001please Thrive for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance 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 Wonder John here hi boy here Buck Guardian here Palmer here to Han here fine here um as a courtesy to the members of the audience and the Board of Education please silence your cell phones the public will be able to speak during public comment if signed up are there any more public comment forms opportunity all right moving on can I get an approval for the agenda or motion to approve the agenda support all in favor yes opposed all right moving on to reports agenda uh let's start with Brent well I wasn't at uh I was out of town so I
002wasn't at the homecoming events but I've heard heard and seen pictures that it was uh quite an evening it was my wife couldn't uh believe how packed it was with the people so whoever I don't know who organized it whoever organized it did a great job um to have everything that was going on there and then to have the alumni band was pretty cooled into my wife said and then looking forward to Victory Day this this Saturday so anybody that has time 10 30 to 11 30 Saturday morning to come out to the football field it's a great event so that's all I've got thank you Amy um just from the parks and recs we are working on arpa funds from the state and that's a nice Hefty sum so um our parks are really
003going to benefit quite a bit from that and then I would just say it's felt like a really long time since we've had a board meeting so I would like to thank our Administration for the four of us who have kids in the school district that it's really great to be able to go to those events and those open houses and every single thing that we do with our kids um so yeah it's nice thank you Mom nothing thank you all right uh September is suicide prevention awareness month I thought I would educate you a little bit on the um the data from the county um because my job as the co-chair of the suicide prevention Coalition we received these numbers from the medical examiner as of August 15th there have been 60 suicides in
004Kent County 60 of them are male and 80 six percent of them are Caucasian so our white males are at very high risk in Kent County for suicide uh the largest percentage of suicide means in males is by gun and in women it is a tie between hanging and Drug overdoses so more lethal our men using guns so what do we do about that there's a lot of ideas of Suicide Prevention Coalition thinks about but one of them is um be prepared and know what you're doing so like know the be nice action plan for example notice when someone is having a hard day or something might be going on invite yourself to say hey I noticed something's wrong what's what's going down anything I can do and then challenge yourself and the stigma to
005seek out help and Empower yourself that you've saved a life because I really believe that knowing what to do in a situation like that um if you think someone is thinking of harming themselves the best thing to do is to ask them and not to be afraid to ask them uh another thing is uh there's a training called QPR and the health department is offering three free sessions they're an hour and a half each but I have a flyer um Roger you'd like to pass that on it's called QPR and it's question persuade refer a very nice way too of kind of knowing the steps to take um if you suspect someone may be suicidal and then lastly is promote the new line the 988 number which is for a mental health crisis and also
006suicide and it's not just for those in that situation that loved ones friends anyone that it's maybe in a situation or is getting in a situation where they need to talk with someone who knows what to do and that again is 988 it's answered by our own medical or Community Mental Health Network 180 trained uh staff who will get help for you thank you thank you for all that informative ideas um just want to thank a lot of community members that came out to donate the night of homecoming I was really Blown Away by a lot of the food and steamstress um just what a great supporter of our Public Schools um and in addition I had the opportunity to meet some of the trails folks and I just want to comment that I'm really
007excited that we're part of this and that we are utilizing that program throughout our school district with trails oh Trails is our SEL program actually it's a tiered tool in the multi-tiered systems of approach in addition they're creating and developing a tier 3 Model 2 and then in addition they also provide lessons to our SEL social emotional learning where it's vital and important to be working with our kids when it comes to having those self-awareness and self-esteem and helping each other so it's not just for just a student by themselves it's about a whole environment and a culture so it's a great program and it's been five years and was created at U of M and then piloted in Detroit public schools and from there they've been just doing good work thank you Jason yeah
008just uh gosh a lot of different things going on band is going full force right now where I've had the band Community performance here a couple weekends ago which is great to see as their program starts to come together and continues to develop I think they have their first competition this weekend down in Otsego I've been to a lot of tennis matches which is gosh they're almost wrap it up or coming to the end of the year already believe it or not it's only a month in the school they're already coming at the end of the year uh lots of football games too and great to see everything going uh Full Steam and uh um Wanted just to take a second and just to thank all the coaches that we have across all the different
009uh Sports um it's really hard to find people if anyone is involved in any organizations it's fine it's hard to find people to volunteer to do things let alone put yourself out there and be a coach where you're going to be open to criticism and uh backlash and everything else so it so I'd really want to say thank you to that and um you're gonna think I'm sappy but I'm gonna say it anyway uh Friday um I got you know a little little choked up as I said in the stands just listening because it's cool for me you know having been a member of this community for 40 some years now to hear the names of kids uh uh that I played sports with their parents right um I played sports with their their dads
010and uh I know how much and how important those Sports were to those guys and now to see them and their kids enjoy the sport just as much you know and and I'll throw another Kudos out there to Brent's son Luke it's really cool to see him be able to take us for it and then live this dream to be able to coach and give back as well um because that's that's such a cool thing to see especially in a community especially as our community continues to grow and get larger you don't necessarily see that right um so it's just been really cool to see um like I said that here are the names of of folks that I played with and their kids really contributing so it was fun it was really cool on
011Friday so thank you to him and you obviously can contribute you know obviously to the schools and so forth so it was just fun to see her in this past week that's all I got 40 what you said 47 47 years thank you for uh pointing out Barb I appreciate it yes very good um well for me a lot of it's echoing of what you've all said the homecoming was phenomenal and big round um gratitude and thanks to Laura van hacken and all of the students at the high school who are part of the student council who put on that day it was so enjoyable to walk out through the community and see joy in people's faces and Community coming together and having a large open event that we haven't been able to have for
012a long time and just seeing people come together and share in the spirit that our community is and the unity and the grit that we have a special thanks to all the people who volunteered for the dunk tank because I went to sign up I told them all there thank you for doing that before I signed up because I really appreciate that um and for being good sports and letting youngsters who missed miss the target come up and dunk them anyways uh thank you for providing that that moment of joy for them that was exciting I especially had fun watching Mr Martini because he always always puts on a show for the kids and it was a good time to watch I also want to give kudos to Jason and Scott for our recognition through
013the mtess process it was great to see in here I know you guys are doing a lot of work and and it's really valuable work it's deeper than just the gut feeling that things are on track or the gut feeling when things are off track it's the data and the proof the evidence and the effort towards getting students where they need to be and meeting their needs at the different levels they're at so thank you so much for doing that and also doing it at a level where we get recognized from it because we're doing it right so thank you I also want to call out one more time I know I said it a few weeks ago but I gotta say it again John you are an HR hiring machine our district is um
014I know we still have some spaces maybe some Paris spaces to fill but in terms of teaching staff we've just done a phenomenal job filling those roles and a lot of that comes to the work that's been done over the last year or two to prepare for this moment and recognize the trends that are going on and make sure that we have a solid process for hiring we are one of the best districts to work at both in spirit and curriculum in community and in contract and so that's a lot of work and we appreciate that I know other districts are looking here so just want to call that out again we have a whole bunch of new hires tonight as well it was great to see Mrs cool directing the band and then seeing
015the alumni band I have many children who've gone through the band program one that's in right now it's a great program if you haven't seen it come visit or volunteer on October 8th is our band Festival 9th at weekend they'll need a ton of volunteers their program and the shears about The Giving Tree which I think is a very good theme and always a great book for all of us to read Sheldon Silverstein was one of my favorites as a child and still to this day I can quote a lot of the a lot of the poems that he had and you know my favorites still today is I cannot go to school today it's a little Peggy McKay don't tap me out I'll read the whole thing to you right now I tried as
016a kid um also uh watching the students compete with the fight song was so much fun so really I mean getting the youngsters involved and having our high schoolers come down and build that spirit and Mentor them in Community Pride and learning the things it's not just a song to sing or a fun activity it has meaning to the words so if you haven't checked out the words read the words of the fight song and see what our kids are learning about and coming together and supporting the Bulldog spirit and pride and also just the kudos to everyone we're a good month into the year and things are going really well and I've had some great meetings with teachers for my own kids already been to some open houses seen a lot of great things
017going and it just it feels good so thank you to everyone in this room and everyone who couldn't be here tonight for a great start to the school year yeah I Echo a lot of the same things great kick you know beginning to the school year uh Friday night was just an exceptional Community event it was it was wonderful and the weather was beautiful and just great participation and great to be a bulldog with that uh this is the report where I usually forego any any other comment because we have our 2122 Financial audit report and that typically happens during the superintendence report so I'm going to turn things over to Heather um yeah so first I would just like to give kudos downstairs to our business office because um this isn't just a one-person
018show it's a compilation of a lot of things that happen throughout the year um and they work hard to pull all the information that's happened over the past year um and work with our Auditors so what I'd like to do is introduce Michael everard from Yo and yo and he'll uh kind of tell you how it went this year okay hi everybody uh as Heather said I'm Mike everard from Yo and yo so um in front of you you've got a packet of stuff um there's a couple binders One's Gonna say financial statements on them One's Gonna say single audit report there's also a letter tucked in there with some required Communications from us but what we're going to go over today is this PowerPoint that's up on the screen we've summarized all that 100
019plus Pages down into about 15 or so and it's a little little nicer format to go over so foreign [Applause] sorry a little technical difficulty I mean I can do this okay perfect so um first thing I'd like to do is just talk about responsibilities both of the district and of us as the CPA firm so this first slide is actual wording right from your out of opinion and it says that the district is responsible for preparation of the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements in accordance with gap so this is just pointing out that as the Auditors we do not come in and help help make adjustments and do the books and clean things up we have to be independent so we're not really allowed to do much of that so on
020the next slide this talks about the auditor's responsibility which is very simple we have to follow Professional Standards government auditing standards generally accepted auditing standards and plan our audit appropriately and to issue our opinion on the next slide I just want to talk a little bit about what an audit is basically it all starts with understanding your internal controls so what we do is we take a look at your business office and we say what's what's their skills knowledge and experience do we think there's any weaknesses there do we think everybody's really strong at what they do so for example if you had a brand new payroll clerk that had never done payroll before we're most likely going to consider that to be kind of a higher risk area and spend a lot more time
021there than we would if you had somebody that's been doing payroll for say 25 years so what we do is we kind of look for holes and processes and where things could go wrong we pick certain transactions and we walk them through from start to finish so um we could you could take the disbursement cycle for example and we look and say if I want to get a bill paid what do I have to do who approves it who signs the checks who codes that in the system and after we get a comfort level about your internal controls then we do our risk assessment we make certain areas high risk certain areas low risk so we do a combination of procedures substantive procedures would be like looking at statements or confirmations receipts real hard evidence
022analytical procedures would be more of comparisons relationships and ratios we are required to do some testing of the pension and opeb plans opeb stands for other post-employment benefits a fancy term for Health Care So the mipser's plan is audited at the state level and our responsibility as the CPA firm at the district level is to audit the inputs that go into that plan every year we incorporate an element of unpredictability into our audits so um something something different and new that the business office is not expecting to keep them on their uh kind of on their toes because you are a governmental unit we have to do the audit in accordance with government auditing standards so it's extra extra requirements than if you were like um you know a non-profit for example that didn't receive
023significant Government funding so um a lot of the spending is done with tax dollars so there's higher scrutiny placed on those we have to watch for uh waste and abuse for example we do some significant Grant compliance testing so because Granville receives um more than 750 000 of federal funding you have to get what's called a single audit and it's um uh testing compliance with Federal grant regulations um and then toward the end we help prepare your financial statements there's a number of reporting that's due there's a data collection form that gets filed with the federal government that's kind of like a summary of the audit and then we do all your submissions for you both to Michigan Department of Ed your local ISD and the federal government and then there's also some Bond audits
024that are being done as well because there's been significant Bond passages in the district over the last few years so every year we're kind of auditing those projects as we go along to complete that reporting at the end so we'll get into the audit results this is the first slide here which says you received an unmodified opinion that means you got a clean opinion which means that all the financial statements all the numbers that are in them uh we assert that those are materially accurate on the next slide so we do an internal control evaluation like I spoke about a few slides ago it's important to note that the opinion is on your numbers you don't get an opinion on internal controls that's not what an audit is designed to do however we do have
025to evaluate those controls and as part of Designing our procedures so if we come across something that we feel is deficient we have to report that to you we have no material weaknesses to report and no significant deficiencies to report either the single audit as I just mentioned is compliance with federal guidelines over your federal grants you are a low risk Oddity because you've had several years of demonstrating high quality audits with no serious findings so you're able to be low risk the major programs mean what grants did we focus the single audit on this year those grants where the special education cluster and then the education stabilization funds which is a lot of the new covid type funding that all the school districts are getting right now so both of those um had unmodified
026opinions which means clean opinions and we had no material weaknesses or material non-compliance to note there either on the next slide is some more things were required to communicate we had no disagreements with management we had no difficulties in performing the audit an example would be documentation that went missing some questions we had that nobody knew the answers to nothing was reconciled stuff like that so nothing like that at all thought it went very very well we had no uncorrected misstatements and no material audit adjustments as well so um audit results were very good so on the next slide we'll start going over the numbers so we've got a column here for each of your major funds we've got the general fund in the First Column followed by the 2020 and 2022 building and site
027funds in the second column and then your debt service funds that fourth column there of non-major funds that's a combination of the Food Service fund the student school activities fund the sinking fund and then there's the 2019 building and site Fund in there so you can see um the performance for the general fund this year was an increase in fund balance of about eight hundred thousand dollars so you ended the year at about 8 million flat in the general fund um the building and site fund there was significant spending of the 2020 Bonds in there but that was also combined with the new Bond issuance of about 33 million dollars for the 2022 bonds so the net change was about a positive nine million dollars on the next slide we've got a budget to actual
028comparison for the general fund so the First Column is your original budget which was approved back in June of 21 the final budget that was approved in June of 22 and then where you actually came in at so you can see the difference column there revenues were within 0.16 percent of the budget expenditures were in point five three percent of the budget so extremely accurate uh budgeting this year on a 72 million dollar budget [Music] thank you um on the next slide we've got kind of a series of graphs for you just for informational purposes this one shows you all your general fund revenue and where it comes from so 63 of all your Revenue comes from state aid the next p largest piece would be local revenue of 21 that's a combination of a
029lot of things but um the biggest piece there would be property taxes and then federal revenue although up this year was still only eight percent of the total on the next slide this shows in the general fund where do you spend all your money at so um you can see the blue and the orange slice that makes up salaries and benefits that orange slice is getting bigger and bigger every year so it's almost as big as the salaries to begin with so um 81 percent of all expenditures are for payroll and benefits on the next slide we've got a 10-year enrollment Trend analysis um going back to 2013 just showing the student count in the district usually when I show this graph at a lot of other districts it's a little more dramatic this is
030one of the most stable ones I've seen so very little change over the past 10 years in your student count next slide shows your general fund balance and what's been happening over time so um now I see like a you know a moderate increase this year that's mainly due to the influx of the covid grants that all the districts are experiencing so this is um you know pretty pretty normal what we've been seeing this year on the next slide we have um this is kind of a benchmark that a lot of districts like to use to measure the health of the general fund so if you take your fund balance and divide it by expenditures you get a percentage um you were at about 11.2 percent this year because you're a bigger District um you
031know you can't really compare yourself to smaller districts um it just doesn't work like that so um I thought about um there's actually a document that mde publishes that compares you to districts of like size I thought about looking at that before I came here but I forgot to do it so I can't tell you if that's uh um you know I think it's probably pretty comparable but I can get you that information after this uh this is always one of my favorite slides to present this shows the mipsers or your retirement rate history going back to 2009 and I shouldn't say yours but I should say every District in Michigan's retirement rate so you can see back in 2009 um the retirement rate was at about 16 and a half percent um for this
032year your rate was about 43 and next year it will be at about almost 45 so um the green line is um basically the unsubsidized rate and then the blue line is the total rate so that includes the the subsidy that you get from the state of Michigan and your state aid to help pay that total rate which started in about 2014 so that's why the Blue Line doesn't go all the way back to 2009. and then on the next slide I just want to mention a couple things won't get too too big into it but there were there was one very significant accounting pronouncement that was um required to be adopted this year and then we have one very significant one for next year so new accounting pronouncements change How We Do accounting changes
033the rules so this year it was Gatsby 87 you've probably heard some uh information about this but um basically there used to be certain criteria that if you leased certain items if it met certain criteria that it didn't have to go on your books it was a disclosure only that criteria is kind of out the window and for the most part most of your leasing arrangements are required to go on your books now there are certain exceptions that you can get out of doing that but um this was a standard that all districts had to adopt this year so um we did put some leases on the books this year however it did not have an effect to your bottom line because the asset that you recognized was the same as the liability that you
034recognize so did not have a net income effect for next year just a quick heads up there will be gasby 96 it's very similar to Lisa's same idea except it is for subscription-based it arrangements so the statement defines that as a contract that conveys control of the right to use a vendor's I.T software alone or in combination with tangible Capital assets so basically for next year you'll have to do the same thing you did for leases except over those um those I.T Arrangements the various software that you use throughout the district and then on the next slide I guess that was all I had so um I'd like to say thank you very much to the board um again the audit went very well nothing but positive things to say and thank you very much
035to Roger and to Heather and Kayla and all the staff in the business office that helped us out with an audit I know audits are disruptive to your day-to-day so we try to make it as easy as possible on everybody and I think we work really well together in that everything went great so um and if anybody has any questions I'd be happy to answer those okay I gave everybody 20 seconds um so in your letter Michael there is a section under additional information and then you also talk about it in the Gatsby for 2020 for next year 2023. for the cyber security have we ever done a cyber security audit I don't recall if we've ever done that um thank you we have done a technology audit and also um through our liability insurance
036we've completed a bunch of different um forms if you will to make sure that we are able to obtain the highest level of coverage that you can get so we are rolling out multi-factor authentication right now throughout the district and that is the last piece that we had to roll out and able to hit that highest threshold of eligibility for should we incur a Cyber attack we would have um coverage up to a million dollars that's great um I mean should we should we consider doing this at some future date hopefully recent just because of what's going on in the cyber world right somewhere everything else and the fact that we have thousands and thousands of people hey Walt hello yeah you know touching our systems every day and I know you do a great
037job but wouldn't it be nice to understand if we have a hole yes definitely um it is something that we're looking into we did actually complete a cyber security audit um admittedly it was back during the Tim purkey era so I don't have oh that's specifically Kim yeah so um we did have done one in the past but as Heather mentioned the questionnaire that her and I do on an annual basis for our cyber Insurance renewal does cover a lot of things like making sure a lot of our systems are not exposed publicly to the internet systems that are exposed publicly to the internet have the highest level of security as Heather mentioned we're rolling out two-factor on any uh system that's exposed publicly to the Internet so there's a number of requirements that we
038are are keeping up on but yes it would be something we'll look into in the future it's just and yes we do um Regular penetration testing on our systems as well to make sure I would assume that that is the case just because personal data is so sensitive and then you bring in the extra special child and the data we have on them wouldn't it I mean doesn't it make you sleep better at night if we were to even consider doing something like that yeah and that is something that um myself and obviously other Tech directors in Kent County we get together and we discuss you know best practices and all that kind of thing because yeah school districts you know not only in Michigan but you may have heard about the Los Angeles School
039District that was recently attacked with a ransomware attack so there's definitely things that we're keeping up on you know with um cooperation with other districts in Kent County to make sure we're secure that way all right just you know we're doing an audit as superintendents we've had a lot of discussion on the same thing and the importance and trying to work together we think we could uh have some power in doing some things together and saving costs at the same time good good good you know you know and why not right there's great Partnerships within Canton Iowa County in particular so you know continue to share the love so the other thing I guess I want to say besides nice job Heather and Kayla um is since I've been on the board this chart doesn't
040change much right sometimes when you look at benefits and pay it's 81 sometimes it's 82 percent but it usually doesn't change much after that so it's kind of nice to see how with everything else that you have to control that you keep everything in check so that's that's how I see that as a barometer so again nice job and thank you Michael thank you any other questions comments I have a comment I'd just like to say we have a phenomenal business office and these two ladies do such an outstanding job and uh I'm just very blessed to work with them also like thank you and yo um they they always do a very thorough job and yet do it in a way where it's uh you know easy for anyone to understand what we're looking
041at and what you know what they do and what the results are so again we appreciate that so thank you I'd like to Echo that and also let you know how that shows us the fun balance comparison to other districts all the time so we know we're good we know we're doing well but we'd love to still see whatever you can come up with as well thank you so much for being here and giving a very thorough and concise explanation of all your hard work thank you to Heather you're welcome thank you all right we do not have any old business so we're going to move to consent action agenda can I get a motion to approve that agenda all in favor yes opposed all right moving on to regular action items give me a
042moment I did not bring my readers hold it close oh thank you oh really I'm gonna need it teamwork 2.0 perfect it is recommended that the Board of Education approves the purchase of services from Life EMS Ambulance of Grand Rapids for co-teaching the emergency medical technician course for the 2022-2023 school year at a cost of 198.78 so moved support so as you know this is one of the outstanding programs that we offer uh that's very unique because not too many people offer this and we've had great results with it and I've heard some great stories from kids who have experienced it and we'll turn things over to Heather um yes so this is this course is in in its 16th year currently has 22 students enrolled this year and then once they are once they've
043completed the course they'll be allowed to sit for the state board exam in order to become licensed so again like Roger said only one of a handful of districts that in the state that offers this type of program I did include a table for you to see the historical data in terms of um course cost Etc um and any type of curriculum questions I would have to turn over to Scott I'm going to tell you you know this is one of uh this is one of the electives we have that makes Grandville stand out you know so the fact that we're still offering it and we get Fair participation in this class is an attestment to what we're doing in curriculum in the high school so nice job Rod you get it Adam's not here
044so yeah it was fun to see some of the kids that graduated this past year with my daughter uh their parents commenting that their kids were going to be I'm gonna do have a part-time job in college and be a paramedic because of this program right you know so again first time I'm kind of experiencing that so that was kind of cool to see so it is like Bob said Real World experience and getting people the opportunity to start in their careers or down that career path that they're looking to do if they're looking at the medicine so it's really cool yeah and the questions are coming um again echoing great program excited love the longevity in it and love that we're continuing to look for other areas so I just want to encourage that
045we're looking for areas to expand our Career and Technical education opportunities at our district we have a lot of great opportunities through the kctc as well but we recently discussed some of those options and I know our students really look forward to that and that for students who I need to be Hands-On this is just an amazing opportunity and I'm glad that we're continuing to look that direction I know I know a lot of students look forward to leaving school with a tangible skill that they can apply immediately either to start their career or launch a future career so thank you again for doing all this did notice that the CPI went up a lot this year no surprise but I'm so glad to be supporting them um all right let's take a vote uh
046roll call please Christy cardboard yes back yes Guardian yes the Han yes Palmer yes Wonder John yes Klein yes and it's moved congratulations to the late EMS program uh moving on to our banking relationship it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the expansion of banking services with Lake Michigan Credit Union known as lmcu the expansion includes using lmcu for general fund Food Service fund debt funds thinking fund and activity fund can I give motion um yeah so this is really my way of bringing from a transparency standpoint something that we would like to do um back in January of 2022 the board at the organizational meeting approved the designation of the following depositories Lake Michigan Credit Union being one of them and over the course of probably the last two years the last
047year in particular has been a lot we've been very diligent with meeting with various institutions that could assist us in creating some efficiencies while providing great customer service and improving our interest earnings so um Lake Michigan is the one that Rose to the top and really just we we had a little bit of a relationship with them prior to that but um for us it's really huge to have a local presence with a relationship manager who's located within the Granville Grand Rapids area there are times where we run we do run into issues and if it's payroll um it's not good so we need to make sure that we have somebody close who will answer our call right away not have to go through a help desk system that type of thing so the customer
048service interactions that we've had with them have been very positive they were able to mirror our current services at a lower cost while proposing the addition of a courier service which will not only help our office but it's going to help out the high school and the middle school too because we'll be able to set up scheduled pickups for them as well so they won't need to leave their office space either so um again this doesn't require a formal bid because it's a service however we do follow the same due diligence process that we would with any other vendor that we would look for you know three different quotes Etc from others so the other thing too is so some of the other banks that we met with were West Michigan Community PNC and then
049those that are still listed up there as well so we want to make sure too that we have a diverse banking relationship which we are continuing to do so so sorry the activity fund is how did what is that for does that include like all the different organizations and so forth or yeah so I think like like he mentioned during the audit it's a Student Activity fund so that fund is really money in money out so it's fun fundraising or donations for different different causes so it's one of our smaller funds but not for the different organizations that Granville has like say the band boosters no so all the booster groups PTC groups they have their own Ein they're separate from the district in that um we don't we don't manage their funds they have
050their own accounts Etc so okay and we'll help them when they need some assistance if they have questions but we don't do the day-to-day well The Courier Service caught my attention because my wife is constantly going to the bank for the man boosters that'd be nice but unfortunately no okay fair enough I think it was a great choice there's such a great um Credit Union and they used to be called the Grand Rapids Teachers Credit Union yeah my first bank account um but um also they're so supportive of school districts in general so I think that awesome questions or comments all right all in favor yes opposed carries um we are going to be moving to the report and discussion item I want to pause for just one moment and invite anyone who came in
051late if you'd like to sit down you are welcome to come in I just want to make sure you're comfortable because we have quite quite a bit more time and also I'd requests that you return to the gallery thank you all right moving to the report and discussion items we are going to be talking about the library book system tonight sure yes uh you recall last time we uh had a little bit of discussion about our library book system and that we were looking at uh some different pieces of that uh we we have a new library supervisor so it really uh creates a great opportunity great time to have a new set of eyes on our systems that we have and talk about what's working great and uh really look at some things uh
052in regards to books we've heard some things that people have had regarding concerns about some books and so on so uh we you know all transparency look in our systems and trying to make sure that we have a way to address uh some of the concerns and at the same time have a highly effective system for all students so I'll turn things over to Scott thank you a little bit about where we're at with it yeah like Roger said uh we're excited to have a new District Library supervisor on board Katie Lawrence and in working with Katie and her expertise she has recommended and and we're just sharing this out tonight she's recommended that within the high school library that we separate collections into a teen collection an adult collection um and within that system
053we can be responsive to some of the suggestions that we've heard from people and restrict the adult section so in the next couple of weeks we'll be sending something out to all high school parents for the opportunity to uh um enter into that restriction or complete that and submit it and then uh that section will be restricted for their student this will be a physical change in our library so it's going to take a little time but we can start um in the next couple of weeks it is important to note that an adult collection of library books is a a collection that's geared toward an adult audience and written and published for an adult audience now there are lots of reasons why we would maintain and have some of those books those books can
054include James Patterson books for example um that may be Mysteries their characters are adult characters so from a publishing world they're categorized as adult books adult books are also we have a number so Katie and I've been working to pull you know what is this what does this look like we have a number of home and auto repair books that are considered part of the adult section one of the things that will be incorporated in this system as well is an easy opportunity for any parent who wishes their child not to have the ability to check out books from the adult section to easily say you know what there is a title in there that is appropriate for my child and easily just send that one title um and and have some control and some
055parent choice over um over the books that their children check out so uh that again is gonna take some time to restructure our library but in the next couple of weeks we're going to get that information out to parents so they can submit that through PowerSchool and get it back immediately what questions might you have is it going to take a lot of oversight to let kids in and out or I guess I don't really not sure how it would look but is that like more staff needed or no we don't think so okay um it will be part of a system just in terms of um uh categorized if a student attempts to check out a book so they can get into this section there's not like a door or anything like no it'll
056be like going into the public library they have an adult fiction section team fiction section okay it'll be like that I just commend you and your team for you know constantly working on it and trying to enhance it and enhance the system we have so nice job thanks are you going to invest a similar process in the middle school and the elementary with regard to content parents may find questionable um it has been a concern it's been brought up in board meetings we have uh systems already if if a parent does not want their kid uh checking out a specific kind of book all they have to do is um address that with the librarian and or the teacher principle for the kind of book right yes they can just say I don't want a
057title I don't want my child reading books this book or that book or books about this or okay yes good and that's that's in place okay very good thank you any other comments a question all right thank you again for your support and listening to the community concerns and making updates to the system as such all right always one more time [Laughter] we're moving to the public comments section of our board meeting and just a few reminders as we get there the Board of Education recognizes and values very much the public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on District matters to that end tonight as we come forward please remember you have five minutes to share information that you would like to express about District
058matters please keep it germane to District matters and we also request that you consider the time and repetitive nature it is in our bylaws that states participation in in the school board please do not interrupt please do behave with decorum in here do not be disruptive of one another in general just be kind to one another and make sure that you're directing your comments towards us the board that is whom you're speaking with tonight and we will be listening to you okay at four minutes you will get a warning from Mr Highmore here who will let you know that you have one more minute to go also as you are giving your public comment um please remember that you may not violate the rights of others under the law of defamation or invasion of privacy
059you may be held reason held legally responsible if you do if you're unsure of what those legal ramifications may be for what you're about to say we urge you to consult first with your legal advisor all right so that being said we have a handful of folks first up will be Sally vanak followed by Julie doll good evening I am Sally Vanek I'm a 38 year resident here of Granville I raised my kids here and I also taught for Granville schools for 20 some years and I had some of the kids who are represented here in the board um I'm also a proud mother and mother-in-law three staff members of Granville schools and I have some grandkids here so I'm heavily invested into what's going on here in Granville schools um I I have a
060quick comment to make about um what I witnessed uh Friday evening at our Tailgater which was a great event I was just really disappointed I guess that um folks who are campaigning were violating some of the campaign rules and regulations that you as a board have set up and I would just hope that it's addressed at some point soon and that hopefully that um some of the literature that was being distributed that was very disparaging and in my opinion very untrue would be discredited verbally the other thing that I want to talk about are books I was a science and math teacher and so you know literature was not my forte but let me tell you I had a classroom library that probably ranges around 2 000 books many of which I purchased on my
061own because I know their power and um during my tenure as a teacher I unfortunately had three former students who were in the middle school at the time I was a sixth grade teacher primarily who ended up taking their lives I can't think of anything professionally that's more devastating than that and each one of those students took their lives of course not known by their parents of their hopelessness but they took their lives because they were different and they felt different and they did not feel accepted they did not see their face or themselves reflected in their world and so they felt very alone and isolated it was just tremendously tragic for their families I can't even imagine the pain and anger and anguish they went gone through and probably are still living today but
062I do know this books are powerful in that when kids can see themselves reflected in something in their life whether it's a book or a show or in this case a lot of times it's social media they don't feel so alone they need to have this access it's just a small tool in our toolbox as Educators just a small tool but we don't know which tool is going to be effective we don't know what's at one thing that's going to give them that one thread of Hope to stay in this world and not to give up on it I would just strongly encourage you as you look at your policies for the control of books that you will remember that students lives really are on the line here all students lives none of their parents
063I'm sure would stand here and say that a book pushed them to take their lives and I I wish at that time because this was in the late 90s in the early 2000s when this occurred that I would have had more books for them some of these kids were special needs kids other kids were it was issues with their sexuality and it just it just Grieves me that there was not more that we could have done as Educators besides was loving them and giving them the space and time to be accepted and love for who they are books can help with that thank you for your time next up excuse me next up Julie Dahl followed by Tessa jansman good evening my name is Julie Dahl my address is on file um just a couple
064things to start one I want to acknowledge that the microphones are here we appreciate that we've been asking for that for a while so thank you um also I was just sitting here just to be respectful of when we were recording or going live I just didn't want to be right behind someone so I apologize no I understand all right stay in the gallery um let's talk about the book issue first initially I don't know if you guys hear yourselves but we're talking about an adult section in a public school library are we good with that is that something that we think that's okay if something needs to be qualified as an adult does it have a place in a public school library should it not stay at just the public library at a University
065Library they have access to these anywhere online or maybe with the parents probably not just accessibility anywhere I'm trying to understand why we are okay the majority of the board and I say we with exposing children to hyper-sexualized material why are we okay with books depicting violent rape of minors in drug use I understand that we want to be everything to everyone I understand that we want to touch even if it just touches one person's lives but I don't understand why exactly I've asked several people trying to in this quest to understand like am I missing something I don't want to be naive in this what am I missing I have two friends that have dealt with sexual abuse and Trauma very young and I have another friend who is a psychologist I've asked both
066of those friends am I missing something what is happening these books okay so we're gonna take a look and let you know one friend said if I read this book unsupervised this would have triggered me so bad I would have been put into a downward spiral the other friend said I had to put this book down I could not finish it because it was bringing up all these memories and all this issue that I had to be done with that talked to my other friend he said that yes of course books like this absolutely have value but when they're in a controlled environment when he's in a session when he is with the parents or when they're coming when they're guided through this just to have a free-for-all just to have kids like this it's
067not it can trigger more than it could it it's not helping people we want them to identify with certain things and that's understandable but let's be cautious of hypersexualizing kids at a young age at the last meeting um Amy I think you had a really good point you said at first I read this book and I was like whoa what's happening and then he went back and you said okay once I read it it was a beautiful Coming of Age story is what you said and something hit me where and you said that it was the fact that that was just like that it was a desensitization to sexuality and that is something that's happening in our culture as a whole there was a fine line there was a bold line right and wrong that
068line gets a little skewed then it gets a little blurred and before you know it there isn't a line anymore and we are so quickly desensitized to all of this the fact is these books depict sexuality in minors something that we don't need to be would have access to all the time for all these kids if that's something a parent wants to have a discussion with let them if that's something a psychologist a doctor let them this is a Family Matter this is not something that needs to be just out there like that I don't think that continually pushing this we have to be everything to everyone is necessarily a productive we want to include everyone and make them feel included but in doing so that line is disappearing and when I dress Friday night
069as well since it has been brought up already I can agree with people or I can disagree with people if I disagree with somebody it doesn't mean I'm full of hate we don't always have to agree on everything all right there was not any sort of spreading truth as well is not defamation it might be very inconvenient for some but it is not defamation thank you for your time next stop Casa James ma followed by Lynn Jansen okay thank you for the microphones this is awesome my name is Tessa jansma you have my address and all on file interesting we start off with the talk of suicide and you know how prevalent it is with these children these days yet we're assigning books to classes now we're no longer just in the library this book's
070assigned to your 10th graders in a in American literature somehow yes I read this whole book too see mellow marks got every page that has something just the suicide thoughts that this girl in this book has she she explains exactly how she cuts her wrist she explains how she tries to hide it she explains that she was raped and then when she finally tells somebody which I'm pretty sure is like the whole thing of the book to speak she tells somebody about it and then within hours she's popular now she's popular in high school because she was an outsider before and now she's popular because she told everybody how she was raped this is the trash that we're giving our students now your whole reason for accepting the pornography was that okay we're going to
071get an adult section now that's how that's like you know that's wild like that's wild an adult section in a school that's disgusting but no we're we're assigning these now to our students and like do you guys want to be known as groomers because this is how you get known as groomers like this is not good this is not good at all I'm still waiting to hear from this teacher I won't say her name yet but I'm still waiting to hear what kind of discussions she thinks this book is going to have what are the kids going to talk about what if one of those kids in that class was raped and now we got the whole class talking about it how comfortable would you feel it just it's a little ridiculous let's see I'll
072move on I won't I won't dive too deep in there's really no point to keep challenging books at least for now because you guys will just go along with whatever the committee says so there's that your dress code at the high school never has been enforced it probably never will be enforced but I thought two girls didn't have any pants on today as I pick my 15 year old son up we got we got girls with spaghetti strap v-neck halter tops there's no jackets that go over those like they're walking into school just like that just no why do we even have a dress code we can just look past that rule but all the other ones let's see oh yeah one more thing about the high school why did my son get asked his
073preferred pronouns in the beginning of each class this year he had to decide he had to put his paper in with his preferred pronouns what are you doing like what what are we doing are we encouraging this like this is just beyond disappointing where granville's going so yeah and now we're going to have an adult section in our library because that fixes the problem like are we checking IDs look I I don't understand how that fixes anything like you're saying that you you you're begging for the porn to stay in the school why Granville was always a higher standard than all other schools like I went to Grand Rapids Public I remember giggling when I seen the word in a book and now we have in this book this girl calls her mom a like
074just the disrespect is wild and this is this is assigned this is a sign to our kids this is just the first one that I found I'm sure there's more and I would love to maybe get a a little more insight on how we remove books because lucky just kind of mysteriously got taken out and you guys don't have any numbers or records of any or all the books that were weeded out those records are just gone or unavailable time thank you [Applause] next Upland Jansen followed by Brenda brogdenquast all right thank you Lynn for being here Brenda bargain class please followed by Janine jansma Brenda bartonquest my address is on file this move here tonight to prevent checking out of books does not prevent kids from sitting and reading the book in the library
075but you didn't think of that huh book review process Milk and Honey by the Numbers eight parents were asked to be on the committee that wanted the book pulled but didn't have the courage to do it because they knew they'd be crucified by the left the left that says words are violence when referring to those that disagree with them but when they commit actual violence it isn't double standard much can you say hypocrisy so then they found three parents who are okay with what is in essence pornography pornographic material in a public school library and like clockwork the parents that don't like those of us speaking up at the board meeting start calling us book burners while the left also likes to revise history we just want sexually explicit material away from minors this shouldn't
076be controversial you have to be 18 to buy a mature video game you have to be 17 to see an R movie if these books were movies they wouldn't get past the school's freaking internet filters so why is it okay in written form book burners wanted books to be destroyed so that no one could ever read them again parents can still buy their own kids this garbage on Amazon if they so choose just keep it away from everyone else's to summarize seven people three parents and four faculty staff recommend that the book stay as is no restrictions the board then voted for it to one member was absent that night to follow the recommendation so now the other side is clamoring because some of the board members or remember I'm not sure if it was
077one or two didn't read the book and voted against the recommendation to keep it well I have two things to say about that when someone I know and respect tells me something sexually explicit I'll take their word for it I don't have to read the damn book to understand that also as Christians we shouldn't be reading in this disgusting stuff and as and is also part of why we don't want our minor children to have access to it so not reading it earned an even deeper respect for the people that chose not to read it out of the 11 parents involved in this process directly and indirectly eight of eleven were against that 73 percent so what was my conclusion from this first book review the process is biased parents will always be outnumbered and
078no book will ever get removed fast forward to the next book book number two Crank by the Numbers this round three parents who wanted the book removed Found the courage to serve on the committee wow it's a miracle praise the Lord two teachers and staff felt that the book should be restricted holy moly another miracle two teachers and staff felt the book was fine as is no action needed then we get the the recommendation of the committee no action needed excuse me what the heck three is more than two I know some people say math is racist but it's still three is greater than two okay so there's a rule maybe there's a rule that says it must be a four a vote of four you know I don't know I'm just trying to get
079from A to B logically okay then let's let's vote take action versus no action well that shakes out to five to two for restricting the book because I know if I couldn't get the book removed I'd prefer it to be restricted over doing nothing again logic and yet the committee recommends that no action be taken again I say what the heck then at the board meeting the board votes five to two to affirm the committee's recommendation even though it literally doesn't add up now I have a hypothetical for you walk with me here what if the committee came to came out with the votes three for doing nothing two for restricting and two for removing one minute and the committee recommended removing based on only two votes who thinks that five of the board members
080would be tripping over themselves saying that the math is wrong the committee is wrong and we should do nothing because that's not the most votes yeah me too again hypocrisy Overlook it when it suits your agenda but when it does not that's a whole other story so I assume there's an administrator overseeing this committee and while I'm not positive who that person is I have a hunch and their bias is showing as well this confirms my original conclusion that this process is biased and no book will ever get removed why would a parent ever serve on this committee again when what they recommend and was a majority in is totally freaking disregarded the recommendation needs to be updated to reflect the actual wishes of the committee and represent it to this board so we can
081see how they vote to affirm parents and the committee or to disregard an overrule and go with their own ideological agenda I also think the administrator overseeing it should be removed from the process and replaced with someone who can be objective as well as do basic math thank you for your time [Applause] and my name is Janine jansma and you have my address on file so there's much rhetoric going around suggesting that parents want to indiscriminately ban books from the public schools and that's simply not so sexually explicit books that are themselves labeled 18 and older do not belong in the libraries of junior high or High School not only should that be a no-brainer it's also a matter of following state law and Regulatory statutes that do exist in Michigan yet Michigan's current governance
082governances are participating in many disturbing and dishonest practices among them are the attempts to disenfranchise parents from being informed or from granting their consent for major life-altering medical procedures for their minor children the lack of transparency and honest dialogue among those seeking to usurp a parent's rights is very alarming these are real issues that need open exposure and yet these are the conversations that actually are getting banned censored and shut down censorship is hard and heavy upon all who question the popular narrative and the popular narrative being that which claims that what we see with our own eyes know in our own hearts and experience in our own lives are the lies are not so are dangerous misinformations and need to be silenced lies are said to be truths truths are said to be lies
083Inside Out upside down and backwards this is what our world has become the insanity of our situation is on Full display cognitive dissonance is at an all-time high as realities distortions are presented as reality itself yet truth is a fourth a force of Nature and truth will be triumphant I have so much appreciation for every courageous Soul who is holding fast to truth and freedom and I do want to acknowledge Bob who continues to hold the line in support of the parents and thereby support of all our kids our children's education deserves to be one of academic excellence an experience of a safe and friendly environment where their bodies are not subject to Medical tyranny of any kind and one where teachers or state agencies do not infringe their ideologies upon their students teaching children
084that they are just walking potential super spreaders so they must mask their beautiful faces is abusive teaching children that they don't really know if they are a boy or a girl and providing classes and tutorials on the subject is abusive the old saying that we cannot heal what we won't reveal is now up and fully operative the light is shining brightly and every bit of darkness is being exposed no stone will be left Unturned the saying it's always darkest before the dawn holds fresh meaning and much promise our Dawn is about to break God wins thank you next up Michelle Thomas followed by Brenda Montgomery okay thank you for being here Michelle Brenda Montgomery followed by Alan Traxler [Music] hi I'm Brenda Montgomery and I am my address is on file I was a teacher
085here in Granville for 25 years and have recently retired to try other things um but I just wanted to share that Friday's football game and what happened in the parking lot there was very upsetting to me as a community member here and I absolutely agree that meeting the school board candidate isn't is an important part of the whole process of an election and I agree that that needs to happen but I'm very concerned about the way that it went about there were two candidates that had a single table there and from what I could see they were passing out small cards that you could look and see what was going on for them and what they stood for and um and you could meet them and then I saw two other candidates that had a
086table that had multiple signs around it but neither one of the candidates were standing there by the gate entrance but what I did see was that there was a second spot where the other two candidates were that had a large RV that had huge signs and signs going up the driveway I do not feel that a school is the place for this even though meeting the candidates is important it was an improper place for it so when I went and looked to research what board policy is and if this policy has been changed this from what I find on the board docs on the GPS Bulldog website states that it is um in their policy number 9700 in relations with special interests there's a section about political relations and it says that school facilities may
087not be used as a means of producing or disseminating to the community any material that advertises or promotes a political politics a political cause or the Kansas candidacy of an individual public office and it concerns me and if there was something else that was brought about the change change that that's concerning to me as well because that's not what was on was on your policies on the website um and if unless I am misunderstanding that policy or it has been updated at a different time I'm concerned Mr Barrett that you allowed that to happen and Mr wonderjum I'm concerned because you were a board member the last time that that was revised which was in 2012 and you should have as a standing board member who is one of the people that is running for
088reelection you should have stood up for the policy and said this is not the place for this and it concerns me that all of that has happened there should be a time and place for the for the community to meet the potential board members but that was not the place for it that homecoming game was a celebration of the district it should not have been a place for the political pageantry that happened that day um and looking at what it is that I would like to see happen is that you find a different way to have the candidates be available for a meet and greet and not at an event that is about the students and celebrating them and the district not about promoting um promoting yourselves and looking at your strategic plan uh one
089of the things is you know to steadfastly um that respect um to stud faculty hearing to the principles of honesty reliability accountability and transparency I would hope that that's something that the board member should board members are responsible for as well as well as the humility of owning wrongdoings and restoring relationships with people one minute I would hope that um this is something that does not occur again because I think that it in the eyes of many community members what happened um does not put Granville in a positive light thank you for your time thank you our final speaker for the evening Alan Traxler hello my name is Alan Traxler I live I'm a Granville resident and I have two girls in the school system uh tonight I just wanted to offer a brief note
090of support for the board uh I am a kid of two ambulance crew members so I was very happy to see that you were training more ambulance crew it's how my parents met it's how they fell in love uh their bridal party was all emergency service members back back in years past so uh thank you for offering such a program to our students for those that want it I have seen over the course of all these meetings I have attended some amazing things from the school and you're part of how that gets funded and how it happens I've been impressed by the pilot program and by Pilot I mean pilot pilot program I've been impressed by the the money spent it seems like these are responsible expenditures I'm impressed with what I see from my
091from my own kids the education they're receiving the things they're learning they're uh excellent readers they're learning math curriculum in a different way than I grew up learning it they're being taught science they're being taught history and I like hearing what they're learning and we talk about at the dinner table the school board is part of what keeps the system running and I know there's been a lot of vitriol and they saying negative commentary but I just wanted to thank each of you because you're making Sometimes some difficult decisions that are not popular some decisions that might affect the future of deciding to run again how you're perceived in the public and I think you're doing a good job I come in here I hear reasonable things from the board members I hear nice reports
092and I just want to offer you my thanks my well wishes and my encouragement to keep going thank you thank you very much [Applause] the next board meeting of the Granville Board of Education will be on Monday October 3rd 2022 at 7 pm here at the administration building thank you to everyone for attending tonight for sharing your views for being peaceful with one another we appreciate you go Bulldogs