Township High School District 214 Board of Education - Regular Meeting

Testing. One, two, three.

Welcome to Jerry's Cafe. [music] We are a destination cafe and we offer craft food and beverages, meaning [music] we make everything fresh on site when you order. And all of our food and [music] our beverages are prepared and served by adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And then lastly, just say the name. Tom. Yes. Here you go. Enjoy. Thank you. My favorite part of working at Jerry's Cafe is definitely interacting with friends I've met throughout the years and the expressing machine. [music]

My co-founder Amy Philpot and I opened Jerry's Cafe for job opportunities and a staggering statistic tells us that 80% of adults with disabilities are unemployed. I believe differently and this is the place where our employees can work and feel proud and contribute and can see that they have value and purpose [music] and they are given the responsibility that anyone would be given in a job. and we expect nothing less than them to [music] perform at their highest level. So, we see great success in every single employee and their independence [music] and their offerings and activities here at Jerry's Cafe. The large hot white chocolate pumpkin pie with whipped cream. It is to die for. It is delicious. It's amazing. Well, the uh favorite part of uh working here is that I I get to serve customers. I am a cashier. They understand to include people with us with exceptionalities.

I wanted to tell you I've been watching you today. You're really good at your job. You've been doing [music] I always I always like to serve customers. Customers go first.

We are super proud of our partnership with District 214. District 214 [music] has been a supporter from the very beginning of our foundation and several of the schools have done fundraising and helped us get our doors open to Jerry's Cafe. Proudly, we have 12 or 13 graduates from [music] the district 214 schools who will work at Jerry's Cafe as our active employees. This is where we do our salar prep. This is where we make all the salads. And then over here is the sandwich line. This is where we make all of our sandwiches. I have worked here since day one. I love it here. I love my supportive team members and I like serving customers. Here is one chicken Mediterranean trip salad. We know that our community members have lots of choices, but we're hoping that you will come and choose Jerry's Cafe. Thank you. When you come inside and engage with [music] our employees, you feel a sense of joy and you will start your day feeling the best way that you can [music] with a joyful heart and knowing that Jerry's Cafe has provided you with delicious coffee, breakfast [music] or lunch. [music] Mac and cheese. Mac and cheese. [music] Mac and cheese.

All right, welcome to our 55th year of putting together an incredible community service project through our SOS class here at John Hershey High School. As you can see around me, it is organized chaos. But it is an incredible day for our students to serve our community by packaging and collecting food that's going to be going to local food pantries in our area to support those in need. We're really happy to be able to do the food drive here at URS because it really just brings the whole school together and we are able to help our community and bring the energy with everyone here.

Take it out. For the past, I would say about two months, we've been kind of working together with SOS, Junior Leaders, baseball, and we've all gathered together. We've done bag and tab with clubs from communities, and we've all come together, and it's really amazing to see the turnout. And then later on, we're going to be visiting eight local food pantries, and it's really exciting. We're just thankful for everyone who helps each other along the way. It's been really fun. It's a team effort, but it's been so fun. Prospect marching nights are heading to DC. We're [music] in Washington DC. [music]

Prospect Marching Knights were invited to travel to Washington DC this year for Veterans Day. So, we're taking the band out um to our nation's capital. We're going to do some great tours of some of the monuments and the museums and a lot of the sites of DC. [music] Um, but it all culminates with performances on Veterans Day. Um, so [music] we've been working really hard to prepare and we're so excited for our students to have this opportunity. [music] Throughout the trip, we had a few opportunities uh where veterans would actually see our group of students out out and about and [music] spoke to our students. Um, so in addition to uh touring these places, our students were able to actually interact with a number of veterans over the course of the trip, which kind of made everything a little more real and genuine and authentic. So, our first day in DC was really impactful and gave our students sort of a big picture overview of the city and some of the history [music] and really set the stage for our performance day coming up. [music] So on Veterans Day, our morning started off with a performance at the Lincoln Memorial. There we were right on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial facing the Washington Monument. Just a really special opportunity for our students to have a a really great place to perform.

It was an honor to perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with the PMK where so much of America's history has taken place. The experience was very impactful for me. It was a unique opportunity that I have never had before and it was something that I will [music] cherish for the rest of my life. One of our students, Emily Pollock, was also asked to deliver a speech at the Lincoln Memorial. I've always wanted to help people, so I'm going to serve my country. More specifically, I want to become an officer in the [music] military.

Her speech was really wonderful and got a really great reception at the event. In fact, after the event was over, I had a number of veterans come track me down to tell me how great her speech was. And actually, they wanted to meet her and take pictures with her because they were so moved by what she had to say. My father served in the Navy and so he instilled in me like the value of um serving and like caring [music] for our veterans and those who serve us. And so being able to thank them today and um place medals around their shoulders and think and welcome them home was really impactful for me as well. United [music] States. It was an honor to play at the World War II Memorial today. It was such an honor because music is a way to share emotions without using words.

Our performances in DC got a lot of really good responses. Um, one of them, a story was told to me by one of our chaperones that there was literally um, a Marine veteran who was at a performance at the Ewima Memorial who was literally in tears watching the performance and just expressed to our chaperone how much it meant to him that this group of teenagers from from the Chicago area had come out there and was was performing. Um, and he was just really moved by it and uh, I thought that was just a really neat neat story to hear coming out of the the performance. So any trip like this uh takes a lot of time and energy to put together. I feel really fortunate that our school was very supportive of this endeavor. We had a bunch of parents who traveled with us and did anything they could to make this a great experience for our students. Um I'm so glad [music] we were able to bring our students to DC. Uh Veterans Day seemed like a perfect time to bring them [music] and uh it really just in the end I think the whole trip turned out really really great and I'm so happy we were able to make it happen.

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Thank you. I'd like to call to order the business meeting of Township High School District 214 for Thursday, November 13, 2025. The secretary, Miss Marini, please call the role. Baldino here. Chung here, Dustling here, Fiorto here, Hinineman present, Sager here, and Croitzer present. We have a quorum.

Thank you. Can I have a motion to go into close session for the purpose of discussing the employment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees, specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in an educatorial setting or legal counsel for the public body and a superintendent and evaluation. Motion in a second, please. So moved. Second. [snorts] Motion second. Please call the role. Chung, yes. Hinineman, I. Baldino, yes. Dustling, yes. Fioro, yes. Sager, I um we are Motion carries 70.

Thank you. We're going into close session and we should reconvene around 7. Thank you. [music] Heat. Heat.

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Good. Thank uh we are back from uh close session and uh next on the agenda is the pledge of allegiance. Dr. Ro, do you want to give a update?

All right. Actually, yes. Uh I'd like to invite Mr. Wardle to the to the podium to introduce uh some of his students from Buffalo Grove. Hi, good evening. Uh my name is Jeff Wle and it is an honor to serve all of you as the principal of Buffalo Grove High School. Um I brought with me a couple very special people um to say the pledge of allegiance uh today and to share a little bit about an opportunity that they had with the ProStart program uh and WGN. So uh Miss Rachel McNamera is a teacher with us uh who leads our ProStart program. And then Alex and Laney got a chance to go down and have some really um some cool opportunities um down at WGN. And a little bit about these two um young people are just amazing. Alex has started a company um out of the home recently and kind of getting that kind of going entrepreneurship going on there. And just talking to Lenny, I did realize she is starting girls wrestling for the very first time as a senior. She's going to jump in and try girls wrestling here that just started a few days ago. Um so just amazing kids but also have a passion for culinary and got to have some really um exciting opportunities here. So Miss McNamera tell us a little bit about that.

Excellent. Thank you very much. Uh good evening everybody. My name is Rachel McNamera and I'm the teacher at Buffalo Grove High School for ProStar program. Um so why this even came about in the first place was that Mike Puts, he's the executive director of the Wheeling Chamber of Commerce. He reached out to uh me over at BG asking if any of my ProStart students would be willing to volunteer at the Wheeling Taste of the Town. Um as we were communicating with one another about the promotion for this event, how to get the word out, um he actually got in contact with somebody at WGN Studios. Uh it was very exciting for us, very nerve-wracking. We all went down to uh Chicago and actually spent the day on a Monday at WGN and aired live. Um, Alex went on to actually cook live with a chef that came in to BG to work with our students prior to the news segment. Uh, his name is Chef Carlos and he definitely took Alex under his wing to show him how to cook, talk, um, and show off our program which was very nice. So, Alex and Laney, do you want to come up and talk about what your experience was like?

I mean, yeah, it was pretty cool. He came into the classroom and he taught us how to make a dish and then we made that same dish on the news live on air. And at the news studio, we got to visit the audio booths and like all of the people with the screens in front of them with the different videos that are live and that was really cool. We got to have some food from the previous segments before us and it was a pretty cool experience. It was fun. Yeah. Awesome job. So, if you would rise and Laney is going to lead us in the pledge. Oh, sorry. Doc, did she want to introduce herself? Who is this? Sure. Introduce yourself.

Oh, uh, I'm Delaney Washburn. I'm a senior at Buffalo Grove and I'm really excited to be here. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Warl This is how I go on the golf. Okay. Next on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. There are no consent items. So I can I please have a motion and a second to approve the agenda.

So move for second. Chung call the roll. Fioro, yes. Chung, yes. Baldino, yes. Dustling, yes. Heinaman, I. Sager, I. Critzer, I. Motion carries 70. Thank you. Can I have a motion in a second to approve the open and close uh meeting minutes from October 9th, 2025, please? So moved. Second, Fiorto. There's been a motion in a second. Please call the RO. Sager. I. Fioro. Yes. Valdino. Abstain. Chung. Yes. Dustling. Yes. Hinaman. I. Kiter. I.

Motion carry 6.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is a partner recognition. Mr. Maggie. Thank you. Uh Dr. Uh, President Kitzer, Vice President Fiorto, if you would please join me for partner recognition. Uh, this evening we are recognizing Honeywell for its valuable support of our internship program. Uh, we'd like to bring up Randy Z, uh, thermal analyst and Iris Alvarado Santiago, former project manager. If you would please join us. The Honeywell team have been true advocates, supporters, and encouragers for District 214 students for 34 years. In the last three years alone, 43 District 214 students have been able to explore careers in the engineering field through Honeywell's UOP STEM program. The Honeywell staff who devote their time to the internship program have advocated tirelessly not only to keep the program running, but to make it available to as many students as possible. Their commitment to providing meaningful in-person experiences have ensured that students continue to gain vital exposure to realworld engineering. Through the program, students are able to explore different engineering topics for a semester, working together in teams and then sharing their findings at the end of the internship. Research topics that have been explored include catalysts, solar panels, water purification, and Mars exploration. This is truly a one-of-a-kind educational experience for our students. We are so grateful for this longstanding partnership with Honeywell and the inspiration they have provided to our students through their UOP STEM program. Honeywell, thank you very much. introduce [applause] yourself.

Okay. Hi, my name is Randy Z and um as it was mentioned, this is our 34th year doing the program and from the beginning, our mission's always been to uh uh you know, introduce high school students to careers in chemistry and chemical engineering. uh you know while getting that hands-on experience in the labs with industry-leading scientists and engineers. Uh so I'm just really happy to see that that aligns well with the district uh and for all of you for uh allowing your students to join us uh 18 weeks out of the year. It's really a pleasure. Uh I love doing this. It's why I've been doing it now for about a dozen years. So, uh, yes, thank you very much. [applause] Appreciate it. Okay, thank you. Next on the agenda is public comments. And before I call the per first person up, I'm going to read a statement.

The board of education and the district value comments from the community at our meetings as well as emails. We appreciate everyone appearing before the board and treat all with courtesy and respect. The board of education asks each person to please limit all of their comments to three minutes. However, several people want to address the board on a similar topic. The board president may limit the time to two minutes per person. The public comments on the agenda items will be the only time that the board of education will hear public comments during meetings. Although comments may be made by almost any matter related to the operation of schools, comments will not be allowed identifying individual students or staff members. As this is the board of education business meeting, the board practice is not to respond to public questions or comments at this time because this is not an openended forum. However, we do listen carefully. If requested, a written response will be provided. Please ensure that Ms. Marini has your full name and email address on the signup sheet. to be fair and consistent to addressing the board. The same protocols and procedures must be in place for everyone. On the DS is uh the green light indicates your time has started. The yellow light indicates 30 seconds and the remaining uh red light indicates 3 minutes has expired. Mr. Horowitz, could you please come to the microphone and clearly state your name for the minutes? President, I have a handout to give everybody.

You can give it. Thank you.

And also I'm to speak on two topics. It's only three minutes, sir. I understand that. You want me to speak on both topics in a row? Three minutes, sir. That's it. Thank you. Whether it's a different item. Okay.

Uh, I'll talk about the tax levy quickly. In the last five years, this board has approved over $51 million increase from 2021 to today. According to the financials, this board has anywhere between 180 to 210 million in cash reserves at the end of the fiscal period. I also want to note that the median incomes in Wheeling have have gone down 5% in this last 5-year period and in Buffalo Grove, they've gone down 7% in this last 5year period. Now, we'll go on to the facilities. On the back of that flyer, I passed out my property taxes. I've been a resident of Buffalo Grove for 32 years. My building AV has risen 90% in the last five years. I've already been denied by the Cook County Assessor for my latest appeal. If I'm not successful, my property taxes will rise 60% in five years. Now, I'm curious with a show of hands, how many people have seen their incomes go up 60% in the last five years? I didn't think so. My recommendation to this board regarding this referendum is to use some of the cash reserves that you have at the end of the fiscal period. Cut the budget to accommodate other projects in the 10, but please, you're going to hurt people if you put this to a referendum. No matter what the dollar amount is, 912, 850, 400, it won't matter. You're going to hurt people who are already being hurt. Thank you.

Thank you, Phillip. S E R K E R. I'm sorry. Oh, okay. you you you uh your name was on the signoff sheet to talk. It's okay. So, um Scott Tucker is next.

Hi, my name is Lori Taylor and in Arlington Heights we have a population of approximately 77,000 people. Of those 77,000 people, 19,000 of it is residents. Currently, Arlington Heights residents attend all six Buffalo all six district 214 high schools, Wheeling, Buffalo Grove, Hersy, Prospect Heights, Broly Meadows, and in the very very very far south, Elk Grove. With the exception of the 300 acres that used to be the racetrack, and that's all I'm going to say. I believe Arlington Heights has very little land left to be yet to be developed for any large projects. This project's budget is spread out over 25 years. Just curious, what are the enrollment figures for each of the schools showing for the last 10 years? Are they um expanding or are they declining? How about the future for the next 20 years? We're looking at a budget that's going to go out for 25 years. What's the possibility that a school a high school may be closed? That we're sitting here on this proposal looking at enhancing it. In the subdivision where I live, we have a lot of people that are aging in place. And those aging in place people do not have children. And I can tell from a lot of the area up in the northern section, Buffalo Grove High School's enrollment can't be increasing. There really hasn't been much development up there. It's got to be declining. The reason I'm asking this is knowing that kind of information with the enrollment figures of how they have

been for the last 10 years and moving forward will pro well will help trying to figure out what is necessary at each one of these six schools. I'm afraid and I've read many articles about it. People are aging in place. They're not planning on moving because of tax reasons. And so the en enrollment in these schools are going to decline. So please take a look at that and please present those kinds of numbers to the people when you're presenting also these kinds of proposals. Thank you. Okay. Next on the speaker list is Scott Tucker.

Good evening. My name is Scott Tucker. I'm a resident of the district live in Mount Prospect. Uh, one thing that's a little surprising is that a number of the residents here tonight cannot adequately hear tonight's proceedings. Seems to be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Seems not to be a concern. There's not enough trouble. Can't hear can't hear what's going on. Uh, where is the recording from the public meeting that was held on Monday, November 3rd, where almost every resident spoke out in fierce opposition to any future tax hikes? Was the meeting recorded? If it wasn't if it was not recorded, was that on purpose? Why is the meeting not posted on the YouTube channel? Do we have to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get the recording? Uh why was the second Zoom meeting that was provided to the public not available to folks who like myself have fiber optic access our homes with very speed high-speed internet? um why are tax taxpayers dollars being used to advocate for a tax hike rather than just simply state the facts of the pros and cons and the wishes the needs uh the desires of uh the district. The presentation I saw on Monday the uh 3rd was very one-sided. Uh it was our only public meeting, our only opportunity to speak out against against tax hikes. It was rushed. Towards the end of the meeting, uh Dr. row said that he could only take one or two more questions even though it was only 8:15 p.m. Uh that meeting room is our meeting room. It was our only opportunity to speak out against the tax hikes. Trying to cut off residents and not let them ask the the tough questions is poor public policy and it's poor public service. That's a complete That's all I have to say tonight.

Thank you, Mary Jax. Oh, okay. Okay, Mary. It's okay. Uh, Mary Kazenza Vickers. Yes. Hi. Hi, Mary.

State your name, please.

I was a high school um educator. Currently, I work in the educator education field. Even though my children are no longer in high school, I really value a good education. It's good for our kids and it's good for our community. I'm here to comment on the possible $850 million improvements that the district has proposed and I really try to educate myself on this matter. My biggest concern is that you did not plan for these improvements. Roof, boilers, AC did not go bad overnight. You should have been putting money aside each fiscal period so that you could make these repairs and replacements out of your budget. What did you do with the money that you could not pay for these regular maintenance items out of our budget? Did you have a comprehensive plan done years ago so you know what is coming due at what time? Can I get a copy of that plan? Can you explain why you did not plan for this and work within the budget? Also, if you're going to ask for that much money, I think you really need to be more specific. You had 10 categories, but I'd like to know in more detail about specifically what you would like to do. For example, do you need to replace all the boilers? Can we stagger when they get replaced? I don't think we should also have a faceelift on some of our school entranceways, no matter how dark or original they are, and then come to us to fix the heating, AC, and plumbing. An 850 million bond is really a big ask of the taxpayers. Do you have any other bonds outstanding? How much are they for, and when do they come due? Have you ever gone for referendum before? If so, when? My taxes will go up because the assessed valuation on my home has gone up, as has most of our homes. The district will

already be getting more tax money from us. Anybody who's made home improvements lately knows that you have to pay more. The district is taking out a 25-year bond, which is really similar to a mortgage. We'll be paying the interest on the interest rather than the principal for a very long time. I know the superintendent's only been here um for a few years and some board members have recently been elected. So, I really don't hold them accountable for this situation that we're in today. However, I do expect you to ask good questions and try to look outside the box for good solutions. On the other hand, there are board members who have been here for many years and it's fiscally irresponsible not to put money in reserves for these necessary repairs such as HVAC, plumbing, and electrical. As a homeowner, I have to plan and I would really ask the board to do the same. I know you don't answer questions, you know, um directly at the meeting. Oops. Um, but I have written them down here and if I could give that paper to somebody, I'd like a written response.

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Joan Burke, Joan Burke. The board of education policy manual in section two states one of the board's duties is controlling and maintaining adequate physical facilities and holds the superintendent responsible to carry out those board policies. In section four, the superintendent is responsible for managing the buildings and grounds and providing the board with an annual report on facility improvements and major maintenance projects. Archon's February comprehensive facility assessment chart shows that four schools antiquated HVAC mechanicals need replacement with two more schools on the verge of replacement at approximately $180 million. Three schools need their electrical systems replaced with three schools being monitored at $122 million. Plumbing issues at all seven schools in the amount of 42 million. Roof, window, door, and foundation issues at six schools for 108 million. In addition to all this, there is a myriad of other individual projects, which brings the grand total to a staggering $850 million. How did the district end up with this litany of major maintenance and improvement projects? Of the seven school buildings, Prospect is the oldest at 68 years and the other schools are not far behind. Everything has a

lifespan. Didn't the district have a long range plan to prior prioritize replacement of building systems at a given age? Did the past board members fail to satisfy controlling and managing the buildings and grounds? Did the past superintendent fail to prepare for a yearly report on the improvements and the major projects that were needed? The board is the steward of our tax dollars. Illinois property tax is the second highest in the nation and the request for more tax dollars is asking a lot during these tough economic times. Please tread carefully. Thank you.

Thank you. Steve Chase.

Okay. But I don't I just learned about this meeting. I don't really wish to speak publicly, but I think it's incredulous that this amount of money is trying to be forced on the homeowners in this community at this time. We've come through. Steve, do you would you please come to the microphone?

It's been very difficult for a lot of homeowners to try and get through and this population is aging. Who are these students? How many students? I'm very impressed by how some of these people are very uh delved into facts and very factual present presentations here tonight. Uh they've done their homework, but the fact is is that what seems to be going on here is crazy. You can't put this kind of burden on all these people. Most of these people are older that cared to turn up here to to hear what was being said. And who are who are the students attending these schools? I went to district 214 high school. I always felt I had a great education. I went on to college and and upper uh graduate school and I never felt like I got a bad education. And that's important. But who are the people attending these schools at this time? And are they actually paying their fair share of the burden of the taxes? Are they apartment dwellers? Uh if so, you need to find out a way to tax them accordingly. You can't be giving a lot of students free reign, freebies to attend school, even the public school. So again, I I just found out about this meeting, but there has to be weight somehow who those who are actually utilizing the services of the school today are paying at least the majority of the burden. And this burden that you seem to be wanting to impose on the taxpayers now is it it's it just seems too excessive to be uh reasonable. And there has to be another way in the system to try and find out how to address these budget shortcomings and not just sticking on the aging population who may or may not have anything to do with the school districts anymore putting students through. And uh

I don't see any too many people that look like younger parents where they may have kids in the district 214 high school and we can't get any feedback from them maybe tonight. But uh things need to change. This seems to be too much money to burden those who have paid into the system and who continue to pay into the system. And where are the parents of the kids who are in the system right now? And are they paying their fair share? Thank you. Thank you,

Mr. Bennett. Hello, Superintendent Row, board, staff, and community. I'm Lee Bennett, a persistently curious area resident. Given boys interest in volleyball, why do they have far fewer intercolastic opportunities than other sports? Like all questions posed during public comments, you're not expected to answer tonight. Instead, the superintendent will typically have an appropriate administrator or other staff member followup in order to provide an appropriate response in an effective and efficient manner. This is my fifth month of asking a form of this question. My only response from district 214 has been a single short email which did not directly address the question. Is FOYA the only process by which the district is willing to respond? I understand this type of decision is delegated to the Midsuburban League athletic conference which doesn't open its meetings for public comment. The school districts are ultimately responsible for these decisions. So I would appreciate your assistance connecting me with the MSL decision maker or makers. I look here because the current leader of the MSL conference is a district 214 employee. Adding a fourth boys volleyball team is not nearly merely my kooky ideal. At the request and students and coaches over the years, the MSL has regularly considered this proposal without providing any apparent rationale for its rejection.

This school year, hundreds of conference and district residents have signed a petition in support of this change. I invite in invite each individual here to also sign the petition which will still be available as this meeting adjourns. Please connect me with the appropriate person who can meaningfully spend more than three minutes on this issue. Thank you. Thank you. that uh all that have signed up for public comment and we'll move on with the agenda. Uh Dr. Row.

All right. Thank you, Miss Croitzer. Uh I have just have two two items in in my report this evening. Um last year we we cast a vision for what the district 214 uh energy efficiency program was going to be. And we aspired to uh to make significant changes in how we consume energy to ensure that our dollars are going where they belong, which is in the classroom with our students. Um and our our director of operations, Anetta Mistak, has taken that charge and and run with it. And I just wanted to share an update of a a recognition that the district has received this week. Um, District 214 will be the first district in Illinois to receive the Department of Energy uh 50,0001 ready program designation. What this program will mean is we are implemented a structured data-driven energy management system aligned with national best practices for continuous improvement. Through the program, the district will systematically identify, prioritize, and sustain energy saving opportunities across all of our facilities, reducing operating costs and freeing up resources to go where they belong. Um, district staff gain hands-on experience in energy tracking, performance analysis that will help um provide information that we can share with the public on an annual basis of how much we're saving to show the the trajectory that we're on. I just wanted to announce that publicly as I'm very proud of uh Miss Miststack and her team and the direction that they're taking our energy efficiency efforts. Uh we have a long way to go with with older buildings as as we've heard this evening. Um replacing our our our lights to be LED is a is a first step, but with air conditioning system changes comes uh fewer dollars that go into running them and better control of our buildings that will allow us to ensure those dollars uh remain with our students in the classrooms where we want them. And then finally, my my second update is uh ne Saturday starts board member

appreciation week and I just wanted to uh to express my gratitude to the seven volunteers for the the time, energy, and dedication that you provide our our school district. Uh, I'm grateful for the partnership on this team and witnessing your commitment to our community and and the love and care that you show our students and staff, all the the events that you support with your time and energy and then support from this table. Uh, I just wanted to echo their gratitude through me and and share my appreciation. Uh, but I'm not the only one that wants to say thank you. So, I want to share a little thank you tribute from some of our students that you uh helped pave the way for their experience. Today, our board of education helps shape opportunities that make a difference in students lives. Across every school in district 214, your commitment to our students inspires innovation, creativity, and growth. Our students wanted to share their gratitude in their own words.

Thanks for keeping our spirits high. Thank you for spirit journey. Thanks for our curiosity. Thanks for helping us get all right. Thank you for helping us share our stories. Thanks for giving us our future.

On behalf of our entire district, thank you for helping every student in district 214 find their path, their passion, and discover their future. All right, that is all I have. But again, thank you all for your time and energy and commitment to District 214. You're greatly appreciated. Yeah, really cute. Okay. Uh, next on the agenda is board member updates. Mr. Dustling, would you like to start?

Yes, I do have a couple. Um, it's been a busy time. Um, two things I attended uh this last week and I know other board members were there. There were Veterans Day ceremonies at Elgrove and and John Hershey High School. At Hershey, they had a 100-year-old veteran from World War II, Emil Hirs, had an opportunity to spend some time with him. Um, in interviewing him, I asked him uh one question when I interviewed him at his home. Uh, how did you get in the army? That went on for an hour and a half. He uh remembered first and last names of the people he served with. he remembered wherever he was. Uh it was truly truly an amazing experience. I also attended two district honors u functions. The orchestra up at Buffalo Grove where they played the uh Anton D'vorc symphony from the new world which is 45 minutes long if you can believe. Uh and it went on solid 45 minutes. Great music. The other one was a district orchestra, artisan residents at Prospect High School uh back in the um middle of October, which was uh great. All the schools were there with their orchestraases. Uh the NGOTC nights award night was uh held um up at Wheeling. It's 57 years that the NGOTC program has been going. Um they have the biggest freshman class in years. For 20 years in a row, they've been a distinguished unit which allows them to recommend uh students from militarymies and they have twin academy uh 12 academy recommendations they can uh they can make. Um the other things were I attended two plays uh at Elkrove High School was urine town. That was interesting. And uh then at uh Wheeling last night was called Ride the Cyclone. And uh that's on this weekend. And if you have a chance to go see that uh that

would be great. uh welcomed three sets of students from uh France uh Spain and Italy to Prospect High School and uh that's always an enjoyable situation. Thank you very much. Okay, Dr. Sager,

I have to follow Bill. [clears throat] Okay, so I had I attended the Elkrove High School craft fair which was in its 40some year I forget the exact number. I know several of the other board members were there um and did some volunteering and helped with the raffle, that sort of thing. Uh I also attended You're in Town, the musical. Uh I will say Bill's assessment is good. Interesting. It it definitely knew that it's not a serious musical and takes itself to the right level. It was very well done. Lots of tongue-in-cheek jokes, that sort of thing. Um, and I attended last week's uh NSSEO meeting. You all got my notes and my report and we have an action item this evening uh to ratify the modified agreements that we've spent months now discussing. Uh they were passed unanimously by the NSSO board to be sent here. And I attended uh Sunrise Lake uh outdoor educational center, the harvest fest that they hold every fall. I will make sure everybody knows when the winter fest is for that. Yes, President Quitzer. I will make sure you know the date and get it in your calendar to make sure you you're all invited to to attend those. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Fioro. Uh Joe, it's 43 years.

I had the pleasure of making hot dogs and serving up pizza at that craft fair. It's a great event. [snorts] Even though I uh don't partake in the actual crafts themselves, uh I got to say Elgrove High School does a phenomenal job with that craft fair. It's just walls and walls of people selling their stuff and I do appreciate it. Um, I have uh DECA next Thursday at Rolling Meadows High School for the newbies. That's great. And last but not least, I want to do give a shout out to all the girls who are swimming at state at Westmont tomorrow. We have some great swimmers in our district and I wish them the best. I hope some come through for us. And last but not least, I want to give a shout out to my Hershey Huskies in their football game against St. Rita on Saturday. hope when they get to the semi-finals. Thank you,

Dr. Chung.

Um, yes. So, I'd like to also highlight some student performances. So, last week, Buffalo Grove held their coral extravaganza, um, featuring music from The Whiz, Wicked, and The Wizard of Oz. So, not only was the singing phenomenal, but the show was so creative and entertaining and fun. So, I just want to say hats off to Deborah Utley and the amazing choir students at Buffalo Grove. Um, also last month, Prospect Mar the Prospect Marching Knights held their bandama. It's it was their final performance of the year. So, congratulations to Chris Barnum, who was recognized at the event for his 20th year anniversary here. Um, as well as the PMK. Uh, let's see, uh, two more things. So, earlier this month, as was mentioned, our district hosted an in-person public engagement session to share information about our facility needs and receive feedback and questions from the community. So, I won't share too much now since we'll be discussing it later, but on behalf of the board, we just wanted to thank all community members not only who attended the meeting, but also took the time to fill out the surveys and respond to the um phone phone calls. And lastly, the District 214 Education Foundation held its quarterly meeting last month. Vice President Fiorto was there as well. I want to share two things. First, they welcomed their newest member, Bob Murphy. So Bob is a business teacher at Hersy. He um previously worked at El Grove High School and he graduated from Rolling Meadows, so he's very well connected. Um and they also discussed the foundation's four priorities, which is student wellness, um career pathways, classroom innovation, and fine arts. And they created some sound bites to really bring those four areas to life. So I want to share them quickly. So, student wellness, a student can't focus on their future if they're worried about their next meal. For career pathways, talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.

Um, classroom innovation, students tune out when learning feels disconnected. So, the foundation helps teachers spark curiosity and agency. And for fine arts, I'm actually going to quote Dr. Lopez. Um, he said this at the meeting. He said, "This is a fine arts district and fine arts is what makes us human." Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Did you want to add something? Okay. Okay. So, now we have uh department reports. These are not action items. These are just information items. So, I think Dr. Adaway, I think you're up.

Sure. Um, so included in your board packet is the September 2025 monthly financial reports. Um, I'll just hit a few highlights for you on the revenue and expense expense side for this month. Um, so you'll see that under local revenue microphone on. It looks Is your microphone on?

Oh yeah, sorry. Um you'll see under local revenue on the first page that um it still looks a little off and that's all due to the timing of property tax receipts. So the good news is we have heard from Cook County publicly that they are anticipating sending those bills out here in the middle of November. So that should square up here pretty quickly by the end of the calendar year. Every day I check the website. every day.

Um, federal re revenue, you'll also notice looks a little bit off from previous years and there are two primary reasons for that. Number one is, uh, last year was the last of the COVID relief funds. So, that is off of our budget. And then federal grants are reimbursements. So, we'll receive the revenue after we actually spend the money. So, that's primarily due to timing of spending the federal revenue of the federal money. On the expense side, uh personnel expenses are on track with budget and in line with previous years. And then if you look at purchase services and supplies and materials, you'll notice that there have been a few fluctuations over the previous couple years. And that really truly is all due to timing of expenses. So last year, we paid an extra month's invoice on several items uh by September, which is why there is a spike in purchase services. So there's nothing that we are concerned about in either of those areas right now. Um just because it all comes down to timing. And then on the final page, which is the fund balance overview, our fund balance looks low, very similar to what I mentioned last month, primarily due to the timing of the property tax receipt. So, we're anticipating that once we receive that additional revenue in December, um, that those levels will come back up in line with the previous year. Board members, questions for Dr. Adaway.

Okay. Thank you, Dr. Row.

All right. Thank you. Um, so I'd like to welcome um, Mr. Corbett to the podium. Uh, Colin Corbett from Eio Sullivan, as you know, is our as our partners helping us navigate the facilities and community engagement process. Uh, so we have just completed uh, phase two. Uh I know Colin will go over the detail, but before I'm going to take some of his thunder and just express my own gratitude for uh for the engagement that we saw from our community, whether it be uh we had over 110 115 people on each of the the Zoom and then we had about 75 people in person at Rolling Meadows High School last week. Um almost 600 people took the phone survey. Um and then we had over 1,700 people uh take the online survey. Um, you know, Sullivan has continually raved about the level of community engagement and, you know, as Dr. Chung said, I'm really incredibly grateful for that because we get a greater, you know, swath for the feedback um to help plan our path forward. And as I know he will say, I want to echo again, we are listening and the feedback really, really matters, which is why there's not an action item on on the agenda for you tonight. We are not committing to a referendum. we are engaged in a conversation with the community for feedback so we can shape our path forward um and address the needs of our of our buildings. So, Mr. Corbett, welcome and we'll turn over to you.

Thank you, Dr. Row. Uh first, I want to say thank you to you, your team, and of course the board for having us out. Uh and especially say thank you for your trust in us to run this engagement process. Uh we understand how important this is for you all as you make decisions about the future of the district. We understand how important this is for your community and so being able to be your partner in this to be objective and listen and gather data and provide it to you all. Um we take that trust um seriously and we appreciate that you've put it in us to do this. It's important to note that we are in phase two the conclusion of phase two of a four-phase process. So as Dr. Rose said there's still plenty of engagement that will happen. uh as a reminder of how what's happened prior till now in phase one it was a very open-ended process where we went to the public provided them information and mostly listened providing them open-ended opportunities to give their thoughts on challenges the district was facing opportunities that they'd like to see improvements that they would like to see. That information was then taken compiled with information from the district, from your external experts like your architects to develop what's called a menu of individual items for the public to consider. Making sure that everything in that list were things that we heard from the community that they wanted to see in their schools. And that's what we took out during phase two uh to ask members of the public what their thoughts were on the different items within that menu. The directive from the administration and from the board was that this was to be a fully open and transparent and collaborative process. And so during phase two, we intentionally provided all of the information to the public. As Dr. O said, no decisions have been made. And in future phases, refinement will happen based on the feedback from the community. There will be refinement on what projects are or aren't considered, the funding levels. Um, we purposely went out with all the information, but there's now work to be done to refine based on the data we're going to present to you today.

As Dr. Rose said, the engagement during phase 2 was tremendous. Uh, 25,520 community members have given their thoughts on this process. Um, that's a uh uh want to give praise to your community. That's one of the highest we have seen and it's a tremendous sign because the whole goal here is to get to every member of the community and make sure that they have an opportunity to participate. So whether it was the phone survey reaching out to people all throughout the whole week, giving the public a number they could call into if they wanted to participate, the engagement sessions at different times, different days of the week, virtual or in person. Everything was provided in multiple languages. The website was available for extended period of time for people to go on and give their thoughts. This was intentionally very open so that any member of the public who wished to give their thoughts could do so and as you see a significant number of people have done that and we have a lot of data to present you today because of that. As you see on screen we conducted three public engagement sessions, two community committee meetings, two online surveys and a scientific phone survey. All of which the data will be presenting you today. As a reminder of the three ways we gather data just as we start to go through this. It's helpful for you all as a reminder or for anyone who may not have heard this before. The three ways that we gather data through this process. The first is intuitive. It's called intuitive data. The idea is as people don't have as much information initially, we want to get their thoughts on what at least what they know now. How do they feel about these different projects? The best way to do that is through the scientific phone survey which was conducted as part of this process. The second way we gather data is uh the informed group, your community committee. These are people who sit through uh several hours of meetings, get a chance to ask a lot of questions. They're representative of every group in the community. We had a large room full of people from uh seniors, taxpayers without any children in the schools, parents, teachers, business leaders, community leaders, uh a lot of

representatives of different community groups here to give their thoughts. Um and I want to give praise to the district that many school districts uh will fill that room full of people who all will say yes to this. But credit to the district. They made sure there were people in the room who came in and said, "Listen, I'm a no, but I'm here to listen." So, it truly was a full discussion with members of the community from all ranges of of opinions on this process. The final way we gather data is to gather passionate feedback from members of the public. If they take time to get on a Zoom or come out to an engagement session or go on the website, that's showing they feel very strongly and they want to make sure their opinion is heard. And so that's what we call the public engagement responses. So as I go through this data, you'll hear those three. The phone survey or general public, the community committee, and the public engagement responses. We're going to show you that data in those three groups. So the first thing I'm going to do is just explain to you the data and show it to you and give you an idea of how to read the data. And then we're going to go through what all of it means. So, I've got a lot of slides to give you the full feedback, but when we review the data, we want to make sure we're reviewing all of it from the entire community, but first, I want to make sure you're able to follow everything that you've got in front of you, everything we've submitted to the district, and then of course, we'll give all the details to everyone uh at the second half of the presentation. So, first you'll see the a sample of the feedback form on screen. This is the form that was provided to members of the community committee and to people uh in the public, whether it was in the engagement sessions or on the website. They see all the details. Of course, too small here to read, but they had all the details in front of them when they responded. Uh, and you see 29 members of the community committee gave their feedback and over 1,700 members of the public gave their feedback using the feedback form. When you're looking at that data, you'll see on screen a summary of what we uh heard back from those two groups. Again, remember community committee, that's your committee of individuals that represent all the various groups in the

community. And then public engagement, that's everyone who either came to an engagement session or put in their feedback through the website. The first section of the menu that we asked them to give feedback on uh are the individual projects. And so what you see on screen is the ranking from those two groups. On the left, the community committee on the right from members of the public through engagement. You'll see there the lower number indicates that it was a higher priority. When we say what's your number one priority, that would be first. What's your 10th priority? that's lowest. So you can see on screen up towards the green side of the arrow is their top priorities. Towards the red at the bottom that's their lower priorities. And you can see on the community committee again I'll go through all the data later but just some highlights for a second. From the community committee their top three were infrastructure, mechanicals and safety and security and accessibility. You see from the public in their engagement it was very similar just a slightly different order. first was safety, security, and accessibility, then infrastructure, then mechanicals. If we look at the bottom of this list, it's a similar situation where there's similar projects just maybe in a different order. Uh the bottom projects for the community committee were pools and main entrances. You see from the public engagement sessions, um you see a number of items are grouped, but towards the bottom there, pools, athletic facilities, and again main entrances. We will analyze what all this means very shortly. The next section of the engagement was to ask people how they felt about a range of funding levels. Not only were the total dollar amounts given, but so was the tax impact for the average district household as we tested these items. As you'll see from the community committee, their top choice was the medium funding level, then the low, then the high. If you look to the public engagement responses, their top choice was the low funding level, then medium, then no additional funding, and then the high. Again, I will explain what all this means very soon. And I just want to give you the data first. Again, as I mentioned, we also conducted a scientific phone survey. This is

modeled and weighted by data experts to make sure it accurately reflects your community. And so it covers for anything where maybe more people in one group responded and fewer people in another group responded. They do their work to weight the data so that what we're able to show you is an accurate snapshot of your community. And I'll show you how to read that. I'll give you all the data shortly. So, I know it's small on screen. I will be giving this data in a second. I just first want to explain how to read this if you're looking at this sheet from our submission. First, on the left hand side, you see the demographics that shows you how the demographics match the demographics of your community in district 214, which shows we've got an accurate snapshot of the community. And that next column, we test how they're connected to the district. We also test uh their favorability towards the schools and which school district or I'm sorry which high school boundaries they are in to make sure we're getting responses from every corner of the district and every school's uh residents are represented in this survey. On the right hand side is the bulk of the data. You'll see in that top section is the individual projects. From left to right you see the favorability and then on the right hand side you see how those projects were ranked. As a reminder, we asked those questions twice on purpose. We first ask do you support or oppose this project? But then we say please rank the projects in order. The reason we do it that way is when you rank projects oftentimes it introduces scarcity. It's a tougher choice. If we say would you like to see infrastructure or safety or mechanicals you might say yes to all of those. Then we say okay now rank them for us and tell us what order you might put them in. Um that's why that ranking is so important. Same thing below that for the funding levels. You see the same idea the support and oppose and then the rankings. Again, I will give all this data next. I just explaining how to read it if you're looking at the data yourself. So, with that, let me go through now what we saw, what we learned, and what it all means. The first question we asked in the phone survey was the district's favorability. We asked, do

you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of your school district? We ask this in every district that we work with, every unit of government that we work with, because it's important to note how the community feels about the unit of government, about your school district. What we learned is that 85% of respondents of members of your community rate your district favorably. Only 9% rate your district unfavorably. That re uh results in a net rating of plus 76%. Just sure you quickly did that math so you get what net means. But let me just quickly explain. When you're calculating a net, you take the positive responses, subtract the negative responses, the result is your net rating. So for you all as a district, your net favorability is plus 76%. Let me give you context because that doesn't mean much if you don't know maybe how other districts have fared with that question. We've asked this question now in uh I would say at this point almost 100 districts throughout the state of Illinois and plus 76 is among the top districts that we have tested in the whole state. So this is a sign of the favorability your community feels towards the district, the work you all have done. Uh and so it's certainly a high mark of praise for you all and you should be proud of the number that you see here. Next is the individual projects section. This is where we ask the public of the projects under consideration, which do you consider to be most important and which do you consider to be least important? We do this separately in this phase. We'll bring it all together in the next phase. But in this phase, we purposely do this separately from the funding levels because what we want to know from the community is that if you don't have enough money to do everything that we've talked about in this survey and in this process, then what would they like to see done? What would they put at the top of the list and maybe what would they like to see cut? So that's why we test these separately. Even still, with these indiv individual projects, we gave the total dollar amount with the projects. So, we didn't just say, "Would you like to see safer

schools?" We gave a cost as to what that would require um from uh from the district and from taxpayers. So, that allows us to see whether or not they support the projects in a true scientific fashion. What we saw was a a really good sign of positivity in responses to the projects that were tested. The average net support was in the plus 40s, plus 30s. Again, comparing you to other districts, this is really strong compared to what we see in other districts. That's another good sign of favorability. The average net support, as you see, for the projects that were supported is plus 21%. Again, a really good sign. I'm going to get into each project next, but just overall, we are seeing signs of positivity as we go through this process. As I said, most projects are supported, but there are some that are not. And so, we are going to call those out as we get into some of these next few slides. Um, another thing to point out is that oftentimes when we do this testing in communities, we don't see this level of consistency amongst the individual projects. What I mean by that is we saw from your community committee to your public engagement session respondents to your phone survey respondents, they within the groupings, they pretty much all agreed. These are our top three, everyone said the same thing. These are our next two, everyone said the same thing. It's extremely consistent, which is one of the first only first of two times that I've seen that. Usually the public might say these four and then your committee might say these two and then you're trying to balance it out and figure it out. The good news, what this means for you is it's clear. The public has clearly told you what they do prioritize and what they don't prioritize. And so that's good news as we analyze this data. The top three priorities from the community, I'm sure you guessed based on what you've already seen on previous slides, are safety and security, infrastructure, and mechanicals. Safety and security saw the highest net favorability at plus 44 of any of the projects. It was also the top priority from the general public in the phone survey and in those who gave feedback at

engagement sessions and on the website. Your community put community committee put it in third. Um, and this carried across all demographics. I'm not always going to call out the individual demographics, but just so you know, we dive into the these results not just at the high level, but we look at the demographic breakdowns because it's important that every member of your community is represented. So, we don't just look at the full results, we break that data down by age, by gender, by where they live throughout the district, um by their ideology, making sure that everybody here is represented in these responses. We also make sure that not just parents are represented but also uh those who don't have children in the schools and those who previously had children in the schools. And so when there is something that stands out in the demographic responses, we will call it out in this presentation. Second of these top three would be infrastructure. It had the third highest net favorability at plus 30, which is strong. It was also the top priority for the community committee. It came in second with the general public and it was in the top three for every demographic as we dove deep into the data. Mechanicals rounds out your top three. It had strong net favorability at plus 21. Your community committee put it at second. The general public had it in third. And so all throughout you see it's pretty consistent. Just slightly different orders between those what the three top projects and priorities are for your public. Next, the next two in fourth and fifth we saw were steam spaces and classrooms. The community's feelings towards both of these were so close that I have to say they are essentially tied. We list them in an order here of fourth and fifth, but please just consider them tied because the public was incredibly close in their feelings towards both of these. Steam, as you'll see, was second highest net favorability, came in fourth with the community committee, was fifth with the general public. Um, we mentioned that it was high priority for all demographics, but there were a few that specifically put this a little higher. So, we do call that out. Seniors, females, and white respondents did say

that this was higher priority for them. So, we do make sure to note that classrooms also said head solid net favorability at plus 15%. It was fourth in priority for the general public and fifth for the community committee. Just like steam, this was high priority for all demographics, but there were a few that were a little higher than the others. So, we call those out here. young residents, middle-aged residents, males, and Hispanic and black respondents called had this a little bit higher in their priority level. So, that would be your fourth and fifth highest priority projects in the list. What we saw next were these next two categories, student support areas, cafeterias, and kitchens, and then athletic facilities. Again, just like the last group, this is that consistency we were talking about. Um, I would consider these also tied. The community's feelings were very close on both of these. For student support areas, cafeterias, and kitchens, it had somewhat positive net favorability at plus nine, and it was a moderate priority for all demographics, though a little bit higher for younger residents and Hispanic respondents. Athletic facilities was also somewhat positive net favorability at plus one, but you see that's pretty close there to break even. Um, again, a moderate priority for all demographics, but a little bit higher for middle-aged residents, seniors, males, and black and Asian respondents. The lowest three uh in terms of the projects you'll see on screen here, innovative spaces, pools, and main entrances. All three had negative net favorability, which is important to point out. Um, and they were the lowest priority items to the general public. Innovative spaces, consider that an eighth. that had negative -1% net favorability. It was the seventh priority for those who came to public engagement sessions or on the website, but it dropped to eighth with the community committee and 10th for those who responded to the phone survey. Polls had negative 12% favorability in in the net. It was eighth for the general public and ninth for the community

committee. Finally, and last was main entrances at negative 19%. It was the ninth priority for phone survey respondents, 10th for the community committee and for those who ga came to a public engagement session or went on the website. At the end, we're going to explain what all this means because I know I'm giving you a lot of data, but we want to make sure transparently for you and for anyone else who's watching and listening, we give all the data so everyone has it. The next section is the funding levels. This is where we tested three different funding levels for the public to consider at different tax impacts and different total dollar amounts. What we saw was first significant signs of favorability. Again, in this section, 73% of the public chose at least one of those funding levels as favorable. Only 23% chose no additional funding whatsoever. So again, comparing this to what we've seen in other districts at this phase. You all are right in line with what we with with what we've seen from other districts in terms of the breakdown of those numbers. That said, of course, people had strong feelings about which funding levels they did or didn't like, which we're going to share next. First thing we saw just looking overall at the data is that the overall range of what was tested was too high for the community. This was expected because we had to go with the full amount at first and then we're going to refine based on community feedback. And as expected, you see as we show you this data, some of that feedback as you get to the higher dollar amounts um comes back negative. And we're going to show you that shortly. We talk about how opposition rises significantly for that high funding level and so that will be taken to into account as we move to the next phase of this process. What we saw is that the low funding level in phase 2 received the most support. This had plus 23% favorability which is solid and it was the top choice for the general public. It drops down to second with the community committee. Following that is the medium funding level. This was the community committee's top choice, but it had

negative net uh uh slightly negative net favorability at negative6% and it does drop to second with the general public. Again, we'll explain what all this means shortly. Coming in last was the high funding level. It had strong negative net favorability at negative 38%. And it was the last choice for all community members. It's notable to point out here that with the community committee, that's often a group that will favor a higher cost funding level. When we look at some of our other districts that we work with, we did not see that here. Even your community committee ranked this level as third. So that's notable. We want to point that out. So what does all of this mean? Let me go through all the data and then of course open it up to questions and I can fill in some of the gaps that we may have missed. What we first saw was that overall you have a high level of engagement and it was strongly positive throughout the process. Certainly people have certain feelings towards projects they like or don't and towards funding levels they like or don't and that's great. That's why we do this. That's why we go through this process. But overall with this very engaged community, it was a very favorable and positive process which we appreciate and certainly is a a mark of um appreciation for the open way that this has been conducted. That said, they have brought forward some key questions that I know you all are aware of. Certainly questions we're going to have to answer as we move forward. First, what's led to these challenges? Why is that overall number so high? I know we've talked about that previously. We will certainly have to continue to talk about that. So, these are questions we will have to answer as we move forward in this extensive process. As we move to the next phase, what phase three will look like is taking all of this community data and constructing three options or approximately three, sometimes more or less, we don't know yet. Um, but construct options for the community to consider that takes all of their feedback from phase 2 into account. We know based on this feedback that that top funding level that was

tested is not going to work. We're going to have to lower those funding levels as we move forward to this next phase of the process. That certainly will happen. We also learned that there's a lack of support for three of the projects that were tested. There's others that are right on the line, but three clearly were not supported. That's innovative spaces, pools, and main entrances. And so, we certainly recommend removing those as we move to the next phase of this process. There's also one thing we noticed as we dove deep into this data is when you look at the engagement responses on the website, for a period of time, there was a lot of strong support for pools. Now thankfully because there was so much interest from your community in giving their feedback online it eventually balanced out and as you saw matched much of the other feedback we got from the public. But for a period of time there was a lot of support for pools which indicates that there's a group of people who really want to see investments in pools. They clearly or likely at least got other members of the community that felt like them to jump on the website and give their thoughts. What we saw, unfortunately for those who feel strongly about this, is that overall the public is not in support of moving forward with pools. But clearly there is some passion from some members of the community for this project. So certainly something to take into account as you talk to members of the public. For those who feel strongly about this, it's important for them to know you've heard them. The overall data from the public doesn't support moving forward with this, but we have heard those who feel strongly in favor of this. We also looked a little deeper in the data just on pools. So you have this information as you look at the phone survey response data that's broken down by by school. You can see unsurprisingly that the support for pools rises amongst Wheeling residents and John Hershey residents. It was surprisingly just ninth with Rolling Meadows respondents. Maybe that doesn't surprise you, but we knew those were the three that were considered for investments in pools. Um so we made sure to call that out so that you're aware of how those respondents

looked for those three school residents. We already talked about this, but again, as we move forward to the next phase, we recognize the responses from the community on that high funding level and the need to bring that down. It's notable that when you compare the pro the the funding levels that you are testing or at least that we tested in phase two and compare those to what other school districts throughout the state have been testing and what other school districts have put on the ballot and seen successful, the tax impact of the the funding levels that you're looking at is actually lower than what they have done. But because of the sheer size of your district, the total dollar amount rises to a level that certainly is notable to members of the community. We've talked about that before. It's certainly something we'll have to continue to discuss. As a result, we obviously talked previously about lowering that high funding level down. We also recommend bringing that medium funding level down. And so, as we consider, as we work to construct those options, we're certainly going to be taking the range of funding that was tested and bringing that down before we move to the next phase. As we develop the options for phase three, how we typically construct this is you're going to provide three options to the public to consider. Again, we have had districts that do fewer or more. So, I don't want to lock in that it's going to be three, but typically it's about three. That option one would be the lowest cost amount that accomplishes fewer of those top priorities, but has the lowest tax impact. Your option three would be the higher cost that accomplishes more with a higher tax impact. And in between the two would be option two, roughly in between those two. Again, as we take the data that we've received from the public, as the district works with your experts to further refine now that we've heard from the community what they would like to see as their top priorities, that's when these options will come together. So, we don't have all that yet for you today to present. I want to point out again what I said at the beginning that this open transparent

process is communitydriven. We purposely in phase two go out with a lot of information, a very large range of funding possibilities because we don't want to assume anything from the community. We've done this process in dozens of school districts, let alone other units of government, and we have had districts where they actually want more than what was put out. We have had districts that want less than what was put out. And so, we've learned to give a large range so that we can truly listen to the public and make sure that we're taking their feedback into account. As we move forward into phase three, we will refine now into much smaller smaller of a range now that we've had a chance to hear from the community where they're most comfortable and where they're less comfortable when it comes to projects, costs, and funding levels. But I applaud you as a district for approaching this in this open, transparent way because ultimately we can we can attest to the fact that you are listening to the feedback that was provided. We have certainly worked with districts where they've said, "Hey, we'd like to end up over here or we'd like to see this." I can say publicly that Dr. Row and your team have never once said that with us. They truly just want to hear from the community. And so that's why we're proud to to give you that data. And then obviously we'll take that into account as we go into the next phase of this process. Finally, as we look at the timeline of this, should you wish to move forward quickly, the next election that you could do a referendum is the March 17th election. That would require a board vote fairly quickly in December in order to make that happen. Um the community has shown based on looking at the data we've seen that if you move forward with a plan uh um that takes their feedback into account, you could move as quickly as the March 17th election if you would choose. That said, we did see some key questions from the community that it would make sense to engage them and answer. And so, should you choose to do that, you could slow down this process, not move that quickly. Um and we would

complete a longer phase three. Should you choose to do that, the March 17th election would not be possible, but you could look to the next election, which is November 7th of 2026. So, that's just to give you a timeline of this. Of course, we'll follow your direction on how quickly or how slowly you'd like to move to the next phase of this process. With that, Dr. Row, I'll open it up if if we're allowing questions.

All right. Thank you. I I think I I just wanted to to want to appreciate the detail uh that that you uh you brought to us this evening and just to highlight that, you know, the feedback that that I heard loud and clear was um community members wanting some specificity to the most critical need. Uh and so I've already charged our team with breaking that down for some specific critical needed uh projects both in the mechanical and the infrastructure area by school. So that way when we go out to phase three, we can paint a very clear picture of what these potential funding levels would actually get and what items we would be addressing based on critical need. We already were aligned to doing that, but the the phase three was is the opportunity to do that. So I just wanted to preview that we are headed in that direction. Uh and I appreciate people's patience and and allowing the process to play out. So board members, please.

Mr. Frito. Uh, Colin, I have a couple questions and and then one comment. Um, first question I have for you is I know you were excited about the the 2500 um residents that you had that that provided an opinion on this, but um that is less than 1% of our residents. And that to me doesn't provide any comfort level that the discussion we're having is really representative of our district. And I'd like to hear your comment on that.

Sure. uh in comparing your response level that we've seen so far to other districts, you guys are seeing a higher response level than we've seen with other districts. When it comes to breaking down data, let's take the phone survey as a good example. When we look at over 500 respondents to a phone survey, that's a solid community sample um that expert pollsters will use to test much larger geographical areas than this. they'll use 500 respondents for an entire county of 700,000 people or a congressional district or even a state. And so when you look at 500 responses being considered a high enough representative sample when it comes to data when we're looking at 2500 total, we're extremely confident in the data that we've seen.

Okay. Second, um in your past experience, uh what role does other referendums factor into your recommendations? And I'll caveat that by saying we have six feet districts in the two D214. Um recently three of our districts have gone out for referendums and passed. One even had a park district that passed. We've had two districts that um have gone out for referendum five times and they failed. And then we have one district that hasn't gone out referendum at all. With that being said, um my concern is that we have a lot of people that are overt taxed right now and they might not be too receptive to voting for another referendum. So I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah, it's you're approaching that the right way. Nothing happens in a vacuum. The good news is when we gather this data, we are asking people their opinions while they also already have that same context that you did. We're asking people who are now dealing with the results of those previous referendums that live in those communities and they've given us their thoughts on whether or not they support your referendum um or your final project if you choose to make it a referendum. And so ultimately, you're right to have those questions and concerns. That's why we do this the way we do to be as transparent. Here are tax numbers. Here's the impact to you as an average household. when they're giving us their feedback on those questions, they're doing it in the space that you've just mentioned. Okay. You sure about that?

Yep.

Okay. Uh the shortcomings I I saw with the financing options. One of the one of the problems I had was that um I like the putting out the numbers, the estimated numbers out there, but if somebody really thought that what they really just wanted us to do was the mechanicals. They really had no choice. It it really you we set the bar too high with the four, six, and the eight because if somebody just wanted to vote for pools, pools are only $100,000. So what number are they going to put? Did they put 400,000 because that was the lowest number. So So that was an issue for me as well. I I felt that, you know, we had some shortcomings with that because we didn't allow people to have choices of the of the 10 items. You know, if I only wanted this one, there's nothing there that would match the financing for that. So, I was wondering, are we going to look at that possibly for phase three?

Um, the the options haven't been constructed, so I can't really speak to what those might look like. I know the district's going to put a lot of work into refining based on this data, but when you see that the overall feedback was so overwhelming for safety and security and infrastructure and mechanicals, the total dollar amount for all three of those gets higher than the $400 million number. So when you see such overwhelming support for those three, that takes you above already that low number that you mentioned. Uh and so we're not recommending going below that number, but if that's the direction the district chooses to go, certainly we will support that and execute that.

Okay. Um my last is is a comment and um this is not meant in any way, shape, or form to dismiss the the efforts that you guys have, but um my personal feelings are that um I could not support a March 17th referendum. I think it's way too soon and I would like to see um more community meetings at each of the seven schools in which we would outline exactly what each school needs so that our residents and our taxpayers, our stakeholders can see what exactly do we need to have done because I'll be honest with you, um all of us up here h have visited all six schools. We we didn't visit Forest View and we saw firsthand um how bad some of our facilities are in certain places, but to me personally, I saw some of what of what what we saw as being wants and some of it being needs. And we truly do have needs in our district. And whether they were not taken care of 10 years ago, 15 years, 25 years ago, that's that's water under the bridge now. We we have to look to the future and not look at what we didn't do many years ago. So all I'm saying is that I don't think right now I am in a place where I can support going out for a referendum without making sure that we get more community input to tell us what they really feel and then from there along with my fellow board members what the majority votes on. That's where I think we should go. So thank you for your time Colin.

Thank you sir. Mr. Dustling what I'm going to say.

Um Frank, I take I take exception to the fact that you've pointed out that uh the board hasn't done things in the past and has let it uh uh go down. I take great exception to that. I take great exception of the fact that that I've been through a number of different uh programs uh and to include as I recall $60 million about 10 or 12 years ago that we used dollars that we got uh we have spent at least 5% 6% of our budget every year on on upgrading taking care of facilities uh making sure that the facilities that we have on the roofs that are are are air conditioning and heating are um up to speed, up to safety, and we get to the point where you can't do that anymore because you can't buy the parts for the damn things. So, we have spent a lot of money over the years, and I've been part of that, spending that money to keep this place running. And we've we've eaked out dollars to do things on a capital basis. on a capital basis. We've eaked out dollars where possibly maybe some of those dollars should have gone into rooftop units being repaired, but we eaked out the dollars because the community wanted to see a pool at Elkrove or see a pool up at Buffalo Grove or have facilities fixed up to speed that the state told us we had to fix because of safety and security in our gyms or we had to put railings down the aisles.

[snorts]

So, I take great exception to the fact that that you're talking about us not doing our job when you weren't here. That bothers me because I've been here and we've done our job and we've done our job damn well. And I will not back down from anybody else on that. Yes, we got 65y old buildings, right? We got 50 year old buildings. We got roofs. We got 2 million square feet of flat roof. try to fix a flat roof in the Chicago area. When the when the heat comes down on it, it starts leaking and uh you got to send out your CMA crew to work on it on the weekends or at night. [snorts] Doesn't happen. Take a look at prospects at windows in their library and all over the school. We had to replace those because after 55 years they were leaking so bad uh that there was water on the floor in the student areas. I take great exception to what you said Frank and I'm sorry.

Miss Baldino. Um I'm going to take you back to some of the data from the surveys. Um I have a couple of questions about the methodology here. So first one is is it not possible to integrate data from the phone survey and the online survey? How different were they?

They certainly could be in theory integrated but we purposely keep them separate because the phone survey is a scientific process that's accurately modeled and weighted to the community. The online survey is anyone can answer and we're not testing demographics. Just please jump on, give us your thoughts. And so one's scientific, one is is not intentionally. We want the public to be able to to to give responses. So were you to combine them, certainly that'd be data we could pull together, but it would no longer be scientific because the demographics wouldn't accurately match the community. So it's not typically what is done. If that answers your question.

It does. Um one of my concerns when I look at the data is that it feels very heavily weighted to just two schools within the district. Um, and those two schools from a demographic perspective represent some of the wealthier parts of our district. Um, is that a concern for you when you look at the balance of the data? Um, I'm I'm a little concerned with the demographic mix.

Yeah, and you know your community better than we do, so that's not a tidbit I'd be able to pull out. So, thank you for that. I would say that if the data wasn't so consistent across all three groups, whether it was the phone survey, the community committee, or the public engagement responses, I might be a little extra concerned. But when we see that the phone survey respondents, they their top three match each of the other group's top threes and the next two and then the next two and the next three. Because of that, I'm not concerned about um if there was a little more responses in one region of the district than the other because ultimately when we drive down into the data in the phone survey and when we compare it to the other two subgroups of data, it all is consistent which tells me then that it's accurate. And so it's an interesting tidbit. I will double check that because I'm glad you brought it up. Um, but based on what I've seen so far, I believe it's going to come back exactly what we see here because it's all consistent across the board.

Okay. But I will double check. That would I would be interested in followup on that. Um, and then I will just echo what Mr. Frier said. I I don't support a March um date. It's much too soon in my mind because I think there is a lot more questions that we need to be able to present to the public. we need to be able to educate everyone on on things and get very specific in this next phase around what the different funding levels would actually be doing. Um so I think that taking our time and doing it right is much more important than doing it quickly. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Dr. Sager.

Yeah. So I I have a quick question for the surveys just for a detail. the high low medium funding level. Was that given as a total or was that given as an impact on the typical residents? Both. So the same questions were asked of all people who responded whether it was in the phone survey, the committee or on the website or public engagement sessions. So everyone got the same questions and in all those questions they were given the dollar amounts and the tax impact. So it was all provided in every question.

Okay. Yeah. And I'm so first of all I want to say thank you. I I feel like the priority list that we're getting from the community is the most clarifying thing that's coming out of this for me. And it I think I'm proud of our community for saying this is what we want our schools to do because this is what I want our schools to do, right? And um I I think my my question would be more about phase three. I think for the details of the projects because we've done these broad categories they the priority list is the community says infrastructure mechanicals classroom but those are made up of many many projects some of which could go lower priority to something in another category that's the the category is lower but there's a couple items in there that should be moved up. So does phase three kind of go into that much detail or is it

Yes. So phase two is intentionally kept broad and general because as you said we'd like to hear from the public in general. Do you prioritize as you the top three infrastructure safety mechanicals but now that we know generally how the public feels we're able to then move to the next phase where now we can say okay we've heard the community they want if you're going to spend a dollar put it here. If you're going to spend two put it here. So, now that we know that, I think I mentioned this previously, it's like cutting an onion, and I love to cook. You cut it this way, then you cut it this way, then you cut it. So, now we're going to go the other angle and be able to, now that we have the data, we can go to the public after doing a lot of work with the district's experts and and architects um to say, "Okay, we've heard you. So, here's how that could look, here's how that could be accomplished, and let's talk about then how you'd like to see that." And it could be broken down then by higher priority, medium priority. I don't want to speak for the district or the architects, but that certainly could be done. And and I'm just going to reiterate something that I've said numerous times throughout this process. Getting the information for what benefit you see at each school is critical for the community because

right when the community thinks they think about this school, what do I what do I expect to see these changes at this dollar amount? What what changes do I expect to see at this dollar amount? And I think that really focuses down and uh you know gives us a chance to align what we're doing with what the community feels we should do and and as Dr. Rose said that's been the plan in the next phase. So we've certainly heard you on that. We've heard members of the community on that first before that can be done. We need to know what are your top priorities. So thankfully now we have that and now we can get into that level of detail and specificity. So a lot of work will go into refining what was done in phase two because we now do have the ability to do so. Dr. Chung.

Um, so thank you so much, Colin. Thank you, Rich. I had um two questions and a couple comments. My first question is, I might have missed it, but could do you have a breakdown of the number of people who re who ranked number one for each of those funding levels. So, not an average, but the actual count of no funding, how many people ranked at one, low, middle, and high. And just because, you know, since respondents were required to um rank all options, so there could be a pool of people who only want no funding, but you know, they're required to label something two, three, and four. So the averages can be misleading. So do you have that breakdown?

We have it. I don't have it with me, but I can certainly follow up with that data. Yes, it's we're it's um data in this realm is always presented as percentages or rankings because you're taking everybody's feedback into account. If you take account, it sometimes can be misleading, but we'll certainly gather that information and send it into the district so you have it. Yes. Thank you. And my other um I don't know if you already have done this, but could you share with our administration all of the survey comments that people left because I'm guessing that people may have assumed that their feedback would be shared with the board, but we haven't read anything. And I would I think we would all love to hear people's comments. If that hasn't been done, we will certainly make sure that

Yes. Yes. So, thank you. Those were my two questions. Um my first comment was so I just want to um share so at the in-person public engagement session last week and president Chrysler was there as well so she might have some additional things to say. So there are a few themes that we heard. The first theme is that people were expressing that the timing wasn't right. So given all the things were that were happening right now um there's a lot of concern about the timing of us coming now. Second thing which was already said before they wanted us to explain what was necessary. So not a long list of needs and wants what is necessary. And the third as already stated they just wanted more details about how the money would be spent and what's the return on investment. So I guess my general comment is um so as we think about whether or not to put a referendum question on the ballot and I know we're not deciding today. We need to answer a few questions and the answer to each of these questions has to be yes. So first is there a clear and urgent need that everyone understands and if yes is a referendum the only or best way to meet that need and then part of that question is has the district done everything possible to address the situation without a referendum? And then the third and most important question is does the community support it? because even if we did vote to put that referendum on the ballot, the decision is the communities. And so when I think so, I think the two pieces of information you're going to provide will be, you know, so helpful to all of us. But even what I've heard so far, I would agree as a whole, this is not the voice of a community that supports a referendum. So it is encouraging that the majority of people rate the D district favorably, but strong favorability does not equate to supporting a referendum. And so I think before we can talk about a referendum,

and I know this is already our district's plan, we need to spend time clearly communicating our district's needs, our urgent facility needs, and then showing that the district has done everything possible to meet those needs because otherwise we're going to lose our community's trust. So, thank you for your thoughts and yes, ma'am, the there will be a lot more specificity as we move forward. That's always what's done is we we've got two more phases. We're not even halfway or we're only halfway through the entire process from a from a um content standpoint. So, a lot more detail will be put out to the public. A lot more discussions, a lot more specificity. That will absolutely happen.

Mr. Heinman, nothing. Okay. Um, Dr. Chung was uh right on because um I think you just went through a referendum in your former district and Joe, were you on 59 when they went out for the um ad building? Um so before your time. So um you know I asked I asked this question a year ago and um I think our our life safety audit is due next year,

right? And so, um, I'm sure there's life safety projects in this document. Now, I I I know that we have to do those and that's a separate levy. Yes. For life safety. So, um, I'd like to know what that number is. Um, do we know when they're coming out to do that? I spoke with Mr. Julie about that actually this week and he said we have between January 1st 2026 and December 31st 2026 to have it conducted. So we have a specific schedule for them to be up. Yeah. I hope that um I'd like that information along with um the specificity of things that we talked about that the public wants.

Once it's conducted, we'll report out to the board what's on that list because we do, as you said, we have 10 years legally to Right. Right. complete that list. I I just don't want it December because I think that we we need that information sooner. Um so, uh Dr. Row at the Rolling Meadows in person, you showed a slide that showed the last 10 years of our uh um renovation. I can't remember the the whole dollar amount. What was it? It's just under $200 million. $200 million that we spent in 10. Correct. So 20,000 $20 million each year on average. Yeah.

So um back in the early 2000s this district spent 59 million with 16 million from the state which we're never going to see again um on renovations. And then I think it was 10 years ago that we actually constructed additional rooms which was the pool at Prospect, the theater at Meadows, and can't remember the third. Um, so that was and I I want the public to understand that those were additions. We're not talking about additions here. There's no additions to any building. I mean the pool would be addition but we're not talking about that because obviously with the the survey you see it was down on the list.

Thank you. I was happy about that. Um yeah specific data you know when uh Dr. Chung uh talked about that and it was a valid question and it is and I think we need to uh give the well I need to have that uh information too the specificity of you know what infrastructure what uh mechanicals what uh safety it kind of bothered me when I when I saw that graph about it was 13 people were absolutely opposed to safety I was like okay that's got to be a funding thing because why would you be against safety in our schools. You know, I um I think we all remember 30 years ago before Coline, we weren't really thinking about safety. And ever since then, um it's it's almost our number our number one and not education because we your kids have to be safe first in order for them to learn. And um I I'm I'm I'm really absolutely for that. um that we have our our schools safe. Um what I don't want to get into is that NIMI not in my backyard. I don't want I don't want um which is an acronym used uh sometimes when like if you're building an expressway in the northern suburbs and the people down in Cairo don't want to pay for it. Um I don't want it to get that the people up north don't want to pay for something out south. Um so this um um software that we purchased that'll give us uh specifics of what is critical and our needs. Uh uh board member Ralph when we were presented with this wanted to know we had that chart of red, green, yellow

and I I remember her saying this give me the red and what is critical of the red? Okay. All red is critical, but give me what is critical. So, I think that when we get to the specifics that questions will will be answered. Um, and you know, we haven't talked about bonds and um, there's going to be a time here in the near future where we'll all our bonds will be paid for. So, that'll that'll come off. Um, not sure how that would affect everybody, but I think everybody needs to know that. But, I think there's some homework that needs to be done here. and uh I I thank you for uh the presentation. Um very thorough and I look forward to the um the followup. Okay.

Ma'am, if I could just close with giving your district credit on two things that you talked about. Um number one, when you talk about life safety bonds, as you indicated, that wouldn't be part of a referendum that doesn't, thanks to uh a bill passed in Springfield, doesn't have to be put on the ballot. Um some districts just say, "Okay, great. Let's sneak that through and then run the rest on a referendum." and just don't ever talk about it. Your staff said that's not how we operate. We're going to be completely uh uh transparent and say that even if we're going to issue some as life safety bonds, let's talk about that tax impact with the public and include it. Not all districts do that. So, I do want to give your district praise for being that transparent with the public and that honest. And the second thing, as you talked about with the tax impact, we certainly could have softened the blow in our in our data when we said you'll have bonds coming off, so this won't be this bad as what we're testing. But again, the district wanted to make sure we were being as conservative as possible, giving the maximum cost versus saying, "Oh, it's going to be better. We have ways to lower that number." So, in every way that we've had interaction with your staff, it's always been be fully transparent and as conservative with the numbers. We know moving forward, they will be able to find ways to lower that impact. Um, but let's let's give people the more conservative numbers so that we're being honest and safe. So, I just want you to know that that's been our experience with your staff.

Um, Dr. Adaway. So when we pass a levy, we can we can levy for life safety. Yes, life safety is a fund that we can levy in. It is not one that the district has done, at least in recent history. Okay. But that number, we'll just say 3%. So if the district says 3% and part of that, does life safety have be included in that or can it be separate? It's included in it. So it it would reduce the levy in some other fund in order to move money into the life safety fund.

Yeah, I I think it's important for the public to know that too. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think the to officer just a bit of specifics as we as we transition. You mentioned the district data. I believe uh the debt rolls off in FY28 uh which is to the tune of about $4 million a year. So the district has very limited u debt reliability and would be debtree at that point. So uh it's a it's a point of fiscal management and we're coming to a point where not very many school districts in Illinois are are debtree but we're on the verge of that. So okay moving on. What do we have here?

Um in your packet was the uh foyer report. And we don't have to vote on that. It's just in there. And then we have um Oh, Dr. Hubard. Good evening. [clears throat] You ready? I guess.

All right. [laughter] Uh good evening. I am here this evening. Um and it's my honor to to present uh just some high level district data that has recently been released by the state. Um, and and I think before I jump into the the discussion and and some of the highlights that I'd like to share with the board, I want to acknowledge the fact that that this is year one of our five-year strategic plan. And earlier this school year, the board approved a set of metrics by which we are going to measure ourselves and our progress toward achieving the outcomes that are outlined in the strategic plan. Tonight's presentation is not directly tied to those individual metrics. that presentation comes later once that data starts to come in. But I do think that uh there's a variety of reasons that I'll touch on throughout the course of tonight's presentation on why these are important data points to highlight and to share. Uh really because they serve as some foundational um sets of numbers that we're going to utilize to measure our success as we fully implement the strategic plan. And because the state has made some significant shifts in how we measure uh student performance, uh specifically those two shifts that I'll talk about in a minute are the shift from the SAT to the ACT and the the shift in the proficiency benchmarks that were released back in August, I believe. Um and so the the purpose of tonight's presentation really is to give a high level overview to the board. uh teases out some of the the salient data points that are included in the Illinois school report card. And I think that that's important for us to share, but I don't want to conflate these data with the data that's going to be forthcoming and tied specifically to the strategic plan goals and metrics. So the Illinois school report card is released annually in October for the year prior. And so the 2024 school report card was released on October 30th of this past uh month. And I think it's

uh it's significant to say and I'm I'm glad that our principles are are here this evening um that that four or five of our six schools are commendable and one of our schools John Hersy High School was uh identified as exemplary. And in the bottom of that slide that that might be hard to see, um, specifically exemplary schools are the top 10% of schools in the state that have no underperforming student subgroups. And then the commendable schools are the schools that aren't in the top 10% but have no underperforming student groups and have a a graduation rate above the state's threshold. Um and as you'll see in a moment, the the state's threshold for graduation rate has incre in increased. This past year was the highest graduation rate in the state. Uh but you'll also see that that the increase in graduation rate here in district 214 was high as well. Exemplary and commendable are two of the four uh possible uh designations. These are the two highest. And so I think it's we're incredibly proud uh to say that all of our schools are commendable andor exemplary. So just a little bit of context for how we got here tonight. I think that it's important to say that Illinois made a significant shift in its uh student proficiency and student progress academic outcome uh tool. They shifted from the SAT to the ACT last school year. So last fall or last spring, our students sat for the ACT and that's what these data are based on. In August, then the state did a an adjustment to the proficiency benchmarks and they uh referred to it as right sizing the state's proficiency benchmarks. And what that resulted in is a a predicted significant growth in the number of students that were identified as proficient and above proficient. And so you'll see tonight that we'd like to celebrate the growth um but also couch it in the fact that that schools statewide and the state as a whole saw

significant growth because they changed the proficiency benchmark. Not only did they change the assessment, but the proficiency benchmark. I think the key thing overall is that district 214 uh their results outpaced state averages in a number of key metrics. And tonight I'd like to go into just a couple of those metrics. And you can see the list here. Uh what I'd like to focus on this evening. Uh to start with the the changing demographics in the district. And this is no secret. This was something that we talked extensively about as part of the strategic planning process and our growing multilingual language learners in the district. Um, you can see back in 2018, uh, students that were English language learners made up 7.5% of our district population, whereas, uh, this past school year, they made up almost 22% of our student population. And that middle graphic is, I think, significant as well, where we're starting to approach nearly 50% of our students were at some point in their education a language learner. And so, that's a significant data point that I think is is something for us to to be mindful of. And as we implement the goals through the strategic plan, uh, multilingual learner, uh, services and support is certainly top of mind and something that we're trying to focus on.

Yes. You don't mind me interrupting? Could you give a better explanation of Could you give a better explanation of multilanguage learner? Like if one [clears throat] of my kids who've always speak English, if they took a Spanish class in class in middle school, does that make them a middle a multilanguage learner? Good question. So a multilanguage language learner or an EL student as they're identified in the graphic are students who native language is not English. So they're English language learners. Okay. Thank you.

Yes. So, as we look at ELA proficiency, uh, as it reported in the ACT from last spring, uh, you can see that as predicted, both the state and the district saw a significant jump in the number of students that were identified as proficient. But I think some of the points that we'd like to tease out is that underneath the proficiency rates, the state is also tracking what's referred to as student growth percentiles. And so a proficiency rate is a snapshot in time of how a student does on a specific test. Their student growth percentile is their performance on those statewide assessments over time. And so it's kind of more of a story or more of a movie of the students experience. And uh as you look at the student growth percentiles, they are normed across the state where the average growth percentile is 50%. And you can see specific to the ELA portion of the ACT that 58.9 nearly 59% of our students met their student growth percentile or were in the 59th percentile. Um, and so we're outpacing the the state growth averages over time. And then as you can see just in the the the moment in time snapshot with respect to the ELA proficiency assessment that um yes, the state saw a 20.6 six jump in the percentage point of students that were proficient uh or above proficient. You can see that that in district 214 22.5% of our students met that proficiency benchmark. Similarly in math yes

must be a little slow obviously. Could you go back to demographics please? Yes. [clears throat] Um help me out. the low income in 2018 uh progressively went up until 2023 and then it significantly dropped uh in 2024 and 25. Do you have a can you help me out there?

Absolutely. So, we have seen a dip in the number of students that are identified as uh lowincome and there's a couple potential factors at play and something that our data team has had conversations with in addition to conversations with our feeder districts because you'll see that some of our students that are coming out of our feeder districts, these numbers are not congruent with what we see as students coming in and there's a there's a new process by which they annually have to apply for the the benefits for free and reduced lunch but also fee waivers. Um, one of the other pieces that is something that that our team has been discussing is that in the past free and reduced lunch and fee waivers was a married process. Those two processes have been separated. And so you have a number of families that would uh apply for a fee waiver and qualify, but for whatever reason either they don't they didn't apply for free and reduced lunch or their student may not eat, they bring their own food. Um and what is reported to the state for low-inccome purposes is specific to free and reduced lunch. It doesn't include students on fee waivers. So we actually have a higher percentage of students that are on fee wavers that are on a free and reduced lunch program.

So the the state changed the uh the gradient for that what two years ago and that's why it dropped. the process changed where there's two different application processes and that happened two years ago in addition to the fact that as we were uh coming out of um the the pandemic and then uh that's when the the split happened with the with the the two processes being in place for fee wavers and free and reduced lunch. Um but then some of the data team that that we've been looking at specifically in the last couple of weeks is um we have some of our feeder districts who have significantly higher portions of students that are qualifying for free lunch or filling out the forms for free lunch and and for some reason not necessarily that's translating equally to the high school level.

So So there is a process going on either at the middle school level or in our level being assisted by it that helps these people fill out the right forms in the right fashion. Absolutely. in their home languages. Um, and absolutely. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Hubard. I know we're talking about the school report card for this year, but we um we track the students that we're going to get. So, for the for the EL students, have we done like a five-year projection for every year of will this will this number grow over the next five years?

It will continue to grow. Um it is inclusive of students that are currently being serviced at our feeder districts that are English language learners. Um but then also um you know we have seen year-over-year growth at our international newcomer academy students coming in um and entering into district 214 for the first time um students in our community as well. So I we anticipate the number to continue to grow. Yes. Okay. Um, oh, I know it's somewhere. Um, the students who started EL but tested out of EL. Yes. Is that in here? I I've seen that somewhere.

So, it is that middle graphic. Oops. I'm sorry. Just flip back to it on my computer. They're not on here. I'm running too many things. So, the the middle graphic is the students that were ever ML. So that's the the the number of students that are currently in our English language program and the students that have exited from our English language program uh by virtue of their performance on the access test. Thank you. Am I on math?

Okay. Um so math similar to ELA saw a significant bump as predicted. Again just wanted to highlight the fact that the the student growth percentiles on math outpaced the state. not as high as they did on ELA, but they did still outpace the state at 54.9. And that um the district gained 13.4 uh percentage points from the year prior, whereas the state gain in math was 13.2. So again, didn't see as much growth in math as we did in ELA. Uh but that that our students were outpacing uh the the statewide averages. a significant data point that I think um deserves some some accolades at the the building level for sure is specific to freshmen on track. And and you can see that um obviously the the freshman being on track after their ninth grade year is a significant indicator in terms of their uh propensity to to successfully complete their four years with us. but also it's indicative of them to to m uh metriculate to a institutions of higher learning whether those are post-secondary um certificate programs or colleges and universities and from last year to this year we saw a uh 1.9% increase in the number of students that were identified as freshman on track and some context to the term is that students have received uh at least five credits throughout the course of their freshman year so that they've successfully completed first and second semester of 10 classes and have not failed more than one of those semesters in a core content course. So that's English, science, uh math and social studies. And you can see that that that number has ticked up for us to a preandemic level uh that that we're incredibly proud of. And that is really a testament to the work that's

being done at the building levels. Freshman on track data is in almost every school's individual school improvement program. And those schools have worked hard over the last 18 months to stand up intervention programs that are identifying um students earlier with their student solution finding teams and delivering interventions for students prior to them failing a course the semester and then finding a way to recoup that credit or remediate um the the loss of learning. And so, uh, really proud of the the work that the schools have done with respect to identifying students and keeping them on track for graduation. And again, it's a strong indicator of graduation. And it's also a metric that's incorporated into our school improvement plans across the district. The four-year adjusted cohort graduation is the percent of freshmen who graduate within four years. There's also a metric on the report card is the percent of students that graduate within five years. So students that need to come back um for a summer school or an additional semester to recoup whatever lost credits. Uh but this is a metric that we're that we're keeping a very close eye on. And you'll hear a little bit um when I highlight some of the school metrics that a couple of our schools really outpaced where they had been in the past with respect to their four-year graduation rate. But 92.8 is is approaching again where we were pre- pandemic. And then that's a number that we track very closely and that we're incredibly proud of anytime that we can move the needle forward.

Got a question on this? Of course. Um up on the right hand side of that uh pardon me, go back if you would or get to the graduation rate, please. Yes. It says uh start year to grad year. If a student transfers out after they start with us, do we lose them as far percentage or is that adjusted? It's adjusted. we don't lose them as part of our percentage.

Okay. It used to be when students graduated, when we hit graduation day, uh those students that weren't completed yet the summer and whatever else, yes, they graduated once they completed. Yes. But then they were not counted. It was not re reestablished in the count of our gradu. Is that still true? It is true in the fact that their uh graduation would be reflected in the five-year graduation. So the students that take any additional time would be reflected. So this is the graduation after four years and then if they graduate after the graduation they their graduation status would be reflected in our five-year data.

So So we do have a 5-year graduation rate. We do as well. It's in the report card. Okay. Yep. I'd like to see that sometime.

Absolutely. Another testament to our buildings and our student services teams inclusive of counselors uh related service personnel, deans, attendance facilitators, and classroom teachers uh is the work that's been done around attendance in the in the district. And uh Dr. Row has has highlighted this on a number of occasions. Uh but looking at attendance obviously making sure that that we're getting kids to school is incredibly important and and President Ker said uh then keeping them safe and then we talk about learning and so in that order is how things progress and we talked about identifying specific strategies across all comprehensive schools and the specialized schools about tackling our attendance numbers. And for the better part of two years, our teams have been hard at work in being innovative. We're doing home visits and picking students up and having regular parent meetings and leveraging attendance facilitators um and and providing a a multitude of resources and support for students to get to school and and what's that what that has resulted in is us seeing year-over-year for the past three years our average daily attendance increasing. And and Dr. Ro highlighted a couple maybe a year ago the fact that one of our schools had seen a a.9 percentage point increase in their average daily attendance which equated to more than a thousand more attended classes. And so as we talk about the district as a whole with nearly 12,000 students, when we increase a 7 percentage point from 2024 to 2025, we're approaching 10,000 more classes attended over the course of that year. Um, and so that's a significant metric that we'll continue to to keep track of and continue to work on, but I think continue to celebrate as we see the the movement. And what that results in is

you can see uh the state monitors two specific attendance criteria uh data points around chronic absenteeism and chronic truency. And so chronic absenteeism is the percent of students that miss 10% of more of the school year for any reason. And then chronic truency is specifically students that miss 5% or more days for an unexcused reason. And you can see in both of these graphs that over the past couple of years the the work of the district has been very intentional to make sure that we're addressing chronic absenteeism and chronic truency to the point where we want to see every other metric we want to see increase. This is the metric we want to see decreasing. And so you can see that a drop by one percentage point in cro chronic absenteeism is significant, but even more significant is a 2.5 percentage point drop in chronic truency. And so again, it reflects very intentional specific work around um trying to make sure that our buildings are places where students want to be and our classrooms are places where students want to be. Teachers for the better part of two and a half years have taken ownership of contacting and making being a point of contact with students and families on those first couple of absences and then leaning on our related service providers, our counselors and our deans, attendance facilitators really to take the reigns and address other attendance concerns. And so the work of those teams collectively have really started to move the needle in terms of students attending class and and us seeing numbers that we're incredibly proud of and and and uh motivated by.

Um I have a question um on your definition of chronic truency. It says 5% or more days for an unexcused reason. Yes. And with the environment we're kind of in right now where we have students that might be afraid to go to school, are we re-evaluating what is the definition of unexcused reason?

We are. And and uh Miss Kendrick's team has been monitoring that. We've been pulling data um specific to students who had 90 or percent or higher attendance until recent environmental changes in the community and and have dipped below that and and making um individualized learning plans for students reaching out to families. Uh and so there are these definitions are the state's definitions for these terms, but internally we are certainly looking at what we would consider excused, unexcused. Um, and then if there are opportunities to provide students opportunities to continue educational experiences and support whether they're in person or or not or how we can get them there has been something that uh Miss Kendrick's team has been looking very closely at and with related service providers, deans and counselors um and then building leadership working to get students to school or provide services for students that currently are not here.

Thank you both. follow-up question that then um are we when we look at this over the years um because the definition here is the state definition correct um you know are the reasons that we use for the district around unexcused absences um do they have to match a state definition? They do. Okay. So it will still have consistency even if we're managing attendance differently within our district. There'll be consistency on this year-over-year. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. That we what we do internally wouldn't reflect what ultimately gets reported to the state. They have very specific codes that qualify as excused versus unexcused.

That's all. Thanks. Yes sir. When you look at uh this graph and uh you can see what effect co had on us going into it and of course coming out of it. the average daily attendance and and and attacking the chronic absenteeism and chronic treny is probably our toughest toughest issue that we face. And those people that are involved with it, God bless you because uh you're bringing it down. You're bringing kids back to school and that's the only way they're going to learn. So, so it's really difficult. I know it is. And talking with you, Miss Kendrick, I know that it's difficult, but you're doing a good job. Thank you.

Absolutely. Now, I haven't chimed in yet, and I I'll have plenty to say um as as you go on, I'm incredibly proud of the the focus that our buildings and our school improvement plans and our principles have put to the metrics and and the growth that we've seen. Um but I I think, you know, the board provided our buildings with additional resources um coming out of CO a few years ago, an additional social worker, additional psychologist, an additional dean. Um and that infusion of manpower uh was a significant investment that is dramatically helping our principles um guide their teams and attack this problem. So uh it's it's been a long time coming and it's an incredible incredibly difficult needle to move. Um but I just wanted you to know the investment that you all made in into that is having an effect and and just as a kind of a return on your investment. It may be difficult to to see you when you grow administration and grow staff, but it's having a positive impact. It really is.

And I I I'll just echo that. I was going to say I can't take any credit for this. It's my honor and pleasure to be able to to be able to share it, but it's really Miss Kendrick's team and the building principles and their teams that have really moved the needle on this. and the the support of the board has been extraordinary in terms of providing us the resources and the tools to be able to reach out and to have the staff that are capable of making those connections and and fostering th those relationships with students to get them in the building. And really, you know, I I started out with the the academic progress. really it it starts with attendance and then once we get them there it starts with goal two in the strategic plan about building that environment that sense of belonging and then it's all foundational on how students do after that freshman year. It's why we care so much about that freshman on track data and then over time those ELA and math achievement metrics will continue to move commensurate to how we're seeing the needle move with some of these other data points early on. I have just a couple more slides. Um, this one specific to dual credit uh programs and pathways and and I think it's important to to note both this and uh AP is something that we look at when we talk about the power of students obtaining a college college credits while they're with us here in district 214. Uh there's this this concept of the power of 15, trying to equip our students with those 15 important credits by the time they leave us to make sure that that that increases the likelihood that they will step on to a college campus or step into a a cert certificate program post high school. And then more importantly, that power of 15 is that that they will progress through and and ultimately obtain their certificate or their degree. And so as we look at academic programs, dual credit and AP are reported separately on the Illinois school report card, but really we look at those together um as both of those

afford students college credits when they leave us. And so you can see that um what we see with specific to dual credit is that there has been some plateauing and and even a little bit of regression in the number of students that are accessing our dual credit coursework. And I and I think that that's something that we're we're obviously taking a keen look at. It's part of the goal 1C uh students transitioning from district 214 out of district 214. I think the the college now program that was presented to the board last month will certainly have an impact on that. Some of the work that that Dr. Lopez has continued to do with respect to goal 1C is uh evaluating our current pathway programs and some of those on an on a cycle are brought up for kind of revamping and so this year you'll see in another slide and actually in a later agenda item um some work that's done around the computer science and IT pathway um to make sure that students are accessing that and having more dual credit opportunities. There is discussion and some work being done to identify potential uh partners or options for dual credit partnerships in in music and fine arts and and what that might look like and providing more opportunities for students um in reaching out to a university about music specifically. They've talked about partnerships that they have with other schools around providing dual credit opportunities for students in in creativity in general. And so we're really excited about some of the initial discussions that are coming out of that goal 1C work. Uh and I think college now will significantly have an impact. And so as we look at the dual credits and the pathways, we do see a plateau here. It's it's nothing that is concerning us, but it's something that that we're looking at and wanting to continue to make sure that we're providing more access, more opportunities. But what you can see is that what might be plateauing in dual credit um is certainly outweighed by the increase that we've seen in AP participation. And so we saw

a 13% increase in the number of students accessing AP classes from last year to from two years ago to last year, which I is obviously significant. And and we saw over a thousand more AP tests given last year than we saw in the year prior. But our exam pass rate went from 79% to 84%. So, not only are we having more students access AP coursework and programming, we have more students sitting for the AP tests, and we have more students getting the three college credits out of those AP tests. Um, and when you when you talk about a pass rate for an AP exam, it's the number of students that are getting three or higher out on that fivepoint scale on their AP test. So the fact that we have on nearly 85% of our students are passing their AP tests, the the national average is somewhere between 55 and 60%. And so the fact that we're outpacing the national average is a testament to to the commitment that our students are making once they set foot in that AP class, but certainly the expertise of our teachers and their ability to understand the content to prepare students for the assessment and get kids engaged in those courses. um our AP teachers in this district are are doing incredible work. Dr. Row and I a couple weeks ago had an opportunity to meet with the vice president from college board and a couple of of um his staff members and and they spoke the first thing they spoke about when they walked into the meeting was the fact that that our pass rate um is extraordinary and and I think that that's a testament not only to our students but also to our staff that are preparing students for those assessments. And then I just wanted to highlight there's so many celebrations at the building level that is uh that that live within the report card. I wanted to tease out an an item or two from each of the buildings just to note that that as part of the work that they've done specific to their school improvement plans. They are moving the needle in places that the schools have identified

with their teams, their school improvement teams saying this is something that we care about. We want to move the needle on graduation rate. We want to have conversations about the number of students accessing our AP program. We really want to lean into the number of students that are freshman on track at the at the end of their nth grade year. And the fact that that the data already in only the second year of school improvement plans um is starting to show the growth that it's showing is is really celebratory and I think encouraging. And and while there's a lot more specifics to be able to highlight, I tried to tease out just a couple of things to share with each of the schools. And so as you look at the the ELA and math proficiency marks as a district, we went up, but specifically at Buffalo Grove, they saw larger gains than we did at some of the other schools. And so I wanted to call out the fact that at Buffalo Grove, we saw significant gains in ELA and math proficiency. at Elgroveve High School. They've done an incredible amount of work around freshmen on track. And I know that Dr. Kelly uh was incredibly proud when he presented at the school improvement updates at the end of last school year. And then as we've jumped into the school improvement work this year that a 4.5 percentage point increase in the number of students, freshmen on track at El Grove is a significant testament to the work that they're doing in addition to the fact that they've moved the needle two percentage points on average daily attendance. John Hershey High School. Um ELA proficiency and AP participation rate has continued to increase and actually outpace the growth that we've seen across the district. Prospect the math proficiency increase and they have more than half of their students in an AP course. Uh which is is I think unspeakable in so many other school districts. And the fact that they have more than half of their kids sitting in AP courses is significant. Rolling Meadows saw a 9.3% percentage point increase in the number of students in AP. Some of that has to do with conversations around auto accelerate and just telling kids that

they can do it and encouraging students and then once the students set foot in that classroom, giving them the support. Um, as you can see that 9.3 percentage point increase. Some might say that we might see a dip in the number of students that are obtaining that three or higher. Not only are we pushing more kids in, students are taking on the challenge. Uh but then we're being able to service those students to the point where to the tune of 85% uh students are passing those AP exams. And at Wheeling, I wanted to highlight two specific things. They saw a 7 percentage point increase in the number of freshmen that are on track and a 4.5 percentage point increase in their four-year graduation rate, which I think it might be unheard of. And so, um I think those are just some of the highlights that I wanted to tease out and celebrate, but there are so many more. And in the board memo that accompanied tonight's slide deck uh for this data report is a link to the Illinois school report card and I'd encourage you to dig into that. Um there there's so many things to celebrate and there's so many things that that that have shown the the buildings the the fruits of their labor but then also um there are things in there that they've identified as all right this is the next thing we're going to tackle. And so they utilize these the these data to really inform their school improvement process year-over-year and identify what it is that they think is going to move the needle for their students. The last thing that I've got is just the the the continuation of the intentional work. Like I said at the beginning, I don't want to conflate the data that was shared tonight with the metrics that we set specific to the strategic plan, but we are continuing to work on the strategic plan, the metrics that the board approved specific to the strategic plan and then unpacking and really operationalizing that portrait of a graduate. We've got a an admin workshop coming up December 9th where we're going to work with the administrators across the district about the portrait of a graduate and what that means and how we can measure it. uh and those that will continue to impact all the data that are included in the report card as well. I

think one of the things that that that that uh Miss Kendrick and myself and the building principles have have continued to champion along with Dr. row um sitting at the top and being very clear that that we are trying to strike the balance between providing the right environment increasing the sense of belonging for students finding alignment and that alignment work that we're doing with respect to goal one has been significant and and increasing the river the rigor focusing with uh Miss Craft on the innovation um Mr. Uli's team with respect to systems and support. All components of the strategic plan are playing into us continuing to identify what's best for students, making sure that we're focused on their well-being and providing them the access and the opportunities that they need to succeed. And then I just want to give one last shout out to the building principles. The local changes that they're making through their school improvement plans are significant and and I think worthy of celebration. what they've done in the two years that they've had school improvement plans and the the ability for them to focus in on a specific area uh to to to I think motivate and encourage their staff to have an impact in those areas and then see the needle move so quickly on the report card is really really encouraging for the work that's ahead of us and we'll continue to celebrate like crazy about the things that that are good and the needles that we move but we also do not shy away from the areas is where we need to see continued growth. And there's plenty of places when you click through the the school improvement plans and there's plenty of places when you dig into the Illinois uh report card that that we need to do and be better and and we're all committed to that work and to see everybody roll their sleeves up when we bring them together for admin workshops or when the principles convene their school improvement plans is really encouraging that we will continue to do right by the students of the community.

Any additional questions? Well, before we get to questions, if I if I could just chime in briefly. I just want to thank Dr. Hubard uh for the presentation. You know, our students are much more than a test score. We believe that and it's at our core in this district and the opportunities we provide for our kids with whether it be their pathways, internships, apprenticeships, um are a testament to that. And when I asked him to to prepare this presentation and just said, "Let's make sure we paint a picture that our kids are more than a test score." I just appreciate you did just that. And I, you know, I want to echo your comments about our principles. We have, I mean, we have the very best principles in in the state of Illinois. I could not be more proud of them. And when we introduced a continuous improvement cycle as our path to to improvement and we asked them not to shy away from from the fruit at the top of the tree and not just grab the lowhanging fruit, they did just that. and they rallied their buildings um for I mean we have over 100 staff members in most of our buildings that are engaged in how can we help um and you build momentum that way by focusing on on very specific goals. It's a in just two short years we've seen tremendous growth and I just couldn't be more proud. So great job. Great job.

Thank you Dr. Chung. Um yes, thank you so much Dr. Hubard and congratulations to our schools um all our schools for earning a commendable or exemplary designation. Um my first question so you had mentioned um that the state adjusted benchmarks back in August for to rightsize the assessment performance levels and I know our district played a pretty key role in that. So either Dr. Hubard or Dr. Row could you just summarize um the district's role?

Absolutely. I think I think it it it started actually before I think before I even arrived, Dr. Lopez um was connected with with uh the Illinois State Board of Education and painted a picture using some profiles of our students. Um, and and some of our students that that may not have been proficient by the state's arbitrary benchmarks were also graduating with a 3.75 GPA, 15 college credit hours, um, and and you know, creating a successful business in our startup showcase. And you can't say that taking dual credit and AP courses and finding success partnered with a 3.7 or 4.0 0 GPA because they didn't perform on a test on a single day at a at a benchmark the state grabbed many many many years ago because we wanted to raise the bar

um is not college ready. And so what what we challenge the state to do is engage in the conversation of what is college ready and what's a a a benchmark on this one day and time that comes closer to matching what we're seeing in our student performance over an entire four-year period to prove they're ready for whatever life holds beyond high school. And I think, you know, it's they're never you're never going to get that perfect. I think the state has done a good job bringing their metrics to a place that makes sense and aligns with the students that we're seeing that that may, you know, may may perform at the the new benchmark um on math and the ACT aligns better with the dual credit AP success uh and then their success beyond high school when they leave. So, we were we were able to provide a handful of student uh examples of real kids from all of our high schools um that proved to be college ready even though the ACT and the state benchmark said they weren't.

And I I just to add on I I think before they made the the right sized adjustments, Illinois's standards, Illinois's proficiency benchmarks were the most stringent in the country. they were the most difficult to attain across the all 50 states. And what it was doing was labeling students as not proficient, not college ready when the students were they had the college credits, they had the GPA, and they're stepping foot on college campuses and doing just fine. Um, and the the state embarked on an an 18-month process where they took into account so many more metrics from employers and and student performance on on work keys versus student performance on on the actual uh ACT and and ELA and and what the likelihood of them then getting an AB or a C in a college level course. They really looked at it more broadly and and and they they've coined that phrase right sizing the the proficiency benchmarks. And I think it it's certainly a more accurate reflection of what students are are able to do and and capable of achieving. Again, it's a just a snapshot, a moment in time, a performance on one day on one test. And this district has been the front runners across the state and arguably in the country in saying that students are more than a test score. And so even with the the proficiency benchmarks set the way that they are, we will continue to provide opportunities for students to demonstrate proficiency and readiness in a whole multitude of ways.

So the state board of education some sanity every once in a while, Mr. Dustling, they get they get something right. They did a good job. Good thing Dr. Sager. Yeah. So my question is about proficiency and the growth metrics, right? which are excellent topline numbers. Uh my question is always for a norm distribution like that, right? So there's the state norm and then we get compared to the middle of that norm, right? Yes. What does our distribution look like? Do we look like a normal distribution or do we have groups of students who are falling behind? Because I can I can imagine multiple ways where that topline number can move. Absolutely.

Have a bunch of students who are further behind. So, of the students who aren't proficient, yeah, what's their profile look like?

Sure. And it's normalish of a curve, I think. And and this is something that that uh Jeffrey and his team, Jeffrey Smith, did a ton of work to help prepare obviously tonight's presentation and and help me understand kind of where we're at. Um, if you dig into the the Illinois school report card, there's an opportunity for you to start to break out um the the proficiency levels uh by demographics. And there are significant gaps in performance across our district as there are across the state. And so we have um at Dr. Rose's request um you know accepted the the the the fact that we're willing to look in the mirror and and dig into those data and identify where our students uh aren't meeting proficiency and then and what we're able to do to provide them the supports. And so u there there has been some granular level in addition to not just comparing us to the state but comparing us to to like districts. I think it's difficult um one of the things that Dr. Ro had asked me to prepare for tonight. Um and and as you can see, I I didn't do it. Um was to to utilize national norms. And I think the national norms for the ACT are challenging because the ACT national norms include the the test mandatory states and the students that take the ACT optionally across the country and it does tend to skew the data. And so we we decided just to include the state data. But I think internally looking at how our distribution plays out and and the students at both ends of the spectrum in addition to the students in the middle, but then also finding like districts for us to compare ourselves to is important,

right? Because because when you have a a single cut like that, you could have everybody who's not proficient is like just behind that or there could be a big group that's way behind. and understanding the difference between and you'll see when you dig in, we have we have students that are that are far behind and and there are there are opportunities for us to identify and close those gaps for sure. Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Dr. Chong, you had another question.

Yeah, I um one more question. So, I know we had um Dr. Sanders, our state um superintendent visit recently and um that the state is currently um redesigning their accountab account accountability system for um 2026 including that um uh designation of exemplary how it's just limited to the top 10% which is kind of arbitrary. So I don't know either again Dr. Hubard or Dr. row. Is there anything I know it's a work in progress, but is there any updates that you've heard in terms of um what's been happening or the progress or what districts can expect once I guess the redesign is finished?

Well, the only thing that that that I've heard thus far in the feedback phase and on their listening tour. Um and I think what what Dr. Sanders has pointed out is uh a system that is is it's to be in the commendable category is such an enormous group and it doesn't tell a whole story. Um and yet if you have you know one subgroup you're deemed not commendable either and that may not tell an accurate story. So, I think they're looking to shrink the commendable category and expand some of like maybe the approaching category, which kind of puts school districts in, if we're going to label them, it puts school districts in like what what Dr. Seager insinuated to like almost that bubble group of kids that are right there on the edge about to be meeting and just need a nudge or a little extra support. Um, and that may be that approaching group that that that don't deserve to be designated as underperforming, but they're right there making good progress. I think that's the direction they're heading. We'll see what comes from the listening tour.

Thank you. You're very welcome. Okay. Anybody else? Okay, moving on. So, now we're at uh roll call uh items. So, we're 1211. Can I have a motion and a second, please? So moved to Vito. Second, Chung. Thank you, Dr. Ro.

All right, bear with me as I read a resolution. These are uh always easy to listen to and even easier to read. But as I said earlier this evening, it is we are approaching schoolboard member appreciation uh day and uh the district has a a history of uh of acknowledging that. So whereas school board members are elected to sit in and trust for their diverse communities and in that capacity are charged with meeting the community's expectations and aspirations for public education for their children. And whereas school board members are entrusted with the guardianship and wise expenditure of scarce tax dollars. They are responsible for maintaining and preserving the buildings, grounds, and other areas of the school district that the community has put their trust in. And whereas schoolboard members are responsible for providing leadership that ensures a clear shared vision of public education for their schools that sets high standards for the education of all students and requires the effectiveness and efficient operation of their districts. And whereas schoolboard members adopt public policy and give voice to that leadership and employ a superintendent to administer board policy, they are also responsible for the regular monitoring of the district's performance and compliance with state policy. And whereas schoolboard members selflessly donate countless hours to public service with no com compensation. And whereas employers are supportive of their employees who serve on schoolboard members generously lending support and time, employers give their employees the opportunity to better serve the needs of school districts and citizens they represent through sometimes tremendous sacrifice to the employer. And whereas decisions made by schoolboard members directly impact the quality of life in their communities, placing them in in the front line of American democracy. Now therefore, be it resolved that Township High School District 214's Board of Education that we proclaim November 15, 2025 as school board members day as a way to honor those citizens who devote so much of their time and energy for the education of our children. Um, with that, I'll kick it back to you, President Croitzer, but add one last time my appreciation for all that you do.

Thank you. Does this mean I got a day off on November 15th? You certainly can. You can take the 16th off, too. Oh, thank you. Saturday and Sunday. Great. Uh, roll call. Fioro, yes. Chung, yes. Spaldino, yes. Dustling, yes. Hinaman, [snorts] I. Sager, I. And Critzer, I. Motion carries 70. Thank you. Motion in a second for 1212. So move. Chong. Second for your

Miss Baldino, please. Um, this year, um, November 17th through the 21st has been declared American Education Week in recognition of all of the great educators across our country. And um, also during the same week on Wednesday, November 19th, education support professionals day is also celebrated. Um so we are joining with um the US Department of Education, National Education Association, National Parent Teacher Association, many other organizations um in observing American education week. Um and so I have a resolution to share. Whereas public schools are the backbone of our democracy, providing young people with the tools they'll need to maintain our nation's precious values of freedom, civility, and equality. And whereas by equipping young Americans with both practical skills and broader intellectual abilities, public schools give them hope for and access to a productive future. And whereas education employees, be they custodians, teachers, education support professionals, support staff, bus drivers, or food service workers, work tirelessly to serve our children and communities with care and professionalism. And whereas public schools are community lynchpins bringing together adults and children, educators and volunteers, business leaders and elected officials in a common enterprise. Now therefore, we serving as the board of education of high school district 214 do hereby proclaim November 17th through the 21st as the 104th annual observant of American education week and Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 as Education Support Professionals Day. We urge all citizens to make a commitment to public education

and to the future of our communities by visiting their local public schools and donating their time and talents to help make the public schools even better. Thank you. Call the role. Chung, yes. Frito, yes. Baldino, yes. Dustling, yes. Hinine, hi. Sager, hi. Criter. Motion carry 70. Thank you. Motion in a second for 1213, please. So moved. Second. Is this you, Dr. Adaway? Thank you.

So for the past several years, the state board of ed has administered the school maintenance project grant, which is a dollar for-doll uh matching grant up to $50,000 for maintenance projects that align with state priorities. Um, we have completed several projects uh over the past several years that this grant has contributed to and we would like to complete and submit the application for the FY25 first round of this grant uh for the asbestous abatement at Wheeling High School in the student services area. Any questions for Dr. Adaway? [cough] Call the roll. Heinaman. I. Baldino.

Yes. Chung. Yes. Dustling. Yes. Fiero. Yes. Sager. I. Cryer. I. Motion carry 70. A motion in a second for 1214. So moved. Okay. Do we I jumped the gun. Was there a motion in a second? Yes.

Okay. Dr. Sager. Uh so this is to ratify the uh final draft of the articles agreement for NSSEO replacing the old articles. We've done a lot of discussion of it. It's uh bringing an operations board uh made up of the member district superintendent that will make sort of a first pass through on most items before recommendations are made to the governing board. It was felt that this will improve the cooperiveness of the cooperative. Um the only major differences since the previous draft that I sent you was it codifies some of that matrix that I had sent where this responsibility is the governing board. This will the budget will first go to the operations then go to the it just puts all that in legal language just to make edits. Um and then it allows the governing board to modify the articles directly if there was ever a need to do that without having to first go to the operations board. although typically it would start with the operations board and then it forces a formal review periodically. So th that's the only major differences from the previous draft. Um that's it.

Okay board members I I certainly appreciate um this I think this started when you were on NSSO Mr. Fioro and and uh Dr. Sager, I I appreciate all the updates and all the work you keeping the board informed on all the um goings on with this and uh thank you very much for for all your hard work. Um call the role. Fito, yes. Zager, hi. Alino, yes. Chung, yes. Dustling, yes. Heinaman, I. Citer, I. Motion carries 70. Motion in a second for 1215, please.

I move that Dr. Joe Sager be appointed the delegate and Dr. Vicky Chung to be appointed to alternate delegate to the 2025 IASB delegate assembly on behalf of district 214 and that Dr. Joe Sager or Dr. Vicky Chung be granted the authority to vote on the IASB constitutional amendments and resolutions in accordance with the consensus of the district 214 school board on November 13, 2025. Need a second. Second. Thank you. Okay. Um discussion. Um Dr. Sager, do we have a consensus for this?

Yeah. So that's the question is so we should figure out consensus of the board of how the p this uh person who's the delegate is going to vote. So um you have all had uh access to the constitutional amendments, the single resolution for the IASB uh delegate assembly, the two officers of uh being brought forward. Should I vote as recommended by the the uh IASB committees? I I would certainly approve that

after reviewing it six times. Absolutely. [laughter] You you I'm fine with that. Anyone else? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Call the RO. Fioro. Yes. Baldino. Yes. Chung. Yes. Dustling. Yes. Heinaman. I. Sager. I. And Citer. I. Motion carries 70. I just looked at the second page. Um, yeah, I know. Okay. Um motion and a second for 1216, please. So moved. Fiorto. Second. Chung. Discussion. Call the role. Fito. Yes. Chung. Yes. Baldino.

Yes. Dustling. Yes. Hineman. I. Sager. Hi. Quiter. I. Motion carries 70. Motion and second for 121 please. So moved. Second. Motion in a second. Dr. Adaway.

Thank you. Uh, tonight I am presenting the 2025 tenative tax levy for district 214. Um, this is an annual required component of our fiscal planning process, and represents the district's formal request for property tax revenue for the upcoming tax year. Uh, my goal tonight is to walk you through the mechanics of the levy, why we seek the amounts we do, and our recommendation for the 2025 levy. So, what is a tax levy? Well, a levy is simply the district's formal request for property tax dollars. Uh, we submit a levy to the county for each fund in whole dollars. So, this graphic on this slide illustrates the full tax cycle. So, first, the board approves the budget and that determines the district's expenditures. Second, the levy is filed with the county, which is our revenue request for those expenditures. Then the county then calculates tax rates based on the equalized assessed valuation, applies the county multiplier, and then issues the property tax bills. So finally, those revenues are collected and then used to support district operations. So why do property taxes matter so much? Well, for most Northern Illinois school districts, including district 214, taxes are the largest and most stable source of revenue in our budget. So in our budget they account for about 82% of our projected revenue and they fund core instructional support, transportation and operational services that we provide to our students every day. So one concept that's brought up quite frequently when we talk about the levy is the tax cap um which refers to the property tax extension limitation law or PTEL. So, PETAL was enacted to allow for predictable growth in revenue that reflects inflation while preventing excessive increases in property taxes. It limits the year-over-year growth in

property tax revenue to the lesser of 5% or the rate of inflation or CPI, consumer price index. And you can see on the chart below that in most years CPI is below that 5% cap. But in 2021 and 2022, inflation did exceed 5% and we were capped on our levy at that 5% mark. So while I talked a little bit about the purpose of PEL and what it does, I also want to emphasize what PEL does not do. So PEL does not cap individual property assessments. It also does not cap individual property tax bills and it does not it is not applied to new property that is coming on the tax roles for the first time. So, if the tax extension is generally going to be reduced to CPI, why would the district request more? Well, the truth is we never actually expect to receive that additional amount that we requested. But there are several factors during this process that are unknown or unconfirmed at the time that we submit the levy to the county. That includes the assessed value of existing property, new growth, and then the Cook County multiplier. So each of these factors significantly influences potential tax extension for each individual fund and we need to hedge against any variations or changes or fluctuations to those factors. So once they're known, the county actually reduces our levy to the allowable levels before extending the taxes to the community. So why is it so important that our levy includes the full amount that's available? While underleving has long-term consequences for the school district, a single year of levying below the legal limit lowers our revenue base in all subsequent years. PEL is a compounding system where each levy is calculated on the previous year's extension. So any one-year reduction creates an ongoing reduction every year thereafter. It reduces our ability to keep up with inflation. It puts pressure

on the operating budget and over time could lead to cuts or deferrals of programs. So in short, levy at the limit doesn't increase taxes beyond what the law allows, but levying below the limit could permanently decrease revenue capacity for the district. District 214 intersects with tiff tiff districts across eight municipalities. So in a tiff district, any growth in EAV is diverted away from the school district and into the tiff fund for 23 years. That means that for this period of time, we don't receive the full benefit of new development within our boundaries. Now, we monitor tiff activity because it can significantly affect our long-term revenue picture and the tax burden distribution among other taxpayers. So, the chart on this slide includes data from tax year 2023 because the 2024 data is not available on the county website yet. But at that time, there were 21 tiff districts within our boundaries. But since then, two tiffs have ended. one in Elkrove and one in Wheeling. And we also just received notice from Rolling Meadows that the city intends to terminate the Kirchoff Road TIFF on December 31st of this year. So it will be coming back on in the 2026 tax year. Now, in addition to TIFF districts, property tax appeals continue to be a significant factor in Cook County and District 214 intervenes on appeals that could result in large refunds from the operating budget. Now, since 1998, District 214 has intervened on more than 1,000 cases, which has preserved more than $31.8 million in revenue for the district. This is necessary to ensure fairness across the remaining taxpayers in the district and to protect us from against large unexpected revenue losses each year. Now the budget and levy processes are intertwined but one of the factors that can make them feel like separate processes is the timing of each one. So

the budget is adopted every September but the tax levy to pay for the approved expenses in those budget is adopted in December. Further complicating the process is the fact that each levy directly impacts two budget years. So, as shown in this graphic, part of the 2025 levy will contribute to this current year's fiscal year 26 budget, and the remainder will actually contribute to the fiscal year 27 budget for next year. Because both the budget and the levy are part of the district's annual financial plan, neither can be completed in isolation of the other. So, a really simplistic view of this relationship is to say that the adoption of the budget is the approval of the district's expenses. The adoption of the tax levy is the approval of the revenue to pay for those expenses. And because the timing of the adoptions where essentially the spending plan is approved before the revenue plan, the tax levy is truly determined six or more months before it's actually finally adopted by the board. So let's get into the 2025 tax levy. So as I mentioned earlier, there are both known and unknown factors when we complete the levy. And for 2025, our known variable is CPI, 2.9%. Our major estimates for the levy include current EAV growth, uh, which we've included at approximately 12%, which reflects strong increases in assessed valuation, and then new property estimated at 70 million, which is consistent with the 5-year average. Now, additionally, during development of this levy, we stress tested the levy with a wide range of new property and EAV growth, including a reduction in property values. And we're confident that the levy as it's being presented tonight can withstand significant fluctuations in both of those factors. So, this chart actually shows the tenative levy for 2025 along with a comparison to last year's extension. So the unshaded column that's in the middle

shows the 2025 tenative levy as it's being presented tonight. The total levy increase over the prior year including debt service is 4.94%. That does not mean however that we're increasing property tax bills by 4.94%. As we discussed, there are a lot of unknowns during the adoption of this levy and the levy is developed strategically to withstand fluctuations in all of those unknown factors. So the shaded column to the right is the projected extension assuming all of the assumptions that I showed you on the previous slide are correct. So in this case, we would expect the county clerk to reduce our total levy increase to approximately 3.44% when it's extended to the community. But again, this is not a 3.44% increase to property tax bills. That percentage is the year-over-year change to the total property tax revenue the district will receive. how it's distributed among individual bills is dependent on the interaction of individual property assessments within district boundaries. Now, this change is higher than the CPI of 2.9% that we discussed earlier, but the primary reason for that is the inclusion of new property, which adds new revenue to the property tax extension, causing a year-over-year change that is higher than the CPI number. The cap for existing properties in total is 2.9%. But new property causes the revenue we receive to be higher than the cap. So because our levy is below 5%, we are not required by statute to hold a truth and taxation hearing. But in the interest of transparency, we are still planning to hold a public hearing at the December board meeting prior to board approval of the final levy. So once approved, we will then submit the final levy to the county clerk by the deadline on December 30th. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions from the board. Board members.

Dr. Sager. So, can you go back one slide? So, do you happen to remember what the 2024 CPI cap was? It was 3.4%. It was 3.4 and the levy wound up going up by 3.95. Correct. Okay. So, that represents that that's the new property. New property. Yeah. So, the number you'll want to look at for that um is the capped extension. So, that's the second one above. I think it's 3.99%. Uh bonded interest is not included in that CPI cap. Um so yes, it was an increase from 3.4% up to 3.99 because of new property that year. Yeah, Dr. Chuck.

Um thank you Dr. Adaway. I really appreciate that you included slides on why the district overestimates the levy because it's definitely a topic that's come up in the community and often as a criticism of our district. So one thing that you said I just want to highlight. So, PEL limits how much our levy can increase in a given year, the lesser of 5% or um CPI and home rule taxing bodies are not subject to pel meaning villages like Arlington Heights, u Mount Prospect, Elcro Village, they are not subject to PEL. So, um just throwing it out there because some people might not be familiar with PEL and how it's how it restricts us. Um the sec

Oh, no, please. The second thing I want to quickly say, so we need this is exactly what you said that we need to set the levy before certain numbers are set. So the EAV um new property values in the multiplier. So because we don't have those actual numbers exactly like you said, we have to estimate them and even if we overestimate them, PAL limits us again to the lesser of 5% or CPI plus new growth. Yeah,

that is correct. That is typically why we overestimate the levy because the county clerk will always reduce our levy to the allowable amount. They will not, however, increase our levy to the allowable amount. So, we need to put in a levy request that is higher than what we believe we are going to get to allow the county clerk to reduce it once all of those unknown factors are known. You made a really good point about u not every taxing body being subject to pel and actually not every school district in Illinois is subject to pel. It depends on the county where you live. So, a lot of southern Illinois school districts are actually not in PEL counties, so they are not subject to the same uh requirements that we are in Northern Illinois. Thank you.

Anyone else? You kind of glossed over the um when we intervene. You want to go back to that slide? The interventions.

The interventions since 1998. I you know I I think that um people kind of forgot about this. When we intervene that means all the other taxing bodies get the benefit of us intervening in these appeals. Now these aren't homeowners. These are you know large corporations that appeal and um and so this really we're it benefits the homeowner too because then their taxes aren't going up. I mean, if we ask for a $100 and somebody gets an appeal and that that that takes it down $ five dollar, well, everybody else picks up that $ five dollar and and I really want to stress that we've been really diligent on this. I didn't realize it was 98. I knew it was a while ago, but um we're we're still going at it. And 3.31 million or almost 32 million is uh um that's a staggering number and I didn't realize how big it was. And the other the other point I wanted to make is yes, we ask for more but we never get what we ask for. Yeah. There we used to have a chart of that what they ask and what we got. So um we've never um it's always been much lower.

Okay. Anybody else? I believe it was John Ratliff that started doing that when he was on the board in 1998. He was a wizard when it came to uh working with uh the Wheeling Township. Brought all those bank records and dollars together. Plus, he was a guy that initiated this. I'm almost sure. Thank you. He was the man that um eliminated um that township treasurer. Yeah, I remember that. Okay. Call the RO. Dustling. Yes. I. Palino. Yes, Chung. Yes, Fiorito. Yes, Sager. I Citer I.

Motion carries 70. A motion in a second for 1222, please. So move. Second. Ch. Um, Dr. Adaway. Anything? Uniforms? No. Where anybody have anything? No. And uniforms. Okay. Call a roll. Hinimman. Hi. Chung. Yes. Valdino. Yes. Dustling. Yes. Fioro, yes. Sager, I cryer I. Motion carries 70. Motion in a second for 1223. Approved. Fito. Second.

Dr. Adaway. So, in an effort to strengthen our internal controls related to our PECART workflows and processes, we asked our district auditor, Baker Tilly, to give us a statement of work that's focused on enhancing um our workflows and identifying opportunities for improvement in the process. So, what you will see in the statement of work that's in your board packet is that Baker Tilly is planning to assess the internal controls and approval hierarchies related to PECARD transactions. They're going to review card holder usage and documentation and then identify any potential gaps or inefficiencies. With that process, they're going to give us a comprehensive report of the findings and then actionable recommendations for us to make improvements to our process and and internal controls in the pecards.

Do you know what the date is on that? Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Sorry. When will they when when is it due? Uh assuming that the board approves this tonight, we have a kickoff meeting scheduled with them tomorrow and it should be done within a two to three month window. Okay, good. Call the role. Yes. I Yes. Chung, yes. Dustling, yes. Sager, I croer I. Motion carries 70. Thank you. Uh motion to approve 1224, please. Motion to approve. Second, Chan.

Motion in a second. Um Dr. Row, anything on the noise compatibility commission? Just uh updating the agreement? Nothing to add. Nothing to add. Um I'm really happy that we're still a part of this. I remember when Elkrove High School was awarded uh soundproofing and it was a pretty big deal and it was it was a expensive but it was well worth it at the high school. Um call the roll. Baldino, yes. Chung, yes. Dustling, yes. Frito, yes. Hinaman, I. Sager, I

motion carries 70. Motion and a second for 1225, please. So move. Chong. Second. Fito. Call the role. Chung. Yes. Frito. Yes. Baldino. Yes. Destling. Yes. Hinineman. I. Sager. Hi. Quiter. I. Motion carry 70. Thank you. Um motion in a second for 1226. So moved. Second. Call the roll. Dustling. Yes. Baldino. Yes. Chung. Yes. Fto. Yes. Hinaman. I. Sager.

Hi. And Croitzer. I. Motion carries. 70. Motion in a second for 1231. Please. Motion to approve. Second. Okay. We talked about this in close session. Don't think there's any discussion. Call the roll, please. Baldino. Yes, Chung. Yes, Dustling. Yes, Verito. Yes, Hinineman. I Sager. I croer I. Motion carries 70. Sorry. Bewitching hour. Um motion in a second for 1241, please. Motion Fiorto. Second, Chong. U Dr. Hubard.

Yes. Um I'm here this evening uh with uh a proposal that we're seeking the board's approval on related to the summer experience for the summer of 2026. This is inclusive of three uh four main uh points in as we prepare for the summer experience. The first is the identification of the locations. Uh summer school the vast majority of it will be hosted at Prospect High School this summer. Then we will offer ESY programming here at Specialized. Um there is discussion and potential that we might add a third site for ESY, but without um knowing all the implications uh in terms of transportation and and oversight, right now we're here tonight with just the two locations. So we're looking to host Pro um Prospect High School and then Specialized Schools to host ESY. We have two summer school sessions. They run two different semesters. The first is from June 8th to June 25th. The second semester runs July 6th through July 23rd. in there is the the gap for the the Fourth of July holiday. It's also congruent with the gap in the the the break that we have in athletic programming. And so we we really try as a district to identify a window of time for families um to be able to unplug both from all the the summer camps and things athletic related, but also the summer experience. Then two components that that we're here tonight seeking approval for uh specific to the cost of summer school. Uh I don't obviously we have some new board members here but last year Dr. Lopez presented that the the the fees for summer school had not risen in a number of years and so they did a study of surrounding districts. Um, some charge zero dollars for their summer experience, some charge upwards of $450 for their summer experience. And so without having adjusted fees for a long time, uh, there was not a recommendation to make significant jump, uh, but a plan put in place for the next, I think it's four

years, maybe five, um, to incrementally increase fees over the time. And so you'll see this past year uh summer school fees were $211 and the recommendation tonight is to increase that to $228 um for the credit recovery courses and some of the other programs knowing that our bridge program students coming from 8th grade and 9th grade. Our international newcomer academy program and our ESY students uh and in addition to the students that are on fee wavers are not charged that $228 fee. So there are some programs that don't uh encumber that fee. Uh but the $228 is the recommendation. And then again last year we did a pretty comprehensive look at the transportation fee associated with the summer experience. Made an adjustment last year that was a a relatively significant adjustment. Um not wanting to pass another adjustment on to the community. Our recommendation is to keep uh the transportation fee consistent from last year to this year or this coming year. Um, so the $84 for transportation. So our recommendation is tonight uh is to approve the 2026 summer experience program, the fees and the sites uh of Mount Prospect or Prospect High School and Specialized Schools

discussion. Okay, call the roll. Fioro, yes. Chung, yes. Baldino, yes. Dustling, yes. Einman I Ser I Greater I motion carries 70. Thank you. Motion in a second for 1242 please. So moved. Second. Anything on this Dr. Hubard?

Uh just real briefly. Uh back in September the board approved the purchase of 2310 Bluebird Lane in Rolling Meadows as the site of our next pack house project. The next step after securing the property is the identification of an architectural uh partner to help us start the the blueprints, the plans, the permitting. Um we've identified Leot Architects uh which is a local organization. Uh Matthew, Michael Lundine was here until about 20 minutes ago um tonight. He's one of the architects that's been assigned to our project. He's a a district 214 resident and uh parent of two graduated prospect students. Um really excited to dig into the the property over there and we're seeking approval for the contract of Legot Associates to serve as the architectural partner for our next pack house.

I can't remember Leot doing work for us in the past. It's it's been a while I think. Um it's okay. You don't need to know that. That's different than the partner that we have for this this project that we're currently working on, but I don't know. Uh but that's okay. I have I have no problem with it. Um questions all the roll. Hinaman I. Zager I. Baldino. Yes. Chung yes. Dustling. Yes. Fritoido. Yes. And Citer I. Motion carries 70. Thank you. Approval of 12. Motion in a second for 1243. Please. Motion to approve. Second. Chong.

Dr. Hubard.

Yes. uh as part of the data presentation, we talked about taking a look at those dual credit opportunities and AP opportunities and and one of the program pathways that we've identified that's due up this coming January and February for us to take a pretty comprehensive look at is the computer science and IT pathway. Um, well, a little bit ahead of our our actual review, uh, AP College Board is piloting AP Cyber Security and AP networking as two new courses to be brought on to the AP portfolio. Um, AP Cyber Security for next school year and AP networking for two school years from now. And knowing the the prestige that AP holds, knowing that students are, as you could see from the data from earlier tonight, gravitate gravitating toward our AP offerings, we are looking to adopt. I know this is outside of last year or last month's academic programs and pathways approval that the board did, but we're bringing AP cyber security um a little late, but we'd like to add that to our pathway as an option for students. Right now, we have a dual credit partner um that we only have one teacher in the district that's certified to teach and it only offers students a single dual credit credit. And so what we're hoping to do is get approval to bring AP cyber security on for next year, which would allow us to offer AP cyber security at more of our schools because the teacher requirements for AP classes are less stringent than some of the dual credit partnerships that we have. And it would also offer students an opportunity to potentially with passing the exam to get three college credits versus the one college credit through the dual credit partner. So the recommendation is to add AP cyber security to the academic programs and pathways guide book for this next school year.

The only thing that I would add is that the uh cyber security pathway is one we've been looking at for a couple of years wanting to strengthen and really enhance. uh and this provides us an opportunity to get the capstone course while we continue to look at the meat of the pathway. So there's more to come on this front, but um really this was emerged from that meeting with the uh the vice president of of college board who presented us with this opportunity. We don't want to miss it. Yeah.

Questions? I'll just comment that I was very excited to see this on the agenda because I've hired hundreds of cyber security professionals in my career and um it's really uh it's a really important career pathway and I hope it inspires some of our students to go into that as a field of work and the the staff members and the division heads that were part of this conversation are really really excited about the opportunities that it involves and then the potential of bringing AP networking on after that. Okay, call the roll. Baldino, yes. Chong, yes. Dustling, yes. Vero, yes. Hinaman, I. Sager, I. Crazer, I.

Motion carries. 70. I I tried to get it done before 10:00. I'm sorry. Just just a comment. Um, at 10:00, my little pumpkin wagon with the unicorns pulling it came up. So, if we can get done here, I I'd love to get out there and let them get home. I think they have a 15-minute window. They do. Yeah, I see. We used to vote on that, but we don't do that now. We don't do that anymore. No.

Joe, um I know it's been a long evening and I thank everybody and I um the next time we meet is in December, but I want to wish everyone, all staff, board members, families to have a nice Thanksgiving. Hope you spend it with people you love, friends and family. I get to spend it with my granddaughters. But um a happy Thanksgiving from the board of education to uh everyone. Um motion to adjourn. So move. You want to stay here? Call the role. [laughter] [clears throat] Sager I. Chung. Yes. Baldino. Yes. Dustling. Yes. Fioro. Yes. Hinaman I.

And Citer I. Motion carry 70. Heat. Heat. [music]

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I love you.

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