Burr Ridge CCSD #180 Board Meeting Summary

Summary of May 19, 2008
Board of Education Meeting

The Burr Ridge C.C.S.D. 180 Board of Education held their regular meeting on Monday, May
19, 2008. The meeting was held in the Burr Ridge Middle School Band Room.
The meeting began with several presentations:

• One presentation was from the Community House and the AMJES Bank program. This
presentation was an opportunity to present some of the collaborative work that has been
taking place between the Community House and AMJES.

• The other presentation was from MENTA. MENTA has been used by our schools to
diminish student disruption and train teachers in effective strategies to improve behavior.
Several suggestions on how MENTA can continue working with the school district were
presented. This is something we will be reviewing with our new curriculum director for
the coming year.

• The board also recognized Wesley Gosselink who was attending her last board meeting
as a Burr Ridge 180 administrator.

After approval of the previous month’s minutes and expenditures, the Board then reviewed
several recent communications. Highlighted items are included below:

• The Doings covered featured some great photos from the AMJES Family Reading Night
on April 10th.

• The district received notification from ISBE that the district will be receiving $2,661.51
less in the School Safety and Educational Improvement Block Grant this year as non-
public schools are now eligible for a portion of these funds.

• The district also received notification from ISBE that the district may be receiving fewer
Title I dollars this year. At this point, the district will wait for the official numbers to be
made available to us sometime over the summer. However, the state has shown a loss in
enrollment from FY 07 and a drop off in the low-income census count. Those numbers
will have an impact on the overall amount of grant money we will be receiving this year.

• Additionally, Title V was not allocated for FY09 ($1,467 in FY 08) and it is doubtful that
the district will be receiving funds under that grant. This loss of funds will be reflected in
our budget as well as our budget projections.

• The district received one request for information and has responded.

The board then reviewed the Principal’s reports included in the board packet.

From the Superintendent’s report the board learned of the following items:

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT

A. Improving Student Achievement
B. Creating a safe and productive school climate

C. Serving the needs of all of our students

• In order to get a better handle on parent perceptions regarding our schools and school
program, a parent survey was approved. This survey would not only give our district
excellent feed back regarding our programs but would also satisfy one of the district’s
stated goals in our communication plan to improve communication with parents. A copy
of the survey will only be available through the web site.

D. Efficient management practices

• On May 8th, the entire administrative team met to discuss registration. During this
discussion, the team found that a great deal of the time parents spend at registration is
correcting personal information and a great deal of time on the district’s end is verifying
this information. In an effort to improve this process, it is believed that some of this
work could be done on-line, similar to ordering through the internet.

The district has since contacted Extreme Form, which is a company that creates on-line
forms that can then be up-loaded to Power School, our student data system. This system
would eliminate parents having to correct student information on paper and then the
secretaries having to correct that information in the data management program.

As an added benefit, since this system is on-line, parents could complete this form at
home. Along with e-pay they could also pay at home. This would mean that parents
with internet access would only have to come to school to verify their residency (and
perhaps pick up a gym uniform) to complete the registration process. Parents seeking
free lunch or waiver of fees would still need to do that at school as well.

However, having the option to complete this work at home will make the registration
lines go much more smoothly for our parents who do need to come in to complete this
work.

To accommodate parents who may not have the internet at home, we will have computers
available at school and will conduct registration in/near the computer labs.

Due to the ease of registration (hopefully), the district will have open registration on
Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-3PM and Wednesdays from 9-11AM from June 9th
through August 8th.

For those returning students not registering during the summer, registration will be on
August 11th from 1-7PM at BRMS. Those not registered after August 11th will need to
register by appointment only after August 20th.

New students can register any time during the open registration hours from June 9th
through August 8th and at a special registration day from noon-8PM on August 7th.

Letters with this information, and the requirements for proof of residency and free lunch,
will be sent to returning parents and made available on our web site as soon as the district
has the computer components worked out, prior to the end of the school year.

The superintendent cautioned board members that as this is a new process, there may be
some things to work out. While the staff hopes to keep those to a minimum, undoubtedly
there may be some rough patches. However, the benefit to both parents and the district in
terms of time saved may be significant.

• The superintendent will be attending the NAFIS conference this June. A copy of the
registration and agenda was shared with the board. An update on the future of Impact Aid
will be presented at the June meeting.

• On Friday, May 16th, District Financial Director, Cindy Clausen attended the IASBO
conference and the informational meeting in which the successful vendor as per the
district’s 403B management cooperative and the pricing structure was announced.

• Earlier this month the district sent out an invitation to bid on the bread and food products
that the district will use during the upcoming school year. The legal notice, a sample
letter to one of the bread bidders, and the list of bidders receiving this information to
was shared with the board. Bids are to be submitted by and opened at 4:00PM on
Tuesday, June 24, 2008.

In regard to the milk bid, the district has joined a purchasing group for that bid and will
have a recommendation in June. There may be fewer selections of milk (i.e. no
strawberry) in exchange for joining this co-op, but the district sells so few of those
(twenty-five cartons a week, 100 per month) that it is not believed to be an issue.

The district is anticipating that given the current increase in gas and grain prices that
there will be significant increases in milk, bread and food products bids. In anticipation
of these possible increases, the board will be contemplating an increase in the cost of
lunch prices for next year. Currently, the district charges $2.25 per lunch and .35 cents
for an ala carte milk. Currently, the Federal government reimburses the district $2.47 per
lunch. It is anticipated that there will be an increase in this reimbursement, but this will
not be known until sometime in July. As the Federal government sees the area of $2.50
as a reasonable expense for lunch, the district may need to increase lunch costs in-line
with that amount.

There will be a more formal recommendation at the next meeting.

E. Future facilities planning

• During some of the heavy rains last week, several leaks were found at BRMS. Many of
these leaks are where the old building and the new building come together. There is also
a leak in the gym along the east wall. From some of the contractors we have had in to
look at these leaks, it appears as if some of the leaking can be prevented with some
sealant and some reworking of the drainage system. However, the leak on the gym wall
may be a result of the flower boxes along the side of the building, which hold the water
against the wall resulting in seepage. It may be that the cheapest fix for that would be the
removal of the flower boxes and continuing the cedar siding down the wall to the ground.

Additionally, the parking lot at both schools is showing the wear from the winter. This is
especially true near the drain systems in both lots. Neither of these issues was identified
in our survey of the grounds as we requested only a look at the building structures not the
parking lots.

The Board of Education then opened the floor to members of the public to present comments.
Hearing none, the board then met in closed session to discuss the appointment, employment,
compensation, discipline performance or dismissal of an employee, legal counsel for the public
body, collective negotiating matters student disciplinary cases, and closed session minutes.

• Upon coming out of closed session, the board approved the Closed Session Minutes from
April 21, 2008 and that they be made open to the public.

Item 8

CURRENT BUSINESS

A. Improving Student Achievement

• The board accepted the recommendation increasing the promotion standards at the
middle school to 65%. The new standards will require a passing grade in each
quarter students will not be able to wait until the last minute to improve their
standing with an overall 60%.

B. Creating a safe and productive school climate
C. Serving the needs of all of our students
D. Efficient management practices

• The board accepted the resignation of Special Education Secretary Kelly Krohn.

• The board approved the employment of Tennille Jefferson as the Special Education
Paraprofessional Aide Trained in Physical Management and Ruth Livingston as the Bi-
lingual Early Childhood Paraprofessional Aide (Spanish).

• The board approved the employment of Kelly Collins as the BRMS Physical Education
Teacher and for the 2008-09 school year.

• The board approved the final 2007-08 calendar that eliminates the emergency days and that
reflects a legal 180-day school calendar.

• In looking at ways to save money, the board approved a change in summer hours. Last year,
electric costs for July and August were approximately $15,362. It is anticipated that this
year’s costs would exceed that amount.
The board approved a motion to approve closing school buildings on Friday and moving to a
ten hour day during the weeks of July 7th through July 28th as a pilot energy saving program
as presented.

• The board approved the hiring of summer school teachers. The summer school program is
being brought back this year thanks to the donation of the Burr Ridge Education Foundation.
The board approved the hiring of Megan VanWeelde (EL-Sp. Ed.), Maria Johnston (MS-Sp.
Ed.), Mindy Phelan (1st/Kdg), Candy Trumpane (2nd), Ronielle Clapp (3rd), Jennifer Rogers
(4th), Krista DePasquale (5th), Tracy Ritchey (6th), and Kim Phelan (7th) to teach in the 2008
summer school program.

• The board heard the second reading and approved policies 5:280 and 5:290.

• The board reviewed and held the first reading for policies: 4:110, 4:150, 5:190, 6:50, 6:170,
7:10, 7:15, 7:100, 7:190, 8:30, and the deletion of policy 8:40 as presented.

Item 9

BOARD MEMBER ITEMS/FUTURE AGENDA TOPICS/CALENDAR

A. May 19, 2008 Board of Education Meeting—7PM
B. May 22, 2008 8th Grade Dinner Dance
C. May 23, 2008 8th Grade Great America Trip
D. May 26, 2008 Memorial Day—No School
E. May 28, 2008 8th Grade Graduation—7PM
F. May 29, 2008 AMJES Picnic
G. May 30, 2008 Last Day of Student Attendance
H. June 20-23, 2008 NAFIS Conference—South Dakota
I. June 24, 2008 Bread/Food Bid Opening—4PM
J. June 30, 2008 Board of Education Meeting—7PM

Item 10

ADJOURNMENT