Board of Education Board Meeting 04-07-2026

001I am reconvening into open session Township High School District 113 regular board meeting on Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 at 7.08. The reporting secretary will now call the roll. Mr. Baraza? Here. Mr. Brunk? Here. Dr. Elliott-Shermer? Here. Mr. Heineman? Here. Ms. Lupa? Here. Mr. Nieder? Here. Ms. Newman? Here. I would like everyone else who is present to identify themselves. Romina Jansky, executive secretary. Catherine Anderson, chief human resources officer. Karen Ritter, assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and assessment. Karen Warner, chief communications officer. Tanya Connor, assistant superintendent student services. Jose Medina, executive director facility management. Ali Mahanti, assistant super finance. Hallie Fleischer, principal of Highland Park High School. Will Dwyer, principal of Deerfield High School. Ron Casbom, chief information officer. Mira Ante, executive director of diversity equity and inclusion. Shayla Holland, superintendent. May I have a motion to

002approve the agenda as amended? So moved. Second. I have to say what the actual two amendments are. To remove, I'm sorry. To remove item 6B, Highland Park High School Giants Club. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. The motion carries. Moving on to board reports. The first is my president's report. Yesterday I had the opportunity to hear the keynote speaker, the 2025 Illinois Teacher of the Year, Victor Gomez, at the final professional development day for this school year. I was inspired not only by his messaging around the importance of students seeing themselves and the adults that teach and mentor them in our buildings, but also how each

003of us is impacted by those who come before us and our impact on those who follow us. Honoring that entire continuum must be held sacred. I was struck when I heard just a couple of hours later a similar message from one of the Erdemus II astronauts as they broke barriers on their journey around the moon yesterday. At our next board meeting on the 28th of April, we will hold our annual restructuring meeting to elect new officers and confirm our meeting schedule for the next school year. And then lastly, the district and DA have had one collective bargaining session, which was on March 18th since our last board meeting. During that meeting, we discussed Articles 7, 8, 13, and 18, and our next meeting is tomorrow, April 8th. That concludes my president's report. I believe we

004have a True North report. Yes, we do. Good evening. The True North governing board met on Wednesday, March 18th. There was a public hearing on honorable dismissals where several parents and staff members participated in the public comments for this hearing and also the public comments for the general meeting. We heard a reorganization update from Dr. Gunnell and Mr. Nelson, including information on staff reassignments, reclassifications, and dismissals. The board later voted to adopt all the resolutions on the agenda relating to the reorganization. The next meeting will be held tomorrow, Wednesday, April 8th at 7 p.m. The meeting will be streamed for people who are not able to attend in person. Great. Thank you. We'll be now moving on to administration information reports. Dr. Holland. Hi. Good evening, everyone. This has been an extremely busy spring already.

005During this time of year, we find ourselves working towards the end of this year while also planning for next year and beyond. Yesterday, we had our district-wide Institute Day, a day of learning and engaging for our staff. We were joined by the Illinois Teacher of the Year, Mr. Victor Gomez, a bilingual science educator in Leiden School District 212. Mr. Gomez is an advocate for bilingual education and a proponent of culturally relevant practices for multilingual students. He was instrumental in launching the school's first bilingual course, which was bilingual chemistry. His work challenges deficit perspectives, uplifts bilingualism, and supports the removal of barriers that sometimes impede learning and growth for multilingual learners. His keynote was very inspiring as he pulled from his own family's story, his own journey, and his work with students in the field of

006STEM. We were also joined by Dr. Michael Mandarino, who is a professor at NIU. He led learning sessions focused on disciplinary literacy, supporting our consideration to expand our definition of text and support students in increasing their literacy through deepening understanding, making connections, and contextual sense-making. Not only did we have two external guests, but we were excited to attend sessions hosted by our very own Danielle Osmond and Jesse Villanueva, whose sessions focused on elevating instruction for multilingual learners. There was also a session on MTSS and PLCs and our path forward. There was technology meetings, crisis prevention training, CPR, ACT, school vehicle training, IMRF, and advanced placement workshops. So there was something for all of our employee groups to participate in. I would like to thank Dr. Ritter and the rest of cabinet for your active participation

007and leadership during the day. It's always great to have our staff together and to share in our learning experiences. On Tuesday, April 21st, District 113 will mark Genocide Commemoration Day with speaker sessions and other opportunities to learn, remember, and take action. This day is dedicated to honoring victims, survivors, rescuers, and other upstanders with a variety of experiences that we hope will provide meaningful remembrances, inspiring stories, and awareness of current issues that may move many of us to action. There are many opportunities to participate at both Highland Park High School and Deerfield High School. At HP, there will be multiple exhibits throughout the library for students to engage and view that day. Students can walk through a museum exhibit in the library and light a candle in remembrance of a lost loved one. HP is also

008hosting two sessions with Mr. Marty Zak, whose parents are Holocaust survivors. He will tell their stories and the stories of other family members, both victims and survivors. Mr. Zak is a regular speaker as well at the Museum of Tolerance. At DHS, there will be a full day of events to include small sessions focused on the Cambodian genocide history, a keynote regarding the 80th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials and the legacy of international law, various discussions, a poetry workshop regarding other genocides and the human experience, as well as a keynote from Marty Zak. This is a very important day for our district, and I would like to thank our staff sponsors and our amazing students who plan these experiences all year round. Thank you for keeping this topic front and center and for creating opportunities to

009make sure we are educated and informed not only about the past, but also the impact of our efforts and work now and in the future. From 1 to 3 30 p.m. on Saturday, April 25th, the entire community is invited to attend the second biennial art expo open house at Deerfield High School. This unique community event is part of the DHS Festival of the Arts called Arts Alive! Over 30 professional artists and AP fine arts students will be presenting their work, demonstrating their techniques and allowing the public to get hands-on experiences with various art projects. In addition, there will be pop-up performances that will run throughout the day, which will include live music, a dance party, family drum circles, and a shadow puppet play, as well as various student group performances. Our students at DHS will

010experience assemblies and performances leading up to this event. I would like to thank our director Tamara Jenkins, department chair Dr. Marquise Russell, assistant principal Dr. Marcellus Moore, fine arts and performing arts staffs, and Dr. Dwyer for their commitment to ensure that this week is one of learning, fun, and engagement for our students in the larger DHS community. Whether your student attends DHS or not, all are invited and are welcome. Thank you. I believe next up are FOIAs. Yes, since our last board meeting up on the screen are the FOIAs that were completed. Moving on to additional administrative reports, the strategic plan goal updates for goal three and four. Yes, so we have, as we've done throughout the year, we have updates provided by our goal champions of, and today we have goals three and four.

011As you will hear, this is their last update for the remainder of the school year. Dr. Anderson will kick it off. Thank you. Thank you everyone. I will be starting with goal three, and goal three focuses on strategic staffing, our commitment to attracting, supporting, and retaining a diverse team that drives innovation, collaboration, and shared responsibility. By investing in our people, we strengthen our workplace culture, improve organizational outcomes, and deepen our connection with the community. Next slide please. Next slide please. Our first strategy is to strengthen staff capacity through targeted professional learning, equipping educators to create inclusive, engaging learning environments. As a reminder, this slide brings together the overall goal three focus, this specific strategy, highlighted in gray, and the related SMART goal and key performance indicators we reviewed at our last presentation. Next slide please.

012As a reminder, professional learning is directly connected to professional responsibilities and their evaluation. Through the evaluation process, we can see how ongoing professional learning supports staff growth and helps us identify future learning opportunities to further strengthen knowledge and skills. Since the last update, we've completed year one of the school leader evaluation plan for assistant principals and have begun planning to expand the process to department chairs and directors. For our licensed staff members, LSMs, we have been planning to switch to the new Danielson framework. This is the evaluation tool that we use for all of our LSMs to evaluate their practice in the classroom, as counselors, as social workers, and so on. With this new Danielson framework as a revised version from 2012 to 2022. With that said, we have made the decision to extend our

013rollout another year to the 27-28 school year to ensure all staff experience a complete three-year cycle. Our tenure staff members are evaluated over a three-year period of time and to provide additional time for administrators and LSMs to collaborate on training for the updated framework. With that said, we continue to develop administrator and LSM resources for this revised rubric. Additional progress includes creating a non-LSM evaluation template. The image on the slide shows a highlight of the draft of the non-LSM staff evaluation plan, which complements the version already in place for our LSM staff. You'll see in this image that it really takes us through different phases, really setting up a structure where our non-LSMs would have a meeting with their supervisor at the beginning of the year, talk about goal setting, have an opportunity to showcase

014their work, whether that is providing artifacts for their work, conducting a self assessment, and then having that final rating review with their administrator at the end of the year. This does not currently exist for all of our non-LSM groups. We wanted to ensure that we had a structure that all of our non-LSMs could partake in, just like our LSMs do. So just as we prepare the evaluation template for all groups, our transportation department is actually piloting a new evaluation rubric. So there are some groups that have very specific rubrics for their groups, and we're looking to expand that to all of our groups in the coming years. We are also exploring new evaluation software options. Next slide, please. So what have we learned and what are our next steps? First, we've leveraged the school leader

015evaluation plan to more effectively support leaders in developing skills aligned with their distinct responsibilities. The previous administrator model relied on a rubric designed for building principals only, which didn't fully reflect the unique roles and responsibilities of our assistant principals, directors, and department chairs. This new plan has allowed the assistant principals to receive more tailored feedback aligned to what their job responsibilities are. To that end, feedback from administrators, both those conducting and receiving evaluations, is helping us to refine the process and strengthen its impact as we prepare to expand it to all of our school level administrators next school year. Our next step is for the school leader evaluation plan to have a training set up for all of our department chairs and directors, and that will be occurring next fall so that they can utilize

016this new framework as well. In terms of our non-LSM evaluations, input on the non-LSM evaluation template is guiding adjustments to ensure the plan can be effectively implemented across various staff groups. Similarly, feedback from the transportation pilot rubric is helping to ensure that drivers and staff have a voice in identifying the most meaningful aspects of their roles and how they prefer to receive performance feedback. And it's so powerful looking at some of the evaluations that are coming through. Just that aspect of a self-assessment to assess where somebody's at and then to have that dialogue with an evaluator to have that process in place has been really powerful. We will utilize that feedback to make adjustments on the evaluation process for this group as well as the others. And just to note that just yesterday at our

017district institute day, we gathered feedback from our administrative assistants. They have a current evaluation rubric they've been using for several years, so it was important to hear from them about their experience and what this new template would look like. And they had some great questions about several of them work across different departments. So what does that look like to have different evaluators? So these are some of the small things perhaps that really are going to be impactful when we're rolling it out next school year for this new template for our non-LSM groups. Finally, as we build administrator training resources for the Danielson framework, we're deepening our understanding of how to best equip leaders to support teachers and identify the tools they'll need for successful implementation and the 27-28 school year. We'll also continue implementing administrator

018training on the new Danielson framework and reviewing evaluation platform options that could be adopted and potentially piloted in future years. So the HR department has been working with a variety of different vendors to see what is available, working with different high school districts to see what they're using, to see what would work best for us. Right now, we're just using it for our LSM groups, but we want to make sure that this online tool can be used for all of our groups. Finally, the para-joint committee, a team consisting of LSM's and administrators, are developing updates to the LSM plan for the 26-27 school year. Next slide, please. The second strategy under goal three focuses on developing and implementing staff mentorship programs designed to strengthen retention while fostering adaptability, continuous learning, and professional growth. Next slide,

019please. First, as a reminder, while we have anecdotal data regarding the LSM mentoring program, we needed to develop a tool we could utilize to gather qualitative and quantitative data year over year. Thus, a comprehensive feedback survey has been developed to gather such insights from our mentors and mentees participating in the LSM group, which will allow us to better understand program impact and areas for refinement. On this slide, you will see a few sample questions that illustrate how the survey directly aligns with goal three. The first KPI for this strategy is that 90% of employees new to the district reporting positive outcomes regarding the hiring process, experience during the acclimation period, professional growth opportunities, and accessibility to support and resources. This survey asks questions to specifically inquire about their experience during the acclimation period, the first

020two questions, professional growth opportunities, the next two questions, and the accessibility to support and resources, the final two question samples. This is just to provide an example of how we're going to be receiving their feedback and making sure that we align it with what we're actually measuring and how then we can make adjustments to our mentoring program over the years. This will also help us as we're adjusting for our non-LSM mentoring program. Next slide, please. Sorry. Furthermore, we will seek ways to collect data regarding our LSM program. We have also drafted a framework for a mentorship program tailored to non-LSM staff, which has been created to expand support and foster professional growth across all employee groups. So our new learning has centered on recognizing that a mentorship strategy is only effective when the mentoring program's

021mission, vision, and results are clearly defined and regularly examined. By intentionally assessing whether the program's outcomes align with its purpose through data, reflection, and stakeholder feedback, we're deepening our understanding of how to refine the design so it better supports retention, growth, and the broader aims of goal three. Our steps for the LSM program focus on using feedback to refine and expand the mentoring work. We will implement the feedback survey, analyze the results, and make targeted adjustments for the next school year aligned with that KPI that was identified. For our non-LSM mentoring program, we have learned how complex it is to design a mentorship model that meaningfully supports the full range of non-licensed staff member roles in our district. We're learning to balance common structures with differentiated support so that mentors and mentees across very different

022positions will still experience a coherent, high-quality program. The image to your right, you will see how the mentorship program is broken down into specific groups. We have laid out meeting frequency details to monthly topic guides, and of course, meeting availability and topic guides are role-dependent. Next, we will be gathering input from our leadership teams as well as our administrative assistants and intensive special education aides regarding the proposed non-LSM mentoring model. The administrative assistants and special education aides will be our first groups to expand this district mentoring program. At the same time, we'll also be recruiting interested mentors who will help us to launch this new program. And speaking with administrative assistants the other day, they're very excited for this because they have been doing this in a very informal way, and to see something that

023is structured out so that they know all the support that they will be receiving in the future really has been impactful to them and also helps to identify how important their roles are within our district and that they are also a key part of our work and that they deserve that mentoring and could be mentors as well. We are excited to expand both evaluations, professional development, and mentoring support for our staff next school year. Ms. Ante, over to you, Goal 4. Okay, thank you so much. Next slide, please. So I'm excited to come to you this evening and share the updates. And what I want to remind us with the family and community partnerships is that often we look at the opportunities as events, meetings, that are available. And what I want to underscore tonight

024and hopefully you'll hear is that we're really thinking about also the quality of those partnerships, the idea that accessibility and usability are at the core of the partnerships. Next slide, please. Our first strategy focuses on creating meaningful opportunities for stakeholder input and involvement. And I want to remember that more often than not, important outcomes really resist simple measurement. And so just take note that we try to optimize for the metrics that matter and can demonstrate progress. As you can see from those KPIs, we're doing two things simultaneously. We're increasing opportunities for input. However, we're also measuring that those opportunities have accessibility for all stakeholders. So if you go to the next slide, since our last update, we've taken important steps on this strategy. We've completed the communications audit, which you'll hear about shortly. And we

025also have deployed and closed the five essentials survey. On the right, it created a quick summary of our data. You'll see that last year, the caregiver participation rate was 2% at both schools. This year, Deerfield increased to 8% and Highland Park to 14%. So participation didn't just increase it multiplied. We're looking at close to a sevenfold increase at HP. And what I want to underscore here is this tells us something really important. When we make communication clearer, more intentional, more targeted, families respond. And that's the work that Will and Holly and their teams did at both schools. I think with increased support from district, from myself, we'll see an even greater increase. And by our goal is 2030 to hit 20%. I'm sure we'll get there sooner. So I want to thank our buildings. And

026I wanted to really highlight that. If you go to the next slide, another strong example of meaningful stakeholder input is our portrait work. Through our strategic plan, we have students, staff, community members helping to build the district 113 staff portrait. Now you've heard about our student portrait. And this is more than gathering feedback. When you think about it, we are coming together in shared sense making. I mean, you know. Is that me? Is that how I sound? Okay. Sorry. Let me work on this. All right. To be serious, though. The piece that I think is also critical through the work for much of this strategy is that we're really learning something important. And that is that our people, our families, are seeking connection just as much as they're seeking information. And often the connection helps

027them access that information. Families and stakeholders often rely on informal relationships to understand what to do, how to do it, where to go. You'll hear about that in our audit. And those relationships are powerful. But they cannot be the system that we depend on. So that insight is helping shape our next steps. Thinking about how do we scale accessibility? How do we create information that is systemically organized? How do we build those systems, those resources, and those connections so that they're more visible, equitable, and consistent? If you go to the next slide, please. This takes us into our second strategy, which focuses on creating and promoting high quality, multilingual, and culturally responsive resources. For me, this is the engine of the goal. It addresses how we can make communication more clear, more accessible, and equitable.

028The focus of our work here is really at three levels. Our families opening communication, and if they are, can they understand that communication? And then does it actually help them do what they need it to do? So it might sound simple, but it's terribly complex. If you go to the next slide, please. To move this work forward, because of its complexity, we organized a resource task force. This is comprised of individuals across our district from many different positions who are multilingual, who work with students, who receive services from special ed, also looking at multilingual services, and hold different roles. It's been really kind of an amazing set of meetings we've had. We've started identifying system-wide barriers within that space. We've developed shared definitions, which may seem kind of basic. However, these are the guides for

029our quality, the work that we're trying to do, and so it must be a set of working definitions that is co-constructed. The impact of this work is also really important. We have learned how much we need plain language. We talk about it even in our reports to you all, that we don't just use our acronyms and the kind of alphabet soup of our discipline, but we find that even when we are looking at documents that might have the words spelled out, infinite campus, talking about dropping a course, even if you translate those, that can also be inaccessible because the definition is missing. And so we've been scanning documents, looking for all those kind of technical language, that kind of cultural language that only a school knows, and thinking about how might we make those more

030accessible. We've also been thinking about the idea of connection. And so if we have, for instance, like DPN, right? Deerfield Parent Network offers amazing sessions for parents who want to understand what is a sophomore experience? What is, when is curfew? How do I help 18 year old? We have judges and parents who come in, we have the counselors come in. That's very Deerfield specific. Highland Park has an amazing program, too, for parents, padres estudiantes. However, it's in Spanish. So we have an English population. DPN is in English, not in other languages. Two really amazing programs that are offered, but don't necessarily provide enough for the entire community. And so our question is, what if we, and we're starting to hear that this might be a good idea, connect them under one umbrella in which we

031offer then something that sometimes people call parent university or, you know, we're thinking about something that's a little less specific, but more about connecting all of those caregivers, as well as those programs together. So I'm just floating this out here. Connect Ed is something that I've come across that I think could be a great title. But more importantly, it's the learning there. And so when you think about that, it is very much shaping our next steps, creating a centralized place for those documents, thinking about what is it that our various stakeholders might need. But then also, I want to add this piece is that we don't have often the resources to review all of our documents. We sat in a room with eight people. We had three hours. That's a luxury. How might we scale

032that up, as I mentioned before? Well, we're looking at AI. We're looking at agents, trying to understand how might those skills help us to review a document with a human, always connected, to then give that feedback, both evaluative and educative, because the feedback from those bots often will, when trained on our documents, provide guidance. So we're really exploring the landscape within this strategy. And it's, I would argue, very exciting. Next slide, please. Our third strategy to foster and develop strong community outreach and partnerships focuses on strengthening partnerships, but not as like individual separate relationships, but as interconnected part of a system of support around students and families. If you go to the next slide, since our last update, we have continued to really strengthen these existing partnerships, build new ones, and identify some time-bound opportunities

033to deepen that collaboration. I'm going to tell just a quick story through the PACE framework, which is what you see on the right side. One of the things that I've become more and more clear with is that our promise to our students is captured in so many of the frameworks that guide us. And for instance, within this one, which is the Illinois PACE framework, which stands for post-secondary and career expectations, it outlines what students should receive, what our promises, our obligation to receive through middle school all the way through high school, career exploration, financial aid literacy, and post-secondary planning. For us, this work then is about alignment across systems. Our incoming students are already engaging in this work, as you can see on the top image, especially if you look at the eighth grade explanation.

034So it's then our responsibility to not have them start over, but to understand what they've already experienced, build on that foundation, and ensure continuity in their learning. And so that then brings upon us the responsibility to talk with our center districts and ask what is happening within that learning, as well as the tools that they're using to house that information. This requires strong partnerships, not just with the community organizations, but as I said, across our district. If you go to the next slide, please. That brings us to the learning that we're doing here. And this is something that is important, I think, for me especially, really respecting the liaison roles that have already been established. There are many of my colleagues here tonight and in our buildings who already meet with many of these organizations,

035so I cannot duplicate that. That would be a waste of time. But understanding what it is that they bring and then also sharing that vision with them so that we can navigate these very complex. And I put this up here just to underscore these aren't complicated systems. This isn't a technical solution that we're looking for. These aren't even arguably problems. This is about navigation. This is about a dynamic set when we're dealing with humans and constantly changing, evolving, future humans like our students here. And so what I want to just offer is, for instance, today I went to Tech campus. Amazing. I saw kids working on cars. I saw them cutting hair and doing nails. Did you know that the fire department, like one of the fire departments just donated a new truck. I didn't

036get to see them get on and put on their gear. They were in class at that moment. The Deerfield fire department plays a significant role within Tech campus, donating their time and their resources. And so I did a steep level of learning. I had an amazing time walking around that campus. And what we're seeing then is that everything from looking at our center schools to the experiences that our students are having here and then back out in our communities requires then this coordination, the coherence, and our ability to continually work with one another. And so this means that we are not working in isolation, that we have these coordinated roles, and that our communication must be accessible and usable to our families and our community. And so I will just end here by saying across

037these three strategies, the through line for me and from the work that I'm doing with the team is that we're building strong, we're building on strong existing opportunities, but what we're doing is we're taking those individual efforts and we're trying to access more of a connected intentional system and then designing it as we move forward to evolve with our families and our students. So thank you. I really have enjoyed this opportunity this year and I look forward to the continued years working on Goal 4. So any questions or comments? Any questions with Goal 3 and Goal 4? I have a couple actually, one for each. So I'll start with you, Mira. If you go back just a couple of slides, if you can, to 16, that's the one that had sort of that, I don't

038know, call it a rubric or whatever, going from middle school all the way through high school. Can you go to the PACE framework, Jake, which is on 139? Slide 16 in the deck. So my question is, when you look at sort of some of the elements of this and then you start thinking about the universe of really community partnerships that you'd want to form in order to enable this, I'm just curious from your perspective, like not necessarily specific groups, but what kinds of organizations are in that universe of folks that you want to create partnerships that'll help enable this? Well, I think that's a great question. I think there's a few different parts, and one is that we have also kind of part of this are our pathways. And this is also where Karen has

039more experience, but I won't put you on the spot. And so we know that there are six specific areas in which we need, because you're asking about internships, you're asking about all the things, right? Mentoring, they also need experience, real world problem solving. And so we have a matrix, which we're kind of beginning to map out all of those different experiences. So that's very specific. As it relates to some of the financial aid, many of the experiences around like doing an inventory, understanding who you are, what your interests are, we already have tools and counselors and people who do that work specifically within our building with our students. And then exposure, so that runs the entire gamut. So we are looking right now, and also I'm talking with Karen, there's Commerce, I can't remember the

040name of that, the Chamber of Commerce, I should know. And we are looking at various entities there that would come in and or create a fair and be a part of, and that's as broad as we can make it. And so I don't know if that answers it specifically enough, but. But I'm hearing it's a mix of governmental, the park districts even would have opportunities. Oh, 100 percent. It's companies that are domiciled in the district that can provide internship opportunities or projects or come and speak or what all that. So it's sort of that gamut, governmental, quasi-governmental, private, that kind of thing. And each of those for me, many of them at least, are like small little cities inside. Like the hospital has from communications to medical to food service. You can find almost every

041industry within some of these very large or the park district. Right. Inside those logistics happening inside those organizations, that kind of thing. Yes. Interesting. My question for you is actually sort of related to the mentorship program, which is fantastic. Are you seeing or do you hope to see that by sort of creating this program that it may create an environment where people are just want to help each other more? Even if it's not part of the formal mentorship program, that we're just sort of institutionalizing this idea that we're sort of all in this together and we're sort of looking out for each other and that kind of thing. Are you seeing that yet or do you hope to see that at some point? I think that our staff really try to build a community within

042their different groups, but I think that the district can continue to do a better job of providing more opportunities for that collaboration. So even in speaking with the administrative assistant group, that ability for mentors and mentees to come together, like our LSMs, that's coming across the district, having the schools come together. And there aren't a lot of opportunities right now for our staff across the schools to collaborate with each other. And I think that that mentoring program is a great starting place because there are more opportunities to have conversations, to talk about the jobs that they're doing. They all have different roles, but they have a lot to share with each other. So I think the more opportunities that we can provide, whether it's just gathering people together at an institute day or through a

043mentoring program, it helps build that camaraderie a little bit more. Obviously our goal is for retention. We have many retirements that are going to be occurring over the next couple of years. And so ensuring that when people come to our district, they want to stay with us and that people, as they have many years of experience, that they can help out the new people that are coming in. So I think it's just going to provide more formalization to something that our staff are trying to do already and hopefully open up the door again for more collaboration across all the different groups. So you think that it's sort of been happening informally, right? People, you know, been, they've got experience and they're looking out for people that maybe, you know, need handholding or aren't quite as

044experienced, you know. So that's already sort of occurring. I also think that there's something to be said about having a formal mentor role where some people might not naturally see themselves in that. And that when there's a formal role that they can have encouragement from others, like you would be great in this role. I see all the things that you do in your job. And to build that leadership in each of the roles, to really emphasize how important all of our staff members are in each of their roles, I think is another great way. I think that we have some people, because of just the number of years that they've been in the district, maybe 30 years, they're always a person to help out or they're the office manager. But there are so many different

045strengths that our staff members have. If we can highlight them and lift them up and kind of provide that formal mentoring role, I think will be really key. It's a little bit of a multiplier effect on just the formal process. Absolutely. Any other questions? Okay. I believe the next item is the communications audit, which is a subsection of goal four. Yes. Karen, are you up? Yes, there's a few of us up. Okay. Okay. Good evening. Tonight, we're here along with members of the Mercury team to present the board with a high level overview of the communications audit. As you know, you received both an executive summary and a full report in your board packet. And this audit was designed to take a thoughtful look at how communication currently functions across district 113 and to identify

046opportunities for strengthening how we connect with families, students, staff, and the broader community. And importantly, this work sits directly within the framework of our strategic plan. Communication, as you know, is a core value and a central through line of that work. The audit helps us understand where we are starting from as we continue implementing the strategic priorities we've set as a district. The communications audit is particularly connected to goal four of our strategic plan, family and community partnerships. The goal is to strengthen collaborative relationships between schools, families, and the broader community. And to support that goal, the audit focused on three key areas. First, evaluating our current communication systems and engagement practices. Second, strengthening family and community partnerships with particular attention to multilingual families, families navigating special education services, and voices that may not always

047feel fully represented in the district processes. And third, identifying opportunities where our communication practices could become clearer, more accessible, and more responsive. Ultimately, the audit was designed not just to evaluate communications, but to help ensure that communication supports the district's larger commitments to equity, collaboration, and community engagement. Okay. After going through a formal RFP process, we selected Mercury to conduct the audit. They brought deep experience working with public institutions and educational organizations on strategic communications and stakeholder engagement. One thing that stood out to us was their willingness to meet our community where they are. And that meant spending time with district 113 stakeholders in a multitude of ways. Mercury facilitated focus groups with families, staff, and students. But they also made an effort to recruit participants directly on campus with pizza and to offer both

048few bribes, I saw it in action, and offered virtual and in-person opportunities for participation. And so with that context, we're going to turn it over to Mercury to walk you through their recommendations. So hello, good evening. My name is Colleen Dutchen. Yeah, just the bottom. My name is Colleen Dutchen. I'm here with my colleagues Hannah Knack and I'm Navarro. And we're here to talk about the audit that we've been working on for the past few months since November of 25. And here is a timeline of what we've been up to here in Highland Park and Deerfield. We started in November with stakeholder interviews and focus groups, and we reviewed every communication that has been going out from the district as well as your website, et cetera, et cetera, all communications materials. In January and February,

049we surveyed, we took, excuse me, we issued in collaboration with UIC a survey, a quantitative survey to go along with our qualitative analysis from the focus groups. And then step three has been in the past couple of months coming up with our findings and our recommendations, which is why we're here to talk to you tonight. So data collection, what was the process? We did, as I said, quantitative and qualitative. We had 78 total focus groups, most of them on site, right? We had participation. You can see our graph there. We had 10.9% of our focus groups were staff members, parents and caregivers were 25%. And the most important group here tonight, of course, students were 64.1% of our respondents. Our survey, we had 617 surveys submitted and usable surveys resulted in a number at 554.

050So therefore 90% of the submitted surveys were contained usable data that helped lead us to the recommendations here tonight. And so basically how we started the entire audit process, we started with the foundation, how the district is communicating today, where it currently stands and what circumstances it's up against. And when we take a look at the communications ecosystem, we are trying to understand what's our baseline, what channels we're using, the purpose, communications and what outcomes are we ultimately producing. So that's kind of the lens that we started with. We started off, ultimately our findings found that there are some really good strengths to build on with 85% of our survey respondents said that they fully trust district leadership and they're really happy with where the district is headed. Principle newsletters, consistent, valued. The parent square

051text notifications are widely used and valued. Bilingual community liaison, as Mira discussed, has been a model that is really strong and can be replicated across the district. And our recommendations are designed to build on all of these strengths that we found. At the same time, there were a few structural friction points. So only 23% of our survey respondents said that information on the website is easy to find. Nearly 40% described that communication clarity is somewhere in the middle. So not clear, not confusing. And so what we found digging into these tensions is that there's a common route. It's not about effort or intention, it's about the infrastructure and the systems that are around the district. And I won't get too far into that portion because Andre and Colleen are going to address these tensions later.

052So one of the clearest patterns that we saw in the audit is that communication obviously doesn't work for the same way. Different audiences require different needs. Multilingual families and families of students receiving special education services, as Mira pointed out, often rely on interpersonal relationships rather than systems to navigate the district. So it's important to note that it's not a trust issue. These families generally trust the district like our data presented and the information that they're receiving. The challenge is navigation, understanding how the system works, what actions to take, and where to go for the reliable information. So because of that, many families rely on informal networks, whether that be parents, community groups, or their trusted contacts to fill in those gaps. For example, we heard from bilingual families and families navigating special education services that

053communication could vary depending on the situation. And in some cases, important updates are learned informally rather than through consistent channels. And these are not fringe audiences. These are audiences that Goal 4 prioritizes. And these are exactly communities the district has identified in the strategic plan. So informal channels are necessarily a bad thing. Heavy dependency on them is not necessarily bad. It's actually really good, but the issue becomes when it becomes the primary way to obtain information. Access becomes dependent on who you know, and so that creates inconsistency and inequities. So to better understand why those experiences are happening, we looked at the root causes behind them. What we found is that these challenges are not about individual effort, as Hannah noted. They are about how the system, the communication system, is currently structured. There isn't

054always a shared district-wide approach to how information gets prioritized or presented, which leads to different experiences across the schools and across the platforms. As a result, some stakeholders struggle to distinguish between urgent information and informational messages, leading to information overload sometimes, as well as cognitive fatigue. Constant inflow of information. Families rely on informal networks due to the website's poor navigation and lack of centralized accessible information. Missed opportunities for clarification and engagement with caregivers seeking more structured ways to provide feedback. We consistently heard that stakeholders don't always have a clear structured opportunity to share their input or understand how their feedback is used. Lack of audience-specific messaging leads to irrelevant or unclear communication, particularly for multilingual families and special education groups. Students and caregivers and staff all need different types of information, but much of the

055communication delivered in a uniform way. So people end up doing the work to figure out what information applies to them. The current team, and I must say huge thanks to Karen and to Sam and to Mira, lacks the capacity to manage proactive engagement and force consistency or meet increasing stakeholder demands. So now we're going to talk about what the community told us. We collected data through three primary methods. It was the leadership and stakeholder interviews. We talked to a lot of you here. 25 focus groups with 78 participants, not 78 focus groups. That would be kind of insane. Across students, caregivers, staff, and Spanish-speaking families, including dedicated sessions for Spanish-speaking families and families receiving special education or with students receiving special education services. And then as Colleen discussed, a district-wide survey that yielded 554 responses.

056The main through line and what's powerful about this data is that it consistently showed the same things across the survey, the focus groups, the interviews. We kept seeing the same theme surface, which gives us real confidence in our findings and recommendations. So the headline is that, as we've said, stakeholders trust district leadership at 85% and that would be the foundation that everything else rests on. But trust in leadership does not mean no issues with the current systems in place. 55% say that communications are easy to understand, which is really positive, but it means that nearly half don't fully agree. 39% say that they don't feel their voices are heard. And ultimately a picture that emerges is that the district has earned strong credibility and now has the opportunity to match that with systems that are

057more clear, more accessible, and more responsive. When we asked about frequency, the issue didn't seem to be that the district is over-communicating by any means in the traditional sense. It's more that communication isn't segmented and tailored enough to the specific audience. When everyone receives every single message and they all look the same, volume becomes the problem, even if the total number is completely reasonable. So 31% of respondents reported that they hear too often from the district. What that's really telling us is that the right information isn't reliably getting to the right audience at the right time. So it's more of segmentation, prioritization, not just volume. 59% of the respondents described the website navigation as moderate, so it's sort of navigable, sort of not. 18% reported difficulty finding needed information and only about a quarter report

058that it's easy to find information on the district website, indicating a potential usability and navigation gap. This slide really helps us understand how stakeholders are currently receiving information and what stands out here is that school and district email newsletters are the dominant channels. Together they account for the majority of how people say they get information, which is surprise to no one here, I'm sure. After that, there's a noticeable drop-off. Channels like the website, Infinite Campus, are used at much lower levels. Social media and other platforms play a relatively small role in how people are accessing information. The big takeaway here is that the district already has a strong reach through its primary channels, but that means that they carry a lot of weight and people depend really heavily on this single source of information. Ultimately,

059this reinforces a lot of our findings that when a lot of the information is concentrated in one or a few channels, it contributes to overload and makes it harder for people to revisit the information later and access it after a fact when they have questions. It also highlights an opportunity to better organize and differentiate how information is delivered within the channels that people are already prone to using. That takes us to our recommendations. Okay, all right. Okay, so our recommendations are standardizing your communication processes, establishing things like, establishing district-wide protocols for who can provide the communication and how it gets provided to the various channels. There's a lot of people contributing information and have access to your channels and we kind of recommend, we are definitely recommending that those protocols be looked at again because

060you've got this person, that person, that person, all with access to your channels and not enough people are, we've got two people who can oversee this information, right? So we really do recommend that how you communicate comes down to the people who are feeding the communications office, right? And instead of feeding the actual websites themselves. So creating a clear information hierarchy in implementing templates and editorial cadence so that it is not too much all at one time and then not enough. Obviously in an emergency you have to communicate quickly and that gets handled, but there are a lot of people who are feeding this beast of information and from our standpoint, Sam and Karen or your communications office need help there. You can't have 10 people talking about 10 different subjects without them having, without

061them knowing. Coordinating social media and content planning, expanding guidelines for school affiliated accounts, implementing an integrated editorial calendar and aligning district and school messaging cadence. So another recommendation is rebuilding the website as the primary information hub. We know that the communications office is constantly working on this, but this is to ensure that all core information lives permanently online. All right, so more recommendations here on engagement and access. So the second set of recommendations focuses on how stakeholders currently experience communication and these are audiences that Goal 4 prioritizes. So one of the clear takeaways from this audit was that effective communication is not only about just sending out information, but it's also about helping people and navigate the system. So one of the recommendations here is to create a structured onboarding system for families, particularly those

062new to the district so they understand why and how to access certain information and what to expect. For example, this can look like creating onboarding toolkits for families with freshmen students as they transition from middle school to high school or a simple digital onboarding hub with a to-do checklist for parents would be very helpful. And another recommendation has to do with moving beyond translations into helping folks navigate the system. So I already know the district does an amazing job with translation and accessibility. The families may receive information, even though they receive information in their language, they still struggle to understand how to act on it and why. So the real issue is systems orientation. So for example, multilingual families have trouble understanding how to act on information in an unfamiliar school system. A lot of

063them are new to the country and they don't know how the U.S. school system works. And they also vary by municipality here in the country, which is very different from other countries. So it's all very new to them. Similarly, formal communications like IEP meetings is consistent, but day-to-day communication varies significantly depending on the staff member or on the situation. As some families with IEP students reported, easily obtaining basic info while others had actually had to escalate repeatedly to get the basic info. So we recommend differentiating your communication by audience so that staff, students, and caregivers can more easily identify what's relevant to them without having to sort through this mass of information that's coming at them. We also recommend building two-way feedback loops such as a chat or a poll. This is about building feedback

064loops so communication becomes more of a two-way system, allowing the district to continuously refine how it engages with the community. So while this set of recommendations focuses on how communication is experienced, the final piece is making sure the system has the capacity to sustain those improvements over time. Okay, so the final recommendations here. So here are two related ideas, applying equity and accessibility lens to communication decisions and making sure communication capacity is aligned with the district's broader strategic goals. So what does it mean to apply an equity and accessibility lens? This means looking at communication from the audience's point of view, not just asking whether information was sent, but asking whether it's understandable, accessible, or usable for people who need it. It's important to evaluate communication through lived experiences in order to apply equity and

065accessibility. This can include language access, mobile usability, readability, consistency, and whether the information is easy to locate and act on for multilingual families and for families navigating special needs services and other audiences who may face friction in the communications ecosystem. And so aligned to this is the audit points to a capacity question. Most of the gaps identified are not due to lack of effort. They are purely represented of structural constraints, as my colleagues also noted. While the current two-person communication team does an excellent job at maintaining day-to-day operations, some of the district's broader goals on segmentation, accessibility, and proactive engagement and stronger feedback loops will require scaling capacity and coordination over time. Which brings us to our recommendation for a phased approach. The recommendations are organized into three phases to support immediate improvements, midterm system

066building, and long-term transformational investments. The phased approach allows the district to build on current strengths, prioritize equity, accessibility, and clarity, and to align capacity and resources over time. So phase one, zero to six months as soon as we can get to it. Short-term immediate actions that can happen. Standardized communication practices and apply an accessibility checklist. Strengthen district website governance. Integrate current community liaison role into planning. Mira also talked about that. And then these pilot perhaps piloting feedback loops that will allow your audiences to let you know what their questions are and opening a two-way street of communication with your stakeholder groups. Phase two, one to two years building on the foundation for proactive engagement. Enhancing the website navigation, no easy task as Sam will tell us. Expanding liaison communications into district-wide planning, communications planning. Institutionalizing

067recurring feedback cycles and expanding multilingual outreach and segmentation. And then finally developing a storytelling calendar that will allow, I think you Mr. Dreier talked about the need to have proactive positive communication, feature stories if it were, to let your audiences know that it's not just about we've got this change happening, we've got this event happening, but we have real stories to tell about what our students and staff are doing here in district 113. Oh finally, sorry, I got to phase three, three plus years scaling those strategic priorities. So expanding the communications staffing capacity. Developing an integrated district alumni foundation infrastructure and creating philanthropic opportunities. Increasing capacity for multilingual and special education outreach. Informalizing data analysis and engagement systems. So we want to thank everyone who took the time to participate in the process and we

068want to thank the board for your support in conducting this audit and we want to hear any questions or feedback you might have. Does anyone have any questions, feedback? Sure, okay. My question is really actually kind of general, you know, it's just as it relates to your practice, you know, what you guys do. How do you think about or how are you talking about incorporating AI into these processes? How it can create efficiencies or, you know, better ways of doing things, you know, now or in the near term? AI, if you're not already using it in what you do, I mean, I use it every day. I mean, absolutely AI should be implemented, but with human oversight, right? So would we recommend it? Absolutely. But in terms of managing the information flow, I would not

069rely on AI to post things just yet. We'll get there. We will get there, but we're not there yet. So I was curious with this information, what are the, I know our phases, our three phases, but what are our very short term next steps in living this? So for us, obviously there's a bunch of people that are just getting this information now. So, you know, circulating that information so they have time to digest it, getting some feedback from those key stakeholders, even Holly and Will, for example, just like what they're doing on a weekly basis with their newsletters, thinking about those kinds of things where there are opportunities that we can tackle relatively quickly. And usually like those kinds of things are, as we are, you know, going very quickly to the end of the

070year would be more of like a summer type of project. Longer term, it's going to require some more systems wide efforts and wider conversations because it impacts so many people. So that will take some sustained effort. Well, one thing that can happen right away and not, not tomorrow, but is strengthening the governance of who is feeding the information, where, right? You've got, and I heard this consistently. I mean, there are some people who have access. Frankly, I don't think that they should be feeding the information directly to your website. There has to be communication protocols in place to allow proper supervision and better proper communication. You know, you can't have one guy from X department saying, well, I'm going to just post this. No, no, no, no, no, no. There have to be protocols in

071place that allow your communications department to have oversight. And I'll add to that, you know, once we start talking and circulating, we'll have some sort of a timeline that we're going to figure out what we're going to be able to chip away at, and then we'll be providing updates to the board. Great. My hope, when I went through the presentation, my, what I saw and what I believe is there's some low hanging fruit that can have some really immediate impact. And being in the communication world myself, you know, what you and Sam do as a two-person shop is truly incredible. And I do, I am the first to understand the importance of expanding into that proactive phase. You can't necessarily do that with two human bodies only. And yet sometimes people think that's what they

072do. Yeah, exactly. I mean, ideally, you want to know what I really think? There should be somebody at each school feeding to these guys. We haven't talked about it, but I mean, that's a recommendation. I mean, seriously, there should be one person in charge of whatever is going on that is deserving of communication or that needs to be communicated beyond the already fabulous principal letters and the superintendent letters. I mean, that's a given. I'm just saying if you want to see more positive, good news, which we're all hoping to get in our world today, you're not going to be able to get much of it, if any of it, with all these people throwing, well, this person won this award in tennis and this person won this award in, I don't know, education, French, Spanish,

073whatever. It has to be actively sought after. The positive news isn't just going to appear. It has to be produced. Curated. Curated. Correct. Correct. I think Mr. Dwyer spent some time with us talking about what you had done in your previous role in your previous district that allows the students and their teachers to work together. I mean, you have video capabilities here. You've got lots of them, from what I understand. Why not tap into that? But again, it can't just be haphazard. Well, I think I might go do a nice little feature on the chess club, whatever. It doesn't work that way. And these guys don't have the time or the energy. I don't know how they do what they do, frankly. That's great. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Sorry. Yes. You

074touched on it with your question and your answer, Jess. Another low-hanging fruit aspect that I want to point out and that Mira brought up that's really important and an accomplishing goal for here is integrating the current liaison roles into communications planning. So currently, there's already liaisons in each school that are highly valued. And through our stakeholder investigation, we found out that they're very pertinent to the community. So that's something that the district could immediately implement without any financial constraints. Thank you. All right. No money, good thing. Understood. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Thank you for the opportunity. Okay. Next administrative information report is our technology report. Ron, it's always a good day when you get to present to us. No, I'm doing sailing. Twice in 15 years. I know.

075Wow. Doing something wrong. In both of the last 12 months. I know. I obviously upset Dr. Holland somehow. So good evening. I do want to thank you guys for the opportunity to be here tonight. It is a privilege to lead a team that serves as digital backbone of the district, and I'm excited to share our annual technology department update with you. Our goal is to ensure that technology is never a barrier to education, but rather a silent catalyst for it. Before we dive into some highlights, I'd like to start with the numbers, a snapshot of the last 12 months. This year, our core infrastructure maintained over a 99.5% uptime rate, closer to 99.8 across all district locations. This is a key indicator of the reliability of our IT systems, those systems being, for example, Wi-Fi,

076phones, cameras, servers, or many more. This level of reliability is a baseline requirement for the modern learning environment. By ensuring high availability, we provide students and staff with consistent access to digital curriculum, research tools, and collaborative platforms that they rely on for daily instruction and operations. Our primary goal is to maintain stability so that technology remains a dependable utility for the district. Our help desk metric for the year shows over 3,700 service requests. These tickets encompass a wide range of support from classroom hard work, troubleshooting, and password resets to critical administrative software access. We view these metrics as a measure of our responsiveness. Our goal is to clear technical obstacles quickly so that staff and students can maintain their focus on curriculum and daily operations without interruptions. Cybersecurity remains a critical operational focus. With over

07746,000 malicious emails filtered by our system this year, this represents an average of 130 daily interventions, safeguarding our digital environment from potential data breaches. While our current defenses are performing as intended, the nature of these threats requires constant adaptation. We'll discuss some initiatives we're implementing to address the evolving security needs of the district. External verification is a key component of our security strategy. Our most recent third-party cybersecurity audit resulted in favorable assessments confirming that our internal practices align with industry standards for protecting district assets. To maintain this posture, we implemented three specific layers of defense this year. First, we adopted the CIS critical security controls to standardize the configuration and security of all client devices. Second, we have fully integrated ISBE's reasonable security standards to ensure that we meet the statutory requirements of Illinois SOPA

078law. Finally, to address the increasingly sophisticated phishing, we deployed an AI-driven email security platform that uses behavioral analysis to detect threats that bypass traditional filters. These combined efforts ensure a resilient and compliant digital environment. While cybersecurity is a primary focus, as my computer dies, there we go, it's part of a broader operational framework to manage our district at our scale. We've established an integrated ecosystem structure on five core teams. As illustrated by the connectivity on the slides, these groups do not operate in silos. Rather, they rely on cross-functional dependencies to maintain district operations. Client support serves as a primary service delivery interface, providing direct technical assistance and training necessary for staff and students to utilize district tools. Their effectiveness is supported by operations and cybersecurity who maintain the integrity and 24-7 availability of our core

079network. Information systems manages our critical data architecture, ensuring the accuracy of our student records and timely submission of state mandated reporting. Physical systems oversee our tangible assets, including physical systems such as battery backups and campus safety infrastructure, while our development group that builds custom integrations to solve specific district challenges. The unified approach ensures that every interaction with technology is supported by the combined expertise of the entire department. I'm now going to highlight some accomplishments from two of these groups. Our information system team manages our student information system, which is a single source of truth for every student record, grade, and attendance point in the district, but they do so much more and support so many more systems. The information system team has built custom screens and implemented automated process improvements in Infinite Campus to make

080our staff more efficient by saving time and data entry, increasing data accuracy. Some examples are automating cell phone referrals and the unexcused absence and tardy processing. The information team also develops custom reports from the district's data systems, including Infinite Campus and Skyward. They create traditional reports as well as creating visualizations. And even our information system team gets to dabble with hardware. This team supports the point of sale system in the cafeteria. This is just a small set of all the work our information system team does to support the district. Now let's look at our development team. This team builds solutions that fit our district. A prime example is our custom student entry and check-in system. Every school day, all of our students scan in using a software developed in-house. It does three critical things simultaneously.

081It verifies student enrollment, automates the random selection for our weapon detection system, and instantly alerts security if an administrator needs to meet with a student. To improve hallway safety and student support, our security team needed a way to document student interactions on the move. Our developer built a mobile iPad application that allows staff to log these touch points in real time. This data feeds directly into live dashboards for our deans and security managers. We built a custom onboarding engine specifically for areas like athletics and volunteers. It automates the distribution and tracking of digital hiring packets, providing HR with a single pane of glass to manage new hires. This once again is just a small selection of the processes that have been made more efficient by the custom solutions. Here are some examples of upcoming projects

082we have this year, including increasing cell phone coverage at Highland Park High School, our constant cycle of infrastructure improvements, and projects to reduce cost. Looking ahead, first regarding the impact of AI. While we have previously discussed instructional pilots in the educational committee, we're now seeing AI's influence on district operations. Within the technology department, AI is used to accelerate code development and troubleshoot infrastructure issues with a greater precision. Administratively, we're seeing gains in back office efficiency using these tools for data visualization, reporting, and document drafting. Secondly, we are addressing the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape. The same AI tools that improve our efficiencies are also being used to create highly sophisticated automated phishing attempts. These threats are increasingly difficult to detect through traditional means, which underscores the importance of our move towards zero trust infrastructure. This model requires

083continuous verification of every user and device ensuring our defenses remain resilient. Finally, I want to address project cost increase, projected cost increase. We're observing a trend of software as a service and price escalations with most vendors moving to subscription models that increase their prices five to ten percent annually. Furthermore, specialized tools required to mitigate the AI-driven threats represents a necessary increase in our security infrastructure environment. So thank you for your time today, and there are any questions. Any questions? I'll see you in 15 years. No challenges. Last, an administrative information report. Excellence and effort. Which one of you wants to go first? I'll go first. Alright, thank you. Another great month in the books at DHS, and we are rapidly approaching the end of the year. I want to detail some of the really incredible

084things happening. First in fine arts, our orchestra program traveled to Vienna, Austria over spring break, performed for enormous crowds at multiple prestigious venues. The trip included 27 students and was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all of these kids who travel abroad and perform in some incredible spaces. All the credit goes to our really amazing orchestra director Ron Valor for the dedication and energy required for such a trip. And the fact that I got zero phone calls while they were all abroad was a big win for me. Speaking of our music program, the choir's rendition of Jesus Christ Superstar last week was an amazing example again of DHS musical talent. The various solo and ensemble performances were rousing and incredibly well executed and received by the audience. Overall, a great month of musical enjoyment for everyone. Also

085in fine arts, Dr. Russell, our department chair, conducted another meeting with our fine arts student focus group last week. This group of about seven students have been engaging regularly in the future areas of focus for our finance department. These students are able to use their voice to give feedback on their areas of interest and passion as we consider future programming. It's been a great addition. I want to shift to physical education. We have some really exciting events coming up in our PE department. Later in April, our junior PE leaders are going to be conducting a mini triathlon. And over the course of two days, students in this class will swim a quarter mile, bike a 5k, and run a mile. All of their times are going to be tabulated for each event and they will

086be tracked as part of a competition. Even more exciting is that students from all other classes are able to join and be a part of that triathlon as well. I'll keep you posted on who the champion is this year. And I am happy to say that I will not be participating, even though Ethan probably wants me to. Also in PE, on Memorial Day, our classes will be doing right before Memorial Day, we'll be participating in a challenge called the MRF. This is a famous workout named after Navy Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy, a United States Navy SEAL who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan in 2005. It is a one-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats, and then another one-mile run. Again, happy to

087report that I will not be doing that. Students will compete in pairs or small groups and break it up and get to chunk it over a period of time. We won't have anybody do that in one period. That would be hopefully impossible. Moving on to student activities. The Human Rights Club just completed a charitable book drive called Books for Africa. The school-wide effort has garnered 20 boxes of books that will be donated to charitable educational purposes on the continent of Africa. We are currently waiting for UPS to come pick them all up. They are all in the front lobby right now. And speaking of activities department, starting tomorrow, our DHS theater program will put on their performance of the Women of Lockerbie, promises again to be another incredible performance by this very strong activity program.

088As we look forward to the rest of April, we have some other really exciting events planned, including an arts live assembly, as Dr. Holland mentioned, on the 23rd, followed by the festival on the 25th, as well as Genocide Commemoration Day. Again, just some great events that will be happening as we get to the tail end of the school year. And last, I want to take a moment to recognize our assistant principals. Mr. Chamberlain, Mrs. Escalante, and Dr. Moore, our three APs at DHS, are really the cornerstone of our building. Between the three of them, they have been at DHS for over 45 years, and they are incredible partners, and we couldn't do what we do without them. As we progress through Assistant Principal Appreciation Week, which is this week, I just want to take this

089moment to thank them for their hard work and dedication. And that concludes my report. Thank you for specifically calling that out. I appreciate that. Great. Hallie. Good evening. I want to start by echoing Dr. Dwyer's sentiments of appreciation of our assistant principals at Highland Park High School. I'm talking about Ms. Lauren Stilwell, who's in charge of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, Mr. Josh Seldes, Student Services, and Mr. Matt Wallace, who is Operations and Academic Services. They're truly the behind-the-scenes engines that keep our school running smoothly, and they balance everything from student safety and discipline to curriculum support, professional development, and all school events. And I'm incredibly grateful for the service and work they do on a daily basis in order to help our students thrive and for school to run smoothly. We, this week, have begun

090our Spring Spirit Week, and some highlights are Pajama Day. I changed, so these are not my pajamas. And we have a monochromatic dress day that we're all super excited about, an AI photo booth, a caricature artist, and a bungee challenge that I also will not be participating in in the courtyard. It culminates in a large pep assembly on Friday where seniors have their last chance to possibly win the Spirit Award. They have not won it yet this year. Today we had our first massive scavenger hunt. We had 2,750 yellow duckies hidden in plain sight throughout classrooms and gyms and theaters, and the students had to find as many as possible, and they could turn them in and win a certain amount of HP swag based on how many duckies they each found. The rules were

091you can't enter any classrooms that aren't yours, you can't be late to class, and you can't stomp on your neighbors while you're trying to grab a ducky. It is also a pleasure to share vibrant work happening across our science, English, and world language departments as we head into this final stretch of the school year. Science at Highland Park High School is leaping off the page and into the real world. On April 23rd our physics and physics honors students will transform Six Flags Great America as they do each year into a massive laboratory for physics day. They won't just be riding roller coasters, they'll be conducting a formal lab practical to see abstract concepts in action. Students will be calculating the potential energy at the top of a lift hill, the kinetic energy at the bottom,

092and measuring the real world effects of acceleration and friction on the tracks. Additionally, students are currently exploring the historical and scientific connections between the survival of Apollo 13, the mathematical genius of the hidden figures, and the modern day objectives of the Artemis II mission. Closer to home our biology students are diving into advanced biotechnology really thanks to a district 113 foundation grant. Using new gel electrophoresis equipment they are engaging in sophisticated diagnostic labs. First they have oodles of labradoodles lab where students act as geneticists using DNA fragments to track inheritance and determine the paternity of a litter of puppies. Also we have diagnosing baby Marie lab where the stakes are even higher as students analyze family DNA to identify the sickle cell LL helping them understand the real world application of genetic screening. Finally, our

093environmental science students, you've heard about this earlier this year, are preparing for the culmination of a year-long partnership with the Park District of Highland Park and Trout Unlimited. After months of monitoring aquarium ecosystems and water chemistry, students will travel to a nearby ravine in late April or early May to release the trout that they've definitely grown attachment to and raised from eggs directly contributing to the health of the Lake Michigan ecosystem. In the English department the focus is on literature as a lens. Our students are moving beyond simple reading comprehension to produce sophisticated real world artifacts. Our freshmen are acting as historians and educators using Canva to create professional grade infographics that provide the cultural context of 11th century Scotland for Shakespeare's Macbeth. One of my favorites. Sophomores are currently weaving their insights together by

094constructing a textual symbolism quilt for like water for chocolate creating a visual representation of their collective analysis of the text. Our seniors and immigrant voices are finishing the year with high stakes advocacy projects connecting their academic research to meaningful social outreach within our local community. We're also proud to announce a significant milestone for our world language offerings. Highland Park High School has been approved to offer national language recognition to our Hebrew students through the consortium for the teaching of Hebrew language and culture led by Brandeis University. To celebrate we recently held a taste of Hebrew event where Hebrew three and three honors students presented on Israeli culture covering everything from technological inventions and sports to food and fashion demonstrating their commitment to both language proficiency and cultural understanding. Across all these disciplines the common thread

095is truly authentic engagement whether our students are calculating g-forces on a coaster analyzing dna for a diagnosis or achieving national accreditation in a second language they're proving that their Highland Park High School education is a powerful bridge to the world beyond our halls and I want to thank all of our staff members for making this possible. Thank you both. We now have the opportunity to move on to informational reports. Every two years we take the opportunity to hear brief reports from the various supporting organizations to our district which is founded policy 8-90. These organizations have been presenting to us over the last several meetings and tonight is the DHS high school boosters athletic boosters and Mr. Seed. Thank you. You can press the button on the base of the mic so the green goes on.

096Perfect. Thank you. I'm live. You're on. You're live. All right. So good evening. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you. My name is Sean Seed and I'm the current president of the athletic booster club. I am a 25-year resident of Deerfield. My wife grew up in Deerfield. She attended Deerfield High School. We have four sons with my youngest son graduating this spring. I would have to say these past 10 years have been extraordinary at DHS and I cannot say enough good things about the teachers and administrators at the school. I've had the privilege of working alongside DHS athletic director Nate Flannery during my time and he has provided extraordinary leadership of the athletic department. So who are we and what do we do? At the top there I list our mission

097but we exist to promote and to support the DHS athletics and its student athletes and we do this by generating revenue through membership, through sponsorships, selling warrior wear and yard signs. We donate the net proceeds back to the school through various vehicles such as coaches funding requests, membership donations, warrior wear pre-sale programs and direct support like programs like huddle and sway concussion testing. We also create community through a weekly newsletter by highlighting our wonderful achievements of our student athletes. We also give $4,500 in scholarships back to six students. I want to highlight just some of our sponsorship. We bring in over $60,000 a year to the club. Since the installation of the Adams field scoreboard, we offer local business sponsorships, packages, various dollar amounts. It's a great opportunity for local businesses to proudly display their

098logos and banners at athletic events and on our website. The digital scoreboards, the digital scoreboards. I'm sure you've been at the events. I just want to thank you from the club for the partnership with our club and seeing the foresight of what these could provide. They not only provide an extra experience at the athletic events but they also allow us to generate revenue to give back to the athletic program. So thank you. I don't know if any of you were here when these were approved other than last year with the new one in the warrior gym but these are fantastic assets and they're great. So thank you very much. I'm going to skip ahead. I'm going to come back. I reordered. Okay. So one of the things we did this year was we launched a

099new website through membership toolkit. Some of you may recognize membership toolkit. District 109 parent networks use it. We launched that at the beginning of the year really in an effort to help us streamline what we do and make it easier to volunteer. One of the things that is a plus with this platform is digital warrior passes. So that's one of our membership benefits is you get a pass to the football and the basketball games. Up until this year we had two people that would stuff envelopes, mail them out, put stamps on envelopes. With this platform it's all digital. It's on your phone and that really makes it easier for us to administer that activity as well as promote our club, present our sponsors, et cetera. So how do I go back? There we go. Talked

100about that. One of the other things it allows us to do is send out our weekly newsletter. We do this every week. It helps us create community within our athletic department. It is really a great tool with the platform. We could track who opens so we get some data that way. We send out 2,300 newsletters or it goes to 2,300 people, new and old booster members. We have about a 70% open rate which I hear is pretty good. It's just a great vehicle that we have to communicate all the wonderful accomplishments of our student athletes. Our impact. Over the past five school years the club has contributed over $700,000 back to DHS athletics and its student athletes. For this school year we'll contribute close to $145,000. I've got a list of how that breaks down

101but I want to highlight one of our programs. We have two funding requests. One in the fall and the spring. We allow the coaches to submit things that they need for their program that might be supplementary to their athletic budgets. This year alone we have provided close to $70,000 back to the coaches in this program. I call it our Super Bowl. We have it twice a year. It's the biggest check that we give back to the school and allows the coaches to get things that they can't maybe get or need help funding to support their teams. The next slide. I just have a list of things. I won't go through all of them. You could read those. It seemed like a theme this year. We had to kick in and help contribute for new warmups.

102A lot of cold weather warmups as well. Something that they don't normally have. You could read all the other items as well. That's our impact for this year. We look forward to doing this in the future and continue the success of our club. That's all I had. Thank you very much again for allowing me to speak with you. I don't know if you have any questions for me. Thank you. Thank you. If I understand correctly, one of the other benefits of the new technology like the scoreboards is that they are run by students in some situations. Yes. There is a DSI program all run by students. I think we have a contractor that helps coordinate that with that program. They manage the information. We work with them to give them new sponsors and banners that

103run throughout the course of the school year. Thank you for offering that opportunity to extend the learning through the purchasing of this equipment. I can tell you one great example was just before we sent the boys basketball team off to the state tournament. We had a student send off and about 90% of our school was in the gym. And a student produced video being shown by students on the video board with all the kids watching was really kind of it all coming full circle and couldn't do that without Sean on the great program they do. Great. Fantastic. Anything else? Great. Thank you very much for the presentation. We appreciate it. We will now proceed to public comment. We welcome your comments and questions and give them serious consideration pursuant to Board of Education Policy 2-230.

104When I call your number, please come to the podium, identify yourself with the first and last name and city in which you reside. And if applicable, state the agenda item to which your comment is directed. Please keep all comments within three minutes. The Vice President will raise his hand at a 30-second warning and announce time when the limit is reached. You must conclude your remarks immediately. Any questions may be sent via email to the superintendent to receive response subsequent to the meeting. I believe we have two registered speakers. So speaker number one. Good evening. My name is Gary Wool. I and my wife Lauren and I are residents of Deerfield for over 30 years. We have three adult children that went through the Deerfield school system and we're active in the community. I have a

105sister-in-law and brother-in-law who have two children in the district, one of which is a participant in the District 113 transition program with Guidepost. The reason I'm here tonight to talk to you is that I have the unique experience of being involved in the location that District 113 is looking at to buy the building at 1161 Lake Cook. I've been involved in that property for over 20 years. I've personally seen and participated in the development of the Chicago Jewish High School, which is now the Rochelle High School, the Guidepost Montessori School, B'nai Joshua Beth El Ahim known as BJB, which is a reform synagogue and as most of you have seen recently there's a new four-story building which is 147 beds of assisted living. What I want to share with you is this is a community.

106That location is a group of community organizations that are providing services back and they work together. I've seen firsthand, I've participated where they communicate, they share information such things as overflow parking when there's special events at either the high school or perhaps BJB. They work together when there's events or issues of security nearby. They share resources in terms of landscaping and snow removal. They talk regularly in terms of that environment and that location. It's not unusual to see children every day out and about either the preschool at BJB or Guidepost Montessori. Yesterday I was there and I saw two teachers wheeling probably 30 kids in these buckets of strollers together. It's often to see the high school students in the morning getting off the pace buses and walking to the high school and in the

107afternoons and sometimes even seeing the athletic team there. So it's a very favorable environment where children are there even though it's been considered to be a business environment that's no longer. It's no longer called the Deer Field Business Center. Those signs have been taken down. Thirdly, I want to talk about the location. I've heard people comment that it's a highly trafficked area and not ideal. Yes, at 8 30 in the morning and at 5 o'clock at night it's very, it's highly trafficked. But I have to tell you what's special is all the businesses that are located on Lake Cook Road that are employment opportunities, volunteer opportunities for the students that participate in this program from food, restaurants, banks, hotels, corporations. There's so many opportunities for students to benefit and be a part of this and

108have a choice. The families can now work with their young adults and have a choice of what they think their children can do in the future. So with that I appreciate the work that you're putting in this. I know firsthand because of my nephew and others in this community that I've participated with that what this District 13 program will do will be a huge benefit and I'm here tonight because I want to help support this location because I think it is ideal. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker number two. Good evening. My name is David Kuperman from Highland Park and my daughter is currently a participant in the transition program at Elm Place. I understand that the changes are needed because of the reorganization with True North and I appreciate all of

109the effort that the board and staff are doing in guiding the school district through this change. However though and also the the recommended building you know seems like a nice facility. However I do have significant concerns which I've previously shared with the staff and I want to share with the board about the proposed use of that location as a transition program. I think that it's very important for the the board to hear from the community especially those who have students that are currently in the program. These students already face many many challenges in life and this is their last opportunity to enter the critical transition from school to the actual community. Today this is done very well by True North in a location that is very well suited. It embraces and embeds the community. It

110provides them with lots of different types of opportunities that are very difficult to replicate just anywhere. The True North staff does a great job providing all of the programming on an individualized basis which is what this population needs and they utilize the surrounding community as an extension of their classroom whether it's for life skills, voc skills, social recreation skills, and academics. These students are in and out all day long on an individualized schedule as they go you know shopping to prepare a meal, go to a voc job, practice the use of public transportation that is right out the door, or even going to coffee club with their peers. Many of these activities are done today by walking in small groups or the entire class and these students are are fully integrated into our community and

111the public sees them as an integral part of our community. These aren't skills that can be learned only in a building set off from the community but they require easy access to a community. The proposed location while it does have you know some some advantages and the building seems very nice it's not near anything that's that close to to be able to be used for real world you know lessons. It's a one mile to one and a half mile walk along a skinny sidewalk along a very busy lake hook road which that sidewalk doesn't really get plowed very well in the winter so it's just impractical for these students to walk an hour hour and a half whether it's to go to the metro station to practice taking public transportation or whether it's to go

112to jewel to to buy something for cooking it's not going to happen. You mentioned that the pace bus the pace bus stops running after the morning rush hour it only runs westbound on lake hook road and it doesn't start up again until the evening rush hour after the school day so it's not going to be a practical place for them to practice important skills like public transportation. Today you know it's very easy for the children to do things you know day to day and it's going to require a access to a fleet of of vehicles to replicate that plus it's going to take considerable amount of time away during the day. Most importantly it actually is going to push these students out of the community. Historically this is a population that has been left to

113the side and that's what we're going to be doing to them. It comes across as hiding them in a very restrictive environment rather than embedding them in a community in a least restrictive environment. It's also the exact opposite of what other school districts nearby are doing. Glenbrook has theirs in a downtown area. New Trier has theirs in Glencoe. Even the Cove school has theirs in in the downtown area within Northbrook. It's the exact opposite of of what we're recommending here and the exact opposite of what we have today at at own place. I'm also concerned about public safety. Sadly you know we live in a world that has a lot of hate and violence. I do want you I do need you to wrap up because of the three minutes. No problem and so I

114think there's a lot of safety concerns that would need to be addressed that are going to add a lot of time and money to this this process. But most importantly I just don't think that this building meets the needs of the state of objectives which were in this this search which is a community-based setting to learn independent living, functional life skills, voc readiness. I don't think it's going to help us become a premier program and it's a it's just not an appropriate location for this type of a stated goal. And I hope that the community input is valued. I hope the community input is is heard and most importantly I hope that we reconsider this location. We talked a lot about AI earlier. You know a simple AI search says a transition program should be

115walkable near public transportation and close to local businesses and I fully support you know the the AI conclusion there and my concern is that this location doesn't do any of those things. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you. That concludes public comment. We'll now be moving on to discussion items. Our first discussion item is intergovernmental agreement between the Board of Education of Township High School District 113 and the City of Highland Park regarding the use of buses for the Independence Day parade and I believe this will also be an action item later in the agenda. Dr. Holland? Yes sure. So we've been in touch with the City of Highland Park regarding their their plans for the Independence Day parade. They have asked to use our buses. If you've ever gone to a parade

116sometimes you see municipal vehicles as barricades in parades and so they've asked to use our buses to stage in various locations. I believe they've asked to use approximately 12 of them and we've had some conversation regarding with insurance as well regarding the fact that our buses need to be driven by our drivers etc but this is an intergovernmental agreement that we've developed in collaboration with our legal councils to permit the City of Highland Park to use our buses for their Independence Day parade. Any questions thoughts? This will come up later in the agenda you know I appreciate the time that was taken by legal and by your team and making sure that the buses are simply used for barricades driven by our employees you know not able to be used for any other mechanisms. Yes

117we partner with the City annually regarding the use of Walter Fields and other things so this is just an extension of that. Happy to help. The next item is the resolution authorizing membership in the Northern Illinois Health Insurance Program. I'm not sure how this gets teed up. Okay so good evening before we turn it over to our broker, I just want to give board some background about the health insurance. Approximately about seven years ago the district engaged Gallagher as an insurance broker to help manage the rising health insurance costs and provide long-term strategic guidance. Since that time we have worked closely with the insurance committee which includes representatives from multiple bargaining groups including the representatives to evaluate plan design changes and strategies to mitigate cost increases while maintaining strong benefits for employees. This topic has

118come up frequently for those who were part of the board for a longer time that we have discussed you know how to mitigate health insurance options. So as part of health insurance increases so as part of the ongoing work one of the strategies that we have consistently explored is participation in health insurance cooperatives. In prior years due to our claims experience we were not eligible to join a cooperative. However this year we have been conditionally accepted into Northern Illinois health insurance pool which is also called NIHIP pending board approval. We believe this represents a strong opportunity to improve cost stability and support long-term financial sustainability while continuing to offer competitive benefits. I do want to mention before Nick goes over the details in the overview that the savings they do not create a surplus or

119additional discretionary funds rather than they reduce the magnitude of the increase that would have otherwise impacted the budget. So it's a key point here. So at this time I'm going to turn it over to Nick Rubatic from Gallagher who will provide an overview of the cooperative and walk us through the details of the proposal and then we're happy to answer any questions following the presentation. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you Ali for the introduction and thank you all for the opportunity to speak with you this evening. As Ali said my name is Nick Rubatic. I'm here from Gallagher. I am the lead consultant for the Township 113 benefit program and also the the lead consultant for the NIHIP cooperative. I'm joined here tonight by my colleague at Gallagher Mallory Schmedicke and I'm here to as

120Ali said review the NIHIP proposal. So a little background before we go into the details of the the cooperative part of the work that the administration the insurance committee did was evaluating the existing benefit program and evaluating two cooperatives that Gallagher manages. So Northern Illinois Health Insurance Program or NIHIP is one of those cooperatives and the Educational Benefit Cooperative or EBC is another cooperative that Gallagher manages. That EBC cooperative is comprised of about 135 school districts in the Chicago metropolitan area with an enrollment of about 30,000 employees. There was thorough evaluation of the EBC cooperative as well but ultimately after a thorough review of the Township 113 claims history the EBC cooperative was unable to to provide a financial quote so that was not an option. NIHIP and we'll talk about in more depth the

121details but NIHIP was selected for a number of reasons those including the financial savings, minimal disruption to the member experience, additional benefits like through Blue Cross like the benefit value advisors and the VITA health program and the peer districts that are within the cooperative. Those peer districts include Lake Forest 115, Glenbrook 225, New Trier and also Stevenson and North Shore 112. So with that I will talk a little bit more about the details of the cooperative. So cooperative structure which some of you may be familiar with is essentially a gathering of school districts to share and share in the collective purchasing power to help increase fixed cost savings and really drive opportunities to negotiate with carriers and vendors. Also sharing risk across the cooperative so that districts that join are more insulated when there are

122years when there are higher claims utilization which would otherwise lead to larger increases. NIHIP in particular is comprised of 40 districts. They are in the as the name would imply the northern health insurance program. Geographically they are centered in the northern Illinois suburbs and membership as far as enrolled employees is just over 15,000. The current program the current Township 113 program the projected renewal costs were about 14.34 million dollars. For reference it's not here contained in this memo but the current cost is about 12.9 million. So the district was facing about a 1.5 million dollar increase in medical program costs. The NIHIP medical program costs are about 13.87 million. So that is where that savings the estimated medical savings of about $466,000 annually is derived. Of that overall $466,000 in premium savings because the district

123contributes the majority of the premiums the district savings is about $390,000 whereas the employee share is about $75,000 of that savings. Okay give an example of how that would impact some individuals that are covered under the plan. So an employee that's enrolled in the HMO Illinois plan one of the two HMO options that's covering their family would see a difference in premium of about $29.77 per month. That's what's coming out of their paycheck. Another example for a member that's on the PPO plan they would see a savings of about $17.04 per month. So just some examples to show you how it impacts the employees and a little more color to the breakdown of the district and the employee savings. Okay additional savings are seen on the life insurance. So the life insurance is the basic

124life and accidental death and dismemberment coverage is a district provided benefit to all eligible employees it's paid for by the district and there is savings when moving the life insurance coverage into the NYHIP cooperative through VOYA which is the insurance carrier. There is a projected savings here in the memo and if I'm pressing the right button here to advance the slide. Does this advance the slides? All right didn't work. Yeah initially it was $59,000 but then it was finalized because that was an estimate so the new savings are a little lower. That was an estimate and based on some finalization that we received from VOYA just today on how the retiree class needs to be established and it will have a higher rate the savings for life insurance is $17,200 and that is a direct

125savings. Additional administrative and excuse me before I move on to that section the voluntary life insurance coverage when joining into the NYHIP cooperative would see a savings of between 14 to 63 percent in premiums. Now voluntary life insurance coverage is elected by employees it's paid for by employees so that is an employee based cost but it is a savings for those employees to maintain the existing coverage so it's a direct savings to employees. Additional administrative and program savings include savings on the benefit solver open enrollment platform. This is a platform that's offered by Township 113 today. It is also the platform that the NYHIP cooperative uses. Those program costs are built into the NYHIP premiums whereas today they are paid and they're billed separately from business solver to the district. So those costs today are

126approximately $72,000 that is a direct savings because those costs are again included in the NYHIP premiums. Very similar to the employee wellness screening programs through empower health those wellness screenings today are billed directly to the district. The cost is approximately $30,000 annually. Those costs are built into the NYHIP premiums. And then finally the Gallagher consulting fee. So the Gallagher annual consulting fee is approximately $88,000 today. Consulting fees are built into the NYHIP premiums so the district will no longer rebuild that $88,000 directly. The premiums include the consulting fees. Okay so the total estimated savings you've got the for the district we've got listed out in the memo approximately $390,000 for the medical premiums. $17,200 for the life insurance premiums. The savings for the benefit solver platform in the amount of $72,000 wellness screenings of approximately

127$30,000 and then the Gallagher consulting fees of about $88,000. Total district savings are this revised number from what's in the memo is now $597,000. So the estimate went from $639,000 to the actual savings of $597,000. So we were just waiting on one number to confirm today which was the life insurance. So what does this mean for the employee experience? Within NYHIP coverage is offered through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and the pharmacy coverage through Prime Therapeutics. So there is no impact to the member experience. They will still have a Blue Cross Blue Shield ID card. Every member will get a new ID card. The account number is different through NYHIP so everyone will get a new ID card. However, they will still have the option of selecting a PPO plan and two HMO plans.

128The plans offered through NYHIP do have some slight differences from the existing district plans and we've outlined in depth what those differences are. Some of the differences are enhancements to the benefit meaning they are lower cost to employees. Others are slight increases in cost to the employees. For example, the office visit copay is increasing very slightly when a member or a dependent goes to the doctor. Those again are outlined in depth in the following pages of the memo and open to answering any questions related to those but won't go line by line and talk about those in depth. Looking at other district coverages, so dental coverage is currently offered through Guardian as the carrier, that coverage will remain outside of the cooperative. That coverage does not need to be included in the cooperative and because

129of the current coverage structure for retirees that will stay outside of the cooperative and remain as is today. Same for the vision plan with VSP and same for the long-term disability plan through MetLife. The employee assistance plan will remain with CureLink outside of the cooperative and the flexible benefit administration through PBA will remain outside of the cooperative as well. So the medical, the basic life in AD&D and the voluntary life in AD&D are proposed to go into the NYHIP cooperative. We outlined the timeline and approval process so as Ali mentioned this is conditional approval because ultimately as far as the next steps in the process the Township 113 board would approve the resolution for membership into NYHIP and NYHIP must accept Township 113 as with all new districts into the cooperative by a majority vote

130of the general board and that vote occurs at our next general board meeting on April 15th. In summary, the participation in the NYHIP cooperative represents a fiscally responsible strategy to address rising health care costs while maintaining strong employee benefits and minimal employee disruption. The cooperative model is currently projected to realize the district savings of about $597,000 in annual savings while employees would see a benefit from reduced premium contributions and lower voluntary life insurance costs. Participation in the cooperative is also expected to produce long-term stability and less variability in year-over-year cost. Before I wrap up or as I wrap up I do want to take a moment to highlight and acknowledge the work that the Insurance Advisory Committee and the administration have done over the last several years and especially in this year in evaluating the

131cooperatives. The administration and the Insurance Advisory Committee are engaged, they're very knowledgeable, and they act in the best interest of not only the district but all employees of the district when making decisions and evaluating these options so they're truly a pleasure to work with. So with that I welcome the opportunity for any questions from the board. I know we have talked about this we've heard about it historically at one point I think there was an economic reason why we didn't want to join the cooperative you know that sounds like maybe that's changed at this point and it sounds like this is potentially an opportunity now for us to to join correct and I said once you're in you're in right like you don't you know right just want to be clear it's still an eight

132or nine hundred thousand dollar increase from what we have now right it's a savings versus what we think we might be right correct so I just want to make that you know absolutely what have the annual increases inside the cooperative been relative to the marketplace sure last you know number of years sure so the you've got those figures available so we tend to look at five-year and 10-year historical increases and so for the the NYHIP cooperative over the the last five years the average increase on the HMO was 7.6 percent on the PPO it was 8.1 percent the average trend that our actuarial team develops was 8.2 percent for both of those periods so it outperformed the NYHIP cooperative outperformed trend over the five-year over the last five years when looking at the 10-year average

133NYHIP further outperformed trend so trend was 6.9 percent on the HMO and 6.7 percent on the PPO and the NYHIP cooperative was 4.9 percent on the HMO and 5.6 percent on the PPO and Greg if you just even let's see if the savings are exactly the same for example theoretically we're still saving in fixed costs so as we mentioned earlier earlier like a gallery consulting fee you have your benefit resolver wellness screening and there are other fixed costs built in the insurance there are other things that i think yes over that that we're saving regardless of the increases you're talking about was just for the just for the covered itself or was that that's for the combined that's the total cost but within those increases and even within the premiums that have been calculated there's

134a number of components and what ali was was referencing there's a fixed cost component and then there's a claims component the fixed costs within the cooperative are lower than what they are currently with the township 113 plan and that is because there are 15 000 employees purchasing power and so the blue cross administrative fee the stop loss fee is lower the prescription drug rebates are higher it's just the the purchasing power of their cooperative is much greater than a 600 employee district could have right understood i was just saying the percentages you gave those fees are embedded even in correct percentages correct they are i was i'll ask my question then next i was curious if there are any for lack of a word startup costs or hard costs in transitioning to the co-op so

135we've done our best to capture everything that's inclusive there are when thinking about additional costs the only uncaptured cost would be within the business solver platform there will be an additional cost to set up feeds between guardian and not blue cross between guardian is the one that we've identified so far it's a minimal cost it's a few thousand dollars typically to set up those feeds but that is the only one that's that's been identified so far that's not specifically captured here in this memo and from budgeting points it's easier to budget as well because before for example our actuaries would tell us that our total estimated ppo claims are going to be 10 million because we were on a self-funded plan those 10 million dollar claims could end up being 11.5 million dollars similar to

136what happened last year right because it's an estimate but with nyip it's a fixed amount so if basically nyip is telling us this is our premium annually this is exactly what we're going to pay out so from budgeting and projecting wise it's it's easier to predict as well so that's one benefit being part of the co-op also and you know the six hundred thousand dollars nick mentioned i mean we just we try to look at things from five-year perspective so you know one point in terms of magnitude while the annual impact may appear incremental if you view it over a five-year period the projected difference is approximately four million dollars if you inflate that by how our health insurance costs going up so there's a big number craig had mentioned that once you're in the

137co-op you're in the co-op but are there any penalties associated with leaving the co-op so oh sorry i think we decide that it's not working there are no penalties there is a three year initial membership term so after three years any districts after the initial three years any district can exit the cooperative with 120 day notice prior to the prior to september 1st there are no penalties or fees for exiting the district would just be responsible for the claims that were incurred prior to the termination and that are paid out after so it's referred to as the claims run out so you're still responsible for those claims even though you've terminated that are being paid out after the termination date because there is a lag in when claims are incurred versus when providers submit them

138to blue to blue cross discounts are applied and they're actually paid that i know wasn't part of your question but as far as retention within within the niham cooperative there have been no districts that have left within the last 10 years with regard to transition and some of this is always a gazillion questions that people have so but calendar's role in helping answer those questions how does that burden fall on us how do you feel about you know making this change at this point our last thing we both do in the discussions that are going on from just my transition standpoint apart of districts at least one of the district's meetings thank you so you need this it's gonna be one second is there i'll ask a question i can answer but then you can

139oh you can answer is there are many benefits to being a part of it and i feel like it's i want to say a badge of honor it's they have a lot of stringent requirements to be a part of it and i do i have personally experienced the benefits of it i think it will benefit our districts i think the most important thing is that the assumption that healthcare costs are rising constantly and i feel like there's outside of a co-op very limited ways to control and to manage that for a district that's my straightforward response so i do think it will benefit our district um i feel like it i think it i believe it will be received more positively than our other alternatives and just thinking about the insurance committee and the work

140and who they represent i feel like there is support there so i have no concerns regarding that i think that's the key that's one of the keys is the fact that the insurance committee which really is a cross-section of our employee base it's been very integral in this whole process um i think you know the concern always is how savings are framed um and making sure we all understand um it is it is a savings against our future spent it's not an extra six hundred thousand dollars that are staying in our bank we still have to find nine hundred thousand dollars right so instead of finding one point five you still have to find nine hundred thousand and then ron said his software costs are going by ten percent that doesn't help either so uh

141so yeah i mean you know we it's just part of strategic plan goal five right continue to find efficiencies where we can and uh you know salient uh benefits represents 80 percent so this is a big magnitude and it only helps us because we have communication as well so care for newsletters i believe karen's going out april 7 next friday we've prepared uh before the board meeting nick and i were working on a memo for employees and we've created active cues for the employees as well in that uh hey will my insurance be impacted you know will my will i be led to the new doctor and all those things obviously there's no impact and then we're going to be uh doing an open enrollment as well so we're going to have uh our broker

142on site to answer any questions and that's about having web accessions for employees as well and we're going to have days you know also beginning of the year we visit some work that began in 2020 in our district um regarding the reverse mores audit that we partner with our district we are as a district moving forward will be able to answer provide some answers in our space regarding the impact of districts and this is actually the visibility family network um while also reframing it moving so we want to be able to um one of the steps that the district took as a result of the diverse forest audit was to do surveying our classes and we hear about the surveying regularly coming into this district i have not been able to answer the impact while

143our partner may do an audit and provide some foundational information is always up to the district to determine the next steps for them sometimes they partner with entities to determine what that would look like and sometimes they take some steps on their own and the surveying efforts have been well underway for the past five years and based on how the decision was made and maybe what it was made on during that time it's been very challenging to gather and assess the impact so we're revisiting that work not to replicate it but to to understand the framing the results of or the right or the results of the diverse learners audit and to basically examine the implementation and the impact of reserving across our district we also want to update and expand broader student supports opportunity

144review really just getting to understand quantitatively and qualitatively the feedback that was provided the data that we have regarding did this change actually have the impact that the district intended at that time and what does that mean right now for our learners i think an important part of partnering with external partners is gaining another perspective hearing other ways of doing things and also we need to realign and shift our course of action but if we can never answer the impact we're likely to continue down that path unless something else comes up we need to know the impact and if we are adversely impacting our students in any way to be open to having that discussion and making sure that it aligns with our our shared direction and so this is actually something that since coming

145here i know we've talked about admin has talked about it our staff have talked about it too just wondering what's the impact especially with our staff being at the forefront of being asked to make these changes i know there are things that we could always do better and ways to improve and i definitely want us to be able to answer the impact on our students so there's some momentum around revisiting this and so i think this is a really good time and opportunity for us to do so especially with all of our work around the strategic plan and conversations around our instructional direction any questions or comments just a note about the strategic plan and strategic plan alignment and how it's come up tonight i think every single presentation so just kudos on the continued

146alignment and when we think about the approval of the strategic plan how everything's working in that in service of the plan and moving in that direction so i just have a couple comments so i'm really excited to see this proposal and to see this this work i think i know dm group does fantastic fantastic work i've seen you know good stuff they've done in the past i also think that it's really important for us to think through exercises like this and not necessarily it's always going to be with a third-party organization we we can't afford to do it all the time right but to have as part of a sort of continuous improvement culture to have these sort of periodic check-ins where we go back and say okay we had a plan we did this

147now let's go back and see whether it was effective and what what kind of what kind of results we saw and sometimes you know that may call for an outside consultant like this to come in and help us do that in other cases i'd love to see us you know as we get better data with that credit as you know our capabilities increased to find ways of just doing that internally so but i think this looks like an outstanding proposal the only question i have is that did they when we talked to them about this work i know they do a lot of different types of analytics for school districts have they ever tried to do and looked at this specific question with any district any other districts that they've worked with and do do

148we have any to be here from them like have they have they done this specific type of work before and what kind of results they found they have done this work before but every district chooses how they want to take their audit information and implement it in some districts they partner around those decisions and continue that partnership throughout and others hire them to do the audit and then they take on everything on their own make their own decisions without necessarily consulting back we have not revisited our partner with dm group through the entire change process i think maybe if we did so we may have they may have coached us differently around some of our direction as well as the implementation of it and how it's been lived and so they it really just depends

149on the district but they have of course revisited some things with districts but they're really great about yes you need to review and understand the impact but we also need to refresh what's our direction like let's not get stuck in what's been but really helping the district move forward with a renewed and refreshed direction while also being clear and affirming of what are values and beliefs that are supporting this direction so we're excited about the partnership not just a transactional we want you to do this but a partnership to help see us through to even the next iteration of this possibly have they given you any indication of their process of what this will look like as they conduct the audit yes so that was the other can pull it up that's the other attachment

150in the agenda specifically some time a time frame i know that we have some meetings scheduled me and dr carter just regarding the phases of this work part of getting an approved now and i'll talk some about this with the next item is so we can begin and support them in the data collection and having some conversations before the end of the school year leadership doing some work this summer and also them being with us for next year as well and really assessing and being present in our buildings to actually understand how this work is being lived and experienced as well well there that was sort of one of my questions this is like the first it's going to be multiple phases of working with them right so there's another stage of this whether they

151may come to us with a proposal for implementation of new policies procedures ways if we're doing things is that is that the intent here the intent is for them to be present to not be someone we're consulting with virtually but to actually live the experience as of right now and in real time to talk about what's happening with us so yes i'm sure there will be a report and an analysis and i also know by talking with them that will be happening along the way and so i just mean when this is done the learning from this this is this audit is done is there next all right now you also come in give us a proposal to help us implement this going forward it could be some of it depends on our capacity and

152i'll get to that in the next proposal i it really connects to what alex just mentioned in terms of how can we partner in ways that we're learning through the process not just being a part of a process that someone comes in and does but taking those insights and that learning to be able to construct for ourselves the framework that we need to move forward it's one thing to have someone working with us throughout the entire year it's another to have touch points this is how we're doing that oftentimes falls outside of an agreement so is this a multi-year plan it doesn't have to be i think a lot of this is going in and knowing that we want to learn from the process we want to learn we want to embed and gather information

153around a framework to help us we want to have some protocols and things in our toolbox to make more effective decisions that are not just let's go this direction and get something done but something that is more transformational not transactional in terms of the mindset and the support along the way historically it seems like we've implemented some things without the supports and structures and the lack of accountability to see them through in very thoughtful ways and so part of this is to shift that so do will this be a multi-year it could be it doesn't have to be and i am committed whether it's this or the next topic to building our capacity as a district and that's really what this is really about and shifting of a mindset yes right right this is really

154building about the process yes which all future new plans will have follow through and yes it's the forethought yes like not always like right now we're responding that doesn't feel good either reacting we're reacting and responding to something that's been put in place like trying to figure out the response we're trying to move forward with in any time we want to make significant instructional shifts to embed up front what's our evaluation tools and frameworks how are we going to analyze the impact what's our reporting cadence and what's our response cadence and i think that comes also with us bringing things back to the board and providing updates about how things are going using hard data what are we learning and that's quantitative and qualitative because there are lives behind all the numbers and this work

155also impacts our staff professional development all those things but normalizing that rather than starting something and not reporting back on it ever that was one of the things in the strategic plan committee work that came up as one of the part of the spot analysis of looking at you know things that come up but then they don't come back things that are introduced but never re you know looked at or what have you so that continuity i think is something that is incredible and very much needed it's actually going back to let's build the plane and then fly the plane as opposed to our historical trend of we're building the plane as it's in the air trying to figure out how do things work together right okay um i think this actually ties into them

156the next discussion item this does tie into the next discussion item and this one is in support of a partnership with handover research and this we would like to partner every entity many can do all things but we were very intentional about thinking about the different types of partnerships one revisiting some work from that we've already launched a lot of our work with handover is connected to shifts in our science instructional focus our changes in our science department as well as our revisiting plcs which we've launched this year it's still at the early phases of it but this gets at what was previously discussed we have an opportunity to launch a partnership around evaluating and assessing some shifts in the early phases handover as indicated in their framework and their cues in the work with

157us they work with districts intentionally to build our own capacity as well to be able to and i think there are benefits you may say well why use different outfits i think they um there's something we can learn from each in terms of their approach and also take that learning to decide how we want to move forward i also think there are contextual differences in some of the some of the conversations we're having here we're talking about with one group looking at our diverse learners and some work that has been happening connects to instruction it connects to structures it connects to mtss this other framework connects to some intentional science changes changes in our science department to go to a single period science course with labs embedded and also they'll support us in examining the

158effectiveness of our professional learning communities it's going to be different because throughout this implementation we'll be able to report on our learnings along the way in real time for things that are new to our district so i'm also excited about this possibility or this opportunity to partner with handover they do have a multi-year structure with various cues and capacity building along the way they've been really helpful in meeting with our leadership team to really think about our priorities so we've revisited the why behind all of these initiatives and they've already had some ideas and i think the most important part again is being present with us and being on this journey with us which seems very supportive affirming but also will provide us with a critical lens when something is new it's frustrating for our

159staff and for for many to have things that need to be addressed and then they just linger until someone decides to pay attention it will be helpful to have another set of eyes and ears regarding some things that we may with great intentions put in place but it's having a devastating impact and is showing up immediately so it will allow us to shift courses not after five years but actually in real time as we assess and we'll be able to take that real-time data and be transparent about what's happening with with our initiatives and our areas of focus questions this also comes up later for action i have a question about really both of these these items so what role do you envision the board having and what what involvement do you envision the board

160having as these two move forward is this are we looking at an approval followed by the execution followed by us not seeing this again until we get a final report or do you envision there being sort of check-ins at different points in the process for for these two exercises or is it are they different for the two because their timelines are very different their timelines are different but just thinking about our priority with bringing more updates to the board whether it's in our education committee or at the board table we can discuss that as we have planning meetings i imagine us reporting on this not every board meeting and maybe not even quarterly but at least to let you know once this gets launched how it's going how it's being received and also how what

161we're learning along the way especially um i guess with both of them i think from a governance level i think when the board approves spending or these type of partnerships to understand the roi what's the return on the investment what's meaning not to minimize it but what's the impact on our students learning and growth as we talk about so i look at us as reporting that but also you questioning and holding us accountable to seeing the growth and the intended impact of the things that we put in place do you think it's reasonable to think in this last year you've had a lot of reports on strategic goals right which made a ton of sense in our first year i know we're looking at a at a different cadence starting next year i'm thinking that

162these this is new to at least as far as i'm concerned this is new approach to us as far as having people in our buildings looking real time to how we're implementing i could see that the cadence could be more this first experience with each or both of these vendors and then as time goes on it might change if we use them for the next project that we're on or another vendor that we'd use for another project one of the things i learned this year from the implementation of this strategic plan is that i don't know if i would have the cadence as frequent like we need time to learn and grow and to engage to even have to make sense of what's happening around us without constantly thinking about reporting back on things we're

163trying to process in real time and so i actually don't think it will be as frequently as um or as frequent as our strategic plan i do think maybe twice a year um but i as learners it's important to give time for the learning process to unfold and so i do want to respect that for our team our staff and also the sense making that also takes time of what's happening in real time because even if data starts showing impact we need to know where that what is impacting that data point and so i feel like there are layers um so um i would probably take my learnings from and insights from this year um and apply it to this um and being open if something comes up or there's been a lot of flexibility

164in terms of adding items on the agenda to check in for transparency purposes with the board and everyone else who comes along on these journeys with us so one quick note something i appreciate and from that governance perspective in the memo that financial impact i think answering that question of how are we how are we paying for this is coming from a grant is it coming from the fund is it a recurring is it a one time it's helpful in that decision making process of yes this expense makes sense or no this is a recurring expense or a multi-year um just thank you for that fantastic anything else okay the next item for discussion is resolution approving the purchase of real estate and purchase and sale agreement for the district 113 transition program obviously this

165will also be an action item later in our agenda yes so at our march 16th meeting i provided a detailed report and presentation regarding the path that led us to our planning efforts to assume full responsibility for our transition program with a deadline of july 1st 2027 following the board report and presentation as you know a communication went out to students families and staff um students who received services and supports from true north and then a communication went out to the entire district there were also on a tuesday an a.m and p.m feedback a virtual meeting to engage with stakeholders families true north staff and just thinking about who was there um just regarding um feedback some of which you've heard tonight from our families regarding the program i recognize that um there's agreement there's

166disagreement there's also lingering uncertainties and questions some that can receive a more timely response as we continue the planning process and others um that will will know over time and so i do want all of our families to know that throughout this process um and even since some of those feedback meetings we've been working to um if possible identify responses but also include some of the questions and concerns in our planning so there's been a lot of change since the discussions that began last year with true north this work planning and communication has literally been ongoing as we work through various facets of our plannings our partnership with true north in terms of their overall reorganization as well as the intersection of how all of the plans and changes are impacting our students and families

167and the programs they're involved in and as we work through our own lists of areas of focus and consider what's needed we have been really working to be very intentional to listen and to consider the feedback from our stakeholders so i've heard i've read and understand the questions and concerns regarding the location of the new program i know identifying as i've shared the location has been a priority for us um recognizing the time parameters and how long a process may take um to bring in the program identifying the site was something that we've more publicly discussed um and i also know that as partners we all come from our unique our unique places of knowing we bring our preferences and desires we bring our firsthand experiences with our students and are also managing a lot

168of uncertainties and some unknown so i just want to just name that i recognize that there are questions and concerns just regarding everything as mentioned previously in order for us to launch the next phase of our review of the site the board is asked to consider the approval of the resolution and purchase sale agreement for the property this authorizes us to move forward and to launch the due diligence process this is a two-month process where we um we further our inquiry into the site with inspections reviews and an additional financial analysis based on what we uncover the process is not done but this step tonight does signal that we are interested in moving forward with this site as the new location of our program based on our current and present review of the site the

169site of our program right now um downtown hyland park um is a space that we do need to move from we do need a space that's adequate to support um all of our students some who are currently um engaging downtown and others who are engaging at true north site um and um part of our right now the the current property does not support our overall vision for the program while there are many elements that are great there are some that can be improved for all of our our students for more of our students as well i've heard from families who like or appreciate the program it's working for them and some families who have other insights and realize that there's some opportunities for growth as well identifying a site for our program that can support

170all of our students at this point in time is not optional while the vision incorporates aspects of our program that are working well the vision that we have is greater and will take time to be realized this change in evolution process does not mean that we forego our vision it does require require us to have partners who understand that change is inevitable we're all navigating this change process but we are committed to changing with purpose planning as well as an element of excitement about some opportunities that may be ahead everyone navigating the changes with true north we're all in a state of disequilibrium all of the member districts have two meetings tomorrow i've in part a part of many of the conversations there's been a disruption to what people know what we're used to even

171if it's not necessarily fully serving the needs of all of our students there is comfort in knowing what exists and figuring out ways to work around it at times the news of the severed program partnership has been unsettling and we definitely recognize that yet we're committed to making the most and the best of the opportunity ahead i know firsthand that no program is perfect our program will not be perfect but our program will evolve and we will become the best that we can make it we are committed to that and so just want to to state a couple things about some of the concerns as well as some of my thoughts around them in terms of the location and the site i do believe that the location can work for our program it's located in

172the village of deerfield it's where it's within our approved purchasable area it's located near transportation i'm going to come back to some of these points and talk through them i also know that it's located near other business sites and willing and open partners to partner with us to expand our partnerships it's near stores hotels assisted living facilities and it's also an area that is currently being developed and has been zoned recently zoned to be further developed so i share that because i do know what exists right now will change in the near future and it also presents an opportunity for us as well the facility the internal setup of the facility is already retrofitted and is moving ready unlike any of the spaces that we visited we will likely spend double or even more on

173trying to retrofit very old buildings and we know a lot comes with that and just looking at and talking with architects and others it's really expensive to try to renovate any space right now let alone an older building so finding a location that is retrofitted and also was designed with some of the needs of our students in mind whether it's the sensory rooms and spaces the recreation space that's built inside of it and many other things that i know i've talked about before is unusual i do want to mention that the space is 88 compliant it's also as someone shared earlier it is near other educational spaces and spending time in that area i and also engaging with some of the nearby neighbors i do recognize that there is a community there and i think

174community is built and fostered and whether it's with other entities nearby i do want to prioritize building the community within our program in terms of transportation which is another concern that has come up i know and i've shared some of this feedback with others that our district has our own transportation department and our director of transportation has visited the site and knows that we'll be following up some of the questions that we are receiving are more connected to the instructional plan which i haven't really been diving deep in that will happen throughout the year as well but we have access to vans small buses and other options i do recognize the benefits of students participating and learning transportation whether it's through pace or our trains and those other things and i've also worked in district

175where districts where i've been able to work with pace to talk about routes and to develop those for a school district so for me i start with what's possible and thinking not necessarily about what exists but what conversations can we start to actually put in place some of the things that we want i do believe that whether it's from the train station which is not close transportation can possibly be planned and arranged is it different from right now yes and i also want to acknowledge that our students have an opportunity to visit many different spaces by whatever we put in place like it's my hope that public transportation does not dictate fully what our students have access to i think there are ways to to teach our students those skills to use those those means

176of transportation when and where possible i also want to acknowledge that not all of our students have that those needs the transition program as many people know serves a range of students with a variety of needs some will more easily access external spaces and some of our students won't and so we're thinking about a place a facility in some of the supports that we can have in place that considers all of our learners as well and it's everything i'm saying is not to say that's not happening right now but i'm just speaking about our vision and our planning for this site additional additionally we are aware of the walkable areas i know that the village has engaged in conversations around the implementation of a sidewalk for a while and i know with some of the

177zoning changes that are happening right there this may be an opportune time for that to get more some additional traction so that's not off the table as well and so this is work that i mean this is all some of this is coming from feedback and i'm just naming some of the ways that we can partner to explore possibilities in terms of the community component i agree that transition programs as i shared before the scope of our program and the many different objectives of it there's a community engagement element into the programs it is important for students to be able to engage in the communities in which they live and other communities while some of this gets into more of the programmatic aspects of course how the day is structured and what students have access

178to i imagine an envision a program where our students have time and of course spend time significant time in their home communities maybe currently where they live but they also extend those partnerships outside of the village or the city in which they live in to nearby communities and learn what's there as well and have how to navigate those spaces as well to the extent possible we would never want our students or our families to feel like we're trying to hide our students or to to move them away in any in any way shape or form like that's definitely nothing that we would want to do in support i also hear how the location can be received and felt as well and so part of our priorities is to minimize that to the greatest extent as

179possible to make sure that there's not only community built on site and with the surrounding area but our students don't lose touch with the communities and communities that they're already a part of and the partnerships and the relationships excuse me that they've already built and that we already have in place as well safety so safety has been at the forefront of our conversations as well as a district we recognize the heightened concerns regarding safety and the increase in anti-semitism and hate plaguing our country and us locally so we've been engaging in conversations regularly as we've been more seriously considering this site and i just want to name while we're engaging in these conversations regarding our transition program these are conversations that we have regularly with our municipal partners and so our conversations have not been

180much different for our transition program except that we're talking about a site a different site and we're also mindful of the other entities so our director of safety has proactively been in touch with the director of risk management who supports the other organizations and the schools in that area and they're partnering and discussing safety protocols as we as we do with other entities for our schools as well without jumping ahead of our process our director has surveyed the area the facility and the site and continues to consider the technologies and the personnel that we possibly should consider putting in place additionally as we work closely with our municipal partners to ensure that plans are vetted they will support us and if something arises we also plan on as we do with our schools have we

181have safety training we have protocols we have drills we have expectations that are that would also apply to our transition program site we're not looking at the site as being outside of what we do for all of our students that every student is our student and so we take safety very seriously in every way of course change takes time yet for us things have been moving fairly quickly you think about our conversations last spring and where we are right now we have positioned ourselves to be partner partners and we will consider we will continue to keep the lines of communication open i'm accessible i'm always willing to meet always willing and our plan is to continue to follow up to be responsive to some of the needs that have been expressed and the reality of

182it is we know that we need to bring everyone along in this process with us and be open to things that can be addressed in the more immediate time frame and some things that will take a little more time to establish but transparency is really our focus our transition program is changing that's the reality of it it's not going to be the same as it's always been there are different elements of it that will be changing and the location will be changing and i believe that it will evolve and it will evolve in a way that our program is responsive proactively is proactively supportive and responsive to the needs of our students not only right now but beyond their time in district 113 and so um i am still recommending um the approval of the

183site at 1161 lake cook road i do think there's a lot of potential there and i am committed as well as our entire team to making sure that the program becomes the best that we can make it um and so if there's any if you have any questions for me definitely open this is this has been a long and quick process at the same time and i personally appreciate the work that's been that has gone into trying to find the site um and doing it in a fiscally responsible way understanding that this is a cost and it's something we must do and we must do for a continuum of students in need um so i do want to bounce that and what i've heard you say is that this is an and this is an

184expansion of several of the opportunities the students currently have you really you've done this in the past um you have a vision for instructionally what this can look like and the first step in this process is physically getting a space to do that i just want to add to that and say while i appreciate all of the the time that it feels like in the background you've been working toward this it can feel like this happened very quickly and i i know we talked about this last time where in some respects it feels like we got lucky to find this space that does check so many boxes and we're weighing so many different um elements to like what makes this space the best thing for our students and um and while we're weighing that i

185think it's just important to elevate the fact that while this might feel like it is it's been a quick process this isn't just something that is like financially viable and therefore you know we're going to jump into this and and do it because it checks all the boxes that this truly is a remarkable space that we do see a long-term vision for our students being able to get the best education that they can in perhaps the least restrictive environment from all the options that we've seen good point i'd echo uh what was shared and just the only other piece to add is how difficult this decision is in that the weight of um the the decision there isn't the site that is that that perfect site this site is the one that meets our needs

186as a as a district so just a thank you for all of the work that you and your team have done um looking at every single option possible that all hasn't come to the to the board table as part of the presentation i think the amount of time and the hours that have been spent on finding the most ideal location um has been incredible the number of hours that have been spent so um just an appreciation for that that um comments from my colleagues that you know in any situation like this you know there are there's never a perfect solution only competing you know considerations and trade-offs to think about and you know i was amazed to learn an issue that we were able to find a facility like this that essentially already existed in

187the you know 90 percent of the form that we needed for i mean and that's that that that's an incredible thing that we were able to to identify this facility rather than having to develop something completely from scratch which you know would have been a much much larger cost and would have you know come with a whole bunch of other difficulties including probably a longer timeline um you know the what's happened with true north that has evolved over the last year a year and a half you know has been a challenge for for us and for all the school districts that have been impacted by it it's not something that in some ways could lead to to you know um a better cost model for for districts the for these types of services alone in

188the long term but it's also it does mean that we have to absorb some of the you know the the the work of standing up a program like this that previously was mostly done done for us so you know i think that this this is a you know this has been put on us to figure this out we have to make the best decision we can you know within the constraints that we have available and within the limited options that we have and i feel very comfortable with this with this choice based on the work that the district has done based on what the administration's done and the due diligence and i feel like you know is it is it perfect no you know is it absolutely a fantastic option again given our given our

189situation yes and i think it's we should move forward okay great as we mentioned this will come up later for action item our last discussion item is the new course proposals for the 26-27 school year who has that i do good evening this is not typically the time we do new course proposals i've already done that for the school year next year earlier this year but this is a new course that came up and it's not quite a new course proposal but a revision of a current course courses that we offer and this would be to add a dual credit option for three of our AP science courses at highland park high school ap bio ap chemistry and ap physics c the course curriculum instructional practices and course expectations would not change so it continues

190to use the ap curriculum we're just adding the option for students to earn dual credit if they choose to to do that the partnership is with loyal university we currently partner with them for ap environmental science where we have a similar setup with them so with the dual credit ap course options students have multiple ways that they can earn college credits so if they have a 3.0 gpa they can qualify for dual credit through loyola they can choose to take the ap exam and if they pass it they may earn college credit that way they can do both if they wanted to or they could do neither so there's just more options and much more opportunity for students to choose a pathway that would make sense for them in their post-secondary career let me ask

191the obvious question why only one of the high schools so in order to offer dual credit the teacher has to have a master's degree in the content area or a master's degree in any other educational area plus significant coursework in that area so these three teachers have master's degrees in biology chemistry and physics at highland park thank you and just um you know talking too much detail but we'd have to hear a little bit about like what what's involved in getting the dual credit that goes beyond with the normal course requirements are like what you know if a student likes to go that path either on top of taking the ap exam or in place of it like what is that involved from the student for the student um they would opt to take the

192dual credit option in the fall and um if they uh successfully pass it with an a b or c they get the college credit there's no test involved they don't have to do anything additional with the university it's guaranteed credit karen can you talk about um the structure for getting something approved through dual credit and the partnership that's required with loyola like their review of the curriculum and all those things that sure yeah the course curriculum needs to align with loyola's college curriculum so that's a must also with new dual credit laws in illinois we have to first seek a partnership with our local community college which is college of lake county i did reach out to them and they reviewed the course curriculum for those three courses and they determined that their science courses

193do not align to our curriculum so we have to do this process of a right of first refusal with college of lake county they've allowed that to happen so that's why we're able to seek a partnership with loyola we have any other um how many how many dual credit classes like this do we have now like if this is that what humbles this bring us up to with with these additions yeah um let me check real quick here i have it here so we have one two three four five six seven total dual credit classes before these three um we have some that are only at dhs we have some that are only at hyland park we have some that are offered at both schools um in world language science math cte in those departments

194right now and all the other ones with college county is the first we've done with a new we have um two courses that are offered through college of lake county and the benefit of going with them is that the courses are free there's no tuition charge for that um with loyola as i mentioned we have ap environmental science we have a couple courses in spanish with lake forest college and a math course with northeastern and another math course with iit okay great thank you any other comments questions we're getting through this guys um we will now proceed to action items it was recommended that the board of education approve a resolution approving one-year administrative contracts as presented may have a motion to approve this recommendation so moved is there a second second any discussion kathy

195is there anything you want to say just regarding this being an annual process so these one-year administrative contracts include our sister principals director thank you these include our um assistant principals directors department chairs who are on one-year contracts um and so this is an annual um administrative contract for these individuals any other discussion hearing no further discussion or roll call vote please dr elliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye mr braza aye miss newman aye the motion carries as required by law we are presenting our annual reduction in force rift which must be completed by april 15th each year this process is not performance-based but rather a necessary alignment of our staffing with our current fte allocations the resolution will honorably dismiss or reduce hours for the following licensed staff

196member from employment in the district at the end of the current school year for rift reasons cody farak hanny freedman sorry kaufman heather mckinley jody flam andrew pendelsky kayla quonstrum young u it is recommended the board of education approve a resolution resolution of honorable dismissal of licensed staff members 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 or roll call vote please dr elliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye mr neater hi mr braza aye mr bronc aye miss newman aye the motion carries as with lsm's this process is not performance i'm sorry this is a resolution approving the non-renewal honorable dismissal reduction in force of administration and reassignment to non-administrative positions as with lsm's this

197process is not performance-based but rather a necessary alignment of our staffing with our current fte allocations the resolution will honorably dismiss or reduce hours for the following administrators at the end of the current school year and reassign them to non-administrative positions at the beginning of the 2026 2027 school year for rift reasons jennifer hotwagner lindsey meyer it is recommended the board of education approve the resolution approving the non-renewal an honorable dismissal reduction in force of administrators and reassignment to non-administrative positions as presented may have a motion to approve this recommendation is there a second i'll second is there any discussion hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye mr neater hi mr braza aye the motion carries it is recommended the board of education approve a noticed remedy

198for 10 years licensed staff member britney kenyon as presented may 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 miss lupa aye mr neater aye mr braza aye mr bronc aye dr eliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye miss newman aye the motion carries it is recommended the board of education approve the 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 as presented may have a motion to approve this recommendation so moved excuse me is there a second second is there any discussion hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please mr neater aye mr braza aye mr bronc aye dr

199eliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye miss newman aye the motion carries it is recommended the board of education approve a twenty five thousand dollar donation designated for the highland park high school theater department as presented may 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 mr braza aye mr bronc aye dr eliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye miss newman aye the motion carries it is recommended the board of education approve the resolution authorizing membership in the northern illinois health insurance program effective july 1st 2026 as presented may have a motion to approve this recommendation so moved is there a second second is there any discussion hearing no further

200discussion a roll call vote please mr bronc aye dr eliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye mr braza aye miss newman aye the motion carries it is recommended the board of education approved the agreement with district with district management group for 120 thousand dollars as presented may 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 dr eliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye mr braza aye mr bronc aye miss newman aye the motion carries it is recommended the board of education approved the services agreement with handover research for 146 thousand five hundred dollars as presented may have a motion to approve this recommendation so moved is there

201a second second is there any discussion hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please mr hindeman aye mr lupa aye mr neater aye mr braza aye mr bronc aye dr eliot schermer aye miss newman aye the motion carries it is recommended the board of education approved the resolution as presented to the board approving the purchase of real estate and purchase and sale agreement with lamb llc for the parcel of land and building located at 1161 lake cook road deerfield illinois 615 for three million dollars may 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 mr lupa aye mr neater aye mr braza aye mr bronc aye dr eliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye miss newman aye

202the motion carries the next item is the consent agenda items included in the consent agenda were provided to all board members in advance and made publicly available as part of the meeting agenda member may pull any item for separate consideration does any board member wish to pull an item off the consent agenda for separate consideration um yeah i would like to separate the personal notice from the two um meeting minutes i was not at the meeting on march in march and so i do not want to vote for those may i have what are those letters b and c b and c so so separate d away from b and c okay may i have a motion to approve the consent agenda as revised voting on b and c first so moved is there a

203second second is there any discussion hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please mr neater aye mr braza aye mr bronc i'm sorry dr eliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye miss newman aye the motion carries may i have a motion to approve the consent agenda as revised with item d is uh may have a motion to approve so moved is there a second second is there any discussion hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please sorry it's going too fast mr braza aye mr bronc aye dr eliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye miss newman aye the motion carries pursuant we will now be going into a second closed and there will be no action taken after closed other than adjournment of the meeting pursuant

204to section 2c of the eleanor opens meeting act the board will now enter closed session to discuss the following matters i'm sorry uh personnel sorry personnel matters under section 2c1 may have a motion to enter closed session for the purpose stated so moved do i have a second second has been moved and seconded to enter closed session the roll call vote please mr braza aye mr bronc aye dr eliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye mr neater aye the motion carries board will now enter closed session at 10 30 p.m