001I am reconvening into open session Township High School District 113 regular action meeting on Tuesday September 24th at 704. A roll call please. Ms. Shapiro? Here. Mr. Braza? Here. Dr. Elliot Schermer? Here. Mr. Heineman? Here. Ms. Lupa? Here. Mr. Nieder? Here. Ms. Newman? Here. I would like everyone else who is present to identify themselves. Ramina Jamsey, Executive Secretary. Tom Krieger, Chief Human Resources Officer. Lisa Delacqua, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Instruction and Assessment. Erin Warner, Chief Communications Officer. Tiffany Rowe, Assistant Superintendent for Student Services. Brian Emmer, Chief Operations Officer. Ali Fletcher, Princeville High School. Catherine Anderson, Princeville Deerfield High School. Ron Casbone, 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 moved. Is there a second? Second. All of those
002in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstention. Motion carries. Moving on to board reports. My president's reports. Two things. One, I just wanted to regroup with everyone. IASB resolution committee will be giving their report out sometime in the next week or so for us to review and agree on our board's votes for the conference coming up in November. What I've targeted for us is to discuss those votes at our 22nd of October meeting. If everyone is still comfortable with our process that we've adopted over the last couple of years where policy reviews the proposals comes up with a recommendation and then on 10-22 we as a board would review those recommendations and then move forward. Okay. Great. Fantastic. This is Hispanic Heritage Month. As we celebrate this month, I wanted to take a moment to recognize and honor
003the rich contributions of our Latinx students, families, and staff. Your cultural heritage, traditions, and stories are an integral part of the fabric of our schools and community. We are committed to fostering an environment where everyone feels valued, respected, and seen. Thank you for the vibrant perspectives you bring to our district. Today we'll continue to learn together. We'll continue to learn from one another and grow as a community. And that concludes the president's report. Moving on to, sorry, too many things. We are talking about our communication expectations. At our workshop in August, we reviewed our communication expectations from us to the superintendent, from the superintendent to the board. It was a good time to do that. The last time they had been updated was January of, I believe, 2020. Yes, 2020. We obviously have new leadership.
004We obviously have a new board. And so we want to be able to move forward then and adopt these new communication protocols, updated communication protocols. Okay, great. And moving on to superintendent's report. I do not have a formal report, but I do want to name that student artwork has been installed in the boardroom. New student artwork. I'd like to thank all of our students from Dearfield High School and Highland Park High School for their contributions. Their artwork is in the boardroom as well as all over the administrative building. We will recognize each student individually at the board meeting in May. So thank you. Great. Moving on to FOIAs. So presented in the board agenda are the FOIAs that were received and responded to since the last board meeting. Great. And moving on to excellence and
005effort. Our principals. Who would like to go first this time? Highland Park High School. Yes, I was just voted. So I have a few highlights for this week. First of all, our socialized department partnered with Warren Township to offer our students who are 16 years and older an opportunity to train to become a Lake County student election judge. This opportunity required a successful application followed by both online and in-person training model. Taking on the role of student election judge demonstrates their strong commitment to civics beyond the classroom. According to the program, our students join the nearly 1,000 high school students who have served as hands-on participants in our electoral process since our program began. Students have invigorated the service to voters and impressed seasoned election workers with their attention to detail and accuracy over the
006years. I'm grateful that our socialized department created this connection and avenue for students to participate in democracy at the local level. In science, our biology team has begun to meet to plan and secure resources for their implementation of the PAIR project. The PAIR project engages students in addressing one of today's critical environmental and health challenges, antibiotic resistance. Students engage in testing for antibiotic resistant genes in environmental soil sample. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change so that antibiotic medicines can't kill them or stop their growth. As a result, bacterial infections can become extremely difficult to treat. Students involved in the project will collect soil samples based on their own hypotheses about antibiotic resistant hotspots. They'll extract total environmental DNA from the soil and use the molecular methods of PCR to test their samples for evidence of
007the resistance. They then contribute their data to a national database of antibiotic resistance surveillance. The biology team is continuing participation in this important research activity again this year and planning for expansion to other courses in future years through funding from the Highland Park High School of Science. Understanding where the hotspots for antibiotic resistance exist can lead to mitigation efforts before these microbes cause disease. We're so grateful that our students are participating in real world research that can save lives one soil sample at a time. Our counseling department finished the signs of suicide screener through our community partnership with Alyssa's mission. Our committed health teachers delivered the prevention curriculum and then each sophomore who's enrolled in health took the seven questions screener. A huge thank you to our counselors, FLEX, and social workers who then met
008with any students who may need an assessment or increased connection based on the survey findings. Alyssa's mission reported that over the past Tuesday of the year schools on average are identifying an average of 15 percent of students who are in need of follow-up and then they refer about half of those students for continued or new service. This year at Highland Park High School we identified the same which was 15 percent of students who took the survey for follow-up. Many students are recognizing that they're struggling with energy levels, sleep, etc. But most importantly they're comfortable voicing these concerns even if they don't ultimately need a formalized service or treatment. This is an important preventative and responsive program that reduces the stigma associated with seeking help and provides education for all and finally support for those in
009need. Very grateful. In homeroom lastly students took the SEL and well-being survey in their homeroom last week. The survey is given two times a year to gather data about our students' experiences at school. It asks students to reflect on the following areas in their life. Supportive relationships specifically at Highland Park High School, learning strategies, challenging feelings, and emotional regulation. While many times students do not feel like their responses will make a difference, it was important through our homeroom coordinator to explain to our students that last year their responses made a difference and programming changed based on what they reported. In response to a question from the panorama survey, 93% of students said that they have someone from school that they can count on to help them no matter what, which was great news. But at
010the same time, students reported at 30% that they felt lonely sometimes to almost always. And that number prompted a group of students and staffed pause. While we celebrate the high responses on the first question, we need to acknowledge the fact that such a high number of students who are reported feeling lonely needs to change and as a school we needed to do more to address those feelings of loneliness. One way we impacted this this feeling of loneliness was to add 13 new clubs based on student feedback. As this example demonstrates, teachers and leaders at the school are using this data to examine our systems, dream about possibilities, and support students in their social emotional growth as they navigate high school. Over 75% of our student body already responded this year, showing a great desire to
011give voice to the student experiences. And I look forward to dreaming with students and staff about how we can better serve our students based on what they tell us they need and how they're doing. To summarize, these experiences not only enhance students' academic skills, but also cultivate a sense of belonging and responsibility, helping to ensure that every student has the opportunity to grow, contribute, and achieve. By offering access to civic, scientific, and emotional support opportunities, we continue to strive to build a community where every student can contribute and thrive. Thank you. Great, thank you. Dr. Anderson? It's the one time that I wish that I printed something out. All right, so I'd like to first highlight about these beliefs right tonight at Bay Club. I had the privilege of being able to witness a noticing
012book. Their theme this year, like my district, is about belonging. And the purpose of the walk is to bring about self-awareness and identity in preparation for the future goals of Louisiana social awareness, going from the me to the we. And it was so delightful to just go out in beautiful 80 degree weather and to just have our students notice what was around them. And then the degree afterwards was more beautiful and it was just exciting to know that this was the beginning of the school year and how far their journey is going to go for the rest of it. It was a really great experience. And Bucky really does a great job of working with a variety of different staff members throughout the school and throughout the school district. So it's so nice that almost
013every single time that you go into her class there's somebody else to do there. So on this learning walk was actually to the company by Robin Horlitz who was our FDL specialist. So it was really nice to have that team in terms of the work that they're doing together. All right. The next thing that I have is something that we started new this year which is called Bitesize WeDots. And this is something that our new principal of creative instruction and assessment, Donnie Escalante, has started to emphasize kind of the work that has started at the beginning of the school year and to really highlight the amazing things that are happening in the classroom. So I feel like it's a little bit of excellence and effort within our school building to kind of emulate what we're
014doing here at the board meetings. So on our Churchill High School Tuesday in August we talked about the work of John Hattie and the biblical learning research that synthesizes findings from 1,400 meta-analyses of 80,000 studies involving 300 million students to what works best in education. The blue dots represent influences and effect size of instructional practices that have the potential to accelerate student achievement and sometimes considerably. So each week Donnie highlights some of the great things that we're seeing in the classroom to not only acknowledge the great work that our teachers are doing but also to share some of the great practices that our teachers have and hopefully open up the doors so that our colleagues can see what is happening inside of the classroom. So one of our first students was working on health-seeking, intelligent
015tutoring systems, and elaborative interrogation and this was in Neal Bregler's English class. The students were reading Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and while the stories within do an incredible job conveying the words for Neal wanted his students to have more historical context about the Vietnam War and its impact both here in the U.S. and abroad. For this he used school AI. According to Dan Kim, school AI which we are piloting this year at DHS provides students with one-to-one tutoring something that has been shown to have a huge impact on student learning. All you have to do is go to the website and log in with your school email. Neal created a space for his students to go in just by scanning QR code or clicking on a link that he put in Schoology and
016ask the question about the Vietnam War. No comp creation for students was necessary. As the students were entering their initial follow-up questions Neal was able to follow along with his entire class on entering the link and see everyone's thoughtful questions along with the box answers. It was like a Kate or guided Google experience that allowed Neal to see exactly what his students wanted to know which is extremely helpful in driving this instruction and not only that but an amazing way to ensure that all students can answer questions because their thought process might be different might take one student a little bit longer or maybe there's a student who didn't necessarily want to answer or ask a question out loud and it provided a space that students could do so. So we're very excited to see
017many more of these blue dots to be shared with our school community. I'll bring it on them to you as well. Great, fantastic. Thank you both very much. As you know it's one of my favorite parts of our agenda so thank you. Okay moving on to public comment. We welcome your comments and questions to give them serious consideration pursuant to Board of Education policy 2-230. We will go in the order of the numbered card you received when you registered to speak. When I call your number please come to the podium identify yourself 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. When possible we will try to incorporate your questions into the relevant agenda item discussion. However any
018questions may be sent via email to be answered subsequent to the meeting. I will raise my hand sorry I will raise my hand at a 30 second remaining indicator and then we'll verbally ask you to wrap up your sentence at the three minute mark so that way then we can make sure that everyone has an opportunity. So if a person with number one can please come forward that would be great. Thank you. Hi I'm Susie Wall. I'm a terrified mom of a Highland Park high school junior. We've had some serious security incidents since my daughter's been there. April 4th Highland Park High School hard lockdown with the gun in school. My daughter on the floor for two hours. August 13th 23 murder of a student by a student a block from Highland Park High School's
019door. Last week social media threat at Deerfield High School. I'm sure that wasn't fun for you. Today another gun in school at True North while not District 113. Terrifying terrifying and in between all that a handful of sporadic threats at District 112 and yet I was told by you Dr. Holland last week that weapons detection systems at every door of our schools are not in the district's plans and we are adding the roaming canine as a layer of security in January. That's adorable. I love dogs but our core security layer is broken. As you know layering on a cracked foundation is an exercise in stupidity. We have only two weapons detection system their WDS yet we have three student entrances and I can't even count the number of staff entrances we have. It's widely known
020that students text each other to avoid the door with WDS. We have a proven shortage of security staff as we pay way below neighboring districts. No one can work for less than twenty dollars an hour. They can't. At evening events I see all the time the WDS are shoved up against a wall. Hundred percent of evening events and if I know all this as a mom who volunteers so does a potential school shooter. All right. A dog ain't gonna fix all this. I don't care how cute that dog is. Questions. How will roaming canine in January of 2025 protect our students and staff today? How? Why bomb sniffing dogs? Have we had bomb threats too that I don't even know about? 77 percent of the community wanted WDS and we paid for them. Why are
021they not deployed effectively? Why? At 18,000 each for those CHEA models they are way cheaper than dogs and handlers. They're way cheaper. What will it take to effectively employ weapons detection systems at every entrance every hour every day at both Deerfield and Highland Park? Does someone have to die to make this happen and if so who? I want to know who. All right. Once a gun enters the school we have lost the battle. You can have 20 rabid dogs. Once the gun is in school we have lost the battle. We are losing the battle. Look at what happened today. I am terrified every day. Fix this. Number two. Good evening. My name is Enrique Perez and I have a son and a daughter at Highland Park High School. What are you guys hiding? Really what
022are you hiding? How do you go in one year from not wanting metal detectors half of you voted against it to now you want dogs? What's changed? Why do we want buff sniffing dogs all of a sudden? Do you have some information some intelligence from the police or from some other agency? A threat assessment that may be now bombs and explosives and I want to say that loud enough so everybody can hear it bombs and explosives are now in the threat matrix. Are they really a concern? Explosives, bombs. Are our kids safe? What are you not telling us? What are you not telling us? You tout in your in your email Dr. Holland how dogs and metal detectors are going to go work great together. They're going to complement each other but you're not even
023fully utilizing the metal detectors. Every major event at Highland Park High School that I've been to in the evening the metal detectors are pushed off to the side. They are not even being used. The word on the street is the rumor that I've heard from multiple sources from the school itself from Highland Park High School is your own security staff does not like to use them. Part of it is because they're understaffed, under trained, they're too hard to use or you just didn't train them when you rolled it out almost a year ago. Why are you understaffed on security? Why? You're going to spend money on dogs but you can't have enough security And what about your security director the one that just left, Amy Oliva? Where is she? What happened? We actually met with
024her once privately when Dr. Law was still here and she gave us a great song and dance of how she was going to fix everything and everything was going to be great but then all of a sudden she goes dark, she's blind, she disappears and now she's gone. What really happened to her? I know you're not going to say because it's a personnel issue but it's one that she's at a high enough level of a position that I think the public needs to know What really happened to her? Was she really qualified to begin with? What are you not telling us as an administration and as a board? What are you keeping from us? Why are you not fully utilizing the weapons detect metal detectors? And what about your precious mitigations? At least the half
025of you that voted against those metal detectors last year went on on rants and raised about how you're going to do interventions and mitigations. You're going to focus on all the other stuff. Well what happened today that the kid that had the gun wasn't he from a school where a development disabled kids go to or where they have issues where they're trying to deal with their emotions or with other problems? How does a kid like that get a gun? Somebody who's mentally or emotionally disturbed get a gun? So I just okay and what are you guys doing about the gang problem here in Highland Park? Remember the shooting on August 13th of last year? No one's going to say it but the word on the street is that was also a gang hit or a
026gang retaliation but nobody is doing anything about it. What are you guys hiding? Do we have to like file a lawsuit? Do we or for your request or something? Or will one of you just please come clean and tell us what's going on? Somebody please tell us. Thank you. Okay moving on to action items action item 7a student discipline for student a. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the suspension of student a assigned by the administration. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? A roll call please. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Dr. Elliot Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heideman? Aye. Ms. Lupo? Aye. Mr. Nieder? I didn't hear a response. Aye. Thank you. Ms. Shapira? Yes. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of
027Education approve a one-year employment contract for Lane Linder as director of security as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Great sure. Are you good with me speaking to it? Okay so I want to announce that I'm very excited about the potential approval of Lane Linder as the new director of security. Mr. Linder is a retired police commander and former safety and security director in two districts and he'll officially joined if approved in early October. We're incredibly fortunate to welcome Lane as a director of safety and security. Lane's extensive experience working with students in district and high school settings combined with his experience in threat assessment crisis management and supporting stakeholder learning positions learning excuse me positions him to immediately strengthen our safety and security protocols.
028He has a distinguished law enforcement career where he served as a commander school resource officer. He's led canine teams and developed comprehensive crisis intervention strategies. He's definitely equipped to lead district 113's effort in ensuring the safety of our entire community. Currently Lane serves as the director of operations safety and security at Lake Forest community high school district 115 where he has overseen safety operations for the past six years. His role includes developing and maintaining emergency and crisis intervention plans acting as a liaison with school resource officers and managing building level threat assessments. Lane has also served as a director of safety and security at Hanover community school corporation in Cedar Lake Indiana. There he implemented programs to mitigate safety risks managed emergency responses and led efforts to restore normal operations after incidents. Prior to his
029work in school security Mr. Linder retired from the village of Park Forest police department after 22 years of service rising to the rank of police commander. While there he supervised firearms trainings led canine units and served as the tactical liaison to the emergency response team. Earlier in his law enforcement career Lane also served as a dare instructor and school resource officer. Lane holds a bachelor of arts in criminal justice from governor state university he's a graduate of northwestern university school of police staff in command he's a certified master trainer and behavioral threat assessment by the u.s department of homeland security and is certified in firefighter one two and arson investigation from the university of illinois fire science institute so i definitely would encourage us to consider his approval based on the skill sets that he
030can bring to our district. Fantastic any other discussion? A roll call please. Dr. Elliot Schermer? Aye. Mr. Heinemann? Aye. Ms. Lupac? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Ms. Shapira? Yes please. Mr. Braza? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended that the board of education approve a contract for ECRA for an amount not to exceed one hundred thousand dollars as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Yes i would just like to to mention that as a district we vetted for five potential partners to support the district in data reporting and analysis and ECRA rose to the top. ECRA provides predictive analytics they have a compact data system and it's pretty comprehensive and they really focus on predictive analytics. ECRA also rose to the top because of their
031work around school improvement processes. They have apps that provide teachers and administrators access to student growth and assessment data in the class at the classroom level as well as across their courses. They also have a strategic dashboard that can help our district as well measure strategic plans and indicators key performance indicators as we as we move forward. This allows us to assess our progress as well as open it up for the community to also follow along with these options. I also want to highlight the importance of considering the potential that we have to have a longitudinal view of student achievement just based on ECRA also being used in our center districts. We will have insight into the growth of students from the time they're in our center districts into our high schools so we can
032better prepare for them and support their growth moving forward. Great. Any other discussion? A roll call please. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Lupo? Aye. Mr. Nader? Aye. Ms. Shapiro? No. Mr. Baraza? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Schimmer? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve a contract with CESO for an amount not to exceed $36,000 in 12 months or $3,000 per month as presented. Is there a motion? Still moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? So I can say a little more about this contract. It is to help us get to ground level with our communications work. We've had turnover over the past year and a half in the department and major initiatives to move forward in communications. The outsourcing of some of the work will support some of
033our website work which was communicated and reported on in a previous board meeting as well as move forward with the implementation of policy 5125 to the extent that's possible. Just to clarify, this policy involves registering all of our District 113 social media accounts, identifying the pages that have been created in our district, and bringing all of that in under our governance. As noted in the contract, I also want to mention that we have a not to exceed clause because this is based on what's needed. You will also see in the board agenda that we are hiring a replacement in the department. So I just wanted to speak to that. Again, we're working to catch up on work and to move some unfinished work forward as well as to move forward with some of the key
034initiatives that were previously named in the communications report. Thank you. A roll call, please. Ms. Lupo? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Did you say yes? I can't hear you. Yes, please. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Shermer? Aye. Mr. Heidemann? Aye. Ms. Zuman? Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve a contract with SFM Consulting for an amount not to exceed $35,580 as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? So I can speak to this as well. As everyone knows, cabinet members have changed over the years and there are some new members of cabinet and to support my leadership and the growth of this team and moving forward with our own professional leadership development as well as moving forward with goals outlined by the board. I
035am asking for this Steve Murley to be our consultant as a cabinet team to support our growth as a team working together. Just because we are together doesn't mean we have worked through everything that's needed to be a high functioning team, which is a priority. Additionally, for a limited time for this year, the consultant will meet with us individually to provide one-on-one coaching and development to better support us individually as a part of that larger team. So this is a one-time expense and it's to really bring our cabinet group together as a team. Thank you. A roll call, please. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Thank you. Ms. Shapira? Yes, please. Mr. Braza? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Schimmer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Ms. Lugba? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve a contract
036with Baker-Tilley Municipal Advisors for an amount not to exceed $50,000 pending legal review. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? So this contract is really focused on conducting an extensive comprehensive staffing audit in our district. Staffing, as many people know, is a complicated process that requires a keen understanding of the needs of the district, the alignment of roles and responsibilities, bargaining units, and the assignment of personnel. Requires a lot of oversight. Staffing also has achievement and financial implications. Stepping into this role as the district's new superintendent, this would be helpful in helping me establish a clear understanding of our current state of staffing, which I believe would best be conducted by an outside entity. The firm will do a deep dive into our current state of staffing
037and will make recommendations for improvement, as well as identify some trends and opportunities for growth. The audit will include all instructionally assigned staff for now, and the work will be conducted during the first semester to support us in making more informed and appropriate decisions going into staffing season during the second semester. Can I only ask one question? There was a lot of blue lining and blue addition. I assume those are final, the things that are in blue lined, as well as those were additions in blue on our contract. Those are part of the final contract. So pending legal review. Yes. Thank you. And probably just to make a note, ECRA, SFM, and Baker-Tilley, provided it passes our vote, are all, we feel as a board, are instrumental in enabling Dr. Holland to achieve the goals
038that we've outlined for her, especially in this first year as she's taken over at the district. So this is going to help you to do the job we've asked you to do. A roll call, please. Ms. Shapiro. Yes, please. Mr. Barraza. Aye. Dr. Elliott-Shermer. Aye. Mr. Heidemann. Aye. Ms. Lupo. Aye. Mr. Nieder. Aye. Ms. Newman. Aye. Motion carries. Next to 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? Yes, please. Can I ask that all minutes, both open and closed for September 10th, 2024, be put separately, please? Yes. If she read them. Okay. I didn't. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. I'm honest. I could lie. It is recommended that the consent agenda be approved as revised. So
039moved. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Okay. Dr. Jody will report on the bills. I will. Okay. So I reviewed three bills this month. The first was for field turf. And then the next one was for our women's golf team. They got new golf bags. And the third was for staff member reimbursement. All of the bills looked like they were in order. And it was exciting to see like the diverse array of ways that we support our staff and our students. Great. Thank you. Is there any other discussion? Okay. A roll call, please. Mr. Braza? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heidemann? Aye. Ms. Lupe? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Ms. Shapira? Yes, please. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended that the consent agenda item B and C be approved as
040listed. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? A roll call, please. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heidemann? Aye. Ms. Lupe? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Ms. Shapira? Abstain. Mr. Braza? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended that the board of education moved into closed session to consider information regarding student disciplinary cases, litigation with an action against effecting on or behalf of the particular public body has been filed and is pending before court or administrative tribunal or when the public body finds an action is probable or imminent in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the closed meeting. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. A roll call, please. Dr. Elliott-Schrimer? Aye. Mr. Heidemann? Aye.
041Ms. Lupe? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Ms. Shapira? Yes, please. Mr. Braza? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. So we'll be going into closed. We will only come out of closed to close our meeting. There will be no action or business taken. So you guys picked