001Yeah, so high school district 113 meeting on Tuesday, August 6 at 7 p.m. A roll call please. Dr. Elliott Schremer here, Mr. Heineman here, Mr. Nader here, Mr. Schapira, yes, please. Mr. Braddock here, Ms. Newman here. I would like everyone else who is present to identify themselves. Tom Krieger, Chief Human Resources Officer. Lisa Delacqua, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Instruction and Assessment. Karen Warner, Chief Communications Officer. Tiffany Rowe, Assistant Superintendent for Student Services. Brian Armour, Chief Operations Officer. Holly Mahanty, Assistant Superintendent for Finance. Holly Fleischer, Highland Park High School Principal. Katherine Anderson, Prince Fletcher High School. Ron Casbom, Chief Information Officer. Vera Ante, Assistant Superintendent of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Shayla Howland, Superintendent. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended, removing items 9E and 9L for further discussion in the policy committee? So
002moved. Second. All of those in favor? Aye. Yes, please. Opposed? Abstention? Motion carries. Excuse me. My present report is first. Two housekeeping items. I just wanted to remind the board that we will have our self-evaluation workshop on Monday the 19th from 6 till 8 p.m. We worked today on the agenda with Laura and I think it will be a great night for us to set expectation, norming and move the board forward. So I appreciate you guys spending your extra time on the Monday with us. And then I also wanted to, I'm sorry, remind the board that we are all invited to attend opening day, which is the 12th. There is a breakfast at 715 and then the session is from 815 till about 1015 at the DHS auditorium. So please do come if you are
003able to, if your work schedule permits. And then just a quick report from me. I know there is excitement is building for the start of our school year. I know we are all looking forward to the hum of students filling our hallways, our locker rooms, our stages and our fields next Wednesday, August 14th. It will be the first, first day of high school for our class of 2028 and the last first day for our class of 2025. We welcome our new staff to their new home this Thursday, August 8th, and we look forward to welcoming our entire staff back on Monday, August 12th. I encourage our students, parents and caregivers and staff to take a moment and be present in the launch of the school year. Trust me, the right books will be purchased, the
004heart rate monitors will be found or will be purchased for the fourth year in a row, and block schedules will be understood. They always are. Let's savor this beginning of school moment before we get into the business, I'm sorry. Let's savor this beginning of school moment because we get to be in the business of educating our communities of amazing young people. And that concludes my president's report. We are now moving on to committee reports, finance and facilities was a joint committee this last month. And Mr. Nieder, if you can please provide the reports. Sure. And Rick, feel free to chime in if there's anything that I missed. So yeah, we had a joint meeting on the 24th, which is great. So I'm going to give credit to Ali and Brian for putting that together. That
005was definitely the way to do it, you know, given the subject matter. So that was fantastic. I'm going to start with actually the facilities, which came second in the evening. I'm going to start with facilities. We are due to complete our required 10-year health and life safety facilities review. So Brian and our consultants from FGM gave a presentation about sort of the work that they're going to undertake there, the scope, the process, the timeline. All that information is important so that we can use that for planning for next summer and beyond, you know, when we get that information from them. It's important that we complete the on-site portion of this as soon as possible. Brian, I don't know, are we still on track to try to get that done? Yep. Yeah, we're here. We want
006to try to do that before the kids get there to the extent possible because otherwise it can be pretty disruptive. So we want to get that going. You know, from a timeline perspective, September and October, we should be getting sort of our initial feedback from them, reports and things like that. In November, the plan is to submit our final report to ISBE for their approval of the items on there. And there'll obviously be some discussion between now and then once we get some information back as to sort of how things are categorized, you know, timelines, when things are due or, you know, and that kind of thing before we submit that final report. We want to sort of get that report into ISBE as soon as possible because, and we'll talk about a little bit
007more and get into the finance section here, we anticipate there might be a flurry of approval requests coming because some of the changes in the way these kinds of projects are financed, which we'll talk about later. So we want to try to get that in because it could take a few months to get that approval from ISBE once it gets them. So, you know, in the end, as it relates to our action item later, you know, the consensus coming out of the committee was that we should go ahead and approve FGM's contract for performing that work and doing that study for us. And we should know, I do want to note that FGM has already spent some time, has agreed to reduce their contractual as a partner, so I just want to recognize them for
008that. And the fact that we're doing this now is timely because of what we talked about in the finance committee portion. And we were joined with, from the folks from PMA, our financial consultants, Tammy Beckwith-Shalmo, who is in the public finance group. And the reason that she came is because there have been some recent changes in school finance, in particular, some new financing mechanisms for this type of work specifically, and some other types of costs, and then some other changes that came along as well. One is that debt issued for capital projects can now be amortized over 30 years versus 20, which is very enabling for that. You're not required to, but you can if you'd like. Other approved bonds, so think referenda, those no longer count against the school district statutory debt limit, so
009those are outside of that, which opens up some flexibility and bonding capability. And the big thing that actually relates to us at 113 is that there are some new flexibility for financing certain kinds of projects, in particular, those life safety kinds of things that we're talking about. And you have the ability now to issue so-called non-referendum life safety bonds for products related to fire prevention, safety, school security, energy conservation, that type of thing. Those bonds, should we ever decide to do them, do count against our total debt limit, but bonds for this purpose are not subject to the district's debt service extension-based constraints, which they have been historically, so it just opens up some additional capacity for us. And we should just note that qualifying projects are subject to ISBE review, so they do have
010to sort of okay those things, you know, before we can just go ahead and do that. Again, one of the reasons why we want to try to get that report done, get those projects in front of ISBE to get that approval, you know, because we anticipate that lots of others are going to be doing so at the same time. There was no discussion, I want to get clear, there was no discussion during the meeting that we would actually issue these bonds. The discussion was solely about sort of what these new opportunities are, and any issuance of bonds obviously would have to be, you know, discussed later, you know, in conjunction with, you know, lots of other considerations, so, you know, there was no discussion about actually issuing bonds at this point. So that, I guess,
011brings us to what tonight's action item is. There's a reimbursement resolution, you know, in action items tonight. The reason we're doing that is so that we can preserve some flexibility to potentially include should we ever decide to use this mechanism to include work that we're doing now in that. So that's why this resolution is important, to preserve that flexibility going forward. But again, it is not a resolution authorizing the issuance of any, you know, bonds or debt at this time. So the recommendation of the committees was to go ahead and approve that resolution now to preserve that flexibility going forward. I don't have anything else. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? So also later on in the agenda, we have a few action items related to policy. Policy committee met on the 30th
012of July. One of the topics of discussion was generative AI and how it relates to both 7-180 and 7-190. So we talked about the student discipline perspective. Generative AI is something that will continue to come up as a district both inside and outside of the policy committee. But the context in the policy committee was around misuse and what protections we have and what policies we have with that respect. So you'll see a number of policies that are either first reading or second reading coming forward tonight. Anything I missed? So the start of the 24-25 school year is finally upon us. We all seem to appreciate the summer months of wrapping up the school year and planning for new one with colleagues, but there is nothing like the return of staff and students to our schools,
013filling them with joy, laughter and excitement. Our teams have been working hard to ensure that the start of the school year is a positive and that our students and families have the information they need to launch. Portions of our schools and fields have been renovated. Some of our instructional spaces and support areas have also been reimagined and redesigned as well. A lot goes into getting our buildings ready for the return of students and staff, and I would like to thank our staff who are literally working around the clock to make our opening days magical. Our district leaders have returned and leadership meetings have been occurring at the district level and within our high schools. New teacher orientation will launch on Thursday and all of our district meeting or all of our district staff meet on
014Monday, August 12th for our opening day. Our first day of attendance for all students is on August 14th and we're excited about that. I want to encourage students and families to take some time to review all of the communication sent from our high school principals. If there are questions pertaining to any of the information you received, please reach out as soon as possible to have your questions answered. We want to start our school year with all of our families being well informed and our students feeling very confident about their first day. To our staff and students who are new to our district, I want to just communicate we are very happy that you are here and we are looking forward to getting to know you and to welcome you personally to our district. Most importantly,
015we're committed to making every effort to ensure that you know and feel that you belong in 113. Thank you. It's an exciting time. Yes, very exciting. Can't wait. FOIA requests, I believe. Yes. So there are FOIAs, these are the FOIAs that we received and responded to since the last board meeting. They're listed in the agenda. Great. And then update on the communication initiatives for 24 and 25. Yes, Karen Warner. Okay, thank you. So I'll give Ron a second to get that going. So as we head into this next school year, we're reviewing with the board some improvements we are making over the course of the year. This is, if you go to the next slide, Ron, please. This is the short list of updates and I will dig in as we go through the deck.
016Next slide please, Ron. Okay. So we are moving to an enhanced tip line called WeTip 2.0. It addresses two main challenges we have been having with the tip line we were using previously. Getting actionable information and then having someone available 24-7 to review tips, even though this is not, and I want to stress this, not trying to replicate 9-1-1 and it's not for emergency, that is what 9-1-1 is for. The two-way encryption enables the tip submitter to be prompted for more detail so that they don't have to, if they don't initially supply enough actionable information, we can prompt them then to provide more. I also want to highlight this system supports 13 languages and they continue to add languages as well. Next slide please. Certain incidents are serious enough that we think first responders and
017law enforcement should be notified at the same time that we are. We can modify these options and customize them, but this list is typical best practice. There is also a call tree for these same incidents, meaning that WeTip will call us in a rank order until they reach a live person to respond, and that call tree function is similar to some other software systems we have in place for security. Next slide please, Ron. Okay, so here are some visuals of all the ways that you can submit a tip. There's a QR code that can be used for posters in a digital campaign, the numbers on the back of student ID cards along with the two that are required by law, and there's a dedicated hotline for text and call. It's embedded in the app and
018it is also embedded on the website. Next slide please, Ron. Okay, so here's just some visuals again of what it actually looks like when you get into the app itself. You select the building that you want to submit the tip for, then these are the languages that are offered. And again, it's a verbal or written option to submit in those languages. When you submit the type of tip that you are trying to submit, these are the standard, if you go back just for one sec, those are the categories that they offer out of the box. Basically, we're going to start with those because we want to see based on the usage what other options we might need to add or revise. Okay, next slide, Ron, thanks. So terms and conditions, that's pretty standard for security
019agency tip lines. Just to make users understand that this is again not 9-1-1 and also to make them understand that there are consequences for submitting false information. Okay, this is another screenshot of information that people would be or the fields that they would see when they went to submit a tip. Sure. Back to terms and conditions, do they have to submit that each time if someone submits more than one report, do they have to check that box? Yes, they would. Thank you. So the top half of this page is required information, then when you get to the bottom, it's optional. Again this will help us address one of those main problems that we have with the tips that we were getting is not having enough actionable information. And then I'll pause here before I move
020on to see if there's any other tip questions. Are we moving on to the next? I had a question about WITIP. I was interested in are other schools in our community or in the surrounding areas using the same? Is this a common school based? So this particular product is used in schools across some schools across the country, for municipalities, there's some agencies that use it as well, like the FBI of their own. Our local districts do not use this. Some of them have the same capability that we also had based on the vendors that they use. Okay. Others use safe to help, others use a Google form. Okay, interesting. I also just want to add districts have a way for all districts that I know of have a way for community members or community stakeholders
021to submit a tip. The platform or the vendor may differ. Additionally, as the same, I mean it's the same for our district, there are many ways, not just a tip line, that stakeholders can provide a tip. We always encourage a variety of platforms and experiences and ways for community members, for students to reach out to staff. People send emails. So not all of our tips come through this platform, but this is an easy accessible way for anyone at any time to submit a tip. Great point. Yes, and it's a way for people to remain anonymous if that's really a concern when we've had tips submitted through a tip line and people actually approach someone in person to submit similar information at the same time. Sure. So I think you covered this, but I missed it.
022What are the improvements over the previous system or is that coming? No, so I maybe I went too fast there. So there's a wellness, yeah, no, I think I threw it too fast. So it's 24 seven 365 live person that will monitor. It's us essentially right now. So if we're sleeping and a tip comes in, no one's going to see it till they wake up the next morning. So there's an ability for someone to kind of triage and determine what's critical and what really isn't critical and can wait. We also have the ability to prompt people for more information. If someone submits a tip, for example, so and so was seen with a vape or so and so or just a student was in the bathroom with a vape or something like that. Well, if
023it comes in at 10 o'clock at night, no one can run to the bathroom to try and intervene. And if we don't have names, we don't know who to follow up with. If someone says they're concerned about their friend, well, who's the friend? So those types of things to try and get more information. So before it was just the one way done. It's one way. With more. Yes. This one will allow for tell me more. Yes. And the conversation can continue encrypted until the tip is actually closed out. So it could go on for several minutes or hours. Well, oh, interesting. It also has the increased language functionality, which we didn't have before it was English or nothing. OK. So then moving on to the next slide, please run. So at least once per year,
024we test our emergency communication system to refresh or familiarize people with how they will receive information in an emergency. And it also serves as a potent reminder to encourage people to make sure their contact information is up to date. And that will take place on Monday, August 12th at 10.25 a.m. We chose that time specifically because we'll have staff in the building. It's exact. For a reason, there might be a minute or two leeway because we will have staff in the building, but we won't have students in the building in that way. If parents are not paying attention, they won't be alarmed to receive something and it will be marked as test. Next slide, please run. So staff already know this is coming. Parents and guardians and students will be informed first up with an
025email from Dr. Holland that's going tomorrow. It will be reshared in principal newsletters coming on Thursday and we'll issue other reminders so that people are aware. And I guess any questions on that? OK. So next slide, please run. OK. So moving to final site. So the board might recall that our vendor Blackboard was bought out by final site about a year and a half ago. That is driving our move to the new website. This is a complete rebuild. So we saved some money with a replication rather than a complete redesign. We had hoped to launch earlier, but now we're hoping to launch by second semester. So it's just a continuation of what we've been working on kind of in fits and starts. Next slide, please run. So Ron can scroll through the mock-up of the
026district design, which you can see here. The next step will be the design for the schools. Then we'll move into content cleanup and migration, and then we'll offer training to content editors before it launches. Who is in our district supporting this effort to migrate the system over? Um, me. Final site is we'll do some major heavy lifting of content migration, where the rubber is going to meet the road here, though, is in the stylizing of that content once it's moved. And then the validation. OK. That's going to be a full-time job for a period of time. Yes. That's why it keeps having fits and starts. I've done it. Or fits and starts. So then moving to parents where, thanks, Ron. So we're going to move to parent square for emergency and mass communications. Again, as
027the board may recall, the board approved the contract with Final Site for the website replication. I had the emergency and mass communications component split out from the terms of the website itself so that we could move to a different platform if we wanted to. Though that's exactly what we're going to do. It's more robust. Final Set is basically a website company that bought other assets from Blackboard. And so they are not in their current state a really a comps company. And we need more functionality than what they offer. So in addition to that, Parents Square bought out Remind. And so what they're intending to do is fold in some of that functionality of Remind with that two-way text. But it will be more robust in the Parents Square product than it currently is in Remind.
028It's sounding to us like students wouldn't have to opt in, for example. I know that's a hurdle that sponsors and coaches face when they're trying to use it. So they're going to phase it out. So we're going to have Remind throughout 2024-25. And then we'll phase it out at the end of the school year to give people time to transition. Karen, I get some, hey, 1-12 users per month. Yes, they do. The problem is, is that each time it goes out, there's a separate different email sending address. So each time you have to do that, you have to say, allow pictures. It's just an extremely minor point. I just thought I'd mention that every time you do it, you've got to click to actually see it. So some of that might be settings, too, on
029your own email. So a lot of the email software programs out there use embedded, they create unique links. And the photos that you use, for example, in an email have tracking information in there. So they know who clicked on what. And so if you turn that off, I know Apple has a setting for the iPhone for that. You will have to click it to allow them back in because that's a way to protect your privacy. Can we also make sure, if we're speaking as board members, we put on our mics since we're recording? Thank you. So basically, this move to parent square will streamline some of our operations for our end users, for the people who send content, for IT and all the syncing that they have to do and oversee. It also will save
030money in the long run over in actual software dollars and in personnel costs. Each recipient has more flexibility to determine when they receive their communications. They can receive it in a digest format, which is basically one set a certain time in the day, or they can receive them as the messages are sent. They cannot do that for emergency communications, though. They can choose their preferred language, and then they can change it as often as they want to any language that they want. So we don't have that flexibility right now. It complies with Board Policy 5125. And then ultimately, as we phase out these other products, we'll have a better dashboard view of all the communications going out in District 113, which we don't have right now. And again, 112 is using it, and so those
031parents will already be familiar with the product when they come in. Question on the language. If you have more than one parent, can you have two different languages in on the same account? Shall we say the same household? That's a big distinction. So each individual recipient can choose their own. So you can be English and your husband can be Spanish. Perfect. Doesn't matter. Thank you. Okay. So the timing of this rollout, we're going to start with the emergency, sorry, Ron, next slide, please. We're going to start with the emergency communications component as targeting first quarter for that. We'll run an education campaign about it, run another test to get people familiar with it. Then we'll work on the mass communications part, implementing branded templates, working with the departments that have newsletters, things like that. We'll
032train users based on their needs and what they would need to use it for over the course of the school year. And then we'll start phasing things out. And again, we will have our mind through the year, but we'll phase out the BB comps and constant contact portion at some point during the year. Okay. And then I think this is the last slide, Ron. So this is just an overview of the timeline. That last bullet point I wanted to draw the board's attention to. You may recall from previous meetings that during emergencies, we've had problems getting information to substitute teachers when they're in the building. So while there may be other options that the new director of security might investigate, for now we are working on a program that will operationalize the distribution of devices
033so that substitutes will have access to email and emergency notifications while they're working in our buildings. So what that will look like, and Ron can add to this, is basically they'll be given a device when they check in, they'll have it with them throughout the day, and then they'll turn it back in before they leave. Yeah. Fantastic. You obviously went through this very efficiently and quickly, and I want to note having been someone who's had to do websites a couple of times, that work is tremendous. So thank you. And I'm really excited to see the functionality that we're going to be able to provide to our students and their families. So thank you. Great. Thank you. And I think also kudos on the website piece and the distinction between while somebody may do a website
034very well, there's also this communication sort of broader piece that is very incredibly complex and working with two different partners I think makes tons of sense. And they do the parents score, it sounds like parents score does the communication piece really well. Final site for Blackboard does the website piece. So I think that was very smart to divvy those two out and go forward with it and the functionality looks amazing. So thank you. Okay. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you. Fantastic. K9 pilot review. Yes. Right. This will be Mira and myself co presenting on this topic. So I'm going to do a quick review, Ron, if you go to the first slide, please. Just a quick review of things that we've already talked about and at the board meeting a few months ago. So what is
035a gun explosive detection dog? So it is a dog that is trained to detect concealed firearms or concealed explosives. So what problem are we solving? This is an alternate for gun detection systems in order to find concealed weapons on any person inside a district 113 school. So, again, this is just a review of things that we've looked at. It's a dog that looks for gunpowder and explosives, mainly gunpowder. Ron, if you would go to the next slide, please. So what isn't a gun detection dog? They are not trained to attack. They do not smell for drugs, and they do not look like a traditional police dog or a security dog. So, again, this is things that we've reviewed. So kind of in this slide, where is this coming from? We've been researching weapons detection, and
036this is another form of weapons detection other than a traditional metal detector. By dogs, you know, this is something that is a little bit less harsh than weapons detection. And as we always research our security projects, security layers, this is another layer that we wanted to explore. And in the next slides, we're going to talk about, we did a trial over the summer. We're going to talk about what we learned from that trial and what the feedback plan is of that trial. So I'm going to turn it over here to Mira, and she's going to go through some of the survey results from that trial over the summer. Okay, thank you. Hello, and I'm excited I get to click through, so Ron, you're off duty for a few minutes. I am excited to share the
037timeline just to lay the foundation for us. We were able to send out our communication to really everybody within our constant contact database, if you will, to the community, and in particular, a few follow-up emails went out to our school during summer school because that was the place where we were going to run our pilot. So you can see that on July 1st, that first communication went out. And then on Monday, July 8th, we began with the K-9 unit in our school at Deerfield. That's where summer school was this summer. I cannot believe that I'm speaking in past tense. And we had three days in which we did really a lot. I don't know some of you if you were able to stop by, but the K-9 unit, so that's both the dog and the
038handler, were able to be in our hallways, even visit classrooms, as well as the outside of the school perimeter. So there was just a lot of interaction that occurred even in those first three days. On the third day, we sent out a survey that went to all of the classes that were running. So this is a second session of summer school. And the survey was given really to all students and staff, inviting them before their class began to take the survey. The end of the survey also invited people to sign up for the focus group, which would be on day four. So that would be during lunch to sit down and talk where we asked a few other questions to kind of get into the layers that perhaps the survey itself couldn't. We also had
039the K-9 unit there that day four and then also on the fifth day. So there were five days of school that week because we only had three or four the week before. So it's actually kind of a perfect moment in the sense of getting as many days as possible. OK, so summer school. We have in this session 215 students that were registered. However, there are two periods that were being offered every day. And so we found that most of our students or about half of our students were in attendance for the first class. And then some would come in later for that second class. So not all students were in both classes during that second session in case you were wondering why only 100 students responding. And then we also know that there are about
04030 staff members that this survey could have been taken or responded to. However, the first few emails were really focused on students. The email that went out to remind staff to make sure their students were taking it. Also invited them to take the survey. But I think that that part could have been better, more explicitly stated on the front end when some of the initial emails because I went and looked back a little bit. So but we had seven. So it's about a third of our staff were responding to that. But 43 percent of the students, which from a survey, right, if I'm doing my math correctly, which is really good from a survey perspective. Well, and arguably, actually, that only the yes, because out of the 215, only about 100 were in attendance for
041first period. So true or a few more than that. But still. So, yeah, it's either whether it's fantastic. I was excited to see 43, let alone it being high. Yeah. OK, so one of the pieces that I always think about is it's real interesting and easy to get data that either kind of I would say is answering the question that you think you want. I also think it's interesting to look at data and to understand that it is very important to always drill down and to at least understand who's answering the questions. And particularly in what way. And so disaggregating data for me is an essential piece when I'm looking at things. But by no means is it an endpoint. I wanted to build this out just so that we all kind of understood how
042it came into being. And so I'm looking at our regular school year data just at first glance. And my point was, is that in the disaggregation, I often and I think we I can say often look at race and we ask ourselves then also what subpopulations would there be that receive services that would be considered extra, if you will. So that would be anything from areas of English language services to financial and also thinking about within the areas of special education 504 and IEPs. The third area would be just understanding that we almost always look at grade level. There are others we would look at gender. We'll look at various other attributes that could be a part of a student's lived experience. But these tend to be the top ones that we constantly drill down
043for. When I looked at race in particular, just for our school, I know you are aware of this, but just in the sense of the public, let's remind ourselves that racially speaking, If I use state codes or excuse me, federal codes, but also you'll notice here I collapsed students of color as one group and then also using the W to represent students who identify as white or white students. So there's not, I would argue, straight apples to apples here, but I needed to aggregate that particular section of our data. So when we look at our entire population across the district, this isn't her school because then we'd have different percentages. We have approximately 30% of our student population that identify as a race other than white and then we have 70% of our student population
044that identify as white. When looking at our services, students who receive services versus those who don't, we have about a 15 to 18 to 85% ratio. So understanding that again, that students who receive financial aid, who may receive educational services within IEPs, 504s, as well as language other than dominant English. This is important for us to understand as well as the fact that grade level is pretty distributed equally across the board. Not always this clean, but roughly 25% of each grade level. Okay, so our school, the question is what was going on in summer school? Was this a good sample? Did we, were we able to see representatives of all of these different groups as well as what we're calling subgroups? The answer is yes, there was somewhat of a higher proportionality. So if we
045looked at race and we broke down the 93, let's just say 100 for a moment, students, we would see roughly 50% students of color and about 50% students who are white. And so there's an over representation of students of color in our summer school population this summer. Similarly for services, we saw the same over representation, if you will. So about 50% of our students receive some sort of service. That said, I didn't find any designated to receive financial aid in this particular group of 93 to 100 students. So that was an interesting piece. And then when we looked at our crew of kids based on grades, not surprising perhaps, but important to note 10th and 11th graders made up the majority of our summer school population. So this is important because we, some of us,
046I won't say all of you, I will definitely speak for myself. I had some preconceived or some thoughts about which groups of students might be more receptive to having a dog in school. What could possibly create barriers or some sort of trepidation? And so I'm not going to ask any of us to externalize those thoughts, but just think about them as we engage in our data and when were you surprised or when weren't you? I just think it's an interesting piece for us as we always have those experiences looking through data. One of the things that is really important is what did we want to understand? So we have this amazing group of kids who are engaging with and adults and we have this pilot before us and I thought it was really, you know,
047pretty important for us to really think about. Okay, so what could we understand in a few short questions and in a period of time that, you know, is arguably truncated? So we needed to really think about what was the comfort level overall of our students and our staff? What's even their perception of safety? Thinking about the impact on our school environment and also asking the future question. How would you feel in the future if this were to be implemented? Again, the questions were really kept to a short, you know, I think we had seven questions total. We did not want to exhaust them. We did not want to create a moment in which we saw fatigue in the survey taking. And so these were real direct, you could see from what we wanted to learn
048to the questions almost making up the, you know, this is how basic it was. The focus question is where I also learned a lot from a few of our kids and we'll talk about that a little bit more. But understanding what makes you feel safe was really great and I learned a lot there. But you saw the survey questions. I'll take a moment before I go into what we found just to ask if there are any clarifying questions that you might have or anything you might need. No, OK, because all of a sudden I can feel like I'm on a roll. OK, deep breath. So there was a lot and my goal here was to really bring highlight the aspects that could show us the most. So, for instance, here's where you see the disaggregation
049again of our student population based on these different identity factors. And one of the things that you might want to, you know, just kind of explore is that space that I was talking about groups that you could be surprised or not surprised in the sense of their reaction where they were comfortable or not comfortable. Does the data tell us why? No. The question, though, is were you or how comfortable? And so when you think about that, then we can say, yes, they said they were comfortable. And you can see the very strong or very, you know, really thinking about this, the majority, and that's kind of an understatement, were comfortable with having the canine detection unit being on campus. If I take you to this next one, the reason I use a pie chart, so
050usually not the best way to show data, but with one question and really, you know, queuing in on yes or no answer, it's a good way to understand the proportion of responses. And so we had 80% saying yes, that they supported the continued use. And when you think about also the aspects of what we were learning, I'll take you to the next piece of what was causing maybe some kids to hold back and say, I'm not sure or no, I think are interesting because if you look at these answers here, these are direct quotes. So, for instance, a student did say creating a multilayer security is important. Now, the majority of the kids that we... My question is students, which doesn't surprise me. Right. It does not surprise us. And yet it still is just
051like, oh, they're so brilliant. And when we were talking specifically, there were quite a few kids who are part of a civics class. And that's where we know that Hunter, the dog, and the handler were in that class and they were doing... They were really interacting and asking these questions. And that's what really sent the message clearly to me, that that was a very helpful aspect of the... I wouldn't argue it was unplanned, but very deliberate aspect of education. So because they were in there, they were able to ask more questions to realize, oh, okay, that's the function of the dog. So even a student who had feared dogs, or I could say probably still does, didn't feel fearful in this moment because they knew the purpose of the dog and they understood kind of
052the parameters of what was happening. And so they didn't need to worry about the social issues that usually come up for them when they are around a dog. They're so thoughtful as well, our students. I know that at times kids can do all kinds of things, but really what came up too was just the worry, not about the things I was worried about. Is the dog going to bite? Is it going to bark? The allergies, right? So there was a little bit of concern, like what will happen there? It was such a beautiful conversation. They reminded themselves, oh, we have dogs in our buildings already. Oh, you don't have to touch the dog. Oh, et cetera, et cetera. And so the things that were coming up were teaching me while also I was, you know,
053obviously taking notes and trying to just kind of remain impartial. So again, these are some of the ones I tried to pull things that were a mix, so they weren't just feeding my bias or what I would argue is just strictly a positive, this is great, you know, kind of narrative. So that's pretty much, you know, again, we didn't have a lot of kids. We offered pizza and cookies, didn't quite hit the mark there, but it's okay. We also really, this is, you know, what I've already said here, but continually found that there was not a majority, there weren't a large group or a particular group of students who reported a no. So again, that's where if I had predicted this, I would have, and put money on it, I would have lost money because
054I was worried that our students from all of those different subgroups, students who receive IEPs or 504s or students who are, let's say, I was looking at also thinking about race. And in my stereotypes, I was thinking about would kids of color have possibly a more negative interaction than our white students? All of those things did not pan out the way that I may have stereotypically assumed. And so I just found this, I just thank you for your request that we do this kind of research because it was really important for me. And with that, I'll ask one more time maybe questions or comments. So that civics class case, that sounds like it was a great way to gather feedback, gather input informally to see, you know, how are students feeling about it? What are
055they hearing about it? What are they saying? You mentioned not being terribly surprised at like a lot that came up, but there was some surprises of like, I didn't see it this way, I didn't think about it in this way. What were some of those, oh, interesting, like moments that came up? I was surprised at the all students from all of those different demographics. So for me, because of the situation, the conditions from systemic racism to ideas around fear that could come from not understanding what was going on. I didn't find really at all, I'm not saying it didn't exist because some of our numbers show that, but that kind of discomfort from any of our students as I stood day after day watching them come in. Again, that's just visual, that's looking at the
056majority of our data, but I thought I would have seen more or heard more or come to learn that there were more students who would have felt uncomfortable, worried, or at least said, no, not for me. And so that's where I learned and felt surprised. And then I hadn't, I feel embarrassed, but the fact that students were afraid, but when they learned the purpose of the dog, really that decreased any kind of fear. So of course, education, I mean, that's my business. I should know that, but that was surprising. I could feel myself going, huh, when that student said that. So I knew I was surprised, which meant I had a bias towards that being possible. Right? So because that student could understand the purpose and the function of the dog, their fear was dissipated
057in that moment. And I hadn't, for whatever reasons, put that together. That was something that surprised me. I don't know, Brian, did anything come up for you? So I approached this strictly from an operational security standpoint. But the one thing that surprised me was we brought the dog into the lunchroom. And at times there were lines to pet the dog. So I didn't think that was going to happen. That was surprising to me, that kids would take time out of their day during their lunch period to line up, not just pet the dog, but to line up and wait to meet Hunter. And watching the dog find things was quite impressive. I mean, through the libraries, through the hallways, lockers, that was interesting. I'd never seen that in a school setting. I just want to,
058things that we're looking for. As pets. Lunches, stinky shoes. When I came into this, I had some of the similar thoughts that you did, the kind of reaction might get, because we as adults, we see dogs on television with police. It's not a pretty sight. So my assumption is that that might be the kind of fear that would happen. And we would see that more with our kids of color. And our kids that might have issues, if you will, some of the IEP or 504. So the fact we did not really see that, I think is extraordinary. And add that into the response rate that you got. This is really an incredible presentation in terms of success of the idea, or at least the stage of it. And I think the fact that they don't
059look like police dogs makes such a huge difference. That they're floppy ear dogs, that they don't look like police dogs. We were able to see them as board members, etc. It makes such a tremendous difference. They look like the dogs that your friends are walking in the neighborhood and that your friends have. And that makes an enormous difference on the immediate perception. Well, and isn't that interesting, because I know we've had that discussion a little bit amongst ourselves. Because some people have German Shepherds, and of course they love them, and they're beautiful, smart dogs. And we talked about everything from Nazi Germany to civil rights policing to today policing. And that range of imagery often, unfortunately, falls along that line of that kind of German Shepherd or policing dog. And that was an interesting piece.
060That's what was playing out for me as well. And so we had to navigate that. And I think that's what we saw. So we're not going to get a multi-poop. Or a Portuguese water dog. Right, but these look like dogs that we'd all have as pets. Is there a plan to replicate this study later on with a larger group or with staff? So assuming we move forward with it, we would have more opportunity to look at this again. So the next study would be moving forward with a full-time R dog, assuming that the board approved the recommendation. So did you pick up on anything through your study, through hearing from kids and having these discussions, that if we do move forward with this, that would help you communicate it in a way that might help
061smooth any transition, that sort of thing? Yes, I would say the going, so we can't rely on email as much as we want. Karen's always telling us, like, come on, you know, there's, but of course we will do that. And it will also go out and it would go out in newsletters, right, through places that are important, embedded in areas that are read. But I think one of the most important pieces is how we would use our classrooms and those experiences to really bring that messaging in. And to your point, I think also, Jody, the idea of further investigation, like we shouldn't ever stop being curious about if we were to do anything, what the impact is on a larger group of kids and our staff. And so I would think that the communication wouldn't
062be a one way to roll out something, but would be a continual cycle as we are doing the work. So the classroom space is a really just rich environment for that communication to happen. Brian, how about from the logistical side, even though, I mean, these dogs are, you know, living, breathing creatures, it still is solving, it's a layer of security. So I'm interested from the logistical side. 100% accurate. So there was one instance where we found, you know, some cleaner that had some chemicals in it, a false positive, but we addressed that on our custodial cart. So normally a custodial cart wouldn't be in a hallway. But, you know, operational, operationalizing this process and me being the person hiding things for the dog to find in a large school was really amazing. The dog was
063extremely accurate in finding things. We didn't miss anything. We challenged the dog extremely hard where we were hiding things. It was not obvious. We didn't, you know, it wasn't a backpack in the middle of the hallway. It was things hidden around the entire school. We know that we're going to need to give the dog breaks. Like we learned that. That's obvious. We've always said that, you know, we can only search so much and then the dog is going to need to take a break. So no surprises there. But from operationalizing it, it is a mobile weapons detection system. I say the team and that team roams around the building and, you know, the team might be at this door, might be at that door, might be outside on leaving. So the team was moving there
064really quick. And we've so we tested that team and then we tested the team when they didn't know they were being tested as well. So while we were doing that, they had found something that we weren't, they didn't know they were looking for something. And so that dog is always working. We learned the dog is never not working and will continue to look for things that it's trained to look for things that it's trained to look for. That's an interesting point. I obviously you've really educated all of us as we walk through security and we understand security is multilayered. And I when I think about a lot of our security, it's around control. It's around the things that we use to control how people enter our buildings, where people can go in our buildings. And
065then I think of the other component, the human side, our security staff who are responding to things that that may be of concern. And then I feel like these dogs fill that other need of detection in motion. And that is that additional layer that solves a need, again, whether it's in the parking lot, whether it's in the locker room, in a hallway, wherever it needs to be in the school is such an imperative part, an integral part of the multilayers of security. Fantastic. I think it's important that when we talk to the community about this, that we make sure that we frame the conversation, that we just tell people what it is they're supposed to think about this, what category it is. Because they find this with politicians, you know, our two presidential candidates are
066trying to frame the respective VPs in their own image, the way they want to describe them. Well, we need to do the same thing with this. We need to describe what we're doing here as a really friendly, as a great layer of security, all the things we've talked about here. But we need to communicate that to the community. It doesn't have to be right away, but relatively soon so that we frame how it's perceived by the community. That they frame it and then all of a sudden we got to go change it. And I think moving forward, we wanted to, for right now we just wanted to update the board on the pilot, how it was received, what we learned. We'll continue to have some internal conversations and bring back a recommendation, most likely early
067September, based on our discussions internally. I do think it's important for us to consider the school environment. You'll hear us talking a lot about the type of school communities we want, how we want students and staff to feel in our spaces. And there is a lot learned about how students feel with different things that we try and do, even with the greatest and best intentions. I agree with what was mentioned here. It's going to be important for us to constantly gauge feedback and be responsive to feedback and to know. Because different things are happening constantly around us and may cause us to feel different about something maybe we felt positive about at one moment. Things can change. I think that's the ongoing communication that we want to have with our school community. Making sure that
068when we implement or attempt to implement or even pilot something, that we are staying connected to how people are feeling about it. And also being proactive, but also responding to what comes up for people. So I don't imagine this as a one-time dialogue regarding the pilot. If we were to move forward with a recommendation or even to implement this, we need to consistently stay in touch with our school community. And also gauge how students and staff feel. Because a learning environment should hopefully, like my hope, and I'm sure it's everyone else's hope, that when students come in and staff come into our building, they're able to engage in the experience we're providing for them authentically and without all of these other things going on, concerns in their head. Because that gets in the way of
069them fully engaging, learning, and being their authentic selves in a space where we want to foster that. So this is going to be an ongoing conversation and dialogue between us and the larger school communities. We know the number one way to have safety in schools that students feel they have a belonging is their home. And they said that in that focus group discussion that came up, people at the doors talking to them. Thank you very much. Thank you. Very insightful. And now moving on to public comments. We welcome your comments and questions and give them serious consideration pursuant to Board of Education Policy 2-230. 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 questions
070may be sent via email to be answered subsequent to the meeting. I will raise my hand at the 30 second reminder indicator and then we'll verbally ask you to wrap up at the three minute mark. Mrs. Shapiro, I believe you're number one. Thank you. The time is going to take me to figure out how to turn this on. There you go. That's perfect. There it is. Aline Shapiro, today I had an idea. Now I know you're all thinking if the idea had only come tomorrow, you would all be spared. Okay, here's the premise of my idea. It's with almost certainty, probably statistically a little less, but almost certainty that come this coming January, there will be a new Secretary of Education for the United States of America. Okay, the background to my idea. We, over
071this past year, have just seen every level of our community participate in the choosing of our new superintendent. So it seems to me that our district and our students with this background and experience could take some national leadership in starting a movement where students, probably high school students, but whatever they would decide to pull, starting with high school. Every high school in this country and come up with some information. Now, okay, so there's a lot to be done here. You need interested students and interested adults, whether they're faculty, staff, parents, community members, or even maybe professors from the outside to do some training, make sure everybody knows exactly what the subject matter is, and then to let the students with the adults get together and decide how they're going to implement it, how they're going
072to divide themselves, how they're going to come up with the question, how they're going to receive answers, how they're going to reach out. In other words, it would take me more than three minutes to just think of this plan, so I know I can't do that, but you guys have the students. This could be national leadership for our students and for our district, and there's no reason in the world why those people who know, maybe know best even or have the best ideas about who we are looking for in a secretary of education, oughtn't have a national platform for their ideas and thoughts. I could say more, but you get it. I can shut up right here. Any questions? Oh, you can't do that? Okay. Thank you so much, and we will never think the
073idea would be better tomorrow, so thank you for sharing. Okay, we're going on to Board of Education policy for first reading. 7-180, prevention and response to bullying, intimidation, and harassment. So the red line copy in line with press is in the board packet. Dr. Holland, I don't know if there was anything else to add as part of the policy committee discussion. Changes are there. Are there any questions or any additional comment to add? The changes are fairly straightforward based off of press recommendations. Are there any questions? My only question on the green, was that something we decided to change just due to the fact that it's a different color? Thank you for that call up, yes. Part of the policy committee discussion was the term homelessness and the changes that we've seen in the identifying
074of a person who is in a status of being unhoused and a movement towards not identifying somebody as homeless, rather in the status of being unhoused. Thank you for making that change. So this will come back for second reading at our, most likely our next board meeting. Any other comments or questions? Moving on to action item, action item 8A. It is recommended that the Board of Education adopts the resolution of intent to reimburse certain capital expenditures like safety project expenditures with the proceeds of a debt obligation. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? A roll call please. Mr. Heinemann? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Shapiro? Yes please. Mr. Barazza? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Trimmer? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended the Board of Education approve the
07510-year health and life safety plan in the amount of $84,815 as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? And I think you said this Greg, this was going to be up next year, so all we're doing is moving this forward by 12 months to work. A roll call please. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Shapiro? Yes please. Mr. Barazza? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Trimmer? Aye. Mr. Heinemann? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended the Board of Education approve a memorandum of understanding regarding traveling licensed staff members as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? A roll call please. Mr. Shapiro? Yes please. Mr. Barazza? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Trimmer? Aye. Mr. Heinemann? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Motion carries.
076It is recommended that the Board of Education approve a memorandum of understanding regarding the start date for health insurance coverage upon hire as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? A roll call please. Mr. Barazza? Aye. Dr. Elliott-Trimmer? Aye. Mr. Heinemann? Aye. Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Shapiro? Yes please. 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? We already took two items off, right? Yep. It is recommended that the consent agenda be approved as revised. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? A roll call please. Dr. Elliott-Trimmer? Aye. Mr. Heinemann? Aye.
077Mr. Nieder? Aye. Mr. Shapiro? Please. Mr. Barazza? So I'm abstaining for the only purpose of I wasn't here the 16th and I completely forgot. So I'll abstain. Aye. Motion carries. All right. It is 8.08 people. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstention? Motion carries. Thank you everyone. Okay.