001Elliot Schermer here. Mr. Heidemann here. Mr. Nieder here. Mr. Pirra yes please. Mr. Baratha here. Ms. Newman here. Like everyone else who is present to identify themselves. Romina I think executive secretary. Tom Krieger, chief human resources officer. Michael Ock, assistant superintendent curriculum instruction assessment. Karen Warner, chief communications officer. Tiffany Rowe, assistant superintendent for student services. Brian Armour, chief operations officer. Aldi Mahanty, assistant soup finance. Debbie Finn, principal Highland Park High School. Katherine Anderson, principal at Dearfield High School. Ron Kasbum, chief information officer. Mira Antti, assistant soup diversity equity and inclusion. Shayla Howland, incoming superintendent. Bruce Law, superintendent. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as listed? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Yes. Opposed? Abstention. Motion carries. Okay our first agenda item is the appointment of a new board
002member. So Jenny Lupa, come on up to the front. So we will do the members. I, Jenny Lupa, do solemnly swear. I, Jenny Lupa, do solemnly swear. That I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office. That I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office. Of member of the board of education at Township High School District 113. Of member of the board of education of Township High School District 113. In accordance with the constitution of the United States. In accordance with the constitution of the United States. The constitution of the state of Illinois. The constitution of the state of Illinois. And the laws of the state of Illinois. And the laws of the state of Illinois. To the best of my ability. To the best of my ability. I further swear that I shall
003respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of a school district's assets. I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees. I shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public board meeting. I shall abide by majority decisions of the board while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels. As part of the board of education, I shall accept the responsibility for my role in the equitable and quality education of every student in the school district. I shall foster with the board extensive participation of the community, formulate
004goals, define outcomes, and set the course for Township High School District 113. I shall assist in establishing a structure and an environment designed to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework. I shall strive to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of our children in compliance with state law. I shall serve as education's key advocate on behalf of students and our community schools to advance the vision for Township High School District 113. And I shall strive to work together with the district superintendent to lead the school district toward fulfilling the vision the board has created, fostering excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills, knowledge, citizenship, and personal development. Welcome. Thank you. Right there. So come and join
005us at the table, please. Thank you. Oh, she's got the official name played up and everything. Thank you, Greg. We got a change out of that Packers jersey. Yeah. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the appointment of Jenny Lupah to the District 113 Board of Education in accordance with law. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Seeing that there's no further discussion, a roll call, please. Mr. Heineman. Aye. Mr. Nieder. Aye. Ms. Shapira. Aye. Dr. Elliott-Shermer. Aye. Ms. Newman. Aye. Motion carries. Yeah. Welcome. The next item on the agenda is the President's Report. We do want to welcome Jenny Lupah to our board. We appreciate and thank all of the community members who submitted applications for the open seat. Jenny is the right person
006at this pivotal time in District 113. She has a depth of experience serving on several boards, including those focused on education, which demonstrates her deep commitment to students and staff. With that experience, Jenny brings a solid understanding of board governance, which will help the rest of the District 113 Board as we prepare for a transition in leadership and our continued work to achieve the district goals. She currently serves on the board of the Youth Choir of the North Shore, an organization focused on childhood development through music appreciation and vocal performance. So again, welcome, Jenny. Thank you very much. For agreeing to serve. Very happy to be here. Couple of more items on my report. There are three days until spring break in case anyone was not aware of that. We do want to wish the
007staff students and our families sun and relaxation, adventure in new places, or if you're staying here, no snow. You will see later in admin reports that we will be doing our first excellence and effort highlight. As a reminder, I've asked our principals to bring forward the good work that is happening in our schools, which is occurring in conjunction with our academic, athletic, and fine arts awards and accolades, but may not have the same visibility and are just as important for our students sense of belonging and connection and their learning to adult. The goal is to have this be a part of our process for the long haul. And I want to set appropriate expectations in our culture of everyone gets a trophy. I have tasked the principals with showing examples of this good work. I
008encourage all of us to approach these reports with curiosity about what other great work is being done by our staff and students and to assume that for every one example given, there are several others with just as much impact. And that is the conclusion of the president's report. Moving on to administrative reports, superintendent. Thank you, Ms. Newman. So just want to give the board an update on the science lab discussion that's been ongoing. You'll see this reflected in the updated staffing sheets when they come for the board later. Just as a reminder, currently, full-time science teachers teach four classes. Other full-time teachers teach five. So science labs are taught in a part of a period that takes place in addition to an instructional period. I proposed to the DEA in February that science teachers incorporate
009labs into their daily instruction and teach five classes at that time offered to meet to discuss the change. This change, by the way, would allow students to take an elective in place of the time slot that currently is now occupied by a science lab and bring equity to all our teachers because now all teachers who are full-time could be teaching five and incorporate labs as part of a science daily instruction. We met with the DEA last week to discuss the impact of making this change for the 24-25 school year. This was a really important meeting because this was the opportunity for the DEA to share their concerns and for administration to work with the DEA to see if those concerns could be addressed. After discussing making the change for 24-25, it became clear that to
010implement this change well, teachers would need more time than the rest of this year in the summer to prepare for it. And I don't think it should surprise anyone that the DEA cares a lot about the quality of instruction and administration cares a lot about the quality of instruction. So I'm sharing with the board that incorporating science labs into daily instruction will begin in the 25-26 school year and the DEA administration will be working together to make this change. This year or the summer, if that's feasible for teachers and next year, revising curriculum along the way. We will learn a lot as we go through this process and we will make sure that those changes are made and in the best interest of students and our teachers. But I just want to make sure the
011board knows that the recommendation now is for 25-26. I'll pause on that. It makes a lot of sense that we're gonna postpone this for a year, give people time to figure out how it's gonna work. Can you give us some more background on the decision to go to this type of instruction for science, some of the benefits, what we're seeing in other districts and why we think it's beneficial to do so? Yeah, so I think there are a few things. One of the things of course, that everyone needs in education is time. It's the time that we have to instruct students is our most valuable resource. But that time also is important for students who want to take electives, who maybe need a study hall, who maybe want to take an additional science class. And
012so having a lab take up a part of a class, sometimes it meets twice a week, depending on the schedule, but having that slot be occupied by science lab prevents students from the option of taking an elective class or taking other things that they may need to do. So that was a very important part of this. The other part that I think is very important is that just as a matter of equity, if full-time teachers teach five classes, it should be the case that all our teachers teach five classes if they're full-time. And we've got lots of examples of schools that incorporate labs into their daily instruction. And so one of the things that we discussed by giving this more time, it gives us opportunities to go to these schools, some of which have very
013strong AP programs, they have very strong science programs. The student outcomes aren't compromised by the fact that the labs are incorporated into daily instruction and the AP results are also very strong and it's because of the way the science is delivered. So there's a lot we can learn from other school districts and most other school districts are on this path to make sure that as we're incorporating this into incorporating labs in daily instruction that we learn from them and are able to use that learning as we go. How does, oh, sorry, no, go ahead, go. So if I'm hearing you correctly, Bruce, we're not getting rid of science labs. Oh, no, of course not. I mean, science labs are part of science instruction. You absolutely cannot, it is part of science instruction, science labs are
014part of science instruction. And so when the labs are going on, they'll be instructed, it will be more of a blended into the classroom versus it being, here's your lab, then we'll come back and talk about it, it'll all be done continuously. Okay, thank you. How does it impact our budget? Well, we, you know, we'll talk about this when there's a budget, there's agenda item coming. We talked to the board in January about a five-year forecast that indicated little deficit in 25 and a worrisome deficit in FY26. At that time, we said we think we need to be solving in this, in the upcoming fiscal year, FY25 for FY26. The board agreed with that. We were able to do that without the science, with science teachers teaching four classes. So having science teachers teach four
015classes again in FY25, of course, it's going to the surplus, which we were budgeting for in order to address issues in FY26 will be a little less, but there's still surplus. And saying FY26 is still positive because we were able to come way under what we needed to come under for the purposes of budgeting, and which is a good thing. I mean, our responsibility is to convert taxpayer dollars into value for students. But as you know, from your household budget, when you've got cash, you've got options. And so it's good that the district has, is in a very good financial place, FY25, FY26. And that was our goal. Set whether science teachers teach five the coming school year or the following school year. Well, that will not impact FY27. That will have to be addressed.
016And that's far enough. A lot can happen between now and then, but it won't affect FY27. And our approach here, students who want the sciences, want more science, they're going to have those opportunities. Students who may historically have had to forego other things that they wanted to study because of being required to be in science lab will open up opportunities. Is that sort of the general? Right. That's right. So along those same lines, and I don't know, I imagine it hasn't been figured out yet, but the MTSS component of the ability for students to receive additional or what's that, what does that impact look like if we know? That's a great question. So right now we have, as the board knows, had a presentation on this in the contract calls for another presentation to come
017back no later than June on a schedule options for the 25, 26 school year. So this gives, knowing that this science teachers teaching five, incorporating labs in their daily instruction is coming in 25, 26, gives some certainty to that committee. So when they're doing their planning and they're talking about what will the schedule look like in 25, 26, now they can take that into consideration, but that's a very important question. The, I think, I don't think anyone should worry because the school districts that incorporate science labs into the daily science instruction, they have MTSS. They have these supports. They have these opportunities for students who need it. So again, it's, we've got time to learn from other districts if that's needed, but it's possible to do. Will the teachers have either guided or structured time
018to revise their curriculum? Yeah, and you know, that I was not surprising that the DEA has been asking for, you know, trying to find some release time when teachers can start working. Those questions go to building principals, of course, because they're trying to, you know, they have to manage that within their buildings. So yes, there is structured time. We offer, we'll be offering summer curriculum hours, but you know, the problem with summer curriculum, we can't rely on summer curriculum hours because some teachers have plans. By the end of the school year, every teacher is exhausted. So, you know, the summer, you can't just say, oh, you've got all summer, because there are teachers who teach summer school, teachers who do other things. Next year, there will also be a structured time built to the day.
019Teachers ask for release time so they can work with their course teams because a lot of them have responsibilities after school. So you can't just say, oh, you know, you can do this after school. That doesn't work either. So there, the buildings are very good accommodating these requests when teachers need to work together to collaborate and to, you know, make changes like this. And this is, you know, obviously it's a significant change to incorporate labs into your daily science instruction. We need to make sure that they have time to, and the DEA very well made the case for why that needed to be in place. So summarizing what I think I've heard you say is from through the staff lens, equity. Now all teachers in our buildings as of the following school year will be
020teaching five classes. Full-time teachers. Right, five classes, excuse me. Correct. And that they will be provided with release time of the science teachers this coming school year in order to make sure that they can adjust their curriculum, their instruction, so that they can offer the best opportunities for education for the students. Through the student lens, it will allow our students to take that eighth class in their schedule, that seventh class in their schedule, that might be another science class, it might be a fine arts class. Some students take early bird science right now in order to get that additional class into their schedule. And again, we all know teenagers starting school early is that can be detrimental to their learning experience. And the plan is since we do have other schools that are often are
021comparables, who have robust AP programs, robust science curriculum, have MTSS, we can use what they have learned in our modeling moving forward. Okay, great. Any other questions? Anything else on your report? Just the last thing is I wish everyone a happy spring break. I hope the weather is fantastic next week. It's gonna snow on Friday, and that's always good news in school when the weather is lousy on Friday. So that's good news. Will there emails be no reply for the week, the staff emails? Oh yeah, we turn that off. For spring break, I know we do it for winter break. Winter break, spring break, I don't remember. I think we do for people who are not working. Okay. Okay. All right, so an auto answer will go on Friday night. For people who are not
022working that week that says thank you for your email, spring break. Great, so everyone gets a break. Okay, fantastic. Well, and we are excited because Dr. Law has enabled us to give some of his time to Dr. Holland for her to be able to provide an update in her transition. Dr. Holland? Yes, thank you so much. So first I wanna say thank you to everyone for such a warm, inviting welcome since the announcement. I've really enjoyed spending time at both of our schools, meeting, as well as the admin center, meeting so many people. It's brought so much joy. Looking forward to spending time, more time in the district following spring break. I have many meetings and gatherings scheduled with a wide range of stakeholder groups. I also wanna say thank you to the students who
023have also been very accepting and affirming of me. I hope they know that I'm looking forward to also being their biggest fans. So that's just been wonderful. I wanted to give a couple of updates regarding a few things that are happening. As you know, we are engaging a hiring process for the Highland Park High School Principal. The search firm SchoolExec Connect has been very helpful in the process. We've engaged in a range of interviews and there have been also a wide range of stakeholder groups that have been involved. Staff members, LSMs, support staff, building administrators, cabinet members, students and parents. Everyone has provided individual feedback. I think that's important, that everyone has been able to express their perspectives, that feedback has been carefully reviewed and analyzed. SchoolExec Connect as well as myself, we both have
024engaged in extensive reference checks. And it wasn't my hope originally to bring a recommendation to this board meeting, but I wanted to take the time to review all the feedback, consider many different perspectives as well as continue to engage in the district to do my due diligence, to make sure that the recommendation honors the profile that was created and really honors the importance of the process. I would like to thank the entire Highland Park community for your feedback and your contributions and insights. I understand the magnitude and importance of this position and I'm looking forward to sharing this special recommendation to the board during the April 9th board meeting. One other thing, during my transition, I jumped right into examining the achievement landscape and the district, all of the wonderful instructional efforts underway and the
025many opportunities that exist for us to increase the growth and development of each student in the district. I've also considered the support I need to best serve in my new role as superintendent. So to this end, I do believe it's important and essential to reinstate the role of assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and assessment. This will support continuity in this position as we head into the 2024-25 school year. So I wanted to share that with the board and the school community. I believe this role is critical in our analysis and evaluation of our instructional initiatives, our priorities, efforts to support student growth, furthering our efforts to increase access and opportunities for each student. This position also supports learning for staff as well. As I mentioned, there are many important instructional initiatives underway, but I also
026think it's important to bring all of our efforts and work under a coherent body of priorities. And I think it's also important to collaborate together. And so this role also ensures that we remain current and compliant at the regional, state, and national levels with our assessments, policies, grants, and other procedural matters. I do believe and I fully validate that the work of teaching and learning, the most important space for that to happen is in our buildings and in our classrooms. But I also believe that the district plays an important role in providing an umbrella of support, providing resources, collaborating with our buildings around this work. To me, it's a shared and collective responsibility that we all have to support the growth of students. So I do believe this role plays an important role and really
027fostering and supporting that. This role will collaborate with other assistant superintendents, as well as our building administrators, with our staff and many stakeholder groups. I will continue to learn and engage through this process, but considering the season that we're in with staffing and really thinking about next year, I wanted to bring this to this board meeting and considering our budgeting process, which has been looked at, this role, reinstating it, will have a minimal impact for the next two years or so. And we're also looking at its placement within the five-year forecast. And so I wanted to share this with everyone. And with this stated, tonight I plan to communicate to the staff regarding what I'm saying right now, this information, and tomorrow, hopefully post a position. And I think it's important in terms of timing
028to post a position prior to spring break to make sure that people out there who may be interested have the information, have time to gather their materials and possibly apply. And I'll continue to update the board and the school community on the process. Great, fantastic. I know as a board, we look forward to receiving the contract of the individual that you find and approving that contract. And then as we continue to move through the budgeting process, being aware of how it impacts the budget. We are definitely excited by the engagement you've been able to have so far in both schools. I love it when you call me after you've been in the building and you are so excited. It makes my night, so I so appreciate that. And so we look forward to hearing as
029you continue to work on your transition. The plan is most likely that Dr. Holland will provide these updates as needed. So as we move through the spring, as she ramps up and Dr. Law ramps down, they have been extremely approachable in their tag teaming, in their communication, in their working together. So I definitely appreciate personally and from the board the time you guys are spending to figure this out. So thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Yes. Excuse me. I know we were expecting to get a recommendation for the HP principle. I really respect the fact that you said I want to really read through all of the things. This is a big role, big shoes to fill. And I'm glad that you're taking the time to really make sure it's the right
030person for that specific position. Because if I sit there and think of the importance of those roles within our buildings, that person that every kid knows is a really vital part to our community. So I thank you for doing that. Thank you. Looking forward to hearing about it on April 9th. Great. Thank you. Moving on. Excellence and effort. Principal Finn. Because Principal Anderson's hiding. I thought we were gonna do it. I thought we were gonna do it. I thought we were gonna have to duke it up. That's good. I'm ready. I'm excited about this. Thank you. It's not easy to pick two. I just want to put that out there. So I'm gonna do two and a half. That's fine. And that's why I tried to set expectations with everyone. So I'm just doing a
031short little shout out. So we just wrapped up our charity drive. I don't know if you've heard. And one of the things that's, I always say about charity drive, it's a big, huge fundraising event. There's no doubt that's a part of it. It's also about creating awareness, teaching kids about philanthropic work, coming together for a purpose. And we were very excited that this year our charity drive fundraiser was for the Cancer Wellness Center, which is a local organization that many people in our community have benefited from. Some very close to my heart, right? So it's a very special organization. And we did have our final celebration. We did unveil a check. It was for $161,000. Not that that's not exciting, and it is, but to see how many kids showed up for 7.38 o'clock celebration
032in our cafeteria was pretty exciting. So just, that's my half. Okay, here's some of my thoughts. So, so keeping in mind some of the things you suggested to stick with it. So I'm gonna start with the board put forth some money to support some unique clubs, right? To bring more kids into a sense of belonging in our community. So one of our clubs that just skyrocketed is the lettuce eating club. Yes, I know that's the look a lot of people give. But what's really unique about this, I don't know if you know this, but it's inspired by a viral trend in the country of a hilarious race to eat heads of lettuce. And it's grown into an already thriving club. We had more than 50 kids come to that initial meeting. I know, I know.
033But here's where it went with. So the club leader is this. Well, wait, that's where this goes. So it goes on to say that one of the club leaders is Lachlan Knapp. And he really is pushing this towards an agenda of like learning to have like a plant-based living and the impact on the mind and the body and the planet. So that is definitely part of it. But over 50 kids showed up for the first day of the lettuce eating club. So thank you for supporting that. A whole bunch of kids took advantage of that, the generosity of the board to support those clubs. So I thought that was pretty funny. If you look at one of my last family letters, you will see 50 plus kids looking at lettuce and eating lettuce. Who would
034have known? Who would have known? And this is the beauty of high school kids because they just never know what they're gonna do. And the other thing, we talked about our values at the beginning of the school year. We started with our house on Vine and we sort of had that house party, I don't if you remember. We talked about our non-negotiables. And our non-negotiables, staff, students, everyone alike, take care of our casa y familia, show up, beat the bell and disconnect to reconnect. So those are our four things. And so in the idea of this beat the bell, timeliness, attendance, et cetera, we started the beat the bell challenge last month. Freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors competed against each other to see who could be on time to class the most. The Mario Brothers
035and Mario Cartoon played over the loudspeaker the last 30 seconds of every period. And each week we showed the staffs. I'm excited to tell you that the freshmen started off with an 87% on time rate to class and they ended with a 93% and won the beat the bell challenge. I'm guessing the seniors. So well, second semester seniors, I have one. I had empathy, you know, even with the cute music over the top. I don't know. I'm not gonna say this, but when that played on, I felt myself walking a little fast. But to make a connection to our community, we're very lost in Highland Park to have a lot of local restaurants, et cetera, that our kids frequent. Backyard Grill supports us in many ways. And what they offer was a $10 gift card
036to every student in the class, in the winning class. So every freshman got a $10 gift card or will get a $10 gift card. We have a little celebration coming up to Backyard Grill and they're bringing out a whole bunch of sweets that day. So I don't wanna put that out. So yes, so if you're looking for a good year old sandwich, I suggest you go to beat the Backyard Grill because they are very supportive of Highland Park High School. So Blocky's not bad as well. You're right. Exactly right. So those are my two and a half. That's fantastic. Thank you very much. I love you. I love you. I know who will use you for our next board for food. They will support you, I guarantee you. Principal Anderson. That's hard to beat. So
037thanks, Debbie. I will have to say, I had the joy of being at Highland Park High School for two days in a row last week and the staff were talking about the song and how it was making them feel nervous and how they felt more nervous, I think, than the students. So that was fantastic. Mine is gonna start with civics, go to little kids and then end up with kind of a, it's like the opposite of Debbie and end up with some student council stuff. So first on March 6th at the invitation of Judge George Strickland, Amy Skonberg, Breznicek and Joe Taylor took their AP government classes to witness a portion of a murder trial at the Lake County Courthouse. Students were able to observe the complexity of presenting footage from over 20 different security
038cameras and angles, as well as hear the qualifications and background of a ballistics expert. Several students began following the case in the news after the visit and some even returned in person multiple times to hear more about the case. Although the verdict seems somewhat clear based on what the students heard, they were surprised to learn that the jury deliberated for over 10 hours across multiple days before reaching a guilty verdict. So some really serious civic engagement. And extending the learning, right? 100%. Yes. A lot of students coming back saying, yep, never wanna be a lawyer. Thank you. Thank you, Joe Taylor. Thank you, Joe Taylor. So that was fascinating to learn about. The next is with our child development class. And if you know anything about our child development classes at Deerfield High School, we
039actually have a preschool, Deer Park. And it's wonderful because it's not only the children of our staff members at both Deerfield High School and Highland Park High School, but it's also community members as well. Our child development two and three students, as well as one have a great opportunity to work with our little friends, our Deer Park friends ages two through five throughout the school day. It is just a beautiful sight to see with our students working with each other. And we have a lot of Deerfield students who actually were a part of Deer Park. So an even cooler connection there. So this is specifically about an opportunity that our child development two and three students had to connect with author Todd Parr. The first time that Todd Parr zoomed with the DHS students was
040during the home learning period in 2020, 2021. It was a great period of time where we could connect with a lot of authors via zoom. So Karen Deegan, along with our librarians, Lori Williams and Jen Jacobs, they brought in Mr. Parr to talk to our students. And he spoke to the students about his own struggles to achieve and fit in when he was a student. When a publisher he knew suggested that he turned his love of art into a children's book, he pointed out that he had repeated the second grade and barely finished high school. However, he came to realize his stories could reach both children and adults in a humorous and embracing and empowering way. As a thank you for his visit, students wrote Todd Parr, a thank you note in the cell of
041his book. It's okay to be different. So this is the book that the students saw from Todd Parr. And this is the book that they created him. And so some of the things they said was, we love meeting you on zoom. Thank you for teaching us that it's okay to be forgetful. It's okay to go to bed early. It's okay to wear PJs to school. It's okay to have acne. It's okay to not do things right. And they spelled right, W-R-I-T-E. It's okay to fall behind. It's okay to have a bad hair day. It's okay to take naps. It's okay not to wear makeup. It's okay to worry if my kids are okay. And that was from Mrs. Deegan. So just a beautiful opportunity for the students to say something special. The students actually engage
042with the librarians throughout their experience in child development, two and three, a big portion of what they do is to work with the librarians about picking authors and books that are diverse and ensuring that our students, when they are at the young ages, two through five, that they are able to have these books that are reflective of themselves and really talk about big topics. So it was a beautiful time for our students to engage in a different way with a real life author. And then the last thing I wanted to bring up is a big kudos to our student council. Each year, they do a mental health awareness week. So they do a variety of activities throughout the week, encouraging students to wear green, rock painting, and our You Are Enough Wellness Center, shamrock shakes.
043It was just a great week to acknowledge mental health, awareness, reduce, eliminate the stigma, and to just truly talk about mental health at our school. So thank you to them for having this wonderful event. Thank you both very much. Just to remind everyone at our committee of the whole meeting, we have students, liaisons here, and they do a great job of bringing and highlighting the academic, athletic, and fine arts achievements of our schools. That's why we wanted to expand the breadth of what we can celebrate. So thank you both. I really appreciate it. Fantastic. Next is the five-year financial forecast updates. That's Debbie. I'll take that. I'll take that. Yeah, yeah. I'll just look over the phone. All right, so as Bruce mentioned as a weekly update, we presented the five-year projections pre-staffing. And I
044just want to give a quick recap of when you presented these numbers and the assumptions here. SIP fiscal year 25, we know about the P-TEL, which is the 5%. CPI was higher, but we're capped at 5%. So we have in our revenues and our investments are at 2.5%, even though investment rates are around 5.5%, but you know, our PMA financial advisors told us to be conservative and project 2.5% for the next five years. So we have that in our projections. So if we add money on top of that, let's say the interest rates stay at 5%, we're gonna have money to the surplus. So anyway, that's in the revenue. Expenditures, we know the DEA contract. You know, we have obviously other bargaining groups that we know the raises for, we have that. We've got $3.5
045million to our revenue bonds for our payment for, you know, 20 years. And then we also have $2 million for our capital allocation that we do annually that will grow up by CPI. Not that amount, but that amount, plus all revenue bond amount, and we inflate that by CPI every year. We also had a 5% increase in our non-personal expenditures and 8% increase in PPL and 5% increase in agent. So that was when we presented to you. So when you did the staffing, Ron, if you go to the next slide. The first good news was, before we went staffing, it was right after, a few days after we presented to the board, that our PPL renewal came at 0%, flat. So that saved us about $600,000. So that is great news because no... I checked
046with Gallagher, they run the co-op. Gallagher's our broker, and they also run the co-op for about, you know, NYHIP co-op and EBC. They're about 100-plus school districts, and their rates are at 10%. So, oh, it stays the same for fiscal year 26, but this is unheard of, PPL. So that was, like I said, that saved us $600,000. We have an insurance committee. We're managing our plan well. You know, the board and administration, you know, bargaining good language in the insurance for PPL, so that's hopefully gonna benefit us more. We've got 22 retirements for this school year, so that will maybe benefit our PPL plan and our claims as well. So yeah, we'll continue to monitor the plan and, you know, looking at plan design, if it needs to be for fiscal year 26. But yeah,
047that's good news. And then with staffing, as Bruce mentioned, you know, there were reductions. So obviously the PPO insurance, even though it impacted in fiscal year 25, it created a compounding effect for fiscal year 26. So fiscal year 25, the surplus went to about $1.3 million before the deficit was $133,000. And as I said, this is primarily due to the insurance, the staffing reductions, and there's some reductions in administrative positions. So there's a combination of licensed, non-licensed staff reductions, you know, resulting in a surplus of $1.3 million. So I'm just gonna stop before I get to FY26 to answer their any questions. Okay. All right, so what's happening in FY26 is, obviously we don't know what the CPI is for FY26, so we have an assumption of 3.4%. So we'll find out in December, well,
048not in December, in January, it's for December, mid-January, what the CPI is, and we'll update the projections if we need to be. And then we have the science factors, single period of science in there, for fiscal year, in fiscal year 26. Now keep in mind, the staff reduction due to science is about 6.65 FD, which is just an estimate, because what happens is the sectioning is done, you know, with the single period of science, I mean, it depends where the kids are gonna be enrolled. So it's not necessarily, we don't know if that number is gonna stay static, it'll go down, how much will it go down? So once we do the staffing for next year, and looking at five periods for science, we will analyze and see where the course requests are, and based
049on that, we will determine what the staffing needs are, so. And then- Very positive. Yes. Yeah. Yes. One thing is, just to say it the other way that we said it in January, if we're trying to solve for in FY25 or FY26, what that means is there will be a surplus in FY25, and it's just the way, it is just math. It's not the case that someone should conclude, oh, look, there's a surplus in FY25, then, you know, they didn't need to make any reductions. No, it's because we were planning for a surplus in FY25 to put us in a position for FY26, and that, of course, also flows through in future years, even though the further out we get, you know, the more it's just, it truly is just projection. The other is just
050to underscore what Ali said, that maybe if you just look at a reduction FTE of 6.65, we know that students having the opportunity to take electives, that it's not gonna be just a 6.65 reduction. Now, we've got a lot of classes. If all those students in a science lab went into one class, that would, of course, be a new section, but those students get spread out over all the classes, and so it could make the difference, though, between some elective classes running and not running, but that's also a good thing, by the way, because then that means that a class that might not otherwise have run will be an opportunity for not just students who are taking this class because they're not in a science lab, but other students who wanted to take it in
051the first place. So Ali's right, just wanna underscore that. It won't be a 6.65, but it won't be zero either. It'll be somewhere in between, depending on how the students, but it will be driven by student course selections. Correct. And the surplus is what we usually do anytime there's a surplus. We're talking about $1.3 million in FY25, and interest rates, if they stay at 5%, we're probably gonna add another two and a half. That goes through capital projects. So it's not like it's going back to the fund balance. It's going to the capital projects. As you all know, in the facilities committee, there are a lot of needs for capital projects, and we don't have enough money to fund all of our capital projects. So anytime we have surpluses, we transfer, I transfer this money
052to fund 60, which is our capital project fund. Same thing's gonna happen in FY26, and as Dr. Howell mentioned about the position, as we get closer to the budget season, I will tweak those projections reflecting the CNI position. It's a minimal impact, but yes, we create a budget book for the board end of May, and then there's a finance committee in June, but I will tweak those. And as we find out more, I mean, insurance is known, salaries are known. There's some assumptions in workers' comm, and probably insurance. And if there's any other tweaks that I need to make, I'll update it, but it's not gonna change much, these projections from now until June, so. And the reason we wanted to go through this tonight was to really come full circle, because we are going
053to be now voting on the staffing recommendations, so it made sense to look at the budget now through that month. Right, next slide, please. This is just a good visual. I mean, if you see what was happening pre-staffing, that's our fund balance. And, you know, kind of my color, is that purple? Yeah. Okay, all right, all right. Blue and green. I know green, but yeah. All right, so as you can see, the blue and the green, you know, will have in part color. Should have had red, but yeah, made a mistake. All right, but pre-staffing, post-staffing, you know, a big difference in our fund balance. If you see, you know, during the staffing with insurance, and you know, the efficiencies in the staffing administration and all the restructuring, you see where the fund balance is
054in green and where it would have been had we not done anything. So it's a big difference. So the blue is before we did staff. Correct. The green is after we did staff. Correct, correct, correct. Next slide, please. And same thing with blue and green. If you were, if you like the numbers, you could see in 25, we were projecting a very, a small deficit. But then with all the staffing and efficiencies and reductions, you know, we have a surplus of $1.3 million. And same thing in 26, the blue is our deficit, green is our surplus. So as you can see in, you know, 28 and 29, because we were looking at five years, the difference between what we had in our deficit before staffing and after staffing is a big change. So that's good
055news. Next slide, please. All right, so I mean, we've, you know, when we did the staffing, we also were doing the non-personnel budgeting, which is 20%, you know, over budget. And I didn't list all the reductions that took place because those are not materials, material amounts, but the buildings actually did a good job keeping their budgets a very minimal, in fact, a flat to very minimal increase. It's not a big amount, but it does help. But as you can see that the biggest differences were in staffing and insurance, because salaries and benefits are 80% of our budget. So that's why those are material amounts that changed our fund balances. Any questions? Quick comment. Even though it may not be material, the fact that we are working hard to make sure that that 20% is well-managed
056is important. Correct. Because it shows that we're being fiscally responsible for taking serious tax breaks. Absolutely. Good point, good point. Any other questions? Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, Foyas. That is the list of Foyas received and processed since the last board meeting. Okay. Moving on to public comments. We welcome your comments and questions and give them serious consideration pursuant to Board of Education Policy 2-23. Please identify yourself. And if applicable, state the agenda item in which your comment is directed. Please limit the length of all comments to no more than three minutes. When possible, we'll try to incorporate your questions into relevant agenda items as they're discussed. However, any question may be sent via email to be answered subsequent to the meeting. As a reminder, public participation is not intended to be a back and
057forth discussion between the public and the board. The public comment period will be for a maximum of 30 minutes. I believe that we have one public comment. Mrs. Shapiro. Oh, fantastic. Number one. Number one. Thank you. We, we, thank you. In my effort, I feel it's so important because this is an opportunity for community members to be able to speak. And I think one way I can, I would show disrespect is by pronouncing people's names incorrectly because that's how they identify, that's who they are or one identity. And so we do have a numbering system. Obviously right now we only have the number one but the thought is when someone signs up out in the front they'll get a number and I will simply be calling numbers. That way then they can state their name
058and then go on to their public comment. So again, out of respect to everyone. So thank you. Elaine Shapiro here and welcome to Jenny, our new board member. You couldn't have a better group of colleagues and that's everyone around the table. Well, in this particular theater of serious responsibility, deep and careful thought, civil discussion, I play the part of the pesky community member. So recently on broadcast TV, the historian, philosopher, futurist and author who wrote Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari was engaged in an interview which included his thoughts on education in relation to our newest developing awesome, fearsome, imaginative factual matrix of knowledge from ancient times to created at the time of inquiry electronic super brain, otherwise known as AI. He delivered this sentence and that's what made me think. And I may repeat this twice.
059Quote, nobody knows what to teach kids that will be relevant in 20 years. Nobody knows what to teach kids that will be relevant in 20 years. Well, on the one hand, it's my hope that everyone in this room will disagree because we in this room know that the current technological revolution can exist well alongside minds that have a broad perception of the connections of all organic life on earth and the knowledge needed to be inspired by that tool to enable them to end the senseless, gruesome and stupid conflicts we face today. Those minds have to be developed by you. On the other hand, I agree with Dr. Harari that there is no longer a box for so-called systems of education. I now pronounce you all out of the box and I'm a big proponent of
060qualitative research perhaps in the future even more than quantitative research because qualitative research I think enlarges the mind and we have these tools for so much of our quantitative research and as anybody who's heard me be the pesky person before knows that I think our system of education needs to be upended and I think what Dr. Harari said is worth paying attention to for the third time, three times for learning. Nobody knows what to teach kids that will be relevant in 20 years but I think we here have a clue and we need to start thinking out of that box and produce those minds. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to action items. Go ahead. Action item 8A, licensed and non-licensed staffing recommendations for the 24-25 school year. It is recommended that the Board of
061Education approve the licensed and non-licensed staffing recommendation for the 24-25 school year as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? This was what was reviewed at our last meeting. Okay. Yes, that's right. In addition to this, there's an update that Rana's bringing up now to what we presented last week. So I wanna make sure this was also presented. This is reflecting science teachers teaching four classes next year. That's so that we made adjustments to the staffing recommendations for FY25. A roll call, please. Mr. Nader. Hi. Ms. Shapira. Although I was not at the last meeting, I did listen to it all, and I've gone through what we've done. So yes, my word is yes, please. Mr. Braza. Aye. Dr. Elliott-Shermer. Aye. Mr. Heineman. Aye. Ms. Lupach.
062Staying. Ms. Newman. Aye. Motion carries. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the 25-26 school calendar as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Okay. A roll call, please. Ms. Shapira. Yes, please. Mr. Braza. Aye. Dr. Elliott-Shermer. Aye. Mr. Heineman. Aye. Ms. Lupach. Staying. Mr. Nader. Aye. Ms. Newman. Aye. Motion carries. On the motion of the Board to award contracts to trade contractors for the district-wide 24 capital improvement projects, bid period number three, after due advertisement pursuant to the school code, the Board hereby elects alternative 2.3H, finds that the following contractor is the lowest responsible bidder, and accepts the proposals of and makes an award to the following contractor subject to the legal review of the district council. Bid package subcontractor, bid package number
063three, paving. Murphy Construction Services, 164,860. Need to read the pursuant part. Pursuant to section three one. I should know this. This is in red. Ramina tells me what I'm supposed to do, and I just need to read that. Pursuant to section 2.1.6.3 of the district's master agreement with Pepper, the Board on the behalf of the district assigns the aforementioned trade contract for district-wide 2024 capital improvement projects to Pepper. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? A roll call, please. Mr. Garza. Aye. Dr. Elliot-Trimmer. Aye. Mr. Heineman. Aye. Ms. Lupa. Abstain. Mr. Nader. Aye. Ms. Shapiro. Yes, please. Motion carries. Moving on to consent agenda. Next to the consent agenda. A board member may pull any item for separate consideration. Does any board member wish to pull an
064item 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. And Jaime, you have the bills. I have the privilege of reviewing not only February, but also January and reviewing the bills. So one Ali, thank you. But a special thank you to Josh as well for providing some really detailed description of the bills that were pulled. They were from, you know, Deerfield High School, Highland Park High School, the admin building, everything from transportation, O&M, activities, athletics. And like I said, for both months, all questions were answered satisfactorily and everything was pulled and in order. So thank you so much. Is there any other discussion for any consent items? Just want to make a comment about the
065investments continuing with my comment a month ago. We're continuing to turn over lower interest rate CDs into higher interest rate instruments. And this is providing significant benefit and one that will be beneficial to us for the long term. Great, thank you. I'm going to give it that way for next. Yes. Come on now. Okay, a roll call please. Dr. Elliot Schermer. Aye. Mr. Heidemann. Aye. Ms. Upa. Abstain. Mr. Nieder. Aye. Ms. Shapiro. Yes, please. Mr. Braza. Aye. Ms. Newman. Aye. Motion carries. Closing item. It is 8.05. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? Way to go, Madam President. Yes, please. Is there a second? Second. All in favor. Aye. Please. All opposed. Abstentions? Motion carries. Thank you everyone.