001Okay, we're all good. I am reconvening into open session Township High School District 113 regular board meeting on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 at 706. The recording secretary will now call the roll. Here. Here. Here. Here. I would like everyone else who is present to identify themselves. Hallie Fleischer, principal of Highland Park High School. Dwyer, principal at Deerfield High School. Karen Ritter, assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and assessment. Ali Maj, assistant superintendent of finance. Mira Ante, executive director of diversity, equity and inclusion. Tanya Karner, assistant superintendent student services. Katherine Anderson, chief human resources officer, deputy superintendent. Jose Medina, executive director of facilities. Karen Warner, chief communications officer. Jayla Holland, superintendent. May I have a motion to approve the agenda as amended to move section 6 information reports to follow item 3B approval of board meeting agenda.
002So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, we'll proceed to a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. The motion carries. Okay, we are moving on to information reports and the first up is college bound opportunities. Hello. My name is Julie Levine. I am the program director of college bound opportunities and also since January the interim executive director. I am here with my colleague Nayeli. We're going to talk just very quickly a little overview about CBO and then we will introduce our remarkable young almost grads, senior graduates. Okay, so we are, oh, how are we advancing the, is this this? Yes. Oh, okay. Fancy. Fancy. We are a local college access program, community based, we started in 2006 to address the concern that only one out
003of every nine first generation low income minority students graduate from college. We are very happy to report that through CBO we have a 98% graduation rate in four years, which is pretty remarkable because all research will show that the first group of students to withdraw from college are first gen low income students. We partner with six local high schools, clearly Highland Park, Deerfield, Crystal Ray and Buffalo Grove, Lake Forest and Vernon Hills. We recruit the students in the spring of their sophomore year, so right now we're already in the process of selecting our new class of students starting in their, they can only apply in their sophomore year. Currently we support about 200 high school and college students. We take between 30 and 40 students across those six schools every year. Our program has four
004components, college access, the part that they do for the two years that they're in high school with us. College persistence, the four years while they are in college we continue to check in on our students, make sure that they have the resources to graduate on time. Every student is paired with a mentor from the time they start with CBO, so the mentor follows them for six years. And then college persistence, the part that we help the students get career ready. So we provide workshops and kind of seminars all summer and over winter break. So those are kind of a very quick overview. We have 39 current high school seniors who are about to graduate, 18 of which come from District 113. The program actually started in Highland Park by a resident of Highland Park and
005a partner from Deerfield, so we are very loyal to our 113 partnership, that's where it all began. And we have well over 300 at least mentors, well over 300 alums who are out in the world working and living their best life. And now Nayeli is going to introduce our soon to be high school grads. And do you want them to come up so you can see who they all are? That would be wonderful. Okay, so when Nayeli announces your name, come up and we'll let everyone know where you're going to school. Perfect. So we are actually going to begin, it feels like a college graduation or high school graduation. So I'm going to begin by naming a couple of our scholars. So Isabella Oviedo and Maylin Garcia. Isabella Oviedo will be going to the University
006of Notre Dame and Maylin will be going to Tulane University. Alexa Martinez and Valeria Rodriguez. Alexa will be attending Lawrence University and Valeria will be attending University of Rochester. Mia Soto and Maggie Luna Campos Luna will both be attending the University of Urbana-Champaign. Marielle James and Kate Rodriguez. Marielle will be attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Kate is still deciding on several other colleges. Sophie Montevayas who is over there is going to be attending the University of Urbana-Champaign and Daniel Hicochea will be, he committed today actually, he will be attending the Illinois State University. Stephanie Elias and Marco Rodriguez. Stephanie Elias will be attending Knox College and Marco is still deciding. Jocelyn Ortega and Apple Borowiz. Jocelyn will be attending the University of Urbana-Champaign and Apple will be attending the University of Rochester. And Cesar
007Pena and Diana Sosa Velasquez will both be attending Lake Forest College. Jamie Maceriegos and Camila Guadarrama. Jamie will be attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Camila will also be attending Tulane University. Sarah Bych and Esther Kim will also both be attending the University of Urbana-Champaign. And that is all for our scholars. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, congratulations. As a board we do like to take that opportunity every two years to hear brief reports from the various organizations that support our district, obviously CBO is one of them and next up is the Deerfield High School PTO. Thank you. Hi, my name is Julie Calderon and I am the President Emeritus for the DHS PTO. Unfortunately our president was not able to attend so you get me. However, I have been part of the
008PTO for a very long time thanks to Ann Newman who got me involved. The mission of the Deerfield High School PTO is to help promote the intellectual, social and physical welfare of the students attending DHS to foster a cooperative relationship between parents, teachers, administrators and community members to promote an enriching environment that celebrates excellence and nurtures the optimal growth and development of each student at DHS and we really try to foster a community spirit. Some of the things the PTO does, we provide teacher grants which will be coming out soon for our staff. This year we contributed almost $5,000 in physics equipment. We provided artwork and tables and plants to the counseling department. We also did some lab quest devices. We did instructional materials for world languages and then U.S. history, the scholastic class set,
009the USA turns 250 years old. We actually just purchased it recently. Prior grants, table saw, adaptive equipment, microscopes. We really, pretty much anything teachers ask for we try really hard to be able to pay for. We do sponsorships. We pay for the after prom buses. We give a stipend for the genocide awareness speakers. We contribute to DPN, the Deerfield parent network, who's going to speak next. We contribute to the after prom party. We also provide $5,000 a year to five individual students at DHS that the counseling department chooses. They fill out an application and they will be receiving it May 11th at honors night at the high school. We also like to feed our staff. We do a lot of hospitality. We do a fall teacher staff appreciation luncheon usually after homecoming. It's a woohoo!
010We've survived the beginning of the year. We also organize and fund staff appreciation week now. So Monday this year we're going to have a taco truck if any of you would like to join us. We'd love to have you. Wednesday we'll have a snack day and Friday is a dessert day. For families we do open house treats. We sponsor and help host grand warrior day. We do snacks for honor society induction night, which we just had last week. We sell graduation signs. We do senior celebration day, which is coming up on May 1st. How we try to connect with the school community. We offer coffee with the principal four times a year. And we are so appreciative of Dr. Dwyer continuing the tradition and allowing us to have this and people love it. I mean
011people, we have someone who I think came to every coffee her whole four years at DHS. We try to connect with our community with students and families at warrior welcome, open house activities night and high school preview night. We also like to coordinate at our president's council meeting with other parent organizations. Last but not least, we have to fund raise in order to be able to pay for all these amazing things we do. This year our membership numbers are down about 100. It's expected. We don't membership is really just the way to fund our operating budget. You don't really get anything with membership. We do food sales during lunch periods. We do eat and earns at local neighborhood restaurants. We do a staff holiday card fundraiser and we sell those senior lawn signs. These are
012just ways we stay afloat basically. Thank you so much for inviting us. And it's been my honor to serve on the PTO. Thank you. Is the DPN Deerfield parent network. We're my high heels. So I could stand by you. Katie Glex. This is Corey. And we are the network. I'm really excited. Because you guys are getting a sneak peek of our evolving mission statement. It's not quite approved yet, but it's approved by our little group of people. So we're pivoting a little bit this year and this year, meaning the upcoming school year and are going to work more on bringing some fun to the high school community. So first off, we share resources, experiences and ideas. So we host panels. We empower parents with strategies and tools for success at Deerfield High School. And the
013new one is engage students and families in the community. So we're going to do some fun homecoming activities and then we host the big after prom party. We are all volunteer parent run, just like Julie was saying, for the PTO, funded all by donations from the parents. We receive support from other parent communities and the village mostly for the after prom party. A lot of what we do throughout the school year, our panels and stuff are free. And that's my last bullet point. All programs are free. So our calendar of events for this past year, and it's pretty much the same for the next year, we vary slightly. We have panel topics of interest to each grade level, and we partner with the DHS, the staff, local professionals, and we have students come to the
014panel if it's appropriate. All the programs are held at DHS. The programs are advertised to Deerfield families via the principal newsletters, the warrior words, Facebook pages. However, they're open to anyone to attend. And we do have people attend from other communities and other schools. Some of our examples of our programs are What to Know When Your Teen is Turning 18, the Insider Guide to Becoming an Upper Classman, Teens in the Law, Rights, Rules, and Risks, and the Parenting to a Smooth Transition to DHS, which is tomorrow night at the high school. And then we'll move on. And then our big thing that we actually have a meeting for at the same time as this, so we're going to jet to go to that, is our big prom after-party, which, to be honest, holy moly, are
015these kids lucky. I mean, it is so fun. The hardest part of it is staying awake until 3 in the morning and chaperoning. But DHS has been doing an after-prom party at the SAC Center for the last 19 years. It came out of a tragedy and birthed gigantic fun. So it's all substance-free. We're keeping our kids safe, hence the 3 a.m., with the hope that they all go home to either their own bed or sleepovers with friends. And any senior is welcome. Even if they don't attend the actual official prom, they can still come to the after-party to lock in at SAC Center. It costs like $30,000 to throw, and it's 100% fundraised really by a lot of the local businesses and then all of the parents. What happens at the after-party is Kid Vegas,
016inflatables, basketball tournaments, pickleball, casinos, laser tag, magicians, psychics, yoga, massages. I mean, it's insane. Characters, airbrushed hats. I mean, it's nutso. But so, so fun. Food, lots of food, lots of desserts, and really sweet raffle prizes like TVs and refrigerators. And it's great. It's really, really great. And it's really fun to say that the entire community comes together to do it. You know, the police department's there. The staff is there. 40 parents are there, all volunteering their time so these kids can have an absolute blast. And 95% of the students, I'd say, that attend. It's very highly effective. So if anyone out here wants to volunteer and stay awake until 3 o'clock in the morning, let me know. We're looking for volunteers. That's it. Can we turn it off? Yeah, no problem. Next, we will
017move on to the organization of the Board of Education. The floor is now open for nominations for the Office of President. Are there any nominations for the Office of President? Do you accept the nomination, Jaime? I do. Are there any other nominations for the Office of President? Hearing no further nominations, the nominations for the Office of President are closed. Since only one person is nominated for President, I cast unanimous ballot and declare Jaime Barraza elected. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. We'll take one minute and we'll continue. And I'm going to save my comments for the President's report, but know that there are some thank yous and comments coming. All right. Next, we will move on to the organization of the Board of Education. The floor is now open for nominations for the Office of President.
018Are there any nominations for the Office of President? Do you accept the nomination, Jaime? All right. Next, we will move on to the election of the Vice President. The floor is now open for nominations for the Office of the Vice President. Are there any nominations? Yes, I nominate Jenny Loopa. Jenny, do you accept the nomination? I do. Are there any other nominations for the Office of Vice President? Hearing no further nominations, the nominations for the Office of Vice President are closed. Since only one member is nominated for Vice President, I cast a unanimous ballot and declare Jenny Loopa elected as Vice President. Now, we'll move on to the organization of the Board of Education. Thank you. Now, we'll move on to the election of the Secretary for a two-year term. The floor is now open
019for nominations for the Office of Secretary. Are there any nominations? Yes. I'd like to nominate Rick Heineman. Rick, do you accept the nomination? I do. Are there any other nominations for the Office of Secretary? Hearing no further nominations, the nominations for the Office of Secretary are closed. Since only one member is nominated for Secretary, I cast a unanimous ballot and declare Rick elected. Moving on to item D, appointment of Treasurer for one year. It is recommended that Ali Mejanti be appointed to serve as Treasurer for the Board of Education for a one-year term. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? Is there a second? Any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote, please. Aye. The motion carries. We'll now move on to Section 5, Board Reports. President's report. It is a
020privilege and an honor to be able to stand before you. Thank you for my fellow board members and for the community for entrusting this incredibly important position. I look forward to serving in this role. But of course, first, a very, very huge, huge, huge thank you to Ann. Ann, would you like to share any remarks? As this is my final meeting serving as Board President, I want to simply say thank you. It has been a privilege to lead this Board over the last two and a half years and to serve alongside such a committed Board, Superintendent, Cabinet, and staff, all of whom care deeply about this district and the students we are here to support. I'm especially grateful for the opportunity to serve alongside Dr. Holland, whose leadership, care for students, and commitment to this
021district has been evident in every part of this complex and meaningful work that is focused on doing what is best for students that she has undertaken. Board leadership is never about doing the role one particular way. Each person brings her own strengths, voice, and perspectives to the work. And that is exactly as it should be. I'm excited for what comes next and confident in the new leadership of the Board. I leave this role with deep gratitude and real excitement for the district's future. It has been an honor to serve as President and I look forward to continuing my work as a Board member. Before I open it up to the rest of the Board, I would just like to say, on a personal note, thank you. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for the
022time. Thank you for everything that you've done in order to ensure that this district is in a better place than when you started as President. It has been truly remarkable to see you in the role of President. So just tons of appreciation. Would anybody else like to share anything? I just want to thank you for stepping up at that time. To take this on in the manner that you did. Personal thanks for your guidance, leadership, and stewardship of it. Moving on with the next part of the President's report. Later on in the agenda, we're going to approve the calendar for the year. At our next meeting, we'll talk about committees. So if any Board members have from a governance perspective, any topics they'd like to learn more about or committees that they would like to
023be a part of, that'll be part of the discussion at the following Board meeting. A couple of recognition items. On April 28th, we have School Bus Driver Appreciation Day. Thank you to our bus drivers who are the first folks that our students see and the last ones that they, the last smiling faces that they see at the end of their day. So thank you for all that you do to keep our students safe. April 22nd was Administrative Professionals Day. Thank you to all of our administrative professionals in the district for all of your hard work to keep the district running and for all of your contributions to our district. As this is part of my first President's report, I do want to share that it was a busy Saturday and I was able to attend
024the Arts Alive Expo at Deerfield High School. It was an incredibly moving experience where we celebrated the arts and the community was welcome to experience the arts as we look at the Arts Alive programming for the high school. So thank you to everybody who made sure that that happened. Also on Saturday was the Chicano College Bowl here at Highland Park High School where I had the honor to step into the shoes that I stepped into as a student participating in the college bowl and being able to reminisce what that was like when I was a student. Next year the college bowl will be celebrating its 30th year. I apologize if I'm stealing anybody's thunder for later on. But next year is the 30 years of the college bowl. It's just a remarkable accomplishment for our
025district and for our community. And then lastly the district and the DEA has held two collective bargaining sessions since our last board meeting. On April 23rd the board and the administration met and discussed articles 8 and articles 12. On the 27th discussed articles 8, 9, and 12. The next meeting will be on May 7th. This concludes the report. We'll now move on to the Education Committee. I'll keep going. So Education Committee. So right before this meeting we had the Education Committee where we learned about the professional development that the district is undertaking. So professional learning growth and development priorities. It was an incredibly informative presentation. I think a few things that stuck out to me were as we look at how our staff is developed throughout the year coherence, whether it is something that is
026at the building level, at the district level or individual professional learning, tying it all together and making sure that that professional learning is as effective for each professional and differentiated for each professional as possible was really wonderful to hear. There was a lot of talk about collaboration also and more desire for additional opportunities to collaborate and really celebrating that. So thank you to the district team for putting that together and for the continued work around professional development and professional learning. Up next we have Ed Redd. We had two meetings during April. The Lake Division meeting of the Alumni Associated School Board on the 15th was subject to artificial intelligence in schools. Also attended the Ed Redd meeting on April 10th. Representative Daniel Ditch of District 59 and Representative Laura Faber Diaz of District 62 presented
027their take on the current House session and the legislation we are working on. It's important to answer questions from members. They are knowledgeable and generally favorite Ed Redd objectives. It's important to note that Dan and Laura are newly elected chair and first by chair of the Lake County Democrats. Their support for our needs is very important given their outsized influence. Up next we have True North. The True North Governing Board met briefly on April 8th to discuss staffing matters before the April 15th deadline. Public comment again focused on the need for improved communication and in addition to adopting the non-renewal and honorable dismissal, the board approved an intergovernmental agreement for the lease of office space with the Park District of Highland Park and another intergovernmental agreement for reciprocal reporting of student criminal offenses and security
028camera access with the city of Highland Park. The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 6th at 7 p.m. Thank you. Up next we'll move on to Item 7, administrative information reports. Starting with Superintendent. Good evening everyone. So for the second year, my second year, I was able to attend events and activities at both DHS and Highland Park High School for Genocide Commemoration Day. The very somber day and experience yet it is filled with meaningful learning opportunities all organized by our students and their staff sponsors. The halls and various spaces were lined with the stories of individuals who experienced the horrors and traumas of hate, the stories of survivors, upstanders, and allies. I was also greatly impacted by learning more about the stories and experiences of our students and staff members' families. The day
029was a reminder that every day we must actively fight against the hate that creates genocides, the hate that fuels anti-Semitism, and the hate that drives further wedges between our shared humanity. I would like to thank both schools for a very meaningful day of learning. On Saturday, DHS hosted Arts Alive, an event open to the entire district. The event was well attended and extremely fun for all in attendance. Thank you. I think I had the most fun. Thank you to all of our student performers and artists, various presenters, the DHS administration, Dr. Russell, Dr. Moore, and Dr. Dwyer, and our fabulous director, Mrs. Tamara Jenkins. I also had the great pleasure of attending the Chicago Chicano Bowl at HBHS, which included our own JV and varsity teams, but also teams from other districts. The daylong event
030included morning preparation, the competition, keynote speakers, special awards, dinner, and a dance for the teams in attendance. It was a wonderful event filled with fun, joy, and a lot of pride. Over the past couple of weeks, the administration has spent some time responding to questions, concerns, and perspectives from students, parents, and community members regarding the Fine Arts program at DHS. Alongside a district team, the leadership from Highland Park High School leadership, Dr. Dwyer, Dr. Russell, who is the department chair of Fine Arts at DHS, we've been developing a plan for moving forward. I've asked Dr. Dwyer to share some high-level points regarding some of the conversations he's engaged in, the main understandings that have come from those discussions, and a little bit about our path forward. Thank you, Dr. Holland. I want to first start
031by thanking our outgoing theater and choir directors, Ms. Kenyon and Ms. Ballmer. They have dedicated countless hours to our students and families, and beyond the exceptional performances they're both responsible for, they have positively impacted the lives of our students and our school community, and for that, we are incredibly thankful. Now we take the very serious and very important task on of filling these critical roles, and we begin from a position of strength, and that is that Deerfield High School is a destination school, full stop. Our Fine Arts program and our school in general are vibrant, dynamic, and committed, and we are confident that we are going to attract highly qualified candidates. I also want to thank the students and parents who have reached out with questions, concerns, and ideas about the future of the choir
032and theater programs. These conversations have been formative for me, for Dr. Moore, our assistant principal, and Dr. Russell, our Fine Arts department chair. In fact, we have been able to take these conversations and the results of a survey and focus groups that Dr. Russell convened, and we were able to use that to create profiles of the ideal candidates for both positions. Along with the values of our strategic plan, we have identified key attributes our students and community are looking for in the next leaders of these programs. In both of the leaders, our community is looking for staff members who create belonging through empathy and relationships, leaders who can actively recruit and grow the programs, and candidates who can differentiate their instruction based on the needs of the students while also pushing for excellence through exceptional
033performances. We will use these profiles as guides when reviewing applications and determining which candidates to bring forward for interviews. While we are sad to say goodbye to two incredible educators, we are excited at the next chapters in both programs and continuing the tradition of excellence that defines DHS, and I'm happy to take any questions that you may have. Do you have a sense of a timeline for filling the positions? The positions posted last week, they undergo a five-day internal posting, which completed yesterday, and I am happy to say that as soon as it went live outside of District 113, I was getting many emails from Red Rover with applicants. Thank you, Dr. Dwyer. So during the week of May 4th, we will celebrate staff and teacher appreciation week across the district. Several of us will
034attend an event hosted by the Regional Office of Education to celebrate our school staff through an educator of the year ceremony. The nominees for our district are Robert Zima, classroom high school educator, and Mr. Pablo Alvarez for student support personnel nominee. During the event, the Regional Office of Education also honors a group of staff members, a specialty group of staff members every year, and this year the honorees are librarians, library media specialists as well. So they've all been invited to attend, and they also honor some of our staff members who have already received awards. So Lisa Berghoff will be honored again for achieving the Illinois Digital Educators Alliance Educator of the Year Award. So we're excited about this, and we look forward to attending and celebrating everyone recognized from our district and the county in
035a very exciting event. So the city of Highland Park will be hosting neighborhood meetings. This happens every year. These are meetings held throughout various parts of the city of Highland Park that include representatives from different municipal groups. Community members have an opportunity to attend, ask questions, learn more about the work that is taking place across the city, and engage with municipal leaders. The meetings are scheduled for I think I have the wrong date. Wednesday, no, Wednesday, April 29th, that's tomorrow, at the Heller Nature Center at 3 p.m. Wednesday, May 13th at the Senior Center at 3 p.m. and Monday, June 8th at Edgewood Middle School at 7 p.m. Finally, I would like to personally thank Anne Newman for the two years. She has served as board president. I'm emotional because of the person you are
036and the person you've been to meet stepping into this role. In addition to you, I've appreciated the support of the entire board. To know Anne is to know that she's thorough, detail-oriented, and very organized. Through Anne's work, she has worked to ensure that all presidents who follow have resources that can support them in their role. Anne has demonstrated great love and care for our district, like I've never seen before. Through your leadership, it's been amazing just to watch you lead, to carry a lot from the past, and also to really think about the future. It's been an honor to have a front row seat to witness your immense leadership and to experience your support and your partnership. I am personally grateful for you, the person you are, and I know our district is better because
037of the time that you have spent in this important role. I want to thank you personally on many levels for your support. I know that your family has sacrificed you to us and that you've given additional time to stay on during this transition period, and that means a lot to me. So thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Holland. We'll move on to item B, strategic plan goals update for goal number five. Throughout this year, I'm done crying. Throughout this year, we've taken very intentional steps to communicate the progress of our strategic plan, and we've provided updates at most of our board meetings. Tonight you'll hear our presentation from our goal champion of goal number five, Ali Mahanti, and he will take it away. This is our last update for the school year. All right.
038Happy to report that. First of all, congratulations to board members and new roles, and thank you, Anne, for your dedicated years of service. Really appreciate that for what you have done for the community. All right, so happy to present the last update of goal five, fiscal responsibility. Next slide. Okay, so the goal five for fiscal responsibility, as a reminder, it's optimize district resources for educational success. Our first strategy in goal five is implement a comprehensive asset management plan to strategically upgrade, maintain, and optimize all district resources for the current and future benefit of students and staff. Next slide. Based on the last update we presented in February, the strategy steps are the following. First, we finalize departmental resource management plans. Second, we use the data that we have in the district to manage our resources
039more effectively. Secondly, we completed all the digital entry of our key equipment like HVAC, electrical, and plumbing systems, making sure everything is tied to specific school locations. So not only we tied them to school locations, we also estimated the life, the current condition of the equipment, and the estimated quality of our equipment. Thirdly, we began hands-on training with our facility staff to ensure the system works in real day-to-day maintenance situations. So for example, if a unit fails at Deerfield High School, staff are training quickly to pull up the asset, see its history, and respond more efficiently. Overall, we're moving from setup to real-world use and adoption. Next slide, please. What we learned through this initial implementation is giving us visibility into what we previously had. First, mapping service request pathways has clarified where delays occur
040and how we can get technicians to job sites more efficiently. Secondly, the migration process revealed a more complete and accurate asset inventory than what existed before, establishing a true baseline and a single source of truth for our equipment. And importantly, by centralizing this data, we can now begin to identify equipment nearing the end of life, something we couldn't systematically do before. So this work is laying the foundation for more proactive, data-informed decision-making moving forward. Also helps us in budgeting where we can run the reports to see how old their equipment do we need to replace it or repair it, and include that as part of our budget cycle. Next slide, please. Our next steps are focused on moving from setup to active use of the system. First, we'll formally deploy the preventive maintenance module, shifting
041from a reactive break-fix model to schedule lifecycle-based approach. We begin tracking response times, repair history, and costs in real times. This allows us to make more informed decisions about our assets. So for example, if our HVAC unit is nearest the end of the expected life, and we see repeated repair costs adding up, this data helps us determine whether it's more cost-effective to continue repairing it or plan for replacement. This level of insight allows us to be more proactive, strategic, and transparent in how we manage the district resources. These are reminders for the maintenance staff to perform repair work on an annual basis or maybe, you know, semi-annually. So instead of, you know, more reactionary, they know they get a reminder, okay, well, we need to perform maintenance on our HVAC equipment or electrical equipment, let's
042go do it, so we don't have to pay for or perform extra repairs if needed. Next slide. Our next strategy is to enhance operational systems and procedures to improve efficiency, consistency, and alignment with district priorities. Next slide. Since the last update, we focused on improving cost control and system alignment in the strategy. First, we're analyzing monthly overtime data to identify trends, flag outliers, and take action to stay within our budget. Secondly, we're working closely with our technology, payroll, and homebound tutoring teams to align systems and workflow in preparation for the laser feature rollout, which is our electronic timesheet implementation system. This is our next department that we're getting ready to roll out. And thirdly, we're nearly completed the transition to a digital work order system, which is now about 95 percent in place, like the
043job's been completed 95 percent, so that KPI for this strategy has already been completed and thanks to Jose and his team for doing that. Appreciate it. Good hard work. So for example, in overtime, we're reviewing monthly expenditures so we can quickly spot when a department ours are trending higher than expected and address it before it becomes a larger issue. Overall, this work is helping us operate more efficiently, stay on budget, and build consistent systems across the district. Next slide. Through this work, we've gained several important operational insights. First, with Red Rover, which is our substitute system, can accept jobs for specific class periods, which gives us more flexibility in covering classrooms. Compared to what we had before, which was frontline, it was either half-day or full-day, so the substitutes never knew if it was for
044a certain period, so it was really hard to determine and hard to fill those roles if they were only available for certain periods. So, for example, like I said, if a teacher is out during just a few periods, we can assign the coverage more precisely, helping ensure students have consistent instruction throughout the day. Secondly, the LaserFish online timesheet process is helping us strengthening our how we separate and securely manage student and payroll records, improving both accuracy and consistency in our workflows. And thirdly, by analyzing overtime data, we're beginning to identify specific patterns. So, for example, if we consistently see overtime for custodial staff, and that's just an example, after evening events or for certain positions at specific buildings, that helps us determine whether we need to adjust staffing levels, schedules, or coverage plans in those
045areas. Together, these insights are helping us operate more efficiently and make more informed decisions. Next slide, please. So, our next steps are focused on turning these insights into action. First, we will use overtime trend data to make more informed staffing decisions and reduce unnecessary overtime costs, which we've already started to do, but we'll continue to analyze that. Secondly, we'll finalize and standardize our LaserFish workflow to ensure timesheet processes are secure, consistent, and efficient. For example, all staff will follow the same digital process for submitting and improving time, reducing errors, and improving consistency. And thirdly, because of our substitute system with Red Rover, we will evaluate our substitute pay structure compared to other school districts, because now we can assign substitutes by periods, and currently our pay structure is based on half-day or full-day. So now
046we're comparing data and survey with other school districts by period to see if our cost is aligned or whether we can make some efficiencies or changing our pay structure by more by periods or doing, you know, rather than what we have as half-day or full-day. So together, these steps will help us to continue improving efficiency and alignment across our operational systems. Next strategy. Our last strategy for Goal 5 is to develop and implement a flexible and sustainable master facilities plan that adapts to the evolving educational landscape and actively supports the district's mission and vision. Next slide. Since the last update, we've made important progress in laying the foundation for this work. We completed a competitive selection process to identify our architectural and construction management partners, ensuring we have the right team and place moving forward.
047Just want to give special kudos to our team, Jose Medina and our purchasing person manager, Pete. It's tremendous work in this effort in selecting the architects or making a recommendation for the architects and construction managers, contracts, so I just want to give special kudos to Jose and Pete in this. So at the same time, we've begun working with our partners to define the scope of the master's facility plan. This includes identifying priorities, needs, and areas of focus so that once the board approves the architects, we can more move efficiently into planning process with clear direction. Next slide. Through this process, we've gained several important insights. First, establishing clear evaluation criteria helped ensure that partner selection was aligned with the district's long-term facility goals. Secondly, using a structured RFQ, which is request for qualification and RFB,
048which is also called request for proposal process, improved transparency and consistency in how decisions were made. And finally, through this competitive process, we're recommending partners who are strongly aligned with district priorities and well positioned to support this work moving forward. Together, these steps have strengthened both the quality and integrity of our selection process. Next slide, please. Our next steps follow a clear and structured timeline. We are currently continuing negotiations with our recommended architectural and construction management partners to ensure contract terms, including insurance provisions, are favorable and aligned with our district needs. We will then present these recommended partners, assuming all contracts are finalized, to the board for discussion on May 19th. Following that, we will seek board approval of both the district, both the architects and the construction manager on June 23rd board meeting. Once
049approved, we will move forward with executing contracts and beginning the onboarding process. This approach ensures we're well prepared and able to move forward efficiently once approvals are in place. Thank you. Thank you so much. Are there any questions? Before I open it up for questions, just a note of appreciation for all the work that went into this strategy, not only for strategy five or goal five, but each one of the strategies throughout the school year and the cadence around every single strategy and getting those regular updates that I know we as a board appreciate. So, one, just thank you, Ali, and your team around goal five, but also to the other teams as well on their updates that we've had throughout the school year. Questions? Thank you. Now we'll move on to item C, FOIAs.
050So, on the screen are the list of FOIAs that were completed since our last board meeting. Thank you. Next, we'll move to number eight, school reports. We'll start with Highland Park High School, Sophie Montevalles. Good evening, everyone. Here's a recap of some of the big events and accomplishments happening at HP recently. First, spring spirit week and the pep rally were a huge success. Students participated in three themed dress-up days like pajama day, monochromatic day, and class colors on Friday. There were also fun lunchtime activities throughout the week, including the HP duck hunt, AI photo booths, games in the cafeteria, caricature artists, and the DJ club leading into the pep assembly. Overall, the week brought a lot of energy and school spirit in the building. Prom is also coming up very soon on May 9th at
051the Field Museum, and there's definitely a lot of excitement in the building as students get ready for the big night. We also recently observed District 113's Genocide Commemoration Day. During an all-school assembly, students heard from Marty Zach, a second generation Holocaust speaker who shared his family's experience during the Holocaust. The assembly served as an important reminder about empathy, remembrance, and learning from history. Another big event was the Chicano College Bowl, which took place on April 25th. Congratulations to the JV team for winning their competition and varsity for placing second overall. Great job as well to all the students who participated and to everyone from Hispanos Unidos who helped host the event. We also had our True Giants ceremony where students were recognized for their leadership, hard work, and positive impact on school community while truly
052embodying our giant values. Our math team also had an incredibly successful weekend. HP placed fifth overall with multiple students and teams earning top placements in algebra, geometry, pre-calculus, and the calculator competitions. Congrats to everyone involved for all their hard work this season. And finally, congrats to the HP Believers who competed at the Illinois Special Olympics Regional Meet at Hoffman Estates. Milo Rossi earned a bronze medal in the 100-meter run. Brylon McDaniel placed fourth, and our peer coaches and sponsors did an amazing job supporting the team. Today, we also had another meeting for our staff portrait, and overall it was a really positive experience. One highlight for me was the fishbowl discussion where it really centered students' voice and allowed us to openly share perspectives. It was also empowering to see how much work we've already
053accomplished and how collaborative this project has been. I'm excited to see what we will continue to plan in the future and the positive impact it will have across the district. Next week is Staff Appreciation Week, and Ms. Fleischer and the PTO has planned activities throughout the week to celebrate our amazing staff members, including a pancake breakfast, coffee bar, and staff t-shirts. I also want to take this opportunity to thank all the teachers, counselors, and staff members and coaches who have worked so hard to support students to make HP a welcoming place. Some special shout-outs I want to give are for Mr. Junjun Walla, who is the best pre-calc teacher ever, Ms. Rezwan, who is just an amazing human being, and Ms. Fleischer for always pushing me out of my comfort zone, encouraging me to take
054on new opportunities, and always being someone students can rely on. Her support and positivity truly make a difference for so many people in the building. I also encourage all students and families to take a moment this week to reach out to staff members who make a difference in your life and simply say thank you. Small acts of gratitude can really mean a lot. And that is all. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Monsavayas, and thank you for that reminder. Up next from Deerfield High School, Ethan Polanski. Hey, everyone. It's been a while since I've been here, so I'm happy to be here. There has been a lot going on at Deerfield as the year begins to wrap up, starting with our extracurricular night on April 13th, which invited incoming freshmen to Deerfield High School to get
055an idea of the wide variety of extracurriculars that we have to offer. I had the amazing opportunity to go and represent the boys' gymnastics team and recruit some younger gymnasts, as my coach put it, and it was so great to see the future warriors exploring the mixture of sports, clubs, and different ways to get involved. Shortly after our dance team had their show For the Record on April 16th, 17th, and 18th, the performance gave Deerfield's dancers a chance to showcase their work, all the work that they've put in throughout the year through student choreography, costumes, music, and lighting. One senior dancer shared that what makes the team so special is the amount of time they spend together, which ultimately builds strong friendships and connections among the student body. Tuesday, April 21st, Deerfield had its annual
056Genocide Commemoration Day, an annual tradition that has flourished into a school-wide and district-wide event to honor those who have been impacted by genocide throughout the day. There are different opportunities for students to participate in workshops, presentations, and small sessions led by survivors and upstanders in different historic genocides. Throughout my time at DHS, this day has consistently been one of my favorite events, because I like to hear different stories reflect and get a better understanding on the importance of remembrance. Saturday, April 25th, Deerfield hosted its Arts Alive Open House, where over 40 professional artists alongside our own AP art students presented their work to the community. There were weavers, painters, woodworkers, jewelry makers, and so much more. This annual event continues to highlight the wide range of creative talent in our Deerfield community. And as we
057look towards the future and the years coming to a close, seniors are officially checking out with the counseling and college departments. AP testing starts next week, and we have our upcoming senior celebration and Jam for Justice on May 1st, and prom is also just around the corner. I have to say, I am really struggling to decide between either studying for my AP test or watching TV. However, I, along with my fellow seniors, intend to finish the year strong. Another upcoming exciting event, exciting event for me personally is the Boys Gymnastics Conference Meet, which is this Thursday at 6 p.m. at Niles West, so I expect to see you all there. And our sectionals is May 6th at Lake Park, so it would be great if you guys could come to that as well. Last but
058not least, I would like to say thank you to all the staff at DHS. Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week, and we have had so many events planned. We have so many events planned to recognize our teachers. I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the great educators I have had in my four years at Deerfield. It's been such a great month and I look forward to these last few weeks. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Polanski, and best of luck on Thursday at Gymnastics, and we know that you're going to be studying very, very hard for those AP tests. Of course. You already did. You already started. Of course. Thank you so much both for your wonderful reports. Next, we'll move on to public comments. Per policy 8-30, excuse me, we
059welcome your comments and questions and give them serious consideration pursuant to Board of Education Policy 2-230. When I call your number, please come to the podium, identify yourself with first, last name, city in which you reside, and if applicable, state the agenda item for which your comment is directed. Please keep all comments within three minutes. Our new vice president will raise a hand as a 30-second warning and announce time when the limit is reached. You must conclude your remarks immediately and questions may be sent via email to the superintendent to receive a response subsequent to the meeting. As a reminder, public participation, excuse me, public comment is not intended to be a back and forth discussion between the public and the Board. We will start with number one. Hello, good evening everybody. My name is
060Mary Haratunyan and I'm a sophomore at Deerfield High School. As a student, I've noticed that many students are using artificial intelligence to complete homework and other schoolwork in just a few minutes while others, including myself, choose to do the work themselves. This creates an imbalance in both fairness and learning. An example of this imbalance includes teachers raising standards because they're taking into account AI-generated submissions. Although I understand the usage of programs like turnitin.com or No Red Ink for summative assignments, a lot of difficult AP classes and honors classes have advanced homework assignments that are worth a good amount of someone's grade. At this point, I can attest, as a participant in those difficult AP classes, there are no supervision policies for fairness on homework assignments. Currently, what steps is the board taking to address this
061issue and ensure that grades, even on homework, reflect actual student learning and understanding? Up next, we'll move on to item number 10. That is discussion items. First, we'll discuss A, textbook adoption for the 2026-2027 school year. Thank you. I have one request for book adoption. As you may recall earlier this school year, the board approved a new course proposal, AP Business with Personal Finance. The teachers of that team have recruited students to join the classes for next year, and we have about 250 students who are registered for that class for next year. They went through a rigorous process of choosing a textbook for that course, and they ultimately decided on the textbook Business with Personal Finance for the AP course, which is targeted specifically for AP Business with Personal Finance, and this proposed format for
062this book is in the digital or e-book platform, and this item will be under action later tonight. Just about the digital e-book platform used for the textbook, do you know if that was a consideration when they approached which textbook to use, and is that something that's being thought about as well? I know this is a major topic of discussion, like in education, to what extent are the use of screens and digital devices appropriate versus using traditional books? Sure. Many textbooks are going towards e-book format, and there's many benefits to that. One, if you've ever seen some of our AP textbooks, they're about this thick, and students don't like to carry those around. The digital format allows us to go with a one-year subscription, and if we were to go with a paper textbook, we would
063need to keep that around for about five years in order to benefit from the cost of it. The e-book model also comes with many digital resources that students use on their Chromebooks for the course, so I think it is the optimal format for this textbook. Any other questions, comments? Okay, we'll move on to the Consolidated District Plan. My next item is the Consolidated District Plan. The Consolidated District Plan, or CDP, is a comprehensive document that is required by the Illinois State Board of Education, which is an outline of how the district will use our federal funding, including Title I, II, III, and IV and IDEA grants to support student achievement, equity, and compliance with federal requirements. The plan usually is resubmitted each year with very few edits. This year, however, I did reformat the Consolidated
064District Plan and included alignment to our District Strategic Plan for all of the goals. So there are quite a bit of revisions, and that's also included in the memo. The board approval is required prior to submission to the state. So it is all completed. It's ready for your review and for your approval later tonight. And once approved by ISBE, they will release our title grants so that we can apply for them for the upcoming school year. But the Consolidated District Plan needs to be approved first by the state. And again, that's coming up later tonight in action as well. Any questions? Thank you for that, and thank you for that alignment to the Strategic Plan. Up next, item C, District 113 Student Fee Structure Proposal. So I'm going to jump in on this one and
065just remind the board that this past November we had a discussion around student fees, and during that meeting we discussed the need for a more comprehensive view or picture of our student fee structure. We discussed our team conducting an analysis and bringing back a fee structure proposal later in the school year. So this is a follow-up to that discussion. Thank you, Dr. Holland. So as Dr. Holland mentioned in the fall, we communicated to the board that our fees and instructional resource management will be moving back in-house as it was previously done, and that we were going to conduct a fee study. We are bringing the results of that fee study to you tonight, and we'll follow it with a recommendation of a fee model that we would like the board to consider for the 26-27
066school year. Next slide, please. So in tonight's agenda, we are going to present some of the history and context with our bookstore and instructional resources. We'll present the different findings in the fee study and its results, and we will present a fee, some fee models to consider moving forward, and finally, we'll provide a recommended fee model for next year. If we look at the history of textbooks, instructional resources, and Chromebook management in our district, prior to 2023, we managed the bookstore and Chromebook services in-house. Families were charged fees for each individual instructional resource, textbook, novel, e-book, and materials. Then in the 2022-2023 school year, we transitioned to a third-party vendor who managed our instructional resources and Chromebooks. The reason for this change at that time was to focus on improving efficiency in services and to
067standardize processes. District 113 partnered with that third-party vendor until this year when they announced that the business was folding and that we would transfer that, or they were transferring their business to another vendor. At that time, we were also getting feedback from staff and families that were having some inconsistent experiences with that vendor, and so we thought this would be a good time for us to think about bringing textbook and Chromebook management back in-house. This also coincided with our strategic plan focus of efficiency and fiscal responsibility, so again, a good time to look at all of these things. We've been working with an internal team led by Ali Mahanti here and thinking about our strategic plan, bringing textbooks and Chromebooks back in-house, and also just thinking about what our fee structure is. So we've been
068working with this team that includes our fee managers, and one of them is here with us tonight, Angie Susik. Our business office, our chief tech officer, curriculum and instruction, and assistant principles of operations to start planning how we would manage instructional resources in Chromebooks and fee management in-house. So the current state of our management right now for instructional resources, under the third-party management, our families and district had experienced some challenges that we wanted to address as we transitioned back in-house. First of all, families were paying a wide range of fees for textbooks, e-books, course materials, and supplies, and it depended on what kinds of classes students took. So our fee structure was inconsistent and families paid different amounts each year for each student and for each class. Some of the cost barriers, there were cost
069barriers with certain classes. For example, some course-related fees were cost prohibitive for families which can have a negative impact to access and equity in courses, and you know, if families did not feel that they could pay for a course because of the materials charge was too high, they may not have enrolled in that course. Also, another challenge that we were experiencing was that the cost changed from year to year, from student to student, and it limited the predictability in the total cost that families would pay from year to year. We were also assessing materials fees for items such as course packets, lab fees, and sometimes these charges, these were charged after the student had already registered, and to some families it felt like we were itemizing every single instructional material for them, which could be
070a little frustrating. And then lastly, there was no common fee structure across the buildings and within departments. So as I was mentioning, our strategic plan was our North Star. We assessed our current need for change and aligned it to our strategic plan goals. For example, we are improving fiscal responsibility when we can improve cost and predictability for our families. We're also aligning to goal two of our strategic plan, which is inclusive learning ecosystem by ensuring equitable access to instructional materials for all students. Another change that needed to happen was reducing barriers to student participation. If the fee, for example, for AP cybersecurity or orchestra was cost prohibitive for families, students would sometimes decide not to take those classes because the fee was too high. And we don't want material costs to be a barrier to
071an equitable educational experience for our students. And the need to create consistency in our fee structure across the district aligns to our goal of fiscal responsibility. And finally, we want to improve the efficiency and communication and predictability for our families by communicating a fee structure that doesn't feel like an itemized list of charges for individual items. So our internal group of fees managers, CTO, myself, the APs of operations, and many others, began a fee study led by our CSBO Ali Mahanti. And he will now walk us through the research and analysis of this fee study. Thank you, Karen. And I do want to mention Angie played an instrumental role in helping us analyzing all sorts of thousands of fees that we have and collecting all the data. So I just want to kudos to you,
072Angie. A lot of hard work. So thank you again. Okay. So research and analysis following the November discussion the administration conducted a comprehensive review of our current student fee structure. So we had a fee management committee sort of to better understand opportunities for improvement. Just keep in mind that the fees that we currently assess and charge were the same structure we had even before we outsourced to BEX. So we've never looked at that structure even before outsourcing. We've always had that structure in place. So nothing changed from a fee assessment point of view. So the work that we did was including benchmarking against comparable districts, reviewing all of our internal district 113 fee across buildings and departments, and evaluating different fee model approaches. We also analyzed the range of out of pocket costs experienced by
073families and clarified distinctions between required and optional fees. I'll get into optional fees a little bit later. They are more participation based. So through this process our goal has been to ensure that our fee structure is transparent, equitable, and supportive of student opportunities while also being consistent and sustainable over time. Next slide please. As part of our research we reviewed comparable districts such as New Ter, Stevenson, Lake Forest, Glenbrook, Evanston. Those are the common comps that we use for our school districts. What we found is districts take different approaches to structuring fees. For example, some districts use more of a consolidated or a flat fee model that includes most instructional materials which helps create predictability for families. Others continually charge separate course or lab fees similar to us, particularly for science classes, specialized courses, fine
074arts, similar to what we do. We also saw that most districts separate required fees from optional participation based costs such as athletics, parking or activities. Also learned that other school districts were charging athletics while we don't charge athletic participation fees. So it was different ranges. It was all over the place. It wasn't exactly apples to apples. So different structure with every school district. Next slide please. So we conducted a comprehensive analysis with the help of Angie of all our students across the district to better understand the full picture. Through this process we identified key fee categories including instructional materials, course fees, technology and participation fees such as activities, transportation, graduation, etc. I'll go into more depth later on. What we found was significant variation in total costs depending on a student's schedule and course selection
075which contributes, as Karen said, to limited predictability for families. We also identified inconsistencies in how fees are applied across schools, Deerfield and Holland Park and departments adding to overall complexity. Overall, this analysis confirms that current structure can be difficult for families to navigate and lack consistency across the district. Next slide please. Okay, so to better understand the current structure, we looked at required and optional fees separately. Required fees, like I said, cover core instruction materials, courses and technology while option fees are based on student choice. What we found is the required costs are currently spread across multiple line items, creating fragmented system. This adds complexity and makes it difficult for families to clearly understand and predict total costs. This highlights the opportunity to simplify and consolidate required fees into a more transparent predictable structure. Next
076slide. Alright, so looking at district 113 range of costs, thank you for compiling that spreadsheet for like, I think, 2,000 pages we have to put in AI to analyze some of the data. So, fortunately, to have those tools these days. So, we analyze, when we analyze the range of costs across the district, and this is just for not the optional fees, this is what, you know, they're required because students are purchasing ebooks and textbooks so they all vary, we found that the total required fees vary significantly from $115 to $730 per student depending on what books they buy, you know, AP books costs are different compared to regular textbooks but for most students, the most common range fell between $300 to $500 depending largely on course selection. So, this variation is primarily driven by, like
077I said, course selection, lab-based courses, specialized instruction resources, and requirement to specific classes the students were taking. So, while these differences reflect individual students they create a system with ability making it difficult for families to plan. Next slide, please. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Okay, so, we created, we looked at different models and came up with three models. We just wanted to provide or present options to the board to just consider what models we looked at and what is a recommended model. So, the first model that we looked at that we found some, you know, about three or four school districts had that when we did the student participation survey. We're calling it an all-inclusive model and what that model does is it brings together many of the cost families are already paying
078today but in a more simplified and predictable way. So, instruction materials such as textbooks, which are currently bought as well as e-books and novels are currently paid for individual, individually and very based on course selection includes that. In addition, course and lab materials are currently charged through separate fees along with the $100 technology fee and the 135 activity ticket in your book that includes this model. So, what this model does is consolidate these separate costs into one all- inclusive fees eliminating multiple charges and creating a more transparent and consistent experience for families. Next model. Now, next slide, please. In our next model, we're calling it a tier model and in this model all students would pay a base fee of $315 which covers instruction materials, course resources and technology similar to the last model many
079of which they're currently paid separately like I said. Families that have an option to, and this is an option, families that have an option to add the activity ticket in your book for an additional $135 depending on student participation. So, that's the only difference between the all-inclusive model and this model is we're taking that $135 apart and then families, if they want to pay for the activity pass and buy the yearbook, they have to purchase as an add-on of $135. What this approach does is this approach provides a lower base cost while still offering flexibility though it is slightly more complex than the all-inclusive model again, you know, just multiple lines. This activity ticket provides if the board, I'm sure they're going to ask but letting the board know the activity ticket provides all access
080admission to school events held during and outside the school day such as Giant Unite, Courtyard Events, Movie Nights and other student engagement activities so that's what activity pass includes and your book is your book. Next model, next slide please. So, this is the core rental model. Which one has the lowest base cost of $180? This covers instructional and digital resources that are currently purchased individually similar to other models. In addition, then there is there will be a required $100 technology fee which will be separately but they'll have to pay the $100 technology fee so again, creating multiple lines and then unlike the other models, the course and lab fees would still be charged separately so it will still vary based on course participation and then families would still have an option to add the $135
081activity ticket in your book. So, while this model lowers upfront cost, again it maintains multiple line items and variability which is similar to what we're experiencing or the parents and students are experiencing right now which can make the total cost less predictable and reduce transparency for families which is not our goal and recommendation. Next slide please. So, what we did here in this, we just put all models on one page just as a high level comparison so this slide brings all three models together for a side by side comparison and as you can see while each model includes the same core resources, the key differences are in how the costs are structured and experienced by families. As you can see, the all inclusive model offers the greatest predictability and simplicity. The tiered model provides a
082balance of predictability and flexibility and the core rental model has the lowest base but introduces more variability and complexity. Next slide please. So, as I explained earlier, note on separate fees, not all fees are included in these models that we've presented. Some costs will remain separate, particularly those tied to student choice or external programs. These include areas and participation. These include areas like transportation and parking because not all students use parking so we're not going to assess the parking fee. Academic testing such as AP exams and participation based costs like, you know, field trips. Many of these fees vary depending on student participation like I said in course selection so we've grouped them to provide a clearer picture rather than listing the exact totals. Next slide. So, Ali has presented you with the three models
083that we created and based on the research and findings of the fee study and the structure of these different models we have a recommendation for a free fee structure to present to you today. And we are recommending option number one, the full all inclusive model of $450 because it provides the most clear and most equitable and most sustainable fee structure for our students, families and staff. We believe that this model is the best choice for our district and for our families for several reasons. It is the simplest in that it's a flat fee that covers all instructional resources, technology and all classroom materials. The model has the highest transparency and removes the itemization of materials that families are currently dealing with. It's equitable and consistent so students do not have to worry about additional fees
084for certain class materials and they have access to the same resources and opportunities. This model also streamlines processes internally so we are not managing individual fees and line items. And this model also supports curriculum and instruction by covering all classroom materials. Included in this model are all classroom instructional and digital resources, course materials and lab fees, technology, the activity ticket and yearbook. We included the activity pass and yearbook in this model because we believe that all students should get a yearbook as part of their high school experience and building those memories including the yearbook and activity pass allows students to get more involved in their high school experience by attending events and contributing to their sense of belonging in high school. Next slide please. To summarize option one, the full all-inclusive model is the simplest,
085most predictable and equitable option to improve the overall family experience, student experience and district experience. For long-term sustainability, the fee will remain all-inclusive but may be adjusted over time in future years to account for the annual CPI increases. And if we do move forward with this model and this option and the board approves it. Oh next slide please. If the board approves this at the May meeting, we still have plenty of time to communicate to families regarding this fee structure. We have already communicated to families that we will be bringing instructional resources and operations in-house and we'll continue to communicate that plan and also announce the change in fees and we have opportunity to do that multiple times throughout the summer before the end of July when fees are assessed. Some of the multiple channels
086of communication that we already have started thinking about and currently use is through email, being sensitive to our multilingual families in different languages, having a dedicated area on our website to find information easily, using social media platforms to get the word out and also having an FAQ and support resource for families to refer to. We recognize that this would be a big change from the itemized fee model that is currently in place but we believe it'll be a welcome change for everyone involved. Any questions? Thank you. Before opening it up for questions, thank you for the thorough research on everything. Angie, thank you. Quite a bit of work to get that taken care of so thank you. Ali, Karen, thank you to your teams as well. Questions? Comments? I had one. I was curious sorry
087let me just frame my thought. With the change in it being an all-inclusive package, one of my questions was students may have chosen not to sign up for a class this coming year because fee structures were a limiting factor. Now with this new model, how can we address that? They may be interested now in taking a photography class or taking one of those classes. So I wasn't sure how you had thought through that. And if that also talked through this idea of a rollout from freshman year one and sophomores and juniors if there was any discussion around that. As far as course selection, that process has already finished so we really can't open it up for changes at this point. We do allow some change to happen. I think it's at the end of the
088summer or beginning of the school year if there's room in certain courses certainly they could take advantage of that. This would have to impact the year afterwards if kids wanted to take classes based on the fees. And then as far as a rollout If I could just piggyback on that. So I'm the instructional resource manager. I used to be the bookstore manager. Now it's a little changed. But what happened actually more often was families would sign up. We would have the FTE in place and then they would see a price and then boom boom boom you see the drops starting to happen. So that was actually more common. Although once they learned they're like oh do I really want to spend that or you know what I mean. But the drop was more common. Thank
089you for that clarification. I have a question. Did you look at the revenue parity? Absolutely. So that's where the range came into play. So that's when the range of how much the students were paying and what would be our cost neutral as far as the offset to our revenues. So with the $450 there will be no loss of revenues. And again what I also looked at in mind is kept in mind is we will be waiving that fee for our economically disadvantaged students as well. So yes. So it will be cost neutral. But yeah that's the point. This is not a revenue stream for us. It is simply to cover our costs. Exactly. Exactly yes. And you know the $450 like in some cases there were a couple of school districts charging much more than
090what we're assessing in addition to athletic participation fee which we currently don't you know charge. So we were pretty much in line based on our survey with this model. Just the structure of the the three models. So if you do the math you know it's really once you include the yearbook fee and then the mandatory technology fee right for the $100 Chromebook. It's really not that different between two and three. It's like a $35 difference right between in terms of what's required and what's not. I wonder if you could speak to like what's included. Like if you're spending only $35 across the student body like what does that encompass as opposed to what's in the $180 base cost. Because I'm kind of curious what got put into that like what are we covering with that
091$30? Really good question. $180 basically replaces what covers the textbook rental. So students get all access to textbooks whatever course they were choosing. Ebooks and novels paperbacks. They don't have to return the novels paperbacks. Ebooks are used one time. The only thing that they have to return correct me if I'm wrong Angie are the textbooks. So that's the $180. Activity pass and your book you already know about the $135 $135. Technology fee $100 that covers the Chromebooks. Students get to keep the Chromebooks after four years around, correct me if I'm wrong, covers the Chromebook repairs as well. The $35 covers the course fees that we were accessing. Lab fees course packets Angie you can go on and on. Anything else you want to add to that? Angie if you don't mind. Sorry. It felt like
092we were penalizing families for the teacher that was prepared who put together a nice course packet for their students and they handed out the beginning of the year as opposed to like a student or a teacher who went in there every Friday and Xeroxed all their stuff. That fee wasn't passed on. So this kind of just kind of says okay we're handing out paper, we're handing out paint brushes, we're handing out all these little things and that kind of enveloped all of that. I really thought an important part of the presentation was the discussion of the activities fees and how important it is that our students have the availability to join these activities. We've talked often in this board about the significance and the value of being involved in the school and how that helps
093with student achievement and student well-being. So I appreciate that that's an important part of the consideration. And besides waiving for the economically disadvantaged kids, we do have families that are at a borderline and we will work with the families like we have right now. We do offer a payment plan so we're very flexible in that. We don't stop the participation, oh you can't wait, you're not going to get it. So we do have those processes in place that we will continue to do and implement just to make sure that all students have equal amount of resources. An information page that would show families all the information they would need to have. Would you include a link for lower income families right there so that if they needed help with this particular fee they could just
094link from there instead of having to be on a different page somewhere to access all the different places? Certainly, definitely, yes. One final question. The recommendation is to include the activity ticket and yearbook as part of the fee and not have it separated out. Do you know, I don't know if you have the statistic, do you know how many students opt for the yearbook today? Roughly what it is? 80%. Because it's combined with the activity fee today. Correct. So right now 80% pay that and 20% Because it's combined with the yearbook, yes. And that was a recommendation. We also involved our activity directors and their definitely recommendation was to lump in the activity ticket and yearbook to combine it. And presumably every year there are people who decide they want a yearbook at the end
095of the year and then have to come back and we have to plan for that. Absolutely, yes. So this also helps us that all the students now will get everything on time. All the materials they will get their first day of class. So this also eliminates that before students were not getting their required textbooks and materials and e-books and they have to wait. So this also helps students to get everything first day of class so they're prepared, ready to go and study hard. I'm sorry, did you have another question? Just as a parent who's done this with three kids, I would strongly encourage, and I'm joking, putting five heart rate straps in each package so that you're not having to buy them every year because, you know, your kids lose them every year. Not speaking
096from experience. And also the rental of the gym uniforms was really nice originally. Especially when you have kids but don't get them washed. You've heard. I've heard. Thank you again for all of the work. We appreciate it. If there are any other questions, we'll take a look at those. Thank you so much. We will now move to action items. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the schedule of Board of Education meeting dates for the period beginning August 2026 through June 2027 as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. Is there a second? Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote please. Aye. Aye. Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the assignment of Board members to examine
097bills and salaries for the period beginning August 2026 through June 2027 as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote please. Aye. Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the updated intergovernmental agreement between Township High School District 113 and the City of Highland Park regarding the use of district buses for the 2026 Independence Day Parade. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? A reminder, this was previously approved by the Board. There were some changes that were made by the City following the approval, so we're bringing it back for approval. The memo includes the updates. Thank you. Hearing
098no further discussion, a roll call vote please. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the 2027-2028 school calendar as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? Second. Is there a second? Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote please. Aye. Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the textbook adoption for the 2026-2027 school year as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote please. Aye. Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the new course proposals for the 2026-2027 as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation?
099So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote please. Aye. Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Mr. Hedeman? Aye. Mr. Braza? Aye. The motion carries. We're now moving on to item G. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the 2026-2027 consolidated district plan as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote please. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Braza? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve a one-year employment contract for Carrie Rowe as Director of Special Education as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further
100discussion, a roll call vote please. Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Braza? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve a one-year employment contract for Dr. Jacqueline Orlov as Director of Teaching and Learning as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote please. Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Braza? Aye. The motion carries. I'd like to say welcome to our new Director of Special Education and our new Director of Teaching and Learning. Congratulations to you both. Welcome home. We're so glad you're here. Up next we have item number 12, the Consent Agenda. Items included in the Consent Agenda were provided to all Board members in advance and made publicly available as
101part of the meeting agenda. Any Board member may pull an item for separate consideration. Does any Board member wish to pull any items from the Consent Agenda for separate consideration? May I have a motion to approve the Consent Agenda as presented? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Not because you seconded, but you have the bills. I have the bills. I do have the bills. I went through the check register and pulled some bills and everything came back A-OK as always. Just to note some of the interesting things that we paid for recently were sound equipment rental for Pippin, our canine partner services, and books for the library. Thank you, Ali, for all the work. Anything else? Hearing no further discussion, roll call vote, please. Aye. Mr. Newman? Aye. Mr. Nebo? Aye. The motion carries.
102The time is now 8.45. There being no further business, may I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. The motion carries. This concludes the business of the Township High School District 113 Board of Education for the evening at 8.45. Thank you for your time and participation.