HCS Board Meeting - 04/21/2025

001[Music] Hey. [Music] [Applause] Test one, two, test. Good morning. Rise and join me for the pledge of allegiance. United States one nation under God indivisibley. All right. Thank you all. We have a packed house. We have I hear we have a lot of champs in the room. Um so thank you for joining us this evening. Moving on to item 1B, approval of agenda slash items for discussion. I move that the agenda for the April 21st, 2025 regular meeting be approved. Motion by Mrs. Coleman, support by Mrs. Shaw. Any discussion? Yes. So, um, I did email the board for consideration this past Monday a couple items that I was like to add to the agenda. So, I think everyone had a chance hopefully to read it. Um, but one of them I guess the first one

002I'd like to move to add uh an discussion on approval of contracts. Mr. Kelly, you're motioning to amend the current motion to add approval of contracts. Yes, that would be item 3D. If approved, do I hear any support? Second. Motion by Mr. Keller, support by Mr. Goalleski to add item 3D, approval of contracts. Any discussion? Yeah. So, the reason I'm just bringing this to the board's attention and I had a conversation with Mr. Hughes on some other topics and this sort of came out as um an item that I felt we should potentially just discuss as a board and decide if it's something that we would potentially want to look at in a future policy meeting. I know we created a new committee of the whole for policy. So, this would be something that um

003I think we may want to consider with respect to contracts that come across the board's table and whether or not those should or should not. I know there are some state statutes and I thank Mr. Hughes for sharing with the board some of his feedback on on the various policies that are in place and some of the statutes. But again, I just kind of looking for the board's um opinion on whether or not it's something we would want to add as a as a future item to policies. Sorry guys, any further discussion hearing? None. Mr. Scott, yes. Mr. Gilleski, yes. Mrs. Coleman, yes. Mr. Geller, yes. Mrs. Shaw, yes. Mr. Campbell, yes. I'm a yes. That motion passes. And item 3D. Sorry. I'd also like to move to add a discussion. So, this would be

0043E. uh protocol for the legal council motion by Mr. Keller to amend the current motion on the table to add item 3E for protocol for legal counsel. Any support second discussion anyone? I can start again. Um, the reason I wanted to bring this to the table tonight is, you know, there's been some instances in the past where individual board members have questions about legal either opinions that have been rendered or if they need legal opinion on something, whether, you know, be a policy procedure or something that may come for board's consideration. I want to kind of try to formalize what that protocol might look like. And I know it's not necessarily a policy. Um, but certainly as a board we can deliberate on whether or not we think we should have a policy, but I

005think the the past practice has been referenced protocol. So just kind of using the same uh language that the board has used in the past. Any further discussion hearing? None. Mr. Scott, yes. Mr. Gogleski, yes. Mrs. Coleman, yes. Mr. Keller, yes. Mrs. Shaw, no. Mr. Campbell, yes. I mean, yes. That motion passes. Please note that that is item 3E. Is that it? All right. Any further discussion on the approval of the agenda now that it's amended? 3D and 3E. Hearing none, Mr. Scott? Yes. Mr. Goleski? Yes. Mrs. Coleman? Yes. Mr. Keller? Yes. Mrs. Shaw? Yes. Mr. Campbell? Yes. I'm a Yes. That motion passes. We have an agenda, ladies and gentlemen. Item 1 C, consent agenda. I move that the consent agenda for the April 21st, 2025 regular meeting be approved. support motion by Mrs.

006Shaw supported by Mrs. Coleman. Any discussion? Hearing none, Mr. Scott? Yes. Mr. Goleski? Yes. Mrs. Coleman? Yes. Mr. Keller? Yes. Mrs. Shaw? Yes. Mr. Campbell? Yes. I'm a yes. That motion passes. We're moving on to item 1D, superintendent report. Thank you. Thank you everybody for being here tonight. It should be a very nice night. And the surprise um was actually because it was my fault and actually um Or Creek was on our school happenings this month based on a sheet I had sent out at the beginning of the year and I totally missed it. So um we arranged for them to be here before the meeting started as people walked in. I thought it was a nice touch. And again uh I really appreciate Allison Lively, teacher of the year at the middle school for

007being willing to come over and do this. uh and her husband Brad Lively, the high school band director, was the muscle behind getting everybody in and out. So, I appreciate that as well. Also recognize Jody Johnson, who is our support person of the year. Jody is a PAR educator at the middle school and hopefully uh in the May meeting, I can bring them and we can actually recognize them here in front of everybody um in May. So, I'll work on that for the May date. First thing I'd like to bring up is United Way. Um, we have a couple guests here and so I'm going to let them come up, Carrie and Jean, and they will uh talk to us about United Way and so you have the mic. Thank you very much. Uh, and

008thank you for giving us a few minutes here at the and your busy agenda. I know it's I know it's long and I appreciate that. Carrie, this is Carrie Newstead. She's the new executive director for Livingston County United Way. And so we want to just get in front of you guys so you know who we are, what we do. Um, no, Carrie in particular because I am leaving before long. Next week actually, I'm retiring. But saying this, we know as a board member, we give you kudos. We were both school board members. I was Howell, she was Fowlerville, respectively. And we have we've got the plaques to prove it. Anyway, so thank you on behalf of Livingston County United Way. We just want to share we've had such a tremendous partnership with your district for

009as long as I can remember. uh back in the ages of Pete Kerouselli was on our board was very involved, very involved with getting our communities all engaged. We used to be just a you know little satellite community here and here. Pete was one of the driving forces to become a countywide united way to make the impact we can um on a bigger broader basis and help more families together. And so then um Janet Zifferman was with us for quite a while as well and Chuck's been hanging around with us for quite a while and we so appreciate that. But um kudos to everything you do and Hartland's a great community and we're real proud of our partnership with you. All right, so again I'm Carrie Newstead and I've been involved with United Way over

010the last couple of decades uh through my previous employer and been uh um dedicated uh Livingston County resident and employee for the last 30 years. Arizona made the switch over to United Way because of partnerships like Hartland School District. So, we're here to present an employee excellence award. Um, this has been ongoing for a long, long time. Your employees are pledging to help those families in Livingston County that need need or need help. I'm sorry. Um, we help Alice families. There's 28% of Livingston County are asset limited, income constrained, and employed. and we fund programs locally that are helping them thrive in our community and helping them get by in the hard times. And your employees, even though sometimes they're facing hard times, have been um huge supporters of United Way and we appreciate it

011so much. It makes a real difference. So, we're very honored to present this to you guys on behalf of United Way. Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Carrie. Absolutely. All right. Next, I'm going to invite Mr. Hassler up. Mr. Hassler is going to give us his winter sports update as well as uh we're going to recognize a number of athletes for great accomplishments this year. Um Mr. Wolfford, are you in the room? Representative Wolford was supposed to be here tonight, so maybe he I did get an email today from his staff, but hopefully he'll show up, Mr. Hassler. So, you start your thing and we'll see where we end up. Okay, sounds good. Uh let's start with winter athletics by the numbers. Uh the high school programs there was 388 participants. Uh

01210th through 12th that was 287 and 101 um freshman. For the middle school programs actually was a little bit of an uptick there. 169 participants. We did add uh for competitive cheer. We brought sixth graders in this year. Sixth and seventh eighth graders uh for a combined team uh which helped kind of drive those numbers up a little bit um and has helped building the program at the high school level. Uh, varsity programs 15, middle school programs six for a total teams of 36. Uh, here's some of the rostered athletes looking over the three years. So, I've been kind of gathering the data. Uh, archery, uh, a little bit of a dip from last year, but on the way up, basketball holding steady for both boys and girls. Uh, border cross pretty steady. Uh, bowling,

013uh, went down a little bit, but, uh, competitive cheer starting to go back up. And one of our goals again with adding the sixth graders is keep those students involved. Uh figure skating uh arise there. Gymnastics pretty much staying the same. Hockey stayed the same. Uh hockey girls went up. Uh pmp uh going back up. Powerlifting, one of the new programs this year, so that one's up. Uh ski staying pretty consistent. uh swimming boys, swimming and dive for boys has gone down a little bit, but my understanding is we have a fifth and sixth grade group that's coming through that's going to uh bolster those numbers. And then wrestling obviously increased. Uh this is kind of the cool part here uh as we talk about student athletes. Uh Harland Scholar athlete award winners first semester

014uh 3.0 GPA or higher. Now this is JV and varsity. Uh one of the things is that it excludes freshman student athletes for both of these awards. So over 81% of our student athletes at the junior varsity and varsity level from sophomore, junior, and senior years were over a 3.0 GPA. Uh our KAA scholar athlete award winners, and this is just varsity only. This is cumulative throughout their uh time at Harland, 3.25. 68% of our student athletes uh were over that uh 3.25. And this has been pretty consistent. Uh it was a little bit of an uptick on the 3.0 0 GPA, but consistently we're around that 68 to 70% on the KAA scholar athlete and about 78 to 81% on that uh H Heartland scholar athlete. We had so far 20 members of the

015class of 2025 have signed NLI uh to play athletics at the collegiate level. Uh we'll go over a few. We did some at the fall one already. Uh we do have some more. We have our senior athlete recognition ceremony coming up. Uh so we have a few more that have been added to that as some are making their decisions now. Uh college signing so far, Ty Bigger uh will be going to Sienna Heights University for wrestling. Uh Eastston Dickerson, Cornerstone University for wrestling. Izzy Depestyl, University of Finley for soccer. Braden Crow, Wayne State University for baseball. Emmy Alberts, Adrien College for girls lacrosse. Ryan Bubac, Adrien College for football. Cooper Pile, Grand Valley State University for football. Uh, unified basketball. Again, this is a great program that coaches uh Lauren Depestel and Kathy Der uh

016have continued to build the tradition. Actually, we played our largest regular season schedule this year with 12 games. Uh that included an assembly game during the H Heartland school day. Uh the photo on there is the assembly. It was it was a great environment, packed crowd. Uh we went up against Brighton. We alternate each year with Brighton and uh Hartland as to who's home, who's away, but this year we got to host. Um we had an alumni game, another great opportunity. Uh special education athletes received their H Heartland varsity letters. The partners received special unified patches for their varsity jacket. Uh, and they played the game at Little Caesars. Uh, we also have a Unified Palm team that uh, performs at halftimes of the games. Uh, here's a couple photos of them at Little Caesars

017uh, as they're getting ready to play their games down there. And this is the second year in a row they've played down at Little Caesars and it's been uh, a great opportunity. I know this year they basically uh, played the game and then they kind of like push you out and then have you come back. Uh, it was beautiful weather down there. So, I know uh, Mr. Pestl said they had a great time downtown in between uh the unified game and uh the Pistons game. And obviously the Pistons are much better this year. So it was a lot better competition on their end as well. So student achievements, student success for the winter 2024. It was a really great um winter season overall. Uh every sport had some great accomplishments. Uh boys swim and dive.

018They had swmers qualified for the MHSA state finals. two boys academic all-Americans and they had the second highest GPA in division one. Uh it just came out as well from the fall that the girls finished sixth highest GPA for for girls swim as well. Uh wrestling and we'll get to this a little bit later too, but district champions uh seven individual state qualifiers, five allstate including two individual state champions. Competitive cheer qualified for states. They finished fourth at the state finals this year. hockey uh KLAA division and conference champions. Bowling had one bowler qualified for individual state finals, Hayden Hebell. He was the individual region regional champion and third in the state. Uh archery, which is here with us today, first place in 3D and bullseye. Um I'll talk a little bit about the the

019remaining part on there when they come up here. Uh nationals and worlds are upcoming for them. gymnastics, KLAA division and conference champions, regional champions, team state champions, three individual state champions. They're also here today, which we'll be honoring them shortly. Varsity snowboarding boys team finished third at the state meet. They had five girls and one boy qualified individually. Mia Mills took fifth overall. Varsity ski, one individual qualified for the state final. Sophia Julie, she finished 36th in the Grand Somn and 38 in the slalom. Varsity figure skating level B and C qualified for the state finals. Level C finished first at the state finals, winning the state title there in that division. Pompom qualified for division 2 state finals. Finished in the top eight. Powerlifting, the new program this year, a new club sport that

020we started. Three boys and one girl qualified for states. One individual state champion, one individual state runnerup, and one individual national champion. uh first team all state athletes. We had five wrestlers, five gymnasts, five hockey players, three powerliffters, two cheerleaders, and one border crosscross athlete that were all state this year. Chasing titles. Uh here's a few photos of some of our teams. It's one of the monikers uh that JD Wheeler, former AD kind of started and gone along with. Uh we have Palm Team in the upper left corner uh competing at their state tournament. uh boys hockey, uh KLA conference champions, league champions, uh girls at the state finals, uh cheer Hayden Heb at the state finals as well, and then at the state finals for powerlifting, two of our athletes, uh again, chasing titles,

021girls basketball, district champions, um gymnastics, that's from the state finals when they won the state title. And then one of our powerliffters also uh competing who competed at the state level being an in all state and national level titles time to captured. Uh so if we can bring up Dallas Corpic and Roman Ignagi. Uh Bod Aby's the second one up there. He is not here today. Um, we also have I want to recognize uh Kyle Summerfield, the coach who's here. He doesn't have to come up here. And Lisa Burkheader um and Roman's father also who helped out with the powerlifting. Without these coaches, obviously these student athletes don't get the opportunities that they do to get better. Um, a little bit about Dallas. Um, obviously two times, second time in a row that he's captured

022the state title. Um, I thought it was dramatic fashion. It was 1. Coach told me that it was kind of a boring 1 victory in the finals. I don't know. Uh but he said Dallas had it the whole way. So Dallas again won his second state title. Uh he'll be going for his third next year also with Bodie as well. Uh Roman uh second time uh winning a state title. Last year obviously we didn't have a powerlifting program, but he represented as H Heartland. Um this year came in same standard. Not only again winning the state title uh winning the national championship believe he he set the uh record in his weight class with over 1700 pounds. Am I correct? Uh lifting. Um and he was he was kind of the driving force behind getting

023the the powerlifting club started. Um so it was his initiative, his coming in kind of leadership helped lead the program. Uh I'll say this, they're both two outstanding student athletes. Uh they're both great leaders for both wrestling and for powerlifting. Um and they really help represent H Heartland on a big stage and do it the right way. [Applause] You're good. The next one is aiming for greatness. This is our archery team. They could come up here. We have coach Shelby Ericson here. uh and the archery team. One of the things again, so obviously they've been a stellar program here for many, many years. Uh they continue to hold that standard um on and off uh the archery uh arena. One of the cool things that and I didn't read it up there was one of

024the cool things that I didn't mention is what they earned $2,500 in individual scholarships and $12,500 as scholarships as a team. Uh I think that's pretty exciting for them to not only be contributing as athletic uh in that in that arena but also from an academic st standpoint of it. Uh they do have worlds and nationals coming up. I'm not sure when exactly that is over Mother's Day weekend in a few weeks. In a few weeks over Mother's Day weekend and again they've been again one of the programs here that continually um excels at a high level. um great numbers and I think it's a it's something again that they can carry with them uh throughout life really. Uh it's a sport that they can do and Shelby's done a great job with us. Uh

025coach Jellison as well is another uh individual that's led a great program and they've done it the right way. [Applause] coach for you. Yeah. And they have practiced, so I know that's why they they got here and they're going to go back and they're going to continue to work on their their skills. So, you know, thank you guys. That's it. [Applause] And then last but definitely not least, uh I call this one flipping the script for H Heartland Gymnastics. We're going to have the gymnastics team come up. Now, they had a great year as well last year. uh KLA conference champion, league champion, regional champions, made it to state finals. Um they performed great last year. They finished fourth. They had an injury uh last year that right before the state finals um and still

026finished fourth. Um this year I call it flipping the script because they went up against Rockford who was a three-time defending state champion. Um and they knocked them off. And and not only did they knock him off, I was there. I think the they had finished uh competing and one of the parents had come up to me and Rockford was on the beam and they basically said that Rockford had to be perfect on the beam to get even close to them and they weren't. Um so again it was a great season for them individually they again they performed compete as a team on that first day. The second day coming back three individual state champions um the following day and they followed up with a few all-state performances as well uh on that second day.

027Um, super proud of this team. One of the cool traditions again that JD did start is the photo on the wall. So, if you're ever in the gym, uh, the chasing titles kind of, uh, area, we've already have their photo up, uh, from the state title, uh, with the state championship in that. And very cool, as you can see from the photo, one of the coaches, I don't know if she's here. Yep, she is. She doesn't have her eagle costume on, but she had the eagle costume on. So, very, very appropriately for the photo. So, uh, again, a great season for these guys. uh look forward to again maybe continuing the tradition that Rockford said of winning multiple titles. Um I think the the community um everything that they do with gymnastics here, having the

028facility that they have uh helps them out immensely and um something that they can be super proud of their accomplishments this year. [Applause] Congratulations, ladies. Cam, who's coming up? Bring your team. We're gonna let them do um I just got the the ending credits. Let Brian finish and then you guys come up. Okay. Just roll the credits. Um, again, it was a great overall season again and obviously wins and losses. Everybody looks at that and the accomplishments they did, but we have some great student athletes and and some of the best emails I get are when our when our kids are out um in the community and they hold themselves to the that high level of of what we expect from our students. Um, one of the cool things, again, my event workers might not

029appreciate this as much, and one of the jokes I said this year after for April's Fool's Day is I told Mary, my event coordinator, that we did such a good job with cheer regionals, hosting two that they're going to let us host three next year. She had a little bit of a heart attack, but uh, again, we hosted girls basketball districts, hockey regionals. Um it was at again very small combined space but I thought it was one of the best environments for for a hockey game and really promoted the sport of hockey in Michigan. And we hosted two cheer regionals. They needed us to host uh a second one on the same day. So again backtoback cheer regionals. Um and everybody says such great thing about our facilities and it doesn't happen without all the

030people listed up here. facilities, custodial, transportation, uh, community ed scheduling, the website, our event coordinators, uh, and the a great admin team as well. And that's all I have. I I do want to recognize Brian. Um, being an AD is not an easy job. There's a lot of time, a lot of commitment, a lot of weekends, and uh Brian, you've been here, this is your second year, and just thank you for everything you do to ensure that our students get an opportunity to compete and be successful. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. And then we also since we are recognizing state champions and whatnot um you knew that uh in the fall our esports team which is in its second year uh won the state championship. Uh they're working this spring hopefully on another

031opportunity right? Uh so coaches introduce yourself and uh let us know about your team. All right. Uh my name is coach Cameron Mottney and uh I'm coach Jason Watkins and uh this is part of our esports team. This is uh primarily the Rocket League team who uh just took first in the state in the fall and uh they just played a game today and they qualified for playoffs again for the play for the uh spring 2025 season. Um this is only our second year, second full year. We're finishing our second full year right now. Um, MHSL does four season uh two seasons per year. So, this is our fourth season. Um, but in in that short amount of time, we have had we have had uh 14 playoff appearances, uh four top eight appearances, two

032championship appearances, and one state championship. Um, that's including all of the playoffs today to date. So, um, yeah, it's it's going to be an exciting ride. That's with about 25 players in our club. So, not entirely represented today, but 25 players in the club with, uh, six titles that we're offering. So, and altogether, our league is the MHSL. It's sponsored by the MASSP. Lots of acronyms and everything else to throw out there. Um, but they offer 13 different titles that are also available. we just need to grow a little bit more and then get more kids that want to be involved and realize that it's not just a hobby. It's actually something that they can take and do things with. You can bring hardware home. You can chase titles. You can bring scholarships. You can

033go to college. Like we had last year, we had a student that was a senior that went to Eastern and now he plays Rocket League at Eastern and has a scholarship there. And these guys are also qualified for the national championship which they'll play after school gets out. So they're pretty dedicated. They'll have to come in after school. So part of their summer that they'll be part of the play versus cup and then that is actually to any college of their choice. If they get first place, they get scholarship to go to any school. So they'll just cut them a check and be here you go trade school, you know, anything. So, um, we also have not only Rocket League, but we have Splatoon and Super Smash Brothers that we have represented up here today.

034So, they're, uh, Smash Bros. is in the playoffs right now as well. Um, our JV team also made it to their version of the playoffs. Splatoon, we're still, we're still working on Splatoon. So, we've we've we've got 17th place. So, it's out of 16 and we've got top 16. We've gotten 17 all four times so far. So, we're still working on it, but um yeah, we did it again. Yeah, we happened again. We got bumped again, guys. Um, but that's one of our biggest things and what we're trying to push is it's not we all grew up on arcades and NES's and Sega Genesis and playing at roller rinks and everything else where it was just a button where you just you went and played with your friends. But these kids are starting to show

035us that it's actually serious and you can do things and you can go play. There's kids that play Rocket League that make millions of dollars. There's 16, 17 year old kids that can just walk all over me in any of these games that make that much money because they go pro. Same with Super Smash Brothers. There's guys that play tournaments that it's just it's absolutely mind-boggling how much they can bring in. So, there we go. [Applause] Uh, Representative Wolford, do you want to come up? Congratulations. Representative Wolford, thank you for being here tonight. Um, we have some of our students still here. Um, I don't know if I miscommunicated a 6:30 board meeting start, but I thank you for being here. I I I didn't recall that, but No, you didn't miscommunicate. I screwed up

036here at 7 p.m. awards. Okay. Yeah. I don't know what happened. So anyway, I thank you for being here and certainly we'll make sure that those kids that are here you can recognize. We have uh uh our esports team that was just up here and then our girls uh gymnastics team was here. I don't know if they're still here. They're still here. So we can bring them up and you can uh do your thing with them. Um, I did want to let the audience know that uh, Representative Wolford did invite the gymnastics team to Lancing and I felt that it was best that we invite him here to do it in front of everybody and so I did talk with Representative Wolfford on Monday and let him know why we did that. So, Representative Wolford,

037why don't we let you do your thing? How's that sound? Okay, great. Thank you. I appreciate it. Absolutely. All right. I'm Representative Jason Wolford. It's a privilege to be here tonight to honor these amazing athletes. I want to thank the H Heartland School Board Superintendent and the athletic director for this opportunity to give a special tribute from the capital, from the state of Michigan, and myself as your house representative for the hard work, discipline, energy, and the fortitude that it takes to be an athlete, but in this case to be exceptional athletes. I don't like talking my back to these students that should be up here. So, uh, the students that are here um that are getting recognized tonight, why don't you come up and stand up here? Come on up. Come on up. Don't

038be shy. Come on, esports. Come on, gymnast. Archery. I don't um represent Wolver, I don't think you brought a tribute for archery tonight, correct? Uh, no, that wasn't told to us. You You weren't. Um, but I I did let the archery know we were going to do them after nationals cuz that's important. Okay. Okay. So, you're here, but thank you. Uh, esports come up. Do you have one for esports? We do. Awesome. Um, do we have any our wrestlers left? Okay. And what about uh our powerlifter? Are you still here? Roman. Okay. Coach Coach can do. Why don't you guys come up, settle around, and they're going to get a picture with all you guys up there. You don't need me in the background. I'll hide. Okay. Who else are we? We're honoring the gymnastics

039state championship team. We have a tribute for them. We have a tribute for the esports state championship team. We know you'll be going to nationals. We have certificates for all the team members. And uh we know two wrestlers had individual state championships. We have those. Your power lifter. We know that he really brought it because second place wasn't close. uh pounds behind which when you have the three disciplines. Yeah. All right. Can everyone just look my way real quick? Hold on one second. Hold on one second. Okay. So, now that you're all up here, okay, to all the athletes, thank you for exhibiting the action found in the words of these following quotes. Jesse Owens says, "We all have dreams, but in order to make dreams come true and turn them into reality, it takes

040an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort." Vince Lombardi says, "Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is." Babe Ruth said, "The way a team plays as a whole determines it its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime. Shaquille O'Neal says, "Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit. You are what you do repeatedly in your life." I don't know what's in the water here in Hartland, but I think I need to start drinking it. Uh because Hartland is pushing out some incredible athletes that are before me tonight. And I'd be remiss if I did not mention the parents who I'm sure have been instrumental and the backbone and encouragement and motivation in one

041way or another to each of you. Lastly, I'll be presenting these tributes, but as mentioned to Chuck and the board and the superintendent, I want to personally invite you to my office at the capital for a tour and then invite you to sit in the gallery of the house where I will introduce you and all the representatives on the left and the right will stand and applaud you for each of your accomplishments. Uh so I hope you take me up on that. It'll really be a blessing to each of you. And so we are going to start with Okay, we're do gymnastics. Okay. And for the two coaches. So we have Are your coaches here? All right. Coaches got to be up here because obviously they played a very big part in this. So Gavin,

042Gavin, how are you? Good. How are you? Good. How are you? So, this is the H Heartland Gymnastics Team first place MHSAA state championship. Uh, this is a state of Michigan tribute uh to you. And uh I'll just read it. It says, "Let it be known that is it's with pleasure to join with their families, the entire school and all of Hartland, Michigan in celebrating the achievements of the H Heartland Gymnastics team on their wonderful success over the season. with the fine record the squad attained which has accumulated culminated sorry in MHSAA state champion. You have to forgive me I went to how high school anyway uh uh with the fine record this squad attained which is culminated in MHSAA state champion. This group of disciplined students and athletes has generated great pride throughout the

043part of our state much to the delight of their loyal fans. The H Heartland Gymnastics team have also earned the respect of sports followers elsewhere in Michigan through their talent, teamwork, and determination. As opponents have found all season long, this is a team that brings unity and a positive outlook to all levels of competition. In the face of challenge and pressure, this is a group of young people who maintain their focus on making their dreams come true and accepting nothing less than their best effort. Winning titles or compiling outstanding seasons is never a fluke. While anything can happen in a single game, all teams show their true abilities and dedication over a long season or a difficult tournament. What distinguishes the best, however, is usually the effort that appears in the practice far removed from

044the excitement of the game and from the game day. We admire the efforts, the team spirit, and the preparation of these talented young people. In special tribute, therefore, this document is signed and dedicated to congratulate the members and the coaches of H Heartland Gymnastics team upon their achievement of first place in the MHSAA state championship. And with that, I'll give that to the coaches. Thank you so much. [Applause] Jason wants a picture with the coaches and Yeah. Okay. And then I might get one wider. Oh, that's great. So, we have some significance here. So, this is a smaller version, a special achievement of that state tribute that each of you will get. And I'll just read one uh and then the rest of you I will hand them to you. So uh just insert your

045name there because that's what it says. It says, "Let it be known that we're proud to join with the team members, family, friends, and all of H Heartland, Michigan in congratulating Gavin Crest and the rest of the H Heartland Gymnastics team on their achievement of first place at the MHSAA state championship. The dedication and persistence shown to their team by the coach and sports arena are reflected in the H Heartland Gymnastics team and outstanding achievements." So Gavin, that's you. Here we go. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. Good job. And Alyssa, uh, I say the same to you for the sake of time and everyone tonight. It reads almost exactly the same. So, thank you for your dedication. Appreciate you. You know, this would be a good time for everybody to give them rounds of applause

046[Applause] as if you'd come off. Emma, Emma Bears, here you are. Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Olivia Terrell, good job. Lauren, how do I spell say winner? Okay, there you go. Sorry. I don't want to mess that up. [Applause] Uh, Ella Sheerer. It's fine. Uh, Kendall [Applause] Simmons. Olivia Chapman. She's not here. Okay. Alli Okay. Jaden Garcia. And this is Alexis uh Fund Fund. Uh and the allaround champion, right? Okay. Thank you, [Applause] sir. Uh live flat, lie flat. [Applause] Okay. Tory Gross. Nice to meet you. Abby [Applause] Griffin. Abby Margarita. All right. Nice last name. [Applause] Uh Katie [Applause] Gotland, Marissa Moore, nice to meet you. Great job. Bella pop papa Alexis. Did I almost do that right? and Alyssa Whitman, H Heartland, gymnastics coach. Oh, a different Alyssa. All right. Well, this

047one's yours. Come on up, [Applause] Jim. What else? And that's the last one. Okay. And Alyssa Albert, [Applause] team state champs. All right. And this is for the H Heartland esports team for state champions. Let's go. Give yourselves a round of applause. That's [Applause] great. Uh let it be known that it's pleasure to join with their families and entire school and all of H Heartland, Michigan in celebrating the achievements of the H Heartland esports team on its wonderful success over the season. with a fine record of squad attained uh which has culminated in a state championship in the Rocket League. This group of disciplined student athletes has generated great pride throughout the part of our state. And from the earlier conversation from your coach, it sounds like I should have played more games if people

048are making a million dollars a year. Uh but uh thank you so much coach. Come on up. Coaches, I'll give that to you on behalf. Thank you for doing a good job with these young young men. [Applause] Can you have them open for me? Thanks. Uh Cameron Monty. Monty. Yeah, there you are, sir. Thank you, Jason Watkins. Thank you, Jason. Thank you, Frederick Nicotin. Okay, Shawn Moore. [Applause] Yeah, Charlie Moore. Okay, they're probably at home playing games getting better. Uh, Eric Murs. Okay. Erikson [Applause] Wakeman. Bronson West. All right. I love it. Austin how okay broke this broke the streak there. Uh Ronan Flanigan brother. Oh here you come up and accept on your brother Ela Borrison. [Applause] Okay Logan Henson. Okay. Alexander Barry, [Applause] Connor Davis, [Applause] Calvin Lauren. [Applause] Alexander Barry. Okay. Thought

049I read that. Jeffrey How. Okay. I do have the right team, correct? Okay, good. All right. Uh Wesley Mik. Okay. [Applause] Anthony Lil Tennibush. Okay. [Applause] Slightly embarrassed. Brandon Smers. Okay. Nathaniel Smith. All right. [Applause] Jason Raymond, I'm sorry. Jackson Raymond, Tavin [Applause] Flanigan. And Christian Gian. Okay. and H Heartland esports team state championship James Petruchi. All right. That was it. And Harland esports team state champion Dylan Rain Rainwin. All right. This is the coach to the right. Okay. And this is a a tribute for Roman, how do I say it? Ignani. Ignani uh for H Heartland Powerlifting MHSAA state championship. Uh let it be known that it's pleasure with us to join the family and friends uh here in Hartland. As a fierce competitor and the dedicated team player, Roman brings more than hard

050work and readiness to each performance. his inextinguishable energy and will to win each match in every bit as impressive as the ability to perform. Beyond his strength and skill, his unwavering courage fuels his determination, enabling him to push through obstacles and exceed expectations. His pursuit of excellence not only inspires his teammates, but also sets powerful example for all who strive to reach their full potential. And so on behalf of uh uh myself and the state of Michigan, I'll present that to you and I will present it to Ro. Thank you so much. And just so we know, I am a better reader, but this is in like font eight to fit it on the paper. So, uh sorry about that. Uh and then, uh do we have a Bowden Bod Abby here? I'm representing. You

051are. Okay. The wrestlers. Awesome. Thank you, sir. So, uh, as a, uh, Bowden Aby's season is highlighted with many achievements, including impressive statistics and electrifying plays that demonstrated his strong leadership skills. His poise under pressure and intense competition serves as an example of all young people struggling struggling for recognition in any sport. From pivotable pivotal game-winning moments to consistent displays of skill and perseverances, Bowden proved himself to be not only a standout athlete but a role model for his peers. This is a special tribute tribute. Therefore, this document is hereby signed and dedicated to congratulate Bowm Abby for his achievement in winning the MHSAA state championship. May his determination grow stronger each day and positively influence his every endeavor in many years ahead. Thank you, sir. Thank you. [Applause] Okay. And we're also uh presenting

052to Dallas uh Corponic. Is that how I say that? Okay. Coronic. Uh the same. Uh so, thank you on behalf of my office myself. Please do that. Appreciate Uh so with that said, thank you to each of you uh from coaches uh to you athletes. Uh I know the uh determination that it takes to be an athlete. Uh I was an athlete at one time in my life and a Marine. So I know the dedication that it takes. Uh so thank you to each of you and I pray that you continue to do a good job. The things that you do, I always tell people the things that you do, the small things you do represent the big things that you'll do someday. And so uh proud of you. Thank you. Appreciate uh uh the

053superintendent uh and the board for allowing me to come tonight and give these awards. And uh for all of you uh please give them a round of applause. [Applause] I want you. All right. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you for being here. Representative Wolford, I will do better in the future on timing. I appreciate that you are flexible with us. So, thank you. Oh, yeah. No problem. Thank you. All right. Okay. We are going to move on to our guest tonight. Uh the last piece of the superintendent report, we have Greg Janicki here. Greg, uh for the audience, some of you might know Greg because you came to the strategic planning sessions in which we opened it up to the community and staff and uh the board and myself stayed away from those meetings.

054Um, but tonight, Greg is going to walk the board through the process of gathering their input as we plan for our strategic planning retreat on May 3rd, uh, where we have a group of 35 individuals who will meet and, uh, uh, work with Greg on establishing our goals for the district uh, through the strategic planning process. I'm probably stealing your thunder, uh, Greg. Uh, so I will let you take it from here and you're up. Superintendent Hughes, I certainly know how to clear a room, don't I? Um, I want to thank the board for taking the time this evening. My last group that I'm doing the input sessions on. So, I will be quick and painless as I can as I know you have a very long agenda and I've been on the other side

055of the table so I understand what it means to to be present uh during these meetings. I have a very quick presentation that I want to just run through kind of the status of the strategic plan, expectations, timing, and then we're going to do a really old school input session. Um, you have in front of you, um, the, uh, strength, weaknesses, opportunities, uh, vision sheet. I'm just going to give each of you a couple of minutes as we go through each question individually to jot down your notes and then we'll just spend a minute or two and I'm going to capture some of your thoughts sort of the color commentary around um what um you all believe can help me get a better picture help the community get a better picture on each of these

056categories. And so we'll walk through these um uh step by step but let me first just kind of share quickly. Um so the idea of a strategic plan really is just the roadmap for the district. So what we're working on, what you have engaged MASB in is just where do we want to go? What does success look like for the school district? And so my role as a facilitator is simply to engage all of the stakeholders that are part of your community to move the district along to create this roadmap so that you all know um what success looks like in your school district and can ask those powerful questions of your superintendent, of the administrators um on where resources need to be spent in order to align that to where we want to go.

057as at where you want to go as a district. So, this is the uh five-step process uh of the strategic plan. Um the first one, the pre-planning that was simply identifying NA MASB as the uh partner to work through the strategic planning process. Um the second step is where we are right now, the analysis needs assessment. And this is simply gathering data, um stakeholder information, getting an understanding from your community what's important to the individuals that work, live, um and graduated from this uh area. So, uh I've done that in a couple of ways. One is the in-person input sessions that Superintendent Hughes mentioned that we held over the last couple of months as well as the online survey that was live from about February um or so where we had about 600 or so

058responses uh into that survey. Um so both the qualitative and the quantitative data. The the next step will be what we call strategic formulation. This is essentially the one-day retreat where we will have, as Superintendent Hughes said, about 35 or so individuals from a a variety of stakeholder groups represented in our retreat. And the the main purpose of the retreat is to sort of level set what is the vision, mission, and beliefs of the district. Now, H Heartland already has a vision statement, a mission statement, and a belief statement. So, we're going to spend a good part of that day looking at the data that has been provided by the community, by the stakeholders, um, and look at does this still represent what H Heartland wants to be as our vision, mission, and belief statements.

059And if there's any piece of this that I'm going to stand as being probably one of the more important elements is this idea of the mission statement, the true north of the district. um as the governing arm of the district asking the question of items that come before you, does this move us towards our mission? And so it's essential that we have as a community an understanding of what success looks like, what the true north looks like, and that we use that day in and day out to make decisions because without having um a mission statement that drives decision, it's nothing more than words um on a wall. And so we'll spend a lot of time determining what needs to change, if anything, keeping moving forward with the same vision, mission, or belief statement. So

060we'll spend a lot of time there. And then we'll also begin to look at what uh we call our strategic goal categories. And so MASB has uh five goal categories where we'll drive first uh what we call aspirational goal statements around those goal categories. So we have a goal category for academic um and programs um for culture and learning environment for personnel and leadership for um finance and operations and community and uh communication and community engagement. And so part of the work we do at the retreat is saying what does success look like in an aspirational way for each one of those buckets. Um, if any of you are familiar with the balance scorecard approach to organizational success, this sort of mimics that where we look at what are the elements that are necessary to

061pay attention to for an organization, any organization to be successful and it's a balanced approach to looking at all those areas. So those five areas represent um what any organization including a school district would need to pay attention to in order to be successful. So, we'll come up with some aspirational statements that represent what success looks like in sort of a um um a long-term way. And then we'll also drive based on what the community staff and yourself are saying are what are the important things for us to pay attention to or do? What are some of the initiatives that will help us move forward to actually achieve this goal that we said was so important? And we'll begin to uh uh crowdsource those things in the retreat. And so a lot of heavy lifting

062that's done. It's a really long day. It's a very powerful day. Brings everyone together. Brings the community together. Our goal is to focus on that common purpose. Um if any of you have done any work around the idea of crucial conversations uh creating a mutual purpose where um an organization can rally around and so that's a big part of what we're doing with the retreat is bringing people together, get everyone excited about the future of H Heartland Schools. After the retreat, we have what we call an implementation planning meeting. Um and so that's the fourth step there where just the administrative team comes together and looks at um all of the initiatives that have been brought forth that things that could possibly be done and starts to call those and says here are the things

063that if we pay attention to if we put our resources towards are going to give us the greatest likelihood of achieving the things that we said were important at the retreat right and so the administrative team works on that the very last step is me coming back to you um at your June meeting that's the uh the timing right now. So this um full planning process will be wrapped up by June um to bring to you for approval the vision, mission and belief statements along with the goal statements for you to approve. And so that's what comes to you um as part of the strategic planning process along with the work that has been done to identify the things that need to be done and the metrics associated with what success might look like in

064the next year. And so the highlevel plan is a five-year plan. Those vision, mission, beliefs, and goal statements are are five-year um a lifetime. The uh the initiatives or what the mykit process, the administrators in the room kind of are familiar with the mykit process called interimm targets. Those are the things that are done each and every year that you attach what's important for us to do and for you as a board to understand where do we need direct resources, right? Where do we need to approve a budget? where do we need policy that helps steer us in that direction. And so that's the overall process and where we end up with in that June meeting when I come before you um with the work that has been done by the the collective. I'll stop

065there for a moment just to see if there's any questions which will also allow me to back away from the podium and get my water. Any process questions? So just a little bit of background that um I didn't mention when Chuck introduced me. So um my work, my professional work is as an executive coach and as a facilitator. So I do this work as my day job. Um the more relevant more relevant background uh for myself as a facilitator is I'm a former board member. So I served for 12 years um on the Wald Lake uh consolidated school district from 2008 to 2020. Um, and it was a wonderful, hectic, draining 12 years. And, um, I was reminded of that with your, um, with your music tonight and how much I missed during our board

066meetings. We had our art appreciation and our, um, sports awards as well. And it it brought me back to those moments, which I thought that's, you know, that's why we're here is to recognize the students and the hard work they do. I wanted to make sure that I brought kind of my background and my perspective to understanding the hard work that you all do um as governance um uh for this school district. All right. So, let me talk about kind of how this process works now, the input process. So, who has provided input up to this point? So, I met with um students. I did a session with um 10 or 12 high school students as well as 10 or 12 middle school students. Uh for those of you that have or had middle school

067students, you can know how much fun it is to talk about talk about these things to middle school students. Uh they give you the unvarnished truth. Um so it was a lot of fun talking to middle school students. I also held two uh staff sessions, two community sessions, uh had an administrative session, and then the final session here um with you as a board of education. So those were the folks that um came for the uh the sessions. Um these were the dates for each. Um, as I mentioned, the uh the online survey was also available from sometime in February through u April 11th. So, we just closed that um last week just to allow us u me enough time to transcribe and review and summarize and aggregate the data to be presented um at

068the retreat. Um I mentioned somewhere uh I don't remember the exact number but was around 600 respondents to the survey. Uh this is my sixth um strategic plan uh that I've done for school districts um along with a number of board governance and other workshops that I've done for school boards. That's a really good response rate for a community the size of H Heartland. So you should be really proud of the engagement um and participation that you um that you got during the survey. So um it's always helpful. The more input you get, the better the conversations could be around that information. All right. So the input process is really basic. So again, I uh in front of you is this sheet that has four questions. Uh I think there might have been one or

069two of you that had completed the survey online. Um if you had just put a little asterk at the top right hand corner of your survey. Please don't put your name on the surveys. These in this input is all anonymous. Obviously, as board members, it's less anonymous um than it is with the community members. But I'm simply going to walk through each question uh of the four questions and I'm going to give you a minute to capture your thoughts on the sheet. Um I don't grade for spelling, but I do need to read what you have written. So as long as uh you're not judging my handwriting later, I won't judge your handwriting, but I do need to read it. So I'll give you just a minute to capture some of your thoughts on each

070question. And then I just want to have a really brief discussion of okay, what are some of the things that you believe fall under this category? Help me understand. Just give me a little bit. I'm going to capture some of that in my flip chart over there and then we'll just roll on to the next question and we'll be done and out of here in about 20 minutes or so. Questions about the survey? Yeah, just a quick question. I know I personally already submitted it, but in the interest of time, is it something that we could take home and then send to you prior to the May meeting? So, I'd rather do it tonight for one reason, which is the conversation that comes for me to capture some of the the color commentary behind um

071the simple data points because just reading something very often in a survey, black and white, doesn't give you some of the background that's necessary with some of the conversation. So, I appreciate I'll be as quick um and efficient as I can with your time. All right. So, first question on the sheet is what are the strengths of the school district? Now, um, obviously, uh, you're looking at this question from your board purview right now. However, some of you may be parents in the district. You may be former employees, you may be alumni, and so you may have some additional perspectives that you would like to add to your sheet. So, I'll just give you a minute, capture some of your thoughts, and then I'll just ask for you to share some of your comments, and

072I'll capture those on the sheet. This is always the one. This is always the one where you could have 30 minutes and continue to write about the strength of the district. But if I could, I'd love to hear just a couple of comments from board members that would like to share something that they had written down. Yeah. Culture. Culture. Tell me more about the culture. I think not only do do I know it's a positive culture, but our parents and staff and teachers and you know when surveys are done and um I think that the culture in H Heartland um you know it's I think we have great leadership and I think it's a great culture you know from in in all of our buildings. I think that I've heard that from staff and teachers

073and parents that we have a great culture in H Heartland. Great. Thank you. others. Yes, if I could just add to that, I think it speaks volumes that the majority of our teachers um actually send their own kids to our district, even if they don't live in the district. Okay, other thoughts? And I would add, you know, teachers and staff, right? On top of that, again, we have a lot of teachers that have been here. I won't call anyone out that's in the audience that has been here for a really long time. Um but he knows who I'm talking about. Uh but our teachers and staff, right? Dedication from bus drivers to maintenance to teachers, you know, to staff that um we have very dedicated employees and staff that go above and beyond all the

074time. Is it safe to say uh longevity service? Okay. Yes. Thank you. I'm sorry. you. Yeah, I was going to comment on teachers and staff obviously, but um another one that I wrote down was security. I think overall the community feels is a safe place to send your children. Great. Thank you. I think you were quality employees. What does a quality employee look like? If I had a nickel for every time the word caring came up in the survey, I wouldn't be doing this gig anymore. Tell you that it's a lot. Other thoughts? Anything not represented there that you want to make sure that I capture? I can add another one. I think we have a wide um array of programs and activities for the students to participate in. I agree. And I would add,

075you know, not only academic, but we also have a lot of clubs. And again, we're going to be talking later about adding a girls field hockey team to our district. So, lots of clubs, sports, band, you know, there's esports. There's something a club for everybody. Great. Thank you. We get a lot of feedback on our multi-tered intervention system. Um I know several of us uh last year were at a Livingston County meeting which Hartland was probably the most regarded in the county um for utilizing that that tiered system and really um wrapping our arms around the whole child that needs intervention based whe whether that's academic intervention, behavioral intervention, so on and so forth. Thank you. All right. I'd also like to add um student achievement, our academic achievement as measured like by the state

076standardized testing um and even our um in district testing as well. And to dovetail on that a little bit, I I have academics but also sports and that it's well balanced. I think uh what I really like like tonight when we highlight the student athletes but their academic achievement not just their achievement on the field and that's the first thing that was talked about tonight and I think that sends a signal to the students and to the community that that there has to be a balance and a lot of districts have really good academics or really good sports and not a lot of overlap and we do a well a good job I think of balancing. All right, I'm going to jump forward to the next question, but if you didn't share, make sure you

077have captured that in your in your survey. So, second question, what are the areas of improvement that should be considered by the district? So, this is really easy to just list the things that are broken um the things that are not working, the things that should change. But this can also be working well would be better if, right? So this is not just I I sometimes phrase this in the meetings uh as if you were principal or if you were superintendent for a day, what would you fix? So maybe if you were a board member for a day. So this is the the the place for you to be thinking about what are some of the the great opportunities that we still have um to execute in the district. So I'll give you a minute,

078capture your thoughts and then we'll do that sharing again. probably things that are top of mind for you. So, we'll we'll jump in. What do we have? I would say um yeah more exposure to things like trades, professional certifications as as much as we promote college, I think there needs to be additional or equal emphasis on other routes to career success. Great. Thank you. Um, so I'm going to say this, but I want to put a little caveat because we've made significant investments in this arena recently. Um, but I think that we're going to have to continue to make investments in our facilities. And by that I mean we have a lot of aging buildings. Um, and and when you compare athletic facilities to other D1 schools, um, I think we need to step our

079game up a little bit. um you know the a lot of folks are getting indoor training um you know buildings and so on and so forth and obviously that's a huge undertaking for a district. So not that they're bad today but looking ahead would be better if other opportunities big picture things. I guess I'll throw one out there. It's probably not, you know, something that we all want to talk about necessarily, but I would say based on previous feedback from surveys that there's some more work that as a board we need to do to kind of all be on necessarily always agree, but be on the same page and sort of work on our relationship to work more effectively. Correct. and in conjunction with our staff, teachers and staff. Thank you. All right, next one.

080So, this is a mouthful question um but I'll read it and then maybe explain it. What current barriers exist that would make it difficult for the district to implement new initiatives or make any significant changes? So the assumption here is anytime that you go through a plan, there's going to be some um recommendations, some ideas on what can be done differently, different things, new programs, changes, right? So there's that barrier. So this is simply as you think about change in the H Heartland community um and in the school district, what are some of the barriers that you think would be the most challenging to overcome relative to a a new strategic plan? I don't know that I see this as a barrier but more of an opportunity. So maybe twofold that I think it's going

081to be difficult to ensure that as we're de um designing a plan that that plan hits every kid. So how do we take into consideration every kid that we want to be well-rounded and empower you know achievement through and ensure that there's a sprinkling of investment in all of it. I think sometimes, you know, when you're when you have too many goals, you have no goals. And so, how do we create goals that that are more widespread? And I also see um you know, sort of what what Megan had said, right, is you know, I think financial a financial barrier maybe in some of the things that we're talking about, right? New buildings, new our finances are in fantastic shape. We have a great team that manages that very very well. But there's also a

082limited dollar amount that we have to work with. So you know may depending on what sort of big picture things we want that's going to take money. I see that as maybe a barrier. Yeah. This is one of the other messages that comes out of the strategic planning process. So no matter how much money you have, you still have to make decisions with that money. And what the strategic plan is meant to do is to simply give you a better uh decision- makingaking tool on what are the what is the best use of the resources that we have available to move us down towards this future that we said was important to get to. So that's the that's the value of going through this this process. Other other barriers expanding on what where Cindy was

083headed with the funding is um what I had jotted down was funding in the outy years. you know, specifically, it's like we've added some burdens to our general fund in recent years that um that aren't necessarily very well accounted for down the road. Like we'll have to make some of those tough decisions unless funding changes. Thank you. I also think um too like any organization there there there's always the possibility of of silos happening where people are kind of working in a silo where there could be better communication between let's say the board um the administration teachers and such and right now um the board is is fairly siloed out of that and I think there can be greater communication with those different areas. Okay. Thank you. I have um using some of the same

084words in the questions, what new initiatives to implement if H Heartland's going to be trends setters and leaders um not being stuck in the in a certain way locked in um with curriculum, whatever that may be, but seeing what else is out there that we can introduce. So, actually just knowing what are the options for sure. I I put I think there can be a resistance to meaningful change and that's probably with any organization. Um but but it seems that when there are changes there seems to be a lot of different push back. So how when we come up with this plan you know I guess bottom line how can we get everybody's buy in? Yeah. Yeah. Great point. Yeah, I hear that one. Um, every district that's always a one uh is this. No,

085nobody likes change. Nobody likes All right, let me move on to the last question. And this one I just want to um I want to go just asking you straight out. So, the way this question is phrased is to help identify some of these what I'll call key words that represent what you envision the ideal district to look like five 10 years from now. And so the question is, what is your vision for the district? What three words best describe the ideal district in three to five years? And so as you look forward and you see, wow, this place is is the best district we could ever have. What words are you using to describe that? Give me some of those words. Just innovate. Innovative. You can shout them out with my back turn, too,

086by the way, since I'm positive. Student success. I know that's two words. Sorry, we'll allow it. Make it a compound word. Balanced. Heard balanced. I heard qual quality. What? Quality in what way was that? Your academics. I wrote down global leader. I know we a lot of times just look at Michigan, but I think we need to, you know, it's a global workforce out there, so we need to be measuring ourselves not only against our fellow Michiganders. Y I think u using words that the public can relate to as opposed to the bubble of education. For example, we talk about being an interventionist district. I'd like to be a a district with excellence for all and kind of highlight more of a positive stance as opposed to um the other. Gotcha. Yeah. Not what we

087don't have, what we want to have. Right. No, I get that. Yeah. I wrote kind of a sentence. I know it wasn't word, but just in general kind of optimization of academic outcomes based on limited resources. You're going to be the one responsible in some of our groups to be writing some of the statements. I can optimization I'm sorry I missed all optimization of academic outcomes based on limited one word now you've done it come up with a when do I follow directions come on word or two that represents that you can't have a one-word vision I had uh desired and respected and desired I'm thinking you know historically we've been uh blessed with a large school of choice population and that's really given us a lot of extra resources and and um going forward,

088you know, there's challenges potentially in the community with um you know, turnover and younger students. So, how can we make sure we continue to pull students outside of H Heartland? Wonderful. So, anything else that you think it's important for for me to know or to be captured as part of this information that goes into what will be provided back to the community um at the retreat. I think it just has to cover every student and empowering them to achieve their fullest potential. This is only the second time I've gotten through a session without writing on my hand. So, I'm very proud of myself singly for that. All right. What I would like to do then is just ask for you to kind of pass over those sheets. I am known for having you fill those

089sheets out and then forgetting to grab them at the end of the evening. And so I'm going to make sure I didn't need your reminder. So I appreciate you taking the time this evening um to provide this input. Um I'm actually really excited about the retreat. It is going to be a um very involved but very important day um for your community. So looking forward to seeing you all bright and early at uh the middle school at 8 on May whatever that Saturday is. Is it the 3? May 3rd. All right. Any final questions for me before I scadaddle? Thank you for coming to the meeting. We appreciate it. Thank you all very much for your time. All right, we're going to move on to item 1E, call to the public. This is just a

090reminder that um this portion of the agenda is for citizens to address any questions or comments to the board. Speakers are asked to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for dignity and privacy of others who may be affected by your comments. Each speaker will be limited to three minutes. At the 2 minute and 30 second mark, I will wave. Today it's a blue folder instead of a yellow folder just to give you a heads up. First on our list is Barbara Tonkovich. Thank you once again for letting me speak. It is not just what we do in this building but what we do outside wherever our feet tread. It is not just the physical body of the children but their spiritual mind. The body will die but the soul and spirit will

091will live on. Where that place will be depends on where their heart and mind is directed while they are living on this earth. Children are ignorant because they have not been taught. So when they recognize good from evil, they will perish because of their lack of knowledge. That was from Hosea 4:6. The parents first responsibility is to raise their children in the right way that they should go. I've been trying to encourage the Ten Commandments to put be put back in the schools as some of our states have been doing down south. The laws, the law of the ten commandments identifies sin when it is disobeyed. That is the reason people don't want the law because it exposes their disobedience and sin. That's why the ten commandments was removed by basically atheists wanting to get

092God out of our public. But they'll never be able to do that. In John 3:18, he who believes and trusts in Jesus is not judged, but he who does not believe and trust in Jesus is judged. The test by which men are judged lies in this. The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than and more than the light, for their works and deeds were evil. In Hebrews 3:12, "Take care that there be not in you a wicked, unbelieving heart which refuses to trust and rely on the Lord and turns away from the living God." Hebrews 4:12, "For the word that God speaks is alive. It is sharper, penetrating to the breath of life and the deepest parts of our nature, exposing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of

093the heart. All things are exposed and defenseless to the eyes of God with whom we will give an account after our bodies die. In Psalm 119 one 1191 130, your words give light. Your words give understanding to children. And without the Ten Commandments showing the children what needs to be done, then they are truly lost when they get to be our age. Next we have Sher Sakaris. Uh just want to say it was a beautiful night as a retired teacher to see all these students has really touched my heart and I hate to be negative but I have to get something off my chest. I've been unable to attend recent board meetings, but I listen to all board meetings online. I have a few comments I would like to express regarding the March board meeting

094regarding the discussion by the board pertaining to the three R language. I agree that the word all should convey the convey the message that we believe that that that word includes everyone. That's certainly how it should be. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that there are students in H Heartland and people maybe in this room who don't really believe that everyone is included in the three R language. I really feel that the definition of all needs to remain in the language as a reminder to our students and our community just who deserves respect and who we believe is included in our definition of the word all. I hope that someday a definition won't be needed, but sadly I don't think that day is now. Regarding the comment that was made at the call to the public last month

095to teach creationism and the Bible in our schools, I feel I must again remind some people in the audience that this is a public school. Your religious beliefs or the lack thereof are personal choices and should be kept out of our schools. I have heard for many years at these meetings about indoctrinating our children. If teaching your religious beliefs to our students isn't indoctrinating, I don't know what is. It has no place in a public school and I for one am tired of hearing it brought up in almost every meeting. I know families in this district that are devout Christians and I know families who practice other religions and even some who are agnostics. They teach their children their beliefs at home and at their place of worship. Teaching your views to all students is

096ludicrous, offensive, and would be met with much public disagreement and anger. I was also extremely offended by the threat that was made last month that this board will have to live with their consequences with the consequences of their decision before God if they choose not to teach creationism and the Bible. If God is your savior, that's wonderful. But a public school is not the place to try to indoctrinate other people's children. And that was exactly what was asked for. Thank you. Aaron McKenna. Uh good evening. Um thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight. Um, I want to just speak of something wonderful that is occur has occurred in our community. As a parent of two daughters in the H Heartland robotics program, I want to highlight an extraordinary achievement for our community.

097Recently, Hartland sent three robotics teams to the first world's championship in Houston, Texas. They sent a lower elementary school team, a middle school team, and our high school team. This represents three of the four levels of our robotics program attending on the world stage, which is a remarkable honor few districts get to achieve. I believe this is the first year H Heartland has ever sent three different levels to worlds, which showcases how remarkable this program is and continues to grow. I am proud to share that our elementary team brought home a trophy. While our middle and high school team didn't bring home awards or trophy, their qualification for Worlds represents countless hours of dedication, problem solving, teamwork, and it is commendable in and of itself to be able to attend Worlds. Getting to Worlds was

098an award for that. this team. I know many of the middle school and especially the seniors in the H Heartland robotics program are disappointed, but they should be applauded with how much work they put in. Um, I've attended worlds both this year and last year and I've witnessed firsthand how this program transforms students. It's beyond engineering skills. Our children develop critical thinking, teamwork, resilience, and professional conduct that will serve them throughout their lives. The success of our robotics program showcases the exceptional extracurricular educational opportunities available in H Heartland and demonstrates that our community can compete with the best in the world. I've heard somebody mention we need to continue not only to achieve in Michigan, but with the world. And this was one stance where we should upl uplift it and show that we we

099did we did really well. Um sorry I lost my spot. Uh sorry. Um, this program would not be possible without the numerous volunteers from older students helping our lower elementary K through three and upper elementary programs four through five to the parents and community volunteers coaching and mentoring at all levels. Hartland should be incredibly incredibly proud of this accomplishment of these accomplished students and remarkable STEM program that is offered. Thank you. All [Applause] right, moving on to item 1F, committee and building reports. Mr. Scott, you want to kick us off? Um, I didn't make it over to the high school this month, but a big uh I mean, tonight was a testament to what they're doing over there with all the student athletes uh that we got to see and and they're doing they're doing

100great work and keep it up. Thank you, Mr. Gobleski. Yeah, thank you. Um nothing today, but there's going to be a lot in uh in the next meeting. So, um dealing with uh community uh um education and such. So, thank you, Mrs. Coleman. Um I was able to visit both um Creekide and Round and um the big focus of course was prep preparing the students for all the state testing. Um, so they were gearing up. Um, the principles were ready with their rah rah speeches to go into all of the the classrooms and pump up the kids to uh do their best and um so I wish them all the best with uh with those third graders. Thank you, Mr. Keller. Thank you, President Glebach. Just a couple notes, comments this uh this month. Uh,

101I know I can't top the performance we had from the jazz band, but I do want to highlight some other great things that are going on at the middle school and hope everyone and their families had great Easter holiday weekends. I do also want to give a congratulations to uh Mrs. Johnson as support person of the year. I know we recognized her earlier, but as the representative for the middle school, I do want to give an extra shout out. Also would like to congratulate Mrs. lively uh as the teacher of the year. So again, we appreciate everything that you do for our students. Um also wanted to just thank Miss Reid for planning, organizing, and running a a talent show that they had a week or so ago. Thanks to the students and all the

102staff that participated in that event. Uh last item, I just want to congratulate Josh Campbell, and I'm assured there's no relation, unfortunately, uh for qualifying for the nationals in Orlando uh for spelling be. So, congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Keller. Mrs. Shaw, um, just a quick update. I was able to spend some time with Mrs. Brisky at Farms. Um, we made a stop into the STEM lab and got to see students programming robots and, um, since I don't know anything about that, they sort of did a quick explanation. Um, and it's just amazing to see their excitement and the competition that's going on. So, uh, Mr. Anderson is changing lives at farms. Thank you, Mr. Campbell. No report. And my report is short. Um, a huge congrats to Naomi Davis. She won the yearbook design cover

103contest at Village. And so her artwork, um, will be featured on the front of the village yearbook. Um, through the month of April and May, um, Soup's Exotic Jungle is coming for an assembly. And so if you see some skunks running around the school or other animals, don't be alarmed. Um, state testing starts tomorrow and so I know that the teachers and staff have been really trying to get prepared for that. Um, April 23rd, which is Wednesday, they have the final Buffalo Wild Wing Showdown. So, there was a um competition amongst all of the elementary schools round one bracket. Um, went down to obviously the final two. I believe it's Village and Creekide. And so, Villages Day is April 23rd. And then Field Day is coming up on May 14th. So ends my report. Moving

104on to item 2A, revised policy 5460, graduation requirements, universal FAFSA. I move that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the assistant superintendent of curriculum approves revised policy 5460 graduation requirements as presented. Motion by Mrs. Coleman, supported by Mrs. Shaw, any discussion? So, I I just like maybe from admin a little bit of background here on um why we're seeing this. I know it's it's to get essentially to get some uh some grant money, right? But if you can just give us a little background. Yes. Um so, uh we did apply. Our high school team has been working for the last 10 years, maybe longer. um on ensuring that we get as many students as possible to uh do the FASA because you not only need the FASA for college, but

105you need it for lots of other opportunities uh such as skilled trades uh opportunities if you want to go into apprenticeships and and skilled trade institutes. Um that helps is my understanding. We started about 15 10 15 years ago with the MYAN which was a state level organization that was working with schools to try to get more kids to be college ready and not just college in the sense but ready for the armed services, ready for shared trades, ready for the work world of work, like getting kids all ready. Kate, you got to reach over and fix your name plate. It's bothering me for some reason. But anyway, um anyway, um so the high school counselors contacted Dave and I and asked if we could do a um apply for a grant. It was going

106to be based on the number of schools that applied based on $10 million and divided by all the students in the school districts received it. We were one of the few schools that applied. So, we actually got an award of $382,000ish that can be used over many years. And so, instead of them having to come to central office and say, "Hey, can you support this work that we're doing with kids to get them college ready, make sure they do their FASA, we would be able to use these dollars to do that over a long period of time." So, we approved it. Now, one of the conditions of receiving the dollars was that the district had to have a policy that required it as a graduation that the FA was completed. Now on the third sheet

107I believe of the packet which I shared with you last time is what actually will be in the uh curriculum guide and on the website in the counseling office to say yes it's a graduation requirement as Niola helped us craft some language here but you'll notice at the bottom there's ways in which students would not be hindered from graduation if a waiver was signed if they were unable to complete the faster because let's say their parents didn't want to give up their their income levels to fill it out, right? Because it requires a parent to put their their income level in there. Um, a good faith effort was made or the student just simply is an independent student and not able to fill out a FASA. So, we didn't want to hinder graduation, but we

108also wanted to make sure it was clear that we had the graduation requirement language that would make sure we can use the dollars. Does that help? Yeah, that's kind of what I was looking for. So the 357,000, have we received that or is that over a certain number of time? I don't know, Rachel. Yeah, it comes through state aid. So we will get all of it by the end of this year. But what happens on the books essentially is you only recognize how much you spend in any given year. So it's essentially a a net zero. And we have to spend it on FAFSA related activities or promotion. That's one of them. I I believe that there's multiple other things like this year they had an intern um in the counseling office that it paid

109for uh some of her time. Um I think they have some other activities planned out of that. There's college awareness uh things um having uh field trips to go to trades to go to colleges uh you know the celebrations that we do for uh for graduation stuff at the end of the year for seniors decision day activities those kind of things. So, do we anticipate I mean I can't imagine we anticipate 350,000 a year going forward, right? Or is that a possibility? I I don't think so. The 300 thou th000 I believe is a onetime award that we could use. Um and from my understanding there's no deadline. There's no cut off. If we take 20 years to spend it, we can. Um if we take 10 years to spend it, we can. If we

110take five years, we can. Okay. So, we're not applying. We're not putting this. I guess it was my understanding that we were putting this language in so that we could apply for the grant money in 2026. No, it's just to be able to spend the money that we have over the next however many years the council's budgeted out to use that money. But it's 382,000. 300 something,000. It might be 357. Jeff, you might have a number I gave you earlier. I just I know it's 300. Yeah, it was like 357 or 352. That was from the And that's what 347 from the there's some budgeting things that we still have to do that has to be presented in in the during the summer to MCAN in order to get it. Um showing that you guys

111approved this is something else. So we still have to show them a bunch of stuff and then like Rachel said, we're going to get that money after that. But we have to make this change to get the money. Correct. Yes. Or we already have the money. we have to give it back. The rules is if we don't make this change by August, we have to give the money back. We don't want to give the money back. So, we're doing it now so that it's on the books and we don't have to give the money back. Dave, do you know what percentage of students complete the FASA now? Do you know what? Um, we we have a pretty high amount. I want to say it's over 60% do. Um, I as a as a two girls

112who graduated from here and having to learn the fast for myself as it's actually not that bad. I filled it out plenty of times. It's not that bad, but there are so many things that your kids can get from it. And to accept scholarships, student loans have filled out to be eligible for student loans, you have to fill it out. And to accept scholarships, you have to fill it out. And there's a lot of students who who don't necessarily know or their parents don't necessarily know what to do. This is going to get them to say, "Oh, I have opportunities to get scholarships. I have opportunities to go scholarships for trade school or for colleges and things come up through the FASA process. It's worth every student to do it. So, do we have a

113goal right now for how many students we have to show did it or is there a number or Well, our our goal is always 100%. But that's maybe not realistic though like you said about 60%. Do they want to see increase year-over-year or is that's the goal goal we always have. Yeah. Okay. And I will say the counselors do a great job of providing parent nights and they meet with students during during the day if they need support. So they have been been doing this and they've they've got a thing on the wall that what their level is to meet how many students are completing that FASA. So it it's definitely a push and it does those academic scholarships definitely come because you get the FASA completed. How long do we have to have this

114policy in place to keep that money? Is there a end to this or they just wanted to keep keep it going in good faith? Yeah, I would say keep it going. I I guess my biggest concern is I know we have the opt out in the um is this the curriculum guide? Yes, that'll that'll show up in I I I've talked to some constituents that would like to see the opt out actually in policy. That's my biggest concern. Yeah, I I guess I had a similar question. I I think what we have here is real good, but I don't know. I don't necessarily tie the two. I mean, from from the the handbook, you can tie back to the policy, but I don't think it Eagle can go the other way with it. And I

115think there's a lot of good language in the the curriculum guide that maybe belongs in the policy, too. So, you know, my my real concern was just that when I read the the actual addition, it doesn't really give you a big there's not an indication really that you can opt out. Obviously, the this says you can and I'm I'm happy to see this, but again, just concerned that they they don't necessarily it's not obvious, I think, to somebody that just read the policy that this exists. Could we just attach that sheet as an appendices on the policy? Well, hang on. Um, I got a solution for you. Remember, the board adopts the high school curriculum guide as policy. So, in November when we come to you with the high school curriculum guide and you adopt

116it as policy, this will be in there. So, it will be captured as policy. Just like our handbook that you adopt is policy, so is the curriculum guide. So, in November for next year when we come to you, you will have that in policy. So, we wanted you to have that so you know what you'll be able to vote on in November. I think what Greg is saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that if someone were to look up this policy tomorrow or a week from now, how would they know that this exists? I can put this in the administrative guidelines on the policy. I can put a note in the policy if you want me to. Uh, we can just put in parentheses administrative guidelines 5460 and we can add this to

117administrative guidelines. Can't Can't we just add the opt- out language into the policy. That's what I mean. If we have 150 students out of 400 who are not doing the FAFSA, to have a policy that says they're not going to graduate, um it scares me. And and then to say, "Oh, well, we're just going to rely on, you know, these other policies that the board doesn't have control over." uh immediately and and again I know you know there's parents who who don't want to share their information with FAFSA who don't have to and I feel like this policy without mentioning specifically the opt out uh is a strong arm for them to think they have to because this this is not easy to find online. It's very difficult to find. The policy is what everybody

118can find in a search tool. So if I'm, you know, the parent of a junior trying to look at graduation requirements, this is going to be impossible. The policy is going to pop up. And to me, I read this policy, it says I have to do it. Doesn't say anything about opt out. Um, I think that could bully some people into it or give them a false impression. I think we need to have the opt out language right there in the policy. Can you just add to the last to the sentence that it talks it refers to the high school curriculum guide including information about an opt out policy information opt out is in law in the in the um in the as I'm just envisioning a hyperlink with this form with this like just

119include this as a hyperlink or something but that's not p that's not approved that. So, we're putting the cart before the horse. I'm confused. Right. This is not approved. You can approve it right now as part of it. If you want to say we're going to put this conditionally, we could approve this with this. Yeah. All together tonight. But just to be clear, this is not in it yet. It's not in the curriculum guide as of today. We'll add it to the policy. And the we'll add this as the back page in policy. under the last one, we'll just add, you know, high school expectations or whatever. And I the other thing I guess is I'm not sure that this language meets the requirement because here's the requirement under the universal FAFSA implementation. Here's directly

120from Michigan's website. District must certify that they will update the district's graduation graduation requirement to include FASA completion. we have dash unless a student qualifies for an eligible exemption. So I think it could be interpreted that the the qualification for the exemption needs to be in the policy which we could if we put this in that's the qualification for the exemption. So I can put qualification and exemptions at the very end at the very end of the policy this and attach these words right there and it's in there. Perfect. Okay. So, um just for clarity, someone's going to need to make a motion um to amend this policy to be very clear about what we're adding. Um because right now this has no home. Correct. This right now it's just in our possession. Okay. Can

121one. So, as long as we cross reference it and give it a place that's um Mr. Go ahead, Mr. up. I move to add the following language at the end of the first sentence. What of the what we just talked about? How about at the end of the policy, the very end of the policy, we add a section called qualification and exemptions. I I I would be fine just adding the the phrase unless a student qualifies for an eligible exemption. Okay. after at the end of the first sentence. So, it would read. So, I'm just going to make the motion. My motion is to modify the first sentence of the change in the proposed policy to read, "The superintendent is authorized to provide each student in grade 12 and the parent of each student in

122grade 12 a notice regarding the existence of the free application for federal student aid FAFSA and a description of the process, benefits, and requirements of completing the FAFSA, unless a student qualifies for an eligible exemption period. And to clarify, you you did not say the policy number. This is policy 5460 that the motion is being amended for. Are we still [Music] Yeah. Are we This still doesn't have a home with that. Mr. Goo says he's going to bring it forward to us at a future meeting and it'll be it'll be in the counseling office right now. It will be in the November edition of the curriculum guide which will moni which will be required for all seniors to follow and the counselors will make sure they're distributing that information at senior night and so on

123and so forth. So we'll make sure it's out there. I don't know that we could make a partial change to a curriculum guide that if it wasn't on the agenda, right? You know, I don't think you have to. I think if you put this, we'll make sure this is out there. So, just um to capture, Mr. Scott, you are moving to modify amend. Amend the current motion on the table under policy 5460 to add verbiage at the end of and requirements of completing the FASA unless qualified for exemption. Unless I'm taking the language directly from the state of Michigan website. Unless a student qualifies for an eligible exemption. Unless a student qualifies for an eligible exemption. Exemption. Correct. Do I have support on Mr. Scott's motion to amend? Support. Support. Motion by Mr. Scott, supported

124by Mr. Goalleski. Any discussion on the amendment? I have a quick question. Sorry. By doing this, is this is that going to change our ability? Is all the state of Michigan looking for is a policy? Yes. Right. All they're looking for is a policy. Okay. Just want to make sure we're still we haven't done anything to not be able to spend the money. Yeah. And that's why uh to clarify trustee that I I'm taking the language directly from the MI leap website and that is their requirement reads we must add the requirement unless a student qualifies for an eligible exemption. Any further discussion on the amendment motion made by Mr. Scott? Hearing none. Mr. Scott, yes. Mr. Goleski? Yes. Mrs. Coleman? Yes. Mr. Keller? Yes. Mrs. Shaw? Yes. Mr. Campbell? Yes. I'm a yes. That

125motion passes 7 to zero. Now going back to the original motion. Please note the original motion is now amended. Again, this original motion was put forward by Mrs. Coleman and supported by Mrs. Shaw. Any additional discussion? Yes. Um, one very very minor thing. I uh do not approve of the replacement of she he with the student. You can move to amend. I I move to amend where we hold on to the description of she he Mr. Gobleski is motioning to amend to put forward a second amendment in policy 5460 maintaining she he as opposed to the student verbiage which takes place three different times in the policy as I'm looking at it today. Mr. Goggleski, did I capture that appropriately? Correct. Does Mr. Mr. Goggleski have support support any discussion. So, oh, go ahead. You

126started. I think we moved to we're referring to the student and other policies and I just want to make sure. No, we have a I'm not reading into it. It's we have a continued erosion of the um she he designation. So that's what I'm trying to avoid. I guess my my question was so this this revision is part of a Neola package from February that we haven't seen yet. Is that correct? That is correct. So um but the he she is not part of the Neola package. Is that correct? It is. It is. This is this is from Neiola. We asked I've seen the revisions from another school district. Mhm. that has already put out the entire Niola package and that was not part of their revision. This is exactly Renee. You can get the

127download from the Nola from our Neola dashboard if you'd like. I believe we've requested that and have been denied. So I sat with Mrs. Braden. We go into a portal. Okay. There is This doesn't I think there's a misunderstanding that this gets sent in an email. You go into a portal. It alerts you to go into the portal. Yeah. You go into the portal and that's where the changes take place or the that's where the recommendations take place. That can't be emailed. Yes. And she sent that out before. We I don't think we've ever received the original ELA package. I am more than happy to ask her to download the package and send it to you. Yeah, that would be great. Mr. Scott, I think that will probably be something that when we meet as

128committee of the whole, we'll we'll be able to take a look at that at that time. So the bottom line is as I said at the last meeting always we get the package we look at the package that comes to us this policy is not something that would have this and there's checks and marks of of take it accept it don't accept it accept it don't accept it we compare this policy that Neola gives us to our current policy we make sure they're aligned and we present that to the board as aligned policy so if that's going to change I guess it'll change in the policy committees that we have by monthly or six times a year and you guys will have to work through that. The point is this policy that came to us

129from Niola the they changed the she he to the student. So what I hear unfortunately I'm going to get defensive is we did that ourselves because somebody talked to somebody else in another district. This is what we got. This is what's in front of you. Period. We're not lying to you. I think what Mr. Scott is saying is the other district chose not to make that change. So Mr. Goklesi made a second motion to amend the verbiage and maintain she he in three of these areas as opposed to the student. We're not going to discuss what occurs in Niola. That's for another discussion. Please move forward with discussing. Well, I think it's important to know for sure if this was a Niola change or not. Yes. Any further discussion on this second amendment for Mr.

130Goleski? Supported by Mr. Scott. Policy 5460 hearing. None. Mr. Scott. Yes. Mr. Goaleski. Yes. Mrs. Coleman. No. Mr. Culler. Yes. Mrs. Shaw. No. Mr. Campbell, no. And I'm a no, that motion does not pass. Going back to the original 2A revised policy 5460, please note that the amendment pushed forward by Mr. Scott um was adopted and so this is now amended to include that language that he noted on policy 5460. Original motion by Mrs. Coleman, supported by Mrs. Shaw. Any additional discussion? Hearing none. Mr. Scott, yes. Mr. Golleski, yes. Mrs. Coleman, yes. Mr. Keller, yes. Mrs. Shaw, yes. Mr. Campbell, yes. I'm a yes. That motion passes. Item 2B, revised policy number 0166, policy proposed by Mr. Keller. I move that the board of education upon the recommendation of Greg Keller approves revised policy 0166

131excuse me 0166 agenda as presented support motion by Mrs. Shaw supported was that you Mr. Keller correct supported by Mr. Keller. Any discussion? Can I just um request I guess input on something? Um I get where you're trying to go. I think we talked a lot about dashboarding. I just wonder if we're putting the cart before the horse because I think we should probably dashboard what our KPIs are connected to our strategic plan in the implementation planning meeting um as opposed to like everything should connect up to those strategies versus it seems like this is karpa for the horse and we should be very descriptive on on what flows up through those KPIs. That's my input. Yep. I mean I agree. We just approved this in February, right? So, I I'm not in support of

132making any of these agenda changes today. We have our strategic plan in two weeks. So, I agree. I think we need to see what comes of that before making any any additional changes to this policy. I'm supportive of a change. I want to be clear. I just wanted to align. What would I guess would there be harm then? And if we need to make some changes based on the feedback, I think Mr. Janiki mentioned it would be sometime in June. Right. So we, as Trusty Shaw mentioned, we did revise this policy in February, but I think there are some other key highlights that I don't see being necessarily dependent on the the feedback from the executive planning session. For example, including supporting documents, having them be electronically searchable. We can maybe debate later or at

133a different time. we can tweak the the reporting of the key metrics. I I think think that can be a fluid conversation. I think the other important point is that, you know, this allows members to request an item as long as they do so prior to the five-day deadline that we adopted a few months ago. I think uh also the community has 10 business days instead of I know it says currently 14 calendar days whereas in another section we referenced business days and this one calendar days. So I think we're just kind of aligning the timing there. Um on the address we changed it to actually just reporting a township as opposed to your full address. I know some people have concerns about providing a full address. uh the the community member input or sorry

134publishing with two days prior to the meeting. I think that's an important piece that again shouldn't be dependent on the strategic plan. So again I in my mind there's really no no reservation or hesitation that we should have to adopt some of these potential benefit changes that are uh being proposed. I agree 100%. I think and I've been um banging this drum for for since before I was on the board, but having an electronically searchable agenda and documents before the meeting is vital. I mean, today is a great example. We received a 30-page check register hours before the meeting asking us to approve 1.762 million with a few hours notice and a PDF that's not even searchable. Um I I feel awful being put in the position where that's necessary. I wonder how many of

135us had the chance to go through all 29 pages uh before we voted on that tonight. I think that puts us in an unfair position and we should have had that days ago and in a format that we can more easily navigate. So, didn't we discuss last time that unless we transition our entire platform that it's all on the receiving end? So, like if I don't have the software, I do have the software, I can search. If I don't have the software, I can't search. This report is available in a PDF. What they do is they save it as a PDF, they print it, they scan it, and they send it to us. You ask for a searchable PDF, correct? That is search it is searchable. If if you have the software to convert it,

136I understand that. Why can't we They send the original PDF. That makes absolutely no sense. And you're also ignoring the fact that we got it at about 10 or 11:00 this morning, not Thursday. So, I I guess I'm asking you a question specific to the searchable, not to the timing. I believe that someone indicated that they made a mistake. Heaven forbid. Um, well, under this, isn't it on the receiving end is what I'm asking. And I'm not technologically savvy enough to know. I do have a searchable the PDF that Rene, she can't send it to you. So, it's searchable. Yes, she can. Okay. You need a PDF that is scanned depending on what type of version you have on your computer. We're not going to debate Adobe. Is your concern that you can't open up

137a document? Are you asking for links to to documents? Are you asking for this in Word format? As you can see, a lot of these things like this, like this can't be sent to us in anything other than a PDF. I'm not sure what what type of searchable document you're requesting. Yes, a searchable PDF. I was able to convert this into a searchable PDF, right? And search it, which took I don't know my computer 10 minutes or something. Okay. That why why should we have to go through that exercise? Is there a function on the original? Yes, they can click save as PDF and send it to us rather than click save as PDF, print, take it over to the scanner, put it on the scanner, hit scan, wait for it to go to their

138computer, go back to their computer, and then send it to us. extra steps for them to send it to us in a worst format. That is the whole point. This is this is available on our transparency website in a fully searchable PDF format, but the one we get is a copy of a copy of a copy. this policy would stop that is the the format that we receive the main packet in typically that is correct me if I'm wrong it's it's an amalgamation right it's a it's a bunch of different different files different folders different documents that are received in completely different formats put into a single document to send to us every other almost every other school district is able to accomplish this simple task. You go look at almost every other school district's

139board packages. They're in searchable PDF formats. 90% of what we get, we are creating the original documents and rather than saving them as PDFs, we're printing them, scanning them, and sending them. It makes absolutely no sense in the year 2025. This policy would stop that. I don't think anybody's going to complain if we get a 85page board package and one or two pages are not searchable. But the fact that none of it is coming through that way, that it's all coming through as scans is what makes everything very difficult. Can a document come over in multiple formats though? Sure. Like will it conver like a PDF can contain text and images? So all you're saying is that there may be some documents that we don't have the text for that come through as images. Right

140now it's all coming through as images. Is there a reason we can't get it as a searchable PDF? That would be between Renee and Scott. Will, I believe was the answer I got. Will Renee or Scott, do you want to respond to that? Can I not save something? None of them are on my computer. I have to scan to make but they have them in PDF. Rachel, when you when you create this document, it's in a PDF, correct? No, I get a printed copy of the check register each week which I sign. So my signature is on that. So I am handing back to our accounts payable person who then puts gives them to Renee the but you can create this in a searchable PDF just like what is available on our transparency website and

141provide to the board on a monthly basis. It can be provided in a PDF but it will not be signed by me. That's you're here that's fine. I think that's fine. You're here to attest to it. I don't think it's a problem if it doesn't have your signature on it. If it means we can search it, but you're making that decision. Well, I'm you I'm discussing it. Would that that she's reviewed all of this? Absolutely. Well, and that's my proof saying that I reviewed it is when I sign off on it. So, I do that every week when the check run is run. So, that that's seeing that signature is to give you comfort that I've reviewed the check run that week. Mr. Usher, do we have the ability to convert prior to sending? Like

142say we get all of this in one. I'm just saying by for example, say it's everything's scanned in. Can you convert it prior to sending? So I'm not entirely sure of the exact procedure that's used in central office and of all the documents that come in. I'd have to actually take a look at that, which I'm willing to do, and then determine whether, you know, what can be done as far as taking that document, um, saving it as one large PDF file and then, you know, um, converting as much of it as possible to readable format. I'm I'm willing to do that. Okay, that would be wonderful. Yeah. Okay. So, that's one thing I don't I want to be sure because I think it's a little confusing is I don't want it to be out

143of order. So I don't want us to receive images separately from a searchable PDF. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, I understand. But 90% of what is in the board package is are documents that we are producing inhouse. So we have full control over their formats. Well, Mr. Usher has committed to trying to figure this situation out so we can get as much searchable as possible. Any further discussion on revised policy 0166? I did communicate with another district about A through G because my concerns uh meeting or two ago was too in the weeds and they do not get this information um in their monthly board packets. And for that reason, um, some of the words they used similar to mine were just vague, uh, when to include certain information. And again, just too involved.

144Um, you know, test scores, what do you want besides the standardized testing? Uh, just some notes I have from the conversation. Um, enrollment, we get the information on count days, but that's also available if we need it. Uh, staff concerns. I I don't know what that would be for us to be made aware of. Uh besides something um egregious uh disciplinary occurrences, uh to what level are do we need to be made aware of those? Um upcoming bond expenditures, I think that that's very important for us to know that Chuck's made us aware of. Um and legal statute updates, we're looking to make a change to the bimonthly meetings about those. So I think we're in a good place without A through G. I wanted to look at that not on my own opinion or

145other members of the board but how do we compare to other districts and I found that they do not get this any further discussion on 0166 hearing none Mr. Scott? Yes. Mr. Goalleski? Yes. Mrs. Coleman? No. Mr. Keller? Yes. Mrs. Shaw? No. Mr. Campbell? No. I'm a no. That motion does not pass. Item 2 C3R changes three R changes proposed by Mr. Galeleski. I recommend that the board of education upon the recommendation of Glen Gogleski approves the changes to the definition of respect under the three Rs. Mr. Noleski. Yeah. Um the reason for this change we need support for the motion. Oh support support motion by Mrs. Coleman supported by Mrs. Mr. Scott. Sorry. No discussion. Um the uh reason for this initiation is that we use the word all and it was mentioned earlier

146and if we want to convey all to then put in all of these individual um categories. Um we could go on forever with categories. We could go on for, you know, left-handed people who can't walk straight or whatever. All of this I information about who this applies to. The word all means all. It's that simple. This is a DEI statement. This is a prime example of something that's a DEI statement. And I I would like to see it removed. I think it does nothing but divide. It's it's divisive and it does nothing to um promote the idea that we're all H Heartland Eagles. Mr. Gooleski, my question for you is has this update that you are requesting been ran by any of our student body? Have have any students given any input on wanting to

147remove these statements? I haven't asked any input from students on it. I think for me to feel like we're doing what's in students best interest, I would love to know what what some of our students I know Mr. Hughes meets with high school students once a month. I would love to get their input since really the three Rs are about our students and it's about all being Hartland Eagles and as a board that sets policy I think we need to set policy. There are times when input is appropriate. I don't think this is one of them. And I'm not changing I'm not proposing any change to anything else in here at all. Not at all. I mean, this is a it's a wonderful policy. The three Rs are great. I I love the fact that

148we promote that. Everything about it is wonderful. And then we get into the identity politics with that one line, which is just ridiculous. I think our students could give us a lot of input and perhaps if they don't like the verbiage, give us the verbiage they want in there that represents all. I don't know that we asked them enough. Well, what is the definition of all? Let them tell us. So, it doesn't have one. The definition of all is all. No, but let them define in the four walls of our buildings what all means to them. Mr. Hughes, would you be willing to take this to that student group? Do you will you be meeting with them before the end of the school year? We weren't planning on it, but if uh that was the

149request, they can. I mean, we could always postpone this update, policy update until maybe we get some student feedback. So then if we get the input, what are we going to ask? Um, do you like these words? Do you not like them? Do you think this is really good? Do you think it's uh and what are they going to say? What do you expect them to say? Oh, yeah. That sounds really good. That sounds Yeah. People have a lot of faith in our students, Mr. Goles. No, I've got I've got a lot of speakers. The faith that I don't have is in the board. I don't understand how we can go through um and claim that we're not going to talk about DEI and here we are in our three Rs going through identity politics.

150It's the definition of DEI. Yeah. I I feel like um I mean at at the uh what was it? coffee with the superintendent a couple months ago, we heard from an alumni uh who's still in the room who was part of the group that put together the three Rs back in the '9s. And I think if there's anything we've heard from from um all parties involved, it's uh the uh the collective respect for the three Rs. Yet we continually have to talk here about, you know, there was an attempt to put DEI into the three Rs. Well, as it is there, there's an attempt later in our board meeting to put SEAL into the three Rs. CRT. It seems like why can't we just leave well enough alone and have have uh all mean all

151like it had for um 20 what was it 25 20 30 years. um until until the DOJ stepped in and and uh somebody thought it would necessary to define all these identity groups. I would absolutely support removing them. And then also, you know, Mr. U Janicki said we're going to be reviewing the three hours again on on May 3rd with student groups and with all parties involved. If there's a ne necessity to change that at that point in time, you know, we could certainly could, but uh I I would support removing identity groups, not trying to expand them, but removing them and and having all truly mean all. I don't think that there's students there on the third, is there? There's no students there on the third, but I think that we could get their

152feedback prior to the third. 35 people, none of them are students. And so how is it going to be presented to students? Are we going to say do you want any words change or do you feel that it's necessary to subdivide students into all of these categories? How we ask students is everything. I think we ask them how do we define all? I think all well everyone has a dictionary. I mean it's right on your phone. All is all. I think all is all. However this goes for the vote, it needs to be addressed with the students for that culture because the speaker today I wrote this down said students believe not all are included which is why we need the definition. So it kind of puts us into this area of making sure people

153feel included. All does mean all but well that was an opinion expressed but I think uh Mr. Campbell has the floor. I agree it's but opinions matter. Um but it does need to be addressed to make sure that all does mean all if we have a thorough definition or not. But not a single student was invited to the strategic planning. But I think you know at some point you're not going to be able to list every possible class or you know whatever subdivisions we're putting. I I think that's where simple is the best approach in my my opinion. So I I think all does include everybody. Nobody's left off. And if you're not singled out, you're not wondering, "Oh, how come I didn't get a a shout out or why am I not included?" So

154I think by putting some in there, we're we're actually having the opposite of the intentions here. So I I I support what Mr. Goleski is trying to do. And I agree that all all is all is all and it's very simple. And I am not proposing any other change to this other than that line. That is it. Everything else about this, I think we could get seven votes that say this is wonderful. This is a great thing to have for our schools. I think we'd all agree on that. I really do. Right. Any further discussion? Mrs. Mrs. Shaw, if you are you would need to move to postpone this um if that's indeed what you would like to do. I would like to I would like to make a motion to postpone voting on the

155three R changes and ask Mr. Hughes to meet with the student body at the high school for their input. Motion by Mrs. Shaw. Do I have support for that motion? Support. Support by Ms. Coleman. Sorry, I do know your name. to postpone item 2 C 3R changes pending student body feedback. Any discussion on that motion? Can we have a I'm not saying that I want to delay this, but if that is the decision of the board, I think we need to have a timeline on that prior to our May 3rd strategic planning. So, I don't think it's fair for us to use Mr. Janicki's time on May 3rd, agree on something and then go have a change to it while he's in the midst of creating our strategic plan. The one the one concern that

156I still have is that how is that going to be asked? Are we going to ask kids uh do you have any problem with it or are we going to ask them do you feel it's needed? Do you understand what the word all is? The way we ask it will dictate everything. And if they feel stress or pressure that they have to comply or yeah, I guess it's okay or it's fine. That's the way they're going to provide feedback. Would it be possible to invite a couple students to the first part of our strategic planning, which is the review of the three Rs? I think Greg has asked me not to invite students. You're not going to get honest feedback from students. And you saw how nervous these students were here and they didn't have

157to say or do anything. What are you looking so shocked for? Because we just said we're going to wait for this. What's the point of the propensity? We'll meet them in a room without other adults in the room that they'll feel comfortable speaking with him and each other without everyone staring at them. You he'll get a more honest honest opinion from them in a closed room. Yeah, for me personally, I think great great to get the student input. I have a similar concern to Mr. Goalleski and that, you know, without knowing how the survey would be conducted, I would have some concerns with that. So, from my perspective, I I can't support postponing it without further information on on the survey. I would recommend that we simply ask them, help us to define all. What

158does it all mean to you? We're a school. We should be telling them what the word all means. I have a lot of faith in our students and I have a lot of faith in their creativity around a lot of things that they do. They speak on national levels. They they're really creative. Don't try to frame it that I'm I'm not putting trust in our students. I am not putting trust in the way that this will be presented, in the way it will be asked. That's what I have a trust issue with. Okay. Motion by Mrs. Shaw, supported by Miss Coleman. Any additional discussion on the motion to postpone item 2 C? Hearing none. Mr. Scott, no. Mr. Goalleski? No, Mrs. Coleman. Yes, Mr. Keller. No, Mrs. Shaw. Yes, Mr. Campbell. No. And I'mma Yes.

159That motion does not pass. Moving back to the original 2C motion by Mrs. Coleman, supported by Mr. Scott. Again, the original motion on the table, just to be clear, no amendment. Any discussion? Mr. Scott, yes. Mr. Goggleski, yes. Mrs. Coleman, no. Mr. Keller, yes. Mrs. Shaw, no. Mr. Campbell, yes. And I'm a no. That motion passes. Moving on to item 2D, MHSA senior high application field hockey. I move that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the athletic director approves the MHSAA application to form and support a cooperative team for field hockey. Motion by Mrs. Coleman supported by Mrs. Shaw. Any discussion? I just have a question with this formation if it's adopted. In the event that there happen to be more um participants than spots available, how does that get

160reconciled? Would priority go to the H Heartland students or does the coach have the the liberty to decide who makes the team or who doesn't? I mean typically we leave it up to the coach to make the team but I in the past few years the cooperative already has been in place. Um the difference is now that it's become an MHSA sport this year was approved. So that's why we have to go through the instead of a uh reapproval a actual new approval process. Um but as that standpoint the numbers wise um I think there's plenty of room for us to add more more girls. I don't think there would be any cuts. We have not made cuts in the last two to three years um other than on a if it was more of

161like a senior um that we would ask to kind of play at a JV level that just wouldn't make it on varsity. But for the most part last year they made no cuts. Um and really the numbers that we've gotten from Milford and um uh Lakeland in this case have been have been very low in that regard. But I would again our priority would go to our girls um making the team and and that would probably be a discussion again having with the coach but I would try not to in any way possible. Again that's why we have a JV and a varsity and keeping those numbers um increasing numbers really the numbers right now for both field hockey there's plenty of room to add girls at both levels JV and varsity. Okay. Thank you

162Mr. Hassler. the um the current team play under H Heartland. Yes, it'll be the Heartland Eagles. Right. Right. I know this one will. Do we have any other cooperative teams from a standpoint we do a H Heartland United figure skating? Um we have a uh Livingston United hockey. Now, those are both not under the MHSA, right? So, we don't have cooperatives with them in that regard. So, this would be the only MHSA team that was under this type of application agreement. Okay. But the coaches would be selected by us. Yep. Directed and and the same coaches that are returning that we've had for the past But if there was a change, that would be led by you and your team. Yep. Every decision administratively would come through us hiring. Any additional questions for Mr. Hassler?

163Thank you so much for staying. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Go home. Any additional discussion on item 2D? MHSAA senior high application field hackey hearing none. Mr. Scott, yes. Mr. Goleski, yes. Mrs. Coleman, yes. Mr. Keller, yes. Mrs. Shaw, yes. Mr. Campbell, yes. And I'm a yes. That motion passes. Item 2E, 2025, computer replacement purchase 2020 bond. I move that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the director of technology approves the computer replacement purchase for the HSSC and the middle school as presented for motion by Mrs. Shaw supported by Mrs. Coleman. Any discussion on item 2E? I do want to thank Scott Usher. Um what you see in front of you was a replacement from what you originally saw because he was able to get for $200 less on this

164um from 88 desktop computers to 96 desktop computers. So it was he kept working on it, working on it, working on it and we were able to get this to you ahead of time and get more with less money. So thank you Scott. Any additional discussion? So I just have a question. So it says the budget was 135 and this totals 114. So that extra 20 grand is that left to spend on technology elsewhere? Yes. So the technology budget we've have in the bond is reserved for technology. So if we come under then that's just more that we can buy down the road. Great. I guess my you know long term or midterm I would I would like to hear from Mr. Usher or administration just in general it seems like sometimes um we don't

165have enough Chromebooks and we've been asking PTO to buy Chromebooks and if we have extra money for technology I would like to be able to provide those resources to students. So maybe an assessment of where we might need some of those Chromebooks and uh and where where the board could step in and and help fund those uh those needs. Any additional discussion on item 2E, the computer replacement purchase for 2025? Hearing none. Mr. Scott? Yes. Mr. Goleski? Yes. Mrs. Coleman? Yes. Mr. Keller? Yes. Mrs. Shaw, yes. Mr. Campbell, yes. Yes. That motion passes. Item 2F, contract extension for the H Heartland Custodial Maintenance Association, HCMMA. I move that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the chief financial officer, approves the HCMA contract extension as presented. Motion by Mrs. Coleman, supported

166by Mrs. Shaw. Any discussion on item 2F? hearing none. Mr. Scott, yes. Mr. Goleski, yes. Mrs. Coleman, yes. Mr. Keller, yes. Mrs. Shaw, yes. Mr. Campbell, yes. And I'm a yes. That motion passes. I almost just said Mrs. Can I thank Greg? Greg, stand up. Greg is our president of this organization. uh worked with us uh Matt and I and Rachel and his team and uh I know you sat patiently uh but Greg is our u maintenance person at Lakes and Farms. So you'll see him over there and uh nicest guy in the world, aren't you, Greg? Yeah, I you're you're like a brother. So you're a good man. So thank you all board. Thank you Greg. Thank you Greg. Thank you. Have a wonderful evening. Go home. He can stay if he'd like. Jeez,

167you're kicking people out of our meeting. Okay, moving on to discussion items. We're going to have to clarify for those on YouTube that I'm not a man today. Item 3A, dear colleague, plan resolution. Can I jump in first on that one? Yeah, absolutely. M. Do you mind? Yeah. Um, the reason I want to kind of talk before you guys having discussion about this, can you pass these up? Um, the admin team met twice, um, long meetings to try to kind of put this together because you guys tasked us with doing this and it became evident in our conversations that we felt this was an opportunity for us to move forward collectively. uh because you if you talk about you know the acronyms of CRT and SEAL and DEI and all those things and those definitions

168are different for different people and when we were talking I I felt that we were probably closer together um in a positive way than than apart. And I know that when we were when these were going out and some things were flying around about why certain words are added or why certain definitions are added. I felt this was a a really positive thing that we could do and I wanted to kind of speak for the admin team and all the principles because we talked about all this. Um, and what I passed out to you is kind of my revisions. Um, Chuck and I were on opposite ends of the of the district today. So, I didn't he didn't have a chance to see this. This is the first time he's seeing it. Um, and I

169I felt I wanted to share this because I knew this was going to be a discussion item. Um, and I want to read this statement as you're reading that because this statement is more from my own words and the admin's own words on what this is because the document that you have, the resolution is kind of written in in board resolution language. And I just think just layman terms, this is how I'm feeling about this and how the the principles are feeling about it because I think that we can all agree um on certain principles moving forward with our students and what all this means. And so I made some adjustments and highlighted to the things that the original one on language I thought was did just the same thing to take away some of

170those those buzzwords and the and the definitions. Um, our entire administration team met to work through the letter and to find a way to support the letter and move forward as a district. The team is acknowledging the stance taken by the US Department of Education regarding their imple interpretation of the terms DEI, CRT and SEAL. Those terms have a different definition and meaning to different people and it has caused a lot of conflict. By creating this resolution, it was our hope as an admin team to move forward, move the district forward in a positive direction by creating a common stance on what we all see as important within H Heartland Schools. It's important to move past disagreements on terminology and focus on what we are actually doing in our classrooms and our buildings to create

171a positive environment that we could all be proud of. So the summary of those things that are on there is we all agree to never support any instruction or anything in our environment, our academic, social, environment, anything that we do that includes blaming, shaming, or guilting students on things of the past. The focus will be on the standards and benchmarks that were required and mandated by the state of Michigan. We all agreed to embrace all students, enrolled, and staff working in our district and maintain an accepting environment and create a learning culture that's positive and rigorous for our students. We agree to provide all students access to all of our programs, making sure that we address barriers that keep students from experience everything that we have to offer so nobody's left out. And we all

172agree to create a reason, respect, and responsibility program to support all students in developing skills within the three Rs. So we are able to learn effectively and become well-rounded and responsible people. Those skills include making well-thoughtout decisions, managing emotions, building positive relationships, and following rules. All skills that people need to be a functioning and productive member of society. The administration team admin uh sorry administrative team believes that these are all things that we all can agree on and help us move forward collectively for the good of students, staff and community. By the board committing to the resolution, we can continue to work together as a team around these common understandings. So the reason I wanted to say all that is because these are things that I think we can all agree on and I think

173the acronyms and the definitions that we have differently are getting in the way. We're we're having disagreements about that. And I think that we can work on the wording. And what I wanted to do was share this because some of the wording that I saw actually did a better job than what we originally put on here. And maybe it's a wording that we can we can agree to and move forward collectively to try to address the letter. If that makes sense. I just want to just for the public and for those listening online, I want to just clarify. Could you clarify the definition of admin? it just that's that's um all the directors um all the principles all the central office admin our entire administration team perfect I just wanted to make sure that that

174was well understood that it's not just central office admin it was the collective yeah we I mean it it was it was pretty evident that we thought this could be a positive way forward for all of us this was an opportunity for us to do this right and I think that when we crafted the first one and people were kind of grabbing on to certain words and certain definitions What does this mean? What does it not mean? We can work on that. And this is our attempt to say that these we can change some wording to make it so we can all agree on it and and move forward with it. Mr. Scott, I know you had sent an email with some feedback. Yeah. Um, is this captured in here? Mr. Minsker captures a lot

175of that. So, thank you for for this revision, Mr. Minsker. Yeah. um it makes a lot of positive changes and I think um it gets rid of the divisiveness that I saw in the first draft. Um I'll go through a couple things. I think there there could still be a couple things that we could we could work on and and the biggest one in my mind and and I'm you know not the only one. we all have to agree. But um I was struck that we're still not saying that we're you know we we've we've disbanded the DEI committee but this resolution doesn't really say hey we're no longer in the DEI business. I would like to see that it says that we recognize the stance of the US Department of Education. I would like

176to also say that we commit to that. Um so I think that would be positive. Um the one the the other thing that I still see in here that I have a hard time with is uh under the now therefore section number two says the board understands and supports the need to provide equal and equitable access. Well equal and equitable are two different things and I don't I think we need to um hash that out a little bit more. What are we providing equal access or equitable access? And then it goes on to list a bunch of things that really this board has never taken a stance on. Um, free breakfast and lunch, scholarships, etc. We take those handouts and pass them on to the students. But we've never made a commitment that, hey, if

177the feds and the state stop funding free lunch, we're going to do it anyway, right? We've never made that commitment. So, it's really hard for me to see this language and say, "Yeah, we're committed to providing that wink wink." As long as the funding doesn't dry up um because it lists free reduced lunch, scholarships to participate in extracurricular activities. You know, a lot of that comes from the PTO comes from No, it's from the general all of it. Not all of it, but a fair amount. Yes. I'm so on that I guess if we're going to make those strong commitments, it has to be a commitment, you know, whether Michigan or the feds give us the money or not. Um, and again, I think we need to hash out equal versus equitable. Mr. Minsker, could

178you please expand on equal equal and equitable and why they both apply if if they both apply here? Well, I I I think they both do because equal and I understand what he's saying about equal and equitable being two different things, but equal means the same the same for both. There's two things and they get actually the equal amounts. But in education, for example, we have some buildings that have have more of a need. They have they have more students that have that need free or reduced lunch or need have more kids that have difficulty learning and need more equitable things. So, we have to be equitable. you're giving what they actually need even though the two like two buildings are it's different equitable that's how I defer an equitable to find equitable in it

179so for example and this is just an example creekide might need four pair of professionals but lakes might need six based on the need the need of the students there that that's what equitable is yes if it were equal they get the same amount all buildings get the ex the same amount of parapros but that's not reality because some buildings have a more need for some than others. Yeah. Then you can look at equal as equal access right everybody has access equally then you get into the and I think the reason why the the team administrators put that in parentheses as examples. We wanted to make sure the board Oh, we wanted to make sure the board had examples of where equity plays a part in our day-to-day lives in our schools, taking care of

180our students. Before Before there was free lunch and breakfast, I remember back in the day where if a building had over a certain percentage amount of free and reduced, they got free breakfast. But other schools didn't get free breakfast. That's an equitable statement there, too. But I guess my question goes to if the state or the federal government discontinues those practices, are we agreeing to continue them with our own dollars and that's where I see the disconnect. I I don't know if I don't know if the examples have to be in here, honestly. Yeah. Is it maybe remove the parenthetical potentially to I mean it's it's everything that we do anyway. So everything we look from an equal and equitable standpoint in everything that we do. So those examples don't have to be there. But

181I would push that that the equitable and equitable and equal have to be in there because those are two different things and they mean different things. If that's going to be the case, I'd like to see a better definition of what equitable means because I think we're coming off of, you know, this DEI definition. And if you, you know, I didn't bring it with me, but if you Google the definition of equitable, it's a little bit different than what we're describing at this table. So, I'd like to see a little more. Well, you could say provide equal and um appropriate access, implying that there is a discrepancy between schools that may need more than others. Again, I think from our administrators, we're asking you to meet us halfway. What we have to live with every

182day and what we have to deal with every day is creating that equal and equitable access for kids. And the DEI dear colleague letter does establish that using the word equity and using the word diversity and using the word inclusion is not terrible in and of itself is not a violation. There are reasons why you would have to concentrate on diversity in a school district. There are reasons why you have to deal with equitable access for kids and there's reasons why you deal with um inclusion of all students. So that doesn't that's not illegal. That's not DI in of itself. It is the reality of doing business when you're dealing with children that come in the door with needs. So we feel that needs to be there. That's understood. Um it's just again some may

183read that and not fully understand it. Um I I I don't disagree with you Chuck. I don't. Um well again it's I think it's a different in difference in definition again. Exactly. Like like the word inclusion means something to me that's fine but to some other people means something different. So we took inclusion out and put the definition of inclusion honestly my definition of it in there. So, so if we were to add verbiage that that either provided examples or context for equitable, would that I mean I because I was doing some googling and some some research as well today and yesterday and um equitable treatment acknowledges that individuals may have different a different starting point that if they have different starting points or needs or deficits and Um, equitable treatment aims to provide fair

184and impartial treatment in a way that is tailored to those differences. So, it's taking it's I mean it's MTSS, right? I mean, it's that's why we use the word Exactly. It's it's it's that whole process of meeting the kid where they are and then raising them up from there. So, it if if there's words in there that maybe explains that a little better. Obviously, this is way too wordy for you define the word in the parenthesis. Maybe you say takeity instead of the examples. I I think the examples to be taken out is a very good idea. I think that is less confusing. Yeah. I don't like I said I don't think anybody disagrees with that. I don't think anybody disagrees with the things that have been talked about at this table with different number

185of parapros based on the needs of the school or different number of breakfast and lunch based on the needs of the school. that my my issue is that the the word comes with a connotation of supporting one one identity group over another. If you look at definitions, that's also often part of the definition. And so if we can go beyond that and define what it means to us, I think that's important and we go a long way. Absolutely. But I I don't mean to pick this apart. I think this is a fantastic um um edit to to compared to what we were sent last week and and back in March. And I guess I guess I don't I don't see equity or equitable as a as a identity thing because it's a it's it's what

186what's where students are actually at. It's not a person. It's kind of what where they're at as far as we're concerned academically, socially, like like what services do we provide them? The the equitable is about the services we I'm sorry that we provide them, not who they are. Agreed. But if you look at the Miriam Webster and I printed out, didn't bring it definition. Just Google it and look at the Miriam Webster definition. It specifically talks about identity group. So that's where I'm saying if we can make sure we're pinpointing what we mean what it means to if we define that if we defined equitable in here. Yeah, absolutely. I think that'd be fantastic. Great. Or equitable distribution. Tie it to resource. Mr. Goleski, is that what you're Yeah. E equitable equitable distribution of these

187resources. You want to go back to the admin team and get there? I guess I don't know the difference with access. I mean, access distribution. I mean, I I I mean, I don't think it needs to say any more than it does, but you know, if maybe you want to come up with a couple of options. I I don't know what what's going to satisfy everyone, but I I Is access a problem, Glenn? Is is what's the word? What's wrong with access? I I I don't I don't have a problem with it. I'm just worried about those that may not have um maybe artained a little bit by the word equitable and are a little fearful about what that means. If we can if we can define it, maybe give an example of what we

188mean by it. But that well that's why I said equitable distribution because we're talking now about distributing these resources across the uh I almost think what Kristen said a couple minutes ago when she defined it could be something that could go in those parenthesis. What is if you if one of if any of you have a definition seriously will you send it to Dave or Kate or I I guess send it to Dave since he's Dave I appreciate that you took time because you you're right we are on opposite ends of the district today but I appreciate you took time to listen to what Mr. Scott had forwarded to us read that and digested it and captured some things. um we've got to add staff before our next board meeting. We can have this conversation.

189But if you've got a definition that instead of putting what's in the parentheses there that we put the definition of equitable so that there's no confusing in the confusing the community, then we'll be happy to look at that and and we'll pick the one that we are saying to you as a board we think we can live with this as an administrative team districtwide. Fair enough. All right, sounds good. Thank you. But you did a very good job in in clarifying. Can we can we publish Mr. Minsker's version to the community with tonight's um board package? We'll get they will give it to you. All right. Any additional items on 3A? Next discussion item 3B, contract extension for ABM cleaning services. Um, Matt, why don't you come up just so where you're ready? You've waited

190long enough. Um, and Rachel, you can jump in where you need to. Um, but uh obviously um years and years ago, we went to um privatized custodial services. We used a a cleaning company and this is our second different big cleaning company. But when we changed from dropping the last private sector cleaning company to use ABM, we did a hybrid. And the hybrid is that all of our buildings except the middle school and high school are cleaned by um our hire crew through a third party vendor called uh Edgust Staff and we have a supervisor that oversees those cleaning crews. We then kept the high school and middle school as a bidded job because it has a lot to it. You know, the outside facilities, the inside facilities, everything has to be arranged. Um, and

191we felt that using this outside company was in our best interest. And so, we've hired them. Uh, the board has seen the feedback this year. I've gotten four different surveys, I believe I've sent you, from our administrators and and department chairs on how things are going with custodial maintenance services. And this last one was really encouraging. 100% as I shared with you said things are a lot better. We're communicating. We're having a, you know, things are getting clean. They're happy. So, we're recommending that we continue the contract with ABM ABM and we go from there. So, Matt, do you want to say anything else besides that? You pretty much gave the history, but we do do extensive follow-ups on a on a daily, if not weekly, basis with administration as well as uh Becky Wallace

192from my office walks the buildings to inspect them. Um the good thing about EBM is they have been responsive in fixing opportunities that do arise because with custodial um you know, the high school's 500,000 square feet. You know, the the middle school is very large also. Um so, things are going to happen. And you know, we run a lot of clientele through that building. As uh Brian expressed, you know, we ran three, four, 5,000 people through the cheerleading event in one day. And ABM handled that um well um and so ABM has been a good partner with the district. Um if there have been challenges or opportunities, they've been responsive. They've corrected those. Um they've been working to get staff in a market that is tough as well as on our edu staff side. Darcy

193um custodial supervisor in my office works to get staff on a on a unfortunately daily basis sometimes. Um and as as Mr. Hughes alluded to, our previous provider was not cutting it. Um so we did go to RFP. Um we selected ABM. They were not the low bidder and we we did that intentionally. You know, a couple of our goals at the time were to improve the level of cleanliness, attract and retain employees. Um I always joked I would love to have a custodian that started the year that ended the year and we've been very successful on that. Um with both both models um training was a big one. Custodians were expressing that they did not know how to handle things and so um we worked diligently on the edge staff side as well as

194on the ABM side to make sure that we handle that. And like I said cost was a factor but it wasn't the underlying factor. We wanted to make sure we put a good product out there um for our students, our staff and our community. So, so we chose to do the hybrid um which has worked out uh well at least from administrative standpoint. So, as well as you know overview and things like that. So, do you ever get any feedback from um people uh in schools like the office staff or whatever in terms of how well they feel the office staff will always let us know. Um they and that's okay. They're not shy about it and we hope that they're not. Um we do reach out to staff on a regular basis. We ask

195that the principles, like I said, Becky Wallace meets with the administrative um team at each building and asks, you know, what can we do better? What do we need to improve upon? You know, we're not perfect and that's okay. Um our custodians work diligently to make sure that they're handling things. You know, trash cans get missed or they miss a bathroom or that type of thing. But specifically too with to ABM cleaning services, you know, is there any kind of feedback that uh is given throughout the year that you know is a concern, a major concern where maybe you have to contact ABM, you have to go through the channels to make sure that Yeah. So I actually meet with ABM every Thursday. Okay. um so that we can make sure we're all on the

196same page and and that um the I forgot to mention the actual ABM manager goes with Becky and meets with administration also so they get one-on-one feedback. Yep. So, but the the Thursday meetings are just making sure again, you know, we meet with Carol also from community education so that we can go through the schedules and because you know the schedules are pages long to make sure that they're covering all the events so that we don't have a hiccup somewhere. So this a rabbit. I'm sorry. AC of last week was still up. Okay. Will you make sure that gets down? We'll do. And that's from the students that I met saying, "Mr. Walk around." I will do that, but I'm sure Becky Wallace is listening. So, all right. She got it. Thank you, Becky. Yep.

197Sorry about the squirrel. So, okay, back to our agenda. Yeah, sir. It's long enough, Chuck. Um, any additional questions for Matt before he leaves? Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Item 3C, Livingston County Sheriff Road Patrol extension of services. So, uh, again, I did meet last week with Bill Fountain, township manager. uh Jessica Morreny, the principal at Sarah Stockwell, Mike Loose, uh township uh manager um and Sheriff Murphy and under Sheriff P. We went through um we actually don't hold the contract, just so you know, the contract is held by Hartland Township. And so they have um Mike made it clear, you know, we have one boss and that's the township. We as a school district are simply an add-on as far as financial support for having the two resource or the two officers that

198patrol um all year long for 12 hours a day. And the reason why we brought it to this board for approval is because we feel like it's really beneficial to us. So, we have a SRO, Deputy Chuff, at the high school, but if you know, Deputy Chuff is at the high school and we've got an issue at farms, we either pull Deputy Chuff for Deputy King or there's a road patrol available. Road Patrol is always here. They have an opportunity where Deputy Chuff and Deputy King might not have the opportunity to sit in front of village if we need somebody and give some awards for um their driving habits or, you know, to help clear Hibner Road. so people can get down to round and not blocking everything off going into village. And so we

199really think that this has been a powerful beneficial thing. And part of being partners with the township and good neighbors is working with Cheryl Stockwell and the district to say let's keep um road patrol here for you know the cost of what you see in front of you for the hcs share. So that's that's why it's here in front of you. We think it's a benefit. I have a question. This is more long-term. I guess uh H Heartland Township as a township is developing and developing very in a robust fashion, I would say. Um we've gotten a lot of new businesses coming through. Do we know there's a value to those businesses of having this road patrol as well. Do we know if the township is looking out to kind of encompass that as part

200of their total township package as opposed to having the district and CSA partake in sharing those costs? Just I mean obviously their taxable revenue is going up as well. Yeah. So they have done surveys and now the township, you know, I think and I can't speak for Bill Fountain and the township leadership, but certainly I think if we said no, I think they'd pick up the cost, right? So, I think they would, again, I'm not speaking for them. If you're listening out there in listening land, I'm not speaking for the township. I think as a partner who counts on the ability to contact the road patrol to come into our buildings and to visit our sites, it's nice for the district to have that option versus counting on calling the sheriff's office, say, "Can you

201maybe find a deputy that might be willing to sit in front of village?" We've got one that's assigned to our area that can do that and there's no hesitation. They're willing to do it. So long-term the township I know has done surveys with the community saying would you like more road patrol? Community says yes. Would you like to a tax to cover it? They township says no. Right. Um it's definitely they've even uh given some pricing for creating a a township police department and that's cost prohibitive uh from what I understand. So again, I I don't know that long-term. I'm sure they've got their own plans, but this is a short-term three-year extension, and the board can deal with it in three years if we feel like nope, we don't want to do this anymore.

202I mean, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. So, I will just say that I do, you know, I am very much in support of the the road patrol that we have out there. I think there's some fantastic deputies I think putting on my schoolboard only hat, my my only concerns or some of my concerns, I guess, are that the fact that we're essentially paying the same amount for uh what I would consider to be partial coverage that we would if we just decided as a board to adopt or add another resource officer. And I know we do have a couple schools where we are sharing SSOs. And you know, again, my personal preference would be instead of paying the 86,000, I'd pay the 90,000 to get a resource officer in our building 100% of the time

203every single day as opposed to something less than 100%. I' I've talked to Sheriff Murphy. he said that he would, you know, be able to support another resource officer if that's something that the board decided to do. So, I think there is that flexibility if we wanted to to go down that route. Um, I think from a contract standpoint, I also just have concerns that, you know, essentially we're not even really named in this contract. So, the the contract, as you pointed out, actually lives with the township. So if there are any disputes, then that's going to be a difficult issue for us potentially as a school. And so I think that that adds some additional risk to the district that maybe we don't necessarily need. Um, you know, for example, some of the things

204that aren't called out there are it doesn't necessarily say how much time the the deputy is going to spend in the building. Again, if we're not happy with the contract, you know, we have to work through the township and we can't work directly through uh Sheriff Murphy, although I'm certain he probably would, you know, be willing to hear us out, but again, the contract isn't with us. The actual payment obligation that's in the last page of the packet, that is not actually even in the contract. So, you know, I question how valid it is. Could the board of trustees at H Heartland decide, you know, we want H Heartland Schools to pay more of their pay pay a bigger bill essentially, right? And we since it's not even in the contract, I don't know that

205we're protecting ourselves from any cost runs that, you know, a different board may implement. If you adopt this, you're saying not to exceed this amount. So they can do what they could try to get more money out, but we'd say, "No, we adopted this. This is our cost." But I don't see that spelled out in the contract is what I'm saying. And it doesn't have to be. I don't think so. Can I share a couple? In the world of contracts, it's usually not a good idea to leave that kind of stuff out. But I Sorry, you have a question. I I don't want to interrupt you, but I got a couple extra thoughts for you when you you're ready. Go ahead. So the one thing that the the township officer is it's seven days a

206week. We utilize them on the weekends as well because they are working and they're on hours. They are a longer shift day. So they also cover some afternoon into our evening chunk where we're having sporting events and other things. Our SRO's are fantastic. I wouldn't trade them for anything. But there's also times when they get pulled to a meeting at the county level and we still have somebody in the township that's there in a second. So there's those other little pieces that the township person really has provided support to us that I don't want to go unnoticed either. Chuck, are you able to share any of the feedback from Sheriff Murphy in the at the meeting you referenced? As far as he knows, everything's going really well and he's heard the same thing we've heard.

207his deputies when they first did this, just like I'm sure I can't speak for Deputy Chup, they're a little apprehensive when they were going to be assigned a certain spot, H Heartland, and that's it. That's their spot. And then after they got into it, they're like, "We don't want to leave for anything." So, luckily for us, we've had the same deputies basically for three years. Um, Deputy Weaver came in for another deputy. Um, but, uh, Clayton and Weaver have been pretty much our people and they love it here. And just like Deputy Chuff back there, I he didn't bail on us after one year. He's back again because it's not so bad, right, Deputy Chuff? So, I think it's it's been a really good relationship. I you know, from the community perspective, I think too

208if to your point, and I would agree with you that that I think the H Heartland trustees, if they're in was it listening land? I think you mentioned if they're out there listening, I think they would also approve that. So from the community perspective, I think we're actually better off, right? Because we're now now we have a fourth deputy during school hours all the time between the three resource officers and then we would still continue to have the benefit of the the patrol deputy. So in my mind, adding more deputies to Hartland, I think, you know, would be a win for the community. And I think also the the fact is that you know farms and lakes are outside of H Heartland Township and I know that the deputies do go out there too. So

209it kind of keep the benefit for the township is now they're keeping the patrol within the H Heartland Township which is the the community that's paying the bill for for their services. Mr. Scott, you were Yeah. I mean um a couple thoughts. I mean, first of all, we're paying a third of this bill, which seems high to me. Um, having foyed patrol logs from some of these in, you know, in my uh previous life, I don't know that they're spending a third of their time on school business. Um, and I also don't know that if so, if we said, "Hey, we want an extra resource officer. We're not going to take part in this contract. Do we expect that they are not going to help with football games? And I mean, is that the expectations

210that if we don't pay the bill, they're they're not going to um I think that's probably a direct conversation we'd probably have to have with Murphy because I don't want the interpretation to be anything outside of the direct interpretation. You know what I mean? Because ultimately, I think what Greg is getting at and which I would support is we're not talking about reducing. We're talking about adding. Like if so if if the township has two and we have two and we say hey instead of paying a third of the township's bill we want to add a third then now we have five instead of four. I mean it's a normal business hours though. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe school hours. So maybe it's a hybrid approach. I don't know. But I do like um the opportunity

211to add because our relationship has been so great with Deputy Chuff and Deputy King. you know, looking at these numbers, if we could add a third resource officer, that would be a huge benefit, I believe, for students, staff, and the community. Another thing I do want to point out, and I just want to point it out as a area of consideration, is I don't think our resource officers, and Deputy Chuff, you can probably correct me, because you guys are in the buildings, you're not handing out street awards, correct? generally speaking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Come on up. question. There's a there's occasions when that could happen. Um I mean I do leave the school from time to time. I might run to the store uh and if I see something happen, whether it's

212right in front of the school or down on 59, I'll address it. Um whether I issue a citation or not, kind of depends on Yep. Um but there's plenty of opportunities out there. Um, just this afternoon, as a matter of fact, as I was leaving and I'm at the intersection at Heartland Road and M59, and some fellow wants to make a U-turn right where there's three signs that say no U-turn, and I just kind of sat in my car, pointed at the sign out the window, and he corrected his action. So, um, there's opportunities to address things and to, uh, and to interact with the public outside of the school also. Um, but I mean I don't make a regular habit out of it. There are times though. So, and unbeknownst maybe realize this, um,

213Deputy Chuff is not here simply because of his workday during the day. He's here and we're paying overtime for him to be here. Um, which the the road patrol, the nice thing about the road patrol and the reason why again it's a recommendation from us is it's seven days a week. We get road patrol that goes in and out of our sporting events on the weekend. If we need somebody, we've got somebody here in the township. We can call on them. They respond right away. Um I'm not asking Deputy Chuff and Deputy King to go over to village and sit and give street awards because I've got a road patrol to do that. Uh because if I had him over there, he's out of the high school for that time frame of drop off and

214and delivery. So, uh or delivery and pickup. So, I think that again, I hear what you're saying. Yeah, we could have another resource officer at farms, let's say, but we don't have that expanded coverage capability of calling somebody on the weekend after hours until 6 at 6:00 to 6:00. We've got somebody in our vicinity guaranteed. Now, yes, maybe the township will pay for it, but again, being good neighbors and doing the right thing, we're using them. It seems like it's worth doing. So, but you as a board get to decide. But if you're in control of that contract, right, you can have them show up on the weekend, right? I mean, it's an issue of you have to pay obviously, but that's I think that's kind of one of my points is there's no, you

215know, delilution of who who who reports to who and, you know, if you need something from the the patrol, you have to call the township. And I I just think that we don't need to muddy those waters. call the township. We call the deputy. We got their phone numbers. So that's the positive thing. We call the deputies. But but then aren't you potentially having a conflict with township manager loose? No. Right. Because if he's asking him to do something else and you want him to do this, how like ultimately in three years we've have no issues whatsoever, just so you know. So I I understand there could be a conflict, but in three years we've not had any issues. It's worked out really well and and we love our resource officers. So if if it

216means the difference between keeping resource officers and not it definitely keep the resource officer. An additional resource officer though would not be a Saturday and Sunday correct availability. It would be school hour just like our two. Okay. And I don't know it has to be or this or that. It could be this and that. Right. or some hybrid approach where I I mean I think that it has to be there could be an argument to the township that because they're growing and Chick-fil-A is going to need three deputies there for the first 3 months that um you know it might make sense that we take on an additional resource officer. So that not saying we don't want access to those road patrol but um they might have more to do um in the coming years.

217I haven't seen the contract, but I think we work very hard to make things black and white and locked in. I think it's very appropriate that we get our value for what we pay. Um, and and have that locked in so we can see that contract next time around. Then there's no question that we will get these services these times, these days or this, you know, um, access to the the deputy. I wonder if there could be an amendment added to the original contract that outlines you. It would be like the scope of duties or the scope of services I guess you would say. Kate, do you know off the top of your head what if there's anything like that in the contract? Now that contract? No, I don't know. All I know is is

218that they are they're typically always available when we call or there's sometimes on the weekend that Brian would call the road patrol if we've got to do something on a weekend. So the the communication is always there and they've always been very responsive. So I guess I need a little bit of direction. Um I can contact uh Mike Loose at the township and say, "Hey, can we take the sheriff's contract and just create a one pager of what we would get for our dollars, right? We definitely have access to them between 6 and 6. We have access on the weekends between six and six. They can do tickets if need be in front of our schools. they can patrol. Like if that's the direction you're looking for, then what I don't want him to do

219is do that work and then to come back next time and and um this is really not what you want. Um I can't ask you because you're not voting on this today. Um, you know, I guess I need to be able to tell them we're still willing to present this to the board with this price tag is what I'll do, but we just want a descriptive of a one-page contract between us on what we still have access to in regards to road patrol. I guess that's what I'll do. Is there any objection to scope of services document? No. Uhuh. But I I I guess that's what about having an option A, option B for the board to vote on next month. One option with scope of services included on the existing contract with the township

220and a second option of voting no on the contract, but then allocating those resources to another officer for the school. I don't know that personally. I need I want to vote on it as a or. I would rather Rachel march it out and vote on it as a potential and sorry like take those two separately or or a hybrid approach which would be yes, let's add a resource officer and contribute but maybe not contribute 30%. So, sorry, President Gle Glebach, when you say or you're talking we would do both. Well, I just me personally, I'm one of seven people, but understand I'm just trying to understand your so that I could support two things in parallel versus supporting one or the other. You get what I'm saying? Where if you have option A and option

221B and it's this or that, I'm I'm having to split my decision versus this and that. Sorry, that was my clarification. Why don't we do this? Why don't we do this as the next board meeting? We'll get that information. I'll get a scope of services. You'll either vote it yes or you'll vote it no. And then you can talk about, hey, we voted this way, but we still want a resource officer. We voted it down, but still want it. We we want it. Or we voted it yes, but we still want to add. We've got time between now and August to work with the sheriff's department to get somebody for August. I'm sure that won't be a problem. So, um, that's what we'll let's just bring one thing to the table next time. This is

222the scope of sequence and what the cost is. You guys make a decision. Then if we need to go to sheriff, we'll go to sheriff and look at adding a resource. One more thought process, too, is summer months when we have somebody in in the township, right? When our schools aren't in session, it's nice to have somebody around. So, just another thought process. What were you going to say? Can you um pull on Mike Luc's chain? Maybe ask him if he can give us a discount double check or something. Yeah. Well, let me tell you, I'm going to tell him that there's a little bit of concern here. So, you know, in order for this to pass, maybe you need This is a Chick-fil-A discount. Mr. Scott would Yeah, for sure. All right. All right.

223All right. Thank you, Deputy Ch. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks, Deputy. All right. Item 3D for discussion. Contract review. Mr. Keller, do you want to kick us off in that? Yeah, I think actually the the previous discussion we just had was kind of a perfect example. So, I had a conversation with Mr. about, you know, things going in front of the board. And I won't get into all the details, but I guess there was an a comment made that there's, you know, not always there's no law or policy that says we would have to necessarily renew the contract that we just spent 15 minutes debating as a board or talking about. Mhm. So, I would like to see the board look at formalizing a policy or at least talk through what it would look

224like that, you know, any kind of contract, whether it's a renewal or not a renewal. I I think there's some potential gaps that could exist maybe unintentionally in terms of um giving the superintendent the authority to renew a contract that the board maybe had a different idea on. Is there a dollar amount in your head? Um I guess like example and Rachel, I don't know if this even occurs. I know we talked about a couple years ago, but like I don't need to look at our paper renewal contract like for who's delivering our paper, you know, but like you'd be sick. You don't want to know what Yeah. And I think that's a fair point, right? So like with products and things we have, you know, anytime we buy something, it's over what is it

22525,000 or somewhere in that range. So again, as a board, I I think we may want to consider having something like that for renewal contracts. And and Mr. Hughes, if I've miscatategorized what you tried to convey to me, and I know you shared some feedback with the rest of the board based on my request, so I appreciate you did that so that everyone had sent kind of the same information. Um but I think you had identified policy 6320 which it said you know procurement of all supplies, materials, equipment and I think maybe where I had a little bit of confusion or concern is that in the policy it does specifically call out services for construction. You want to talk to that Rachel? I'll try, but I don't have the policy in front of me. But

226I believe the policy that you're referring to says that we will follow all policies, procedures, and law for those things, including services. But there is currently no law that says you have to bring contracts for services to board level for approval. And it also we don't have anything specified in our policy. So, it it's kind of the statement itself is still accurate that yes, we're we're we're obligated to follow whatever laws there are, which there are none, and policies, which there are none. Does that make sense? I I'm just going off the top of my head, too. I don't have the exact verbiage in front of me, but I believe that that's maybe where that's getting trippy. Yeah. I guess you know as a board member where I got hung up is it says procurement

227of all supplies, materials, equipment and services paid for from district funds. So again I appreciate Mr. Hughes bringing this uh to my attention and again I think as a board we should decide if if there are instances whether there's a threshold. Again, I don't think anybody wants to approve the milk money purchase every month, but again, in my mind, contracts like what we just discussed are very appropriate for us to kind of deliberate and consider. Do you want to take a stab at either editing or mocking up a new policy? Well, that was going to be my question to the team, right? Because we decided any future policies would be in this meeting. So my proposal was going to actually just be that we would include this at our next meeting with the that special

228meeting or the committee of the whole meeting. We can do that. But do you want to maybe draft something for someone for us to react to? I can Yeah. That way we're not Is there a time frame for that next meeting? Has that been I'll get with Mr. Hughes. I just returned I and get it on the books. I know we have a lot going on in the month of May. We have graduation, strategic session, all of the above. So, we'll get it on as soon as possible because there's a policy that Mr. Scott wants to bring forward. Again, he's going to need to bring forward some verbiage just so we have something to react to as opposed to sitting out and writing sentences and using that time for sentence creation. Mr. Keller, in addition

229to the dollar amount, I think um the duration is important, too. You know, two things, two or three things we've seen tonight are three years. And so I think um you know that can be a little scary when we talk about committing to three years on a road patrol or whatever when we can't even decide if we want another SRO tomorrow. So um maybe having a a duration requirement um for board approval. All right. So Mr. Dr. Keller will draft some language that'll then go to open policy committee for discussion and subsequent editing if necessary or what have you. Okay. All right. Any additional items on 3D 3E legal protocol? Mr. Keller, do you want to kick us off? That's one you added as well. Yep. So again, for the board's review and consideration, I

230think I'd like to we talk a lot about protocols for this or that and I think there's really nothing formalizing that protocol and you know, so I think it may be another homework item maybe for myself since I made this suggestion, but I would like to see the board consider something that kind of sets framework around access or inquiries to our our legal team and when it's appropriate what what the process is in order to gain access because you know again when I when I came on this board you know without getting into a lot of examples um and I try to keep this positive there's been times where I've wanted to reach out to legal counsel but I've been denied and to me that's not the way we should operate you know we all

231represent our community and and So, if any one of you wants to talk to our attorneys, I think, you know, you should have some access. I understand that there's concerns on, you know, writing a blank check to the legal team to I'm sure that's a concern, right? So, how do we balance that with access to to legal? So, that's the I think the challenge or the tight rope we need to kind of walk. Um, so you know that's that's kind of my I also think that items that move forward to legal counsel can't move forward to legal counsel in a silo and need to be either items that the board is already aware and approved for agenda like already on the docket or moving towards the docket. But I think there's times where with all

232due respect, we may want to put something on the agenda, but we need to talk to legal before we bring it on the agenda because you got to get your facts and your details so that everyone has time to deliberate it. So, I can appreciate what you're saying, but I I think that's not a one-sizefits-all approach that we need to consider. And I know there have been times when board members have spoken to legal. I've never received a recap of those conversations. So it is happening in a silo that that information is not always passed on to me to know what was discussed and I agree things should not be happening individually. It should be something that the board is trying to look for guidance direction from an attorney not just what Cindy wants in

233to to talk to an attorney about it should be board directed. You know, in a perfect world, yeah, it would be we would be meeting every other week, right? Well, the attorneys can send a memo and often do recap to Mr. Hughes, which uh we have the ability to access. So, I have sat down with Mr. Hughes to review uh legal memos from conversations that this board has had with our attorneys. And so, that information is available. That could be part of our protocol that if a conversation is had with an attorney that that our retainer agreement or whatever with the attorney requires them to send a memo to Mr. Hughes to put on file for the the details of that conversation. But um I I agree with with Trusty Keller. We need to have

234a way that we can access good legal advice. And anyone who's ever talked to an attorney knows you don't ask one question, get the answer you're looking for, and walk away. It's often 12, 15, 20 follow-up conversations uh or or questions. And so there was a a question I submitted and I got kind of a oneline response through two intermediaries um which left me with 12 additional questions. We need a way that we can that we can address that. a lot of districts, most districts still, I know it's no longer technically um uh law, I think it was for a while, but most districts during their organizational meetings will approve legal counsel and I believe protocol. So, this could be something we could look at when we do our organizational meeting and we're approving our

235bank institutions, stuff like that, um to approve our our legal counsel. And also, most districts have more than one option. We have one option currently. And a lot of districts you'll look have three, five, six, seven different uh legal teams that they can reach out to with questions, maybe with different specialties, whatever it is. So, um I would like to see this be part of our at a minimum be part of our organizational meeting to identify who we who we can um right now we're working on a do we just update our retainer agreement. The previous one was 5 years old or something. So, being able to update those on an annual basis, maybe add some additional legal teams, I think would be a benefit to to all. I'd just like to add too that

236we've got to stop talking about protocol and start talking about policy. Um protocol is kind of open-ended. I protocol if unless we define protocol as policy but it should be documented. Any additional discuss any additional discussion on 3E hearing? None. 4 A future meeting May 12th right here in the boardroom 6:30. 4B. Anyformational items? Anything going on anyone wants to push out? Uh round talent show I believe on Thursday. It probably too will go till 10 o'clock. So come on out. Just real quick, I forgot to mention uh the high school pack is doing a fundraiser. It will conflict with the village one. Um this is wisely. Yeah. Tony Sacos um on Wednesday for the for the high school pack. Get a pizza and then go get some wings. You're all set. You'll have leftovers.

237Any additionalformational items? All right. This meeting is adjourned.