001Call the meeting order. Can all rise for pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'll do a roll call. Wonder Jim here. Venk here. Stefis here. Gardine here. Campbell here. Dhan here. Hibboard here. All present. Thank you. Um please note as a courtesy to the members of the audience, the board of education, please silence your cell phone. Uh public will only be able to speak during public comment if signed up. Do we have anything, Mr.? Thank you very much. All right. Uh first item, the approval agenda. Can I get a motion? Support. All those in favor? Yes. Opposed? Motion passes. Uh, second item on the agenda is honoring
002a Barb Palmer. Yes. So, hi Barb. Come on. So, yes, I think I'll start off. I have a lot I have a lot of stuff a lot of stuff to give you. We'll start with this. Congratulations. There you go. Well, we just wanted to take time. We didn't get a chance before. We wanted to honor Barb. Uh gosh, about 20 years. Yeah, I'm saying 20. Yeah. Almost 20 years on this board of education. A lot has happened during that time and uh she can be proud of the legacy that you've left uh here in Granville because you played a huge role in that. I I'll always remember you were the first voice They called me and told me that I had the honor of being the superintendent here. And I remember you said, "What do
003you think about that?" And they said, "Well, I do a cartwheel right now, but I don't think I could cuz my my wife was in front of me and my son was to the right of me just waiting to hear what was going on." But but Barb, you have been such an instrumental part of this district u in so many ways. And I hope you know how much you've you've just touched everything. And I consider you uh you were a great leader, a great board president, a great board member, and I think above all a great friend. And please keep in touch. Um we, you know, we we're going to miss you, but but you have left a great legacy here. So we have the flowers. I know those aren't for Ray. Don't forget that.
004All right. A few other things for you. Uh you got Oh my gosh. Certificate. My card with some nice things. Quite resembling my eyelashes. And then this one's from uh board appreciation. Somebody left it out for you too. So just we'll give this to somebody I don't know way so much. Um but I'm glad to be able to come back and say thank you cuz I kind of left in a in a quick way like I was here one day now on the next. So um I did have a few words I'd like to say. First I need a hug. Thank you. I say this is really a different perspective and I give a lot of credit for people come up here and and give us public comment. So for those who do it, I
005I really it's a it's kind of intimidating. Um so it is really glad great to be in front of you again. And um it was just a very heartfelt time for me to say goodbye. And I wanted to do more at the time, but I just couldn't do it without breaking down. So I thank Roger and Jason for your support and understanding of kind of what was going on for me and that um that you have me back tonight. So um I'll try to stay within my five minutes. Um, but first of all, I'm just really proud of being able to serve the Granville Public Schools family and representing the Granville community at large. I um being a part of such an involved and supportive community like Granville, I couldn't have dreamed of anything happening
006to me like that. I um came from Mount Pleasant and um married someone in Granville and here I was so lucky to to get connected to the schools and I have to thank so many people for putting their vote of confidence in me to represent the schools and um I hope I've done the job that you wanted me to do. Uh from the get-go, uh my mind was set first on what's good for the kids and all of our students. Uh what do they need to be successful? And that's why I love MTSS, by the way. If you learn about it, it just it looks at every kid and what we can do to help them be successful in school because I've known kids who haven't been and this is something that I think we've
007really made real great progress on. So, I thank you for keeping that going. Um, I do have a few highlights um from my 20 years. Uh, the first was just being asked to run for school board. I wasn't thinking about it. I was involved in the teacher and parent group at Centry Park and it was Steve Zinger. I don't know if any well of course you remember Steve Zinger. He approached me and thought I would be a good person for the school board um and an asset to what we were trying to do in Granville. Um, I ran three successful campaigns and um, I have to thank my brother-in-law, the late Ron Palmer, and um, my campaign manager, Rey. He um, and Ron put out the signs across the district. And they told me it
008was because I had the Palmer name that I was going to win. And I think that's true because he comes from a family of educators. his grandfather, his grandmother. We're both educators here in Granville. So, I just felt very honored to be able to continue that Palmer tradition and um the love for Granville. Um I also like to thank the previous board members uh and Bob too because many of you helped me get reelected. Bob, you gave me a lot of advice at the time and it helped and I, you know, was able to pull it off. And I like to thank the teachers union who supported me in all three of my elections. Um that's intimidating too. Um but they were very um smart and decided to support me. Um another highlight is passing
009of the three bonds that we have since I've been on the board and we have enhanced the school environment in tremendously in the learning. how proud I am that well I don't know if you remember but the one to one you know getting those computers that was like huge big time and Granville was doing it I was so proud like we are helping our kids to be great learners in this new world of the internet um and the new middle school you know innovations to the high school in Oakstown athletic fields musical instruments robo dogs I mean it's just amazing um what the community has done to support our schools. It definitely is a community effort way beyond our ef, you know, the school board. We can do only so much, but it's really our
010parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends and neighbors who supported the schools, and I can't thank them enough. It's it's why we are so great here in Granville. Blue Ribbon Schools, um top 15% of the high schools in the nation, principal of the year. I mean, it's just so exciting to me. and I tried to get Roger superintendent of the year and I hope someone else will take over because he deserves it and I can help write that if you want. So, I'm really really proud of our students and their teachers for these accomplishments. Uh, another uh highlight was serving as president for three years. Thank you for mentioning that. I I got to work with two amazing superintendent, Ron Keniff and of course Roger Barup. I've um learned so much from them and
011if it weren't for you two, I probably wouldn't have made it 20 years because you and Ron both kind of protected us board members from any disadvantages that may come forward. We were ahead of it. We were notified of what to say, you know, and really just made it a lot easier being on the board. Um, another thing that I think is um, really important to mention is that behind these two great leaders are other great leaders and we have some spectacular leaders here with John Pho, Heather Roscowski, Dr. Scott Scott Merkel. Um, thank you for making my job easy. I would come here and have everything in front of me that I needed. I would have all the information I needed. they would done all their due diligence for us so that Bob could
012ask questions and we would, you know, feel really good about all that they were doing, you know, and behind those great leaders are our principles and um those who bring innovation to our students that bring best practices and a wealth of opportunities for learning. And I'm just going to mention a few that stuck up to me, but the aeronautics program at the high school. I mean, we're working on planes and things that who would have thought could do that. Maybe, you know, astronauts at some point. Uh the computer gaming club, another great idea for kids to like the game. Um the be nice programming. I think that's just been a really great cultural environment that we've been building that we love one another and we're going to take one care of one another here in
013Granville. of course, our athletics and our band and orchestra and our arts and all of our award winners. It's it's just amazing when I think of all the kids that have received these kudos all the way up to the national level. And it's because of the community we've built here, I believe in Granville. The amazing shape, got to mention that one, too. It's awesome. Another highlight, uh, bear with me, is um completing the educational certification for school board members through the Michigan Association of School Boards. I did it. Um, it was at the time really needed because I didn't know what the heck I was doing. So, uh, you know, this the association really helped me a lot and I encourage you to also take those classes, take a couple conferences or something to check
014it out because you'll find out that Granville has got it going on. You know, some of the places that we spoke with the boards were against each other and worse than we have been. So I really I really think that we have a great culture here that continues to work all the way from the top of our organization all the way to our children. Um I also think we survived CO 19 and I'm very very proud of how our district handled that. Um we kept our kids in school and we led other districts to help them keep their kids in school. That's leadership and that's what really I believe even though we had masks I really believe our kids did much better than some of the other kids that didn't have that opportunity to be
015in per you know in person in place. So I thank all of you for that. And probably by far the greatest highlight I have and have had is with graduation that's coming up and um seeing our seniors take that walk across the stage. I didn't know these kids and I was just just full of excitement and you know my my um sprinkles in me. You know, it was just really great to see their smiling faces walk across for such a huge accomplishment. And of course, I got to give my two kids uh Renee and Corey here today uh their diplomas. And I can't tell you what a great feeling that is to give your child their diploma for all their hard work. And um I had a chance to hug them on stage and get
016in the way of their photos which I have a neighbor that they picked their photo from graduation and it's all of me their daughter completely and they thought it was so funny my neighbor. And I think that's the other piece too. I also got to give diplomas to neighbors, my niece and nephew and again friends from the neighborhood and all. So that was just probably the by far the greatest memory. So today I say farewell to you officially. Um we've sold our home of 30 years on Happy Hollow and has settled in Byron Center. I know my timing was a little off, you know, finishing my term and settling into a new home, but I I think you found an excellent replacement for me with Miss Amy Campwell, and I congratulate you on your appointment,
017and um enjoy every minute. Uh I also thank you for your continued service to this great district. You all make it work well. And as I found my experience working with you, one of seven, right? I value, you know, your input and all that you bring to the table. Now, I might not agree with everything that you've brought, but I think it's so important that we value what is brought and we work with it and we learn from it. And like I said, we might not like it, but I think it's better for us to have that than to always be, you know, rubber stamping, I suppose, is what they say. So, I do do appreciate even though it's tough um some of the public comment that we received is hard to hear and I
018would sometimes leave um this meeting a mess honestly but just ask my family but I always came back because it's it's what we do here that makes it so important to be come back to come back um and I hope that I can you know always see success that you all continue the success of Granville. So now, even though I live in Byron Center who are Bulldogs, I have told Roger that I'll always be a Granville Bulldog. And he tells all the seniors at graduation. I when Roger did this the first time, I I almost cried and I might now, but he says to all the seniors, Grand loves you and if you need anything ever, you got to come back and see me. And that's how I'd like to be sent today. Sent off
019that you love me that if I ever need anything or if you ever need anything from me that you'll you'll let me know. And so thank you to Granville who made this life experience for me all possible. It has been a true labor of love. So thank you and good night. [Applause] [Laughter] Thank you for your know letting me say a few words and we do love you and if you need anything you come back to us. Thank you Barb. Great job. 20 years. Yes. There's a lot of tenure that walked out that door. Yes. So thanks for your service. I appreciate Bob. I was going to give you a one minute warning, but I thought I better not cuz you were on a roll, but but thank you. Uh it was always exciting listening
020to you do the roll call votes. Thank you. You know, started chirping with the audience. You know, I have to apologize for some of my behavior. No, you're fine. But it was nice serving with you. Although out of passion and love for our school, it was a pleasure serving with you and thank you very much for your years of service. Not everyone has to say between words. I know it's hard to say. Yeah. So, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Barb. [Laughter] You're welcome. I should retire more often. All right. Uh moving on to consent action agenda. Uh can I get a motion there? So moved. Support. All those in favor? Yes. Yes. Opposed. Motion passes. On to regular action items. 4A. The Kent ISD 2025 20226 budget resolution is recommended. The board of I'm sorry
021is recommended. The board of education approve the attached resolution expressing support for the Kent Intermediate School District's 2025 20226 general fund budget. Can I get a motion? So moved. Support. All right. We have Kevin Phillips with us uh here tonight from the Kennd and he's going to go over their proposed budget. So, how do you follow that, right? Feel after uh after those remarks. Yeah. And on top of that, you know, there's gifts flying and all that. I feel like I should have showed up with flowers or gifts or whatever. How do you make numbers emotional? Come on. Let's All right. Come on. All right. I'm going to jump into it. Um Oops, that was the wrong side. There we go. Um, and I'm going to stay pretty high level here, but feel free to
022ask questions at any point that you want. Um, or when I get done, if you want to dive deeper into our finances, uh, do so. But I wanted to try and keep this relatively high level, uh, and not get too deep into the weeds and just kind of give you an overview of where we are. So, what I'm going to do tonight is I'm going to go through what our fund structure is at the ISD because that looks a little bit different than a local district, as well as our sources of revenue, which look a little bit different than a a local district. and then we'll jump into what our budget assumptions are in the proposed budget that we're presenting to you tonight along with some of the top issues that are going on with
023our finances at the Kennd. And then I'll show you each of our funds proposed budgets. I won't get into too much detail on those. I'll probably just talk about changes in fund balance, maybe one or two highlights and then turn it over for questions. So, keep in mind we start our budgeting process at the ISD around the beginning of the year. Uh we actually do some salary projections right after uh winter break. you know, we kind of have this April 30 deadline of getting the budget out to all the local districts so you can consider it in May. So, we really shoot for getting it done right around the time spring break starts and then once everybody's back from spring break, the pressure is kind of on Kevin to put all the reports together and
024the presentations and get it out and start communicating with everybody. So, from a fund structure perspective, as you know, most of your day-to-day operations roll through your general fund. We have three different funds uh at the ISD that are operational funds. We got our general fund which has our instructional services. It has early childhood. It has adult education and adult education is not only at the Ken ISD but all the money flows through us from Lington all the way down to Alligan and what they call prosperity region 4 and then a lot of our administrative expenses whether that's you know superintendent's office, the business office, HR, we we book those expenses in the general fund to start and when I get to the bottom of the slide I'll explain what we do at the end
025of the year. uh the special education fund that has the act 18 money that we pass through to the local districts and center programs. Uh the same for IDA funding as well as Medicaid funding. But then we also have special education services and coaching that comes out of that fund. uh kind of as an offshoot of the special education fund as you know the ISD starting back in 2019 uh started absorbing the special center-based special education programs started with Grand Rapids public in 2019 and then took on some other programs uh 18 to 26 year old transition programs and some other things uh Northw's uh hearing impaired program we took that on and operate that now so we pretty much have everything in the county housed out of the Ken ISD and then finally career
026tech educational fund. That would be the CTE programming. You probably heard some about career prep 2030 and some of the things we're trying to do there. Launch U flows through the career tech educational fund. And then our information technology expenses and our facilities expenses are uh expensed out of that fund. And like I said uh later in the slide when we talk about that data warehouse transfer, we do move the IT expenses around a little bit. Then on top of that, we have three different capital project funds. uh they're not quite as restrictive as you might have for bond funds when you have a bond issue or a construction program going here at a local district. But we have a a capital project fund set up for each of those three operational funds. Uh we
027use the general fund when it's a project not specific to center program facilities or our secondary programs. Obviously for special education, we're using that fund to take care of center program facilities. And then with our career tech, it's KCTC, you know, my school, launch you, and then whatever comes from career prep 2030 over the next few years, and we'll talk a little bit about that. We have a smaller fund called called the cooperative fund. Uh that's where the my school at Kent uh program uh operates out of and also the services we provide local districts. So whether that's within our business office, we do some pay uh payroll and accounts payable services, our IT department does some services for local districts that runs through that cooperative fund. And then finally, the community service fund, which
028is the enhancement millage, and you're all familiar with what's going on with that. And we're going to be going out for renewal in November. Uh that's just a pass through to all the local districts. So that's the fund structure. When I talked about some of these expenses that are originally booked to either the general fund or the career technical education fund, we do transfers at the end of the year. So we take those administrative costs and we divide those up amongst those three operating funds. it's roughly 15 to 20% uh ends up staying in the in the general fund. About 50% goes to the special ed fund and then the remainder goes to the CTE fund. And then on the flip side with the data warehouse transfer, we move some of the information technology cost
029to the other two funds being special ed and general fund based on the hours of service that we're providing for certain programs that relate to those funds. That'll probably be the longest slide of all of them. So, uh, our sources of revenue, as you know, we're more property taxdriven. We have four different millages that we levy. You can see the general, special ed, CTE, and enhancement. You can see what the millage rate is. Uh, that general fund millage rate is very small. So, one of our concerns at at the ISD with our finances with the general fund is our revenue growth is very limited within the general fund relative to special ed or CTE. When you see increases in taxable value, to give you an example, we're going to be talking here in a little
030bit. We're assuming a 5% increase in tax collection revenue for next year. That only brings in about $150,000 for the general fund, but it brings in several million for the special ed fund. So, it's a big difference from fund to fund there. And you can kind of see that in terms of the tax collection. So, you can see the amount of money that we're projecting to raise next year uh with those levies. And then you can see how state funding and federal funding corresponds uh to the tax collections in terms of how it drives our revenues uh within the ISD. Out of that special ed out of the 123 million, we're passing along about 95% of that to the local districts through the act 18 distribution. Then finally, we take a tenth of a mill
031out of the special ed millage and the CTE millage and we set that aside and we transfer that money over to those respective capital project funds I talked about on the prior slide. So that provides about 3.6 million in today's dollars each year for those capital project funds. So as we look at the proposed 2526 budget, uh the preliminary taxable value increase I gotten from the county was 6.2%. Uh I've received the actual numbers. It came in at 6.3. So that was very very close. Uh we're budgeting for a revenue increase of 5% and that's because you're probably familiar with the Headley amendment. Uh the inflation rate for 2025 is 3.1%. So uh you're going to probably have a little bit of a reduction in our millages due to the Headley uh amendment as we
032we haven't gotten those numbers yet from the county, but when we do, I expect that we'll probably see our millages reduced a little bit and we'll end up with a net 5% increase. Uh we're using the governor's budget proposal for state funding. Keep in mind, we start making some decisions in February. Hers is the only budget that's usually out at that point. Uh this year it's awfully late. You know, Senate just came out last week with a budget. The House really hasn't put a legitimate budget out there yet and probably won't till the end of May. So, we're working off the governor's uh budget from a state funding perspective. Salaries, uh it's a 3% net scale increase for our employees plus a step increase. We're in the second year of three-year collective bargaining agreements. So,
033that's where we are for next year. uh healthcare. This might look different than maybe what some local districts decide to do with their budgeting, but considering we were making these decisions back in January. You're probably familiar with House Bill 6058, which passed both the House and the Senate, but never got passed along to the governor, that would include a 7% one-time increase to public act 152. We've incorporated that increase into our assumption for healthcare for 2026 and what that cap number might look like. So overall, uh, from 2025 to 2026, we budgeted for an 11.1% increase to that hard cap for the second half of the fiscal year. Uh, you're probably familiar a little bit with all the money moving back and forth between state funding for retirement offset funding as as uh to go
034along with the contribution rates as a district. Um, as we've been talking about at KSBO, even though the governor put out a $392 increase to the foundation allowance, the reality is the net change in retirement expenses along with some of that offset revenue is about a $200 $150 to $200 hit on a negative perspective. So, from an ISD, and I'll show you this by fund here in a little bit, it's a $3.8 million negative impact when we look at our numbers uh for this year. And then really the big thing that this year is a little bit different than maybe some past years is we're moving some money to our capital project funds. Uh 3 million over to our general ad cap project funds, a million and a half from our general fund and a
035million and a half from our special ed fund. That is to help fund the renovations we're doing at the ESC building where I'm located. And we have a lot of meetings. uh we quite frankly ran out of work space for people because we've been adding some positions and we're doing a restructuring on the interior of that building to provide more office space going forward. And then because our fund balances have grown so much the last few years due to the rapid increase in taxable values here in the county, uh we're going to make move uh we're going to shift $10 million out of our special ed fund into the special ed cap projects fund and 10 million out of the career tech fund into our CTE cap projects fund. The reason on the special ed
036side is uh empower you, our 18 to 26-y old transition program, is growing like crazy. Uh we're pretty much tapped out for space now and we're hearing that we could have as many as 75 additional students in that program for next year. So just moving some money over for whatever we might have to do there. And then the 10 million on the career tech side is to fund uh a potential satellite campus that we've been talking about as part of the career prep 2030 program. And then I talked about that empower you growth. Uh the budget's got 30 additional students in it, but the current estimates about 75 students. So what's it what is in red is really I feel is important. When I look at finances and when I try to explain school finance,
037I always talk about where are you from a structural perspective. Where is your ongoing revenues versus your ongoing expenses? It's just like your home budget, right? uh you might take some onetime money out of there to buy something nice, but if your expense structure is outr running what you bring in income every month, at some point you're going to run out of money and you can't do that. Uh the good news is our structural surpluses continue to be large. You can see the general funds about 1.8 million, special ed fund 8.4 and the career tech about 3 million. So just those are surpluses because it it confused me when I read it the first time because I'm like it's red and I'm back in my boat. Red's usually bad. I can say surplus and it's
038red. So, just wanted to make sure I understood. That's a good point. I I used red just to make sure it was important more so than the than negatives. I won't spend too much time on this slide because I kind of talked about everything that was important. You know, with the taxable values, we've seen a 51% increase over the last eight years here in the county. Uh this year 6.3%, but the three years before that were 7, 8.6, and 9.1. So, uh, they have data at the county level, it goes back to the beginning of proposal A and that's the best three years in that 25 year plus time frame. And, uh, as I've been trying to educate people at the ISD, the good times won't last forever as it relates to that, right? So,
039we'll have to be prepared for that. Uh, I mentioned the health insurance, that's a big part there. You can see the other things in there. Uh, from our perspective, because we're a big organization, what has really changed the last few years is investment income. If you went back to 20 uh right in COVID there when interest rates were virtually zero, we had $40,000 in investment income on our our money in the bank. Uh we made 5.5 million last year uh around 5.2 million for this year and then we expect some rate cuts and probably a drop in earning rates as we go through 2526. We're still at 4 and a.5 million. So that's that's a big change, right? To go from 40,000 to 5 million. It really helps us uh fund some things. I mentioned
040that impact of the net of retirement revenues and expenses and tried to lay it out here by fund. Uh you can see the impact's pretty small for the general fund. Uh 147 A4 was funding just for this year to give it an assumed 5.25% reduction to the retirement rate. This all gets into healthcare liabilities being fully funded. 147 A3 was a fun a batch of funding that ISDs got for the first time this year. uh that is the same uh kind of batch of funding that a local district's been getting for 10 or 12 years. It was the original 147A funding. And then 147G is that uh pass through for the 3% employee healthcare contributions that we've all enjoyed so much this year. Uh and then on the retirement expense side, you know, in here
041the the negative numbers are unfavorable. The positive numbers are favorable. Overall, the retirement expenses are going to be a little bit lower this year, but they're not lower to the extent that we're losing revenue year-over-year. So, that's how you get the 3.8 million hit. Uh the big one, the ones that are taking the big hit are center programs, and that's kind of instructive when we get to that slide, about 1.5 million, and then our special ed fund at about 1.6 million. So, getting into each of the funds, and like I said, I'm not going to spend a ton of time on these. uh the general fund, our proposed budget would have us using $172,000 of fund balance, but keep in mind we've got that $ 1.5 million transfer into the capital project funds. We also
042have $500,000 budgeted for the cost of uh promoting and renewing the enhancement millage. So, that's kind of a one-time cost as well. So, there's really $2 million in kind of onetime cost there. And that's how you get to the 1.8 million structural surplus. Uh you can see the fund balance history there. Even with using a small amount of fund balance, uh the fund balance is at a an all kind of an all-time high level within the general fund right now, which is is good news. Special education, uh the proposed budgets to use about 7 million of our fund balance, which would takes us from 21 million down to 14.4. That seems like a big hit, but keep in mind there's $15.5 million of one-time things in there. You've got the $10 million transfer to the
043capital projects fund. You got the one and a half million going to the gened cap projects and then we're doing $4 million in supplemental act 18 distributions for local districts. So, um if you took all that out, you've got that positive structural balance of about 8.4 million. And in reality, if you look at the top, even though this fund is about a $230 million fund, uh $145 million of that is pass through funding to local districts. And then you got some grant funding in there as well that gets passed through to local districts. the true actual services and supports kind of the personnel costs and all that of the special ed fund is only about 12.4 million. So to have a 14 million fund balance when you really have $12 million of services as an
044elevated number over the long haul. We really want to bring that down to about 5 million. We're just trying to do it wisely and do it slowly and not not spend that too quickly and then have yourself in a situation where you got to make some other changes. center programs that uh is a a program where the net uh expense usually gets build back to the local district. So, this is one that's always of interest uh to the KSBO group when we talk about it. Uh the good news is you can kind of see the history there for excess cost and tuition. What used to be kind of a 5 to10 million cost to the locals has really reduced and uh in 2223 we actually ended the year with a fund balance in that fund.
045So, the districts didn't have to pay anything. Last year it was less than 400,000 and right now we're budgeting to end with a fund balance again. Um, a lot of that's due to we've had a lot of vacancies. Uh, special ed and especially these center program positions are hard to fill. It's it's difficult work with some of these students. Um, similar to other districts that are really struggling with maybe some of their special ed staffing. Uh, we've made a lot of progress though this year. We're almost to a point we're almost fully staffed, but the last couple years have been pretty challenging. So, when you look at next year, the projected excess cost is about 3.5 million. And I kind of tried to break that into some categories. Up top, you have the 1.5 million
046hit we're seeing with the state retirement program. Uh it's about 500 a little less than 500,000 to put in that 7% onetime adjustment to PA152. And then giving that 3% raise to employees plus steps kind of compared with what we're going to bring in for act 18 revenue, state revenue. Uh there's a little loss of some specialized state funding 567. That's about a $1.8 million increase compared to where we were for this year. So the 3.5 million is the initial budget. We see that usually step down as the year goes on. I think it'll come in less than that 3.5 million. I think our steady state is really about 2 to 2.5 million if we're fully staffed and we see actual costs at the end of the year which is still good compared to where
047we were historically. The career tech fund uh using about $7.7 million of fund balance but as you can see that takes us from 24.5 million down to 16.8 and once again you got that $10 million transfer. So the structural surplus is really just under three million. Uh you can see what how the fund balance has grown since 1920. So even taking this hit to bring it down to 16.8 million. It's certainly elevated over where we were a few years ago. Co-op ed fund uh pretty much break even. It's a smaller fund about $5 million. Uh my school runs a little bit of a structural deficit uh which is fine. It's a valuable program. Uh we're happy with that. It's got a fund balance that we can we can use within that co co-op educational fund.
048And you can see the fund balance is very healthy. That's $3 million for roughly a5 to $6 million budget. The community service fund, that's just the enhancement millage. I think the great news is that we're projecting about $350 per student next year. For uh historical purposes, that started at $210 back in 2017. It has far exceeded what the projections were uh when we first got that millillage passed. I think the idea was maybe it would get to 280 or so before we had to renew it again, but because of what's going on in Kent County, we're at a point we're at $350 per student. And then finally, our capital projects funds. Uh the general ed one, uh pretty much everything we see for expenses relates to that renovation project in our educational services building. We
049are doing security camera and public address system upgrades throughout all of our facilities. So you see some of that is in there as well. And then the funding coming in, uh, a million and a half from the general fund and a million and a half from special ed, as we mentioned earlier. On the special ed side, we've got about 5.6 million in, uh, projected expenses. Uh, we got some work we need to do over at KEC Oakley. That's a building that we haven't really touched, but we need to get to. Uh, Lincoln playground, we budgeted for that. I'm not sure that's going to happen now this year. We're putting pause on that to make sure we do the right things. But you can see some of the other smaller projects, the parking lots, uh, doing
050some work at EmpowerU facilities, uh, PA systems, uh, and whatnot. So, really that $10 million is in there to determine what we need to do with Empower if we need to purchase another building, add on to one of our current facilities. Um, we also got some work to do at Mayfield and also which is EU uh, EmpowerU Central as well as uh, Lincoln Developmental Center. So having that money in that uh fund balance uh is good for going forward. And then finally with the CTC cap projects, there's not much going on this year. Uh we've been doing work at KCTC. Uh we've had a couple phases of upgrades in that main building we have on our campus. Uh we are starting to work on the planning for putting in a more formal secured entry. That
051building's kind of unique. If you ever been to our KCTC building, it's got the spokes and you know kind of just a common area in the middle. So, we're working on the the design for a uh a secure more secured entry for students and visitors. So, that's really kind of the architectural work you see budgeted for next year. And then we intend to get that going in 2627. And then obviously we have the money for uh put away now for whatever we might want to do for a potential satellite campus in the next year or two. So, with that, hopefully I didn't take too much time, give too much information, but I can take any questions you might have. I have a few. So fund balance, right? So you look at okay, property values aren't
052going up. Your percentage of 5%. Okay. Um but if you look at the last six years where fund balance has come, it's grown significantly across everywhere. Um Act 18 is a levied tax, correct? Yes. Is there any discussion? Has there been any discussion um from leadership, admin, the board to potentially reduce that um for the citizens of uh Kent County? We haven't had that conversation yet because we still have uh a lot of our districts that are still using general fund dollars to support special education services. So, I think I would like to see more progress made towards reducing that deficit on behalf of different districts. And I think if we can get that squared away and if we knew we had our capital issues squared away with center programs, then I I think that's
053a a starting point for the conversation. But at this point, we haven't talked about it. Has there been any discussion on or uh with the changes that are happening with the federal department of education any opportunity for uh increased funding due to block grants now that they're you know dismantling the administrative state and trying to you know funnel the true funds uninhibited to the states. I haven't heard of any potential increases. Quite frankly, I'm more concerned about the opposite right now with, you know, the idea of trying to reduce the federal deficit uh and what they might do there. I mean, I think there's a lot of concern about Medicaid funding, which is about $10 million that we passed through the special ed fund, whether that might get cut because I think if you look
054at the $1.4 4 trillion dollar that's been kind of thrown out there publicly as kind of the marker at the federal level. You know, my reading of it is you can't really get there without touching one of the entitlement programs and we fear that Medicaid would be the one that might get touched. Um on the flip side, I mean, you might be right there might be some positives on the other side, but we haven't heard of anything at this point. Yeah, but there's a lot of movement. So, almost daily, right? Right. Yeah. The dominoes are still falling from that perspective. Yeah. So, with regard to House Bill 6058, isn't that stalled due to language issues and there's lawsuits going on? That's correct. Yeah, it's in the courts. Is it anticipated that it's going to be
055resolved because I'm going to give you my opinion. I I don't have any um That's why you're here and that's why I'm here. So, I'm going to give my opinion. Um, I think at when it's all said and done, you know, yes, it's caught up in the courts. The court of claims basically didn't want to make a put a position on it. So, they said, "Yes, it should have been passed along to the governor, but no, we're not going to order it." So, now it's going to move on to the appeals court. Um, what I think is going to happen, there's a lot going on in Lancing, and it's very possible we're going to be into September before we see a state budget, including potentially a school aid fund budget, right? So, um, I think
056at the end of the day, roads is a huge issue at the state level politically. House Bill 6058 is now a bargaining chip for the roads and the budget and what might happen with federal funding. I think they'll all come together at some point, and I think House House Bill 6058, as it's currently written, has some very poor language about how that cap would go up in future years. I think the governor will end up vetoing that bill, but then a replacement bill will be ready in this whole grand bringing everything together that we'll end up probably doing the 7% onetime increase and probably keeping future year cap increases kind of where existing language is. That's just my opinion on it. All right. Well, it's good to know, right? Yep. I don't get much, but
057I got you. So, thank you for that. Thanks for the overview. You're welcome. Wait, I'm offended now. You don't get much from a county perspective. Oh, it hurt his feelings though. So, so my question always is what keeps you up at night? What's got you concerned? What's got you worried? Yeah. Um, general fund lack of revenue growth has always kept me up at night since I started at the ISD. I mean, 5% on our property tax collections and roughly four or 5% on what our unrestricted state money we get in our general funds called section 81. Each of those bring about 150,000. So I mean 300,000 a year is not a lot to work off of with that size budget. Um you know the majority of the general fund is grant funded. So GSRP which
058is growing like a we due to my leap and all their things uh is is becoming almost the dominant factor within that general fund. Then you have adult ed in there as well which is another 7 to 10 million. Um, you know, my concern is just that we don't have the room to add in the instructional areas. So, instructional services, continuous improvement, some of those things are funded 100% out of the general fund. And as much as we might like to ramp up more help in that area, we got to be very cognizant of it. And you know, if the GSRP grant ever got to a point where it started and it was kind of in this situation when I first got to the ISD, it was at a point where we were using about
059$800,000 a year of general fund money to support the grant because it hadn't seen an increase in funding in 7 years. Now it's flipped. It was way behind the foundation allowance. Now it's ahead of it. So, we're in a much better position. But, you know, just the size of that grant and if we ever got out of whack with that grant, that's going to start really affecting what we have left to support it with. The other one is probably career prep 2030 is a wonderful initiative and I think it's a great thing we're trying to double it. But when we start talking about a satellite campus, the least of my concerns is building something and having the money for that. It's what what it costs to run a satellite campus and we've made some early
060estimates and we think it's around 2 million plus a year. And if you just saw what I said, we have about a $3 million structural surplus. That kind of eliminates that structural surplus, right? So, and if you get that combined with a slowdown in the economy and whatnot, uh, that would be probably my second biggest concern. Well, then when you look at your staffing issues you talked about, right, which it's great because you're saving a little bit of money, but you know, what does that do to your services and if you got to staff a whole different facility, right? That's as somebody on that committee, I I I think um kind of what we're doing and maybe the ISD supporting districts and areas that do things like um I mean when when you look at
061the programming we have, you look at even right now with the uh Weller Tech Center that's going in as an example, there may be opportunities other than building another regional building, maybe having some district local district satellites and I mean we're here Byron Center's not very far. Wyoming's not very far and and maybe we can do some partnering in some of those things with facilities that some of us have for sure. And the other the other part I didn't put in here because I wanted to keep it just to the Ken ISD budget is we've also had conversations do we partner with a Davenport or a fair state or something like that? They've shown some interest and maybe they could help fund some of the cost of of a satellite facility. So, are there other
062high schools that are doing that push in stuff like we are doing with Weller and with the aeronautic stuff and all that stuff? There Yeah, there is some out there some various uh programs that are running um out there, but I think uh you know it's it it's still in a very infant stage for people, but I think there is some momentum. You know, the problem is you run into when districts don't have facilities to be able to do that, that can be a challenge. But if we can get some universities um to partner or if we have like us where we happen to have a place um maybe we can do some things uh there too to help but it's hit or miss right now. very infant stages. Any other questions? All right. Thank
063you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Kevin. Okay, so we're having to do a vote on this. Let's do a roll call vote. [Music] Vanek, yes. Stafis, yes. Gardine, yes. Don, yes. Campbell, yes. Wonder, yes. Hibbor. Yes. Unanimously passed. Thank you very much. Great. Um, now on to discussion. Uh, 5A, the Kent ISD by annual election board discussion. Yes. So, as you know, bianually, I guess you would say, uh, there is an election at the K intermediate school district. Um, they have, uh, two six-year uh, term seats on their school board. They are currently occupied by Laura Featherston and uh she's a treasurer and David Drake who's a trustee. Um we received word today that they are the two incumbents are running and nobody is opposing at uh at this moment. Um there is an additional
064I believe May 8th is the official uh deadline. So, if there are more candidates, I will let you guys know about that. Um, in your next packet, um, and and we're talking about this as anformational thing today because you have to have two board meetings at your local level. One's forformational. I'm seeing the um the resolution that's here and talking about it. Then next time you'll you'll vote on it. Next time though in that packet you'll have the information about each candidate. They have written some information about themselves. So you'll have that to go on. Uh we'll also need to determine a person to go to the uh ISD on Monday, June 2nd to represent uh our board's vote on those uh people that we are um saying our are our choices. Um and then
065we need a backup person from this board too in case something happens to that person. I think in my 10 years, we've only had one time where the backup had to go instead of the actual uh person. Um I know Bob's gone many times uh for it. You'll do it. I'll do it. Okay. Thank you. And then uh you know, so he has some background. So Joe, if you want to talk to Bob, I'm sure he could fill you in on what he does down there. Okay. Uh with that, do we have a a backup? Since Joe has already said he would he would go for us. I don't mind. I can do it. be a backup. Is that Is that okay? Great. Good. That's good to know. Any questions about this at all at
066this time? Just wanted to bring it up. Like I said, next time you'll see it as an action item. We'll vote on uh the resolution, including the candidates. If we for some reason in the next day or two get additional candidates, I'll let you guys know. Okay. Fantastic. All right. Thank you. Thank you. And then uh on to 5B, the artificial intelligence report for 2024 2025. Yes. Uh so as you know um one of uh the three district goals we had was looking at AI, digging into it more, looking at policy, looking at guidelines of philosophy, if you will. And uh Adam Langto and Mike Kennedy are here. They have led that uh committee that we've had for our district and done a fantastic job. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to them.
067Yeah. So, uh, yeah, Roger has mentioned he we we need to get in front of this and I'll kind of give some overview and then I'm going to let Mike uh talk about, uh, things from a a more in-depth perspective. Mike has been instrumental, so I want to give him a shout out. he has really um you know got his hands dirty with this dove into the conversation has been uh participating uh at the state level with MASSP uh conversations and collaborating with local um administrators across the street to figure out you know where we're at with this and um you know as Michael will mention you know we started out this out and I think everyone felt like we were behind and now I think when we're coming to the conclusion of this year
068and just having conversations with you other colleagues and other schools. We feel like we're in a really good place about where we're heading in terms of doing it from a standpoint of not just going all in without guard rails and policy and um you know training and things like that. So I just want to give Mike a shout out uh for that. So, uh, we put a committee together, um, consisted of our superintendent, uh, our assistant superintendent of curriculum, assistant superintendent of human resources, uh, myself, Mike Kennedy, uh, our tech director, Walt, um, Ken, our middle school principal, Tyler, our middle school assistant principal, Brian Moulder as the Oakstown principal, um, Stacy Bile, uh, as the Oakstown curriculum and engagement strategist, and then we, uh, chose teachers uh, from each of those levels um, on
069there. Their last names are represented. I can speak to the first names of the high school teachers, but I don't want to um forget the first names of our Oakstown teachers cuz I just met them this year. So, um, either way, uh, they have been phenomenal from a standpoint of, um, you know, this is a this is a great group when you see from all the way from Roger's position down to the classroom in terms of giving us various perspectives of, you know, what is needed, what is considering, and I can tell you our teachers have been fantastic on there just giving us things from their perspective of what they need from us or what they need to be able to um, have in order to be successful on this. Um, Ingred Rauo, uh, just
070a shout out for her. She actually attended a conference out east on the east coast as a part of, um, some ongoing work from her, um, M's program and undergrad program and, um, she brought back a wealth of knowledge to the committee as well. So, just really appreciate everyone engaging in this work. So just a quick little overview um kind of the purpose right um of why we wanted to get in this and you know you guys know this too but from our level at the high school and you know all the way down to kindergarten right like our job is to prepare students to go out to the career force and in Michigan we want to make sure that there's a strong workforce coming out of our K12 system going into the ability to
071innovate create jobs and bring you know talent into the state of Michigan. One of those goals in the growing Michigan together um uh report talked specifically and I highlighted in blue there like all students will develop future ready skills and competencies to thrive in the work and life. And then that second bullet point about reimagining the job of teaching and the structure of the school day enabling educators to innovate so students can learn for life. And when we look at those goals out of that report, it's obvious that we need to make sure that we are continuing to adapt and change and innovate in the K12 system to meet the needs of industry um in our state and across uh you know the nation and in the country or the world as well, right? And
072so when you look at that AI is going to have an impact on that. Um, you know, we've talked to several parents. We talked to several business owners and companies that come in for our career affairs or, you know, I was talking with Brent about it last night of just about, you know, how his company and stuff like that, talking to friends about how they're using AI. And this becomes something that's not just a social media thing. It's not just to create great memes and things like that, right? Students need to be able to understand what they're using this for so that they can walk into career um um careers that have this as a competency and be able to be knowledgeable about it. And we need to as educators not be scared to embrace
073um what artificial intelligence can be because it really can be something that is valuable and an add-on in reimagining what the K12 system looks like. Um so our goal was this um using AI how can we reimagine and innovate the educational experience for bulldog students using our existing systems instructors so they are engaged in their learning in order to be prepared for post-secary education in the world of work additionally using AI how can we maximize our educators time to focus on helping students one of the things that Michael will talk about I know that Roger touches on as well is you know AI really is creating opportunities um for um you know that one-on-one support, that tutoring support, that um independent uh you know, direct instruction that um might not have always been there. Ability
074to free up teachers in the classroom, but also as you go home, there's resources that students can use. And I think um those of us who have ever tried to help our um students at home, looking at some of the work that comes home, at times it can be very challenging. um but also leveling the playing field for um students who come from multil- language backgrounds. Um you know, we're seeing great success with our ML teachers using this to help support students. Um so it's it's creating opportunities that we never thought possible or never had the maybe the staffing power or the time and energy to do. Um and so starting at the the classroom level, that tier one level of our MTSS system, rethinking our role as educators from transmitters of knowledge to designers
075of learning experiences, right? Um you know, anyone can I mean content is plentiful out there at this point, but but how can we um design experiences for students to create um explore, research, analyze, and and do something with that content? Um, looking at our guaranteed and viable curriculum process, making sure that everyone is experiencing targeted essential content that's transparent so they understand what those success criteria is as students so that they can meet the expectations that our educators have and have those things aligned to state and um, local content standards um, that we have. Um, we're looking at our our PLC process. You know, what do we want students to know and be able to do? How do we know if they've learned it? what do we do if they haven't learned it and how
076can we enrich and extend learning um AI is playing a part of that our classroom PBIS structures what does that look like from using AI and and how can that be infiltrated into that and then creative create active learning environments that foster critical thinking collaboration and problem solving skills again what can we do that can help our students go out into the workforce out into the post-secary world and be ready to um get jobs, innovate, create, and be successful. All right. And and lastly, we need to engage and educate our community, our students, and our educators on what AI is. And we we we've talked a lot about that as a community. It's not just about internal. We need to educate our our community, our parents, because, you know, there's a lot out there about
077AI. There's a lot of scary things about AI. There's a lot of um concerning things, but there's also a lot of great things. And so, we just need to balance all of that out there. and our educators as well because there is things that yes students are using that to get a quick advantage on writing a paper or you know just you know doing that but that's where we need to educate ourselves on that and if we're creating experiences where AI can just easily generate answers maybe we need to rethink how we are designing learning in that at that piece. So, I'm going to turn it over to Mike um and then he'll go through there and then I'll wrap it up on what the committee um was able to produce over this course of
078this year. So, uh thanks for the kind words and uh to quote my friend Anne Waldy. Thanks, friend. Um so, talking about careers, um I'm going to give you a lot of stuff that's really within the last 6 to9 months. So, this is this came from Microsoft's uh learning labs and um there's a lot of numbers there, but the the one that says 71% I think really stood out to me. I was at the uh McCall conference in October where this was shared and it says leaders are more likely to hire a less experienced candidate with AI skills than a more experienced one without them. Right? The the ground is starting to shift beneath us in a lot of ways from a an employment standpoint. And I look at our seniors from last night at
079the senior awards like these are really bright people who are going to go off to do amazing things. I want them equipped to do those amazing things and I know how great they are, but I want them to be far superior to those who they're going to compete with for those jobs. So that number really stood out to me that our biggest corporations are they're now saying AI is almost a necessity if not a necessity. Um, this just came out last month. If you're familiar with the company Dolingo, they do a lot of work with uh interpretation, translation skills, learning a language. I've used it myself at times. Um, and then if you're familiar with Shopify, Shopify was more of like a leak. It wasn't supposed to come out. It was an internal memo and
080they basically said, "You can't work here and not know AI anymore." Um, and Dualingo just came out last week. Same kind of thing. uh they're they're they're moving their entire platform more AI based, but if you're working for these companies now, um you you have to know how to use these things, these tools, these resources. Um just like you would learn how to use a computer, right? Um there was a there was a person at the one of the conferences and when he was talking about AI, he said, "This is fire. This is electricity." Like it has that big of an impact on what the future is going to be. And I keep thinking about 1909, for example. Well, why that year? People were still riding around on horses, but there were some people already
081starting to drive cars. And I think we're we're kind of like in that world where some people are very scared of AI. They think the robots are coming to get them. And not saying they're right, I'm not saying they're wrong. Um, and then there are those who treat it as an entertainment feature. Um I I I look at it from the educator mind like what a golden opportunity to transform uh experiences for students. So this this is not something I made up. Uh I think we maybe all seen the the technology adoption life cycle. Um if you see where it says early majority uh that little hourglass I would argue that's where we're at. um as a staff um in my own personal life as I talk to people um if they're willing I will
082talk about this topic any given opportunity um they probably get annoyed with me at this point um I think that's where we're at and it kind of matches up with some data I took uh back at the midpoint of the year uh I'll just click on this real quick here just to kind of give you a this is what our staff said in terms of how they are using it how they're thinking about it Um, so if if you look at just are we using it, like let's just think about from a staff standpoint. I didn't even really get into students a whole lot. I just wanted to see what are the adults doing with AI. We right about this time last year, we had a staff meeting and we started to prime them with
083start getting comfortable with understanding what this is, try some stuff, play with over the summer. Not not a lot of people did, but that's okay. Um, but I think we've got a a fairly healthy amount of people who are using it, dabbling, aware, uh, which is a good sign. Um, but I think, you know, sometimes what what do I do with this now? I think that's where the creativity piece comes in. Um, because we've never we don't we've never had to use this before. Like what does that look like? Um, in terms we I ask people, how are they using it? Like what are you using it for? For the most part, you can see here it kind of as a personal assistant at work. Um top reason staff responded with was uh helping craft
084emails. Um tone is important in email. Uh and so uh using it to help soften the blow or to sound more professional. Uh are just a few examples. One of my favorites uh differentiation. Um, everybody's mind works a little bit differently and for 150 years we've basically worked on a model that says we're all going to do the same thing at the same time in the same way. And we know now with greater scientific research that everybody's mind is slightly different in some ways and this creates a great opportunity to use this tool to really tap into that. uh lesson planning, test, quiz generation, student research, visual projects, uh rounded out the the top reasons. Um last spring, we threw at them a variety of uh platforms that they could uh try mess around with
085and uh got some feedback on what people were using most. And uh far and away uh the the two big ones, Gemini and Chad GBT, it makes sense, right? Most people drink Coke or Pepsi. They don't go for, you know, RC cola, right? it's out there, it's delicious, whatever. They're going to stick with the big brands. Same here with AI. Um, I'm really proud of our ML teachers at the high school. They were the first to say, "Hey, we heard you know something about AI. Tell us." And they jumped on it and they've been uh really forefront at the forefront of this using diffit for example. Um Chris Grunhow introduced us to Flexi. It's an open-source uh CK12 program or platform that's been fantastic. I I actually sat with a kid in my office about
086a month ago. He can't figure out algebra to save his life and mom's like out of her wits. She like I don't know what to do. He goes and sees his teacher. He still keeps failing. I said, "Okay, are you okay if I show him some AI stuff?" She's like, "Yes, please. I use it at my work." I'm like, "Oh, beautiful. I called the right parent and it's working right. We're using Flexi with him and it's it's guiding him." Doesn't give him the answers, but it's guiding him to an understanding of the concepts so that he feels that empowerment and that confidence to tackle it himself. Uh so that that's very edifying at least on a singular uh case. Um so yeah, you can see there a lot of the different platforms, but again the
087big ones tend to be the most. Um we asked what what are you interested in training? Uh and overwhelming majority said yes. I I'd love to pick the brain of the 21% who said no. Well, it's the same that are using it minimally, right? It's that it's exact same percentage. And I've had some conversations with individuals in the hallways and yeah, there's some real anti- AI folks out there. Um, and I I can give you my theory as to why, but that that's maybe for another time. Um, and then when we ask, okay, if you want more training, what does that look like? What should that look like? If you had if you had everything you wanted, what would it look like? And, um, workshops and conferences, right? small group workshop, online tutorials, all kind
088of came in about even. So, I think people are kind of open to whatever. Um, and so that's that's going to be a big part of our summer planning is, okay, what does it look like? Cuz I can sit with people one-on-one and I do and I have great conversations and we daydream and we, you know, come up with all kinds of really cool ways to do it, but we've got to do something a little bit more formal. Last, this back in August, I presented just to kind of, hey, does everybody know what this is? because I can't assume that a hundred staff members in front of me know every anything about this. So once we sort of set that foundation, I think we're in a good place to start designing some learning opportunities for
089them. Uh let me go back to this. Um again, why at least I think and I think our committee thinks this matters is again it goes back to that personalizing of learning for students. Um not that they're on their own. I I think that's I think a lot of times people get worried saying, "Well, you're just going to let kids just just they're on their own." No, not at all. Um it personalizes it. Um I I think one of the big words we've used a lot in the last few years is engagement. Um and when when things feel like it's hitting right here, it's going to start hitting here. And so I think personalizing can really help to draw students in who maybe are a little bit more reticent to sit in the back of
090the room, put their head down because it's hard. I don't get it. This doesn't make any sense. I'm going to check out. Um, teaching is hard. It's a lot of work. And a lot of times, um, AI can, I think, increase efficiency. Um, it helps. Like, I've used it when I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what to come up with for this, but start using AI. Okay, now it gets my wheels turning. Now I'm coming up with stuff, and I'm like, okay, sweet. I'm I'm back in the game, so to speak. Um, I think communication is huge. We are a public service. Uh so you are working with adults and students all the time, communicating with them, supporting them. This can help with that. I have a friend who teaches in another dis
091or who was an administrator in another district. Um he had a year-long battle with a parent just no matter how he emailed it was met with resistance, strife. He's like, "Fine, I'm going to go with AI to see if it can help solve this." And I don't want to say AI is magic, but the next email was the breakthrough email that started to soften and they could work together and help this this family and this student um at school. Um it helps analyze data. I think one of the biggest uh complaints I hear from colleagues is we don't have time to go through the data of how students are actually doing. And what's interesting is that slideshow I just showed you with Piger, I used AI to crunch all my data and it did it
092in seconds. and I was able to sift through it and okay that's helpful that's interesting don't know where that's coming right so you have to vet things but uh it helps it helps take uh away that time factor uh you can see the trends um and I think what what I like most is the last two bullet points um having spent 16 years in the classroom you know there are kids and I hate to say this but they didn't need me okay they were with me for an hour every day they didn't need me they were really good at school they were really sharp They had supportive families. They just got my subject better than other students. But they wanted to talk to me about they still wanted to be validated and valued and seen
093and heard. And that's great. And I would always do that. But it was taking time away from students who weren't seen, who weren't heard, who weren't valued, who weren't supported, who needed me more. And that was that was always hard. It's I I still think back how many kids maybe I let down because I couldn't be there for them because other students needed me, right? So, I think, you know, this frees the teacher up to really help get to those students in in my opinion. And then obviously workforce. Uh I have a 17-year-old, I have a 14-year-old. They are eagles. They have chosen poorly in life. Um but that's because my wife works there and we live there. But um either way, I I look at them, they're going to they're going to walk into
094the work world quicker than I can even blink. Are they ready? Do they have those skills that they're going to be required of them? So, um it's going to it's going to challenge how we see the classroom, I think. Um and I think a lot of researchers back this up. This is not just this presentation is not just my opinion. This is all backed by a number of different researchers. But um teachers as the gatekeepers of knowledge in my opinion that was that was gone when the internet came out but we still stuck to that sort of you know role. I did I loved being the smartest person in the room was guys that felt great but it's increasingly not necessary anymore. So we have to help students with learning right teaching is a adult-driven
095experience. learning is a student-driven experience and we need to start helping students learn not just experience what a teacher is uh providing them uh more differentiating more collaboration projectbased less traditional assessment I'm I've already had some really cool conversations with staff members about does assessment have to be a test like in that traditional sense and it's really started getting the wheels turning I'm not saying we're like throwing everything out the window we shouldn't but it's getting folks to start thinking about, okay, this might be a way to get that kid to unlock their learning that maybe writing something on a piece of paper isn't doing up to this point. Um, and it can really help with our PLC process. Um, identifying essential skills, developing success criteria, writing learning targets. Um, I've seen it seen it
096a lot. And here's the here's the big secret. Kids are already using it, right? Let's let's be honest, my kid uses it all the time with my guidance and with my oversight. Um, and and I'm not going to read all these stats to you. The one that strikes me as the most important though is that is that second bullet point, the white bullet point there. The majority of students, and it's probably closer to 75% now based on a a published paper that just came out last week. The students who are using it the most are students in most cases who have three hours or more of homework. Kids are busy and and for for good or for bad, they may have jobs. They may be in sports. Um some of your children are heavily involved
097in all sorts of extracurriculars, different groups, whatever they are just but they they value their education. And so sometimes we some I think we sometimes confuse compliance and learning, right? And so I want to be a good student. I want to please my teacher. I want them to be proud of me. I will do all the things I've got to do. I watch my own son do this. And it's filling out worksheets in some cases. It's doing a thing and I go, "Why? What's that about? help me understand that. I don't know. I don't know what it's about. I I got to get it done, though. And my son my son's an AP student. He's not he's not just sort of whatever. Um so I I that number is really striking to me. Um because
098students will use the thing that will get the job done the quickest just like any human would. So, it makes me ask the question if I'm in the classroom, am I creating meaningful, purposeful learning experiences for students that's not something they're just going to quick throw into an AI to get an answer, right? Um, you can look at more research. Feel free to check this out. Harvard Gazette, MIT, NPR. We're seeing more and more students, not only at the high school, but at the collegiate level, using AI, and we're seeing positive results, right? And we're going to get more body research as we go. Um, but in the first like really year and a half of this really being a public thing, we're seeing a lot of benefits to it. Um, when used in the
099right way, right? If it's just get an answer, that's probably not the best use of AI. Um, this just came out a couple weeks ago. Um, they they tracked why people are using it. Interesting. Look at what jumped to number one this year. I mean that that's that's wild. Uh I can give you a million of examples of why I think that's number one given the stuff I've seen, but I'll just give you one brief one. There's something called friend AI. It's a necklace that you wear. It's got an AI bot in it and you can talk to it all day long. It is your therapist. It is your friend. It is your confidant. There's the Waqen Phoenix movie. Uh what is it? Her. Her. Yeah. Yeah. um just stunning, right? That this is becoming
100so integrated into into life that it is indeed, dare I say, replacing life in some ways for people that that that didn't they just also have some very negative things about that come out recently? Y it's said some very it's it encouraged young people to make some really bad choices, right? And so it's it's kind of when it first came out, people like, oh, but now it's a wakeup call because there is some of that negative side to it. Um, I don't know if you're familiar with Will Richardson. Um, he wrote a book called Nine Questions Every School Must Ask. I'm not going to read all this to you, but I I think he really hits on the point that students are starved for real relationship. Um, and again, I'm not going to judge a
101home. I'm not going to judge a student's life, but I see it every day. Kids just want to be heard and seen and valued. and they will do some really strange things, some really funny things, some really cool things, and some really dangerous things. That's where the educator plays such a significant role. But a lot of times we are, I don't want to say burdened because it's it's a good burden. It's a passion, right? But we are loaded with a lot of things to do that AI can maybe free us up to really connect with those students. um and I think can really transform the classroom to one where everybody's getting everything that they need and maybe like oh you're just pie in the sky polyiana maybe but why not shoot for the moon and
102see what we get you know um and I think this is one of the big fears AI is not going to replace teachers you cannot replace teachers it's going to change the function and role of a teacher I think but it's not going to replace us um we are two valuable professional educators. We're too valuable. We play such a significant role. And I think if we if we really leaned into that and really lived and believed that, I think we would see, oh yeah, then AI makes a lot of sense, right? I think a lot of times teachers don't believe in themselves enough, right? Um, obviously I I appreciate you bringing up the point about, you know, the dangers. There's a lot of ethical and legal stuff that we have to make sure we are
103protecting our students from. Okay, these are companies who want to make money, right? And that's the cynic in me. Yeah, they they want to help students and then that's great, but at the at the end of the day, they're hoping to turn a profit so they can pay their shareholders and they can pay their employees. Right now, my hope would be they're doing both well, right? But, um, we've worked with the Ken ISD and we'll talk I'll show you some stuff in a little bit. Uh we worked with the Kent ISD and Walt's been in instrumental in helping us look at okay what is it going to what do we what do we have to do to make sure our students are safe online right because we have kids as young as three and four
104and students as old as 18 right and 19 in some cases how do we protect everybody while still providing a really good experience a learning experience um how do we make sure that we're using it in a proper way right so we've spent a lot of time this year just looking at those challenges and the collegiate level really has helped looking at what they have done helping us to sort of gain an understanding of okay here's what this maybe looks like at the at the secondary and even the elementary level um one of my big favorite things is to just share with people here's how you can use this because I can throw a million tools and resources at people and that feels overwhelming but if you start talking about things they got to do
105every day like hey this could do this for you or help you suddenly they get a little bit more in tune. So, personalized learning, as mentioned before, grading and assessment. Um, we've uh moved to the uh formative platform. Um, what an amazing experience teachers are already having using that to help generate uh content assessment, you know, analyze data, um, content creation. A teacher came up to me, this is last year, I'm at lunch duty. He was say, "Can I talk to you?" I'm like, in my head I'm going, "Okay, what happened?" you know, I'm I'm thinking something's wrong. I go, "Yeah, what's up?" And he was like almost like in confession mode. He goes, "Hey, I uh I I used AI last night to write a lesson plan." I said, "Oh, sweet. What did you
106do? How'd it go?" He goes, "Well, I saw this video, but I was going to bed. I didn't have time to write a lesson. I had to get to sleep and but it would be it was perfect for tomorrow. It's like when you have those like just aha moments." So, like, so I threw it in Chad GBT. I asked it to like create a discussion and and like a little quiz and a study guide and this and that and that. And I said, and he's like, "It took like two minutes." I go, "Okay, so what happened?" He's like, "I tried it today." So, how'd it go? He's like, "Best lesson I've ever taught all year." I'm like, "Sweet. That's a great story." Um now don't do that on a regular basis but you know like
107using that experience to say okay I've got a partner now in my creation in my pedigogy um data analysis like I mentioned before making data driven decisions data is hard to crunch sometimes takes time these things can help uh like I said before we've had great success with um our ML students in terms of finding like I I for example we had a student just moved here from Afghanistan, barely speaks English. Um, and Proprio wasn't, we couldn't get the phone to connect with Proprio the right way. I pull out my phone, I open the chat GPTbot, and I said, "I need you to translate everything into Dari for me." And there was our interpreter right there. That kid lit up when I'm hearing things in my own language instead of staring at all these people
108who don't speak my language. Um, and she's having a great experience. Now, not saying just because of that experience, but overall, uh, virtual tutors and assistants. Um, sometimes it just takes people longer to learn something. Having that extra partner can be a huge, huge asset. Uh, lesson planning, assistance, time management, professional development, right? There's all sorts of ways. I could go on and on and on. I probably have too much. Joe, I think you were going to give Barb the one minute warning. Feel free to give me the one minute warning. I have a question for you, though. that um you know you brought up the data about um staff who are shying away from it. Mhm. I really wonder if maybe you using AI as an in a practice in training with, you know,
109really deliberate professional development might be the the door by which they can walk through and see, oh, so this is I'm living it and I'm learning it and that kind of thing because I I I just think the the fear factor is something. If you guide them through an experience themselves using AI, they're going to be less fearful of it. That is so perfectly timed. I was in a conversation with a colleague today was sort of expressing that without really expressing that. And as I was driving home, like I had this brainstorm of like I could create like simulations for people, right? I got my summer homework. So yeah, all good. It'll only take two minutes, for sure. Sorry if I too long, but I'm gonna kick back to that. Is there a standard like
110for the customized learning? Is there a standard AI software that they're looking for that or because I I saw a video on that I don't know a couple months ago that I talked to Roger about where it was like an elementary student and I don't remember what they were learning but like it adjusted to what they get completed each day and how well they did and then the next day they repeated the things that they didn't do well on. And yeah, there there's I think what everybody wants is one ring to rule them all so to speak, right? Um that was Google for decades with search engines, right? It beat out the Alta Vista and the dog pile and the SG's. It rose to the top. That's going to happen, but we're not there yet.
111And so, I think that is I think that's what makes it so overwhelming for people is I don't know what to go to, right? So, part of our committee work, and we'll show that in a second, is to help narrow that down because you give too much choice. That's as stifling as saying you can only use this one thing. Um, so yeah. So, there are some good ones. Magic School AI is by far one of the most popular and effective. Um, KIGO is increasingly, you know, I'm not saying that just because, you know, we've done some work with KIGO, but um, as I look at what it's increasingly offering, I'm like, wow, this is this is really cool. Um, so yeah, it's a it's a great question. I like those two you do just mentioned,
112do we have to pay for those or are those free for right well for right now? And and I think that that's you know one of the things is we're getting you know everyone gets you in and then you hit some of those pay walls and we've talked about that and I'll go into that a little bit but yeah Kigo Khan Academy you know that's coming from from that revenue but I think eventually I mean people are going to so um so our AI committee this is just we we split it up into three different groups. So, we had our policy group. Um, and you guys have seen these policies, so I'm not going to click on those, but just want to make sure that, you know, I think it was important that we talked
113to our staff and, um, you know, we're going to talk to our staff at the district, uh, school improvement team this Thursday, and then Scott will be putting out, um, communication to our whole district staff, reminding them about 4229. 4229 is more the responsibility of the educator of the adult making sure that we're using AI um you know with COPA compliance FURPA compliance things like that you know we we reminded staff yesterday at the staff meeting at the high school just remembering like don't put identifiably student information into something you know um we've heard some horror stories out there of people putting like IEPs into AI pieces and it's like whoa no like that that's not okay right you know and so you know, we we we're just reminding everybody of that policy because while
114they're exploring and seeing things or they see things online or other things like um the intent is always positive to this is going to be a great thing, but we got to make sure that we are staying within our bounds so we're not jeopardizing uh student information or anything like that, right? Is there any way to silo some like I'm thinking like MTSS is you know can is there any way that I mean I I found the MTSS data really helpful as a teacher in terms of pinpointing what I needed to focus on with my students. I would imagine AI could take that data and even refine it further. But you have that issue that you're talking about in terms of Yeah. And I think that what will end up happening is I think there
115will be someone that comes out with something you know whether it's integrated in like Mike talked about formative for example formative is a program that we are using for online assessment and there is some security and some um um features that within there that is making sure that student information is safe. But a lot of the open resources that you're just getting, you know, you wouldn't want to just throw like right, you know, here's Sally's uh, you know, needs for an IEP, throw that in the chat, TBT with all, you know, your student number, your UIC number like that, that's dangerous. So teaching people where the appropriate levels are for that and and that's where I would think, you know, to your point about the one rule, you know, one ring rules at all, I
116don't think we'll get there because I mean I I I I look at it from an HR perspective, right? I mean you have ATS's, you have CRM, you have all these different and everyone wants to make that one program but there all these other individual program we don't even have it with education right now. Yeah, exactly. Or so so but I I hope they do focus on that so you can get you know you can start using it for you know those types of things. Um so it's not so open source and that data is just not out there and available for everybody or to the highest bidder at the end of the day and that's what the fear is right now. Right. And I think if you're able to leave names or identifying info,
117like you can get somewhere with it, right? Like it's a great starting point, right? So to your to your IEP example, uh friend of mine, different district, had a student diagnosed with something he had never heard of, but had to write a 504 plan for it. Had no clue. So didn't use students name. Just wrote hypothetically, a student has been diagnosed with this. You have to write a 504 plan. What are some accommodate? and again 24 different that would have taken weeks of research to find out. He had it in moments and he's like okay. So he was able to present that to the family and they found the best plan to help support that. Interesting. And and Walt's been instrumental in always being able to vet those things to make sure we're staying in
118compliance with us. And then the other one is right the uh policy 520801 is just that gives the guard rails for um how it can be used uh by students and you know letting the teachers um make sure that those decision-m of when to use it, how to use it and why to use it. So we have those in place. So that was good just from a policy standpoint. So that way we make sure that we have policies so we have those guardrails of use. Um and then uh the next group created um this which again there's so much out there. We need to have things that we just consolidated down of what are we going to what are we going to be able to support and and um uh suggest that our staff uses.
119And this is all um based on the ISD's uh recommendation for uh safe use. So if it's white, it's ready to use. If it's in red, there's with c with caution and everything. Mike lays Mike helped make this out with with Chris Grunhow and Jason O'allahan, but um it lays out like why you would want to use one of these um tools, but also um you know who it's for. You have down here, these are all staff resources and then there's things broken out by grade band um both with caution and without caution. And down here under the this is this is where the the KISD link is and they've done some good work over there at the ISD and again this is all things that you guys can look at but um you know
120it goes into like why something you know it goes into like is this appropriate for this group of people this group of people this group of people and why and it lays it all out and we're basing our approved resources off of the ISD's work with this. So, we've put this together. Oops. We've put this together with our um with our staff um so that that way they can at least get started on what they know is important. Um as you can imagine, some of the resources that they liked were not on there when we presented this yesterday. Um but that's okay. And we've had we've had to have conversations and that's allowed us to be able to ask questions of why they're using it, how they're using it. Have conversations of maybe that's not
121the best tool for that and here's why. And again, with the best of intentions, um they're using them, but there's maybe better things or safer things that we can use for that. Um and then going back here um if there is something that uh is not on that approved list um then uh we we had a group create again similar to what we do with other curricular resources or um uh technology resources. We have uh a request form for um if someone would like to use a different AR an AI source or uh we talked about pay walls, right? like some of those um those um websites or apps are going to start either charging for premium features or with um just they're going to start charging for that. We said from a district perspective,
122we will support all of the ones that are on that list um until they go to a payw wall or for for pay to for premiums because then we need to vet that with Walt and with the committee to see if we're going to um adopt that. So there's a process where that will go through um much like anything you guys have seen come through you know from a a new class or curriculum a resource and things like that. So we wanted to model that um uh process as well. So, um, and what's next? We're just looking at again presenting policy to our staff, our, um, parents, students, um, you know, getting into that AI hubs and that selection, uh, process, training, um, with everybody with all three stakeholders, and then finding ways to integrate
123and use AI, um, as all the ways we talked about tonight. So, it's been fun work. It's been good. I'm pretty confident with where we are, but, we know we have some more work to do. So, any other questions? I've been waiting. I know. I'm excited. You keep looking at me. So, when I think of AI, and I'm going to age myself, and I always love to age myself because that's who I am. I think of this is like the Texas Instrument Scientific calculator when it first came out. And most people could use the regular function, but if you wanted to get into cosine and everything else, you had to make sure you were hitting the proper function buttons, which is what I see with AI, right? And I'm in the twilight of my career,
124but I do use AI occasionally. And from my perspective, I'm torn, which I think a lot of educators are because am I going to use it to learn or am I going to use it as a crutch? And you want to be careful of that, right? So, how is that tool done? Um, the thing that I don't know that might keep you doing all the research, are there any registered trademark issues with using these engines? Because you don't know everything that's been put into them. And how do we know that something is not copyritten that's inside of these engines? I mean, has anybody explored that? Is that something somebody thinks about? We don't need the audience. Yeah. I I yes to some extent. Um the work of Ethan Malik, I don't know if you guys
125have heard of him. He's probably the preeminent researcher on it right now. There there is that concern like okay so I'm let's say I wrote a book right that book get AI was trained on my book now it has my book to spin out and use and that was my creative property. So, so there is some of those concerns. I have not seen ex in my research to, you know, for this school year, this committee, I haven't seen anything that gets that granular with um, you know, copyrighted issues. Okay, that's a great question. We we could let's I think that's a great question to bring up. And I I I do love and it was near the bottom of probably the fifth or sixth slide in of what to learn versus how to learn and
126what to do with the learning cuz I think that's you know that's your northstar you know from that perspective. One other thing you know and you know you guys have mentioned uh staff PD opportunities but is there any outside you've created your charts and what's allowed and you know stay within these guide rails right and again this is a very new it's growing fast right is there any outside rating summary that you can also provide to staff that helps them compare and a very quick review. It's like it makes me think of consumer reports. Is there a simple way to review an engine to make it easy? And I don't know if it's out there. I haven't I think that ISD uh sheet has been the most comprehensive thing that we have seen. I mean
127it I I will commend the ISD on that work. they they've done a fantastic job because I think that that was one of the things that we were asking a lot and I think that everyone's you know you hear chat GPT or Gemini and you know I remember I had to ask what was Gemini and it's oh it's Google's you know piece so I think that um putting things out there I'm sure that I it might exist again I don't know if it does but I think that that ISD piece for our sake has been helpful to say these are things that are useful or are safe that check all the boxes from all the things we need to consider. Um, but as you mentioned, right, I mean, there's new AI platforms coming out every
128single day. And I think that we've tried to choose some that we have found success with that um whether they're from different statewide conferences, national conferences, you know, whether it's ISTY or MCL or um the states, you know, some the MASSP is putting out like I said um conferences and things like that, talking to those of trying to say like what are the ones that people are using right now and and what they're using them for and then let's get into those and then you know I'm sure there's going to be something that's going to vet these at some point from a useful One final thought or question. Where's the curriculum for AI in this whole process? Yeah. And I think that that's where um for students, right? I Well, I think that that's where
129it's it gets really interesting, right? You know, I think where Mike said we're on the early adopting stage of that, we need to figure out, hey, what that looks like and get into that. But then I think that's where industry and and and career can really help us guide what does this look like? What do you what are those competencies? What are those things that students need to be able to do with that? And as Roger and I heard at the career prep last Friday, I'm really interested in hearing what that can do into our classrooms and invite that industry and businesses into our classrooms to be able to say like here's a common day problem that my company's facing or our industry is facing and be able to say okay how could you guys
130solve that? That's where I think that next level of learning becomes in terms of how can we solve this or hey using this AI or using this this is what we need to see because we've looked at outcomes from state standards and you know we have uh Michigan career readiness standards and things like that. I don't think we have anything right now that's saying here's what skills and usages of AIS that I'm aware of that we've seen that comes out of there. But I think that that's going to be something that would be very beneficial. But first, we need to understand it. We need to get into it. And we need to be able to, you know, allow our students to to to learn it because it's like, you know, I'll tell you how many
131kids don't know how to do simple things with Google, the Google tools in, you know, whether it's presentations, spreadsheets, things like that. Um, but it's just because we haven't been intentional teaching that, but that technology has been there for a while. So, we really want to look at this as an opportunity to teach it and use it well, not just generate quick answers as a crutch for students or our staff in that. What how can we do it? Cool. Nice presentation. Yeah, thank you. That's a great point. I just wanted to echo that. I I heard a person say figure out what you want to do, then find the platform to do it. Right now, it's all shiny and new. Look at this cool platform. That's really secondary. it's what do you want to do
132and what platform will do the task you want it to achieve. Um so yeah, I think that's a a great I think you're once you start introducing it into the classroom, right? I mean you're going to find so many, you know, ways to use it that you didn't even think about right now. I mean that's just with any technology, right? You know, you introduce it and all a sudden, boom, it blossoms in a way that you had no idea that that it would. And I think that's the hard part about developing the curriculum around it, right? is we think we might know but we don't know right because it is so new and it'll be interesting. Um I I love the idea of the efficiency. I mean where I found so much use in AI
133is when you give it information and say create something out of this right that's where I found the most success with it. when you try when I try to ask it to do things from scratch, you get some troubles, right? I mean, it's just a simple one and and and sometimes the factbased searches within, you know, uh AI are are challenging, right? Stupid one. Got working on Pete's graduation, you know, uh party, right? Say, what are Kenyan's school colors? Right? What is what is what is Gemini? What does Gemini tell me? Purple and gold. And I'm like, purple and gold? I've never seen gold down there on that campus. But that's what AI told me, right? Now maybe somewhere back in the, you know, 1800s it was purple and gold, right? But that's not what
134it is anymore or recognized anymore, right? So I do worry about a little bit about the fact base, you know, that when when we start using it to garner facts. Um, but you know, I do love the fact that it it adds so much efficiencies and I my hope is that it does allow the kids and so forth to really take data, understand it quickly, but then to get to the why, right? Because that's where your learning really comes. Yeah. Crunching the numbers and putting everything together is great, but that takes time. But if you can get it done like that, then you can really get into the why behind, you know, why things are happening. I think one of our teachers talked about that in terms of the what's going to be one of
135those skills that I think to your point, Bob, is is um teaching students and and adults what prompts to ask and and that prompt writing becomes a skill in itself to be able to get the outcomes that you want out of that because you're right, if you just throw anything in there, you're going to get a variety of things. And then like and you know I I for some of our um hesitant staff members I said remember when we used to go to um the online uh you know Mel research labs and things like that and look at all those right we didn't just take everything we taught our we taught our students to look at sources right but that's still a skill that we need to be able we can't take everything for fact
136without just doing that. So, like some of those skills that we've been teaching students for years um apply to this because you don't want students just to get an answer um and just say, "Well, this is the gospel on this right now." No, it's not. We need to vet that. We need to fact check it. We need to be able to look at it and you need to, you know, compare it to other resources to see what it's saying to get those alternative perspectives. So, I think the MASB co that term that they use is called criterion for credibility. Okay? And I'd encourage all of us as members to there is a course that's offered right now online. You can take it online. You have to register for it. Um and it's specifically Amy, didn't
137you? What did you say to me tonight? You took what? Did you take a course through the MASB? No. No. No. Anyway, I would encourage you to to take that. That's very helpful. And I think Bob, it will answer some of the things that you brought up. Um but that's I think the term that they use criterion for credibility and I think that nicely can apply for reimbursement for any of those MASP. Yes. Great. I mentioned it to you last night but what our work is using it for is taking notes for meetings. Yeah. But the sticky point for that is you have to record the meeting and then it crunches and so you have to we have to get it approval and everybody that's in the meeting has to approve to be recorded before
138it can be recorded and then and you want to be careful what you're talking about because if it is proprietary knowledge I mean it's open and that's that's the scary stuff and and yeah that's got to be part of the training so much with this because it is it's open. Yeah. Yeah, I will say I think that part of what we're already seeing is I remember when Cyprien first started taking his medical test for certification and they would start changing according to whether he was getting questions right and they would get harder and that's happening with our SATs, our PSATs. That's already this stuff's already happening. Um, but one of the things that I think you guys have this awesome committee from superintendent down to the teachers, you need to get some kids on that
139committee. Yep. I mean they because you talked about Okay. Well, sometimes we're worried about the creativity use of it. Kids are going to be so creative. You're going to be like, "Okay, slow down on the creativity." But I think that that would be I mean, I look at um I used to think Arthur was just a genius. I'm like, he just knows how to use this stuff. He knows how where to look. He knows which questions to ask to put into and um and like you said, it is interesting. You'll have super super smart kids. I I feel like Lewis is really smart, but Arthur knew how to use the AI stuff way better than he does. And so that was to me, I think that's a really important aspect of maybe that committee, finding
140some of your kids who are way above, you know, you have them, you have them at Granville. And um maybe even kids who've come back. Um, the other thing that I think is interesting is that you pointed out one of your one of your um graphs said that kids found the subjects important, but those skill repetitive things were way low and not important. And I think that that's a a really cool thing to think because in Monasuri schools which I love that's where my two older went where they started at Monosuris and I miss it all the time because it is differentiated and that that teacher was called a guide and you said up on here you're like they're going to be guides and so I think that it's really cool to see that you
141could take the human aspect of a teacher specify what you're going to teach because you can do that lesson as a group in small groups and then they get to practice it on things that are meaningful to them, not a worksheet and I I was a teacher. I worksheeted kids to death sometimes and um and then it makes it more meaningful. It makes them want to learn. So I love those I like those concepts a lot. That's very cool. And I I do agree that there are some problems still we got to work out. But I think that as far as like a being a Monasuri fan, it opens up a world of possibilities for differentiating for not making us factory setting educators, right? We know it doesn't fit every kid. So yeah, good job,
142guys. Thanks, Aiden. You know, I'm the security person, safety security. So I'm I'm really nervous about things that we don't know about yet with us popping up. So that scares me to death the kids involved in that not knowing what's out there, what they're going to get their hands into. Um Oh, just thought Yeah. Well, I mean those deep fakes and some of those things are are real, right? And and you're seeing those. So, um, you know, we've we've talked about that and things like that and, you know, I think that that's going to be something that I think the big thing is they're already using it way more than we even know and they know way more than we know in a in a lot of ways. So it is tapping in and I
143know Adam and I with our student advisory talked about this topic but you know we have kids that are are doing amazing things and can can learn from that. I think the big thing for us is being able to have systems in place of and and being able to not only teach kids who maybe don't know, you know, a curriculum for AI um for the kids that that aren't there um but also that ethical use, you know, appropriate use of of it and what you can use it for and and identifying identifying those things, being very clear about it. Yeah. So, I think that's a big part of it. You're right. So, so that's where we're at. Awesome. Good job. Good job. Thank you guys. All right. Any other items for discussion? No public comment.
144So, the next uh regular board regular meeting of the Granville Board of Education will be Monday, May 19th, 2025 at 700 p.m. at the administration building. We are adjourned.