School Board Meeting - June 16, 2025

001I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The mission of Sunny Brook School District 171 is to maximize student achievement by cultivating critical thinking skills, innovative instructional practices, and a collaborative school, home, and community partnership. Roll call. Derek B, present. Tomorrow Hill Serene Smith, present. Timothy, present. Ambrose, present. Massure here and Thompson here. Any person wishing to address the board at about an item that is on the agenda should do so when that item is up for discussion. Visitor statements will be limited to two minutes per person. A total of 30 minutes will be allocated for visitor comments. All comments about items not on the agenda will be held until the visitor

002statements at the end of the meeting. Items related to personnel issues will be redirected to the appropriate administrator. You're at item F. Recommend motion to approve the regular board of education meeting minutes of May 19, 2025. Close session minutes of May 19th, 2025 June expenses and May payroll in the amount of 2,143,32342 as presented. Motion second. Motion by Lashure, second by Terrell. Burks, yes. Smith, yes. Yes. Ambrose. Yes. Yes. Thompson. Yes. We're at item G, communications. Once, twice. Okay. And item H,formational items. Letter to Miss Alma Austo, letter from who is it? Patrica Gleon board is a rate modification and the end of year financial update. Okay. Yeah. Item I, board reports. Anybody have anything? I don't. No. Okay. We're at item J, uh, administrative reports. We're going to start this evening with Mr. Kent.

003All right. Well, good evening, Dr. Pettis. Good evening. Have a presentation for you. And the presentation, as it says, is the reading place. It's not very long at all. It is the reimagining of Nathan Hail's library, what we're sitting in right now. Um, and this is a presentation. It's about spotting modernization. It's about sharing those things with you from the principal of the school that will continue to drive our students towards learning. One of those things is this library. Libraries do one thing that no other institution does and that that's provide access to all of our burden. I know we probably remember him reading. Yes. But I thought that quote was great because what we have right here is we have a significant amount of space. Most schools, as I've studied this and in my

004experience, suffer from the fact of a few things. One is they don't have the space and they need more space. The other is that the space they have is unattractive. It's not exciting. And what we're sitting in right now is a wonderful space that is no longer exciting to our kids. It doesn't capture their interest. It doesn't drive them to come here. And that's what we want. One thing piggybacks upon another. We need to get you interested and keep you interested in learning. I'll bring this back up again, not in this presentation, but when we go to the end of the year presentation. So that piece right there, libraries do one thing that no other institution does. We need the same thing going on in our school right now. As my history tells me, this

005used to be the gym at one time. That's why we have the space that's here. This is how I look at brilliance. What was brilliant is what we're sitting under, the loft. How do I know that? Because it's 2025 right now. And every kid that comes in here wants to go in that loft. They want to see what's up there. That drives them to get here. It's underutilized because we haven't kept it moving forward. We haven't kept it modernized. Fact of the matter is that's what we hope to do in this presentation. The other thing which was popular back at that time was the circulation desk. The circulation desk is huge. Back at that time, it may have been absolutely wonderful. This all makes sense if it doesn't. But guess what? This is hard to

006change. These tables are heavy. We have to pick them up. We have to move them. We have to shift them around. The chairs are all over the place. These the the uh shelving is stabilized. It's stable. It won't move. We can get a lot more use by making our space more effective. And that is what this is going to be about. Purposeful uh uh library with a purpose. library, driving the kids, pulling them in, being able to do a very amount of things in the library. Again, the purpose, the library should be the hub of our school. The space is big. We have everything that we need except we don't have the excitement generating from the library. This whole library is underutilized. I told you this was brilliant, but it's still underutilized. The Nathan Hill

007Library was created from a space that one time served as the gymnasium. So, we had the space. Again, in my study and putting all of this together, the one thing that we don't have to worry about is space, but we have to keep our energy moving forward and modernizing what we do have. Getting to the nitty-gritty to reimagine the space, we divided the area into five zones. You can split it down the middle, and I have a map on here that will show you that. and then horizontally across. So you can look at 1 2 3 4 and five is on top. Both of these we counted as two different zones. Let me show you this vision. Right now going back to the way libraries were and the way they were in the school, we

008expect one class to come in here and have the librarian's attention. Oh no, no, no, no, no. We should have a class upstairs, a class down here. We should even have some adults over there furthering what they're doing in the classroom while the librarian is up front with the kindergarten class sitting down reading and telling stories. And all of this can be going on at one time. It is a mind shift because you have to have the librarian in place that's also thinking along those same terms. I don't know in another lifetime I was a reader, a story reader at Barnes & Noble. Barnes & Noble is what I see all over here. Kids moving around, adults moving around. We have parent meetings that we can hardly fit in here because it's so problematic. Why

009aren't we able to move the furniture with ease? Set up a parent section here and a parent section back there. It's about getting more bang for our buck. And we can do that. So when you come in the library, obviously this is outside just trying to get you that view. I'm not sure if I am standing in the correct place for this. But when we look at coming through, you're coming in the library. Here is the loft area right here. Here is your um circulation desk. Oh, sorry. There's your circulation desk. Oh, I'm showing you all my goodies. There's the circulation desk when you come in. This whole area that you see over here, the shelves have been removed and the plan is not to simply take good stuff and throw them out, but it's

010to repurpose them. As you know, we have walls, retractable walls that are coming down. Well, some of these shelves will be new shelving space in the classroom. We'll utilize what we can in the library to hold our books. Um, most of those will be up against the wall while we have seating that's designed for the kids. Flexible seating that we can move all around that can also go through dayto-day schooling as well as even parent meetings if we should need to. So, as you come into the library, you'll come in and then you'll see the circulation desk. You'll see this section over here, zone two. Here's zone two that we talked about. You can see some of the seating. You can see some of the pods that are there. These aren't regular tables like these.

011These are tables that are built for kids. Some of them are low to the floor like this where the kids will sit on little pillows, if you will. Some of them are regular chairs. Some of them, the idea is that the students themselves can get out of the mindset and guess what? feel comfortable in a place that we want them to read for enjoyment as well as understand their studying. This library has to do more than just what its old function was. So zone two would be over here. Zone three, not a great picture. Sorry about it. This is the circulation desk right here. So you're looking at it when you come in. We hope to downsize the footprint. Why downsize it? because it'll give us another uh 17 so or feet that we can't

012use right now. The idea is that kids want an opportunity to move to have some elbow room. We might, as I had mentioned to you before, have a class under here and over there. Why can't there be kids working in small groups by themselves or our enrichment group? There has to be more than one thing going on and we can drive that right here. So, as you come in that circulation desk, we're looking to downsize it. We did a survey on this and the people u I am certainly one that don't have any problem telling you that circulation desk is too big. But I also know that guess what? Some people were here when that circulation desk rolled out. And at that time, like I said, that was a star feature in this area. So,

013this is a win-win. What we're trying to do right now is downsize it yet keep some of that old skeleton that's still there. Zone three is right across from you. Those large stationery bookshelves that's going to be gone. We have, if you remember when I came over here, there were three more long tables of nothing more than desktop computers. There was about a class worth that was there. We started removing those because it is dictated that guess what? All of our kids have onetoone opportunities now. We didn't need that anymore. So we downsized to five. Now those five are going away. What you're looking at across there is an opportunity to have a more traditional library in which there will be tables for so kids can understand that there's an etiquette that goes with this

014that when you go into the public library how to act what you should do and guess what that that education is all around you. So again, those desks, those don't won't just be tables over there, but we'll have those outfitted with chargers because the kids may not come in with just binders. The teachers may come in with them and you'll see them all on the table at the tables with their Chromebooks open. So again, how do we modernize what we have to benefit our students? So that's zone three. Zone four and five down here, zone four, upstairs, zone five. It is so wonderful what I'm about to show you. I hope we can certainly pull it off. Uh you'll see on the next slide, but I know we've been investigating. I've been working with Dr.

015McGawan and we were looking at a smartboard going upstairs connected to the one downstairs. Oh, you know what I'm thinking already. Here come the fifth. Here comes the fourth grade. Here comes the third grade. There's a class down here. There's a class up there. We have teachers doing the same lesson, but the kids are out of their classroom. And we know that that's powerful. Now, you might say to yourself, "Okay, so the kids upstairs, kids down here, I want kids over there. I want kids all over the place. It's going to be kind of noisy for this group in here." Well, what we hope to do is enclose it off. And we found transparent panels just down here that would go all the way around, making this a classroom unto itself. upstairs we don't have

016to worry about it as much but downstairs we will also have the smartboard connected to the one upstairs so the teachers are doing the same lesson because we have utilized what we could uh during special events we know we could get two classes up there we could get two classes down here depends on how we do it but right now there is no barriers or anything that really makes that possible this kind of puts the ooh into what we're trying to do. And those those retractable walls again, the transparent walls, they can come down if we need them to come down because maybe our function is larger than that. In order for the library to become the hub of the school, it must be able to speak to various interests. And again, you know that,

017hey, I can tell you when I was back in school, which was a whole another lifetime, you know what? I can go back to third grade and I tell you right now, I would have had a better chance and better been a better reader if when I opened the comic book, my teacher would have let me go rather than snatching the comic book. So, you know what? We have grown with that. We need a section that's going to talk about uh the different styles, the different genres uh that we have. We need to have something for everybody, and we can do that. We just got to keep the energy going. This should be the hub of our school and this library should be the source of our activities. Not just to come and read, but

018to come and get on your computer. Not just to come and hear a story, but to also be able to make something, to take it with you. This has to be powerful. We have the space to do it and I think we have the energy to do it. So, I hope that you will certainly continue the modernization that we're experiencing here at Nathan Hail. I did a little price breakout. As far as things are concerned, all furniture is $166,000. New carpet is $50,000. The smartboard 7500. And does this mean everything is engraved in concrete? No. It means that my job is to put a plan together. Oh, and I'd love you to say, "Oh, just handle it. Just go ahead and do it." I would love you to say that. But it's built on reality

019because I work in reality. So the fact of the matter is I needed to put everything together to give it to Dr. Pettis to give it to Mr. Shrader to give it to them and then from that point we can branch out from there. But if you're on to the modernization part, if you're on to we can get more bang for our buck, then I presented that to you. Uh acoustic ceiling panels, you know what the lights we had done, we are in a gym. So it does get loud because there's nothing to take that sound to suck up that sound. We are looking at some baffles. This is 15 baffles up here. These are clouds if you will of which they would be around the around the classroom around the library. Just providing some

020of that I want to go in there because it's beautiful. Painting quote needed. You know what? We'll buy we if we can buy the paint, the OBM staff and I will get in here and we will paint it ourselves. It won't go all the way to the top, but we will take care of all of the bottom up to the blue. I don't want to get for for the record, they painted it. What you say now paint the white and we will go all the way up to the blue. And then the downsizing of the circulation desk that's talked about tonight. Had that checked out, too. $15,000 is the low bid to high. I wanted to see if I could narrow it down from there. I didn't know whether we could do it, but when

021you look at the pillars over there, if they were steel beams going down it, then we wouldn't touch it. It would be too expensive to do, right? They're not. They're sitting on wood. So, what we hope to do is those that is metal up top. It's a thin metal, but what we hope to do is cut it, reshape it, and put it back together, creating that downsized piece. pulling it in. So, that's the work there. And as you can see, there is electricity uh because the lights go around it. I don't know about you, but I'm excited about it. And I hope that you're excited about it, too. And again, that is the reading piece. Thank you. We were looking at what we could do with this space because the library here has not been

022updated in any capacity in the last 32 years. Even the carpet is the same. So if you went to school here 32 years ago, it's the same carpet. It's it's pretty much the same everything. So we were looking at trying to get it done in a smaller increments so it won't be too um costly all at once trying to do it at baby steps. But every um June we do an end of the year review to kind of talk about what did we do at Sunnybrook and that is why Mr. Shrader sent you the end of the year financials. We will be talking about doing a budget a little later on, but for us, July 1st starts the beginning of our new year. So, we still haven't got to New Year's Eve yet. And so,

023consequently, we haven't gotten all of our budget allocations from the state. So, we're still waiting in limbo to kind of figure out what we doing in what direction, but we gave you that. I've also emailed you some data as relates to discipline, but we are going to take a look. So, collectively, administratively, we're going to do a end of the year, our end of the year PowerPoint. I'm good. I can't see. Yay. You're not doing a right. Right. Where's the clicker? Be careful. For real. I can't get my foot. So, let's talk about some of the highlights. We've hit many highlights, but I guess these were the ones that really made me smile. We have STEM from kindergarten to fourth grade. I was really excited about that. We had some ups and downs, but believe

024it or not, the kids enjoyed it to great levels. Har just took second. Come y'all give it to me. Let me tell you why I was glad I miss everything to it is it is personal. When we first started this, we go against kids at POS Tinley Orland. And when we first, you know, we had a a student who was like a runner up and I think a kid was there was like Sunny Brook, what's that? Where you from? And my kids took it personal. And I told him, "Oh, no. We we fabulous." You know, I'm my own cheerleader. We fabulous. We divas. We got this. So last year, we came up to third place. They pick We can't do third. Can't do third. I'm much more too much of a diva for that. So

025my babies told me they was going to bring me second or first and my babies rocked it out. I was super excited. Very excited. Seventh grade took it's the first time in our history of Sunny Brook School District 171 that we actually went down state and took fourth overall for our seventh grade. So eighth grade should just be amazing. and we took our first Heritage House leadership trip to uh we took students and I'm not going to lie, I'm still a little stressed out about that. Thank Miss Ambrose for going, but I did burn up Miss Carrick phone. I just burned up her phone when she took staff there. But we took our students on the airplane to Atlanta just to get them some sense of leadership because usually we take them down face. So

026to me that was super huge. Now, we did a whole lot of other things, but I think these are four things that we truly truly can be proud of. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. We remodel naked Hill's entrance and office. So, we start every school year as our back to school for dancer. I know this because I started this here about eight years ago. I think I started it and it has grown and grown and and you know what? It makes me proud because our families call me now. I'm like, are we going to still do it? It's just a nice way to get the teachers out to meet their new students. The families just they see us when we're not complaining. Everybody's happy. That's a good look, Mr. Ter. I'm telling you. So,

027that's how we started. Well, on another note, we have to do prior to the first day of school, we have to do safety safety meetings. I know a lot of people don't want to talk about safety means, but that's very important to me. So, we how you get the new interest in the doorways. It's how you get the new lights outside the buildings. We meet with the police. We meet with the fire department. We all come together and kind of talk about, you know, part of the things that we do. You do the active weather, you do the lockdown, you do the bus, you do the school evacuation drills, and then you do the annual safety meeting. But when our school evacuation drills are a little bit more um high-tech, the other school districts because

028we are close to an airport. So, we have to have a drill that talks about what happens if a airplane goes down. And that, I'll be honest with you, is a whole different type of conversation that you have to have with kids and and parents. So we are always looking at our curriculum that is more of a Dr. Los thing than a Erica thing but I still look at it with her. So one of the very first things we did and I'll let Dr. Los talk about it. We did a really big dumpster dive into science and that's just because again it's it's personal for me because we haven't had science in our district for over 10 years for for our kids at Nathan Hill. They had no science. So when they got over to

029Heritage Middle School, it was special for fifth grade. It was real special. But by the time they got to eighth grade and now seventh grade, we are dissecting. So your students this year, I want to say they dissected the baby shark. That was way over my head. What they're doing, they're actually in seventh grade, they're dissecting frogs. They're dissecting little bitty piglets. And that's huge because a lot of times kids don't do that until they go to high school. So, I wanted to give our kids a much more enriched experience, which is why we started science day. But I'll let you talk about that. Wait, let me move first. So, yeah. So, we just This was our first year of implementing science back into Nathan Hale, which really was a great experience. We had two

030science days where the kids had that. And as we get through the survey, you'll see obviously Jim always comes up, but science was a huge part of what the students loved and that just excitement that bringing it back that there really is no right answer. and that your environment can skew your data and that just because you did this experiment and you were outside over here to the north or to the south or wherever you were at that your data may look different because of how you did it and what the environment where the wind was blowing or what may happen. So just lots of growth was taking place and just getting our students to be problem solvers and thinkers because ultimately that's what we want. We don't want robots. We want problem solvers and

031thinkers. So Mr. Kent and I talk a lot about implementing those types of questions. We're not going to do right there questions. We're not going to do think and search because you can find the answer we want on our own and with so that students start thinking so they can be independent thinkers and creators. Um we also was our second year with implementation of our new reading series. Um and when we get to our data we'll talk more about that. And then this was the end of our first year with our new maths to lay down those stronger foundational skills that our students need because we do need to support our students more with our math and and moving forward with that. Moving on to our bilingual population currently Sunny Brook District about 15% of

032our students are in our bilingual um get receive bilingual services. Um our bilingual department consists we have to do four what we call BPAC meetings or bilingual parent advisory committee meetings. So we do four a year and we usually do them in conjunction with our parent university so that we can get more parents to come out. Uh this year I want to give a big big shout out in the face to Miss Magna. She is our bilingual uh parent committee advisory um representative. So we have to have someone from us. So Miss Magna has kindly done that for us. She organized the four meetings. And then a big thanks to Miss Q and Miss Abenda because they put together the presentations and provided the support to our families of our Spanish speaking families. Uh but

033it's open to everybody. Um this is just some videos from our EL department, all of the activities and things that we did throughout the year. um Hispanic Heritage Night, our Nigerian Heritage Night, our fourth graders black history projects, all the reading that they did. We did create with our um title three funds, we purchased a lot of new books for our EL library, so the students have an opportunity to get books that are in their native language that they can take home and read with their parents. Um our e garden, they've had tons of fun putting that together. Again, this goes with Mr. Kent and Dr. Pettison's mission to get that science really fully engaged in our school. And this is part of that. We use this um showing uh the heritage spirits, making sugar

034skulls, the Nigerian heritage night, um bilingual book tasting. This is one of the funnest activities that Miss Camdrick has with her bilingual department is that they do a what they call a book tasting. So they go through and they pretend they're tasting all these different books and then they write synopsis about what they would like to read. That's cute. and then uh Day of the Dead. And now we're going to our data. So we move into our star data. And as I told you for the last several years, one of the biggest things that we want to do, we don't want our red to be high. And if you look, we are 10% higher in the red this year than we were last year. We knew this going in December. And this is going to

035go back to the presentation that Mr. Kent also just gave. So we knew we were going to take a dip and it is circling around our our elementary. So Mr. Kent and his brilliant team sat down and they put together a plan which became the reading place and part of that plan is to implement an afterchool program that they did for the last quarter um where the students came and then continuing into the summer with the same students to assist with our lack of growth that we did not have that we wanted to have. So we knew this like I said going in January I said December I meant January and Mr. Kent and his team put together a beautiful proposal in which they came up with a wonderful opportunity to hopefully get our students

036more engaged by redesigning our library to get books in students hands. You know, we talk a lot about this with technology. It's beautiful. You could read, but there's just something powerful about a book in your hand and flipping the pages. And that's what we want to bring back because we see we have this issue. And one of the things that we saw through the reading place was they did a lot of reading out loud and the the love the students are there and the and the encouragement of it. And yesterday, Mr. Kent or last week, Mr. Kent and I got to sit with the students in the summer school program and a student that has been struggling all year took it upon himself to go ask for assistance. So we we don't know because we'll

037have to do our survey and our data to see how our results were and if our program is working or at least moving us in the right direction. So we don't know that and we won't know that until we are able to test our students at the beginning of the year. But ultimately what we're seeing based on our students actions is that they're wanting to learn. So that's the biggest obstacle is when you give them that confidence and that ability to learn. If they want it, they're going to seek it out. And that's what Mr. Kent and I were able to see this past week which was a really good experience. So kudos to Mr. Kent and his team for really looking at it, not wasting any time putting a process in place real quick

038to address this issue. So thank you for that. Um and then Matt, the same thing. We're still fighting, struggling with that. I've got Miss Washington and I are working to kind of put some stuff and interventions into place with Dr. Pettis's approvals as we move forward just to put those basic skills and those foundational things that we're working on to try to ensure our students get what they need to be successful. Um, so let me just say this. There is a big we in October we're going to do another presentation and I think sometimes I'm not sure the board always and I not necessarily sure the community always get there's a difference. The stock that you just saw is daytoday performance. Okay, we do that three times a year. The what we're going to present

039to you in October is our um I scores. That's our state scores. Now, we do have the preliminary scores in already, but I just can't really they haven't been like massively approved by ISBY yet, so I can't share them. But there's there is a difference. But when you take a look at the star scores, the star scores are supposed to be a predictor on how we do on the I and this year, not really. We did we we did a lot better on on the I but for me that at least for me and my team we have to think about no disrespect I don't want my kids just to be good to take a test correct I want my kids to be functioning in every aspect of life on a daily basis. So we

040we look at the star scores a lot more um intensely and what we we also discovered with our scores is that we've had an influx we had quite the influx this year of new students to our district. We got quite the influence. We had um 20% of our current population is new to the district. Um and so that does skew our data but sometimes people look at those as excuses and so forth and we're not. We're working to meet all the needs of our students regardless. But unfortunately when we show year-to-year data that will that will you know change the way you look at it in the statistics because it does change it. So this year we actually had almost a hundred more students that we tested on top of 20% were new students to

041the district. So so we took a cohort. So we have that at some point we will present to you that data. So, you're going to get quite a few presentations coming your way because we take a look at the kids who have been with us from prek, kindergarten, all the way up to 8th grade versus students who come in because I need to see if there's some continuity in how my teachers are teaching. Correct. And right now, we know that we do have, and this seems to be a hurdle that I just can't seem to get over, is a disconnect in the area of math between fourth and fifth grade. Our kids, they do wonderful in fourth grade, not so well in fifth grade, but then they get back on track for sixth grade. So,

042something has got to be done for fifth grade, which is how come we've started the step up program to start getting the kids um accumulated to Heritage Middle School as fifth graders. We've even um we're throwing around the ideal right now of maybe even moving fifth grade back over to this building because we do separate. But just know that we do look at the data and we've got a lot of things on the plate that we're talking about what we could do because you just can't keep giving the same answer all the time. Nobody wants to hear that. We got to hear some growth and I think and I'm just saying for myself for far too long we've had that struggle in fifth grade. But we do have some things though that we can tell

043because we've done we have done some wonderful things. So with our high school proficiency, we're very lucky that we get to offer algebra in our school. Thanks to Mr. Bronx having the license to be able to teach it. So that's wonderful for us. And with that being said, we had eight of our students pass their algebra proficiency exam, which is great because that means they don't have to take algebra. They have that credit. They can look forward into geometry. And such a wonderful thing as a student going into high school to know they've already got one thing down. Um, and as as impressive as that is, I have to go to this with our Spanish is that we are very lucky to have Mr. Torres as our Spanish teacher. A lot of times we don't

044uh get as a as people we don't like to compliment ourselves. So I have to compliment sometimes for my teachers. But to have 53 nonspeaking Spanish students pass the test and go into Spanish to I I don't think I've even ever heard of that. That is so phenomenal and it definitely needs kudos because that is fantastic. And if you ever get the opportunity to go to Heritage, I would recommend walking in because there's a lot of times I'm like, "What is going on in there? I have to go look." And when I walk in, they're learning through dance, they're learning through songs, they're learning through whatever it may be. But they're always actively engaged. And it's just a it's a nice feeling to hear and to see, but to see that number 53. I mean,

045non-native students passed into Spanish, too, is is phenomenal. Um and so we always do our end of the student um survey our result or surveys for our students just to kind of see what our students feel because we feel one way but we all know perception is different and our students are the reason we're here. So we need to hear how they what they feel. So most enjoyed subjects see what I said science. The students last year didn't have science in fourth grade and when they went to fifth grade oh they were so happy they got science and it was their favorite class. Uh social studies sixth and seventh grade. Um, best learning methods. They felt that they learned better on their Chromebook for fifth and seventh, but sixth grade loved group work, which was

046great. I thought that was a great way to look at things. Uh, what made learning fun? Fifth grade said nothing. And we got to take that. So, we have to look at that and say, "Okay, we got to make fun." But our fifth graders don't think it's fun. Uh, sixth grade said friends. And then, uh, seventh grade said fun activities, which is the things that, you know, we we Miss Camrich, I can't say we, Miss Camrich 100%. They do so many fun things for her for the students, for our students, and it's just amazing. Um, favorite subject across the street for fifth grade was art, which we can see why. Uh, gym, sixth and seventh. Uh, at least enjoy. Fifth grade said none. So, even out of all of the things that they have to

047do, they still didn't feel that any of them was not their favorite subject. And unfortunately, EL2 for us is writing. That's a common thing. Kids don't like to write. And yeah, I I may fall in that spectrum. I love math. Um but then for our uh so here then the heritage continuing clubs joined. Yes. Top club was open gym they loved and the track uh new club they would like to have football. Uh mind care strategies talking with a friend plus exercise breaks in seventh grade. Healthy foods they want grapes. We do give grapes but they must want more grapes. Um and then how staff assisted me. So, we wanted to see like what did people feel about our staff and they they said, you know, they really love the shout outs help them when

048they needed it both academically and emotionally. So, in Miss Cambridge's building, they do shout outs during um RTI RTI meetings. They do house meetings. They do it in the comments every day. They'll give a shout out on something. So, it's that constant just feeling good about yourself. Unfortunately, I feel as a society, we've stopped doing that. We stop recognizing people for their excellence and and and we need to do that again and that's what they're telling us they want. So, we do take these surveys seriously. That's how we got soccer. That's how we got soccer in both buildings. Miss Blount does her little league and Mr. Dan, Mr. Torres, and Mr. Spruss and baby. Super proud. And they've taken it to a whole new level. We've done we did four four real life soccer games

049this year. I was like super happy. Super happy. And some of these people been doing soccer a long time. They dominated us. But that's okay. We look good in our uniforms. Sometimes you just got to look good, you feel good. That's right. We look good. We were out there and it's just it's just amazing. Um that's how we um figured out I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the kids at Heritage get two choices for lunch because last year when we did the survey, they were not pleased that everyone had to eat the same thing. So we came back, we gave them two choices. Okay, now we got more grapes. Now we I guess I got to give them more grapes now. Um, but we do take a look at this and now

050next year we're gonna try hand some cross country. See, my my whole thing is that we don't have a boys and girls club. And so, not that you don't want your kids to be at home, not that we love staying here all night, but I feel if my kids have a deep rooted investment in the school, they do better and then we can reach them more and hopefully with their parents collaboration, get them on the right path and keep them out of trouble. So, if you ever look on our website, that's how you see the book. We've got so many clubs now, more than we've ever had. But it's really a good thing. It's a is a when you have to have, you know, Mr. Ken has talked about this a bunch of times, the

051art teacher cut our club into quarters because we don't want to turn anybody away. That's a powerful thing. Our students want to be here and that that's a good feeling on my part. Uh for Nathan Hale, we only do third and fourth grade because the rest of the survey, we are not really for sure if the students would necessarily get it and the teacher would probably more be guiding their answers. Um, so we only do third and fourth grade here. So most subject that they enjoy is math, which is great because that makes me feel good. They at least love it. We just got to make sure we're giving them what they need to be successful. Uh, best learning method. They love group work here. So that's a positive because Mr. Kent can speak to

052that. He is seeing so much more group work than he's ever seen before with students working together. And that really all of that kind of goes back to that push for us bringing science back in. Science is one of those ultimate subjects where group work tends to work better and it is helping us. Um, what made learning fun? They said they math and gym. Uh favorite sub special was gym. Least they said third grade said nothing and fourth grade said reading. And that makes sense. And it really does make sense with all the data that we're showing and everything that we saw. We put, you know, things into place that really does make sense. When you struggle with something, you don't want to like it. Um they want they love the clubs. They soccer was

053their favorite club. They want uh new clubs. They want a basketball club here. They want art club, which we did hear them. So, we did put a basketball club right now for summer school to pilot it. It is wonderful. They are loving it. Miss Adams is doing a fantastic job. She created a uh proposal. She submitted it to Mrs. Quuevas and it was with a rainy day plan in case we weren't able to be outside. So, she really wanted our students to have it and they are loving every part of it. They're asking for apples and corn. Uh we do have it, but I guess they want more. Uh staff assisted me. They helped me when I was struggling and then they gave me a shout out award. Again, our students love that. And so,

054we just have to be mindful of it and continue to keep doing the excellent things that we're doing. In all honesty, we only do corn four times a year because I'm not I mean, so much. Yes, we had a wonderful year and I can't speak enough to how how proud I am of my principles and my teachers and most of all my students. We had a year and um we learned a lot this year. We have a lot of growing to do. We will continue to do, but that's all we can do. Continue to take move our students from where they are and ensure that we move them further. Thank you. Thank you. One of our main projects this year in the equal services was our preschool for all program. We've always had the special

055education um self-contained prek. This year we worked with the state of Illinois um obtained a grant was able to open a beautiful new classroom and um we had seven prek screening days all the way through the year. We actually added on um a date we screened 64 students and we provided services for 36 prek students at Nathan Hale. This was one of the favorite parts of my week was walking through the prek classrooms. They were doing flower art down here. Um we have a researchbased curriculum. They're working in stations and independently and um they're really hardworking teachers. We're teaching our kids to learn how to learn and they're coming in with different skills and this is for three, four and five year olds. So it was really great. Um 20 of our prek students were

056promoted to kindergarten. So we had an end of the year celebration. Um it was wonderful. We had a bounce house. We had snacks. But we had 55 guests come and it was in this area. We can't wait to see what it looks like next year, Mr. But um the kids did this great skit. They had some of their artwork and projects around and there was just a lot of excitement um for pupil services. Right now we have 170 students from preK through 8th grade that are eligible for special education services and supports. So we had about 70 evaluations. That includes the initial evaluations. There were about 25 and then we had almost 50 re-evaluations. Our social workers were working hard with social developmental studies. We had speech and language evaluations. Our psychologists completed over 60,

057but overall we had um 252 special education meetings this year. So everybody always has at least one, several and then some. Yes. So you know and and kudos to Miss Green because I don't think she gives herself enough accolade with this. One of the things and we're going to talk about we got audited by the state. When I tell you the state audited every aspect of Sunny Brook, the state audited every aspect of Sunny Brook this year. And I mean everything. We did exceptionally well. The one thing that we had things done is kind of an oxymoron that indicated we didn't do enough staff development on on differentiated instruction and that's all that we do. So it's kind of funny. But what is a good thing and a kudos is that we here at Sunny

058Brook we don't have self-contained classrooms. So our special ed students outside of being three to five year olds once you hit kindergarten up we integrate you into the regular ed environment and that's just because we got this mindset that the world is not separate so we try to keep our kids integrated within the whole population and what Miss Green did she did something that I struggled for years to do and that's put more kids within the regular ed curriculum it's not always an easy task people are not always when our students have been exposed to it and that is a kudos because sometimes you know you get to be nurturing with kids and whether you know it or not maybe you're watering down maybe you're protecting them but our kids especially when they get to

059the middle school they they want to be like their friends. So we've pushed so many of our students into the regular ed curriculum. It's been some tearful days but we we sold just we got back up and we keep moving and we keep watching. So, I'm so proud of them because when it comes down to that high school meeting, you can have realistic conversations because one of the things when you come to the high school meeting, they talk about what type of classes did your child need. And the reality is if your child has never been in a general ed classroom, how then can you say he won't be successful there? And at some point, you have to let these young people start advocating for themselves because their parents won't always be there. And when

060you have an IEP, you can carry it on to get accommodations and modification even in a college setting. So we've we've started doing that. We've started talking to our students that teach them how to advocate. So I have to say kudos to Miss uh for technology. This was the our first full year of implementation with parents square. Um, one of the key things that Parent Square has helped us achieve is a 100% connectivity rate with our parents. Um, and that is something to be proud of as a district because the national average is only about 80%. And when we say we're connected 100% of our parents, that means for every student we have at least one contactable parent either through our text messaging, app notifications, uh, email, things of that nature. So, that's something we've

061actually been recognized nationally for that. Um, obviously the launch for a new website a couple months ago, which we've been getting a lot of good compliments about that. Um, it's actually the best looking website we've had in the nine years I've been here for sure. Um, and like I said, I just think it's, hey, I designed Hey, I designed the other ones, too. So, um, you know, so it was a huge big step up for us. And like I said, again, we're being recognized, uh, for that. Um, I think it's a lot easier to find the information if you've been digging around. Um the next thing is we are almost cashless. Um that is a huge step forward we took this year. We will never be a 100% cashless district. I don't think any school

062district ever could be. So we're not being unrealistic here. Um but we have taken the steps forward. It is a security issue. Um there you know there's room for errors. There's room for a lot of different things when you're cash handling um in any business and districts whatever. Um but we have taken the steps uh to move forward and we've even got some new things we're going to be rolling out. Uh because actually our sporting events are one of the last things that we are heavy cash. Um but uh Miss Hamdrick uh Mr. Sher and I have had conversations um and we think we've got a good plan in place um to go even more cashless for next year. Um with our live streaming this year we streamed more events than we ever have. We

063live streamed over 70 events uh this year. Um and our, you know, every year I always used to give you the stats for everything. Uh we have stayed about where we are, which is great. I mean, we have over a hundred people view our sporting events. Uh we have found out that other districts because we are the only district in the Cal conference that streams their games and we have gotten word that other districts that parents are happy when they play us um at home um because they do have the opportunity to see the so that is and we're going to keep that. We also design the cow. Yeah, we also run their website too. Um, so yeah, we kind of have the technology cornered in the Cal area. Um, and then the last thing,

064obviously, as we talked about before, this was our first full year of STEM K through eight. Um, but heavily over here for K through four. Um, I think we even have better things ahead uh coming with that this upcoming year. Okay, so Mrs. Shrader coached me through this this morning. So for our financial profile, I don't know what to say, but m Mr. Mr. Stra don't play with the money. I don't no other way to say that. So we got the overall recognition of um we just got the higher recogition. Like I said, we had a very successful audit, a very grueling audit. It took me over a week to find a check that I was like, I don't believe it right. I didn't know where the check went. But we found that check. So,

065we did a really good successful audit. But let's talk about construction. Um, again, if you if you just look, it just makes me feel good now when parents pull up to our Nathan Hill school because for Mr. Ken and I, when we first did the construction, I want you to know we got dog out from parents. They were none too happy about what it looked like. And we kept saying, "Give it time. Give it time." And now they walk in and it's it's just it's really warm. is very inviting. I can't say enough how thankful that Mr. Ken and I are to Miss Coons because she decorates outside. She's the one who puts those little peeps and everything out there. She and Miss Cameron, yes, Miss Cameron came over and helped Mr. Kent and I

066because we are not artistic. Put together the whole best of you. So again, super thank you, Miss Cameron. Super thank you. If you take a look at the nurse's office and even the off the district office or the main office for Mr. Kent and his staff to work in, it's larger. It's more safe and more secure because again that that was um a big thing for us to have some security at the office because you know the world is ever evolving. If you take a look, we just stopped there when this camera got we started now. We Oh boy. So, you know, Miss Cameron told me to stop doing things, so help them. I'm trying. But we also put in some security measures and did some upgrades to characters middle school. But wait till you

067see what wait till you see us and I get wig. It's going to be great. So, we're excited. Let's look at it. Miss Carol, are you smiling? Yay. So that's what currently what it looks like over there while our board members, our board meetings are here. This little piece right here, that used to be district office. That's district office and the nursing station. If you notice here, all the lockers are gone. Look at you, Miss Hill. Yep, they all gone. The floor didn't look the best. So we had to take the floor up. Yeah, this camera happy. Trust me. So these are what our construction what we're looking at. We're looking at the completed renovation of the nurs's office and the student and faculty restrooms which are the ones that are close when you come

068into district office. They were not ADA acceptable. So if you had a wheelchair or any kind of disability and need a little bit more room, these were not bathrooms for you. We are finally here at this teachers lounge. They have windows. The window is already open there. So we're looking at for real. It's really we try to get we try to invite people to come out their little hubs and to network and make it a more creative space district office and here's office. Um Mr. Stra's getting the window. He wants a window. He's getting the window. So there will be windows. We will be more in line. And now we will have a joint conference room like a little way to connect district office to heritage office. I mean I'm there all the time anyway.

069So we just going to have a little connection to the back the back. Okay. And we are also looking at renovations to the gym activity room, the mechanical room, and the maintenance receiving room. What does all of that mean? That means if you ever walked into the gym, and I know you would never know this, there was a um it's a blue wall where it used to be a blue wall there where they kept some of the equipment and electrical boxes there. It's not a good look for me to have electrical boxes and kids going there getting stuff. So, I've got to put some boundaries up in there. So, that's what's going there. And then the other issue we were having is when we get like pallets of paper or anything large, we could never

070run um we could never pull it through the building. We had to take everything off the pallet and take it off because we didn't have the door space. It wasn't a whip to um get it through there. And now we will be doing that here at Nathan Hill. We've had partition walls. So now we are getting solid walls. And that's construction that's going on right now. You'll see pictures. You're getting it for full services. We did we are a district that every no one has to pay for lunches here. So if your student wants to come to schools and just eat here, that's fine. I know a lot of parents still pack lunches cuz the kids don't want school food, but we serve 60,000 breakfastes this year. We did 120 lunches, which is 71% 120,000

07171% of our population. But what I also want you to know that I started a after school supper program. I tried it last year, but then we kind of had to stop it. But then we took it on this year and we kept it going. What is the supper program? So if you have a stu a lot of our students they are here past 3 they are here to 4 5:00 giving them a sandwich was not working for them or me. So now what we doing, we're giving them supper. They're having like And it's completely different from lunch. I when I tell you more kids like the supper program than the lunch program, it's I Okay, it's it's so different over here because I'm still dealing with babies. They do get like a slice of

072cheese and some crackers or something like that because they eat a little bit slower than my middle school kids, but over there they may get a meatball sandwich with mashed potatoes and grapes. I mean, it's completely different meal and the kids are loving they're loving it so much that I'm now I'm making take home for the sibling bag. I'm making bags though at the end of the day. So, I'm really happy for that and we're going to keep that going. Remember I told you we did audits. I'm not kidding you. I'm not kidding you. I had a lot of audits. So, IC4, which is our regional office of education, came in and do a comprehensive audit. Overall, we got 85 out of 100. Our student files are they're pretty good. They're 92 out of 100.

073Staffing personnel was 74. What I realized with um staff and personnel, I'll take this full slap. We didn't we failed to and I'm going to own it and I'm going to acknowledge it. When we have a substitute that's teaching the class, we're supposed to let the community know. Erica didn't do that. Erica didn't do that. So, we got penalized for that. And we had a couple we had a couple of instances of doing that. We also uh we had to send back our school nurse. Our school nurse is a nurse practitioner. Okay. To me, you're a nurse practitioner. Okay. What else do you need? Okay, I know what you need now. You need certification from the state to say you can sign off on the IEP. Don't worry about it, Miss Thompson. It's done. She

074took the class. She passed it. So a lot of the things that you see here we did come back and we did correct when but at least I need to be very transparent to let you know. Now if you want to know very much more in detail what actually said I've got no problems giving that to you either. The one for policy and governance was 76 and one we got on three major causes. One is for kids who wear um those call. We didn't have a policy say if you wear a hab that you can wear all day even in general. Thank you. My apologies. So I we didn't have I we didn't have a policy in place for that. I did not have a policy in place for concussions. Now we all get training

075on concussion. All everyone does, but we didn't have a policy in our hand our student parent handbook for it. And the other thing, um, what was the other thing? Sex education. Yeah, I didn't I didn't put in for sex education to say parents, they can opt out of having their students um opt out of sex education. Don't you worry about it. Dr. Los made sure that I got my life together. And so now in your new very upcoming handbook, all of that is in there. And in August, all the staff as a whole will be retrained on concussions. And it's a two-hour training, but they all going to be trained on concussions. So, and then for health, life safety, our buildings I What can you say to Mr. Brandon, Mr. Johnson? Because they hold us

076down. They may fuss at us and we may fuss at them, but they make sure everything is always together. So we got 100 out of 100 on there. When it talks about our instructional program, we're 83 out of 100 on that as well. So you know there's always areas of growth and we are doing well overall. But again, if I want to if I want Sunny Brook to be a blue ribbon school because that is what I really really want, we've got to do better. Now we are putting those those steps for the preschool for all. The findings are still pending, but know this. We hadn't had preschool for over 15 years. So now we're coming back to have preschool after 15 years. So it is huge and we are making strides. McKenna Vento, they

077said we passed. There's no finance. So yay. And our overall financial rating as we talked about on the other side was 3.9 out of four. A discipline data. I can't really compare discipline data from last year from Nathan Hill. I'm unable to do that. But overall, we had 31 suspensions, 22 out of school, mad in school. I sent the board um documentation because we do take that serious because I leave kids in school to learn. So, we did come up with Mrs. Quavvis came up in conjunction with Mr. and a PBL team talk about things and measures we're going to put in place to kind of make it better for next school year. at Heritage with 23 24 school year we had 86 suspensions 2425 which is last year we had 54 which was a

07837% reduction people that's huge that that is really huge and I didn't we didn't have and I have to be honest we had um our last couple of weeks of school was special which um they were real special which pushed our numbers up we probably would have even came out like at a 45% reduction if I didn't have such um chaos IC last couple of weeks of school. But nevertheless, we are still looking to be more creative to do things to keep our kids and we are still looking at doing more community outreach with our kids. Okay. Go Nationals. Come on Camry. Go Nationals. Go Nationals. Okay. First, can I say though this? So, I'm going into my fifth year as principal in here and every year we're in construction. I have not experienced a

079summer that's I'm just saying. So, I don't want them to just think that I'm complaining about this. Yes, but you are. I'm not. I'm just looking forward to the day that the summertime is just a regular summer and then I'll know what a regular summer looks like. That's all. Okay. Go ahead. All right. So, let's start with art. So, we talked about um the survey and how the students said that art was one of their best that subject. So, we have a new art teacher. His name is Mr. Bart. Coincidentally, we did call him Bart Art. Um and he's amazing. He is absolutely amazing. He loves the kids. He's he, you know, his classes are engaging. The kids love him. And so, I have um I like tattoos. So, I'm tattooing the walls. So, you

080guys will see different things around the building. Mr. Mr. ride along with the um art club. They're doing a lot of different things. Some things are not finished. So like if you walk up the stairs in the gym, you'll see the Eagles coming. He just hasn't landed yet, right? So we'll see different pieces that are works in progress, but these are two of them that have been completed. I start with art. Um and of course, heritage excellence, we honor our students. We talked about the recognition. We acknowledge our students who are um straight A students who are car uh students who bring good character and all of the good good things that that uh we look for in a heritage student. And so we acknowledge these students once a month in the in the during

081lunch as well as any students who have birthdays. Some of the teachers sing birthday happy birthday to them. We got our own version of it. But sometimes um and then student council national junior honor society and scholastic winners. We, you know, we just want to make sure that not only are we talking about all the things that happen, these kids are scholars and they're doing some amazing things. Treasure Brown, who is standing here, she's the representative for student council for the region, right? And so we haven't had any of those for some time. And so these kids are doing a great job. Yeah. This is this is um Dr. Pettis's Scholastic B team. And then of course the Heritage Houses. We were lucky enough as Dr. Pettis said to send some kids to um the

082Ron Clark Academy for in October. We also just came back last week with a group of uh teachers who went their first time first experience. Unfortunately, I found out that they're not having the student leadership this year. They're going to take a break. They'll bring it back next year. And so that'll be some bad sad news that I'll get to break to the kids, but they were really excited about getting an opportunity to go um for this school year. But these are heritage houses. Again, we pause the curriculum um once a quarter and we just make sure that they're they're working together, collaborating, and then they are into grade level so they're getting an opportunity to spend time with everybody um in in their house and you and that's something for us to be proud

083of too Mrs. Camper and her hard work because ISC4 has done a spotlight on Heritage Middle School and Heritage Houses and they brought out mill. Thank you. Yay. Uh, okay. So, let's talk about HMS spirit. Remember one one board meeting I told you how to how to what they thought we look like as old people. And so, I thought it was fitting to let you see what they thought we look like as old people. And so, this is just us celebrating that spirit spirit of heritage. Um, and then concerts and more. The arts at its finest. Um, these are our students performing at the pep rally and at a concerts. This is black history. No, one of I think this is black history, but again, this is a band. Miss Wagner is doing a fantastic

084job of of creating this system. And again, the students have been every single day. And so, it's always important to have the arts. We talk about the core classes. We talk about reading and math, but we need to talk about the arts because a lot of times this is what really drives the kids. And so, it's good to spend some time with that. And then celebr Oh, let's go back real quick. So, our drum line, they um they also perform at the games. So, you guys hear them at the games, that that's them. Um celebrating black black heritage. Uh Miss Smith and Dr. B and Miss Wilson did a fantastic job of bringing a wax museum to life. And it was great because Ruby, who was a a graduating eighth grader, she was um our

085Hispanic kid who went and wanted to know more about black heritage. And so that that in itself speaks volumes as to how these kids are very um you know just in tune. And then we had the ladies of DST come and grace us with their stepping presence. This is Smith right here. The kids are really proud of her. They it was the talk of the town for about a good week here at each town. It is uh and then of course our athletics. Our athletics is showing up and showing out. They are really doing a great job. Uh so much so where I got kids coming up to me asking me if they could just come to Heritage so that they can play on the team. Can I get to stay over in Memorial? Okay.

086No, but um again, the boys are doing great. Dr. Pett has talked about it. We talked about track. We got some first place going on in track. First and second place is going on in track. I know that you know the state championship is a big thing, but track is also a huge thing. We get at least 75 kids that participate every single year. And then the soccer team, which started off as a soccer club, right? That's what Mr. Ken had. started off as a soccer club and we in the middle of the year created the team because of the kids. They I mean they really needed it. Now they just talked about football. Y'all saw football as one of the things, right? My heart my heart moves too fast. It's too much pressure. Black

087football. Well, what I can do is I can connect them with the high schoolers. Yes. And we can collaborate in that way. All right. Um and then fun career days. And we had our science night as well. The career day was amazing. This is the first time that we were able to experience um career day um since before the co the co the pandemic. So this was our first time. So that was a good experience for the kids and we did it on a half day. So it was like their full day was really engulfed in hearing about other professions. And then science day, science day or science night, I'm sorry. Um it was all hands up. Okay. So, every year I decide that I'm going to eliminate a food group from my diet. I

088found out at science night that shrimp is probably the next one because of the high cholesterol. How bad is that for your heart and all the things? So, I learned that at science night. Okay. Um, so science, listen, they going they going in there pretending like it's the heart so they can see where the plaque is and all the things. I'm telling you this for sure. It was amazing. So that's career day and science nights and then of course the descendants the musical. Miss Peele always does a fantastic job as it pertains to putting on these plays. Next year I need to talk to Mr. Kim but I'mma put it out there in public forum. Now next year we gonna come to Nathan Hail and we're going to perform for the kids and then we're

089gonna have a performance later on. See how I did that. So and it's always a good crowd. The kids are amazing. So and then promoted to the next level. Our fabulous eighth graders. I was so happy to see them coming in and I'm so happy to see them being announced. And so we did our annual dinner dance here and then of course the graduation. These are you were a great group of students. One of the um the growth from fifth grade to 8th grade has been amazing. And I had to tell the eighth grade teachers that when I found them complaining about certain things like, "Listen, listen, listen, Linda, you didn't know them as a fifth grade. These are amazing students. They're doing a fantastic job." And so I'm really proud of them and I'm

090looking forward, you know, you talk about the eighth grade dinner dance. They play the song in Spanish. You you get to see this. So Mr. Well, he talked about Mr. Torres, who's amazing. Um, he teaches in he teaches Spanish through music. And so you'll walk past his classroom at any given time and the kids are just, you know, he has the music blasting and the kids are he's learning. He's teaching them the songs in Spanish. Now, I don't know this. I'm just, you know, I I love music. I'm a lover of music. And so anytime I hear music, I'm going by regardless. Um and so then at the dinner dance, the the DJ played the music. And oh my god, did it turn up. The kids were so excited. They're like, "I know this song,

091you know, and I know they singing it." And so I asked one of the kids like, "What are they singing?" She's like, "I don't know." What is the best song ever? She was also one of those kids who got an opportunity to go to second um to that status, too. So, they're getting something whether they realize it or not. There's those things where we plant these seeds, but we don't realize that they receive them until later. And so, these seeds have been planted and these kids are going to be amazing. So, I wish them nothing but the best. All right, just following along. I feel like I am in the way. I want you to know I'm going to point at the screen a lot. I tried to get that little red dot deal. Dr.

092Macau was kind of skeptical of me using it. So, never use a laser. Exposure. Exposure. Exposure. And after hearing everybody speak and after hearing Miss Cambridge speak, I'm looking at the eighth graders and I'm standing on this right here. Exposure, exposure. Get our kids opportunity to dip their toes in all kind of different things and opportunities. We had our kindergarten farm night. Oh man, this was so cool. There were kids that were singing. That was wonderful. And this was part of our career day piece. But at the kindergarten farm night, you could go on a horse ride. It didn't stop there. They were milking a cow. They were milking a cow. That was a kindergarten a kindergarten teacher, Miss We right there. And they had been working on that. All the kindergarters participated. It stretched

093from the cafeteria all the way down to the kindergarten area and it was fantastic. I think the other thing that we need to say our parents have been absolutely wonderful because they have turned out for everything. Yes. Awesome. All about exposure again. Kinder and it takes everybody. We say it takes a village. Here we are in the cornstalk area going down to kindergarten. Up here we have ELLL represented Miss Q and Miss Spec and they have live chicks. The ELLL department hatches the chicks. The kids get exposed to that. It's all about really just kind of getting back to the fact that we need to know that we are big, that the world is bigger than ourselves, that it takes everybody to make this. I put this picture in here really kind of caught me

094off guard. This was Miss Mason who works with the kindergarters. And if you can look at this, there are a bunch of shirts. And what she did at that time is she was talking about where our clothing comes from. Just this weekend, I was flipping through the channels and they were talking about, in this particular instance, I don't want to use any names cuz I don't remember it. They were talking about a black cotton farmer and a retired NBA star and they have gotten together to make clothing. Once again, what about our kids that are exposed to this that might have lucked across the same thing? because we get in the attitude now we need food, we go to the grocery store. Well, guess what? That food just don't appear there. There's somebody at all

095different levels trying to make that happen. So again, we're looking at not just a school event, but events that can reach outside of the school walls. Learning and fun go hand in hand. It happens during our special events. We know we talk about clubs all the time. What you're looking at right here is you're looking at our spring concert that's going on over here. You're looking at our anti- um child abuse uh month. All the kids are dressed in blue. I don't have I didn't make that color up. I mean, that's my favorite color, but that's the that that represents the um anti-abuse mind. And again, just pulling kids along and getting them exposed to other things in the world because the world is bigger than us right here at Nathan Hill. I think that

096that transfers over into what uh Miss Camrookch was saying. So guess what? You get to see those things begin to develop. You have a whole new person that you've poured into many people by the time they get to 8th grade. Exposure and fun through clubs. We talked about the dance club. Excuse me. This was brand new. Miss Hodto, a fourth grade teacher. Teachers are coming through with all kind of things. This is them in practice. You can see them up here very serious on the stage. What we found out was guess what? Not only is the adrenaline moving, not only are they excited, but they're ready to perform. So now that's the next step we're trying to add to our clubs. You have a club for eight weeks. what is going to be the climax

097of that club and that is our dance club which again started out with the connection after we dropped the breadcrumbs once they jump from us over to Heritage Heritage and now we got PMP poms now we got cheer now we got all of these things going on that they've been exposed to exposure and fun through clubs chess club was the other one Miss Martinez third grade teacher going to ELLL next here to be a teacher right here. Just out of the blue, I think it would be fun to show our kids chess. She had some interest. And what that turned out to be, they went several weeks learning chess, learning chess to the point of what you see upstairs in the lobby. These are the kids that participated and this is a little tournament that

098they had. So now we're in a tournament. Now again going back to not just exposing but going deeper into it. Not just the club but the climax after the club. This is ingrained in their minds. This was just the first year that that went on. Exposure exposure from schoolto school partnership. Miss Camber mentioned a little bit of this. Miss Wagner had been coming over. We've been exposing our kids because like anything else, if you want me to be this, then put something visually in front of me so I can see it. If you want to talk, you want to have Cub Scouts, then you know what? Have the kids that are in Cub Scouts wear their little cookies and come dressed up. Now we're talking about some interest. If you want to have our kids

099read more, I don't know about when y'all was in school. See, I wasn't one of those kids. Always wanted to be one of those kids. The big thing then was Star Trek and kids would walk around and they'd be in these books and they would be reading this Star Trek stuff. See, I was a cheater with that. I watched Star Trek on TV and that's how I got in those conversations. The fact of the matter is we have to drive the energy. So, Miss Wagner has been coming over is the HMS band recruitment um program. This year we continue to grow. This over here is Miss Peele and her group. They came and they talked a little bit about the play. They did some singing outside in the hallways. You should have seen the eyes

100of the little ones as they're walking through. Oh my goodness, what is this? Then this was for the fourth graders as they were going on. We talk about teacher swap day. This is I think it was 23 or so. Yes. national junior h junior um honor society students that came over they've been coming but we get better every year this is in the preschool classroom you're not just coming to be a part of saying you were part of teacher swap the teachers over here their directive is to make sure that they are introduced to what we do because what we do I believe is the greatest job in the world so introduce them to working with students they're not just there to stand and watch to watch what's going on. They are participating with the

101students. Now, let me go back to this one more time. The the band recruitment piece. What you're looking here is not just the line. This is the first time ever than Miss Wacker was able to break up her band instruments and the kids that had an interest in Nathan Hail. They were able to go and meet with those students, get an a bird's eyee view of what this looks like. And you're talking about excitement. It was excitement. Exposure to our community friends. It's bigger than us, you guys. We have the fire department. This happens to be a picture right here at the uh kindergarten um uh promotion, if you will, ceremony. But over here, the fire department has been meeting with us now for going on three years. They've been working on their curriculum, specifically

102with our second graders, learn not to burn. And this is the first year that they were able to put it out there. Lesson one, smoke alarms are important. Fire department to deliver the lesson and read aloud. They're getting to know people in those uniforms. It's not just somebody that's there. It's somebody in our community that comes to talk with us that is with us. This is Miss Ray over at the Lancing Library hooked up through the reading specialist. Uh Miss Angelo. She comes in and she reads in the loft to various groups of kids, introducing them to the library, introducing them to different stories. And again, I think the smile on her face tells it all. It has been a great experience, exposure, and fun, and finding success. Out of all of it, let me

103tell you, this right here, success. This young man right here, I started to just make a big put a big image of his hand up there. That smile is absolutely priceless because you know what? I'm not going to call any names, but I can tell you and Dr. Losen mentioned it. This student came to us. He came to us. What we try to do is this. I don't know whether you're going to be with us three days, three months, three years or whatsoever. But we aim for this to be the best place for any kid to spend their time with us. This young man right here, I'm telling you, unsuccessful from first quarter all the way to third quarter. It's not until we start bearing down, not until we start saying that guess what? You

104have everything you need to be successful. But not until he felt that success did we get that smile. And you can see that smile on his face. And what happened right away? took a picture of it, sent it to his mother, gave him a picture so he can take home in the office because that's what this thing is all about. These students right here, again, these are students that this spec was working with. These are ELLL students. They came to the office and they were reading because the fact of the matter is for various different deficits that they have. Some of them just plain old shy came there with misspec mist backs up and they read the whole paragraph by them by themselves. That was a big step for them. Uh this is our math

105bowl team right here again. Miss Martinez, Miss Halcom, those are our math bowl people and we know we got more work to do in that too. But going back to that little survey, if you can tell me you love math, then I'll tell you what, you're starting at a different level. Now, we got to show them the skills to be successful in that. Um, this young man right here, I know I'm doing a lot of this, but these are just so special to me. I'm sorry. This is fourth grade right here, this young man right here, this is part of the math science day. They are making volcanoes in the classroom. 23 kids in fourth grade, all of them had a personal volcano that they were making. I tell you what, he's staring at something

106because he's engaged in the instruction. I don't know I ever seen him stare at something that long before ever is engaged in it and smiling and a part of it. Ekko who is here also I think we have tried to do a great job and Ekko has shows it. That's how we have their participating in the sign language club. Sometimes they jump up and they're involved in things that quite frankly they know they could take a second seat to. This right here is Miss uh Matson who's bringing and Miss Mari bringing their kids by again just showing them that guess what? You have everything that it takes to be special and that we love you here. I'm almost out of here. Um when extension pilot, this is for Dr. Los. Kudos to Dr. Los. Kudos

107to Dr. let us because men extension pilot started with just an idea. We had about and have about 36 third graders that quite frankly are below reading level at least a year and a half. And we can't wait until the next year to try to catch that and pull them up. It's not going to happen. My grandma used to say, you know what, you can't burn the candle at both ends. And that's what they're doing. They got to be exposed to third grade work to get ready for fourth grade. And at the same time, we got to get back there and raise the foundations that they didn't get. So the wind extension pilot program began in third quarter. It began with several students because we didn't know whether it was going to work. They showed

108success. They showed some growth. And believe it or not, I can't say that they said, "Hm, I love reading all of a sudden, but I can tell you what they said. I love the experience." And if you can feel good about what you're doing, then that propels you to move forward. So then fourth quarter, first time ever, we had the reading place. These kids, these seven, and then the others join them on Tuesdays and Thursdays for an hour after school. Miss Mendes came over from HMS to do one class. Miss Murray, second grade teacher, did the other class. We broke the kids up and guess what? They focused and they started learning. Everything isn't repaired in one hour. But the idea is if you're struggling in it and we can get you to stay after

109school, then guess what? We're moving in the same direction. This turned into the reading place over summer. Miss Quavas was calling kids that we had called that some seven started in the pilot program. The other 30ome were in the reading place program. Now we're talking about summer. It's like, uhoh, what's going to happen now? And I got to tell you, just about everybody she called said, "Yes, I want my child to continue on." How does this look as we come to August, it looks like this. We know where these kids are. We don't have to wait for half the year to find them. They're going right where they're supposed to be going, and we're going to see, can we make a difference? Last thing I'm going to say, I promise. Go back to my man

110that's smiling over here. Math struggling. This is not a good student as far as his success is concerned. Why? Because he didn't know that he could be a good student. He's smiling. This particular one is math. What we found out the teacher had we had a conversation about him and the teacher told me that he had grown two months. Guess what? I was happy with two months because my thing is you've got to start getting some traction if you're going to go turned around. This young man grew eight months. Now, here's the problem. We can't catch him at near the end of the year. We got to catch them at the beginning of the year and grow them to the end of the year. It's a start. And when we found success, woo, we do

111it all over again. Keep it going. This is This right here says it all right here. This is the early childhood uh promotion ceremony. This is Echo. We do our multicultural piece. This is outside on the last day. Just trying to get everybody together. This is part of that early childhood ceremony. Kids performed right here for the parents. And at the end of the day, you know you've done a great job when you got roses and you're taking a picture. Just if you don't know, we've had Echo here. that goes deaf and heart and hearing program here for 32 years. So they they're really embedded in our into our community here. So that's how we have the sign language club because we wanted our kids to be able to communicate with their kids. And so

112and some of their um educators are deaf as well. So some of our teachers also, you know, they want you don't have fellowship when you at work. So now you have we have signing parades. So it's very quiet and they're cheering. So everyone can be on one of the court. It's just really nice to see. But their lead teacher, Miss Washington, retired at the end of this year. So we gonna see what's going to come next, but we're still rocking and rolling with the deaf and heart of hearing program. It's part of that inclusion. So what do we want to do in 2526? So we got a lot of things we want to work on, but there are some things just we just really want to focus on. The first one is standard based grading.

113We've talked a lot about standard based grading. You probably heard us talk about it, but I don't know another way to build a better homeschool connection because now we're coming back to tell parents this is the targeted area for your child. If your child is not being successful, you don't have to wait and ask me what I can do at home. I'm giving you the state objective, the common core objective to do that. Now, how we did it this year, that's a little bit different. We worked in connection with our parents. So, we had multiple parent meetings. We didn't have a large group of parents. turned out. We had a small group of parents that turned out, but we bonded with those small parents. So, every time we made a handbook, we sent it to

114them. Please read it. Give me back your details. What you didn't like, you do like, we can make improvements. When we did the standardbased report card, because there's report cards that go with this, all of the families participated in that group did get received. They have every single report card at their disposal because I needed their input. So, we're trying to work on building that home school collaboration and we're doing this from kindergarten to fifth grade. We are still working on technology infrastructure upgrades. That's a lot. The new look at the front of of heritage. We have to do the strategic action plan. There's no himming and hawing about it. This year we have to do the strategic action plan and we have the data that we need to do it. It was really great

115to have the audits and we weren't happy about everything in the audits but now I cannot sit there and look at you or anybody in the community and say I don't know what Heritages needs or what Sunonny Brook needs. I do know because I've been told by ISC4. Now, we we may have other visions and other things that we want, but we have the foundation and the groundwork to do it. You know, I'm still harping on my tracker here cuz I ain't going to let that go. No, we're not going to do that. So, we are still looking forward to doing that. And you know, we'll see where the chip may lay and I say thank you. Thank you. You pull the lower. Yeah, we done with that. Right, we are at item K. Recommend

116motion. Uh recommend motion to approve the budget and levy timeline as presented. August 11, 2025. Tenative budget um 202526. Budget information only. No board action. Tenative budget on display in the district office. August the 13, 2025. September 15, 2025. September 15, 2025. Again, uh October 20th, 2025, November 17, 2025, and November 17, 2025. Motion. Second. Motion by Thompson, second by Ambrose. Ambrose. Yes. Thompson. Yes. Burks. Yes. Till Terrell. Yes. Sure. Yes. Motion carried. A motion to appoint Davis Shrader representative and as alternative alternate I'm sorry, representative Sherry Hooton to represent Sunny Brook Sunnybrook School District 171 in the South Suburban Benefit Cooperative Board of Directors for fiscal year 2025 2026 as presented. Motion second. Motion by Lashure, second by Terrell. Lasher, yes. Terrell, yes. Burks, yes. Hill, yes. Ambrose, yes. And Johnson, yes. Motion to

117approve the employment of Mr. Michael Shed, social worker, Heritage Middle School, salary of $54,314. Step one of Lane MA plus9 effective August 18, 2025 as presented. Motion second. Motion by Lure. Second by Ambrose. Ambrose. Yes. Lure. Yes. Burks. Yes. Hill. Yes. Ser. Yes. And Thompson. Yes. Thank you. To approve the employment of Miss Jessica Pina, social worker, Nathan Hill School. Salary amount of $54,314. Step one of MA plus9 effective August 18, 2025 been successful background check results as presented. Motion second. Motion by Lu, second by Terrell. Terrell, yes. Lure, yes. Burks, yes. Hill, yes. Ambrose, yes. And Thompson, yes. Motion carries to approve the employment of Miss Angela Richards, third grade teacher, Nathan Hill School, salary of $55,297. Step four of Lane MA effective August 18, 2025 pending successful background check results as presented. Motion

118second motion by the second by Ambrose. Ambrose. Yes. Yes. Burks. Yes. Hill. Yes. Terrell, yes. Thompson, yes. Motion carries. Motion to approve the employment of Miss Deja P. Is it pillar Pot? Okay. First grade teacher, Nathan Hill School, salary of 51,126. Step one of Lane BA effective August 18th, 2025. Pending successful background check results as presented. Motion. Second. Motion by Lur, second by Terrell. Carill, yes. Lure, yes. Burks, yes. Hill, yes. Ambrose, yes. Thompson, yes. Motion carries. Motion to approve employment of Miss Jade. Hines, kindergarten teacher, Nathan Hill School. Salary of $51,126. Step one of Lane BA effective August 18th, 2025. Successful background check results as presented. Motion. Second. Motion by Lure. Second by Burks. Lure. Yes. Berts. Yes. Hill. Yes. Terrell. Yes. Ambrose. Yes. Thompson. Yes. Motion to approve the employment of Miss Selena

119Mafet prek teacher. Nathan Hill school salary of $54,749. Step three of Lane MA effective August 18th 2025. pending successful background check results as presented. Second motion by the second by Terrell. Terrell, yes. Theure, yes. Burks, yes. Hill, yes. Ambrose, yes. Thompson, yes. Motion carries. Motion to approve the Nathan Hill LRC carpet replacement project to be completed by MTB Flooring Incorporated for the amount of $51,249 as presented. Motion. Second. Motion by Ashure, second by Ambrose. Ambrose, yes. Ashure, yes. Burks, yes. Hill, yes. Terrell, yes. Thompson, yes. Motion to approve the Nathan Hill LRC circulation desk structural and modification changes as part of the library modernization initiative to be completed by CMM Group for the amount of $15,000 not to exceed $19,000 as presented. Motion. Second. Motion by Second by Ambrose. Ambrose. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

120Thompson. Yes. Motion carries. We are at item L, visitor statements. Do we have any at this time? We all one, two, three. Okay. and recommend motion to move to close session for the purpose of appointment compensation student discipline performance for dismissal of specific employees of the district or superintendent board relations motion second motion by second by Ambrose Ambrose yes yes BS yes he yes Terrell yes Thompson yes motion carries there's no um nothing after we don't have anything to decide after we come Right. So, we're moving into close session into your conference room. I'm not sure if I cleaned it up. I'm going right now. Okay. Appreciate