001Yeah. Article seven. Isn't that room and Newman can't see it. Sorry, the eyes that seven. Okay. With our kids 30 years now, but I'll post taxes to each other. So, yeah, I can. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I knew training Julie, so I wasn't sure what. That made sense when I got your tech. I'm going to say here. You can have. Are you good? I am reconvening into open session Township High School District one 13 regular board meeting. November 18th, 2025 at 7 p.m. The recording secretary will now call the role. Mr. Brunk. Here. Dr. Elliot Shimmer. Here. Mr. Heinemann. Here. Ms. Lupa. Here. Mr. Nader. Here. Mr. Baraza. Here. Ms. Monsivias. Here. Mr. Polanski. Here. Ms. Newman. Here. I would like everyone else who is present to identify themselves. Karen Ritter, Assistant
002Superintendent for Curriculum Instruction and Assessment. Karen Warner, Chief Communications Officer. Tanya Karner, Assistant Superintendent for Student Services. Jose Medina, Executive Director of Facility Management. Holly Mohanty, Assistant Superintendent for Finance. Holly Fleischer, Principal of Highland Park High School. Will Dwyer, Principal of Deerfield High School. Ron Casbaum, Chief Information Officer. Mira Ante, Executive Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Shayla Howland, Superintendent. May I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? So moved. Is there a second? It's been moved by Jaime and seconded by Jenny. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, we'll proceed to a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. The motion carries. Move on to board reports. The first is my presence report, which is very brief. I wanted to, from a housekeeping perspective, remind
003everyone that we will be having our IASB board retreat on the 22nd of January starting at 6 p.m. This is National Education Association American Education. That's really long. The NEA America's Education Week this week. And I thought that their quote on their website was very apropos for our district as well as for just the educational environments that we are in right now. American Education Week is a time to honor the people who work in public schools, including teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and administrative staff. It's also time for schools, families and communities to come together and support education. Several of our board members will be attending the IIII this coming Friday and Saturday with several of our District 113 leaders. We're looking forward to engaging and learning from other board members and school district leaders
004from across the state. And then finally, an update on our collective negotiations with the DEA. We had our third collective negotiations on November 4th. The Association and Administration discussed articles two, four and seven. And the next meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, November 19th. That concludes my presence report. I believe that we have an Education Committee report. Dr. Jody? So today we had our inaugural Education Committee. And so during this committee, we discussed the Illinois School Report Card. And we got to hear about the excellent work that's happening in both high schools. We learned about the indicators of success and the fact that ACT, for example, is one of the accountability assessments that we look at when we're tracking student growth. And we got to learn that some of the strengths of the district include that
00592.8% of our students are on track for our ninth grade. Sorry, for the ninth grade. I forgot the technical term. Thank you. I wrote it a little backwards. And scrolling down, we also reviewed that STAR assessments, for example, are one of the metrics that we use to track student growth over their four years. Then we had another report in which we reviewed the 70-30 requirement, and we explored different ways that the district can move toward compliance. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now we're moving on to a very fun part of our agenda, the recognition that we have tonight. We actually have two, I believe. Yes, and the first one is for all of you. I know, which is weird. I shouldn't have said it was fun. Next part, that's fun. November 15 was school
006board members' day, appreciation day, and so I would like to read a resolution. Whereas school board members are elected to sit and trust for their diverse communities and in that capacity are charged with meeting the community's expectations and aspirations for the public education of their children. And whereas school board members are entrusted with the guardianship and prudent expenditure of tax dollars, and they are responsible for maintaining and preserving the buildings, grounds, and other areas of the school district that the community has put in their trust. And whereas school board members are responsible for providing leadership that ensures a clear shared vision of public education for their schools, that sets high standards for the education of all students, requires the effective and efficient operation of their districts, and employs district staff to carry out the day-to-day
007duties of educating Township High School District 113 students. And whereas school board members adopt public policy to give voice to the leadership and employ a superintendent to administer board policy and are responsible for the regular monitoring of the district's performance and compliance with state policy. And whereas school board members selflessly volunteer countless hours to public service with no compensation. And whereas school districts face constant challenges and the strong, dedicated leadership provided by the Township High School District 113 Board of Education has allowed student success to flourish. And whereas employers are supportive of their employees who serve as school board members, generously lending support and time, employers give their employees the opportunity to better serve the needs of the school districts and communities they represent through sometimes tremendous sacrifice to the employer. And whereas decisions made
008by school board members directly impact the quality of life and safety in their communities, placing them as the front line of local democracy and governance. Therefore, be it resolved by Township High School District 113 that we proclaim November 15th, 2025 as School Board Members Day as a way to honor those citizens, our citizens, who devote their time and energy for the successful education of all of our children and future leaders. So to each of our board members, thank you for your service. Thank you for your guidance and thank you for your leadership. Now we get to have the fun. Yes. So the Deerfield High School Girls Tennis Team captured the 2025 IHSA Class 1A State Championship, earning a program best 36 points to finish atop the final standings. The Warriors outpaced runner-up Dunlap and third-place
009Lake Forest in a highly competitive field. Led by head coach Rich Kockel and assistant coaches Julia Klonsker, Lisa Christ, and Amy Young, the Warriors demonstrated exceptional depth, consistency, and team chemistry throughout the postseason. At the IHSA State Finals, Junior Carolyn Shee finished fifth in singles while Juniors Meyer Krasny and Jordan Cohen earned runner-up honors in doubles after an outstanding tournament run. Sophomores Sheer Pez and Anna Dickinson, did I say that incorrectly? Okay. And Anna Dickinson placed third in doubles and Senior Gayle Harvey advanced to the consolation finals, securing additional key team points that sealed the championship. The team's success is a reflection of their tireless work ethic, remarkable composure under pressure, and strong commitment to one another, a true embodiment of Warrior pride. So we invited our champions to our board meeting to honor you
010and to thank you for everything that you've done. Thank you for being a great representation of our district, yourselves, your families, and your coaches, and our athletic program, and we're very proud of you. Something a little awkward. I'm going to ask the team if that's okay, and the coaches to come up. We're going to take a joint picture. And I'll, would anyone from the board be willing to be in it? We can all join in the middle. I would also like to ask Nate Flannery, our Deerfield High School Athletic Director and the principal, Will Dwyer, to join the picture. I would also like to ask Nate Flannery, our Deerfield High School Athletic Director and the principal, Will Dwyer, to join the picture. Give me your top picture, okay? I know, right? I'm going to just
011keep going so we can move on. Next we'll move on to administration information reports, the superintendent's report, Dr. Holland. Yes, I have two items. Both are connected to our strategic plan. As a part of our strategic planning implementation efforts, we are further defining and finalizing the portrait of a District 113 student, a shared framework that defines the skills, competencies, and qualities we aim to develop in every learner. A voluntary group of District 113 students and staff from both high schools and our district have been working collaboratively to further define the traits and competencies associated with the student portrait. To bring this to life, to bring our vision to life, and to expand on our efforts, we are asking for stakeholder feedback. Tomorrow, a survey will be shared with stakeholders across the school community to respond
012to the working definitions of the competencies and traits for the student portrait. The survey is set up to welcome perspectives to help us identify the support that staff members, caregivers, and the district should provide to ensure every student can thrive. We are asking for all surveys to be completed by Wednesday, December 3rd. Just want to express and stress that the feedback that you provide is really essential. It ensures this framework reflects the authentic voice and multiple perspectives of our entire community. The results of this survey will be reviewed to make further adjustments and finalize the student portrait. Thank you for your time and insights in advance and your partnership in this important work. We are truly committed to developing a really strong student portrait and building a clear and actionable roadmap for the success of
013our students in District 113. I also want to provide an update on our strategic plan website, which now includes all of the board updates that have been shared throughout the year in our meetings. It also now includes information about the work underway with our portraits, specifically our student portraits in a whole house, all of the work, slide decks, and other information associated with the development of our portraits. And there's a placeholder there for our dashboard, which we plan to launch right after winter break. So hopefully you're hearing about the updates and our progress, but also you'll be able to track it and have access to all of our updates as well on our website. So this concludes my remarks. Fantastic. Moving on to FOIAs. Yes. The following FOIAs have been completed since our last meeting.
014And excellence and effort. Dr. Dwyer goes first. Thank you for breaking the tie. So it's been an incredible month at DHS. I don't want to go too deeply into our first topic because Ethan is going to cover it, but I do want to share that I am blown away by my first experience with School Chest. The passion, the energy, and generosity are all on full display, and I'm really excited to see how much money our school can raise for a really incredible cause. On Saturday, November 8th, I was able to travel to Peoria, Illinois to watch our boys and girls cross country teams perform at the state championship meet. Our girls ran first and in a very talented field. They finished seventh overall in the entire state of all 2A schools. It's the highest finish
015in the program's history. Our boys team ran second, ran next, and finished an incredible third in the race and took home the third place trophy, along with an all-state performance by senior Jamie Chandler, who is in ninth place overall. Incredible experience. So many fans, family members, and different DHS supporters, including a fan bus that was chaperoned by Mr. Farris, which was great. It was just a great testament to the heart. Last week, I was able to spend an entire day visiting classes in our science department. This is the fifth department that I've been able to spend a day immersed in. I have to say that I was amazed at the great learning experiences our students have in science. There were numerous hands-on lab experiments, incredible demonstrations, incredible demonstrations, and scientific phenomena. Throughout the day, I
016was very impressed with the level of precision and attention to detail that our instructors were able to elicit from all of our students. It was a great day that highlighted the talented staff we have in our science department and the engagement our students experience because of it. Also, it's safe to say that there is no other department where in one day I can see methane bubbles ignited and help solve a cold case murder all at the same time. I'm also really happy to report that last Friday, I feel like I officially became a true warrior. That's because on Friday, members of our staff, led by math teacher Derek Tiveron, organized an annual tradition at DHS called the Amazing Race. And this year's theme was the Wheel of Destiny. This is an incredible scavenger hunt that
017takes place on Friday evening and after school with 40 staff members competing and another 10 who volunteered to coordinate it. This event is an incredible team building opportunity and it allows staff to get to know one another in a friendly environment with some mild competition. Some might say some take it too far. But the clues, the challenges are all unique to the Deerfield community and they stretch the skills of everyone competing and there are trophies for first, second, and third place teams. I don't think it's important to share what place my team finished. But I do want to say I enjoyed every second of it. Can't wait to do it again next year. It was a great team building opportunity. And last, I want to take a moment and give a shout out to two
018really good principals in our community. Earlier this month, I got to have my regular meeting with Mark Schwarz and Rob Wegley, the principals of Caruso and Sheppard Middle Schools respectively. These regular meetings with them have been a great collaboration and we have consistently found ways to support each other and find areas of continued alignment and growth across our schools. And that concludes my report. Thank you so much. Principal Flesher. Thank you. Good evening. Today's report is really a testament to the strength of interdisciplinary work and collaboration to enhance our student experience. In FAM, which is our freshman advisory and mentoring class, our students have engaged in curriculum to build the six core wayfinder skills, self-awareness, empathy, adaptability, collaboration, agency, and purpose. Under the guidance of Genevieve Misfelt, Janet Salmon, Emma Forker, Brian Podell, Jodi Flom,
019and Alexis Enriquez. They recently completed the Build a Boat project, which was a cross-curricular experience that integrated academic learning with the development of these skills. Working in their crews, students designed and constructed cardboard boats that reflected their team's identity, drawing on symbolism, storytelling, and collaboration from English and social studies. Throughout the process, they practiced collaboration and adaptability as they revised designs again and again and navigated challenges and strengthened their sense of agency by making shared decisions about their boats. When students tested their boats in the HPHS pool, which I was happy to observe, they applied physics by measuring the displacement from a controlled force while their teammates cheered from the stands to see whether each creation would glide or sync with style. The pool trials have been a joyful highlight of the semester thus far
020filled with celebration, laughter, and encouragement as teams saw their hard work truly come to life. In reflecting on this experience, students shared that the project really helped them better understand their individual strengths and how they contribute to a team and how communication and persistence are essential in problem-solving. We're grateful to Apt for donating the appliance boxes that made construction possible, to physics teacher Brian Skane for his instructional partnership with the team, and to our colleagues in the pool and the PE department for their support of this project. Also this quarter, our English One Honor students led by Jennifer Lucchese, Brian Podell, Michelle Kuhn, Kevin Lacani, and Emma Harmon barked on Community Chrysalis, our home, a project, drawing inspiration from the butterfly in Encanto to symbolize transformation and renewal. The goal was for our freshmen to
021engage deeply with what home truly means, both individually and collectively by creating a tangible symbol of their hopes for the school that we affectionately call our house on Vine. Working across all 11 sections, students created mixed media canvas bricks that envision a school where everyone is happy, safe, challenged, and well, grounding their designs in the themes and case studies of home that they analyzed throughout the quarter with texts like Motherland, Gate A4, and some of Malcolm Gladwell's works. The following skills were central to the curriculum, learning to analyze texts and art by identifying and explaining what is significant, identifying literary devices, and inferring function to articulate a logical relationship between all of these. The resulting canvases were assembled into a beautiful casita art installation brought to life with many dedicated hours from the Highland Park
022High School Art Club under Miss Jessica Barron's and made possible by a very generous Highland Park High School PTO grant. The casita now stands as a physical representation of the community's dreams that allows for students to continuously add their thoughts to what it means to be part of this home through a QR code. The project culminated in this powerful community engagement exercise organized by our SEL instructional specialist, Genevieve Misfelt. And the gallery walks, which were walk and talk sessions, I was privileged to attend two of these as a stakeholder. And students led me on a tour of the school utilizing the analytical skills that they developed to unpack the meaning of existing murals and artwork and relate them to our community's giant values. Having been here for 23 years, I will say that I saw
023our walls in a way that was completely new to me. Deeply impressed and amazed by the freshmen and their depth of analysis, collaboration, and commitment to fostering a better version of Highland Park for everyone. They were truly weaving the web of connection between their art, the school's history, and the future that we hope to create together. Lastly, this is really from Dr. Dwyer and myself, we are thrilled to report on the outstanding representation of our schools at the recent North Suburban Math Council Fall Summit, which clearly highlighted our excellence in innovative academic offerings. At the summit, math department chairs Liz Waller and Jenny Novickus were proud to bring teachers Jonathan Hagberg, Derek Tiveron, and Deb Wilson to present a session on the groundbreaking work that is happening with our AP networking course. A presentation that
024proved to be a standout highlight of the event. The team presented a detailed overview of the AP networking course, sharing valuable insights on the successful launch of its first year, and crucial considerations for other districts interested in implementation. The session was highly interactive and fun, with the teachers engaging the audience by modeling a lesson using mini flashlights to demonstrate how data travels through pulses of light, earning rave reviews from attendees. Our teachers' willingness to share their experiences, including a candid discussion on what they would do differently if they started over, positions our district as a thought leader in new AP course development. Furthermore, Jonathan, Deb, and Derek generously offered to serve as a resource for other department chairs in area districts, which immediately led to follow-up questions from several attendees excited about our experiences. We
025extend our sincere gratitude to Jonathan, Derek, and Deb for their commitment, time, and professionalism in preparing and delivering this exceptional presentation, which clearly demonstrated the innovative spirit and high caliber of teaching within our schools. That concludes today's report. Thank you both very much. Yes, so as a follow-up to previous conversations in our finance and facilities committee, as well as our last board meeting, we will have a demonstrated provided by InSpec regarding how the purpose of our building envelope and how the data will be gathered and utilized. As a reminder, later on in our board agenda is the approval of an agreement with InSpec, but we previously discussed that they would come and give a brief demonstration. So thank you for being here. And if you can press the button on the base to turn it
026green. There you go. Thank you so much. Green light's good, I would imagine. Yes. I thought we had quite a crowd here for envelope consulting. It's only the people that can't leave. So sorry for you all. We're going to try to be mercifully short as we go through this, Waru. Where do I click this? Where do I point it? The PowerPoint or is it the PDF? The PowerPoint. Not just me. Hold on a second. Well, I can work through the first slide without it. My name's Pete Notleson. I work for InSpec Incorporated. This is Ed Soder. Ed's going to be doing most of the presentation tonight. InSpec Incorporated is a consulting architectural engineering company. Been in business since 1973 and we specialize essentially in building envelopes, pavements, outdoor athletic facilities. So stuff that's impacted by
027weather is pretty much what we're doing. We are not the typical architectural firm. We don't design buildings. We're not a typical civil engineering firm. We're not designing roads. We're not designing bridges. Eighty-five percent of our business is in the educational sector, K-12 and higher ed, and 90 plus percent of that is all existing facilities. So working on fixing, assessing, planning, budgeting for what our clients need to do with their facilities to help move things along and budget out into the future. We are an independent company. We're not tied into manufacturers. We're not selling products. We're not contractors. We don't do repairs. We don't do replacements. Our interest is you and moving your interest forward and providing you with independent information to make informed decisions about what to do with your facility and with your money.
028Leaving that alone, I'll turn it over to Ed. And Ed, what you'll do is say next slide and it will magically go to the next slide. So the great wizard behind the screen will drive it for you. Thank you. Thank you for having us. It was exciting to see the kids with the winning tennis team here, state champions. So that's great. As it says here, we have been in business since 1973. And I'll bring up a point is Pete, as young as he might look, has been here 40 years. So there's not a big turnover in our company. We have the offices in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee. And so, yeah, we've been around for a long time. Hopefully you'll generate some architects and engineers through the district so we can hire them in the future
029and bring them in to the exciting business of building envelope consulting. So yes, maybe what is a building envelope or enclosure? It's just simply a roof system, wall system, any kind of penetrations, windows, doors, and below grade water, below grade areas like basements and things like that. It's designed really to keep everything warm, dry, and safe. So that's the key words. If you're familiar with your Illinois Board of Education, Illinois Life Safety Programs, that's kind of their goal also is to keep things safe, dry, and warm. Next slide. So for this presentation, we're going to focus on the roofing. But there's other components to this, as I mentioned before. There's the walls, the waterproofing, the hardscape, and we're not going to do athletic fields at all. But for the purpose of an assessment, a focus
030assessment, we're looking at visible. We do visible assessments. We do creation of roof plans in our assessments so we can use it as a map to identify where the areas are. We do gather historical data through your archives, through manufacturer's records, to put together warranties. We do look at infrared scanning, which is kind of pretty cool technology in looking for hot spots or wet areas on roofs. We do destructive testing. If we can't see it from the outside, we're going to take it apart and look inside. One of the things that I think is important to the district is looking at the life cycle and service life of your buildings, components of roof walls and those things. And so we do kind of look at those, take a lot of data, put it together, and
031come up with some summaries on what we think is going to be, how long are they going to last. We do also take in that information and we put into a planning program. So I know that we do work in Deerfield. They ask for a 20-year plan. They go out 20 years. I think I read that somewhere in your documents. But typically it's a 5 and a 10 year. I got to sort through a little bit, sorry. But we do go out to 20 years. It takes a little bit more calculations with escalation costs and labor and materials over time, but that's something that can be done. And that's a useful tool for you also as you try to budget for the future. And finally, we have a system where we gather all that information.
032We got thousands of data points. And we say, okay, how are we going to manage that? We can put it on reports and give you a stack of paper that's that high. And you can pass it around and everybody is going to say, no, that's great. Instead what we did was we developed a building envelope management system where we call it BEMS. And I'll go into that in a little more detail here. But that applies to everything, all the other sublists. So we ask a lot of school districts, what are the fundamental questions that you have? What do we have? That's the first question. What do we have as far as the buildings? Number of buildings. How big are the roofs? How old are the roofs? What's the condition of the roofs? What do we
033have to do to maintain them? What do we have to do to replace them? When do we have to do it? And how much, that's probably the most important. How much is it going to cost? Because that's the limiting factor. Everything is easy, one through four. But when it comes down to the money and try to plan for the future and try to budget over a period of time, even as far out as 20 years, it's a Herculean task, really is. And it takes a lot of data to do that. Sorry about that. Next one. All right. As we do the design on the repairs, replacements, these are just standard breakouts that you'll see with the architectural services that we provide. And I'm sure your other architects have provided just the schematic design. These are
034the phases that take place. And it doesn't matter if it's walls or roofs or doors or whatever. Each of these components goes into the bidding package so things can be bid if we were going to provide that type of service for you on the design side. Next. So as I mentioned before, what do we have? We usually start with a drawing. And the best way to get a perspective of what's there is we use just a standard satellite photo. And we just look and see. We work with the owners. We try to find out where the buildings are. This happens to be Buffalo Grove High School in a neighboring district over on, I forget what road that is, I think it's on Lake Cook Road. But that's where we start. You can hit the next
035slide. Then what we do is we take that and we overlay it and we draw it in CAD and we create the roof plans. And these are each of the individual roof areas, like one through whatever it would be on there. And they're put on there and all the components that you see on the building from roof hatches to drains to rooftop heating units, they're all on there so we can kind of see where things tie into those. So now we have a nice drawing with everything there. And that's much better than just having an aerial. And it's much better than if you were to get just the drawings from the architects because you might have had ten architects over the past 30 years and you just have a piece of the pie. Now we
036have one contiguous roof plan with everything on it. It's very helpful. Next slide, please. So then we're going to go out and we're going to see what the condition is after we know what we have. We know how many buildings, we know how many roof areas, we know how many rooftop units. Then we're going to go ahead and if you look at all these little red spots on there, those are defects. Our technicians, engineers, architects will go out and they'll measure everything and then we'll actually go in and identify the types of defects that are on the roofs and we'll quantify those and then we put them into the computer, the VEMS system. So if you go to the next slide, but not before we take pictures of them. Each of them are by group.
037We'll take pictures. Each of those codes on there, you'll see item number 25MD2-1. That's actually a ridging situation that we see on the roof and that corresponds to the database. So you should be able to go into that. And from that, you can find all those little data points on the roofs. We'll show where the defects are. Next one. Now, knowing what we have, sometimes it's important to dig through the basement, go through documents, go through old files, contact manufacturers to find out what's on the roof. When it was put in, what size was it? I don't think anybody has that at their click of their mouse. But what we will do is we put that in here so you can see that any of those roof areas, what type of roof system, how big
038is it? When it was installed and the current age of the roof. So we can prioritize that. We can sort them out by age and then condition. Next. Probably the most important thing that's not used is existing warranties. You have a 20-year warranty. You think about how many people have been through the facilities over the past 20 years. He's got a system. They've got a system. They've got another system. And sometimes things get lost. Those warranties are valuable. You paid extra for them when you bought the roofs. We actually gather those together. And those are data points that we put into the database. They correspond to the roof areas if you see along the left thing under area. And we know which roofs are warranted. And we're able to utilize them whenever it leaks. If
039it leaks, then it will. Go to the next one. So from our surveys, on a simple basis, we will go ahead and make recommendations. And we give a budget cost on what it is. It's more elaborate than that. And I can show you in a different report. But we only have a short period of time here. Next one. But that would be for the whole school. How much it's going to cost. I think this is part of the plan to go ahead and look at capital planning for this district. Kipling. I think this is Deerfield next door. So you can see the size of the admin office here. How big it is in 2023 when they replaced it. How much did they spend? And that applies to each of the schools. Now in your district
040with the two big high schools and the admin center, it's going to be more complicated. You look at your roofs from a satellite. Somebody likes solar power. Who's that? Anybody? But I've seen, I have never seen more solar panels. Now we do work with Libertyville up there at Vernon Hills. And they're going in that direction. We're seeing it as a trend. And it's a cool idea. You do have a lot of things on your roof now. And so part of that, there is some abrasion that occurs. And they do take, if there's a leak, you got to move them aside. But we'll do all that. But your roofs are complicated. Very complicated. And they're big. But we're not scared. Next one. Now with the BEM system, we originally started this off. And Pete reminded me
041today as I was talking to him about this. He says, you know, we were pretty selfish when we designed this thing. We designed it for us. So all that information, people ask us, well, what's the service life of this? And how much are we going to have to pay for this? And what's the capital cost for this? So we had a company come in and design this BEM system. It was so good, we started tweaking it. And then we finally said, let's put a client side to it. So the client can log in. Jose can log into this and look at the building. He can pull up where the roof areas are, where the warranties are. He can do with a mobile app, either Android or Apple. He can click on that and find the
042roof plan and register a leak by room number. Or most likely just go back to the desk and hit it on the plan. So this is a neat system. That's the interface. And you can go to the next one. So I'm taking it to the end because everything in between gathering the data for each of those components goes into the system. And what we have here is the reporting format. And we can kick out all types of reports that are really great. How much you spent on leaks in the last five years by building. How many warranty claims were on a specific roof area. And it's a pretty remarkable output for the data. It's not just a spreadsheet, but it does export to Excel. All this information that I was just talking about. And you're
043probably here to remind me about that. All the information, all the data in BEMS is yours. That's important that we acknowledge that and tell you that. So we put it in there. It's handy for us to use, to manage, to get things. It's easier for your facility management team to get in there to use it. It's also, Jose could get in there and export anything he wants to at any time. Or he could say, you know what? We had a nice run, fellas, but we're going to use somebody else now. Fine, we'll get you all the data right out of there. It's your data. It's your data. It's public information. It's your ability center. So that data is all there. It's always yours. The program, the use of the program is free. Because really, it's
044a tool we develop. We're not software people. I don't make any claims that this is easy, fantastic software. But there's no cost to use it while you're working with us. The data is all yours. You can get it anytime. We're going to run out of time. Right, right. I'll get to it. So next slide there. Show an example. This is a leak summary that you have here. And so this is what would kick out if you did a leak report for October of 2025 in this district here. You can see that it's resolved. When the contractor goes in there and it's fixed, it gets resolved. If it's warranty, it'll send off for a warranty. And the warranty company, the manufacturer will come in and they'll do it under warranty. And then they'll record it here
045so we have a record of what was repaired in warranty. So this is a simple version of that. Next slide, please. And again, one of the things we look at, what is your asset value of everything? That's a big number. If you look at today's dollars to replace all the roofs on each of your schools and the admin building, you'll see it's very expensive. So we always like to put that in perspective. How much is it worth to replace versus how important is it to maintain it, repair it, and do it in an economical way? And so that really ties in. If you have $20 million in roofing, it's certainly worth spending $20,000 a year on repairs and doing it wisely. So that's something that this helps. You can go to the next one, too.
046And you kind of wonder what type of roofs. Again, you can go in and say, what's the majority of the roofs on the district? This is just a simple one. There's many of these charts that you can kick out. A lot of people like to look at them. It's easy at a glance, but it does all the leaks. There's more. We just wanted to keep it in a timely manner. And I think I'm past my 10 minutes, I think. So the next, I think, we're wrapped up. Oh, yeah. Here's how we fit in. This is an interesting one, too. I'll be brief. In this case here, we're going to direct contract to the district. We're not going through your architect. We do the condition assessments, centralized management through the BEM system, the leak tracking is
047part of that. We do that. And then, but alternative to that, like we are doing it, I'm going to use Deerfield as an example. We've been their consultant for a long time, doing all these things independent of the architect who is Archon, I think, is in there now. So then we work for the architect. We work and help them. Since we have so much of this information, they're not having to replicate it. They say, give us the details. What's the construction of this? What are the size? Give us the CAD drawings for Shepard. Sure, we got all that. We can give that to them. They can integrate in. It's less money for them to do it. And that's really important. And finally, if there's a major project going on, if we have all that information,
048we can help you. We'll be part of the team. We're doing that for 112 through White and Gilbane. We're part of that design team there. We're doing it in probably five or six other districts where we're actually part, we're the building envelope consultant and we provide them with that type of service. So I think that does it. And I'm over. Thank you very much. Yeah, that's it. Question. All right. Sure. Not just roofs, but walls and hardscapes. So this contract includes the walls, things like you talked about. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, we just gave an example for just rules. Yeah, I would be very much. So all that information for the walls, and there's another, I had another program, but I didn't realize you were going to put it up on here. We only had
049a limited space. We do wall elevations, and then the elevations are all marked where the defects are. They're tabulated in a spreadsheet. Anybody here that likes data compiling? Go ahead and you can prioritize by area, and then you can say, okay, here's what we've selected for the scope of the repairs for 2027. We're going to do these areas. These are the worst, and we're going to start with the worst and end with the best. And it's a nice way of doing it rather than everything all at once. Now a comment. I really like the idea of using specialist forms for these types of detail analysis. We have complicated buildings, not just in silver panels. It's the fact that we have a building from 1914 that has two foot thick brick walls. Yeah, it's not all
050advanced. You know, a building built by the students in 1935, literally. And then all the huge numbers of things that take place in these buildings, you know, patchwork here and there and everything. So I think this is just a really terrific way for us to approach it. Thank you. Well, I think we can help. That's what we do. We specialize. I didn't want to bore everybody with this, but we kind of think it's exciting. I'm sure these are like Susan, but it is important. And for the longevity of the building and for the long term safety. And it just it just works out really well. And we're really we're really going crazy these days, but we really appreciate you having us here tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Great. OK, moving on
051to the Illinois report card 2025. Yes. So our next presentations on the Illinois school report card or report card. Dr. Karen Ritter is going to provide the overview. She also presented this information and our education committee. So we're looking forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you, Dr. Hollins. Tonight's presentation provides an update of the 2425 Illinois report card, which is used to examine our district's state of achievement. We will use this information to inform our understanding of student learning, growth and proficiency, all of which guide our continuous improvement efforts. The overview covers the Every Student Succeed Act or better known as ESSA and the state's accountability system, which provides a foundation for measuring student success. We will then dive into our district and school level data on proficiency and growth indicators to pinpoint both strengths
052and areas needing improvements. The Every Student Succeed Act is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The goal of ESSA is to ensure a high quality, equitable education for every student. The act focuses on multiple indicators of success and public transparency. Each state, including Illinois, has created an accountability system that monitors school performance and student progress. Importantly, the mandate for supporting underperforming schools reinforces our district's commitment to provide targeted interventions for all students. ESSA mandates that schools must publicly report the performance of the school as a whole and student subgroups to ensure accountability and promote equity for all students. In Illinois, there are five possible summative designations that schools may receive, ranging from exemplary to intensive support. Currently in Illinois, 10% of schools are designated as exemplary. This equates to 62 of Illinois's
053619 public high schools that receive ratings. Most schools fall within the commendable designation, which is the same criteria as exemplary schools, but they are just not in the top 10%. The fact that most Illinois high schools, including ours, fall into the exemplary or commendable categories demonstrates a high overall standard of performance. The state's requirement that every student group must perform better than the lowest 5% of schools emphasizes the importance of our work to address persistent achievement gaps. It's important to note that the state is currently redesigning the annual summative designations. The proposed plan is to change the labels of the five designations to exemplary, commendable, approaching, developing, and comprehensive, as well as making proposed changes to some of the success criteria. Illinois is also considering using a different formula for defining exemplary schools instead of
054using the top 10%, where there would be a broader distribution of the designations. If the changes are approved by the U.S. Department of Education, these would be in place for next fall of 2026. Illinois's accountability system uses a comprehensive mix of academic indicators and school quality metrics, such as our high graduation and ninth grade on track rates, to measure student success. You can see that graduation rate carries the most weight in the calculation at 50%. Illinois high schools made a big shift last year in moving to the ACT from the SAT as the grade 11 accountability assessment. This year in September 2025, Illinois went through a rigorous redesign of the proficiency benchmarks based on real placement and success criteria from Illinois colleges and universities and released its recalibrated proficiency benchmarks for the ACT and pre-ACT
055to reflect a truer picture of student learning and readiness. This bar graph compares the previous misaligned performance levels to the new unified performance levels. The new right size proficiency benchmarks provide a more accurate and rigorous picture of student learning and college readiness, which is a positive step for data integrity. However, because of the shift to the ACT and the new benchmarks, we cannot accurately compare our 2025 proficiency rates to prior years. And this year establishes a new baseline for future growth tracking. What does it mean to be proficient? A proficiency benchmark is the score a student needs on the ACT to be considered on track for their grade level. Proficiency benchmarks help us identify students who may need additional support or acceleration to meet their grade level learning goals. The state's accountability system uses subgroups,
056which is a strength because not only do we need to show proficiency for our students as a whole, but it also ensures that the performance of historically underserved students is evaluated. If a subgroup is underperforming, the school is required to provide targeted support, ensuring equity for all students. This slide shows what subgroups we currently have at each school. For those subgroups that are not included, this means that the data was redacted due to low numbers. We will now transition to the district and school level report card data. This is a snapshot of our student demographic data that can be found on our district report card. District strengths include an excellent ninth grade on track rate of 98.2% and a graduation rate of 93%. Conversely, the district's chronic absenteeism rate is 22%, which continues to be
057a significant area that requires attention and support across all student groups. We will soon take a look at our English, math and science proficiency data by subgroup. But before we do, I want to explain why we are unable to compare this year's results to last year. Since the state adopted the new right size benchmarks using the new ACT assessment, we are unable to compare this data to the SAT. As a result, the 2025 proficiency rates set a new baseline where we will be able to compare proficiency rates with future years. This is our district proficiency data by subgroup for the three different curricular areas of English language arts, math and science. Over three fourths of our district 113 students demonstrated proficiency on the ACT in ELA, math and science, and many are growing faster than
058their peers across the state. This high overall proficiency rate is a major strength. However, it is essential that we disaggregate the overall success to identify specific achievement gaps within our subgroups. Since these proficiency rates set a new baseline, our focus will be on assembling this as year one data for future comparisons. As we saw, proficiency is one part of the picture. A new metric on the report card is focused on student growth. While proficiency is a snapshot of current achievement, such as an ACT score, growth is how much a student improved over time relative to their peers. This is an equitable indicator of student growth and progress because it reflects the progress a student makes while they are here with us. And it is more responsive to instructional shifts that we make in the classroom
059and interventions and additional supports that we offer. The next slide will show that many of our students are growing faster than average, which is a strength. But we will also see subgroups of students who need further support for accelerating their learning. The state average growth is 50 percent. Anything above 50 percent indicates that our students are growing faster than their peers in the same subgroup. This means that our teachers are using effective teaching practices and students are responding to the interventions and supports that we offer. Growth above 50 percent means student learning is accelerated, something that we must continue to foster. We see the success of our students growth internally. Now let's look outward and see how our district compares to our high performing neighboring districts, starting with a comparative analysis of ELA proficiency. As
060a high performing district, we surpass the state average. It's sometimes good to compare ourselves to other high school districts that may have similar student populations or when comparing socioeconomic factors. This is a comparative analysis of our peer districts. Listed here are Niles, Main Township, Evanston, Lake Zurich, District 128, Glenbrook, Lake Forest, Stevenson, and New Trier for proficiency in ELA. When compared to the state, we can say that we are excelling. When we look at our ELA proficiency compared to our peers, we are just below the average of our peer districts. Benchmarking helps us foster a culture of continuous improvement to close gaps in literacy. Next, we will compare math proficiency where our results show a stronger standing. In math, our district outperforms the peer average with 75 percent of our students reaching proficiency. Finally, in
061science, again, our district at 79.3 percent proficiency surpasses the peer district average. So what can we learn from this? Our students are doing amazing, but like every district, we still have room to grow. This is why we engage in a continuous improvement cycle. We don't have to do a total reset, but there is improvement work that we can still engage in to improve student outcomes for all students. Now we will look at the school's report cards, starting with Deerfield's ELA math and science proficiency data. DHS demonstrates exceptional proficiency with 82.6 percent of its students at the proficient or above proficient level in ELA. 82.9 percent of Deerfield students are proficient or above in math. Again, very high for our district and across the state and peer districts. And in science, 86 percent are proficient or
062above. Very high proficiency scores for DHS. So Deerfield has received the exemplary designation and lands within the top 10 percent of high schools across Illinois under the current state formula. The schoolhouse graphic shows the scores for each of the student success indicators, with Deerfield receiving full scores for ELA math and science proficiency and high marks for ninth grade on track and the climate survey. You can notice that DHS has a box missing, and that is the English learner progress to proficiency indicator. Because Deerfield's EL population is low, the data was redacted. And as we saw earlier on the subgroup slide, without a large enough EL population, they do not earn an indicator score. And their score distribution reflects that at the bottom of the schoolhouse with increased weights for the other indicators. Based on the
063report card success indicators, an opportunity for growth for DHS is the chronic absenteeism indicator, for which they received a score of 64.7 out of 100. Another area of growth is the proficiency rates for students with IEPs. In the next few slides, I will show you disaggregated data to show how student subgroups performed last year, and you'll see the subgroups of students with IEPs and other subgroup performance. Chronic absenteeism and proficiency rates are part of Deerfield's school improvement plan, which Dr. Dwyer presented to the board in September, so they are already working toward these opportunities for growth. While Deerfield's overall student proficiency rates are exceptional, it is essential for us to disaggregate this data to see the performance of each of our subgroups. As a district committed to equity, we must identify and address the specific
064achievement gaps that persist for certain groups, particularly for our students with IEPs at DHS. If we take a closer look at the performance of our students with IEPs, we see that only 36.3% reached ELA proficiency. This gap highlights a critical need for increased targeted support to help our students reach their full potential. Similarly, in math, we see high proficiency levels of 82.9% overall for students, but when disaggregated for students with IEPs, the proficiency rate is 35.9%. A major positive is that students with IEPs at Deerfield are demonstrating more growth than the state average in both ELA and math. This growth indicates that our current instructional practices and intervention strategies are working, and at the same time, we need to intensify them to further increase proficiency. Deerfield has made progress in decreasing chronic absenteeism overall. However,
065the rates for students with IEPs and students in financial need have not decreased significantly. Reducing absenteeism in these groups is a key focus to improving overall student outcomes. Overall, for Deerfield, the majority of students are excelling. We need to continue to monitor our subgroup populations to ensure that they are growing at comparable rates as all students. Now we will transition to Highland Park's report card, looking at the same data points. We will start with the overall proficiency ratings of ELA, math, and science, look at their school report card indicators, and then take a deeper dive into the subgroup data. We'll start with the proficiency ratings for ELA, math, and science. At Highland Park, the overall ELA proficiency is 68%. The math proficiency is 67.5% for Highland Park, and science is 72.9%. This puts Highland Park
066High School in the summative designation of commendable. And remember, the only difference between commendable and exemplary is that exemplary schools fall within the top 10% of schools under the current model. We just saw Highland Park's proficiency scores for ELA, math, and science, and they received full points on the indicators of student success in these categories. Highland Park also received high indicator scores for their graduation rate, ninth grade on track, and the five essentials survey. As you recall, Deerfield's report card did not report the EL progress to proficiency indicator due to a low population. Highland Park has all eight indicators represented since Highland Park has a significant number of ELs and the EL program to proficiency indicators included. The EL progress to proficiency indicator score is calculated from the progress made year to year on the
067access test, which all of our ELs take. There are some opportunities for growth for Highland Park with the chronic absenteeism rate and increasing support to our EL students. This slide demonstrates the importance of disaggregating data rather than looking at the overall proficiency. When we look at the data by subgroup, we see lower proficiency rates with some of our most vulnerable populations. We have some significant gaps that continue to persist for our ELs and students with IEPs. Just as I disaggregated the subgroup of students with IEPs for DHS, Highland Park has set school improvement goals around improving student outcomes for our EL students. While 68% of all students met proficiency benchmarks, 8.8% of ELs met benchmarks. Our EL students are learning English and they take the ACT. A high proficiency rating for our population of ELs
068is not something that we would expect to see. In math, 67.5% of students met benchmarks while 4.4% of ELs are proficient. Looking at growth, however, our ELs are growing at average or higher than average rates in math and on par with the state for ELA. This is the more important indicator for us to focus on as it shows us how our students grow while we have them here. When we look at chronic absenteeism at HP, we see that they have done a lot of work to decrease chronic absenteeism since 2023 with every subgroup population decreasing. And there is an opportunity to continue to increase efforts with lowering rates of chronic absenteeism, including with our EL population. Some key takeaways that we can see from this data. Overall, our schools demonstrate high student proficiency and growth
069across ELA, math and science. While we have gaps between subgroups in proficiency levels, our students are growing at faster rates than average from their starting point. Achievement gaps at our schools persist for students with IEPs and for our ELs. Both schools have chronic absenteeism as an area for continued improvement and focus, and growth data can be used to identify areas for improvement and direct resources towards specific subjects, such as providing more targeted literacy support. Our next steps include reviewing the Illinois report card with our school's leadership teams and identifying students who may benefit from additional support prior to the spring ACT. Continue to review our academic program to ensure that it is attentive to the needs of all of our learners. Continue to clarify the importance of student attendance to families, students and staff. Increase
070targeted support for ELs and students with IEPs. Continue targeted professional learning for staff and effective co-teaching differentiation strategies and English learner supports. Continue to strengthen Tier 1 instruction for all staff and set growth goals for subgroups of students for future years. Thank you. Thank you. A lot of information. Questions? Comments? I have a quick question about redacted information. Even though the information is redacted from the report, are you still able to track it and pack against year by year? We can check it individually by students, but it would require us to calculate it, not as a group. With respect to growth year to year, what are we hoping for? Some of that depends on where we're starting relative to others, right? So for us, what is the measure that we are going for? With the
071average being 50% that represents one year of growth, anything above 50% is really good. 60% or more is excellence. So you're really growing students many months more than one year of growth. That means that we're doing additional work and interventions to provide the students with the growth that they need. Many students that are behind a year or two in their grade levels, if we can accelerate their growth to make that increase more than a year, they'll be more on track with their grade level. And what are we measuring with growth? Because you said 2025 is a new baseline. We still have growth figures. So we do that internally with our STAR assessments, which we give three times a year that we're able to more accurately track growth throughout the school year. But with our growth
072measure from the ACT, they're really comparing our students across all of their peers across the state. So if our students are demonstrating more than one year's worth of growth, it'll show a higher percent than 50. So we can use different data points to track that. In your report, you had mentioned that students with IEPs are demonstrating growth. To what have you attributed that growth? And in what ways are you tracking what's doing well so we can continue to replicate that? That is something that we're digging into right now with our PLCs, our professional learning communities, who our special ed teachers are in PLCs with our regular teachers of those subject areas. And they're sharing best practices. They're sharing co-teaching techniques. And it's hard to pinpoint to one thing, but as we track that internal growth
073from assessment to assessment, we'll be able to see what exactly the factors are that are contributing to that. So it's exciting work. It really is. Any other questions? Great. Thank you very much. Okay, we are moving on to school reports. My next favorite part of the agenda. Mr. Polanski, will you go first, please? Good evening, everyone. It's been an exciting month and we have lots of good things to report. First off, as Dr. Dwyer mentioned, we had our annual school chess kickoff on November 4th. We announced our partnership with the Halley 225 Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes living life the Halley way. After the passing of Halley Grossman, a Deerfield alum, her parents started Halley 225, which works to provide medical grants and academic scholarships to those in need. Deerfield students, staff, and families
074have made it their mission to raise awareness and funds for the Halley 225 organization through different events and fundraisers. As of today, we have raised, I think, like thirty two something thousand dollars. So if you want to contribute and help us raise enough money to duct tape Dr. Dwyer to the wall, which I think we need thirty five thousand for, you can go. You can go to the school chess dot org website for more information and any donation is much appreciated. Or not by who? The more the merrier, just for Dr. Dwyer's sake. Another exciting event is our stunts performance, which is a student organized variety show, which is on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week. There is a mix of music, comedy, dance and much more. Our students have been working extremely hard
075over the past few weeks and we would love for you guys to come out and support them. And then a week from today, the 25th is our Grand Warriors Day, where family members of seniors can come to high school again and relive all of their favorite classes. So like AP Physics or AP Calculus, those are some good ones. AP Spanish, people have said is also really great. And then in our sports department, fall sports are up and running, including boys volleyball, softball, water polo, wrestling and basketball. And as Dr. Dwyer mentioned, our girls cross country team finished seventh at state and our boys placed third. And then the Friday before that big meet, we had our state send off to celebrate and send our luck to these great teams. We had the marching band there.
076It was great. There was lots of students and staff cheering on our cross country team. Overall, it's been a great month and we are looking forward to finishing off the semester. I'm looking forward to finishing off the semester. Great. Thank you very much. Ms. Monsivais. Good evening, everyone. First, we're really excited for Grand Giants Day for the class of 2026. On Tuesday, November 25th, seniors will get to bring a grand giant or a VIP older adult to spend the day with them. It's always a really special event that brings families into our school community and students are really looking forward to it. We're also kicking off one of our each with the girls basketball starting already. While our boys and girls wrestling, boys basketball, girls gymnastics and boys swimming begin on November 24th. Some quick
077highlights from sports are that we had our send off for state participants. We had Henry Gamson finish 84th at the IHSA Boys Cross Country State Finals with the personal best or personal record. Then we had the girls swimming hosted IHSA sectionals where Madden Cohen finished 10th in diving. Brooke and Apple both qualified for the IHSA State Finals in the breaststroke where we also celebrated them on Friday. The slides. I wondered when I thought go down. I was concerned that your video might not come up. Yeah. And presentation as well. Maybe she can go. I can start by going like this. My name is Tamara Jenkins and I am the director of arts festivals for district 113. And we now have focus on the arts and arts alive. I was going to start with hopefully it'll
078come up in a second with a video that was made by Bitter Jester. Bitter Jester is a company that is founded and run by two Highland Park High School graduates. And they just want a few more Emmys. I think they're up to 13 Emmys. And they have been working with us for the past few focus cycles helping us solve the IT and AV conundrums of that huge festival. Everything happening at the same time. And they also have been capturing footage of all the events and creating wonderful videos, which when Ron's able to, we will watch. But for now, I'll just move ahead and talk a little bit about the successes that we had with focus on the arts 2025. It took place April 1st through the 4th of 2025. And we were able to make
079great gains in our programming by improving a workshop engagement. We moved from having a lot of lecture type. Why don't you turn off the microphone? Yes. This is just a Wednesday in high school and it's awesome. I know this is cliche, but it brings us together because this is just so unique. I got to learn about their culture, where it came from. It pushed me outside of my comfort zone to try stuff I've never done before. This is like a once or twice in a lifetime opportunity. You're not going to get this anywhere else. As someone that moved around a lot, you're not getting this anywhere else. Obviously, it encourages us to express art and feel the art and enjoy the art. But it's also a life lesson for everyone. It made me feel alive
080and happy in a way that nothing else really does. That was such a life-changing experience. Focus is amazing. Not everyone understands life the same way. I think it's important because not only are you learning more about yourself, you're learning other people's stories. You're sharing that with other people and that's a beautiful thing. No? Okay, great. Okay, so we're moving on. So Ron can control that? You can just keep going with your presentation. Pardon? You should just keep going with your presentation. Okay, so we are talking now about the successes that we had with Focus last time, which included, based on student feedback, we had more hands-on workshops than ever before. And a really wonderful, engaging opening night, which gave a lot of opportunities for students to perform on stage with professional artists. I think a
081lot of you were at that opening night. It was a very special event. We also rebranded, have a new website, and we've restructured the volunteer collateral, as well as all the procedures and processes for the volunteers. We have over 250 volunteers each Focus cycle. We've also restructured the 501C3 board from an advisory board to a working board, which is now providing active fiscal oversight and governance. And we have reestablished relationships with Ravinia Writers Theater, the Art Center, and Looking Glass Theater, and improved on the evaluations process, which resulted in a great amount of actionable feedback and data from the students, which will guide us moving forward. Our goals for 2026, what we're working on this year, consider the off year for Focus, better collaboration and alignment between the school administration and the Focus team for
082messaging, engagement, and attendance. We're looking to find more ways to highlight the student voice in the planning process and to redesign the student involvement with the volunteer committees based on putting together student focus groups in collaboration with the school administration. On the back end, we're creating a strategic plan that aligns with the District 113 strategic plan, and we're establishing new fundraising and marketing plans to meet current challenges with giving attendance and volunteering, which have been ongoing since COVID. We're activating a Focus task force for high level community outreach and fundraising within the community, establishing a working partnership with the city as part of the new Art City designation initiative that's happening in Harlem Park. And we're planning off year events, which will be open to the public, in order to reestablish Focus as a premier
083art offering and educational experience in Highland Park. Moving on now to Arts Alive, we have an impact statement, which I will read to you, which now aligns with the District strategic plan. Arts Alive at Deerfield High School seeks to provide opportunities for all Deerfield High School students to increase exposure to different cultures and ethnicities and diverse art forms to increase global citizenship and cultural competence. We seek to provide fine arts students different perspectives on art making and creative thinking through connections with a diverse pool of professional art makers, while demonstrating examples of successful careers in the art sector. And we seek to increase the connection between Deerfield High School and our families and the community through interactive art making, allowing for adult learning alongside student learning. This year, the week of January 21st through the
08423rd, 2026, we will be having our fine arts workshops. We will be launching that week and ongoing throughout the semester. And those are for the fine arts students that are in classes. We'll have artists in the classrooms in art residencies and providing workshops and performances as requested and in collaboration with the fine arts staff. We also will be developing activities for the entire student body during lunch periods, which will include a hands-on art making art installation led by a professional artist around a theme that we're now sourcing through feedback with students and the school team. And we will be holding two assemblies so that every student at Deerfield High School will be able to experience the highest caliber music, dance, theater, unique cultures. And that looks to be happening probably in April this year. We're
085still waiting on the finalized date. And then finally, we will be holding our Saturday Art Expo, our one-of-a-kind family-friendly community event, which has been lauded for its robust offerings of diverse hands-on art making and pop-up performances for all ages. That's going to happen Saturday, April 25th from 1130 to 2 in the cafeteria area at Deerfield High School. And we'll be open to the public. This event was very, very successful during our launch year, and we're excited to continue to expand on that. And we have a lot of very excited volunteers who are coming back to work with us to share their experience with that event in 2024. Right now, we're recruiting our volunteers. I'm doing interviews with those volunteers. And thank you very much. It was a pleasure to share the exciting opportunities that we
086are able to offer based on your support for these art initiatives, which I believe are extremely important in today's Fractured Society, offering opportunities for students to be exposed to so many different things and to create community, as well as to become creative thinkers and are innovators of the future. So thank you for your ongoing support for the arts festivals at District 113. Anybody have any questions? All right, thank you. Resource management updates. Thank you. In the board packet, I put a memo that includes an executive summary of some of our changes to our bookstore management, as well as some information just regarding the financial changes. In short, we partnered for several years with Beck's Bookstore under an agreement where they primarily managed our book, our instructional material, our instructional resources, as well as our Chromebook
087management. We were notified by Beck's that they were being acquired by a different company, as you care, and that that transition would happen fairly quickly and that transition happened November 1st. While we did give some consideration to as you care, there have been mounting concerns over the years regarding the management of our bookstore by building administrators, families, and students, as well as our staff members, who at times were struggling to receive resources in a timely manner to properly support teaching and learning. Rather than ignore that problem and shift to a light company, we quickly developed a plan to bring our bookstore operations in-house, which was received very positively by our staff. They applaud it. That's the significance of how the issues had mounted over time. This team, cabinet members, have quickly mobilized, as well as
088our building administrators, as well as other staff members, to put a plan in motion that's in full motion right now. We have created positions, shifting our bursars to being over the bookstores, so we're reallocating positions and boosting up some of that work. We will have an assistant in our bookstores, as well, to help with the Chromebook management. All in all, we've created a financial model that actually saves the district money, while is very attentive to the needs of our district. Just to be clear, in terms of dissolving the agreement that previously stood, we did have legal review that, just to make sure we were good standing, that we had access to all of the information we needed to fully take over this operation, and things are currently underway. I wanted to make sure that we
089publicly announced this. I know that our staff's aware, know that there's a communication timeline to make sure all of our families are aware, but I wanted to bring this to the board, just to name that we've transitioned. In some ways, it's been a blessing in disguise to have this shift, and it's unfortunate that these were the circumstances, but I believe that this was the right decision either way to bring this operation back in house. The bookstore and its management will be under our assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction assessment, will be fully supported by our assistant principals at each of the high schools, and I actually think this is a positive that this change happened. The financial impact is listed. We're projecting annual savings for our district. While that's not the main reason for doing this,
090that's always a plus as well. Just wanted to see if there were any questions. These financial scenarios, these are options that are being explored? So yes, well, we explored the options, and we are moving to a rental model. In the memo, the financial impact is actually related to a rental model with a fee of $250. I do want to mention that that fee encompasses all of the books, e-books, as well as novels. One of the things that this is also pushing us to do is to re-examine all of our fees as a district, which is a source of frustration for many of our families. In addition to book fees and our technology fee, there are course fees that need to be better managed by our district and brought under one umbrella to be reviewed and
091for us to determine if there needs to just be a blanket fee or not. So fee management, we've been looking at how random families and how much they're paying is a significant expense, and we're putting some protocols and parameters around issuing course fees. Right now, that has been very loose. And so that's something that we will eventually bring back to the board to add on to this conversation. But the first step was managing the bookstore and some of the instructional resources that we are aware of, as well as the technology fee. And we recognize that I did not want to ignore that there's a whole other layer of fees that we need to review and come back to the board with a proposal around as well. I have a question about the rental model. So
092you mentioned this includes books, e-books, novels, textbooks. So this would include basically everything that the students have to acquire throughout the school year would be rented, not purchased? Correct. So what if a student... The team can chime in as well. I only mentioned the thing about this. In many cases, students like to mark up novels as they read them, right, underline tick-toes and stuff like that. So would a student not be able to do that? So the model is for them, they get the books, but that's not something they hand back in. So some call it expendable novels or disposable workbooks and things like that. Those are things that aren't rented. So the textbooks are going to be rented? The textbooks are rented. But the $250 fee will encompass both books that are being kept
093as well as... Yes. I'll include the e-book code as well, because that's per student. So you don't return that back, right? So that's just a use for that year for that student also. I know this has been an ongoing issue for a long time, in the current bookstore situation. I know I've had people ask me, like, why can't I just buy books on Amazon if I know it's cheaper than to get it through the school bookstore? But the idea of this is that... I guess I'm wondering... There are situations in which you use the same textbook for four or five more years, even more than that. I think we have one class that we've been using the same textbook for 20 years. But there are other situations in which things change frequently year after year,
094right? Is this like the rental model like this? Are you guys thinking about how that would apply to different situations? And I just want to put it in a position where we're setting a fee that's flat like this, and the cost model made in terms of what we're having to purchase for the district, that the fee may either over underestimate how much it's actually costing us from one year to the next to paying on other changes that we make in terms of curriculum, in terms of textbook selection, things like that. So the team did consider that. And one of the things is we are constantly at this point reviewing our textbooks, e-books, and the resources. A lot of we do have some courses that are still using or have historically used textbooks that are out
095of print and have relied on packets and copies, which also limits access to students. It limits updated versions, access to the resources that now supportive learning resources that now come with e-books and hardcover books. And so we've been updating that as our curriculum is mapped and aligned, the instructional resources have to align as well. We've been considering the cost of some of the higher price books as well, AP books, and other books that our courses are using. We feel like the $250 fee is a fair fee that will allow us to have a level of consistency for upcoming years. We're not just thinking about the here and now. Okay. When we get to the point, I know basically from what I can see, you said we're going to present a plan during the 26, 27th
096school year. I'd love to see when we get to that point, and I'm sure we're far away from that, like what the economics of this is. You know what I mean? Like what the underlying costs associated with this, and it's going to vary year by year to some extent, but like do some kind of financial projections, both the underlying costs are going to be versus how much revenue we're going to get from the fee structure. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to add this. Once we have that model in place, we'll start getting the data. We'll start doing the bookstore profit and loss that we used to do a long time ago. And there are some remaining inventory that were in discussion with BEX. So there might be some surplus because we're going to
097have to get these e-codes and books on a discount. But once we start getting into that group every year, we'll have proper profit and loss to see what we're collecting versus what we're spending. And we've also factored in cost of buying the books back. Also, one thing to note is that like seven, eight years ago, we used to have 70, 80 percent textbooks and 20 percent e-books, but now it's the other way where 70 percent of our materials are e-books and 30 percent textbooks. I will say, I think in general, there's been there's a lot of concerns with that that I've heard that there's in many areas. I think there's a shift back to print stuff and I've heard some teachers say that. So let's I just want to be careful that like absolutely I
098don't want to be a post position. We're going to tell everybody it's going to be 250 and then we do curriculum evaluations and change things and everything else. It's like, wait a second. We need it needs to be a lot more than that. You know, so I just like what I hear you saying, too, is ideally we find a fee that bribes the way. Yes, you know, is not constantly changing for the end user that we're commenting that. Absolutely. And I think and I think I like the fact that you're and I like the fact that we're giving ourselves time on this. We're not trying to come up with a plan tomorrow. Like, you know, 26, 27 school year seems appropriate considering there's a lot of diligence that has to be done here. So a
099lot of assumptions as well, because, you know, what's right. Exactly. Yeah. And the overall larger picture that you are looking at in regards to the course fees and the book fees and the activity fees and all the fees. All the fees. This parent has paid a lot of those fees. Yeah. OK, great. All right. Moving on to HVAC. I believe it's the next item. Yes, we presented a budgetary numbers for both construction and mechanical work in the August 26 board meeting. We have just completed the bidding process for just the mechanical work and now bringing these items up for discussion in Deerfield. In Deerfield, we have as far as the scope of work, we're looking to a replacement of the chiller plant rooftop unit and one replacement. And the total cost for that is around
100one point five million dollars for Highland Park High School. We're looking at the auditorium air handler unit refurbishment rooftop unit a one and a two replacement and a dance studio air handler unit replacement with a total cost around around seven hundred eighty thousand dollars. And also a owners directed allowance around forty thousand, which is a total project costs around two point five million dollars. We budgeted around two point five million dollars for this mechanical and the numbers just came in right on budget. As far as the funding source, we're looking at one point two million dollars in HLS funds and one point three million in capital funds. And again, this is just an item for discussion, but we're looking for approval for the next board meeting. Is there any questions with regard to the funding
101sources? You're going to submit all of this. You're anticipating this is how it's going to shake out. Was any of this in the amendments that we sent them originally? Correct. On the original amendments, we're looking at the on what we have submitted already. We're looking at the one point one million dollars that have been already submitted that we already know that we're getting. Correct. Yeah, we're going to try it. And then again, we're going to submit everything, but I don't want to over promise and under deliver. So I'm just stating what we have currently. Question on this. So we're doing significant work at both high schools. My understanding is in the past, we tend to do work at one high school. The high school does not do in summer school and then switch at the
102following year. Is this more split across the two schools in terms of work than we usually do? And how is that going to affect summer programming? Yeah, for as far as the deer field, this is more of a must need items as far as what we're looking at with much needed replacements. So it's mostly, you know, we need to replace them now. But we're still planning to run summer school at? Yeah, correct. At deer field next year? Yeah. While doing this? Okay. Are we concerned at all about impact on the learning environment while this work's going on? No, sir. Okay. There's work that still occurs at the other school that has the scope. Yeah. And you manage that scope because it is the summer school. Right. And these kinds of things, maybe the chiller, you
103know, that might take a while, but you know, it's hard to use. Yeah, you're not out of service for protracted periods of time for that kind of work. Is that a fair statement? Yes, that's a fair statement. But as far as the chillers, it's nothing we're going to touch this summer as well. That's something that we're going to implement probably after, you know, after we kind of shut the chillers down. We'll move forward with replacement as far as that. I think it's through H. I didn't know if the name was H. So thank you. So I'll just, if it's okay, just we have viewing part of our board policy states that agreements and this will probably lead to a larger discussion about thresholds. Our policy does state that agreements must come to the board for
104approval. We've had several companies that we've had partnerships for many years with. And when trying to with new leadership and trying to understand these agreements, we weren't able to find them when they were approved by the board. And so that took us down a rabbit hole to to gather as much information to look at all of our agreements and to at least make sure until we have some additional conversations with the board to make sure that those agreements, although late, are coming to the board for clarity, transparency and agreement. Of course, with all of our contractual services, we are considering the scope of our needs, whether we will continue to partner in the future or not. But not having these agreements in place right now would change the services that our students receive. And we
105need to take a more thoughtful approach rather than stopping everything right now. We're bringing these agreements to the board for approval with the expectation that I have with my team and with myself that we'll review these agreements to determine the scope of needs, not only now, but in the future. And determine what partnerships will remain in the future and which ones maybe we no longer need because we've built enough internal capacity, which is a part of our discussion. So while it seems like it is a lot of there are a lot of agreements, that's the reason why these are all coming to the board at this time. We're level setting as a part of this so that we are starting at square one. And embedded in each of these agreements, there's information about the scope
106of the costs. In working with Dr. Karner, we've ensured that these have been budgeted for. And so they're not on top of our current budget. They're actually built in as they have been in the past. And so some of them are covered from our district funds and some are covered through grants. And so I just wanted to name that as well. Is it okay then if we take any questions for C through H? Yes. Are there any questions? I'm sorry, I didn't write it down. I was interested that I thought one of these providers, the contract was with one of our specific high schools. I think it was with Highland Park High School and all the other contracts were to Township 113. Maybe I read it incorrectly and I did not write down which one
107it was. And me saying that is not ringing a bell with anyone. It may say Highland Park, but it's for the district. At the Township level, okay. Questions? All right. Thank you for doing this work and for bringing us to the same place. All right. We are now moving on to action items. It is recommended that the Board of Education rescind District 113's intent to withdraw from True North Educational Co-op 804 as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. May I have a second? Second. Is there any discussion? We've discussed this multiple times. We've discussed this. I do just want to mention that tomorrow we have Jenny and I are attending True North Leadership Council, in which we will take the results of this vote back to the Leadership Council
108to support their other districts are also bringing their district stance back to the meeting tomorrow to inform the vote that the Leadership Council will make. Okay. Sorry. Just before we vote, nothing has changed from other districts since the last time we talked about this. We still feel confident this is the way that this is all going. Yes. Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote, please. Dr. Elliott Schrumer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupo? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the new course proposals for the 2026-27 school year as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. May I have a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a
109roll call vote, please. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupo? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Dr. Elliott Schrumer? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Thank you for the demo today. Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote, please. Ms. Lupo? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Dr. Elliott Schrumer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the new course proposals for the 2026-27 school year as presented. Ms. Newman? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education authorize the law firm Fransic PC to represent Township High School District 113 property tax assessment appeals filed with the
110Lake County Board of Review and the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board. 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. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Dr. Barraza? Aye. Dr. Barraza? Aye. Dr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Dr. Barraza? Mr. Barraza? Aye. Ms. Barraza? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the fiscal year 2026 school bus fleet replacement plan as presented. May I have a motion to approve this recommendation? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion, a roll call vote, please. Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye.
111Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended the Board of Education approve its intent to levy for the tax year 2025 a total aggregate of $117,505,216 exclusive of bond and interests. B, $128,868,301 with bond and interest costs. And C, authorize the publication of a notice in compliance with the Truth in Taxation Act for a public hearing on the 2025 tax levy to be scheduled for Tuesday December 9th 2025 at Township High School District 113 1040 Park Avenue West Highland Park Illinois 60035 may have a motion to approve this recommendation. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please. Mr. Brunk? Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is
112recommended the Board of Education approve the exceptional learners collaborative agreement as presented. May have a motion to approve this recommendation. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended the Board of Education approve the GL Speech Associates Agreement as presented. May have a motion to approve this recommendation. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended the Board of Education approve
113the Maxim Health Care Services Agreement as presented. May have a motion to approve this recommendation. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It's recommended the Board of Education approve the Neuro Educational Specialist Letter of Understanding for Speech and Language Evaluations as presented. May have a motion to approve this recommendation. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended the Board of Education
114approve the Neuro Educational Specialist Letter of Understanding for Psychological Evaluations as presented. May have a motion to approve this recommendation. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? Hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended the Board of Education approve the relay agreement as presented. May have a motion to approve this recommendation. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve a resolution
115for dismissal of educational support staff employee Chase Joseph as presented. May have a motion to approve this recommendation. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. The next item on the consent is the consent agenda. Items included in the consent agenda were provided to all board members in advance and made publicly available as part of the meeting agenda. 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 have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. So moved. Is there a second?
116Second. And I believe you have the bills. I have the bills. Thank you Ellie for providing the backup for the questions that I had when answering questions I had about the bills. Thank you. Much appreciated. Is there any discussion? Hearing no further discussion a roll call vote please. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Brunk? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. The motion carries. There being no further business may have a motion to adjourn the meeting. So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. The motion carries. This concludes the business of Township High School District 113 Board of Education for the evening at 854. Thank you for your time and participation.