April 24, 2025 This meeting will start immediately following the 7:00 P.M. Special Meeting. - Board of Education Regular Meeting
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I. Call to Order
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II. Roll Call
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III. Reorganization of the Board |
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III.A. Oath of Office
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III.B. Elect President of the Board of Education **
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III.C. Elect Vice-President of the Board of Education **
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III.D. Elect Secretary of the Board of Education **
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III.E. Appoint Treasurer to the Board of Education **
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III.F. Establish day, time, and location of the Board of Education **
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III.G. Committee Appointments
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IV. Consent Agenda **
Description:
Minutes of regular meeting held March 20, 2025
April Bills Payable March Treasurer's Report Destruction of closed meeting audio recording from October 19, 2023 Quarterly list of authorized depositories, investment managers, dealers and brokers |
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V. Superintendent’s Report – Recognition and Informational Items
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V.A. April Student of the Month
Description:
Payton Evans will be in attendance so that we may recognize his accomplishments in being selected April Student of the Month.
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V.B. Leadership Presentation
Description:
On April 10, the District Leadership Team came together to celebrate and share out a multitude of this year’s accomplishments, along with beginning to plan for next year. Recognizing that the Board receives updates and information on our programs in more of a piecemeal format from meeting to meeting, I thought you might appreciate having this comprehensive update. District 124 is fortunate to have an amazing Leadership Team, which includes administrators, Teacher Leaders, and instructional coaches! Through the efforts of that Team, we celebrated improvements to curriculum & instruction, college and career planning, social and emotional wellbeing, instructional resources, student voice, community outreach, and so much more. I am so proud to be a member of this Team and greatly appreciate the dedication they have day in and day out to improving the educational experience here at Grant.
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V.C. Stronger Connections/CARES Grant Update
Description:
We are completing the third quarter of the Stronger Connections/CARES grant, awarded to enhance access to mental health resources for our school community and beyond. I wanted to share the great news that we have been able to facilitate 84 treatment sessions to date, with each student and/or family participating receiving up to six (6) no-cost 50-minute treatment sessions. Many traditional barriers to treatment are avoided by being free of charge and accessible after school, in the evening and even on weekends. Treatment continues to include individual and family counseling, crisis intervention, care coordination, trauma-focused needs, psychiatric services, and medication management. We look forward to continuing to provide this tremendous support to students and families.
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V.D. Title VI Certification
Description:
On April 3, we received a copy of a press release regarding a directive from the U.S. Department of Education to state agencies overseeing K-12 education requiring school districts to certify compliance with Title VI as a condition to continue receiving federal financial assistance. On April 9, State Superintendent Tony Sanders responded that ISBE would not be collecting certifications from individual districts, a copy of which is provided. Additionally, on April 11, we received notice of pending litigation regarding the enforcement of this directive with details also provided. The administration is sharing these details to keep you apprised that we are monitoring the situation to remain in compliance at the state and federal level.
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V.E. Legislative Update
Description:
Legislators have been busy in Springfield, with nearly 4,200 bills posted for committee hearing in March and 541 making it to a 3rd reading last week. We are keeping a close eye on many of the educational bills and are contacting legislators and/or filing witness slips as is appropriate depending on the potential impact. I have included for the Board a recent presentation to superintendents by IASA, which also includes State of Illinois budget details. I plan to highlight a few of the pertinent details at the meeting.
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V.F. Village of Fox Lake Route 12 South Redevelopment Project Area
Description:
Back in February, I shared an update on the various Village of Fox Lake Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts. As mentioned at that time, plans for the Route 12 South TIF include a residential component. The project includes a total of 154 1-2 bedrooms market rate apartments. In consideration of the fact that the District may receive students from a TIF property, the Village is partnering with Grant and Big Hollow to develop an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) to provide payment for schools should we receive new students from the TIF development. The IGA is under review by all parties and I expect to have a finalized agreement for your review at the May meeting. In the meantime, I am sharing details regarding the development that has been approved by the Village.
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V.G. Protect Lake County Initiative
Description:
In April, 2023, the State of Illinois launched the Illinois Targeted Violence and Prevention Initiative. From that initiative, Protect Lake County was formed by DePaul University, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Loyola University funded by a Department of Homeland Security grant. The goal of this community wide initiative is to create a "multidisciplinary community support team" to support local entities and their threat assessment teams, enhance communication regarding threats among partners in the community, provide professional development, tools, and advise on challenging cases. Last month, the Fox Lake Police Department requested the administration consider participation and the Village of Fox Lake formally approved that participation on March 11, 2025. This is informational only this month. I have extended an invite to Chief Deservi to address the Board next month, when the Memorandum of Understanding to become a Participating Member Agency of Protect Lake County may be proposed as an action item.
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V.H. Graduation
Description:
We are looking forward to our graduation ceremony on Sunday, May 18th, in the Fieldhouse. The ceremony will begin promptly at 2:00 P.M. All Board of Education members are welcomed and encouraged to attend this celebratory event! Please let me know at your earliest convenience if you are able to attend, so seating and diploma distribution arrangements may be made.
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V.I. Principal’s Report
Description:
Dr. Schmidt will give his monthly Principal’s Report.
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V.J. Student Representative’s Report
Description:
Casey McCleery will provide her monthly report.
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VI. Transitional Superintendent’s Report – Recognition and Informational Items
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VI.A. Student Representative to the Board of Education
Description:
I am pleased to announce that junior Isabelle Ellington has been selected to serve as the Student Representative to the Board of Education for the 2025-2026 school year. We are excited to welcome Izzy as an active participant on the Board. She will certainly contribute by providing valuable insight from the student perspective and helping to foster continued two-way communication between the student body and the Board of Education. Izzy has been invited to attend the May and June meetings to shadow Casey. Please join me in welcoming Isabelle Ellington to this important role.
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VII. Public Comment
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VIII. Superintendent’s Report – Action Items
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VIII.A. Policy Change – Second Reading **
Description:
As discussed last month, the administration is recommending a change to School Board Policy 5:330 to permit eligible educational support personnel to accumulate up to a maximum of 240 sick leave days, rather than 180. This is higher than required by statute, but allows employees to accrue the number of days that IMRF will recognize towards service credit.
Section 500 Personnel 5:330 Sick Days, Vacation, Holidays, and Leaves Recommend approval of the policy change as presented. |
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VIII.B. Overnight Travel Requests **
Description:
Four Journalism students performed well at a virtual Sectional event on April 12th and qualified for the State competition on Friday, April 25th. The four students and tehri teacher are requesting to travel to Bloomington-Normal for the compeitition from April 24-25. The District would cover the cost of the trip, which is $1,476.76.
Two students qualified for the National FBLA Competition and National Leadership Conference. The competition will take place in Anaheim, California, from June 29 to July 2. One student qualified for the National Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) competition in Orlando, Florida from July 5-9. When students qualify for extracurricular or co-curricular national competitions, the District has traditionally contributed half of the student costs to attend. The estimated Board paid costs will be $3,248,46 for the FBLA competition and $2,538.83 for the FCCLA competition. The Wrestling Team is requesting to travel to an overnight camp at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, from June 26-29. Approximately 35-45 student-athletes will attend, in addition to 4 coaches. Interested families will cover the cost of $375 to participate. The Dance Team is requesting to travel to the Dance Team Union overnight camp at Illinois State University, in Bloomington, Illinois, June 24-26. Approximately 30 student-athletes will attend, in addition to 4 coaches. Interested families will cover the cost of $399 to participate. The Dance Team is requesting to travel to the Dance Team Union competitive tournament in Orlando, Florida, February 5-8, 2026. Approximately 16 student-athletes will attend, in addition to 4 coaches. Interested families will cover the cost of approximately $600 to participate. Recommend approval of the overnight travel requests as presented |
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VIII.C. Personnel **
Description:
Recommend the employment of the following individual(s):
Recommend accepting the resignation letters from the following individual(s):
Notification of an FMLA request from the following individual(s):
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IX. Business Affairs
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IX.A. 2024-2025 Tentative Amended Budget **
Description:
We have amended the 2024-2025 budget now that our federal grants and state funding has been finalized. We have the final Equalized Assessed Value from Lake County with our extension for the 2024 levy. We have updated the current year levy numbers. Additionally, we’ve trimmed expenses everywhere we can, projecting out the rest of the year. Per statute, the amended budget must be on display for 30 days. It will be on the June agenda for hearing and approval. Recommend placing the tentative amended 2024/25 budget on display.
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IX.B. 2025/26 Budget
Description:
2025/2026 Budget is under construction. I’ve been meeting with department heads and teacher leaders to find out possible expenses that will be a part of next year. I’ve been updating the budget as I have those meetings. Additionally, we should have renewal rates for health insurance within the next month. I plan to bring the tentative budget to you in May for display, with hearing and request for approval occurring in July.
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IX.C. Tax Cap Adjustment
Description:
The county multiplier from the Illinois Department of Revenue is 1.00 for tax year 2024. This equalizer is then applied to our equalized assessed value (EAV) resulting in a total EAV of $1,336,219,143. This is an increase of $157,263,926 from 2023. The EAV increased 13.34% from last year. As a result, the tax rate is 2.021023. The consumer price index for this tax cycle was 3.4%, so it was capped at 3.4%. Approximately, $264,038 had to be cut from the levied amount to comply with the tax cap limitation. A copy of the detailed cap adjustments is attached, as well as a comparison of Grant High School’s tax rate to other high school districts in Lake County.
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IX.D. Multi-Function White Activity Bus – 3 Year Lease **
Description:
Our five activity buses are at the end of their lease as of July 1, 2025. I reached out to both Midwest Transit and Central States Bus Sales, Inc. for quotes on a new lease. Central States Bus Sales, Inc. explained they cannot guarantee or provide the activity buses for this summer. Midwest Transit provided a lease agreement for either two years or three years. Based on the cost, I am recommending the Board approve the three-year lease agreement for our five white activity buses beginning July 1, 2025.
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X. Other Business
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X.A. FOIA
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XI. Closed Session
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XI.A. The appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance or dismissal of specific employees. 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(1) **
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XI.B. Other matters relating to individual students 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(10) **
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XI.C. Student disciplinary cases 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(9) **
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XII. Action items from closed session discussion
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XII.A. Potential Board action regarding personnel **
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XII.B. Potential Board action regarding individual student matters **
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XII.C. Potential Board action regarding student disciplinary matters **
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XIII. Adjourn
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