Board of Education Meeting - June 9, 2025

001I hereby call to order this regular meeting of the board of education for Wilmet Public Schools, District 39, this Monday, June 9th, 2025. The time is 7:01 p.m. Will the clerk please call the role? Annne Hart, here. Judy Berlin here. Aaron Stone here. Kristen Dcastro here. Allison Beth here. Amy Paling here. Katie Hilton here. Thank you. We will now turn it over to Katie Lee for the pledge of allegiance. Um I can make a quick introduction of Katie Lee if I could please. Just so that those listening know who Katie Lee is and then she can share her piece. This evening we have a very special honore who will lead us in our pledge of allegiance. Our very own Katie Lee. Um, as many of you know, Katie Lee is retiring at the end of

002this month after 33 magnificent years of service in District 39. Katie's story is one of unwavering commitment and passion right out of college. Katie began her career with us as a young teacher. Over the decades, she grew and thrived, taking on roles that included teaching fifth and second grade at Ramona, fifth grade at Highrest, accelerated math at Highest, serving as our differentiation specialist at Highest and at WT Junior High, and as a curriculum quarter coordinator for many years before ultimately taking over the lead role in our curriculum and instruction department, a position where she has served with great distinction for the past nine years. Katie's entire professional career has been devoted to the students, staff, teachers, and families of this district. Some people strive to leave their mark on the world around them. But Katie

003has humbly um has been humbly driven to support the success of each and every student and teacher lucky enough to be in her presence. Along the way, she has left a legacy of unwavering commitment to educational excellence and growth. one that has shaped our schools, our community, and the many, many lives she has touched throughout her time here. Katie is more than just a colleague. She is a dear friend to many of us. Her infectious laugh and warm spirit have touched countless lives. Katie is considered our district historian, our district's architect of teaching and learning, and by many, the heart of our district 39 family. Katie's hard work, her passion for service, and her commitment to true collabor collaboration have always been her trademark and she's an inspiration to us all. Katie's hard work has

004been has quite literally sculpted teaching and learning in district 39 into what it is today. This is Katie's final board meeting of her long and incredibly meaningful and impactful career. And so we are honored to have her lead us in the pledge of allegiance and be recognized at the conclusion of this meeting. Thank you. So I thought I have a presentation later this evening. I'm going to try to keep it together. Um I really appreciate that. Thank you. And if I make if I could say a few words before I read this pledge. I'm going to read this because I was trying to um make sure that I'm composed for later on in this evening. Uh so to the board of education and the entire district 39 community. Last Thursday, June 5th, our eighth grade

005students graduated. And everyone, parents, grandparents, siblings, board members, superintendent, administrators, teachers, and students themselves could not have been more excited for each of our graduates. The junior high um administrators and Tony Damonte prepared a wonderful ceremony. I truly enjoy attending graduations to lend a hand either collecting dis tickets or handing out the programs and this year a parent knowing that I am retiring whispered happy graduation to you Katie. I smiled and thought that's the perfect goodbye for me. I proudly consider myself a member of the class of 2025 although it took me much longer than graduate. I am humbled and honored to have served this community, one that is so deeply committed to educational excellence without losing sight of what matters most, the development and growth of the whole child. If I may, I would

006like to specifically thank some past board members. Alice Sha, John Flanigan, Tracy Kierney, Cindy Lavine, Frank Panzika, Mark Stein, Kimberly Alcantara, I'm so sorry. Um, Ellen Sternweiler, Bonnie Kim, John Cesaretti, Lisa Schneider, thanks and present board members for being such an important part of my career here in District 39. I've learned so much from you and I am extremely grateful for your support. Alison, Amy, Judy, Katie, and thank you so much. And finally, I'm grateful to still have a few more weeks to work alongside an extraordinary team of dedicated, hardworking administrators. Calling you family hardly captures the depth of connection and admiration I feel. And Carrie Dr. Crimisfully, I still remember meeting you during one of your first visits to met. You quickly earned my respect with your leadership on the D39 reopening guide, your

007support of my work, and most of all, your encouragement to step outside my comfort zone. Those pushes help me grow in ways I had not imagined, and I'm very grateful. So with that, please join me and rise to say the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Katie. I'm sure we'll have um more words later this evening and I'll turn it back over to Dr. Kremcoli for an announcement. Thank you. We are very pleased to announce Lisa Sidlowski who is recommended later on this evening's personnel report to become the new assistant principal at Ramona Elementary School starting July 1st. As Lisa approaches the podium, I will share just

008a little bit about Lisa. Lisa brings 15 years of experience in education to this important position, including as a classroom teacher at the preschool and elementary school levels, as a special education teacher, and as a math interventionist, as well as more recently as a coordinator in Arlington Heights School District 25. her deep knowledge of best practices in elementary instruction, as well as her experiences leading MTSS initiatives, developing curriculum, and facilitating district-wide committees made her a strong candidate for this position. Our interview teams were impressed by her vision and leadership, her experience in many aspects of elementary education, and her collaborative approach to teaching and learning. We are so pleased, Lisa, to welcome you to District 39. Thank you so much. I am really truly honored to be here and so excited to join the Ramona

009Mustang family and I'm really glad that I have someone matching bright pink with me today. I hope your board meeting goes very well. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Lisa. We very much look forward to working with you. I at this time I seek a motion to approve the minutes of the May 19th, 2025 board of education regular and executive session meetings. I move to approve the board of education minutes for the May 19th, 2025 regular and executive session meetings. May I have a second? Second. The motion been made and seconded. Board members, are there any comments, errors, or omissions to the minutes? Okay. Will the clerk please call the role? Aaron Stone, yes. Kristen Dcastro, yes. Alison Pas, yes. Amy Paling, yes. Katie Hilton, yes. Judy Berlin, yes. Annne Hart, yes. The motion

010carries. This is the first opportunity for the public to address the board. Are there any community members present this evening that would like to speak? Okay, great. Then please stand to address the board. And I will remind guests to please state your name, community of residence, um, and by board directive, you are allowed three minutes to address the board. Um, hi, my name is Miriam Oington and I am a Glen View resident. Is Am I missing anything else? No, that's just fine. That's good. Okay. I am here to address the board as the mother of a child who is about to enter the fifth grade at High Crest Middle School. Speaking up has not always been an easy task for me, but I firmly believe that a candid discussion is the foundation of any constructive

011change. So, I will proceed. I stand before you today as a concerned parent. For the past three years, I have been engaged in a struggle that I never anticipated, especially at this early age. For these three years, I have repeatedly found myself pondering these questions, and I stand here now seeking an answer, hoping you might assist me in finding peace with it. Why is an elementary school child provided with an individually assigned iPad to carry and take home? Why is my child being encouraged to read on an electronic device and engage in educational math games on such a device? What is the issue with traditional paper books and physical homework? Recently, I questioned, "Why did my child return home with a bag full of folders containing papers that had minimal work on them? Can you

012inform me about the amount of time our children are spending on their iPads during school hours? Who is overseeing whether our children's eyes are strained or if they're maintaining proper posture while using these devices? Sorry, I lost. Why is the school distributing these devices and then distancing itself from the usage that occurs at home? Is there re What research has the district conducted to support this teaching method for our children? Where is the motivation for the school's extensive use of iPads and other electronic devices such as a low GT tech crayon and VR headsets originating from? I'm not a psychologist or a doctor, so I cannot precisely articulate what is occurring with our children's brains, behaviors, etc. But to but do due to the extensive use of these electronic devices. But I am a mother

013and I am observant. I witnessed children being entertained by these devices rather than seeking face-to-face interactions ex and so much more. But I'm limited to three minutes. I have come to understand that the most effective way to grow is through reflection. At this moment, I am urging the board to genuinely reassess the direction you're pursuing regarding the teaching methods of our children. Thank you. And to be clear, anyone who speaks in this first public comment section has three minutes. And you can come up later um in the second public comment portion of the agenda and speak for an additional one minute or you can wait and speak later in that um public comment um part of the agenda and speak three minutes at that time and then one minute later. Yep. Okay. Would anyone else

014like to speak this evening? Okay, thank you. Um, good evening everybody. My name is Jennifer Laflam and I reside in Libertyville. I'm here on behalf of my cousin Miriam um and her her children and and the children in this district. Um I am a local community psychiatrist and so I was asked to speak on some of the mental health impacts of technology especially in the classroom and how it pertains to young minds. Um so I had a couple of different kind of points to bring to the board. Um, from a child development standpoint, uh, the the data is clear that excessive screen time for young children can negatively impact things like attention span, sleep quality, social and emotional skills, which I think we can all agree are really critical for the early educational years and

015the foundation that we're trying to build for these kids. When it comes to attention span, I think you can imagine that if a child is presented with an opportunity to to read or color versus use something that is kind of much more highly stimulating, they will almost always choose the option that's more stimulating. Um the same way that they would probably choose a donut over a carrot. And so that's where, you know, the adults in the room are kind of um responsible for shephering some of those decisions. and kind of helping them to um make good choices for their own well-being. Um when it comes to mental health and behavior, we see the outcomes of excessive screen time, especially in my profession. Uh we see issues with attention, concentration, which can have really lasting impacts

016on educational attainment and kind of outcomes down the line. um we see the behavioral impacts of children who are kind of so overstimulated and spending so much time on screens and not enough time with their peers. Um and so I think what's missing there is really the genuine human contact and kind of the the connection piece. Um, obviously we we can't get rid of technology completely and and the call is really for balance here to kind of strike a a a balance between um using the things that are helpful without kind of going in an excessive direction. Um so definitely emphasizing things that are more interactive versus passive things like just watching videos or kind of the child just um you know sitting there passively for the technology. I'm not sure. I probably have hit

017my three minutes, so that's where I'll end my time. But thank you very much for hearing my comments. Thank you. And we do have a timer up here, so please feel free to keep going until our timer um goes off. So, thank you. Go ahead, Kavanagh. My wife Jenn is here as well. Um we're hearing on that. So, um to follow on the comments of others here. Um, I've worked in a research setting for most of my career and I've never been shy about following the evidence and I just think that this is a topic that I didn't spend a ton of time on this. Um but in the limited time that I did I think the evidence is overwhelming that again okay the you know I think did a nice job of bringing some

018examples to life but if we just look at the empirical evidence and we look at the experiment we ran the experiments failed just unequivocally the experiments failed so if you look at I pulled recent studies from Harvard MIT there's from OECD research study that just came out that I encourage everyone to read. Um the one that really caught my attention, there was a a Jama study that just came out last year. It was a meta meta study that I thought was very interesting. So it combines 58 different studies that have been done and peer reviewed and includes over 480,000 participants. This is very statistically significant and worth noteworthy and again I would encourage everyone to take a look at this evidence but you know I have three minutes so I don't have time to go

019through them but you know we're sitting here having this debate and it's very clear that the experiment has failed and we need to get back. We have thousands of years of evidence that paper and pen have done a perfectly great job of educating our kids. Um, and if you look at how our students results are dropping and it's not just here, it's everywhere and look at us across the world, we're failing there as well. So, I just don't I don't think we have time to to sit around and have debates about this. I would encourage anybody here who can take a peer review evidence and show me that this is this is the right path. Um so I I got 40 seconds but I would conclude with the leaders of the world in terms of

020education have already pivoted away from these things. So in Finland uh there's a historical reversal that took place last year. So they're renowned for their education system and they've moved away. They're back to paper and pencil from the school. Uh they were short they were followed shortly by Sweden. So they have what's called the digital reversal in 2024. So this isn't rocket science. I just don't think this is that this is not that complicated. The evidence is clear. Again, I can I can cite multiple studies. Here's one from Stanford. Technology might be making education worse. And it was this I don't think was peer-reviewed. This was just an article by an associate professor in the graduate school of education. But this is everywhere. I just don't think that we we're sitting here. I think we're

021spinning our wheels in. So, thank you, Mr. Cavern. Follow the evidence. Any other community members that would like to speak tonight? Hi, good evening. Uh, my name is Hannah Tuttle. I have three kids. They're two of them are at Central, one's will be at Central in a couple years. And I just thought it worth introducing myself on behalf of wait until 8th. We'll met um a local grassroots movement who much like speakers have touched on. Thank you. Um we are families in the community who want to delay smartphones and social media specifically for our kids. Um but I do think it goes handinhand with technology in general and how um like touched on before technology has is great and it's necessary but um We know now that we need to use it smartly and um

022it's um important to me and the people here, but also over 700 families in Wilmet have signed um a pledge to delay this technology for their kids. So my main point is that there's a few of us here tonight, but there's a large portion of the community that um that we're representing here. So thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Charlene Bubble. I live in Bulmet and I have two children, one of them in Verona and one of them at some point soon hopefully going to Verona as well. Um, and I'm a violinist. I I'm a professional violinist and I and I teach music as well. Um, and one of the big problems that I see with having devices at school is that it makes it impossible for me as a parent at home

023to enforce the no device rule because then the the question constantly is, well, I'm allowed to do it at school, so what's wrong with it? And so it it puts the onus on me as a parent to constantly be the the bad guy and to to constantly say, "No, in my house, these are my rules, no matter what your teachers say." And that is a dynamic that I like as a teacher myself. I always want the parent and the teacher to know function as a unit. But in this particular instance, I find myself constantly having to contradict what teachers are allowing my students, my kids to to to to go do because what I know is not right for them in in the moment. When I'm teaching, regardless of age, my English student right now

024is four. I always have a three-way conversation where where it's the student and me and the and the parent making sure that we're working to to together to get the the the very best possible outcome. And I'm afraid that in these kinds of dynamics where I as the parent have to really curtail that relationship that doesn't set up a very good system for for creating a healthy learning environment at home and come on up please to save a baby pawsome on the way here and succeed unfortunately some late. My name is Alena Resnik. I have a rising third grader who's in Romana and uh twin boys will be in Romana in a year or two and uh I prepared I failed to print it. So I'll just improvise for the record both me and my

025husband are IT professionals and my parents and his parents are also IT professionals and we are successful in our job and we work with computers and we work with uh internet. That's our living. However, we and we are successful in it. However, neither of us were introduced to technology until we were in our late teens and we turned out just fine. and technology when we were introduced to it was way less intuitive and way less easy to learn versus what it is now. So the mantra that I keep hearing while there are benefits to technology uh of you know using some for education the mantra I keep hearing is if you don't introduce iPads in second grade to prepare presentations they will fail in your career. Well, that's not true. You know, there, you know,

026you're your your our generation, the 40s and 50s, we turn out just fine learning technology later when our brains were formed when our ability to control our impulses was was formed and we are given the kids devices without proper limitations and expect them to just use them for learning when they're really toys. And you know, we spoke with Tony several times at this point when you know, kids are using for math as an additional educational opportunity and and opportunity to for differentiation, fine. Several minutes a day, maybe won't do any harm. But when kids are given iPads as an option for free time instead of inerson interaction between the peers with the peers or the teacher when kids are allowed to go on their iPads during recess or sorry uh maybe between classes or in

027class and I only have personal experience with elementary and go on YouTube and search trailers for scary movies and maybe some kids are ready for those but kids sitting next to them maybe not. I know of several families who had to deal with daily nightmares of kids who were exposed to un to consent that they should not be that wasn't age appropriate or was not appropriate for them and we as parents we can't just like said we can't control at home but we just don't see how the how you can hand our kids devices without proper safeguards and really expose them to stuff you know even in person, second grade. So, so where where does the benefit of excl, you know, uh maybe reading some books that are really not in the library, which I

028doubt, where does that stop and real danger begins and where does the gamification of education ends? Because the kids, you know, they get used to this. Evening everybody. Um, I'm Christina Ballister. I know some of you in the room. I have three children that have come through the district. I did not prepare anything, so I'm just going to speak freely. I found the topic really interesting. Um, and to be fair, in my experience, um, with my children, I have a high schooler, I have an incoming eighth grader, and also an incoming fifth grader. um you know when when iPads were introduced uh I I understand the thought was this is innovation and we've kind of got to stay with um where things are going and and you know keeping the kids um in tune with

029technology and um I think that for me the concern is more just about having some balance and making sure we're not abandoning you know the ability for children to read books with in their hands and I know at Highest I've seen some of the teachers you know, give them that opportunity, which I was really grateful for. Um, and I and I want to be fair because I do see that my fourth grader has handwritten some stories. But, but my concern is more that in the foundational years, I'm not clear on how much time is really being devoted in each grade to the use of iPads to contrast with these really incredibly important ways in which our brains are learning as young people. Um, it's been my experience that the brain learns through pressure and input

030from what I've learned from occupational therapists and writing and pressing and processing as they put pens to paper as their f their their thoughts are expressed. And that's to some degree being lost. And so I just for me also want to bring up I don't really have a good understanding about how EMFs and exposure to our children in the long term, you know, just the Wi-Fi just all of the hands, the fingers on the screen. I know when I hold my phone, you know, my thumb is warm and heated and I just we just I'm an adult, right? So I just don't we don't quite know the long-term effects of my son constantly doing his math with his finger, right? To me, that's a concern because even though I asked him to use a stencil

031or the the Apple pen, um, and I don't think anybody really knows yet. Maybe we do now. But whether it's being thought about thoughtfully, I think is something why I'm here tonight. I just want to raise these questions is a concern because I do have an incoming um, fifth grader and I do agree that introducing devices early does create a habit in a way at a as a young age that is a difficult one to break as an adult. We all had a foundation without it and we're able to maybe manage that more with control. So that's just another thought that I think we need to think about is this habit we've created and the difficulty with them breaking it when they have to do other things. Thank you. Thank you. Hi everyone. My name

032is Anam Sha. Um and I also just wanted to speak really quickly to this. I probably won't take much time. Um, I'm a newer graduate myself and we moved here really for the district. My husband's from the west suburbs. We brought our family here. Um, and when we first came here, it was really because we were told that technology was not as integrated into elementary school learning as it was our district. Um, and after moving here, I realized that that really is and it's growing after kind of second grade to an amount that's not really healthy for my daughter. My daughter doesn't do really well with it. if she gets more than about 20 minutes day, she starts kind of being overwhelmed and overstimulated. Um, and I've I've been noticing that as she's getting more

033of this. Um, so I think we really need to be cognizant of the different kids we have within the district and what their needs are and how they react to it. I come from a tech startup. I'm in the tech space. I'm no way going to say that tech is not good or that we don't need it or that kids don't need to learn it. I work in AI, so I understand how important it is, but I do think we have to be more responsible with how we're kind of using it and being more mindful that we have different kids in the district who have different needs, who react to it differently, um, and kind of Hey, I'm Janet Kavanaaugh. Um my husband spoke earlier and he gives more of a general overview, but um

034I'm going to speak more practically just to what I've seen with my kids like with um like a lot of times I feel like when they're doing their math and they're not doing it on pen and paper, you know, lines are not correct so they're borrowing from the wrong column or um I think that sometimes like if they don't get a problem right then they get more time assigned. mind. So then my I don't know if that was the right application or not, but anyway. Um um but I feel like my son was more worried about that than actually knowing the problem. Um and then I see my daughter write on the iPad and oh my gosh, I'm just a I'm mortified by her spelling. I mean, it's really bad be but she has autocorrect

035so she doesn't really have to recognize that. I just think that the grammar and some of the things that um are autocorrecting on the iPad are just taking away from their ability to learn some of those basic skills. And I mean, writing is such an important aspect in everyone's life. I know why we got to the iPads. I mean, we they were a lifeline during COVID, but I think now we really have to kind of backtrack and think about maybe some of these other elements that are impacting um learning. Thank you, Janet. My name is Jannine Mai. I'm here in guess a few different capacities. One is just a mom of a three-year-old. Um, also a mom of a seven-year-old who I have watched uh in first grade um grow and blossom, but also change

036in certain ways that he comes home from school and unfortunately he only wants to talk about his iPad. Um he wants to talk about the iPad activities that he did and I have to get out of him really pull out of him um human interactions and things that he did besides doing kind of game learning. Um also as an opthalmologist I'm here um I am an opthalmologist at Northwestern University downtown. Um I'm not sure I came in a little bit late. Not sure if anyone spoke about this but just want to make sure that it's you know we we very much believe where I'm at. um practicing evidence-based medicine. And there are most certainly significant studies that show that these are critical ages um in regards to the ADHD, but also in regards to the

037myopia, so nearsidedness progression. Um I'm sure other people are here as well who have um kids who are likely going to become nearsighted. Um my kids are most likely because both mommy and daddy are. Again, these are critical ages, ages six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Um, for them to not be holding a screen inside very very close to their face. Um, my kid sees the doctor every six months now to make sure that he's not coming near side and they're going to have to start treating it. Um, and again, very likely other kids are. And I think that it's important that we try to limit that for obvious reasons that are more important than the myopia. Um, but I just want to make sure that that's clear that it's not just a matter of wearing

038glasses. I mean myopia is related to it that can cause complications that cause blinding diseases. Retinal detachments, glaucoma, um myopic degeneration. Those are the things that I'm dealing with. I'm not a pediatric opthalmologist. I'm an adult opthalmologist. Um but I'm seeing those complications related to those things. So when I see that my kid is coming home and talking about his iPad so much, um I recognize that one that is exactly what these companies want us to be doing. You know, they want them to just as many of us probably very addicted to our our screens. The kids seem to be as well and you know there there are definitely health implications related to that. So I just want to make sure that that is um highlighted as well. Thank you. Hi, my name is Denise

039Snyder. My daughter goes Ramona. She's an incoming third grader. Um I actually not planning to come to speak. I've just been very interested in this topic. I've been following a lot of the research and the studies over the past few years about technology and children and my husband is also in the tech industry. Um I what I would like to see is alternative options for families who recognize that this type of technology does not work for their children. Um, my daughter's susceptible to what you were just talking about, the vision problems. Her eye doctor said, "You're going to have to come back soon and we're going to see how it's progressing. You might be in glasses next year." And it's because of the usage of the screens that it's causing earlier and earlier problems in

040children. And my daughter has really sensitive eyes. And so that's one of the things that the doctor's very concerned for. But also we notice personally at home as a family whenever there's more um screen time used in the schools even at home we do our best to try to limit it more and more that we recognize that there's impulsivity issues that for her there are some times whenever she has decreased ability to focus on things and whenever we get really strict just like you were talking about saying no screens at home taking away the technology at home we notice some of that decreases And so there are children that are affected differently by different types of technology. And so I just would like to see that there be some alternative options for those families um

041that doesn't necessarily ostracize the children but in a way that is also helpful so that we can help navigate this. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak this evening? Hi, I'm Jaclyn Shook. Thank you all very much for listening and discussing this or posting this topic hopefully discussing in the future. Um, I have four kids that went through elementary and now currently that oldest is going to be a senior in high school and um I just wanted to really push the board to really discuss and this topic before the upcoming school year. I think this is really telling that we have over 740 signatures in 18 days of people that are very concerned about the effects of screens on our kids. Um I think it's also concerning that we

042as a board and a superintendent doesn't know or teachers don't know how much screen time we're actually giving our kids. So you don't know how much they're getting in Spanish or math and then we have no idea overall how much they're getting. I really want to try to see if we can get a number on that or maybe limit that to maybe even like 10% of the class period. So maybe like really having a strict amount across the board so we can really understand how this is affecting our kids. Hopefully having a better outcome in the evening. I think my biggest thing also is security. I know you're probably so sick of hearing me talk about this, but um my kids are amazing at their iPads and they've managed to get on eBay. I just

043found out that my middle kiddo, who I thought was the perfect angel, um got we got a package in the mail and I was like, "Wow, that's really interesting. I didn't order anything." He's like, "Well, I did." And he got on with his school email and he used his school iPad and bought things off eBay. And he's not the first shook kid to do this, but um this was like my angel baby. So, I'm just surprised that there's no restrictions on that. Um, and to piggyback off that, I know there's many kiddos in seventh and eighth grade that enjoyed using Dep Depot and other avenues to sell cologne or perfume or clothing on their school iPads as well. And I think we really need to be looking at this and understanding what our kids are

044doing. So, they may have their iPad up while the teacher's talking, but they're doing something else on it. And that's super hard to monitor or we're not using the tools that we have available to monitor them. So I think really I would love screen down and be able to have these kids have the interaction that they actually need in a school setting. There's not many other opportunities they're going to have with this many people face to face and this many opportunities to connect with people. So thank you board so much for at least listening to us and all of our concerns and we really hope that this something that we can talk about and maybe change for this upcoming school year. Thank you. Thank you. Would anyone else like to speak? Um, I'm Ashley Brahmagin.

045I have three kids in well, two in district 39 right now. One's an incoming fifth grader at Highest and on a rising second grader at McKenzie and then one's coming soon. Um, but I too am concerned about all of these issues that have been raised. I, my husband and I signed the wait till 8th pledge. We signed the um the change.org petition that's going around. I'm particularly concerned because anecdotally I've heard about kids that are in middle school or junior high or excuse me, high school that where as she just mentioned there's not really consistency on what they're doing and we don't know exactly how much time they're spending. I think there's been a lot of research whether we're talking about behavioral issues or mental health issues or um vision health. You know, there's just

046so much going the proliferation of screen time for kids these days. And if I am having a hard time understanding what my kids are getting at school, I don't know how to adjust for it. I would love to be able to do the 10 minutes on EXL every night, the 20 minutes of XYZ and whatever other programs are, but I don't feel comfortable doing that because I don't know how much time. So just would ask for you all to be very thoughtful and and ask those questions, set those limits so that we can help support our kids now and in the future. Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to speak at this time? All right. Well, we thank you all for being here, um, for taking the time out to be here

047to share your experience, your concerns. We do appreciate it. And again, as I mentioned, there will be a time later in tonight's agenda for public comment as well. At this time, we will move on to board reports, starting with um, committees. First tonight will be facilities development, Mrs. Dcastro. Thank you. The facility development committee met on June 2nd as part of the committee of the whole. The board received a brief update on the WJHS first floor air conditioning construction project that will begin after school is out for the summer and expected to be completed by mid August. The Harper PTA will be funding the expansion of the footprint of the Harper playground to add new equipment. The Harper playground donation agreement will be voted on later in tonight's agenda. The 5-year capital project summary was

048also reviewed. Bids for the WJHS first floor AC renovations have been authorized by the board. Design work has been authorized for the WJHS window replacement project, and that work is ongoing. Projects beyond summer 2026 are to be determined by composition and priority. Those projects will likely be impacted by the district's next strategic plan and by other items such as the 10-year life safety review. Thank you. We'll move on to school finance. Mrs. Paling. So the school finance committee also met at the committee of the whole on June 2nd. We reviewed the fiscal year 2026 tenative budgets for D39 and for the Wilmet community special education agreement mixie. Approval of these tenative budgets appears on tonight's agenda. We also reviewed the annual resolutions and renewals which are recommended for approval tonight. A brief update was also

049shared regarding the status of the special education transportation services contract renewal which appears on our agenda as well. Thank you. And now for strategy. Miss Stone. Yes. The strategy committee also met on June 2nd as part of the committee of the whole during which time the board received and reviewed several in-depth reports regarding the district's strategic plan work. The board received detailed presentations on spring academic assessment results, social emotional learning assessment results, the results of the recently administered comprehensive school climate inventory, also known as CSCI. There are so many celebrations within these reports and also as always some identified areas of opportunities for improvement and growth. All of these reports are publicly available through board docs and committee of the whole meeting recordings like general board meeting recordings are also available for future viewing. We

050want to encourage everyone who is interested to take the time to review the reports and listen to the meeting discussion. Thank you. All right, we are moving on to leaison reports and we will start with community review committee. Mrs. Papless, please. Thank you. Um Dr. Kcoli and I attended the uh CRC's uh final meeting for the 2024 2025 school year on Tuesday, June 3rd. Um the CRC at that meeting uh welcomed new members and also invited other community members who are interested to join the CRC for the next school year. Um the committee discussed possible topics for next year and uh decided to um push that vote to finalize the topic to their first meeting next year. Okay, great. And now for the district strategic advisory team or DESAT, Mrs. Paling and Mrs. Bless. Sure.

051I can update. We were both happy to participate on behalf of the board. Uh the DESAT met on May 29th and got a preview of the strategic plan updates. Uh and then the administration used all of that pretty extensive uh helpful feedback for presentation. We look forward to that. Thank you. And Intergovernmental Cooperation Working Group, Dr. Crema Skolley um attended on behalf of Miss Stone, I believe. Um well that is true that we did not have a board representative there but I also was not able to attend but I do have an update. Um the Wilmet Intergovernmental Cooperation Working Group did meet on May 22nd. This was an organizational meeting and unfortunately uh we weren't able to have a representative there. However, I connected with the team for an update. Um and the meeting was

052really not too long. The committee stuck to the agenda after introductions and providing a few updates. Uh the discussion centered on the work of the subcommittees for the group's chosen topic of interest and the group is working on the civility project, excuse me. Um as was talked about at the last meeting as well. So members uh volunteered themselves for the subcommittees and agreed to meet again before the next meeting. The sub committees are going to be focused um on five areas. social media, rules of order, civility pledge, campaigns, and training. And their work will continue throughout next year. And we look forward to partnering with our um Wilmet um governmental partners to uh support civility in in all of our Thank you for the update. All right. Illinois Association of School Boards, IASB, Mrs. Berlin.

053Hi there. Um I only have two like memos from ISBE and and they're really um uh related to schoolboard members. The first is for the those of us who were new new board members, newly sworn in in April. There are I'm just reminding everyone that there are three required trainings. The first one was in May, but if you missed it, it's recorded and you can go to the website and get it. Um the next one actually is coming up on June 12th and then there's a third one. So this is just a reminder for those. And then the other reminder is that there is the annual conference is November 21st to the 23rd and any board members who are interested in attending should register soon. Thank you. Um I'm going to go back. I think

054I missed one item on the agenda. I apologize for that. Um parent teacher advisory committee, Mrs. Dcastro. Sorry I skipped over that previously. The parent teacher advisory committee met to review the district's discipline and bullying prevention policies and to make recommendations. The committee considered existing information about discipline bullying reports and behavioral interventions. Thank you for that important update. Appreciate it. All right. Wilmet community special education agreement. Mrs. Hilton, thank you. Wixie uh met today and approved changes to the advisory board, confirmed next year's meeting dates, and approved the tentative budget and year-to-ate activity. Great. Thank you. And then lastly, legislative legislative updates. Back to Mrs. Berlin. Okay. Okay, the legislature is not in session, so there's nothing pending that requires our attention, but in the final hours of their meeting before adjourning, they did pass

055a budget and several bills. Um, they allocated $75 million to ensure that the tier 2 pension system complies with the Social Security safe harbor minimum benefit requirements. They did not address modifying any other pension benefits. most of the other bills related to high schools. Um, but there are two that might eventually be of interest to elementary districts. One bill asks the state board of education or tasks the state board of education with creating guidance on the use of artificial intelligence in elementary and secondary schools which is kind of interesting in light of the conversations here which I mean honestly artificial intelligence is so far ahead of whether or not we're going to use iPads in the classroom but I the state legislature is concerned about that issue and the other one eliminates I'm sure we'll

056love this some mandate mandates and establish establishes a school code mandate uh mandate reduction council to review and recommend removal of outdated mandates. Like I said, I'm sure we're all looking forward to their work. Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right, we are moving on to information items. I will turn this over to Dr. Kiscoli, please. Thank you so much. Um in terms of written communication, the board received several written communications um primarily regarding the WJHS schedule changes and some staffing um feedback and then also one regarding busing fees. Under our administrative announcements, we have uh reached the end of the school year. The school year has come to a close as of Friday and we're uh we have so many celebrations to acknowledge from our year-end reports to the board um to

057kindergarten promotions and celebrations to musical performances to retirement celebrations from our the academic growth of our students. Uh some of which we recently celebrated during the spring assessment report at our recent committee of the whole meeting and others were celebrated during our um most recent board of education meeting. Many many accomplishments regional, state, and national competitions. We're really proud of what our students have been able to accomplish uh to the progress accomplished through our strategic plan goals which you'll hear a little bit more about this evening. Uh we celebrated fourth grade clapouts and our WJHS graduation. It really has been a wonderful conclusion to the school year. Um I want to take a moment to thank our teachers and administrators for all of their hard work this school year. Um to recognize and appreciate our

058students for their commitment to excellence within the classroom and beyond and to celebrate our parents and our community members for their partnership and support. And finally to thank the board for your vision and support as well. uh together we have created a really successful school year for our students and we're very grateful for that. Um we did have a great WJHS graduation uh last week at Newer High School and thank you to so many of our board members who joined us and celebrating our students there. The gym at Newer was absolutely packed. Um but it seemed relatively comfortable and we're really glad that all of our students can come together and celebrate together. That's uh something new for the second year in a row that we've been able to celebrate all students together at the

059same time. And then Friday, we said farewell to an outstanding group of students and staff um in each of our schools. And so we're really grateful for um both a wonderful school year and um hopefully a fun and productive school summer ahead. As we plan for next year under our personnel report, you'll see that we're continuing to interview and hire um some really outstanding teachers, administrators, and certified staff for the upcoming school year. Um on this evening's personnel report, we're proud to welcome several uh teachers, and um we have really been impressed by the candidate pool for so many of these positions. So, um we're excited for that. will host new teacher week um the week before institute uh days next year in August beginning of the next school year I should say to be

060clear um I also have an update regarding the highest middle school and WJHS scheduling update we've continued um to review and work through the schedules there so just as a quick and brief update there's a minor adjustment that we'd like to recommend um and that would be to the start time so leaving all other factors of the schedule the same. Um we'd like to bump the start time back just a couple of minutes really um to allow 5 minutes between zero hour and the start of school. So that adjustment would provide for start ends start times at highest that would be at 8:45 and school would end at 3:37. The other benefit is it starts at what most adults figure is kind of like a typical five minute start time. us in schools, we count

061by the minutes, but um to start at 8:45 and at WGHS to start at 8:20 and end at 3:12. Um so it just gives just a little more wiggle room. We heard quite a bit about the start time and so we're trying to accommodate for that. But all other aspects of the schedule remain unchanged, including the following that 25m minute daily home room that we've talked quite a bit about. 40 minute class periods for all other classes. three minute passing periods between all of the classes. Um again, except for that zero hour to first period and then um school starts five minutes earlier rather than the original uh seven minutes earlier. So it's really just a a two-minute bump to give a little more wiggle room right at the start of the school year starter

062of the school day and allow us to start at a a little update there. We don't have any Freedom of Information Act requests to report and therefore we can move on to annual business unless there's questions of course. Okay. So moving on to annual business. Um our first matter of business is our district 39 strategic plan. This is our endofear presentation. Uh, as the board recalls, in September of 2021, the district administration submitted goals and strategies for the 2021 through 2026 District 39 strategic plan for the board, um, which the board approved. Um, having received approval, the work has continued each year and action steps are identified for each of the five years. We just concluded the fourth year of this five-year plan and we have accomplished a whole lot. There still is, of course,

063more work to do. Um but we're really proud to report this year on our fourth year of implementation. Um and so we have our goal champions here to provide a comprehensive um report and the board has been provided um a summary as well and and with gratitude to our district strategic advisory team for their feedback. I will turn it over to our very own Katie Lee who will kick us off in presentation. Thank you. And on behalf of all of the administrators, um, we are sharing the, uh, strategic plan ended video update. I can't believe how fast time flies. This is our onepage strategic plan with our vision and goals and strategies and as Dr. Thomas Foley shared, we are so appreciative of this particular group of district strategic advisory team. Um we have some

064secondyear members that will be rolling off and so this is a public announcement that we will be recruiting um some members to join our team uh for next year. And so uh much gratitude toward this group in general for the feedback that we received throughout the year. And so we'll start with goal one which is student achievement and growth ensuring a differentiated education that provides a strong foundation of rigorous academic learning. Um we have our goal and key performance indicators. The outcome indicators are what we term as the KPIs and the strategy indicators that some other pieces of data that we monitor progress over time. The next section are high priority action steps and we have either completed all of these action steps or they are ongoing because they involve professional development that involves additional

065PD each year as we get new staff members and in order to make sure that everybody is up to speed with what we're doing. And then the next area I'm going to talk a little bit about the um KPIs or key performance indicators for our youngest learners, our kindergarten and first graders. Uh we had a goal for 80% of our kindergarten and first graders to be um on track in terms of their early literacy and early math skills. And it's very exciting. We've seen great progress over the last four years. And this is the second year in a row row that we have had all at least 80% of our kindergarten first graders on track. That means scoring average or above on the early literacy indicators. and 85% we've we've met in all four years

066for our early new mercy indicators. So, it's very exciting and a lot to celebrate there. An overview of the um KPIs that pertain to the NWA MAP assessment. um we have both growth and achievement and in two I'm sorry in two in three of our four growth categories we have met in the 15% or less in the low growth category for two years straight. Um we are close in some of the other areas but that is our area of opportunity for sure. Um, for MAP achievement, I'm proud to say that as you can see in the green bar for the MAC and the high achievement, um, we have now met three out of the four of our KPIs in the achievement, um, establishing that map high category at 55%. We wanted to also include some

067of the information that we shared in our assessment plan during the spring um just to monitor our reading um achievement as well as our math achievement consistently. Our students are performing at a year or more um than their national peers when it comes to their RIT scores. Um and for everyone's um context when we started strategic planning we wanted to set rigorous goals and therefore you can see that there are five color bands. So we set some high goals as far as quintiles versus um port tiles when we're dividing up our data into quarts. And so um we're very proud of what I would like to highlight the high and the high average for you as well as the low um because we are meeting our grades based on those data. So as a summary

068for um this current year you'll see reading achievement over time from 2021 to 20 um 25 current. Um, our goal for spring is 4% or less in the low and we have met that. Current is 4% and our goal is 50% of our students or more in the high category and currently we're at 44. For math, our KPI goal is 4% or less in the low and currently it's 2%. Um, so we have met that for several years. And then um the goal is 55 or more in the high and currently red back. So we have definitely met that. Um this is the same information for growth. Again keeping in mind that our students start at a grade or more higher. We are monitoring the growth level for all of our students. And for the

069reading um KPI in rows, the goal is 15% or less in the low and currently we're at 18%. And the goal is 25% or more in high and currently we're at 20%. for the math KPI uh spring of 2025 progress update the goal is 15% or less in low and currently we are at 15% and the goal is 30% or more in high and we're very close so currently in 28%. In the winter um midyear update we provided a fall to winter reading growth. This is just a new lens of the same um type of information and we just wanted to show that although we improve from fall to spring from fall to winter in the low category um we are looking at how we can improve in the reading growth for the high category.

070And this is the same um uh piece of information but for math growth and for fall to winter to fall to spring we've improved in both of the high and the low. So if you recall the strategy indicators one thing that we have started um within this strategic plan is goal setting. We know that that is a practice that's helpful for our students and also for adults. Um so for our kindergarten through fourth grade classroom teachers, we've asked some survey questions and what we're looking for is that the academic goal type uh would remain high. Um so you can see at the bottom of semester 1 it says academic um goal types our kindergarten through fourth grade teachers report 85% and nonacademic which is more behavior and social emotional is at 15% and in semester

0712 they reported 84% and 16%. fifth through um eighth grade goal setting. These questions are actually asked of our students. And so you can see the 58 goal types um in the academic uh remain high at 87% and 89% respectively um with the non-academic at 13 and 11%. One area that we would like to continue to monitor is the student perception of reviewing their goals and monitoring their progress. Um that's one thing that's eluded us a little bit as far as the type of um feedback they are they are sending us. We thought it was the questions for a little bit but now we think um maybe we need to reanalyze how we're gathering this data. So goal setting over time um just to see since this is our fourth year uh the percentage of

072goal setting from winter to spring, winter to spring which means first semester and second semester and the 58 student survey. We're very pleased with these results. We also have a strategy indicator um asking us to achieve some differentiate and focus professional learning and trainings. In this page you will see what we call institute days when um students have the day at home and we engage in learning. And so there are four different institute days within the year and our goal is at least a 4.5. So when we average all of our ratings of the four different ones, we're at 4.1. Um this particular uh type of um professional learning opportunity that we provide is when it is really focused on a particular or audience and we've done very well in meeting the needs of it

073being differentiated and focused for our staff with an average rating of 4.8. And this is just to share with you um progress over time and again consistently looking for patterns and areas of growth. Um but our goal is to meet at least 4.5 rating from our staff. Moving on to goal two, our supportive community. So we're looking to cultivate a supportive and inclusive learning community responsive to the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of each student. And like goal one, you'll see the outcome indicators which uh translate into our KPIs and the strategy indicators which are items that we um keep track of um as we're looking at our action steps and our goals over the course of the year. Uh here are our pri high priority action steps. Again, you can see um there's a

074mix of completed and ongoing. Um a couple of things of note. Um we have really been working at uh the social emotional learning curricula in U 58 and that has been um implemented in a first step this year and it will be um continued and expanded upon next year um in that in those grade levels fifth through 8th grade. And um another one that um is important to note is um our um sorry our skill development reporting for the SEAL committee which will be ongoing and we'll be looking at how we're communicating home to families um throughout the year um on an ongoing process. So that's another um good piece of work there. Um all right this is our uh KPI updates for our um social emotional assessments. These were reported on uh last week

075at the committee of the whole meeting. Um and uh they just review um the different competency areas that we monitor. Um you can see in K3 um we monitor emotion recognition and social perspective taking. In grade four we monitor uh understanding others and social problem solving. and we've met um in three out of those four areas. Um over um fifth through 8th grade, we look at increasing over the course of the year. Um in the Paname Panorama mesh survey, um we um this is a a challenge for us that we continue to investigate um and I encourage you to look back at the committee of the whole report to learn more about those numbers. Um, one of our KPIs uh originally was written uh for the five essentials. We started to administer the comprehensive school

076climate inventory in lie of the five essentials last year. And so this chart just shows the different areas that we monitor on the CSCI now that and how they translate to the five essentials. Um you can see there our spring 2025 scores. These were also reported out on at the committee of the whole meeting. Um, but we had some really great celebrations in a lot of these areas. And this is just a quick look at how those um show up on our dashboard with our KPIs. Uh, the areas in green are met. Um, there are several areas that we stayed the same in as well. Um, one of our strategy areas that we monitor are extracurriculars at Highest and Wilmet Junior High. Uh, we are so excited about all of our club offerings at both

077schools. It really um a couple uh at the last board meeting I believe we had a CRC report talking about belonging and sharing um about the power of clubs and in high interest clubs and and we really have tackled that at both schools and um the club offerings keep increasing and we offer a lot of student voice in those clubs. So that's really exciting to see. Uh the next couple of slides are just monitoring um our staff's confidence and ability to implement the SEAL framework. And you'll see on the right hand side of the piraphph you'll see extremely prepared and quite prepared even somewhat prepared um are the larger chunks there. So we're feeling pretty good about how prepared our teachers are feeling um with implementing uh the or teaching the SEAL skills. The next

078is confidence. Um again those three extremely confident, quite confident and somewhat confident. Um those are the majority of our um teachers are reporting that they have confidence in their instruction. And finally um the time per week. And so um you'll see that um the the yellow is less than one time and then it goes all the way up to um daily. Uh the orange is the daily. So we are glad with the numbers there about 22% there and um one to two times a week which is really what we're aiming for um is close to 30%. And so um we would like to continue to increase those numbers and our hopes are that with some of the changes especially at the 58 level that we're able to do that. The next area is our foundation's

079behavior team and behavior supports. We have been working with safe and civil skill schools for the past four years to develop really well integrated teams at each of our elementary and middle and junior high schools to really focus on tier one behavior support. So identifying needs within the building, getting staff buyin, creating rules that are commonly understood by both teachers and staff, and tracking the data to make sure that what they're doing is working. The teams are incredibly excited. We have now finished our formal work with safe and civil schools. We've been through all of the modules that they have. We've done a tremendous amount of training with both our our buildings and our students. Uh the teams next year will be continuing that work forward and we'll probably do some consultation with safe and

080civil schools to continue to keep the the energy and excitement up. But we also culminated this year with a fair where every all of the schools shared the information that they had collected over the course of the time, shared strategies. It was one of the more exciting things that that we've had. Lots of teachers, staff that were just so excited about the work they've done and really good data to demonstrate that we've seen a lot of improvement in student behavior. So, it's very exciting and I'm looking forward to continuing the work. All right, goal three focuses on our staff and faculty and their needs and action steps related to our personnel. You can see our um KPIs, both our outcome indicators as well as our strategy indicators. Those have remained consistent um since the inception

081of our strategic plan. Our high priority action items uh like goals one and two are either completed or ongoing. Few things that I'd like to highlight are um our work with facilitated IEP training that has really um seen a lot of interest this year. We haven't quite got gotten to that advanced facilitated training um yet, but the initial training we've been able to train more and the advanced element is is certainly an option for staff moving forward. The other piece that we focused in on was looking at our hiring practices. And this was a direct um outcome of the DEIB work done in the previous uh school years. This year we spent a lot of time as an administrative team looking at our process and identifying and updating that. It's been several years since we've

082done that, tweaking our questions and making sure it aligns with our current needs. perhaps speeding up the process a bit more at certain points. It seemed to have taken a bit longer in years past and and we don't want to lose any of our candidates that were seeking for district 39. And so we spent several afternoons talking through that and and refining that process. More work to be done, but we have a great start. Similar to goal two, we are looking at the CSCI data relative to staff responses. So, Kelly shared information out about student responses and families and this is really looking at how our staff are responding. It's nice to now this year have a baseline from 20 spring of 24 and looking at spring of 25. We've either um kind of held

083steady or improved slightly in in most of our areas. So, that has been a nice outcome to look at. Since we started our strategic plan, we've used questions from the Panorama survey relative to cultural competency and culturally responsive teaching. And so this shows the progression of staff responses over time. Uh you may recall in earlier presentations, we actually have five categories each administration. We combine the top two and the bottom two just to be able to look visually to see our progression over um over the course of time since we started giving this in the fall of 22. But some areas have shown improvement, others we have more work to do. This is the open-ended response in asking staff um what how we could better help them be able to discuss and confront issues of

084different races and ethnicities either with each other as colleagues or even within their teaching. And so these are some areas that might lead us to some action steps for next year as we look at planning out our last year strategic plan. One element that we continue to monitor is the number of times we have to pull our pair professionals or teaching assistants from their typical assignment and working with specific students to sub in our schools. You may recall during co we needed more subs. We had more absences and so this became something that was really putting a strain on our schools and we wanted to monitor it. We've done a nice job improving. I think we've got a healthy pool of subs. We've been able to more of our positions and this has had a

085direct impact on um our pair of professionals and how often we need them to sub within our school. The next couple slides are is data that was presented last fall and really hasn't changed but continues to remain true for goal three. This fall, October of 2025, you can expect an update in um these specific strategy indicators. Yep. It's old data, but it's relevant to go three to go four. Go four, family partnerships, where we're strengthening partnerships by connecting, collaborating, and communicating with families and communities to advance uh to advance teaching and learning. Here's our outcome and strategy indicators that we've been focusing on over the last five, four or five years. Um, and as you read those, you'll notice a lot of the action steps that you've heard me talk about directly tie into these

086things. Many of them are are deliverables that we've been working on. So, for as far as our high priority action steps for this school year, first bullet point, uh, we were to increase academic and assessment reports. um allow online attendance submission and provide historical report card access in powers school parent portal. This has been completed. So as far as the first one, we added a plugin and into our power school parent portal called PLS vault that allows for various reports that have a student ID to be uploaded into that place so that parents can go and access those reports both when they are available to us, making them available to you as parents. Uh and then historical um just keeping them there to archive so that you can go back and pull those down. The

087attendance submission was by adding attendance monitor. So in addition to emailing the office or phone calling the office uh through the parent portal and clicking on attendance monitor, a parent may submit uh an absence through power uh powers school parent portal. Uh that's been available since the start of the school year. uh historical report card access was the latest uh component uh by adding something called report creator. We did a soft launch with this for right now. So we didn't announce it but in conjunction with the report card that parents are used to seeing by logging into uh the parent portal and it being in the upper leftand corner down below if you click on reports um you'll see another version that looks very similar uh to the other report card. uh we're just making

088sure that it it looks proper and getting any feedback from parents so we can make adjustments. But it is available right now. That will become the new report card. Uh the nice part about that two there's two parts to it. One is that we will be able to archive these report cards whereas before it was just a a web page view that just changed every time. So these will be archived and just and will be there. Uh so you could download it as a PDF, print it or go back to to grab a previous one. And the other is digital signatures. So uh we didn't turn this on right now as we're just soft launching the report card, but to be able to capture digital signatures to make sure that our parents have received it.

089So maybe that's a future KPI for the purpose of go for but that functionality is there. Second bullet point, organize and categorize videos on the district you YouTube channel. This has been completed. So, we organized uh our playlists. Um board meetings are now available in playlists based on school year as well as some other categories. We added some imagery, some links, updated some information. And if you take a look at that, it's a much cleaner look and easier to find the videos that that you or other parents may be seeing. The third bullet point is ongoing. So, this is on pause for uh now and will be revisited this upcoming year. Uh one thing as we began the process of exploring a incoming fifth and seventh grade um open house for students is that our

090needs at Highest as well as the junior high may be different. So we do have some events highest hangouts, um some tours that occur at Highest as that our parents are um transitioning from the elementary school to the next big school. So that has led to some events. Uh but it may need to look a little bit different. Um and we need a little more time to explore what that would be or at least for the junior high. So both High Crust and Junior High, we're going to continue to look at that next year. And the final one, host parent events, uh regarding the benefits of free play. This has been completed. So, we held our let's play events at all four elementary schools as well as Highest this past fall in conjunction with the

091Alliance for Early Childhood um and a variety of different uh community uh organizations across Wilmet in the area. Those were pretty wellreceived um to the point where maybe for one of our parent or two for our parent events next school year, maybe we'll do it again. Maybe not at every school, but um just host one or two for the district. And then we also had a free play author uh Jesse Ilhart that did a parent event uh from Vocal and uh she's also uh she was well received and uh I'd be remiss not to mention uh that great report from CRC that uh led to a lot of this work and our thoughtful integration of uh trying to think about where free play can fit into our schools recess and beyond. So, and then I'm

092going to turn it over to Kelly Jackson for KPI. This is just one of the areas that we've been monitoring. Um, this year we continued to monitor the positive experience for um parents and students with the sixth to seventh grade transition. And you can see there um we increased in both areas. So, that was really exciting for us. We're on the right track. All right. Goal five is stewardship of resources. All right. Here's our KPIs. We had three outcome indicators and we've also had three strategy indicators uh recently. So, here's our update. Um, District 39 for over 20 years now has earned the financial recognition on the fiscal year 24 financial statement audit. It's the highest designation that uh any school district, the public school district in Illinois can earn. For fiscal year 24, the

093final fund balance for the operating funds was 52.4% um over the 40% target that we set for each year. And the board has also approved the construction projects for the summer of 25 which uh got go got going on this past Saturday which is the first floor air conditioning renovations at junior high. Action stuff related to scheding. You meet daily passing periods of both schools. We adjusted the start just slightly to accommodate that and looking at the implementation of adjustment. And here's our graphic for goal five, 52.4% um for fiscal year 24. And we're happy to answer any questions. All of those screenshots you can find on our strategic plan dashboard. We just wanted to make sure that the one was highlighted specific to the goal. So we invite you to visit our website, a

094look at our going to answer questions. Thank you very much. I just um I guess I have one one question, one comment. Um first just a comment on the end of your update. I just wanted to thank you for the summary of when all of this work was discussed and presented because some of it was so current. You know, I know we talked about the spring assessment during the committee of the whole I think it was last week. So, um, but going through this information, it was great to be able to reference back to those discussions and those presentations throughout the year. So, thanks for putting that together. It was a great resource. Um, and then I'll just mention about the DESAT, which has been just an excellent way to really tap into and utilize

095a crosssection of stakeholders across the community. And you had mentioned we have um I think some of our team members rolling off this year and there will be recruitment going forward for anyone who is listening or interested. Could you guys speak a little bit to what that recruitment process will look like? There's an application um where an email communication will go out to the community. I believe it already um actually has one or no it's gone out yet um but it will with the specific dates and the the team meets a couple times a year primarily over Zoom but occasionally in person as well. Um, and it's it's a great team to be part of and we will be seeking some additional parents as well as um teachers and staff members to serve for next

096year as well. So, look for that application. It's a super easy application to fill out and we just really in reviewing those um who might be interested in serving, we're looking for a cross-section of our community, um people with varying experiences and also representing each kind of neighborhood of our district. Yeah, you're welcome. Great, Mrs. Bless. Um, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody for all of their hard work. Um, I have been part of many organizations that have had strategic plans and they have never been executed quite as faithfully as they have here. So, I really appreciate that where we can really see every step and, you know, where we are and um, I just appreciate that. So, thank you, Miss Downer. Um, building off of that, um, so I'll get to

097more of why I've been particularly reflective and kind of thinking a lot about, you know, history, um, when I get to the good and welfare part of the meeting or we get to the good and welfare part of the meeting. So, more on that later. But as I was reading this in prepar preparation for the board meeting, I I was, you know, impressed with all of the micro pieces of information, but I started thinking more on a macro level. And as far as like strategic planning process in the district goes. So I ran for the board more than six years ago. I had watched eight eight years of board meetings before I ran and it was not done like this before. I'm sitting in Lisa's Lisa's old seats. I feel like I'm channeling Lisa when

098she used to say we didn't I know I really am and I I think I'm serving on her former committees as well like to it like yeah anyway but you know we we really didn't have the strategic plan the way that we did that we do now and um I think you know I was thinking about like this one we're doing now is we're like you know closer to the end than we are to the beginning of it. We only have one year left in the home stretch and I'm just thankful for the amount of work that everybody's doing to um to complete those goals. It was really edifying to look through the list and see all the completed and the and the ones that are ongoing, you know, that you're working on. I trust

099the process that you're using to make things better and to engage, empower, and inspire the students. And, you know, I think you're also very vulnerable in the data that you're showing. And there's some of them, you know, we're not meeting the goals yet, but I trust the process that we're we're on our way. I mean, I just think of as one micro example, the clubs at the junior high in Highest to try to increase that sense of belonging. I mean, I was like I I don't want to tell my college son that there's a sports analytics club at the junior high or at the whatever because he was like, "Oh, you know, whatever." Anyway, I mean, anyway, so I just really appreciate the hard work that everybody's doing to um to keep this process um

100going towards engaging and empowering and inspiring students. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? I'll add one more thing and it's it really is just kind of a look back. Um, as well, Erin, I think that when we started this planning process four years ago, we weren't quite sure exactly what this was going to look like and how it was going to unfold. And um I'm really proud of the work that has been accomplished um and the fact that we were able to accomplish so much coming out of a really tumultuous time um and building a new system of monitoring reporting as we were kind of flying the plane. Um Katie has helped tremendously with that. So I'd like to acknowledge um Katie for her leadership in that regard. she

101has kept us moving when sometimes there was like the daily operational stuff that can distract us. Um Katie kept our eye on that kind of end goal and helped us to remain organized and focused to get there. So thank you Katie for your leadership in that. Hey I think we're moving on to the state bullying report. Absolutely. Um, this is an annual report that the state requires of us and, uh, we're so fortunate to have Dr. Swanson to monitor this for us and report on it annually. So, yes, um, every year we are required to report on the number of instances of alleged bullying and and investigations that we did. And I want to just reiterate that all of our our administrators take reports of bullying extremely seriously. Everything is investigated. Many of the situations

102do not rise to what the state definition of bullying is, but everything is is investigated and we address all of the instances. Um the goal for our our administrators and our teachers is to really teach our children what they how to behave to help them navigate social interactions. So we do have a lot of um restorative opportunities. We have a lot of research papers children do if they've engaged in behavior that is unkind or hurtful to others. Um we do um at times use suspension or other discipline techniques if that is required. But the whole goal is for our students to learn how to engage with one another in an appropriate way and to be kind and respectful to one another. Um we also do a lot in terms of our proactive supports. So, as

103uh Kelly talked earlier about our social emotional curriculum, we have Wayfinder at the 5'8 level and we have everyday speech at the K preschool through fourth grade level. We use those as proactive teaching tools. We monitor how our students are feeling in the areas of belonging as well as bullying as part of our uh the MESH and our CSCI reports. Um, we have identified that we need continued work on helping our students be upstanders and to really address teasing. There's a there is teasing. These are children. They are learning how to interact with one another and we are continuing to address those areas with our students. Um, this year we end we did 29 bullying investigations and that involves really interviewing a variety of different people uh in order to make a determination about whether

104the situation was bullying or not. We had one that was founded, but again that doesn't mean that there weren't consequences as well as uh different ways of teaching our students for the other 28 in which we did investigations. And that doesn't even doesn't even count all of the number of situations that are addressed on a daily basis. uh we are working with children who are learning to engage with one another to interact proactively and oftentimes don't have the greatest models in political discourse that they see these days. So um we spend a lot of time teaching our children how to interact with one another appropriately. Does anybody have any questions? I was I was just wondering could you explain sort of some some of the numbers related to reporting um like I saw that I

105think it was called safe to help that's how that's how the reporting is made or like can a kid just go to a teacher and say a kid can abs a a student can absolutely go to a teacher and say there's bullying we have teachers that sometimes report we have parents who report safe to health is on all of their devices and is you want to talk just very briefly safe to help Illinois is statewide tip line one of the actually wonderful things the state of Illinois has which nobody's heard of. And it's available to any public and private school. And there's a text code, there's an email, there's a chat, and there's an app that we were part of pilot uh district to help develop and give feedback on, but it's on iPads third

106grade and up. So, a ch a student can open that up and make a report. It goes to at least five of us here in the district, and we respond. And that could be during the day. And we've had some severe reports, not bullying, but others that have come through after hours and on occasion it's gone straight to the Wulmap police department for a well-being check. So the point being is in addition to adults that they can trust. In addition to the WJ the Hawks form and the the Wolves form, they have Safe to Health Illinois, they have multiple channels to get help. Yes. And is that a is that a child that's having trouble? they're reporting it for themselves or if you see someone that's having trouble, do you report it that way as

107well? It can be anything and it could it can be related to bullying. It can be related to um mental health concerns for themselves or for other people. It it we get a wide variety of reports. So then my second question is I see that there were 29 reports this year and only 17 last year. Is that um do you think that that's because there's been more training or education for the kids for how to report or what to report? I mean I mean there's only one founded. Last year there were you know 17 reports and seven were founded. This year right I do think that our students are our students and parents are more um they're quicker to report when there are concerns either on behalf of themselves or their peers. Uh and there

108are absolutely do investigations. Again, not everything. There are lots of things that are called bullying that with a a simple conversation with a child or with a parent, it's clear that it's a social conflict. It's not really So, we don't do a full bullying bullying investigation. But I think that there is a lot more reporting of it. Um, and I'm I'm glad to say that we're lower, but that doesn't mean that next year there couldn't be some other It's kind of an up and down thing dependent on what the different groups of students are and who's with one another. Okay. Thank you. That's really helpful. I guess one um question to add to that is where I saw a real change was in the elementary schools. Again, they weren't founded, but they were reported and

109we hadn't really seen that in the elementary schools previously. So it just made me think are we is that reflective of seeing more social conflict in the elementary schools or is it just you know awareness around reporting this type of conflict? I think it's more awareness around reporting. I think that there have traditionally been lots of things that aren't necessarily identified as potential bullying in the past and I think that that our teachers, our children, and our parents are all a little bit more alert to what could be bullying and I think that we are all taking it very seriously. Thank you. Um, we have up next then, if there aren't any more questions on that topic, we have the two tenative budgets that uh, Corey has reviewed with the board already. And I'll let

110you give a quick overview and answer any questions that the board might have. Okay. So our uh annual budget process particularly on the D39 side of it is involves multiple steps each year. Uh so tonight we're kind of in our second step. You know last month we did a more detailed review where we looked at some very specific larger items or impactful items on the budget at the May committee of the whole tonight because we're asking the board to take action which is approving the the tenative budget and then also setting that public hearing date. Um we're going to highlight some of the some of the higher level items uh during this presentation August. Then when we come back and get ready to gear up for a new school year, the board reviews any changes

111and then they vote at the August board of education meeting to to approve the budget. All right. So the first area we want to look at is our capital projects fund. This is where we spend our large usually um seven figure you know one to say three or4 million dollar summer projects like we just started at the junior high. Um so for this budget we have the at the junior high we have the first floor AC renovations and then um slated for next summer is the window replacement project plus some potential alternates that uh depending upon how bidding goes we could we could add into the fold our debt service fund. Um the the function of that fund is to make principal and interest payments on our outstanding bond issues. Uh there are currently two

112uh bond issues that are repaid from the tax levy and then there are two debt certificate issuances which are paid from operating funds. Um those total 3 point 3.2 million for next year. the down on the bottom of this slide, we see the million-doll transfer from operation to maintenance to the debt service. That is representative of the um transfer of operating funds to cover principal and interest payments. Then the 3.4 is to cover the capital projects that we do during the summer. Okay, so those previous two slides, if you look at the bottom of this one, those were two of our main non-operating funds. They have very specific purposes. And the things that go in and out of those funds are are not at the core of our operations and the core of our financial

113discussions regularly here at board and committee of the whole meetings. We do have six funds that comprise the operating funds and I'll just describe a little bit of what's in each one of them. the educational fund that's the majority of the activity. Uh that's our teaching st that's our inbuilding teaching staff that are in the classroom our front office staff uh food service. So a lot of any educational programs all the expenses related to that those are in there. We have some also some operational uh optional uh programs such as our lunch program and our and some of our extracurriculars where there's a fee associated with it where not every student is participating and and on some level the board is subsidizing um a portion of of those operations. Then we have the operations and

114maintenance fund. uh main things that are being spent out of that fund, maintenance and custodial uh staffing. We also have all of our utilities, water, electricity, natural gas. And then we also do some smaller uh capital projects uh you know very that don't necessarily require the expertise of an architectural team or our engineers. Those are those are paid out of there. Then we have the transportation fund. uh the transportation fund. Um two primary types of uh expenditures. We have our regular transportation and then we have our special ed. The special ed transportation is the students who qualify and then the district is required to uh transport them whether that's locally um from their from their home residence to one of our buildings or it could be to an outplaced facility. those uh transportation expenditures in

115the following um fiscal year. Uh they've historically been reimbursed uh by the state of Illinois. Um currently we're looking at about a 55 to 60% reimbursement. Um it used to be 80%. The other the other uh program that's within that within that fund is our regular transportation program. One of the things that makes that maybe a little unique compared to many of the other school districts in Illinois is that it's in D39, that's an optional program. We're we're not required or obligated to provide regular uh transportation services and the board as the board has decided to offer this program um it is offset by two by by a couple of things. The first thing is a very very small um reimbursement from the state Illinois State Board of Education. This program costs roughly a million

116dollars a year. We get about four or 5,000 in reimbursement from Isby um because of our op because of the program is optional. It's not required. The majority of it is uh funded through user through user fees. And while the last handful of years the the transportation industry has seen um some pretty significant increases in operational cost um that has also coincided with increased in our our per student charge which has now exceeded um just over a thousand round trip for a school year. And so we do recognize that that is um that is you know it has risen quickly. The other side to that is um the board is subsidizing roughly 19 to 20% um for the upcoming for the upcoming school year. So and that is with roughly about 30% of our student

117population using that service. You have the IMRF or Illinois municipal retirement fund. There's three expenditures that flow through there. uh the employee employer expense for IMRF eligible employees and then social security and uh Medicare expenditures. Working cash is a fund um as it implies it's a place for school districts to have some working cash reserves that can be loaned from the working cash fund to other funds. It does not have any annual expenditures. And then the tort fund is where we pay our liability insurance premiums for D39. And then also our workers comp annual workers comp policy. The operating funds at a at a high level. We're looking at just over 80 million in revenues, 78 for expenditures. So I've bolded the the projected surplus. Um, that's the first kind of line item that I

118look at when once I pull together budget information, we're looking at 1.77 for that surplus. But then we consider, okay, what are we transferring out or more of like one sometimes one-time uses on the construction side? And then with our debt certificates, um, that's a more annual use, but we've only we usually commit about 10 years at a time to those to those debt certificates. So that puts us at a plan deficit of 2.69. 69 million for for fiscal year 26. And when we put it all together, um we're still above our 40% target of and we're coming in at 41.86% for next year. This graph shows uh three years of actual the current year that we're we're about to end and then next year um revenues versus expenditures for the operating funds. Um here

119is a graph that when we look back we can see where we were with our operating fund balance um that we had some years we were up around 70. Then we had some planned large capital expenditures and initiatives that we were able to to undertake and complete. And now for the last few years, we're in that low 50% range, approaching potentially upper upper 40s and then depending upon how things shake out as we wind down 20 fiscal year 25 and into fiscal year 26 um looking at something in the in the 40%. So as it relates to the D39 budget, that is the end of the presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions questions. I know we're all pretty familiar with it at this point. We've gone through it quite quite a few times.

120So, thank you very much for that. Erin, just one quick comment. You're talking about large capital expenditures. It made me very happy to see first floor air conditioning at the junior high as part of that presentation because that's that's the end of it, right? I mean, every classroom will be air conditioned by the end of the summer, right? Yep. That's the last say 12 or 13 uh classrooms with within the district. And um unlike some of the prior years where we had some significant delays, the equipment's been on been in storage for several months now. So um the expectation is that when school and staff start to arrive in August that the entire building will be ready to go. Thank you. That is great. We won't be looking for chillers around the remember when that

121was the issue for a couple years there. Um this is great. Thank you. Okay. All right. So, the next several items are are mine as well. Um, so district 39 is a member of Wixie with Avoka School District. Um, similar to our D39 budget, we're asking the board to approve this tenative budget. It's 234,000 in revenue and expenditures in the fiscal year 26 budget, but also to set that public hearing for that August evening board meeting date. um similar similar process on to the D39 budget, although this budget is much smaller and much simpler with just very few transactions each fiscal year. Okay. All right. So then the next several next few items are kind of procedural in nature and that we do them every every June. Um, I serve as the D39 treasurer and

122as such, uh, the district is required to have a treasurer's bond and the board annually approves that treasurer's bond. I believe we've set it at 5.5 million for next year. Then we have um a July accounts payable invoices resolution. We undertake this uh step each month throughout the year. We have a board meeting where we report any checks that the district has written um to the board from the prior meeting. We have the only month we don't have a scheduled meeting is the month of July. We ask the board to pass a resolution allows us to um continue to make payments throughout the summer and then we report everything that occurred in that two plus month window at our August board meeting. the budget resol budget resolutions line item. Two items in there. One is

123one is required. Um as I previously noted, we annually we transfer money from our operations and maintenance fund to our capital projects fund for those large construction projects. Uh annually we we ask the board to pass the resolution to give us authority to do that even though we we have to do it. Um then the other item is more precautionary and a historical practice here is we're asking for the board to approve a resolution to authorize a loan from the educational fund to the operations and maintenance fund. Should that fund um at any point next year go negative and we would need to temporarily loan money, that could happen because that fund um transfers money to the capital projects. Those are large expenditures. They skew towards the beginning of the year to cover um the

124vast majority of the expenditures from this summer's construction project. If we were to have significant delays in the um second installment property taxes, there there could be a need. Um while there has been rumors of a delay this this upcoming summer with that second installment, um I'm hopeful that it's not so late that we would need to actually enact that loan. but it is something that we have we've had in the past. Um, any questions about any of those resolutions before I talk about this special ed contract? Okay. All right. So, tonight we're recommending that the board approve a three-year contract extension with Northshore Transit for Special Education Transportation Services. Um, the three-year contract would see um our our fees increase uh four and a half% 4.25 25 and then four for the last year

125or um CPI for that year if higher. Um for reference the last two renewal years that we've had with Northshore um as I mentioned the operational cost for certain things coming out of CO have been quite high. Um Northshore renewal two years ago for special ed was 10 and a half% last year it was seven. So we have uh seen things start to normalize on both the regular and special ed side. So the recommendation is for us to approve that contract with them. They've provide quality service and and been there for us day in day out. Um does anyone have any questions related to that agenda item? Okay. Then the last item is the Harper playground donation agreement. Um each time that we've been fortunate to have one of our uh PTAs raise enough money

126to either enhance or replace a PR playground, we've formalized that donation with an agreement between the PTA and the board of education. Um it's really just a recognition that the PTA does agree that they are donating it to D39 that it becomes D39 um property upon completion since the direct um contractual relationship for the project is between the the installer and the Harvard PTA. This is similar to ones that we have done previously at other elementary schools. That's all I have for Thank you. that will uh lead to a very busy consent agenda this evening. Thank you very much. Um okay, we are moving on to board policy review. Dr. Wacki has just a couple of quick updates. Um there were no real changes. There was some typos that were fixed from the first reading.

127Otherwise, it remains as as it was last. Any other comments, board members? Great. All right. This is the second opportunity for the audience to address the board this evening. Are there any audience members that would like to speak at this time? Please come up. If you could again state your name. I just have a quick question. um mentioned um that there was no freedom information act request but there was one sent to on June 4th at 9:23 a.m. I'm not sure what needs to be done now, but um there was so we don't typically respond during um public comments but um what we report is once they are responded to then it gets reported in the board uh meeting and so once that is responded to then it would be reported. Sorry. Sorry. Thanks. I

128just want to reiterate uh I know I went quick and I didn't even know I was going to be speaking on this until dinner time tonight, but I just think that the data I didn't have a chance and this is not the form to get into specifics, but I would challenge each of you to go to peer reviewed research not from 20 years ago. We're going down this path but recent research and it clearly shows that there's an inverse relationship between screen time and academic performance. The other thing I would challenge everybody to think about is when we talk about our the success of this district and you're measuring the success on a relative basis to national averages that have been dropping significantly. It should force everybody in here to think about that because we

129live in an absolute world not a relative. So I I would challenge each to think about whether it's NAP, whether it's perhaps go back 10 15 years ago and look at measurements of academic success on math and reading and yes we're doing better on a relative basis but 10 years ago or 15 years ago I was just looking at I was doing some research as I was sitting here and again the evidence is overwhelming. Ask yourself the question, why is it that the national again? I think there's somebody we're doing better. That's great. Thank you. I'm sorry that smoking gun I think is Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Okay. And just as a reminder, if you did talk earlier this evening, it's just one minute during a second. Just

130one question. Thank you. My name is Mary Wilington. Um I just do have one question uh regarding the strategic plan. Does it say anywhere in there that iPad or technology plays a huge role in teaching students? Thank you. Any other comments? All right. Um okay. At this point, we're going to move on with our consent agenda. Are there any items that the board would like pulled from the cons consent agenda this evening? All right, Mrs. Pathless, please proceed with the motions. All right. Um, I move to approve the personnel report dated June 9th, 2025. Uh, I move to approve as second and final reading of board of education policies 2 col260 uniform grievance procedure and 5 col20 workplace harassment prohibited. I move to approve the fisc year 2026 tenative budget as contained in this report

131for immediate public display. And further, I move to approve the publication of notice of a public hearing on the tenative budget to be held at 700 p.m. prior to commencing the regularly scheduled board of education meeting on Monday, August 25th, 2025. I move to approve the Wilmet Community Special Education Agreement Fiscar 2026 tenative budget as contained in this report for immediate public display. And further, I move to approve the announcement of a public hearing on the tenative budget to be held at 700 p.m. prior to commencing the regularly scheduled board of education meeting on Monday, August 25th, 2025. I move to approve the renewal of the state of Illinois school district treasurer bond in the amount of $5,500,000 for fiscal year 2026. I move to approve the attached resolutions authorizing accounting transfers from the operations

132and maintenance fund to the capital projects fund. And I move to approve the attached resolution authorizing an interfund loan from the educational fund to the operations and maintenance fund. I move to approve the attached resolutions authorizing accounting transfers from the operations and maintenance fund to the capital projects fund. And I move to approve the attached resolution authorizing an interfund loan from the educational fund to the operations and maintenance fund. I move to approve the special education transportation contract extension with Northshore Transit for three years covering the 2025 2026, the 2026 2027 and the 2027 2022 school years to provide special education transportation services. I move to approve a donation agreement between Harper Elementary School PTA and the Wilm Public Schools District D uh District 39 Board of Education. I move to approve the attached resolution

133authorizing payment for goods and services between now and the next board meeting scheduled for August 25th, 2025. I move to approve the accounts payable for bills listed between May 20th, 2025 and June 9th, 2025 in the following amounts. Educational Fund $222,1647 ON& and M fund $88,855.79 transportation $1,664.98 capital projects $43,318 tors uh $9,660.19 total all funds $365,515 $143. And I moved the manual checks issued between May 20th, 2025 and June 9th, 2025 in the following amounts. Educational fund $261,576.78. ON&M fund 52,427.88. Transportation $129,471.80. Capital projects $24,6840. Total all funds $468,16046. May I have a second? Second. The motion has been um moved and seconded. Would the clerk please call the role? Amy Paling? Yes. Katie Hilton? Yes. Judy Berlin? Yes. Annne Hart? Yes. Kristen Dcastro? Yes. Allison Papless. Yes. Aaron Stone. Yes. Motion carries. We

134will now move on to conference items. Is there any old business tonight? Is there any new business? I will just mention um for those who might still be in attendance because we did have um a lot of parents who were here and it was great to have the engagement. Um as we talk about our strategic plan and we think forward to um the action steps for next year, there's two elements I want to point out. One is that um annually we develop our action steps based on the goals that have been prescribed by the board and by our community in the last um strategic planning effort. Um and so we take feedback and um we design the work that we will um focus on next year based on the progress we've made so far and

135then kind of what those next steps might be. So as we think about some of the feedback we've received this evening and some of the work that's been accomplished in our report this evening um the administrative team will use that to begin to develop the action steps for next year. So, I know that sometimes there are um community members who want us to um make very quick changes in a district such as ours. Sometimes that can be difficult. Um but doing some research and investigating some of those um small steps towards progress uh do make a really big difference and so we appreciate the feedback that we've received this evening and I encourage everyone to stay tuned as we do some action planning for next year. The other thing I want to mention is that

136we are entering the final year of this five-year strategic plan. So, the place we were five years ago with regard to our vision and goals and the outcomes we were trying to achieve um might look different than they will when we go back out to our community in January of next year to hear what some of those priorities are now for the next three to five years. And so I would encourage everyone as you think about um and as you look forward to this next strategic planning process, there will be an opportunity for input from the broader community, from our teachers, from our administrators, from our parents, um from those who are within our community who maybe don't have children in our schools and um we hope that people will engage with us in that

137process because that does really help us to know what those priorities are and how best to plan for the future. So there's the short-term planning for next year and then there's the long-term planning which we're actually at a really key point in our district's kind of future planning as we look ahead toward um the next three to five year strategic plan that will be developed throughout next year and in particular um March uh sorry January through March of next year where we will really be looking for some of this feedback and input. So, um I just I know there was a lot of engagement and I thought this might be a nice time to just kind of give a big overview of kind of what that future planning looks like um from here forward. Thank

138you. All right. Um good and welfare. Amy, um I'll start off just by saying that Erin and I both went to the nutrier food pantry. We were all invited as elected officials and that was just a really great experience. Uh encourage you all to check out the incredible thoughtful resources that they have. That was a really great event. Excuse me. Okay. And then I just would like to add my um personal appreciation to Katie Lee. It's really hard to imagine coming back in August and not having to sit at this table. I can't really picture it. Um, as a board member, I just want to tell you how much it has meant to have your extensive expertise and uh, dedication to putting what's best for kids front and center. um and bringing in so many

139stakeholder voices in every conversation we've had and in my very little portion of your history, we have worked on some big things. So, I've sat with you on the COVID reopening team, the strategic planning, uh diversity and equity subcommittee, and um so many more. and the way you go about welcoming every voice being so patient with our many many questions. We don't understand the acronyms and the history and you just um normalize and explain what we need to know to help us make the best decisions uh in a way that is unparalleled. I also think that, you know, we were talking about the strategic plan so much tonight and you really have had such a large part in fostering a transparent culture and that is not always the case in any uh any organization and

140in schools. It's risky and vulnerable as Karen said to set really lofty goals and go after them with everything we have and put it out there for the whole community. Um, I think it is the best model for our students we could possibly ask for in addition to driving success for our students. So, I am going to miss your warmth and your help and your expertise and your impact will be felt in B39 for generations. I just don't want to go after Aaron. Nobody wants to go after Aaron. It's It's not a competition. I've said it before. No, it's like just because I want to soak in your words after you're done. Thank you. Um anyway, Katie, um I just wanted to add my um my heartfelt thank you um for your 33 years of

141service to D39. Um your tenure obviously has been magnificent and impressive and you've had a huge impact and we see that as the board every time, every meeting. um we see sort of the the things that you work on are sort of these big institutional curriculum and teaching changes. But what really struck me um last month when the reflections um celebration happened and they showed the video of your former students who um I I don't know how many of you saw that, but if you haven't, you should go and check it out. It's it's it's amazing. But what really struck me at that point was watching that video and um it's it's with a former student who's now an adult or almost an adult, right? I don't know. Four years old. She's an adult. Um

142who Katie recognized and went up to and helped and talked to on an I think an outdoor ed trip, right? Um Katie basically told um the girl, the now the woman, that she was resilient, that she was valued, and that you had her back. Um and it was that with that video that I think I really realized what makes you sorry teared up. that video I'm telling you um um what makes you great at your job obviously as a teacher was clear on that video but what makes you great at your job as an administrator is that you carry that with you right like who you care about are the students and um I just want to thank you on behalf of all the kids at D39 my kids too um you've made a huge

143impact and Um, and we just I just really appreciate it as a parent and as a member of the board, um, and just as a member of the community. So, thank you. Um, I have your back. I know you have my back and everyone else's back, but um, also I just wanted to just say, um, I hope you have a really restful and rewarding retirement that you have lots of late starts. You don't have to That one I can guarantee. Yeah, you don't have to, you know, listen to your alarm clock go off. Um, and I I hope that you have um mini sumo oranges in your future. I know we share that as our as our fruit of choice every single time. Yeah. Anyway, thank you very much, Katie. Thank you. No, really, we

144did not. Seriously. Okay, go ahead. Okay. So, based on Katie's impending retirement and a number of things that happened at the end of last week, I've been thinking a lot about endings. Hopefully, I can say this without crying. So, graduation on Thursday um and just their transition to New Trier or Loyola or wherever they're going and then my school year that where I teach ended on Tuesday. So, Summer Erand has the ability to go run a whole ton of errands in the morning, and I was making the rounds on Friday, which was the last day of school, and I was on my way to Milan's, and I saw a boy in my old neighborhood walking to McKenzie carrying a gift bag. So, I'm thinking he's giving something to his teacher because it's the last day

145of school and he is going to present his teacher with some sort of gift. And I'm like, wonder what's in the bag. Anyway, and then Dr. Kremcoli sent us in the communication on Friday the um the 10 videos for the trip down memory lane for all of the High Crest farewells that the creative arts teachers do. The first one I realized was my daughter's sixth grade year. So, she would have been transitioning out of High Crest that year. She's finishing her junior year in she just finished her junior year in college. That was Katie. That was Kelly Jackson's first year at Highest was her her finishing that year. Watching those videos was a hoot and a holler. I mean like in one of them Chamil Tillery who used to be Chamil Dillard who was our

146sixth grade Glad is in one of them holding the microphone and she is now about to replace Dr. Treyos at Nutrier because she's been working at Nutrier since she left us and now he's going to be the superintendent because Paul Sally's retiring and all these people are like ending things and moving on to other things and it's it's fantastic. Um, so that gets me to Katie and as she winds down her career and enjoys her ending in district 39, your work on behalf of children in so many different ways has been thoughtful and impactful. What you have done matters. Don't ever forget it. Your time here might be ending, but your impact is not. It will endure, like Amy said, for generations. So, thank you so much. Thank you. I'll just quickly add to that.

147Um but I do have to say that I watched the videos and I also um was not I was unfortunately was not able to attend reflections this year but I watched a video um of reflections also and there's a lot of talent musical talent um you know I think it was um maybe a sound of music uh remake from reflections. Um so just a lot of talent um all around in this district that I wasn't aware of. Um, okay. So, Katie, it's bittersweet. We're so excited for you in this next chapter and to see what um where this leads, but you will be missed um dearly. And I just wanted to say that I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to work with you in your last four of your 33-year long run here at

148District 39. And you obviously have so much knowledge as both a teacher and an administrator that you bring to the table all of the time. But I wanted to just let you know that I appreciate your willingness to patiently educate and to share your knowledge and perspective. Um, you always have a very calm, positive way of explaining the material. Um, and providing background and answering questions and sometimes answering questions that you have already provided the answers to in a just a very friendly, positive way. um and you're just a very steady source of knowledge and commit and continued commitment to this district um and commitment to improvement. Um, and then I just also wanted to mention um your ability to collaborate and really create a collaborative environment whether it's with teachers that you are consistently

149championing championing for or on the CRC or the DSA any other time or in board meetings. You're engaged, you're supportive, you're always willing to help um and to share your time and your expertise. Thank you. So, um, as stated, your impact will continue to be valued for many, many years and that will start with next fall as students walk through the doors of full day kindergarten. So, thank you very much and good luck. Thank you so much. That's great. I think we have a couple more people want to speak. I just want to give you some flowers on behalf of Okay. Hi, Katie. Hi. Cindy Anderson, principal of Ramona, and Becky Litman, School of Central. We're representing all of the principles. So, good evening. It's both an honor and a privilege for us to stand

150before you tonight on behalf of all of the principles as we celebrate the remarkable career of our dear friend, trusted colleague, and mentor Katie Lee as she embarks on her welldeserved retirement after a lifetime of service to District 39. Ah, Katie, for those of us lucky enough to have worked alongside you over the years, your impact has been profound and lasting. Cindy and I have had the joy of working with you at Highest Middle School back when the three of us were still navigating classrooms before stepping into leadership roles. Even then, your passion for education and your incredible insight stood out. From those early days to your role as curriculum director, your leadership has been nothing short of exceptional. You bring brilliance to every conversation, yet always lead with warmth and humor, reminding us to

151laugh, even during the most challenging times. Your door is always open and your phone always answered. You've been a steady presence, someone we've relied on to think through the messy, the complex, and the uncertain. Your ability to find the perfect fit for our district is a gift, and your legacy is woven into the fabric of our schools through every teacher you've helped bring on board. Your mentorship has guided us through curriculum shifts, policy changes, and those countless moments when we needed someone to help us see the path forward. You have always shown up with clarity, compassion, and grace. Katie, your dedication to District 39 has shaped not only what our students learn, but how they learn. You've poured your heart into this work, always asking what's best for kids. And the answer has often been

152found in your steady hand and wise counsel. So tonight, on behalf of all the principles, the teachers you've empowered, and the students whose lives you've quietly and powerfully transformed, thank you. Thank you for your leadership, your laughter, your vision, and your friendship. You've made district 39 better in every possible way. Congratulations, Katie. Okay. Um, any other good and welfare? I don't think anyone dares to go after that. Um, thank you again, Katie, so very much. the book. Um, we will now or now may I have a motion to adjourn to executive session to discuss specific personnel, special education, individual student matters, and collective negotiations. I move to adjourn to executive session to discuss specific personnel, special education, individual student matters, and collective negotiations. May I have a second? Second. Motion having been made and seconded.

153Will the clerk please call the role? Kristen Castro, yes. Alison Pilis, yes. Amy Paling, yes. Katie Hilton, yes. Judy Berlin, yes. And Hart, yes. Aaron Stone. Yes.