The September 15th, 2022, regular Board of Education meeting was held at Emerson Middle School. A video of the meeting is now available on the Board Meetings webpage.

Student and Staff Recognition

• Dr. Joel Martin, Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources, started off the meeting by recognizing substitute teachers and the big role they provide District 64. 
• District 64 used 241 different individuals as substitute teachers last year. 27 of whom worked more than 100 days in our District last year. 
• “We’ve had a tremendous number of people step up and they do an incredible job,” said Dr. Martin. “So many of our subs get that phone call at 5 o’clock in the morning or they pick up the last minute opening at 7:30 am and they show up and they do a tremendous job educating our students and stepping in and playing that role of teacher.”

Jefferson and Elementary Schools Construction Update

• Dr. Adam Parisi, Chief School Business Official, and Tony Bersani, Director of Facility Management, gave an update on the ongoing construction at all the elementary schools. 
• “Weather depending, we’re looking at buttoning up things towards the end of October on all six of our sites,” said Dr. Parisi. 
• “We were successful, as promised, to get the schools opened on time a month ago,” said Bersani. 
• Bersani gave clarification as to why some playgrounds were removed at schools.
• The playgrounds weren’t necessarily where additions were being built but they were moved because of what was underneath. “Some of these utilities run through the playgrounds, that’s why some of the playgrounds were affected by it,” said Bersani. “While the playgrounds weren’t going to be remodeled or redone, you have to remove things to move forward with progress. So that’s why the playgrounds were taken away.”
• Bersani reassured the community that as soon as the construction projects are done the playgrounds will be put back together. 

Adoption of the 2022-2023 Budget

• Motion: Approved
• Here is a link to the FY23 Budget Powerpoint Presentation, 2022-2023 Detailed Revenue, Expenditure, and other Financing Sources/Uses Budgets and State Budget Form.

Student Achievement Update

• Dr. Lori Hinton Lopez, Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning, shared data from the Spring Map Assessment and the Spring Fast Bridge Assessment. 
• “I always say this but as a reminder, standardized assessments are only one way that we measure student progress,” said Dr. Lopez. “In our district we also use universal screeners, common assessments, and probably most importantly, our teachers’ classroom assessments help us understand how students are learning.”
• You can find Dr. Lopez’s presentation if you click here. It starts on page 122. 
• “We made significant gains this past year and I anticipate some really solid scores this year with the introduction of our K5 math program,” said Dr. Lopez. “So going forward, we’re really continuing to focus on growth, growth, growth. We want to accelerate growth and we’re doing that in two ways. First, we’re implementing a really robust MTSS program … and the second way that we’re accelerating growth is by putting people and resources in place to support our students.” 

The rest of the news from the Board of Education Meeting is found here.