CCSD21 Board Of Education Meeting - September 21, 2023

001the CCSD 21 September 21st 2023 regular Board of Education meeting is called order uh secretary Riddick would you please take attendance Debbie here bill here I am here Stacy yes Arlen here dagmara here Phil here and our student Representatives Brandon thank you and Mario here wonderful I'm so glad you guys are here tonight we have quorum thank you um would everyone please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance I'm good I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign thank you start anyone any individual physically present at the meeting wishing to address the board must complete a comment card and provide it to miss Del Riel over on my left any individual virtually

002attending the meeting wishing to address the board must complete the public comment formula linked on the agenda prior to the start of the public comment section of the meeting and any written public comments may also be submitted via email uh I would like to welcome Sherry pump from the park district to our meeting wonderful to see you again it's been so long something like that um before we begin uh for communication I would like to take a moment to say a special thank you over the past few weeks CCSD 21 has celebrated the installation of the new playgrounds at Riley and field school and the completion of the new lmc's at field and London schools I would like to thank everyone who joined us to celebrate including legislators elected officials staff parents students and community

003members thank you it was it's been seeing all that new work it's just amazing I will be more mobile yeah okay in addition we just completed our first annual safety week the goal this week was to raise awareness about school safety among our students parents staff and community members I would like to thank superintendent Dr Connolly assistant superintendent of student services and school safety Kim Klein and chief technology officer Mike francini for implementing this program I would also like to thank everyone who participated in safety week thank you all for keeping everyone safe no okay so now on to the business section I'll start with board Communications nsseo normally I would be giving that but because I was unavailable Jessica was kind enough to be my alternate and so if you have a report for

004us yes thank you um as Debbie just mentioned I attended the nsseo board meeting on September 12th again thank you very much for being laid up so that I had the opportunity to attend as you've noted to us previously they are just a fantastic group of people from the co-op districts I felt very welcomed in the room and it was it was a great meeting it was a great deal discussed but I will highlight sort of two overarching themes that I think are important because they also relate to issues that we have here at our District transportation and Staffing for transportation they were the shining stars this month the folks in the organizations that make up the student transportation side just the the sheer number of organizations and types and modes of transportation that get

005the kids safely to their schools and a family well the parents of a student at nsseo that have supported the co-op in all of their transportation needs and we had a a full report which I have have given to you about all the different ways that that students are transported safely students that have behavioral needs or physical disabilities the expense of transporting students and making sure that they are safe um on the Staffing side we recognize teachers who would achieve tenure they were gifted a copy of the book the big umbrella which I would encourage everyone to read if you have not I think it was important to like specifically acknowledge the folks that not only teach kids with special needs and disabilities but also who perform exceptionally well and have achieved longevity in the

006co-op and the reason I think the big umbrella was just so such a perfect choice to give to each of these teachers was that the overarching message of the book is that we're not here to fit students into a mold we're here to expand the mold to include all students and as we learn more about how kids learn and function you know it really struck home to me about the necessity of inclusion of you know we meet kids where they are not vice versa just the great variants we see in all different ways of intellectual and academic development so that we can educate all of the kids that come to us um and then on a more sort of you know heavy-handed note we had a report about the staffing needs in the co-op and

007that actually several of the sites were reported to be fully or 98 staffed which is absolutely incredible many times at nsseo the staffing needs are really seeking unicorns to fit someone who can cover a student's specific needs but they did know that they have been on sort of a just tremendous ongoing interview and hiring system that is not sustainable so they are starting to look into different ways to retain individuals so evaluating why teachers stay conducting actual stay interviews versus like exit interviews that you know most of us are more familiar with what they like about working there starting a mentoring program program doing work culture surveys and I know we've had conversations on our end about you know Staffing difficulties as well so I thought that was really you know an interesting plan um

008and then ultimately we had a report about Sunrise the outdoor education program how they create programs with the schools that go there and then evaluate them after I haven't been there yet I haven't had an opportunity to go but it sounds like it's just an absolutely incredible facility there and so that that was that much the Ed red Bill do you have an update yes thank you the next Dead red event there's either calendar year is about to start off will be the annual kickoff luncheon to be held Friday October 6th at The Western Chicago North Shore here in Wheeling the keynote presentation will be Ai and education past present and future by Eric Santos of the learning Technology Center if you're interested and haven't yet registered please contact Leticia Edward's first member meeting will

009be held Friday November 3rd at 1 30. according to Edward's calendar of events all of their member meetings will be held here in our boardroom so that'll make it much more convenient for us a complete calendar of the Ed red meetings can be found on their website after you log in and that is it for Ed red updates just a quick note that I attended their advocacy 101 class this week for those of us that are members of Ed red it was just a good reminder of not only how bills are moved through the capital in Illinois but also all the information that's available to us on their website so if you haven't checked in on your member login definitely do so they have a lot of fact sheets and Bill tracking information that can

010help keep you up to date thank you okay back to Bill do you have any updates for iasp of course the ISB fall North cook division dinner will be held Monday October 30th at the Meridian Banquet and Conference Center 1701 Algonquin Road in Rolling Meadows as I previously mentioned the featured speaker will be Tony Sanders this Illinois superintendent of schools additionally if anybody's interested in an early Peak the preliminary schedule for the 2023 joint annual conference is now online on the iasb website so you could certainly check that out on another note yesterday I attended the heims Patrica and fester annual School loss seminar along with Bob Gurney [Music] there were a number of very interesting topics discussed including but not limited to the rights of transgender students book Banning and the new Illinois library

011law Faith's law and changes to student residency law if any of you are interested in the handouts I could provide a link to the materials for you at the conference something on a more personal note many of you may know Rob Cooper He's a long time education law attorney and he was presenting in one of the breakout rooms that I was sitting in and he called me out to say that he had a special hello for me uh from uh from Gary Michael our former superintendent who had lunch with the other day apparently they're good friends and uh you know so I did give Gary a call today and got his voicemail which says if you got this voicemail that means I'm on the golf course which if for all of us who knew Gary

012that's not particularly a surprise so I will pass along everyone's regards at such time as he gets back to it yeah and that's it okay thank you very much uh North cook Arlen so we actually have a meeting coming up uh the 27th I will miss this one because my son is having surgery that day but I can tell you North cook is doing extremely well we've had a large infusion of State funding I mean I I was on the board when we were really nickel and diamond seriously wondering how we would pay the bills going down the road so it's refreshing to see where we are today did I turn that off I did sorry about that so things are humming along space we picked up more space without incurring additional expenses in the

013building we are moving ahead we are sponsoring a conversation nationally known conversation program we've got 80 participants from all over North cook area and outside the state so it's pretty exciting our a-lop program is growing we just added 16 new members team members to that to add to the original 10 that we had so that's growing nicely we expect to go from 300 students last year who were involved with this program to over a thousand the coming year um the young adult Academy program is also growing and that's because of the need of students to have additional care and the mental issues and psychological issues that are still the outgrowth of the pandemic but we're really reaching capacity already on that in terms of the space in this building and we're starting to look ahead

014to in the future being able to acquire a facility that would allow us to expand and Grow Again um and then we are financially we are evidence-based funding is up very substantially from the state as is our RSS RSS Grant so and finally we're working on a long-term strategic plan uh to move the district in a organized fashion ahead in the future but there's great demands on our programming where we believe we're helping a lot of school districts in in the region and it's exciting to be have been a part of this for so many years thank you thank you okay actually if you want to continue the Wheeling Township 708 board 708 board so it's interesting times there actually was a meeting last night of the 708 board itself and so what has happened

015is I think we may have touched on it the last month but I'll do a quick review and that is that the attorneys for Wheeling Township determined that there was a flaw in the in the language that was used that we passed in the referendum uh there seems to be a consensus that something was left out although it's debatable whether it's fatal or not but North but we are in a position where the Wheeling Township would like to run a new referendum in the spring because they believe the old one will be challenged now so far it has not been challenged so far across the state there have been no issues uh the last time this happened was 2020 and in that year Kane County had a flawed language technical stuff not substance and the

016general assembly passed legislation to make it good and it's never been challenged but we know that there are issues with Wheeling Township not wanting the referendum necessarily to have happened so we're hoping that this is good faith that's going on now but the bottom line is that we have been working with the general assembly with legislators on both sides of the aisle to create a legislative fix we believe that will happen in the veto session I actually even spoke to the speaker of the house at a meeting about a month ago and he assured me he would support this initiative Dan diddich state representative Dan didich who's kind of leading the general the house side of it and Ann Gillespie in the Senate so if that passes then we still are faced with the issue

017of whether Wheeling Township chooses to run a referendum as well and so we're we've asked them last night formally through the 708 board not to run a referendum in Spring but rather to wait till November in the event that the legislative fix doesn't happen whether they're willing to do that or not I don't know we will be appearing next week before they're bored to ask that formally directly to Wheeling Township and we'll see where we go from here never a dull moment thank you thank you hey Stacy did you have any updates no just on my topics okay thank you [Music] um now now we will go on to the governmental agencies Bill did you have any other nothing in additional okay any Arlen anything else okay Stacy um I had the opportunity to attend

018the Wheeling uh village board meeting to honor Mike Moran the other night they made Mike Moran way um Jackie and his daughters were there and spoke about his long involvement with Mark Twain being the PTO president and Mark Twain um so Jackie thanked me for coming on behalf of the board known Jackie and Mike 30 years so it was an honor to be there and get to honor him um the village of Wheeling is hosting their annual pancake breakfast Community pancake breakfast Saturday morning eight o'clock at the fire station on community Boulevard Congressman Brad Schneider will be there 8 8 30 right when it starts if you are planning on being there please shoot me um an email and let me know as the Congress staff would like a list of those from our organization

019that will be joining um and it's Taste of the Town time for the Wheeling Chamber of Commerce so if you have not been to taste of the town I highly recommend that you go to taste of the Town it will be a Chevy Chase again um what's the date of it it is Wednesday October 18th um Full House they'll have some musical offerings from Wheeling High School I wouldn't be surprised if perhaps they reached out to see if there was any interest in middle school performing as well I mentioned that at our board meeting but tickets are available on sale and on sale for Taste of the town um and I know that we are going to work with the um Wheeling uh Unity foundation on a Day of the Dead event that Cass is

020working on so we're you know whatever whatever I've indicated to them you know whatever they're interested in including us and on who please let us know okay awesome thank you Phil do you have any updates for anything I just wanted to express my appreciation for the um uh our various Representatives that attended the field uh ribbon cutting for the playground and the LMC uh recently we had a great turnout there it was really nice to see um see that support um I'm pleased to be at the London one this evening with all of you as well other than that nope but I'm looking forward to taste of the town again this year that's for sure Taste of the towel thank you Dagmar do you have anything I don't okay and Jessica do you have any

021other updates okay thank you uh next we have a presentation from our student Representatives Dr Connolly so I want to uh welcome after a summer and and we had a couple of meetings that you guys came to over the summer so thank you very much for that but as we have now started the school year on a monthly basis during our board meetings the representatives are going to be um sharing some insights uh and and experiences with the board um and I want to note that our Cooper representative um is no longer in the district she transferred out of the district so we are going to be seeking a a successor and hope to uh welcome that individual uh for the October meeting so um but without any further Ado I will toss it over

022to Brandon and Mario and and they've put a couple little slides together there you go uh yeah so the new school year has started off amazing uh the new like principles and assistant principles are really like making a a better place to learn um my teachers also have a good way of like having to engage into like the learning uh some of my friends and I are like excited for volleyball because it's the first year the uh the district has boys volleyball and I hope that homes you know even after we go into high school that it becomes a better place to learn so our first weeks at our first weeks of London has been like amazing so before the school started cross country I had to offered a preseason which started two weeks before

023the school actually started so I was able to attend the two weeks of cross-country conditioning and we had our first meet two weeks ago I want to say but during that week of this um first meet we were able to receive our tent which was a huge excitement and our uniforms as well so we were able to represent our school with pride and we did well this year we were doing well this season and I would like to also mention about the second day of school um I had London but I just want to say we as teachers from eighth grade I talked to some seventh and a couple of sixth graders they said that their way that the way the teachers handles the situation and we're announcing students to be able to get picked

024up and transportation was it was a great time it was it was a great experience to go through as something many of us have never been through and I would like to say that the teachers Board of administration principals and we they all did a great job a lot of these students go through but that is all thank you and I'll just note for those who maybe are watching um on zoom and and aren't really sure what Brandon was talking about our second day of school um the hottest day of the year um a significant portion of the air conditioning at London failed uh there were three areas of the building that still had air conditioning so that was one of those days where kids were not going to be able to stay um and

025uh and you're right Brandon and and by the way um you're you and your your peers were amazing um I was there and and so as much as the the staff really did a great job so did students um that uh you know so please pass that along to your to your peers because it was quite impressive just bill Brandon I'm glad to see about the cross country I would like to encourage you and your teammates to keep it up my son who's now 32 began his running career at London he's run now in the Chicago marathon he currently lives on the west coast he runs Trail Races marathons Ultra marathons Snowshoe races and it's just a great way to to keep going and a great career to have so I hope all of your

026teammates are really enjoying it and and stick with it thank you anyone else okay thank you John uh the next section on the agenda is Staff communication the superintendent's report is our update on drop off and pickup configurations uh yes we have uh several updates um that we wanted to bring to the board um and so I'm going to just go ahead and turn it over to Mr dibartolo who is going to start off with the parking lot reconfiguration good evening um as you know we rolled out new configurations or made some tweaks at four different parking lots this year field Tarkington Frost and why am I drawing a blank on the last one Whitman thank you that was the one that had the least amount of changes so um that's why it escaped me

027so just to give you a little brief update because I know we had a presentation in August to talk about it and wanted to give you an update on how things are going uh field uh was probably about our our second most substantial change uh after the plan that was presented to the board and after some feedback from Crystal and her team as well as watching a day or two of the traffic flow we did go ahead and modify where the double lane turns into a single Lane so that we didn't have a a cross point where there could be some conflict um it has lessened about three cars that we can get into the queue but it has made the process much easier and Crystal Reports that it has really gone well that and

028the parents have been positive about the change one of the ads that we talked about with the Wheeling police because on Armand it seems as though people are cutting through the neighborhood and they're going rather fast so Wheeling has installed a speed tracker they will turn it on for the public to see soon and then they will write tickets if we need to because there has been some cars that have traveled at a great rate of speed which is a safety issue for the students and the parents that are walking as well as those that are in cars so Crystal has reported that it has gone really well which is a positive at Frost that was one that we did over the summer we had not studied that last year but based upon conversations with

029the Village of Mount Prospect we got the services of our transfer of our parking lot consultant back out so that she could go ahead and take a look we did a similar traffic design as field where we had two lanes of cars coming in a drop off Lane the bus is now we're in the front of frost rather than in the back debt has enhanced the playground use the safety back there and Catherine reports and I was there for a couple dismissals they are out within 10 min since last year it was about 20 to 25 at times it has gone really well the only change besides that lane uh the the where that combines into one was to go ahead and add some signage and she reports that the parents have been well received

030that you know there are a couple people that need a few reminders but we expect that so again a successful rollout of that one uh Whitman had no major changes from the August design and overall had the fewest number of changes but what we did do to enhance safety was crosswalks we painted some additional crosswalks we are planning to put a sidewalk in so that kids don't have to walk across the grass to get to the crosswalk that's a future project but overall she said that the parents have been very responsive to it and that everything is moving well and that she has had far limited more far more limited complaints this year than years past so that is a positive as well turkington which Jessica and Bill can attest to is the most changes

031and uh was the one that was rated as our parking consultant as the most difficult just because of space challenges land use challenges and then trying to accommodate all of the the people that are coming onto the property at one time so we did do a modified entrance exit for single Lane as you know that it appears to be up to three lanes at times two lanes at others uh two and a half to some so we went ahead and made it so that is just a single Lane in and a single Lane out we did do some re-striping with arrows to help that process I will say Octavio the poor guy uses more cones on a daily basis than anybody else but the traffic flow has been greatly improved we did add some additional

032signage uh tomorrow they are actually putting a concrete pad out by door 13. one of the things that Joe had said is in order to keep parents where they used to wait um to go ahead and have kind of a collection Point rather than having so much foot traffic along the building that he asked for a concrete pad so that we could have a holding area that will take a lot of foot traffic off it'll also allow Joe to use door 13 again so that kids can exit at the I'm going to this wrong southernmost point Northern northernmost point I knew it was North or South so the northernmost point which is door 13. in addition one of the things that we've talked about is they used to be able to use the back of

033the building both for entry and exit and so without doing that that created a lot of traffic on the very front of the school building so one of the things that we're doing and it's said to be installed in a few weeks we just finished getting the quote is a fence along that backside so that there is a safe zone for kids to walk both when they're coming to school as well as when they leave school and it's divided it's a steel fence so that the bus has its own lane as well and so it reduces any conflict Point unlike the barriers that are a little small nobody can get over it and that will produce the ability to both enter and exit the school in the rear like they used to but also then

034allow the buses to go back around safely and have the kids come out Joe has reported that there's been very few problems right now by prohibiting students from traveling in the back but he truly believes that that will even enhance more the pickup drop-off ability because more people can walk like they used to and drop kids off right at the driveway there rather than taking students all the way in or feeling the need to drive and go through the last enhancement that we're making and it's been announced is the AM and PM kindergarten classes are going to be moved up a half hour preschool I'm sorry preschool not kindergarten so we have four sections of preschool this year there that did bring a lot more cars onto the the parking lot last year when we

035piloted the couple of classrooms there we did adjust those start and end times that did help so we decided to go ahead based upon Joe's request to go ahead and make that a solution this year we've talked about it with the union and have gotten great support from them so that is a change that is beginning October 10th and that'll take anywhere from about 60 to 80 kids off of the parking lot at the same time as the K-5 student so we do think that that will be probably one of the largest enhancements but all reports from Joe are that it improves on a daily basis he's had very few uh parent complaints which is good and a lot of positive comments about the flow this year so those are the parking lot changes we

036will continue to monitor our consultant has been out a few times just to see if there's any tweaks she would recommend and going forward if there are any suggestions we're open to them but we think that these have done a pretty good job we're about to start looking at a couple more parking lots for this year moving forward awesome thank you does anybody have questions Bill not a question but first a compliment um first thank you for taking the time to meet me at Tarkington but more importantly when I was there watching you taking the time to get input from parents teachers you talked about tweaks you're willing to listen to them from all quarters so I hope that is appreciated by the staff and the parents at each of these schools but you're doing

037a heck of a job with this I was out there because a parent contacted me and said could you please come out and take a look at it so I did on a on an afternoon and as I told Michael it's not perfect but it's a heck of a lot better than it was a year ago and a heck of a lot safer than it was a year ago and Michael and the consultants and the different teachers and buildings are constantly looking at improvements and because of all that again thing I think this is a great effort for our for our buildings these buildings aren't built for the kind of traffic they get and that's really the biggest problem they're just simply not built to have 60 70 80 cars going through on a daily

038basis so we're doing the best we can and thank you Michael thank you so I've been at field a couple of times I'm through Tarkington I would say neighborhood is not a new issue but it is a building issue I mean it it it's a little more every week as far as congestion short tempers through the neighborhood um and then along showing back also when Tarkington gets out when London gets out there there is a it is a free-for-all a little bit sometimes as far as kids crossing and so I would say I know the PD has been out a field a couple of times and had a couple of conversations but I would say just the it seems to be the perfect storm some days of kids coming from London kids coming from Buffalo

039Grove High School that intersection there and then it spills out onto schoenbeck Road over by where Debbie is also so the traffic seems to be heavier along showing back when the kids are getting out with buses and everything else so you know just something to keep on your radar you're talking once they leave the school grounds over in London for sure but when the buses spill out it it just it's it's not one thing it's a couple things the PD through is through there I would just you know I think the traffic has gotten heavier for sure especially over heavier over by when Tarkington leaves along that that one street and then whatever so just to put that on your radar before you know the kids are utilizing the library they are and I think

040that's part of the steady stream of of kid traffic and you have as many of the crossing guards you know but I almost saw one of the crossing guards get hit by an impatient human being so um you know just just to put that on your in the back of your head okay well what do you think's okay sorry one of the things that that in that area in particular we did um you know work with Wheeling to expand the time that crossing guards are on duty over there because we do have a separation of a half an hour um between our Middle School dismissal and our elementary dismissal so um I what I would say is again as we have talked about it is the the behavior and decision making of adults that is

041going to be the thing that will resolve these issues and um you know we'll continue to to to you know do everything we can to try and educate and try to reconfigure where we need to But ultimately from a traffic perspective there's very little we have influence of once they leave our grounds and I think that I think the police departments both Buffalo Grove and Wheeling have been great Partners yes and and helping it I am and I agree it is a hundred and ten percent the the adults I will say I've seen some of the most aggressive driving along that stretch of stone book Road when it's packed with kids and so I know the PD is aware of it I want to make sure in a public setting that I say that you

042know if you are driving it and it's it's our London kids it's our Tarkington kids it's our it's our Wheeling Buffalo Grove High School kids that are getting off the bus around the same time it is unfortunately that perfect storm and because we have those Partnerships but I this is like I'm mentioning like the last week like for some reason everyone needs to take a deep breath well and one thing we can do too is ask principals to remind students to make sure that they're you know Crossing at crosswalks that they are doing everything they can because that's half the battle but like Dr Connolly said it's a hundred percent so I would just add that the other issue that we deal with that we have no control over is how crazy people are driving

043I I was standing in front of my house at 4 30. uh this afternoon before I left or 4 15 and I watched three cars blow through a stop sign and make a street screeching right-hand turn onto Vista from Baroque I couldn't believe I was seeing it three cars like racing down a side street and you know there was a report that nobody's ever seen the kind of driving we're seeing today and we you know it's it's an issue for us with kids walking home and so forth so we've got a lot of kids going tough time quarter to Corridor at the same time I think we have a great rapport with our police department and um and also I think it's okay for our principals to say the kids use the crosswalk where it

044is pay attention to where they are not using the crossing guard they are not using the crossing guard at Anthony and schoenbeck they are going up there crossing that Lee at Lee and Marcy instead because I get to watch them every day from my chair is there an opportunity to tie that into Safety Week conversations with students about you know getting home safely getting to school safely where they should be Crossing what to look for I think so yeah absolutely um you know and and one of the things with with uh safety week is it's not just a one-time thing this year we're actually we'll be doing a a safety week in the spring but even before that I think you know again having some some traffic awareness conversations are absolutely things that we can

045ask our our building principles to make sure is occurring in our in our schools and I would also add from personal experience of being in the pickup and drop off lines at one of the schools Michael covered is you know it really only takes a few people doing something out of protocol to cause significant issues so you know you can have 95 adherence of the people who are going through the process and if two to five do not follow the process it has a you know cascading effect on on the whole flow so maybe we need to do some targeted Outreach when we identify repeat you know shoes I totally agree I think that's a great point all right thank you thank you Transportation okay um oh that's right there so the transportation committee update

046is more over the fact that we sent out the survey encouraging volunteers for the committee uh to date it just went out a couple days ago we have about 25 volunteers so far we just completed ridership counts at each of the buildings doing five days of ridership counts so we're compiling that data we will do this several times throughout the year we have been working with first student on uh their thoughts on on the metrics that we can use to go ahead and track stops and Route usage in addition to their thoughts on routing in general what are our assumptions that we put into the software to try and maximize not just the ridership and where people get on and off but also the safety and Gail has started rescoring the Hazardous routes so that

047we can take a preliminary look at what it was was years ago when we last took this on and what that looks like now from a starting point given the points that the Department of Transportation lays out for routes so we can have a framework of what routes look like now you know we have to really look at other routes that we know for sure are staying and then start to look at routes that people have suggested or that when we seek input people have suggested as potential new routes because we do know that there are some that we may be adding it's not all just about subtraction so I'm pleased with uh cath did a great job on the survey and the communication that went out and we look forward to getting the members

048and starting that committee up next month the the next report uh Kim and I have uh it's an update on where we are with the school-based health center and this is really starting to move now and it's very exciting one of the biggest things that we had to wait for was the appropriation to be fulfilled on our million dollar Community project grant that we got from Congressman Snyder's office so in going forward we have been meeting with Advocate and basically right now this is the timeline to get to the clinic so first off we're out to bid with construction documents on October 12th uh we hope and when we think we're there the attorneys have been exchanging the agreement now for a couple of months as only lawyers can do and October 19th the next

049board meeting is slated to be the approval of the agreement with Advocate moving forward that will then trigger the start of the approval for the school-based health center certification and there's a number of steps to go through we'll talk a little bit about that later the bid opening is scheduled for November 1st uh the bid Awards will be November 9th that's the November board meeting because we move it up due to Triple I uh December of 2023 if not sooner we'll start construction on the clinic they believe that substantial completion will be about March 15th and that we're shooting for the clinic opening on AP April 1st and that has a lot to do with both the certification and Advocates ability to staff the positions foreign so we have been in a lot of conversations

050with archon with Advocate um Olivia aguado just getting a lot of different perspectives on how do we make the best use of the space as it's been designed with the windows right like wanting the reception to be in a place where it feels welcoming to parents and to students as they're coming in trying to really figure out what's the best number of treatment rooms or consultation rooms making sure that the advocate staff has room to sit and do their charting you know as we're learning they will need to have access to our systems but they also need to have access to Epic which is their own system and trying to configure all of that in a way to make the best use of the space so you'll see in that upper left corner that's where

051reception will be right a rough drawing of some of the couches and seating area knowing you know even just having those discussions about what do we want reception to look like so that it's secure and and welcoming at the same time so the these next pictures really show you um what we've decided on so again coming into the the door right at the underneath us on the first floor um that right having that be the main entryway right now there's two doors going in one will be sealed off and we'll have the one entryway into reception um reception will have that half window that will let people in and out um going down the corridor we had a chance to go to Glenview couple weeks ago to be able to look at their space which

052is about half the size of ours which really makes it exciting to think about the work that we're doing for our community and what we're able to do um picking out like again that conference room right like Health isn't just coming into a clinic and being checked out it involves conversations it involves collaboration thinking about our lab space you know in in thinking about district 21 being one of the first districts to do preschool to eighth grade school-based health and the difference of the number of vaccines that our younger students get making sure that we have all the right Refrigeration for those vaccines from the get-go thinking about all of those pieces that apply to our population that's different than the high school health-based services that exist right now knowing that we want both exam

053rooms and also mental health treatment rooms thinking about serving that Continuum of preschool to eighth grade and the beginning right thinking about wanting sinks and all of that because therapy involves art sometimes and it involves getting messy and being able to write work through things in that way um so we're really proud of of being able to come to this point that feels like it's really meeting the needs of our population so one of the requirements the main requirement we have left after we sign the contract issue the bids is to go ahead and form The Advisory Board which is the requirement of the school-based health center that Advisory Board makes recommendations they provide the community support elicit and provide feedback determine the services to be provided and that makeup is an eight-person Advisory Board

054these are just some of the people that can be on that board uh and they're made up from various uh individuals within those groups and it's a decision that we'll have to start going through as we move forward to go ahead and form that that that committee and that way as we're moving through the accreditation process they'll be the ones that start making some of those decisions or at least advising us an advocate on those decisions and the last step is then going ahead and certifying the lab we need to certify that under the career standards Illinois Department of Public health comes in and looks at it makes sure that you know it has everything it needs one of the things that we're building in is a window between the restroom and the lab so

055that you can pass samples was something that when we were just designing the raw space we designed it as a build out that was one of those things that'll need to be popped in there's a few other things that we're doing to make sure we meet those standards luckily we've had the partnership at District 225 to go ahead and have meetings with them and discussions about what they've done as well as the fact that our kind of nickel has built the clinic and designed the clinic in District 225 so while no process with the Department of Public Health is smooth we do anticipate that having that ability to lean on District 225 an advocate who's been through this process not only with three clinics in the in this area but they now have signed a

056partnership and have a unit within them that focuses on school-based Health Centers Nationwide so we're really looking forward to getting this across the finish line first right include you know we had this great relationship with Jewel and so we we are using them again this fall to offer the flu and the cobit booster vaccines to our staff but we did start to have those conversations with Advocate um we want to use them for anything that we can they will we will be partnering with them for they have a Ronald McDonald mobile unit to be able to do some of the physicals it's such a high demand service that we were only able to secure a couple of dates in October but it's that start of building that partnership and being able to serve our community

057looking at the wellness events right where we can work together to promote the wellness for our staff and for our community and again looking at all of those different Partnerships we're really excited one of the meetings that we're we're getting ready to set up is to look at those Telehealth Services between our school health offices and the school-based health clinic it's literally just a small box that you can insert the otoscope into or write that that we can transmit information from our school health offices over here to even think about better ways to keep kids in school and to really just um treat treat the students that need that but also really keep the kids in class that can go back to class and and we would be remiss not to thank Mike and his

058team because the tech side of this is huge getting to make sure that both the Epic system and our system work together phone lines internet and Mike said on a call last week and with great skill went through everything that's needed and has already started the plan that we'll put out to bid so just as an aside I also want to mentioned Illinois Department of Public Health on the uh our opening day Institute so the day before the first day of school the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health actually came along with Senator Gillespie and representative Mary Beth Canty to tour and kind of be brought up to speed on on what our our vision is um and so so it's really been something that you I I think it's safe to say

059he was quite impressed um with uh with where we're going um and uh you know so my hope is is that getting a little bit of that notice um you know will help the the process along of course obviously regulatory processes are very you know specific and but it's also not a bad thing to to kind of plant some seeds um and so for uh future you know Grant options funding options things of that nature to kind of start building that relationship so I really want to um to to recognize um that uh Senator Gillespie and and representative uh Mary Beth Canty um who really initiated that um and and brought uh um the director to us [Music] yeah yeah we didn't have a lot of notice that it was happening but that's okay Michael

060um Kim on the formation of The Advisory Board who is making the selection is that a combination of us and Advocate is it them is it us who is it so um I think that's something that we need to discuss um as a board team they ultimately are advising you as the board of education so um you know I I think um and and Michael correct me if I'm getting you know um that the process um really can be determined by the board of of you know what kind of application process recruitment process who to appoint you can form a subcommittee you know so uh there there so that is going to be one of the things that we're going to need to have some discussion around um and uh because we're going to need

061to appoint that board probably in November yeah pretty quickly I mean it it really is the it's kind of the middle part to the application process but we're going to want to form that so that we get that input that direction as to what they're looking at so we can make some informed decisions so my suggestion would be that we add that topic in particular as an item for board discussion in October the as you know I was pretty excited at the conceptual conversation about this I was when I saw the presentation uh earlier this week I was a little disappointed that we're looking at April but I understand the process and the complexities that are involved in bringing something like this on board but uh certainly looking forward to next April that's for sure

062yeah obviously we would have liked it quicker too but the grant that we needed to wait was really the main hold up and then making sure we can get the staff but yeah April will be really exciting excuse me so I am super familiar with Round Lake Area their school-based health center um and have had the opportunity to work in it for a number of years on the mental health side of it so can you just take me I know we had talked about some commonalities and some differences in that and what we're doing in the past so can you just take me through a little bit as to the similarities between what Round Lake has done over the years and what what we're starting off with and where where we'll end up so Round

063Lake is a partnership with the county versus a private organization I think advocate so that's the first the second is is that it is a tiny compared uh 225 or our Clinic set up so they have limited ability to service on site but they refer out a number of people for vision for dental for mental health although you're required to have at least one mental health office within the school-based health clinic so that would be one commonality that we have similar we both will have a lab just like 225 or Maine Township again the requirements requiring a either a licensed physician nurse practitioner to be on site all of those are similar the difference is that County piece around Lake Beach helps them out a ton whereas Clay County Healthcare Foundation if I'm not if

064I'm not mistaken yeah and the other the other distinction is scope of services so I believe when we and we visited the Round Lake Clinic well over a year ago right a year and a half ago maybe two years I don't know time all runs together um but because there is specific grant funding through the County Health Department that is is driving some of that there are certain you know scopes of a scope of service that they that they can't go to so I think that our partnering up with with Advocate really opens up um you know we don't have as many um no-go areas and Nash Clinic was born very similarly at a similar need to what we're doing here I I mean I had the opportunity to work with Nike Casa and some

065of those agencies when when that came about so I just am always curious as to what the commonalities are because basically it were it was it was created to keep kids in school from missing their opportunity to come because of vaccinations the other thing I would say is that Ruth Round Lake because it is it is centered in the high school it is a high school dominated Clinic um so that's what I was just saying our the fact that we have 13 locations for students is exactly what Kim was talking about that Telehealth is something that Advocate is really excited to implement so that we're not bringing students over here that can still be treated from the health office and be sent back to class and having the drivers to bring students here and back

066is a big difference that we can provide over any of the other locations too yeah they're keeping an eye up north on what we're doing now here don't you worry they'll be asking questions but I just um was curious as to the differences in the commonalities thank you Arlen thank you first a quick quick question do you have an uh a projection for next fall as to what kind of tendons in the clinic as we ramp up uh just curious Glenbrook gave us some numbers from their first three months and it was a steady build their first month which was January which was a partial month at about 25 student visits but it has gone up and up and up the other addition that we'll do just like Glenbrook did is staff and they're seeing

067a real positive impact on staff uh the goal with any school-based health clinic they tell you is about 300 visits a year Advocate expects us to surpass that because obviously we have 6 200 students we have 900 staff members and again while not open to the community immediately the goal is within three years to have full Community Access assuming we can work out that Regulatory and insurance piece but I would expect that if we can start getting momentum early that as we work over the summer that we will see bigger numbers earlier especially since we all know when students back to school and everybody's got the germs passing around we start to see some of those ailments that that affect everybody so yeah I would expect right now we don't have a projection but I

068think that's something we could get from Advocate to see yeah okay I think the other thing to point out is is the Telehealth piece um that still goes into the Census count of service um because it is coming out of the the school-based health center so even if you know we got a kiddo with a with a earache uh ear infection that they can see through the through you know and are able to write that script it is in essence a visit to the school by stealth center right um even if physical proximity um wasn't necessary so I think that in and of itself um is going to be probably a pretty big driver of the use so on on the common side um I think many of us thought when we started talking about

069this in the beginning wonderful idea but can it ever happen and realistically without the leadership of our leadership team it never would have happened this is an extraordinary moment I've been part of 21 for 30 years we've done a lot of exciting things air conditioned our buildings added staff for special needs expanded our programming but this is something Beyond The Pale this to me is a Valentine's card to all of our teachers and our community and our students to show how much we really care about everybody who's part of this district 21 community so I can't thank you Michael enough all of us who have been involved in this all of you who've been involved in this just quite extraordinary and a fabulous day for district 21. so thank you from the bottom of my

070heart and let me just add to that that having had a bird's eye view of the hundreds and hundreds of hours that have been spent by Michael Kim Mike Olivia are our community health liaison and many others this has been a second full-time job in and of itself and that's also with everything else we're doing right so um it really has been um impressive to watch all right I just mentioned one more thing that while all of this is being built out for school-based health um we do have right our partnership with Omni we do have um counseling happening in the evenings Monday and Wednesdays at this point they're looking to expand that um our partnership with YWCA we have a new parent visitor who will be working out of this space so the first

071floor is being used by the community while all of this is also happening I do have a question um so the students and staff coming in to receive Services is this going through insurance or is the are the services free to them so at the onset we will subsidize through the million dollar donation of the Family Foundation the services the initial setup is not for a pay for service or insurance we will look to see if we will build Medicaid unfortunately the return on Medicaid is about 35 to 50 000 a year and the work and the hours that go into it is much more we're working on a model and that's the three-year Outlook of getting to that point where we can take insurance fees Medicaid or work with advocate in their group on

072individuals who can't afford and don't have insurance to go ahead and subsidize that so we will be doing a lot of fundraising efforts we will be doing a lot of Grant searching one of the things that we'll talk about in the the budget is looking at a grant writer because there are many opportunities we don't have the opportunity to work and try and go after all of the the non-public grants that are out there so the start will be us subsidizing we have an anticipation of a cost that we're looking at there are a couple more staff members but the the donation will get us through at least the first two years we think two two and a half and then after that we'll be looking at other funding sources but we've gotten so much

073support from both private and public agencies that we truly think that the funding part as long as we continue to do our work like we've been doing in the word out will make itself a lot easier than it would be if we didn't have the startup money thank you and one more thought I think because this is going to is a very new way to deliver Health Care in our communities I think it's going to be very important for the public to have awareness of what we are you know who we're serving the school community of what the scope of services are and how it's going to work so I mean I'm interested in kind of seeing those communication plans you know at the appropriate time I understand it's probably premature right now yeah no

074that that's actually what we're starting uh we are meeting tomorrow morning right is um Olivia's already been researching different websites and the information that's on there um and really one of the other big steps I feel like is we want to bring our school health assistance our RNs that are serving our our schools that know our kids we want right we want to meet with them hear from them because I think a lot of that information comes out of our schools and so we're definitely planning for all of that great thank you you have some local providers here now in town that are providing a lot of those like you have greater Health here in town so they catch a lot um we work for them with them on a behavioral health standpoint I mean

075they're great collaborators so I mean I think using those built-in Partnerships you have in town as you ramp up is you know is and I know you use greater greater a ton for everything bill just a couple of things very quickly regarding the board that you want to set up I assume Glenbrook set up a similar board to get their operation running and it would be great in October if we hear some of the decisions that they made their their school board made as we discuss how to create our board so I would assume that we could get that information and that's part of our conversation tomorrow morning great thank you um the other thing through Ed red and one of Ed Red's executive board members Don Mendoza I also had the opportunity to tour

076the Round Lake Health Center this what we're doing is so much next what they did was amazing and what we're doing is really truly Next Generation from that their health center was shoehorned into a small existing part of their building this is being built for that purpose not only larger but with things like the Telehealth that we're proportioning to bring in proposing I'm sorry to bring in this will be truly a model for the next generation of school health clinics and I think that's really a great thing that we that we're all doing to bring these new steps to the to the equation and especially in an elementary school I mean I think I think okay thank you all right just one more do you need a break oh no I'm good too bad you

077can't have one keep going he gets the break after the next one cool hold on there we go uh lastly kind of two parts next month we'll do a little bit deeper dive into construction because we knew this was going to be a long meeting uh but we wanted to talk a little bit about playground Renovations because that is one of the biggest enhancements we've done outside obviously at two buildings along with the the seal coating and re-striping at all our buildings which uh that was a something Glenn had brought to me and and I didn't know if it would be possible given the dollar amount but I'll be honest with you and ended up making one of the biggest splashes of the summer because people have commented on how much fresher the buildings look

078just with the seal coating but the two playgrounds as you know we saw this slide a while back this is field when they tore everything out and to see it now with all the kids on it and the different apparatus uh it's amazing and it was unfortunate that it didn't get done by the very beginning of school you know we pushed as hard as we could uh Bill did point out to me tonight that Glenn is still waiting on their playground and they started in May so I feel really good about what we did but the first day when this was open to see the kids out there was just incredible and then at the ribbon cutting to see more kids out there um this has made a huge difference in combining the two playgrounds

079into one has become a great way for the kids to interact to get to know each other for the supervision not to have to be as spread out so we have basically the same number of people but watching in in a much tighter area so that we don't have to worry about you know things that as we know can get awry on the playground but the kids have been great I know Crystal and Julie have said that it has gone really well and it just really is a stunning playground and the surface is very bouncy which is good on the knees so and then Riley um you know kind of two different concepts in the end and that field was so large and had so much room and so much space and Riley was a

080smaller playground and had incrementally different knee or not incrementally largely different needs than um field because of the special needs populations that they house there so to see not just the the the the different Play Apparatus that all kids can play on but then to add the drums and the Chimes on the outside and the communication board and be able to put a fence that didn't feel as closed in as it did before and now is a welcoming atmosphere for all it truly is something that again when Dr Connolly said to me last November do you think we can do a playground I said I think we could do one when he said do you think we could do two it scared me a little but it was a great move and we are going

081to do two more at a minimum this summer and we were bidding a third as an alternate and we just are doing that to make sure that the timing can work out to do all three so stay tuned on which ones those will be the last thing I wanted to do and this isn't construction this is our guys and our principals we recently had our Roe inspections and I can't tell you how proud I am of the maintenance and operations team and I know we had them here last year it may be worth inviting them back again we had five perfect scores so there are three automatic deductions I'm sorry four automatic deductions on any Roe report we had five schools who were perfect we had two schools that only had one deduction and you

082see the perfect ones were Hawthorne homes Longfellow Tarkington Whitman the two with one deduction were Riley and Twain we had almost 40 percent in total reductions of issues from last year which is a testament to the leadership of the principals assistant principal the head custodians the maintenance team because it we've been fighting a lot of these for a long time because there are so many different things that the Roe looks at and to ask people that change is really difficult and I want to throw out a really special recognition to Patrick O'Connor who is the head custodian at homes as well as his whole team the Roe told us this was the first perfect score that a middle school has had in the gentleman who did it said his time and he checked back and

083it heard it's the only Middle School to have had a perfect score Patrick just recently became the head custodian about a year ago and he replaced a gentleman that had large shoes and Patrick has filled those shoes and really elevated the level of homes I mean it is impressive but I just wanted to take the time we talk about the construction and the outside contractors that occur every year but our guys do an incredible job and they have a short amount of time and when you think about you know you had field and Frost and Kilmer and London and London was all torn up because it was beyond the library it was the unit vents too they had every room new air conditioning we had the remainder at Tarkington we had the bottom and top

084of Hawthorne all of those buildings had a much shorter time frame to get ready and then you have programs at Longfellow and Twain and Holmes and so truly a remarkable task by the whole maintenance and operations team to get to this level and this was the earliest we've done Roe inspections because the gentleman was having surgery and didn't couldn't defer them because of the time period so to put that pressure on the team as well was really remarkable to see them perform so until the budget hearing that concludes my time and if you haven't gone to you gotta go to house so now that we're in our real well full first month of school I thought we would bring one more update for this period of time in terms of enrollment and class size uh

085we'll probably this will be the last one until we start to kind of go through that you know registration period for for the next school year so Bob sure and when Debbie noted that um thank you to the uh nscco was at 97.5 and I was and I just talked I think to Phil we're down 19 staff right now but we're at 98 so we're in a pretty good place ourselves so we're excited about that um a lot of these slides you're going to see as a review from the last slideshows that you've seen uh this is some 2223 information regarding some um places we were at as far as September as far as class sizes you'll see the same ones from December with a few extras and then it expanded a little bit by

086the time May rolled around these are some supports we offered in the 2022-2023 year for those class sizes we'll continue to look at those when we're considering things for this year and then some sectioning hot spots that we've been watching since March um marched through through August throughout the district this is some language for the CBA talking about where we're looking for that building class average um those those numbers are not ceilings they're more the targets we're aiming for K3 four five and six eight and some options to kind of deal with the class sizes if they get high so what you'll see on the next few slides are the actual individual schools um you know we've actually talked a lot about let's see what actually happens when the kids show up uh you'll see

087some of the slides where we were a little concerned in August 17th and then by the time last week rolled around we've got no course sections exceeding the guidelines so Frost you'll see the same thing as field we've seen a reduction there in fifth grade Kilmer has seen a pretty big increase but second and fifth grade we had second grade as a Target in August and now second and fifth grade at Kilmer Longfellow we made a note here third grade was where we were seeing in August 17th but third grade also has a inflated class because we've got a couple kids that push into that class for a couple hours a day so that class of 23 is being kept low on purpose Paul we've seen a little bit of an increase in fourth grade

088the challenge at Poe is there's only one fourth grade gen Ed section so there's not a lot of places to go here whereas some schools have three or four sections in that one grade gen Ed fourth grade at Poe is only one section Riley we see no concerns Tarkington no concerns Twain we've seen a decrease there from third grade Whitman no concerns as far as exceeding those guidelines and then again Cooper we've seen a decrease in the eighth grade homes we've got no concerns as far as the guidelines and London again we've seen that decrease we've seen a lot of decreases across the board in the last month these are some added sections that we've been putting in since March or so March April again Kilmer and Longfellow got the most recent kindergarten classes and

089these are the current class section sizes they've just been a decimal or two off here or there since you saw them last month and then across the district we were able to adjust the Middle School sections to 89 percent are at or below the guidelines and again that's for those core sections uh specifically science and social studies Elementary is doing really well at 96 percent any questions do we have any sense as to where people are going if we have decreases in the buildings and why in terms of where students that are you know a lot of that is is just kind of typical Mobility um if you've got folks whose leases are up and they relocate um you know particularly I think where we're where we're seeing probably the most concentrated decreases are in

090those buildings that have a lot of congregate housing that they're that they're serving so that's not an atypical um thing the one thing I will say is that if if past is prologue we will see throughout the course of this year more like you know people keep coming in right so it the pace may slow down a little bit but um and and Kilmer in particular yeah um you know they uh I think you were saying we have a hundred and at least 110 students um from Ukraine um that 112 new students since last year amazing um I in fact I think based on the on the additional sections we added at Kilmer already I think they're out of classrooms um we you know their art music are on carts um because of uh we

091just needed the classroom space so so that is probably of district-wide our our largest concentration of influx um uh so we'll see how that moderates over the the course of time okay thank you yeah just a a note for future um for next spring understanding the cycle that happens every single year with schools that as you begin to plan you're going to be at one level once you get to school uh it changes and I think the note that you just showed with these uh comparisons Bob is something that should lead into the end of next year as we start to have initial Communications with our parent community that don't get too concerned at this particular point in time because more than likely your concerns are going to be not realize come fall just a

092note for communication in the future and if I could add to that quickly to point out that as numbers have changed we've reacted right now let me back that up the Administration has reacted and added where it's needed to be added maybe not saying that in April maybe not saying that in May but sometimes saying that in August and to let our community know that we're being both cautious and active to make sure that we're doing the best we can to be under those targets or at those targets I would add thank you Bill for saying that because some of the community concerns were raised during the school year with already existing levels not when you started presenting your potential hot spots and I think you know to to Bill's point the administration responded and

093added classes accordingly and appropriately and I do know that that is appreciated by the community thank you thank you okay uh we have now reached the public comments section of our meeting 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 would be brought directly to the attention of the appropriate School official during public comment the board and administration listen to comments but may not respond to the public Leticia have we received any comment cards Mike have we got anyone online and Cass have we received anything written okay thank you uh then the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda this month we receive two Freedom of Information requests there are a total of 412 dollars for

094conference and travel expenses for the board to approve which include attendance of a board member to the iasb 2023 Equity immersion event and another board member to the iasb Friday Focus workshop on school safety Phil did you have an opportunity to review the financials I did have several questions for the business department that were answered satisfactorily and uh extend the appreciation to Kim Klein for eliminating me on one particular set of questions that I had thanks Kim thank you uh does anyone need anything pulled from the consent agenda item a okay yes degmar needs a pulled may I please get a motion to approve the consent agenda minus item a so moved second thank you bill hi Arlen aye Stacy yes Phil r agmara yes I vote Yes Debbie yes motion carries okay may please

095get a motion to approve item item a so move second Arlen aye Stacy yes Phil R dagmara abstain oh yes Debbie yes Bill aye motion carries okay thank you the next section on the agenda is the consideration of the 2023-2024 CCSD 21 budget first we have to recess the regular meeting and convene the public hearing so moved soccer Stacy yes Phil dagmara yes I vote Yes Debbie yes Bill hi Arlen aye motion carries okay we are now in public hearing Mr de Bartolo thank you uh first off let me start by saying uh I think Dr Connolly the cabinet for the hard work on this this was probably our toughest budget year yet as we tried to make sure we met all our priorities and implement the new policy on the transfer for Capital funds

096so that we can do restrooms and playgrounds and flooring going forward and so it took an incredible amount of work in having Mike Zager my Director of Business Services come on uh in the second week of July he has done a remarkable job and I think meshed well with the team so far he's done an incredible amount of work and really elevated the position uh and we're lucky to have him aboard so um as you know we had this slide last week uh or last month uh we went ahead and scheduled the date for the public hearing at the August board meeting we placed the budget on display as required on August 21st it's required to be up for 30 days uh we published the notice of hearing that was for tonight's meeting I'm sorry

097September 21st I we published on August 21st we reviewed and revised the budget well into the 19th as many of you know based upon the email with the the numbers we are conducting the public hearing tonight we are required to formally adopt the budget by the 30th but we'll take that vote this evening and then we need to submit it to isbian the county September 30th there is a new requirement this year on evidence-based funding the evidence-based funding report used to be a series of check boxes and very little information this year there was more to it and something that is being completed because it's an administrative function it's not part of the approval so that is uh being completed and will be done so that we can file the budget notice that the paper

098is here just so that everybody sees that we did publish that and what it said um keys to the revenue we did a lot of this last month there are some changes based upon the changes that we've made to the budget in years past we haven't really had to make any modifications because we were pretty set on where we were spending we changed Grand Cycles this year um the staff plan has been extremely fluid as you heard Dr Connolly say um you know in filling positions so this is something that we looked at most of this is the same on this page obviously we are seeing unprecedented uh increases based upon CPI I don't think that the legislature ever thought we'd hit the five percent cap we've done it two years in a row but

099that is not something as the government tries to bring down inflation uh that I think will continue to see so we've gotten some good growth in property taxes uh very small growth as you see in ebf because we've been promoted to tier three as opposed to being in tier two as we'd been since then exception of ebf so that got us a hundred and fourteen thousand dollars this year I do not uh think that we will see uh that level again because tier three typically does not see big increases um we are now at 91 percent of funding adequacy that takes us out of the 80s where we were and that's why we've been promoted uh and again like I said we don't really expect any new money to ebf in fiscal year 25 unless

100there is a huge influx of cash into the ebf plan as you know they've been targeting about 350 million dollars a year um just other details and some of this is is better news than it was last month uh there is only about a 2.3 decline percent decline in local uh total local Revenue that's non-property tax dollars um interest calculations has been a huge uh reason for the fact that the decline is smaller than it was last month we had it almost six percent um we do anticipate for the remainder of the fiscal you're seeing interest rates on our investments at that rate because the cash balances are strong that's getting us more money to offset the decreases uh as we talked about last month cpprt is a decline of almost 30 percent and again

101that tracks a lot with uh the CPI and and what's being paid in sales tags and other things as the economy drives if the economy starts to slow we'll see that go back even further um state revenue minimal increase in state funding as we said based about ebf just a 2.1 percent increase in total state revenue so we're seeing pretty flat revenues along the state and something that Dr Connolly has talked about before we don't anticipate seeing huge revenue from the state we anticipate large offsets from the federal government probably which is something that they've been saying for a while and we expect at some point to take shape and federal funding as you see a rather large decline in federal funding basically that's being offset and you'll see that in a later slide because

102the million dollars that we're getting in the grant towards the clinic is actually reducing the decline of federal dollars because that's only here for one year once that goes away that'll no longer be there and we'll have to start making some decisions we have 1.3 left in sr3 for this year which we're using in many different ways some staff some supplies some programs so that's a really effective use and since that's leaving us after this year you know we'll have to make some decisions next year just accordingly but I think the fiscal health is still strong and we'll be able to do that um expenses looking at this total supplies and materials and overall budget meaning just that area that we code in the four thousands so supplies materials workbooks things like that increased by

10356 percent over a million dollars that's just in the education area but again that's requirements that the government is putting on us that's updating curriculum that's the supply kits that we do so we know that a million dollars doesn't seem like much but it is a big jump in total materials and supplies as a whole salary and benefits actually um went last month we had said it increased higher but now it's at 5.9 million dollars total because some of our shifting has some of our spending has shifted from employees to agencies so the agency costs have gone up but the employee costs and the staff plan have gone down and that's kind of a juggling Act of can we fill positions can we feel hard to staff positions and if there's an area that we

104could use help from from the state or federal government it would be dollars towards getting the hard to fill positions filled additional dollars to go ahead and have people get their El endorsements they're all bs-1 so that we can go ahead and weather this storm of not having to use agencies and truly bring it on our own employees um 6.3 percent increase overall uh in that spending for salaries and benefits again slightly lower than we saw last month but again distributed differently into agency spending and then the salary portion of it is 5.47 percent higher that's not terribly a surprise because we had a five percent increase across the board we have a few people who are in the retirement queue so they're getting more and then we did not have the retirements that we

105had last year last year we had I believe was 22 retirements just in the education ranks alone not even counting everybody within the imrf so that allows us then to kind of reshuffle the deck as we bring in newer teachers who obviously are making less money so we anticipate next year that this will go down some but this is a number that we'll keep looking at out of District payments for services to students an increase of approximately a million dollars and again we try and Service as many students as we can here Kim has done a great job of getting a Continuum of services that ranges the Spectrum and so our outplacements are not as many as they were in the past but those outplacements are still expensive and they just continue to grow in

106cost so again something that that's one of those it's a variable that we just react to because it's not a lot of control we have over that if any really and then our insurance programs have gone up again workers comp projected to be a 15 increase I am happy to report our mod rate has come down uh so that is a that is a benefit that should lower our premiums if it not as much in this year going forward as long as we can keep that we're now under one again which is where you want to be and then our health and property and liability insurance is projected to be about a 10 increase overall uh highlights to new expenses again we had the sros we have costs to go ahead and get the supplies

107but safety is one of our main priorities as a team this year so that is money that is well spent it enhances the education because our students and Staff feel safer the education environment feels safer supplies for students and newer programs totals about four hundred thousand dollars that's kind of where that shift is and increase but those are things that we need to make sure that we deliver the educational product that helps kids and that the community and the board has come to expect so again that's just a number we look at to see how do we go ahead and make other things go down if we can so that we can fund these at an even higher level this year's Clinic expenses in the tentative budget we hit at about 450 000 because that

108was a full year now that we know it's about a quarter year we put it at about 125 000 for that that is the operation of the clinic and then that is remember paid actually not while it comes out of the budget it's a below the line expense because we received that donation a year and a half ago so it is not money that is being deducted from the revenue of this year it's already in the budget and has been identified to spend on the clinic and as I said that number plus two more years I think will get us for sure and then we'll go ahead and make sure that we can sustain that program moving forward through many different Avenues and then transfers for capital projects as you know this is something the

109board committed to and much needed if we're continuing to do playgrounds and we're going to tackle restrooms and we're going to get flooring so that truly the entire 21st century environment is brought to life and then we can start working on those fun things like roof Replacements Windows Doors and the things that luckily we have had a great preventative maintenance program and haven't come due during this time until this summer when we had to do a 25 replacement of the homes Road um this is just the operating funds in general as you can see the Ed fund and the O M fund and the tort fund have an increase transportation is an area that we have been allowing the fund balance to come down because we had amassed such a large uh fund balance in

110transportation mostly because Transportation rates were steady uh transportation we didn't provide as much transportation and the reimbursements were really good we are now providing a level of Transportation never seen before and not just in general at our special ed routes and our mckinney-vento routes and our out placement routes so that is an increase in cost but we will do some shifting with the levy over the next couple years to kind of bounce that back and it's also why we're looking at Transportation as a whole in the routes that we provide it is not an economic decision as As a matter of course but obviously the economics of Transportation impact our ability to provide it so overall we still we have a slight deficit but it's 278 000 but let me explain that that is because

111of one the clinic expenses that are in there um which is as I said below the line expense because it's not coming from this year's revenues and then the other thing is there is an adjustment payment on the debt certificates of about a hundred thousand dollars because the principal and interest number that had been given didn't end up being the number last year so we have to do a slight uh additional transfer this year but again dollars that we had committed already to payment of the building through fund balance so structurally we have a balanced budget that little bit of deficit comes from the fact that we uh we have some expenses that are really from either previous years or previous dollars collected so we are still in a surplus mindset the restricted funds and

112let me point out working cash is not technically a restricted fund although it requires board approval to spend out of it this is a fund that for years the district had not funded the the limit that the actual fund balance had gotten low we have started to fund through the levy and as you can see we have about three million dollars there there are a lot of different programs that we study that potentially uh become those dollars I mean Dr Collie and I dream about a Pre-K building we'd have to build up a lot of fund balance there but those are the types of things that come out of working cash it's really your savings account towards future programs or it's the rainy day fund if you need to fund some things that as you

113figure out what you need to do that you could dip into but we're funding that through the levy again this year you'll see that November and December for that hearing uh future considerations and just some work to do as we look to fiscal year 25 which seems like a long way away but it'll be upon us quickly I'm sure uh increases in property tax revenue as we talked about we're not likely to see five percent again if we see it it may be the last year forever because I can't imagine that we will be at these rates for as long as we are again the U.S government would like CPI at around two to three percent and they are trying very hard to pull back the economy to that rate so if it starts to

114go down we can't continue to depend on these increases those property tax dollars which is our largest funding source will begin to come down uh as we talked about large cpprt reduction in fiscal year 24 if the economy slows down some we expect that to go down as well and remember the last two years we've added unprecedented amount of CP PRT was over three million dollars prior to that it was always between a million million and a half we're at about two million dollars this year and that's what the Department of Revenue has released is our number so that's a pretty hard and fast number so again that's a large drop 28 percent from last year being promoted to tier three uh from tier two is not actually like the best thing for us so

115that's either a reduction or status quo for few years of evidence-based funding remember that's a little over 13 million dollars that's our second largest revenue stream uh and then Federal funding as I said earlier dropped about 16.2 percent if we take the clinic construction versus the building from last year out um that goes down to or that goes up to 22.3 percent of a drop in federal funding so those are numbers that we've been anticipating for a while and Dr Connolly reminds me of as we look forward Beatrice and her team and Kim and her team have done a great job of utilizing Grant funds we truly are maximizing the use at this point and it is a change from a number of years ago so that we're really getting a lot of things done

116during the grant year not relying on carryover or rollover funds total dollars lost from fiscal year 23 to now is about 3.5 million and again that's sr3 and title grants and that's nothing we have control over that's the government's formula and as you know our title numbers have been dropping which is a large function of not having fees and collecting fee waivers but we feel as though we're making it up in other areas because charging fees just to get more title dollars doesn't make any sense and then the operating fund expenses as a whole which is really our our education fund o m transportation and tort that has increased 4.8 percent as we said uh the the if you took out the capital assets it's actually a drop of 10 from that total dollars lost

117is 4.5 million dollars just just in I'm sorry the increases in the expenses looks like 4.8 million dollars if you take out the capital assets meaning the clinic and the building it's actually a 10 increase uh which would be 4.5 million dollars so if we keep in the building expenses our numbers actually look better when we take them out that you know starts to look a little bit higher because of the areas we're spending in but again none of the spending is anything that is unnecessary none of the spending is anything that we would want to change we have needs and wants and programs that we need to run and this budget by a lot of work from the team ended up being as tight as it could but provides everything we need and a

118little bit of cushion uh possible gains and unspent dollars for the the year we know that we have currently I know Bob said tonight 19 I looked at a staff plan yesterday so it was 20 uh 1.4 million dollars in salaries and benefits through those positions we're already like let's face it two months into the year essentially almost two full months so even if we hire those positions now we're not going to spend 1.4 million dollars we'll spend less money than that so while we want to hire those positions and the postings are still out there there is a potential not that we want it but savings from not filling those positions and most of it's because we just can't uh the budget includes monies for additional agency staff members we have about 350 000

119every year we either need another nurse an OT an SLP somebody that you know we need to go out to an agency to get because we can't fill that position and we need to meet needs of students so those are dollars that are there those I expect to spend a good portion of but if the staff that we have right now and the needs that we have stayed the same we may save some of that money in mckinney-vento an additional out of District placements we have contingencies built in we have approximately three hundred thousand dollars in the past few years we have used all of that money and then some but that's why we built in a contingency we also know that if we don't get all of that you know if we don't get

120students that move in with those needs there's potential savings or Surplus there and then the transportation fund which as you saw is running at a deficit still has about a hundred thousand dollars available for busing for activity buses potentially additional routes if for student funds additional drivers we're clicking on a good Pace with them right now but there's always potential room for improvement if they can find more staff and then one of the things that we're really to taking a look at like I said as a possible grant writer not necessarily a full-time position but somebody who works on a contract basis because right now I know Kim has written some private grants I believe Beatrice has Mike has gone out and secured grants it is not that they have the hours to do it

121it's just that in order to get the funding that we need to run the programs they're out there trying to find all of those dollars that we can so um that's kind of where we're at as a whole with the budget again very positive news and having a line item for capital projects is important so we can continue the work of the last few years but obviously with funding it's getting a little tighter but nothing we can't handle so any questions comments go ahead okay not so much for this year's budget but more of a going forward uh thinking you mentioned that retirements were down this year typically our staff gives us four years notice as to their plans for retirement do we see that number coming back up again so it's funny next year

122or this year it goes up again and then we have a couple of years that are either flat down from there or even you know a reduction we do have the two-year retirement program now so there could be some increase there we could also again offer in future years the one-time uh incentive to go ahead and go and then one of the build-ins that we have that you know the contract has provided is the floor and ceiling so that we do at least know what the outlier is for the highest and the lowest potential salary increases but retirements we see an increase but then it kind of levels off for a little bit okay and second when we first started receiving the federal funds the Esser funds and the rest of that we talked about

123that we knew there was a day coming years out but at the time that we would need to be re-examining our staffing levels um do we see that occurring are we I mean and and Dr Colley can speak to it but that's a an annual and not even annual it's a monthly look for the team yeah um we are continually looking at at what our staffing patterns need to be and again what kind of uh what our revenues can hold in terms of of number of FTE so that's something that is never going to not happen um and you know to this point um you know we have been able to to um you know maintain some of the the uh new new positions we brought on with with us or you know some of

124the interventionists um the family liaison so on and so forth and I anticipate that you know that will be able to continue in some measure but again it may look different it may be fewer there may be you know there so it's something that on an annual basis is really going to be a discussion um you know because you know particularly as as the federal funds uh roll off um but if the state gets into a bit of an economic you know downturn or whatever the case may be um it it's going to impact that right so um you know there's no guarantee uh that we can maintain um the level of of FTE that we have in the district um it's going to be a year to year kind of calculation what I would

125say is that um it's also a priority discussion so yes we brought in interventionists based off of Esser does that that does not mean that if we need to make decisions about where staff positions lie that the interventionist certain things that go we will be examining and prioritizing correct so it's it's about right sizing it's about making sure that we're we're putting our resources um in those areas that are of most need thank you thank you Michael the move from tier three to tier two sorry the move from tier three to tier two can you explore that a little bit for all the people at home watching so prior to evidence-based funding General state aid was the way that we got our money and then some categorical grants and general state aid was based upon

126the average daily attendance best two months of the years if I remember correctly and about 10 12 years ago I think now maybe longer we went to evidence-based funding which if I remember correctly is a 27 point formula to get you to your funding based off of adequacy and adequacy being do you have enough funds to adequately provide the education to the students that you have in your District so part of the basis of the formula is do you adequately fund have the funds to fund education and the other part is if you don't and it's based off of what's your class size what what what are these Services you can provide a whole like I said 27 points they get you to the formula and tier one is the lowest tier four is the

127highest tier one receives the largest pool of money out of the the 350 million dollars a year that goes into evidence-based funding tier two gets the second most amount although much smaller than tier one tier three gets in even smaller amount than tier two and tier 4 gets almost nothing and so we've moved because we were in the 80s I believe 89 ended up being the next jump we moved from just at tier two funding levels as far as adequacy went to this year tier three so it's a celebration of the stewardship of the resources but it also is being penalized for being able to do your resources so the money is based off of that like in our last two years in tier two our increases have been in the hundred thousand dollar range

128they have not been great and so that's why this year it was kind of a surprise when we ended up in tier three to get a hundred and fourteen thousand we do not anticipate that moving forward it's also not a static um calculation we could go down you know so again if we get into a an economic downturn um and and our local ability to fund adequacy drops we may drop back down into into tier two but but it's also fair to say that in at least in part that formula which penalizes US is in part because of the careful job staff and the board has done since 2008 when we were at our lowest point financially to where we are today definitely if I remember correctly I think during the first year we were

129at about 82 or 83 percent of adequacy so the fact that we're up over 90 percent 91 percent says says volumes that's for sure um Michael I just have one thing to say about your presentation I wish you had a better grasp of the information seriously great presentation thank you um one other thing and I'd like us at some point to explore more of the million dollar growth in out of state it just seems extraordinary out of District at a district rather uh whether it's we're discovering more situations that need that care that we didn't before it just seems like quite a bit in that category it I could be wrong it does and it's also not uncommon um the the bottom line is the level of need continues to rise a lot and um

130you know even though as as Michael said you know as Kim has worked over the last you know several years and to build an amazing team and to bring in a Continuum of services in this District which really didn't exist um you know four or five years ago um even over and above that the level of need we can't service that at home so it is a a reality that I don't think is going away anytime soon okay thank you remember I just need everybody to sign the budget form thank you at first I have let you see how we received any comment cards regarding the budget okay Mike is there anyone online and cast do we have anything written no okay I would move that we adjourn the public hearing we have to take

131action person I think we take action in the regular meeting we read the list Mike I'll second that [Laughter] roll call right Phil all right dagmara yes I vote Yes Debbie yes Bill aye Arlen aye Stacy yes motion carries okay the public hearing is adjourned and we are now in the regular meeting may I please get a motion to approve the adoption of the 2023-2024 final budget so moved second yes Debbie yes Bill hi Arlen hi Stacy yes Phil all right and I will also remind everyone I will be sending around a copy of the budget please make sure you sign it before you leave and next on the agenda is the next regular meeting of the Board of Education of Wheeling Community Consolidated School District 21 is scheduled for Thursday October 19 2023. um

132may I please get a motion to approve the recommended resolution to recess the regular meeting and convene into closed session so moved soccer okay I vote Yes Debbie yes Bill aye Arlen aye Stacy yes Phil all right dagmara yes motion carries and we do print based on the conversation you may have one action so for those in the audience will there may be one action item that that happens after closed session you're welcome to stay and witness that if you'd like um but other than that um this is pretty much the the end of the the regular meeting so foreign