001I know some of the students need to have a photo taken that they're here. Feel free to do that if you'd like to just get it done. You're welcome to. We know it's not about us. One of DHS students were yelling on No School Friday. Do you know who the loudest yeller was? I got multiple texts on the way home. Do you know anyone? I'm like I don't know anyone. I am reconvening into open session Township High School District 113 regular board meeting on Monday March 16th 2026 at 7 p.m. The recording secretary will now call the roll. Mr. Braza? Here. Mr. Brown? Here. Dr. Elliott-Shermer? Here. Mr. Tyneman? Here. Ms. Lupa? Here. Mr. Meener? Here. Ms. Monsignor? Here. Mr. Polanski? Here. Katherine Anderson, Chief Human Resources Officer, Deputy Superintendent. Karen Ritter, Assistant Superintendent of
002Curriculum Instruction and Assessment. Karen Warner, Chief Communications Officer. Tanya Karner, Assistant Superintendent for Student Services. Jose Medina, Executive Director of Facilities. Ali Ma, Assistant Superintendent of Finance. Hallie Fleischer, Principal at Highland Park High School. Will Dwyer, Principal at Deerfield High School. Mira Ante, Executive Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Shayla Holland, Superintendent. May I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, we'll proceed to a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. The motion carries. Moving on to board reports. It's just mine quickly today. I wanted to thank the DHS boys basketball team and their coaches for giving us a community, giving our community a good thing to rally around. And while many of us filled the DHS Performance
003Center and the Field House to support this one team, I also want to acknowledge the accomplishments of all the student teams recently from wrestling to DECA to robotics to dance and every other group I did not mention. As a parent and community member, seeing our students demonstrate teamwork, creativity and a commitment to their passions gives me hope for the future. So thank you. We also want to wish the students, staff and parents a safe and relaxing spring break. And then final housekeeping item, the district and DEA have had one collective bargaining session on March 9th since our last board meeting. During this meeting, we discussed articles seven, eight and nine. And our next meeting will be March 18th. And that concludes the president's report. Moving on to administration reports. Dr. Holland. Yes, good evening, everyone.
004There are many exciting things happening across our districts and I'm sure our student liaisons will speak about these things in their report. So I'm going to veer away from some of the school based topics and we'll focus on some of the work at the district level. As you know, we have been methodically working through the implementation of our strategic plan this year. With five goals in place, we have consistently provided updates at our board meetings to continue to acclimate the larger school community to the plan, what it entails and some of the actions we are taking. This fall and winter, a team of students, staff and administrators drafted and further developed the portrait of a district 113 student. This spring, we have launched our staff portrait work. We recently had our first meeting and have
005a full day workshop coming up on Thursday, March 19th. The team consists of students, parents and caregivers, administrators and staff from across all employee groups. During the meeting, during our first meeting, we spent some time getting to know members of the group. We reviewed some of the work done regarding the student portrait and framed the relationship between the portraits and the specific work ahead on the staff portrait. We have approximately 30 participants. Communicating our work in a way that is clear and transparent has been a priority for our team. As cabinet, our building leaders and staff have begun to chart the progress of our efforts, members of cabinet have worked to quantify the progress by inputting information into a dashboard. While this may sound like something that is very easy to do, it's not. As
006with any new plan, sometimes you have to live it in order to truly know if we are gathering and tracking the right data to inform us of our progress. While we recognize the adaptive nature of this work, we have launched our dashboard. So I'm going to ask if our dashboard can be put up. You'll see that we're on our district website under strategic plan. You click on dashboard, should be a link, strategic plan dashboard. The landing page of the dashboard has information about our strategic plan. So all this information should be pretty familiar. It has our mission, vision, core values and our anchoring five goals, as well as the strategies associated with them. The indicators page in the middle there, the indicators page has has tiles that are aligned with the key performance indicators for
007each goal. So if you were to click on one of the goals, it takes you down a rabbit hole. You can see some of the progress. So we're building in some of this information. And the strategy page includes a general sense of progress per goal, strategy and objective. And so you'll see percentages how far along we are in each of the in accomplishing each of the strategies. The team is working through a monthly cadence of updates through the end of this school year, but will likely engage in quarterly updates during the 26 27 school year. We are still figuring out what's going to be reasonable. We remain committed and excited about our progress and we'll continue to keep our stakeholders informed and updated. For now, please feel free to visit our district's website to learn
008more about our work and to work through different tiles on the dashboard. In closing, I would also like to wish everyone a happy spring break. Please rest, get a lot of, yes, get a lot of restoration because when we come back, we hit the ground running towards the end of the school year. Thank you. Thank you. I believe next our foyers. Yes. So this is the foyer that was fulfilled since our last board meeting and now moving on to information reports for the evening. The first is strategic plan goal update for goal number one. Yes. I don't know. So Dr. Ritter is going to give this first update. Thank you. So this is our third and final goal update for goal number one of our strategic plan. And as a reminder, goal one focuses on
009student engagement and growth and contains three strategies. Let me sorry. OK, here we go. OK, this first strategy is to develop career pathways and programming that provide work based learning experiences and opportunities for students. Since our last update, we have applied for. Since our last update, we've applied for a college and career pathway in business management and administration and we were approved in early February by is be to offer it for next year. This is our second in-house career pathway that we're offering. The other one was cyber security that was approved last year. Along with the four pathways that are offered by Tech Campus, we now have a total of six pathways for next year to be approved as a career pathway. We have to offer six college credits, career exploration activities, team based challenges
010and a career development experience or internship. Our college credits are being fulfilled in this pathway, the business pathway with dual credit accounting from CLC and our new AP business with personal finance course that the board approved in the fall. Our student services departments from Deerfield and Highland Park have merged the district wide post secondary and career expectations framework, otherwise known as PACE framework. The PACE framework outlines a syllabus for students to learn about three key areas, which are post secondary options, career exploration and financial literacy. And then finally, members of our career expectations, sorry, Career Education Committee, Student Services and Ms. Mira Ante have been developing the scope and sequence for grade level lessons within our PACE framework. We will be able to deliver many of these lessons in freshman advisory next year and I'll
011go into more detail about that plan during my Career Education Committee presentation. In developing the scope and sequence for the PACE curriculum, some things that we learned, we realized that students are exposed to career exploration early on in their freshman year with activities where they are researching careers and taking a career interest survey. But we noticed that as students progress from freshman year to senior year, there are fewer career focused activities and more that focus on college. So part of our planning meeting the next time that we meet is to develop a scope and sequence for all grade levels and being intentional about adding career pathway curriculum into the PACE framework, especially for our juniors and seniors, because they may have internship opportunities available to them. And another development this year is Tech Campus started
012sending us monthly career readiness data reports that tell us what programs our students are currently enrolled in, along with what readiness indicators they have fulfilled, such as team-based challenges, career exploration activities, dual credit enrollments. And right now we have 30 students who spend half their day at Tech Campus in various programs such as early education, welding, automated services, medical assisting, and many others. These reports are helpful in tracking progress towards our career pathways. And we are building a similar monitoring and reporting progress system for our in-house pathways for next year. And we just confirmed with CLC two additional teachers who are now qualified to teach dual credit. Through CLC, one in early childhood education and another one in teaching. And these are some potential in-house career pathways that we can build starting next year. Some
013of the next steps that we are making towards this strategy goal are continuing to ideate different pathways that we can offer in the 27-28 school year in-house. So as I mentioned, we have our cyber security pathway and now a business administration pathway. We have talked about developing the early childhood education pathway with internship opportunities in our preschool program, perhaps a communications or media studies pathway. And we are also exploring the possibility of an international business pathway that would combine courses from our dual language program and business. Our career ed planning team will continue to meet to flesh out the PACE framework curriculum and scope and sequence to include more career-focused activities at each grade level. And we also want to be intentional about where these discussions about college and careers take place. It can't only
014happen when they're visiting their counselor. It really needs to be embedded in the curriculum and in other areas. The second strategy is explore and implement a variety of rigorous and engaging learning strategies to ensure all students receive comprehensive and targeted support leading to improved achievement. So with this goal, at the end of January, we did an instructional rounds, which means it's a team of 28 educators visiting 48 classrooms for instructional rounds. And we did these classroom visits where we focused our attention on what's happening in the instructional core. The instructional core is the relationship between students, teacher and content and really just focusing on the task at hand. What are we asking students to do in the classroom? Our focus on instructional rounds was to provide more consistently rigorous and engaging content in all of
015our classes for all students. At our February Institute Day, our instructional coaches, who are all part of the instructional rounds team, led training for staff in the Universal Design for Learning or UDL. This professional learning experience was informed by our instructional rounds and our coaches asked teachers to level up their rigor and engagement by having them take a current lesson that they teach and move it up a level on Bloom's taxonomy. This training was well received and our teachers were very engaged. Some new learning that has taken place with this strategy is our MTSS framework. And in talking about MTSS a lot, we noticed that MTSS is often seen as a service or something that you do for struggling students as a reaction rather than a proactive structure that supports all students with strong tier
016one instruction. So in this graphic you see here, we have tier one at the center of the image for a reason. It is the primary driver for access, equity and prevention. We have students who have needs for targeted or intensive supports on both ends of the tier one and it could be with remediation or it could be with enrichment. The model that is shown here shows that tier one is the center and really a healthy MTSS structure serves the needs of all students, no matter where they fall on the spectrum there. So we are learning that we need to change the narrative around MTSS being a service for struggling students or for interventions only to be more of a proactive system that gives every student what they need to be successful. So some next steps
017with this strategy is we have another set of instructional rounds planned for April where we will have the same team of about 30 educators visiting more classrooms to see what our engagement and rigor looks like in the class. We have the Pre-ACT and ACT coming up in April and we'll be able to desegregate that data to see how our students have grown from last year, which was the first year of the ACT. We are working on a five-year professional learning plan that offers a progression of learning opportunities for teachers. So building upon the learning that they did this year in universal design for learning, restorative practices, all of the different things that are attached to our strategic plan, we're building upon those things so that there's a progression of learning. And through our MTSS plan,
018we will have trainings for our interventionist to focus on how to set goals in Panorama and monitor progress using a dashboard. And our final strategy for goal one is to create opportunities for students to provide meaningful input and have a voice in decisions that shape school policies, programs and initiatives. With this goal, we administered the winter Panorama in January and teams are currently analyzing the results to see what has changed since the fall. We still have a very high rate of participation on that survey compared to last year. Both of our principals are doing really great work seeking student voice in their principal student advisory groups. And both schools have administered the five essential survey just ended, I think, last week and have we've promoted the survey to increase student participation this year and student
019voice and we should get those results later this spring. So some new learnings from this strategy. We have, as I mentioned, a high completion rate at both schools as compared to last year with both the Panorama and the five essential survey. The principal student advisory groups led by our principals are a forum of a representative group of students to meet with administration and discuss issues that are most important to them right now. They do not meet just to name the problems that they see in the school, but they want to collaborate and design possibilities for solutions with the principals and the leadership teams. Some of the issues that have come up at these meetings are student sense of belonging in their classrooms and how schools can support student mental health. Deerfield is choosing five focus
020area projects for next year and Highland Park has been focusing on signals of belonging. What does belonging look like and feel like in the classroom. Some next steps for this strategy are with the five essentials window closing. We'll get the results in late spring and early summer to review how students report their voice and the section on that five essential survey is supportive environment. So we'll have to look at those results. One, we have one more administration of the panorama survey coming this spring. And then finally, a small team of educators is working on developing questions that are more targeted for the panorama survey next year that specifically address student voice. And now I will turn it over to Dr. Tanya Karner, who will present an update on goal to the strategic plan. So, no,
021I was having trouble. Good evening, everyone. I'm Jake. You can stay on this slide for a second. Go to of the strategic plan focuses on building an inclusive learning ecosystem and ensuring that every student has access to high quality instruction and appropriate support. The strategies presented here focus on MTSS implementation, instructional responsiveness and creating a safe environment. Together, these systems ensure students receive the right level of support at the right time. Next slide please. Goal two is to create a safe, inclusive and innovative learning environment that supports all learners. Strategy one is to establish a sustainable multi tiered system of support framework with clear protocols to identify students, implement evidence based interventions and monitor progress so that all students achieve growth and proficiency. Next slide please. Since the last update, we have taken several foundational
022steps to operationalize MTSS. We have built the infrastructure, developed a comprehensive MTSS handbook and designed an implementation plan for both academic and SEL tiered supports. We have strengthened staff capacity by providing training on universal design for learning, which increases accessibility in tier one spaces. We have activated our data systems by administering screeners in star for academics and panorama for SEL twice this year. And we have identified students for support and finalized our tier two and tier three placements for the fall. Next slide please. Through implementation, several important lessons have emerged. First, MTSS protocols are now clearly defined and operationalized. Second, decision making is becoming more data driven, particularly when determining intervention tiers. Early data suggests that we are becoming more aligned with the expected MTSS pyramid indicating that most needs are being met at tier
023one. This indicates that we are on track with fidelity of implementation and are targeting the right students. The district's MTSS handbook has been created and will now serve as the central reference document for staff across the district for MTSS practices and procedures. Next slide. We are shifting from building the system to implementation and measuring outcomes. The next phase focuses on measuring the effectiveness of our interventions. Our goal is to demonstrate measurable student growth as a result of the MTSS system. The processes we are implementing ensures that MTSS becomes a sustainable district wide process rather than a short term initiative. Next slide please. The second strategy is to continuously assess student learning to inform and adjust instruction so that we are being responsive to the individual needs of students. Next slide. This phase of goal two
024moves us from building infrastructures to refining instructional practices. On Institute Day staff did not just learn about UDL, they applied it. They examined lessons, identified where cognitive demand was low and redesigned instruction to raise rigor while maintaining accessibility. By doing so, this ensures that we are not lowering expectations for students who struggle, but instead we are redesigning instruction so all learners can engage in complex thinking. Additionally, co-teaching teams completed focused training on differentiation, scaffolding, and specially designed instruction, all of which strengthen alignment between general and special education practices. The result is a more responsive instructional model where content design is proactive and not reactive. Ultimately, this work strengthens tier one instruction, which is the most sustainable lever for improving student growth. Next slide. We want staff to understand that universal design for learning is not
025an instructional preference. It is a social justice practice. An implementation will cause a shift from theory to direct lesson redesign, ensuring that student tasks increase cognitive rigor while maintaining accessibility. We are in the beginning stages of intentionally co-designing lessons to make this a reality for all students. Co-teaching teams are strengthening their instructional practices. We are beginning to form greater alignment between general and special education instruction. The evidence of impact is that lesson revisions show increased cognitive demand and planning conversations focus on task complexity and access points to accommodate all learners. We are aiming for clearer system alignment between tier one practices and targeted support, which will cause measurable shifts in professional practice and measurable outcomes. Next slide, please. Our next step is to shift from practice to measurable student results by monitoring the fidelity of
026redesigned instruction and tracking growth data to evaluate impact on achievement. A major priority is reducing achievement gaps across student groups. We are establishing structured progress review cycles for continuous adjustments to define success through student growth indicators. Overall, we aim to demonstrate that instructional redesign leads to improved achievement and reduced gaps. Next slide. The third strategy of goal two is to develop and maintain physically, emotionally and culturally safe welcoming learning environments across the district. Next slide. This component of goal two focuses on conditions that make learning possible to include safety, belonging and responsiveness. We are aligning panorama survey data directly to our tier placement criteria. As Dr. Ritter shared, we have a group of volunteers that are reviewing survey questions to ensure that we are asking the right questions to capture how our students are doing.
027This will ensure that SEO identification is intentional and not anecdotal. We are also adding an open ended student voice question to capture perspectives that quantitative data alone may miss. In addition, we are implementing advisory in both buildings. This provides a structured space for connection, identity development and executive functioning growth. And finally, we are strengthening our threat and risk assessment systems by reviewing potential platforms to improve reporting accuracy, student identification and response time. We will select a platform and will begin implementation in the fall. Together, these actions create a safer, more connected ecosystem where students are supported proactively and responsively. Next slide. Through this process, we have learned how to align SEO data, student voice, advisory programming and threat and risk response into a more cohesive safety ecosystem. Overall evidence suggests stronger system wide alignment around
028student well-being with a comprehensive system of support designed to identify, place, address, monitor and effectively remediate the needs of students. While building a sense of belonging, we are on the right path. Student movement to tier one and between tiers will provide concrete evidence of success. Next slide please. Moving forward, the focus shifts from demonstrating outcomes rather than just implementation. We are structurally ready to launch programming and measure outcomes with our finalized tools. We are excited about our progress and welcome any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you both. Questions? I had a couple. And for goal one, I was interested in what was the difference to increase the completion rates of the surveys where you were able to get a higher completion rate. What made the difference? I think Will and his and Ali
029too, just urging kids to take the survey, providing time for people to do it as well. Um, and just promoting it like heck, so that it works. I think your final rate was what? 89% on five essentials. Do you remember what yours was, Holly? Yeah, it was 90. Yeah, yeah. So that's huge. Yeah, it was 90. Yeah, I got that. That was hoping you would ask. That was the difference from last year. Last year. I think last year, last year was in the 60s for both schools. So I'm sorry, what was it last year? Last year in the 60s for both schools. So they did a great job promoting the surveys. Okay, all right. And then I was also interested in, oh, I'm sorry, for the second goal, when you talked about that you guys
030are already looking at placement of students for the fall in tier two and tier three, what about the incoming freshmen? Are they already been analyzed? Yes, they are included in those numbers. We have partnered with our feeder districts early to collect the data to make sure that we were prepared to schedule those students as well. So they are included. Start from the day one. Yes. All right. Are there other questions? Not a question, just an appreciation of the graphic on the tiers. And oftentimes it's the left side of that graphic with that, you know, targeted remediation, not the right side, which is that intensive enrichment and targeted enrichment as well. So I just appreciated that graphic, everything in the presentation. But that was one thing. My questions are really much more general in nature. This
031is our last chance to do this for the school year. This is the first year we're implementing this, and we can clearly see all the work and the progress and that sort of thing. My questions are sort of more qualitative, like, you know, as you think about, you know, what we've done this year, just your impressions or something you'd hoped we would understand or, or, you know, things that surprise you to the positive or things that were more challenging. I'm just curious to get just some thoughts that we can sort of take away. You'd want us to understand and know. I think for me, it's the importance of being consistent across both campuses. We're doing really great work. We have the best teachers here, and it's just creating a system around the work that we're
032doing to make sure that we are, you know, making those small adjustments necessary to make progress. I really think we're doing great work already. It's just making sure that we're all moving in the right direction together. I'll add to that. I agree. And having conversations with staff like Dr. Ritter shared, we're doing great work. When we look at the data, we're very close, like, to almost being perfectly aligned. And I think it was important for staff to hear that, that what they're doing is working. And just with a little tweaks, we could, we could be, you know, where we need to be. So I have a question. In terms of the KPIs, one of the things you mentioned was 80% of, sorry, next one, that 100% of the staff was trained in high leverage practices.
033How do you ensure that the training moves from, like, theoretical training into actual implementation in the classroom? So the UDL, the universal design for learning PD that we gave in February was a foundational level. We have teachers who have had training before, but we wanted to make sure that we're starting everybody with foundational level learning. The next PD that we deliver is going to build upon that. So we keep progressing so that when they're designing lessons, they're actually going to be implementing it in the classroom. And that's part of our goal, too. So we're going to have some type of observational tool that will help us determine that these practices are living and breathing in our classrooms, not just training and one and done type of PD. I also think some of the evidence of
034that may come through the work of PLCs as the information or the training becomes more of a way of being and a part of the culture. I feel like through conversations, conversations will shift around what's possible for students looking at student outcomes and really thinking about not just what to do, but finding the right match. And solution to support growth. And I think part of evidence is, yes, hopefully there's quantitative information, but also how we talk about student growth and how we start making how we capture decision making around the supports and strategies we're trying and identifying for students based on what an identified need or opportunity for growth may be. So I think it just speaking about it, learning about it, but also applying it, I think should probably come up more in our
035PLC work as well. I just wanted to say that after seeing these presentations over the year, something that Dr. Karner said about being intentional and not anecdotal. I feel like there's been a lot of intentional work and seeing that reflected in the reports has been really helpful. Good job. When you look at the diamond of the MTSS, I'm curious when you guys will be sitting in, whether or not it's with a parent or staff or students, and what will they say or do that tells you, we understand, we've shifted and we now understand the full range of MTSS. I think it's just believing that we are doing what we need to do for each individual students and what they need at that time. So yeah, on both sides of it, right? It's not about a
036reactive measure. It's about giving every student what they need. And that could be for one class to the left, another class to the right, most of the classes in the middle. So just making sure that we're being intentional about providing those supports. In any class possible. Any other questions? Thank you very much. The next report is district 113 advisory update. Thank you. And I think a lot of what we just heard will come up through this update in the ways in which we explore what is advisory. So thank you for this opportunity. I was looking to click. Jake, can you head us to the next one, please? I want to take you through tonight's update, really answering these five questions. And what is important and has already kind of been expressed is that we now
037have advisory as a district wide program or system. And so that's going to be a really big part of tonight's celebration. If you go to the next slide. I thought I would begin by telling you first what advisory is not. So it is not homeroom. We have an amazing homeroom program also here within both high schools. It is twice a week for 15 minutes experienced by all students at the same time. The purpose is very much for connection. The kids stay together for four years with that same homeroom teacher. It is very much a delivery system of information. Many of these surveys that have been mentioned are taken there in a time for kids to hang out and enjoy one another and catch up on the news of the school. What advisory is, is very
038different. It is for our freshmen right now. It plays a vital role in not only connecting students to what is happening in the school, but really thinking about their social emotional learning as well as where they want to go in the future. This is an important program. I don't want to say program. It's an important system that has really only been experienced by half of our student body up until this year. So I want you to just kind of hold that research based really thinking about the evidence that's out there says that this is a critical year transition from kids coming in to the high school and then thinking about how they're going to move through high school and beyond. And yet we only had it for half of our students. Now I don't want
039to stay there. I want to talk about why it has changed. We're now all of our students receive this amazing opportunity. Next slide please. I think that there are three, but I'm going to focus on the two catalysts of change. When we think about what happened in 2020, it really highlighted the need for structure for relationships. So many of our students routines were disrupted. Their learning patterns, the supports that they were getting. And one of the promises we made is how do we return better than when we left. We also experienced tremendous trauma and tragedy with the Fourth of July. And it told us even more about what we needed for our students and all of our students, because when we came back after the pandemic, we created a homeroom at Highland Park, but we
040still didn't have an advisory. With the new leadership under Dr. Holland and really all of the people who came together to create our strategic plan, we had a lot of promises, goals, our preferred future statements documented within the strategic plan. And if you go to the next slide, Jake, I want to just highlight what you've already heard from Dr. Karner. In the ideas around goal two, say it quite clearly. When you look at the strategy number two for goal two, that multi-tiered system, that tier one that's in the middle of the diamond, that's where advisory lives. Advisory is a tier one system for all of our students to receive what they need by looking at the evidence from data, from what they're telling us, how they show up, monitoring their progress, and really providing a
041space to provide them that intervention. And when you look at the last part, to develop and maintain physically, emotionally, and culturally safe, welcoming learning environments, that's exactly what the foundation of advisory is doing. So thank you. It is our strategic tier one system. And when we look at our research from across the country, what's really important, and I tried to kind of map this out here, is that we're looking at a base level, kind of a Maslow's hierarchy, when we think about what do kids really need in order to access that frontal lobe, right? And so when we're trying to do executive functioning, when we're thinking, so much of that is predicated on feeling safe, feeling at ease, being able to take the risk. When we feel that sense of threat, whether it's real or
042not, that amygdala comes in, takes over, hijacks that ability, and the learning that is really at the center of our school experience can't always be achieved. And so this is in pursuit of that academic success and the overall well-being. Advisory helps not just that freshman year, but all the years to follow, because we're building the skills, the emotional regulation skills, the learning strategies in this system. So it is very much an important part of their entire experience. Next slide, please. What I also want to answer, again, is the who. When we look at our over 750 freshman students, this year all of them, the majority, let me say, are receiving some form of advisory. So over our two schools, we have 35 advisories, 20 plus staff who are engaged deeply in the work, as well
043as many others who are supporting from afar, like myself. I wanted to look at four kind of components of the advisory system format, whether it is a standalone or if it's coupled with another course, like our fine arts and career technical ed, mentoring the role of our seniors who are working with our freshmen. The frequency of advisories, so two days a week, four days a week, those are two different patterns that we see in our schools this year. And then the curriculum, thinking about the overall curricular guide that is at the center of that advisory experience. And then, as I mentioned, our district support and really helping our APs, our advisors, our coordinators, everybody who is involved, and also our students really sitting in that space and experiencing advisory with them. So that's kind of
044the who and some of the what. If you go to the next slide, Jake, thank you. So I just want to give you a quick, and I cut this back because we know we don't want to have an extremely long night, but I wanted just to talk a little bit about the design of advisory. So there's a big roadmap, right? There's a lot of pre-planning that happens at the beginning of the year because the whole idea is that this is responsive to our student experience, what they need. And we look at the entire schedule from when is homecoming to, let's say, an MLK day, finals, holidays, all of the things, and really ask ourselves, what do incoming students into this new, incredible space want and need to know? So the institutional awareness, where to go
045if you need help with your studies, where our counselors are, who the deans are, et cetera. And then we also have a wayfinder set of lessons, and I'll talk a little bit about that momentarily. The third part is that structured study time, so those executive functioning skills, giving students time to do their work, also knowing that some of those classrooms have seniors involved. We have obviously our advisors, and we will be seeing also the interventions that are part of the tier two and tier three MTSS structure also being provided during this time. So all of that comes together as a unit of study. That's an important piece. I want to, again, emphasize advisory is a course, it's a class that students are taking. If you go to the next slide, this is where I want
046to just explain something that I think is quite beautiful. Wayfinder, which was identified and selected through the Deerfield SEL committee a couple years ago, is a curricular package, it's a program. And we were able to bring, now this is a suite of like thousands of lessons, but what it does is not only does it provide us lessons, and we're using a core of them for advisory, we have access to many more. It also supports the teacher in the implementation, and it has the ability to be translated, it has other types of accessibility, so it's a really robust system. But what's also important here, if you look at these six core skills, is that they are endorsed by CASEL, which is a premier SEL cooperative. But what is also really important here, if you go to
047the next one, is that they map almost directly onto our portrait of a D113 student, which was developed last year. And so the synergy there I think is really kind of profound, and I want us to understand how then we are now moving from that freshman experience throughout our entire portrait with such cohesiveness. This is what can allow us to be as successful as we want and hope to be. All right, so if we go forward, you've heard us talk about panorama already, and while I'm not going to argue any kind of causal relationship here, I do think that there's a point of interest. And so with our panorama survey, this is one way that we get direct student voice. They are being asked quite a few times, a lot of things, and so there
048may be some moments where the kids say, not again. But I hope you hear how valuable it is to us, because there are so many of you, and we need to ask you these questions. And so the two major areas around panoramas survey are well-being and then social-emotional learning. I want to take you, if you go to the next slide, Jake, to this interesting moment. So just pretend we had one high school. So I put all of our kids together, so we're about 3,000 strong on this slide. And then I aggregated them, I disaggregated by grade level. And I used the, these are each of the indicators that you'll find on the survey. You'll notice a very similar pattern across grade level, which I think is interesting. Our kids are reporting similarly based on each
049of these indicators. But when you zoom in on it, there are two areas where our students differ the most. So if you go to the next slide, Jake, we have emotion regulation and belonging. And this is between our ninth graders and our twelfth graders. And so, again, I'm not arguing that, you know, we're going to see a causal relationship between advisory and, let's say, belonging. But I want us to think about this for a moment. So if you go to the next slide, emotion regulation, thinking about the ways in which students are able to, as you can see, these are three example questions, regulate themselves, help themselves calm, or maybe even think before they act. It's not surprising that our seniors have indicated more success that they feel they have over regulating their emotions. I'm
050not surprised. And I'd like to also say this is case for why a freshman advisory is very helpful, because that is something that we would talk about in advisory, and those are skills to be learned. You go to the next one, belonging, and this is where I saw something that surprised me. These are the two questions that are asked. And what I found was that our freshmen report feeling a sense of belonging at a higher rate than our seniors. Now, again, I'm not arguing this is because of advisory. What I think it does is it invites us to be curious and to ask what is going on that is helping our freshmen, our new kids to the school, feel such a high level compared to the seniors who have been there for three and a
051half, almost four years. So something to think about as we move forward, which brings me to this next piece, lessons learned. We do need to identify the metrics. We need to have some consensus around which ones we'll use to measure the impact of advisory. And it's extremely complex, as we just heard from Dr. Holland, too. This is a qualitative, quantitative, mixed method approach that we would take. Consistency, I've heard that this evening as well from Dr. Ritter, matters. What we do in both schools, and I'll talk a little bit about that momentarily, the collaboration is necessary. Research and evidence points out that we need to support our teachers, especially within these areas, to make sure that the curriculum that we are buying into is actually implemented with fidelity. That takes a lot of professional development
052so they can internalize and understand exactly what those lessons are about and how. Social-emotional learning is very complex, and many of us don't have degrees in that. So it's going to take that extra learning to understand. And really listening, I've been hanging out and visiting our advisories. I know so have my colleagues and understanding our staff and what they need. That stakeholder voice is very critical. And so as you think about the design, one of the things that we're wrestling with the most, you know, Greg, you asked kind of just how are we feeling anecdotally? What are we noticing? What's at play? And it's a beautiful thing, but it's also really hard. Our kids don't get grades or credit for completing this. This is about intrinsic motivation. This is about learning things that are really
053important but without some of the extrinsic reward that they're used to. Imagine that balance then between our students and our staff. And we're doing it, and it's done every year. But they level up, too, and they ask really good critical questions. And so we have to continually be able to respond. So that's something I'm learning is a challenge and one we're rising to. And then the question of what's next? Do we stop here with ninth grade? How do we really, you know, social-emotional learning is designed to be embedded in everything we do, not a siloed experience. So how do we continue with our career and technical ed and our social-emotional learning to be embedded within our 10th, 11th, and 12th grade is a question we are wrestling with now and wanting to figure that out
054as we move forward. When we think about that second year, then, I have three words. We're going to expand. Why? Because the two days a week that Highland Park experiences advisory will turn to four. So that's amazing. We will align in that we are making advisory a standalone course, not coupled with any fine in applied arts or fine in career and technical ed or literacy. It will be just a single class. And we are also making sure that we refine our work. So really embedding Wayfinder and using the model that Deerfield has set out for many years and thinking about how we can use our evidence-based strategies to really bring that portrait of a D113 student to life. So there's a lot ahead. This is just a quick map that I wanted to just say
055to you. This is a continuous cycle of improvement. And one of the things that we have sometimes as a competing approach to plan, do, study, act, various levels of that, I want to really listen to. And I think one of the transformational pieces is when we really do listen to our staff and our students first to know. And that's why I'm visiting and we're doing a lot of work hanging out and talking with folks to understand what it is they need as we engage in our cycle of continuous improvement. One more slide, Jake. So one of our questions is always like, what do we need as we move forward and to continue our success? I would say time. Time is not just patience, but time is also important as a protected part of our schedule
056is knowing that one of the ways in which we, bless you, are able to take care of our students and staff is how we construct our days. And so I want to keep that on the table. And thinking about that, this communication, asking for a report is great. It helps us to really bring things together. And I want to make sure I am a steward of this work and continually bring that communication back into our schools and listen to what they have provided. And within the data, from talking to our students to also identifying those areas that will be the metrics we will use to measure it. And lastly, just really staying curious, it is a humbling experience to help lead something like this. And I have to always ask why and how. And I
057would invite you all to continually bring us good questions and ask us how we're doing. So thank you. And I'm so sorry, I got a couple of pictures late to my, I should have put them in there to show Deerfield. But these are some of the advisories that are going on right now at HP. So with that, I will stop. And thank you. Any questions? Comment and a question. So one, or curiosity, so the slide that had the different panorama components and the view by grade level, is there any talk about looking at, all right, this year's freshmen, to pick on the freshmen, looking at the freshman year, sophomore year, junior year, senior year, and sort of that overtime look of where were they last year versus this year? Is that part of the discussion?
058Yes. Well, cool. I think that would be interesting to take a look at. And the other question is, you know, we have advisory freshman year. Is there any, you alluded to it a little bit, but any discussion of expanding some of the learnings out? Yes. Yeah, there is. I think we have been asked that also as a team by our leadership. And there's so many factors that go into play from just the bandwidth of our staff change. Also the domino effect, knowing that we have only a finite time. And so if we don't build in any more time and we just work with what we have, there are other things that would have to shift and move. Dr. Karner mentioned the pace framework. And we're, once I think that scope and sequence, I said that,
059Dr. Ritter, I saw that. I heard that. That once we figure that out, because we want to really intentionally create the scope and sequence of what our students need through something like our career and technical ed. Then we can see, does the system have room for what it is that they are essentially promised? Or do we need to reexamine and shift things and build something new in? So that is the exact question that we're wrestling with right now. And we don't have enough of the information yet to make a decision. So we have had conversations, as was mentioned. A lot of this is looking at the progression of skills. So if advisory creates a foundation for skill development, what does that look like? How do we support that growth and development across grade levels that's
060H and grade level appropriate and based on what students need? And there's an intersection here. So we have the SEL competencies we have, which intersect with the Wayfinder curriculum. We also have our portrait of a student, District 113 student. And so we also have the skills that are prioritized in our career exploration work. And so what we're doing is doing a crosswalk to see how to support that growth. So it's not all these different things moving in different directions. That is a cohesive approach. So we have talked about, of course, freshman years established and we're learning from that. But what does sophomore, junior and possibly a more exploratory senior year look like? And so we're dreaming while also prioritizing laying a solid foundation right now. Thank you. Yes. I would also offer potentially one reason.
061It'd be interesting to see with seniors and the sense of belonging going down that could be age appropriate because they are ready to launch to their next step. Where freshmen, you know, this is that we want this to be their home. Yes. You know, so I'm just it's just an idea like that. That didn't that actually struck me when I saw that in the report is that makes sense. So yeah, that detachment. Yeah, like it's their job, right? Yes. To push. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So any other questions or comments? I have a comment about kind of how all three of these presentations brought something together about as a board member. A lot of what I'm doing is I'm talking to people in the community about what makes me excited about being a board member. What's
062exciting about what's going on in the schools? And the thing that I go back to is that we're identifying ways to help every student in the building grow. You know, what what can we deliver to each student to get them to the next level to help them reach and to help provide with opportunities and this kind of stuff? So it brings it all together and and gives me more of a company. I can see what I just said, but now I've got more detail on specifics I might be able to talk about. But it really helps a board member to be able to describe that. Good. Thank you. Great. All right. Our last informational report of the evening, Career Education Pathly Report. And that's me again. Thank you. So if you could go to the
063next slide, please. We have a Career Education Plan Committee. We've been meeting all year. The Career Education Plan Committee is made up of post-secondary counselors, CTE science and counseling department chairs, myself and Ms. and Ms. And we've met throughout this year with a focus of growing our college and career pathways, developing a district wide pace framework or post-secondary and education post-secondary and career expectations framework and strengthening our career and community partnerships. Next slide, please. So the work of this team aligns with strategy one and of goal one, which I just summarized earlier of our district strategic plan. And it's this specific strategy here is to develop career pathways and programming that provide work based learning experiences and opportunities for for students. So it's aligned with our strategic plan. Next slide, please. So as I mentioned
064before, with the addition of our newest pathway, the business management and administration pathway, we now have six total approved college and career pathway endorsements. Our strategic plan goal is to have eight approved in the next five years. So I'm pretty sure we're going to make that goal. Two of our pathways are accessible through tech campus and those are culinary arts, the CNA program, early education and welding and fabrication. And two of our pathways are in-house business management and new for which is new for next year and cybersecurity, which was new this year. And our goal is to develop more of those college and career pathways in-house. Next slide. The components of a college and career pathway endorsements are two years of courses that lead to six college credits. So usually college courses are three credits
065each. So we need two full year courses that would give students the six college credits. And that could be in the form of dual credit or AP classes. We need a minimum of two career exploration activities, at least two team-based challenges and at least 60 hours towards an internship or work-based learning activity. So to give you an example on the next slide of the components within one of our pathways, our newest business management and administration pathway, Our two-year sequence of courses that will offer college credit are through AP business with personal finance and financial accounting through CLC. Our two career exploration activities that we used for our application are the Navigate Lake County event, which is like a giant career fair for everyone in Lake County. And we did send students to that this year.
066And we also have a partnership with Highland Park, the village of Highland Park, where they have a career exploration program where the city of Highland Park matches local professionals and career experts with our students who have an interest in that field. And they set them up with job shadowing experiences or just interviews to learn more about that profession. Each pathway must include at least two team-based challenges. These are either project-based learning activities or scenarios where a group of students work together to find a solution to a problem in that field of work. The two examples that our business teachers developed for our pathway here are one is like a business proposal. So it's pretending like you're an entrepreneur and you're coming up with a new business proposal and it's like a shark tank type of
067experience for the students. And the other one is a financial advisor project where students pretend that they are financial advisors working with a family who's trying to plan for retirement, for college savings, and making sure that they have a good financial, healthy financial portfolio. And then finally, the internship activities that we used for our business management and administration pathway are one that is working with a local public relations organization where interns would work on marketing plans, event planning, social media posts, and a nonprofit organization where students would learn about working in financial planning, branding, marketing, and communication. So this gives them on-the-job type of experience that they would need for the field of business and also other areas such as financial planning, marketing, social media. So we're currently building our network of community partners and
068Mira Ante has been out in the community forming relationships and partnerships. And we have some very eager community members who are willing to support our students with their career experiences. So I foresee us broadening access and opportunities for our students and pathways. This slide talks about our PACE framework. So I know it's very small where you can't really read it, but this is the four-year plan really for all activities having to do with career, financial aid, and financial literacy, and post-secondary options for students in grades 9 through 12. It means it's meant to be a four-year plan to help guide students make decisions about post-secondary options, plan a course of study, and to make financial decisions with family members. And as I mentioned earlier in my goal one presentation, we're beginning to develop a scope
069and sequence for when these activities will be delivered and by whom. And in our planning, we noticed that the focus of careers is strong in the freshman year but starts to shift more towards college in junior and senior year. So we want to make sure that we are providing information on both college and careers to all of our students because it's not an either or conversation is both and. This next slide I thought was interesting. So from the career interest profiler that our freshmen take, these are the top 10 career interests from our students in Deerfield and Highland Park. Legal services was number one in both. I thought the interesting one was recreation, amusement, and attractions. Is that Great America or is that the entertainment business? I don't know. But I thought these were very
070interesting. And we do have the career interest profiler information for all grade levels and they do slightly change by the time that they're seniors and ready to graduate. There are several things that we can do with this information. We can decide just by looking at it, is there a potential career pathway that we can start to develop if these career choices and interests come up year after year for our students? Is this something that we can start to develop a pathway for so that they can start taking the coursework in high school towards that career? We can also look at matching them up with local professionals in that career. So giving them an opportunity to speak to someone that works in that field and if that's something of interest to them, what does it take
071to get there and what kind of schooling do you need to get that type of job? Another thing that we can do is, and we talked about this with our career education plan group, is having representatives from the community come in and speak to our kids. So just like college reps come, talk to students about different colleges, if we had career representatives from our community talking about different careers and giving them the information that they need. There's different monthly themes that happen in the career field in CTE. So for example, it could be cyber security month. We might have some business professionals come in and talk to our students about cyber security if that's something of interest to them. So next year we plan to have those types of events for our students in the
072career fields. So another area of growth for us, as I mentioned before, is for us to be intentional about career exposure and discussion embedded in the classroom. Highlighting the relevance of the content and the curriculum and how it can translate into a career. So for example with performing arts being a high interest area for our students, it would be really important for our performing arts classes to highlight the types of careers that are available in that field and what students need to do to obtain a career in that field. Next slide please. So these are some of the community partnerships that we are beginning to form. And again, Mira Ante has been pivotal in going out into the community and meeting with local businesses and professionals to find opportunities for our students. And we will
073be soon meeting with the city of Highland Park who will help us transition their career exploration program to something that we can do in our school district. And that we can start beginning to proactively match professionals in our community with our students based on their interests. Next slide. And so some of the next steps, just very exciting work in terms of career pathways and career development. We want to build out the scope and sequence for our PACE framework, as I mentioned before, so that we have a meeting coming up in April with our Career Education Plan Committee. Freshman advisory is a place where much of this curriculum can be delivered, but we also want to deliver it in some of our classes, including CTE, other content areas, and widen our net of staff who can
074educate our students about careers. This information again should not only come from our counselors, it is something that all of us need to be speaking to our students about. We have also several dual credit possibilities that I mentioned earlier, and I've been in discussion with some of our department chairs and teachers about bringing more pathways in-house. For example, as I mentioned earlier, we have two teachers that are certified now to teach early childhood and education classes in-house, and we can use our preschool as an internship opportunity. And we also have Tech Campus, and obviously they have pathways that are well established there. Another topic our committee has discussed is to help staff, students, and families develop a mindset that we are preparing all students for careers. Again, this is not an either-or conversation. All of
075our students eventually go on to have a career, many of them stop at college along the way, but it's something that should not be separate conversations. We need to have these conversations together. And our final topic that our committee has talked about is potentially adding staff for next year. So as we grow our career education program, we will probably need building-based staff that will help find internship opportunities, job shadowing opportunities, potentially teach a class on internship or work study where kids are learning about the durable skills that they will need to be successful in careers. So that's another area that we've been talking about. And next slide, that's it. Any questions for our Career Education Plan Committee? It's exciting work. Any questions? Okay. Thank you. I was going to say, no, just that's very exciting
076work and eager to hear more about it and just wonder as a board if there's anything that you need from us or how we can support such incredible work. I would say that, you know, continuing to build our network of community partnerships would be really important for us. So if you have people that you talk to that you know are interested, I know, Rick, you've given me something for an internship. Keep passing those things along so we can build our network for opportunities for internships. If we do need additional staff to add to our career network, we would love your support in developing that. And also if we needed to add extra classes like a work study or job internship type of course, we would need your support for that as well. Thank you. Okay.
077Fantastic. Moving on to school reports. Mr. Polanski, will you please go first? Good evening, everyone. This past month has been nothing short of exciting. First and foremost, I would like to congratulate our boys basketball team for making DHS history and earning second place for basketball in the state. They had an unbelievable run being the undefeated Caneland in the state semifinals and ultimately finishing their season with a record of 25 and 12. Despite losing in the state finals, DHS basketball demonstrated impressive resilience and teamwork in these two very close games. Seniors Jake Pollock and Evan Nagler especially had impressive performances in the semifinals. Jake Pollock scored 20 points, including the game winning shot in overtime, and Evan Nagler scored 11 points, both contributing over half of their team's final score of 49 points. Although I did
078not have the opportunity to drive down to Champaign to watch Friday's game, I was able to experience the pride and spirit here at Deerfield. While most students' days started at 6 a.m. driving to State Farm Center, mine started at 820 in AP Government, accompanied by my teacher and a grand total of five other students. Because of this, there was a severe lack of a quorum, so legally we could not do anything in class. Once the game started, students began to file in and out of the auditorium, and everyone who was at the game described the atmosphere as electric, but I can say confidently that there was no shortage of energy at Deerfield. Students and teachers were cheering with every shot made or blocked by Deerfield, and I think everyone, teachers and students, were just excited
079to be excused from class, which is fine because Dr. Dwyer wasn't even there. Although the season didn't end with a championship, this team gave Deerfield an amazing season. It brought the entire community together, so congratulations again to our boys' basketball team on an amazing season and for making Deerfield history. Not only did athletics have a fantastic season, but our DECA also brought 57 students to DECA State Conference between March 5th and 7th, and our very own senior Josh Coifman led the conference of over 2,000 students as Illinois DECA president, and Deerfield set an all-time record with 33 students qualifying for the DECA International Conference in Atlanta. Robotics also had a notable state performance, finishing second for the Think Award, which highlights their impressive engineering, and huge congratulations to our athletics and our DECA and robotics.
080So finally, our Human Rights Club is sponsoring a book drive for African schools and libraries starting today and running through April 10th, and you can donate any kind of book to the book bins located on the main and back entrances of DHS, and all donations will be sent to books in Africa, a non-profit dedicated to education. Overall, it's been a memorable month at Deerfield, and as we transition into spring break and the final quarter of the year, I would like to remind our student body, especially seniors, to finish the year strong despite the overwhelming symptoms of senioritis. Also, I would like to mention that me and Sophie both committed to University of Illinois. Thank you. So thank you, and have a nice, relaxing spring break. Thank you. Ms. Monsivais? Good evening, everyone. First, our Dance
081Show 2026 revival took place from March 12th through the 14th. After months of preparation, our dancers took the stage with performances that were powerful, exciting, and inspiring. It was a wonderful opportunity for our community to experience the incredible talent and creativity of our students from our ballet, jazz, hip-hop, and Latin dance programs. And a special shout out to our jazz ensemble and the garbage band performers who were amazing. In fine arts, we're proud to celebrate four students who were selected for this year's ILMEA All-State Music Ensembles, an incredible honor that involves a rigorous statewide audition process. Congratulations to Jacob Booth on trumpet, Clara Gills on soprano, Eli Levin on bass, and Elias Koltenheimer on jazz trombone. Their dedication reflects the exilience of our fine arts program and the spirit of our house on vine. Our
082HP Madcap also recently represented Highland Park at the ICHSA in Harvard, Illinois, demonstrating the commitment, talent, and strong sense of family that makes their group so special. Turning to athletics, spring sports are beginning with tremendous participation this year. We have 578 student athletes competing this spring, which is an incredible level of involvement. In track and field, several athletes had standout performances. On the girls' side, Riley Sullivan jumped 32.4 feet in triple jump in her very first competition. For the boys' team, Dominique Villegas, a sophomore, had a huge day at Lakes High School, jumping 17 feet in the long jump, 9.7 inches in the triple jump, and running a personal best split in the 4x400 relay. Both our boys' and girls' teams are also preparing for their upcoming indoor CSL conference meet. We also want to
083recognize our boys' swimming and diving team for an outstanding performance at the ICHSA state meet this past weekend. Andrew Bowler placed 12th in the 200 IM and 4th in the 100 butterfly. And our 200 relay team finished in the top 14 in the state, which is an amazing accomplishment. We're incredibly proud for all of our swimmers and their efforts this season. In student activities, our Malta UN team recently traveled to New York, where they competed at nationals and earned the first place title of national champions out of 5,000 kids in dozens of represented countries. We are incredibly proud of them for representing Helen Park on a national stage and bringing home this amazing achievement. Our math team also recently celebrated Pi Day by selling bent fork bakery pies to support the program, combining math, spirit,
084with delicious tradition. Today also marked the final day of future Giants. As a mentor, I had the opportunity to work with a group of 8th graders over the past few months and watch them grow more confident as they prepared for the transition from middle school to high school. Today we held our closing ceremony, where we celebrated their hard work and everything they accomplished during the program. It's really special to see how much they've grown and how, and we're excited to welcome them to Helen Park next year. Students are also making a meaningful impact through service. Key Club will be hosting a volunteer event on April 8th from 3.30 to 4.30 in the cafeteria, where students will pack weekend food bags to support families experiencing food insecurity in North Shore District 112. Additionally, the class council
085of 2028 is preparing the Golden Gala, a special evening of music, dancing, and community members, a special evening of music and dancing for community members 15 November. Students will be hosting this event to celebrate and connect with members of our community. Finally, as we head further into the spring semester, AP testing is quickly approaching, and we want to wish all of our students the best of luck as they prepare. And that is all. And congratulations again to both of you guys, knowing what you're doing next. Great. There is no one sign up for public comment, so we'll be moving on to discussion. And there are two items up for discussion tonight. The first is in regards to the donation to the Highland Park High School Theater Program. Yes, so we received a generous donation and
086wanted to bring it to the board as a part of our process for accepting donations over $20,000. The donation is for $25,000 and it soars our theater program. A lot of inspiration after Les Mis, but we know that this donation will be put to great use to support student productions, as well as programmatic needs, and so we're really grateful for the donor for providing this. So we wanted to bring it to the board for discussion and it will come back for approval. Any discussion regarding this item? We all obviously were able to look at the form. Okay, then we look forward to coming back for action. The next discussion item is the transition program property purchase. Yes, so I'll be giving a presentation on the potential purchase of a property for our transition program. So
087I'm excited to have the opportunity to share our progress regarding significant shifts for our District 113 transition program. Next slide, please. During this presentation and report, I will share my recommendation to the board regarding the purchase of 1161 Lake Cook Road in Deerfield, a property to serve as the long-term home for our District 113 transition program. Next slide, please. Last spring, right around this time, the board openly discussed considerations that were being made regarding True North Educational Cooperative 804 and its pending disillusion. For context, District 113 is a proud founding member of this cooperative, founded in 1960 as the Northern Suburban Special Education District, NSSED. The cooperative, which was later renamed as True North, is one of the first special education joint agreements in Illinois. The cooperative grew out of a loosely knit organization of
088North Shore schools that provided limited special education services for their students at the time. The name NSSED brought pride to everyone who knew of it because it was the model, the premier model, of special education services and supports across the country. Fast forward to 2024-2025 with consideration, after considering such a strong history, we have now shifted to conversations regarding the potential disillusion of the cooperative and its potential impact sent a ripple effect across member districts and the families and communities it served. While the potential process of disillusion was being considered last spring, there were simultaneous discussions to restructure the cooperative in a manner that would address the concerns that were raised. Restructuring and reorganizing would result in decreasing some services and programming, as well as scaling down the operation, but it would maintain the cooperative.
089For months, alongside the True North governing bodies, our board discussed matters pertaining to True North and the impact on our district. A final decision was made to reorganize True North, ending discussions of disillusion. Through this process, we were officially informed that True North would no longer be able to support our district in running our transition program. With District 113 being the only high school district without our own program, they would no longer be able to take on this responsibility in support of us. This means that we have to make all necessary arrangements to fully operate our own program by July 1, 2027. Designing our program and identifying a property site to facilitate the program is not optional for our district. After this change was announced, we have maintained communication with district families and students currently
090served by True North. We have continued to partner with True North's leadership, and we have actively started working on program design, and most importantly, and more immediate, identifying a site for the program. Next slide. The District 113 transition program is a community-based, person-centered, data-driven program that supports students ages 18 to 22 years old who receive special education services. The purpose of the program is to support student independence through independent living, post-secondary learning and educational opportunities, and competitive employment. The program is designed to support students as they develop daily living skills, vocational and employment skills, community and social skills, functional academics, applying academic concerns to real-world situations, and health and wellness. Eligibility for the District 113 transition program is determined by a student's individualized education program, or their IEP. Transition program is not separate from an
091IEP, but it is a mandatory and critical part of a student's plan in preparation for life after high school. Our program prioritizes best practices that are crucial for an effective and high-quality transition program. Some of the priorities are community-based instruction, vocational training and supported employment, interagency collaboration, functional life skills training, self-advocacy and self-determination, and the program requires a lot of flexibility in the structure. While the news and decision regarding our partnership with True North and our transition program was unsettling for families, staff and students who really need and deserve a stable learning environment, we are viewing this change as an opportunity for us to enhance our program and develop a premier learning environment for our students. Next slide, please. Recognizing that the program location would require time to identify, manage logistics and secure following the
092announcement, we recognized that we were on the clock and needed to identify a program site that would serve as a vehicle to assist with fulfilling our vision for the program. While looking for sites, we look for sites that were located within Highland Park, Highwood, Deerfield, Bannock Burn, Riverwoods and Fort Sheridan. We look for sites that were located near potential employment sites, accessible and close to public transportation, sites that offer the right capacity to provide a comfortable learning environment for 40 to 55 students and 25 to 30 staff members at any given time or more, a site that allows for dynamic configuration supporting appropriately sized instructional spaces, private rooms for itinerant service providers, communal areas, spaces to simulate independent living spaces, staff offices, ample parking and easy access for transportation. And this includes our own district
093vehicles being able to get in and out, car services, drop-off pickup. So our list was long and looking for the appropriate spaces. Additionally, we were looking for a place that would support a long-term agreement. Again, stability for the students and staff and the program is really important. So we were looking for opportunities to lease or purchase to ensure consistency and prevent future location changes. The other piece that to me is the most important is a high quality facility that will bring our students, staff and families a great sense of pride. It makes a difference when you walk into the space and you're excited about being there and it provides everything you can imagine or one for your child or the student. After visiting over a dozen properties, we believe that 1161 Lake Cook Road in
094Deerfield is the best fit for what we are looking for. Next slide. 1161 Lake Cook Road is a thoughtfully designed space that is 21,206 square feet. It's formerly a therapeutic day school. The facility includes focused therapy rooms, life skills, educational spaces, observation areas, cosmetic upgrades for age-appropriate services. The facility also includes administrative office space, outdoor space. It's easily accessible off of highways and it has easy access to public transportation. Next slide. So the next slide you'll see what the outside of the space looks like. Next slide. And these are some of the images from within the space. One of the many appealing factors of this site is the thoughtfully designed space. The owner personally designed the space for very similar service and support delivery purposes as our transition program. There are ample instructional spaces, occupational
095and physical therapy spaces, larger meeting rooms, office spaces, recreational spaces. There's a built-in model apartment and store to support students with developing independent life skills. If you've ever visited other transition programs or other districts, sometimes there are conversations around actually purchasing a home. One of the phenomenal things about this space is that it has an apartment built inside to simulate or help students learn how to live independently as a part of the program and the curriculum. Next slide. The facility is open, welcoming, and nicely designed for the purposes of the program. Not only does it have the space to support all of the students and staff in our program, the facility also presents opportunities for program expansion in the future. Next slide. The site is located near many potential employment sites for our students, which
096is a huge part of the program. This is important because vocational training and supported employment is a key aspect of the program. Due to the proximity of transportation, students can access the College of Lake County and community-based employment sites. The Village of Deerfield has been wonderful partners in our efforts to work through the logistics of vetting this property, and True North remains a supportive and understanding partner during our planning as well. Next slide. The property has been offered for sale to the district for $3 million, following in line with appraisal values. Recognizing that we have to find a site independent of our high schools, we explore the pros and cons of leasing versus purchasing. Purchasing supports increased confidence in the stability that is needed for the longevity of the program. If approved, the purchase amount
097will be taken from a designated portion of the fund balance. We have completed a program cost analysis with itemized expenses. There's a cost savings by bringing the program under the complete helm of the district. By that, I'm saying right now we spend a certain amount by working through True North on the program. By bringing it in, we are expected to save a significant amount of money. And so a part of that plan is to return all program expenses to the fund balance over time. So by the cost savings that we would incur, we would put that money back into the fund balance and basically pay the fund balance back for the purchase. Next slide. The FY25 audited fund balance is $60.4 million, with a cost of the property of $3 million and a scenario-based renovation
098of $500,000. This would bring the fund balance to approximately $56.9 million. The purchase would be a one-time use of the fund balance and would not require borrowing additional debt or requesting additional funds from taxpayers. Next slide. With an estimated program savings, a conservative amount, I would say, of $825,000 annually by assuming oversight of the program as a district, our plan is to annually return the savings to the fund balance over a five-year period. With FY28 as the first year to begin the repayment. Next slide. So this is similar to what I just mentioned, just a more detailed breakdown. And I just want to mention that the renovation costs chose a higher option. We have different scenarios laid out, but furniture, one-time expenses, and other things that may come up, we don't know. And so this
099is just a cushion in here that's also built into the repayment plan. Next slide. With the outline plan to purchase, we would no longer incur rental costs. With the reorganizational changes to True North, we will also achieve ongoing operational savings, allowing us to repay our requested investment of $3 million back to the fund balance. Next slide. From the time we learned about our need to assume full oversight and responsibility of our program, we ensure that we have been connected with our families. Through our meetings, calls, and one-on-one conversations with parents and families, we continue to listen and learn about the needs of our students and programmatic desires of our families. In this room, while talking to two parents right over here on this side of the room, a parent said to me with tears in
100his eyes, Dr. Holland, one of the most important investments the district can make is into the lives of the students in the program. Please do not cut corners. They deserve and are worthy of our attention and resources. Let me know how I can help. This was a moment that will always stay with me, just thinking about the importance of this program. The importance of investing into the lives of our students in this program as well is also investing in our families. If you've ever had a sibling or a loved one who requires these type of services and supports, you know that it is life-altering, life-changing, and the students often remain under the care of their parents and caregivers for a lifetime. So everything we can do to support our students also supports our families and
101the program. Getting this program right is one of the most important things we can do right now as a district, as it can have a very profound impact on the life trajectories of our students and the quality of life for the group of students and their families who are in this journey right along with them and right along with us as well. Next slide. Following tonight's meeting, a communication will be shared with those more immediately impacted by this recommendation. That's our parents and caregivers and students and staff of True North, of students who receive services from True North and the staff at True North. In the communication, we will also offer a virtual Q&A at the end of the month. Prior to the end of the week, a District 113 community-wide message will be shared
102regarding the recommendation. At our April 7th board meeting, I will be bringing a resolution to the board and a purchase sale agreement for your review and hopefully for your approval. Pending board approval, a due diligence period will be launched. So I just want to name that there's a period of time while I'll be bringing a purchase sale agreement to the board, the sale is not final. There's a whole period of time where our vendors will go in, our inspectors will go in and survey and do a close review of the property to determine the state of it. While the purchase sale agreement signifies board approval for the purchase of the property, there are still several steps required before a sale is finalized. In closing, I would like to thank our students and families in our
103transition program for entrusting us with this process. Thank you for your partnership and your collaboration. I would also like to continue to thank True North staff for all of the years of supporting our students and their families with such joy, care and dedication. Securing the property is the first step in our new journey to support the vision of the program. Once fully secured, we will use the year to ensure that the space, our robust program curriculum, services and supports are ready to launch. Next slide. Thank you and I would like to ask if there are any questions. First question is one of the earlier slides, you talked about the work that went into looking at alternative sites and I know it was a quick comment about all of the work that went in. To underscore
104just the sheer amount of work of, you know, staying, looking, different sites, just the amount of work that went into getting to this site. I don't know how you could convey the amount of work that went in, but just the sheer amount of hours and hours of time that went into finding the right site. Well, I think some of this comes from, we had in person and virtual parent and caregiver meetings as well. They were also open to staff once the announcement was made and it was important to gather the feedback from those working directly with our students to know what their aspirations are. Sometimes families only know the programs that their students have been a part of, but there were a lot of people in the room who know about other programs, know what's
105possible. And so we took copious notes. It was really a listening session while we provided some information. The purpose of the meeting was to listen and learn and to partner. And so all the criteria that was laid out really came from best practices around any highly supportive, high functioning transition program, as well as the desires of our families and our students. And so following that criteria was really important. We partnered with agents to find sites that had even a quarter of the criteria and we visited over a dozen sites. Once we came across this site, it was different. Like when you know, you know, and it's interesting walking into older buildings that we knew we would have to like retrofit and engage in a lot of construction and work to make it what we wanted
106it to be. It felt totally different walking into a space that was actually designed with our students and the type of services, supports and instruction needed for the program. I mean, from every inch of the building, you know, scoffily designed for students in a transition program. And right now, the site is set up to support pre-K through transition age students with transition services running out of it, formally running out of it. So it just felt different. Additionally, when we think about the state of the building, while we still will go through all the careful inspections, we wanted a space that when you walk inside, you'll be excited to be there, that it feels good. The furniture is nice, the floors, like aesthetics really does matter in well-being and the sensory rooms, the office spaces, the
107recreational space, the outfitted apartment inside. Like there are some things that you just can't, like someone waved a wand and this space was there. We would have to spend a significant amount of district funds to create the spaces that are already in this location. So a lot of work went into it, but I feel like we found the spot. And kudos on the amount of work that went into it. That was just incredible. I actually almost said what kind of magical wand did you wave to create this space, but I didn't want to diminish the amount of work that I know you put into finding it. But I was just awestruck in seeing the building and seeing the level of care that I feel like our students would get in being in such a space.
108We must do this legally and we must do it by July 1st, 2027, and we must do it because it's the right thing to do. And I think that your staff, whether, you know, with security or IT or, you know, student services, everyone that has been involved in making sure that had done the due diligence to make sure this is the right space for our students. Thank you for that. And I think also approaching this in such a fiscally responsible way is also very appreciated. I think this is why we have a fund balance in order to when a situation comes up that we need to address that is outside of our strategic planning long term, we're able to move and do this. So thank you. Yeah, I'd say based on the work that's been
109done, the analysis, you know, this is a win from any possible dimension you can look at here. It's interesting that you started your comments tonight with going back to the, you know, the beginning, the history, right? How was the model, a point of pride for this community, the services that provided, this is like full circle because we're gonna be right back to that, right? This space, I think, again, is going to be a model for how this, you know, these services and this work gets done. And you talk about how when you walk into the space and the feeling you get, how important that is to the people that are using it every day, right? But I think that everybody should understand what a point of pride that's going to be for this community. Right.
110That we are able to do this in this place. Did you time that? And obviously, as was kind of alluded to, we as a board had the opportunity to go and visit the site during closed today. So thank you for also logistically making that happen. Any other questions or comments? All right. Well, I personally am looking forward to our next meeting and being able to bring this forward. Thank you. We will now proceed to action items. It is recommended the Board of Education approve the license and non-licensed staff recommendations for the 26-27 school year as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? I do want to say that there was a change in the recommendation from the last meeting to now.
111And that was connected to our multi-tiered system of support. We identified additional support that was needed. So you'll see the change in the FTE recommendation, point five. Thank you. Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote, please. Dr. Elliott-Shermer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Braza? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended the Board of Education approve a resolution for dismissal of a non-licensed support staff employee, Sunny Chalusen, as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote, please. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Shermer? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. The next item is the consent agenda. Items included in the consent agenda were
112provided to all Board members in advance and made publicly available as part of the meeting agenda. A Board member may pull any item for separate consideration. Does any Board member wish to pull an item off the consent agenda for separate consideration? May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Rick, you have the bills. Yes, I gave three bills for analysis, and all the material was available and interesting. I had a lot of questions about energy costs, which seems to be a good theme for this week. And they were all answered, and we do a really good competitive job of keeping our costs low. Great. Is there any other discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote, please. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye.
113Mr. Braza? Aye. Mr. Heidemann? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. There being no further business, may I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. The motion carries. This concludes business. Township High School District 113 Board of Education for this evening at 848. Thank you for your time and participation.