hey good evening everyone i'm going to recall the March 24th 2025 board meeting to order in just a second while we sort out some technical difficulties
testing good okay all right again I'm going to call the March 24th Board of Education meeting back to order uh before we begin uh unfortunately Dr johnson cannot be here this evening due to illness so stepping in in her place is Dr williams and with that if I could
have everybody stand as they are able to say the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the which stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all
thank you everyone the first item on our agenda is accent on achievement dr williams thank you President Owens tonight for our accent on achievement we have our golden apple finalist and as part of the board of education's accent on achievement the board of education
recognizes a teacher who has been recognized in the prestigious group of 2025 golden apple finalist matt Urbach is a precision manufacturing teacher at South Elgen High School and he has been recognized for his role in building a
stronger better educated society miss Schwarz Secretary Pro Tim will present his acknowledgement good evening i'm going to read what's on the certificate certificate of achievement the board of education of school district U46 hereby recognizes
Matt Bach of South Elgen High School for receiving the 2025 Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching presented this 24th day of March 2025 our next action on achievement is for the Illinois State Board of Education's
Those Who Excel Award as part of the board of education's accent on achievement the board of education recognized recognizes the following youth U46 staff members who will be recognized at the Illinois State Board of Education those who excel
banquet in May of 2025 and I believe everybody is here tonight so I will read the names award of excellence to Kimberly Blazic at Centennial Elementary School jill Govac at East View Middle
School and for the award of M meritorious service we have Angela Ganan at East View and we have Paul Kowalsen at Streamwood High School and we also have Miss Lela
Maestro Deputy Superintendent of Instruction for the award of special recognition we have Patricia Briones from Project Access we also have Raphael Martinez Ortiz from Dream Academy next up is Jose Mora from South
Elgen High School and last but not least certainly Angela Rojas from Independent Center and now board vice president Miss Thomas and Miss Schwarz Secretary Pro Tim they've already presented the award so I should have said that early that's
okay why don't I Can I borrow this for a second so I can read it i'll read it so everyone can see um the board of education of school district U46 hereby recognizes and on the person's name of and then their school for receiving those who excel award of excellence by the Illinois State Board of Education
presented this 24th day of March 2025 and it's signed by our board president and Dr johnson our superintendent so very exciting for everyone congratulations does anyone want to say anything tell us a little bit i am a teacher i am allowed to call on
people randomly all right a little bit closer uhoh good job hey come on i don't care if they hear what I say i mean easy quick enough for us no we should do this
okay thank you for bearing with us while we let people move out of the room uh the next item on the agenda is strategic plan report dr williams thank you board president Owens um our first strategic plan report for tonight is on climate
and culture and Mark Lenola director of climate and culture will present to the board of education an update hello good evening thank you for having me here again my name is Mark Canella i am the coordinator for culture and climate here with a culture and climate
update in our agenda that I've created I have a proactive measures of in universal support uh discussing targeted supportive measures crisis response and intensive measures as well as other updates from my office uh but just uh
let you know on the right there is our culture and climate mission statement and that is that the U46 department of climate and culture our culture and climate is committed to supporting our students staff and parents in realizing our vision through providing professional development collaborative partnerships and ongoing conversations
until all of our systems measurably work for all of our students our team has grown over the years currently we have seven total searchs which is one per network and having absorbed the tactical assessment team as well this year which consists of
three people a psychologist a social worker and a crosscat teacher and we also have a vacancy for a behavior specialist that we're going to be also looking for for next year as the department of culture and climate we take proactive measures and
provide district-wide supports on topics listed here but especially we really f keen in and focus on chronic absenteeism conditions walks bullying prevention and our communities of practice which we have with our assistant principles of culture and
climate quarterly sers also provide network supports aligned to network and school conditions goals which include bullying prevention and investigations supports for victims brief counseling during a crisis and assist schools with verbal deescalation
and crisis team practice and supports and here the goal is to ensure that each staff member receives instruction in verbal deescalation techniques with a student that's in crisis so this is called CPI 101 and CPI 101 focuses on verbal deescalation
techniques cpi standing for crisis prevention institute uh so right now currently 100% of our primary staff as well as 100% of our secondary staff are trained in verbal deescalation techniques for the school year of 24 and
25 each year instructors receive eight hours of crisis team training in compliance with ISBY regulations cpi 2011 consists of role deescalation techniques and training as well as practice and training in
physical disengagements restraints time uh restraint training excuse me timeouts and isolated timeouts from here schools create a crisis team that are certified in these trainings a crisis team usually comprises of six to 10 um licensed uh
certified uh teachers or administrators uh that consists of a crisis team that are certified in deescalation techniques and physical restraints we also are going to be adding CPI autism for next year which is um which adds to an extra layer for students with special needs we will have
five instructors in the district that will train teachers and administrators in our buildings that consist of IOP classrooms with this additional training as crisis teams are trained they also meet monthly some departments are in need for a refresher for next
year which also include the transportation department plan operations and our safety departments as well uh restorative practices is another approach in building a positive school culture by strengthening relationships and repairing harm cpi helps staff
manage crisis effectively while restorative practices works to prevent to prevent crisis by fostering a culture of respect and responsibility when a student exhibits challenging behavior cpi strategies can help deescalate the situation and
restorative practices can be used afterward to address harm rebuild relationships and support behavior change this is in an effort to reduce recidivism both approaches emphasize dignity respect and safety ensuring that students are supported rather than just
punished by integrating CPI and restorative practices schools can create an environment where staff feel equipped to handle challenges and students learn to grow from their experiences in a safe and supportive way at the beginning of the year we only had two trained um
restorative practices trainers um in the district however as of today we actually have 13 restorative practice trainers in the district that are trained to give this training which are a mix of CS and secondary staff our goal for the next
year and for the next couple years is also to help train and have trainers in every building and have train staff trained at the elementary levels as well another way to assess conditions and learning goals is through our conditions walks each sir participates
in the conditions walks for their assigned network and focus on the questions on which will be on the following slide as you can see there has been growth among both the classroom and school level from August of 2024 up to now sers continue to provide coaching to
staff at their buildings in regards to the conditions in the classroom uh and school and work collaboratively collaboratively with each executive director on conditions goals as you can see um at the bottom there each
participated in three separate conditions walks for each of their schools and each of their network the first walk was a period at the beginning of September their second walk was at the beginning of mid- November and then finally we just completed it in midFebruary and CERS usually work with
the executive directors and other staff in regards to this work and these are the questions that CERS focus on in terms of conditions goals and as you can see again there have been an increase among each both the classroom and uh
school level questions this year as well our sers have been working with our absent our absence committee uh we have seen a reduction in our chronic absenteeism rate and an increase in our overall attendance rate as a district so as you can see last
year we've had a 45 46.5% chronic absenteeism rate uh compared to this year which is reduced to 34.9% and in that following chart the blue line being this year and the orange line being from last year last school
year you can see that there's been a 1 to 2% increase each month in regards to attendance uh we did see a decline in January and February due to other factors that were outside of our control such as inclement weather illness and newfound fears however as of March 20th
our attendance rate as a district uh has increased back to 89.9% so that little blue line should be above the yellow line as of today this slide illustrates the number of bullying reports that the culture and climate office have received this year
compared to last year around this time um again our service received these reports help investigate cases we provide resources to the victims and the buildings in regard to bullying cases uh this table shows that there has been a decrease of bullying reports that have
come across the office of culture and climate from 90 which was last year to 66 of this year and here you can see how many cases have been unfounded and founded as and also um separated by
network this slide shows our enrollments versus behavior referrals for each ethnicity 6.5% of our African-American or black students enrolled in U46 make up 14.6% of our behavior referrals 58.6% of our Hispanic and
Latino students enrolled in U46 make up 60.5% of our behavior referrals from August to March of 2024 March 20th of 2024 1,09 individual students across all grade levels and demographics have
received an out of school suspension at least once out of school suspensions currently make up 3% of all of our behavior resolutions we continue to work as a district on this disproportionality for example we have seen a decrease in disport disort excuse me
disproportionality in the Larkin network uh show have used strategies associated with restorative practices research shows that restorative practices reduces disproportionality and we look to bring this districtwide we also provide other
resources from Panorama and continue to work with the assistant principles on developing alternative methods to suspensions this next slide shows the percentage of students with one referral by subgroup and as we see here 50.1% of our black and African-American students
have received at least one behavior referral this year as we see in this chart freshman and sophomore students have had the most incidents that require an out of school suspension followed by juniors for this year middle school students seventh and
eighth graders have shown a decrease of obstacle suspensions over the past three school years we will continue to see the success among the middle schools with the addition of advisory and continue certain network supports which include student observations of behaviors this slide shows out of school
suspension incidents among ethnicities most of these students are repeat offenders with multiple incidents again one way to attempt to decrease in recetivism is through restorative practice training and CPI strategies in addition to this my office also
conducts quarterly communities of practice and professional learning among the assistant principles of culture and climate both at the elementary and secondary levels listed are topics and trainings that we have provided over the school year thus far this is used to understand
functions of behavior analyze data by network and develop alternatives to suspensions among other trainings that we provide in addition this year we've begun work with our student success advocates or SSAs to support students
experiencing challenges with attendance behavior and academics in partnership with the office of diversity and equity and inclusion we have worked throughout this year or the year in guiding SSAs on how to mentor create goals and check in with targeted students in order to
promote their success through the supervision of the deans or assistant principles of culture and climate this work is in addition to their daily supervision in the buildings as well as building relationships and fostering a positive school environment as of today
we have a total of 54 SSAs in the district 25 at the high school level 23 at the middle school level and six at the elementary school level which is based on title funding and this next slide shows throughout this year the trainings that
we've provided with SSAs um the office of culture and climate and diversity equity and inclusion we meet and continue to meet with SSAs during professional learning days and again this slide just shows a a snippet of the
topics that we discuss and we plan on carrying out for and improving for next year our threat assessment team or TAD is a multi multidisciplinary team who assess and respond to safety concerns and potential threats of violence ht
works proactively to prevent violence self harm and crisis situations while ensuring that students receive the necessary supports and interventions they review reports of concerning behaviors threats or patterns of potential risks collaborate with
administrators SRO's counselors and mental health professionals to assess and manage threats conduct structured evaluations of students who display threatening behaviors using research-based assessment tools provide families with mental health services ensure students
staff and families are trained in recognizing warning signs and responding to potential threats and finally align practices with Illinois school code to ensure legal and procedural adherence in handling school threats for students requiring intensive
intervention TAT works with Bloom Academy which is a 45day temporary alternative placement diagnostic program to provide academic and behavior support before reintegration into or returning to their home schools this slide shows the data as of February of the
enrollment of Bloom Academy in the next following weeks more students will be transitioning back to their home schools tad also meets with Bloom and homeschool representatives every week to provide updates of students this is also the first year
school teams have been able to use the alternative path pathway to Bloom packet to illustrate all the interventions used for students that have been exhausted as part of our crisis response our office continues to partner and recommend mental health professionals
and outside agencies to provide therapy or counseling for students and families before during and after a crisis shown are groups that we currently work with to provide supports and resources to the families aside from Bloom listed are other alternative education settings to
support students who benefit from nontra traditional learning environments such as dream academy which encompasses 14 different programs our central schools program for students eligible for special education services and finally a buzzman which provides education in lie
for expulsions this next slide shown here is our restraint and timeout data through the past four years the chart shows the number of students who have experienced one or more physical restraint or timeout the number of responses or total
situations that required a restraint timeout or isolated timeout and the number of students who experienced five or more in a 30-day period these numbers on the right hand column are up to date as of March
2025 each network and information in information services monitor every RTO form that is submitted to verify accuracy the student code of conduct continues to be updated every year with the assistance of safety council the department of safety the legal
department the special ed department and the NTSS department once updated this year upon approval in May for our 2526 school year it will also be available publicly on our U46 website along with the student code of conduct we also have the staff guide to the code
of conduct which provides district staff and administration with additional information continually receives updates in order to build consistency of practices across the district this too is posted online for staff to view and access hard copies are also delivered to
each school at the beginning of the school year and I thank you and I welcome questions at this time thank you for the presentation no you're welcome board members have any questions summary so I like seeing the progress in terms
of your intervention and you know the numbers going down at the last slide um I I appreciate the isolation of the racial and ethnic groups and um how those two specific um
categories still have a high discipline um intervention need have you I mean I know there's like structural violence we we talk about this and social theory and um political theory but there's a lot more going on
with these kids i mean what other intervention strategies do you have because I I know we only have a certain jurisdiction as school but what else can you provide or what can help with that intervention for what they need
well again we we try to look for outside resources that we have locally here to help with students um to dig deeper into root causes of their behaviors um at times we we try to meet with
parents and meet with families to discuss those um root causes or uh other possibilities that that may be occurring at at home uh depending on a student our searchs also go out to school buildings to observe those behaviors um when
requested uh when we see that uh numerous referrals are being written on certain students we do send source out for that extra support to create those observations and and provide uh strategies uh that we have for teachers
and for administrators in order to uh work proactively with those students is the how has the parent like how parents generally responded when the schools reached out are they usually supportive or are they sometimes I don't
know I don't want to put words in there it's uh it's sometimes it's a mixture um but a lot of times it's is parents reaching out for for the extra support so once we come in uh describing what that support looks like and once we
explain what our positions are and and how we can best support students and how we can offer those supports families do come around and and tend to listen and and accept uh some resources that we can provide sue Sue
so in slide 11 you have uh reported bullying cases and you have cases that are unfounded what were they unfounded because there was no evidence because someone just reported it anonymously and you couldn't follow up or Yeah so some uh so once our searchs receive a bullying report or
once I receive a bullying report I do distribute it to the search who investigate with the administrators um a lot of times it is uh due to lack of evidence a lot of times it's um the report is uh filled out by mistake meaning that it could be another
complaint for um a certain issue that does not relate to bullying um but for the most part it is because due to the lack of evidence or um or just due to the situation and it looks like middle schools have more of a bullying problem which maybe
is not surprising given middle school uh throughout throughout my research during the years is it's not surprising that that middle school level sixth seventh and eighth is where uh bullying hits the hardest yeah so that's really an area are you focusing on any different any any certain areas or certain ways to
address that uh so we're work I'm working with uh Miss uh Julie Shoemaker and the middle schools in regards to their advisory program okay uh and as well as MTSS and in bringing in uh bullying resources uh to help students differentiate between bullying and um to
also help administrators inside the classrooms to teach about bullying and to educate um on prevention thank you um thank you very much for this um great proposal i uh myself am a CPI trainer in the past so I know it's a really great
program and I'm happy in the district that we continue to use it um but I do have some concerns at slide 13 um the enrollment for referrals and I just kind of wanted to be um fairly specific here it's very bothersome to me that um the black or African-American students are
getting twice the number of referrals in terms of percentages to their um percentage of the population um like that's not that can't that's very concerning to me and I'm worried that it's more than behavior right that are
that it's implicit bias stepping in and and those kinds of things and then if you look at the white we have 22.3% of the population but the orange box with the number referrals does not have a number on it looking at it it's halfish so again we
have that bothersome there and I know I'm being really specific Um and I know that you can't necessarily answer these questions right now but it needs to be brought up that as a district this is evidence that we still have a lot of work to do in terms of implicit bias um
and along those lines as well of course and um uh first off that number um uh for the white above the orange I I can give you that number um at a later date i don't know why it didn't um afish a little more um I didn't know why but it
did not print out um but also that's uh that's also that research in regards to restorative practices is trying to reduce that disproportionality okay u especially with our black and African-American students but we're working with teachers to do that and working with teachers correct right
because that's what's really important the point here is that it's not necessarily the students that are the issue it's teachers are misappropriating i have a high schooler i hear stories Sometimes the rules aren't um enforced the same and we got to look for that
consistency in in the rules and that's why we have the code of conduct awesome and so go back to that and make sure those rules are consistently enforced okay great thank you Shanda thank you for this presentation i also want to echo um board member Thomas'
statements thank you for that um and thank you for your responses to the uh disproportionality as shown on slide 13 i do have a question on slide number seven i think it's seven so the last
bullet point where it says specialized program staff CPI autism for ILP staff for the 2025 2026 school year is there CPI um autism training for staff that work with gened students who are on the
autism spectrum because we do have students who are not in ILP or specialized classrooms that are in the general education classrooms how do we work with um having that training is that training already existing for staff in the building that would help with
gened students or is that something in the future that you're working on i mean so that um autism spectrum disorder program does incor encompass uh that aspect as well um so uh I I can provide
that training as well in the future uh to to all school buildings um right now I was uh concentrating more on the that's the excuse me our ILP population uh due to the amount of referrals that have come in on ILP students okay thank
you Don so thank you for the presentation you're welcome um so back on 12 so it's the slide with the bullying cases i I mean I um echoing kind of some of Sue's concerns um about the middle school
network for so that in in case people can't see the little screens every network and age group has gone down except for middle school which is good it's good to see everyone going down um and I'm glad to hear that we are are looking at middle school especially as
now we're looking at moving sixth grade into those middle school buildings yes so increasing the number of students ideally we can get I don't know what it needs to be to help with I had middle schoolers so I know how chaotic that time is um so I don't know what needs to
be in place but ideally we can work together to have a you know a better program in place whether it's MTSS or working with the staff better so that as we roll up sixth grade maybe we can have a better handle on some of the issues at middle school and whether that's continued phone use is that I I don't
know what it is right can't explain what's going on in the mind of a middle schooler but to see that everything else is decreasing and middle school is the only one that's gone up great is just making sure we're extra effort with those students yes so I mean again with the advisory coming in um with the cell
phone policy or cell phone guidelines that that may be coming um uh what I could also do is uh as I look through um our bullying reports I could see if there's a common thread or a common theme among the middle schools uh that
may help maybe dissect a little more about those cases and see what's needed fantastic yes well thank you Any other questions i just have one point of clarification also on on slide 12 when
we say Bartlett network Elgen Network Larkin Network are those elementary schools correct so just clarifying that right yes so so I'll just say so yes Larkin Bartlett South Asia and Streamway
networks uh are the elementary the elementary um middle school and high school secondary okay so I mean kind of along with with with Sue and and with Don and in their comments are we specifically
pushing additional resources to elementary schools knowing that we have that sixth grade roll up into into middle school not next year but the the year a well I'm sorry or next year um knowing that we have that roll up into
to middle school are we pushing additional resources into our elementary schools as well to prepare them for that yes so to prepare them as they transition to the sixth grade in the middle school yes okay anything else okay thank you thank
you our next strategic plan report is facility planning update mr brian Lindholm chief of staff Miss Lamrovvic deputy superintendent of instruction and Mr mark Moore assistant superintendent of human resources will present at the
deas to the board of education an update on facility planning okay good evening thank you for the opportunity to provide this important update on our recommended attendance boundary changes next slide
uh so tonight's presentation will serve as an update to the boundary proposal that was originally presented to the board of education on December 9th and addresses feedback that we've received in the Unite U46 sessions that we've held across the district since then
this evening's update will include a summary of the preliminary recommendations recommended adjustments to those preliminary recommendations an analysis of the resulting feeder pattern alignments more details on a proposed
modification to our residency exception request process and then next steps so to start we will briefly recap the recommendations that were shared with the board of education in December so on December 9th we presented
preliminary boundary recommendations for the entire district showing significant changes to our elementary and middle schools and only a minor change to our high schools the middle school changes reflect the shift of sixth grade out of the elementary schools and
into the middle schools as well as the construction of a new middle school in Elgen significant additions to Kimble and Kenyon Woods middle schools and the eventual retirement of Abbott and Ellis middle schools the elementary changes also reflect the
shift of sixth grade out of the elementary and into the middle schools as well as the addition of prek classrooms in elementary schools across the district and the retirement of three elementary schools Hannover Countryside in Streamwood and Lowry and Washington
Elementary in Elgen the only high school change was to the attendance area for Bartlett High School extending the boundary west beyond Route 59 to move all of the students in the Hawk Hollow Middle School attendance area from South Elgen High School to Bartlett High
School this evening we're not planning to review the entire district maps again uh as that detail has been shared during the mapping our future sessions that we held in each of our feeder networks and it's all available on the district website underite46 we'd encourage anyone looking for more
details to visit this page to review prior presentations watch the videos that we've created and visit our interactive online maps instead this evening's presentation will focus on several adjustments that we've made to our preliminary recommendations the resulting impact on our feeder patterns
and more details on the timelines and process for implementing these changes so as a reminder as part of the UniteU46 initiative we had identified several buildings to be renovated rebuilt or retired the boundary recommendations you will hear this evening reflect that
these elementary schools will be retired and students will be reassigned to other schools as we've shared previously this is both due to declining enrollments particularly at the elementary level when we move sixth grade as well as to retire some of our oldest facilities that are no longer providing optimal
learning environments for our students washington Lowry and Hanover Countryside will be retired after the 2526 school year and McKinley Elementary will be retired when the new elementary school at the former David C cook site
is ready for occupancy next slide we are also starting work on muchneeded additions and renovations at Glenbrook and Century Oaks elementaryaries the work being planned will dramatically improve student circulation provide natural light as
well as the safe and modern learning environments that we want to see in all of our U46 schools and finally Illinois Park will be retired as an early childhood center following the 2526 school year and will reopen as a K5 elementary school the following year of
2627 this is a smaller construction project that primarily involves site work to make the school more accessible as well as building a new multi-purpose room more suitable for elementary students we are working to provide prek classrooms in our other elementary
schools across the district to coincide with Illinois Park being retired as an early childhood center and to ensure that we can increase the number of prek students we can serve as I mentioned a moment ago uh and as another reminder on the district website under our schools and our
boundaries is an interactive map showing the current and proposed boundaries for our elementary middle and high schools following the approval of the final boundaries by the board of education this map will be updated with any adjustments to the preliminary recommendations
and we are also working with our partner Barrager to provide an address lookup page where resident can simply type in their address and be presented with the current and future schools assigned to their address another important consideration for tonight's proposal is how we plan to
manage the transition of our sixth grade students to our middle schools in previous updates we shared that the construction schedule for the new middle school in Elgen indicates that this building will not be ready for occupancy for the 2627 school year as originally
planned this obviously has an impact on our overall district plans to shift sixth grade to close Abbott and Ellis and to adjust our attendance boundaries so we introduced three options for managing this transition that we discussed in great detail in previous updates including pros and cons of each
option and the number of students impacted by an additional transition year as we've shared previously the plans that you are considering this evening assume what we had called option C as it allows us to maintain our current schedule to implement new
attendance boundaries and shift sixth grade to the middle schools for the 2627 school year under this option we will need to use Abbott and Ellis for the first year to help serve the approximately 1100 students that would eventually be assigned to the new middle
school this slide includes more detail on exactly what option C would look like for the transition year of 2026 2027 as I shared due to the construction timeline for the new middle school in Elgen we will need to find alternative
sites for those students assigned to the new middle school to attend the first year the scenario that we show here includes keeping Abbott and Ellis open for an additional year to help serve those students in this case seventh and eighth
graders assigned to the new middle school in Elgen would instead attend Ellis the first year the approximately 356th graders who reside in this attendance area would attend Abbott for the first year and Abbott would also be able to keep its
previously assigned eighth graders that year to allow those students to complete their middle school uh career in U46 without an extra transition then the following year the new middle school in Elgen would be ready for o full occupancy with grades six seven and eight and we would retire
Ellison Abbott as originally planned so at this point I would like to turn over to my colleague Mark Moore to walk through several adjustments that we are proposing to the preliminary boundary recommendations that were shared with the board in December all right thank you Brian this is just a list so we're going
to go through each of these so let's move on to the next slide we are proposing only some modifications to the middle and high school original proposal there are no changes to elementary proposed boundaries in this uh revised proposal
so first we look at Bartlett Elementary right now students um south of that stairst step if you will right in the middle of the screen currently attend Bartlett Elementary they remain at Bartlett Elementary and remain at East View and uh South Elgen the portion
north of the stairstep if you will that is in Streamwood is currently Handover Countryside as we know we're slating Hanover Countryside to be retired so this part of Handover Countryside is assigned to Bartlett the change to the proposal is that we will keep that zone at Canton and Streamwood where they
currently attend middle and high school so it does result in a split to Bartlett Elementary uh only for the new section but it allows those neighborhoods not to change for middle and high they stay at Canon and stay at Streamwood the next slide is really the
same the same story this is uh the Liberty uh zone so the lower right corner where you see that interchange that's the intersection of Route 20 and Route 59 so north of 20 west of 59 currently is Hilltop that portion in the
proposal is assigned to Liberty uh in the original proposal we had moved them for middle and high or only for middle to East View but keep them at Streamwood for High School we do the same thing as with that other new portion of Bartlett Elementary and instead keep them at Canton where they are now and then they
just move on to Streamwood as originally proposed and uh as they do now next section this is a very small part this is the south end of Elgen the very north part of South Elgen up on the
top right uh where the upper red line is that's route 20 going across Elgen you can see where the river is just south of Route 20 the other red line is Bluff City Boulevard there's a strip there that is assigned to Huff Elementary
which is this whole region but the part between currently is assigned to Kenyon Woods and Elgen High School and it's the only part of Kenyon that would go to Elgen so we recommend that we move that to South Elgen so that that part that maintains the feeder from middle to high
Kenyon to South Elgen it's a small zone we can go to the next one this is just northwest of there so route 20 is along the the bottom of the picture the south end on the right the left side rather is the old Garfield
Elementary zone the northern portion um it would be again an only part of um the new middle school on Roren Road that would have to go to South Elgen instead we move it to Elgen to maintain a feeder there
now moving northward in Elgen on the left side of the screen the bridge over the river that's Kimell Street right now there's a section of the east side of Elgen around Kimble Street that goes to Kimell and Larkin instead of that the propo original proposal has them going to
Larson which is in their neighborhood and then moves the high school assignment to Elgen High School so that all of the Larsson students go to Elgen so this is a high school change from Larkin to Elgen okay now we're moving to the west
side the uh little bit of a bridge you can see on the right with the little red line that's pretty hard to see that's National Street the river boat is right there uh this is the old Lowry zone so currently uh these students all attend Lowry of course with Lowry closing they
all go east uh elsewhere the bottom right part is Huff the bottom left is Harriet Gford and the blue is um Highland the reason we're making this change is that was that box if you will that's blue uh and in the yellowish oval
we originally assigned to Kenyon Woods and would have been the only part of Highland not to go to Kimble so we reassigned this part to Kimble so that all of Highland can maintain at Kimell Middle School and then move on to Larkin in high school this is one very small change
this is on the far east side of the district the blue is Ontarioville Elementary School in some portions of the original proposal and continuing to this proposal we've moved boundary lines from the middle of a street to backyards essentially so that houses on both sides
of a street can go to the same school this is one of those scenarios this is Chestnut Street in I believe Hanover Park where the east side right now goes to Ontarioville and the west side I think goes to Sunnydale um we moved the line for elementary to the backyard now
we move the high school line to the backyard so the west side of Chestnut Street that's north of I apologize the East West Road that doesn't have a name on it um that will go to Bartlett High School with the rest of Ontario and then we found a discrepancy in the map this is not a change to the
proposal at all however in Bartlett on the far east side almost Handover Park the east west road is Sterns Road the north south sort of road it's curvy as Newport Boulevard that corner which is Longford Road south of Newport in the
official map is assigned to Centennial currently has been for many many years but has been treated as though it's a horizon neighborhood uh we traced back could not find when or why that happened but we are including
it on this to show that those houses functionally are being reassigned to Centennial even though officially they've always been assigned to Centennial i say always to mean at least 10 years um that's the only discrepancy that we
found okay those are all of the proposed changes beyond those that are for middle school and high school there are no other changes to the original December recommendation turn it back to Brian for uh looking at the feeder patterns okay thank you Mark
uh so one of the guidelines that our community has told us consistently um should be an important consideration is maintaining feeder patterns wherever possible so under the proposed attendance boundaries before the board this evening uh we would have nine of our 35 elementary schools that would
feed into more than one middle school the other 26 would all feed into a single middle school five of the splits uh are already in place so there's only four additional splits under the new boundaries and
those are marked with the with the asterisks and that's at Bartlett Elementary Harriet Gford Elementary Liberty Elementary and Nature Ridge Elementary the new boundaries also eliminate splits that currently exist at three other schools Highland Elementary
Channing Elementary and Lloyds Park Elementary so the net effect is that we are going from eight splits to nine in addition under the current uh boundaries we do have elementary schools that feed into three middle schools and under the
the new proposal we will not have any of those scenarios so the next few slides will go into more detail on each of the four new splits that are created under this boundary proposal the first uh elementary school with with a uh new split feed of pattern
is Bartlett Elementary uh as Mark mentioned this change is entirely due to the new area uh that will be assigned to Bartlett Elementary north of Lake Street that was previously assigned to Hanover Countryside students residing in this stairstep area outlined in red will
continue to attend Canton Middle School while the remainder of the Bartlett Elementary attendance area will continue to attend East View Middle School the next new split feeder pattern is for Liberty Elementary which had previously all been assigned to Kenyon Woods Middle
School as Mark shared the vast majority of the Liberty attendance area will now be assigned to East View with the exception being the newly assigned area north of Route 20 that we are proposing would stay at Canton Middle School the next elementary school to highlight
is Harriet Gford on the west side of Elgen which is where we have some significant changes in the boundaries for many of the elementary schools uh due to Lowry and Washington closing and Illinois Park reopening as an elementary school in this case Harriet Gford's
boundary shifts to pick up much of the area that was previously served by Lowry uh Harriet Gford previously sent all of its students to Abbott Middle School which was located very close by but with Abbott retiring the Harriet Gford attendance area will now send students
in a fairly even split to Kimble Middle School which is the area in red and Kenyon Woods Middle School which is the area in blue the final new split feeder pattern is for Nature Ridge Elementary in Bartlett which had previously all been assigned to Canyon Woods Middle School
as we've explained in previous boundary updates with Hawk Hollow Middle School opening in the southeast corner of the district the attendance boundary for East View needs to switch from a north south to an east west orientation in addition Kenyon Woods
will now be receiving students that had previously attended Abbott Middle School so we needed to consider providing some capacity relief to that site as such a majority of the Nature Ridge attendance area will now be assigned to East View Middle School and only the new
portion west of Route 25 that was previously Clinton will now attend Kenyon Woods Middle School we acknowledge receiving many questions about this shift from Nature Ridge families who've expressed concern about travel times to the new school crossing
the train tracks and the feeder pattern that would send these students east to East View for middle school then back west to South Elgen High School for high school unfortunately we are not able to adjust the previous recommendation at this time given the locations and capacities of our middle schools in this
part of the district in a moment you'll hear more about a proposed modification to a residency exception request process that may be an option for some of the families that are impacted by this boundary change and at this point I will turn it over to Lola Mtorbage to discuss next
steps including a modified uh residency exception request process uh that we are looking to make available to families as part of the transition to these new attendance boundaries thank you Brian while we've made some updates to the boundaries based on the feedback we
received not every suggestion resulted in a change and we understand that this may leave some families with concerns about the impact on their specific neighborhoods to address these concerns we will continue to provide an opportunity to submit a residency exception request which may allow a
student to attend a school other than the one assigned under the new attendance boundaries our district currently has an established residency committee that consists of the deputy superintendent of instruction the chief legal officer the assistant superintendent of schools equity and
innovation and teaching and learning and the executive directors this committee works to review requests that are received throughout the year and make determinations based on available information and documentation our team has been working
to adjust our residency accept residency exception request process to allow for expedited requests from families due to attendance boundaries changes in addition we have been working with the Illinois High School Association or IHSA
to ensure our process would be supported the IHS IHSA has stated that they will support approved residency exceptions so long as they are a part of the board approved plan to adjust boundaries while we have received several requests already we won't be
able to begin formally reviewing requests for the 2526 school year until after the board formally approves new boundaries in the coming weeks the intent is to consider grandfathering requests to allow students to stay at their current school or preemptively
move to their new school a year early under the criteria stating a student's current placement creates a demonstrated familial burden however we want to make sure families are aware that approving the request will be contingent on available staff
and space based on the current staffing allocation at the requested site and that parents or guardians will be responsible to provide transportation our team will be prepared to process the expected larger volume of requests this year and next and will
work to accommodate these requests wherever possible within the guidelines I shared earlier of having space in the requested school and being able to provide or their own transportation once the new boundaries are approved we'll provide a deadline for submitting these requests for the
upcoming 2526 school year this will be a fairly tight window as we will need to quickly review these requests to confirm whether we have the space and staff available at the requested site to accommodate it we will also create a schedule for when we will begin
accepting applications for the following year of 2026 2027 when the new attendance boundaries would take effect this will need to happen in the early fall to align with our annual master scheduling and staffing timelines and finally part of our process will be
scheduling individual sessions at each school that is impacted by the boundary changes these sessions will be scheduled later this spring and into next fall after the boundaries are approved by the board of education the sessions will be tailored for each building explaining the boundary changes the timelines and
the process to apply for residence exception requests and opportunities to visit their newly assigned schools to prepare for the transitions we will work to get these scheduled later this spring after the board of education has formally approved new attendance boundaries and as we look ahead to these
upcoming changes our priority is to support every family during this transition we are partnering closely with our school principles to create a comprehensive transition plan that includes clear communication openhouse events and community building opportunities our goal is to keep
families informed and supported throughout the process while providing chances to visit new schools and build meaningful connections before the 2026 2027 school year begins we remain committed to working handinand with our school leaders to ensure a smooth and
caring transition for all of their students and their families and now I'll turn it back to Brian to discuss the rest of the timeline okay thank you Lela next slide please so this slide shows a timeline for implementing the proposed boundary
changes um that you've seen tonight the new attendance boundaries would be voted on by the board of education at the next regularly scheduled meeting on April 14th and following that decision administration would share more details with our families regarding the timeline to submit a residency exception request
for the upcoming 2526 school year as we've shared previously the only attendance boundary change that goes into effect for the upcoming 2526 school year is for our new Hawk Hollow Middle School in Bartlett the attendance boundaries for this school were approved
by the board of education last spring and will impact the boundaries of the neighboring schools of East View and Kenyon Woods as well then the following year of 2627 is when the larger boundary changes that are being considered this evening would all take effect so that concludes tonight's
update and we're prepared to address any questions you may have thank you for the presentation and the updates do board members have questions sue do you want questions on boundaries now or during the work session because we're doing it again in the work session i think we do them now the the proposal on the work
session is pretty much the formality of having the paperwork of what we will vote on on April 14th so we'll take the questions now okay well as you can guess I have questions on the two um north sections in for Bartlett Elementary and Liberty and thank you for the numbers
you sent me my concern is we're talking about a really small number of kids i mean the Bartlett Elementary kids are going by current numbers between one and six kids per class which means between one and six kids would go to a 750
school middle school and they wouldn't have been in school with any of those other kids um Liberty's got a little bit more um those kids are between four and nine kids per class but that's an awfully small
number and is there anything we can do could move them into Sunnydale or Oakill instead where they would at least travel with with the same groups they'd be going to middle and high school with there's not effective space at the
other elementaryaries in the area this the the alternative would be to flip back the way the original proposal was so to have them go to East View and then Streamwood that basically postpones the splits from after
elementary to after middle um there's not enough space at Oakill to take that whole section uh from handover to Oakill um there's definitely not enough space at Heritage which is the probably the next closest school
um remember we're taking we're taking a whole school and splitting it up to others yeah yeah yeah I mean that that that bothers me because I know we've just had a thing on issues at middle schools so I don't think this is is good for the kids um so
if we can investigate and try to think of something i mean I'm looking at the percentages you gave me and it looks like Oakill might have room i don't know why i mean Brian gave me some numbers on I guess it' be 28 29 but it looks like they may have room in a few years so we
can review i I there's definitely not room at one school for all the handover kids um because it's a whole school yeah no I realize that yep yep so those are my two two big ones but my other one is was Cent Centennial which is split it goes
all to East View and then it's split between South Elgen and Bartlett and really the only reason it's split is because part of Centennial used to be in Bartlett Elementary and so we didn't want to change the high school boundaries is it a big deal to change the boundaries they're closer to Bartlett and they'd be going with the
rest of Centennial it's about 30 students for four grades it would be uh it would be less challenging than the thing we just talked about the other part we just talked about okay i'd like us to consider that too but that that's my opinion i'll let the rest of the board
chime in so so those those are my issues thank you additional board members but John so thank you for the presentation i know these numbers and maps will now live in your head for basically the rest of your life at this point um I have a question
on slide nine and I'm in my head I'm not sure if I have not asked this in the I'm not sure how I've missed this but we're talking about um so we have sixth graders attending Abbott for 26 27 plus the eighth graders who were already at Abbott and then we have seventh and
eighth graders at Ellis does that include eighth graders who were seventh graders at Ellis and if not why not so that's an excellent question and it's the way I think about it is this following next year we are closing the
school the schools not the buildings but like the school communities called Ellison Abbott we're opening a new school on Rorson Road which I'm just going to call Rorson for now so we open the school on Rorson but the building itself isn't ready so we constitute that
as a community and we just happen to house the kids that are supposed to go there the seventh and eighth graders at Ellis the reason we can't put the sixth graders at Ellis also is that Ellis is a lot smaller than the new school so they won't all fit so then we put those sixth graders at Abbott because we have room
there the reason we're able to keep that last eighth grade at Abbott there is that they have room for two grades worth of students just like they have two grades right now we could move those eighth graders on to Kimble and Kenyon we just figured we didn't we don't have
to so let's not at Ellis there's not room for two grades plus carryover which are the current the seventh moving to eighth graders okay coincidentally however most of the Ellis
boundary is the Rorson boundary so in in actuality most of the kids who are at Ellis in seventh grade will still be there in 8th grade because now they belong to the new school called Rorson okay that's going to school at Ellis
okay so it's it's different than Abbott yes but functionally it's almost the same i think Yeah i Mark said it very well the net effect would be most most of the eighth graders would stay at would have been at Ellis the previous year and then
would just stay there as eighth graders do we know how many of those Ellis eighth graders will be doing the extra transition then that there's not room they wouldn't be part of the ROS in middle school so they are shifting to Kimble or at this moment no but we
can count that for you thank you additional questions comments um I I appreciate the answers that um were also given to Sue's questions
um and I'd like to see those additional considerations as well especially with that that little piece of Centennial i had as as tons I had I had not fully internalized that on the first goround
of of the the boundary map so um I would agree that that that would be something that I'd like to see considered as well don I'm sorry i was wrong i do have another question that's fine that's why I was hesitating there's a lot of information here that should sink in um
so on the uh information you provided for Miss Kerr with the capacity numbers which I know they were calculated two different ways there are a couple of elementary schools that are
anticipated with one of the methods to be over 100% do we do we have concerns because it actually depending on how it's calculated those numbers are very different with one being over 100 and well one under well yeah you don't part
part of the challenge with the DLR numbers is those were counted during COVID and we're not certain that they actually counted every spot that's a classroom to be a classroom okay um so that's why we didn't we didn't use those in any part
of the planning we actually Lela actually counted every classroom at every elementary school and that's what we used to decide how many rooms how many classes we could have at each building okay after we subtracted out uh
special ed programs art music health digital literacy and science so we've or and preschool at mo all but two schools um so we set the effective capacity each building based upon there's this many
rooms and we're going to shoot for 23 per classroom so on the um utilization numbers that were provided for elementary and middle and I mean high schools not even I'm not going to bring that up because those were all well under 100 we don't have concerns at this point moving forward
some of these ventured over a hundred but again that's all estimates and yeah I would say I mean there there are gonna be some schools that are gonna be tighter than others for sure but even the the 100% capacity we were we were aiming for some pretty low classroom sizes so in some cases we're just a
little bit over 100 it could just mean that we have classes of 24 or 25 instead of 23 okay so all right perfect thank you and just an additional clarification those those projections they take into account the to the degree that they can
program movement as well they do okay anything else okay thank you thanks thank you okay the next item on our agenda is public comment thank you Miss Owens we have five public
comments tonight thank you we have four public good evening and welcome to the board of education meeting we are now at the public comment portion of the meeting attendees wishing to make a public comment in person or via Zoom
tonight were asked to complete a request to speak form in advance those who chose to speak via Zoom were provided a with a webinar ID number to call in promptly at 7 p.m tonight as always speakers will be given three minutes to share their comments the board listens to the
speakers but does not respond to individual questions or comments during the meeting a written response will be mailed to the speaker if requested on the form public comments may include the speaker's student name if you wish all public comments must refrain from
mentioning any other students protected personal information and name if your public comments include other students information we will need to end your public comment at that time those who provided a public comment but chose not to speak publicly in the meeting were
asked to submit an email to board-446.org those emails were posted on the board agenda for public viewing foreident speech person our per our first public comment will be
from Mate e Anton Bareda and Leticia Martinez okay good evening my name is Manto Mara and I stand before you today both on my behalf of on behalf of my esteemed colleague Leticia Martinez Vende first I
would like to express my sincere appreciation for the time you have dedicated to hearing our concerns today i also want to apologize in advance if I stutter a little bit as I tend to do when I feel nervous i will do my best to be as clear and direct as possible
we come here today hoping that our voices are heard we are two proud educators within the U46 district who has been dedicated ourselves to be to becoming the best teachers we can be we have worked tirelessly to foster positive relationships with our students
and contribute meaningfully to the community i have had the honor of serving as the ail lead teacher and coordinator at T middle school and Miss Martinez has been a valued member of the magnet academy at Barley High School during the same
period throughout this time we have witnessed the growth and development of our students many of whom we have had the privilege of working with for multiple years even teaching entire families siblings cousins and more these
relationships have allow us to share in their victories and support them through their challenges while we are aware that the visa program we enter through is to set concludes after 5 years with the expectation that we will return to Spain we have developed a strong ties to this
district in many ways it has become our second home we have been trained under the best possible professional development program both through the district and the state and we are deeply invest in the s success of our
students we understand that the district has not actively promote this option in recent years however we believe that the district is experiencing continuous growth and sometimes the small adjustments um are necessary to achieve a certain
goal the well-being of our community with this in mind we respectfully request the opportunity to continue working here teaching teaching our students and contributing to the district's mission there are various various visa options available that will
allow us to remain and continue our work without displacing other talent educators who may want to experience the program with it in fact our continued presence will complement the district efforts to address the teacher shortage which is a national challenge we are not
asking for a special treatment we simply want to the chance to keep doing what we love educating and supporting the students who have come to mean so much to us the work we do is not just a job for us it's a calling we believe that our continued involvement will benefit
the students staff and community at large i'm just about to finish thank you very much for your time and consideration we hope that we will hear that you will hear our requests with understanding and we remain hopeful that the opportunity to continue making a
posit a positive impact in this district thank you again thank you thank you our next public comment will be from Jacob Leash and Ava Patel uh hi i'm Jacob Lush and me and ARV are current seniors at Elgen High School who
are in the full IB uh diploma program and we want to bring more attention to an issue that has been affecting our environmental classes the erosion and increased invasive species in the public creek that is right outside Elgen High School through hands-on environmental
science activities we've studied the creek by testing water quality analyzing macro invertebrates however we've noticed that the banks of the creek itself has become eroded and invasive plants are threatening the native um biodiversity and destabilizing ecosystem
we want the E46 district to help care for the creek by preserving the public creek um as it protects a valuable real world learning resource for the students at Elgen this creek gives students the chance to apply science skills outside the classroom that va that fosters
critical thinking environmental responsibility and a deeper connection to nature without proper conservation future students will lose access to this unique educational opportunity today we want to address two problems surrounding our popular creek pollution and erosion pollution is a simple problem and during
the time we have spent working and surveying the creek during class and out of school we have found all kinds of different trash and litter in the area this is not an issue unique to the creek but it is important to address to keep our school environment clean further we have found further through hands and
activities we have done in class we have found high levels of pollutants in the form of sediments in the water which make it much harder for organisms within the creek to survive this issue of sediments directly connects to the issue of erosion as much of the stream bank has been undercut resulting in a lot of dirt and soil entering the water stream
because the stream banks do not have large plants and trees that can stabilize the banks with large root systems this erosion will continue resulting in a worsening quality of our water reduced stability for the land surrounding the creek and even a worsening of floods since erosion reduces the amount of water the land
around the creek can absorb when there is large amounts of rainfall which are only becoming more common due to a worsening climate we have seen more flooding with the creek to sum it up we think it is important that action be taken to protect our creek so that it can be used by students for years to come thank you
thank you our next public comment will be from Brandon Cardardo when it comes to the data that we collected the data indicates that the creek's health is concerning particularly due to erosion and its impact on native plant life the high
dissolved oxygen levels which is two times what it should be and the excessive copper levels which is four times what it should be suggests environmental imbalances that could be harming vegetation one clear sign of this is the falling cottonwoods which may be linked to soil degradation and
instability along the banks without strong native grasses known for their deep root systems that help hold soil in place erosion worsens making it harder for these trees to remain stable for U46 this is important because local creeks and waterways contribute to the overall
environmental health in the district inv invasive species often outco compete native plants further weakening the soil structure and accelerating erosion if this trend continues it could lead to long-term damage impacting not only plant life but also water quality and
local ecosystems addressing these issues through restoration efforts such as reintroducing native grasses could help stabilize the creek and prevent further degradation thank you for your time thank you
our last public comment is from Hassan Hammad so uh as you guys can probably already tell like the health of the creek is far from what it should be but the good news is that there are many ways in which we can change this for example adding trash cans along the creek would limit the amount of trash pollution that ends up
in the water as people would be more inclined to toss their litter into the trash can rather than on the ground or in the creek itself however the problem with such solutions is that they don't address the core issue the erosion of the ground around the creek an example of a solution that
does address erosion is planting vegetation with substantial root systems which would stabilize the bank and prevent further degradation however given the severity of the erosion this is not something that can be handled without professional help the scale of the damage requires the expertise of environmental professionals who have the
tools and knowledge necessary to be able to implement effective and lasting solutions without their assistance any efforts that we put in will only be able to amount to shortterm solutions rather than the permanent restoration that we are aiming to achieve while this may
take some time in the long run a healthier creek will be greatly beneficial for the land and the local environment a more stable creek will help minimize the effects of flooding and also protect protect biodiversity additionally students at the school just like us use this creek to get handson
learning experience in environmental science which makes it an invaluable resource to us we strongly believe that the district to help bring in professionals to implement such solutions so that this vital part of the eligent environment remains a valuable resource to current and future students
at EHS thank you thank you okay the next item on our agenda is additional information do board members have any updates mahita do you have an update yeah I do i did want to talk about one exciting event that was coming up so
this Thursday we're going to have the student summit at Elgen Community College and in this event we're going to have over 200 high schoolers as well as representation from the seven high schools and it's where students are going to come and talk about topics such as post-secary school safety student
identity and I'm super grateful for all the people have been working towards this event to make it be successful and I can't wait for the board meeting next month where people from the superintendent student advisory council will report back on how the student summit went so we are very much looking
forward to I know there's a couple board members that are signed up to go um I'll be there for a little bit i can't be there all morning but looking forward to it thank you for all your work on that Shondaanda i was invited to excuse me
participate in a women's panel with the I am lead girls at Heritage Elementary um I want to thank Melanie Patterson for inviting me to participate i was had the honor and privilege to be on a panel with Lisa Jackson and Dr latrice
Satderwite and the girls had some very thoughtful questions to learn um not necessarily all about what we do for a living but just about us as people things that encourage us and it was just a really really wonderful experience and
to see them um have courage to stand up and ask their questions on a mic was really great so I just wanted to thank Melanie Patterson thank Lisa Jackson for the work that you do with I am lead and thank you Dr sadder White for um all of the wisdom that was shared on the panel
between the two of you as well thank you anybody else uh Veronica uh so last week I was able to particip or attend the um U46 talent fest and uh the U46 educational
foundation is one of the sponsors um it's just a great opportunity um to see the wonderful talent of all of our high schools and and for them all to compete they really um do a great job and I'm glad I was able to see it again this year and they do it every year i highly
recommend it anybody else dr williams anything okay didn't mean to put you on the spot okay the next item on our agenda is
consent agenda thank you President Owens tonight on the consent agenda we have personnel report workers compensation cases minutes of board meetings for January 25th 2025 and January 27th
2025 termination of Maria Santana SEC high school suballer bid procurement Hawk Hollow Middle School Furniture bid procurement Hawk Hollow Middle School fitness equipment and supplies bid procurement
Hawk Hollow Middle School fine arts equipment and supplies proposal assessment accountability and student success handto-mind and literacy take-home kits proposal assessment accountability and student success
libraria classroom libraries proposal assessment accountability and student success scholastic books proposal assessment accountability and student success school climate and culture training proposal assessment accountability and
student success catalyst of educational change learning partner proposal assessment accountability and student success personalized lessons in reading and mathematics proposal multilingual and multicultural education department
in-person teaching for biiteracy institute Chicago proposal equity and innovation 2025 AVID Summer Institute proposal operations Unite U46 Kenyon Woods Middle School
projects Assistant Superintendent of Schools Association of Middle Level Education 2025 summer conference contract Office of Schools Northern Illinois University principal preparation program contract renewal multilingual and multi Multicultural
Education Department Northern Illinois University Bilingual English as a second language teacher cohort 7 one building permit for Sycamore Trails Elementary School HVAC project number 1479 thank you Dr williams are there any
items that board members would like to have removed from the consent agenda hearing none may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second any discussion roll call please miss Kirk
yes miss K yes miss Martin yes miss Nolan yes miss Schwarz yes miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion carried and the next item on the agenda is discussion action dr williams thank you again the first item for this evening is
itemized bills for March 24th 2025 dr dr frank Williams is at the E at the Dr frank Williams assistant superintendent of finance is at the deus and will respond to questions from the board of education regarding the attached bills administration recommends the board of education approve the list of bills in
the amount of 28,799,16159 may I have a motion to approve the list of bills in the amount of 28,799,16159 so moved second any questions for Dr frank roll call please miss Kerr yes miss Khan
yes miss Martin yes miss Nolan yes miss Schwarz yes miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion carried our next our next item is secondary library and media curriculum proposal celia Banks director
of curriculum and instruction is at the deis and available to answer any questions related to this proposal may I have a motion to approve the secondary library and media curriculum proposal with an associated estimated
resource cost of $456,274.50 so moved second any questions or discussion okay roll call please miss Kerr yes miss Khan yes miss Martin yes miss Nolan yes miss Schwarz yes miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion
carried the next item on the agenda are uh human resource resolutions in order to follow state guidelines that allow for staff dismissal up up until 45 days before the end of the school year administration annually presents personnel changes or
I'm sorry personnel categories that are eligible for possible dismissal depending on the budget situation and when programs and classes are determined for the next year some of these individuals may be rehired providing they have proper lensure while the board of education takes this action very
seriously dismissal consideration is customary at this time of year in order to follow state requirements each of the resolutions will be f voted on separately the first resolution I need a motion to approve resolution
2515 a resolution to authorize the honorable dismissal of teachers so moved second any questions or discussion roll call please miss Kerr yes Miss Khan yes Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas
yes President Owen yes motion carried second may I have a motion to approve resolution 2528 a resolution to authorize the non-renewal of administrative contacts contracts and reassignment of tenur administrators
so moved second any discussion or questions roll call please miss Kerr yes miss Khan yes miss Martin yes miss Nolan yes miss Schwarz yes miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion carried
next item on our agenda is work session dr williams thank you President Owens our first work session item is attendance boundary proposal brian Lindholm chief of staff and Mark Moore assistant superintendent of human resources will present the attached
attendance boundary change proposal and will respond to questions from the board of education administration recommends the board of education vote to accept the attendance boundary changes do you all have any additional information that you want to Okay go
ahead uh well I guess I could start just by uh confirming this is the formal propo proposal that we'll be asking the board to consider um summarizing the recommendations from earlier tonight uh we will be asking um to consider the proposal in its entirety um not a
separate vote for each element of the plan um the proposal itself includes links to earlier updates and supporting information and uh we would return then for possible board action at the next meeting on April April 14th
miss Martin you asked earlier how many students currently going to Ellis will not be assigned to Rorson yes the answer for current sixth graders who will be seventh graders next year and thus eighth graders the following year is one
so yes we he could he or she I don't know could submit the residency exception request and we absolutely would approve it for him to stay at Ellis or her for that one year um it's that little strip we talked about before between Route 20 and Bluff
City Boulevard it's that currently goes to Ellis is being reassigned to Kenyon um that's the only section of Ellis that's not going to the new RS school with it being one student do we really need to have them do residency
except like can we just we could just ask them to do it rather than talking about one student and then it would be we'll just need we'll need a record so that we don't lo don't lose track but it'll be taken care of but but I think on the flip side we'd give them the
opportunity to attend Canyon Woods Middle School with the new addition if they wanted to if they chose to but if they wanted to stay we'd certainly especially since it's just Yeah one student thank you for looking at that yep any other questions
um just as a clarification because I know on the executive summary on this proposal it points to you 46 website so after this meeting tonight that website page will be updated with all of
the new proposals so that this proposal will link directly to everything that we've spoken about tonight correct correct okay exactly thank you anything else thank you thank you
our ne our next work session item is renewal of school district U46 high school membership in the Illinois high school association IHSA 2025 to 2026 dr annette Oavdo assistant superintendent of schools will present a request to the
board of education to certify the renewal of membership in IHSA ihsa membership will not require payment of dues the district's five high schools participate in this organization and the district will submit five signed
membership copies due by June 30th 2025 did you have any additional presentation do board members have any questions Kate um I I saw recently that the IHSA is adjusting some of their cate the numbers
for their categorizations like for example I noticed that um cheerleading is going from five categories down to three so are we keeping track of that to support those ads as they go through and determine whether or not their teams are
changing categories we'll work with that we have through our athletic and activities council i'll make sure that we work through that yeah because it seems some of the changes seemed a little surprising okay um and then I know with our boundary changes we want to make sure that everybody's clear on where they're going thank you make sure
we look through that anybody else great thank you thank you so much the next work session item is bi biology curriculum resource proposal brian Tennyson assistant superintendent of teaching and learning celia Banks
director of curriculum and instruction deb McMullen coordinator of K12 science and planetarium and Frankie Valencia secondary science instructional coach will provide a presentation and prepare to address questions from the board of
education regarding this proposal this proposal aims to secure funding to enhance biology instruction through innovative resources and professional learning opportunities while also launching pilot programs for chemistry and physics across all U46 high schools laying the foundation for a dynamic and
engaging science education experience for all students as we align the proposal with the U46 strategic plan we're focusing on two priorities: student success and effective and engaged staff for students adopting open SIAD biology and piloting chemistry and
physics brings science to life through hands-on student-driven learning it sparks curiosity builds critical thinking and encourages collaboration skills that extend far beyond the classroom and because it's designed with equity in mind all students benefit from
rigorous highquality instruction for staff this proposal includes meaningful professional learning that's ongoing and supportive teachers will have the tools training and coaching they need to feel confident and successful with this curriculum currently the materials used
in biology chemistry physics are either out of print or approaching the end of their contracts a recent needs assessment revealed key gaps our current resources don't fully align with the next generation science standards or our own U46 curriculum while our teachers
have done an incredible job adapting the reality is they've been working without the right tools existing materials offer limited support for phenomenon based learning and often fall short of capturing the critical thinking and problem solving skills we want our students to develop teachers have also
been clear with us they need ongoing relevant professional learning to implement our curriculum with confidence open sed meets these needs it was built for NGSS centers learning around real world phenomenon and comes with robust professional learning that empowers teachers to bring science to
life we want to recognize the outstanding team of educators who led the curriculum review and selection process the committee included 11 high school science teachers representing nearly every high U46 high school their expertise spanned biology chemistry
physics environmental science and earth and space science reflecting the full spectrum of our science offerings we also had teachers from API and dual language programs as well as educators in special special education and ELLL
their insights ensured the needs of all learners were part of the conversation thanks to this deser diverse and experienced team the selection process was thoughtful inclusive and grounded in real classroom practice choosing a new science curriculum was a thoughtful multi-year
process centered on collaboration and alignment with our standards in April 2024 the 11 teachers reviewed 31 curriculum options using a rubric aligned to NGSS and our local goals narrowing the field to three strong finalists in May we expanded the process
sharing these finalists with all biochemistry and physics teachers as well as the assistant principles of STEM teachers had multiple opportunities virtual and in person to explore the materials and give feedback we continued to collect feedback through December of
2024 when a final decision was made the feedback we received was thoughtful honest and consistent across disciplines while participation levels varied the quality of insights helped make the decision clear u46 science standards adopted by the U
by the U46 board in 2020 sorry in 2014 are based on the next generation science standards or NGSS recognized nationally for their rigor relevance and real world focus ngss represents a shift from memorizing facts to doing science asking
questions investigating phenomenon interpreting data and solving problems as NGSS puts it all students regardless of background should have access to highquality learning experiences that prepare them to be informed citizens and future innovators these standards are
built to prepare students for college careers and life equipping them with the essential 21st century skills like collaboration critical thinking and problem solving our role as a district is to ensure that every student has the opportunity to meet these expectations and the support to
succeed as we introduce updated resources it's important to note there are no changes to the current course structure for biology chemistry and physics the grade levels and prerequisites remain the same in U46 freshmen take biology sophomores take
chemistry juniors take physics this sequence builds skills intentionally across disciplines and ensures all students receive a strong foundation in science currently U46 requires biology and a physical science for graduation to ensure our curriculum remains rigorous and prepares students for post-secary
success we are undertaking a review of these science requirements for alignment with college expectations open ZAD is fully aligned to the nextG standards adopted by U46 board in 2014 and it's designed to bring those standards to life in our
classrooms the program follows a three three-year sequence biology first chemistry then followed by physics reflecting the most common structure used nationally earth and space science concepts are thoughtfully integrated into each course what truly sets Open
Sciad apart is its coherent design each lesson builds on a prior learning deepening both content knowledge and scientific thinking students engage in real science they are asking questions investigating phenomenon analyzing data uh building models and solving problems
the curriculum develops all three dimensions of NGSS disciplinary core ideas science and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts engineering standards are embedded as well supporting problem solving through authentic real world challenges this is a shift towards student centered student
standard aligned and skill-driven learning that prepares all students for college careers and active citizenship in the 21st century we recommend adopting open sed for biology and piloting open sed in chemistry and physics opens is a
highquality open educational resource freely available to districts and developed by a national network of science educators and researchers it's not retrofitted for standard it was designed from the start to align with the K12 science framework and the next generation science standards students
learn through phenomenon-based instruction engaging in hands-on investigation asking real world questions and thinking like scientists and engineers by adopting biology now and piloting chemistry and physics we're taking a thoughtfulbased approach
ensuring strong teacher support and full alignment with our standards and our commitment to student success our open sed rollout is is designed to be thoughtful phased and supportive ensuring long-term success for both students and teachers in 2024 2025 we'll
begin by purchasing and distributing materials for biology and the chemistry and physics pilots teachers will engage in unit specific professional learning and voluntary summer sessions will be offered for early engagement in 2025 2026 we're fully we will fully implement
biology and begin the chemistry and physics pilots supporting supported by ongoing job embedded coaching we'll start using assessment and resource data to guide instructional and professional learning adjustments in 26 and 27 we'll move forward with the implementation and
continue to support teachers and students through this important instructional shift our professional learning plan is built to ensure open sed is implemented with confidence consistency and impact it focuses on four key components it's curriculum
centered directly tied to the units teachers will teach making it practical and relevant the emphas emphasizes active learning with hands-on experiences that mirror what students will do it includes ongoing coaching providing real-time support as teachers
grow in their practice and it builds in structured feedback and reflection prompting promoting continuous improvement over time this approach ensures teachers feel prepared supported and empowered to bring open sedown for the proposal adopted adoption
and pilot in total this multi-year investment comes to 1.87 1.87 87 million with a focus on both highquality materials and the professional learning needed to ensure effective implementation to help put the total investment into perspective we've
broken it down into annual per student costs each high school will need about $1,500 annually for consumable materials the estimated pu per pupil cost is $142.25 per student across six years that comes to
$23.70 per student and it's important to note that our professional learning costs include both the training itself and the funding for substitute coverage the Office of K12 Science and Planetarium has developed a strong datadriven system to support implementation we will continuously
monitor how the curriculum is working in classrooms and use that data to guide adjustments in real time we built a framework around common informative and summitive assessments that will allow us to track student understanding across all schools and courses we all we will also cor um collect data on how the
resources are being used how time is being used during common planning and how we can refine professional development to meet the needs we're seeing in the data this system ensures that our decisions are not just based on materials or training but on real evidence from our classrooms focused on
student success we are committed to continuous improvement teacher support and ensuring that this investment results in more engaging equitable and rigorous science learning for all E46 students this concludes our presentation
thank you for the presentation and I know we're in this um situation uh similar to what we just had at Larkin High School with the revamp of the VPA uh curriculum where we've got the biology chemistry and physics all
they're going to be separate yes items that the board will be voting on but collectively this presentation covers all three of those um so we're okay taking questions regardless of of which path we're we're talking about so
I'm gonna open it up to board members for questions no you go first i I I don't actually really have a question um I just want to um I guess you know compliment the science departments here in 46 the the young students who were here from Elgen
High School earlier were like they were just evidence of what a great job we're doing here in the district um in terms of science and I'm super excited to see all of these new um yeah new ideas coming in and the new plan um and thank you for the presentation and
thanks for teaching our kids that science is important thank you we appreciate that very much Sue so thank you for for the presentation and thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions i I have concerns about this this proposal as you know um just to clarify a couple things will this be for
the honors and the regular courses this this these resources um so that's a really interesting question the short answer to that is no those are two separate courses with two different course details however when we did investigate across the country we
interviewed as you know a lot of people and we were surprised to find out that many of them not many but they were using it for both okay i I don't think that's a direction we would go in but other districts in the country are doing that okay so we're leaning more toward at this point the gen ed correct okay in
the honors for something else i could see using some of it for with the honors for like a supplementary cuz some of it looks really interesting so yeah the idea the premise is the same threedimensional phenomenon based in fact when we wrote the honors curriculum we had to make it threedimensional it um
originally we were we were following some other um when the when the teachers were working on it was very much organized around discrete content which made it very low rigor and so we had to work to bring in the three dimensions to build
it so that it it would be more rigorous than you know what what kids get already in NGSS it's very very rigorous and interestingly um I don't know if people are aware but the um college board when the framework came out college board um
actually rewrote theirs to be threedimensional as well okay and so that framework that K12 framework that that this is built on that caused everyone to change their rigor and um and and look at what they were doing so that they would be more
rig more rigorous than NGSS so okay and and I I you know I I love the NGSS rigor and what it stands for i think as as Kate said looking at the kids who just presented to us they're doing science exactly the way we want them to do
science correct so exactly um or for you did you pilot the biology or did you are you only piloting the physics and chemistry and if if so why i can take that one so um at instructional counsel who you know um we
go to before we come to board that was the recommendation from instructional counsel they they felt more secure with the biology openside curriculum and there were more concerns by chemistry and physics teachers and so they really wanted to pilot it for the first year okay that was one that was sort of set
up warning that's why I was asking so many questions when I saw what instructional counsel had to say um since they had they had concerns about the rigor um a lot of this is very dependent on good professional learning
yes which in our district is voluntary yes um [Laughter] so we have a we have a plan that would be required and we would make appropriate uh supports necessary in
order to be able to roll that out and we also want it to be a continuous model so we would focus on discrete units as opposed to thinking about professional learning as a as an entire year so we're rethinking the entire professional there
was not going to be like two days before school starts in the summer and then you're off well I mean you might have that but yes but but you it would that would not be it there would be 100% you were correct that would not because it sounds like this would not succeed without additional professional learning
do you have any sense of how many teachers and then I'll turn it over to someone else how many teachers would want want to pilot the physics or the chemistry so Miss Kerr we just found out about this Thursday oh okay sorry hey sorry
sorry i'm hoping everybody um I you know I don't know I and and I also think with the professional learning I think that once the teachers start doing it this is this this professional learning is so robust and wonderful that I'm hoping they're like excited to come to it so and then hopefully that will bring more
people who were maybe a little bit leerary of it on board okay and and actually one last thing and that is when you get feedback I would say get it from the students too oh we will good good in fact that's the that is the so open sad describes themselves as an ecosystem and
it really is this is like nothing I've ever experienced in my brief years as an educator like it's this is just the whole thing the whole concept of is completely different and so they're very much built on and part of our so we'll get coaching from them and in that
coaching it will be all about what evidence are we collecting and they're very much about student evidence their whole part of their vetting the biggest part of their vetting was based on student feedback um and so I I I'm I'm anticipating okay that
okay thank you and thank you for pro providing the res the links in fact I'm going to register so I can get even more information so I can find out more so thank you welcome Don so thank you for the presentation and thank you for the many pages of information answering
Sue's questions no it was actually super helpful i I appreciated it um she really did i I I liked it um so and a lot of my questions Sue has asked and you have answered already but
as far as professional development it kind of sounds like I was trying to do some research and it it sounds like um this the open sed it takes a bit more planning especially at first for teachers that there's just because it's
just very different so there's it's just going to be it could be more intensive work for our teachers that are taking this on how does that work support-wise especially when it's um that we're anticipating it being more rigor we're anticiping the very a different way of teaching for many of our teachers
outside of just your standard PD days what does the support for this really look like if we're if we're anticipating that amount of change um so so starting right with the professional learning the the professional learning is designed that the teachers are going to be
experiencing the activities in the unit as learners and because they're doing that while they're doing that they're going to be thinking and they actually build in conversations around what would you do how would you do it how would you change it how would this work for your
students um and so this the the guides that they have also of um I don't have to do all the talking to you Okay and uh all of the guides also provide a lot of support um and so between that between their networking and their TCT times between our coaching
staff and then we're also have invited all of the other coaches and our admin teams to come and be part of that professional learning this is a huge lift and our and our teachers deserve to have you know a lot of arms around them of people who have actually experienced these so um that's that's kind of our
kind of our plan i think another honest piece to that is from we've done a few rollouts now of some things that were big changes and what I think our team has learned is that you have to listen to people um even when you don't want to lean into it like you have to just
listen and so I think a lot of those first couple years is leaning into teachers and listening to what they're saying to be able to make the adjustments and um what's cool about open sed is that's that is their approach is is pretty much what changes do we need to make in the moment in
order to support the teachers so it's going to be it's going to be a multi-layered support um additionally we plan to have three leadership teams a bio a chem and a physics and we'll be doing meetup style and um and those will be kind of our implementation teams
where we do a lot of the learning and help make the adjustments so we're actually getting the adjustments in did I Did I answer you do you have more questions no I think that is that that was good can I ask one more question yeah okay um so then the other question was as far as us piloting it for physics
and chemistry is there a certain amount of teachers we are hoping participate so that we have a a real feel for how the program is working with our students so like if we only get like and I don't want to but if we got a low number I'm not going to put a number I just want to
make sure if we do a pilot and we have a lower number of teachers that participate how do we really know if program worked or not so I think all we can do at that point is first is we can offer and then we can
support right so we're asking people to sign up and then commit to the year um based on how many we get to sign up if we need to become make other adjustments we will make other adjustments I think we need to see who shows up first before we can
really plan next steps I would hope that we would get a significant amount obviously the more we have the better feedback that we get if we to make adjustments to the curriculum then we can make those adjustments before it would be come back to the board but I
need to find out who Yeah so I at this moment do not have because that's always my concern with pilots is that if we have a small sample size is it enough to know right like if the curriculum makes sense and how it works okay i would love
to give you a firming sorry thank you i can add to that that with in because I co-chair instructional counsel so part of what we shared with instructional counsel is that the whole reason for the pilot is the opportunity for teachers to try it out and to give us feedback so it
is the opportunity as for teacher input and what's working what's not working and if they choose not to do the pilot then they wouldn't be able to give feedback on whether or not it worked and so hopefully because teachers want to know will it work we will get a lot of
people thank you any other questions sue just one follow-up question so if you do a pilot on chemistry and physics would it then go if you decided to do it to keep these would it go through the whole instructional council process the board
voting again next year yes ma'am okay thank you i'm sorry could you repeat that question i think it might have it might be my same question but would we vote next year if if the pilot for the physics and chemistry are successful and they want
to keep it would we vote again next year to make it permanent thank you can I ask a clarifying question on that then so we we've got the proposal with the the costs was this written in mind of implementing the both you know biology
chemistry and physics in full or was this written so so that's the maximum cost yes this is the maximum cost yes ma'am okay thank you for that clarifying question any other board members have
any other questions i've got a couple additional questions um first of all I want to thank you also for the explanations that you gave to to Sue's questions they were they were very helpful um and thank you for the re the the links to the resource having just
graduated with a master's degree in in biology I can like looking at open sight ve a lot of it was very familiar to me which is to say that what students are learning in
post-secary education is very similar to what we are uh proposing here which is which is great because there's that alignment so I just want to want to throw that out there my question then to you is the alignment on the
front end so kids coming through middle school do we need now to start making adjustments to what we are doing elementary school middle school in order to prepare them for this work thank you so much for this question
because you know I love talking about what we're doing in 46 science so when I came to you guys last year with the the um the K6 proposal I didn't know how it was going to work and let me just tell
you it's working um we have you know a group of highly trained science specialists who understand NGSS to the fullest i shouldn't say the fullest we're working we're we're still working on that knowledge but they are implementing the story lines we are
collecting data that shows that our kids K through five actually K through six are landing at the level three um on our rubrics consistently i mean like in the 70% and higher um not including fours
we're talking just you know able to use the science and engineering practice uh in in a way that's appropriate but maybe not able to do the entire standard and then with the with the rest of them the entire standard what just came from the state board of ed are these things called progression models and we
compared our rubrics to the progression models and they align almost exactly so that means that evidence we're collecting aligns to the ISA aligns to the expectation of the state middle school has been actually doing phenomenon based they were the first to move I I don't know yes we have many
teachers at the middle school level at across most of our middle schools that have been really engaging in the whole NGSS process they're building their own story lines they're trying to align them to um things that they're doing in ELA and so they're doing a really good job
of moving along and we recently had a um had them together had the middle school and the elementary people together and what was really cool they were doing their pluses and minuses and the celebrations and like what we still work on and the faces in the room were so cool because from K through 8th grade
they were like "You guys do CERS how are you you you know you guys do question boards you do notice and wonder we are breaking down the silo and so when we did our interviewing across the country that was one of the things that people
sort of were were saying was one our kids don't know how to have conversations well we've been doing academic teaming in the district for a while and so we described academic teaming and they said "Oh that would totally help our kids." And then the other one was well we don't have anybody in our in our elementary district who's doing it or middle school district so
then we described what we were doing and again they were like so what I'm saying is our kids is you know I if we didn't do this at the high school level I'd actually be concerned because they're getting it K through eight um and they're getting that high level of rigor and they're they're understanding the
sensemaking process the phenomenon basic process and so um I I I think we're we're there we're like right there okay thank you for that um my last question has to do with the uh remark from instructional council about support for
dual language teachers can you talk to that a little bit yeah the the the product itself the the the ecosystem itself is is authentically translated the documents um are also Google documents and so dual language could make adjustments as needed to those to
those documents um and then they'll be in the professional learning sessions as teammates so getting that understanding of like we're all doing the same thing moving in the same direction does that is that what you're wondering yeah yeah
thank you okay anything else i thank you you're welcome thank you the next two items were related to that proposal and I believe all questions were addressed so I will go to item F
German French and Spanish curriculum proposal uh Brian Tennyson assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Celia Banks director of curriculum and instruction and Jacob Van D mortell coordinator of K12 social studies and
work and world languages will provide the board of education with information relating to the German French and Spanish curriculum proposal right thank you very much nailed the name well done uh so there there we go uh so in this proposal we're seeking the
adoption of funding for new curricular resources and classroom libraries cultural funds as well as a transition to new fourth year options for our German French and Spanish classes as always with curriculum we're speaking to these two core pieces
student success because we have rigorous curriculum and uh the resources to support those as well as an effective engaged staff i'll tell you in a moment about um the the process that brought in more teachers than ever before to evaluate some of the resources we're looking at um as well as you teach better when you have the best and newest
things um okay so a couple of points here so the first three things in this rationale slide are really talking about the adoption of new resources and so uh in a moment I'll tell you about Wayside Publications and the resources we're looking for um but really it's about licenses were expiring and so it's time
to reconsider those because we are at the end of the curriculum cycle um additionally uh as we move to really what we're recommending is a a continuation of our Spanish resource and then moving French and German over to that same resource company um we may have to move some
curricular units around but this is not new curriculum it's just making sure that you know we may be teaching sports when indeed the resource is speaking about sports at the right proficiency levels and so those second and third bullet points really speak to that that having the book align more tightly with
the content helps you not have to go out and find authentic resources on your own and then the last two bullet points there um the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages ACTful uh talks about language and cultural education and so when we're talking about the classroom libraries and the
cultural funds it's about that cultural education piece that the Japanese programs had for a couple of years now additionally the final bullet point and our last thing is that we're looking for new fourth year options primarily a shift to AP for level four students and so anytime you have the opportunity to
terminate a program in an externally validated uh place that gives students the opportunities for college credit and or the seal of biiteracy uh that's something we want to do something very exciting about this is that uh we were able to solicit the feedback of all of our world language teachers through use
of a Canvas course and online demos and evaluation rubrics uh that were made available to all world language teachers and so over 50% of our world language teachers completed evaluations both on the resources that I'm uh proposing tonight and the changes that we are talking about not going to go through everything on
this timeline but I want to highlight a couple of things that show how a lot of what we're talking about tonight is rooted in some of the things that have happened along the way so for example in 2018 we brought forward an entirely new proficiency based uh world language learning program and moved our Spanish
programs to the Wayside publications that we're going to be talking about tonight but then just a year later in 2019 that first cohort of dual language students who started as kindergarters and first graders got to the high school and began to metriculate through with obviously enormously um large skills in
Spanish that were much beyond anything we were offering in our regular genet Spanish and so we had to begin to look at things like AP Spanish lang AP Spanish lit we brought forward the Latinx Latino Latina Latinx program we looked at dual credit courses and so that's speaking to there's just a lot of
different ways that our students come to Spanish language learning in our district and that's going to tie in a little bit when we talk about options beyond just AP language for our fourth year uh Spanish students additionally then in 2021 as the uh Streamwood Academy transitioned away from its world
language academy we expanded Japanese and Chinese really we're only running the Japanese courses uh we added this idea of cultural education sorry cultural experience funds to help uh teachers be able to take students who may not have opportunities to go to some of the things that we'll be talking about in a moment um this is an
opportunity to make sure that every program has an equitable experience around access to things like that um and then really as the Japanese program began to roll up and we brought new curriculum forward each year um the Japanese program was the first to say "What if our level four program was an
AP program?" because then we have the opportunity to make sure our kids have access to college credit have a chance to earn the state seal of bi literacy and perhaps that'll indeed keep retention we have a precipitous drop off after year two and so maybe having that opportunity will help drive retention
and so a lot of these changes have existed in other settings and we're really trying to bring them together here to make sure that all world language teachers have that same experience our standards are straight from the uh ISBY which is really just straight from ACTV it literally links to
their documents um and so just to be really clear about the program overview here what we're talking about uh with French and German especially is that we'd have French one French 2 German one German 2 and then honors French and German 3 and then not next year because students have already enrolled in honors 4 for next year and we're not making any
changes for next year but beginning next year they'd be able to enroll for school year 26,27 AP French language and culture or AP German language and culture and then Spanish is very similar but again students get there through so many different pathways they may take uh Spanish 1A and 1B in middle school they
then they go to Spanish one sorry then they would go to Spanish 2 or perhaps they start with Spanish one um they may go through so long story short we want to our teachers overwhelmingly told us that because of the different ways that students get there sometimes we have heritage speakers sometimes we have move
in sometimes we have students who started in duel and dropped out that there are so many different types of students who might be in a fourth year language it would be appropriate if we could offer the AP option so we have that equity piece but also some other
fourthyear Spanish option as well and so talking with our team we were able to you know the numbers justify it we have the ability we are going to offer a additional honors fourth year Spanish program as an alternative to AP Spanish Lang and culture and I'll be back next year to tell you what that course is because we have to write it between now
and then um so let's get to the exciting stuff the recommended resources like I said are from Wayside Publishing they're an industry leader in language learning uh their can do statements are quite literally the standards uh they are tops in interculturality they are reviewed by
a number of places for the sake of time I'm not going to read everything on this slide but Wayside is fantastic and we're very excited to expand access to that to all of our programs we're also really excited as are our teachers really excited about the supplemental materials uh we are looking at a one-time $500 for classroom
libraries this is because we're trying to increase sustained silent reading just like you would in a regular uh reading program in the target language and our students know what interests kids who are in high school but also have a proficiency level that's you know perhaps second or third year learning
and so we want to give them the means to purchase the things that they need for their classes and then additionally this is something we've been doing in uh the Japanese courses for a couple of years but we want to offer uh it's about $1,200 per teacher it's actually bisection it's kind of complicated but about $1,200 per teacher over the course
of the six years to help fund cultural experiences this could be taking students down to the Gota Institute or to the Japanese Botanic Center or bringing in a French chef or buying cultural reality for your classroom or buying kids games i could go on I won't the idea is uh this would be spent
through my department in conjunction with associate with assistant principles and with teacher collaboration and so teachers are really excited about this more on that in a moment uh the implementation plan is this we're here making the purchases in 2425 uh with everything being available for next year
and then again the the key thing here is that those fourth year options would appear on course selection sheets next year for implementation in school year 2627 during the course of next year Spanish teachers and myself will be writing that alternative fourth year honors course and we'll be back here
next year to tell you more about that then with 26 really to the end of the adoption cycle would be having the ability to use some of the new common assessments that exist in those resources to really evaluate what is a comprehensive program we say we have proficiency levels we say we're teaching them and it should go to the sea of bell
by literacy in college board and we ought to be able to track pretty precisely if indeed what we say students are learning is exactly what they are learning um professional learning for this really the there's kind of two parts one is for the new AP teachers that we'll have and
they're going to have to go to uh advanced placement summer institutes they'll have the ability to begin doing that this summer we already have teachers in anticipation of this uh looking at those and getting ready for that um and then additionally all teachers will have to have a look at how do they plan backwards from the new resource how do the new assessments
embedded in that resource how do they plan around those and so that'll begin um optionally as soon as this year you know pending approval um and then that'll begin in earnest prior to the school year additionally um teachers have already started asking and I have promised that we will talk before the
end of the school year how they will begin to be able to spend some of those cultural funds because they are really excited about that and so that'll begin uh before the end of the school year cost all told for the textbooks the licenses the supplemental materials and the professional de development is
929,7 929,73741 or per pupil over the six-year adoption 18531 um or sorry 389 per pupil per year the proposed results would be an increase in students participating in
levels three and four of our language programs as well as an increase in advanced placement scores because we'll have them um for German and French um and additional students taking them in Spanish uh and then ideally because advanced placement scores four or higher
uh are a pathway to the sea of biiteracy we would have an increase in number of students earning the Illinois state seal of bi literacy and uh as we evaluate this change uh like I said the assessments align to the proficiency scales oh I'm so sorry that's a terribly
large loud alarm which align to the AP proficiency levels in the seal of biiteracy and so uh really we we intend to look at the scores and say is what we think our kids are doing is that indeed what they are doing because it should line up and that concludes this
presentation you almost made it thank you for the presentation do board members have any questions sue thank you for the presentation this sounds great one question I have that doesn't much have to do with this material as you noted there's a drop off especially in French and German after year two and I
remember a long time ago and my kids were in high school i think it's been 12 years now since the youngest one graduated but they they combined like German three honors German three German four honors German four all in the same classroom all with the same teacher are we still doing that and would we do it
with this yes and no so no because we no longer have German three and honors German 3 at level three language learning is honors period end of story in German are we often combining three and four yes we are the the numbers simply don't support response how about
when we move to AP would we do it then or would we have to or we'll have to see those numbers but that is one of the things that teachers suggested is well if we have a separate AP class I can't combine it and I said "I can't promise that but I see what you're saying exactly that's a consideration." Thank you
John thank you for all of this so I think I need clarification on the program overview and what we currently have and what the change is so currently our fourth year option for world language is honors that language
so we do not on the proficiency scales currently rise to the level uh we'll use the seal by literacy as sort of the standard that's an intermediate high on the actual proficiency scales we go to intermediate mid which is a missed opportunity frankly right I mean one
more half level AP gets you there so moving to AP allows our students to reach out towards that externally validated something whether it's an AP score or success on the seal of biiteracy adjusting that just a half a level on the proficiency scales and
adopting the curriculum that we know gets us there links us to a lot of better outcomes so for French and German we're replacing their fourth level class with the AP correct and then for Spanish we're adding AP
maintaining because it has the honor Spanish 4 asterisk like it's a new class but it's it's an existing class we're going to change the curriculum since we're going to have AP also yes ma'am so that's a a placeholder name right now we need to we need to look and see what what would be the best option for
students not going to an AP class because again our teachers are telling us that there are students who don't want to go to AP but they have these skills that are at the same proficiency proficiency level is that a conversation course is it a technical reading we've looked at other districts around the area there's a lot of different options and so that's something we need to talk
with our teachers about what does that course look like and that's what we'll bring back to you next year so students who wanted who anticipate taking the AP would go from honors their honors three to the AP class but then there will be some sort of other
option for students who want to maintain language whether their heritage whether they just enjoy Spanish and the culture whatever it is they but that class they would not be able to sign up for the AP if they opt if they change their mind at the end of the year correct but the proficiency levels will be very similar
and they may sign up for the CEL biiteracy testing uh because Okay because they could still do that correct yes okay because I think if I'm correct right now we have kids will take honor Spanish 4 but then take the AP test
yes in one of our buildings yes okay and I just want now we're going to switch to actually having the AP course to support that need and the resource that leads to that and everything okay that makes a lot more sense thank you yep any other questions
thank you i'm gonna stay right here don't mind that's right you are the next two agenda timer less loud this time this is similar to what we just did before yes yeah so just like the science
that you have G and H on your agendas but I'll be speaking about G and H together in one presentation okay excellent okay so I am still Jacob Vanny Mortell that's still Brian and Celia so let's jump in so the purpose of this presentation is to talk about new
resources for advanced placement macroeconomics and advanced placement human geography as you know we use the College Board's CED course and exam descriptions for those courses we are recommending no curricular changes just new resources as those licenses are expiring it's fairly straightforward for
the other classes civics economics United States history and its American studies counterpart world geography and world history we're bringing forward new resources as well as new revised curriculum new assessments for every unit that are based in literacy and text
um they include all state standards and all statemandated topics of instruction and they align with the U46 instructional clarity framework again we're speaking to student success and effective and engaged staff student success because again the the curriculum is rigorous uh
and the assessments are there the effective and engaged staff again we've uh more participation than ever before in the evaluation of these resources and curriculum um and new better resources so the rationale for this is it begins with uh equity leaders talking about systemic equity really being about
having highquality grade level engaging affirming meaningful curriculum and so that's what we set out to do we went out to find the resources and then make the curriculum fit those resources tightly additionally our licenses were expiring so this is the right time to do
this right um but again the idea of tightly aligning the curriculum to the resource students have in students and teachers have in front of them that's one of the key rationale here uh specifically around economics you're looking at a a significant shift of the content of that course moving from like
80% macroeconomics 20% personal financial literacy to almost an upending of that it's now lots of personal financial literacy with macroeconomics still having its own standalone units and woven in but the the stuff that we know our students need to exist as humans in the world that the state tells
us that we need that the PACE framework tells us we need that's that's there and it's provided for uh and then additionally uh not all of our high school social studies courses had rigorous common assessments or had them incomplete every unit has textbased rigorous common assessments uh two for
every unit not going to read everything on this committee slide for you but as you can see we have teachers from every building every program dual language sped AP gened every every building every program uh and that committee set out to really write curricular units much as we've
done for many years and it was in August of this year that we really changed course and they're they were tasked with instead helping facilitate the evaluation of resources by all teachers and then backwards planning curriculum from those new resources so it was in
October that we uh created a Canvas course for every teacher to be able to evaluate all the different resources that we had solicited demonstration access for all of them we then brought in uh virtual demonstrations from all of our vendors brought teachers together uh
to collaborate with those vendors ask them the questions and collaborate with each other to evaluate those resources and then that committee that we just looked at looked at all that evaluation half of our teachers filled out evaluations for all the different uh resources which is incredible we had
lots to look at and we made um really informed consensus decisions about the resources that I'm about to propose to you here the important thing on this slide is that these resources are available next year 2526 for all teachers the curriculum the assessments
that will be available for them to opt into but won't be fully implemented until school year 2627 and the idea behind that is to make sure that teachers have the ability to check it out give feedback and not transition too quickly if they want to take a slow
transition on that but the feedback will be collected and make make sure we implement that over the next year standards again are from the state of Illinois um as well as the important thing is all the statemandated topics of instruction are embedded much more
authentically than they sometimes were in previous situations where you sort of had a square peg and a round hole to say that we had checked a box key changes here as I pointed out new resources for the AP classes economics really becomes personal financial literacy focus resource for
next year full implementation in school year 2627 and then civics US and American studies world geography and world history are the same resources available to everyone next year curricular units to opt into and then uh provide feedback on with full implementation for school year
2627 here's the exciting resources AP macroeconomics we're using Krugman's economics for the AP course fourth edition this is the newest edition of our currently adopted AP book we are using the third edition this is the fourth edition teachers were universal in their desire for this
textbook i'm back i promise I go fast a uh AP human geography a spatial perspective again we have five teachers teaching this course this is the the book that they're learning about in their APSI this is the book they wanted and then for civics econ US history world geography and world history you'll see a bunch of products with Alive in
the title that's TCI's product government alive politics in you or history alive pursuing American ideals and other ones that you can read we did not set out to adopt a single provider for all of these courses but the rubrics that the team developed emphasized several things i mean they said a lot of
things but the things that we kept coming back to when selecting these resources were strong Spanish translations and authentic translations and the totality of translations like videos were redubbed in Spanish rather than just close captioned that sort of attention to detail additionally we are
focusing on student engagement and pedagogical approaches to driving student engagement through inquiry and that's like TCI's whole thing is there they claim to be an inquiry based resource i believe them and our teachers responded accordingly and said yes this is something that's going to drive engagement um in addition to TCI's economics alive
for economics we're also using NextGen Personal Finance um that's a endowment paid free resource um that does personal financial literacy again lots of engaging games and activities again high-quality Spanish translations um and while that is free we will be binding the student materials and you'll see a
cost associated with that in a few moments the implementation plan I'm not going to read everything on here but again the key notes are this next year we have teachers available to opt in and provide that feedback with full implementation for school year 26 and 27
you'll see in a moment on the PD plan the first two years of our PD plan there's a lot of vendors providing quarterly dropins where we talk about how do we backwards plan from this resource on materials that are coming up that'll shift after year two to rather than our vendors providing that we'll use that same structure to look at our
common assessment data and say what do we need to do with this information and then of course ongoing feedbacks and revisions necessary on the professional learning tab here you'll see the when teachers begin using this there will be two pieces of required training how do
we plan using our assessments and how do we get feedback on them as well as how do we plan with our resource that will be recommended next year and required for all teachers opting in to give their feedback and then it will be required for all remaining teachers in school year 26 27 with onboarding as needed for new
teachers and and so forth additionally we'll have asynchronous training both TCI and NextGen have a ton of asynchronous things teachers can do we're going to work with our professional learning department to sort of accredit that and put it in our own system uh and then like I said importantly we're going to have these
live virtual quarterly dropins uh where we're going to try and designate someone from every building to sort of always be there but anyone can join it'll be focused on resource usage and utilization in the first couple of years followed by how are we what are we seeing on our common assessments and letting that drive the data from there
on and then always the additional supports around the canvas blueprints and um utilizing our TCTs and PLC's with an inquiry PLC book study things like that excuse me you can see in the cost here um the AP books the nextG
binding excuse me and the TCI text as well as uh professional learning budgeted for $1,268,9969 uh the consumable cost is $24,680 a year for the binding together of those nextgen materials uh the AP courses it's 54.84 per student over the
course of the adoption and it's 10403 for the other remaining high school materials our proposed results are as follows an increase in the administration of social studies common assessments as well as an eventual
increase in those scores once we have a baseline because again we don't have them in every class now so we get a baseline and then we improve the scores additionally because the common assessments are text driven and force choice so there's lots of writing there's lots of practicing in uh PSAT and ACT style we expect to see increase
in scores there as well as an increase in AP scores because of the new AP resources In evaluating this change we want to look at our assessment data to make sure that it does indeed align with what our standardized assessment data is telling us we want to look at our resource usage and implementation and we
want to make sure that teachers are using that data and their common planning time and support and that concludes this presentation let's stop the time thank you once again do board members have any questions Don
so for econ it's the econ alive plus the personal finance piece yes but AP is not no ap macroeconomics still follows the college board's CED and is not going to have that personal financial piece
outside of what the CED already has in it which it does have some it does have some okay so those students do get part of that it just isn't as much because that's just not how the AP format is correct okay thank you anybody else
thank you thank you thank you okay the next item on the agenda is work session resolutions dr williams thank you President Owens this is a resolution for the disposal of surplus personal property miss Ashley McCainy assistant director
of plant operations will review the attached resolution and will respond to questions from the board of education the administration recommends the board of education approve the resolution for the disposal of sur surplus personal property do board members have any questions on
this resolution okay thank you miss Haney remains at the deas for the next item bid plan operations Larkin High School roof replacement project 274-25
administration recommends award to the lowest responsible bidder preservation services incount 2,972,000 even and requests authorization for district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be
charged to the operations and maintenance fund and the cost is included in the budget for the 2024 2025 fiscal year board members have any questions next item Miss Haney is still at the dance uh for the next item bid
plan operations integrated pest control management services administration recommends award to the lowest responsible bidder able pest control in the amount of 246,690 even and requests authorization for district administration to execute
related documents the expenditure will be charged to the operations and maintenance fund and the cost is included in the budgets for the 2024 2025 through 2027 2028 fiscal years any questions for Miss McCain
great thank you the next item proposal assessment accountability and student success kain County Regional Office of Education Learning Partner brian Tennyson assistant superintendent for teaching and learning and Matt Ramundi director of assessment accountability and student
success will present the attached proposal summary and will respond to questions from the board of education the administration recommends approval of the proposal from Kain County Regional Office of Education in the amount of $324,400 even and requests authorization
for district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the education fund and the cost is included in the budget for the 2024 2025 fiscal year do board members have any questions so is is this being covered by the funds
we recently got that you mentioned at the last board meeting okay thank you y any other questions thank you the next agenda item proposal equity and innovation northern Illinois University social justice camp dr latrice Satwite
assistant superintendent of equity and innovation and Lisa Jackson director of equity and innovation will present the attached proposal summary and will respond to questions from the board of education the administration recommends approval of the proposal from Northern Illinois University in an amount not to
exceed $54,768.82 and requests authorization for district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the education fund and the cost is included in the budget for the 2024 2025 fiscal year board members have
any questions thank you the next item is a proposal from information services for 2025 student Chromebooks jim Wolf director of information services will present the attached proposal summary and will
respond to questions from the board of education administration recommends approval of the proposal from Vivacity Technologies in the amount of $3,145,000 even and requests authorization for district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be
charged to the education fund and the cost is included in the budget for the 2025 2026 fiscal year do board members have any questions shondaanda I just have a clarific clarification question excuse me um for the Chromebooks being distributed for first
fifth and 9th grade students upon receipt is that for next year's first fifth and nth grade students yeah we've already done okay all right thank you any other questions okay next item the next item is proposal for
information services network equipment refresh mr wolf remains at the deis administration recommends approval of the proposal from Sentinel Technologies in the amount of 627,2342 and Marco Technologies in the amount of $541,38 and requests authorization for
district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the education fund and the cost is included in the budget for the 2024 2025 fiscal year do board members have any questions thank you
the next agenda item is a proposal from operations Unite U46 Kimble Middle School project mr brian Lynhome chief of staff will present the attached proposal summary and will respond to questions from the board of education the administration recommends approval of
the proposal from AMSCO in the amount of $44,750 even and requests authorization for district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the capital projects fund and the cost is included in the budget
for the 2024 2025 and 2025 2026 fiscal years do board members have any questions okay next item proposal operations Unite U46 new Elgen Middle School project uh Mr lindholm remains at the deis and the administration
recommends approval of the proposal from CERX solutions in the amount of $42,577 Even and request authorization for district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the capital projects fund and the cost is included in the budget
for the 2024 2025 through 2026 2027 fiscal years do board members have any questions thank you that brings us to work session contracts over 35,000 dr williams thank
you President Owens the um first item in this section is contract renewal assessment accountability and student success Panorama student success dashboard and surveys brian Tennyson assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction and Matt Raundi director
of assessment accountability and student success will present the attached proposal summary and will respond to questions from the board of education the administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with Panorama Education in the amount of $766,165.77 and requests authorization
for district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the education fund and the cost is included in the budget for the 2024 2025 fiscal year do board members have any questions thank you
the next item is contract renewal chief of staff projection staffing and mapping software brian Lindholm returns to the deis and will present the attached proposal summary and will respond to questions from the board of education the administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with the
Universus Software Canada for 5 years in the amount of $382,441 even and request authorization for district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the education fund and the cost is included in the budgets for the
2025 2026 through 2029 2030 fiscal years do board members have any questions thank you the next item is a contract renewal for curriculum and instruction for canvas brian Tennyson assistant superintendent of curriculum and
instruction and Celia Banks director of curriculum and instruction return to the deis and will present the attached proposal summary and will respond to questions from the board of education the administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with instruct
instruct instructor instructor in the amount of $962,83810 and request authorization for district administration to execute related documents the expenditure will be charged to the education fund and the cost is included in the budget for the
202526 through 202728 fiscal years do board members have any questions thank you the next item is a contract renewal for Specialized Student Services Care Solace dr latrice Satwite assistant superintendent of equity and innovation
and Amanda Leathersby director of specialized student services will present the attached proposal summary and will respond to questions from the board of education administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with Carales in the amount of $290,736 Even and requests authorization
for district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the education fund and the cost is included in the budget for the 2025 2026 fiscal year board members have any questions okay next item another
contract renewal for Specialized Student Services news to you dr satwite and Amanda Leatherbe and Dr christopher Sanzeri assistant director of specialized student services will present the attached proposal summary and will respond to questions from the
board of education administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with N2Y LLC in the amount of $275,4147 and request authorization for district administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the education fund and the
cost is included in the budget for the 2025 2026 fiscal year do board members have any questions thank you for waiting through a long meeting vote thank you thank you
and that being the last item on our agenda I will ask for a motion to adjurnn so moved second roll call please miss Kerr yes miss Khan yes miss Martin yes miss Nolan yes miss Schwarz yes miss Thomas yes president
Owens yes we are journed at 94