001thank you it's a new year i need to focus there for a second i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you no miss narcissistic to do a roll call [Music] here do we have any visitors here for statements not seeing any we can move on to discussion information items foia requests we had three foias the responses are included in the board packet there were no questions submitted and all foias have been sent out i think there was one question submitted in regards to uh the hompin referees yes correct i'm sorry and those are uh taking effect this school year okay thank you and we use those through the ihsa uh
002schedule correct correct we yeah we do not have acceptance rates i just thought it was a december release of the raid so obviously we had not budgeted for them previously but yes they're not significant to a point of materiality okay um any additional discussion items from anyone here on board looking around okay moving on to consent agenda approval of minutes um i would ask the the board's indulgence that we defer on this item we have some other close minutes to discuss later on this evening would just like to postpone our approval of these particular minutes any objections okay moving on to old business action items life safety and then multi-function school and activity bus no update on the life safety capital improvement items we are completed our railings have been completed the pavers were installed
003over thanksgiving break so i don't think we have any large items that are left all small items that are being done internally correct kristen you want to take the activity bus sure this isn't a second read of the activity bus um nothing has changed uh from the last round except for the fact i was able to get a reduced price on the two year lease of the new bus which will brought it down about a thousand dollars so it's 18 333 a year i'm asking for approval tonight because we need uh approval by the board in order to get on the list and they're filling orders based on the order in which people submit their their request okay multi-function school and activity boss minibus lease the board of education township high school district 208 cook
004county illinois approves the two-year lease agreement with midwest transit for 36 a year pending final review by legal counsel and the superintendent is presented in the january 11th 2022 board agenda packet second you have a second for mr welch you can get a roll call please mr dirk yes yes yes yes yes yes next item is the press plus policy issue this is the the second read of these items dr spinkus well um i want to first of all thank um miss ruska and miss towner we met for over two hours close to two and a half hours to go through this hefty packet um the ones where you see there there were some changes those are with the in the packet and we also addressed the two colon 140 202 colon 230. i only
005received minimal questions from miss dallas and those are more minor editorial comments like changing british home to cantata i am waiting to hear back from legal counsel on 7 colon 315 which was the student publication there is a clause in there we align with some of the updates to the public act and the student media but at the same time there is an opportunity to address some language where i think would can reach some middle ground to where if there is a concern with something that's being written in one of the student publications how it can be addressed by the administration so it's covered in the policy but there was one option and the language the the policy council had some concerns with the language the sponsor would like to see something similar to that
006language put in so if we were going to approve the packet tonight maybe we can pull uh seven colon 315 out of that or we keep the whole packet in and approve it as a consent item next board meeting um the other policy for colon 165 i did follow up and get updates and made some edits to that from that's a new policy from iis iasb um and it does align with the public axle uh the things that were left in there are things that are required to be left in there i sent that to the policy council earlier and we also addressed two colon 230 which was public comments and um legal counsel tweaked that a little bit too i know you saw the recent article in the landmark in regards to um their
007policy they wrote a story on the lt's policy and the removal of a community member from a meeting so i just wanted to make sure our policy was fluid and provided protections for the board and the administration but also allowed people to properly voice their first amendment rights at a public meeting and so those all those changes have been made i'm just waiting to hear back on the seven colon 315. so i could defer that to the board on how you would like to proceed whether we pull one policy or if you'd like to hold the packet and approve it as a consent item next week or next meeting so my suggestion is well let's just confirm and see if there's any additional comments on the policies my preference would certainly be to move ahead
008there's so many of these they require updates to documents if we could move ahead with all of them with the exception of seven three point seven colon three one five that's my preference but i'll open it up if anyone has any thoughts on this well because that four what is it the four point one four colon 165 because that's a new policy um and we did get quite you know we got legal counsel on that you might want to include that with uh seven just to give people i'm gonna hold that up okay so a chance to mull it over just one and you know because that is new okay now i'm comfortable with that any objections from anyone four colon 165 yes correct what page is that on because it goes from four colon
009120 to four colon 160. maybe it's true 117. i can't believe i clicked on it that's the policy um but i think he's asking for this what's the policy number 4165 is on board book page 117. okay i'm not looking at the full board books i need to scroll down 4165.4164 colon 165 is on regular board book 117. but i think ms ruska's uh suggestion is solid we can take that one as well as seven three one five out of order and approve the remainder because it was it's all new and we did get some children claire and elena did you guys have any specific concerns on the policies um i during clarion i read over the restrictions on publications i i don't think we value i don't know what the really the question like
010just revising that policy but i don't i are you so you're talking about the claw because i know we have the independent i don't know what the right language is but the thing where the administration can intervene if there's something being published so that's one of the policies we would hold off for some some type of additional wordsmithing there were two options offered and i think there's probably some middle ground and it's with the um advisor and i think we'd want council to look at it as well yeah i i think that is a good idea just because it and something involved so much with the language that it'd be important to get it right okay no questions for me okay thanks and council has we've we've asked council wright about the student mental health
011day policy yeah so that's all good to go yes [Music] thank you which is the publication policy which one is that number seven colon three fifteen oh okay and i'm not finding four colon one i'm not five four one sixty five are we sure that's the correct number on that one laura it should be yeah it's at the reason it's going to be at the beginning one page 117. i should have preferenced this with the board the reason it's at the beginning is all the ones that we made changes to the committee independent of press packages or at the front that's why it's separate that's why it's not in order thank you that was confusing because yeah it's right after the yeah all of this has shifted digital and historically this was something um laura
012and i talked about historically this used to be a chart and then you would just go through the chart and highlight but now it's all digital so any ones that we made additional edits to are listed in the front so that's actually the first policy that's why it's on board book page 117. okay understood so i i think what i'm hearing is that we don't have any additional discussion on the rest so mona will have to modify the uh yeah so i'll read it as adopt press policy issue 108 excluding the two and then correct seven colon three fifteen and four call one six five okay all right we ready press plus policy issue 108 by the way 108 is like the biggest one they've ever put out so it was a lot the board
013of education township high school district 208 cook county illinois approves press plus policy issue 108 excluding policy 7 colon 315 and policy 4 colon 165 and the additional three policies included as presented in the january 11 2022 board agenda packet second this isn't all in favor because there's no money all in favor all right any objections thank you very much i think to everyone who worked on this that's a lot of lifting um dr skankys could i ask you though just to to clarify one point i know you and i talked about this the new training for board members that it will be a requirement it will be a requirement for all board members uh effective july 123 i believe it says 2023. what or january 1 2015 training of uh grooming and sexual harassment
014and it's too cold and 120. many of the edits in this press plus packet were due to some new laws on the books regarding um awareness and prevention of uh sexual child sexual abuse and grooming behavior so if it's a video or something of that ninja gcn video where you have to answer a few questions similar to your school board training thank you um well that was actually a fairly quick discussion so thank you everyone you can move on to the to the school calendar for 2022 2023 okay so the school calendar 2022 2023 give me one second to get through this 300 pages of policy and what peter are you right now 350. that's why i only pull them up one at a time i don't do the folder so this is a second
015review of the calendar and i think we're ready for approval for this year's calendar i have had some discussions with the union for the future trying to look about possibly putting an institute after break um i think because this has been shared this was shared with the union earlier and um with the feeder schools we did get some feedback late before winter break from the ics about possibly shifting and that's something i think we can easily do in the future but i think we're gonna need a little more planning on which institute day and uh how that shakes out it also doesn't necessarily align with the schedule for next year as we're not coming back to school until monday january 9th because we have an extended break last year obviously this year it would have
016been nice to have an institute day on january 3rd so teachers um because we you know kind of felt right after the holiday so that's something i can work on and that's just something that you might see in the future but other than that i think this calendar is ready to approve and it does include the juneteenth holiday as well as remember every other year unless this law changes the general election so that's an additional day off that's why some years we have 175 and some years we have 176. yeah the election day and the juneteenth are mandated days off correct i don't see juneteenth changing but i don't know going forward if the election day will remain it was only for two years i mean many of these are state mandated days off those
017are just new ones for this year was pulaski day a state mandated one no no is the city one it is a city that was adopted around the collar counties for quite a while it is a state holiday but it is not a state-required holiday right we haven't had pulaski day for several years here we do a little and it's similar to how going to do a little thing over the announcements and juneteenth only your 12 months and your office staff will be off that doesn't affect student attendance correct correct the governor the uh general election does though election day i mean it could have would it affect summer school summer school yeah one day summer school so do we want to go ahead and make a motion to approve these this evening we do
018sure okay i have a question regarding uh april 7th it's listed as good friday are we not listed we just we listed it here so you know we know why right we just put district closed on the actual campus yeah when you turn that into the state when you go to the uh the actual calendar uh ryan yeah it just says district club correct just curious why it was written i believe the cba might actually reference it that way still does that okay um maybe don't quote me on that but that is a distinct possibility okay the board of education township high school district 28 county illinois hereby adopts the 2022-2023 school calendar providing for the opening day of school on monday august 15 2022 the ending day of school on thursday may 25th 2023
019for a total school term of 185 days as presented in the january 11 2022 board agenda packet second i'm all in favor any objections the school calendar for next year passes thank you start making your travel plan payment of bills under new business now there was one question submitted on boardwalk page 361 regarding uh cell phone reimbursement for administrators so administrators can submit a payment a bill uh and we would reimburse them for their cell phone uh payment up to sixty dollars a month um and uh as you see some administrators submit and wait and submit several months at a time so that's a four month pill yes that was a four month bill so it says august through november and in the business office we keep track since everyone seems to submit on their
020own timeline to make sure that nobody double submits and this option was provided because some of our over time what we've realized is instead of putting lines on the administrative account with verizon some families or some of the administrators had family accounts already with their families and their kids so it was easier just to come up several years ago we'd figured out like kind of what the average shared bill was and then we gave us almost like a reversible stipend were there any other questions you want me to read that that was the only one i submitted okay i don't think there's any other questions if you'd be so kind miss towner okay the board of education township high school district 28 kokane illinois approves the payment of bills as presented in the january 11
0212022 board agenda packet second channel yes is that for it yes yes historic property resolution yeah this is just a formality this is something that the board has been adopting annually since the 80s this is just to ensure that we still can get the required property taxes for any historic buildings in the district the board of education township high school district county illinois approves the historic property resolution that certain assessment relief provided by the illinois property tax code for historic buildings not applied to taxes that are levied by the board of education of school district 208 as presented in the january 11 2022 board agenda packet second do we have any questions or comments on this matter we don't have to read the big resolution no we do we do not thankfully isn't it would
022you take the role please yes yes yes yes yes yes uh the next new item are the district goals so these were i um already was good enough to run hockey you should have a paper copy at everyone's place these were the goals we discussed at our december 11th session with iasb there were some minor edits suggested our next step based on our december 11th discussion would be to um ask the administration to post these for public comment uh over a two-week period i think we had talked about generally so i can i would open it up to the board at this point any additional edits any additional comments or are we comfortable moving forward to seek public comment yep mine mine is not about that i just wanted to i i think i sent
023an email to the board but i just wanted to say like everything that we have been getting on this topic via email i continue to put in the shared drive in google so that you don't have to look for the last email so thank you if you want to um double check anything or refer back to anything you should be able to find everything in that google shared drive so that is much appreciated well i i will read these out just for the record i think that's a helpful yeah i think that's helpful thank you so again these were based on our retreat we had on december 11th these um are focused around the main pillars of iasb's governance guidance so starting from the top number one explore how to maximize curricular days to provide
024for new opportunities and social emotional supports for all students number two research opportunities and methods to increase two-way engagement with all stakeholders of the rbhs community number three ongoing training and engagement in diversity equity and inclusion work number four responsible budgeting and investment in staff and programs that directly affect student outcomes number five i did have an alternative here from our discussion in december it was increased physical footprint in order to support district operations curricular and extracurricular utilization for the group tonight i did suggest the following so as not to over emphasize the word increase this that was where i was coming from so the suggested alternative was review physical footprint to maximize support of district operations including curricular and extracurricular utilization can you read it one more time review physical footprint to maximize support
025of district operations including curricular and extracurricular utilization so i just just from the board's perspective maybe we can talk a little bit about number five which one they prefer so that when i post these uh to the stakeholder group and the general public for feedback i know which one to put for five thank you i prefer the revision i read it in the same way i actually read the seven page uh document and thought where are the goals because everything we had done that day got distilled into this uh that being said um i i really i struggled with that initial um phrasing i like the review the edit far better um because it sounds like we're desperate in the other one i think uh understanding where we are and where we need to uh
026but our focus is probably better worded in that second one in the edit okay for the revision does the suggested alternative actually mean we want to increase the physical footprint i did not take it to be committed to increasing the physical footprint i think there's there's been some regular and ongoing debate i think there's certainly a desire to increase the physical footprint but that may not ultimately be an achievable goal so i think that needs to be part of the of the dialogue so i intentionally backed away from using the word increase the footprint but what are your thoughts mike i thought it was a good discussion on that saturday i thought we thought we agreed that we wanted to do something in the parking area i i personally think we are but knowing where
027we are with our current utilization is probably a first step to moving toward that second goal but the second goal is i wouldn't say out of our control but right now perhaps beyond our control at the moment so i think reviewing where we are is probably the place that mentally i am knowing what we have and how we're utilizing it you know what are the current concerns among staff administration and students that is impacting their ability to perform academic and extracurricular activities well i mean i guess i i would suggest that there's a a fairly widespread agreement that we we would want more space to do some of the the sports activities the other extracurriculars that right now get moved to off-site locations um and not to put too fine a point on it but
028my concern was that we set a goal that says increase the physical footprint and that's somehow pass or fail on increasing the physical footprint i think we need to be open to understanding that if we don't ultimately we're not ultimately able to increase the footprint what does that look like so that's we're saying the same thing but slightly differently so is there a way we can capture language where while we're reviewing that physical footprint that we are open to opportunities to increase if they avail themselves i mean you're the word smither but you know that if an opportunity presented itself and it was within our reach that would be something we i guess we set aside money with the intent that we will be purchasing some form of expansion i think again i don't find
029this to be the the major consequence although it will direct our efforts so where does the community fit in in this in this new one i'm sorry i'm sorry i don't understand your point like the community wants us to help them have access to this building and that's why we put the money aside right so i'm not talking about how we we get to anything this was just and if we're not comfortable moving forward we're not comfortable moving forward with the suggested alternative would that be under district operations then yes this is this is simply on goal number five about our facilities and i was really attempting to address the emphasis on increasing our physical footprint with the suggested the increase right i mean i do like what we do but then how do we
030include like re review and be open to possibilities or something like that what if we just dropped in like review uh review opportunities or review all avenues to increase the physical focus like i get what you're saying we don't want to say that we're bound to physical because if you that that that's right i can't make a deal with the zoo right i'm just saying how do we like how do you say and be open to the opportunities as they avail themselves how about review physical footprint and identify avenues identify opportunities for expansion identify opportunities as they present themselves or something like that i mean because we works with that yeah but i think we need to take a little bit of what's i think what i'm hearing is we've got to take a little
031bit from the top that came out of that saturday mm-hmm and tweak it into your i'm okay with it as long as you know i have to think about that what what the original goal was i'm just trying to make sure it fits in this in this in the suggestion alternative you can always like it's a goal if i mean if we if we've worked as hard as it at it as we can and we've exhausted all possibilities we don't meet the goal it doesn't mean we failed right like it's a goal it's not like we're not gonna be in front of a firing squad if we don't get there we could say advocate to increase the physical footprint because i get i get the staying away from the word increase but i also think
032that just saying review is just too laid back okay like we've heard like we've spent 3.9 million dollars right so maybe we're not playing around we get i think that's actually a really good suggestion advocate to increase physical footprint in order to support district operations curricular and extracurricular utilization is everyone comfortable with that yeah because i think that addresses my concern yes that was just me attempting to define an alternative but i think well i know because ultimately it's not up to us it's up to whoever wants to play ball with us um but but on our end we need to do the most we could do is to advocate to negotiate to you know whatever we should show that we're serious yeah absolutely we're already past kind of like the review statement we're done
033we know we need to do something okay right that's fair let's take those all those ideas and smith it into something new and i will i will accept that okay now i think all we did i think um miss gasket found a great solution we're just adding two words to the front of five as drafted on 12 11. so advocate to increase physical footprint in order to support district operations curricular and extracurricular utilization and keep in mind these will now be in the the public purview for a few weeks so right we may have i would like to advocate to the public please give us your feedback on these tell us what you would like to see so that we have some sense and it's not just uh the eight of us in a room
034you know i do have a question on three the word and uh marina to here welcome your input on that you know to me when it says ongoing training and engagement diversity equity inclusion that seems like enough but that word work just seems dangling to me i don't the work doesn't add anything to the that word work because we want ongoing training and engagement in diversity diversity is you know the the noun diversity in everything we do in equity and inclusion but is diversity work a specific thing or is equity work a specific thing so that word work is just odd i had i had circled that as well do we need the word no i don't think so yeah i think diana's submitting a change uh and the strike of the continue i i
035agree it didn't make sense continue and ongoing i don't know she's asking about the word work at the end of dei work so because i just think that we should be diversity in everything we you know look at diversity everything we do through that lens and equity and like that should be the lens and so i think commonly um like there's like there's the there's a bucket of work considered equity work or inclusion work or diversity work right there's that's i think a common way to refer to those buckets of of activity so but i thought our conversation was we want to get away from the bucket and get away from having diversity as a small piece and start using diversity as the filter for everything that we do not apportion or peace but you
036know even like our conversation with the policies you know uh kevin brought up everything that's for that five year review we need to now start filtering it through really being intentional and looking through that diversity lens and equity lens so you're suggesting strike the word work yeah because i think it should be in everything we do any objections to that okay can i make one others oh i'm sorry take your stroke okay i think am i i see what you're saying i mean i we could say ongoing training and engagement and diversity equity and inclusion efforts or dei training d i mean i i i think i know what you're getting at with work but i think we do need to add something to just ndi matters and dei training so my suggestion is um
037perhaps we let this out for public comment and get some feedback i don't think we're going to finalize and and finish these i personally feel that the work word does the work but that's uh i don't think there's an end goal when it comes to achievement of diversity equity or inclusion it's going to be continuous work so i guess i see it as an important part of it but again i'm not led to it one thing for consistency purposes if you notice we have we're probably lacking a verb in four and three like we have explore research advocate so we probably should do something like for three that says support ongoing training and engagement and diversity equity inclusion for all stakeholders maybe something like that yeah this is the verbiage we got back from lori
038correct right but this is first draft that's right the board was supposed to make the only comments we got were from ramona and yep deanna so um but i think even for so far like three maybe you know if it was a board goal the board goal would be supporting ongoing training and then maybe we drop it for all stakeholders instead of work just so that it's for staff students yeah right we need to train everybody on diversity support is your is your action where you do that i was just my first suggestion but you know what i'm saying like we have explore research support and then even for for responsible budget it may be implement responsible budgeting and investment and staff and program you know i mean just something that so we're consistent all
039the way down i don't know if it implements the right word those are active goals you know means that we can't be passive i like that kind of focus on having a verb in front of the goal yeah i don't know if it should be conduct responsible budgeting and investment implement i don't know how about i read them through one more time and then again this will be out there for in the in the public space i think everyone can wordsmith a little bit more we can have once we get some additional feedback we can really pinpoint the the language we want to adopt as our goals so the first goal would be explore how to maximize curricular days to provide for new opportunities and social emotional supports for all students second goal research opportunities
040and methods to increase two-way engagement with all stakeholders of the rbhs community third goal support ongoing training and engagement in diversity equity and inclusion fourth goal implement responsible budgeting and investment in staff and programs that directly affect student outcomes outcomes excuse me and fifth goal advocate to increase physical footprint in order to support district operations curricular and extracurricular utilization so is everyone comfortable with putting those out there do we want to tweak them further tonight are we okay the only concern i have is when we say implement responsible budgeting it makes it sound like we currently don't have responsible budgeting in place but but i i would disagree on that i think all of these are goals and they're in some ways they're current goals right it's our goal annually to to responsibly budget um
041i would suggest that currently there's research about opportunities to increase engagement and that kind of thing but these aren't going to start from scratch they're on a continuum to some extent um do you have an alternative to implement though that you think would be better just because it's going to be out in the general public we just need to you know continue continue to implement continue to yes continue responsible budgeting and investment in staff but you know one might say we're trying to increase the investment in staff and student programming maintain maintain responsible i like that i mean because i think i think maintaining a balanced budget maintaining budget or spending within our means has been a priority for many years spending within our means so it's maintained responsible budgeting and investment in staff etc
042does that work i think so yeah good suggestion okay yeah i got it okay so we're going what maintains our verb and we may hear some feedback okay i will send this directly to the stakeholder group that participated in the original workshop as well as posted on the board tab of the website thank you thank you and actually if we could perhaps lean on our student advisors if you have different ways to make sure there's feedback from students i think we'd like to see that as well um something i think putting it out in an email during school and having teachers say something about it honestly for something that students might not be as interested in honestly that's the easiest way to get to them during class because everybody's here i agree with making an
043announcement during a class period have teachers talk about it during class actor we'll talk about how you can address that yeah i'll just place with clarinet i will edit what i said about the word work now that you put support in front of it and say that i don't think the work is just one less anonymous edit you need to do from an online statements i don't believe we have any additional visitor statements we did not have any additional discussion items identified by board members consideration of items for future meetings so anything top of mind for anyone then we can move on to matters for closed session before we go into closed session are we what's the plan with the open meeting minutes we didn't approve in the closed meeting minutes what's what's the plan
044my um request was to defer those to the next meeting oh to the next meeting not not to later on yeah thank you for the labor day church the closed one at the end or in closed session just move them one yeah just move to the next gotcha thank you and if i was not clear on that i apologize no it could be me okay you ready the board of education township high school district 28 county illinois enters closed session for the purpose of considering appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body student discipline purchase sale or lease of real property probable imminent or pending litigation collective negotiation school safety and confidentiality of closed session minutes i'll second but i'll i'd like to push it back to the president
045because i kind of interrupted her she was going to list some things or say some things and i might have interrupted you no you did not you did not please please go ahead and proceed with your second second i did the second okay mr welch yes mr darkband yes yes yes okay