Grandville Board Meeting - 3.20.2023

001please please rise for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one Nations under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right I have a roll call please thank you um please note as a courtesy to members of the audience and to the board of education to silence your cell phones public will only be able to speak during public comment is signed up I have I think about nine forms up here are there any others coming in all right moving on can I get a motion to approve the agenda so moved support all in favor yes opposed next item is a reports agenda we will start with Joe um thank you um my wife and I were invited to chaperone

002deca uh the state championship in Detroit for our students we had 40 three of them I believe Ms Stewart and Mrs Burrell coordinate the whole um deck program for those of you who don't know what Deca is I I wrote this out because I wasn't familiar with it until this year so I mean I've heard of it but I wasn't familiar with what they did so Deca is a student-led organization that gives high schoolers opportunity to explore many different fields of business like marketing Finance Hospitality entrepreneurship and management skills they conduct projects they write out business plans they create solutions to those plans and and they do some role playing and then are judged by business Professionals of all different areas on their role playing and their effort to solve problems and um gain some

003hand on experience with it they do such a great job our kids I was blown away with first of all our kids and how professional they are they dress professional they look good during this competition and then I was asked to judge it's one of the competitions so I did I sat in I judged 10 none of our own students but the students that I did Judge were fantastic they really did a nice job their eye contact they're just so professional and grown up I guess they looked like I would hire them if they came in to ask for a job they did such a great job we currently have 117 students enrolled in this program there was 43 that attended the state and we have five students that um succeeded at State and are

004going on to Nationals which is in Orlando So Lisa and Stuart could you stand up so everyone can see who you are those of you that don't know who runs Deca so that they also are part of the dog Dam which is the store they're everyone gets all their Granville gear so they do a great job with all that yes thanks for modeling um anyway it was fantastic I really appreciate being asked to chaperone that the kids were great the competition was great 5 000 plus students there from around the state really cool experience yeah it'd be great if you know that could be expanded maybe a I don't know I was just thinking over the weekend maybe a school store in the new Middle School where they sell apparel that type of thing would

005be really cool so awesome I don't know how what other type of fundings available but it's definitely a worthwhile program so thank you thank you hi well for me the snow's kind of messed up things lately I was supposed to go to East to uh read read in the for one of the elementary students or classrooms but I was really looking forward to going back to that because I went to East and I haven't been back in the building I don't think that I can remember since uh I left there so I don't know maybe we'll make up a day for that and then there was supposed to be lacrosse this past Saturday but there was a blizzard so that's right after here there's we moved the lacrosse scrimmage to tonight so as soon as

006I leave here we're going to go to the lacrosse image with John yeah um and then last night we had the power lifting uh end of season banquet and congratulations to both those teams the boys finished first in the state and the girls finished second and last year the girls won the state those so the coaches do a great job with that and uh I mean my son really this is the first year he did it and he really enjoyed it to all of them get to participate and they do a good job so that's what I had going on thank you thank you so much hey um well I was lucky enough to get to go chaperone for the Jazz Band Festival one Thursday and uh the concert band Festival the next Thursday and

007actually that's vice versa but um uh they got ratings of one from all the middle school which is fantastic they sounded amazing um the Parent-Teacher conferences happened and really well attended for the high school and it seemed like everything was going pretty smoothly um one of the other things that I personally Jason actually just asked me how I'm handling having a senior and they are having their senior all-night party and there are lots of opportunities to help fund that if anyone is interested in helping they have a Euchre night coming up they have flower sales they have different um restaurant nights they're having a seniors dance so they can raise some funds so that's a that's something that we do for every single senior class when they leave and so that's pretty cool Parks and

008Recreation there is actually the walk and um deck project at Heritage is moving forward so they're going to rip out that old deck and make it safe because it's super unsafe right now the South Buck Creek project um also has they have a lot of trails that are going to go in I think that's behind the behind the cemetery and so they're going to be some really cool walking paths out there and that's going to be going on and the Little League bathrooms a lot of people here especially with our young ones are participating in little league and they are going to they are planning for an ADA upgrade for to make everything accessible so lots of cool stuff going on that's great I relinquish my time for both Granville Grandview and South's presentation go

009for it Jason um yeah so a bunch of stuff I haven't been here for a meeting so um but a lot of things going on uh congrats to the bands for all their uh events and and their ratings that they got which was really great to see so strong performances there this weekend it was canceled on Saturday but that gave me the opportunity to drive to Whitehall for a van State solo Ensemble and uh all the performances up there which they did fantastic the last time I talked to the teachers there they are they catch them honestly just one everyone had a one rating which was fantastic to see so that was really cool um the Hall of Fame dinner uh went off well um unfortunately I didn't actually get to make it because I

010was at an event with my youngest uh no one cares about this but he's a competitive fencer um and he actually ended up placing doing very well that weekend and now he's going to be in the top 30 in the country uh for his age group so so we were tied up a little bit so I didn't get to the Hall of Fame dinner even though I've been plugging it for the last month and a half so uh thank you to all those that did actually attend that and made that a success um and then things coming up Shrek the Musical that's been in the other thing that's now all over the place right now so if anyone is interested in Shrek the Musical I would suggest you get tickets because I guess they're going

011fast I'll be a lot of interest in that in the community so much so that they're even talking about adding shows maybe so we'll see what we have to do there but uh the kids are all excited about it um and it should be a good time so that's coming up here after spring break and a couple weeks after spring break so that's all I got thank you I attended the health Ed advisor community meeting on March 7th uh there were parents there and staff representing our nursing staff was there um and since they haven't met in over two years there was a lot of um remembering what our purpose is what our requirements are some of the things that still need to be done in order to catch up but in Spring is when

012all of our reproductive health is delivered and so um they're talking about using those materials now but in this next year update videos and make sure that it's accurate and current and you're not looking at 1970s clothes I'm exaggerating I don't believe that's what it is but we did laugh like sometimes it takes that long so we're looking for there was a suggestion that one of the girls video be a little bit more on physical development so again there's some things we're looking for in those new videos and with the nursing staff that we have there's the ability for them to also be a part of the reproductive health education that's being done maybe be part of the question and answer session but all of the instructors have to be trained through the ISD if

013they're to deliver the reproductive Health curriculum so we're thinking potentially they could get trained as well and then be that can the other person besides the teacher is the the nursing staff which I think is a good idea just in case you know there's some follow-up that needs to be made they could they could help assist that so it was a good meeting thank you Scott for facilitating a great group of people a father there who's got four boys so I thought that's great you know father and his perspective was very well um delivered and I thought really helped us to understand things so um on my front first I would like to offer our condolences to Mike Simonson's family Mike was a principal at South Elementary and a dedicated educator in our community and

014our thoughts and prayers go to his family at this time of loss this week so much was going on first congratulations to our state swim team and in particular because proud Papa's in here Dr merkel's son jack just blew things I mean literally out of the water as a sophomore they are taking several places second and Fifth Fifth yeah and my family who's a bunch of swimmers saw those numbers they were following them all day and the phone was lighting up like holy cow and he's a sophomore so congratulations to him and his teammates it's a great group effort and it's a wonderful program proud to have Aquatics here at Granville um also twice in the last couple weeks I've had the opportunity to go see the winter drum line and the Winter Winds that

015was a program that we approved as a board about a year ago and this is the First full joint season they're working with a Jennison drum line as well so it's combined which is kind of fun because as far as percussion goes in the division two at States during regular marching season they were competitive against each other just missing each other Dennison upped the Granville team by about 0.1 on the scores and so now they're working together which is really fun to do their shows and it was really a pleasure to go there and see them again this weekend they were in Kent City this week during the middle of the blizzard so I feel you it was White Knuckles all the way home from that event spent some time out with the Century Park

016staff on Friday and then ran over to the middle school for the B and 11 assembly which is always just such a pleasure to be at and I forget every single time to bring tissues and not wear mascara because it just cry and cry and cry joy and also sorrow we have a couple of parents there of course who've lost children who were there to honor their children through giving to others and so that was really special to share in that moment with them but also to see their Joy of their child pass along to others and and giving and in honoring other students it was just so great to see those six students get honored and have their family there and see them light up the room and have their peers be so excited

017for them it's just a great experience if you get a chance to do the final trimester event please join in I'll see if we can get that on the calendar a little earlier so we can make room in our work schedules for it um I too lost the opportunity to talk to East on Friday because of the snow but I'm sure that they were fine sleeping in and reading at home that day um but I've been looking forward to going to Central later this week uh two days from now and reading again and also big congrats to our robotics team who have had two really great events in Canada in fact and came out on top and one and really close in the other and just have a lot to share in that program check

018out their Facebook pages if you want to see them and of course our tier team who went to States recently and did really well so really proud of everything that's going on here um that all being said I'm going to pass it on to Rogers we have a lot of wonderful guests here tonight yes so very excited uh first of all Grandview Elementary is here with us and uh just really looking forward to what they have to tell us about so take her away I could actually turn it over to our second grade teacher Amanda Gaul who kind of led her team in this Ensemble okay well good evening everybody my name is Amanda Gaul and I'm here with um our two principals Emily McAlpine and Ellen ackhurst and my colleagues Elizabeth Kuiper and Kenna

019battle and um some great second graders who are also doubling as famous people this evening so we have been working hard in second grade at Grandview for about the past month this has been meeting our informational reading and writing standard each of the second graders chose a famous person in history some of them alive still some of them no longer living but they researched they um took notes they formed their notes into speeches and basically learned a ton about their famous person really focusing on what their famous people did to overcome obstacles and show perseverance and they would like to share some of that information with you this evening so if our famous people could go take their places and keep in mind that they are made of wax this is our wax museum so

020you will have to get up as they are not able to move so if you will give them just a moment to take their places and they are out in the hallway there are some in this room if you just walk up to them that is their signal to share their information with you so um yeah we are excited to share our second grade wax museum all right let's go see these wax statues foreign [Music] videos [Music] thank you that was so famous yeah good job thank you for sharing with us I like seeing things okay if you have an audience here in here can you do it into the microphone though yeah it won't be loud but it'll be loud okay hi my name is Walt Disney I am also famous for Disney animation

021and Disney theme parks I was born December 5th 1901 in Chicago Illinois I love drawing an art I would even draw pictures of the animals in my farm when they lived in Missouri I spent time as an ambulance driver in France during World War One when I returned I took art classes at the Chicago Art Institute I was influenced by an artist name of iWorks I learned about cartoons I wanted to make my own cartoon to be an animator I started a company called laughogram but it failed my brother and I started Disney Studios then I created a famous cartoon character named Mickey Mouse my first animated film Steamboat Willie and many like Goofy and Donald Duck I made the first cartoon with sound later I was even Mickey's voice I made a full-length animated

022movie called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs it took five years to complete over my time my company went 32 Academy Awards and seven Emmy Awards in 1955 I created a theme park with rides and fun based on movies it was called Disneyland it was in California it cost 17 million dollars I started to build another theme park Disney World in Florida sadly I died of one cancer in 1966 before it finished I made the worldly more fun place to be with my cartoons great characters and by creating places for families to have fun thank you for continuing watching the stories about to life hey Jerry can you speak can you do your speeches at the microphones yeah it won't be loud but other people in that home will in your enemies hi my name

023is and I was born on March 24th 1874 Budapest Hungary I don't see that when I was young I did not go to school I said I had to walk to help my family my brothers Theo showed me a trick that he had learned from his boss and I was fascinated so anytime I had it from work I would make up my own magic tricks I was known as Howard Houdini because I added an eye to my favorite celebrity whose last name was hilden my nickname was Abby which sounded like Harry so I decided to change it my brother and I had a lot of tricks together known as the brothers Houdini Nova X I met a dancer named best he fell in love and got married he then became a lifelong assistant on stage

024I are most famous for my amazing studs one of my tricks involved being laughed in a crate that was low as 200 pounds of lead I would then locked into hands of funny Lagos because the clay was now shut and put underwater I had to hold my breath for over an hour before I was practically able to escape I also made a ten thousand pound elephant disappear I died on October 21 1926 Detroit Michigan a boy punched me in the stomach but something went wrong and I did not survive I will always be remembered as one of the world's greatest magicians and entertainers fabulous can you get out of this [Music] um we probably should be young [Music] maybe um [Music] how's yourself there but you never know one box you never know anybody else

025away I think we're gonna go back um is everyone back in here thank you very much let's give everybody a couple more seconds to get in and get settled you know uh all right we're gonna welcome Miss McAlpine back up to the front or miss ball all right thank you um we would like to say thank you to our Grandview guests today our staff Administration and of course all these wonderful famous historical features I get to meet a lot of great people tonight so thank you so much for everything that you do and for coming here [Applause] families of Grandview students you're welcome to stay for the board meeting if you wish if you wish to exit you're welcome to do that too no pressure um next up we have another presentation yes very excited

026to have South Elementary with us DR England taking her away okay um but this past month already goes down the Christmas again so really unique original things to not only expanding but also the genres that they got to read the doubles that they got to do and then also learning about what you can do not only after you're done drinking a book but while you're being alone and even the offering about so our amazing Librarians Sam Steger Canada um and she's going to tell you a little bit about our night clubs and our book a half day and even a special event that many of our appearance were at where we invited the community in as VIP and you guys are just snuggle up so hopefully our girls who are not only involved the joy

027of reading but want to do it every minute that they've done see all right can you hear me well all right well thank you very much for having us here we are very excited to share all the exciting ways we are celebrating March's reading month at South at South we are creating and maintaining a culture of reading we are welcoming our community to join us for unified celebrations of literacy we are empowering and encouraging our older students to inspire our youngest and we are having fun we kicked off uh March's reading month by acknowledging read Across America week every day that first week of March we dropped everything the whole building everybody dropped everything at three o'clock and we read we assigned kind of a fun theme or twist to each day of the week

028so Monday we all put our feet up on the desk like we're CEO like we're the boss on Tuesday we read like cowboys and turned our shares backwards saddled our seats Wednesday was probably the most adorable we read like we were on vacation so we had our sunglasses and sun hats and rolled out our beach towels on Thursday probably their favorite we'd like you're a veterinarian bring your stuffed animal with you and Friday was our PTC popcorn Friday so it was a good day to make it pajama day and bring your flashlights and turn off the lights and cuddle up and read so share some pictures here's our adorable veterinarians reading with their with their pets this was so much fun and the participation was so top-notch across all grades and even with staff it

029was really important to us that everybody in the building stopped at three o'clock that students can see the adults in their lives practicing their love of reading and that the whole school Community practiced it together so much fun you know how cute are they um oh no presentation about South could be complete without mentioning CC our comfort dog who can be found reading with students every single day she'll wander into classrooms and sit with them while they're doing independent silent reading she can be used as a PBIS reward for a student who has earned a special reward she can be used for a kid who might need some quiet time in the hall but just cease the end a book beautiful I have to I have to say it's always a victory anyone who's ever

030been tasked with planning an event for K through sixth grade when you have your fifth and sixth graders participating with their feet up that's that's a victory so we had such good participation kids asked me the following Monday um what the theme was I swear they could do it every single day for the rest of the year all right so our book Cafe servers from our book Cafe our school library is transformed into the book Cafe um students are greeted at the door by a Hostess and they are seated and they are given a book Cafe menu which my friends Jacob and Xander from fifth grade are kind enough to supply you with a sample of what students were greeted with when they came into the book Cafe now this is so much fun our

031servers rotate through with a multi-course menu of alternating genres and when the kids come in and the library is transformed into the book Cafe and we have a Ratatouille music playing like we're in a cafe in Paris you know they gasp and they're so excited and that alone is probably enough reason to do it but of the course the real value of this is that they are very quickly getting some different books and different types of genre in front of them that they might not have otherwise gravitated to kids just like us go towards what they know and it's not uncommon to have kids come into the Diary of a Wimpy Kid shelf every single Library so the value of this was that they moved very quickly so our library is set up in 30

032minute times we still did book checkouts so they just had one to two minutes really with each of these different trays to open them up and decide if it looked like something they'd be interested in if it was a good fit difficulty-wise candy yeah I keep reading one fun change we implemented this year was we used our fifth and sixth grade uh fifth graders as servers we took members of our fifth grade book club and our sixth grade reader advisory committee and we served our younger classmates do you want to start with with course two so it would look like like this so of course this of our older students to develop confidence and work on their speaking skills and develop positive reading identity a whole lot of fun so our fifth grade book club

033to kind of back it up these were kids who voluntarily are meeting um at least once a month during their lunch or recess time uh recess during the folder ones because they always want to go inside during the colder months um and we talk about their book of the month in their class they were assigned a genre of the month um so they could be me as a book club and we discussed that genre the book they read how well uh the particular book they read met the tenants and characteristics of that genre if they would recommend it to somebody else and it was it's just so much fun to sit back and listen to them talk about their reading and another neat thing we did as a fifth grade book club the week before

034a book Cafe we sat down and we planned the menu and we talked about what books would best represent the genres and how that would look uh different if we were serving a first grade or a fourth grade class and they did a great job great job it's a lot of fun and then our our clients or our diners will then rate the books they're served on their book Cafe menus and this exercise helps our younger readers to develop readers agency as they decide what is the right fit for them okay we'll see if any of these I think they're all gonna play family us these are so we talked about the week before what a good waiter would look like and we did a little bit of practice with this and this one is

035the best yes [Music] imagine this one is for people who love um old stories for Original Stories but also like having them baseball real life characters you you probably yeah [Music] take place in the future where um we talked about book talks have no spoilers though like that was a big part [Laughter] all right so also serving where our sixth grader members of our reader advisory committee and these are kids that came in any recess or lunch they want to and their teachers were kind enough to let me borrow them for a few minutes every Thursday during the month of March and we studied and practiced the art of a book talk and then presented them to younger grades and it was so I shouldn't say I was surprised by how popular it was we

036thought we would wrap up last week we were scheduled to wrap up last week but it just those book talks Ram so much longer than we planned there was so much conversation and discussion happening back and forth between the younger grades and our book presenters that not everybody got a chance who was scheduled and the teachers and the students have let us know that they want to see the rest so we will be scheduling and continuing this so we just started by kind of studying the art of a book talk observing and critiquing other kids lit book talks available on YouTube and then we practice practice and of course our older students develop confidence um by being able to share their expertise with younger grades and it certainly creates demand any of these books that

037they talk about are books that I know I will need to get some extra copies of because there'll be books that our kids are asking for as soon as they come in so I have some members of our sixth grade readers advisory Club who were brave enough to come and give you an example of what one of those book talks would look like so first we have Tessa thank you one more thing that we were served by Jacob and Xander are the books that we'll be featuring with our book talk presentation all right hi everyone my name is Tessa Martin and I'm a part of the image program and I participate in softball basketball and cheerleading today I'm here to talk about one of my favorite books that everyone should read called Ali Cross by

038James Patterson this book is in the mystery section and it is about Ali's best friend Gabe going missing the police cannot find out where he went or what happened to him so it is it is up Target to find his best friend with many challenges in his way this book shows me to never give up when people are doubting you or when things are hard and just to keep trying and right now I'm going to read my favorite part of the book not until I got to the very back of the room I clicked about a hundred different things by by then but when I touched this one crate that looked like all the others it slid off to the side and right there in its place was a trapdoor with a recessed handle in

039the floor I knew it and Gabe knew I'd find it too he knew I wouldn't give up on this just like I wasn't giving up on him and that's my favorite part I would recommend this book for grades three and up even if you don't normally read mystery this is just an amazing book for anyone because it always leaves you on a cliffhanger so you never want to set it down and if and this book is a part of a series including Ali cross like father like son and Ali cross the secret detective and if you want to find out what happens to Ali and Gabe you should read Ali Cross by James Patterson [Applause] your practice downstairs my name is Adeline Seeger I'm in sixth grade and I go go to South Elementary School

040and I shared a book with the younger grades Club from the desk of Zoe Washington because I think it teaches an amazing lesson about if you um someone tells you you cannot do something you can still do it and don't let anyone discourage you so it is Zoe's birthday and she gets a letter in the mail from her father who has been in jail ever since she was born and she later does find out too that um her mother has been throwing away all the other letters he's been sending so this is the first one she gets from him and also she gets to a point where she writes back to him asking why he's in jail anyways and what he says will blow her mind so I'm gonna read it apart from the book

041all I could do was stand there staring at the paper in my hands I was like the Tin Man and The Wizard of Oz when he needed to be oiled my arms and legs felt stiff like they weighed a million pounds if I tried to move them why did Marcus sound so nice mom always made it seem like he was a bad person he didn't seem like he was running from prison I wasn't sure how someone in prison could sound exactly but I guess they wouldn't be so smart I read the letter again um why had he called me little tomato it was kind of weird I like tomatoes especially the little ones but I didn't want to be called one what did Marcus mean when he wrote these letters this was one I'd um

042this is the first one I've ever gotten from it didn't make any sense none of it did I stared at the striped rug as millions of thoughts swirled around my head like the cake batter in a mixer should I write him back what will happen if I do so um if you want to find out how she has to help her father um and from the dust comes away Washington you should read this book next [Applause] our youngest classes hi my name is Harper Terry and I go to sixth grade and I go to South Elementary and I'm going to tell you about a fantastic book I read called The Case of the stinky stench by Josh funk you should read this book because it's a really funny book about lady pancake and Sir French

043toast and they go on this really fun adventure to find out what the stinky stench is in the refrigerator have any of you guys ever had something really gross in your refrigerator yeah and if you want to find out what the gross smell is in the refrigerator you should read this book and you can find this book in South Elementary library or just KDL or something yeah thank you very much yes you two may go back to cheer thank you very much well she needs a key to get back up okay I'm gonna get locked in the hallway okay um and then very quickly our March reading incentive was readopoly the entrance to our library and uh trophy taste were transformed to promote our read to win March reading challenge thank you boys they will

044provide each of you with a copy of our read-apoli board um kinder for first had a simplified version but what you're looking at is second through sixth grade consists of 22 unique reading challenges to encourage reading exploration and book discussions so some of it's very traditional you can see our red Properties or you know read a book about a person read a funny book some of it is silly a read a book in a quiet voice read a book in a funny voice read a book in a robot voice which a parent described to me as the longest 15 minutes all right my favorite are the ones that they are fulfilling at library and at school or Boardwalk or Park Place properties um tell them a secret about a book that you've read I found

045when the first couple kids came to fulfill this credit they were super nervous they had their hands balled up and they had amazing oral presentations about their books in it I had to make it clear it does not need to be all that I'm just looking for casual conversation in the hallway when you're in the library hey Miss secret that book that I just got it was way too silly for me do you think you could recommend something else or I kind of like that I think I'm gonna stick with it or there's too many too many characters it's way too confusing I mean it's as simple as that also come visit the library during Flex time so if you're not familiar with how our elementary libraries are structured we have 30 minutes with with

046each class once a week they come in and we share a story and then they check out books but we also have Flex time that's available throughout the week where they can come exchange books um some of these kids use flex time religiously and some kids I haven't seen much all year probably wouldn't even know how to find the flex time schedule in the classroom so this has really encouraged kids to find out where that Flex time schedule is come on down at all different times to library make that a part of their normal walk through the South Halls we want to see kids on our library um all throughout their day at all times we love having them thank you that is looking for it um all throughout the day not just that 30

047minutes a week that they're scheduled to come with their class so needless to say it's been extremely successful um the excitement is slightly overwhelming the the library to walk to the office without finding some kind of excitement somebody who's excited to share something about their readopoly board I have one square left or let me tell you about a book um so we obviously you've seen how fantastic a wax museum can be I included our wax museum because we also celebrated it in March and the kids worked so hard on it but I think it was a really good example of how our libraries can our school libraries can support our classroom the magic that's happening in the classrooms because this was just you saw how amazing this is and how hard they work on it

048um so our teachers piloted this program our our kids were third graders last year and they expressed that it was the research phase got kind of tricky as the kids were trying to decide uh which famous person to to educate themselves about because as they as they started that phase not all sources on the internet are intended for third graders so this year they asked that we try to just for this specific project use only written uh resources so they asked if we could put together um some books that might Inspire the students and we were able to fill a whole library card that they could keep for the whole month in their room with high interest age appropriate recently published exciting books and they were inspired and they did fantastic I teared up when

049I walked into the gym the morning it was overwhelming how awesome it was but Mars had a button I'll share share a few thank you hi welcome back again it's my favorite or George Washington all right so along that same vein um our we have a second grade teacher who has an affinity for pigs and March 1st is international pig day and every March she transforms her class as a surprise transformation for her kids and it lasts a whole month so she asked if she could hog all of the paid books from the library so we gotta got my hands on every pig book I could but I just caught this moment just walking down the hall and I thought it was a special moment to share for March's reading month this is the first

050day our second graders are starting their Charlotte's Web book book club and just all have their own copies in their hand with their little paper pig ears bend over it two brushes cross content teaching this teacher has over 650 cases she does some really really neat things yeah absolutely okay and then the most long-standing way that we plan to celebrate March's reading month is inviting our community into our school this past Friday we celebrated our VIP day the attendance was fantastic thank you so much for those of you who showed up on Friday to read with our students so each student invited a VIP it could be any adult over the age of 18 somebody who was special to them and they came in and we sat down for the last 30 minutes of that

051half day Friday morning and all our students sat with somebody they loved and practiced and shared the love of reading it was probably the best day ever so great and then again it is just so important that our students see our adults practicing the love of reading Mrs Vander long our third grade teacher invited her parents to come be her VIPs and they sat down in the gym and they read with her during those 30 minutes and finally today well hopefully not final you will continue to celebrate but just today crash came to visit us and read to us and that was a lot of fun so thank you very much for the opportunity to share with you what we're doing and have a great rest of your month and keep reading [Applause] um do

052our chefs need to come through and pick up our books our plates are done to clean up his table I did learn while I was sitting here that there were dragonflies during the mega Predators era that were larger than humans so that was terrifying to find out terrifying all right yeah that's cool thank you thank you parents um and staff for being here from South Elementary thank you thank you so much um it was a great presentation we appreciate you so much again if you'd like to stay for the rest of me and you're welcome to if you'd like to exit you're welcome to do that as well give them just a minute yeah dragonflies that are like bigger than people right yeah thank you okay all right uh we have no old business so

053we'll move past that onto the consent action agenda can I get a motion all in favor yes yes opposed all right moving on to our regular action agenda we have two items we're starting with our first one which is the middle school classroom audio it is recommended the Board of Education approve the purchase of a new classroom audio system for installation at the new Middle School building from Bloom for a total purchase price of 94 413.29 can I get a motion so moved to support and you may recall uh we had an audio system for West Elementary recently and told you we'd be coming back to you for the new Middle School here we are so Walt take away um so this is a little bit different than the system at the at West Elementary

054um the system that we're playing there at the not only the classroom audio aspect of it but also that safety aspect but the the emergency response um this system is kind of the first step of that going into the new Middle School so because the new Middle School obviously was started planning several two more than two years ago now um there is a traditional PA system and Bell system that is going to be going into that middle school building but we did need to have classroom audio as a feature in those classrooms we might have future so it kind of as a first step this is a system that provides that classroom audio feature features will have the same kind of microphone they'll be speakers mounted in the ceiling that will reinforce the audio in

055the classrooms but those systems then can be expanded down the road to provide the safety of the emergency alert buttons the district line or the building-wise EA Intel system well um we have 27 classrooms that we'll have 27 classrooms that have the classroom there's probably more classes there are more questions than that so where what what classes are these going in so it would be all the the traditional classrooms science classrooms classrooms that won't necessarily be getting this exact exact system are for example the music classrooms and Orchestra the theater Black Box classrooms we'll have the specific system in it because there is already an audio system expect for those things okay thank you what is the cost of the expansion if we expand for the Emergency thing um I'll have to get back to

056you with that number because that will entail things like additional network runs and some additional server components and if there is to be an expansion of the building this is pretty easy just to expand out to the other areas Yeah by expansion I mean you know expand the capabilities of the system down so by that safety capability but yes because this system ties into the network directly if there are expansions onto the new Middle School building at some point and it's nice to test that out at West and see if it'll be worth our expansion too so that's really good any other yeah I was just going to say so that what's the reason exact reason why we don't want to do it all now is just because we don't understand the system well so

057when the new Middle School was specked we expect a traditional PA system a traditional Bell system that system is so far down the road as being installed at the the new building it's it's already in the process of you know being able did we didn't want to have to go back and rip all of that out right put this system in so this is kind of the first step that we would like to get there at some point but this gives us the classroom audio feature that we were looking for the possibility of adding safety I guess I just asked Greg because it's not going to get any cheaper to do it later on and I mean I don't know I mean if the building is not completed yet it's probably easier to pull it

058out now than it is to wait till the building is completed and then pull it out at a later date how far yeah that's because that becomes the question right I guess I'm just trying to understand yeah it's you see how they're shaking nervously yeah yeah [Laughter] okay and so it's really hard because again like to reiterate what Walter said this building was in design over two and a half years ago so and the abilities still there it's just we're going according to the specs we had and that you know that trains down there down the tracks um but we have the ability to you know to expand it to extend it so that part makes us okay with it yeah something about how far down the road would we expand and would we change

059it out I mean I don't I mean we put his new system in that or we put the system in now I mean are we looking at 15 years before we would change out the PA system again probably yeah that's fair I just I'm just trying to understand the big picture right no because when you look at something like this you know it all depends on where we're at with sinking fund yeah and the usage needs without the district so I would think if if there's a desire to do it from just an integration perspective it would have to be prioritized with all the other Improvement improvements that we do within the district yeah and probably something like that would be obviously something we would discuss with the Safety Committee right now and there are

060other buildings in the district you know I brought West yeah for the system replacement there the other buildings in the district have a similar HPA system to what is available again so you know as those systems need Replacements We'll probably look at those first before we necessarily look at the middle school that makes sense if we decide to expand because that would be then a standalone like safety feature that could potentially open us up to special grant funding for safety features yes no maybe possibly okay possibly do you know why there wasn't the safety in the first place in the specs it just wasn't something it wasn't on the radar new technology yeah okay so yeah obviously we're testing it so it wasn't even available for us to even yeah thank you who knows what

061we'll have 10 years from now right right exactly AI yeah exactly sorry to hear today all right any other questions from the board to come in nope all right um we're gonna do real cover okay hi board yes step this yes yes Palmer yes underground yes Klein yes motion carries thank you so much well and Heather uh next item uh is the Treehouse rate increase it is recommended that the Board of Education established the following daycare fee schedule as outlined in the attached presentation can I get a motion so moved support and so Julie Scott's with us she is our tree house uh director and Heather and they'll double team this one yeah yeah so Julie and I will double team this one um Julie's done um some great work over in treehouse and a

062lot of this presentation is to help streamline a couple of of things and you can just jump in whenever you want but um so Julie put this presentation together for us it shows her current her reality the current before and the current after right now we offer two through five days a week for before and after school and we're proposing eliminating the two days and a lot of that has to do um with um consistency of enrollment as well as Staffing to be able to handle that so that bottom line right here is what we're proposing for the before and after um as you can see it matches the current after school pricing um and to add to that the proposal for the three-day rate not only for the families and the staff but we

063have many facilities that we transport to so we house you know six elementary schools we have one Hub in Inner City Central Elementary houses for all of the on the side of 44th so consistency is really the key um similarly uh looking at the um this is proposed before and after too I don't know why I'm having a hard time seeing this right now so I'm going to make it a little bigger um yeah so those will stay the same again the only difference here is the consistency piece with going three four and five days a week um she also did a lot of background work on what other programs are offering and how we compare so you can see that there is that a member rate yes do you feel our programming is same

064or above the competition I feel that we're either equal or above good answer can can you this is one thing I noticed can you talk to me about this right here the flat fee that Jonathan does what research I've done their rates have not changed since before covid they do the 925 flat fee for whether it's before school or after school and they house I believe five different elementary schools is that a daily rate yes okay and then lastly looking to make an a slight adjustment to our summer programming again eliminating the two days offering the three four and five and three days and four days remain the same as what they are currently but just increasing the summer for five days by ten dollars that are how many people how many people impact on

065the Limited people that do that or must not be very many currently all right what numbers for enrollment do you typically have during the summer program we can have about 250 students okay during the school year summer and school year please two for a combined sure a lot of that is simultaneous so families that are enrolled in before and after typically continue on into the summer they do house a lot of students that are staff member students so they withdraw for the summer opening up availability for the rest of the community so I'd say roughly three to four hundred it's a year round for the first part that's what I was trying to get at yes seems reasonable and what is your wait list right now I was just on the younger so we can

066easily fill additional three more classrooms for the summer we just don't have unfortunately Staffing capacity right now and same for the before and after school program we've been trying to expand and open that up for the last several years so our weed lists are quite consistent year after year it is such high quality care and I think it's it's awesome what you're doing I think this is absolutely appropriate as far as the it's such a minimal increase and um you'll know soon enough when your grandson is going in through daycare it is extremely hard to find quality daycare for families who are doing the before and after consistently year round it's weightless it's weightless it is Wolverine in Rockford has a has a subsidized for employees apple tree we built it employees if they're in

067Hudsonville they're driving to Wolverine even if they're working from home just because they can't get that enrollment so um [Music] I would just like to say too they do a great job um I work with Julie quite a bit and she's always looking for additional funding sources and whatnot as well so I just really appreciate all they do that's right we need a good Farm all right all in favor yes opposed motion carries congratulations thanks Julie our next item of business is discussion about a safety director [Music] yes uh so some time ago we were having some discussion about uh Safety and Security uh in our district we have a committee and we have a committee that is chaired uh by a person who does a fabulous job with that committee one of our principals

068but through our conversations and as time has gone on uh you know we see the value in having someone that is able on a day in and day out basis be able to Champion uh safety within our district and and safety covers so many areas but we would like to talk to you a little bit about what we envision as a safety director for Granville public schools and I'm going to turn it over to John now and he's going to talk to you about the research said posting that we drafted and some of our conversation station that has taken place yeah I think um for me in the role that I had the roles that I've played in The District as a secondary administrator having been uh had experience with Ted cannibal as our security

069guard at the high school for a while former police officer uh Dale karpiewicz who's our current at the high school uh mucha who's at the middle school we've been fortunate that we've been able to bring in uh retired or former police officers to be our security guards and the reason that that's so valuable for was so valuable for me as an administrator is they see the world very differently than I do and I needed that I needed someone when we had an event to tell me is have you thought about this have you looked at this have you done this we recently posted for our security guard position at the high school because Dale carpets is gonna have a second retirement retired from police officer and is going to retire from the school for a

070while we were struggling to get what we thought were going to be great candidates that had a police background um and and so as a part of that we started saying gosh maybe we need to start looking a little more globally at how we address that safety not just from a secondary level and not just through the committee work that we have but a person that can look at all of our buildings that can partner with the mapping that we're going to do that can be a liaison between the three police forces that we work with primarily Granville obviously but we have Wyoming at the South side and we have uh Walker up north and so it's really important for us not only to have a person that that understands what we're looking at but

071can also can speak the lingo and speak the language and be that connector for us between the Safety and Security needs that we think we may need and and what our police forces can can provide and can offer for us we envision that this person would take over the oversight of our security guards with the expansion of our middle school and we know the expansion of some of the events that we're going to have at our new Middle School building the importance of Beginning to Look At You know do we need to do we need to have security guards in those places do we need to start addressing some things a little bit differently for some of those bigger events that we have you know our security guards work when our students are in the

072building and that's awesome but then we have events and students in the buildings the rest of the time and we have some folks that are there that are that are designed to be of support to that primarily our administrators and some other staff but we want to be able to have somebody who looks at those things and says this is something that I think you're really going to need to do and to have and so that could mean then an expansion of probably our security guard Staffing as well but we want to have a person that can look at all of those things they'll be responsible for our state reporting for making sure that we align with all of the state guidelines and all of those pieces so we want them to really be our

073champion for Safety and Security so when you look at the the posting we tried to encapsulate a lot of that some of it I'll be frank I shared was shared with me from other buildings and from other districts so locally Grand Haven just added one um Hudsonville has one Rockford has one Kentwood has one and so we just as we as we begin to start thinking about growing into kind of where we are uh we just feel like this is a great time for us to begin addressing this from an administrative level so with that I'll hit my own mute button until you have questions John yeah so let's do a count okay Liaisons we have two correct that's correct and where are they housed so officer musin is at the high school and his

074work is uh almost primarily at the high school he can certainly go to any of the other four elementaries that are in Grandview and then Jake Carlson is housed at the middle school and again his work is primarily Middle School based he goes there every morning but then he's more out and about in each one of our city schools and then in addition to our we are partnership with Granville PD we have Road officers that will at least once a week stop into the the Four elementary schools that are in the city and do a walkabout um so and we get a report from from Chief every month on the amount of time spent at each building and what our officers did in those spaces um from a police standpoint from a school standpoint so

075then for security staff what do we have again we just have to we have one at the high school and one at the middle school currently okay yep all right and then we have we have a second we added some second shift uh last year they're called facilities Associates and from a security standpoint they don't have the security training but their job is to go throughout the district make sure that our doors are locked to make sure that if we have events that people can get in and get out of the buildings but they don't have specific security training in that they're really more looking at the facilities and make sure our facilities are secure at the end of the night because sometimes people prop doors open you mentioned Mr mucha like is he then

076is he not considered part of that Staffing he's part of the security staff yeah he's at the middle school yep so much is at the middle school and then right now carp's at the high school and we're in the process of hiring his replacement with a person who has 25 years of law enforcement we wanted to get that out and going early so that person could train with Dale during the course of this year going into next year feeling like they can hit the ground running he won't work a lot but he'll work a little as he goes forward and it just recently retired from Kent County Sheriff's been his mooch going to be on for a while longer he's good he's going to be close I mean I haven't heard one way or the

077other um I I think from an assumption standpoint I can't imagine that it's going to be long term for him but he loves it loves being there with the kids loves the the work that he does so it's five minutes five years I don't know yeah but they were just present with the students and right next to them and you know proximity we know in education is very impactful on student Behavior but it wasn't just about watching them and if they were engaged with them and they were talking to them you know the students would look up at them sometimes as they were standing over them in the crowds are they paying attention yeah if they weren't as soon as they looked up they turned right around and yeah I'm hearing and I'm engaged but

078it was it was a real positive relationship too and I liked saying that cool Barb yeah a couple questions I'm wondering will this person be training staff on any kind of safety yep yep they would in essence you know uh Roger talked about how we have a principal now who kind of oversees our Safety Committee this person would become the chair of our Safety Committee would be the the primary person that deals with training we have to shift we were trained trained all of our staff and alert three years ago and have continued to do so but alert has been taken over by Alice so we need to do a retrain of our entire staff we anticipate doing that first part of the year next year because the alert and Alice are pretty well a

079mirror of one another so but we're going to re-hit that next year and this person would help to lead part of that too bullying going on in our schools what I mean potentially yeah maybe some way but potentially I think most of their job is going to be a little more on the balcony view kinds of things but I think certainly if they're if there are areas where our our staff needs support our principals need support whatever that they could they could provide some of that support but I I think that this person's view is more on the global sense of Safety and Security of all of our buildings not as much related to kind of the everyday happenings of things that are going on in the buildings as it relates to student Behavior well

080that's I was going to say that was one of the things I would recommend John is I didn't see discipline as part of it and that's I'm hoping it was purposeful yes because yeah absolutely so yeah we have our our principals our assistant principals uh do a great job with Discipline Do they make mistakes yep everybody does but they do a great job with the discipline side of it I think this this person is going to need to have a little a much more global view of the Safety and Security kinds of things right certainly could probably help with some of that but um like I Dale assisted me with several really difficult situations um because he had a different view going into it and could and provide some of that so I could see

081them being a resource but not dealing with it directly yeah just just want to make a statement I I just think this is a very important role and much needed in our district I know some of the same people um John does that play this role in other districts and um I see the benefit to what they've brought to their respective District so I think it'd be a good idea all right appreciate you guys thank you thank you for going into detail about this John yeah sure you're very welcome I'll be coming back on this Earth yeah we'll come we'll come back another time exactly all right we are moving to our public comments section of the evening um folks who are being called up for public comment um Mr Highmore will be keeping track

082of your time you have five minutes to speak um at four minutes you'll get a one minute warning from Mr Highmore just to help you wrap up your comments uh all of our bylaws are on the back regarding public comment hopefully you reviewed them um during this time you can share what you wish about board related matters and if you have anything to say that you're concerned about violating the rights of others due to the law of defamation or invasion of privacy please seek legal counsel before stating those things also if you have direct questions please make sure that you have completed your form with your phone number your email so we can reach back out because this is not a two-way forum and we want to make sure to answer those questions for you

083all that being said our first person up tonight is Mr Walter uh scavenak if I say it right and Then followed by Karen DeWitt Midgley I would just like to say a few words about Mike Simonson who was the former principal at South uh Granville sometimes I might get mixed up between Granville and Godwin because when I came here 50 years ago I met Mike at the Middle School and Mike was a was a special education teacher and I had come from Catholic high schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin and so it was my first really experience with middle school kids and uh I met with Mike often because of special education requirements and the students in his class and over the 50 years I've seen Mike on and off during the time that he was

084there I became his boss for a while and uh we were in the process of evaluating our traditional program and our individualized program and there was a Professor from Michigan State his name was Fred ignotovich who was really doing the evaluating and I asked Fred one day I said well with your own children I said what would you expect what would you want of a teacher in the classroom and he said he would want the students to be challenged and engaged and that was what I saw daily in Mike's classes I mean um when I had bad days and I had some of them as an administrator I could go down to Mike's room and visit and his kids they were challenged they were engaged and what you saw beyond that was the joy that

085you saw from some of the children who were here today and talking about their books and that was so nice all those all those times and it was a week ago that I met with Mike and um I met with him with my spouse who was his secretary for a number of years while he was at Granville and you know I had to tell Mike how much I admired the job that he did at South Granville because if you talk to the teachers Mike had the talents and the um the personality and the interest where he was very encouraging and he was very supportive you know the teachers would probably talk that he he backed you up on stuff and uh one minute and um my spouse was able to tell him about all the

086teachers at South who missed him um and I was able to talk to Mike a little bit about his work at Grand Valley because both of us have seen um the aspirants to being education are not what they were 25 years ago and um he was a star I mean he was a five-star the rest of us yeah we're somewhere there but uh I just have we want to give our sympathy to uh his two daughters and their families and it was a pleasure knowing Mike thank you so much for that bear moving thank you so much um next up Karen DeWitt midley followed by cam zubkowski I want to talk about um pathways um last time I was up here I talked about some difficulties and how my two kids were two youngest kids

087were treated at Granville and Roger was nice enough to talk to me afterwards and ask someone to call me and she did and she listened talked to her for about a half hour and she said she'd look into everything and I've never heard anything back so um very very disappointed with that because it was like kind of like oh you got my hopes up so it's just kind of like goes along the same thing of feeling like wow I just don't matter at all because it's like why did you even take the time to call me up to say we'll look into all these things and then get nothing back but um anyway as to Pathways my son that's over there wasn't challenged at all and in 10th Grade they said he really doesn't belong

088here he's way too smart for this and he was and he was very bored and his grades kind of reflected it met with them and they all said we we really think he should go back to Granville and we were on board with it he was excited about it he wanted to and every single block barricade was put up for him not to come back at all they you guys just did not want him back you're like let's put them over there he can be over there he can graduate and we don't have to worry about him and that's where he's been he wanted to go to college he was very excited about it in 11th grade they're like well let's do early graduation you can graduate early you can go over to college and

089he said but I'm just a kid I'm I want to enjoy being in high school um so they got him into kctc he was enjoying it but they were still like go to kctc go to CC and he's like I don't really want to do that yet I'm still just a kid so they just pushed him and pushed them and pushed him and one person were there just really pushed him hard until he finally was like that is not I'm not ready for that yet so senior year he's like I really want to do that they had him unrolled they had them all signed up for classes over there dual enrollment he was going to be there he's going to be kctc and then this summer we get some email saying sorry he can't go

090and call up and why can't you go oh his GPA isn't High Enough why is someone over there not knowing this getting him all excited he's thinking wow I'm going to go over there I'm going to take classes and then it's like I just pulled the rug out from under him and and he just kept saying well I don't care but I knew he did and now um he's finished most of his classes at kctc decided not to do the last section he had not a very good teacher did get really good instruction for his year and a half there but he's just like I don't want to go to college at all now so he went from saying I want to be an engineer and I want to be in this field electrical engineer

091a mechanical engineer to I don't want to go to college at all and seriously it's like how many disappointments does a kid need before they just you kind of see the light go out of their eyes and they just say I don't care and I can't convince them you know he's working you know 17 working in a full-time job and I said I want to talk about it he said don't blow it for me because I want to graduate so he still thinks that there's some Vendetta that if I talk about this and say he didn't belong there and he was over in all these easy classes and honestly he wasn't challenged I think his education I don't think he learned much and it's sad for me as a mom to say you didn't learn

092much it's good for for credit recovery it's good for some kids but it's just not and to throw a kid over there and say you're stuck there forever now does a real disadvantage and like as a mom I saved up lots of money for him to go to college and it's like I can't convince them to go so you know very disappointed in that area I think he was really cheated of an education oh thank you for sharing with us Karen next up cam zubkowski followed by Chris Maybe [Music] Karen zorakowski my address and information is on record members of the school board on February 20th 2023rd you heard public comment from Brenda Barden cross staying at Granville Public Schools needs to do more to adjust to the changing demographic of the 21st Century and

093then in the same breath coin diversity equity and inclusion and social emotional learning and please excuse my language as I quote her horseshit I could not agree more with Brenda that Granville has a long way to go when it comes to improving its Dei and SEL programming with that said I am just as equally saddened by Brenda's dangerously uneducated misunderstanding of what these programs actually mean for our district its students our families and her sincere beliefs that improving mental health and diversity services to our students is horseshit I stand before you today to speak about the importance of diversity equity and inclusion and social emotional learning programs for youth in our historically white District as we continue to navigate a changing world it is crucial that we address the needs of all of our students

094regardless of their background or cultural identity the events of the past several years have shown us that we must do more to create a welcoming inclusive environment for all students as our district becomes increasingly diverse we must ensure that our schools are safe spaces where every student can feel hurt valued and respected the implementation of Dei and SEL programming is essential to achieving this goal Dei programs help to raise awareness about diversity cultural differences and biases they Foster a sense of understanding and acceptance and they equip students with the Stills they need to engage in constructive conversation and build relationships across differences SEL programs on the other hand promote education or promote emotional intelligence and teach students how to manage their emotions develop empathy and build positive relationships they're critical in creating a healthy and

095positive School climate where students feel supported and motivated to learn in a historically white District it is even more important to implement Dei and SEL programs students need to learn about the experiences and perspectives of people from different backgrounds and how to navigate and challenge systemic inequalities we must also equip them with the Stills they need to build relationships and work collaboratively across differences by investing in Dei and SEL programs we are investing in the well-being and success of our students not only will they be better equipped to navigate a diverse world but they will also be better prepared to be leaders and change makers in their communities in fact research has shown that stools that Implement Dei and SEL programs experience a decrease in discipline problems and increase in academic achievement and an improvement

096in student Mental Health in conclusion I want the board to recognize the hypocrisy coming from the extreme vocal minority that elected both Bob Wonder Jim and Joe Stephens to the seats on this board a group that tends to speak out of both sides of its own mouth a group that asks the district for a focus on student mental health needs and creating learning environment for students from all walk of lives claiming that our district is not doing enough and then in the same breath say they don't want the district to implement programs designed to address the very issues one minute for which they're complaining about at the end of the day our job as a district as parents as Educators as community members and as productive members of society is to ensure that all of

097our students feel welcomed supported and empowered to succeed by doing so we are not only creating a Better Learning Better Learning environment for our students but also contributing to a better future for our community as a whole any board member who would say otherwise doesn't dignify the seat that they were elected to thank you next stop Mr midley followed by Mary palavan [Music] Chris Chris no problem no apology needed I apologize I'll kind of be overlapping some of the stuff that my wife said um I will try not to I I come at Isaiah's thing from a little different perspective I tried to get him out of pathways and it was presented to us okay well it's like just this first semester and you know that was fine and you know like he had done

098something kind of stupid in eighth grade and then he a little bit doubled down on it and and I mean you know there's there's consequences so he's you know got to learn that and and then it it just kind of morphed out of that and into okay well I guess it's just this whole year and you know I tried to fight that and didn't get anywhere with that and then 10th grade nothing you know it's like they're complaining that he's sort of bored over there and he's not challenged and you know he's kind of almost Troublesome for them because he's so not challenged and he had some discipline problems in in 11th grade over there too actually from not being challenged and yet they kind of warehoused him over there and they're such like an

099inversion a risked version to people not graduating that they kind of warehoused him over there to his detriment you know and just kind of wrote it out and then they're kind of dangling this carrot out there of dual enrollment and and we're kind of like well okay I guess you know and and but couldn't they see the trajectory of his grades that he wasn't going to hit the GPA and and kind of say listen you know we want you to do this but you've got to do your part too we were completely blindsided by that I mean I mean he was talking like it was all on track and you know we're taking it face value and you know and then just out of the blue we get this email saying not ain't happening and

100and so and that just took I think so that just took all the wind out of him and I mean now he's working full-time he's kind of making close enough to adult money and and and he's sort of deflated and he's just like well what's the sense of going to college and I mean this kid is a smart kid I mean he would have been a great engineer I mean everybody in the neighborhood loves this kid everybody in the neighborhood is like hey fix my kid's bike hey fix my car I'll pay you on the side do this and I mean everybody loves this kid and he's so like such it's like statistic like that because of he was deprived because of that wanting to defend your your you know your graduation rates it really

101did him a huge disservice and it's really kind of heartbreaking I mean honestly as as a parent and I guess you know I mean ultimately he will graduate and I mean our hope is you know gets School a couple years behind him and you'll kind of be like okay well you know I'm sick of this and I want to do something a little more professional and and he will soften up and do it but there's no guarantee of that criminals pay their their thing and and are back on track he he can't he couldn't get back on track there was just no escape from that whole track and it's just it was just heartbreaking honestly thank you for sharing more next up Mary Palvin followed by Michelle Thomas hi my name is Mary palavan my

102address is on file Granville voted and it was definitely for conservative values Bob and Joe I think we found that out this fall so on that note um I have a very intelligent daughter who's in fourth grade she goes to West Elementary she has Mr wonderjem um she doesn't like to go to library because last year she got a book that at the end of it contradicted some of our values at home so now when she goes to library she sits aside and doesn't check anything out which is just too bad for her because she's an awesome reader she does get different books and she continues her her reading but I just feel like with no guidelines with our books right now a lot of books are coming in that are controversial not saying we

103need to ban books but there are a few that definitely shouldn't be in elementary um I've asked for about a year now I've been in touch with the principal I've talked to Mr Merkel about getting some type of email Kickback when my kids check out a book just so I can see what they're getting maybe look into it before they get home and want to read it I know it won't solve the problem because they'll still maybe read it in school but I feel like if I would have known about the book last year that she read I could have maybe either stopped her from getting to the end of it or I don't know a different ending could have happened to that but I feel like now she is just so self-conscious of it

104and she actually talked to me tonight because I told her I was going to talk about this and she said I just like for those books to be put somewhere else so I can go back to library and I can just look around and grab books and not worry about what's going to be in them so um I'd like to figure out a solution of how to get some sort of email Kickback parental type feature so if you go on to Destiny you can look at all the different books that are in the system but there's books like Tango makes three that a kindergartner can check out rainbow hands I am jazz these are some things that I'm not going to talk about with my child right now down the road if they need to

105talk about those things we will but not when they're six or nine if we have to include things for every child then where's the safety feature for mine if we have to have these books okay but I want something that makes me feel okay with sending them to school and going off to library and what's in the teachers libraries I don't know I don't know if those are on Destiny I trust my daughter's teachers right now but I don't know how that's going to look moving forward um I always just advocate for them and let the teachers know where I stand but um you know there's this new club that started in the high school that's for sexuality and genders and they want to create change and provide support and build community well okay if

106they can have that then I want my safety feature for library in elementary school so um I don't know what it's going to take but I'm going to keep pushing for it and I hope that you guys can help me out thank you thank you Mary next up Michelle Thomas followed by Alan trapsler I guess I'll start by saying the beauty of Elections is that the majority wins you really can't be the winner if you're representing the minority that's just not how the math of Elections works so the majority voted we need to not have disruptions from the audience when someone is speaking they're speaking to us thank you the majority of our community voted and we're thankful to have Bob and Joe back on the board with this new security position I hope that

107we tap into the resource that we have here with Joe and his police background I as a parent am very thankful to have that representation on the board um I hope we do move forward with that position I think we could use additional security obviously the square footage of the middle school is probably significantly larger than what we're currently looking at and we continue to see the bathroom situation from the high school trickling down to the middle school now middle school bathrooms are starting to be restricted we've got vaping we've got marijuana use we have kids that aren't comfortable using the bathroom they're afraid so while I know the security director isn't going to be handling the bullying and the everyday tasks maybe there are some tasks that are as large as this that they

108could look into so we can get that situation resolved it continues to be a problem um so I'm in support of that and then I wanted to touch base on the DECA program my son got to go to Deca for States and it was a great experience I'm happy that Joe plugged that program I got to meet with the teachers out in the hallway and talked to them a little bit about it as well and um I compare it to sports my kids are sports we love sports they gain so much from sports but I can look at the basketball team and for a handful of kids there's four coaches my daughter does cheer there's three coaches uh the baseball team there's four coaches this woman these two women are handling 114 students by the

109two of them and we're in an academic business I don't want to take away from the sports support but you would think that academic clubs of that size of that scale and that success could maybe get a little more support from the school in general I know there were some things that could have run a little bit more smoothly had they had a little bit more assistance so I'm thankful for the volunteers that they did get but that's a really really great program and I feel like we really could pour into that a little bit more than what we do so thank you then hello my name is Alan Traxler I live in Granville and I have two children in the district attending school here um I really didn't have any plans to speak today

110until I saw a headline from the Texas Tribune and I'll read it I'll read the headline as soon as I pull it up so he has a battle rifle police feared Uvalde Gunman's AR-15 topic is a little nerve-wracking for me because it's something I worry about with my children I was in Middle School when Columbine occurred and um it was kind of a formative experience that violence could occur and the entire country reacted after that um with this article today I spent time reading it and I'll have to forward it to your email addresses should you wish to read it but the police at Uvalde determined upon entering the school that he had this weapon this AR-15 and they were they were worried they were concerned and rightfully so there are multiple quotes throughout this

111article about police mentioning this gun to each other and wanting further backup which was a long ways away the officers present War bulletproof bullet bulletproof vests but there are some that are better than others some that are heavier than others and they wanted to wait until they had uh higher rated bulletproof vests and as you may know this particular school shooting police were there for 70 minutes uh I feel like our schools are safe I am pleased at the Locking System that we have of doors at the School my children go to I am pleased that you enter into the office and the office itself is locked there's no immediate access into the building I feel like this is a good system if I recall correctly Joe I think when you were campaigning you may

112have mentioned you had some kind of plan perhaps I believe this was mentioned I hope I'm speaking correctly but if you do have some kind of plan some kind of idea I hope that you can share it to the public I'd like to hear it I'd like to see it like to review it and my thoughts are on this situation with your relationship to the police what what do you do for police that um that that that weight how is there any way to guarantee they enter quickly I feel like speed is of the essence and I don't know I don't have any answers I don't have ways the situation can be improved but I feel that uh prevention and planning is the most important thing you can do and I'm just asking for the

113protocols to be reviewed if you have ideas I'd love to hear them and right now I'm just coming to you as someone who is concerned everything might be fine everything might be safe perfectly fine for my children as they go through school but you just can't know you just you just can't know and it's something on their mind quite a lot so I appreciate your coming comments and information you may provide thank you for your time tonight followed by Carol Bronson okay thank you for being here Carol Bronson hi I'm Carol Bronson and I live in Granville and I spoke with you at the last board meeting about how I was appalled by the hatred shown by some members of our community towards some of you on the board over the past year or so

114that I've been attending meetings um the community members claim that their anger is about parental rights and my question is which parents you do not represent the majority of parents who attend here many of the loud voices at board meetings do not even have students in our schools what is their motive for wanting to defund our schools which parents get to control all the other children and why are Outsiders so set on parents rights when they don't even attend this school district what about the parents whose children do attend and are happy with this school I believe there's a concerted effort around the state to decimate Public Schools there are groups of very loud individuals going to other school districts and spewing their hatred I just found out that a woman who is involved in

115Forest Hills and Lowell Schools board meetings is also involved in working with Milan Michigan schools on the east side of the state where my son lives and doing the same things fortunately it's not the district where my grandchildren attend however my granddaughter does attend a dance school in Milan and is probably it's probably affecting many of her dance friends I truly believe this activity is in response to the majority of citizens in our state rejecting vouchers in a previous election this is a reminder that we are the majority but this very vocal minority is well-funded and will continue their vicious attacks so we need to be vigilant and call them out now I also mentioned to you last week that I started substitute teaching again or substitute teaching after retiring from the teaching profession last

116week and it was mostly because of the shortage of teachers and shortage of substitutes and I taught in Grand Rapids and there is a huge shortage in Grand Rapids last week I subbed for a first grade classroom Delightful Children wonderful children and many of these children are they have English as a second language and they're doing remarkably well for having English as their second language right next door to my classroom where I subbed the principal Mr Frost was subbing in a first grade classroom because they couldn't get a substitute teacher for that classroom the assistant principal came into my room before the end of the day and asked me to sub for a third grade teacher the following day who came down with coven and I had already scheduled to sub at a different school

117that day so I was unable to so I'm asking for any of you who have extra time on your hands to please think about substitute teaching right now because the need is very dire and these children deserve as qual as the quality of an education as we have in Granville they deserve it as well and they are also our future leaders and um we need to help them as well thank you see that concludes our public comments section of the evening the next regular board meeting of the Granville Board of Education will be on Monday April 17th no that's in four weeks at 7 pm at the administration building this meeting is adjourned