Board of Education Meeting

Good evening everyone. This is the regular meeting of the Downers Grove School District 58 Board of Education here on Monday, January 12th, 2026 at 7 p.m. here at the Downers Grove Civic Center. This meeting is being livereamed for the public on the Village of Downers Grove's YouTube channel. All right. Tonight, members of the audience will have an opportunity to provide public comment to the board later on in the agenda. The board asks anyone wishing to comment to please fill out a card and indicate the topic to be addressed. These can be placed in the basket on that table over there by the door. I have allotted 30 minutes tonight for public comment. Uh we would like to start the meeting off today as we always do with our pledge of allegiance. So I'd like to welcome the students from Highland School to lead us in the pledge. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. And I' now I'd like to welcome Principal Zack Craft. >> Good evening. Thank you for having us tonight. I'm very excited to have some of our student council leadership team share some of the great work they've been doing this year, our PTA presidents to talk about the great work they've been doing this year and then talk a little bit about our school improvement plan and our data from our most recent benchmarking. So without further ado, I'll welcome up members of our student le uh student council leadership team. We have Isabella Pero, Evan Maris, Amir Elgrai, and Maisa Morf. Good evening. I'm Isabella and this is my second year in student council. I'm so excited to be in leadership team this year and get to do things like take my classmates ideas and tell the school what we've been doing in student council. Highland student council spirit days are some of the most fun things to plan and to do. You can show your spirit through clothes, accessories, colors, and actions. Everyone loves spirit days because the student council makes sure to consider if everyone would enjoy it by incorporating others opinions. It's fun for everyone and creates some of the best memories throughout the year. Some spirit days we've had so far are Dr. Craft Day, PJ Day, and Duo Day. Dr. Craft Day was a spirit day to honor our school's principal, Mr. Craft, getting his doctorate degree in education. We dress like him, or you could dress tropical because he likes Hawaiian wear. Pajama day is a a day where you can dress cozy and comfy at school in your PJs, robes, or slippers. On duo day, you get to dress up with a friend or friends as an iconic duo or group. Some examples could be Batman and Robin, Spongebob and Patrick, or even Chocolate and Vanilla. We are hoping that it will help the students show their creativity and bring them together. Spirit days are probably some of the most memorable days throughout the school year, and I hope this year they continue to create more memories. Good evening everyone. My name is Evan and I'm very glad to be part of student council this year. We did some awesome service projects at home this year's helped community. During the winter holidays, we sponsored our annual giving tree in which we collected items such as clothing and toys for families in need. Winter clothing was donated to Sharing Connections, a local service organization that helps those in need in Downer's Grove, Westmont, Darien, Woodri, and Lyall. All of our spectacular students at Highland wrote Thanksgiving cards for the residents of Peace Ma Manor, an apartment complex for the senior citizens near our school. Also, all of our student council members planted tulip bulbs in honor of Miss Wallace in the Wallace Way Learning Center that's in front of the school. I'll do this. You stand here. >> Good evening. My name >> Good evening. My name is Amir. This is my third year being in student council and I'm happy to be in leadership this year. At Highland, we like to come up with fun ways to raise money. This year, we held a desk bed adoption where students could purchase or raise their animals. The students had many options to pick from, ranging from sea animals to farm animals. Many students brought a handful to keep on their desk as a collection. because it was such a big hit, we were planning on doing again with different animals. One other thing we did was a holiday pen and pencil sale. We sold so many fun things like erasers, snowman pens that had multiple colors, and even squishy balls. Now, Misa will tell you about our upcoming plans and goals. Good evening. My name is Misa and I have been in the student council for 2 years. I'm super happy to be on the leadership team this year. Here are just a few ideas we have for the rest of our school year. Everyone's favorite is the school store which runs for two weeks. We sell pens, pencils, eraser, erasers, sharpeners, and even pencil cases. Many students look forward to this every year. It is great seeing students so happy after they purchase their items. At Highland, we like to give back to our community. Last Wednesday, we made Valentine Day cards for the residents at Peace Manor to spread love all around. We are planning a Winter Olympic spirit day during the duration of the Olympics in February. We are going to incorporate different events related to the Olympics and even dress up to support our favorite country or sport. Last but surely not least in our school this week we are collecting an items for the Humane Society. We are asking for washing supplies, animal supplies, toys, food, and medical items for the cats and dogs living in the DuPage Humane Society. These are just a few of our plans for the rest of the school year. Thank you for having us here tonight. >> Thank you SO MUCH. FOR THE RECORD, DR. CRAFT DAY WAS not my idea. Um, but I'm glad that my love of tropical gear is now part of the official record. Um, I will now welcome up Melitra and Monica Zazinski are co-presidents of our Highland PTA. Hi everyone, my name is Monica Zachinski and I am one of the co-presidents at the Highland PTA this year. I've been part of the board in some sort of capacity for the past four years and then prior to that I sat on the board for climb higher at Highland which uh funded the new playground at Highland. I'm Mel. I'm the other co-president. This is my second year on the board and as president. >> Uh so we have a lot of PTA traditions at Highland. you know, you've probably seen in years past um that we keep tradition at Highland. Um back to school is always fun. We have a lot of events um when students are bringing their uh materials to school. We have a back to school party where they can meet their teachers. Uh we had a really fun book fair and successful one this year where we had a theme of um uh silly goose, mother goose. There was goose geese hidden throughout the school. Uh students really enjoyed that. Uh we also do fun pizza, uh, Halloween parties, as well as upcoming we have our one book, one school, which is awesome. Um, this year we're having a assembly in regards to that and bringing the the author via Zoom to the to the event. Um, and we had a whole reveal and everything. Uh, so it was a lot of fun. The late start to the school year, um, I don't know if everyone else feels this way, really felt like it been warp speed since September. So, putting this together, we had to sit down and go, what did we do? in the first week of September. Uh, one of those answers is of course our big fundraiser. We do one big fundraiser during the year, although we have now technically added another. Um, but our traditional fall fundraiser was red, white, and highland themed this year. Um, we did tremendous job by the committee. They did a wonderful job. We're really proud of them. Um, our mom's fundraiser also did well. We also do dining for dollars where we partner with local uh, restaurants in the community. and then uh possibly adding on for the spring a fun run and a spring fashion show which a couple of kindergarten parents came together to propose and are taking a lot of responsibility for. So I can't wait to see what they do there. So this slide just shows where our PTA budget is going. Um, and we always put this in front of all of our PTA, you know, our potential members, um, in order for them to understand belonging to the PTA, what we do with those funds that we do end up raising. Um, and so you can see the cuts here. Another big project that the PTA has taken on as of last year is a revamp to the library. Um, the library at Highland is now half done. Um we finished phase one last year and now are working towards the funds for phase two um the other part of the library. So right now you can see some of the visuals um are the refresh library and hopefully the the other side which we aim we may not get done with this year um but we it will leak into next year. >> Aspirational. >> Yes, for sure. Oh, and I just wanted to include this slide because it was a part of our uh presentation last year and I made it specifically for this presentation. When people are asked, "What does the PTA do?" Uh, and then I show them this. So, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of this slide over the last couple of years. It's a lot of stuff. Um, and we have incredible volunteers and wonderful parents who donate their time and their resources and their specialties. And I'm so incredibly proud. Um, I'm not a I'm not very fond of public speaking, but our student council did such a great job. They really inspired me. Um, and I was thinking about why we do all these wonderful things and it's to give them the best possible inschool experience and I'm really really proud of our PTA. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. I'll now take a minute to walk us through our school improvement goals for this year. Our instructional leadership team focused on three goals this year. First one being centered around grammar instruction, second one being around SEAL support and the third one being around structured data analysis and collaboration among Monsar grade level teams. So our first school improvement goal when our instructional leadership team was able to dive into some data from previous years. We've noticed an increase uh in our students stamina, love for writing and really quality of writing when we have since we've been implementing our new uh schoolwide writing resource. We've also had benchmark advance now for a few years. Both of them contain grammar components, but they come at it stylistically from a different perspective. Um, one school uh schoolwide comes at it from more of an integrated approach. Benchmark has a little bit more explicit instruction. And as we went through and were looking at student pieces and talking um through it, we wanted to make sure that we were able to kind of crosswalk the two and really make sure that there was solid correlation to the standards, but then also how that how that was reflected in teaching practices and showed up in writing. So, we were able to come up with um I create a grammar standards alignment chart. So, if a classroom teacher noticed a group of students or individual students were struggling maybe with a specific um skill or concept within the area of grammar, they were able to then reference that quickly to see where that showed up in the curriculum and where there was additional resources if needed to support either that individual student or students in small groups. Second school improvement goal really focused in on similar concept in terms of alignment, but our staff has been working hard on so many different social emotional learning initiatives over the last few years, including our second step curriculum, our zones of regulation, um our work around PBSS um concepts, creating uh positive incentives. The list goes on and on. But again going back and understanding are we may are we actually aligned to all of our standards and are there standards or potential gaps that we might have in some of that instruction and some of those programs. So taking a look at the Illinois standards which are based on the castle standards and then laying out how uh second step how zones of regulation how do those align to those standards and then also how are some of those other initiatives that we've been implementing how are they maybe catching some of those things that are not necessarily covered as much and then again it serves as a resource for staff to be able to go back and look and if my class is struggling with this or I got a group of kiddos that I'm really working on with this where can I pull some resources and our final one is all around uh collaboration and data analysis. So, making sure that instructional decisions are data driven. Um, and that really is in alignment with the implementation of our new MTSS process, but really being thoughtful. I've had the opportunity to join our grade level team meetings uh every other week. And it's been great to be able to just sit in and hear and listen and understand where students are at week to week. We have those big benchmarking uh windows where we get a great amount of information, but really how are we using our day-to-day or week-toeek instruction um classroom assessments to inform our instruction and those conversations have been ongoing and have been going on for a long time. But how are we bringing structure around it? How are we making sure that we're capturing all that we need to? So looking at our fall achievement data. So our winter benchmarking window is open now. So we don't have our uh winter data yet. Our first day of MAP testing was today. So kudos to our student council members for taking map tests and then coming here tonight as well. Um but I did pro I'm providing here a year-to-year look at fall. So going back to fall 23 24 uh 24 25 and then this recent fall and we've seen steady growth uh overall. This is from ECRA. So this is our all-in number between math and reading uh year-over-year have been in the expected growth range but we've seen that steady increase. When we drill down into reading, um same thing. We've seen steady increases with all of our grade levels um in the meets uh or exceeds uh expectation targets. And same thing for reading all of our subgroups. All of our subgroups are in that uh meets growth targets. When we switch to math, um, same thing, a little bit more of a a bell curve, a little bit more of a roller coaster, but overall when we look at where we were in 23, 24 to where we were at 25, 26 the start of this fall. Um, we see some nice growth uh, year-over-year. Some target some areas to target in and focus in on, dig down into the data. Um, and then also some really some great celebrations around some of our grade level data, too. And again, all of our subgroups in the meets or exceeds expectations in terms of growth for math according to that. Any questions? >> Thank you so very much for >> Thank you very much for having us tonight. >> And for our student council members, we have some gifts here for you. Thank you, Principal Craft. Thank you, kids. >> Thank you to the PTA. Sorry, I always kill the Mums every year when I pick them up. >> All right. Listed on tonight's agenda are nine communications received by the board. Are there any additional communications board members would like to share at this time? All right. We have a couple spotlights tonight. First one up is our fiscal year 2025 audit. I'd like to welcome Betsy Allen from Miller Cooper. Welcome back. >> Don't know if I want to be known as a spotlight, but you know, just situated here. >> Okay. I did just put it together. I've used this in the past to just a short presentation. Um I know you've received all the information in the deliverables to look at. So I'm just going to sort of an overview of um some certain things. We're certainly not going to go page by page, but if you have any questions on any of the letters or anything within the audit report, um please feel free to stop me as I'm going or I can answer questions at the end. So I always like to start off here. Why does this district even have an audit every year? And it is a legal requirement that all districts um in the state of Illinois have an audit performed annually by an independent auditor. Um the main objective of our audit is for us to obtain reasonable assurance that your financial statements are free from material misstatement. Um we do perform our audit procedures as part of the services which then allow us to provide an opinion on the financial statements. Um, we will, if necessary, also issue our internal control communication which could provide recommendations or op for opportunities um for improvements or to gain efficiencies with certain processes. And lastly, the standards do require that we communicate certain things to the board of education. Um, we refer that to as our SAS 114 letter, and we'll review these items um in a later slide. Um, as we complete our audit procedures, we do have um certain items that the what we refer to as our deliverables that we um provide to the district and to the board. Um the first one is the annual financial report which we refer to as the gap financial statements or the bound report. Um we also issue the annual financial report which is a state form done on the regulatory basis that is required to be filed with the state board of education. ISB also requires that all audits be performed in accordance with government auditing standards. And again, we have our required communication to the board letter um and our our management letter, our controlled efficiency letter. And to round it all out, there's also the requirement that the district file a consolidated year and financial report. Um and so we do provide an in relation to opinion um on on that report. And lastly, uh the district does expend over $750,000 in federal funds. So the district is required to have um a s a single audit performed. Um each year too within the annual financial report that's filed with the state board of education, um there is a financial profile score that is calculated. um isb's required to have a mechanism to be able to track districts that might start having financial difficulty. I just always want to point out with this that this is a very volatile um calculation that's done depending on the basis of accounting you're reporting on and certain other factors too. And this slide is is presenting the page out of the annual financial report um that displays school district 58's um financial profile score. There are four different categories of this financial profile which is financial recognition, financial review, early warning, and then there's the the watch category. Um, and then effective for fiscal year 25, there were two new standards that were effective. There was Gatsby statement. Gatsby is the governmental counting standards board. So, statement 101 on compensated absences and then statement 102 on certain risk disclosures that were effective. Um, statement 102 really did not have any effect on the district's financial statements. Um and but statement 101, the compensated absences, um did have some changes due to the to the financial statements and some of the specific changes due to the implementation were the requirement to report some additional liabilities for the sick leave and and include any salary related related payments. Um due to the implementation of this standard, it also required that we restated um the net position and this was just due to the change in the accounting principles, the financial uh the financial statements and these are the what I'm referring to here as the bound financial statements which is the big report if you're go if you're looking at the different reports and I just want to point out a certain certain sections in there. Um, of course the audit always begins with our independent auditors report and again this year we do have an unmodified clean opinion that that it was issued which is the highest level of assurance that we can give as auditors. Um, you will see in there too if you look there is an emphasis of a matter paragraph and again that's just due to the restatement due to the change in accounting principle from Gazsby 101. Uh, the next section starting on page six is the management's discussion and analysis. This is written by management and reviewed by us. It's a great document to go to if you just want to get a a summary of what's in the audit report. There's um some section on financial highlights. There's a section um overview and explanation of the different financial statements contained within the document. Um there's condensed financial statements and there's also a section presenting um items that could have a financial impact to the district in the future. Um the next section on the report is the basic financial statements. That's where you're really you're going to see your balance sheet and your income statement on the governmentwide level. And then for each of the funds that the district um that the district has. It also this section also contains the footnote disclosures um where there's a lot of the significant accounting policies. There's also a lot of information um on the cash and investments, the debt, the capital assets um along with a lot of the pension footnotes and the other post-employment benefit footnotes. The next section is your required supplementary information. And here there's many multi-year schedules on your pension and oped liabilities along with budgetary schedules for the different funds of the district. And the last two sections uh rounding out the end of the report is a supplementary information and the other supplementary information where there's more budgetary statements and combining statements. And lastly, there's a schedule of the bonds outstanding of the district uh by issuance. Um as we talked about earlier, there is the some items that are required to be communicated to the board, which we do through our required communication to the board letter. And here it states that we've done our audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and government auditing standards and also the uniform guidance which is what's followed for the single audit. Um there's also a section that discusses any current and future Gazsby statements. We did discuss earlier the two that were effective. Um there are more that are effective in the future and they are listed in that letter. The one I do want to point out is Gazsby 103, which is um some changes to the financial reporting model for improvements. Really, the main item that's that will be effective or affect the statements for your district will be some changes to the management discussion and analysis. Um the letter also reports any significant accounting estimates and f and financial statement disclosures. Again, we had no difficulties in performing the audit and completing the audit. I certainly want to thank Greg, Dr. Russell, and I see Michelle's here tonight and their entire staff for their help during the audit this year. It all went very smoothly. We were able to issue timely and get everything filed on a timely basis this year. Um, we didn't identify any um unusual transactions. Uh, we do have one which we refer to also as a past adjustment in in regards to the um IRS penalty that I know the district's still working on um getting being waved um in the fu in the future. And then lastly, management did sign and provide us with their management representation letter when we um when we released all the deliverables to the district. And I believe in December um all the filings for the single audit um the cipher and all that um the filings with ISBY were all were all completed um in in December. And then lastly um we have our management letter um which is our control deficiency letter. We do have that there's three levels of deficiency and material weakness, significant deficiencies, control deficiencies and observations and recommendations. We did again this year have one item in regard to capital asset accounting um which we will continue to work with the district with. It's just there's a lot going on with your buildings and we just want to ensure that um that all the capital assets are being accounting accounted for correctly. And then lastly in the observations and recommendations is just in regards to the technology and data security risk assessment. Um this is a comment that we put into all of our districts even our corporate clients just as a reminder of the ever changing of our technology. Um and to always be aware of what's out there and and always looking at your technology. Um it's not saying there's anything anything wrong with what you're doing. It's just a reminder um that we like to that we like to put in all in all of our letters. Um if anyone has any questions, I would be happy to answer anything at this time. >> Thank you, Betsy. Uh questions or comments on the audit. >> Can you just define what a compensated absence is? >> Yes. Um a compensated absence, the one that we've always reported is is in regards to vacation pay. So, um, teachers wouldn't have that, but, um, administrators and IMRF employees, um, I I don't know your policy off the top of my head, so I'm just going to say this in general. Um, if they accumulate a certain number of days and when they retire, they're going to be paid out for those days, that is a compensated absence on that. Um, and so it's carried as part of the long-term liabilities of the district. Um, Gazsby 101, which was the statement we were that we was effective this year, sort of took it a step further and looked at sick leave also and looked at looking at it as earned versus used. And most districts don't pay out for sick leave um because it goes towards credible earnings for IMRF or TRS, but the statement um is sort of looking went back historically to look like a two or three years of information and saying okay this person earned this many days and they're using that many in that year. So therefore that's a compensated absence on that. So that's why the number grew quite large um this year within the report was due to the implementation. >> You anything else? >> Thank you so much for being here. We greatly appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> We have a second spotlight tonight. It's on our K through five and six through eight uh transition updates. So I'd like to welcome Justin Sisle and Liz Ert. Good evening. Thank you. Tonight, this will be a team effort presentation as there is just a lot of work going on around this transition as there has been for many, many months. And so, we're going to start with just a brief review of strategic plan goal 4. We're going to look primarily tonight at the areas of scheduling and staffing, student services, advisory, exploratory, transition, elementary school planning, all as it relates to the 68 transition. And I think what you'll hear tonight is you'll hear increasing levels of detail as we are getting closer to the actual implementation of this transition. I think there will also be areas where we will still be at a slightly higher level of detail. And I want to preface that by saying it doesn't mean we don't have the granular things worked out. One of the things we pride ourselves on is making sure that our conversations are sequential. And so there are things that I don't want to have staff here for the first time in this moment if we hadn't had a chance to sit down with affected groups of stakeholders and talk about the impact of certain things and get some initial feedback before we move forward with some of those decisions. So again, big picture is complete. Many of the details are complete. There are still a few things that are ongoing more for those just conversational loop pieces as we go forward. Again, this has been up for all of these presentations. This goes back to the the initial strategic plan and nothing has really changed. This is what has guided our actions through the entire transition process. This is an ever growing list of people who have sat on committees and working groups as part of this transition process. This is certainly not an exhaustive list of people who have given feedback, been in conversations, or will be impacted by this transition. But this just serves to to note the number of people across grade levels and and buildings and responsibility areas that have spent significant time working in groups and continue to do so as we build out all of the details of this transition. You'll recall a similar slide in a previous presentation that I think was only two columns at that point. So this this does continue to grow as the groups continue to work. From a scheduling and staffing perspective, really the preparations for all of the staffing shifts began in 2022 formally with some conversations with people who were currently teaching sixth grade. But actually as far back as 201819 when we first started talking about this and began looking at who in our sixth grade teaching staff, for example, was middle school endorsed and what would that process look like? And so the conversations three years ago were around what would you hope to teach in middle school? What can you teach in middle school when we get there? so that people had an opportunity to consider whether they wanted to go back and finish an endorsement or pursue an endorsement and things like that. And several people did to position themselves to be teaching hopefully in preferred areas or in an area that they would be endorsed in when we got to this point this year or last year, excuse me, in the 2024 25 school year. We offered several opportunities for staff to provide um their interest in the opportunity to move to middle school because we knew that due to a number of things, some were retirements and other things that it would it would require more than just our sixth grade classroom teachers to staff this new model at the middle school. So, we've worked through those processes over the past few years. But before we could get to that who is teaching what next year moment, we had to figure out first the the structure of the schedule. you you'll recall we also took this as an opportunity to really explore the middle school schedule structure and and initiate a change to that structure that is relatively significant in terms of the way we put things together. The impact on students is there. It's it's it's not going to feel all that different although it's going to open up some additional opportunity but it really has to do with now how we build the schedule. Knowing that that schedule has a second exploratory class period for all students, it meant the next thing we had to do was was develop that sequence and look at that because in some cases students will have two exploratories per year for three years and that's a model we haven't had yet depending. So it it took some time to build that and then again as I talked about in December it's really looking at those projections as best we're able to try to articulate how many teachers in subject A and subject B will we need at each middle school? How many sections of those classes will there be? which led us then to I'm always careful to say it's ultimately tentative though we have made some staff you know we've had a lot of staff conversations around this but we do now have a staffing plan for that 68 middle school for all subject areas based on our anticipated enrollment and our anticipated number of sections with some flexibility remaining in that schedule at this point knowing that like I talked about last month we can't make those final decisions really until post spring break when we get through registration enrollment eligibility for classes classes prefer interest in in classes and exploratory classes and things like that will drive all of those final pieces. But that will lead us to build out a master schedule. That master schedule also finalizes kind of what the building looks like because one of the questions we have talked about a lot is how will the building be set up? Will we be able to have sixth grade group together and seventh grade group together? And the answer to that question is yes to a great degree. Obviously the gyms are all in one place. The lunchroom is in one place. certain exploratory type classes like music and art are all in one place. So those won't be in the exact same spot that the grade level core classrooms might be, but we do have plans in both buildings that will keep sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade grouped together for the majority of their classes during the day. Again, science labs are another good example. Like if you don't have a science lab right in that group of, you know, you might have to do a little bit of movement, but we're working to minimize that. Am I ready to tell you which classroom which teacher is going to be in and all of that? No, I'm not. Because until we really build that final schedule, we don't want to commit to things like that. And so that's where we're at in the process. The answer to the question, will we be able to group the kids? Absolutely. Could I point to the area of the building? I probably could, but we haven't really even shared that with staff yet. Can I tell you coordinates? >> Can I? >> And that's exactly, you know, we want to get to all of this information. And it's not an attempt to be secretive. It's an attempt to be sequential with the way we release the information. And then speaking of sequential, we will be sharing plans with the community. We're not trying to be secretive or disingenuous about which sixth grade teachers are going where next year, but we wouldn't typically make that announcement about who are the teachers at any school until the end of the school year when we have most of those scheduling pieces confirmed. And so that is when we'll share that information with our families and our communities, just as we typically have in a given year. So, it will come toward the end of this school year in those last newsletters where we're announcing all of the staff and and what where they'll be for the coming year. Speaking of staff, in terms of preparation, we did commit to having conversations with any staff members who would be impacted either through their choice or through other variables by the 68 transition prior to winter break. And so I believe in the three weeks between Thanksgiving and winter break, I met with 53 individual staff members to work through that process and talk through what that was going to look like. And then right before winter break, we shared with both middle school current staffs the names of all of the people who are going to be joining their team for next year so we could begin to let the excitement happen around that because it really is exciting and and and truthfully the people who are joining the middle school staff by and large chose that and are excited to be there and are landing in places that they're excited about teaching not just physical spaces but academic spaces as well. And so moving forward, we will be we have a meet and greet schedule at both middle schools after school where the new folks are going to come over and and be greeted by the administration, the middle school staff, do some building tours, just some some kind of welcoming, more social types of things, and then we get into more of the really, you know, the planning and preparation which will take place at all of the the bullets I've listed out here going through the course of the year. Um, you know, even our what is what will be our sixth grade teachers meeting in February. We're talking about potentially expanding the invitation list a little bit to not just sixth grade classroom teachers, but potentially bringing some other people in that will be teaching at the middle school just because of the way the conversations are going to go. The last thing on there that I'll highlight that's a new one that we haven't talked about at the board level yet is, you know, we know that we'll need just by the sheer number of students moving to the middle school, we'll need a few more instructional assistants at the middle school than we do currently. And so we want to allow for an opportunity for current elementary instructional assistants who might be curious about what a middle school role would look like to come over for an open house and just kind of have an afterchool opportunity to see what that looks like. As of yet, I haven't heard from any of our current um prek through six instructional assistants, they're interested in making the move. But I think part of that is just if you haven't been in a middle school role, you haven't necessarily seen what that looks like. And so we want to make sure we're providing that opportunity so that if we are asking people to make that move, they've had a chance to see what might be in store for them going forward. This is I have one more. This is the the student bell schedule. We've shown this before, but just as a reminder, essentially the the biggest change going into next year at the middle school is that where we currently have an eight an eight period day with early bird classes, so like a zero hour for band, choir, and orchestra, we will be moving to a nine period day for all students, which incorporates band choir and orchestra as one of those nine periods, but then therefore also increases the exploratory opportunities for students. So each student will have the classes they have now. They'll have two periods for English language arts. They'll have a period for math, a period for science, a period for social studies, a period for PE, a period for lunch, which will be opposite and advisory um class that Liz will talk about in just a little bit. And then there will be that additional period for the students, which will be so they'll now have two exploratory options where they can fit performing music, where they can fit exploratory classes, where we can also place intervention without removing other opportunities. And I don't want to steal the thunder of those people coming later who are going to talk more about that. But that's the biggest shift in the schedule. This does increase instructional time across the day for all students. Whereas c whereas the time will be very similar for those students who are currently an early bird, this will now mean that all students will begin their instructional day at 8:20 and conclude their instructional day at 3:27. So, it's a it's a net increase of instructional minutes, maintaining a very similar structure to what we're used to, but again, increasing those opportunities for students as we go forward. >> Justin, would you mind um talking about the lunch, the timing of it, and what lunch will look like? I know that we've gotten that question, too. >> Sure. Absolutely. So, there the the lunch setup is is actually very similar to what we have now where each student will have a 23minute lunch period opposite a 23minut period, which currently we call student support period. That's where advisory will live going next year. In order to accomplish this many lunch periods and have the ability to separate students as we may want to to have a sixth grade lunch, a seventh grade lunch, an eighth grade lunch, we have six opportunities for lunch, which means that it does start a little earlier and go a little later than we might be used to, but it's not outside of the realm of where, you know, where things are reasonable. It does cause, if you look at the Monday schedule being a little bit different, in order to keep those lunch times within the same range of time each day, it does mean that on Mondays, we're going to have 7th period happen prior to 4th period so that with the shortened day, we don't start serving lunch at 9:55 in the morning because that was a that was a bridged a little too far for us. I think, you know, when you look at if a student's been in school for a little over two hours, then going into lunch is is workable. I think you know we'll learn from this but this is not all that dissimilar from what other districts around us are doing who are accomplishing feeding this many students in a condensed period of time. >> Thanks. >> One more question on the on that if you don't mind. >> Not at all. >> Uh I'm not familiar with how what passing periods look like today. Uh looking at about three or four minutes. >> Yeah. >> How does that compare to what the schedule looks like today? >> Today each passing period is four minutes. So there is a there are some cases where the threeminut passing period is a slight reduction. However, what um what's been implemented in in at least at Hera consistently and I believe O'Neal has begun this as well is they kind of have a threeminute warning bell now and at that if you stand in the hallways at that bell suddenly everyone starts to scatter and very easily makes it to their class whereas the you know so we we really are confident that that three-minute passing period is workable. Um it it's assisted by the better traffic flow in both buildings and the clustering of many grade level classes together. So, putting those two things together, watching it pretty much work as it is now if students were to um maximize their travel time, I'll say it that way, and you know, between classes and then knowing that the that that distance that they're covering will be condensed and much more readily accessible just because of the better traffic flow in the buildings. >> And then this schedule um aligns with the timing of the high school schedule. Now, uh they start at 8:20 as well. I believe >> it is. I'm not going to try. I don't want I don't want to quote it, but it is it is much closer to the time of high school schedule. Yes. >> Currently, I know it's 8:20 for sure that they start. So, any concerns about because Heric and North are like right here or parents dropping off from one to the other if they have to. No, >> we think what we're going to is there going to be leeway or whatever for situation. >> Yeah. So, if there is a traffic situation this year, it's it's wonderful obviously because we're we're missing grade level at both of our schools. So, so traffic is going very very well. Um the high school's new schedule and their block format doesn't require all the high schoolers to be there at the exact same times. So, that helps a lot with um traffic and how it flows. When we went through the um zoning process or excuse me the traffic planning process, we really looked at uh in particular here in North because they share a property line. Um the village was competent in our plan in in watching the traffic flow right now for the high school. We don't believe that it's going to be a significant issue for us at the same time. >> Yeah, it it's not uncommon for us to be very close to the high school. Again, that block schedule that they have does allow for um different numbers of students on different days. So, it's not like they have everybody coming there at once, which is which is helpful. But, um one of the biggest changes North made years ago was putting the student parking lot on the other side of Main Street where it used to be off of Saratoga. that may have been a little more problematic, but um with both the back entrance and the front entrance now um we don't anticipate having an issue with the high school traffic. Their buses are off of uh Prince Street. >> Yeah. You know, um so uh again, we really designed this with the high school schedule in mind. I know that the um police were out at the start of the school year looking at the traffic patterns of >> Yeah. less about the like traffic, more about the students getting to where they need to be on time, being able to get to that start. If you have a middle school student and a high school student, >> the high school the high school >> like O'Neal and South will be a little harder if you're trying as a parent trying to drop off. >> The high school has a much more accessible students arriving earlier and having the commons and places to go into. So, if a family was kind of stuck in there, the high school drop off first and the middle school drop off second would would accomplish that. might mean might mean the high schooler has to get there just a little earlier, but there is a there is a way to accomplish that that that their building structure allows for so that we would be able to work through that. >> Great. Great. >> All right. So, the great thing about the universal planning that we're doing through this process is that what is good for all students is also good for students with IEPs and 504s. So, I I'm really excited about the the work that's underway. Um, but I have one small but mighty slide to share. So, uh, the staffing considerations that Justin already alluded to apply to our special education teachers as well. So, those that are likely to be moving to the middle school, um, many of whom again stepped up, really excited about the the change and the opportunity to work with that developmental band of students, um, have already been notified. We're still working through some of the specific minutes with related services, positions like social workers, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, just making sure that if we're communicating a change to somebody that that really is going to be what it'll be. Um our we have five counselors between the two middle schools currently and one of the um the the neat things that they do is that they work uh with everybody on academic achievement, career exploration, and social emotional learning. been really uh for as long as we've been here, they've only done that for two grade levels. So, it's been really exciting to sit with them and really map out what opportunities do we want to provide for students coming in as sixth graders and then really be able to allow those eighth graders to um ex explore careers at a deeper level, do some things that we just haven't been able to get to because we're still covering some of the the um information that we're now going to be able to give to students uh earlier in their their middle school career. So, that's been really exciting work to be a part of. Uh, we are doing fifth and sixth grade transition meetings all over the place every day, multiple meetings. Um, we're getting kids through and having some great conversations with families as we kind of figure out what those elementary services um will look like as those kiddos transition to the middle school. Um, both within our resource general education special education program and within each of our specialized programs. So Herrick will continue to have the RISE program, our program for students with characteristics that align with autism. O'Neal will continue to have our developmental learning program and our BEST program. Um so lots of good things happening there. Uh schedules, you know, we've looked a lot at the Bell schedule, the opportunity for two different exploratories. I think that's such a huge win particularly for our students with disabilities where where that access to exploratories was often coming at teams were really grappling with what is the higher priority when you only have so many minutes in a day to both work on curriculum but then also work on some additional skills maybe executive functioning. that second exploratory is really going to make it much easier for all students to have uh really that that piece of middle school uh that's so unique to to that model. So, we're excited about that. Um and then uh finally, our special programs are uh also growing as we transition really across the board as we transition those preschoolers up to kindergarten and then of course those fifth and sixth graders up to the middle school. So, um along with that, uh we're really looking at some intentional opportunities to uh really create some structured opportunities within specialized programs for students with and without disabilities. It is something that we haven't uh gone as deep with uh as we would have like and we're really looking forward to really formalizing that with more of a program uh at the middle school level. >> Okay, I'll pass it over to Liz for advisory. >> Thank you. So, I'm going to start talking about some of the nitty-gritty of um the students days, which we're really excited about. We've had some great working groups that have met often throughout the school year to start planning and um really adapting to having that third grade level in each of our middle schools. So, our advisory time is that structured schedule to ensure continuity um and student access to content. We want to make sure that all students have um the access to these curricular resources. So, it incorporates our team building. second step which is our SEAL programming, our rush executive functioning um curriculum as well as offering time for student support. This will be that 23 minutes opposite student lunch and they'll and students will be with their grade level peers in their advisory classes. And so what I'm going to do is show a slide that kind of gives an idea of what the schedule is going to be like for um that um advisory time in their day. It also allows for some student leadership opportunities across grade levels and allowing for groups of students at each grade level to get together in smaller groups as needed. So this is a sample of our advisory schedule. What our working group has done is really built out what are the different components of advisory and how do we want to make sure that it's accessible to all of our staff but also something that our students can access as well. And so as we look through that, our advisory will include our daily announcements. We don't have a lot of time right at the beginning of the day. We want to make sure that we're being able to get right into curriculum. So the day will start with our pledge and some, you know, highlevel really necessary announcements being made. But really what we have found is that being able to have announcements available in a slide form for students gives them access to it throughout their school day and that's something that they will go through during their advisory time. Um we've kind of set aside Monday as our team building activities. So um some of some um of the activities include um door decoration contests or um you know team team um events that they go down to the gym for and things of that nature. Um so those will be um happening on Mondays. Then we've put second step on our Tuesday lesson um for that day which is about a 20 to 25 minute um lesson for our students. We're going to make sure that they're getting second step on a weekly basis. Um, Wednesday's going into grade checks and being able to ensure that students are monitoring their grades and reaching out to teachers and making sure work completion is happening. So, that will be happening on Wednesday with some additional time for student support. On Thursdays, we'll be looking at doing our brush executive functioning lessons, um, which talks through, you know, organization, being able to utilize their binder system, how do we ensure that we have everything that we need to be successful, how are we filling out our student planner, things of that nature. And then on Fridays, giving students that opportunity to clean out binders, clean out lockers, make sure that there's no lunch left over for the weekend. Um, but really giving them that opportunity to be responsible for their materials and really understand that being organized and being able to really keep all of your materials together um helps you really function throughout your school day with some additional time for student supports. Um, these are some some fun um cartooned versions of of our um heric Spartan and Torchy, our you know O'Neal senator. Now, talking through some of the exploratory structures, and I know that there's been a lot of questions about this. Um, we're so excited that our revised schedule allows for two periods of exploratory during the day. Those exploratory classes will be trimester based. Um, and then they will depend on what grade level and other selected opportunities students have. So, some new and revamped exploratory classes include our visual arts classes, general music, STEM being expanded, foreign language exploration, um our family and consumer science classes, and then new classes including technology and learning and some career exploration opportunities. So, some of these will be available at all grade levels, some will be available um at just sixth grade, some at eighth grade, but we do want to make sure that we are expanding our offerings. And the wonderful thing about being able to roll this out year after year is that if we see a really great success with one of these exploratories, we can say, "Okay, is there something we want to go deeper with?" And we can build another opportunity in there. So, there are ongoing conversations about what exploratory can continue to build on and look like. Um, but here is the current structure for the upcoming school year. This also offers some um opportunity enhancement. As Mr. Sisil shared we will be able to put performing music classes into the school day. So band choir and orchestra which currently happen as an early bird class will now be incorporated in the school day. And we'll be able to pair the choir class so that students can still participate in band and choir or orchestra and choir as we allow them to during their early bird classes this year. And the teachers work them out amongst the ensembles which is really great. Um again students don't have to participate in two of those. they can just participate in band, just orchestra or just choir and then those would be five day a week classes. Um in terms of foreign language, this is a really exciting opportunity and one that the world language department is really um working diligently to make sure that we're building a maximum opportunity for our students is that we are going to expand our foreign language offering to a two-year program. It will still only be one year of proficiency credit, but what this will allow is for more expanded exposure to grammar, to sentence structure, um to cognates, to different um pieces of culture, music, different um things that are not as indepth in a one-year program. So, we're really looking forward to those opportunities to build out. We understand that we are going to have that one year of transition where an eighth grader who chooses to be an exploratory will receive um some of the updated content but will still have it in the one-year class if that makes sense. And then seventh grade it would be a two-year commitment for seventh and eighth grade for foreign language. We do also recognize though that we want to um ensure students understand that they are committing to a two-year foreign language program when they choose to take foreign language in seventh grade. So, we're working on some verbiage for that to ensure families understand what that commitment looks like. Um and then in terms of intervention, again, as Mr. Sisil um mentioned, we have often had to pro we've provided intervention in lie of students being in exploratory classes. And this opportunity is allowing us to have some more fluid access through benchmark assessment and progress monitoring in and out of um intervention but also not missing exploratory opportunities. So we would never have a student be in two intervention course or classes. They would always have an exploratory period within their day regardless of need for intervention. Liz, could you just maybe elaborate on this year and beyond statements like when which student now would be allowed to participate in the two >> two-year program? It'd be a incoming seventh grader. >> Yep. So the exploratory scenarios for us um so sixth grade will have the opportunity to take performing music band choir and orchestra and an exploratory or two exploratory classes. One of the exploratories potentially offered for sixth graders will be a flex class which will give them exposure to both Spanish and French to see if that is something that they may be interested in. So that's that foreign language exploratory. Then in seventh grade, there are four options for those two explor exploratory classes. You may be in performing music and one exploratory. You may be in foreign language and one exploratory. You may choose to be in performing language or I'm sorry, performing music and foreign language. Or if you do not choose to be in performing music or foreign language, you would be assigned to two exploratory classes. I know that's a lot of words. Sorry. So the structure is really being able to enhance opportunities but recognizing that just as it is now, not everyone can do everything. And so we do have to put, you know, some of those caveats on there of if you are going to be in performing music and you want to take a foreign language, those are going to be your two exploratory class periods during your day. But if you are in performing music and you're not interested in taking foreign language, then you'll be assigned to three trimester, you know, trimester based classes, but one period of exploratory, which will switch at each trimester. >> And Steve, just to clarify that eth makes sense of >> eighth graders get the old model of foreign language starting with their seventh graders, now they can get the new model >> just for foreign language. >> For all right, so just use my son as an example. He's in seventh grade currently. >> Right. Right now. >> Yeah. >> So when you say this year, what what what does that mean? This year >> in the >> 26 27 I'm assuming. >> Yes. I'm sorry. >> So that's okay. >> His eighth grade year. >> I'm so sorry. For his eighth grade year. I apologize. Yes. >> No, I'm just wrapping my >> He starts Spanish tomorrow. So for the upcoming school year, incoming eighth graders will have a one-year program of foreign language. >> Thank you. >> Seventh graders moving forward would start their foreign language opportunity >> to um the foreign language component of it I imagine is both exciting but also will raise questions with families. >> Yeah. Do we have guidance from the high school on what they're expecting students to be coming in with? What implications that has for the high school experience, whether it's a three or a four language or a four? >> Can you elaborate if you have that? If not. >> Yeah. No, absolutely. So, we actually just had a um world language conversation with um one of the district office members um at district 99. We were just talking through offerings and what are some of the opportunities that students have and when I shared that we were looking to move to a two-year foreign language um opportunity, he was very excited about the potential of ensuring that students really had that base knowledge and were not worried about not having enough of the proficiency to tackle, you know, a Spanish 2 or a French 2 when they go into the high school. So, our goal always is that they have the proficiency credit and are successful in that next level of um foreign language. And so, we do think that by expanding it to the two-year model um with this opportunity, we will be able to have more of our students really feel like that that they are ready to um to in integrate into Spanish or French too. Although we our students see a lot of success in Spanish and French too as it is now. Um as well I just think that our um world language and foreign language teachers are really looking at that expansion of culture and being able to just go deeper into the language with our students by offering this two-year model. >> That's pretty standard across the schools in in our area. So feeders in into not only 99 but some of the other high schools around here that's what they've been doing. there's a standard. >> Yeah. >> So I guess my question is imagine a student chooses to not do foreign language because it does take up two exploratory options for them once in seventh and once in eth. >> Um what is what is the implication for them in high school if they did not do a foreign language in middle school? >> Sure. They would start at Spanish one and make a a choice if they wanted to expand their foreign language opportunities in high school beyond. Um, so it really is just making a decision of whether or not they want to get the proficiency credit as a middle schooler and open up some of their um, elective because in high school it is much more of an elective where you choose which classes you're taking. Um, if they want to open up some of those options in high school, that's really where it would lend to. Also, getting to um, a seal of biiteracy is something that is on a lot of our high school students trajectory. Um, and so that enhances the opportunity to still get through four years of foreign language at the high school level, but still open up one elective at some time. >> And about 25% of our students today choose that where they they do stay in exploratory, they do not elect foreign language and they have the opportunities at the high school to still take four years. >> Y, >> right. um in having had kids at the high school, you know, personally, um most of mine did take the two-year foreign language or they were in middle school and then that opened up different opportunities for them their senior year of high school if they wanted to pursue a different, you know, type of class like an AP class or something like that. Um but you can still achieve your seal of bi literacy if you start with Spanish one at the high school. The difference there is if you're starting with Spanish two, you just might have more opportunities your senior year of high school because if you take Spanish two, then three, then four, your junior year, you have other opportunities. >> And is Spanish 4 the same thing as AP Spanish or is AP then happening? >> Those are each high school structures them differently. Um, when you get to Spanish 4 versus AP Spanish, it's both the highest level you can go. one can route you to take the AP test with a way to grade while the other one is just a a normal course so to speak. Um and then when you get to college um if you only take the Spanish 4 and at the AP Spanish you don't have the opportunity to um get college credit based on your AP score which varies on each at each college you apply to. Some may allow you depending on your AP score to um not have to take a foreign language in college or a course in college. Whereas if you just take the general one of your senior year of high school or whenever you you get to that, you would then have to take that again in college. If that makes sense. >> I I would recommend it's just that the counselors for the counselor visits be very have talking points that are very >> the implications feel complicated. Yeah. Yeah. >> Just so that they know like what the ongoing is and what it means, you know, for so parents are kind of informed because a lot of them are walking in not knowing. >> Yep. And we're going to put together a detailed letter kind of explaining what that trajectory could look like. Um you know, any any um parent that I have had just anecdotal conversations with. Um you know, we've we've referenced the District 99 academic planning guide. Um just knowing that we have those connections and are able to talk to our counterparts at the high school, which is always super helpful. Yeah. It's having time for this time for the parents. >> You also have the option even if you take >> the foreign language in middle school to choose to go in to like one if you I tried to get my daughter to do that. She didn't listen to me. Surprised. But >> um >> yeah, >> that's an option too if you feel like you want to >> maybe it was really hard for you in middle school. You're like I don't want to start freshman year with a really challenging thing going into a you know class or French two course. You can do that. It's up to you. Essentially, you can make that choice. So, that's like a little bit of pressure off for some people who might be feel like, "Oh, I I want them to take it in middle school, but then that means they're forced into Spanish, too." Not necessary. >> Correct. >> And our high school staff when they come, especially in eighth grade, talk about th those kind of choices. I think sometimes we see students load up on um advanced classes in high school and um you know, start with a Spanish 2 or French two. Others who might be taking more difficult mathematic classes might choose what Emily suggested. you know, this is a lot on my plate. I'm gonna just do this. And so, and then, um, you know, even in the high school, there sometimes are opportunities, too. Whereas, if you take, um, let's just say your your grade level, Spanish one, Spanish 2, Spanish 3. When you're then going to senior year, some kids may choose to take the AP course, others may choose to take just the standard. So, there's fluidity as well when you get to the high school depending on your success rate. I think you only have to take two years of foreign language as a graduation requirement. So for some kids, they're not even thinking about going that far. They're getting their requirement and they're done with it. So >> yeah, >> so there's legislation right now that is just to make it two years. It it it there's not even a graduation requirement at this point. It's it's a college um acceptance requirement at most universities, though. >> It's strongly encouraged. Yeah. But then it was passed to be >> but it's a few years from now. Now there's movement to get it >> back >> and then there's also like >> had really big implementations for >> I thought it was oh you had to take two years >> so something that we might want to keep a breast of just for the future >> I think it's the graduating class of 2032 I think has to have the requirement >> there's a lot of they're also proposing if a child is fluent in um many of our our students speak two languages now um waving that foreign language requirement too so that's competing with it as Well, so we'll make sure we stay on top of that. The high school does a a really nice job of working with us on that, especially when they come and talk to our eighth graders. >> Absolutely. >> On on the exploratory, um we're obviously expanding options. Uh, and I'm not expecting you to have detail on exactly what, but is is your thought that um that there's just like right now when you're in uh seventh grade there there's just a standard this trimester, you know, and you get them put in a different order depending on who you are, but other than that, you all have the same three. Are we thinking the model is going to be similar to that when you come into sixth grade? Like if you're in exploratory, there's these three, but if you have two, then there's up to six. Are you having people sort of rank them and pick them? Like what are you >> There will not be the you know here are what the exploratories are and you're choosing exploratories but just like you're sharing right now our seventh graders come in and these are the exploratories that they are taking and they have three different options. So if you look at the sixth grade um options, every sixth grader will have three exploratories because they don't have a foreign language um option within their day. And so those three exploratories will stay consistent across sixth graders. And then there will be another set of three exploratories if a student is not in performing music. Um for seventh grade and eighth grade, there will also be three that if you're only in one of the optional um exploratory offerings. So if you're only in performing music and then you're in exploratory, these are the three exploratories you're taking. If you're only in foreign language and exploratory, those are the same foreign um three exploratories that you're taking. It's going to be that second set. If you have two periods in your day of exploratory, that may look different. >> So, everybody would have the same set of standard ones. >> Correct. >> Like in in sixth grade. And then if you're taking music, you would have music and then you would get the second set. Nobody would get that second set in lie of the first set. >> That is correct. >> That makes sense. Okay. >> All right. I got that figured out. Thank you. Yes, of course. So, when we think about the day in the life of a middle schooler, um we will have our nine period day which includes math, science, social studies, third double block of ELA, PE, the two exploratory classes, and then that advisory and lunch. The wonderful thing about our sixth graders making this transition over is that the content that our sixth graders um receive currently at our elementary level is really in line with our um seventh and eighth grade curriculum. Most of our curricular resources, actually all of them are K5 and then 68. And so really this lends to our sixth grade teachers teaching the same resources that our middle school teachers are teaching. So there really isn't that new learning curve of content necessarily. It'll just be them teaching a content area for the entire day versus teaching one group of students multiple subjects. Um so really that alignment of common lit our new math resource whatever that may be as we um as we come to our recommendation in the coming months those are going to be um programs that are implemented at the middle school level versus one grade level being at elementary and then the other two grade levels being at the middle school. Um as we alluded to those building maps and renovations are allowing for many grade level classes to occur near one another. that movement throughout the building and that flow um that traffic pattern is really just going to be um you know emphasized and ensure that students are getting to where they need to be and there's more space in the hallways for them to walk and having access to all of the staircases now um is really just going to be able to um enhance those experiences walking through the building. Um, our advisory classes, as I shared, will be with grade level peers. And then we're ensuring as we walk through our planning process that all of our students have opportunities to to have access to sports, activities, and clubs during the school year. We're still in the planning stages of exactly what that looks like. Um, but we are, you know, actively working on which sports are going to be available to our sixth grade students. That might look different than what's available to our seventh grade students, which may look different than what's available to our eighth grade students. Um and so as we work that out now in a seventh and eighth grade model, it'll be similar in a six, seven, eight model. Um but we do want to ensure that we are enhancing experiences and having access to sports activities and clubs. >> Can you maybe elaborate on that? I guess I want to appreciate like what considerations are being made that's preventing us from kind of firming that up right now. Like what what types of >> uh discussions are taking place? >> Sure. Absolutely. really it's a lot of it has to do with taking a look at our um participation in the new conference. So looking at now we have two years of data in terms of how many students participated costs associated with that making sure that we have the right number of coaches and things of that nature available for that. but also talking to our athletic directors, making sure that, you know, scheduling and practice spaces and all of those things are part of the conversation before we make us, you know, a confirmed decision on what's going to be available. >> Now, I guess when you say athletic directors, would you I guess I don't understand kind of how we we staff and support um sports in general. >> Absolutely. So at both of our buildings, we have a staff member dedicated as our athletic director who is in contact with the conference, works with our building principles and administrators, works with the secretaries on calendaring and all of the coaches, works with Justin, works with myself just to ensure that all of the components of participating in extracurriculars is um running smoothly um and that we have those touch points um and being able to to talk through that with um all of our staff, all of our coaches and our administration. I I guess I just encourage uh more parent and family communication on this. I feel like as as a a board member that has a seventh grader, I know it's a new conference and you know my my son participated in one. I guess it's it's a non-triyoutbased uh cross country, but I still feel like it's uh still very uh it's a gray area in terms of like what's offering what's offered today and what's going to be offered in the future. I think we could maybe take a little bit more energy as a district to kind of proactively communicate that on a more frequent basis. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> I you know I you know want to say like are we going to offer I guess what I value is more in this in this space. I think that's something that we've kind of articulated throughout the you know the moving sixth grade over there. It's you know it's another opportunity to have more access. So I I think that's just uh ripe with opportunity to communicate more in this this space. >> Absolutely. And I I would just throw this back to this is one of those sequential conversations like typically every year up till now when we >> I would say this is a parallel conversation versus a sequential. But challenge you a little bit on that. >> Well, and I I will just respectfully say that I'm not going to share a decision like I said until we've had a chance to talk to the people who are going to work with us through the decision. Every year up till now when we've talked about middle school offerings, it happens in March, April, and May to the students who are coming into the middle school. So, we're really right on track for when incoming middle school students and families would receive all of that information. There's just a there is a lot of energy around the transition and there will be some things that are new, but in terms of the timing of the delivery of that information, we're actually pretty far ahead of what we would typically be in in most of these cases. would be hard because you also don't want to like you don't want to promise to new incoming sixth grade families and say your child will have access to these various sports and activities. And then after actually looking at the gym schedules and the fielding and how many coaches are we going to have and just all the things. All of a sudden, you're like, "Oh, we can't actually offer that every single sport to sixth graders because we can't physically get everyone at practice time or we don't have enough coaches who are willing to do it or whatever the case and then have to walk it back. Like, let's make sure we have everything lined up before we >> just another perspective is when once someone hears something like, hey, we're going to offer soccer, right?" Then people start kind of making their own conclusions. And if we're not proactive, then they're like, "Oh, little Johnny has played travel soccer for the last five years, so he's automatically on the team, but guess what? We got, you know, 60 kids trying out and there's only x number of spots." So I I just want us to be, you know, I I think those are all valid considerations. But I think even if we don't have answers, proactive communication say like how we're how we're going to get answers and when we expect to have answers. >> Kind of that timeline piece of it. >> Yeah. And I think we've talked as a board before too about having that data of what our kids are participating in. Um, which kids are participating, you know, with that goal of all students finding something, it's going to help with attendance. If you're not jazzed about going to math class, but you are excited about that clever activity, uh, I think we all share that same goal. So if we are able to look at what's offered now, how the stipens will change in terms of now it being K through five versus 6 through 8, all of those conversations that can start happening um so that we can prepare families to know what is available and what's actually going to get used. Um >> and even I know other districts like say, you know, they're they're structured sixth through eight. They even offer like fifth graders to kind of participate in their their sports. And so I I just want to manage expectations of the community. Yeah, I will say that family members are asking, "Oh, do you think there'll be one basketball team or two basketball teams at every grade?" So, they're already assuming that there just will be >> one at each grade. So, like there's already conversations happening in those circles of well, of course, if they're a student at the middle school, they're going to have an opportunity to play the sport that the seventh and eighth graders play. >> So, I'm hearing those conversations, not as a board member, but just as a parent. And I think that that's going to be something that, you know, maybe proactive communication on on those things um would be probably the bea best route um because there are a lot of questions circulating out there around this area >> and you know, extracurriculars in general. >> This one in particular, we are very very close. You know, I I think we want to respect what what we've heard today both from from staff and from from board members. Um, do I anticipate getting this information out soon to everyone? Yes, we do. Um, your point, Steve, about communicating this very clearly, Melissa, too, to kind of cut off any of the rumor mills, um, we are getting very, very close. We're in the final stages of of having these conversations. One thing that I I would remind everyone, you know, when we're talking about athletics in particular, when we look at athletics and how they're structured in our conference, they are structured around a a junior varsity grade model and an eighth grade model. And when you have as many students as we are going to have in both of our schools, what uh many of the bigger schools will do, which I would lump us in, I'm not foreshadowing anything, is how do we find opportunities for sixth graders in those sports where there is a lot of room. So those non-cut sports, right? So that's what we're looking at. What is a non-cut sport? You're looking at track and cross country. Um you're looking at wrestling, right? All those where where they take everybody on the team. When you start to talk about some of those other sports like your basketballs or your volleyball where there are limited spaces, you you have to balance how do we make sure we're giving as many opportunities to sixth graders without also then taking opportunities away from seventh and eighth graders, right? And so looking at that balance and then for sixth graders, if certain sports aren't available, how do we then build in other opportunities for them in an inter mural setting or some other type of setting where they can all be involved in something? Katie, your point is exactly the point of moving to the middle school model. It's about giving kids as many opportunities as possible. Steve, I think you said that as well and I think every board member up here feels that and that is the exact goal that we have. How do we get as many activities or sports in front of our kids as as much as possible um while still trying to balance everything and uh making it all all work. And so again, we are in the process of finalizing all this. will have a recommendation to the board and um start communicating that out because I do know what happens in the absence of that solid plan. People tend to fill that in and we don't want to give people false hope or have people so discouraged on the other end of that. So getting that information out and like Liz said, we are in the process of working with our athletic directors, both sets of administrators that are middle school, talking with our staff and then making sure that that's the other thing we're trying to be very cognizant of is we only get one chance to do this. We want to make sure that everything is thoroughly vetted and thought out so we don't have any false starts uh as we start this model. >> Just one last question. Who are our athletic directors? So, we have two stipen positions, one at each school. Um, so we have a staff member at Heric and we have a staff member at O'Neal. They're both our um athletic director. So, it's Bobby Mueller at uh O'Neal right now and then it's um Nicole Gillette over at Heric. So, they're in charge of meeting with all the other athletic directors, setting the conference schedules for each particular sport, making sure buses order, making sure there's enough uniforms, making sure that that schedule is balanced, and they work in conjunction with our building principles and assistant principles. That is a stipen position that people apply for on an annual basis. So, sometimes the who who the athletic director is one year may change if they don't have time to do it. Um, but that athletic director position or stipen has been present for decades at both of our middle schools and it really does um help move things along. There also there's ever, you know, a complaint about a referee or something like that, then uh they would go and um handle that with the uh building administrators. But there is a lot of really good conversations. Like I said, we're we're close. We just don't want to jump the gun publicly until we have everything buttoned up and make sure that we can offer everything we're hoping to. just to maybe so I don't I don't I haven't I have not currently experienced this as a parent but I'm hearing that there is a typical communication that happens around March, April, May >> with incoming middle school families. >> What what's included in that communication? >> So I wouldn't say it's one single communication. It's several communications that all lead up to the future Spartan night and the future um senator night. That's when kids are actually in there with their parents and they get a chance to walk around and actually see these things. And then as they start um everybody's together in the gym and the principal and assistant principal kind of tie it all together. Um there will be several communications from us um throughout the spring that will all culminate till uh like I said those future Spartan and Senator Knights. So for instance, one communication may look like here are the exploratory classes for sixth graders next year. And then we have to you know see who's signing up for band or orchestra. One might be centered around mathematics. One might be centered around athletic and activities. But they will all happen in that sequential order to make sure that we're ready to go. And the first communication though is and I'll talk about this in my superintendent report registration. We have to make sure we know how many kids are going to be in the school and then we start all those other ones. >> One Liz, can I ask one more? not necessarily sport related, but I think one question that many parents coming in are going to want to ask even seventh and eighth, right? >> The start time >> adjustment in the before school activity. So, I think it's clear that if you participate in band orchestra, that's not part of an exploratory, so not a morning session. But it sounds like there are some students today that maybe have specialized >> choir groups or specialized band groups or certain clubs that meet in the morning. um and take an early bus and then start the school day. Is everything that is currently in the morning being moved to an afternoon or will there still be some morning? >> No, there will be still some morning activities similar to what you were referencing. Like right now our chamber strings and chamber choir and jazz band meet at 7:00 in the morning. So now they'll meet more at like 7:30 um 7:40 like you know kind of giving them that same amount of time that they would typically have um prior to early bird. Now, that'll just kind of happen right before school. But again, all of those schedules and timing for clubs and activities, practices, and such will come from those particular groups out to families who participate. >> So, right now, because of space, although it's better this year, but especially during construction and even way back to when I was coaching at O'Neal Middle School, um there just wasn't enough gym space to fit everything after school, right? And so sometimes I would practice in the morning with my basketball team and then we'd be off in the uh evening. We're hoping to um reduce the number of times people are practicing in the morning. But Mondays might be a great example. You know, if our teachers are in PLMs till 3:45 or 4, you can't have practice right after school. So that might be a day where we're um practicing in in the morning. Uh but now that we have so many more available spaces, it used to be we had to have some people go in the morning just because there wasn't enough spots. Um we certainly have so many more spaces available at all of our schools with two big gyms now, a fitness center, a cafeteria available, but um you know there could be the musical after school. So wrestling might have to go in the gym and that might make a bat. So that those are the things that we work out logistically to do that. In terms of early bird bus routes and in which kids why did we have early bird bus routes in the past? Um we had those because the core content of early bird um the band choir and orchestra we had to bus students to those because that was their core class and the only time that they could take it. um when we're talking about jazz band, like that's just one example that comes to mind that that's an above and beyond thing that um while it's not a sport, it's kind of viewed in the same way as a a sport. And so there's a little bit more flexibility on when we're going to have those. But the other thing whenever we have those practice schedules, it's getting them out right at the start so parents know when does my kid have to be at school, when did they not have to be to school, and making sure that we get all those done. One final just seed to plant since I know activities and sports are something this community cares a lot about. Um more at the elementary level and it's usually run by the PTAs but there's a lot more community broughtin kind of programming whether it's Lego club or a foreign language club things like that. I don't see it often at our middle school, but I wonder if there's an opportunity there with the the movement of the sixth graders over there and hearing how much people care about sports and activities, whether some of our community partners, whether it be the park district or grit with the adolescence group of bringing in some of those outside providers, it goes at the the cost of I know then it's money because it's a student has to pay a fee es we're trying to eliminate things but just as another option to explore um to get greater participation >> to bring that to the PTAs at our middle schools. I know they're thinking about how they can expand with having this you know extra year with their families which is really exciting. Um and then also talking to our administrators about what those offerings are after school. I think that's a great idea. Thank you Katie. >> So we referenced some of these transition events within the presentation. Um counselor visits will be in the spring of 2026. Our counselors need to get to all 11 elementary schools and see two grade levels worth of students at each elementary school. And so that will be happening um throughout the spring. O'Neal's future senator night is Tuesday, May 5th. And Herrick's future Spartan night is Wednesday, May 6th. Um I know that Mrs. Humphris and Dr. Perkins are working on their first communication for those dates to get a save the date out to our incoming fifth or our incoming sixth and seventh grade families. Um we have secured the dates for sneak preview at both middle schools which is provided by our education foundation which will happen on August 19th and 20th um of the upcoming school year. So that is that week right before um we are really excited about building out this opportunity to ensure that any student who wants to participate is able to do so and having um that option available for all the incoming sixth graders and seventh grade um happening simultaneously. So there will not be one day is sixth grade and one day is seventh grade. Both days will be available for all of the students and we're going to work to staff that for the number of students in each of the sessions. And then we have some welcome events already. So looking at that 2026 2027 school year calendar locker setup on Tuesday, August 25th and then our Heric curriculum night on Wednesday, September 9th and our O'Neal curriculum night on September 10th. So we're already getting things on the calendar and ready to go for the upcoming school year. Can I ask a question on a couple of those things? Um, >> mostly locker setup, but maybe potentially future Senator Spartan nights. >> Um, has there been conversation about either maybe a separate night for sixth and seventh graders or at least playing times, locker setup night, having now done that a handful of times, it's pretty chaotic. >> Um, and that was with just seventh and eighth, not sixth graders also there. Um, >> there's not a whole lot of structure to that night. It's mostly just go set up your locker, put your stuff in, and then you can kind of like walk your schedule and find your classes. So, especially for those sixth graders this this coming school year, sixth and seventh who are new to the school, don't know where the classes are, they want to walk around. Um, it's going to be a lot of kids all at once. I just feel like it might be beneficial to have a separate time for sixth graders and then a separate time for I don't know, just so that it's not quite so chaotic. they're not going to feel so overwhelmed being able to walk their schedule, see where everything is, and then going forward, obviously once um like years down the road, it wouldn't it won't be so bad. But I just think this coming this coming school year with two groups, two new groups coming at the same year. >> Yeah. >> Going to want to have enough time to those girls, they have a lot of locker decor. >> Yes. Yeah. When the chandelier goes up, you're like, "What is it?" >> It's not just the girls. that intense and >> yeah, we've been talking about different ways to structure our events so that we're making sure it's manageable. We would we want the students to, you know, feel invited into the buildings and really be excited about these opportunities that we're offering. And so, we do want to make sure that logistically we are planning all of those things out and making sure that we have enough time um across the evenings to support all of our families. Um the one thing that will be happening on those future senator and smart nights is our ribbon cutting ceremony right before which is really exciting. So, we'll be doing those as well on those evenings. And then please know that all of this work also has a ton of work happening with elementary schools. While it's not logistically changing as much as our middle school in terms of schedule and all of that, lots of conversations happening in terms of our staffing and programming, the revision of our special schedules, our allocation of resource teachers and related service um staff that um Mrs. Stuart talked about, you know, implementation of our building space prioritization. We did an exercise um a year and a half ago, really looking at what are some of those priorities in gaining some of this additional space at our elementary schools. So, really sitting down with our elementary principles now and solidifying what those plans are for each of our buildings and what those dedicated spaces will be. Um, we have our transition of Grove Children's Preschool to our one location at Henry Puffer, which is starting next year, which is also really exciting. And then believe it or not, we still have a phase of construction happening. And so um Bair Lier and um Pierce Downtowner elementary schools will be um the completion of our construction schedule with phase three um which is really exciting. So we're still working through that construction schedule and looking forward to the 2627 school year starting moving. >> I know we kind of did questions as we were going, but if there are additional questions, happy to answer any of those. Thank you for all of the hard work to all of the committee members and all of the staff and all of everybody because I know this is a long hall of work to get done for hopefully a smooth transition come the fall. It's going to like aces. It won't be there will be zero problems. I know it >> it's going to be fantastic. We are very excited. >> But the work, you know, the work has been done and I know that everyone that's working on it really really cares and so thank thanks first and foremost. So appreciate it. >> Great. And then the other thing that wasn't in the transportation, but we are studying and looking hard at a lot of this has to do with enrollment and where kids live and how they register. Uh transportation is obviously top of mind and uh figuring out how many more buses we're going to need at both of our middle schools and then do we have a decline in busing at the elementary schools. Um so that is definitely all currently being planned and and mapped out. Um the general estimates are anywhere from three buses at Heric to two more at O'Neal. Again, once registration comes in, uh we'll firm those numbers up and we'll continue to share that with the board. But that is another piece. One other piece that we are planning behind the scenes and I'm looking right at Michelle Kovar because she helps us lead this is um our new lunch model at the elementary schools is a big thing. Uh so that will focus a lot of our attention and we'll ultimately bring that uh back to the board later on in the spring. But that is happening as well um to making sure that that goes off without a hitch. So lots of balls in the air but really good people working on it and uh we're confident we're going to be able to deliver it all. >> Any other questions or comments? I really can't believe we're having this conver when we started this it it seemed like uh we would never get here. Um, >> obviously I I think you you can hear that uh we're excited, but we're also trying to to figure out where everything is. So, we are very excited. We are incredibly thankful for all the hard work that went in. We've been waiting, I think, for this presentation now for for a couple of months. Uh even though we knew this was the timing, it it's still just hard when when uh we can't directly see it. So, uh thank you to everybody who was involved and uh we really appreciate it. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. Uh, next we have some reports of the board. We're going to go ahead and start out with the superintendent report. Dr. Russell. >> Thank you. Uh, so to start off with just a personnel update. Um, you know, as Justin alluded to in his previous spotlight on the other side of winter break, uh, we are beginning uh, the season in which we start focusing significantly on staffing and hiring for the upcoming school year. So, kind of the inside joke with school administrators is this is when we start doing two years at once. Uh we're finishing this school year even though we have a long time to go in this school year but also really prepping as the presentation showed you uh for next school year. So we the processes have started for our two anticipated administrative hires. Uh we have the literier principal search. We actually start interviews for that uh tomorrow and Wednesday. And um then also for our director of technology uh position uh that has been posted. We're currently accepting um applications. Our goal is to make a recommendation to the board for the Whittier principal at the um February board meeting and director of technology at the March meeting. Uh obviously we let the pro or the process dictate how quickly we move and uh but that is what we're hoping to meet. Um and again we're flexible on those timelines because we want to get the most qualified talented person and that takes a couple extra weeks. It it takes a couple extra weeks. Uh we also have some curriculum workshops where like let's say we needed a couple more weeks on the Whitier principal search, we might uh then turn that into a special meeting at the February curriculum workshop to hire him or her. Um so more to come on uh that curriculum instruction as Dr. Craft alluded to uh we are now in our winter benchmarking season. So all students are now taking the NWA MAP test for both math and reading. Uh several of our students are also taking uh the Ames Webb assessment. And uh just like we always do, we will uh once the window closes, which will be in late January, we'll come back to the board of education with our winter uh data snapshot and go over all of the results and talk about adjustments that will be made in the second half of the year depending on the results uh that we get both at the individual student level and then the whole school level as well. Uh we're going to skip finance tonight uh because we have the audit presentation. In terms of technology, I've been alluding to this all night long, uh, but, uh, the technology department along with our, um, communications department helps oversee the registration process. So, registration is going to open up earlier like we did last year uh, so we can get more defined numbers. So, we're going to open that up in midFebruary and um, put a closing date on uh, that in mid-March. Uh, we want to make sure that we have our student numbers as close as we can. Now, of course, when we say closing in mid-March, that is a a soft close. We're not going to tell somebody if they miss the registration that that's it. You don't get to register your child to school. But really, we are pushing for 100% of our current families to register at that time so we know what our numbers are so we can start building both uh elementary class sizes and then middle school uh section sizes as well. So, we will be providing the board of education with our updates like we do every year in terms of the percentage of students that registered. We'll do that here at the board meeting and then uh in our board updates as well. Facilities, we were busy over uh winter break. So, I want to thank all of our construction partners. I know we have uh Bullian Andrews here. Uh Kevin Bardau and his team really worked hard um still getting some of those punch list items from uh one and two uh phase one and two and then preparing for phase three. It's also a time and I want to thank all of our custodians. if you haven't been in the schools, it's a great chance to get some deep cleaning done. Um, you know, I was at Highland the other day and the floors are shimmering and and that's the case across all of our uh schools. So, we want to thank our custodians for all their hard work over the break periods. We really try and take advantage of those break periods, but then also just doing a ton of construction stuff as well. So, we did make uh significant progress. One thing I would note, um the middle school graphic walls are up. I know I've shared those pictures. We've also shared them on social media. got a lot of positive feedback. Uh the staircase at O'Neal is finalized and so that's nice. The thazzo flooring is in on there. It looks really really good. So we're excited about that. And um the areas that are under construction, so currently the second floor at O'Neal and then the um I want to make sure I get this right. The south wing at Heric, uh those are significantly complete. Uh we have some deep cleaning to go and some final punch list things. Um but we're really hitting all of those uh construction targets. So again, I want to thank our construction partners uh for getting all that done. And then not lost on any of us. You'll see later on in the agenda. Um we are gearing up for phase three. It's important that we don't forget we still have three schools uh to go this summer. And uh we're right on track with all that. And you'll see that later on in the agenda with the project authorization for phase three uh to go ahead and get going. In terms of public relations, uh one of our biggest events that we do every year is our legislative forum uh breakfast. We call it more of a forum because it's not a a sitdown uh breakfast, but we're very excited. The legislative committee, we have a great group. Um they are really working hard. We've formulated all of the questions and um we are anticipating that all of our state legislators will be there. Unfortunately, our federal legislators, our congressmen, uh they will not be able to be there because they'll be in DC working uh but they'll still send uh their representatives. So, we're looking forward to a great event. I want to thank Melissa Jervis and Julie Reahan for really spearheading this and getting all the invitations out. Uh we're looking forward to a great day and I want to remind everybody that it is at Heric this year. I know we're conditioned to go to O'Neal for this. Um but we will be at Heric this year. Uh we have a busy weekend that weekend because uh Friday morning is the legislative breakfast and then Friday afternoon is the setup for the science fair and then the science fair will be that uh Saturday. So um we're looking forward to those two events coming up in just a few short weeks. That is all I have for the superintendent's report. Any questions? >> Thank you, Dr. Russell. >> Fantastic. That brings us to our monthly business and our treasures report. Dr. Harris, >> good evening, members of the board. Well, for the first time since I started uh presenting here at the board meetings, I think I'm going to say very little tonight. Um, I just wanted to draw the board's attention to uh the year-to- date report um and the and the treasures report. There's nothing uh no major um action items tonight. No major reports. Um but I would just just take a look at now that we're six months through um the fiscal year as of December 31st. The the numbers are are are attached to the agenda. Um some things that I would be looking for in providing analysis to you would be just comparing our our um year-to- date numbers versus our our the same numbers at the same time last year. Um on the revenue side, everything looks pretty good to me. The u the things that we need to watch are um things like CPPRT, which can it doesn't come in linearly. We get a big chunk here and then we get a small chunk there and it it's different times one fiscal year to the next. It doesn't that doesn't really line up. You could get a big chunk in June and but then you can get a small chunk then the following June. There's not really a lot of rhyme or reason to it. But we think that we are we're doing okay there. But that's not you I wouldn't count those eggs until they have hatched. So it's just that's a watch point. Um our interest revenue is looking pretty good. Um we've gotten about half of our DCEO grants which is uh those are reimbursements from the state for um playgrounds uh from grants that were I believe in the 2019 era. So that that's goes back a while but we're getting reimbured for that now. And that's that's an important piece for our cash flow because we budgeted about $1.2 $2 million in in that revenue from the state and we've got about $600,000 so far. So that's that's really helpful there to making sure that we are able to meet our cash flow goals in um April of this or excuse me May of this year. And on the expenditure side, everything looks pretty good. Um everything compares pretty favorably to uh last year in terms of percentages, but or just look looking good against um what we budgeted. So within the objects um by fund, I don't really see anything that really sets off any alarm bells for me. Um, but that's that's my my uh really quick um elevator speech for you all and but if there's any specific questions that you have on that, I'd be happy to take them. Now, >> just one thing I want to point out, especially on the expenditure side, um you're going to hear us in two weeks talk about um ideas for reducing our budget by that 1.5 million. We're not waiting until next year, though, for efficiencies. Obviously, um if we know we can be more efficient in particular with transportation, we've spent a lot of time uh this school year making uh changes already so we don't have to wait to achieve that savings. We want to keep that savings going. Um and uh food service in particular, too. So, I know uh both Michelle and Greg have been working hard on finding as many efficiencies uh not only for future years, but within this school year as well. And we're doing pretty well in both of those areas. >> Yeah. And a good example would be just recently we were looking at some of our bus routes and we said that the the ridership on this bus and the AM is is uh very low. It could be that bus could be eliminated. That doesn't save us, you know, hundreds of thousand dollars. That does probably have a five figure savings. Just just that one tweak to um one bus route um is impactful. So these are the things and and thank you for the accolades. It's really Michelle who's doing a lot of that work. But um that these are the things that we're looking for and then and um just we're like we said like Dr. Russell has always said this year, we're we're turning over every stone to try to find savings and efficiencies >> and we really appreciate that. I mean, it's one of the it's one thing when we're going to have to have a discussion in two weeks where we're looking to have a big broader uh cut, you know, based on on some of the impacts of our revenue. So, uh, we really do appreciate that we're taking every step to make sure that we're doing things right, uh, right now and that, uh, we know it's hard in the way that so much of our stuff is contracted out. Not everything can can just be tweaked here or there. So, finding ways where we can do it live, um, is is really appreciated. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. >> Yeah. And one further update in terms of the revenue. Um, while I cannot guarantee that any additional money will be coming in terms of transportation with uh related to the IHC, um, I did uh have a meeting earlier today uh with the county administrator and Dr. Harris. We were over at the county building. Um, we do anticipate having another meeting with members of the county board uh again to uh share our case and to see if we can get some more uh revenue in terms of supporting our students at the IHC. Again, no promises uh can be made. Uh but for the first time in a long time, we kind of broke that log jam over winter break and I wanted to report publicly into the board of education that we did have that meeting. Uh we will likely have another meeting uh within the next month or so. and uh still working with the state board of education in particular at the legislative forum as well with our legislators to see if there's something that they can do through legislation um with this unique uh model that we have here where um all the transportation is kind of centered around the elementary district where the IT is located. So more to come on that but I did want to update the board you any other questions or comments for Dr. Harris? Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, we have some committees. Uh the policy committee has not met, but the legislative committee met on January the 7th. Uh member Ellis, >> the entire meeting was uh legislative breakfast. So Kevin covered that. Um I will say yep, Friday, January 23rd, 7:30 to 9. Um was open at 7 and it looks like the questions are really good questions. I think we have a good agenda going for it. So um looking forward to it. It's a good one every year. >> Fantastic. questions or comments? All right. Uh, financial advisory committee has not met. Neither is the district leadership team or the health and wellness committee. I'm assuming the SASID has met. >> Yeah, Sassid. Actually, our meeting is not until the 21st of this month. So, there isn't a big update, but just on the side, as I spoke about last meeting, we have a new classroom over at Kingsley. Uh, so Jessica and her team are doing a great job as well as the Kingsley administration. Welcome them into our building. Uh, one of the things that we're looking at for next year is uh, expanded partnerships with SASIT uh, to fill some of those spaces. In particular, we're looking at Indian Trail because remember the preschool is going to be consolidated at Henry Puffer. So, we'll have more space available at Indian Trail and we're working with Sassid around their medical needs program. Uh, we think that that would be a really good space and they do too and so finalizing that process. So, more to come uh, on that. But again, our goal with Sassid, yes, we do get a small bit of revenue from them renting our spaces, but really being the biggest elementary district in Sassid. So many of our students are in that program, the or programs, excuse me, the more that we can have those programs here in district 58, it lessens the burden on our families having to drive to uh different places throughout uh Dwage County. So, really trying to the greatest extent possible when we can have those programs here. We have a great partnership um and we want to expand that um as we can to make sure that we're helping our families out as well. >> Fantastic. Questions or comments? >> All right, we have no discussion items tonight. So, that brings us to public comment. This is an opportunity for members of the audience to share public comment with the board, but is not intended to be a time for members of the public to enter into a dialogue with the board. Issues raised during public comment may be added to future agendas or addressed by administrative staff as appropriate. I have a lot of 30 minutes tonight. Uh we ask that you keep your comments to three minutes to give everyone the opportunity to speak. However, I do not have any cards. Is there anybody clamoring to come up and speak at this time? All right. Uh then I'm going to go ahead and move on. We'll move on to the approval of minutes. Are there any suggested revisions to the minutes as presented in the packet of materials? If not, is there a motion to approve the minutes from the December 8th, 2025 regular meeting as presented? >> Some move. >> Second. >> All right. All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? The motion carried to approve the minutes of the December 8th, 2025 regular meeting as presented. We have a consent agenda. Are there any items a board member would like to have considered separately? All right. If not, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda consisting of the personnel report and the financial statements consisting of the list of bills and summary? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Melissa, please call roll. >> Member. >> Hi. Member Thomas. >> I. >> Member Bernard. >> I. >> Member Doshi. >> Hi. >> Member Ellis. >> I. >> Member Hannis. >> Hi. >> Member Hughes. >> I. The motion carried. The consent agenda has been approved as presented in the packet of materials. We have some recommendations for action. The first step is that uh 2025 audit report. Is there a motion to accept the 20 fiscal year 2025 audit report as presented? >> Second. >> Any discussion? I'm Melissa. Please call roll. >> Member Olen. >> Hi. >> Member Thomas. >> I. >> Member Bernard. >> I. >> Member Doshi. >> I. >> Member Ellis. >> Hi. >> Member Hannah. >> Hi. >> Member Hughes. >> I. The motion carried to accept the fiscal year 2025 audit report as presented. Next up, we have the approval of a settlement agreement. Case number 1 col23 CV17131. Is there a motion to approve the settlement agreement to resolve case number 1 23-CV-17131 in the US District Court uh for the Northern Illino uh Northern District of Illinois? So >> second. All right, Melissa, please go roll. >> Member Ellis. >> Hi. >> Member Hannis. >> Hi. >> Member. >> Hi. >> Member Thomas. >> I. >> Member Bernard. >> I. >> Member Doshi. >> I. >> Member Hughes. >> I. The motion carry to approve the settlement agreement to resolve case number 1 23-CV17131 to the US District Court for Northern District of Illinois. Uh, last up we have a press issue 120 policy updates. Is there a motion to approve the policy updates in press issue 120 as presented? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All right. Any discussion? >> This was that one that um we didn't even have a meeting over. It just had uh some minor updates. Uh mostly legal references. >> All right. Uh go ahead. Most please call roll. >> Member Bernard. >> I. Member Doshi. >> Hi. >> Member Ellis. >> Hi. >> Member Harris. I member >> I >> member Thomas >> I member Hughes >> I the motion carried to approve the policy updates in press issue 120 as presented. We do have a con construction consent agenda. Are there any items a board member would like to have considered separately? All right. If not, is there a motion to approve the construction consent agenda consisting of uh project authorization for phase 3 elementary school and food service? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Melissa, please call RO. >> Member Ellis. >> Hi. >> Member Hannis. I >> memberic. >> I >> member Thomas. >> I >> member Bernard. >> I >> member Doshi. >> I >> member Hughes. >> I The motion carried. The consent agenda has been approved as presented in the packet of materials. Couple of announcements. We got some dates here. Friday, January 23rd at 7 a.m. will be that legislative breakfast that we talked about a couple of times tonight. It is at Heric, which is a new location. So, Heric, Eric. Um, and then Monday, January 26th at 7 p.m. will be our financial workshop that'll take place here as well. Down Grove Civic Center. Uh the board will now meet in close session. Is there a motion to move to close session in order to discuss um the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the district. That's 5 LCS 122C1. And the discussion of minutes of meetings lawfully closed under the open meetings act whether for the purposes of the approval of the body of the minutes or the semianual review of minutes as mandated by section 2.06. 06 it's 5 ILCS 122C21 >> move >> second >> any discussion all right Melissa please call roll >> member Thomas >> I >> member Bernard >> I >> member Johi >> hi >> member Ellis >> I >> member Hannah >> I member >> I >> member Hughes >> I the motion carried the board will now move into close recess uh into close session after a short recess it's 8:48 um let's try to meet by 850. You're good.