Il Community Consolidated School District 15 Board of Education - Regular Meeting

All right. All right, welcome everyone. Hope everyone is having a great last few days of summer before we welcome our students and staff back to our schools on August 19th. Before we begin, just want to extend a warm welcome again to Dr. Dana Smith on his first official board meeting as our new superintendent, as well as Valencia Brennan down at the end, who's our new recording secretary and also the assistant to Dr. Smith. Not new to the district, but new to working with us. So thank you both for being here and bringing your leadership in District 15. All right. May I do a roll call, please?

Ader.

Here.

Annarino. Here. Hunt.

Here.

Here.

Taylor.

Here.

All right. The District 15 mission statement. By leveraging strengths and providing high quality support, we will honor our diverse learners in reaching their full potential. All right. And tonight we have the Pledge of Allegiance from Conyers Learning Academy students.

Thank you.

Good evening, President Ader, Superintendent Smith, and members of the board. Thank you very much for the opportunity to begin the first board meeting of the 26-27 school year. My name is Christy Lowe, and I'm the proud principal at Conyers Learning Academy. I'm here tonight with Mr. Shaw, our assistant principal, and some of our Phoenix. It is an absolute honor to introduce the students leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight. These students are here because they truly embody what it means to be a Phoenix. Day in and day out, they demonstrate the Phoenix way by living out our core values of compassion, connection, and perseverance. They show compassion by helping one another be the best that they can be. They show connection by actively building new relationships across our school community. And they show perseverance by working hard towards their individual goals. And we are so incredibly proud of each and every one of them. So with us tonight, we have Darius, Logan, Remy, and Gary. And Emiliano may be joining us in a minute. Ah, look at that. And Emiliano's here. All right, go stand by Gehrig, okay, bud? Look at that timing. So before we begin the pledge, we want to show you how a different way that we start and end our days at CLA with the Phoenix Way chant. So I'm going to count us down and then we're going to start that, okay? So three, two, one. Hearts united, strong and true. Phoenix spirit sees us through. Perseverance and passion right our way. Connected, rising every day. Rise, Phoenix, rise. Nice job, guys. So now we can move on to something that we all know. If everybody could please rise and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Right here, guys. Ready? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, individual with liberty and justice for all. All right, so now we're going to do some pictures, okay? Let's push together.

Wow. New swag. Yeah.

all right now back over here bud Wow

And once we get the first official picture, of course, families, staff that wanna come up and grab a photo, please do. Okay, stay there, stay there.

That's awesome.

Amazing. Thank you, CLA. Valencia, Valencia, did you receive any green sheets? No? Okay. All right, I'll double check.

Thank you.

All right, we will now open the meeting for public comment. We did not have any green sheets up here. Does anyone have a green sheet in the audience they want to submit? Okay, quiet board meeting today. All right, so next up we get to have some fun in our organizational activities. So as most people know, we had a vacancy on the board and over the summer we held a robust process to field applicants from community members who raised their hand and said they would want to serve as a board member alongside us and to fulfill Lisa's board seat. So we received a number of incredible applications. We interviewed a handful of folks and ultimately made a decision on who will be our next board of education member. So the board selected Megan Skolnick to serve as a board of education member with us. So, Megan was someone who certainly rose to the top because of her community, her depth of community leadership, her understanding of our community and the students that we serve. And we are so grateful that she has accepted and we will move to appoint her tonight. All right. So I may have a motion to approve Megan Skolnick to fill the vacancy on our Board of Education.

I move to appoint Megan Strolnik to fill the vacancy of Board of Ed.

All right, second.

Second.

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Motion carries. All right, we can move to make things official. So if we could have our Honorable Pamela, is it Loza? Loza. Loza, okay. And we can join up front over here by the microphone so that if you can go at the podium, please. Yeah, that way.

So, good evening, Megan. Good evening. It's my pleasure. The Board of Education is charged with the governance of the free public education afforded to all children in the community. This charge comes with tremendous responsibility. As the quality of education provided, our children will greatly impact their future as well as the future of the community, the state, and the nation. It is no small task you accepting this tonight. Taking the oath tonight will be your public declaration of fully accepting this charge. So please respond, I do, after each phrase. Do you solemnly swear that you will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of the member of the Board of Education of Community Consolidated District 15 in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Illinois, and the laws of the State of Illinois to the best of your ability? I do. Do you further swear that you shall respect taxpayer interest by serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets? I do. Encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of the students and its employees? I do. Do you recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public board meeting? I do. And do you promise to abide by majority decisions of the board while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels? I do. As part of the Board of Education, or board of school directors, as the case may be, do you accept the responsibility for your role in the equitable and quality education of every student in the school district? I do. Do you promise to foster with the board extension participation of the community, formulate goals, define outcomes, and set the course for community consolidated school district 15? I do. Do you promise to assist in establishing a structure and environment designed to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational network?

I do.

Do you promise to strive to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of our children in compliance with state law? I do. Do you promise to serve as education's key advocate on behalf of students and our community schools to advance the vision for community consolidated district 15? Do you promise to strive to work together with the superintendent to lead the school district toward fulfilling the vision that the board has created, fostering excellence for every student in the area of academic skills, knowledge, citizenship, and personal development? I do. Congratulations. I want to be the first to wish congratulations on your membership in the Board of Education School District. i guess we get to have a seat up there wonderful okay in front of the Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

All right. Welcome. We are so happy to have you on the team, Megan. All right, we are moving on to item six, superintendent's report.

Yes, well, greeting Board of Education members, certainly everyone in the audience, both in person and online. I'm just thrilled to be here with all of you as we begin this new chapter in our district's story. But before we do turn the page, I do want to publicly thank my predecessor, Dr. Lori Hines, for her commitment, not only to the school district, but to the community in general. Her tireless efforts to do great work for our students and for our families and for our staff members is just unheralded. In addition, we recently installed a plaque in this room right when you walk in. It just serves as a reminder of the continuing mark that she has left on our school district. And I know that I'm speaking for a number of you when I just say how grateful we are for her service. And as she has passed the torch to me, she's been very generous with her time and her knowledge, and I'm grateful for that. Immediately after my approval in February, I was inundated with texts and phone calls from family members and friends and certainly a number of community members that I've known over the years who just expressed their belief and trust in this school board and in this school district to deliver great outcomes for children. As I continue to transition into this role, I've been able to verify all the great things that I've heard. It is indeed a special place where students can reach their fullest potential and beyond. It's exciting, right? In the first 30 days of my tenure, I've been busy meeting with staff members, community members, parents, people that I may have met with somebody I hadn't spoken to for 25 years, but who lives here and is so proud uh not only the school district but told individual stories of how individual staff members have impacted her children and what that's meant to her family as i am meeting with everyone i ask typically four questions among everything else but i'm really focused on four questions you know what great things are happening in our school community we just need to continue these are really highlights that we're focused on what opportunities do we have to improve as we're moving forward I think the hardest one for people is if you could change one thing tomorrow to improve how you do your job or how we serve kids, what would that be? And then finally, are there people that you would recognize for their hard work? Maybe they've had a positive impact on you that may not be recognized. And I think that's important to me because those are people we need to talk to. We need to replicate the great things that are happening in this district. And it's been great. I've heard everything from building custodians to district administrators and everyone in between. It's been a really positive experience so far. I have a number of meetings planned moving forward, and that information will continue to impact not only my transition plan, but as we get into this school year, we'll bring back all that information, not only for short-term cycles of improvement, But certainly one of our larger conversations they have this year is what does our strategic plan refresh look like? It's expiring at the end of 2027. And that's our best way to make sure that we have clear plans moving forward, developed in a collaborative manner that everyone can support, that everyone can believe in because they've had a voice in crafting. And then on our end, it's governing our movement towards those rigorous goals and hopefully their stretch goals and make us feel uncomfortable. Our kids deserve it. Our staff members deserve it. Our community deserves it. So over the coming weeks, we'll bring some information back to the board, certainly in September to start the strategic plan conversation. I imagine that will take several months to get done. We want to have that certainly wrapped up by next spring. pardon me, as we move through this for the first time. But in addition to all of my transition work, we've been onboarding our new administrators, specifically our assistant principals with our assistant principal think tank, had a chance to participate in part of that as well. It's critical, not only that we review our processes and procedures in the school district with our new staff member, but that we talk about what we value. We want to make sure that there's alignment from decision-making, certainly all the software pieces and curriculum pieces are important, but how do we make great decisions for kids? I want to give kudos to Brittany Henry and Tiffany Costa for their informative and engaging work with our new assistant principals. Outside of that, the push is on as we prepare for our new staff orientation, which is August 10th through the 13th in our schools. And our principals will be ready to welcome all of our staff members back in our institute days on August 17th and 18th, before we kick off the school year with our students on Wednesday, August 19th. I can't believe that we're talking about the first day of school already. The summer has flown by. But I'm personally looking forward to meet your teacher and walk your schedule day. That's on Monday the 17th. And I've moved a couple of meetings so I can get out and meet some of our students and parents. That's always one of my favorite days. So as we get closer to the first day of school, we'll certainly share a lot more information on this. Make sure our community, our parents, our students are prepared. Most of the update items this month revolve around the work that goes into the start of the school year, from updating our ID badges, frankly, with suicide prevention information for our students in grades six through eight, which is a state requirement, to continuing to work with all of our families on those last minute registration pieces. This is my public service announcement. Parents, if you have not completed the registration process yet, Please, please get all those documents in as soon as humanly possible. We wanna get your child registered onto a class list, onto bus routes if necessary. We want that first day of school to be special. The sooner parents can register really helps us out with that process.

Oh, there we go. Sorry, I'm trying to beam to the back, there.

So in September, Diana McCluskey will join us to talk about, or to do the hearing for the FY27 budget. And that's certainly critically important, but the summer is really the time where the operations and maintenance department shines. They're focused on getting our buildings ready to welcome our staff members back. Teachers are always chomping at the bit to get into their classroom spaces to begin preparing as they have a little bit more time over the summer. Right now, we anticipate that those schools and classrooms will be ready for teachers to start filtering back into the building on August 10th, although there may be a few areas that need to be addressed. From a construction standpoint though, the HVAC project at Winston will be wrapping up next week. At CLA, we installed new flooring. new sidewalks have been poured and the parking lot work has been completed. So from a physical plant perspective, we feel like we're in really good shape to welcome everyone back. It's always a lot of work, certainly not as much as when we had the referendum work going on, but there's a lot in a district with as many buildings as we have, you know, kudos to Jim and his team for really staying focused on what's most important. Those buildings have to be ready. They have to meet the standards that our teachers set, that our families set, and that our students set for rich learning spaces. The communications department is leveraging the power of ParentSquare. I'm really excited to see how we continue to use that software in our district. Particularly, it's certainly an easy communication tool. We're able to hit all of our different layers, but also the analytics behind it. I know that Ahmad and his team are really excited about that. It's just going to help us connect more effectively with the people who need the information that we're trying to share. Also, our Feed 15 planning work has been running at full speed. That was some of the first work that we got started with. Certainly want to shout out Sydney Manola for her time and energy and just relentless passion for the kids in our community. I think she's a great example of the power of our parents, the engagement level of our parents, and we want to meet that energy. And so as we've had our initial meetings, I know that we have a number of activities planned, certainly starting in the fall, but all the way through this year, we want to keep the pressure on so we can support our students who are most at risk. tons of professional development for educational services. And I think it really highlights our focus, making sure that our staff members have the information that they need to be most successful with our students, from training bus drivers and paraprofessionals on street strategies to work with our children to organizing the admin advanced team, Tom and his team, and just all the district administrators have been working really hard on these pieces. And the restorative practices is a really important step in our district as we work to rebuild relationships with kids. It's not easy, it's purposeful, it's very strategic. And I'm glad we've dedicated specific time for that training that will continue into the school year. From a staffing perspective, I want to go back and just remind on my PSA, parents get your kids registered because it helps us from a staffing perspective, it helps us looking at class sizes, which is really important to us, especially as we get close to the start of the school year, really monitoring those numbers to make sure that we don't have any outsized classrooms. We want our teachers to be in a great situation, our students to be in a great situation. That does help when we know everyone who's going to show up on the first day of school. So we're working, still working to hire a few of the positions as we get closer to the start of the school year, but I'm hopeful that we can find some of them. Some of them are very specific and unique. So the pressure is on for us to identify viable candidates that we can recommend to the board for hire. but we're going to continue to search and make sure that we have really high quality adults to work with our kids. We've had some incredible activities this summer for our multilingual students. About 60 students took part in the trip to the Botanic Gardens. Just a great opportunity to build their background knowledge, give them some different experiences kind of outside of the school setting. The Culture Camp invited all of our dual language students for a week of learning with a World Cup theme as that wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, involved authors and dancing and art among other things. I know Renee is very proud of that work. But we also have to give some kudos to Dr. Urbanski for completing her doctoral program this summer. We're just so proud of you, Renee, and well-deserved. So our children come to us certainly with a variety of needs and skills and our student services department wrapped up their extended school year program for our children with individualized education plans. In addition, just supporting a lot of our professional development activities. And this is critically important, right? As we educate all children, for a really rigorous education that pushes them to meet their potential. It's important that we review the strategies and the expectations as we're moving forward, you know, from admin advanced training with our administrators to getting ready for our new staff orientation. Again, these are impactful topics that not only impact our staff members as they're preparing to work with our students. But I'm just grateful for Mindy's work to ensure that we're ready to educate all of our kids effectively. It's hard, it's challenging, it's complex. But as we're moving through our initial training, as we get into next week for our new staff, and then certainly our institute days a week after that, I know our staff members will be ready to meet the call for our students. The first thought I had when we get to teaching and learning is, wow, the font gets a lot smaller because there's so much on here, but it is a school district, right? And the TLA department has been very busy getting ready for this school year. Dr. McFadden and her team, it's just critical that we have a viable and rigorous curriculum for our students, that we have experiences that are going to extend their knowledge, that we have ways to assess that information. And then finally, how do we respond to that data once we get it? Personally, I'm looking forward to joining the magnetic literacy training tomorrow that's at Paddock School. It's gonna be a great opportunity as we think about literacy and how kids engage with text and talk and write and all those important pieces of that process. I'm looking forward to it. But really, Emily and her team did a great job sharing resources and updates with the admin advance last week. Frankly, it was probably one of the best experiences I've had. looking at organized curriculum materials in a way that isn't overwhelming. Teachers will be able to access the information effectively, administrators can access the information effectively, and it just helps the school year run very smoothly. So kudos to you, Emily, thank you. And certainly, last but not least, when we think about our technology department, MJ and her team, summer is the time for rollovers and it's time for software updates. And this summer was no exception to that. We finished up a few AV upgrades in our classroom, but I was really impressed by some training that was provided by the tech department on the effective use of technology in our classrooms. As we wrestle with the role of technology in learning today, it's just important that we're providing right on time information for our staff members, as certainly our building administrators and district administrators, as they're preparing to work with teachers about what technology looks like in our classrooms. It's critical. It can be used to accelerate. It can also be used to distract. We want to make sure that we are purposeful about the role of technology in our district, you know, so that we are, as a board, that we're getting the bang for our buck from a return on investment perspective, but that looks like great opportunities for kids. It looks like an appropriate balance between paper, pencil and technology use in the classrooms. And on our end, we just want to make sure that we're just purposefully looking at all those learning experiences. So we don't, So we don't miss anything, right? As we've had parents show up for audience comments and share their perspectives about technology. We want to be responsive to that. And I feel like we are right in line with research. We are right in line with best practices and we're excited to get started. So that is the end of my report.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

All right. So now we are moving into a board discussion, strategic plan area of focus.

Welcome Emily. We have some data to share. This is our first pass at looking at our end of summer kind of fall data. There's a number of different iterations that this will take over the course of the school year. But I think as we've talked about it, What we're looking for from the board is feedback only on the data that's coming, but are there different ways that you would like to see the information as you consume this content? Are there different ways for us to break it down that will help you make better decisions for the community? Welcome.

Thank you. Hello, President Ader, Dr. Smith, our esteemed Board of Education and new member, of course. I'm Emily McFadden. I am the very, very proud assistant superintendent of teaching, learning and assessment. And tonight I am here to go over just an overview of some of our first kind of blushes of data from last year. Typically we go over more in depth data in November. So as Dr. Smith said, the conclusion of this, I'd love to get some of your thoughts and feedback about how we can present data in a way that's most impactful and meaningful for you guys. Okay, so this first chart is looking at two different types of tests over the past four years. So it is really our overview of our academic progress, both in reading and math. Our goal as a district that you guys set years ago was that we wanted 70% of our students in District 15 to be above the 40th percentile nationally on achievement. That means our students are therefore generally performing on grade level, if not above in those achievement scores. So I'm gonna use the technical term chunk to say that first chunk of data that you see on the left-hand side is the FastBridge Early Literacy. That is our K-1 timed test that we give students that is looking at whether it's letter sounds or being able to read decodable words. Here's a great fact. Last year, I came to you guys to say MAP and IAR had renormed. So they kind of recalibrated what's the new normal. We found out yesterday that FastBridge has renormed. So we do not have our new norms yet. We will get those for you guys. This is based off of their old norms. So just a little bit of information on that.

As you can see for the early literacy, we went down ever so slightly.

However, as you look at the next chunk, that second chunk, that map reading, that is grades second through eight. And the fact is we maintained it 70%. And number one, if kids weren't leaving kindergarten at first on grade level, we would not be at that 70%. So that says a lot about how we're team kids up. And then when you look at that map reading, stability is good right now. We have made significant growth in a very short amount of time. And the fact that we are stable while we always want to continue growing, just the fact that we have maintained is great because it means that that growth wasn't just a fluke. It wasn't just a short-term thing. We have really reached a new level, which is awesome. And that means it'll help stick. The third area is our Fastbridge Early Math, again, kindergarten and first grade. We maintain the same score of 62%. And again, we will get new norms for you on that. And then looking at that last group, that is our second through eighth grade map math. And we went up one percentage point at 71%. So again, this is overall showing us that we're really in a nice stable spot after a couple of years of pretty intense acceleration. We still would like to see more acceleration. Don't worry, that's our goal. But it's really nice to see that we have continued to be able to be stable in our performance here in District 15. Okay, this is the first glance of our Illinois assessment, the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, IAR. And that's that spring test that the state gives to students in third through eighth grade. We do not have the science scores yet. THIS RENORMED LAST YEAR, SO THE STATE ONLY LETS YOU COMPARE LAST YEAR'S SPRING SCORES AND THIS YEAR'S SPRING SCORES. SO IF YOU LOOK ON THE LEFT-HAND SIDE, THE YELLOW AND GREEN, THOSE ARE OUR ELA, SO OUR ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS PROFICIENCY SCORES. AND OUR DISTRICT WENT FROM 55% LAST YEAR TO 58% THIS YEAR. As you can see in every single grade level, third through eighth, we increased. And again, those are no small feats. Those are intensive learning opportunities. Writing is a part of this. So it means that our writing scores are also doing great, but we obviously are not exactly where we wanna be. We wanna keep growing, but we are really headed in the right direction and we continue to make growth there. So we're thrilled to see that. Math, we are stable. We have little, you have little blips of going down or about 1% changes. We are continuing to, we're continuing to look at math, especially as you get to those older grades, the amount of content that is expected of students to master is a lot. And so finding the right balance of hitting all of those topics, but hitting them in a way that's meaningful, gets kids the knowledge they need, but cramming that into a year, that's a lot. So we continue to work on these things. And actually I'm gonna talk about now how we're gonna work on these things. For reading, I'm not gonna go over everything we've done because we've had plenty of board presentations on that. But what I wanna talk to you about is what we're doing. So as Dr. Smith said, third through fourth and fifth grade are going to be engaging with a brand new comprehensive literacy curriculum called magnetic literacy. We are incredibly excited. We've been doing trainings all summer and people, the teachers are excited. The amount of like, Like it has all the pieces in there. It's writing, it's reading, it's vocabulary. Being able to synthesize those things is really exciting and it'll be a great year with it. Kindergarten for second grade has one more year left and then we will look at for next year implementing a new ELA curriculum. But we are going to pilot the primary version of magnetic literacy at GMS this year. They're already using half the program when we brought to you years ago, magnetic literacy foundations, that is part of this curriculum. So we're just adding kind of the comprehension component to this, and we're gonna try it out at GMS and see what it looks like so that we can figure out what's working and if there's other things that we need to be considering. I'm gonna talk to you also about the learning collaborative. This is really a big new push. We are going to be starting this year for the first time kindergarten through fifth grade general education teams. Every week we'll have a 30 minute time where they review data on an ongoing basis. and make plans literally for that week so that we can continue catching kids in the moment who needs a reteach, who needs enrichment, but we are constantly going to be looking at data to help help push our kids forward in a more ongoing, sustainable basis. And then six through eight, we have been working to redesign what our intervention program looks like. We have kids that are having core experiences and they are having intervention that feels wildly discrepant. We've redesigned the program with the help of our teachers to try and connect what is happening in their class and then working on those foundational skills they need, but attached to the topics and themes that they're actually learning about in their regular classroom. So it doesn't feel so discrepant. We're really building upon what they're doing with the rest of their peers. For math, we are looking and piloting some work around more explicit resources for some of our on grade level classes. We had already done that. You had approved for algebra. We're finding that program to be incredibly helpful in getting kids foundational skills for algebra. So we're going to pilot some eighth grade classes for math to see if that program would be a better fit in getting some of those scores up. So, you know, that's where, when you see those math scores, while there's quite a discrepancy between the map and the IAR, Irregardless, we wanna see growth there. So we're gonna be doing work around that. We're continuing to always look at that pacing adjustment of how much, how do we get all of this into all of this? And so we work with teachers on that. We are aligning with our special education curriculum and instructional and LEAP classrooms as well, so that all of our students are getting a commensurate experience. And then in first through fifth grade, we're adding math wind time, which is that what I need time for targeted support. That's part of the learning collaborative. When we look at data on an ongoing basis, that's the time where we can be pulling groups to doing reteach and additional practice. So learning collaborative, just as I said, a brief overview. This is really, it's a data review time. It's professional learning. It is, where are our kids at, at this moment? let's look at that data. Let's figure out what they need to reteach. Let's figure out what you need some more practice in. Let's figure out who can be pushed a little bit. And that's gonna be happening during this time. We're really excited. It'll be facilitated by building administrators, instructional coaches, and members of teaching, learning, and assessment. So we're really excited to be getting in there and meeting with teachers on a weekly basis so we can hear boots on the ground. What's happening? What's working? How can we support? So that is where we are at for learning collaborative. So that's just our first blush at data. But as Dr. Smith said, one of the goals is to refresh the strategic plan. Last year, we had the new norms for MAP and the new norms for IAR and ISA. Now we have, surprise, new norms for our FastBridge early, you know, early primary tests. So this is really a perfect time to say, what is it that we wanna be doing? What are our goals moving forward? And we have to re-look at the data. but the data really can be tell different stories and it's what information or breakdown is going to help you all, what do you want to consume so that it can help you guys make decisions as you set the goals for the rest of the district. that's like an on the spot question. So a couple, a few different ways that you can look at data. We could look at it by sub groups of students. We can look at it by grade levels, by schools, by programs kids are in, by sub areas or subtests of these bigger tests. There's a lot of ways to parse this out. It's like the old country buffet. We just gotta, what's gonna work best for you all, and so that the data that we bring means something for you, helps inform you, which will help inform us of the work that we can be doing moving forward. So that's where we're at. If you have thoughts about what kind of data would be interesting or helpful, I'd love to know now, if you need time to think about it, obviously, you know, reach out to Dr. Smith or us, but that's really what I wanna leave you with is we're in a great place. We're really stable. And that's a wonderful thing to be able to come and say, but as you're designing our next steps, what would be most helpful for you all?

I think as Emily and I have talked about this, as we move through the next several months, even into the next year, the focus is to get really good at how we're analyzing the information, not having you try to figure out where it is or what you're seeing for the first time. So again, I think this is more of an iterative conversation, certainly as we get into the strategic plan. going up a level, what does our scorecard look like? How do we want to measure our progress? Because I think as we think about the many presentations that will happen over the course of our board meetings, how do we put that into context, which is what's most important, student achievement. And we should be able to draw a clear line between the conversations that we're having here and the data that we bring back to you on regular intervals. like Emily said, if we don't have answers now or perspective now, just give it some thought. We know that more data will come back. We have the fall, all of our fall assessments, the IAR data will be unencumbered usually towards the end of October. So we'll certainly be back then, but just give it some thought of how you'd like to see the information. And then our work is going to be with all of you How do we package that in a consistent way so that you can reasonably expect when we bring the data, it's in the same format. You can look, do we make progress? Did we not? Why did that happen? What are we going to do about it? And really ask tough questions about the achievement of our students in schools.

Now, is this report going to be put into the board reports?

I think currently it's not in there. I would say that's another change that over the moving forward, all of these pieces will be uploaded in the board packet as it goes out so that you have time to consume it, think about it, ask questions and come in and really be hard on the issues and soft on the people.

I know just in terms of answering your question, I am always interested in seeing the demographic breakdowns across race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. So those would be a couple. I think it would be great for us to be able to see that data by school as well. I don't know that it necessarily needs to go in like the full presentation, but in terms of background data that we have access to, I think that would be something that's important for us to see as well. Definitely.

Yeah. I was going to suggest by school as well, but also not necessarily displayed, but for us to have access to, and I was going to just comment and I think a simple question. I love that we're getting started on the learning collaboratives. It's just such an amazing thing that I've had the privilege to be part of and my employer. I was curious if you have such wide range of abilities to gather data for us in certain ways, is it just as easy then for the teachers to pull that up each week? Like I can pull up like the school's third graders and it's right there in front of us and we can look at it and say, Whoa, we're, we're struggling on algebra. And so we got, you know, I'm over-hyping lying, I know, but is it just as simple to pull that up? Like, can they- For you guys? No, no, no, no. Or for staff? Like for the staff that's going to work each week. Absolutely. Where they're, where they need to like- So- Lessons on certain topics.

Absolutely, we have a half hour. It's not enough time to dive in during those days. So yes, we're gonna start simple and small. For math, we have IXL. IXL has that diagnostic test and then it puts kids on a learning pathway and we have it tied to core. So it'll link to our core curriculum and it'll break apart and tell you which skills kids need. For magnetic literacy, they have I Ready Inform, which is a similar type of program. It'll be a diagnostic test the kids take. They tell you, they don't want you taking it more than five or 10 minutes at a time. I mean, it's really meant short bursts, even in the practice sessions. And it'll create a pathway for kids. It'll tell you what skills where they're at with all these different skills. And then it aligns actually also then to the curriculum we're using. So we can quickly see, oh, topic everybody needs, topic a few kiddos need and which kiddos need it. So yes, and we purposely did that because we like those programs because we want it to be a muscle that we build up where it's a quick, easy snapshot. Here's the kids, here's what I need to reteach. Got that group, we're ready to roll.

Yeah, that's what I was hoping. Cause it's a great, It could be a great theory and not in practice, but as long as you have that, that's what I was hoping. Great. We agree.

That's why we're going to start small and simple. Wonderful.

When I'm looking at this information, when we think about student achievement, student growth, so you reported two areas, right? MAP and IAR. When we're looking at the percentage, what story actually is being told with that information?

It is interesting that it is a little... Yeah, it's a little different, right? Like they're not totally in sync. However, what we are seeing is, and we have seen for a number of years, we have increased scores. I mean, in reading and math, we have been on the up and up for a number of years now. So that is holding true. What we need to do with the breakdown for IAR is interesting is because it's really informational and fiction texts and it's writing and it's kind of the analysis piece. So we'll start breaking that down to look into it. What it's telling us though is we are performing in both maps telling us nationally, we're performing higher. than most districts in the country. What IIR is showing us is we're scoring a little bit in the middle, a little lower than possibly we'd like on math compared to other in-state districts. And in reading, we're performing above other districts in the state. So when you look at IIR, think of it as comparison within the state and MAP is comparison within the country. And so I don't have it in this, but I showed a graph once. The IAR is considered the most rigorous of the state exams in the country. So when you look at that, that test is already harder than most other places in the country. So it doesn't surprise me that we're doing better than most other states at this point. And that we're very much, you know, you know, we're making growth in our own state. Illinois is just more, it's more rigorous, both, you know, obviously the communities, we're a high performing state, but it's also the test itself is higher and more challenging than most other states.

And when we're looking at the trends, would you rather have, when we think about our students, would we rather have our trends to go up, obviously in both, right? But because of the fact that Illinois is high performing, would you rather have our students fare higher in the IAR scores or the results? Or how am I to read this when I determine how successful we are?

Sure. I would say what I like about MAP is it fluctuates more in its level of rigor based on student answers. So you get different types of questions depending on how students are answering. So you get a different, the score means something in that kids who are performing at the 70th percentile, you're talking about kids who are getting questions that are at the upper end. of their grade level, if not into other grade levels, because the test can fluctuate. The difference is for IAR, while they have a few different copies of it, it doesn't fluctuate questions based on how the student answers. So everybody, you know, there's only two writing prompts. You either get A or B. That's one of the differences. I would also say that IAR has shifted and changed. It changes more often. It has changed who runs it. It changed the format changes. They changed the type of questions. For IAR, we want our kids to be showing growth. I mean, yes, we want it in both, but I would say IAR is gonna show us a little bit more of like a state system picture as opposed to an individual student. Whereas I think MAP does a better job of indicating where our individual kids are, which I think then gives us a more accurate picture of where our district is or where classes are or schools are.

Would it be kind of safe to say also that we're just, I think it's just measures differently. So it's like kind of two different types of data points. So we can't, we want both, right? I mean, like you said, we want both. And I don't know if we can say we want, as long as one is getting really good and the other one's okay. I don't think we can, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think we can say like, as long as one is good and the other one is okay, we need to make sure that we're, doing well in both and I like I think about that from a parent perspective where like sometimes parents are like super focused on like their kids maps course and like that's great but you don't that's not the only way to measure how long your student is doing right so I kind of think the same thing for the district like we can't look at just we're doing really great in map and so I think it can be had we have to make sure that we're that both are kind of coming along nicely because they measure it differently. Is that?

Yeah, they're really apples and oranges tests. So it's hard to like put them together. But when you start putting all of the data we have together, the narrative that in story we're seeing is, students in this district are increasing. I mean, they're exponentially increasing year to year. And what that means is they're not just making growth of what's expected from the beginning of third grade to the end of third grade, they're going above that. They're making more than a year's worth of growth. And so putting all of these things, these pictures and data together, It shows us that we're headed in the right direction, which means the work that is being done and what teachers are doing and what kids are doing most importantly, we're doing the right stuff. It's now how do we continue to refine so that irregardless of what test is in front of us, we're moving up.

Thank you. Yeah.

Other questions?

Thank you so much. Thank you. Looking forward to November's. All right. Item 7.2, the ethics complaint.

So in your. in the system. We have the board report here kind of reviewing an ethics complaint that was received by the board of education on June 30th, 2026 this year, specifically regarding referendum or alleging referendum related political activity from our November 8th, 22 bond referendum. I think our response to the complaint really maintains that all actions taken by the district Through that process, we're consistent with all legal requirements from seeking legal counsel before taking any actions to verifying that our actions were appropriate afterwards. We are recommending dismissal of the complaint, certainly as being untimely, multiple years after the approval was given, but also even through that process, providing a lot of information to the complainant at the time. And further in the agenda, our recommendation is to reject the complaint.

Any questions? Okay. I would also just like to thank Steve, our attorney, for all of his advice and support through that process as well. So thank you. All right. Item 8.1, can we get a motion to approve the minutes?

I move to approve the June 10th, 2026 closed session meeting minutes as attached.

Discussion? All right, all in favor? Aye. All right, motion carries. Item 8.2, may I have a motion, please?

I move to approve that June 30th, 2026, regular board meeting and closed session meeting minutes as attached.

Second.

All right, discussion? All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. All right, board committee reports. Ed Red, Frank.

Okay. Okay. So the legislature is currently out of session. They will be reconvening for the veto session on November 17th through 19th, and then again from December 1st through 3rd. Lawmakers return to Springfield to address any veto issues issued by the governor and occasionally take up other pending legislation. I'm gonna guess that they're gonna take up something having to do with the Bears moving to Hammond. That's my guess, but you never know. So that's what's coming up. Another one, Illinois still needs to decide if the state will opt into this federal scholarship tax credit program, which gives donors a federal tax credit up to $1,700. So far, 31 states have opted in. The program starts January 1st, 2027. There is an Ed Red legislative breakfast on August 10th that I will be attending to hear from our representatives in Springfield. One topic I'd like to hear about is state funding of education. because Illinois ranks among five states with the lowest percentage of state funding for K through 12. So the state only finds 35%, whereas property taxes fund 55%, and then federal funding is 10%. So we're not really doing enough, I think, in Illinois to give our property owners some tax relief by helping to fund schools at the state level. So hopefully that's something they can address going forward, but I don't know. We'll see. I'm going to ask the legislators to help out with that. I don't know. I think it might be a losing battle, but we'll see. I'll ask the questions regardless. And then also one of the things I think would be good for it would be some TIF reform. I'd like to see some new legislation that would create a TIF district approval process that allows taxing bodies to to vote to approve or disapprove the creation of a TIF district. This needs to involve a voting structure which reflects proportionally weighted voting based on the tax share of each governing body. I think that'd be something good to do because I think the TIF process has started to get abused and sometimes that leaves school districts short of funding. So that's all I have.

All right, thank you. On behalf of Eric, I can give the update for One Five Foundation. One Five donated $6,000 in June for Better Together and Rolling Meadows to support the Back to School Supplies event. in August for low-income families. The Feed 15 update, One Five will sponsor Blessings in a Backpack aligned with the Feed 15 request, $10,000 to continue support of existing programs at Jane Addams and Kimball Hill, 10,000 to support, to set up new programs for the 26 to 27 school year for Willow Bend and Winston Campus. middle and elementary school. And then 1-5, there's a 1-5 IKEA bingo fundraising night to be held at IKEA Schomburg on August 28th at 6 p.m. I'm like, I want to go just to see what this is. This is like fascinating.

It's got something to do with building furniture.

Only 100 tickets will be sold. Prizes will be Ikea products, baskets, and gift cards. Stay tuned on the One Five website for ticket sales and more information. All right. Finance Committee, Wenda.

No new, nothing to report. We will meet before the September board meeting.

Okay. Equity Committee, Jim Zubier.

We also have nothing to report, but I think we need to get together with Dr. Smith and kind of come up with an agenda. Hopefully for September.

Awesome. Okay. We can move on to our action items. Approval of the personnel report. May I have a motion, please?

I move to approve the personnel report recommendations for administrative certified and non-certified staff members as presented.

Second.

Discussion? Roll call.

Taylor. Aye. Aiden. Aye. Skolnick.

Aye.

Khan.

Aye.

Hunt.

Aye.

Inarino.

Aye.

All right, congrats on your first vote. All right, item 10.2. May I have a motion, please?

I move to award a three-month contract for emergency transportation services for unassigned school bus routes to First Student, Elk Grove Village, Illinois, for up to 15 drivers at $455.25 per day per driver, effective August 18th, 2026. Bid documents are available for review in the business office. Second. All right, discussion?

Roll call.

Annarino. Aye. Hunt.

Aye.

Ader. Aye. Skolnick. Aye. Taylor. Aye. Khan. Aye.

All right. Motion carries. Item 10.3. May I have a motion, please?

I move to deny the ethics complaint from Brian Koston and Justin Hedgie and direct the superintendent to advise the complainant of the board's decision.

Second.

Discussion? Roll call.

Hunt. Aye. Khan. Aye. Ader.

Aye.

Skolnick. Aye. Taylor. Aye. Annarino. Aye.

Motion carries. Would anyone like to remove anything from the consent calendar? Okay. May I have a motion, please?

I move to approve the consent calendar as presented.

Second?

Second.

Discussion? All right, roll call.

Skolnick. Aye. Annarino. Aye. Hunt?

Aye.

Khan? Aye. Taylor? Aye. Ader?

Aye. All right, motion carries. 11 point, or no, these are all, okay. Sorry, I didn't realize these were all the consent calendar. Hold on.

Okay.

I think we can go to correspondence. because normally, yeah, we don't do the attorney report, yeah. Okay, correspondence? Dr. Smith, anything?

None at this time.

Okay, any questions?

There was a lot.

There was a lot. Thanks.

Okay, hold on. Yes, there was. I was wondering why the packet was so thick. Okay, may I have a motion to adjourn?

I move to adjourn. Second.

right all in favor aye aye all right motion carries meeting adjourned thank you everybody