001Harper Creek Board of Education regular meeting for Monday May 13th 2024 order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a Moment of Silence I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all thank you Madam Secretary please call the role Mr hson is absent Mrs Wallace here Mrs Waton here Mrs Albert is present Dr Borders here Mr Smith here and Mr bus present we have a quorum all right thank you for that uh Mr Ridgeway it's my understand we have a modification to the agenda actually a couple of different things um first of all we will move the Bridge Building presentation uh right below the question solo so they get gets in and out so
002we appreciate them being here uh food service contract was tensive we do not have the approval from the state as of yet so we do not need e or C information discussion action and then I would like to add H I'm sorry I'd like to add e under action and that would be summer school stem resource and I'll talk about that during the curriculum section you'll notice that uh Mrs Williams was not able to attend tonight she is not feeling well so I'm sure she's uh watching and listening I'm sure I do a good job with [Laughter] her U Madam Secretary do you have a motion thank you chair calls for a motion the Harper for of Education approved the addition of the summer school stem material to action as item e so Mo support
003it's been moved by Mr Smith supported by Dr Borders do we have discussion hearing none uh please call the rooll Mrs Wallace yes Mrs Waterson yes Mrs Alward I vote Yes Dr Borders yes Mr Smith yes and Mr BS I vote Yes motion carries all right we will move on to the choir solo good evening good evening everybody uh my name is Alex port and I am the choir teacher at uh Harvard Creek High School and for eth grade at the middle school too um thanks so much for having us back here again uh the the choir has really had an awesome year this year um we took a trip to Chicago back in March um we just got back from two separate trips one to the district Festival um where we earned um three
004ones and a two which are the highest you can get and then our honors choir at the high school just got back from um State uh State Festival as well as our eighth grade and our sixth grade um High School earned a two which is the second highest rating and then eighth grade and sixth grade both earn ones which are the top ratings that you can get um so we've we've really had a fantastic year and we're looking forward to um even more the high school just had their final concert this past Wednesday and the middle schoolers have their concert this coming Wednesday um so I brought a few student soloists to kind of advertise for that but just also show you some of the talent that we have down at the middle school and
005um get you excited for hopefully being able to attend our last concert of the year so I'll let them uh introduce themselves too we this down okay that seems good okay um my name is Lyla Barnett I'm in eighth grade I'm going to be seeing uh sunsets by me and just I want to tell you the meaning of it first it's about the belief in movies that when someone dies they make the sky right here so it's just ad adjust and then we'll [Music] that's good [Music] okay I get the sun of [Music] like the people who make them [Music] oh does this have to [Music] every story and reason is important the sun rises with new hopes the sunet star the happiness the endless daily cycle [Music] I get to the sunset [Music] PR
006people who make them the prettier are the sky kids the sadder people's lies are I wish our pillows in the sky wasn't connected [Music] hi my name is Callie pic and I will be singing tight RPP from the greatest shman some people long for life that is simple and planned tied with ribbons some people will sell the sea cuz they're safer on land to follow what but I follow you to the great [Music] Unown of to world we call our own and in my hand and we promise to never let go we're walk in the ti rope high in the sky we can see the whole world down below we walk in the T never sure never know how far we could fall but it's all in her Adventure that comes with a breathtaken view
007walk in the ti with you mountains and valleys and all that'll come in between desert and ocean you pull me in and together we're lost in a dream always in motion so I risk it all just to be with you and I risk it all for this life we choose and in my hand and we promise to never let go we're walk in the Ty rope high in the sky we can see whole down below we walk walk in the T roll never sure will you catch me if I should [Music] fall but it's all in her Adventure that comes with a breathtaken view walk in the ti RO with you hello I'm Rose Morehead I'm in eighth grade um it's an honor to be able to sing to you today so thank you very
008much for letting me um I will be singing Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid [Music] I want to be where the people are I want to see want to see I'm dancing walking around on those what do you call them oh feet F in your fins you don't get too far legs are required for jumping dancing strolling along down now what's that word again Street up where they run up where they walk up where they stay all day in the sun wand and free wish I could be part of that world what would I give if I could live out of these Waters what would I pay to spend a day warm on the sand bet on the land they understand and but they don't reprend their daughters bright young women sick of
009women ready to stand and ready to know what the people know ask them my questions and get some answers what's a fire and why does it what's the word burn WIS in my turn when and I love love to explore that shore of out of the sea wish I could be part of that [Applause] well thank you to all three of you um I'm just amazed that you guys had the courage to get up here and sing I mean I can't imagine doing that at your guys' age um you all three did a wonderful job very impressed thank you thank you and now we will have the bridge Builders thank you again thank you I'm um Erica Jenkins and I have been the um advisor to bridge building at the middle school for this is
010our third year so the first year we had one team go to States we had about 12 people participate um and last year we had four teams go to States and this year we had five but it is a program um put on by the um Michigan Department of Transportation and with the idea that you're developing youth to think about civil engineering as a career and um we've been meeting this year since November so they meet after school from November through March um in January there is a 15 to 20 Page report due and and that includes having a bridge made researched testing done um all kinds of analysis and then if that gets submitted and approved then you get invited to States and this year we had so many competing at um starting in
011November that I I'm only allowed to have five teams so early on we had more than that so um I twisted the arm of Alyssa Runner so she also went um as an advisor to one of our high school teams so we took two eighth grade teams that compete in truss bridges and then we took three high school teams that competed in um half through Arch Bridges and I have three of the eighth graders here today the ninth and 10th graders are in like drivers training and sports and all kinds of stuff so so here are my eighth graders and they're going to tell tell you a little bit about what they liked and then we'll pass around the bridges now this is post competition um so they are broken so just hold on to
012them at the bottom but uh go ahead all right uh sorry I'm not singing about bridges uh but uh bridge building is fun and I think it's a great thing for people who aren't really into sports like us um but it has a very like um science and art type of feel to it obviously with the boxes and the bridges trying to find a oh yes thank you uh the art side of it um but and then the side side of it yeah um but trying to build a nice Bridge um but I've enjoyed it and since my uh this is my second year doing it I started doing it in seventh grade because I just heard it and thought it was fun and had nothing better to do um and I tried it and
013I really liked it these were my original team members she was team captain um but then my second year I was teing Captain and the art side I really enjoy obviously with Deemo um and I just think it's fun in general and should continue on thank you Joey you're welcome um so bridge building is a very um I don't know how to explain it but it's very well it's fun but it's also um very creative when it comes to the community and like how you can find other people who enjoy the same things you like like like it's like a bunch of nerds in a room um but ever since seventh grade when I also started Bridge Building Joey fortunately dragged me into it um I've had a lot of fun with it and it's
014it's been uh an amazing opportunity for me to find something that I really like since um Sports wasn't really a big Advantage thank you thank you these kids are so um yeah um it has B buing has a lot of benefits outside of because it's just very artistic and is very you have to do a lot of research and you have to develop those skills you have to develop skills in being in groups and even potentially in leadership roles which a lot of us have had to do a lot um but then it's not just the experience of building the and making their report and making the presentation but it's also it's you get to go to these like super fancy hotels that you never would have ever went to otherwise and um they have
015really good food that was that was really fun they got really good food and and then when you go to the the competition it's not just about presenting your bridge and it's definitely not just about winning you also it's also it very much emphasizes the learning portion of the entire experience you get to talk to professionals and it's really personal and it's really fun and it's really engaging it's really nice so thanks again I I forgot about the fancy hotel um so we did go to um Grandam Rapids this year and one of the things that I did really like this year is that they put more of an emphasis on giv giving the kids more opportunities to talk to the professionals and one of the things that was pretty exciting for me as an
016advisor is when we went to a room where there was a professional from around the state for each of the eight different disciplines in civil engineering and we had all of our students just confidently going up there and talking to them about the fine um aspects of drainage and um TR epic design and all kinds of stuff and it was really fun to see how confident they were and uh I appreciate the opportunity and uh we'll just keep competing so thank you thank you very neat um I always enjoy seeing that presentation um and um I feel like we've been treated tonight we've got music art engineer and a little comedy so um you guys you guys hit out the ballpark all of you guys did so thank you very much all right we will
017move on to president's comments and I will read my prepare prepared marks prepared marks remarks um welcome to everybody here tonight and those watching from home uh our sports teams music departments and spring activity calendars have been very full congratulations to the Trap Team on some wonderful events uh and our high school woodworking students who uh whose projects placed at regionals congratulations to the varsity baseball team as they won the All City title this weekend um students have been attending field trips all over the state uh field trips are a wonderful way for students to experience new learning opportunities we've had trips to Charlton Park Binder Park Zoo the state capital and Gilmore Car Museum to name a few always fun there our seniors are finishing up their High School careers and anticipating commencement on
018Friday May 31st we hope um hope for good weather for an outdoor ceremony on the football field and want to recognize uh Cameron Windsor who's one of our seniors that is on our board that we will be losing after this meeting so uh we want to thank you for your participation in the board and um wish you well in your future endeavors so also uh one other um side note that I think I mentioned everybody we are looking uh to do a joint uh four board meeting with the other four other three school boards across the um City Lake F Penfield and uh Battle Creek uh for a legislative update on September 23rd time to follow um and this was my third meeting with that group and I'm just trying to see if we can
019find some commonalities between our uh four districts and um see what other type of work we might be able to forward here in the future so that being said I'll move on to Administration and Mr Ridgeway okay uh a few Communications first of all um we have on the 31st of May coming up very shortly graduation uh 6 o'clock on the football field board members please arrive by 4:45 um parking is probably the biggest issue so the earlier you get there the closer you get to park if you get there late then it's going to be a long walk um and then we also have the distinguished alumni and distinguished citiz reception at 3:00 in the boardroom in here um so a couple of things that that we sort of asked for so grow your
020own which is a program in which we are growing our own teachers um and administrators here at the school district there as an update so we have two rounds of grow your own that we are involved with currently we have 18 staff that are in the grow your own program um three are going for their masters in teaching for kindergarten through fifth grade one is in their masters for for ASD or Autism Spectrum Disorder one in Autotech uh one a master's in English language learner which is people that do not speak English as their first language uh a ma in counseling we have one person we have nine folks that are going for their bachelor in elementary education um one is going for their bachelor in Early Education which would be K3 and then finally
021um we have one uh additional that's going for their bachelor's in elementary these GR gr this first round graduates will be done in December 2024 we have four people and then we have it looks like I'm adding them up my head 12 that will be done in April of 2025 and then two uh in June of 2026 our second round of go your own has 14 people that will be starting this summer um and very similar we have a couple that are in a an ASD program uh three in in in special education uh two that are in counseling and then uh one in English so one interesting part of this is that we do have two high school students who will be part of the gr your own they have to work for the
022district while they're when they graduate but they will get free tuition um to go to school uh the next four years and so everybody on this list is getting free tuition they're getting paid basically to go to school so they're getting paid as they're going to school and there's also paid um time to do homework and things like that during work time so it's a really interesting program I guessing a little bit Jen you might know the total but 2 million is uh just under 2 million right now just under $2 million is how much you receive in grant funding and so if you add all those up uh it looks like to me 32 people that will be you know getting their degrees in educational professions so really exciting stuff um beyond that a
023superintendent evaluation Workshop so some of you has signed up online but we talked a little bit in leadership maybe we will bring bring in a uh person to do it all together we were thinking maybe the fourth Monday in June if that works I know we'll also be doing budget that day probably but we sort of penciled that in unless somebody is out on vacation you do have to do the evaluation training to evaluate um and the reason we have to do it again is because the law changed and that's why we have to do it by September 30th so if you could take a look to see if that if that works or not and get back with us it's a 3-hour training so it' be something like yeah what what time 5 to8
0246 to 9 probably 58 five work for you today yes the DAT it would be the wrote it down 24th the 24th my fault I did that 24th of June as a possibility if you've already signed up online then we will you know if we do that we'll just drop the registration or cancel the registration okay um Middle School choir concert as you heard is Wednesday at 7 girls on the run is coming up on Saturday May 18th this Saturday it's at Harper Creek it's a really nice event um typically starts at 10: a.m. uh jazz band dinner dance is on Saturday as well and then our Middle School band is going to perform um uh the next Tuesday the 21st at 7 o'clock I did want to talk a touch about the election um
025I don't want to you know not talk about it it happened it it did not pass um you know and it's one of those things the learning experiences to learn what does our community uh expect and want um we talked a little bit in budget committee about some of the responses or some of the feedback that we were given individually as board members um but just to give you a little heads up so in terms of our actual Precinct see if I can get this to go full swing we got be big enough so we can see it but guess I'm not good at the zoom all right so you can see we it did not uh pass in any of our precincts so that's that's definitely a sign for us to take a look
026at um somewh closer than others but in general you know it's something that we have to look at and say what can we do what would our community support we know we have needs we have classroom needs we we have teachers on carts it's a fact of life our buildings are full um the things that we heard a little bit more than others is School of Choice was a concern of our um of our voters um specifically our budgets and the fact that it appears you know that we as a school district are in Good Financial shape which we are but we don't have we're in good Financial shape but the money that we're talking about at board meetings is our operational funds and not our Capital Improvement funds we don't have enough total to
027do both operation and capital Improvement and I think we just do need to do a better job of messaging you know myself at the starting with that of exactly what is the budget what is it paid for and then what is it that um a bond proposal would pay for because they're completely separate um some other things as we looked at um the election the king Scott which is our architect did a little bit of work with the state and here's just a few facts for you there were 39 Bond proposals in May uh 22 passed and 17 failed but um 28 had z a zero mil increase so no increase in tax and 21 or 75% of those passed 11 Mills 11 had Mill increases but only one passed so if you had a
028zero Mill increase it's a much better chance of of something passing and I think that was a factor some folks you know I'm paying enough tax I can't pay another dime it doesn't matter if it was big or small you know we have to keep that in consideration as we look at what to do in the future and then the other thing that came up really big especially in our community the absentee of Voters was probably over half of the voters um we will get the lists and exactly how much but uh the absentee voting is much higher it's a different atmosphere so you have to really consider um even more absentee voters and what that means some conversation at the budget committee was you know frontloading and talking about all right so if there's
029questions about budget there's questions about School of Choice let's get information out now so people can understand more before we potentially go back to voters at some point um I'm not recommending we go right back out and try it again I'm recommending that we listen and then we get information out to people that they that they feel that they need to be an informed voter as well as someone that uh could be supportive if they understood exactly what those needs are and then how you know basically how it's funded uh through the state of Michigan so any other comment about the election like to add in at this point well we'll talk about it more as a board it's not a oneandone but it's just sort of an initial this is where we were at
030the voter turnout was low 16% almost 17 um we we would have expected 20% in a May election if uh I think last November it was more like 60% if I'm not mistaken so a you know a presidential type election would be you know quite a few more voters obviously this but then again there's lots of things in the ballot so anybody have anything they want to add there um Mr ridw and I talked this uh afternoon after the safety committee meeting and I think there are some things that we can do to help again to further what he said to make sure that voters understand things like pilt funding and uh and other uh topics so um something for this board to consider over the coming year one one last thing I would like
031to call a policy committee meeting and I don't want to get the dates out right there second but I just the policy members I think it's Shay Dale and Aaron I'll be getting a hold of you uh two things have came up one is having a procedure or process for which parents know and understand when they when they have an issue with the school uh we found something happened to be on the Marshall's uh website that I thought was pretty good and it just helps um parents navate how to address concerns I'd like to talk about that maybe developing something similar and then the other process is that we have a policy about book challenges and I I have some staff that has some ideas of developing that we did have a book challenge uh
032this year I think it was a few months ago um but just honing that in a little bit better than we had so I'd like to call that meeting and we'll Define the paly committee when we do that deal I think that's everything it a lot all right uh thank you for that Mr Ridgeway move on to board secretary comments just one communication you have in your board folder um us petroleum Partners LLC Exon Mobile and capital Fuel and more selected Harper Creek Community Schools to receive a $500 Grant the letter is in your folder that's all I have that's great thank you student board members um starting off here it was slow time for surveys because there's so many coming out so small amount of responses this time around but uh I got some
033useful information especially on the um school spirit side of things just hope and I want to give that information Mr Brinker so hopefully he can approve it for next year and hopefully we can see the increase of that and everything else like that and school spirit across the board uh also uh Mr G Hy sent out a survey to just senior basically and about how like things can be improved at the school and whatnot so yeah that's going to be sent to him like so yeah that's all I got was G to share the results with us Cameron so one thing I'll mention about cam he did a solo at the the band concert actually the Jazz Band portion of it he did a wonderful job just a wonderful job actually all the seniors I
034thought did a really nice job with their solos but uh cam specifically because he's he's one of us so he did a fantastic job do it great job all right so I know I talked about at last meeting doing a study hall especially for student athletes so I did a little bit more you know surveying and seeing if it would work for everybody and through talking to a lot of different people we decided that something that was more condensed so only having this a couple times a year would be a lot better so NHS does a cocoa and cram for the Freshman but I thought modifying it and making a little bit easier for student athletes especially around times of like finals would really help them you know have that time to really get the
035work in and meet with teachers and just something we'll have to F tune for next year but an idea I want to get out there and another one I want to work on for next year is student leadership especially for team captains something that means a lot to me as a captain I didn't feel like I had any resources or training to be a captain so I feel like something like that would be really and I talked to some people from baseball football track see if that would help them and we all kind of came to the same decision that it would so something I'd like to look in further for next year great ideas I like that that's great board members anything do you know who like in the school you can coordinate that
036um the student athlete leadership I was going to talk to Miss Fel about it and Miss rff to see what we can do and Mr Gman perfect all right thank you for that move on to District updates curriculum and Mr Ridgeway instead of Mrs Williams who is again off sick this evening all right I you see on the screen there is the report I'm sure that you have taken a look at that so I don't want to dwell on the report um but one of the first things I know that Mr biler is here and he is going to talk a little bit about um personal finance and the requirements from the state of Michigan they have developed a course um they have a proposal or he has a proposal that he's would like to
037share um I can put it up on the screen if you would like Mr biler but if not you just want to talk about it so real quick just to introduce myself for those you guys who don't know me my name is Matt biler uh been a teacher with the district now for seven years uh teach of the high school US History senior social studies so to give you a little background primer on this back in 2022 to the uh State Legislature passed a new law which requires all schools in the state of Michigan to carry personal finance as part of their curriculum is a graduation requirement for all of the students who are graduating in 2028 um we as a high school have been meeting and we met in departmental so math department social
038studies all those guys got together and we were trying to figure out where the best place for this course was um in this meeting to determine the best spot would probably be the senior social studies class um and so so we've over the last two years been fine-tuning the curriculum um luckily for us the state of Michigan has been piggybacking on work that's kind of been all around the nation at this point there's been 18 states that have so far adopted personal finance as graduation requirment and so this just goes into some really good stuff that you know it's it's really the class that people have been asking for you know will you teach our kids to do taxes yes yes we do will you teach our kids how they manage their student loans absolutely
039how do you buy a car how do you buy a house how do you you know there's so many real life situations that we cover in this class and it's just an absolutely fantastic asset for the uh graduating seniors I I can keep going keep going keep going um do you want me to talk about the the course calendar there or yeah maybe just the like the basics of you know you there's basically four units plus the the election and voting at the end there yeah absolutely so the election and voting unit has been carried over from what was previously established by our senior social studies uh curriculum before um the idea was is that we've got our kiddos who are coming up they 18 years um we actually bring in people from emit Township
040to help them register to vote um we do mock election mock ballot with them so it's actually last time around was a sample ballot of the upcoming election so kid get both registered vote in the real world and familiarity with the voting process so set up boots to do all that stuff for them um in terms of the other units there's been um two resources that we really use the state of Michigan identified a resource known as NextGen personal finance as their ideal curriculum um and so we piloted the nextg personal finance curriculum two years ago and has tremendous resources for our kids um in terms of projects in terms of extensions that sort of stuff one thing that we found in piloting the state of Michigan's ideal curriculum was that it was lacking readings
041so this past year we've been piloting a uh free to access coursebook from Sailor Academy um and those are the units from the Sailor Academy course book related to personal finance and so it pretty much divides the personal finance course into about four units um we start with Foundation into what is personal finance and one of the four principles of personal finance um we then extend as you can see into you know how do you actually get things that you want so we talk about you know the purchasing of the home the purchasing of the car the financing of big assets and how you manage your you know your income and your savings and that sort of stuff um going forward in that we talk about protecting what you got so that's our insurance unit
042we look at you know uh what does it actually look like to pay insurance how much insurance coverage you need um how does that work with your cars your house your health insurance um as well as protecting other assets and then finally in the last unit there we talk about Building Wealth which is setting students up for retirement accounts uh setting up students to you know utilize the stock market utilize other assets that you know us as adults you know I mean we had to learn through the School of Hard KNX I wish I would have had somebody tell me at age 18 that I probably should open up Ira or you know out of the gate and uh Mr Builder do we talk about credit score and credit absolutely yeah so in that um
043unit um second one there um getting what you want um looking at uh you know what are the components of credit scores how you can improve your credit score what's damaging your credit score um it's been really good you know we've had a couple of kids come in there and think they've got all the tricks figured out so I had one kid will tell me like yeah man I figured out how to get free Netflix you know I open up a credit card and I start the Netflix I cancel the credit card and it takes we've helped a in your credit score to that'll kill your credit score really fast oh you know it's like you say you don't know what you don't know and you know we we got to teach them because it's
044real world applications here I really appreciate the work I mean that you know within this design work this is how we set up our courses when they come come for a proposal so it's going to you'll see this consistent pattern for any new courses and this is actually not a new course but obviously way updated a course of what we currently teach with senior social studies um I appreciate the work you did and and I know that Matt brunnell is on there as well he's the other uh teacher that that does that course in the high school so thank you very much and is there a particular uh I mean do they have to pass with like a just a a d or do they have well yes so we keep all the same requirements
045that we have on all our high school cours work the kids required to carry at least uh 60% D minus receive credit at the end of the semester um each of the units does come with its own unit test if you look further down each of them does come with their um unique projects where the kids have to apply the information in simulation so if you look at some of those projects uh one of the projects is just straight up let's do some scenarios of doing taxes and so we get the kids out there with the tax documents and you know it's the nice thing as we practice you know how do you do your simple return for the kids the kids I had a couple kids who told me at the end of this
046you know man I was able to file my own taxes this year that's great um so are are students buying into this this work as it as it gonna benefit them directly I don't mean to put camer on this class please do c what did you think going through I thought it was very helpful especially you know for me like figuring out all right how soon I should set up the retirement stuff because it's like definitely things that you don't think about right away getting out of high school and stuff so yeah that's definitely helpful I notic lot kids found different aspects of a very helpful like especially buying the own home stuff and whatnot so yeah as as somebody that works in the financial and insurance business uh and sees people of coming to
047me at retirement age um so many of those folks could have used a basic 101 right off the the get-go to uh really have a better retirement I see folks that are live Check to Check and still have house payments and uh it's quite unfortunate sometimes so this is work is I think is really important and um I volunteer to come in your class and help out whenever you want I'd love to have you you know that's uh one of the things while we were building this out um trying to identify a Community Partners who can you know both give us Real World Experience so you know we were looking to potentially get out with the dealership where we talk about doing simulations and buying your own car how great would it be to actually
048go out to a dealership you know want to be willing to partner with us and you know walk the kids through what does the carard buying process look like when you know it's one thing to read it out of a book it's another thing to be out there on the lot when they're really putting a squeeze on you sure yeah I would Echo I mean I think this type of course is ideal for having those types of guest speakers from the community that mean bows in that profession uh I think we all know uh tax prep preparation professionals investment advisors I mean we I think the idea of doing a uh a mock car purchase I think is a great idea I mean sure we know people who would love to help with that so
049um folks folks at Banks and Credit Unions financing Vehicles mortgages yeah yeah and that's been one of the good things they got uh alumni Conor Bowerman the CPA in the the area now interested coming back working with us on this so you know the amount of people have reached out who have been interested in this you know the excitement out of not just the kids but I think a lot of members of the community it's been really good you know as an educator to kind of feel that coming our way so Matt if we if we run into people who may want to send them your way how do we how we yeah yeah absolutely yeah send them my way I mean I know there's approval process to get their feet in the door but
050you know it would be nice to establish something that if if we could do it on an annual basis rather than man really good this amount exterior but right catching it as it is yep awesome I hope I hope our students uh really understand the value of this if there's one thing that I think is uh that students need more than anything else it's this type of curriculum so um thank you Mr Builder any other further questions all right thank you and then Al also on the curriculum uh I have I'm not little oh I'm not night Matt all right also under curriculum this is this is is the what I added in terms of the stem for summer school um and you don't have a copy in front of you or maybe you do
051inside your folder it' be a hand copy this is uh stem resources that we would use in summer school the total cost for all grade levels um basically kindergarten through 8th grade is just under 36,000 so 35970 it's over my threshold and um I wanted to bring it to the board for for approval they will use this during as part of the summer school program that is coming up it is all paid for by Grant funds that we are using for the purpose of summer school you see there's different units of study um for each grade level trying to keep it engaging and exciting for the the kids what's like it is drones and oh yeah all kind things that are going to make it uh real life and more just like Matt was just
052talking about it those are great things um and then Summer School uh we have just under 400 students signed up and they will be starting when school gets out it's really exciting summer school isn't just for those that are behind remember it is also I keep talking about it on my Facebook live show it can be for anybody you know who has interest and kids love summer for about two weeks and they get a little bored so they need they need some stuff to do I think that's it unless there's any questions on there document all right seeing and hearing none we'll move on to facility and Mr Robinson good evening first of all any questions on the report that I lastek perfect um just a couple highlights we are I met with the folks
053getting ready to do the turf project um we're going to be starting that prob the first late first week of June or early the second um we're excited to get that going we met the other day on the job on the in the stadium to work on where they're going to come in and out of the stadium and things like that and then I also the architect the designer and she's she's going to be a real stickler as far as things going right and stuff like that which was what we and so it's been good to work with those folks um you know besides that we're getting ready for summer you know there's lots ofs ready to start maor this year tur is probably our major project there'll L of Smalls we contract most of
054it we talked about talked about my the fut projects how long do you anticipate the U uh Turf taking to get put in um I would say a month and a half two months if all goes well the only worry is if there's any issues with that either we don't believe there is but that that slow us down a little bit okay and the rest of the athletic Stadium will be open or not we'll keep Tennis Courts open not the track okay there'll be lots of construction traffic so no walking in the track we'll make sure we get that out they're going to have a bridge actually built over the track for Access okay board members any questions for Mr Robinson Jim do we have a date on the crosswalk yet uh early June is
055what I'm being told right now or July July all right I don't have a firm date soon I our major our main contractors hoffen brothers'll do everything yeah qualy organization uh all right we'll move on to finance and M obber right I spitted my normal monthly reports if anyone has any questions on that if not uh I just wanted to touch base the RF went out every four years it's required if you um contract out for Food Service they were due April 30th we had one company um put in an RFB chart walls um so but there's some hoops to jump through at the state that was sent on um I was hoping to have word back that we could officially approve it but I don't have that yet so it'll be at the next
056meeting um and then I just wanted to touch B we are working on um budget for the end of this year and starting of next year and um just using a lot of the assumptions of the state the governor's House and Senate and working on that daily as it changes okay Ginger have we heard what the proposal from the House and Senate are for Budget yeah it's right around it varies right uh they have different categories of money the governor was right around 241 the Senate was a little bit slightly more and the state was slightly less but they had different categorial they were all very similar so the biggest difference in the house is that I talked a little bit in the budget committee there is in our retirement system for the state we
057pay a certain amount for retiree health I think it's at about 20 some percent and in the house version they actually reduced that percent by 2% which is equal to about $200 a student in revenue and so that might be very helpful if that stays in so our organization I know Ginger's organization is working it with legislators to help them understand how beneficial that would be for school districts but that was only in the house not in the senate or Governor so at least it starts the discussion and we're hopeful y I am hopeful now now that it's in the house when I'm hopeful the total number was it 9826 that I remember uh yeah that sounds right for per pupil yeah okay all right anything further all right technology and Mr mayard good evening
058right so just highlight this one's kind of a bummer that our eate discount got reduced by 10% this is because the U agency that administers the program uses census data to determine our rural urban classification district is partially reclassified which produced any decrease in their discount rate so that's really unfortunate um it just reminds us that that rate is originally calculated on a free and reduced lunch and so just making sure with all the the free lunches from the state that we still are being buil in about getting those forms filled out by families so that we can qualify for our discount um and then the other thing I'd like to highlight is our student devices it's it's time to be purchasing those um we have an RFP we're working on for that but the
059state site is giving us bits so it's not posted yet but we hope we have it in time so that in the next meeting we can talk about what came back from it we're looking looking for that to be playing out soon questions for Mr mayard are we expecting much of an increase on student devices I don't think so I did a projection um based on Power School numbers whenever whenever we had our our meeting we talked about it I think it's going to be right around there um it could be a sidge higher um if that's the case the carts that we need to buy might be a to get them a little bit lower make up difference that way any other comments all right thank you we'll move on to the counseling student
060support presentation good evening we do have a presentation there we go thank you Mr R oh yeah I'm on it so definitely thank you all uh for allowing us time and part of your agenda to talk about the work of the school counseling and student Support Services team and all the things that they've been doing this year uh for those of you who do not know who I am my name is Terry trzinski I serve as an executive director of of National School counseling consulting company called hatch results so we are based out of San Diego California we primarily work with uh school districts such as Harper Creeks as well as County offic of education and state Departments of education so with our work with throughout the we talk about um how do we build
061comprehensive School counseling and student Support Services teams um even though my work is National I'm actually invested in the state of Michigan um I am the President of the Michigan school counselor Association just about to finish up my final term and then I'm also a Harper Creek community resident so both of my boys attend Harper Creek which is my my most proud title um so just really feel honored and privileged to be able to bring this work here to Harper Creek Harper Creek Community Schools um Mr rway if you could Advance just a couple slides here here um and just think I just want to talk a little bit briefly about our intended outcomes of this partnership and if you just want to there's a couple bullets list there so if you just want to
062go through those first and foremost we're looking to align Services across DK through 12 buildings and sites uh primar focus on equity and access and really thinking through what does every single student of Harper Creek Community Schools need and deserve very dependent on across all the sites across the entire district and how can we ensure that that's happening um also when we think about that also thinking through the lens of student outcomes uh what student outcomes can we produce to show that we're making an impact for the lives of our students through this DK through 12 work and really being intentional about being collaborative in that space uh so it's been great to see our administrators being a part of this work um as well as our district office leaders being a part of this
063work and really talking through how to work back at our sites we're working with teachers as well so very collaborative approach in terms of how we're going to support students and first lastly uh really thinking about how we can develop systems of sustainability um I don't know how this lands for those VI that in the professional world but my job is to work myself out of a job my job is that that they don't need our services and support anymore because we built such strong systems of sustainability that they're able to maintain long long past our time our time together so that that's been our work so far this year uh if you go go to the next slide uh everything around our work is built on evidence-based Frameworks uh so we rely heavily on
064our American school counselor Association National model uh which is the image on the left hand side which is centralized around student outcomes and professional competencies as well as data driven approaches to bring a little bit more uh close to our state uh Michigan actually has a multi-tier system of support framework which we also align to as well as your teachers and staff are aligned to that framework as well and so what we do is we kind of marry that Michigan mtss framework to a multi-tiered multi-domain system of support and that is the work that we've all been doing here in regards to what are the different tiered needs that our students have throughout our building across the domains of academics social emotional and college for riness so so have the whole child approach uh next
065slide please so this year primarily we've been spending some time digging into US building a strong Foundation of tier one which the team is going to be sharing um a couple artifacts from that but really thinking through again what does every single student need and deserve how does that align to where they are in regards to their developmental nature and what their needs are DK through 12 and then really thinking about what that curriculum may look like which is a different thought process sometimes when it comes the school counselor student Support Services how can we be more intentional and proactive in the supports that we are providing our students and really trying to break away from some reactivities that tend to occur where we're not able to meet the needs of all students so really
066building some structures around proactive systems so that we can be more intentional uh with the work in regards to meeting students where they are uh we are data driven entirely they're going to be saying how much they love data in a moment here and maybe in the years to come but everything is based on student outcome so we want to make sure that not only are we doing the right work by students but we had the intended outcomes that we're seeking as well so so that's been our work that's been my short commercial I think that's my last slide and I'm going to throw it over to the element come on Elementary thank you board for having us today this is our this is part of our elementary team as you can see we have
067representatives from Waddles somoma and uh Beetle Lake um my name is Kevin fi I'm student support specialist Chelsea Ziggler student support specialist at Deo student support at w La founder mtss coordinator at w and that's a big thing for us is that we are not school counselors we are student support Specialists which is uh unique to um Harper Creek Community Schools so we wanted to make sure that we were uh being in line with uh creating that uh K12 um model thank you so our next year our 2024 25 uh plan is to have Trails implemented into all of our buildings which uh the teaching staff was trained this year in trail so they will be providing 25 lessons uh to all of our students uh we're going to look at our Zell and introduce
068that to classrooms as well which is our career in college readiness and then we're our plan is to implement our Universal screener we also have a rep here for the Youth to five birth to five birth to three so the big piece that we really focus on this year is um what is what do we expect as a graduate of Harper Creek schools so we took a lot of time looking at our portrait of a graduate and we wanted to provide consistency across all three of the elementaries so that when they transition to the middle school you're um they're not saying oh you must have been at somoma or you must have been at Beetle you're getting the same information so we have three pieces identifying feelings conflict resolution and grit and perseverance that we
069are going that we are focused on as student support Specialists so every child DK through fourth grade will have lessons every year on those three topics so it's it's going to um increase and spiral as they see it again in kindergarten first second third and fourth so we will have lessons that we teach to all of Harper Creek Community Schools kids at the elementary level and lastly we took a lot of time to really look at what do we provide at the elementary level for all of our students so that's either School counseling or attendance monitoring um looking at our PBIS which we're continuing with our positive behavior intervention supports and our ntss as a whole so our multi-tiered systems of support um so that every child in the elementary is getting those pieces and
070then what do we look at for some of our students so those check-in checkouts that were collecting the data on the kiddos helping them to be more successful in school um whether it's creating Behavior plans or being part of the child study process as well as those homeless and Foster uh care supports and then finally uh what do few of our students need so those crisis interventions those d escalation supports um working with uh the teachers and staff on IEPs and 504s and all of those Outside Agency referrals so we really know that at all three of the elementaries all of our students some of our students and a few of our students are getting all of these supports and Middle School hi I'm a car I am the student sport specialist for grades seven
071and eight and kayn crito the middle picture there she is my counterpart she's student sport specialist for grades five and six uh and then Amanda Schultz is our building counselor yep for for grades fifth through eth grade all the grades wow uhuh stressful so um again uh the the tier one scope and sequence so that's that's what we're giving to every student in grades 5 through eight um with that scope and sequence scaffolding the lessons you know of course as they as they go higher in grades the the needs change but having it there in a format where we can see what's being taught um for our students who are receiving in the areas of social emotional development academic development and then Career Development um across the grade levels uh every student will receive uh
072two lessons from student support Specialists tier one and then in fifth grade They will receive fifth and sixth grade will each receive one um College and Career Readiness lesson and using Zell um seventh grade will receive one College and Career Readiness and a signs of suicide um lesson and then 8th grade will also receive one College and Career Riz lesson and and what's really nice about that paired with the tier one scope and sequence that we can all see like I said who's getting what at what level and when uh is on our our annual calendar so along with our tier one lessons then the extra supports that we um even partnering with extra agencies Community Resources is all there on our annual calendar so that we can see the Continuum of services in addition
073to the tier one that all students are receiving um now thinking about our upcoming year 2024 2025 at the middle school has a heavy focus on implementing tier one scope and sequence all fifth through eth graders that receive those lessons we also plan to support our teachers with the implementation of trails uh with Fidelity uh in our morning meeting classes which all Middle School classes will have a first hour uh with the exception of e8th grade there has to be second hour because of scheduling but a dedicated first hour period called the morning meeting um in order to implement the the trail social emotional learning curriculum um we are excited to use the data that comes from our attendance and our behavior and our achievement um to drive our decisions and to drive our decisions
074there uh is an example of the smart goal that we wrote one of the smart goals that we wrote of several um and actually I think we started calling them smarty goals because the I for inclusion and the E for Equity um is just one example of by May of 2025 six grade males who have had two or more office discipline referrals will decrease in classroom discipline Behavior referrals by 15% So currently that number for the fourth quarter was 79 and we hope to see less than that by 15% in May of next year to 67 okay um this was a big one for us for the middle school was defining our processes and procedures around what we call a crisis so what are we looking at if you um Rob could you click on
075the the C the the picture thank you yes the picture right there there we go so in many cases there is something that's happening that's immediate and immediate of course is our highest level of a crisis um but there's immediate for someone who's at Administration level someone who student support or for our building counselor and that one is a wherever you're at whatever you're doing we would we would get a call from the office to say hey we need you here we've got this crisis and it isn't immediate um it streamlines who's where and how we're how we're really protecting our time because maybe it's a level B maybe it's one of those where you know I see that this has happened this is on my plate maybe as a student support specialist or this
076is something that would be you know in more like an Amanda's wheelous but it can be dealt with after I get done in classes giving my tier one lesson um or maybe maybe the next day tomorrow if I have scheduled academic Support classes you know for the rest of the day today this is something that I can deal with tomorrow and then finally there's the sea level where it is definitely something that falls into needing to see a counselor or student support specialist or it's an administrative you know maybe a maybe a duty for you know one of our administrators but as long as we we get to it this week the reason why this is so important is because we are able to like I said protect our time and be more proactive as
077opposed to reactive and and it's our time that we found out that with the tier one approach we are going to be able to see more kids affect more kids and maximize our time with more kids as opposed to or versus spending more time with less kids and then the way that we're able to do it where everybody's on board is to get students to the right person at the right time and so this was this was a lot of work a lot of hard work and thank you to Terry who held our hands through um but that all students will first go to student support services at the middle school we've already begun working on this and we're we're constantly evolving um from there the person at the middle school office students Services office
078does what we call the triage and kind of makes that quick decision is it an a b or c and is an administrator student support or counselor thank you thank you and school all right I'm Amanda May I'm Liz Vernon um Becky is working the track meet tonight and um we can I mean we're doing the same thing obviously so um we implemented our our plan is to next year Implement our tier one action plan um and one thing that we really wanted to work on was communicating what we're doing um with parents especially but also staff um and we just want to like they said um have a more proactive model instead of reactive so um we just looked at where we felt like some gaps were with the portrait between the portrait of
079a a graduate and the ASA mindsets and behaviors and um decided what we should prioritize so um because our schedule is a little bit different um you go to the next slide okay um it's harder for us to um like reach all the kids um at the same time especially because as you might know um the building number one they take classes at different times they take different classes um and we have a semester schedule so they might have it first semester versus second semester so we are planning to get into the classroom but um there are a couple things that we did to be creative to reach all kids um so one thing that we did was um we've done it two years now we're going to continue as the course Fair um and
080what that is is a way for kids to kind of see what courses we offer um and before they do their scheduling so they know what they're picking um instead of just kind of taking a shot at the dark and then changing their mind later um so what that is um we come up with a schedule for all the teachers um obviously with their input um Jim here made us a really amazing program that the kids are able to select their schedule for the day um then they get the schedule for the day the teachers give a little 20 to 30 minute teaser lesson um and then they rotate um through five different sessions so in those five sessions um this year we were able to do some SAT prep and some test taking skills
081um and we reached all the juniors in that time so that's one way that we're able to um kind of meet all or see all the kids um we did collect data on that on the next slide um it's just some of the kids feedback um overall it was very positive and we it did what we wanted it to do so we wanted them to meet more and learn about more classes and um overwhelmingly that was the case um we also are looking for ways to improve we want to make sure that we're meeting the students needs um and that it is like something that is actually helpful to them instead of just something that we think might be helpful so um that's why we're looking for feedback there um another way um that we
082are implementing uh trying to get to all the kids um is through the Freshman Focus program um and this was our first year we decided to Pilot it so this came from um many of our staff members visiting Stevenson High School in Illinois um they have a very cool um freshman Mentor program so we kind of took the things that we liked from it and um decided to just focus on three small sections of kids so we had three classes that were like 15 kids each about about um so our plan for next year is to double that and then eventually this will be a tier one where all freshmen get it and um the purpose is to just assist freshmen in making a smooth transition transition into high school and creating and maintaining connections
083um with their peers and staff like we taught a lesson a week um and then the student leadership mentors went into the classrooms a couple times a week and then we invite other staff to go in um as well so they could meet the people in the building in a smaller setting um and then the next slide has some more pictures of them and then finally our goals for next year is to implement our tier one action plan um and we have two focuses per grade level um so for freshmen we're going to go over signs of suicide um and they're also going to be working in Zell to match their careers um with the interest that they have um understanding that may change um and then in 10th Grade we're going to look at
084um the upper level options that are available to them um like the career center like rmtc um things like that um and then also test anxiety and that we're looking at um probably starting with a pilot as well instead of just so we can work out the Kinks before we give it to everyone um 11th grade will be signs of suicide um and then more of the SAT stuff that I talked about and then 12th grade is going to be FAA and then um working on resume building so that's our tier one action plan and then our specific goal we decided to relate it to the kids who we saw in those um freshman Focus classes um because initially they have been kind of um assigned based on need um kids who we really felt
085could benefit from being more connected in a school um and so that's so small and that's terrible thank you um by May 2025 male students with three or more office referrals so minor or major just office referrals in general that we're in our freshman Focus classes in 23 24 will decrease referrals sophomore year by 20% from8 down to 94 it does seem like a big number but that is all referrals so anytime a teacher did any kind of informational referral not necessarily like a big referral so we will be tracking that um next year and putting some um things into place to hopefully give them some more skills um and so we can look at their progress next year as sophomores all done thank you for that it looks like you guys have really done
086a lot of work and um I look for for look forward to seeing the sustainabil sustainability piece of it um and see it go forward so Mr ridway did you want to add anything I don't think so I mean I I do same I appreciate the the work that's done and you know getting a system in place so that it makes sense and every not everything but a lot of things that we're done we're reactive we're reacting to behaviors we're reacting to crisis and not everything is a crisis sometimes it feels like it in the moment but trying to Define what and where and how we should handle those so we can get the work done and not just react and I I do have one question how much um will the high school side
087of things focus on uh career Readiness and what path they might take yeah that's definitely a focus for us um we're going to that in nth grade great and thank you you know Rob there there certainly a lot of information there but uh I the whole issue of what's a crisis and that I was interested in the tiered response plan I think that's great to Define that question I would have is how well is that tiered response plan understood by the broader audience because I think a lot of times when we get into issues here it's because someone thinks what they have as a crisis and they have an expectation around response that then is misaligned so how do we make make sure we avoid those those types of issues so I just encourage that
088to be communicated so the customers know what to expect in terms of the timeliness of a response all right I'll move on to comments related to agenda items it looks like we have one yes Miss Matthews thank you thank you uh please uh state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes Matthew's it was more about for the curriculum so I can address it now sure um we were asked to come to share our thoughts on the new curriculum that's going to be presentent to the board um one of the things that my students enjoyed about amplify and we know that curriculum some curriculums have holds it and not everything think is perfect but my students went in with the mindset of this is a pilot um this is something that
089short term we're using it to see okay is it something the teachers can use is it something that the students can use um so we just finished our first unit in the pilot and they had some grows and glows um I had those but in my bathroom Shuffle at the end of the day they're on my desk still but um the students enjoyed the content they enjoyed learning about the animal systems and classification I've noticed over time the students vocabulary increased because of the repetitive of the introducing vocabulary um the students enjoyed the activities um they also expressed their opinion on some of the they would like more of the they had some concerns about the Reading part I think because it requires a lot in third grade to do read the self as far
090as the teacher reading allow they wanted to do more of the reading which I didn't mind um anytime they actually to do it I would let them do it and um practice that but they did enjoy the curriculum like I said no curriculum is perfect with using in conjunction with youly which would be our phonics piece I think moving forward with Amplified CK would be a good choice um I've used this program before on my own in social studies to use as a supplement and using it for the language art piece was very good um it was very easy to also leave as a um supplement for substitute teachers guest teachers so it was not very wordy which is a concern with a lot of teachers as well like having to read a doseage or
091long teacher plan you know it was very quick and to the point and it's easy to pick up as far as if you're missing a day you don't have to stress out with okay I need to move on to this part because it's all connected um um and so for the most part my students did enjoy it and we're moving on to our we said we were just going to finish the they wanted to finish the pilot so we're going to move on to the second unit as well um we had our pilot party on Friday with popsicles and popcorn to talk about what went well and what we need to work on and I think they enjoyed it for the most part thank you for your feedback thank you all right Madam Secretary we'll
092move on to the consent agenda chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approve the consent agenda as follows approve the general funds check School Services fund check school lunch and student school activities fund checks in accordance with the list of STS approve the following minutes as reviewed April 8th 2024 regular Board of Education meeting minutes April 15th 2024 special Board of Education meeting minutes April 18 2024 building committee meeting minutes and May 9th 2024 budget committee meeting minutes so move support the move by Dr border supported by Mr Smith do we have discussion hearing and see none please call the rooll Mrs Wallace yes Mrs Waton yes Mrs Alward I vote Yes Dr Borders yes Mr Smith yes and M Mr best I vote Yes motion carries all right thank
093you for that we move on to information discussion school safety just a quick report um we uh looked at the crosswalk project as Jim has said was going to start in July uh I asked and discussed doing a our updated Emergency Operations plan and using a consultant I talked to some other school districts in the area as around as well as around the state and I'm getting some rfps for um for that process and then spent most of the time talking about the school safety conference that I attended and the need for us to have after school events um safety plan and so that will come up uh Athletics is a big one but we also have lots of other things we have concerts in the auditorium uh Elementary has lots of different things that
094they do just ensuring that we have a plan in place for things outside of school inside School we're really good outside of school time that's where we we need to do a little bit better to make sure that we know um what to do and and how to do it there tornadoes last week was a big example if we would have had events here you know we need to know where to go and what to do in those situations uh and then we talked about potentially doing tabletop exercises as a committee um so that we can practice a little bit of what to do in those events as they they don't come up often but being prepared when they do happen questions all right I'll move on to the grace health behavioral health consultant agreement
095okay I've been talking about this for quite quite some time uh I do have an agreement in hand um that I would like the board to approve tonight basically uh the general specifications is we would have a behavioral specialist a health consultant actually that we would um have housed at Beetle Lake to start with um and they would pilot at Beetle Lake but with the expectation From Grace Health that it would go to all the elementary schools once it becomes established in the first month or two of school um and so this cost is similar to our school nurse it would be 85,000 it is paid 100% with uh the 31aa money which is the mental health uh safety School Grant or school safety Grant um I think it's a really good way for us
096to be proactive similar to what the counselors and support specialist talked about it would be like a tier three you know what some students might need for needs that they have that go beyond the scope of what we can help with you know having a professional within the building we have this at the high school we have a Summit Point at the middle school and this would just make it we would have it at the elementary school as well so I'm excited about it I look forward to approve that I have vetted the contract with Grace Health uh but it is 85,000 paid for by um that Health grant money and TR did look at it um I can't have I can have TR take a look at it for you to it's it's identical
097to our our school nurse which they have already done okay then yeah I don't want to waste money any questions all right if not Ela resource discussion we got some people that that are here to talk a little bit about the ELA resource discuss or Ela resource I'm just going to talk a little bit about it you know if Laura Laura were here she would uh talk about the entire process um and so this has been a several month process where where people have came together uh looked at different resources we have uh a couple of things established first they have to be researched re researched based um no matter what so that is the only resources that we look at and then the group said okay what what might we do and eventually we
098got to a point where we did a pilot and I know that Miss Miss Matthews was talking a little bit about the pilot that she did we had several I think it was 29 of our um k through eight Educators did did the ELA pilot it was small or short wasn't all all year long Ela is English language arts if I'm talking in educational speech so uh English basically and uh just to test out what happened um then the group came together last Thursday and had some discussions about what they thought what they felt and they have a recommendation so I'll stop talking for a minute and if I can have the Educators come up and and talk a little bit maybe start with the elementary Educators first what's that okay probably explain that it
099was like a I will all right I'm I teach at w Park Elementary I'm a secondary teacher I have her stff um so yeah we had several people came together and we kind of did a Pros cons and we talked about uh just the different needs what we really wanted was uh teaching it with Fidelity the vocabulary the independent reading the whole group lesson and then watching the scaffolding and it was really clear whenever we met together that what would fit the needs of prep through fifth grade was different than what would meet the needs of sixth through eth that's one thing I want to get on open um when you look at the technology piece of what I did the pilot I did it was all Technology based and as someone who teaches young
100kids I want them to have books in their hands and I want them to be able to read to me and it was so much Guided by me it was scary um then didn't really see a lot of working at them working on their skills my counterpart though Jody vle had this program and I was able to go watch and see what she did and it was like night and day difference the kids were involved they were um given books they were given uh vocabulary I we both use vocabulary words but just the the difference between the two curriculums was so clear for everyone who piloted um I'm not sad that I tried what I tried it was good to know and know which one was better so what we really liked it the preschool
101through fifth grade level was Amplified in fact there wasn't a preschool uh level oper at the e um the other curriculum that we had that the sixth through e grade really liked and it also did skills and it has handwriting components and it teaches the art of actual um writing papers and it builds and so it's nice so what's nice about the program that we want at the lower L is that you could get rid of Handwriting Without Tears which is a very expensive program and it could be embedded in what we would do as far as the ELA program that we want it also covers um right now what we do and for language arst kind of pulled from all these different resources and we have a separate writing program this would be a
102component have it all together and it really works together and also encompasses um character education so it talks about the word operate and that word comes up in the lessons that you're teaching um and it's the character education word for I think the week and it would just a very um if kids really like it Mrs vle likes it so much she's continuing to do it um I was like hey can I go get some of those lessons that you've already done and do them with my class and so it's it's just a really great uh resource and if you have any other questions um You probably would have to ask someone who did [Laughter] amplify I'm bissa Robinson I teach kindergarten at Soma and I did get to use the amplifying program um she
103pretty much gave you a summary of both one thing I want to add is um this is May the end of the year and we started um with the program where we would be teaching it to the students in October and so I thought well this is going to be easy my kids are they're already going to know all of this and there were a lot of gaps so it tells me that my kids aren't getting everything that they need by the end of the year and this program um fills a lot of those gaps in to help them be ready for first grade and I think it is um it's more all-encompassing of all the things that we need into one program without having to pull pieces of some other programs that we'll have
104to continue spending money on there any questions or oh so one of the things also with this program um it's pretty scripted but so if you are a teacher a veteran teacher and you know what you're doing you can use the script or not you can teach the content if you are a sub or a brand new teacher it gives you step by step if you need that support it gives you um remedial activities for kids that need extra help it gives you extension activities for kids that are ready to move on um without having to have the experience or an knowledge to just be able to pull those activities out for the students um it has all of those things it has small group activities that go with the lessons um the lessons also
105teach social studies and science um question all right thank you Amy St from the Middle School Chanel Balin de borders we happen to all be sixth grade teachers and we um kind of led the way in the Middle School um piloting um a new curriculum and um we fell in love with El education and um then came to find that it is Al known as imagine learning and which is the online component um so for a few or for many months our students strictly use the open resource we printed and printed and copied and copied to our little heart's desire um and the kids were loving um what we were doing it's a very diverse texts that they're reading in e um a lot of discussion Rich discussion not just talking but deep discussions offering
106them question stems um discussion starters um building up one thing we've been talking a lot about in our Co talk class is what makes an ethical person and um so tying in that character Ed piece you refer to um so now learning that it also has the Imagine Learning component we can we can choose to use the online component or we can choose to continue on in the workbook or we can do a combination of both and that's what we' been doing is a combination of both and um it's looking very well with our students they have been very student l in our classrooms there are days where we're like What did we just do because they are leading everything and it works they're we are just starting our nwaa so we don't have all
107of our data but I had a student grow 38 points in their boab alone from Fall which is insane because quite frankly we used to hate looking at our poat scores because we were like we're not doing anything for it um yeah and I um I specifically teach a special ed in our sixth grade and um i' I've been really impressed with my overall scores for the spring so far I've had students growing 20 points 18 points just since the winter not since the beginning of the but just since the winter incredible growth especially in the in the vocabulary band of the NWA we have students who are excited to read now I've had teachers students come up to me and say that's the first chapter book I ever finished and they love Library days
108now and they get upset when we don't get to spend the entire hour reading which just makes my teacher heart happy and one of the things that I specifically again like about this curriculum is how accessible it makes grade level texts for students who aren't reading at a grade level so there's a lot of flexibility within the resources that are provided both through e and through imagine learning that give all of us the flexibility to me all the needs regardless of the barriers within the learning so that a a sixth grader who's reading at a second grade level is still able to get just as much out of this sixth grade text as all the other students in the room I think what I my biggest take away from it is when I watch my
109kids I can just as Chanel said sit back and I'm just kind of like the guide in the classroom um and they're taking the lead and their ownership of their Le it makes me proud sometimes I feel lost like she said what am what am I actually doing today um but it makes me very proud and they come in and they look at like oh we're doing this today so I'm going to do this I'm going to need this I'm going to need to make sure I have this this and this and um they really it is cultivated a very cool environment and Community ownership of learning no so what triggered the reason for this pilot why our data our data was not what we wanted it to be and quite frankly we haven't had
110a curriculum it's it's been just resources and peace meal and no consistency within our building from one grade to the next and that's what we were seeing in the data is the lack of consistency and when we would come together as a group you know our discussion was just as peace need about where to go next because there was no resource for us to have as an anchor ultimately the resource is just a resource and the teacher makes the difference but it gives us an anchor it gives us a common ground to stand on so that when we do come to the table with data we can say okay what what piece what piece of this puzzle because we're all looking at that same puzzle and not something called yeah also we we were using
111um Mesa uh from U was from that's no longer thank you um that is no longer a valid resource they're actually turning it like they we used to pull it off with the online they gave us a SC sequence and it was again a starting point like Jen was saying um but it they've decided that no longer no longer res U backed by research so it is no hunk or something that we can even use in our uh SC sequence we have to like change that and so we we're like we have to use something if you come in as a new teacher you have nothing you have books and you're like what what do I teach and every all of our all of our school bqu is built around Mesa which is no longer
112a valid uh program resource you've backed by research so we had to look at something we had to say we have to have something that's viable we have to have something that's consistent and across the board if you I guarantee that all the students that I've had have had something different every year un attention turn because I found something that works well and then use it and then find something works better and use that and so you just um and it's I do I do the best that I can but it's still not um consistent and and I would say even vertically aligned is probably the most important horizontally align it's not the same across the district it's not the same and so this if you find a curriculum resource like who really wanted this
113to find that one that worked preschool to eight it just didn't like it was clear that it didn't but if we go prek to Five you have a vertical alignment that what they're getting in kindergarten is building onto what they're going to do in in fifth grade and then what they're what we found is a lot of the stuff that they did in amplify even Heather C saying is something that gets covered again in seventh grade social studies so it does feed into what even six seven and eighth grade are doing it just may not be the same look the same as far as Ela but it's still um core values of of using character Ed of vocabulary Rich um curriculum of making sure that student let all those things are the same all those
114value the same just the way that we're accessing is to overall our power standards for 68 El hits all of our power standards multiple times throughout the year and amplify does not at all and it's completely vice versa amplify fits Elementary or at least fifth grade all year and then e does not any questions for the Educators I have to I add a few things on with the uh the business end of it um so thank you very much we appreciate that when I what I was impress with the most when we I went to the meeting last Thursday which you know just a few days ago was um how passionate folks were and how how sure they were which resources that we thought were the best ones to get now of course the business
115end is the coton um and I was hoping that I would come to you with this is the cost and this is we can maybe even move forward tonight because we want to get the resources but I do have to tell you that we are in the negotiation process with the both these companies it's only been really two days Friday and Monday um in which we've been working back and forth with them and with ginger of how much money we have to spend and so we're going to continue the negotiations but I may ask at some point for the board to reconvene to um to do this and approve the entire curriculum with the costs involved I I think obviously with the Educators this is what the the direction we want to go and so
116now we'll find out the business end to make sure that everything's going to work on every piece of the every P piece of this so excited but not quite ready for the approval I think that uh Mrs Williams had told the group that we are hoping to get approval by June I'm hoping to do it a little bit sooner just to get the resources so amplify for the elementary DK uh five amplify and then 68 would be e education as you heard okay and it was pretty well enthusiastic across the board yes yeah I was I was that was I was most I figur when I came to the meeting I thought we would have people that would maybe argue back and forth but the only argument or the only disagreement was that Amplified didn't
117work well for upper middle and then e didn't work well for elementary but they were happy with the other the way that the split came out good so I'm happy with it all right if nothing further we'll move on to new hire all right we have a new hire and he is in the room Brad pic Brad could you just stand up for just a second uh Brad is um being recommended for a PE position at the high school um he would come in at the ma12 level Brad's excited I know about potentially working carre he's student taught here a few years ago um and Mr gemman is wholeheartedly recommending Mr pan to hire so thank you for coming we we really appreciate that pH really helps yeah all right move on to bus purchase
118yep no food service contract tonight bus purchase okay from our pilt conversation we did get uh bids for two used buses uh 2022 um with a 5-year warranty on each would cost $ 209,210 and what I'm looking for tonight is approval to move forward because if we don't buy used buses fairly soon then we might lose them or at least commit to them um Jinger and I will work on again the finances but this would come out of the pilt money that we currently have 77 passengers so they're a little bit bigger than the 72 that I thought I saw one was a different size well there was there was two possibilities so there were two 72s and 277 we want the 277 that's why we're kind of hurrying a little bit okay to not
119miss that uh that purchase isn't that considerably more expensive than we've been paying for buses yes the bus prices have gone up by about 20,000 they 85,000 I was thinking 75 but yeah originally I was thinking 75 we couldn't have gone up 30,000 but it sounds like it almost did yeah those include radios uh we we would take our radios off our current buses P we we would retire two buses take the radios and camera systems off of those it's crazy yep it's crazy it's where we're at unfortunately in terms of the purchase dat got theil money what's that got the pil money yeah if we didn't have the pil we would not we would be all it's almost exactly what we budgeted for the PO money also just it is but it's still a
120lot in comparison to what we've been paying I agree all right let's move on to committee definitions and assignments okay within your packet I know there's a hard copy as well in your folder of uh what what Bo had put together after our special meeting um just making sure I think I don't think he said anybody had responded specifically but if there's any issues with what is on this piece of paper um as well as defining committees the budget committee we defined the budget committee so we got that one ready to go um and we'd like to get the other ones defined as well um as we move towards July the July board and this was I did miss something on there which is I'm supposed to be on the building committee and not Aon
121sorry I think that when I looked at that Sarah um I could potentially put you back on but it was supposed to be me um but I think was the because they don't we Gally meet at 8 or not on that what 8:00 was that a 8:00 meeting the building we we just was needed it was an ad needed oh the building okay we said buildings as needed that that was when it was needing okay um I will make that change and get that back out I mean unless Aaron wants to stay on it many these can you so we said building was not permanent it is permanent permanent they meet when they adjust the time so like they've met at s in the which would not have worked for me which was how that
122happened but I was supposed to be on it and I would have recommended a different time if I had known I was supposed to be on it all right I will look um and make that change um and make sure we're uh equally attached to committees so and and then as far as the definitions we're going to go through those as they meet next is that yeah and if uh if there's somebody on a committee that would like to you know take your stab at it you know I did the budget one that it wasn't too hard but did the budget one the other day um just to kind of Define what that committee is and what it does okay but policy we have a we will meet this month for sure to get that
123taken care of and then we'll look at all the other ones to make sure that they're all defined okay I anticipate Personnel will meet in the next six weeks we are just starting a process to negotiate the legislative changes with the uh teachers group so that's the typical one so we'll probably meet after after we meet with the um teacher group for that then we'll probably get the personal committee together just to talk a little bit where we're at hopefully it go well are we going to re um revisit the building representative discussion in terms of defining right yeah like what what that okay that's a piece of that by so by July the July board meeting we want to have all of those done in place okay yes all right uh move on to
124comments from the audience we do have one Abby cook Abigail cook will you state your name and address for the record hello I'm abio cook I live in 13109 East AR Mar Lane and I'm a seventh grader at Harbor Creek Middle School when I was in fifth grade I was told if I kept taking Spanish in middle school then I'd have a chance at taking a high school Spanish class in e8th grade called Spanish one I would also have this marked on my diploma when I graduated this information was told to my parents as well the last three years I have taken all of the Spanish classes available to me and have passed with an a each semester I love Spanish and I've always loved it since elementary school in February I found out through
125email by my school counselor that the Spanish one class would not be offered next year my eighth grade year because only 20 students signed up and of those students only 13 were eligible I'm disappointed because Harper Creek promised me the opportunity I understand class size is important but alternative options should be considered instead of us being told the opportunity no longer exists 13 student do matter we don't have many opportunities for advanced classes in the middle school I work hard to maintain my grades and I'm upset to no longer have the opportunity I was promised and will miss out in having it on my diploma I plan on double majoring in Spanish and physical therapy in college while this class may not seem important to some it is important to me I hope the administration
126and Board of Education considers offering the class next year a brainstorms an option so so the 13 students who qualify still have the opportunity thank you thank you Abigail nicely done all right uh we'll move on to action items uh Grace health behavioral health consultant agreement Madam Secretary the chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approves the one-year contract for a behavior health consultant with Grace Health which will cost an annual cost of $85,000 using 31aa mental health grant money as discussed and reviewed [Music] move support been moved by Mr Smith supported by Mrs Wallace do we have discussion hearing and see none please call the role Mrs Wallace yes Mrs Waton yes Mrs Alward I vote Yes Dr Borders yes Mr Smith yes and Mr bus I vote Yes
127motion carries all right move on to new hire the chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approve the following new hirer Brad palinsky High School physical education health teacher ma 12 master's degree from American College of Education as discussed and reviewed so moved support moved by Mrs Wallace supporter by Mr Smith do we have discussion he and see none please call the rooll Mrs Wallace yes Mrs Waterson yes Mrs Alward I vote Yes Dr Borders yes Mr Smith yes and Mr B I vote Yes motion carries all right and uh bus purchases chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approved the purchase of two new used 2022 77 passenger buses from Midwest Transit at a cost of $ 209,210 as discussed and reviewed some move
128support and moved by Dr border supported by Mr Smith do we have discussion hear and see none please call the rooll Mrs Wallace yes Mrs Waton yes Mrs Alward I vote Yes Dr Borders yes Mr Smith yes and Mr bus I vote Yes motion carries and the last action item that we added uh earlier is the summer school stem resource purchase chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approved the summer school stem materials from next wave stem using Grant funds not to exceed or for $116,000 in title four four Grant or title four monies for $20,000 as discussed and reviewed so moved support P moved by Mrs Wallace supported by Mr Smith Mr rid that number sound correct yeah so part is through 11t is the is the act oh
129that's what it is and the other part is title four 11 it does say that I was like what you should then you said I believe these are both these are both uh state grants you know we have lots of Grants nowadays but those are both state grants that would pay for their res federal grants 11ts Federal all right so we have uh as we just want to say the correction as read was 11t funds for $16,000 and title four for $20,000 as discussed and reviewed all right and we have a motion from Mrs Wallace and a all right please call the roll Mrs Wallace yes Mrs Waton yes Mrs allward I vote Yes Dr Borders yes Mr Smith yes and Mr BS I vote Yes motion carries all right anybody have any items for
130the next meeting I will get that correction made to the um uh committee assignments and if nothing further meeting adjourned at 7:54 PM good night