March 9, 2021 at 7:00 PM - Regular Meeting

The proposed calendar takes into consideration the 2021-2022 calendar of Lockport Township High School. We have tried to loosely match the winter and spring breaks. Also taken into account is the proposed start date. After discussion by the board in February, two options were submitted to staff for input. When polled, 65.5% of the staff chose August 16 as the start date.

Calendar Summary:

• The first day for staff is August 16.
• The first day for students is August 18. 
• We are in attendance November 11 Veteran’s Day. I am proposing that we continue with our tradition of being off on President’s Day, February 21 (instead of Lincoln’s Birthday).
• Graduation will most likely be scheduled for May 25, 2022.

Since the February 9, 2021 meeting of the Board of Education there has been one request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

Requester: Jonathan P. Fagg, WLS-TV

Information Requested: Information related to student attendance from the start of this school until the most current date. Information is requested by school broken down by those learning remotely and those learning in a hybrid program. Provide information on how attendance is being tracked.

Date received: February 8, 2021

Date request provided: February 16, 2021

I mentioned to the Board a couple months ago that we had administered the SAEBRS (Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener) to students this year.  Mr. Jennings will share the results with the Board as a part of the meeting.

I have attached some basic information about this screener that may help provide some context for you.

Per Policy 2:230 Public Comments at Board of Education Meetings and Petitions to the Board 

At each regular and special open meeting, the members of the public and District employees may comment on or ask questions of the Board, subject to reasonable constraints. 

The individuals appearing before the Board are expected to follow these guidelines: 

1. Such a person shall submit a request in writing to the Board Secretary to address the Board. Such a request shall be received at least five (5) working days prior to the Board meeting and shall include said reason for the request.

2. At the meeting, a person who has complied with number 1 above shall inform the Board Secretary of his/her presence at the meeting.

3. Address the Board only at the appropriate time as indicated on the agenda and when recognized by the Board President.

4. Identify oneself and be brief. Ordinarily, such comments shall be limited to two minutes.  In unusual circumstances, and when an individual has made a request in advance to speak for a longer period of time, the individual may be allowed to speak for more than two minutes. 

5. The Board President may shorten or lengthen an individual’s opportunity to speak.  The President may also deny an individual the opportunity if the individual has previously addressed the Board on the same subject within the past 2 months. 

6. The Board President shall have the authority to determine procedural matters regarding public participation not otherwise defined in Board of Education policy. 

7. Conduct oneself with respect and civility toward others and otherwise abide by Board policy, 8:30, Visitors to and Conduct on School Property. 

Petitions or written correspondence to the Board shall be presented to the Board of Education in the next regular Board packet unless the Superintendent deems the matter to be urgent. 

We have been tracking the local and internal metrics closely over the past few months and believe that this data along with the knowledge that all employees have been offered the opportunity to receive the vaccine, makes this the time to discuss and plan for increasing the amount of in-person learning our students receive.
We have surveyed our families and the majority would choose to have their child(ren) attend in-person learning four (4) days a week if offered, even with the possibility of the 6 feet of social distance decreasing. We have surveyed the staff to learn what hurdles they feel we will need to overcome to prepare for students returning from Spring Break.
I have attached a summary of our Increased In-Person Learning Plan. If approved, the plan would allow us to bring students back in-person for four (4) full days a week beginning April 12, 2021. Wednesdays will continue to be observed as a remote learning day for all students to allow our teachers' office hours for students and planning time for both in-person and remote learning.
The administrative and transition teams have met and worked through some of the hurdles but there are still ongoing conversations about how this will look. Tuesday evening, the administrative team will share information regarding our Plan for Increased In-Person Learning. I want to thank the following District Transition Team members for their input and hard work.

Mrs. Shannon Gilkerson
Mr. John Jennings
Mrs. Jaime Koziol
Mrs. Lynn Krumlinde
Mrs. Devon Lacasse
Mrs. Michaelene O’Halloran
Mr. Jim Pierson
Ms. Erin Rae
Mrs. Christy Soulian
Mrs. Heidi Waxweiler
Mr. Larry Spencer
 

Earlier this month, TRS requested school districts obtain their individual boards’ approval for participation in a new 457(b) plan offered by TRS and execute and return a Participation Agreement. This new plan, the TRS Supplemental Savings Plan ("SSP"), was created in response to 2018 legislation requiring TRS to offer an optional defined contribution benefit plan to active TRS members. 

Although participation in the SSP is optional for TRS members (and employer contributions by school boards also are optional), TRS is taking the position that school district approval is necessary, apparently to meet an Internal Revenue Code requirement for employer establishment of 457(b) plans and to effectuate pre-tax salary reduction arrangements. 

Unfortunately, the Participation Agreement shifts to school districts the responsibility and liability for salary withholdings, excess plan contributions, and operational error corrections. School districts already maintaining 457(b) plans will be responsible for tracking contributions to both their own 457(b) plan and the SSP to avoid excess contributions resulting from a combined contribution limit.

Many details regarding plan implementation have yet to be shared, including the processes for facilitating loans and hardship withdrawals. The biggest concern is that TRS may not have the legal authority to offer the SSP. The SSP is a 457 plan as outlined in the internal revenue code.  A 457 plan is a deferred compensation plan that is offered by employers. TRS is not the employer of the teachers. In addition, there has already been a bill introduced to repeal the statute.

Given the above information, I believe it is in the district’s best interest to wait for clarification before approving this plan and signing the Employer Participation Agreement.

To provide the most current information, an update on state funding will be provided to members as a part of the meeting Tuesday.

Please note the following dates for March and April 2021.

March
    1    No School - Casimir Pulaski Day
    2    No School - Teacher Institute  Day
    3    Boys Basketball KG @ Taft 4:00
    4    Girls Volleyball KG Vs. Taft @ KG 4:00
          Boys Basketball KG @ Wilmington 4:30
    5    End of Second Trimester
    9    Boys Basketball KG Vs. Oak Prairie @ KG 4:00
          Board of Education Meeting KG LRC 7:00
          Girls Volleyball KG Vs. Oak Prairie @  Oak Prairie 4:00              
  12    Report Card Distribution
          Boys Basketball Channahon Vs. KG @ KG 4:30
  17    Spring Pictures
          Mangia Pizza Night (PTO Fundraiser)
  23    Girls Basketball KG Vs. Oak Prairie @
          Oak Prairie 4:00
  24    Boys Volleyball KG Vs. Oak Prairie @ Oak Prairie 4:00
  29    Spring Break Begins - School resumes April 6

April

    6    School Resumes
          Girls Basketball KG Vs. Mokena @ Mokena 4:00
    7    Girls Basketball Taft Vs. KG @ KG 4:00
    8    Boys Volleyball Taft Vs. KG @ Taft 4:00
   13    Girls Basketball Mokena Vs. KG @ KG 4:00
           Finance Committee Meeting LG LRC 5:00
           Buildings and Grounds Committee Meeting KG LRC  6:00
           Board of Education Meeting KG LRC 7:00
   14    Girls Basketball Taft Vs. KG @ Taft 4:00
   15    Boys Volleyball Taft Vs. KG @ KG 4:00
   20    Girls Basketball Oak Prairie Vs. KG @ KG 4:00
   21    Boys Volleyball Oak Prairie Vs. KG @ KG 4:00
   23    11:30 Dismissal
            Midterm

 

We do not know for sure how much our grant allocation will be for the coming school year. Each year, I ask the Board to approve local funding for any shortfall that may occur. Most years, the Title I grant pays for the full Title I teacher salary, supplies, and most of the benefits.

Commercial Electronic Systems (CES) is the company that installed and inspected our fire alarm system at both buildings. We received notice that CES has gone out of business. Our contract with CES is good through September 30, 2021. Thompson Electronics Company has assumed all of the contracts for CES.

Mr. Pierson has contacted Thompson and is recommending (see attached letter) that we enter into a 3-year service contract with Thompson (attached) at an annual rate of $3,350.

The Board has received a summary of our Increased In-Person Learning. We are working with grade-level teams and the transition team to finalize information in the Roadmap to Full Attendance. This document is similar to the original Roadmap to Reopening but has been updated to outline the many considerations and changes we had to make in order to increase the in-person learning time for students in our schools. This will be posted on our webpage before the start of Spring Break. In addition, we will be updating the MOU between the Board and the Association.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been developed that addresses Article 1 Section1 of the contract that takes the School Psychologist position out of the bargaining unit.

This will allow us to post and hopefully hire a full-time School Psychologist at a rate that this position currently demands. I have included a copy of the MOU for you to reference.

Mr. Bryan Kincaid reports that we received 19 options from 9 companies in response to our 470.

Bryan recommends that we move forward with a Mist Wifi system being provided by Qbit networks. This option would cost $16,272 after our E-rate discount of 50% and falls within the $19,800 budgeted for this project. We would be getting 54x MIST-AP32-2S-5Y access points with an included 5-year license. 

At first, we quickly ruled out 10 options based on the total/yearly price being significantly higher than the average.  For the core comparison, we worked on evaluating the options compared to our current wireless infrastructure. We will be moving from Wifi 5 (ac) to Wifi 6(ax) with all choices which result in normal generational improvements on airtime scheduling and other features. 

The difference between the options listed on the 471 Vendors Chart that is attached can be summarized as follows.

Number of radios

• Higher-end access points often contain an additional radio for interference and signal quality monitoring

Simultaneous streams the radios support  

• An access point can use multiple streams to talk to several client devices at the same time, reducing airtime needed and lowering latency 

Controller features  

• Basic wifi isn't that complicated, what many vendors have been focusing on is cloud controller features that more actively manage and monitor the Wifi network to ensure the best client experience

Mist is not the cheapest option, but Bryan believes the features it offers are worth the cost. You can see in the $/year column, it is actually less expensive than the bid from our current provider (Extreme) and has higher features across the board. Likewise, the less expensive options have their own tradeoffs in lower stream and radio counts or/and overall system reliability. With the push forward for increased use of Chromebooks next year it is a good investment to ensure the best wireless performance we can reasonably acquire.  Mist also has the cloud controller analytics to make it much easier to troubleshoot and find the root cause of issues. 

Erate allows us to use several factors to select a winning bid and the price just has to be the highest weighted category. Mist is far from the highest cost option, the bids we ruled out upfront averaged $44,775.

We discussed this project as a part of the special meeting in February. I have attached a detailed explanation of the work to be done and the two quotes Mr. Pierson referenced.

Mr. Dan Dorion/American Water $971.00

Mrs. Kathy Gallagher/IBM $500.00

We have been the recipient of so many gracious donations from our school community. We thank Mr. Dorion and Mrs. Gallagher for thinking of District 91 when sharing their employer incentives.

The Board will need a motion and second to enter into closed session for the purpose of:

• The appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the District or legal counsel for the District, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee or against legal counsel for the District to determine its validity. [1] However, a meeting to consider an increase in compensation to a specific employee of a public body that is subject to the Local Government Wage Increase Transparency Act may not be closed and shall be open to the public and posted and held in accordance with the [the Open Meetings Act].  5 ILCS 120/2(c)(1), as amended by P.A. 99-646.
• The placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters relating to individual students.  5 ILCS 120/2(c)(10).