001ready are we on recording sorry celebrate I don't know we're not moving another child I'm reconvening open session township high school district 113 regular action meeting on Tuesday June 11th at 706 a roll call please miss Shapira yes please mr. I'm here mr. Heineman here mr. Neater here miss Newman here I will look everyone else who is present to identify themselves Romina Jansky executive secretary Tom Krieger chief human resources officer Karen Warner communications officer Tiffany row assistant superintendent for student services Ryan I'm our chief operations officer all images and so friends let me fan principal Highland Park High School Catherine Anderson principal at Dearfield High School oh no Ron okay sorry hi Mira auntie assistant superintendent of diversity equity and inclusion it's June Shayla Holland incoming superintendent first law superintendent is there a motion to
002approve the agenda as listed so moved there a second all in favor yes please opposed extension motion carries board reports I don't have a board report I'm saving my little report until later in the agenda Finance Committee so the Finance Committee met earlier this evening with Ali and Alan joined us as well to go over in detail the presentation that we're gonna see from Alex later this evening so I'm gonna I'm not gonna steal his thunder we spent a lot of time going through that presentation asking a lot of questions and I think it will be or it is or it will be you know the Finance Committee's recommendation to go ahead most for the the budget hearing this summer policy committee earlier this this evening the committee also met we do have a couple
003of agenda items connected to policy eight dash 90 and eight dash 100 that we'll discuss later on tonight as part of the policy committee work we'll review press updates that come out regularly and review our policies on an ongoing basis throughout the school year some of those policies will be coming to the next board meeting for approval others continue in the policy committee under discussion thank you and then Ed read okay so I went to the June monthly meeting for Ed read and that is just I give a little bit of background and it's an advocacy organization for public education and the key is public educations that are not talking about money for charter schools and it's an and it's basically a lobbying organization to make sure that we get we need is primarily suburban
004school districts north and west Chicago what's interesting about the membership is the meetings have board members but they also have administration members there's a lot of superintendents there and in various board members they want to kind of have a proposal on how we deal with these issues and you can use give me as we go along or later on as we think about it so I try to think about the criteria that we'd have for supporting lobbying efforts by Ed right so I look at a number of criteria so one is we agree with proposal fairly obvious but we as a group need to agree the legislation is important and material to the district so that means for example it it's more money for us or it actually is meaningful and not just a showcase
005we believe that our involvement can make a difference and that the legislative proposal is worth spending our political capital on can't do everything so let me give you a couple of examples something lobby I would be the increased evidence-based funding so the proposal that the state had was 350 million dollar increase and Ed read wanted at 550 now it's something we probably all would agree is a good thing more funding for the state but it's not material to us because it wouldn't increase our revenue so we would probably not have that as something that we would lobby for that reason we might different things you could do you could pull out a witness list slip you can pass resolution support or it can actually go and engage with legislators these are the options for us
006and I want to make a point that this is I'm talking about what board action what the administration does is up to the administration if our administrators decide that is something important to do terrific they should go ahead and do that they don't need to sort of get an agreement in my view from the from the board on it though they certainly might or might not discuss it with us there is also legislation for example last year they wanted a particular legislation on changing TIF districts now TIF tricks are broken and it definitely needs reform but the proposal they put forth didn't really make sense now I had a conversation with Greg about this in the future you know and he and I agreed on it so I didn't even bother to talk to the
007board about it it just didn't make sense for us to support that particular legislation but they're going to be talking about what they want to do for next year and what the legislation might look like and I hope to be on the group that helps look at what that legislation should be and therefore have better legislation that we might support next year so that's that's the kind of activity that's going to go on there's means they happen every month and there's a big meeting I'm going to tomorrow morning on various subjects and TIF district is one of them so that's that's kind of we are on it right so again the thought is it would prove us to better understand the legislation that's occurring in in the state and so you know Rick has has
008offered to be able to attend these meetings and be able to then to bring back to us the information so that again just like we do with true north we make a decision as a group and I think Rick had outlined you know this for these four criteria elements and then he can take our board decision back and use that in his vote make sense great so just like with true north we I have you slated throughout next year the meeting after one of the ad read meetings right thank you Rick's also tomorrow he'd mentioned he's going to some educational seminar workshops and so I asked him to please not only look at it through the lens of the topics he's interested in attending but also the lens of is there value for more school
009board members on our to attend some of those educational opportunities so I look forward to getting that feedback okay administration reports superintendents your last report yes yes thank you thank you madam president two things one I wanted to announce to the board that we have received a grant of five hundred sixty five thousand dollars for the purchase of electric buses as well as things that we're always keeping an eye on obviously it's good for the environment we also want to make sure it's good for the taxpayers and with this grant we'll be able to start purchasing electric buses more about that will be coming of course but we just recently learned we heard the grant so I wanted to want to share that good news to end my final report as superintendent I recall when
010I said when I announced in October that this year would be the year I retire from public school this is a job I love and a school district I love and that's more true now I look around this room and I see the board my team even someone who's moved on to another position who came I even see two past board members who come it has been the honor of my life to have worked with you all and I thank you I also see my wife who has come to be with me for my final board meeting just as she has been with me every step of this wonderful crazy exhausting journey I love you so much and I thank you in the words of Indiana's most famous poet and philosopher because I'm originally from
011Indiana John Mellencamp where does our time go not abstract time but the concrete time that we all have and eventually lose I do a lot of cycling riding hundreds of miles each year all in my house from where I ride I can see the sidewalk in front and this time of year on Saturday mornings I see people walking recently I saw a family walking by with a child in a stroller being pushed and a child on training wheels racing ahead as parents we want to hold on to our children but children want to race away as soon as they have the ability to do so our job in high school is to give students that ability teach them pedal strokes give them instruction different kinds of rides and in some cases even give them the
012bike all of it all of it so they can race to pursue the good life as they see it after they leave us that I would argue is the work of moral schools making all of our students conception of the good our work and helping them achieve it looking ahead district 113 schools are well positioned to become the schools our students are waiting for us to give them or there will be headwinds I often think the most time-consuming part of my job is worrying about the district I will still worry but I take comfort in knowing a few things first district 113 has a new superintendent who has the skills and moral disposition to lead the district to a level I will always dream about the board of education has shown over the years the
013ability as a board to govern and to lead not always perfect individually perfectly individually but always directionally correct as a board the administrators who run the district in the schools have repeatedly shown an ability to overcome any obstacle and pursuing the right thing perhaps most importantly district 113 staff not only have the heart and the resilience to flourish no matter what they face but they also know how to hold on to each other when adversity comes hold tight to your true north and hold tight to each other thank you all again from the bottom of my bursting heart and for the last time thank you madam president oh yes how about that this is the list of foyers you're seeking process since the last meeting thank you okay there is no one signed up for
014public comment and so we will be moving on to discussion item a fiscal year 2025 tentative budget presentation who is that mr all right so um yeah yeah all right so good good evening everybody we just spent about 45 minutes in the finance committee discussing this so i'm just gonna make it really quickly and uh just quick and if you have any questions just feel free to stop me next slide all right so as always we always talk about operating funds when discussing the budgets operating funds are our day-to-day funds that takes us to operate the school districts for example salaries and benefits for all of our employees as well as non-personal expenditures like supplies purchase services uh materials and capital outlay next slide all right so looking at the fiscal year 2025 budget expenditures
015by fund um as we're in the business of educating kids our biggest fund rightly so is educational fund 84 then we have operations and maintenance that's not capital projects that's just uh custodial security uh taking care of repairs and maintenance uh you know electricity that's part of that fund then transportation is all our buses including our special ed transportation and then illinois municipal retirement fund which is our mandatory retirement contribution uh from the board towards non-licensed staff members those are the funds uh next slide looking at the fiscal year 25 budget categories uh rightly so uh salaries and benefits are about 80 percent of our budget uh the remainder are supplies and materials capital outlay which is you know furnitures projectors depending on the threshold other objects i don't know why it's called other objects
016but it's the state defined category but that's mainly our special education tuition cost and then non-capitalized equipment which is anything below our five thousand dollar threshold goes to non-capitalized uh capitalized equipment next slide all right so looking at fiscal year 24 budget compared to the fiscal year 24 forecasted year end expenditures and then looking at 25 budget and then doing a comparison of budget to budget and budget forecasted expenditures to to our budget so keep in mind the forecasted year end expenditures is uh we use this ai software that looks at the last five years or transaction trends and it tells us where we're going to land at uh so uh looking at that if you look at the education fund and depending on how you look at it it's between four and a half
017to five point four percent increase which uh is mainly due to the uh the salaries which i'll get into it later operations and maintenance um it's a it's a two percent increase again based on the salaries based on the benefits and the non-personal cost the reason is showing an 11 decline is um because we are overspending on operations and maintenance budget because brian has a lot of needs in the repairs and you know uh infrastructure projects and since we are actually favorable in our revenues due to investments i've asked him to overspend his budget to you know spend those non-recurring projects on those one-time projects so we are intentionally overspending that money uh next year because of the two because of showing an 11 decrease because next year we're going to be back to what
018his budgeting needs are and if investments are favorable next year uh we're going to overspend that budget again but again the key is to spend on non-recurring expenditures uh transportation uh projected increase about three percent again that's based on uh the the projected expenditure especially in transportation and special ed we're actually projecting 150 thousand dollar savings in our transportation expenditures because uh we we work with brandon to uh hire a bus driver additional bus driver and a bus to shift the special ed transportation cap cost in-house so we're projecting about 150 thousand dollars in savings so that's good news uh municipal retirement um seven and a half percent to twelve percent increase and that's reason because our employer contribution rate is going up from three percent to three and a half percent to five percent
019which is a 42 percent increase and that is dependent on how much we have in municipal retirement in the reserves and the actuaries look at the mortality rate investment rate and every year they come up with a recommendation of this is how much we should contribute uh feels still a low rate because other school districts pay around ten percent so we went from three and a half to five percent that's still a low rate compared to a lot of school districts so in total we're looking at an operating budget of fiscal year 25 about 117 million dollars next slide all right so the changes in fiscal year 25 operating expenditures obviously uh the big things are salaries and benefits uh the biggest drivers of these expenditures are obviously our competitive contract with our teachers um
020district education association uh that is the biggest driver of our salary cost uh we did save about 500 thousand dollars half a million dollars in benefits because of our favorable claim experiences our rate is flat by recommended by our actuaries so that's great news because that's compounding savings so that was that was pretty big for us um for overall staffing uh is projected to decrease by 0.5 uh that's still a tentative number because there's an item 8c which is a tentative increase in 1.0 fd and we did add one more position uh to that so overall 0.5 decrease which is uh which is really nice uh in our staffing uh obviously we look at you know certain enrollment sectioning and all those demands we have um so the district did a really good job in
021the staffing process to keep the levels where they are right now a non-personal budget uh which is as i explained is supplies for services contracts and all that contract services only an increase of two and a half percent which is which is really favorable i think all the budget managers is an excellent job managing their budgets and non-personnel and we do a zero-based budgeting where we look at every single line item uh so uh they did a good job controlling those expenditures so only 2.4 percent increase next slide all right so initially when we project i interrupt you for one minute sure when ali just said that he totally glossed over very quickly okay the concept that they go through every line item in our 112 million dollar budget right and i love the way
022you just glossed over this is real the detail that you and your team go through and i thank you for doing this quickly for us as we're all sitting here but people need to know how deep you and your team dive into this to make sure that they are being fiscally responsible and we are being fiscally responsible to our entire community so i just wanted to kind of reiterate that because this is huge and so i just right and i do appreciate all these cost managers uh cost center managers sitting here by giving me the detailed line items so appreciate all the hard work you and your team are doing to compile that information right i do not ask you which pens which brand i may ask you next year all right now that we've
023saved on the paper we're moving on to the pen just to follow up on what jody said not only the business team that goes to that it's all of these yes every line and be asked why why this what you spent last year what you're asking for why it is and when i said his team i didn't mean the business team only i meant everyone is a team that feeds into this this is huge all right keep in mind this is called zero base budget where we start from scratch we don't give an allocation plus epi we need to we ask you to list every single line item so uh it's a tedious process but it works for us all right so what has changed we initially project uh presented in the finance committee in
024in january or february we were showing a 1.3 million dollar surplus uh we knew that was going to change so there obviously we're now we're looking at a 500 000 dollar surplus and possibly with two more additions in the fds maybe 300 000 dollars so some things that have changed our electric rates have surged by 40 percent actually we um it was a blessing for us because during co-ed uh the co-op that we have signed up for a fixed price for four years at a time of historic low rates so it's going up for us but there are districts that were not locked in those rates for four years they've been paying higher rates so now because they have to buy those rates again they've been obviously the new rates are about 40 percent more
025now they're deciding to co-op and now brian is part of the boat is that whether they should lock in for another three four years or whether they should hedge and purchase some index three three years three months of fixed with nine months of index variable rates but yes those rates are going up but what that does also is it makes our solar project looks even more attractive so our solar project payback went from 14 years to 11 years so we're still saving about 200 to 250 000 dollars in our energy savings due to the solar panels that we're doing as a reminder we're installing about 5500 solar panels in our schools all right so as i said about an install in a loan uh municipal retirement fund that is going up uh we also the
026last group of market adjustment was added for our esp group which our education support staff uh needed to be in line with our school districts uh lane changes i had not initially budgeted in and we added for 200 000 dollars in lane changes during the school year uh lsms complete their uh credits and then they're able to change their lanes move to a next lane that cause more money going on from the budget and then there's been a few additions like i said in the fte's which were not originally included in fi25 projections when we share in the finance committee next slide all right now looking at the revenues uh property taxes are major sources of revenue 90 of our funding comes from property taxes four percent state that's kind of been mentioned the you
027know ebf funding doesn't have a big impact for us and then when they're talking about increasing it you know the last increase you got was four thousand dollar increase in our revenue from ebf funding so it's not relevant to us uh federal funds are mainly our title funds uh idea medicaid that's two percent of our funding four percent other local that's comprised of investments corporate personal property replacement tax and student fees next slide all right look in our budget forecast versus better revenues in our operating funds um uh education fund obviously you know depending on how you look at it is projected actual to 25 budget or budget to budget between seven and a half to nine point three percent increase uh o and m again depending on you know with their revenues we're budgeting
028more in education fund we're keeping our education o and m fund at a certain fund balance levels to avoid other issues same thing we didn't in the transportation fund you know we i'm i'd be under levied in transportation fund uh and the over levied in education fund to put more money in the education fund to maintain our fund balance at certain levels uh which we've discussed earlier why uh municipal retirement uh again it's based on what our expenditures are or same thing working cash is a very small amount so in the end fiscal year 25 projected budget is about 123 million dollars next slide all right material changes in our operating revenues i mean that's the biggest source of revenues our cpi uh even though the cpi was six point five percent because due to
029our caps that are in place property extension extension limitation law we can only levy for five percent plus some new construction which is about point two point three percent and then we're projecting higher interest income due to the current market conditions even though the rates are at five percent uh pma advises to keep our projections at two and a half percent and be really conservative because the rates can drop anytime so and obviously uh we have to be careful about using that revenue source um we we try not to use any recurring expenditures for that extra two and a half percent we might receive the interest rates stay where they are that's where brian and ron comes into play where they have these infrastructure projects that are waiting to be funded and once we show
030favorability in our interest rates they go ahead and spend those towards billing repairs and infrastructure corporate personal property replacement tax is projected increase by 48 percent under highly uh uh variable revenue and that is based on the income tax filings for all the corporations are quarterly filings and there's a percentage determined by you know uh the irs to to fund our revenues through that so next slide all right just looking at our operating budget um we were showing if you look at our fiscal year 25 123 million dollars of revenues 117 million dollars of projected expenditures we do not have a surplus of 6.2 million dollars i know that previously some people have looked at the just that number alone and say the district is going to have about add 6.2 million dollars in our
031fund balance which is not true as you can see the 5.7 million dollar transfer what that transfer is made of is about 3.6 million dollars of bond payments that we've committed over the next 20 years to pay for our all revenue bonds that we issued to fund capital projects the remainder of that 2.1 million dollars is to put that money in our capital projects and keep increasing the capital front project that fund balance which is not enough for all the brian's projects and you know there's a capital plan which gets talked about in the facilities meeting the 497 000 surplus might go down to 300 000 dollars based on the outcome of those two edition fte so once we present the the final budget in august you will see that number going down a little
032bit so our fund balance percentages of expenditures about 47 percent or 48 percent which is in line with our fund balance policy 40 to 50 percent any questions on this all right next slide so this is just we have to keep that slide this is all funds and in all these funds if you're looking at a 30 million dollar deficit that doesn't mean that we're spending all this money it's we're spending down our all revenue bonds so as you can see in fiscal year 22 we had a 52 million dollar surplus and that's when the board issued those 49.9 million dollars of bonds obviously that revenue came in one year now it's been spent down so that's why you see that 30 million dollar deficit in budget hopefully our target is to spend all that
033money and but if there's remain projects remaining funds remaining depending on the timing of those invoices we'll spend that down in fiscal year 25 next slide all right this is our budget calendar you know this is we've already done January March you know until now all these things we've done starts with obviously staffing non-personal budget staffing approval at the board meeting that non-personal budgets budget hearings and then next slide we are at this point in the next slide once we go to that slide June July we're discussing that budget we presented the finance committee meeting we're presenting the board meeting the board is going to approve the first quarter expenditures also approved a publication of the legal notice and then in August we're going to have a public hearing followed by the budget adoption and
034this is it can you quickly explain why we're approving the first quarter spending the first quarter spending happens is because it's just the way school finance works which is backwards is and that's the law from the state where the budget gets adopted in September and the year starts in July so you know dr la recommended that it's always wise because we're already spending before the board adopts the budget to have a resolution for the board to authorize administration to spend the first quarter spending until the board adopts the budget in August which is the right thing to do not a lot of school districts do it but i think it's the right thing to do any questions i know we've gone through this several times and that was good thank you great thank you very
035much action okay groups under policy 890 and 8100 yes this is we've done work on policies 890 and 800 groups under 890 are those groups that exist solely to benefit the district and the district students and groups and groups under 800 also benefit the district but they may be they don't exist solely to benefit district 113 so there are exhibits that list those groups and it's legal counsel recommended that the board affirm those annually and so it's time that time of year to do that no changes under the groups listed under policy 890 but under 8100 there has been a change because schuller scholars has ceased operations so the exhibit for policy a 100 exhibit a inter policy 800 8100 reflects that as you can see so this will come back for consent yeah just
036the board is just affirming that these are uh the groups recognized under these two policies and i made a note moving forward that in that may um june timetable we do this annually just to review the groups okay great okay moving on to action items it is recommended that the board of education approve a one-year employment for joshua celdis as assistant principal for diversity equity and inclusion at highland park high school as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion good you enlighten us a little bit about what this ap's role is within the schools sure dr allen so the assistant principal of diversity equity and inclusion um has staff supervision responsibilities um they oversee the counseling department deans fine and applied arts they also work across
037the district with our mtss multi-tiered system of support structure working closely to align supports and interventions with the needs that students have in tandem to me this person are the ap's also work closely with students student services mtss is directly connected to the services provided in special ed as especially if we engage a tiered approach it should impact the students who end up going through receiving special ed services if if it's a high functioning system our deans work a lot around culture and climate of our buildings social emotional learning restorative practices they work closely with mirror ante our assistant superintendent of diversity equity and inclusion and will also work closely with our assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and assessment di cia and student services all work to address the needs of students our deans are
038excuse me our system principal also supports efforts around belonging and engagement hiring practices that we've really worked to make sure um are at the center of our our focus making sure that our our staff represents the diversity of our students and our school community so our ap's also partner with hr in some ways and overall they work to integrate teaching and learning practices that are culturally responsive and culturally relevant across our buildings thank you i know a couple of board members had commented i think it's so true uh that that's a good example of a position that has five letters because we're really good acronyms in education correct um and look at the breadth of of functionality and i think you know as other board members have spoken to this idea that you know dei
039really needs to be interwoven into all aspects of the schools and so that shows that this role is so interwoven into so many different aspects of uh you know impacting our students and then this is a fulfilling right because holly has moved into the principal role right at hyland park so this is a backfill yes are there any other questions or comments okay a roll call please mr braza hi dr elliot trumpets i mr hindeman i miss lupa i mr neater i mr pierra yes please newman aye motion carries as recommended the board of education approve a one-year employment contract for jennifer darner as director of health services as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion i think it's really important to know that what we're
040doing is we're essentially if i understand it correctly we're bringing home services that we used to outplace to true north is that the is that the easy way to summarize in part yeah yeah that's part of it okay so part of it is true north and they have we had a supervisor that we contracted through true north that we would then take on as part of the supervision the other pieces are um places where we had to um pay our current nurses to cover lunches for other nurses or fill in for the other nurses as well as um contracted nursing services so all in all this position should save the district money great that's what i wanted to hear is there any other discussion the roll call please dr eliot schummer i mr hindeman hi
041miss lupa i mr neater i mr pierra yes please mr braza i miss newman i motion carries it is recommended that the board of education approve increasing special education fte at deerfield high school by 1.0 is there a motion so moved is there a second second uh is there any discussion can we can you walk through yeah sure the um the calendar tiffany can speak more to the need but the board meets tonight and then july 16th and depending on how this works in the section that she's been working on to try to make sure that we have appropriate class sizes there may not be time for the board to approve fte and then for us to hire someone and then to get that person approved um 30 days before the start of the next
042school year because there's a rule uh in illinois that teachers put them their license at risk if they leave position they're currently in within 30 days to start a school year their school year not our school year their school year so by doing this we then if we need to um go out and hire someone um stay outside of that 30-day window if that's what's needed i'll just say special ed is complex um and so it is difficult for us to try to figure out exactly what fte we need and we felt like we did a really good job of that and then april 1st till now we've had 20 new enrollments in special ed between our own you know initial evaluations that we've conducted as well as from our feeder districts and our articulation
043process and then some changes just in the needs of some of the students have changed and so um based on all of those things i'm still trying to work some magic i'm continuing to work with our administrative team i'm going to be in several meetings for the rest of the week trying to navigate this my hope is to not increase fte um but you know i also want to make sure that we're being um there in our class sizes across the highway and that deerfield is commensurate um within the park to some extent at least is it fair to say from what i understand is that by because again of our summer schedule of meetings by us giving the authority tonight to potentially hire 1.0 it's the contingent contingency plan excuse me um so that
044way the goal is to use existing staff and if you needed to go to an fte you have the runway to do that to ensure you also have the most candidates you can use in the pool in order to fill the position correct well said any other thoughts questions okay it uh sorry a roll call please mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye mr pierra yes please mr peraza aye dr eliot schimmer aye miss newman aye motion carries it is recommended that the board of education direct that the fiscal year 2025 tentative budget be posted as presented set public hearing there on august 20th 2024 with posted notice and authorized expenditures and purchases during the first fiscal year in accordance with the tentative budget until the final budget is adopted is there a
045motion so moved is there a second second any discussion roll call please mr lupa aye mr neater aye mr pierra yes please mr peraza yes dr eliot schimmer aye mr hindeman aye miss newman aye motion carries it is recommended that the board of education awards bids for individual and small group student transportation services for city care 303 united dispatch safeway top line and and bright lift is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion ali i just had one question um just to clarify when you're doing your budget you had mentioned that you'd worked with brandon about hiring a bus driver for special education that is separate a separate need being addressed to these car services right we were paying these car services more so in order so once
046we purchase that additional wheelchair bus and driver we're projecting this cost with these vendors who were down compared to currently okay the cost will go down further because of the bids we're projecting additional savings okay any other discussion a roll call please mr neater aye mr pierra yes please mr peraza aye dr eliot schimmer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye miss newman aye motion carries it is recommended that the board of education approve the pro bono professional services agreement as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second any discussion a roll call please mr pierra yes please mr braza aye dr eliot schimmer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye miss newman aye motion carries it is recommended that the board of education approve the schedule of
047board of education meeting dates for the period beginning july 2024 through june 2025 as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion again i want to thank the cabinet for working with dr holland and with rumina and putting together a schedule that should hopefully minimize the number of special meetings next year a roll call please mr peraza all right dr eliot schimmer aye mr hindeman aye miss lupa aye mr neater mr pierra yes please i motion carries okay it is recommended that the board of education approved the assignment of board members to examine bills and salaries for the period beginning july 2024 through june 2025 as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion i did have one question
048i just noticed and i didn't notice until earlier today that there's a conflict so two questions one if a conflict arises in the future do we have to vote to amend who's reading the bills question one question two i have a conflict and i need to do before we approve it we haven't to date um so no and uh you can so just work with rumina yes work with me great thank you it is recommended that the board of education approved the school oh i'm sorry oh voting i'm so sorry sorry thank you apologize a roll call please vice president there aye mr hindeman aye mr lupa aye mr neater aye mr pierra yes please ratha all right miss newman aye motion carries it is recommended that the board of education approved the school treasurer's
049surety bond in the amount of 17 million six hundred eighty five thousand uh of coverage for statutory requirements it is further moved that the president and secretary be authorized to sign the bond security certificate and that all documentation be filled with the appropriate parties is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion i would like to quickly add something to this so the statutory requirement last year was 25 the bond amount so was 25 of our fund balance or a given cash on hand that requirement actually has gone down from 25 to 10 so that means that the 40,000 premium we were paying last year we're getting a quote from gallagher hopefully we'll see more savings great i don't know if that was talked about the ad red but
050these are the things that legislation level can save us you know some dollars that was good news a roll call please mr heidemann hi miss lupa hi mr neater hi mr pierra yes please mr berazza hi dr alias shimmer aye miss newman aye motion carries it is recommended that the board of education adopt the resolution for the one-time transfer of one million eight hundred fifty thousand three hundred forty dollars from the operations and maintenance fund to the capital projects fund of the township high school district 113 as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion a roll call please miss lupa aye mr neater aye mr pierra yes please mr berazza aye dr alias shimmer aye mr heidemann aye miss newman aye motion carries it is recommended
051the board of education adopt the resolution transferring funds from the onm fund to the bond and interest fund to pay debt services on the district's general obligation school series 2022a as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion a roll call please mr neater hi mr pierra yes please berazza dr alias shimmer hi mr heidemann hi miss lupa i miss newman i motion carries next is the consent agenda a board member may pull any item for separate consideration does any board member wish to pull an item off the consent agenda for separate consideration it is recommended that the consent agenda be approved as listed is there a motion so moved is there a second second rick will report on the bills yes i reviewed several bills everything
052was in order one of them is our legal bill so pretty complicated but interesting and uh everything was in order right any other discussion a roll call please mr pierra yes please mr braza dr alias shimmer aye mr heidemann aye mr lupa aye mr neater aye miss newman aye motion carries all right now to the best part of this particular agenda recognition which i know debbie and uh bruce are going to feel very uncomfortable and i apologize sorry not sorry um first of all debbie this might be your actual official final act as principal so we did want to give you flowers to thank you for all of your years of service and i know a couple of us have a little something we'd like to to share debbie you have authentically and you have
053an authentic enthusiasm for our students our staff and the physical highland park high school building your home on vine i've sat in your office at impossibly difficult moments and moments of joy each time i have seen you put your personal feelings to the side to ensure our students and then the staff that supports them are being taken care of with compassion and empathy thank you for instilling that ethos in the building and in the district please enjoy this next phase of your life do things that fill your bucket and if possible find ways to continue to impact our youth thank you very very much i think i know hyma you had something a little harder than i thought um try to get through it now well i'll get through um it's been an honor and
054a privilege getting to know you um in the previous role professionally and now in this role on the board i'm so grateful for your leadership and for connecting community in our most difficult times the principal is such an important role in the building and and you did it beautifully as a teacher absolutely incredible and other roles that you served also just amazing oftentimes in education we'll talk about you know would you want your child and your own child in this class as like a measure of like you know would you want your child in this school would you want your child in this district and emphatically yes um you're just absolutely amazing at what you do and bringing the community together was a very difficult task that you did with such grace and you did
055so powerfully and will eternally be grateful for you and for your leadership and the impact that you've had on our entire community thank you i did want to offer off to any other board members or any members of the audience if there's anyone and i hate to put anyone on the stop a spot um but if there's any comments in regards to debbie just to wish her good well i just have a really quick one i drive past vine street probably three times a week and as i see the sign all i hear is our house on vine and when you sit there and wonder and i am not a hyland parker okay i didn't grow up here i didn't and as every time i see that there is no way i see that sign
056and don't read in my brain our house on vine you built that house you made it a home i just want to say as a graduate of island park um i want to thank you for all that you've done to consider not only its excellence but also its heart you know they're going to do it yes is she going to make it through mike when we go the mic yeah sorry and you're going to turn it on or i don't know how to do that see it is just a little button make it green okay i'm probably not going to make through it um debbie finn i first had the pleasure of meeting you in 1996 you and i um you were the math lab lady i was an intern and we proctored the act
057together a long time ago and then you went to deerfield and then we kind of weren't together and then you came back to highland park and i've said this before and i will continue we say you embody what a highland park giant is you are truly when i think about all the true giants breakfast that you've had over the course of not only as principal but when you were in chair as your role as a teacher and you all the wonderful things that you've said about our students i want to say right back at you because you truly are that giant you truly are highland park um i am a better person and a better leader because of my work with you and i'm so grateful for everything that we've had together my time at
058highland park but working with you um not always agreeing but knowing that you've always put students first always every conversation with everything that we've been through whether it was the pandemic or a horrible shooting in our community your goal was putting kids first and then our staff and we were the we did that and you did that and you worked your fingers to the bone to make sure that i'm so glad you said that jody about making it a home we had an opportunity yesterday to meet a parent a highland park parent and she was so grateful to debbie and she came up and she said i want to thank you because my children had an incredible education at highland park high school but what she said was you made a home for all of
059our kids so thank you for that and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be part of that home i love you thank you so debbie take that in and no oh we've got one more so come back i'm gonna come back again yeah yeah i can see what she's doing please turn on the microphones for fish vein i sure will can't follow that that was i can't follow that um so debbie you you stepped into the principal spot at the time when you were needed the most remember that you quickly quickly earned the respect and the trust and the gratitude of your staff your students and the parents and i got to watch your leadership play out in july 2022 we spent 10 days uh together and i got to watch that gratitude
060and respect and trust play out it's fabulous so we all know your first love is math so i would venture to say that the past five years or so should be a multiplier in your years of service enjoy enjoy your retirement so debbie thank you very much enjoy this next fave oh i'm kind of afraid i do want to say one thing okay congratulations all that cool i will really miss your checking jokes they were funny because they were not funny did i say this right yes so yes i'll miss those jokes so yeah please keep texting be on my number so congratulations so we'll take the spotlight off now okay so you can sit there quietly um and we get to turn the spotlight to you sir okay first i have a resolution to
061read resolution and appreciation of dr bruce law whereas dr bruce law has led with vision integrity and dedication for five years to the students families staff and community members of township high school district 113 by serving as superintendent of district 113 from may 2019 through june 2024 whereas dr law has been a champion for equity and access and education advocating that all students regardless of background or circumstances have the opportunity to succeed and reach their full potential whereas dr law has successfully implemented processes and frameworks that have brought enhanced structure and efficiency to the organization transforming it into a more streamlined and effective entity for the benefit of students staff and the community whereas dr law has been instrumental in overseeing significant improvements to school facilities ensuring that students and staff have access to safe
062modern and conducive environments for learning and growth including the highland park high school cafeteria the deerfield high school performing center art center and the life-skilled lab at both schools which serve some of our most vulnerable students whereas dr law has navigated the tremendous challenges of the covid 19 pandemic and the july 4th shooting with resilience adaptability and a relentless focus on the well-being of students and staff whereas dr law's legacy will be remembered for the positive and lasting impact made on the lives of students educators and the entire district 113 community therefore be it resolved that after 29 years of service in the field of public education and 530 total meetings and your service as superintendent in this final meeting of your career the district 113 board of education expresses its deepest gratitude to dr
063law for outstanding leadership and unwavering dedication in the field of education be it further resolved that the board congratulates dr law on a well-deserved retirement and extends its best wishes for a future filled with happiness health and fulfillment in all endeavors including your bicycle be it finally resolved that we members of the board of education of township high school district 113 lake county illinois recognize and thank superintendent dr bruce law for his leadership and for his outstanding and dedicated service to township high school district 113 and express our profound appreciation on behalf of the students families staff and community of the district thank you i personally want to thank you for the compassionate lens by which you have guided this district of the last five years and in doing so i wanted to focus on
064three dates i watched as a parent in march of 2020 when the world shut down and you were asked to lead our district without any playbook i saw your concern for the community's physical and emotional safety and your laser focus on the continuum of education for all of our students i watched as a board member in august of 2022 when we needed to start our school year while still reeling physically and emotionally from a mass shooting and this time unfortunately there was a playbook because of the frequency of such events but one none of us wanted to have on our bookshelf you started school for our staff and our students leading with empathy and hoping to create a safe space for all of us to grieve and move towards some sense of normalcy teaching and
065learning and i watched today as president of the board now in june and july of 2024 as you step into retirement you have graciously given your time and shared your wisdom with me as i figured out this role and to dr holland as she prepares to take over stepping into this role has been easier because of your support and i deeply thank you i've worked with nine superintendents between being a pto president and a board member i could tell you things about all of them both positive and negative and i could speak about their ideas of education and pedagogy i could tell you all of those things that dr law has accomplished during his tenure at 113 but that's not what i'm going to do i want to speak about dr law's character and what
066he has taught me as i've worked with him dr law has had the unfortunate experience of guiding our district through some of our darkest days and catastrophic times during covid when everyone was scrambling to do what to do and how to do it dr law reached out to our community and found great people there with expertise that could help us guide us through the ups and downs when vaccines became available neighboring districts were going to vaccinate their own teachers dr law brought everyone to the table to vaccinate hundreds of teachers in our feeder schools and districts there was not going to be hunger games of vaccines on your watch he used his kind spirit to bring everyone together as opposed to dividing communities further with his help and with brian's incredible organization we vaccinated over
06713 000 we we gave over 13 000 vaccines to allow teachers to return to what they do best teach in our community and many others when it was time for our students to come back into the classroom many ideas many people in the community sent us many emails on who they thought should be their first it was dr law who spoke up to our poor students who needed his voice speaking for them most he spoke about our most medically intellectually and emotionally fragile students because dr law always speaks with his heart and with kindness first when the unthinkable happened on july 4th i texted bruce to let him know what had happened he called me from his car probably within 15 seconds on his way to our community leaving his wife children and grandchildren to
068celebrate in their own community to come help ours he knew that hindland park high school was going to be the center of the community and our recovery the amazing group of volunteers were in our buildings for over 12 hours a day for weeks meeting with anyone who needed someone to speak to no questions were asked under dr law's leadership no one needed to be a 113 resident they just needed a place to come and process what was happening and what had happened then it was dr law who walked around and made sure that all staff and board members took the time to meet with those therapists to take care of themselves as well realizing that we need trauma-informed social work that began after 4th of july but became a permanent part of our district because
069there's we've unfortunately learned that there's more trauma in our district than a mass shooting his kind heart and spirit always leads but we also give thanks to jen and dr law's entire family i can't i can't imagine when he accepted this job that you were ever predicted what was going to go on here thank you on behalf of our entire community for the interrupted dinners calls and texts the late nights due to our meetings and the long weekends to be a part of our community thank you for sharing a truly compassionate man with all of us i could go out with dozens more examples than most people don't know and would probably violate oma so i'm not going to um there are a few people in the world who i really think who have impacted
070me as a person that number is a very small one and dr law's part of that group i'm a better board member because i've sat next to him um i think i'm actually a better person because i've worked with him as well he's always that little reminder sitting on my shoulder to act with kindness and a heart for this i will be forever grateful of who you are now get off your darn peloton and go right outside so one word that comes to mind is impact thinking about your career and the lives changed and what i imagine will be one of the reasons you got into education is to make the world a better place i can only share at least my own personal example of my experience working alongside you as jody shared making
071me a better person as well but to think about the number of lives that you know that you've impacted and changed to those that you haven't seen yet but one of the things that's so remarkable about about you is even after you know announcing that your retirement even after saying like this is this is it even to to tonight always being there 100 for the for the right reasons and making sure that everything is left in a great spot for the for the district speaks to your character speaks to who you are speaks to what an incredible role model you are an incredible value you've been for the for the district in our community and how much better off we are as a community for having your your leadership through the difficult times that have
072been that have been mentioned so heartfelt thank you for all that you've done and for the impact and the only story that i can share outside of not the only story but one of the stories that came to mind when thinking about tonight was when we first met and i remember sitting in your office as i was contemplating running for school board and leaving that meeting thinking but what an incredible thoughtful and i can't even think of the word so but just a thoughtful leader and intentional leader that you that you were and how it would be an honor to serve on the on the board and i'm just grateful for you thank you so until recently i was the kid on the block here and i can't i can't say it any better than
073has already been said uh so i'm not even going to try um but on a personal level you probably don't even remember what our first interactions were you know it goes back to the time of the pandemic um just one of the multiple crises that you shepherded this district and this these communities through through the town halls that you held and um at the time i was writing very very long emails to the board and to you we've got them i know i know and i've since learned that i had kept my mouth shut back then i may not be in this kid but uh uh what what was clear to me that you know during that time which you know um i was not sitting here but i can only imagine you know what
074you were dealing with the time and the commitment that you had uh how thoughtful your responses were and i think you know to me that was when i saw all the characteristics that we've been talking about here in you and i can't thank you enough personally for helping me get through this my first year on the board and hopefully setting me up for uh being able to provide similar service to the district and to the community you know that you have modeled for me so i appreciate that very much i'll jump in next um i was recently reading a memoir of a past president and in the book he was talking about how when someone is an effective leader especially in a position like that you don't really understand how difficult the role is because
075their job is to keep everything and in a perfect state of stasis as much as you can and it immediately reminded me of you where you had a way and have a way of leading where you try your best to handle everything with poise with dignity with thoughtfulness with a student-centered focus that allows for parents to be reassured that their children are getting a great education that can reassure the board that you are leading with integrity and with the values that we hold dear first and so i just want to thank you for that reassurance i think that i think as parents that we need as community members that we need of the amount of time and effort it takes to be that kind of leader and for all of the thoughtfulness you put into
076this role i believe there's also a couple of community members who are some familiar faces i would like to speak lizzie or ken do you guys which and president you go first five presidents here how many presidents in a room um bruce well for those of you who may not know me um i'm lizzie garlovsky and i was a board member from 2017 to 2021 i was the president when we um when we hired bruce and what i can say i can echo everything that everyone else here has said but i'm also going to add that um when i look around this room and i haven't been here in a while but i look around this room and what i see and what is so incredible to see is i see the with the exception
077of the board members which we'll get to that in a second but i see the same team i see the same team that was here when i left and that was here when bruce got here and to to know that that was not the norm um prior to bruce's bruce getting here um well it wasn't the norm and that just speaks such volumes of what you've done here um what you've done for this community what you've done for all of us um and it just warms my heart i mean as board members um i think it um while the elect there's lots of elections and board members come and board members go as as it is but to have this team in place and have a superintendent who can keep his team in place is
078just really remarkable um speaking for me personally um when i was on the board with bruce and especially when i was the president i didn't know what i was doing um like jody said sitting next sitting next to bruce and um having him there uh working together with him especially in some during those very difficult times like i always say to people um people i say ask me often um well did you like being on the board or you have you're off the board all those kinds of questions you get them all the time um a lot of the work as board members as you know the most important work that we do we can't talk about and people don't know the really hard decisions that we get involved in making that are is for
079the community that do those decisions that make the biggest impact on the community and having bruce there to lead us through those decisions and to help us make us understand them better and for me you know certain things that we had to do just um and the way he had bruce your quiet calm manner um but very intentional way of uh of doing things was it just really was a really incredible experience um and i thank you i thank you for your leadership i thank you for your friendship um i'm so happy for you and for jen and for your family and i hope you have really wonderful things planned for your retirement um and i can't thank you enough and um good luck to everybody and i um welcome to dr holland um you
080have big shoes to fill but i'm not worried about it at all um and anyway good luck to you too debbie and uh thank you thank you okay so i came to the board meeting tonight to hear the budget i mean come on but as long as i was here as long as i was here for the budget i thought maybe i would say a few things about bruce and debbie so so uh picking up really from lizzie um so as i said in my my comments last year bruce um thank you you know just an outstanding outstanding job for your leadership your dedicated service to 113 so you know i look back when we interviewed you for this job we asked really great questions um and you impressed us with every aspect of leadership
081skills but we forgot to we didn't think to ask you um as everybody has kind of alluded to what what's your strategic plan um when we're under a national pandemic what's your strategic plan when we start a school year six weeks after a mass shooting what's your strategy for negotiating the very first union contract at d113 dictation and to be fair we didn't think to ask you about your strange diet of healthy food yeah true that was true funny back to the things um and when we were faced with those major unprecedented events you successfully led the district through very very complicated times so the other thing i want to say is is i'm guessing that many many districts have in their mission statements and they talk about serving all students and dei i'm guessing
082that's probably everybody's um but i i have to say for me um in your case it's truly been a guiding principle of your work and for me personally your focus on all students uh connected a bridge to dr for narrow uh his work and you're leaving now a solid bridge in the dei and all students to dr holland and and as a board you know it's the most important thing we do as a board is hiring the superintendent and i think that story is one that i'm most proud of and it's just really the strength of this district so um i will um have to say i'm so happy for you um and i'm really happy that you quoted john melancamp and not a latin philosopher in your remarks so you guys know that i'm
083i would have to close these comments with a story from the old days so it has been quite a while since we have celebrated the retirement of either a holland park president or a d113 superintendent so debbie and bruce thank you for your service and thank you for giving us a joy of celebration so enjoy so thank you is there anyone else okay all right so the last thing and then you'll you know the spotlight will stop so and actually ken did and i say i know i know this is there's a funny story about this that we'll share in a moment i'm so not happy right now and actually before we do this i because i i will be remiss and and this i think is within your character if i did not thank
084ramina karen and brian for all of the work that they did in helping put together all of this for us um believe it or not we don't really have a track record for when a superintendent retires um i'll just leave it at that so um we tried that we put together so i definitely appreciate and i know the rest of the cabinet was was instrumental in helping as well but thank you the three of you guys for all of them were good yeah you know we're shameless they could white out no um and so what's uh i asked the board and the cabinet to do is to think about how could we honor you in a way that was quiet because you are a quiet leader uh this is not necessarily a sign of that
085but hold on um but also that really talk to your as we've said your passion for students especially those uh that need to ensure equality um and also making sure that your love of learning and reading and quoting philosophers from many many centuries ago could all be tied in and so the cabinet and the board looked at all of the projects that you've been involved in and it seemed only fitting that we honor the life skills labs at both of the high schools with a plaque in your eye um and so this we're in the process of putting it together and it will hang in front of each of the life skills labs of each school and what it says is with deep respect and heartfelt gratitude we dedicate this plaque to dr bruce law
086whose exceptional leadership and steadfast commitment have guided our community through some of its most challenging times during his tenure dr law demonstrated unwavering dedication to the well-being and success of our students in the face of a mass shooting and the unprecedented challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic his resilience compassion and visionary approach ensured that our students preserved and thrived dr law's tireless efforts in improving our facilities have significantly enhanced the educational environment for our students this plaque stands proudly before the life skills lab at highland park high school and deerfield high school a testament to his dedication to providing every student with the tools and opportunities to succeed we honor dr law's legacy of leadership integrity and unwavering commitment to excellence in education his contributions will continue to inspire and benefit our community for generations to
087come with deepest appreciation county high school district you can if you'd like just want to thank everyone um thank you everyone for everything you said and um i was i was actually good and until this uh that just um thank you so much thank you okay we are we do invite everyone as soon as i do this last bit of procedure closing our meeting uh we'll have refreshments and uh uh some desserts so please stick around and and uh spend some time together is there a motion to adjourn the meeting is there a second second all of those in favor opposed abstention motion carries thank you you