001Good evening. I'd like to call to order the board meeting for January 15th. Uh, can I get a roll call, please? President Wesowski, >> here. Vice President Boyd. 14 here. McFerson. Neil >> Here. Sanchez here. Also present are Dr. Salmi, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Vanvour, Mr. Elako, Mr. Grass, Mr. Kaya, Miss Moran, and Muska. Excellent. Have forum. So, if you would join me in saying the pledge of allegiance, please. [laughter] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you everyone for being here. And just a word of caution, just to be frugal with the district's money, we made a switch with our board software. So this is the first meeting we're
002having fully on the new softwares. We if we have a couple kickoffs, uh bear with us. We are learning a new system, but as we tell our students, we can do hard things, right? We can learn new things. We've got this. Um so Laura tell me if I miss anything. Okay. >> Y >> All right. Um I need a motion for the board of education to approve the agenda as presented. Moved >> by Cynthia. Second. Second by Gina. Any questions or concerns for the approval of the agenda? Roll call vote, please. >> Neil, >> hi. >> I peritch. >> Hi. >> Sanchez. >> I. >> President Wesowski. >> Hi. >> Vice President Floyd. >> Hi. >> 6 I. Zero Naz caps. >> Motion carries. All right. So, now for the fun part, and I suspect
003while most of you are here, is our great pleasure. Um, this one of our favorite things of the year is to uh recognize our person of the year and all of the nominees. Um, we're thrilled to have everyone. It's really, um, it's always such a hard decision. We love reading through all of the nominations. Um, so we want to take a moment to thank everyone who actually took time out of their uh busy life to nominate their uh favorite teacher um employee, you know, their their colleagues. It really is just wonderful and we get a um a wide range of nominations. We get some from parents and community members and students and um colleagues. So, we really are grateful for all of those. Um we're going to um call you guys up by name. Um,
004Phil will hand you we have a certificate here. Um, while you guys are coming up, I'm going to read just a few sentences from the nomination letters. Um, and then we'll take some group pictures um, uh, at the end there. So, to get started, I'd first like to recognize Jacob Vanbore. Uh this was said about Jacob through though most of his effort takes place behind the scenes, his impact is felt daily by every teacher, student, and parent in Westchester public schools. Under Mr. Vanour's leadership, the district has achieved remarkable progress in technology, integration, and efficiency. What truly sets Jacob apart is his humility. He does not seek recognition for the countless hours he devotes to keeping our systems running smoothly. Yet his steady leadership allows people allows everyone else to do their work without disruption.
005His dedication, professionalism, and genuine concern for students exemplify the very best of district 92 and next we have Todd Jacob. from his nomination letter. Working with Todd is wonderful. If I'm having a bad day, Todd will find the positive ray of light and remind me about it. He finds the good in everything and doesn't let any anything get him down. Todd is a strong leader for the entire district and he is always happy to jump in when needed. Has Todd been working for 17 hours straight having to plow and shovel snow? No problem. You will never hear him complain. Uh, next, Elizabeth Cananan. Miss Khan consistently sets high expectations for her students, planning lessons that will push her students to grow while also taking time to get to know their interest and passions. I love
006hearing Miss Ken Cannon ask students passing by in the halls about a baseball tournament, a favorite show, a hot topic from class, a beloved pet, or any number of tidbits of personal information. She takes the time to get to know about her students, and her students know she cares about them. Joy McDall Joy is amazing at helping the kids feel comfortable and at ease. They can relax and be less self-conscious about their speech issues, which then allows them to succeed. Joy is also happy to lend support to any staff who may need assistance with a child who is having a difficult time during the day. WPS is a better place because of Joy and her compassion to both students and staff. Uh, Caitlyn Mton or Katie Menone as we know her. Social work is Caitlyn's
007life mission and her passion is supporting students. She brings phenomenal energy to the workplace and is motivated to help students grow. Staff and students continue to look up to Caitlyn for support, guidance, and advice. What makes Miss M Miss Minton truly special is her genuine kindness and unwavering commitment. She makes sure every child has the support they need, advocating for resources and services or simply offering a comforting word or a place to reset. Miss Menone puts her heart into everything she does. Trisha Tomzac Trisha has a passion for teaching and is evident in the classroom every day. She goes above and beyond to teach classroom routines and structures at the beginning of the year. Her students know the expectations and she is unique and creative making learning fun. Numerous staff members also seek her advice
008and input for matters both in and out of the classroom. She is constantly reflecting on her teaching and making improvements based on what her students need. Um, and the the entire WPTC executive board. >> I think there's seven [laughter] of you, right? Six, seven of you. I don't have the names. Got it? jurious help. >> There's there's names on us, aren't there? >> There's one, >> Bill. [laughter] >> All right. All right. While he's sorting that out, I will read from their letter. This group of enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers consistently goes above and beyond to support service students, staff, and families. Always showing up with smiles on their faces in a spirit of service. The WPTC is a cornerstone of our school community, working endlessly to create a positive and engaging environment for all. From
009organizing beloved events like classroom parties, fall dances, and end of the year field days across all three schools to coordinating volunteer efforts, their impact is farreaching and deeply appreciated through events such as walk-athon, trivia night, and various restaurant fundraisers, which are always a favorite of my household. They raise vital funds that are reinvested directly into our schools. Their generous support sponsors field trip, transportation, family engagement nights, and so much more. Ensuring that every dollar benefits the students and enhances their educational experience. As you can see, with those amazing nominations, it was really hard to pick a winner, but we have to pick one. So this year our winner in 92 and a half district of person person of the year is Alicia Blair. So reading from Alicia's nominations um she challenged the students to think
010outside of the box and to work together as a team. Watching my son gain confidence and friendships through this program was priceless and I thank Mrs. Blair for this opportunity. When in Kansas City for Destination Imagination, I saw her stop what she was doing to help students from other schools from other countries carry their props. What a great example to our children. She continuously supported them and showed them how to be outstanding citizens amongst other children from around the world. She encouraged our children to approach and introduce themselves to students from other countries. Whenever our children have her as a teacher, we feel incredibly lucky. She brings passion, creativity, and a deep understanding of her students needs into the classroom every day. And finally, um her support and how well she motivated us was enough
011to keep us going and pursuing that goal of making it to the next level in destination imagination. At one point, the student even considered quitting. But he thought, "What would Mrs. Blair think? What would she want me to do?" To this very day and forward, her persuasion and motivating words will continue to change my choices in education and how I pursue my career. >> For some pictures here, >> and we will get to honor It's a later at our hopefully at the Westchester community dinner once we figure out. [applause] >> All right. So now moving on on our agenda, it's time for our first uh opportunity for audience comments. Okay. Seeing none, >> we'll move on to action um on the consent agenda. Um I need a motion for the board of education to approve
012the consent agenda as presented. >> Cynthia, >> uh Cynthia >> and Jared. Perfect. As a reminder, the consent agenda are those items uh who that are routine in nature that are approved in one motion unless uh removed by a board member before um the vote. And tonight we have the personnel report which includes a groundskeeper resignation, a teacher retirement, and a bus aid approval as well as Oh, no. And as well as the the board meeting minutes uh open and close of December 11th. Any questions or concerns? Okay. Roll call vote, please. >> Vice President Boy. >> Hi. >> Neil. >> Hi. >> Marta. I Par. >> Sanchez. >> Hi. >> President Mazowski. >> Hi. >> Six. I zero nays. One absent. >> Motion carries. All right. Next. Um, I need a motion to open
013discussion. The board of education to approve the bills and claims. in the amount of $623,170.73 and payrolls in the amount of $1,72,57183 an authorized payment moved >> by Gina second by Rose. >> All right, Dennis, anything you want to highlight for us here? Uh the only thing I would say worth mentioning we did get a payment of roughly 40% of our educational fund money that was due in August the number thought originally it was a good sign but was just an easy number for them to distribute to all the tax districts not out of the woods without questioning other people >> what whether April is going to be >> in and behind the scenes Just so you know, um Dennis and I have been uh in like a cohort of superintendent, uh business officials from
014Cook County, like they're kind of joining forces to put the pressure, >> okay, >> on the county to get us answers. So, it's an ongoing battle. They're going to have a hearing next couple weeks and they're looking for super, you know, for people districts to speak. No, it's not going to it's not it's impacting every district in Cook County. >> Right. Right. >> So, they're not going to let it go. >> So, have they given us any insight of how much from the is it the November bills have been collected? Do we have any sense about what >> all the money the payments are coming in should be? >> Okay. they've switched accounting systems and they cannot figure out how to appropriate distribute money. >> Okay. >> And I should note that if you took
015our fund balances as of the end of November and backed up all the payments that we issued in December up through payments down to about three months worth of fun. continue to operate for about another 3 months and then it would have been luckily we did get >> okay any other questions for Dennis? >> Nothing. >> No. No. And like how do you think we have another >> I'm hopeful they the only problem here is they can't figure out how to distribute the collections within the town should be people working on this day and night hopeful people are just speculating. >> Okay. But I I do want to just that's what you know what's going to happen is they're going to continue to get this pressure from all these districts telling the story. I'm three
016some people are going to be one month people are going to be done. They're going to be running negative. So >> they've got to address it. They've got a whole you know >> because we have healthy uh fund balances luckily you know >> we do a lot of districts have issued tax participation not already. when it comes to election, you know, people don't forget, you know, being put out like this. >> We we got very fortunate that we do have healthy reserves, which is why I can tell you December, we still had operating money sitting on our our bank account. also got extremely fortunate and that the township treasur did take on a couple of of additional districts to increase our numbers and when they transferred those fund downs and the township treasury then had
017that money up into long-term funds. So, we had cash available, not have to liquidate any of that. Investments at the time treasurer. Every other township treasurer that I've spoken with have they've had to liquidate investments. Got really lucky. One, we have healthy fund balances. And two, we had an input to cash about two months prior to this issue. Really problematic. And our treasurer put it received short-term CDs as opposed to long-term just really >> a lucky lucky guess for us. >> I don't know if he knew it was coming or what, but I don't know why he did that, but it was it was a really good. >> Any other questions before we go? Okay. Roll call vote please. >> I President Oowski. >> Hi. >> Vice President Boyd. >> I Neil. >> Hi. >>
018Ortiz. I six I z. Motion carries. >> Um we had a really short meeting. So that was the last of our action items was discussion. So we have um >> information items. Uh correspondence. We did receive, we've received quite a few uh thank you notes from staff members via email. Um and then we also have this one that we'll pass around uh which is another thank you card for the Amazon gift cards that was sent. I don't know which way to go [laughter] with that. Uh that was sent from the uh from the district around the holiday winter break. Then a foyer request. We had one foyer request in December. Thank you, Laura, um for handling that. And I can see like we'll have a quite a few more in January. Um unfortunately, a good
019number of them feels like they might be bots. I'm not sure. It really seems crazy, but um Laura settles them professionally and appropriately, even if it might be a bot. Um board president's report. Just um one quick thing to note. I think it is still on the agenda that um Reviso District 209 is having a um joint meeting so that we can send two representatives um from each feeder school so that we don't violate the open meetings act and have to have our own board meetings there. So as president vice president Stephanie and I will be attending. Um we haven't I haven't seen an agenda yet. So, if when we get it, we'll send it out in case there's something that you want to um make sure we ask about um or anything you want
020us to share, we can do that. But we'll come back and report back. I think the goal is just to have the feeder districts of the high school kind of sit down and um talk about ways we can collaborate. I'm hoping will be the um on the agenda, but as soon as we send the see the agenda. >> When is meeting? >> It is next Wednesday. It's next Wednesday, 6:00 to 8. >> So, we will see. Hopefully, we'll get an agenda out um shortly. Um we can let you know about that. >> See, >> um legislative report, Cynthia. >> Yes. Okay. So, um here we find ourselves looming on another government shutdown. >> Yep. I feel like we were just here, right? >> Um January 30th. um if if they don't, you know, come together,
021then we're going to have a shutdown. And so what does that mean for us? What that means for schools and most of our funding is Illinois based. So it won't necessarily impact us right now, but it'll make budgeting difficult. Have that in there. Um because we may be facing a 15% uh budget cut. Um and also with how they moved um the department of education to the labor department, there's a lot of confusion with who's talking to who and communications. Uh so there's that and then there's um idea turning 50 >> years old and so they had made a uh promise congress had made a promise to um share the funding of IDEA 40% from federal um funds and so in Illinois we got 15 of 19 representatives um on board. So, um that's exciting
022and it's continuing to move through Congress so that we can keep sharing the idea funding. Um there was some some uh legislation for student privacy and they focused on student digital privacy. So like in the portals, you know how sometimes I think even we've been hacked, right, where it's like, hey, be careful hackers got your information. So FURPA um is um passing some legislation to protect um student digital privacy in the schools like on those border portals and then excessive screen use where um it's the NTIA that's saying that schools are encouraging excessive screen use. So, they're looking into that and uh trying to see what's excessive and what's acceptable. Um, also for mental health and take this with a grain of salt because um it the Department of Education, who's now the Department of
023Labor, said that they were going to um have $28 million in grants for mental health. But um there was two caveats to that and one was that they had to hire um psych school psychologists instead of like c counselors or social workers. Um and there was there the eligibility rules. Um, oh, and they had to avoid certain terms of gender ideology, political activism, racial racial racial stereotyping in their mental health program. So, those were the eligibility requirements. Um, and then there's a whole bunch of laws that I put um down here. Download new school laws. There is a ton, like hundreds. And so I have them there for you to look at at your leisure. Um >> cool. >> And then you know, Phil, I was thinking that maybe what we should include in this
024report are maybe some of the legislation that you guys are working on. Like I noticed uh Miss Delako with the school calendar that there was some talk about uh turning November 3rd, is it November 3rd into a federal? >> We don't know if it is or not yet. >> Right. We've been we've been >> that you know that's something that is legislative and are you guys working on anything else >> legislatively >> like that we have to comply with >> there uh you know like this the one thing that we've got to work on is an AI policy I know that that's something legislatively we got to get in line because it you know January 1st >> um >> a lot of new laws coming soon so we usually wait for our our law firm
025to >> they'll update and everything we need to do to get right with our laws and then >> we start updating our policies. Yeah, that's a good idea. >> Yeah. And it's there. The laws are there. >> Yeah. >> Right. Thank you, Cynthia. Any questions for Cynthia for the legislative report? >> All right. So, Rose, Iv coach, is there anything this month? >> There is nothing this month. We're waiting for information to come out for the spring meeting. So, that should be in the next month or so. We should start doing stuff. Okay. Um, we always leave space here for board representative reports. I don't think there's been anything really with the break. Anything really happening with those, but anything anyone wants to share. Okay, then Phil's all yours. >> Okay, just really quick. Uh,
026it's been a smooth first couple weeks back. Happy to see everyone. Uh, we're finishing map testing. I think PS is finishing like today or tomorrow, but we should be done. Um, the other two buildings finished. So once we can get completely done that we can get our reports and get those out. Uh we are meeting with the strategic plan task force next Thursday night um that is going to be finalizing some of the language for feedback. I sent it out to the task force to our parents who showed up. I've been feedback and we're going to work through that. Um you mentioned calendar we are starting calendar discussions. So in February at their meeting in February, we'll start showing you um some suggestions for next year's calendar. Uh we are you know we been talking
027with proviso um and the other feeder schools about their calendar. So that kind of gives us an idea and then we you know do things around PD days and institute days here. So we'll we'll start that discussion but we are starting to collect feedback from the different stakeholders. Um the next board meeting is a state of the school. It's our first state of school that will be WMS. So they'll be going um it's going to be kind of the same format. They're going to be you know I I think if there's any hot topics that you are going to anything has changed from last year. I know, you know, talking about differentiation, talking about small groups, talking about the different levels of students, seeing, you know, that's things they're going to talk about the the
028data that they're that they that they received from um going through those reports. They'll be talking about the winter map and then they'll be talking about the current state of actual school. So, there's anything else that you're interested in, let us know. And then finally, what's kind of cool and hopefully if you, you know, are a Bear fan, then this is kind of a fun time. Uh, Bear Fever is definitely running through the buildings. I know, but you know, we're trying to be understanding, although a little, they're a little too nice cuz I'm like, let's just make it bear day. But they're like, "Oh, it's favorite team." [laughter] So, or orange or blue. So, you know, I promise if they keep going, we will be making a bear day. [laughter] Tough luck, Packer F, whatever.
029But it it's it's kind of, you know, it's kind of cool to to see everyone come, you know, like come together. I think it's good for a city and it's cool for for everybody. Everyone kind of feels happy. >> There's something new. And a cool thing about this Sunday is we're off on Monday, so you know, >> and it's a late game, so people will >> be ready. >> That's my report. >> Excellent. Questions for Phil on his report? All right, then. administrator reports. We have them um from all the administrators. Uh thank you for everyone for submitting those. They're always helpful to get a gauge of what's happening in the the buildings and in the departments. Um any questions for those that are here? And if you have a question for someone who's not
030here, we can ask that and get it get back to to you on that. Any questions about the administrator reports? Okay. Stephanie, I had a question about um on the the the goal one, so the ensuring our students experience have success with our winter benchmarking. Can you give us an update of like where we are in that process and what like when it talks about the data discussions is that like at the building level, grade level, how does that really >> So we have um like uh we have one more day of today was the last day I think kindergarten um is math testing. We are testing kindergarten early this year. Um they usually wait till the spring, but we are testing them in ELA and um math award for that gifted curriculum piece that
031we're looking at. >> And now we don't have to rush to get all the math students ready um in fall because we literally turned that over in a week. So fast bridge testing has been done or Gillingham testing everything has been done. Um tomorrow Jacob's going or he's closed it. We're going to start running reports and get it up into parent square hopefully by today, but definitely by Monday, the latest. >> Um, >> was there any feedback on the parents getting that first round of fall map that way? >> Nothing. I haven't said anything. I didn't get any complaints or any That's great. Well, no, I did get one. That's great. [laughter] >> But other than that, I mean, and it it stays in their phone. So, I mean, they can always access this until
032they're no longer our students. >> Okay. Um and then the schools will send home the parent report part. So and we because we can't do that in parent square. I'm sorry then what was the second part of your question? >> Um for the data discussions that take place on February 5th. >> Yes. That's that's building that's uh >> it's building level and the state of the schools kind of builds in you know they're they're having those discussions because they're preparing for that but then that lead from February 5th. It's happening at team meetings and then silk meetings and then at their building. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> Anybody else have questions? >> Nothing. All right. Uh then that brings us to our um >> that's audience. >> Yeah. Our second audience comment. Thanks for letting
033us be here. [laughter] >> You're always welcome. >> Oh, Hunter, you know, Hunter fun. [laughter] >> Got to do it for Scout. So, he's having >> I said tonight something. >> I said tonight tonight might be kind of a boring one, but maybe come back next month. [laughter] >> All right. So, moving on to close session. Um, I need a motion for the board to retire into close session to discuss the appointment, employment, conversation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees, a litigation when an action against affecting or on behalf of a particular public body has been filed or when the public body finds that an action is probable or imminent, in which case the basis of the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the coast meeting and collective negotiating matters
034between the district and its employees or representatives. in student disciplinary cases in matters related to individual students. >> Moved by Cynthia. >> Second. >> By Stephanie. Questions or concerns? Okay. Roll call vote, please. >> Sanchez. >> I. Presidentski. >> Hi. >> Vice President Boyd. >> I Pearson. >> I. >> Neil. >> Hi. >> Ortiz. I Pic. >> I seven I zero. N zero absent. >> Motion carries. The board is at close session at 6:37. >> All right.