spend more time with them and so we're happy about that, too. But I, you know, we didn't want to have this last board meeting go without acknowledging your work and just saying thank you for everything. So, we wish you all the best. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right, Adam,
082now you're up. Quest contractor wouldn't be right if I wasn't coming to the podium one last time. Um, so this is an action item. Um, last spring we brought a one-year extension to the Quest contract. We're asking to do it again. Um, over our time they've been an excellent partner providing high quality food, meeting our students needs, helping out with green initiatives. They provided some, you know, drinks and cookies for the for the room, which I know a lot of people enjoyed. And most recently, they've been an excellent partner on the planning process for the kitchen over at the new edition over at Lincoln. So, they've been great. Um, we have a great director here, great team. And so, what we're here to um ask about is approving a one-year extension on their current contract.
083Management fees are the same and um discussion or questions. Um, is there a limitation on the number of extensions that we can have? Uh, no, we are um we are not part of the National School Lunch Program, which to be honest, most school districts in the state of Illinois are on National School Lunch. So, because and we're not on National School Lunch Program because of our low low income percentage, it really doesn't benefit the district to go on NSLP. So, when you hear about conversation, I know Rachel's nodding her head. When you hear about conversations what's happening in other school districts with bids and there are completely different rules for those type of districts. So essentially we could continue extension we could interact with other vendors and but you know before before I go I
084just have to say that for the the time that they've been here Quest has been a great partner and our community is very involved and very few times have we gotten any push back about again quality food service and if there is any issue they take care of it right away which is great. All right. Thank you. I move that the board of education approve the extension of the Quest food services contract for the 2025 2026 school year. Second. Thank you. Andrew had the motion. Rachel the second. Any discussion? Jasi. Yes. Double day. Yes. Kemple. Yes. Franken. Yes. Klein. Yes. Milligan. Yes. Thank you. Um before we do any motion on the consent agenda, anybody need to pull anything out of that further discussion or issues? We don't have to pull it out if we
085weren't at the May 7th special meeting. Right. Correct. I move that the board approve the consent agenda for May 15, 2025 as presented. Second. Andrea had the motion. Second. Any discussion? I think we need to I just realized it. I think we need to make a fix before. So on May 7 because I wasn't there. Um but it was after organizational meeting called the meeting to order. It should say double day. Um well I think Chris actually already had that correction. So it's just might be updated here. If we could just amend that. All right. So, we had a motion to second. Any other discussion after Kemple? Yes. Yes. Jenkins, yes. Double Day, yes. Ranken, yes. Luisi, yes. Klein, yes. All right. any new business. Just three quick things because May's a busy month. Uh
086the retiree the district retiree dinner is on Tuesday, May 20th. So if any of you want to come to that, that's at Fountain Blue and Displays. Um it's always nice to have some board members at that. Chris actually did a really great expose photography wise of our retiring staff. So uh he showed me just a little preview today. It's really awesome. Um so that'll be um Please let me know so we can make sure that you're in the count. Uh cover your meal. And then promotion. Right now I have Kurt for Lincoln and Monica for Emerson. Is anybody else want to attend promotion? No, you don't need to. But okay. So all right, we're good there. So at least we have a board member at each. And then if you want to march with us
087in the Memorial Day parade, um we're going for our best parade outfit this year. We're going to win. So, um, please let me know like like we are like we're going to win the parade like if they when they go past the grand I thought you meant like I just wanted to be prepared. Emma is going to be designing the costumes. She volunteered. Okay, done. So, if you want to be dressed by an eighth grader, we should just all wear the hard hats. for holding candy. Yeah, that's great. All right. Thank you. Anybody? Anything else? Move to adjourn. I make a motion to second. All right. All in favor? I meeting down.