June 16, 2026 at 7:00 PM - Board of Education Meeting

Description:  For this month's meeting, I wanted to make you aware that the parking lot at Cass is being replaced this week, which means that you will need to park across the street. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. 

Our Mission, Beliefs, and Values

Board Agreements and Protocols

Vision 2025 Strategic Plan

 IASB Code of Conduct 

Description:  This is an opportunity to welcome guests, make announcements, and share Board correspondence.

The Board received FOIA requests from Carla Carlos, David Arvayo, Katsuhiro Tsuda, Lindsay Weld, Daniel Cramer, and Caroline Darnell. We are still in the process of responding to one of the five requests from this month.

Description:  I would just like to take a moment and thank our Board of Education and District 63 staff for another phenomenal year and for our good work accomplishing so much together over the last six years. I'm so proud of our school district and the progress we've made, and feel good knowing that it's ready to hand off to Dr. McGuire for the next era. I can't wait to see where you all take it from here! Thank you all for your support, as well as your care and compassion for our students and community. I appreciate all of you more than you will ever know.

Description:  This is the first opportunity for any guests to comment, per Board Policy 2:230.

Description:  The consent agenda allows for approval of routine action items together in one motion when discussion is typically unnecessary. Upon the request of any Board member, a consent agenda item can be withdrawn and placed on the regular agenda for independent consideration. Questions in advance of the meeting are appreciated in the event any background information needs to be obtained.

Description:  We have several personnel items for consideration this month.

Authorization of Dr. Travis McGuire as Bank Signatory
Some banks prefer to have authorization to approve signatories, even though Board policy allows the superintendent to sign and act in this capacity on behalf of the district. Old Second Bank has requested this for changing the signature authority from Mark Cross to Travis McGuire on the building active fund accounts, where the principals are already included.

Leave of Absence Request
Concord speech pathologist Jessica Andujar is expecting and has requested FMLA leave from the beginning of the 2026-27 school year through November 10.

Requests for Retirement
Long time Concord teacher assistant Cindy Becker has submitted a request to retire at the close of the 2029-30 school year. While we normally approve these in March, Cindy was undecided at the time and I am happy to recommend her for approval as well.

Cass Junior High evening custodian Peter Pauley has decided to retire from full-time work, effective August 31, 2026. Pete has only been here a few years, and we will get this position posted and try to find a good one in time to start the school year.

Resignation
Concord special education teacher Katy Modglin has accepted a position in another district that has opportunity for her goals. She is waiting for the Woodridge 68 Board to formally approve her employment before she submits her resignation, but we should have this prior to Tuesday's meeting.

New Staff Recommendations
Katie Doyle, Megain Conlin, and Cathy Fisher did a great job screening candidates and finding two strong people ready to go and so excited to join our D63 and Concord team. Both also fully buy into the direction of our MTSS processes and student services program.

Toni DeFalco Lawson
Concord Special Education Teacher
2026-27 Salary: $66,727.27
Toni is replacing Jenny Kirkpatrick and has three years of experience in a self-contained special education classroom, which is the perfect background for this position.

Meredith Spiegel
Concord Special Education Teacher
2026-27 Salary: $67,863.13
Meredith is replacing Katy Modglin and comes to us with four years of co-teaching experience in varying elementary classrooms, which gives her a great background in handling differing age groups with varying needs. 

Description:  We are finishing the year strong, and we are expecting an ending fund balance in excess of $10 million. This has always been an unspoken goal, and this will allow for some current and future facility work to get done as well.

Description:  We do this every summer to allow us to pay routine July bills so we can keep things rolling in the absence of a regular monthly Board meeting. Bills paid in July will be provided to the Board in August for review and formal approval.

Description:  We will need a motion for the Board to enter the public hearing for the renewal of the Cass School District 63 eLearning Plan. Our purpose here is simply maintain the option to hold an eLearning day for instances of serious weather, or other events that could cause the closing of school. 

I will briefly review the District eLearning Plan, which meets all legal requirements and includes no substantive changes from when we last adopted the plan in 2023, aside from the inclusion of a more specific schedule for Concord as we already do for Cass. This is a subject of bargaining, and the details have been previously agreed upon with the Cass Education Association, which is included in the Memorandum of Understanding below and under the relevant action item.

Also included under the following links are the resolution for renewing the plan for the next three school years, and the required state e-Learning verification form. After any comment and discussion, we will need a motion to close the public hearing.

Description:  The principals are given the month of June off from submitting a formal report and from attending the meeting, but I will share a few quick updates along with my report below.

Description:  So much good work has gotten done for our kids, district, and taxpayers through our Vision 2025 Strategic Plan. I am very proud of the effort that has gone into this, and for the Board's support in helping us keep moving forward.

For the purposes of our review of the preceding six months, significant growth has been demonstrated on indicators 1A, 2B, and 2D, while work will need to continue on items 1C, 1D, and 1E. Truthfully, some of these will always be a work in progress, particularly when we are talking about recruiting and retaining a high quality and diverse staff that is reflective of our community. These are goals we just always want to keep striving toward. The narrative and ratings are provided under the link above or the document below.

Description:  This is the second reading of this round of recommended policy updates. We discussed several of these in depth last month, and following were some of the more substantive items.

2:220 - IASB provided options for maintaining the current practice that does not allow for district residents to request that discussion items be added to the meeting agenda, that the Board can add discussion items at the request of a resident, or that discussion items can be added at the request of a resident with a unanimous Board vote. Our Board was in agreement to maintain our current practice and not have the agenda items changed at the request of a member of the public at a meeting.

2:250 - Regarding FOIA request language, much of this is to avoid being forced to open files or links that could be phishing or other spam, as well as addressing the potential concern with requests generated by artificial intelligence.

2:260, 5:10, 5:20, 7:20, 7:180, and 7:255 - These policies are being updated to replace me with Dr. McGuire as a complaint manager on the noted policies. Press Plus has a form that Gayle Wilson can submit that will change all of the noted policies at one time. Board approval for complaint manager name changes do not require individual board policy approval as long as nothing else within the policy has been updated.

4:165 - The removal of the parent notification requirement is a statutory change so that parents or guardians who could be the perpetrators of sexual abuse do not have the opportunity to remove their child from instruction on how to recognize and avoid sexual abuse.

5:330 - As discussed last month, this has been updated to reflect our current practice, and the red-lined policy is included so the Board can review the changes.

Description:  The Summer 2026 Phase III projects are underway and going very well. We had a construction meeting recently that both Travis and I attended and at this time, we don't anticipate any difficulties with getting the work completed on time.

Also, as a reminder to everyone, included below is a summary of the estimated costs for the work taking place this summer. This includes not only the Phase III project with Reed Construction, but also the planned additional maintenance work that includes the asbestos abatement, parking lot replacement, new stair treads, moving and storage services, plumbing, and electrical work. As a result, there will be a planned budget deficit for FY27.

Description:  This item will be provided for action at a future meeting date.

Description:  The draft of this document was shared last month. I welcome any questions, but otherwise will recommend that the Board approve this in support of the changes to the Articles of Joint Agreement.

Description:  This is the second opportunity for any guests in the audience to share public comments, per Board Policy 2:230.

Description:  This is the opportunity for Board members to share any comments, as well as to announce the next meeting date, time, and location.