2025 11 11 BOE Meeting

00171. Calling the meeting back to order. [laughter] >> I still [clears throat] celebration. >> Oh, sorry. Celebration. >> Um, do we have any veterans? So, [applause] fabulous job today at all the schools too that had assembly. It was amazing work. I know that's no easy feat for staff to pull together, but the smiles in the room just was really amazing. It meant a lot. So, wonderful work everybody. And then lastly, you can look at the screen. November 15th is school board members day. So thank you to um our school board members. We hope that you enjoy your day tonight. We can get you a smelle, too. If you would like one, [laughter] >> they're hot ticket. Um, but no, we thank you for all the time that you give and all the hours that you

002put in behind the scenes making decisions and reading me after. So truly thank you for all you do to make sure that our staff able to support students. Thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] this will teachers and students. >> Excellent. Thank you. All right. Uh public items on the agenda. >> Okay. Uh administrative reports. Yes. [laughter] >> Hold on. >> All right. So, My board report is in there. Um so what we're going to start with tonight is talking about evidence based funding for staffing. So this is something that um last board meeting asked the board if they would like us to kind of look down this path. So tonight we just have some data to present to you. So kind of what is evidence based staffing? Well, evidence based funding started in 2017.

003So it's it's not new. It looked to replace the old general state aid formula. So this formula is all about adequacy. So it looks at how we give equitable funding to ensure that all students throughout the entire state. So when the evidence based funding came around, it's not just looking at D92 students. It's really looking at the entire state of Illinois, which obviously we have cities, rural areas, urban areas. So there's a lot that goes into this one. So each district gets an adequacy target and your dollar amount representing what evidence shows you should be spending um to provide a quality education based on your student demographics and needs. The state calculates how close each district is to its adequacy target and then you get funding based on that. So if your district is bringing

004in dollars that meets the adequacy target then you do not get as much funding from the state. So we'll talk a little bit about what does that mean and where are we? So what goes into this formula are student demographics. So the number of lowincome students we have, the number of ELLL students we have, our special education numbers. Then it looks at stacking ratios and positions based on research. So what are class sizes that they recommend, how many social workers, how many nurses, um instructional coaches that you have. It also looks at your local resources. So what's your property wealth and what are your tax rates? And when you put all those into the formula, you get your % of adacy. So there are four tiers that go into evidence base funding. When they look

005at that tier one schools get the majority of the funding next to our tier two schools followed by tier three and tier four schools get the least amount of funding because they're almost fully funded. So where are we on that scale? We are a tier four school. So our district is funded [clears throat] at 134% of adacy. So we have more than we need to be able to support the students based off of our local. So one thing that I want us to take in mind is that this this is a formal right there are many things that go into this. One of those is unique local decision making. So some districts are K5 districts. They have their kindergarten all the way to fifth grade in the building but their service model looks might be

006very different. So one of our unique local decision making um for our district that we have four grade level centers. So you will see some staffing numbers tonight but we are going to be overstaffed. I do stand by that because of the unique nature of our schools. We have to have a nurse in all of our buildings to be able to provide care. Teachers need to keep instructing. They need to be able to send a student that's not feeling well to the nurse to have taken care of. Evidence based funding is saying we have too many nurses for example once again that characteristics. So I just want everybody to keep that in mind as we go through this. So our current stacking does show will show that we are over in some areas but again

007I want to be clear that we do have some circumstances. So anywhere that you see in red are areas that we are over staffed by evidence based funding formulas. Areas that are in green are areas that um we are understaffed in. So we would need to look at how can we reallocate that again. One of the first ones you see is the school psychologist. I stand by that we should have school psychologists at each of our schools. They do a lot of work. They're guiding teams through MTSS. They're helping students in crisis providing um case managers. That is something that I think if we were to look at what does the model say and match that model, it would be a disservice to our staff. So I do stand by we should have psychologist everyone.

008Um our education teachers. We we are looking at that. That's something that we could afford to teachers this year. Um our reinventions teachers we are over but I do feel like we should have at minimum interventions at all of our buildings to be able to support students needs math interventions as well as we talked about principles. It would be really hard to not have a principal in a building when things go wrong who would you know staff be able to um Besides professionals, you can see social workers is an area that we actually may need to look at. We need to look at how how are we service students? Is that an area that maybe we need some more support? Our teachers seeing that they have more needs. Our social workers saying that they can't

009meet those needs. Um instructional facilitators, we currently don't have any. And then looking at our English learners, which is another area that I strongly maintain the current standard because we want to make sure that we're able to those students and EL teachers to support teachers as well. Any questions? So, as we look at how we're allocating our resources and looking at core instruction, we did we did we are constantly looking more direct. So, one of the things that we could do was take instructional care professionals and we repurposed them to meet the needs of students that had individualized So these students had that needed to be met outside of the classroom. They might need a to be able to assist them for part of their day or majority of the day or sometimes even oneonone

010throughout the entire day for them to be able to access the same curriculum that their peers are able to do in the gen classroom. So we were have been able to be fiscally responsible those hours. We were lucky because we had really highly certified interventionists that were able to address those needs. So we're noting Our students are still being able to be serviced by our highly qualified staff members to be able to get those needs that they need. High quality core instruction is one of the strongest ways to increase rigor and promote student. So that's something that we're experiencing this year and our teachers have a lot on their plate as they adopt the resource for ELA because we're raising that rigor. We're trying to increase that for instruction. So research tells us that effective

011classroom instruction has a greater impact on student learning than many of the supplemental interventions and students demonstrate larger growth in literacy and numeracy through a strong core instruction. So we have two studies here um that really analyze how important our classroom instruction is. How do we make sure that we're meeting the needs of students? Research study tells us looking at what's happening in the classroom is the biggest impact and do you think that's another reason we need to maintain the current classes they have are they smaller than other districts absolutely if we were to increase that class size just put more demand on our teachers they have to meet all those students so I find a lot of value and success in keeping those tests the way they are right So when we look at

012our student enrollment, you'll see that our enrollment has decreased. It's the orange line there. And our staffing needs have increased. But I think when you look at this, you need to know when you see the large blip, that's the CO 19 pandemic. So the district responded very appropriately because if you recall, we had to quarantine. Students had to be separated. If staff were out, they needed to be out. They need to quarantine for their their safety and their health and their family safety and health before they were able to return. That increased staff enhance. So we saw a giant raise. I believe it was 14 that were hired during that time. We're looking at absorbing those nutrition. So that is something. So what I take away from all of this research when we got about

013this is that we don't have a revenue problem at a district. We are able to have our advocacy target is is above what we need. We're able to find it's really about how do we make a bigger need and bigger impact on our students? How do we look at supporting our teachers? And one of the things we have heard time and time again from our staff is there's a lot on our plate and we're really stressed out currently. what we're doing is not meeting their needs. Otherwise, we would not hear that feedback, right? So, we want to be able to make sure we're looking at all models of how can we make sure that we're helping staff that need it to have a larger impact because we know our student success really determines you guys,

014all of our staff members here in the audience at home watching. You want to make sure everything will talk about that. Perfect. I don't want anything specific. I just wanted more detail more conversation about [clears throat] assistant superintendent for business services. >> Uh good evening everyone. So in my work packet there are several updates. [clears throat] I'm not going to go through all of those uh the big one being the levy. And so in the board book, there's a a presentation as well as the calculation page for the levy. Happy to answer any questions about the levy, but as I indicated during the finance meeting, uh CPI came in at 2.9% for 2024. We're using that 2.9% for the um 2025 levy we're doing in December for money we'll be collecting in 26. Um the

015other thing then that I want to just take a moment and talk about was the new um agreement from Shutterfly Light Touch is how we we know them. Uh that contract is up this year. It was a three-year that we did with a nice signing bonus. They increased the signing bonus for us. Uh if we were to renew this isn't money that we ultimately spend. This is what parents pay. Um so the services really all we paid for for for Shutterfly was a printer that we bought from them in the contract that we did with them. So really I I will bring this back next month for approval. I just wanted the board to be aware of it. I've received feedback from our year two yearbook sponsors. Very positive. I've received feedback from principles um

016and again really rave reviews for Life Touch Shutterfly. The staff they have out working with our kids to take pictures have been topnotch. um in terms of the quality that we see from the yearbook as well, we have a lot of pride in. So, you know, at this point, if I was to say to the board tonight, if we had to make a decision tonight on renewing, I would say we should definitely renew, but um that's obviously for uh the board's decision for December, um we would like to get that done. Uh we still have the rest of the year to go through, but it's really nice to get on the books with schedules and everything else for um for yearbook pictures and things like that. Um, the sooner we do that the better. Um,

017but the agreement is in the in the board book. If there are any questions, I'm happy to answer answer those. >> Who else would you go through? Is it life touch? Like we used them as kids. Like I didn't even think there was competition. >> Well, you know, it's interesting once once you start asking that we're we're doing this. They kind of came out of the woodwork. So I I managed to have like eight different vendors that were like, "Hey, we we want to um take on district 92." But you know we did that whole process three years ago and kind of you know surveyed we I did an RFP uh request for proposal from all the vendors and truly it it was the relationship that we had with Life Touch. So the teachers in

018the in the audience know you know we've had really good feedback um with them and and they you know take all of our pictures graduation and the like. So it it was it was a fairly easy sell I would say. But you know again just for comparison um you know I I did receive other quotes and at least other ideas from other vendors that were out there. But yeah, Life Touch is truly >> Yeah. the go to >> just didn't know that there was anybody else. >> In the previous contract, that's when they were bought out by Shutterfly. So, I know Teresa is in the audience here and and you know, had had um history with with Lifeouch pre Shutterfly and then post. So, you know, still some challenges. I I it's it's a it's

019a like any system that you're using. I don't know if any of you do calendars for like the holidays for family members. I know it's a it's a bear. So, you know, just and that's a fairly easy process of putting like 12 months together of pictures from family members. This is obviously much more than that. So, no offense, but uh this this whole process for yearbooks is really challenging. So, I know that it was tough for our sponsors to put all the pictures together and bring it all um but I think in terms of what what we've gotten for it, it's it's definitely worth it. >> And the printer was for ID badges. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> So, >> yeah. So they print them for OP only. >> No, we we do it for

020all of our schools. Yeah, we we have we have the ability to do badges for everyone. Yeah. >> Okay. And do they come out and do sports and other activities? >> Um for OP. Yeah, >> they do. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Um there was just one other update kind of came after my memo was done and that's uh Blue Cross Blue Shield did have a um a cyber attack. one of their vendors called Conduit, which handles back office uh processing, was hit. So, some of our employees may or may not get a letter in the mail indicating that there was uh they were a victim of cyber uh cyber um incidents is what you know, Conduit says. So, um, if you're one of them that was impacted, obviously, uh, you know, there are credit

021reporting agencies that the the letter indicates that you should go to, um, and if you have questions, we can definitely help, um, as as need be. >> That's it. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> All right. Uh, student services this month. Sorry. I guess last month I was drowned it out. Um, good evening. Couple things. We're really excited. We have contracted with a company called um love your classroom and they are going to be doing two things in the district. First thing which will be released to pair pros this Friday is teach train thrive. It's a professional development opportunity that's geared towards pair professionals their behavior management. How they prompt children how they cue students. It's going to be geared towards their actual job role. So we're very excited to do that. It's going to be

022self-paced but our teams do get together during PLC time and they do collaborate on that. So it's going to be great for them to have that information. Um, and it's based on uh the BCBAS who have put that together. The other thing I have attached in my board memo there is the flyer about classroom coaching. We have two special needs classrooms that we're going to start with that they're going to come in and work with the entire team. So, not isolating just working on one child's behavior, but working on the whole classroom. We're very excited about that. It's going to be an eight-week program at two classes and we're going to see how that goes throughout the next few months. We're excited to have that starting. Same company as well. Then we have an adapted

023curriculum for our PEC program which is at Walsh Reed and Oak Prairie for our adaptive students. It is online and paper pencil as well, but it includes all the core areas which we haven't been able to find a program that encompasses all the four areas. So we're really excited about that. Our speech pass OT's, everyone who works in that classroom will also have access to it. So it doesn't matter how many staff you have working with the students, they will all have the same access. So, we're really excited to get that started. And they'll have leveled readers at their level above and below. And each teacher will have access to all grade levels. So, if a student is higher, even though they're at this grade level or lower, they'll be able to access all that

024content. So, we're looking forward to getting that going as well. And there'll be PD for those three classroom teachers. And then we are still working on our procedures and service alignment, which will be coming up next month to you guys with more updates on that coming forward. The one thing that is not in my board memo is we're monitoring our preschool for all. We talked about doing that grant for next year. We're not sure where that's going to go. Uh right now there is a new early childhood committee for the state that's put in place and it's already been developed. So we've been waiting for the preschool for all grant application to come out. It will be live next July. So we're not sure how that's going to look. So we will keep you updated.

025Obviously if we're getting a grant July 1 of next year, it will be very hard to roll out and have things going. So, we're going to keep monitoring that. It looks like it might be a competitive grant, so it will open it up for more students to get free access to preschool, which is great, but we're worried about D92 students, not the whole state. So, okay. So, we will keep you posted on that as more comes. Any questions? [clears throat] >> That's a state funded grant or a federal funded grant? >> Yes, it's a federal funded, but it's run through the state. >> Okay. >> So, right now they [clears throat] did change it. Um it used to be that it was all just ran through um federal and it just came straight through. Now

026each state has their own early childhood component and that's been developed but it's not facilitated for the grant process yet. That will be live July 1st of next year which makes me a little [laughter] concerned that we might not be able to get that all together. All right. >> So we're going to keep monitoring that. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. Director of curriculum. Give me one second to get our presentation going. Here we go. So, tonight I just want to talk a little bit about our um state testing results from the spring and then our summitive designation. I know it seems a little bit strange to be talking about tests that students took in the spring, but that's when they come out and our summitive designations were just released at the end of

027October. So, we're really looking at two state assessments that students took. So, we have the A that our third through eighth graders took that measures our proficiency when it comes to ELA and math standards. Um, and it is required by this state. And then we also have the science assessment that's measuring how our students are doing with science standards. And the only students that take those are in fifth and eighth grade. So, it's not as many students as we see for A. Um, but we have those two measures. Um, and then just a reminder, we talked about this before, how state changed the performance levels on these state assessments. So, we used to have five different proficiency levels and now we have four. And the nice thing that the state did was regardless of what

028state tests you were taking, they kept the the same language and the four proficiency levels. So, before depending on the test you took, you may have exceeded expectations or you may have been above expectations or you may have met or you may have been proficient. So, this way the state put common language in. So any of those state tests will have the same performance levels and the same names for those performance levels. Um so when we look at our proficiency levels so we have for and for ISA the purple is how the district did and the green is in comparison to the state. Um I didn't put up how we've done in comparison across years because if you'll remember the state did change those cut scores and so it's not comparing the same thing. But

029as we look we In the district, we have 78% of our students that are at or above proficiency in ELA, which is it's great. I mean, in comparison to the state that's at 53%. That's really, really wonderful. Um, we look at math and again, we're above the average for the state at 52, just above 52% and the states at 38. And then when we look at science, um, we're at about 57% and the states at 45. And if you'll recall from the previous presentation, when they adjust those cut scores. They lowered what you needed to be proficient for reading and math, but they raised what you needed to be proficient for science just based on when those science cut scores were originally founded. It was during COVID, we didn't have as many students taking the

030test. So, their goal was really to rightsize for ELA, math, and science. Um, and then this breaks it down by grade level. So, purple's going to be our ELA scores and math is in yellow. Um, and again, we see, you know, those strong ELA scores across the board. Um, we see that our students are above the average when it comes to math. And then just some things that that we can work on. And we know this is something, you know, we've talked about um with our K5 adoption for ELA. We're focusing a lot of energy there, but we're still having those conversations about math and how support the students. I know at Oak Prairie, we're working on looking just at the rigor of what we have in math and maybe even going through and looking

031at some of our assessments and asking ourselves, do they really match the rigor of what the state is asking for the standards? Is there any additional work that we need to do there? Um, our reteers are working with the math consultant to do a little bit with number talks and just look at the conversations we're having in the classroom and really increasing those. So, while our focus K5 has really been ELA, we're still some things when it comes to math through the game to support our students. So, with our IR growth, um you'll see that remember growth looks at where did our students start with that scale score and they line up all those students with the same scale score. And then when they take the test the next year, they say of all those

032students in that group who made the most growth, whose scale score went up the most, they would be at the 99th percentile. Who made the least amount of growth? They would be at the first percentile. Um, so when we look at growth, the state expects about 50% of our kids to meet their growth targets. Um, and we're above in both ELA and math when it comes to that. We don't have a growth target in science because they take it in fifth grade and eighth grade. So, it's just we don't take it every year. Um, and then if you look, here's the trajectory because we can compare ELA growth. That didn't change how we did that. We can look to see at our growth scores over time. We can see in ELA, we have a trajectory

033where we have more students achieving that growth target. Um, a little bit of a dip this past spring, but really students are above that expected growth of 50%. So, they're really doing a nice job. When we look at math, um, we see that it's more we're more consistent in math when it comes to our growth goals hovering just right right above right around or a little bit above the 50th percentile. Um, so again, just things that we're having conversations about when it comes to how do we help more students meet their growth goals in math. Um, so then we get to the summit of designations. So right now we have these different levels for their summitive designations. Exemplary is the top 10% of schools. You can't have any underperforming um student groups. Commendable is really

034everybody else unless you're in the bottom 5%, but you can't have any underperforming groups. Targeted just means you have an underperforming group. Comprehensive, you're in that bottom 5%. And then the intensive means you've already been identified as comprehensive. You've gone through that four-year cycle and you're still falling in comprehensive. So the way that the state assigns their summitive designations, they have different indicators. They have academic indicators and then they have school quality and student success indicators. So there are several factors that go into determining your summit of designation. So our academic indicators are going to look at ELA and math growth from A. They're going to look at proficiency for ELA and math from IR. They're going to look at science proficiency from is from the Illinois science assessment. And then they also look at

035the English learner progress to proficiency. So this is looking at are our English learners progressing at the rate we think they should be. And this is determined by the state. So it's not D92 saying, "Oh, we think your EL student should grow this much." It's a formula from the state. And then we also have some school quality and student success indicators. So one is chronic absenteeism, looking to see, do we have a lot of students that are missing a lot of days of school? And then the climate survey. And the climate survey is just saying for the students that should be taking it, did we have all of our students take it? So it's not necessarily looking at how students are reporting how they feel about school, but did they actually take the survey? So

036when you put all of those factors together, here's how our schools um came out. We have one exemplary school and three commendable, which is really fantastic. We have we have great schools. We have great students. We have great staff. Um we're really we're moving in the right direction. when you want to dig deep and kind of look at what does it mean for all of these schools on um the school report card. Each school has its own little schoolhouse and then you'll see what points were allocated for the different groups. So some of our schools might be missing an indicator and it's just because they didn't have those numbers. So for Oak Prairie, they don't have a score for um EL progress or proficiency because they didn't have enough EL students. you needed 20 students

037to be able to get those points. So then what the state does is they reallocate those points that you could have gotten into different areas um on the on their little school. So when you look, one thing to note is that for all of our schools, we really do a nice job with those proficiencies for ELA and math. We tend to always get all of the points there. Um some of the areas where we may not have gotten as many points could be that growth component. So when you look at L does have all of those different areas because they had big enough population of EL students um to have those to be counted in those points. So, it's not distributed in different groups. Um we look at read students don't take the science test,

038so they're not going to have that one. And they also don't take the climate survey, so they don't have those two indicators. So, again, those points get allocated to different categories. Um and then the the interesting thing schools that don't have um bigger grade level bands. So read we only have one group of students that take IR. So their proficiency scores come from the third grade students that take it but then their growth scores come from the growth that the fourth graders make because they don't have because the second graders don't take it. If second grade took it, they would look at the growth from second to third, but they don't take it. So they look at the growth from third to fourth. And the same thing for Walsh. So Walsh doesn't take I so

039their proficiency scores come from third grade and their growth scores come from fourth grade. >> And so if you look, Walsh doesn't have the climate survey on there because their students don't take it. Um they don't have the science on there because they don't have fifth graders. And they also they didn't have a high enough population of EL students. So they don't have that category either. So it's interesting how this um allocates points. And so one thing that the state is looking at, they're redesigning how they're going to do summitive designations for this year. So this is just kind of a highlevel overview. It's a proposal now. They're hoping to adopt something um early early next year. Um so the changes, they're going to have five different levels, but exemplary is not going to be

040capped at 10%. So what they're going to do is look at all these different performance levels and if everyone in the state falls in the exemplary category, fantastic. Everyone will be exemplary. Before it was only that 10% be exemplary. >> So they're still going to have two different indicators. They'll have core indicators and then they'll have elevating indicators. So your core indicators now they're grouping composite proficiency. So that would be math, ELA, and science if your school had it. the composite growth for ELA and math will be together. And then the graduation rate, but that's just for high school. And then they have these elevating indicators. So they're calling it EL progress, consistent attendance, and climate survey. And the formula will look like this. You have your core indicators. If anyone whatever the highest of

041those core indicators are is your designation, as long as you don't have any that fall in that bottom category. So if you fall in the bottom category then you go down the level but you have the opportunity to go up because you have you can elevate your excellence with these elevating indicators. So if um with the climate survey with the EL progress and with the um attendance if you had two of those were that were exemplary you can bump up a level. If you have one that's exemplary and one that's commendable you can move up a level except if you're commendable you can't go up. So they've restructured it a little and we're going to talk about this again when we get new summitive designations, but just wanted to kind of give you that high

042level overview that the state is looking to change it and that's kind of what they're proposing at this point. But again, they'll look at adopting and voting on it um in early 2026. So questions about our current summit of designation, current test scores or what the state is proposing. >> What indicates chronic absenteeism? >> So you have to be more than 20%. If you miss more than 20% in the school year consider >> so out of 180 that's >> no it's 10%. Is it >> I think it's 10. I missed it's 10%. I'm thinking about 20 days. It's 10%. Right. I was thinking 36 days. >> That's too many. 10 >> was a lot. >> Yeah. >> I mean, not that >> even 18 >> 18 right is a lot. >> Okay. >> Do you

043think the new Do you think it's good or bad the way that the state's changing the indicator like So, so I appreciate the fact that we're not saying only 10% of our schools can be exemplary because I think we have a lot of wonderful schools that missed it. And some of the discussions on different um webinars I was on, they would I missed it by a tenth. Can't you just make me exemplary? I was a tenth off because you can look to see where the cuts were was for exemplary and then >> I mean you have to look at it. It's it's one tool that's lets us know how we're doing but it's just one tool. There are a lot of indicators that we're looking at and there are different ways to measure success. So

044this is one way to measure it. Um but I do appreciate that we're not capping exemplary at 10%. >> Yeah, that makes sense. If Walsh was a K5 building, how would that impact scores? Right? Because if you're if you're a full K5 elementary building, >> you're using three, four, five, >> so you have math scores, reading scores, science scores, right? You have growth scores. It it does look a little bit different. Um I think it's hard for Walsh because the scores they're getting are from kids they haven't seen in in two or three years. And so I think that's always a struggle because it's like how do I how do I help improve growth when I haven't seen kids in three years? What does that look like for me as the building principal? >> Um

045so it definitely looks different in a K5 building. >> And so a traditional K5 building, are they looking at kindergarters and first graders or are they just glossing over them because they have other numbers to look at? So the so if if you're doing a good job in a K5 building, you're going to look at all of your students in there. But when you look at the summit of designation, there's nothing else that the state pulls in to to factor in for kindergarten first or second. Yeah, >> it's all IA. Um things that things that you have a little bit more control over in in a K1 building would be gosh, how are our kids doing? Are we looking at all the ways we can we can get our kids to come into the building?

046Right? Like kind of the one indicator that you have a little bit of control over. Making it a welcoming place, reaching out like, "Hey, it's okay if your child has a sniffles. They can still come to school. If they have a fever, keep them home." And just helping parents be cognizant of like, I know a family vacation is a fabulous thing to do. And there are sometimes when we can't work around it, but if you can, even if you can get them back a day or two earlier, every day that we have with students, we feel is really important. All right. >> All right. Uh, do we have a director of technology report? >> Looks like >> All right. One second. So uh before what I had talked about in our uh presentation during the

047finance meeting was the HBS proposal. you would see options one, two, and three um in there. Option one uh is the is what we need to do to cover the proposal for uh the cops grant uh to fulfill that cops grant. That's what option one is. Option two allows us to do the wiring and then I can slowly build out through my budget through the technology budget uh our PA system. Um and then option three is uh the full quote from HBS and giving us everything um professionally done in a timely manner. And then my recommendation is option two. >> Uh I don't have it in front of me. How is the board action item worded? It's suggested um in his packet. >> No, >> the heart. No, the item at the bottom of the

048it it's highlighted. It says recommendation. That's what you want. Recommendation after discussion. >> When we go to get to that point, we'll >> we can vote on the proposal as >> the director of technology recommends option two for the >> Yeah. Just so that when we go to vote on it. Yes, it's clear. >> We're We're clear. Okay. >> Anything else? >> Were there any questions about the HBS uh H Heartland? >> No. Thanks for all the information and answering all of our questions earlier. Finance meeting. I think it was. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh maintenance report. >> All right. So, um, Gary just stepped out, but he has his memo in the board, uh, packet, but there was also an at table handout, um, which just needs a little bit of

049explanation. I I the second page is quite a a lengthy list of the building automation uh, system issues that maintenance is experiencing right now. So, uh, he's bulletpointed that whole write up and said, "Okay, these are the five key points for, um, some of our issues that we're facing right now with with our um with our building automation system. So, everything that we use to to program and structure classroom technology or classroom uh, climate, both heat, cool, um, that's causing us some problems. And so some of the issues that we face are, you know, in a in one building we could have one room that's 90 degrees and the other room next door to it is 60 degrees. So, um, what what the what the guys did was just to basically sum up, you know,

050where we're at in terms of pain points right now. Um, we've had history with Seammens now for over 10 years. And so as as building automation systems go, it's it's a it's a great product. Um, but we are running into issues with finding qualified people to service it. Uh, people who reply to to Jim Fen to to come out and and do the work. Um, we're actually going to be demoing a um a model with a company called Everest to see if uh basically give them a wing and see if they have any any more luck with trying to manage the the seaman's product for us. So >> just wanted the board to be aware of it because it is definitely a pain point. We've talked about um sending you know our folks to training

051but you know that that training is is very expensive and hard to come by um and it's also very time and place. So the technology changes quite a bit and so Jim Fen is has had a little bit of success with sort of the newer breed of of um maintenance workers that he's able to contract with. So we're hoping that that kind of helps out a little bit. Um, but you know, from the standpoint of of Gary and Jim being able to respond to questions, you know, since they're not here, I can, you know, definitely, you know, take what the board um talks about or asks questions of and we could do a little bit more digging into that. Um, but it is definitely a pain point that we just wanted everybody to be aware

052of. >> I have a question about bullet two. So, how many parking spots does Lewig technically have? >> Do we know? >> Yeah. Uh, parking spots at Lewig, >> we're up to >> Oh, in >> seven like 70, I think, at least. Yeah. >> Okay. >> No, I know. Well, so that's I was trying to get the the difference, right? Like >> we squeeze them in. Yeah. >> I get it. Um, but I was just trying to like >> again back to the parking lot. It's been an ongoing discussion, you know. Well, and >> we only have space for 70, but what? Yep. We had 282 cars here, >> right? >> Like that right there speaks volumes. So, >> yeah. And we we squeeze them in on the bus entrance. We squeeze them at at

053the front of the building. We we wrap around the back. >> Um you know, it's we've had we've had people park on Archer. Uh it's, you know, not safe. No. >> Um and a day like that, we couldn't drive onto the grass because it was wet. >> So, you know, you're really pretty pretty landlocked in terms of being able to get people in. And even in our buildings like, you know, Reed that we've expanded the parking lot as as much as we did, we still need, you know, coverage to make sure that we were we're were able to um do some traffic control. >> Yep. >> All right. [snorts] >> Sorry, I'm just thinking um No. Uh maintenance truck bed. Is that on the >> Yeah, Jim and I were talking about the truck bed

054earlier. So, um that is something that we need to do. We're trying to we are trying to keep our It's not on the agenda for tonight. It's an under under bid threshold amount, but we are just trying to keep our vehicles running, you know, and so as as we salt and as we do all of our own snow plowing, we have to have vehicles. You know, even a small ice event the other day really caused problems because we iced on sun or we salted on Sunday, came back Monday morning and it was it was even more problematic. So, um you know, our our folks do a great job, but we've got to have the equipment. And so, as the board recognizes, like last year we bought a new dump truck. Year before we bought a

055new new um a used truck as well. So, we've tried to update our our fleet as best as as possible, but it's a it's a big expense. Is it is it worth outsourcing? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So, um it's like a plug. So, uh >> Well, I'm just curious like what the what the difference is, right? >> Yeah. So, in in a previous district, we did, you know, outsource uh snow plowing. Um and it was built off of a salting. Um basically any event that required salt was how we were charged. Um, we did see a savings and a reduction obviously w with with, you know, less manpower, salary, benefits, equipment, the fleet that we have to have, you know, all of those things. It it there there's a real benefit to that.

056Um, we've always struggled though at our size, making sure that we get top priority. So, you you put us up against maybe, you know, a corporate office or or other places where, you know, we we might be a little bit smaller, uh, could be a challenge. One of the things we've we've talked about though is doing a larger um re really kind of going out to see where else we can save like we've done with busing. So we outsource our our our bus transportation. So um that's something we do. We outsource fertilizing of our our lawn. Um you know those are things that are good to look at because it's always good to make sure that we're you know spending the least as possible. You know once you add in salary benefits and just the

057equipment it's it's pretty sizable. We're looking at, you know, um, snow plowing. We're looking at lawn maintenance, as many things as we can to be, you know, costconscious. >> Yeah. Because I would think that those companies go hand in hand, right? >> Absolutely. >> So, we're actually >> we hire somebody for landscaping, then >> most likely in the winter they do the snow. >> Yes. >> So, >> yeah, more news to come with that. Mhm. >> So when you contracted before, was it [clears throat] were they basically available to you all day long or was it they would come in the morning and plow and then >> whatever happened during the day it waited until >> No, we we still had we still had service. So if it was a salting event, they we still

058had service that they needed to come out for. So, um, yeah, it's not just a one hit where where they they come and go, um, in the morning. >> No, I'm just thinking they would do the, you know, >> from a business standpoint, you get there before the everybody shows up and then you're not showing back up until everybody leaves and you can, >> right? >> Because, >> well, once the parking lots are full, you know, it it's it's tricky to get in there. our our folks at my previous district, they they would salt sidewalks and they would do some of that ongoing maintenance, >> you know, that that's kind of, you know, what we would would do for that space. >> Okay. Just curious. >> Yeah, that's a great question. All right. All right.

059School principles do not have reports tonight. >> All right. All right. I need a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Dab key. >> GKI. >> All right. Roll call, please. >> Yes. [snorts] >> Yes. Motion carries. I need a motion to approve the H Heartland wiring proposal as presented. >> Washington. >> Dapki. >> All right. Uh, all questions. All right. Roll call. >> Yes. Motion carries. I need a motion to approve the Walsh construction. >> Correct. >> Stop. >> All right. So, an update on Walsh. you know, uh, when we talked about construction for, uh, summer of 26, originally we were looking at Lwig, uh, the the gym, the small gym floor, abatement, uh, new flooring and some door work, and then also doing much the same thing at Walsh. The difference with

060Walsh is that we have a kitchen to um to address as well. So, we have a kitchen that needs to be expanded to make sure that there's a a serving um area for students. they they have to be able to um to take food as well as be offered. Um so there needs to be an in and out and all of our other kitchens have that setup. Walsh was one of those that we were holding off on from prior to me joining and so it's been on our tenure list of of of a must uh do project. Uh that floor is the 9 by9 tile as well. So it needs to be abated. Um and we're looking to do a floor different than what we did at Reed. So, for those of you that remember

061the floor we did at Reed, uh that's a multi-purpose floor. It's a little bit of a softer floor, but the challenge with Reed is um the uh lunchroom tables don't slide. The kids the little scooters they use in PE class don't slide very well. So, it's not much of a of a gym floor surface, unfortunately. So, we wouldn't want to re reproduce that. So, we'd probably be going with something called BCT, which is in that proposal. Uh you can see that in the proposal from DLA. It's basically a uh $400,000 um rough proposal number right now for for Walsh. So that includes uh entering making a doorway in the kitchen, redoing some of the kitchen layout. We might need a little bit of of new equipment for the kitchen. Um we also need an Anel

062hood, which is a fire suppression hood. Um and that's dependent upon the stoves that we the oven that we have in there. Um, so that would be needed to be added in as well, but uh looking to um to have that done in the summer of 26 because like I said, that's been a project that's been uh on our to-do list for quite a while. >> There were contingencies listed in that >> some of the unknowns. So, you know, in terms of piping, so we like like we we've run into here. There's some underground piping that we've got potentially that we might not know of all of all those things right now. Um the one thing that we were holding off on was putting bleachers back into Walsh. So Walsh has old wooden bleachers. Uh

063there's not a need from a curricular standpoint at at the school. Um we do know the athletic association uses that gym though and so we we um wouldn't want to take any um you know seating away from them. But that isn't the main point, you know, for having um you know, the bleachers. But in terms of where we're at, that could be a cont contingency as well as just the cost of all services and and and raw material, the you know, the tile and all that. Uh so DA was giving me a ballpark number. Um I think once we go out to bid, we'll have a better idea if if the board approves. >> Okay. >> So can I add one? >> Yeah. So to to wrap background up on this, Walsh was the first

064school that we uh we tackled to to do the updates. And [clears throat] people are probably saying, well, the gym, yeah, should have, would have, could have, but actually the the gym was the only staging area we had in the building to bring all the equipment, >> all of the supplies, >> everything that for the classrooms was staged out of the gym. So, the gym was basically our our construction zone uh prep area for the entire project. And Obviously, we had no time to go back and do this. And then uh as we uh work the project with Seammens, you know, each building um the subsequent years, you know, got their updates. Um and budgetary wise, we couldn't get back to Walsh. And it's unfortunate, but it's taken this long for us to to be

065able to circle back. But we had, you know, more pressing priorities u up to this point. So uh that's the main reason that Walsh gym and and the cap uh the uh serving area for the kitchen has been just kind of maintained. Um it it just again priorities were you know updating all of the buildings and then the security uh of the buildings. Now that those are complete um we can again tackle some of the the I wouldn't say less important but [clears throat] u from a priority standpoint uh they just weren't there. Okay. >> And bleachers, like we can when it comes time for the turkey trot or um whatever the the play is and stuff, >> we could fit enough chairs for parents and all that without the bleachers. >> Okay. >> You

066called what did you call it? >> Turkey tank. [laughter] >> That's what >> And eight years ago, Mrs. Rockowitz was the music teacher and she had this tradition of this turkey. What is it? >> Turkey tango. [laughter] >> It's been Miles is in eighth grade. I don't remember. [laughter] >> Anyhow, it was well loved. I mean, it was quite a production. And so that gym filled up with you had to have two performances, right? Like >> Yeah, I think sometime. Yeah. >> Good morning and then now. Yeah. >> Anyhow. Well, and the nice thing about bleachers today because they're, you know, plastic and and they're um you put them into the the wall as opposed to the floor. So, you're not going into the the flooring. You actually install against the wall. So, that's what

067the new the new models are. So, that is something that, you know, we don't have a decision now. Yeah. >> Perfect. Okay. >> So, Dave, how does this align with I know I think last meeting we were talking about maybe looking at some other architect. So, Is it are we looking at someone other than DA or would they still be doing? >> Yeah, it's a great question, Jeeoff. So, I think triple eye one of the things that we need to do um I know I will be doing and I'm sure you know some board members will is to talk to architect uh firms that are at we have to go out for an RFP if we select if we want to go with a different architect. looking at the timeline, you know, just bringing it

068up last month, knowing where we were at. Um, it took us a little bit of time to get an answer on whether or not we could go with that new model for delivery for um doing the construction at Lwig. But that new model of delivery is more for a full building um you know, like $85 million new school versus a a $10 million project. So, we can't use that new model. So, that really puts us back to the drawing board, which is really looking at are we selecting a new architect. Um, as I indicated last month, you know, the the pains that we've had obviously are are fairly well documented. Um, if we want to go forward, I think that's going to take us a couple months to build up to, and I didn't want

069to lose time because we have to bid this out in January uh to get the work done for the summer. Um, we won't be able to wait any longer. So in terms of the abatement, I have to have hygiene on board so that they they could do the the full building abatement. We have to do that the beginning of the summertime in order to make sure that we don't lose this the gym for the start of school. So really looking at the timeline, it it just it there's no way to to make that happen. However, I do think it's something that the board should at least [snorts] acknowledge and and maybe um get into, but that's after we've had a little more time to to talk about it. If if as long as everyone's okay

070with that, you know, I can put a pin in it and we can revisit December at least in January as well. >> All right. Roll call, please. >> Yes. Motion carries. I need a motion to to [clears throat] approve the school maintenance grant. Tedwell >> Dabkkey. >> All right. So, pretty much every year I Isby provides money for school maintenance work. Um, and this is the the yearly aotment for school maintenance. Uh, as I've indicated and Sean talked about, we have plenty of projects coming up. >> Um, and so this is a a grant from the state. The requirements for us then are to, you know, fill out the application and then we have to do an expenditure report to identify what we spent that money on. Um, and then it's it's 50,000 that we

071would get. That's a it's a matching. So, uh, in in the board packet then, Matt, for tonight, there was there's a a sign off for that, but this is just, um, obviously money that would go to all of our maintenance work, um, that we have coming up. >> All right. >> Roll call, please. Yes. >> Yes. Motion carries. Need a motion to approve the Grand Prairie Transit attendance incentive as presented. >> Washington. >> Yep. >> And this was tabled. So I think you have to remove it from the table. >> Uh >> and you pick it up at where it was, you know, at that point. Uh, we can leave the old one on the table and just start fresh from this one and just never bring that one back onto the table. >> Bring

072this the same same one. >> Mhm. >> Oh, I had a first >> principal. >> All right. [snorts] Who's Dave? >> All right. So, uh, last month, so for those of that weren't here, we, uh, brought forward a recommendation for Grand Prairie. Uh, this is the attendance incentive that we started last year. And so, the recommendation was to approve the continuation of the attendance bonus. Uh, we've received two invoices from Grand Prairie for um for August, September. I think we've re are in the process of getting October, but everything's on hold until the board approves. So really in terms of the board tonight, it's it's your decision whether or not you want to maintain uh and continue that attendance uh uh incentive for our drivers. It's $100 uh for the month uh of the 40

073different drivers that we have. Um we've had about uh 20 who've had that perfect attendance on average. So, I I would say it's it's a tool that's um like of all the other tools that we could use as an employer or as with a contractor, you know, we're trying to incent the kind of behavior that we're looking for, you know, 50% uh perfect attendance is, you know, it's it's okay, but you know, obviously, uh all of you that have kids in the district, you know that we need to reliable busing. So, um like I said, it's just one tool of of the many that we we want to to leverage. Uh it has had some success. Um but ultimately it's the board's decision. >> Um it was a couple things because I went and I

074watched that meeting and I totally understand questions when it comes to that. One of the things I talked to Frankie and Dave about is we're still saving money. Like who did we have? >> We had first student before >> first student I was gonna say first um like we're still under >> and I am a mom and community. I strongly believe like if buses are late because we have a ton of subs all the time, people cannot be to work one time. I have kids, I got to be at work a certain time if that bus is even 15 minutes late, which happens often when we have >> um it throws everything off. Not only that, my kid is losing education if they're not coming to school. So obviously to me this is a band-aid.

075When we go to bed again, >> you live and you learn. Like now we know, hey, I know we did with the construction >> before when they didn't finish on time. The next time we went for construction, like, hey, if you're not done by this date, >> you're got to repay us some money. So now with the hindsight being 2020, when we go to renegotiate our contract, obviously this will be a big thing. But I mean, I went to Red Lobster in Madison a couple months ago and it was closed because people weren't there. Um, people are not they're not coming to work. I don't know what to tell you. That's not something we can fix as board members. But what we can do is put our kids >> number one and to me having

076the same bus driver is safer. I don't want a different person driving my kids every day. >> I don't know about other people. If you look online on the patch, just some crazy stories out there and I don't want that. So those would be my reasons for keeping it going. Obviously, everybody can vote how they want to, but I'm passionate about who's driving our kids to school. They're back every day. It was just a car accident at museum industry. I'm going to have questions. strangers driving my kids, but if the same bus driver, maybe I'm like, well, they did their best because I know Miss, >> you know, bus driver Bill was our favorite. >> That was a sad day. And it's good for the kids, too. >> I'll just say that. >> Thank you.

077>> Yeah, our bus driver, right? They're the first people our students see. And so, that familiar face. And on days like the last couple where it's been a little bit colder and the snow uh you know students standing out there longer >> if they're if the buses are late you know it becomes a bigger issue the worse the weather gets too. >> Yeah. >> On the on the timeliness. And the timing I will emphasize the time >> when I have four kids you got to run this thing like a tight >> sh [laughter] >> and if you're catching a train any right I mean all those things can really impact families >> so I get it and it's something I'll keep at the forefront of my mind when we're here >> I think I'll be

078on board >> yeah it' be another year [laughter] >> you just got I was going to say you just thinking I'm trying to do like the math. It's something I will remember when we go to pay again, >> right? >> I will go, hey, how can you guarantee >> that we will have these same people? >> And if not, maybe get some money. >> Absolutely. >> Y >> they're going to bill us anyway. >> Yeah, because this is year two of three. >> Yes. >> Anything else? >> Well, yeah, it goes back to these aren't even our employees. So, I'd like to amend it to include all staff of district 92 as well. Same circumstances. >> Um, I do have questions because I heard you say that last month at the meeting. >> Okay. Um,

079excuse me. >> We need a second to discuss it. >> Oh, I'm I just have a question for you. >> No, it's to discuss it. We need a second or the amendment died. >> Yeah, but I can still ask a question about the topic that you brought up. >> It's not a topic. It's an amendment to the motion. >> Gotcha. >> All right. So, is there a second to amend the proposal as presented? >> All right. Hearing none. There is no amendment. Any other >> Well, then okay. If we're talking about attendance of the of the drivers. So, back [clears throat] in the proposal request which got put into the contract, there are reductions in the contract for late buses. Mhm. >> So there are penalties in there for the bus company. >> Mhm. >>

080Um >> but they're an hour late, right? Isn't there >> 5 minutes to 15 minutes late? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So there are penalties that are written into the contract. >> So I mean instead of paying bonuses, why not enforce it on the bus company that you know the the penalties that are in the contract? So last year um for those of you remember you know at the beginning of the year when we rolled into Grand Prairie we saw significant numbers of um of basically really poor per poor attendance. And so one of the challenges we had was we left first student because of price increases >> because they were paying all of their drivers. They're they were all contract and they were paying them higher than what the surrounding areas were.

081So, we thought, well, let's try to save some money and go with Grand Prairie. Grand Prairie then promised us a certain service level at to get this agreement. Um, and if you guys remember, the vice president came to our board meeting and said, "Oh, we'll have drivers, we'll have this, we'll have that." There were big promises made. And what we saw at the beginning of last year was it was pretty dire. for the first two to three months of the school year. We were really scrambling with with attendance and we were scrambling with making sure that we could run our buses. Um, so this was the idea that came out of that was it was a stop gap measure to say what can we do to try to incent. So Jeeoff, I'm not saying it's

082perfect, but I'm saying at that point in time when we were really worried about the service, absolutely we hold them accountable. That's what the contract does, but we didn't have this in the contract. So this this language of attendance was not there. No, there there is a penalty. I I understand there's a penalty built into it, but it wasn't for drive. Again, I want to incent the behavior. Um in terms of what we're trying to get out of drivers because when we left First Student, I had multiple parents tell me, "My kids love our driver." Grand Prairie tried to take as many drivers as they could from First Student because they knew what the feedback was that some of the drivers of First Student were top-notch and we wanted to keep them. And I talked

083to uh Grand Prairie and said, "Go out and try to recruit those people." I I don't control what Grand Prairie pays. Uh we're trying to get bottom dollar, but at the end of the day, it's like how else are we going to incent that behavior? So, I'm open for all ideas and when we go out to redo this contract, absolutely. In fact, the two districts that I modeled this off of, Lyall and Joliet, have both dropped the attendance incentive and it might be for these very reasons, which were okay, there's not enough support for it and we're not seeing the behavior. I would much rather have a discussion on if I'm not seeing 100% attendance, I don't think it's working. So, you know, that that's why I think we would maybe come back and look

084at it and say, is this model the right is this the right tool to deal with the behavior that we're seeing? I don't know. But in and it's been a year and we still want to make sure that our kids are getting to school safely. So, is it something we look at? Absolutely. We look at all of those things. The business office looks at all that when we look at bills, we're constantly evaluating bills from special ed, what we're paying, from gened, field trips, all of that stuff. That's all on the table. That's why we went with Grand Prairie, though, was to save the taxpayers money. So, you know, with saving money, there comes some growing pains. And I think that's what we're seeing >> with better buses. >> My gosh, the AC we've got

085air >> as well as they just made an upgrade. Um there are tablets now in all the on all the buses. So that's why on the parent app you'll see an accurate time, but you're not going to see an accurate icon yet because they're still trying to work out some of the bugs within that app. But um that is a newer feature that Grand Prairie added to it. >> So then what was the attendance in this roughly six months that we did this on the bus drivers? So that that was that average number where out of the 40 drivers that we've got we've got about 20 that have received that perfect attendance. So you know out of the month we're you know 50%. So that I wouldn't say that's success and and so when I

086asked Grand Prairie how successful is this and and is this a a make or break really the the feedback was if you guys stop this we don't think it would change behavior. So that's why we we had the long discussion. I brought that up last month, which is it might not be incenting us the way we want it to and it might not be doing enough. Um, so it's something that we have to look at. >> So So you're saying it doesn't necess necessarily really work >> for those 20 people. Jeff, I'd say it probably does work, >> but you also have the other 20 that doesn't. So >> and so there are there is there a perfect, you know, answer to this? No, I don't think so. I think I might be bringing another,

087you know, idea next month to say this is what we need to do. Uh the tablets was something we're we're we're doing just to make sure the parents have accurate information. We'll continue to tweak this and I think that's what we're asking. >> And I'll say it's a band-aid. It's not it's not >> that's why I keep calling it. It's not it's not going to fix 100% of anything, but I won't say 50% is successful, but I won't say that that's not successful either. Like 5050 you show up to work is better. That'd be 30, >> right? >> Because as you with any employee group or with any um any any human, there are going to be days when they truly are sick and they not coming to work and they shouldn't be. Right. >>

088And then there's Fridays and Mondays or whatever that maybe you're I don't want to. And so that's where you're most likely incentivizing people is on those edges. >> And so you're never going to get 100%. >> And I don't even know, [clears throat] especially over a month. Like a month is, you know, that's 20 work days roughly. >> So you know, can someone working with students uh working with children get ill in 20 days? Yeah. You know, fairly easily. >> Yeah. Um, and so, right, we're trying to pick up on the on the margins of, like I said, Mondays and Fridays and and the days where people are, you know, less likely to come to work because, you know, they have something else to do or um, don't feel like it. >> So, so of

089the 20 that kind of, you know, utilize the program, what was their attendance prior to that? I mean, were those >> the same 20? >> Yeah, I'd have to go back and look. um rosters. We weren't collecting rosters until we started doing the attendance because I wanted that's how we validate paying. Um so I'd have to go back and look and those are all new drivers because we only use Grand Prairie for special ed. So they drastically increased their hiring and and their their you know their their um their staffing numbers just to service all of our gened routes. So, we're generally paying less for a better service than we were before. Plus, we have better buses, air conditioning, >> and all that. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Now, I will say it's community members

090that will argue that they were with student. I love I was sad to see him go. Well, I'm a president and everything. Drove all four of my kids. It meant a lot. So, that's just the culture that we're trying to build now. abandoned. >> This is not a permanent fix. I do not agree with this being a permanent fix. I feel like if we sign a contract and you tell us people are going to be there, [clears throat] that is your responsibility that as we're seeing everywhere in the world. >> Yeah. >> Nobody is showing up to work for what they were paying five years ago. It's not happening. I'm not gonna say numbers, but it's not happening. It's not happening at Smoothie King. It's not happening at Dunkin Donuts. People are not showing up

091to work for that. So I do money is [snorts] always going to make the world go around. If somebody handed you an extra $100 to to come to work that day you had a mild headache, I guarantee somebody will take that $100 and go to work with a mild headache, pop some, and show up. So, I do think it's a little bit of motivator and it's not a big enough one that it will change us. And again, we're still saving money from student. We were paying per student a ton of money. >> Um, and so we're still not at that threshold of what we were paying per student. >> Yeah. >> I'll say I don't know how many days we've been in school. I feel like school just started. We've already had >> Yeah. We've

092already had two bus drivers leave >> like >> leave Grand Prairie. So that's disappointing to me >> personally. Um and we loved our bus drivers. One of them was a second year. We begged him to come try and get our route again. He got our route. He was very honest and he said that there was an opportunity. It was going to pay more money. So I knew the day was coming. So, the $100 incentive wasn't enough because he got another job that he needed to get to provide for his family. Kudos to him. But if this in is a band-aid to help get our kids to school safely and for my six-year-old not to get on the bus to another new face, >> take it anytime. >> And can you I'm sorry. before, but when

093did we start this last year? >> Uh, around October, I think. October. Yeah, it was a couple months in. >> Not even 12 full calendar months to have full data. So, I would like to see it kind of play out for the rest of the year so we can have like a good solid >> like did this work like for real for real. >> And so, if we can bring this back in a we'll vote on it now of course, but let's bring it back in April >> with data. >> Yeah. and we'll be ahead of the game. We'll know. >> We'll have that info. We'll make some decisions and we won't start the year >> with or without we'll know if we are or are not doing it. Okay. >> Sounds great. >> For

094the third year of the contract. >> Do we know any other >> Sorry. Go ahead. >> Do we know any other districts that use [clears throat] Grand Prairie? anybody that you've got contact with to say are you guys having said >> Juliet isues? >> Yeah, Juliet doesn't use they um they just did the attendance incentive um but I think cranberry might use them for part of it or they might do part of it. >> Um so many districts split up the the routing. Um >> I'd be curious to hear if it's the same sentiment everywhere. You know what I mean? Is this a common theme? Is this >> um >> this day and age? I mean, times are always changing. >> Is this >> I I would say after COVID, we struggled mightily to see

095some consistency from our drivers. And so, >> um, >> but to Adriana's point, not just in our drivers. This is the world that we live in. >> Bus driving is tough. And so, >> you go to Dunkin Donuts and there's a sign that says open. >> Yes. Because nobody showed up. >> I don't have a staff. >> Right. Right. >> Like, this is the world we live in. So incentivizing the people that want to show up to work. Um >> even if it's not an incentive and it's a reward, >> right? Yeah. You know, I mean it's but reward. Yeah. Right. >> So for people who >> would have shown up all 20 days >> without it, you know, you're you're rewarding them as well. >> Well, and ultimately I'd rather put the money in

096their pocket versus giving it to the owner or you know you know another entity. I mean, we we >> Yeah, the drivers are the one who are, you know, they're doing the work. >> That's a good point. >> Yeah. >> Excuse me. That's So, are you saying this will just be [clears throat] for this school year? >> Sorry, I didn't How is it worded? >> Um, >> it was >> there was no there was no end date to it, but we can >> I'm happy like you said to bring it back in April. We can evaluate it. Okay. >> So for the school year >> for the school year >> it is >> this school year >> it is worded as just this year. >> Okay. All right. Roll call, please. >> Yes. >> No.

097>> Yes. Yes. Motion carries. All right. Board policy updates review for first reading. >> All right. So, press dropped a lot of new updates on Halloween. >> It was a really fun Halloween. >> Yeah. >> Um, most of them were pretty easy revisions, but there is one policy that I did want to point out to the board that was renamed and rewritten. We talked about it um in depth at our policy committee. It is policy 7150. What this policy is is our agency and law enforcement request. So this policy is very explicit that all students regardless of their status or their parent or guardian status as a US citizen have the right to a free education. So it really just outlines that our students are able to come to school and continue to keep learning

098from our staff. So that that is the policy. Once that was renamed, what we saw was a domino effect is that numerous other policies had to take the cross reference because they reference that policy as well. Um, so the policies are there. Tomorrow I will be attending a press update. Um, well they'll talk more in depth. So if there's anything new, I'll bring that next month as well there for your review. >> All right. Um, all right. Instructional coach proposal. One second here. Okay. So, as Dr. Frankovich shared, when we look at evidence-based funding, this is kind of rolling into that and looking at what are some of those areas that maybe we need a little bit more support in. Um, but also looking at the the data that we have. So when we look

099at our district, we have right now 89 ELEL students um spread across the four buildings and we have 374 low-income students. So we look at those other populations that Dr. Frankish was talking about. These would be two of those. Um so just kind of keeping that in mind when we look at Oak Perry has our largest number of lowincome students. Um and then really just looking at those recommendations that Dr. Frank had shared we look at our core intervention teachers the recommendation from evidence-based funding is about 450 to1 um and our current student enrollment is just over 1400 that number does change though when you do have some of those specified subgroups so it changes from 450 to 125 to one um when we look at those students in those specified subgroups so for us

100that would be our e and our low income students When we look at our support numbers, um, our EL students, we have 89 with three staff. Um, our reading and math support numbers have changed slightly since the presentation was put together. Um, at the time we had 58 students being serviced by eight staff members and 62 students for math being supported by um, four of our math interventionists. So, what we wanted to look at was, you know, what is what is the data really telling us? So, we looked at our and we did look at them over time and I did put 2025 in. I know in the previous presentation I said we wouldn't compare those. So what I did was looked at the cut scores from last year and this is how our students

101would have fallen based on last year's cut scores. But then I also put in the last bar is what our actual scores were for 2025 based on the new cut scores. So we look at ELA. We broke it up based on their proficiency levels. So, how are our students doing overall with with the original um proficiency scales with exceeding the standards, meeting the standards, approaching partially meeting or not meeting at all? And you'll see that there are different colored bands there. So, as we look across for ELA from 2022 to 2025, we see that we are increasing the number of students who are exceeding or who are meeting standards. And we look at that approaching group and that band is the yellow band. It's slowly coming down as well. What we do see from 2022

102to 2025 is really a decrease in those students that did not meet or partially met which I think speaks volumes to the work that our staff is doing in supporting students. Um I think it's just to see that is exactly what we want to see. We want to see more of our students meeting and exceeding and we want to see those bands where it's partially met or did not meet decreasing. So that's definitely what we're seeing. We at um math, the same thing. We're still going to I did put in 2025 what it would be based on last year's cut scores so that we could have that up as a comparison. And again, we're seeing um we do have more students who are meeting and exceeding in those grade level bands. We still have that

103group of students who are approaching um that yellow band kind of in the middle. And then we look to see again we did decrease the number of students who partially met or did not meet on So we see that there is there are fewer students in those lower um proficiency levels. So when we look at that really what does that tell us? So it's a really nice colorful graph but what does it actually mean? So as we see that decrease in students um in those lower levels that's great. We also see um the increase in the students who are meeting or exceeding again what we want to see. But what what our need is telling us is we have students in that approaching category who we're maybe not closing the gap for. We still have

104um kind of a large number of students in that group who are close to proficient but just not quite there yet. So what do we do for those students? Because in reality those are the students that typically aren't qualifying for a tier intervention. Their scores aren't low enough that we would pick them up to support them as a reading interventionist or a math interventionist and pull them out for small group or one-on-one instruction. So these are the students whose needs are really being met in the classroom with our classroom teachers with the differentiation they're able to provide. Um and so as we look at and we talk about coaching, it really is an opportunity for us to help support teachers support students and supporting those students that aren't getting pulled out for that additional support.

105And so I think a lot of times the question is like well why instructional coaches? we have a lot of really great things in place. Why are we asking for something else? And there really are some nice benefits when it comes to coaching. Um, if you're not familiar with instructional coaches, depending on where you go, the model could look very different, but the goal being that we're there to support teachers in their ongoing learning, which in turn supports students. Um, when we think about it's ongoing professional development. How many times do we hear, "Oh, we have an institute day and then we have another one in three months or we have a SIP day and we have another one in a couple of months." So, while you might get that intensive professional development for one

106day every couple of months with an instructional coach who's in the district every day, you get that ongoing professional development. The other nice thing about coaches is that the professional develop is tailored to exactly what we need. So, I just think about how nice it would have been to have coaches this year as we rolled out for K5 as we rolled out standardsbased learning and grading and the supports that could have been provided for staff to take some of that stress away. So, here's someone that can come um and help plan with you, model lessons, um give you feedback as you're doing that, do some of that work when it comes to all the assessment work that our K5 teachers are doing with standard based grading and learning. They could be there supporting and doing

107some of that work on the back end to help free up some time for teachers. So, it's just to have um that those staff right in the building and that focus can shift based on what we need. We know that research shows that coaches impact student performance which is really why we're here. We're here for students. We're here to make sure that they continue to grow and learn and they um close achievement gaps. Um and it's it's also really nice because it's tailored. So it can be gosh, you know what, my students, they're the engagement in this particular part of the day, it just seems off. What are some things that maybe we can do to help increase student achievement or student engagement? What are you seeing that I'm not seeing? So, sometimes it's just

108nice to have another person in the classroom to bounce ideas off of. Sometimes teaching feels really isolated when it's you and 25 students and you don't have someone to be like, did you did you see that? What would you have done there? Um, and I think um as we go through this and look at some of our different proposals. So, we came up really with three different proposals and really the proposals are what we focus on and the number of staff that we would have. Um when we look at that first proposal, it would be two instructional coaches, one to support math and one to support ELA throughout the district. Um when we think about the work coaches can do, they can typically work with anywhere between 16 and 24 students or 24 teachers um

109during the school year. So with one person doing ELA and one doing math across the district, you know, you're limited to about 16 to 24 staff members. Um the model that we looked at was two instructional coaches with a focus on math. So, as we look at our scores, we see that there is more of a focus needed in math at this time. So, then you're able to impact 32 to 48 teachers throughout the year. You have two coaches um both focused on math. So, you also have another thought partner as a coach. And then the third proposal that we have is looking at four instructional coaches, two that would focus on math and two that would focus on ELA. Again, able to about 32 to 48 teachers in each of those content areas through

110the year. When we look at strengths and drawbacks, um if you look at having just one ELA and one math coach, you have coverage for both throughout the district. Um there's streamlined communication. It's one person communicating across all four buildings. And then there's that consistent instructional messaging, right? Because it's not several people that are providing these supports. Some of the drawbacks are it's limited. It's limited in the number of students or staff that you can work with. There's some scheduling constraints because you would be in four different buildings with one person. There's travel times that you're losing or if you schedule it as I'll be in this building this day, this building this day, you just don't get to be in as many buildings throughout the week because you're trying to split your time among

111four buildings. Um the other drawback that's not up there is you're one person doing this work. It is really nice to have somebody else through especially as instructional coaches are getting up and running in a district. It's new. It's new to the It's new to the staff that would be a part of it. So, just having somebody else there to figure it out is is very nice. Um, when we look at the second model, which would be two math coaches, again, your strength is, hey, it's this really strong focus on math. We've already identified that as an area of need. There's stronger vertical articulation. You're able to support more teachers. Um, and then you also have that thought partner there. and there's fewer transitions between buildings. We anticipate that it would be grade level bands,

112not necessarily schools. So, you do have that vertical articulation which is sometimes missing when you only have an institute day or sip day every here and every, you know, couple months. You don't always have time for that vertical articulation. Some of the drawbacks are you won't have the support for literacy. So, that's going to fall back on professional development can't be supported by coaches. So it falls back more on building principles as we look at that. Um that third model gives us more of a balance with literacy and math. With four coaches, you're impacting more teachers, which again impacts more students. Um you can have more of that consistent professional development. Some of the drawbacks are here's here's four positions that we're redeploying. Um, and then again, I put it as a drawback because you

113have to coordinate among multiple coaches, but I do think it's a benefit to have to have a team there to do some of this work um especially as would be getting up and and running um with staff members. And when we think about in any of these models really the goal is focusing on what are the students telling us that they need and then how do we go and support that? It wouldn't be a model where someone would come in and say, "You absolutely have to work with a coach." The model is more, "Hey, I'm noticing this in my classroom. I'm wondering if you can provide some support working with that person over an extended period of time, being able to plan together, being able to go in model, being able to reflect. Oftentimes, our

114days are so busy, we just we don't even have time to stop and reflect on what happened in the classroom." You know, we would say that with new staff members, this would be telling them that they would need to do. And again, when you think about if you're new to teaching, this is like having a mentor >> you have somebody there for an extended period of time. You don't feel bad going to bug the person next to you to ask them another question you have. So, I think for a new teacher, this is just lovely. And even when you're new to the district, even if you've been teaching for a number of years, when you come to a new district, things are different. You're still trying to figure things out. The curriculum might look a

115little bit different. How schedule runs looks a little different even the expectations within the classroom. So again, it's just nice to have someone who's familiar with the district, someone who's familiar with the history, and someone who can come in and support that kind of in that ongoing um in an ongoing way. So then, as you know, we were talking about this, we were like, okay, we looked at our data. What do other districts that have done this? What does their data look like? So we pulled data from two different districts that were similar to ours. size and in how their buildings are structured with um grade level centers as opposed to K5 buildings. Um, and so the the um bar on the left is going to be what did their data look like prior to

116coaches and then what did it look like the year they implemented coaches and across across the two districts in ELA and math they saw about a 10% gain in proficiency in ELA and in math and the second so this is the math for the first district but the second district is fascinating in the sense that they implemented coaches during co so 2019 was their score pre- coaches, right? A lot of schools saw a dip after the pandemic. They saw their scores go up >> in both ELA and math. So, I think it just speaks volumes to that ongoing professional learning. And I know like any one of the staff sitting out here will tell you that they're lifelong learners, that they always want to grow and learn in their profession. here's a way that we

117can do it where we don't have to send you out to go to a conference or wait for a sip day or wait for an institute day. This is ongoing tailored to exactly what you feel like your students need or what you as the adult learner want to learn more about. Um so it's just it's a lovely model and I think districts that have implemented it have found really really great benefits with it. >> But that's a whole lot of information. So, what questions do you have >> based on experience from those that have experience or knowledge? Like, and I realize it's going to be different. I realize every day is going to be different. Every district, every building is going to be different, but what's a day in the life of an instructional coach?

118Like, what is what does that day look like, right? How do how do you how do you make sure that they don't become people who are task oriented people and they're strategic and big picture? So like what's a day in the life? >> So um so I actually was a coach in a former job um and started when the district started implementing coaches. So I got to see this from the ground up and got to grow it from the ground up. And I can tell you our it was it was always interesting like the first couple of weeks because I was so used to being in a classroom and like at every minute of the day I knew exactly what I was doing and then when I moved into the role of the coach it

119was like oh well at 9:15 I'm not teaching at 9:15 I might be in Miss Smith's class or I might be meeting with the building principal or I might be meeting with the director of curriculum. So what it looks like is um we did student centered coaching coaching cycles. So we would have people sign up to work with us for six to eight weeks. We would plan out times that we would plan with them, times we would be in their classroom, um times that we would reflect with them. We'd have um meetings with building principles to be like is there anything you're seeing any we need to what are your building initiatives and how can we help support those? Um, but I will say the days were were packed from start to end. Um, to

120the point where it was like, okay, we need to you can't take on this many people. You're overcheduling yourself and you're making yourself crazy. Um, but it really was busy and the the the role evolved from year to year. So depending on what the needs were for that year, it looked a little different every year. um it rolled into providing more ongoing professional development for everyone. So not just the people that were in a coaching cycle um but being able to provide professional development based on the data that we were seeing for individual schools. Are some of the responsibilities in the job description are those pulled from other like based upon other districts or >> looked at several different okay >> districts and then also look to see what is it that D92 needs >>

121okay >> because what we not sure what it's going to look like I'm not sure what it's going to look like for me as the teacher inviting you into my classroom sometimes it's a little nerve-wracking to invite other people in um but after those first couple teachers came through the coaching cycles then you did have more people that were like wait you were able to do and your students are doing what now? Okay, let me let me get in on this. Yeah. Well, >> and I think also the way that it was presented and being able to make sure that it's clearly articulated to staff, this is what it will look like. This is what it won't look like. These are all the benefits to you when it comes to saving um saving time and

122helping to do some of helping to take some of that workload off. >> Yeah. >> Um and just giving you an opportunity to focus on the things that you think are most beneficial for kids. I worry it's misleading to teachers and intimidating to even say, "Hey, I'll take a coach." Right? Like, right, >> been doing this for years. I know what I'm doing. I don't need that. >> I just worry >> the buy in. >> Yeah. >> And I think um so again, I think it's in how it's presented, but you'll always have those that are eager to anything. Yeah. >> And those are the ones that then spread the word like, hey, these were actually all of the benefits >> that went along with it. >> Yeah, that's good. Okay. >> I'm looking at

123the job description and I may be getting ahead of myself a little bit. You can tell me that. >> Um I'm just worrying I I'm curious to how we would measure their success. >> So, one of the things that we did was we um looked to see like what is it that we want to students and kind of took some data before we started working with them and then took some data at the end. We also looked at big pictures to be able to say how is it impacting like are we seeing an increase in our students IR scores or fast bridge scores or even some of their summitive assessments are we seeing an increase in that over time as well. So there's a couple of different ways that we can measure. >> Okay. I

124would the summit of assessments what what's happening you know with the different uh subject topics >> especially math I mean you know we're all shocked that you know the math scores have stagnated so you know something like that it's just black and white if if there's marked improvements >> so based off what like say we were doing it this year We would measure it from from that goal for this year. as I think about it um right it'll it its goal and will improve core instruction right in the classroom every day with those students right and we'll the goal will be to elevate those students who would not qualify or don't qualify for MTSS interventions [clears throat] right and so we're increasing in our performance at the at tier one >> instruction, [clears throat] right?

125So that's that's huge. Um the continuous learning piece and then I um right in my role, we have two technology instrual technology coaches uh that work in my department personally and the days of us doing a whole day or even two or three hour trainings is over, right? we do. It's just in time, right? And so that's always my thought process and modeling for learning something new. [clears throat] And with the ELA curriculum, that's an perfect example of >> instead of trying to train somebody on the whole thing, you do it in chunks just in time. Yeah. >> Because I could teach you a new piece of software and until you use it, >> right, >> it's worthless, >> right? like, you know, so if you're in if you're able to instruct and coach in

126real time or >> in in small chunks, it's just >> I found to be more effective when dealing with change and new new things. >> Yeah, >> I think it's awesome. I was just playing a little bit of devil's advocate because I feel like, you know, >> Yeah, it's an important conversation. >> Until you see it, it's what will this [clears throat] actually look like? Yeah. >> Sometimes new is scary. >> Yeah. It gives teachers a single point of contact too >> instead of you know so like if you have a math question you would go to the math person >> and it's nice for the vertical articulation piece as well. So if we're seeing gosh these kids really struggled in this and it seems to be a grade level thing >> we can look

127back and what else can we be doing or if we're seeing common things among multiple teachers it's like okay we need to present this to everyone then because this seems to be something that we all need a little >> yeah sorry I'm causing a ruckus >> no [laughter] but after I saw you doing that I'm like it is warm in here >> I'm getting finally [laughter] >> put my bathing suit on over here. >> Not that anybody wants to see that. I'm just saying. >> Okay. >> Might make the news. >> Right. >> So, [clears throat] going forward, >> board member. >> Uh the board can expect >> the job description for in December for approval. Correct. That's the plan going forward. >> Uh and then that's really it. >> The proposed model. Yeah. >>

128Yeah. >> Oh, which I just >> That's all right. That's all right. So, we'll approve both pieces in December >> or we'll be approved. >> Stop answering. >> We'll bring them back for action. >> All right. >> I'm freezing Gina out over here. [laughter] >> All right. We're going to have to separate you two. >> All right. I need a motion to enter close session for the purposes of a of appointment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees. Five, IOS120 section two and collective not and collective negotiating matters or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees. Uh 5OS 122 as well. Oh, subsection two. >> Washington. >> Tedwell. >> Uh roll call, please. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. All right. We're going to go next door and do close session

129and >> No, we're gonna go to the conference room. >> All right. We're off to the conference room. >> No, we're going to the