001the CCSD21 July 24th 2025. That should be August. We are in August, aren't we? >> August 21st, 2025 regular board of education meeting is called to order. Uh Doug Mara, would you please take attendance? >> Yes. Jessica, >> I'm here. Daniel >> here. >> I am here. Carrie >> here. >> Arlin >> here. >> Bill >> present. >> We have a >> Thank you. Would everyone please rise for the pledge? >> 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. >> All right. Thank you. Welcome again everyone. Um I'd like to welcome Sheri Clump from the Wheeling Park District. Thank you again for attending our meetings. Um any individual physically present tonight
002wishing to address the board must complete a comment card and provide it to Miss Bender. Uh any written public comments may also be submitted by emailing us at district21cccsd21.org. Uh, I just want to welcome everyone to our first board meeting of the new school year. To our new and returning staff, our students, and our families, we are so glad you're here. And I know my children are rolling their eyes as I say, but I am truly excited to start another school year. Like many years before, last year brought its share of challenges. And while I'm sure this year will as well, I actually I believe we are getting stronger at recognizing our obstacles and addressing them with thoughtful and data-driven strategies. And remember, we're not chasing perfection. We're aiming for progress. Mistakes will happen, but
003each one is a step in our learning journey. I said this Tuesday at Teacher Institute, but it bears repeating. Here's to another year of collaboration, civic engagement, meaningful partnerships, and the shared goal of making District 21 the very best it can be. All right, let's jump into our agenda. This is super fun agenda item. We are going to welcome and introduce our new student board uh representatives. Uh to give you a little bit of history and background, this is the third year we've had this program and we are continuing to refine and improve the experience for both the students and the board. This year we had a very impressive and large candidate pool to choose from. Each candidate completed an application process identifying their interest, their perspective of the program, their ability to carry out
004their duties, and each submitted two letters of recommendation. Then Debbie and I met with the candidates from each group uh from each middle school in a group interview and had some really excellent candid discussions with them about how they would go about reaching student voices beyond their friend or peer group and instances where they've advocated for a cause or a change regardless of the success or outcome. And I know Debbie will agree with me that we were impressed with the poise, the valuable insight, and the deep consideration each student presented. This summer, I also met with Dr. Connelly and Chris Lapatino about our expectations for this year of the program. The student representatives provide us with valuable information and insight on their school experience and bring a perspective to the board as we make decisions
005impacting their education. This year, our representatives will be expected to stay for the duration of our board meetings approximately till about 8:30 or so, uh, which generally should be our whole meeting, so that they can get a better idea of the civic process we use and the issues that we deal with and hopefully even offer their own insight. And where possible, we will try to align your monthly topic uh with something relevant in our agenda. Uh, and always we will encourage you to ask questions and participate in discussion with us. So, let's welcome our new representatives. Please come up as I call your name and take your seat. From Cooper Middle School, we have Alex K. From Holmes Middle School, we have Selma C. And from London Middle School, we have Welcome. Welcome to the
006board table. Um, I'll ask you to please introduce yourself, maybe share with us a little bit about what you did this summer and what your hopes and expectations are for this coming year of the representative program. So, Selma, if we could start with you. >> Hi. Uh, my name is Selma and One hope I have or I'm representing Holmes Middle School and one hope I have is to um give as many as perspective and opinions of students of homes as I can give to the board. >> Did you do anything fun this summer? >> I traveled a lot. >> Great. Great. All right. Thank you. Okay, good evening. My name is Alex Kumov and I'm the student representative for Cooper Middle School. I wanted to be a part of the board because I wanted to
007make school a better and more inclusive environment for everyone. And this summer I went to Miami and Key West. Um, good good evening everyone. My name is Fed Salami. the board representative for London Middle School. I wanted to become a board member so I can let the student body's voice be heard and and and their perspectives be heard of what things they would like to change and what things they don't like and like about school. Something I did over the summer was I went to Michigan and I went to a lot of birthday parties. >> Sounds like great summer. We are so excited to have you join us. Um, does anyone have any questions for our representatives? >> Welcome. >> We certainly will. All right. Um, let's move along to announcements and celebrations. Um, Dr.
008Connelly, >> thank you and good evening. Um we uh as we have started to do uh frequently at the beginning of our board meetings, we'd like to uh do some celebrations of some uh things that are really going well for the district and and highlight the dedication of many members of our staff and and and the different uh contributions that they make uh to allowing our district to be a place where our students thrive. So, um I first wanted to start off by just noting the number of really amazingly successful um back to school uh events that we had over the summer. Um and um you know between uh registration uh fairs uh between uh being at Tuesday night market and really trying to get information out there uh but then also being at the
009um uh national nights out uh for our for our towns. Um you know there's a lot of different points of contact that we have tried to make over the summer um with our community and and with our families. Um, but two uh that I wanted to highlight in particular and we've got a couple of slides. I'm going to ask um Janelle and and Amy is Amy still to come on up so we can kind of talk about two events. Our Literacy on the Lawn and then our back to school bash. >> Good evening. Thank you for a few minutes to celebrate some of the things that have been going on. I'm a little nervous to follow the excellent students that have joined the board. Uh thank you for being here. Uh Amy and I are
010going to just speak real briefly and show you just a few pictures from the event. if you weren't able to be with us. So, I'm going to let Amy kick us off and talk a little bit about Literacy on the Lawn. >> Good evening. Um, I am very excited to talk about literacy. Um, uh, this summer we expanded our partnership with Indian Trails Public Library um, and our family learning program to offer our very first annual um, Literacy on the Lawn 2025. um on July 28th. It was a very warm event in the high 90s, but we had over 320 students and families um participate in the event. It was it was to say the least a wonderful event and the library instantly asked us to partner with them again. So, we'll we'll expand that
011into next year. We had um a puppet show that um students and families um participated in. Um we had a multilingual story walk that went through the park, Horizon Park outside. um that ended with a sweet treat from Kona um from Kona Ice. Um the library sponsored a scavenger hunt throughout the library as well as throughout the park. And um families also got to pick students got to pick a book in the language of their choice um as well as they got a picnic blanket um to take home as well. So, we are super excited about um the partnership that we're going to extend into this year with all of our literacy nights um and our continued um partnership with um our um family learning program and building literacy within the district. >> And just
012a shout out to the library, they had a table of crafts where the kids could also make bookmarks and bags and they had the scavenger hunt. It was just um there was always something a parent and a kid could be doing together while they were even waiting for the puppet show to to go on and it was just a great night. Uh you can see on the slide the numerous people who helped pull the event off. And um so the other big event that we wanted to also talk about was our back to school bash that just happened on the 7th. And again, this was a um a relatively tight turnaround for us this year, but we had many wonderful partners who came from the community to support the event, including the park district, including
013the Indian Child's Library again, uh Walmart Vision and Glasses. They were out of the bags they had brought within moments and um it was just a fabulous opportunity for families to come. It was another warm evening um but we did great and we were able to still host and be outdoors. We had um did I skip one? We had lovely entertainment from a local mariachi group, from a local folk dance group which just brought so much live liess to the event. We had many many mascots represented and um those many mascots were very appreciated by all the children who would run up and want to take pictures and want to hold hands and it was fantastic and balloon folks and face painting and we had a photo booth where families could come and put props
014on and take pictures together. So, it was quite a great opportunity to not only get a backpack for many, but be able to engage in some of these family activities together as well. Again, we were able to give some Kona ice for friends. And so, there were 950 cups of Kona Ice that were given out that evening, 519 backpacks, and uh we counted 1438 people on our clicker, but we could not keep up with our clicker. So we we know there are probably more than what we were able to do but we felt like it was a very nice turnout for this event and again looking forward to an annual piece. I just wanted to put up a quick slide and ask a few people to stand. So if Norba Egalar and Donna Anderson and
015Nora Molina would stand up. Thank you these ladies. These ladies are the powerhouse force behind the things that get done in the district and the support that we provide to families and uh parents. They are our family leaison and our family learning program liaison. And right behind them ladies so much um Alyssa, Anya, Sherry, all the administrators. We had so many uh principles and the assistant principles come out and our whole educational services team come out to really support the event. So thank you for taking a moment. I want to also just shout out Glenn and Bill and Jose and um George because they were phenomenal helping us to pull this together and um our print shop guy Jim who was also phenomenal and has been for so many events and Cass and Andy for
016the communications realm and taking great pictures. So, thank you so much. >> And I understand you had a couple of celebrities in the costumes. >> Say that again. >> You had a couple of celebrities in your costumes as well. >> We did. We did. We have an all ages audience and so I was kind of being a little careful with the magic of mascots. >> All of all of our mascots are celebrities. >> All of them. >> It was an amazing evening. Just absolutely amazing. >> Yeah, the back to school bash was other than being 9,000 degrees outside. It was the Kona Ice was was and and thank you to all of our staff that put on the events. I know it's tremendous amount of work, but you can you can see the looks on
017the kids' faces. The families love it, and I'm just I'm grateful that you do all of that for our community. >> So, we have a couple more um that I want to make sure that So, the the other uh event, this is a new event. Um but, you know, I think it it was a nice event that will continue to grow over time. Um we did have a back to school 5K uh family fun run. Uh and that um happened uh in cooperation with the Wheeling Chamber of Commerce. uh Wheeling Police Department. Um and yeah, uh what was the name of the the group, the supporting group for Wheeling, uh uh Police Department? >> Okay. The Wheeling Police Foundation. Um and we actually had uh people who came in to run the the 5K, the
018operating and and um uh we ended up with just about 60 runners. Is that right? Yeah. Um and so, you know, we're looking forward to uh that event happening again and and just kind of growing as as kind of people um get more uh aware of it. Um, so yeah, just a lot of really great uh events to kind of generate good energy uh coming back into the school year. So again, I I just really want to say thank you um for all of those uh that were involved with that. We also know um that this was another major uh summer of renovation and construction in the district. Um just about $19 million uh worth of work. Uh and that is on top of the fact that it was a shorter summer um than what
019we had last year when we also had a large amount of work in the building being done. So that also then is compounding on the normal things that you do over the summer um to make sure that a school is ready to reopen um in the school year. Um and that work is not being done by me uh or anybody sitting at this table. Um it is being done by a really really incredibly dedicated uh team of uh within our operations division. Um so our our uh you know maintenance and custodial um our technology teams uh but particularly maintenance and custodial um the amount of work that they put in um to make sure that that things are ready to go. you know, moving things out of classrooms, you know, like keeping containment um on
020the, you know, everything that that is going on during the construction period, then moving things back into classrooms and cleaning up after. Construction guys don't really clean up after themselves. Um so we have to do it. Um and that's okay. Um but um just an incredible amount of work that goes into um that is not seen by many people. uh you know people come back to school and it looks awesome right um they haven't seen the you know the blood sweat and tears um that have gone into making it that way so I really uh wanted uh the members of our of our operations division and uh maintenance custodial and tech teams to you know uh come and just take a stand guys um and and just really amazing work [Applause] Glenn, I'll put you
021on the spot if you want to say anything else about your teams. You don't have to, but I'll put you on the spot and let you do it anyway. Again, it's it's not just one group. It's Archon. It's Nicholas. It's it's the custodial team. It's the maintenance team. It's a lot of vendors. It's the the superintendent that work for Nicholas. They really really work hard. I know the teachers lounges were a thing that we were trying to get done at the last the last minute. There was one of the superintendents, uh, Matt. I was running around at each school trying to see if it was done and ready. And Matt was five minutes ahead of me at every school. I got to the last school in Ross and he was unloading the microwaves and sticking
022them in the microwave uh panels and I was like, "Wow, this is great." So, it was a very collaborative effort, a lot of teamwork from for everybody, you know, and these custodians and the maintenance guys. I mean the dirt the mess that we get. You know you always go to the grocery stores they pardon our dust. Well we get mountains of dust and dirt. So again they get it all ready in time for school opening. And I I had principal saying you know they come up to schools open and you're the same person and it does. So, thank you very much. [Applause] >> And that is a true statement to make. I mean, we we have four new principles who have never experienced this before. And I had to talk each one of them off
023the ledge and go, "Trust me, you'll come in on a Monday morning and it'll be like every, you know, the sun will be out, birds will be singing, it'll" And that's because of everything that they are doing. Uh Tyler, I'll put you on the spot. anything you want to you want to say about your your tech team? I told I told Mike that I wasn't going to do this and I'm doing it anyway. So, >> totally. >> Yeah, I got a speech. Um, no, our our team has done an absolutely fantastic job. This has been a much uh larger summer than uh we've had in in the past with um uh prep for new uh staff laptops, new uh really new dynamic to how uh teachers can teach with their smartboards in their classrooms. um
024on top of um uh just a lot of infrastructure work that most people don't really see, but uh it's uh really critical to keeping things working uh now and a decade and decades into the future. We're actually have a project that's going to be something that we're going to have for 30 to 40 years. So there's a lot that um our team has done and it's the grace under fire that they have, the um the commitment they have. It it's honestly the best team I've ever worked with. I've been doing uh Thank you. I've been doing u education technology off and on for 25 years and honestly this is the best team I've ever worked with and it's it's been fantastic to see them grow to see them learn and um happy to uh start
025the year fresh with them. Well, thank you. >> One last shout out and then I have an introduction. But um and I made note of this at the opening day institute um uh with the whole staff that um this year um due to the tireless work of Carina Martinez our registar and our family liaison and our office staff um we had the highest number of returning students registered prior to the start of school than we've ever had um by the uh by Tuesday morning. The number I used Tuesday morning was outdated. Um, going into Tuesday morning, there were 37 returning students districtwide that had not registered. By the time I made that that statement, it would been down to 24. Um, and uh, so 24 students that that districtwide uh, that were returning that had
026not registered. My first year in the district, I think we had over 700 um, that had not registered. So, you know, just the steady amount of work that is being done and the phone calls that are being made and like what do you need to to to get this done? We need to have all of that work. It goes into us being able to, you know, much more accurately um be able to make decisions on sectioning. Um and just knowing who's going to show up on the first day. Um, and so again, I just want to give the shout out to to Carina and and and all of the support that the family liaison and our office staff gave to um making that happen. Just incredible. So, uh, thank you again very much. [Applause] Okay,
027so now I have an introduction um that uh I'm really pleased uh to be able to introduce our new assistant principal at London uh Middle School. uh you formally acted on on her employment last month. Um but we wanted to have her come uh and be introduced formally. Um and so uh Natalie Nicole uh Okay. Nicole, did I get it? Nicole. Yes. Okay. All right. Natalie, come on up. [Applause] >> Good evening. >> Um, really excited to be here. Um, as you can tell, my family and I are just really thrilled to be a part of this community and we are so excited to start school tomorrow. My son Elijah will be starting kindergarten at Field. We're very excited. Uh Benji here is at the Little Wildcat Daycare Center and my wife is the new
028dean's assistant at home. So, we really definitely are all in and we are just so thankful again to be a part of this wonderful community. I've had a wonderful month or so working with Anastasia and Salsy and the rest of the team at London. And again, we're just really excited um to see you guys honor that commitment of and kind of empowering and honoring the uniqueness of every student. And so having people like our family be a part of the school community, um it's wonderful for our students to see. So I really appreciate that and look forward to a long career here at 21. >> You want to say your name? Benji, >> what is it? >> Benji. >> Okay. >> Um, our new assistant principal at um, Kilmer was not able to join us
029uh, this evening due to a family commitment, but um, we will uh, introduce her in September. And that wraps up our announcements and celebrations. >> Great. Great. Love it. Um, let's move right into staff communication then. Um I believe you have an update on uh you have an update for us. I don't know where I'm going with this. >> Uh yes. So um we're pleased to uh present to the board our uh annual communications and community engagement update. And so I'm going to turn over the program uh to Cass Young. Thanks everybody. Appreciate you coming out tonight. So, we're here annually to give a summary and our analytics of our communications and community engagement update and I have asked Andy to present the communications this year and then I will present the community engagement. So,
030take it over Andy. >> All right. Uh, so last year um was a great year for communications every year. um we create a comm's plan and usually updated annually. Uh this time around we're going to create one for the same length as the strategic plan. So 25 to 28. We'll do we'll do annual updates as needed. Just kind of see where our progress goes. Um aligned with that, uh we added stop lightss to this plan to kind of show the progress we've made. Green is good. Yellow needs work. Red we haven't made much progress on it. Fortunately, a lot of it is green, so that's a good thing. Um, one of our big pushes this past year was to redesign our newsletters. Um, we heard a lot at the end ofear survey that people wanted
031something mobile friendly, something easier to read. Um, so after doing some research, we landed on S'more. A lot of districts in the area use it. Um, it's easily accessible on your phone. It translates into over 130 languages. Um, it can better integrate YouTube and photos and it was cost effective for us. So we switched to that beginning with last July kind of as a trial one trial run and then we did an August one um for both staff and family. A little more information about the family and community facing one. Uh you have all of these in your slides as well just it's more you know what we send out from what happens in the board meeting what happens around in the schools other events coming up. This is kind of the big number we
032wanted to focus on. This is our open rate uh for the past we tracked it for the past 3 years. The average open rate in the industry is about 40%. Um so in 22 23 and 23 24 we started the year right at that cusp and then kind of dipped under it. Um, since we switched to S'more, uh, as you can see, minus a couple of blips in August, September, and February, we've been north of 60%, which is, I mean, 20 30 percentage points above the average. Uh, right here as well, average time red. Um, we didn't have any stats for 2223. Um, it's just not something Parent Square offered at the time. Um but compared with our last issue or our 232 24 edition and issue um we can see also that the minutes
033have exploded and how much time people are reading. I do not have a rationale for September or March what kept them there so long. I think it's just you know right after spring break, right before spring break or right as they settle into the new school year. It's just there was nothing specifically in there that would have caused them to read. But hey, they're spending time. I'm not complaining. Uh, this is our internal newsletter which is sent to about a thousand staff members. Uh, it includes highlights, professional development opportunities, policy and procedure updates, other general reminders, also through SM'more right here. Again, our open rate year-over-year. Um, the industry average is about 35% open rate for an internal staff email. Um the past three years we've done well in the first couple of months and
034then dipped below the industry average for the 22 23 and 23 24 school years. Um but for s'more last year we averaged about 80% read through the entire year except for September when we had a random drop off. So it and we're averaging 15 to600 views. So we have people returning to it over and over to get that information share it. Uh similarly for average time read uh we're seeing more and more people reading it longer. So they're getting that information doing what they will with it. Again I cannot explain September or January only then it's the first official month after the year begins and then right as they return from break. So looking forward uh we are going to continue with s'more. Uh we sent one out in August and right now the numbers
035are still doing well. Uh we're at about 70% for the family one and 85% for staff. We still have about a week to go, so I'm going to send those numbers out next week. Um for our newsletters, we want to have more engaging video. Um more concise stories. We really focused on that for our August newsletters. Something short that pushes them online if they need to. A and B testing where we send different segments to different populations just to see what works well, if there's anything we need to refine. Same with segmenting. Uh, and then this last edition is based on a survey that we're sending out to see this would be in parent square if we want to send out like a weekly top five of like the top five things you might have
036missed like upcoming events, uh, things from the library, stories from the schools. So, we're going to wait and see what our families say on that um, before we move forward. Next up is social media um, which has grown a lot over the past few years. Uh we primarily use Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn for those. Uh Facebook is the largest reach with our family audience. Instagram, which I don't need to explain to these three, are our largest reach with our middle schoolers. Anything at London, Cooper, homes always takes off. Uh YouTube is where we host our longer form videos and the board meeting streams. And then LinkedIn, uh we're expanding for recruitment efforts, but that's another branch of storytelling as well. I won't go into too much detail here, but um from December 2023 when
037we really started tracking it to 24, we had a increase in both our Facebook and Instagram accounts, which uh is districtwide. There's a little breakdown of school by school here um for Facebook in that same amount of time. And then Instagram where we did see a larger growth across all of our accounts. A lot of them were newer. So, um it's still great to see all of those numbers. Over the past year, um Facebook, we've seen an average 18% increase in followers across the district, um while we've seen an average 85% increase across uh growth in followers across Instagram. And then LinkedIn, we didn't have metrics for 23 to 24, but we've also seen an 80% increase in followers there. So, more people are seeing it, more people are engaging with it. again breaking it
038down school by school and then Instagram where again we're seeing a triple digit growth among a handful of schools. So over the past two years uh Facebook we've seen an average 17% increase in followers while Instagram uh we've seen an average 118.85% 85% increase across our followers. And then LinkedIn, that same figure that we can't account for. Again, little breakdown here. Cooper has exploded with a 300% growth. So, in terms of looking forward for social media, we want to have more engaging video uh because we know video tends to do well. Um as well as consistent graphics. Uh we're going to work with the PTO's a little bit more to promote their events. and then kind of track what resonates with followers, whether it's our people stories, whether it's events, district initiatives, announcements, what have
039you, as well as getting more uh content from our community itself. Carrie, thank you for donating a photo over the summer. Um, and then we're also going to track better analytics. This these past few years, we've really just done likes, comments, shares, and then followers. We're going to expand it to have total reach, interactions. kind of see our followers versus non-f followers to see kind of where that um data is coming from. Dipping into Parent Square, we shared these last year. I won't go into too many details here, but these are just some extra fun facts we have for parent square and how we communicate with our families. So, we had 13,210 posts shared across the district between July 1st of last year and June 30th of this year. And then Kilmer, Tarkington, and Poe
040were our top three. some more features we have just to show across the district how much we're utilizing parent square which these are in your board packet so you will see this as well this is the number I wanted to focus on um so our deliverability we have a 99.67% 67% contactability, which is the percentage of students with at least one contactable parent. The national benchmark for parent square at least is 97%. So we're trending above that. I actually met with representatives from Parent Square when I went to the seminar in DC and they said they've never seen a number as high as ours. So it's a nice thing that we're getting so many people um to receive our messaging. As for the apps, we're not quite at 50% yet of people who've downloaded the
041app, but even the people at Parent Square said 50%'s rare. So to see a number that like that close to 50, they were impressed with more uh interaction. So we had 3,942 of our close to 8,200 parents interact, which is either liking, commenting, RSVPing, volunteering, or donating items. all of the features that Parent Square has to offer. Uh looking forward, we want to offer both staff and parent training just to kind of learn the ins and outs of Parent Square. Um faster responses to inquiries, questions, and technical support for those inevitable uh issues they have. A possible payment portal either through Parent Square or an external provider. We're looking into that. um other enhancements that are released by parents square. They have a lot in the pipeline that they are very excited about and I
042am too. Um and then over the summer I joined the parents square ambassador program which is basically just it might give us idea our chances to try their products early or just kind of consult with other districts on how to or to try and get them to sign up for parent square for our website. We continue to refine it every month um with new photos. Uh we have monthly meetings with our client uh Flood Light and they kind of resolve any issues we have with them like if we're having a bug or a new feature we want to add. They've been great partners and they're very uh quick to answer whatever issues we have or introduce whatever uh features we want. Uh uh for coming up, we will continue to be ADA compliant um especially
043as those restrictions roll out. Um one feature we've added and we're in the process of updating is a buy the numbers section on each website. Um it's just a quick like fast fact for each school, total number of students, um graduation rates, uh languages, pick and choose. Uh, I know we announced this earlier this summer. Um, but we did receive four awards from the National School Public Relations Association. Um, this gives us a chance to kind of submit the content we worked on in the past year. Um, to be judged by a panel of our peers and then given three tiers of awards, honorable mention, award of merit, and then the top award uh, which is an award of excellence. So, we got awards of excellence for our getting to know you series and our
044retiree videos from two school years ago. Uh we got an award of merit for our new family newsletter, the 21 ledger. And then we got an honorable mention for our staff facing newsletter, the staff spotlight. In terms of media coverage, um this is kind of when we appeared in the different publications or on the different uh TV stations in the area. We had 50 total mentions between July 1st of last year and June 30th this year, which is about the same as last year. It's it's been dipping a little um but there's a whole number of factors that can go into there. So last year we had 54 so we're right about there and then two years ago we had 64. So we're going down but we're hoping that this year especially we're going to
045find more compelling ways to send good news stories to the media, get them out here to cover the good news that we have to share. Uh and then we can coordinate media requests through limited sources. This is other collateral material we've created over the past year. So, registration flyers, seamless summer flyers, uh literacy night, an impact report, uh items for our health center, just a whole um collection of different collateral materials. Moving forward, we want to update our branding guidelines and encourage the staff to use these branding guidelines and templates, which we have uploaded into Canva. And then we're going to hopefully train them on Canva and other design software. So we don't always have to do the bulk of it. They can do it if they need to or we can easily ask them
046qu or we can answer questions they may have. For the coming school year, our goals as the communications department, we want to expand storytelling. Um so we're going to push for more stories from the schools and the community. uh ongoing series expansions for with our getting to know you leadership videos, our my Y staff stories, meet our alumni where we interview a former student, and then our rising stars or student of the week. We want to feature more video this year as we do tend to see higher engagement in that. And then uh we're just waiting to hear our annual survey to the staff and community to see what worked, what we need to refine. So that's it. is are there any questions at least from the comm side? >> Bill, >> not a question
047but a comment. What you're doing is flying in the face of the issues that government bodies across the country have today. Municipalities, school boards, park districts, how to communicate, how to get the message out there with the decline of newspapers. And it just seems to me you're making fantastic strides. We appreciate all your hard work. I appreciate all your hard work because I know how difficult a job it is. So, thank you for what you're doing and our community will benefit from the effort that you're making. Thank you. >> Just a a quick question regarding media coverage. You mentioned 50 total mentions. How many of those were our submissions as opposed to >> Not as many as previous years. Um I can pull the stats up and show you. There's still a few. I would
048say more than half were our submissions. Um, but about halfway during the year, the Herald's direct submission tool, which is kind of how we submitted stories to them, it wasn't filtered as much. So, our stories kind of disappeared more and more or just weren't published as frequently. Um, but I can pull those numbers for you, but most of it was from external from board actions or um, just other things they've seen around. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um, just a quick question about social media going into this year. Who controls our social media? Is it just the two of you or is it are there still people in the building posting? >> Yes, the primarily the two of us. Um Melanie Flores, our receptionist and communications assistant downstairs. Um but we do have some point
049people in the schools, usually the principles, assistant principles. Um whoever is kind of game to do it. Um but it's primarily just the two of us, Melanie, and then the principles and assistant principles. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you, Andy. Fantastic job. Fantastic numbers. >> Yeah. I just want to give a shout out to Andy. He's been here for what, two and a half years, and he's done a phenomenal job with the day-to-day social media and the newsletter items. And you know, he's out and about in the schools all the time. Um, and people just love working with him and he's doing a phenomenal job. >> I think he also goes on the schools, too. Is it? I think he also goes on the schools, too. >> Yeah. Yes. So, thank you. Um, can
050you put the slides back up, Tyler, please? What' you say? >> Only two so far. >> Only two. Okay. My section is community engagement, and I'm going to whip through this because these slides are long and we've got other presentations. Um, so we also created a three-year community engagement plan that we that aligns with the district plan and we have put a progress report together with it when we can. Um and I created seven tenants of engagement models and these are the ones that we actually came up with. Community building, community education, community organ or organization, direct service to the community, direct products to the community, economic development and institutional engagement. Um but we can't do it alone. There are so many other district staff members who do this type and similar work including all
051these people listed on this slide. So the first is community building and we feel it's fostering a sense of belonging and unity within the community and we do it in a number of ways mostly with the Buffalo Grove Rotary Club and um Deb and I went to an interesting very powerful women's networking engagement um event last night. Yeah. >> Yeah. It it was awesome finding all of these partners that we could bring into us. So, it was awesome. >> There was probably 30 women there in this small house and this person connected with that person and just incredible connections. Um, we also partner with the Wheeling Rotary and the Wheeling Chamber of Commerce through these events. Uh, the Wheeling Park District and Tuesday night markets. uh national night out of course and we also um
052I I put this slide in because I think that the online platforms are very important for community building as well. We put out the flyers on the free healthy lunches. We put items in our virtual backpack to support the community. Uh the next is community education and um I feel we've done some health and wellness fairs. We've I feel like the impact report is another way that we educate the community and other initiatives. I put other initiatives on most of the slides because we are not doing it alone. There are so many people here um who help with these initiatives. The third is community organizing and um we have partnered with the Buffalo Grove Rotary Club to provide holiday food every Thanksgiving. Oops. Direct service to others. This is to offer immediate assistance and support
053to individuals. And we did that through a number of ways. The job fair, the registration events, the 5K run. These are just some of the pictures. I also think direct service to others includes the student apprenticeships that we've had over the years because it does help build their um experience. Direct products to others. We offer tangible products to meet the needs of the community and we have donated items toiletries to the Buffalo Grove High School comfort closet. uh I know the family liaison I have a lot of initiatives around this tenant um and other initiatives economic development this is again the job fair and also the student uh apprenticehips institutional engagement strengthening ties between the community and external institutions this is I I feel like this is where we reach out to the local vendors
054to get donations grants um and showcase community achievements that we partner with. Oops. Oops. Um I also put this slide in because I think it's important to push out our our um accomplishments and deepen our engagement through these institutional uh initiatives. So, the alumni spotlight, the my why, and then the rising stars, other events and initiatives. And moving forward, I want to be able to keep better track of attendance, engagement, and donations. Right now, we're just ticking off and putting together very rudimentary charts. I'd like to plan events with more notice. Sometimes, I know that's not always available. Um, and I'd like to align initiatives with other CCSD21 resources so we can all come together and know what one person is doing, the other event, and how we can coordinate better. I think that's it.
055Any questions? Carrie >> questions? >> No. >> Well, that's the first. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> You Cass. All right. Next, uh, can we get an an update on student enrollment, please? >> Absolutely. I'll turn it over to Mr. Roberts. Clicker and I can All right. So, first, um, these numbers have changed a bit, so I'll go over those. Um, so this report was pulled last week, so some of the numbers, um, we've had some more students enroll. Um, so those numbers have changed, so I'll point those out to you. Um, we'll go through and and I'll say Dr. Connelly kind of stole my thunder. Um, when I looked at these numbers last week coming from being a middle school principal with,00 kids and we would usually start school with about 200
056kids not enrolled and the first week of school was an absolute nightmare. Um, and I was I went through and I was like, "Wait, this can't be." So, I went to Carmine and I was like, "Wait, this we only have this little bit of kids not enrolled." And she was like, "Yeah." And I was like, that's impressive. So, um I just want to point out that for for her team and and all the events that were done to get kids enrolled, I was talking with um the principal Whitman and I was like, "What are you doing today?" She's like, "Oh, we're going over to one of the apartment complexes we serve to enroll kids." And I was like, "What?" She's like, "Yeah, we do it every year. We take our computers, we invite them down,
057and we we meet families and get them signed up." And I was like, "That's really incredible." So, um you know, doing a lot to make sure our kids are enrolled. Uh but as far as the enrollment goes here field, um no sections. So I'm just going to kind of get through these. Um so PO, we do have one uh section that exceeds the guidelines. Um that is the dual one of our dual language uh sections. That classroom does have a teacher and an aid in it. So they are getting that support. And then Riley, uh, last week when we pulled the report, we did not have any sections exceeding the guidelines. We did end up, um, hiring, uh, moving a teacher. So we we have an extra uh, kindergarten section and first grade section. We
058hired a first grade teacher. Um, our two second grade sections were both at 25. Um and then as of last week, we do have one that is now at 26. Uh we have also though hired um an aid to support those two second grade classrooms at at Riley. Um we also do not have any anticipated students uh the returning students not registered at 4, none of them were in second grade. Um, so the one that we got was actually a new student. Good. And then our middle schools. So when this report was done, it was um 13 sections of science and eight sections of social studies were over the guidelines of 27. One of the reasons for that is July 29th we had a science social studies teacher resign. Um so we we were not
059able to fill that position. Um so we lost essentially those sections that we were she was teaching. So those students had to go somewhere. um out out of those uh sections, we do have five of those science sections are co-taught. Um so for special education and three are co-taught for English language learners. So essentially we have eight of those that have two teachers in them. Um three of those sections also have a TA in for support. Uh for the social studies, we have four of them that are co-taught special education and three of them that are co-taught for English language as well as a TA pushing into to three of those for support as well. Uh we did try to fill the position. We got no qual really qualified candidates. Um we got a the
060issue with the position was the amount of science sections um that that this teacher would have been teaching. So um it was more than 50% so the teacher would have had to have been endorsed in science and most of the applications we got were a social studies teacher. So we were we were unable to fill that position. >> Are we keeping that open? >> I'm sorry. >> Are we keeping that position open for possible recruitment? >> For right now we've decided to close the position um with the thought of two weeks before school. It would be very we didn't think we were going to get a teacher. Um, at the same time, breaking at having those students in class for a month to two months and then breaking up those classes was probably not worth
061it. At homes, we have one section of science and one section of social studies. Um, that was over as of last week. Um, right now it's moved up to two in social studies. Um, and there are some TA support in some of those uh classes. In one of the social studies and both science classes have TA support. And then in London, it's actually now only two sections of science and three sections of social studies. they were able to move some students around and they have uh in both science sections there are TA support and then there is one TA support in one of the social study sections overall if we look at averages um here is the average class size uh for the different schools as well as the range of class sizes again with
062that Riley being 26. Now, those larger class sizes at the middle schools are those science and social studies that I just discussed. We are watching um section at Whitman. You'll see a lower number there. Um that number has gone up a little bit. Uh it is in our um dual language program. So, we have two or two of those classes that are lower than we expected. So, we're going to watch that over the next week. We have had some enrollments come in this week. Um, and if we need to collapse section and move a teacher, we will do that. And then some of the things that we've done uh for the high class sizes in the last few weeks, um we did reduce a section at one school and reallocate it to another. We've added
063teaching assistance and we've added a full-time teacher. Any questions? I have a question. U could you go back please over what we're doing at uh PO and Riley to deal with those overcredit sections again. >> So with Riley um it is the so we we added a section at kindergarten and first grade. So we've added FTE there >> um to reduce those class sizes. And then with second grade um being right at the the cusp there, we added a teacher's aid. >> And the aid will be in the classroom all the time. >> They'll be back and forth between those classrooms. Yes. >> And what's the that second class? What's the uh size of that class? >> One's at 25, one's at 26. >> Okay. And we're going to keep an eye on how that
064works. >> Yes. Because historically what we've tried to do when we could was to shift the larger classes higher in the in the grade level >> so that the lower classes or the younger classes were smaller. >> Yeah. I mean I will also point out that the guidelines >> are at at that grade level are 25. >> Right. Right. >> So we are at one at 25 one at 26 with a teaching assistant that goes in there. I also want to point out there are no more available classrooms at Riley. >> Yeah, that was that was the other thing I was going to say. And it and I think I what if >> correct me if I'm wrong like >> those like the fourth and fifth grades breaking down a class combining kids and taking
065that teacher and moving them down, right? Like making those class sizes higher. >> But they're, you know, they're all in the 20s as well. So we don't have if we did that then we'd have class sizes of fourth and fifth grade in the 30s >> which we don't want. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Welcome. >> Yeah, you just answered my question. I was going to ask if there were any open classroom spaces at Riley. >> No, we'd have to put somebody on a cart. >> Okay. And then Yeah, I I teach on a cart this year. So, um and then my second question was about the teachers assistants that are in those sections. Are they there to support? Are any of them there to support specific children or are they just general assistants that are
066there to support the entire classroom? >> So for the Riley position that that is a general teaching assistant that is there to support the teacher and all students. Okay. >> For the ones at at um the middle school, those teaching assistants in there for specific needs of specific students. Um but then then there's also the special education co-teers. Yeah. Um, and both of and ELLL co-teers. >> Okay. Perfect. Thank you for clarifying. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you, Louis. Appreciate it. >> All right. All right. We're going to move into public comment now. The board will allow any individual to share a public comment for up to three minutes. Such comments should not include discussion of personnel matters which should be brought directly to the attention, excuse me, of the appropriate school official. During
067public comment, the board and administration will listen but may not respond to the public. Uh Yolanda, you've handed me two comment cards. Were there any others? Okay, thank you. Uh let's go ahead and start with Ben Coleman. [Music] >> Good evening. I'd like to start with an apology to the board. Uh, someone pointed out that I wore the same shirt last month. I do actually own more than one shirt. Um, my name is Ben Coleman and I am the current president of the District 21 Education Association. I'm also a project leader at Cooper Middle School and I plan to shorten my remarks a little because school is back in session and like most staff and students, I'm sure I'm tired. I'm really enjoying my new position and the staff has been very accommodating, but I
068think we're all getting back into the habits of school and it's taking a toll. We should be fine in a few weeks, but thank goodness for weekends. I'm happy to report that administrators are trying hard to address the concerns of staff from meetings held last spring and many staff members are happy that they can see the results of these conversations. We're optimistic for this new year and we hope to continue to talk with administration to help move things forward. I would also like to mention that the District 21 Education Association is excited to be marching in the Buffalo Grove Days parade again on Saturday, August 30th at 11:30. We look forward to seeing everyone there, uh, including some board members who hopefully will be there again like they were last year. Um, thank you for
069all that you do for the staff and students at District 21. We look forward to partnering with you. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ben. Um, uh, Katie S. Uh, good evening. My name is Katie Swinnich and I'm a proud District 21 mom who as of tomorrow will have three boys attending Riley. Sorry, I get emotional when I talk about my children. Tonight, I'm here to advocate for those second graders at Riley. My concern is simple. The classes are just too large. The board, Dr. Connelly, Mrs. Bolini, and other board members have communicated repeatedly that mult that they are monitoring class sizes and committed to keeping class sizes at the recommended number. We just saw right here that it is over that number. You have done the right thing and added two sections at Riley to
070address this. But what about Connor and our other second graders who have started the year with 25 and 26 students? What you also failed to mention was one of those classes also has four deaf and heart of hearing students that come into the class. That is 29 second graders. That is too large. I also heard, sorry this wasn't part of my comment, but I also heard that there is not a room at Riley. It's time to think outside the box. It's time to get creative. As a teacher, as a mom, we do it every day. It's time to think outside the box. Your other solution is to have an aid in the classroom. Well, that's just giving our amazing teachers one more person to manage. This is not an appropriate solution. There is no substitute
071for a certified teacher. We have all seen the numbers. We've heard what you said. We've heard that you're monitoring closely. Well, the monitoring is over. It's now time to just add a section. >> Thank you. >> Um, Cass, have we received any written public comments? >> Yes, we have, and I have forwarded it to the board. >> Thank you. Those will be shared with the board, and the comment will be attached to next month's meeting minutes. All right, let's move on into our consent agenda. Uh, we received five freedom of information requests this month. There is one board conference and travel expenses for member attendance to the IASB North Cook division meeting in October. Uh, as aside, I encourage you all to register if you're able to attend. It's always a valuable PD experience. Uh,
072I had a chance to meet with Mike Zigger to go over some questions I had on the financial documents. I appreciate his time and clarifying those for me. Nothing major, just some clarifications. Um, does anyone need anything pulled from the consent agenda? >> Yes, I need item A pulled, please. >> Okay. Um, Dagmar, I believe you do as well. >> Yep. >> Okay. Could I please get a motion to approve the consent agenda minus item A, which were the minutes of last month's board meeting? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Let's take the role. >> Okay. Harland, >> I. >> Debbie, >> yes. >> Bill, >> yes. >> Carrie, >> yes. >> I vote yes. Jessica, >> yes. >> Thank you. Motion carries. >> Thank you. May I please have a motion to approve consent
073agenda item A? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. Bill. >> I. >> Carrie abstain. >> I abstain. Jessica. >> Yes. >> Arlland. >> I. >> Debbie. >> Yes. Yes. Thank you. Motion carries. >> Okay, great. Um, let's move into board communication. Uh, before we make the usual rounds, I just want to note you should have received an email from our councils Petrarcha and Fester about a school law seminar via Zoom that they're hosting in September. If you're interested, please register. It's always a really good update on what's going on out there. Um, and I will be attending that as well. Um, let's move into NSSO, Debbie. >> Thank you. Um, for the next several months, the main thing that we're working on is our uh updating of our articles of agreement and doing a
074change in the way that we're set up. I mean, the whole thing creating a second board a uh operations board of all the superintendent for the member districts. Um, so under your executive content, there's a lot of information there. The reason they're in executive content is because they are not they're they're all drafts. So, it's not ready. But we do have a uh presentation that Dr. Schnore, who's the superintendent there, put together so that all of the boards are being presented with exactly the same information. So, we'd like to play that and then we can come back for questions briefly if anybody has anything. >> Good deal. >> Thank you for taking the time from your busy board agendas to view this video and the important information shared regarding the governance structure at NSSO. This
075is Dr. Meg Schnore, superintendent of NSSEO. And as you know, we are a special education cooperative serving your district and seven other area districts, enabling the provision of special education services for the most complex educational needs. In fall of 2024, NSSO along with all member districts and a variety of NSSO shareholders met to develop a strategic plan to guide the cooperative in meeting the needs of member districts for the next five years. Four key priorities emerged. Governance, finance and facilities, instruction and programs, and highly qualified staff. This evening I am presenting about the governance priority. For the more than 50 years NSSO has served districts, the governance structure has been that of a single tiered board, the NSSO governing board, which is made up of one elected board member from each of the member district
076boards coming together monthly to govern the work of the cooperative. During the original strategic plan meetings in fall of 2024 as well as the action plan meetings in January of 2025, the shareholders agreed that there needs to be another layer of governance added to the structure. This layer of governance would be composed of the superintendent from each of the member districts and the NSSO superintendent meeting in alignment with the open meetings act to collaboratively make decisions of how best to provide for students with special needs in all member districts. These decisions would be made in alignment with the budget established an annually by the elected governing board members. Making the change to a two-tiered board requires the change of the NSSO articles of agreement which were already overdue to be reviewed and revised. A copy
077of a draft of the new NSSO articles of agreement is included in your board packets. Naturally, the question why do we need to change has arisen in many discussions. NSSEO exists to meet the needs of member districts and member districts want to share in the decisions that are made on behalf of their students including those attending NSSO program. Another question has been the superintendents already meet monthly in an advisory capacity with the superintendent and administration of NSSO. Isn't that sufficient? While the implementation of the NSSO superintendent council has increased the dialogue between superintendent and NSSO administration, it does not hold decision-making power. An operational board would have the formal authority to make operational decisions on matters such as the e-learning policy, program design, staffing models, and transportation services, giving districts a direct role in shaping
078the outcomes that impact the students and their budgets. Unlike advisory groups, an operation board would meet publicly under the open meetings act. This creates a legally accountable structure where all deliberations and decisions are transparent, documented, and accessible to the public. This helps build broader trust, which has been a key concern raised in the strategic planning process. Further, an operational board will also help NSSE reduce the sharing of misinformation and back channel problem solving. The operational board removes the ambiguity. Instead of conversations happening offline or in silos, key issues would be addressed through a structured visible process. This helps eliminate conjecture and fosters mutual accountability. The question of how was this decision made will no longer be an issue. Additionally, the operational board with superintendent representation from all member districts in a formal capacity ensures that
079decisions reflect the diversity of needs across our entire cooperative, not just those with the loudest voices, most urgent needs or lowest or highest fund balances. It helps us function as a cooperative with shared priority, not just being a service provider. Ultimately, this is about building confidence in how NSSEO serves students and stewards the significant fi financial contributions from member districts. The operational board will provide a platform for member districts to shape strategy, monitor value, and affirm that NSSO is indeed delivering on our mission. The superintendent advisory council is critical and will continue to be, but an operational board offers the public an empowered and equitable forum of collective leadership. My goal as the superintendent of NSSO is that by the end of this year, every member district will not only understand how decisions are made,
080but will also see clear evidence that NSSO is more than a value added partner. We are a shared investment in a better future for our students with exceptional needs. The addition of the operational board does not in any way diminish the importance of our governing board. The governing board will continue to set the budget within which the operational board functions as well as hire and evaluate the NSSO superintendent. But their role extends far beyond that. We need our governing board to continue to bring the needs of NSSEO back to your member district boards so that resources can continue to be allocated to meeting the needs of all of your students. We also need our governing board members to ensure that our students continue to have a place and a voice in our community and that
081their needs are considered beyond the school from community events to employment opportunities and the generation of supplemental resources to provide for their needs. We have a cautionary tale that has taken shape this summer in that a neighboring special education cooperative will no longer be in existence this time next year. We want to strengthen the collaboration between member districts and NSSO to ensure that we can continue to provide the services for our students in their home community. The time to move forward is now. As board members of eight different school boards, I am asking that you review the draft articles, ask questions, and eventually ratify them. so that we can move forward in a highly transparent and effective manner as we work to implement all of the priorities of the NSSO strategic plan and provide for
082your students with the most complex special needs. Thank you. >> Okay, so I have given everybody uh four sheets of paper. Don't read it now. It's not light reading. Um, one of our board members, one of the from another district had a lot of questions. So, I condensed them down into one sheet so that every this may answer some of your questions that you have. Um, and I also gave everyone the tenative timeline. We're not bound by this. If people have more questions as we go through the articles of agreement, one district may not like one the way one thing is worded and so it may have to come back several times. Next month, the only thing we'll be voting on is whether we officially push this out to the districts for review so we
083can get everything worked out. This has already been looked at by our attorneys. So there is not the legality of everything is not in question, but if anybody everybody'd like to look it over, you have two files, the articles of agreement for 2025 and the past one that I believe was redlined out. So everybody can use those to compare. If you have any questions, you can feel free to reach out to myself or Mike um because he's been very involved in it, too. This is something I feel very strongly about because yes, um the co-op that is directly north of us, uh do uh True North this time next year will not exist because all of their districts are pulling out. We currently have eight and then we have a lot of students from other
084districts who ask to come in and be placed at NSSO because there are people that say, "Oh, my district can handle these kids." Know these are our kids that are in 8th grade, still in wheelchairs, not potty trained, tubefed. These are the most exceptional needs kids and we need to make sure we can do the best for them. So, I am putting this out to everyone. Please look it over and reach out to me with any questions you have. >> Okay. When is um the next NSSO? >> The next NSSO meeting is on September 3rd. So, it's coming up very quickly. Um, so I would like everybody if they would reach out and even if they can just say, "Yeah, feel free to yes, push it out to the districts, if I can even just
085get that, but please look it over. It's a little bit of, I think, 15 pages of light reading." Um, >> okay. >> I know a few of my fellow board members will enjoy reading it because that's the type of reading they like to do. Um, >> I don't know why you're looking at me when you say stuff like that. >> It wasn't just you. Um, but it's I mean we had a lot of things like I said it had this these articles have not been reviewed in 10 years. So there were a lot of things that needed to be changed anyways. So we were going to be reviewing them and then we're going oh yeah no we need to do a lot more than just a brief review and then they will be up every
086two years once we get them solidified. >> Okay. So, just to clarify, you'd like us to review the proposed articles of agreement 2025 and respond to you before September 3rd, >> correct? >> Whether individually we're okay with you going forward and you'll take the consensus decision of the board as your guidance going forward >> as my vote. Yes. That to yes push it out to the district so we can all thoroughly review. I would also like to invite anyone here, especially since we have several new board members, several new cabinet members, anyone that would like to go out and visit the NSSO facilities. They have minor, which is preK through 8th grade. Um, Timber Ridge, which is for our behavioral students. We have a lot of students over at Timber Ridge, and they do fantastic
087things. Uh there is Kirk which is the age 14 through age 22 the end of the school this school year of a student turning 22 for transitional services and seeing what they've done with these kids is great. And then there's um Sunrise Lake. I couldn't think of it for a second. um that's out in Bartlett and that is a nature oriented thing and it is just it is gorgeous out there. It's a bit of a drive but a lot of team building. I'd love to have you know anybody that would want to go reach out to me. I'll get a hold of Dr. Schnore and we can go on on tours. >> Um does anyone have questions for Debbie? >> I do have a question. Debbie on the um handouts you shared with us. Can
088you I'm sorry if I missed this from you. Who is answering in the black bold and whose answer is in the blue? >> Okay. The regular black is from the fellow board member who is from district 26. That's the initial question and then Dr. nor was both the black answer and the blue answer with when the because it came across with you know can you clarify more on this >> and I didn't want to send every print put out a 15page document for everyone so I just condensed everything down >> any other questions >> I'll keep it I have a list but I'm going to keep it very short and not ask you all of them right now >> okay >> but just as a clarification >> I'm trying to determine looking at this whether
089the operational board is making recommendations to the governing board or is actually making decisions. At one point I see in section 2E it mentions specifically making recommendations on policies, purchases, employment of personnel. Yet it seemed in the presentation from Dr. Schnore that it was more that the board might be actually making decisions. >> It's going to be a combination of the two depending upon the items. Um Dr. Connelly if it's like >> yeah so it there is the operating board um would have delegated authority based on the articles of incorporation to make specific decisions. The governing board still approves the budget. They still hire um and evaluate the superintendent or executive director of the of the association. There may be, and this would be based on the the articles of agreement that ultimately get acted
090upon by the member district boards, there may be other items that the governing board maintains sole decision-making authority over. Um, but in terms of the day-to-day operational decisions, um, you know, so, uh, >> we don't make determinations on the day-to-day operational decisions. That's that makes sense, right? but and things. So they will be still responsible for hiring the executive director specifically. >> Correct. >> But would the operational board be reviewing candidates s making recommend I mean >> that would be a determination of the governing board to what level they would want the operating board involved in that. >> Okay. >> They they would be included in the criteria determination not necessarily in the actual hiring. Um that was one thing that has been very much of a sticking point that you know >> don't don't
091want to give up too much for lack of a better term power. Um but there are certain things that none of the school board me none of the governing board members are educators. >> And so there's certain things that we don't have the expertise that the superintendent do have. So that was one of the issues that we had. That's why a lot of these things there may be some a lot of tweaks in here. >> Okay. >> As everybody goes through it. >> And then I'll just ask one other question which do all eight districts need to ratify this to go forward? >> Majority. >> So it's a majority. >> Yeah. >> You >> So I I agree with Bill. I thought there was some confusion there as well. And I also mentioned to Debbie
092that two things that I that jumped out at me was one um the names of the two boards seem to indicate that they're both the governing board just because operating board sounds like a governing board could. So I would try to have a better distinction between the two just personal view. >> Okay. the I will say that other cooperatives and there are several um that have this bifurcated um board structure the governing board are the elected officials the operating board are the superintendent or their design of the member districts so this is this is a a this is not a new structure um this would be a new structure for NSSO um but this is a structure that multiple other cooperatives um hold so that's kind of the the terminology that is being utilized in
093this way. Um and so you know it's in somewhat I I think it it could be um easier to just maintain that because that is what you know kind of has been known. Again, I also want to emphasize that the only decision that is being made that Debbie will will be voting based on your, you know, consensus is to just move this thing to the member districts. um this is not I mean so then after that happens there's a 90day review period that each district and then all of the going back and asking clarifying questions and things of that nature to get to a final that then the governing board of NSSO would need to take final action on. >> Right. >> And then um the the member district boards take action on. >> Yeah,
094understood. But then the other thing that I mentioned to Debbie was and it's more clear to me now because of the two operating I could see a situation where your operating board made a decision that was not necessarily agreed to by the superintendent of NSSO. There could be a difference of opinion there. >> Correct. It seems to me that the operating board should have their chair as a member of the governing board so that this so the superintendent doesn't have to argue both ways. Again, you know, that's something that I think is is could be problematic um in so far as the governing board are elected officials. >> The members of the operating board are superintendent, not elected officials. So whether the chair of the operating board is expected to be in attendance at the
095governing board meetings, I mean that's certainly something you know but you know again the operating board would be making decisions based on the delegated authority >> um that the governing board based on the articles of of you know of agreement would dictate right and so in that way it would be no different than you know in my role as superintendent, you know, this board may not act in, you know, they may act differently than my recommendation. It's it it'd be the same difference. Um that if there's a recommendation of the NSSO that the that the operating board does not agree to that is within their delegated authority, >> then that board takes that action. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions for Debbie right now? Okay, we all have our homework to do. >>
096Awesome. Thank you. And you'll also notice under the public comment public content is the governing board brief from NSSO that we put out every month. That's just what has happened. Has pictures of the kids and parents doing all kinds of fun stuff. And as we get closer to bigger events, I'll let everybody know about that. But that's all I have for NSSO tonight. >> Thank you, Debbie Ed. Bill. >> Thank you, Jessica. Um, the Edrad Legislative Breakfast was held here on August 1st. Many of us were in attendance. It was a great success. I enjoyed speaking with our legislators on topics ranging from mandated categoricals to unfunded mandates. It was also interesting to speak to Superintendent Trisha Man Kanka of Fremont 79 on their ongoing issues with development and funding uh for a large property
097in her community which just reaffirmed my belief that TIFF reform is still desperately needed in our state. Thank you to our administrators, tech team, and organic life for their help in putting the event together. Ed's kickoff lunchon will be held on October 20th. More details and registration information to come in the next few weeks. Ed's first member meeting of the school year will be held on Thursday, November 6th. It is currently planned as an evening meeting as people have looked for different time frames to get more involvement in there. So hopefully that will go forward. There'll be more information again to come as we uh get closer to the event. And finally, um you should have received in the past week Ed's monthly floor to the door that included a survey um for legislative initiatives.
098Um please take a look at it as it will help uh the organization determine their legislative direction in the upcoming year. And that's it for Ed. >> Thank you. If you would move on to ISB, please. >> If you'll give me a minute to click, I will certainly do that. Come on. Okay, it decided not. Oh, there we go. Um, the IASB North Cook Division dinner will be held on Wednesday, October 22nd at District 214's Forest View Education Center. The featured speaker will be Doug Bolton, who a number of us have heard before. There will also be an election of officers for the division held. If interested in attending, please contact Yolanda. Just as a reminder, the joint annual conference is quickly approaching. If you are planning to attend and haven't yet registered, again, please
099contact Yolanda as soon as you can. And finally, ISB will be holding virtual workshops on the proposed changes to its constitution, and there's going to be quite a few of them to be proposed this year. While Debbie will be updating us at a future date prior to the conference, if you'd like a more detailed explanation of what was going on, ISB will be having a number of uh video workshops that you can either catch live or I would assume they'll post them on their website and catch it at a later date. And that's it for ISB. >> All right, just to close the loop there, I've asked Debbie to continue to be our board's delegate at the conference this year. Um just let Debbie or me know if you have any questions about uh that
100process. >> If I may add briefly, there are 12 changes to the constitution this year. Most of them are very basic common sense. There are there were I believe there were two that were might have some conversation on and there was only one resolution presented this year. I'm sure we're still going to get lots of conversation on it. I don't know what it was about, but we'll get have a lot of people. >> Thank you. Uh Arland, do you have an update from North Cook? >> I do. Um these are exciting times. As I've shared with all of you over the years, I think I've been on the the North Cook board 20 years now. Uh we've gone from tiny uh to larger. And in the last six years, we've outgrown the biggest leap that
101we have taken over the years that I've been on the board. We've now outgrown that. We're meeting next week to begin to look at a solution to our space problems, which would allow us to accommodate more students, provide more services, including hopefully physical education, which we can't do on campus right now. Um, so, uh, I'll have a report to you next month. I have not seen the materials yet, but we're meeting next Monday at 7:15 a.m. bright and early, and it will be exciting to see where we go next. So, I'll keep you posted on that. But very exciting and the demand obviously, as you all know, continues to grow for the services that we provide and our staff provide. So, that's all. >> Great. Thank you. Um, Iliana, I believe you had a quick
102update about the library. >> Yeah. >> Uh, so really quickly, I just wanted to uh point out the new partnership between um District 21 and Indian Trails. They are offering library cards for all students of the district. Um this is totally optional. Parents can opt in. They did receive um a form a message I believe earlier this week. Um cards will be distributed at the schools and I think the deadline for that is Friday, September 19th. >> Great. Thank you. Uh members, anyone else who has an update, uh please make sure you send those to me uh and Yolanda so we can include that in next month's agenda. Uh, the next regular meeting of the board of education will be on Thursday, September 18th at 7 pm. I want to thank everyone for coming and
103our student representatives for sticking it out for that whole first meeting. Uh, and we're looking forward to your presentations next month. Uh, the board's going to go into close session next and we will not be returning after that to take any further action. We'll adjourn right after close session. Um, so the board will enter into close session to discuss the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees, specific individuals who serve as an independent contractor in a park, recreational, or educational setting, or specific volunteers of the public body, or legal counsel for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee, a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor, and a park, recreational, or educational setting, or a volunteer of the public body, or against the legal council
104for the public body to determine its validity, and to discuss the purchase or lease of real property for the use of the public body, including meetings held for the purpose of discussing whether a particular parcel should be acquired. May I please have a second? >> Second, the roll, >> please. Uh, Debbie. >> Yes. Yes, >> Bill. >> Yes, >> Carrie. >> Yes. >> I vote yes. Jessica, >> yes. >> Harland, >> I. >> Motion carries. >> All right, great. We are now going to go into close session. Again, we will not be returning after closed. Thank you very much for attending and have a good evening.