##VIDEO ID:CPQE-zZsuik## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e jary 27th 2025 board meeting I apologize that we are a bit late coming back into Open Session um but we will begin with our agenda here by uh citing the Pledge of Allegiance if I could have you rise as you are able thank you alance to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone uh the first item on our agenda is accent un achievement Dr Johnson thank you president Owens uh this evening in recognition of National School counseling week the u46 Board of Education will present a proclamation of appreciation to Dominique Zod lead guidance counselor or lead school counselor um on behal of all u46 high school counselors school district u46 has 45 school counselors serving more than 17,000 students in five high schools eight middle schools and two alternative programs the rule the role of a school counselors to support a student's academic social and emotional growth and help them establish plans for the Futures counselors meet with students throughout the school year on both an individual and group basis to address social emotional issues or needs that arise in their lives and help them create academic plans that align with their post high school plans board member Kerr is here to present the proclamation all right okay so this is the proclamation of appreciation for National School counseling so whereas school counselors are employed in schools to help students reach their full potential and where as school counselors are committed to helping students explore their abilities strengths interests and talents as these traits related to Career awareness and development and whereas School councils help parents focus on ways to further the educational personal and social growth of their children and whereas school councilors work teachers and other Educators to help students explore their potential and set realist Les realistic goals for themselves and whereas School councils seek to identify and utilize Community Resources that can enhance complement comprehensive School counseling programs and help students become productive members of society and whereas comprehensive developmental School counseling programs are kids are cons considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school whereas our approximately 60 counselors support students academic social and emotional needs now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education recognizes its talented counselors during National School counseling week February 3rd through 7th 2025 and ask administrators students parents and community who join in recognizing and thanking these individuals for their dedication efforts and service on behalf of the children and you presented this 27th of January 225 signed by m ol president and suzan Johnson superintendent thank you for you on behalf of all of our district school counselors thank you to the board of education and to the administration at school district d46 for this honor and recognition school counselors work diligently they work hard every day to take care of our children and and our young people as they Dare To Dream as they challenge themselves as they build resilience and so it is our honor and our pleasure to work with your children and we strive to do our best every day so thank you for this recognition Okay the next item on our agenda is facility planning update Dr Johnson thank you president Owens this evening Brian Lindholm Chief of Staff Dr Anne Williams Deputy superintendent of operations and Lola M storic Deputy superintendent of instruction will present to the Board of Education an update on facility planning okay thank you uh so good evening uh thank you for the opportunity to provide another update in our ongoing facilities work tonight's presentation will include the following uh an update on our attendance boundary planning work detailed updates on each of our Middle School construction projects a preview of our work to establish District standards for all of our school buildings and an update on the new start and end times for our elementary schools that will go into effect next school year so to start we'd like to provide an update on our ongoing work to establish new attendance boundaries as you know we presented our preliminary recommendations to the board of education on December 9th since then we have held four of the five mapping our future Community engagement sessions and we've received many questions and considerations that we are working through as we prepare a final boundary proposal for the board to consider later the spring the feedback we've received has included requests to maintain feeder patterns to address Transportation concerns to consider sibling preferences and grandfathering options and more and we are carefully working through many of these items now and will'll be prepared to address them when we come back with our final proposal in the coming weeks the mapping our future sessions have been a great opportunity to share our plans with the community but more importantly to hear their feedback and engage with them in a onetoone fashion we had a session at South Elgen high school last week that had great participation with nearly a hundred attendees and we received very valuable feedback from our families uh from that portion of the district we have one session remaining at Streamwood High school this Wednesday evening September or uh January 29th at 6:30 p.m. and we would encourage anyone across u46 to attend if they are interested in learning more in addition we are posting videos that have been used at each of the sessions to our you n46 website where community members can view the content and provide feedback if they're unable to attend one of the sessions in person next slide uh we have also updated our online boundary map that's found on the u46 website under our schools and then our boundaries to allow viewers to toggle between the current attendance boundaries and our proposed boundaries this interactive map allows panning and zooming to a very granular level to to allow our community members to determine exactly how their neighborhood or even their individual home may be impacted by the proposed boundaries and we are also working with our partner barager to have an address locator page where a user can simply punch in their address uh to learn their their assigned elementary middle and high schools under the preliminary proposed boundaries we expect this page will be available to the public in mid-February and then these Pages would be updated later this spring with any subsequent changes after the board of education formally approves new attendance boundaries so at this point uh we'll transition and I'll turn it over to Dr Williams to provide updates on our Middle School construction projects thank you Mr lindom next slide first I'd like to start with an update on our new Middle School in Bartlet which may have a new name by the end of the evening renovation work in the classrooms and hallways is progressing smoothly with ceiling grids and flooring installations continuing restrooms are getting durable new epoxy flooring with nearly with the second floor being nearly complete offices in the main in the main office as well as the administrative Wing are getting new cabinets doors and lights and I'm very pleased to report that the building is now running on permanent power and the new boilers are providing reliable heat throughout the building in the new addition classrooms and hallways are being painted ceiling grids are going in and mechanical systems like pipes and Ducks are being installed in the captor masonary walls outline the Sur serving area and kitchen equipment installation is underway lastly the gymnasium is filled with natural light thanks to solar tubes on the roof which I will highlight on the very next Slide the solar tubes are shown in the picture on your right and the solar tubes also known as Sun tunnels or tubular skylights used reflective tubes to bring natural light into a building they are an energy efficient and cost effective solution perfect for spaces where traditional windows or skylights aren't feasible by providing natural light without electricity they brighten indoor spaces while reducing energy consumption in this image again you can see the solar tubes in the gymnasium resembling spotlights that illuminate the space additionally on this slide on your left it showcases new classro Cabinetry and the vibrant pops of color throughout the hallways highlighting how the new Middle School and Bartlett is truly coming to life next slide please now let's move on to our addition starting with Kimbo while we don't have actual pictures to show you our progress we do have some short videos to share as you watch this particular video keep in mind that Kimble is much older than Kenyan Woods which means it requires extensive Ren renovations to the existing building these Renovations will be carefully managed while School is in session presenting unique challenges however with detailed planning clear communication and a commitment to safety we're confident that we can balance construction needs with maintaining a productive and safe learning environment for our students and staff if we could play the video now please e [Music] to that's how exciting is that while they're queuing up the next video I'd like to tell you a little bit about about um Kenyan Woods while that um addition is not as invasive as the existing work on Kimbo this um Edition will provide modernized classrooms collaborative spaces and is being designed to enhance learning opportunities for all students um with an emphasis on natural light flexible layouts and state-of-the-art Technology this addition will significantly expand the school's capacity capacity and while renovations to the existing building are minimal um that will ensure that most of the work is concentrated in the new edition the new edition I thought you were on the can you go to the next slide please the new edition shown here on your far right the ushaped Edition um and then I guess with that you can go ahead and play the video for Kenyan Woods e e e I have just a few more slides before I turn it back over to Mr Lindholm that should be coming up any second now okay thank you um this slide reflects the differences between the two projects as I previously stated the Kenyan Woods project has minimal renovation to the existing building from a design standpoint the only significant change is the conversion of two classrooms into additional office spaces whereas Kimbo has significant Renovations again throughout the existing building anticipated long lead times for some of the items and it has um almost twice as many bid packages as the addition at Kenyon woods so if we go to the next slide um we can talk briefly about the new Middle School in Elgen um we don't have a video to show you this week we'll save that for next meeting um but last week the Fox River Water Reclamation District approved the annexation ordinance for this site marking an important milestone in the project and the Elgen city council also discussed the project in detail expressing enthusiasm about this project as well as the other projects planned for the city of Elgen in the years ahead so again stay tuned because we'll have another short video telling you about this building at our next meeting and on the next slide um we simply have highlighted the next steps for our Board of Education um during consent agenda tonight the Kenyan Woods bid packages will be considered and voted upon and at the February 10th meeting we have several packages that will be coming for first read one to be expedited relating to a batement that will actually occur over spring break so these projects are ready to get started um we will be sending out invites for groundbreaking very very soon and with that I will turn it over to Mr L Mr Lindholm to talk about District standards okay uh thank you Dr Williams um so in addition to the type of major projects that Dr Williams just summarized you may recall that the unite u46 recommendations called for an additional $10 million per year to better maintain our facilities this additional investment would include things like traditional things like replacing roofs Paving parking lots updating HVAC systems modernizing playground equipment but we also intend to enhance all of our buildings by doing things like renovating our science labs creating secure entryways updating the intercom and security systems and more so we're working this year to establish a set of District standards that we work to implement in all of our buildings and we'll bring those proposed standards back to the Board of Education later this spring along with an estimated budget and timeline for completing these projects across the district realizing that the work will likely stretch out uh 5 to 10 years so at this point uh we're going to transition into an update on our extended elementary school day that will start next year so we'll turn it over to Lola movich the deputy superintendent of instruction to provide more details thank you Mr lolm So currently at six hours uh for the day school district u46 has one of the shortest Elementary days in the state and I am pleased to share that as a part of the collective bargaining agreement with the Elgen Teachers Association which was ratified last February in February 2024 the elementary day will be extended by 20 minutes starting with next year the 2025 2026 school year so this means that beginning next year the elementary day will be 6 hours and 20 minutes long the extension of the elementary school day is a collaborative effort to enhance instructional opportunities and improve learning outcomes for our students and this shift will allow us to provide additional instructional time for students while also adding access to specials classes such as art music PE science health and digital literacy for all of our kindergarten through sixth grade students in order to it is back oh go back I'm sorry go back previous slide in order to operate efficiently extending the elementary day will require us to shift start and end times for all elementary school students next year schools that currently start at 8 A.M will start at 7:50 a.m. and they will end at 2:10 p.m. beginning in August of 2025 and schools or elementary schools that currently start at 8:30 a.m. will begin at 8:20 a.m. and end at at 2:40 p.m. beginning in August of 2025 so this change adds 20 minutes to the school day resulting in 100 additional instructional minutes per week and approximately 60 additional instructional hours per calendar year the goal of this change is to support student achievement and allow access to additional instructional opportunities with a longer learning day as well as increased collaboration time for our teachers in addition to this evening's presentation our team is communicating broadly in order to inform everyone about these changes we'll be reaching out to parents students teachers staff and community members through our website emails social media newsletters School Marquees and automated phone calls and text we also encourage folks to use let's talk to ask questions or raise concerns and our plan for communication has four phases uh phase one was focused on planning and getting communication materials ready phase two starts today uh with announcements and updates phase three will continue with ongoing communication and reminders until school starts in August of 2025 and phase four will focus on implementation monitoring and a follow-up survey in August just to see how things are going and if any additional support is needed so that concludes tonight's update and are there any questions at this time thank you for the updates and the videos and and all of the exciting information to come uh do board members have any questions no okay thank you thank you hey the next item on our agenda is public comment Dr Johnson thank you president Owens and this evening uh coming forward to give us the overview of public comment is Brenda Gomez even and welcome to the Board of Education meeting we are now at the public Comon portion of the meeting attend these mission to make a public comments and first Vi at tonight were asked to complete a request to speak form in advance those who chose to speak via Zoom were provided with a webinar ID number to call in promply at 7.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 idual questions or comments during the meeting a written response will 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 u-46.org those emails were posted on the board agenda for public viewing when for for and we do have one public comment this evening um our public speaker providing comment is uh online so I'm going to try to unmute Alvin and allow him to speak Elvin are you able to speak yes can you hear me we can Hi how are you guys doing so my public comment I'm sorry no I was just gonna say you can go ahead and begin your public comment so my public comment is when am I allowed to be reinstated in a district or am I ever allowed to be reinstated in the district I'm sorry sir is that the entirety of your comments I mean not really I'm I'm looking for a conversation based upon I resigned from the district just last week and I um attempted to move to another building and then I was I was offered a job by Dr cwell over at at um East viiew and I was told that I was not allowed to be hired Elvin in this platform we take P the Board of Education receives public comment but they do not engage in dialogue so we can certainly take your information and then follow up again based on your topic this evening and the questions that you have brought forward for the Board of Education okay so if you do not have any other um comments then that would conclude your your public comment otherwise you have time remaining still that's that's about all I have to say to okay thank you sorry the next item on our agenda is other business board member and superintendent updates do board members have any updates no I I just want to thank everybody we had our um annual board self- evaluation um on Saturday which is always um necessary for us to come together once a year and discuss our practice and how we how we engage in this board work not so much not this wouldn't be uh a meeting regarding board or District business but yet how we engage in that in our in our practice here as board members so I just want to thank everybody for their time on Saturday um we also had our annual evaluation of our superintendent and I want to thank Dr johnon for her time we had a a a great conversation we had a a lot of information from a new superintendent evaluation tool and um and thank you for for the time and the the work that you continue to put into District we appreciate everything that you do so thank you thank you and and I also want to Echo uh the appreciation for the Board of Education their time on Saturday of course for the board self- evaluation but also uh for the the review and the details and the ongoing conversation around our work in u46 and certainly um leadership efforts mine specifically but of course uh Reaching Across The District I so appreciate the vision and the commitment that our board of education has uh for our students and their prog their progress uh with learning so I really appreciate you all for taking the time and uh it it's it's great for it to occur on a Saturday because it really is a focused opportunity for that conversation but I I do recognize that it takes everyone away from uh other places and other people so thank you so much I also want to thank uh many of us were at the uh night 46 uh meeting at South alen High School last Thursday I want to thank everybody that came out for that um as Dr l or Mr lolm said it was a a big turnout from the community um and just a reminder again that the the last unite 46 uh meeting is this Wednesday night at Streamwood High School um so that's another opportunity to come out and see the the changes that are happening in the district as far as the boundary work goes and to provide feedback and that's all I have okay uh for your request Dr Johnson thank you president Owens this evening we have three Freedom of Information Act requests available on the public domain of board dos those requests will also be available on the school district u46 website later this week next item is consent agenda this evening on consent agenda we have person report and workers compensation cases minutes of board meeting November 18th 2024 alignment collaborative for Education Ace renewal bid operations unite u46 Kenyan Woods Middle School project proposal plant operations playground playet replacement proposal Information Services exd data backup solution proposal school safety new Middle School radios and repeat purchase proposal specialized student services student iPads and contract renewal assessment accountability and Student Success Apple assessment of performance toward Proficiency in languages okay may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as stated so moved second any discussion okay roll call please miss ker yes Miss Khan yes Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion carried next item on the agenda is discussion action Dr Johnson our first item is itemized bills for January 27th 2025 Dr Frank Williams assistant superintendent of finance 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 27,43 7,000 85542 may I have a motion to approve the list of bills in the amount of 27 m437 motion passes next item next item is May I have a motion to approve the notice to remedy for tene Teacher B Juan yakobo so moved second any questions or any 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 and the next item is board policy updates um based on the discussion that occurred during the last Board of Education meeting uh I understand that there may be a desire to isolate board policy 8 colon one uh 810 from the remainder of the board polic policies being considered tonight therefore before I proceed uh with a vote on board policies I'm requesting a motion to amend the agenda to exclude board policy 810 from the general press update and have it voted on separately so moved any discussion a 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 okay okay so now I will take a motion to accept the recommendation of administration to adopt the amendments to the board of education's policies as outlined on iasb press issue 117 and as stated do we need to State these in the record individually before I make the motion I other than it is not including um previous board policy P colon okay so uh as stated in the record uh with the exclusion of eight colon one 110 I'll take that motion so now we can have discussion on any of these board policies that are stated in the in the Press update 117 anybody have any questions or any discussion just on the ones not on yeah so there's there's three more that we'll discuss and those are the ones that generally have the most questions so this is just the ones that are stated in that box ahead of the on the agenda so clarification does that exclude for colon 140 and it excludes it excludes uh policy four four colon 140 6 colon 135 and 8 colon 10 Z those will be voting on separately okay so this is the balance of the okay of the uh policies that were in the Press update okay I'm going to call for a vote Miss Kurt yes Miss Khan yes Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion carried thank you okay so now we will take a motion to accept the recommendation of administration to adopt the amendment to the board of educations policy for colon 140 as suggested by Administration so moved second so this is the the uh this is the the policy 4 col 140 waiver of student fees we did have a change on this policy and so this is the opportunity to ask questions on that specific policy yeah um if the board recalls we did speak on this uh board policy change on uh the previous board policy committee meeting um importantly the administration had raised a concern conc ER about the uh opportunity for students to have intentional damage uh to certain um school property so whether that was intentional misuse vandalism damage or destruction of school property and even though students do qualify for a fee waiver when those uh damages or losses amount to a total of over $500 the administration was recommending that that student uh still um have an opportunity to be leveled that fine or fee due to the uh intentionality of the damage um the $500 threshold was in line with the criminal code standard for institutional vandalism any questions on that okay take a vote on that Miss Kerr yes yes Miss Khan yes Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes Miss Owens yes president Owens rather motion carried okay the next one is uh motion to accept the recommendation of administration to adopt the amendment to the board of educations policy 6on 135 as outlined in iasb press issue 117 and as suggested by Administration the board may recall during the last we didn't take the motion yet though my regret so moved second okay may great thank you uh the board may recall that in the last committee meeting there was discussion um about a certain element that was optional for inclusion in uh press issue 117 and the board had requested that that element be excluded from the sport policy so you will see that this draft no longer includes subsection number five and therefore the only changes that are provided here are to align with changes in uh code and otherwise we're in agreement with what the board was expecting uh for this recommended draft any questions and just to clarify if the if we decide that District practices Encompass what was originally in section five we can always bring that back to another discussion for a revision of the policy that's right good all right roll call please miss Kurt yes Miss Khan yes Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion carried and finally we have have a motion to accept the recommendation of the administration to adopt the amendment to the board of educations policy 810 as outlined in iasb press issue 117 and as suggested by Administration so moved second and the board will recall that there was a significant discussion during the policy committee meeting about this uh uh policy that was suggested by press the policy language that they are recommending as part of their standard update includes changes to address Supreme Court precedence that was laid out in Lindy versus freed um the Supreme Court precedent does address when um State uh activity or when um local government activity constitutes State action with respect to uh uh both First Amendment rights and section 1983 rights in an attempt to ensure that there is um no confusion about First Amendment rights and that the Board of Education can both continue to retain its own First Amendment freedoms and the freedoms of the public and the constituents of the Board of Education press had recommended that there be this language change which clarifies that the board president is the only entity or individual who possesses the actual authority to speak on behalf of the board secondly this policy change makes a recommendation that board members identify their personal accounts or posts with a personal disclaimer I'm happy to answer any additional questions the board may have um but the administration is recommending that the Press update be um adopted as set out in issue 117 any questions Don so I want to um thank you for answering questions and I saw that there was more examples given um I think it it does help clarify the intent of the policy form for me um I personally still have I I do have concerns with while I understand how it's written and why it's written and how it's being interpreted now it is policy it'll sit there for a long time right like unchanged and I do I have concerns about how it's interpreted if there's Administration changes if there's changes right so while I appreciate it I have already added a clause to my my my Facebook page that I use as a board member I I do intend to vote no just for concerns on interpretation down the road with what rights board members would have any other questions or comments okay roll call please Miss K yes Miss Khan yes Miss Martin no Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion carried thanks everyone we at we okay next item next item indemnification agreement between school district u46 and the village of artlett Trisha Olsen Chief legal officer will be available to respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends approval of the indemnification agreement between School District u46 in the Village of Bartlett and requests authorization for District administration to execute related documents he may I have a motion to approve the ID identification agreement between School District u46 and the Village of Bartlett and for District administration to execute the related documents so moved second any questions or discussion okay roll call please miss curve yes Miss Khan yes Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion carried thank you our next item is the resolution authorizing the naming of Hawk Hollow Elementary School to Hawk Hollow Middle School Ryan Lindholm Chief of Staff um will be available to respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends the Board of Education adopt the resolution authorizing the renaming of Hawk Hollow Elementary School to Hawk Hollow Middle School I'm happy to accept a motion to adopt the resolution authorizing the renaming of hwall elementary school to hwall Middle School moved second any comments yay please it was I say just add it was really fun that people took us seriously and gave us thoughtful considered responses several of whom sounded really awesome as well but um I'm super happy that I H thank you roll call please miss Kerr yes Miss K yes Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes president Owen yes motion carried thank you our next item a contract for the deputy superintendent of instruction Paris St Germaine sacer Academy partnership laa myeric Deputy superintendent of instruction will present the attached proposal summary and will respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends approval of the contract with PSG Academy Chicago in the amount of $72,900 and requests authorization for District administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged the education fund the cost will be included in the budget for the 20124 2025 fiscal year may I have a motion to approve the contract with PSG Academy Chicago in the amount of $72,900 and for District administration to execute related documents so move to Second any questions or discussion okay um what which schools will this be at do we know yet yes it'll be at um Huff Elementary School Ellis middle school and Elgen High School okay okay um we've never I don't think we've ever really done anything like this before have we no it's it's very it's very exciting we're very fortunate to have members of our community and of our staff who have um networked with these with these different um organizations and um help bring up here to algen for our students who have a very high interest in sacker so it's very exciting so how did we pick those three schools and is there a possibility to expand to other schools in the future absolutely um those schools were selected just based on um the the staff that that are available for coaching and the high interest in socer at elun high school we wanted to kind of focus on the elun network with the feeder pattern and where there's available space for practicing um and so that's that's how we kind of got to that conclusion but the goal is to move it forward so it's it's a pilot so the goal will be um to be able to monitor our data to look at student participation and then to be able to move this forward across the school district so if a student from the West Side say Century Oaks wants to do this if they had their own transportation could they um go to Huff to to take part uh potentially most of the registration though well actually not most all of the all of the advertisement is geared toward the Huff students okay and Ellis and Elgen okay any other questions okay roll call please miss car yes Miss KH yes Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion carried our next item is a proposal specialized student services request for alternate Staffing contract agencies Dr lri sat white assistant superintendent of equity and Innovation and Amanda leatherby director of specialized student services will present the attached proposal summary and respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends approval of the proposal from AHS Staffing LLC stepping stones and RCM Technologies Incorporated da RCM healthc care services within the previously approved amount up to and not to exceed 13 m347 64342 and requests authorization for District administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged the education fund cost will be included in the budget for the 2024 2025 through 2026 2027 fiscal Years and may I have a motion to approve the proposal from ah Staffing LLC stepping stones and RCM Technologies Incorporated DB RCM healthc care services within the previously approved amount up to and not to exceed 13, 347,000 few okay and this these folks will be able to cover that these folks will be able to cover the uh minutes that are delivered during the school day okay um but anything previous would still be minutes Ed and we do have some students who are receiving compensatory but we don't even have enough to cover even compensatory Services okay thanks good question thank you s and so this we had already approved the 13 million plus in October so this isn't any additional money it's just we couldn't the service providers couldn't provide people so we added another service provider okay thank you any other questions roll call please miss KR yes Miss Khan yes Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes president Owens yes motion carried thank you that brings us to the next item on our agenda which is other business Dr Johnson our first item this evening investment report for the second quarter Dr Frank Williams assistant superintendent of finance will present the cached investment report for the second quarter and will'll respond to questions from the Board of Education great good evening second quarter investment report was for October through December highlights the district's investment strategies and our portfolio performance the portfolio portfolio total of 693 million reflecting a 13.5% decrease or decrease of about 108 million from the previous quarter due to bond payments which we had due on January 1st Capital Construction project withdrawals as those bills start to come in we start to withdraw from that uh portion of the pot and some operational expenses as we discussed last time over the winter months is when we see our tax dollars come down so we start to rely on those rainy day funds despite this reduction the district still earned 7.5 million in interest income to optimize returns and potential federal rate reductions the investment mix shifted to 25.2% from 35.8 in our liquid and cash portfolios to 74.8 from 64.3 in our fixed rate portfolio so starting to C try to capture some of those higher interest rates take money out of that liquid and able to do that while maintaining our cash flow during this quarter we also created a new managed account partnership with an approved depository pfm this account will focus on maximizing returns and interest in Investments with maturities in the 1 to 5e range overall the portfolio remains Diversified with Investments such as CDs US Agencies commercial paper corporate debt and Municipal debt liquidity is maintained through our money market accounts and attached to the board packet you'll find the details uh from these institutions that provide further insights into our adaptive and strategic financial management plan regarding our investments thank you board members have any questions no I just want to thank you again the the the summary on page three is really helpful so thank you for for including that you're welcome great okay thank you here our next item is the legislative update with the Illinois ass Association of school boards uh Mike Stevens director of governmental affairs with the Illinois Association of school boards will discuss the legislative update with the Board of Education and Mike is on and I think he's unmuted good evening how is everyone can everyone hear me yes yes great all right and I think I had submitted a slideshow is it I don't is it showing or do I need to share my screen oh it was there just a second ago give our team a a minute Mike do you see it now uh are you sure oh yep I got it now okay thank you um okay uh so again I'm Mike Stevens I'm with the IB government relations team um this first slide is just the rest of my uh the rest of our team we have Sarah Miller Bobby Johnson and myself as Government relations folks and and then our Administrative Assistant um is Ally next slide please um so we just had an election in Illinois uh and we just had the inauguration earlier this month um and Illinois is still a very much majority uh de de is someone speaking I'm sorry oh okay um so we are still very much a Democrat majority in both the house and the Senate and we have a Democratic governor um so it's been a lot of uh conversations within um the Democratic caucuses um with both the super majorities um we've seen a little bit more um back and forth within the caucus recently um but it's still very much a Democrat majority in both of those um next slide please um first we're going to kind of focus on a couple uh themes for this talk uh first we're going to go last month uh ISB announced their legislative agenda we'll go over some of that um also last month um the IB iasa and um another number of other um School administration groups announced the vision 2030 um 7 years ago we they launched we launched the vision 2020 um with great success and so we we're revamping that and have relaunched that um last November um and will be working on that in the in the upcoming veto or in the upcoming spring session um also we're going to touch very briefly on the budget um we'll see both um the overall state budget and the uh ISB requested budget um we will talk a little bit about some legislation for um that are that is we anticipate in the upcoming General Assembly um dealing with dual credit and also um we wanted to bring up the state seal of biliteracy as this board brought that to our um delegate assembly and it was adopted this year um so we have now accepted have created a position payment a position statement on the state seal of bi literacy and we'll touch briefly on that as well uh next slide please um first we're going to talk about just a couple topics on the on the ISB legislative agenda um first the licensure I think is going to be important um this is going to help the goal is to try to help um get a f more efficient process for hiring teachers um we we have had conversations with is ISB on a lot of this um we are still waiting on some background information and the actual language itself um so a lot of this is very fluid at this point um but really I think they believe that the lure changes that they will make um will really benefit School District so we are excited to see those um we have had some conversations about them with student discipline um I think again very fluid situation um I think some of the things that they are proposing may may be in violation uh of other of federal laws so we're having conversations with them um and working with them um and also the student ticketing is one that I think we're we're really focusing on um because of the interest in the language itself um what they're trying to to say is that a a school administration administrator may not may not call a municipal officer to write a ticket um they still would be able to to call the police they just wouldn't be allowed to to direct them to write a ticket so um that Nuance of of the language there is going to be very important for us and so we're we're very much keeping an eye on that um and again we have not seen the actual language so when that happens we will uh we will have a better idea and work with them um and work with our other administrative groups as well to to see what we can do to come up with a with a solution for that it works for everybody next slide please um so I as I mentioned uh Vision 2030 um was was brought by the iasa uh iasb and a number and I principles Association I'm sorry I'm using terms Illinois Association of school boards IA is the Illinois Association of superintendents um and then the IPA is the Illinois principal Association um and so we worked with them in a number of different groups and Regional superintendents and and all that and and worked really to focus on um some big big topics some big picture ideas um for where we can get uh education in Illinois um and I think we focused really on on three areas one is future Focus learning um the other one is shared accountability and the last one is predictable funding um and I'll touch mostly and uh next slide please um and I'll touch mostly on the on the predictable funding um so obviously every year since the uh exception an introduction of the ebf except for Co year um we've had that that $350 million increase into education we will obviously support that and push for more money if possible um but at least bare minimums keep that 350 um also I think what what we're focusing on um as a as a larger group as a as a as a number of groups is to really try to raise the MCAT uh money uh the funding as well um I think that a lot of that has has has kind of not seen the the increases that we would hope so I think it's it's a it's a situation where we'll we will support um any changes or any increases in in in mcrat funding um which we'll talk about a little bit more um but it's something that we are focused on um outside of the ebf which I think everyone would agree that we will support an e ebf increase of 350 prefer 550 um but we'll take what it what it is um next slide please so I talked a little bit very briefly about the say budget um so we had the Illinois budget um had an announ had a press release last week um where the government's Office of Management and budget which is GB um projected a $3.1 billion deficit for this upcoming fiscal year um and as you can see there's just the revenues don't don't match up with the um with the with the expenditures and that that is not even including some of the um other asks that um say the city of Chicago may have for um the RTA CT CTU or CTA um and some of the the requests that they have for their education um so what we're really I think the the state of Illinois I think everyone in the budget office or the budgeters and people who are working along the Appropriations process understand um that this is going to be a very difficult um a very difficult budget year um last several years they've been able to balance a budget um off of the expiring covid dollars um those are starting those are are uh no longer there um and so there's a a pretty significant um budget deficit um these numbers are kind of are fluid um you may hear 1 3.1 billion this from this report from om um or govern the Coga which is the the committee on government forecasting and and accountability may have a little bit of a different number um but I think everyone is in agreement that that it's going to be a a difficult budget year um and on top of that we have some other issues that that are going to require additional money um and I think we may talk about it a little bit but um pensions are something that may may cause be a pretty big burden on the on the state's F financial situation as well um so next slide please uh so as I mentioned the budget itself for the state overall is not going to be all that great um ISB at their last board meeting uh announced their uh the isb's proposed budget um and they don't want to call it a maintenance budget but it's pretty much a maintenance budget um they don't try to make increases um the only increases that you can see and and I don't know if you can see it all that well on this slide um is that they are they are going to try to keep the mcats um at at uh percentage wise at a at an even level which means that you will see about a $142 million um increase in mcats to to maintain the percentages for fiscal year uh 2025 again we're in a rough fiscal year we're going to be have a r rough budget Pro process um adding one $42 million is going to be difficult um and also there are a lot of other strains on the on the education budget as well um if uh last year there was a lot of talk about um healthy schools for all or or other school meal programs um and I think the most the mo the a pretty conservative uh question on that was or estimate on that was for healthy schools in all in Illinois would be about $29 million if they wanted to to fund that program um at the state level so as I said it's there's a lot there there are a lot of issues that are that are high dollar uh that are going to be put high high dollar pressure on on our budget on the state's budget and so it's kind of what we're going to have to work on on figuring out that that system here in the next four months while they come come back to General Assembly in Springfield um next slide please so as I mentioned uh there's a tier two fix um right now there's two two tier system in Illinois um there's some real concern um and about the tier 2 pensions about not meeting the Safe Harbor um provision of the Social Security um which would uh require school districts to start paying into Social Security or any all require the state um to to pay into Social Security which would be a really really significant amount of money um so we are working with um there are two members in the in the house or one member in the house one in the Senate um who are really the pension expert or pension gurus um we've been working with them to kind of work with them and trying to provide our um our opinions on on what what the tier 2 pension fix could or should look like um but it's as I mentioned this is uh it's a rough budget year um the Koga which I had mentioned about the state budget announced last week that the proposed fix in the general assembly right now would cost um about uh $30 billion over course 202 and by 2025 or 2045 I'm about a $1.6 billion increase annually um starting next year um that's something that obviously would be very difficult for the state of Illinois to cover right now um so it's it's it's again and I wish I had better answers for you but it's a very fluid situation um the state general assembly comes in in a or in in uh in January and then and wraps up at the uh May 31st so it's very very early in the legislative process um and also just as an FYI um first year of General assemblies which this is because we just had the election um are generally pretty uh pretty high energy there will be a lot of bills introduced new members come in with their ideas old members come in with old old ideas that didn't pass in the last General Assembly um so this first year is is there's a lot of a lot of uh playing defense from our perspective um work working with members talking with members um and making sure that that our our school boards are are protected um next slide please um so I I mentioned it a little bit um so the state seal of by literacy I think we're going to talk about this kind of at a holistic idea um right now the the graduation requirements uh in Illinois are we're looking at them as trying to come up with a solution with the members of the general assembly um to kind of come up with better ways to deal with graduation requirements as many of you know the the requirement for um two years of language comes in I think next year um we are working with the I think we're going to work with it anyone who will listen um at your because what your suggestion was is to to recognize the state seal of by literacy and in place of that that twoyear of uh uh the two years of of foreign langu so um it's something that we're going to try like I don't know if we'll be able to do it this year um but it's something that we are starting that conversation um since this was brought to us in November and and adopted in November by our delegate assembly um we obvious I show that we have our position paper one or position statement 1.21 and it is to support um to support the the state s by literacy so we will work on that um there have been some conversations but I I don't want to say that they're will be something done this spring um but it's something that that we would be supportive of if there is something that comes this year um next slide please um the next one that we've been working on last from last year and it's carrying over to this year um is dual credit um and this has been an issue with uh Community College not only their staff but the Community College leaders um and then school boards and Luda and there's been a lot of different groups um trying to to expand dual Credit in Illinois um there is a working group that has been meeting over the last summer to kind of to to bring to to advance the conversation on Dual credit and I think my understanding is a some legislation shall be should be introduced um here in the next week or so um pretty much to to expand dual credit um I think one of the major issues is is the licensing of who who's allowed to teach these dual credit courses um and so the conversation has been ongoing with community colleges um but it's something that um if I had I think there's I I know there will be some legislation to discuss dual credit this year um and hopeful that the conversations have been productive um and they will they will be able to come to an agreement to pass the bill this year um next slide please so that is my uh brief com brief overview of the spring session um if there's any questions I'd be glad to answer them right right now yeah thank you for the the presentation Mike and I want to thank you for um being flexible with us we did originally have this scheduled as a a policy um or I'm sorry a legislative committee session and had to uh make some changes just for timing purposes so I appreciate your flexibility and in meeting with us later do board members have any questions Don so thank you for your presentation um what so folks who signed up as advocacy am ambassadors on the website I'm assuming they'd be expecting to see an uptick and email here coming up and action items and whatnot absolutely so yes this year we will be utilizing the uh advocacy ambassador program um if you haven't go online to our IB website and sign up um what we'll do is is when a like I'll use dual credit for for because I think that's probably one that you'll see and I think we did one may have done one last year on Dual credit um is when the bill comes up to a committee or um if it has a bill a vote coming up we'll send out a a text or a mass email saying please contact your legislature so we're going to utilize that a little bit more this year um I think we did two maybe three last year um but it's something that I think we're going to do more of um and also I think we're gonna um if you if you're interested every week we do a legislative um uh review on our website uh where we do a video and I think we're going to start doing more videos um just kind of quick updates on what's going on at the capital um so if you are interested obviously sign up to obviously Ambassador if you have any questions obviously reach out to any one of us on this on the on the gr team um but yes we will be more be more active on that this year thank you sue couple questions and thank you for the presentation that was very informative um for the Mandate reform you mentioned when I was at tripa I know I went to one session and they talked about not only the Mandate reform but actually revisiting mandate and looking at them to see you know do need them all because basically once a mandate is passed it stays forever has talk about that yes so actually um we've had some really productive conversations with the general assembly so this year we will have a mandate R we're going to call it a mandate reduction bill it is reducing mandates the lwh hanging fruit so they're looking at this as a tiered system there's the they're they're going to look at it three things mandates that we can immediately remove mandates that should should be removed but need some time and mandates that are probably not going to be removed so there's been a working group in the in the Senate and the house and the Senate um to go over these mandates and kind of go through all of the man the the curricular mandates and kind of go through them and review them um I believe that a bill will come out this spring um starting in the Senate to kind of capture a lot of those lwh hanging fruits that you'll see or the low low hanging mandates that they'll try to get rid of this year um so you'll see that another thing that's been getting a lot of positive attention and something that that state superintendent uh Tony Sanders has has even been kind of support expressed his support of was a a PRP style mandate review panel uh committee so anytime that a a curricular mandate would be implemented in the state of Illinois it would be run through a PRP style uh commit and it would look at the impacts and look at kind of how much it would cost and the the impacts of a mandate before before it's actually implemented so obviously that's something that ISB is very supportive of um like I said I think there are many people in the general assembly and and within isby that are supportive of of that as well so um I this that is a longer term like pie in the sky type thing but it is something that we would obviously be supportive of but you will see you will see a mandate reduction bill this spring um it just is not going to be it's not going to be ear it's not going to be groundbreaking the stuff that they remove still it's progress that's great news absolutely absolutely having someone look at the impact of mandates I sometimes think they just don't even think about what's what how it might impacts districts I did have one other question on the tier 2 pension fix does any talk about shifting some of the pension payments to school districts no that is a one that is first and foremost on every bill that we have seen that is what we have we make sure that there is no cost shift to school districts um so none of none of the proposals have that cost shift in them we would we would take we we would be very opposed to any any cost shift thank you any additional questions no okay thank you Mike thank you okay the next item on our agenda is other Business Financial audit and related reports for the fiscal year ending June 30th 2024 thank you president Owens uh this evening Dr Anne Williams Deputy superintendent of operations and Dr Frank Williams assistant superintendent of finance and Don Shaw lauderbach and aan LLP and independent certified public accounting firm will review the school district u46 FY 2024 annual Finance report and will respond to questions from the Board of Education you can go right ahead with your uh presentation okay good evening um as Dr Johnson stated we have our new audit firm representative here um today and after months of getting acclimated to our processes and systems he's here tonight to provide a highlevel overview of our audit and the clean opinion that we received on that audit so um unless Dr Frank has anything to add I'll go ahead and turn it over to Mr sha I would just like to uh formally give a big shout out to my team this takes a lot of time and effort particularly with the software that we have it definitely makes it more difficult but uh the team every year puts the data together we needed to give the auditor so a big shout out to my team and with that I'll pass it over to Don all right well thank you for having me uh again I would like to thank dran and Frank Williams and Jette Kim the entire team for making this a successful first audit year without their help this big packet is not uh possible so thank you I'm next going to go through the annual financial report which is the thicker the package you received and if you turn to page one you'll find or sorry page 10 you'll find our waterb and name and water this is our Independent Auto report in which we provide a clean unmodified opinion that's the highest opinion you can receive basically states that we found no issues with internal controls or the numbers as they're presented if you skip about four or five more pages you'll run into the management discussion and Analysis this section really provides a summary of how the year performed in narrative form so if you have questions on fluctuations from year to year or what the numbers truly mean this is where you'd want to go to find those answers the individual fund financial statements will begin on page 30 and it starts off with your balance sheet towards the bottom on the far right column you'll notice that the total ending fund balance for the district as a whole was at $735 million 73% or 5 34 million is related to your general fund which is your main operating fund it's made up of your education operations of Maintenance tour and working cash funds to see how these funds performed in the current year we could skip ahead to what would be your income statement which is on page 32 about three three quars of the way down the page you'll see that the general fund had an operating increase of $117 million is primarily due to your revenues coming higher than anticipated while your expenditures were below budget in the current year this was offset by a transfer out to your capital projects fund so your general fund was left with a $95 million net increase in the current year you'll also notice that we had a restatement to the beginning balances this is pretty common with a transition to new audit firm uh in the past we noticed that there were some variances and uh some comments regarding accounts payable in Grant recognition so in order to remove those comments this year and to get the balances to where we have a good good clean slate going forward we had to restate those balances in the current year the notes of financial statement will begin on page 34 and the notes really provide further detail to how we came up with the figures that we did with supporting schedules then there you're going to find your long-term debt and your Capital asset schedules one item I did want to point out to you is on page 48 page 48 is a is a further detail into that restatement as I mentioned before so if you want to see the breakdown of the actual figures uh you can find it on page 48 next I'll have you jump all the way to page 86 page 86 is the start of your budgetary information so if you want to see how a specific fund performed based on what it's budgeted you this is where you would want to see those comparisons so anyone have any questions on the financial savings so so on page 48 the the grant that that was what we were referring to when you said we had to restate the grant 26 million or something like that correct yeah so there's a couple things that you can see there the there's a deferred Grant piece uh as well as the lease for subscriptions and payables those are more reflected on your government government government uh governmental activities it's not going to impact your fund levels um and that's really for gasby 96 changes uh what you can see is under the general fund the Grant receivables and the accounts payable that's that's where I was referring to okay any other questions I'm not you you you covered this but we often have a single audit as well the focuses are one thing will that be forthcoming yeah so our our team is working I I know it's hard getting just getting this done so I'm not I realized yeah we we just received uh well actually L had given us some data um probably about a couple weeks ago and today we just received some more information about what they need from us so my team will start Gathering that and get it to thank you for all your work I know it's been a struggle a challenge any other questions did you have more to go through or are we just kind of in a pause period to yeah just real quick questions for the last thing that I was going to cover is we did provide a separate document called the Manel letter we had a it was a really clean year especially for first year we only had four recommendations three of them are really just ah heads up that there's gasby pronouncements that we'll be working with uh the team on implementing when those are due and we had one best practice for The Debt Service over budget which is very common in a year of issuance which you guys had a bond issuance this year right okay any other questions I'll re reiterate uh what Miss Kerr said thank you for the work I know it's it's challenging coming into a new um a new entity for auditing so thank you for the the work that that's G into this yeah the t's been uh fantastic to work with good okay thank you thank you he the next item on the agenda is work session resolutions first item is a resolution for the disposal of surplus personal property uh we have Jim wolf director of Information Services uh coming forward to review the attached resolution and respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends the Board of Education approve the resolution for the disposal of surplus personal property hey board members have any questions thank you for the itemization of the of the items thank you thank you uh next is a resolution authoriz ring designation of a person or persons to prepare the fiscal year 2026 tenative budget Dr Anne Williams Deputy superintendent of operations and Dr Frank Williams assistant superintendent of finance will review the resolution authorizing designation of a person or persons to prepare the fiscal year 2026 tenative budget Administration recommends the Board of Education approve the resolution any questions we will be approving this resolution thank you okay the next item on our agenda is work session bids and proposals our first item is a proposal athletics football helmet and shoulder pad replacement and conditioning uh Dr Frank Williams assistant superintendent of finance and Steven Tracy Larin High School athletic director will present the attached proposal summary and respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends appr approval of the proposal from ridal in the amount of $2,185 and requests authorization for District administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the education fund the cost will be included in the budget for the 2024 2025 fiscal year any questions so I watched a lot of football and I've noticed that the a number of the NFL players have helmets with extra padding especially those who have had concussions I assume these are not that type of helmet sure actually they are oh they are here we uh um purchase what is known as axium helmets from rdel which actually form fit to the kids heads which are I will say the NFL ones are a little bit higher level of that but yes they are very similar to the ones that you see at the NFL so yes okay so they will protect the kids from the great good and that's the reason for the reconditioning is to make sure that the pads and Equipment are completely safe and keep our kids 100% safe on the field and we get rid of anything that's no longer you know of good standing and good use and we use Rell because uh us as five athletic directs feel that they provide the best product as well okay thank you just a follow-up question on that because they are form fitting to the the students heads how how much damage does it take before those helmets have to be replaced um that's why they get reconditioned and so it's actually valuation process that goes through so the coach and myself and all five of us high schools follow the same process we look at it first and then we have representative from mdal who is the you know professional who reevaluates them and does that uh the form fitting things can be re fitted to fit another kid's head for like the next year if that makes sense okay okay thank you thank you uh next we have a proposal plan operations 10-year Life Safety surveys and safety reference plans Sheila Down's executive director of facilities will present the attached proposal summary and will respond to questions from the Board of Education Administration recommends approval of the proposal from da Architects Limited in the amount of $11 17,25 and requests authorization for District administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the operations and maintenance fund the cost will be included in the budget for the 2024 2025 fiscal year do board members have any questions thank you thank you that being the last item on our agenda I will take a motion to adjourn moved second roll call please miss Kirk yes Miss Khan yes Miss Martin yes Miss Nolan yes Miss Schwarz yes Miss Thomas yes president yes we're Jour at 8:37 pm