>>Okay, let's call to order
the regular business meeting of
The Board of Education for
Monday, February 26 to order.
If I could ask everyone to please stand
and recite The Pledge of Allegiance.
>>Flag's up here.
>>I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America,
and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all.
>>All right, roll call please.
>>Batson.
Pat Groody.
>>Here.
>>Kevin Huber.
>>Here.
>>Scott Luce.
Karin Lundstedt.
>>Here.
>>Ellen Mauer.
>>Here.
>>Mac Thurman.
>>Here.
>>Okay, so we note Jim
Batson and Scott Luce
absent for the record.
Okay, our agenda today, we'll open it up
for public comment.
I'll ask that anybody speaking tonight,
please state your name
and address for the record
and limit your comments
to three minutes please.
We've got some really good
educational presentations,
we've got some student
recognition tonight,
and then presentations on
our concussion protocol
and school safety.
So I would highly encourage people
to stay for those.
We'll have updates from our
student school board reps,
a Superintendent's report,
we'll approve the consent vote agenda,
which was reviewed earlier
this month in committee,
and then brief updates
from program and personnel
and facilities and finance.
There is nothing from property.
Anything from Seetle, Karin?
>>Just that we approved it.
>>Okay.
And ISB nothing tonight.
And then there's an executive session
but we will not be doing Part A,
Employment of Employees, correct, right?
>>Right.
>>All right, and so we will only discuss
collective negotiating matters,
that's 5ILCS 120/2C2 and we won't plan
to take any action tonight
after that session.
All right, anything else?
All right.
>>Moment of silence.
>>Yeah.
>>Ladies and gentleman, before we begin
this evening, we wanna
take a moment of silence
in recognition of the 17 victims
at Douglas High School
in Parkland, Florida.
So please join me in a moment of silence.
Thank you.
Pat?
>>Okay, thank you.
All right, so let's start off
with our student
recognition for the night.
Who's going to go first?
>>I think that's me
>>Dr. Koulentes, okay.
>>Nobody wants to talk from the public?
>>Public comment.
>>Oh, okay, yeah, sorry.
Is there anybody from the
public who'd like to speak?
(audience laughs)
>>Besides Tom.
>>(speaking faintly)
>>Yeah.
>>Student recognition.
>>I would definitely
speak public comments,
but with only three minutes, you know.
(audience laughs)
>>That'll never work for you Tom.
>>I need more time.
All right, well, I'm Tom Koulentes,
Principal of Libertyville High School,
and I'm very delighted tonight
to present to you some extraordinary
Libertyville Wildcat athletes.
So we're gonna start it
off with our first one,
and I'm gonna ask Amanda Peter to come up.
Is Amanda here?
There she is.
So, Amanda is an All-State
Goalie in ice hockey,
and she plays for the Scouts
Girls Hockey Association,
and this is a combined team of
Libertyville High School,
Lake Forest High School,
Stevenson High School,
and Highland Park and Deerfield, correct?
>>Yes.
>>And you guys play in the
Metro Girls Hockey Division
which is in the Scholastic Division,
so for those of you
that don't know hockey,
this means that she is
competing against the best
high school teams in
the state of Illinois,
and she has earned All-State
Honors as a goalie,
she's a junior, and the
Blackhawks coulda used you
this year when Corey Crawford went down.
(audience laughs)
And I'm sure you had a great time
watching the USA Women's
Olympics Team capture gold.
Maybe we'll see you there
one day in the future.
I have a certificate for you.
And so we are super proud of you.
And just so you know, I play goalie
in our staff floor hockey league.
(audience laughs)
And they would trade you
for me very very quickly.
Oh, I know you would have
a team definitely willing,
they would send me to the bench
in a second, so congratulations.
>>Thank you.
(audience applauds)
>>They are right there.
>>Mom and dad, you're welcome to come over
and take a picture if you'd like.
>>Thank you.
>>Very proud of you.
(audience applauds)
Our next student athlete that we are going
to talk about is,
I'm gonna bring up
somebody who's brand new
to the Libertyville High School community,
Mr. Dale Eggert.
I think he's been here
for about a week or so.
He's gonna talk about one of
our wrestlers, Danny Pacino.
>>It is with great pleasure
to bring up Danny Pacino,
our recent All-State Wrestler,
132 pounds, finished the
season at 44 and three,
and not only did he
take third in the state,
which is quite an accomplishment,
but he happens to be our first sophomore
that's ever received All-State Honors
for Libertyville Wrestling.
Got two more years of this guy,
doesn't just win, he also does it
in a very entertaining way,
which I think if you all saw him,
you know what I'm talkin' about.
Congratulations Danny.
(audience applauds)
>>So in addition to being
a floor hockey goalie,
I was a wrestler.
(audience laughs)
And where Danny is 44 and three,
I think my record senior
year was three and 44,
so, we're kinda mirror
images of each other.
The other thing I wanna
say about Danny is,
not only is he, you think about the
storied history of Libertyville
High School Wrestling,
the first sophomore to win
All-State Honors is remarkable.
But also he is, I hope
this doesn't embarrass you,
but he is an Honor Roll student for us,
earning that, so he gets
after it in the classroom.
The one thing, I'm a new principal here,
and this is like the friendliest guy.
You think of wrestlers
being kind of intimidating,
walkin' around maybe trying
to act like a tough guy.
This is like one of the nicest guys.
If I had to pick an
ambassador for the school,
to be a welcome party, it would be him,
'cause he's always
smilin', always talkin'.
One of the first days of school,
I didn't even know him, and he was already
talkin' to me and tellin'
me all about the school.
So, thank you for the
way you represent us.
>>Thank you.
(audience applauds)
Thanks again, I appreciate it.
(audience applauds)
>>Okay, I am gonna keep it rollin'
with some more Wildcats.
And so, is Tom here, Visosky?
All right, come on up Tom.
And is Bill here tonight, Ettner, or no?
No, just, okay, so Tom come on up.
And Stewart would you come on up too?
So, every single year, the IHSA
asks its 400 member schools
to make nominations for
the IHSA Illinois Athletic Association,
what they call the
All-State Academic Honors,
and each school is allowed
to nominate two athletes.
So out of 400 schools,
there's about 800 students
nominated for this award.
And only 26 students are selected
in the entire state of Illinois.
So out of that 800 nominations,
only 26 students get nominated,
or get selected for All-State Honors.
Most schools are ecstatic if they have one
of their nominees selected.
Libertyville High School this year
had both of our nominees selected.
So these are the top two
of 26 student athletes
in the state,
And we're gonna hear tonight,
we're also very proud
that our sister school, Vernon Hills,
has an All-State Academic Athlete as well.
So in the entire state of Illinois,
800 nominees, three of
the 26 are right here
in District 128.
So that's an extraordinary
district accomplishment.
We are gonna bring up the two
Libertyville Wildcats right now.
Both of them are runners.
I don't know what that tells us here.
But let's bring up
Melissa Manetsch please,
is Melissa here, there she is,
and Alex Tam.
(audience applauds)
And I'll let you as
coaches talk about these
extraordinary scholar athletes.
>>All right, I'm gonna be speaking
on behalf of Melissa.
In regards to Melissa's athletic ability,
she has been a staple
over the last four years,
not only to the Girl's track program,
but also to the Girl's
Cross Country program.
She is currently a captain for my program
and has been nominated by her peers
in previous seasons as well.
She has been a state
qualifier multiple times
and has been an All-State Award winner
in both Cross Country and Track and Field.
Coach Rifenburg, who is
Melissa's distance coach,
had this to say,
Melissa is a talented and dedicated runner
who embodies good sportsmanship.
Melissa has always been
a phenomenal runner.
She has extreme determination and grit
to continually succeed
on the track and course,
exemplified by her extreme impressive
personal best times and
her All-State recognitions
in both sports.
Over the past two years, she has grown
into a tenacious runner who has no fear,
knowing that she can compete
against anyone in the state.
Additionally, Melissa shows
her determination every day.
Every workout she has a smile on her face,
and I cannot recall a time
that she has complained.
She enjoys hard work, she
enjoys the journey of training,
and she is always asking
to do more mileage,
more repetitions and to run faster times.
She is highly motivated to
succeed and to celebrate
her love of this sport.
Additionally, Melissa is a
strong leader on our team.
She takes time to reach
out to other athletes
who are on the team and
gives them positive support.
She holds herself to an
extremely high standard,
not just in her running, but
in every aspect of her life,
something I know the other athletes
recognize and appreciate.
Melissa is someone that
I have an immense amount
of respect for.
I respect her judgment,
and I respect her opinions.
I view her as an extremely mature,
well-rounded determined individual.
When I think of Melissa,
I think of a person
who is going to be successful
in whatever she puts her mind to.
She is truly a go-getter
who is ambitious and caring.
Her qualities will help any team,
both on and off the field.
Her grade point average speaks for itself,
but she doesn't just
perform well to earn grades.
She is genuinely interested in learning,
exemplified by her
mid-running conversations
about solving global problems and asking
to practice her trombone
during the preliminary heats
at the IHSA State Track meet.
I could go on, but I
think that last statement
pretty much says it all.
(audience laughs)
Anyway, without further
ado, it's a great pleasure
that I have this opportunity
to present Melissa
with a certificate from the
Board of Education tonight,
honoring her as one of
the select All-State,
All Academic Athletic
Recipients from the IHSA.
(audience applauds)
>>Thank you for having me tonight.
A few months ago I was
here to recognize Alex
for his All-State athleticism.
Tonight we will recognize
both his athleticism
and his academia, which
is even more important.
I had a written speech before,
but I'm just gonna mention highlights.
Alex has set the record in the mile
for Track and Field and continues
to break that this year, and he also wants
to break the other distance
records in the half mile
and the two mile.
Alex has run the second fastest all-time
of all Libertyville
athletes for Cross Country.
He has also ran the fastest time on our
Cross Country course.
Other highlights, his
citizenship and academia
has made him team
captain for Cross Country
and Track and Field, and also carries
a 4.5 GPA out of 4.0.
Alex is well-rounded and he also plans
on continuing his athleticism and academia
at the School of Miami University of Ohio,
so tonight I would like
to present this award
to Alex Tam.
(audience applauds)
>>Thank you.
>>Okay, I guess we're gonna get it.
>>Congrats, School of Miami, that's great.
>>Okay, good job guys.
Congratulations.
>>Good job guys.
(audience applauds)
>>Okay, good evening.
I'm Jon Guillaume,
Principal of Vernon Hills,
and happy to be here in front of you.
We too have an IHSA
All-State Academic athlete,
student athlete, so Jordyn
why won't you come on up,
Don come on up.
Jordyn Bunning is this year's recipient,
and Dr. Koulentes did a great job of
kind of explaining that award, so I won't.
But I will say this, Vernon Hills,
in it's short 17 years
has had a total of seven
of these award winners,
which is remarkable.
It's remarkable, like Tom said,
that we have three out of our district,
but Jordyn is the seventh
of Vernon Hills High School
and we are super proud
to have her tonight.
So Don Proft is one of her coaches,
and he's gonna speak a
little bit on her behalf.
>>Thank you.
First of all, I'll
start with athletically.
She, Jordyn has seven
State medals from her
three State track meets,
which is a crazy amount.
Sayin' that, her class
rigor, the classes she takes,
her test scores are equally amazing,
but what I'd rather spend
our time talking about
is the leader and teammate that she is.
She is just a natural
born leader on our team.
She knows everybody on our team,
and makes all of the new
athletes feel really welcomed,
knows them all by name, leads them.
And as a hurdler, she is another coach,
and she's constantly convincing people
that they should try the hurdles.
The hurdle is not an
easy sport to do well at.
And it's amazing to watch other kids
in our program run with Jordyn
and do things with her
and practice with her.
And they're not intimidated
by all this success
that she's had, in fact they ask questions
and wanna be a part of,
and wanna learn about why
she does so well.
So Jordyn, congratulations
on this achievement.
>>Thank you.
(audience applauds)
>>Congratulations.
>>Thank you.
>>Can we get all three
of the students together?
>>Oh that's so nice.
>>That's so cute.
>>Well done.
(audience applauds)
>>All right, to continue.
We've had several students recognized
for their athletic
accomplishments tonight.
But now we move into the
Fine and Performing Arts
side of it at our place, at Vernon Hills.
And anyone who's been around our school
for any amount of time, just understands
the tremendous level at
which our kids perform
in the Fine and Performing Arts.
Now I wasn't gonna do this,
but since Dr. Koulentes
said that he wrestles
and plays hockey,
(audience laughs)
and I'd like to see Danny and him wrestle
after the meeting tonight,
(audience laughs)
I would just like to see that.
I have some chops in Fine
and Performing Arts also,
as witnessed by, this year they allowed me
to be in a musical.
(audience applauds)
And I had 24 words.
(audience laughs)
And I nailed every one of 'em.
(audience laughs)
But I have no skill compared to the kids
that are gonna come up
here in just a little bit.
So I'm gonna invite Drew Russell,
who's our Fine and Performing
Arts Department Supervisor,
to come up here and share a little bit
about these awards.
>>So the thing to know about Jon's role
in the play, he actually
started with a line,
a single word, and that's
how much confidence
they had in him.
However, he so over-performed it
that they expanded his role significantly.
>>Here we go.
>>Also, it seemed like,
he doesn't like this.
Hey, this is my mic right now Jon.
(audience laughs).
>>Three minutes or less.
>>Yeah, also I believe you
were a framer at one point,
right, for art work?
Look at that, little known fact
about Mr. Guillaume, an artist.
All right, first I'm going to talk about
the All-State Musicians that we have.
I gotta tell you, much like the award
that Tom announced,
schools are lucky to have
a All-State Musician, maybe two,
and we are really really lucky,
and this is one of my
favorite nights of the year.
Because it shows the
culmination of efforts
by our staff, by the
really talented students,
but also their parents, who
spend a whole lot of time,
money and car mileage on
getting their children
to all of the different lessons and events
and fine arts activities that happen
all around the greater Chicagoland,
or greater Midwestern area.
So this is really a culmination
of all those efforts
and we get to show just how lucky we are,
and how good a bunch of kids make us look.
So, what I'm gonna do is,
I'm gonna call up first,
our All-State Musicians,
and so just for reference,
our All-State Musicians are first selected
for All-District.
What that means is, they're
in the top 10% of students
in our general region.
If you draw a line from
New Trier High School
up to Harvard, Illinois,
that corner of Illinois,
they're in the top 10% of those students.
Then from there, the top 10% of those kids
make it to All-State.
So I think that's the top 1% of the state?
I'm a fine arts guy, I can do that.
So anyway, these guys are really good.
So I'm gonna call them
up and you all come up
when I call your name
and I will meet you later
to pass out the certificates.
And we will start with Bobby Black,
who's a tuba player, and
he's an All-State Musician.
Come on up Bobby.
He's also a vocalist and a bass player
and a piano player,
and he can do anything.
(audience applauds)
Congrats Bobby.
And Donalie Black, for voice.
(audience applauds)
Jillian Boes, also for voice.
(audience applauds)
Caylee Brand, for voice.
(audience applauds)
Kelsey Carido, voice.
(audience applauds)
Ariel Chah for violin,
I do not believe she's here this evening.
Ceci Gao, flute.
(audience applauds)
Josh Liu, alto saxophone.
(audience applauds)
Nikki Medanovic, who is
an All-Stater on piccolo,
but she also made District on voice
and probably would have been
in All-State for that too,
but she had to choose, and
of course she chose band.
(audience laughs)
(audience applauds)
So one more announcement
while we have these students
up here, there's also
an All-Nation Ensemble,
that I actually didn't know existed,
but Jillian Boes taught me all about it
because she submitted a online audition
and was selected to the
National Association
for Music Education All
National Honor Ensemble.
So I would like to see if they can come up
with some more words for that ensemble.
(audience applauds)
Congrats Jillian.
All right.
We'll take a picture.
>>Yeah, a picture.
>>It's gonna be a wide picture.
Is that the girl from
the student board too?
>>Which one.
>>In green.
She's one (mumbles)
>>Ya know what, I think she is.
(audience applauds)
>>Next up we had a number of students
who were selected to be a part
of the All-State Production
which this year was Big
Fish, which was the movie,
the musical, that they
made from the movie,
circa 2004, and basically
the All-State production,
they select 40 students for the pit,
40 students for the cast,
40 students for the crew
from the entire state,
and we had a large number
again of students involved
in that production.
Also, by the way, Jon
plays a little guitar.
All right, same thing for the
All-State Theater students,
come on up.
Donalie Black, coming back
second time, multi-talented.
(audience applauds)
Mackenzie Furlett, Samantha
Kolber, Sofia Schmeltzer,
Valerie Smith and Skylar Torrey.
(audience applauds)
>>Listen, before we go, those of you
who have been here before, I will tell you
this is our favorite thing to do,
is to recognize students
wherever and whenever
they achieve and they
go higher and beyond,
whatever that is.
So I wanna take a minute tonight again
and recognize that around
all these young people
are family and friends and neighbors
and support groups that have
helped these young people
get where they're at,
and accomplish what they've accomplished.
So if all the parents and any friends
or family members that are here tonight,
I would like you to stand up
and let us recognize you for your
great work in working
with the young people.
Come on, stand up.
(audience applauds)
Now normally at this point,
I say something like,
you know you're not required to
but you can stay for the
rest of the board meeting.
(audience laughs)
Or you could exit stage left or right,
depending on where we're at.
And normally everybody leaves,
which is okay, that's all right.
Tonight we have two presentations
that Dr. Groody mentioned earlier,
that really are timely and significant.
And if you have some time,
and you would like to stay,
we'd love to have you stay.
The first presentation will be introduced
by Briant Kelly in just
a minute and that's
on our concussion protocol.
And the second presentation is the work
that we've done and we
continue to do in school,
safety and security.
Okay, so with that said,
if you have to leave,
we get it, if you wanna
stay, you can certainly
for either or both of those topics.
So thanks again, and thanks for coming.
(audience chattering)
>>Isn't (speaking faintly) chair board?
>>I think so, yeah, right?
The girl in front.
>>(speaking faintly) change like.
>>Right, I thought the (speaking faintly)
was younger, (speaking faintly).
>>Show this year's (speaks faintly)
>>(speaking faintly) was thrilling
(speaking faintly) you know.
>>Yeah, I know, (speaking faintly)
>>All right, yep, let's roll.
>>Okay, let's go.
>>First I'd like to, for
our first presentation,
I'd like to introduce Cam Traut,
she's our school nurse from
Libertyville High School,
and she's gonna present
Concussion Management
at Libertyville High School,
which really involves
two pieces, I don't wanna
steal all of her thunder,
but really, The Return to Learn portion of
concussion management for our students
and also The Return to Play
for our student athletes.
So at this time, I'm gonna turn
it over to Cam Traut.
>>Thank you.
Good evening, thank you
for inviting me here.
My little disclaimer is
that even the school nurse
gets a little sick from time to time,
so I have a little bit of a head cold,
so I have my tea here
(laughs) and I kind of know
what it feels like a little bit.
Every time I get a good solid head cold,
I kinda know that foggy feeling
that some of our students experience
with a concussion, so,
speaking from experience,
it's not fun. (laughs)
So bear with me as I share our story here
at Libertyville High School.
And I also wanted to start by just
thanking the staff, thanking the district,
the staff here at LHS.
Without their support,
this is a team thing
that we're doing here.
It is definitely not a one person show.
So on behalf of those that I do this with,
I wanna say thanks for your support
in helping us do what we do
and taking care of our kids every day.
So, to get goin' 'cause I know you guys
have got a lot goin' on,
I'm gonna move us along here.
The first couple of slides
I'm gonna buzz right through.
I know you're gonna get the presentation
after I'm done, so you
have some opportunities
to read through a little bit more
if you're really interested
in concussions like I am.
And I am more than happy to
answer any questions too,
as we go.
Just suffice it to say
that there are at least
four laws out there in the
state of Illinois alone
on concussion management and care.
So as you all know, we are dictated a lot
by what we do by the
laws and the policies.
So not just evidence-based practice,
but the laws that we have to make sure
that we're adhering to every day.
And then I've got some information
about prevalence from
a national standpoint.
And good old definitions of a concussion.
These are the two resources that I would
highly recommend, they
are always up-to-date,
they are always evolving in
their definitions as well.
And symptoms, I think
we're pretty well versed
on the typical symptoms and recovery,
and again I can go into this further.
I'll touch a little bit about this
in my presentations, but I'll stop here
with the current treatment,
and just say a few words
about this just to kinda set the stage
for what we're doing.
So the current treatment is a short period
of full cognitive and physical rest.
That's where you start with,
and that's very much shortened.
Gone are the days where you stick somebody
in a dark room for a very long time
for weeks on end until
they're symptom-free.
They're saying now that's not a good idea,
and as I put it to the kids,
it messes with your head
on a whole nother level, when you're stuck
in a room all by yourself and
you can't look at your phone
and you can't look at the TV,
and you can't look at your screen.
Imagine for an adolescent
what that feels like,
or us, when we're not feeling well
and we're stuck at home.
So they say shorten
that, and it's all about
really re-introducing
your normal activities
of daily life, and slowly but making sure
that you've got a little
bit of that going on,
even during recovery.
And it's a balance, it's
all about that balance
between rest and activity.
And when I'm talking to
the students about this,
and this is all new as of last April,
to give you an idea of how this whole
concussion management is
ever-evolving and changing.
So I draw the imaginary line and I say,
here's your line, here's
where your symptoms are at,
we wanna stay down below this line.
So you can do whatever you want,
as long as it doesn't make it worse
and goes over that line.
So you can read, you
can look at your phone,
you can look at your
screen on your computer,
video games even, you can do things,
but as long as you don't
increase your symptoms
and once you do, you
gotta back off and rest,
so there's that balance.
And we all know, balance
is a big challenge
for our adolescent
friends as they're trying
to, sometimes they're
like, oh I feel great,
and here they are 0-60 the next minute,
and I see them the next
day, and they're kind of
a few steps backwards
just because they've tried
to do too much all at once.
So again it's that
balance, and we coach 'em
through that as we move
through the protocol.
As Briant alluded to, Return to Learn,
and Return to Learn is
gaining much more focus.
When we first heard about concussions
back around 2008, 2009,
2010-ish, right around in there,
it was big with the NHL and the NFL,
of course we all know about the movie
and such that came out.
It was all the focus of Return to Play.
Through the years, it has now evolved
into, and they feel that Return to Learn
is actually the most important piece.
And if you do Return to Learn well,
Return to Play is gonna go
very easily and smoothly
for most students.
So there's a gradual,
again, like Return to Play,
there's a gradual return to activity,
but this is cognitive.
So in our world, of course,
this is the academic.
And something to remember
is that each concussion
is very unique.
So even if you get a second concussion,
that concussion is going to
potentially be very unique
from the first one that you sustained.
Symptoms typically become more subjective.
They're not as visible
as a student gets better,
so it gets harder and
more challenging for us
as clinicians to help identify
what really is going on
with that student and how
we can best support him
with our protocol.
And, again, like I said,
it's challenging to find that balance
between rest and activity.
During Return to Learn,
it's very important,
again I'm talking about the team.
As a nurse I know, and I am taught,
we never work alone.
We always work with a team.
We're always about
multidisciplinary teamwork.
So this is no different in a concussion,
as you can imagine.
You have teachers and
parents and physicians
and specialists and
staff that I work with,
supportive staff, the social workers,
the school counselors, all of us
play a very important role in helping
that student, supporting that student
through that concussion recovery.
Even when the student can
tolerate a full day of school,
some accommodations still might need
to be in place for that student.
And Return to Play, I won't
talk about this very much
'cause I think we're all pretty
familiar with this as well.
So, let me share a little
bit of the background
of how this came to be,
and where I come from,
and my approach.
My overarching goal, always,
is, as a school nurse,
is to keep students healthy,
safe and ready to learn.
That's my mainstay, that's
what I operate from,
that's the foundation.
And to do that, I use, and some of you
might have heard of this,
the Whole School, Whole
Community, Whole Child movement
that's out now.
This is an approach.
It combines the Coordinated
school Health Model
with the Whole Child Approach,
so that we bring together
the health outcomes
and the educational outcomes,
pull 'em together to provide more services
and to provide a better outcome,
a total better outcome for our children
and their communities, which leads
to healthier communities.
And a healthy community
is defined by Healthy People 2010 is one
that continuously
creates and improves both
it's physical and social environments.
Helping people to support one another
in aspects of daily life, and to develop
to their fullest potential.
If that doesn't say what
we do here at Libertyville
and Vernon Hills across our
district for our students,
I don't know what does.
We're all about helping students
reach their fullest potential.
And as school nurses, I'm
all about helping them
from a health lens to reach
their fullest potential as well.
We bring the knowledge of
the educational environment
and health systems together.
Like I said, we're promoting
better health outcomes
and hopefully consequently we're promoting
better educational outcomes as well.
And then the last, the
21st Century Framework
for School Nursing, NASN,
the National Association of School Nursing
developed this model about
two or three years ago now,
and that's our foundation for practice.
So there's things like care management
and quality assurance and leadership,
and all of those pieces that,
as a nurse working in the school,
are very important to us
and we try to exude that
as we work from day to day.
So those are the things
that gave me the foundation,
or the theory behind leading me
to creating our Concussion
Protocol here at LHS.
So it started way back in 2009.
Again, if you remember, that's about when
concussions started to
come to the forefront.
They were gettin' a lot of publicity
in the NFL and the NHL, and other sports.
And at that point, we had
seen a few concussions
here and there, but not
that many diagnosed.
And it was very traditional
in the sense that
we got a note from the doctor,
it said they were out of their sport
and activity for a week, and
then they were back in it
after that week was over.
This particular student was
a freshman football player,
and he sustained three concussions
in about the time span of a month.
Now, all of us, I hope,
at this point in time,
almost 10 years later would
say, what, that's not good,
and that would never happen
in today's world, I hope.
It won't happen here, I can say,
at Libertyville High
School that won't happen.
So we received one of those notes
that said they can go back,
or a couple of those notes,
that said they could go
back in about a week or so.
On that third concussion, that student,
after being knocked unconscious
and his symptoms persisted,
he was referred to a specialist
down at Lurie Children's,
Dr. LaBella, we became
very good friends (laughs)
through the concussion professional world
and how you manage a concussion,
because she is a concussion specialist.
And I got my first note
from her that said,
he can come to school,
he can attend school,
but he can't do anything.
Not tests, no quizzes,
no reading, no nothing,
just be present in the classroom.
So this is the school
nurse looking at this,
going, are you kidding me?
How do I tell my teachers
that this student can't do anything.
They can be there but don't
expect them to do a thing.
So even for me, and my lack
of knowledge at the time
about concussions, this
was a tough challenge.
And so I'm always about
taking doctors recommendations
and translating that into the
classroom for the teacher.
I want to present it to them
from their lens, so they know
what to expect from their student,
and how to interact with
the student as well.
So that's when I began my own
research into concussions.
I started by identifying an issue.
So this was an issue, wondered
about it a little bit more,
started doing some research.
And then as the year progressed,
started to see the incidence
of concussions rise at LHS.
I saw lots of different symptoms,
saw lots of different presentations,
all sorts of things.
We started to gather some information.
I went to my supervisor, Ole Stevens,
and said, hey, we've got
something brewing here.
I don't know what's going on,
but I see this growing
and not really lessening,
but becoming more of an issue.
We're doing these things,
but I feel like we're doing
things all over the place
and there's no organized attack,
or an organized pursuit
of care for these kids.
So I made a list, and
that summer I found out
through my feelers and
professional connections
that Glenbrook South High School
was way ahead of the
learning curve on concussions
and already had a fully
functioning protocol.
And so I contacted their athletic trainer,
their school nurse, got information.
They graciously shared
their protocol with me.
And that summer was my summer project,
of taking their protocol,
taking the evidence-based
research I had read,
combining those, knowing
my environment here in LHS
and how our systems are in place,
and tweaking it and creating a protocol
that fit what I thought
fit our needs here at LHS.
And then that fall I
approached our administrators.
Went to Building Council, and
I had data all ready for them.
I collected, I presented the data,
I had a rough draft of a protocol
and a proposal for a task force
with a timeline ready to go.
And they graciously approved it and said,
yep, go for it.
And so after pulling the protocol together
and spending a year
hashing out and tweaking,
and making it even better for our students
at Libertyville, we formalized it
in May 2011 and then
that fall we launched it,
and I invited Dr. LaBella
to talk with our staff,
because I observed that
there was a definite
educational need there, too, for staff.
So they understood from the classroom
what to expect for these kids
that were dealing with concussions.
And over the years our
protocol has evolved
as the current research does, as I said.
We continue to learn
and we tweak our system
as new research comes out.
And we change and improve
our monitoring systems
for all of our kids.
And I'll share a few examples of that
a little bit later.
Here's our Concussion
Oversight Team at Libertyville.
You can see the diversity
and the multidisciplinary
approach that we have.
This is from research and
this is from other schools
that I've chatted with.
Just making sure that
all the different areas
are a part of our oversight team,
and that's part of one of the laws,
that said that we have to have
an oversight team in place.
Thankfully we already had
our task force ready to go.
And so we just switched over,
and became the official Oversight Team.
So a question that I was asked by Briant
is to describe what our progression is
once we find out about a diagnosis
or there's a report of an injury.
So this is what we do.
We get the report in a couple of ways,
the athletic trainer we might get it from,
we might get it from the actual coach
through their reports,
their head injury reports,
a parent might call us or the LST,
and the LST has been
fabulous about calling us.
They now know that the terms head injury
and concussion and those
are buzz words for them,
and they give us a call
in the nurse's office,
so we can do some follow-up.
And then we either call the
student if they're in school.
We call the student down to talk to us
about how they're feeling.
We assess their symptoms, and
if they have been diagnosed,
we take the appropriate steps,
and if they haven't then we might be
recommending some follow-up
with the parents at that point.
The ideas that we want to
try to notify the student
and the family as soon as possible,
because we know then we can talk to them
about that shortened time of rest,
and we can explain what
the protocol looks like.
We can share what a concussion looks like,
and symptoms to watch for
and things to watch for
in those early times.
Because you may not see
the symptoms right away.
They sometimes evolve
over a period of time.
And what we've developed this year
to try to protect the student
and to help the teachers,
if we don't have a diagnosis
and we're kinda not sure
how things are going.
The student seems okay, but we know
that as the day goes on they might start
to feel some symptoms.
We give 'em a note to
share with their teacher,
we call it a teacher pass,
and it's been working
terrifically for us for
that little window of time
where we may not have a diagnosis
but we think somethin's goin' on.
So we do that.
And then if there's a diagnosis
and we're very certain that there's going
to be a diagnosis, then
we're notifying teachers
through an email and
it's not just teachers.
I have a set email, standard email,
that explains what a concussion is.
Explains very briefly the
overview of the management
of a concussion now.
And I give 'em a copy of our protocol.
So it's teachers, it's
the athletic trainer
if they're in a sport, it's the coach,
so the coach is aware right away as well.
They typically know but we
like them to know formally
that there's a concussion.
And then they're involved in the comments
that I might make to teachers to update
as we go through recovery.
The athletic directors as well,
so they can support the coaches
if they have any questions
or athletic trainers along the way.
We also, if they're in fine arts,
I include Dustin Helvie, our
fine arts director as well,
so he can take of things from that end
if there's any concerns, or things
that I might not be
aware of, or activities
that are coming up.
Social worker, school
counselor, all of those people
who are critical to that student
in their concussion recovery.
First day back for the student,
they come directly to us.
We talk, we explain the protocol to them.
Hopefully they understand it.
You never know, that first day back
they're a little foggy still,
so it's a constant coaching
and chatting with them daily.
We do a daily check-in with them.
We have a Google doc that we've created.
We use that as our assessment tool.
It's a zero to six rating,
rate your headache,
rate your nausea, rate your processing,
rate different aspects
of a concussion symptom,
so that we have a better
idea what they're feeling.
Because we all know if we ask
a teen how they're feeling
they just might say, okay, I'm good.
and we want a little bit more,
and this tool really helps
them express themselves
and share with us how they're feeling.
Once the student is symptom free,
and they get a note from
their doctor to clear 'em,
if they're an athlete, they get to start
the Return to Play progression
with the athletic trainer.
If they're not an athlete
but they're in PE,
and we've received that clearance,
then we're gonna work with.
We don't have a formalized system for
Return to Play in PE,
and at the grade schools
you'll hear about this issue
with recess, how do you
return a student safely
to recess if they're younger.
There's nothing in the law,
and there's not a lot out there
in best practice or research except to say
if they're returning to physical activity,
they should go through some sort of
Return to Play activity.
So we talk with the PE teachers,
and find out what the current activity is,
we find out if we can get
them on a stationary bike,
maybe in the cardio room
if they're near there,
and they can be monitored.
They do a little bit
there, they come back,
they report to us, we go through our steps
of asking them how their symptoms are,
when we progress them that way.
It's a little more informal, but we still
err on the side of caution.
We're very conservative with that
because it's not a formal
Return to Play process.
And we wanna make sure, again, safety,
it's all about safety and making sure
that kids return safely
to their activities.
If the symptoms are
prolonged beyond the average
two to three week recovery period,
then we're looking at something different.
We might be chatting with the parents
and their primary
physician about seeking out
some specialist care and support.
There might be some therapies.
You might have heard
about vestibular therapy,
physical therapy for a concussion,
that's balance therapy or vision therapy.
Some things like that,
that might help speed along
that recovery time.
And we're also, in the back of my mind,
I'm starting to wonder,
hmm, is this gonna need
a 504, is this really gonna be prolonged.
We are terrific here at LHS
about supporting our students,
accommodating their needs.
So the formal 504 I'm
not as concerned about
for that reason, but for other reasons,
moving on forward down the line,
I wanna make sure that these
kids have what they need
officially to support them
and make sure they're well taken care of
for their future too, if needed.
IEPs are very rarely needed.
We have one student that had
that potential for an IEP,
and that was a very very
traumatic brain injury,
and other things going on
along with the concussion.
Another piece of this whole
process is evaluation.
For me as a nurse, this
is a very important part
of any process of anything that we do.
We're constantly evaluating
and tweaking and improving.
It's very important in this protocol,
and I've alluded to that,
how we're looking for ways
to always update and stay current
with what we do.
I collect feedback not only from nurses
and students and parents,
and how they felt going
through the protocol,
but of course staff, teachers
are constantly giving me
great unique creative ideas of things
that we can do for these
kids in the classroom
to support them.
There's technology out there
that they're pointing me to,
to support kids, like audio
learning is much easier
than visual learning for some of them.
So they're pointing me
to different resources
and such, so I really appreciate that.
An example of something that we added
a couple years ago.
We had our first student
that was in driver's ed
with a concussion, and we all kinda went,
oh yeah, we definitely don't want this kid
out there on the road
driving with a concussion.
So we quickly added that
to our protocol as well,
for obvious reasons, a safety
issue for everybody involved.
And then we added our fine
arts department director,
Dustin, as I said.
That was a late addition as well,
because believe it or
not, or maybe you would,
if you've seen some of the recent musicals
that we've done here, on
roller skates and things.
Although we did not have a concussion from
the roller skating musical,
if you all remember that one.
I said a lot of prayers
during that season.
But we did have some
concussions from musicals.
So for various unusual reasons.
And so that presented
a whole different level
of challenges with rehearsals, practices,
what's required, keeping those kids safe,
giving them the ability
to rest and not feel
the pressure of having
to attend a performance
or a rehearsal that would go
to nine or 10 o'clock at night.
So those are the kinds of things
that we constantly are looking to tweak
and add to our concussion protocol.
We meet at least once a year,
and we do that either by email
or we meet in person, which
I think we'll do this year,
just because we've got some other things
that I wanna talk through in person,
some challenges that have arisen.
So I love our group, I love what we do,
I'm so proud of, like I said,
the entire staff that has played a role
in this from being a student's teacher
to being on the Concussion Oversight Team.
Now the statistics, I know
you all are really interested
in statistics, and where we're at
with our concussions.
So really, truly, overall,
we definitely hit the mark
in the national averages.
So I've collected statistics
going all the way back
to 2009, and so we've seen 470 concussions
come through our office in that time.
And you'll see, I think
it comes out pretty well,
the blue is the total concussions.
The athletic is the red, I believe.
And then the non-athletic
is the shorter one.
So you can see athletics
plays a critical role
in concussions in our school.
And really, truly, across the board,
that's where you'll see the
most concussions of course.
Concussions by grade and gender,
just an interesting stat,
girls are definitely, they
see more concussions in girls,
and most of the articles that I read,
that's just across the board,
and there's lot of theories for that.
So I broke it down by sport and by gender,
'cause I thought this
was interesting as well.
So 257 females.
And the number one sport, which I think
most of us would guess, is soccer.
And then cheer.
And cheer is just starting
to come through in stats
in research when you read it.
It hadn't been there before.
Volleyball and home, things
that happened at home,
or outside of the school.
Basketball, car accident,
and so you can see,
water polo is on the rise too,
as more and more girls get involved.
And something with these sports too,
it's not just about high school sports.
This includes club sports.
So I broke that down and I
can show you those numbers
if you're really curious.
That is growing.
So we're starting to see that.
And kids are playing sports year round,
so we're seeing an increase in concussions
for a number of reasons.
Something to keep in mind,
I was just at a conference
where a pediatrician, a sports doctor,
talked about overuse injuries,
and how kids are constantly in sports,
and they're specializing in one sport
which isn't that good,
according to this one physician.
He spoke on the dangers of that.
And, because they're in constant sports,
they're seeing more injuries.
Concussions is just one of 'em.
And here are the males,
and we all could guess, football.
Football is definitely the highest number,
across the board between
males and females.
So those are my statistics,
that's my information.
I'm glad to take a few questions.
I know we're on a tight schedule,
so if we don't have time,
I'm gonna stick around
for a little while and then
I left my contact
information for you as well.
>>Any questions for Cam from the board
or students?
>>I'm assuming we do
similar at Vernon Hills
too, right, yeah, okay.
>>Yeah, they do have a protocol, yeah.
I just didn't feel comfortable
speaking directly to that.
>>Yeah, no that's fine.
>>So, Cam, we wanna thank
you for your leadership,
of course, in the district
and at Libertyville
on this issue, and
you've certainly taken us
to kind of the front edge
or the leading edge of this,
and it's really quite
amazing to see it in action,
so, our kids are certainly,
and parents of course,
are certainly the
beneficiaries of those efforts,
and I know that, as more
research continues to develop,
that your group will do exactly
what you talked about doing tonight.
It will fold that in,
it will make additions
wherever they need to be.
So we just wanna thank you for
everything that you've done.
>>Sure, sure, thank you, thank you.
(audience applauds)
>>Before we begin our presentation
on school safety and security.
We have a number of special guests
with us this evening.
So what I'm gonna ask you to do
is just stand up and remain standing,
and when we get done we'll all give you
a round of applause for your
efforts in coming tonight
and working behind the scenes with us.
So first of all, our Police Chiefs,
from Libertyville, Clint Herdegen,
Clint would you stand.
And from Vernon Hills, Pat Kreis,
so thank both of you for coming.
(audience applauds)
From our Fire Chiefs,
Fire Department Chiefs,
from Libertyville, Rich Carani,
and from Countryside,
which includes, obviously,
Vernon Hills, Jeff Steingart.
(audience applauds)
Associate Superintendent, Briant Kelly,
Assistant Principals
from LHS, Eric Maroscher,
and from VHHS, Greg Stilling.
Team Leaders, Jason Schroeder
and Meagan Silverberg
from LHS, and Bill
Bellecomo from Vernon Hills.
Our School Resource Officers,
from LHS Dusan Racic, and
from VHHS Santos Rodriguez,
and from School Security
and Safety staffs,
from LHS, Bob Uliks, and
from VHHS Tina Blomgren.
So let's give them all
a round of applause.
(audience applauds)
And thank you for all your work with us,
and you may be seated now, thank you.
>>Well, good evening.
My name is Dr. Prentiss Lea,
and I'm the Superintendent
at Community High School
District 128.
As we all now know, a
little more than a week ago,
another unimaginable mass shooting tragedy
took place at Marjorie
Stoneman Douglas High School
in Parkland, Florida.
LHS and VHHS Principals, Tom Koulentes
and Jon Guillaume, and then I,
shared detailed messages with LHS and VHHS
students and parents in the wake of
that horrific event.
As parents and students, like me,
you may be feeling profound
sadness and/or anger
about the Douglas High School Shooting.
But also what data
suggests is a disturbing
and growing trend in public schools
as multiple school shootings have occurred
across the nation in recent years.
That trend, and the ensuing loss of lives
and such mindless acts of violence
are concerning and scary.
Following up on information
that Dr. Guillaume and Dr.
Koulentes shared with students,
staff and parents earlier,
on behalf of the District
128 Board of Education
and Administration, I want to assure you,
that the health, wellness
and safety of our students
and staff has been and will continue
to be our highest priority.
As Dr. Guillaume and Dr.
Koulentes and I noted,
consulting with school security experts
and local law enforcement,
District 128 has invested
several million dollars
over the past few years
to install
state-of-the-art-security upgrades
at LHS, VHHS and the District 128 office.
Some of those upgrades are
very visible and obvious,
and others, by design, are not,
and they will never be.
In addition we continue to utilize
and effectively partner with
our extremely knowledgeable
and professional local police departments
and related first
responders in Libertyville
and Vernon Hills in developing, assessing
and implementing school security plans,
including our substantive
emergency crisis drills.
In addition, District
128 has long partnered
with Libertyville and Vernon
Hills Police Departments
to share the cost of
armed, highly trained,
full-time Police Resource Officers
at LHS and VHHS.
Also, the Lake County
Rapid Response Group,
which would respond in an extreme
emergency shooter situation,
has and continues to do
live rapid response training
at both LHS and VHHS.
We are honored to provide
the Rapid Response Group
the opportunity to do live
training at both schools,
to hone and improve their response.
But also, because as a result
of training in our buildings,
the response group is
familiar with our buildings,
if they would ever need to respond
at LHS and VHHS.
Finally, as Dr. Guillaume, Dr. Koulentes
and I have shared, every school shooting
situation is different.
However, law enforcement
continues to advise us
that the best first line of defense
to prevent such tragedies, is for students
to report anything concerning
or out of the ordinary
to adults, and for the adults
to then process that information.
As such, we encourage
students and/or parents
to share anything concerning,
our out of the ordinary
with us, and we will thoroughly assess
and act on the information as required.
We call that, See
Something, Share Something.
Our commitment and approach to providing
a safe school climate
as the foundation of our
two excellent high schools
has never been more important
than in the world we live in today.
We have invested in,
and taken profound
structural security measures
over the past four years,
and we continue to work
closely with law enforcement,
to learn and then apply the
knowledge that is gained
to our security assessment, planning
and application at LHS, VHHS
and our District office.
We will continue to work together
to ensure the health, wellness
and safety of students and staff.
To that end, this evening,
we would like to take the opportunity
to provide a holistic overview
and review of our School
Safety and Security work.
For our presentation tonight,
beyond my introduction and overview,
we will look at building
security measures,
security technology, school safety
and security personnel,
community resources,
proactive school safety
and security measures,
and then we will have a closing
and a final review, and
then we will be happy
to take questions.
So without further ado,
I'd like to introduce
Associate Superintendent,
Briant Kelly, Briant.
>>Thanks Dr. Lea.
So, again, he mentioned
that we're gonna talk
a little bit about our
building security measures,
some of the technology
that we've implemented
in our building, look
at some of the resources
that we utilize with our personnel,
but also with the community.
So to do that, to help
us, I'm gonna utilize
a lot of the people that were introduced
just a little bit earlier from
our School Resource Officers
to our Team Leaders, to our
Security and Safety personnel.
So lookin' up here and talkin',
we'll kinda give an
overview, and at the end,
I hope that if you have any questions,
feel free to ask some questions.
So to kinda start us off,
just kinda get in the
mood of the lockdown,
and we have a video from Dusan Racic,
so we're gonna start that video.
>>Hello, my name is Duce Racic,
and I'm a School Resource Officer here
at Libertyville High School.
Today I'm gonna show you the procedures
for a school lockdown.
For those of you who are unfamiliar,
a school lockdown is a means
of securing the building
and it's occupants from both internal
and external threats.
There are seven steps involved
to a school lockdown.
Step One, look into the
hallway and bring in
any students and staff.
Teachers, upon hearing the lockdown alarm,
you should check the hallways
outside of your room.
Have those students and staff members
in the hallway immediately enter your room
and close your door.
Please keep in mind
that the classroom doors
are default locked.
Students should enter
the nearest classroom
that they are directed towards.
In the absence of a nearby classroom,
you should secure yourself
in the nearest room
as soon as possible, or leave the building
if you are near an exit.
Please keep in mind that
if you leave the building,
you may not know the
location of the threat.
Please exercise caution.
If students and staff
are outside the school
when a lockdown has been initiated,
do not make any attempts
to enter the school.
If you see the exterior
lockdown strobes activated,
leave the area until you've been notified
by officials that the area is safe
and secure for you to return.
Step number two, close the
door and make sure it's secure.
Please make sure that
you pull the door closed.
The fob activated locks
will only function for 30 seconds
after a lockdown is initiated,
which will provide the
user a short period of time
to open an already closed
door with your fob.
Once 30 seconds have elapsed,
all fobs will be deactivated
until after the conclusion
of the lockdown.
Step number three,
close the room's blinds.
Closing the blinds prevents threats
from seeing possible targets,
both directly and by reducing the amount
of ambient light inside the room.
This also makes the room
appear as if it is empty.
Step number four, turn off all lights.
Like step number three,
turning off the lights
reduces the chances of being seen
by a potential threat.
If a threat can't see you,
the likelihood of harm is reduced.
Step number five, find the blind spot
or safe corner of the room
and away from the door.
Staying away from the
door and out of sight
in conjunction with steps number three
and number four, reduces the likelihood
that you will be detected by a threat,
and may also reduce your chances of injury
should a door be breached.
Step number six, silence cell phones
and stay off cell phones.
Although you may be tempted
to use your cell phone,
doing so may increase your risk of harm,
and place first responders
at a disadvantage.
It is important to silence your phones
and stay off them.
If a threat can't hear
you, it can't find you.
Additionally, if a large number of people
uses cell phones at the same time,
it can overload the cellular network
and obstruct communications
for first responders.
Please stay off your cell phones.
Step number seven, be
prepared to blockade the door
if needed and be prepared
to fend off anyone
froM penetrating the room.
There may be a need to blockade the door.
There are many ways to do this.
Whether it be by placing furniture,
such as desks and
bookshelves against the door,
or binding the door arm with a belt.
You should use whatever objects you can
to block the door as
effectively as possible.
In a lockdown situation,
where a threat is present,
the police will make every effort
to arrive at the scene and stop the threat
as soon as possible.
However, there may be a need for you
to take action prior
to police intervention.
As a last resort, if your
door is breached by a threat,
you have every right to take
whatever measures necessary
to protect yourself.
Use whatever items you have available.
These items can include
books, Chromebooks,
staplers, et cetera.
Protect yourself with
whatever means you have
at your disposal.
Now that we have gone through the steps
to a lockdown, let's review.
Step number one, look into the hallway
and bring in any students and staff.
Step number two, close the
door and make sure it's secure.
Step number three,
close the room's blinds.
Step number four, turn off all lights.
Step number five, find the blind spot
or safe corner of the room
and stay away from the door.
Step number six, silence cell phones,
and stay off cell phones.
Step number seven, be prepared
to blockade the door if needed,
and be prepared to fend off
anyone penetrating the room.
I hope that this information
was both informative and helpful.
By following the proper procedures,
we can greatly reduce the risk of harm
should a threat arise.
Now ultimately, prevention
is our greatest asset.
Please notify LHS staff
should you ever hear
of any threats directed against the school
and its occupants, even if you believe
it may be a joke.
If you have any additional questions,
please don't hesitate to contact me.
Thank you very much for your attention,
and please be safe.
>>That lockdown drill
video just kinda gives you
a glimpse of some of the
safety measures you have,
but we're gonna talk about a lot of those
in our presentation today.
So the first that I wanna introduce
are Bob Uliks from LHS and Tina Blomgren
from Vernon Hills.
They're in charge of our
security and safety staff.
>>Good evening, thank you.
As Briant said, I'm Bob Uliks,
the Director of Campus Safety
at Libertyville High School.
I also previously had
the privilege of serving
as the School Resource Officer at LHS
from 2004 til 2016.
There are several
aspects to school safety,
both physical and interpersonal.
I'll begin tonight with
some of the physical things
that we do to keep our kids safe.
One of the first things you'll notice
at Libertyville and
Vernon Hills High School
are the bollards.
Bollards create a barrier to stop
or slow down a vehicle either accidentally
or intentionally directed
towards our entrance.
While they're decorative in nature,
they're very effective,
extremely effective
in slowing a threat.
We've seen that more in the world
where people are now
using vehicles as weapons.
It's the same technology that they employ
at state department buildings,
government buildings and embassies.
Safety film on entrances,
windows and doors.
This is a safety film that we've used
for years here at LHS and Vernon Hills.
What the safety film
does is fortify the glass
and significantly delays
or prevents the glass
from being compromised,
thus providing time
to identify a threat
and address that threat appropriately.
We have a small video for you to watch.
What I'll just note is, in the video,
there are two small vignettes.
The one on the left is
without safety film,
the one on the right has the safety film.
(guns firing)
(kicks thudding)
I think by that time he'd be too tired
to do anything else.
So that would have almost
completely effectively stopped
the Sandy Hook Incident.
That was the way he got into that school,
was shooting through the glass.
I won't get into ballistics,
because that's a very complicated issue,
but I can tell you that we use safety film
on all of our entrances, the doors
and windows located, as well as
other specific areas in the school.
The next thing, we have
entrance doors locked
with a two stage entry
system and intercom system.
The entrance doors are locked daily
at the beginning of school.
They are locked at a
certain predetermined time
that we've programmed for the evening
and mornings as well.
But once school starts,
every door is locked
in the school.
Therefore, someone that's coming to school
as a visitor, guest, appointment,
whatever the case, or
someone that doesn't have
an actual reason to be here,
we can stop them and assess them
before they come into the building.
So we can first find out why they're here,
we can let them into
the first stage of the entry system,
assign a visitor's badge,
do the proper background check,
establish if they have an appointment
and then let them in.
If we identify a problem,
or something just doesn't seem right,
we can also contain them
in our vestibule area,
and then have time to
notify law enforcement.
Non-main entrance doors,
meaning both schools have
to entrances they can use,
those doors are also equipped
with a system that has a camera
and a door buzzer.
So for instance students,
teachers, other people
can ask to be let in and
we can remotely do that.
We don't do it as a normal practice,
but obviously it is a school,
and we do try to keep into consideration
inclement weather, things like that,
when we're dealing with our students.
And then lastly we have
Safety and Security staff
that monitor both of our desks daily.
They're there all the
time during the school.
Actually, the working hours are 5:30 a.m.,
when practices start
there is someone there
to monitor all the way
up until 10:00 at night,
or later depending on the event.
So again we have two levels of safety.
Physical and interpersonal,
and we try to mesh them both.
Right now, I'll turn this over
to my counterpart at Vernon
Hills, Tina Blomgren.
>>Thank you.
Like Bob mentioned, we have
a two stage entry system.
The visitor can be checked in
through our Raptor Technology,
which is a National Sex Offender Database.
We can also look at a
local list of visitors
that should not be
allowed into our building
that we have entered in ourselves.
Some of the other features that we have
at the front desk is a computer system
with a real-time video feed
from around the building,
both inside and outside of the building.
The Safety and Security staff,
in addition, has access to radios.
It gives 'em the ability to communicate
with our School Resource Officer,
our Deans and also our
school administrators.
Greg Stilling, Assistant Principal,
Vernon Hills High School.
>>All right, thanks.
So we have cameras that
monitor the building
both inside and out.
Our cameras inside the building
monitor really the entire building
throughout the day.
They can also be monitored by the police.
They have 'em in some of their cars,
at the police station,
they monitor our hallways,
the gyms, really we can
use 'em to play back
if an incident occurs.
But they give us a live feed
of what's happening in our building.
The cameras feed to the front doors,
like Tina mentioned, but
also into the security office
of course, and then we
review the video footage
every morning of anything
that happened overnight,
to see if there's
anything that was going on
that we need to follow up on.
We have external cameras on
the outside of the campus,
some of them pan to cover all directions,
some of 'em are fixed
on specific locations.
The parking lots are certainly an area
that we use the cameras quite a bit for.
Our athletic fields, tennis courts,
those kinds of things.
These come in handy if
something's going on
outside the building.
We might see it before it gets to us.
And then we can also use it to replay.
All of our cameras are recorded,
and kept for a period of time,
so we can go back and review it
to see what went on.
At the exterior of the building
we have security signage,
which, I think there's a few things.
One is it's kind of a proactive measure
to let people know you're on camera,
so don't do anything
you shouldn't do here.
Also we have the no trespassing signs.
We let people know
they're subject to search
when they're on a school campus.
So it's kind of just a heads up that,
hey, you're on a school campus.
Act the way you're supposed to
on a school campus.
They would also help us if
someone does violate the rules
and we do need to prosecute someone.
The signage is up there
to allow us to do that.
With that, I'll turn it over to my friend,
Eric Maroscher.
>>The vast majority of doors
of both VHHS and LHS are
equipped with fob readers.
All of the offices and classrooms
are equipped with emergency call buttons
that can be used to
contact the main office
as well as the two main security desks.
And all school lockdown can be accessed
in multiple areas of the building
as well as remotely.
The internal and external lockdown strobes
are also tied into the
building-wide PA system.
When a lockdown has been
initiated several things occur,
system broadcasts the
lockdown alarm siren,
both inside and outside of the building,
as well as the repeated automated message
indicating to lock down.
The lockdown strobes are activated,
which serves as a visual indication
of a lockdown for those
areas like a band room,
or an auto shop where classroom volume
can prevents students and staff
from hearing a lockdown siren
and repeated lockdown messages.
As part of the system, during a lockdown,
emails are automatically
sent to the three buildings,
VHHS, LHS, District Office,
alerting to the lockdown.
Contact is also made
to the Driver Ed cars,
informing them of the lockdown,
thus re-routing them to
an alternate location.
Also with these actions,
when a lockdown has been activated,
all doors with fob
readers lock immediately.
Throughout the year, VHHS and LHS utilized
Interquest Canine search services.
In addition to drugs and alcohol,
these highly trained golden retrievers
are trained to passively indicate
should they encounter gunpowder residue.
Securly is a software
utilized by VHHS and LHS
that flags student content
or searches conducted
on D-128 issued Chromebooks
that might indicate potential harm to self
or harm to others.
Administrators are
notified when such content
has been flagged.
Both VHHS and LHS employ a full-time
Safety/Security Staff.
Safety and Security are located
throughout the building,
as well as outside the campus.
Many are former firemen, police officers
and military personnel.
Worthy of note between the two buildings,
our Safety/Security teams have a combined
144 years of prior police,
fire or military experience.
All members of the Safety/Security teams
attend ongoing training which includes CPR
and AED training.
Part of the ongoing daily responsibility
of these teams is to monitor cameras,
building entrances, restrooms
and other key areas of the facility.
I'd like to introduce VHHS
School Resource Officer,
Santos Rodriguez.
>>Good evening.
My name is Santos Rodriguez.
I'm the Vernon Hills Police Officer
assigned to the high school.
My counterpart is Duce Racic,
a Libertyville Police Officer,
assigned to Libertyville High School.
Our goal as SROs is to provide
a safe learning environment,
be a resource to staff,
students and parents.
We create and maintain
positive relationships
with students throughout our day.
We try to reduce juvenile crime
by helping students formulate awareness
of rules, authority and justice.
We address these matters not only as
law enforcement officers
but also as mentors,
and guest speakers in classrooms.
We work closely with school administration
in regards to school safety and security.
We as SROs frequently
speak to the students,
answer questions they may have
in regards to laws and ordinances
they come across throughout
their young lives around town.
We also are part of both
Emergency Response Teams
and Crisis Teams.
Officer Racic will explain further.
>>Good evening everybody
and thank you very much.
As part of our ongoing efforts to maintain
the safety, security and well being
of our students and staff,
we have two teams that
help meet these needs.
One being our Crisis Team
and the other being our
Emergency Response Team.
Now our Crisis Team is a group
composed of administrators,
team directors,
counselors, social workers,
the SROs, as well as other staff members.
The team meets to help
mitigate any significant events
or radical changes which
can include bomb threats,
student or staff deaths and
other major campus incidents.
The team's purpose is to
evaluate these situations,
properly communicate information,
and to provide assistance.
Our Emergency Response Team is
a similar group of individuals
that oversees responses to emergencies
such as active shooter incidents,
fires, natural disasters,
even power outages.
An important component to
our Emergency Response Team
is, of course, our
Emergency Response Manual.
These manuals essentially list
the appropriate guidelines
and protocols on how each
specific type of incident
is to be handled.
The manual is also readily available
to our first responders with regards
to the Libertyville Police Department
as well as the Vernon
Hills Police Department.
Also, these manuals are
also reviewed annually
to see if there's anything
that can be added to them.
We also have what we refer to as
Emergency Response Team members
who possess what we call
our Emergency Response Team kits.
Contained within each
kit is a student roster,
bus information, as well as the manual,
school maps and other materials
that would enable anyone
who bears this kit
to manage and operate the situation
as well as to account for students,
staff and resources.
Finally each school also has
an Emergency Command Center
also referred to as Emergency Room.
These rooms is where
the Emergency Response Teams can convene
and conduct their plans.
Each room has standalone power
independent from the rest of the building,
along with a landline phone system.
With that I'd like to turn it back over
to you, Mr. Kelly.
>>Yearly, as required by
the Regional Office of Education,
we're required to meet as a team
to review our safety measures.
And so our team will get together,
much of the people that
are presenting tonight
plus our Fire Departments from Countryside
and Libertyville, plus our school nurses
and a few other key personnel.
So we meet yearly to go
over our safety review
for the year.
We talk about the drills
that will be conducted
throughout the year, from our fire drill,
tornado drill, lockdown drill.
We talk about the video
that you saw earlier
on the lockdown drill,
and just a note, even though
the Regional Office of Education
requires one annual safety meeting,
we have more meetings throughout the year,
whether it's in a larger
group, a smaller group,
and I think those meetings
are just as important.
So just to meet the minimum needs
isn't always the best, but
we're constantly meeting
as groups to try to
create some of the best
safety protocols and
procedures that we can
in our buildings.
And again, that includes, looking at our
lockdown protocols too,
outside of the building.
And we've refined those over the years,
from our Driver's Ed vehicles,
to how do we notify somebody
that's out on a field.
They may not hear things.
So we do have strobe lights
that are outside the buildings,
and our teachers are aware of that.
So we'll go through all that,
and we're constantly monitoring,
doing that throughout the year,
and in our Annual Safety Review.
One of the things that
Dr. Lea talked about
was our Rapid Deployment Training
in the buildings for
local law enforcement.
That's one thing that's helped
our local law enforcement
keep up with their training,
but I think it's also helped us,
and maybe along the way they're giving us
some pointers back about
some things to look for
in the building.
So it's been, I think, a good partnership
with our community and
working again under the
Regional Office of Education.
But one of the things
that really, I think,
helps us along the way is some of the
relationships that we
build with our students
and our staff, and that
they build with each other.
And we talked a little bit
about those two pieces.
So there's the piece of the building
and the technology, but
there's the other piece
of really working with the
people in our building.
So the next group I'd like to introduce,
and we'll talk a little bit more about
is our LST Team Leaders.
So if Bill, Jason and
Meagan would join us.
>>Thank you Mr. Kelly.
My name is Jason
Schroeder, and my goal here
is to try to paint a picture of our
Learning Support Team system, LST system,
that we use, not only here
at Libertyville High School
but also at Vernon Hills High School.
In an effort to try to
increase our communication,
build relationships, make a big school
seem manageable, not
only for our students,
but our parents and our families,
and give all stakeholders a home base,
we have Learning Support Teams.
Our Student Service
Department is divided up
into these Learning Support Teams.
The Learning Support Team consists of,
but not only, Team Directors or Deans,
our role is to kinda oversee the team,
organize the team but also to be
a member of the team as to oversee
discipline and attendance.
The School Counselors,
their area of expertise
would be academic, they
help build the schedules.
They can add and drop classes.
Parents and students can go to see them
for advice on their four year plan.
Social Workers, they focus
on the social/emotional
aspect of our students and
they're also a resource
to our families.
Educational Support Personnel, our ESPs,
those are what we like to
call our office managers
of the Learning Support Team.
Those are the ones that you
talk to when you call in.
If you were going to
call your son or daughter
out for a dentist appointment,
most likely you're gonna
talk to one of the ESPs
and they're gonna help manage that.
They're gonna be the
first ones that you see
when you walk into the LST.
Representatives from Special Services
are also on the team.
We have our School Nurse, Cam.
I couldn't go without saying that,
she's a vital member of the team,
and the School Resource Officer.
They're all members of this team.
I think the goal is to
provide a one-stop shop
for our students and our parents
to go to with any questions as far as
student services, academics, behavior,
just questions in general
for their students
as they're here.
That one-stop shop is what we wanna do.
The teams are divided by an alpha slice.
So here at LHS we have three teams,
An A through F team,
a G through P team, that's
the one that I'm on,
and the third is Q through Z.
So students are on those
teams for four years.
If I could kinda paint a picture,
and Eric Maroscher, this is Eric's picture
that he always says, if
you look at a high school
like a big wagon wheel,
and all the different spokes are clubs,
activities, sports, fine
arts, health and safety,
academics, all the different initiatives,
the hub of the wheel is the
Learning Support Team that
holds it all together.
That's where the relationships are built.
And our number one ultimate goal
is that each one of our
students has a connection
at the schoolhouse and that LST
can provide that connection.
But we're also there for teachers,
For the monitors, for security,
for support personnel,
for coaches, for sponsors, to reach out
with any questions that they may have,
so we can help facilitate those questions.
Next up is Bill Bellecomo.
>>Thanks Jason.
In LST we have many
things in place already
that we use for information
about our students
and to provide information to our students
and to our staff.
If you look up there, the
first thing that we use
is Online Bullying report.
It can be accessed on both websites.
If a student feels that
they're being bullied
or harmed by someone in the school,
they can make an anonymous report,
or they can put their name on it.
A lot of the reports that
we get are very specific.
Some of the reports that we get
are from someone who
witnessed the bullying
and they just thought it wasn't right,
and they reported it.
Or if they hear somethin' on a bus,
or anywhere in the hallway
that just doesn't sound right,
or if a student is in need,
this is a place where our
students can report it.
We utilize this information,
we can act promptly
on the information usually right away,
and we can investigate,
and get the student the
right support that they need.
Learning Support Team, Jason
outlined all the members
of the Learning Support Team.
We have weekly meetings.
These meetings, we talk
about different concerns,
it could be academic, it could be medical,
it could be social/emotional.
But this provides us to meet as a team,
discuss, and everybody
be on the same page.
And what best ways to service our kids.
Student concerns emailed by our staff.
The staff is eyes and ears out there
in the hallway and in the classroom.
And our staff is invested.
And I feel comfortable saying that
about both buildings.
They care about our kids,
you hear the word relationships a lot,
they develop those relationships
and they come to us if
they notice a student
may be going through a difficult time,
if they notice grades slipping,
if they notice an attendance issue,
if they hear something,
or if a student just comes to them,
approaches them, and a lot of times
we get those reports
and we can act on them
and work as a team and best
service those students.
But our staff is a great asset for us
in the Learning Support Team.
Communication and follow-up
with our students.
Any time we deal with a student
it's important to close that circle,
let the student know
that this is the issue,
we've moved on, or this
is what we've done,
and communicate with them.
Also it's important for us as Deans
to get out and communicate to our staff
and our students.
We regularly go to department meetings
and discuss what the
Learning Support Team does
and how we can support them.
We also try to get into the classrooms.
We visit the PE classroom
and discuss with our students
where to find the online bullying report,
where they can go to
access certain resources
and help in certain situations.
And it's important for us to be visible
in the hallways and
develop those relationships
before school, during lunch hour,
so they don't just see us as Deans
that hand out discipline, but we're also
intermixing with the students,
and then they feel more
comfortable to come to us later
if they have an issue,
and they know we're approachable.
Meagan will discuss the last brief.
>>Hi, thanks again.
I'm just here to discuss some more
Proactive Safety Measures
that we're implementing
at the LST, Learning Support
Team in school-wide level.
We are actually working to
implement evidence-based
and research-based school-wide prevention
and intervention
initiatives at both schools.
At Libertyville High School this year
we're implementing what we
call the Green Dot Program,
which empowers bystander training.
So if students or staff sees something,
they know how to say something, distract,
and then let an adult know and
intervene at the peer level
and then the teacher/student level.
We're also working at
both schools to implement
restorative justice practices,
and restorative practices overall.
So this is looking at building positive
restorative relationships with students
with staffs and families.
But then also using that
in our discipline role
to not only address a concern
that comes to our office
where there's been harm, just to address
that specific behavior, for instance,
with a staff member or
teacher and a student,
but then also to work together
to rebuild and repair that relationship.
So what happened in class, but then also
for the teacher and
student to work together
on who is impacted, how it impacts
the greater community,
and then what that student
could do to repair and
repair that relationship
with either their fellow
student or their teacher.
So again we're addressing behavior
but then we're also
rebuilding and reconnecting
students in our communities.
We are also a great
example at Libertyville
and Vernon Hills about
student participations.
The last school year we had
over 94% of our students
participate in at least
one or more activities,
clubs, sports.
With that being said, it
again creates positive
healthy connections with students,
with one another, and then with coaches
and staff members.
Another proactive safety measure
is our school Safety and Security Staff.
Obviously there's two
representatives here.
But they are the first
person most students see
when they walk in the door,
and they do know students by name.
They ask about their extracurriculars,
they go and supervise
their extracurriculars,
and they truly build a strong positive,
and working with us to build
restorative relationships
when they do have to intervene.
And just to reiterate, the last
thing I think our strongest
counterpart said, the
most important proactive
safety measure that we implement every day
in the Learning Support Team
is building and rebuilding
and reconnecting with
students, with families,
with one another to create strong, safe
and healthy schools every day.
>>Again a lot of these safety procedures
and steps that we put in place
would not be possible without the support
of our community, from the
Village of Libertyville,
Village of Vernon Hills, the
Countryside Fire Department,
their participation in our
drills throughout the year
and helping us improve and get better
at the things that we
have to put into place.
Some of the things, we do have some
appreciation breakfasts for them,
and outreach programs for
them throughout the year.
And again it's another good way
to bring them into our building
and get them to know our staff
and know our students, and
our students may be used
to seeing some of them
around, which is great.
But a big part of that,
too, is our community
and our parents.
Their partnerships in our organizations
and our schools, their
support really helps,
again, it's a big part
of the relationships.
I know we talked a lot about
some of the building security measures
we put in place, technology.
But I think a big part of it is just
those proactive and those
relationships that are built
with our staff and our
students and our parents
and the community to help.
So we have to be proactive, I think,
in two pieces.
And again that's the foundation
and the building piece
but also the interpersonal piece,
and I think that's important.
So hopefully that kinda
gives you an overview
of a lot of different pieces
that go into place for our
safety and security measures
here at District 128.
So, I guess I'll turn it back to Dr. Lea,
to kinda close up here.
>>Well just a couple of things
to complete the presentation,
before we move to the questions.
The most important thing for our parents
and our communities to know is
that we have a long history
of building the partnerships
necessary to do what we're doing now,
and that's evidenced by
the ladies and gentleman
who are here with us this evening,
the work that our colleagues
that have talked this evening are doing
in the building with our students
and working with parents.
We are totally committed to ensuring
a safe and secure learning environment
for our students.
The foundation of any high school,
no matter where it's located,
is a safe and secure learning environment.
Because if we do not have
a safe and secure learning environment,
we cannot help kids be successful
if they're not in a safe
and a secure environment.
There's tons of research to support that.
But every one of us here tonight,
we know that from common sense.
So we have a long history of working
with our first responders,
our folks in the buildings,
we have structured ourselves
in Learning Support Teams
to maximize our ability
to develop relationships
with students and parents.
And if we go back to what I mentioned
at the start tonight, as our
colleagues would tell us,
the number one factor is
to develop relationships
with students, because when
we have those relationships,
they'll walk up to Jon
or Tom in the hallway,
or one of the Deans, or a teacher,
and say, you know what,
something's amiss today.
And when they do that,
then we have the opportunity to intervene
in the building and, if necessary,
with our first responders.
So I wanna finish by thanking our
Board of Education.
We've got several new members
on the board this year,
but they have been
tremendously supportive,
but our Board's, over a period of time,
I've been in the district 13 years,
whenever we've come to our Board
with a plan to enhance our security,
our Board has listened,
they've asked good questions,
and they've supported us.
And we could evidence
that by the expenditure
of several million dollars
over the last few years in technology.
We are blessed to be in an area
where we have the resources to do that.
Because we have colleagues
in other parts of the state
who cannot afford to do those
kind of security upgrades.
So Pat, all of you on the Board,
we want to thank you for
your continued support
of what we do here.
And we're going to continue
to do everything possible
to make sure that our
students and our staff
and our parents who may
be visiting the building
are safe while they're in the building.
So with that, I'm going to
kinda ask the first question
that's topical right now,
if you don't mind, Pat?
And we have some of our
law enforcement people
here with us today.
So the President has recommended
that teachers be armed in the buildings.
Could you guys respond to that?
Would you be willing to
take a crack at that?
Whether you think that's
a good idea or not.
>>Can you hear me okay here,
do I need to go to the mic.
>>Can you go on mic.
>>I'm happy to.
>>Should (speaking faintly)
one of the teachers up.
>>Yeah, this one's (speaking faintly).
>>So let me just start by thanking Dr. Lea
and the Board for inviting.
I'm relatively new to the community
and the Vernon Hills Police Department,
but I've been very impressed with the work
that the school board
and the administrators
of both Vernon Hills and
Libertyville High School
have done since I've been here.
So the question is, I
think a broader question.
And how I like to respond to this,
I've been asked this probably,
I'm sure Chief Herdegen
has probably 10 times.
My neighbor over the
fence tonight at dinner,
so at least 10 times in
the last couple days.
It's very hard to discuss these things
in very broad strokes.
I don't wanna speak for a Chief of Police
or for a community that might have
one Sheriff's officer to respond,
and they might be 100 square
miles of a rural community.
There might be a solution
there for that community.
So it's very hard to say
yes, no, black, white,
on all of these.
The relationships we have
with our high school,
with District 128, layers of security,
what you've heard, relationships,
very quick response
of our Emergency, both Police and Fire,
our officers are trained and equipped.
It's Chief Herdegen's and I's expectation
they will go in and address any threat
that comes to our community.
I do not see that there's
a need in our community
to bring additional
armed civilian personnel
into the community.
So to answer your question,
no, that's not needed here.
>>Great, Clint, you wanna add anything
to that, or is that good?
>>Not necessarily.
I just wanna add, and I
think all of us might imagine
that it's difficult even in
the Law Enforcement world
for us to screen and recruit and identify
appropriate personalities
that are not only willing
to carry a weapon, but to learn how to use
it effectively and
engage when appropriate.
And so I know that screening process
doesn't take place in the teacher arena,
however, you're screening
for different reasons
for educators, and so, a broad stroke
of the brush like that to suggest
that all teachers should be armed,
I wouldn't necessarily support that,
especially in an area like
this, where we feel blessed
to have the resources that
you can provide for us,
and the agencies in local
law enforcement here
is ready to respond, and equipped.
>>Thank you to responding to that
very topical question.
Okay, let's open up to the
board for some questions.
>>I'll ask a couple, maybe before you
guys sit down.
The first one I'm gonna ask,
I'm not expectin' an answer tonight
'cause we'd probably
be here 'til tomorrow,
but I would like, on behalf of the Board,
to really make a commitment that says
we always like to know
what else we need to do.
I'm sure there's always more.
At a minimum I'm sure there's
more training we can do,
but I'd really like to
continue that dialogue.
A lot of times when I
work with teams at work,
I tell the team, it's
not the team's decision
to say no.
Decisions of no, I believe, strongly need
to be elevated at least one level,
so that somebody else is
involved in that conversation.
And I would really just
sort of appeal to you guys,
any and everything that you think
can and should be done,
I'd love to make sure
that, Prentiss and his team
are involved in that, and that somehow
we're informed of it.
Because the thing that
keeps me up at night,
with all the great stuff that we're doin',
and I do believe it's great,
I keep scratchin' my head, sayin'
what are we missin', what else can we do.
I know nothings perfect, but
I think this is one topic
that we gotta continue
to push the envelope
and just keep askin' that question.
'Cause the other thing I worry
a lot about is complacency.
Most of us probably walk around thinkin'
not Vernon Hills, not Libertyville,
but it only takes one afternoon
to change that for life.
So I really wanna challenge
us to never be complacent.
I think we've got some good technology,
but if you still leave the door open,
someone's gonna get in.
So I wanna make sure we're vigilant.
The other, just one
quick question really is,
what opportunities are
out there to benchmark?
And where do you go for, I'll call it,
state-of-the-art best
practices in this space?
>>I don't wanna appear overconfident.
I'd just suggest, if you look at the
Fire Chiefs in the room, Clint Herdegen
and myself, we've probably
got 100 years experience.
And it's something that,
Clint and I have worked
together for years,
even before we were both chiefs here,
in our other communities.
It's somethin' near and dear to our heart.
We worked very hard.
We spent a lot of our
career helping prepare
police officers, and not
just at first response,
but the follow-on response,
the critical incident management,
and then the integration with
whoever we are working with,
in this case, the school,
the school administration,
Fire, EMS, it really is a team approach.
We step back from that to your point,
the training, we're never done training.
We're never done preparing.
We have a lot of lessons to learn
every time an incident happened,
lessons come of that.
We constantly challenge ourself.
We have some terrific instructors
on both of our departments.
And regionally, the partnership we have
in Northern Illinois is second to none.
There's no one in law
enforcement that is blessed
like we are in Northern Illinois
with the cooperatives we have,
to make sure that it's not just
your Libertyville police officers,
your Vernon Hills police officers,
if we have a tragedy or some threat
come to our community, we'll have
a hundred different law
enforcement agencies
respond in a very organized manner.
So we're well prepared,
we're constantly learning
and making us better.
But I don't think you
could look at somewhere
in the country and say we're
strivin' to be like them.
We truly are prepared and cutting edge.
Chief?
>>I wanna congratulate
you on the commitment
of resources here in
District 128, not only
in personnel and staff and
teams that you're building,
but the equipment that you're providing,
the technology that you're providing.
You are setting the example
for others to follow.
So when you're saying you wanna
guard against complacency,
we all do.
And we are meeting with your
respective school staffs
on a regular and routine basis
to have discussion and open dialogue
about best practices
that are being identified
elsewhere throughout the nation,
and in some cases throughout the world.
So we're not afraid to
put anything on the table,
but we think, and we're always learning,
there's always room for improvement,
we're not afraid of that.
I don't wanna represent
ourselves as arrogant
about what's happening
here or taking place
in our communities, but you
are setting the standard
and example for others to follow.
>>Okay great, thanks.
>>If I could, Dr, I mentioned
that I'm relatively new.
I'm sure your Principals at Vernon Hills
maybe were a little taken
aback on the first drill,
when I asked them to invite
some of my colleagues
from outside of the area to come see
the lockdown and see the technology,
and some of the physical improvements
we've made on campus here at Libertyville
and Vernon Hills.
They truly are state-of-the-art.
And I was proud to show it off to other
first responders.
>>That's great, that's great.
All right anybody else?
>>I have a question, thank you all,
first of all, for all
you're doing and have done
and are continuing to do.
As I sit here, it's come to me that,
boy, we certainly seem
like we have a lot focused
on the school day, but I was just thinkin'
what about now?
What are we, what kinds
of things are in place
for all the things that go on,
Board meetings, this building.
Both these buildings are used constantly
for many school activities as well as
community activities, and
I'm sure there are things
in place, it just occurred to me
as we were all sitting here in this room,
what about as we move into the time
that isn't the school day?
And is that something we
should be working toward.
I'm sure there already are things.
>>Not asking fine, but
we have the same tools
in place, but not in
the numbers that we do
during the day in school.
>>Like tonight, anybody can walk in,
presumably, I don't know.
>>In the back door,
but we do have somebody
monitoring the cameras,
of people coming in.
>>Oh, even though they're
not seeing it, yeah.
>>Yeah, so the cameras
are always monitored.
>>And do you ever,
>>The cameras are always monitored,
they can be monitored,
>>Just from a different location,
>>Different locations,
they can be monitored
from phones and computers
from other people at school.
And we constantly are looking
at our procedures in place,
whether it's big events,
whether it's big fine arts
events, athletic events,
and we kinda talked
about that a little bit
last week on some of those things,
or even off nights,
But we do have security in place here
until we close down the
building each evening.
We also have expanded our security staff,
somebody at the desk
throughout the weekends too,
on Saturdays and on Sundays.
>>And is it, would it
be pretty difficult to,
for someone who's here,
particularly at a time
when it's non-school
hours, to come in easily,
but then conceal themselves
somewhere in the building
or is that, you talked about
people monitoring restrooms
and other places during the day,
it's gotta be tricky.
>>It's tough, with the amount of cameras
in the school, I think
that would be tough to do.
>>It would be hard to.
>>And they way they're monitored,
and some other,
>>And I'm sure you have other things
that we don't, yeah.
>>We have three shifts
of custodians as well,
so the building is never
really completely empty.
>>So there's movement of something
that's unusual, people would notice.
>>Yeah, so we have custodians who work
the third shift, we have
people in the building
who are around the building,
who are doing their daily runs.
Making sure everything's
ready to go for the next day.
>>Thanks, as we're sitting here,
I though, ooh.
>>Tina's got a couple
comments that'll help.
>>I could just answer that real quickly.
Our building, I can't speak for LHS,
but at our building, I
have a log sheet roster
on a spreadsheet.
Every room is checked,
every fob swipe is checked,
every bathroom is checked,
every teacher's workroom is checked.
Main office, administrative
ends by the LST and the nurse,
they're checked, the security
person that checked it
puts the time on.
I can verify that time on my cameras.
So to make sure everything is copacetic.
And that's turned in every single night
before the building goes
into a complete lockdown.
>>Thank you, thanks so much.
>>Thank you.
>>Other questions, anybody else?
>>First off, I wanna
begin by thanking everyone
who came and participated in this.
I think the size of this
team here speaks volumes
to what is going on in
terms of a holistic approach
to this issue.
The first thing I was wondering,
could someone just briefly
go over the trainings
that the security guards
at the school face
when they are hired, or
the continuous training
that they're subjected to?
>>Again, Bob Uliks from Libertyville.
I can speak for my staff.
I have three retired deputy police chiefs
that work for me, so we've been doing this
a long time, as well as I have.
When we developed a lot of this,
what we try to do is,
anytime there's a lot of
classes that are offered,
if there's a seminar at CLC,
we'll try to send people there.
But every Wednesday we
try to sit down and meet
and we'll do in-house training.
We try to use our experience that we have.
Everybody is very versed
at the procedures,
and I think that's one of
the things we focus on.
We're always looking for
new training opportunities.
The district's always been very generous,
if someone applies to go
to a training session,
but a lot of it is done in-house,
on how to use our systems,
and report anything that may be.
>>Thank you.
And then, second, maybe
one of the LST staffs,
could you walk me, say a student tonight
submits a bullying issue,
how does that process
unfold moving forward.
>>I'll do the first part now and I'll
turn it over to Jason.
So if somebody submits something online,
you can access it from
either of the websites,
and it automatically sends emails
to key personnel, and
I'm one of those people
that get an email that has been submitted.
And other people will get notification
that it's been submitted,
but I'll also follow-up too,
whether it's at Libertyville
or Vernon Hills,
and follow-up with those
people immediately,
whether it's Greg
Stilling or Jon Guillaume,
at the buildings at Vernon Hills,
or Eric or Tom here at Libertyville.
So even though I know they may be getting
some of those notifications,
I still follow-up with
them right away on that.
And then once we get those,
then the LST maybe will
be working alongside.
>>Yeah, if we do receive a report,
it's shared through us.
We have it, and we sit
down and we meet as a team
and go through the report.
We kinda collect information,
what's this about,
what's it look like, who's
the student involved.
Because just like we
were sayin', our LSTs,
the Learning Support Teams are divided up
by alpha slice, so maybe I have a student
that's involved, along with Meagan.
So her and I will work through
the situation together.
But even before that, we
collect as much information
as possible from the report.
We sit down, come up with a game plan,
and then follow through.
Typically it would have to do sitting down
with the students and
tryin' to work through it
to see if what's on here
is exactly what happened,
if it's all matching up.
But then bringing the parents in as well,
and tryin' to close that loop.
And as you could imagine,
it could be anything that
you receive a report on.
It could be something that
you may bring the SRO in,
maybe we think there's a crime there.
Maybe it's not that level at all.
Maybe it's two friends who
aren't getting along at lunch.
So collecting information,
sit down as a team,
come up with a game plan
and then follow through
with that game plan.
Working through with the students,
working through with the parents,
working through with whoever is involved,
in trying to just fix
and repair that situation
so we can move forward.
Does that help answer the question?
>>Yeah, thank you very much.
>>Just to extend that one step further,
and several people have
touched on this tonight,
but Mac, to take your
question a little further.
Let's say we get a
bullying/harassment report
that actually says, I overheard a student,
or I saw a social media report tonight
that somebody was gonna do
something bad to the school.
Okay, so, immediately Briant would
start getting ahold of
folks, he would contact me
and we would start contacting people
at whatever building it was involved in.
And then at some level, we're gonna be
working with our first responders
to do a threat assessment.
And that's really important,
because they have significant experience
in terms of doing that.
So we're gonna lean heavily
on their work with us
in terms of assessing that threat,
to see what the information is,
and running out any
appropriate ground balls.
A good example of that just happened
at Mundelein High School next door.
And first responders did
a great job at the school.
I think they have found the individuals
that were responsible and they will be
held accountable for that.
There probably wasn't really a threat,
but you cannot make those kind of threats.
That would be an example
of a follow-through.
But our work with the first responders
on a threat at that level,
is gonna be right from the beginning,
and it's gonna be leaning
on their expertise heavily along
with the relationships we have,
and knowledge of our students,
and putting that, as Jason said,
putting that information together,
collecting that information
and working with them side by side
until we bring that to some resolution,
and that's a really key component.
That threat assessment piece
is a very important
component of that process.
Did that help?
>>Yeah, thank you.
>>Okay, any other questions?.
Okay, how about we give you guys a hand.
(audience applauds)
>>Great job, thanks everybody.
>>Do you have some
questions (speaks faintly).
>>Oh, yeah, sure.
>>Can maybe the police officers,
>>Microphone?
>>Oh, Jesus.
>>It's for the people watching the video,
that way they can hear your question.
>>Okay, thank you for
arranging all of this.
My name is Jim Connell, and my question
maybe is for the police officers.
And what's been on my mind,
a question that keeps
coming up in my mind,
especially after the
Parkland incident shooting,
is if a child or a parent or a teacher,
or anybody reports, if
there's kids or people
that have bad behavior, they're erratic,
they're holding guns
to their siblings heads
and they're doing all
kinds of crazy things
that are getting reported to police,
law enforcement, FBI, whoever it might be,
I'm trying to figure out why,
what can be done.
Is nothing done because of the fact
that they haven't broke the law?
For example, if somebody's
doing weird things
and saying weird things,
they're not necessarily
breaking the law, right?
So my question is, what can be done.
If we're all See
Something Share Something,
how does that get elevated?
I don't know the law that well.
I don't know how that works.
But it's baffling to me,
without getting too specific
in terms of the Parkland thing,
but it's baffling to
me that this behavior,
this person was so crazy
and out of control,
and absolutely insane,
but the question I kept coming up with,
why didn't somebody haul him in?
But then the other side of me is going,
well he probably didn't break the law.
So you can't just haul people in,
but See Something, Share Something,
it kinda defeats it.
So I just don't understand,
and I'm lookin' for maybe an explanation
or some context.
Thank you.
>>You're welcome.
So, See Something, Share Something
is extremely important.
Well first of all, we
aren't gonna pass judgment
on what happened in Florida,
we don't know all of the details yet.
We won't be ready to comment
on that particular situation
until a final report is provided.
However, I will assure you,
in the scenarios like you're describing,
it's not that nothing is done
in our communities.
What we would do in an environment where
maybe a crime was not committed
and the person is not arrested
and brought in immediately,
we work with that person and
family members or friends
to bring either of them to social services
to get some immediate assistance,
or we bring the social services to them.
So it's not that nothing is done.
Maybe we can't make an arrest
at that particular time.
But we'll work in that
type of an environment
to make sure that information is gathered,
a documentation occurs about the incident
and the concerns that were related to us.
And there's follow-up done
to the extent that we can.
And we'll work not only with the school
in the type of scenario
that you're describing,
but even outside of
the school environment,
to bring social services either to them,
or them to the social services.
>>Let me just add one
more comment or thought
to Chief Herdegen's points there.
We also have, in Illinois,
I feel very fortunate
to be a police officer.
With the system we have
regarding firearms,
is called the Firearms Owner
Identification Card Act.
It's been in force for a long time.
It's been enhanced in recent years.
And even when someone
doesn't commit a crime,
if their behavior is erratic,
and there's other things that demonstrate
they might be a danger,
there is a mechanism
as police officers, that
we can put in place,
to have their rights to
buy or possess a firearm
suspended until they go
through some due process
to figure out what's really behind it.
So we really do have some powerful laws
in Illinois to help, and
I think that really gets
to some of your concerns as well.
We don't have to necessarily arrest,
there are other steps we can do.
Thanks.
>>Another question?
>>Thanks again everyone,
we really appreciate it.
>>Hi, one more comment, Anna Dray,
1020 Ashley Lane.
This didn't happen in
our community, thank God.
But it certainly does affect our students.
As a parent I'm deeply grateful to see
all the resources that are being used.
I also wanna give specific thanks to LHS.
Our students are affected,
and they're trying to process this.
And a part of this process,
they have very important voices,
and I'm just really grateful
that you guys are giving those students
a safe opportunity during
some upcoming events
to be able to voice their opinions,
and to be moved to action.
The greatest predictor of future behavior
is current behavior,
and you're turning them into good citizens
by giving them that opportunity.
Thank you so much.
>>Thank you.
>>We good?
>>All right, Pat, I'd like
to get the student started,
I'll be right back.
>>Yeah, okay.
Thanks again everybody,
I appreciate your help.
Student School Board Reps.
Who would like to go first?
>>So as we've heard, our
district is very invested
in student safety.
And Dr. Guillaume had just reiterated
to some students that he's totally willing
to talk to us if we wanna participate
in walk-outs or any other measures
that we need to take in order
to ensure our own safety.
Moving forward, One Acts
was on the 15th and 16th,
and they performed the play Love Is.
The shows were about types of love,
figuring out who you are,
so finding your place in the waiting room,
to family, to an underdog
at a New Years party,
there is something for everyone.
In addition, there was
the Winter Band Concert
last Tuesday with senior
soloist Drake DeBoer
and the Winter Orchestra
Concert last Thursday
with senior soloist Tim Lee.
Calvin Yoon set the school
record of 100 sectionals
and competed at the IHSA State
Final Swim Meet last Friday.
Blake Teschky qualified in
the wrestling tournament
for State on February 15th,
and another congratulations
to the Dance Team for
their ninth place finish
at the IHSA State Finals,
and the cheer team as well
for finishing 12th at the
IHSA State Cheer Finals.
We had a couple National Merit finalists
from VHHS, specifically was
Felicia E, Theodore Chen,
Hayden Lau, Nikhil Mangtani, Anmol Parande
and Kevin Yoon.
We have also launched a new initiative
called a VH Day of Service, which will be
on April 10th this year and we launched
to sign up for that.
We had 300 students sign
up within six minutes
when we first launched that,
so that makes all of our
volunteer spots full.
And we'll update you on the
further progress of that
in our April meeting.
Everyone is also very
excited to spread the spirit
of VH Give throughout the community.
>>So we also have a new school logo.
A group of staff and students worked
with local artists to create
a new branding image for our school,
because we realized that
we had different logos
for all of our different
student activities.
The Vernon Hills Varsity Ball Team
placed fifth at the state tournament,
qualifying for the National Tournament
to be held in Washington, D.C.,
and some members also qualified
in individual competitions.
Senior Albert Madrzyk's photo was selected
as one of the top 20 works
in the 2018 Illinois
High School Art Exhibit.
The IHSA selects 20 works
to represent the power of visual arts
in Student Development and
Educational Experiences
in Illinois.
So Albert's photo will
become part of an annual
traveling exhibition.
And Blick Art Materials is funding
professional framing of the work.
The Wise team brought home
the first place trophy
at the Regional tournament this weekend.
The team did an outstanding job
at their first level of competition,
which was held at CLC on Saturday.
The team advanced to the Sectional Meet,
held here at Vernon Hills on March 6th.
99 FBLA students participated
in the area competition
at Wauconda High School
on January 28th, and 81 placed
and qualified for the
State Competition in April.
And like we saw, congratulations
to Senior Jordyn Bunning,
who was selected to the IHSA
All State Academic Team.
>>In LHS news, this past Friday, Dr. Kay
took a group of five
students, including myself
and some LHS Staff to visit
some local high schools,
so New Trier, Stevenson
and Glenbrook High Schools
to view some of their student spaces,
such as their libraries and their
Project Lead the Way spaces.
And the goal of the field trip was
to take notes of what
really made each space
collaborative and engaging for students,
and heighten the learning environment
and see what we can bring to
LHS for stuff as simple as
just new furniture or
redesigning entire spaces
to make them more engaging for students.
And Fine Arts News, we have a lot,
Freshmen and Sophomore put on Love/Sick
on January 25th to 26th,
and then also LHS
presented the winter play,
Blithe Spirit on February 15th to 17th.
LHS Jazz Groups received
number one ratings
in the North Shore Jazz Festival,
which is the best they can get.
And then also, LHS Band
had their Winter Concert
this last Wednesday.
Orchestra has theirs this Wednesday
and then Choir will be next Wednesday.
In Athletics, our POMS Team
finished up their season
by competing at State.
LHS Senior Dylan Boyle
received fifth place,
and Sophomore Maggie
Koberstein received sixth place
at the Varsity Championship for Fencing.
And then Joey Vissing and Jackson Paden
qualified for the National
Ice Fishing Championship,
they are sophomores.
And then our Boys Varsity Basketball Team
was Co-Conference Champions,
and then many of our spring
sports started today.
Lastly from me is, one of our seniors,
Sophie Richardson, who
is president of NHS,
is a candidate for the
Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
Student of the Year Campaign.
She has been fundraising to help patients
get access to treatments for blood cancer.
Her fundraising began February 4th,
and she has about four weeks remaining
to reach her goal of $10,000.
>>All right, so LHS had
their Turnabout Dance
on February 10th.
Due to the snow day on February 9th,
the Turnabout Assembly
had to be rescheduled
to February 14th.
It was still a lot of fun.
LHS's own Student Band Fun Monkey
performed at the assembly and Anton Alesna
was crowned King of the Dance.
The theme for the whole
week was Winter Olympics,
so students enjoyed a lot
of activities leading up
to the dance that were a lot of fun.
Seniors Mariam Tolba and Katie Lund
received honorable mentions in
The National Center for Women
in Information Technology
award for aspirations in computing.
Wise Team placed second
at the Illinois Academic
Regional Competition at
the College of Lake County
on February 3rd.
The team was lead by senior Albert Su,
who actually received
first place in chemistry
and second place in English.
Su was also named the teams
Most Valuable Player that weekend.
Junior Thomas Pearson, who we mentioned
at our previous meeting in January,
was announced the winner of the
Voice of Democracy State Competition
on February 10th and
will have the opportunity
to travel to Washington D.C.
for the National Competition, where he,
amongst the other 53 finalists,
will compete for a $30,000 scholarship.
LHS hosted an event on
Thursday, February 9th
to get seniors and juniors
to register to vote for the upcoming
mid-term elections in November.
All students who registered to vote
at this event were entered into a raffle
for the chance to win a
signed Hamilton poster
by LHS Alumni, Pippa Soo,
and senior Sammy Storch
was the lucky winner
of this poster.
This past Saturday, LHS's Best Buddies
welcomed members from the community
for the school's Annual Carnival.
Students with special
needs had an absolute blast
as they were able to go around
to different carnival booths for games,
face paints and bouncy houses.
As a whole, I'm president of this club,
so we saw more people in attendance
than we have in years past,
and it's just really cool
to see other members from the community
who aren't usually
exposed to Best Buddies.
Just kinda see what we are all about.
This week, in addition, Best Buddies
is also sponsoring a Spread
the Word to End The Word
campaign, which is a week
here that LHS devoted
to bringing awareness to students at LHS
with disabilities, also focusing
on educating students, specifically
why it is inappropriate
to use the R word here.
This week, as well, LHS's
International Language Department
is putting on International Language Week.
Throughout the week, students will be able
to experience different cultures through
food that will be sold
outside the cafeteria,
so we've got chips and guacamole,
chocolate croissant and churros,
along with a lot of other fun activities
planned by the department.
Thank you.
>>Good job you guys.
Thanks for your help.
You guys are free to go.
>>Yeah, would you like to go home now?
(audience laughs)
>>Thank you.
If you have any difficulty
at school tomorrow waking up,
then, between Dr.
Koulentes and Dr. Guillaume
and I, we'll make sure
you're taken care of, okay?
(board chattering)
>>(speaking faintly) policy about bring
(speaking faintly)
>>I'm gonna be over
there to eat the treats.
Okay, I think that's on to me, Pat.
>>Yes.
>>Okay, Superintendent's Report.
Believe it or not, we
say this every month,
but there's actually more
good news to share tonight,
which is always very cool.
All 16 of D-128's
National Merit Candidates
have been chosen as finalists.
Congratulations to the
following LHS and VHHS seniors
as they advance now in the competition.
From LHS, Aaron Chen,
Kathleen Lund, Colin Miller,
Julia Mollenhauer, Suraj
Rajendran, Emily Roller,
Emily Stone, Albert Su, Allison Tong,
and Laura Zeng.
From VHHS, Theodore Chen,
Felicia E, Hayden Lau,
Nikhil Mangtani, Anmol
Parande and Kevin Yoon.
The following VHHS students were named
recipients of the Ellen
Cwick Couger Class Act Award
for February, Zack Estell, Sam Wolff,
Damian Valenzuela, Jonathan
Wallach, Vincent Roberts,
Luc Gudmundson, Avery
Longdon, Meghan Cavolick,
Courtney Himley, Jibie
Joseph, Jefferson Diaz
and Michael Harty.
The following LHS students
were named LHS February
Students of the Month, Maggie
Hutchins, Elizabeth Manley,
Luke Underwood, Mathew
Johnson, Larkin Haverty-Dennis,
Jalen Pitts, Gracie
Benson and Ellie Sorensen.
The VHHS Math Team won first
place at last Saturday's
Regional Competition at
Stevenson High School.
Team will compete at the State Tournament
at the University of Illinois in May.
The LHS Mathematics team
finished in second place
at their Regional Math Contest
at Stevenson High School on Saturday.
In addition to team and individual honors,
John He was the individual
Regional Champion
in Sophomore Geometry.
The LHS Mock Trial Team
had a strong performance
at the Lake County
Invitational on Saturday.
Cecelia Snyder, Lancy
Markos and Annie Ryan
won Best Witness Award.
And the LHS Fishing
Team, sophomore member,
let me say that again,
the LHS Fishing Team,
we do have fishing teams at both schools,
we like that.
Sophomore members Joey
Vissing and Jackson Paden
competed in the NAIFC
Ice Fishing Tournament
held on Channel Lake in
Antioch on February 4th
with great results.
The team braved brutally cold conditions
to catch a limit of bluegill and crappie
that weighed 5.13 pounds,
earning them first place
among all high school teams.
The team finished 21 first
overall in the mostly
adult field of 43 teams.
The National Championship will be held
in December 14th and 15th
in Naytahwaush, Minnesota.
I think I'm close there.
So congratulations.
12 D128 Art Students had
work selected for display
at the Illinois High School
Art Exhibition, IASAE.
Their artwork was chosen
from a select group
of 25 pieces representing VHHS artists,
submitted for judging
to this annual exhibit.
From VHHS, Zahra Nadeem,
Senior Portfolio Scholarship
Recipient, Eldona
Satmakulova, Mixed Media,
Anya Kapols in Drawing,
drew laser and printing,
Anya Kapols for Senior
Portfolio Scholarship Recipient,
Sara Abdullah for Sculpture
and Albert Madrzyk
for Photography.
From LHS, Shannon Long in Drawing,
Hannah Miller in Sculpture,
Nate Sweitzer in Design,
Jillian Veng in Painting and
Emma Moeller in Ceramics.
Additionally, a photo by VHHS Senior
Albert Madrzyk was selected
as one of the top 20 works
in the exhibit.
The IHSAE selected 20 works to represent
the Power of Visual Arts
in Student Development
and Educational Experiences in Illinois.
Albert's photo will
become part of an annual
traveling exhibition, being
exhibited at such venues
as The Illinois Association
of School Boards
and Administrator's Convention,
The Illinois State Capital Building
and Soho House in Chicago.
The District 128 Special Olympians
brought home a total of
one gold, seven silvers,
three bronze and two fourth place ribbons
at this year's Winter Games held
earlier this month in Galena.
Medal winners were, Alex Aquinda was Gold
in the 100 meter, Nathan
Ferrara was Silver
in the 4x100 relay,
Silver in the 100 meter,
and Bronze in the 200 meter.
Anthony Bertold was
Silver in the 4x100 relay,
and Silver in the 200 meter.
Joseph Moeller was Silver
in the 4x100 relay,
and Silver in the 200 meter,
and Eric Haderline was
Silver in the 4x100 relay
and fourth in the 200 meter.
Shah Karanin finished fourth in 100 meter
and Tristan Hidalgo finished with a Bronze
in the 100 meter, and a
Bronze in the 50 meter.
So congratulations to
all of those students
for their outstanding achievements.
Certainly proud of all of them.
Okay, next up on the
Superintendent's Report
is the LHS Swimming pool project update.
So Mark and Dan.
>>(speaking faintly)
Well, after our winter conditions,
we started to move forward this week
with some good weather and started
to make some progress.
Over the last few weeks
we finished up Phase One
with water main, sanitary
and storm line installation.
We presently are 60 percent complete
on our under-pool piping,
which started up again on Monday,
and we're digging for foundation walls
along the north side to
start footings in that area.
>>So we talk about a committee,
there's the Financial
Report there for you,
so that hasn't changed 'cause
that was two weeks ago,
and it's still the information.
So all the financial information
essentially it'll always
be one month in arrears,
so in February you'll get the
data that includes January.
And so even our report today,
there's no change orders.
But I do wanna just let you know that
either tonight or
tomorrow we'll be getting
two change orders for us that we're gonna
move forward with.
One of them elevates to Dr.
Lea's level for approval
and the other one is at
my level for approval.
And just for review, based on the contract
that was a level of up
to $25,000 or $24,099,
something like that, is at my level,
and up to $49,999 is Dr. Lea's,
and anything above that would have to go
to the Board for approval.
And so, just to let you know,
we haven't signed those yet,
but we haven't actually
got them yet to sign,
but the first one, and Mark
can fill in the details
of what they are, but the first one
is related to the electric
line that goes under,
that's currently there.
It's gonna be going under the parking lot
that is immediately west
of the pool structure.
When they were designing
it and everything,
they had an assumption
of how deep that was.
When they actually dug
it out they realized
it was shallower than they thought,
so that conduit has to get re-laid,
kinda put in the ground at a deeper level
so that we don't have any problems
when we're putting the
parking lot on top of that.
Now that we kinda found out about this,
what we're doing is
taking the opportunity to
try to future-proof this as well.
And so we're also moving it a bit
so that anything else that we might do
on the west side of that building,
it won't have any impact on the future.
So anything you want to add?
That one will probably
be at the level of around
$40,000, but we don't know.
And so I'll just explain the other one.
The other one is,
briefly, just related to,
he'll explain, but
essentially we have to dig out
some saturated soil in
the deep end of the pool,
that's kind of happened there.
He can explain that.
That will be probably not quite $10,000,
less than that, or something like that.
So we have a $530,000 contingency,
so this will eat into that a bit,
but we still will have
plenty of contingency left.
Bart do you wanna explain a
little bit more of any of that.
>>That's the concept of muck.
>>Yes, the second item
has been phrased as muck.
So what transpired was we
were in winter conditions,
we had the blankets down, plastic down,
and so we weren't gettin' the frost,
so we were moving ahead
with our underground piping
and pouring concrete,
and all that to keep
frost out of the ground.
After the last snows and the rains
and everything melted, water
got underneath the tarps
and in some areas it
supersaturated the soils.
So we have to remove those soils,
scrape that muck layer off, as we call it,
between two and four inches of it.
And then we will haul in gravel to fill up
for that void, and then
the rest of the gravel
can go in the base of
the pool so we can start
pouring the bottom of the pool.
On the electric line, as Dan said,
we are trying to future-proof it.
More or less like we did
with our gas main years ago.
So we will be running the electric line
parallel to our gas line, which runs back
to our gas line, which runs
back to our HVAC plant.
That line that is not deep
enough in the parking lot,
actually only supplies
electricity to our plant,
which provides us heat in the winter
and air conditioning in the summer.
So it is a critical line.
So we will move that
into our 50 foot setback
from property line, and it'll be there
with the gas line, so
it'll be out of the way
for any future developments.
>>So the upgrade is it won't be sitting
under a parking lot.
So in the future, if we
have to get to that line,
we have access to that line.
So Just to quickly go
through process again,
we discussed these, as
Dan has already reviewed.
We put some checks and balances in place.
I said at that time that even
on the lower change orders
that Mark and Dan would
be talking with me,
that's just because how we do things,
how we work together
collaboratively in the office.
So we've had some discussions
about both projects,
certainly supportive, and we need
to sign the change order
so we can move forward
with the work.
So, unless you have any objections,
we will do that.
Dan will sign the one I'm aware of,
the lower one, $10,000-ish
and I'll sign the one
that's around $40,000.
And we'll do a report-out
once we get the work done
and what the final cost is.
That sound like a plan?
Okay, all right, thanks guys.
Next on the docket is, we
are pleased to announce
after a rigorous search
and interview process,
that we are ready to hire
the new Athletic director
at Libertyville High School.
You will recall that
one of the reasons that
we need a new Athletic Director
at Libertyville High School, is because
we hired Briant as the
Associate Superintendent
toward the end of last year.
We've had two phenomenal
retired Athletic Directors
and individuals doing that job this year.
They've done a wonderful job
in keeping things moving forward.
But we're excited tonight to recommend
the hiring of John Woods
as Athletic Director.
And Tom, you just wanna give
us a quick thumbnail again,
because we've had some conversation
with the Board regarding John.
>>Yes, so we are extremely excited
at Libertyville High School
to recommend to you the
hiring of John Woods
as our Athletic Director.
Since 2008 he's been
the Assistant Principal
for Activities and Facilities
at Champaign Central High School,
and he's been an athletic
director since 2003.
In his current role he
supervises 21 sports
and 57 activities.
He schedules the buildings facilities,
he organizes their master calendar,
and he also serves as their
Director of Special Education.
He evaluates approximately 60 coaches
and conducts formal evaluations
for certified and non-certified
and custodial staff.
As an Athletic Director,
he's highly active
in the Illinois Athletic
Directors Association.
He served as their
President from 2015 to 2017,
and he's currently
serving as its Treasurer.
This is the organization of
all the Athletic Directors
in the State of Illinois, so it gives him
tremendous knowledge of
other athletic programs
and contacts and networks
throughout the state.
He was the 2015 Athletic
Director of the Year
for his area in the State of Illinois,
which is a really big deal.
He's also a National Interscholastic
Athletic Administrator
Association Leadership
Training Institute Instructor,
a lot of words there, but that means
he leads professional development sessions
throughout the state on leadership,
athletic program
development at high schools
and student wellness for coaches
and athletic administrators.
What we really found with John, though,
and among all of his
professional accolades
and accomplishments, he is
a tremendously personable,
charismatic, relationship-centered person
who leads very much as a servant leader.
His current principal called
him the best AD in the state,
and one of the top in the nation.
His associate superintendent
district director,
told us that he creates
great relationships
with parents, students and co-workers,
that he reaches out to all
members of his community.
And our hiring team, our students, staff
and administrative team
were just really impressed
with John's ability to take core values
of an institution and
transform an athletic program
so that every aspect of
that athletic program
reflects those core values.
So we feel that we are bringing to you,
as a Board, one of the
top athletic directors
in the State of Illinois,
and we are very excited
to recommend him to you for hire.
>>So we will need a motion, second,
any discussion and a vote.
>>Okay, is there a motion to appoint LHS
Director John Woods,
effective July 1, 2018?
>>So moved.
>>Second.
>>Is there any discussion?
No?
If not, roll call please.
>>Groody.
>>Aye.
>>Huber.
>>Aye.
>>Lundstedt.
>>Aye.
>>Mauer.
>>Aye.
>>Thurman.
>>Aye.
>>All right, motion carries.
>>Okay, thank you very much.
Next on the Superintendent's Report is
2017-2018 amended school calendar.
Under current Illinois rules and regs,
when we have an emergency
day off of school,
we have to amend the calendar.
As the Board is aware, we have
more student attendance
days than virtually
any other school in the state,
and as a result of that,
when we have to take a day off,
we do not have to add a
day on the end of the year,
or take a day off from spring break,
or anything like that.
However, we do have to submit
an amended school calendar,
which would indicate
that we had a snow day,
a couple weeks ago, or a
week and a half ago or so.
So, anyway, again, this is
just a required function
of what we would have to do
if we're fortunate enough
to get out of the rest of
winter and early spring
with no more bad inclement conditions,
and this will be our calendar.
If we have to take another
day off at some point
for inclement weather, then that month
that we take the day off,
we'll be back with another
amended school calendar.
So we would need, again,
a motion and a second.
>>I make a motion that we accept
the amended school calendar as presented.
>>Second.
>>Any discussion?
>>Roll call please.
>>Huber.
>>Aye.
>>Lundstedt.
>>Aye
>>Mauer.
>>Aye.
>>Thurman.
>>Aye.
>>Groody.
>>Aye
All right, motion carries.
>>Okay, thank you.
We had three FOIA requests
since our last Board meeting.
The first request is on 1/23/18
from Emily Coleman, The Lake County News,
Sun Tribune Media Group,
requesting all communication emails
between September 5, 2016
and December 31, 2016
to and from Pat Groody, Prentiss Lea,
Ellen Mauer, Denise Zwit, that contain
the phrases election, petition papers,
nominating papers and signatures.
Briant Kelly did the follow-up
and we responded prior to the deadline.
Virtually nothing in that request.
On 1/23/18, Emily Coleman again
from Lake County News Sun,
Chicago Tribune Media Group,
that looks like,
>>That looks like a
slightly different one.
>>Yeah, so this is a second one,
all communication including emails between
December 27, 2017 and January 8, 2018,
to and from Prentiss Lea,
Mary Todoric, Pat Groody,
Ellen Mauer, that contain
the phrases Todoric,
Daily Herald, Harold Lee
(mumbles) or husband.
Briant Kelly responded to that.
And on 2/1 Jim Tyrrell from
the Prairie State Wire,
requested a copy of our
current bargaining agreement,
data for all employees of
CHSTE 128 represented by
any organized labor,
collective bargaining unit,
including first name,
middle name or initial,
last name, department, job title,
organized labor collective,
bargaining unit name,
government email address,
school name and salary.
Dan Stanley and Briant responded to that
in a timely manner.
>>Was that stuff we were able to give?
That looked like another
one of these fishing things.
>>Yes, because this was in the course
of their employment.
>>So that's a matter of public record.
So we didn't have to create, again,
on FOIA requests we don't
have to create a document
that we don't have.
We don't have to create
a brand new spreadsheet.
So we have this information in a format
that was readily doable, and again,
on the other two requests,
virtually nothing
in terms of to respond to.
Okay, so one last thing
under Superintendent's Report
under other, the board
has in front of them.
>>You have two donations.
>>Donations, I apologize.
>>Oh, I'm sorry.
We've been here too long.
>>They're in here.
>>Oh, okay, there they are.
I apologize, two donations.
The first one from A-OK Industries,
Mr. Dan Runger.
We wanna acknowledge his
donation of machinery
and equipment to the
Applied Tech Department
in Libertyville High
School as listed below.
One Bridgeport mill,
one forehead drill press
and one forging oven.
So we thank A-OK Industries.
And the next one is from Mr. Greg Gratz
in Libertyville.
We wanna acknowledge a donation of a
commercial sandblaster to
the Applied Tech Department
at Libertyville High School.
We are excited to accept that gift.
Now, finally in the
Superintendent's Report,
the Board has in front of it
a special gift.
So Rita, do you wanna tell the Board
what we have provided them tonight?
>>You've previously shared with the Board
our process for designing
a portrait of a graduate,
and that process involved input
from almost 300 stakeholders,
a writing and design team
that carefully looked at the survey data,
and crafted a message that,
when we began the process,
felt very future-focused, aspirational
and the focus on designing a document
that would prepare
students for what we viewed
as a very uncertain future world.
We're happy to announce
that we officially soft-launched
what has become our new mission
with our staff on Monday.
And the theme of that soft-launch
was the significance
of our Daring Mission,
in preparing students now
for not only the uncertain
future that they face,
but for the challenging world
that the events of the last few weeks
indicate that we're living in.
And so the words that we've crafted
to create students who are daring,
who are able to discover themselves,
their passions, their interests,
their own perspectives, and to act
on those perspectives is more immediate
and more urgent.
And so we're really proud of the words
that you've seen previously,
and the brand new design that we unveiled
for our students who
are dreamers and doers,
aware, resilient and healthy, inquisitive,
nimble and global.
So we'd like you to
unveil that new graphic
that was met very favorably by the staff
who also were issued
their diplomas on Monday
at our Institute Day.
Like to open it up and
see our brand new graphic?
I also have a sticker for your devices.
>>Just peel that off and put it on your.
>>Nice.
>>Well done.
>>Nice, nice, nice.
>>We will begin tomorrow to form a group
that's looking at bringing in voices,
including our student voices
as represented through the principles
in implementing the mission and connecting
our daily work to the language
of our Daring Mission.
>>Okay, great job.
>>Thanks Rita.
>>(speaking faintly) there and beyond.
>>All right Pat.
That completes the
Superintendent's Report.
>>Okay, thank you very much.
All right, the consent
vote agenda is listed.
We reviewed it earlier in the month.
If I could ask for a motion to approve
the consent vote agenda as listed, please.
>>So moved.
>>Second.
>>Any discussion?
Roll call please?
>>Lundstedt.
>>Aye.
>>Mauer.
>>Aye.
>>Thurman.
>>Aye.
>>Groody.
>>Aye.
>>Huber.
>>Aye.
>>Motion carries.
All right, Program and
Personnel, (mumbles) and Mauer.
>>Okay, we just have a few things.
We have Board policies for
a second reading adoption.
We have Policy 41-10, Transportation.
Policy 5-90, Abused and
Neglected Child Reporting.
Policy 5-220, Substitute Teachers.
Policy 6-50, School Wellness,
and Policy 7-250,
Student Support Services.
There have been no changes
since the last reading.
So we're looking for a motion
to accept those as presented.
>>So moved.
>>Second.
>>Any discussion?
Roll call please?
>>Mauer.
>>Aye.
>>Thurman.
>>Aye.
>>Groody.
>>Aye.
>>Huber.
>>Aye.
>>Lundstedt.
>>Aye.
>>All right, motion carries.
>>Okay, and then a second item
is Employment of Employees,
and we'll need a motion to
approve those as presented.
>>So moved.
>>Second.
>>Any discussion?
Roll call please.
>>Thurman.
>>Aye.
>>Groody.
>>Aye.
>>Huber.
>>Aye.
>>Lundstedt.
>>Aye.
>>Mauer.
>>Aye.
>>All right, motion carries, any other?
>>Under other, I don't have any others,
does anyone else?
>>Then we're done.
>>All right thank you.
Facilities and Finance,
since Jim's not here,
I guess I'll just turn
it right over to you,
Dan, I guess, right, on the two bits.
>>Yeah, sure.
So really two bits to present for you
that we presented at the
Facilities and Finance Committee
meeting, the first is
a transportation bid.
As you know, one bid received,
and that's from Lakeside Transportation.
And so we recommend to approve that bid.
That's a three year
contract with an option
to extend for a fourth and a fifth year.
>>In the amount of?
>>It's not an actual
price, the route rates
that are listed on all the
bids and everything, so.
>>I make a motion to
approve the Lakeside bid
for three years.
>>With the option to extend,
>>With the option to extend for two.
>>Second.
>>Any discussion?
All right, roll call please.
>>Groody.
>>Aye.
>>Huber.
>>Aye.
>>Lundstedt.
>>Aye.
>>Mauer.
>>Aye.
>>Thurman.
>>Aye.
>>All right, motion carries.
And VHAC.
>>The second one would be for a motion
to accept the bid from a C. Acitelli,
Heating and Piping Contractors
of Villa Park, Illinois,
for the Libertyville High School 2018
summer HVAC upgrades.
The base bid for the
project was $1,130,000.
So if we could have a
motion to accept that bid.
>>And there's no alternate, right Mark?
Or there is no alternate.
>>No alternate?
Do you want us to accept an alternate?
>>No there's no alternate
with this project.
>>Okay, all right.
So, total bid is $1,130,000.
>>$1,130,000.
I make a motion that we
approve the Acitelli HVAC
contractor's bid in the amount
of $1,130,000 as presented.
>>Second.
>>Any discussion.
All right, roll call please.
>>Huber.
>>Aye.
>>Lundstedt.
>>Aye.
>>Mauer.
>>Aye.
>>Thurman.
>>Aye.
>>Groody.
>>Aye.
All right, motion carries.
Any other?
Okay, then that's it.
All right, no property, Seetle?
>>Just as I mentioned last month,
we were going to be
voting on the recommended
new superintendent, which we did,
and she was improved, Ms Valerie Donnan.
>>Great background.
>>Thank you.
Important job to fill.
>>Well, yes, great one.
>>All right, anything else?
Okay, on ISB, again, we're gonna move into
an executive session.
We will not be doing Item A,
we will only be discussing
collective negotiating
matters 5IL CS120/2C2.
So if I could ask for a motion
to move into Executive Session?
>>So moved.
>>Is there a second?
>>Second.
Any discussion?
Roll call please.
>>Lundstedt.
>>Aye.
>>Mauer.
>>Aye.
>>Thurman.
>>Aye.
>>Groody.
>>Aye.
>>Huber.
>>Aye.
>>All right motion carries.
Again, we will not be taking
any further action this evening.
Thanks, good night everybody.
