hi um first I would like to make an extraction can you get real close to the mic please thank you first I would like to make a correction um I'm Eric cardenas's mom I have never been in contact with Carrie Carrie has never contacted any of us never apologized to any of the kids never called us the interpreting was wrong and that's okay he signs fast and often not very clearly um his entire comment is on the public site on the ASU website if you guys want the full of what he actually was trying to get across um I want to talk also about Carrie and her contract and how I feel it definitely should not be extended there have been comments that maybe she was having a bad day or something went wrong or she was super stressed absolutely not acceptable answers for coming in and berating a student not acceptable for continuing to break a safety plan whether or not she was given directive from the principal to break the safety plan she knew better three parents were compelled to go to see judges and get injunctions against harassment all three were granted by different judges in different courthouses who see it as necessary for protecting these children it's not these are not the first kids I have an envelope full of letters from people in the community that either graduated here currently work here had a student that was here or a student themselves who have written letters to say how she abused in the past or the abuses they have witnessed this school has continually allowed her to get away with this Behavior they have been informed and I have the notarized letters from people stating that they informed the school of this as far as SB 1402 I think that would be a huge detriment to the school president Nigro last time mentioned how we're not necessarily thriving on an academic level so it's not like we're setting some amazing standard that every other Disability should want to come here to to get to we need to continue to grow the program here and get those kids all up to Pace get them to where they're all able to go out into the workforce and be ready I don't know the numbers I didn't verify how far behind students here are I don't know how accurate his statements were made but there is no reason to bring in additional disabilities water down the student population here and water down the sign language available to the students on this campus this school needs to remain fundamental to these kids my son desperately wants to stay here for the next seven years I have severe concerns about this as it is and it's very hard to tell him yes you will be able to stay here and it's absolutely not going to happen if it becomes a Dumping Ground for any student who iesp didn't work out in their home District thank you next I have Doris Waltman related to contracts good afternoon asdb board I stand before you today to share what I see happens can you get a little closer to the mic please better yeah thank you thank you I stand before you today to share what I see happening to the itinerant program Jay Johnson has done an exceptional job bringing the itinerant program together practices and procedures professional conduct and professional practices have been his Focus as directed by the asdb administration the decision to eliminate Jay's position in my opinion is a way to avoid any discussion and input from the staff who have seen the positive outcomes from his leadership in addition since the start of the year the Administration has appropriated staff from the itinerant program for their own use they did not do their due diligent in finding out all the things that the administrative secretaries do for all the systems to run smoothly positions have all gone to the upper Administration all of the work is now left to less staff they are gutting the itinerant program piece by piece some of our staff are even performing one and a half jobs since the beginning of the year the assistant superintendent has splintered the regional directors and strip J of the ability to continue on the integration of the program the region II director reports to the assistant superintendent who then makes decisions on incomplete and inaccurate information this has resulted in increased stress to many of the staff in the other regions who have picked up and covered Region 2 responsibilities the assistant superintendent has and continues to demonstrate biases against people and programs to the detriment of the agency he has stripped off the interpreters from the regions which further fractures the itinerant program in cohesion and collaborative services to districts I've been with the agency since 1980.
that's what allows us to file that positive certification because based on this projection the assumptions that we know at this time which are subject to change um some by us some by the state we will meet our financial obligations for the budget year and the two two subsequent years the next slide just shows you the components of the ending fund balance and just a couple highlights and concerns for the future you look first there our enrollment in February of 2020 just prior to you know what we were 13 227 students across our school district last month we were 13 610 or 383 kids higher unfortunately our attendance rate has gone from typically around 95 percent to now around 90 percent so ninety percent of Thirteen thousand six hundred ninety percent of more kids is less than 95 percent of fewer kids so that's why we had to reduce our Ada projections um in the subsequent years and you'll see uh just another Point mainly the concern at the state level with the revenues not meeting the governors and the department of finance's projections and what changes they're going to make when we get to the May revise I apologize for not having the screen are there any questions from the board yes sir students well I I don't have the data if it's the same group of kids in my particular office we look at the overall District in terms of the attendance percentage so typically pre-pandemic about 95 percent of our kids across the entire District would be here on a daily basis these days it's only about 90 percent so that's that's our attendance rate I do imagine we do we we have some students that unfortunately are chronically absent I think Pat covered some of that data in our excuse me our district advisory committee we have a number of kids that the absences have increased since the pandemic and of course um last year we were sending kids home because of the the requirements when when kids are sick so yeah it's it's it's been impacted and the states tried to do some things to help us mitigate that and um and it has helped to a point but it it doesn't restore us completely yes thank you [Music] I hate to try that well I I do know um a lot of our schools are really working with the students in attendance and making those phone calls and reaching out um incentive programs are something we can explore um it's just a matter of what type of incentive we attach to that but that's something that we can always and we are participating in the it's a gas to go to class this year for high school students and um we do have to see that 90 in context of what it was last year yes now although we're comparing to pre-pandemic numbers at that 95 percent last year we were um we didn't really have the same kind of attendance data exactly because the state apportioned us slightly differently we have we're held harmless but we were far below this is a rebound that is continuing so it's rising it's rising good point Pat thank you do you have anything in your system to actually plot where you see your lowest attendance and where you see your highest attendance by School site we do by School site grade level classroom any any different way we can analyze that data um and and you know kind of take a look at it and look for hot spots areas of particular need for Focus yes we do uh so this question is for uh Mr Schulenburg um are we going to reinst uh go back to when we had a budget committee that we had um I think it was during covet because we couldn't go in but that's the one that you had teachers uh you know cross-section of the of the district body participate in the budget committee as we are beginning to look at the money uh so that they can begin to follow the money as well uh yes Ms Oak Park thank you for bringing that up I would like to resurrect the budget committee um it was something that we put together a few years ago and through covid we did have some meetings and then we did kind of step away from it for a little while um just it it added another level of I think stress to some people in the system and that was something we just kind of needed to remove for a little while uh but yes I do intend to resurrect that this spring um and get another group together and and start robust in the fall thank you thank you okay thank you Matt Kylie do we have any public comments we do we have three tonight Zach Apple Valley teachers excuse me your ass addressing yeah Granite Hills I talk with you I know that um Your World War II course it's a great course he's teaching knowing that there would be technical difficulties 28 years let me keep going let's see if I got the results is that it thank you good evening school board members superintendent Nelson and assistant superintendents I am Mr zakam and today I wanted to inform you about the Granite Hills High School after school World War II program the class had more than 110 students sign up in the fall after they worked through counselors the initial amount of students that were placed in the class was 60.
um and then DDP took over management um of it in 2015 and it's been fundraising and working to renovate it and of course now it's closer to what it looked like in 1922 a beautiful green uh uh space so really getting the the creation of the park correct has always been has always been important so um oh and I should say we uh we built a dog park as well in 2022 there that's not historic but after everyone got a puppy during covet we we thought we should build that and uh in 2000 uh more pet friendly units uh started cropping up so we needed it also but that's uh Capital Park Cadillac Square I think you'll all be keenly interested in because of the food program in the market program that you that you that you're creating and uh this is a look again at it where again DDP is 100 years old so I like to put it in that context but but a big wide open Promenade in 1900 um prior to that uh however it was Detroit Central Marketplace uh which was the Open Air Market priority Eastern Market existing and this Pavilion actually is still it's it's still around and it's been preserved at the Henry Ford Greenfield Village fun fact so so running a market at this site is something that's been going on for for over 100 years and it's something that we continue to to um be inspired by today like like Capitol Park apparently every public space in Detroit was raised at one point to make it a bus stop or a trolley stop and uh and here you can see that and then um you know fast forward to to 2011.
at first I'd like to apologize I did end up getting there a little two minutes later you know I couldn't log in then I realized it was because I didn't have my Clifton school email so present at the committee were myself commissioner Fahim abdrabo commissioner Judith basford and commissioner Anthony Santiago president at the meeting from Administration with Mrs Rogers the vice principal of CHS meeting facilitator Miss Keegan Mr Keegan a CHS vice principal Mr doctor was also present serving the capacity of both a parent and representing Central Administration there are also coaches and booster club Representatives present from the following Sports and activities boys soccer cheerleaning baseball lacrosse ice hockey and the band Miss Rogers first congratulated the winter sports who were president in the meeting cheerleaders the co-ed state championships a huge congratulations to them and the hockey team on a great run during their first try up season and we also mentioned to our student athletes for wrestling Indoor Track horse still in season and are still competing um third on the agenda Miss Rogers will send a shared calendar she ended up sending it in the morning to presence of booster club so they can upload any events that are going on within their groups not sure if anyone else on the board ended up receiving those but I did again invite to see all the events that are going to happen from now up until May uh Mr abroad brought up how the board can be more aware of events games matches that take place and Miss Rogers also discuss how the Athletics calendar on our website and that we do have an app for this as well um number five was discussion of ideas Miss algeri discusses using um but again I don't want to mispronounce it but plutonian for pre-game meals especially when I'm pressed for time highly convenient for the schools and the parents and also our student athletes Mrs Cole mentioned that the snacks in at the stadium so my deals were discussed um and then we also mentioned about the financial advice regarding combination of accounts with our new hockey's try um op team it was suggested to stick with the count and making advice from professionals and then miss bastard also brought up booster club fundraisers and with the Bluetooth clubs raise money for and discussion that was insured including a explanation of items that are kept by students personalized jerseys equipment senior gifts tickets Awards dinners trophies and plaques and then food slash added treats on game days um parties listed by teams and other outings seven was among the various Sports and booster clubs was discussed including some costs incurred by the cheerleading team discussion centered around what the district should be responsible for versus what the district Club pays for and then the next morning likely around June to recap spring Sports um meaning again is going to be an August kick off all sports and the meeting adjourned at 7 46 pm thank you okay any questions um this was a new committee that was started this year we felt I felt it was very important to bring these booster clubs together so that they're all on the same page um to give them a voice and Mr Mahia I commend you in your committee on a on a first great meeting I'm hoping those booster clubs that did not attend um was just for this particular meeting and that will have a hundred percent participation at the next meeting um so those that may be listening to this meeting if you're involved with the booster club and would like to be present at the next booster club committee meeting please let your coach Mr melayhee building principal uh no so that you can make sure that you're present at the next meeting so thank you again for that that progress and okay and last but not least uh Mr Paris is our education special education thank you Mr Smith uh we had a uh education committee meeting on February 16th president or myself uh uh Miss Danny vice president uh Miss basford uh Dr robertosi miss kusilevich Mr gingaro uh Ms Bergman Miss tremble Miss Banning and Miss Rotolo first item counseling grant for Teen Mental Health First Aid Ms tremble and Miss Bergman made a presentation shared about the new training on Mental Health first aid for select CHS staff and 10th graders the program provides tools to both staff and students to be able to recognize signs of distress and how to notify appropriate adults this was made possible by a grant received action on that was informational special education update by Ms Rotolo she discussed updates for project unifying Special Olympics recently the CHS unified basketball team played an away game against Northern Valley with a tie game 42-42 Woodrow Wilson Middle School played uh play unified had a basketball game on February 28th at 3 30.
I have never seen the agency so fractured with such poor communication and I mean communication that is back and forth not just information this is not a place where people's Knowledge and Skills have been appreciated our staff is stressed at the lack of communication of what will be happening in the itinerary programs the teachers and the staff do have other choices and this Administration complains they're having a hard time recruiting this is exactly the reason why please reach out to the itinerant staff who provide the direct services to our districts and students you will learn a lot about what has been happening and all the positive changes that Jay has done to bring us together and improve the quality and consistency of services thank you the rest of the comments have been submitted via the Internet on the website and are available um on on the website so you can read everything there but um the theme was pretty much the same across the board did I miss one Astrid oh she did all right Astrid come back up I think she said 7.01 I think sorry 7.01 okay thank you so much um I just wanted to cover one more topic 7.01 I feel like this is very critical um public information for our community to have that I learned just today this is with Miss Donna Williams and her summary report um it was it was very fascinating to read this was the first time I learned that the community can be involved with and reach out to the ombuds person I didn't know that we often Talk Amongst ourselves and we have somewhat fragmented communication and information coming through and I'm thrilled to know that Donna is available to the community also in reading her report I learned that she is establishing focus groups for conversation and sharing of information which I think will be a wonderful asset to communication communication keeps coming up as something that the agency is struggling with so I'm thrilled that Miss Williams is new to us fairly recently from what I understand in July and is going to be making some great changes so I wanted to in front of everyone also request that there be a focus group which includes the community alumni who attended these schools before and former teachers parents I'm hoping already have a focus group as well but we would all love to be able to talk to Miss Williams and discuss some very significant issues one of them being the behavior in the classroom of a teacher whose name has already been mentioned also the division within the community so I am formally asking Miss Williams for those focus groups thank you thank you Astrid um and again the rest of the comments have been posted online and are available for the public view I do want to say something in regards to Senate Bill 1402 we received a lot of feedback um online regarding that oh I missed sorry somebody else um but Senate Bill 1402 please continue to contact your legislators it's important that they hear this as well and hold on I know that I have done yep there I know that I have PV jams as well I'm jumping all over the place sorry about that and PB um if you'd like to cover both topics we'll give you eight minutes to do that thank you president of the board superintendent and board members assistant superintendents Martin and Cooper and superintendent reichmann thank you for allowing me the opportunity to stand here and make a comment today first I want to talk about 6.16 George Martin's contract I'm specifically asking that you please not renew and I will give an explanation I have been very disappointed with how he has processed student and parent complaints there's a specific person counselor on campus using their role as a staff member to support their child in continuing to bully other students including my son who's on this campus we escalated that report violation of the safety plan at multiple instances we elevated that to Jill who elevated that to assistant superintendent Martin who is her supervisor we had a meeting with him and we were given [Music] reassurances that we would be providing resources and support that did not happen I also wanted to discuss the Dual role there are staff who have students children on this campus and that has led to a conflict of interest in working in their role as a staff member and their role as a parent and I was told that that would be addressed but it has not been and I have seen my son's safety plan repeatedly violated so I would like to see assistant or excuse me superintendent reichmann involved to finally get to resolution of this unfortunately now we have this pattern on campus of safety plans being violated for multiple students and multiple instances and it has come to the capacity of assistant superintendent Martin's ability to resolve these situations and they have not been resolved and there is student safety concern for multiple students I also want to identify a policy that was excuse me I identified policy that needed to be addressed in terms of conflict of interest that was never actually addressed so I'm asking that his contract please not be renewed next I would like to address 7.06 policy j i i student complaints they should be reported and completed within 30 days but there is no information provided to parent per policy so where is the parent involvement or reporting to the parent as to what the incident and resolution was that should be that language should be included in the policy as well so that parents are included in that communication regarding the ombuds person same policy jii students need clear access to the ombuds person students also should have access to policies there is no ASL interpretation or translation of any of the policies or explanation of procedures in terms of how students can file complaints or how students can contact contact the ombuds person so I ask that you please include that in the process students should have access in their first language to policy information Keb is the next policy I'd like to talk about this talks about resolution and resolutions being reported but to whom it doesn't give resolution to parents there is no mention in that policy about staff who have students on this campus and the potential conflict of interest that has caused as a result of their dual role there should be policy guidance on how to address dual role for an individual who is a parent as well as a staff member when their child is interacting with other students especially if their own child is disciplined or has been reported as a bully there needs to be procedure in place on dealing with that BCB is the next policy I'd like to address there is language about conflict of interest spousal limitations not having the spouse of an employee on the board and that significantly limits who is able to participate from the community from the deaf Community from the blind Community those communities are already very small and I think that that language needs to be removed and again there should be more language related to conflict of interest regarding dual role in varying situations my opinion and my suggestion is also to have a referral to ars38-501 through 510.
so we had a very robust turnout and uh very strong demand for this course the class went on a field trip to March Air Force Base and you can see uh slides up on the uh the projector as well as I gave you a few pictures to be on the safe side 24 students myself Mr taglianetti and Mr Rizzo they're my associates also history teachers I'm trying to pass this knowledge on so that younger teachers will be exposed to uh this various information some of the planes we looked at if you look up on the screen that's a B-29 super Fortress uh that is the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and there you can see the class I took them around the plane and I explained how the engines worked how it was the first pressurized and heated plane in history how it could fly at an altitude of 60 000 feet which is almost the stratosphere was the only plane able to go above 50 000 feet in World War II there you can see there's the instructors myself Mr taginanian Rizzo this is the front of the plane where the Bombardier would sit and the this was also the first plane that had robot guns on it in World War II the actual Gunners didn't touch the guns they sat in armored compartments with video cameras and there were videos on the machine guns and they literally used like a joystick like a video game first first weapon ever like that this is a replica of the first atomic bomb the little boy that was dropped down here Hiroshima and the students got to walk around this is a B-17 the starduster that plane actually flew over uh European skies in combat in World War II it belonged to a general General acre who would fly over uh with his men and there you see there's a picture of the Bombay those are actual bombs but they're defused and they are de-armed so the students got to see up close and personal the the actual planes uh that were used in strategic bombing in World War II there were actually also some planes that were inside the museum and the students were able to actually sit inside some actual planes and jeeps they were allowed to handle uh actual 50 caliber machine guns that were demilitarized um they're they were welded shut so nobody could open it put a bullet in it and the barrels had cement inside of them so there were mock-ups of the planes there's a student right there that sat in a plane and I believe there should be there was a student in a jeep a World War II Jeep and I believe okay this is a replica of the British Underground Railroad tubes they call them the tubes where people would sit during Air Raids that the Germans would bomb on Britain and here we have the replica of the B-17 there's Mr taglianetti with a 50 caliber machine gun notice he's smiling he's happy yeah now this is one of my students David Mercer and Mr Rizzo's behind him notice he's smiling and he's happy look at that this is a 50 caliber machine gun and we went into great detail these are two of my students Ms Meza and mizaragoza and they're each handling one half of the 50 caliber machine gun notice you're smiling and here's Mr zakou shooting down the Red Baron showing them how it's done I'll get you Red Baron okay so again the students had a wonderful time the day was beautiful it was 55 degrees the sun was out there was no wind and there was no traffic in the past going down or coming up that's great the class was like Mr zacchio you must have magic power and here we are getting on the bus at the end of the day we made one final stop we stopped it in and out the students were allowed to get their favorite hamburgers and fries and again one student confided me he said he'd never been to a museum in his life he said it was the best day of Egypt as of his educational career he learned so much I'd like to uh thank uh Mr Rincon Mr Daniel Rincon helped me immensely getting this field trip going I'd like to thank my principal Mr Powell he was incredibly supportive I'd like to thank Mr Schlosser again always very supportive of these sort of events and the class genuinely genuinely appreciates everything you did they just had a great day and then they went and told all the kids in the school what they did and then I had all these teachers coming up to me oh you got a bus you went off campus yeah yeah it was a lot of fun okay it was a lot of work I did four roll calls to make sure we didn't lose anybody that was my greatest fear we'd get up in Apple Valley some kid would call me hey I'm still down at the air base in a plane I just woke up I told everybody we're gonna avoid that um I hope that we could continue the World War II class I I feel it's very beneficial it teaches a subject that gets greatly overlooked many times and again if I have the opportunity I'll teach his class again next year and I'll take the class back down again next year because it was a great learning opportunity thank you for your time have a very good evening thank you Zack I'm sure they enjoyed that Rochelle Aldridge good evening my name is Rochelle I am reading this on behalf of a parent who wants to remain anonymous in the case of retaliation good evening Mr Nelson or I'm sorry Mrs Miss Nelson Mr Conrad Mr scholzer okay I'm not from this District so bear with me I am super sorry and the rest of the board and the committee that is here I'm coming to you this evening due to situations I have witnessed with principal Martinez at Vanguard Preparatory School I would like to bring your attention to some changes that have been made and I have noticed when I go into the office in the past when I would go drop off something pick my student up Etc the office was very pleasant and a light feeling the last few times I have been into the office you can feel the change has occurred the staff places a false smile on their face to greet the parents demeanor is different the light feeling in the air has now been taken over by a heaviness in the air one occasion recently I stopped in to drop off items to my student with that stated the ladies and I got into very general conversation during the time and the principal came out of the from a corner I would assume was her office area she came to the front desk and asked if I was being helped you could obviously see I was but presented to me the principal did not want her staff to have interaction with me how uncomfortable this was not only for me but for the ladies too I would refer to this as micromanagement and can and control situations taking place I again went into the office last week to inquire on the wait list I spoke with the front office was informed the waitlist was now 100 controlled by principal Martinez I was flabbergasted needless to say as a parent I could not be informed of what number a prospective student would be on the wait list without contacting the principal this struck me very oddly I have been around Vanguard Preparatory for a few years have placed students on the wait list have inquired previously had my questions answered but now the new principal has made changes to the point where information is very difficult to obtain the family environment Vanguard once had has diminished greatly you can see it you can fill it even through staffs tries to hide it one can see the school has been placed in a precious or precautious sad situation since principal Martinez has taken over from the previous administration board please assist in bringing back Vanguard preparatory school that parents students and staff once knew I want to thank you for your time this evening all right thank you next Kaylee Smith Kelly excuse me that's it is a Kelly hello hello my name is Kelly and my son attends kindergarten Vanguard while volunteering at the school last month I witnessed a proctor grab and yell at kindergarten students push them into line yell at a boy for going to the bathroom forcefully forcibly move a little girl across the cafeteria for having her jacket on the table scream at a little girl for swinging on the swing and worst of all I saw this Proctor grab a little um and worst of all grab a little girl for holding hands with her friend five this little girl is five years old this Proctor told her that she was a bad girl and told her to stand in the middle of the cafeteria as her form of punishment and she had to wait there until all the other kids went to recess so I did what any good parent and witness would do when these incidents might come up I reported these issues to the principal who did not seem to care or take these allegations seriously so I took this matter to the district I was eventually told that this Proctor was placed on administrative leave and was ordered to take training but she was back at her job within a week I was also promised that there would be an influx of Proctors that only lasted a week to look out for our children not only is she back but I've now been told that it is policy that I am not allowed to be on campus without a certified employee with me at all times I was even told at one point I'm not allowed to help out any other single teacher except my sons even though the principal herself originally pulled me into her office and told me I am more than welcome to come into the cafeteria and at recess and that they could use the extra set of ice so was this policy put into place to retaliate against reporting inappropriate behavior from staff because if I was the only one reporting this Proctor's inappropriate behavior clearly the other staff are willing to turn a bland eye or fear repercussions for reporting to other staff members either way where are the checking checks and balances meant to protect our children this district is setting itself up for a lawsuit for parents whose children are not being protected from the people whose job it is to protect them and then to claim to have the policy in place that prevents parents from volunteering to help parent volunteers go through the background check and fingerprinting but then why refuse our help so would you rather pay an abusive Proctor instead it makes no sense to me I was there for five days I only got to volunteer on that campus for five days and within five days I witnessed this Proctor every single day her a child has made these children cry I asked you I asked parsley please move her to the older kids who can't stand up for themselves who can defend say hey guys this isn't right but that was the night my request was the night she's still with the littles she's still with these little kids my son then told me that she was the only one there at recess with all of these children that there is no one else I have no reason not to blame believe my son so from his point of view she is the only one watching these children she is the only one who is laying a hand on these children and no one is there I have to have a certified employee with me but who is watching our Proctors no certified employees with them this is a parent choice school and yet we are banned from our own campus I would like to know why I would like to see an employee place whether we could put something there that says we cite something saying hey we will be there I give permission I'm not going to do anything I don't know but every time I have seen something and I've been there I've seen this woman handle these kids and she's still there so I want to pull my son from Vanguard I have been this close to pulling my child from Vanguard yet he was on the wait list for two since he was two years old and for me just to absolutely hate it I I don't even like slipping foot on this campus anymore this woman someone needs to check her someone needs to look after her we need help for these kids we've got to listen our kids they're the voice of our future someone has to respect them thank you thank you you came to the right place to file a complaint believe me we'll uh we'll turn this over okay um superintendent comments um two things before we move on to the consent agenda and the board had asked for a master calendar of um monthly what what would be coming to the board each month and so I have a draft that I'd like to pass out so that um you can take a look at it and give me some feedback before the next board meeting so that I can put it as an agendized item so I'm going to pass this out just take it home with you um take one pass it down and then the other thing that I have a question about is um the board had mentioned a self-evaluation process that's helping evaluation process is done in tandem with csba California school boards Association if the board is interested I would like to get the information out to you it requires each board member to go in and um register fill out a survey and then we can do a contract with csba to work with the board on what that um self-evaluation looks like is that an interest of the board so that I can bring it back at a future board meeting yes okay it is to me okay okay then I'll get that handled for the um April board meeting um there is also currently a lot of news out there about four day school schedules Missouri and Texas are moving in that direction um calibrating at Edco currently prevent prohibits that and so I just wanted it's it's a Hot Topic currently it's being it's in print all over the place and so I just wanted to make sure the board um understood that until the Ed code would change there's an ed code provision for very rural districts they're actually named in the Ed code that are traveling for great distances um they do have a provision for those school districts and they like I said they're named in the ad code um as to which ones can participate in a four-day work school week and we are not one of them so thank you any of the board members have comments anymore Rick Amanda Gary no Maria I do I'm going to request that the superintendent at least take some time to um get the information from this parent who says she's been oh she will do that so please I told you we'll get into it yeah all right thank you that's all I had it did on what you said all right let's move on here public hearing receive public input on the Apple Valley USD Transportation plan the meeting will open at 8 34.
uh this was really The Humble beginning of of activation in this space this space by DDP so they're only like a handful of food tracks in existence at the time uh the pretty lighter quicker cheaper amenities here you just see some umbrellas some colorful movable Furniture uh we drew some basketball courts and in paint on the roadway to make that accessible and we later called it the Sports Zone but really this space has taken off and evolved over time and uh it's become it's become an incredible space for markets on Fridays food truck rallies daily we have the largest Food Truck Rally in Michigan on a daily basis over 75 food trucks on our repertoire and of course those move around to different Parks but um but built that from two trucks back in 2011 so just takes time for some of this stuff and then of course Cadillac Square now known for the the winter programming the Cadillac Lodge the uh downtown Detroit markets so this this is a pretty easy one um our other Park Beacon Park it was just a dirt lot in 2016.
several Bowlers competed in many of our talented Clifton athletes are moving up in the Special Olympics bowling tournaments team shirts have been purchased for the athletes recent parent professional development on toilet training was held the January cpag meeting had an assistive technology presentation for parents the department recently spent time working with the transportation department on understanding autism and student needs child study teams have had training on traumatic brain injuries and how they may present in the classroom security and ERI teachers have been trained in the new Handle With Care de-escalation procedures there will be a week-long summer camp through bounce out the stigma stay tuned for more information on that referrals to special education have increased dramatically this year this will this will cause a need for more special education teachers and related Services provided in the future special education classes have class size limitations which will also require additional classrooms the district continues to search for part-time paraprofessionals so if someone is interested they can apply on the district website uh ESL update by Miss Banning and Miss Goose levich Miss Banning reviewed the unprecedented increase in the number of Ells from 652 in October of 2021 to over 1100 to date not including ell follow-up and refusal students who still require support this Banning shared how the sharp increase in Asylum Seekers and refugees has also increased the number of Ells in need of counseling social and academic support we've added multiple ESL sections additional staff our monitoring enrollment in all of bilingual magnet programs Ms Banning shared that we may need a new bilingual program in Ukrainian in the 2023-24 school year and will need additional ESL teachers to account for nearly double the students of the previous year ell students continue to register on a weekly basis action on that is a budgetary request for additional staff is being considered for the 23-24 school year Staffing and space needs for special education in ESL Miss cousalevich in response to the expanded need for classrooms for special education ell students and preschool programs the district continues to look at maximizing space our K-8 schools have reached the maximum capacity for General and special education class sections as well as preschool and ell classes most of these programs have class size caps and require full-size classrooms the district continues to look at multiple options and has explored the possible use of the former Pope John Paul High School uh Twilight program pilot reported by Mr gigaro and Ms kusilevich Mr gingero introduced the Twilight after school tutoring program pilot Miss kusilevich shared the details of this pilot program to support selected students for whom the traditional instructional day and the spot and the existing Aspire Alternative Program are not optimal the district is piloting a hybrid enhanced home instruction program coupled with after-school tutoring students participate in online home instruction during the day and come on campus after school four days per week to work with content teachers counselors and specialists action on this is a budgetary request for this program is being considered for the 23-24 school year our next topic is s-i-f-e and s-l-i-f-e program needs Ms Banning and Miss kusilevic Define both programs the district has experienced an increase in students who fit the category of students with interrupted formal education and students with limited or interrupted formal education these programs serve students who are in the United States for two years or less and who arrive at least two years behind a native language academic skills several students meeting even more extreme profiles are being supported in our schools students meeting this definition do not qualify for special education and require intensive basic literacy support in addition to ESL the district is researching the creation of a formal program for these students whose needs cannot be met in the traditional ESL program uh summer programs this kusilevich updated the committee about summer programs for the summer of 2023 nearly every building is undergoing construction to further progress of referendum ventilation and security projects as a result of these projects summer programs will be modified the K-12 title 1313 and Minds in motion programs will be held at school 17 and school 12 Annex special education esy and CS CLS will be held at CLA and B the isee program will be held at Sela s and all other programs 6 to 12 will be virtual meeting adjourned at 6 50.
Iha talks about focus of reading and language fluency in my opinion the focus should be less on reading for our very young children Kinder or preschool through Elementary age and should be focused more on expressive ability and receptive language ability communication ability expressing emotions once they are able to communicate in all of those key elements then we can move to reading they need that language Foundation First in being able to understand Concepts communicate their feelings if they can't how can we expect them to move forward and immediately start reading we can't so I would ask you to reconsider how that is worded and emphasize communication and it's critical foundation and language development Iha as again I noticed under h we're removing health and safety education and I would like to understand why that is important we need to teach our students about their own health and their safety especially regarding sex education and even more importantly safety related to relationships please do not remove that piece of Education observing holidays I noticed that there's no mention of deaf Awareness Week and I'm wondering why there is no deaf awareness noted in that there's no mention of white cane day there's no awareness for blind or visually impaired um so I would encourage you to indicate or excuse me to recognize those in policy as well last but not least lb I recommend that you as a board consider removing the language that states um excuse me for The Interpreter remove the language from the last board special session that was held last May that required the ability to end contracts without the board's approval I'd like to give that Authority back to the superintendent and the leadership team allow them to do their job I do request that if the superintendent does intend to not renew a contract or let it lapse to just let the board know thank you for your time thank you moving on to item 1.03 the superintendent's report um your name you're a non-agenda item so that's later on in the um in the agenda okay are we ready for the superintendent's report good afternoon president neifle members of the board the asdb board assistant superintendent George Martin an assistant superintendent Cooper and the members of the community here this afternoon with us I really appreciate you all taking the time to come to our board meeting and the time to talk with us about all of your concerns thank you for that I would like to take some time to thank two previous board members first is David Nigro he started on the asdb board early 2016.
we have to stay in this meeting for one hour Mr schulenberg Mr Bender if I could as part of the public hearing I'd like to take about a minute of of the time um just to let the board know that this particular plan this is a new requirement based on the the legislation that created the home to school transportation reimbursement program so we're we're reimbursed up to 60 percent of our expenses that are over our uh previous Transportation contribution that we receive um so this particular plan did go with the components of the plan were presented to our district advisory committee back on January 31st uh to get some comment and or input um we are also required by the Ed code to consult with the local transit authority and the air quality management districts and we did reach out to uh Victor Valley Transit Authority via email and Mr Mr Kane their CEO did respond no comments or suggestions but he did respond and he thanked us for sharing uh sharing the plan and also a representative from the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District also did respond to the email and pointed pointed me to a website which I did look and they provide some resources for school districts related to uh uh uh Transportation infrastructure electric buses and and charging charging station Grants so I think that's about a minute if the board has any questions for me during the public hearing really fast but I did want to just indicate that the plan that did require us to also allow for remote public comments we did not receive any remote public comments pertaining to the transportation plan thank you Kylie all right then we've met our time limit so we'll bring this public hearing to a close the time will be 8 36.
so so no no major history to rehab or recover here but um yeah we took that dirt lot in partnership with DTE and uh created Beacon Park so really connecting a constellation walkable Urban parts and we created a whole programming plan specific to this site so that it didn't feel like a copy paste to the others and it's just turned out to be to be a beautiful space beautiful community space with its own unique identity so I share all of these before and afters with you in just a little bit of our journey just to illustrate what makes a great public space and and and how you know from the beginning nobody gets it right but it kind of gels after a while and and I hope that that that that helps you all frame this project so um what what I think makes a great public space is that it has to be safe cleaning and inviting uh safe clean inviting and inclusive uh it has to have comfortable movable and colorful furniture and umbrellas it's Gotta Have Lush Gardens and Greenery people love a water feature too but they're expensive so just just a warning there uh they love Dynamic and interesting lighting for visual interest for programming and safety uh you gotta have high quality food and beverage because that's really what's gonna gonna add that that amenity that keeps people there for longer than five ten minute you know stints at a time when you don't have events uh our average dwell time by the way in the Parks is 90 minutes and a lot of that is to the to the activity we have but also because people want to have a coffee or a cocktail and and food of all different types casual uh fine dining and and grab and go all of those I think that space for unprogrammed unprogrammatic and spontaneous use is also important so if I just want to read a book or have a have a chat or a work meeting with my friends that's important too I think flexible design is important and um just knowing that the space you design today is not going to maybe be used the same way five or ten years from now um so so building it flexibly so that you can you know you you know you can evolve with with the programming and then technology like point of sale fiber lines for the cafe or your mobile bar Wi-Fi cameras enough power Gaslight that's that's all detail stuff but incredibly important if if you're going to use the the space to its highest capacity and then of course a great and diverse repertoire of year-round programming and a place management organization or team that makes it happen so that's all of you and um I think that once you've done that not only are people going to start using the space it starts to become busy even when there's not an event Campus Martius you had a program to hack out of it to get people there now we can't even keep up with the amount of crowds we get so that's an evolution of of success and once you've done all of the Hallmarks of making a great public space the media just starts to show up randomly and highlight the growth and then new and interesting small businesses start popping up and residential capacity starts being maxed out and the the property owners start using your pictures in their marketing materials saying wouldn't you love to live right next to campus Marcus Parker but you can park and then corporations and Commercial tenants start to be influenced by this because their employees want to live work in an exciting place and usually that's in within 0.25 miles of gray Park and then after that people are getting engaged at the park you know they want to have their wedding there which is a bad idea but at least that's a compliment and then uh the park becomes a Gathering Place that's not manufactured or forced but inclusive and takes on a life of its own and then vendors start reaching out they want to get involved and then the the beautiful thing at that point is you start getting a new wave of inbound calls from corporate Partners corporate sponsors or donors that want to give back and and also want to reach the number of people using the space to further their their brand so those are all outcomes of a great public space there's so much value in that uh it you know it's easy to think about oh it's parks are such a a nice place to have a coffee sit on a bench and enjoy the day they are that but they're also these these forces for for greater change in development in urban landscapes um so our operating funding model is about one-third uh earned Revenue uh one-third contributed and um and we've got an endowment and some other mechanisms as well but um but really corporate Partnerships a third foundations and grants a third and then earned Revenue a third is really the breakout of that and like I said our our budget's about seven million but that that covers all six of the parks so um and um in some of the parks you know we're actively fundraising for New Capital initiatives at and constantly thinking about how we're going to transform and evolve as well so we're we're not done even though I showed you the after pictures for 2022 we still have a lot of work to do on our end so a little bit about the earned revenue and here you can see our food programs we've got rentals I call them side hustles for our for our earned Revenue we have uh we have rentals we have food trucks we have markets we have an ice rink we have public art royalties from work that we export across the country that folks rent from us we got a lot of side hustles but it really all matters it contributes to the funding mix if you've got a great restaurant and Cafe that can generate rent or or some kind of concession relationship that helps sustain that and gives you great food and beverage you can see Park up in the left and looming down in the right um so that's been really key because again it brings people to the space year round it adds that level of amenity and um and you know people love love food trucks they love um they love sitting down at a restaurant and people will you know the more options you have for people the more people you're gonna get so so competition between isn't something we've ever we've ever experienced because the more people are bringing down everybody's you know the tide is rising for everybody so and then a little of our programming strategy so I always try to make a cameo in here but um but we we have 2000 events a year and they really uh span across like tree lighting is our biggest at 100 000 at campus marshes but we've got events that happen weekly that are 50 to 200 people and those those add up those make a big difference whether it's Fitness um and then we've also got movie Nights you can see that in the bottom center there um we we do community partner programs that's the Detroit youth choir up up in the middle middle Center we celebrated their their big their big uh um appearance on America's Got Talent and then um you know our rink we get over 100 000 skaters a year so just just the more the more activity you can you can bring in the more uh stable I think the park will be long term and doing unique and interesting things too so everybody's got the movies everybody's got the yoga but there are there are ways to enhance it and offer something different that I think are are unique up on the left is an urban Beach we created with a uh a shipping container restaurant it's uh it's going it's going on it's I think 13th year and we we try and reinvent this thing every year but people will not let us they love it they love it to death and then you can see Beacon Park has giant Fitness classes um um but I think I think having something for everyone every time is not the way to go about it but having a repertoire of programming throughout the year that appeals to a wide range of folks is is the way to go um and then you're just seeing intergenerational folks people come together you're seeing um you're seeing a collision of of of your community which I think is really special so with that that's that's the presentation I wanted to leave lots of time for questions and um I could figure out how to x out of here I will be back on on your screen thank you so much and I've left my email here too if you want to reach out and talk about anything specifically thank you so much David we really cannot say enough how much we appreciate you spending your evening with us um and congratulate you on uh the latest recognition for the DDP and for Campus Martius um are there questions specifically uh for David at all about uh yeah Rita go ahead I have a question here but I just want to say that in of the visit that that we had to uh with David the I think that I remember the most was the quality of interaction um with you and your staff and how warm and fun it was to see you all interact and I think that that feeds what you have generated here and so I just want to applaud you on on what I saw and also this particular outcome is really great thank you so much yeah I mean you know places are just places like what makes them what makes them is there are people so um yeah we we try to never let our focus on a geographic location uh distract us from the fact that you know you're designing it for somebody to use and and if you don't demonstrate that with your own you know team then it translates to the public um to the public experience so yeah that that's both intentional and uh and keeps us sane given the amount of work we have so it's it's self-serving in that in that uh front as well but thank you Rita for that it was a real it's a real team that's what that's what it is uh Alan you're up yeah thank you thank you uh David is a Ann Arbor visitor to Detroit and all those spots over more years and you have it's nice to see it come to uh these spots come to real life I knew them when they were alive but I had uh I had two questions in these 2000 some events you have how much of that is initiated out of a programming team that is within sort of your umbrella and how much is it that how to spontaneous from who knows where coming out of the community because it's easy to for people to imagine and initiate the use yeah so that that's one question that very much of interest to us how to get the participation in the actual program and the other is you say you have a skating space is that year round or do you started when the winners comes is it artificializes it realize how does it how does it work we tried the idea in our Commons to have a skating space and it kind of didn't get far enough to be uh tried out but it seems like yeah winter even though they sort of Disappearing there's a time for skating and a big attraction so how do you find that skating and is it all the year round or what's the story there also yeah sure thank you so much Alan for your comments as well um I'll start with your your last question about skating so uh the the rink at Campus Martius Park is going on its 20th year as well so that was an original amenity put in with the park and in the Park was designed to have a big expansive lawn in the summer and then transition to an ice rink in the winter so it literally sits on top you know with glycol lines and foam boards on top of our grass from the prior year and then when spring comes around pretty shortly we're going to be rolling out new sod which a fun fact you know in Michigan it's not ready yet so we have to go a little South to Kentucky to bring the grass up but we we won't tell anybody else that so the the rink is a good Revenue driver for us too as well as an amenity that people love uh we we own the rink we build the rink we have a management company uh run it for us so it's not our core team but the manager who who runs it it lives in Detroit uh and he might as well be I mean we've got so many people who are Contracting the way they're structured but they feel like any any member of our team and we treat them we treat them that way as well and that kind of goes to your your first question about the structure of our events um yeah we we produce a pheromone ourselves we uh what I call a cop remote where we team up with somebody and we jointly produce something we look for programming Partners in the community that do what they do best and host them um sometimes they just start looking for space other times we seek them out to fill a gap so it's really intentional there's not a lot of spontaneous um programming that happens without our team and in the the proactivity of our team to get the thing uh uh operating in in a world-class way and you know we really try to vet programming Partners carefully just because we've we prioritize the visitor experience um um there there are some um there are a lot of parks that sort of take the uh the kind of laissez-faire approach where you know show up in the space and kind of you can you know do whatever at any point and feel it out but with a with a space like campus marshes or Beacon Park if we did that there would be Collision of the craziest stuff at all times you know and nobody would want to be in the park because uh there's just so much noise going on you wouldn't be able to read a book or whatever so we try to balance the access with the curated you know nature of the park and it's something we're always trying to trying to improve on thank you thanks seems like you're very intentional with all of your efforts David um yeah uh Frank and Heather and then council member Briggs yes David uh I recall on our visit we uh we talked about food trucks and uh uh that's an issue and part of the study that we're undertaking for uh activation um could you talk a little bit about how uh food trucks excuse me food trucks and and uh fixed location businesses work in the same location is there is there a sense of competition or is there a way to kind of manage uh the food trucks so that they don't um so they worked sort of in concert with the fixed locations yeah yeah great question it's all about being complimentary so you know when we're when we're placing food trucks and scheduling trucks we're not putting somebody with the same type of food right next to a brick and mortar that has the same kind of food you know we're we're adding to the to the mix restaurant mix and filling a gap in what Cuisine people are looking for also you know um I don't know about Ann Arbor but we've got quite a few places that aren't even open for lunch and there's there is a a returning Workforce and some percentage on some days that um nobody can wrap their minds around because I think it's still evolving but um but there there is there is a need for grab-and-go options that are not sit down in in many cases so um again I think the success of Campus martians and the programming that drives people to gives them a reason to come down um that only benefits the district as a whole because if I come down for a game at Little Caesars Arena and I I'm like I don't want to eat at the stadium I'm going to find a restaurant I stumble upon that or you know uh you know there's there's all this organic Discovery happening when you bring people down for a specific purpose when we have an event in the park they might realize oh wow there's I didn't know that that new restaurant was next to the Campus Martius I should check it out you know so people want what they want they want grab and go they want um casual um service they want bar service and they want fine dining and I think having a mix of that is is key to a vibrant City thank you uh Heather and Erica else thank you for indulging me Adam it's not really my role to jump in and ask questions but I can't help myself um your presentation David I do want to comment that it's really inspirational it seems like you're living the urban planner's dream I mean that just seems like such fun exciting work to be doing um but I have two questions one's a quirky question which is did you say that Stephen's T Mason's body is buried next to a stat or under a statue is that yeah correct yeah without being too uh too Grim uh for for everybody but Stevens T Mason is actually interned in the sculpture of of that mix him at Capital Park so uh yeah he's obviously quite old now so there's there's fantastic there's not a lot there um but he he is covered in an American flag actually in turn inside of the base of that sculpture at Capitol Park so lots of um lots of of unique history in all these spaces but you know then supposedly to Beacon Park where there's you know you're holding it from scratch and it's brand new so we've got these historic spaces that we've had to kind of retrofit you know like like by a historic home and there's like two outlets and you're like oh my God I need to figure this out that's the same thing we did with a lot of these historic spaces and continue to do so um but not at Beacon Park because we built that to be um to cover all of our needs so we do a lot of a lot of lighting uh um activations over there and especially given our our sponsor um at that park it makes sense so thank you heather yeah thank you that's really fascinating um my second question is to I'm wondering if you can highlight what makes your relationship with the city successful I imagine you know you have to work pretty closely with the city and we here in Ann Arbor don't have too many examples of public-private Partnerships um so uh I'd just like to hear a little bit more about that I'm sure there's a lot of detail to cover but if you have a summary that you can go that would be great we have a great um uh management and operating agreement that was actually modeled after Central Parks um and we stayed in touch with Central Park Conservancy you know pretty regularly in our daily work so that that's helpful is getting everybody on board from the beginning about how this this partnership works and then honestly um everybody's really busy in Detroit because the need is so massive so you know it's kind of like you know all hands on deck um at some point and you kind of divide and conquer you know which is why I'm thankful the riverfront Conservancy is kind of like doing that and you know the city's got the neighborhood parks rocking and figuring out you know and we're we've got our downtown district and midtown's got their momentum going so it really is a team effort even if we're we're um sort of uh um you know our own separate organizations um so the city's been great partners and honestly there's there's not a whole lot I mean we yes we do have to get things permitted but we've through our agreement we've been able to streamline that as best we can there's still some things that you know you got to do but yeah it's been it's been positive yeah thank you and just a couple of notes here before I turn it over to Erica uh fun fact for any of you history Buffs out there because I know there are several of us on the bicentennial commission uh Steven C Mason's body actually moved when which uh they they uh it's still there but they had to locate it um when uh when they redeveloped one of the one of the times so there's a like it's shifted out of its original place and yeah 20 feet shifted under this under the ground yeah they've moved the poor guy around around a few times actually when we were renovating Capitol Park there was a coalition of folks who showed up to a community meeting and said do not move him again just let him be you know so I understood so and and uh David so you know too we actually uh have had a Converse some of us at least have had a conversation with the Central Park Conservancy as well Heather program that we're very interested in uh that they offered up to us as well so um oh good very good to hear yeah um Erica yeah thanks um and uh once again thanks for being here tonight and um sharing the excitement and what you're doing there in Detroit um for us to be able to learn from a little bit um so in my question was very much kind of aligned with what um Heather's last question was was essentially kind of a little bit more um kind of around your relationship with the city in terms of that that public private partnership obviously DDP is a non-profit and it sounds like the fund rate the funding is coming from um sort of the earned revenue and then private donations um in terms of your relationship I guess I if there's anything more that you wanted to add around that relationship with um with Parks or um with the city of Detroit in terms of um kind of that relationship yeah every everything we um do is privately fundraised so so no no public dollars from the city directly uh they have supported uh in a huge way on utilities and some other great things so so there is there's a great relationship and there is support um uh we have uh we recently got a grant from the state which is exciting because um you know there's some um American Rescue plan dollars that I think are starting to you know figure out how to flow and we I think we were one of the early Grant recipients for the revitalization and place making um um project for uh for the medc the state of Michigan so that was exciting that'll allow us to to make some some pretty key uh um uh changes to some of the parks but but yeah Public Funding historically has not been our been our Sweet Spot we're trying to improve that because there's there's going to be more needs coming on um but yeah it's really been corporate focused it's been individual donors and kind of Legacy uh I'm focused and then earned revenue and you gotta love Urban Revenue because you know if the if the economy you know God forbid whatever happens like you still can kind of you know um you can you can you can float that without worrying about somebody else's business you just kind of have to worry about your own with that so yeah it's been it's been positive so hopefully that helps answer your question on the on the agreement piece yeah yeah I think so and so in terms of all of sort of the marketing all that piece that's all being taken off within the non-profit yeah yeah it's pretty TurnKey um and Campus Martius you know it's Unique because we built it and um it was given as a gift to the city of Detroit but we managed that Park through this degree agreement you know what I mean so so it it it's it it yes it's a great collaboration with the city but it it um um yeah it just feels complementary and it's inspired us uh and others to seek us out to consult and do things like for Beacon Park that was a fun project you know to work on that space and um and others have started to reach out around the country too to um you know uh just sort of bring some bring some best practices or just project manage and do some other stuff so yeah it's been it's been great wonderful thanks so much thanks uh Alan and then Alice yeah another little quick uh question when you have a food truck how do they what what's the space cost is it a flat rate 20 bucks and you get a parking space or 40 bucks or a percent of their income they were an artist is there is it a flat rate for a space to set up your little pop-up or is it a share of what they uh five percent of what they make or something or do you work both ways or how how is that yeah yeah so for our permanent restaurants and cafes we have both the base around as well as a percentage of rent or a percentage of sales rather in addition to the rent so that that's how that works for food trucks we we just do a flat fee per day um for for participation we we could do percentage of sales but to make that truly work we would have to issue a point of sale system to each truck and be able to more easily audit their their sales and and it just it seems a little and music festivals have started doing this so it's not unprecedented it just for us we we kind of want that business just to you know handle their own thing and you know pay us a rent and then we asked them um of course they don't have to share share details but we asked them how many tickets did you do so we have some data to track their sales and then honestly if they tell you the ticket number the average entree is like between 10 and 15 bucks for a food trucks so you can I mean you can add up how much they're making um so yeah it's uh it varies and then for our Market it's the same it's a paper per occurrence type of thing um and there's different Market programs that have different fee structures so the Cadillac Square winter markets that last for six weeks is a different fee than are just Friday thanks a lot so for a day what's the chart cost right now is 125.
any questions Mr President thank you commissioner Perris same thing with the special education referrals the increase do we fill out more applications for additional State and or federal funding for these increased referrals yes sir thank you anyone else no okay thank you very much for a very detailed meeting you had there yes but so very important okay uh before I turn it over to our superintendent is there any unfinished business yes I have one um I know I've been emailing you I've been kind of a pest about a board retreat I had the opportunity today I received a phone call from Kathy hello work because uh we I had to ask our question about something else um and she just got back to it so that was like weeks ago but she was really busy um I I asked her thoughts on having a board retreat she said to email everybody with three dates and if we can't at least the community knows we're trying to do it so that was her recommendation to us so I hope that we continue yeah that's that's the only thing I have to try to do it that's yeah thank you um any other finished business okay superintendent Europe thank you Mr President in the interest of time uh I just have one announcement to make I want to remind the board and the community that this weekend uh Clifton High School is performing the play Chicago teen Edition uh tomorrow night 7 P.M Saturday 7 p.m and Sunday there's a matinee at 1 pm uh purchase tickets uh you can go to the high school website there's a graphic with a link to purchase tickets Commissioners if you are going I think it's next Friday I'm sorry that's exactly correct that's next weekend uh it's before our next board meeting March uh March 10th March 11th um Friday 7 P.M Saturday 7 P.M Sunday 1 p.m uh if Commissioners need tickets Please just uh reach out to me let me know and uh please come out and support our kids they do an amazing amazing job thank you superintendent um thanks Mark I will open up to I gotta get my list out so I do this Fair ly [Applause] oh yeah I gotta do that too okay okay go ahead while I'm looking this up uh so we have uh two resolutions sure I can read it into the record and then I'm president Smith can ask for a motion so it's resolution improving suspension of student ID 12-2022 and student ID 13-2022.
and he served on the board for a total of seven years he was the board policy expert and he reviewed almost all of our revisions of policies so he would review those policies before they were presented to the board for approval when he became board president he led the board to develop the Strategic plan in 2021 we have been using that strategic plan to give us direction for the future years I would also like to thank Stephen p v Jance for his two years of service on the board as well he just resigned because of a new job position as you all know during his two years PV was an active member involved in reviewing board materials he was involved in discussions he asked questions and also contributed many ideas so we really appreciate his service on our board so I just wanted to bring some appreciation because I know that this time is volunteer this is your time that you are volunteering to the agency you are not paid to do this work as members of the board and so thank you it is interesting you just heard from Harvey Goldstein and he just stole my thunder so to speak because I did plan to talk about our board's policies and the exact same policies that he has pointed out they those policies really spell out the role and responsibilities of the board of directors and the role and responsibilities of the superintendent so I will go ahead and comment on that as well now our policy says when you look at the Arizona Constitution and you look at the Arizona statutes you all are given the authority to govern asdb as an agency that's your responsibility so you have three functions within that responsibility the first function is legislation legislative excuse The Interpreter and that means you develop policies for the agency the second function is the executive function that is run the running of the agency and I will come back to that a little bit later third function is the evaluation you all evaluate the agency's programming and the agency's superintendent so how you all evaluate the agency's programming our successes and providing education support and services to students that is our strategic plan so if you look at our strategic plan it has very specific measurements and those measures depend on the data and what the data shows whether or not we are successful and it also shows what areas for improvement we have going back to the second function the executive function that per policy is delegated to me as superintendent I am the CEO of the agency it is my responsibility to implement policies and to follow the direction that you the board give us so the everyday operations of the agency has been given to me as my responsibility every major decision that happens throughout the agency is my decision as superintendent and that is my role and responsibility in guiding this agency so the board and the superintendent work together collaboratively and it is very important for that to happen in order for the agency to be successful and the agency must be successful for our students to be successful so today's meeting we are is a critical meeting because we are talking about contracts we have two kinds of contracts discussed here tonight one is the leadership team contracts so your decision about the leadership's contracts will impact the future and the direction that we go so it is very important when we look at the leadership contracts it includes both assistant superintendents it includes the principles of both campuses and the directors of our programs so you see the extensive list on your agenda most of those names you'll recognize you have seen them from years past one name is not there this year and that name is Jay Johnson he is the director for itinerant services and he did submit his resignation as for a June 30th 2023 effective date so we at this time are not planning to replace his position however we are open to have that discussion again as you know we have two new principles both of them are in their first year and I am recommending that both of their contracts be renewed for a second year starting next fall we have four new names they're not new directors to the agency but this is the first time they are being brought to the board on a contract basis so I will name them first we have Oren Chekhov excuse the interpretive pronunciation he's directors of the organizational development division second we have Lisa yankarelli she is the director of blind programs third we have Jennifer Scarborough she is the director of death programs and last we have Aaron Moya who is the director of media and so those four contracts will be brought to you for approval and the intent is to offer contracts to all four of them there is one person that I recommend not to have their contract renewed for the next for the following year and while I make that recommendation I do not take it lightly it was after much thought and a lot of review of documentation and gathering information and putting that all together before I made that recommendation so if necessary I will discuss that more in depth later but I will stop there for now the final thing I would like to mention is that you all will hear from Maria Murphy later on talking about the recent legislative information and updates we have been quite active in the legislative sessions and a lot has been going on sb1402 popped up out of nowhere we had no idea that was going to happen we've had to move quickly and we've had to reach out to the community but we really need your approval to allow us to move forward against this bill we need your support for this one so that concludes my report to the board I'm now available if you have any questions are there any questions for superintendent regman Annette I do have one follow-up um in in your report you mentioned that you have other items in relationship to why you are not offering a contract would that be something if we should go into executive session I believe that we must have that discussion in the public session okay all right thank you [Music] seeing and hearing no questions I'm going to go on to 1.04 the assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction report thank you board president governing board members our last board meeting um board member Jance gave a request to support the principals I walked away from that meeting thinking we have a lot of directors and leaders that need support in this agency I work with them day to day hand in hand so we sent out a survey to the director's principals to get feedback after that we held a workshop to build a support plan structure to support them through the next year um some of that structure I put in in play um and they gave a lot of feedback their feedback was actually spot on so we looked at having uh three meetings to Center our educational resources beginning of the year middle of the year and end of year meeting they're called bully Moline oy these meetings we will discuss how their goals and plans line up to the Strategic plan what type of resources they will need to carry that out their Staffing operational considerations this is to allow us to get ahead and not be so reactive but operate a little bit more proactively a lot of these issues that are coming up we're um we're addressing them since I've been here just as they just go off we also talked about a one of the big issues concerns that we needed Focus we talk about having a state of the agency kickoff meeting which is a Statewide meeting that focuses our Direction our purpose of where we're going with this agency where we're going with curriculum and instruction that will also help the directors and help with their teams as well as far as support we stress the importance of ideation sessions time for directors to get together to brainstorm to talk shop to talk about best practices I know as a leader when you're in day to day you do not have time to do that and those meetings are very important for supporting the leaders um looking in how we could also support those directors we need superintendent development as a Cabinet we need to understand what it means to be a leader what it means to run a school I know that firsthand nothing that I hear from the directors or principals surprises me but we need training to be able to understand what that means we've had some difficult conversations with the former principal of PTSD that was not supported so that's one of the ways that we'll support that I've also built into that plan director and principal PD they should identify as well as my office as well training at at least a minimum of 18 hours more preferably they have to get out and develop themselves they have to get out and tour schools they have to get out and evaluate programs and pick things apart again I know that firsthand educational Improvement it's one-on-one you have to do it we also one of the asks that they ask is um we meet one-on-one they respect and love to have one-on-one meetings monthly when I came on the agency they were happening weekly they felt a little bubble wrapped and so we have a a pretty awesome communication structure set up we also talked about a gam General administrators meeting that would kick off um about three times a year this also serves to as a source to communicate what we're doing in the agency across the board it serves to keep us focused it serves to keep us going in that direction once we lay this Foundation it's it's the problem that we do not have a foundation to support what our kids deserve so we also talked about um a retreat for educational leaders I'm a firm believer in teaming and Retreat and supporting them in more ways than one some of the feedback that also came out of this there were some other things but they wanted education to be the focus in the heart of the agency to drive the agency to drive the things that we need to do for our students what's happening in the classroom um there's somewhat of an imbalance of how this works currently and the education component kind of takes the back seat um I I see that I'm a true blue educator I've done it for 23 years so that's where my heart lies with Educators and what they do um this is not limited um there is a chart we put together of where how this would fall throughout the year so this is just for us collecting that survey having a workshop um and getting some things together um so when four former board member Jance asked that question in addition to the principles I mean they they have the principal coach but there's a lot that goes into supporting leaders and what we're doing right now is um makes no sense it's reactive and they're fighting a really tough fight so my hats off to them so that was the ask that I put together I would be happy to email that chart out to you of how we would support those leaders how we would support the foundation of asdb and the education the goal I think from all of the leaders is they all wanted this picture to change no one believed that our students could not achieve and that's certainly my my belief in principle all people have the capacity to learn it's just the way in which they learn that we have to figure out that's our job as Educators so they share that belief but there's also a lot of other things that we will put into there and continue to meet to build that support structure so thank you to board member Jance for that ask former board member Jance it is a complicated picture but we have picked it apart so thank you any questions any questions for assistant superintendent Martin moving on then to 1.05 assistant superintendent of agency operations and Support Services report assistant superintendent Cooper good afternoon board president kenniffel superintendent reichmann assistant superintendent Martin members of the board asdb community and staff members as the agency operations and support services departments collaborate more with the educational program and work through addressing their educational priorities and needs for our students we continue to work on addressing this is not a valid menu option We are continuing to improve the agency's organizational culture and identify effective Resource Management strategies which aligns with the agency strategic plan the team is very busy supporting each of the educational programs with planning the needs for the end of the school year we're also working on completing various other projects which consist of standardizing annual hours for our 10-month staff members restructuring the compensation and salary schedules for grades 10 and above aligning student accounts with staffing needs and doing a deeper dive into the cost per student by disability categories we're still working on transitional changes and filling staff vacancies that occurred as a result of the agency-wide administrative support realignment where we did centralize various positions within the business services operations and HR departments but we also developed a more formalized Staffing structure and structure excuse me for all of our directors and principals speaking of Staff vacancies we just completed our first two agency-wide Career Fairs which were held on the Phoenix and Tucson campuses so thank you to all the Departments that played active roles in organizing and making both of those events successful we've gotten a couple of new asdb hires to fill some of those vacant staff positions throughout the agency and as you can see through the Business Services report we still have a number of vacancies to fill so that not only addresses recruitment but we also need to be able to focus on retention as well of our staff members we have been given the green light to continue to move forward with the new student information system implementation with Synergy we will be hosting the student information system on our Azure Cloud via a virtual server instead of this actually being done by edupoint because of this change we have had to do a contract Amendment with the state procurement office and we are working on finalizing the project investment justification with the state department of administration so kudos to Business Services I.T and all those departments that are working through that new structure as we Implement a new student information system for the agency last but not least I am asking assistants from each of you board members and that is for at least two of you to at least volunteer to be on the finance committee the only remaining member right now is Mike Gordon so we need to fill two spots recently vacated by Aaron wanders and PV chance so feel free to let superintendent reichmann or myself know if you are interested so that's at least two volunteers we're looking for so at this time there are no other updates and I'm open to answer any questions or respond to any comments that you may have at this time thank you any any comments or questions thank you very much moving on to um 2.01 the consent agenda items before we move ahead with an motion I would like to pull policies BCB and lb from 7.06 and discuss them separately from the consent agenda Linda has her hand up as well this is board member both I would also like to pull 7.06 from the consent agenda the whole thing the whole thing yes all right any other that's all from me I would like to pull item 6.16 okay um so then do I have a motion um to approve the consent agenda item including 3.01 5.01 6.01 602 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.146.15 6.17 and 7.07 okay do I have a second a second um motion has been moved and seconded all those in favor say aye aye opposed is it Gordon there Mike are you there I am I approved awesome thank you okay moving on to 3.02 approval of new District agreements assistant to superintendent Martin thank you for president we have a contract for hermosa Montessori Charter and Region Three for approval yeah I moved I moved to uh approve the new contract a second all those in favor say aye aye opposed hearing none motion carries okay uh 4.01 Finance Report with Kimberly bitrich of the Director of Business Services questions good afternoon board president kennefo assistance superintendent reichmann assistant superintendents Cooper and Martin members of the board asdb community and staff our most recent finance committee meeting was held last Thursday February 23rd with board member Mike Gordon also in attendance for superintendent reichmann and assistant superintendent Cooper we also discussed this December 2022 and 2021 Financial reports the January 2023 and 22 budget to action reports the financial reports are also provided to you in a more condensed version the total student count for February 1st 2023 is 2119 a decrease of 59 students when compared to February 1st 2022 total count of 21.78 the site-based student account has remained the same however there were decreases of 21 in the cooperatives 23 in preschool and 15 in the birth to three programs as of February 1st we had 468 FTE which includes 8.5 ft FPC at that time we employed 707 employees only 135 are full-time with a 1.0 FTE there were currently 167 vacancies agency-wide the highlight of the January 23 financial report shows the revenue of 30.6 million was 1.6 million higher than January 2022.
that was a quick hour special meeting none at this meeting discussion action sessions no that's uh that's the one on page eight this one that's one room yeah Mr Bender I think Miss akpara is referring to a possibility of starting the board meeting early at the April yeah we probably should have done that during that yeah um we're going to open the board meeting the next meeting at 4 30. so there's there's going to actually be an amendment to the hosted calendar for the board and and you probably have to um just we're going to make that announcement and then we'll move forward we're going to work on her evaluation it's going to take a long time so if it's the the current calendar is an adopted item so if I could get a motion to amend the adopted calendar to reflect the April 6 2023 board meeting to begin at 4 30.
for a problem into three I think is our hours um it's 150 but um but yeah somewhere in there thank you thinking about a retirement gig their own I have a Peddler's card for knife sharpening that's so sure that would be uh restructure all right Alice and then Rita thanks so I I don't want to get too deep into the weeds but I recall that when the three or four of us went to visit your old system with you leading the way um we landed on off the bus at Grand circus and um isn't that right near the stadium and all that stuff um and it has underground parking yeah and I was fascinated by this story that it's been rebuilt twice and still accommodates the both the park and the underground parking yeah yeah there was a couple of of the other Parks we managed I didn't I didn't cover quite as in depth um just just for time but um but Grand circus Park is uh is one of the historic ones uh um it's actually a twin park that's divided by Woodward so it's it's uh symmetrical on both sides and underneath it is a parking garage and um and the the park was actually you know demolished um the historic pieces of it were taken off um and then the garage was built in and then the historic pieces were just put back um and then the park was pretty much designed to be sort of a replica with maybe some a few enhancements and this this is by the way in the 50s 60s like this was not DDP recently um and so so Grand circus Park um actually we've got a plan to renovate it again but not not dig it all up this time so um but yeah working with the reality of a parking deck underneath is is is not been as big of an issue as we we maybe thought it would from like a root system because we've got pretty old trees up there and other weights on it and it's it's fine it just has to be um re-engineered or engineered correctly thanks yeah and last one up is Rita you are muted Rita I remember seeing those beautiful trees there at Grand circus um I was really interested in the statistic that you talked about with dwell time as a measurable can you explain how you do that yeah yeah that's a great question so data's gotten important um obviously technology is key to how data has evolved for us and uh I think the old way of of getting getting counts uh from people coming into the park was with a clicker and um a hand clicker and kind of just hiring people or taking your staff and just old good old-fashioned Stakeout observation writing notes and now we're able to do it on sort of a larger scale with with technology so we have um we have a system called springboard which uh which can sort of track the movement of objects that it recognizes as people there's no detail to that it just is sort of a kind of algorithm that tracks that so so we we know um through those both the number of people coming into the space as well as you know sort of when they exit the perimeter there's also more invasive data ways you could go about it through cell phone location service and all that and I guess you know over time the illusion of sort of privacy on your phone and online is sort of kind of a myth at this point but you know but we don't we you know we we haven't we haven't gone totally um as high tech as maybe some of our our corporate uh friends like like that have big box stores that sort of can track your eyeball movement or whatever you know so but we but we've gotten a little more we've gotten a little smarter about how we're tracking thank you very cool well David uh thank you so much uh for uh being here tonight and taking an hour out of your evening uh and it looks like you're still in your office so uh we really I don't live far so right up the road thank you thank you all so much a pleasure and you know follow up with me I hope I answered any questions you had and that this was uh helpful for you all and uh we'll talk to you again soon thank you again congratulations thank you thank you right um well uh in that case we're going to move into the next item on the agenda which is the updates on our work streams uh as everyone knows here we've had the two work streams going uh and uh you know varying uh updates over the last few months um and so we've got uh you saw in uh the agenda attached the agenda a rather lengthy uh series of activation recommendations we're gonna just bring that up to put a pin in it we I created a slide deck that Rita and I can walk you through that just touch on the top lines on that piece but before we do that we're going to talk a little bit about the first one which is the long-term planning work stream and uh we have uh some some updates tonight that I think are going to be pretty noteworthy and I'll like to turn over to Frank uh to kick those updates off thanks Adam and uh boy what a what a backdrop uh with uh David's presentation to to show us uh what's possible uh it won't happen overnight it didn't happen overnight in Detroit but uh my goodness uh when a community can rally around opportunities like that so I as the representatives of Library green on the Council of the commons uh Rita and I would like to share some uh I think some some really good news uh at the library greens board meeting last Friday the 24th we voted unanimously to increase our financial commitment to the center of the city design and development study which has stood at twenty thousand dollars for quite some time we are now committing up to seventy thousand dollars to the study and we did that particular number because it's our understanding that with combined with the city's forty thousand dollars which then bring us to a hundred and ten thousand dollars we are we're meeting a threshold uh that will allow us to begin to develop and and issue a request for proposals for the for the study of this site um you know we're very pleased to make this announcement uh it's it's really made possible through the generosity of many many people and and some prominent organizations in the community have stepped forward over over the last few months um to to make this possible um in addition to the many individual donors I want to highlight and make special mention of uh three or organizations in town two foundations in a corporate supporter the Harry S and Margaret D Housley Foundation has provided major support on the Mosaic Foundation of Rita and Peter Hayden have been supportive over the years with several gifts as well and Zingerman's community of businesses for their generous support um going forward and this is what was so inspirational about David's presentation um you know with an example like Detroit and other communities like Royal Oak and Plymouth you know Library green is eager to build and strengthen its public-private partnership with the city in our community between our city and the community and what greater moment uh similar to a Detroit celebrating its 300th anniversary we're on the the cusp of Ann Arbor's 200th anniversary so we're excited to launch this study develop this park which we feel would be a treasured asset for Ann Arbor's third century so with that I hope we can move forward quickly with the city and and uh get the RFP uh written and issued and really be Off to the Races here so we're pleased to provide that announcement and new support council member breaks okay that's exciting and um thank you to the library green Conservancy for doing this work I think it's it's a you know great announcement following especially the presentation that we just had around sort of the real need for um work like this to be led by a non-profit and you know and built off of public-private Partnerships so um this is exciting an exciting step forward and uh I would like to say as well Frank uh Rita and everybody from the library green Conservancy uh who is on the board and also who made the financial contributions especially the increased momentum over the last few months that has been really exciting to see um and uh you certainly earn a healthy congratulations uh for all the increase work so thank you I might I might add in in the fundraising business it's always great to have deadlines and uh the last five thousand dollars came together uh over lunch on Tuesday so and the individual knew we we wanted to announce this uh on Thursday so well I think it's uh it's very exciting and uh you know we had a conversation uh with the parks department who's going to be issuing the RFP on behalf of uh this process and and writing all the standardized portions and that they had previously indicated after the prose plan was complete they would have some time to work on it we're at that point now um and so we are excited to get back in touch with them and um and begin that process and so this was a catalyzing moment we're not out of the woods yet but uh certainly a big step forward so congrats to everybody certainly an exciting piece um so with that um we'll uh go into the next work stream if that's okay with folks and that is an update around uh activation and so uh Rita I don't know if you'd like to say anything before I uh pull up uh some of these uh slides that summarize the document they're not any different they're just the top top lines because that document is quite long um so Rita um I don't have anything planned to say but I would say that my idea of this is that it is a demonstration of an urban park that is very different from the kinds of parks that Ann Arbor is used to thinking of and I think it's a great opportunity and I I think the combination of of David Cowan's presentation tonight is is really helpful to moving that concept forward and I think it can make Ann Arbor really fun that's what I'm looking forward to would agree with that sentiment and I will I will say uh hats off to Rita she really spearheaded all of the research on this and brought in people different folks as needed and engaged us all and uh striked us on to conference calls with different organizations and groups around the city and uh and uh but really we learned a lot and so um I think all those hours were really worth it and so uh the document you know it's up just for draft form up for discussion you know now and and going forward we can talk about what we want to what we want to do and how we want to make those recommendations uh and to whom but we wanted to start the conversation this evening so um let me go ahead and share this I think can you see the screen here yes okay so as I mentioned this is uh this slide deck is just the uh top lines because uh the document is quite lengthy and uh I am bound and determined to get out of here by nine o'clock tonight uh and so um we'll go through here this is um a little bit of the the layout structure um of the first section background and properties we outline really what uh the center of the city is what is what it's comprised of and who we are as the Council of the commons um we give an outline of each of the properties uh and the diversity that that exists amongst them and a reason for these activation recommendations then we get into uh the next phase of the recommendations which are an outline of the current city processes and costs uh this uh includes uh the reservation process uh the um costs for reserving each of the spaces which is quite different uh from space to space and the process is quite different um and uh and uh so uh it is a uh it is a um a varying exercise um we want and we put those in there because we we spent a lot of time trying to figure them out frankly and uh and we wanted to illustrate um why we believe things need to improve um and and that's not to say that uh there's somebody at fault for this I think that what one of the things we learned is um because we have multiple uh Departments of the city managing each of these different spaces they each have their own process for doing things and um and that makes perfect sense if you're working in the department because that could be your sphere of of uh influence and the world in which you are living your daily life but um when you're trying to look at reserving a space such as the center of the city even though it's comprised of those three individual properties um uh it's it's quite a bit different so we looked at it from the outside in and I think that was actually a really helpful way to to think about it so um we have several recommendations and they start here with City process improvements uh we recommend a number of common elements uh that be created common reservation process for each of the sites uh in the center of the city uh common event calendar so that the center of the city is viewed uh as as one space that is that is even though three properties but one space from the perspective of outside uh outside community members that can be broken up into different areas for reservation uh connected online systems so what this really means is making sure that calendars are connected from special events to uh parks and that there is uh there is continuity amongst those uh so that uh if you are looking at the space from a potential applicant for reservation you are looking at the same data um and we recommend some parking removal uh as well and at least on a three season basis um uh in order to send really a signal uh about uh the space being utilized for other things besides parking and it flows frankly in line with a number of casualty use recommendations we have too I'm assuming that you're gonna run through and summarize all this and then after that we're going to have any discussion about it is that sort of the deal correct yep that's right I've got about 20 slides and so I'm gonna go through as quick as I can here and uh and then we'll talk and then you know this is just the first discussion so yeah no conclusions need to be drawn tonight um so um a next process Improvement we recommend is uh some really intentional um uh bridge building with block partners and surrounding businesses not just the ones on the Block but uh but certainly uh businesses that surround the block as well um yeah with that in line especially on the Block Partners uh uh their uh the establishment of consistent easement um uh for a specialty special event usage we heard from uh uh certainly the parks department and other city government agencies that this does happen and it does uh happen fairly easily but consistency is something that's helpful across the board um we also recommend that sustainable support be built so as David noted uh and Alan I'm glad you asked the questions you asked because I think that was important information to tease out this stuff is not free uh and uh if we want to have a sustainable center of the city we do need to figure out a revenue model that supports it and it supports staff time at the city coupled with volunteers uh is is the direction that we are recommending here um was this setting up some sustainable fees we don't identify what those fees should be I think that's something that really is a function of of um in a discussion or discussions with City staff who have more knowledge of that type of thing and frankly how it relates to other fees that are charged uh throughout the city uh we also recommend some extension of the arpa funds um that are currently reserved just for the Liberty Plaza area of the center of the city uh and the the extension of using those over the other properties as well um in in conjunction with these other improvements uh the next main bucket of the report there's sort of these three buckets the the background on the properties and City process improvements that's bucket one uh the next bucket is regularly planned activations and the final bucket is the uh the Casual use and then we do get into some recommendations that are specific to the resolution that council member brings council member dish councilmember Grand councilmember hayner sponsored previously so enabling regularly planned activations we have a series of recommendations here starting with branding um you know we heard from the parks department a couple of months ago I think around a brand that they have been establishing for Liberty Plaza at the center of the city and uh we thought this was a really uh cool idea uh and so we uh said that we should establish that consistent center of the city brand um and have these micro Brands associated with it so things like the library lot and Library Lane not necessarily having to renamed things but really establishing these are all under the umbrella brand of the center of the city and have some signage that that utilizes uh that type of thing it doesn't have to be fancy but directional and and consistency around that brand we indicate that there should be a public-facing portal this really started with an idea around a website and we took it much more beyond that but it includes certainly a website and we do feel like in the last bullet point here you could see some third-party management of that website is important um one of the uh the things that uh David's organization has is a website called downtown Detroit partnership I'm sorry uh Decked Out Detroit which is a a third party website that is branded to support all the activities that are at these downtown parks that downtown Detroit partnership manages but it's a website that is effectively a a portal into the park rather than portal into the downtown Detroit partnership so a little bit different um and so we adopted that idea we recommend a similar uh similar concept we recommend a social media presence that goes along with it that can be utilized to do some organic hashtagging organic advertising but also some paid social media advertising because that's a great really cost effective way to get the word out around activities that are going on in the center of the city um taking that uh connectivity that we talked about amongst the two City websites to the next level we recommend some enhanced online connectivity to this third party website and then as I previously mentioned you know some concerted advertising there are multiple ways to advertise certainly paid social media ads earn media attention through the local newspaper uh and uh and of course social media presence because of uh hashtags and other things while events are going on there um we do recommend that some facilitation of events David did a nice job highlighting this that they were very intentional with uh how they approach events even today but I imagine especially uh as they were getting things going in their early days so we recommend uh sort of at least a quarterly series of anchor events is what we decided to call these sort of sort of signature types of things that people can come to expect a great example of something that could be extended was the uh the parks uh uh Christmas Market or Holiday Market that they had there uh in Liberty Plaza last year that event could have it just has tremendous potential in my eyes um and and really could um could serve as an anchor event for That season we also recommend that that the time period be filled in with intentional monthly events um of some kind and there's a lot of variation we had some really great ideas and ideation around this uh that that we did those are all some recommendations some ideas are in the in the document as well um we were really intentional uh around it inclusivity um we talked about it quite openly uh in our discussions that we did not want people to feel pushed out of any area of the park uh of any area of the uh the center of the city and so uh these are some of the questions that uh that were asked uh on the visit to downtown Detroit uh as well and we gathered some data there and gathered some data from from the discussions with other uh communities and came up with a couple of recommendations uh one uh is based on the idea around volunteer ambassadors to help welcome people to the park and let them know that they're welcome there no matter what their socioeconomic status or their uh their um uh uh their home status uh maybe um and then also specifically targeting um uh events that are intended to be fee free and uh and uh be targeted towards constituencies who may be needing some extra Services uh community services and so uh really being intentional that these are not add-ons these are part of the activation process for the spaces um and I'll just say in in one of my conversations with some of the organizers of uh of um Sonic lunch uh they uh recounted that during their setup um uh they uh always went around and talked to people who are hanging around the park uh in Liberty Plaza as a result of that they built a really strong uh uh rapport with those individuals and they felt included they never at first when Sonic lunch started people may have left the park if they didn't want to feel if they didn't feel welcome or they didn't want to participate but uh these organizers shared that uh that that was not happening because of their intention at being inclusive and so um so that was a really positive Point uh that I thought and we tried to bring that and lift that up in the in the idea around volunteer ambassadors um we I do recommend this third party limited joint management um what we didn't want to get into was a complete uh uh embodiment of the public-private partnership like downtown Detroit partnership has we didn't think we were ready for that yet um as a community but we should work our way to that and so uh um what we talked about was the idea of I already mentioned this online portal management you know establishing a third-party website that pulls from the city uh sites but also includes other information and and really looks like an advertisement for the center of the city and the events that are happening there but also then we thought that um at the point where Ann Arbor is right now at this effort we could recruit some volunteers to help with some of the ideas that we're talking about some of the programs that could happen at the park um and uh and so this third party uh limited partnership could include uh management of that volunteer recruitment effort and coordination so it could reduce any a burden that uh the city staff would would normally have to bear um the final bucket here in the uh in the activation recommendations are the enabling of the areas for casual use um uh you know one of the things I think I quote that I sort of stuck out stuck out in my head really I may butcher this a little bit so you may have to step in here but um people uh feel in in these in these communities uh that uh that are really engaging in intentional activation um people feel that uh that the space is their own when the activations are not happening uh and uh and and it is because it's their own they're public open spaces um and uh and so they see them like that and and the community intentionally enables that to happen that is not just organic there's thought that goes into uh into that process and so um uh so uh the first recommendation here uh uh that is built out we talk about it in the city process improvements previously but it's built out here is the permanent semi-permanent parking removal uh of the uh top of the the uh Library structure so we've we're calling that the library lot throughout the document um and uh and so uh the removal of permanent semi-permanent removal of cars from that area we say at least three seasons is the the recommendation um we determined that in particular with the change of of uh work downtown that structure is nowhere near uh becoming full and so there's ample parking available and so we we feel pretty strongly that this is really a negligible Financial impact the 36 spots on the top of the structure um are able to be that revenue is able to just be shifted uh down below without any adverse effects at all so we don't think this could be a cost and we thought that was important to call out frankly um we feel like that the uh throughout all of the properties including the kempf house yard we should establish configurable Furniture Arrangement Arrangements in the document there's some links uh to uh some ideas here uh in I think we linked heavily to Capital Park uh in Detroit we link to Centennial Commons in Royal Oak and they had some really great pictures of uh things that that the city in in those cases or the DDP had done to create Community spaces that could be configured based on the needs of the community um and we thought that was a really uh really uh a good way to approach it you know people wanted to be able to uh set up uh and sit at a table and have a casual lunch uh or do a zoom call uh from uh their laptop or or uh um tablet and they also wanted to be able to sit in a lounging style chair at Adirondack chairs uh were a common um uh theme throughout a lot of the spaces that we looked at but the key thing is that they're able to be configurable that it wasn't just fixed and spread apart in some cases that you could sit as a community um and gather and and that the furniture reflected the promotion of that idea so um we outline uh really what those things look like um include some examples and we did some cost research too and include some ranges around costs and obviously cost ranges are heavily dependent upon how much you purchase we included item pricing uh some approximations and there's obviously variation within that too we also get into lighting and we have a lot of ideas we only included uh one or two uh in this document but there's a lot of ideas around lighting um and part of the reason we limited it to one or two because is because of the fact that there is uh string lighting already in Liberty Plaza that uh that the parks department put up and it has a really nice Ambience to it and uh so we included the recommendations around string lighting across all three of the properties um and uh and and you know I I emphasize that it's all three of the properties that includes the chemfaos area and part of the reason that that uh we are intentional about including that is because it's a space that we found in our discussions um was not being utilized heavily by uh through the reservation process and so we really wanted to be intentional that was not left out that it was not just a historic home uh on division uh that it was part of the center of the city and certainly there are other limitations uh that come with that but it was uh but we didn't want it to be uh to be a second thought so uh string lighting again same idea uh uh as uh as with the configurable furniture we included cost adjustments and that sort of thing uh shading uh we mentioned that there are two areas two of the three uh center of the city properties that have really nice natural shading both chemphouse and uh library or I'm sorry Liberty Plaza um but uh there should be some additional shading actually I have a typo in here not across Library Lane it actually says in the document across the library a lot um so my apologies for that are really including either sail shading and or umbrellas to provide for some uh some uh coverage from the Sun uh across the library a lot and in particular in concert with configurable Furniture so that you have spaces there that are frankly I had forgotten about the downtown Detroit Beach in Campus Martius I've been to that before though and uh and certainly I think that uh inadvertently um uh influenced our our Visions for this and so uh certainly creating some of those types of spaces uh on the library lot as as well we highlighted that waste disposal was potentially could increase and frequency of uh emptying containers and making sure we're doing so in ways that support the universe sustainability goals was important to us we brought that up um and you previously heard in the public comment tonight from uh Jeff Crockett and the Green Team uh who has been um really uh going after trying to put some art privately funded art on the uh spaces and so we really highlighted this as a as an important part not just the art that Jeff and Mary tiefos and others uh are uh working on but really having this visual artistic enhancements throughout to draw continuity across the space and some um some real uh beautiful visual connection we've seen that in on the side of buildings in downtown Ann Arbor already and on the sides of um utility connection points uh and that sort of thing and and uh you know we're really an artistic Community very creative and we thought this could be a real high point to blend continuity across the spaces and create the connection and add some uh some real beautiful visual representation to some hard concrete uh we also highlighted uh Natural Area enhancements there's great gardening programs going on in the the spaces but connecting them and making sure that uh we're Gathering donated plants which is happening in some cases already uh across all the spaces was very important you know we have garden beds and Liberty Plaza certainly gardening around uh the the grass on Kemp House's yard and also the green team's gardening at uh the library lot our areas of Highland but making sure those are continent continuous and volunteer recruitment is engaged for all three um uh we thought was was important to Target together we spoke with the DDA um and uh they indicated that they had located a lot a storage locker to store equipment um and uh and we recommend that we make use of that um for more common equipment that is going to be needed for special event purposes and to try and make the lives of of staff and volunteers a little bit easier in supporting the activation we specifically asked questions of communities we spoke with around theft and vandalism and we included responses from those communities in the recommendations we just like to say that we think this idea around theft and vandalism especially as a as it uh pertains to configurable or movable furniture is really overblown the idea that this will happen and you know we're going to have huge swaths of furniture stolen uh it does not be does not appear to be supported by statistics from other communities at least and so we relied on that included those pieces here and finally you know as uh as David uh Cohen uh highlighted uh we thought the idea around public and private a partnership uh was going to be really important uh to to not only uh further the um the transformation of the spaces but really the activation of the spaces too and we embraced that and we know this is not going to be free there are real costs associated with this um but uh but we think that the the returns economically and the benefit to the community is well worth it and it should be paid for uh as part of a joint uh effort um with private and public dollars uh I'm gonna really quickly just go through these next few slides here um we did specifically uh and we plan on having some discussions with uh the city staff who are assigned to respond to this resolution to city council that's not really our role but we thought because we're looking at these broader recommendations that we would want to uh have our thoughts laid out for this we include some intersection points with the resolution uh that pass city council last fall including uh some background on the text uh specifically highlighting how it pertains to planned activation and Casual use we highlight that really how all of our recommendations uh could serve as a baseline to support the efforts uh that uh that resolution asks City staff to investigate we include some best practices from other communities we then get into some specific pieces around planned activation including better communication around the surrounding businesses and especially when it comes to food related businesses given that there are several brick and mortar uh restaurants surrounding spaces we talk about the expansion social District to help cover uh the uh the use of alcohol particular around planned events um we get into food specific rallies and non-food events and then again this idea of specific strategies to you know monthly planned activations I'm a casual youth space um we uh make note of the idea of a food truck Zone around Library Lane similar to something that you saw around Cadillac park or Cadillac Square in downtown Detroit in David's presentation including a standard permit fee again for sustainability reasons and for ease of use frankly we noted that uh that the Farmers Market has a wonderful food truck rally on certain Wednesdays throughout the summer they have done a lot of the homework for us already and they attract hundreds of visitors to this food truck rally each year and we should capitalize on that they were extremely helpful and generous with providing information they've got a good process we should not reinvent the wheel um and then continued uh emphasis on this idea around a mobile food calendar and advertising to push that information out so that people know uh who is coming and what uh what vendors are going to be there and when so um and finally uh this is the last slide here um we talk about the importance of intentionality that uh none of these things even the Casual use uh uh enabling is done um with intention uh and deliberate uh decision making and uh we talk about the fact that there is going to be trial and error uh there's no way that uh any Community as David even highlighted is going to get this right the first time we're going to learn from it uh we're gonna learn what works what the community likes what the community doesn't like um and that's okay um and we noted uh that uh that um in all of the instances that we looked at um these efforts generated considerable Pride uh in the community and it really United the community together and uh and that was that was shown through it didn't matter what the terrain or the size the shape of the park or the uh the open space was um uh the efforts were done uh and were popular in the community and they brought the community together and we thought that was a really important point because that's really what this effort should be about in my opinion is bringing the community together and allowing them to uh to be outside and so that's the last uh slide in in this deck as I said this is just a summary of the that document and wouldn't have expected everyone to read the document because uh we only got it out to you about 24 hours ago um and I apologize for that but I wanted to kick the conversation off tonight and so I will stop sharing this slide deck and just open it up for questions and discussion and we will be able to to continue to discuss uh over the next meeting or so too so any questions at all on this piece actually we lost Rita she's on her way back ah okay council member Briggs yeah thanks um I wish that I hope Rita is joining and can hear these comments I know that um gee I'm sure it's been very much engaged in the development of uh of this document obviously this is I'm sure a lot of work to get to this point um and a lot of research and um conversations and um it's a really substantial document with a lot of um good you know guidance about what makes it makes us successful um space um however it's hard for me I guess acknowledging all of that um I there's a few initial thoughts and I know we're not making a um you know any decisions tonight but I guess a few cautions or initial points of feedback um you know we just completed our our prose plan and that provided a lot of feedback from the community about how to proceed with Parks obviously the some of these spaces are parks some of them are are not designated as such um but one of the pieces that we know how you just got off is Basin from the Parks Commission um is that we don't have additional resources to dedicate to new spaces um right now and so we don't actually have the resources that we need to um address all of our current spaces and so that's been that's been a something that we've kind of known throughout the entire process and so um obviously the DDP presentation provided you know one model that's being used um pretty consistently throughout the country to provide um develop these types of face spaces recognizing when there's a lack of public resources to dedicate to that and so I guess I'm a little questions in terms of you know you acknowledged in the presentation that um that is a model out there that wasn't the model that was recommended in this but it's I I guess I'm curious why that was not leaned into a little bit more in this set of recommendations yeah I mean I can speak to that too uh so I think that's ultimately I mean I'll just speak for me uh on this I think that's ultimately the key to success especially on the the transformed uh space um but I think that we wanted to um you know take these in reasonable steps um and uh so that's part of the reason why we recommend the limited partnership you know that we get things moving build a sustainable funding model that does support some limited staff time I I think I even think we even called out in the report like I've I don't know if we called out but we were thinking it's sort of like a quarter time um uh staff member uh to to support and that but that be in line with a fee structure that helped uh close that funding Gap Public Funding Gap that you indicated um and then uh you know creating the partnership to coordinate the volunteer efforts and uh and have the online portal be managed a lot by by outside folks so that we didn't have uh cost piece um and uh so you know we we thought that um you know uh you know sort of walking across the Huron rather than jumping across the Huron might be a uh good uh model for initial success and so um you know we didn't get into uh the cost modeling around each of the events but certainly um you know the the uh highlighting of the uh both private um and uh also uh public dollar usage around the arpa dollars that are appropriated for Liberty Plaza was something that we were thinking of so we feel like it's a balance um but I think that just speaking for me I think that the ultimate success of of the center of the city is based on the idea that um we will build something like a downtown Detroit partnership um might not be as big may not need to be as big um but uh but um you know we are not going to get there tomorrow not from where we're at and so we wanted to be successful in those efforts so that's it thank you I appreciate that a couple other thoughts I mean I think um I think there's a desire to get to some of these Paces tomorrow as opposed to recognizing that it's going to take some time to do that and so for example there was earlier the last part last announcement was the the exciting announcement that um the private funding has been secured to do a planning process and so um I think you know I um we have some some public spaces that are in this center of the city that are already um activated and already being utilized and um we're trying to improve the spaces of them and so um allowing that process to move forward that long-term planning process would allow I think opportunity for those um the existing space that does not have any programming on it to perhaps for that private funding to to be acquired to be able to to do those things that we're kind of seeing how these models operate in other parts they um other parts of the country um in terms of the arpa funding I do think that it's important to know why that funding was utilized or remember why that funding was utilized for Liberty Plaza and that's because we were recognizing that some unhealthy activity was happening on that space that was becoming problematic for our downtown and so there was a um and really wanting to to turn that into a healthier space for everybody who's using it and so that's not that's not the same existing issue that we're seeing here um at the on the top of the Library Lane surface parking lot um so in terms of intentional use of those resources I'm not sure that that's something that that's really suggesting utilizing those funds very differently than house but how they're currently you know the purpose of why they're out there right now um and we need to use delivery Plaza um and then I guess another final thought is there seems to be in terms of it makes a lot of sense to have this very intentional marketing and branding of spaces and all that in terms of having a successful urban place but if I look at the city's website in terms of all of the the parks that we currently have we're not having this level of intentionality about except for with Liberty Plaza because and you know maybe our in our Farmers Market um and so it's it seems to be leap frogging over some of our existing public spaces and how we're currently operating so I'm curious if you might be able to talk a little bit about that recommendation well certainly I think that we support the idea I'll speak just for me again uh you know of this type of branding be extending to a lot of public spaces um obviously our charge is limited to those Force you know the block Bound by those four streets and so um you know we uh we highlighted the ideas that uh these are all things that are best practices uh you know essentially in in other communities and so um you know we thought that that was probably a good extension given the spaces we we had purview with um and uh and so um you know in terms of the arpa fund usage too I I think one of the things that we we found is as Liberty plots in fact this was actually highlighted in the prose plan uh and we raised some concern with it that uh that um you know as as one area is uh activated one of the worst things we can do from an equity perspective is uh is push people who are using the space out of doing that and we did find that uh that a better way to solve that problem was to activate a larger space and uh and so um you know we uh that's part of the reason uh we had the thought between behind um extending that uh the funding uh that was already appropriated by Council to uh delivery Plaza over the the course of the space was we did see and it was highlighted in the pros plan that it that people did get pushed out and we thought that was really not in the spirit of inclusivity and so um so that was sort of uh you know a couple thoughts certainly Rita may have some others as well and as well as others who participate in that process but uh um you know that's um and and to your point uh Eric I uh I agree 100 that as the development proceeds especially with that RFP that should serve as a real Catalyst uh to um promote a private funding um uh acquisition for these things and so um I think we we're excited about the uh that piece moving forward not only for the spirit of it moving forward but also because we think it will um it will bring about more private funding too so I don't know Rita you've got your hand up but if you wanted anything else can you hear me we can okay good thanks um yeah I think one of the things that I think of first of all is that this is a different kind of Park this is an urban park and urban to me means that it is um it does recognize The Hardscape that exists and the um intensity of use that's different as described by the downtown Detroit partnership um and so I see this as a way for Ann Arbor to join itself actually as we become more densely populated in the downtown I think when when I spent a lot of time looking at the pros plan this year and um or the new Pros plan that's been adopted and we all know that the central area of Ann Arbor is the most densely populated and has the least amount of open space available to people regardless of whether it's Hardscape or greetscape it has the least and given that there will soon be many more units of housing nearby and and that there have been more more recently um it makes sense to me to prepare for providing people with a space that is available within that 0.2 miles that um David Cowan cited and that is one that will make them want to be there together and and I think that we create the atmosphere so that's that's where I would like to see this going and yes it is a different kind of support required clearly from the other parks and I I am one who loves our Ann Arbor parks this is this is really a different model and I think we're ready for it I think the city should be ready for it and I don't know how to be more specific than that right now but thanks and uh Adam excellent job in writing this up I I think you did a fabulous job and good presentation thank you uh Alice and Alan and then yes um Adam and Rita have hello made me raise my hand because uh and Erica too you know it is true that the arpa funds were offered to um I'll resolve some difficulties at Liberty Plaza um uh Erica called them unhealthy activities and I think Adam actually uh spoke about the something that's helpful to make those make engender healthy activities is to give more space there isn't much space to give at Liberty Plaza but if you can combine this these properties in a systematic way and in a in a way that's integrated you'll find that you have our opportunity for more inclusive activities and more opportunity for healthier activities as they might be described as well as the fact that we do have more and more people we need more and more space for those healthy activities whether there's sunbathing reading or or playing chess or whatever it is um that we come up with and that people come up with I think this is a great opportunity to find the benefits of of intentional planning and inclusive exclusive sustainability I guess I'd say and I just wanted to add that that I'm hearing these these really good sort of interactive ideas that I think are quite like what we are intending to start with at Liberty that um the library Lane area uh Alan and then Frank unmuted I think this last little question about Liberty Plaza I just want to almost out of order say I'm quite distressed at the way Liberty Plaza has been addressed separate from the rest of the uh Commons area and that in the alleged effort toward activism that the tables were taken out so people can't play chess or actually have a card game or eat a lunch together there this was this failure of communication between Milton Mahoney and the rest of our processes really we are not positive and his approach to Liberty positive without regard to the rest of what's going on I think that we should try and have a better conversation with him overall and my concern was that really in about the third line and this is a urban Central Park and a Civic centered Commons Civic Center at least implies Civic functions and a potential Civic building that whole concept is omitted here as you have omitted the commons this is not simply a space call it the center of the city for convenience but it is a way of organizing resources so that the people have a role in their allocation and in their management different from having a Staff Care Project which just moves increasingly towards and that is because you call it branded as a center of the city rather than branded as the common which would remind us all because that is a way of organizing resources Who come out of the people and the people use and in that regard we have the view way back when in the times of the past course that there would be multiple working groups about kids about their food about programming about music about energy and so on and those working groups would see well how do we get things going there here and there disregard himself because the city has you know categorically refused to get the cars off and they say partially car removal the car should be off that's it's not a parking lot it is a park it has been repurposed by the people but until it's actually able for people to begin to play around there and begin to you know make things happen the working groups don't happen and so management by default is deflected to his staff but that is not what the idea is and that is not what is really building Community it is building that we have the staff that's going to be able to program 2000 programs a year or what they do in Detroit but that's not really the idea I want to see us advancing so in the the initiating committee is really the group designated by the city council to begin to do on the ground stuff and that is completely omitted from this picture at all so it didn't exist probably some combination of the initiating Committee in the library green Conservancy will become a non-profit with the library green so far has not really been looking to you know assume additional functions I hope perhaps that it will but the I think in terms of understanding what is the dynamic that we need to establish this needs to rethink The Branding toward a Commons and not simply the physical location though that is what it can well be called for good reason of how the city Charter is organized and a little bit we'll have plenty of time to discuss this but I wanted to put those initial reactions out there this really has not been listening adequately to what is the vision here whether we do not yet have adequate alignment of what our vision is is Robert urges us to you know get it all straight they were talking about the same thing so thank you thanks Ellen Frank yes I did I just want to I think emphasize and I think I'm supporting what some of the comments have been made earlier that I think for this near-term activation as well as the longer term planning we need to think about all the public land on the Block Liberty Plaza Library lot the Lane Camp House and uh you know the arpa funding is sort of build a financial barrier that it it doesn't uh is not accessible and my fear is that you know we'll create this uh this space that does uh Liberty Plaza that does push out segments of the population to other parts of the center of the city uh and if funding were available and I think a lot of the money still available because they weren't able to hire staff it just makes more sense from a planning perspective in this near-term activation to think of the entire entire space that's that's my comment thanks Frank uh Alice couldn't find my arrow um yes Frank I'll I'll second that that's what I was trying to say and you grew so succinctly um that I think dealing with one little one one piece at a time will never get us across the road um and so I second your um more comprehensive look at this space because Liberty Plaza is very small we have a little bit larger space if we combine the efforts in any way that we can that what helps the center of the city will help Liberty Plaza and vice versa so in Camp Palace it's a beautiful little crown on the on the three um so I I really appreciate Frank and bring us back to the idea of of what we do now will help in the future and just to add one piece to this too because I I uh you know just in terms of the the document and really our charge which is where this document came from our charge is to act is to recommend things uh around the entire space and so certainly when we got into this and um you know we we looked at things holistically to that church which is where the recommendations came from and that really feels the the um the appropriate um place from my perspective it's not it's not too um it's not too uh if it's if anything it's to create greater continuity uh and uh and uh that that scene you know going the opposite direction seems um seems um problematic but uh Erica yeah thanks and I appreciate that I I understand that the idea is to you know think holistically about the different spaces I just wanna um sometimes worry that there's there's a piece that this commission is not acknowledging um around Liberty Plaza and the activity that was happening there um and I know that there have been some disconnected conversations and so that's perhaps why there is a little disconnect here um I've been able to sit into different conversations that you know haven't necessarily um been a part of this commission so I understand um to some degree that disconnect but when I say unhealthy behavior I'm talking about assaults and fighting and behavior that we don't want to see anywhere in the city and that is behavior we absolutely want to drive out of Liberty Plaza and we want to we don't want to it's not acceptable anywhere um honestly so it's not that we have to you know it's not about um um individuals it's about behavior that we're seeing um that is not the behavior that we want to see in our public spaces or private spaces for that matter and so um you know I think that that's obviously why programming is something that's really important and we know that about Urban um Urban parks and spaces but we have a pretty limited amount of funding when it comes to that arpa that was dedicated and so thinking about how we're strategically using it in an you know in a space that we were seeing really unhealthy Behavior at times um while also trying to make sure that folks that need this also increase in the services to that space as well so having a comprehensive look at that space I just think it's important to acknowledge the the magnitude of problems that we are seeing on one section of the center of the city space and the reason that there's a need for additional emphasis in one corner of that it's not about the fact that additional programming is wouldn't be beneficial in many of our public spaces but I would hope that we would all want to make sure that that we're addressing that problem effectively yeah Erica and I I can't agree with you more that criminal activity like uh assault is not something that we're talking about here but there is an emphasis you know on some of those activations where some of the population who is experiencing homelessness in Ann Arbor used to gather uh on at the spot at Liberty Plaza very lawfully and uh and uh during some of the activations they there's pictures of them over on the top of the parking structure in the dark uh doing their normal uh gathering with free pizza and things and it was because Liberty Plaza was activated at the time and they would normally be there and so that's the kind of thing that we're talking about you know and that's it just felt very wrong when we when we saw some of that and um so we tried to address the holistic nature um around the activation so that that didn't happen to anybody no certainly not the criminal activity or anything like that certainly law enforcement should take care of that and you know get get folks either criminally punished or the help they need uh um you know if if that type of thing were to exist so that's really the the specific examples so Erica if I just might say um we were all pretty much in the dark if those of us who are not directly involved in the addressing that library that Liberty Plaza situation the assault and all of that stuff there was it was like a there just was not an not enough sharing of information not enough um ex extension into other conversations to figure out what the true impact was what the true incident was and um I I just feel like we can't carve out one little piece the overall charge the block and actually the whole city you know the whole downtown you can't just spot check you have to you have to look at the whole um and obviously an incident does require a specific action or look at the situation but I think that's that our our charge is greater and and not just in land use and so um that's what I was trying to get uh Rita and then I think is there another hands up will wrap up uh at that point thank you um I I just want to Echo what Alice just said we have been disconnected from the information related to the current management of Liberty Plaza it makes it pretty hard to do the kind of planning that that we would like to do and to understand the needs that are associated it would be great to have a report on the actions a summary report on the actions that have been taken and the assessment of outcomes and and just to know the goals we we don't have that information it would be very helpful to us um so I hope that that can be provided to us it should be part of what we're looking at overall all the time I think and so I agree that looking excluding one small part is not helping us with the goal of this project and I'm confused about that thank you okay thanks and so I I do want to just uh indicate you know that the uh the document is out there for discussion now you know please feel free and uh we've had a couple members of the public have written in and provided feedback already and others are more than welcome uh to do so um and uh you know maybe we'll take action on something here uh shortly related to the activation document um uh you know as a series of recommendations um I do want to just uh indicate though that uh I would just encourage you know some certainly some of the conversation you can hear some of the frustration folks voice um you know all over on this and um I would really just like to indicate to note that um there's really a promising opportunity here and um and a lot of the work that is reflected in those recommendations is about the promise um and we heard that from David you know we saw some of the pictures of what they started with and and we're very fortunate frankly we're very privileged to have a community that's not starting with the type of economic distress that uh that downtown Detroit had and um and so um you know I would just like to I try to always be look at things optimistically um and uh we've had some real major wins tonight uh that have been highlighted with the the formal uh hitting of that Target figure on the RFP to be issued and really the most concrete series of recommendations we've had around activating the space I feel like this is um a great starting point for something fresh and regardless of anyone's frustration around past instances I would just encourage everybody to look at things with um an open set of eyes that um tomorrow is different from today and it's different from yesterday so if we're going to think about yesterday all the time we're never going to think about tomorrow so uh let's take what we've done here and think about what could be tomorrow so that's that would just be my words of encouragement for everybody amen very well said very well said thanks so um with that uh Erica yeah I just I think you're heading towards public comment it was I just wanted to before you open that up I just wanted to say thank you to Heather um this is you put in a lot of work on this commission I know it's been um so pretty pretty much outside the scope of your uh professional activities oftentimes with the city in some facts so thank you very much for your leadership here um and I'm excited to see what you're doing next with the Housing Commission thank you and Chris we'll see you next time yes you will and how you're definitely in good hands with Chris uh sorry I didn't mean to cut you off yeah you're good go ahead Paul and thank you for those kind words council member Briggs um yeah quite a meeting to go out on there's a lot happening right now um some really good discussions some you know I think it indicates that there's things to that you're you're genuinely addressing so I think that's good um yeah and again thank you for those kind words and um I won't be far uh quite literally I'll be working on the project quite across the street from this over at the Y lot so you'll find me there um and of course I'm around so I'm sure I'll be interacting with all of you in the future thank you thank you Heather thank you heather when uh your comment was made that some people have written in comments already how does how do we see that does that get added to the minutes is there are notes or when people write in comments it's actually on the agenda Alan right so that will come into the next agenda it's already on the agenda it's on the existing agenda I'll send it to you if uh if you can't see it and Heather I I just want to say uh I personally very much appreciate all the work you've put in we've had a number of conversations uh offline and um I think uh I think you've really done a Yeomans effort and so thank you and uh also excited that you're going to work on uh affordable housing project I think that's going to be great for the community and uh certainly it's proximity to this space everyone deserves open space and so um it's a great compliment effort and congratulations thank you I appreciate that and I've really enjoyed working with you as well thank you um okay so with that um uh we will go into public comment and see if there's any members of the public who are here with us this evening we're a little over the nine o'clock hour but we're not too bad given our agenda forever black all right Robert black can you hear me Heather I can that's probably the last time I'm going to say that but thank you again for your your kind service um wow you guys rock I'm telling you um now we're talking now we're talking I've said through hours and hours of this meeting for a year okay you're literally years now and I've watched you guys it's like watching sauce be made right it's just kind of coming in there we keep stirring the Heat's going up a little bit but bam tonight you rocked it and I'm telling you I am so thrilled and happy to see this I have lots of comments but I'm not even going to say them because um you're on the ball here and the thing is to remember that you can do this your vision of the future is the strength of this thing the in the Council of the commons is the Hub you are the Hub of this thing although you're a recommending body you carry the vision and this document that you created is so powerful it could use an executive piece at the top that's the vision what is this thing what are we strive living for inclusivity center of the city all that stuff and you heard it from David Collin tonight how they moved through that vision and all those burned out buildings empty plazas Sandhill lots and tumbleweeds are gone and there's a new thing there and you are on the brink of doing this and each one of you has contributed mightily to this and I just want to remind you that part of the process and facilitation is called commonalities of differences alignment doesn't necessarily mean agreements and that you have dissenting views is important the the antipathy that comes in a dissenting view opens the possibility of growth and vision and Adam thank you for closing it back around the vision because that is so important you have examples already around you I presented something many times before about the Kaiser Center built in 1960 in Oakland California five-story parking structure with an award-winning park on the top that has been there for how many years now 63 years years right and you have examples certainly from Detroit I send some things through you have a an underpinning in your work of the initiating committee count them as roots to you Grassroots visit count them don't just dissent them count them their website is an example the the logo they've already created for center of the city are part of the city um the the signage and other things the Green Team actually came out of that initiative so look to them for help they might even be that third party that can help you do things Amy from North Carolina myself or Vermont another woman that has just come aboard that was one of Frank's Old students at Dexter High School was the superintendent of Parks from Milwaukee superintendent of parks of Louisville a great resource you have it right at your fingertips so don't forget to use those people as you move forward in this work and um God what was the last thing I wanted to say I just I'm so thrilled and excited about this that go ahead and practice do it trial and error make a mistake learn right it's learning by doing and so the next thing I just pitched this one more time one of your anchor events we already did this in the initiating committee an annual calendar with all the different key dates in there you talked about aligning calendars and and that we already showed how to do that in the initiating committee take a look at our Trello boards and see what's there and then um think about an anchoring event is coming up in April and it's a big one called Earth Day and we've already got a coalition of networks working to align that around the commons and it's going to be powerful the bands that are playing there's really cool bands um there's a whole bunch of different ideas of talks and things from a diverse array of topics and art activities Mary tiefel's talking and other stuff so we want to engage the whole community in a celebration leading towards a big celebration in the bicentennial year um Detroit's Parks came out of that 300th birthday let's celebrate Ann Arbor's 200th birthday and get it rocking this year with some really really good events um kudos to your good work you guys best of luck to you Heather and and uh welcome Chris let's get on with this thing thank you thanks Robert any other members of the public Heather actually can't see I see that there's a total of two phone call and listeners Chris can you see oh there we go all right um all right you can um go ahead and speak person with a phone number ending in three four five hi uh this is kittycon in Ann Arbor's Fifth Ward uh first of all I want to thank Adam for his positive optimistic words it's so important to remember that I heard a lot of great information tonight I enjoyed the presentation by David Cowan and I hope it'll be attached to the minutes so that we can go back and see that presentation can that be attached somehow but I'll ask for a copy and if I get it okay great I was also happy to read and then hear discussion about the activation recommendations I'm really impressed by the way they Incorporated the information that was gained from the site visit to successful Town squares in other cities they make perfect sense and I hope they will enable some forward motion with the center of the city plan I am also very glad to hear that the library green Conservancy is giving more money to enable the rrsp that's great I do think that it's important to mention that besides corporate donations many small individual donations also were made to the library green Conservancy small donations do add up and small donors should not be forgotten I heard behind the scenes that a donate button will be added to a new website I was very happy to finally learn about a donate button because that will make it easy for individuals to give money people want to give money they don't know how so now once that's up and running and it's publicized that'll be a wonderful thing and people can just donate with their credit cards lastly I am very disappointed in Erica Briggs yes Erica once again you put a damper on the project here we go everybody's positive wonderful things happen tonight and no you have to put a damper on it why do you insist on doing that it's very upsetting that is all thank you Heather any other members of the public I don't think so none with hand raised Chris are you saying anything different no I'm missing some reason my visual is a little bit different tonight well uh in that case uh we have no other items on the agenda this evening uh we are a little bit over so apologize to members of the public uh uh and all of you for not getting done by nine o'clock I've been pretty good about trying to meet that deadline um but uh we are going to uh and would love feedback on the recommendations that were attached to tonight's agenda um and uh you know certainly you've heard some of it tonight uh in discussion we will um we will certainly uh have some figure out how we're going to incorporate different ideas and alterations uh certainly nothing is set in stone um but I did want to uh just uh as we uh have a motion for adjournment I just want to say that there is a lot of uh exciting things happening and debate is good that helps strengthen ideas and we heard that tonight but let's emphasize it going forward and ask that we do stay away from the personal attacks and focus on making the top the positive forward movement going into Ann Arbor's 200th year so with that Heather we will miss you but I'm sure we will see again Chris welcome and uh and we look forward to working with you going forward and um do we have a motion for adjournment motion thank you both all in favor say aye aye okay have a wonderful evening everyone thank you so much thank you thank you good night bye thank you
whereas following a disciplinary hearing before the student Judiciary Committee held on March 2nd 2023 the Clifton Board of Education hereby approves this little plenary recommendation for student ID 12 2022 and 13 2022 and authorizes the superintendent to implement same okay do we have a motion by Mr Paris second second by Mr Santiago sorry uh any discussion roll call please miss basford yes Mr Brunswick yes Mr Mejia yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries okay uh for some reason I can't find my new sheet but I think Mark was Nyx Mr Brunswick I think you were up first for board member comments thank you president Smith good evening everybody just want to give a happy birthday to Dr Seuss I know what his age would have been today possibly 113 or greater I had the honor and privilege today of attending and reading for reading Across America week at school 16 this morning in school number two and it was a wonderful experience and I cannot thank the staff and students enough over there just for the honor of having the invitation I want to give a big shout out at school 16 to Mrs wadbe and Miss gray School number two big shout out to miss Lucas Mrs speda Miss Gonzalez and Miss Garcia my perception is that all all of these people and all the students and staff that I have met are High Caliber high quality human beings so uh thank you to anybody who to anyone involved in making The Hires for all these people also there tonight this evening which we none of us were able to attend for obvious reasons at Columbus there's Seussical junior tonight was at 7 pm there's another showing tomorrow this is their spring Musical if anybody has any time if you got a few extra bucks it's five dollars for students eight dollars for for adults highly recommended uh you know this this is their spring musical again Dr robertosie plugged the plug the one in um at the high school for Chicago the teenage version for next next Friday and Saturday um also for those who celebrate the upcoming holidays uh I wish you a joyous season for those who celebrate St Patrick's Day St Joseph's day and those who celebrate Ramadan which starts March 22nd this year thank you everyone for your time and God bless America have a good night everybody thank you commissioner Mejia thank you president Smith so I first like to start out with a huge congratulations to our cheerleading team and our hockey team for making it so far this year especially our cheerleading team um state champs that's an awesome feeling I know how you guys feeling right now full of joy full happiness and you guys are going to remember this for a lifetime and you're going to talk about it to your kids you know when you get older maybe even grandkids how that how that one time when you're a Junior and senior in high school how you now you're a state champ um I also like to congratulate our student athletes who are still in wrestling in indoor track and field I know we did have a sitter in the month today he was an indoor track and field um Superstar I call him um he is attending my alma mater at Felicia University so big and congratulations to him as well um and again like Mr bunsiak said happy read Across America day for Dr um Seuss growing up I wasn't always the strongest reader but then as soon as I had into college um took my LSAT applied for law school I realized how big reading is um at the end of the day huge part of everyone's life you're going to read no matter where you go and I always tell students as long as you can improve on your really reading and critical thinking abilities you're going to be great no matter where you go um so thank you again for giving me the time and have a great night everybody thank you commissioner Paris thank you Mr Smith uh congratulations to all our student of the month winners um congratulations to Ms samuda and Dr kropenak for their guidance and and integration of pbsis into our our math and language arts programs um I also read today at a at a few schools and I just wanted to do a shout out to parents it's one thing you can do for your children that will absolutely Amaze them I mean just just the looks on the on the children's faces when you're reading um it's just a wonderful experience for them and for you and if you haven't done it in a while take a moment to take out a book and and tell them a story thank you commissioner Santiago thank you president Smith I want to kind of echo some of the sentiments congratulations to the cheer team for their state championship um I too was going to say go see Seussical JR the musical today and tomorrow I also visited School uh 2 5 16 and 17 for Dr Seuss read Across America today was awesome it was I was inspired it inspired me visiting the kids and being with the kids um and uh I was kind of surprised firstly I was a little a little nervous to going to read to first grade a classroom full of first graders a classroom full of third graders uh but but they were happy and excited that we were there to read to them to to visit them so um that that made me feel good um but yeah I told him keep reading you know be a lifelong learner I you never stop reading um so thank you to the principals and the staff that were all part of that um I've also wanted to say congratulations to the students of the month as well as the staff for their pbsis Awards that's really a great great program um I also wanted to say happy St Patrick's Day to everybody celebrating and happy uh Ramadan and I think that's it thank you guys good night you commissioner bassford thank you congratulations to the students of the month congratulations to the cheerleading team I hope we're going to honor them soon as an old ex-cheer leader myself to the hockey team I had the privilege of reading at school 17 yesterday School five School two and tomorrow I'll be at school eight uh very briefly I just want to tell tell the people out there my trip to school five of course it's my home school that's where my kids grew up I had a special guest and with the permission of Dr robotazi I had an armed guard with me my son accompanied me to read he didn't read but he came to his home school and looked around and said it's really small and he remembers the room the all-purpose room but the lunchroom he was really he just kept on popping in and out of it going it's so small ma this room was so big we went to his resource room to read to his teacher Mr Hunter I'm going to get very emotional I'm sorry I can't help this and it was amazing the questions they were asking him both him what first what do you do do you get paid for that you know what do you do so we explained that you know together with eight other people we make decisions that mold your future basically with the education that you receive from the district we try to make really good decisions how much money is that and they were asking a lot of questions the lesson in the book was the Cat in the Hat we talked about people not letting anybody in the home or the lesson about telling the truth and about you know being honest with people because moms and moms and dads and your Guardians and teachers and people in the district all have a wisdom of really knowing what what's going on so the kids were amazing with that the moment was really profound for me is when my son talked to them about the lessons they were going to learn that how hard his teacher was on him to push him to the level where he needed to be made him successful today and he stood up and he stood up in his uniform and he said I just want to tell you all something he said people told me I couldn't but I'm going to tell you yes you can and it just sunk in and I lost it in front of you and they they were so happy to see him they were asking him tons of questions about his uniform and everything but he kept on telling them to read and he said how hard it was for him to read he said I do so much reading in my daily job I have to write things and they were listening and they were sponging in it was just so such a nice feeling so I have to thank you Dr robitussi for making my son have a full circle in his life to a school that he had a hard time in and somebody sent me a text message and said wouldn't it have been nice for the people that really didn't see the value in the boy see the value in the man now so thank you I'm sorry I'm just it's it's home it's home to me so um I just want to tell you how beautiful the schools are they were perky they were vibrant just such a delight and he kept on saying what's the difference about this school and I'm saying look around Keith look at the decorations look at the colors in here he goes it wasn't like this when we grew up he said it was dismal so kudos to the district and to the staff that keep it that way so thank you to the staff that allowed us to do that I was just so impressed with everybody that greeted us they were like you said Mr Brunswick to the people that hired them Kudos right so I have um to say happy St Joseph's Day to my friend my Italian friends happy Ramadan but this is my Heritage so this is comes from me may you all have the happiness and luck that life can hold and at the end of your Rainbow may you find your pot of gold that is an old Irish blessing that my father always used to say so God bless you and have a good good good rest of the month and we'll see you on the 23rd thank you uh vice president Danny okay um so first of all I want to say thank you to all the people who did speak um thank you um you know your thoughts are always heard um even if we don't agree or we do agree uh it's your right to be able to say what you wish um congratulations to the cheerleading team congratulations to all the student of the month and um to the pbsis presenters thank you for a great comprehensive presentation it's always nice to see what the students are doing and I know that it's just only a little part but it it still really showcases the great things that we do here with the program um happy birthday to Dr Seuss unfortunately um I was not able to read because I have to work um and um but you know hearing about the things that you say about you know reading to the students and you know I'm in the classroom with the children and that's the best part of the job it really is the paperwork the administrative things that go along not so much sorry but um really the kids are are the greatest part of the job they really are um anybody that's in the classroom with them knows and if you had that little bit of time like joy that it brings you to see their faces Light Up The Joy when you see that they actually get something the joy and the stories that they tell you even like home stories it's sort of fun you know to listen um especially because I teach high school so I want to say thank you for being asked but um unfortunately it's it's always a conflict with with work um and I'd like to say uh Happy St Patrick's Day and uh happy Saint Joseph's Day until celebrating in happy Ramadan to those celebrating and I just because it is women's History Month so by Dr Maya Angelou you may encounter many defeats but you must not be defeated thank you unfortunately going last uh you become repetitive so I I don't want to prolong anything however today is one of the great days of being a board member because you get to go into a school to see the staff to see the students to see what hard work that we put in and the hours that we put in and it's all worth it because you see education happening you see the the smiles on these kids faces today and how happy they were for little old me nobody there to read to them and they were just thrilled actually I have to confess I did bring Triscuit with me and they were they were more happy to see Triscuit than they were me so I I have to be honest um she was a big hit but um truthfully it truly makes the work that we do so beneficial um and I have to comment something on what Miss Alama said before um you know you want to kind of believe that the district that you're working for that you have the best staff and you have the best people in your district and you want to profess that but I profess it because I believe it and I know it we see it we have some of the best administrators teachers aides custodians supervisors administrators uh secretaries I don't want to leave anyone Perez of course the powers I can I consider the report of staff nurses counselors sodiums I said drivers aides Associates um our BAS our assistant ba our superintendent assistant superintendents um I said secretaries but I'll say them again um that's right that's right um you know people everyone included the the the technology staff and Mr mccunney in the back there that is that handles our meetings here and he handles the cast program and the kids in the cast program and and all of our technology team that make everything happen day to day and our maintenance crew that work very hard to make sure that our buildings are kept up and and are at the best quality that they can be and gosh if I didn't believe it I couldn't profess it and I'm so thankful to be part of a district where we truly have great people in our district and I can honestly say that to you and if you don't believe it take a look around take a look at the shape our buildings are in take a look at the advances that we've made in so many areas look at the major renovation project that's taking place in Clifton right now I think only one other Town beat us out um to spend more money to renovate and wherever heck they got 300 some odd thousand dollars I have no idea but anyhow that's all another story but take a look around go to your schools see the conditions of the schools I was so impressed today and Ms Miss bassford said School five was so bright and colorful and streamers and and school too and school 16 and it's just the enjoyment of being there and seeing the staff so happy to be teaching and educating kids you know it's not just a job they enjoy what they're doing and you could see it's benefiting our kids look at our graduation rate what was it last year anyone put anyone on the spot but it was 89 percent and going up that's tremendous that doesn't happen because you have bad people working in your District that happens because you have dedicated people devoted to making sure that we give the best possible education to Clifton kids and all of Staff if you're not listening to me today I say it all the time but thank you to all of you for caring about our kids they mean a lot to us that's why we do this the kids all think we get this big paycheck okay we're not here for the paycheck and I know many of you are not here just for a paycheck you put in a lot more time a lot more dedication and a lot more energy but you know what it shows it really shows because we can stand up and be so proud to say that we are part of the Clifton School District We Are One Clifton all of us working together and Mr Rose I would be so negligent not to thank you for the time that you put in here and are here each and every meeting and she doesn't have to be here to do this she does it because she's dedicated to to the community so on Dr Seuss's birthday it's a pow-wow day for me because I just love being in the schools I love to see things in action and if anyone has any doubt on what happens in Clifton and how the money is spent and how kids are educated and the devotion of our staff everybody this day as a board member shows me that clean well-kept schools staff that is upbeat secretarial staff that met me at the door with this big welcome and smile and not just because I'm a board member they do it to everybody not every District can say to this people not every District can stand up and say hey we have a great District No many districts are all talking about the problems they have this District tries to come together and solve the problems and do it together not to be against each other but to work together and three some odd years ago this District took a major step in being bringing one of the best superintendents to our district that has led the fight has led the charge has led the changes that have happened in our district has brought the staff together to work together instead of being at odds I have to tell you years ago staff was at odds with superintendents it was always a conflict it was always a fight but those days have changed in Clifton yes we're not perfect we hope to get there we know there's avenues that we have to improve on and there's staff members that we hope to improve on and give them more resources this board knows that and we're willing to work to do that because the ultimate goal people is to make sure that Clifton gives the best possible education to our kids our kids deserve it they should have the best and on this day of Dr Seuss's birthday I just wish to thank everyone involved in in this District I am so proud so proud to be a board member in the Clifton School District and I hope I get the opportunity to thank each and every staff member for the great job that they can do and continue to do so thank you all I'm sorry I went off on this but it just is very important to me and and Miss Alama for that for honoring women and today and receiving that wonderful Accolade and award you know that's not an award to put on a back shelf that's a ward to be hung up be proud be proud we're so proud of women men everyone in our district that work together we're so proud of all of you so please continue to do the good work for our kids and I know you will and you'll have our support and I know you'll have Administration support so again I tried to mention everybody and I hope I didn't forget anybody but trust me you're not forgotten um I have to thank all those that invited me to to to speak um I'm sorry to read to the kids today um I wasn't able to get to every school um School 16 kept me there quite long um but I was so glad to be there um then I went over to school five and then I ended up my day um at school too and I was so thrilled and honored to meet um Mr paris's wonderful daughter uh Alana um everything that Mr Paris has spoken to me about his daughter uh truly was the truth she's a remarkable and wonderful young lady and I was very happy and privileged to uh to meet her and to thank her for inviting me and wanting me to be there um schools that I didn't get to I I will at some point I promise you to get there or at least Triscuit will get there um and I hope tomorrow I'll be at Sila B uh school 11 and school eight uh to continue the end of uh read Across America week but thank you to all the schools for the uh for the invites um as we mentioned there's so many great things happening in our in our schools Clifton High School um are um I believe our debate team is uh is going into a um a session uh we have our robotics team going into a a competition um as we mentioned our cheerleaders doing a phenomenal job our basketball program had one of his most successful years this year our wrestling program we're gonna make uh history by having some state champions down in Atlantic City uh our indoor track and field um there are just so many great aspects of of uh Clifton that are taking place we just got our invitation to the um the string is it the strings in the band uh All City I'm sorry All City coming up in uh in March um if you haven't attended one of those it's a tremendous tremendous and wonderful uh experience so um please look into it I can't remember the dates off the top of my head um but it's on our website um it really uh uh Jason does a tremendous job of putting it all together um so there are so many aspects of our schools that are doing such great things and if you go around town you see all the construction that's happening okay that doesn't happen in a district or a town that doesn't care about its people and its kids okay Clifton does and we thank you and there's going to be a lot of good things happening we're hoping our Woodrow Wilson baseball field and soccer field and the new Clubhouse is going to be ready for the start of the baseball season uh that little bit of snow hopefully didn't put us behind we're ahead of schedule it's going to be a state-of-the-art facility that Clifton has deserved for so many years and didn't have and now we're going to have that uh Woodrow Wilson students will be using it for their gym classes and the community will also be benefiting and using it as well so you'll see construction happening all around the schools I know the trailers have gone up at Columbus I know that elevator is coming very soon but all of the schools will see construction bathrooms at the high school some of the bathrooms have been completed already and they have come out amazing just absolutely amazing so thank you Clifton for supporting our schools for supporting kids continue to do it continue to see the great things that are happening in Clifton um and uh next meeting on the 23rd it'll be our preliminary budget uh presentation correct and uh hopefully at that point we'll be able to give a um a little construction update on just a synopsis of what's happening in our construction projects okay um thank you all again for attending tonight our next board meeting will be on the 23rd um at 7 pm if there's no other business before the board a motion to adjourn motion by commissioner basford second by vice president Danny no objection meeting adjourned thank you good job team
revenue of 29 million the major difference is the increase use of the general funds year-to-date we have already spent 900 000 of the 1.1 million appropriated for transportation the budget fiscal year 23 obligated expenditures of 37.3 million were 3.5 million higher than budget fiscal year 2022. of 33 8.
I make a motion that we um change the time to 4 30. do we have a second all right all in favor aye okay thank you turn on the books all right [Music] this is recommended the Board of Trustees discuss and take action on the following item mutually agreed on no more than six candidates for the 2023 California School Board Association delegate assembly I need a motion Sumo check it second all right here are the candidates six of them no kidding I know two of them I'm excited to see Dr uh Johnny Rogers on there all right do I have a boat I move that we have approved the six that they gave us okay second oh go ahead awesome all right this is just like Moscow all right any discussion all right all in favor aye aye right on all right we're dropping this next topic if we have some other discussion approve the certificating classified Personnel actions as listed I move that we approve the certificated and classified personality all right all in favor aye approve the recommendations for requested leave as noted I move second I'll second all right all in favor aye IO approve the recommendation of the administrative hearing chairperson affected immediately on expulsion case number 12 2022-23 um I'll second that all in favor aye expulsion case number four 2022-23 so Ruth all in favor aye expulsion case stipulated number five 2022-23 I moved all in favor aye annual review AR number 11 2022-23 I need a motion I move second annual review AR number 12 2022-23 I need a motion move it second I'll second all in favor all right sign the letter of support for the abusd family centers and food pantry move the item Mariana Torres director of equity and access will provide a presentation prior to the voting sorry about that we'll put all the motion till we have the presentation don't move yet did you bring food too I saw you in the back I don't know what you were doing here I'm still gonna make this lady's one of the hardest workers in the district hello everybody um thank you for listening for a few minutes in regards to all of the work that we're doing and one of the things that we really wanted to highlight today is some of the pieces that we don't always hear about how something happens you hear that there is a food distribution in which families are receiving assistance but we don't realize all the time the the effort and how much of the community is actually participating so I I apologize I should know this I'm not used to standing next to yeah thank you all right so um we wanted to to put a few slides together we wanted you guys to see some pictures because really this is a community effort the amount of different Partnerships that have formed through this um through this program is is it's just one of those things that you have to come and see and if you come and see we will put you to work so we want to make sure that that you have a little bit of background in regards to to why it's so important that that we have an opportunity to to support the food pantry in our district we actually started during the pandemic out of the need in our family centers to make sure that we had some food security for our families we were doing all kinds of things already with our nutrition services and providing breakfast and lunches and driving places and taking things and we needed to make sure that we did more so Pat Shelby who was our director of child welfare and attendance at that point worked with our family centers and I actually applied for a Nokia kid hungry Grant which at that point they reimagine this district office to to include our old cafeteria here at Apple Valley Middle School to be the one that actually served our families and we started really small we started actually with about 20 to sometimes 40 families serving every week Fridays from one to three and and we started with purchasing food and things like that that we were actually just trying to get from the community but once we started that and the word got out and it got bigger and um Second Chance Harvest actually came on board and partnered with us now they are actually located in Hesperia and they give us the opportunity to pick up food and fresh produce from them every single week in turn um we we have established a system in which every single thing that comes to us we're able to give out that same day but that takes a lot of work we have students from High Desert Premier Academy we have students from Apple Valley High School we have students from Granite Hills that come and support us we have volunteers from our community that come and work we have college Corp fellows that actually are here every single week we have our family center coordinators we have community members we have an array of of people who support our efforts as a matter of fact our superintendent our assistant super many of you have stopped by and and have done some things as well to just make sure that everything keeps going smoothly and it's just one of the most wonderful things to see in the world um one of the parents actually made that comment that's why I put it in the beginning of this presentation because we said hey have a great weekend you know hope to see you again if you need anything let us know and and they turned around and said you know you help one box at a time so that kind of stuck with us in regards to to why we do this one box at a time one family at a time and as we started to grow feeding America actually reached out to us and said we have a process in place in which you don't have to pay full retail price whatever we have in our inventory will be 19 cents a pound so we were able to actually provide some stable uh items that that that really kind of bring in and help out just make sure that we can make ends meet so that that money can go to something else so our families um really benefit from being able to do that and just because numbers are important and I know that you guys get our numbers from the family centers and the food pantry on them monthly basis in your report but I did want to point out that as of today 160 to 180 families walk through here right outside of the other side of that NPR from 1 to 3 P.M and and and have the ability to to have that help that they need and and so we have served last year we did 14 676 households and this year alone we're already at 16 000 458.
the increases are in salaries contracted services including Transportation FBC one-to-one nurses and repair and maintenance for the fleet the 350 000 transfer is to adoa for Budget physical year 23 for food service equipment improvements at both Tucson and Phoenix campuses the program increases our 800 000 at pdsd 500 000 at Tucson and 1.1 million in the administration and Statewide services in addition to the expenses mentioned earlier the blind programs were moved from the Tucson campus to the administration and Statewide services the second quarter Financial reports reflect an increase in cash on the deposit with the state treasurer of 4.9 million the major difference is an increase of the prop 301 funds of 2.3 million and the Cooperative service funds of 2.4 million this concludes my report of the financial status and I'm available for any questions thank you any questions thank you thank you moving on to item 6.16 intent not to offer fiscal year 2024 employment contract to George Martin uh this is Lynn um I would like to have a little discussion I believe I've talked to a number of Staff members who have been very positive about George's performance and these are some of the upper level staff members um I also feel that this is a big agency he had a lot to learn and was told in December that that he would no longer he would not be offered a contract um I think there's a lot a lot to learn about we we gave a net time to learn uh the agency and I think you know given the parameters what the goals are what the expectations are I'd like to see how he can grow and how he can pull the agency forward especially with the background he has thank you Lynn um does anybody have any additional comments go ahead yes I would like to ask superintendent reichmann her perspective of George Martin's performance as superintendent as assistant superintendent I'd like to understand her perspective and why you're not recommending the renewal of his contract assistant superintendent George Martin started at the end of June I had High Hope high hopes I thought he was a good choice I recognize that it would take time for him to learn about the agency and about our system and about deaf and blind education also knew that he had a lot of experience in general education that he would be bringing to us but then in mid-semester in the fall we had a series of crises starting with the principle of PTSD resigning essentially quitting and not able to continue her work so immediately we had to find a replacement principal to principal we then have a November 4th situation which just blew up and we were heading and needing to address that it took me about six weeks and that's all I did in those six weeks was a dress that blow up related to the student and the teacher so it wasn't until December where I began to think the the rest of the year through so mid-year review at that time was held in December it was a time for me to look at our leadership team and to see their work and to review their smart goals and what they have done so far and that is when I finally began to realize yes George is new is new he does have a lot to learn there were many different little things that have occurred so if you add them all up and you actually see a pattern there are different kinds of issues but they all are tied together and I have the sense that he does not have a sense of urgency so that is what I had communicated with him in December after that again after full consideration in going back to all of the meetings that we held that we had on a weekly basis I had agendas I had items to review I pulled them all I put them all together and I reviewed all of the documents that I had from these meetings and I pulled out major themes there were four outlying themes first is failure to lead second failure to identify risks to the agency third failure to properly communicate and fourth failure to give support to his leadership team those were the four themes I can give you specific examples I have an eight page synopsis of the work that we did and the time and the consideration in reviewing all the documents that I have compiled together I've actually never done this before to be honest I've never had to in my years I want to say since 1985 in the years that I have been a supervisor of so many individuals over the years I have never done a deep review before because this is such an important decision for the agency this is board member above thank you so much for that information Annette I do have full confidence in your judgment and your assessment your ability to fairly evaluate an individual and see that full picture um I'm not there on a daily basis to see what's going on but I do have confidence in your decision making and your recommendation not to renew so I will give my support to your decision to not renew his contract so that we can move forward move onward to uplift and continue to improve our agency at the leadership level and U.S superintendent need to be able to do that rather than be distracted by those incidents that come up on a daily basis your intention your attention should not be diverted to things like that we need to leave you free to run the agency so can I make a motion okay this is board member Rove I move that we do not renew assistant superintendent Martin's contract for the next school year foreign I will second all those in favor say aye aye opposed nay Mike motion carries uh we moved down to agenda item 7.01 the Ombudsman report good evening board president nifel board members superintendent reichmann and assistant superintendents Cooper and Martin asdb family and Community I am honored to be here presenting the very first Ombudsman report it's it's hard to believe I've been here since July that is the truth I have been here since July um and so I just wanted to call your attention to some of the activities that the ombuds person has been engaged in since that time I mean obviously the first several weeks of my time here I really spent time getting to know the agency in its leadership team and really getting a sense of of where I would fit in in terms of my role and what some of the needs were I also had to kind of fill in the structure of the office complete with our mission and all the documents and things that we would need for people to use to access the service and so there was a lot of kind of researching that was happening and a lot of creating of of things that I would use in this role in that time period but once I kind of got up and running and started actually engaging members of the asdb community I'm going to share with you just kind of in the aggregate what I've been seeing and the work that I've been doing so to access the services well first of all we created a website page I know the community is not aware I heard comments about that there is actually a full page on the asdb website about the ombuds person and also the form that you can fill out to access the services so we wanted to be able to have a way of capturing kind of usage and so that's one of the ways that we're able to do that so users are directed to fill out the form when seeking Ombudsman services and that form really captures information for me not only to give me a sense of kind of what the needs are but also so that I can report back to the superintendent and the board as to what the usage is so we capture name title we talk we capture just Minor Details about the concern and then I'm able to reach back out to those individuals and then set up a time for us to take a deeper dive into what those needs are and so from the time period of July of last year to December of last year that six-month period I'd probably um had and there's probably a time where there were people who reached out to me who didn't fill out the form probably because it wasn't fully operational at that time so I wasn't able to capture everything but for the most part the 20 users during that time period I'll just give you a breakdown of kind of who they were so of those 20 requests that I recorded through that process 18 or 90 percent were staff asdb staff five percent or one was from admin and then I also had a parent contact me during that time so of those individuals most people were reaching out to me about interpersonal conflict that's not terribly surprising um I've been a mediator for 20 years and generally when people come to see me it's some interpersonal issue that they're having with another individual so that wasn't terribly surprising at all three of those individuals wanted to hear more about the formal complaint process or were either in the formal complaint process pursuant to asdb policy a couple of those individuals had procedural concerns and actually there's been more individuals that had questions about process and procedure and I'll talk about that a little bit later informal complaints as well hey I'm having a problem with my supervisor you know dynamic issues like that and then policy concerns and then the seven other requests I'll talk about in a minute so the the seven other issues are really about I would say it covered the gamut really but if I could summarize it it was scheduling issues so it was kind of like how work is distributed how much work is distributed those kinds of questions personal safety issues unfair treatment issues and things of that nature a small number of those requests were people who were like recurring users who had a preliminary conversation with me we developed some strategies and some next steps and then they engaged in those next steps and they came back and said you know reporting on how that went it went well or if it didn't go well and then we talked again about what they could do next and so my Approach has always been not necessarily resolution because my role here is much greater than that but really being helpful number one being an ear for people which I think is helpful and also getting people um to the next step of where they're trying to go so they're here and they're trying to get here how do I get them there and I do that by listening to them and then by letting them know what asdb policy has to say about that and if they're not familiar with it I will share that with them and then I'll send them a copy of it so that they're aware as well and so my goal is always to that people leave the ombuds person's office better than when they arrived that's always been my overarching goal um so regarding the people that didn't fill out a form there's also an ombuds person email address and people do use that as well and sometimes they're able to just ask that question and I can answer the question so it's it's fairly routine to do that and that happens you know several times in the week and so I was able to capture some of that information as well but it didn't really result in a consultation or an appointment outside of that email exchange and so I just wanted you to be aware that that is happening those kinds of interactions are happening as well um in terms of current projects it's already been alluded to about the focus groups you know just based on what I've been hearing and some of the subject matters I wanted to have a greater understanding because I have a small subset obviously of asdb people so I want to have a greater understanding of kind of the climate and so I took a look at the employee satisfaction survey which was administered before I was an employee here at asdb but you know it was very insightful right and there were several buckets that I thought that the comments fell into and certainly one of those overarching buckets was communication we've heard that a lot this evening and so I recognize that as well even in the small subset of folks that have used the ombuds person services so what I thought was focus groups would be a great idea to kind of take a deeper dive into what that really means I don't know that employee satisfaction surveys really get at what people are really talking about when they say they're not being communicated to or communication is not effective I mean that's such a huge topic that there's always a need to drill down deeper and focus groups allow us to do that so I made that proposal to the superintendent and she agreed that that would be a great idea to really get some actionable things that we can do in communication something that an employee satisfaction survey doesn't necessarily reveal so in the coming weeks um we're going to put out information about how to be a part of the focus groups we've got our questions already set out and we've got our groups I got some more suggestions to add to those groups and I will discuss that with the superintendent but we're going to move forward and I hope that there is some interest in participating because I think that there's a need for people to have a different environment other than a survey to express their concerns so I look forward to engaging the community around creating a more effective Communications at the agency so overall in that period of time I logged in over 200 hours establishing the office and protocols as well as addressing the needs that came my way I think the volume and tenor of work was what I expected but I all also think that it will increase over time obviously this is a very public explanation of what I do and so as people become more aware I think that the usage will also increase as well um so for now I'm collecting data to report out every six months but if the usage increases maybe that becomes quarterly maybe it becomes monthly but I think right now twice a year will probably be sufficient for the work that I've done thus far so that concludes my reports I'm happy to answer any questions are there any questions yes hi this is Linda Bove hello Miss Williams hello I am thrilled to know that you have this plan in place to implement these focus groups I am often approached by various members of the community because as a board member I am a representative of the community and there are a lot of things that I am being asked to address lots of different directions that I'm being pulled in so I'm very happy to see that you're establishing these focus groups and I do want to see the the community involved in that I'm looking at the pillars of our strategic plan and it says excellence in communication and relationships in my life growing up as a deaf person communication has always been an issue unfortunately um communication between the deaf and hearing communities has been challenging and I suppose that's life but I would love to see asdb make the best of that situation by bringing those groups together helping us to avoid misunderstandings that um often occur in miscommunication we really need to drill down into like you said what communication means let's get to the heart of where those problems are and I think that those focus groups will really help you and the agency to see where those issues are much more clearly so I'm very uh very much looking forward to seeing the participation um also under priority three it says engage the community under excellence and communication so I would love to see improved Community engagement and I look forward to seeing you over the next few months and see what you're able to bring to the board thank you looking forward to learning more thank you yes thank you thank you so much and noticing the time we're going to take a 10-minute break to allow the interpreters and our cart reporter some down time we will resume at 5 45. foreign where's it at foreign it's 5 46 now do we want to get started pretty soon can I please get someone to interpret to the audience I'm needing microphones now okay we are back in session and we are moving on to 7.02 an information item the legislative update Maria Murphy director of policy and government relations good afternoon acting President Kennedy full members of the board superintendent reichmann and assistant superintendents and members of the audience so uh members of the board you have before you my abstract on the legislative update the first bill that I would like to discuss is House Bill 2642 as you are are all aware um this bill was introduced to as part of our request to update the transportation and capital outlay amounts that are within the institutional voucher on Arizona revised statutes title 15.
so thank you I appreciate it we have um also become uh we're learning a lot like this process every single day I learn something new we have become a retail rescue program partner which also means that we are able to to to have places like Walmart who actually has partnered with us and every other week lets us pick up their Surplus from their distribution center that is food so that we can actually give that back out to the community so it's just it you know it's it's just one of the most uh rewarding things that you can put together because at the end of the day it's every single individual in this system who's making this happen um we for this presentation we actually thought about the fact that okay let's let's put it down in numbers let's really think about what it takes for those two hours to happen and when we crunched all the sign-in sheets and all the numbers and all the volunteer hours and all of the work hours with all the people that are involved over 200 hours of combined Community effort go into those two hours every week because we create meal plans and we create recipes to make sure that they know how to use it we put meals that are bagged by volunteers then we create the boxes with whatever we receive on Friday which we never know what it is so it's it's always a surprise it's it's one of the most interesting um things to do and then the meals are finally distributed by Friday and every single meal will go out to the community so um I only put that together because we do follow our guidelines we want to make sure that we serve as many members of the community as possible so so that we can spread the wealth and we can make sure that we're taking care of them but but really this is the community in action these are all of the individuals that come together and and just you know work from their heart and and make sure that they stop what they're doing and they come and they organize and they make sure that they give that time back and I have to tell you the you have heard here before the the students the way that they keep coming back we can't keep them away they're like are you sure you don't want us to be here on Monday and Tuesday too so we're like no no no it's okay like we do that on Wednesday [Laughter] so um there's just it's very rewarding and I just want to tell you guys we could not do this if it wasn't because you guys supported us you saw outside of the box on what was needed and you said this is what we're gonna do because we can I don't know if you guys know this or not but we are the only District School District Food Pantry that's ran the way that in the high desert so it's it's very exciting we we want to make sure that that that we're doing what we need to do and and that we get to teach our kids how this service really benefits all of us and takes care of all of us so thank you I am sorry that I took so much time but I do want to highlight some of our Partnerships because it started with one and the neighbor value started with you know crazy idea and and and you guys made sure that that we were given the space and we were given the opportunity to to to see it grow so that we can take care of our families so um what's next I know you know you guys know me there's always the next um there's always a next uh we are actually looking and starting the process with the county to become a certified food pantry that's recognized Across the Nation and uh this will facilitate uh webinars this will facilitate trainings this will make sure that we are not only at the top of our game but that we provide all of the things that that we need to to make sure that we're doing right for our families so um the the the county has already been here they're already submitting our application uh we're going to have an opportunity to to bring um some diversity recipes make sure that we are doing all the things that we need to do to take care of our environment and and hopefully grab some funding because all of this is done through donations so we want to make sure that we do what we need to do so no more of your time thank you for being patient and sticking with me and thank you very much all right thank you Marina I'm going to make the motion again to support the letter of support all in favor aye hey now we're on this number five right we need to discuss and adopt the Apple Valley USD Transportation plan do you have a motion all in favor aye consent agenda this can be a expedite everything number one through 36.