001And there was already a hiccup there. I apologize. Calling to order the Township High School District 113 Committee of the Whole meeting for Tuesday, September 12th, 2023. It is 7.04. Apologies to everyone. I am out of town on business. I apologize in advance for any hiccups tonight, but I'll try to make this as smooth as possible. Can we have a roll call, please, Romina? Mr. Barraza? Here. Dr. Elliott-Schimmer? Here. Mr. Heneman? Here. Ms. Newman? Here. Mr. Nieder? Here. Ms. Shapiro? Yes, please. Mr. Strzok? Here. The first order of business for this evening. Sorry, it's already started. We can have everyone at the table go around and introduce themselves. Oh, yeah. Can everybody please state their name? Romina is the Executive Secretary. Tom Krieger, Chief Human Resources Officer. Michael Locke, Assistant Superintendent Curriculum and Instruction Assessment.
002Karen Warner, Chief Communications Officer. Brian Armour, Chief Operations Officer. Holly Mahat, Chief Assistant Superintendent of Finance. Debbie Finn, Principal, Highland Park High School. Katherine Anderson, Principal, at Jertfield High School. Ron Gasbaum, Chief Information Officer. Karen Antti, Assistant Superintendent of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Amy Oliva, Director of Security. Bruce Law, Superintendent. Okay, the first order of business this evening is the approval of the board meeting agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended to move up the appointment of the student liaisons? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Hearing no objection, the motion carries. So we now have item 9A from the agenda, appoint student liaisons to the board. It is recommended that the Board of Education appoint the following student liaisons to the Board
003of Education for the 2023 school year. Jada Harris, who is a senior at Deerfield. Lillian Daulat Shahi, who is a senior at Deerfield. Stephanie Diaz, who is a junior at Highland Park High School. And Miles Walker, who is a junior at Highland Park High School. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Hearing no objection, the motion carries. We now move on to board reports and the first board report is the President's report. I will be brief tonight. I just want to say that it is a truly exciting... Dan, hold on one second. We want to seat our two student liaisons. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Okay, you get to get a picture with Mrs. Bidemba, I like that. And is the other student liaison
004here just not... No, okay. I wasn't sure. I knew Miles wasn't sure. Okay. The other two. It's truly exciting to be welcoming our students to the board table. You provide an incredible amount of insight and intelligence to us that we would otherwise be lacking. It's wonderful to see students engaged in this way. It's truly a highlight of a board president's year to welcome all of our student liaisons. And it's so exciting that we... I'm so excited that we have this program and we're able to have you here. Really, I have nothing else to report this week, so I'll just move right on to, I believe, True North. Yes. Thank you, Dan. True North had its monthly meeting. A couple things I wanted to go over with you, first of all. For those of you who've
005been following closely, which I know you all have been, their transition space and things like that have all been finished. They are on budget, on time, not nearly as on budget or on time as ours are, but still on budget and on time. Those things are coming forward. Phase two has been put on hold for a while. The reason being is they want to see how phase one of the spaces are working, and therefore it may alter the way we choose through True North. For those of you who don't know, True North is a group of 18-member districts. They serve our students of needs, so it's got many different facilities. This is their biggest one on Red Oak. So they're waiting on phase two just to make sure that everything they've done in phase one
006is being used the way they want it to be used, and if not, the tweaks need to be there or whether that changes the way they are going to be doing phase two. There was one other thing, oh, and then they presented a continuous improvement plan similar to many of our others. Just interesting, they did, there's just like a wheels and a cogs coming out of the wheels on how everything and how they turn together, and it was just their continuous improvement plan, and it's going to be reevaluated every academic year. So that is that. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Mr. Shapiro. We move on next to administrative administration information reports. First up is Dr. Law's report. Dr. Law? Thank you, Mr. Shuck. A couple things. One is I'd also like to welcome the student
007liaison to the board. Dan, you said they bring insight intelligence. I've met with them. Some of these students I've been working with since they were freshmen, and they in fact do bring insight intelligence. So we're very excited to have them. As the board knows, we have two from each school. They'll rotate through, and so the first meeting of the month will have the opportunity to hear from students. Of course, they present reports to the board, but the real value that they bring is being able to share in discussions when things arise that impact students and be able to share the students' perspective in our discussion. So it is, I think, much needed in every board of education. We're fortunate that the board supports this and we have the students we have. I want to mention
008the DEA contract. I know the board had a special meeting last week to approve that and just the amount of work that's going on to implement that contract. And I will also say the level of collaboration and cooperation that we have with the District 113 Education Association in implementing this contract, it's been, it's slow. There's a lot of, there are a lot of details we have to work out, but it is, it really is a great thing to have in place and to be able to refer to it. Both teachers in the teacher's association as well as administration being able to refer to a contract as we're trying to work through issues. And the last thing I wanted to mention and get on to the part of the meeting is just to look forward to
009on September 26, Tamara Jenkins is coming. She was the director of Highland Park's Focus on the Arts last year. So she's coming and she's got a two part presentation. One is to look back at the Focus on the Arts, Highland Park, and also look ahead at what's coming to Deerfield. There's work that's been going on there. They are rebranding it. They are making it their own. They're not going to call Focus on the Arts in Deerfield, but we'll wait until the 26th for us to find out what they're going to call at 26. But very excited to have her. So I just want to let everyone know that that that is coming in at the next next meeting. That's all I can say. Now, thank you. And the slideshow or film that was sent out
010that was on Facebook from Focus was phenomenal. Next, we'll go to goals for 2023-24. This is the principles. Yes, Principal Anderson. All right, thank you. So Debbie and I will talk about our goals for our schools and both of us starting off really with our themes that we have for the school year. So really everything that we're doing is kind of in the sense of this theme, which is for Deerfield Care Connect Community, just talking about how relationships are the most important in our school, how our students are feeling, how our staff are feeling, how our families are feeling and how we can support students in their academic journey. There are two very broad categories that we put our goals into, climate and culture goals and then curriculum and collaboration goals. For climate and culture
011goals, number one, for Deerfield, we will be creating a vision. So we currently lack a school vision, and that is something that we will be developing this year. So we will develop a school, you can go to the next slide, Ron. Thank you. We will develop a school vision in collaboration with school stakeholders to shape a common direction of growth and inspiration for our future desired state. So by creating this vision, it will help us to really set the path forward. Where do we want to be in the future? This vision will be created, there will be a team that is helping to direct that work, and it will include students, staff, and parents. We will meet once a month for basically the entire school year starting in October, and through that work, we will
012look at some data that we have for the school and begin to present that to different focus groups to gather some feedback and to ultimately create a school vision that will really help us with decision making in the future and providing a school environment that our students are excited to go to school, excited for all the opportunities that they have, academics and extracurriculars. So I think this will be a really important piece for our work moving forward. Now that vision work obviously impacts a lot of things that I'm going to talk about next because we're doing a lot of these goals without a vision, but that's okay. We have a foundation of where we want to be. So the next goal that we have is for SEL, and we want to increase a sense of
013belonging and support SEL growth among students and staff to the integration of SEL strategies and tools. We are very lucky to have worked with Karen Nehme, who is the former Castle president, and through her support, we really are focusing on staff SELs. So for that part, we are creating a SEL charter for staff. This was work that was done last year to develop that charter. It will be visible throughout the school, and then a survey will be implemented to gather feedback from our staff. So Robin Corlitz is our SEL coordinator, and she's doing this really important work so that our staff have the tools so that they can model it for our students and support our students in the classroom. To that end, we also have a SEL committee that will simultaneously be working to
014research evidence-based SEL programs and other recommendations for our students, and they will make that recommendation by the end of the school year. We should, since this is broadcast to the general public, we should say what SEL is. Sure, social-emotional learning. All right, and the last thing for climate and culture goals is to create positive student behavior. So we are going to utilize proactive responsive strategies to improve and promote positive student attendance and behavior. I know I said this at the beginning of the school year, but national data showed that pre-COVID, 8 million students were chronically absent in the nation, and post-COVID, it was 16 million students who were chronically absent. We saw those results within our own schools, and we are actively working to provide supports to our students and our families so that our
015students can get to school and can take advantage of all the wonderful things that we have for them and in their academic and extracurricular success. Some of the things that we are doing, our deans work with a behavior and attendance team, which is a part of our Tier 2 MTSS program. They are identifying new strategies. Last year, we tried some things. If you got to class on time, you got a ticket, and then you could put it into a raffle for some big prizes. So trying to think of some things that are really rewarding our students for getting to school and being on time, and hoping that we can do some more of those kind of fun things for our students. Our deans have also been holding attendance meetings with students and families who were
016chronically absent last year. Our deans also frequently check in with students with poor attendance, kind of learn about their story, provide some supports, looking at different ways that we can use bus transportation, for example, to maybe go to homes to pick up students who might have a hard time getting to school on time. We have a new freshman advisory teacher who has a role within the MTSS program for on-track support. Freshman on-track, although research shows that your freshman year indicates whether or not you will graduate high school. So we want our students to have good attendance and good grades, because that is really going to predict their future outcomes for high school. So our freshman on-track coordinator, Ms. Keith, is working with our students for weekly bag reports, which is behavior, attendance, and grades, helping
017them with discussions, talking about the importance of keeping their grades up, and also working with teachers so that if our students are struggling, that there is a support system to help them out. There's also improved communications to families about attendance. Some of the things that we've noticed is that our students are just getting called out, but there's really no reason provided. So number one, informing our parents about the importance of attendance at school, even two absences during one month of school means that the student is chronically absent. So we want our students to be at school. We also have a new automatic referral process for students who are absent and tardy. So before, we were relying on teachers to submit these referrals, and now they are automatically processed through our dean's office. Part of that
018is that there are consequences. However, it also opens the door for more conversations with our deans, with the students to learn about their stories, because if there is a reason perhaps that we weren't aware of, we can provide more support to those students. We also have a new technology report that is allowing us to monitor student attendance per their athletic sport that they're engaged in, so that coaches can be involved in the process, so that they can have those conversations as well. And finally, just talking about fan behavior, our athletic department is enlisting our student athletes and coaches and other individuals to provide positive videos about what they would like to see from fans at different games. So trying a lot of different approaches to provide support to our students. And we know that we
019have wonderful students at our school. So this is just providing more support to say this is what we want to see at our schools and within our communities. All right, Ron, you can go to the next slide. The last two of the goals are under curriculum and collaboration goals. And this is really about our newly desurveyed courses. So this year for our ninth grade classes, we no longer have survey classes. Instead, we have these, we have newly designed courses to ensure that all of our students are able to access grade level curriculum and instruction. And through that process, our teachers have been working diligently to ensure that there is more consistency amongst course teams. So ensuring that their grade books are set in common ways, that having similar assessment workload, and also utilizing co-teaching where
020applicable for, to meet the needs of all of our students in these classes. So a lot of hard work has been put into this. And we're continuously going back to our teachers, our course teams, our department chairs to see how things are going and to make adjustments along the way, because they will be providing really great feedback so that we can do survey our 10th grade courses for next school year. So our 10th grade teachers are already starting this work so they can be prepared for our courses for next school year. Those are our five school goals for the school year. Any questions? Oh, I mean, I assume that when we are looking at particular student attendance, we have those meetings with their parents, et cetera, because the reality is half of our students have
021no method of getting themselves to school. Yes. So when we take a look at attendance data, you can imagine that our freshmen have the greatest attendance. And then it kind of goes down. So, yes. So there are pieces where when we have a concern about a student getting to school, it is talking to not only the student, but also the family as well, talking to the parents, setting up attendance meetings to talk about those things, making sure that they are aware of the bus transportation that's available, or perhaps if they are getting a ride from a parent, that setting up a plan with them to get them to school. Sometimes there are cases where things, you know, a student might have a medical condition, or there might be something that's preventing the student from getting
022out of bed, and the parent has tried all the things possible. So connecting them with other resources within the school through our counseling department, or even outside resources to ensure that that family has the support that they need, because our parents are trying the best that they can as well. So really trying to not only provide support to the student, but also to the parent. Thank you. Principal Finn? Ron, where is Ron? He's back in the sky. So it's interesting, I listen to Kathy, a lot of some of the things that she's implemented, we're implementing as well, so I'll try to highlight what we are doing, but like the automatic referral, that's a big part of how things are going to change. Really allows teachers to focus on the classroom, and it's not something that
023a lot of the positive behavior incentives for doing a lot of this. So we're kind of calling, we worked a lot last year on what we call our blueprint for our health online, our vision statements, so we kind of collectively through our instructional leadership team with our administration and also with some of our teacher leaders, sorry, created this vision, a giant community of empowered learners with the skills and knowledge to reach their boundless potential and become engaged citizens of tomorrow's world. It took a long time to get there, we're still open to revisions, but this is something we kind of basing our work on this year. We have what we would call our three pillars, we have presented this to our staff now, once on a surface level, a lot more last week, and those
024are relationships and environments, pedagogy, and our communication of learning. Again, this is a really a continuation of work we started last year, and our goal is to really bring both our staff and our students into this work with us. The blueprint was really developed in response to a number of things, including forms of data like on student achievement, our listening sessions that we took, we engaged in last year with our staff, information about SEL, social emotional learning, STAR assessments, five essentials, et cetera. We took all that data and we've kind of compiled to say what is the message that we're seeing, and we use that kind of as our needs assessment to determine where we need to go next with regard to our PD and what our focus will be. For example, five essentials data
025really highlighted a need for an improvement in the area of instructional leadership, so through collective responsibility and program coherence, so that's really been a big focus for us this year. We'll continue to, and again, we're going to keep going back to these pillars. What are the pillars for our blueprint and for our home on Vine? Ron, you can go to the next slide. So kind of in keeping with the same format that Cathy did, we also talked about our climate and culture goals as well. I shared a lot of this at when you asked about how we opened the school year, and so this is kind of a continuation of that work. Again, last year we started in homeroom, really hoping Steph can share and talk about this as well, just hinting at that, but
026she can talk a lot about what happened in homeroom last year with this idea of what do we want Giant to be our acronym, what is that going to stand for, and how do we embody that, and how do we all own that? So we developed this last year as Giant being generous, inclusive, accountable, nurturing, and teammates, and we are working this year to kind of define, so everyone has the same understanding what those terms mean, and we all can embody it, and to make this a home where everyone feels they have a sense of belonging, it's going to require all of us to be connected. So we really are trying hard to be very clear in our vision and professional learning messages, what is the, what are our goals, and how do we all
027play a part in that, and what is our commitment to our blueprint? This idea of increasing a sense of belonging and support through SEL growth among our students and staff through our Be Giant initiative, I'm hoping that kids will be so sick of hearing that, like oh my god, I'm so, I know Be Giant, Be Giant, like I'm hoping to hear that. Years ago when I was a kid at Dearfield High School, it used to be, be first class, be first class, and we'd joke about it, but guess what, everyone knew what first class was, so I kind of want that to be the same thing. We talk about our house and Vine and what it means to be giant, everyone can kind of name that. And then again, this idea of positive student behavior,
028how do we reward that, but how do we have really clear rules that we all understand? And at our opening assembly, we have what we called our house party on Vine, and we did roll this out to the students. So what were our four kind of non-negotiables? Show up, that's our attendance, beat the bell, be on time, disconnect to reconnect, you don't need your cell phones all the time, and then take care of our CASI familiar. How do we all play a role in that? So working really hard to just keep it kind of having that in the minds of everyone in the building, students and staff alike. All right Ron, next one. And then finally again, very similar with Dearfield's during this curriculum and our collaboration goals. You know, there's some classes that are
029now in year three of this desurveying process, and they have a lot to share and a lot that we can all learn from. And so that's kind of be, it's a really lovely thing to have available because they know what the pitfalls were and they can help and advise others. So we're kind of using staff to help staff in this process. We are going to continue to desurvey our ninth grade courses, and again really paying attention to what we've learned in the past to make this hopefully a cleaner and easier experience for some of our new ones. And that all of our departments have identified goals. Specifically one of those will be to interrupt predictability of achievement, particularly for our students who are most at risk. And so they're working with Holly Fleischer, our assistant
030principal for diversity equity inclusion, to really kind of hone in on what is that thing in your department that you really want to focus on. And so that's kind of been leading as we do this work to kind of keep everyone's eyes on the project. How will we know that you've disrupted that? So great, I put some notes for you because you asked me that specifically. So I wanted to give you like an example of one. So everyone's sort of setting a very, a goal. What's the one I want to tell you about? So one of the things that one of the departments are, so we have these STAR assessments. So three times a year kids will be doing that. And how do we look at that achievement? STAR can also hone in in skills
031that kids really need to work on. So departments may be looking at certain criteria and saying, well, and then bringing that down by demographics to say, how are our kids achieving? What does this look like? So they're going to be naming those kinds of data. There's a lot of data sources that our staff can use, but STAR is one that we're really working hard. Both math and English at Highland Park and really use that as a tool for a number of years, have a very strong understanding. We will be expanding our PD in that. So all of our staff will have a clearer understanding, but that's a pretty easy one where you can have access to that information for all of our students. So one of that is by looking at achievement scores and also
032disaggregating that by race, et cetera. So within a level playing field. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, but that is a lot of the PD too, right? Like, how do we, what does that mean? And how do you specifically within your department acknowledge it, right? Own the data, right? Sometimes it's hard to look at that. It's like, you know, like, wait a minute, I worked really hard. How's that outcome? But on that, right? And then say, all right, what are you going to do next in order to address it? So, well, and because the world's constantly changing too. So they constantly have to be evolving. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we're, you know, we're very fortunate. We have a lot of data resources. It's just a matter of how do you get your hands around it? How do you understand
033it? How do you interpret it accurately so that it can help you to move forward? So we're doing a lot of work on that. Great. Does anyone have any questions? Not a question, but just a comment on this positive student behavior side on the, in order to embody our values. I think that plus the, what you shared about the fourth pillar of like the, you know, this is my home and this is my sense of like my home. I think that's so important that it's, you don't behave for behaving sake. You behave because you're part of a family. You behave because you're part of this broader community and instilling that embodying of the values in the community. I think that's super, super important. So it's not compliance driven, it's belonging driven. And I pick up
034in my house because I value my house and like this, so really awesome boarding there and efforts there. So she can go to us on that. Thank you. I hope that will not be really interesting. I'm putting her on the spot there, but I'm sure it's like, how does it feel opening day? I think it was great. I really enjoyed one thing that I will like, like, I really enjoyed again, is you and Dr. Stevenson really made this choice of trying to be inclusive to all people at Highland Park. We have a very high Latino community and just knowing that like we used interchangeable words like casa and familia and like knowing that like we were all a family, no matter like where you come from, like what do you do after school, how much
035money you have, like anything. It really, like we were all together and that day and the assembly was super fun. We had music. It was also, it was education, but also like, oh, I don't have to sit here and like be bored. Like I feel like, like it was fun. It was, there's music, like it was engaging. I really enjoyed it. I'm glad. I didn't pay her anything to say that. I will say, me and my friend, GPA. No. I will say, my friends and I did count how many times you guys said house on Vine. It was 13. I really want you to know that, right? So. No, but we love our casa on Vine. That's a good tradition. As the two visionary leaders of the two schools, I'm always interested in seeing and
036thinking, understanding when we are achieving our SEL goals, what do your campuses look like? I'm going to second on what Stephanie said, because I think that's it. It's this idea of everyone has a sense of belonging, right? And so we set a goal to say, I want, when we asked the question on a survey, do you have at least one adult in this building that you feel that you can go to for anything and you have a connection with? I want those numbers to be at the 90%. Right now, 90%. We're close. We're not there. And if I disaggregate that, you're going to see probably the results that you would expect, right? So some of our Latino students would, I think was coming out around 82%. Well, that's not where I want that at, right?
037Some of our black students are coming out at around 70%. So we have work to do, but for us, that's going to be really important. Can you say to me that you all have at least one adult in this building you know you can count on? Feel safe. So for us, it's one of those. Okay. And probably them counting the number of times you say the goal, because at least they're engaged, right? Yeah. I think that what, you know, for both schools, it's about relationships. We value so much just how we treat each other and how we support each other. And you noticed Debbie's B giant and the acronym, and that really is an SEL charter. And that is what the support that we had from last year with Karen Neeme and Mark Brackett is
038developing the SEL charter that really is talking about our feelings. How do we want to feel? Because in the end, that's what really matters is how we're feeling in a space because we can't learn if we're not having those needs met. So I think that is part of the SEL. Like that's what it looks like meeting that SEL goal is that we are acknowledging those feelings that we want to have. And then we know how to address it when they are not being met. So we're working on that right now with our staff at DHS. And then we hope to roll it out like Hyland Park did with our students so that we can have that common understanding. And this is what we, you know, this is what we want it to feel like when
039we walk in the door. But also to Jaime's point, it's not just walking in the door of DHS, it's throughout the entire school community. This is an ownership piece for our parents and for our community members, because we're all equal partners in our student success. I do really like that both statements of goals are really, they reflect the unique character of each of the schools and they reflect the personality of the places. But at the same time, they share a common vision that it's really, I know it was something we said a couple years ago, but it really is one district with two schools. But there is a common vision for the future at both schools, but it's still particular to each of them and reflects their unique characters. And that's important for it to
040be truly effective. And I understand the district goals are based upon the school. So we're really starting from the ground and building up versus from the top down, which is fantastic. Anything else for schools? We move on to the security report. All right. So we have a very brief report for the board when we share some, Marilyn will be sharing the summary of research that she and others have been doing with students as they were about, tomorrow is I think the one month mark of the rollout of weapons detection systems. So we have a brief report on that. We also have a video like this where we're trying to help students learn how to navigate through this. But first, I wanted to, I know Amy introduced herself when we went around the table, but we
041have our director of security here, very happy to have her. I know Brian's very happy to have her. But she has jumped in and she has, I've been in the school during a couple of times at Highland Park during the morning and I've seen her working all the security things, just jumped right in. So welcome, Amy. Thank you for being here. Yeah, absolutely. I wish I could greet you in person, but welcome to your first meeting. And there may be questions the board may have about how things are going to this point that Amy can address. But I wanted to start off, Ron, we've already got this teed up, thank you. Start right off with the, Karen has been working on a video, so I'll turn this over to Karen. So there's two versions of
042this video. One is in English and one is in Spanish. And so we'll play the English version. And basically it's just a demonstration to show students how to proceed as quickly and efficiently through the weapons detection system as possible. In Township High School District 113, the safety of our students and staff is our top priority. To support that number one priority, we provide several security enhancements in our schools to help keep everyone safe. The purpose of this video demonstration is to help familiarize you with the weapons detection system. Unlike detectors at the airport, with our weapons detection system, common everyday items can be worn or carried through it. This allows more people to pass through the system each minute. This system is specifically engineered to identify potential metallic threats like knives and firearms, while bypassing
043other harmless metallic items like keys and water bottles. If you have a Chromebook, you'll want to ensure it is prepared for barcode scanning. To do so, place your student barcode on the back of your Chromebook. Be sure not to cover up any existing labels and don't place the sticker over any vents or speakers. Let's walk through the steps you'll take as you approach the weapons detection system. If you are wearing a backpack, make sure both shoulder straps on your backpack are properly worn around both of your shoulders. If you have two backpacks or multiple bags, one should be centered on your back and the second should be centered on your chest. Take your Chromebook or laptop out of your bag. Then scan your laptop's barcode on the designated student ID check computer. The barcode on
044your Chromebook functions like both your physical and digital ID cards, so you only need to have your Chromebook or laptop out. Next, you'll give your Chromebook to the operator at the weapons detection station. Then, you should walk swiftly between the two towers of the weapons detection system. If the light at the top is green and no alarm sounds, you've been cleared. Our security personnel will return your device to you. If the system activates, a red light will illuminate and an alarm will go off. Security personnel will request that you step aside for secondary screening, which may include the use of a security wand and a bag search. You should avoid turning or rotating while walking through the detection system or making physical contact with the weapons detection system, as an inadvertent touch might activate it.
045Some common items are generally safe to have and won't trigger the system, such as metal water bottles, keys, cell phones and earbuds, wallets, notebooks, books, belts, shoes, and coins. You can keep all of these items on you. These items will likely activate the system and you should give them to the operator at the weapons detection station, certain eyeglass cases, large sports equipment like metal bats or golf clubs, and bulky brass musical instruments. Remember, your safety is of the utmost importance to us. Working together, we can all do our part to promote a safe environment in our schools. I showed this to the students. They asked, who are these people? We didn't use students because this video is going to be posted. We thought it was safer just to use actors, so they're not our students
046in the video. We're hoping that this is going to help students know how to navigate the system. We're at the point that we need to begin rolling this out. At Deerfield, we've learned a lot at Highland Park, so we can take this. I'm not sure how this video will work at Deerfield, but we can talk about that. That doesn't look good. We're working on this to start rolling this out at Deerfield as well. Great. Will you guys be adding closed captioning? It's already there. It just wasn't shown. Gotcha. Okay. Great. That was one of my questions, was what the feedback would be from the DHS students and the administration as far as it feeling something relatable for them as well from an instruction perspective. It looks great. It does look very good and pretty realistic
047considering what we've seen. I know you've been at the school and watched. Ron, you want to go to that next slide? As you have seen and heard, we did one focus group so far. Stephanie, in a little bit, if you want to jump in, I'm not sure if you have been through the secondary screening. Okay. Obviously, your opinion is very important, but our focus group was really targeting kids who had been triggered the red, you know, so that essentially we wanted to get students' feelings who may have been, we don't know, but the question is, been in some way put through a different, more rigorous process than just walking through and having a green, right? And so, given the fact that this is a smaller group, very small, we wanted to make sure that we
048captured, I would argue, the highest level of opinion because they had been held back, they had been searched in that secondary screening. And what was really interesting too here is that we made a very strong attempt to go through all the students, so we have all the students writing their names every day who are going through the secondary screening. So they stop at the table, they write their names. Thanks to Amy, we're going to be going through a digital experience soon with iPads, but imagine this, all names are entered into our spreadsheet and then we went through and cross-checked with IDs to find out who were seniors, each grade level, down to freshmen, and then also looking at any of their demographic markers. And so that we could then invite what we would argue is
049at least the best subset of that group so that we had the most diversified focus group possible. We then also offered pizza to ensure that we got them. Yes. And then we went out during lunch and invited some more kids to come in just because we knew we wanted to solicit more input, as long as they had gone through the secondary screening. And then of course gave us their names. That said, this is a very small group. This is only the first time that we have done this, and so we'll continue to run the focus groups and get data in other ways. So I just want to make sure you all know that we are fully aware that this is very limited in that way. That being said, our kids are intensely familiar with weapons
050detection systems, and so from events, sporting events, to Lollapalooza, to going to the airport, if you're so lucky to be in all those events, plus some basic ones, the kids are very familiar. So that part I keep telling myself is really important because generationally this is a signal to me that this is really awful. That's kind of what it brings up to me immediately. Not to say that weapons detection in and of itself isn't challenging, but our kids, I don't think, from what we've heard and from even talking to them casually have quite the same, at least is my opinion of that. Again, I am not arguing that I know what all of our students think. The second piece here regarding their emotional reactions was very much tied to their, again, the group that we
051talked to, if we were holding them up, if they were going to be late to class, and remember the new TARDY policy in which we have an automatic essentially process that gets engaged if you're late three times. So if you're first period, on top of it, you're trying to adhere to this new policy and then you're being held back because of a need to search. That raises the anxiety there. So it couldn't have come at a worse time and yet this is exactly what our school needed in the sense of the TARDY policy. So I just want to make sure that we're all also very clear about that. Students talked about understanding that they knew they were going through this process and that it needed to happen. And the security, not one time have I
052heard from that group or again in my casual, because you know I have a homeroom, and so it's like they're so great, but I'm always asking them tons of questions. Not one moment of feeling a negative impact from the security in the sense of feeling that they were being rushed or they were being treated unfairly or they were being profiled. We had a lot of, I know, discussion before this started, rightly so, in that fear. And really what's important too in the design and the kids are noting this is that we have a system set up where they walk through and then if the trigger comes and they have to go to another table and then it's the same treatment for all of them. There's a wandering or there's a searching through the bags. So
053we're trying to really also remove any human bias, which is where the machines don't know who's walking through. It's us as the humans who mess that up. And so it was really great to hear the kids speak very positively about those experiences. The thing that I found that moved me the most, and I will be open and honest with you in this moment, I'm someone who didn't feel very comfortable with the beginning of this process. I did not want this to be what we had for our school, nor did I want any of the things that have happened in our district to be reasons for this. So you can't have both, right? Things have happened. Excuse me. So what was profound about the students is that they talked about the fact that having the weapons
054detection system at one door and not at other doors made them feel more vulnerable. It was something that I hadn't quite wrapped my head around. So the overall impact of their perception of school safety was something I couldn't have predicted. So having zero didn't really highlight that we had a need for a system or not. That's something that may be happening and talked about, but wasn't physically in our building. Having one, but then having two doors that are not, started to heighten their awareness of then what is this school safety about and what is it that we need. So that was something that came up time and time again as they were, because, you know, kids are brilliant and they're problem finders and solution seekers. And so they're like, yeah, well, you know, anyway, we
055can go into that later. But they were giving us a lot of suggestions of what we could do. And I wasn't ready for that. Not that I underestimate them, but I just, it kind of shook me. And then they also talked about something like the video or further education. There, I saw the kid in one of my home, in my home room who says, he doesn't know what trips the trigger, but there's something in his bag every time. And we're theorizing, is it the key chain? Is it this or that? So he's like, why can't, you know, so he just wants to know. And so that was something that came up. And, you know, I kept kind of smiling. I'm like, well, we've got a video. It's coming. We do things in home room. I
056know we've made a few attempts. We'll do more. But they, it was a great education for me. I mean, the system is there all day. For example, you said, which I think, you know, obviously there's something in certain backpack or whatever that's causing the secretary. They have the opportunity during the day once, 2000 students trying to get into the building to say, okay, now can we run my backpack and figure out what is this that's triggering? They can and they will. We don't do that right now. Yeah, that's something we've talked about. I haven't had that opportunity yet. Not yet. Other thoughts or questions? The party policy and the implementation of the automatic, how does that work if you're, and my timing is going to be off, but you get to school, you trigger a
057secondary screening that may or may not be why you're late. How do we like reconcile? I just, I'm not conceptualizing. So we pay, right. Kids are walking in on time and this is delaying them. I hope you can tell me if I'm wrong. I think most of our staff are communications. Then like, can we be helpful with that? But we also can tell you who the kids are who are walking in late. And so there's a different communication that's happening there. It is profoundly better from my perspective, having been at these doors over and over, fewer and fewer. The delays are not, kids aren't late because of the weapon detection system anymore. I think you'd agree with that. If they're late, they're late because they were coming in late. And so that doesn't, the consequences
058of that are the same. We've been communicating though, if there's been like day one, kids relate to class because of the lines were too long. But I do think there's communication between security and deans and a lot of administrative team right now is still at all these entrances. And so we're kind of communicating that with kids and their teachers. So. Okay. What ballpark percentage of students who have triggered the secondary screening have been in focus groups so far? Oh, very low, Dan. So yeah, this is, I would say this group, maybe 5% of them. So this is a very small, it's a diverse group based on all demographics, but in the sense of number, an N is small. What's the next step then in gathering? So we're going to do the iPads, which will help
059us just with the process, because right now it's slow. I take the list to somebody. And on the iPad, we'll ask questions. So it'll be an automatic draw where we can get information and run it on every kid who's going through. So we'll take that N and it'll turn into the actual number of kids who are being triggered. And in that moment. Yeah, exactly. And then I still think though, and we'll be able to cross check that and disaggregate by all demographics. We will also, I'm getting ahead of myself. I won't say what I thought I was going to say, but we will be able to, I think the idea regarding focus groups and really talking with students is still important. And we'll have a few more opportunities to collect other data, to triangulate kind
060of what we saw from before in student self-report to this year. Again, there won't be any causal kind of relationships, but we'll be able to see some correlation. Well, we'll see. That's one of our questions. So yeah, I think this will always be somewhat of a flawed process by nature of just how slow this is and how important it is to really understand what kids mean when they're telling us certain things. And so that takes a while, but it also, we have to remove ourselves from all the interpretation, which then means that we've got to allow them to kind of norm it by having as many kids as possible involved. So it's going to take some time. And so then when it starts at DHS, what is your thought process around, obviously using the iPad
061to capture, because that's much better than pen and paper, but gathering that data on those first couple of days, as opposed to starting that gathering of data further down the road. Have you guys thought through that? Will that change the data or skew data inaccurately? Yeah, I think it will skew it if we do it in the beginning. But one of the reasons for us to wait is that there's so much happening in the beginning. I mean, you see the kids coming through. I think I experience this even still at an airport. It's an odd feeling to be someone's talking to you and you're trying to look straight and you're trying to remember to take this out and do this. And they call it the discombobulation station or the recombobulation at some of the airports.
062That's what we see happening. And the kids just want to do what's right. So if we ask them right in the beginning when their learning curve is so steep and ours is also steep, I can't imagine that data being as helpful as if we get a little bit of a rhythm under us and then we start asking those questions. So I would want to do the same timing also just to hold it consistent so that we can compare how our kids are feeling at both schools. Which doesn't stop, though, all of the amazing questions that happen at home can happen in classrooms. I mean, we are collecting data no matter what all the time. So those things can still, just formally, though, I think we should hold those a little bit more consistent. Are you
063all from Deerfield? Yeah, because you're doing your class. Yeah, I was going to say so, but they are so well prepared now. They've seen the video. They can be the actor. I will say that there is a lot of feelings about having it at one door. Most people think that it's not the most efficient thing to do in the world. I mean, this morning I was talking about it. I was like, I'm going to be at a board meeting and my friends were like, I already have a system going. My ex-friend just tells me which entrance and then I see if I feel in the mood or whatever. So there is communication and that could be anyone. I mean, my friend would never do anything, but I feel like it would be more logical to
064have them at all three doors instead of one door. That's a lot of talk around the schools. They don't understand why it's just at one door. Can I challenge you as a student liaison when you go back with your friends and classmates, the other question to ask kind of playing a mock trial role is what if it was at no doors? I mean, because there's two sides of it, right? Do I feel safer because now it would be all three doors or is it maybe the other side of it that it's at no doors? I would just love to like push that thought process and I'd love to hear what your colleagues. Yeah, of course. I mean, most of them have said like it's either all or nothing. There's no point for having one door.
065It's either like we have them at all three doors or we have them at no doors. Either way, the one door doesn't really make much of a difference besides the hassle is from whatever. Did that come up in the focus? Oh yeah, that was there. I mean, that was the thing. It was like illogical to them. What are we trying to do? You know, make it inconvenient or we're targeting certain kids because when it's at one door, that group gets slowed down. It doesn't, you know, they see that then it spotlights that we actually have holes in our system when before they weren't thinking about the holes in the system. And so then there's a heightened sense of what's wrong versus how right it is to have it at one door. So while your logic
066and kind of rebuttal or challenge makes sense, I think we're outside of that logic a little bit because they can see how that is a vulnerability because we're highlighting the fact that we need something and then we're not perceived for sure. Perception. But yeah, so that is very much a part of their discussion. When they discuss and it gets to the all or nothing, are they leaning more toward all or nothing? All. Okay. But that is, it's not even, I don't hear them saying, well, we should just. Well, you know what, Jodi, that's an interesting point because it's not really being asked. Correct. It's not being asked. Yeah. That's not on the table. So, right. That's not coming up. What's being asked is one or all. Well, that's not even being asked. There's to just
067saying there's an implication that we now have this system and their question is why do we have not enough? Why is it not enough? Right. It's not if we should or shouldn't. I would be curious as you're conducting these focus group, I think that should be one of the initial questions of like to just constantly check ourselves. Like, are we going down the right path? I want to hear from the students to make sure that they're still feeling in December. Do they still feel like they are safe with this system safer than not having it in February or whatever the timing is for your focus groups? I think it's interesting to just have that conversation. And if they're consistently saying, yes, this is good, it could be better if we did X, Y, and Z,
068then that's helpful feedback. But if they're saying, you know what, this really doesn't feel right and here's why, I think that's worth the conversation. I will accept that. Yeah, I feel like it sets them up a little bit. Or I think it's a good, I think it's an interesting question. I just wonder where we are in our ability to respond. Sure. If they should say, no, this is not what we want, which I'm not hearing, which I think it's shouldn't be afraid of the question. I just am afraid of the setup for something that I don't know if we're. That we could deliver. Exactly. But I think one of the things that we said from the very start is that we want it the same way as a man down there at the end. Brian
069can design anything and make it work from the implementation, the ability to make sure that we're implementing what is. But that we so want to have that same measurement, that same for how our students are feeling about it and how the procession, you know, those kinds of things. I think that's what we have same, you know, unfortunately, we got, we had, we speed everything up a little bit. And our idea was always let's do this, but we have to keep monitoring how our students feel about it. Because, you know, I only speaking for myself, but it was once we spoke a lot about the idea that it is just important for our kids to have social emotional health, physical health, and if the social emotional health and physical health aren't lining up correctly, then we
070need to look at that. Perhaps when it's time to formulate whatever this, you know, survey is, perhaps, you know, we maybe have a role in helping so that we can get the information we need. Yeah. You know, maybe we can have a role in helping design what that is together and figure out, you know, together what the right way to do it is. Is there anything more? Because I know we want to make sure we've hit all the security. Is there anything more from security updates that we need to go through? I think one question before we move on, I think the other question that I had is additional additional focus groups. I think having the group of those that have gone through secondary screening, I think that is the most front and center in
071your in your face focus group that makes tons of sense. And I think the way it's aggregated, I think also tons of sense. I think one of the things that we talked about is when we look at focus groups, also looking at other other focus groups as well, other parts of the school. And you mentioned the staff piece of, you know, well, this is what's come up in class or, well, this is what's come up in group or this is what's come up here. I think that would be interesting data to have as well. I think it's fascinating and makes tons of sense the way that you described it of, you know, we weren't thinking about it before, but now that we see it here in this one door, now we see it, now we're
072thinking about it because it's so on the center. I mean, that's one of those things that I never would have imagined that that would have been one of there. Maybe I would have, but like that, like got it because now it's so in your in your face. The follow up question to that, though, is, and I don't know if not for tonight, but we have other security measures as well, some that we share, some that we don't. So it occurred to me, and I thought this through, but how much is our staff and students know what they are able to know about security measures that we have? Like, and how much are we able to share or not able to share? I know there's a lot of closed door things, but would that help in
073the feeling of beings feeling safe and secure in school? Because others aren't as in your face as a metal detector or weapons detection system. I think that if I hear us correctly, it sounds as if that this is a good first step, right? And that this is the first very, very small subset of students that met a certain criteria that made sense to reach out to. And it sounds as if, you know, as you were planning on doing, as your charter was, is to continue to do those focus groups, continue to make sure that we are, you know, getting eyes on all the various types of student populations that we're working with. Yeah, absolutely. And I will just, I think the, we can show you our questions. And, you know, that's an easy update to
074just make sure that we might as well get what we all need, as long as it's very short, because, you know, they don't want to click around too much, but our focus groups will be important. And lastly, I would say it's really what also, and I would invite any of you to come, because I know you came in the beginning, but I would invite you back. The biggest thing that creates the impact on our kids' experiences in a positive way is our adult positivity when they're coming through and that calm going. And it also can potentially be the most negative if we are not allowing the machines to do the work. And that's what has been set up and has been really amazing to watch. And I would invite you to see that as well.
075And as long as we can get out of the way and just guide them, then the ideas that are really, I think, front and center for us is creating a heightened sense of fear or racial profiling in particular, or gender profiling also are removed from that space. It's when we involve ourselves overly in those areas and try to re-correct the machines that I've seen that fall apart. So I would just also, while you want us to do these pieces, which we must do diligence, I would invite you back in so that you have a really good understanding and visual on what we're talking about as we move forward. And I also, I think besides the focus groups, it's really important that we focus on that extent to which even if we mean the best in
076all, we have the best intentions of all the world, in all the world, and even if there isn't a perception of it being unfair or unjust on the part of students, that we really focus, before we do anything else, focus long and hard on whether in fact there maybe are some groups of students for whom secondary screening takes longer, or for whom secondary screening is maybe, for whatever reason, a little bit more intrusive than it is for other students, that we focus on the extent to which we're doing that right and also think really hard about how can we improve that piece of the puzzle, that piece of the process. Because I, you know, that's where I worry that there's just this latent, it's just as bad if there's this sort of latent, oh, it's
077just the way things are and people take it for granted, that oh yeah, it takes some kids longer to go through. We need to work really hard against that and prevent that from happening. And I think the next step is really to make sure that we look long and hard at how we can correct that, whether it's, you know, intentionality on the part of the folks doing the secondary screening and more training, or if it's a matter of changing the procedures. That's, I think, where the next focus should be. I think that's the area for further discussion down the road. I'd really like to look into that. Moving on to FOIAs. Always the most exciting part of a board meeting. This is the FOIA receiving process since the last meeting. Thank you, Dr. Law. The
078next up would be a highlight of this board meeting, our reports from our student liaisons for the first time this year. Who'd like to go first? Hi, our report, me and Jada's from DHS, it is very small. I don't know if you can access it, but I think we only had two points. Yeah, it is very small. That is because, like, at the point when we wrote it, it did not have that much. But one thing that I do want to highlight is the one I wrote is that School Chest had elected Gigi's Playhouse to be this year's beneficiary. And there is one in Deerfield or Bannifer, and I'm not that sure. But yeah, it's the only nationwide network of Down Syndrome Achievement Centers, and they provide free physical speech therapy, educational, and training programs.
079And then students voted on this based on two videos, this one and I believe, I don't honestly remember what the other one is, something with basketball and a nonprofit. But I just represented what the students thought would be the most worthy cause. And then, yeah, no, not yesterday, sorry, last Thursday, we had our open house. Awesome. No, it might be a short report, but the choosing that beneficiary for the school's drive is awesome. It sounds like there's incredible good work to be done there. So it might be short, but it's not small. And Stephanie, you are a senior, correct? I am a senior. So let's just promote you up to the right level before you give your report. Thank you. So two Fridays ago, both Highland Park and Deerfield packed Walter's Fields bleachers for an
080epic rival game. Highland Park decked out in blue, because that's our color. And we supported our players marching band and pumps dance team. And although we lost, we still had a great turnout. Everyone was there. I felt like it was so beautiful just seeing everyone like there and just like feel like a family and like we all cheered in. It was really amazing to see everyone be together. Awesome. That's wonderful. Thanks. Is there anything else on school reports? Then we'll move on to discussion. The first item up for discussion is the agenda item A resolution concerning Ethan's law. And this is a draft resolution. I one of the items when we talked about the comprehensive security plan was to also the importance of advocating for issues for legislation that directly impacts our schools, that direct
081that that the district has a direct interest in because of its result. The issues here have result have impacted our schools have, you know, we've experienced what can happen because of poor weapons storage. And so we have a as a district, we have a vested interest and a voice in expressing the importance for some of this legislation, particularly something like Ethan's law, which would mandate safe gun storage. And that's part of the rationale for proposing this resolution. I think every any opportunity we have to stand up and support laws that will actually drive to fixing our gun violence problem as opposed in addition to the work that we're trying to do to obviously keep our students safe is just the utmost importance for us to to support and take that stand. I think in particular,
082that's because we've been directly impacted by it. Correct. Yeah, we're not just we're not just one waiting into politics. This is something that has impacted the district and has impacted district students. And that's important to express that because of the impact it's had, this is something that's important to do. Yeah, it's the advocacy role that we that we take. It's our duty. Any other comments? Discussion? Okay, no other discussion. We can move on. And I guess that will will present it for action at a subsequent meeting. Then the next discussion item is engaging Baker Tilly for Inflation Reduction Act credit professional services. This sounds like an Ali item. Yeah, sure. So I'll start. So back in May, the board approved one of the vendors, we deal with performance services to perform structure analysis, to install
083solar panels on our buildings, Highland Park High School and Deerfield High School. There were a lot of incentives to do the solar. There are a lot of incentives to do solar. There there's Comet rebates their REC income, which is renewable energy credits. And the biggest rebate or credit is Inflation Reduction Act as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is now a law that was passed by President Biden year ago. And what that says signed by President Biden passed by Congress. Sorry. Thank you for clearing. Sorry, Holly. So what that act states that the district installing solar panels will get up to certain percentage 30 40%, depending on the different requirements they meet. And it's a huge credit. The project at that time was estimated about $11 million with 30% rebate. Obviously that the structure
084analysis are being done right now. And the final bid results will be presented to the Finance Committee in October. But to file to get that credit, there are a lot of requirements. I was just told recently that we have to file a tax return, which was news to me because we're a local government entity. We don't file taxes. Um, the forms not out there, but there's this company Baker Tilly. We're also our auditors, but part of their division is working on this IRA credit, helping the districts file the taxes to get that credit back and ensure that the vendors are in compliance. Because one of the major requirements of that to get the 30% inflation reduction at credit is to ensure that the vendor who's performing installing the panels is following the apprenticeship requirements and,
085uh, prevailing wages. So, uh, this company, uh, Baker Tilly, the division of it is insurers, from A to Z, starting working with the vendors to make sure all those requirements are being followed and post project helping us stay in compliance and making sure that we have all the documentation before we file the tax return to get the IRA credit and also help us stay in compliance with all the documentation, uh, that we have. So, so I'm just going to invite Jesse Nelson, who's, uh, going to speak and just briefly go over the process. Um, so Jesse, stage is yours. No, thank you, Ali. And thank you for having me this evening. Ali did a great job of giving an overview, uh, obviously of the improvement project and the opportunity through the inflation reduction act. Um,
086my name is Jesse Nelson. I'm a certified public accountant and partner with Baker Tilly and we're working with, um, uh, school districts and government entities across the country, uh, to capture these credits. So what I was thinking, the best way to explain the process and the opportunities for the school districts, I've got a short presentation. I'll run through it. Uh, if you have any questions, I'll talk about the process, uh, and then we can go from there. So if we go to probably the next couple of slides, cause I think most of these, yeah, that's an introduction slide. So slide three does a good job of taking a federal legislation and just understanding the process. Uh, the inflation reduction act is doing a great job of incentivizing a lot of clean energy projects, uh, and
087assisting in funding those items. So in the lower left-hand corner, you can see in this chart, the, uh, projects that are available in the inflation reduction act. And then what we have is the chart of how the process works as Ali was talking before, uh, how this comes together. So everyone starts at a 6% qualifying tax credit reimbursement. And then you can see right under that, if we meet the prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements, that immediately, it moves us to a 30% reimbursement or capturing the cost of the project, which is significant, especially since we know this is a multimillion dollar project. And then we'll also be checking if we can hit the domestic content, the energy community, the environmental justice, you can see there's different ways where the tax credit gets calculated and being
088the tax credit accountant on the job. It's our job, review those information, run those calculations and get those back to the administration. And if possible, depending on the project, we want that tax credit as high as possible. So slide three is really just giving you an overview of the projects and then what the tax credit percentage in the process will look like, uh, as we begin working our way through the project. If you make your way to the next slide, you know, what are we really after? What are we trying to capture? Well, this is just an illustration. The exciting thing about the inflation reduction act is we're not competing against a hundred thousand dollar grants or running into those items. They're going to give us 30% of the eligible project costs. So what you
089can see is if we complete an eight and a half million dollar solar improvement project, and again, this is an illustration and we hit the prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements of 30%, well, that's roughly two and a half million dollars that will come back to the school district after this project's complete, as long as we meet the requirements that are in the legislation. So if we go to the next slide, so how the process works is this will be going through the entire construction period. On the left-hand side, the planning stages is that we work with the administration and the construction team to review the eligible project costs, uh, give feedback what's eligible, not eligible, run that through the federal tax code, and then report back what we think the eligible tax credit's going to
090be, the percentage and the dollar amount. Then once the bid documents come together, we review those bid documents with, again, with the team, make sure everything's eligible for the Inflation Reduction Act before that project goes out to bid and make sure we're in alignment, because obviously we've got to meet the requirements to get that money, those millions of dollars that we talked about earlier. Once construction begins, uh, we assist the school district in the record keeping. Uh, the prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements do is the detail of who is on the job, uh, did we have the right number of apprenticeships that were there, again, making sure that we're in compliance and building a record, uh, going forward once construction begins. Then the final phase, as Ali alluded to earlier, is we do have to
091file a tax form or almost a tax return to, uh, file for the tax credit. So the process is we're actually going to get the money in the back end. As you can see, we're going to finance it, we build it, and then we're going to file to get the money, and then the two and a half million dollars in that illustration is coming down in the back end. And to complete that process, what we have to have is we've got to have all of our documentation together saying, yes, we filed a prevailing wage, we filed the apprenticeship, here's all our paperwork, we've submitted the form, and that's how we're going to get the funding. And we have to have all that organized because it is a tax form, because of the documentation, uh, it
092is available for a potential IRS audit, and we need to make sure we have that record available to prove that, yes, we filed the procedures to get that funding put together. So slide five just is a good overview of how the process will work and how we'll be working with the school district and the construction team throughout the project as the tax account to make sure we're following everything and then capturing that funding. We go to slide six. Again, where does most of the time and the work really come into play? Our tax team, our national tax team, and everyone involved in the project is, again, reviewing it and making sure we're following the inflation reduction act records and putting those records together. Obviously, prevailing wage is a big portion of that, and then we'll
093be following federal law and putting that together. So that slide just provides an overview of the requirements and everything that we're going to be tracking. And then the other item as you go to slide seven, the next slide down, that's the apprenticeship requirements. One of the items that the legislation is trying to do is obviously help people that want to get into the labor force, want to grow in these areas, and they want to make sure that we're hitting the apprenticeships, people are learning on the jobs, and that's one of the requirements. So you can see there's a lot of record keeping and time working with the school district and construction team, again, to build that file, to have that report ready to go, and then obviously the goal of capturing the funding at the
094end of the project once construction is complete. And I believe that is it. So again, you know, I'm an exciting accountant. It's a much bigger process than what I've described, but I like to take, you know, hopefully a bigger process, something complicated, not reading tax code to you this evening, and obviously want to capture the funding and be in compliance. So happy to take any questions, but hopefully that gave you a process of what we want to accomplish. And the inflation reduction act is just providing a lot of great opportunities, a lot of funding for these projects, so your timing couldn't be better as far as looking at the solar improvement project. I guess the really dumb, dumb question, the inflation reduction act, or the regs around it are written so that a non-taxpaying entity
095can get a tax credit? No, you're bringing up a great point, Dan, is, you know, prior to the inflation reduction act, the frustration governments had is the tax credit doesn't bring us any value, right? We don't pay taxes. Hey, I got a tax credit. So they're still running it as a tax credit to make sure it fits in the system, but truly to us as a school district, a city, a county, it lacks more of a reimbursement. So we're filing a tax form, we have our documentation, and it's a tax credit, but truly they're going to cut us a check. Reimbursement or a rebate more. Exactly. But to stay in their system, they're going to call it tax credit. But to your point, as the school district, it's more of a reimbursement. Good question. That's
096unusual. Okay. Do you have some questions as well? I did a couple questions. That was one of them. That's unusual. I would have thought we'd have to sell that tax credit in the marketplace, but that's interesting. A couple questions. Number one, this is in, just confirming, this is in addition to any of these other rebates and things you talked about, right? This is not in lieu of any of those things? No. So we get three rebates credits altogether. So this is one. The other one is the renewable energy credit, the REC income, and the third is COMET. So those we're going to get them. Okay. So at some point we'll be able to figure out what our true net cost is. Correct. And then there's a utility savings on top of it. So once we
097present the report to the finance committee, once the bid's done and everything, we're hoping for October 10th, there will be an analysis on the total cost of the project with all the rebates and year by year and what year the project will be completely paid off. Because the project, when it was shared with the board back in May, we were looking at year 11, the project will get all our money back, including savings. And then anything from now, from that year 11 and onwards, at that point it was about $300,000 in saving utilities. But obviously the project scale has gone down because Brian and his team is working with the structural engineers because we can't install the solar panels everywhere. So they're identifying areas where the panels could be installed. So I do know the
098project size has gone down, but that update will be shared with the finance committee. Okay. All right. So that was my next question. The $11,500 cost that we estimated, I was curious as to how much of that included some of the requirements that are in here, the prevailing wage and things that are in there could potentially add to the cost, right? So, but the project speeds, so that'll all be factored in. Yes, correct. And just to add this is I actually got other school districts, you know, Barrington and Grayslake, they also approved this solar project. So at least I got one district on the board to go with Baker-Tilley. So we got the early adopter discount by Jesse. So thank you, Jesse. We got about $15,000 off. And on top of that, their fees to
099file the taxes, we also get 30% back because that's part of the inflation reduction act requirement that we can actually, you know, get the total fees as we can get 30% back from their services. So it's a good benefit. Yes. I just want to confirm, Jesse, that's correct, right? Yeah, no, you did a great job. You know, Ali does a great job for the district. He took care of me, took care of the district. And then it is exciting. We're working with many school districts, government entities across the country. And what's also interesting is, you know, obviously, as a school district, we don't deal with like wastewater treatment plants, but biogas, you know, where they're capturing those and reusing them for energy. There's a lot of different projects that are coming out of this and
100a lot of different ideas that are coming out of it. So it's pretty exciting to watch. I don't like the tax code part of it, but it's exciting to see the money that's available and the different brainstorming that's coming out of the benefits that will be coming down the road. So again, I just think it's an exciting time for your project. And especially with the Inflation Reduction Act, just a great opportunity. I want to say, I think it's a great idea to get a subject matter expert in here to help advise us on this, because it's not the kind of thing we can do in-house and make sure we get it done right. And to make sure it works, you've got to get a really good advisor like this, so that's terrific. And I guess
101the point that was made as part of Greg's questions and then with your answer is not yet been approved by the board. This is something that we're going to get a presentation on and what the return on investment is. And at that point, the Finance Committee will make a recommendation to the board as to whether or not to go forward or not. I think that universally, they all like the idea of being friendly to the environment and doing this sort of thing, but we also have to make sure that there's a legitimate payback. Right, absolutely. And that's one of the things Big Artillery will ensure when we get the bids, they will work with the company performance services and certify that, okay, we followed all the requirements because I recommended back in May to the
102board that we don't want to do this project for not getting the rebate. The rebate is a huge incentive, that 30%. We're talking about a lot of money. Right, we always do prevailing wage anyways because that's a requirement that we have as a school district for something we're already familiar with. And then apprenticeship is a new one, there's a new requirement, so they have to do some additional documentation in the bids. So that's what Big Artillery will work with for performance services. That's typically part of a union project anyway, I think. So any other discussion on this? No, thank you so much. This is exciting. This definitely is exciting. I never really think tax code is exciting, but there it is. So we'll move on next to discussion item C, which is policy 7-180, the
103prevention of and response to bullying, intimidation, harassment. This is our first reading. It's a little bit out of the normal cadence. There are no changes as of right now to this policy. It's unchanged from what was last adopted, but the state has a requirement that the policy be reviewed by the board every one or two years and reaffirmed regardless of whether or not there are changes in the policy. So it's up for first reading in this discussion rather than separately without prior policy committee review, because it's simply an unchanged policy that we have to confirm with the state that we have looked at it. I just have one question, and Dan, because you are my policy guru. I'm very tired from that, but. I'm sorry. Dan is the policy whatever in the back, whatever that
104special fancy Latin title is. Emeritus, thank you. I suddenly brain retrieval problems. Is it in the bold in our policy as well as the state policy, which I'm totally fine with, but I want to make sure that we are doing it correctly. It's where it says is prohibited time. Is that the way it is written within the policy within our policy as well as the state proposed policy that we have to approve every two years? So there's not. I proposed a question that maybe. Yeah, I know it's an approved policy. It's just that our policy has to comply with the state statutory requirements. Yeah, this policy comes directly out of our policy manual that if you go to our website and dial up, and it's in bold in our website. Also, that was my question
105just because I'm all in, but I wanted to make sure that we weren't putting bold letters in one policy and one thing that when we have not somewhere else. Thank you. That was my question. Any other discussion? Thank you, Mr. Pira. Then we'll move on to agenda item eight public comments per public policy 2-230 at each open school board meeting. The Board of Education has a public comment period for a maximum of 30 minutes. We are ready to listen and appreciate your comments. We recognize that it takes time and work to prepare a three minute statement. Public participation is not intended to be a back and forth discussion between the public and the board. Questions asked during public participation may be sent via email to be answered subsequent to the meeting. I'll ask Vice President
106Newman to look at the list of people signing up for public comments and call folks since I'm not present right now. The first person on the list, Mr. Hirsch, and you'll note the three minute timer. Hi, my name is Steven Hirsch and my daughter is a freshman in Highland Park High School and I'm here tonight briefly after a discussion I had with her and she expressed concern about why there is only weapons detection systems at one door and why that rotates between different doors and I said you know I don't know that seems really strange and coincidentally tonight I hear concern from yourself as well as the student advocate that that's probably the number one concern amongst the students and if we're really concerned about their emotional thinking I'd certainly like to understand what the
107rationale was behind that. Yeah, having one is better than none. Locking your front door is better than not locking any doors but your back door is open, your garage door is open, you have gaps and they're glaring you straight in the face and inviting someone to trick the system and it concerns me. I apologize that I'm not privy to prior discussions on this subject and I probably should do my homework on that but it is very concerning. I'm in the cybersecurity business and we're trained to close the gaps. If we come in, we do an assessment, we identify where the vulnerabilities are and make recommendations on closing up the gaps and everyone knows there's only detectors at one entrance at a time do I put smoke detectors on every floor or just on one floor?
108Well it's pretty important I put them on every floor and I don't know what the rationale is and again I probably missed prior discussions whether it's a cost issue or a personnel issue but just a little story. My family was at the 4th of July parade a year ago and we were standing between Walker Brothers and Blue Mercury. We were probably 20-30 feet away from flying bullets and as we heard the sounds we went running. I mean this is reality. This isn't about an inconvenience of oh I have to have my backpack searched and my daughter is one of those that it seems to go off every time and she's not sure why but I think that even with the inconvenience she feels safer with those devices but not as safe as she could feel
109if every door was covered. So I strongly support consideration of that. I'd certainly like to know why it's only one door and that's all I have to say. Thank you Mr. Hirsch. Mrs. Shapiro. Hi. Eileen Shapiro a community member who has heard a lot of inspirational things this evening and maybe what I'm going to say is a riff on some of those things. So just recently we've had environmental tragedies all over the world and some coming again to our nation that my generation I won't disclose my age but you can imagine that my generation would never have dreamed of growing up as in in school. We also have seen and very recently political coups and violence too often installing governments that people hope will provide order and organizations as well as thwart immigrations of peoples
110they fear. Today in Chicagoland the libraries were threatened although decades ago Ray Kurzweil who was the senior scientist at Google he heralded the complete mapping of the human cognitive neurological system that worked to be used in whatever devices they would come up with but we now realize actually that AI is but another iteration of media and it is not a messianic technical arrival. Now all of you who are beautifully responsible for this school district of excellence I admire you and appreciate you yet there is one gap that I see in the vision which I think is not quite complete in our age of our current road to destruction and that road to destruction does not have Bob Hope involved so we're really in trouble for those of you who remember those films the road to
111all sorts of places. My opinion our curriculum needs to broaden widely we need to impart more depth and the breadth of every field you could imagine so our students will be able to grasp the one really important thing that could have a positive impact on our universe today which is the interconnected of every single aspect of every single thing living and not on our planet. There in that particular concept there in lies the values which are our values math science all the wonderful subjects they're not necessarily value laden it's the observation and the understanding of the interconnectedness of everything which is all of our lives every part of our lives which is what gives the values that we want our students to walk off with that we all of you try and provide the information
112and the experiences we need to take this one step further I believe. I think that the inherent excellence of this particular district um can be the catalyst for a very significant change in the paradigm of education in this country it's time we need it our motto is still from the beginning of the 20th century and our our planet is falling apart there is a um this is Shapiro there's that we're almost out of time if you could just wrap up okay I'm up thank you down with shallow thinking let's move forward thank you thank you very much that's okay thank you and that concludes public comments for the evening ah thank you thank you ann we'll next move on to agenda item nine action uh the first action item is resolution authorizing commencements of social
113media litigation it is recommended that the board of education approve the resolution authorizing the commencement of social media litigation as presented is there a motion is there a second second is there any discussion no discussion hearing no discussion can we have a roll call please Ramina Mr. Heineman aye Miss Newman aye Mr. Nader aye Mr. Shapiro yes please aye Dr. Elliott Schermer aye Mr. Strzok aye the motion carries next up approval of an agreement with houston protection and investigation service inc as contractor hired by north suburban synagogue bethell to provide armed security on district 113 property during high holiday high holy days services it is recommended the board of education approve the event security contractor invitee agreement with houston protection and investigation services inc as presented is there a motion so moved is there a
114second second is there any discussion so this follows the the structure that we used for july 4th when we had external you know folks coming into our buildings that's right exactly um so thank you for saying that it is follows that exactly um there is an entity that was wanting to use our facilities they are requesting that they have armed security at that their event and this agenda item allows that to happen under state and federal law and yes it's it's it's a sad state that that um this this particular group is making this request and that we're urging the board to yeah but the need to um my only question with this is this is not the same firm that was used last time so i'm just asking have we vetted out this firm
115etc anymore or is or do we need to this is this is the firm that the um oh it is the same firm no i'm sorry not the same firm but it is the firm that is hired um by the renter on a weekly basis so we don't have to do our vetting date and i'm not saying that currently they vet out we're just literally saying yeah we're requiring certain insurances and then they this is the their okay which is company they use the same practice we followed on july 4th we didn't do any vetting of those two companies correct correct it's because that's not in our role right they're hired by the the renter yeah that's a good question yeah the synagogue uses this service correct and for their regular services and yeah correct
116okay uh is there any other discussion none uh hearing no further discussion can we have a roll call please ramina miss newman aye mr meter aye miss shakira yes please mr braza aye dr eliot schermer aye mr hindeman aye mr stark aye the motion carries next up uh on the action items is the approval of amendment 17 to the owner architect agreement on august 4th 2020 the district entered into an aia document b 101 standard form of agreement between the district as owner and fgm as architect that agreement is referred to as the owner architect agreement before the board is fgm's proposed amendment number 17 to the owner architect agreement for engineering and design related services for the project known as the 2024 district-wide capital and security improvements project covering both deerfield and highland park
117high schools under the owner architect agreement including amendment 17 the district has agreed to compensate fgm on a percentage basis based on the cost of the work plus reimbursables by amendment 17 fgm is requesting a fee of seven point nine percent based on an estimated cost of the work of seven million 99 99 000 dollars 899 854 dollars and 55 cents and a ten thousand dollar reimbursable allowance for a total estimated award of five hundred seventy thousand eight hundred eighty eight dollars and fifty one cents on the motion of the board the board hereby approves amendment 17 to the owner architect agreement subject to the legal review and approval of the district's council is there a motion so moved is there a second second is there any discussion yeah i have a couple of questions
118yeah i just want to kind of when i do these i always say what we're approving so this is we have a master agreement and then we have an amendment to that and that allows the architect to start designing the summer 2024 projects and so kind of when we approve these i always talk about this is just approval of the design and so then at some point we'll we'll come back to the board for contract approvals and that would be you know the the larger cost dollar uh but you know that's where we spend all our money is to actually build a building so um they'll be in two phases and they'll come back for later approval so this is uh just design i know it's a really long motion but but that's what we're
119talking about to start that right so let me ask this question before i ask my other questions yeah so tonight we are not approving a five hundred seventy thousand dollar fee you're proving that you're not improving the entire eight million dollar cost so i understand um so okay then i will ask my other questions so um toward the back of this uh this amendment there's a list of the elements of the scope right which seem to follow very closely what we had talked about a couple weeks ago um who makes the determination part of the scope is in a section called fgma limited support slash permitting assistance do those items are they subject to the same fee i'm trying to they go to that section right so it's on page i don't know three of
120three i think it might be uh an exhibit here or something of page three that might be the last page of the whole thing i just put out a couple pages here so might be the last page of the whole thing mad if you quickly i have the architects here so i'm looking that up mad if you would be so kind as to step forward um so there's some is this for uh sorry it's not three free when i printed it but it's uh so there's some things there's some projects that require um permitting assistance that we'd have to submit a permit sometimes we need to do structural engineers uh and so no i think that that's what we're referring to i couldn't find it that quickly but i'm sure matt knows it yeah there's
121a separate section so that would be on an hourly basis that kind of aligns with the hourly rates they're showing on one of the attachments in that separate from the from the fee that because those those items are yeah those are separate from that base fee because those items are considered ones as as needed if brian's prod like it's more those are projects that are instigated by the district and probably handled by the district and if they need um just roe permit assistance is just the time it takes to put the form together and coordinate with the roe for those types of things so no items such as the replacement in kind of asphalt that placement in kind of you know rooftop units and other hvc systems that sort of thing that requires a much
122broader scope of service that that's the stuff that's built into that number based on the construction cost built into the seven million dollar number of construction correct right so um but but the replacement in kind of asphalt does it require you know the same level of design services and others you know that you know if we were you know building a new whatever new library building you know the project for the auditorium that sort of thing i mean there's there's still a level of design that requires for our civil engineering for that specific things and mechanical for our mechanical engineering for those kind of one-for-one swaps because it's not taking what's exactly there and recreating exactly we're looking at it to make sure that that's exactly what we want it to perform for the district
123in the same fashion mechanical units are more energy efficient they're more um you know the power requirements the the cfm requirements are are different from what is currently there so it's there's an engineering process that gets involved into it the reason that those items are broken out separately is some of those items are our district instigated like the the football field turf like they don't necessarily need the district doesn't need our use or our services to employ that thing into action and so only if they need our assistance for permitting will that be an hourly build rate because that's kind of independent from base contract and that field turf is not included in for example it's not included in the base construction um cost of what our fee is built off of so i can
124so i think field turf is a great example so uh we're changing over from grass to field turf seems easy but it's not you have you have additional drainage you have different different grade change grade changes you know the the way the field crowns there's differences but when we're going to change from an existing field turf to a new field turf it's more similar to changing carpet so we don't need architectural services but we know we might need help in certain areas uh permitting sometimes they're always going to require a structural analysis field turf probably not that but uh sometimes they require additional information and so we we have them in there on on retainer now when we get into parking lots sometimes parking lots are easy sometimes they're not you know dear fields parking
125lot we've been we have some issues with that uh i'm sorry opportunities for improvement with that talking about um improving uh our drainage we're improving our structural what what you know the the thickness of the asphalt we're you know we're improving the the capacity so it's not always just a like for like replacement dearfield boilers you know we went from three boilers um three big boilers to four smaller boilers so we always don't do um like for like replacements and so part of their work also is you know when we hit a certain dollar amount we have to go out to bed right so we go out to bed we need to have plans um i we can't just you know put out a hey replace our parking lot because you know there when we
126get bits back they're not going to be uh apples to apples someone's going to put in you know two inches of binder two inches of uh wear course and someone might put in three so we need to have that certain level of standard when we replace all our parking so i know that was a long answer i'm not sure if that answered exactly i can i don't want to keep going it's fine okay so yeah so to answer your question it depends on the the project in that level um of what if we're if it's a simple like for like replacement it just it depends on what we're doing any other discussion hearing no further discussion can we have a roll call then please remain up the motion carries uh next up is uh action
127item e resolution to adopt notice of remedy against tenure teacher it is recommended that the board of education adopt a resolution to approve a resolution to adopt a notice to remedy against tenured teacher david salotky as presented is there a motion is there a second second is there any discussion hearing no further hearing no discussion can we have a roll call please ramina mr pura yes please mr braza aye dr elliot schermer aye mr heineman aye miss newman aye mr neater aye mr struck aye the motion carries uh next up we have our 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 then it is recommended that the consent agenda be approved as listed approval of
128consent agenda items board of education regular action meeting minutes board of education regular action meeting closed session minutes board of education special meeting minutes board of education special meeting closed session minutes board of education special closed session minutes additional extended field trips for 2023-24 personnel notice and corrected fiscal year 24 budget. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Can I just make a comment on the budget? I'm sorry, sorry. So this, I just wanna clarify what the corrected budget is because the budget was adopted by the board at the last board meeting. So there's, it's not an amendment, nothing has changed in the budget. Page 24 of the budget document states, the state asked us something, a new requirement, what our EBF funding is. We put our
129EBF funding, which is to be exact, 1,857,596 dollars and 80 cents. Then they came back to us, they said that we were supposed to put the increase in EBF funding, which is a new money. So we changed that to new money, which obviously changed the document and the state said just like, you know, submitted, but I wanted to check with the attorneys because since we modified the budget, they advised us to, you know, take it to the board for action again. So that increase in the funding was $3,128 and 28 cents. That's the number we were supposed to put, not the total number. They didn't clarify, it should be new for money. So, but anyway, the state has some information, so I'm not sure why they asked for that information, but they're the ones who
130came up with an allocation. So that's what the change is. It's not an amendment to the budget, everything stays the same. We have budgeted the right amount to begin with. We just needed that additional new money on that one tab of the state budget document. So presenting this. Thank you. Any questions? And before the board votes, I also wanna call attention to an item and consent. You'll notice on the personnel notice that Debbie Finn is retiring at the end of this year. And just didn't want to let that pass without saying something. Debbie has been principal of Highland Park in some of its most challenging times. And she has led with care. She has led with incredible courage and resolve, always to do what's best for her students and her school. She's announced this to
131her staff, she's announced it to her parents, and now it's on the consent agenda, just didn't want the board to vote without acknowledging the tremendous contribution that Debbie Finn has made to Highland Park High School at a time when anyone, a lesser person would have, would not have been able to do what she's done. So I just wanted to thank her for it. And yeah, I just want to further what Bruce just said, that Debbie joined, Debbie was a, has been always one of the outstanding math teachers in the district, an outstanding department chair. She stepped up to become principal under exceedingly difficult circumstances in a truly trying year for the district. She has served as principal during a series of years that are just completely unimaginable. Nobody could have predicted what has happened over
132the last four or five years, but Debbie has always been there and has been a voice of welcome and making the school a home under some incredibly hard circumstances. And I mean, it's impossible to express how much we appreciate the dedication that you've shown to Highland Park High School and to this district. You're in your 27th year this year, 28th. I made the math wrong, I'm not the math student. 29th, C, I don't do math. 29th. 29th, I know. Debbie officially purple. How lucky am I that I got to be at both schools and yeah, I'm not gonna get many words out here very easily, but thank you very much. And I do feel incredibly lucky. I've had a really fortunate career and I learned a lot and I have a lot of kids who've
133taught me a lot and a lot of faculty members who've raised me in this district and it means a lot. And I very much appreciate it. In spite of all the challenges recently, there's so much joy at Highland Park High School. And I look at Stephanie and it makes me smile and it's a very special, special place as with Steerfield High School for me. So I feel very blessed. So thank you very much. I'm not looking at you, I'm not looking at you. I'm not looking at you, I'm not looking at you. I'm just looking at you. Thank you, Debbie. One more thing, I mean, cause now we have to transition to what comes next. And what Debbie said at the end is exactly right. The challenging years have been challenging, but Highland Park High
134School is a very special place and we need to engage students, we need staff, parents, teachers in finding the next principal for Highland Park High School. And I would recommend to the board that we hire search firms to do that because they've got expertise in this area and they've got the people to do it. And we absolutely need to do this right. And I wanna make sure everyone knows that we will be getting input from all those groups as Highland Park goes to its next chapter in gratitude for what Debbie's done up to this point. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, this is the principal position. It feels strange talking about it right now, but the principal position at Highland Park High School is such an important position to the school. I mean, truly the principal
135sets a tone and Debbie has set an incredible tone. And not as she, well, I have to say, she hasn't only learned from many teachers and students, she's also taught many teachers and students. And it's important that the next principal, Debbie's successor, not replacement, but successor, have the skills and ability and people ability and just leadership skills to continue to take Highland Park High School to be the best school that it possibly can be. And that's something that requires expertise that none of us have and the ability to talk to every single constituency within the school to truly come up with a profile of the outstanding next principal. So yeah, I mean, we absolutely look forward to seeing proposals from outstanding search firms. Any more discussion? Echoing the thank yous. So if there's no other
136discussion, can we have a roll call, please, Romina? Mr. Braza. Aye. Dr. Elliott-Shermer. Aye. Mr. Heineman. Aye. Ms. Newman. Aye. Mr. Nieder. Aye. The motion carries. We're now on to closing items. It is now, oh, 9.01, where I am, it's 10.01. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Yes, aye. Opposed? Abstentions, the motion carries. Everybody have a good evening.