001School board to order. Can we please rise for the pledge of allegiance? Take roll call. Melissa Ryan. Dr. Goldfine. Here. Adrian Chavez. Here. Ron Petrie here. Amy Burke. Here. And John Winter is absent with notice. Very well. This is one of the best meetings of the year because we have a lot of very good things to recommend. Okay, so we are going to, we will acknowledge the students recognized by the faculty of their school for their exemplary academic progress. This annual, it provides the opportunity for the faculty to reflect on the accomplishments of a student who has exhibited determination and often has overcome challenges. And so each principal will read the letter and present the framed copy of this letter to the student. And then of course, we will have a photo opportunity. And so
002we're going to start with Mary-Ju Early Learning Center and Ms. Silka. All right, let's clap for her. Board of Education and Dr. McDermott. I am so excited tonight to introduce you to the MD 2026 school year coming to us from early intervention. Braden was quiet, hesitant. He spoke very little, primarily communicating with adults. Social interactions were hard. I spoke with Braden today and asked, so you can see how far he has come. Fast forward to today, Braden is a leader and is resilient and a confident friend. He has built strong friendships with other peers and adults with respect. We are so grateful to him for his story to do great things next year in kindergarten. Elementary student, Braden. And next up we have Mrs. Boss, elementary student. Good evening, everyone. Our first student for kindergarten,
003Rebecca Lashier, and the letter that our staff has written about her. We're so very proud of her. As Rebecca, as our 2025-2026 exemplary student. She has earned this and the kind of building. She began her career in the early childhood crew back there. Those are familiar faces. Through social work support, mental delays. For three school years, she began kindergarten in a self-contained way halfway through the year, quickly emerged as a leader, making friends and excelling academically. And is showing at or above grade level age-appropriate skills and leadership qualities. In just three years, she has transformed from a student with three area. Every single staff who has worked with her to school, and every kind friend to have in the classroom. She has shown responsibility, patience, empathy in the classroom, and her enthusiasm. I don't know
004if you heard her, but she actually was leading us. We started the pledge, which is something we do. Through her hard work and perseverance, she's made her language and her country shine more brightly each day. And it's been a joy to witness her growth and celebrate all that she has accomplished. We exemplify what it means to overcome adversity with grace and strength. Congratulations. If any- Mr. Bradley and Mrs. Bolfer, if you would come up and introduce your fourth grade student. We can't compete with him up here, we just can't. Ha ha ha ha. I have Dr. Adam Nassar with the Summit Hills School District Exemplary Student Award. Adam's incredibly kind, has a tremendous sense of humor. Adam embraces difficult tasks. The DJR team has observed him grow tremendously through- Adam recently shared with Ms. Pearson
005that he knew as a fourth grader it was time to level up. Adam's motivation and determination is inspiring. He has a good friend, hardworking, loyal, naturally gravitate to, whether they want to play, chat, or read a story. Jokes, motivational phrases for himself and others. Witnessing the amount of growth he has achieved throughout his years at Rogus is difficult to put into words, but one can learn. First grade, Adam- the athlete, supported, which is supported by standout- has grown so- and out fourth grade students that coaches first grade students for the event. His comical funny guy, Flair, for their events. Adam is funny towards classmates. He actively participates in lessons because he truly thrived and shined at the most when his snack was awesome and he became more confident in- grow and has witnessed him being
006kind to each others each and every week. And Ms. Balfour has shared that her proud- working with was struggling with big emotions. Adam, I used to be like you. Balfour walked back to her office and shed a few tears because it solidified what we've always known about Adam. As you have heard, Adam is incredibly- remarkable growth and profound impact Adam has made every school day. It has been our privilege to witness Adam become the amazing student he is today. To be exemplary is to be a model worthy of imitation. So proud of you. Next up we have Mrs. Dana Wright. Love, love this time of year. Commitment to academic excellence and exemplary behavior. Zach has consistently demonstrated a strong attitude. Pictures both past and present. Zach is a sweet, caring, and empathetic person. He cares
007about things warmth and positivity to those around him. There's not a day that goes by where Zach is not actually in this evolving technological world we live in. Confidence in himself, socially and academically. Though naturally and participating in class and has engaging stories to share from his experiences on the weekends, vacations and daily life. Despite facing some health obstacles in the past, he continues to approach each day with strength for his core subjects in fourth grade. His future, he was asked if he would like to challenge but not normally be doing in his current ELA classroom. Zach was excited and willing to do extra work on top of exemplifies his work ethic and dedication to striving to be the best student he can be. Throughout Zach's years at Indian Trail, he has shown amazing growth
008in the academic areas as well as socially and emotionally. Schoolwork and in those social settings. Congratulations, Zach. And I cannot be more proud of you. Would Mary Ann Hauerhand from Walker Intermediate School please come forward. It is with great pride and enthusiasm that we, the staff and administration of Hilton, for the 25 schools of an outstanding student, classmate and teachers describe her as a true Walker Wildcat, safe. She approaches each day with a positive and desire to learn and improve this year, noting that her hard work and demotivating full ideas to discussions. One teacher shared that she fully participates in class and works well with others. While another person shares something she does not understand. Her perseverance and confidence have continued to grow throughout the year as more and take academic risks. Beyond academics, Leah's
009kind around her, caring, considerate, and real. Leah demonstrates kindness, empathy, and respect toward all of her peers. While another noted that she understands the impact that words can have on those around her. And Leah helps create a positive and inclusive environment and willingness to try new things have also made a lasting impression on the artist who is still developing her style but is not afraid to try on the track team or interacting with her peers, Leah consistently brings everything that she does. More importantly, Leah is simply a joy to have at Walker both this year. One teacher summed it up perfectly by saying, she is a pleasure to be around recognition. Your hard work determines the model for others. We are incredibly proud of all you have come for to your success that your future
010holds. On behalf of the entire staff of Hilda. We have a special treat for you for Summit Hill Junior High School. The eighth grade students are at Great America. Now, I know that a board meeting is really exciting but that student is not here. And so we have a video prepared. We're gonna ask Mr. Perkins to go ahead and play the video introducing our eighth grade exemplary student. With exemplary student is always recognized in our same day as Great America, this student and me will not be available. Instead, we plan to recognize this student as most exemplary. With that said, I want to read a letter that it's everything about me. Student staff at Summit Hill Junior High, we continuously reflect on academic objectives. Moreover, we think deeply and carefully our pursuit of knowledge in
011our students to encourage them to realize their fullest potentials and to move onward as productive, fulfilled adults. It is within truly move towards these educational allies Adam and Cook. With the 21 must demonstrate positive behavior and involvement in the community. And Addie is a student who does, who meets her challenges head on with optimism and persistence. Addie is a demeanor. She is liked by her peers because of her cheerful disposition. Across the school day, Addie is ready to make meaningful connections with academics in the classroom. Addie will get right to work. Her academic gains, when they have amounts, I'm sorry, when they have moments of security. It is extremely impressive to see how well Addie maintains her student and how enthusiastic it's quiet in seventh and eighth grade. Addie beams in every performance. Involvement in
012school activities. She truly has a knack for the stage and we are excited to watch her love for performance. Teachers and me very proud and with humility, she responds to compliments graciously and she simply has a smile and bright eyes always. We as a school community are so proud to award Addie and Cook for her virtues as a student. Wow, some of that is very emotional because we love our kids. There is this other student here tonight and what an absolute privilege and honor to have had the opportunity to work alongside our eighth grade student board member, Leah Calzaretta this year. We wanted to take a moment to honor and thank Leah for stepping forward with vision, courage, and deep commitment to using her voice to help us adults understand schools from a student's perspective
013a little bit better. Leah, your leadership, what you have personally lent to us will continue to set the stage for all future student board of education members. We always waited eagerly for your input, your reports, and we have all learned a tremendous amount from you this year. Thank you also to your parents for an equal commitment to offer their time to attend meetings. We appreciate that. Offer rides so that you could participate. Your child with us, we are also deeply grateful to you. If you've attended or watched our meeting, she actually is doing this right now, you'll notice a wry smile from time to time. A topic and don't for one second underestimate her, especially when we're talking about. She is here to make change happen just like her. In fact, your legacy lives in
014the classroom, every achievement and every hopeful future that we help build for the children who call Summit Hill School District 161 their home. With deep appreciation, please accept this student board of education plaque commemorating your service to the people of 161. You've done an excellent job. And now something new this year, we have seventh grade junior student board of education members to Olivia Davis and Sean Stewart Jr. These wonderful students who are sitting right here in the front row, contributions this year and helping make sure that all of your emails to me, efforts with suggestion boxes are noticed and greatly appreciated. This board is intent on carving out room very intentionally so that student voice has a place in the conversations in our district. And you have both faithfully served in this role, always engaged
015and always present. Thank you so much for being a part of this process. Please come forward to receive your certificates. Thank you again for being our student board members. State science fair. So let's announce our students, the certificates are in the podium. We would like to recognize the students in the summit program that have spent the majority of this year working successfully on their individual science fair project. The Illinois Junior Academy of Science exists for the benefit of students in the state of Illinois by guiding them and hosting several science fairs throughout Illinois, which culminate with the state site into the problem space by scientists and the methodology scientists use. It encourages students to find information concerning new investigations and discoveries in science. It allows students to experiment using scientific equipment and allows them to
016develop their own investigation beyond the classroom and progress towards a career in STEM. We celebrated our students accomplishments at the science expo in January, at the Illinois Junior Academy of Science regional paper and project sessions. This smaller group of students presented their project to two to three judges and defended their results in March. During the first weekend in May, students competed at the IJAS state competition at the Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. As a collective group, they earned 12 gold medals and one silver medal as they competed against the top junior high students across the state of Illinois. This year, our number of state finalists have decreased due to a few changes at the IJAS state level, not in both like in the past because they are occurring at the same time. Also, each
017student is required to present their project three times over the weekend in order to increase the validity of their score from numerous judges. Consequently, some students couldn't commit to attending all three sessions over Friday and Saturday. We would like to thank all of the parents for their support and time judging other students projects and their nine process of education, our administrators, all of the summit teachers and the tech department for their assistance with this challenging project. It's a very rewarding and extensive process. So congratulations to our hardworking students. Please join us to recognize and celebrate the following state qualifying participants, the IJAS state exposition paper session awardees. That's a mouthful. Our paper session is Vivian Dombroski, Hailey Fine, Nafimi Solomon, Adeline Workman, Lexi Reset, Alex Inkson, Logan Nola, Jameson Hoosman, and Oscar Verla. Oscar and
018Jameson also earned a top 10 paper, which means they earned the highest scores in the junior high category across the state of Illinois in the Thurman Fisher JIC nominee award. I know some of our students are in great America. Those of you who are here, please step forward. The IJAS state exposition poster session, gold rating, Bella Heitner, Lily Rumba, Shania Ajibiha, silver rating, Alexander Jenkins, and he also won the Yale Engineering Incorporated Award. That's exciting. Additionally, Vivian Dombroski is the recipient of the Jamie Jasper Science Award for her extra effort and volunteering to assist her peers through all the technical difficulties that were encountered this year. Hailey Fine is the recipient of the Annette Schmidt Science Fair Award for her project on baseball bats. Can we please give these students a round of applause? We
019have such a great vantage point from the front of the room because we can see the teachers and administrators' faces from the elementary schools as they see what happens to students in intermediate and junior high school, they get much, much bigger. And so it's contributions across the entire continuum of our school system that enables our students to participate in these programs. And so we'll move right into our summit awards. So this is very exciting. So we're gonna move from students to staff. We are excited to have two summit award winners yet again this month. In fact, we have so many, we have about the first half of next year booked already. We are excited to recognize Mary Dempsey who is nominated by parent Vicki Yusa for going above and beyond for her student. Mary has
020worked in our district for 25 years, all of them at Walker. And she was hired in 2001 as a fifth grade teacher before moving to sixth grade science during the 13-14 school year. So we tapped Maura Carroll, the principal, and said, can you give us some information about how people feel about Mary in the building? And here's what we received. Over the last 10 years, I've truly enjoyed working alongside Mary and getting to know her both as an educator and a person. She is the kind of teacher whose impact is felt not only in her classroom, but throughout the entire building. Many people may not know that Mary is the very first staff member to arrive at Walker every single day. She begins her mornings quietly preparing for the day of head, grading assignments, planning
021lessons, and organizing her classroom long before many of our students or maybe even some of our staff members are awake for the day. Her dedication and work ethic are remarkable and they set the tone for the care and professionalism she brings to her students each and every day. Mary is exceptionally patient and always willing to support a student in need. Countless lunches have been spent helping students who need extra guidance, reassurance, or simply some time to complete an assignment. She runs a tight ship in her classroom but students love her for Mary's greatest gifts is her ability to connect with sixth grade students through humor. She had mastered the nuanced art of using sarcasm in a way that makes students laugh and feel included and never embarrassed or hurt. That balance is incredibly rare and
022it is a part of what makes her such a favorite amongst our sixth graders. As students often say, she's low-key hilarious. And in sixth grade, that is a compliment from sixth grade students about an adult. On a personal level, Mary is the kind of person who takes the time to truly know people. She asks about your family. She remembers what's going on in your life and she finds thoughtful ways to show she cares. Sometimes it's a fresh loaf of lemon blueberry bread or tomatoes from her garden. Other times it's something much bigger like making a blanket for your ailing family member or she notices when someone is having a difficult week and more than once, she has, Maura Carroll has arrived to work to find a bag of candy in her mailbox with a note
023from Mary reminding her to hang in there. Mary Dempsey is a deeply kind and caring person, a dear friend to many on our staff and truly one of a kind. I know I am better for knowing her and incredibly grateful for her friendship, support and example she sets in our school. She is exceptionally deserving of this recognition. Mary, will you please come forward? Okay, I have a lot of stories to share about this next person. Next up is Summit Hill Junior High Band Director, Kim Coughlin. She is in her 45th year of teaching in our district, 45 years. Kim was the first full-time band director hired by the district and has spent her entire career sharing music with the students of Summit Hill. She was nominated by Associate Principal, Monica Lox, who wrote the following.
024As a dedicated and talented music educator, Kim has consistently shown excellence in teaching, creativity and instruction, and a deep commitment to student growth and success. Under her leadership, students have not only developed strong musical skills, but also a lasting appreciation for the arts. She fosters an inclusive and inspiring classroom environment where all students feel valued and motivated to reach their potential. Beyond the classroom, Mrs. Coughlin has enriched our school community through concerts, performances and extracurricular music programs that bring people together and celebrate student talent. She exemplifies the qualities of an outstanding educator who is passionate, skilled and devoting to making a difference in the lives of her students. I can think of no one more deserving of this recognition. Summit Hill Junior High Principal, Miss Goble adds, Kim has impacted the lives of countless students
025throughout her career, inspiring them to grow not only in their musical talents, but in confidence, creativity and passion. For more than 40 years, she has demonstrated unwavering dedication to students and to the arts program at Summit Hill. In addition to her impact in the classroom, she has been an integral part of our drama productions, musical review performances, creating memorable experiences and opportunities that students will carry with them for years to come. It's truly the icing on the cake. She is admirable, kind, impactful and incredibly deserving of this recognition. We are so grateful to have her continuous contributions to our school community and we are incredibly lucky to have her. Thank you, Kim, will you please come forward? This is Katie. At this time, we would like to present our second annual community, Maseracos Community Contributor
026Award. This idea for community service award came from myself and Patrick Oliphant. We have created a tradition of honoring a community member whose service to the district has gone above and beyond and impacted our schools, students and staff. This year, we would like to recognize Mr. Kevin Brown. All right, we have a little background. Mr. Ream writes, it is with immense gratitude that we recognize Kevin Brown as the recipient of the Community Contributor Award. Kevin has been a steadfast volunteer and collaborator within our district's music programs for many years and his tireless dedication has left an incredible mark on our school community. To stepping up for any need that arises, Kevin has always been someone we know we can depend on. His willingness to give his time and talents extends for far beyond expectation. Even
027after his own children were no longer at Hilda Walker, Kevin continued volunteering his time to support their musical production, demonstrating that his generosity is rooted in the genuine desire to serve and strengthen our school community. Kevin is not only generous with his time all of our staff, everybody that worked so hard to honor and recognize, we appreciate you. And at this time, we are going to allow you to exit. So you can enjoy the rest of your evening while we continue our meeting. Stick around, there might be pyrotechnics, there might be snacks. Ronnie has a dance for everyone. Next up on the agenda is the freedom of information requests. After last month's barrage, I think we had eight in the data research team. It was contract and purchase orders. So that's more of a commercial
028nature and that has been completed. Moving on to the final board meetings of the school year and also my last board meeting as a student board member. I would like to thank the board for allowing me to have this wonderful experience and to be able to learn and grow as much as I did this past year. My time in this district, from being a kindergartner at Rogus to now being an eighth grader and about to enter a new chapter of my life has been so special and I'm so grateful for all of the opportunities that have come my way. Being a student board member above them all. No matter where my future may take me, I'll always remember the time I had on the 161 Board of Education and will take the skills I learned.
029Thank you again for your service and representation. Moving on to 4D public comments, let's start with Virginia board members. I would like to thank you for this amazing opportunity and thank you for accepting me as a junior student board member. I would also like to thank you communication class for coming up here to present my statement. I would also like to thank Olivia and Leah to come up here and have a great night everyone. Good evening board members. I would just like to thank you guys all for this amazing opportunity and I would just like to thank the board members, Dr. McDermott, so teacher, Ms. Kerr. Thank you. Have a great night. Thank you both as well. Moving on to Jill Boer center. Throughout the year, the staff has done so many remarkable things that
030may or may not have gone unnoticed. The teachers on a daily basis go above and beyond from what they are called to do. In the past few months, the teachers and students, this event brought smiles to all the kids faces as they I think I can to look what I can do. The married you chickens were the highlight to everyone's experience taught the kids responsibility, empathy, and the creation of relationship daily updates to also give and to connect the home and child, the home. And I wanna thank all to make this experience and a highlight for everybody. This past Friday, the children 64 parents signed up, which is a great improvement for the first year. The parents engage with their kids in every fun way possible. Parents and family members and grandparents played games. The
031staff at Mary Drew is not just their student teachers. They are the individual, they are individuals also. From the building, you don't just see the love, you feel the love. There is not a day that passes that every student walks out of that as greetings at the front door, encouragement and praise when they leave the building to continue their day and to be successful. From the ribbon cutting to the final weeks of the 2026 school year, memories were created for this school that will leave a lasting impression on all the children, staff, and families that have walked through those doors. Lastly, I wanna give a shout out to nurse Laura, to the children, but providing the magic band-aid or a hug as well. Laura has done everything to help make their duties as assigned role.
032I really hope in the future, you get a chance to come into the building and see these moments unfold and they get to make it to your calendar to see the dedication and growth of not only your littlest learners, but your staff as well. Thank you. Thank you for hopefully starting a trend and inspiring other community outreach members to come and. Can I just add, I wanna thank Jill. I don't, hopefully she doesn't mind, but Jill helps in plans and is behind a lot of what she just talked about too. So I don't know where she ran to, but I need to mention she was behind, you know, and had her hand in very heavily. So, and they were all amazing. So thank you for helping make it a great experience and year for me
033and my family. Lisa Brace. Hi, I just, my name is Lisa Brace. I'm a Summit Hill parent and community member. And around AI and the presenting from your advisory council. AI is searched through millions of rows of records, hundreds of tables, thousands of fields. I can't do that as efficiently as a computer can, beings. So when we say AI is artificial intelligence, we have to cautiously approach the word intelligence because the algorithm behind it, adage garbage in, garbage out still applies when it comes to artificial intelligence. What's being used, we can't just open it up and let it out of the country, how it can be misused. Intelligent-led education is incredibly dangerous and does a disservice for us. Our leaders on the board and administrators are, you talk with others and I think we need
034to have very serious conversations with intelligence and schools for the future, for the future. Really our world is human beings. So I want to win the prize there and make sure that it doesn't run away. The rapid expansion is really the thoughtfulness behind it will be beneficial to our. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you very much. Moving on to 4E, AI Advisory Council presentation. All right, good evening. Of the Summit Hill AI Advisory Council. This is a new council that started this year and the purpose of our council team was to collaboratively work together to explore how we can implement AI thoughtfully and effectively in the district. So I first want to say we have a wonderful committee of teachers, administrators, coaches who come after school using their own time to talk about AI so I
035appreciate every single person who comes and we also sometimes invite a special guest. Matt Sherrill is somebody who works for the LTC which stands for the Learning Technology Center. They are associated with Illinois and so he sometimes comes as a thought partner. That's what we'll call him to just hear what our ideas are and what's best practice with AI right now. So he is also part of, I like to include him as our committee member since he attends. All right, so some of the work that the team has done, we've done a lot. We've done a lot of research and we meet together and we spent our huge focus on staff this year. So not really AI with students but AI with our staff members just to ensure that us as the educators know the
036ins and outs before it goes anywhere else. So we really developed language for our student handbook and then we evaluated tools because there's a lot of tools out there. There's Chet GBT, Gemini, Magic School core values are of the district, our mission statement and determine what our super tool we'll call it will be for the district. And what I mean by super tool is a tool that we'll utilize when we're doing trainings for teachers and when we're talking about using AI which tool are we using rather than everyone being all over the place and then when they need support, well, because they're using a different tool perhaps they didn't have the training. So Gemini became our super tool for the district just because of the safety measures it had. That was one that was recommended
037by the LTC too since we have the Google suite here at Summit Hill. It was the best one to move forward with. So our team determined to move forward with Gemini. So then we thought about thoughtful and meaningful training for teachers. How can we give them training that's going to help them to enhance their instruction, not just use it to use it but how are we using it? What are we gonna do with it? So our committee sat down and then we came up with what we call a strategic plan of our AI implementation and I'll show you that on this next slide. So we kind of decided we needed like a continuum. Where are we and where are we going? Where do we wanna be? So we just talked about awareness like everyone being
038aware of AI, the safeguards for AI, the ethics behind it, how to use it, when to use it and supporting our teachers so that they can have those to enhance their instruction. So we're moving along on this continuum. We're not quite at AI enhanced yet. We definitely did our AI aware, AI informed and now our AI engaged is kind of where we're at right now where we're going beyond the ethics, beyond the safeguards. We know that, we know AI is not the end all be all. We have the 80-20 rule, what comes out we need to look at and ensure that it's accurate information that we're working with. And we will continue to work as a district and some of the training we've done so far. So I mentioned the LTC already. So we had
039them come out. They did an excellent presentation on the ethics, the security and safety and just understanding AI. Where is it going? It's moving quickly and we wanna move with it. We don't wanna be behind in the times and we wanna know what's there. And then we, after picking the super tool, we moved to the Gemini training. So we're like scaffolding that right now. So our AI training for that was how to use Gemini. They have something called Gems in there, which is prompts, how to use those prompts effectively. And then we didn't wanna forget our family and our community. So we decided to have an AI family night and we invited the community and parents to come on May 6th and we actually had Matt Sherrill who I mentioned earlier. He's a lead in
040AI for Illinois. And so he came out and did a presentation for parents just to see like how are kids using AI nowadays and what can you do to keep your kids safe and what are the excellent things about AI. It doesn't stop here, right? AI is everyday evolving so we need to evolve with it. So next year what we really wanna do for our teachers is content specific training. So yes, I know all about AI. Yes, I know all about prompts, but how can I use it in my math class? How can I use it in my science class? How can I enhance my instruction for my students with the use of AI but more specifically with practical strategies for them? So our next steps we will continue to meet as an AI advisory
041council. Our focus this year was big on teacher training, staff training and then next year we wanna start talking about student awareness. What is our student awareness gonna look like? We don't have those answers quite yet. July 1st we're supposed to get some guidance from the state so we'll look at that and see how to move forward. But as of right now the focus was on our staff and our teachers. Thank you. Great job, Denise. Thank you. Lots of. Researching this, going over the possibilities, making the contacts and all of the efforts and particularly your vision on this. The district is in a much better place because you have. And really thank you very much. Thank you, I appreciate that. I'd like to thank the team to all the members that have put time and
042effort into this. I think it's important that we're not letting this go by the wayside, we're not ignoring it while still maintaining our focus on our core curriculum but recognizing and slowly, we're aware and kind of getting one step ahead or at least being in a position to do that too. Yeah, I think just to piggyback on that, it's basically what the internet was, rushing and it's gonna be moving and we, like you said, we need to be moving with it and understanding it. Community member mentioned there are some schools out there that are kind of leveraging it in different ways. So we wanna also be kind of attuned to that and just see where either the missteps are and see where we could either be daring or where we need to be a little
043bit more conservative with it but obviously safety and understanding how it can get away from us and it can be pretty dangerous and we have to consider that as well, especially with our young minds and our kids when it comes to tech, cell phones comes to mind, obviously, right? So this is cell phones on ROIDs. So we need to kind of just keep our. I wanna shout out Mr. Perkins. We're together in it just to align the district altogether. Absolutely. So yeah, it was a second. Thank you for starting to move this ball in the right direction. I'm happy that you guys came out and report this to us. My biggest concern is like our kids need to be consistent learners and not allowing it to be a tool of just getting answers. And so
044we can't run away from it, it's there and it's gonna be part of their lives forever and so we have to be able to safeguard that but also make themselves be able to be creative on themselves to be able to solve things and understand how to solve those things without just copying it down from AI. AI can do a lot of things and so those are gonna be my safeguards that I would going forward is that we use it as a tool but not use it as the whole gauntlet of them be able to get whatever they need out of it. Agreed. Yeah, Mr. Petrie, our committee felt the same way too. They said critical thinking skills for students are essential so before getting it in the hands of the kids, we need to build
045those skills. Just thinking out loud, but just on that as well, I think the council could also maybe should tap into some of the students and understand also where the students are on this, right? And what are they kind of being either exposed or understanding already? You know, because we, I don't know if I missed that but that's, we need to know where they are as well and meet them where they are, right? So there's a lot to learn there as well as to how they're adopting it or where they're getting that information from and where they're learning that. So, Leah. You just have to watch your facial expressions. Yeah, yeah. Do any of our student board members have anything to add on AI as we start looking at utilizing this tool? Say, Kamachana, come
046right up to the microphone there. Thank you. Making sure students don't make websites to cheat or play games because of. Our teachers like tell us to use AI sometimes. Like my math teacher, we were boarding class so we were making games on AI. So AI is not like a bad thing. We just have to learn to use it correctly. Thank you guys for your feedback. It was really great. All right. Four F letters and communications are at the end of the board book for easy navigating. And moving on to 5A consent agenda. I move that we approve the items on the consent agenda for this meeting as presented including the committee meeting minutes of April 20th, 26. 5A1B regular session meeting minutes of April 22nd, 26. 5A1C closed session meeting minutes of April 22nd, 26.
0475A2 approval of April treasurer's report slash financial report. 5A3 approval of bills list of May 20th, 26. 5A4 approval of retirement resignation of staff. Retirement of staff, William Tedeschi effective December 31st, 2026. Resignation of staff, Amy Curtin effective May 4th, 26. Rachel Mackey effective at the end of the 25-26 school year. Mary Silfa effective at the end of the 25-26 school year. Susan Ward effective May 29th, 26. Renee Pinkston effective July 9th, 26. Davion Bennett effective May 15th, 26. 5A5 approval of family medical leave, none at this time. 5A6 approval of employment of staff. Sarah Soisick enrichment camp teacher. Joy Galvin ESY worker. Ymir Gonzalez ESY paraprofessional. Jessica Clark ESY paraprofessional. Monica Blakely social worker for the 26-27 school year. Christina Urso paraprofessional at DJR for the 26-27 school year. Alexis Harmon paraprofessional at DJR
048for the 26-27 school year. 5A7 approval of job description, Senate Bill 7. 5A8 approval to purchase approved items from CDWG Firewall. We are separating 5A9, so moving on to 5A10. Authorization of annual claim for pupil transportation reimbursement for the 25-26 year. 5A11 approval of continuation of supplemental bus transportation program. 5A12 authorization to submit for 26-27 grants. 5A13 approval of the Summit Hill junior high grade eight to Washington DC trip for 2027. 5A14 first reading of board policies. 5A15 discussion to purchase additional crowd strike licenses. Do I have that motion? Motion. So second. Okay, do we have discussion on any of those items? Can I have A8 pulled to vote on separately? Okay, what about eight, I'm sorry? She wants to pull eight. Oh, pull eight, so we'll play eight. So can I amend the motion
049to not include eight? Second. Okay, do we have any discussion on any of those items besides eight and nine? Okay, roll call. All right, roll call. Joy Murphy. Aye. Ron Petrie, aye. Melissa Ryan. Aye. Adrian Chavez. Aye. Amy Burke. Aye. And Patrick Goldfine. Aye. Motion carries. So we'll start with 5A8, the approval for the firewall. What page is it on again? 97. Thank you very much, appreciate it. Did you have any discussion? Well, I just don't think I'm voting. We'd be using this one and we'd keep the other one as a backup. As a backup, but I don't wanna spend that money right now. I'm gonna vote no. Yeah, I mean, I feel like we had some life left on this, right? The firewall. A couple years, yeah. No, go ahead. Both kind of go
050hand in hand for me anyway, Amy, but just that we have, it seems like a lot of expenses that we need to take care of right now. And I just feel like we need to focus on more than needs right now. After bowl voting on expenses that aren't needs until we have a contract in place. I don't know if I could say that, sorry, but that's just how I feel. I feel like we need to take care of all that and maybe hold off on stuff that's not really urgent. I agree with you. I mean, again, not saying never, just not now. Right. I second a lot of the things that you're saying because there are other needs in the district right now that are more important right now. So I would like to get
051those things taken care of first, before we move forward with voting through some of these technology things. So do I have a motion to table the approval for the purchase of the firewall? Yeah, of course, 100%. I know I was, and I know I guess I invited myself up here to talk to you. What I need you to know is for two more years, old firewall, then it would be for us to purchase the new one for that this is a, so the license that, that licensing will cost us $30,000. The proposal for the Fortinet firewall using e-rate funds is $18,000 for five years. It's not in 102, 102. So I just want you that, yes, it does have life to keep the old one, that new firewall. I just want to be very transparent.
052When do we license this? Like at what point are we gonna get a bill for that? We would get a bill for it in July. Two years? One year. So the old one running for two more years because it'll be considered end of life. So if we don't spend the 30, that means we don't have the backup. If we don't spend the protection on the firewall. So. Okay, hold on, hold on. I'm trying to think, okay? Okay. So I was kind of listening to you. We have, okay. If we have it for two, pay $30,000. I have no support on that. So I'm sorry. I know, but hold on. There's one, I don't know what I'm missing. So you're saying that we have, if we buy this, we'll have this. Then we've got the backup,
053which is, okay. But how will we have a backup if we're not gonna pay the 30,000? The way I'm using that backup is that we're talking the worst case. I have a, the firewall is a single point of failure. I have everything configured still on, bring our district back up quickly as I'm working to get the support from the Paul or from. We don't pay the 30 or a period of one day. We don't have the $30,000 subscription. Then we don't, we can't use that. That's correct. But how is that, but we don't got it. You know, I'm just a little confused. Sure. That means I'm able to get software updates for it. That means I'm able to current updates like stay current against any malware or firewall is still good. That Palo Alto is
054still good. We're just gonna keep it in case like, again, if I didn't have, if I didn't keep the Palo Alto, then you're dead in that new one to license on a product that I'm. License give us then. So it gives me 24 seven by three. You're two years with it, but it gives us very limited amount of stuff. Correct. So in response to your question, if I, if the board happened to that Palo Alto, I have no ability to call Palo Alto for any assistance. You pay $18,000 and it's done. It's a five year long. We don't talk about a firewall again until, until 2031. It's an all in one five year license. And there's no hidden costs. Exactly. And then they raise it up on us again. We're not gonna see this. That's
055what I'm asking. There's no hidden costs. This is with e-rate. This is a five year built in license. Palo Alto five years ago in full. And this is now being ended. So what I'm asking to do isn't, not trying to slide anything under you guys. No, no, no, it's not that. So the Palo Alto was a five year license bought back in 2000 and. Your license then. That's what I'm asking. They did. It ends in, it ends in like September of 26. Oh, okay, okay. Makes sense. Oh, so we're extending another two years is what you're telling me with the $30,000 then. No. $30,000 a year would be an extension. Yeah. Two years of its lifespan. Gotcha. That's what I was saying. One year. One year. So if you're asking me to keep. That makes
056a lot more sense now. So the Palo Alto, yes, is not end of life for two more years. Districts, $60,000. Okay. Versus a brand new one that will cost you 18. Yeah, so essentially. Essentially, right? As you go from $18,000 to compare it again. Service out of it. As long as there's no hidden costs. There are none. There's no hidden costs. Thank you, Brian. I got a dumb question though. Yes. So then what's the difference then? Because this is not my background, so I apologize. But what's the difference then with this Fortunite, Fortunet, we're gonna have the license for five years paid all up. Five years, no problem, right? At that end of that one, is that also when you're gonna come back or they're gonna come back and we're gonna have an opportunity to
057extend it as well? To extend, that you can get right away is gonna be probably seven. I mean, things are changing very rapidly. So just to kind of give you, we talked a lot about AI. If we talk about where we were in 2021 when we bought this Palo Alto, AI wasn't even a blip on anything that is happening on the firewall perimeter. So we would not want to not have it licensed. Okay. Okay, then I will ask for a motion to approve the purchase period approved items for the firewall. Motion. Second. I roll call. Melissa Ryan. Aye. Ron Petrie. Aye. Patrick Oliphant. Aye. Amy Burke. Aye. Adrian Chavez. Aye. Joy Murphy. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you, Brian. Moving on to 589. Thank you, Brian. The approval of the DJR gymnasium project upgrade or projection
058upgrade. Do I have a motion to approve that and then we'll have discussion? Motion. Second. A second. Okay, discussion. So I can kick off just a little bit of background. This was an- Oh, it is 157. This was an informational item only last month between last board meeting and this board meeting. We had the DJR administration and teachers kind of chime in that this was something that was important in their venue. We relayed that information to the board and so we brought it back as an item now to act on. Part of this is that the projector updating this learning space so it would be commensurate with our other, the pretty extensively, not just for PE but that's where we have our band programs, music programs, assemblies and things like that. And so what we're
059looking at doing always is to stretch the dollar as far as we possibly could. These are things that we have built into Brian's budget so we're not expending additional money and money that we're spending out of this particular fund is money that we can't use for paying teachers or settling a contract or any of that other stuff because we use fund accounting and so it's levied and collected in that particular fund. This is something after I read the feedback from Collin Bradley and Tracy Bull for Francie Boss and their team that at first I kind of shared the sentiment of the board. Is this a space where we want to expend this kind of money after hearing from them? And really I was looking for the dissenting view. What do they not want? But it
060looks like that was something that they would appreciate in value. And so we came forward with the recommendation based on what we heard from the building level. So the grant is $9,000 or is the grant to $28,000? So the grant is a $10,000 grant so we slid the projector in there. We have received that grant every year since Mr. Skabinski has been in the district and Mr. Perkins and Mr. Skabinski worked directly with Chef and it is a technology related grant and so those are things that we have to kind of pick apart. But it could be spent on any technology, correct? It could be things that we identify, yes. Yeah, okay. So then $28,000 is what we're looking for to upload everything else? Correct. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. And so Ronnie, I need
061you to know, I want you to like to let the board and you know. So initially it was written that this would be an expense that we would move into here and so we have money to be able to pay for this in this current fiscal year. So you could use it or lose it kind of opportunity. Walker has a 12 foot screw to Indian Trail. The timing wasn't right for Rogus but the timing is right now when we, I was doing these projects three years ago. So it is something that would bring us in line a large screen projector and a screen that would help them with. In place right now which they do use even though I know it's like outdated a little bit but it's not the system that is not there,
062correct? They don't have, they have a screen they could put up. So they have audio and they have a projector currently right now, is that right? Sure. So they do not have, there is no screen in the Rogus gym. That you can portable screen. I mean we, 15 feet because it would be considered a rear facing projector. Financial question. That $28,000 or whatever that we saved that could be put back into the general fund and then put into our budget for this July coming up when we pass our budget, is that correct? So any money that's not expended does stay in the district coffers, yes. Okay, so because there's just been a lot of projects in this district that has not been done and I just really feel like this is not a need that
063we need in this district. There are other things that people have been asking for for years not just a projector that have not been done in our schools or along our boundary of our buildings and grounds. And so to me, spending this kind of money on a projector system, which we already have a system set up and this would be great. This would 100% would be a media thing. And I'm not opposed to updating our media stuff but I think we need to really put the priorities to where they need to be put in the district. And I just don't feel like this is the time for that. My other board members can speak on their own on that too. So that's kind of where I stand with it. In the spirit of transparency, this
064has been kind of a tug of war kind of topic. I do think, and I've heard from both sides, I do think that we need to figure out a game plan on putting together a sort of priority list that the community could also see where our focuses are and maybe where we can shuffle things up and down. Okay, this is a need right now. This is an emergency or something that we have to make sure we budget for. And I know that that's in the budget but there is no prioritization. That's a hard word for me. Prioritize, somebody else say it. Prioritization. Thank you, list. So I think we need. And Patrick has asked that in building and ground. Patrick and John have worked with, tried to work with Walt to get that list as
065far as that stuff. That component of it. Yeah, but I mean, that's only regarding buildings and grounds, right? So I'm thinking something that would encompass all the other initiatives and all the other focuses that our community has, that members have, that we could kind of meet and discuss on. It's like you wanna put our money where it will benefit the most and our students the most and staff the most. But it's hard, like Ronnie's saying, when I have a friend come to me and go, oh, my kid went to the Summit Hill Junior High track meet and they couldn't even put the markers where they needed to and she goes, oh, I know the board part that I'm gonna say, they were all talking about how bad the track was. I'm just using that as
066a real example, you know, it's difficult. I think the real example is, we're gonna have a brand new gym, fantastic. And then if you walked in and you go, okay, but we also have this old media means for medium, it's like, you know, it's an incomplete job, in my mind, is the way I kind of look at it. So I'm on the fence about this. Incomplete how? Because I mean, we're talking, Walker is gonna have the new gym. Yeah, well, I was just using it as an example. Like we would have, I was just using that as an example. But yeah. Back to everything he said, I also know that a lot of students, community members will enjoy this. And it's something, and I do believe this is something the students, staff and community would
067enjoy. Yeah, and I don't know, to counter respectfully, I'm not so sure that this is an and or situation. No. Right? Not necessarily. It's either the things that people have in mind, and there are very justifiable things that need to be addressed outside of this. It doesn't have to be just this or that. I think that, you know, there are ideas in place. I am very much in favor of what Adrienne was saying of putting together a prioritized list of things that we would like to address, but devil's advocate to that is, and anybody in leadership knows you can't please everybody all the time. So if you put something out there like that, there's going to be people that say, oh, this isn't on that list, and what? We don't matter. Yeah, everybody's gonna have
068their own. So this is, there's early stages of discussion, but we should acknowledge that that will be a ramification of going in the direction that you were bringing up. That being said, I'm still in favor of that. I think that this project can be very, very, I think some of those other ideas, I know that we all have in mind, of things that we wish could get a little bit more attention to, that we can be more proactive in working to get that done. I just feel like we spend a lot of money on roofs and boilers, and the kids don't really enjoy it. I mean, they want to stay warm, I know, I know. But I'm saying they will enjoy this. The PE department will have access to it. It's kind of fun, and
069it's something, I'm kind of excited to purchase something besides a roof, and a boiler, and a chiller. Yeah, I understand. You look in the back, Walt fell out of his chair. He's like, what? Okay, so do I have a motion to approve? Motion. Second. Second. All right, roll call. Amy Burke? Aye. Ron Petrie, no. Patrick Oliphant? Aye. Adrian Chavez? Melissa Ryan? No. Julie Murphy? Aye. And it passes. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Moving on to 5B, old business determination of dates and times for the regular board meeting, the 26th, 27th. The board has typically had meetings at 7 p.m. on the third day in June, July, and August. And then we wanted to, at the last meeting, set those dates to allow members to look over and see if there's any adjustments to be
070made. It's also important that these dates are set with the community and other organizations that have their meetings around these and so that anybody can attend the ones that they need to. These dates need to probably stay. But it seems like that the consensus is that we keep those dates, but potentially adjust the time to 6 p.m., six or 6.30, and that can be worked out. But the dates will stay the same, but the meeting will move up. So do I have a motion that the meetings of the board during the 26th, 27th be conducted at 6 p.m. on the third Wednesday? Oh, go ahead. So moved. I just wanna add, Dr. McDermott, do you have any input on staff, admin, anyone else that could be affected by a six o'clock start? I just wanna
071second that so we can formally get through. Yeah, yeah. Any input before, any input before we? Yeah, well, I'm gonna let this. Because we used to have it at 7.30, and then it went to seven, and a lot of districts do seven. I think away does seven, 8.43 does seven. I don't know what it is with seven. And if we do change, would it affect anything? Would anyone, would it be out of line for us to do? And to that point, I'm personally in favor of a six o'clock start, because we have longer meetings, and I think that makes it more digestible for people. But is it possible for us to lock in the dates today? Because I don't wanna take this conversation away from John. John is excused for not being here. He might
072have some very valuable input on this. Is it possible for us to acknowledge and vote on the dates and then adjust the time? To once we get the feedback from everybody? Would that be okay, Dr. McDermott? Yes. So we'll lock in the dates, and then we'll adjust the time based on everyone's feedback. Yes, and I personally wanna thank everybody for their extra consideration into this as I brought it up. And I've thought a lot about it as well, and I'm personally very prepared to just go with the original dates. But that was the time to have the discussion, to bring it up, to see if there was any motivation or any movement to see if people wanted to discuss that. And that was just the time to have the conversation. So thank you all for
073your patience with this. So can we just amend that motion then to just include that the meetings of the board during the 26-27 year be conducted on the third Wednesdays in the month of January, February, March, April, May, September, October, November, December, and the second in June, July, and August. Can I have another motion and second with just the dates? Motion. Why is July the second week? I know June because- Just this summer. Well. That's the schedule here. It's a business meeting. Some districts don't have one in July at all. They moved their August meeting up so they can hit that August meeting and hire any new employees so that we can onboard them before the beginning of the school year. But historically, the July meeting is pretty tight. We don't have all of this
074recognition things at the beginning. It's more business meeting to approve bills and check in with the board. Yeah, we used to have summer like July off, I think. I know we had a span where, but then we had two meetings a month for a while, so. Is it Zoom from Lake Houses or what? Well, I just feel like it's so close to 4th of July that moving it to the second week instead of the third. You could convince me to have two meetings in May. So think about the meeting we had tonight where we have a recognition evening where we bring all of the students and staff and that we're recognizing on a separate night and then come back for more of a business meeting and then just not have one in July. So it'd
075be the same number of meetings, but you're shifting it and taking care of it. But then I would wanna move the August meeting up as well. August meeting is the second Wednesday, which makes sense. So that would be a handful of days before we have our opening institute. So if you pushed it back a week, it gives us an opportunity to have those last minute resignations, have those positions filled, make sure that the person is onboarded, all of their paperwork clears, that they're introduced to the room and their colleagues and all of that. There's a benefit, that makes sense, so. I mean, it is. Our team will be here whenever the board meeting, everything works. Fiscal year being 630, that would be, you know, right after the close of our year, but at the same
076time, like, I'm sure nothing's ready or even close to being done the second or probably even third week of July. You're right. We could approve some hires, though, July. Yeah, I agree. The district still operates your own. I'm fine with keeping a meeting, for sure. Yeah, I like the schedule. I guess I don't really. But I just don't, June, I could see, you know, we're out of school. Administration wants to take a vacation and not have a meeting the third week. I agree with the second week of June and the second week of August. It's July, so close to 4th of July when people vacation. I feel like we could go to the third week in July. I, because what is, isn't there a vacation like a whole week or something? Or isn't admin, building
077admin off until, for a couple week period there? Our 12 month people for board meetings, they make arrangements for us. So as long as we know in advance when the board meetings are, then our team works around that. We do have some 10 and 11 month employees who will not be here in July, but in all honesty, we don't have our building admin come to every meeting unless they're needed in a meeting anyway. So the district office team will be here with them. I think this is kind of a fluke too, just because the first is on a Wednesday. So it just is really the second. I say, and that's so close to the fourth. People want to relax with their family. I'm indifferent. Snooze you lose, man. If we keep it, if we change
078it to the 15th, does that affect you for the August 12th? Are we still good with the August 12th end date? So just changing the July 8th to July 15th is what Joy was asking. And I was asking Paul as a follow-up with, would it affect him with August 12th? Because I know there's a lot of stuff. We're talking not, so it would take effect the next, not this. The first meeting for this calendar would be July. Yeah. Yeah, I'm in favor of moving it. Just, you know, I don't have a problem with it. Do you think that's an issue? Yeah. Do you have a location set up? As long as we know now, we'll be prepared. I am checking. I don't think it matters to me either way. I think I'm gone from the
079nine reporting. So it'd be. I don't have room on the date. Yeah, yeah, either way is fine for me. Yeah. So the 15th. No, we wanted to do, does that seem like whatever we want to do to the 15th? Yeah, that would help. Yeah. Okay. I've gotten up against it. And then August 12th. So we'll revise that and send out the new schedule to the board with the time TB, TBD, until we talk to each other. Okay. Yeah. Let's get that locked in then. Let's get that locked in. Let's do it. Yeah. So do I have motion? Motion. Second. Roll call. Roll call. Almoserine. Aye. Patrick Oliphant. Aye. Joy Murphy. Aye. Amy Burke. Aye. And Adrian Chavez. Aye. Motion carries. Yes. So we did it. We have officially registered our 200th kindergartner. And so kindergarten
080registration, as of May 15th, we have 200 total kindergarten students who approved residency. As of last year at this time, we had 174 students. So let me explain that. We've done some things differently with our preschool students, where we used to make them redo their registration. And so we're direct admitting them now. And so they're just doing a rereg like everyone else. So the numbers look a little bit different. I would guesstimate we're gonna be around 220 again, which is how many we had last year. And so the board's decision to add the 11th section of kindergarten has already taken place. We've got that teacher internally who has moved from Indian Trail. And so if we end at 220, we'll have an extra section in class size, we'll go down from what it is this
081year. So that strategy worked. So again, I think we'll end somewhere between 210 and 220. And we'll keep you posted at each board meeting because that's the one that we're really focusing on. Graduation update. Graduation is Tuesday, Tuesday. So just a handful of days away. It is at 6 p.m. at Lincoln Way West. Very appreciative to Lincoln Way just for the space and the fact that we're in a space that is air conditioned, which is they are supposed to be on a rotation. So we're supposed to move through the different buildings, but there's some HVAC work going on at Central and East. And thus they offered us West. The admin team at Summit Hill Junior High will share additional information with board members directly about parking arrival times. We've all been through this last year.
082So we kind of have a feel for what it looks like. And thank you in advance for assisting in passing out diplomas to our students. It's really a special day. And we're gonna have one important person at this event. Her name is Leah Calzaretta. She is addressing the class. So she is speaking at graduation and will also receive her diploma. Does she get to hand it to herself? We'll leave that to her. But we're really excited to hear what she has to say, especially as she's been reporting out to the board. So now I've asserted that instead of a superintendent speech, which nobody wants to hear me necessarily speak anyway. So I'll simply certify the graduates. And we've worked out that time so she can step up there and talk to all of her classmates,
083which I think is pretty cool. The last thing in my report is the PMA quarterly investment report. This comes out of board policy four, colon 30. So every quarter we come back and give an update as to how the performance of our portfolio is doing. So as of April 30th, 2026, we had a 3.56% yield. And then I love giving the historical looks so you can see three in October, it was 5.3. October 21st, 2024 is 4.88. January 30th, 2025 was 4.84. May 14th, 4.34. July 1st, 2025, 4.06. In September 30th, 2025, it was 4.02. December 31st, it was 3.41. So if you notice, we had just a little rebound. 5.56 is still favorable. As far as historical amounts, way back in the days of 2021, we had a 0.11%. And then the following year
084in 2022, we had a 2.18. And so just for all transparency, we use our interest income and transfer it over, especially from working cash into the Ed fund. So we don't need to grow our working cash fund. What we're using that for is a revenue stream for the Ed fund. So we just leave that money sitting there, transfer money over, and it allows us to put additional funds in for everything related to learning. And so that's been a tactic that we've been using for several years. Dr. McDermott, I'm not sure if you could answer this, but I know the end of May, we usually have the least amount of money in reserve because the Will County tax bill, we get money put in in June. Do you know what we have in reserves at this
085point? Like, I don't know how, we used to ask like in the past, we would ask like, how many months would we be able to survive on what we have? But I do know May, it's the lowest all year long, the end of May. So I was wondering if you have an amount. Not off the top of my head. I do have that information from PMA. I could send that out to the board. In your right, what we're doing is we're expending funds now to make payroll, afford all things at the end of the fiscal year, and the June tax money has yet to roll in. Right, and that's why I'm asking for it like today. So I'll give you a total of all funds. I'll give you a total in working cash. And then
086there's also on the financial report card, there's a little number they put at the bottom about how many days you could survive if all funding cut off. And so I'll give you a number of days of cash on hand. Okay. So yeah, I'll forward that to you. Okay. That is the end of my report. I think because everybody got their taxes back, their property taxes. So if we could figure out how we can kind of communicate how we factor in again and communicate that out. But I don't know if that's for another meeting or. I don't want to talk about it. I think Melissa has PTSD from working through tax season. Yeah. To your point, we have actually received a number of phone calls into the district office to talk about the recent tax bills
087that came out. People that I have spoken to were very pleased that the Summit Hill tax rate has declined again. So this is not the first year in a row. It is on account of the stewardship of paying down bond debt. Also EAV is going up. So it's naturally pushing the tax rate down. The person I spoke to said that her Summit Hill portion of her tax bill went down and her assessed valuation of her home went up by a hundred thousand dollars. And so that is definitely not us. We need to repeat that. It's not us. And we talked about that really at the community outreach committee meetings is again, we levy that is the ask tax rate is set by the clerk. We get an extension. And that's the money that we're allotted
088to run our school district. And on top of that is the bond and interest money that's owed from past construction referendums that went out. We are going to make our last payment. And so what we'll see next year, it's inevitable. The tax rate will go down again because we've paid off debt. And so there's gonna be no extra assessment on top of what our taxpayers are paying. And so the idea that we've shared back and forth across the table is do not take out new debt, pay off your old debt. And there is, it's not that a taxpayer is ever gonna save a ton of money, but what we're doing is we're trying to limit how much we're collecting, which will help our taxpayers. And that helps everybody. And it's a return on investment because
089they've invested heavily in our school district. And so now's the time for us to return that favor. I recommend looking at the PGA with Joe Crawl, watching that. And also we'll talk about future PGA's where we educate the community on taxation and everything. And yeah. Educating our community. Those at home that are unfamiliar with the term PGA's not for golf, it's the Parent Guardian Academy. Good catch. No, you're right. Good catch. And the Joe Crawl video is posted on our website. There's also a couple of videos that we have pulled. I think we pulled a YouTube video on explaining the tax rate and how that works. So there are a couple of resources there. If you're interested, just to poke around there, we think that they're pretty informative. Awesome. And also maybe in the Engage
090newsletter, if we could add something in there. There's no District 843 report today. So moving on to 7B, a building and ground update. Mr. Ollifar? All right. Good evening, board members and attendees. I would like to provide an expanded recap of the building and grounds committee meeting held on May 13th. The overarching theme of our meeting was our critical transition from being a reactive deferred maintenance program to being proactive long-term with strategic planning. The first part of the meeting, we focused on the TRIA architect report updates. We are moving forward with updating our 10-year facility assessment originally provided by TRIA is an architect report. To do this efficiently, the committee explored utilizing secure AI tools to cross-reference our original 100-page architectural report against the years of recent invoices and service records. This will save us
091an immense amount of manual labor, help identify the gaps, and give us a highly accurate baseline for our five, 10, and 20-year capital planning by this fall. Crucially, this is only possible because we are transitioning Jackie Rico into a full-time facilities role. Getting her boots on the ground this summer to physically inventory and inspect our major mechanical equipment is a vital task that was previously impossible to do due to the workload constraints on the department. Her established background combined with the hands-on equipment analysis will be a huge asset to the district. Jackie will be attending training with various mechanical vendors, and this will enable her to handle more maintenance in-house, reducing our reliance on outside services. The next part of the meeting, we focused on the upcoming summer 2026 projects. As we look to the
092summer of 2026, we have robust, prioritized schedule of projects. For athletics, we are evaluating quotes to add dugout roofs and safety netting to protect spectators from foul balls from the baseball and softball fields. We are also going out to bid for the running track resurfacing. Additionally, we are evaluating our field maintenance partnership with the park district. For facilities, at the Hilda Walker Gym, bleacher demolition will begin the moment that the school year ends. We are also replacing damaged storage doors, and we found that having the wall logos professionally hand-painted will actually cost less and look far better than the vinyl proposal. Grounds and exteriors, we are finalizing bids for district-wide seal coating, which will incorporate new parking spaces, four-square courts, and better bus lane markings. We are also prioritizing the removal of old built-up soil
093in our mulch beds to fix severe drainage issues, particularly at the DJR courtyard, and adding concrete sewer repairs is a bid alternate. Roofing, we are also recoating three roof sections at the Mary Drew School to extend their warranties by another 20 years. We are planning a phased approach for the Summit Hill Junior High Roof, which drops out of warranty in 2027. We put a, the next section of the meeting was a focus on HVAC mechanicals and energy efficiency. Our biggest financial footprint lies in HVAC and mechanicals. At the Hilda Walker additional rooftop units, or at the Hilda Walker edition, rooftop units are failing, and the main automation controller is non-functional, requiring a complete replacement. To combat these massive costs, we are intensely focused on our energy efficiency. We are actively pursuing ComEd grants to upgrade
094our aging BAS building automated system at Mary Drew and Hilda Walker. We are also exploring BAS recommissioning. By analyzing our data, we found instances like Summit Hill drawing massive amounts of power over the weekend when the building is empty. Optimizing our scheduling could save the district tens of thousands of dollars. Regarding our chillers, we are repairing a crack bundle at DJR at the Junior High, where one chiller has been down for five years. We are going to actively explore long-term innovations like combined heat and power to see if that might be, that's an innovative new system where you can utilize the energy from steam boilers to basically part one would be to run through a turbine, think of like Little House on the Prairie, but it would spin a turbine and you would produce your
095own electricity for the building. You could also potentially use, while the heat energy is still being used to heat the building, you can also possibly install absorption chillers which use the steam, I know it sounds like magic, but you use the steam to interact with the cooling agent that's in an absorption chiller and it chemically separates materials in there and creates a chilling cooling capacity. So I'm not saying this is where we're gonna go, we are gonna look into this. These would capture waste energy from our 24-7 boiler systems and convert it into usable electrical and cooling for the building with the possibility of a high return of investment. The next part of the meeting, we reviewed security and grants. On the security front, we are continuing a phased two-year upgrade of our access control
096to our modern cloud-based open path system which seamlessly integrates with our cameras. We successfully implemented this at Mary Drew and we'll target Hilda Walker next. To fund these initiatives, our grant writer, Jill Dare, is aggressively applying for state and local funds. We are targeting a Will County ROE grant for visitor management and state's attorney grants for security cameras and vape sensors. Every grant dollar we win takes direct pressure off of our local budget. In conclusion, I'd like to, finally, to maintain our momentum. The committee proposes establishing a structured annual meeting schedule, a kickoff meeting in May to discuss all of the projects that will be kicking off over the summer since it's a lion's share of major mechanical projects, a closeout meeting in the fall to review our summer projects successes and real costs, and
097a winter bridge meeting for planning that will update us on the success and failures of the summertime projects plus introduce new ideas for the following year. Thank you. I was wondering how long will this take to get done with all of this, Patrick? And also how much do we have in our buildings in our buildings and grounds budget each year? So also, one other question. Are you gonna put the audio out of this meeting? Cause it's very educational and it's something people, like you summed it up, but the discussion was even better. Yeah. Oh, the discussion was very vibrant. I think it was very, very productive. I know we are working to post that if it's not already posted. The audio on there. It's awesome. Outstanding. And we were able to extract a transcript, but
098I can go through and kind of make edits cause it does use audio and then it converts it to the transcript. So if you were to read it now, I feel like I never left the grade school cause it refers to me as Patrick Elephant a lot. But you know, little things like that, you wanna clean up, right? So is it exactly the audio from the meeting or is it? Well, it's like a written transcript. So if you wanted to read it instead of sitting around. I just wanna hear it for what? Yeah, that's posted on the website. Okay, good. Okay. And if there is interest, cause I took so many notes. So if people wanna do a brief review, they can. Yeah, no, you're welcome, yeah. So there was several questions you had in
099there. It's how long are these projects gonna take? Walt was wonderful enough to stick around. Walt, do you wanna come on up? So that way if you have more like project specific questions, but generally speaking, all of these projects are hoping to be done. Right, it sounded like they were urgent. Well, yeah, I let Walt kind of take the lead on this. And when I said, I would like to clarify. When I said we, I mean, this was Walt leading the charge here. Walt and the admin team. We were able to conduct and assist every way that we can. But really kudos to the entire team. Yeah, Walt did a great job. It's just a lot. And it's a lot of money. And how much is in our budget? And how much is this all
100gonna cost? My eight pages worth of notes. How much is that dollar amount? And how long will it take us? And what checklist or prioritizing list do we have? And as far as the budget, how much is your budget each year? What do we allow in the budget for buildings and grounds? I mean, it just used to be a flat 3 million, 2 million. It was a piece of the pie. So it was a percent. Do we not know that? Some of the projects we discussed are going out to bid. So we don't have those exact numbers. I'm not talking about, I kind of know a rough. Walt's been doing this for a while. Yeah, we can supply that to the board. Yeah, how do we budget for this? Like, how do we know? We
101can do the same thing for Denise and Leslie and Brian and just kind of give you kind of an outline of what that looks like. That would be good, thank you. Cause this is a little nerve wracking. Sure. Everything we need. And it's not cosmetic stuff for the most part. It's most, it's needs, it's urgency. Yeah. And building the structure to identify these and have public meetings to talk about the importance of them and that the public has every right and is more than welcome to come out anytime that they want. We're starting to identify more of these issues that before I feel like weren't just focused on or overlooked. Oh, they were. We just heard they were getting done. I remember calling Walt right when I got on. I'm like, well, I've been on
102this board on and off for decades and I'm hearing roof, chiller, boiler. I mean, it's so, and you said, well, we're getting there. We're getting there. And I was, I had high hopes. And then this meeting, I'm kind of alarmed, right. But I feel like we've always heard about boilers and chillers. I don't understand this. Joy, can I jump in? There's two parts to that question. The first part of you asked is how we budget. So traditionally speaking, and I don't make the budget, so I don't want to overstep on this, but traditionally speaking, you review previous years, not just one year, but several years past expenditures that are linked to whatever account designations you're billing it to in your ledgers, meaning building and grounds, maintenance. I've been sitting here, Patrick, it was always a
103flat, like 3 million or 5 million or whatever. I'm trying to get to the point. So you look back several years and you get figures on what you spent for line items that are related to building and grounds. And then you start to develop patterns. So while the technical needs may change from year to year, you can start to see, well, we generally spend around this much every year. We're gonna budget that or 3% over or whatever their policy is for that. So they will set a fund based on previous years expenditures several years in the back. And then as problems come up, you code them properly when you're putting them through your payment system. And that's why we're trying to get bids for certain projects to find out what the most economically viable solutions
104are. Right, we've done that too. And then move forward with that. Right, a lot of this we've done. I'm just a little bit alarmed by the meeting and how many, I mean, I... Does that help your understanding of how you come up with a budget? Not really, cause I kind of know that we used to have like 3.5 million. Maybe it was fluctuated a little bit, but I had more of an idea. And then we had a contingency fund where it would be an emergency, something that broke down that was not planned, that was separate. That wasn't maintained properly. I mean, there's a lot of fabric that goes into that that we're addressing. Okay, all right. The second part of what you were asking is you just keep hearing about boilers and chillers, right? So
105the best way to... Honestly, like where we spend our money, it isn't even curriculum. Well, we spend a lot on curriculum. You can look at the expenditure reports every month. Right, and I hope so. I hope so, we're in the business of education, yes. Yeah, it's there for the public to see. We spend a lot of money on education. I hear a lot about... Every project or anything always gets brought up and improved, I mean, when it's... Right, and we always send it out to bid and yeah. But to understand the importance of these mechanical systems, I think the best way to describe it is think of a building like a person. So if you're curious, why am I hearing about a boiler here or a chiller here, think of it as regular checkups. Like
106you wouldn't say, well, I went to the dentist in 2024, so I shouldn't have to go back. Like it requires consistent maintenance and upgrades. We weren't prepared in the past to do proper preventative maintenance, so we farmed it out to other companies. And we still do, but we're looking to bring that down, especially with the promotion of Jackie. And that will both better enable us to maintain our equipment and have a better understanding of when failures might be coming. Because the pure size of the district and what we invested in our maintenance team just didn't allow our maintenance team to be as involved on our equipment. So there were a lot of unexpected problems that would come up because we just weren't putting the focus on maintenance where it needed to be in the past.
107We are building a structure to build... I wish we heard all that then. We didn't hear that then. We're kind of spiraling here. I know that. I spoke very publicly about it before I was on board. This is an ongoing conversation. This was just an update. I mean, I've sat here. I've sat up here, Patrick. I felt confident with our building. All right, point of order. We're gonna move on to the Community Outreach Committee. Do you wanna take that, or do you want me to go, you to go? Thank you very much, Walt. We appreciate your time. Yeah, Walt, thank you. The meeting was very informative. I ought to say, I feel like we have a really good group of input and we're trying to gauge the community outreach to be that bridge between the
108board and the community. So we're always trying to focus back on that mission. We got an update on best buddies at Summit Hill Junior High at this last meeting. So we will start to see more and hear more about that program and that transitions into their ability to do that in high school as well and participate in that club. So Mrs. Global gave us an update on that. We talked a little bit about AI as well. Anything else that I'm... Talked about the update on the nutrition. We talked about... Oh, imagination library and reading resources and free reading resources and getting that communication to the parents for those free resources and how to utilize that for our students as well. Anything else? Moving on to building reports. I'll start us off tonight. The Trail Blazers
109at Indian Trail. The fourth grade students, one of the most favorite things for parents, I know as well as students in the fourth grade state float research projects and they did a wonderful, amazing job on that. The final float project was even more spectacular. There were so many creative displays. Thank you to the parents for supporting their children in this project. Our third grade students put on an outstanding living museum for our parents. The costumes and presentations were wonderful. Thank you to all the parents for supporting their child. And I love seeing pictures of those and all of those events and projects. Thank you to all of our It's Go members, volunteers, and all of our parents for supporting and making this year a success. The staff and I are looking forward to the 26-27
110school year. Enjoy the summer. Thank you, Mrs. Wright and Indian Trail. Over at Hilda Walker, the fifth grade students and our step update committee welcomed the newest class of incoming Wildcats for a step update visit in early May. Our rising fifth grade students learned all about being a student at Walker, visited fifth grade classes, took a school tour, enjoyed performances from our band and orchestra programs. We can't wait to the newest class of fifth grade students to join us in August. Our sixth grade students are preparing to move on to Summit Hill Junior High as well, but first we plan to celebrate them with our annual sixth grade field trip to see the Windy City Thunderbolts game. Thank you to the Hilda Walker SEO for co-sponsoring this field trip for our sixth grade students as
111well. The spring season means it's time for all of our end of year concerts. So far we have enjoyed the annual spring choir and spring orchestra concerts, featuring the Wildcat singers and our beginning and intermediate strings programs. Next up is a spring beginning and Wildcat band concert on Tuesday, May 19th. That was yesterday, okay. Thank you to our talented choir, orchestra, and band directors for their tireless efforts and for bringing our very best in our students. The students and staff at Hilda Walker would like to thank our outgoing Hilda Walker SEO board, Dawn Ostrowski, Carrie Sand, Jessica McDermott, Melissa Ryan, and Nikki Smith for another wonderful year of collaboration and celebration of our students and staff. We are so grateful for the time you have given to creating so many special events and memories for
112our students. Thank you, Ms. Carroll. All right, Summit Hill Junior High. Our eighth graders who attend Washington, D.C. last month had an amazing experience. We are grateful for our chaperones who took the time to attend the trip with our students. Thank you. Congratulations again to our Science Fair State participants. We know how much time and effort goes into preparing, researching, and presenting the research and findings. Super proud of you. Our seventh and eighth graders are in full swing participating in end of the year events. The seventh graders attended the architectural boat trip yesterday, and our eighth graders celebrated awards last week and had a field day yesterday. Thank you to our volunteers. Appreciate the acknowledgement of our explanatory student, Addie Cook. We are so proud of her and sorry we could not be here tonight.
113Hope you enjoy our video clip. See everyone at graduation on May 26th. Mrs. Global. All right, I have Dr. Julian Rogus School, grades one through four. There were so many fun events in May. We've enjoyed the Living Museum presentations, Cinco de Mayo celebrations, field trips to the Children's Farm in Pilcher Park, our semi-quincentennial celebration, step over days, and summer library book talks. Thank you to everyone who joined us this month for a special event, and for those at home who are not aware, Living Museum is when our students pick a historical figure from the past, do a report on them, come to school dressed up as them, and man, it is wonderful. And then guests come into the building and the Living Museum, the students give a report on their figure so people can hear
114it from that figure. This month our students received a visit from Coco and Nurse Laura for raising over $1,200 for Healing Hearts. All classes enjoyed their time with Coco. We also celebrated raising over $8,000 during our St. Jude Marathon fundraiser with a pizza party for the many students who raised over $75. Outstanding. May is teacher appreciation. Thank you to Resco and our families for supporting our amazing staff and pampering them with food trucks, raffles, and some much needed end of the year massages. Your donation provided many smiles. And on May 15th, DJR hosted the special Olympics event. They had a morning and afternoon session. Wanna thank all the people who assisted with that, from the Mokina Fire Department to all the vendors that came out, particularly the family and staff members who worked so hard
115to put this together. Wanna thank Ms. Rodriguez who came over from Indian Trail and shared her very wonderful singing voice. We're very honored to have her in our district and she did an amazing job as usual. And I would also very specifically like to thank Ms. Kalabash for helping really put this together, fought illness, came through, and it went out very, very well and it didn't happen on its own. So thank you for that. This year's DJR theme was Let's Grow. And this year our students thrived and met this challenge. Success at school always begins with the collaboration and support from our amazing families. Thank you for another great year in partnership. And I got DJR Kindergarten. Our school community came together for our spring party on the playground event. It was a beautiful evening.
116Families enjoyed playing together, socializing and visiting the food trucks. Thank you to Resco for their work organizing the event. Our kindergarten students enjoyed a field trip to Pilcher Park. I got to enjoy a field trip to Pilcher Park as well. So I got to go with my son and enjoy that. And students had an opportunity to learn about turtles. I learned a little bit about turtles. They did a craft, went on a nature walk and had an opportunity to visit the park. And the students had a great time, they certainly did. Our kindergarten students enjoyed pampering their moms last week at our annual Salon Day. We love our moms. And it was funny seeing my wife come back with an outstanding job that my son did. Moms walked out with beautiful nails, hairdos and crafts.
117It was a great opportunity to celebrate the moms in our lives. Our spring showcase was held on April 23rd. And the music department as well as the students did an amazing job as well. Our students raised money for Healing Hearts and had an opportunity to visit with our service dog, Coco. The end of the year is busy with many fun activities. We look forward to the school year ahead. Thank you so much, Mrs. Voss. Mary Drew, Early Learning Center. Students hatched five chicks from seven eggs. We incubated the eggs and they hatched and we kept the chicks on site for almost two weeks. Our students loved watching them grow and being able to watch them via live stream. It was so cute today there was a picture on Facebook of Coco even looking at the,
118Coco was looking at the chicks. So cute. The young athletes event was a huge success. This May 8th event showed off the littlest learners athletic skills. We could not have done it without our 20 volunteers who helped us that day. We hosted pre-school prom. You got a friend in me on Friday, May 15th. Kudos to the parent group and all the parents who volunteered for such a wonderful event. Preschool registration for 26, 27 school year is currently happening. Please check the district website for more information. Very good. As we finish the race strong towards the end of the school year, I'd like to end on a note of gratitude to our teachers, admin and support staff and recognize their energy and inspiration. They impact in part on our students and the role that every staff
119member plays in our students' lives. May your summer find peace, joy, family and friends and whatever you want it to be. And thank you very much. On that note, please join us on June 5th. Are we doing different? June 10th. June 10th, right, right, right. Okay, July, it's July 15th, sorry. June 10th, 2026 at Mary Drew Administrative Center for the next meeting. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned.