Board Highlights feature a brief description of the action items and discussion items on the meeting agenda. Board Highlights do not replace minutes. The minutes are approved by the Board and posted after the next regularly scheduled Board meeting. Present: Jay Bastian, Margaret DeLaRosa, Kermit Eby, Hetal Lee, Martha Mueller, Pete Nolan and Jim Shannon.
All of these talented students will travel to Peoria from January 28-31, 2026, where they will perform, compose, and learn alongside the top high school musicians in Illinois. This is an incredible achievement, and we are proud of their dedication and artistry.
Glenbard East
Band
Christian George (11) – Euphonium
Dylan Hagensee (10) – Baritone Saxophone
Sam King (12) – Oboe
Aidan Walsh (12) – Trombone
Orchestra
Laurel Kurowski (10) – Viola
Honors Vocal Jazz
Josiah D’Imperio (11) – Bass
Future Music Educator Seminar
Keira Alcantara (12)
Ben Castro Jimenez (12)
Honorable Mention Commercial Instrumental
Bishop Montesa (9) – Composition
Composition, 3rd Place EDM | 2nd Place Remix | 1st Place Rap/Hip Hop
Dean Dominowski (12)
Composition, Honorable Mention Singer/Songwriter | 3rd Place Jazz Improvisation
Olive Turner (12)
Composition, Honorable Mention Rap/Hip Hop
Isaiah Cardona (12)
Glenbard North
Band
John Ocampo (12), Trumpet
Glenbard South
Chorus
Riven Wisniewski (12)
Glenbard West
Orchestra
Chloe Kim (11), Viola
– the November 24, 2025 regular meeting minutes and closed session minutes, and the December 1, 2025 emergency meeting minutes.
– invoices for payment.
December 8, 2025
Education Fund $1,757,139.13
Operations & Maintenance Fund $ 262,438.92
Debt Service $ 225.00
Transportation $ 334,592.62
Capital Projects $1,642,652.50
IL Munic. Retire/Soc Sec. $ 0.00
Interim – Checks $1,109,888.83
Interim – Wire Transfers $4,568,432.98
TOTAL $9,675,369.98
– November 5 and November 20 payrolls.
November 5, 2025 Gross Payroll Net Payroll
Education Fund $4,961,196.43 $3,002,858.90
Operations & Maintenance Fund $ 52,409.87 $ 31,460.43
Transportation Fund $ 1,733.16 $ 1,195.43
November 20, 2025 Gross Payroll Net Payroll
Education Fund $5,250,534.64 $3,199,104.99
Operations & Maintenance Fund $ 48,247.61 $ 28,466.96
Transportation Fund $ 1,778.06 $ 1,243.82
Total Payrolls $10,315,899.77 $6,264,330.53
– the following personnel items:
SUPPORT STAFF – EMPLOYMENT:
Name School/Position FTE Effective Date
Riveroll, Pablo DO/District Accounting 100% 12/08/2025
Zaro, Alayna North/Building Technical Support 100% 12/03/2025
– one excursion.
– 2025 tax levy – resolution to adopt aggregate tax levy. Annually, District 87 sets a tax levy, which provides the District with more than 75 percent of its total revenue. The setting of the annual tax levy is governed by The Truth in Taxation Law (the “Act”), School Code, Property Tax Code, and Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL). Each of these laws has specific requirements that must be followed, or a District’s tax levy could be subject to legal challenge.
Truth in Taxation Law (the “Act”): requires that at least 20 days prior to the adoption of the levy, the School Board must estimate the aggregate levy for the year through a Board motion or resolution. The provided resolution complies with this requirement.
The 2024 year-end Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in at 2.9 percent. This will be the maximum amount the district can raise the tax levy (excluding new property growth and bond and interest payments).
School Code and Property Tax Code: require that the final levy be adopted and filed with the County Clerk on or before the last Tuesday in December, which is December 30, 2025 this year.
The following timetable will satisfy the requirements of the above laws:
Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL): PTELL limits the amount the tax levy (aggregate extension) can increase over the prior year’s tax levy. Debt service levies are not included in this limitation. Three factors determine the allowable tax growth under the PTELL laws: 1. amount of the prior year’s tax extension; 2. the increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban (CPI-U) as of December 2024 (was 2.9 percent); 3. and new property growth. The first two items are already known, but the new property growth will not be known until April 2026, so the District must estimate the amount of new property growth and the County Clerk will adjust the tax extension once the final number is known. We have prepared two calculations to account for this projection.
Most Likely: We have calculated our most likely extension based on a 2024 calendar year CPI of 2.9 percent and an estimated new construction amount of $40,000,000. This calculation represents the total tax extension that we believe the district will most likely receive. Based on this calculation, we believe that our total property tax extension revenue will increase by $8,805,154 or 5.44 percent – year over year (2.9 percent increase due to CPI; 0.51 percent increase due to new construction and 2.03 percent in bond and interest). We have estimated an increase in property EAV of 8.0 percent.
Manual Override/Submitted Levy: School districts generally levy a dollar amount higher than the expected or most likely amount for three primary reasons: 1. Actual EAV’s and new construction amounts are unknown at this time and will not be finalized until the spring of 2026; 2. If the district’s levy request is lower than what the county calculates, the district is only entitled up to the amount requested (it is prudent to request a higher amount to ensure that we do not under-levy); 3. At this point in time of the year, we have not finalized our required levy allocation by fund. Therefore, we intend on requesting higher amounts in each fund to make sure that when we finalize our levy allocation by fund (March/April 2026) that we have the opportunity to levy the requisite amount.
FUND Most Likely ‘Override’
For Educational purposes $125,870,000 $126,790,000
For Operations, Building & Maintenance purposes $ 25,940,000 $ 26,130,000
For Transportation purposes $ 9,070,000 $ 9,140,000
For IMRF purposes $ 770,000 $ 770,000
For Social Security & Medicare purposes $ 1,620,000 $ 1,630,000
Total: $163,270,000 $164,460,000
Year-over-year increase: 3.41% 4.17%
Our proposed property tax levy submission, excluding the Bond and Interest Levy, is $164,460,000 which represents a 4.17-percent increase over the prior year’s aggregate tax extension (‘Override Amount’). For reasons mentioned above, it is prudent to levy a higher dollar amount than expected.
In the spring of 2026, DuPage County will calculate our actual property tax extension pursuant to the tax cap, taking into account the CPI and New Construction and all approved abatements.
– Alternate Revenue Source bond abatement. The District 87 Board of Education issued Alternate Revenue Source (ARS) bonds to accelerate funding for capital projects. The District was able to realize favorable interest rates by utilizing this funding instrument.
ARS bonds are issued with a backup pledge of a property tax levy. This pledge allowed District 87 to realize improved financing terms, as mentioned previously. The county clerk’s office will levy taxes to pay the GO Bond (ARS) Series 2023A and Series 2024A each year, through 2039. The Board must approve a resolution each year to abate these dollars to ensure there is zero incremental tax impact to our residents. Glenbard’s operating budget funds the payment of principal and interest on these bonds.
Bond counsel prepared the resolutions for the Board’s approval. We will file these documents with the DuPage County Clerk’s office following approval to abate the taxes levied for levy year 2025 to pay the GO ARS, Series 2023A and Series 2024A bonds in full.
– general education transportation bus purchase or lease. As part of our transition to new general education transportation providers as a part of our emergency transportation contracts, the administration has assessed the advantages of directly leasing vehicles, as well as purchasing them, with services being divided between two depots and two vendors.
To fulfill our contract with Cook Illinois, we must provide the vehicles that will serve Glenbard West High School. This will require having 20 buses available by January 3, 2026. Midwest Transit Equipment offered a lease, which was approved at the November 24, 2025 Board of Education meeting. There have since been new developments that may require a change. Therefore, we are requesting that the Board take action to modify our plan. This will require immediate action to be ready for the start of the second semester.
– professional development update – Fall 2025. Glenbard provides a robust professional development program for licensed staff each year that focuses on embracing diversity, innovating, and adapting and learning. This program is designed for educators’ personal and professional growth as they seek to continually improve student learning. All Glenbard professional development aligns with our Profile of a Graduate and our Profile of an Educator. Professional development is used to advance work plan goals and deepen our understanding of the Profile of a Graduate.
This school year, we are running 47 sessions on 26 different topics for district-wide professional development. Educators are encouraged to attend professional development with their teams. Additional professional development opportunities are available to staff on institute days and at the building level.
This update provided information on professional development opportunities for licensed staff for the 2025-26 school year and a summary of the 2024-25 activities.
– new book adoption. This proposal is for the adoption of two novels for the Senior English course at Directions. These novels, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, and The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett were selected because of their alignment with rhetorical devices, analysis of author choices and the opportunity for students to have meaningful practice in close reading. This recommendation has been reviewed and approved by all four English department chairs and the Glenbard Directions Program Principal. The Student Performance and Achievement Committee has also vetted the proposal.
– special education transportation services update. The District currently contracts with Safeway for its special education transportation services. We are currently servicing in-district and out-district routes to over 44 locations across the county.
On November 20, 2025, we were notified by Safeway’s leadership team that they will be unable to fulfill the services of our agreement beyond February 28, 2026. The exit agreement was approved by the Board on November 24, 2025. To ensure continuity of service for our students and families, we have identified several options and are actively coordinating with Durham and Cook Illinois (Lakeside Transportation) to transition the special education routes currently operated by Safeway.
– lease renewal for the Southern Transition Site. This lease renewal runs from 2026 to 2031 for the property at 450 E. Roosevelt in Lombard, IL. The facility is used to house a community transition program which offers a high level of service to students with special needs. These students have completed the traditional four years at their community high school and now require instruction and support to attain their post-secondary goals.
The terms of the 2026 to 2031 lease are defined and were approved in the original lease. The rate established in the 2019 agreement (Article 6) remains the same. The initial rate for 2026-27 is $96,923.82, which is subject to an annual 3 percent incremental increase during the term of the lease.
– policies & procedures for first reading & discussion. 5:20 Workplace Harassment; 5:90 Abused and Neglected Child Reporting; 5:100 Staff Development Program; 5:120 Employee Ethics; Code of Professional Conduct; and Conflict of Interest; Administrative Procedure 5:120-AP2 Employee Conduct Standards; 5:185 Family and Medical Leave; 5:190 Teacher Qualifications; 5:200 Terms and Conditions of Employment and Dismissal; 5:220 Substitute Teachers; 5:220-AP1 Substitute Teachers; and 5:280 Duties and Qualifications.
– Freedom of Information Act requests. By School Code, a Board of Education is to be informed at its regular meeting of any requests made under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the status of the District’s response. Here are the recent FOIA requests to which the District has responded:
DATE RECEIVED: 11/25/2025
REQUESTOR & COMPANY: Nicholas Meyer
REQUESTS SUMMARY: I want to FOIA the alleged policy of District 87 where if a student drops out of the district they cannot re enroll in any school.
DATE RECEIVED: 11/26/2025
REQUESTOR & COMPANY: Kyrie Reitz (Mackinac Center for Public Policy)
REQUESTS SUMMARY: The number of people (union members) who are having dues withdrawn from their paycheck. The total number of people covered by collective bargaining agreements (union contracts). Please provide this information for the most recent pay period in November of 2025.
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