Videos

July 2025 Board of Education Meeting (7/15/2025)

Added Jul 15, 2025 •

Copy this URL:
Embed code:	<iframe class="edlio-embed-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="360" src="//www.chsd218.org/apps/embed/?v=387136" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Change dimensions

Show Transcript

okay can I have everyone's attention we're going to call this meeting to order um this is the school board uh of Education District 218 regular board meeting Tuesday July 15th 2025 at The District Administrative Center and and um I need a roll call please Steve here Tom I am present here here Nora here Sheila here Candace here Jennifer here okay we have a quorum and we need to stand for the pledge not to be very much United States of America 1 nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item number 4 in our agenda an agenda is resolutions accommodations and so in the middle for Dr Jacobson good morning evening everyone we are here to begin this meeting acknowledging some pretty awesome stuff so please let the joyous celebration begin it has been the policy of the Board of Education to present resolutions of commodation to staff students and community members who have excelled academically athletically professionally or in their service to others we have 2 such accommodations tonight ladies and gentlemen I begin with the business Professionals of America team from Shepard High School Shepard High School business Professionals of a miracle team traveled to Orlando in May to compete in the bpa's National leadership conference the BPA has 52,000 members and more than 1,800 chapters across 25 Straits and Puerto Rico 4 of our students finished 11th place as part of the Broadcast News production team Thomas Curran Adam nilson Spencer Hearth and Paulina carozza they competed against 42 other teams before the top 12 finals were they were given 4 hours to produce a video from start to finish after being given a prompt the separate students also competed in other events such as advanced office systems procedures C+ programming and fundamental desktop publishing so we want to acknowledge this and say on this the day of the 15th of July 2025 by order of this your board of education we would like to congratulate our friends and students from Shepherd and their teachers Jodie Pelini and Jennifer Spelman let's hear it for these thank you congratulations congratulations congratulations congratulations thank you so much congratulations thank you thank you yes you did congratulations congratulations we have 1 more and Friends about me I almost always keep any student re uh recognition until last but tonight I think we have a special occasion so I'd like to welcome up here the Cook County Sheriff's Office Representatives who are here tonight I don't know if anybody knows this but you're in a corporation process some of our SRO things have changed but we want to say thank you to our representatives from the Illinois Cook County Police Department for being there to protect the Safety and Security of students on Shepard campus we're going on 50 years and we have 2 of those Representatives today the sheriff's office has played a key role in fostering safe and secure learning environment for our students and staff more than that their presence on campus has helped build trust students feel comfortable turning the law enforcement with concerns questions or for simple conversation and as a parent of 3 Shepherd students I can completely attest to the truth of that state now the shepherd has been Incorporated in the city of paleo sites we extend our deepest appreciation for the tireless work and support provided by the sheriff's office as we transition a new partnership with the pale sites Police Department we want to thank you for your commitment to our school and our students we want to thank you for keeping a safe and secure and we want you to know your service has made a lasting impact and you will always be a valuable part of our history we have 2 visuals here tonight I don't want to announce but I want to first introduce Tommy Hall Tommy Hall has been SRO so we call school resource officer at Sheppard for how many years 5 years this man 1 of our kids comes up missing the parents don't know they are we call him whatever he's doing he wakes up and he drives and said this man when he was working his Shepherd high school for all intents and purposes worked 24 hours 7 days in a week 365 days here I myself reach out for him and without hesitation he didn't give me anybody else he was concerned about that student he dealt with it right away also with him we have under Chief Marlon Parks so I just want to say as a member of this community as a representative of this board today on this the 15th Day July 2025 by order of this your board of education Community High School District 28 we give you our deepest thanks know we love you and we miss you and we will never forget you and we hope to see you in the future say a couple words say cans and Jake is amazing thank you thank you thank you congratulations thank you for your service thanks for your service thank you mate can you come out of your shell a little bit I'm dressed up well I told him casual right listen on behalf of sheriff Dart as a office we are humbled to stand for you and school resource officer we have never taken for granted because this is about relationships you know a lot of places are treated as security we never have I can are you over since my 30 years on the job each person who is sat in Tommy's place prior to him because we picked certain people who can be security to keep evil out the school but be a resource for the kids in the school and when I was Deputy Chief of Patrol when we were interview people for that job I never wanted them to be policing the kids that's what the Deans are for that's what staff is for my role was to build relationships my role was to be approachable so when you approachable to the police down here you're gonna be very approachable up here and that's what we strive for so I am very grateful and the sheriff is very grateful for District 218 because this partnership is not like like this everywhere in the state or the country you know you've seen things that happened to schools All Over America and everybody can Monday Morning Quarterback things and we do we Monday Morning Quarterback to see how it won't happen at our school and that's what we've done and hasn't been perfect absolutely not you know kids are going to fight kids are going to be kids we were all there at 1 time or another but at the end of the day are we developing young men and women so hopefully we did that and I want to thank everyone in this room because it means a lot and we're going to miss Shepherd and I'm sure we'll be there in football games yeah I'm sure we'll be there whatever's going on you know and you know to pay us you know we're the big brother to all the police departments in the county you know when they need help We Come Running and we would do the same for shefford so once family always family and I thank you so much on behalf of sheriff thank you guys very much I need a motion to approve the resolution second have a roll call please D yes Tom all right Carol yes Nora yes Sheila yes Candace I Jennifer yes yes okay motion carried um we do have a lengthy meetings so for those of you who came out for uh the resolutions and commendations if you so choose to go um enjoy the rest of your evening you may do so at this time thank you everybody for coming thank you um item number 5 is comments from the public related to meeting agenda items is there anyone from the public who is comment at this time hearing none um item number 6 is board members opportunity to respond to the public and or board member comments what does anybody on the board have a comment at this time I do okay I just want to say um the Blue Island parade I want to thank um attendant for his presence there and to Jacobson I lead some of the kids there we were trying to get an entire band we understand that was on a holiday and people have family um obligations but it is just really nice to be a part of the district that will come out and show support to a community and it was just really great and I'm looking forward to um participating in the robins um but uh again to see if we can get more of the students to um come out and celebrate as well but it was really nice and I'm I'm I'm very appreciative to the district to 18 for um spearheading that it was really nice dear father the car can so that was good I did not know no she didn't fill out the car we was nothing Stops I was worried you know you did a good job that's right to any other board members comments at this time okay we will move on to um item number 7 which is the approval of the consent agenda item um and I need a motion to bring it to the floor okay you ever first and second um 7 a is approval of the minutes from the regular board meeting of May 15th 2025 and the closed session from May 25th 2025 8B uh press policy issue number 118 that this is the second reading 10g excess work Workers Compensation Insurance renewal uh 10h request to approve audit services for the 2024 2025 audit 10i request to purchase activity buses 10j requests to bid man uniforms for Alan B Shepard High School um item number 11 is approval of expenditures uh chsd218 payment of bills for May chsd payment of bills for June Max payable for June and Max payable for July and then item number 12 is recommendations of the superintendent concerning staff Personnel Personnel list number 2 0 2 - 7 is there anything that anybody or so desires you can add the the the semi annual review session minutes we did have we we don't have it's not looking like we have a need to go into closed session tonight so we could put on the consent agenda um taking it so we'll be taking action on keeping the clothes minutes from January to June of 2023 confidential which everyone's had an issue called a chance to review so is everybody okay with keeping that adding that to consent okay so we will add that to our consent agenda as well just for the for the um uh uh for the minutes it that the need for confidential upper review for confidentiality remains in their the motion will be sufficient Wanda removed from the consent agenda at this time okay if there's no questions that we can go ahead and take a vote on that Steve yes Tom all right Carol yes Nora yes Sheila yes Candace I Jennifer yes oh she curious um item number 8 is old business 10 a is the village of oaklan mwrd presentation um and chsd218 administration Fields infrastructure project um they're going to give just a presentation of the update of where we're at with the project yeah that's not a whole lot different from we've already seen very very similar yes okay I hope you have a few new board members so if you have any questions yeah okay 5 10 minutes okay yeah okay good evening I my name is Daryl all sent I'm with Christopher Burke Engineering we're here on behalf of the village Li Fel um is also here with me we have um the mayor uh Village administrator assistant Village administrator Public Works um and others from the village here I'm very excited to talk to you about the project that is now um going to be imminently starting um it is uh really 2 phases um we have the storm sewer system that is running along 105th and Kilpatrick which is the the long red line several thousand feet of new storm sewer um and then what we're here to talk about tonight is uh the storm water storage Basin um in Polaris Park uh so myself uh Darren Olsen Li Fel we are the um ones that are essentially running the project for Christopher Burke Engineering um we've been working on this now for roughly 2 years um and we've done a lot of uh design value engineering most of this is a repeat from what we talked about um in the last meeting but wanted to go over some with you again because we have some new board members um and also again us some more details of the project um because it will be starting this fall um 1 of the primary things that we did at the start of our involvement with this project um was looked at some Geo technical work the soils in the park which really drove 1 of the design considerations um the the design previously um this was going back about a year and a half um that design was looking at um walls around uh the park to get that storage volume um what we found that there were a lot of uh poor organic soils uh underneath the park um so that had led us to having to change our design um so we got away from the retaining walls and we now are going with more grasped slopes um that I'll show some renderings of here in a couple slides um a fairly gradual slope of 4 to 1 so that means for every 1 foot that we're going down we're going out 4 feet for a nice gradual slope that's easy to maintain um you also see photos coming up of um people biking down that um people can walk down that it's it's a very traversable slope um but in addition to it being um about our products um it's also much more economical uh less expensive for the residents of the Village um there's less risk um as we start to if we were to put in retaining walls and we found additional bad soils we have could have to do more excavation which could lead to more costs which could lead to more delays um so generally when it came came down to it we made the decision to go with the the slopes um sides for for the park which in our opinion is is a much better solution here uh we also worked on the access around the perimeter of the playfields um and you'll see and the rendering here we have um a tremendous amount of access um both um Ada getting down to the fields um as well as stairs and around the perimeter um some things that have have not changed in probably in the last 2 years um and certainly since you've seen this last uh the depth of the Basin has not changed um we'll generally be Excavating down about 7 feet uh at the deepest point uh the field layout hasn't changed um and it's not going to change from what you have out there now I was seeing a rendering that we're generally going to put put back 3 ball fields um in a football field um and we'll also be utilizing under drains um in the bottom of the park that will allow this to drain much better than it does now so in the future it will hold water during storm events but when that storm event is over the fields will drain out much better than they do now so here is a a rendering um this is looking North you could see the building that we're in at the top um we can see Kilpatrick on the left um and really it's it's a very similar layout to to what you have now if we were to take an aerial photograph you'd see almost almost the exact same thing um we see the 3 major ball fields um we see the the football field with the the goalposts and the scoreboard um that will be put back um some things that that you see that are a little bit different though you can see around the perimeter of the park that the dark the darker green um that is the the transition slope that will go from the level of the road and the sidewalk the road in the sidewalk won't won't change under this plan but how you get down to the field will um you will have a gradual that 4 to 1 SL as you get down to the bottom of the field but there will also be some additional uh access which which will be a nice amenity um along each side we will have 2 do staircases with railings as well as a ramp uh that you can get down from from street level down to field level on that ramp and each 1 of these sides will have uh the exact same uh access features um 1 of the other uh features that we have is up on the northeast corner so at the very top of the of the diamond here um you see a a little bit larger ramp um that is accessed for a vehicle um so that will be for um any vehicles that want to maintain any of the infrastructure any of the the fields um lawn mowing equipment if anything had to happen where you had to bring a larger truck out there um we do have that it'll be a concrete access ramp that will allow larger vehicles uh to get down to the bottom of the fields uh we also what you don't see here that we'll see in a couple slides um is there will be a storm water system um both letting water into the park removing water from the park uh but also a very complex under drain system that will help the the grass in the park to dry out much quicker after a rain event so these are some additional renderings that we did uh the rendering on the upper right is looking so if you were walking on the sidewalk towards this the building we're in now along Kilpatrick um this is what she would see the the field you can see parts of the fence from the field on the on your right um and we see that gradual transition slope down um and we also see the access um the ramp access and the stair access at that location as well um and then looking uh within the field of the lower left um people in the field um looking toward looking north towards the building um again that's the excavation depth is about 7 feet so you know the average person you know maybe a foot or so above their head um that's about the height of the uh the top of the slope starting to go make sure I'm at the correct yep okay next slide sorry okay so this was an engineering drawing which is much less pretty than the renderings but show quite a bit of information as to how the system will function during a storm event um and I'll start at the at the upper left we see a couple red or we actually see 11 red dots as we go around the perimeter of the field these red dots are going to be surface inlets and we have a photo of a typical surface Inlet there on the right um these are all where water that falls on the park will generally if it were to drain Overland on the on the slope of the surface of the park it would drain into these Inlet much like we've seen these inlets before and whether it's a backyard a Parkway um we've seen this endless before and that's how um water will generally get into the um uh the under drain system during a rain event we've specifically put all all of these outside of the play field area um so that there is um much less risk of somebody being in the field of play um and encountering 1 of these these have all been moved to the very very sides and perimeter of of the field here um the the next box as we go a little bit lower to the left says large diameter inflow sewer so that is an underground sewer and if you remember the first slide we saw those long red lines that was over a thousand several thousand House of storm sewer that are going to be collecting water from the neighborhoods and instead of flooding the homes there it's going to come into the park and that's where the water is going to enter the park and so it's going to enter through a a box Culvert so it's going to be a a box I'm looking opening water will come into the park there um it will be stored in the Park's temporarily and then it will move its way towards the uh lower left corner which is the outlet sewer it's that's going to be a much smaller sewer um and it will drain from there um back back into the villages storm sewer system at the end of a of a storm event now all of these the diagonal small little lines that you see um that's engineering lines for under drains and these under drains there is over a mile of under drains that will be put in the park um and those will be anywhere from about a foot to 12 to I'm sorry 15 inches below the surface of the of the um of the field so we won't see those um but they're perforated and they they allow water to soak through the grass and into these after a rain event um which dries out uh the grass much quicker next slide please thank you um so this is a a couple photos of a similar project we're going to see another 1 in the next slide um this 1 is in Libertyville that was recently constructed and completed um in 2023 um these are pictures from the next year um very similar layout here we see the ball fields we see the the side slopes um and 1 of the things I would I'll bring up now is what we plan to do with the bottom of the fields um similar we're going to do the exact same thing here that we did in Libertyville um which is we're going to use seed for the bottom of these fields um we have found that seed and blanket um takes a little bit longer to establish um but once it's established it's a much better product um and it's ALS significantly less expensive especially for a project that is this large um we're talking several acres of land uh the difference between seed and sod here is about 600,000 dollars and in the end as you can see here this was uh less than a year later in Libertyville um and that seed was fully established um and they are now playing on these fields uh routinely next slide please maintenance what will be covered through this project correct that is correct yes so we'll we'll go back um back 1 side so yeah that's a great Point um so this project is going to be constructed by a contractor so the the we're going to go out to bid um and the village will hire a contractor to do this and in the contract documents there are a lot of requirements for what the contractor has to do um regarding all aspects of this project um but 1 of those is um how the fields will be restored and things like watering um of the fields and what they must look like um after a a prolonged period of time which in this case is a year what they must look like after a year before they get turned over um and we follow um I do standards for all of those um which requires that the essentially the grasp be fully established the contractor takes care of it for that whole period of time with with watering um so anything that needs to be done uh fertilized ing whatever has happened to this grass to get it into an acceptable condition over the course of the contract the contractor is going to be responsible any repairs if kids decide to ride their bikes down there that's correct that's correct and we are going to have this area fenced off during construction construction um and we found that is a very effective thing to do to keep kids out of you know nothing that kids like more is than playing in a a construction zone and so we're going to have this fenced off um to keep that from from happening hopefully or at least reduce the the likelihood of that happening next slide please so this is a similar project that we did in Tinley Park this 1's a much older um but these photographs are actually taken I think 15 years after the project was completed this was padami Park um again very very similar Podium Park was actually a little bit deeper I think that was over 10 feet deep um but you could see very similar side slopes fields at the bottom um grass um you know was was in very very good condition here um slopes very traversable in this case we had some kids riding up the river bikes on the slopes next slide please and at this point I'm gonna hand over to lie that's going to talk a little bit more about the details of construction in the project schedule before you walk away during the uh the drain time for the pond yeah so that's what I'll maybe go back a slide 1 more please uh I'm sorry maybe maybe even 1 more okay great so this um a little bit more about about the details here I don't want to get too much into the engineering um but we have specifically designed this park so that it takes water in when it has to but it doesn't take water in it when it doesn't have to so um during a a rain event that that we may have seen you know several days ago where we get half an inch of rain uh the rain will fall on the park but the rain will not be coming in from the storm sewer system into the park um it will take about an inch of rain in an hour um which is a pretty significant amount of rain um inch in an hour where we'll start to see the the the lower parts of the park um which will fill up by water coming in through the um through that inflow storm sewer but it'll still be at a very low level um when we get these very very significant rains that we of course now we're getting um much more frequently um but it will take a rain um like 4 and a half inches of rain in an hour so that that's it is a tremendous amount of rain or like 7 and a half inches of rain over 12 hours those are the sort of rain events that will fill the park and they will fill it to the maximum depth of about 7 feet and it will drain down then in 30 hours so that is what this really those are the events that this is designed for and again it's designed that water would of typical you've been sitting in streets and sitting in people's basements and the design here is during those large events to get that water into the park as quickly as possible and then after the event is over to get that water out of the park as quickly as possible and that's what we've designed here and before I get into the um the schedule real quick can we go back to that slide so the the 2 large diameter inflow and outflow will have grates on them for safety purposes so we don't have kids trying to go in or out of the structures themselves um but it does allow for debris to get through so and it's all um typical standards that we designed to uh so that's 1 thing and then all these Ada these ramps here will be Ada accessible so just to keep you aware of that and then this um drivable uh access at the northeast corner um we designed it wide enough just so you know for fire trucks ambulance is God forbid somebody we need to get somebody down there so a couple things on that um and if we go to the schedule perfect so we're in the process of the final design um we're in final comments we are working with the village School District mwrd we will be out to bid next month and when that process is with Darren talked about when we go out we get bids uh we get a low responsible bidder from uh however many contractors uh will analyze those bids in that month of August September we'll go to the village board meeting with a recommended low bidder and we'll do reference checks they'll have to meet all the requirements of mwrd uh the village as well um so that will be awarded in September we'll have a pre-construction openhouse uh the idea is for residents to show up um I think we were talking possibly having it here uh anybody from the school board wants to come uh so that'll October that will kind of definitively give here's who the contractor is probably more in depth scheduled than we're showing um access points Etc of the pond itself or the the park itself uh we anticipate construction then starting in November of 25 with the roadway in March um I'm sorry the park will start November the idea is the ground hopefully we'll start to be Frozen it's a little bit easier to get into the park I think that it concludes all the fall sporting events and things that the park is used for so that'll be in November once ground isn't Frozen we can start the roadway so we're tentatively saying March depending on what the winner looks like in uh January February of 26 so it'd be a March 26th we anticipate all that storm sewer um all the roadway and I think there's some water main work that all that work would be done in October fall of 26 and then the Park itself would be constructed um finished Construction in Fall of 26 as well and then the idea is that we have a growing season in um spring and fall of 20 6 so that the park can be opened and used for um in Spring of 27 for all the amenities and things that uh you guys have scheduled for um Darren had mentioned that we're going to use seed again I think um superintendent you had asked about maintenance so anything like you said with kids weeds that's all on the contractor to the contract is complete and we accept it um during construction we'll have a representative 1 or 2 Representatives out on site uh for the everyday while the contractor is working uh overseeing make sure they're installing everything correctly and per the specs so that year that you talked about is from the time of completion that they're responsible until it's accepted so right now we're saying that the park would be open spring of 27 but yeah until the sum of the day they start till its final acceptance they are on the hook for maintenance and that will include the water ing seating everything that would be anything that could go wrong or needs to take place until it's fully grown once it's done so spring 2027 yep okay and we'd have a walk through make sure everything's correct the you know fences are in benches are in all the seating and everything we would just like our fields believe there's an IGA between the village and the school district and we can share that with the board that was 1 of my um things I wanted to say was that this I think we first talked about this in the fall of 23 and then we have the board is already approved this and everything but Jennifer and Steve you guys weren't on the board at the time so I feel like we should reshare the what the intergovernmental agreement was as far as how's it going to be repaired if we do have to open up that drain system because to feel you know we'll have obviously some damage and we that all kind of is in that agreement that we have already approved and this is just this was delayed because it was supposed to start last fall so thanks yeah we are on a high quality playing surface yes I think we just have to agree on that there's a standard that I think we all expect then that we stick to that and make sure in 2027 that it's it's a high quality field right agreed and I would um we will have our resident engineer that's on on out on the site and I would say that the village and the school district be out there and when we have that final punch list walkthrough okay so the project schedule that we communicated to the community you stole district and as their next I'm sorry our next slide so if you go on the Village website 1 Step Ahead on the Village website we do have a link for uh updates on the project uh we are asking uh residents to sign up and that's then how they would get information otherwise you can just go to the Village website if you Google Polaris Storm water it shows up so any questions or concerns should go to the Village yes and and and then literally you go on this website you can sign up but your name your email I think it asks for an address and then it'll give you updates as we put them into and then we'll be communicating that way as well is with our resident engineer that's on staff and on site he'll be communicating with the school district as well as all residents within the uh project limits it's the same 1 that we presented a year ago okay so the it just looks like maybe smaller that is the exact same rendering okay all right I just wait at a Planck space is the same as the original plan correct and we're putting back the same type of fences that are out there now same with Heights Etc then um do you have a plan or is there a plan in place yet for the traffic with the village re rerouting anything yeah let's see if I got well they go I don't have I think the first page there we go is that whole so this they're going to utilize obviously Kilpatrick where the goal would be to send them East to Pulaski or west to Cicero and utilize um 1 or 2 of the side streets here to get them in and out but the we're not having them Hog Wild go on every residential street and um 1 of the things that we did ask um the school district is part of their review is are there any dates of things going on at this building that you would like us to try to maneuver around as well as you know we don't want to send traffic down here if there's um indiv individuals walking to the school Etc we have 1 year of college career fair that we'll have to Pivot yeah but I guess I want to make sure like during construction it's not that whole street it's parts of it at different times it's not you're not tearing apart the whole from now we have specs in there that allow them to open up a couple blocks at a time okay but they'll first they're going to put in they're going to come in they'll saw cut and do the storm shoe and all the underground and then you may see them oop let's see what I do hit the wrong button you may see them down here doing storm and then as they move this way you you may not see them for a little bit and that's because they're trying to get all their underground and then they'll they'll fall back to get your curb and things of that nature but we do have specs in there that they're only allowed to open up x amount of blocks at a time so that we don't have chaos out there too um only because the traffic going to Catherine's the traffic you know everywhere there's the apartment buildings right you know and we'll be communicating that like I said with the resident engineer who will have handouts as well as the website and is and at that open house that we'll have will have a better idea of the exact schedule of what they're looking to how they're going to start and how they're going to move forward with the project so the fencing no alarm be walking around on the sidewalk obviously correct on the perimeter that will be around the park itself could that be closed off to the street or will there still be a walking they'll be able the sidewalk I think we're still having it open but I think what we'll do is there will be obviously if I go jump back and forth here we go everybody loves a good drawing but there will be some type of access to probably come in and out while they excavate this um but at some point some of this sidewalk will be closed and we'll detour everybody oh I'm sorry to the to the west side of uh Kilpatrick some more dog walking I'm sorry people love to walk their dogs around understood it'll be it that your dog walking pattern mace changed for a little bit change it any other questions Roger Lee silent that's good thank you thank you thanks guys if you live in 1005 Street while this Project's going down what people be able to access to driveways during and construction period or where they'll be so inconveniences for those people there may be some inconvenience but we will notify you before as they're moving along with the project and if there's any curb or anything that would preclude you to forget in your your driveway or garage we will notify you well a couple days in advance while and then let you know when you have to be in and out um so that the concrete uh procures and and and set up Josh a question uh just to piggyback off what the mayor just asked if they were say for instance they had to close off part of Kilpatrick for 3 nights and people couldn't access the driveway is there any way we could work something out where overnight that they could park in our lot like you'd be able to figure okay so just so you know every night when they're done the road is open okay so it'll be the steel plated overnight can actually there may be some material on the side of the street and their equipment but the road will be open even during we got we got enough parking out that we should be good but if you're friends with your neighbors it's not a bad time to share thank you thank you you guys okay all right so we're going to move on to item number 9 on the agenda which is reports to the superintendent uh 9A is the financial reports from May if you have any questions uh 9 B is the technology update 9C is student enrollment report any discussion or questions uh 90 is the general maintenance report any questions uh 9 e is for your requests does anybody have any questions about the foyer requests at this time okay 9 F is the business manager update anyone have any questions for Mr corsy 9 G is the Safety and Security report questions uh 98 construction update Eisenhower Auditorium renovation and Fieldhouse Edition and the shepherd Auditorium renovation and Fieldhouse Edition anybody have any I just want to say um I had the opportunity to tour um the Fieldhouse and it was awesome I was I felt like a little kid in there I was a pee teacher's dream they were putting together the climbing the rock wall house like okay maybe not but you guys are doing a fantastic job like the community is so excited everyone I talked to they're like when's it going to be ready like they're so excited so thank you alright and I I just want to thank Dr beer and everybody for keeping us updated but that's the pictures and communication it's exciting to see when you can't get over to see it in person but thank you for that um want to see it bro uh item 9 I is committee reports by board members the committee reports we did have a finance committee meeting back in June and I apologize I forgot to transfer my um the agenda to my phone so that I could pull it up so um I know Tony's covered a lot it's been a lot of its covered in you know we've talked about a of the things already tonight or they were some things around the consent agenda is there anything that you feel like you need to highlight at this time no we'll go through it we spend most of the time discussing the alternative budget the footnotes and the budget uh reflect anything so we brought up okay and I know we were going to talk about some Transportation things but we were going to visit that in August right about the the updated Transportation stuff yeah we could discuss that in there too there was a part of the the memo that precedes the title budget discusses the transportation fund um in particular uh some of the challenges we're having with it and um how we're going to try to address uh some of the cost overruns have been going on in that area we're looking to save significant dollars right I was going to say they've been working really hard on trying to find savings because it has kind of gotten crazy we're just going to have our own in-house Transportation next year we're piloting this that would be nice it's Gonna Save Us a lot of money doing that rather than using taxes that's more for special education or for the for the for the a lot of different possibilities for strictly specialized specialized I believe we're going to have 2 but it opens up some doors for CTE and some of these other specialized programs that we're going to look at too anybody else great efforts no okay uh Tony and Tina did a great job on that by the way and working with working with Carrie and trying to find ways of uh do a better job with saving so I should say too we we'll keep up to date with that we're going to continue meeting and monitor throughout the school year thank you okay we're going to move on to item number 10 which is new business at 10 a is the fiscal year 2025 2026 plan Bond sale updated and we have a quick presentation on that yes so I'm going to pop into this real quick um Tim which uh which 1 of my apartment through here so this is a a presentation um it was prepared by um Elizabeth Hennessy of Raymond James Financial she is unfortunately uh unable to make it here tonight um but we went through the presentation I feel comfortable enough going through it um some of this is old information um but again we have some new board members so we wanted of them uh the opportunity to be brought up to speed on uh some of the plans we're doing for uh bringing on some new debt for the district also miss uh Angelie uh vij from uh Kevin mccullar is here there are bond attorneys there are bond attorneys on the um or Bond Council on the that we incurred last year uh so we're looking forward to working with them again here so if there's questions if I can't answer them or if Angelie can't answer them I'll relay them to Elizabeth and we'll get back to you uh pretty quickly in the board packet um you have this presentation you have a calendar of events for the sale and you also have the uh draft of the parameter resolution which will be going to you in August it's just your uh reviews since it's a fairly lengthy uh document uh this presentation I have 3 Parts uh we'll go through the market uh real briefly um we'll talk about the district's current uh debt structure and our financing plan and then we'll briefly touch on uh some Raymond James uh capacities uh so I'll preface this first part I'm going to go through this a little bit quicker I'm not a market analyst or a financial advisor um but uh I think it's important to understand the municipal bond market um this is the market into which we'll be selling our debt and we have really no way to control this Market whatsoever um but it will have a major impact on how much we're going to pay to borrow in other words how much we're gonna uh our interest rates are going to be um there is some uh tension and volatility the market um to be fair I've never seen anyone give a presentation they've ever said any Market doesn't have some volatility in it um but uh there's actually some geopolitical uh issues going on right now war in Ukraine and Middle East tensions are uh you know occasionally bringing uh some volatility of this the ongoing tariff um situation uh also had some volatility to this if you remember uh there was a talk about the bond market as you know quotable freaking out this is the market that they were talking out here um and then we also of course have attempt to Tamp down inflation that are still kind of works in progress and that have some effect on this as well uh the chart here uh the black line is the average and the red line is the current and at the bottom here you've got a table for 1 year 5 year 10 year Etc uh type of that um the key thing to take away from here is we are nowhere near the lows the historical which are like 1% um we're also nowhere near the highs um we're a little bit above average uh so like I said it's it's it's a good Market to be selling into it's maybe not like the the very best Market but you don't really see like improving there's no real reason for us to try to hold off on on getting uh to Market with our product here uh this is mostly uh slides showing the change in volume for the uh media support uh Market data um there's uh still a lot of interest and purchasing Municipal debt so it's not like the market is stuffed or saturated uh we've got uh plenty of ability uh to sell we were going to get uh good price in here and this is just looking at treasury rates since this is again another kind of correlation to uh the kind of debt that we're selling uh very very quickly um this is something that's not really going to impact us but we thought it was good to let you know about uh Public Act 1030591 this is really detailing our changing some things about how our uh Debt Service um extension basis operating and some of the things that can be applied to the debt limit or not um and again I'm not going to get too deep into this this really isn't affecting us and I'll talk about the D7 a little bit later here so any questions on the market so let's talk about the debt that the district has outstanding currently so uh school districts in Illinois are statutorily limited uh to how much debt they can actually occur um that's based on the equalized assessed value ation of all the properties within our boundaries for us that's just shy of 3 and a quarter billion dollars so that's quite a bit of money in in the a um you will then apply a debt limit multiplier to it for high schools at 6.9% uh that gives us our uh top tier if we wanted to go completely you know for ourselves as much as possible we have an upper uh debt limit of 174 billion but nowhere near that and we're not going to be even creating anywhere close to that that's how much we could go out to the top uh we do have some outstanding uh bonds already we have about 26 million in bonds already so you take that off that 174 that leaves you with 147 available uh this is from our AFR from the previous year so this does not include in the 7 million we did last year so take that 7 off we still have about 140 million dollars available to us and we're going to be looking to bring in about another 18 million uh in debt so that will bring our available debt limit down to about 1208 is so again that that's still a lot we have available if we need it uh the total debt will be carrying around 50 million is less than a third of our total debt limit so again we're we're pretty fiscally conservative district and that's not going to change even though we're going to be taking on quite a bit of debt of that 174 million um some of that is working cash fund uh limit and uh kind of run some of the same uh calculations through that um we end up with a uh total amount of 117 million uh again we're taking out our working cash fund bonds and most of the uh that we have currently is working cash fund so that leaves us with a total debt limit of 90 million um and again we're going to be taking about another 18 off of that so that'll about 72 million again there's still quite a bit of money uh the total amount will have out again it's going to be less than about a third of what we have available to us in this so again that kind of puts that into some context uh as we go on uh this is our debt that we currently have uh you actually read this right to left um so the oldest dad is on the right our newest dad is on the left um this is a good way to look at what we've got out already we've got bonds that were steering 2013 so that was 1 we sold those bonds uh series 201324 14 and 2 2016 Vaughn series you can see that uh 2 of them have uh reached their call date uh and we're going to be doing a little bit of restructuring on that we're going to go to a little bit more juice out of the out of the orange if you want to put it that way uh when we go to the debt and then 2 others are going to be up uh at the end of this year but uh we're not going to beat these rates that we got them at uh in 2016 um another piece to notice here is that this debt is going to start rolling off in 2029 so the uh 2013 bonds will be potentially done on about 4 years everything else will be done in the next 5 years or so so we're about halfway through most of the debt we have give or take we also have 2 alternate revenue bonds out uh series 2020 which is a refunding of the series 20 10 uh build American better or build America Pac bonds and then with the bonds we took out last year uh the series 2024 uh that was about 7 million um and again that's going to run to about 2037 although the 2020 is going to be uh expiring for the end uh these we fund with um corporate personal property replacement tax every usually try to do it December you vote to a bait an amount this is what you're voting to a bait so the taxpayers never see this doesn't impact taxpayers you want to call them like you know give me a to the corporate tax to the state which gives it to us so why are we going out to uh that now um well we got major capitals uh projects that were operating on and uh we want to use some of our fund balance we also want to make sure not going to drain our fund balance too far uh this slide is essentially replication of a page in the tenant of budget that covers the uh activities we're going to do to support our capital projects um you can see if you kind of look at the bottom here uh the total 79-in million dollars and that includes contingency by the way um we are going to be doing about a third of that as new debt and about 2/3 of that as existing fund balance we also have a fund balance policy that s us to keep uh fund balances of equivalent to 33% of the yearly expenditures and this gives you uh calculation of where we will end up with that um at the end of each of the years projected through uh through the end of the the capital projects and you can see that we're never going to get anywhere close to um those limits uh if you look compare these fund balances to what's in the tentative these uh look a little cheerier I guess uh this is based on a little bit better data that we had near the the school year compared to when we put the tentative budget together so this is a little bit more realistic of where we'll end up being but again we'll be in very very good shape even taking on the new debt and this is just kind of going through uh explaining that uh um just kind of as a point of reminder last summer I believe it was August we authorized uh 2 Series of debts we've already gone through and uh set up 1 set of those uh bonds those were a 2024 this is the working cash fund bonds that we're looking at right here here and as I said before we're going to be calling uh some of the bonds a little bit as well to kind of get a little bit more money uh that we can get out of them and then repaying that over the course of 16 years uh in 10 years we'll have the ability to call these as well this is probably the most threatening slide on the entire presentation it's a lot of numbers and initialisms um this is essentially calculating out um how much of our uh debt uh service extension base would be remaining and how much debt will be incurring to this so uh take a look at the sort of salmon colored in the green colored columns here The Debt Service extension base is kind of an interesting artifact of the property tax extension limitation law um that basically says that we do not need to go the referendum for any amount of that that we want to incur that's within that limit and that limit is set by how much debt we had outstanding when the PA Law went into effect 30 years ago plus uh inflation so that's how we kind of throw it we grow we we increase this Gap by paying back our debt that'll give us more capacity and then we get a little bit more capacity every year from inflation um so you see what's going on here uh right now we've got a a a Debt Service extension based capacity of about 333 390 so about $100,000 when we issued the new debt uh we'll go down to about thousand dollars we're going to basically eat up all the capacity we have and we'll be very low capacity to about uh what is 2035 or so when our Pastor will start coming off of some of our old bonds we'll start coming off the the roles here so that's essentially how we're going to be uh working this this is why we did not have to go to a referendum I think this actually kind of explains everything I just said but in a much more cleaner uh visual way the red line here is our debt service extension base the dark blue line are kind of looks black up here is our existing debt and the green is the proposed new debt and you can see how we're going to structure that we're basically just filling in the gap between what we've got already and what we could take in without having to go to referendum and then we'll start having a gap again around 2035 and as we're currently structured we'll be debt free by 2041 although we'll probably incur some new debt before then at some point next steps um uh we are reviewing the finance plan and the parameter of bond resolution before you today uh we're going to be working and meeting with the uh rating agencies uh in August uh at the board meeting on the 21st you'll approve the uh parameter Bond resolution we'll sell the bonds the 25th and we expect to have the money by September so we'll get this pretty quickly um it's not really in the slide here but I'd want to let you know too that all the money we're going to take in on this is going to flow to our working cash fund Bond and we're going to then partially bait the working Cash Fund put that into the construction fund so all of this that we're in right now is going to go to the construction we're not going to use this to like pay salaries or anything like that it's all going to Construction any questions here so far I'm gonna go through this last part required but I just feel like I do need to I'm sure Elizabeth will be mad at me if I didn't uh talk about Raymond James real quick uh they are National um and well respected well known um financial advisor uh offices over the country strong Illinois presence uh they do quite a bit of uh Financial work with municipalities um they have done uh this is I these are 2 that they're sort of proud of uh recently uh 62 million uh resolution I'm sorry referendum that they secured at a 60 million referendum and you can see uh some of their Awards and recognitions uh the rankings some of the other school districts I've worked with and we have a long experience with them as well they've been excellent partners with us as we go on so um that's the end of that um any questions anything you'd like to go over I'll explain thank you yes all right and again if anything comes up uh please email me let me know I can reach out to Elizabeth and we can get answers to you as well thanks Anthony thank you thank you very much okay we're gonna move to item 10B which is the proposal for the August 11th Institute day and this is an action item so we need a motion to bring it to the floor second okay first and the second anything you want to say Dr Baron about it or know just a good job with Dr Pollock putting this together and at the first time at the table yeah I know congratulations I forgot to give the MMO on told Jacobson though I like casual so there maybe a few more of those thrown in here so we are going to go to 1 1st of 2 day we've done 2 in the past and we just think it's a little bit more productive to do 1 day um so we did go down this year so it's the first time we're trying this and then we'll go to the buildings on the second day so that um just from previous schools worked at sometimes they want board members at those is that they're always welcome to come always and we have a I would highly recommend the bus tours that we do with new teachers if you haven't done that before a few of you have done it we go through all 11 communities and when is on the 11th so August 5th August 5th oh that's right yeah so I'll message you guys but that 1 I recommend you're always welcome so Richard's High School be great for the teachers to see you and you know that's August 9th love love love love with and 12 yeah the the uh well that new the new teacher the fifth week 11:30 is the start of the bus tours yes on the 30th so and where they started start here lunch is then we're going to cross street to High 5 and they get to pick something out from the uh from the store that's cute I love that that was good working on the designs currently can I have some new ones use that good stuff K who knew you were going to become a designer a fashion designer now that it's going anywhere now looking forward to it our theme we're looking at right now is um all the great and 218 so that's kind of what we're looking at grow the great grow the great and 218 it's catchy yeah that's good you good with that you're good okay um item number 10 C uh press policy updates um for issue number 119 it's the first reading um so this will be coming back I'm assuming in August for approval so if anyone has any questions Eric has it memorized tonight or um or if you have any questions before the next board meeting just Reach Out um 10d is recommendation forbid number 1515 for interior Renovations at Richards high school and this is action items so I need a motion to bring to the floor second okay does anybody have any questions about the the bid just it's going to be a game changer for Richards and having a main entrance and you know what the theater's been the old theaters been there what 9 years 10 years Melinda and uh we're also getting the attendance office down here too so it's just going to all flow if you've been a Shepherd High School it just it makes a huge difference when you put all those supports each other it's going to make a huge difference very excited for Richard Melinda was not going to let us not do it so I love it okay um anybody also have any questions or any comments okay we can take it to a vote Steve yes Tom all right Carol yes Nora yes Sheila yes Candace hi Jennifer yes okay motion carried um 10 e is the tentative budget resolution for fiscal year 2025 2026 this is an action item so I need a motion okay anybody have any further questions about the town of the budget at this time about it can you explain okay all right we can take a vote Steve yes Tom all right here yes Nora yes Sheila yes Candace I Jennifer yes and period and then 10f is Bid number 1513 recommendation to award the bid for Waste Management Services and it's to Public Services um and this is an action item so I need a motion please motion to approve second okay first and a second does anyone have any questions about the bids or okay we can take it to a vote Steve yes Tom all right Carol yes Nora yes Sheila yes Candace hi Jennifer yes okay motion carried um we do not have a need to go go into closed session this evening so we are going to move on to um item number 14 or I'm sorry item number 15 which is all in favor okay thanks guys

Videos

July 2025 Board of Education Meeting (7/15/2025)

More videos in Board of Education