CCSD21 Board Of Education Meeting - September 22, 2022

001everybody ready three four five six yeah we're here okay all right good evening and welcome to the September meeting of the community Consolidated School District 21 Board of Education our first order of business is to establish a quorum secretary Riddick if you would call role please Phil I Debbie here I am here Stacy Allen yes Arlen hi Bill hi Stacy here we have a quorum okay if everybody would please rise and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance please to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you and uh welcome again um did want to acknowledge that the month of September officially nationally is Hispanic Heritage Month so I want to acknowledge that

002uh when we have close to 30 40 percent of our community uh is Hispanic we want to thank them for the work that they do both staff wise and our community members and recognize the many contributions of the of that community um also I wanted to acknowledge and I know in just a few minutes he will be a part of a presentation to this group but a former long long time staff member at Cooper Junior High and then Middle School uh Hugh Brady uh also a former uh involved with the Education Association executive director uh so Hugh welcome and we look forward to uh to hearing you this evening in just a few minutes okay uh for those of you uh just as a reminder for those of you that are intending to uh offer

003comments during the public comments section um if you would fill out a form um low advance notice that the public comment is limited to three minutes per person uh you're not allowed to pass your time over to someone else that's the policy of the uh of the district and uh when you fill out the form if you would drop it to miss Del Rio to my right she will make sure that I have that so that I can call on you at the appropriate time also do know that our meetings are broadcast so we at different points there may be a reference to those community members that may be out in uh in virtual world okay uh with that the first order of business then is a special presentation um Mike Arlen would you like

004to introduce I I will do that and I want to get a little background so it is true that Hugh Brady was one of our great teachers taught my daughter the Constitution uh she's been involved and interested in government ever since actually and uh maybe five years ago six years ago I ran into you somewhere and he invited me to participate in a group that he had founded to develop properties for permanent supportive care for individuals who had either mental health or disabilities but who could live on their own and so I joined that group and we've been working together for quite some time now and the most recent now is a major initiative to improve Mental Health Services in Wheeling Township my history in this area goes back to when I worked I was

005a teacher in Special Ed but I worked for governor dick Ogilvy in Illinois and at that time without making a long story longer mental health care in the state of Illinois was was poor we had closed down all the warehouses for the mentally ill but we never built new facilities so Hugh and Laurie were involved in a project to create programs of money funds for for programming in Wheeling Township that would improve what we can do for individuals with disabilities uh substance abuse as well as mental health issues and we all know how many issues are out there many from the pandemic and in fact only yesterday there was a woman who nearly killed her nephew by throwing him in the water and apparently she has a long history of mental health issues which have

006never been treated so I've been involved in this ever since I'm delighted to be working with you again he's one of those individuals who gave his life to kids and now he's continuing with Laurie to help our community and we appreciate everything you did then and everything you're doing now Hugh so yeah so thank you for having us uh here tonight just one thing as Ireland mentioned we work with a group that works to create Supportive Housing for people living with various disabilities and two of our buildings are in district 21 Arts place which is just a block south of Buffalo Grove High School and Phil Haven which is on Hintz Road and and the kids at philhaven go to Tarkington and uh it's it's got two and three bedroom apartments so there's families living

007there and well last I checked there was a school bus that stopped in front of philhaven every day so I think that's pretty cool yeah thank you um do we have the presentation to show okay and the remote works just like most remotes okay great thank you very much my name is Lori Gray nowi I want to thank you for having us tonight we really appreciate this opportunity uh we are here tonight to talk to you about Community Mental Health boards and and why we're trying to create one here in Wheeling Township so I became involved with nami the National Alliance on Mental Illness when my youngest son was diagnosed with schizophrenia he was 20 years old and it obviously changed his life but it changed our family's lives as well I retired early I

008retired four years ago and so my husband laughs because he says I work harder I spend more time now doing all this unpaid work than I ever did at my job I'm not quite sure about that but right now we're full time trying to get out the word about this referendum so what is a 708 board and we call it a 708 board because it is governed underneath an Illinois State Statute and the number used to have a 708 in it so I'll go back and forth so I'll explain that now it's a 708 Community Mental Health Board so what does it do it is going to help those with either mental health issues intellectual and developmental disabilities or substance use issues the idea is to eliminate long wait lists and reduce the gaps in

009services it doesn't provide the services instead what it does is to provide funding mostly to existing agencies it could be schools it could be to police departments so it can be other organizations but they're not providing the services directly it would only be used for Wheeling Township residents and the first thing they're required to do is to develop a plan to determine specifically what the needs are here in Wheeling Township there's about 90 of these already across Illinois it is unique to Illinois and they're all across the state there are currently nine in Cook County and we're hoping hoping we'll have another three it's on the ballot in Wheeling Township for Cook County Wheeling Township Schaumburg Township and um Vernon Township is Lake County sorry about that so those two it's also in the on

010the ballot in five other areas in DuPage and Will County it's an entirely volunteer board so none of the board members are paid they consist of seven to nine members one of those would be a part of the Wheeling Township Board so we're going to talk some about what the need is because there are a lot of services in Wheeling Township but there's still also a lot of need when we talked with our local police departments we met with them over a year ago and they talked to us about how many calls there are in Wheeling Township alone in one year there are almost a thousand calls related to Mental Health crisis or substance use crisis about one-fourth of those were related to suicide one out of every four young adults and I'm sure that

011here in the schools you see this quite a bit I've struggled with suicidal thoughts on the statistics for mental health are staggering and that is why it's in the in the news so much there's over 10 million Americans that have a diagnosis with either mental health issue or substance use if I could just toss in when I was at Cooper you know we had teams typically 100 125 students and almost every year um the student would be missing and you know bump into the school nurse I haven't seen so and so for a while you know with a strep throat or what's going on always in the psych ward down at Northwest Community Hospitals and the psych ward done at Alexian and sometimes it would be discharge planning and sometimes the kid would just show

012back up and um one and some as I said almost every year some years there would be two some none the year after I retired I was talking to some former colleagues and they said on their team there were seven kids that were hospitalized for mental illness problems in one year so so it's so it's not something that exists far away it's it's here it definitely is thank you this is a slide from Nami the National Alliance on Mental Illness and there's two things that I think are really important out of this one is that mental illness is really non-discriminatory it affects people of all Races all ages it really doesn't care it's also very predominant again when you look at how many people have mental health issues and then what's what's scariest or saddest

013about it is how many people are getting treatment and just there's just not enough people getting treatment for lots of reasons stigma being part of it but also the lack of services and the cost of services foreign Developmental and intellectual disabilities here in Wheeling Township while kids are in school I think things are pretty good I haven't really heard too many complaints from parents with kids that are in school the problems that I've heard of is I've we've had to get lots of signatures to get this on the ballot so we've talked to lots of people and in doing this I've heard a lot of stories um one from a good friend of ours whose daughter went to school here in this area and until she was 22 everything was great and then she was

014on this puns list this wait list waiting for services from the state correct and so when she graduated from high school initially she was just at home watching television there was no structure to her day she didn't have things to do like she did when she was in school she finally got off this list it took eight years and still the services that they're able to provide for her are limited and unfortunately Illinois is is really ranked low for its ability to help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities it's ranked 42nd in the state out of the and out of the nation substance use disorders I I Hugh and I both work with mental health issues more than anything else we're both very active and Nami we talk a lot about stigma but when it

015comes to substance use disorders there's even more stigma associated with it and it's I think that because of that much harder for people to seek help in 2020 alone 60 residents of Wheeling Township died from opiate overdose and we had a presentation last night about substance use disorders had folks there that are experts in this field and they were talking about the rise in fentanyl they said of all the issues with substance use right now fentanyl being in these products is the number one one of the things that they do is to test drugs for people to see make sure that they are what they're supposed to be before they use this drug you know trying not to to judge people they said they found fentanyl in everything absolutely everything that it was really scary

016and one thing we we learned is that two milligrams of fentanyl is a fatal dose yeah yeah it it was really eye-opening and we think we've heard a lot and we still learned quite a bit and I would just say that in the years I was at Cooper I had two former students die from overdoses one was a freshman at BG when he died and then two or three years later I had a sister in classroom nicest girl you could imagine but she needed help too he needed help and didn't get it and then as a result you know the whole family was was struggling right and dual diagnosis having mental health issues and having substance use issues is very common the police talked about that in our meeting with them as well that when

017they get these calls these crisis calls that the two issues are often related and it's sad statistic that over a hundred thousand Americans died in one year last night they said it was up to a hundred and seven thousand actually think that's number is horrifically underreported I gotta be honest with you I think it's horrifically underreported the Death part of it and especially from alcohol it was just not cat they're not catching uh alcohol right and actually that was one of the things that I've learned about this as well that there's a lot of talk about opioids and and the Damage that they do and Fentanyl but when you look statistically at injuries and deaths from overdose from substance use in general just alcohol is the number one absolutely number one and especially in this

018area especially in this area in the northwest suburbs it's incredibly underreported and under treated yeah right you know and just because it's legal it doesn't mean that it can't harm you there's a huge cost in doing nothing one of the comments that I've heard from people is we're already doing enough but clearly a lot more services are needed and there's a huge cost and not providing those services you know depending on what statistics you look at the the payback for every dollar spent we get back four dollars and other places the the those statistics or the percentage is even higher and one of the things we usually mention here uh you know about the cost of doing nothing is that Cook County is the single largest mental health provider in the state Cook County Jail

019yes big difference small word but big difference County Jail so if I can just interject because that's a really important point and that is today while Wheeling Town Wheeling the village of Wheeling has a great program Arlington Heights has a doing a lot of good things so is Buffalo Grove if a police officer picks up an individual who's having a mental health issue but is not committed a crime there's very limited things they can do one of which is of course they could take them to jail but they haven't committed a crime which is what why people wind up in Cook County Jail the other is they can take them to a hospital there is no middle ground one of the things we've talked about in trying to develop maybe out of these funds would

020be a quote living room maybe you want to explain how that works because it's operating in areas near here up in Waukegan but nothing around here so the police don't have that opportunity to take a person to sit and talk with an expert and somebody to try to talk them down in a calm situation but maybe you want to talk about that yeah I know from for myself personally having a living room program or a mental health crisis center as it's known is definitely high on my wish list I don't know what this Community Mental Health Board if it's approved would would rank is number one but for me personally this would be high on my list um there's really not good choices if somebody's having a crisis and the family is feeling threatened if

021they call the police the the person's either going to go to jail or they're going to go to the hospital and odds are pretty good they don't want to do either one and one of the things that happens is there's such an overload is oftentimes people in the ER because of mental health crises often wait two three four five days we talked to a woman who was in the ER for five days before they could get her a residential placement right and and it's hard for the police they have to file a lot of paperwork and it's hired on the person it's hard on the family watching your loved one being taken away by police it's it's a really um it's a really tough situation and there are there are alternatives that work we just

022don't have anything in our area probably most importantly as we've been talking to Poe folks and I'm sure all of you can attest to this you know who doesn't know someone that's affected by one of these three things mental health substance use intellectual developmental disability if it's not your family it's a friend a friend's son a friend of a friend we all know somebody that's affected by this so this is how the process works right now where we're at is we're trying to get the referendum passed if it's voted on by the by the voters approve it in on November 8th then the Wheeling Township Board would appoint the board members than the Mental Health Board would conduct that needs survey prepare a budget the Wheeling Township Board would ultimately have to approve that and

023then once they have a budget that they can work off of then there's a grant process grants are submitted and then funds are distributed obviously it would take a little bit of time it's been very successful in other communities which is why we decided to try to do this here and one of the things I'd add Lori mentioned it briefly but just to emphasize is the those State Statute that governs these says that all the funds generated have to be spent for residents of that in this case Township and so the money doesn't go to Cook County or disappear down in the Springfield it's local money for local needs so there's not really an administrative cost to the boards isn't that correct right there is no administrative cost because there's no paid staff I mean

024I guess there would probably be some for somebody to keep track of where the money is going I mean some staff member has to do that keep track of the the grants and actually issue checks but it'd be relatively small at the point I think the point that many people would question and I've seen it in social media is the creation of a new bureaucracy to handle the funds that really wouldn't apply in with a 708 board right so a 708 board is really kind of like another committee that's going to they're going to do the legwork hopefully they're made up of experts people that know mental health issues people that know developmental disabilities people that know substance use maybe somebody with a financial background so that they can do the the work to determine

025where those needs are and how fast to kind of pull it all together where those gaps and services are and how to um how to get how to best reduce those gaps and how to best reduce the weightless you know is it another group yes but I mean every board has different committees that's basically what this is yeah but Lori we're not starting a new uh agency it's not a new agency there's not a new organization there's not a whole bunch of paid staff right if there's no paid staff it's basically having a committee within the Wheeling Township Board which they have already the big thing that it's going to do is it provides um I won't say a guaranteed source of money but much more guaranteed than many of the agencies get now now

026they have to apply for Grants every year every three years they would still have to apply for those grants but knowing that this money has to be spent on wheeling Township residents would make a big difference so in Wheeling Township our goal would be to raise a million and a half dollars those of us that have been working on this for the average price home it's 28.36 annually which is about the price of getting a large pizza last time I ordered one out well the levy is capped at 0.15 percent there isn't any Mental Health Board in Cook County that charges at that rate so most of them the average is a million and a half 1.6 for those nine um we've we thought million and a half would be great to get Wheeling Township

027already spends about 500 000 so it could actually even be less that they would decide would be a good amount I really can't say at this point 708 boards work we talked about the living room program other boards have done youth mental health awareness they've helped with addiction residential and treatment services we've talked about the housing program that Hugh and I are both active in it couldn't help with housing but it could help provide the support at the housing so the whole idea behind the housing that we work with is that it's supportive so that there's people there in the building that can help people get to appointments if they need to you know provide the support if they're having the bad day um there's just so many different things some some of it it's

028used for Early Learning Centers it really depends on the area and and uh I was at a meeting last week with Ireland I think it was last week um and one of the people that was there was a couple of people there at the meeting were from Omni youth services and they were uh Their Eyes Were lighting up you know like old Scrooge McDuck yeah we went before the link together organization uh last week okay we've spoken with a lot of different groups and the agencies that we've spoken with are all in favor of having this here's my contact information we also have a website it's www.advocatefor708.org a great place to get for more information any board members have a question question statement question okay Stacy um so this is great I actually work in

029Substance Abuse and Mental Health Outreach so I am the person when a family doesn't have anybody and they don't know what to do I I'm the person that gets that call frequently goes to the hospital I can do a petition if I need to but you're right there are not enough services and alcohol has been incredibly underreported and I would say out of the pandemic alcohol use and mental health I think I've been the two things that I see as the other shoe falling right now so my question to you really is what can we do to help this is much needed I would say it touches all of us in many different ways but as as elected officials as as residents of Wheeling Township what can we do to help you get the word

030out wow that's be wonderful that's the big thing is getting the word out um so giving presentations like this we are trying to reach as many people personally as we can we're going to be door knocking we're going to events um all of you got little handouts we're going to events and handing that out and trying to talk to individuals we have yard signs we're sending out handwritten postcards um I have my own business card but my information sorry is there I tend to talk with my hands so just let me know you'd like to help and we will send you a list of things that are open Arlen knows how to find me I do I'll get you yeah and so social media social media is if you want to don't have a lot

031of time I know we're all busy people if you could go to our our Facebook site and our Instagram site like and share posts that alone is helpful but all the above ready uh yeah first of all I I need a yard sign I want to put it out there I've already since I did go to the one event I've told several people about this I would suggest getting to the farmers markets and getting your information out there um I actually if someone would contact me later I have some ideas for other information other people that might want to be interested that would be very helpful because I'm on the nsseo board oh wonderful excellent thank you so I would I I am all in for this anything I can do to help you let

032me know let us know let us know yeah I am okay there because there is not I've had a need for mental health in my family and yes it was a 36-hour wait at Northwest Community Hospital to get an inpatient there many times yeah so yeah yeah definitely we need this um let me do know what I can do to help if we could make a similar presentation to the nsseo board that would be wonderful I will talk to Dr Hackett tomorrow great yes for anybody out there to send me an email and I will reply quickly okay excellent thank you Stacy I just um had a quick question thank you very much for the presentation I am supportive as well but my question is um you know you indicated that 708 boards don't provide

033the services they provide the funding for the services what um oversight or audit function or you know does the 708 board have to ensure that the funds given are actually used for that intended purpose that is a great well I can I think I can answer that that is Wheeling Township is a governmental agency that is audited and so the funds will flow through Wheeling Township not just through some obscure agency and so they're an audited public agency they have to account for where their funds are going and these are taxpayer dollars so it would be audited just like the rest of their programs are they're already spending about a half million dollars in this field now so that wouldn't be the board's function no that's correct that's correct it would not be the board's

034function one of the 708 boards is in Hanover Township which is the furthest most West Township in Cook County they've had a solenoid board for probably 40 years and uh they get a lot of services from the Ecker Center in Elgin which is not in Hanover Township um but a lot of people go there because that's the you know nearest best place and so they've got one of the township employees one of her jobs is to look through the claims and make sure everybody who they've submitted a claim for that actually lives in Hanover Township so she was saying she's memorized all the streets yes no yes yes and I just want to remind because we've mentioned this before that that Kim Klein actually serves on a 708 board in Bloomingdale Township so you can

035probably speak a little bit from personal experience here well yeah that's what so in terms of um when we were reviewing and accepting Grant proposals right that that compliance piece comes when they're reporting back to us to make sure that they're listing who they're serving where they live how much is spent and so that's how we were able to really solidify that the money was staying within the township mm-hmm Bloomingdale just finished their process right yeah I won't let the community know that um that it is very rare that this board ever invites a outside group to make a presentation such as the one this evening but because of the profoundness of the need um and Arlen one of our board members involvement in this as well was the reason that we we did invite

036uh you all to come and and share um about the 708 board um we cannot it's been a long-term policy and I'm sure Hugh realizes this that as a board we do not take positions on uh from organizations outside of district 21 any Park District any Village we do not make any type of an official uh resolution and support or against however I think you can tell by the nature of the questions and the reception that you've gotten this evening that there is significant support among the seven of us at least to the cause and we wish wish you well and I'm sure there'll be more involvement as we get closer to November 8th so Lori and Hughes thank you very much [Applause] and Arlen thank you for bringing the uh this group before my

037pleasure you know I think it's ironic we're going to speak later this evening a little bit about programming that the district is doing uh for young people who have issues and problems we know that the need is there after school I know what I've been through it others of us have been through it and so we're here to try to help after school and through the evenings with people who have problems once again thank you we now move on to board Communications um let me start off before the official monthly meeting this evening we had a finance committee meeting um and a couple of things that were discussed during that were fairly Pro perfunctory type of items resolutions about um transferring funds for Debt Service certificates stuff that really grabs the imagination however we did

038and we had a forecasting update as far as something that's coming up but probably the thing that may be most interest to the folks in the room tonight and listening to us is that we had a construction update of all the construction activity that we had going on this past year this past summer rather our csbo Michael dibartello gave us a an excellent update on everything that's been going on in the current construction Things Are coming in as we expected our costs have been within what we expected uh nothing going over so a great job with our our Service Partners and with with Michael and his team to make sure that that happened so it brought us to the next level of conversation which is now we we have another few Summers of construction based

039on the referendum um but we've seen based on the uh how efficient our construction for the first two summers have gone and our general business Acumen and how we conducted our Affairs the last couple years that our fund balances have gone up so there is a very very strong consideration to looking at our outgoing our ongoing Capital plan and maybe doing some rearranging and the number one goal right now at this point in time is to address something that unfortunately we've had we've been unable to address for the last number of years too many years and that is the outside classrooms as Bert Perlo and Greg platecki used to refer to them and that is the playground issues so we are looking very strongly for the next season next summer um to prioritize a couple

040of our playground areas to be addressed and over the next couple months I think we're looking to um hopefully get to a point where we can go out to bid on that once we're secure and the amount of money that we've got over and above what we expected uh and I can tell you that the if I if I may and no one's going to stop me um the number one priority that we see and this is a collective decision a judgment is the playground right across the street from London school for uh from where we are right now and that is field so stay tuned stay in touch with us as we go through the next couple meetings because I think you'll be for those of you in the audience that may be from

041field um I see at least one hand I suspect there may be a couple more but I think we're really going to be able to do some good things in terms of upgrading our playgrounds uh over the next two to three years beginning with the very next construction season which is the summer of 23. so with that that's the finance committee update I'll move on to nsseo uh thank you didn't have a real lot at our meeting it was fairly quiet this month one thing is um well we have our next meeting on October 11th which is also The Tarkington ribbon cutting so I will be able to be there and then tear out so I can get to nssu unfortunately I won't be able to make the one at Twain because that is an

042ssco's Bingo night starts at seven so if anyone is interested and to go I will say the spot for you but it is it's a lot of fun bill was there with me pre-covered yes pre-covered it was a lot of fun it is the biggest fundraiser that they do for their foundation and then their Foundation gives grants out for various projects throughout the year and they made a ton of money last time and it was just so much fun everybody just had a ball so if you are interested there's also Raffles available that are online I will forward the email out probably tomorrow if anybody wants to join in on the Raffles if they don't want to get to bingo so and that's that's it okay thanks Debbie next is the Ed read update bill

043thank you Phil um Edward's annual kickoff luncheon will be held Thursday October 6th it will feature a panel discussion on school safety if you haven't registered yet and are still interested in attending please contact Leticia and she will take care of that earlier this month the Ed red executive board approved this year's initiatives and committees the initiatives are number one property tax reforms which includes the local Tiff districts clear and present danger reform we've probably been reading quite a bit about that in the paper lately professional development mandates relief and Remediation data sharing agreements with community colleges the two committees we'll be having this year which board members are welcome to join our special education funding and school safety if you're interested in participating in a committee all you need to do is drop rigid

044a note and she will be happy to add you to the list that's it for Edward okay you want to move on to ISP absolutely catch my notes Here the iasb fall dinner meeting will be held on Wednesday October 26th at Evanston Township High School we will be hearing a presentation from eths on their journey in equity and how they developed an equity and action plan as always if you want to attend again please let Leticia know that's it the um did you want to make the announcement about the new field service they did we haven't gotten an official announcement although there's been some mention on the face on their uh page that we do have a new field service uh representative unfortunately I don't have that page open here so if you've got the

045name there Phil go red ad yeah on the website um arlana Bedard um has been identified on on isb's website as a field service director that will be servicing the north cook division she comes from a background uh in public education as a principal we actually know arlana she has worked with us through CEC so she has done a couple of things with this District so good all right good okay very good um Bill thank you Arlen anything with ISC a couple of things I just had the update sent out to you thank you Leticia uh secondly our meeting is actually next week so I have nothing to report other than as you might expect our enrollment is up two other quick things quick notes that I need to reveal one is that last night

046I attended uh Deb Smart's retirement as member of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library board she's been a real strong proponent of great things in Arlington Heights done wonderful things with the library and so I thank her for all her hard work and service and then finally um the night before that the Village of Arlington Heights I guess it would have been Monday at a board meeting in which uh there's a very strange push to limit the ability of the village bill is smiling because he knows this well to limit their ability to encourage new business to help organizations including Charities to help supportive care facilities the village is very active in helping organizations within Arlington Heights this organization who I will not mention has been driving to try to get the village to eliminate that

047by ordinance I've only spoken once before in 29 years before the village board and I did that again this week for the second time in 29 years because of such a patently offensive approach that they would take then with Buffalo Grove and wheeling and other municipalities the downtown of Arlington wouldn't be there today without the ability of the village to work with the community and work with developers and supportive care housing would not be there today uh nor would affordable housing that's developing in Arlington Heights so I strongly support The Village on this but I just wanted to uh fully identify that I was there and I did speak out as an individual thank you thank you uh Stacy anything uh just a couple quick announcements uh Taste of the town is back for the

048Wheeling Chamber of Commerce they're doing their Taste of the Town what used to be Putting on the Ritz any many years ago that's uh Wednesday October 19th oh um at Chevy Chase um and then this Saturday at 8 00 a.m is the community breakfast at the fire station they're doing food donations um for the Wheeling food pantry um and that's at the fire station at one Community Boulevard on the Saturday the 24th from 8 to I think that says 10 30. oh my glasses on 8 to 10 30. um so that will be a nice Community event everybody's invited the chamber is doing monthly business after hours last night's was at Bill Stasek um which is a really nice event we'll send those out when they come around and it's a nice way to see

049everybody and um it was a lot of fun so thank you that's all thank you Jessica anything nope okay I'm sure all of us almost all of us had an opportunity over the last month the first month in a school to visit the various sites for correct alumni to ice cream socials or whatever I had I've already got had the opportunity to attend three this season it's a long drive coming from the loop to try and make those early hours but uh it was good seeing the activity and the interest back and all the all the young faces back in the buildings again um so just wanted to indicate that um Mike we did you mention the government grievance last month the government recognition governance the governance no I did not we did not we

050were um we didn't get notified until after last month's meeting so um the first time since 2017 our Board of Education and a superintendent have uh will be receiving uh and will be one of 33 school districts across the state uh to be recognized um for our governance process um and Cass will be giving this to to you shortly as well uh officially we're being recognized for our participation as a full board in board development programs and events primary focus of which is the full board development and participation requiring full board commitment to obtain knowledge skills and abilities critical to good governance so this is the second time since 2017 that our board has been or will be recognized for that okay with that we will move on to staff Communications Dr Colin thank you

051um have uh two items per step communication this evening but uh the first one we're we're very excited to reintroduce um our academic Spotlight this is something that we uh have done in the past it it took a little bit of a break during covid for obvious reasons but uh we want to get back on track um and so for our our first presentation of the school year um we wanted to highlight our preschool programs um as uh you will know um the earlier we are able to get our students with us and start to meet their needs and address their their various developmental support needs the more successful they are going to be as they get into their Elementary School years and and Beyond and so we have a really been very fortunate over

052the past five years uh since the district really kind of took owner ownership of our preschool programs from a Cooperative that we had been part of before to build really just some outstanding Early Childhood programs um outstanding to the point uh where over the summer we were notified that our preschool programs had received gold ratings in our most recent evaluation by the state which by the way is not an easy thing to do because some might say that some of the items on those those tools that are used to evaluate programs can be a little Persnickety um you know and yet um you know the the entire Early Childhood staff really Rose to the uh to the occasion and and showed what kind of programs we have also and I hope I'm not stealing your

053thunder here Lynn but just a little um but that's good you can come back to it um but also just last late last week um we were notified by the state and we kind of wish we had been notified a little earlier but um we were notified by the state that um we have been uh offered an additional about 290 000 um for the current school year to expand our preschool for all programming to another 80 students this is awesome and also a heavy lift um because it is September um and this is actually funding that we saw two years ago um so it you know again you know right on top of it um so we are moving Heaven and Earth um to really try and identify where we have available classroom space um

054what kind of logistics we would need to figure out in terms of Transportation if we actually have people that we can hire to run the programs because again as I'm sure Lynn will will uh we'll kind of talk a little bit about Early Childhood teaching in the state of Illinois is finding unicorns um the level of certifications that they need to have licensures they have their Early Childhood licensure they have to have a bilingual or you know ell endorsement they have to have an lbs one a special editor I mean there's all of these different things that this one person needs to have in order to work with our three and four-year-olds um and so again after the school years has started things of that nature um we'll see but we absolutely do not want

055to say no we don't want to say we can't do this so we are going to do everything we can to be able to expand those programs and so with that I'm going to insert it over to our director of early childhood education Lynn Duffy who is going to present our September September yes September uh academic Spotlight yeah one thing that will be easy about that new Grant will be getting kids in there we have plenty we have plenty so just a reminder we have um two types of classrooms we have 11 Blended classrooms which are preschool for all classrooms at Frost Hawthorne longfell and Whitman this year that's a classroom where you have one teacher one teaching assistant up to 20 students some kids have IEPs other kids are just considered at risk that's

056why why a PFA gives us funding our second type of classroom is our early childhood special ed ecsc we have three self-contained classrooms that's the classroom where we have one teacher and two teaching assistants with up to 10 students and those students have maybe a little bit more complex needs and then we have our related service and what's unique about our related service is that they push into the classroom they never pull out and what's nice about that is everybody benefits from the expertise of these Specialists and they deliver the therapies within the classroom individually sometimes uh oftentimes small group and even whole class and it gets the kids at every minute you know every part of their day and it's in context so I want um my preschool staff that's here if you could

057just stand up really quickly we have some some of our staff here today and I'm going to tell you they're they're they're they're they're very dedicated in addition to all those those those special things they have on their Pals they're very dedicated I think they're golden but I just don't think they're golden so does the state of Illinois and National Lunas University so we were monitored like Mike said we were monitored um so actually it was supposed to be in one year when when we shut down so then the following year they did our paperwork and then this past year that's when they did the classroom visits and those classroom visits are a little intense um they're looking for instructional Excellence family services staff qualifications professional development and the program Administration but that that piece

058of the um instructional um Excellence they're using the Early Childhood environmental rating scale and they're looking at five areas and each area has about three to seven indicators and then within that there's about seven levels so um physical environment we're looking at language and literacy learning activities interaction and program structures and I'm proud to say that we really scored particularly well in the areas of language and literacy and the interactions the students and the child and the teachers are having together and I think those are two really important areas our ecsc program is is equally important and they're equally dedicated and hardworking we have two half day classrooms and then last year we added a full day classroom so we have some kids coming to school from nine to two so almost all day and

059this is a program that's developed there we're adopting a new curriculum and they have been trained with our VB map assessment so we're really picking curriculum and assessment that is really targeted for the kids that are in that classroom particularly the assessments we were kind of using um what we're using the Blended classroom it just wasn't sensitive enough and this is giving us much better information so everything we do in preschool is play we have a play-based approach and we're really looking at these areas social emotional development language development concept development and gross and fine motor these are the things they're also looking when we were evaluated by the state social emotional development has been a huge huge um area of need in the past year or so or two we we look at self-awareness

060promoting student Independence regulating ourselves developing relationships with others and all these skills as I said earlier is just integrated throughout their day from the time they arrive to the time they're leaving we want to give them all those practices in those areas in context you know where they're actually learning how to how to get through their day um language development we we developed their language in both English and in the home language whenever possible we do have Spanish bilingual programs in our preschool program uh you can see here through the use of dramatic play puppets um students have ample opportunities again in context throughout their day to use the language that they need to meet their needs and express themselves we provide visuals communication boards our slps are really instrumental in giving us strategies to

061promote language in our classrooms concept development is equally important we want to get these kids ready for kindergarten and beyond our curriculum includes literacy math science and social studies but we really also really promote the problem solving and developing those play skills and we really want to see that more sophisticated play with the kids then we have our gross motor developing their strength flexibility and balance and timing in the large muscles as well as providing a variety of materials and tools to help them develop dexterity hand-eye coordination and using their small muscles so we're really busy through play in our preschool program so how do our kids get here a couple different ways one of the major ways is through our Early Intervention Program that's that birth to three year program where kids who are

062identified with having some struggles in their early years are identified and they have what's similar to an IEP then they transition into our program so meet our diagnostic team if you remember they were celebrated for excellence last spring this team evaluates over 100 early intervention students per year that number keeps increasing each year they use the transitional play-based assessment they were trained um through the University of Denver to evaluate using you guessed it play and developmental guidelines for each area of language cognitive sensory motor and social emotional development so this play-based assessment also promotes a strength-based approach decisions are made collaboratively with parents I think parents really feel a part of the process this team has been really good to doing facilitated IEPs and you know some of the comments I've had from parents is

063like wow you really describe my kid perfectly so and then they're in part of the decision making so that we really get the proper placement and Therapies in place for these kids another way they can come through is through Community screening students are screened throughout for eligibility so we are looking at their developmental the developmental areas using a screener not as intense as a case study evaluation but we're also looking at other factors um we're looking are they English Learners do they come from families with low income other family structures priorities given to kids who are from mckinney-vento families who are in foster care so that's really part of that preschool for all programming is that it's it's kids who are at risk so sometimes we'll get calls from parents well this is preschool for

064all I like to say well it's really preschool for all who might not otherwise have it so we got to be thinking about that's that's the other way they come in okay another part of our program is our Partnerships Clearbrook is the Early Intervention Program that we um work with we also started working when we first got our grant with the YWCA for our early prevention program another zero to three program for kids who are at risk not necessarily needing special services and then through the gear grant that government emergency education Relief Fund um they we were able to provide we were able to expand our partnership with YWCA and it's been a really great partnership we've got a social worker who's providing Social Services parenting groups parent workshops so it's kind of those General

065parenting workshops then real specific for parents who have similar situations like for example we're starting a group of um for a group of parents whose kids have autism and that's just that commonality that they'll be able to talk through and then also lots of referrals to the community to Community Resources we have partnership with Prospect music therapy that picture does not do justice if you ever walk through our preschool programs which I highly encourage you all to do you might want to come when we're doing music therapy the kids in our early childhood special ed classrooms they transform their bodies change they move their engagement increases so much just through the music therapy it's really fascinating to watch so I I find everything about Early Childhood interesting but this one really gets me um we

066also have Partnerships with our libraries but particularly injured and trails they provide book services for you know book bags for our classrooms cards for our teachers they do Library events specific for our preschool families um and they give us donations and do a library card event the last thing I want to highlight I'm not sure if you're aware Hawthorne got a major facelift this summer a much needed facelift we got new flooring some warm colors on the walls and new furniture that's not just attractive but it's functional we've got new Cabinetry and tables with wheels child-sized sinks we had kids climbing up a ladder to get to the sinks because they were adult size which the PT liked but it made me nuts classroom furniture for our centers or even our play kitchens are you

067know what do you call that state not stainless steel um yeah stainless steel appliances no no um new rugs new flooring um it just has transformed it to be a more functional and warm class the classrooms they look larger we just had a substitute come in for the first time since last year she could not believe the transfer transformation so thanks to Kim and to Michael DeBartolo they kind of made that happen so that's our preschool program in a nutshell and I also really need to highlight Kim Klein she has done so much to really move our program forward her support and her let's just do this attitude has just been awesome so thank you Kim foreign members any questions Stacy so as a retired preschool teacher I've from the time I was in high

068school until I had a practical preschool of my own that was my job and so when I look at what you do at Hawthorne I am amazed and I have to tell all of you I am so incredibly jealous because if I could go back and do that again I would do it in a heartbeat it was the best most rewarding time in my life was was being a preschool teacher um we have lots of amazing Early Childhood Services around wheeling and around the area my kids went through a Wheeling Park District Preschool some other friends went through Wheeling High School different stuff does the referral relationship go back and forth do you have pretty good relationships with other people in the area that are providing services that pass people along that might need your

069services more we do um I we could probably work on that a little bit more we just have so many kids coming in yeah so just as an example we were full in the spring we got over 200 requests us for screening just this summer 50 between September 1st and September 15th I I believe it that's really when the other shoe of the pandemic fell well people really realized you know they had to get back out in the world not just them but their kids also and how to exist in the world after all of that and you're when your kids are young like that you're almost walled off from the rest of the world until you have to go out into the world so um I understand that there's a couple of people that

070I've met that I'm going to pass along to you one lady opening like a special need in school she just did a fun run or something and a couple of people but it's a topic I think everybody can get around and I volunteered at field Alva you invite me to be a mystery reader or come over and do a tour I'm just saying I will look for any excuse to go back and hang out with the little ones it really it's trans more transformative to your psyche for sure so you invite me to have Whitman Frost and Longfellow and right any of us May and you could say the same thing okay he did that not me Bill moving on quick note fabulous presentation thank you for your hard work thank you for everybody's hard

071work we admire the work my wife is a retired third fourth grade bilingual teacher I know how hard your job is but secondly one of the things I learned back when I worked in the governor's office is a dollar spent now with these children will save ten dollars when they get to high school it's enormously the best investment of our dollars that we can make and that new Grant is very exciting because we can do more and maybe we'll find more ways to do this in the future but it's not only good for the kids but it's smart use of our money I think so well there's no there's no question why uh this group is now referred to as the golden preschool group thank you all very much Lynn thank you for presentation next

072Dr Conley yeah so we um we talked at the August board meeting uh where we had really kind of just started the the school year about some of the concerns that we were having with transportation and so we wanted to provide an update uh this month um you know things have gotten on the whole better but we're still struggling in some areas um and Michael and and Melissa and his staff are uh continuously uh working with first student holding their feet to the fire to get the the buses running on time um and while uh we're probably 95 percent of the way there there's some you know there's still some ongoing issues so Michael if you wanted to give that update so we've been in constant contact literally with first student for the last number

073of weeks um we've gone through a number of issues the principals have been starting to track the timeliness of buses and I will say that the timeliness of arrival to school and the arrival to take kids home has drastically improved still a few late routes here and there and working with them on that we went through a period about a week and a half ago where we kind of hit rock bottom it was a lot of sickness a lot of vacation time for drivers that has now gone down we also are getting weekly updates on their driver pipeline so they have about 51 candidates in the pool takes about four to five weeks obviously not everybody makes it through but they have about 10 drivers that should be coming on in the next two to

074three weeks so that should stand a lot of our problems because when they have people that call off sick then we need to tear routes with ourselves which is very difficult and causes a lot of the late arrivals but some of the things that we've done to try and make the process easier is bring a more regular change system so on Tuesdays and Thursdays changes go into effect that way parents know in advance they also aren't trying to pick up new routes on a daily basis we now have a former location manager that's providing some oversight at our current Wheeling lot because the the location manager there is new and so they're doing some additional training also looking at our routes to make sure that the tiering and the pairs that they do together make

075the most sense for efficiency sake um we we do have timelines regarding getting to a lot of different things that will make things more efficient one of them is first view which is the app been asking for this for some time so that we can track the buses and know where they are uh eventually that will once the bugs are worked out get turned over to parents as well but that'll allow us not to have to call dispatch and say where is a bus and now that distracts them from trying to dispatch buses to take care of other issues and then one of the last things that we were promised back when this was bid and I was in District 23 and Mary was here was a tablet turn-by-turn routing systems that we're not relying

076on paper route sheets and it also um and I I know this from Barrington a little girl named Sophia who found out I was in charge of Transportation told me that they have a system where you get on and you swipe your card and then if you're on the bus it knows you're on the bus and when you go home more importantly if you're not on the bus it takes you off of the route so it makes it more efficient so we're hoping to get to that level of efficiency with them but if we could just get first to the tablet or the turn-by-turn routing that would go ahead and save time on the way home because that's where we're really in a deficiency right now we have substitute drivers we have drivers that are

077new to routes and so they are in a place that they're playing catch-up as opposed to having a navigation that takes them through they say that we should start to be getting that around December they're working out all of the different bugs so that would be a huge help to us and then the last thing is we did we've talked to the board about telling them look we had a four and a half percent increase that was great everybody else in the area has between 10 and 15 some at 20 percent in order to go ahead and make sure we secure drivers and stop having them stolen at gas stations by other companies we've gone ahead and negotiated with them we'll be bringing it to the board for your approval a two dollar an hour

078increase across the board which will make them again at the top and then uh also an attendance incentive so that uh that is proven in their other locations very effective and so an attendance incentive to go along with what they're already doing which is a sign on bonus so I do think we are we are doing much better than we were a couple weeks ago I think we continue to improve uh Gail has been a great add to our department she's been very effective in in communicating with first student and families there's always room for improvement but I do think we are on a very good upward trajectory so okay any questions okay I'm sorry not so much a question but an appreciation I was at a school law conference earlier this week and I

079had the opportunity to talk to any number of csbos all of whom we had the same complaint which was with their transportation and I will tell you I would not want to be working for First Student right now not necessarily as a driver but rather as somebody who has to respond to a csbo because you have all been cracking the Whip and thank you for doing that thank you okay Michael thank you very much thank you next item nothing else under staff communication correct okay next item on our agenda is board discussion and I believe we have one item Dr Conley yes um so last year uh in the spring uh brought together a a group of Faculty from across the district and worked with with CEC in kind of a smaller group uh atmosphere

080to develop um a a draft of of core competencies for our graduates a portrait of our graduates and really where this came from is is kind of as a continuation of the of the work that was started through the strategic planning process uh and also um as a kind of a precursor to um a a task force um or actually to task force uh groups that I'm going to be pulling together later this year um that we're we're calling them academic day task force uh I I'm trying to figure out a a better term to capture what that actually means but again coming out of this uh the work on the Strategic plan um I've been wanting to have these conversations for you know two and a half years uh thank you covet so now

081that we're able to start to to refocus on those things and really what the whole concept of of these academic day task force um conversations is is planned to be is to really take a fundamental look at how our day is structured uh whether it be schedule whether it be be how we deliver instruction you know at the elementary level we're pretty traditional in terms of self-contained classes you know which means that elementary teachers are also teaching every subject Under the Sun is that a good idea is that something that maybe you know being a jack of all trades and a master of none is is maybe not as effective instructionally as we might want to to look at it are there alternatives are there different ways that we can look at things it's been

082quite some time since we've really taken a fundamental look at some of our exploratory options and as we look at career Pathways and into 214 and some of their work you know are we do you know is there something that we we should be looking at in terms of embedding additional career um yeah kind of exploration um different types of of uh exploratory offerings that we may want to to investigate um so you know really kind of getting in and having those those types of of conversations and what we really thought was um as a as a way to kind of of um inform the discussion was to really come up with with these what is a profile of a graduate of district 21 you know what are the the knowledge the skills the the

083the you know uh dispositions um that we would want our students to display when they leave us uh when they head to 214 or you know wherever they they they go once they they do leave us and so um I wanted to bring those um as just as a as a very quick um kind of of um awareness uh to the board and I and I shared these with the board uh in a couple of my weekly updates ago um I'm gonna real quick switch over to um sharing my screen here so just give me one moment there we are um so again these are organized into a couple of of kind of major categories those being academically prepared social and emotionally ready collaborative courageous thinking um and embracing challenge that you know that that

084having that grit and determination to you know when you encounter those those um uh you know hard fought uh kind of skills and and really you know coming out and having a concept of being a global citizen you know what's it like to be you know a person living in a society um and so you can see the bullet points um that are under each of those and so really from that perspective I just wanted to you've had hopefully I've had a little bit of time to kind of take a look and see if um you had any comments you had any questions again these are in draft form um this isn't something that I'm I'm requesting the board officially approve um this evening I would like at some point um for the board to

085to consider approving those um but really this is kind of that Source document for us to be taking a look at and matching our conversations in the academic day task force back to how does this fit with what we want to see out of our graduates so with that I will take any comment or answer any questions that you may have conceptually obviously this is something that we've uh we've been looking for so that's uh we appreciate the draft comments suggestions bill I'm not ready to make a suggestion but just a couple of comments uh if we would have looked at something like this 10 or 20 years ago we would be talking about what level of math are they at what is the reading fluency how many words per minute this is looking at

086their education in a completely different way which I really appreciate you know looking at the academic portions and talk about the critically consuming relevant information uh recognizing perceptions biases and assumptions this is really talking about how they think more than what they know yep and I think that's a really good way to Pivot our thinking and to get us to stretch our thinking and what we're looking at in our for our students and so you know I I don't know as you say this is not final um I would like to see more of a final draft in the months to come but I think this is a great way to start at looking at a different way of looking what a student should look like in fifth grade and eighth grade as they're moving

087on in life and one of the things that I just want to say in terms of I and I think you're exactly right bill because one of the things that that I think there were a lot of of um positive things that came out of No Child Left Behind in 2001 but there were also a lot of things that that that really took us down a road that I don't think has served us well and that is that hyper focus on like you said free you know frequency of words right a minute um you know these surface level skill based type things when it is very clear you talk to anybody in the in in the business world um they need candidates for their jobs that have these skills that can't that can access information

088that that can figure out how to to work a problem they'll give them the content that they need to know you know they need people who can come in and and actually know how to access I mean where there is so much knowledge and so much information I mean good Lord every single one of us has you know more powerful Computing you know power in than in the history of the world in our pockets um you can use it right so this whole idea of having to memorize things and whatever kind of not how this works anymore so this is you know not just something that we've pulled out of the air this is something that we have consistently been hearing um from the the the the business owners from the industries that we want

089our kids to go and be part of when they leave us so content by Google critical thinking is really the issue I remember when I went to law school and one of the first things they told us was we're going to teach you how to think and it occurred to me that I would 12 13 years through a wonderful suburban school district four years to a Top Flight University and now it occurred to somebody we need to learn how to think and I was 21 at the time now we're talking about starting this with five and six-year-olds and I think that's a great step forward okay any comments I'm gonna just come down the road so Jessica go ahead I mean when I when I first read this I was not only struck by the

090depth of planning that went into this document but if I could summarize this in a sentence I would say this approach gives kids agency over their own education and I remember that from our strategic planning team decision uh committee whatever it was called words not good tonight um I just I remember that that day that we talked about giving children agency in their education and it really stuck with me and I went back and I did some research about it and I'm seeing that reflected here and I I like this approach that we are teaching children from you know we get them in in preschool we get them in kindergarten we get them at a very young age we are teaching them to become part of who they will be when they leave us in

091however many years and you know to Echo what what bill was saying you know the world has changed in the way that we approach education I still think there's some minute value in some rote memorization of the basic building blocks but one that's not how kids learn anymore and two that's not what's expected of them when they move on to high school and you know and Beyond and with the exhilarating number of challenges that our kids deal with every day other than how to process instruction having that hand hold in and being a partner in their own Learning and Development I think is is quite possibly the most impressive thing we can do with any child so I think it will be amazing to see this as it evolves into a more final document as

092we start seeing it broken down into the different you know building blocks as kids progress through Elementary and I just I I I'm very impressed I think it's great thank you Jeff Stacy so one of the things that we've talked about I think a lot in the last couple years is more of a harmonious relationship with 214 and the way that they have changed the way they roll out education for a lack of a better term in the way that they prepare kids where you know when my oldest was there it was a really a hard focus on that that if you're leaving here you're going to a four-year institution period as opposed to the conversations that are there today talking about being World ready so really when I read through a lot of this

093it mirrored the conversations that I know many of us had over the years in mirroring 214 and and their style of of um of looking at learning and looking at the world so that was as we go through this that's one of the things um that struck me the most is I I think having I hate this term but I'm gonna use it which is having more outside the box conversations on on where kids are in education and meeting them where they're at as opposed to Drawing the Line expecting them to stand at that line and not expecting everybody's education to be sort of you know Ants Marching for lack of a better term so I'm looking forward to this as I know we are 214 even in their College in in life ready that

094stuff is being I think looked at and improved and and brought in broadened out so for me this this goes hand in hand with the way that we're looking at gifted education um with the way that we're looking at preparing our kids to go on to high school preparing our kids to go out into the world if they choose not to go on to a four-year institution but really you know some of the kids that come through 214 and then end up back here working for us after getting their you know computer certification like those are kids that I think would have been told early in middle school you go to college or your life means nothing where it could go a year and a half while they were still at 214 get that certificate

095and make a lot more money than I made in my first job outside the gate and so to me that's what this reflects is more aligning up I think of where the world is lining up so I'm excited to watch as it goes but am I on the same page with you and that's yes I mean and as a matter of fact you're talking about 214 um you know Dr Schuler and I um had lunch um February last year and talked about really needing to to you know put some pen to paper and getting um some some true articulation going um and we are targeting to start with the with Wheeling height school and our feeder schools going into wheeling high school and particularly with the new principal at Wheeling we had originally planned on

096having this initial conversation in the spring we delayed it next Thursday actually and we're hosting it here all of our principals that are will have kids that eventually Walk The Halls of Wheeling High School as well as you know Wheeling High School administrators and district 214 administrators are having that first conversation to begin though the the articulation to be taking a look at data and that's something that you know we're starting with Wheeling High School but the other half of our kids go to Buffalo Grove High School right and so um you know it's something that as a model we're going to continue to because I mean we are one of if not yeah I think we're yeah we're one of the biggest senders to 214 I think maybe 59 has but they kind of

097go to a couple of different spots right so um you know two of their high schools are our kids so um so we're looking forward to being able to deepen that relationship and and um you know the stars are have have been aligning for some time but we're we're um looking forward to it and that helps even more to be honest I mean really in reading through it that was that was what I what rang so true for me was Dr Schuler's speech a couple years ago at at the co at the conference I mean Ellie Allen took a geometry in construction when she was at Buffalo Grove High School I will tell you for a College and Career class that was the best one she ever took and the best one that she has

098used out into the world yeah thank you so much well I'm I'm agreeing with everybody here um a lot of things came to mind and I like that we're looking to yes look outside of teach outside of the box because when our kids get out in the Working World half those jobs don't exist now and so we've got to teach we've got to work on teaching our kids how to think how to work out their own problems um and yeah fine we've all got it we've got the information here the kids can find it just as easily too and let them know how to find the information don't have you don't have to have everything memorized um so I'm I like this and I like bills I uh comment specifically about having something for the

099elementary school so it's like where what does an elementary graduate look like as well as uh yeah kind of a level a developmental level out yeah right yeah okay our own any comments well bill when when I went to law school and I did for one year it was biology it was not critical thinking but I remember the first teacher who sort of pushed me to critically think that was like second year High School a very specific teacher who asked certain questions to try to get you to think and then it wasn't until college that I had a professor who absolutely if you didn't critically think you were encouraged to speak in front of the class but if you hadn't thought out your remarks or your facts were wrong you didn't want to come back

100to class the next day but you did because he taught you to critically think it's it's really very important that's not to say we're not going to have content obviously people will think that oh you're going to get away with no content that's not the idea the content in math and maybe grammar and there's a lot of areas where content but as Mike said the knowledge is here but to me and Mike you and I have talked about this I think everything on this double page sheet is really exciting and interesting but when I get down to Global citizen that's something you and I talked about it seems to me one of the single most important things that this school district and other school districts must do is to teach children how to grow up

101in a democracy and how to be part of that democracy because if we don't it may not be here someday and I mean that with every inch of my soul and so we've started a discussion here but there's more to that yeah I think that has to be discussed because I couldn't think of any Topic in this day and age and we've all seen it that is more important than teaching kids how to find information that's accurate what is truth what is not where is where do I go for real facts how do I find them how do I contribute to a democracy and if we don't do that we really fail our jobs in the long run Stacy I don't really have anything more to add than what we're saying other than you know

102I just think we need to absolutely and vigorously protect our teachers and their right to be able to effectuate this learning um in so many instances in so many states you see people trying to get in the way of how teachers should teach and and the severe ramifications if they don't step in line and that's not how you develop a critical thinker so you know just empowered and supported teachers to be able to continue this good work the um one thing that comes to mind and those of those that may be a little more senior um in our audience might remember a commercial that used to be uh and I I'm going to try and and remember it but it has to do with a family a father and a son uh looking at new

103cars and the comment is this isn't your grandfather's Buick or Chevy anymore and to me that's what this outline that's what this profile seems to be getting at and the one thing I'll uh I will leave you with is that we need to be prepared once we get to the point of rolling this out to the community and our stakeholders of having our communication really fine pointed so that it's going to be understood in a very real uh real-time matter because that's going to be important because so many people are just going to say that's not how I did it when I was going through so we need to be prepared to make sure that when we roll it out it's going to be understood that way what 214 experienced when they rolled out the

104College and Career ready there were a lot of people that were like what do you mean and so they had some fairly decent pushback when you even entertain that conversation that there are many other routes be sides and so I think this really actually gives some good muscle between the two of them to be aligned more with 214 as they even now more than ever are changing those conversations okay thank you next item on the agenda is public comment uh as I remind those that the board listens for up to three minutes per person and as a reminder that the board rarely engages this is a listening time for us um so the first person is David Kim if you would like to step up to the uh the podium please sir could you make

105sure that the green light on your uh on your bike if not it's not on so we just hit the button next yeah thank you [Music] thank you start again please Dave sure so there we go we can hear you now okay thank you thank you so my name is Dave Kim I live in the area and I prepared the statement before the wonderful late breaking news about the playground of field but um if you don't mind I'm still going to read my statement anyways because I still think go right ahead some good points all right so the reason I'm here tonight is regarding the playground at field it is of utmost importance in a child's day if you ask a young student about their day it's very likely their response will include their experience

106on the playground Studies have also shown that playgrounds instill confidence improve attention and decrease Stress and Anxiety given how important the playground is to children I feel the topic of the condition of the equipment needs to be addressed a playground needs to be used effectively and meet a high priority we visit this playground and I have some concerns not just related to its age but also its safety I did some research on my own and based on the playground safety handbook issued by the U.S consumer product safety commission I noticed a couple of instances where the playground and field is out of code the first instance is the use of bare metal slides which is on the west side of the playground to quote the handbook when exposed to direct sunlight the bare metal May

107reach temperatures high enough to cause serious contact burn injuries in a matter of seconds this is a huge safety concern the other issue revolves around entrapment any completely bounded opening that is not bounded by the ground may be a potential head entrapment Hazard I noticed several areas where this is a clear safety issue additionally I know parts of the playground are sectioned off and not able to be used by students due to safety students shouldn't have to deal with this in terms of age the structure is pushing 30 years of age I spoke to a representative with Cunningham Recreation one of the leading suppliers of school playground equipment in the midwest they also recently replaced the playground equipment at District 68 in Skokie their recommendation to school districts is to replace equipment every 15 to

10820 years to ensure the Integrity of the play structures as well as keeping up with code this 15 to 20 year time frame is also in line with the Wheeling District Wheeling Park District's Cadence by the time the equipment is slated to be replaced at field it will have passed double its intended life expectancy as a parent this is concerning many of the surrounding districts replace their playground equipment Within These important time frames and some do it even earlier in closing I strongly believe all the kids in our district should have access to Safe quality playground equipment I'm asking the administration and board to come up with a solution to replace the nearly 30 year old playgrounded field the district is in the process of completing a multi-million dollar Administrative building across the street from

109field and we're able to come up with the resources to fund Construction I'm asking we do the same to come up with a way for a new playground at field which is a lot cheaper than funding a brand new building this is a high priority that cannot wait at the end of the day the children that attend field and live and live in the community deserve a much needed and long overdue playground we can do better and need to do better for our students thank you thank you Dave Tom is it David okay all right thanks [Laughter] shared stuff here but uh necessarily uh green light right on thank you uh so we'll skip all that and uh he was going to say it better than me anyway so I think I would break this

110down into great news good news and unfortunately some bad news so we'll start with the great news uh as you saw a student pointed out last time uh Mr pritzker I've got a small sample size for school board meetings but of the two that I've attended I would call today an unqualified Banger right that 708 presentation was great the consensus or seeming consensus support was outstanding the uh I don't know the official words the preschool group I mean let's give it up for them one more time that's outstanding not just from the presentation but from the day-to-day work um I was kind of thinking that applause was going to last longer that's my fault but I was going to say I mostly feel appreciated when I see it on my paycheck so let's get them

111erased please show them that we actually care uh and then lastly you know big thanks for the uh the playground news that was great made my day made my night I'm a little bit nervous now because I wasn't expecting that but uh so if that's the great news let me specifically thank uh pritzker thank you so much I know you have a big part in all the decisions here that made me feel so great Dr Connolly uh the very sympathetic and enthusiastic nodding I got last month made me feel really good and knew that you were on it I know you do a lot of work and you got a great team with you so thank you for that uh Arlen and Stacy I know you guys were also weighing in on this so I

112appreciate everybody who did that and then of course I got to thank Jr and the village trustees from Wheeling so uh with that right there was some good news that I mentioned that'll wrap up the great news uh we are building a coalition and we're fortunate to consider you guys on our side now thank you so much uh working with the village trustees is part of that and then just neighborhood uh and good news the Coalition includes a concrete guy they live across the street from field so he could probably hook you up with whatever part of concrete needs to get done with this thing here uh and then there's bad news now of course so we've got this Coalition I spent a whole month building it uh and now we need a project so

113I guess we'll be taking suggestions on that you got a name yet dude all right well so we need a name first of all and we need a project my initial thoughts and this is off the cuff would be let's build solidarity and engagement with the community with the students with the board members with everybody right for Siempre right we need two things I think to do that we need translation services right uh we talked about 30 40 percent of the total body speak Spanish I'd say that index is higher for the parents at home right more likely their first generation are immigrants and at field specifically we're talking ochenta porciento that last time that I heard and so again like if you want engagement and like when there was three of us talking last

114month it seemed like maybe there's not that engagement so let's have some translation services I know a guy who speaks Polish like I got a guy for everything let's let's find these guys let's get them going uh and then the other thing would be like intro music like a like a baseball you're at bat you get to pick the song everybody knows it's your turn to speak and then we could have the uh public comments do that as well so Tom thank you for the great news the good news and we're going to be with you on the correct I got something for you and I know where you live so hopefully that's uh that's a good thing and not a threat it is well she's got guys too I don't know and and Phil

115if I could just lastly the last thing I want to say is that you pointed several of us out this has been a full board uh grouping in terms of how we react to District needs okay I appreciate the individual pointing but it's a whole group of seven here plus Dr Conley and the administration well yeah it's just very just very quickly if I can just um as it relates to translation services um just uh so you know um we actually uh uh last year so we're in our second year employed uh interpreters in the district um and so we have uh Spanish-speaking interpreters we have russian-speaking interpreters we have polish speaking interpreters everything we publish is published in four languages um and more now that we have some some technology that's able to do

116some on-the-fly translation um it has that has always been an extremely important uh aspect of what we do in our Outreach and we're always looking for ways to to expand and and continue with that so uh so we're with you 100 . I just one one quick thing thank you very much for stepping up and speaking out the 708 conversation wouldn't have had happened if it wasn't for a consensus by this board that it was important and we needed to discuss it in public so but thank you for pointing that out okay the last speaker uh is Miss Flores is she still here yes there she is okay good night good evening I don't speak English very well I speak in Spanish um foreign can we can you summarize round one or something a brief

117summary not a not a direct word for word translation um is basically that she felt that she was discriminated against because she came and asked to speak to the superintendent um regarding a concern that she had and she was redirected back to the principal who she had already spoken to she has students at Twain and wanted to share some thoughts and some concerns and she says that she is not the only parent that feels that her concerns are not addressed or kind of welcomed because she's not an English speaker and so that's Lo sientos Senora it's kind of a short and general summary I'll follow up thank you yep all right um Beatrice did you want to make sure that Miss Flores was aware that the superintendent will be following up so she doesn't leave

118feeling that we're not being responsive okay that's all of our in-person uh public comments Mike is there anybody in Virtual land so we actually had one this this individual was connected but is no longer connected to zoom so to move on okay oh you're here okay what's that she's here in person now oh in person um do we have come on up good evening members of the board um last week at the Fun Run at Riley I witnessed something concerning I hesitate to tell you about it because I fear for the repercussions that may come back to my child but after a lot of careful thought I decided that I had to report what I saw some of the students saw my daughter communicating with students and families from the deaf and hard of hearing

119program at Riley they called my daughter a they mimicked her use of sign language and laughed at her the students then ran away from my daughter and refused to play with her and they haven't played with her ever since I'm working with my child at home to cope with her anxiety and very horrible depression over this she's had emotional trauma in the past and has been hospitalized and still continues to struggle I want her to recognize that her friendship choices should be towards those that treat her and others with kindness but I need your help my child needs direct support to navigate the nuances of social relationships and create friendships with other students who are kind I'm hopeful that she can be supported to make these connections I'd love to see her connected with other

120students who could become her true friends in addition I think the issue of bullying around learning differences is a symptom of a bigger problem because Riley has such a diverse population of Learners it's important that all students understand the impact of their words and actions towards those who learn differently this instance definitely felt more than unkind and immature it was cruel not only towards my daughter but also the families that were being mocked while part of this issue was definitely a lack of Parental supervision I'm hopeful that we can create positive changes at the school level to continue to improve the culture and climate at Riley furthermore to a district that works so hard to promote to promote diversity equity and inclusion we should also remember to include disability awareness for students and staff as

121part of that work thank you for your time thank you very much uh next item on our agenda as a consent agenda does anybody have anything to remove from consent yeah yeah I just wanted to pull two things for quick comment by Mike the Omni proposal and the YWCA you know what we could well you could you can leave them and just yeah I just think they're so important and and exciting programs and further illustrates the kind of work we're doing to help children in need of help that it was worth touching on before we voted to approve it no problem both of these are intergovernmental agreements or memorandums of understanding that we are putting in place as a result of our participation in the Community Partnership Grant um and um they are providing um

122they're they're solidifying services that that both of these organizations will continue to give to our district and our families um uh in you know a myriad obviously Omni Mental Health Services uh YWCA you know parent education many of the things that you've heard about already this evening these are just the the documents um that that just kind of put all those things um that quite frankly are already in place um in um you know in writing so that's there that it's uh we've talked a lot about about the different programs that we've worked with with these with these organizations and this is just reducing it to writing yeah yep okay um all right uh normal comments um had a chance to review the invoices for the year uh for the month I had several questions

123that were responded to appropriately uh fully I should say not appropriately but fully um there were no conference expenses uh and we had two F uh foyers that were rather routine as well so with that um the chair would accept the most ocean so moved second thank you Jessica bill I I vote Yes Stacy yes Debbie yes Phil rarlin aye Stacy yes motion carries thank you next next item on our agenda uh item seven is consideration of the 2022-2023 uh District budget uh the first uh oh good um first item we need to have a motion to recess a public meeting and go and our meeting it can can be in a public hearing so moved thank you second thank you Jessica all right I vote Yes Stacy yes Debbie yes Phil hi Harlan aye

124Stacy yes Bill hi I'm recessed uh Michael thank you um oh so tonight's presentation uh will be a little lengthier than the tentative budget but I promised it keep it to all the relevant pertinent points so uh this year uh we do have exciting news some of it reported a little bit earlier from Phil about what happened on the finance committee but let's dive in and go through kind of the components one by one so as everybody knows and you all have seen this before that uh the that Illinois requires us to adopt a budget regarding our income and expenses by September 30th of each year only in a state like Illinois can you do it three months into the fiscal year but this allows us to make sure that our numbers are fine-tuned and

125we get it right so a budget for a district represents a plan uh it's not something that is concrete it evolves over the course of the year and and depending on what the needs are that arise uh or or depending on on where prices go uh the the plan is effectuated and it's for the delivery of instruction our operational services and the accomplishment of the financial goals that the board sets forth and that we put into plant into place so and then uh you know a budget is actually for a school district many budgets all rolled into one there's nine funds in total and uh within the Ed fund even there are multiple budgets for different departments schools uh and different things that we take on so that's basically the annual budget in a nutshell

126um there are specific timelines in in requirements that we must follow as you know last month we approved the putting on display of the budget that has to be for at least 30 days we schedule a date for a public hearing and publish that notice in the paper those two things have happened tonight is the public hearing on the budget and we're going to formally adopt it tonight and then we'll submit that to the county clerk put it on the website and follow that throughout the year and as is typical we typically do a amended budget in the spring just to capture the changes in in major areas that that we do so in general our revenue is made up to three different sources local state and federal those local revenues are are budgeted at

127actual estimates this year of what we believe they should come in at as close as possible those local dollars include things like property taxes payments in lieu of taxes which are the corporate personal property replacement tags that's something that Illinois has to kind of replace the the taxes that businesses would pay it's made up of sales tax and some other items there's Tiff Surplus distributions that we get from The Villages that we have uh property within that is located within the Tiff earnings on our investments uh and then food service type revenues and other activities and those local food service revenues are ones of what we get when kids are buying lunch not necessarily what comes from the national school lunch program and then State revenues those increases are included for what we got in

128our evidence-based funding as is typical it's not a huge amount of in increase for us we're a tier 2 District we're getting closer to the tier three adequacy number which is that fine line of losing some of the funding but it also means that we're more adequately prepared for the education of our kids uh other uh in other Revenue that comes from the state sources besides evidence-based funding are categorical Aid things like Transportation the Illinois School breakfast lunch uh monies that we get and then last but not least is the federal money that we get and that's budgeted again at actual estimates for this year that would include your title and idea grants covered monies like Esser two and three which sr2 were scheduled to be done with this year based upon some final HVAC

129projects and then after three are those dollars that we got to include monies for salaries and education of uh of our kids and we put unlike many districts we put almost 100 percent of all sr3 dollars towards education for kids and for programs so I think that's something that we can be really proud of as a district uh expenditures include a number of different items salaries benefits purchase Services supplies Capital outlay um and then non-capitalized equipment our biggest expenditure like most districts or like all districts is seller and benefits uh it's around 85 percent of the total budget um and that's something that you know we've come down slightly in it it typically in Districts The Range you try and be around a 75 percent uh we've been as low as 81 or 82 percent

130recently so we are trying to balance that cost so that we can fund the rest of the education program our Capital needs uh with uh what um what we spend on those other parts but I think we've done a really good job of being able to utilize all the different funding so that we made sure that we have a competitive salary good benefits and still enough money for all the other educational program items uh we try and be as accurate as possible the team up here does a great job of of budgeting and then being very conservative and making sure that what we spend on is what we need for kids and we don't we don't hold back we spend a lot of money but it's done in a very responsible way um it's done

131through zero-based budgeting currently at the department level which means they build it from the ground up so what they need for each department has gone ahead and determined we talked through it as a group and then individually to make sure that each department has what they need to go go ahead and deliver that educational program that we want the kids to receive so um that that's a really important part of what gets done uh what we know about what's going on today we have a lot of positives we had a really strong close to fiscal year 22. it's why you have two different versions of the budget in front of you to kind of talk through again a lot of mindful budgeting and spending High CPI has really really helped us out I mean the

132next couple years we're going to get at the top of what the property tax cap allows us to get our fund balances are strong and that's been a concerted effort between the board in in the the administration and and the teachers and everybody that that has an opportunity to spend a dollar and deliver the program so um there's a lower than expected plan to deficit this year remember we talked since we issued the debt certificates we knew this year we would have a deficit because we Finance part of it and we're going to spend fund out fund balance down for the other part of the building and I'm happy to report that the plane to deficit was up to six million dollars and we're really at 3.1 million so that shows that we've done a

133nice job not just in the building but also in what people have put forward in their budget so uh challenges that aren't just unique to us but the districts around us and in the State labor shortages it's we still have about a dozen unfilled positions um there's competition for existing labor we have had people accept jobs and then they get a better offer Dollar Wise and they move on to that District so that's something that we're working through looking at starting salaries uh and how we pay you know where we are in in that line around here and then challenges and seamless summer funding has ended uh which was everybody was able to get lunch for free and we would get reimbursed for that uh and that's our funders Esser funding is going to be

134on its way out and then we just have Capital needs you all know we've approved a capital plan last year a new 10-year plan for about 125 million dollars and so it's working to provide the education program in addition to going ahead and making sure that our buildings are well maintained that they keep extending the life so that we can go ahead and get the most out of them and use those dollars in other places so and then last but not least is just Rising costs benefits good Services it's all currently at a higher price than it was two years ago three years ago and that that presents some challenges but I think we've done a good job of working through those uh keys to the new revenues expenses for this year we have about

135four to five million dollars remaining in Esser two and three Michael excuse me for just a second if I could ask people in the audience not to speak because it's reverberating back to the front and we're having trouble focusing on what our assistant superintendent is speaking to us thank you go ahead Michael um as I said we're at the end of the yes or money and so that's something that we will start planning for and we've already started looking at uh to see where we go in other areas to make sure that we can again fund the Staffing and programs that we want to fund um our property tax levy is enhanced by strong CPI as well as a company that we're working with uh by the name of accubase solutions which helps audit our

136valuation our assessed valuation of homes and I was saying during the finance committee meeting that we expect a fairly large increase in our valuation and because it came through errors from the assessor's office and and undervaluation on new property that we expect to see about a about a 15 to 20 percent increase in our evaluation but our tax rate going up as well which usually they work in inverse proportions but when you capture mistakes you're able to capture both the increase in the rate and the valuation so that will be a good a good thing for the district and then CPP the the corporate personal property replacement takes continues to be strong due to the economy it's way above where it was two three years ago which that is one of the reasons that we've

137been able to have some of the larger larger surpluses um a couple years ago we got about a million dollars in cpprt the last two years we've gotten about three million so those type of strong economic uh increases do help us a lot as far as expenses go um you know we're able to to cover about 3.2 million dollars in salaries and benefits which is huge and again that's from Esser funds so we're planning for that that Federal money that may go away depending on on how things go over the next few years and then just added salary costs due to growing over due to Growing enrollment overall which has caused some increased sections but that's what we do maintain the class size that we see as beneficial to kids and then obviously fuel energy

138and labor costs again much higher than they were in years past and uh I gave the example the finance committee that in fiscal year 22 alone there were four price increases on the furniture we were looking at for libraries and in classrooms and those increases added 30 percent to the cost of that furniture so these are all things that are keys and challenges that we work with um looking at the budget itself the yellow column is the tentative budget uh and it's the one obviously there's three columns of Revenue expenses and the difference then we got the final budget column in Blue uh and again Revenue expenses and differences just to show you kind of where the differences are in in from tentative to final the the major differences are salary benefits stipends there's some

139purchase services and supplies some leases we're going to pay off early that cause the increase in the Ed fund to go up by about 2.7 million dollars that being said we are still in a place that I'm sorry 1.7 million dollars we're still in a place that again we are under where we thought we would be for the planned deficit we had planned all along about six million dollars and again that goes to the responsibility of the people at this table the principals and the buildings uh our assistants that help us get through the purchasing process the teachers that buy it is truly a group effort to get to a point where we can be in a financial situation that we are now the support of the board is so huge in in giving us

140kind of the outline of what you're looking for so that we can deliver that the exciting part about everything is just the fund balances in general and the fund balances that are projected at the far right that Ed fund balance is based on the selection of the second budget so the first budget is the one uh uh the one that has no transfer in it to show you how we went from tentative budget to final budget uh it still has the the planned uh the planned deficit and the old one as we saw in the previous slide was about 1.5 million dollars we're up to about I'm sorry 1.3 million dollars we're up to about 3.1 but because of our Surplus from last year which currently based upon pre-audited figures meaning that they aren't final

141yet but we have a a really good look at where they are we are at a difference in fund balance from last year to this year of about 17 million dollars um so that is why we're proposing a 12 million dollar transfer from education into capital projects because as we said we passed a referendum in 2018 for 69 million dollars but that is not the sum total of work that we have to do and so we need to keep going ahead and filling capital projects that we can do finish the work of the referendum go ahead and enhance some of the other projects we're looking at I will say that in our final audit I think we will see a little bit better performance and that's where I think we can even increase to make

142sure we can include playgrounds in our near future so we will definitely start looking at that as we said earlier in trying to get that on the docket for the summer but the financial position of the district is we're in a very strong place um I think we still need to continue to make the hard decisions that we've made over the last number of years your stewardship is vital to that because you give us the direction and we put it in place so with that I recommend the approval of the budget that has the 12 million dollar transfer so we could call that in the recommendation option number two uh for approval tonight so is that the colorful one or is that the non-colorful well it's the black and white one thank you black and

143white upside down well that's that was also I should have said it's the one with the upside down Staples sorry I know well I was trying to because I know I was trying to be sensitive that and I failed at that so no problem uh since this is a public hearing are there any members of our public that has a question for uh Michael seen on the chair won't entertain a motion to adjourn the public hearing and reconvene the regular meeting so moved second did I hear a second me thank you Jessica Stacy Allen yes Debbie yes Phil all right Arlen aye Stacy yes Bill hi I vote Yes motion carries thank you uh final item under this section is the actual resolution to approve the budget as presented I'll move the motion thank you

144option two which budget uh option two thank you and if I could just add from the days when we had to cut 19 million dollars over a three-year period out of our budget it is uh such a joy to be here tonight to see good financial news um I'm just thrilled with the job that you've done your team has done superintendent has done these last few years to to right the ship in the way that you have so we've done it together but you've done a lot of the heavy lifting we appreciate it I appreciate that but just like Phil said about the comment that it's the whole board it is truly the whole team right I did say that yeah so I remember that meeting in the North Commons next door when we had

145chairs backed up to the entrance basically and we made that presentation okay we have the motion it's been seconded let's go um I will call the Roll But board members please do not leave until you have signed multiple copies of the approval of the budget Debbie yes Phil hi Arlen aye Stacy Getz yes Bill hi I vote Yes Stacy Allen yes motion carries and just as a reminder we have closed session that we'll be going into just shortly so no one's escaping without signing the budget that we've just approved uh we now move into new business and we have two items uh first one demographic study contract yeah we have um uh had several conversations over the past year um about the the need to conduct a a comprehensive demographic study um and so what

146you have in front of you this evening is the recommendation to award that contract this is going to provide the district with a just a lot of really important information about student enrollment um predictions patterns um you know geocoding where kids are and what their needs are and it's just a lot of information we have not had a demographic study done in at least 20 years and so it is over time to do so so my recommendation would be that it'd be approved as presented yes when I first looked at just for all of you may get a kick out of my comment here is that when Michael and I were first exchanging emails on this in the last couple days uh I was questioning him about the 90 250 for the study and he

147wrote back yeah that was such a great price compared to the others and I wrote back and I said well I was actually thinking that was a bit high but he assured me quite confidently that this was very very very competitive especially with the extent of uh information that's going to be presented to us at the end and it'll be about a 15-week process there's a lot there's a lot of work that goes into this so thank you unless there's any questions bill it's just a couple of quick things I'm very supportive and happy we're doing this in the report there's a or the proposal there's a quote that they'll create a draft report and discuss it with District 21. does that mean we're expecting them to come to a meeting to discuss their results

148here that's your decision we can certainly ask them to come to a board meeting for the draft my thought would be that the draft would be reviewed by Administration and then a final report would would be when we would have them come out but we can do both but either way okay good but they will be coming at some point before the board and they also mentioned in the uh in The Proposal that they we have the option to have a one-year review in a way to see how they did would we expect them to come here with that as well uh so I I'm sorry you're talking about the update yeah a one-year right look at whether you want to call it an update or review as to how their proposed their original um

149report matched where they are or you're out Michael you want to speak to that yeah so the idea is to now after we do it and do that one or review to do a annual update uh District 34 my colleague Eric Miller out there they bring them in annually just to update the numbers make sure that all of their assumptions were correct because they use this for a whole host of issues from enrollment and class sizing and facility capacity to even using it to support the HR side and negotiations because of what what your enrollment does what the needs of the population is so yes the idea would be to have them do an annual update and uh do that to the report and in response to your question they can come via Zoom anytime

150you guys want the the inner person would be saved for when we really want them here well right because they're based in Kansas City uh Ohio Ohio yeah so it's travel okay I understand and I think you already answered my second question I was going to ask how often do you think we should be doing this but it sounds like we're going to get an update ongoing yeah so districts either do it every year or every other year and then there are some districts that'll do it every five years at this point having not done it in over 20 years I think we could get away with every every five years and be happy but I do think annually for the first number of years would be important especially as we're looking at enrollment because

151we have seen a Burge and you know we are truly looking at where we are capacity wise both on just a functional capacity overall and then programmatic as well it should also be noted that it's not ninety thousand dollars every time you do it again you get the Baseline done and then they're updating is significantly less uh less expensive okay thank you Mike and Mike Marla um well if you if you happen to walk through the north gate area you see more babies than I've ever seen in my life anywhere and and they're all indigenous the north gate so something's going on out there maybe it's the weather Lake Michigan water I don't know but there's Babies everywhere but my question is this uh some of us two of us were here the last time

152that this were the time that this was done in anticipation of middle schools part of the rationale to going to middle schools you may remember was the growth in the population of our schools that frankly never materialize and was way off gesundheit and my question really is what percentage do we think a study like this is going to be accurate do we have any sensors historical sense from them I'm not saying we shouldn't do it I'm just curious based on my previous experience I I think the technology has gotten much better and much more accurate so it used to be that you just took the live birth rate of zip codes and kind of prorated based upon what you saw because of their geocoding of students they're able to accurately show who has stayed in

153the area uh they're able to show who's new to the area I think that based upon the technology it's gotten much better and based upon the districts that use them in the area 34 225 I'm forgetting a couple of champagne I know use them I think that based upon that and I do think it's why we pay a bit of a premium because there is a lot more technology and legwork that goes into what they do yeah than what the other ones that we met with I mean there are literally tens of thousands of data points that are being pulled together and being you know that that will produce this demographic study and also you know any predictive analysis the further out you get the less accurate it's going to be which is also why

154it's important for us to continue to update it um because you know things as we see can change like that you know Global pandemic things of that nature um so yeah and one of the things they do that was unique to them is they do a subdivision and housing type yield analysis so that they can even tell you within a subdivision within a housing type what the expected yield of students is over time which is not something everybody else does so they go and pull permits at The Villages they they dig a lot deeper than most other firms that we saw so okay thank you any other questions would someone like you so moved second sorry thank you Jessica Phil hi Arlen hi Stacy yes bill I I vote Yes Stacy Allen yes Debbie yes

155motion carries thank you uh next item under new business is transfer funds from the Ed fund to Debt Service fund for payment of debt certificates this is just the transfer of funds to cover our debt certificates that were issued to fund the building and so we move money because by law we have to pay those out of The Debt Service fund and because they were not subject to property tax they were not part of the lobby we fund that with money from the head fund so this is for both last year FY 22's payment and now this year's FY 23 payment thank you Michael this is basically pro forma as he just explained uh terrible entertainment promotion thank you thank you okay who was the second Debbie thank you Arlen aye Stacy yes bill I

156I vote Yes Stacy Allen yes Debbie yes Bill aye motion carries thank you uh next item uh announcements uh Dr Conley did you want to do this one or just uh uh announcing that um we are we have scheduled all of our ribbon cutting um Ceremonies for the um for schools that that have had extensive work in new libraries uh completed and so um those uh uh invitations have are are going out and um they uh tarkingtons will be Tuesday October 11th uh Twain uh will be Wednesday October 12th Riley on Thursday October 13th and then Cooper um middle schools uh will be on Thursday October 20th uh which is also where we will hold the October board meeting right oh yeah I have one thing go ahead the Wheeling Police Department is selling these

157very nice patches for breast cancer awareness in honor of Chris Parr who was a part of our district 21 family for a long time who lost her battle with breast cancer a few years ago she was a resource officer she was a contributor and she was just a heck of a nice lady so they're ten dollars if anybody wants them let me know I'm going to order a bunch from Officer Phil Kim our new Community Service Officer okay thank you appreciate it you're welcome the next announcement Dr Conley just went with and that was the location has been moved for October meeting to the gymnasium at Cooper Middle School next item on the agenda is a recess um so that the uh we can go into closed session and I'll read it be it resolved

158the Board of Education approves to recess the CCSD 21 September 22 2022 regular board meeting and convene in closed session to discuss the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors and park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the public body our legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park recreational or educational setting or a volunteer of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body two determine its validity to discuss the placement of individual students in special education programs and the other matters relating to individual students and to discuss litigation when education programs and other matters relating to individual students and to

159this oh I just reread that when an action against affecting or on behalf of the particular public body has been filed and is pending before court or administrative tribunal or when the public body finds that an action is probable or imminent second thank you please proceed Stacy yes yeah Stacy Getz okay good bill hi I vote Yes Stacy Allen yes Debbie yes Phil hi Arlen hi motion carries okay everyone that's not involved in our closed session you are invited very nicely to exit to my left ear