Board of Education Meeting 4-25-2023

001Good evening. Township High School District 113 regular action meeting Tuesday, April 25, 2023. Roll call, please. Mr. Shapira? Yes, please. Mr. Strzok? Here. Ms. Barraza? Here. Ms. Elliott-Shermer? Here. Mr. Heineman? Here. Ms. Newman? Here. Mr. Fishbane? Here. If everyone else at the table could identify themselves for the record, please. Tom Krieger, Assistant Superintendent, Human Resources. Michael Ack, Assistant Superintendent, Curriculum and Instruction Assessment. Karen Warner, Director of Communications. Tiffany Rowe, Assistant Superintendent for Student Services. Brian Amhert, Chief Operations Officer. Ollie Mahat, Assistant Superintendent, Finance. Debbie Phan, Principal, Highland Park High School. Katherine Anderson, Principal at Dearfield High School. Ron Casbom, Chief Information Officer. Hi. Mira Ante, Director of Equity and Inclusion. Bruce La Superintendent. For those of you people who are standing, my apologies, but we can only have seats and seats. We are going to

002have a rotation depending on where you're here for the meeting. The two young girls are part of this group. So if the first presentation is going to be the Dearfield student recognition, if people are not here for that, give up their seat to the people who are here for that. But we can't, according to the fire code, we can't have people standing in the aisle. You can't stand in the aisle. You have to find a seat. Or leave. This will move along, trust me. We're going to go through presentations and everybody's, it's all going to work out. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as listed? So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? I can just jump back. I'm able to move that. Roll call please. Mr. Strzok. Aye. Mr. Barraza. Aye. Ms. Elliott-Shermer.

003Aye. Mr. Hyman. Aye. Ms. Newman. Aye. Mr. Pirra. Yes, please. Mr. Fisherman. Motion carries. Okay. We have three recognition items tonight, which you've heard me say already. Very excited about recognition. Those are always a fun part of things we do. First group is Dearfield High School student recognition. And who is speaking? Who's taking charge? Come on up, introduce yourselves and tell us all the good stuff you've got to tell us. Thank you. All right. Good evening, everybody. My name is Robin Corlitz. I'm the social emotional learning instructional specialist at Dearfield High School, along here with some amazing students that you're going to hear from in just a second. And my colleagues Josh Novick, trauma interventionist at Dearfield High School, and Dr. Marcellus Moore, MTSS director and assistant principal for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Dearfield

004High School. And the three of us are here really to introduce, remotely support, and cheerlead these incredible students. I'll just get into their introduction. I'm pleased to introduce the executive leadership team from You Are Enough, Addison Schwartz, the founder, as well as the co-presidents Ella Reback and Sydney Jarrell. You Are Enough is a student founded and operated nonprofit that has been raising funds for mental health awareness, and they will be donating $20,000 to design and implement a wellness center in space at Dearfield High School. Just let that sink in. I mean, let's do this. All three of the executive leadership team members are juniors at Dearfield High School and are excited to collaborate on creating a safe space for students at DHS. And just on a personal level without getting choked up, it has been

005an unbelievable privilege to work with these incredible students. A lot of times adults or people out in the world say, you know, the kids are not all right. These kids are more than all right. They are incredible. They're changing the world. So I would love to introduce them to you. Here they go. First of all, thank you so much to Ms. Corlitz and all the other people who are here today to support us. As she said, I'm Addison Schwartz. I'm the founder, and this is Ella and Sydney, our You Are Enough co-presidents. And we're the You Are Enough executive team, and we really appreciate the opportunity to be here to make a difference on this very important topic. Our mission as an organization is to promote open conversations about mental health and implement safe spaces

006within local communities where students can relax, recharge, and reset without feeling alone or stigmatized. When I founded You Are Enough back in 2020, I founded it to help break the mental health stigma and promote overall wellness. I have a very close personal connection to this cause. My grandma Sandy suffered from severe depression, which ultimately led to her taking her own life. It's believed that had her struggles been more openly discussed and had there been less of a stigma around mental health, she could have activated a broader support network and perhaps gotten a bigger, wider support network of people who didn't necessarily know the extent of her struggles to help her through her difficult time. I've also seen this issue within our own community with teens who have also taken their own lives. And perhaps had

007there been a greater support network and less of a stigma surrounding mental health, their struggles could have been alleviated or helped. As far as our team goes, You Are Enough got too big and our ambitions grew too big for me to handle on my own. And so in the beginning of 2022, I opened up applications for a You Are Enough team board to the peers in our community. After these applications were sent out, we created a board composed of over 20 DHS students to help You Are Enough in our mission and our expansion. And they have helped to fund and implement and design this space with over 20 DHS students. So what are the actual effects on teen mental health? As Addison referenced, the pandemic took a serious toll on teen mental health. As you

008can see from the graph, parents noticed worsening issues amongst teen women on the left and teen men on the right. These statistics increased dramatically after the pandemic, such as anxiety, depression, and aggressive behaviors, especially amongst teen women. So what is the need? Nearly 20% of high school students report serious thoughts of suicide, and 9% have tried to take their own lives. The rate of sadness amongst students is the highest reported in a decade by the CDC. No one really knows the reality of mental health within our own school. However, through personal experience and witnessing it firsthand, these statistics are very prevalent within our own high school. Many students don't feel comfortable going to their counselors or social workers during the day because they may be embarrassed or just not want to be seen. But what

009is being done is not effective, and this is why we are proposing a Wellness Center. So why a Wellness Center for DHS? Well, a Wellness Center will provide places for students to relax, recharge, and reset. This will also allow them to seek refuge from daily stressors in their life, such as school, life issues, tests, friends, etc. It will also allow them to engage in more supportive social interactions. This will also allow them to assess, understand, and regulate their emotions, such as the flight or flight response. Most kids at our school, when feeling stressed or upset, will leave school instead of seeking help. This will also give them access to caring adults who identify students who are struggling with mental health. Something in our room that is very unique is there's a door that directly connects

010to the counselor office for students that need support as soon as possible. We have also been looking into local wellness center success. Something that we have seen is the Wellness Center at Stevenson. With over 13,000 visits during the months of November and December, this room has proved to be very successful. We also met with the Director of Social and Emotional Learning and learned this statistic. This validates that students use these spaces when they're provided and that they'll be visited multiple times during the day. Next slide. Thank you. Everything in the DHS Wellness Center has been done and thoroughly planned with intention to help students relax and self-regulate. UR&S has raised these funds through various fundraisers throughout the past two years to design and implement this project. A few specific design elements that are going to

011be donated by UR&S include a variety of fire-resistant feeding options, the use of muted colors to avoid visual stimulation for students, a green wall to incorporate the tranquility of nature and art mural, and relaxation activities to help calm the mind. In addition, we've made it a priority to incorporate various DHS student and staff input to make sure that this is really a collaborative space. Some examples of this have been DHS's Student Council, in which we partnered with them for Mental Health Awareness Week, Students from Miss Ali's Race and Identity class, which I'm aware that they were here earlier this year presenting to you guys on a summit. So we've really taken insight from them and have used their research to go towards our space. A collaborative mural painted by Mr. Sakura's art class. And so

012that is a really beautiful mural that the students have designed that will be going on one of the larger walls in the space. And then students from Mr. Moran's graphic design class have been designing the logo for our space. And so additionally, groups, specific groups such as Mosaic and also the counseling department, the social workers, the school psychologist have all been invited into the space and all other DHS staff members have had the opportunity to come into the space during their lunches to give their insight and any additional feedback that they have just so that we can really make the space as beneficial as possible for all members of the DHS community. You are an office looking forward to creating a safe and supportive space for students to relax, recharge and reset without any stigma.

013We feel that this will enforce the fact that there should be no stigma and that help should be accessible for all. We look forward to working together to further support our students cope with mental health issues. As you can see in this image, this is just a little layout of the floor plan. We have marked out a yoga area, a workspace and game table, and that's more of like a collaborative space for when students need that social interaction. But then there's also high caps leading to the left and individual pods to your right, as you can see in the images in the left for when students need some of that isolated alone time. And so we've really thought through every aspect. And there's also just that variety of seating as we mentioned above. And so

014these are just some like little images to describe that seating arrangement. But yeah, we're very optimistic about what this room and the benefits of it. Yeah. So thank you so much for taking time today to hear us. And we're very, once again, optimistic. And we are, you are enough. Thank you. Stay there. Stay there. So thank you for such important and meaningful work. Open up to the board. Any comments? It's just fantastic. So what we're going to do is I'm going to jump down before you go. Item 9A on our agenda is recommended the Board of Education accept the donation from Deerfield High School students in the amount of twenty thousand dollars. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Not only for the

015money, but for the mission and the work. Absolutely. And the work is almost more important. So thank you, Addison, to take an idea and then to build it with your peers and then to have this be an outcome in such a short period of time. You should be commended for the work you've put in. So congratulations. And I think what you said, and I don't remember where it was in here, but was purposeful. It is all purposeful. And that is so important to remember. And really, truly, you guys are changing the world. And you think back to your grandma, Sandy, that she's smiling really big right now because what an extraordinary gift you're giving to everyone else. So thank you for that. We're going to applause again after the vote. It may be a close

016vote, but we'll see. Roll call. Mr. Verraza. Aye. Ms. Elia Schwimmer. Aye. Mr. Heinemann. Aye. Ms. Newman. Aye. Ms. Shapira. Yes, please. Mr. Fishman. Aye. Motion carries. Thanks. You're welcome to stay. But I bet you've got a lot of other important things to do. Your teeth are saying you can go. Thank you for coming. While we're moving seats, if the CTAD people could come to the podium, they might be in the hallway. Keep moving, guys. If the CTAD people could come to the podium and introduce yourselves. All right. Love to hear from you. Thank you for coming. Hello. Am I advancing the slide for myself or is there someone who's doing that? Someone will do that for me. All right. Thank you very much. So I am Barbara Dinecker. I'm the executive director of Community

017the Anti-Drug or CTAD for short. We can flip the slide. The formation of CTAD started back in 2006 when, as some of you here may recall, we had two Dearfield high school students who died homecoming weekend in a car crash after consuming alcohol and marijuana at a party hosted by parents. In response to that, this district and local parents got together to address underage substance use. And they got to get there with the support of the superintendent, with the mayors of Highland Park, and a mayor of Dearfield. They created Parents the Anti-Drug, a coalition. A few years later, they, local community leaders, including a board of education member, David Small, a Highland Park high school parent who lost his son to an overdose, and mayor Rotering of Highland Park got together and tried to expand

018efforts so that we would be more effective. And to do so, they recruited members from all sectors of the community, not just parents and schools, so that, and then re-dubbed us Community the Anti-Drug. They made sure that we got nonprofit status, they applied for grant funding, got that grant funding, and then were therefore able to hire their first full-time staff member, which was myself, and we set up two offices at both high schools. Next slide. The mission of Community Anti-Drug is to reduce the use of alcohol and marijuana among all youth in the communities that feed into this district. We focus on alcohol and marijuana because they are by far the most commonly used drugs among our students. And also, it is very unlikely that students are going to try to use or start using

019other more illicit drugs without having first tried marijuana and alcohol. So by reducing the use of alcohol and marijuana, we're hoping to reduce all drug use. Next slide. We have over 100 volunteers representing 30 community organizations. You see a lot of logos on the screen, but you also see a whole bunch of people behind me who are representing Community Anti-Drug. And we all feel a moral responsibility to ensure that our youth have a strong and healthy future. And we know one thing that stands in the way of that is alcohol and marijuana use. Next slide, please. We know that youth alcohol use disrupts sleep patterns, it hampers muscle growth, increases the risk of unplanned, unprotected, and unwanted sexual activity, disrupts brain development, makes it more difficult to learn, increases the risk of car crashes, strained

020relationships, and increases the chance of addiction into adulthood. Next slide. Youth marijuana use is associated with mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, suicide, and psychosis. And we know that among students who already have a mood disorder such as depression increases the risk of self-harm and violence. And something that we need to be cautious of here in Illinois is that states that have legalized marijuana, according to a number of studies, have higher youth marijuana use rates than states that have not legalized. And there are also studies that show that young people who live within four miles of a dispensary are more likely to use marijuana and use more of it. So for reference, we have two dispensaries within two miles of Highland Park High School, we have three dispensaries within four miles of Deerfield High

021School, and we have another two dispensaries just over the border of district boundaries in Buffalo Grove and Northbrook. And one of the reasons that is a problem is because students then are exposed to more advertising. Now the marijuana industry claims that they will not target youth, but I would like to say that the tobacco industry and the vaping industry said the same thing. I believe it was just last month or a month before you actually approved a settlement with the Juul vaping company, because they found that they were marketing to youth and making unauthorized health claims. So I think it makes sense that we want to be a little bit wary of the marijuana industry and what they are trying to do and have already done. Next slide. Because, even though the state specific laws

022specifically states you may not use animals are cartoons in marijuana advertising. They've done it. And this might seem familiar to you because there is a location of Zemleaf in Highland Park and they were using raccoons of course very concerning to us because of Revinia Elementary School mascot. So CTAD notified the states, and because of that they were told to remove those apps, which we're very happy about. Unfortunately, they are also using cartoons and even though we're notifying the state of that apparently there's discussion at the state level of what constitutes a cartoon. So even though we're telling people telling the state, these are cartoons, we have not seen those being removed. Next slide please. The good news is for every $1 invested in evidence based prevention, which is what CTAD does for our community, will

023save $10 on the consequences of substance misuse, such as counseling, health care, public safety, things of that nature. Next slide please. Your very own Director of Recovery, Jen Johnopoulos, said it really well so we wanted to capture a quote from her here. She has just recently been elected to our executive board as our Co Vice President, and after orientation where we go over our goals, objectives, our data, our approach, she said, and I quote, I was blown away by how much CTAD does not just our schools but the whole community, how their approach is data driven, proven to work by research and is proactive, rather than reactive. Next slide please. You're here. This slide should look familiar. We want to show, are we having an impact? We put a report together which we supplied earlier

024this year for your board. Blue is Highland Park, red is Deerfield, purple is combined, and this is from the Illinois Youth Survey data, and you can see that since CTAD's inception, since we launched, alcohol use among our students has decreased by over a third. Next slide. Marijuana use is that the lowest that it has ever been. Now it's gone up and down a bit, but it also has gone down by about a third since CTAD launched. One of the other things that we are particularly proud of, next slide, is how our youth perceive the use of alcohol marijuana. Do they consider it cool, or would they, do they think they'd be seen as cool if they used it? And that has also dropped dramatically since CTAD's launched by 38% for alcohol, and next slide, I

025believe 39 or 38% for marijuana, also more than a third. Next slide please. Everything that CTAD does, we do our best to only use evidence-based strategies, things that have been proven to work, and not use strategies that might inadvertently have the opposite effect. And one of those things is fear appeals, because research shows that scare tactics can actually have that opposite effect for a big portion of our students. We know that it is much more effective, this is what research tells us, to move students towards something positive than to tell them to avoid something negative. So in the case of scare tactics, a really good example, if we're trying to get people to live a healthier life, get fit, eat right, we know it's not motivating, to next slide, tell them that if they don't

026eat healthier, they're going to get cancer, they're going to die of a heart attack. We don't show them pictures of cupcakes and potato chips with a big X through it. We know if we want to motivate healthy behavior, we show them, next slide, empowering images of fruits and vegetables and getting out and water, and gym shoes and getting exercise. We give them tools and tips and strategies to make healthier choices. And that is what you're going to see from us, because that's what the research shows, next slide. It's not that we don't think alcohol and marijuana isn't scary, it's because we think it's scary, that the effect on their developing brains, that we only use what's proven to work, which is empowering images and providing tips and tools and strategies for our youth to make

027drug-free choices. So, what you see here is some of our campaigns from the past few years, and I want to state that all of these are made with input from our students, some of whom are sitting behind me. Are you mad at our campaign? The students identified the topic of each poster, they surveyed their peers to find out if those topics indeed would resonate, they put that data on the posters, they helped to select the images, they helped refine the vocabulary on the poster. For the You Got This campaign, they each poster had a different theme, and they provided tips from teens to other teens, from study habits, to how to set goals, to how to be a good friend. Spoiler alert, it involves not using drugs. And they put those tips on our website,

028you could scan the QR code and the kids could get those. Next slide. We also gave staff t-shirts to amplify the campaign, again, because research shows that if students see the message in multiple places, particularly from a credible trusted source such as their teachers, they're more likely to have an impact and believe the message. Next slide. And our Delta students not only helped develop the campaign, they helped hang the posters through the schools, they encouraged their teachers to put them in their classrooms. They conduct interactive educational activities during lunchtime multiple times a year, again, because research shows that's how to have an effective campaign. And they've also presented to our parent groups at both schools on how to host a sober party that teens are less likely to use alcohol and marijuana. Next slide. They

029took that a step further by working with our parent committee to create an online party toolkit to help parents. If you click the button, you can see that they've also recorded a presentation for the next, not for the next slide, but an animation, there you go. They recorded a presentation on data they collected about what students do after homecoming, and if it involves alcohol, marijuana, presented that with tips, which can be accessed on our online toolkit. And they worked with the parent committee on a list of teen approved venues and activities that you can do that are healthier choices for them. Next slide. The Delta students also worked with adults in our coalition to testify at local municipalities on the impact of marijuana legalization in our state, and on local marijuana sales and zoning thereof.

030And through their work in part, the city of Highland Park reduced the hours of operations for our cannabis dispensaries. The city of Highland Park and Highwood made it required to have signage to discourage public consumption of marijuana. The city of Deerfield has some of the strictest zoning regulations in the state, and the village of Bannockburn has banned the sales of marijuana and vaping altogether. Next slide. Thanks. Our parent committee and communications committee works on parent outreach. We have newsletters, we have workshops, we have webinars, we've tailored fact sheets and resource guides, and during the pandemic they developed family activity sheets with conversation starters and puzzles and tips on how to secure your home supplies of alcohol marijuana, and they distributed thousands of them through local restaurants in our community and they have repeated it every

031summer since. Next slide. We also conducts professional development and training for adults who work with youth. We flew in a trainer who works with Olympic athletes to do training for our local coaches in our high schools. We brought in experts from states that had already legalized marijuana about the impact of marijuana, how to develop a marijuana workplace policy, and how to enforce the marijuana law, where we had officers and SROs from all five of our communities And we've done cultural competency training in this very room, and we've arranged for or presented ourselves at your annual health fair that alternates between the two high schools. Next slide. All of that and more, which I could not fit in the time allotment, we do for less than $165,000 a year. That includes three CTAD staff members, both

032Delta sponsors, one at each school, and all the supplies and training that our Delta program needs Our annual awareness campaign, the translation, the design, the printing of our newsletters, our fact sheets, our resource guides. We have a professional evaluator to help with all that data that we get and provide that to the schools as well. And we also need a professional accounting firm because there's a lot that we need to do for grant compliance. Next slide please. The sad thing is we did have more money in the past, but that has been reducing every year by considerable amounts. So to give you an insight into our funding, we have the biggest chunk, as you can see, is a 10 year grant from the CDC. It is non-renewable. That runs out and then it will be

033over. The purpose of that grant was to get a drug prevention program up and running with the purpose that the local community would take over. So because of that, they also have a matching requirement that the local community must match either in dollars or in-kind donations, equal amounts, and then 125% of the amount, and then 150% of the amount, so that once that 10 years is up, that they are ready to take over. So we are thankful to this district because part of that in-kind donation and that match is the offices that you donate to us, the IT and the tech support, which is fantastic, and a plethora of other things, which definitely helps. That said, that match requirement is going up, while the other big chunk of our funding from the Healthcare Foundation of

034Highland Park is going down by $10,000 or more annually. So now we are in a little bit of a predicament. We've already had to cut staff hours twice. We've had to cut back on the number of meetings we have, the number of newsletters we put out, and we're trying very hard to only cut things that will have minimal impact on our overall mission to ensure that strong, healthy future for our youth. That said, I have to say, unfortunately, that we can only continue to fund the Delta program for one more school year because otherwise the money is just nothing anymore. As you can imagine, that's a lot that we do with a little bit amount. But it is a good segue to very quickly have a student from each of our high schools say just

035a few sentences about their experience. We have Anthony Lopez from Highland Park High School and Eliza Kalina from Deerfield High School. Hello, my name is Anthony Lopez. I joined Delta last school year and I'm currently Vice President of Delta HP. It was an HPHS student who came up with the name Delta for our group. Delta is a symbol for change in science and our group wants to make positive change. A committee of Delta students then designed the Delta logo and tagline, Believe in Change. I've helped hang posters, create chalk art with drug-free messages outside the school entrances, and conducted lunchtime educational trivia. I've also helped script and record a video promoting the online after party toolkit for parents. Hello, my name is Eliza Kalina and I'm the president of Delta DHS. I joined Delta as

036a scared freshman on the email list four years ago. Last year, I served as vice president of strategy. On top of helping at all of our lunchtime events, I was in charge of the homecoming data collection mentioned earlier and coordinated the presentation of the results to DPN and the PTO board. As president this year, I further developed my leadership skills while trying to have a positive impact on our school culture. Delta makes a difference to me, to my fellow officers, to our Delta members, and the whole school. If this program ends in a year, we will be very disappointed. Our hope and desire is that the district will continue to support us. Like Delta has supported me and my fellow community members. Thank you. Hi, I'm Jim Boyle, trustee police commissioner of Bannockburn and co-president

037of CTAD, along with co-president Luisa Espinalara, excuse me, who you know is a Highland Park High School's community liaison. I've been part of CTAD since 2016, first starting out with the Youth Education Committee, which eventually became the Delta Youth Group in 2018. CTAD would not be here if it were not for district 113. It was a vision, this board of education, to expand parents to any drug to the greater community, to have Deerfield High School and Highland Park High School administrators serve in leadership as co-vice presidents since day one, and have CTAD staff on-site in your buildings. District collaboration in developing a structure for Delta Youth Group and implementing the annual awareness campaign are integral to the success of our mission to reduce alcohol, marijuana use among your students. And of course, your in-kind contributions

038of district staff time, office space, meeting space, tech support helps CTAD meet the required match for our federal grant. In short, CTAD is successful because of you. As Barbara mentioned, our local funding is steadily decreasing, and our federal grant comes to an end in three years. While our sustainability community is working diligently on sources of revenue, we have not yet to identify a route that can sustain us anywhere near the level we are now. We hope to continue to collaborate, strengthen our partnership with you, and figure out a way together that serves CTAD, that services CTAD brings to the community and continue to be on our federal funding. To wrap it up, Louisa would like to share a few sentences about her experience with CTAD. Thank you for this opportunity to change my thoughts with

039you. I have been a part of CTAD for about five years now, and I was elected co-president last January. I love their mission. As a parent, I think it's important to send a message to our youth that they can succeed without the use of alcohol or drugs. As part of the parenting committee, we work hard to provide families with resources that help them have conversations with their kids and provide alternatives that are healthy and fun without alcohol or drugs. When we create resources, we are very inclusive. We create everything in English and Spanish, and when we gave the families activities sheets just so early to local restaurants, we also gave them to our local food bank to help reach more families. When I talk to parents in the Padre Estudiante, I provide them with CTAD

040resources, and they always learn something helpful. Thank you again for your time. Any questions? Well, thank you. Thank you so much for everything you do on behalf of our students. I don't think I could say it any better than Jen Gianopoulos, so I'll just take her quote. And to Anthony and Liza, thank you for sharing with it from the student lens and sharing part of your evening. I'm sure you have other things to do, so thank you for coming and another round of applause for you guys. District 113 Foundation. Hi, introduce yourselves and yes. Hi, I'm Kate Barber and I'm the executive director of the District 113 Education Foundation. Hi, and I'm Marybeth Orsak. I'm serving as president of the foundation. We're going to Marybeth and I are going to kick off our presentation and

041start by just telling you a little bit about who we are, what the foundation is and what we do. And then we're going to move along into the fun part, which is our 2022 and 2023 grants and we have some students from our board and the audience that are going to help us with that. Oh, next slide please. So what is our mission? It's really to enhance the educational opportunities. We provide grants that support innovation for our teachers and student clubs. Next slide please. The board is made up of 23 members from the community, including Dr. Laws on our board as well as students from both Deerfield and Highland Park High School. Next slide please. So as we mentioned, our grants are really meant to support and fund things that couldn't normally be funded through

042normal channels. And we ran some numbers that we're really proud of. We have funded over $590,000 of grants, providing 160 grants to our teachers and schools. Next slide please. The district foundation gets all of its funding from numerous sources, including community members, sponsorships, businesses, and including in-kind donations. We also have three major fundraisers throughout the year. Our first one is our annual appeal in the fall. We have our virtual auction in December. And then kicking off on May 1st, right along with National Commitment Day, we do honor an educator in which people could donate or make a donation in the name of a staff member, educator, counselor, whoever at their school that has an impact on them. Next slide please. So we take our commitment to our community very seriously. Recently we have supported our

043after prom at Deerfield and Highland Park and participated at the Martin Luther King Day, as well as supported the Moraine Valley Food Pantry. Next slide please. Would you like to introduce the students? Sure. I'm sorry, I'm nervous so I'm going to read the names even though these are the most amazing students. Thank you. We're so proud to introduce you to Jessica La and Lindsay Kitai from Deerfield. Can you stand up? Thank you. And also Evelyn and Evelyn Gehrig and Julia Nathanson from Highland Park High School. And yeah, so we're going to turn the microphone over to them. As they, if you are a recipient of the grant and you hear your name and you are here, please stand up so they know who you are and to give it to you. If not, we're going

044to present it to Dr. Anderson and Principal Finn. Thank you. Thank you so much. This year we awarded eight grants in total. Recently our Genocide Commemoration Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day took place at both Deerfield High School and Highland Park High School. This grant funded the honorarium for this year's keynote speakers for this district wide event that provides a comprehensive day of honor and education about genocide and the mass atrocity in all of its forms. This award goes to Nikki Antonakos, Alexandra Lysenko and Lindsay Meyer. Next slide please. We also funded grants to support the eSports and English students interested to learn about teamwork and collaboration through escape and 60 experience. So these awards go to, the eSports goes to Derek Tevron. And the 62 escape goes to Stephanie Martin. Next slide. This year we

045funded HPHS grants to support Drivers Ed Simulation, Spanish Language, Focus on the Arts and Podcasting. The recipients of these awards for Drivers Ed, Sarah Douglas, for Spanish Language, Focus on the Arts, Tamara Jenkins and Podcasting, David Salotky. We're also very excited to share two additional grants through the Linda Gordon STEM grant awards. Linda Gordon was a beloved math teacher from HPHS who encouraged STEM education for all. Her daughter and son who live in Highland Park and Deerfield have joined us to recognize our latest recipients. So Pam Hollander and Dr. Jeffrey Gordon could stand. We would like to provide this certificate to Stephanie Chambers from Deerfield for her grant titled Enriching Marine Science through Touch Tanks at Deerfield High School. This grant provides the opportunity for our students who live 600 miles away from the nearest

046ocean to study the unique adaptations of marine organisms in a living reef setting while enhancing teamwork, communication, research and problem solving skills. This grant funds six saltwater touch tanks and required startup supplies for beloved AMS classes that have been available for the past 10 years in Deerfield. So the award goes to Stephanie Chambers. We're proud to provide this certificate to Kate Silber from HPHS for her grant titled Antibiotic Resistance Genes and Environmental DNA. This grant allows students the chance to test for antibiotic resistance genes and environmental soil samples and then contribute their data to a national database of antibiotic resistance surveillance. This lab experience brings together many units covered in biology including ecology, evolution, microbiology, genetics and molecular genetics in a real world example of the importance of science and will be available to all

047biology, dual language biology and honors biology students at HPHS. Thank you for your attention this evening. We look forward to our continued partnership and growth. We also just have a few additional board members here that came to support us so I'd like to please ask John Maul and Karen Prey to please stand up. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Well thank you very much. Thank you to the students. Thank you. Thanks for coming tonight. Thank you very much. Much appreciated. Okay, ready to move along. Okay, let's get moving. Item five board reports. President's report. A few things. Illinois Association of School Board call for resolution due on June 22, right Dan? Yeah, so this comes up every year gives an opportunity for every district to draft a resolution that would then go to the

048Illinois Association of School Board conference to be considered. Dan has been our rep in the past. So, yeah, yes. Anyway, so I want to make sure you guys keep that on your calendar on having that as a potential. On our regular meeting schedule which we do for a year in advance we have May 23 as a regular meeting however that's the Highland Park High School graduations. So we will not meet on the 23rd. I think the 30th. You know I always told you guys keep your Tuesdays open. So there happens to be extra Tuesdays in May. I know it's a day after Memorial Day but perhaps May 30th would be the right day to have a meeting because otherwise we would go too long a period between regular meetings. So nodding May 30th for regular

049meeting works. So the organizational meeting will be on May the ninth, and that is your first pass at the regular meeting schedule for the coming year. All right, so on May 30th. May 2 next week is a project for 40 meeting on our calendars you guys all have it on your account for the board have it on our calendars. We are awaiting details. So next week at seven o'clock we're waiting the agenda, the location to be to be continued so we would like to be able to get that information advanced as we do for all of our meetings, and as soon as I get it, I'll pass along. It's supposed to be in district 109 I don't have any other details beyond beyond that but all those details are happening. I just wanted to take

050the board meeting to recognize a couple big events that happened. You guys all know about the Holocaust remembrance and the genocide commemoration day the violence of hope. All just fantastic programs really well done well received. Just fantastic I missed the opening night but I did go to a program, a program during the day. I was able to able to see the energy and the excitement and for the students the presenters. It's really I actually think the presenters are having more excitement than the students sometimes. But it's a great program is great to have it back the decorations that the volunteer work is just amazing that's why it takes two years to run these I know we had Dearfield students participate. I'm jumping in because you know I would on the whole genocide commemoration day. This

051year, which happens to be the national recognition for the Holocaust. It was so beautifully done and what I love so much about this and for those who don't know I am a docent at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center so this is particularly important to me. But what I love so much about that day is that it's student run. It began from a student Andrew division, who on the hundred year of the Armenian genocide knew that most of his friends had never heard of it. And what was so beautiful was all of the speakers were talking not specifically about one genocide but the markers of any, and I think that that was such an important thing for our students and to hear our students who had been trained by people from the ADL. It

052was just a beautiful day, and to hear it focus of the arts, a violin that was saved during the Holocaust and restored, and one of our extraordinary Highland Park High School violinist to play Schindler's List. If you had a dry I, I don't know where you were it was truly one of the most beautiful things to hear, and it really brought everything together between focus on the arts and genocide awareness day at DHS to see those things working together and seeing our students and both were shining and positivity. So, that's my two cents of adding on to it. Thank you. Okay, I'll just close present report with the DA update, the board and the DA bargaining teams met on April 20. Excuse me for the 13 bargaining session, and the teams reach tentative agreement on

053leaves association rights and personnel files teams continue our discussions on special ed salary fringe benefits and retirement next session is tomorrow. Okay, and I will now turn it over to Jody for facilities facilities committee I'm not going to read to you what you all have in your board packet but we did meet on April 18 we talked about a donation agreement for two scoreboards doing some digital display proposals lead paint abatement site work for capital improvement plans, and then the summer 2024 architectural services, like I said you all can see it there in your reports I'm not going to bore people with reading the notes from it and some of the things we're going we have open for discussion tonight in our meeting itself. So some of those things will be coming up for our

054discussion this evening. So that's what I got. And now I'll move on to my true north report, while I'm here, true north. We had our monthly meeting last week. It was just a little shy three and a half hours so it was a good night. We honored all of those that are leaving. For those of you who don't know 18 member districts all have representatives and 11 of the leadership council representatives are not continuing because one for reelection or another board member will be taking over, including the president who has served as president for six years. Wanted to let you know that a couple things that are going to be coming to us and things that we want to think about was in order to keep their costs down and particularly with a possible construction

055renovation, etc. One of the issues true north does have is they do not have the ability to host professional development for any more than 20 people in their building. So what they're looking for is those 18 member districts to start opening up their doors to have them. Their people come into our buildings in order to have a larger meeting space for their teachers their staff etc to be able to get more training. Let's remember these teachers and staffs are serving our students, and sometimes serving our most fragile students. A lot of having to pay for rental space at hotels is upsetting when we know that we have space so I have let Dr Schneider know that he can reach out to us, and those may be coming across the table because we do I think

056technically have to approve it. That is it. And that's what I got for my true north. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, item six on the agenda is public comments. Public comments is done per policy to dash to three Oh, policy of school boards have all over the state. So at each school board meeting the Board of Education has a public comment period for maximum of 30 minutes. And we're here, ready to listen. We appreciate your comments, comments need to be given with respect and civility towards others. And, and according to the policy to dash to three Oh, we recognize it takes time to prepare a three minute statement. It's under three minutes. We have several people to speak I think we'll be able to get this done within our 30 minute time frame

057tonight. Public participation is not. It's a public comment period we're here to listen it's not a back and forth. Exchange questions that are asked during public comment or sent to us via email, go into our email system and we also listen to things through that Avenue. So, some people signed in who may have been part of the earlier program so when I call your name for public comment if I saw just start at the top, and then go from there and hope I pronounce their business correctly, and repress. And you'll see a timer. So, you'll see it go. Thank you. Okay. Like any parents with kids at Highland Park High School I first heard of a lockdown on April 4 for my kids texting me. It seemed like they were getting more information from each

058other than from official sources. My daughter was getting texts from her multitude of friends from all points around the campus, so she probably knew more about what was going on than any of you did in the administration or at the school and maybe even the police itself. But it was with something that my son told me when he came home after everything was done that really scared the hell out of me. And I'll tell you what it is. My son told me that well he was locked down in one of his classes that the police at one point came into the room, called out the name of a specific student in that room, and had that student go with them. I never found out who that kid was or how he was related to the

059April 4 almost shooter, but clearly there was a connection. Just imagine this scenario, the kids are locked in a classroom with their teacher, the doors are barricaded, the kids are hiding on the floor or under a desk or inside a closet. The teacher grabs a sledgehammer as a parent mentioned during public comments two weeks ago, heroically prepared to fight to the end to defend the students. So far all of this actually happened. Now imagine the added but realistically possible scenario where the kid in question is more than just a person of interest. What if the kid was an accomplice of the shooter? What if the kid was a second shooter himself? In this added scenario, when the other kids in the class were scared, distracted or texting on their phones, and the teacher was 20

060feet away guarding the door, all the second shooter would have to have done is to reach in his backpack, pull out a gun, and everybody in that long room, which is supposed to be a sanctuary from the carnage that might be happening outside, that room would now be a death trap. You want to know something else? Metal detectors could prevent this hellish scenario from ever happening. Highland Park High School needs more armed guards and metal detectors and needs them right now, right now. Nobody that I've ever talked to ever said that these two things will 100% chance prevent any future mass shootings. Nothing on this earth can do that. Armed guards and metal detectors serve as a deterrent and a line of last defense when other interventions have failed. Speaking of other interventions, I want

061to ask some questions. I know that you won't be able to answer them, but I need to add the reference. Who was the April 4 shooter? All those shooters. What does Highland Park High School staff know about this kid? Did he have any interventions on his part? Was he had psychological problems? Was he on meds? Did he have an inclination to hurting himself or others? And did anybody know that he had access to a gun? Somebody knows the answers to these questions, and I would imagine that some of the you on the board know because you must have discussed this in closed session at some point. That said, I must ask one more question. Is there anyone else at Highland Park High School that you are aware with the same profile or similar profile is

062the April 4th almost shooter? And if so, what are you doing about it? It's been almost three weeks since the April 4th lockdown and this body has done zero demonstrably things to do anything about this. More armed guards and metal detectors is a big start. You guys have got to do a better job than what you've been doing. Shame on you. Great to be back with you. I was at Highland Park High School three times last week. I saw you, Dr. Law. Never once did I show my ID. Not once. No one ever peeked inside my bag and I carry a lot of crap. You spend $29,200 per student of our money. How is it that they're not protected? How is my daughter not protected? Whatever security measures you claim to have had on April

0634th failed. And I sure as heck didn't see any last week. I was there three times. Let's review some statistics. CPS. Well, first of all, as I mentioned, we spend $29,200 per student annually. CPS spends $29,400. In 2019, they approved $2.4 million to replace their old metal detectors and X-ray machines. Waukegan, as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, only spends $18,620. Yet in 2021, they spent $97,000 by 11 new metal detectors with temperature-taking capabilities. My favorite district, Hinsdale, they're going to get rid of dead weight. District 86, they spend $27,500 per year. They are now, since January, testing metal detectors. In a statement, the district said it believed weapon screening would provide another layer of security. That's in addition to security officers, video cameras, and door access controls. The system uses pillars or towers to

064scan people and their belongings. They are portable and can be used at outdoor venues. Let's talk about Crestwood. They spend $12,826 annually. In spring break this year, the high school installed metal detectors. April 18th, one week ago today, there was an exact incident like ours at their middle school. Now the board is actively meeting with the community, and the community is very confident they'll install metal detectors. But don't listen to me. I'm just a mom. Today I spoke to Rich Davis, former United Airlines global security director. I worked with him at United September 11th. He says, and I quote, we're a soft target. To be effective, we need a minimum of two metal detectors at every entrance. All major airport incidents since September 11th have been lobby incidents outside of security. Brussels, Istanbul, LAX in

0652016 and 2017. They have metal detectors. What he said was so poignant, though. He said disaster causes people to make changes. Highland Park has already had an epic disaster, and now because of your complacency, too. True effective crisis management begins long before the crisis happens. What are you doing? I got this nice little thing, and I'll close with this. Your little flyer is so cute. You say district 113 is committed to prioritizing infrastructure needs in an effort to keep our schools healthy, safe, and secure. Yeah, you're not doing your job. Do your job. I've been speaking to a lot of parents and teachers about metal detectors, and one of the students that I spoke with wrote a little something for me to read to you. She couldn't be here. And also, Mom gave me a

066couple of comments. So I would like to be safe in school. Maybe it's too much to ask. I would like to eliminate the opportunity for people to bring guns into our school. Maybe it's too much to ask. I would like to not be sitting ducks in a classroom with no immediate protection. If an intruder comes in, maybe it's too much to ask. I would not want to experience sitting on the floor again, praying for my life. Maybe that is too much to ask. I would like to not have the fear of being shot such a close reality. Maybe it's too much to ask. Maybe it's too much to realize whatever is being done is not working. Maybe it's too much to realize a gun was brought into school. Maybe it's too much to make simple

067changes that keep myself and mostly, importantly, all the kids, teachers and staff in our city or community are safe. Maybe it's too much to make one simple, easy choice to keep us, Highland Park, safe and strong. Do this for Highland Park. What else would be your job? Please put metal detectors in the building for us so this never happens again. Is this really too much to ask? And with that thought, the mom that I spoke with that couldn't be here, she and her husband are from Israel. They moved here with their two children. And when they first went to school, the first day of school, her eldest, who was in grade school, they dropped them, well, took them to school. And the first thing he did is, where's the gate, the metal detector and the

068safety officer? Needless to say, her son had some adjustments to make and fears to deal with. And that mom says, yes, in Highland Park, high school students and students in general here have that same fear now. Metal detectors need to be installed. The Israelis have been doing it for decades and having success. And metal detectors work. I myself recently, Lake County Building, United Center Airport, a downtown appointment at a high rise office building, all had metal detectors, all different sizes, different shapes, but they work. They deter. And it's time that we do the same here. And I appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Jenny Harjug. They're going to get really, really sick of me because I'm not going to stop coming until something's done. So I went yesterday to Highland Park High School. My

069son's a freshman there as you probably remember me from speaking last time. And he, we went to his counselor for a meeting and he went ahead of me because, you know, he was too cool. He didn't want to be seen with his mom, went ahead. We walked up the front steps. He went in. I walked up the steps, walked in, saw a gentleman at the podium, smiled, you know, waved me to the right and said, please go in there, ma'am. They'll take care of you. So I did. I walked in, gave the gentleman my name, gave him my ID. He scanned my ID. He gave me a badge and said, you need to wear this while you're in the building, took my ID and said, when you come back with the badge, I'll give your

070ID back. So he directed me to the counseling department, which I'm very well aware of because I went to school there. Here's the problem. I walked in, just a regular mom, with my purse. It's a really big purse. Who's to say that I didn't have two, three, four guns inside? It's a really big purse. I can fit a lot in here. Who's to say that I didn't have a pistol strapped to my ankle? Maybe I had two, one on each side. The point is, not all mass shootings are committed with an AK-47 or an AR-15. There's exceptions to every rule. Metal detectors, they work. They're not foolproof. Nothing is. But guess what? If someone thinks twice about bringing a gun into school because there's metal detectors, that in and of itself is a win. If

071someone gets caught bringing a gun through a metal detector, that is a win. If they didn't work, they wouldn't be at airports, they wouldn't be at concert arenas, they wouldn't be at stadiums, they wouldn't be in federal buildings. How come we as people, when we fly at the airport and we get on an airplane, how come we have the luxury of feeling safer? Because we know that everyone on the plane with us or in the airport around us doesn't have a gun on them because they went through a metal detector. How come we get that luxury, but our kids can't have that luxury? So don't tell me that they don't work, because if they didn't work, they wouldn't be in these places. I think it's time that we need to start being proactive and not

072reactive. We shouldn't be sitting around waiting for a situation to happen and then react to it. Instead, we should be proactive. We should be trying to prevent these situations from happening in the first place. I think it's super important. We need a worst-case scenario mentality. We need to start thinking worst-case scenario. I asked my son, Gavin, if he wanted to come here and speak. I said, you should come speak. Tell him how you feel. To which he replied, no. And I said, why not, Gavin? He said, Mom, they're not going to do anything. They don't care. That's exactly what he said. Now, I don't know how you guys feel about that, but for me as a parent, it's very disheartening. It's heartbreaking to hear your son say, they're not going to do anything. They don't

073care. So I'm asking you guys to seriously start thinking with a worst-case scenario mentality. And please prove him wrong. Do something. I am the mother of a freshman student at Highland Park High School, and also a former teacher whose first year was spent teaching in the Mountain West when Columbine happened. On April 4th at Highland Park High School, the tip line was essential that day in helping to notify the students and staff. And it was one important piece to a difficult problem our society is facing, but I fear it's not the only piece that's needed. This student decided not to shoot despite potentially having several opportunities that day, especially given the gathering of students just prior. I don't think we can pat ourselves on the back pointing to the tip line alone as what prevented

074a potential tragedy. We got lucky. The next time then that cost may be much higher. We need a multi-prong approach. Dr. Law had mentioned to the media that we're dealing with a problem that shows up at our door. The origin of the problem is not at our door. It's outside our door. And that's really where the solution needs to be. And I do hear what you're saying that the problem of gun violence does not originate necessarily in the schools. In an ideal world, kids would not have access to unsecured guns in the home or on the street. In an ideal world, every teen would feel supported and accepted both at home as well as in school. But Highland Park, of all communities, is doing the utmost that we can to help change gun laws. Many

075residents were just in D.C. protesting and meeting with lawmakers to ensure that change happens. Highland Park founded the organization March 4th and many members of the town are members of Moms Demand Action. On the FBI's page for developing emergency operation plans for schools, having school districts work with the team to deter screw shooter attacks, they advise. The core planning team should include representatives from a wide range of school personnel and then list the traditional. But they also include student and parent representatives. And the planning team should be small enough to permit, I quote, close collaboration with first responders and other community partners, yet large enough to be representative of the school, its families and the community. Do we have a team in place yet? That includes representatives from the parents and community. Three weeks have

076passed since the April 4th lockdown and there's been no communication from the school board. Even in general terms, that wouldn't compromise safety. While the ID verification system may be helpful for K through eight, especially to screen for sex offenders, I don't think it's especially helpful for screening for shooters. I know that you referred to a study or maybe certain studies. I'm not sure if it was more than one about the ineffectiveness of metal detectors, but I would like that to be a public discussion. Which studies were those? Because I have spent a lot of time researching and I do know the arguments against, but a lot of those studies were done. You know, the most recent 2018. So something that we do know and that the district needs to keep in mind is that every

077student in Highland Park High School, including any potential would be shooters, now knows how easy it is to get a gun into the school. Doing nothing is just not acceptable. Student Ella Rebek. Jim Boyle. Jenny Jarrell. Anthony Lopes, a student. That's it. Excuse me. Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Babs Maltenfort. I apologize. Sorry. I got it. I checked my list and read it twice. My name is Babs Maltenfort and I moved to Highland Park in 1948. Graduated from Highland Park High School in 1960. Moved back in 69 to raise my family here. Served and was elected and reelected to the District 113 board. So I bring to you that Highland Park background. And as a retiree, I have founded a nonprofit corporation. The board meetings were not like this when I was sitting in this room.

078But I expected to be able to present a slideshow to you. So you'll have it. But here's what it would have said. Our mission, we foster environments in which teens explore new futures through conversations and connections with others. Our belief. We believe that self-awareness empowers communication and communication transforms relationships. We have possible partners. One partner could be the district. One partner could be Highland Park High School. One partner could be the PTO. So we're looking to put all of this together. And I have a request. A request to identify an administrator with whom I could meet before the July board meeting. And discuss how we could, in fact, elevate the efficacy of our program. Evaluate that efficacy and design an implementation plan. You've heard a lot of conversation tonight. So have I. And think what

079it would be to walk into either building and realize people are communicating. People are smiling. People are interacting. That's what we're looking to provide. That's what we're looking to work with you to design. Thank you very much. The O2B website is up. And you will have your colored slides and not my printed material. Thank you. We have the copies. My mic wasn't on. We have the copies. And thank you very much. Okay. So that concludes public comment. Thank you very much. We'll move on to administration information reports. And I will set the three minute timer. Yes, my name is shell Langer. I live in Highland Park and I have a granddaughter who will be graduating. The students starting as a freshman, Deerfield High School. My question is this. I came here tonight because I got

080tired of arguing with people on Facebook regarding this issue. And I don't know who half these people are. In fact, some of them were ex board members from what I understand. But I want to comment on Mr. Law for a second. You wrote something in Highlander recently. And I don't know what planet you live on or what universe you're from, but you seem to want to cure the entire weapons problem in America before you want to do anything to address Island Park's safety. Why? You talk to any policeman in Island Park or Deerfield, and you know what they're going to tell you? I'm a responder. You know what a responder means? I'm there after the incident happens. You have to harden these schools up to prevent these incidents. If you have too many exits and

081entrances in Highland Park High School, close half them down, put metal detectors down there, and put an armed policeman with the uniform at that front door. And when someone sees that, that's a deterrent. Putting up gun free zone signs does not make you feel safe. In fact, it makes you feel more at risk. I walk in the library, gun free zone. Wonderful. I feel so safe there. I live on Cloverdale Avenue. We used to have a beautiful sign down there. Cloverdale Park, blah, blah, blah. They took it out. They put a sign Cloverdale Park with a gun free zone. Boy, do I feel safe on Cloverdale Avenue. Of course, that sign is up there. That sign means nothing. You guys got to be proactive and protect these kids. Take a survey to kids in Highland

082Park High School at Deerfield and the teachers. Ask them which people don't want this. How many nodes you think you're going to get? Very little. You need safety. You got to be proactive and protect your schools. Society has changed. You think we're living in Highland Park and it's a bubble North Shore? Well, let me tell you something. You have gang bangers in Highwood, North Chicago, and Waukegan. And they are mobile. And they travel in cars. Alta Store and Crossroads Shopping Center robbed three times last year. What do you think you're living in? They're mobile. They hit on 94. There are incidents happening over here. And the high school kids, you don't know who's coming in, who's going out. You have to have a guy with a uniform and a weapon standing in front of there.

083And like this young woman said over here, you don't need an AR-15. You can have a handgun with five clips, 10 or 15 rounds, and snap them out in five seconds. And that's 75 rounds in two minutes. So I don't know, you don't know what to know about weapons, but you don't need AR-15s or these high powered rifles. All you need is a handgun with multiple clips. And I don't know why you're waiting, as your budget does not have enough money to put this in. Is that what the problem is? Why are you waiting and what are you waiting for? Thank you. Okay. Anybody sign this that I did not. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Now we'll move on to item seven. We'll go to the administration information reports and superintendent. All right. Thank you. I

084had on my list focus and. Yeah, you did. I think we should have Tamara Jenkins at a meeting. Yeah. After she recovers. To present on focus on the arts. Cause it was, it was wonderful. And I was able to go one day. The other day we were bargaining with the teachers, but it was, it was a wonderful event. And I'm sure that when she's there, she will thank all the parent volunteers and all the students. But I just want to make sure. That we also thank three groups of employees who don't get enough recognition. One. All right. Key staff. The second is our security staff. And the third are our custodians because the place was very busy and they. They managed beautifully. Thank you for your comments about genocide commemoration day. The only thing I

085want to add to that is when you hear students who are raising money. For a space at Deerfield. And we have students on the board of district one 13 foundation and have students who are very involved in genocide commemoration day. These, these are the students we have at district one 13. We're very, very fortunate. A couple of things. That I was asked to share one is we have received the international certificate of excellence in financial reporting. From the American association of business officials. This is the 31st consecutive year for this in district one 13. And it's a, they say it's a testament to our district's commitment to transparency and high quality financial reporting. So thanks Ali to you and your team. Once it, once again. Thanks. Karen also advises me that among America's 50 best

086place for teachers. District one 13 has made the list. Karen. Are we number 13? Yes. Okay. Okay. We are number 13 among the 50 best places. For teachers in the U S. As calculated by. So that's, that's obviously a testament to not just the board, but of course. The teachers who, who make this place so great. And the final thing I want to mention is part of my report. I know we have big security. A general item to discuss is food pantries need food. And so we've, we've, as everyone knows, food inflation is high. You hear in the news how it's coming down, but the food price is still high. Snap benefits have been reduced. And so the Marine township is seeing an increase use for the pantry. Food equipment and supplies for the pantry

087are funded 100% from donations. They don't take. Taxpayers. It just comes from donations. So they take donations at the Marine township office, 800 central. Yeah. Yeah. And the food pantry is on highland park, Monday through Friday, eight 30 to four. We were four 30, we were asked to get the word out. We're happy to. Promote the word that the food pantry isn't. Yeah. I just want to add to that. We've mentioned that before. They do a wonderful job at the food pantry. They are running short this year. So. I encourage everybody to do that. And remembering that. Our students are. Beneficiary of the, of that food pantry. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just, it's just real important piece. And we really appreciate their work. Oops. West West. Yeah. Okay, great. Let's do it. All right. Those

088are the, those are the four he's received. And process since last week. Okay. Let's move on to discussion items. Discussion. Items. Eight. A security. Yeah. If you could pop up the slide deck. So. This. Is in response to discussions that the board has had both in public and closed session. And also in response to questions. That we've been getting about some security. Practices. So. I'm sure this is the way to start the discussion. Next slide, please. So this is, this slide was added. We. Initially on Friday, we put in a slide that was in response to questions we're getting in discussion. I know we're going to have, but then I got a request to try to list some of the improvements that have been made. Prior to this school year. These are the ones of

089course, that, that we. Share publicly. And I think it's important. As we've said in the past, these are layers of mitigation, if you will, that we, that we employ in order to create as schools that are as, as safe as, as possible. And so I don't know if the board board members are all aware of these, if there are any. Questions. We're happy to. To the extent we can, of course. Talk about them, but all these, these are. These are, these are. These are improvements that have been made before this school year, that. Are part of our security. Procedures protocols. Correct me if I'm wrong. Some of these were made after we had, after unfortunately July 4th and things that we were told we needed to help our security. We had a security audit. Correct.

090These are before that school year. Yeah. Because it was after our audit. Some of these things go back. Yeah. To 2018, some of these things. And, and as we look at these, remember that. These are. Some are somewhat specific, the specifics within each of these categories are part of our security program. And so those are. Covered in closed session or by the security staff. But it gives us a good flavor of the different categories of security that are covered. And some things are not on here. Of course. And of course there are lots of things that are not on here. But these things have been discussed in the past. All right. So there are some of the things that, and again, these are things that are. We discussed with the board in previous meetings. We

091had six additional security guards. These are our security people. We have a lot of people. Starting this year, all students, again upon arrival every day that has served us. Very well. If a door is propped open. After a certain period of time, short period of time. There is alert. The security personnel have been propped open. We have enhanced security camera capability. Can't really say much more than that. And we're also according to the elementary districts. You know, We've been working with a security consultant. And we've been coming up with a standard of care for all students. And I'm just district one 13, but all the elementary districts feed in district one 13. And we've been working with a security consultant in order to, in order to do that. All students scan in upon arrival every

092day. When we talked about that in the fall, we were doing that. So we're doing that to make sure that we're getting the right information right. So that the students, we knew what students were in the building. Correct. And so. Not just, not just. Which students from the building. What door they came in. Yeah. Thank you. There's a student we need to find. Correct. What student. But door that student came in, then we can use cameras to see where all that student went. Thanks for clarifying that. And so, if a student scans their ID and for some reason they are not, they are a student, but they're not supposed to be in the building that would notify the security or the front. Or if it's a student who's scanning in and we need to talk

093to that student before they enter the student body. Right. The student becomes flagged in our system. And when they scan in, they're stopped. And people will know that we're looking for a student because we need to talk to that student. Right. So we know at what point they entered, where they entered the building and we know what students are in our building. And that whole system was, she shouted out before to our IT department. But our IT, our internal IT department did a fabulous job of putting that system together. Very quickly. Yeah. And very effectively. Okay. All right. Next. Next question. Next question. Next slide, please. So here's some, some of these questions we've gotten. So I need to tee this up a little before we start discussion. These are districts that we always compare

094ourselves to, whether we're, you know, doing salaries, benefits, normal school things. We've got a list. This list, I think has been, I don't know how many years it's been here, but it's, it's here. It was here before I got here. And so I reached out to every superintendent on this list and I told them we're going to have this discussion. And I wanted to verify that this is their current practice, their current state. And also we said to them, this is, if you have any problems with us sharing this publicly, I'm happy to take your, take your district off the list. So in the North shore, especially, we, we have a, we have a group, we are, we continually are talking about security measures, things that we're doing, practices we're putting into place, things we're

095considering. I want to emphasize that this is current state. I have conversations with superintendents about things that they're considering, things that they might be implementing. And of course, can't share any of that here. But this is, this is the current state. So when people are talking about armed security, I wasn't quite sure if we're talking about SROs who are armed. We all have SROs. Armed security. That was one of the things that, that was set in motion before I left Hensdale. In addition to some other things, but Hensdale does have armed security. No district currently is using. No detectors. So that's just what that's saying, but there are a couple of things. We have, we can say, I think in open now, one is that. Before you. Yeah. So again, just for clarity. So the

096school resource officers have been in our high schools for quite some time. That's such an interesting question. Yeah. So again, just for clarity, so the school resource officers have been in our high schools for quite some time. And they are armed. They are in uniform. Yeah. Yeah. They are recognizable as Highland park. SROs recognizable as an SRO. That's the Deerfield. And the Deerfield. to understand an SRO is not just someone part of me walking around with a gun. An SRO is someone who is trained specifically for our student population, for our age, to be looking at things, but most importantly, from what I've understood from speaking to our SROs, it's the relationships that they build with our student population and with our, to be quite honest, sometimes with our parents. There are parents who reach

097out to our SROs to help with some of these things, so it's not just an armor. It's more, it's a more informed and educated person on school safety than just a security officer. All right, no, that's fine. So one thing that this ongoing conversation with we have, we have about the, have with the board about security, this is going to be a soon, very soon, a publicly known thing that we are going to be talking, talk to the board about ways that we could have increased security. One of the things that we're going to be, we're looking to do is to hire a director of security who is able to be in either school if the SRO is at training or is unable to be at the school. There are instances in which the SRO

098is pulled away, you know, as sick, as a sick child, you know, is at training, so we want to make sure that we always have that support. And so a director of security who is, has made certain complications would be able to provide that support to the schools and also would be able to oversee the security function. You know, there was a time when we had IT that we, you know, people were using computers, buying computers, and IT function has gotten to the place now that we now have a chief information officer who's overseeing it. And security may also be moving in that direction that we actually need someone to oversee that function. So that is something that we've discussed and will be putting together a job description and post-imposition because we need to have

099this, we'd like to have this person in place during the school year. Will that person also be in our halls, in our schools, on a daily basis? Absolutely. And at least somebody in that role, to my understanding, is consistent with the recommendations that really the most comprehensive state study from Michigan and from the Department of Homeland Security, that there be a district coordinator in that regard. So the other thing I wanted to mention is that graduation is fast approaching. It's such a wonderful event for both schools and parents and families. And we have the good fortune of being able to have graduation at Revenia. But graduation will look a little, feel a little bit different this year because of enhanced security measures. What we do this year for graduation in order to have greater security,

100we'll more closely follow what Revenia does for security. And one of the things that's specific to high schools is we will take tickets when people come in. It's not just a matter of showing us. Take tickets. We will, however, keep them. So families want them as a souvenir when they leave. We'll have them in a place where you can grab a ticket as a souvenir. But we want to make there things we need to do to increase security at graduation. We will be communicating these things as many times as possible so that families know what to expect when they come to graduation. So one of the things I wanted to ask about with respect to elders as we continue to do our work, Ken, you said the board is meeting on May 30th. And so

101we were trying to coordinate a date with our security consultant who could come and talk with the board about. And as you can imagine, he's in very high demand right now. But as we are preparing him for this discussion, I think it's worth discussing with the board as we continue to investigate and research and look into metal detectors is what the scope of metal detectors would be. Ms. Jorgensen is absolutely right. We do not live in an ideal world. We know that this problem that is not of our making is nonetheless at our doorstep. And if it's not at our doorstep, it's something that we worry about every single day. Every school teacher, every school administrator, every parent, every student every day is worrying about this. So we need to continue to try to make

102our schools as safe as we can make them. So when it comes to metal detectors, I would again, as we continue to work on this, we know that metal detectors can't just be at arrival. That's not going to work. So I really want to make sure I'm understanding the scope. If we say metal detectors of any type are going to be part of our strategies to make our schools safe, it would have to be at both schools. It becomes a standard of care that we employ. So it had to be at both schools. High schools are incredibly busy places. I was a focus on the arts opening night. I was a dance night. And so I assume that at every athletic field, every event we have, I mean, if we're doing metal detectors, it's everywhere,

103all the time, every door, any time, because we know from Columbine how important that is, that anytime someone's coming into the school for using metal detectors, they would have to be scanned. And we know it's not going to stop every, you know, you can ask them in Sandy Hook, we could prepare that list, talk about morbid, all these places and where metal detectors would have stopped it and where metal detectors would not have stopped it. That's not a report that anyone wants to present, but here we are. But I'm really curious. I want to make sure that we understand from the board, because when we're thinking metal detectors and working through this, it's every, everyone, everywhere, every day, all the time. Yeah. I mean, I think if you're going to do it, you're going to

104do it. I don't know how you do it halfway. It can't just be an arrival. That is not right. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yes, I do think it would need to be everywhere all the time. It's not the feeling that we want. I think sometimes we get lost in our own nostalgia of school. But if we want our kids to engage, if we want our teachers and everyone in the building to engage in school and feel comfortable being there during the school day, going to football and basketball events, I think it's necessary at this point to explore what that would look like. And that this also gets into some design issues. For example, Walters Field, Adams Field, we had to make sure that they were secure so you couldn't have people, I don't know about

105tennis courts, maybe those are okay. But right now, people can use our tracks, they run, they do things. But if we're going to do this, we'd have to have, we had to start closing these spaces off because there's risk and access to a space where something could be stored for later use. And there's a lot of public spaces around our spaces. And that opens up a whole other thing. I would like to, when we talk to the consultant, understand the different options there are for being able to scan people as they come through to look for weapons or look for harmful equipment because the other, yes, we need to make sure we can capture guns in backpacks. And we want to make sure that our adults that are going to adult education at night in

106our high school will still come to the high school at night and won't be deterred because there are now metal detectors there. We want to make sure that students do, students do still come to school and are not afraid to come to school because of metal detectors. There is a balance between the two. And so, and I do believe technology can potentially answer some of that. It's not an either-or. It's just one of the elements that I think has to be thought through to make sure that our buildings are as inclusive as possible to all of our students. Right. And when we say this, to be clear, we say metal detectors. This is like TSA-style metal detectors. There are a lot of other technological things out there. Well, we've done some of those other technological

107things. Yeah, that we are. And we continue as the technology continues to improve, we continue to research these other options. So maybe instead of metal detectors, because I don't think a TSA-style metal detector is really going to work. There's other technology. I think we need to look at all the options. I don't know if we need to go to the expert and the people who are to what I think we should be doing because none of us are security experts. And I think we need to look at the big picture of security as well. Security isn't just a wall. And that concept of security went out in the 13th century. And a wall is what we need. We need to make sure that we're using best practices in terms of gathering information, knowing what's going

108on in the buildings, being able to leverage technology and artificial intelligence to make quick, educated guesses sometimes. We need to have work on our communication constantly, not within the building, within our agencies, with the public, with our students, with our staff. And we need to continue to work and develop our assessment practices. And that's the, we need to be able to tell, we are committed to identifying kids who are at risk, who are in need of tier two or tier three interventions. This is part of that package as well. There's a safety component to that too. And we need to, we can't just have one size fits all fix. It has to be everything. So I want to be clear. This discussion is about what we're going to ask the security consultant to present to

109us. We've all gotten a lot of education on this. We've gotten internal stuff we've looked at. The community has done a great service in providing us with additional information and links. So it's all extremely useful, but we will never be the expert. So we've got, so getting an expert to come in and do this, as I said, we'll all educate ourselves as much as we can. But that's really what we need. We need people who know this subject backward forward. So piggybacking on that, and I don't know if you're able to or not, but the learnings and the findings and the feedback and the experiences that we're hearing about from the community and the questions and some of the learnings. Can you broadly talk about what we're doing with the tons of information that we're

110learning about? Not specifics, but what are we doing with the learnings and the information and how are we making sure that we're learning and acting off of what has happened? Well, anytime we have any level of incident, we always debrief it. And it's not just with the school in which it happens, but we talk to, you know, if it happens at Highland Park, we talk to Deerfield, we talk to Deerfield, we talk to Highland Park because we want to make sure that as a school community, we are learning from every incident. This, we had a significant debrief with the city of Highland Park, they include police, city manager, and, you know, obviously people from district. And there were several things that we were going to be changing that I think are going to improve how

111quickly we can provide accurate information. I mean, that's the key. It's got to be accurate, it has to be fast, but we can't sacrifice accuracy for speed. It's got to be accurate. So we try to get out accurate information as quickly as we can. The schools have done this, oh my goodness, for when they have safety team meetings, they do threat assessments, schools do this regularly. They're highly skilled. It's another layer, but one of the things that people understand is that unlike when we were in the pandemic, there was a virus that was a single virus, whether it mutated, of course, but that was causing all these issues. There are several ways, several things that we have to try to do in order to make school as safe as we can for students and staff.

112And the schools do an excellent job in their threat assessments. And they've got a team that's trained, and they're very practiced in this. And the assessments could be not just the dangers of someone doing violence at a school, it could be someone who's in danger, maybe committing suicide, or some conversation that makes us think we need to do an assessment to see if this student is actually safe. So I mean, I don't know if that's getting at what you're trying to say, but Debbie and Kathy know about all the, they can speak to how many threat assessments they do and the people who are involved and how good they are at it. But it's knowing our students and staff who know students and being able to, so it is one layer. It's not the only

113answer, but it is a very important part of this. Yeah, no, that's exactly what, that's exactly what I was asking. And as, so yes, I think to your question in the beginning about if we're looking at something at the front door at the beginning of the day, no, it can't end there. That's not when, that's not when it ends. I mean, we have to look at our schools, our buildings as a whole, not from first bell to last bell, because that's not what they are. The number of people that are in our buildings, not at that time. I mean, it's a broader conversation than just first bell to last bell. If the objective is to try to keep guns just from entering the school through a normal route, like through a door that people are

114passing through. I think it has to be, that's the objective. The scope has to match the objective. And this board has never, anytime we've brought a recommendation for a security enhancement that's involved cost, this board has never said no. We've never not made a recommendation because of cost. Cost is not the issue. We will have to figure it out. If we have recurring costs because of increased security, we'll figure it out. And that cost has never been the issue. We need to be effective. And I think as Anne said, maybe Dr. J, but we're creating a school culture. And we want to make sure that we are creating a school culture that is positive. But at the same time, there's nothing more, if people feel unsafe, what are we saying about school culture? This board

115has also never shied away from providing necessary funding for student interventions and mental health supports. I mean, that is a core, I view as a core, a core area that we've actually been very, very diligent. And those supports are much more effective in preventing bad things from happening than putting something in that's going to change where a man's shooting takes place. Instead of being in the cafeteria, it'll be in the lobby. I don't see the benefit there. I'd be interested from the security expert in when they've worked with other schools and with putting in this hard security at the front. Maybe I'm phrasing it that way. How have they addressed the other exit points that are only exit points like we have? Right now we have an alarm on the door if it's been held

116propped open for a period of time. I'd be curious what advice they give on that and then what advice they also give to schools then when they do put those hard security at the main points, how, what do they advise for schools with the windows and with other places where people can get things in? I just want to, again, nothing is 100% and no one is expecting it to be 100%. I would love to understand from the security expert how they're advising schools to handle those types of situations. And again, like we, I think that's that report you're alluding to, Dan, the Homeland Security report was like, yeah, was it the Michigan one? Both. But like literally 16 pages of the 32 pages were about threat assessment. Like how critical that was in the, in

117security for schools. And every single report I read was students that feel as if they have a home, say something or do something and or it also decreases shooters, but people don't want to hear that. And have the staff to back it up too, which we do. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. So even though we, security consultants coming May 30th, obviously we're working in the meantime. Continue to talk to my superintendent colleagues and we've got a board meeting on the 9th, but the board continues to follow up on this. We're always following up on this. I mean, but as I said, here we are the last week in April, we were really thinking about what school will look like when we, when we started in August and making sure that we have whatever it is we

118want to do, make the decision soon enough that those things are in place when school starts in August. When we think about what school will look like, you know, if we do go down the path of metal detectors, as we've talked about, it doesn't have to look menacing. My family went to Disney World over spring break and you would have never known that you were walking through metal detectors. And so I feel like there's a way where we can strike that balance of helping our community to feel safe when they're entering into the building while also making it so feel like a place that they aren't afraid to come to. And like, when I look at this comparable districts list, I could say as a parent, maybe 10 years ago, I would have looked at

119that and said, okay, well, I wouldn't want my kids to go to a school with a metal detector. Maybe that indicates, or with additional security that might indicate that there's something wrong. But I feel like now with where we are with what our community has been through, I'm okay with being on the forefront of this. I think that it might say something about our dedication to safety if we are. Okay. I'll just try and recap. Doesn't mean ends discussion. I just want to take notes. Just want to recap a couple of really good points. So in our August meeting, it was clear the investment that this district made to these dance points, to these points, the amount of money we put in for student engagement, for extra resources and counseling for our students. And it

120was effective and it continues on and it's a key part. The ID badges and some other security initiatives that are discussed in closed session were investments and our ongoing investments that this district makes. So just to highlight that again, that it's investments that we continue to make and always have. The consultant, we've referenced that a lot. I use the analogy of our architect. So this consultant has been our retainer. He works with other local districts. He's very knowledgeable. And I use the architect analogy because he is working with us on an ongoing basis. And then every once in a while, the architect comes and then presents the drawing or the status report in the proposal. So when we talk about him coming to the board, he's coming to the board to give an update. We

121are continuing to feed the administration our questions. We are not experts, but we have lots of good questions. We are parents, we're community members. And so those questions then get fed to our consultants to help build up for these periodic reports. He's not the only consultant we use. We are close contact with our local police departments. We're in contact with the Department of Justice. I personally have spoken with those folks when they were here. So we do a lot of homework and a lot of research with other experts on school security. In the big picture, other topics, technology, staffing, procedures, threat assessments, most of those things in detail are all discussed and closed, as I've mentioned before. We'll continue to do that. Metal detectors, we've talked a lot about it. We'll feed all that information.

122We'll get our experts to tell us there's a huge range. There's a lot of literature about it. Yes, and I've read a lot of it. It'll be interesting to see some of the range of responses and some things that we can take a look at. Did I cover all the major topics? Debbie and Kathy, as you have been doing, can you continue to feed to the board feedback that you're getting from staff and students about things that they are saying that they need in the short term as we work through this year to have them feel safe as well as be safe? That's helpful to help guide us as well. Thank you. And that leads back to the earlier discussion of kind of our conscious look at graduation, some other things. We want to make

123sure that our students and our families are thinking of that and thinking of ways to do that. Yeah, so what else do we have on this? Anything? Okay. Is that enough direction for you? Yes, healthy discussion. Will you guys have some direction? We'll continue to feed some questions and keep doing some work. Okay, 9B, move on then. 8B, we've already done. 8C, correct digital displays proposals for Highland Park High School Walters Field Scoreboards. Who's got this? Brian? Yes. So I think you're one too far around. Maybe not. So this item is about item B, please. Anyways, I'll keep talking. This item, this is an agreement between the District 113 and Highland Park Boosters to provide two additional scoreboards at Walters Field, one for the turf field and one for the baseball field. And so item

124B is to talk about that donation agreement. And then on the next one is item C. Okay, thank you, Ron. So this was reviewed at the Facilities Committee meeting. We talked about it. This is based on the Deerfield scoreboard agreement. So there's some minor differences, but it is kind of the standard that we're building. And so if there's any questions between the donation agreement and District 113, I'm glad to answer those. Well, it's great. We appreciate those boosters. It took a long time to work out the details and the various kinks and communication things with the Deerfield scoreboard. But it's wonderful that we're starting to get more comfortable. But we're getting better at this now. Couldn't have gotten a lot worse. And we have a framework for this going forward in the future for other

125improvements that can be made for our student athletes through the booster clubs, but also for our musicians and performers as well. I was going to say, Debbie, I did read that. So it had the palms in the chat. I'll put in a plug for the musicians who also are also part of the halftime and pushing that. So I'll let you put in a plug for them as well. And Paul Harris was at our Facilities Committee meeting. He was great just to kind of be there to answer the couple questions we had. But it's a great improvement. Once again, our schools are mirroring each other. We are two schools in one district. And we are so, so grateful and fortunate that our boosters can help us do these things without sacrificing other programs and things that

126our boosters do. This is just they've added another layer to their support of our students. And this doesn't only help our student athletes, it helps all of our students that ever touch a foot on Walters Field or the baseball field next to it. I forgot to mention some additional information. We're parallel pathing the approval. So one approval is the Board of Education. There's an expenditure. And the other approval is the City of Highland Park. And so we've been in communication with them for a very long time about this. And it'll be going to the City Council for approval. We're just in the kind of a lot of communication leading up to this point. And then again, the approvals are parallel pathing. So hopefully they get approved at the same time. Great. All right. No, skip

127my story. Okay. Item 8D. Move on to 8D, site work for Capital Improvement Plan. We kind of skipped, see, I kind of merged them, but it's the, kind of feel like I go backwards. It's the, this is the discussion item regarding the expenditure and how it parodies Deerfield. There are some minor differences. There's some contingency differences. There's a different delivery method, but it's the same item. So two different discussion points. He only has two meetings left, so he's kind of like losing a little bit. We'll get a lot of stories in this last meeting. Yeah. Come on. Any other discussion on the site work for Capital Improvement Plan by my esteemed colleagues? Any great insight that you may have, or you just got nothing to add? Nothing to add. Okay. Other than Brian did a

128fantastic job. As always, I'm just going to keep going on. So the site work is, it's something with our 2023 capital improvements project. So this is an item that we didn't approve with the bigger package because at Deerfield High School, specifically in the East lot, we've identified some opportunities for improvement with some underground utilities. And so we've chosen to delay that project and communicate with the village of Deerfield and to try to figure out some storm drainage information. And so we kind of changed the schedule around, but now it's time to bring that back to the board because we'd like to approve the site work, which does also include work at Highland Park. So that's why this is kind of off schedule. Okay. And this also came to the facility committee. Keep going. The last

129one is lead abatement. It's something that is again in the budget. It's something we plan for. This is really procedural to bring this here. We were very confident we can reduce the scope of work. Unfortunately, we have to get a steel contractor on board and we're running out of time. So we know that there's probably going to be a negative change order to this, but the theory is we approve the higher dollar amount and then we'll change order of the project and that money won't get spent. It'll be savings. And so we were trying to avoid that, but we're at the 11th hour. So we need to have this approved to continue the summer 23 infrastructure projects. So all those have come back for action items on May the they'll come back to the next

130board meeting. Is that enough time for you to get them as action items? Yes. And these have all been discussed in facilities. Yeah, correct. Okay. Who's got the athletic? Is that a Brian? Yeah. Thank you very much. Trying to get back on top of my game. 8F, 2023 athletic apparel and spiritwear bid. All right. So yeah, this is the last time we bid. This was I think four, three to four years ago. So the contracts are for real. This is for athletic spareware apparel equipment by law required to bid items that are over total annual spent over $25,000. And the only vendor that responded was DSN. And we did make sure that the contract or the response is exactly the same as our current contract that is ending. So the bids are not based on

131the price of the products based on the discount. Now, that's the only vendor that, yes, responded and we did check with athletic directors and they had a really good experience dealing with BSN. And we do get additional rebate options. If we go over the threshold of $200,000, 6% and then it goes down as a spent lower. Now, the spent history, current year, we did go over the $200,000 because this does not include any certain activity span or booster span. So the rebates is based on the overall span. So these are just local funds which the district spent the last three years, 22, 23 in the last couple of years. So happy to take questions. I just have one observation that this is so different than what this function looked like when I first joined. Yes.

132There is now a regularized process. There's a central contract that has fiscal oversight rather than basically every school, every coach kind of acting as a free agent. We don't pay enough attention to the little things like this, but this is a big, this is vast improvement over what it was just four years ago. Right. Because before we had two vendors and one vendor, we were getting more discounts compared to the other vendor. Now it's a combined purchase, which also gives us the benefit of spending more than a couple of hundred thousand dollars to earn that 6% rebate when improving some activity funds. So yeah, definitely we save a lot of money and all that because we have a person who is an excellent job doing not just this, but everything. So yes. This is an

133incredible improvement. And I think like Dan said, not only is it that it's all centrally located, but the transparency of it all is lovely. And I thank you and your team for doing it this way. We shouldn't have everyone, as you said, working as a free agent. With their own side deals. With their own side deals or however that was done and that this also our men and women's teams will be treated equally because it is all from the same group. So I thank you for that. And I have to believe our coaches like it better because they don't have to spend their time trying to negotiate deals for their uniforms. Okay. Move on to item nine B recommended the board of education approve the third amendment to guaranteed energy savings contract as presented. May

134I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. And discussion. This is a feasibility study. Right. This is approving them to do a feasibility study to determine if the board wants to, to what extent, scope I mean, approve solar panel. Correct. This is to do the structural analysis and, you know, based on the structural analysis and working with Brian and his team, they will be a final, you know, like solar proposal present. Correct. I just, we had a really good discussion about it at the finance meeting. We had a good discussion last board meeting. I just wanted to make sure we take a moment in discussion to clarify that this is the hundred thousand dollar feasibility study. Even though the body of the agreement that we're approving talks about an 11 million dollar project, we have

135to make sure that we are all aware that when we read this, this is the commitment we are making. And I was just informed today that the earthworks club in Deerfield is really excited about this project. All right. I just want to make sure that it's on the record and it's very clear that that's what we are. The agreement, the agreement covers the whole scope. It's the amendment. The commitment is to the consulting portion of this. Correct. Okay. Any other discussion? And roll call. Ms. Elliot Schremer. Aye. Mr. Heidemann. Aye. Ms. Newman. Aye. Ms. Shapira. Yes, please. Mr. Strzok. Aye. Mr. Barraza. Aye. Mr. Fishbay. Motion carries. It's recommended that the board of education approve an increase for technology fees from $40 to $100 and eliminate the $40 fee for Chromebook repairs for FY24. Is

136there a motion? So moved. Second. Second. And discussion. What I'm going to just encourage us to do moving forward are two things. One, that because you are so awesome at putting processes in place and making sure that we review all things regularly, that we review our technology fee on a regular basis. And two, that in situations like this, and any fee like this, maybe in the future it makes sense to stair-step, to do a rollout. I think something like this makes sense to start with freshmen and sophomore and not necessarily impact juniors and seniors at this point because they have three to four-year-old Chromebooks. Not changing this now from $60 to $100 is not worth that effort. But I think as we move forward and we're looking at fees, that might be something we look

137at is how old is something that an upperclassman has? And does it make sense for us to do a rollout versus one-size-fits-all for everyone? Point well taken. Actually, we did look into that after your comment at the last board meeting. And Ron, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe the cheaper devices are currently with seniors. That is correct. Our juniors, sophomore, and freshmen all have the higher-end devices. So that's actually a perfect year to transition into- Perfect. Great. Thank you for your- Yeah. No, and again, just as we think through things. So, fantastic. And Ron, thanks for that voice from the sky and all the work you do for us in running these meetings. I haven't got a laugh out of Catherine. That was a- All right. A roll call, please. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms.

138Newman? Aye. Ms. Shapiro? Yes, please. Mr. Strzok? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Ms. Elliott-Shermer? Aye. Mr. Fish-Pane, motion carries. It's recommended Board of Education accept the bid for office and instructional paper from Garvey's office product, Niles, Illinois, in the amount of $24,434 for the 2023-2024 school board year. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? Ms. Roll call. Ms. Newman? Aye. Ms. Shapiro? Yes. Mr. Strzok? Aye. Ms. Barraza? Aye. Ms. Elliott-Shermer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Mr. Fish-Pane, motion carries. Item E, it's recommended Board of Education approve the settlement agreement for student 2021-08 as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Roll call. Ms. Shapiro? Please. Mr. Strzok? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Mr. Elliott-Shermer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Mr. Fish-Pane? Aye. Motion carries. Item F, it's recommended Board of

139Education approve the amendment to the July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2024 superintendent contract as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. And a second? Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Strzok? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Ms. Elliott-Shermer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Ms. Shapiro? Yes, please. Mr. Fish-Pane? Aye. Motion carries. Next is the consent agenda. Board member may pull any item for separate consideration. Does any board member wish to pull an item off the consent agenda for separate consideration? It's recommended the consent agenda be approved as listed. Is there a motion? So moved. Second? Second. And Rick did the bills. And Rick? I reviewed several bills. Everything was in order. Excellent. Any other discussion? Like that. Good job. Any other discussion? Rick, you're going to have to unbill it every time. Yeah.

140All right. I heard it. Yes. Might be an audit issue, but okay. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Ms. Elliott-Shermer? Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Ms. Newman? Aye. Ms. Shapira? Yes, please. Mr. Strzok? Aye. Mr. Frischbein? Aye. Motion carries. It's recommended the Board of Education move into closed session to consider information regarding the placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters relating to individual students, security procedures, school building safety and security, and the use of personnel and equipment to respond to an actual or threatened or reasonably potential danger to the safety of employees, students, staff, the public or public property. There will be no action after closed session. There's our motion. So moved. Is there a second? Second. And roll call. Ms. Newman? Aye. Ms. Shapira? Yes, please. Mr. Strzok? Aye. Mr. Barraza? Aye. Ms. Elliott-Shermer?

141Aye. Mr. Heineman? Aye. Mr. Frischbein? Motion carries. We'll take a five-minute break and then we will return for close.