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

There are not as many major um major events that go went into this budget. The ones that I we'll mention are significant, but we didn't have any COVID. We didn't have any er we um we didn't have any major construction, you know. So now we're kind of settling back into I would say the district is kind of getting settling back into a kind of normal resetting back to a normal. Well, the biggest news on the revenue front and you may have heard this if you live which you all do live in Palatine and you live in Cook County is you haven't gotten your property tax bill yet. And so once again Cook County treasures assessor's office, etc. They're going through another software conversion and they just are struggling to get it accomplished. So the tax bills which property tax bills which are normally mailed out like in the mayor June June probably were usually due August 1st. So, now we're into September and the bills still haven't been mailed out. And I looked on the website today and they still have no conclusive information on when the bills are going out. So, Liz and I and Anthony, we've talked, we talked with our other colleagues and we'll turn the mic over to Liz in a second. I haven't heard anything unless you've heard anything. Um and that is very difficult for school districts, municipalities who rely on the major portion of their income, our property taxes. Okay. Now, this is this they we did this three years ago. We had to take out tax what they call tax anticipation warrants, short-term borrowing, because uh I believe three years ago the bills were due on December 1st. So our ca the cash flow we pay very

close attention to our cash flow and we have to meet payroll we have to pay our vendors and uh we rely on property taxes other revenue streams great but 80% or so of our taxes are our revenues are property taxes. So I'm going to turn it over to Liz right now um just to give you a little break up I mean update on what we're going to do. We we do need to do some tax anticipation warrants because again we it looks like we don't know when the bills are coming out.

Thanks Diana. Yeah, the frustrating thing is we do not know when the county is going to release tax bills. We'll know when they they do, but uh they've been super careful about not letting any information out. So it makes it hard to plan. So Anthony put together a cash cash flow on the operating funds, the main being the education fund and we also looked at the bond and interest fund. If taxes don't come till December or January, what we're looking at borrowing is 20 million for the education fund and 5 million for the uh bond and interest fund. So altogether 25 million. Um we're going to various banks getting bids and quotes. We've put a term sheet together that'll be out on the street tonight. On your agenda, you have uh two resolutions. One is authorizing 25 million of tax anticipation warrants. Again, 20 million for the ed fund, 5 million for the bond and interest fund. Because the transportation fund is got some pressure, we're also looking at a loan from the education fund to the transportation fund to uh bide you over for that. So those are your action items 10.6 and 10.7. So happy to answer any questions.

Question.

Just want to reiterate the frustration um of what this causes both from a this has financial implications on the expense side for us as a district because this revenue is late. And so just reinforcing the frustration that this is for um for the district. And and then I just want to also highlight one of the items you have up there, which is that the village of Palatine has paid its tiff money that it's giving back to uh the district to Cook County, but Cook County has not then transferred that money to the district. So that's I just noted up there. How much is it that they're been hanging on to?

They're hanging on to about 970. Well, probably I'll I'll speak to that. Okay. But they've been holding on to some money, too. So, it doesn't help situation.

Any other questions or comments before we let go for the night? And then we forego interest income and I will say Cook County earns some interest income on the money, the money of ours that they're holding.

So, yeah. Okay. So, there are no, like I said, there aren't a whole lot of highlights this year. So, this should be it can be probably a little brief. So, again, just letting you know again, the CPI has been trending down. Our um levy this December is going to have a 2.9 CPI. So, we had 5% two years ago. And then just on the tiff. So what's happening with the tiff is in May uh the village communicated with me that they did send a check to Cook County for the rand road and the lake cook tiffs of 975,000. So that was in May and then early July they trans uh for they wrote a check whatever literally to Cook County and that was about a 1.4 4 million for the first distribution for the downtown tiff. So between 975 and 1.4 million we're waiting on that and we didn't. So last year's actuals in FY25 we had very little tiff flow I mean surplus flow through from the village we would have rec recognized some in our last so that's another thing that you know uh years uh you know financial results of school districts are affected we can't and then and it's beyond the time of acrewing it back. So, so we'll have kind of a ballooned amount, an over amount in 26 most likely of 3.8 million. So, I think that explains basically that uh Rand Road will roll off at so this levy 25 will not include Rand Road. Next year's levy 26, I believe that's when it comes back to us. The tiff expires. So,

we will see new property on the Rand Road. Next slide. And I'll wow, I've got some more. I'll let that I'll turn that over to Anthony.

Sure. Thank you. Um EBF funding is a funding that we received from the state. It's kind of the state's grant main grant that they pay to us. We did see a slight increase um from fiscal year 25 to 26 about half a million dollars. We've got up to about $18.5 million. We are still in tier 2 at 80% adequacy. Um personal property replacement tax CPPRT that has been trending down for the last few fiscal years. There was a state calculation that they paid us. Um we found out about two years ago that the calculation was incorrect. So they were going to start withholding money from us. Um it wasn't just us, it's all municipalities and school districts statewide. Um so fiscal year 24 we saw 3.3 million. The high that we saw was right after COVID about 2022 we were at about five 5 and a half million. So it's come down significantly. Fiscal year 25 we were at about 2.2 million. And we do see a small little increase from fiscal year 26 up to about 2.5. So we're hoping it's flattened out and everything's corrected, everything's caught up. Um we're hoping that we do see that about 2.5 million come through for fiscal year 26. grant and revenues. Um, and we'll go through this more in detail uh when we see all the financial statements, but they for fiscal year 25 to 26 there was a major delay in when we were going to receive the revenues. Um, it took about like Diana mentioned earlier in the presentation in June when we presented the tenative we thought we were not going to be receiving half of the grant money we were going to get. That was coming down from higher up administration. As it turns out, we are receiving all but one of our grants that we that we received in 25. However, we're at approximately we're we're down a little bit about 10%, which equates to about $1.2 million in total for all of

our grant revenue, which we decrease the expenditure side. So, dollar fordoll um decrease revenues, decrease expenditures, they go hand in hand. Um hopefully those grants return in fiscal year 27 and beyond, but we'll take it one year at a time. Finally, the only transfer that we have for operating transfers is a $5 million transfer from operations fund 20 to fund 10, our education fund. Same as last year. Yeah, same as last year. Okay, next slide. Um, okay, we'll both talk about this one. So, um, why don't you start off with the contract?

Sure. So in if if you recall last year's budget fiscal year 25 we were having difficulty finding staff for a lot of the related services OT's PT speech pathologist so we had to contract out millions of dollars for contracted services. Fortunately during the year we we were able to rework some of the contract the union contract. um we are now able to fill most of those contracted positions with our own employees. So we increase salaries and benefits and we decrease the contracted services. Fortunately in our benefit um salaries and the salaries and benefits are not nearly as much as the contracted. So we were able to get more staff than we were on contract. So which is great. Uh we do still have some contracted services in the budget just for some last hard to fill positions. Uh in our final analysis after shoring up all the salaries and benefits over the summer we uh noted we uh there has been a reduction of about 60 full-time equivalent positions. So that was helpful toward b uh reducing our deficit from last year. So um yes there is a a realization of 60 less FTER. Sure. Next bullet mirrors what I said on the previous slide. The grant expenditures decreased um to mirror the granting the grant revenues. Uh we're not spending any more money than the grant revenues that we're receiving. This goes for federal and the state revenues that we're getting. And then uh in the last few weeks, but I want to emphasize though that when we start the budget process back in March, April, we start meeting in person with department heads, try to get to uh principles as much as we can, anybody who who has a budget that they are in charge of

throughout the district. And we have been uh Anthony especially and pay our assistant director we've been repeating that you know what zerobased budget means just come to us with what is essentially needed to accomplish your missions. So those budgets have been gradually been have been being reduced for the last couple years. So, um, a couple weeks ago, we saw that we had some some of the adjustments that we had to make over the summer that came clear to us. We needed to meet with everybody again and talk um, in in depth about their budgets and where we could realize some more savings. And we did. people came all assistant superintendants, directors um came to the table and we made some very hard choices um and all departments reduced their budgets between five and some over 15%. Um that we were and also principal budgets have been uh their their what we call their um purchase services and supplies. They also took a hit of about 10% in those budgets. So overall, that really contributed to where we're going to to where we're landing tonight, which we're we're we're glad to say at least is a deficit less than what was at the tenative. Just a few other highlights here. Um the transportation, Tom did a great job. He found 10 gently used buses um from another school district. We got a really good price on those. And five of them are specialed buses. And then the other big event we uh are anticipating this year is the five electric buses are still expected to arrive. They're a little delayed, but we

should have them on hand on hand ready to go in January. Next slide. Uh I usually mention that uh in these presentations all the great accomplishments this past summer on our facilities. Again these uh projects are paid out of fund 60 which is not an operating fund. We're still spending down as Liz can attest. still spending down bond uh bond proceeds and she makes sure we stay within those constraints of why what we uh had told um how we sold those bonds what we were required to do. So, I'm not going to go through every one of these, but on uh but big to note is the parking lots. Lots of schools, 12 schools. HBAC still much more to come, but two schools, CLA and C uh Central Road had some uh boiler work done. Lot really the playgrounds across the district are looking great. Really, I think we've pretty much wrapped up playground partial playground improvements at this point. Um, and then wood floors, you know, new gym floors. Uh, uh, Jane Adams, Plum Grove has a new floor. Um, and and then Diaz wanted me to mention sanding and recoding. We don't do that every summer. So, four schools got that big job with the 170 interactive flat panels between technology and custodians. That those were installed. Next slide. Um, main offices are complete. You'll see every main office, even Pleasant Hill, has some new furniture in the last couple of years. New lockers in wing A at GMS, partial roof replacements at Virginia Lake and Willow Bend, walk-off carpeting, um CLA got some new LVT, um and more multi-purpose room flooring and um main gym floor at Lake Louise and classroom carpet at CLA. CLA is shining.

We we believe CLA is shining. We're going to hear from some CLA folks tonight. So, they'll attest, I believe. Yeah. So, again, those all that came out of fund 60, which we'll show you now when we did get into these uh financials. Did you want to take this one? Sure. Um I believe everyone has they should start with the yellow sheet.

Uh we're kind of colorcoded these so make it a little easier. This yellow sheet shows re final revenues for the budget fiscal year 26 on the top half and then expenditures on the bottom half. Um just quick these charts are broken up. The top six lines are operating funds. Those are the main um operating funds that we have. Uh bottom three are kind of our contracted debt service payments, capital projects which vary yeartoear and then life safety. We don't have much activity going on currently so we kind of separate those out um just keep those separate. So um in total you can see that the um operating funds revenues are going up from our audit un audited actuals for fiscal year 25 to our final budget for 26 about 4.9 million. Um in total all the funds revenues are decreasing about 8.3 million. Again that's because of so property uh capital projects bonds we're not issuing any bonds in philar 26. So that's what the big uh difference is there. Uh but it is it to see given all of the uncertainty regarding grants revenues the timing of the property tax revenues um some of the other revenues that we saw we were decreasing it is very it's it's good to see that we are having a slight increase in our operating funds albeit they are mainly from property taxes from the levy that we have in the CPI um but it is still nice to see that there is still some surplus of re revenues coming through

even Sure. Next slide. Next slide. Uh operating budget. So on the flip side, all everything that we spend, you can see that our operating funds, we are having an actual decrease of operating spending of about 1.5 million from our audited our unodited actuals for 25 and to our final budget for 26. Um to have a decrease in in expenditures, especially nowadays, is pretty crazy. It it hard to do.

It's hard to do. And I give a lot of credit to, as D mentioned, the schools, the departments, superintendent, all everyone worked the last two weeks to try to get this budget down as much as possible to the bare minimum of where what is essential, what needs to be done, and it came out to an actual decrease. So, I give it up to all the departments and everyone that worked on it. In total, it's all the funds are down about 20 29.7. Again, we're not doing that nearly as many capital projects anymore. Um so when just high level comparison a 4.9 million revenue increase and an operating decrease from year to year um that's that's always in the positive direction. So that is the green sheet.

Well I'm going to let you go. You can have you can roll just take the

So this this green sheet compares and if you have any questions please stop me along the way. This screenshet compares fiscal year 26 revenues next to expenditures. And again, it's broken up in operating funds and all funds. We look at main operating funds. We are at a $6.4 deficit. It's never great to see the deficit, but if you recall back to a few minutes ago, we had about a $7.2 million deficit and uh at the time of the budget, so we did bring that down about 600,000. So um a lot of hard work along the way. All funds def deficit is 15.9. Um again that's that's capital projects not not being needed anymore. So it's it took a lot of work to get to this deficit is never good to see but it is something that you know we it it's moving in the positive direction. If you recall fiscal year 25 budget it was that was significantly larger. So we are moving in the right direction. Um departments did a lot of work on this fiscal year 26 budget. Next slide is the blue sheet. Um this is this is our fund balance sheet. We as superintendent Hines mentioned we are wrapping up our fiscal year 25 audit. Um everything is going great. Uh so the left column is our unodudited fund balances for fiscal year 25. Middle column is those surplus deficits that we just saw on the previous sheet. And then the second to left column is the or second from right column is the fiscal year 26 estimated fund balances. Um we are seeing that decrease because of surplus. The fund balance total is calculates out to 24%. Generally speaking we like to see it at about 25%. Um with all the cuts that we made this is as close as we could get to the 25% without significantly impacting any of the schools more directly than any of

the students. So, um, it's it took a lot of work to get this far. Again, no one likes seeing a decrease. We never like seeing it a deficit, but it has come it has come a long way over the last few months and comparing it to last year. Any questions on any of those colored sheets budget? I don't have a question, but I have a comment. I I know we know collectively and Wenda and I sit on the finance committee with you guys um that a lot of work has been put in by your team as well as the rest of staff to try to pull in and get the uh the deficit under control. We knew it was coming with moving 15 forward and now it's just a matter of getting our arms around it. But I um want to thank you for for doing all the hard work and it's a heavy lift but we'll get there.

Thank youdeed. Thank you. Thank you. Agreed. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for coming. So again, there'll be a couple resolutions at the end that you'll have to approve for the loan and for the warrants. Okay.

All right. The moment the back row has been waiting for. All right. Item 7.2, Ed services, overview of our restorative practices with Dr. Edgar. I have to get my props. One second. Oh my. Get ready, everybody. He's coming back with a cape. Thank you. Not a cape. The mask. Congratulations.

Yes. Yay. Congratulations. November.

If I was Dr. First of all, I would take any opportunity to say I'm not pregnant. All right. Uh, President Nater, members of the board, Dr. Hines, thank you. Uh, so one of our core responsibilities is not only to teach students to read, write, and whatnot, speak new languages, but also to uh take accountability for their actions. It's something that we started with tonight. But you know part of uh our mission is to build a sense of collective responsibility for each other but also a sense of personal responsibility for what we do with others. One of the key ways that we uh are looking to build that further is through a restorative practices initiative. Uh restorative practices is a strategic way of trying to build community understanding for each other but also a sense of personal accountability not only for yourself but for those around you. Uh we're really looking forward to this. This is a missing piece of our larger behavior support system which includes MTSS, PBIS, our discipline system, and now we're looking to add another tool that will enhance those items without replacing any of them. Uh tonight we have uh three components that we are hoping to walk you through. uh a brief context component to build an understanding of what these are, how they're actually present in many functional businesses. You'll see these things as we talk about the seauite at a business and how they conduct their meetings and this the the structure of those etc. Right? Kind of like the way we have it here. We'll go through an experiential piece that we're going to invite you to participate in. And then we'll also be uh asking uh a few of our early adopter schools to uh come forward and talk about some of the things that they've been doing both schoolwide but especially in the classrooms. Uh some of those students have uh actually made things a a tool that is present in each of the schools. It's called a talking

stick. It's a way of managing meetings. It's very similar to the gavvel that uh Mrs. Adah reads just a different way of looking at it. But they've made these for each of you. Uh, and uh, in true inclusive uh, mindset, we've made nine. Since there are nine people up front so that everybody gets one of these, I'm going to choose who gets which one. No, I won't. But, but anyway, it's really interesting. You guys will see. It's very interesting to see the different creativity that the students um, put into it as they've each made one their own for you. Uh, so the if we we have the remote I can flip it. Thank you. All right. Well, we'll go with the old way. Next slide. Thank you. Oh, one more back. Sorry, I just went. So, the uh four people up here with me, of course, are Dr. Swolland, who you know is one of our directors, the director of comprehensive mental health. You know me, of course, as Tom, and we have Dr. Megan Meyer, who is our trauma-informed coordinator, and of course, we have Dr. Nicole Gavin, who's our director of grants and community. And with that, I stop talking and turn it over to the confident people to lead you through the rest of it. That's fine. I'm going to pass

that box of talking. Okay. Pass them along. And and Dr. Meyer, I think this is now Oh. Oh, Dr. Stone. Here we go.

So, we'll start by we have a little video um that is a brief introduction to what restorative practices is. So, we'll go ahead and start by watching that. Our world is changing at a breathtaking pace. Social patterns that have long characterized human life are changing dramatically around the globe, diminishing social bonds within families, schools, workplaces, and communities. But humans are hardwired to connect. Just as we need food, shelter, and clothing, we also need strong and meaningful relationships to thrive. With all this in mind, what is restorative practices? Restorative practices is an emerging social science that studies how to strengthen relationships between individuals and within communities. When put into practice, the effects are profound. In schools, students experience greater safety and sense of belonging, resulting in improved behavior, less bullying, and less violence. In workplaces, leaders facilitate direct communication among staff and address conflict as it arises. The result is higher performance, greater accountability, and effective collaboration in criminal justice. New options allow victims and offenders, friends and family to repair the emotional harm caused by crime. Throughout our neighborhoods, restorative practices give popular people more voice in the issues that matter most. In a nutshell, restorative practices is the science of relationships and community. Your individual daily interactions have a big impact on the world around you, at your job, with young people, and throughout your community. How we relate matters. This video was brought to you by the International Institute for Restorative Practices. To learn more, attend our flagship event, Basic Restorative Practices. enroll in a graduate course

or all right so hopefully that um from the international institute of restored practices gives a nice overview of what it's about the best way to think about it is restorative practices is kind of in two buckets the first and main one and the one we're really focusing a lot on is community building and a lot of prevention work so the idea is that we are um engaging in practices that help ensure that everybody in the community feels safe and welcome included and seen that they have a voice. Um, and there's ways to do that to promote that kind of culture and community in the building. Um, and that is the first piece. And then with within the the second piece is more when harm has been done within the community and a way to repair that harm. Um, so a lot of people think of it as the second thing that when something has happened and you have a way to bring pe to to repair that, but really it starts with the community at the first prevention part. And um, that's been a lot of our focus. And this graphic kind of helps show what I'm talking about. So you can see it's like a triangle on its side, but there's green and yellow to red. The green is the that preventative work that we're really focusing a lot on right now. Um, and this is where we kind of help with defining what we value. So, it goes beyond just expectations. We still have expectations, but it's what do we value as a community? What's important to us and what's shared and what does that mean? Um, how do we how is it that we talk to each other in a way that's respectful and caring and kind? Um, and then from there, if things start to happen, confl conflict starts to happen or or people um start to hurt or harm each other in some way, how do we come together to repair that? And that's when it starts to get towards that yellow to red and the red being the most intensive kind of cases, right? Um so, so that's one way to help think about it for today. And what we're

really zeroing in on is that idea that everybody in the community is a part of the community and like together they really build this shared sense of trust, kindness or whatever it is that they define as their values. Um why part of the reason why we did this, you know, the video talked about the evidence base of it. Um, but there's two two main sources of data that we've been monitoring for a while, which is our attendance data and then our office discipline referral data. And that's what you're seeing up here. And you're seeing it broken down broken down um by race and ethnicity on these particular graphs. But the notion is that we recognize that there's still work to be done in these two areas and restorative practices is one of the more effective ways that you can do this. Why? because you're creating a sense that every student feels pride in their school. They want to be there, you know, and as a result, they're less like they're more likely to come and then when they're there, they're they're likely to follow the values um that the school has has said that this is who we are, you know. So, like when when children feel that, they'll engage in those behaviors which would make both of these get better. And one of the foundational pieces of restorative practices is to build more opportunities for staff and students to connect and build that sense of belonging and build that sense of um community within the schools, within their classrooms. And what we found and what we've learned is connection doesn't really happen on its own. And something that I really value about this work as a parent and educator is that a lot of our connection these days happens through technology or through phones. even us as adults. What this brings to our schools is the opportunity for people to connect face to face, interact, and how we do this within our schools. And we're going to we're going to show you how this works tonight is through the use of um circles within our schools. So, increasing the opportunities for

students to connect and staff within our schools. We use circles to do that. Um circles can happen at any point during the school day. We're going to do this in a second. Um at any point in the school day, can happen for a really quick circle. C circle up to do a little activity, to do some academic lesson, circle up to do some connection and and connection and community building. Um, and in order to really understand what we're talking about, it it's important for us to experience it and feel it. So, we are inviting you as the board um to do a very brief um community circle with us um with our team today. Um just really brief. We're going to show you what we found in through training that we've all been through in terms of training is that you really do have to experience it, to understand it, and to feel it and to believe in it. So, but once again, this is a very brief um very quick, nothing too um too hard um quick circle and whoever's, you know, willing and able, we invite you in to join us in the circle and we'll model for you what it kind of feels like. It's a quick snippet of what um we're trying to do in our schools. So, we invite you into the middle.

Do it. Come on, Frank. I love to tease. Yeah, it does feel good. Really? Okay. closer to you.

You don't get to hold part of the circle is to be in a physical circle with no furniture between. Um, a lot of the times we're sitting or students are sitting on any on the ground or in chairs, but for the sake of today not being chairs around, we're standing. you can also stand. Um, and we do have a talking piece and I'm going to introduce it first, but we welcome you to the circle. We thank you for being experiencing this with us tonight. Um, I'm going to first go through the circle agreements circle. We welcome you to this space. And I'm going to briefly go over Thank you. briefly go over the agreements. Um, these are circle agreements that we build with every circle. Students and staff do have voice into these agreements. These are just standard ones that we're going to go over tonight. Um we always have them visually for you as well. They're also on the slide for those watching. Um but circle agreements are to respect the talking piece. So in circles we use a talking piece. It doesn't have to look like this. We have many different types of talking pieces. Um but talking pieces um whoever has the talking piece, talking stick is one talking. So it gives voice to everyone in the circle. It does get passed around. So everyone has that opportunity to share. So we respect that talking piece. One person talks at a time. We speak from the heart and listen from the heart. um no judge judgments made to be open to be respectful of different opinions and voices. Trust that you will know what to say. There's always an option to pass. So we always provide that option. If the talking piece comes to you and you don't want to share, you can pass it to the next person. You always have that option to pass. Say just enough. Every voice matters. So every voice in a circle is valued and every voice matters. So say just enough that your voice is heard, but we give everyone the chance to talk. And then what is said in circle stays in circles. So confidentiality which we go over with students um whatever said in circle we want to state keep here it's a safe place to share to talk to connect with each other however if there's a safety concern or something comes up that I need to tell someone we will then have to do that if there's any safety issues so we go through that with students as well and then we offer the opportunity does anyone have an

agreement or something they want to add to tonight's circle any agreement you can think of no okay if you can agree to those things tonight for our brief circle circle if you could give me a thumbs in the circle kind of just showing you agree you understand. All right. Okay. So, we'll open up the circle. I'm going to start with a a round. So, what a round is is I'm going to just pose a question. We'll pass around. Everyone has a chance to share. So, we welcome you to the circle. Um for the first round, just your name, your role. I know we have some new people who may not know each other very well. Your name, your role in district 15, and your favorite morning drink. What's your favorite morning drink to get you going? So, you can take a minute to think. Coffee. Morning drink.

Morning drink. Morning drink. We did that weekend. Either or. Good questions. Okay, I'll open it up. I'll start. So, Megan Meyer, trauma inform coordinator. Um, and my favorite morning drink is yogi tea. Sweet um or sweet tangerine. It's an energy tea. This way. All right. Hi, my name is Laura Swanlin. I'm director for comprehensive mental health and green tea is my drink in the morning. I'm Frank Anarino. I'm the board vice president and my favorite morning drink would be uh I guess orange juice. I'm Clara Nef. I'm Lori executive assistant and the board recording secretary and my favorite drink for the morning is black coffee.

I'm Eric Bachman, the newest board member and my favorite morning drink is coffee with oat milk. I'm Zubar Khan. I am a board member. My favorite morning drink. Pizza brand. Coffee. Medium roast. Very specific. Very specific. I'm Tom. Sponsored by I am Tom Edgar. Uh I'm an assistant superintendent and my uh favorite drink, although I never get it, is actually Turkish coffee.

My name is Wenda Hunt, board member. My favorite drink is um it's calamani juice. It's a um it's a lemon that you can find in the Philippines and it's a smaller tastes a little different. Tastes a little be better than lemon uh lemonade. I'm Jim Taylor. I'm board secretary and my favorite morning drink is coffee with vanilla creamer usually. I'm Sam Ader, board president. My favorite morning drink is a double espresso with steamed milk and a little bit of pumpkin spice creamer. I know. I'm so basic.

I'm Nicole Morois. I am the assistant director of Grants. Um, and my favorite drink is more cream than coffee. We're We're a good match. Lisa Beth Shupai, board member. My favorite morning drink is coffee with just enough cream to make it cool enough to drink and not burn your tongue. Hi, I'm Lori Hines. I'm the superintendent. My favorite drink uh that became my favorite drink during CO and continues is coffee with sugar-free vanilla creamer.

Right. Thank you. We're going to do another round. I just learned that we have a lot of coffee drinkers in this circle. Um, and also something we introduce to students to often and we didn't do this is if you agree with something or rings true for you, you can do this as a sign. Okay, just letting you know. We're going to do one more round. So, this round is just to share one hope or dream you have for this school year. So, we're starting off the school year, September, new, you know, new year. What's one hope or dream you have for district 15 or for yourself for this school year? I'll start again. So, one hope I have and this is sounds, you know, probably a little cliche, but I really hope and look forward to um really moving forward some of these practices within our schools. So, I really hope that we push it forward um this coming year.

I would say hope is that every every child feels excited to go to school and learn something fun and creative this year. My uh my hope would be uh that uh we can get our academic achievement up where we got 70 at least 70% at adequacy there. My hope that is that all the board meetings can go perfectly great.

Uh my hope and dream is that every student and staff member in the district feels connected and realizes that they're important to the overall My hope is is that the opportunity gaps and things like that within the schools start continuing to to narrow as we go through this year. My hope is that uh every student and staff member and parent feels that they are both successful and that they belong.

My hope is that every student staff member comes to school this year feeling safe and ready to learn. Although I already said I agree, I think it's worth repeating that I want every student to be excited and feel like they had a good time at school and that they belong here. My hope for the school year is that every student sparks a curiosity and determination to shape the world around them. My hope is that every student feels student and staff member feels seen and that I can help support um this work moving forward this year.

My hope is that every student feels successful in what they're achieving and um and feels good about coming to school, enjoys being there and um achieves their own level of success all at different levels. But if we can close that achievement gap and uh also close the gaps and opportunities while doing it, we'll be solid. I uh agree with Lisa. I hope that every student um has access to everything that they need to be uh fully engaged and successful and growth um as a result of their time spent in school.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing lots of, you know, really ambitious hopes and positive hopes. So, thanks for sharing a lot in common that I just saw. So I'm going to close out the circle with a quote and this quote is when we choose hope anything is possible. So even though some of our hopes you know we carry that carry those hopes with us through the year and any of it is possible. So thank you for participating in the circle. Told you it was brief but thank you. We're going to close out the circle um so you can find your way back to your seat. Thank you. Hopefully that gave you just a little taste. So we thank you for being brave and joining us. Guess I don't need this one.

Hopefully that gave you a little taste. So, thank you. Take a minute to get seated. Thank you. Hopefully it gave you a little taste of what a circle can feel like.

I mean, I know from my perspective, I feel a little bit more connected to each of you. Um, a little bit more comfortable, you know, speaking with you and and just that we're all at that same, you know, level. We have a lot of the same a lot of things in common. you saw just through that one really brief circle. So that is the whole purpose of those circles is to build that sense of community, connection and belonging. And really what we've learned is circles really are everywhere. So from sports huddles to campfires to wedding dances to, you know, schools, circles really are all around us. It's a really natural way to connect. And so one thing we um aim to do with restorative practices is just increase these opportunities for students and staff to connect in circles throughout our schools um and build that um connection and that really that sense of belonging through the use of circles and increasing those use of circles in our schools. They really are all around us and like a powerful way to connect. Um, a quick story I'll share and I know we're going to hear stories from some of our schools that are using these is I was doing helping run a circle in one of our buildings a year or two ago when we've been starting to pilot this work and it was um with a group of fifth grade girls and there was a lot of drama and some social things going on and um we were trying to help repair some of what's been going on and one student said when the talking stick came to her and this was a big group she goes I've been wanting to say this for two years and she said it and she was able to share so it gave her that voice so that's something that I think is so important and is that every student has a voice in a circle. So, so thank you for participating and experiencing it. Um, it is just one piece of restorative practices though and Dr. Swanland explained this in the video. Circles is just a changing in the way we gather and helping students build that connection, that sense of belonging. Um, there also is a lot to do with um changing the way that we the language we use with students um and using effective language, establishing values in our schools, which you're going to hear from some of our schools doing some of this work. It's um very focused on relationship building those values bringing it's bringing the behavior back to the value instead of down to the rule or up to the value instead of down to the rule. So it's changing how we look

at um behaviors and how we are connecting that to values. What I really love about it is it's helping students learn about how their behavior impacts others. Students don't learn this on their own unless we are h teaching them how their behavior and how their choices are impacting others. So, that's another big piece that's important. And it's addressing that um those behaviors that do happen. It's addressing not just those that have caused the behavior, but those that are impacted. So, it it really helps support um and repair harm and prevent conflict. And that's really the overall um theme is that when we really focus on this this preventative side, we are preventing harm and preventing conflict from happening in our school. So, now we're going to invite So, this is the exciting part. We're going to hear from two of our um wonderful schools who are piloting and leading some of us in this work. They're going to share some of their experiences and stories. So, we welcome CLA um able and reach program um the upstairs at CLA that we call it to down here as well as Paddock and um some of our teachers as well as their principles are here to talk with you. So, thank you to them for being here and for leading us in this work.

Can we help grab some chairs? Those of you that are seated to bring CLA some chairs. Thank you so much. Yeah, we can we're head in and out. Can we use this mic? They're waiting behind us. President Ader, uh Dr. Hines, members of the board, thanks for having us. The floors do look great. Yes, your whole building looks great. It's fantastic.

Um but what we're really excited about is restorative practices, and that's kind of why we're here today. Um, one of the reasons that it's it's so important at CLA and the things that we're really looking forward to um is is it's create help us create a sense of value. So, I'm joined here by um Alyssa Zilchick uh who Silkitch, sorry, I always say that wrong. Uh our counselor extraordinaire Kathy Rusman, one of our re teachers. And in the back we have uh Christy Lowe and Tracy Robel who are all an integral part of uh establishing restorative practices at CLA. started last year um with some values work. We took we took a look uh we talked to the staff and incorporated student voice into what we wanted the values at CLA uh to be and we came up with uh compassion, connection and perseverance. Uh which we think really kind of exemplifies the skills and in and the and the life skills that we're trying to impart upon our students. um restorative practices is the fa is is the frame is the framework for all of that we're trying to do and we've incorporated into pretty much every aspect uh of the building. Uh and the goal is to really like u Dr. Myers was saying is to really establish those connections and those relationships. Uh we live in a world right now where kids are are more interested what's going on on their screens than they are what's going on uh in the desk next to them. And we're trying to establish a a community and environment where the students feel welcome. they'll they feel safe. They feel uh that it's okay to be vulnerable with their classmates and and really kind of get to know each other on that personal level because that's how you you build that community and that culture. Um we we've noticed so far um is that it's already working. It's already building a stronger connection between staff and staff, between staff and students, between students and staff. Um it's really making an impact on the day-to-day at CLA. Um it's a it's a self uh it's a safe welcoming environment where if something does pop up, if there is some sort of conflict because it's going to happen. Um the

students know that we have a a process and a place that we go to to kind of talk through it. Um and we're really seeing some cool things and and we're doing it not just um it's not one of those things we're expecting the kids to just do it. We're doing it as a staff. So um all of our staff meetings, all of our uh program meetings are all done in circle. There's no tables blocking the way. It's everybody in a circle just like you guys just did with an intentional opening and a wonderful chant at the end um that Christy wants us to to do, but I might not share that with you tonight. Um we did we do personalize uh all of our our gathering agreements. So, you know, uh able and reach are two different programs. Um so, we have our reach gathering agreements and we have our able gathering agreements. one has a more visual aspect so we can uh be more inclusive to the needs of all the students uh in the school and in the program. We have um talking sticks all over the place. We have portable talking sticks. We um we try to incorporate all of restorative practices in into our entire dayto-day and we're really seeing some cool stuff. But enough from me. You want to hear from the people who are ground floor and getting it done?

Yeah. Um, my name is Kathy Rusman and I have an uh intermediate reach classroom that is second and third graders this year. And um, the circles have been um, I mean we we're early into the school year and because everybody is involved, the staff is involved. Whenever we have a circle, we're all in. We're all in in that circle. And the students here, staff being vulnerable, talking about when they've made a mistake or talking about when something has happened to them. And just today, I had a student say, "I never thought about it that way." You know, and and so they get to hear it from adults, but then they hear it between themselves. And we have used portable talking pieces when we've had disagreements at lunch, disagreements at recess. Um just yesterday um something happened just as they were transitioning from our classroom down to um a special and um a program assistant came back with a student and said we need to repair and restore before we go into music. And they sat and they talked and he and where this could have escalated in other times where it could have escalated into something bigger, it's it's not. and the kids are all in and because it's something that has a structure like this, they know what's coming every time they um are are ready to join in um for all of it. So, it's really really encouraging.

Thank you. Um Alyssa Zilkum, the counselor on the reach pro on the reach side um of our programs. I've had the pleasure and the opportunity to be trained in the foundational and the advanced uh portion of the restorative practices. It's been very inspirational seeing it unfold after being trained. Um I have the pleasure to be in all the classrooms. So I have participated in multiple classroom circles um invited by teachers or I just kind of pop in and and check out what's going on um in the classrooms uh throughout the day. Um, one way that we do build community, um, as a program, Reach, um, has our own gathering on Fridays where all of our classrooms come in for a big circle, um, at the beginning of the day on Friday, um, as well. Um, the ABLE side also does one of those um, to build that bigger community as a program. And we also have what we call Friday celebration circles where we bring reach enable together. and we have a big circle at the end of the day to close out the week with our celebrations and things that have gone well um throughout the school week. Um one thing that I will say from the mental health perspective is it's such a natural opportunity for our kids to work on those social emotional skills. You know the the taking turns and talking, you know, waiting for your turn, just those natural things that just come from being in a circle and using a tool to mitigate some of those things. I promised some of our staff that I was going to share some stories. Um, we've we've been in school for three weeks and we've had a student that has passed every time, you know, during their morning and afternoon circles and this week was the first week that he shared and the teacher was so excited and so proud that he came out and he he shared this milestone with everybody and just seeing that excitement from him was just tremendous. Um, the portable talking pieces came in. One of our PAs was at lunch and the the students at her table were having a hard time holding a conversation. They were talking over each other and, you know, frustrations

were starting to rise up because, you know, nobody was listening to anybody. So, she took a napkin and it up and turned it into a talking piece and helped mitigate that conversation. And it was so successful. The kids had a great time and it was such a perfect way for them to connect, feel heard, and eliminated a stressful situation for them. So, I promised her I was going to share that because she was very excited. So, hence we went and we got ourselves some portable talking sticks.

Um, but as we're growing, like we said, we're in the beginning of of implementing this. I think our students are going to grow significantly in some of those social skills, emotional regulation, and conflict resolution. And I'm happy to be one of the school that's piloting this for district.

Thank you. Thank you both. I I we wanted to show you some pictures of of circles in action. So, uh, the big one up top, that's that, uh, both program, um, celebration circle. We have a circle room where we have all our meetings. We're hoping to get to the point where, um, in the near future where our IEP meetings are even, uh, done in circle to include the parents and, uh, there's a big parent community component to this at well as well, but we're really at the at the forefront in the at the building level, building community there uh, first. But, uh, the kids are doing it and they're loving it and it's really a cool thing. So, thanks for having us. Thank you. How wonderful. Thank you.

Hi everybody. Hello SRP.

We are we are Paddock over here. I'm Jason Chris. I'm the principal of Paddock. With me is Nicole Gavin uh and Sonia Nilson. They're two of our uh fifth grade ATG teachers. Actually talented and gifted teachers. Um and so we uh kind of replicating a lot of what's been said tonight. um have been working on restoative practices at Paddock for the last half year or so. Um we started at the end of the last year with values and in with a you know a bigger school and bigger program and whatnot. We really broke it down to one of the core principles of restorative practices and that is establishing what our school values. So, we spent two staff meetings and um we went through what each individual staff member values and they went through their own little activity um that they go through and break down what a hundred different words into just their top three and they discussed that with each other similar how you guys did in a circle. Um and kind of understood what each other are feeling a little bit more. Then the next staff meeting we came together and we did that for the school and we looked and we said okay now we know what we value as individuals. What do we value as as paddock school? what is something that the three words that would best represent what we want everyone at our school, every one of our students and staff to to feel. And what we came up with was community, kindness, and growth as our three values uh for Paddock. And while the values are very important and and it's something that we're going to keep developing, we we have a very strong PBIS system at Paddock School. positive behavior intervention supports. We call them the threebs. Be respectful, responsible, and be safe, which every school in our district has some version of that. Um, and one of the points that we I made with the staff very early on, we talked about it and and again at Institute Days and over and over again as we talked about this is PBIS is not something that is going away. PBIS and values and and restorative practices and all the pieces of it run parallel together. they they they really are, as I think Tom said earlier, it's a missing piece that we don't have currently in

our building. Uh, you know, preventative and and just uh the internal aspect, which I'll talk about in just a little bit, that that PBS doesn't necessarily hit, right? PBIS is a lot of expectations. Be respectful. How are you respectful? You use kind words, right? Hands and feet to self. Be safe. Well, hands and feet to self is a is kind of a directive. You know, we call it an expectation, but it's like hands feed itself. Don't hit. Sorry. Uh um and that's great, but we need to have directives. Don't speed, Frank. Uh no, you know, it's like don't don't do certain things. We all have those expectations. But why? Well, we have kids that are we have little kids in our school, right? Kindergarten to fifth grade, preschool to fifth grade of paddock. We need to teach that why. We need to teach that internal motivation, that internal piece where PBS hits the external expectations, restorative practices and values to that internal motivation. And that's that's a skill. That's something that we as adults sometimes need to learn, right? But that's something that we designed or we are not designed, excuse me, are determined to teach our students what we do every day, not just math, not just reading, right? And that's where restorative practices really comes in. Um certainly at Paddock School and hopefully for the entire district as we move along. uh it works right alongside PBIS and the expectations that are in place and embedded and and all the reward systems and everything we have in place that doesn't go away. This runs along parallel with it and the values which are on our shirts and are going to be on our walls and we're going to have posters about them and all that kind of stuff. Um you know that that's that's only one small piece of restorative practices. That's that's the beginning drip. And when you get to there, when you get that piece down strong, then we can really focus on the next piece is the community building, right? The community building that we talked about earlier, the the social emotional circles similar to what you guys experienced. Now, you're going to start developing this common language, this common understanding of, you know, no, I

I I I did not keep my hands and feet to self. Okay. Well, was that kind? Was that did that hit our value of kindness? Well, no, it wasn't. Well, now you start to get a feeling, right? Did that really enhance our community? Did that help our our community grow? And it's these different words that have a different impact on students and adults when you start to use them effectively. And that's that's where we're going with Paddock as the year goes on. Um, spoiler alert. Uh, that's where we're going with this as our professional development kind of grows. How do we increase our community at Paddock using these aspects of restorative um restorative practices? So um you know it's an additional tool uh to teach expected behavior. It really focus on that intrinsic motivation um to adhere to the expectations that we already have put into place. Uh you know we're going to use them in different areas. Certainly right now they're being used in different classroom activities. Um some of our academically talented and gifted teachers have actually had an extra year of experience with this prior to last year. um we use them in different community circles and um and just again that schoolwide messaging as we as we kind of grow into this um initiative and we will let Miss Gavin and Miss Neielson talk about that.

Um so jumping in kind of where Mr. Chris left off was um the ATG program um more than two years ago now um Dr. Edgar and Dr. Meyer came to us with um the idea of this community circles and um specifically with the intention to address this uh social emotional needs of our particular group of students. Um there's lots of anxiety um perfectionism, a lot of um high emotions, um just different things, asynchronous development. You have a third grader who can understand high school level things but is still a third grader. Um so a lot of specific things for our particular program and they came um with the idea of these community circles to make as part of our program. Um and they worked with us what we're seeing what our needs were. They worked with um Laura Belchenko who is amazing all things gifted. Amazing. Um and we came up with actual like prompts those rounds. We came up with topics um specific to our students. um we don't do them all the time. They're not always super intense. Sometimes it's what did you do over the weekend or the more light-hearted fun ones. Um but it really helps to start facilitating those conversations. Um and that's kind of where we started with this community circles.

I'm going to present just like a little bit of a backstory. When Dr. Dr. Meer presented this to us like 2 years ago. Um, you know, we're at a gifted meeting, department meeting, and she was talking about circles and I'm thinking, okay, okay, I'm a 58-year-old woman who is a daughter of German immigrants. So, circles is not in my wheelhouse. We we did not have like kumbaya moments with my family at all. So I'm like, hm, I was kind of skeptical really circles like, okay, I'm a rule follower, though. And so I'm like, okay, I'll do it. I'll do it. And um to be honest, it was a little clunky at the beginning cuz the kids didn't know what we were doing. I was certainly a novice. I'm still rather novice-like. Um no, by no means an expert, but um it was a little clunky. Teachers are really good at like putting on a face like we know what we're doing, and we went for it anyway, you know. Um, and probably that first year I didn't honestly I didn't stick with it as much as I should have. It wasn't like a once a week thing. I got a little more comfortable. But the key was all of us in the department were doing it at least a little bit. So kids kind of knew about it. So last year when we got together at Padak and I got the next group of kids who had at least heard of circles before and probably they had done it a little bit more. Um they were excited and then throughout the year you can see the excitement grow. Oh circles we're doing circles today. Or the disappointment like we had a uh an assembly or something and oh we have to push it back to the afternoon. What we you know like they really look forward to it. Um it does build relationships and community and kids looking at each other and taking turns and listening to others um and agreeing

that is huge. Um and the way we've been doing it. So so last year it was great. Felt much more comfortable. Um kids are looking forward to it. This year now that we have done it for like a year and a halfish really they're leading it away. I'm like how should we close the you know how should we close the circle? and somebody's like, "Oh, let's do the wave. Okay, we do the wave." You know, like they they know they know the parts and they can contribute. Another contribution that they do is we don't really have talking sticks. We call them talking pieces and I start, you know, I start the year with mine and then I'm like, if you'd like to bring something of from home on your own for us to use, they bring it, they talk about it. It's a little like a show and tell sort of, but you know, it's something that's more important to them. you you the point of it is it should have some sort of value to you and to others. Um and then you also other people had talked about it you can just use it doesn't always have to be a big classroom circle. You could have something called little C's, little circles where they have like a little team that they kind of like a home team, you know, okay, go with your home team and you could just have small circles which intensifies the relationships a little bit more even.

I'm still there's still two more B. Oh, now we're in pictures. That's okay.

No, it's okay. It's okay. Um, just one more thing building off of that. Uh, talking about uh, Miss Nilson kind of alluded to it a little bit, but having that sense of community, especially last year coming to Paddock, we had students coming from all over the school district. Um, and we we were new, like it was a big adventure for everybody. Um, but having especially established a little bit of the circles before that. Um, and then having the students be able to come together and share vulnerabilities. Um, in one of my earlier circles last year, we were talking about something about, I don't even remember the prompt, but something about coming together at Paddock. And um a student shared just vulnerability that they with the program maybe didn't feel good enough, didn't feel like they belonged there, were really afraid to leave all of their friends and leave their community in their fifth grade year. Like I was a fifth grade teacher and come to Paddock um to kind of start this one-year journey and then go off to middle school. Um and so the fact that they were sharing that was huge, but also like kind of the collective relief um of everybody else in that circle. we got a lot of these and then from then on they were building off of that and just the power of having that common humanity um of I'm not alone and it really really helped solidify our community I think and continuing on to where we hope to go in the future um that was classroom community grade level community program community but then also being part of the bigger paddock community and we have these values now and we have um just I think it only can get better from here and just continue to grow with that.

Sorry. And starting as a skeptic and me in my last year of teaching, I'm retiring this year. Um coming to a board meeting to talk about it at 9:00 at night, you know, it's got to mean something. It's got to be big. They probably didn't leave with the 9:00 9:00 at night. They probably forgot to Yeah, I told her 8:00 at the latest. So, you should have asked me cuz I have an over under like and I'm within like 10 to 15 minutes like almost every time.

But that community is huge, you know, coming together and just, you know, one one p last piece of that like when you're when you have a community when you have that feeling. You don't do bad things to people that you like, right? And that's the whole beauty of it. You build that climate of culture, you build that community, and then hopefully that really sets that level for um you know, behavior and expectations. Just a couple pictures we got going on there, a few circles and um our shirt uh community growth and kindness. And that is all we have. Thank you so much for your time, guys.

Wonderful. Thank you. Nice job, guys. I told you we get better as soon as I stop talking. Right. Thanks again for coming and saying. How do you know we don't have questions for you? I got lots of questions. Great point. Have a seat.

She doesn't have a talking stick. She has a cane. I know you did. Stay seated Kane.

All right. Maybe before the advance, what questions do you have? Yeah. Oh, okay. So, I really love this um this process. I love restorative practices. It's my mantra to talk about community. I believe we can solve the world's problems by that. Um so, I'm just um curious like how challenging is this in terms of costs, in terms of um professional development? How are we going to lift all the other schools because we only at at um the pilot um point, but how are we going to get the buy in to um all the other um I don't know, German uh teachers that are, you know, that don't want to do it, you know, not that we're profiling,

I I can I can speak to that. If if our last slide actually here uh covers partly what you're asking uh son but uh we have a larger professional development plan. Uh the the real difficulty for the lift is certainly something we can accomplish but it's pretty intensive training.

So we're looking at for the middle schools this year dedicating both of our institute days that remain. So two full days so that all teachers at that level have the training that these teachers have actually had or more uh in preparation to begin using that this year right and into next. The other part is I think there are always going to be many staff like Sonia talked about really if you if you think about it like you know when when you look at like the circle we we were talking like you know how is the board going to Frank how's the board going to to take the circle I know such a hard time sorry he's playing he's writing down notes I'm I'm German and Italian the double wh too

the the hard part about, you know, this what we're actually talking about, you know, uh, with the circle is that it seems so insignificant and maybe even a little bit hokey when you do it that one time, right? You know, you're asking people what their favorite morning drink is. You know, you're asking them, you know, about something that they hope for. It it seems fairly insignificant, but those things stack up regularly where people become vulnerable and people become friends through that, right? So uh the the purpose though is for us to get through that initial feeling of this isn't something necessarily powerful. And the way you do that is not only be by providing them with a training that gives them two pieces. The theory and the pieces of information about what it is but time to actually experience it in the training themselves. And then beyond that having a set of of expectations. We have a day coming up where all of our administrators all of our administrators have been through the training thus far. So, uh, everyone from from cabinet to, you know, coordinators have gone through the training. And then we have another day in October where we're doing strategic work with them to plan what it actually will look like in year one for their school after the training. So, they have goals they can work with their staff on. The other part is, you know, this is enough of a push to get it going. And just like Miss Neielson said, you know, sometimes you need just to get it going and see the excitement that we've heard about from the students and how it begins to benefit them in the class for those who might be looking at it with kind of a you know a weary eye to really become fully involved. We're very confident that uh we will have a a vast majority of teachers who are really ready and and looking forward to doing these things. And I really think those teachers there always will be some in in any group there will be some who feel maybe this isn't the right match for them or maybe this isn't something they're sure of. Once they see this and they see their colleagues and they hear from their colleagues around the

successes that is really something that we believe will spur all of us to action plus uh Miss Marose not Kevin and and Dr. Meyer uh they are they've gone through the the various levels of of restorative practices training. so they can be trainers themselves. So we're also building uh capacity within the district to have continuous coaching beyond just external professional development people helping us during our institute days. So we've really planned for not only the training but the ongoing support to our administrators and the teachers as they run into the barriers that we know they're going to but they have a partner now that they can rely on to get them past that. So um for PADK and CLA CLA um what how are you defining success? Um how are you um gathering the data so that you could say to to um you know you know another school and saying you know J&Ms hey this is this is what we did this is how this is what you're going to try to benchmark. Um, so what what are we going to see data wise? Um, you know, because it's not just subjective, right? It's not just, you know, we're all happy here in um in in Paddock. You know, what what can we tangibly hold on to?

We are happy here at Paddock. Um, you know, there there's a couple different answers to that question. And so, uh, starting starting with some of our behavior referrals and, um, the different, you know, kind of quantifiable, you know, tangible, like you're saying, uh, majors and minors and whatnot, you know, if if the restorative practices that we're rolling out, the way we're rolling it out, like I was sort of alluding to earlier, you don't do mean things to people that you like, that are people part of your community, when you, you know, when you feel kindness on, you know, part of what we do, those behaviors are going to reduce similar to the the triangle, the sideways triangle that Dr. Swanland showed. You know, that green behavior. There's that little like h how is it going over to the yellow? How's it going back to the green? This is going to enhance that behavior where small reminders, small ideas, these concepts are going to reduce any of that that more extreme behavior. It will still exist, of course, right? This will not work with every student in any school, but it's going to enhance that. So, we're going to see a reduction in that. We also have as part of an attend our attendance initiative. We're going to see students coming to school more, right? We track our attendance quantifiably every month. Take a look, see who's at at school, how many kids um have been absent more than a few days. And if we can really start layering this in, and again, the values that I was talking about myself, there's a lot more to that, right? And if we can start layering in some of those restorative circles, those those different pieces into those students in particular, ones that we identify that might be in the yellow, do we see a a positive increase in their behavior and their attendance in that kind of piece there? We're also actually I'm currently working with a couple of my staff members on developing exactly what you were just describing like a do you feel happy survey and and just trying to work in like how how does this going to lay out. Not sure if we're getting where we want to go with it, but how do you get the feel of students, right? And staff for that matter and then do it now and do it at the end of the year and just kind of see are are we are we still feeling happy, you know,

that's that's kind of the more, you know, kumbaya piece of it, but um but there's certainly quantifiable aspects as well.

Yeah, just to just to piggyback, you know, therapeutic program, we take data with every everything. So, um, last year our crisis our crisis minutes were were high and, um, that's what we're really kind of hoping that we're going to see quantifiably is we're going to see a reduction in crisis minutes, reduction of crisis events. Um, we are keeping track of, we're asking the teachers to keep track of how often they're running circles in their class. Beginning of the year, the expectations was we want you to do one at the beginning of the day and one at the end of the day because we wanted to slow roll this thing because it is different. It is a change. Uh we were fortunate enough to get a group of heavy, you know, uh heavyhitter teachers and some of our reluctant skeptics together this summer to put in some of the foundational work and build out the plan and get them involved early. And I think that's that's going to be the key to to some of the success. But we want them to um keep track of of how many they're doing. Are they doing peace circles? Are they doing restorative circles, celebration circles? Um and we're hoping to see a reduction in both our crisis minutes. Um, and you know, uh, restraints and timeouts as the year goes on. That's the ultimate goal because as you know, Jason said, you don't do you don't do mean things to kids that you like or people that you like. Um, one of our check-ins that we have going on with the staff is a pulse check. Uh, we're going to we're going to test their pulse on restorative practices a couple times throughout the year. Um, what that basically is is how are things going? How are you feeling supported-wise? Is there anything else that we can do uh to provide you more support in these areas? Is there anything that the kids still need? Uh it's going to be an ongoing process and and what I really like about it is that um it it does open the door for conversation with it so we can have those tough conversations with each other um and and make sure that we're rolling this thing out the right way.

Thank you so much. I have more questions at the end, but I'll wait for you to finish. Just one more thing that we wanted to um bring to your attention is the timeline for professional learning that you had mentioned is in November and March as Dr. had said uh Megan and I have gone through train of the trainer um training with um Ally Hearn who is a national speaker and trainer in restorative practices. And so we've done both the foundational training the two-day training um and then advanced training and then also train the trainers. And so we're because we're in-house now, we're able to provide that training to more staff. Um and so we're going to do that training with select staff members um in November and March. So we're going to have uh groups of teachers um from each school come and do. So those are just some suggestions of people who might come and kind of really give us that bang for our buck. As also mentioned, we did do two-day training. It was intensive training with Ally on day one and then Megan and I led day two with our administrators. So we're definitely walking the walk and talking the talk. um we're not just um bringing this out into the teachers and the schools and we're actually doing this ourselves. Um so we did have te administrators um do that training and then day three she'll also return to kind of talk about sort of leading into the school year next year what that will look like. So we've have our pilot schools who have done an amazing job but how do we bring that to more schools? So she's going to talk about how implementation looks on day three in October with us. So, she'll be back to help us kind of think through what that looks like at each of our schools and their unique situations.

Okay. I I really think this is a good time for questions. Let's question. Yeah. So, teacher, do you have any other questions for the

you know? Yeah. Jenna, um just a general question. um this part of um what we heard I want to say maybe four years ago or five years ago was the culturally responsive learning and I thought that was just as great. It actually parallels this and and and that you have a coaching staff and you have constantly constant training but I just I don't feel like after we implemented that program it um took off. I don't know what ever happened. and it seemed to dissipate and it fel it felt like um just like this does um that we were building community um and and communities within our schools. So, I just I I'm just hoping and um and asking that it not be a fad and not just go away um because we keep trying to start off a a new um project per se um in order to um to to help um address social emotional learning um within our students. But so I'm asking you guys, how do we ensure that it that it doesn't um fall uh by the wayside as a C social emotional or as um

CLR CLR has. I think it comes back down to having a multi-year plan. Mhm.

Right. Where you have, you know, action steps in each one. So this year is our beginning with the middle schools. Next year we'll be talking about how to better incorporate elementary schools to do that with quality and also the big part is we're spending time not only preparing everyone as a foundation right which is which is different in the past we did the cohort model like we did with uh PBIS where we had cohorts of teachers agree to become leaders and they went through training with CLR and whatnot. We're being much more universal this time. So we have part of that where we have these uh you know self- selected people who have shown interest and are going to be leaders and have examples for people but we're also going to the masses with this right and then the other part is so we have this year for middle schools we have next year for parts of the elementary and then possibly the follow-up year for for the remainder along with internal coaching staff. So that that's probably the best way. Uh and this woman in the pink here doesn't like fads either and I can guarantee you that she won't let this rest.

Yes. So, but Jason, if you could pass the mic to Sonia and then to Renee about CLF. Um, yes, I hear what you're saying. I will suggest that this is a whole lot easier than previous what is it called? CLR.

CLR. Because with CLR, we had a book and there's all these different activities and it's a lot of work to know how to do all of those different little activities. That's like a whole another curriculum practically in my opinion. This is just me. Just me. This is simple. This is straightforward. Once you've learned the simple mechanics of the classroom level, it's it. And then you just carry on. There's nothing new to learn. There's no another little technique. There's no little those you put them in the newsletter every week, but you know, you have to you have to go look up what is this procedure? Oh, this is how I have to do it. You know, it's too much. If that makes sense. This is so much easier from a teacher point of view.

I I appreciate that. I I'm I just wanted to know where where we landed.

Yeah, I will say that we and Renee, you can piggyback on this. We do have over a hundred teachers still in the cadre. This was the first year that we haven't had CLR coaches um dedicated. So Kim and uh Angel are back in in the classroom and really it is supposed to be at this point kind of embedded. But when we launched CHAMPS 3 years ago, we did a multi-year plan with Champs. 12 national trainers came out. Um there's still area two or three areas of focus each year that are embedded then within our individual um school improvement plans. You're setting a reading or a math goal. You're setting a um behavior or attendance goal opportunities to engage. There were all different you know um targets that we wanted our teachers to the ability to respond the 3 to one negative to positive all the all the different things. So we continue to have that on the front burner. I've talked with Tom about this. PBIS has just been in the district since I was here the first time since the late 90s and it is really um fairly well institutionalized and we just need to get to that level. And I think drilling it into each of the schools and making the schools really the drivers of the work versus external people all the time having to be waited to be asked to come into a classroom to help somebody do CLR or another activity versus there's buyin, there's ownership. it's happening at the classroom level. That's the magic that I think is going to make it really stick.

Yeah. I also don't think it's CLR is lost. I I think, you know, when you have to step back and look at a a staff and how people morph over time and how their skill set morphs over time, it is not often you get a program like PBIS that lasts forever and ever and ever because at some point people get bored of it or they it stops being interesting, exciting. it stops being as functionally relevant for students. So things change, but you're foundationally building that skill set. So we we have the benefit of a staff that has longevity. People come to D15 and most of them stay and they stay a long time. So they've received the training, they have the sensitivity, they know the general concept. They may not be utilizing the CLR by the book skill set, but that doesn't change the fact that you've got those skills. So, I think I appreciate the insight. Thank you so much for presenting. I love that we get to hear directly from the the staff that are actually implementing it because that's the only way we're going to, you know, that's the only way my questions are going to end. You know, I I need to hear from you. Um I just wanted to say a quick as an aside there's obviously the benefit of the immediate you know school community but when we think about where AI is headed and how our world is being transformed before us like these soft skills these interactions of how you engage human to human are going to be the most in high demand skills. So I just also think from a buyin perspective like this is not just about the culture of our schools. This is also like skill development preparing our kids for the future. So I'm grateful that we're doing that.

We good? Thank you so much. I think she was talking to me. Uh one one last thing. So, uh, Miss Gavin's class. No. Oh. Oh,

no. I just wanted to affirm that our culturally and linguistically responsive practices do continue um, in our classrooms. They are embedded in so many of our practices. We've worked cross departments to implement them into our SEAL lessons. We do have a cadre, as Dr. Hines mentioned of over 100 teachers that are committed to being leaders of this work in their building. And it does align so nicely with our restorative practices because it gets into more of the deeper discussion about the why. Why why do people behave the way they do? Why are do people hold certain opinions? And it really helps us understand one each other as a community. So I just wanted to reassure the board that those efforts do continue on. We do continue with book studies and leadership in the building. So thank you.

Well said. Uh so uh Miss Gavin's class made these talking sticks, one for each of you up there. Uh, all we all we ask is that if it wouldn't be too much, we'd like to get a picture maybe with you guys having these talking sticks so we could just show it to the children. I Tom, I thought No, no. I just think it was like maybe if Emily Emily, thank you very much. Could you get a picture of the board with the these sticks? It was me. I thought Todd was Todd was gonna ask us not to do that with me like get this sick away from her. Hey, this is awesome.

Years ago, uh before Dr. Hines when we had the department of instruction and whatnot, uh there were I was in it as a director and there was three of us. We were having a real disagreement. We were talking over each other and so uh I pulled out a pen and said, "No one can talk if you don't have it." Right? It's the you know the talking stick. About three days later, everybody was sick with the flu. So, the lesson learned is if you use a talking stick, also use hand sanitizer. Love it. Oh, they're presenting our talking. Oh, perfect. Get up. Thank you. We'll we'll share it with the students. They'll really appreciate it.

Miss Gavin's classroom. I like this one, too. Thank you. Yours is shedding on you. Thank you. Oh, you're good. You're in the corner. You're in the corner. Don't forget your chair. Thank you.

Okay, I got to track down my Now acceptance of minutes. Where did it go? Did I accidentally give you my agenda? Mine. You can use this. Okay. Thank you. I think I accidentally put it in the stack of papers. I put it away. I got it. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Great job. So, I think we are now on on item 8.1, acceptance of minutes. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve the minutes from the August 13, 2025 regular board of education and close session meeting as attached. Second.

All right. Discussion. All right. All in favor? I. I. All right. Motion carries. Board committee reports. Uh 9.1 Ed Frank.

Oh, grab my stuff here. Okay. So, uh, the veto session is the next, uh, session for the legislature that's going to be happening, uh, mid October, uh, to the end of October. Um, one of the items I think will come up will be with regards to the, uh, bears property taxes since they've uh, just recently uh, on the on the 8th of September here put out the open letter saying that they are going to be building the stadium in Arlington Heights. So, I would say it's it's pretty much a done deal at this point that the Bears are moving to Arlington Heights. Um, so with that, they're going to be looking for um either a mega project bill uh passed by the legislature or a uh uh what was the thing they called it? In lie of taxes, pilot payment in lie of taxes. Yes, that's what the acronym was, pilot. And then uh so we'll see what happens. Um, one of the things that's being actually uh pushed to see if we can get through in the fall would be uh legislation with regards to the foyas, freedom of information uh act requests that are being sent to uh bodies through AI and that that happens to our district. We get a lot of AI requests that then bog down the uh the system. So hopefully we can get that passed through legislature where they can limit the AI and only have it respond to real people. Um and then uh Edrad is having its uh yearly kickoff meeting on the 20th where we're going to hopefully uh talk about the I would say the goals for next year for legislative goals. some of the stuff uh that we're you know I was actually kind of asking them to do would be um tiff reforms uh you know having taxing

bodies have some representation in the tiff process uh since we get impacted by it uh whereas right now we really don't have a lot of input it's mostly all just through the villages or the cities that where the tiffs are um another one would be uh funding for mandated categoricals so school schools get districts get funding for things that are actually mandated by the legislature. Um, and then one of the other things is uh staffing and recruitment and retention of staff uh through legislation that would make it easier for teachers to uh move into the state, let their credentials transfer, things like that. And then uh also one of the things would be uh what we talked about, you know, here today would be uh property tax delays. Is there any way we can have some accountability for property tax delays? So, we'll see what comes out of it, but uh hopes are high is every year when we start new. That's about it. Okay.

Right. Thank you, Frank. Uh5 Foundation, Eric.

Uh yeah, I talked with uh Adriana. We had uh the first meeting back the day after our last board meeting on the 14th. uh they stated their goals for this upcoming year um and wanted to re-emphasize that any info about the organization is now uh linked in with the district website which is very exciting. Uh but they talked about their teacher mini grants which uh she wanted me to let everyone know that are open until early November. Uh they also have their 50/50 raffle raffle and staff tributes which are happening later in the year. Uh and October Fest is coming up next weekend. So, they're working with the Rotary now to see if they need some more volunteers. That's the 19th to the 21st in Town Square. Uh they also have a candy crawl at Falcon Park uh that they're waiting on more info. We should know a little bit more about that uh at their next meeting, which is next Thursday, the 18th.

Great. Okay.

All right. Thank you, Eric. Finance Committee, Wenda, and Lisa. I think we can all contribute to the finance committee meeting um this month because we all um had the pleasure of having Diana uh talk to us about the um FY 26 budget. So um thank you so much. But um you guys have heard everything that um that we all talked about. Uh thank you for the staff for um looking at the budget and saying um we are going to tighten our belt and we are going to um uh work to um come to um a common uh consideration for the for the district. So thank you so much. Um we're still um going to work on the the budget. It it you know the work doesn't stop. So that's it.

I would add to that that we're pretty close to where it's going to stop for fiscal year 26. But you're absolutely right. We need to bring that number way down for fiscal year 27. That planning is happening now if it's going to be related to staff reductions like we've had in the past. We want to have all of those decisions made um well in advance and really January would be our target in terms of letting anybody know those plans. All right. Okay. All right. equity committees, Zubar and J and and Jim.

Jim and I met with uh Renee Aransky to talk about the the new uh uh equity continuum uh uh tools that are connected to the Illinois report card put out by the Illinois State Board of Education. this very comprehensive uh uh look into the equity um you know kind of uh performances by all the districts uh throughout the state and it's very comprehensive.

It's pretty impressive stuff to see that it's getting that that type of attention. We looked at how our schools we we had the data for 2023. That was the latest data we had from them and see how our data is and um you know we see that we've done you know we've we've made a lot of progress in they have different categories on the state level. But what was interesting to me also was just how some of the the data on the state level does kind of correspond to some of the things we had talked about on our strategic plan and the the equity components of that and how you know which which of our categories connect with the state categories and that was helpful with Renee explaining that I think we're doing a better job in elevating educators in terms of equity a little less so on the student learning but but getting better as time goes on. Um but so it was good to see the progress being made and how everything is really being uh um uh kept track of now uh much more than it ever was you know 10 years ago.

Yeah. And just to uh highlight that um our district presented also right in Bloomington normal. we had the opportunity to present this this information to you and this um the presentation is was like Subar said pretty really impressive uh information and you know it and it's right there in front of you right I mean it really highlights everything all the work that's that's been done all the growth that we've made and and really just what what needs to be done it was really really a great presentation and really just highlights everything that all the work that still needs to happen but also um all the work that has been done. It's been really quite amazing. So, really kudos to to you guys for and congratulations on a great presentation as well. I think it I heard it went really well.

Being asked to speak, you know, on behalf of ISBY, being being tapped by Isby to share our work is an honor once, but then they did it again. So, I think, you know, they're going to put Renee on a circuit. Yeah. Because um the story we have to tell is a good one. It's something to be very proud of. Congratulations. Yeah. All right, moving on to action items. Item 10.1. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve the personnel report recommendations for administration, certified and non-certified staff members as presented. Second. Discussion. Roll call. Taylor, I. Shupai. I. K.

I. Bagman. Hi. Hunt. I ader. Honorino I. All right. Motion carries. Item 10.2. Um, press. I move to approve the second reading of press 118 part two as presented. Second. All right. Discussion. Do you want to highlight anything about the electric piece? Was that one in? No, we'll have the we'll put the policy in. I was waiting. I decided to wait until all the villages had their language and then I was going to align ours. Okay. That way. Awesome. Just wanted to make sure on that question. All right. Roll call. Shupai. I. Gun. I. Bagman. I.

Hunt. I. Aer. I. Honorino. I. Taylor. I. All right. Motion carries. Item 10.3. I move to approve the 2024 to 2025 administrator and teacher salary and benefits report as presented. Second. Second. Uh discussion. All right. Roll call. K. I. Pacman. I. Hunt. I. Aer. I. Anino. I. Taylor. I. Shouai.

I. All right. Item 10.4. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve the amendment to the 2025 to 2026 chief communications officer employment contract as presented. Second discussion. Roll call. Bachmann I. Hunt I. Aer I. Honorino I. Taylor I. Shupai I. K. I. All right. Motion carries. Item 10.5 uh FY26 budget. I move to approve the adoption of the fiscal year 2026 budget as presented. Second.

All right. Discussion. Just reiterating the appreciation um to all of the different team members who played a huge role um and had to make some really hard choices. So, thank you for the collaboration. Thank you. Absolutely. All right. Roll call. Hunt. I. Ader. I. Honorino. I. Taylor. I. Shai I Khan I Bagman I All right, motion carries. Item 10.6. This one you'll have to read all the title. You have to read it. 10.6 is the approval of the resolution. Oh, you have to read the whole title. Okay. Read the whole thing for this one. Okay.

All right. Item 10.6 Six, approval of resolution authorizing the issuance of not to exceed 25 million uh taxable tax anticipation warrants in anticipation of the collection of taxes uh levied for the year 2024 by the board of education of the district for educational and bond and interest purposes and authorizing the sale of said warrants to the purchaser thereof. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve the resolution authorizing the issuance of not to exceed 25 million taxable tax anticipation or in anticipation of the collection of taxes levied for the year 2024 by the board of education of the district for educational and bond and interest purposes and authorizing the sale of said warrants to the purchaser thereof as presented.

Second. All right. Discussion. Uh, I was just going to uh just reiterate just for the non-budget-minded people in the community that this the reason that we're doing this is not a budget error or anything on the district's part. This is that the county just has not paid us. Simply stated that this is we're waiting on money and we have to do this in the meantime. Is that a fair simplified statement of why we're borrowing money? Okay. Uh-huh. the the county has not sent out the tax bills, so they have not paid us. This is not something that we did or didn't do. Yes.

Thank you. All right. And any other further discussion? All right. Roll call. Ader. I. Herino. I. Taylor. I. Shupai. I. Khan. I. Bachmann. I. Hunt. I. All right. Motion carries. Item 10.7, approval of resolution, loaning funds. I move to approve the resolution loaning funds from the district's educational fund to the district's transportation fund as presented. Second. All right. Discussion. Okay. Roll call. Anerino. I. Taylor. I. Shupai. I. Khan. I. Bachman. I. Hunt. I. Ader.

I. All right. Um, item 11, consent calendar. Would anyone like to remove anything from the consent calendar? No. All right. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve the consent calendar items as presented. Second. Discussion. No discussion. All right. Roll call. Taylor. I. Shupai. I. K. I. Pacman. I. Hunt. I. Ader. I. Anorino.

I. All right, correspondence. As usual, we've received a number of foyers that keep Jamie quite busy. Any questions on what's been submitted? No. No. All right. Great. Okay. All right. Uh, may I have a motion to adjurnn, please? I move to adjourn. Second. All right. All in favor? I I want to stick around this again. I need everybody to sign the budget approval all the yay on one side. So there are three copies. So Oh, sign three copies. Okay. Oh, this special pen, huh?

So just sign it. That's it. Don't forget to sign your name.