001Okay. So, if our new elected board members could join us up here on the blue, we're going to have you uh sworn in. Face the audience. Raise your right hand and we'll do this bit by bit. All right. I state your name do solemnly swear that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of member of the board of education of Park Ridge Niles Community Consolidate School District 64. in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Illinois, and the laws of the state of Illinois to the best of my ability. I further swear that I shall respect taxpayer interests By serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets, I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others
002who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees. I shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public meeting. I shall abide by majority decisions of the board. while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels as a part of the board of education. I shall accept the responsibility for my role in the equitable and quality education of every student student in the school district. In the equitable and quality education of every student in the school district equitable I shall foster with the board extensive participation of the community, formulate goals, define outcomes, and set the course for Parkridge Niles Community Consolidated School District 64. I
003shall assist in establishing a structure and environment designed to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework. I shall strive to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of our children in compliance with state law. I shall serve as education's key advocate on behalf of students in our community schools to advance the vision for Park Ridge Niles Community Consolidated School District 64. And I shall strive to work together with the district superintendent to lead the school district towards fulfilling the vision. The board has created fostering excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills, knowledge, citizenship, and personal development. Congratulations You know when Rachel and I did it, they let us hold the post. Just letting you know. Apologies. Congratulations.
004Okay, we are now gonna move on to the election of board president. So do that afterwards. Um so nominations are now in order for the office of president. I nominate Matt Double Day for president. Second. Okay. Matt Double Day is nominated. Are there any other nominations for the office of president? Hearing no further nominations, the nominations for the office of president are closed. Matt Double Day being the only candidate nominated for the office of president. Matt, before I go on, do you accept the nomination? great. Thank you. Okay, so Matt Double Day accepting the nomination and being the only candidate nominated for the office of president, the chair hereby declares Matt elected by acclamation and directs the secretary to so record in the minutes. Congratulations, Matt. Okay, with the election of the board president completed,
005I'm going to now call this um new board to order. So, um calling the the new board to order for our first um meeting, the organizational meeting and our first official roll call. With that, George Akus here. Louisey here. Milligan here. Klein here. Kemple here. Double day. Ranken here. Great. Okay. We are now going to move to public comments. 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 students or staff members. The board uses this time to listen to community questions and concerns, but will not respond immediately to requests for information. Additionally, the board cannot take formal
006action on non-aggenda items. Contact the board president by email if you wish to discuss your topic further. Please come forward to the mic and state your name and if comfortable, your address for the minutes. Hello, my name is Michael Philbrook. I am a parent and a resident of Park Bridge. I just wanted to say that the newly seated board endorsed and supported by the outgoing board president and her local political group must understand that they now carry the responsibility of restoring public trust. That includes correcting past wrongs, holding appropriate parties accountable, and ensuring this district moves forward in alignment with the principles that district 64 claims to uphold. With that endorsement comes a duty not just to the people who voted for them, but to every child and every family in this district. They now
007inherit not only the position, but the burden of repairing the damage that has been done. This community deserves leadership that values Transparency over politics, equity over alliances, and accountability over sight. Thank you. Any other public comments? Okay, we're going to Move to the next item on the agenda, the election of the board vice president. I nominate Andrea Klein. Great. You beat me to the nominations. Sorry, asking for nominations. Okay. Um, Andrea Klein is nominated. Are there any other nominations for the office of vice president? Andrea, do you accept the nomination? I do. Great. Hearing no further nominations. The nominations for the office of vice president are closed and Andrea being the Andrea Klein being the only candidate nominated for the office of vice president and accepting the nomination. The chair hereby declares them elected by
008acclamation and directs the secretary to so record in the minutes. Congrats. Okay, we are going to now move to the election of board secretary. Nominations are now in order for the office of board secretary. I nominate Beth Ranken. Beth Rankin is nominated. Are there Any other nominations for the office of board secretary? Okay. Hearing no further nominations, the nomination for the office of board secretary are closed. Beth, do you accept the nomination? I do. Great. Beth Rink being the only cabinet candidate nominated for the office of board secretary and accepting the nomination. The chair hereby declares them elected by acclamation and directs the secretary to so record in the minutes. Congratulations. Okay, we are now going to move to the next action item which is the approval of the board of education regular meeting dates
009for the next academic year 2526. You should see that in your packet. Yep. Um, we typically go on Thursday nights, usually the third Thursday of every month. There's a couple of months that we move some things around. One of them is in August, between August and September because of the budget and how it has to be publicly posted for comment. Um, the other one is generally in November trying to figure out with board attendance at the big triple eye conference. There's a lot of great sessions with that. So, um that begins on a Friday. Having the board meeting on Thursday night can be tough. So, we usually move that up a week. Um we also want you to all know that we can move these as we kind of move through the year. So, but
010we do need to officially approve them tonight as just as a first draft. Um, and then we decided based on when construction would be finished and when we could start walking through the schools that were done, we're going to do two at least two of the meetings at different locations. So, when we're at Lincoln, we can see Lincoln and Washington on the same night. Um, you'll see the progress at Lincoln, you'll see the finished product at Washington. And then in one of our meetings in September, August, we'll walk over to Emerson. You'll see the finished product of Emerson. So, those are all really fun meetings. and then we'll see the finished product at field hopefully in February when all that's said and done. So we typically don't do a meeting in July. Once in a
011while we have to get together to approve a contract or something um that's time bound and uh we also have committee meetings that are on the next page in your packet. We've preliminary put those together as a cabinet team and um as we start talking we'll do the best to put those dates in and uh have those conversations. We're asking our recommendation is to approve the dates as is and then we can make changes as we need. Okay. This is an action item. So, could I have somebody um uh move the read the motion? I can read it. I move that the board approve the board of education regular meeting dates for 202526. Any discussion? Great. Then let's move to a vote. Um double day. Oh, actually wait one second. I have a second. Rachel
012had um the motion and Andrea had the second. We're going to move to the vote double day. Rankin, yes. Temple, yes. Clar, yes. George, yes. Milligan, yes. Okay, we are now going to move to A5, which is the review of the board of education committees. Right. In your packet, you'll see the description of our three committees that we have right now. Um, I know Matt wanted um a little bit of conversation on this and our cabinet members appreciate the time that we can spend with you and committee because there's a lot of times when we're trying to figure out what direction we would go with something or if there's an item that needs further discussion at the larger board, but we're not sure exactly what part of it is going to questions that the board
013would need to make a decision. And there's a lot of other times where it's neither of those. It's just a good FYI moment um in person to tell you what's going on or have have you asked questions directly to a lot of our our cabinet team. Um there's a lot of things at the administrative level that are really in motion from um you know from the very beginning of the school year. And so we try to bunch them into these three categories of facilities and finance and um the work that happens with that and all of the committees kind of have a flow to them based on what's going on in the year, the decisions that the board has to make. So early on you have to approve the budget and usually because of the
014way school accounting works and Adam could speak quite a bit to this. There's a lot of nuance and language that is very different even if you're coming from a financial background. It's it's different than the way other places work. Uh there's a lot of law around what we can can't do, how money can move, how it can't move, and then there's just the whole piece of taxes and that everything is always two years trying to understand how that works and then the global macro forces that are employed too. So, um, that group typically has most of their work right away in the first six months because after the budget, a couple months later, you have to approve the levy, which is the ask to the taxpayers for what we think we're going to need to
015fund. Anything else, Adam, you want to remark about and finally there's the facilities component to it just mainly with the um ongoing construction it's time for the committee to go in depth and kind of talk about where we are at those different points we were able to do that a few times last year so I can see where that would be beneficial for the committee to be able to have some deeper conversations and deeper input any questions about that committee um the educ committee works on curriculum assessments instruction. Uh there are a few presentations through the year that Dr. will do or um Alicia Schmeiser will do and sometimes special ed um like our student services action plan that's ongoing right now. We'll talk about that and discuss what's going on in the buildings with
016that. Um we'll talk about technology um and what's happening in that department. to student learning. So that one I would say is probably a little more even throughout the school year in the conversations and decisions that happen from that. That one kind of also probably look the most different depending on what school district you're in facilities and finance forward because you have pretty direct decisions that have to go to the school board. So um that's been a good place for good conversation dialogue especially with the middle school that was very helpful and I both served on that one. So if you guys have questions, we can answer them more specifically. We're not on finance and facilities, so Matt would be the person here right now who could answer those more directly. Um all of these
017I don't know um they're all open meetings as well. So typically it'll be the committee meeting like the committee members, but any board member who wanted to attend a committee meeting that they're not on that committee could still attend as well. And then I think the only other thing is I think it would be helpful for at least one of the new or just elected board members to serve on each of the committees so that there's continuity. So as you know Matt, Rachel and I two years from now we don't know exactly what will happen. There's always two years of your service and experience in those committes. All right, the last one is probably the most fun committee, the board policy committee. So, if you love policies and talking about where the colon should go
018and where the the period should go and all of that stuff, this is the committee for you. Um, we next year will have a new policy um tool that basically takes the policy issues that come out about four times a year with updates to all of the board policies and then it allows us to very easily change and update our polic So, we've been working all year on doing that because to get that tool to work, you have to have the entire conversation about every single board policy. So, you're coming in at a good time because that work has already happened. So, now the updating and upgrading piece will come. The piece of it that's important though is that we do our best from an integrity standpoint when we're making decisions and really taking actions.
019Our first look is is there policy on this? Sometimes there's not because it's a school and there's a lot of stuff happening. But there are many times where at least a board policy will give us some direction about a boundary uh for a decision or some type of piece that we need to ensure that we're doing. And it's important that as a board really the board policy is the backbone of your decision making and how you want to see things. There's times when you might decide because of a ever changing situation might add a polic That happens quite a bit. There's always, you know, structures taking place legally. There are more education laws in the state of Illinois than any other state. And so that's a challenge for school boards, frankly, and it's a challenge
020for our administrative team. So, Dr. Martin is the cabinet member who will lead that and that that group, we've kind of set that out to meet when we think the issues are going to be coming out. The issues come out typically four times a year. So if we have about three policy meetings a year, we're good. Then we can catch up as we go. And then the last piece that we added recently is that last policy committee meeting of the year doing all of our student behavior and discipline and the data that surrounds basically how a students outside. So we do bring parents that specifically as a part of our policy. That's a that's also a really great one, too. There's really good conversations that are very helpful for us as an administrative team. We're
021trying to figure out what what actually needs to happen on our so that we get four times a year, they come from the so the Illinois Association of School Boards. And so that's organization that has um a lot of times they're about laws that were recently passed in Illinois or updated. And so sometimes what we're looking at are just changes in language to make sure that current policy aligns with current law. And then sometimes it's new policy that you have to have because of a law that was passed. Um and then sometimes there's recommendations. So they're a little bit different. the ones that we look at um maybe ones that we have to kind of adopt legally and the other times it's ones that we choose to adopt or not or um refine to best
022fit our district and community. But that's where they're coming through already vetted by legal and then obviously our legal team if we make changes or suggestions to things also. But just that's kind of when we're talking about that press that's uh online you policy manual that will show any changes throughout time. So right now if you go look at our board policy manual, it just says what it is and it says when like the laws were adopted that are reflected in the policy but it doesn't show any historical changes that boards may have done over time. So once we replace a policy a policy is gone historical knowledge. So that will no longer be the case. Do you guys have any questions about that? It'll be a little bit less this year because the press
023has already been done. So, we had to have more meetings for that last year. Matt, do you want folks to share their preferences with you in a particular way? Matt, do you want us to like rank order them or just send you like one or two that we want to be on? Great. There's no other Go ahead, Matt. Great. There's nothing else, then we will go on to the last um action item, which is just other discussion and items of information from our superintendent. All right. So, in the back of your packet, and we'll go through this with training, so you don't have to do anything tonight. I promise. There is all of the training that um we'll make sure that you understand and know and then guide you through it. Your point person, all
024that's going to be Chris Bernaric. Um she'll she'll track that for you. She'll help answer questions, you know, maybe set up accounts that you might need. And um we will make sure that you get all the required training and then we the train on the website as required. So it okay there isn't anything else then I have a motion to adjurnn. So moved a second. Okay. All those in favor. I All those opposed. Great. We are then adjourned at 7:46. Thanks everybody.