001Algiance followed by a quick moment of silence. 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. Thank you. All right, Madam Secretary, please call the role. All right, student board representative Sam Cook here. Arabella Stanley here. Alex Stilner. Mr. Hverson here. Mrs. Risner here. Mrs. Wat is absent. Mrs. Alward, I'm present. Mrs. Wallace, here. Mr. Smith is absent. Mr. Bess, I am present. We do have a quorum. All right. Thank you for that. Mr. Ridgeway, we do not have any modifications to the agenda. Correct. We do not. All right. Start with communications and president's remarks. Uh good evening to all here tonight and those uh viewing online. The board of education of Harper
002Creek Community Schools would like to recognize the 2025 staff retirees for all their work in positively impacting the lives of children throughout their careers. I have a list that I'm going to read of 20 individuals um that have um done great work here at Harper Creek. Carrie Knight, High School, Consumer Science, Mike Rio, High School Technology. Mark Lowry, High School Science. Nancy Eckert, High School, Special Education. Deb Hall, High School Art, Dar Smith, High School, Special Education. Chris Gilbert, Sonoma Elementary reading coach. Michelle Migliato, Beetle Lake Elementary, Developmental Kindergarten. Julie Robinson, Beetle Lake Elementary, third grade. Sharon Waltman, Beetle Lake Elementary, 4th grade. Joanne Juiceburns, Waddles Park Elementary, third grade. Diana Bartholomew, Wattles Park Elementary, fourth grade. Jim Eert, Wattles Park Elementary 4th grade. Melissa Barnes, Middle School secretary. Kim Maui, middle school paraprofessional. Sharon
003Bailey, Sonoma Elementary interventionalist. Cheryl Kunik, Sonoma Elementary interventionalist. Jenny Henrich, Sonoma Elementary interventionalist. Michelle Morgan, payroll specialist. And last but not least, high school principal Ed Greenman. I'd like to thank um all 20 of them for their years of service. We wouldn't be the district uh we are without you guys. So, thank you very much. With that, I will turn it over to administration, Mr. Rididgeway. Okay. I got a a few things. A lot of it is our sort of dates and times, but um I do want to remark we've been doing the AP advanced placement testing in this room over the last week plus this week. And I'm really impressed with the number of kids that are or students that are taking the AP classes. Um it's a huge increase from previous. We saw
004that I think at our our last uh meeting with the presentation. But um AP AP courses are typically very very challenging and they also are very good for student applications for college. So I just wanted to mention that. Uh some big things this week is seniors last week. Uh the last day is the 15th which is Thursday. They do a walk and a slideshow. The walk starts approximately 10:45. It's open to the public. So, we do have parents that come in. Um, basically all of our student body goes out of their classrooms. The seniors walk the hallways of the high school for the last time. Um, just flap them out. Uh, a lot of hugs and tears and, uh, sometimes we even have our retirees leading the way. So, with that group of retirees, it
005might be a really big group this year. And then senior awards on Friday. You're welcome to come if you'd like. There isn't necessarily a role for our board members, but you could come if you'd like. to have breakfast first at 7:30 and then awards at 8. Uh, girls on the run is Saturday at uh May 17th at the stadium. We're hosting again. We have our building committee coming up next week on May 19th. I'm really excited about the progress that's happening with our um potential bond projects in the future. They're doing a facilities assessment now. Um this whole board will see the facilities assessment. We were we kind of did a timeline out. Probably end of July or early August is when the board will see the results of the of that assessment. Um board
006tour. Put that make sure you have your calendars. May 23rd at 9. I'm calling this the behind thescene tour. We we will still see some classrooms. Um but I think looking at some some areas that you don't typically see um you know when you walk into the school building. Uh middle school awards. If you have middle school kids, May 27th is 6th and fifth grade and May 28th is 7th and 8th. 8th is doing what they call a celebration. They're not calling it graduation, but it's a graduation like uh assembly. It's been a request by parents for many years. So, they are going to try to have this celebration for the eighth graders this year to see how that goes. Uh distinguished alumnists and distinguished citizens um is May 30th at 3 and then graduation.
007uh ask all board members to come arrive by 5:45 at the stadium. If it's inclement weather, it'll be at the high school. Um either in the auditorium or in the gym. I kind of let the high school figure that that part out. Uh but 5:45 either way on the 30th. And then uh we did receive how much money we got from the PILT or the casino money. Um it the the final total was 2,293,000. uh it was about 31,000 higher than my initial estimate. So, you know, I feel pretty good about that. It's always thankful to to get that money um from uh the uh local revenue sharing board and the firekeepers hotel and casino. So, a thank you. And then on top of that, um it helps us finish our budget up. I think
008that's all I have. All right. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Any communications? We have several. We have uh several donations to acknowledge. Grace Health, Ashley Roberts, $500 for Beetle Lake staff appreciation. Benjamin Lincoln, $25,000 for Harper Creek basketball. Brad and Lynn Wilson, $3,96755 for Harper Creek Champion Project. Dave Ponchek, $2,86155 for Harper Creek Champion Project. King Scott, Rob Atkins, $1,000 towards Harper Creek Champion Project. Eddie Stanton with Stanton Interiors, $5,000 for Harper Creek Champion Project. Tim and Sloan Hudson, $750 for the Harper Creek Champion Project. And Brandon Hudson, $250 towards the Harper Creek Champion Project. We accept those donations with thanks. Awesome. Thank you for those donations to those folks. Means a lot to Harper Creek and our community. Move on to district updates, curriculum. Mrs. Williams, good evening. Good evening, everyone. Um, just a couple
009quick highlights. Um, I'm going to start moving any board approval items, just typically coursework or in this case, um, course cataloges to the top so that we're not hunting for them and so that I don't forget to get on the agenda. Um, as far as the season right now, it is uh testing season, which it was also in April. So, we have our ND NWA and our state um MSTEP. And so, I broke down kind of what our young people are experiencing a lot of heavy testing everywhere, but especially in our middle school because no grade goes untested over there. So, I I just am really proud of the staff and the building coordinators. A lot of good things are happening in intentionality around the testing. Um, we continue with our high quality tier one.
010Um, we're getting closer and closer to having those scoped sequences right embedded in the course book, which I'm sure you saw as you reviewed the course book. We're not at 100%, but we're closer. And then um continuing training right up until the end, although we'll probably do a lot less in May because we're competing with testing and and just tired tired teachers. So, I think that's it. Kindergarten roundup. That's the final. That also went very well, very smooth. We've uh got it into a situation where the kids go to the buildings the first two months and then at the end we round it off and they actually test here by building um and they do a theme. And so Michelle Burkhart and the admin assistants and Kaylee and all them have done a lot of
011work for that. Looks like a camping theme to me. We had a camping theme, fire up for Harper Creek, and they did all that. So, fun. Yeah. Unless you have any questions as you reviewed the course books, you'll see that we are requesting that they get approved tonight. Uh we were hoping to have the Michigan virtual. We made a request in March, but um we found out this weekend that they're not going to be available actually last week wouldn't be available till July, but then I got an email on Sunday. We can have them through you early next week. So, and and again, Michigan virtual course book, that's just a safety net in case there's a course that is not offered um you know through the ed options. So, we're streamlining. We had a hodgepodge
012of virtual options. I say hodge podge, but that's what we had to do. And so, now we're streamlining to Edenum Ed options. So, Calbert is the K5 and then adoptions is 612. Any questions from those pieces? Okay, thank you. Thank you. Move on to facilities and Mr. Robinson. Uh, good evening. Yes, I submitted a report. Um, is there any questions on that? I have a lot of stuff in there today. So, um, couple highlights. Um, we are, we'll talk later about the weight room. Uh the champions that's the champions program in case anybody was wondering. Um but we're are full speed ahead now with graduation planning and then summer work planning. So um graduation we met today if it if we do have inclement weather will be in the gym. You know which one? In
013the gym. In the gym. Okay. Yeah. Just because the amount we're looking at about 200 kids possibly. Okay. So, they're going to go with um if we have to move it inside, I think six tickets per family type thing. And we've only done the gym one time in the last 10 11 years. Actually, the first time we actually brought it home. Oh, from the first year we came back from WK and that was it was in the gym 20 was that would be 2015 then? Yes. something and that was not fun. It was fun. And we decided about 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock that morning to move it inside. We won't do that again. Hopefully. Um, no. And we're working diligently on uh like I said, summer projects. Uh, spring sports as everybody knows being
014crazy this year. And then working with food service on some of their spendown projects. So, we're hoping to get those in place. Yeah, there's a little bit of news on the rental house. So, we we do not have a renter at this point and so we will talk about that the building committee to see what we want to do with that house property. No comment. No comment. No, no comment. Uh, anything further for Mr. Robinson? Thank you. All right. Thank you. I move on to uh finance and Mrs. Obamer. Good evening. My normal uh board reports. I'm mine. This one's going to be short and sweet because you're going to hear a lot from me later in the um meeting about budget and things, but um the normal it shows the revision front back from
015February and then the percentages. Um next month I'll be bringing a new budget so that it'll be more in line with the percentages. that things are looking looking good on track or better. Then the next one is the cash balance report. The only real change there is we um made our school bond loan fund for the debt which is about 4.5 million. So you'll see in in debt that that went down significantly, but that's paying back that we have $12. Yeah. sticks now because I want it all make it as much interest as possible in the So where's where do we see the interest? Okay, there at the bottom. Yeah. So So far 292,000 this year for the year. Yep. Pretty good. That is just phenomenal. It's free money falling off the trees for us.
016That's why there's $1 in the money market because it's all in the my right now. But um that's really all I have for this. Of course, during the finance committee meeting, we went over all the checks and everything else. But if you have any questions, yeah, if you you know, as board members, if you ever wanted to look at the check registry, it's here on the in the board book every month. You can see every check that was written by Harper Creek. So, it's always something that sometimes people ask that question from the audience or from community. You know, we we have our checkbook open to anybody that like to take a look at it. And the finance committee gets a detailed one. even the descriptions of things and you can ask any questions. All
017right, if nothing further uh from Mrs. Overbermmy, we'll move on to technology and Mr. Maynard. Um I got the usual updates, but I do want to focus on the student device purchase aspect because that is an action item tonight. Um, at the building committee previously, um, we were allocated the $200,000 to spend on technology purchases out of that casino fund. And the, um, spreadsheet you see is the is the desired way to break that down. Um, the first three items are actually already purchased. Um, that's why they have exact dollar amounts. The remainders are estimates. Um, basically we we would have needed 250 to continue the 1:1 program as we had been doing it, which is first, fifth, and nth grade replacements every year. Um, to make this work, we decided not to replace the
018first grade this year because they're generally in good condition. So, we're going to take the fourth grade devices coming out, put them back on the cards for another year and carry on that way. Um, we're also moving the middle school um by buying a few extra cards. We can use the existing seventh and eighth grade computers to move the middle school fully back onto carts, which is a long-term goal of ours. And the middle school is definitely on board with that. And that causes breakage to drop quite a bit. So, most of the purchases are related to the Chromebooks and the carts and the licenses and the bags that go in and all of the the duads to go with that. Um, and some other odds and ends. We wanted to buy more staff computers.
019The laptops that all the teachers have, we give those to Paris, we give those to administrators, give them to everybody. So, we need more of those. Um, projectors. We have a long long list of projectors needing replacement. Um, and um, some AV items, including wireless microphones that we can use in the auditorium, but they would be portable so we can go back and forth and AV system in the band room at the high school been working on. And, uh, that's kind of the gist of it. Um, I guess is there any questions? Middle schools. Uh, so they won't, the students will not be able to take their correct computers home anymore. Yeah, we've been moving towards that. So, right now, sixth and seventh, fifth and sixth grade are already on that model. Seventh graders still
020taking them home. Um, we find the damage is extensive when they take them home and it drops significantly when they don't. And the teachers are happier. Um, we're happier. It seems to be a win-win with the we had to buy a few more carts and you have to buy a few extra computers that way because instead of buying one for every kid, you're buying 30 for every classroom. So, it works out to more and 32 in some cases, it turns out. So, As long as the the administration and teachers are good, I'm good. I I had told Jim to just put behind me the spreadsheet so you can see everything that's going to be purchased because he's got to act fairly quickly. For example, the seventh grade Chromebooks if we wouldn't have bought them at
021that time. First of all, we may not have gotten them, but second of all, we it would have cost I think we said 5,000 more approximately for the same computer. So, we did act act with that in advance within our board policy. it does have an emergency situation. So, I did approve that for that, but I want the board to approve it now even it's even though it's in the rear um just so that we have it on the books and now Jim can move forward with the other purchases as necessary. He's very frugal. Thank you Jim and Jim for being frugal. All right. Uh if nothing further there, we'll move on to comments related to agenda items. Everybody's good. All right. Consent agenda. Madam Secretary Chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek
022Board of Education approved the consent agenda as follows. Approve the general fund checks, school services fund check, school lunch, and school student and school activity fund checks in accordance with the list discussed and approve the following minutes as reviewed. May 8th, 2025 budget meeting minutes. So moved. Support. It's been moved and supported. Do we have discussion? Hearing and seeing none. Please call the role. Mr. Halverson, yes. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mrs. Alward, I vote yes. Mr. Best, I vote yes. Motion passes. All right. 5-0. Move on to information discussion. Safety committee update. Mr. Ridgeway. You'll be happy to hear this is different than every other meeting. So, we went to Wild Park Elementary with the purpose of looking at the pickup and drop off. Uh we ended up having three board members because
023we well B's on the safety committee and then Aaron and Ashley are both parents currently at Wattles and um wanted to hear. And so we are we created a plan for the back parking lot. That would be the second, third, and fourth grade um pickup and drop off that we will implement. Um the front parking lot at this point we won't change except for the fact we're going to have staff park in the back parking lot. That'll open that entire front parking lot up um for parents when they come in to get their first graders and kindergarteners. Uh we also talked about now I call it secure mode because that is what we're moving towards in our uh emergency operation plan. So we had a secure mode situation that occurred at Wild Park Elementary last
024Thursday. There was a suspicious individual um Somebody thought there was a weapon involved. Uh, kids on our bus actually saw it. We called it in, called 911. They called the police, which was Justin, our resource officer. Kids went into secure mode, which is we get the kids inside, all inside, lock the doors, nobody can enter or leave the building during that time. And it was very quickly resolved by Officer King and some supporters of EMTT Township. Um, and so that was great. And then what we did is we just went back through and said, "What was good? What can we improve on?" And so we really uh think it's important to do that kind of work. Talked a little bit about some of the events coming up that we need support from EMTT Township, which
025graduation and girls on the run, they'll have support there from our officers. And then we talked a little bit about school buses and incidences on school buses and how that communication is going. uh because there's a little bit that's not a discrepancy, but we have a bus director that can do discipline and we have principles that can do discipline. And we just talked about that that that they all had met, the principles and the bus director, but the safety committee was just curious of how that all all went because sometimes we have issues on buses and we want to make sure that those are taken care of. That was safety committee. We and we plan on going to other schools as we meet over uh the next few months so that we can hear what
026the issues are specifically at their school which we think is going to be a really nice project. All right. Thank you for that bianual CISD board of education election which we did meet on for this meeting. Is there any discussion there? Anything further before we take our vote a little later on? All right. hearing. See none, move on to the budget update. Okay. I'm going to pass it over to Mrs. Overmire. Do you want me to put these up on the screen? Yeah. Okay. Make it big so we can see it. Hold on. I'm going to be bringing the actual final budget end of June, but it's been heavy on our minds and um moving forward. So, we're I was in a good place to bring some an update to you guys. Um this isn't
027final, but um there were in February when I brought the board um we had kind of went into a spending freeze. Obviously if someone needed something they could but they just be more um I don't know spending freeze um and transportation and facil facilities specifically did a has done a great job of that and it really had a large impact on on on the budget. I when I do a budget, it's based on trends and the trends were skyrocketing and so that that helped a lot. Um, this also reflects a better estimate in retirement percentages. Um, again, we get revenue quarterly. I still haven't gotten May or August um revenue, but I I got a better feel for the the second quarter and I was able to include that. Um, additionally, there was two state
028aid payments that I did not have in the uh, revision that I brought to you in February because I didn't know about them. The first one was enrollment stabilization. So, if you lose students, right? Um, it's new the last two years. If you lose students, they try to stabilize you. Um, we we had hadn't had that in previous years and we actually were given it originally and then it was taken away. But then in February after of course I brought you the revision uh it was put back in for 220,000. So that helped the bud budget's bottom line. And also in February a prior year adjustment in state special ed came in for 230,000. So that right there was a 450,000 in revenue that I did not know about in February. So, um, again, I'm
029not going to have the final, but it's definitely looking better than the 1.9 in the negative, uh, that I that I brought you in February. Is there any questions? Any questions on this year's budget? So, we're a lot better spot than we were in February. 1.9 million. This would put us at uh, if this is where it ended, 12.7% fund balance. And there was when we met uh Sarah and I met with you at the budget committee, there were some variables there. I think two or three of them, those look pretty still look pretty solid on the extra income side of things. Yes. Yeah. The 220 and the 230,000. Yes. Okay. Okay. And then into next year's budget, which we've been talking about for since February. Kind of early, but I'll put it right there.
030You think you see it? Okay. So, full transparency. This is less conservative than I normally would be at a first um go at at it uh because there's a lot of assumptions, but I wanted to lay out all the assumptions. The foundation allowance of $10,000, which the House, the Senate, and the um governor's budget all reflected at least $10,000. A couple of them, I think one one or two $10,08. So, we'll take those $8. Um but I built it on $10,000. uh student count this year um we put we did 2710 FTE. We usually in years past have built it on the spring count. This year's spring count was 2713 and last year as you know we it went down pretty significant from the spring. So we assumed a little bit of a loss in
031and um the I left the retirement revenue and expenses the same because there are a lot of changes going on. But when I when I dug in deep and did the revenue versus it's about $100,000 for the better, but it wasn't a guarantee. So I so I left everything the same. Um insurance I estimated at 8.5% increase. Current legislation um is a there's a hard cap and that was actually released um at 2.9% increase. So, if it stays like that, then it'll be uh better for our budget by 150,000. But there's also uh bills out there being talked about being passed that could increase it by 10%. So, I left it at 8% and I and I feel good about that 8% um increase, but again, current legislation, the hard cap was just released and
032it's 2.9% increase. I did leave the at risk and transportation grant the same. Normally when I'm building this kind of budget, I would not include that transportation grant because it is a newer grant. Um just last year it's it was 330,000. I I kept it in there because it is in all the budgets uh the the Senate, the House, and the um governors. But that would be an easy one to go away, I think, because it is just a it's supposed to be a onetime thing. Now it's a two time thing. So that could put us well back over a million very quickly, right? So that would be 330,000. But again, it is in all of the budgets. Another new thing that I have in there is uh from the ISD, we know that we
033get reimbursed our special ed um costs. We we as a district and we as a um county have have asked them to reimburse us an indirect rate of 10.44%. Um the 10.44% is Harbor Creek specific and it is um for this year. That's our percentage this year. I don't I don't know what it is next year. I'm hoping that it gets released before I bring you a budget um in June, but the only thing I had to go off of was this year. So, I went with the 10.44% which is would increase our revenue by 260,000. And that's all built into this budget that I was going to bring you. The adjustments um would be I know last week we brought some adjustments. this this month um you would be decreasing nine positions but by
034attrition so people who are leaving um not rehiring for those positions or there's I'll just talk through them I we we've not talked out loud about what these positions are to you know just in public uh but basically we have or we are uh proposing reducing three positions in the high school and we have gone through the scheduling process to make that happen uh one family and consumer science teacher, one technology teacher, and in and one art teacher. Um, two elementary education teachers. Uh, and that was because of numbers in classrooms. We we're fairly low in kindergarten right now at Soma and first grade at Sonoma. So, going from three to two and again through attrition. These aren't layoffs or anything like that, but we have staff leaving and and just not replacing. Um, and
035then four uh general funded pair professionals. So typically what might happen is we have an issue maybe in a classroom of a behavior and I add I say I because I add a person in to help that's a general funded par profofessional not a special education um pair professional uh to help with that behavior and so at the end of the year we don't we don't put those positions back in we always take them back out and we have lots of pair positions so again those folks that are in those positions will go to the open pair positions that we have through this attrition process and then one reduction. Um in the high school we have two general ed pairs there. We're going to reduce that by one. So those are the nine positions that
036when I say that that's what I mean no layoff notices uh but maybe some changes of job duties for some in the PAR position and then I did decrease uh the transportation supplies technology supplies and maintenance supplies by 5% which uh would would project the projected with all these assumptions would put us at a negative 750,000. Now, a couple of things to just the the biggest adjustment would be the student count. It right now the kindergarten numbers are looking better than they were last year. Yeah, we had 10 more kids that were tested um this year in our testing for kindergarten. So, that's a good sign for sure. Uh I'm hopeful that we'll have, you know, a strong kindergarten class because you need to be strong at the bottom to, you know, to continue to
037grow as a district at the top. Um we always talk about, not always, but a lot of times we talk about cuts to revenue or I'm sorry to expenses versus adding revenue in. Adding revenue is another spot. And so making sure that we um maximize uh what we do with our classrooms. And I guess I'll just leave it at this. You know, Jinger, I think, did a pretty good job explaining it. Um, we started at 2.5 million as in our first swath, if you remember. And so, we've made these adjustments. We've gotten it to 750,000. We are curious if that is where the board is comfortable with going into a budget for next year because then Virginia will build that budget and we'll have our budget hearing the fourth Friday in in June. Um if
038not then we will go back and and come back with further reductions which would mean if we wanted to get lower than 750 to let's say 500 we might have to start looking at it would probably it would not probably it would be layoffs at this point. Y um my thought is is you know having been on the board now for 10 and a half years that we've seen us start in this similar position and make it back to the green throughout the rest of the year. Um, obviously there's a lot of unknowns in the budget and um, so I'm personally pretty comfortable with this number to start with and um, I like the fact that administration has done a great job um, cutting positions through attrition and not through anybody actually losing a job
039at this point. I agree. I agree. And if anything comes up, we will keep you informed if we need to go deeper. We have we still have six weeks at least right until that date. So we got a long time if something does change. Okay. All right. We'll move on to new hires. Uh just one new hire to bring to the board. Lori uh Cathkart um Beike Elementary development or kindergarten. She would come in MA20 which is high on our scale. Um I was happy to hear that we have a couple of applicants this week. I think three as a matter of fact that would have would be more towards the other Senate side of the scale because though that is helpful also as we think about budgets but Lori was awesome. She's comes with
040almost 30 years of experience as a kindergarten teacher and uh great recommendations. So be a great hire development of kindergarten. We really need solid people because that's the start for for the kids that are maybe uh needing the most um supports. Okay. All right. Let's move on to course books. Yeah. Last meeting we heard about course books for elementary, high school, and our online courses. I'm recommending the board approves uh all the course books um that Mrs. Williams has brought forward, including elementary, middle, high school, and edumentum. Um not the Michigan virtual though. We're not ready to approve Michigan commercial virtual. So just those four elementary, middle, high, and eduum. Any comment board members? It's an annual thing that we have to do. All right, let's move on to food service contract. All right, so
041we have to annually renew the food service contract. We're in year two of a five-year contract. I have no reason to not move forward. I think it's uh I think they're doing a nice job. And I also think that um uh the process by which the state approves this and we approve it, there's really no reason for us not not to move forward. Uh Chef Ruminap is a gem. I'm I think we're lucky to have him here at Harper Creek and I wouldn't want to see that change. Uh move on to the wait room project. All right. I was just given this before I walked in. So, I'm gonna move it over. Just give me a second. So, here is some uh I don't know. It's fun to look at the pictures, right? So, what
042the weight room type stuff, bench pad logo. So, that's the logo that we will use. Um there's some other logos that we'll use. As I get down further, here's what the weights will look like. So, each weight will have Hover Creek Beavers and that's with a logo and the the weights on it. This is what a the weight stance will look like because we're going to ask you to approve approve some of these tonight. Okay, another angle of that kind of gives you a flavor of what what we're getting. Uh these stations do several different lifts, you know, bench, incline, decline, uh squat, if you're familiar with all those things, clean, jerk, all the stuff that they do in the weight room. If you walked into a college weight room, these are the kinds of
043things that you would see. Just so you know, this this this piece of equipment as well, there's the dumbbells and then you have the lat pull down and what's the other one called? Lat and tricep extension. Try try I haven't been to the weight room in a while. I don't know. Sorry. All right. And here's what it looks like top down view. So there is the weight equipment. Uh you can see the flooring. The green is actually turf, like the turf on the field, and then the gray is the rubberized floor. Jim tells me it's a little bit more of a black than a gray. So, under each of So, the floor itself will be a black. And under each piece of equipment, you will see basically the logo that you saw at the beginning.
044Um, under every piece of equipment, that'll be the drop zones. It's a little heavier, a lot rubber in there because you can no longer have, those of you that have been in our weight rooms, you can no longer have the raised platforms anymore just for safety issues. And one more thing that I think some board members, so this used to be half the weight room was cut right here where there was a wall right here and this half was the weight room. This half was the wrestling room. So we've taken this wall out. That's already happened. Um, and so now the entire space. So that's why we can have more equipment um in the weight room. So, just gives you a flavor of what the weight room is going to look like when we get
045the equipment that we're asking you to approve tonight. We have room for more weight equipment. Um, and so as as more potential money comes in, we will continue to buy more weight equipment. But this will get us in a pretty pretty good position. How many people can use that equipment at one time right now? Well, it depends on how they're usually done in stations. And I'm going to talk I'm going to talk off a little bit. I think that you can have four kids at a station. So, you have about 66 kids in there in total at one time. Okay. Now, some people would say that might be unsafe with one person. So, you might think about having two people in the room doing that many because it's a fairly big room. Uh, but you
046could theoretically, if you had a team, you know, one of our bigger teams, you could pretty much do the entire team at once, which is good. Jim, is are the Smith's machines are they Smith's machines or those bars come off so they can do free like a free bench press or are they on a on a No, they're all free. They're all free. Are the rack systems or the rack systems? Yeah, those are all free. No, those are not attached. Okay. Okay. So, that's what we're looking at. And then I'll talk about a little bit about the money. So, so far, um, this was as of Friday. Uh, they we we have raised 154,000. And thank you to anybody who has donated. We really appreciate it. And so, that allows us to do the flooring.
047The low bidder was Sorex at $71,378.16. And then we could purchase weight room the weight room equipment that you see uh direct from fitness solutions for $77,765. As more money comes in, we will get more weight equipment that to finish it off. And then the last piece is just to dress it up with things on the walls and things like that. So, but it's about a 12 week or 8 week to get the weight equipment. Do you remember? Uh it's we're looking at right at the end of July. Yeah. We what we don't want to do is do the floor, take all the equipment out we have, do the floor, put our old stuff back in, take the old stuff back out, put the new stuff back in. We're trying to time it to take
048it out, put the floor in, put the new stuff in, and move forward. Uh how about the extra space in there? What is that going to be filled in with some of the old equipment? The green right here? No. Well, just in between like the That's going to be to build out in the future. They'll have some loose equipment like fly boxes and that type of stuff through there, but that's actually gonna ultimately probably rack systems as well. Okay. The original rendering had the the uh racks on the sides and then racks racks all throughout the middle as well. Okay. All right. Anything further there? All right. Move on to item H, bus purchase. Okay. So, uh, transportation director Stacy Hennon is recommending we purchase a lift bus. So, we have to have a lift
049bus for our special needs population. Um, many of the kids that we are talking about here have wheelchairs and many of them attend uh specialized programs specifically at the Doris Crossing Center. Um, we have actually three lift buses. One is in need of uh replacement. Um, unfortunately we could not uh find a used bus to buy and so we can with the funds we allocated from the Pilt were able to buy one lift bus for $185,850. Nope. No used one. Now the lift bus is also required to be air conditioned as well. Yeah. I just it astounds me of how much that that is. We bought our last lift bus two years ago, maybe three years ago, and it was 144, I think. Yeah, I wish I could say, you know, come with different numbers.
050And those for people in the audience or those listening at home, we purchase all of our buses with PILT money. Every bus we purchased in the last 10 years has been PILT money. Uh has not come out of the general fund, which mosters cannot do. Um so I do appreciate the fact that we have it. I just wish we could make those dollars stretch a little bit further to replace some of our regular buses that are on the roads as well. Rob, how many years ago did we look at contracting with Dean directly and we thought felt there was just very little savings there? We'd also cannibalize our fleet. I I'm just going to estimate a little bit. I think it was eight years ago we went out um and asked Dean Transportation to give
051us a bid and we actually could do it cheaper than them at that at that point. And the other issue is if you go outside then you basically sell off your fleet and then you really can't go backwards and buy it back. So holding on to the fleet as long as possible is important. I do want to potentially look at leasing buses at some point to see how that goes. But it's very similar once you start leasing. It's like your lease payment is there every year. So you can't have a year where you say, "We just don't have enough money. We can't purchase anything." You have the payment every year, whatever it happens to be. So keep right now, we're trying to stay with owning our own buses. Um hopefully we can continue to do
052that into the future. You could in a bond project buy buses. Uh I don't typically like doing that because they, you know, you amateurize it over is that the right word? Over a 30-year period, but they only last about 17 years. So that doesn't to me make a lot of sense. Keeps us in the driver's seat. Um as far as that goes. So no pun intended. All right. Move on to comments from the audience. No. Oh. Uh, come on up. All right. Please state your name and address for the record. My name is Ashley King. Okay. And my address is 3732 Watkins Road, Michigan. And I have a kindergartener at Wallace Park. And next year I'm also going to have a kindergartener at malls park. We are supposed to be going to Lakefield but we
053looked around and is where we wanted to be. Um on Thursday something happened at school and um I'm going to try not to cry but I am really happy with Walls Park and I've heard that that there's a lot of people who got very frustrated with um the whole lockdown. You you referred to it as something else though. Yeah. a cure mode. So the state um but I heard that um there was a certain individual who came to the school who is very very protective of all of the children there. And when he entered the building, he looked like a bear ready to fight off any ch anybody that was going to hurt a child. And then a scared child would walk past and he'd be like, "It's all right. Everything's fine. Go to your
054class." And then he would turn and then stand again like a bear. And I heard that that was you. And I just wanted to say thank you because I heard that you got across town pretty darn fast and that you were just a breath of fresh air and that even grown-ups were feeling safer because you were there. And I want to say thank you to the police officer that was there. This is my concern. I have three little girls and they're not exactly easy, especially in the morning time. And I usually get to school um 8:40ish because my other daughter was to be kindergarten at Calvin Christian this year. I got there 8:48 and as I drove up um there were a bunch of cars in front of me and I thought, "Why aren't they
055going? Come on. It's never this slow." And then by the time I got up to the front door or the the side door, excuse me. Um it was already closed. So I went around to the half circle and I opened up my door and I said, "Sweetie, go on inside." She goes, "Who walk me up?" And I said, "I'll have to get her out of her seat and your sister out of her seat. It's okay. There's a lady right there." And she was very calm. And she said, "Come on, we got to hurry and get inside. Come on. Class is starting. Let's go. Let's go." Um, I was in shock when I got home and I heard the call that there had been a little thing at school. But here was my question. When I
056talked to a few people I'm very comfortable with at the school, they said, "Well, it was a really weird time of day, so it was hard to tell the Okay. But and and I and I totally understand that and they're absolutely right. However, um anytime something like a terrible situation happens, it's not going to be at a convenient time. And I said, as a parent, all I thought was if I had known on the way there, we're pulling in the drive that something was going on, I would have just calmly turned and kept going, gone to grandma's house who lives right around the corner and waited a little while. And then as soon as I got the all clear, then we can come back. Um, and so I talked to several different people and they
057said, "Well, there's an announcement outside if we have like a lockdown lockdown and it goes off every 10 minutes." And I said, "You open the doors at 8:40 and you close them at 8:50. So if I get there 8:41 to 8:49, I have no idea what's going on." And so I've been racking my brain. I don't want to be part of the problem. I want to be part of the solution because I think with all of the things that you guys have in place, they were all executed properly. I would like to see more things in place and let's come up with crazy scenarios because when something crazy happens, it's always way crazier than what you anticipated. It's better to be overly prepared in one of those situations. And I was like, why can't we
058have like where she pointed at the speaker at the corner of the building, I said, why couldn't we have like a light like a like one of those um almost like one of those strobe light? Yeah. But have it be green or yellow or red. That way when a parent drives up, okay, today's a great school day. It's green. All right, it's a it's a soft lockdown. It's just um maybe somebody's sprained an ankle. We're keeping that entrance open, you know, for somebody to get an ambulance. And then there's a red one where you know what, mom and dad, just keep on rolling. We'll call you when it's over. Um so that was my concern is that I didn't know anything. and had there have been a problem. I just let my child go right
059in there and I had no idea what was going on. Now, some of this is because she's my oldest and I'm new at all this, but I wanted to say first off, thank you for protecting my babies. And the irony is right when the call was happening, that was when we were in the car doing our morning prayer to keep every teacher and every student safe at all of the schools in all the world because kids deserve a safe place to learn and teachers deserve a safe place to teach. So, I just wanted to Thank you for doing a great job and I want to help make it even easier to do a great job. So if there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. Thank you so much. U the board
060generally doesn't comment to but Mr. Ridgeway did you want to offer anything because you heard what I had to say and that's wonderful. Yeah, we we did talk about it today at our safety meeting to honestly the the green yellow red idea came up. We we went we don't talk about details because we don't want people who are doing bad stuff to know what we're thinking but we went through um basically we went back through the entire scenario. What would we do better and differently and so we learned from all of these things you know that was like a different time it hasn't happened before but like you said we try to outthink everything. So thank you very appreciate just so you're here we do have a safety committee that meets every month I think
061Mr. said that I don't know anything yet. She she's invited me to a couple of things but I've got kids different schools. So 10 and a half years we've been looking at this diligently and there's quite a few members in this room right here and u it's one of my passions. It's one something that I believe is even before education itself keeping kids safe. So we've done a lot and if you were to look at our um what we've done in relation to others districts we are quite a ways ahead. That's why I wanted to start off with you guys did a great job and I really appreciate it and I stopped thinking those people protected my people when I was Thank you. So, thank you very much. All right. Appreciate your comments. Uh, move
062on to action. Bal bianial CISD board of education election. This is a long one. Uh, chair calls for a motion to pass the following resolution. resolution of the Harper Creek Board of Education. Whereas the bianial election of the board of the Calhoun Intermediate School District will be held Monday, June 2nd, 2025 at a meeting of representatives of the constituent or school boards. Whereas section 6142 of the revised school code requires the constituent school board to designate its representative and identify the intermediate school board candidate the board supports for each position to be filled on the board by a resolution adopted not earlier than 21 days prior to the date of the election. May 12th, 2025 is the earliest date that a school board may design designate its representative and identify the candidate that the board
063supports. And whereas section 6142 prescribes the method of for passage of a resolution, including the requirement of considering the resolution at not less than one public meeting before adopting resolution. And whereas the board previously considered the resolution at an open meeting conducted in a manner prescribed under the open meetings act on May 12th, 2025. Now therefore, be it resolved that the board designate Sheay Wat as its representative to serve on the June 2nd, 2025 electoral body responsible for electing members to the Calhoun Intermediate School District Board of Education in Barry Smith as alternate representative in the event the designated representative is unable to attend. The board directs its representative Wat to vote for candidates Kenneth Ponds and Gan Goodrich for a term of six years at least on the first ballot taken at June at
064the June 2nd, 2025 election. The board authorized and directs its secretary to file this resolution with the secretary of the Calhoun Intermediate School District. So moved support. Been moved and supported. Do we have discussion hearing? And seeing none, please call the role. Helverson, yes. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wat is absent. Mrs. Alward, I vote yes. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mr. Smith is absent. And Mr. Best. I'm going to abstain. Motion passes. 4 Z 4 Z. All right. Uh, move on to action item B, new hires. Chair calls for a motion. The Harper Creek Board of Education approved the following new hires. Lori Cathcar, did I say that right? Yes, sir. Beetle Lake Elementary Developmental Kindergarten, Masters Un Masters from University of Dayton, MA20 as discussed and reviewed. So move support. It's been moved and is supported.
065Do we have discussion? Hearing and seeing none, please call the role. Mr. Hverson, yes. Mrs. Mr. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mrs. Albert, I vote yes. Mr. Bess, I vote yes. Motion passes 5-0. All right. Thank you for that. Action item C, course books. Chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approve the following Harper Creek course books, high school, middle school, elementary, and menum for the 2025 2026 school year as discussed and reviewed. So moved support. All right. It's been moved and supported. Do we have discussion? Hearing to see none, please call the role. Mr. Hverson, yes. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mrs. Alward, I vote yes. Mr. Best, I vote yes. Motion passes 5. All right. Thank you for that. Move on to action item D, food service
066contract. Chair calls for a motion that the Harbor Creek Board of Education approve the annual food service contract renewal with Chartwells as discussed and reviewed. So support been moved and supported. Do we have discussion hearing? And seeing none, please call the role. Mr. Halverson, yes. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mrs. Alward, I vote yes. Mr. Best, I vote yes. Motion passes 5. Thank you. Move on to item E, weight room project. Chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approve the low bidder for the weight room flooring Sor Knox at $71,378.16 and the purchase of weight equipment from Direct Fitness Solutions for $77,76545. So moved. Support. It's been moved and supported. Do we have discussion? Hearing seeing none, please call the role. Mr. Herson, yes. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wallace,
067yes. Mrs. Alward, I vote yes. Mr. Best, I vote yes. Motion carries. 5 Z. All right. Action on F. Student device purchase. The chair calls for a motion. The Harper Creek Board of Education approved the technology purchases as presented by technology director Jim Maynard using PILT funds for the 2025 2026 school year. So move support. It's been moved and supported. Do we have discussion? And seeing none, please call the role. Mr. Halverson, yes. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mrs. Alward, I vote yes. Mr. Bess, I vote yes. Motion carries. 5-0. Thank you for that action item G. Naming of facilities. Chair calls for a motion that the Harbor Creek Board of Education approve the recommendation by the naming committee to name the service drive Matt Burn way as discussed and reviewed. So move support.
068It's been moved and supported. Do we have discussion hearing and seeing none please call the role? Mr. Herson? Yes. Mrs. Risner? Yes. Mrs. Wallace? Yes. Mrs. Alward? I vote yes. Mr. Bess, I vote yes. Motion carries 5. All right. Action item H, bus purchase. Chair calls for a motion. The Harper Creek Board of Education authorizes the purchase of a lift bus for Midwest Transport at a cost of $185,850. Been moved. Support. It's been moved and supported. Do we have discussion? Hearing to see none, please call the poll. Mr. Halverson, yes. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mrs. Albert, I vote yes. Mr. Best, I vote yes. Motion carries. 5 Z. All right. Um, we are going to need a motion to go to close session before you read that. Um, do we want to hold
069our student board reps over till the end? If not, I would like to Is this our last meeting, correct? Arabella. Arabella's last meeting. Um, so thank you. Congratulations well to all three of you guys for being on the on the board. But um we expect great things out of you guys. And just so you know, the the board is looking at your information. Uh we're going to try to reformat how we uh fit you guys into things as we move forward. But um thank you very much for your service to the board. And with that, I will um unless you have to want to say anything, Mr. Rididgeway. I think I'm good. All right. Um please uh read the motion to go into close session. Chair calls for a motion that the Harbor Creek Board
070of Education meet in close session under section 8C of the Open Meetings Act for strategy connected with collective bargaining. So move support. It's been moved into supported. Do we have discussion? I don't do not anticipate any action coming out of close session just forformational purposes. Okay. Please call the role. Mr. Halverson, yes. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mrs. Alward. I vote yes. Mr. Bess, I vote yes. Motion carries. 5 Z. All right. We are now in close session. Um, do we want to ask the audience to go or do we want to move?