Board of Education Meeting - February 23, 2026

001I hereby call to order this regular meeting of the board of education for Wilmet Public Schools, District 39, this Monday, February 23rd, 2026. Will the clerk please call the role? >> Annne Hart >> here. >> Judy Berlin >> here. >> Erin Stone >> here. >> Kristen Dcastro >> here. >> Alison Pilis >> here. Amy Paling >> here. >> Katie Hilton >> here. >> I'd now like to welcome Principal Becky Litman here who is here to introduce central students to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Good evening. Tonight, I am very proud to introduce a group of Central School Student Council representatives who are here to share about a recent day of service and a Fox Giving challenge. This project was truly a collaboration. It began with our DEIB committee's desire to honor Dr. Martin

002Luther King Jr.'s legacy of service in a meaningful way. Our PTA central kids care committee then partnered with us hoping to support a schoolwide service learning opportunity this year. Most importantly, our student council representatives themselves expressed a genuine desire to give back and support others in our greater community. So together, these efforts became a unified service learning experience that engaged our entire school. Our students reflected on Dr. King's message of service, asked themselves how they could make a difference, and led a Foxgiving challenge with enthusiasm and purpose. At this time, I'd like to invite Jennifer Madden, one of our student council adviserss, to share a few words about the student council's role in this project, and then our students will introduce themselves and tell you more about their work before leading us in the pledge

003of allegiance. >> Hello, good evening. My name is Jennifer Madden and I'm a fourth grade teacher and one of the student council adviserss at Central. As a student council adviser, I have an opportunity to guide our fantastic student council members through three important projects. First, we complete a service project for our community by partnering with local organizations and leading efforts to gather supplies and support for those in need. Second, we lead a kindness project for our school, encouraging students to include others, use kind words, and create a welcoming environment for everyone. Third, we organize a school spirit project that brings students together and builds excitement and pride in our school. We are so grateful to have a strong parent partnership and are thankful for all they do to support student council. Through these experiences, our

004student council members show dedication by coming to meetings before school each Tuesday, ready to lead and serve. They share creative ideas, work together, and look for ways to help others and strengthen our school. We are incredibly proud of their hard work, commitment, and the positive example they set for others. And now, our student council representatives would like to share about our recent project. Good evening. My name is Lucy Mobbley and we are members of Central School Student Council. This year, we wanted to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 's legacy of service to others. >> Hello, my name is Hunter. We began by reflecting on Dr. King's quote. Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?" >> My name is Madison. Students recognize the kind acts in their classroom and

005around school. We created a kindness train that measured 130 ft long. >> My name is Xander. We then asked ourselves how we could make a difference in our greater community. We decided to help children stay warm this winter. My name is Ben. We created the Foxgiving challenge and invented and invited all central students to donate hats and gloves. My name is Hazel and as good council reps, we made announcements over the PA to get everyone excited about our project. We made yarn signs to spread the word. My name is Emma. We're proud to share that our school has collected over 600 sets of hats and gloves. This earned us a schoolwide pajama day. My name is Lucy. Parent volunteers helped sort the donations in our small gym. Each class visited the gym to tie hats

006and gloves together with ribbon. Hello, my name is Hudson Hartman. We also wrote handwritten notes with kind messages to go with each set. Hi, my name is Mason. All the hats and gloves were recently donated to Cradles to Crayons to support the children in need. We are proud of how our school community came together to serve others. And now, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, with to republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Central Foxes, thank you so much for being here tonight and thank you for being on Student Council and all the work that you're doing to make your school and your community a better place for everyone. We are really impressed

007with everything that you are doing. So, thank you for coming out tonight and telling us about it. I'm going to meet you at the door here. We have a very small gift to thank you for being here and then you can meet your parents in the lobby. Thank you very much. As our students walk over to see Miss Hart, I'll also share that many of them joined me today for a focus group at Central School and they shared much about what they are proud of as Central Foxes and some things that they think we do really well and also some ideas for improvement. So, they had some really good ideas to share with us as we're doing our strategic plan work. and I was so grateful for them taking time out of their day to

008share their thoughts with me. So parents, thank you so much for bringing them this evening. And students, well done. We are proud of you. They were so adorable. >> Great. >> So many great ideas. >> All right. >> Okay. I'll now turn your attention to the artwork behind me. Jamie Bernard's Central Elementary School artists work are displayed this month. The kindergarters began the year by exploring artist tools, the history of crayons, including Crayola, color families, line types, and rainbow order. Recently, they created colorful 2D houses layered with brick pattern lines, and warm or cool watercolor washes, adding pre-cut windows, doors, chimneys, flower pots, and hearts to represent love. While learning routines and art vocabulary, second graders practiced using materials by creating cut paper collage pizzas. They discussed favorite toppings and local pizzeras. Students also illustrated

009their favorite places in Wilmet, which became 3D buildings that connected community and self-expression to their artwork. Third graders created name-based collages using letters and simple shapes to design visually appealing compositions. Fourth graders produced abstract square collages from concentric circle drawings and later created sponge painted cosmic backgrounds for their out of thisworld galaxy collages. While studying perspective, they designed realistic or imagined planets to complete their projects. >> Very impressive. >> All right. I now uh seek a motion to approve the minutes of the January 26, 2026 board of education regular and executive session meetings. I move to approve the minutes of the January 26 20 sorry January 26, 2026 uh of the board of education calendar exceptions public hearing and regular and executive session meetings. Uh may I have a second? >> Second. >> The motion

010has been made and seconded. Board members, any comments, errors, or omissions? Okay. Um, all of those in favor of approving the minutes as submitted, please indicate by saying yay. >> Yay. >> Great. Will the clerk please call the role? >> Aaron Stone, >> yes. >> Kristen Castro, yes. >> Alison Pafas, yes. >> Amy Paling, yes. >> Katy Hilton, yes. Judy Berlin, yes. and hurt her. >> Yes, thank you for that additional >> approval of the minutes. Um, okay. The motion carries. Um, this is now time for public uh public comment. An opportunity for the public to address the board on any topic. Are there any audience members that would like to speak at this time? Okay. Seeing none, we will move on with the agenda tonight to board reports beginning with committee reports and facility

011development. Mrs. Diccastro, >> we have no updates. >> All right, we will move to school finance. Mrs. Paling. >> Yes. Uh the finance committee met on February 9th as part of the committee of the whole. We talked about two topics that will be addressed reviewed a little bit later on tonight's agenda. Uh we reviewed the 2026 2027 student fee options for lunch, transportation, and athletics. Board members discussed the various fee options for the lunch program and recommended option three, which will be a 5.8% increase. U and that will be discussed a little bit later. Transportation fees were also discussed. Our contract will go up by 3% next year and the district is in a five-year contract with our provider. We discussed the discounts for parents that could be made available for families, angel fund availability

012for eligible families, various rooting options that could reduce costs for the district, and how the fees affect wrership. The board recommended option one which almost aligns with the contractual fee increase. We uh discussed athletic fees as well and recommended to align in the 2.9% CPI increase. So those fees will be presented and approved later in our agenda. Mr. Boltier also provided details about the supplemental debt service levy resolution. He explained that when D39 issued bonds in 2023, it did so using the available debt service extension base, which we refer to as DSEB. A district's DSEB allows the district to issue bonds without a referendum. It's a number that grows each year by the applicable CPI inflation percentage. The 2023 bond repayment schedule was set up knowing that the DSEB would grow over time using some

013conservative assumptions by our bond council and adviserss. Due to how the existing laws were written, the board has to pass a res a supplemental debt service levy for the 25 and 26 tax years to be able to access the increase. Exhibit A in the resolution shows the value of passing this resolution. Column C shows that by passing the resolution, D39 is able to access an additional $250,000 over three tax years to repay principal and interest on our 2023 bonds. We have passed supplemental debt service levies multiple times in the past, most recently in the fall of 2024 for that tax year. So we will be asked to approve this resol resolution later on in tonight's agenda. >> Thank you Mrs. Paling. I'm moving on to strategy committee. Miss Stone. >> Yes. The strategy committee also

014met on February 9th as part of the committee of the whole meeting. Kelly Jackson shared an update on the work of the English language arts curriculum committee and a recommendation for curriculum adoption for the 2026 2027 school year. The committee recommended that the K through fifth grades move forward with collaborative literacy and that the sixth through 8th grades use common lit 60 and look into supplemental materials to close identified gaps. The board discussed materials that will be given to the teachers for the implementation of the new curriculum the district is currently using. In addition, Kelly Jackson and Joshua Swanner provided a report detailing the review of the single subject acceleration process for math and English language arts, noting its alignment with the 2018 Illinois accelerated placement act and shared recommendations for revisions to the process

015in the spring. They explained that this differs from the process used to place students in leveled math courses in sixth through 8th grade. They highlighted the recommended changes to the process, timeline, and criteria for single subject acceleration. The grade level acceleration process was also reviewed with the board and the district will be doing a more in-depth review in the next year. It was noted that Neutrier Township is also reviewing the nutri math program with the nutrier feeder districts. The board also discussed high achieving student growth where students aren't identified as accelerated or gifted and was assured that the district will continue to look at ways to meet the needs of our advanced learners. That's my report. Great. Thank you very much. Now moving on to liaison reports beginning with community review committee. Dr. Kremcoli will

016give us an update. >> Yes, I was able to attend the CRC meeting. Uh it was held on February 10th and the CRC um agreed on a common definition of educator well-being which is the area of focus um and then broke into their subgroups to continue their in-depth research. One group is looking to learn about local trends and perceptions of educator well-being and is planning a survey um pending final draft and approval. Um there will be a survey going out to staff either this week or next week to solicit some additional input and um perceptions on that. The subgroups are working to draft recommendations based on their research and findings and we'll present those findings to the board later this school year. >> Great. Look forward to that. Uh Mrs. Paling, back to you for

017educational foundation. >> Yes, I was able to attend that meeting on February 9th. They h um reviewed Paddle Night, which had just recently happened and was a ton of fun. It really built community in addition to raising funds. They did something new by selling party tickets for people who wanted to attend but didn't want to play paddle or if it was already full. So, they were really happy with how that evening went. Trivia night is coming up. It has a new date. It's April 11th. I think tickets opened today. that always sells out quickly. Uh they held the innovative teacher awards last week, last week, uh which was an incredibly inspiring uh new event that they are that they put together and grip grants are open for submission. >> Thank you. A lot of great

018things going on there. Um, all right. We will now move to Illinois Association of School Boards. Mrs. Berlin, please. >> Okay. Um, the Illinois Association of School Boards is sponsoring their annual advocacy day on March 24th. If any board members are interested in attending, you need to register by February 27th, which is coming up very soon. Um my second uh comment from ISA ASB actually deals with the legislative report which will be coming up shortly. But I wanted to share that IASB has a webbased list of all legislation that might impact K12 public education in Illinois. I tried it. It's really easy to use. The the legislation is organized by topic. So you can click on the topic, click on the title. It gives you a synopsis. It kind of tracks the status of of

019the legislation. Is it in committee? Has it been recommended? Is it whatever. Um, but it and it's updated very regularly. So, I just wanted to share with you that that's available for anyone who's interested in any particular bill or any particular topic. >> Great. Thank you very much. Okay. We will now turn to information items. Are you correct? or were you did >> Yeah, there's also a legislative >> also the legislative update. I wasn't sure if that was >> to separate those up because they kind of >> All right, great. Exactly. Back to you with the legislative update then. Thanks. >> Okay, so the governor's annual address highlighted two issues that have been topics of discussion here in district 39. Um uh he reiterated his commitment to an initiative to ban cell phones in schools

020during classroom instruction and he proposed the children's social media safety act to decrease harmful effects of social media on kids, improve their safety and privacy online and prevent financial scamming of children. Um, also IASB reports that there are a wide range of proposals in Springfield right now, many of which represent unfunded mandates and the IASB government relations team continues to meet with those bill sponsors. Um, there are deadlines in mid-Marchch which will determine which proposals uh will advance to this year's legislative session. So, more to come. >> Those updates. All right, we will now move on with information items. Our first information item is written communication. Dr. Kremcoli. Thanks. Uh, the board received written communication from Mr. and Mrs. Resnik regarding technology in the classroom and from a few parents regarding the acceleration opportunities in

021district 39. Those are listed as part of um the board materials this evening. Moving on to administrative announcements from the superintendent and staff. First of all, we have conference signups uh coming up. Elementary spring parent teacher conferences for our prek through fourth grade families are approaching. These conferences will be held Thursday and Friday immediately preceding spring break. So parent teacher conferences as always offer a wonderful opportunity for um us to further develop that parent teacher partnership in support of our students learning and growth. So, uh, conference signups will open on Monday, March 9th, and parents should expect an email with login credentials on Friday, March 6th. Um, I want to take a moment and celebrate our students performance at the math counts competition. Uh, this is an annual competition and today we are celebrating our

022students who participated in the most recent math counts district competition. The competition brings together students uh student mathematicians to compete in a variety of math tasks. This year our students performed performed exceptionally well. The results of math counts district competition include both team results and individual results. Um so uh third place overall and going to state based on their score was WJHS and the team was comprised of Van, Isaac, Daniel, and Luke. Eighth place overall was Highest Middle School with a team comprised of Anthony, Joseph, Sharon, and Wyatt. And then individual results, there were over 150 competitors and we had many in the top 30. Um, so many many students, seventh and eighth graders placed exceptionally well. We had some top sixth grade finishers in Joseph Anthony Hyunio and Henderson, excuse me. And then the

023countdown round. First place went to Vion, seventh grader. Many thanks to our Highest Math teacher and math counts coach, Jessica Radcliffe, for her leadership of this outstanding group. We are so proud of all students who participated and I heard some of our parents bragging about Miss Radcliffe and um all the hard work she does with our our students in one of our parent sessions last week. So uh many thanks to her for her leadership and support of these outstanding students and their hard work. Uh speaking of strategic planning, our focus groups, you heard me mention I met with some of our students at Central School today um and a few staff members there as well. last week met also with our Highest Middle School students and with our WJHS students and with many groups of

024uh faculty and staff, uh community members, parents, uh government partners from across the district. Um really had a very very busy three days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday meeting with all sorts of groups. Um so we launched our focus groups in support of our strategic planning efforts. We actually, I think by count, met with more than 350 students, faculty, staff, parents, community members, and community partners over those three days and we're counting even more, adding to it this week. Um, it really was a wonderful opportunity for learning and collaboration. Uh, participants shared many great insights regarding what they are proud of in our Wilmet schools. They highlighted our strengths and helped to identify opportunities for improvement. They also shared their perspective regarding areas for enhancement and areas that might benefit from additional study over the next three

025to five years. That question was particularly insightful. So, we're eager to see all of those results tallied. We're really incredibly grateful that so many took time out of their day to join us at these sessions. as next steps. Again, we have several more focus groups scheduled over the next couple of uh weeks with our students and some more faculty members. And um at the conclusion of all these rounds, we'll be working with our consultant, Dr. Pat Greco, to begin to identify themes and to consider what additional information may be helpful as our next steps. We do anticipate uh doing an online survey to make sure that everyone has the chance for their voice to be heard and to help refine some of what we've already learned. um as we move into the April planning phase

026of this and we are well on track uh to present a final plan or a proposal to the board uh in June. So this really is incredibly important work and the insights gained already have been uh incredibly valuable. So we're really grateful for everyone's input and we're eager to continue the process of planning. It was also really fun to reflect on what we've been able to accomplish over the last five years. So, as part of each focus group, we did a little intro where we kind of summarized in each goal area what some of the highlights were of our um five-year plan. And um it's pretty incredible to look back over five years and see all that we've accomplished. So, with gratitude to the board for your leadership for all of that and to all

027of our administrators and staff who have made that possible. Um it's been it's been really fun and I think a great process. So, we're looking forward to developing the next five-year plan. Um, and we'll hear a little bit more about um, our media report in just a bit on tonight's agenda. We heard about the committee of the whole strategy items and just wanted to follow up on last week's committee of the whole. Um, the board recently reviews reviewed those two presentations, the K8 English language arts curriculum adoption and the district's single subject acceleration plan. regarding K8 um ELA curriculum adoption. Um we are working with our ELA teachers to begin um in earnest the training necessary for that. So we had some time set aside on on our recent institute day that was Tuesday last

028week um and training will continue to be provided through spring um as we prepare to implement those new curricular resources at the beginning of the 2627 school year. Regarding single subject acceleration, uh parents of students who meet the threshold for consideration of single subject acceleration will receive notification by Friday, February 27th. Um we are on track for completion of this review process by the end of the school year um and for implementation of any accelerated placements at the beginning of the next school year. We are really proud of the new procedures for single subject acceleration um especially that they help to provide greater transparency and an access to that process. Uh these new procedures reflect a deep review of all information available to us. So we've done several analyses. I know Kelly and Joshua talked

029about this last week or the week before when we were at committee the whole in determining a starting place for our established cut scores. Um they reviewed local data, national data, best practices and exemplar districts for their established procedures. Um while the process described in the committee of the whole represents a significant amount of research and analysis, we are committed to ongoing review of our process and improvement to those procedures and we will keep the board apprised of the progression of students through this process um in its first year of implementation. So thanks everyone for your support and your close review of that. In terms of freedom of information act, the district uh received a foyer request from smart procure for general purchasing records from 10225 through uh 120 of 2026. The district also received

030a foyer from Michael Henry for background checks administered to the board prior to taking the oath of office from 2019 to the present. That concludes our report. I'm happy to answer any questions or we can move on to annual business. >> Well, we are really honored to be here in this final year of our five-year strategic plan to provide a midyear update on this year's action steps. Uh I will let Kelly kick us off and then each goal champion is going to walk us through some of the work that's been accomplished this year in in relation to the action steps for their goal area. Um, we will pause after each goal is reviewed just in case there's some feedback or questions about each goal area simply. There's a lot in this report and we want

031to make sure that we um give ample time for that review. So, uh, Kelly, will you take us away? >> We'll do. Thank you. Um, good evening. Tonight's presentation will focus on providing mid-year updates on the action steps identified for the school year within the 21 through 26 strategic plan. We are in our final year as mentioned several times tonight um with this plan and we are looking forward to this midyear check to see how we're progressing toward our action steps for this year and as well as our overall uh progress indicators for our plan in general. We continue to include the community as we re we review that process and we recently um sought feedback from our uh district strategic advisory team or DESAT uh to help inform the communication this evening. Uh as

032you can see our DSAT this year is made up of a wide range of community members including administrators, uh teachers, parents, families, and uh support staff members. And so all of their voices have been um weighed and their comments have been weighed as we have put together this presentation for this evening and we thank them all for their time on this important uh committee. We have one more meeting for the rest later on this year um for the rest of this strategic plan. So um I am going to start we are going to hear from each of our goal champions this evening um around all five of the goal areas. But I will start here with uh student achievement and growth. And I I share this goal with uh Kristen Swanson. So she will take

033a few of the slides as will I. Goal one is the goal that focuses on differentiation of instruction to ensure a rigorous and meaningful experience for all students. structured staff collaboration focusing on making data informed decisions for students and professional development opportunities to support teachers and staff in their classrooms as they work with our students. On this slide, you see the 25 26 action steps. I'll give a brief uh report on all of these. The first action step is ongoing work that we engage in throughout the school year and specifically after benchmarking periods. Teacher and administrator teams look at data, discover overall trends, and highlight any areas for additional follow-up. Additionally, MTSS or multi-tered systems of support teams and teachers at schools. You utilize the data from benchmarking along with other pieces of student achievement

034and growth to plan for interventions and enrichment. This has become a reg a part of our regular work at each school. We have had sessions on our both our October and February institute days geared toward the principles of universal design for learning or UDL. This is our second action step area. Uh these principles help teachers to think about their instruction so they can put plans in place to ensure accessibility for all students. This might include visuals or choice in how they share their learning or even flexible seating arrangements. The next couple of uh action step areas are about curriculum. So we're continuing our work on the implementation of bridges math uh and in number corner curriculum at kindergarten through fourth grade. Youth life uh foundational literacy curriculum at kindergarten through 2 grade and fifth through

0358th grade social studies uh which is the TCI curriculum. Uh for number four, you heard earlier this month and a couple times already tonight um that we piloted and evaluated various curricular options for English language arts and we are excited to move forward with that curriculum as we uh now plan and uh plan for training and our curriculum mapping for implementation this fall. uh this curricular work has been very supportive of the growth that we will show you later on in this presentation with respect to both math and ELA and you'll see in many areas of our key performance indicators uh that we're already meeting our goals or our targets at this point in the year. It's pretty exciting. An additional element that may have contributed to that growth growth is the use of our

036instructional coaches which is uh our action step number five. We adopted a student- centered coaching approach as a district last year and implemented instructional coaching with the support of a consultant from Diane Sweeney coaching. Based on midyear data shared from the coaches, they are on track to double their formal and informal coaching cycles this year. So, we are truly expanding that reach. Uh this means that they're working with more teachers and teams of teachers to analyze student data, make instructional decisions and adjustments, and support teachers in their work with students on improvement. That alone is something to celebrate. But I also want to give them a shout out for their support of enrichment work in math professional development for staff with respect to the new ELA curriculum and their strong partnership with their building administrators

037to engage with their MTSS work at the building level. Um, next is goal setting. And at the start of the year, we gathered input from teachers at each grade level about their needs with respect to goal setting. We'll show you in a bit our progress as it relates to this goal. But it's becoming increasing more increasingly more evident the goal setting with students is something that we just do on a daily, monthly, regular basis. Based on feedback, different templates and guidance were given at department and grade level meetings for teachers to use with their students as we continue to integrate this into our daily practice. Um, the next action step talks about the 58 academic schedule and that was adjusted this year and principles at both buildings have been gathering feedback from staff regarding the

038effectiveness of those changes. We look forward to sharing more about this in the spring. Um, additionally, in conjunction with the implementation of the 25minute daily home room at 5'8, executive functioning resources were shared with each grade level at fifth through 8th grade to address needs that were identified for support at a tier one or universal level. So, there are lessons that all teachers do. These continued to be used throughout the school year. Finally, we've entered into a multi-year plan to work with a consultant around MTSS at the building level. Again, MTSS stands for multi-tered systems of support and it encompasses interventions and enrichment and it also encompasses academic and behavioral social emotional supports. Um, buildings are working on streamlining their systems, developing sustainable teaming structures and making determinations about the best thresholds to determine those

039supports. This work is ongoing and has already brought about positive changes at all of our buildings. just a quick look at these key performance indicators and then we'll share some of our data that we have collected uh this year. You can see the outcome indicators on the left side of the screen and indicate strategy indicators on the right hand side of the screen and we'll report out on almost all of these. I'm going to turn it over to Kristen to talk a little bit about our um kindergarten and first grade data. Yeah. So, as Kelly shared, um we've been working very hard this year on academics over the last five years for all of our students. Um I'm going to share a little bit here about our early learners. So, our kindergarten and first graders.

040Um and this really looks at what their performance has been on measures of early numeracy and early literacy. This slide, the first slide shows the longitudinal performance on winter benchmarking. So comparing students each winter, so different cohorts of students um at the winter to see how they're progressing on those measures of early literacy. And you can see that we have added some additional subtests in as we've gone through the strategic plan based on what our teachers were finding as most useful in order to identify those students who needed both enrichment or intervention. At this point in time, our youngest learners are doing really well. Um they're exceeding our our our goals for them. they're um more than 80% more than 90% I think of our students are meeting or exceeding um or are either meeting

041average or above average on those measures of early literacy and I think that a lot of that has to do with some of the new curricular resources we've been using especially UFly which really focuses on those early literacy and um foundational skills. If we go to the next slide we're looking at the KPI. So this is the key performance indicator. You can see over time we've had steady growth over the past five years of the strategic plan, but we are now really over 90% of our kids. So it's at 93% of our kids are meeting at average or above uh in those measures of early literacy. So that's huge progress. Our teachers are doing a lot of hard work and so are students and it's very exciting work we've been doing. If we go on

042to next one which is early numeracy. Uh this slide shows u how our students are doing on those measures of early numeracy at kindergarten and first grade. Again we've seen pretty steady progress for these students over the course of the the entire strategic plan. Our students are really making lots of progress. They're doing well. Um and we're continuing to to look at how we can enhance that. our students have done um over 85% of our students on three of the subtests are really are still meeting or exceeding those benchmarks and at the um 77% of our first graders on one of the subtests. So we are in a really good position to meet our our KPI for the spring. And then if we look at the last um again this is the total KPI. So

043their overall performance on all of those and 87% of our students are meeting or exceeding again which means that our students are making nice progress on their early numeracy. So we've seen a lot of progress with all of our kids, a lot of growth. >> Now I'll turn your attention to NWA MAP. Our second through 8th graders participate in MAP three times a year, fall, winter, and spring. and um we will give the report for halfway through the year tonight. Um MAP offers us quintiles based on national comparisons to analyze our data. This slide shows the current achievement data by grade level quintiles for winter. Winter is on the right side and it's kind of in a burgundy square. Um and the fall is on the left or the sorry the previous year is on

044the left side. These percentages reflect uh students in each quintile based on their writ scores in reading and math and it's achievement based again while our KPI goals are based on the aggregate fall aggregate for all grades. This allows us to see the breakdown of how individual grades are achieving from fall to winter. This also helps us to take the temperature of achievement this far into the year and see how much further um we have to go. As a reminder, we'll look again at in the spring after our third benchmarking period. Our KPI goal for reading is based on having 50% or more in the high categories. Um, and again, that's aggregate. Uh, where we see for this year, we have met in all grades except fourth and fifth where we're at 48%. So, just

0452% off. Our KPI goal for math is based on having 55% or more in the high category by spring. And again, that's aggregate. And we've seen that in all individual grades except third, which is at 53%. So again, just 2% off. Um, an additional KPI goal is to have 4% or less of students in the low achievement category by spring. And we currently have all grades meeting this goal in both reading and math except second grade reading, which is at 5%. So we are really close to those targets already this winter. Um, if we take more a look at the aggregate growth, you you can see just a different way of looking at that. Um, and this is year-over-year uh achievement um in the aggregate. So again, our um we are meeting our KPIs in

046um all of our areas in the aggregate. You can see um for reading on the left hand side there the goal is 4% or fewer in low and the current is 2%. The goal is 50% or more in high which is the blue and the current is 53%. On the math side the goal is 4% or less in low and the current is uh 1% and then the goal is 55% or more in the high which again is the blue and the current is 59%. So again um as an aggregate we are already um at our goals if not surpassing that. Um it's really exciting to see us on this track and looking historically at the data um especially the the high achievement in math which is shown in blue. Uh we have a goal

047of 55% or more and this is the first year after in the last I guess five or six years that we have actually met at this point in the year. So um lots of good work being done. All right, so let's switch now to look at growth. Again, this is a similar slide to the achievement slide that you just saw. Um, and it is our growth data by quintiles for winter on the right side and compared to winter last year on the left side. And this is broken down again by grade level. The percentages reflect each students reflect students in each quintile meeting their growth projections for winter in reading and math. And um I think we mentioned at our committee of the whole meeting but just want to mention it again. Uh MAP generates

048a growth projection for students. It's not a growth goal per se. Um but it compares students to like peers uh in achievement and in grade level across the country and then calculates the median growth for those students. Um, so by design, 50% of students in a district should meet those growth projections. So that's kind of the target level. A percentage range of 50 to 55% means a district meets or slightly exceeds the national norm and 60% is largely considered exemplary. Um, it's important to also note as we look at winter as a check-in on our progress. However, final growth is really measured from fall to spring. So we will give that final report in June. Um again we see our growth in information on this slide by grade level and quintile which is how map

049shares the information with us. While our KPIs are based on aggregated data again it's broken down by grade level. So we can look for grade level trends and make observations based on the work we are doing with curriculum instruction from year to year. For example, the increase in high average and high growth. So the greens and blues in second and third grade reading uh could be due to the curriculum change in kindergarten through 2 grade with UFly foundational literacy implemented. Increases in math growth in fifth through 8th grade could be attributed to professional development the teachers have had around increasing problem solving and math discourse using building thinking classrooms. While we can't draw exact causal relationships, these increases do correlate to changes that have been made with curriculum and instruction. Here's the aggregate data. Um

050similar slide by quintiles, but now um we want to look at our KPIs for this. So first um we want to look at our key indicator for reading and that's 25% or more of students at the aggregate level fall in that blue or high growth category. Um we have met that threshold. we based on 26% currently um in that high category in reading. A key indicator uh is that we have 15% or less of students in the low growth category. Um we have historically been above 20% and have not met this. However, this year we are on track to meet this target as we are at 7% currently. So that's a celebration. Um next moving to math. Uh the key indicator is based on having 30% or more in the high growth category by spring.

051Uh and we are currently at 28. So we're very close to that target once again. And um on the low side, the indicator is having 15% or less of students in the low growth category or the red category. Um and again, we've historically been above 21% and haven't met this, but right now we are at 10% in this category. So again another celebration. So this slide um and the next slide this is reading um the next one is math. They show the breakdown of aggregate growth for the 2526 school year for district 39 students in the highest and lowest growth quintiles. So it breaks down the blue section at the top and then the red section at the bottom. If you look at the reading growth graph graph on the left, you see the percentages

052of district 39 students in each of the national growth quintiles, uh the yellow in the middle is kind of that average growth area. Um the two tables on the right that are um connected to the blue and the red uh they break down the number of students in the highest and lowest national growth quintiles by achievement. So the graph on the left is reading growth and then the the tables are for achievement. So what we wanted to do is look at those top and the bottom categories and really see who are the students that fall in those categories. Are they for example in the high growth category um that 26% um are they all students who are high achievers or are they our low achievers and how does that fall out? So what those charts

053on the right hand side show you is the different grade levels and then the numbers of students who have high achievement within that grade level. So, for example, um on the far left there at second grade, of this of the 336 second graders that took the the map, um 44 students fell in the highest achievement quintile in the fall and they were also in the highest growth quintile. This means we have about 13% of our second graders in the highest growth and highest achievement. Um so then on the other side, three second graders were in the low achievement um quintile but were in the high growth quintile. This graph helps us evaluate which students are experiencing the highest level of achievement and growth. So where high achievement and high growth meet in reading we see

054that the majority of students in the high growth category are high average to high achievers. So they're falling in that yellow, green and blue um on the right hand side of the graph. Um it also allows us to see that many more high achievers are in the highest growth category than in the lowest growth category. With this graph, we can dig in more deeply to pinpoint the students, especially those high achievers who are showing low growth and determine what we may be able to do to support more growth for these students individually or systemically. We can dig down to who the actual students are and then put in plan put plans in place to try to enrich them or support them as needed. So that's the graph for reading. I'll move to the math. All

055right, we're moving on from map and I'll pause for do should I pause now for any questions on map before I go on to the the goals? >> Are there questions on the map data? That was a lot of information, especially those last two charts, um, which show some really great growth for our >> I appreciate the explanation. >> Any questions there? >> I know it can you can get in the weeds on it a little once you start looking at this dig in further. So, >> all right. >> Really great growth though. Thank you. >> Yeah, we'll move on to goal setting. Um so this is aligned with our key performance indicator on goal setting and um it's been fun for us to look at this over the years. Um you can see this

056is uh based on our this this snapshot right here is based on our survey that we gave at the end of semester 1 and um it breaks down uh for K4 classroom teachers. We give them a survey and then we give 58 students a survey. So um you can see with the percentages for how many are setting goals and what kinds of goals those are. Um and we really are focused more on academic goals for the purposes of this survey. Um but um we see that some people are also uh setting social emotional or behavioral goals as well. Um and in student schools you can see those there as well. Um this is over time. Now when we look at overtime you can see uh it the the numbers fluctuate a little bit especially with

057that um the student survey. So if you're looking at the bottom where it says percent conferring about goals you can see that it it has jumped quite a bit over the years. Um and so we had done a lot of talking about uh the survey that is given. And one thing that we found was that especially for the students, they didn't understand what conferring about goals meant. And so what we ended up doing is we flipped the surveys questions a little bit and we gave them we said how do you meet and talk about your goals? And then we gave them some options and and there was also an other option. Um or I don't meet and talk about my goals was also an option. But um you can see that based on their responses

058that they are conferring about their goals. They just didn't really understand what that meant. And so um I think this is more reflective of what we're seeing in classes. It was it was kind of funny because we're like we know this is happening. We are walking into classrooms and we're seeing it. Um yet 42% doesn't really reflect that. And so um I think that this helped to uh categorize it a bit better. Um same thing with the teacher survey actually. And so you can see that there's been some uh increase there as well. Um our our KPI is that 100% would be setting goals. And so um we are really close to that. Uh we have 97% of K4 teachers reporting they're setting goals with students and 99% of of uh students reporting that they're

059setting goals. So that's pretty awesome. Uh professional learning and training. So this is around our professional development area. Um, we aim to have at least a 4.5 out of 5.0 on a summitive rating from a staff survey on the degree to which professional development opportunities are differentiated and focused on effective, innovative, and growth focused uh classroom practices. So staff are given um an evaluation survey at the end of every professional development. It's a five-point scale. And so that's how we measure this. Um the these tables show our progress so far. Okay, you can see our two opening or opening institute day and our fall institute day are on there and we have an average rating of 4.35 for those. Um, and you can see how that's broken down by a staff category on the bottom.

060And then this one is more differentiated and focused professional development. And so these are some of the special trainings that we do. So um, we've done uh our MTSS building teams. We've had a lot of training with them. Um, CHAMPS uh is a behavior training for classroom management, classroom behaviors. And so we have um we did a summer training, but we also have a cohort going on. Um, so you can see how those uh ratings came out. And then um new staff orientation and the work that we did with technology on our artificial guidelines. Um, and so that average rating is 4.8. Finally, this this is the look um over the course o over several years and you so you can see um the different institute days, the August institute day and the fall institute

061day and how those have changed or not in the case of the August institute day over the course of the last four years. Um, additionally you can see at the top in that graph there the the various ratings for the provided or for the differentiated learning and trainings. Now I will move on to goal two. Oh wait, I'll pause and stop and ask if there's any other questions questions, comments before we move on. I mean, I I will just say I I thought there was um a lot of really exciting information here. Um so exciting to once again see the early literacy improvements um and just the impact that that strong foundation has on these students as they carry on throughout our schools. Um I also just thought looking at some of the MAP um

062aggregate scores and reflecting on where we were last year at this time where you know maybe for reading or math we were reaching one of our goals and now you know I think we were reaching all of them. Um so just really really exciting to see that improvement in the impact that the curriculum and the work is having. Um, I didn't remember seeing the growth data by year. If we have seen that in the past, we probably have, but I I forgot about that chart. And I think that's just fascinating and excellent that we can um zero in so closely on the students that need help. Um, you know, whether again it's high achievement but low growth or low growth, low achievement, and just really try to target those individual students with what they need.

063So, I just thought it was excellent and so um many um things to celebrate. So, thank you and very well presented. >> Yeah, >> I have one question. Um well, in addition to everything that Ann said, this is this is pretty amazing. Really, honestly, everything is terrific. Um, I had a question though about the instructional coaching and I I we probably have heard about that before, but how does that actually work like in the buildings and with the teachers? So, we have um across our elementary buildings, each building has one instructional coach and then we have two at High Crest and two at uh Wilmet Junior High. They're kind of grade aligned um but they also work among the grades and really instructional coaches are meant to work with whatever content area um is interested

064in working with them. um and they meet with teachers, they look at um a teacher may say, for example, um you know, I'm I'm really looking to grow my lower growers. Um and I this is this is all the classroom evidence that I have from this this unit and I want to see if by the end of the unit what I can do or what instructional practices I might put into place to um get their their assessment scores up or their formative assessments or whatever that is. And so they will meet and um there there's some protocols that the instructional coaches go through um but they sit down and they talk about it and it's really focused on what the teacher wants to see and how the the coach can help them. And sometimes that's

065um helping with resources. Sometimes that's helping to design an a quick check kind of formative assessment that they can use multiple times and kind of see that growth within the classroom. Sometimes it's um co-eing or um doing some modeling of teaching. Um and then at the elementary especially, some of our coaches have been unpacking um math units since it's still a relatively new curriculum. So they'll sit down with with a a grade level team and work backwards um and so say where do we want to be at the end of this, you know, unit and then what kinds of steps can we put into place to get there? and then they work alongside the teachers and check in regularly. >> So, is it that the teachers are asking for help or is it sort of

066that every that you're on a rotation and they check in with every teacher or like it's a little bit of both. Um, we're really trying to, you know, ideally it would be the teachers asking all the time, but I think with new curriculum, um, it's a little bit of, you know, we're in a conversation, we're presenting something at a staff meeting. the the coaches also do PD at staff meetings and so it might be something where they're presenting something and they say, "Hey, I can help you." And so then the teachers will will come on board too. So >> I'll I'll add a little bit too. Um so Kelly talked a lot about the coaching cycles. Um and I know our principles are in the back of the room. I don't want to force them

067to come up and share some examples as well. But our instructional coaches really have been instrumental in helping all teachers to really reflect on their own practice and dig into where they want to grow. So some might want to grow in how they're supporting enrichment for our higher achieving students. Some might want to grow in implementation of their new math curriculum and those kinds of things. Uh, I met with a new teacher today who mentioned several times in our meeting how um enriching it's been to be able to meet with the instructional coach to design and redesign lessons to dig into what the students data are telling her about the growth of their students and maybe what's next in their learning profile. Um, I've been able to observe some of our principles meeting with instructional

068coaches reflecting on um what they're doing in meeting with teacher teams to help support their reflection on instructional practices and student data and growth. Um, there's just there's been a lot happening. Um, and I think it's actually taken off uh far um far more than we had anticipated when we started this. we kind of weren't sure how eager people would be to access a coach and how principles might use those coaches in their schools and it's been it's been quite impressive. So, I'll look to the back of the room just to see if anybody wants to jump up and share an experience. But, um otherwise, did I represent it well enough? Okay. It just seems like such an incredible resource and I'm sure as soon as some people have a positive interaction with it, then

069it just grows and grows. But, Oh, we will have another time later on our agenda for public comment. And and the only other thing I'll mention is that goal around differentiated instruction and ongoing growth of our teachers. The instructional coaches have been really a critical component of that, helping all teachers to know how to differentiate within their classroom and supporting that growth of all learners. >> Yeah, it just seems like a really incredible resource. So, thanks Great. Now we will move on to goal number two. So goal number two focuses on really creating an environment that meets the needs of the whole child. So it's we really want to focus on our students making growth academically but also socially, emotionally and behaviorally and that they really feel a strong sense of belonging here in the

070district. So, if we look at the next section, we can go to the action steps. There we go. Um, so I'm going to go through some of the action steps. I uh Kelly Jackson and I share this goal, so she will she will do some presenting too is in a moment. But as we move through the action steps, um this year our committee has been really working hard to create and implement an expanded scope and sequence for the wayfinder curriculum. This is used primarily with grades five through eight. um the work has been completed in terms of that expanded scope and sequence and we're currently analyzing how the expanded home room has allowed them to implement more of that curriculum and have a greater focus on a more regular basis in the 5 through eight

071level. So it's exciting. They've done a lot of work and we're really working again to improve those social emotional skills for our students. Um there committee has also been piloting a reporting tool for skill development. This pilot occurred during the fall conferences for select teachers and the team is really analyzing and reviewing the tool at this point in time for possible implementation as we move forward. Um we are continuing to implement integrate monthly themes of inclusion and belonging into our communications and in our activities for staff, students, and families in order to make sure that we are addressing really all of our students and helping to make sure that they all feel a sense of belonging here in our district. We've also been working to optimize our current building MTSS team systems. Kelly shared a

072little bit about that earlier. Um we are focusing not just on the academics but also on the social emotional learning and behavioral sections. So we are really trying to make sure that we have a lot of alignment among um our tier 1, tier 2 and tier three seal practices as well as among our buildings both across the the K4 elementarymentaries and then a vertical alignment as students move up through the system so that we have a lot of consistency and students are receiving similar messages that sort of in and instruction that build upon each other. Um we are also providing targeted classroom management and behavior training for staff. Again, Kelly mentioned earlier the CHAMPS program which we are using. Um, we've got several cohorts running at our elementary level and we are also training staff

073members in restorative practices at the 58 level. So, we are continuing to sort of expand the toolbox and really make sure that our our students feel that sense of belonging within their classrooms as well as a sense of common expectations so they know what is expected of them which really helps them feel more comfortable. Um we are we are currently researching and evaluating um available mental health health and screeners. Um there is a mandate here in Illinois that in the 2728 school year we will need to have anal or mental health screener. Um the Illinois State Board of Education is developing one and we are looking at other options and we will continue to update you as we learn more about both the mandate and what we have for resources. And then finally, each building

074has a student advisory g group, their student council or other groups that really has been tasked with investigating how to help make sure that all of our students feel a sense of belonging in those buildings. So that is ongoing work. Um, and it is it's exciting work for our students to be involved in trying to help make sure that their peers feel a sense of belonging in their buildings. The next section is the key performance indicators. >> Yeah. Uh so again you'll see the outcome indicators on the left and the strategy indicators on the right. Tonight I'm just going to take you through um some of the data that we shared earlier this year with respect to the strengthbased social emotional measures and then also um some of our student data from the CSCI that

075was presented uh last spring. So again we administer two strength-based assessments um at kindergarten through fourth grade. to use the insights assessment and that really looks at their student competency level with respect to the social emotional competencies. Um and then it provides data it's more uh universal data for for teachers on strengths and needs um for instruction purposes. And then uh the mesh or it's through panorama um that is a student survey basically that um assesses again their student competency level with respect to social emotional competencies but also assesses student well-being and supports in the building. So again, it's used to identify patterns and trends related to SEAL and school climate. Um this is just a snapshot from the fall administration of the insights for early education. So it's kindergarten through third grade on this.

076And you can see um in the overall category, 95.9% of students uh demonstrated average or above average strengths. um we really combine the the two greens to look at the the number of strengths that we uh that our students are demonstrating and then we focus in on two areas the social perspective taking and emotion recognition areas uh to look for uh possible growth over the course of the year. Um this is the late educa late late elementary. So this is the fourth grade um scores and again really high numbers in that overall SEAL category above 93%. Um but we really target into uh social problem solving and understanding others to look for some growth in those areas. Um next is our fifth through 8th grade. Um, fifth grade is separate um than sixth through 8th

077um because of how the the mesh is set up. But um this is uh fifth grade and you can see that we do really well in the area of the competencies. Couple of areas to look at would be social awareness and emotion recognition um just as those are lower percentage favorable based on our students but they do still fall in the 99th percentile when compared with other schools. Um this is sixth through 8th grade. Again, very similar story, we have very high numbers um compared to other middle schoolers nationally. Um with the exception of the relative um weakness area of social perspective taking um probably those bottom three areas would be three areas that we'd want to look at. Um I do know that with their curriculum in SEAL um there is a lot of

078work in social perspective taking at the sixth through eighth grade level. So learning about people around you, learning about how to understand their perspectives um and um maneuvering through that in respectful ways. Um the supports and environments. Um this looks at sense of belonging, relationships, overall school climate. Um you may recall that we also have our CI CSCI survey that's going on right now. Shameless plug, take your survey. Uh but anyway, that also measures some of these same areas. So, this is one of those areas that we're looking at um when we look at do we keep these screeners or do we get enough from that screener to or that tool to let us know how our kids are doing. Um you know that we focused on sense of belonging and valuing of school over

079the years and so these areas continue to be areas of focus for us um at fifth through 8th grade. Um the the next is just a snapshot from the dashboard um based on that CSCI data last year. Um and we look to increase in all of these areas. Again, we are currently in survey administration and so um we'll be looking for continued increases in these areas. However, it's important to note that 3.5 is really that line for um positive scores and we are above 3.5 in all of the areas. So, that's really exciting. Um, the survey window goes through uh March 10th and it is assessed to students in third through 8th grades. Um, they've actually just started this week taking the CSCI. Um, and then families um can continue to take it. Um, we

080were going to close it, but I think we're going to keep it open for a little bit longer just so families can take um advantage of that. And then all of our staff will be taking it. We have some staff who have already taken it taken it. But it includes not only certified staff like our teachers but also custodians, secretaries, u maintenance, um you name it. So it's really exciting uh to have this time and to look for improvements on last year's. And I'll pause there again for questions. >> Great. Thank you. >> Dr. Goal three. Goal three focuses on supporting our staff both their needs and their growth in various areas. And you've heard us report um for the last four years relative to to this goal area. Um the strategies for goal three

081in particular are talking about the shared decision making structures that we have and trying to strengthen opportunities for that. You've heard a bit about um the improvement in those areas already in goal one and two as well as um supporting our staff and helping them to develop expertise and skills in helping and supporting our diverse learners in our classrooms. Our action steps for this year, I'm going to not walk through all of them, just highlight the priority action steps for this year. We're focusing on um continuing our work with staff and learning about other cultures that our students um are a part of and bring into the classroom and how we might support and um celebrate those cultures in in our classrooms in various ways. Looking at at least two strategies to work to address

082uh staff and faculty attendance. And I'll talk a little bit more about the work we've done with that in just a minute. continued implementation of recommendations from the DEIB task force for hiring and retention and continuing to work on and look at our culture and climate survey and the impacts where we might be able to support staff in specific schools with specific needs. You can I'm going to just talk through the KPIs with the actual data instead of looking at that chart. So um for goal three, a lot of our data gets reported in the fall of each year. So this not all of this data is new. In fact, very little of it is, but I'm going to quickly highlight the information that we have um shared earlier earlier this year. So we talked

083a little bit in October about retention, and we look um at our staff retention on September 30th of every year. We had to pick a point in time to look year-over-year to see who's still working with us. and we've been able to do that pretty successfully over the last four years. This does not mean that we don't look at who's leaving us on a monthly basis. You can see in the word reports that we share with you that we're we're constantly evaluating that information, but when you look year-over-year, you have you have to pick a point by which you're analyzing that data. And so our our teaching staff have remained fairly stable at about 90ish% um over the last four years. a little ups and downs, but for the most part, pretty stable. We have

084seen some fluctuation in our support staff employees. Um there's potentially a variety of reasons and we'll get to um kind of that exit survey data that we've been collecting the last couple years in just a bit. But it's also important to note many of our support staff members come to us with the hopes of moving on either into a career in education or perhaps another industry, but are gaining some important skills while they're here with us. Of course, we we want everybody to stay with us, but we recognize moving on to that next step is also an important element that we play in that process. And then if we're looking at um themes about why our staff do end up leaving us, again, this is not new information. This is information that was shared in

085October, but I dug a little bit deeper into that other category because it's a pretty substantial percentage. And I went back to the raw data today just to be able to pull that out a little bit more. it. Um staff who have left in that kind of other category talked about retiring um potentially working in a different field like with different age levels of children that we may not be able to support like high school. Um relocating with with their family. The commute sometimes does not allow for staff to stay with us even though perhaps they were living closer when they first accepted the position. and and some are leaving us because they're finishing their degree in teaching and seeking out um teaching licensed teaching positions. Then when we look at um our five essential

086data, this is information we shared early on in the five-year process. You heard Kelly talk about moving to the CSCI data, which is where we're at now. We have two years of data. Kelly, can you share move the screen forward? Um the CSCI data here is representative of what our staff are telling us about the work environment that they're in. And you can see we've made improvements in a lot of areas um held steady in in one, but for the most part, we're well above that 3.5 kind of benchmark target. And we're eager to see what what this year's results tell us. Again, you've you've heard me talk about um another strategy that we're looking at in terms of our data, and that's how often we're pulling our pair of professionals or our teaching assistants

087from their assignments to be subs. This was something that um hit home really hard right after COVID because we were short on subs and we had significant staff absences because people were sick. Um we need we needed to use all of the adults that we had for various um to help sub in our schools pulling them away from their their regular assignments. Again, you can see some fluctuation. Quarter two, this the one that we just finished in January had a trending a bit higher than we have been in in the past couple years. Not too worried. I think I think it'll even out, but obviously it's certainly something that we've been keeping an eye on. And if you look at where we were in 22 23 and where we are now, we've made some nice

088growth um o over those years. something to pay attention to because we recognize the impact that that has on our students as well as other staff members. And then finally, you've heard us talk about staff and teacher attendance over the course of these last several years. Um this is an area where we haven't made as much growth. And so this year we agreed that um we were going to pick pick two strategies, two things that we think we could do to try and improve in this area. one is um sending monthly reminders to all staff regarding their cumulative absences. Right? So um the school year is a long year. It's a long period of time and you may you may not be realizing how those days add up over the course of the months. Um

089you might have a particularly bad month but then seeing that how it adds up cumulatively can be impactful. So, we send an email to all staff, administrators, every position. If you're an employee of district 39, shortly after the first of the month, you get an email with that cumulative number um noted. There's no judgment. There's no commentary. It's simply we want you to be aware. And so, um we do provide the resources that is also noted about the importance of the impact of regular attendance on student learning. So, we're just again highlighting that and putting that at the forefront. And the other piece is we've spent a lot of time as an administrative team trying to dig in on the data um both the here and now from week to week. What is it looking

090like? How are we trending? Are we going to be where we were last year at this time or does are we looking to um improve in that area? So, and what potential interventions might we make for specific individuals who might have a specific need? Um, but those are the the two action steps that we've really spent quite a bit of time and effort on and um we're hopeful. We're hopeful questions or comments related to goal three. >> How are we trending? >> Any better about the same? Don't know. Oh, I know you can't make big conclusions about any of it, but >> I think we're probably about the same. >> The the the goals really this year were to try a couple of things to study and to learn from the data as we looked

091really a lot uh more closely so that we could actually um start to develop some strategies that would support our staff in those areas. Um, so increasing awareness of each individual and then increasing our awareness of what might be contributing to some of those needs that exist. Um, so we're doing a lot of studying, a lot of conversations. Um, and I I I think that that will lead us to some other strategies down the road. Right now it does look like we're trending pretty close to what we were before. I would hope it would maybe tick down just a little bit, but um but we won't really know because again it's a it's a 10day mark. So even in those last couple of weeks, you might >> have a need to be out. So it's

092it's really hard to predict until we get there. >> And presumably nationally, it's still trending that way as well. any districts that are uh concerned about teacher and staff. >> I can add a piece to that. >> Um as part of our awareness, we've dug into the data for our comparable districts to see kind of where we're falling and reaching out to see if they have strategies that we might be able to employ here. Um there isn't a magic pill that I've learned. and um primarily due to my eyesight and not being able to read small print. I just want to make sure that I'm reading this correctly. Um looking at the absences. So if I'm reading this correctly, 41% of teachers have missed two or more weeks of school, >> which would be equivalent

093of two weeks or more. Okay. And then for the non-licensed staff, 55% of staff, non-licensed staff members also missed two or more weeks. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. I just couldn't can't read >> percent. >> It's a This is a percent. >> Okay. >> Yes. Not a number. It is. >> These bars are percentages. Okay. So, that's 41% and 55%. Okay. >> And then I was just curious um just to make sure on the KPI outcome indicators um why staff leave district 39. Is this um inclusive of all staff or just teaching staff? >> It's all staff. >> All staff. Okay. >> Who choose to tell us. >> So it's not a required, right? >> Um but it's offered. Okay. Thank you. >> Just a comment that I think it'll be very helpful for the

094CRC report about staff well-being and it'll be interesting. Obviously that will take time but hopefully whatever they recommend will have a positive impact. >> We have seen some positive impact um certainly not affecting these data but um initially we had hypothesized that if we u make some improvements to our culture and climate um and and some of those factors uh that maybe it would have a positive impact here. We're not seeing the actual impact on the attendance data, but it certainly is impacting what's happening within our building. So, there's some positives there. It just the hypothesis that one leads directly to the other is is has not been found. >> Partnerships go four family partnerships where we are that's okay. uh strengthening partnerships by connecting, collaborating and communicating with families and communities to advance uh

095teaching and learning. So our two strategies here were to improve homeschool communication through more consistent and effective strategies and number two uh implement strategies to better support successful transitions from fourth to fifth and sixth to seventh grades. So our first uh action step uh was to expand outreach to intergenerational caring adults of current students, community members, without students, alumni, local organizations to strengthen connections, partnerships, and support. This work is ongoing. Uh some of the work that has been done thus far are some social media posts uh from our communications director, Leo Krauss, highlighting college decisions for WJHS class of 2022. Those have been fun to see if you have seen those on our social channels. Also, we recently uh launched an alumni web page. So, we took a look at uh public elementary districts um

096that try to capture alumni um contact information and modeled a web page after that. First step is collecting that information. What elementary school did you go to? um are we allowed to reach out to you in case of we need a speaker or uh those kind of events and that was very very recently uh put up there and the next step is going to be communicating that out so we can start capturing that data once we have uh contact information I think there's a variety of reasons of way why we may reach out whether that's just an informal get together or if it's um like I said we're looking for somebody on a specific topic to talk to our students Action step number two to engage and informed families through multiple diverse channels. Uh what

097this also is ongoing. Um we have tried a uh United States Postal Service U mailer uh rather large mailer regarding registration on one side and leap outreach uh information on the back. So uh what can we do in addition to just our emails and uh a standard letter uh to residents. So something that would be noticeable. Um maybe taking a a page from political mailers, something that's just very um hard to miss sent to the home. And then you may have seen some yard signs uh utilized for angel fund uh awareness and donations that have been put up. So we have uh done registration um yard signs before, but how else can we use those with QR codes to try to get um other engagement going with the community? Number three, uh create guidance documents

098for the use of artificial intelligence by teacher, students, and parents to support uh teaching and learning or student learning. Uh that was completed. So, uh in conjunction with our consultant uh Mandy Bicker staff at AI for education, we and a good committee uh in the fall uh a nice cross-section of staff, parents, and students created these documents and shared those out. So at least we have uh some type of foundation to answer the very basic questions of can if I were a teacher or a student or parent like is AI can AI be used? How can it be used? What kind of data can we put in there? Do we have to have an agreement a data privacy agreement in place? Those questions are answered in those those documents. Number four, define, educate, and communicate

099a clear philosophy for use of technology at school to support teaching and learning. This also has been completed. Um you've heard the language or hopefully you've heard the language of passive uh active and passive learning. Um that document was created and shared um with a variety of people and referenced and called back to many times because we wanted to give common vocabulary for everyone involved to understand how technology is used at its best. Um, in addition to that, we have also made programmatic adjustments um along the way to our use and um and intentional use and balance of technology and that's been throughout the school year with I'm sure some more to come um for this spring. Number five, uh we it's just ongoing. There's no status update for that, but it's just uh going

100to be uh taking a look and refining our programming to welcome new uh district 39 students. A lot of our PTAs knows do this work. Um but that work as far as analyzing what's taking place and if there's any gaps and how we can improve uh is ongoing for this spring. And finally, number six, design and prepare to launch for the 2026 2027 school year transition supports for incoming seventh grade students at Wet Junior High School. Uh we had done a lot of work at Highest and now it was our time to uh pay attention to the sixth to 7th grade transition. Um, we looked at some transition data at the beginning of the school year to inform our planning and our principal, uh, John Baffo and his team have started to think about how

101to do a student schedule orientation um, this fall so students can walk and parents can walk the schedule to acclimate themselves not only with the building but where the classrooms are at. So, um there's quite a bit bit of talk and planning that's been um taking a look at how that can happen and we're excited to get the kids and the parents into the school earlier than we have in the past. Are there any questions on goal for from any groups? >> Um Tony, I just want you to know I brought my postcard with me today because I love >> Oh, look at that. so much >> and it was easy to find in your stack of mail >> right there. >> I love a postcard and I especially love a big one. So that's

102great. Thank you. >> Well, you know, and it's funny you that you brought that. Um it's it's obviously noticeable. Um but different people receive their information um notice information in different ways. I know we've talked about this over the last year, but not everybody wants a social post. Some people want old school mailers. Um they're again noticeable. Some people want refrigerator magnets and just a some people want a postcard they can put on the refrigerator. There's everyone consumes their information in different ways. And I think that's the piece that we're learning right now is get the information out in as many ways as possible. So um we're pleased that you found your mailer. And >> the way I like it >> uh noted >> did you complete your registration? Oh, look at that. >> Come

103on, Gary. >> Good. I'm glad to hear that. Any other questions from board members? >> All right. Goal five is stewardship of resources covers a few different areas. Going to the next one. >> All right. So, action steps. Um, you know, we have one item on here. We reviewed the sustainability audit and work accomplished. taking a look back, but also everything else in here is is the nature of those things are ongoing. Whether it's our, you know, five-year capital plan or when we take our five-year projections or we're keeping up with items that are going on in Springfield that might have a, you know, a significant impact on on our operations or finances in one way or another. Um, and also, you know, how how we and item number four for this year is more

104of a specific thing. We'll do that upcoming where we look at the non-traditional classroom uh space uses in each of the six buildings. So, we have uh our our outcome indicators and our strategy indicators. You know, couple of those are focused on the finances. We do have um since I think our last update, we did finalize that fiscal year 25 um information where we can share that we'll we'll end up with the financial recognition score uh from the Illinois State Board of Education. That's the highest category. Um they do score it on a number scale. Uh we'd end up with four out of four. Um that's the expectation. uh ended with the fund balance of 51.9 right within our 40 to 60% range. And then we're taking, you know, another step in knocking off a

105project that's been long awaited, replacing those uh original windows across the street at the junior high um in just a few more months. >> That was a lot of information. Thank you for letting us pause in between so we could address at least helpful for me. Thank you very much. It's hard to believe that we're almost at the end of this plan. So, we'll have one more up, >> right? At the end of this year, we'll give a an end of the year wrap-up and at that same time, we'll be looking ahead to the next five-year plan. So, >> great. Thank you all for the updates tonight. >> All right. Um, we are now moving on in annual business. Um, thank you. Uh, we have student fees and the supplementary uh, debt service tax levy.

106I'll let uh, Corey talk about both of those briefly. >> Yep. All right. So, earlier we had a really good summary of both items. Um, so I'll just mention maybe one or one or two items that weren't in the summaries that maybe are a little relevant. So there were three areas that were um asking for approval in fees. One is lunch. Um we finished fiscal year 25 with that program having a deficit of 163,000. We covered 91.2% of fees. You know, we're we'll have a good opportunity, I think, when this year ends to be in a similar p spot. and the increase that we're looking that the board's looking to approve for next year um should set us up to be in that that same range um historically 11 out of 12 years we've finished

107you know covering 88 to 93% of the cost of that program so I think I think we're going to with the steps that we're taking um you know we're not stopping we're we're trying to make some incremental steps um that's up for approval then the next one is transportation uh we finished the most recent year at 77.7% of covered expenditures. This year we're looking at to be at about 78. Um we opted to, you know, increase it by similar to the increase for the the cost. Um probably end in a similar spot. Then the other thing was athletics and we're just doing a simple CPI increase for that one. um the board packet besides the the item the amounts that are up for approval for next school year, we also have 10 years of data

108in that document. I >> think just a point of clarification, I think, um for volleyball and basketball, we now offer a sixth grade program as well. Um and I think this lists grades seven and eight. So, it's actually grades six through eight. Um just because we've been able to add a team at the sixth grade level, I think for both volleyball and basketball. basketball. I think it's only girls and it's only occasion. They can't feel the >> Oh, only if they can't feel it. Yes. Okay. But it's okay. Yeah. >> Thanks. >> Okay. So, that was that was it. The rest of the remaining fees that weren't discussed or um had any proposals are are um recommended to stay the same for next year. Any questions on that? >> All right. Then the other item

109was >> I'll just mention also thank you to Amy who gave us a qu you know as Amy referenced earlier um many of the variables um going into the fees and the costs that were considered and different ideas that were discussed at the committee of the whole last week and appreciate that discussion as well. So thank you. Yeah, there there between the documents that we, you know, discussed and the conversation that occurred, there's a lot more information available, you know, by someone watching that meeting compared to >> Sure. >> what we're covering tonight. >> Um then for the 2025 and 26 supplemental debt service levy, um very much a procedural thing, just taking a kind of a required step by the board. Um, my takeaway, if I had one thing from this, is just by

110passing this, it allows us to capture the the additional $250,000 over multiple uh, levy years. >> Any questions the levy? >> Thank you. And the final item then this evening is the second and final reading of the board of education policies. Um I will make a quick note. I think there was a a typo on maybe the memo that initially said first reading. We all know that at last board meeting we did the first reading. So this is the second and final uh recommendation for approval of those board policies. Dr. Goi, anything you want to mention? But the feedback that you provided last meeting and hopefully incorporated that. Thank you for the close read. It really helps. Board numbers. Any other changes, comments? Okay. All right. At this time, this is another opportunity for the

111for public comment and for the audience to address the board. Are there any audience members that would like to speak? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. And I will just remind you that the board uses this time to listen to community questions and concerns, but will not respond immediately to individual requests and cannot take formal actions on non-aggenda items. So, please include any specific requests for action or response and appropriate information for followup if applicable. And at this time, you have three minutes to address the board. >> Yeah. Um, I have a question for uh Miss Kylie Jackson. So uh uh my kid is currently in high Christ and um I I have a question for the kids uh with high achievement high growth category you mentioned in your beautiful map test uh chart like

112um school district will provide them uh with actual help and actual uh enrichment program. So what if they are currently misplaced in uh for their grade? Uh what district can do to prevent them from suffering in the math class? Uh because math class is uh is not like any other class. If you already knew the material teachers are teaching uh is a sufferer for them. It's a waste of their time. So what school district can do to help for the kids with similar situations? Um second question, um I would like to hear the board's respond and comment on uh Miss Laura. I think her name is Laura uh Hilton. Uh she sent a mail uh to to the board email address. I think it's in the board email. the published the email. Uh she mentioned

113several things about the district's new policy of the accelerated placement uh which she believes violate Illinois's law. So I would like to hear the comments and respond from the board. So that's it. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I'm sorry. Could you state for the record your name? >> Sure. >> Uh my name is Jun. Uh last name Gung. Thank you very much. Okay, there's no further public comment. We are going to proceed with action items and the consent agenda. Are there any items that the board would like pulled from the consent agenda this evening? All right, Miss Papless, please proceed with the motions. I move to approve the personnel report dated February 23rd, 2026. I move to approve the student fees for the 2026 2027 school year as contained in exhibit A of this

114report. I move to uh approve as second and final reading of board of education policies 2 col 12150 4 8 0 4 col 1 0 4 col 1 4 0 4 col 15 0 4 col 16 4170 4 col 1 9 0 5 col 1 0 5 col 2 5 col 9 0 5 col 1 0 0 5120 5 col185 5 col 1 9 0 5 col 2 0 0 5 col 220 5 col 6 col 4 0 6 col 6 0 6135 col 210 0 6 col 260 7 col140 0 7250 729 9 0 7 col 310 7 col 340 8 col 30 and 8 col 0 0. Thank you. May I have a second? >> Second. >> The motion has been moved and seconded. Would the clerk please call the role? >> Kristen

115Castro, >> yes. >> Alison Pafas, >> yes. >> Amy Paling, >> yes. Aaron Stone, >> yes. >> Katie Hilton, >> yes. >> Judy Berlin, >> yes. >> Amart Hart, >> yes. >> The consent agenda is approved. >> I think we have one more motion. >> One more. I'm sorry. Let's go. Okay, let's go back. Approve the bills for payment. >> Okay. As long as I don't have to read the Sorry, we'll have to do that again. Yes. No. Okay. I move to approve the accounts payable for bills listed between January 27th, 2026 and February 23rd, 2026 in the following amounts. Educational fund $160,518.93 on&m fund $18,60.31. Transportation $219,755.96 capital projects $9,000. Total all funds $497,33520. I move to approve the manual checks issued between January 27th 2026 and February 23rd 2026 in the following amounts.

116Educational fund 1,212,459.92. ON&M fund $134,48.97. Transportation $95.90. Capital projects $5,950. Total all funds 1,352,554.79. Thank you. We will try this again. Uh the motion has uh May I have a second to make? >> Second. >> Okay. The motion has been moved and seconded. Would the clerk please call the role? >> Alison Pless. >> Yes. Amy Paling, >> yes. >> Erin Stone, >> yes. >> Christine Dcastro, >> yes. >> Annne Hart, >> yes. >> Katie Hilton, >> yes. >> Judy Bluent, >> yes. >> The yays have it. Motion carries. We will now move to action items. Mrs. Statless. >> Okay. I move to approve the resolution authorizing a supplemental tax levy to pay the principal and interest on outstanding limited bonds of the district. >> May I have a second? >> Second. The motion has been

117moved and seconded. Would the clerk please call the role? >> Kristen Castro, >> yes. >> Annne Hart, >> yes. >> Katie Hilton, >> yes. >> Judy Berlin, yes. >> Alison Pafas, >> yes. >> Amy Paling, >> yes. >> Aaron Stone, >> yes. >> Motion carries. >> Okay, we are moving on in the agenda to conference items beginning with old business. Is there any old business this evening? Is there any new business? Anything for good in welfare tonight? Mrs. Pathless. Um, I would just like to give a quick shout out to all of the um WJHS teachers who uh rallied and had the high- five performance. I think it was two weeks ago or maybe two and a half. Um um I went I know Ann was there. I don't know if anyone else was there,

118but it was a wonderful thing and I know that um a lot of teachers had to get together to kind of pull it off and we really appreciate it. I believe that I have the list of teachers. I'm going to read them, but if I'm wrong or say it wrong, let me know. Miss Steininger, Miss Meyer, Miss Rosine, Miss Basset, Miss Best, Miss Kish, and Mr. Beckman. So, thank you very much to those folks who stepped up. Um All right. I'm just going to mention Well, anyone else first? I didn't see good and welfare. Okay. Um, so I'm just going to mention two things. Um, first following the inaugural educational foundation innovative awards ceremony last week, um, I just wanted to mention, um, I guess starting with how incredibly fortunate we are to have these

119community-led groups like the Ed Foundation and CRC and for the meaningful work that they continue to do on behalf of the district. Um Beth KS and her team did such a great job of bringing the the new innovative awards platform and the ceremony to life and I think someone said earlier today probably Carrie that it was inspiring and it really was. There was great representation there um that afternoon from educators, administrators um and um also family members of nominees which was very cool and fun to see. And I don't know when I was thinking about it um tonight and reflecting on it um kind of compared to the strategic plan where the strategic plan you know we know what we set out to do when we know um you know the priorities the work our

120accomplishments and then um with the innovative awards. One thing that I thought was a highlight at least for me was hearing about the dedication and the creativity of our teachers and all of the work that is taking place behind the scenes um that we don't hear about or you know necessarily see in our board reports and it is obviously so um critical to our overall success. So, it was just really very cool to hear a lot of those stories and um all of the creative work that is taking place and hopefully this is just the beginning of you know many successful ceremonies to come. Um so then the second piece was just the focus groups and I know as a parent I kept hearing about the focus groups over and over. So, I really appreciate

121that communication and I appreciated um the options that you gave, you know, the daytime and the evening and to work with various schedules. And I thought that I would attend one of the focus groups primarily just to walk around and listen, but Carrie had a different plan for me and and I was just a district 39 parent who sat right down at the table and was part of the groups. Um, but it was it was great and I just think it's so wonderful that we give this voice to our community and um give them an opportunity to be part of the next 5-year plan. And in addition to that, it's just so nice to spend the time with other community members and talk about ideas and hear about, you know, other perspectives, experiences, and priorities.

122And so I thought it was very valuable. And I know the focus groups have been a lot of time and work on on top of everything else. So, thank you. >> Okay. And then may I have a motion to adjourn to executive session to discuss special education, individual student matters, specific personnel, and collective negotiations. Um I move to adjourn to executive session to discuss uh spe special education and individual students uh specific personnel and collective negotiations. >> May I have a second? Second motion having been made and seconded. Will the clerk please call the role? >> Kristen Ncastro, >> yes. >> Alison Baffos, >> yes. >> Amy Paling, >> yes. >> Katie Hilton, >> yes. >> Judy Berlin, >> yes. >> Annne Hart, >> yes. >> Aaron Stone, >> yes. Motion carried. We are now

123adjourned to executive session and the time is 8:4.