Grandville Board Meeting - 2.6.2023

001uh let's call this meeting to order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance 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 the roll call please here gardening present Palmer here uh Dahan here Klein here please note as a courtesy to members of the audience and to the board of education to silence your cell phones the public will be able to speak during the public comment section if signed up do I have any other public comment forms that need to come in right now all right we are moving on to our agenda can I get a motion to approve the agenda so moved support all in favor yes opposed carries um next we

002have a presentation from Century Park Elementary School yes very excited we'll turn things over to Mrs Musson from Century Park Learning Center hi my name is Tara musin and I happen to be the art teacher at Century Park Learning Center and at Central Elementary and for the last year I've had the privilege of getting to be a Crayola creativity Ambassador as well so the National Art Education Association and Crayola chose their top 75 most creative art teachers in the country to help them develop and Lead National creativity week and I got to be one of those so I was able to bring National creativity week back to our students in Granville which looked different depending on every classroom that you were in one of the wonderful things about National creativity week is that it's all

003about trying to get creativity into all areas of school not just the Arts but our Core Curriculum instructions as well so some of our teachers took those Core Curriculum and lessons and they used them right during National creativity week two weeks ago and I know some of those have pocketed those lessons for when they get to specific topics and so today I just want to share with you just a little bit from National creativity week and I have a couple of students who are going to share their thoughts with you as well so we've already kind of gone through this but National creativity week is a week sponsored by Crayola to try to bring awareness about creativity and this year we had over 25 or 24 000 schools involved which is great there were five

004in-school lessons that kids could do and then also lessons over the weekend which are just really fun for students and since I'm boring there's lots of student pictures to look at instead because they're far more entertaining than me so one of the things that we ask students to think about during National creativity week is what is creativity and so you'll see some of the answers written out by students along with some of their artwork but I'm also going to ask one of our students to step up and share her piece with you so go ahead first tell them your name um my name is Kailyn okay and then can you show them your work um so I made this um like alien cheerleading thing whenever we were doing this and I just made it look

005like just like just like like just really weird and just made it how I just thought it would make it look funny and just cool at the same time because I went up to look like that so can you tell us what it means to be creative um okay today means a lot to me because it helps me view the world the the world in a more expressive way is important to me because my creativity to re it helps me relax calm down whenever I'm overwhelmed or stressed or bored being creative means being able to show your emotions and passion in the form of art where others have a chance to relate it is so important because it allows people to feel themselves while showing others who they are great job foreign so in the

006lesson that she showed you we were trying to get students to problem solve and so as crazy as it sounds I told them they had to illustrate a joke or an idiom or a metaphor and then while they were illustrating their joke idiom or metaphor I kept randomly giving them cards that had more things on it that had to be added so she started with her alien cheerleaders and part way through I said okay now you need to add in a turkey and you need to add in a mustache and you need to add into this and you needed to add into that and they needed to figure out how to put all of those pieces together into a hole so the goal of creativity week is just to really get these kids to think

007about what it means to break the rules and to think outside of the box and to make something different than anybody else so here you're seeing sixth grade examples of different creative Landscapes so some of those are realistic places some of those are places they want to go in their dreams and then again this great question of why is creativity important is something that we ask kids to think about um and so I'm actually going to have Grace step up if you're willing and show her work to you go ahead and just tell them your name Grace okay and can you show them your artwork oh there you go it's very pretty and I'll hold it up for you and Grace can you tell us what you like about art um I like our because

008I like that you can do anything with it and there are so many different forms of art to create very cool and can you tell us why you think it's important to be creative because being creative challenges your mind and makes you use your imagination very cool so I'm going to let you hold your piece and show the crowd that way too because they didn't get to see in Grace's work of art we were doing something totally different we actually were listening to different pieces of music and we were inspired by those music in each drawing so we'd listen to a piece of music and then as crazy as it sounds you'd turn your paper and pretend it was blank and listen to a piece of music and turn your paper and as they went

009through this process over and over again they ended up with an overlapping crazy drawing that doesn't look like anything anymore and so then she had to take her piece and think about what were the most important parts of this piece and recolor it to turn it into something exciting thank you some more great answers from our students about what it means to be creative and just different examples of their work as we went through the week is a very fun week you'll see some space themed work up there we tied the some of our science lessons with NASA this year which was very fun The National Society of librarians also joined in on National creativity week and worked with us as well dictating some of how we use similes and metaphors and idioms and teach

010those to students so it's just a very interesting week to be able to tie creativity across all of our curriculum one of the questions from kids all week and from parents was how is creativity different than art and I think the answer for that is that art comes down to us learning techniques and supplies and creativity is a tool that we use in art but it's a creativity that we can use across all of our curriculum to make things more exciting and to teach children how to problem solve and how to really become those lifelong Learners that we're looking to create in Granville so then our last question up here is why is Art so important that I'm going to have Mira step up here and show off her beautiful artwork [Music] nice okay and

011Mary can you tell us why do you like or why do you like art weren't you in school it kind of just makes sense and when you don't want to talk to people it can be like a form of therapy and it helps me understand math better and art is something we need awesome can you tell us why we need art in school art is important to have a school because it builds kids confidence when a kid creates something that they really like it makes them feel better about themselves and like art more exactly here [Applause] so granville's already on top of things obviously being chosen to be one of Crayola's top 75 art creative art teachers we've got a lot happening in our district that we already do to showcase the Arts that we

012were able to bring and share with other people at Crayola especially things like our art and chocolate walk and how we run our art nights in different schools but we are doing a lot if you don't know it um right now hosted in downtown Grand Rapids is the Michigan art Education Association competition and we have five Grandville students in this competition right now from our elementary schools these five students are competing if they make it on to the next level they'll actually go on display in Ann Arbor and then have the potential of going into the governor's showcase and so it's huge region nine is a very large school district region for us to be able to compete at that level is amazing in addition to that we've got art and chocolate walk coming up

013on April 28th so if you haven't seen enough art tonight join us downtown then and it's a chance to see our art from our pre-kindergartners all the way through our 12th graders and also all of our music programs as well which is just amazing and it's just wonderful to see how our entire Community comes out to support our school district in that event and then we've got our school art walks that happen in several of our elementary schools they're really fun right now we have some really fun competitions happening in the elementary schools like Doodle for Google if you yourselves on the board have students in school Doodle for Google is a national competition that comes out during National creativity week where kids can try to win a thirty thousand dollar scholarship from Google so

014we have kids across the district or competing in that right now the Scholastic art and writing competitions were last week and or last month and we had five Grandville High School Scholars who actually run awards at the Scholastic competitions and then we're expanding our art clubs in a way to get kids involved in art after school and for my wonderful fifth graders here during lunch so it's been a lot of fun to see all of the exciting things happening in Grandville with the Arts thanks for letting us take a minute and share them with you awesome foreign [Music] next item on the agenda is our consent action agenda can I get a motion support all in favor yes opposed series um our next item is I'm really excited about this the ghs Aeronautics course proposal

015it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the following proposal for Aeronautics as a new course to be offered at Granville High School this course would be a full year elective course that could serve as students technology requirement and or a fourth year math elective can I get a motion so moved support and we are very excited to bring this to you tonight Mr langto and Dr Merkel are here to review what it is all right hard to follow the kids aren't there but so uh I have with us tonight uh Chris gruenhout who is our instructional technology coach at Grandma high school and Chris has done a great job um in that role uh helping you know students and staff uh with the changes we went through the last couple years but you

016know helping us engage more technology but he's also been doing some great work to do some independent studies around the field of Aeronautics and most recently with drones and looking at uh some independent studies with drones and last year there was this great School News Network article on a student who was going to go into the golf uh course development business and how you can use drones with that along with real estate and things and Chris's independent study course has grown we're also able to partner with our av program which is constantly using more and more drones so the natural question was what else can this grow into and I'll let Chris talk about that but I just wanted to introduce the the reason behind it and kind of where we got to and Chris

017will go over the course that we are proposing tonight so thanks Adam thanks for having me here tonight guys appreciate your time thank you um yeah so this is kind of this Natural Evolution of this class we just kind of did this for fun and the kids really wanted to get into it the AV course particularly they wanted to do stuff like this be able to shoot the football field uh do games and that kind of stuff and technically speaking you're supposed to have a license to do that right so I always said well let's how can we do that and give the kids a chance in school to to get this knowledge and get this certification so that started last year we had five kids enrolled in that course and then this year we

018expanded to 10 students and uh another curriculum piece which I'll talk about in a moment and then now the next evolution of that would be to add Flight Training as well so to be a pilot okay so um why would that happen so there's a kind of a Confluence of different events that triggered this one was Community interest we're getting parents asking all the time or you know do we have anything like that like my kid wants to go to West Michigan Aviation but I want to keep them in Granville because he's in on the athletic teams and he's all his friends are in Granville and uh you know we want to keep them here it's like yeah sorry like um so that's part of it industry demand is huge um a lot of these

019curriculum foundations are all funded by the airlines they want people to get into Aviation Aerospace there's just a huge amount of demand that could go on for a long time on that student interest and just retention like I mentioned students want to stay with Granville they want to be in the high school and they don't want to necessarily go to West Michigan Aviation they don't necessarily want to go to kctc being out of school for half the day to make that happen and do something that's tangentially related you know with avionics and it's not exactly Aviation but it's closed so they do that sometimes um and then State education requirements they have opened up zip codes which is a term related to uh career and Technology education where they can get credit in high school

020uh for taking this course uh curriculum support again giving students different ways to meet different High School graduation requirements and then of course in Industry support there's a lot of people around us that want to help because they need kids that know something about Aviation Aerospace and so forth uh some of the career paths that are out there that are just new and emerging uh there's just here's just a few but again we're trying to set kids up for a successful future and these things are just new and we need to kind of evolve and adapt to a changing Workforce um you know getting these kids this this experience early in high school is going to give them a foot forward we have one of the best Aviation schools in the country right here in

021western Michigan and they're you know a top-rated school for Aviation and we have a high demand for drone jobs in Michigan not just flying the drones but all the technology behind it U of M is doing some research with those uh the Aerospace industry and then the whole computerized part of this like planning flight plans and so forth the state has just partnered with some Aerospace Industries on that so without getting into each one of these but these are just some of the programs that have pledged their support to this program there's again a lot of interest um in supporting aviation industry um you know from multi-billion Dollar aerospace companies to you know our local sheriff's office who has a drone rescue response division um so there's a lot of support the aopa is one

022of our main Partners they're the ones that provide the curriculum so they have already developed the curriculum to integrate with State Standards So reading and writing math science is all integrated so it's another great thing about this they get to see how the real the real world works like all these things kind of gel together into a career right they can see how how they can apply that knowledge the FAA we applied for a grant was to keep our fingers crossed for that one but that's a big one if we get that one that'll be another 250 000 to add to this program which could provide some additional funding for Flight Training and a Statewide outreach program so this is the general pathway um as Klein mentioned that the first semester would be flying the

023environment which is General communication reading Maps charts weather doing some of the basic math behind all kinds of Aviation and then in the second semester they could choose their path they could decide hey I want to go into flying drones and getting part 107 certified or I want to go the pilot route and get all my ground work done and get and be able to take the test so both of those are set up so the student at the end of the course will be able to take and pass their FAA certification either for part 107 to fly drones or other Ground School they're FAA written exam for their pilot's license so this kind of fits in um as Adam was saying with the high school they need to be able to have some other

024ways to satisfy their graduation requirements that fit in with something that they're they love you know that they're really interested in so with that we're also applying at this time for the career and Technology education accreditation which would allow us to receive funding from the state and give some kids some other credit options so right now we mentioned we're looking at technology fourth year math English language arts with the CTE accreditation would allow us to give them credit for foreign language or Algebra 2 depending on how we roll that out exactly okay um so that's all I have um again kids are really interested in you know that we have a lot of interest with and support from the community um and you know and you in those small parts the latest Top Gun movie

025but also a lot of interest just because you know there's these new jobs that are out there and we need to try to help at least expose kids to those jobs and give them an opportunity to move forward and be excited and about their their future and do something positive in high school towards that end I was just talking with a guy at work last week hadn't seen him in a while and his son just graduated from Calvin College and he got a job at more in bruging engineering and his primary role is going to be flying their drone because he took drone classes like outside of college and some in college but they can do all of their surveying now with a drone from above instead of having a surveying crew so he said

026they bought like a fifty thousand dollar drone and then they're using that now to do the surveying instead of having the guys in the ground yeah one of our partners here too is Michigan State University and they do a lot of their surveying now agricultural surveying using drones and fertilizer spreading pesticides all using drones Kent County they do search and rescue they have a uh thermal sensing drone so they can find people in the water or in the woods and so there's just so many different applications these days can you go to the semester breakdown and the choices that they can make real quick you better I got a couple questions on that so obviously ever flying environment first semester do you think many students would want to do both options for the second semester

027and are you you think you'll extend that in any way we've talked about that too because some of the kids the kids that are taking that this year are only in the second semester the uas operations so we were saying well if they did want to take it next year they could take flying the environment and then flight planning to the aopa also has another year of courses Beyond this if we wanted if we saw the interest and we could expand it but that would be you know beyond your regular Flight Training like IFR like getting into instrument training and then for the uas their second course on that would be a specialization so either you know law enforcement or search and rescue those kind of things getting real specific into it do you think

028do you think that when someone wants to go into this field that there's a need to continue on to college or just stay in this kind of a training environment that's uh Up For Debate but what's what has happened it used to be the airlines required a four-year degree and now they don't the demand is so high that they're they're just needing people to get trained and get get it get out there you still need the 1500 hours to be an airline pilot so that's no small task but they don't have to get a four-year degree necessarily that's more for like the business side of things running an airport but again there's a lot of other jobs that these apply to tangentially again so like air traffic control right security uh aerospace engineering so there's

029a lot of things that would be really helpful to understand the side of things on the management do you think you'll have um enough kids uh you do you feel then it seems to be that way yeah I mean okay we started out with like five one year just mentioning it to a couple of teachers and say hey and then it filled up really fast and then this year you say all right let's open it up to 10 kids and like magically in a week we found 10 kids so I would think that if we start advertising now instead of like right before it happens that we would easily fill up we were trying to cap it around 20 kids yeah um just to kind of keep it manageable because we don't know like if

030this FAA Grant's gonna happen you know money's a factor times a factor um and you know the kids have to be kind of serious about it too so if we get 10 kids uas and 10 kids pilot you know and if that Grant happens we'd have enough to fund their Flight Training as well so 20 would be a good number so I was one of those parents that was talking to you because my son was Taking Flight classes at the time and I think this was pre-pandemic but um that was my other question was funding those hours is not cheap and so it's so you're saying if these come through then with that 10 cap or whatever you decide to do that as that could even be part of that course yes yep so yeah

031it is so the the fa portion would be a funding for that but we're also looking at the CTE is hoping to fund some of that Flight Training that's how so Detroit public schools there's only like four schools in the whole state that have some kind of Flight Training thing and uh Detroit Public has it and they use their CTE funding to help subsidize their student yeah because it's like ten thousand dollars for to pay for all those five lessons but they would be able to get their their ground in with us and so that would save them a chunk of that too is the is the written exam the faa's Private Pilot written exam is that something the district is there's a charge for that and is the district picking the bill up for

032that there's a charge and we haven't really hammered that out what our what our budget's going to look like again we have these different funding sources and we have to figure out which ones are going to pan out the CTE will most definitely happen the FAA we're still waiting to hear um but yeah it's right now we're kind of thinking it's going to be almost like an AP kind of course thing but it's you know it's 175 bucks to take either test and so we could possibly subsidize that for like free and reduced launch like we do with eight people we haven't gotten into the Weeds on funding those got it cool program if you have an enormous response how will students be selected yeah um again we haven't gotten into that either but it's

033going to have to be you know we don't want it to be like an academic thing I mean there's got to be some basic academics there but it's more of a an interest level and then probably you know seniors down so that everybody gets a chance to to take it to look at what seniors we have applying and where the interest levels are and for the right reasons not just so they can get out of class but that is well this has been a hot topic of conversation in our household I have a son who went out to avionics this year because it's the best option and now he sees this and he's still like well now he wants to do maintenance avionics and this so he's like he's got it mapped out I'm leaving

034the house at 6am to get to the airport that I'm coming back at 11. it's cute but this is an amazing opportunity and then just another great way to get our students opportunities for career Pathways I've seen it in my household like change night and day the experience of my child going from frustration because it didn't fit the mold of a classroom too excited every single day to come to school because he's doing something that he's got a passion about and I see this coming into our district with these opportunities so thank you so much for seeing it for investing the time because it's no small deal to write grants and to reach out and find these funding sources and this is no tiny ticket it costs a lot of money to do a pilot's

035license and to to do the basic testing so I'm just really impressed with what you put together and that you've taken time to do it thoughtfully and tested it out and grown it a little bit and have a great pathway I'm impressed by Your sponsorship too yes the sponsorship that you guys have gotten is is very and you said there are only four programs in the whole state yeah as of right now there's yeah there's like three high school programs and then there's West Michigan Aviation and then Detroit Public has one Magnet School um yeah it's just the the amount of Interest that's there from the support side is tremendous like you call anybody up oh yeah we need people so bad we'd be happy to help what do you need you know perfect you

036might come visit we'll come MCU like they're just dying to engage so it's awesome when I have a freshman next year and so you know we went to the open house the Open high school orientation and there are people you know my age and older who are like oh things have really changed and I keep trying to tell them Granville has so many amazing options that and it's really cool that you have figured out ways for these to meet criteria in an already pretty amazing set of offerings yeah one of the the connection pieces there too is that the robo dogs right now they have their own um drone racing Division and they were in Dallas and some of the kids we have in this program this year are innovating oh I can't believe I

037get to do this for our class now this is amazing but they're getting into Aerospace they want to design the props they want to like take a 3D printer and print better props that'll make the you know drone fly faster and that's just aerospace engineering in high school is pretty amazing yeah and we're really exciting us at the universities I just toured two Aviation programs last week and um and went through like like technology divisions in some of our universities here in the state and they have you know the 3D printing the they have car models it was it's just so different and so exciting to see all these different stem opportunities starting here and bleeding into University or just straight to career opportunities I know the aviation programs out at kctc have someone in

038there every other week another business so like you've got these connections going already and they're saying this is the pathway I can offer you this is the money I can offer you this is the tuition I can offer you this is the salary it's you know it's just opening so many doors any more questions or comments great job I have a question and a comment okay um is there any flight simulators that we can borrow or use as part of this program make it out at our school but take them there right um so one of our Partners here is Le'Veon Arrow out in Zealand one of the reasons to choose them is they have four airplanes a helicopter and a simulator so for those kids that are thinking about getting an airplane but aren't

039so sure it's a nice safe way to go right just well try this out it's just like the real thing and they actually have people coming there from the airlines to test them before they hire get hired on for to an airline they go fly that simulator and they get observed while they're flying the simulator so it's the real deal so kids can get on there or if it's a bad weather day and they want to fly they can count some of those hours towards their flight from work and labion is actually hosting multiple open houses every week for students from grades 7 through 12 to come out there and try the simulators and learn about Aerospace opportunities right now so if anyone has a child that's thinking about it free program you hop out

040there on a Wednesday night spend a couple hours in the simulators it's really exciting and the next thing you hear from the Drone operator is drone down I don't know how to fly him very well on the inside so if we get some practice doing that that'd be a big one yeah any more questions or comments I wondered about the you said helicopter is that something that is it the same as a plane or is it um so they would you still need the same flight training right to be able to apply but obviously your flight training is different and about three to four times as expensive yeah and airplane rental is about 120 an hour uh a helicopter rental is almost 500 so whoa yeah that's gonna cost because it is in Michigan when

041we were having him do his flight hours they were half that so does that still that would still apply as a program because we're talking about 18 and under right well I mean we would have some seniors but because their youth that would still be your starting price point yeah yeah there's only have to be 16. and then 17 to pass through tests okay oh okay thank you guys appreciate your time well um one final thing with it let's take a vote on the Aeronautics course proposal all in favor yes I'll post motion carries congratulations um our second item of regular action business is the operating knowledge resolution it is recommended the Board of Education approved the attached resolution which is which will place an operating millage restoration levy on the ballot before the electors

042at a special election to be held on Tuesday May 2nd 2023 can I get a motion sport sure uh any questions we've talked about this let's say we've done a great deal we have I've I've got a couple of concerns I've expressed to you uh Raj already um so my experience with um millages goes way back so I've had a lot of experience with them so I'm really good so I'm really bad depends on the times um basically when times are tight my experiences they fail and you ask for when any part of the ballot says increase um they fail times are pretty tight right now for some people I got kind of a bad feeling about this one I don't feel like it's going to pass at least not in its first attempt um

043looking back at the history of things that happened in a city that I worked in which encompasses part of our district um that just failed a income tax millage last year suddenly 30 and went down to flames they're asking excuse me for a one and a half mil increase on the same day that we're asking for the voters to approve ours I I just have a feeling that it's not going to go my suggestion which you saw in the board notes was that we extend it for a year or two at the 18 at the current operating and let's just see where it goes from there if it we got a supplement the amount of funding a little bit with our contingency fund we can do that sounds like there's enough money in there to

044do that and additionally at the Kent ISD meeting the other day for the financial State finances they mentioned that the state is flush with education funds billions with a B uh money coming back to the schools and I think Heather can expound on that a little bit so I would consider or I'd like you all to consider maybe tabling this or a later ballot proposal maybe in August or November that we just table it for now and see where it goes then I just got a feeling it's going to fail that's my experience if it fails [Music] it's like this is something that we can't just let go like it's something we require it's required okay that's what I thought and part of our plan was to already just do a couple years right it

045wasn't going to be a 10-year dealie and maybe it was four would you maybe suggest the two that Joe's suggesting or something or is it just costly to our district to you know continually go back and ask yeah well I think they're pros and cons to both and I to you know this is a requirement it is part of our school funding this doesn't pass we don't get was it about 17 percent Heather yeah about 17 just under 16 million oh yeah of the normal funding we get you're not going to take care of that with the fund balance we have unless you want to drive it back down to a point where we were uh eight years ago where we were four percent our fund balance is only eight people yeah right so but

046the stateful thing is if you go below yeah something they will so so that's really not that's really not the option we cut it to less than half of what it the last time that Granville in 2013 went for a renewal of this uh and it passed it was for a 10-year cycle so 2013 so our time's up so we have to go for it because it runs out in December of 23 this year this year so so we have to go for it um and it it really hits a significant amount of money that every District asks for in the state as part of the school funding formula so whether you live in Baldwin Granville or you know Bloomfield Hills everyone has uh this operational part as part of their funding so so it

047is required and 18 is the standard um we mentioned 19 knowing as we had mentioned before you cannot go you can't Levy more than 18 but what happens what's happened over I believe it's the last is it the seven years eight years since 2016. yeah we have had a rollback so when when you're you know your housing values are higher than the rate of inflation because you know you have a thriving Community um you get as part of that formula your funding gets rolled back automatically and it never goes back to 18 unless you ask to have it restored back to that 18. if you have 19 you can't Levy 19 you can only love you 18 but what it provides I guess probably for a lack of a better example it's kind of a

048that one mil is the insurance of the fact that if it does roll back like it has the last seven years or so that you always can keep it at 18. it's not going to roll back and you can consistently lose money uh every year like we have we have not gone back some people go back for um what's called an override and they go back for that to restore it back you know they have a a small amount of Mills that they ask for in addition to to help restore it back to 18. so it's it's just a different way um of of doing it but they'll go back we did not because number one we were getting federal dollars and the federal dollars were helping us with the support systems we were trying

049to put in place for our kids well those federal dollars are gone and they can say they're flush with education money the foundation you know the the the you know the money in the school aid fund is there but history tells us that we will get a certain amount and they will raid that fund for other service Services throughout the state so just because it's there doesn't mean that we're going to see it and and I would be very surprised quite honestly if we do see uh you know continuous funding like we've had the past couple years with that covet piece so so when you look at all the pros and cons could you do a year and do 18 yes is it cost money for an election yes will you be back next May

050doing the same thing yes so when we looked at it we thought well if we did four years that's enough time to see where this where the you know kind of see where the economy is at where it's going it helps us so we can continue support systems for our kids and not lose a substantial amount of our money we receive per pupil for kids already um and and then we can revisit it and figure out what makes the most sense so so when you try to weigh those you know one year four years 19 or 18. it's still leveling 18 mil it's a substantial amount of money we lose if it doesn't pass every district in Michigan goes for it it they have to because it's part of the school of funding from proposal

051a those of you that were around in the 1990s probably remember proposal a but it's a part of that funding formula and communities not past it yes that's happened and they'll they'll go back and try again um and try to be more and they have information education they they try to get more information out there you know the one thing about the operational Mill is it's it's like I said before it's not like a bond issue it's complicated because it you know you explain what a rollback is you explain it's not a tax on the houses around you here unless they're second homes if they're the primary home that's not a tax on your house won't be a tax on my house in Granville I know that but when you look at it it's you

052know it's complicated to explain all of the things that are a part of it and that's why we've tried to spend a lot of time with you uh to explain yeah it's it's a super complex uh ballot proposal that there's going to be a lot of people that have a ton of questions on it and that's another concern yeah but that's our job I mean we have to we have to we have to go for it and we have to be able to explain it and we need opportunities for people to ask questions and we'll do that we'll do forums uh we'll do a q a we'll do a brochure we'll do a video we'll do a lot of things well matter of fact tomorrow at 7 45 we're meeting with a group already to

053to have some discussion about what an operating Mill is to try to help them understand that so if it fails in May when would it be up again would you do in August uh no it would be November November so we got two chances we technically have March of 24. would be the absolute latest for it to go I think it's a symptom to acknowledge too that there's lots of types of millages and what happened in Wyoming City with an income tax that had never occurred it was on all the individuals basically in the city it wasn't Equitable to uh that the property tax didn't apply to run they had a lot of things that weren't baked completely in that proposal it was a new tax it was an increase for the residents it's not

054the same thing this is a non-homestead tax it's on businesses businesses understand and expect 18 they've had a little bit of break in the last couple of years because of the rollback but that break has been you know balance with the increased cost of everything else that's why the break is there so this is just a restoration and businesses want good schools good schools bring communities together they bring people with economic means together they spend money in the community where they're trying to run their business so I I went out after our last meeting I've asked other businesses that we operate with that we connect with how do you feel and they said we definitely support this they felt very strongly that this was not something that was a negative on their their bottom line

055not something bad they said this is what makes our community as schools are the base and that is one of the problems that Wyoming city has is that they have underfunded some places in their school they haven't passed some of their school millages and that has affected their Community dramatically economically and and business-wise as well and so that keeps unraveling over time and and we see that here we see the necessity of this and as they said it is required and we need to file it tomorrow I'm I'm you know we talked about that last time so pushing this off is not a is not a it's not a good thing I appreciate the questions but I honestly think casting doubt on this and comparing it to something that's not the same is honestly irresponsible

056because they're going to look at us as leaders and we need to understand this very intensely and that it's normal operating procedure every school district in our county has this millage every school district in the State admission is required to put this out in front of their voters and it is a necessary part for us to do normal daily operations here I appreciate looking at it from that standpoint but it is not something I feel that we should push push it back on in any way or slow down it is what we have always done we've passed this for years every school district in the state of Michigan nearly has and those who haven't have to find the Gap and as Roger said I mean I've been in education 20 years just because the state

057has the money doesn't mean it's coming to us they're not going to rescue us if we if we can't do this they're not going to go oh I'm sorry you have a 15 million dollar budgeting here's a chat that it's not going to happen so we we need to do right for our community and for our students and make sure that we have the the funds necessary to continue the excellent education that we have here we really do and just to piggyback off that a little bit I mean I think we just had in our last presentation is a perfect example of the companies locally that are dying for us to figure out ways how we can support them and get their their uh next you know level of uh employees trained right we hear

058that across the board whether it be in uh Aeronautics whether it be in manufacturing whether it be you know the truck parts companies I mean everybody is dying for us to help them and they see that this cost as part of that right that's their investment into the community and into the schools and that's you know part of what they're looking for from us right and so um everyone knows you know it's not free um that there is a cost to it that's what it is so and I've stated this over and over before that we moved here in 2014 specifically for these schools we lived in South Bend where people did not invest in their public schools and so we did private schools when we came here these schools are better than the private

059schools we were in in Indiana and they are worth funding and they are worth I mean you ask business people all the time you defund your schools you reduce your number of people applying for your jobs you reduce the people's shopping in your businesses you turn your I mean everything works so well here because there is an amazing symbiosis between the schools and the businesses and the parks and the community and I I listen to them talking about the chocolate walk that's all of our kids all of our kids are downtown they are doing the music they're doing the art they're in there selling things they're in bringing business I mean everybody goes over to Michigan moonshine while they're looking at their kids I mean for the Bad For Better or For Worse our chocolate

060and whiskey yeah that art gets better but um becomes more abstract yeah because yeah so I mean you're you're drawing in we have lived in a school district that did not have strong Public Schools and it makes a difference people buy houses here because they want to go to this school people shop here people go to the parks here it is important I would like to just go ahead no no you're going point of clarification Joe is not against the 18 Mills I understand that you sort of told them that but you know history history in this District tends to be forgotten this is the third time we're going to renew this we go for 10 years you know people's memories are fading do they understand what this Levy is about that's sort of what

061Joe I believe is talking about you know I'm not sure who told me if it was Raj or it was um somebody else Hudsonville goes for their 18 mils every year and I've talked to some people in Hudsonville and they're like hey it's no brain because they go for it every year it is top of mind it is something that they understand leads to the value of their schools so we've got to pick up from that perspective so dropping it to four years is good do you know a hudsonville's purpose in doing it every year no I do not to restore it back to the 18 each time right I mean you're you're basically if you're gonna get a heavily rollback it's going to only ding you that quarter of a percent or 0.37 of

062one no I get that piece do we know when they started only voting every year I don't know I would be interested in that because the growth of Hudsonville is exponential right now like there are tiny homes going for three hundred thousand dollars because people just want to move into Hudsonville or Byron Center as well so it would be really interesting to see when they started this this renewal every year I would I would love to find that out but Bob that's what I was going to say I think 10 years our community hasn't dealt with this yeah I mean thought about this and so I really think that's part of our mission is to let them know how we you know start off really thinking 10 years was a good idea but it's hurt

063our district when we get those rollbacks correct we lose money and that's not good for our programming so can we solve it uh by this measure and I I think that's it that the we don't remember that this is important in our operations and all these things and I'm you know and I'm again I'm not speaking for Joe Joe no Joe can speak on his own but um you know I'm okay I bought into this I'm there but if we're going to do this in four years we better be ready for what we're going to do and we better educate our community and you know that Raj this is nothing new we let this times have changed and again history I'm going to tell you most other than somebody buying a house and they have

064to declare not Homestead I mean 30 years ago that was a big thing now nobody thinks about it right so we've got some education to do but I agree I think we do I think we do but it seems like every year somebody's going for it so you're always reading about this every year every year some districts going for it because I get I haven't voted for this in 10 years but I know I've read about it every year in the last 10 years because other districts are going for it right so I I agree with you we need to educate we need to educate locally but to say that you know people's they have no clue what this is about because it has been 10 years I I don't know I'm not I'm not

065paying attention to it I don't agree with that I don't think if you're paying attention to it in your in your area if you're gonna pay that much attention to it so funding's complicated I think we continuously have to educate I get questions all the time you know why did you build this and you didn't pay for this book from different funds there's different there's there's different ways that we we receive money and we're allowed to spend money um you know why can't you move this desk to this new building because the law says you can't you got to buy new equipment you know there's a lot of things that go into it I agree that we need to continuously educate the thing that has me spicy is casting doubt on it or comparing it

066to things that are completely different the word millage is a really big word it's like saying automobile but every car is not the same and so we need to really dissect that and understand what the comparison is in other communities and what the actual thing is because we are not an income tax here it's not an individuals and it's not an increase it's a restoration and we would be asking for that restoration every single year at a cost to our district for that for that election too right and my point is not yes first of all I understand that there's it's apples to oranges right it's an election process that had failed obviously it has nothing to do with that it's income tax right I get it uh if we ask for a one-year continuation

067at the 18 we can go back the next year and ask for a five-year depending on how things are that's my point is we're we're kind of pinning ourselves into a bad spot in my opinion because I think if it goes down this time we've got to ask for it again in November I would just soon ask for it in November if we're going to ask for an increase and make it different than um the one coming up in may just because there's already going to be an increase out there is the city of Granville asking for an increase in anything else do you know to the voters I don't think so I think it was um Wyoming and then there's two other districts that are also going for operating renewal within Kent County who's

068going to come out and vote no on that millage I almost guarantee you if they see increase on ours it's going to be a noble for us and that's just the historical my experience and that is a millage so even if we go it's not we have it already the existing one is at 18. yes and it has rolled back and so it's a restoration back it's essentially we can't use the word renewal because we're not in the right cycle to use the word renewal but it is the same effectively the same thing correct it's it's reestablishing what already exists in our community if if you go for 18 for one year the language will still stay on the ballot will still State increase that's the legal requirement that we have to follow okay um

069just one more point we're on this board to debate absolutely sure so the word cat when you said casting doubt I think that was a little harsh because we are the public we represent the public absolutely so we should be debating this like this I mean the doubt and comparison comparing it to something that it's not the same and we also want to speak to the best so it's good to dissect things it's good to understand everything that we're putting in front of us it's good to talk about it for certain it is I don't feel like it's good to say that this is something that isn't shouldn't and wouldn't exist it's something that does exist now it's at 18 now that's how our language is that's how it's passed now and we are restoring

070it and continuing we're asking to continue in normal business operating procedure that every school in the state of Michigan has and so I feel frustrated with casting doubt on a normal expected and required process for the state of Michigan that is where it that's where my frustration is at but not in debating not in talking about it I'm happy to talk about it and I'm happy to high five on the way out the door whatever whatever decision we make as a board too but it is I think it's important that that we um choose our words wisely when debating because it is a very expected and normal and required piece of our responsibilities as a school board to put this in front of the voters and it's not irresponsible to do it and it's not

071something that's unwise to do it's something that we have to do and I want to make sure that as much as people don't understand the ins and outs of school Finance sometimes and we're here debating it they might not understand our words either so they might take one word from this moment and and hold on to it and that's that's the thing and it's not it's uh it's not the same as it's not the same as Wyoming's income tax proposal and in defense of Education I have watched Roger talking about this for many many meetings I have listened to Heather I have learned an enormous amount I I can be very truthful in saying that when we first started discussing Mills I mean it was great because I'm on the parks and recs as well

072and Ken crombean did the most simplified explanation of Mills I loved it and I was like oh okay I can understand that so it becomes an issue of I do think that we are doing a lot of Education can we do more of course can we talk about the impact that having strong schools has on businesses can we talk about the business owners I actually just talked to the owner of Michigan moonshine I'm bringing that up a lot yeah you are and he is here because he loves he loves the Grandville Community we had a euchre tournament there specifically for an elementary school we bring him so much business you know so I think that we worry a little bit about yes we do talk about businesses I am the daughter of a factory owner

073I understand businesses supporting schools and public institutions and my father did it happily and I think a lot of the businesses here do it happily I guess you know that's the question for you Joe why do you so whether it fails because it's a four-year term whether it fails because it's a one-year term you're saying it's going to fail so I'm just trying to understand the logic behind moving into one year if you think in any type of millage is going to fail so I think if we move it to a one-year request a one-year continuation of the 18 mil yeah my assumption was it wouldn't have the word increase on the ballot without the word increase on there would be more likely to pass so because it's going to have the increase on it

074whether it's one year of course you feel like people are going to go in and vote no on a millage 70.5 increase they're going to vote no and those same people are going to vote no on ours with the word increase on so whether or not it's one year or four year at this point it doesn't matter it doesn't matter okay okay even when it's done so you're just viewing you're just saying that hey I'm in support of this we need to do this but I think it's going to fail that's what you're saying I'm saying it's yes okay essentially yeah we're going to stay at 18 I think it would pass some flying colors no problem and I'm thinking one year because if if we go one year and let's roll back we can

075then go to the voters and say listen we we really need this increase now we tried it for a year we gave it our best effort it we roll back even more we had to supplement that uh those monies with some out of our contingency fund a rainy day fund or whatever you want to call it but if we go about 18 for one year it doesn't roll back because we have to go back again next year and get 18. it will never roll back if we go every year whoa right we don't want to go I don't want to go every year for the real estate eternity just a one-year term now with multiple years a year from now if it if it's at 18 yeah we just do one year yep it rolls

076back this is a quarter of a percent yeah we're at 17.75 for that year we reset the next year we're not stuck with a 10-year 18 that slowly if we pass the 18 then you're saying and again I'm just trying to understand so if we pass an 18 we could still get an effective Headley rollback that same year even though it's only a one year yeah okay because it's for 2024. if it's for 2024. got it got it so it's for that tax year 19. you won't have to pay that role back it'll cover it yeah no yeah I understand that I understand that person I was trying to understand if we went to the ones are full back hopefully it's because it's the 23 24 year property values don't correct go bananas your skin

077never stops [Music] Garden yes Palmer yes Dehan yes stephas no wonder gem yes hi boar yes Klein yes motion carries thank you all right we are moving to our learning our reports and discussion period we have a learning report sure Dr Merkel is with us [Applause] thank you um so we uh started we talked about um uh learning progress at the beginning of the year uh after wrapping up last year in some summer school we are here back as part of our uh 98c grant funding through the Michigan Department of Education to provide a mid-year update as you know uh and I'll talk more about this that we Benchmark our kids three times a year and so now we just put together all of our uh benchmark assessments uh K-8 for the mid-year and wanted

078to share some Trends with that that's relatively current um uh with where we are so a couple of different slides and I want to start very big picture um we hear a lot about Statewide learning loss and the trends so this is a comparison to our nwea map growth scores the Michigan learning Trends are only provided us uh third through eighth grade but you can see those hover uh right below or around uh 50 uh being at proficient in those grade levels those are a drop of around three to six percent um from where they were in the fall of 2019 the comparison uh where we started 2022 you'll see um our lower grades are actually ahead of where they were and I didn't for our scores you'll see up there I put a pre-coveted

079average rather than just one snapshot of of the fall of of 2019 I took an average of the three years before covid and used that score um for each of those why would you do that Scott uh just because and I'm going to talk a little bit more about it just because it gives a wider Range View of an average of typically where we are we will vary and and you'll see some scores we'll vary entering first grade uh just based on different classes of kids they may they may vary and so taking a three-year average I felt gave a better picture of where we are typically over those couple of years pre-covered um so you'll notice and this is just nwea for reading in comparison um our fall of of 2022 scores where we

080entered the year drop down in the upper grades um and then looking at the end of year where students enter the school year is certainly important but where they exit the year is uh potentially more important so our nwea map growth in reading on the left hand side you can see that in the spring of 2022 in our early grades we exceeded our our pre-coveted three-year average and we talked about this at the beginning of the year what we were finding which is representative uh across the country is that those upper grades are hit a little harder uh due to complex skills the complexity of skills in those upper grades are a little harder to catch up in addition you'll notice that that third grade group um was actually the kindergarten group of the coven

081year so when you get into what are now fourth fifth sixth seventh grade those were first second third grade they're just amping up the complexity of skills which are a little harder to to catch up on I would also draw attention to the acadians reading for those of who have been around for a while that's acadians it used to be Dibbles they changed names that's our reading screener three times a year it's just a minute subtest measuring fluency and accuracy of reading we're not quite to pre-covered levels on acadians and that's another reason why we love nwea we've used it for nearly 20 years but that's one snapshot we have to triangulate data and acadians gives us a good measure to know that we don't want to put too much confidence in one assessment we

082want to look across the board at where we are but you will also see that our lower grades are closer to catching those um those pre-covered benchmarks than our than our Upper Grade so it does it does validate that in reading this is the most current snapshot can you go back real quick yeah okay go forward sorry that's okay I'm trying to get your readings on your because they're changing okay uh say more about that changing how ratings go backwards like look at your Legend now go forward one slide oh I see they're using the same colors and the percentiles gotcha okay and and I'll end the time periods I'll make sure I share this up yes so this this was spring of 22 where we ended last school year this is now winter of

083now this was our most recent Benchmark uh for both map and acadians and we the blue Compares that to where were we last year versus where are we this year um moving past that um and I'll I'll talk a little bit about the rationale but this is one reason why we uh continue to be optimistic in our work um not only were we starting the fall a little ahead of where we were the previous year but our winter shows that same growth um in both tests this time not just one you see those lower grades are very comparable to where we were last year but you see that growth that we're having in those upper grades where that is accelerated learning um in those higher level skills so uh we're ahead of where we were

084this time last year which hopefully shows that the efforts that we are undertaking are working and I'll make sure everybody has access to this exact presentation um can you email it absolutely don't you don't want to go to the folder don't make me go to Google no okay can I it is is a PDF okay all right you got it so let me transition to math uh so the same view on the Statewide learning Trends uh you see on the left hand side for the state of Michigan a very similar Viewpoint to what it was for reading from the fall of 19 to the fall of 2022 dropping between six six percentage points it's actually a little higher in math for this for the state of Michigan um but they were hovering around the 50th

085percentile now um uh just uh mid-range 40s our uh math scores again reflect what we saw in Reading as well where our lower grades are actually out performing that three-year average but we dip down in those upper grades again and our hypothesis is due to those higher level skills it's easier to catch up when there are fewer skills that you miss and as those become more complex you have different gaps for kids can you tell from the data is there like a group of kids that have caught up a lot and then there's some that are like that so that they average out to where they're at now or is it no um for our data and I'm actually going to talk about that a little bit just the individualization we can't we can't over

086generalize the one generalization we can make is those students with higher attendance uh rates higher miss school rates have bigger gaps that's logical yeah um and you mean in the current years correct are you well going back over the last couple years okay all right those students that that Miss more school had bigger gaps um so this is our current math achievement I'm sorry this is spring of 2022. so this is where we ended last school year you'll see the blue is the Baseline pre-covered and then spring of 22 again that reflection of our lower grades uh doing well at the end of last year and then we dropped down into fifth sixth seventh grade um and some room to to make up particularly in fifth grade um and then winter right now this is

087what we just finished you see one graph here because for math we aside from our classroom assessments we just we have the map we don't have the screener like we do for reading Although our our Mac team is actually looking into that because they want another data point um but the winter of 22 versus the winner of 23 um interestingly it flip-flops a little bit we see our lower grades especially that kindergarten and that's that's one that fluctuates year to year just depending on we're seeing our kindergarten teachers feel that we're seeing some uh impacts of uh lower preschool participation numbers and those types of things which we expect to rebound into next year already but we are excited to see right now uh that our upper grades are performing higher at this point now

088than they did last year we feel like we're we feel like we're catching up on some of those and more anxious to see the year-end components so a couple of talking points and you've already brought these up right the the first thing is we want to use caution in comparing any of our current status to what you might hear nationally or even Statewide and there are a number of reasons for that um the first thing is approach districts handled the pandemic differently we knew in March 13th of um I I still remember we were sitting in that room and I didn't even understand what was going on when like really we're going to close down I don't I don't understand this but from that moment as we started to plan the 2021 school year our

089approach was very specific about maintaining in-person learning we had about 80 percent of our students in person that year we offered that 20 percent uh remote but we did something and I give Mr bear but a lot of credit on this one we did something that a lot of districts didn't do in even our virtual classes were live classes a lot of people relied on canned individualized programs for that large percentage of students and we didn't do that we maintained connection with our Grandville teachers so I think our approaches is one reason and the second thing is we made a commitment to maintain our system in the school year of 2021 it was not easy and would have been very easy to just we're gonna we're gonna do school during the day we're gonna keep

090our head above water but we made a commitment to Benchmark every student that we could three times a year and we progress monitored those that were behind and that included our virtual students we our acadians testers who are uh mostly our retired teachers they're a tremendous team learn how to do it virtually and we set a schedule for every kid that was at home learning virtually and we tested them and we provided teachers with feedback and we communicated with parents and so even our approach over that year our teachers worked hard and we all heard that but I think our kids benefited because of it the second talking point is this is a snapshot we want to be optimistic about winter 2023 scores but it's one data point we want to look at how we're

091doing but again our system focuses on continued assessment we're going to continue to assess we're going to assess three times a year every student that's below that's in an intervention where progress monitoring every two weeks so our our people are doing a ton of work on that and they're really monitoring that level of progress particularly in reading but we have some map interventions going on um and so the our goal is to maintain focus on those individual needs so Brent that's a great question about can we generalize do we see different groups from a big picture we know attendance matters and we know our low SES uh group was hit hardest but you can't we really just want to look at every individual kid and that's what our system allows us to do and then

092again our our action summary is something I'm really proud of just in terms of how hard our people are working we're continuing with that Benchmark three times a year we're using data they're they're uh they're meeting at least four times a week in intervention groups but also our team added intervention support to every building that was something that we did so we added intervention teachers at every Elementary School um uh not just our title buildings but um everyone and we've added intervention support at our secondary levels um to support kids and that's been really exciting um uh some of it is just case managing touching in with kids and talking about what help do they need on their homework and then it's more than that we have added before and after school tutoring uh where

093it's needed in every building and then we've even expanded I talked about it last time but our contract with Sylvan Learning Center we've continued as well so families who can't for whatever reason can't make it work with a before or after school tutoring if they can do something on their time then we're Contracting with them to do that and for the first time Sylvan came into our high school the last thing I'll share I was I was uh the first week back I stopped up at our high school and uh bird who is one of our intervention support people that we hired at the high school he just happened to stop me because we had met before he was showing me all the great data he has on kids he said Scott I got to

094tell you we had Sylvan come in before uh break they met with nine of our kids they assessed them in reading and math but then we set up tutoring sessions for before exams he said I had five kids past classes that they would not have passed without that support that's great so it's it's it's micro level but that's five passing grades for kids that that maybe wouldn't them otherwise so we're really proud of the work our teachers are doing great stuff um and they're really really working hard and particular our our intervention people um in in their work with the teacher so we're excited we're excited to share that with you I will get you a copy I'll share everybody the PDF as well and and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have

095we had the board update and it had talked about 2 200 million dollar plan for expanding tutoring services that will also go into affecting more of this micro level work correct yeah so part of that is monies that is specifically allocated for tutoring Services we've broken it down by building and encourage them to get their systems up and running for however it works for their kids awesome and it includes summer school so uh we'll we'll have some information soon uh in the next three to four weeks out about summer school K-12 um can you go back to the first slide please yep all right so you're comparing us to Michigan right yep so tell me if I'm wrong because I hear it all the time Michigan is 33 out of 50. is that true are

096we 32 where are we Scott well I I can't speak for the Michigan Department of Education but I would yeah in in in specific with what because I just saw something specific is last question that gave Michigan number six but it's a different metric it's all dependent on what metric and which company and I understand that there's well you and you pretty much interpolated baselines yeah right yep so I think you could do the same thing but even give me a top five state that might be doing similar testing and compares to that because if Michigan I'm sorry unless you give me the documentation that says we're number six yeah um so it would depend on that's what I want the comparison okay so I will pull um I'll take a look at all the

097states that they have nwea testing for fine I'll run these same numbers and I'll send them to you I would love that because that should be the comparison please you've got it so my next question we've not seen any data on the school climate survey on any grade that it was given to and why is that uh it's coming in the next mtss update I just talked to Jason today he said he's working on that now so this is the second year but we didn't even get it for the first year you didn't get you didn't it wasn't it should have been I don't believe we did I would remember I think I think it was in the annual mtss update okay so I will make sure you get that soon so when you give

098us that give us the first two years okay okay sure all right because it's I'm not crazy about it especially the first several questions about the demographics and I don't understand that and I also would like to know the breakdown of those that um want to opt out of it because do we actually have strong to assist statistical data because of that what are we losing and what are we not getting which means if we're doing that is there a need to do all of these demographic questions you don't have to answer me tonight but that's okay what I want to know okay thank you can we actually pull nwea data on other states right now yeah I have U.S news in the world I mean I know we can call our national Norm expectation

099but current to this term yeah where I pulled that graph um I think I can differentiate other states okay so I would say I don't know exactly which ones it just it gives you information like the state gives you information we know we're not the state and we're not I mean there there's so many different uh groups that are tied up in that I mean could we look at another District similar in demographics to us and similar and funding to us and all that we have data like that um I think what this is trying to show is the kids here in Granville based on something that we've given for a long time and we're very fortunate that we've been given uh you know NWA map as an example but how are our kids doing

100over time and in looking at comparisons and looking at some Trend data and making comparisons now to Trend data is is very important I think that just shows you it shows you what Michigan is and I agree it it doesn't tell you a lot in comparison to us but at the same time it's good to know where Michigan is and it's good to know here's our data so I don't think it's a bad thing to have the Michigan data there but yeah we're not saying we're trying to compare ourselves to the state of Michigan I like the red Baseline data comparison so we know where we were where we go on the red Baseline data could you drop the national Norm expectation too so we know where we would hope a seventh grader would be

101pre-covered with yes that percentage is based on the national Norm it's uh that percentage so take a look at seventh grade Red Line seventy three three thank you 73.2 percent are considered at Benchmark or passing yeah uh or at grade level based on the national Norm comparative and is that National Norm getting reconfigured since the world is no longer Norm yeah we expected to but they haven't announced when yet I think they're waiting my opinion is I think they're waiting for some leveling right yeah like probably three years worth yeah at least um and those were most recently normed in 2020 right before the pandemic so um so if you're um not familiar with nwea they've all across the whole nation but they take that data and they recalculate it every so many years to

102make sure that they're more accurately comparing schools Across the Nation and so that's what we're talking about I did one in 16 and 20 and now here we are with numbers that are just unusual thanks Scott any more questions or when I send this of course we're always happy to answer any follow-up questions obviously we're not going to shoot we can't share individual student level data but if you have specific uh School level questions or grade level questions or or otherwise we're always happy to engage and answer those I will say I would like to share this one thing that was from the Granville High School Orientation evening and it talks a lot about how we are a cognia accredited school National Blue Ribbon Award winner School Michigan Blue Ribbon exemplary school we have a

10399 graduation rate with the class of 2022. we have 83 of Granville high school graduates enroll in post-secondary education immediately after high school we have high school graduates that have been gone that have been accepted to Harvard University of Michigan Purdue Notre Dame Johns Hopkins University of Chicago Princeton Yale USC Oberlin the Naval Academy the Air Force Academy West Point and NYU so I would say that I am extremely proud of the work you guys are doing to make sure that our kids are on track this was the class of 2022 we're talking about I understand that we have some work to do but I have I also understand that I am in another school district and I am friends with several people in other school districts and you're doing a great job thank you

104thank you our people are doing a great job thank you yeah and those failure rates at a spoiler we're not we're really excited about uh our track on failure rates and we're going to share that at the end of the year thank you all right thank you thanks again um next report and discussion is on school funding yes great topics tonight moonshine learning loss and dollar bills all right school funding um kind of the basics here although you guys already alluded to it earlier um it's not easy um so here is an accounting definition of what is a fund an independent fiscal and accounting entity with a self-baling balancing set of accounts assets liabilities resources and fund balance which are segregated for the purpose of carry on is on specific activities in accordance with special

105regulations restrictions or limitations so more simply stated it is a bucket to contain money for a particular Purpose with particular rules that we must follow um in Granville we have seven different types of funds we have the general fund which houses our everyday operations so maintenance classroom lights Heat Transportation all of that the general fund gets the majority of its revenue from the state through a foundation allowance the non-homestead operating tax levy and their Federal funding we have a food service fund which the only thing that can go into that food service fund is anything that has to do with the preparation of meals to our students and staff so so if we have well we do have staff that works in Food Service their wages may be charged to that fund um not general

106fund wages cannot be charged there we also have a Student Activity fund which is really an in and out fund it is for students who are fundraising money for whether it's field trips uh prom um those types of items it's a very small fund roughly holds around three hundred thousand dollars at times it can be as high as 600 000 but again it is really money coming in and going right back out for a specific fundraising purpose uh we have our debt fund which is a tax levy from approved Bond issues that were sold essentially again it is the mortgage on our buildings basically so what runs in and out of that fund are principal and interest payments on those Bond issues um in Granville we have a sinking fund which was another tax levy

107that a voters approved again has to be used for specific purposes there is a list online on mde's website of what allowable sinking fund uses are boilers roofs technology is a big No-No out of the sinking fund and recently the legislature amended it to include buses however in Granville because our Levy was already approved prior to the buses being allowed we cannot buy buses with our sinking fund dollars at this time until we go back for another vote yeah okay until again that sinking fund has the same type of term as the operating a levy so once that is you know up for maturity that was when we would look to go back um we have two capitals projects funds um which so we had a bond issue pass in 2013. and those Bonds were

108subsequently issued in three different series um 2013 2015 have been fully spent we have a small amount left in 2019. and then we have the most recent from November of 2019. um series one was issued in 2020 um series one has been fully spent we are currently in series two um that was just um issued I think it was May of 22. so and then we have we have an agency fund which is really cool because not all schools have this but we have some scholarship funds on hand there um that we have to hold and specifically those have to follow um the rules that were given there's application processes for some of those all the interest that's earned in those accounts goes back to those scholarship funds so when we combine all of these

109funds um a business office manages just under 125 million dollars annually Revenue it consists of four categories and the majority of these slides that come up we're going to talk about will be general fund specifically but there are typically four categories of Revenue there's your local Revenue your state revenue Federal and then inter-district or transfer so inner District we have region three programs where we send kids to Byron Center for a my site or a Mosi program we we in Granville house two transition or two Regional three programs one is our transitions program and the other is we have an ASD program which is a K-12 Continuum within our region our region consists of fire in Wyoming Kelloggsville Godfrey Lee Godwin Granville so again where does where does it come from general fund the majority

110of our local revenue is from taxes program fees so a tuition-based preschool uh Medicaid that we receive and Investments state revenue mainly consists of the foundation allowance and then categorical um different funds and those can vary from year to year federal funds typically pre-coveted were title and idea which is individual individuals with disabilities Education Act Right Around May of 2020 we started receiving Esser funds and then ARP which is the American Rescue plan just change for whatever reason they changed the name of Esser to arp and then again our inter-district we receive county-wide millages like our act 18 special ed millage runs through the ISD the enhancement Mill runs through the ISD and then transfer really the only transfer our district has is from Food Service into the general fund to cover some indirect charges

111and there is a Formula so you can't just take as much as you want from Food Service you have to follow the formula that the state provides again you can see from a local level for Food Service our sale our meal sales and caterings we get a small categorical from the state and then the federal government has national school lunch program and National School breakfast program reimbursements that we receive too um again Student Activities just fundraisers our debt fund taxes and Investments sinking fund taxes and Investments and then capital projects are Bond proceeds and Investments as well and agency fund is local with scholarships so in 2022 our general fund audited Revenue was just over 72 million dollars and you can see um the blue 20 percent is local and the big piece of the

112pie is the state funding so to really understand the state funding you have to understand proposal a and that reform it reduced the property tax burden on individuals back in 94 and it increased the role of the state taxes to finance public education sales tax increased from four percent to six percent created the foundation allowance to distribute State funding and it established a per pupil funding floor to each district um currently out of the 550 districts and PSAs in the state of Michigan there are only a handful that are out of formula everyone else now has the same base foundation and I'll give you an example of an out of formula Covert Michigan as a power plant that is very valuable to that area and so they have been out of formula since proposal a

113which means they don't get Foundation from the state because their property value is so much higher that they're allowed to Levy they just get the property value so they're getting just the local non-homestead operating Mill they're not even getting stated and there's a handful of districts like that a couple of them on the east side of the state so um to show you what what did to the funding system 93-94 you can see the majority I think I've showed you the slide before majority was local locally funded so homeowners taxes and the state kicked in a smaller amount 94.95 after proposally passed the state now owns the burden of the majority of the fundings well through sales tax so I just threw this slide in here this is year end 2022 and you can see

114that our pie looks a lot like the 94.95 pi inverted that relationship with that passing we're paid our state aid payments um over 11 or state 8 over 11 payments October to August and that's because the states you're in is September so we don't receive a payment during that time 22-23 base Foundation is 91.50 for um per pupil and we are back to our 9010 blend there was a formula a lot larger formula during covid to help with the impact of losing students for all districts so um they have now gone back to the 9010 special ed obligation so this is Formula based on prior year special ed expenditures so we have our special ed costs and then multiplied by the 28 percent plus our special ed Transportation costs multiplied by the 70 percent um

115so we do get a reimbursement from the state based on those costs special ed is not fully funded however this year in 2223 they did take a step to work towards that where we get this amount and then of the foundation of the 9150 for every special ed student that we service and then there's categorical funding and the thing with categorical funding is it's typically restricted and it covers some unfunded mandates primarily the biggest one is the mipsers the cost offset or the unrealized Actuarial liability um in Granville we get just under 6 million and we pay out just under 6 million for that mipser's liability um and then at risk while still not fully funded they did make the state did make a nice contribution for this school year to bump up our at-risk

116funding as well and that's based on our prior year of reintroduced rates Federal revenues um they're all reimbursement based so we spend it whether and sometimes we don't know if we're going to get it or not the money basically so typically like as a for instance we start out in September kids come back and we're still offering Title One services but our plan may not have haven't been approved at that point in time um or they've only issued 85 percent of a normal amount to us so um again reimbursement based so we are you know pre-funding that I guess if you will so um but Title One is economically disadvantaged census data is what drives those dollar amounts uh Title II helps with some professional development and it also helps some of our local private

117non-public schools also and then title III we have two two different title three um grants one is limited English and one is immigrant and then probably one of the biggest ones is our individuals with disability disabilities Education Act and that flows through the ISD to us um again Esser and ARP and then on the Food Service side national school lunch program so 2022 general fund audited federal revenue that 65 of the pie is Esser and ARP of that 5.5 million approximately 3 million of that is the Esser and art funding um in a normal I don't say normal in a pre-covered year um idea would make up the majority followed by title um but those are usually around 2 million 2.5 million total and this ends and in 2024 20 yeah so sr3 and 11t

118are slated to be done by September 30th of 2024. and is that when you have to spend those dollars by or do you have more um that is when we should have spent those dollars by because there's there is a little bit of a wiggle room but um we'll maybe get you to December of 24. um so again inter-district transfers examples are act 18 funding which is a special ed millage that is a county-wide millage enhancement millage is again another county-wide millage and then um Dean Transportation or ISD has a contract to help provide um transportation for students with disabilities ecsc students and so what happens is fronts that bill and then sends us an invoice it's again formula based by ridership and a number of miles so and then Region 3 tuition like I

119said we have two programs but then Wyoming houses one and Byron houses one as well that we send kids to yeah they're real quick and the dean yeah does that also include students that have received their certificate of completion and are going to Mayfield it does or straight or Lincoln yes that's okay that's cool cool um and then again finally the indirect transfer to Food Service so where does it go general fund 85 80 to 85 annually is salary and benefits purchase Services consists of sub costs custodial daycare and software purchases and then the every building and every department has a supply budget and those are carry forward budgets so they're not dinged if they don't spend it all in one year we really want to stress you know the importance of doing as much

120as you can in the current school year with your building budget however if there's something you're saving up for um you know we don't want buildings to feel like if I don't use it I'm going to lose it so that's what we do with that capital outlay in general fund it's mainly just Vehicles buses some equipment and then other the itinerants which so our psych social workers speech OT they are on the Kent isd's payroll however they follow our Master agreement our Gea agreement um and there's a benefit there is a cost benefit to Granville and Kent County Schools to do that so we get a higher reimbursement on our special ed costs to do that um that so when I show you the graph of salaries and benefits just know that I've got people

121in this other category that we have to add those two pieces of the pie together to get our 80 to 85 percent is it 12 years how long we've been doing that ever so I've been here since 2010 and it was this way when when I started all right I know it's been a long time it was a major advantage yeah not every County does it I where I was previously was a different County and they did not do this um Food Service salaries and benefits are about 40 to 45 percent of the costs purchase Services typically have to do with repairs and then our food costs fall around 45 to 48 percent in capital outlay ovens registers and last year you approved a new food truck purchase so um I do want to boast

122that and not every District does this either but we cover the um credit card fees um for parents who deposit money electronically through to Food Service so that um in a in a year Well pre and post I guess it's been about eighteen thousand dollars annually and I think that's just a great benefit because we are a self-op food service um and Jeff does an amazing job so we do we have and some of the lowest rates in Canton Animal County yes Jeff's amazing dude I just you can see on those other funds there's it seems like there's not a whole lot going on in the other funds um but there really is when especially when you get down into the capital projects currently um they're more compartmentalized yes exactly so 2022 we ended the

123year expenditure wise 71.6 million you can see the big 80 percent of the pies salaries and benefits that five percent is that other so we are between 80 and 85 percent of salaries and benefits um purchase Services nine percent I mean a big part of that is our sub costs um and then supplies and you can see Capital outlay only is about one percent and I can't take credit for this Joe's already seen this but I did steal it from Kevin Phillips presentation because you know it's really simple right but I've got a great staff um we got a great team downstairs um not to mention um the admin team here that I sit in meetings with a lot so um make it fun and I kind of like this stuff so good thank goodness

124well done yes [Applause] and on top of just keeping all of this straight and what kind of sticking my swear I just also want to commend you for always looking for opportunities to save us money too I mean you are always one step ahead of a rate change a bond opportunity anything we can to save money and that's made all the difference in us being able to keep our our rates low in our community lower than anywhere else really around here for the services that we provide so we appreciate that so much thank you thank you thank you any other comments or questions all right well done thank you okay we're moving to the public comments section of our evening um Mr High bar is going to keep track of time over here each individual

125will receive five minutes and he will provide a one minute warning at four minutes just to let you know to wrap up your comments please remember that when you are speaking to us you're speaking to the board of education and that you may speak in any fashion that you wish about any content pertaining to the board please make sure that you keep your comments respectful and that if they violate the rights of others in any way under the law of defamation of character or in individual privacy that you consult with your legal counsel before saying these things that all being said we have what about six individuals and we will start with Mr Lynn Jansen and follow up with Ruth Rondon after that hello board thank you for having me tonight I'm Lynn Jansen I

126live in the district I want to tell you about some of the exciting things happening with Granville parents for education we we're excited to have Joe status on board we supported him we're excited to have Bob Wonder General returning we supported him as well um there's another Conservative candidate that we were unable to support just because of there being two open seats and three conservatives running our district spoke very firmly um it was a very conservative boat I certainly hope this board starts to acknowledge that I hope that the board president will treat the newly elected Mr Stephens with a little more respect uh asking asking questions about how to appropriately Levy tax dollars is not irresponsible waiting till the night before it has to be filed that is but no Mr Steph's we appreciate

127you asking questions every once in a while government entities should have to think what if we dealt with a little bit less it doesn't seem to be a question that we ever ask um gradual parents for education is forming a pack because of the position we found ourselves in in this last election with three candidates running for two seats we're going to make sure that we have the financial resources to fund the next uh the next races with the appropriate amount of well-funded candidates who will represent the parents of this District um again we're really happy that the two that we supported one and we're going to make sure that going forward the parents of this District are well represented um finally it is absolutely government think to show how we are doing worse while

128asking for more money comparing ourselves to the state the bad ideas of Granville are not made better because the rest of the state had worse ideas this board failed us for the last two years three years comparing ourselves to other districts who failed Works does not make us look better thank you very much next stop Ruth Brandon followed by Jacqueline Pullman okay thanks for being here um Jacqueline Pullman followed by Alan Traxler please hello I feel like these meetings have always kind of been a little bit negative so I really want to share something positive I want to talk about social emotional learning and I want to give my thanks to miss Malott Mr martini and Miss geekus at Cummings Elementary for their support my daughter has had some emotional challenges these past few years

129and she's been in and out of the SEL program and without getting too much into it as we've kind of worked through her challenges we realized that a lot of our problems are inherited from Mom so I say that up here and I hear a lot from community members how we need to get back to the basics and teachers need to teach Reading Writing arithmetic well I got the basics I didn't have SEL and I'm now got some gray hair 41 dealing with my issues so it is a wonderful thing that my daughter is able to deal with the things that I deal with at a younger age and traditional therapy is great that's part of our process as well but having someone in the school who can be there with her when her behavior

130gets a little bit kind of below the line as we would call it it's really made a really big difference so I just want to commend the Santa comings for their work with her and just for being a welcoming place for her all the time and I want to give thanks to my whole Bulldog family for having this resource available to us that's all I got thank you Jacqueline next up Alan Traxler followed by Julie doll hello my name is Alan Traxler I live in Granville and I have two daughters attending school here um I'm also speaking in favor of social emotional learning my daughter is telling me time and again when they have to go through some of these lessons and though they themselves don't you know sometimes kids they don't want to eat

131their vegetables sometimes kids don't want to go to gym class they don't want to do this they don't want to do that but I think it's good I think some of the things I'm seeing where they take a moment and take a deep breath might seem like a minor thing but um regulating your emotions thinking about what you're going to say taking a moment it's really important how many of us have gone through school with someone who wasn't taught that someone who had a lot of outbursts a lot of anger a lot of flare-ups day to day a lot of distractions where they're interrupting other students learning maybe you went through that when you were in school maybe you had somebody in the classroom who was a little disruptive that person may have benefited from

132some SEL some of these methods of okay I'm going to take a moment and breathe I'm gonna I'm going to think about what I'm feeling like oh it actually is a component of life is thinking about oh wait a second I'm actually mad In This Moment uh that doesn't that doesn't appear automatic to everybody like wait a second I'm anxious or I'm sad you know that it's um just part of part of humanity it's learning about yourself and I think it makes the community better when we have people who might not um cause some disturbances in in community settings I'm sure we've been seeing people in the community who maybe needed to have taken a moment or think about a different way to express themselves so I think it's a good thing that this program

133exists also we have apparently a program uh d-e-i diversity equity and inclusion I had a friend named well I guess I shouldn't say his name I'll call him Larry but um he was sometimes the only black kid in his class and he would Express to me how that felt and when he went to college he got to be part of a special kind of a dorm that had more a more diverse group of people and so he expressed to me the contrast between sometimes being the only black kid in his class and being around people that of all different kinds of backgrounds all different kinds and he shared with me his feelings about how that made him feel and I think if we are to be a welcoming community we need to make people of

134diverse backgrounds feel comfortable feel accepted and I think Dei does that I think there can be a atmosphere of Welcome or we can choose some kind of slightly hostile or we're just going to ignore this issue altogether as for me I would prefer to be welcoming to people people who might have a different religion than me people who might look differently maybe they're a different ethnicity uh maybe they're immigrants maybe they're from a different nationality um I think it's a wonderful thing to be welcoming it's always been part of my life to how can I say hello to other people how can I welcome them in and having a program one minute is considered and thought about I think is valuable so thank you for including these programs as part of Granville I think it's

135a piece of what makes it great to be here thank you so next up Julie doll followed by Brenda Montgomery foreign [Music] good evening my name is Julie Dahl my address is on file I want to First address the millage that was discussed this evening Joe I thank you so much for bringing up some very valid points you've lived through this you've gone through this I think the wisdom that you offer this board is incredibly valuable to say that's inappropriate to have a healthy discussion or to bring up an experience that someone went through is completely out of line and I think that that's just a very symptomatic snapshot of the overall condescending attitude towards the people who were just elected in this recent election under the board case in point last week again no

136leadership roles not even a nomination you guys are going to lockstep and just not even acknowledge or have any sort of self-reflection or anything with what the community voted for to say it's a completely different experience with Wyoming also I would push back on that quite a bit this is not completely different residents and taxpayers business owners who are residents and taxpayers see an increase they see lots of increases coming they see lots of increases happening right now the last thing they want to do is Lay people off those people that live in the community it is the same thing schools did not diminish because they were underfunded they go downhill because leadership doesn't represent the values of that community and people move and people take their kids out of school private education homeschooling has

137gone up exponentially in the last three years again to throw more money at the problem isn't going to solve the issue either case in point the pie graph up there how much Ursa funds ARP whatever they call it now that was just implemented recently and the test scores have gone down drastically so now you're asking for more and more money without a real way to solve the problem of all the learning loss so again Joe thank you very much for staying convicted to your values and to speaking up and I appreciate a healthy discussion it's a good thing let's talk about learning loss then real quick too to fluff it up and say we're doing great to fluff it up and say hey we're doing good when we average about 60 across the board is

138is just not based in reality we're not doing good we're failing anywhere in the real world that's failing why are the older kids failing I don't know I'm just going to throw it out there when they were younger did they have masks on for years was that relationship barrier there was that not that non-connectivity there because you guys implemented masks I commend us for going back to school in person sooner than a lot of other school districts that's great but you also stuck to a mask mandate when you didn't need to could that be reflective of some of this learning loss as well we're not talking about why this learning loss happened and until you identify the problem you will continue to replicate it every single time and now you just want more money to

139help with the learning loss I would love to see more money I would love to see more money with the learning loss but again it goes back to trust that we don't trust you we don't the community doesn't trust you anymore because that trust was broken a long time ago I don't think it's it's a big issue here at Granville again we just need to be a lot more cognitive of where we are spending our money and now you're going to go out tomorrow and file for this so you need it you say it has to happen I I would side with Joe I don't see it passing and that's too bad you're going to spend a whole lot of time money and resources at the taxpayer expense to try to educate people when they

140understand it you're going to send out all the all the advertising all the Flyers all this cost who's going to be paying for that shouldn't we be focusing on the learning loss shouldn't our time money and efforts go towards all the learning loss isn't that what we should be focusing we have some great programs coming up the aeronautical that's amazing that's going to come from Grants can we not be a little more diligent with the money that we have I just I think there's a lot of I think there's a lot of room for improvement also the Granville parents have come together they have spoke loud and clear like Lynn said we'll be formal Pat that's amazing continually gain those leadership roles on the sport to turn it around to make it something that actually

141represents the parents and the community versus the state when you see that pie graph it all makes sense now because all of that money comes from the state the majority of it you are all beholden to the state not those of us sitting in the audience thank you our final speaker for the night is Brenda Montgomery friend of Montgomery and my address is on file first I just wanted to say that I I taught during the pandemic and I retired after 25 years with Granville I also had a child that was in sixth grade when the pandemic happened that was a horrible I it was awful besides me trying to teach online she's trying to learn online and it was um emotionally and psychologically a disaster for all of us and I don't know a

142single family that wouldn't tell you that every single family would say that to you seventh grade for her was challenging it was a new environment being in the Middle School it was it was a challenge eighth grade she pulled it together a little bit more but her grades in both 7th and eighth grade were nowhere where I would have wanted them my child is a freshman at the high school now and she had all A's at the semester this is not something that is going to affect our children forever people have went through horrible tragedies in their life they have been refugees they have went through Wars and they have been able to gain the skills is that something any of us wanted our kids to go through by no means not only did I

143sit in a classroom with these kids that had these problems I had them in my house and it is to say that the teachers in the district are not doing everything that they can do to help these kids I I think is is a Mis um that does not give credit to the schools in the teachers um for everything that they are doing and as much effort and heart as they put into their job so I want to tell you that I am glad to see that the scores are going up and I was not surprised to see a large dip and I anticipate that they are going to continue to go up and yes those were some big skills as Scott said that you know those more complex skills and they are going to

144get them back because now it's important to them we all learn things when we need to learn them and they will um so thank you for continuing to show the progress of our kids the other thing that I just want to address is and I don't even know if it's a dress um I live in the windy Brook neighborhood right by where the new middle school is going to be and Mr Barrett I said to you when the construction started please whatever you do do not do wrote instruction on Canal and 52nd simultaneously um and you did not so thank you very much for doing the 52nd month Street already oh believe me I I thank you every day um but as a person who has dropped children off at the middle school and who

145at the high school and now seeing um just how busy it is I do have concerns about the traffic flow in that area and about the number of cars and that the turn lane to turn left into the new Middle School will fit one car and that when you go in from from Wilson when um it goes when the right lane comes in the fire hydrant is right at the curve um so I do have concerns about that as well as um just hoping that you are looking at some traffic flow patterns getting out of the high school um after school is a nightmare um and there could be some re-looking and configuring at it just a stop sign where where the students go out onto Canal I think would be great help so that

146people could get out of the parent pickup area but I can also see with the additional entrances into the middle school from behind Costco um I can see that that's going to be a real traffic issue and there's going to be a number of collisions and I know that it's going to take a while to work out I'm just hoping that there's plans in place for some traffic studies between Granville and Wyoming um for those to make some plans I know the first year is a new year but um after that that there are some um planned in place to study that to make it um a safe area for everybody thank you thank you [Applause] the next regular meeting of the Granville Board of Education will be Monday February 20th 2023 at 7 pm

147here at the administration building this meeting is adjourned 906 yeah [Applause] there you are