Board Of Education Meeting June 15 2015 part 1

001to call June 15 M here M cell m al here Mr M M Nolan here M hereone stand i al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and okay the first item on our agenda District Improvement plans and under the district Improvement plan we actually have two District Improvement plan reports this evening uh the cabinet is stepping forward for the first uh District Improvement plan which is on our top accomplishments for the 2014 2015 school year and as they do so let me just take a special thank you to the board for allowing us to start the Open Session an hour earlier than typical uh but this is a very large agenda uh as a result of only having

002one June meeting uh so I appreciate your willingness to let us do this uh tonight as a one-time exception with that our district Improvement plan for the 2014 2015 school year um if I'm not sure if Suzanne or us if you could click through the district Improvement plan you see before you is the district Improvement plan uh approved in March of 2014 uh by the Board of Education uh you can see the different pillars and cabinet will be here tonight to help uh help present this to you uh based on our top accomplishments for 20145 I will note that you did not see a district Improvement plan for next school year yet that's because we continue to work through the strategic planning process and once we get through uh developing measurable goals that will be

003presented to the board we'll return back to you with our initiatives that will support those measures moving forward uh with that I'm going to turn it over to uh Dr Suzanne Johnson to discuss teaching and learning So within teaching and learning this year we had a number of notable accomplishments we do have the continued roll out of Standards spased learning for the secondary teachers and curriculum instruction assessment approximately 35% of our secondary teachers Implement standards based learning in one or more of their courses throughout the 14 15 year over 500 teachers participated in voluntary professional development focused on standards based learning within their content areas or in grasping and understanding the seven guiding principles and also the non-negotiables uh this year to date uh thus far in the summer we've had over 300 teachers participate

004in voluntary professional development and the continued roll out will be embedded within the ongoing development of curriculum and instruction and some of that will be identified and noted later this evening as well in the curricular area we have English language arts K12 aligned curriculum uh that is being implemented and you will see resource adoption coming forward this evening at the secondary level it's an inclusive curriculum that aligns also provides resources services for our elll students our dual language students and our special education students we have a middle school health curriculum that has been written and will be implemented in the 15 16 school year uh we have a middle school reading curriculum for the first time in school district u46 while reading was a course that was on the books and taught we did not

005have an aligned approved School District curriculum additionally we successfully piloted Eureka Math at the k6 level with early implementers and we look forward to a successful roll out this coming fall as well the Dual language program this year moved through the fifth grade with over 800 fifth graders involved in the program and almost 8,000 students uh throughout u46 receiving one-way or two-way dual language instruction that program will move to sixth grade next year and again it will be approximately 800 students moving forward in dual language in sixth grade and planning will be initiated for Middle School dual language as well continuing in teaching and learning uh we have received approximately a $2.2 million Federal grant for the expansion of preschool which will equate to 10 classrooms for our early Learners that's approximately 150 to 180

006students pending on student identification and enrollment and we are expected to implement that fall of this year 1516 we also had a wonderful implementation of Park uh due to a great deal of teamwork and collaboration with teaching and learning and also with our sites uh Park implementation for our students was approximately 20,000 students who participated in two separate assessments for Park and we had very few technological or overall testing issues and so again I commend our entire team for their planning and implementation with that continuing first of all good evening board uh continuing I'm going to cover the uh pillar regarding recognition and intervention uh first I want to make note of Bartlett High School uh being named one of the best high schools by both Newsweek uh The Daily Beast and the US news

007world and reports um specifically speaking regarding the news week uh this ranking was based on 2014 um there rankings for 2015 are not are not yet out however the US news world report used more than 29,000 schools Nationwide and Bartlett was 1,72 in terms of State ranking uh Bartlett High School was 70 out of 677 high schools in the state so uh great Commendation goes to Bartlett High School the staff the leadership as well as the students and their families um it was a fivepoint criteria use all of the criteria centered around uh student achievement uh whether it was uh reading and math proficiency on the psae overall student performance disadvantaged student performance it's key College Readiness student performance and advanced placement student performance those were the five criterias used to evaluate that in terms

008of academic achievement for African-American and Hispanic students um there are several initiatives of systems in the district that we want to um highlight that represented um Avid of the CEO advisory committee not only the CEO advisory committee but also I spent time meeting with uh high school students at each of the high schools for three to four months uh the Career Technical education program uh equity and excellent Works around restorative practices uh we had an organization from Chicago called yoia that came in to work with our Central Schools program staff on restorative practices and how to help uh students uh multi-tier systems of support there were four elementary schools one middle school and one high school receiving Platinum the highest level for the work in mtss not only in Behavior but also in academic to

009um help support students and to move them forward and then of course um for me bit kudos for uh busy yet continue dedicated volunteers Professionals in the community as well as U 46 staff members around being Game Changer mentors and then as noted when we presented the AP um um AP results at presentation last September there were 27 metrics uh among African-American Hispanic students and 24 out of those 27 showed increase uh just to uh reflect back on some of those highlights there was a 16% increase in the number of AP exams taken by African-American and Hispanic students there's a 24% increase in the number of AP exams um by African-American Hispanic students earning a three or above there was a 74% increase since 2011 in the number of AP exams taken by African-American students

010and Hispanic students and in 2014 there was a breakthrough for the first time the percentage of African-American students scoring three plus was over 50% which was 52.5% this was close to the district average of 54.3 thank you good evening like most organizations our most valuable resources the people in the organization and this year we've invested and continued to invest in the development of uh individuals and employees Within organization specifically this year there were um 18,000 times when uh an employee of u46 attended a professional development and that occurred over 900 different professional development opportunities that um will have been offered by June 30th of this school year and um in addition to those professional development opportunities one of the ways that we support um people in the organization is through Clarity of expectations and coaching

011to meet those expectations and um as part of this work through the leadership of our uh human resources department and Mel Midel we have reviewed and um aligned appraisal and evaluation Frameworks across different uh employee groups and so that's a a very important and large body of work that is being spearheaded by our human resources department in the area of um teachers in particular um in terms of professional development we have with our agreement with the Elgen Union district collaboration days which are um also an ambitious um um an ambitious project led by our teaching and learning Department with Dr Johnson to provide professional development in differentiated ways on um days throughout the school year and so we began that work and are getting better and better at it um as we go and and

012get the data um from teachers and the feedback in addition in terms of coaching the framework for teaching is our agreed upon definition of effective practice in the classroom in u46 and so we've done a um and and really begun to engage in coaching and building the capacity of our uh appraisers whether they are um principes or peer teachers in um having learning focused conversations related to those expectations as uh described in the framework for teaching and so this has happened in a number of forums including Elementary principles meetings um leadership development dat and human resource sponsored events where administrators are um get the opportunity to reinforce these skills around coaching and being clear on um on what we're here to do and on our definition of effective practice in the classroom in addition to

013um kind of work that we've done at at scale and at the systems level there are also individual recognitions um you can see here a list of U accomplishments of individuals in our organization specifically Wilma Valero our director of elll uh uh our elll department and Patricia makima were um uh were um acknowledged and cited in uh a book called creating dual language schools for a transformed world we also have Hanover Park educator of the Year our CEO Tony Sanders Hanover Park principal of the Year our assistant superintendent of secondary uh schools Terry loer we have national board certified teachers uh Kristen Brown Isabelle Torres and Anthony zuc who were new national board teachers as well as renewed teachers Peggy Hernandez um uh Alyssa Mato uh Jennifer Schultz and Dorene Roberts and finally we had

014two finalists for the Golden Apple award in our district um Marcia Thompson teacher at Fox Meadow and ant Antonio Martinez teacher at mckenley and so McKinley and so these are um individuals who also um have accomplished and we're really proud of their their work this year within operational excellence there were a couple of items that fall within teaching and learning early in the fall uh with the assistance and direction of Mr Sanders the standard space grading non-negotiables were issued to help provide Direction and Guidance with the implementation at the secondary level and our community teachers and admin rators um did did a great job of making sure that those non-negotiables were implemented were communicated out to all of our community their colleagues students parents as well and it certainly helped provide us with a platform

015to continue to move that work forward during this year additionally at the middle school we have some changes that touched on a little bit uh we do have a curriculum for reading reading is being implemented and offered as an elective for students at the middle school level uh we do have the health curriculum which is coming forward and we do have speech and debate being offered to students as well at the middle school level um all of those courses providing alignment with the high school work as well within language arts and also within Health also over the past year we reached agreement on three different contracts one with our teachers our secretaries and our a Pros um in the operating areas we continue to track operational benchmarks and targets um we've been doing that with

016with an external third party in which we gather data from the six departments um it's about 250 different points of measurement that we collect and then we input into their system and it allows us to compare nationally against all the biggest school districts in the country um also around maintaining a safe and nurturing environment um we've been working on electronic Access Control throughout the district um by the start of the school year we should have uh more than 29 sites up and running with camera systems and electronic access also um in cooperation between operations and District safety we've rolled out a districtwide digital radio network system for our employees to use and we've uh expanded our wireless coverage in 13 additional schools and our goal is by the end of 1617 to have that 100%

017of our schools and then at Transportation Center um we created a call center um last year which was the first time we did that um because during the first two weeks of school we receive over 4,000 phone calls and we have 12 people that work in the office of Transportation um so what we did is we established a call center here um with uh I can't remember if we had four or five people here that were trained on how to use the mapping system and to field some of the basic phone calls um which significantly helped the efficiency and the response time to our customers and the last piece for Food Service um we've been working for a year to implement an uh an ordering system that integrates with our inventory system and our goal

018is to have that completely operational by the time we hit fall and our last pillar is family and Community engagement uh first and foremost I have to say that I would not be presenting this but we just hired a director of uh School community relations uh who's joining us for her first board meeting tonight as an employee Mary Fergus sitting over there and she opted to not uh do this on her first day of work which her one chance to take credit for things that she anyway uh so this last year we spent a lot of time as the board knows working towards a new strategic plan uh that work continues although the board did approve uh the aspirational uh goals and priorities uh in April of this year uh the alignment education initiative again

019started a few years ago uh really after a summit that the city of Elgen held here uh regarding education in the city of Elgen that's now led to most of our municipalities participating including the Village of Bartlett Handover Park of course the city of Elgen and Streamwood all trying to get businesses and local community organizations to align themselves around our strategic plan uh instead of us aligning ourselves to theirs uh events that we held the realtor breakfast which we've shared with the board before resulted in 20 realtor from across the region attending a breakfast at Larin High School uh which was very well received and will be repeated we had a parent family engagement Summit AT Lin High School in August uh it was convened uh using 21st century funds and we had a special

020guest speaker that came out and presented to both uh parents and principles our annual principal for a day was another big success for our school district uh the Hispanic African-American parent leadership Institute uh netted 23 graduates this year uh We've continued and actually expanded our advocacy in Springfield uh I know I've been there several times I've been joined by members of cabinet and we're going to continue our presence in Springfield uh most recently I was asked by the uh Senate to come and testify at a special Committee of the whole uh in regards to property tax and education funding um we started year also with the parents plan program at Sunny Elementary School that was a program uh that was a 9we College and Career ready this course for parents uh both English speaking and

021Spanish-speaking parents uh and as always we've increased our presence on social media through our Facebook page and Twitter um that concludes our formal presentation on the top accomplishments for 20145 okay are there any questions um I have several but I don't have to ask them all at once so do you want me to ask one and then move on to someone well let's just see how it goes okay um first is about uh standards based grading um and I had asked this question previously I was wondering if we can collect data for for teachers who have implemented standards-based grading can we collect data from before they implemented compared to after they implemented per and I understand that that would might be difficult um but maybe we could do it on a voluntary basis in other

022words teachers that wish to volunteer the data could um because I did have one teacher give me that data for his classes that he teaches anonymously so I think there may be teachers interested in providing that data and I'd like to give them that opportunity to do that so you want me to respond go ahead um so as as I've indicated we did provide the board the data at least in aggregate across grades for the this full school year uh that staff has able to go through with you uh in terms of individual teachers I'm not sure with 20 not sure how many teachers of 35% are implementing um the concern I had was trying to pull information out of Infinite Campus uh that would actually go back to 2012 13 to today you're comparing

023teachers based on uh assuming that they're actually in the same teaching the same courses which is not always the case um but I'm not sure if we can at least look into and see if there's a way of trying to pull that together in a in a timely manner but it seemed to try to generate it across all high schools I would suggest that it would be only for teachers teaching the same class who are willing to provide that data so you could give the inquiry out there and see what you get back I'll check into it and we can follow back up with the full board um I have some other questions um about the uh parent leadership Institute some of my constituents have expressed concerns that it seems to be only open to

024certain races and can we expand the parent leadership Institute to be open to everyone um so it was created the first round was actually created to be for Hispanic parent leaders uh who are bilingual so it's was actually the ability to speak two Lang anges we then expanded it to African-American parents specifically just because in general they are typically underrepresented parents at most of our um main main parent Community engagement types of forums like pto's citizens advisory Council um we can certainly explore the ability to start up another parent leadership Institute for uh for other groups of parents uh that said I don't know that we've ever excluded any um other parents from joining either one of their groups so long as they're bilingual I I don't know that we've ever excluded anybody but the

025invitation does go out specifically for bilingual parents for one group and African-American for the other right well by the very nature of the name of that that would exclude certain people I'm sure they wouldn't be comfortable participating in something that doesn't specifically call them out so my my point is can we make it a more General invitation as a parent leadership Institute open to all parents we can explore that we can explore it I um I will say generally in at least in my eight years here the the conversation with our citizens advisory Council was more about how do we get more representation from bilingual parents and also African-American parents who were typically lacking and so this was one Avenue to try to add additional leaders throughout our communities on on those high level uh

026boards and committees so I'm not sure not sure why we're discussing this but the purpose as Mr Sanders has said was to address a specific issue that we have in the district and it seems like the suggestion on the table doesn't address that issue so what are we talking about I mean it doesn't your suggestion doesn't address the issue that those institutes was created for they were created to address an underrepresentation issue so how does opening them up to any parent address the underrepresentation issue now if you're saying that you either a don't believe there's an underrepresentation issue B don't care there's an underrepresentation issue C don't think the district should address an underrepresentation issue I guess I'd need to know that before I could adequately and fully give my opinion about that all I'm

027saying is that it should be open for all parents to to participate certainly you can invite certain groups of parents and focus your attentions more at recruiting those groups of parents but you don't have to exclude other groups of parents while you're doing that I'd like to can I make a comment on this having been uh part of the Hispanic parent leadership Institute in the first cohort I I I understand when someone would when you might say that you want to have all parents have this opportunity I will say that if you dilute the focus of the group especi you know I have the experience of the Hispanic parent leadership Institute I'm assuming the African-American group would be similar if you dilute the customized um portion of that group that is specifically geared to that

028Community then you take away what was beneficial for that program the reason the program has developed the reason um you know just as uh Tracy said of of what was our purpose our purpose was to increase the number of underrepresented parents in those certain groups it would I I could not see opening up the Hispanic parent leadership Institute class to just anyone and have it fulfill its Mission um there's a there's something about being with fellow parents like yourself a and and going through the same steps to evolve and learn through this district and and deal with cultural barriers and language barriers that you would then do away with if you if you made the group open to everyone that said if there were parents if there was a need for parents to also go

029through this learning experience and we felt that other groups needed it or that a general group of parents of of any race or ethnic ethnicity needed to do this then I would say okay let's explore another parent group but at the moment um these two groups are the groups that are really underrepresented and trying to um overcome the hurdles that exist to get th that parent involvement is what we're doing so I I support the groups as they are I I'm open to another group if we felt we needed it but I'm not open to diluting the the nature of the two groups as they exist I think they really serve a purpose and I I think I'm an example by concur with that to the extent we need a group for um all parents

030I guess I don't know that there's any data that suggests that but if we do I have no opposition to that I strongly and strenuously object to any dilution of the African-American or the Hispanic parent leadership institutes they were created for a specific purpose and that purpose um cannot be achieved with dilution there are specific um cultural social um and other issues that can be comfortably addressed in the groups as they are currently I mean quite frankly that don't apply to anybody else that are as they're currently constituted so I Echo that um a follow-up question just to to clarify uh for the sake of the audience um the stien that was given formally given for participation in that Leadership Institute is is no longer there correct correct we did not provide that styen this

031year I also will be addressing that I'm um and I'll follow up with you Tony on that some more but I want to address that um moving to a new topic um I wanted to let everyone know or give a comment about Park testing it's great that it was well implemented and also I wanted everyone here to know that the time required for Park testing is being reduced next year can you expand on that a little bit so that everyone knows after implementation this year uh Park had a number of opportunities to provide feedback or evaluation of the assessments and overwhelmingly the number one piece of feedback from school districts was the amount of time given up to the assessment and the amount of time spent in preparation of the assess mment so instead of

032being the two windows it will be one uh window for next spring and they are also uh pursuing shorten shortening th those test those assessments as well for those students in those windows so um this year what became pretty much two-thirds of the last quarter of the school year or more um will be greatly reduced next year for that assessment and that that's a that's a tremendous step in in a very positive direction for all of us when when we look at the opportunity for increased time for instruction um and uninterrupted instruction in our classrooms yes I wanted to give some kudos for that may I just also note real quick that when we reported on the successful impementation of Park that was uh doing a mixture of both paper and pencil and online so

033we've not fully tested completely online yet um and I also want to thank Dr Johnson for going out and providing feedback to the park folks uh upon their request thank you but uh again huge thank you to the team um just it it was all-encompassing for the district and it really required that we work with our sites our teachers our administrators our parents our is Department um teaching and learning and the people in front of you tonight so I I can't say enough about that teamwork it was a it was a great example of of solid teamwork great uh back to standards based grading um will it continue to be voluntary for teachers to implement that throughout the summer it is voluntary participation and So based on the winter needs assessment from our secondary staff

034it was identified that that be differentiated learning opportunities to focus on both the overview of the seven guiding principles uh implementation of Assessments but also focused on content areas we were also asked to identify and work with our teacher leaders in our district and we have had many teacher leaders come forward to provide absolutely exceptional engaging professional development over the last two weeks some of them present this evening um but they they've done an outstanding job um with that work it is voluntary um through the summer now what we are doing starting in August of this year for math we are embedding the standards based learning and standards based assessment work within the ongoing professional development for the math roll out at the secondary level so teachers will still have opportunity ities to choose some

035very specific strands of standard space learning professional development to participate in beginning in August as Dr Shaw indicated with those District collaboration days and also professional practice days but there will be that professional development that is now embedded with the professional development roll out of that curriculum moving forward and we're starting that with math we will gain the feedback and the evaluation from the teachers participating in that to continue to address needs or of um challenge or or growth for us uh to to provide that support and with that success we will look at what other areas we can move that on to and when so you're saying the training is is uh optional but the implementation of the grading of Standards based grading is that still optional that is still optional as well thank

036you any other questions have a couple um Jeff what percentage of the schools have electronic access what percentage of schools have electronic access now I know you said we added a bunch I think it'll be approximately 30 schools you know off all but nine schools have some all but nine by Fall okay okay thanks and and Tony um the parents plan program at Sunnydale are we planning on expanding that to other schools um I will have to check is Carla himz can she step forward and provide that update is the Sunnydale the parent plans program at Sunnydale is that something where we're going to continue or expand to next year yes we are training facilitators can you come up and say in the microphone so that now that we're being youtubed we we are we

037are training facilitators to do that n week session and it was an option also under Title One schools that's something they wanted at their school okay thanks any other questions okay thank you very much thank you all thanks for your hard work our next District plan report uh is the u46 technology master plan as indicated at the last board meeting um Mr Williams and and team are here to help present or to present you our draft technology master plan uh that we're moving towards here to present again Mr Williams Dr Johnson assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Trisha schro uh director of curriculum instruction and Jeff King chief operations officer Mr Williams thank you so I uh I just brought a little show and tell here but we'll look at that later so um thanks

038for uh letting us have a little chance to talk about the technology master plan plan it's it's really been uh a couple years in the making and and that's been a a good collaboration with uh teaching and learning with um teachers administrators with the instructional councel um and uh and finally upper Administration so it's a been a good team effort and we've looked at kind of where the district is and and what the district can handle as we go forward and and kind of looking at then where do we want to get to in the next three years years and then preparing ourselves for the future as we try to tie um technology into uh our curriculum and into our instructional practice it really is not at all separate because it it's something that we've

039we've looked at and it doesn't it really doesn't exist apart from our instructional practice at u46 and so and and that's so we've been really trying hard to uh look into that and make that uh the Cornerstone of this plan so let's see here technical difficulties right the yeah yeah yeah look at that I've learned a great de you could almost be geek of the week you can almost be geek of the week for doing that my highest honor so so uh Suzanne Johnson and Trisha shro have joined me and we're going to talk a little bit about the vision for technology in the district so I'll let them kind of uh spend a little time talking about how technology deals with uh teaching and learning so as you take a look at this illustration

040you'll identify that really core in the center we have standards and assessment curriculum and instruction and this is really the work that will drive the identification of what technology is needed as a district and the implementation of that technology and you see that this is not only within some of those very traditional forces that we think of when we think of Technology how does it support our math how does it support language arts but you look at what it means for our students becoming 21st century Learners and 21st century citizens as well so how does this fit in all of those areas life and career skills our instruction and learning for critical thinking communication collaboration or teamwork and creativity and then certainly that other component to this as we look at those standards those assessment

041those best practices how do we bring in that technology so that students learn how to use that within a Content area or within their school setting professionally and academically as well but you will identify I think this visual does a great job of placing our instruction front and center in this conversation I would say as well that for the last two and a half years especially this cni department has worked closely with Craig Williams and his team to talk about how we focus on uh technology within the content areas specifically uh one area that I think we've really improved in is when I first entered as director of curriculum instruction we had many models of laptops many models different types of tablets many models of projectors and overheads and and and that was hard for

042us to help support teachers to integrate technology when there were so many different machines to learn to help them and so one thing that we've done is focus on how can we narrow the FOC focus of what we uh purchase for technology so that the content coordinators as they develop professional development as they develop curriculum with teams of teachers it's one machine or two when we look at the shift to one laptop and Chromebook one iPad versus a tablet that is not ios-based we really wanted to narrow so that one we we knew how to better train teachers we even in our department purchased a laptop cart so that we had the same technology teachers were now going to be using in their classrooms when we train with them as we roll out new curriculum

043so that narrowing of what we get so that we can better learn it to help support integration in in the in the content areas in addition the curriculum and instruction Department started with Jen Vincent working on things like play dates which are un conferences where teachers come together and learn about technology in a in a very low-risk way as well as designing opportunities on professional practice practice days designing Tech Wednesdays and 30 Thursdays as well as Twitter chats Etc and that work has not just become the responsibility of one but the responsibility of everyone in the teaching and learning department so all directors are working together to think about how technology fits within special ed within elll within curriculum and instruction and my team has been working really closely with uh Craig's team so that

044he's supporting the Machinery the stuff and we're really supporting how do you integrate it in the classroom in a way that benefits kids Al think of the uh think of the uh that instructional Technology support is the secret sauce you know we provide the plumbing to some extent and that they're the sort of the secret sauce that really makes it uh it makes it go and make gives it the real spark so we we really came up with in the plan three key initiatives and uh we list them here on your on your slide and so they are classroom standards trying to come up with a a foundational level classroom standard uh Trish and Suzanne we're starting to talk a little bit about professional development and then finally making sure that we can adequately and

045and excellently support what we are providing to in the classroom to students and teachers so we'll go over those in in a little more detail in the next few slides here you know in terms of a classroom standard um we we looked at where we wanted to get to and we realized that there was a lot of uh inequity across the district um some some of that was driven by funding some of that was driven by perhaps um uh a lack of a vision but we we kind of said we need to let every classro ultimately this is and and we'll talk about that in a minute but ultimately have uh at least a foundational level of technology and as we spent a lot of time we actually spent a lot of time talking with

046the uh curriculum Department about this and getting feedback from the coordinators about what this would look like at both the um Elementary and secondary levels and and the recommendation is slightly different uh the first and foremost thing and the thing we're working on the the hardest is providing both um access uh to teachers and then wireless access in the building so that's that's hard lifting and um and hard work but we're we're getting there and so we've got another 22 schools we're working on the cabling for so we can put more wireless access points and that several of the high schools will be done this summer and so that's going to be uh in addition Elgen was finished last year we believe we're going to get eate funding from that which could cover as much

047as 80% of the cost of that so that's going to be a big deal um if that comes through and so but in addition to that we looked at kind of devices for students to have and to start to to be able to to get a a foundational level as I said of of devices so we've come up up with a recommendation of uh for a normal siiz Elementary classroom of up to six devices per classroom kind of a a classroom Center a class Center and then at the secondary level ultimately getting to a a class set in a in a cart form for every four classrooms so uh that's uh that was the um really the recommendations we kind of looked at making sure that we could get adequate coverage during the day if

048you needed that it would be available ble to not just have to go to the lab and and and truck down there and schedule that try to figure that out and along with a wireless access um we talked about large format display so right now that's projectors it could be flat panel TVs at some point uh in in the course of this three-year period um we uh one of the things that not everything is in digital form just yet and so one of the uh ways that you can connect a projector to a to the to the laptop is the document camera I actually brought one with me tonight I won't I won't look it up and do a show Intel but it's just a show so this is a this is this is the

049actually the the Big Brother of the unit that we're talking we're recommending that be purchased but it has a has a digital camera on it and then it gets hooked up to the both to the um laptop or desktop and to the projector and you can you can then project things that are not in uh digital form yet or in three dimensions is a real world ruled object and so it's kind of a practical use and uh we've got about 700 of them in the district right now and so we're uh we're talking about trying to grow that so that we provide that as sort of a base level in every classroom so in addition the the next uh slide is about professional development and as I mentioned briefly you we have had several formats

050for professional development uh and we'll continue some of them and grow them play date is one that we've featured on professional practice dates and when I say unconference that means last year on on the February uh professional practice day we brought hundreds of teachers together at Kenyan Woods Middle School and they were able to self- select into spaces based on their own need so if they wanted to learn learn more about this new Google and Gmail Etc they were able to go into classrooms uh with materials and with a leader and really explore those together and so you don't get much more differentiated than they in addition we're really looking at in the next in coming school year really embedding Technology support in our DCd days so these are we we've created a format where

051teachers have a plinary session where they all receive the same information on the same day and the same way but then they can really break out so that they're focused on what they need um and and and their Readiness level for what they need is has been wonderful in that you know our job in curriculum and instruction is really support teachers so that they're ready to embrace the new technology and is has been wonderful about how do they offer that entry level professional development about like how do I use this device how do I turn it off and on how do I get back to home when I've lost my way and and we really do the the nuts and bolts of now how do I use this in my Ela classroom and and what

052are some of the things that I can do with the new projector and we'll talk about that a little later tonight as we talk about study sync but again we're also the the responsibility doesn't lie a rest on the shoulder of one person instead we are all responsible in curriculum instruction and teaching and learning for how we use the technology to better implement the curriculum that we write and the resources that we choose so there's been a lot of work at the director level the coordinator level and so that it really becomes about what it looks like in your area and as we design the DCd and the PPD offerings for next year we've really been mindful of we have these new things how how do we embed them so so that teachers find them

053really useful Additionally the tech plan allows for flexibility to align with the curriculum writing that is coming forward so as um schro indicated tonight you'll hear about numerous curricular areas and our work with is and that Tech plan to identify what resources technological um supports are needed to best Implement that work moving forward and how we start moving in that direction and what that looks like so there is flexibility for us to grow and for us to address those needs in those curricular areas as M shro indicated that professional development then for use of that technology is then embedded within that curricular roll out as well so you have a culmination of again of the teamwork and the communication identifying how to address those needs a good kind of example of that is we did

054we did actually P the elementary um principles in terms of what what form factor they wanted and how they wanted to deploy their uh their devices and about half of them said yes we'd like to go along with a recommendation and put two in every classroom some had already started that and we're working on it but then about almost another half said no we'd like to concentrate these with some teachers that really uh know what they're doing already and can and can hit the ground running so that we don't waste the resource that was a I think a good example trying to work through that talking about technical support one of the things we we've really been focused on is making sure that we uh have the support we need to um provide for both

055our students and teachers and so couple things I just want to discuss is we're really have been studying out what the the right ratio would be of of technical support staff to uh to number of computers and so uh We've been working with industry experts in that and so we developed this 400 to 450 computers per um tech support person a full-time person as our as our rule of thumb and we're not quite there yet but we as we grow we'd like to continue to implement that now as we grow to a more robust uh um environment the some of that may you know that that ratio may may slip up as well uh go a little higher but we're really trying to make sure that we have enough support in the buildings when we

056need it so the teachers feel like they're they are uh being fully um invested and and really get the support they need of timely man uh the other thing we're really looking at is to as we improve the end user experiences looking at student um at student health and uh that can be the form of an internship we spend a little time really working with a member of the curriculum instruction Department uh looking at how that would look in um at the different grade levels and so there's been a an internal recommendation on that that we're going to continue to study and see if we can get some help on that I've done that in another district and it was really very successful and really uh you know you got a lot of really smart

057smart students here that can can help us with our with our tech support just in terms of the proposed timeline we've got uh We've listed the three years of the of of the master plan and really uh several of the items are growing sort of very in a very deliberate manner the number of devices in the elementary and uh secondary levels are growing we we did feel like we wanted to level the playing field and in terms of the large format display um we some teachers are still struggling with having either no display or trying to still use the the very small um CRT televisions that are there so we really felt like that was a a need on on the instructional side and so we've actually said that we provide portable projectors in all

058those classes those roughly 600 that don't have either a mounted or portable um large format display and then uh begin to mount those in subsequent years so we eventually get the point where uh where by the end of the plan were 75% M and this is another place in which cni teaching and learning and really work closely together the idea of having projectors in every classroom was something that came forward from the content coordinators and they said as we're writing curriculum there are all these online resources that the new textbook companies are offering and we're not at Ono one yet but we if we had at least projectors uh Etc we could share that digital content with students we could share small video clips we could share what we were seeing on our laptop on

059the big screen so that all kids had access and so this was one of the ways in which the partnership between content uh curriculum and instruction content coordinators and is really helped guide what the what the suggestion was at least what we need the first year was that idea of being able to share content in fact the board has seen that with the middle school health proposal the ELA proposal that we'll talk about tonight this need to be able to share the content that's available to our our teachers if they had that ability one of the things that um you know we you did want to stress is that uh this plan doesn't preclude us from going to one to one either in a a concentrated area or in a uh in a c one

060curricular area at a time um so none of the things that we're doing really stop us from doing that we're we have devices that can be could become Dei onetoone devices in the future questions from you s um first of all I'm very happy to hear the the close integration between technology and curriculum that you're working together I think too often you hear about technology you give everyone an iPad and expect something to happen and I'm glad to see that we're not going in that direction I also like to hear that you you're looking at flexibility because I know some of the the things coming down do emphasize one to one and maybe not one to one per student but it we might be desirable at some point to have class sets where you could

061have one to one within an English class or something like that so so I think you're on the right you're doing a good job thank you Cody Craig as uh as technology becomes more classroom based um are we looking at phasing out computer labs in the future or or are you g to maintain the computer labs and still have technology in the classroom it really seems like at some point the general computer lab will come up so so that's where you just have a general desk top and you really probably won't need that if if you get to the point where you're close to one: one or in a a building that will become absolete now in a uh like a like a cad class or you know the Project Lead the Way the engineering

062classes you're still going to need specialty high high powerered equipment so you still might have some some high school labs and some Labs even in in the other grade levels that would be for specific purposes but you start to see that as you get more devices that could be something that we could be more efficient and and certainly within our Learning Resource Centers some of them already have computer labs that are established to be accessible to students before school after school um certainly at the high school level study halls or during lunch periods and we we would look to maintain those locations as well to make sure that students have that accessibility to those lab spaces one of the things you've been working on is sort of the learning comp idea too this is another

063thought much more flexible space that that Library becomes thank you just one more question a lot of students have smartphones or tablets already have we thought of any policy in general for the use of those with our curriculum or yeah actually actually the the current policy allows uh them to be used in an educational setting with the permission of the of teachers so we have the we have sort of the green zone concept which was was the idea for that was that we you know you would you'd be able to use it really in a cafeteria but that that can be applied also in classrooms okay so so that the structure exists we looked at do we have to modify the policy um and we really as we reviewed it we said we did okay

064I think also of of kids who might use their iPhone at home and use up their data plan or something and get Mom and Dad upset about that whether we need to have some sort of permission or just something to think about we've also had some brainstorming sessions but strictly brainstorming sessions where students are uh given the opportunity to check out some of those devices as well so how do we provide support to students for the opportunity to check out not necessarily the phone but a tablet a laptop some of those pieces again coming from that learning Common's idea or Learning Resource Center any other questions a follow-up question um to sue uh suppose a teacher had an iPad that they wanted to use in this way would you allow the installation of the necessary

065software for them to use their own iPad in the classroom yeah we've been we've been doing more of of actually giving them access to to that um and we've actually encouraged there are some some of the people our main productivity software for example the Microsoft Office Suite is actually available um a couple of versions for e a small fee or or completely free as an employee so we've been trying to to look at you know as people want to do that we trying to encourage that as well um I have a question considering using the iPhones and like the students own iPhones um we tried to do that in one of my foreign language classes this year um and like you were saying parents got a little upset about using their own data plans so

066is there any way students would be able to get onto the school's Wi-Fi in order to use that from their mobile devices um because I know that would make it a lot easier in the classroom to be able to connect with the teacher through their own phone yeah as as the as we get you know more robust Wireless we're really trying to open that up with so with the new wireless we're trying to open that up as well and so so one of the things we're going to do this fall is is is open up YouTube for the for the new wireless network as well so we're really trying to make it a little easier easier for you to to do that okay thank you I one more um so obviously uh the the tech

067the technology uh master plan presentation tonight was because of some of the major purchases we're going to be making uh soon and I just wanted to know um what the what the average lifespan of um a of a tech item is in new 46 and um what do you expect the Lipan of these products that if we were to purchase them tonight to be so part of the part of the plan is we've been really recommending uh some some guidelines for that we have some devices that are 10 years old and so do some of the ones we're asking you to replace tonight but um we we're thinking that that the mobile devices it's about a fouryear use useful life and on the on the stationary device the desktops it's a fiveyear life the projectors

068and things like that go longer they go seven years and some of our infrastructure goes goes seven to 10 years as well but but that's the actual end user devices it's four years on the mobile and and kind of Five Years on the deskt so we could be looking at another large iPad purchase in the future yes okay yeah that's something that that's more operational than Capital purchase sure thank you Craig any other questions Mr Williams could you also just quickly uh tonight there's also an additional bid that's coming forward under work session title one computer purchases I think you're we're going to reference also in your presentation yeah I'll I'll say a little bit about that and I think Trish can speak to that as well um so we've uh we've been working with

069curriculum instruction on trying to help them with you know this framework is flexible and we're trying to say if you want to do more and you have some funds whether it's Title One funds or whether it's PTO funds or other other outside grants and you want to do that we're trying to provide a framework that you can say okay I want to add to this I want to get my students more devices in their classroom or I want to do some additional thing a 3D printer or something like that we we we we're trying to give you the framework to do that so in this year's uh this is really I think the best example that we we really kind of collaborated TR can tell you a little bit more about how that works so

070sure so we designed when I first came in as curriculum and instruction uh director two and a half years ago uh the title one plans were uh Word document and people were given their allocation here's how many dollars the School receives for title one this year and they really sent in their request in a Word document and and when we think about technology especially that's Troublesome because again we had the same thing happening we had multiple um different types of laptops and desktops and projectors Etc that they were ordering because they had the funds and there really wasn't one there wasn't really here are the sponsored devices here are the devices that is can support because there's a limited number of them and so we can continue to get parts and we can continue to

071support and so one of the things that we did a lot of work with the assistant superintendant Dr osaw Steve Berger Ron uh Suzanne and others was to say how do we narrow the focus so that our uh technology purchases in our Title One buildings are totally aligned with the technology plan and with the new curricular rollouts so that we're not buying things over here that don't well align with others and so instead of a Word document where you say okay at mckenley you get $148,000 this year tell us what you want to buy we gave them a spreadsheet that said okay align to at the time the dip and and we'll realign it to the Strategic plan um how how are you spending your funds in this controlled Choice atmosphere so here is the

072technology inventory that you can purchase from here is the one laptop the one Chromebook the one iPad and the supporting materials uh and they were actually had drop down menus to choose from as opposed to creating a Word document where they told us how they were going to spend their funds and so in that way we knew that if a if a building was going faster with their technology purchases because they had title $1 to do so it would still be align with the curriculum rollouts that we were going to have as well as the technology plan it would just move a little quicker and I would say we actually also worked together curriculum and instruction and is and the other operations departments this year when those plans came back they were due May 29th

073we compiled them and met the following Monday morning and said okay here's what's been ordered from the different schools and what are our timelines so that we can guarantee that those items are in kids hands ready to be used this fall any other questions are we going to discuss the the cost and of the proposed things that we're going to purchase at the time we bring those up or are we going to do that now probably at when we go over purchase save comments and questions about that till then yeah okay yeah anything else okay thank you okay I don't think it's necessary okay okay the next item on our agenda is comments from the audience good evening we are now at the portion of the agenda where the board welcomes public comments from the

074audience are there any cards to be turned in at this time [Music] on the consent agenda we have minutes of the Board of Education meeting May 18 2015 itemize bills June 15 2015 Personnel report and workers compensation cases June 15 2015 a resolution requesting approval of hazardous transportation area designations a resolution authorizing the transfer of interest from the working cash fund to the transportation fund resolution authorizing participation in federal and state supportive programs contract renewal for secondary schools Ombudsman contract renewal for healthc care plan administrator contract for Information Services managed Security Service a bid for Information Services computer equipment a bid for Information Services computer peripheral equipment and accessories a bid for transportation direct fired heaters and a boot for boot bid for Food Service beverages thank you are there any items that any board

075member would like remove from the consent agenda okay hearing none could I have a a motion to approve the consent agenda of June 15 2015 um sorry just a quick comment so included are we going to vote on everyone at once yes okay so a comment I believe in here are the purchase of the iPads correct uh no the iPads were pulled and put back in under discussion action okay great thank you you're welcome can I have any motion so moved second any discussion roll call please Mr Ellis yes Mr Hol yes Mrs Kerr yes Miss Nolan yes Mrs Ward yes madame president yes okay the next item on our agenda is discussion action Mr Sanders under discussion action our first resolution is a resolution establishing prevailing wages Mr King presented this at the last

076meeting and is here to again um seek board authorization as I presented at the last meeting um we are required to bring forward yearly a resolution establishing prevailing wage um the school district is required to um pay subcontractors prevailing wage for major projects and we also have to excuse me track their payrolls to verify that they do so otherwise that we are penalized as an organization if we do not do that if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer go ahead um Jeff what would a no vote from the board mean for the district we would still follow the prevailing weights law we're required to do so I was under the impression that if the board voted no um at least from a little bit of independent study um that we would hold

077if the board collectively said no we'd be able to hold a public hearing to determine our own prevailing wage rates I don't know the law around that so I can't make a comment regarding what what we can and cannot do I bring forward the resolution in the format that it's in with the required rates based on the counties sure and the board makes a decision as to what they do or do not do at that point with that I'm just going to make just some brief comments I believe that prevailing wage is actually a pretty archaic law that dates back really far um and I believe it hinders free market competition to allow non-union biders the opportunity to bid on government projects um I'm urging my colleagues on the board to vote no on it

078as well I'm voting no not because I'm voting against the law itself how however I'm voting no to establish uh public hearings to create our own prevailing wage which I believe would save the district money over time thank you I have a question um do you know if prevailing wage uh does it involve at all anything to do with benefits or is it strictly the hourly wage that we have to look at I believe it's just the hourly wage on the charts that we provided there also columns for the different benefit levels and then what the wage rate is with those benefit levels we we just follow what the rate is we don't follow the rate plus any benefits for the other counties you mean like you're talking about the chart that comes from that

079shows cook Kane and D okay a question in sort of followup to Cody's comments so supposing that it's what you said is true Jeff that it's going to be implemented whether we vote vote Yes or no if that would be true then why what's the point in having a vote I'll defer the council so the law the it's uh uh a20 uh Illinois compile statutes is called a prevailing weight act which requires that every school district municipality uh enact this requires that it enact a resolution in in the law and and that's why essentially why Jeff is bringing it forth because the law requires that it be done and that every public body vote on it and then that it be publicized it's a it's a legal requirement yeah well plus I I believe it

080was two years ago I'm not positive on the time frame but um as I mentioned earlier there are now penalties to the school district if we don't track our contractors's payrolls and verify that they paid the prevailing wage we we can be penalized financially for not doing so oh oh you know and I haven't researched this but there is a section that says ascertaining prevailing wage and it says a public body awarding any contract for public work or otherwise undertaking any public work shall ascertain the general prevailing rate of hourly wages in the Lo in the locality in which the work is to be performed uh so it's um again it's it's uh that's that's the reason for the resolution and uh there there are penalties I'm not say that this applies but but there

081is a section there that says that that that that any officer agent or representative or any public body willfully violates or willfully fails to comply with any of the provisions of this act in any contractor or in any go sign that that is it could end up being a class uh aim is demeanor and I'm not as I said Cody I have not I have not done any research as far as what you said so I would just essentially all I want to say is it is the law and that's what we're doing it Donna yes um I would also like to point out that um part of Governor rounder's turnaround agenda which is actually being hotly debated in Springfield right now um involves the elimination or at least reform of prevailing wage I do

082I I do support the reform of prevailing wage in Illinois um and I've also talked to other elected officials from other bodies from the county to different municipalities about prevailing wage and my no vote tonight is not because I'm failing to comp to comply with uh the state's Prevail prevailing wage law however to allow our district to set its own prevailing wage rates and go forward like that by holding public hearings and um determining it like that I go ahead um I feel the need to go on record and say that I also support the idea of reforming the ACT but not in the same direction as Mr Holt um in that I am interested in a qualified prevailing wage and that is where we take into account um benefits as well I'm all for

083that I don't like the idea of um contractors being able to underbid by um promising a salary but really not providing adequate benefits to equal um what a union cont contract or another qualified contract contractor might offer so I'm all for re-evaluating that but from the point of view that I want a qualified bid um because it's under uh discussion action I just want to clarify we are not voting on it tonight correct we are voting we are voting okay it's just not on the consent agenda because we knew that there would be questions oh okay then I want to clarify that I support what uh Cody said any other comments questions okay could I have a motion to approve the resolution establishing prevailing wages so moved any discussion roll call please uh Mr Holt

084no Mrs Kerr yes Miss Nolan yes Mrs Ward no Miss O'Neal Ellis yes madame president yes approved next item bid is Apple iads and again this was on work session at the last uh agenda uh we brought it back under discussion action because there have been continued discussion within uh internally and Mr Williams and Mr Sparks are here to present I think this is actually a pretty good story um we we did uh hear what the the comments from the board and and I personally we went back and did some more research and really in talking to both the manufacturer and in considering some of the uh other um uh colleagues in the area we we decided that we we could go ahead and purchase a um a less expensive uh model and really that

085was based on our discussion and the fact that uh Apple still provides support for the first iPad the iPad one that's that's five years old and they still are providing parts for that so they really haven't stopped providing parts for any of those models so that's it's kind of good news and that's something that doesn't always happen in the PC World so that that's kind of an interesting part of the story and um and really the the platform of the iPad Air and the iPad P air2 are are pretty similar in terms of their um in terms of their capabilities so we found that we we might not be losing that that year of Longevity if we went to this and and we're saving about $150 per device uh we we didn't go to a

086smaller form factor really because of the trying to keep the ability to to use these if we needed to for online testing as our online testing grows we still need that uh minimum 9 and a half inch screen so the 10inch screen on the iPad does work the 7inch screen on the iPad Mini doesn't so um so that you know we miss an opportunity to to save a little more money there but it it really kind of gives us more flexibility so that's uh but I I think it's um you know with your feedback we uh we went back and took another look at it and as we actually talked to Apple and and and another colleague the the model we're proposing is sort of The Sweet Spot it's one that a lot of the

087districts that are buying iPads have chosen to purchase um we actually have needed to purchase the more memory because on the models we purchased last year we have started to run out of memory as with the applications that we loaded so that's the reason for the memory side so questions are there any questions Janette I just wanted to make a comment that I appreciated that you did that that you took our comments and uh also you didn't mention it but the you're saving uh $35,000 here so um because you addressed the comments that were given and because I do support technology for the classroom I will be voting yes now and I appreciate what you've done thank you welcome any other questions comments um I'm concerned about switching back to the air instead of the

088Air 2 because another organization that I'm connected with is going through technology purchase and they specifically are saying that and did say that Apple's still supporting the air but that support is going to be shortterm and so I I'm just concerned at I mean I haven't personally talked to Apple so I have no idea other than the Apple salese at would field and of course they're going to try to sell me air too but my point is another large organization getting ready to purchase iPads is saying I'm hearing I'm being told that the support for air is shortlived and I don't maybe you can quantify that for me yeah it was I think it was a good conversation with apple and was interesting they were not they were not pushing the the iPad Air two

089on us which was an interesting you know interesting they were being pretty honest about it and they said basically we still support the iPad 1 the iPad 2 you know uh the iPad 3 we actually still support those there's some things they can't do uh but but the both of these devices sort of have roughly the same chipset the iPad air2 is a little faster and it's lighter you know so that's that's interesting and that's and that's a good thing but right now they both can do exactly the same you know exactly the same feature set so it feels like it's a pretty safe uh pretty safe change okay did they give any did they give any um time frame for support so they they continue to support these devices and that was kind of

090the the the sort of the Clincher for me is that really they're still providing they're still providing parts and support for their original their original device so they don't drop support there are times along the way where you know there's a few things that it can't do as software improves but these two are has very similar makeup on the inside so it it doesn't appear that there's going to be you know a lot of Vari the the air to would be I mean I my little nie has the original one cuz you know she's six so but I mean there are lots of things and lots of apps that can't be installed on that obviously because you can't even upgrade to the latest iOS system on that one yeah but you don't foresee that being

091the case with the air versus the air two yeah I don't see that as and I think that that's probably in the same time frame that eventually some point down the road you both of them might be both them will be obsolete so and you've looked at the uh curriculum that we're purchasing in the iPad this iPad would work with whatever software they have yes okay Cody I just want to say I appreciate everything that you guys done into looking into this um and especially saving us about $135,000 that's great and I'm going to be supportive of this I think it's uh instrumental that you know we improve the technology inside the classroom uh especially as a former uh a student you know some my textbooks dated back till uh like 85 so um I

092I think this is great and I think we're moving in the right direction thank you any other questions comments okay real call oh I'm sorry motion we didn't do that yet could I have a motion to approve the bid for is Apple iPad tablets staff and students moved second any discussion roll call please M SK yes M noan yes Mrs Ward yes Mr yes Mr yes pres yes okay next item other business CAC update and committee reports our first report will be family and Community engagement committee board member and did we other business oh I'm sorry I thought that came fast but I saw their business underneath it but that's individual students sorry okay other business board member and CEO update um could I have Jeff King come back I had raised some concerns about

093the TRS penalties that we had paid and um I wanted to say that I had a very satisfactory conversation with uh Jeff about it and so I wanted him to elaborate for the sake of the public um why we pay some of those penalties and uh kind of the difficulties that the district runs into in in paying them yes so a couple of the things that I pointed out for instance on the summary um we divided it out between um teaching staff and administrative staff so I use just this last year as the example um we have one penalty for right around $25,000 for one administrator who actually left the district 7 years ago but didn't work for four or five years in between then took a higher paying job in a district for two

094years and retired hence the look back period four years two years of service in the new district and two years with us we pay the penalty um we did dispute that with TRS but the look back is four years and there's nothing we couldn't control that matter um we ran into that situation similarly with an administrator that left I think 0708 or 0809 who we um because our policy has been we pay out your vacation time well once we paid out the vacation time it pushed above 6% for that particular employee hence we paid a 20 some thousand penalty for that employee um the other issue we had as we first entered into this um a lot of our contracts were grandfathered because I believe this was passed in 0405 we had just entered into

095I think a teaching contract so we were Grant father till 0708 um but after that time period what what we were experiencing and we didn't have a handle on immediately was um teachers with overloads um that were maybe already in the retirement pipeline that again would push them above the 6% um taking on extra duties um those kind of matters would push teachers up into a situation where we would end up paying a penalty for them um can you give some examples of that s say a teacher wanted some uh extra duties like so for instance let's say they didn't coach prior to coming into the re retirement announcement they gave their four-year notice but then decided to coach in the last couple years to bump up the salary and hence the pension um that

096would subject us to a penalty um so the incentive then is for the teachers not to do extra things because that's the way it ended up being is um the past few years way we've approached it is if you had given the announcement but you wanted to take on the extra Duty your 6% that we were giving you by contract that's all you were getting so you weren't going to get additional pay on top of the 6% which we knew with the the the uh ETA that that may create some issues for a few people which it did we had a few coaches uh Andor athletic directors that had issues with that but you know we walked them through what we agreed to do and um and the reasons why we needed to do that

097so you could have a stellar teacher who wanted to coach who could conceivably not be able to get paid for that because of the cap potentially if they were close to retirement yes or had they already given noce yes and Jeff we we got penal did the other District get penalized and this one individual left or did we both get penalized I don't I'm not sure about that yeah we can't look up their their TRS we can only look up ours in in the files uh that were provided to the Tribune it did not indicate that the penalty actually for those two it didn't even indicate the penalty to us so that was not actually reported in the Tribune that's true but one of the things that skews u46 a little bit higher is that

098we're the largest TRS employer in the state of Illinois um Chicago has its own pension system so a teachers retirement system we are the the biggest employer in TRS and our penalties in our district were 700 over the last few 700 and some thousand yes approximately since 0708 um and the State Board of Education spent 200,000 more on penalties for their employees than we spent um what's also not noted in the story is the teachers retirement system pays penalties for their employees oh okay the actual so the story itself I think uh should be re-reviewed by another uh publication so and then on the admin side what tended to create the penalties if an administrator had been promoted to a higher level position and then determined let's say they they they something came up in

099their life and they they decided they were going to leave in the next three years or less um we would pay a penalty on them here regardless because they had been promoted in the four-year window so there's lots of unintended consequences to the law is is the the message that I'm trying to that's correct send here yes I have a quick question and I don't know if this was already provided at some point but we are as the largest employer you know it's hard to gauge us against it's not apples to oranges as a percentage of our salaries or our employees do you have that figure of where we're at compared to other districts no I I mean the Tribune article delineated I think 164 165 employees over the seven-year period um but I think

100the thing to note for us was you know I think what the article was trying to pinpoint was the fact that districts were inflating administrators retirement as they exited out to get their pension off we did not do that I have no knowledge of that we provided the board with all of the data and all of the employees that receive something or we paid a penalty for um that's not something that this District participated in so and and going forward then um we're planning to avoid pay paying these penalties wherever possible correct yeah I think there's several things that have changed since that has happened that help us to do that um so HR pays pretty close attention to it we do on the finance side um because like I said the one the one

101administrator that came up this year I questioned that right away I said that person left here seven years ago how can we be paying a penalty for that person well they had a gap in service and that was the reason for it so and uh can the board be made aware if there are upcoming penalties we can probably we could provide the board with a summary each year as to here's the list of employees and here's what the penalties will be um just like we we currently did in this board back in okay yeah I wasn't aware of that yeah it's it's in there okay any other question sorry any other questions not on this issue but I okay I was let go okay any other any other board updates or Cody I was really

102happy to uh go to larin's graduation especially as a former alumni and uh you know Dr tuan's first year at Larin was my senior year um so it it's really nice to sit through that and graduation I thought it was really uh really great and I didn't realize that this is our first meeting since graduation I think we all had a great day that day all five graduations went off well we always like to thank all of our staff because between the Sears Center and our staff working together we do five graduations in one day and there's not a hiccup so thank all of you and please thank the staffs at the schools and everyone who makes that day possible because we love that day yeah that was a great day we even got a

103special tour of the the roof yeah we got to go on the roof uh it's obvious that that the staff spend hours and hours collaborating between all the five high schools and our District staff and it it it pays off it really pays off on a fabulous day for all the kids and their families anyone else okay do we go ahead uh not on this topic okay go ahead so this is a new top then um I brought up last time that I believe that all board members should have access to past closed session uh agenda items and I asked that it be placed on the agenda for tonight um but it was an oversight that it didn't get placed on the agenda so I'd like to discuss it among the board now that's what

104I was just GNA bring up um yeah I think we can discuss it I think we can come to some consensus on it I'm sure you all saw kind of the you know we I don't think we have to take a vote on it so I think rightel right we can come to some consensus and go from there um I guess before we start discussing this I just want to go over what Clos session minutes are because I don't want to assume that even the public understands um closed session is held by on the board and there are very few topics that we can discuss under closed session they are individual student disciplinary matters pending probable or intimate litigation information on discipline performance appointment employment reclassification of an employee acquisition or sale of real property

105Collective negotiating matters between the school board and its employee and the review of closed session minutes those are the only subjects that can be discussed during Clos session and no decisions are ever made in closed session all the votes are taken in Open Session during our regular board meetings so um we did have some discussion and I do like I do want to say that I like that we are on YouTube now because I went back and looked at the discussion to try to understand what was said because as we're sitting here you don't catch it all so I tried to I went back on and watched it again and there were some concerns by board members and I'd like to have a discussion to see if we could come to some um consensus on

106how closed session recordings would be allowed to be listened to and I I guess I'll start off the top of my head I do have a couple of concerns well I don't know if I want to call them concerns but I think they would be good things let me say one other thing I would hope that our discussion turns into a policy so that the next board whenever it may be comes in there is guidelines for that board since we really didn't have any because this has never come up before for us as a board so I'm hoping that we could have the discussion put together a committee write up a policy and then approve the policy and if new board doesn't like the policy they could always change it but at least they have

107some basis to start with okay um a couple of things that I thought I have a question so I'm sorry because this is news to me so we're starting from the premise tonight that we are going to allow this well no we're going to have that discussion I mean we you can say that we shouldn't allow it and why okay I'm just saying I'm hoping that we can come to some understanding and then whatever that understanding is we create a policy moving forward okay and I guess I want to throw out a couple of things that um I think open meetings act training is very important for Clos session I think the confidentiality is a big important part of the Clos session reporting um recordings um I asked Tony how many hours of reporting recording

108I keep saying reportings recordings we have and we have like 69 hours of recordings and if any if it is if we do Cho choose to allow board members to listen to them I guess I would want some idea of you know how much would want to be listened to they would have to be listened to at the district offices in a room with another person there because it can't be by yourself and um I think it's important it's between Tony would have to put decide who would oversee the recordings that they're turned on and off and put away back where they belong and stuff in a secure area and um it would have to be during business hours so that there is other there is Staff available for that well I say available Loosely

109so I guess I'm throwing that out there as my some of my concerns and I'm asking for other opinions well I read the memo from our outside legal council and um that concurred with Miguel that um no individual new existing or otherwise individual board members are entitled to close session uh recordings and I guess I would say that the lawyer in me would probably just assume that we just keep it like that none of us are entitled to go back and listen to um close session and 69 hours of recording and having a staff person that's how many over how many many work days to have a staff person paying any of our staff who I don't know anybody who's got that kind of free time to sit and babysit recordings um to me is

110an egregious use of Staff time um any staff time and I still haven't I don't know I think the in the legislative intent as as well as the few decisions that have come down it's pretty clear that the recordings were only um to be used for the public access counselor and a court if there were some allegation of open meetings violation and I haven't even taken the time nor am I going to quite frankly to sit down and think through all the ways that um this might be opening up a Pandora's Box I just assume that we um just say no for those reasons I disagree so I have some comments I did read the memo from our legal council thoroughly and um I was curious to know I didn't go into detail about another

111District as an example the only one that they were aware of that has since come up with policy that allows their board um I guess some limited fashion to listen to recordings I I would have liked to have known what that was or what okay and I would I would love to know what their limited fashion is and the reason I say that is because you know I in reading that it made it clear that individually we none of us have a right as individuals but we do as a group as a board and so if there was some compelling reason that some board member had that they that the board as a whole could vote and decide whether a portion or a certain part of close session minutes should be heard I I think

112we should have that ability to do that and it would be good to have that clear in policy on how someone would go about and do that but it would require a consensus of the board to allow it now the the I I I don't think we should just say yes you can listen to all 69 hours and we'd have to have staff and I agree with that part that it I agree that that might be too much but I also think that if there was some compelling reason and and and we have those tapes that we should allow for a limited amount and that you know I'm not sure who maintains them now I don't know if it's legal counsel or his office you know we if we built that into the policy of

113how we someone would be able to either petition the board to be able one of the board members to to put that on the table for the board to vote on and then have a process to then you know listen to it I don't I don't in theory see a problem with that I would love to explore that some more um I don't know that I would limit it to only during business hours because I don't feel like that I mean this is a public body and we have our meetings on Monday nights in the evening and if it had to be an hour before that I don't see anything wrong with that so um we have staff here we have people who come in I wouldn't want to do this all the time by

114any means I would want it to be something very rare but I I still think we should be exploring that option as a as a group and I agree with you that we need a policy on this I actually looked at some of surrounding districts at their policies and surprisingly there's a at least three or four around here that have a policy that allow board members to look at closed meeting minutes if it pertains to current board work and they do have other limitations on on you know how it is done and and the accessibility so I I think we need to look at what other districts do as well um and develop policy but I'm not opposed to I'm I'm not going to say blanket no so yes Tracy so I would agree because

115I said right at the beginning that I hadn't heard any I think I said I hadn't heard any compelling reason I do agree that I mean again I don't have one off the top of my head but I do agree that there could be a compelling reason but just a blanket I'm a new board member therefore I want to listen to 69 hours of all your previous stuff that doesn't pertain to what we're doing now that I object to but I would be okay with working to come up with a policy that under extenuating circumstances for compelling reasons um limited access those types of things sure Cody uh first I kind of want to clarify a little bit um I was approached by a couple constituents um just asking me what I wanted to hear

116in the minutes and I just wanted to clarify that I've never ever said that I want to listen to the minutes however I do support individual board members being allowed to listen to those minutes and I don't think anybody's talking about going to extremes and listening to all 69 hours I don't think any of us here have 69 hours uh to listen to uh close session recording tapes but I do agree with you Donna I believe we do need a policy um at least so it's defined uh but my original uh belief that you know since we are individually elected that we should have that right um on behalf of the public to inspect those tapes um if an individual board member feels that's the case I would just say Donna that per our outside

117Council the law does not support it so we might feel that we have an individual right but the law has not given us an individual right well the I would like to say that there's different interpretations of the law um you know I'm not a not a lawyer however going into court I just wouldn't automatically agree with the other person's opinion therefore I believe that there are individual reasons um that uh the law is subed sometimes okay well I am a lawyer and so have did you read outside council's memo yes okay and so if you have a different interpretation I'd love to hear it because it'd be germine to um our conversation here tonight but if it's just I think that the law can be interpreted different ways Kudos right you're right it does

118but you do have to articulate those different ways well the Attorney General in Springfield and the Attorney General in Kane County feel that the law can be interpreted differently because they said the open meetings act does not cover this level of detail and in the opinion it cited the open meetings act itself as pertaining to listening to closed session meetings the Attorney General in Springfield and Kan County are lawyers I believe K County doesn't have an attorney general they have an attorney general's office so you're talking about the Illinois Attorney General correct okay so there's only one Illinois Attorney General and um I think the outside legal council memo addressed that so um I'm it's not going to do me any good to turn this meeting into a legal um uh to start deciding on

119the law and trying to debate the law because nobody else none of you lawyers so it would not be fair so I would just say that I stand by outside legal councils none of us have an individual right to to it but I do agree that we can come up with a policy for that we work towards a committee put together a committee and come up with a policy that allows for extenda circumstances or um some compelling reason um and go from [Music] there any other comments so when would this be done well um I guess I guess I I understand what you're saying Tracy that we might not have an example of a compelling reason and things like that I guess [Music] um I'm contemplating right now if I think that there is enough

120information from each board member for two people to go on a committee and come up with a policy um and how we would go about that or I hate to say this because I don't want to lengthen the meeting but or if we need more discussion so I guess can we can we kind of outline where we're at we all agree we would like to put together a policy we all agree that there should be some possibly guidelines in the policy um Veronica brought up looking into district 41s and I know a little bit about theirs but not or any other ones I and Sue Has examples of three I guess what I'm thinking here is possibly have two people volunteer for this committee because we have not set committees yet reminder turn your papers

121into me but volunteers for this committee to go to you know to work on this and bring something forward to the board I volunteer and I volunteer but I think we need more discussion about it obviously but not tonight tonight okay so I guess then I'm going to ask you guys how do you want to move forward because I Janette I acknowledge that you want to have this and Cody I think you want to have this settled quicker rather than later and um right could we develop a in in the meantime agreement be you know before we come up with a policy I think that would require a lot more discussion tonight and I I don't know that I'm ready for that because I really want to see those examples um I I don't see

122anything wrong I don't I don't see the Need for Speed at the moment unless there's something that I'm missing but as much as I don't like things to be belabored I also think a small committee with two plus some staff looking into what other people are doing and coming back to the board with that information and then coming to some consensus I don't I don't see anything wrong with that but that would require a few couple different meetings how are we feeling down here I'm trying to we're having side conversations if if we can figure out what we're doing here I think it is beneficial I think it's great that U Miss Ward and Miss Ellis are both on the committee I think that'll provide um a nice diversity of ideas yeah and um I'd

123be curious to know what what Miss Ward's uh you know temp temporary situation or temporary agreement is uh just out of curiosity um but I am for developing a policy to put it in place um and I think uh those are the two best board members I have on that committee do you have some idea of temporary uh well say in as a temporary agreement maybe uh board members could listen to the past two years years some finite time period in that regard past or the past 18 months before they're destroyed perhaps that's not a temporary agreement that's what you're asking us to develop a policy on that's that's the whole kitten Kabuto okay and just so we we cannot destroy any records we cannot destroy the audio until this board directs us to destroy

124it I just want to clarify that um they have to be held in in a safe until this board tells us we can destroy them but aren't there um recordings that will be destroyed in accordance with the schedule of the previous boards voting on things like for example when they come up upon 18 months won't they be destroyed If the previous board voted no we will have to vote the the previous board voted on the ones that were prior to the last 18 months but the past 18 months we still have and they are being held and they will not be destroyed until this board tells us otherwise and and I think the previous board approved the minutes to go with the closed session correct okay so 18 months previous to today or say the

125end of June those will not be destroyed okay no there's there's no if that's what you're worried about destroy minutes no that will not happen okay so then then we can develop a policy then okay I'd also like to um ask sukur if she would consider being on the committee okay um well I'd like to ask you if you consider adding a third person to oh wouldn't that I don't know that that would be a problem that would not be a problem anyway right mean we would all be able to go to the meeting correct correct yes yes establish like the finance committee meeting all of us were there yeah okay then let's do that we will establish the committee with Mrs Ward Mrs Ellis and Mrs C and um I would imagine that Mr

126Rodriguez of course person I'll be happy that would so can you contact and get a committee meeting together yes I will and we'll move forward on this and I presume that this would fall under the school board portion of the policy so it' be the section two board government policy yes correct thank you I just want to make sure we posted it correctly and as another reminder just cuz we needed a committee so quickly this time can you guys fill out those forms committee sign up do I have them yeah you should I'll have Katie or I'll have Kieran send them out again and then write down your choice your highest Cho your first three or four choices that would be great because I think I lost them too me too M I'll have them

127resend it mine are in a pile on my dining room table I don't throw it out but uh yeah she wants to send it she'll get it back quicker find her I could if I had to but it'll be quicker if she emails it okay I will have Karen send those out and if you guys could send those back to me then I'll put together permanent committees so that when things come up we know what committee who will be on that committee all right anything else okay next item sorry CAC you're now [Music] good evening uh my name is mine Vos and I'm um one of the co-chairs for family and community engag ment I'd like to start tonight by uh thanking Patrick Magi our former uh director of school and community relations I'd also

128like to thank Carla Jimenez our parent community outreach coordinator for their ongoing support and encouragement of our committee's work and we also want to thank Judy Davenport who did a wonderful administrative support to our PTO and PTA initiative CC family and Community engagement is dedicated to strengthening the family and Community participation in the Improvement of student achievement at the school and District levels we're in our seventh year of work and the committee is as always determined to explore this year we decided to explore three initiatives to address various Avenues and Community engagement at u46 our goals for the current year were to improve the perception of school dist District u46 in the communities that are served and we call this initiative u46 a fresh look I'll talk about that a little later on our second

129was to begin to develop a network of support for our PTO and PTA um in our schools and then Seth render will be talking about that and also we wanted to look at providing support to the transformation schools and Amy noelli will speak to that so we um decided that we had identified a concern that Realtors presenting uh property in our district did not have the tools or information to um you know successfully and positively sell property within the u46 uh District so it was suggested that our Committee conduct informational meetings with local Realtors to change their perception and to give them the tools to sell within our property so in order to reach out these realtors in time for the busy spring selling season we held breakfasts on April 8th and April 13th 2015

130uh at teft elementary te middle school and El and uh an Elgen Larin high school and so we went ahead and promoted our breakfast we contacted the membership of the realtor uh Association of the Fox Valley uh K County connect shamberg Business Association Chicago Tribune Courier News uh and we also um was it was also included in the things you should know that u46 puts out the uh u46 website uh the CEO Tony Sanders weekly message thank you for that and the CAC Facebook page uh and we also sent it out to the Chambers of Commerce in our area these two events we had 35 realtors that uh registered and 20 attended unfortunately um at our um at our te school we didn't have any show up at I think we have a reason why

131and um and then at our lar in it was very well attended um and so we some of the Realtors told us that at the te location there aren't any realtor offices nearby and so Larin happened to be a much better place because I was I was leaving Larin High School across the street I saw all these different offices I'm like okay so that that's something we need to look at next year if we're going to do this again and I think we are um the hourong session started at 9: uh with an introdu ction uh by Kai Rush then Tony sunders did a wonderful um PowerPoint presentation highlighting everything that's wonderful in our district an overview of Lin high school was done by doc the principal Dr Tuan and then I also covered and

132did a presentation on all the other offerings in the community surrounding Elgen and in our wonderful libraries and um and I just want to say each one of us that presented always started out with a testimonial as to why we in intentionally sought to purchase property within the school district and to put our kids through the district and I for one I'm very happy with the education that my children have gotten I think it's been Stellar so I I couldn't you know say it any more than we did we you know we're so happy the um we gave each realtor a a packet that looked like this and um in it they got a u a map that highlighted all the boundaries of the middle Elementary and Lin High School this they love the immediately

133opened it up and we're pouring all over it um they also got a fact at a glance sheet that we told the realter don't leave don't do a a a home showing without one of these just and so they were quite happy to have this again all of the the wonderful things happening in our district Communications guideline they got a calendar uh they got a presentation regarding a gifted and um El Special Ed I mean it's the things that make our our our district so special and they were very pleased to have these tools so that when they sell homes they now know what to um tell them this is why you should buy within our school district u46 and like I said it this is something that we're looking at hopefully doing again next

134year I hope to work with a realtor who wants to give us more input as to where we should do these and what type of information they're looking for thank you I'll turn it over to Seth thank you mine so um the second initiative that we really um went into great detail in was creating P PTA parent group network so um this is something that I felt very strongly about coming from my daughter's school because um really we we feel as though there's a little bit of um difficulty in getting information from the school district in regards to different ways that uh