Board News

The School District 15 Board of Education meeting was held on Wednesday, October 19, 2022. The full meeting agenda and recorded video, as well as the minutes from its September 14 meeting can be found on the BoardDocs website.

The Pledge of Allegiance was led by twelve students from Carl Sandburg who won the One of Us award during the 1st Quarter of the school year. Students earning this prestigious recognition demonstrated the ability to make the classroom a better place by including others, demonstrating positive energy, thinking outside the box, and sharing their unique gifts with the Carl Sandburg community. Congratulations, One of Us winners! You make us #ProudToBe15.

District 15 was honored to recognize Conyers Learning Academy (CLA) student, Ana O. During a bus accident in August, Ana helped to comfort younger students and assist staff on the bus while putting aside her own injuries to do so. District 15 recognized Ana for her bravery and genuine care for younger students during a frightening incident.

In addition to her principal recognizing her efforts, Arlington Heights Firefighter and Paramedic, Anthony Piccolo, joined the Board in offering a special thank you to Ana for her service to others.

PJ D. is a senior at Rolling Meadows High School and a member of Boy Scout Troop 188. PJ has a strong connection to District 15 as a proud graduate who attended Conyers Learning Academy for Preschool, both Kimball Hill and Virginia Lake for elementary school, as well as Walter R. Sundling for junior high. PJ shared that he was diagnosed with autism and benefited from the extra care and support he received at CLA and throughout his time in District 15.

To help other students, PJ came up with the idea to install a multi-sensory path and music wall in the backyard classroom at Conyers Learning Academy. He partnered with one of his former teachers, Lauren Christ, and a few other staff at CLA to plan and construct the sensory path and music wall for the students.

As you might imagine, these additions have quickly become a popular area of play and enjoyment by students since being installed. District 15 would like to extend a sincere thank you to PJ for all of his hard work, dedication, and generosity in considering Conyers Learning Academy and its students to be the beneficiaries of his Eagle Scout Project.

Dr. Heinz hosted the District’s first strategic planning meeting. The group reviewed the new Portrait of a Graduate and the current mission and vision in preparation for creating an updated strategic plan.

This Saturday, October 22, the District is hosting its second Drive a Bus Day! Join us from 10 am - 1 pm at 1100 N Smith Street in Palatine to try driving a bus and learn more about becoming a bus driver!

The November 8 Election is quickly approaching! Dr. Heinz provided one last overview of the Moving 15 Forward plan for the community. The plan was designed to benefit every student, school, and community.

Moving 15 Forward will allow the District to repair and restore our facilities, update our learning spaces, and improve our student transitions. District 15 continues to find new ways to reach out to all members of the communities we serve, especially those who may not have children in our schools, to ensure they are informed about the plan.

There is one final Moving 15 Forward Information Meeting on Tuesday, October 25 at Walter R. Sundling Junior High. If you have not been to a meeting yet, we hope you can join us!

District 15 created the following graphics during National Voter Education Week to help members of our community be informed voters this Election Day.

The Business and Auxiliary Services Department is converting its financial software from Skyward to Qmlativ and finalized its FY22 audit.

The Communications Department continues to coordinate engagement opportunities in the community and continues to use social media to engage and inform our communities.

The Educational Services Department completed MAP and Fastbridge testing and continues to provide high levels of intervention support to students.

Human Resources hosted additional job fairs and continues its hiring efforts to fill open positions. To learn more about our open positions and apply, visit www.ccsd15.net/Hiring.

Multilingual Programs hosted a Multilingual Parent Advisory meeting as well as training for staff. A Bilingual Ukrainian program was added at Lincoln School to accommodate the new students at that building.

The Student Services Department created individual safety/crisis evacuation plans for students with motor needs and will host a SPARK parent meeting on October 24.

Teaching and Learning offered training for staff and implemented a process for curricular material ordering and delivery.

Deputy Superintendent Dr. Kowalczyk presented the 2022 Fall Housing Report. Each year, school districts are required to submit to the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) enrollment data to reflect students enrolled as of the last day of school in September and are taken from the student information system (SIS) after October 15th. The data presented provide a ten-year lookback of fall housing data within the District. This information is available to the public on ISBE’s website.

Dr. Kowalczyk shared student enrollment decreased by 67 students from 2021-22 to the 2022-23 school year. However, for the first time in six years, the District experienced an increase in enrollment of 60 students in our Pre-K population. The District enrolled 137 new first grade students this Fall. We typically gain a minimum of 100 new first grade students each year. She shared that if the District offered full day kindergarten, we would most likely experience an increase in our kindergarten enrollment. Ten of our schools experienced an increase in student enrollment, nine schools experienced a decrease, and one school’s enrollment remained the same from the previous year.

Looking ahead, we are monitoring new multi-unit housing developments that are sprouting up within our boundaries. The former Motorola headquarters development is increasing the enrollment at Frank C. Whitely, the former Kinsch Florist and Garden Center development will impact Stuart R. Paddock, and The Bears Organization coming to Arlington Heights would affect enrollment in our Rolling Meadows schools.

The Moving 15 Forward plan addresses capacity issues at our buildings and creates a consistent linear elementary to middle/junior high school to high school feeder pattern. If the referendum does not pass, the District will still need to address the capacity issues at buildings by creating new attendance area boundaries for schools to disperse students to lower-capacity schools and even-out enrollment across the District.

The 2022-2023 Student Assignment Plan allocated 997.67 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) certified staff members to meet the needs of our PreK-8 students. The District is experiencing staff shortages among its certified teaching staff and currently has 15 unfilled positions. Our greatest areas of need as it relates to certified staffing continues to be special education teachers, related service providers, and bilingual educators.

View the full 2022 Fall Housing Report here.

Dr. Thomas Edgar, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning; Emily McFadden, Director of Curriculum and Instruction; and Robyn Cook, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, shared the 2022-2023 Curriculum Review and Implementation Update.

District 15 approaches the updating of its curriculum in a systematic manner, which includes a schedule as to when major curricular areas will be reviewed and decisions made on how best to update each content area. To that end, beginning in 2019, a multi-year schedule was developed to pace the work of updating curricular content to ensure alignment to state standards, to provide teachers with modern resources to teach with and for our students to learn from, as well as to demonstrate responsiveness to the needs of a diverse student body.

A committee-driven process is followed to review and select updated academic resources. This process is referred to as, “RDIM”, which stands for Review/Research, Design, Implement and Monitor/Modify. RDIM provides a cyclical process that ensures any new curriculum is research-based, differentiated, and adheres to local-area standards of practice.

Another major component of successful curricular revision and implementation has to do with job-embedded and ongoing professional development for staff implementing new teaching approaches along with how to utilize new instructional materials with students spanning a range of academic, social-emotional, and behavioral abilities.

Last school year, District 15 reviewed and updated several curriculum areas to include Junior High English and Language Arts, Science (grades 6, 7, and 8), Math (grades K-8), and is currently in the process of updating its Junior High Social Studies curriculum. In 2022, District 15 began the review of its Health Program. This review is anticipated to be completed over the summer, so an update can be provided to the Board prior to its implementation in the Fall of the 2023-2024 school year.

View the full 2022-23 Curriculum Review and Implementation Report here.

Dr. Thomas Edgar provided an overview of the summative designations assigned to Illinois schools by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). The 2022 designations will be released by ISBE at the end of the month. Dr. Edgar shared changes to summative designations prior to the release of information.

one-five Foundation

Board Member James Taylor shared that the Teacher Mini-Grant applications are up and running. They are also working to reschedule the Family Fun Run and Walk in the spring. It was shared that the cancellation of the event will likely delay announcing mini-grant recipients.

The Foundation will be participating in the POC Candy Crawl on Friday, October 21. They are also still looking for additional trustees. If you are interested in learning more, please visit https://www.one-five.org/.

Equity Committee

Board Member Zubair Khan shared that he and Board Member Samantha Ader held a planning meeting in preparation for a committee meeting on October 28, 2022.

ED-RED Committee

Board Member Frank Annerino shared there was nothing to report.

Finance Committee

Board Members Wenda Hunt and Anthony Wang shared that the finance committee met Monday, October 17 to discuss the tax levy and staffing changes within the Business Department.

• Approval of Personnel Report: Administration, Certified, and Non-Certified Staff - approved

• Approval of Special Education Teacher Contract Agency - approved

• Change of Date for the December 2022 Board Meeting - approved

• Resolution Appointing Mary Chaharbakhshi as Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF) Authorized Agent - approved

• Bid Award #23-001 Treated/Untreated Rock Salt & Bagged Salt - approved

• Approval of Board Policy - First Reading - PRESS 108 and PRESS 109 - approved

• Approval of Board Policy - Second Reading - PRESS 108 and PRESS 109 - approved