Brookwood School District 167 Board of Education Board Committee met June 8.
Here is the minutes provided by the board:
I. CALL TO ORDER/PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE/ROLL CALL
President Doreen Davis called the Board of Education Committee Meeting of Brookwood School District 167 to order at 7:02pm
Roll call was answered by: Vice President Sandra Washington, Member John Dixon, Member Tiffany Graham, Member Toleda Hart, Member Roslon Seals and President Doreen Davis.
Absent: Secretary Mary Taylor
6-Present 1-Absent
II. CITIZEN’S COMMENTS: (Limited to Agenda Items)
NONE
III. SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT
Superintendent Bethany Lindsay:
Good Evening Brookwoood School District 167, Board of Education and Community members.
FOIA: Jonathan Fagg – a copy of information related to student attendance during the current period of remote learning.
Hickory Bend Elementary – Kdg – 62 students, 1st Grade – 48 students, 2nd Grade – 54 students, 3rd Grade – 61 students, and 4th Grade – 63 students. Out of 289 students, one student was not engaged, we had 99% of students engaged.
Longwood Elementary – Kdg – 65 students, 1st Grade – 61 students, 2nd Grade – 53 students, 3rd Grade – 60 students, and 4th Grade – 61 students. Out of 304 students, fourteen students not engaged so we had 96% of students engaged at first and after social workers visited we had 100% engaged. Social workers visited each house provided the learning packets for each of the fourteen students to complete.
Brookwood Middle School – 5th Grade – 113 students, and 6th Grade – 134 students; out of 246 students; we had 98% of students engaged.
Brookwood Junior High School – 7th Grade – 135 students, and 8th Grade –142 students at 93% of students engaged. And again, social workers did home visits for the student that were not engaged.
The global call for action following the death of George Floyd has turned our collective attention to the tragedy of institutionalized racism and the need for real and lasting change. For our children, this is a time to educate and give guidance on inclusion, equality, and how every one of us can make a difference.
BSD 167 strongly supports students, families and staff. We have a shared responsibility of leading effective schools. Our programs aim to enhance our educators’ capacity to meet the intellectual, physical, and social-emotional needs of every student. Our schools have the power to change the status quo. Change is hard-fought and best accomplished through education and in cooperation with one another. We remain committed to these beliefs, for the sake of every child. Our focus will be centered on equity and increased access to opportunities for all of our students.
Congratulations to the Class of 2020! We are so proud of you. I would like to thank the Graduation Committee spearheaded by Principal Jill Larson for conducting such a beautiful graduation celebration for our students in spite of our limitations due to COVID-19. The committee consisted of: Jill Larson, Pam Marcus, Lavelle Person, Matt Schmalz, Mary Cluff, Chana Harry, Leslie Cruz, Chanae Ross, DeAngelo Blatcher, Lucie Lucca, Kayla Shields, Tanesha Griffin, and Frank Lagger.
I would also like to thank one of our parents, Mr. Person, who volunteered his services and videotaped the celebration and is helping to create a graduation video for students and parents. Additionally, our very own Principal Patterson is to be graciously thanked for volunteering his time to professionally photograph each graduate receiving his/her diploma. Thank you to our Police and Fire Dept. who served at graduation to ensure a safe celebration for our students.
On June 4th, we held our Annual Staff Recognition and Service Awards. I would like to thank our retirees who were honored for their dedicated service to our school district. We wish them well as they embark on a new journey – we will always be grateful for their commitment to our school district! Thank you to our retirees, who are as follows:
Ms. Patti Sebek
Ms. Marilyn Adams
Ms. Mary Jurgevic
Ms. Karen Hines
Mr. Jeffery Reneau
Ms. Emma Kirtley
Finally, tonight we have Dr. Rob Grossi here to share information with the Board of Education regarding the potential for refinancing our bonds; I turn the floor over to him at this time. Welcome Dr. Grossi.
Good Evening Everybody. Back in 2012-2013 the district passed a referendum and issued bonds to pay for its new facility. Since that time, interest rates have dropped. When a person takes out a mortgage for example and interest rates drop, they can refinance their mortgage and get a lower there annual payments. When a school district issues municipal bonds generally they can’t do that right away. They have to wait a period of time, and generally that time is ten years. So the business that lends the school district money wants to have that interest rate for ten years guaranteed. In the instance of this bond issue, the Board of Education had my firm Crystal Financial Consultants which is separate from my capacity as Bloom Township Trustee of Schools, to serve in the capacity of financial advisor for the bond issue which is a separate function in a separate risk level from financial advisor and financial treasurer and in that capacity. One of the things we stressed at that time was rather than wait 10 years, we wanted to push the call date of the refinance to 7 to 8 years of the issuance. We were successful to do that and now the date we can refinance the bonds is December 1, 2020 instead of 2022 or 2023. Because the interest rates have dropped so much, the district has the ability to refinance that debt and save about a million dollars. So this makes absolute financial sense for the district to do that. The district has the ability and they don’t have to make this decision today, to take that million dollars and use that to lower the annual tax levy on the debt somewhere in the range of $75 to $125 thousand dollars per year for the next twelve years that’s how much longer the bonds are outstanding or they could take that million dollars and borrow life safety bonds or other capital type bonds and to pay for capital projects and preserve fund balance reserves to better ensure that there are reserves available for your students in the event that COVID-19 crisis has a long term impact of funding for school districts. That decision doesn’t have to be made today, but I think the district should strongly consider moving forward with refinancing 2012-2013 bonds which are both callable on December 1, 2020; which means you could issue the bonds in September or October to accomplish that. If the district does refinance their bonds and decides to move forward the Board of Education, my suggestion would be that between the July 13th Board meeting, August 10th meeting or September 21st; the Board take the necessary action to accomplish this. By that point in time the district would be in position to refinance their debt which are currently a million dollars in savings. That is net of all fees associated with the transaction. My suggestion would be that on the last transaction we utilize George K bonds as the underwriter for the bond issue. Part of the reason why they were chosen was because they provided some assistance in the referendum process as they have expertise in that area. My recommendation for this transaction is that we competitively bid the underwriting services in short order to get the firm that is most competent and willing to work at the lowest possible fee for the best interest of the school district. The purpose of today was to call this to the board’s attention and to gage the interest in moving forward with this transaction so that we can have some resolutions and some documents prepared for the July 13th Board meeting.
Questions (8:00):
Did the social workers volunteer to go to the homes of students or were they asked to? -Member Graham
They were assigned to go as part of their role as a social worker. They paired up for any student who didn’t show any engagement or no connection in remote learning. I did assign the director of pupil/personnel services to direct the social workers to work as a team to reach out to those families of students who did not see any evidence of engagement.
- Superintendent Lindsay
-Member Seals
Superintendent Lindsay, I would like to say thank you for doing that on behalf of our students; because we don’t know what’s really going on. So I thank you for having the social workers to go to their house, to let them know that Brookwood 167 cares about our students. I think that was a great idea and I applaud you for that.
-Member Graham
Thanks to the social workers that was a major sacrifice. Thanks again to the social workers.
-Superintendent Lindsay
I agree Member Graham and they were excellent about cooperating with that effort. It resulted in us reconnecting with our students who weren’t previously engaged. The social workers were also able to remove some obstacles for the families, by getting the student engaged. I appreciate our school social work team, they did an excellent job.
-Member Dixon
July 13th means that you {Dr. Grossi} will have the numbers figured out for us and your suggestion as to which way we should go rather we should funnel back into life safety bonds or funnel back into our reserve funds, or rebate the tax payers?
The recommendation that I would have at this point in time is that it makes sense to refinance to save a million dollars. It’s a Board level decision as far as what they want to do with that million dollars. Generally speaking school districts are looking more towards trying to preserve fund balances because of the possible uncertainty of school funding. This year the state was able to keep school funding leveled due to them getting a 5.6 billion dollar loan from the federal government. Whether that loan will be available next year or when will Illinois’ economy kick up again, that is an unknown. I don’t think there a right or wrong answer, but it would determine what action we will take at the July meeting because we would have to start the process of another bond issue.
-Dr. Grossi
Superintendent Lindsay, you have 29 years in the district, what do you think would be best for our district? Or what are your thoughts?
-Member Seals
We have 1.9 million dollars’ worth of life safety work that needs to be done and 80 percent of that amount of life safety work that needs to be done is apart of the 10 year life safety report is for plumbing codes. Plumbing codes have to meet the mandates of the report being submitted to ISBE. So in regards to Life Safety work we have well over a million-dollars worth of work and most of it is for plumbing costs which has to be up to code within a year and we have two years for other items and three years for our C level items. So just for life safety purposes and bringing the buildings back up to code, we have 1.9 million dollars worth of work to do, so that one million dollars can definitely help our projects.
- Superintendent Lindsay
Superintendent Lindsay, to your knowledge we are good as far as the roofs on all schools?
-Member Seals
Last year, we had STR report that Longwood’s roof will probably last about four years. It’s in better condition than what they expected. We also have a roof that needs to be replaced at Hickory Bend within the next two or three years. We don’t have to report the district office to ISBE in terms of compliance because no students attend there, but part of the district office roof is in need of repairs within the next four to five years.
Final statement, I will have Chapman and Cutler prepare the bond documents and have Ray Hauser review those documents. The process of re-issuing refunding bonds only takes one meeting, but if we are issuing bonds to pay for other capital projects that will require two or three meetings. So sometime before July 13th my recommendation is that the Board should have some sort of consensus on which way they want to go with the savings. So we can get it out in the Board packet and give the attorneys some time to help put it together and we need to know before July 13th.
-Dr. Grossi
IV. BOARD REPORTS
Review of IASB Press Policies from Issue 103: 2:160, 2:160-E, 5:150, 5:280, 6:135, 6:280, 7:70, 8:10, 8:110, 8:30
V. BOARD COMMENTS
-Dr. Grossi
Review of IASB Press Policies from Issue 103: 2:160, 2:160-E, 5:150, 5:280, 6:135, 6:280, 7:70, 8:10, 8:110, 8:30
President Davis, stated that the staff and committee did an outstanding job for graduation. There were a few hiccups, we actually had to move some of the times up for the students, because it went a little faster than anticipated. It was really great for the students. I know that because of spacing only a couple of us could be in the gym, but I can attest to that fact that I have seen more young men be more emotional for this opportunity of graduation to walk across stage than even the young ladies, while they were more nervous, we had a few just really breakdown. It was really humbling to see. I want to thank everybody, the Board, the staff, the committees and everyone who was instrumental in making this a part; as well as the Village and the first responders. It was a great turnout, it was really nice and the day was really cooperative. Thanks for supporting the venue and hopefully we can get back to somewhat normal for 2020-2021.
VI. RECOMMENDED ACTIONS:
A. Approval of IASB Press Policies from Issue 103: 4:50. 7:130, 7:325, 8:80, 2:125, 2:125E-1, 2:125E-2, 5:60, 5:60E-1, 5:60E-2, 4:180
Approved: 6-0
Dixon/Graham
Member Hart: Policy: 2:125E-1 --Food allowance changes from $75.00 to $50.00 a day. Policy: 7:130 -- Speaks to during non-curriculum time students being able to engage in individually or publicly in prayer
Policy: 4:180 – Speaks to the pandemic; wanting to know will something go out to the parents around safety precautions since we still have a current pandemic
Superintendent Lindsay: I can send something out on the status of the guidance from ISBE on the guidelines on our current phase level and what we need to attain to return to an in-person
B. Approval of Boardbook and Press Plus Subscriptions for the 2021 School Year at a cost of $3,900.00
Approved: 6-0
Dixon/Hart
C. Approval of the Collective Liability Insurance Cooperative (CLIC) invoice for workers compensation coverage. The premium amount for the workers compensation for the period of July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021 is $96,135.00
Approved: 6-0
Dixon/Graham
D. Approval of the Collective Liability Insurance Cooperative (CLIC) invoices for Brookwood School District 167 Property/Casualty and Student Accident Insurance in the amount of $60,949.00 for the 2020-2021 school year
Approved: 6-0
Dixon/Washington
E. Approval of the Education Benefits Consortium rates for Health Insurance coverage at the following rates for the 2020-2021 school year:
Approved: 6-0
Dixon/Hart
F. Approval to pay Net Ninja at a cost of $17,454.00 for the 2020-2021 school year for website services funded by Title I Funds
Approved: 6-0
Dixon/Hart
G. Approval for Gaggle to provide Data Migration, Email Archiving, and Safety Management Services for the District at a cost of $20,077.50 for One Year and funded with the CARES ACT/ESSER GRANT
Approved: 6-0
Graham/Dixon
H. Approval of Precision Control Systems, Inc. to repair Air Conditioning of Central Office at a cost of $4,280.00
Approved: 6-0
Washington/Dixon
I. Approval of Precision Control Systems, Inc. to replace the HW Pump VFD Replacement for Longwood Elementary at a cost of $5,170.00
Approved: 6-0
Graham/Washington
J. Approval of Earthwise Environmental Inc. to provide Preventive Maintenance for the districts’ boilers at a cost of $3,000.00 per year
Approved: 6-0
Washington/Dixon
K. Approval of the Collective Bargaining Agreement w/GEA for the 2020-2021 school year
Approved: 6-0
Graham/Dixon
L. Approval to accept Champions Partnership Agreement for Before and After School Care Program for the 2020-2021 School Year
Approved: 6-0
Graham/Dixon
H. Approval of June Accounts Payable Pre-List in the Amount of $575,146.01, Imprest Account in the amount of $800.00, and Total Payroll in the Amount of $665,882.81 for a Grand Total Amount of $1,241,828.82
Approved: 6-0
Washington/Dixon
I. Approval of May 11, 2020 Regular Board Meeting Minutes
Approved: 6-0
Washington/Graham
VII. CITIZEN’S COMMENTS (Limited to 5 minutes)
NONE
Motion to adjourn the meeting.
ALL AYE
Adjournment at 7:21 p.m.
https://v3.boardbook.org/Public/PublicItemDownload.aspx?mk=50378047&fn=minutes.pdf
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