001[music] Hey, hey. >> [cheering] >> Everyone, let's please rise for the pledgece to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Welcome everyone. Item 1B, approval of agenda and items for discussion. >> I move that the agenda for the November 17th, 2025 regular meeting be approved. >> Second. A motion by Mrs. Shaw supported by Miss Custodio. Is there any discussion on the motion? >> Um I'd like to to discuss uh let's see close session. We have on here close session for the very end of the day here. Uh which means our lovely attorney is going to have to sit around here for quite a few hours waiting for us. Uh, one of my thoughts
002is, um, if we could move that up the list maybe, and I don't I don't see a reason it needs to be a close session. So, I guess I would try to amend the agenda to remove the closed session from our agenda and and just have the action item on the school aid funding. So, I don't know if that's probably a two-step, >> right? So, so just so I'm clear, you'd like to eliminate item four, which is the close session, >> correct? >> And you would like to add a discussion item. >> No, I'd like to ultimately remove item four and move item five to uh to a that way it can be the first action item. Our attorney can answer questions, whatever, and then she can be on her way and we don't have
003to keep her here all night. >> Okay. Um I'm thinking we need to take it in two separate steps. >> Okay. So I guess first I'd move that we remove the close session request uh item four from the agenda. >> Second. >> Okay. So motion on the table from Mr. Scott supported by Mr. Was that Mr. Goleski? I heard. Yeah. >> Thank you. um to remove item four from the agenda and we'll we'll address the other half later. So right now the motion is just to remove item four from the agenda and that is the close session uh regarding legal consult consultation for 31A funding. >> Correct. >> Is there any discussion on that motion? >> So I can just give a little little reasoning here. So, the idea is I don't think that a
004close session is necessary uh in order to do what we need to do tonight. Um and I I think the reasoning for going into a close session is kind of thin here. I know um under the Michigan Open Meetings Act, there is an allowance to consider material exempt from discussion under state statute. Um, but I'm going to read directly here from the Michigan Open Meetings Act handbook. And it says, quote, "But note, a board is not permitted to go into close session to discuss an attorney's oral opinion as to opposed to a written legal memorandum." Unquote. And that then cites uh Booth newspapers v Wyoming City Council. Uh furthermore, and the reason I think that's important is we did receive some communication from our attorney about the 31A funding, but um from talking to a
005lot of other board members, it didn't seem like they had any questions, and I can't speak for everyone obviously about what's actually in this uh communication. Most of the questions were in addition to this. And so that's why I think it's important that we can't just receive oral opinion in a close session. It has to be specifically uh the written opinion which again I don't think any of us have questions on. Furthermore uh in the people vers Whitney Michigan court of appeals says the close session must be limited to the discussion of confidential legal legal advice again as presented in legal opinion. And in that ruling, it says, quote, "It would be illogical to construe the attorney client privilege exemption as authorizing a public body to evade the open meeting requirement of the OMA merely
006by involving a written opinion from an attorney in the substantive discussion of a matter of public policy for which no other exemption in the OMA would allow a closed meeting. To avoid this illogical result, we conclude that the proper discussion of a written legal opinion at a closed meeting is with regard to the attorney client privilege limited to the meaning of any strictly legal advice presented in the written opinion. The attorney client privilege exemption does not extend to matters other than the provision of strictly legal advice. So I would ask then uh if our attorneys have have sent us this memo which went to countless other districts, dozens, hundred of other districts uh and it the memo which we are going to be discussing does not contain any recommendation of proposed course of action. How
007can we argue that that is strictly legal advice or substantive in any way? The memo is neutral. It offers no definitive opinion, recommendation or legal conclusion. It does not meet the threshold for strictly legal advice which is required to be um present for uh the need to go into close session. Uh the attorney client privilege communication we have is honestly more like a newsletter than a protected document. It mirrors countless other non-privileged documents that have been circulated via email, online, in social media, and even talking points put out by the MASB. I believe we risk violating the OMA by pretending to interpret this document as tailored protective advice rather than what it really is, which is just general information, which happens to have been produced by an attorney. uh that puts each and every one
008of us in jeopardy of facing penalties associated with violating the open meetings act. And uh from section 12 of the OMA, it says uh quote, "A public official who intentionally violates this act is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000." So again, it is my recommendation we remove the um the closed session from our agenda and we have our discussion right here out and open in front of our constituents, taxpayers, parents, and students. >> Thank you, Mr. Scott. Is there any further discussion? Um I have a quick opinion and just to be a little less technical than um [sighs] uh what was just discussed. I think that is as a matter of informing the public over an issue. This is a very important issue and I think we should
009be able to talk and discuss the key points of this issue with our attorney in front of everyone because many times we'll have parents that come up here that are a little upset and the reason why they're upset is because they really don't have the information that they thought they'd get from being in the meeting. So I think what we can do is by having this open we can educate um the general public in terms of what we're facing with this decision. So >> thanks Glenn. Yeah, that was um kind of an extension of of our conversation yesterday. um that there there is information that um that I think is is out in the public on social media, what have you, surrounding 31A um that is misleading um to to those that don't do the
010research and don't do the digging that it is just a simple decision and that so you're you're either choosing between, you know, safety and security for students or or you're you're choosing um legal privilege, right? or you know privilege um for um transparency right so um and and it's not as simple as that there's a whole lot more to it um so I appreciate that comment too thank you is there any further discussion okay hearing none the motion on the table is to amend the agenda um brought forth by Mr. Scott supported by Mr. Goalleski were to remove item four which is the closed session from the agenda. >> Mr. Gogleski. >> Yes. >> Mr. Campbell. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shaw. >> Yes. >> Mr. Keller. >> Yes. >> Mr. Scott. >> Yes. >> Miss
011Custodio. >> Yes. >> And I'm a yes. Okay. So, item four has been removed from the agenda. Mr. Scott, would you like to address the second part? >> Yes. I'd like to move that we um uh move item number five, the state school aid state school aid act section 31A funding resolution to action item A. So >> yeah, 2 A. >> Yep. So moving item number five up to item 2 A. Then shifting everything else under section two down a letter. >> Correct. >> Okay. So that is your motion. Do I have a second on that motion? >> Second. >> Okay. Okay. So motion by Mr. Scott, supported by Mr. Campbell to move item five. to item 2A as [snorts] a dis um as an action item. [clears throat] Is there any discussion on that?
012I think Mr. Scott kind of addressed the rationale behind that. Any other comments? Okay. Hearing none. Again, this is to amend the agenda, moving item five up to item 2A, proposed by Mr. Scott, supported by Mr. Campbell. >> Mr. Gooleski. >> Yes. >> Mr. Campbell. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shaw. >> Yes. >> Mr. Keller. >> Yes. >> Mr. Scott. >> Yes. >> Miss Custodio. >> Yes. >> And I'm a Yes. All right. So, we have now moved item five up to item 2 A. So 2 A is now 31 AA and all the others will shift out one letter. So section two or the second section of the agenda now goes through item 2G. Everybody else have that? Okay. Okay. Any further discussion or amendments to the agenda? The original motion on the floor here
013is um brought forward by Mrs. Shaw, supported by Miss Custodio to approve the agenda and items for discussion. Any further discussion on this hearing? None. Mr. Goleski? >> Yes. >> Mr. Campbell? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shaw? >> Yes. >> Mr. Keller? >> Yes. >> Mr. Scott? >> Yes. Miss Custodio, >> yes. >> I'm a yes. That motion carries. Item 1 C, consent agenda. I move that the consent agenda for the November 17th, 2025 regular meeting be approved. Motion by Mrs. Shaw. Do I have a support? >> Second. >> Thank you. Support by Miss Custodio. Any discussion on on the item >> hearing? None for the consent agenda brought forward by Mrs. Shaw, supported by Miss Custodio. Mr. Gooleski, >> yes. >> Mr. Campbell, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shaw, >> yes. >> Mr. Keller, >> yes.
014>> Mr. Scott, >> yes. >> Miss Custodial, >> yes. >> And I'm a yes. Motion carries. Item 1D, superintendence report. Mr. Houston. >> Yeah. Thank you. So, the first uh item up is an introduction to new hire. So, I'm going to have Mrs. Gun and Gabby come up. Um first of all, I want to and I'm going to steal a little bit of thunder from Mrs. Gun. However, it's really important. You recall that a few years ago, I think it was four or five years ago, uh we were concerned about finding teachers. We are concerned about the shortage of teachers out in the world. And so we started the cadet teaching program with Miss Wazny and Mr. Aldridge. Stand up. You gota got to take uh these two high school teachers jumped in CTE program
015and started a cadet teaching program. So thank you for doing that first of all. Awesome. And Gabby represents our very first Hartland High School cadet teacher to be hired in this school district. That's pretty awesome. SO, >> all right. So, myself along with some supporting members of the Creek Side staff are pleased to introduce Gabby Battello, a proud Hartland High School graduate whose deep connection to this district has shaped both her educational journey and her professional path. During her senior year in 2022, she discovered her passion with working with students through our H Heartland High School cadet teaching program, an experience that inspired her to pursue a career in education. We still have this program today, and it's so nice to see students entering this program in high school and coming back to teach with
016us once graduating at college. Gabby recently completed her student teaching at Creekide Elementary, where she did an outstanding job. Throughout her placement, she consistently demonstrated the qualities we hope to see in our newest educators. A strong instructional practice, excellent rapport with students, thoughtful planning, eagerness to learn, and a willingness to actively seek out and apply feedback. She quickly became a trusted member of the classroom community, and her ability to engage students, differentiate instruction, and maintain a positive, structured learning environment were clear strengths. Her mentor teacher and the Creekide staff spoke highly of her professionalism, collaborative spirit, and natural ability to connect with the students. In addition to her student teaching experience, Gabby has served as a substitute teacher across H Heartland District, building strong relationships with students, staff, and school communities. These experiences have only
017strengthened her commitment to H Heartland and her enthusiasm for officially joining the district long term. Beyond the classroom, Gabby remains actively involved in the community through coaching recreational volleyball and assisting in the seventh grade volleyball team. She values the opportunity to support students beyond academics and help them build uh confidence both on and off the court. I know we are all excited at Creekide to welcome Miss Bautella to the H Heartland team as a second grade teacher. Thank you for your support in welcoming her to this role. Welcome, Gabby. >> I just want to say thank you so much. It's truly been a dream of mine coming back from three years ago in the cadet program and I've always wanted to teach in H Heartland and be a part of the community. So, I am
018super excited. Thank you. [snorts] I do tell people regularly that within the CTE options that our students have throughout the county, uh, this program is probably the one program that there's more immersion into the field than any other CTE program because our students are out there in year one and then they're out there in year do for a couple hours a day working in our classrooms with our children. So again, congratulations. Thank you again, Miss Al Mr. Aldred and Miss Wazny and the high school for supporting the CT program. So good job. Next, we will turn it over to Rachel. Rachel, we're going to do our audit presentation. >> Yep. I would like to uh pass it further down the line to Nick Ceris. I'm sorry they don't want to listen to you, Nick. apologize.
019[laughter] Don't take it personally. Um Nick was our point person for our audit this year. Um as you know, we we approved uh Mayor Casterian as our new audit firm this year and we were really pleased with how smooth the audit went and uh Nick and his team were prepared and professional and things went uh really well. So from the district standpoint, um we were very happy with how things turned out. So I will turn it over to Nick. >> Thank you so much. Yeah, as Rachel mentioned, uh Nick Caceres with Mayor Cost I can. Yeah. Is that better? As Rachel mentioned, Nick Caceres with Mayor Costarrison here tonight just to give a brief update on the 2025 audits. Um planning to keep tonight's presentation pretty brief, probably five 10 minutes tops. Um but as
020I go through, if anything comes up, jogs your memory, you have any questions, feel free to just jump right in. Really quick, just because it's my first time out here presenting at um H Heartland, I just want to give a little bit of a background on meter cost. We're a regional size CPA firm with offices in Lancing and Grand Rapids. We have right around 200 employees um providing a wide range of services for our clients, the traditional audit, tax, accounting, wealth management, and technology as well. Um, in terms of our expertise specifically in the education arena, um, I would say we're very well verssed. We do over 120 school district audits on an annual basis, um, to get that done. We dedicate right around 50 of our professional staff from the beginning of May through
021the end of October to get those audits buttoned up and finalized and submitted to the state by the November 1 deadline. So certainly keeps us busy in the summer and into the fall, but an area that we're passionate about. All right, getting right into the audit update. Uh, first and foremost, I'd like to echo exactly what Rachel said. Um, hats off to the business office team. Rachel, Jordan, everyone that we worked with was just absolutely fantastic. Um, first year audits are very, very challenging. We ask a ton of questions and requests a ton of information. Um, but they took everything in stride. Um, every time we walked in, they had smiles on their face. Probably not when we left, but when we walked in for the most part. Um, all while trying to keep or
022handle and juggle their normal day-to-day tasks. Um, so we really appreciate them just overall very knowledgeable, responsive, and just great to work with. Um, so thank you, Rachel, to you and your team, and we look forward to next year. Um, getting into the financial statements, as I'm sure you've been told in the past, um, Harland Consolidated Schools is subject to a single audit in accordance with uniform guidance. There's two components to a single audit, the financial statement audit and the federal award audit. Um, that first component, the financial statement audit, um, we have finalized that audit and that's been submitted to MDE by the November 1 deadline. Um, with respect to that financial statement audit, we did issue an unmodified opinion that's often referred to as a clean opinion and consistent with what you've seen
023in the past. Um, essentially, we're providing reasonable assurance that the financial statements as presented accurately reflect what happened at Heartland Consolidated Schools uh during fiscal year 2025. So, that's good news. Um the second component, the federal award audit probably are definitely inconsistent with previous years. That piece has not been finalized. And the reason for that being is we're waiting for the release of the 2025 OM compliance supplement. Um for those of you that do not know, uh that's a couple thousand page document that the federal OMB puts out on an annual basis. Um and essentially the the applicable US departments goes through that compliance supplement and essentially says if you're testing program X Y and Z we want you to do these steps. Um so as you can imagine without having the 2025 edition of
024that compliance supplement under professional standards we cannot finalize that piece of the single audit. Um, but as it stands now, we've done our testing based on what was in last year's supplement as well as a draft of the 2025 supplement. So, we feel good about the procedures we've performed. We're just waiting on the feds to get around to releasing that document and then hopefully it's just us comparing the final version, the draft, and we say, "Yep, we did all those procedures. Let's go final." Um, so that's kind of where things stand on on that piece. It's wait and see at this point, but I'll keep Rachel updated. Um, and that piece, that federal award audit piece is due to MD MDE 30 days after the release of the supplement. So, that's where we're at now
025on that piece. Um, but we will keep you updated. Uh, really quick, this is the only slide um within my presentation that talks about the numbers. It's a very summarized governmental fund balance sheet. Um, so you can see your major funds there, your general fund, 2022 bond fund, capital project set aside, which is a new major fund in the current year, and your combined debt service fund. So this shows your assets, liabilities, and fund balance for each of those funds as of 6:30 2025. More detail on these numbers and what makes up these numbers can be found on pages 14 and 15 within your audit. Um, but just really quick, a couple highlights in the general fund. general fund, as you can see, ended the year with about 21.5 million in total fund balance. After
026you back off uh the non-spendable portion, which would be like your inventories and things that you prepaid for, as well as a piece that you've unassigned for next year's budget deficit, you arrive at about 19.9 million in unassigned fund balance, and that's what you have available um heading into fiscal year 2026 to meet your general operating needs. Um, taking it a step further and I'm sure you've talked about this in the past um um in previous presentations as it's a pretty common metric that you you hear about in school finance, but taking that general fund fund balance and taking it as a percentage of current year expenditures. Um, as you can see on the screen there, as of 6:30 2025 or for the year ended 6:30 2025, uh, general fund fund balance was about 31.2%
027of current year expenditures. Um you can compare that to a year ago um for the year ended 630 2024 was about 27.4%. Um and that previous year number uh can be compared to the Livingston County average of about 21.7%. So above the county average at the end of the previous year. Unfortunately I don't have the county average for 2025 yet as those numbers haven't been published. Um but again the increase in the current year in 2025 with the increase in fund balance in the general fund. Then last couple slides here, I mentioned you're subject to a single audit in accordance with the uniform guidance as you spent more than $750,000 in federal awards. Um the snip on the right side of the screen here just kind of highlights what I talked about earlier, the two
028components to a single audit. The financial statement piece on top for which we issued an unmodified opinion with no deficiencies or non-compliance reported. Um and then the bottom half of that is the federal award piece. Um as things are trending now, you can see the unmodified opinion there. um based on the testing we've performed with the information that we have at this time. Um as part of that federal ward audit, we tested the child nutrition cluster as our major program in the current year and happy to report as things stands uh no issues to report for the current year. And we did follow up on um last year for the child nutrition cluster um that was tested as a major program in the previous year. There was a finding with regards to um internal controls
029over reporting. Um we did testing on the internal controls over reporting in the current year with regards to the child nutrition cluster. Um and happy to report those controls are in place um as were outlined in the corrective action plan in the previous year audit. So that's good news and hats off to the team again. And then last slide here um in addition to the audited financial statements that we've issued um there are two corresponding letters um that were issued as well. Uh the first the three-pager that that's stapled is referred to as the governance letter. This is a required communication between us the auditors and the board of education. Um this is in place just ensuring if there's anything that is significant that comes up over the course of the audit is actually getting
030relayed to governance and not just staying with management. Um that being said that being said no nothing of that significance this year. That's pretty much boilerplate language um and consistent with what you've seen in previous years. Um, and then the last piece, we did issue a management letter following up on a previous year comment. Um, in the previous year management letter, uh, the food service fund balance is over the maximum amount allowed by MDE as of 6:30, 2025. Rachel and her team are aware of this and, uh, working towards getting that spent down um, hopefully by the end of June 30th, 2026. Any questions or comments? Just one quick question. You mentioned that um for that part that we're waiting from from the feds. Um you've got 30 days to be able to complete the
031audit after that is released. Do you anticipate any issues with 120 of these that you have to fit into 30 days to finalize? Just needing that time. >> Great question. I don't I haven't got that question yet this year and I haven't got that far. I'm thinking ahead, but no, we're not going to have any issues. >> Okay. We don't anticipate any significant changes in the final version. If for whatever reason there was a significant change, maybe that changes our discussion, but we feel comfortable easily getting those. Well, we probably have 90 single audits out of the 120, but getting those out in a timely manner. >> Thank you. >> All righty. Thank you so much. >> Oh, one quick question. Sorry. So, you said the C it was the cafeteria fund. It was over.
032>> Yep. >> What What is the allowable amount in the fund? three months operating expenditures. So you take total expenses, back off capital expenditures, stuff that's not um I guess annualized or something that you're paying for on an annual basis and you take three nths of that. >> Okay. So is there and how far above that were we? Uh, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think >> I was just curious because the board was asked to increase lunch and breakfast prices a couple months ago. So, if our cafeteria fund is over the allowed balance, I'm wondering why that recommendation would have been made. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I I think I mean this is a pretty common management letter comment that we've had among all of our school districts with
033the CO era funding and the free meals um which led into the the additional receipts per meal um that got a ton of districts in this situation. Um but yeah, again speak to the >> Thank you. >> Um Nick, thank you. Uh just to clarify for the public listening out there, an unmodified opinion is the best opinion that you can provide a school district as an auditing agency. Is that correct? >> It is. It is the the highest level of assurance that we can provide um for financial statement audits. >> Thank you very much. So we'll take that as an A. Um, and then certainly in regards to the questions about the fund balance in the cafeteria plan, certainly I would encourage you to reach out and sit down with Rachel. I'm sure that she
034can answer all those questions for you and has a plan for how all that money is being spent and what our plan is for where we were over, such as coolers at the high school and things like that that maybe weren't charged off prior to the audit being completed at the end of 25, right? June of 25. So, I'm sure Rachel has all the answers that you would ever want if you just give her a call. Thank you. All right, thank you. >> Thank you so much for your time. >> Next up, we have Miss Hadum. Uh, going to do a presentation on happenings at Round. Thank you, Miss Hodum. >> Thank you. Thanks, Renee. Uh, thanks for having me. I'm here to brag about Rome. um today. So um this is the Brown staff,
035well the teaching staff and this is our vision statement. We spent a lot of time developing that last year and it actually ended up being AI generated based on what staff thought we did well and what we aspired to be. And I underlined embracing mistakes because one of the things that um is important when you're trying to improve your practice is making some mistakes, right? Trying some things and um being okay with it being a little gritty sometimes. Um and also embracing mistakes because we want students to know that when they don't know everything, that's okay. that they need to try and make mistakes and develop some of that grit and perseverance. So, um we've really taken on embracing mistakes this year. Uh big focus on growth mindset. I don't know it yet, right? I'll
036know it soon if I keep working. So, I wanted to put that in there. And then, um I went to the my school data site. You might be familiar with it. Um at that site, you can pull data on your school. These graphs um show our three-year school um performance, which means percent achieving, right? This isn't about growth. These ones are. I do have some growth slides for you, but so this is all students in English language arts. Round is the top. Uh the middle bar are schools that have similar student characteristics or demographics. And then of course the states at the bottom. So, um, we're pretty proud that we're, um, doing well there in language arts. Um, these are our mathematics performance for all students. These are economically disadvantaged students in English language arts.
037So, almost double the state. We're pretty proud of that. These are our economically disadvantaged students in mathematics. These are our students with disabilities in English language arts and our students with disabilities in math. So those are our percent proficient kind of information. But what's really cool is you can also get progress data. So this is data over three years about how how well our students are growing. So students who are already proficient are continuing to grow and then how many what percentage of students are moving at a rate that they're going to close the gap and be proficient in like a three-year period I think is what they base that on. So this is all students in English language arts and this is all students in mathematics. Um these are economically disadvantaged students in English
038language arts. economically disadvantaged students in math. These are English language arts stu students with disabilities. That's a triple dip. That means they're getting instruction with their teacher. They're getting instruction in um small group during during our intervention time and then they're also receiving their resource room time. So, we're very proud of that. It's working. And this is our um students with disabilities of mathematics which created a lot of conversation about how do we start getting third third dips for students with disabilities of math. We're working on that. [laughter] That's the next thing for us to work on. So um how did we do it? Of course our mantra is give to all gains for all. Um obviously the staff works very hard. They're very collaborative. We've been as proactive with behavioral efforts as possible. Um,
039a 100% of the staff at Round has worked with coaches and I think that's a testament to their willingness to change and grow and take risks. Um, we've prevented or we've protected our intervention time and tried to guarantee those second and third dips for students who need it. Um, we have enrichment um, for our highly capable students and we've been able to do that with a teacher the last couple years which is really nice. Um, we have done a really good job of respecting each other's time and person because people get pulled and things are hard and some days you're not there because you're sick. And so rallying around each other and being okay with that. We've spent a lot of time studying Hadtie's research. We know that that window from 0 to 8 is
040super important for literacy. So, we really try to make sure that by the time they're eight, they're in good shape um to be proficient. Um we also did a lot of work around Hadtie's research on efficacy. The number one um indicator for student achievement is staff having the self-efficacy feeling that they're responsible for student scores, that they actually do have an impact, that they're very important. And I think the round staff is there. And then I want to talk about district support a little bit because honestly we can't do the job if the kids don't come on the bus and they're not fed. And I want to thank um central office for providing us with coaches. Um for um supporting us when things get a little gritty. um they always have our back and are
041always trying to um let us know it's okay if we made a mistake, right? We're kind of a team effort. So um and of course um we appreciate the school board support, too. It's important. We need everybody, right? Um and grounds and maintenance. I'm sorry, Matt, if I didn't say that, but having a building that's warm and clean is really nice. [laughter] So, all right. Um I have a little thing to share with you. Um, this is just a representation of some of our students at Round. Um, I played this video um for the staff not too long ago and we had a big discussion about how that a affected them, but also how that they thought about their students in their classroom and what their how their students would take this information. So, I
042wanted to share it with you. If I can find out how to click on here. I don't think I need that to watch it. Oh, I don't have volume. >> Good one. >> I wrote the last equation wrong on purpose because I wanted you to learn something important. Now, you all witnessed I wrote the correct equation nine times, but nobody congratulated me on that, did you? But as soon as I made a mistake, you laughed and criticized me. Why do you think that is? >> Maybe it's because you're supposed to be smarter than us. >> Yeah, and it's funny. >> I may be in a position of authority, but it doesn't make me perfect or smarter than you. I'm a teacher, but I'm also a human being who makes mistakes. The point of this exercise
043today is to teach a very important lesson. You will soon discover the world is quick to criticize and find fault and much slower to praise and find the positive. You'll all experience criticism many times in your life. Those who are lucky enough to succeed or become quote unquote successful likely experience more criticism [music] than the rest because you'll find the one thing people love more than pointing out another's mistakes is when they can do it to someone who's achieved more than them. However, the person who criticizes others is only revealing the lack within themselves. Those who are happy within themselves [music] need not point out the faults in others. So the three [music] things I want you to remember from today's little exercise is first try to notice the good in others. If someone makes
044a [music] mistake, try to let them know in a kind way. Praise more than you blame. The second is when, not if, but when you're criticized. Remember the good in you. Remember your great qualities. Remember you're worthy and capable of great things. And finally, remember criticism is [music] something that you can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and [music] being nothing. So dream big. Get out there. Live your life. See how far you can push the limits. Don't [music] fear criticism, but know when it comes, [snorts] it's the result of your success, not your failures. >> So, um, that's what we're trying to do at Round. We're trying to create a place where it's okay to make mistakes. It's important to take risks and, um, we're going to take care of each other. So,
045I think that's why we've been successful. So, that's all I have. if you have any questions. [laughter] >> Thank you for sharing. Yeah, that was great. >> Thank you, Mrs. Adam. I I just want to say real quick, I really I talked to you before. I like the stats. I'm glad you presented that. Um I really like that you concentrate on the growth. >> And that's really what's really important in education is not just looking at at the ending point, but also at the starting point. and making sure that every student is progressing. So, I appreciate that you that you included that. I know as a board we've tried to um this year make that a bigger push and it's it's good to see that that you're already working on it and uh recognizing the
046importance. So, thank you very much. >> Yep. Yeah. Chuck was um asking us to be sure we were thinking about um not just percent proficient but also growth. So, I started digging and it was kind of fun to find out. [laughter] So, all right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Daddy, thank you. And thank you for always having a smile on your face. Even when things aren't going well, we're able to work through it because we we take the high approach on everything. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Bye, Misty. Have a good night. Thank you for supporting, Daddy. >> All right. So, we also have uh the fall highlights for athletics and Brian's here tonight to give us that. We do this three times a year, so won't be long. We'll be doing
047winter, right, Brian? >> It won't be long. [laughter] >> Goes by fast. >> He closed you out. So, here you go. >> No worries. >> How am I doing with the lights, Renee? Am I good? >> Good evening, everyone. Uh Harland Athletics fall report. Uh we do have one sport that's still going. swim is going to be competing uh this Thursday, Friday in their state finals. Uh but that will be the last sport competing. Uh varsity programs, we have 12 middle school programs, three uh total teams, 24. That has not changed. Uh the high school programs though, we had 429 participants uh this year. That was an increase from last year. Uh middle school programs, 84 participants. Uh that was an increase from last year as well. Looking at some of the numbers, um you
048can see that football had a had a big jump. Um girls golf went up. Most of the other sports stayed in the same range. Um palm went down a little bit. Boys soccer, uh had a big jump. We were able to have a uh JVB team, the freshman team this [clears throat] year, uh similar to which we had two years ago. Uh big thank you, I think, to the the youth programs around here are really building up soccer and really uh getting those kids involved. So, it's been great to see those numbers growing and it was kind of a last minute thing, but we were able to get uh coaching staff in place and get those kids games and get them opportunities to play. Uh the big thing I always like to push um excellence
049in the classroom. Uh this was actually looking at the numbers this year. I'm super proud of this. Uh Harland Scholar Athlete Award winner, which is 3.0 GPA or higher for basically sophomores, juniors, and seniors, uh regardless of the team you're on, was 86%. Uh that's above the we were in the 78% range last year. So it was a jump above that 80% mark. Uh KAA scholar athlete award winners was 3.25 GPA or higher uh which is 81% which was also I think mid70s last year. So it's a again a testament to our student athletes. It's a testament to our coaches that are really pushing the student athlete side of it. I know I was meeting with the football coach recently and and going over uh they had their banquo coming up and he was kind
050of surprised at all the KLA awards that he was giving um to the number of teams and I was able to bring up this stat and say no that's about right it's right where you should be. Uh we recently had our fall uh signing day. Uh we had eight members of the class of 2025 who signed their NLI uh to play athletics at the collegiate level. Uh we'll have a spring signing day coming up in probably the first week of March. Uh for the remaining student athletes, uh I'm going to read off some of the athletes and their accomplishments. Cole Tardiff uh will be going to Albian College for lacrosse. Uh Clayton Penzene, uh Palm Beach Atlantic for lacrosse. Uh Reese Dunny, Wayne State University for softball. Uh Matthew Burus, Defiance College for soccer. Eva
051Larson, Northern Michigan University for soccer. Paige Sunman, Northern Michigan University for soccer. Uh, Dallas Corpic, Central Michigan University for wrestling. And Bodie Abby, going right down the road here to University of Michigan for wrestling. Uh, another one of the great programs that we have here is unified soccer. Uh, head coach Lauren Depastel, assisted by, uh, Taylor Wagner. Uh they had two home games on the aux field uh and mainfield under the lights. Uh I remember we were playing a field hockey game one of the nights that they were at the main field and I could hear Mr. Traml uh and his voice booming across and it was just to hear that excitement from Mr. Traml and the game uh kind of drowned out the field hockey game a little bit. Um kind of make me
052want to go over there and see it while we're in the middle of that. Uh they had their unified tournament in Brighton. Uh special education athletes receive H Heartland varsity letters. their partners receive a special unified patches for their varsity jacket. I have to say I think the unified program is a unifying force in the school. Um get to see it. We get to when we get down a chance to get down to lunch and you just see the students working together um hanging together, being able to uh talk about sports. Um and I think this is just an opportunity that allows everybody to connect in our schools. I'm very grateful that we have it here. Uh student achievements, student success for the fall of 2025. Uh girls swim and dive, like I said, is
053still competing. We have two swimmers and one relay team that's qualified for the MHSA state finals, which is at Oakland University, uh this Thursday and Friday. Uh girls golf, we hosted the regionals at Dunham Hills. Uh it was a great uh we actually had a rain out, so we had to move it a day, but we were able to have some great um golf there. Thank thankful to them for being a partner in the community. Uh Pton Roarhoff qualified for the state finals and was just named Livingston County Golfer of the Year. Um, some of those Livingston County teams will be coming out soon. Uh, but that was the first one. Field hockey completed their first season as an MHSAA sport and hosted a state playoff game. Uh, boys soccer had the most wins, 19
054in a season. They had their first district title since 2016 and they were the KAA West division champions. Cross country had a great season. Uh, girls team qualified for the state finals as backto-back. Uh, first top 10 finish in division one. They were ninth overall. Uh Elelliana Newer, who ran the fastest time for a senior in school history, finished 22nd overall and earned all state honors. Uh she is just one of seven girls to ever be all state for H Heartland. Uh middle school cross country, the girls cross country team were the KLMSL league champions for the fourth year in a row. Football made the playoffs for the first time since 2022. Uh the events that we had included the gold out fireworks uh band cheer football and palm. We're able to meet with our
055honorary captains. I think that is one of our keystone events that we hold and I'll speak about that a little bit later. Uh we had a flyover that night as well. Uh high night including performances by palm and cheer. Choice one athletes. Uh that used to be state bank, it's now choice one. Uh we had 17 athletes recognized for the for their performances this fall. uh student leadership. Uh the football camp uh football team went to Fort Kuster uh this summer. It was a great chance for our student athletes there to uh not only get better at football, but also to to learn about leadership. Uh we had our Eagles reader assembly and the captain's leadership meeting that we do each season. Chasing titles. Here's a picture of our girls uh cross country team at
056regionals where they finished second uh seven points out of uh winning the regional championship. Uh boys soccer uh district winning their first district title since 2016 on our home field. We were able to host that event. Football team, this is their after their win at uh Dearborn. Uh that got us into the playoffs. Uh here's the Eagles reader assembly. Uh it's always a fun event to go over there. Uh Mr. Rec does a phenomenal job um with that. Uh and it's always good to have the students coming over there making sure they're prepared and know uh when they're asked what book is their favorite book. Uh here's some pictures from the fall of 2025. Speaking of upper left is our captains, our honorary captains um at the gold out game. Um we have Ernie Swetton
057here as our honorary captain at the homecoming. Um it had been 70 years since he had been on a H Heartland field, football field. He was a starting quarterback from 53 to 55. Um married his high school sweetheart and has sent 17 kids, grandkids, and great grandkids through H Heartland schools. Uh bottom left, our band, one of the best entrances I think in the state of Michigan when they come across that bridge. Um palm cheer. I think the beautiful part about fall is that again we talk about sports but there's such a component um of the band of the palm and the cheer that goes into these events um that really makes it a community event. Here's a picture of the fly over um that we had. And just to roll the credits, fall 2025,
058obviously Mary Joe Ferris is the new assistant AD at the middle school. She's done a great job there. Uh along with her other roles, uh obviously my assistant Jennifer Sog going down the list. Um just a great team. Uh I specifically want to speak to custodial facilities and transportation. You speak about making the playoffs and it it's great and all that goes into it and then it comes that you got to get the band there, you got to get the team there, you got to get cheer there. They were able to get seven buses for football cheer and band to get everybody there. Um, and for our band to perform at halftime and like I said, cheer and then everything they do to get the facilities ready. I have to give them major props. Uh,
059special shout out to Danielle Custodio and the Gold Out Committee for what they did at the Gold Out and how they're reaching the hearts of kids uh through that. Uh, Michelle Pollock, her son Grant, and Ben Clay for the idea and all their efforts on the flyover. Ben Clay was actually one of our students who was up in the uh planes during the flyover. That's it. >> Just to kind of echo what you were saying, um I had the pleasure of going to both the JV and varsity football banquetss. It's a lot of hours in banquetss, but um it was great. But I was really taken by how many of the scholar athlete awards that they announced for all of all of those athletes. There were so many. It was such a high percentage of
060all those kids. It was really it was surprising, I guess, in some respects. I wasn't expecting that high of a percentage, but it was actually really cool to see. And I know one of the I just heard this, but one of the speeches that was going was uh one of the students who ended up winning the they gave a top scholar award and um he was a kid that he basically talked about two of our other student athletes that on the team so that were pushing him because of their high GPA. Um not just the the efforts on the football field, but the efforts in the classroom. Uh and those teammates, they were teammates on the football field, but they were teammates in the classroom to make themselves better. Brian, I want to thank you.
061Um, this is your third year with us. Third year. And, uh, you've you've really taken your leadership to the next level. I mean, you had to get used to us. You had to come in. It's always hard to have someone come in from outside and say, "Okay, what's this culture like?" And you've uh, listened really well. you've listened to anything that I've shared with you or I know that I've shared with James and he's shared with you and and other people and the survey data and I just see the growth that you've made and I really appreciate it. I I get a lot of compliments from people that you're there and you're supportive and I appreciate that from you. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> And on that note, I just wanted to say
062thank you. You're very visible. You're everywhere. I don't know how you make it to all the different events, but you run between and somehow make it work. So, thank you. The kids notice, parents notice, and you're appreciated. >> I always joked when I interviewed, I said, "It's not a day unless it's a 12-h hour day." So, thank you guys. >> So, ends the superintendent report. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hughes. Renee, thank you so much. All right. So for a call to the public, um, as always, speakers are asked to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy of others who may be affected by your comments. Each speaker may be limited to about three minutes. At about two and a half minutes, I'll hold up the yellow folder
063to let you know it's time to wrap up. First up, we have Melissa Wade. Good evening. I would like to talk about Village Elementary and my experience there. I would first like to say the majority of the teachers that are that are there are for the kids. With that said, not everybody in the building puts the kids first. The principal is this a dishonest coward that that takes fundraisers from children's programs for the benefit of the Heartland Consolidated Schools. In the last few years alone, Village has given over $120,000 to the H Heartland Consulated Schools and has nothing to show for it until last year when the PTO demanded a new playground piece for the kids and the parents from the money given over to Heartland Heartland Con Schools. Where or where has all the
064rest of the money gone? Seems to be a mystery. He favors certain teachers and certain children, but not all. I have seen things with my own two eyes and have see things with my own two eyes and how he has treated students, and I walked away questioning if that's the right protocol. I have personally fed over 6,000 snacks to students um last year alone. And he did not contribute one snack or $1 to help um to helping out his own kids. That alone says a lot about his character. For years, I asked why we couldn't go on field trips when the other elementary schools could. He said he was scared to allow the kids to go on them. The kids at Village don't get the same opportunities as the rest of the kids in the
065district because of him. He definitely runs like a prison over there. There's barely laughter and joy. It's sad. Parents aren't allowed to help or be a part of the kids learning or learning except a small group of parents who are selected. A few years back, I was reading with the prek and I was in the lunchroom and a teacher came in and locked every door from the inside out and the outside in. The only way to get out was to knock on the teacher's door so they could unlock the doors to the main building. I questioned this because it was a safety situation if there was a fire and active shooter. I got the runaround from him after two meetings. So, I went to the department or to the fire department and explained to them
066what was going on at village and they went over and made them unlock the doors because it was a code violation. My one son got choked out in class last year during his indoor recess. When he called me to talk to me about it, I asked him who was supervising the children. He said there was only one person supervising all four classrooms and no one was supervising his classroom at the time. So, as the principal, you have one person supervising a bunch of five and six-year-olds with scissors and tools um so they can they could hurt each other in the classroom. I recently moved my child to another school in the district because he was getting targeted by him. And let me tell you, the grass is definitely greener on the other side. The principal
067at the new school is phenomenal and greets her kids and parents with smiles and kindness. The principal at Village is never out there to greet the kids and the parents, not even one day a week. I was asked by a few parents if I was running from Village. Then I said, "Hell yeah, I am." Um, I don't want my kid to be led by a principal like that at all. I want my kid to be led by a principal with integrity. I wish I would have moved my my moved my other ch child knowing this knowing what I know now. Parents at Village, please uh wake up and start asking questions. Over the summer, a teacher reached out to me from Village and asked me for prescription drugs or prescription pills and asked me or
068and participant pills, excuse me, so I so she could be a quote unquote nicer mom. Fun fact about me, I don't even take Tylenol. So, I was extremely appalled and felt it was a setup and can't believe that you have a teacher over at that school that might have a drug problem teaching children. Village needs a better leader and a better principal, plain and simple. >> Wait, you'll need to wrap it up. >> I not a problem. I would like to end this with a positive shout out to one of many great teachers at Village Elementary. Miss Janice was my kid's third grade teacher and she was phenomenal. She was out there for the kids, not just for herself. She's definitely somebody to keep unlike Mr. or unlike the principal that was there or that
069is there. Excuse me. Thank you. Next up is Michelle Walker Schaefer. Uh so I've been dealing with a bus stop issue since uh the first day of school. I went to I've got on the same bus. Sorry. I've gotten on the same bus for 14 years. And now the schools are telling me it's an oversight that they've given me this bus stop for 14 years. But I would like to point out that my bus stop has been a bus stop since the '9s when both the Hardy kids rode in the '9s. Then the D young kids which are also the children of the Hardies were 2015 2016 and 2018. So in school district in district students out of district home 2018 to 2020 my son out of district by four driveways has been riding this
070bus. From 2020 to 2024 my sixth grader has been riding this bus. Same stop. So basically from the 90s until this year we have had the bus stop. So now so I go to the school I go to the transportation Sue uh the transportation supervisor Matt Martino and Chuck Hughes dating I have the dates and the emails of each one of them telling me that the house is out of district. But then when I have a meeting with Chuck Hughes, my husband and I, Chuck puts the map down and I also have that which I wish I would have known this. I would have gave you guys all the maps so you could see it shows the house is in district, but my bus stop has now been removed. And all I'm asking is that
071I can somehow get my bus stop back because the house next door is also in district and we have a middle school bus picking the girl up. The girl is getting picked up here at the corner, which is four driveways from me, but she's in middle school. So, my son's still in sixth grade. So, next year, he's going to have that bus stop back. So, I am just asking for the remainder of the school year that they I asked to accommodate that. Chuck Hughes said if the bus stop hits that corner, which they have for 14 years because they had to pick me up, he would accommodate it. But somehow they rerouted the entire bus to go somewhere else. But I did notice that there is one bus that comes to Mac and Faucet which
072is half a mile. They gave it to me instead of the stop my original stop. It's at Gangler. So when I pointed out to them on because then they started telling me that there was no in district student at our original stop which there never has been since the 200 whatever. Um they told me there was no in district at that stop. So on 9:26 I sent an email stating that the stop that they have accommodated us with this year also has no heartland district stop student in district student there. So they eliminated that stop too. So they keep pushing me out further and further. And I would just like to request that I can have the original stop of this school year given back to me as the bus passes it and turns left
073on Mac. It would not cost any extra time other than opening the door and shutting the door. That's all it would cost him. And they were doing it already this whole school year. So that's where I'm asking if there's anyone that can help me with that because I don't know how much further up to go than Chuck and he's not been able to accommodate it. And I've been in the district for I'm 50 years old. This is my last kid out of four going through the district. Not including my family, my grandma, my mom, everybody that's worked here and gone here. We've got probably four generations of kids through H Heartland. I got one kid left. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, those were all the cards we have for call to the public. Next up
074is committee and building report. Mr. Goalleski. >> Ah, thank you. Yeah. Um, lots of events going on over at farms. Um, for one, uh, Sensei Sam, if everyone knows who Sensei Sam is, he started collaborating with our staff and students, starting with sessions on the school environment and culture. In keeping with the motto, performance happens with culture, results come from systems. And I'm very happy to hear kids receiving that message because there's a lot of adults that should hear that, too. Um, fifth grade students participated in a presentation on okay to say, learning about internet safety. Students will be participating in a turkey trot running a course around the perimeter of the school on Tuesday, November 25th. Big thanks out to the PTO for snacks and water. Um, students also recently participated in the final
075incentive from the Color Blast fundraiser. This entailed inviting a friend and taking a limo to and from school to Culver's for lunch and I was not invited. About 76 students got to participate. Farms will be having a serial drive from December 1st through the 9th for adopt a family. They'll also be having two hat days on 11:21 and 1210. And all proceeds go toward adopt a family. And Crystal Brriski reminded me to remind everyone um to all parents to complete the farm's parent perception survey that is open until November 25th at 300 p.m. So you still have some time for that. Thank you. >> Awesome. Thank you, Mr. Campbell. >> Yep. Uh Creek Side Elementary was able to speak with Principal Gun. [clears throat] Appreciate her time. Um she reported uh much like at least
076Village Elementary, I'm aware from my own elementary age student uh they wrapped up a successful book fair uh staff is shopping now for their classrooms with uh gift certificates. Uh their fund run so [clears throat] a little bit back but I missed the last meeting but report on that fund run was a success uh purchases currently being made uh with money made from that. It was nearly $39,000 um was uh was made. So very impressive and uh generous. Um currently much like at farms, students can bring in gift items to be provided to those in need during the holiday season. Uh they're also offering fundraising events to uh uh support programs in place. Um and as we get into the holiday season, uh Santa Shop ran by their PTO uh starts the second week of
077December. And finally, uh, for curriculum, um, staff and students are working together with data in mind to keep stu students moving in a positive direction. So much like at round and pointed out by you, Mr. Scott, they're focused on that data um, so they can have continued growth and they have that starting point. So, they're keeping that in mind as the the kids move forward. So, uh, it's great things going on at Creekide. >> Thank you, Mrs. Shaw. >> Thank you. um around is my building so I I don't really want to top anything that Miss Hotam said so we can keep all of that amazing data um at the top of our minds. I was there um last week for my visit and one of the things that always takes me back when I
078walk into an elementary school is how willing people I should say students are willing to hug. Um it's just the cutest thing, right? Like they don't know me and they just come and they just hug, you know? It's just that them just being so little and sweet. Um, but I know, you know, the the different what we're doing in our elementary schools translates into what our kids are doing in middle school and high school and and beyond. So, it is just amazing and so impressive about how all of these pieces come together and, you know, what what Miss Hodam and her team have been able to accomplish at Round. Um, I'm so happy that she presented all of that data. Um, you know, I think it's important for everyone to know all of that hard
079work that goes in and what the results are and it's, you know, it's much appreciated. So, that's it for me. >> Thank you, Mr. Keller. >> All right. Thank you. And I guess as uh Vice President Shaw mentioned, yeah, I think I had a lot of friends as well because I got greeted with lots of hugs from from the folks at um Lakes. So, um very fun experience. Um, I got to see a lot of the kids putting together their holiday turkeys in preparation for Thanksgiving. Luckily, nobody glued one to me, but I would that would have been very cool. Take one home with me. Um, I would say the highlight for me was probably the uh the highly capable students. They were making um canoes out of uh zucchinis and toothpicks. So, we're kind
080of seeing who could carry the most uh weight in their zucchinis. So, that was the very cool to see that. Um, again, you know, kind of in the spirit of growing, I think pushing our kids to do the best they possibly can with little things like that is was very cool to see. Um, I also have community ed and every time I meet with Miss Hayes, there's there's always so much more that I learn about all the great things that we do in community ed that literally goes on inside this building that we're in today. So, I I hope at some point we'll have an opportunity to have her come in and I think she may have done it in the past, but I think it it's something that bears repeating, you know, all the
081different things like senior center and gymnastics, there's dance, there's a mineral and gem club, there's sensei Sam, I think, has some stuff going on in there. Catering, there's all kinds of things that I know I'm forgetting probably half of them, but it's there's just a lot that it has to offer. And I want to thank Miss Hayes always for her um being so gracious with her time and um for everyone that is involved with supporting that. It's much appreciated. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Scott. >> Yeah. So, um, before I get to or creek, I I also had a chance to visit Round last week and many people have heard me sing the praises of the watchdog program and it was actually my first time being a watchdog um last week at round and it
082just happened to be on Veterans Day. I didn't plan it that way. It's just I saw a friend was signed up so I signed up and uh and it was such a cool experience. um that school dedicated the day to recognizing the veterans within the school and uh saluting veterans in the community around the state, around the country. And every one of those kids left that day with a sense of civic responsibility and patriotism. And it was one of the most uplifting days I've spent in the schools. And Round has veterans that work in the office, veterans in the classroom, veterans on security staff and on the playground and cafeteria. One class, they must have prepared it previously, but they made these big banners to present all the veterans in the in the school. Another
083class I was in, they were doing an art project kind of art ELA combo, making banners to salute veterans. Um, and in every class I stepped in, they were talking about it, they were learning about it, they were living it, and just a really uplifting experience. So, kudos to uh, everybody at Round who made that um, a really great learning experience and most importantly honored the veterans that work within our school district at OR Creek. Uh, we also have some veterans on staff and I I want to recognize uh, Mr. Zaf and Mr. Funston. Other happenings at War Creek over the last month. Uh the quiz bowl team had their first high school meet against Howell. They won one match and uh came close and a couple others. The seventh grade STEM students, I would
084say, are learning to code, but if any of you have kids from like kindergarten on, they're learning to code when they're much younger than seventh grade. By seventh grade, uh they're actually uh doing a Battlebot challenge at OR Creek, which the kids really loved. Um the student council did a food drive. They raised they got over a thousand items for gleaners. Uh shout out to the first place team, which was Mr. Jarvin's class. Uh Miss Wilson's class got second place and Mrs. C's class got third place. But again, over a thousand items uh uh collected for gleaners. and uh seventh and eighth grade boys basketball uh team is uh their season is underway and I want to give a shout out to the November students of month of the month at OR Creek which is
085seventh grader Jenna and eighth grader Ava Cring. So congratulation to those students for being student of the month. >> Awesome. Thank you Miss Custodio. All right. So, over at Village, they also just completed a successful book fair and did the troop donations where they collected things for active duty and they turned it into the Brighton VFW Hall. Also wanted to give a shout out to Mrs. Young's and the students that do the hedgehog highlights. I don't know if any of you guys have seen those. They are phenomenal. Um it's quite impressive to see how young they can learn those skills, but I guess it goes to what you say by seventh grade they're coding. So um definite hats off to Mrs. Young's and her students. >> Thank you. Um I had prepared some awesome notes
086based on some information I got from Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Wheeler and proceeded to leave them at home. So I've tried to reenact some of that here. Um, but as you know, I'm assigned to the high school and also to Legacy and HVA. Um, I'll start with Legacy. I met with Miss Connley a week or two ago. Um, and we talked a lot about the um, they have a a thing they put on the wall just around the corner here in the building. Um, it's a tree and it they ask people to leave a message of thanks. So, they have leaves that you can write a message of thanks, a message of gratitude and share it on the wall. Um, students put this up every year. It's a great program. Um, so if you're interested,
087come here to, uh, central office and check that out. Um, and then, um, also next week, um, I'm looking forward to, um, every year looking forward to the annual Thanksgiving lunch that the legacy students put on. Um, a lot of the food is actually prepared by the students or the students assist with that and then we get to enjoy it with them. So, it's a lot of fun. Thank you for including us in that. Um, we also talked a little bit about CTE while we were there. while we were together and um I can I continued that conversation with Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Wheeler over at the high school um I had a whole lot of data and I think there's going to be some data that will come out um soon in a an
088issue of community life but there are about 1,200 students who will be taking CTE courses in Hartland this year alone, 1200 kids. Um there are 36 CTE courses offered in H Heartland um in our building. Um and those are available both to Legacy and um main campus high school students. Um there are students from three different schools that come to H Heartland for the cyber security program that we host as part of the countywide sharetime program. Um, and also there are a number of students, I want to say there's around 20. Again, I I left the info at home, but there's about 20 students right now currently taking um some of those sharetime classes at other locations in the county um and participating in a wide variety of things, including like what Mr. Hassler was
089talking about earlier, the pilot program, the the um aviation program that they have. Um I think that's through Howell. So, there's a ton of different opportunities available. Like I said, 36 different courses available. Um, a lot of opportunity in the in the district and within the county. Um, I also was struck by um when I went on a tour of all the CTE classes. Um, I was struck by uh we went into the classroom where the um fashion students like the design students um have their sewing machines and there's a number of sewing stations set up around the room. And there were some what looked to be custommade, still rough. They they weren't quite complete, but uh wooden benches that were set up at each of the stations. And they were made by our woodworking
090students. So, it's like they're not just learning the the the skills in class, but now they're actually being able to put it to use and helping out another part of the school. Um, another example that I heard about that may happen is um our fine arts department um is putting on is going to be sponsoring a fundraiser. It was supposed to be in the fall, it'll be in the spring, and they're going to be seeking out marketing help from the marketing students. So, it's like it's just another way to to put these skills to use as they would in a career in those fields. So, it's actually I thought it was super cool to see that in action in the schools. Um, and then lastly, I sit on the senior center um advisory committee and
091um they've had a ton of um successful events, including their fall show that brought in about $6,000. Um obvious most of what they operate on are fundraisers and grants. Um so those fundraisers are super important. Um they also had a class with um Sensei Sam. Uh it was a self-defense class for uh for the center members. Um which I think is great. Uh they've got a turkey dinner coming up next week with entertainment provided by Mary Joe Bell who is a local Hartland person. She's very involved with H Heartland Players and has an amazing voice. I've heard her sing a number of times. Um, so if you can make it to that dinner, you should check it out. Um, and then also, um, in the village on I think it's the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend,
092I don't know the date off the top of my head, um, I think it's the 29th, there's an event, um, going on in town in H Heartland called Vintage Christmas. And the senior center will be doing a cookie decorating, working a cookie decorating station, I think, at the H Heartland Methodist Church or United Methodist Church there right in town, um, during that event. So, if you want got some kids that want to decorate some cookies, you should take them there. Um, I think that's all that I have. Thank you. All right, moving on. Um, so our new item 2A, I'm going to read the title so we have it appropriately. It is the state school aid act section 31A funding resolution. Um before we move to um to opening that for discussion and we will
093um we will likely invite um our representative from Trune here um to join us. Um I feel that I would I would like to have a motion read that we so we can all agree or at least vote on the notion of waving privilege to have this discussion. Um there's because it's our attorney that's here because this there there has been um communication provided and um information provided from the attorney on this um if we're going to be having this discussion at the table in open session. I would like to put it out there that we will be waving privilege to carry on this discussion. If there's no opposition to that, I'd like to ask Vice President Shaw to read the motion. I move that the board of education wave attorney client privilege as to
094the issue of opting into 31A funding. All right. Motion from Mrs. Shaw moving to wave attorney client privilege to discuss 31A funding. Opt in or opt out? >> Supported by Mr. Campbell. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Mr. Goleski. >> Yes. >> Mr. Campbell. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shaw. >> Yes. >> Mr. Keller. >> Yes. >> Mr. Scott? >> Yes. >> Miss Custodio? >> Yes. >> And I'm [clears throat] a yes. Thank you. Motion carries. So, now that we have that, if someone would like to read the motion for item 2A, I move that the board of education adopt the opt-in and waiver resolution as presented. >> Support. >> Okay. Motion by Mrs. Shaw, supported by Mr. Campbell. Is there any discussion on the motion? I actually have a couple of questions that if
095I could please ask Miss Douly to join us. >> Good evening members of the board. Superintendent Hughes. Madam President, >> thank you for joining us. Um, I'm searching, of course, for my notes, which may be at home with my other notes, but I guess I'll start with the question I can think of off the top of my head. Um, we know that, um, uh, at least it's my understanding that some of the language in 31A is somewhat vague. Um, and there's a lot of concern, a lot of discussion around the whole state about this. Could you um explain for us or describe what you understand to be the definition of a mass casualty event um for a little bit of context um the the Well, you know what? I'm going to let you describe perhaps
096the context context because you can probably do it more accurately than me. >> Okay. Thank you. Um I will I will give it a try. So the vagueness is one of the problems with the statute. Uh vagueness is one of the challenges that has been made by the roughly 35 school districts, ISDs and locals who have filed a lawsuit against uh the state um based on this and and it really I mean there's a lot of vagueness. There always is. But mass casualty event uh is defined, but it's defined I think in a way that I'm not sure the legislature intended. Um I'm going to read for you essentially how it's defined. significant. It's It's an event that occurs on school grounds or at school activities that result in significant injuries to not fewer than
097three individuals or fatalities or a demand that exceeds normal local emergency response capacity or a sudden and timely surge of emergency service needs. Now the one of the problems is that we believe at least that mass casualty event was meant to look at something like a school shooting uh you know something horrific like what happened at Oxford. Um, but in fact, you know, if the golf team has an accident on the way back from a golf tournament and there are, you know, three significant injuries as a result of that, that's a mass casualty event. Now, again, is that what the legislature intended? Probably not. But in a lawsuit brought against the district, certainly the language of the waiverss related to attorney client privilege and investigation are going to be triggered. So that's that's one of
098the one of the biggest concerns is the really breadth of things that could happen that would qualify as a mass casualty event that are nothing like the you know school shooting I think that was envisioned as address being addressed. >> Okay. Thank you. And then I guess just to clarify, so that is a mass casualty event is what would trigger the waiver, which would be a district waving their attorney client privilege rights um in the event of of this of this capacity. So, if one of these events happens and our district has opted in and let's say it it is a team, a sports team that's in an accident, has nothing to do with an Oxford-like situation, the waiver would then be triggered. So, that we would lose um attorney client privilege rights if an
099investigation were to ensue um by someone appointed by the state to look into the incident. Correct. >> Okay. >> That as as we believe that is how it would be interpreted. Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Um uh do you know if there's any determination or has there been any discussion and I I have not read the details of the active suit that's just been filed? Um has there been any reference made about um like district insurance coverage um in the case of litigation? you know, we we use um set seger. Would there be or do you know if there's any indication that coverage would change because that waiver has been triggered or because we have opted in to wave those rights? It's an excellent excellent question and and set seg um I will tell
100you that insurance law is its own beast. I don't do it. I don't want to do it. Um but I have have had friends and colleagues who do it and they bring in whole separate law firms to analyze policies and events and then essentially they defend you under a reservation of rights. And that reservation of rights essentially means we think we might defend you. We're going to go ahead and pay the bills for now, but we might change our minds depending on what happens. And right now, um I think that nobody intends to take away insurance coverage because of opting into these funds. Uh but if we get into a situation where we're looking at multiple plaintiffs, multiple actions, multiple liabilities, I can't say whether that would hold. >> Okay. Thank you. Um there's also
101been um a lot of information about um cautioning against the the additional risk that would be open regarding personal liability um or civil suit um that can you can you speak to any of that? >> Sure. Sure. the the issue becomes the privilege is with the district's attorneys, with the board's attorneys really. Um, and not just attorneys. I would like to point out, remember, it's also an investigator client privilege that would be waved. So, it is not unusual to bring in an outside investigator to do a very thorough deep dive into what happened, how things could be changed. All of that information would would lose its what is now a currently uh identified and and recognized legal privilege. So all of that would also be available to um a state investigator and more importantly perhaps
102to the attorneys of any plaintiffs who were suing. Um and so personal liability in and of itself, this statute doesn't change the ways in which a board member or a school staff member may find themselves liable. Okay? So you have you have some governmental immunity, you have some some other things. If you act grossly negligent, you're not probably going to have immunity. Um but what it does is it opens up all the documentation that exists in the world um that will allow for picking through, teasing through. And so we anticipate that there may be uh suits brought and additional liabilities found based on all of that information now being essentially out in the public domain. Do you see that as some of the vaguess too that's going to be challenged as far as the scope
103of attorney client privilege information that will have to be divulged as far as how far back an investigator can go and also the material if it if it's just discussion or written guidance or what is that also incredibly vague and and far sweeping? Yes, that is another component of vagueness is that uh the words waving privilege or you know waving these specific privileges um we don't really know what that means. Uh and so we have to assume it means there's no temp temporal limits to it. Um perhaps and I will I will say that if if there is an opportunity to influence any changes in the legislation then yes that is absolutely one of the things that we would like to see made less vague uh so that we understand what is really being waved
104and for what period of time. And so I I will say the this the lawsuit that was filed and they are seeking a preliminary injunction if they there should be a hearing this week perhaps early next week. Now when I checked the docket last night there was no hearing. Obviously last night was a Sunday night but um I didn't check it again today so I don't know if something's been scheduled but the main arguments that are being made in that lawsuit are the unconstitutionally vague component. So that's a variety of the terms including mass casualty, including what do we mean by waiver? Um imposing an unconstitutional requirement on a receipt of federal funding. What that means essentially is forcing someone to give up a legal right in order to get public funding. Um so we'll
105see, you know, where they go where they go with that. The the next one is um conditions of receipt of 31A aaa funding on the surrender of fifth amendment rights. So, you know, potentially there would be uh criminal liability that would be involved uh in any mass casualty event and we are, you know, not supposed to have to wave our rights. But there's going to be, I think, a lot of litigation around whether the district waving its rights also waves individual staff members rights. Um, so again, I don't want to ever see that play out and I'm not sure how it would play out, but what this this lawsuit is saying is uh that that is sort of a preemptive uh waiver of your constitutional rights. Uh whether it violates the con the Michigan Constitution's
106title object clause, that is not an uncommon claim when challenging legislation. Um but that is you know is this is this statute and everything built into it really reflective of what um the the title literally of it is it's the funding. So here we're talking about I think nobody can deny an amazing amount of funding for a set of amazing things, right? We would we would love more social workers, more programs, more everything, but tying being able to do that work to waiver of all these rights and to an investigation. Um, and to essentially becoming the only party in a potential lawsuit someday that really doesn't have a lawyer. Because if you don't have attorney client privilege, you really don't have uh in many ways, you don't have a lawyer. does does the intent of
107the statute what is being required to get those those monies and then finally um there's an argument that it violates the separation of powers. So that's what they're arguing. Um I think that there will be you know there's going to be a lot of there will be amicus briefs on this. Uh so there will be other people probably introducing other kinds of arguments. Uh, and it all is going to have to get wrapped up very quickly on the preliminary injunction phase. >> Quick question. Um, [clears throat] regarding the waiver of rights for money, wasn't there just a recent case nationally or and this is where I'm relying on your legal expertise. Wasn't there some sort of president set to where that could not be part of the terms and conditions for receiving federal funds? >>
108I am not I'm not sure what case you're referring to. Honest with you. Uh there are so many cases out there. >> I I wanted to narrow it down for you, but I couldn't. I And AI was of no friend to me this afternoon. So >> sorry. So I I can't I can't point to a case that I know of specifically. Um however, I guess the question would be where if if such a case exists, is it within our jurisdiction? How high up the food chain does it go? [clears throat] Um and ultimately, I mean, there will be an opportunity for Michigan court to say pretty much that that you can't condition these uh these monies on that kind of a waiver. We'll see if they do or not. So, they'll be looking to six
109circuit president um public policy things like things like that. So, I mean, and that's there's another option here that since the lawsuit was filed has emerged that didn't really exist before that or um maybe wasn't sort of worth talking about. and that is the possibility of deciding as a board not to accept money under 31A as it currently exists but to empower someone the superintendent someone some design to opt in if between I mean we've got very short period of time here between now and midnight or 11:59 on November 30th we get a court order that changes the way this will be implemented or even, you know, changes the way uh it's written, although we all know that's probably less likely. There's an effort to try to amend it, but that'll take a little while.
110So that is another option would be to resolve not to take it the way it's written now but to in empower someone without having to bring back together a board to say yes if they deal with some of these problems related to waiver and and definition then we will gladly take that money. So that's another option that's out there and it's also possible. The other problem we what we don't know is will court issue, if they issue a preliminary injunction as requested by these 35 districts, will they issue it broadly? Will they issue it limited to those 35 districts? We just don't we don't know um until recently, I would have said they'll almost certainly issue it broadly. Uh there has been some Supreme Court action on whether or not injunctions should be broadly, but
111um I suspect it will impact all of us and I suspect it will impact for sure what decides to do with opt-in deadlines and things like that. So, sorry I couldn't specifically answer your question, but now I'm gonna go have to go home and find such case. Yeah, >> absolutely. So, with this primary injunction, do you think that the deadline may be extended or do you think they'll MDE with the holiday coming will keep it as is and go from there? I think that well I don't know but I think MDE will likely keep it as is absent an order from the court. >> Yes. So I think it's important too for our audience and our staff to understand what you just talked about, right? And that is that the board and its capacity as
112a board of education is making a decision tonight on whether or not to accept $ 318 at about 700,000 750,000 to the district. And with that is if there is an event the staff as as the board will lose attorney client privilege based on what has been presented, which is a constitutional right in the state of Michigan to have attorney client privilege and giving up that right to all staff members and everybody involved that if there is a mass casualty. Now, still what I understand still retaining the idea that we have some limited governmental immunity as long as we're demonstrating during that time frame that we did everything we were supposed to do to the best of our ability and as we all know that if we do the best we can and someone files
113a lawsuit saying hey you were you you didn't do what you're supposed to do we can say no we did you may not like how we responded but we did respond to the best of our capacity so you know the board is making a pretty big decision tonight that they're saying the money's important potentially or the money's not. And if the money's important, we're waving everybody's right as it exists today to their constitutional right to have client. And whatever the board decides, we as a school district will accept that decision and move forward to the best of our abilities. Is there anything that I just said that would be contradictory? I do want to point out that the attorney client privilege is a principle embedded in common law. Um it's embedded in our rules. It's
114not a constitutional privilege, but the fifth amendment is is a constitutional right. So just to just to clarify that uh likely what what we are projecting would have to happen is every individual staff board member, etc. in the event of a mass casualty uh event would very likely need to go out and get their own private attorney because as of that moment, communications with their private attorney would remain covered by the privilege. Communications that led to decisions that have already happened, obviously, you can't unring that bell. That privilege is waved. moving forward. Uh, you know, and and that that it's a burden. You know, a lot of if you're if you're individually named in a lawsuit, you'll likely get your own attorney. But if you are a teacher, you're probably waiting and not getting your
115own attorney. You're relying on district representation until there becomes a reason to believe you're going to get sued in your individual capacity. probably would not be the safest move for folks to wait because that there is no privilege there would be no privilege with any of the boards the district's attorneys moving forward. The other piece I can bring myself back to the other piece I was going to talk about. So, [laughter and gasps] H does that too. Any other questions? >> I I have a question. I know you mentioned um if if individuals and this is likely administrators or or board members, but could be teachers or staff. Um they may want to get independent representation after something happens. If someone had representation prior but was paying for it with the personal dollars that attorney
116client privilege would remain intact. Correct. >> Yes. To the extent that that so that those conversations that information exchanged solely between the client and their individual attorney. Um if you if the board say was discussing um do we or do we not put extra security cameras in X Y and Z place and that's that's a discussion and perhaps you go you know you go into closed session because you can do that for school safety and you talk about that and uh then a mass casualty event occurs. Those conversations are no longer privileged, right? those are no longer covered by closed session uh privilege with your attorneys or amongst yourselves. And so I think if you then go into your lawyer's office and you say, "Well, at this closed session meeting of the board, this happened
117blah blah blah." Um the underlying information is no longer privileged. So telling it to your individual lawyer doesn't sort of reignite the privilege for the underlying information if that makes sense. >> But if you were to do it opposite where you get your individual lawyer's opinion before you bring it to the board or into close session and then decide maybe not to bring it to the board because of a conversation with your personal attorney. That would remain privileged. Yes, that conversation would remain privileged. If you brought it to the board, then it would it would wave that privilege. Does anybody have any other questions that we can direct to Miss Douly? >> Okay. Thank you. We appreciate you. >> Thank you. Um, is there any other discussion before we move for a vote or move
118to the vote? >> Yeah, there there is. Um, I understand the importance of attorney client privilege, but I want everyone on this board to ask yourself, should a cataclysmic incident happen, something that I hope and pray we all hope and pray never happens in this district. Could you face a parent that's going to ask you, why did you vote against this money for this situation just to protect attorney client privilege? I don't know what I would say. I don't know if I'd be able to provide a response to that. And I want you to think about that. Does anyone else have anything else? Um, I I'll just say real briefly, um, in a similar vein, you know, as much as anyone sitting at this table wants to protect themselves, the reason we are put here
119is to protect the students and do what's right for them. I don't believe there's a taxpayer in this district that would stand up and say don't take the money and um and keep your privilege. I think every single taxpayer minus maybe a couple of attorneys would probably say, you know, do what's right for the kids, protect the kids. And uh so that's that's how I intend to vote on this. Could it mean more liability for those of us at the table, of course it could. Uh but I think it's doing what's right for the students of H Heartland and to say, God forbid something does happen, you know, we'll we'll participate with the investigation. We'll get to the bottom of it. And I think it's the right thing to do given the circumstances. Maybe not
120ideal, but given the circumstances we're in, the position we're in, I think it's the right thing to do. Thank you um everyone for your comments on this. I appreciate it. It's um I know I've had conversations I think with all of you at least one or two conversations or more um regarding this because it's it's not an easy decision. Um there's a lot more than just it's not it's not binary, right? It's not just more safety and security for the kids and you know less [clears throat] privilege or um transpar or more transparency for those of us sitting up here at the table. It's not just that simple. Um there's a lot of things to weigh and I I I appreciate Miss Douly taking the time to answer the questions um the the information that
121she and those in her office have provided to us. Um and all the comments and consideration that you guys have given this. Um before we we move to um or before we proceed with voting um I wanted to offer up a suggestion to um I don't know if you have the resolution in front of you but the resolution it should be somewhere in this packet. Um the resolution um as it states it just it it says that we're opting in. I mean it says a lot more than that but the gist of it is that we're opting in. Um, if we wanted to add some kind of a timeline to say that that um, we're authorizing I believe it's written so that we're authorizing the superintendent, Mr. Hughes or his design um, to to do
122the actual optin, right, to log into the system, check the box. Um, if we can have them wait until the last business day before the before the deadline, which of course the deadline is Sunday, November 30th, which is Thanksgiving weekend. um holiday weekend all I perfect planning um from the government. Thank you so much. But um I I think if we if we add that or at least have that understanding that we're waiting to see if anything pans out, if there's an injunction, if there's something that comes from um this case, if there's a hearing this week, um I don't know. I guess I wanted to get some some thoughts on that. Um, so what you're thinking then is by like close of business on the last business day of that the district is open
123in November, which would be Tuesday. So like that that's a place to start the discussion, right? That's because that's when we have people in the office. Um, I don't know honestly what the the hours are, the holiday hours for the courts. Um, but I imagine they're probably not open on Thanksgiving and not functioning. probably not the day after. Um, so this would at least get us close to where we would anticipate any action happening um to just give us a little more of a buffer in case something were to change. So you're thinking then adding something that says that the superintendent or his designate would not log into the system, click the buttons for yes until like no earlier than 3 p.m. on the on that Tuesday or something just in the event that something
124happens in the courts that >> but if but if my question is if we pass a resolution that says If we do pass the resolution that says we're accepting the funds and the court comes with an injunction says, you know, we've extended it or it's on pause because we've passed a resolution, do they have to go in and accept it? >> Does the injunction or whatever the court says, how would we take that into consideration with what we've passed? >> I think if you don't mind, >> please. I think yes. If you pass this today, you certainly can direct us to hit the button on the 25th. Once you hit the button, you hit the button, right? That's the way the state grant system works. Like once you say yes, you're done. You cannot go
125back and and removed your check mark. It's it's recorded. You're done. Um if there's an injunction, there's an injunction and that just sits there and we wait and see what happens, right? And if the courts broadly apply the injunction, then the state has to deal with that. So, I I I think if you say yes today, I think we're going to wait until Tuesday and see what happens. But it doesn't change the fact that you're directing us to check the button. Does that make sense? So, if I read that correctly, then essentially we passed the motion today with the understanding they're not going to check the butt until Tuesday. And theoretically, we could have a special meeting on Monday >> if something happens >> or early Tuesday >> if something happens and try to get
126four people in the room to to redirect based on any changes. I think that's fair. >> Yeah, absolutely. I think it's what 24-hour notice that we would have to post a special meeting or an emergency meeting. Um Yep. And as long as we have a quorum, that could absolutely happen. >> And I think um just after listening to um Mrs. duly speak, not knowing what could come of this, what changes could be made. That might be the smartest decision so that we're walking into it either way with all of the information presented. So, if someone has the resolution immediately in front of them, >> got it. Um, well, but should we >> I'm sorry. What? >> We don't have the resolution. >> The resolution. >> Do we have the resolution? >> Yeah, we have in
127the end of the packet. >> Is it in here? >> It's at the end of the packet because it was going to be last. >> Yes, >> it's on the throne paper. >> Sorry. >> But again, um, Miss Coleman, I don't think that we have to add anything to this resolution. This resolution simply says that bottom line is you're directing me the superintendent to complete any documentation necessary to implement the board's election below all resolutions part of the resolution conflict. So you're you're telling me that you want to if you pass the motion that's on the table as it sits then you're telling us to fill this out. I mean obviously we'll have to get signatures but we're going to go in and hit the button on the 25th unless something happens. Unless we get
128something changes and then we have to call a special meeting to do something else. But >> because remember the state doesn't care what your resolution says. Correct. The state has no they don't care if your resolution says, "Hey, stop tomorrow." The fact is >> we're not going to check the button till the 25th. If something happens over the weekend and we need to call an emergency meeting to say, "Hey, we have this option." Then that's what we'll we'll get with you and say, "Hey, we need to do something because we have an option." President Coleman, do we need a vote for that to be able to have that as a consideration or how >> to call a special meeting? >> Um, or to possibly make the change if based on the vote. >> I think
129you I think you're going to you're going to mess things up if you do that. You just need to make you need to decide are you going to take the motion or not? Are you going to adopt it or not? And that's and then we'll go from there. And then if there's a change subsequent to tonight's decision, if there's a change in the situation, then we can decide to reconvene, call a special meeting and either adopt this that hasn't been adopted tonight or, you know, pass it tonight or um or reverse it if we if we pass it tonight. >> I move that the board of education adopts the opt-in and waiver resolution as presented. >> I had already read it. Yeah. Oh, you had. Okay. >> And Jeff had seconded it. >> Yep. But
130thank you. >> I appreciate it. >> I like your enthusiasm. >> So, we don't want to add a time like on the 25th. >> I don't think so. >> I don't think we need to. If Mr. Hughes understands the direction that we that we want on this and he's that's honestly what he was planning to do. I'm okay with not having it spelled out in the resolution. If everybody else >> Yeah. I wasn't proposing it in the resolution just in the motion itself. >> Again, I don't think you need to do that. >> No, because the res or the the motion is simply passing the waiver. It doesn't or passing the resolution? >> Yeah. >> As presented. >> So, so we're we're p we're either passing it or we're not passing it >> or that
131we're adopting it or we're not adopting it. Great. Um, it's not like we're going to adopt it on the 25th. We have to adopt it so they can check the box on the 25th. So, if if we were to modify something and add a date to something, it would have to be to the resolution itself. >> So, just to clarify, if this is passed, when would it be submitted? >> 25th. >> And the day >> y then the district's closed. >> So, how long does it take approximately to go through the submission? Um Dave Dave is our level five. Uh so Dave is the one that actually submits all the grants because he's got that the level five control. I think there's some paperwork you have to fill out and we can do that in
132pre-advance. Dave, >> take three minutes to submit it. >> Okay. >> All right. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Again, the motion on the table is State School Aid Act section 31A funding resolution. Um motion by Mrs. Shaw, supported by Mr. Campbell. >> Hearing no further discussion, Mr. Gooleski? >> Yes. [clears throat] >> Mr. Campbell? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shaw? >> Yes. >> Mr. Keller? >> Yes. >> Mr. Scott? >> Yes. >> Miss Custodio? >> Yes. >> I'm a yes. Motion carries. All right, moving on to item 2B. Thank you everyone for your contributions and your discussion there. >> I move that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approves international trip request as presented. >> Second. >> All right. Motion by Mr. Campbell for international trip request Peru 2027
133supported by Miss Custodio. Any discussion on the motion? >> Yeah, I have a quick question. I don't know if there's anyone here that can answer it though, but in in some uh travel I was looking up um for work, I came across just out of the blue a travel advisory. Now granted, this has happened in 2027. Right now, there's a level two travel advisory for Peru where they're telling you to take extra caution. There are only four levels, we're at two already. Um, if let's say it goes to level three or level four, is there any way that the people that have spent money on this are going to get that back? Is there any kind of guarantee from the company that set that up? >> Um, Mr. Hughes, could someone from your team take
134that or you? >> Um, I don't know if James knows. If you do, you can step up, James. But I know in my past experience, they encourage them to take the travel insurance in the event that there is a level that comes to the point where they say we you can't go because the board might have to say, you know, let's say I they're getting ready to go and I find out it's a level four. I'm going to say to the board, we need to cancel this trip. >> Level four, the state won't allow you to go. But level three is pretty intense. Level three is like you can go but >> best of luck and I don't want to see anyone go at a level three. >> There is something in this packet that
135talks about protection that it's recommended that that people buy it. So you are your investment is protected. So it is included in this packet that that they offer. >> And who would make that Thank you. Who who would make that decision then that call at the time that we would have this event like uh you know >> it's a week out and [laughter] >> so so the the sponsor Mr. Fitzgerald and myself would be talking to each other going, "Oh my god, what is going on?" And then we would do what we have to do. So, >> yeah, try to avoid the revolution. Yeah, that'd be good. >> Would not be good. All right. So, James, we recommend the travel insurance to cover them in case something happens. We always have. Would you just double
136check with Amy tomorrow to make sure she's doing that? >> Thank you. >> Okay. Any other questions or further discussion on the motion? [clears throat] >> All right. Hearing none, this is international trip request to Peru 20127. Motion for Mr. Campbell, supported by Miss Custodio. Miss Mr. Goleski, >> yes. >> Mr. Campbell, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shaw, >> yes. >> Mr. Keller, >> yes. >> Mr. Scott, >> yes. >> Miss Custod, >> yes. >> I'm a yes. Motion carries. Item 2 C, filter first requirements. >> I move that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the director of operations approves the contract award to Service Pro for the filter first drinking fountain replacements as presented. >> Second >> motion by Mrs. Shaw, supported by Miss Custodio. Is there any discussion? >>
137I I have a thought. Um, credit to whoever on the staff is getting these grants. Uh, that's great. Um, but there's a $20,000 difference. Um, we're approved for for what it costs. Do we keep that money and be able to use that for future maintenance or replace items or do we just is it a one time uh we got to return what we don't use? I remember by Matt's coming up, there's might be some contingency problems like we go to install something and we go, "Oh no, we got to replace this and we eat up the 20,000 pretty quickly." So Matt, >> well, the hope is that we're not going to eat it up on that, but there are a few drinking fountains that require some architectural work. Um there's about three of them. Um
138one at or two at Village, I'm sorry, one at Creekide and two at Lakes. So we're going to work on those. We want to get the bulk of the drinking fountain replacement under our belt and then tackle those three items. So, the hope is we don't spend it, but um uh the grant can also be used for our first round of filter replacement. Um which is roughly, you asked the question um at the last meeting, it's roughly $50 per filter, which is about three or $4,000 for a replacement of the entire district's filtration. So, we can use the grant funds for that purchase also. So we get to hold on to that for a period of time and try to use it towards that relation. >> So most likely till June 30th, 2026. It has
139to be spent by um and then um which we will do our first round also at that time. And then um the state is talking about potential grants for future replacements, but uh no one has seen what that looks like yet. So covering some of those costs that the districts will have to incur for long-term testing and or annual testing and filtration replacement. So kind of going along those lines of what u Mr. Campbell brought up, there's no there's no little fine print for you can't prepay or pre- buy certain accessories and things like that. You could use the money in whole, couldn't you? What what do you mean by that? >> Well, like for for example, for if we have a surplus buying whatever maybe a a critical parts list or other uh items
140that >> it does allow you for that, but it doesn't allow you necessarily to stock up, I guess, for lack of better words. Yeah. That type of thing. >> Kind of what I'm talking about. Yeah. >> Kind of in reason. They have allowed for the first like round of replacements, but you can't go out and buy five years worth of filters, for example, unfortunately. >> Well, that answers my question. Thank you. I I had another one too. It's kind of related to we talked about the replacement of the wall at Lakes Elementary. Just the um differences in the quotes, the filter replacement. There's a $100,000 difference in the quotes. >> And on the next one, it's a $20,000 difference in the quotes between companies to do the work. >> Yep. So, we did interview the
141the lowest three uh biders. Uh CSM Mechanical is a very good company. Um they have not done a ton of replacements of drinking fountains as a large scale. U they've just done here and there. Uh when we interviewed uh service pro out of Novi uh they've done quite a few districts large scale and got kind of manned up and and got in and got out. They were really prepared for the questions and kind of how they were going to tackle the the work. Um we did interview Johnson and Wood and they've been a company we've used uh for quite some time but they put a lot of um other costs into the the project that we have you know we've discussed with the the current uh vendor that we're recommending and they have said to
142us that they've included all necessary costs and we kind of went through the gambit with them trying to make sure that uh they did include things. Um but uh uh we felt comfortable talking with the vendor that he did, you know, include what he needed to um do the job prop uh properly. >> Thanks. >> Yep. >> Any additional questions for Mr. Marino? Any further discussion? >> Thank you, Matt. >> All right. So, the motion on the table, filter first requirements brought forward by Mrs. Shaw supported by Miss Custodio. Mr. Goalleski. >> Yes. >> Mr. Campbell. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shaw. >> Yes. >> Mr. Keller. >> Yes. >> Mr. Scott? >> Yes. >> Miss Custodio? >> Yes. >> And I am a yes. Motion carries. Moving on to item 2D, fieldhouse boiler replacement. I
143move that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the director of operations approves the fieldhouse boiler replacement as presented. >> Support. >> Is that Mr. Scott? >> Thank you. >> All right. So, fieldhouse boiler replacement motion by Mrs. Shaw supported by Mr. Scott. Is there any discussion? No questions or discussion. >> I think we did have a very good discussion at the last meeting and thank you to Mr. Marino for uh going over that thoroughly at the last meeting in advance of the vote. I think it really helps uh and I appreciate the uh the opportunity. So >> awesome. Thank you. Okay. Fieldhouse boiler replacement. Mr. Gogleski. >> Yes. >> Mr. Campbell. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shaw. >> Yes. >> Mr. Keller. Yes, >> Mr. Scott. >> Yes, >> Miss Custodio.
144>> Yes. >> And I'm a yes. Motion carries. >> Item 2E, summer tax resolution. >> I move that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the chief financial officer adopts the summer tax resolution as presented. >> Support. >> Thank you. Motion by Mr. Campbell, support by Mr. Keller. Summer tax resolution. Is there any discussion? Any questions for Rachel? Okay. Hearing none. Summer tax resolution brought forward by Mr. Campbell, supported by Mr. Keller. Mr. Goleski? >> Yes. >> Mr. Campbell? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shaw? >> Yes. >> Mr. Keller? >> Yes. >> Mr. Scott? >> Yes. >> Miss Custodio? >> Yes. >> And I am a yes. Motion carries. Item 2F, new and revised policies. >> I move that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the assistant
145superintendent of personnel and student services adopts the new and revised policies as presented. >> Support. >> Thank you. New and revised policies. Motion by Mrs. Shaw, supported by Mr. Campbell. Is there any discussion? I did have um some concern about one policy um specifically dealing with curriculum. It's policy 2210 and that dealing with curriculum. I would like to take this and move it aside until we can get more information about for those of you kind of keeping aware of the news about the new guidelines that were put out by the state board of education. um that has a pretty big effect across the board in a lot of areas and until we can get more information about that and what has to be placed in curriculum and how it it needs to be uh uh
146moved forward. I have been in contact with not only members of the state board of ed but also four different representatives and I'm getting information because there's a lot of gray areas just like there was with 31A a lot of uh misinformation a lot of bad information a lot of I don't knows and I would like to put that aside until we get the information on those new guidelines which is going to be an extremely ly big hot button issue especially in this district. So I move that we remove 2210 and keep that um or vote on that after our next policy meeting where we can kind of review the information um >> regarding those new guidelines. >> Okay. So to clarify then your your mo your motion is to remove policy 2210 from item
1472F. Yes. And postpone that vote until the next regular meeting after the next policy committee. >> Correct. >> I would support that. >> Okay. All right. So Mr. Scott has supported that motion and um Renee, if need be, we can figure out that wording to make sure we have it. Okay. Okay. So, move. Let's see. So, we're motioning to postpone the vote on 2210 until the first regular meeting after the next policy committee. We can just look back at the treasury part policy. Use the same language. >> That's right. We did >> when we postpone the treasurer policy. It was the same language. Perfect. Okay. So that is the motion to amend here is um from Mr. Goleski supported by Mr. Scott postponing the vote on um policy 2210 until the first meeting after our
148next policy committee meeting. Any discussion on that motion to amend? >> Will that have any impact on the the policies that we are considering rescending later? >> That's an excellent question. I do not know. >> I don't believe any of the No, none of the policies we're resending have anything to do with curriculum. >> Okay. Because those were all >> Yeah, I didn't see any, but just wanted to confirm. >> Thank you for asking. That's a great question. Okay. So, it does not affect those that are being rescended. Any other questions or comments on this motion to amend? >> Do we need to vote on the postponement first? >> Yeah, that's what I mean. The motion to amend. >> Oh, sorry. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Yeah, just real quick. I I do like the
149idea of postponing it. Um, one thing in this policy, it says specifically, uh, the board directs the curriculum of the district provides instructional courses required by statute and state department of education regulations. And there's more, but I I think that may need to be altered based on the actions of the state board uh last week. So, uh I would hate to approve this tonight um and and indicate that we somehow are agreeing to uh what the state board has just done. So, I I think this is the right thing to do. >> Okay. So, um Mr. Gogleski, when you and I spoke about this the other day, you said you were collecting some information. So, once you have some information that you can share with the rest of us, so we're all kind of similarly
150informed. That would be much appreciated. >> Absolutely. That was my intent. >> Perfect. >> To make sure that everyone has that and we can discuss it at the next >> at the policy. Okay. >> Okay. Okay. So, motion to amend removing um or postponing the vote for 2210 until later as stated. Um any f no further discussion. We'll move to a vote. All right. Mr. Gogleski, >> yes. >> Mr. Campbell, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shaw, >> no. >> Mr. Keller, >> yes. >> Mr. Scott, >> yes. >> Miss Custodio, >> yes. >> I'm a no. Motion carries. Okay. So the motion on the current motion on the table then has been amended. So it is revid is regarding the new and revised policies minus policy 2210. Um motion made by Mrs. Shaw supported by Mr.
151Campbell. Any further discussion on the motion regarding all these other policies? Yeah. So I I we had a lot of conversation at our last policy meeting about bless you um 1422. Um specifically there was some questions surrounding the clear and convincing standard. Um I I want to just kind of confirm a few things. one and I think I know all the answers to these but I just want to ask um for the record I guess does this and I'm I guess if I may President Coleman may need to direct some of these to Superintendent Hughes. Um one is does it apply to students? >> Mr. Hughes I'll defer to you to answer. >> Yeah, absolutely. Preponderance evidence versus the clear and concise. Yes. Preponderance. >> Sorry, let let me clarify my question. Sorry. The policy
152specifically 1422 is it applicable to students or staff only? >> Well, I believe 1422, if I'm not mistaken, is professional staff and this the uh students are, if I'm not mistaken, do they fall under 4122? I had to I had to look at that. All three policies apply across the board to all of our units and our students. >> Okay. Do do you know did the staff give any of their blessing on this change? I know our admin team has and thank you for that. But I also wonder if it extended beyond that since there would be some implications for them. Not to my knowledge and I know that the HA gets the packet ahead of time and they see the packet and there was nothing brought to my attention as a concern. I think
153the other question was in towards the middle and again I want to thank you for getting some legal opinion uh from Trun on some of these. So the section where it talks about parties provide a reasonable and equal opportunity to make a state. >> Can you can you give us a page number? >> I don't know what the page is. Well, it's in you have this you have >> the >> uh it would be somewhere around 13, I would guess. But >> I guess I I do want to say, you know, I appreciate that we're going to keep the notification component in there. I know we originally were removing that, but I do want to acknowledge that that's being kept in there. Um, and I think those were kind of my two two um, points
154I wanted to just kind of clarify. I guess if if this does apply to students, then I I think I have concerns still. But if this is the staff only and they're okay with it, then I guess it's a different uh result for me. So I I guess if we can kind of confirm that 1422, 3122, and all do not apply to students. Professional staff support >> professional staff support staff and and 4,100 I believe is I thought it was students. Yeah. So the the bottom line is students um when we talk about um if I'm following you Greg U. Mr. So you're asking about the language about will we present the sanctions that were presented in the end of the investigation and the determination. Is that what you're asking? >> I guess I'm just
155asking if those policies specifically cover the students or would the handbook only be what governs >> policy covers the students as well. So the policy will be consistent across the board, staff and students. And so if we are providing sanctions, my concern at the last meeting under 4122 was what about FURPA? Well, the response from our attorney as you saw was that when Title 9 takes over, FURPA is out the door. Uh so we would have to provide the sanctions. We would also have to provide the sanctions if a staff member was disciplined uh to the part both parties. So it applies across the board. Yeah. So I mean again my preference was you know a different course of action when it comes time to which standard we apply. I it sounds as though that
156would be an outlier in the education industry. So, um, I guess I don't know what options we have with with that. So, I I'm kind of confused and maybe this is a Neola question, why they even sort of highlighted that as an option in the first place if if it's really an unprecedented option and it would make things more muddy from kind of what I understood reading the attorney's information. So I guess I guess kind of the question if if if it if there's not any options do do we know >> why they even recommend that and we don't I guess some district remember they have many many many districts and this is a template I've I've shared that with the board many times and some unknown district might use that but in Michigan we
157tend to use preponderance of evidence and that is consistent across all of our policies and as thr uh responded You don't want to start changing that because Paponder's evidence is what you'll see throughout the the policies that we have and we've always used that and it works provides the flexibility and it's in our opinion as we told you last time it's our recommendation preponderance of evidence stays. >> May I ask a follow-up question? >> Sure. So 4122 since we're dealing with employment non-discrimination, equal opportunity employment and anti-harassment. So is this student employees or all students? Gene, any chance that you can go into your um into board policy in section 4,000? Remind me where that is. Do you have it available on your computer? >> No, no, no. go into board policy and it'll say
158professional or it'll say um the section title support staff. I'm just looking for the 4,000s. What does it say? I should have brought the books. six. No, >> no. 4,000 is um support staff. >> So 4,000 towards that has nothing to do with students. So none of these policies, >> is that correct, Renee? 4,000 support staff, >> 3,000 professional >> and 1,000 is administrative staff. >> Correct. So these are all administrative nothing to do with students. >> Y >> All right. Thank you. That better for you. >> All right. See Greg SM. All right. I think we got a yes out of >> All right. M Mr. Scott, so you're good with that followup? >> Yeah. As long as we're clear that that the um consequences that the district can dole out um do not
159apply to students and would not be okay with forced counseling on students regarding some of the >> content here. Right. Agreed. >> Yep. >> Okay. Any further discussion on those that group of three policies or any of the others still remaining in this list of new and revised policies? All right, hearing none, we will move on with the vote. Again, this is new and revised policies as amended uh removing um postponing the vote on 2210. Um but all the other policies that you've got listed here are included in this vote. The motion was brought forward by Mrs. Shaw supported by Mr. Campbell. Mr. Gogleski, >> yes. >> Mr. Campbell, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shaw, >> yes. >> Mr. Keller, >> yes. >> Mr. Scott, >> yes. >> Miss Custodio, >> yes. >> And I'm a
160Yes. All right. Moving on to um item 2G, rescended policies. I move that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the assistant superintendent of personnel and student services resends policies 1422.02 1322.02 4122.02 1662 3362 4362 and 7541 as presented >> support >> okay motion by Mr. Mr. Campbell supported by Mr. Mrs. Shaw. Um so just for a little context before we open up for discussion, these rescended policies or these policies are being rescended um because of changes made um to those that we just approved here in the previous vote. Is there any further discussion or questions on these rescended policies? Just to clarify, I think the 1422, the 1662, the 3122, 3362, 4122, and 4362, those are all going to be replaced by 1422. Is that the correct interpretation for that?
161>> Yes. >> And then 7541 replaces the 7540.02. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you for clarifying. Any further questions or discussion? All right. Hearing none. Rescended policies. Mr. Gooleski? >> Yes. >> Mr. Campbell? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shaw? >> Yes. >> Mr. Keller? >> Yes. >> Mr. Scott? >> Yes. >> Miss Custodial? >> Yes. >> And I'm a yes. Motion carries. All right. Moving on. Item 2 A. Thank you for your patience. High school 2026 27 high school and legacy HVA curriculum guides. Um actually I'm going to let Dave talk about this as uh this is his department. So Dave talk about it and invite our friends up. >> Right. Uh we have James and Nicole um are here to answer any questions you have. I think they did an awesome job
162of putting those uh packets together for you. Really easy to understand. There was kind of minimal changes this year, but um they want an opportunity to share what their staffs have been talking about. Uh they reviewed it with me and I signed off on it. Um and we sent you the packets. I sent it a week ago for you guys to take a look at. So they're here to answer your questions if you have any. And as a and as a reminder, uh we come to you as discussion and then next meeting hopefully approval so we can get those things out for uh students at the high school and at Legacy to start picking their classes starting in February. >> I wasn't sure if you guys would have anything to present. I know it would
163be hard to condense >> the information into a shorter presentation, but I didn't know if you guys [snorts] would have anything. I don't have any questions, but thank you for making it easy to, you know, for non >> educator curriculum people. Very easy to understand and and know what's being updated. So, thanks for all the work you put into it for us and to make it easy to understand. Thank you. >> And thank you for continuing to find new electives to engage kids. I think it's seeing these. I think a lot of us see the offerings and wish we had those. So, thank you for continuing to strive for more. >> Yeah, you're welcome. um teachers by teaching staff has a lot to do with this. Um and in this guide in these proposed changes,
164there's not a lot of curriculum change. Um it's a a lot of um just uh aligning things for consistency. Um course name changes, course description changes, course grade level changes, things like that. Uh simple little changes. A few things I wanted to mention that I'm pretty excited about. Um we are looking to add a um automotive technology honor cord um and a construction trades honor chord in our building which is really cool. We've talked about that for a couple years got together with Mr. Zalinsky and Mr. Treyhee and we're excited about that. Students in those courses that take uh a sequence of three of those courses with a GPA in those courses of a 3.5 or higher and uh pass their certification test in that course uh earn a honor court as a senior which
165is pretty cool. Um, so that's one thing we were excited about with uh this round of uh changes. >> Nicole, if you can talk real briefly about why you have one this year. >> Sure. Um, we were visited by our county representative in this idea that the curriculum guide for legacy has always just gone along with the high schools. And as she revisits that and checks it with state standards and graduation [snorts] curriculum, she'd like a standalone document speaking to legacy specifically. And the goal is not to take away from opportunity, but is saying what then aside from the opportunities like uh Kristen said earlier, our students can participate in many of the classes on main campus like what Mr. Fitzgerald was just talking about and taking autos classes to choir to band so on
166and so forth. So what are unique classes available to students only on this campus is why you see those additions here and that is in addition to not in lie of main campus curriculum. >> Thank you for clarifying that. >> I think it was great reading through [clears throat] this some of the rationale you're clearly looking at multiple courses and realizing some overlap. So it benefits the kids to combine those and venture out further and uh keep it updated. Um how often is this done? It's >> every year. >> Is it every year? Yeah. >> Just it's pages and pages so people are aware. It's a lot of time went into this. >> There's a lot of minor changes there with course descriptions and things like that. One thing uh shout out to our special
167education department. They spent a lot of uh time and effort um looking at our curriculum guide special education section and courses uh compared to the gened uh section and courses and trying to align those. Um for example, we're calling our resource life science resource but on the gened side we call it biology. So aligning those and making those both biology resource and and gened. So, um, just trying to align those and be more consistent throughout. And, uh, again, shout out to our special education team and teachers for putting that effort to to align those. >> How, uh, how difficult is it to get teachers to actually qualify for some of these courses? Have you had a problem in in finding teachers for some of these or has it been fairly easy? >> Um, we've been
168fortunate. Um, one challenge is in special education uh courses, those teachers that teach resource sections. Um, finding special education teachers that also have a content area, math, ELA, science, social studies, um, uh, certification as well is a challenge. It is u, we are very fortunate. We have uh some great teachers with some great CSS and some that are current uh special education teachers working to add a cert right now uh so that they can continue teaching the resource classes which are um they love. >> Have we lost anything because we couldn't find qualified teachers? >> I don't know that we've lost anything yet, but we've we've had to um really be I guess proactive when we're looking to hire. We're not just looking to hire anybody. We're looking to hire somebody that helps us with
169being the right fit, the right person, but having awesome serves as well. >> And one thing we do, Mr. Guggleski, is uh Miss Gregory, we have to emergency certify some people that have capacity to do it and we know they did because they've shown it in the past, but they don't quite have the right certification. So the state allows us to emergency certify and carry them and and certify them in that capacity and in the hopes that we'll find somebody when we post or we keep moving forward that person getting that certification. >> The last one I can remember is ASL, the um American Sign Language. It was really hard to find somebody that we lost somebody to find somebody certified and German. Yeah. >> Yeah. stuff. >> Yeah, we currently have a special education
170teacher that also has a family consumer science uh cert right now, which is really cool, you know, to be able to teach uh like a personal living resource classroom and things like that. So, I don't know that we'll you know that those are few and far between. I will say that. So, that's cool. >> What's awesome about our staff at the at the secondary level is they're always looking for opportunities to give students more options. Always. So you see, you know, what are classes they could teach that be interesting for them or something they could use in the future and be more successful. And so that's the thing we're always talking about is which of those classes can we can we pull off and do? >> General question. Could somebody in main campus take something
171that's listed under legacy or is it only go legacy to main campus? >> It often is on the confines of the schedule. So because of Legacy's bell-to-bell schedule, it's easy for me to give them a first hour on main campus or a seventh hour for that drive time. So it would be more difficult and we haven't really seen it or tested it because those electives that you see are embedded during the time where it would be unfeasible for someone from main campus to get here and then back. >> The other the other issue is with their their staff too because they have a smaller staff. So, for example, they have a biochem class which has bio and chem because they have one science teacher where at the high school they have separate bio and separate
172chem. So, it's just a different circumstance um at Legacy. >> Is there anything that you'd like to offer that for whatever reason we can't some resource or something that you would like the board to consider for future? Um, >> and if if it's something you need to think about. >> Yeah, probably. Nothing that comes to mind right off the top of my head, but >> certainly >> we can we could be creative. [laughter] >> I see you're say shaking your head. Yes. >> Creative. >> We can be creative. Like the the brilliance that I have is how well that main campus works with us right there. the depth and breadth between the CTE, the art, the band, the theater available on main campus. It's usually no problem to get that figured out in a first
173or seventh hour with a simple phone call to somebody up there. They're more than accommodating and we got a huge opportunities on main campus. So, what we don't have here, we have a great relationship for. >> Thank you. One last question too with the language arts classes. I I I don't know if there's any kind of state requirement to have so many language arts classes. Do it. Is there a a defined number that we must offer like in terms of just you know Spanish, German, whatever or anything like that? Yeah. >> Um >> foreign language. Yeah, >> that that's a great question. And um I I don't know that there there's a a minimum or a maximum, but we are we are looking to add more variety in our world language, losing American Sign Language.
174Currently, we have Spanish and and French. Um we would love to add another language or two. Um and I know we did post for that last year. Um we probably will consider posting for that again um in the future because that is a desire. A high school of our size and a premier high school, we'd love to add another language. Um, it's hard to find. That's one thing. It's hard to find those people. So, >> yeah. And I was just curious if there was any kind of state requirement that says that you must offer this. So, do whatever you can to find somebody that >> no, >> but uniquely he does offer it. So, like Hartland Virtual Academy, the students on main campus pick from the same repertoire of online courses and they can take
175up to seven different languages using their online access. And so they can on main campus, just like an HBA, take Latin, take Japanese, take Chinese, take German, take ASL, all using their online curriculum opportunities. >> Do that. Yeah. >> Awesome. Any other questions? >> Yeah. >> For our high school team. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Thank you guys. Appreciate you guys. >> Thank you. >> See you guys later. >> All right. Okay. Item 3B, bus purchase 2020 bond for discussion. Mr. Hughes. >> So, I am going to ask Matt to come up and Rachel jump in where you need to. Um, but a couple things just before Matt gets here and I don't want to steal this whole thunder. We've heard uh the board over the last couple years talk about um decreasing
176the fleet. Uh you'll notice in the numbers that we gave you that we're decreasing the fleet from 59 buses uh down to 53 buses and uh 2627. And I'll let Matt talk about why we need 53 buses and what's happening. Uh we had a situation today where another school, not saying names, bus uh got inspected and was red carded and it's one of the only buses they have and they now have to figure out how they're getting their kids to school because they don't have an extra bus. So um Matt, why don't you talk about the numbers? >> Yeah. So before you today is a recommendation um to replace five of our buses. Uh we continue to have a a very efficient fleet and a very um uh great uh uh maintenance crew who works
177on our fleet. Um we have over the last few years reduced our fleet um based on enrollment based on routes available to our families. Um so we've we have had a 59 uh bus fleet for many many years. Um just after COVID we have seen a decline in enrollment uh in our area in our area. um not much uh uh housing that has developed even though we have a few houses being built currently. So we've worked to reduce our fleet which comes with uh reducing our spares. Um we continue to um take athletic trips. So any given day we could have up to uh seven buses out. Um there are days that uh athletics does push us a little bit to have an eighth or a ninth uh or I'm sorry a sixth or a
178seventh with which then we have a um two bus uh uh field trip fleet that we do for elementary schools and things like that if they go to the DIA or or um uh to the Howell Nature Center or something like that. Um so we do keep a spare fleet of buses. Um that is because anything can happen on a 96 square mile uh district. uh probably 60 65% of our district is dirt roads which takes [cough and clears throat] its toll on our fleet a little bit. Um so uh when it comes to spares, we could have two or three or four in the garage being worked on by the mechanics, which we do not put those on the road until they get their final inspection from our mechanic fleet. Um we do unfortunately
179have to take some back to the dealer. Uh it's nice getting new buses, but sometimes um we have to take them back in for warranty work, uh that type of thing. Um and then uh we have to have spares available in case something happens. I you know explained to uh Rachel that her actually students bus broke down the other day because of a door switch. Unfortunately the driver couldn't get the door closed and we can't operate the bus. If that fails um if even a red light goes out, one of the red lights goes out, we cannot operate that bus. So we do keep a um uh some spares around just in case those things happen, which along be before they do happen. Um, and the last thing we want is not being able to
180take students home or pick students up on a daily basis. So to answer your question, sorry I went on a ramble, >> Mr. Marino. So is it the plan then looking ahead is it zero for the next two years? Is that how I would read this? >> So we have been challenged to um keep our fleet a little bit longer. We've treated been doing as well as reduce our fleet. Um, so the plan is to um not purchase for the next two years as much as possible. Um, obviously if something happens, I might have to come before you again. Um, but that is the plan is to keep them a little bit longer and our mechanics are up to the task to to keep them on the road and keep them going. So yeah, >>
181and the thought process, Mr. color is that um we're going to look at a future bond and by purchasing buses out of bond, we're not taking out a general fund and making payments, right? Um or depending on what the board chooses to do with the syncing fund, uh if we renew the syncing fund, we can also add the bus and technology language to the syncing fund. So syncing funds available if all of a sudden we needed to buy a couple buses because we had some something happen. So that there's some opportunity there and no sense in putting those in the schedule right now if we're looking at those opportunities down the road. Rachel >> I have nothing to add. >> No further comment. What was the last year that we had planned it planned bun
182to purchase buses in the bond? Do you recall? >> It's this round is the last. >> This is the last year. Okay. We originally purchase or planned to purchase seven and so we've reduced it to five given obviously reducing our fleet. >> And how how much money was allocated in the bond for the buses? Do you know? >> In total it was about $4.1 million >> for for 2526. >> Oh, for 2526 we have about 450,000 left in the bond. So the balance of this would come from our capital projects fund. Okay. And what what is the repayment period on that 2020 bond? When will that be paid off? >> Those bonds are typically 25 years. >> So, um, have I mean, it just strikes me as a taxpayer taking out a 25-y year loan
183for a bus that's going to be in service for 9 or 10 years and have zero value at the end. Have we looked at leasing or other options? >> First of all, before we answered that question, it's my understanding, Rachel, you can help Mr. Scott with this again. Maybe a sit down in Rachel's office because you're buying buses with the bond. The state requires you to pay those buses off in a small period of time. Okay. >> So that we're not incurring interest off of the buses in the bond project. So, there's some terminology that Rachel could really help you with so that you would feel more comfortable with that. Um, and then in regards to the question of leasing, Matt, Matt did some uh contacted some operations on leasing. >> Yeah. So, I I
184reached out to our vendor who we get buses from. Leasing is an option. It's not a fiscally responsible one. I feel like um it's about $30,000 per year per bus um that you would pay for. So over nine years you'd be paying about $260,000 for $160,000 bus currently. So >> what about maintenance? Would that 30,000 include the maintenance bus? >> So the big thing that that happens is that does not include wearables. So brakes and those types of things that we're already going to be doing maintenance on in the first three years. So, >> um, as a little side question, do we have anybody, uh, available to drive these buses? I mean, how are we doing with that situation in terms of >> give an update? Hopefully, I'm not going to hurt myself tomorrow and
185someone steps away. But, um, we are, uh, for our 37 routes, we are fully staffed. Um, we've been making headway on that. We've got some great people in the door. We've actually gotten some uh uh people that have come back to us from previous years. Um so we've made some progress on that. We have I want to say two to three morning subs or infrequent subs type situation. We're still yearning for an afternoon sub. Um we've been doing a great job with athletic trips and things like that. Um but that's kind of the the thing that kind of plagues us a little bit is getting an afternoon sub. What what do you think's been responsible for kind of curtailing that issue of not having enough drivers? What what has been the big thing? >> The
186big thing I think is market. I mean people are out there looking for jobs which is a good thing. I mean that obviously helps us in the custodial field too. Um you know a lot of people see the value in that. A lot of people are unfortunately taking some second jobs. um some retirees have left their profession or taken early buyouts or things like that and and looked for part-time work or or bus driving work or something like that. So, I think that's helped tremendously. Um ultimately, I can tell you I mean even with conversation with Mr. Hughes, I think our our sweet spot right now with our enrollment is actually 38 to 39 routes. um that will help us reduce our our ride time numbers a little bit for students so they're not riding
187as long but obviously that kind of it's kind of interlin with how many drivers we can actually put on the road also. >> Um just curious too I if memory serves didn't we hire a transportation consultant at some point? >> We did. Yep. And whatever came from that, whatever. >> So, yeah. So, we, you know, the consultant kind of told us what we know too, but also gave us some feedback that was pretty valuable. Um, uh, helping us with some marketing and helping us kind of with some feedback on on uh our culture and our our how we handle business and that type of thing. Um, but I kind of felt it kind of just reaffirmed that we were doing a good job and we just had to kind of plug away and keep our
188heads, you know, on the prize and that type of thing. So, >> I think I I can add to that is we also have spent some money. So, we we spent $33,000 to have the consultant tell us uh what mostly what we knew but helped us to kind of okay, you could maybe market in this way or this way. But then we also joined the Linston County Consortium and we all paid for a marketing campaign from them. And so they're working with us on keeping that going. So together with all of the entities working and the job market changing, it is fluctuating where we're starting to get those people that say, "Hey, I need a job." Which is going to be helpful to us. Um, and we're paying people four hours a day regardless just
189to show up, even if they're a sub. Just show up every day, and you're going to get paid four hours, even if I don't need you, is really important, too. It's kind of like our our high school and middle school. Having those subs show up every day when you get those last minute call-ins and stuff. So, I think everything we're doing, we're spending a little money, but we're not having to tell parents we got to cancel the route. So, >> we are utilizing those standby drivers though at the same time. They're not just sitting type thing. They're hopping on buses and helping with some some, you know, the driver support and things like that. Um, so, you know, kind of kind of that's helping our our team also by getting them the support they need
190at the same time. >> Matt, will you auction off the older buses? Same number that you get in. And then where does that money go from the sale of those? >> So, we do auction off the buses. Uh the last sale we actually had a few um residents that bought them to convert to RVs uh type thing. Um and that check gets handed to Rachel and she deposits it in the general fund or wherever she puts it. Um so that's been valuable. Um now over the years the it's kind of fluctuated in terms of how much we get. It's kind of all about supply and demand type situation. So you know years ago we used to get you know seven 8,000 per bus. Sometimes it's a little bit more. I think the last round was
191about 12 something like that. >> And that's general fund. Does it go towards buses still or does it just go as needed? >> No, it just goes into a revenue line item just to the overall operation. >> It's not designated for a specific purpose. >> Mr. Mino, I see there's one bus that has an asterisk which appears to be a handicap bus. So, do those normally go through LSA? >> Nope. So, we we mainstream as much as possible. We uh put our kids on the bus. We pick up our own kids as much as possible. Um we don't handle um all special needs students um because there's some some restrictions to obviously what we can handle on our side too. So we tag team with spe uh LSA as well as ourselves. Um that's a
192thing that the district has chosen to do. Um we are the only district in Livingston County that does it but so we actually have three lift buses. So normally on a given year uh as you look at the spares and things like that has fluctuated. We normally have two lift buses running um between the entire district with one spare. This is the first year that we've actually reduced to one um because of the need and we have two spares right now. >> I think there's something powerful about that. I I you know feel inclined to say this is our student that's in a wheelchair that is simply in a wheelchair because they happen to have a disability to be in the wheelchair and the sta the the team the the the class is going on
193a field trip >> and then they're going to ride the LSA bus versus the Hartland bus with all the you know like it just makes sense that we have those left buses that ensure that our students feel like they're part of H Heartland and that's been powerful for us. >> Yeah. No, I was just trying to understand if LEA normally owns those cuz I wasn't used to seeing >> Yeah, >> that. So, I'm questioning whether we should have one. >> Yeah. No, you're good. So, those are ours and we run a regular route and just happen to pick up that student on a regular route. >> So, >> and those are all So, we have three of those buses. >> We have three of those >> and they're all 2016s. there. No. So, it looks
194like I didn't carry an asterk over from 22. There's one in 22. See it? See it on the first uh back in 20 two3 school year. There's an asterk. Must have just not carried it. is there. Um, so so we have about $450,000 in bond money this year and we're asking them to spend an additional $360,000 above the bond approximately. Um, and then not buying any buses for the next two years on here. Looks like with those additional five buses, our our spares will still be quite healthy. Is there is there any reason could we could we extend that out? Could we buy the three buses we have the bond money for this year and and then get two new buses next year? >> I mean, we can do whatever you want. I guess it
195just comes down to it. It's set up in a way that we're trying to move buses out in a regular fashion. so that we're not overt taxing, overloading one column versus the other or one year, I guess. I mean, we can do whatever you want. >> Yeah. Well, that's what I that's kind of what I was thinking. If we're looking at we don't have any purchases scheduled for the next two years, um if we didn't need all five right now and we didn't have the bond money for it, we could put those out to 26 27 27 28 and then potentially have a bond by then to pay for them. Has that been considered or are we just trying to close out the 15s? >> Well, keep in mind that uh the board put money
196into our capital projects fund uh because we saw that things were costing more and we wanted to finish everything that we said we would buy in the bond. So, we've got the money. We've got the bond money what remains there plus the capital uh uh funds account that we're carrying that we should be spending on these types of things that we said we would spend on for the bond. So we've got the money and it's there and we think it's the pertinent thing to do and if there's still money carried over in the capital projects or through syncing fund or we get the bond passed we've got avenues there. So, we we might go into this thinking we're not going to buy buses for the next two years, but we come back to the board
197in a year from now and say, "Well, we were wrong because these five buses took a uh went out of business for us. So, we've got to buy buses." >> I do I did forget something about next year actually. They're supposedly going to be new emission standards coming in 2027, January 1st, 2027 that is going to require a new engine um type situation. I'm hearing that new engine is one, it's going to be the first year of that engine, which I definitely don't want. Um, and then two, uh, it comes with a $20,000 more price tag. So, that is one of the concerns we have also is possibly not buying next year. It's unknown. I know, you know, the EPA and everyone's kind of been all over the place with emission standards lately. Okay. Any
198further questions for Matt at this time? You guys can always follow up between now and the next meeting when we've got this. It'll be on the agenda for a vote. Thank you, Matt, for your time. >> Thanks, Matt. >> Call me in the morning if I need to. >> I'll be up. >> Matt said we icy rain in the morning. >> Oh, >> the pressure's on, Mr. Hughes. [laughter] Nice. Nice. All right, that was item 3B. So, we've already moved item four, item five. So, we are on to item six, a future meetings. December 1st, we've got a special meeting here for the midyear uh part of uh Mr. Hughes evaluation. And then our next regular meeting, last one before Christmas break, will be um December 15th um also at 6:30 here in this room.
199Uh any additional information items? Anybody? Me neither. All right, we are adjourned. Thank you.