001I am reconvening into open session township, high school district, 1, 13 committee the whole meeting on Tuesday, May 14th. At 707 roll call, please. Ms. Lupa. Mr. Nader. Yes, please. Mr. Baraza here. Dr. Ellie. Mr. Heinemann here. Miss Diaz here. Okay, Miss Harris here. Mr. Walker here. Thank you. And myself. Thank you. Ramin is not here, so that means that we have to do more work. Pressure. I know. Pressure. Pressure. I would like everyone else who is present to identify themselves. Tom Krieger, Chief Human Resources Officer. Karen Warner, Chief Communications Officer. Tiffany Rowe, Assistant Superintendent for Student Services. Brian Armour, Chief Operations Officer. Arlie Montes, Institute of Finance. Debbie Fenn, Principal Highland Park High School. Daphne Anderson, Principal at Durfield High School. Ron Caswell, Chief Information Officer. Mayor Antti, Assistant Superintendent, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
002Bruce Law, Superintendent. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended moving item 5 up to after item 3? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All of those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Okay, so we actually going right on to recognitions. Our first recognitions up are student artists. Tonight we are recognizing our student artists who have enhanced our boardroom with our art over the last year and who to one display such talent that is awe inspiring. Dr. Law and I were speaking briefly earlier today and we both made the comment that having your artwork in our room is that visual cue every time we need to make decisions of who we're making those decisions for. So thank you very much for doing that. Thank you Dr. Law for starting this process when
003he came on board. It is absolutely fantastic to honor those students. I will be announcing their names and I understand that four of you are here today. So I'm actually going to do the four first and then I will give the rest of the names. And if you can come up, I'd love to give you your artwork. Emily Bell. Is she in the overflow room now? Fantoma Garcia. I think that's why I try to drop out. Okay. Alyssa Lockhart. And Sophia Contreras. Okay. And I have more names to read. Other artists that are displayed within throughout our boardroom as well as the administration building. Ella Bernstein. Paul Feinmel. Ella Friedman. Will Holtz. Olivia Hue. Olivia Kalish. Liv Knapp. Sam Levy. Austin Levinson. Skye Litowitz. I said William Love. Evelyn Meehan. Hannah Murphy. Sadie Muscalera. Laura
004Rodriguez-Rios and Emma Spielberg. So thank you very much and we look forward to next year's group of artists. So thank you. Our next honor are our student liaisons. We thank our student liaisons who are students already committed to multiple organizations and rigorous coursework and give us their time at these meetings throughout the year to not only share the student lens of activities within our buildings, but also an important student voice when discussing various district related topics. Thank you. When you see students at graduation wearing one of these purple cords, you will know that they were instrumental over the last year in providing us guidance as we made decisions as a board. I'd like to call each of you up. Jada Harris. Thank you. Sure. Stay here. Okay. And then we've got, I'm sorry, Stephanie Diaz
005and Lillian is not here. Miles. As you're just a junior. So, but first of all, we want to thank you. So thank you, Miles. Come on up so we can do a photo, please. You get to look forward to all of this next year and see that they actually do survive the whole college process. That's fine. Okay. I don't want to block you. No, you're fine. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay. Would you? Thank you. Okay. Next up is our Highland Park Community Foundation Golden Apple Award, Sarah Douglas. Is that? Sarah, sure. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Sarah Schaer. I, as chairperson for the Highland Park Community Foundation's Golden Apple Selection Committee, it is my distinct honor and privilege to honor the Golden Apple finalists this year, Remington Clark and our 2024 Golden
006Apple recipient, Sarah Douglas. Both of these exemplary educators provide safe learning environments, are innovative, and go above and beyond what teachers are supposed to do in the classroom and their school communities. Both are loved and respected by colleagues, administrators, parents, and most of all the students. Our finalist and runner-up, Remington Clark, orchestra and guitar teacher, makes sure that everyone in his classes are engaged and energized. As an administrator stated, his classes have a collaborative feel, like he's a student with the other kids and they're all in this together. He's kind of like the Pied Piper. Kids are always following him around. Remington views the true calling of educators as the need to inspire, engage, and support so that kids can blaze their own trails. The Mr. Clark effect is his ability to light up a
007room with his humor, focus, and love for music and the kids. Remington Clark enriches his students' entire lives, not just their academic journeys. Wait, let's see. Oh. Another thank you to you, okay. I have a grandson who's a freshman and nobody in my family is at all musical, and he knows Mr. Clark. Sarah Douglas, this year's Golden Apple recipient, teaches physical education, adaptive physical education, team sports, and traffic safety for grades 9 through 12. She is a general education teacher who has stepped into the role that is usually expected of a special education teacher. She is an inclusion and modification specialist. As a colleague noted, Sarah has a gift for making sure that every student, regardless of physical limitations, participates in a meaningful way. She orders special adaptive equipment, makes adaptive equipment out of household
008items, and celebrates the big and little accomplishments of her students. She made a hockey stick using part of a typical hockey stick, a pool noodle, and other supplies for a student in a wheelchair. She applied and received a grant for a driving simulator for the traffic safety class so that all the kids, and especially those without access to at-home supervised practice time, could practice driving in a safe and controlled environment. She not only promotes inclusion, but she fosters it in a way that helps students accept inclusion as the norm. Her level of care for her students reaches beyond the classroom. She encourages and sets an example. A parent noted how Sarah shows new pathways for other Gen Ed teachers to be open to including students. She demonstrates the inclusion opportunities with ease as she finds
009ways for her adaptive PE students to participate in varsity softball as a manager and to join the Gen Ed strengthening class as students. Another colleague noted, introducing a student with special needs to the team as a manager reinforced to the teenage athletes that given the opportunity, everyone brings something of value to the table. The Gen Ed students model and value Sarah's belief in inclusivity. It is rare for a teacher to be equally valued by all the demographics of a school in the way that she is. She has made a tangible, concrete, and lasting impact on the Highland Park School community. She connects with all her students, inspires them to try and learn new things, generates confidence, and inspires them to be better. When a teacher, as a parent said, when a teacher believes in you
010like Sarah does, she's like a Mary Poppins. She magically makes it happen. I am fortunate that my children attended Highland Park High School. I feel very fortunate that my grandchildren will be attending Highland Park High School. We are so lucky in this community having these two fine teachers as part of our community. Thank you for letting me have the opportunity to honor both of them. Thank you both very much for your service to our district. I believe we have two artists that have come in. Emily Bell, do you want to come up? As I said, I can give you this. I'm going to put it right behind the desk here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Turn around to your person. We'll do both at the same time. Alyssa Lockhart. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
011you very much. We have another artist? Yay, we got them all here. Laura, come on up. Laura, what's your last name? Which piece is yours? Do you know one here? Okay. Okay. Okay. So let's do a picture, alright? And then we will get you. We'll find it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, we'll see you in the next one. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Any other artists in the room that are on our wall? Let's put it that way. Okay. Is Shuler and CBO here? Okay. I'd like to do both of you next, and then we'll do our retirees. So we're kind of in the student focus
012right now. So if both of you would like to come up, or whichever would like to go first, that's wonderful to honor those students. Hi. opportunities. There's a lot of new faces here, so there are several, many of you who are new to the school board. So for those of you who don't know CBO, we are a not-for-profit organization, community-based, and community-supported. We are grateful to District 113 for its support of CBO since our inception. Thank you so much. Since 2006, college-bound opportunities has been mentoring, empowering, and inspiring low-wealth first-generation college-bound scholars to overcome barriers, graduate college, and achieve success in life. CBO is very proud of the fact that 98 percent of our scholars graduate from a four-year college or university. How do we do this? Support, support, and more support. Our program includes
013college access while in high school, college persistence during college, financial support for our college-related expenses, and career prep to ensure our scholars are prepared for life after college. But what truly sets CBO apart is its long-term commitment to the scholars through one-to-one mentoring from the time they are accepted into the program at the beginning of their junior year in high school through to college graduation and off times beyond. CBO currently supports 57 students attending Deerfield, Highland Park, Buffalo Grove, Lake Forest, and Vernon Hills High Schools, and Krister Ray St. Martin College Prep in Waukegan, and more than 150 scholars in colleges around the country. By the end of this spring graduation season, CBO will have 265 college graduates all employed in a career of their choice and or in graduate school. We'd like to congratulate
014all of this year's 25 high school seniors at all of our high schools and wish them good luck in college next year. Tonight from District 113, I'm going to let them stand and say where they're going to college. I believe from Deerfield High School, I'm going to the University of Rochester. Emily just walked in. Hi, I'm going to American University. I believe you say let's have everyone stay standing until the end. Thank you. In addition to the five CBO scholars from Deerfield High School and Highland Park High School, 20 scholars from the other high schools we serve will be going to the following colleges and universities. Hope College, three of them, Howard University, Lake Forest College, Loyola University in Chicago, MIT, St. Olaf, two students, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign,
015five of them, University of Pennsylvania, and another two going to University of Rochester. Thank you again to District 113 for your unwavering support for the last week. Thank you. Before Schuller, el orgullo que van a tener y el regalo que le van a dar a sus padres es increíble. Congratulations to our students. Being first in my family to attend college, it's quite an honor and quite a source of pride, so congratulations to all of you. Anna Heiming, can you remind all of our students what high school you graduated from? Highland Park High School. Good evening. My name is Cheryl Smith. I'm the site director of the Schuller Scholar Program at Highland Park High School. Our partnership with Highland Park began in 2008. We currently have 77 scholars who are either in college right now or
016have graduated from college. We also have 81 scholars who are currently in the program within the high school. The work that we have done to support these students and their families not only be successful during high school but achieve their college goals would not have been possible without all of the support of the teachers and administrators at Highland Park High School, including the school board. I've always appreciated and been pretty proud and in stars and jealousy and colleagues with the enthusiasm and recognition that I've received from all of you, and I just want to say thank you very much for all of that. As many of you know, the Schuller Scholar Program is ending. It's onsite support of students in all of the partnership high schools. The financial support that these students were promised will
017continue, so we won't be in the high schools, but they still will receive support when they go on to college. So I am very happy to say that a lot of community support has reached out, including CBO, to kind of wrap around our students and continue to provide support in some form or another, and I think that again speaks to the really special relationship in this district. I understand that the program leaving in this manner is really disruptive. My team and I apologize for that, but we really do appreciate all of the support that we've received from our colleagues in the high school and everyone else. In my personal view, the departure of Schuller is due to poor financial planning at the organizational level, not due to the fact that there is not a need
018in this district. I think you can see from all of the students in CBO and in Schuller, there are a lot of really great students in this district who might need differentiated support to get to college, but are absolutely doing well and thriving once they get there, and I hope that our departure does not impact that in any way. So I have really appreciated all of this, and I'm going to talk about our seniors now so I don't get any more emotional. We had some really exciting news with our seniors this year, so I will name them and let you guys know where they're going. Anais Arianas is going to Wake Forest University. Brittany Cruz will be going to the University of Richmond. Stephanie Diaz, where are you going? I will be going to Elan
019University. Yay! Phoenix. Arturo Gartizia will be going to Beloit College. Stephanie Hernandez will also be going to Elan. We're sending two Stephanie's. Jill Maig will be going to Occidental College and playing soccer while she's there. Alexis Marantonio will be going to Marquette University. Simon Munn will be going to Ohio Wesleyan University. Shula Nava will be going to Case Western Reserve University. Eddie Picasso will also be going to Wake Forest University. Melanie Robles will be going to Clark University. Alondra Rodriguez-Garcia will be going to Lawrence University, and Iris Santiago will be going to the University of Illinois. Thanks for being a Shuler scholar as a student. It has been amazing. I want to thank Cheryl for everything that she has done. It's truly just a community, especially at Highland Park when I could feel a bit
020not included all the time and being kind of the only person of color in these rigorous classes. It was nice to have a home at the high school, so thank you. This is a wonderful night. It's one of the fun ones, right? Great. And so I believe we've now honored all of the students that are in the room that need to be honored. Great. Now moving on to our staff that are retiring. We honor 25 staff members in counseling, English, science, PE, facilities, world language, library, building leadership, and district administration, all of whom have positively impacted our students and their learning experiences within DHS and Highland Park High School. They represent a total of 589 years of service to our district, with the average years of service in our district being just over 23, with
021four of these staff members having been here for 30 plus. At graduation, you will see these staff members wearing purple stoles as a small visual sign of appreciation from us for their commitment to our students. Before I read their names, I have a resolution in honor of retiring employees, whereas a key priority for Township High School District 113 is the recruitment and retention of qualified, conscientious, and motivated employees to serve all students, and whereas one element of pursuing this priority is recognition of employees for their service to the students in District 113, and whereas such recognitions of service to students also encourage people to consider education as potential employment and a career, and whereas one opportunity to recognize employees for their contributions to students is when employees retire, and whereas hearing the recognition of contributions
022employees have made to students benefits the school community. Therefore, be it resolved that we, members of the Board of Education of Township High School District 113, Lake County, Illinois, recognize and thank our retiring employees for their commitment and dedication to Township High School District 113 and express our profound appreciation on behalf of the students, families, and community of the district. If you are here, as I read your name, I would love it if you would stand. Barbara Obinger, 33 years of service. Corinne Plata, 33 years of service. Monica Fairman, 32 years of service. Ken Williams, 31 years of service. Joe Bucullo, 29 years of service. Debra Finn, 28 years of service. David Tuckie, 27 years of service. Alicia, I'm gonna kill your last name. Okay, well that's not what it says on the sheet. And
023I know that, I'm sorry. 26 years. Daphne Solis, 26 years. Jose Acosta, 24 years. Amy Pricker, 24 years. Michelle Brunel, 24 years. Patricia Farrell, 24 years. Howard Hill, 24 years. Victoria Otto, 24 years. Lillian Brandt, 23 years. Maryante Brown, 23 years. Debra Sodequest, 23 years. Christopher Riley, 22 years. David Shirley, 22 years. Lorianne Gordilas, 21 years. Angel Rodriguez, 17 years. Elizabeth Algram, 13 years. Ramundo Agual, 11 years. And Bruce Law, 5 years. Thank you very much. Okay, moving on to item four, board reports. And I will just tell students, if you want to leave, you're welcome to. Please do not feel as if you have to stay. We will not be offended. But you're welcome to stay, as well as staff. Thank you everyone. Thank you. We will start with my presidents. Are we? Okay,
024we'll start with my president's report. Obviously, we've just spent the last 35 minutes celebrating our students and our staff. I need to do a kind of a hard pivot right now, so I apologize. But we need to take a moment and share our deep sadness over the loss of the GBS senior. We honor his family and hold his family and their profound loss in our hearts. We also know we have community members who work in district 225, staff members whose children attend Glenbrook South, and students who create lasting friendships with students in our neighboring district through summer camps, work, the arts, and travel sports who may be experiencing big feelings right now. We encourage any students needing support to reach out to our school's counseling departments or use our text-to-tip resource. We'll link those in
025our board briefs if you are concerned about yourself, about a classmate, or a friend. And now I need to pivot again. I do want to take an opportunity to thank our teachers with Teacher Appreciation Week last week. We have over 350 LSMs and other professional staff that are in classrooms every day supporting our students. Last week was an official week to celebrate them, but I encourage all of us to show gratitude towards our staff with every interaction all school year long. Last week on May 8th was also School Nurse Appreciation Day. We need to thank our school nurses for all that they do for our students. Yes, they are the first line of support when it comes to injury and illness, but they also aid in managing chronic conditions so our students can experience school
026safely with minimal modifications. Our school nurses contribute significantly to the overall well-being of our students, and we thank them. Last item is a housekeeping item for the board. ISB's call for resolutions is now open and due by June 26th. Our board can submit new resolutions or amendments to current ISB position statements for the ISB Resolution Committee to consider in the late summer. In the fall our board will review and agree on our position on all ISB resolutions up for a vote at the joint annual conference in November. Those resolutions that are approved by the delegate assembly in November become ISB position statements that provide the association with direction on positions and or actions on a particular issue. Please provide Jaime or myself with your proposed new or amended resolutions by June 4th, and he will
027be discussed and agreed upon during our June 11th meeting. And that concludes my president's report. I believe we have committee reports next, the first being diversity equity and inclusion committee. Dr. Joanie? Yes, so we met earlier today during that time Mira Antti summarized her sex evaluation, sex equity evaluation report. Sorry, as I was reviewing I was like there's no good way I don't. We were looking. Move on please, Dr. Joanie. All right, so we did a system-wide evaluation and the aim of this report was to identify any instances of disproportionate enrollment based on sex to determine if discrimination contributed to any disparities within the enrollments in our classes. So they're very early in this process and with the help of others in the building they plan on delving more into why these disparities exist perhaps
028sometime during next school year. That was the bulk of our meeting. Are there any questions? Okay, facilities committee? Yes, we also met today and we had several discussions regarding stormwater management, some of which will go on later in the evening and we'll be talking about those issues over time. We also talked about the 10-year life safety study requirements where Illinois law requires each school district every 10 years to do a study on what our life safety requirements are and we as a district have the ability to decide which architect we want to have to do the work and so we're in the process of make our staff is in the process of making a recommendation deciding what they're going to recommend to do that work but it's state law that we do it basically to
029identify if there's any issues that need to be fixed over the next 10 years. That's it. Thank you. I'm moving now on to administration information reports. Dr. Law? Thank you very much. So I don't know if there's a it's hard to pick a favorite but this maybe has to be one of our favorite board meetings of the year. We have recognition and recognizing Schuller Scholar CBO, our student liaisons who are graduating and Jada's been on the student advisory council all four years so we've been through some things. Graduation is next week. This is the culmination obviously of high school students public education then they go on to what they're going to pursue in in life and it is a wonderful event. I want to remind the board and parents of a couple things. One is
030that as we did last year in the event that anyone's wondering we'll have security this year the same way as we did last year. It's at Rovina. Rovina provides the security and that will include canines and metal detection upon arrival. So the just as you would at the airport make sure you arrive at graduation early to avoid the lines and make sure that you're in your seat on time. Of course our security and and SROs will also be there as we celebrate the the graduation of our students. Rovina is undergoing some construction so this is we're having at Rovina this year. My understanding is next year we're not going to be there because we have the graduation will be somewhere else. So this will be a very special graduation event next week. As Ann said
031last week was teacher appreciation week. I want to share my thanks as well to everything teachers do for our students every day of the year. Nurses, we also have nurse appreciation day that was in there. So this is a very important to us that everyone who provides services to our students in district 113 so valuable and we're so grateful. The board has a copy of the DHS Troubadour, Neil Riddler and Tim Black are the faculty sponsors. It's the art and literary magazine and it is spectacular. When you're thumbing through this I think you'll have to remind yourself that this is actually a high school publication both in terms of the way it's produced as an art object and then of course the arts. It's absolutely astounding so that's for board members that was sent over
032by Neil and Tim. The last thing I want to mention my report was on April 29th there was an internet allege because the state informed us that our fiber optic line as well as many other school districts was accidentally cut. In district 113 we saw a little little blip and you know the problem that that people I think but not really a problem it's just an expectation people have of our computer resources internet is that it's supposed to work like any other utility. When you walk into a room and you turn on the lights you expect the lights to come on. If you go into the washroom you turn on the spigot you expect water to come out. It's supposed so the internet is supposed to work like any other utility and in district 113
033it's it's just about that close. So the reason I'm mentioning this is I didn't think twice about it when it went down and went back and came back up because it's just the way it works in district 113 thanks to Ron Casbaum and his team but then I found out that their other school districts that were having to scramble all day long because they did not have internet all day long because they do not have Ron Casbaum and his team. So I just wanted to to mention you know that that event and thank Ron not just for getting us through April 29th but every day of this technology we rely on it just works like a public utility and and that is people's expectation. So thank thank you Ron and your team. That's it for
034my report. Next the Consolidated District Plan 5425. So this is on the agenda for the board's information. In years past we brought this to the board for consideration and then a vote but ISBE is telling us if there are no substantial changes to the report that it can be submitted directly to the state which is important for us because for the state to review these applications align forms and we want to be at the front of that line so our application is reviewed as soon as possible but the board it's fiduciary responsibility we thought it was important to present this to the board for review. You know as the board knows when we bring the tentative budget when we have items above twenty five thousand dollars and the other items we're including in the budget
035will make the board aware that we bring the tentative budget up for the board's approval so when the fiscal year starts on July 1 we can start spending. Right all of these items combined are about one million dollars which is less than one percent of our budget something we have to do every year so we'll just discuss one with the board. Oh yeah I believe this next one. Yeah Orion is getting up to FOIA. Yes those are the FOIA requests received in process since the last board meeting. On to our student liaison reports the last of the year and the last for these two. Who wants to go first? You know you can go first. Well HHS obviously as the season comes to an end we have so many sports I think Batman had two
036doubles teams go on to state and then with many going on to like cross-country track and field for both girls and boys have made it to like sectionals and I think no one made it to state unfortunately but we've also been celebrating oh my god we've also been celebrating the month of Jewish Heritage Month and Island Pacific or Asian American Pacific Islander month the season on yesterday we just had our seniors last day in my last day of high school ever so very fun at the high school as everyone's finishing up APs this week and then in two weeks doing finals. Yeah that's us. So you got to sleep in this morning? Oh yeah it was weird driving by the high schools and seeing the parking lot so empty. All right so at Deerfield our
037esports team got seventh place in the IHSA state tournament they've had a really great season all year we also had eight students who were recognized for their work in Deerfield Film and TV in a competition against hundreds of students from Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and it was two competitions one was the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the other one being the Midwest Media Education Association so goes to show how talented our students have we as we've seen with everyone we recognize tonight as well. We also had the Deerfield Academic Challenge team earned third place in their state competition and then two weeks ago we had Jam for Justice at DHS so we had a bunch of students performing music we even had a couple teachers performing in the courtyard and the seniors all
038wore shirts with their post-secondary plans on it so that was a really nice day and a really great way to wrap up the school year. You and I both had an opportunity to stop by Jam for Justice. Yeah that was a great event. Yeah fantastic very very fun. Next is public comment. We welcome your comments and questions and take them seriously and under consideration pursuant to Board of Education policy 2230. Please identify yourself in applicable state the agenda item to which your comment is directed. Please limit the length of all comments to no more than three minutes. When possible we try to incorporate your questions into the relevant agenda item discussion. However any question may be sent via email to be addressed subsequent to the meeting. As a reminder public participation is not intended to
039be a back and forth discussion between the public and the board. This public comment period will be for a maximum of 30 minutes. I think we have three people. Miss Shapiro you're first. Nope I didn't know realize the numbers were out there the numbers are out there okay. Hi Aline Shapiro and if this sounds a little bit raw it's only because my respect for everybody here goes deeper than what I might say. Our teenagers are becoming adults within a frontier of remarkably adept functionality of things and procedures. Let's all give thanks to science and also a human emotional environment which hasn't basically ever changed since even before recorded history. Our toys tools machines and weapons confer enormous capabilities and the power to whomever possesses them. Too many individuals in our society exhibit what I call
040a meanness encased thoughtlessness such that their cranial contents appear to be devolving into slime wads. I don't say slime mold. Slime mold has some biological intelligence. These are slime wads. Okay another set of our compatriots in our society has indeed intact thought processes yet they too are in need of a gang of neurologists to provide information and encouragement concerning the actual broad capability of the large human brain and it also might be helpful if the ghosts of Santiana of course in quantum form were to haunt every one of those minds every single fully neuronally loaded skull the ghost of Santiana because who after all and probably nobody would raise their hand in this room actually wants to repeat history we are being painfully reminded that history is being reenacted not just in the middle east
041not just on the streets of Chicago but all over the planet and sometimes when we're engaged in one type of advocacy we forget what's going on in the rest of the planet it's manifested in all of the psycho social manifestations of human emotional iterations and that has not ever changed so we have our toys and our tools and our vast powers we have our emotional status and our big brains how is education our schools how are we going to change because this set of circumstances that we are dealing with now and we're all torn apart about and we're all concerned about and yet we don't have the leadership that i don't see any that is somehow stepping out of the box and changing our emotional reactions to things so we all can get along and
042preserve our planet and our lives and move forward this is the most formidable challenge we face how are we going to do that and that's my question thank you mr frank i am alex frank and i'm partially doing standing here as part of a civic engagement project however i did also want to comment on um some of the action items that i don't know if we've gotten to them yet though regarding the decrease in staffing of take your time sorry that's okay regarding the the decrease in the staffing of education support staff and i just wanted to say that i think that having interacted with a lot of different support and relying on it that there was a big impact that that had on my high school abilities to succeed and that i just hope
043that you're being able to make these changes to do them efficiently and not reduce the um the opportunities being provided to students in the process sorry thank you thank you very much i believe there was one other student that may want to want to have public comments is that the case if you can just state your name you can come on up and state your name please thank you i'm just gonna a bit tall this is that's totally fine it picks up pretty well don't worry you can stand straight up don't worry i was gonna like crouch a little bit um so my name is gail harvey and i'm currently a sophomore at dh a deerfield high school and i'm speaking on the behalf of the resignation of paul hangles mr hangles who is the
044fine arts director i'm here to ask if it is possible to consider reinstating him as the i think this is taking away huge huge opportunities for students like myself and other fine arts um fine arts students um my name is excuse me i am a fine art student uh one of my pieces is actually being put in this very building next year and i can say that that is completely because of mr hangles pushing me to pursue my talent and he was the one that actually convinced me and convinced me to go into ap art which is the reason why my art will be in this building today i'm also in troubadour which is also thanks to me having a lovely conversation with paul hangles i haven't been i haven't known him for too many
045years it's only been two but my first year as a freshman um he was my advisory teacher and i felt an immediate connection with him which is something that i usually do not have with too many teachers i can remember so many events or situations where he has stood up for me and made me feel heard and made me feel seen not only did he stand up for students in my class when they were being bullied and teased by others i have remembered so many instances where i've come to him as i was in need and wanted a heartfelt conversation i've always felt heard by him and felt like we could talk to each other at the same level which is not the case when there is a sometimes when there's not a sometimes it's
046not the case when there's a student teacher relationship i know when i heard of the news of him not being able to return next year i was extremely disappointed along me along with many other students whom i personally know um i am just i feel like this is an opportunity these opportunities are being taken away from me i feel like i don't have a teacher at the school i can come to anymore this is the case for also a couple of my closest friends we have we are all extremely disappointed he is the advisor of my club which means i'm gonna have to go find someone else to help me he is just someone i feel like i can talk to you with any situation he'll always be there to listen and respect me and
047i feel that him not being able to return you're taking away many opportunities for many students he has i've seen him at every single show every single production he's always there to support everyone um i he's beloved by all and i only ask that you please consider um reinstating him because you're taking away a teacher who has made so many meaningful impacts impacts on all of us so thank you thank you very much that concludes public comment moving on to two discussion items the first is the resolution authorizing the driver education fee i can i can speak on it so this is something we were we recently found out that we have to do it every year i mean we've never done this before in my last 17 years i've never done this before but
048our attorney advises that anytime we assess any fees for drivers that we have to have a separate resolution so this is the first time we're doing this any questions we happen to answer we're not changing the fees the fees staying the same for next school year we are analyzing fees for fiscal year 26 but the fees will stay the same but this resolution is needed for our attorneys and so this will come up for action at our next meeting correct it needs to be done before the next school year starts okay and then we'll put this into our normal cadence exactly in our our process yeah fantastic great okay all right any questions straightforward all right uh next discussion item is just 113 physical security review guessing that is brian that's me so as ron
049pulls it up here i'll start talking um so from time to time i come to the board with with security updates and and what we're doing and what we've done and so this was one of those times like always i want to stop and say threat assessments are always our number one um our number one tool to use against uh arm against our school and students and staff so that being said ron if you would go to the second slide please i want to talk about some things that we have done recently and that are doing this summer and all of these things have been in front of the board of education before so uh over the school year we've been working on security film so what is that that is a film that you
050put on the windows that stops the window from shattering and allowing people to just gain easy access into the building and so we've we've tested this we've we've tested ourselves we've broken windows with with bats and uh we know it works so since then that test we've we've put film around all of the first floor windows that face uh outside so we we're proud of that and we know that'll help increase our security next is not a not as cool but it's something we've been working on ron i'm sure ron thinks it's super cool it's a distributed antenna system for our first responders and so what that is is it's a it's a it's a repeater of their network so they have the ability to talk police and fire can talk to the dispatch from
051one another anywhere in our buildings so that increases their communication during uh while they're in our buildings next are some of the things that we're doing this summer corridor access control slash lockdown so what that is is our fire doors in the hallway we would have card readers on all those doors so if we needed to to close the doors to compartmentalize the building those doors will lock and they will be accessible but with from staff with their card reader but the building will be compartmentalized um during an emergency event again moving on to the next one the next uh thing we're doing this summer is card readers on all the classroom doors and so everybody's uh card will work on classroom doors educational spaces that allow you to um you know go into the
052classroom unlock the door and then those doors could be locked remotely during an event can student ids be used to lock those doors or unlock them or just no staff ids thank you the next is uh our exterior doors and so we've been working on this again this is something we've been working on all school year is card readers on all the exterior doors for staff to get in to every door not just the main doors but also to get out so we we haven't uh when i say get out of the doors that doesn't mean that we stop anybody from exiting the building this is strictly to know if a door is propped open or if a door is pushed open to allow unauthorized entry into the building so meaning if you're a staff
053member and you want to go out a door that is not typical not one of the main doors that are monitored if you're going out a you know if you're taking a science class out of a back door you're going to scan out of the building and that just doesn't let security know that that's an authorized exit out of the building if someone were to push that door open there would be a local alarm and that we security would know that that someone went through an atypical door and the and then a door that shouldn't be used during the day lastly is our camera room our security operation center that's something that uh put that last on the list because this all kind of feeds into that is is the camera room security room will
054monitor doors will monitor fire alarm will monitor all these things monitor cameras to provide intelligence into the building and address the situation if it were to arise so just said a lot there you know this has been reviewed a lot facilities committee meetings and prior board meetings so this was just an update as to where we are with those projects so i'll stop here for questions on that before i move on to future opportunities i think we appreciate this again on a regular cadence that we've been receiving because it shows us um that this is just an ongoing process so thank you for going through this and if you would move to the next slide sorry our next slide is a new opportunity that we've not spoken about before in a public board meeting and
055i want to talk to the board about the opportunity to have a canine dog a dog a team in the buildings to provide gun detection services so a canine that would come into the building to smell strictly firearms and explosives they're one in the same firearms and explosives are the same things to smell and so when i talk about this i'm talking about a when i talk about a canine it's actually a person and a dog so i'm going to refer to it as one but it's it's two two um beings yeah living things so again these dogs are trained to smell explosives including gunpowder and so what that would look like again if we if this is something that we we move forward with or you know the dogs could be placed at doors
056upon arrivals they can search parking lots as you can search lock rooms they could be in lunchrooms and they can be in hallways and in order to provide um insight into if someone's carrying an unauthorized firearm a hidden firearm the dogs will receive breaks um they we treat them like you know the it's a it's a working uh being as mera said they get 45 minutes on 15 minutes off um they they are treated very humanly and um respectfully so moving on to the next slide so what what this what what uh the added benefits of having a canine in the building is that we know that these these trained dogs are they're professionals and they have a proven track record to be successful and we know other government agencies use these these dogs they're
057police dogs tsa atf um i want to later on the site i'll i'll show you there'll be a picture to show mental model of what this dog looks like so when we think police dogs that's that's not what what i'm talking about and you'll see a picture of the dog on the next slide so what this dog does this dog team would do is provide continual surveillance in the building meaning um when we talk about weapons detection or metal detecting that's that's a one chance to to see someone walking through the door this dog would be walking through the building and providing continual scanning of the building for hidden weapons hidden explosives it's not invasive so you know dog's not going through your bag it's it's just uh looking for a vapor trail so as
058you walk there's a everybody has a vapor trail and things that dogs can smell that we cannot and it enhances our security and as part of it could be part of normal school operations that doesn't again is not invasive ron if you would move to the next slide please so this is this is what i'm this is the mental model that i want to build around what a canine school dog would look like it is a dog that is not a train not trained to attack i want to be very clear with that when we think of like a police dog that's a dog that is going to come and try to bite somebody this dog is completely the opposite it would be a dog that is certified actually the other way to be a
059dog that will never bite somebody they don't also on that this dog doesn't smell for drugs it's strictly firearms and explosives and again it doesn't look like a police dog we um kind of how it's referred to in the industry is like a like a pointier dog really mean looking dog this dog is more of a floppy ear dog dog that is perceived as less threatening ron if you would move to the next slide please so what i'm at ultimately what i'm asking the board of education here is is this something that we should explore and try this in summer school for one week if this is something that we'd be interested in that would be the next step also some things i want to talk through is we there's a we've had this webs
060i'm sorry this email address where anybody can provide feedback on this topic so we could talk about hey i don't like this idea i do like this idea this is a this is an email that we always have active regarding security and then also as part of the next steps in this process the lead time would be two to three months if we said hey this is something that we're interested in from the time we moved forward it would take that approximately that long to get a dog in place because there would be a company that we hired would be training a new dog specifically for our needs or school security so moving on in summary we feel this is a proactive approach to safety meaning we're preventing something from happening this is a highly
061specialized weapons detection system meaning that it is it is looking for just explosives and just firearms it supports climate and culture so it's we're not having metal detection we can have we can have a passive system that continually moves through the system it's effective so we've tried this we've tested it if you hide objects they will be found by the k-19 and it complements our existing safety measures you know we have other safety measures that i talked about there's other things i didn't talk about that we currently do and this is another layer of the things that we can do to increase our safety and school so again i would like to end with a question question would be is this something that we should trial explore further over summer school for a one week
062trial period brown cans or something that would then sort of be used throughout the day you know in various locations i didn't catch the first party question the can is something that would be used throughout the day right this is something that would be sort of a continual throughout the day type detection system or something like that yes if this if we went forward with this i think the recommendation would be one dog per school for eight hour day meaning that we're we're continually getting a scan of the building if if there is any um again explosives firearms in the building so yes i i'm interested in what our students are thinking about this i actually had a question so i didn't talk about like the scent trail uh let's say like the dog was
063at the main entrance at the highland park high school and a student walked in through the the athletic entrance what how does the dog uh will dogs will be able to pick up on something like that even though it's a different entrance while walking around is that yeah so yeah the dog is going to pick up on a vapor trail so if if somebody was walking through the building and that dog is also moving around through the building um there's a good pot there's a good chance that the dog will pick up that person that individual and and be able to follow that vapor trail in order to address the situation um how are we going to handle we have students who have allergies to dogs and we have students who are afraid of dogs
064how are we going to handle that within our buildings so um being afraid to being afraid of dogs that's something that we would obviously work with a student so um if we had if we if the team was in place we would speak with that student and meet them on their terms if that's what they so if they wanted to do so meaning we could bring the dog to their house we could introduce them in a in a larger setting we can we can find a way for some common ground on that um allergies it's that's it's a little bit of a trickier one we're not requiring that anybody pet the dog we're not requiring that you have to be next to the dog all the time just like there was a point where we
065were peanut free you know and now we're not we we know that that's something that we can we can work with a student but um at the end of the day that the dog will have have dander and such do we have dogs in the buildings now and what does that look like now yes um mera i think right right right so we we've had dogs uh therapy dogs in the building um particularly like before final exams or during sorry you guys are probably in today there oh yeah they were there oh right i didn't get down there today you could have come back i know you were sleeping but anyways she was like i'm out we've also had one or two students with uh service dogs that have come along allergies is a good
066question because we have to look at the in that case that dog's in a classroom we have to look at the rosters and address that issue so yeah there's been dogs throughout for many years in the building when you've talked with staff and i know you talk with students too what has been the feedback so far on this idea we haven't really talked with the the greater staff um we'll talk with our security team and things and we feel that it you know the security department feels that it's an enhancement to our our current um our current deliverable to our adding another layer is always good for security would the dogs be going into classrooms as well or is it just going to be like in the hallways and whatever yeah i don't envision them
067going into the classrooms unless there was a reason for them to going into the classrooms if the dog was if said hey i want to go in that classroom for a reason then then we would go into that room um good question oh no no go ahead sorry if the dog were to pick up on ascent how would they notify like their prison their trainer yeah that's a great question um so the dog just sits down um so the dog will look around and there's there's there's certain cues that the dog and the trainer have and at the end of the day it's it's really it just sits down it kind of looks back at the trainer and says i found something you should investigate got it because that's one of my things is i
068don't want the i wouldn't want uh the dog to start barking and then like everyone else is like oh it's gonna like something's happening and stuff yeah these these dogs are trained not to bark yeah they don't they don't bark yeah um you mentioned the mental the mental model and what some initial reactions may be to using a dog as part of our you know security measures i imagine the communication around trying something out the communication around you know all of that will be baked in but can you talk a little bit about you know sort of that mental model of what it is and what it is and you've touched on it a little bit but um the what it isn't piece of it as well not right now but as the communications are
069going out of you know here's what we're talking about to move those mental models yeah so the something i forgot to mention is this dog um while we wouldn't advertise say hey come and pet this dog when it's not working it can absolutely be pet in a large setting it cannot be pet so in a smaller setting you say hey i would you bring the dog into the classroom or something it can you can you can play with the dog pet the dog it's a friendly dog um so that's part of that mental model and then in in kind of that getting feedback i think i asked mira if we could partner up on this to kind of get some more feedback around what that mental model is post the trial to say hey what
070did you think of this um do you where you you know what are you what are your thoughts and mira if you want to comment on that so i get to be lucky enough um to watch the entrance of students as they're coming in um watching their body language their facial expressions just really taking in being the eyes and ears for all of us um of what i'm observing and then i'll work with our principles during the summer to get a focus group of kids together to talk to them about what was coming up for them how did that feel um i want to see that interaction that we're talking about in order to break down some of those mental models um and watch the um just really the kind of the climate of our
071school and does it shift and you know i have a mental model where it's like both a therapy dog and a security dog um and so i want to see that tested a bit even though we know that it's not there to be you know pet during working time in that way but um it's a really interesting opportunity and i have absolutely zero um work that i've ever seen or done in this way so i'm very curious um and we'll be brian was great to ask me to come in on that uh similarly to our detection right and so how would you have any recommendations yeah how can you layer in i think that's excellent layer in uh outreach to staff i mean everyone from um you know obviously in classroom staff to our custodial
072staff um to obviously security too but i feel as everyone i'd love for this to be an opportunity um for getting all the really smart people in the room and understand having them potentially provide some insight that we're just not seeing yet because they just have different perspectives and are you thinking about asking them how did it feel as firsthand or what they're noticing about our kids no they're firsthand thank you for asking yes of course if they have interaction with students that always is interesting but i think getting that firsthand feedback from students is excellent it would be more of as a staff member in this building um how does this impact my job how does it you know impact the whole process okay yeah i absolutely i mean i i feel like that's
073um very important as well to your point of just understanding that on everybody who's experiencing that space and then not too complicated but i would um it might be interesting to ask staff to also have a dialogue with students within there and you know because they're the ones who will know them the kids won't really know me so well but maybe we could do that as a three-pronged approach so one thing to to mention we're talking about engaging staff tom and i have a meeting tomorrow with the district 113 education association so of course we'll want to talk to them about this we we waited until we had this discussion with the board before we discussed with them because any change in working conditions obviously we want to discuss with them with the teachers association
074so that's one form of feedback but the thing that about this i think that's is going to be very helpful um to the board and administration is that it if we're trialing this during summer school we can get feedback from students and staff because we have teachers who are trying to teach we have students who are trying to take care of business and how did this how did this work to have um a dog in the hallways um for this purpose so that will that will be a very important piece of information and you know let's it's it's good that we have the opportunity to roll this out in a slow deliberate manner but there are opportunities for feedback before a final decision is made we do it or we don't i think something else
075on top of the the feedback and the communication and i don't know where it would fit but this isn't a new idea there are school districts that are doing it and there are organizations that are doing it so i think being able to say you know here's the certification here's what it looks like here's the rigorous training that they go through because the question about barking that's a really great question that we could have answers that we could have answers to but i think having that um sort of that repository of here's what we know about it here's what the field knows about it and for folks that want to learn more so that they can dive deeper into it as well to get more familiar with it any other questions from the board at
076this point um so you're looking for some direction yes that do we feel comfortable saying it makes sense to try this as a pilot in summer school because it's good testing in addition we know they're going to be reaching out to stakeholders and understanding feedback yes i love the idea of summer school okay okay great some workout tweaks before we have right before we make a decision exactly yeah would the team that they use during the summer potentially be the same team that's in the building in the fall and this is a direct question we decide to go in no that's yeah just i want to be real clear that's it's not it's different but that's also an important point because the dog and the handler are a team and so they they will come
077as a package and they will work together as a team that's absolutely correct yeah if the dog if we were to train if someone we were the the dog and the person get changed out at the same time so that they are they are a package deal the dog owns the person basically basically yeah they're a bonded pair yeah but then would the company would the company be the same company would be the same okay yes the the two beings working for us would be would be different okay the team the team yeah no say like uh we you guys do decide to move on with this does this mean that uh metal detectors and scanners would also stay student for a visitor arrival during the day i think that that's a first did you
078want to talk on that no i know okay uh that for visitors during the day or post arrival i think they would stay and that's obviously a board decision but i do i do think they would stay and then the would not be a metal detectors upon arrival student arrival the students scanning in that's a that's a separate mitigation that we would continue doing yes the screening when students arrive through a weapons detection system that's that's different but students scanning in yes we would continue to do that and i just want to be transparent i own a dog um i absolutely cannot and i'm so sorry stan idea of having a like a german shepherd type dog in the space i have a must have one i actually had i have a mental model that
079is not conducive to this situation um and i wouldn't in many cases have ever supported something like this typically in my mind so i'm being transparent so i'm so but when the idea floated it was like this is interesting so i'm really curious and i have these biases that i want to be able to mitigate by way of really asking about how st staff and students are experiencing this to get out of my own way um but i do have those mixed pieces within my own experience that hopefully will not play out um and i'm putting myself on record publicly to just kind of also invite you to hold me accountable so i just wanted to say that yeah no i'm not a fan of dogs um not a fan not a fan of dogs
080but i am a fan of doing everything that we possibly can in an innovative way to make sure that our schools are safe um not a dog person my daughter is a dog person um she reminds me of that very often um but no but to be fair like so not very much a dog person but i am uh like innovative and there are a lot of people who are not dog people but when we brought dogs into this building we things are planted around when the dogs are are working they have no interest in you you cannot get their attention unlike if you go to someone's house and dog is jumping all over you and you know and all things dogs do when you're around them these dogs have no interest in you whatsoever
081when they're working so if people don't like dogs as long as the dog you don't you don't have a scent that the dog is interested in the dog will have zero interest in you and when the dog is playing sits when they do they'll walk up to you and sit but if the dog is off you know is taking a break and is and isn't able to be engaged then you know people will be able to avoid engaging the dog great well thank you very much so you have the direction thank you and again as your team has often done thank you for bringing more innovative ways to continue to improve the security and developments thank you thanks thanks brian because this is this is what you know that we're constantly when i say we
082i really mean brian and others in the schools are constantly trying to look at new and different ways to increase security and this is why we have a lot of layers and this would just be another one but but i appreciate brian and and others doing the research on this to bring this forward okay thank you moving on to action items it is recommended that the board of education approve the textbook adoptions for 24 25 as presented is there a motion is there a second second is there any discussion okay uh roll call please mr neater aye miss shapira yes please mr baraza aye uh dr ellie trumer aye uh mr heineman aye miss lupa aye and myself motion carries item b is recommended the board of education authorize the assistant superintendent for finance to
083approve timely payments to the companies and vendors as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion roll call please um mr shapira yes please mr baraza aye dr ellie trumer aye uh mr heineman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye motion carries it is recommended the board of education approve the resolution resolution designated repositories for school district funds as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second that might be your first one it might be my first uh is there any discussion okay roll call please mr baraza aye dr ellie trumer aye mr heineman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye uh miss shapira yes please motion carries it is recommended that the board of education approve a one-year employment contract for elizabeth
084burges as director of outplacement services as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion uh roll call please dr ellie trumer aye uh mr heineman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye miss shapira yes please mr baraza aye self-motion carries it is recommended that the board of education approve a resolution authorizing reduction in force of educational support personnel as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion roll call please mr heineman aye miss lupa aye mr neater aye miss shapira yes please mr baraza aye dr ellie trumer aye motion carries it is recommended the board of education improve a resolution authorizing notice of non-renewal of administrative contract for amy oliva a director of security as presented is there a
085motion nope so moved is there a second come on neater let's second it is there any discussion roll call please miss lupa aye mr neater aye mr shapira yes please mr baraza aye dr ellie trumer aye mr heineman 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 yeah i pull board of education regular action meeting minutes for the april 23rd and the closed session for april 23rd please um yes or i can just abstain from that but that makes life easier um we can do whatever you want to do just abstain from both same okay make life easier i appreciate that thank you it is recommended that the consent the
086consent agenda be approved as listed is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion a roll call please mr neater aye miss shapira abstain mr baraza aye dr ellie trumer abstain mr heineman aye miss lupa aye myself motion carries uh it is our last item adjournment it is uh 828 is there a motion to adjourn the meeting so moved given it to jenny is there a second second okay uh all those in favor aye opposed abstentions motion carries thank you everyone miles can you wait one second are you coming that's it kathy can you give um