Glenbard News for Oct. 29, 2024

In this issue:

• Choir concert at East tonight
• Fund-raiser to benefit North Music Boosters
• Highlights of Oct. 28 board meeting

Choir concert at East tonight
On Tuesday, Oct. 29, Glenbard East choirs will host their annual Voices of East Concert featuring the choirs of Glenbard East, Glenn Westlake Middle School, and Marquardt Middle School.  The concert will feature a variety of pieces from various genres, time periods, and composers.

Tickets are available at this link or in person at the box office at the event.  Adults tickets are $3, students/children are admitted for free. The concert begins at 7pm in Biester Auditorium.

Fund-raiser to benefit North Music Boosters
Glenbard North Boosters is having a fundraising event at Shake Shack, 355 Army Trail Road, Bloomingdale on Wednesday, October 30, from 3:00pm – 9:00pm. Must mention the “Donation Day”  or use code DONATECHICKEN in the app for 25% of your purchase to be donated to the Glenbard North Music Boosters. 

Highlights of Oct. 28 board meeting
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: Margaret DeLaRosa, Kermit Eby, Bob Friend, Hetal Lee, Rosemarie Montanez, Martha Mueller and Jim Shannon.

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT:

1. Our Threat Assessment Team continues researching additional safety and security initiatives for our high schools. This is a priority and a major concern for all of us. The Threat Assessment Team has four subgroups: device detection, student items, active supervision, and personnel. Each subgroup has been meeting with vendors, experts in each of these areas, and colleagues. We are not alone in this research. Many school districts are having the same safety conversations.

Safety plans must address prevention, intervention and response. They also must involve having systems and processes in place to mitigate risks.

Ongoing research is necessary to determine what additional safety mitigations will be implemented in Glenbard. Recommendations and updates will be brought to the board in order for the schools to add additional layers to their existing safety plans. Additional mitigations are anticipated no later than the end of December 2024.

2. Over the next several years, our high schools will see significant improvements to building spaces. These improvements are part of our district-wide 10-year facility master plan.

We will host a Zoom webinar to share information about the facility master plan at 7 p.m. Wednesday, October 30. Watch the webinar on October 30 by clicking the facility master plan link in the news feed at glenbard87.org

The facility master plan includes:

• Safety and access upgrades (doors, hardware, entrances, and access to administrative offices)
• Renovation of science labs and classrooms
• Warm/safe/dry projects (roofs, parking lots, cooling units, etc.)
• Upgrades to cafeteria/commons areas to relieve overcrowding and provide flexible learning spaces

4. Congratulations to Glenbard West student Samantha Moorhead on earning a 36 on the ACT. Typically, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of high school students receive a perfect composite score of 36. An exceptional score of 36 on the ACT provides colleges with evidence of student readiness for the academic rigors that lie ahead.
5. We encourage community members to attend the GPS Parent Series events noted below. Details and links are available at GPSparentseries.org

• October 29 at noon and 7 p.m. – How to Raise Teens You Want to Spend Time With: Science-based Strategies for Responsible, Respectful Kids
• November 7 at noon and 7 p.m. – The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Road Map for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make

5. We connected with families during parent-teacher conferences on October 23 and 24. The conferences are a valuable time for families to meet with our faculty and to strengthen the home-school connection.

6. Congratulations to the 45 Glenbard students selected for the Illinois Music Education Association’s District IX Honors Music Festivals. Each student was chosen from the more than 1,000 students across the west suburban area who submitted audition recordings consisting of prepared musical selections and scales.

      Chorus: Glenbard East students Grace Boddy, Avery Corral, Serge Dulang, Liv Gómez, Taylor Kowalis, Karli May, and Olive Turner; Glenbard North students:  Zakary Krush, Gianna Nascimento; Glenbard South students: Danielle Allaway, Kate Costello, Erin Egan, Allie Rupp, and Riven Wisniewski; and Glenbard West students Paige Brondyke and Cole Lisook.

      Treble Chorus: Glenbard East students: Keira Alcantara, Lucia Johnston, Maxine Pascasio, and Allie Piña; Glenbard North students Emma Kedziora and Kate Orozco; Glenbard South students Olivia Abbott and Evi DeLaCruz; Glenbard West student Sophia Kennedy.

      Band: Glenbard East students Trevor Dunham, Dylan Hagansee, Anthony Macrito, Diana Urquiza, and Aidan Walsh; Glenbard North student Becca Marney; Glenbard South students Sophia Assaf, Grace Bittlingmaier, Abigail Edwards, and Milo Mufich; and Glenbard West student Simon Ellis.

      Orchestra: Glenbard East student Samantha King; Glenbard North student Julianna Easton; Glenbard South students Sarah Goodin, Kaitlyn Haas, Leo Obrill, and Simone Witort; and Glenbard West student Chloe Kim.

      Vocal Jazz Ensemble III: Glenbard East students Liv Gómez and Karli May.

      Vocal Jazz Ensemble II: Glenbard East students Serge Dulang and Erik Vazquez.

      Vocal Jazz Ensemble I: Glenbard East students Grace Boddy and Olive Turner.

      Jazz Ensemble II: Glenbard North student Drake Pope.

      Jazz Band I: Glenbard East student Axel Capetillo.

14. Glenbard North recently hosted the Options Fair, a regional post-secondary planning night for students with disabilities. There were more than 500 visitors and 95 vendors in attendance for the event. We had positive feedback about the building and parking. Many thanks to the following individuals for all their work on the Options Fair: Erin Hoving, transition specialist; Eric Johansen, Glenbard North assistant principal for operations; Janet Berger, assistant to the assistant principal for operations; and Jesse Grado, North building engineer.
15. Congratulations to Glenbard East teacher Nicole Miller on being named the 2024 Outdoor Adventure Teacher of the Year for Illinois, by the Outdoors Tomorrow Foundation. Her efforts in teaching and encouraging students in outdoor activities and experiences will last them a lifetime.
16. Congratulations to the following Glenbard students who have been named semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship competition: Glenbard North student Madalyn Cook, and Glenbard West students Megan Antonacci, Morgan Baedke, Syeda Zahra Baqhari, Emily Overtoom and Allison Penley. Semifinalists advance to finalist standing in the competition by meeting high academic standards, receiving a recommendation from their principal and earning SAT scores that confirm the earlier qualifying test performance.
17. Congratulations to West students Audrey Creswell and Kendall Mehta on qualifying for the IHSA girls tennis state final tournament. Kevin Graham is the head coach.
18. On September 18, 2024, the district received a Freedom of Information Act request from Deltek, Rhea Mae Lumanog, requesting awarded contract documents and bid tabulation/results for the March 20, 2024 construction management project. The district has responded to this request.
19. On September 23, 2024, the district received a Freedom of Information Act request from RJB Properties, Inc., Ta Shaunda Shumpert, requesting the name of the company the district is currently using for custodial/janitorial services; when the district plans to release its next request for proposals for custodial/janitorial services; and copies of the six most recent invoices, including the district’s current contract for custodial/janitorial services. The district has responded to this request.
20. On October 8, 2024, the district received a Freedom of Information Act request from the Painters District Council No. 30, David Arvayo, requesting a copy of the district’s responsible bidder ordinance. Additionally, they requested a copy of the facilities painting or drywall finishing contracts authorized/awarded by the district within the past 12 months for recently completed or upcoming projects, and if there are any awarded contracts wholly or partially funded by state or federal grants/programs. The district has responded to this request.
21. On October 17, 2024, the district received a Freedom of Information Act request from Marie Campbell, requesting copies of invoices on portable toilet rental from September 1, 2023 through October 1, 2024 at Glenbard East, North, South and West. The district has responded to this request.
22. On October 18, 2024, the district received a Freedom of Information Act request from Michael Ouimet, requesting a copy of their personnel file. The district has responded to this request.

THE BOARD APPROVED:

– the October 14, 2024 regular meeting minutes and closed session minutes.

 – the following personnel items:

SUPPORT STAFF – EMPLOYMENT:

Name                         School/Position                                             FTE         Effective Date

Altergott, Elizabeth  Directions / Instructional Aide                      100%              08/12/2024

Andres, Matthew      West / Special Education Assistant           87.5%              10/21/2024

Mowinski, Michael    East / Special Education Asst. (correction)    87.5%              09/30/2024

Sharma, Chetna       DO / Admin Asst. to Special Ed. (correction) 100%             10/02/2024

 – accepting the following donation: Glenbard West Class of 1970 Reunion Committee, $2,804.01 for a bench at West. HBAR Technologies, $1,000.00 to the robotics club/team at South.

– one excursion.

– fiscal year 2024 audit review and acceptance. Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP recently completed their annual audit of the district’s financials. A representative from Baker Tilly reviewed audit results at this meeting.

Highlights of the audit:

• The district achieved all major financial objectives: 

o   Balanced budget in operating funds;

o   Strong cash position, [specifically no short-term borrowing – no tax anticipation warrants were required to meet obligations];

o   Solvency position realized [197.07 days cash on hand was achieved which is higher than the target 180 days established by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE)].

• Glenbard’s annual financial report indicates that the district achieved Financial Recognition status from ISBE, which would be the 18th year in-a-row.
• Baker Tilly did not identify any control deficiencies in the audit.

We highlighted the following legislative impacts/risks in the management, discussion and analysis section of the report, which would impact our ability to fund staffing and programs. 

• The State of Illinois’ financial strength and ability to fund their portion of educational expenses is an ongoing area of focus and concern.
• A two-year property tax freeze would decrease our annual revenue by several million dollars, and have a compounding effect on future years. We continue to monitor and will advocate against a property tax freeze with our legislators.

– ACT prep – Academic Approach agreement 2024-25. The district has offered a free test prep for all 11th grade Glenbard students with the purpose of allowing equitable access to quality test prep for all students. The program has evolved over the years based on feedback from students, teachers, and administrators. In 2019, Glenbard partnered with Academic Approach to deliver the test prep course instruction. Academic Approach specializes in providing test prep for both the ACT and SAT.

In 2024, the district delivered an in-person and a fully virtual option, 10-week comprehensive SAT prep course for interested 11th graders. The course enrolled 688 students. The district offered a bilingual cohort in which students received SAT prep instruction in English while simultaneously having language support in Spanish with bilingual instructors. Glenbard students who took the diagnostic SAT exam, along with the official school day SAT had on average 87 points of growth.

The program increased enrollment from 520 in 2019 to 688 in 2024 – a 32-percent increase over the last six years. As the district continues to grow the program, the goal is to continue increasing overall program enrollment. This subsequently increases program completion rate and provides Glenbard students the best opportunity to maximize performance on the ACT. Based on feedback from parents and students, schedule conflicts with extra-curriculars provided a need for added flexibility for students. For that reason, students will have the option of in-person or virtual instruction, including a multiple Saturday virtual option, and a lecture/small group option where students receive general instruction and then select their area of need to focus on (either English/reading or math/science).

This contract accounts for multiple sections: 12 in-person after school, 12 virtual after school evenings, six virtual Saturday sessions, and one lecture/five small groups Saturday sessions (915 total students). Last year, the agreement was able to serve a maximum of 868 students for $266,673.40. This year, the district will be able to serve a maximum of 915 students for $263,660.

• ACT prep courses will be free to all Glenbard students.
• Each instructor provided by Academic Approach has passed a rigorous screening process, including demonstrating an official ACT score in the 95th percentile or higher and over 40 hours of rigorous ACT prep training.
• The ACT prep program with Academic Approach will provide 18 hours of instruction over a period of 10 weeks (12 hours of English/reading, 12 hours of math/science) and offer two practice assessments during week one and week five of the program or 12 hours of instruction for the lecture/small group program (six hours of larger group lecture instruction and six hours of specialized instruction – either English/reading or math/science).
• This contract budgets for 30 course sections across the four Glenbard schools, each with a capacity of 28 students and one lecture/five small groups program for a total capacity of around 915 students. This number is based on previous enrollment and anticipated growth.
• Each student will also receive proprietary virtual course books. 

– school safety measures. As part of our ongoing commitment to improve the safety and well-being of our students and staff, we proposed the implementation of Omnilert, a comprehensive weapons identification and notification system. This platform will enable real-time communication from a live agent at a monitoring center if an object of concern is detected. The service monitors our cameras 24/7/365. This platform will allow Glenbard to use its existing, extensive camera network and can be quickly implemented at the four high schools, both Transition program sites, the Directions program, and the district office buildings.

The board approved Omnilert LLC, $83,000 for security platform that assists with monitoring for the presence of weapons at East, North, South, West, Glenbard district office, Directions and Transitions.

BOARD INFORMATION/DISCUSSION ITEMS INCLUDED: 

– academic board goals report for Glenbard North. Principal John Mensik and the North administrative team presented the Glenbard North board goals, including the following data:

• Overall passing rate
• Cs or better grade
• Rigorous course sequence
• SAT 1010+
• Early college experience
• Early college credit
• Post-secondary plan
• Athletics and activities
• Staff diversity

– summer school 2024 report. Summer school principals from Glenbard North and Glenbard South presented highlights of the 2024 district-wide summer program and areas of focus for 2025. For the summer of 2024, Glenbard had 964 bridge and enrichment enrollments, 459 students enrolled in credit recovery coursework, and 298 students enrolled in get-ahead credit coursework, with an overall passing rate of 98 percent.

Our focus areas for next year are to recruit our talented Glenbard teachers, offer credit recovery course options for ninth graders and offer a variety of get-ahead credit courses so students can have flexibility in their schedules.

– dual credit update. In alignment with our board goals and the district work plan, the teaching and learning team has worked to create a vision for increasing student access to dual credit coursework. In 2020, Glenbard was the first district in DuPage County to enter into a formal agreement with the College of DuPage to offer general education dual credit courses that are a part of the Illinois Articulation Initiative. Since that time, Glenbard has created a vision for dual credit opportunities for our students in both general education and capstone experiences, which reduce the cost of college and speed up time to college graduation.

• The number of dual credit courses passed by our students has increased from 128 in the 2019-20 school year to 1,978 in the 2023-24 school year.
• Glenbard has created a new healthcare dual enrollment program with the College of DuPage for students who are interested in pursuing a certificate or a two-year degree in the healthcare industry.
• Focus areas going forward include: continue to inform parents and students about the new dual credit opportunities at Glenbard, work to research new future opportunities in dual credit, and assess the success and possible expansion of dual enrollment opportunities.

 – 2024 tax levy. The district sets a tax levy on an annual basis, which provides Glenbard with more than 75 percent of its total revenue. The setting of the annual tax levy is governed by the Truth in Taxation Law, 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.

After experiencing hyperinflation the past two fiscal years, 2023 marked the first time the Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell below the 5 percent PTELL cap. The 2023 year-end CPI came in at 3.4 percent. This will be the maximum amount the district can raise the tax levy (excluding new property growth).

Property Tax Extension Limitation Law 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:

• amount of the prior year’s tax extension
• the increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban (CPI-U) as of December 2023 (was 3.4 percent)
• new property growth

The first two items are already known, but the new property growth will not be known until April 2025, 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 2023 calendar year CPI of 3.4 percent and an estimated new construction amount of $50,000,000. 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 $8,224,733 or 5.29 percent – year over year (3.4 percent increase due to CPI; 0.68 percent increase due to new construction and 1.21 percent in bond and interest). We have estimated an increase in property equalized assessed value (EAV) of 9.0 percent.

Manual Override/Submitted Levy: School districts generally levy a dollar amount higher than the expected or most likely amount for three primary reasons:

• Actual EAVs and new construction amounts are unknown at this time and will not be finalized until the spring of 2025.
• 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)
• 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 2025) that we have the opportunity to levy the requisite amount.

Education fund = $121,500,000    (Most Likely); $122,310,000 (‘Override’)

Operations, Building & Maintenance fund = $25,050,000 (Most Likely); $25,200,000 (‘Override’)

Transportation fund = $8,770,000 (Most Likely); $8,800,000 (‘Override’)

IMRF fund = $720,000 (Most Likely); $730,000 (‘Override’)

Social Security & Medicare fund = $1,550,000 (Most Likely); $1,570,000 (‘Override’)

Total = $157,590,000 (Most Likely); $158,610,000 (‘Override’)

Year over year increase: 4.08 percent (Most Likely); 4.76 percent (‘Override’)

Our proposed property tax levy submission, excluding the bond and interest levy, is $158,610,000 which represents a 4.76 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 2025, 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. 

– IASB resolutions committee report. The 2024 Resolutions Committee Report to the Membership will be acted upon at the annual meeting of the Illinois Association of School Board’s (IASB) Delegate Assembly on November 24, 2024. Participating in the resolutions process by submitting new resolutions and discussing the resolutions gives member districts ownership in the association and the opportunity to establish the direction of the association and its major policies. The board was provided a copy of the report to review and was asked to note any suggestions or revisions. The district’s IASB delegate, Bob Friend, will submit any suggestions or revisions to the IASB Resolutions Committee.