001e e e our June 10th meeting I'd like to welcome our student board member Maha rakanda to the board and if I could have everybody stand as they're able for the Pledge of Allegiance and if you could remain standing for a moment of silence stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all I could have everybody remain standing for just a moment you'd like to take a moment of silence for you 46 employee who recently passed away Maria Rios joined the school district in 2000 as a homeschool liaison at LaRon Middle School she worked for several years in the same role at Lord's Park Elementary before returning to Laron in 2005 Maria considered the teachers staff and students at Larson her second family she was The Ultimate Team player and her generosity kindness
002and willingness to lend a helping hand forever in everything that she did Maria was also a devoted wife mother and daughter and in fact her favorite season was autum because that was when her parents would visit from Mexico Maria passed away on June 2nd she is survived by her husband Juan prieres her children Adan Sebastian and Mato and her parents and six siblings a funeral service was held June 8th at St Monica Catholic Church in Carpentersville we will Maria's family and friends in our thoughts and prayers thank you he the first item on our agenda is Accent on achievement Dr Johnson thank you madam president as part of the Board of Education Accent on achievement the board of education is going to uh recognize Jamie Geraldo if she wants to come forward with board uh
003member Miss sukur Jamie is our Fine Arts coordinator for school district u46 um we are being honored with the best communities for music education designation from the National Association of Music Merchants uh and the foundation for its outstanding commitment to music education the Nam Foundation is a nonprofit organization supported in part by the National Association of Music Merchants so I have a certificate of achievement and I'll just read it so it says the Board of Education of school district u46 hereby recognizes the school district u46 music education program being recognized as one of the best communities for music education by the National Association of Music Merchants Foundation presented this 10th day of June signed by board president Melissa Owens and super intendent Suzanne Johnson and I know what a wonderful program we have in this
004district from the micals and the concerts and the other wonderful things we see so thank you very much this is six years in a row so I'm I'm pleased to accept this on behalf of our very talented music educators in new 46 this is our sixth year in a row um which is no small feat so thank you very much for recognizing the greatness of our teachers and what opportunities they provide for our students yes you can hear some of them perform on Friday at the Farmers Market hey the next item on our agenda is strategic plan report early learner initiatives updates Dr Johnson yes this evening uh we will have uh Miss Katie Cox coming forward our director of early learner initiative she is going to be joined by Mr Brian Tennison assistant superintendent
005of teaching and learning who I believe is joining us on online once I find him as well as it looks like um Miss laa my storic has moved to the on Deck Circle in case any additional support is needed they're here to present an update to the board of education on the early learner initiatives quick question can you guys hear me do this need to be closer how's that is your green light on the green light is on perfect okay good and then one more question does the slide deck is somebody else controlling that or am I doing that okay great thank you yes okay so good evening and thank you um for the opportunity to share our work with our early Learners Department um and the staff that serve them the work in our
006early learning department is rooted in building inclusive learning communities for children birth to five and their families with a focus this year on expanding opportunities and increasing quality in our preschool program tonight we will reflect on the scope of our work through three lenses our birth to three family engagement our preschool programs kindergarten and Beyond each time I am invited to speak at events I always share this data I think sometimes it's overlooked and it's so critical to the success of our school systems children begin to learn when they are born and the largest amount of their brain development occurs before they are 3 years old and 92% is completed before even enter our schools in our programs we have two approaches to impacting this important time of Child Development our birth to three program
007parents is teachers and our community collaboration with eple the elen partnership for early learning the families that participate in parents as teachers report feeling more confident as a parent have a better understanding of Child Development and are more connected to Community Resources as as a partner with eple we're able to reach our families before they come to school and engage with them directly in the community and share important Child Development information and recruit them for our birth to five programs I believe pictures are worth a thousand words so my presentations always have lots of pictures of our our work because I feel like it helps everyone understand um our work so parents's teachers all of these photos are from parents as teachers it's one of our most impactful programs we have in our district we
008reduce barriers by meeting with families in their homes honoring them as their child's first teacher and supporting parent child interactions and developmental parenting everyone could use this program um and we serve about 150 families each year we also work closely with our Community Partners and the epel staff to reach our families with young children that aren't enrolled in school through dropin playgroups attending Food Bank events learning on the go and language in the laundromats we've been able to form relationships with our families and support them in navigating The District programs and our community services I could not be more delighted that one of our four goals for our district um is early learning and growing our preschool opportunities across our district essentially research continues to show that children who attend preschool do better in school
009and in life because of this research supporting Early Learning gets bipartisan support nationally and locally our state is a leader in early learning and u46 is frequently looked to as an exemplary program this puts us in a great position to take advantage of the grant funding available to expand our early learning efforts in fy22 we had 1,358 slots available for our preschool now we have in the fall 1,648 seats and we've grown about 20% in two years we've been able to take advantage of every funding opportunity um that has helped us to have time to grow our own teachers when we can and open at a pace that is supportive to staff and to the schools which makes it much more positive experience for our families and students when we talk about growing opport unities
010it is important to note about who we are working to serve with our preschool program the state requires us to Target children that are farthest from opportunity each family is screened to determine if they are eligible the state provides this weighted eligibility checklist to identify the children most in need of a preschool experience we have a large number of children that qualify so we have set locally High thresholds for participation to ensure that we're reaching the children that need us the most so on this checklist family amilies that are participating in our halfday program need to have a score of 100 points or more and in our full day program everyone that participates has to have one of those top four factors as well as an additional 150 points to participate research states that in
011order to get the maximum benefit from preschool you must ensure a highquality program we've been working to strengthen our curricular program build the confidence of our building leaders and early learning leadership and grow the department to support the district expansion and quality goals in addition to our ongoing work in preschool our department supports our kindergarten teachers and leaders in our work with our full day play-based kindergarten I would be remiss tonight if I did not share that the impact we've seen in our kindergarten population in the past two years our kindergarten students are not unlike kindergarten students across the entire country we've seen our students struggle in language development and with their self-regulation skills our children have spent much time in front of screens and missed valuable play opportunities as a result of the pandemic
012and while that sounds a little Grim in u46 we are in this awesome position to serve them and get them the critical play opportunities that they have missed we are very fortunate to have a full day play-based kindergarten program and this really helps us meet the needs of our Young Learners where they are at when they enter John Hattie asserts in playful learning the content the structure the problems and tasks the interaction with peers and adults are intentional and significant but the Lynch pin is language playful learning is Rich with verbal inquiry while play is an important part of children's learning its power lies in the language B the language-based interactions that take place during play literacy is built on speaking and listening and having adults to scaffold and build these skills in a highly
013engaging and active classroom is critical to our success for our little students our teachers have been Early Learning Warriors the last few years they have worked so hard to implement new integrated units introduce new books and materials and their lessons Implement a new family engagement platform to better partner with families on their child School Success and areas of growth theyve attended many professional learning sessions and implemented the new strategies that they've learned we saw incredible classroom growth this school year we continue to grow our practice and align to our district instructional goals this year in all of our early learning classrooms we will be focused on a conditions literacy and math goal we will have more professional learning new materials coaching and support as we work to achieve our goals as a department we continue
014to eval EV valuate our system as a whole to determine ways that we can support our buildings in meeting the needs of our youngest Learners this year we were able to introduce kindergarten preview events to kick off kindergarten registration this summer our principls are hosting playd dates with the principls on the school playgrounds so we can reduce anxiety for our new students and their families and we're working to host a kindergarten session at each of the back toschool bash events so families can learn what to expect and how they can help their child have a great start our department is looking forward to the new year where we can continue to work on reducing barriers increasing opportunities growing our children to have greater Readiness and increased outcomes in school and in life last I often
015tell people that I have the best job in the school district and I really mean it I am so grateful to work in a place that values Early Learning and has for a long time before I came and will I'm sure for a long time after I'm no longer here it's really the way that we can make a dramatic impact for our families for our students and for our community so thank you so much thank you board members have any questions Don um so it's fantastic that we're expanding at preschool numbers do we know if the state of Illinois is looking at all at offering like a fouryear prek across the state as an expansion I know some states actually start education at P4 versus kindergarten kindergarten yeah you know the I'm not sure to
016like to answer but I know that they tried to even just get a few years ago kindergarten to be required and it couldn't pass so they've made some gains like we're now going to have full if you have kindergarten it will be full day across the state in 2027 okay um and then I think really our state's plan is just to flood as much slots and opportunity as they can into preschool right thank you y any other questions so I have just a quick question first of all I just I want to say I love the the idea of the the integration into to kindergarten for those students even though my son's a rising Junior in college I still remember that kindergarten moment um of leaving them off at the door and how anxious that
017can be um my one question goes back again to the the um expansion numbers um which is great that we're we're able to expand but can you give us an a little bit of an idea of what the actual need is out there and how far away we are still from we're very far away so we're identified as a preschool desert on the the state's you know kind of map of Early Childhood opportunities which in one way is good because we're a priority for receiving funding when funding opportunities come our way so that's a strength um we have about 6,000 students that would qualify right or children between the ages of three to five that would qualify and we have 1,600 slots going into the fall um we did however this was very exciting preschool
018for all had its first other agency receiving funding in the u46 area this past funding round um the Boys and Girls Club received preschool for all funding so we've been working with them that we've invited them to our classrooms like walked them through how they begin to set this up because honestly like I I wouldn't anticipate that U 46 might be able to house all 6,000 but our Community Partners we can help them be able to work with us and meet the need okay thank you and to follow up on that I know we often have park districts have preschools and some of the churches around here in other places do we also work with them at all they we're starting so we're just starting our like little Department you know is growing which is
019really exciting um and so I do I meet with child care directors and we're our goal our ultimate goal is to be able to have professional learning opportunities that our teachers attend and so their teachers so that we're all on the same page working on the same standards great thank you sure thank you thank you all and the next strategic Plan update is multilingual Multicultural education department updates thank you madam president so uh coming forward in person uh tonight we have uh Dr Ernst our coordinator of the M multilingual and Multicultural education ation department for elementary as well as Mr past coordinator of the multilingual and Multicultural education department for secondary we are also joined online by Miss peral director of the multilingual and Multicultural education department as well as Mr Tennyson assistant superintendent of
020teaching and learning so I'm going to turn it over to Dr Ernst and Mr pastan this time good evening members of the uh eup foris Board of Education thank you for the opportunity to share more about the pre prek fifth grade dual language audit uh we will present recommendations and findings from the audit and additionally members of adante Specialist Group who conducted uh the audit are in the audience it depends that they could answer any questions um tonight's sorry let me tonight's presentations we'll have an introduction dual language celebrations followed by how the recommendations and findings from the audit are aligned to our current work as a as a district and we will finish by sharing next steps so let's start with introduction the Dual language program initiated in g46 during the 2011 2012 school
021year after 12 years of implementation we saw the need to evaluate our current practices and explore opportunities to continue as as a preeminent ofing current uh practices and identify and act upon opportunities for growth thus we saw the need to have an audit conducted by an outside agency we are grateful to have a supportive Board of Education that has allowed us to move forward with this significant audit process the audit was conducted during the fall of 2023 data was collected from 16 schools that included classroom visits in prechool through six through fifth grades this represented a sample size of the eup fores Dual language program in addition Adelante performed interviews focus groups with our dual language staff and administrators and also invited these stakeholders to complete online service parents of dual language students were also
022invited to provide their feedback via virtual interviews lastly adant was provided with any Department artifacts such as sample dual language schedules curriculum alignment plans and curriculum documents among others for their use during the audit the report consists of 110 pages long and includes the item shown on the left of the slide the report also addresses each of the seven strands described on the 2018 guiding principles of dual language education created by the center of apply Linguistics that are grounded in dual language research for each of the strands program structure curriculum instruction assessment and accountability staff quality and professional development family and community and support resources ad Delante included narrative findings and bulletin recommendations conclusions final thoughts resources and references are also included in the report data sets and an executive summary are also included we
023would like to share with you some of our dual language program celebrations we are happy to report that the audit included many key celebrations aligned with the Dual language guiding principles on this slide we have included a few of the highlights from the audit as they relate for our dual language program for example during the classroom observations there was clear evidence that most dual language classrooms follow the dist integrated units furthermore we saw the fruits of our dual language program by highlighting the number of dual language graduates in the last three school years which reached a total close to 1,700 students another indicator of the success of our dual language program is the number of dual language students who earn college credits after taking the AP Spanish language and culture exam a total of 1,132
024dual language students scor three or above and this number has consistently increased in the last three school years now we would like to share with you a summary of the findings and recommendations and how they align with our current work our dual language program aims for students to achieve three key pillars bilingualism by literacy social cultural competence and high academic achievement these pillars are grounded in equity and rigor for all of our students hence the work within dual language programs is equity work a recommendation included in the report was related to additional supports for Spanish foundational literacy skills this year mme has been collaboratively working alongside the early Learners initiatives and curriculum and instruction departments to identify supplemental resources that enhance students foundational skills in both English and Spanish as you are aware those resources
025have been identified and we continue working with those departments to support this work as you know the new ETA contract prompts changes in elementary schedules for the school year 2024 and 2025 for example science becoming a special this has allowed the mme department the opportunity to reflect on current du dual language schedules and dual language program structures overall after careful consideration changes have been made to our elementary dual language content allocation plan dual language schedules and other structures that will be expected to be implemented next school year and Beyond the school year 2024 2025 the changes have been shared with Elementary dual language teachers during professional development sessions held in May and will be shared with those that opted to attend in July these changes are in alignment with the recommendations made by Adelante where
026they share that students and dual language programs should be reading writing and speaking in both programs languages daily beginning in kindergarten level and language arts instruction should be coordinated between the two languages at all grade levels as indicated in the recommendations and findings a plan of action for family engagement is essential to support newcomer immigrant and multilingual families our mme department Define newcomer as a student who is foreign born and have recently arrived in the United States newcomer students may include but are not limited to asy refugees unaccompanied youth undocumented youth migratory students and other immigrant Children and Youth identified by the local educational agencies to support our staff and students the mme department developed a newcomer guide focusing on academics social emotional and resources additionally we have hosted newcomer parent support groups where our
027families have received information about our American education system what it means to be a student within school district u46 and Community Resources last but not least we have held several newcomer professional development sessions for various stakeholders to learn more about how to best support this population of students as a district we have already developed a biliteracy reading trajectory based on Research conducted in dual language programs Across the Nation this trajectory allows us to look at our dual language Stu student data holistically to understand the totality of students literacy skills in both English and Spanish in the audit report Adelante recommends to f further develop our biliteracy reading trajectory based on specific School District u46 student data that is collected in both languages professional development is a critical component of making a program successful the mme
028department has provided a monthly Elementary dual language focused professional development series on biliteracy strategies in all elementary required Rel release day on a biliteracy reading trajectory as well as required release days for all elementary teachers grades kindergarten through sixth grade regarding changes in dual language program structures these steps align with the professional development topic recommendations by adante and outlined on the right hand side of the slide additionally adante recommends u46 to continue to build the knowledge skills and cohesion of the leadership team this allows to the Dual language condition walks conducted by coordinators and mme D in collaboration with dual language building principles last but not least we strongly believe that parents are the key Partners in their children's education as indicated in the report parent meetings are opportunities to provide updates regarding programming within
029School District u46 over the years our mme department has taken great pride in hosting parent informational meetings where incoming families receive a great information and have Rich conversations about our dual language program additionally we have maintained our bilingual parent advisory committee where parents and community members of a school district gather to ensure the district recognizes their voices and acts to meet their needs now that we have shared how the recommendations are aligned to our current District work we will now speak to the next steps we will take to further address the recommendations and findings of the report a dual language leadership team will come together to meet over in the fall of the school year 20242 2 for a total of five full day work sessions there will be a total of 18 members on
030this team and we will include representation from various departments elementary schools and each grade levels it is important to note these various members as we believe the multiple perspectives and experience will enhance our work in in alignment with the strategic planning process this committee will carefully review the recommendations and findings from the audit the report will be chunked over the course of the five work sessions the goal is for the group to collectively decide on what we will further be implemented from the recommendations and develop a three-year implementation plan for those recommendations gracias thank you thank you for the presentation do board members have any questions no I don't know that I have a question per se but I mean it's no secret that I'm one of dual language's uh biggest fans and I just
031wanted to thank you for taking this really in-depth look um at all of this as a as an educator myself I'm uh I got kind of nerded out a little bit on some of the details um yeah I don't really have a question other than thank you can only continue to encourage our community members to enroll their children in dual language um even if especially if they're English speaking at home um I swear to God it made my daughter smarter um to be in dual language and my older daughter is about to be a senior at um Milo Wesley and she spent a semester in Spain and they were blown away on a regular basis at how good her Spanish was and I know it was because of the Dual language program so thank you
032thank you thank you thank you for your coming anyone else well I'll I'll add to the uh endorsement then as well I'm also a proud dual language parent so um absolutely and uh continue to be amazed by by the growth and in all aspects of language acquisition but it's even impressive it's beyond I should say impressive to also watch it in specific content areas as well so when my students are doing math in Spanish and they're exploring other content areas in Spanish and they're reading and they're writing and they're discussing it it is it is truly exceptional and they're they're still at the elementary level so I'm very much looking forward to the to the postsecondary um but I I also just uh applaud the team and the commitment to providing this instructional programming for
033our students and and I'm I'm right there with you um Miss Thomas and trying to figure out how we continue to promote uh the programming and the opportunity and the option for for our family so thank you so much for your leadership and and thank you to the leadership who is joining us online tonight as well thank you Dr Johnson thank you Shonda thank you for this presentation um I'm also the parent of a dual language student are there plans to in the past there's been the um parent dual language University I believe is what it was do the parent informational meetings the parent cafes is that kind of replacing that for now or you plan on bringing that back on the scale that it was pre- pandemic I can I can speak to that
034this is grela I'm on I'm on can you guys hear me yes okay great so um we can definitely explore that um I think that was before my time in the district um but that sounds amazing um one thing that we did Implement um for for the past two years has been the Dual language parent support group and that is all dual language families are invited and we discuss different topics about what their experiences are in our dual program and it also allows the parents the opportunity to get any questions answered you know we don't want to just leave it at that informational session right before kindergarten we want to continue supporting our dual language Pro uh families over the course of while their uh children are in the program so um essentially that is
035something that replaced that but we can we can definitely explore um maybe bringing that back in the future or maybe a merge of some sort um to better meet the needs of our families thank you thank you for the presentation thank you thank you for time thank you and the next item on our agenda is comments from the audience uh we do not have any comments from the audience this evening okay move on then to other business board member and superintendent updates board members have any updates we all had a great graduation two weeks ago always exciting yeah thank you to all of the staff the all the teachers all the administrators everyone who who made sure that our graduates had a a spectacular um time at their graduation um I it's a inspiring some
036times how how smoothly those graduations run even though we are doing them five in a row consecutively with with not a lot of time in between so thank you to everybody and congratulations to the graduates anybody else Dr Johnson now I will Echo more of the same congratulations to our graduates I want to thank uh the board of education for your leadership and and your support at the event it is a it is an awesome day we get lots of questions about how how we make it through the day but it it it actually goes really fast it seems odd to make that statement but it goes so fast and it's wonderful uh again so appreciative of our teams who are there to support our students but their families as well the friends we get
037a huge turnout at the now Arena and it really is a celebration and every High School feels a little bit different um I I know we get that question a lot too how has that happen it just it does through their tradition and through um their celebrations and their recognitions but thank you to our team for making that day possible it's it's it is a it is a great day okay we have Boyer requests this evening uh we have three Freedom of Information Act requests they are available on the public domain board docs and they will also be placed on the school district g46 website later this week moving on to consent AG Dr Johnson this evening on consent agenda we have Personnel report and workers compensation cases minutes of the board meeting from April
0388th 2024 termination of chitara Smith Food Services technician termination of Raina stto Food Services technician termination of chevel Clemens III secondary fieldman manager termination of Victor Perez madrano school bus driver termination of anahi Herrera Valdes secretary resolution for the disposal of surplus personal property property to be sold resolution for the disposal of surplus personal property property to be donated bid Information Services moroi Mr Enterprise licenses for wireless access points bid office of Schools elementary supply kits bid plant operations annual backflow inspection and testing bid plant operations Outsource custodio facility management proposal for financial operations Skyward enterprise resource planning software a proposal for plant operations Lincoln Elementary School countertop replacement contract culture and climate Department Crisis Prevention Institute Training and materials contract renewal Human Resources jelly Vision contract renewal Information Services securely contract renewal office of
039the superintendent Illinois Association of school boards annual du dues approval of settlement agreement and general release in the matter of Jenkins versus school district u46 and five building permits nature Ridge Elementary School Chiller replacement project 24002 oakill elementary school children replacement project 24 02 Ridge Circle Elementary School Chiller replacement project number 24002 Sunnydale Elementary School Chiller replacement project 24002 and Larson Middle School Chiller replacement project 24002 are there any items of board members would like removed from the consent agenda roll call please motion oh I'm sorry sorry can I have a mo motion to approve the consent agenda so move second now roll call please Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Khan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes Miss Kerr yes president Owens yes motion passes thank you miss cerry moving on to
040discussion action Dr Johnson our first item itemize bills for June 10th 2024 Dr Frank Williams assistant superintendent of finance will respond to questions from the Board of Education regarding the attached bills Administration recommends the Board of Education approve the list of bills in the amount of 34,37 6227 okay can I get a motion to approve the itemized bills in the amount of 34 m347 62270 so moved second any discussion okay bro call please Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Khan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes Miss ker yes president Owens yes motion carried okay next item minutes of board committee meeting attached to the board of educations review are the following board committee meeting minutes April 15 2024 Board of Education community relations committee meeting Administration recommends the Board of Education accept the
041minutes hey can I get a motion to approve the minutes of the board committee Relations Committee meeting minutes of April 15 2024 second any discussion I have one comment when we had a committee meeting like this earlier where we had a a sheet we filled out we are we we copied it and attached it to the minutes will we be doing that with this my goal would be to include all the documents that are related if there pictures for example if there were documents that were created I had thought that we would um attach those if if that was not attached in the minute versions that you saw I'll make sure that they are attached okay okay I don't think they were so do I need to amend the motion to um so what I
042would recommend um is that the board committee minutes will be amended to include um the diagram it was a chart yeah yeah the diagram chart or two one from each yeah okay okay so I can take a roll call then yes roll call please Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Khan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes Miss K yes president Owens yes motion carried next item our next item is the resolution to sell real property coming forward we have Mr Lindholm chief of staff and Dr an Williams Deputy superintendent of operations to present the attached resolution and to respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends the Board of Education adopt the resolution of the Board of Education of Elgen School District u46 cook DuPage in K counties Illinois to sell
043prop real property located at 900 South Park Boulevard in Streamwood Illinois 60107 hey can I get a motion to approve the resolution of the Board of Education of elen school district u46 cook to paage and Cane counties Illinois to sell real property substantially as presented in the board documents so moved any questions okay roll call please Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Khan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes Miss Kerr yes president Owens yes motion carried next item our next item is the resolution to publish notice and sell real property uh Mr Lindholm and Dr Williams uh remain at the day to present the attached resolution to respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends the Board of Education adopt the resolution of the Board of Education of Elgen School District
044u46 cook to page in King counties in Illinois to to re to resolve to publish notice and sell real property located at 410 East Streamwood Boulevard Streamwood Illinois 60107 hey can I get a motion to approve the resolution of the Board of Education of Elgen School District u46 cook to page and King counties Illinois to publish notice and sell real proper as substantially presented in the board documents second any discussion should we just point out to the public this is the former Streamwood Elementary School which we haven't used in 20 years 2003 was the last year yes any other discussion okay roll call please Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Khan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes Miss Kerr yes president Owen yes motion carried okay next item on our agenda is other
045business Dr Johnson our first item is the investment report for the third quarter Dr Frank Williams assistant superintendent of finance will present the attached investment report for the third quarter and we'll respond to questions from the Board of Education hey gri evening good evening the district continues to invest funds with PMA in 5ifth third and during this quarter so January through March we added a new money market fund with JP Morgan Chase to best utilize our banking relationship and it's turned out quite well Additionally the district added pfm as you guys had approved as an investment firm partnering to manage our bond proceeds our Investment Portfolio as of March 31st total 694 M 82,8 which is an increase of 85.3 million or 14% over the second quarter the majority of this increase is due to
046the deposit of bond proceeds back in February at this time we continue to have the majority of our funds in money market accounts which are earning just as much if not more than our fixed products however we have started to lock in some five plus percent rates in anticipation of rate cut impacting our return Dr an and I continue to monitor rates diligently along with our Investment Partners there any questions at this time board members have any questions no thank you and thank you for the the comprehensive [Music] report item okay our next item is the April financial report so Dr Frank Williams will review the attached financial report and respond to questions from the Board of Education so April moves us to the final quarter of our fiscal year where we ramp up our
047planning for FY 25 and continue to monitor fy2 24 we also start to anticipate our tax revenue which really starts to come in starting in May from a local Revenue perspective it was a shocking from a tax revenue zero dollars in tax revenue which is not uncommon for the month of April as the county start to make their Collections and may is when they really start to make those dispersements from a state and federal perspective our categorical started to arrive in April with deposits for transportation and special ed providing for a month over month increase of state revenue of $4.5 million when a quarter ends like it did in March our grants team starts to submit all of our expenditure reports so for April we saw the reimbursement deposits coming in causing a month-over-month federal
048revenue increase of $3.2 million overall our Revenue in April was 49.5 Million less than March because of the no tax deposits however at the end of April our year-to date Revenue was 77.5% of budget with two big tax revenue months still to come so May and June historically we receive around 27% of our Revenue in the month of May and June from an expenditure perspective April saw our expenditures returned too normal after the back pays for the contract settlement that occurred in March as part of Good Financial practice ractice as well as preparing for the end of the fiscal year we ramp down our spending on most discretionary items so think about supplies and equipments we start to ramp that spending down in the month of April this is evident as we saw a decrease
049in non-salary and benefit spending of 5.15% or about $763,000 overall at the end of April we were 7.84 expense of budget with an historical estimate of about 19% remaining expenditures for the month of May and June any questions at this time board members have any questions no it's kind of amazing to see the uh State owing amount to be relatively low five number right that's that's pretty amazing okay thank you thank you okay next item on the agenda is work session Dr Johnson our first item is the opportunity to uh review the performance fact strategic plan interview presentation and support some discussion for the board of education on this presentation as you will recall at the last uh Board of Education meeting on May 20th 2024 performance uh fact provided a presentation and overview of
050what their services and strategies would look like to facilitate a strategic planning um strategic planning work for school district u46 and uh so to begin tonight uh I will work to support some discussion on me um for the Board of Education as a reminder uh all board members are given the opportunity to review the presentation all attachments and then also uh submit some some feedback in accordance with a rubric our team members as well who have been part of this work are available this evening to answer any questions if other questions come forward that we're unable to answer this evening we'll make sure that we submit those questions to um the the vendors or providers and provide uh get those answers to you in a in a timely manner um so to begin we're as
051I referenced we're going to start uh with performance fact and if we would like to start the discussion with strengths um areas that stood out from performance f so and to to do this and first of all I want to thank all the board members for for filling out the rubric I know there's there's a lot of material to go through both with the rfps and then the two presentations from both organizations and all of the the attachments and everything so thank you for for putting that time in so um as Dr Johnson said we start with strengths so I want to make sure everybody has a chance to chime in so does it work to just kind of go Che down the line we can start with Sue okay put you on the spot
052all right put me on the spot um so I I I rated them the higher of the two um I felt they were really focused on improving student achievement and um looking at data now I will admit that some of the the the talk about strength so I won't talk what weaknesses yet but I think they looked at a lot of things and worked closely with districts on um what what information what what data they had they seem to really emphasize getting the student Viewpoint which I thought was important um and also working with different teams within within the um within the organization um I looked at some of their plans um through that they gave uh links to and was some of them were very impressive impressive in terms of what they were looking
053at and what they were doing so okay um yeah no I'm sorry I'm just trying to figure out um where to start with I I I liked the price point I thought that was um felt comfortable um they um they really had a nicely laid out plan for like what's going to happen in the next weeks versus months versus years um and they seem to have a fair amount of experience um in what they're doing so I did not rate them as High um as a creative Entourage but um I thought they and and I appreciated the diversity of um the staff that they had thank you Shanda um some of mine are similar to uh what's already been said but what I liked about performance fact and I did rate them a bit higher
054than creative entourage is that uh one they seem to have a lot more recent strategic planning work um they came with a lot of different examples of not just uh school districts but also I think I got the state college or I think it was maybe a Collegiate strategic plan because we each got separate plans um I like that even though they didn't go into the details of their dashboard and presentation when I went through some of the districts listed uh I think it was Hillsboro District had a really detailed dashboard that um gave where they are in that moment where people can get updates and then I think that goes to what board member KR talked about is focusing on student outcomes I felt that their um their plan was very student focused almost
055like starting with the client customer first our in client and then working from there and then that's all I have Don so I say a lot of my points kind of align with Shonda and Sue um I really liked their student centered approach um they whether it's how the examples we were given I felt like their their layout very clearly kind of made it made a point that it was here was the data on students and it's the students are the lead and I felt like their process was more student centered um they did give a lot of good examples I felt that the examples we got from them on their strategic plans were very clearly strategic plans they worked on um and there was a nice variety trying to make sure I don't delve
056into cons um I did rank them higher a little bit I'll stop there I'm going to go into more counts ver um I I did rank performance fact slightly higher um and it had to some folks have already mentioned it it was their um really I felt that their diversity was just edged out the other a little bit more um in their plan and in their inclusion of diversity across the board uh of all their work um and then I also that my other point where I ranked them higher was because of their debt dashboard they didn't go into a lot of detail didn't have a lot to go on but from what I saw um I thought it was uh it was I rank them higher for that reason okay M I know that
057you know you weren't part of the the the rubric scoring that we did um online but do you have any anything you want to add any strengths that you saw from a student B kind of viewpoint um based off of what I remember one thing I really liked was how it was a lot more student focused and like their plan I guess it was a lot more concrete on how they were going to incorporate students into it so that's something I personally like okay yeah and I I I agree with the with the student Focus I also liked it seemed to me that they were they were focused on practice more so than outcomes and if I think about like how I would like to see a strategic plan it's it's it's what we're what
058we're doing and what we what we what we envision as our as our practice going forward to drive the outcomes that we see um the one example that I'll point to that is they they gave us the Middleton City schools in Ohio they gave us the the full 20page report um and their attachments but I went out on the Middleton City's website and the eight pager that they have on on the website it kind of gives an example of what I'm talking about about focusing on practices to to get to the the outcomes and the student profile that we're looking for so I I really liked the way that that one was was laid out more so than some of the other very long reports that are you know it get a little bit detailed
059a little bit hard to consume but I thought this one was pretty concise oh I'm sorry thank you uh Miss Khan sorry um I I real allowed to say which one I'm sorry are we allowed to say which one we or be more yeah absolutely well we're talking about the the strengths right now for the performance fact okay um I kind of liked the Creative Group I felt like just having the experience of someone that has been on a board and kind of really been able to look at um the big picture and that kind of what really drew me into their proposal and then just kind of reading a little bit more about them so I mean that was where I kind of fit better yeah did you do since we're talking about performance
060P right now were there any strengths that you wanted to pull out from from their presentation or their materials definitely their dashboard um it was it was clear to kind of see what they are going to be presenting to us and um it was pretty clear in terms of the indicators and the demographics and everything okay thank you no problem we want to move towards some some questions or some challenges that we might see absolutely so how about we do the reverse and we'll we'll start with Veronica with performance fact yeah or any questions that you might have that we want to present back to them you know this question I have actually for both of them is really the their integration with technology I couldn't find one of them about that so that's where
061I worry about but I have a same for the other okay Don um one of my concerns was the there there's a bit of a cookie cutter approach to some of the Strategic plans that they have out there they have very obvious um kind of system that they use to lay out the plans so I guess um talking to them about our ability to kind of deviate from that S I believe it was the Kansas City one uh Miss Kerr and I she sent me a link an extra link on that one that they had developed further kind of using the same format so I guess working with them to figure out how we because we're I I would not be looking for a cookie cutter I don't think that works for our district we
062need the ability to look at that um my other concern is that there is a substantial cost difference between these two and I would like to confirm the scope of work confirm that is being proposed by performance fact to make sure that the scope of work between the two is actually similar it's just such a huge price difference that it's actually concerning to me okay Shonda um this ties in a little bit to what Don was saying um and then looking at our rubric the alignment of the Strategic plan with other District initiatives um I think the presentation focused a lot more on their template and I would like to know how they will incorporate our other initiatives into the strategic planning um I do have a Cost question that kind of lines up with
063what Don was talking about but more so on the uh creative Entourage side of the higher price okay Kate um I'm going to be like real Frank and honest um performance Frank really really frustrated me because they spent the first five to 10 minutes of that presentation telling us all the things that we're doing wrong they said here open it up and look at your report card as if we haven't all looked at a report card a dozen times right um they didn't take any time to figure out what are the things that we're doing really well like we had two presentations tonight on early childhood and do a language where we are thriving maybe we're not perfect we certainly have room for improvement but they didn't spend any time saying they didn't even say
064something like you're doing a lot of really great things and we want to make sure we build on that um and it really bothered me um and maybe actually Miss Martin you mentioned the cookie cutter thing I think and I feel like maybe that's a bit where that came from like they could have spent an hour playing on our website and just learning the things that we do do our initiatives our programs our uniqueness right our language acmy um or excuse me our magnet acmy all of that and they didn't do any of that and that um that bothered me a lot regardless of all the other things I think that they'll do well the fact that they focused on that negative really bothered me so I guess I had a couple of things that
065bothered me um one was I didn't use percentages I said five out of 20 or three out of 20 and you had to sort of go do in your head that oh that's 15% or that's 25% so that's in some of their reports and I I'd like to see are things in percentages I think that's real clear um I agree that they do have a a template they use and I think looking at I'd like to see us be able to go beyond the template I think there's a maybe you start there to figure out where you are but I look at a couple of the other districts in um Fairfax County for example their their four pager didn't include the circles that that were a big thing they did have the pillars um so
066I'd like to see what how creative we can be with what what what they offer sarine yeah you know what I said my previous statement backwards I thought for some reason I got confused between the two so the first um the presentation I like it was just regurgitating information that we already knew there were very few Solutions being offered and very few innovative solutions um and that were challenge the district and the way we're doing things um again the cost is questionable and um I just wasn't I the take away was very questionable the outcomes and the solutions were just not as concrete as I would have wanted to see what they're actually able to deliver that's it thank You Maha did you have anything you want to add from a student perspective okay um
067and I while I rated performance fact a little higher than than creative Entourage I I do I'm concerned about the the alignment to all of our our initiatives and the the integration of the of the data that we have I mean I you know as Kate said they presented some of the data that we do have but it they never went into how that really plays into what how that would work into a strategic plan right it was just like well here this is what you're doing and then you know didn't really ever go back to that um there was I and I think I have this with both of them is how they how they would align to some of our our bigger initiatives especially 46 Rising um you know the equity plan I
068I didn't really see a whole lot as far as that goes do okay do we want to shift then to um the strengths from the creative Entourage proposal all right so now we'll really mix it up and we'll we'll start with Shonda I don't want to keep putting the same person on the spot to go first okay that's fine having interacted with creative Entourage for a few years with through unite 46 um my obvious biggest thing is that they've already been working with us so they're familiar with some of our other initiatives um they work within unite u46 one of the things that they said during their presentation is different than performance um and maybe that was by Design is um one of the presenters said that they bring a tool toolbox not a template
069so when you think about that they're bringing the tools to help us you know come up with what we want I like that they're Community focused um let me see and they did in their presentation they did have a slide that listed out our some of our current initiatives they didn't go into a lot of detail I know they had a short time for theirs but I felt like they they were uh a little more focused on that Don I didn't know which way you were going uh I'm not gonna lie I don't have a lot positive to say um I think they're very Polished in what they do and how they present how they speak which goes a long way when you're dealing with the community to work on strategic plan I think they're
070obviously very good at working um with community members and pulling data and surveys like that part of it I think they would be very good at that's what I have to say okay Veronica no hold on trying to remember where I scored the Meer we're talking about creative Entourage right okay um so so for for me there where they scored highest for me was there was their alignment to our initiatives and I think a lot of of course A lot of it has to do with the fact that they have been working with us and they worked with unite 46 so to me that was the posit okay sarine um I have never worked with creative Entourage I was newer um but I did like so she was this was a group that I was
071talking about earlier I lik that um one of the people was she was she served on a school board and she was really eloquent in terms of challenges and obstacles that she's endured during her time at school board member and kind of Jefferson County is a mixed income Community out in Colorado um so her experience really shout out to me more um but I felt like everything was just made really pretty so I wish there was a little bit more substance um but the dashboard looked good um I I thought they were clear and concise in their presentation but I I I from both the groups I just I was struggling a lot with the substance of what we want to achieve so Kate um I thought they had a lot of of good things
072um I did like the way that they specifically referenced you already do this you already do that like they took the time to do the research although conversely they're pretty involved with us already in unite 46 so they had that information at their hands to begin with um you know the plans they shared were a little bit older which was a little concerning um they definitely have less experience um and when you looked at their um their primary staff I was concerned that there was not much diversity there was a lot of middle-aged white people and that doesn't fully represent our district so I would want more diversity as we could um the one question actually kind of for both of them that came up I was looking at my notes they both specifically referen
073Spanish translation um but it would be interesting to see could we get some stuff maybe in Pol sh Gujarati maybe your our next two languages um that might get us some more um information and then again they were substantially expensive so kind of the opposite set a performance fact like how are we at two groups that are more than double or you know I'm sorry I'm at I'm not a math teacher the um lower Co the higher cost is more than double the bottom the lower cost that was a little concerning to me um oh I'm kind of taking notes because we're we're just doing the strengths so I'm going back oh are we still on strength yeah oh my goodness I'm so sorry I thought I was I thought I was we we've gone
074back and forth so much I've lost track of where I'm supposed to be capturing it all I apologize so I probably don't need to go then next time I think I got it [Laughter] all Sue so I would agree with Miss Martin that they're very good at surveying the community getting a sense of where people are um so that's why I think they're very good for referenda and things like that um that's about all I can say positive so okay Maha did you have anything you wanted okay um and I I I will Echo I mean I I did not work with creative entage as much as as Shonda did I was on the steering committee for a little bit with the you b46 but you you certainly spent a lot more time with them
075um and I know that they've they've done some really valuable work and I in the district and I mean that you know their their their Community engagement piece is is I is is really good I mean they've they've they've certainly proved that with the unite u46 work that they've done and the passing of the referendum so that's a a huge strength in their favor as far as I'm concerned so I'll go to weaknesses and I'll go now the opposite way so Kate did you have anything you wanted to add to that okay Sue so I I had a couple um one is they did give us very old strategic plans and for example 211 did another strategic plan in 20 20 or 2022 or something and used a totally different company and came up with
076a totally different plan that was much more focused than what performance back created my my big criticism of the Strategic plans that they presented in the rfps is they were they were very general you know they were up here but they didn't give action steps or how you're going to measure what you're doing and and that was concerning to me okay I just want to clarify Miss K this is for Creative Entre this is for Creative yeah creative Entourage yeah sarine I mean I'm not I'm just unfortunately I didn't give anyone like perfect scores either them um I struggled a lot with just substance in terms of you know the methodology that they used it's it's basic it's kind of you know it doesn't really take much thought to go into it it but I
077just I wanted to see more in terms of outcomes and um next steps and you know just more more depth in what they what they have to offer and kind of really digging in deep um instead of just making everything look and sound pretty all the time okay Veronica okay Don gonna try to not word this like a cranky person um I was not impressed with the samples I do not feel like strategic planning is their strength while they're really good at community outreach and the survey part this is a strategic plan we're doing and for me and what my vision of getting AIC strategic plan done is that that's a much smaller part than how they were pushing it they were pushing this the surveys is like such as a bigger portion than the
078actual getting the plan together um cost obviously is very high but that comes down to what each company is or isn't um including I am gonna say that given how we did the presentations I have a hard time judging them on theirs because they went second they listened to the first presentation because they were in the room I felt like they very specific ly threw in little comments about questions we asked after the first company which to me felt very disingenuous and felt like well we know you asked this and it's not in our report so we're just going to make a little comment to make you feel better about equity and about how we're going to tie things in and I I just noticed there was little comments they made in their presentation that
079seem to be based on what the first company did or didn't say to a degree that's on us on how we ran it maybe we should have separated them so they couldn't hear each other's presentations overall I didn't I just didn't get great feeling about them and their ability to do a strategic plan that is what we're looking for and that they have the experience to do so okay Shonda um so I have a few comments first is the cost and when I was listening to them talk they talked a lot about partnering with I believe it's woolper so I'm wondering if them partnering with another company as to the cost so I would like to see a breakdown of the cost the other thing is kind of opposite of what I said earlier um
080because they're already working with us will they have the staff to you know will they be stretched thin or is the cost upward because they have to bring in more people so they're not stretched then working on unite 46 and the Strategic plan work um the other thing and this is where I rated them very low is our Rubik talks about ensuring the plan promotes diversity equity inclusivity and belonging I didn't really hear any of that in their presentation which was kind of disappointing but when I went to their proposal there was like a whole paragraph talking about aligning with our e Equity plan and I feel like because our district that's kind of at the Forefront of what we do we want everything to be centered around Equity um I would have like to
081see them put more into that into their presentation as well and then there was a comment that was made during the presentation about student growth and I believe it was you know 10% growth is you know growing faster is what we want 2% is noise that kind of put me off a little bit to say that 2% growth was noise um but I think the intent was you know do you want to grow fast and you know get the results you want quickly but I feel like student growth is a little bit unpredictable and a gradual growth might be so I'm not sure with the strateg I would like to know more about what what do you mean by that 2% to me is still growth it's not necessarily noise and it's not insignificant but
082um how would that work with the Strategic plan with our district you know would they come in looking for okay we expect our students to grow by 10% every year or 10% over five years which is 2% per year and that's all I have mitaa did you have anything that you wanted to add okay um I I do have concerns that what we're seeing from them is I can really only point to one strategic plan that's like out live right now that's you know out in the atmosphere that we can even look at um so that that's concerning to me um because it it doesn't really give us a good gauge as to what we can expect from them as far as an end product and the fact that it's not really this it's hard
083because I I don't you know I don't want to speak to how Huntley is actually using their strategic plan or or you know what they what their intent is but I you know they're certainly not a dashboard um and they don't even seem to be using the Strategic plan in a way that um gives any real indication to the community as to how they are implementing or or proceeding along that that plan um they give a just a percentage of 84% or whatever of metric they say 84% has been completed but I don't know if that means 84% you know if they've got 20 metrics if 84% of those metrics have been achieved or if it's in all of the metrics they've gotten to about 84% of where they want to be um and I
084I it's I have a hard time and I I I know that I I discussed this with Sue a little bit when I look back at some of the Strategic plans that we've had in the district over the years I I have a hard time with metrics that give specific numbers so like I'm looking at the Huntley one and the first metric is based on local growth model the 2021 overall District summary at least 84% of students will make expected or high growth in reading and that like I it's not the that's not my favorite way to to have a metric in a in a strategic plan because it's again and it doesn't tell us anything about growth it doesn't tell us anything about really anything that that's happening or or changing or doing in
085the district so it's I it's not a great example as far as I'm that's my my primary concern so in addition to the feedback there were some questions that I noted um that we should carry back to both of um our potential Partners uh question around the integration of technology and the dashboard and what that would look like how it would work with our systems some of those pieces um there were a lot a number of questions that came down to confirmation of cost and what goes into the cost difference so uh I made some additional notes about on-site visits Staffing um accordingly so we we need to dig a little bit deeper into those differences in the numbers um also a question or consideration for uh whether translation or language access would be available
086for multi multiple languages uh not only Spanish and then I also captured a a question specific to creative Entourage around the student growth expected uh expectations or ends what what is what is to be expected and and how is that measured and and what does that look like and I also connected then that a little bit to the statement you just concluded with um Miss Owen so those those were some additional followup we have that we can work at Gathering those responses and then also synthesizing um your uh data that was entered for your rubric as well as your statements tonight uh to be able to share that information and then and then prep prepare um a recommendation for the board to bring forward on the 24th for a provider if that seems appropriate after
087your discussion um those are immediate next steps that I have for administration on this are there additional next steps that the Board of Education would like to see us take does anybody have any any other recommendations that they want to make to Administration or any additional question questions that we want to present well I don't I don't know if I have a question I want to present I think and I don't want I'm not going to say scores off the rubric but I think I have a question about how we used the rubric or how it's generally used when we are um picking people Dr Williams do you want to come forward and do you have a specific question or would you like me to just no I think I have a specific question so
088um so we all we all put information into the to the rubric looking at the total Point averages when we're hiring companies and we're looking at rubrics are are we looking for them to score a certain percentage of points for them to be considered a viable candidate off a rubric and I asked that because in some cases they are very low points does that make sense yes like if the total is 100 points for example a recent like do we normally look at a rubric and and we're like wow this company only got 50 out of a 100 points on our rubric we wouldn't we wouldn't consider them a viable candidate or how does how does that normally work right that's a that's a great question I don't know that we look at it like
089that so much as we take a step back when we're creating the rubric to determine our values and how much we weigh them so in in an instance and I'll use the other um Dr Williams as an example if he and I are creating a rubric for a particular Pro product I may feel very strongly about one aspect and he may feel very strongly about another and that will that could potentially skew the score so that it does look really low but based on the position of the individuals it is an accurate reflection of the average for each area and then you look at the waiting for each area we did apply and I don't have if I grab my computer again we did have waiting for each section within your rubric they were equal
090they were all equal okay so that could be an indication of why the numbers may seem low now if there are areas where the Board of Education would direct us we want a heavier waiting for the diversity equity and inclusion piece we could change the waiting to see if the result is different but that would need to be a group decision to determine how you weight each area if that makes sense it does and I think from my perspective uh so while I did I was one of the first one to put my points in so I didn't know how people were doing it when they did it um but looking at it and kind of seeing what the total points are for some of for some of these it it concerns me that we
091could put out an RFP and hire someone who's who's with where they really seems like they're not even close to meeting our expectations does that does that make sense I think I've been thinking about all of a and kind of how I want to word it and Miss Martin you kind of push me in the way and and correct me I'm wrong if I'm wrong other board members but I don't think any of were particularly wowed by either group and I feel like for something this important it should be wowed right I should be like oh wow you know and I don't think I said that at anyone and maybe I'm wrong I don't want to be speaking for anybody else but um you know no I I agree and that's why I I wanted
092to bring up the the points that we're looking at on this RP RFP that we all applied to the two companies and you know it's possible that we ask questions and we get additional information that that could change my scores but looking at this I have I have concern at handing over 100,000 $150,000 $200,000 for this for this level of unhappy that I felt with the product that was brought forward so I just didn't know I and I this is just my opinion no I I think it's a I think it's legitimate because I mean if you're if you're looking at the the averages how they came out there there's only there's really only two we we don't two squares where where where there's where there was a meeting of expectations average by everybody when
093I when I look though at the rubric I just want to an opportunity for clarification there's a weighted score right everything's obviously I just want to make sure everyone took a look at the explanation of scoring as well in the middle column and scored accordingly to that ex explanation and not out of 20 on all of these if it wasn't out of 20 corre so that's that's I just want to be sure that that's what happened as well um so if that's certainly accurate we don't we don't have to award we don't we don't have to award the bid is that we we certainly don't have to award the bid we could also have a another round with a a longer period of time for discussion I mean each provider did have a limited amount
094of time to present um I don't know if that would add value for you miss Khan has her hand up and then I'll I'll get to to both of you hi thank you guys so um my question is were these the only two biders and if we did not open up another round um would we be able to take pieces of both and kind of make it into one where one's the main and what could be a sub if not if we do open it up to another round can we I know the board can't really do this but can we give better maybe directions in terms of more clarity with the next round in terms of what the deliverables should look like and maybe what the important areas are um if we did the
095other one that house did you want to address that question or do you want me to get all the questions out on the table how do you want to proceed with that um it's however you like if you want to address that um I just wanted to address the first part there were multiple vendors um and I don't have the proposal in front of me but I want to say there were as many as nine that's 10 thank you um Dr Williams but there were 10 proposals submitted and your Administration reviewed those proposals used the rubric to come up with the ones that we brought to you for the recommendation we narrowed it to five for a presentation to Administration and then from that we narrowed it to the two to bring forward to you
096so this is the best two out of 10 I kind of want to go back to Miss Martin's question because I didn't know if I heard an answer to it which has to do with the rubric um and this score where we're you know if this is baseball the scores are okay you know they're in the 300s but if we're expecting to get to up a 100 you know or close to then they're nowhere near it but then I would also want to know then did Administration score them so much higher and is it a factor of how we're doing the scoring right it could could it be that is that our explanation of why we seem very disappointed um but maybe Administration wasn't because they're looking at it from a different lens um so
097my that my other question after that is this criteria that we used in column A is it did these did the presenters know that that's what we were going to rate them on because we didn't see all of it right in their presentations and you had to dig for it and maybe she found it and I didn't find it the p in the in the attachments so I'm I'm concerned that it's our rating perhaps and that's what I'm asking is it's a long-winded question based off of her question which is is this normal this kind of low rating or is this an abnormal kind of low rating that we've done here the board compared to let's say what you all had did with the 10 that you were reviewing I I would suggest to you
098I would suggest to you that the administration um had more time to review all nine and to narrow it down to the ones that we interviewed and then in our interview process we did spend um a little bit more time with each one to ensure that the two we were bringing to you were topnotch um we can certainly go back answer additional questions provide additional insight and put together um some options for you as it relates to how we can move forward the the rubric does though also to answer the question it aligns to the items that were specified within the request for proposal thank you so it's grouped accordingly so there's not a specific like line item for every item in a request for proposal but it was broken into those five major categories
099when it comes to um you know what are we what are we trying to how are we trying to you know report the integration of data the alignment of the Strategic plan th those were all items that were specified within the request for proposal and and in addition to that we did provide them with prompts and direction for where they should focus their efforts um when they present it to you so there may I think to Miss Martin's Point earlier they may have focused on certain things based on the prompts that we set forward and Miss Martin may have been looking for one of the things that they didn't particularly focus on due to the prompt they received from us so that might have had an impact as well so Shonda has a question and
100then Kate I have a question and a few comments based on our discussion um I'll start with um my comments so when I look at the total rubric that's one thing when I look at individually like how we each sced there were a lot of meats expectations in a lot of places for all seven of us so I don't think of it as I personally don't think we need to start over I feel like we can get a strategic plan from either one of these companies and get the one that we want based on you know what we want them to do um my question is would it be helpful to know how these why these two companies were chosen what strengths the administration saw in these two companies to bring them forward that might
101be helpful but I don't I didn't necessarily have to be wild um this is my first time doing a strategic plan and I just thought okay let me do this rubric and can we come up with a plan that we like that's you know it may be painful it may be painless in Parts but I think both companies will be able to do it but I I do feel that one company was better than the other and and and I do think if we're okay with still looking at these two companies possibly getting more info from Administration um getting more info from the companies may help us to solidify if we then need to start over but I'm I'm not really comfortable with starting over with you know Finding other companies at this point okay
102um yeah so I kind of want to take a little bit of what Shonda said and agree with it um you mentioned that you thought that these were Top Notch like we'd love to hear and and I appreciate the fact that you let us walk in cold that you didn't kind of prime the pump if you will is this one's a little better we like this or that it was good to go in the way that we did walking in cold but now that we're on the other side of the presentations it would be really helpful for you to clarify to us we thought these six things this group said were the top-notch pieces and these six things from this group for the top notch because I agree we don't need to start over um
103but I don't feel confident in picking one or the other of these groups right now um based on the information we have and kind of the the lackluster because I I I think I don't want a strategic plan that we like I want a strategic plan that we can all get behind that all our stakeholders are like yeah that's good so maybe the company isn't a well but the Strategic plan darn well better be wow when we're done if we're going to put this much money this much time and and talk to this many stakeholders certainly we can we can certainly pull together all of the information from the first um two rounds summarize that information as well as obtain the additional um information that was requested tonight absolutely we can do that for the
10424th we can I mean we we can bring forward what our recommendation would be on behalf of administration between the two so we we can do that um that's that's certainly not a not a problem um so we can synthesize this and bring you a recommendation if that's what the board is seeking for the 24th and I think it might it might help if um as I think I'm I'm hearing you know across the table is is a an understanding of where the strengths of these two groups kind of outweigh the ones that we didn't see because we we don't have the benefit we're weighing these two groups against each other understood we're not we don't have the benefit of seeing the other ones and and and seeing you know two rise from the top
105of 10 we're just seeing two strategic plans so I think it very especially in my mind it would be helpful to to understand how especially some of the concerns that we have how those those are you know put that in light to where the other strategic plan proposals were at so that we can kind of get an understanding of of how how deep those concerns really are that makes sense certainly we can put that information together yep that sound like a plan that that everybody's okay with yes Tomar are you okay with that yeah I just my other question was was unanswered I just wanted to know is there a way where we can maybe pick just is just an example like um the creative group to do the community engagement and then the other
106group do the actual technical piece or they have it we just have to pick one I think we have to narrow it down to one firm I the the way that we wrote and put forward the request for proposal was that we were seeking one firm to do all of the work so if there was going to be a determination to move forward we would we would have to um start over with a new request for proposal to differentiate and determine what that what that work would look like because that's a different scope of work than what we came forward with and can I make a comment also um I think it would be important to have this one group because really the the outcomes of one informs the other and I and a lot
107Gets Lost in Translation having two different groups wouldn't make sense to me I think it would hurt us more than help us yeah okay I I can't imagine either group wanting to split the work either and work with another organization so yeah yeah yeah I'd agree anybody else then that's the direction we're going to go okay next meeting we'll bring it back thank you thank okay the next item on the work session is student code of conduct correct uh coming forward is Mr Gala coordinator of culture and climate as well as m stovich Deputy superintendent of instruction uh to present proposed changes to the student code of conduct also miss Olsen perhaps a role in this uh attach to your reference please find a memorandum to superintendent Johnson from Mr ganella coordinator of culture and
108climate regarding the proposed changes to student code of conduct as well as proposed student code of conduct yeah good evening everyone great to see you all thank you for having me uh you've received a memorandum about the recent updates in u46 Code of Conduct student code of conduct uh these changes are aimed at enhancing the educational experience uh by promoting safety inclusivity equity and fairness within our school Community these revisions were made along with our Safety Council comprising of teachers parents and building administrators as well as our legal department our designed to cultivate a positive School environment support student well-being and outp hold the principles of fairness and inclusivity our Safety Council met once a month this year and will continue into next school year to further strengthen our code of conduct most of the
109changes are in regards to updating the language throughout the code of conduct updated procedures for out of school suspensions updated procedures for exposion hearings uh dress code guidelines high school student parking random searches restraint and isolated timeouts and seclusions hate speech and harassment we believe these updates will significantly contribute to a more effective and supportive educational experience for all you 46 students board members have any questions John so um the dress code guidelines on page 28 so one thank you thank you for putting this in writing um my kids are swimmers and if you've seen swimmers you know that there is no modesty um but with that I I know of students that have shied away from it because of cultural and religious how will this be implemented I guess is my question um is
110so typically I'm going to use swimming as a sport because it's the one I know and it wears probably some of the least amount of clothing um typically uniforms are ordered in bulk you know here's 20 girls uniforms here's 30 little Speedos do we have ways to support the different teams and the coaches with materials and companies that they can actually get like modest suits that would match and like I don't know how that works and so I don't know if that's we have the resources yeah we we absolutely can do that so we what's great about being such a large district is we have a procurement Department who also helps us to se out vendors as well when we look at for things like that but if we have to buy an additional um
111uniform or some type something that accommodates the students based on their cultural religious beliefs then absolutely support that and would we be will there be any sort of um not to say that everyone doesn't read all the updates but will there be any sort of notification to our ads that hey this exists if you have students coming forward and you need assistance make sure you reach out absolutely yeah we have um our athletic and activities Council meets monthly so it's all of our athletic directors across our high schools our Middle School athletic director some of our coordinators and U and our in our operations team so we all work together with that so I myself so I'll make it a point look at those examples thank you so much any other questions Kate um yeah
112no I uh two things um completely unrelated to each other the first one is um I just want to thank for the I I sent in the email regarding using he she versus they so I took a quick kind of look through myself and I did not see any other instances where we were using gender specific language but it'd be thrilled if someone could just take one more look through to make sure that we caught all of that gender specific language um and then the other piece then um totally unrelated is Page 34 with the restraint and isolated timeout and seclusion I just want to thank you for having a making sure that the policy and the rules a follow in my school code but are also respectful to the fact of um it's our
113students with disabilities who are frequently restrained um and isolated and um and I'm pleased to see that it's written in writing that we need to be sensitive and appropriate with all of that so it's noticed um in the disability Community when these things are specifically laid out so thank you for that you're welcome anybody else okay thank you great thank you and next item next item middle school math curriculum update is Banks director of curriculum and instruction and Mente math coordinator will provide the Board of Education with information relating to the middle school math curriculum update all right good evening so we are here this evening to recommend the adoption of our updated curriculum Frameworks uh this will be for seventh grade math uh seventh grade accelerated math and for eighth grade math this is
114the line to our strategic plan focusing on Student Success uh improving the outcomes for all of our students so we came to you last spring with our curriculum Frameworks through stage two and also with a resource adoption for reveal math for our Middle School uh this school year we contined to meet and we further developed our curriculum Frameworks to help standardize the expectations and the experiences that our students would have in math um so that would include pacing um expected instructional resources and learning experiences that all of our students across the system would have and while we're trying to standardize these expectations teachers will still have the autonomy to design their daily lessons to best meet their students needs so for our process last spring there was a call to committee for a middle school
115curriculum group and this included all the subject areas teachers from all the different content areas uh so we would work together to help design the transition to Middle School integrate some tasks our math team included five teachers including special ed and two teach teachers with their ESL endorsements so we worked on the stage two and stage three portions of our curriculum Frameworks really clarifying our expectations enhancing how we're going to use reveal math and then also supporting our transition to the Middle School model in a couple years so here is the picture of our framework our stage one portion of the framework stayed the same this is where we have our standards outlined for each unit and we unpack what students need to know and what they need to be able to do within each
116unit and stage two and stage three is where we've really focused our time so we for stage two we looked at our rubrics and we kind of clarified our language about what proficiency looks like to help clarify it for the teachers and the students we also spent a lot of time working on our common assessments so we wanted to make sure that the assessments were more tightly aligned to the IR assessment that students would be seeing uh so we can get a better gauge on how our students are doing in the class classroom how they would perform on that assessment come March so we made sure that our taxonomies were aligning but we were presenting to students matches what they're seeing on the IR exam we also brought in some multiple choice and written responses
117into those assessments those were missing on our previous versions We wanted to expose students to that experience so that when they saw it on an i they would be comfortable and familiar with it we're also looking to move these assessments into an online platform to improve that experience as well our team also worked on developing learning targets language targets and success criteria for students and they move them into uh tracker documents that teachers can use and use with students to kind of clarify what we need to know and be able to do have the kids be able to articulate these are the specific things I know I can do these are the specific things I need help with so we put that document together as a resource to help teachers have those conversations with students
118and then the stage three portion of the framework this is the newest section that we haven't had before so this is where we're uh really going to tighten up our expectations of what instruction would look like in the system so with our transition to the Middle School model we started out this part of the framework focusing on that Middle School experience we wanted to point out the relevance of the math units how this math is important it's tied to our lives so students can make that connection we also brought in the portrait ort of a thriving adolescent which is part of our U Middle School model where we want students to be empowered culturally competent emotionally intelligent critical thinkers civic-minded and effective communicators we went through the units and found where in the units we
119can make direct connections to that portrait of an adolescent and kind of build that for our students uh we also did the pacing and learning progressions and we tied them to our board adopted resource of real reveal math math uh we know that there were conversations about what the schedule would look like for middle school if we would do traditional periods or a block schedule so we looked at what the pacing would look like for both types of models we included time for teachers to have extra days to bring in collaborative teaming tasks to do formative assessments reteaching review um so we have the lessons kind of paced out while we're a little bit tight on the pacing that we want so in this example it spend two days looking at tables in proportional relationships
1203 days looking at graphs while we want that to be a little bit tight teachers will still have that autonomy to design what that looks like what problems they use how they present it to students to best meet their needs also in this portion of the framework we added tasks to help uh with academic teaming and collaboration in our Middle School classrooms and they're also tied to that thriving adolescent to make those connections and then finally we have scaffolding and supports for our El so models and manipulatives that students would benefit from if they're struggling vocabulary supports graphic organizers um language routines uh developments um suggestions for the different ESL levels and we're going to continue building that out as we work with the mme department and specialized student services so our recommended resource is
121to continue using reveal math as our board adapted resource and then the implementation for this updated stage two and stage three portion of the framework would be for this fall this coming school year we'll use the district collaborative day in the fall uh to work with teachers as well as the professional development days throughout the year we also have a teacher leader of mathematics who is available to support sites as needed um the curriculum teams will continue to meet um to give feedback on the documents and then we'll continue working to build that Middle School model with the thriving adoles and integrated tasks to evaluate change teachers will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the curriculum documents the pacing the assessments uh we'll use our learning walks to see how the implementation is going
122in the classroom we'll look at the Common Assessment data from these new assessments I data we want to see if students are showing um better gains better proficiency with these tightened expectations so we'll compare how students are doing on these new assessments compared to previously so our proposed results um through the adoption and implementation of these um enhanced Frameworks uh we want to standardize our instruction for students across the system uh providing everybody with a rigorous learning opportunity and improving our outcomes for all students that is the end of my presentation where members have any questions s so thank you for that uh presentation and thank you for standardizing this process because I think having you know every kid in the district should have the same opportunities I do have one question um you mentioned
123the common assessments how often are they given are they given at the end of every unit and do all teachers give them so we currently have one assessment per unit um the expectation is that all teachers would administer those and then we were also looking to build some formatives that would be um way through the unit um to spot check students understanding and kind of adapt oh and one other question since new math is coming around do we have and as we move into middle true Middle School does six reveal math have a sixth grade component does and we did uh bring that forward last year we will uh purchase it and adopt it when sixth grade rolls into the middle schools thank you John so I also want to thank you for standardizing instruction
124across the district as a board remember that's something that we at least I hear about whether it's math or literature that there's not standard standardization um as far as the rigor component so it was slide nine where we're looking at um more I think it's adding more of the written response type work so when you add language into math obviously it gets more difficult what as we move towards doing more of this written response work starting at a younger age I'm guessing some students don't see that type of work till High School currently just that'd be my guess um what are our supports that we will have in place as we roll out the two like the more rigorous work especially as it incorporates language especially with our our bilingual our dual language the it
125math and language are a very difficult combination totally important but I'm I just want to make sure that we have the correct student supports in place especially for our English as a second Lang yes so we will um work with our sites um we can provide them with sentence frames and how you can start those responses um so we will work with the sites and the teachers on how to help frame those responses based on this is my answer this is how I support it that is work we will absolutely do okay and the mme department has already done has gone a long way in providing supports and resources tpr being one of the ones that Total Physical response of like the vocabulary providing word Banks all those types of supports in order for students
126not to be held up by being able to produce the language it's more about do you know which language to use to prove your thinking okay perfect thank you so much any other questions so just to followup on on the the question from Miss Kerr um when we when you we roll out the the sixth grade component when sixth grade rolls up to middle school you'll also be building out the the Frameworks in the same way so you'll be working on the the stage one and two but then also building out stage three as well we will have all three stages brought forward with sixth grade with all the other subject areas okay thank you okay thanks for the presentation thank you that moves us to work session bids and proposals Dr Johnson our first
127item is a bid for plant operations South Elgen High School pool mechanical upgrades coming forward Miss Waldo director of plant operations will present the attached proposal summary and respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends award to the lowest responsible bidder mg mechanical Contracting Incorporated in the amount of $1,423 th000 and requests authorization for District administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged the operations and maintenance fund cost is included in the budget for the 2023 2024 and 2024 2025 fiscal years and board members have any questions John so thank you for answering my questions not going to lie I'm admittedly feisty over um The Proposal um can you explain to me how this work differs and we voted on the Elgen High School proposal that one is affecting student use
128of the pool can you explain how this work is different and like how the timing is different that it would not be affecting student use yeah absolutely so a big portion of the South Elgen High School upgrade is the HVAC system the decron unit which has a very very long lead time and this project is a lot more of the Mechanicals at Elgen High School we're actually replacing the entire filter in the pool so that's very intense work and that's why it's going into the school year this one we'll be able to start some of the work in July I'm sorry this summer um and then we won't be able get back in there until next summer so it's not going to impact the school over the course of the year the unit will still
129be working the filters will be in place so next summer we'll be when everything's coming in then we can do that work but we can start some of it this summer okay so it's going to be like a project start kind of a hold wait for stuff and then start back up as soon as ABS get the kids out the doors absolutely thank you any other questions okay thank you next is another bid from plan operations algen High School primary overhead electrical service replacement project number 242 Administration recommends award to the lowest responsible bidder Ascend Electric Incorporated in the amount of $585,500 so I have to understand this we have power lines that go to Elgen high school but they go through po Creek and through the woods but we own it's that's still our
130property yeah that's on our property so we're going to do something and put them all underground and then ComEd said you do that and we'll take over once we put them underground then ComEd assumes that responsibility when they're above ground like that they're our responsibility we have had to replace a couple of the polls themselves just because they're getting older um and unfortunately as amazing as my department is we are not able to necessarily get through the woods to take care of something if it happened in that location and so this is going to be our best bet to ensure uninterrupted power to Elgen high in the event that we have something that might affect those lines in the future do we have any of the comparable areas in the district where this might happen
131you know that's a great question I'd have to think about that nothing that has been brought to the attention just I mean because we have had to physically replace some of the polls at elen high school um but I'll find out for you okay thank you any other questions okay um Miss Owens I'd like to make a motion that we pull item C from the agenda tonight and discuss it at a later date do I have a second second second I a roll call Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Khan Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes Miss kerk yes president Owens yes motion carried next item next is a proposal for Information Services Metronet Kenyon Woods internet access Mr Wolf director of Information Services will present the attached proposal summary and respond to questions
132from the Board of Education Administration recommends approval of the proposal from Metronet in the amount of $34,988 and requests authorization for district admin Administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charge the education fund cost is included in the budget for the 2024 2025 fiscal year board members have any questions okay thank you thank you next item next is a proposal from school safety two-way radio Replacements uh we have Mr McKenzie security operations manager joined by Mr Lindholm chief of CH Chief of Staff to present the attached proposal summary and respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends approval to of The Proposal from alpha Prime Communications in the amount of $63,750 requests authorization for District administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the Department of school safety
133cost is included in the budget for the 2023 2024 fiscal year any questions Don I do remember seeing um a proposal for two-way radio Replacements before do we know how far along we are in replacing our radios yes so with our we're doing our elementary networks first as we identified those are at end of life so we are about halfway down with our elementary networks and then we moving along to our other um networks that and schools that are at end of life perfect thank you any other questions thank you okay uh work session contracts over 25,000 our first item is a contract for specialized student services purchase of related service iPads uh we have our current director of specialized student services slash assistant superintendent of equity and Innovation being joined also by um that's
134Dr Latrice satte being joined by Mr Jim wolf director of Information Services um I think that's everyone maybe Mr tenns might still be on to present the attached proposal summary and respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends approval of the contract with Apple Incorporated in the amount of $471,500 the cost is included in the budget for the 2023 2024 fiscal year board members have any questions thank you next we have a contract renewal for curriculum and instruction for notable Incorporated Camy uh coming forward we have Miss Banks director of curriculum and instruction to present the attached proposal summary and respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends approval of the three-year contract renewal with notable Incorporated in the amount of $158,400 requests authorization for District administration to execute related documents
135this expenditure will be charged the education fund cost is included in the budget for the 2024 2025 through 2026 2027 fiscal years any questions thank you our next item is a contract renewal for curriculum and instruction and specialized student services student read 180 joining Miss Banks again is Dr sat white uh they will present the attached proposal summary respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with hoot Mifflin hardcourt in the amount of $140,400 180 requests authorization for District administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged the education fund and ide8 Grant cost is included in the budget for the 2024 2025 fiscal year any questions thank you we also have a contract renewal for for specialized student services Embrace IEP and embrace 504 uh Dr
136sat white remains at the day to present the proposal summary and respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with bre database Solutions Incorporated DBA Embrace in the amount of $188,200 the budget for the 2024 2025 through 2026 2027 fiscal years any questions okay we have another contract renewal for specialized student services Embrace DS Administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with Brooks database Solutions Incorporated DBA Embrace charged at a percentage fee of 5% of the Healthcare and Family Services reimbursements that come through Medicaid billing and requests authorization for district admin ministration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged the education fund the cost is included in the budget for the 2024 2025 through 2026 2027 fiscal years any questions thank you and uh work session
137change orders we have one change order from plan operations Educational Services Center interior renovation Phase 2 project number 332 this w director of plan operations returns to present the attached change order and respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends the Board of Education approved the change order from bear construction comp company in the amount of minus $4,185 any questions thank you and the board does need to go back into close session so I will take a motion to move into close so moved second roll call please miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Khan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes Miss ker yes president Owens yes we're in close session at 9:06 pm e e e to adjourn the meeting so move move second roll call please Miss Martin yes Miss
138Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes Miss Kerr yes president Owens yes we're adjourned at 10 8 p.m.