Board of Education Meeting 10-22-2024

001I am reconvening into open session Township High School District 113 regular action meeting on Tuesday, October 22nd 2024 at 705 a roll call please. Dr. Elliott Schermer here, Mr. Heinemann here, Mr. Neider here, Mr. Shapiro here, Mr. Braza Ms. Newman here, I would like everyone else who is present to identify themselves. Romina Chansky, Executive Secretary. Tom Krieger, Chief Human Resources Officer. Lisa Delacqua, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment. Karen Warner, Chief Communications Officer. Ali Mahanty, Assistant Superintendent for Student Services. Brian Amhert, Chief Operations Officer. Ali Mahanty, Assistant Superintendent of Finance. Holly Fleischer, Principal at Highland Park High School. Catherine Anderson, Principal at Deerfield High School. Ron Casbom, Chief Information Officer. Mira Antti, Assistant Superintendent, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Shayla Holland, Superintendent. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as listed? So is there

002a second? Second. All of those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstention. Motion carries. All right. First item of business is we have a busy week of recognitions. This week, we celebrate Principal Appreciation Week and Principal Appreciation Day this Friday, October 25th, recognizing the leadership, dedication and commitment of our principals. They work tirelessly to foster an inclusive school community where our students and staff are seen and heard. Additionally, the board is observing National Bus Safety Week. We thank our District 113 bus drivers who are the first and last school employees many of our students see each day. They start their mornings early navigating ever changing Illinois weather and crazy school drop off and pickup lines while ensuring the safety of our students. Please join me in applauding our principals, assistant principals and bus drivers who help make

003District 113 a safe, supportive place for all. I also have a resolution to read for principals week. Whereas school principals play an integral role in nurturing a positive student centered cultural in elementary, middle and high schools across the state of Illinois. And whereas school principals are responsible for attracting and retaining the best teachers and support staff to ensure that each child receives equitable educational opportunities and services to reach their potential. And whereas it is the primary responsibility of Township High School District 113 to provide adequate and equitable resources for schools so that all students have access to a quality education and a foundation for a successful future. And whereas the Illinois Principals Association, which represents over 6,600 educational leaders statewide, believes that educators experiences and voices are essential to crafting effective education policy. And whereas

004school leaders face many obstacles in supporting educating our young people and is through their perseverance, passion and hope filled leadership that Township High School District 113 continues to produce quality career ready students. And whereas we must continue to encourage support and recognize our school principals who have a positive impact on students and the educational system at Township High School District 113. Therefore be it resolved by the board of education of Township High School District 113 that the week of October 20th through 26, 2024 is proclaimed principals week and October 25th, 2024 be principals day in district 113 and be it further resolved that the board of education urges all stakeholders during principal appreciation week to recognize principals for all that they do to help our children learn and succeed. Thank you. Is there anything you

005wanted to add at this time? I'm going to add it in my report. You guys get to keep hearing me. My president's report is next on the agenda. Just a couple of housekeeping items. I had the honor of attending DHS is fall play metamorphosis this past weekend and was impressed with not only the performance of the actors, but also the stage crew who built one of the key actors for this production, a pool in the studio theater. I look forward to attending productions from both schools this year, as well as other extracurricular and fine arts events. At October 8th meeting, the board reviewed and discussed our voting stands for the resolutions being presented by ISP at the convention in November this year. We are not sending a delegate to the voting session. Therefore no further

006action is required by this board at that time. And one other housekeeping item regarding public comments language update that will be beginning in our November 19th meeting, we will be moving from paper to electronic sign up here in the lobby for public comments. When members of the public come in, they will be asked to enter into an electronic form, their first and last name, the name of the city where they live and the topic that they will have the opportunity and the topic and they will have the opportunity to enter their email address for follow up. They will then be given numbers of the speakers will be called in the order that they sign up. This new process will help us meet requirements for recording for records, excuse me, and minutes will also help administration

007connect with community members to address questions or address individual concerns that are that are raised, but cannot be addressed by the board within the limitations of public comments. And that concludes my presence report for tonight. Yeah, Brandon is calling you. I'm so, I apologize. Um, I believe Brandon, we're going to back up for a moment. Brandon Hayes, I believe is with us for a bus driver appreciation, bus safety week and acknowledging our bus drivers. Brandon, I apologize. No worries, no worries at all. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Um, so good evening. Um, so as you shared, it's school bus safety week. I have a few words to share about our, our transportation team as well. So joining you. Uh, so thank you for the opportunity to shine a light on our amazing people that

008make up our district transportation department, um, as well as leading the charge for setting an example, uh, for safety on our roads and on our school buses, um, as well as in our community. Uh, so the people I'm speaking of is the 34 transportation team members, not including myself, uh, but the women, the men, the sons, the daughters, the mothers, the fathers, the grandparents, the aunts, the uncles, the retired US mail carrier, daycare provider, bank, uh, banker, chef, tech sales rep, locomotive engineer, business owner, and or real estate investor, US Air Force and US Navy veteran, District 113 alumni, trade school and college graduates, the people I speak of are the amazing people, um, who safely transport our students daily, um, as our professional school bus drivers. Uh, so you may be thinking, um, I

009thought we were talking about school bus drivers. So I purposely emphasize the importance, uh, of the person first when I interact with our transportation team. I do this, uh, because every day our drivers step on and off their bus. They are some of those previous listed items. Um, in my role, I believe it is important that I care for and support the person first to allow them to be a better opportunity, uh, to be a better school bus driver, um, here she can be. Um, so the goal is that that person who is properly cared for, supported and feels heard and knows they're heard will then pass that on, uh, that same cure to the important people boarding their buses each day, which hopefully supports the ultimate goal that is to support each person to

010be the best student he or she can be each day. Um, so I'm very grateful, uh, for each of our transportation team members, as well as the opportunity to provide a service and support for our transportation team, uh, which through, through, uh, throughout all of them allows me the ability to provide safe service for our students, community and staff. Um, so lastly, considering safety, I just thought I would share a few things of, uh, well, what are we doing new, uh, to highlight and considering always thinking about safety. Um, over the summer we installed stop arm extenders. So about a year ago, a law was passed for, to allow four foot stop arm extenders be, um, installed on school buses here in Illinois. We have them on all of our school buses. Uh, this is

011to, um, go against or to stop, uh, illegal stop arm passing when we're loading and unloading our buses. But we now have implemented ongoing online self-paced training, uh, and in-person training in our district transportation department, we actually have an in-department, uh, trainer now who's also a state certified third party tester, uh, so they help with onboarding new drivers and post-accident training. Um, and lastly, we are now, um, a site to actually host two-hour refreshers for our drivers. Previously, our drivers had to go off site. So now starting April of 2025, all of our staff will be trained here on site at the transportation department, um, each year annually. I mean, that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Brandon. And we appreciate the work that you do as our chief transportation officer as well. Thank

012you. Thank you. I'm moving on to additional board reports, uh, ISB regional meeting. Okay. Okay. So I attended the, um, Illinois association school boards regional, uh, meeting on October 9th. Uh, they shared that they're working on creating vision 2030 with a focus on their words, future of focused learning, shared accountability and predictable funding. Uh, I assume we'll find out more as they go through the process, exactly what they need, all of those terms. The meeting's purpose was to bring members and state legislators of Lake division for an eye discussion and questions on issues affecting Illinois public education. Uh, I attended two sessions of the three sessions. One of the, one of these sessions covered where we are on the TIF tax increment financing reform. This is progressing with changes from last year's proposal. The main

013objective is to get more voice to schools rather than the current situation where cities and villages have almost total control. I plan to get more information on the proposal so that our board can decide if we want to add our voice to the conversation. That'd be a group decision. Uh, another session covered Illinois state mandates. The focus is to reduce the number of mandates. Last year, 23 new mandates were created while each one of these might seem like a good idea. It is unreasonable to expect that school districts can effectively implement them, especially since they're almost always unfunded and, uh, often expensive in time, staff time and money. The legislator is legislatures setting up a working group to evaluate all of the proposed mandates and look at them as a group to review the costs

014and benefits that are developed a single law. Uh, let's hope that this reduces the problem, perhaps helps legislators understand that funding is required. Thank you. Uh, and actually we'll keep you on deck for Ed Redd. Okay. So, um, I attended the Ed Redd 2024 annual kickoff luncheon, October 18th. Um, I was able to meet with several board of education members from other districts, especially one or nine, uh, and legislative and various legislators at the event. The leadership shared, um, that there are three main priorities for this year. The first is new arrival student funding. This creates new arrival student grant, which provides school district funds necessary to support the needs of immigrant students, regardless of immigrant status. Second is school polling places. The use of school billing should be a last resort for polling and

015only used if approved by the school board. Uh, it can significantly disrupt our security and, uh, um, and the availability of our school facilities. Special education funding, improve and make more equitable the state's special education funding to public schools. That's my report for Ed Redd. Thank you. Uh, finance committee report. So the finance committee met earlier this evening, uh, where we got a detailed presentation from Ali 2024 tax levy, uh, and I don't want to steal his thunder because it's coming up later on the agenda. Um, but it's really a great discussion of how the levy determined and really ticketing it through the process, how, uh, that translates into, into property taxes, and then a lot of great statistics and comparative information, you know, to other districts and everything. So, uh, it's a great presentation.

016Um, so I'm looking forward to hearing it again, you know, later this evening. I am then true North Jenny was a report. There was a true North meeting on October 9th full disclosure. I was unable to attend, so I pulled my information from online. I highly recommend that you also check out the true note board brief, which is where I got all of my information. Um, the things that were discussed, uh, are conditions for new membership. Um, in the original charter, there's quite a bit of information on how to lead the co-op, but not a lot about how to get new members. And so that's something that they're looking at. And I think is an important addition to how, um, the co-op operates. Um, the other thing that was brought up was the mutual assistance

017in a crisis response, um, that's a discussion that's ongoing and will be continued in the new meeting, um, a couple of other things that weren't, um, necessarily discussed there, but I will be able to talk about after the next meeting, which is November 13th, I'll have updates for you on the superintendent's contract and also updates on Glenview district 34s, um, program evaluation. And that's one of the steps that needed to be taken in district 34th request to leave the co-op. Um, if you haven't already, if you're on Instagram, give true North a follow. They put a lot of really great posts up there, and that would be something that we as a board and cabinet can do to support them. So thank you. Great. Thank you very much. Moving on to administration information reports, Dr.

018Holland. So I'll start with my appreciations. Um, starting with our school bus drivers, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to our bus drivers. I've been able to spend some quality time getting to know them, their stories and their work. And as Brandon mentioned, the human first part, um, they're really amazing human beings and getting to know who they are outside of their work. Um, getting to hear their stories has been, has been pretty amazing. I've been inspired by the meaningful relationships they have established with our students and how much they are able to connect with each of them. In addition, um, to me spending time there, I've been able to do some ride-alongs to understand more about their experiences and their care for students. We often discussed importance and value of students

019having trusted adults in their lives. Our bus drivers provide a warm and caring smile, a daily welcome, um, and a laugh, many laughs, um, with our students. They get to know students. They know the sports and activities they're involved in and comment on them as students get on and off the bus. And they serve as a source of encouragement to our students each day. So I want to thank them for going above and beyond, um, in their care for our students every single day. My next appreciation is to our principals. So to our principals, Dr. Anderson and Ms. Fleischer, no one will understand your work unless they're in your seat. You are in one of the most important roles in our district that can easily become life consuming, as you both know, as instructional leaders

020and organizational managers of your schools, one could never count the amount of decisions you make in one day, one week, one minute, and over time. It has been an honor to support both of you this year and gain an upfront and close view into your leadership, your work to support your students, staff, and families, and the ways you have established community within your schools. So thank you for the love and care that you demonstrate and for the hours that you spend away from your own loved ones to care for others. Thank you for being the unique leaders needed for each of your schools, and I appreciate you. I was recently invited to share in a learning experience with our staff members from Dearfield High School and Highland Park High Schools to engage in a full

021day of instructional rounds. Instructional rounds are practice that offers a structure for educators to work together, to identify and solve common problems related to learning and teaching. The day was filled with group learning, many visits to classrooms that focused on students rather than looking at what teachers are doing, really paying attention to what students are doing in the classroom, and we spent time debriefing and analyzing the data that we collected to better understand teaching and learning. The goal of instructional rounds is to get insights into a problem of practice, to collect information, analyze it, and to eventually report back out to leadership as we consider ways of supporting our growth, also to celebrate some strides that we've made in key areas of focus. The reflections and conversations serve as a meaningful form of learning and

022professional development for educators, and I want to thank all of the teachers, all of the staff members who opened up their classrooms through the instructional rounds teams. I know with four or five people walking in, it can be pretty intimidating that kids were great. They asked some questions, but we spent a lot of time also talking to students and getting to know what they're learning. And they were very forthright with what they're doing, how they feel about it. And that was great. So I'm looking forward to continuing to engage with this expanding team of instructional round participants, and also thinking about the ways that this work can provide insight into some of our district-wide efforts to support teaching and learning in the future. I also attended Metamorphosis at DHS. It was an amazing production. It

023was great to see the talents of our students and staff on full display from start to finish. I know that productions require a ton of support, and I want to thank, say thank you for the brilliant performance by our students on stage, and also to say thank you to the students who make what happens on stage possible. Students involved in sound, lighting, makeup, choreography, set design, and so much more. So thank you. It was an amazing production. With the pool, the rain, it was breathtaking. I've never seen a set design that way. So I also want to say thank you to the staff at DHS for creating and supporting such a dynamic experience for our students. Lastly, I attended Homecoming at Highland Park High School. This past weekend was Homecoming weekend. I was able to

024attend the football game on Friday. I'll start with unfortunate news. We experienced an unforeseen issue with unfinished road construction during the game or started the game before the game on Park Avenue West, causing backups in all directions. This led to a lot of frustration from our families, experienced by our family, staff, and community members attempting to arrive for the start of the game in a timely manner. I want to thank Brian Amer, Lane Linder, Paul Harris, and many others who literally launched into problem solving for this unforeseen and unknown mishap. A lot goes into planning for our use of Walter's Field, including a well-planned and communicated schedule, our partnership with the city, and assurances that removes the likelihood of incidents like this happening. So while this was not in the district's control, I'm appreciative to

025all who work to mitigate the impact of this. And I apologize to community members who experienced this. While this caused some frustration at the start of the game, the show went on. And guess what? The Giants won. I was invited by Highland Park's Black Student Union to spend time with them in the concession stand. And I'm telling you, it was a blast. We had fun. It was very lively. And the group was very excited that I was working side by side with them to fill orders. So thank you to BSU and also the Chess Club, who was a part of concessions that night for welcoming me to hang out with you and for the joyful time. I have a bunch of new friends. I also want to thank Lars Nelson and Pablo Alvarez for fostering

026important experiences of community for our students. Thank you. Fantastic. Foyas. Yes. So listed in these are the foyas that were received and responded to since our last board meeting. One of our favorite parts of the agenda, excellence and effort, which principle I believe Dr. Anderson goes first because she went second first. Yeah, I passed it over to Holly last time. Most definitely. I'm calling on you. All right. Thank you. So I have a couple of amazing things to report on today. One is very timely. Our Spanish three classes went with professors Mariana Garfias, Nancy Cordova and Elizabeth Mansfield on a field trip today to Pilsen to see the beautiful artwork for Dia de los Muertos, other Mexican murals, Cuisina 1-2-3-15. And they also visited a d'Ulceria. I saw amazing photos just to have, I mean,

027just the community of our students working with their teachers and chaperones is enough. But then you see these beautiful murals behind them. Just breathtaking. So thank you to our teachers for making that possible. I know that our students had an amazing time on that field trip. I know that I reported this in my newsletter, but I think it's worthy to share that Deerfield received the Blue Ribbon Award for Health Education. So congratulations to Mrs. Thera Gershon and Mrs. Danielle Hoveday, health teachers at DHS and the entire physical education department, including Mr. Mark Pector, department chair for earning the prestigious Blue Ribbon Award for Health Education. The Blue Ribbon Award recognizes high quality middle and high school health programs in Illinois. This award was developed as a joint effort between the Illinois School Health Association and

028Illinois Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. The Blue Ribbon Award was developed using guidelines established by the Illinois Learning Standards, the Illinois School Code and the National Health Education Standards. The department will be honored at upcoming awards banquet this winter and at the Illinois School Health Conference in the spring. And just to highlight some of the things when you apply for just the Blue Ribbon Award for your entire school, it is a very lengthy process. It's the exact same process for submitting for health education. And then there are several teachers that are health teachers throughout Illinois. They come and actually observe, evaluate curriculum, have interviews all day long with myself, with the teachers to really get a sense of the impact of the health curriculum. And I think something that is so powerful

029for our health curriculum is that it has to change over time as we learn new things, as we understand best practices for our students when we're addressing mental health concerns, eating disorders, substance abuse, all these variety of things that we need to be very mindful about the needs of our students and how we approach them. I think that's something that's important is that we work with our community, we work with our parents, we work with doctors to ensure that what we're saying, what we're teaching are the right things. And it's nice to see that over time that we've made those adjustments. So I'm very grateful that our teachers have been recognized for the changes that they've made. They've also tried to make the curriculum very relevant to the lives of our students, also incorporating novels

030to facilitate discussions, ensuring that our students can have difficult and courageous conversations with one another. And we're very hopeful that this effort continues and that we continue to learn and grow from our community so that we can provide the best education for our students. Speaking of amazing things, there's a lot of conversation about metamorphosis, which was so amazing and tech crew and sometimes the students that we don't necessarily see, but we see the amazing things that they produce. And Deerfield Sports Information Team is that version for athletics. They are under the direction of Dennis Chmieluski. He is our TA for our Physical Education Resource Center, the PERC, and students who are part of DSI can get a taste or really build a budding career in information and sports management. Students can focus on announcing, broadcasting,

031scorekeeping, being a statistician, social media, videography, streaming, and so much more. You will literally see them and hear them at almost every single event that we have, but what you might not see is the preparation that they spent in advance to really get it down packed. We have students every year that join as freshmen, as sophomores, juniors, and even seniors. They're working with Mr. Chmieluski. They're working with other students who have been a part of DSI for several years, and you can really see, it's amazing to see the growth that they might have even over just a season. But over four years, you might know several alum from DHS who have gone on to places like Mizzou, Syracuse, working for ESPN now. And so this really is a program that enables our students to truly

032develop the skills that are helping them to be successful immediately when they leave District 113. So very grateful to Mr. Chmieluski and all of our students who are a part of that. If you are going to attend any event again this week, you will see our students there doing a play-by-play, actually streaming video for us. So very, very grateful to all of them for what they do. Just two other things that I wanted to mention really quickly is because we're going into a traditional Midwest fall, it can be 80 one day and 30 the next, our science teachers are doing the best possible job using our outdoor space. So many of our students, they might experience being in the pool for metamorphosis, or they might experience being in the water in our backyard, in the

033river for their science class. So kudos to our teachers for really trying to maximize the weather, the good weather that we have while it lasts. And then lastly, just because it's coming up quickly, and I just wanted to say something before, I know that we'll have student reports coming up soon. We already mentioned that School Chest, our beneficiary this year, is Mother's Trust. We will have our assembly next week to kick off School Chest, our three-week fundraising event. Mother's Trust Foundation improves the lives of children by providing funds for needed items for their health and welfare. They collaborate with social workers and school counselors and provide tangible necessities to families in need. So we are so grateful in advance for everyone for your support of School Chest and providing support to our children and families

034in need in the local area. So thank you so much. Thank you, Holly. Well, thank you, Kathy. Holly here. So first, I want to start with a giant shout out to everyone who was involved in our homecoming festivities this past week, whether it be getting involved in axe throwing in our courtyard for the week, doing the climbing wall, winning the game at Walters Field on Friday, involved in the marching band, palms, jammers, and planning the Enchanted Dance. All who were involved and sprinkled the pixie dust that made the weekend safe and fun, which included caregivers for partnering with us to join in on the fun and help keep all of our students safe. It was a fairy tale ending and I'm very grateful for everyone's work. I have four vignettes to highlight today that speak

035to the excellence and effort that our staff embark on on a daily basis to give experiences to our students that increase access, belonging, and achievement. And these four are just four amongst so many. So first I want to start with our counseling department, our post-secondary counseling team, which includes Jen Pendergast, Holly Siegel, and Bill Morrison recently took a group of seniors to the first ever Lake County Trades Skills Fair. This event provided our students with a chance to explore over 25 union trades and meet directly with Lake County construction trades representatives to help students prepare. They provided materials and hosted a pre-fair workshop, which equipped students with questions to ask, trade maps, and insights into what to expect. At the fair, our students explored apprenticeship opportunities, learned about training in various trades programs, and understanding

036the application process. They discovered the benefits of union membership. They also had hands-on opportunities such as learning to build with bricks and cement. The students were deeply engaged, asking questions about future employment, making connections, gaining valuable insights into pay, training, and benefits for these very valued positions. Their positive feedback reflected a sense of belonging and excitement about the potential of their future. Next, I'd like to highlight world and dual language. Students who are taking courses in our Spanish language arts sequence have the unique opportunity to earn a variety of post-secondary credits via AP Spanish language, AP Spanish literature, and senior seminar honors. This particular class, that's senior seminar honors, is in its fourth year and it offers a dual credit opportunity with Lake Forest College. Spanish seminar honors is the capstone class in the Spanish

037language arts sequence. It focuses on cross-curricular and real-world connections through the four language modalities. The curriculum is vetted by Lake Forest College faculty and students who are able to earn a C or higher receive a 200 level college course credit upon finishing. On Monday, those students will be attending Lake Forest College with Ms. Hagopian and Mr. Cordova to attend a campus visit. With the dual credit partnership, the students in Spanish seminar honors are technically students at Lake Forest College. And they can take this day of an experience to be in the life of a Lake Forest student. They will tour the campus, they attend a psychology class, they'll learn about the admission process, and they get to interact with current students via panel discussion. This is a rewarding experience and is directly in line with

038our college and career readiness efforts and goals of the district. Also, I'd like to highlight English One honors who are embarking on a giant values lunchroom event starting tomorrow. And I know many members of cabinet have been invited and have said yes to being involved in this project. So I thank you for that. Students in English One honors are going to host an intergenerational dialogue with link crew leaders, administrators, teachers, counselors, and other special adults where they will share their first quarter project, which focuses on the theme of home. During the dialogue, the students will also be sharing their insights and ideas about how to live our giant values in the lunchroom. The goal is for the students and adults in attendance to co-create a vision board for action steps towards a generous and inclusive

039lunchroom. English One honors at Highland Park High School is an open access program with nearly 250 students enrolled. Highland Park teachers, Jennifer Lucasi, Emma Harmon, Brian Podell, and Michelle Coon have been working closely with our cellist, Genevieve Misfelt, to create an experience that capitalizes on all the English close reading, writing, and speaking listening skills to culminate an authentic learning experience for all. This event is going to highlight the fact that students are our school's greatest asset in implementing school improvement efforts. For a true partnership to exist between students and adults, key leadership competencies need to be fostered and developed in an authentic way throughout a student's high school career. These competencies include working collaboratively in a team setting, public speaking, critical thinking, and involvement in advocacy efforts. This opportunity is an authentic real world experience

040that will not only contribute to the development of these critical skills, but also have a direct and immediate impact on our school community and culture. So thank you to that team. Lastly, I have our physical education and health and traffic safety department. They recently provided our outdoor adventure students the opportunity to experience an overnight camping and rock climbing trip in Baraboo, Wisconsin at Devil's Lake State Park. This is an annual trip for these classes and something our students look forward to when they register. Josh Hess is our outdoor adventure physical education teacher who's worked so hard to create these authentic learning experiences. The chaperones we want to say a big thank you to this year were David Cordoba, Jamie Schroet, Elizabeth Swindle, Sarah Palmberg, and Alyssa Wilson. This trip involves hiking, overnight camping, climbing the

041rock face cliffs at the state park. The students work together in groups to locate their climbing routes on the rock face, tie the proper, which there is a proper rope knot, and set their anchors at the top of the cliff, setting up their climbing routes. They problem solve together, rely on each other, encourage each other through the physical challenge of a climb, and celebrate each other's successes and accomplishments. This is a course that senior students take and it builds on the foundation of social emotional learning skills that are taught throughout all of our P.E. health and traffic safety courses. This authentic learning experience combined with a focus on the SEL priority learning standards and skills is an awesome opportunity. And I'm very grateful to the staff who make it happen. So thank you to everyone

042involved in all these important efforts. Thank you both very much. It's definitely a highlight of these meetings. So thank you for the time that you put into the presentations as well. All right. Our final administration information report is the District 113 summer school report. Yes. So Dr. Lisa Delacqua is going to deliver our D113 summer school report. It also includes information regarding regarding extended school year as well. OK, good evening, everybody. OK, so this presentation is going to be a review of our summer school and ESY programming for the 2023-2024 school year. We will be discussing our credit recovery and grade replacement courses and enrichment opportunities. We will be looking at this data disaggregated by subgroups of race students with IEPs and 504s, English learners and students in economically disadvantaged situations. And then the ESY

043program philosophy and survey results will be shared by Dr. Rowe. So as you can see here during summer school, we have a variety of pathways for students. The district offers credit recovery and grade replacement options. These course offerings are in place for students who need to recover credit for an incomplete or a failed course. Grade replacement courses are available to students if they previously earned a C plus or lower and they wish to improve their grade and enrichment experiences mean that the credit will count as a semester elective. We have the Algebra 2 Math Academy and college essay writing just as one week standalone courses. So there is no credit awarded for those. Those are simply enrichment experiences for our students. And then we also have traffic safety, consumer economics and civics as full time

044courses for students who really want to create more space in their schedule for the regular school year. So you can see the enrichment offerings are here. And again, this credit will count towards a semester elective unless it's that college essay writing or that Algebra 2 course. So when we look at our number of summer school enrollments, you can see that we have a total of 318 unique transcript student counts and then a total course student count of 363. So we did have some students who were enrolled in more than one course over the summer. And then you can see our enrollment broken down by building. So approximately it's pretty even split 169 students from Highland Park and 194 from Deerfield. And Deerfield hosted us this year. And then this slide shows the breakdown of summer

045enrollments by race. So next year, we really want to code our summer enrollments so that we can also show you this disaggregated data, but also in terms of if students were enrolled in a credit recovery course, a course replacement or an enrichment experience. In addition to the disaggregation of the data by race, IEP, multilingual learner and economically disadvantaged. Here you can see our summer enrollment disaggregated. So you can see the number of students we have with IEPs. We had 52 students in total who enrolled in courses, 66 students with 504s, 78 students who would be classified in economically disadvantaged situations, and then 49 students who are English learners. And with our English learner programming, a lot of that programming is geared towards students who are new to the district, almost kind of like a boot

046camp sort of offering to help students prepare for entering high school. And the next few slides, what we have, we have the types of courses that students took over the summer and the grades that they earned. So the first slide is going to show you the entirety of summer school and then the subsequent slides are going to show the data disaggregated by the subgroup. So what's important to note here is when you see other, it could mean that the student did not complete the course. We have many students who are auto enrolled into what we call learning extensions for courses that they did not complete during the school year. So the student may or may not complete that course over the summer, which would leave them with a grade of other if they did not.

047The other situation that we have is that a student could be enrolled in a non credit bearing course, like the college and the algebra, college essay writing and the algebra. So as we can see overall, the highest enrollments for courses this past summer included consumer economics, both online and in person, civics and traffic safety. Those are very popular with our students. We also had a high number of enrollments for geometry for both first and second semester, and you'll see that's why our courses are double listed. It's represents the first and second semester of summer school. And then we have introduction to programming, which was also a course that was widely attended. It does count as either a fine and applied arts elective, or it could be a math credits. We have a lot of students

048interested to take that course and also EL algebra. So many students will enroll in courses over the summer, as I said before, to create more space in their schedule. And we have students can earn up to two credits for that can count towards graduation during summer programming. So this now breaks down the courses that students were taking, disaggregated data. So we're starting with our students with IEPs. So you can see here that again, for our students with IEPs, the highest attended courses, traffic safety, health and nutritional fitness and civics were our most popular courses. And then along the side of the screen on the right hand side, you can see the grades that students received in those courses. These are students with 504s. So again, you can see consumer economics, geometry being a very high

049course for enrollment, followed by civics, and then our introduction into programming. This slide is for our English learners. So we had a high number of students taking EL algebra. And then you can see there were different enrichment courses that were spread throughout and also course replacement and credit recovery options as well. And then finally, with our students who are in economically disadvantaged situations, I did want to just point out here that this is where you often see a cross between two different subgroups. You will have students who are English learners who are also economically disadvantaged, which is why when you look at the student courses, you're going to notice that there are courses there specifically for English learners who are also happen to be economically disadvantaged students. And the nice thing that we do have

050is that, you know, with the tuition that is for summer school, our students who are economically disadvantaged do have that covered for them so that they're able to receive the support that they need over the summer. This next slide, I'm going to pass to Ali. All right. Yeah, so let's quickly go over the finances. We usually present this as part of the board report, looking at prior years, the cost of the net cost after collecting all the revenues, about three hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars. So basically we're operating at a summer school at a loss of three hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars. That is in line. Now, I wouldn't say the cost has gone up because the costs have gone up because the teacher salaries have gone up, you know, new contracts, course

051offerings have gone up. We do look at the revenues and the fees for summer school. We charge three hundred dollars per class. How is that in line with our school districts? The last survey we did, the average was two hundred seventy five bucks. So three hundred is in line. That doesn't mean we can't look at whether the summer school could be operated and operating could be operated more efficiently. I didn't know we saved some transportation costs when summer school used to at Deerfield because the transportation routes have gone down. Well, we can certainly look at other things where we can cut down or maybe work with Lisa to see if we can maybe operate more efficiently. But right now we're at a loss of three hundred twenty nine thousand dollars. And did you say that

052has been pretty consistently? It's been like two years ago, like two fifty. So, I mean, obviously, the salaries have gone up, course offerings gone up, you know, free and reduced students, depending on how many students they are. We don't collect revenues from that, but we have always operated at a lot. Obviously, we can always look at whether if there is any areas we can improve on where we can operate more efficiently. We have done that before, like I said, in transportation routes. But we can I can definitely work with Lisa on if there's any other areas to save costs. I'll just jump in really quickly. I don't know of a school that makes a profit off a summer school, and that's not our intention. Our intention is to make sure that we're providing appropriate learning

053extensions for students because the more confident they are, the more exposure they have to the classes, the more confident they're going to be during the school year. Additionally, some of our students, as it was mentioned, they take courses to help better manage their their low during the school year. So I actually think we're in line with what's normal in a school district. And I just want to bring us back to our purpose of summer school. That's an excellent point. And I was curious about what the trending line, if it's kind of just normally about that. Because our revenues, because we have an increase in our fees, the costs will continue to go up. So if that answers your question. Right. I think the other thing that we've always talked about in summer school, one of

054the one of the big benefits to many of our families is the fact that we offer traffic safety during our summer, that many of our students that if they cannot take that over the summer, their family is disadvantaged from the fall. And that is a huge, huge impact on the lives that we have for more than 20 families in our district, that those kids don't take it during the summer. They don't have the opportunity to assist their families come September. And I agree with you that I've been doing this. I was a teacher, etc. Summer school is not a cost maker. Summer school is a child maker. And whether that means that child needs an open period to center themselves or whatever, but I will jump on my darn soapbox here and say, yay, summer

055school. Back to Delacqua. Do middle school students from 109, 112 and 106 have an opportunity to participate? No, this is currently just for our, our students. The rising, the rising, rising, rising, rising freshmen, rising freshmen. Okay. But not our sixers. And that it's going to actually bring me to another point at the end. So stay tuned. All right. Now I'm going to pass this to Dr. Rowe so she can talk about extended school year. Okay. Just a couple of slides about extended school year. So this year in, during extended school year, we had 33 students enrolled. And these students are in ESY to maintain skills previously taught through, through ESY and there's a difference, and it may be confusing because Dr. Delacqua talked about the number of students who have IEPs that were in summer

056school. So there is a difference in that both sets of students have IEPs. Those who are in summer school and those who are in ESY. But on the next slide, you'll see ESY is something that is described in a student's individual education plan or IEP. And the law states that students who are, who are assigned to ESY through the IEP team are there for regression, recoupment, or for, and it's very critical for some of our students with severe disabilities. We define this through data. And so we're looking at data when, when we take breaks over winter break or spring break, we're looking at, do students lose skills over that time? So that's when they are, you know, when we look at those skills of regression, that's when we define that. And then recoupment of skills

057is just the student's ability and length of time to relearn the previous, the skills that were previously achieved. So we're looking at those factors when we're determining whether a student qualifies for ESY. And so those are the two different categories between the students who attend summer school and they pay for summer school and those students who are in ESY assigned by, through an IEP. On the next slide, you will see some data that we take during summer school, or I'm sorry, during ESY. And this is how we determine when students are making progress on their IEP goals. So during ESY, we really focused on IEP goals. And during this process, we're taking data week to week to determine if students are gaining skills as they progress through the ESY curriculum. And then on the last

058slide, you'll see that we implemented a survey. We did this last year and this year as well. And we gave this survey to our students and to our parents. And to our staff. And so overall, the parents, students and staff ranked communication, expectation and placement for ESY students as high. And the suggestions would be that we would have more engaging activities in different hours, times and dates for ESY. We do like to align that with our summer school calendar as well. So does ESY run for just the duration of summer school? Correct. Okay. Correct. So then in terms of summer school and next steps, we know that there is a summer school brochure that will be released to families this winter. I've already started meeting with our, Donnie and Matt, who are both principals of

059summer school this past summer. Bless you. Just to get ideas for what we're thinking about for this coming summer. We really want to try to weave in our district's vision of inclusive school, school communities with the pillars of access, achievement and belonging as we begin to plan those student experiences. So one of the things that I said I would come back to and that Dr. Holland mentioned in our last meeting was just the, maybe an opportunity to consider looking at offering AP bridge programs and other bootcamp experiences to help increase student confidence and to foster community. It's not so much about the content per se, but really having students build relationships with each other and with their teachers prior to entering school. That can really pay off in dividends when school starts, when they have

060those, those experiences to, to really build those relationships prior to, to the school you're beginning. So in the spring, we will share our goals, our plans and our budget for summer school and for ESY 2025 and those will be our next steps. Any questions? I had one. I was curious, I feel that this year, as you're presenting, you're almost level setting with what has, cause you're catching up with what occurred before your tenure and obviously working with the, with a new team. I'm curious as to what you envision a report like this will look like next year when you're giving the report, what are you looking to be able to provide for us as a board? Yeah, for me, and it was hard to code this time because we didn't set up enrollments this way,

061but I'm very much interested in seeing data disaggregated to see who, like who are the students who are doing grade replacement options versus credit recovery options. I'm curious to look at the credit recovery options that we offer so far and learning extensions. So those are two different things and I noticed that in the data, when I was looking at learning extensions, we have quite a number of students who are auto-enrolled in them, but due to other things that are happening, either they're double enrolled or they have things going on outside of school, they're not able to complete that extension. And so I'm really interested in exploring that a little bit further to see what kind of structures we can put into place to make sure that we have students who are successfully completing those things.

062And then just on a student engagement side, I am really interested to have more student voice to hear about potential offerings that they would be interested in for summer. It seems like the ones that we have currently offered are those that students really want to kind of have done so that they can clear their schedule for the fall. But I am curious, are there other things that are doable and reasonable? I know that for us, another thing that was shared with me is since the pandemic, staffing has been a challenge with summer school. And so a question in my mind is like, what can be done and how can we present that to the board so that we are recruiting and having more teacher interest in participating in summer school? Great. Thank you. I was

063curious on the future. Great. Any other questions? All right. Thank you all for your report. We appreciate it. Okay. I'm moving on to information reports on focus on the arts and arts alive. Tamara Jenkins is here, our focus director and welcome back. You need help driving the presentation or which one is it? Oh, okay. Okay. Hello everybody. My name is Tamara Jenkins and I'm here to talk about both of the district 113 arts festivals. And that's the first time I've ever been able to say that because we just launched festival last year at deer field called arts alive. So, oh, I see it does that, but not mine. So, okay. So let's talk about arts alive. The inaugural year, uh, the district had a budget, uh, for arts alive, uh, which was, uh, equitable spending

064between what had previously been spent on focus on the arts focus on the arts programming. Uh, as many of, you know, is paid for through fundraising efforts of the five Oh one C three and grant writing. So the artists and supplies are paid through that five Oh one C three arts alive does not have that, uh, mechanism at this point, it was a much smaller program or just launching, we're feeling our way and we're creating as we go with Kathy and her team, uh, program, a program that will reflect, uh, deer fields, priorities and capacity. We did receive a district one 13 foundation grant for the assemblies last year and a deer field arts council grant for a mural program and a small Rotary grant. And there was no fundraising from the DHS community. So

065there were three different parts to arts alive. I just want to go over each of those with you. So you have a little understanding of, of what actually went on. Uh, we, uh, had decided with Kathy and her team to work with a fine arts staff to bring workshops and master classes and performances to the fine art students and to confine those workshops to the students in the fine arts. We ended up with a total of 27 different workshops during the week of arts alive. And we had one residency program, which was an eight week North light theater company residency that worked with the drama to students. We offered Israeli dance, Afro Cuban dance, stage combat, piano master class, black oak string ensemble, screen printing, all kinds of incredible workshops and incredible artists. This is

066the mural that was created during the week of arts alive. It's now been installed outside the library and it looks fantastic there. Um, this mural was created, uh, with input from students in homeroom who were asked to give us four words that described their idea of what the warrior spirit was and the artist. This was her interpretation of those words. Um, she created this mural during the week of arts alive on panels that were, this is a picture of, of actually the cafeteria where she created the mural during lunch periods. And many, many students, uh, got involved with helping paint this mural. They just stood up and walked over and said, can I help? Uh, which was really exciting. And just exactly what we are trying to create with these programs, the student assemblies, we

067had an assembly, uh, that happened two times and reached every student in the school. And at this, uh, assembly, we, uh, had the wonderful, uh, very eclectic, uh, band called Funkadaisy performed. Uh, the NIU steel drum band and deeply rooted dance theater performed as well. We also had on Saturday, our community facing event, which was called, um, art expo. And many of you were here, were at the art expo, um, and got to experience this. It was a really, really wonderful event, uh, that embraced the community. And also we had an incredible turnout from the community. Uh, Deerfield, uh, the mayor's office, the arts council, all these people really helped us promote and the library as well and, uh, district 109. So we had a wonderful, uh, age range. A lot of families were there.

068Some grandparents were there. Um, and some of you may recognize this woman shaking a tambourine. That's my sister, Michelle Friedman, who I dragged in, um, dragged back to DHS. And Michelle was a social worker at Deerfield for decades. So, um, she really enjoyed seeing the school come to life like this. We had giant wandering puppets, 25 professional artists were stationed around the room. And we also had 20 AP DHS artists who were displaying and demonstrating their work and able to talk to the public about their art and we had pop-up performances. We had a dance performance and hip hop. We had a choir perform. We had a very successful, uh, puppet show, uh, which was packed, um, at noon, full of little tiny kids. And I would say, um, one of the best comments that

069I heard, uh, from people who attended, uh, the art expo was actually from Kathy in our, uh, debrief. A few weeks later, she said her son, um, had been painting every day since he attended this event. And so, but, but the feedback that we received from the community of that was really overwhelming. People were saying, when are you doing this again? Make it longer, do it every year. It's just really enthusiastic. Um, I would say that the workshops, um, it was, it was difficult, I think at the beginning for the staff to sort of comprehend what this was going to look like. But after the week was over there, their faces, I mean, just seeing the very first workshop go down and, and the face of the teacher watching the students interact in a master

070class, it was really, really, um, overwhelmingly positive experience for them. And, uh, I know that we have discussed, let's move on to the next slide, what it's going to look like, uh, moving forward. We are going to continue developing a robust list of workshops and artists in collaboration with the fine arts staff. And they really want to sort of hone this process process and take more advantage of, um, what arts alive has to offer them. And they have a better understanding now moving forward of what will serve their students, um, better. Uh, we also are going to, um, continue with the assembly idea and, uh, with the hopes that, uh, with the excitement we generated this past year, that we will have some student initiative and students engaging in the planning process to, to inform

071what it's going to look like, what kinds of people we bring in. Um, Kathy and her team were really excited about that community event and that sort of feeling. So we want to create more of that sort of feeling during the week for the students during lunch periods with more projects that are similar to what the mural project was, um, that could either be hands on art projects or performances that are a little more free flowing, uh, for all the students, um, during the week, and we'll continue, uh, with that model of the art expo, which was so successful. And we're hoping also in the forward, in the, uh, in the future to create some committees with parents and students, um, who will, uh, help really plan the trajectory and help curate artists and find

072artists and bring ideas to the table. So, so that, um, arts life really reflects the community's desires. Um, and then I would say moving forward, if we're growing this program at all, um, we did go over budget. We had a last minute, uh, surprise when, um, I found out that Deerfield does not have anywhere near the technical equipment in their theater that Highland Park has. So we ended up having to rent a whole lot of equipment at the last minute. Um, that's something I just wanted to bring up and, you know, that, that sort of inequity that, that exists, um, between those two, um, auditoriums. But if we do move forward with developing this program, we will need to look at other ways to bring in funds, um, and the possibility of writing more grants

073and possibly going to, uh, the parents for money or increasing the budget in the district, whatever that would look like. So now moving to focus on the arts. This year is a focus on the arts year. Um, focus has been around for almost 60 years now, which is really amazing. We are still recovering from that sort of gap that was created during the pandemic when focus didn't happen for four years. We're still rebuilding some of the changes that, um, I've made this year of the 2023 was my first time with focus. So I got to know the program and look at sort of the condition of, of, um, the infrastructure, I would say. And what we've done in the past year and over the summer is, uh, we have created a totally new board with

074the 501C3, replaced all the board members and, uh, changed, uh, board policies around fiscal oversight. I am the executive director of the board. I am not the president of the board. So I have a treasurer and a president that, uh, have oversight into fiscal, uh, responsibilities. We just launched a new website. I'm going to see if this works. It's not working. It does work in the link that you gave us. Will it work from yours, Tom? Yay. Okay. So I'm excited about this. We have literally rewritten every single piece of communications around focus, but, oh, but now it's not showing on there. I've got it on mine. It's because of how it's presenting. You can just. No. Yay. Okay. So, um, one of the things about the new website is it makes it very clear

075what focus is, what our mission is, and, um, we're making efforts for transparency. So, um, if you go to the about focus, can you click on about focus and scroll down to core values? We've created core values that guide the program and all the decision making. Since, uh, we have a lot of community members and, and committees, uh, we have currently 175 volunteers working on focus on the arts. So these are the guiding principles, uh, community excellence, integrity, diversity and accessibility and legacy. And you're welcome to read more about that on your own time, if you're interested. And if you scroll down a bit further, you will see, um, our board leadership and each person has a bio there. So we have a board of some very knowledgeable, experienced people in the arts, in education

076and in not nonprofit. We also have a community representative serving on the board and, um, we will continue to develop that board and the structures. Okay. Now we can go back to the presentation. We also have a new logo, which, uh, let's see. The new logo was the first thing you saw on one of those slides. Um, let me go back. Okay. And then in terms of our, uh, access to resources for our committees, uh, we have created an entire online resource, um, with directors for the committee, with training modules, um, and this is to ensure the continuity of the program and transitions between leadership on those committees. In terms of the program planning, uh, we have just received all of the very exciting, uh, artists lists from the committees and, um, we have many,

077many returning artists, as is, uh, the tradition with focus and also many new artists and new genres, uh, since culture and arts are constantly changing. We have our dates for student workshops, April 2nd and April 3rd. That's after spring break. We just launched a direct mail campaign and so look out for your envelopes. If you haven't gotten them, you should have gotten them already, but if you haven't look out for those envelopes. Um, and then we've launched an online fundraising campaign as well at district one 12, and we will be doing that on social media as well. We are seeing a significant decrease in donations so far, which is concerning. So we're meeting around, um, some more creative ideas to raise money. We have received a Highland Park community foundation grant, which was very generous

078and an Illinois state grant. Um, but, um, we need some creative thinking around fundraising. Focus was built on a tradition of one letter going out and all the money coming back, um, and that's just not the reality anymore. So I want to bring to your attention our community events, whereas now the student workshop or the workshops, the daytime workshops are for students only. Uh, we have three community facing events and those dates are opening night is Tuesday, April 1st at 7 PM in the auditorium. That is a ticketed event, but tickets are free and we'll be releasing those tickets sometime early March or late February. And we're really excited about our plans for opening night. Um, we have a Broadway conductor, uh, by the name of Jeffrey Saver, who is coming in to conduct a,

079uh, focus 2025 orchestra, which will be comprised of Highland Park's best students and artists that are being brought in by Ravinia in a partnership. So it's going to be really cool. They're going to sit together chair to chair and have a Broadway conductor working with them. We're doing the same thing with the choir. We're bringing in some professionals to perform with the choir as well. Who'll also work under the direction of this musical director, um, a man by the name of Michael Unger, who is a Highland Park graduate. He is now the artistic director at Skylight Music Theater in Milwaukee is coming back to be the director of the program. And we have two Broadway stars that are going to be coming in. Um, I can't announce their names yet, but we're very excited about

080them. Um, so it's going to be an evening that's about, um, be being an artist, what it is to be an artist and why an artist creates. I think you'll find it really an exceptional program. So mark April 1st in your calendars. Then Art Night, which is our community, uh, family event, uh, is going to feature 40 professional artists and the HPHS AP visual artists. And, you know, that, that, uh, activity, art activity stations around the whole cafeteria, that sort of feeling that we had with the art expo, which is where we got the idea from Art Night. And then Dance Night this year, we're very excited to have back two companies that haven't been to Highland Park in quite a while. The Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Company, Circle Rivera is coming and, uh,

081Deeply Rooted is coming and we're going to be doing a little educational piece as well with a, um, a tiny, uh, lecture. Dem talking about each company and, uh, how they, um, where their dance form has come from and then having students demonstrate some of these things. So before you see a piece, you'll have some education. You'll know what you're looking at. Okay. So that's it for the presentation. Thank you very much again for the district support of these important programs. I know that, um, it's very rare to have these kinds of programs. Focus has, um, been a very, very, very, uh, impactful event on me as an artist. And, um, that sort of passing it forward and, and being able to offer that to the students at Highland Park and now going back to

082my alma mater, which is DHS, being able to bring that there. So I really thank you for the opportunity. Does anybody have any questions? If you do, you know where to find me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Moving on to public comments. We welcome your comments and questions and given up serious consideration pursuant to board of education policy two dash two three zero. We'll go in the order of the numbered cards you received when registering to speak. When I call your number, please come to the podium, identify yourself with first and last name and city in which you reside. And if applicable, state the agenda item to which your comment is directed. Please limit the length of all comments to no more than three minutes. I will raise my hand at the

08332nd remaining indicate their indicator, and then we'll verbally ask you to wrap your sentence at the three minute mark. The use of profanity and offensive derogatory language will not be tolerated. When possible, we will try to incorporate your questions into the relevant agenda item discussion. However, any questions may be sent via email to the superintendent to be answered subsequent to the meeting. Our board meetings are open meetings, which means you attend, listen and participate through comments during this public comment time. The public comment period is not a back and forth discussion between the public and the board. I believe we have the number one out for a public comment. Thank you. Hi, my name is Alison Sawatzki. I have two kids who are at DHS. I live in Deerfield. They're both juniors. I have one

084child who is taking all AP and honors classes. I have another kid who has some pretty significant learning challenges. He's part of the extended school year offerings. A few things. One is when my son took traffic safety, I was told that his IEP was not going to be supported by the teacher, the things I was asking for. So that's something to be looking at for kids who need those supports during the summer. I just don't know what special education teachers are there. That'd be something to take a look at. And secondly, I'd like there to be some transparency about what is going on with special education in District 113. My son should have been in a small group learning classroom for geometry. I did say that we would try him going into the regular classroom

085with a one-to-one, but I did not know that his small group for geometry was going to be dismantled and that class was no longer going to be offered. It has caused some really intense mental health issues in our house for him. And I just don't, I know that we need to get an IEP meeting set up, but what I was told is that there is not a solution for him. So what I would like to find out is if there are going to be moving forward, if the school is going to stop offering these small special education classes, which is what I've been hearing, can we partner with some schools that can offer this? Can we have, you know, supports for math and reading maybe at Cove or some other schools in the area so

086that if we can't offer that support for the small group of kids who really need some intense support, what are the solutions for that? And I have offered, I'm happy to be on a committee. I'm happy to help in any way to make this happen, but it's affecting my child and their other children that parents have reached out to me that it's affecting them as well. And I just think that we can do better. I think that we, the teachers want to do it. I know that there's a lot of love in the community and I just think we need to be doing better for them. So thank you. Thank you very much. Moving on to discussion items. First is a 2024 tax levy. I can sense the excitement on this topic with everybody. I

087promise I won't spend more than two minutes per slide. There are 30 slides. So I was so excited when I said two minutes. I was like, wow, that was fast. All right, real quick. So yeah, we just presented this tax levy in the finance committee. So I'm going to be really short. I'm going to be fast, quick. If anybody have questions, please feel free to stop me. All right. So property taxes is a time to levy. What levy is is the district ask of the increase from the property taxes within the community within the district 113 boundaries. Other property tax are levied by the local government bodies but not limited to counties, municipalities, townships. On this annual process where we must do to increase our revenues from property taxes. As with most school districts, township,

088high school district 113, like 113 were the largest property taxes with the largest source of revenue. And the revenues used to fund and operate educational programs. Buildings, grounds, provides transportation and finance debt. All right. So as you can see that property taxes are a large source of revenue, 88% for a fiscal year 25 budget. Rest is state, 2% federal, other local 6%, which is mainly interest. Corporate personal property replacement tax and student fees. All right. So things that we must look at when we levy to the max. When we say levy to the max is the CPI is 3.4%. We are levying for 3.4% plus, you know, new development. A limited amount of state and federal revenues as I showed you in the previous chart, future expenditure increases, you know, mainly bargaining contracts, salaries, capital

089projects needs, unfunded mandates, like special education, some transportation, unforeseen expenditures. All right. So like I said, the tax levies are requests for local property tax dollars for operations. This gets requested by the district 113. We levy for a separate amount for each fund. We look at the fund balance and the amount that we budget every year. That's how we determine how much to levy for each fund. And then the tax rates are calculated by the county for during the extension process. All right. So we'll skip this slide. There's this tax extension cycle, as you can see, it starts from district preparing the tentative budget. And then from the tentative budget that the board just approved in August, we start the levy process where the township assessor determines the value estimates for the property. And then

090there are appeals that are made. We usually intervene the appeals, depending on how big those appeals are. And then after the levy process is filed, when the assessment is determined by the Lake County, they apply an equalization factor, the tax rate, and that's when the tax bills are mailed out. All right. So consumer price index, which is the biggest component of the tax levy process that determines our increase in our revenue. It is measures that change in the, basically, if you look at the basket of goods, it measures the change from month to month. For this levy, it looks at the change from December 22 to December 23, which is a 3.4% increase. And when I say basket of goods, these are the goods are the basket. As you can see that housing, apparel, transportation,

091a lot of categories are on there. And that measures the price change month over month. P-TAL, which is the property tax extension limiting law, what that does is it caps the levy at 5%. In this case, our CPI is 3.4%, so we're not going over 5%. If the district is at levy more than 5%, there is an additional requirement that we have to follow, which is the truth in taxation. That means that we have to publish a newspaper notice followed by a public hearing. Even though our levy is less than 5%, we do that anyway, just to be transparent with the community. We've done that every year. How is the tax rate calculated for us? The total tax rate is calculated looking at our total extension, which is the money we actually get based on

092what we levy, which is asking is what we get after tax bills are finalized. We divide that by a total EAB, which is the equalized assessed valuation, which is one third of the property value, one third value of the market value of the properties that we have in our properties. So for example, if a district that levies and receives $4 million in taxes with a district with a $200 million of EAB as a tax rate of 2%, that's how the tax rates are determined. Obviously, there's a separate tax rate calculation for separate funds. So just quickly look at our inputs. We will receive a 3.4% increase, which is a CPI over 2023 extension. Our EAB is projected to increase by 9%. And EAB doesn't really mean that we're going to get more revenues. That's how

093tax rates are determined. Our total estimated EAB is $5.1 billion, which is again one third market value of all the properties within District 113. Our estimated new construction is $24.4 million, which is the amount that we're going to get additional. That doesn't mean that we're going to get $24 million in new revenues. That is the EAB. So if you look at our tax rate, which is the limiting tax rate, not including the bonds and interest, we're going to get 2.21% off $24 million. That is our additional revenue in new construction. Our debt service levy is almost $6 million. That's based on the outstanding debt. We don't necessarily levy for that amount, and our certificate of levy is based on total debt outstanding. So what is the limiting rate formula? We look at the extension times

094the CPI over the EAB minus new property. That's how we calculate the limiting rate. Basically, what that is that our tax rate minus the debt service. So if on a $600,000 house, the EAB of that house is $200,000, our projected tax rate of 2.21%, which is our limiting rate. So basically, that is the amount. Taking the $200,000 time 2.21%, that is the portion of District 113 from that property. Just a lot of numbers here. It's basically calculating, like I said, our limiting rate, our increase. We look at our prior extension, looking at the CPI, calculate the adjusted tax base. Then we look at our net EAB minus new property to look at the adjusted valuation base. And then we look at the adjusted tax base, and then the EAB to come up with a limiting

095rate. And then look at our total extension divided by EAB. That's how we're able to determine what our increase in our revenue would be. So in this case, our CPI is 3.4%. The 3.89% is the difference between 3.4% and 3.89% is the new construction money that we're going to get. That $24 million I showed you, that is the amount we're going to get additional. All right, so looking at when are we going to receive the levy funds and when we recognize this. So it started from December 2023, like I said, it measures the CPIU for December, which is December 23 over December 22, which was 3.4%. That's the number we use for the 2024 levy. Then in October, which is this month we file, we start with a levy process. The board approves the tax

096levy in December. We start receiving the money in June of 2025, but we do recognize that revenue into next fiscal year, which is 2026. So yes, defer that revenue into your next fiscal year. All right, as you can see, the CPI history in 2022, 2023, we really triggered the truth in taxation, but we are following that requirement anyway, because the CPI was 7%, 6.5%. But in 2023, we have a 3.4% CPI, and we do look at CPI on a monthly basis, just to look at where it's projecting. Right now, the 2024 CPI is trending to be at 2.6%, but it's not going to be known until January 12th, but that will be for 2025 levy, which will go into effect in fiscal year 27. All right, looking at how we do our projections, the good

097chart to look at a 32-year history in tax caps, even though CPI has been high for the last couple of years, we use 2.5% for our projections. And as you can see why, the average increase in the last few years or 30 years, even 20 years has been 2.5%. So when we do our five-year projections, we use that. We don't know what the CPI is going to be five years from now. Looking at tax extension history, like I said, and cap funds, 113-some million dollars, that's how much we're going to get compared to 2023 extension. And that is, again, the 3.89%. EAV history, as you can see, the last three years have been going up. That doesn't mean we're going to get more revenue, just the property values are going to increase. And that impacts

098our tax rate. And then new construction, which is the additional revenue we receive apart from the CPI, as you can see that we have a higher new construction projected number of 24 million dollars compared to the 18 million dollars we get. So that $6 million times our 2.2% tax rate. So we're going to get additional $120,000 in revenues, which is good news. Tax rate history, as you can see, that our tax rate has been really stable for 2024. Projected overall tax rate has been like 2.3%. And as you can see, our tax rate compared to their school districts, we're really competitive, actually lower compared to a lot of school districts, but we're very much in line if you look at other school districts with our total tax rate. And then how EAV, when I said

099EAV is projected to go up, it does impact the tax rate. So this is just how the formula works because we're a school district, which is a property tax extension. We have a tax cap where EAV goes down, our tax rate goes up. And then when EAV goes up, our tax rate goes. And as you can see the numbers that, if you have a market value of $540,000 house, the tax rate where district is still collecting $4,800, but if the EAV goes up to $600,000, the district will still collect $4,800. But as you can see, the tax rate actually goes down. In this case, what's happening in our case where, because the EAV is projected to go up by 2.9%, there will be an impact on the tax rates for all the property owners where

100the tax rate will go down. And again, that's only if the property grows in proportion, an average of 9%, that's what's projected to be. Okay, so even though the revenue increase is projected to be 3.89%, we're actually expect, we're levy 4.4%. And the reason we levy 4.4 additional new construction is, we try to capture of any unforeseen increases in our new construction number, because the number we get from Lake County is just an estimate, but we always ask for twice as much in case if there's any increases. Last year, the number they gave us $18.3 million, the actual number was 18.6. But we have levied enough in case if there are any errors on unforeseen increases, we wanna make sure we don't lose money on the table and we capture all the monies from new

101development and new construction. Okay, all right, impact on average homeowner here. So based on what we're gonna get, putting in exemptions. And again, if everyone's properties, EAV grew in proportion to all EAV in our taxing district by 9%, the increase for $600,000 market value homeowner, the increase in annual increase in the taxes would be $166 in their levy. All right, these are some of the exemptions that homeowners can qualify for. I mean, obviously they get additional subtraction on their tax bill, their exemptions, depending on where they fall in, general homestead, homestead improvement, to senior citizens, veterans, different exemptions that homeowners can apply for. And then this is just a summary of all funds. Like I said, we levy by every fund besides the bonds interest based on the total bonds outstanding. Just one point out,

102one difference I'm gonna point out that because we have more capacity to levy an educational fund compared to transportation, we're levy more in education and decreasing our levy in transportation fund. So we just make sure we maintain our fund balance ratios and that's why we're increasing in educational fund. The total increase right now based on this levy is 4.12% based on the bond and that is inclusive of the bonds and interest levy. And then bonds and interest, like I said, levy is based on the total number of outstanding debt. We got six outstanding bonds right now. What's next is presenting it today. We presented the finance committee now at the regular board meeting, November 19th board takes action to us. The aggregate levy, then we publish a notice in the newspaper for tooth and taxation,

103even though we're not required to, we're doing it anyway. And then December 5th is when the notice get published and December 17th is when we have the hearing and an adoption and with the levy is due to the county no later than last Tuesday of December. And these are some different definitions for you to review, not gonna go over it. All right, that's it. I hope I stayed with you 10 minutes. Thank you very quick. Any questions? I know at least three of you have now heard this presentation twice in the same night, so even better, better the second time around. All right, take it on the road. All right, moving on to discussion item B, Girls Water Polo Cooperative for Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools, Dr. Holland. Yes, so DHS and HP water

104polo teams have experienced a decrease in participation in recent seasons, which could jeopardize their ability to offer students the opportunity to play and compete in water polo. So to give an opportunity to our students to play, the two schools can combine the team, which the Illinois High School Association calls a co-op. And so in order for a co-op between the schools to occur, the district has to submit a request to its league and IHSA. And if approved, the district will have one team of students from both schools playing water polo until the program is large enough to return to a single school program. And so one of the things, I know this is in here for discussion, hopefully it will move and be approved, but we're working through, the district administration is working to ensure,

105of course, appropriate operational aspects of this is managed, whether it's transportation, whether it's stipends and coaches and other matters. That's the work of the admin team. We're seeking approval from the board. And as mentioned, this can be temporary depending on student interests. And we have historically, we've done this in the past in similar situations. I believe with softball. Correct, right. I will say, I think this is a fabulous thing, our ability to keep our student athletes participating in things when we talk about things of finding students and meeting them where they're at. The fact that we can make sure the students, that this is a passion for them, that they can continue. I know I had a son who many years ago did a combined fencing team, which was really fabulous. And it also increases

106their social circle across the highway. So thank you to those who worked on making sure that these students can continue doing this. Hopefully it'll continue to build. Any other questions? Great. And we have a lot of mismatching socks for a number of years in our house. One red, one blue. Yeah, that's true. They did their fencing, yeah. Two different colored socks. Okay, third discussion item, Lake County School Mutual Aid Response Team Agreement. Dr. Holland? Yes, so I meet with the Lake County superintendents and this came up in our meeting. The goal of this agreement is to develop and implement programs designed to provide mutual aid in a crisis, primarily arising out of a disaster or violence in one of our school districts and cooperatives within Lake County. The programs are designed to provide training and

107professional development to prepare member personnel, all of us, for response and recovery activities. The Lake County ROE, Regional Office of Education, has vetted this agreement with law firms used by different districts within the county and it has also reviewed it with the state's attorney. For this first year of implementation, if we approve this, the cost would be $250 and for future years, as listed in the agreement, it should not exceed $400. I think this is a thoughtful agreement as it proactively prepares for cohesive and supportive response in the case of a crisis and you never know where they may occur. And I believe a part of the planning is for us to get together and talk about our resources that we can offer so we're better equipped to respond quickly, effectively, and efficiently. I know

108we will, obviously all three items will come back for action. I think this is a good example of thinking of the larger community, that we are a community of schools that are responsible for our students and so if working collaboratively in a crisis situation is imperative. Great, all right. Moving on to action items. Thank you. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the law firm of Hodges, Louisa Eisenheimer, Roderick, and Cohen to be the legal representation on behalf of Township High School District 113 for property tax appeals. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? A roll call, please. Mr. Heidemann? Aye. Mr. Kupa? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Ms. Shapiro? Yes, please. Dr. Elliott-Trumer? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended the Board of

109Education approve a resolution for dismissal of educational support staff employee LaTisha Spangler as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? A roll call, please. Ms. Lupo? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Ms. Shapiro? Yes. Dr. Elliott-Trumer? Aye. Mr. Heidemann? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. Next is the consent 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? It is recommended the consent agenda be approved as list. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Jody, you have the bills. I know you're all excited about my bill review. Ali had the luxury of going with my random numbers of bills. This time it was the years that my

110children were born. I know he's going to miss me when I don't come up with my random numbers. So the first check that he had given me was made payable to guardian. For our PPO dental insurance for our staff. Dental insurance, important thing. Good thing. Checks lined up. Yay. Next one was our check for HD Supply and Company. It's our maintenance supplies. Always happy to see one check cut for two different schools' usages and always happy to see that we bill out all of those things per district, not per school. That all lined up. And then the last one was a check made payable to Hill Mechanical Service for HVAC system upgrade. And looking at global warming, I'm sure we are all very happy that we paid that bill. Kathy will still be walking around

111Deerfield High School in her winter coat in the spring. But those boys who are wearing shorts in January will be happy for the HVAC improvement in May. Those checks all lined up. There you go. Done. Great. Bring some humor to the end of our meeting. Is there any other discussion? A roll call, please. Mr. Nader. Aye. Ms. Shapira. Yes, please. Dr. Elia Schrimer. Aye. Mr. Heinemann. Aye. Ms. Lippa. Aye. Ms. Newman. Aye. Motion carries. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Is there a second? Second. It is 846. Is all those in favor? Yes, aye. Opposed? Abstention? Motion carries. Thank you. You're adjourned. Thank you.