HCS Board Meeting - 10/21/2024

001e e e [Music] calling this meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. item 1A please join us and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you item 1B approval of agenda SL items for discussion I move that the agenda for the October 21st 2024 regular meeting be approved motion by Mrs Coleman support by Mrs Shaw any discussion hearing none Mr goleski yes Mrs Shaw yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Keller yes Mr Costa yes Mrs bondal yes and I'm a yes that motion passes item 1 C consent agenda I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda for the October 21st 2024 regular meeting be approved support motion by Mrs Shaw supported by Mr Costa any discussion hearing none Mr goleski yes Mrs sha yes Mrs man yes Mr Keller yes Mr Costa yes Mrs

002blondel yes I yes that motion passes item 1D superintendent report thank you thank you for everybody being here tonight um we will start with our annual audit report uh so I'll turn it over Miss Boyce okay uh good evening I would like to welcome from plant Moran Jeff Higgins uh he is our audit partner um also with him is Renee esper and I'm sorry you guys have changed Titles since um I've been there but uh manager senior manager manager okay perfect um who are responsible for overseeing our audit and then we'll walk you through uh the results well thank you and good evening so again my name is Jeff Higgins with me is Renee esper so we're with plant Moran We Are The District's independent CPA firm so all districts in the state of Michigan

003are required to undergo an annual financial statement audit so we're here to present the results of that audit for the district's year ended June 30th 2024 so this first slide really gets to the the Crux of our opinion of the financial statement so again it's our job to provide an opinion or render an opinion on the district's financial statements in order for us to render that opinion we do have to complete an audit in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America which requires us to perform various tests and procedures to go through and and really scrub the books and the disclosures and the financial statements to to really be able to render that opinion so I'm pleased to report here tonight that we've rendered what's called an unmodified or a

004clean opinion on the district's financial statements that' be the highest level of assurance that we can provide on a set of financial statements so all in all a clean audit opinion for June 30th 2024 and with that we'll get into some of the financial highlights for the year all righty so first slide here is this sum of the district's general fund balance sheet which is the main operating fund the balance sheet represents a snapshot in time of the assets and liabilities of the district as of June 30th 2024 so on the left you have your assets there totaling about 26 million and you can see that's primarily made up of cash and Investments of 13.5 million and then 12.2 million in receivables which that's primarily July and August state aid payments and federal payments received

005in July and August and then you have your liabilities on the left of about 7 million or on the right and that's primarily a crude payroll um for employees who are paid in July and August and then your difference between your assets and your liability is your general fund balance of approximately 15 million all right and then this slide is looking at total revenue of the general fund and takes 2024 on the left and 2023 on the right so you can see full fiscal year 2024 revenue of about 71.5 million and as you can see that's primarily state which makes up about 79% of Revenue and that's driven by pupil count and then your remaining relates to local sources which would be property taxes and then Federal inter District sources and then this slide takes

006a look at total expenditures for fiscal year 24 and then fiscal compared to fiscal year 23 by function so on the left there is fiscal year 24 of about 69.2 million in expenditures and as you can see instruction continues to be the main function year-over-year representing about 59% of spend and then this slide here is the same total expenditures for the district uh 2024 and 2023 and this is by their object code so you can see of the 69.2 million in 2024 salaries and benefits continues to make up the largest component at about 78% um consistent year-over-year as well next we have just a little bit of benchmarking data for us we just looked at the expenditures this slide compares the for the general fund the instructional expenditures as a ratio to the operating expenditures

007so operating expenditures would be your total expenditures less capital outlay and debt payments which can be subject to significant fluctuations from year to year so it's more of a an annualized operating expenditure comparison and then compares to some of your peer districts so you can see for 232 4 that percentage for Heartland was about 62% which would be consistent with the prior year percentage and you can see we've have it uh also compared to similar size districts and all these comparisons are for 2022 2023 which is the most recent year for which data is available but similar siiz districts would be districts between 5 and 10,000 students in the state which there's about 40 of those in the state of Michigan and then Statewide you can see the percentage then Livingston County so this would

008show that har underl Compares well to your peer districts the amount of expenditures that are going into the instructional activities of the district next we take a look at fund balance so we talked uh a moment ago about fund balance uh when Renee mentioned the difference between your assets and your liabilities um so as we talked about the assets of the district were about 26.3 million liability 7.3 so that difference of 18.9 would be the fund balance fund balance is an important metric that's used it really helps identify and and um Define the financial reserves of the district it really helps the district deal with financial uncertainty so if you have unplanned expenses or unexpected changes in enrollment having adequate fund balance really helps you deal with those uh unexpected Financial surprises that might happen

009uh during the year so given the importance of fund balance it's important to consider how much fund balance do we have and how is that assessed fund balance is often analyzed as a percentage of your expenditures so if you take your fund balance of which roughly 19 19 million divided by your expenditures for the year about 69 million that gives you a percentage of about 27.5% you can see for the last several years your percentage where you've been so in 2020 it was at 13.8 and then uh 24.6 and 21 and so forth and then Compares that to the state average you can see the state average last year was just under 22% as of June 30th 2023 so for several years the district was actually a little bit below that state average um Heartland

010like many districts in the state most districts in the state had a pretty significant increase in fund balance during the covid years as there are significant resources injected into the educational programs around the country so that really helped build those financial reserves and now you can see for the last couple years you've been just at or slightly above that state average percent percentage so again a good uh good healthy fund balance the district has really done a nice job of really maintaining and protecting its Financial reserves and and um ensuring that you have the fund balance and resources necessary to deal with any future unexpected uh surprises that might be out there and one of those unexpected uh planning items is always the pupil count so we talked about the majority of the revenue really

011comes from the enrollment of the district this trend line here there's the the bars represent hartland's employment for the last several years and that red line represents Statewide employment so Statewide enrollment certainly throughout Michigan has been declining for the last several years and Hartland has sort of experienced a similar decline although not to the degree that the uh State enrollment has decline but again this just represents one of the many challenges that districts in the state face since the majority of their revenue again is through uh the state allocated Foundation allowance and you really have you know no control over that number other than trying to just manage enrollment and so when you have a declining enrollment it just creates challenges to really maintain and maintain those uh the same educational program when you have

012less resources coming in so again that's where that fund balance helps deal with those those types of challenges and that uh completes our summary for the again the year ended June 30th 2024 any questions from the team just of note the finance committee did just do a deep dive um with them on some of the details on the various um reports and and how they take a look at you know one subset of money versus another there's some that Athletics rolls up some Athletics does not roll up one area in particular that I would like to call out just from a transparency standpoint for the public because it's probably not known is is when we in our statement of net position you'll you'll see um a negative about $58 million balance and that's actually the

013district share of the unfunded meiper plan and we still have to report that as a liability so I just want to call that out and I can dig into the report we have with anyone that's interested but um that's that's a a voluntary gift from the state I I do have a a question if if you can explain the general fund balance from 2020 2024 that that change the significant difference yeah so fund balance has been growing over time uh you know like like Jeff had mentioned because of these significant onetime uh federal dollars uh that have been kind of infused into the into the system so wouldn't it be back here though if that's in 2020 that would be the co stuff right not all the money came in 2020 it started actually flowing

014in 2021 and then continued to flow um throughout the years we still had Co money left in 2024 um and interestingly enough as we shift from uh you know having significant Federal resources um from that time the state has started putting a lot of one-time uh dollars on uh out of that bucket um and so that's kind of contributed to that as well onetime dollars from from them and I believe it's probably because of their Federal money so um so my question is like when we when we do do get that cash infusion yep are is there anything connected to it that we have to do or is the is so there are strings attached yes so did we when we in 2022 was lower did we kind of put it off to the side

015not accept it and then as time went on we decided to accept it there's a combination of that um there's multiple multiple grants over these years um you know I want to say combined um over be from 2021 to 2024 uh there's about $15 million that that we got as a result of that all with different spending requirements all with different um uh strings attached as you want to say all with different ways you could spend it um so the so there is there something I know everybody kind of gets involved in this is there something that we I can see that shows like different grants is that somewhere in a yeah okay sorry I don't know if it's online I'm just asking because I'm looking at this right now yeah no I I I

016have it all tracked by okay by what you're doing I just I just want to see what the grants and what strings are attached and kind of what we've accepted with this you know with the with the grants okay that's kind of what I want to see that's okay thank you sorry y just have a question on the enrollment slide so I'm seeing I thought I heard but maybe I misheard it sounded like you thought Hartland was doing better than the Statewide average but if I crunch these numbers real quick I'm I'm seeing we're down from 2020 to 2025 about 8% versus a Statewide which is about 5% is that I do that incorrectly so I think go back look at the percentages but yeah so the state there's been it's generally about a 10,000

017student drop there was that big drop in 2021 to 2022 where they lost 50,000 students and there was a big concern of where did those students go I think if you look at kind of the longer term 20-year trend line State enrollment has been down more than the Heartland enrollment declines have been down so again we have this 5year period here um I hav't cred num of five years if you look at over a a longer term period of time there's been just a steady decline for several years at the state level of students enrolled in public schools in Michigan just changing demographics and other reasons do you have that broken down by County I know you don't on the slide but uh I'm sure it's available by county I don't have it on my

018fingertips but yes I would so Livingston County I mean so yes those numbers should be available by County because the state does go through an allocate District by district and basically like ISD ISD and county by county okay thank you quick question um along the lines of student population is there anything that you have are aware of um that gives a fairly good professional guesstimate in terms of trend Trends with lower enrollment is there somewhere where you think that Harland may be 5 years from now or um where the state might be anything like that so I don't have that information certainly there are ways to do enrollment projections and there's obviously a lot of factors that go into that and housing starts and demographics the local County so I don't have that for Heartland

019but certainly that data is out there and it's just the matter of going through and accumulating the data and making those those forecasts just Glenn so you know we use Stanford projections Stanford works with us every year on projecting the next 3 to five years out so we use them and we use the high medium or low we've been using the high loss right and uh so while we projected this year to have a larger loss than we actually had which we actually because we developed our budget over the high loss we actually ended up in good shape because we went with the high and didn't hit that Mark so we do have a company that helps us do that have you seen anything that shows a projection for let's say the state of Michigan

020over the next several years or uh is is there going to be a a continued decline by so um Sanford does projections for Heartland uh itself but bases those projections on multiple factors and Statewide uh enrollment is is one of those things that they're looking at um there's actually a pretty good uh comprehensive um document out there on the state of Michigan's website that that talks about population as a whole and um the the reasons for um what the population looks like and what it's expected to do um that report does indicate that we expect to see a decline in population in the state of Michigan as a whole um in the next in the foreseeable future um and there uh interestingly enough most of that uh change is going to be dep dep dependent

021on uh migration in in or out because the the the birth rates and the the Aging the Aging population is is not What's um helping Michigan and I I'm happy to share that uh that document with you awesome well thank you so much and I do want to just give Rachel Kudos they had said uh Rachel runs one of the cleanest shops at they've seen um from a business operations and just from a you know having everything aligned and organized and and very well allocated so thank you so much Rachel we are very lucky to have you thank you very much and thank you Jee and Renee we appreciate all your hard work this year thank you thank you all right uh next we have Melissa Frasier principal at Lakes Elementary to a presentation on

022happenings at Lakes thank you I wasn't expecting the Applause so good evening and thank you for giving me a few minutes um we all know that our number one priority is student achievement and on any given day you will see our teachers and students learning and working together but what really makes a school experience memorable for kids are the extras so today I wanted to um just share some of the extras that are continuing at late or new this year um is it just space bar okay thank you so I spoke of our PTO last year but it Bears repeating we have a wonderfully dedicated group of parent leaders that make so many of our extras at Leakes possible they not only raise funds so that we can have assemblies and popcorn days and special

023events in March's reading month but they also organize events that connect our school Community like movie Nights this year we're having a glow night um we have a family FunFest Every Spring important to note is the objective of our PTO our PTO board works collaboratively with the principal um to determine the best ways to raise funds and then how to spend those funds so um it really is all about building community and having a positive impact on every student in the building so just some photos of PTO funds in action at Lakes we just had a very success ful fund run where we met our fundraising goal and then had this mystery balloon popping assembly which you can see there so you see one of our movie Nights a book fair that gets organized and

024facilitated and some of our volunteers at work so I'm super excited to share that this year Lakes has taken a page from the round School playbook and we have um begun our own Watch Dogs program uh we currently have 19 dads that have either volunteered or signed up to volunteer in the coming weeks um it's been a huge success it's been a very positive experience not only for the kids who say oh who's our Watchdog today but for the dads too um so we are excited to continue to build our school Community with this program so there are just some photos of our Watchdogs in action and the objective really is just to provide that positive role model in the school setting where it's you know very female dominant so they do all sorts of

025things and just kind of help out extra set of eyes and ears around the building um we have our Watchdogs Hall of Fame where students and their dads get their picture up and then our our year-long calendar in the month of October we have a watchdog that has either been or will be in the building every single school day so it's been a pretty cool thing and we're starting to get our regulars that are there once a week uh we continue to operate a student run branch of the loc Credit Union at lakes and I spoke of this last year too but I think this is one of the neatest things that we do uh the branch is open once a month and it operates just like a regular Credit Union branch so any student

026in the building can open an account they can make deposits on a monthly basis um and then they can check their account balances so we have two teams of fourth grade leaders that went through an application process and an interview process to secure different positions at the branch so those are just some updated photos and if you've never seen just the info video um there's a link there to watch the the Spiel Heartland operates a highly capable program across the district and at Leakes we're fortunate enough to extend our highly capable group outside of the classroom as well um we have two amazing parent volunteers that facilitate bonly meetings with our highly capable third and fourth graders um they participate in many areas of learning really based on student interest so this year students indicated

027they're interested in learning about culinary arts law becoming an author um entrepreneurship veterinary medicine landscape design law enforcement and then parents have also submitted other ideas for them to learn during their time together we're lucky enough to be able to tap into a lot of our parent expertise and they come in and and share and participate as guest speakers and students work together and just some various activities problem solving and creating things together as well so it's a pretty cool thing just a couple photos so one of our focuses at Lakes this year is taking time and opportunities to celebrate our success so student achievement and goal attainment are things to be recognized and and built upon constantly our classroom teachers celebrate academic success in their classes and then here are just a few ways

028that we showcase student achievement in our common spaces in the building so we pretty much have an art show going year round Mrs Rano does such amazing work with the kids in art class and she is constantly taking things down and putting new things up um our Lakes Fitness Wall of Fame our Grammy Wall of Fame to celebrate um students work and achievement in physical fitness and in music U Mr Parker our new stem teacher this year is keeping competition alive and posting results of different things that they're doing in stem class so there's a photo of boat race results up there on the windows and then we have a kindness tree at Lakes where we recognize and celebrate students showing just acts of kindness around the building so thank you for your time tonight

029we're looking forward to a very successful remaining uh remaining school year and if anyone has any questions I'm happy to answer no questions for me but Mrs Frasier I just want to say is a Lakes parent for 10 years um thank you for continuing so many of these great Traditions I know at least for our students right well for for parents student achievement is the most important but for our kids movie nights and fun runs when those moments become memories for our kids that's what they remember from elementary school absolutely so thank you for for doing all of that all of these extra things that I know take up a lot of time and resources and but how important it is for our students and our families to have these memories thank you yeah well

030it is certainly a joy and that's where a lot of the relationships get built so yeah I'd like to add to that I think doing a great job I love the the parent bringing the parents into the school it's one of my favorite parts so good job on that as well the and the dogs like that's amazing I have a neighbor that does that at Round And he loves it so they're great it's awesome a lot of days they look pretty tired by the then do they but I'm sure she said it's good to bring the Men in right like because it's very dominant in the female world yeah so good job thank you yeah and it's Stellar that you do the uh Credit Union thing this early and not wait until high school or

031middle school so that's very good thanks all right thank [Applause] you thank you Melissa all right and lastly uh just uh a thank you to our high school staff um what a great homecoming week and I know that it was played out throughout the district and everybody was involved uh but culminating in the parade in the homecoming and the dance went successfully so I know as a high school principal that's a really tough week so I want to thank our high school staff for for your dedication to our kids and they could have a good time with that so thank you so ends the superintendent report all right we're on to item 1e call to the public um speakers are asked to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and

032privacy of others who may be affected by your comments each speaker will be limited to 3 minutes um and I will wave our handy dandy yellow folder when you're at 2 minutes and 30 seconds [Music] first we have Mary CFM hello sorry I run out of printer ink today I've got to do this on my phone uh my name is Mary CME and I've lived in the Heartland area for 24 years I had two sons graduate from Heartland High School in 2012 and 2017 because of their Stellar education here they were both accepted into the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan obtained bachelor's and master's degrees in five years and are now both thriving in their respective careers doe in large part to the education they received here I just want to compliment

033the staff for their dedication and expertise well that was 12 and seven years ago fast forward to the present Heartland high school has only gotten better as I'm sure everyone in this room already knows Heartland schools are currently ranked in the top 10% of schools in Michigan and in the top 133% of high schools Nationwide they ranked 12th in the state for mstep and PSAT all I can say is wow you are obviously doing something right a thriving school system with a thriving School Board helps the community Thrive and a thriving Community translates into thriving property values please continue to work together and keep up the excellent work thank you Rebecca fedwa I did have printer Inc but I still am blind as a bat so um so I uh great minds think alike and

034I have similar uh emotions to share with you all thoughts to share with you all and building on what we heard from the Auditors and from uh the principal at Lakes um just want to say that I'm just really proud to be a part of this community and the great work that you all are doing um I skipped over the part that uh hi my name is Rebecca Fida I am a resident of Heartland Township I have a son at farms um Intermediate School and um we have lived in the community for about 11 years now um like I said I wanted to commend the school board the superintendent all of our administrators teachers our parapros our PTO leaders and all the rest of the staff at the Heartland schools for providing our students with

035such an excellent education um I'm sure all of my fellow residents recognize how outstanding our schools are and that we are a great path towards further Excellence My Hope Is that we can continue down this path long into the future of course my opinion doesn't matter that much so I much like Maria gathered some stats that have already been shared with the district over the last several months thank you Mr Hughes for sharing all this great news um I'm just really so proud that our district is able to demonstrate this degree of Excellence so well done to all of you um so just a few of those achievements um and I think it's niche uh School District ratings um the St School District made a jump from being ranked number 52 to number 47 this

036year um this is out of 539 school districts what put which puts Heartland in the top 8% that is amazing um the athletic programs at Heartland are ranked number eight out of 482 districts which is the top 2% I know I'm telling you all things that you already know but I think it just Bears repeating because this is great stuff um the 2024 AP School honor role Heartland is in the is a bronze member um in the overall honor role and SC scored a silver and two of the three other reporting areas um there's a lot of different stats that go with but go with that but the fact that 6% of our seniors took five or more AP exams I only managed to take two back in my day and that was difficult so

037um that's that's just outstanding um in the mstep and Pat Uh statistics Harland schools have defied the trends of schools not performing at pre pandemic levels um overall our testing in three third to 10th grade on all subjects Harland ranked number 12 in the state which again is top 2% I really think that's something that we should be proud of and celebrate so well done to all of you working together as a board um we had a great high school girls um robotics team that have won two two years in a row and have never Lo they beat 29 excuse me 29 teams from across the state and my son who plays three different sports in Heartland would uh would be mad at me if I didn't mention the Youth Sports and just how great

038our Athletics are top tier across the state and and across the range of teams and sports um again the clean audit really shows how great you all are doing especially over here so thank you very much for your hard work and I just hope that our residents recognize that we're on a great path and we need to keep building on that thank you Glen Patilla Len I'm good okay Jeff Scott good evening my name is Jeff Scott I have three students in the district and I'm running for the two-year term for the school board it's been quite a month at last month's meeting four of you at the recommendation of superintendent Hughes decided to seed all local control and autonomy of our district to the Federal Department of Justice in Washington DC and to the

039Great Lakes equity center in Indianapolis Indiana and you agreed to start in dating students in this district with racist hateful Dei trainings then at the end of the month Mr Hughes held a Dei doj question and answer for him I was there with a bunch of other angry parents and I can tell you there were very few questions answered but there were three major takeaways from that event number one after some heated back and forth between Mr Hughes Mr minsker myself and some other folks in the room they finally admitted that the district was going to be teaching teaching Dei to every student in the district from the seniors at the high school all the way down to the 4-year-old Junior kindergarteners as they learn shapes letters and colors that's pretty appalling number two Mr

040Hughes announced that Miss Gregory is no longer the deis are and that role has been handed over to assistant superintendent of curriculum Mr David minsker now I think everybody should think about that for a moment that the man in charge of all district curriculum is now also in charge of all district Dei and Dei trainings unless parents and citizens push back we can expect to see Dei and CRT in its way into curriculum across the district why else would the head of curriculum also be the deis are and third and probably the scariest takeaway was a comment made by Mr Hughes repeatedly that the Dei training would have little to no cost to Harland into to the taxpayers because it was funded by the Great Lakes equity center through what they call a tier three

041systemic Equity partnership no cost well Mr Hughes how foolish must you be to think there is no cost to something provided to this district for free for the cost is our children you have sold out our children to far off far-left entities who want to spread their woke ideologies they are going to spread hate racism and divisiveness through this District all under the guise of diversity equity and inclusion and they do not represent the best interest of our students right here in Heartland Billy Tucker good evening thank you everyone for sitting up here I appreciate your dedication to our school district um first I just want to say um the Heartland homecoming parade was amazing last month um Chief dankei said that we probably had twice as many people attending as we did the year

042prior so great for um our school the students who helped organize it the ones who participated everybody was so wonderful I feel very fortunate and I'm thankful for the wonderful student leaders that I got to work with and I'm very proud of everything that they put in to make this parade amazing and it's going to keep on growing um I'm Julie Tucker I'm currently running for the two-year term for Harland um Board of Education um what I actually wanted to bring up today was an issue that was brought to the board last meeting regarding improper use of farms PTO funds um if elected as a board member it will be my priority to make sure that Harland parents know the truth and the facts so after the meeting last month I reached out to principal

043britzky to ask her about the Farm's PTO funds allegations um had indicated that the school district did not provide and does not provide enough Chromebooks for students Mrs brisky confirmed that the district provides exactly what the students need um however Farms PTO wanted to provide more so this was more of a want than a need um it ended up being an agenda item on the PTO board meet on the meeting and it was voted and also passed um another allegation was that Farms PTO funds were being misused for a community Heartland Art Walk Miss brisy verified that this was never an agenda item on the PTO until after the board meeting um once then it was put on the agenda it was voted and also passed eight of the 64 featured art in the Harland

044artwalk were heart were Heartland Farm students and um isn't it great that a PTO is going to support the students who are achieving things in our community and just like Mrs Frasier said with all the Lakes um the Lakes PTO is building the community um my intention my intent is not to discredit anyone my intent is to provide the truth to Heartland um I'm not an angry parent I'm a proud parent of our school district and all of our accomplishments um I don't feel anyone especially somebody running for the board should be coming up and dirting the name of our Heartland schools um we should be bringing Solutions not issues I encourage Heartland voters to find the truth and not be manipulated by the lies that have been door knocked and the threats to our

045business owners if you want your future board to be a board that works together respectfully for the best interest of our school schs I highly encourage to vote for those you feel will honor Harland um election day is in two weeks um I ask everyone for the purpose of Heartland please be respectful to each other we may not agree with everything but we are one Community um please um for our students dis display yourself respectfully to each other just as we would want our children to be respectful to be respectful to others thank you [Applause] Jeff Campbell thank you for the time uh my name is Jeff Campbell I'm a candidate for the school board um no introduction I think we're kind of past that because uh I'm sure everyone's done their research as we

046uh near November 5th uh and get ready for the election I wanted to speak today just to clear up a little bit uh some things about myself um give the opportunity to hear my position um on some takes that are on social media uh things that have been asked about me in the community when I met um and and spoke with members uh at Social Gatherings um one of the things is signs um uh it's been posted out there that our signs are running for Schoolboard are next to democratic signs I love that our supporters also put out that our signs are next to Republic candidate signs and I love that as well so pardon me if I'm running for a nonpartisan position on the school board and I'm trying to consider the values of

047everyone in our community I I don't care if it's race uh political affiliation religion I'm here to represent everybody that's in the community because that's what makes us up uh I I look forward to that opportunity um because I couldn't imagine if I'm running one party affiliation I'm not going to paint the town any one color that's not going to happen I want to represent all of us if I'm lucky enough to be up here on the school board and much like working with the community I also want to work with the schools a reflection of that is my participation with the schools when they did a question and answer uh and I was can you address the board please yes I apologize thank you sir um board uh I uh I'm I'm very proud

048to have their endorsement um I have that and uh and and I know it's just the Union uh that gives that recom recomendation to the teachers uh but that's very fortunate and I'm very proud to have that um history of me I'm the son of a very uh hardworking mother and a very hardworking father my dad's a retired teacher of 37 years so I know the demand that's on the teachers my sister is a current teacher and I know the demand that's on them as well currently so I very much wanted to support them uh and do that from a board position if I'm fortunate enough to do so uh yes I appreciate the publicity I was encouraged to run for the school board uh by administrators two I will not hide from that I'm

049very proud of that because I respect those individuals um but there's no grooming here uh there's none of that taking place I turned down the first opportunity uh so I could research this a little bit more um and prepare for this and I'm ready now I'm dedicated thank you very much um I'm excited for the opportunity to be on the board uh for six years uh for myself to represent myself my values my wife's values our three daughters uh everyone in the community and their children as well I'd like to thank the service of Miss blondel Mr Costa for your dedication that you've had on the board uh when you're at the polls November 5th uh please consider the special education millage it'll bring 1.5 million to our district uh if you'd like to look

050up a little bit about that uh Livingston esa. org and Campbell Shaw talk.com if you'd like to know a little bit more about us Mr Campbell can you wrap it up thank you Alex yber thank you um Alex yber I'm a 17-year resident of Heartland got three kids in the schools um Jeff Scott stole a little bit of my thunder so I just want to talk a little bit about some issues around that topic um and just in case anyone hasn't noticed the current Administration in control in this country is trying to take us down a communist Road and that's not the right right way to go and what I see with this de this agreement with the Department of Justice is more of that if you think the Department of Justice is your friend

051you're totally wrong they're the same Department of Justice that called parents who spoke at Schoolboard meetings domestic terrorists okay I guess that's me this is the same Department of Justice that's been going after president Trump with lawfare it's the same Department of Justice that just last week is suing the state of Virginia because they want to prevent illegal aliens from voting in their election there's a bunch of Communists at the Department of Justice and we don't want them in our school and I am so incensed about this you basically have labeled every student in this District as a racist and they're not and I resent that and how you can so glibly just pass it off as no big deal really just bothers me and you are you shouldn't be surprised that people are upset

052this is not going to stop we're going to we're going to conduct a uh districtwide campaign for kids to opt out of this indoctrination they should they should be focusing on reading and writing and arithmetic not learning about how their whiteness is systemic racism that is wrong how is that not racist we're living in la la land this is going to be known as the dumb ages and you were a member of the board at the time and I want to remind the public of the four board members that voted for this agreement Cindy Shaw Megan glack Kristen and Chris yep Chris will be gone on Megan you're going to be around but we'll be recalling you Cindy do not vote for Cindy she votes she wants racism to be preached against our kids that's

053disgusting you should be ashamed [Applause] Angela yber good evening I'm Angela arber Alex's wife mom of three a public school teacher in another district and I've been teaching for over 25 years in public and private schools so I'm very aware of what teachers do I'm also a Heartland Schoolboard candidate as I have been meeting with members of the community voters have expressed dismay at all of the drama surrounding the district what's happened to Harland they ask this drama could have been avoided had the superintendent and board treated the taxpaying community with respect and simply communicated clearly Harland schools has suffered because of a lack of transparency Clarity regarding the recently adopted partnership with the Great Lakes equity Center to provide Dei and anti-racism training is missing info on gle's website is very alarming the website

054St says that those who are white non-disabled heterosexual and US born are oppressors no wonder people are concerned this is wrong and a terrible message to teach our Heartland students as young as four years old colleges and corporations have been abandoning Dei because it doesn't work our Heartland students and staff deserve progress not poor practices made out of fear and it's unacceptable that what should have been handled locally is now being handled by the federal government the public deserves more explanation about this more than a half hour Q&A coffee hour [Applause] Ella Nikon you know I I think uh the previous comments really show that some people really need to learn what communism actually is I encourage you to uh Google decree 770 that's the kind of and and see what that did to uh

055Romania uh this is the kind of future the right wants anyways um that's not why I'm here to talk um so there are certain people that are on the board certain newcomers and some people running who want to claim that there is no systemic racism there's no history to claim that there's no history of systemic racism in Harland so let me tell you a story about this school district and specifically a previous administration so many years ago uh the MTA up in Flint um they run uh city buses in Flint uh approached the previous a previous administration of this district and asked you know to be able to use the nice the the place that we are at right now as a bus stop to have a public transit link between Heartland and Flint that

056previous administration rejected them citing concerns of people from Flint coming to Heartland and you want to tell me that there is no history of systemic racism in Heartland for the last 20 years business owners and have rejected people have rejected Flint's offers to bring public transit from Flint at no cost to us people you know like to complain about traffic you know we could have we could we we have we had an opportunity to alleviate that 20 years ago I I can only hope that this opportunity gets taken now in our community thank you item 1 F committee and building reports Mr goleski you want to kick us off yeah thank you Megan um last month I had the chance to uh meet with uh the Legacy principal Nicole Connelly and one thing that I

057I do want to um kind of repeat we've heard over time how Legacy sometimes gets well not ignored not ignored intentionally but kind of falls off the radar of a lot of folks and unfortunately Legacy does not have a an active PTO the way the other schools do but they still have needs and earlier this month um Legacy put out a little flyer talking about stocking the food pantry so if you're into that and you want to give some donations and what have you don't forget about Legacy those students are uh very important and sometimes um have uh situations that really require some additional uh goods and funding so please remember Legacy in your um in your charitable contributions thank you thank you Mrs sha thank you um last week I visited Farms um again

058and had a chance to go to one of the highly capable um events that was happening just like Mrs um Frasier talked about at Lakes um parent volunteers come in and run that highly capable group um we got to walk into chaos I guess it was they had five minutes to try to build a house um that could withstand hurricane winds which was really just a box fan that had five five settings on it um but it was just fun to see the ideas and them working together um and then when it went up against that fan to see what home survived and which one fell off into the ocean so again those extra things that um parents can come in and do and some of those things that might take kids out of a

059classroom for an hour how important those things are for the um experiences that our kids have in our buildings just to you know collaborate to meet new friends to work on something that they wouldn't have a chance to do otherwise so it's it's awesome to see that Administration is is making sure that those moments are happening in our building too um last thing I have too is I just wanted to um say how awesome the homecoming parade was again um if it could have been 20° cooler maybe that would have been better but um Julie Tucker and all of her work she's done the last couple of years um and involving our high school students this year which is great because again if we want this to continue to be something that we do in

060Heartland our students have to be the ones to buy in to to make that homecoming parade go so just another great thing that that we have here in Heartland in our community so that's it Coleman thank you um I there's no committee reports for me I don't think we've um unlik any of my committees have met since the last meeting um but I have been able to set up my um monthly meetings um my visits at both round and Creekside um at my last visit at Creekside I was able to um uh assist the principal for the day in his rounds of the building so that was it was very entertaining he was quite a great principal he um was a student who had won this um for the day and it was it was

061a lot of fun he was has a lot of Charisma that one um and then at Round I was able to stop by and see some of their fun run which was of course a it's always a good time watching kids run around and have a blast and it was beautiful weather for that as well so that always makes for a good day um so I'm looking forward to seeing those um seeing those students at those buildings um more often as the as the year goes on um and also I just wanted to say thank you for um to James and and your team um for putting on a a great homecoming game um thank you to everybody who was involved with the parade it was a a great weekend um way too much football

062starting Thursday with freshman games for me but it was a lot of fun a lot of fun great times thank you Mr ker all right I do not have a building report this time I had intentions on going to the locken but I had some other commitments come up that prevented me from doing so um but I will be there for sure before the next meeting the only thing I wanted to really highlight which we've heard a few times already today um was the finance committee we had a meeting this this afternoon this evening and uh as you heard earlier it was an unmodified opinion which is the the highest possible rating so want to congratulate uh Rachel and the team for all the hard work you put into having a a successful um business

063operation in fact I think in the meeting if I got my quote correctly they said that you have a very competent business office so great job to you guys so ends my report thank you Mr Costa um yeah so I mean several of you have stolen my high school report I just want to mention I am the high school le AG on like I mean first off from Mrs Tucker uh getting out there talking about the parade which thank you by the way for spearheading all that that's fantastic to Mr Hughes and all of you yeah no I did have a conversation with Mr fritzgerald up at the high school he said the whole week was great um kids were having tons of fun which is what it's about because it is about Community I

064mean it goes beyond the high school um so I thought that was great um he said things are going well as far as the students and then I just want to do a little shout out to our High School cross country team uh they have their Regional meet coming up so good luck to coach gutteridge and all the runners and that I'm all set Mrs blondel um I don't have a building report but um I'm just so grateful that everybody put on such an awesome um homecoming parade and dance and game and everything so I mean that's wonderful to hear we had our own so I wasn't able to attend but from everybody's uh compliments I'm grateful for that um I am going to say something because I I want to um there's been a

065lot of people coming up here talking about um the doj and racism um Mr nickon uh came up here and and was claiming that we're racist and this and that um I don't appreciate that we're not racist our children are not racist um I'm very disappointed that we did sign the contract um I'm not on social media but I am going to address this because I feel like it's important um I too feel that it's a negative um hit to the district and I don't support it at all um but I also uh don't appreciate some people who are running for office coming up here in in claiming that we are a racist District I think it's it's awful and um I hope you don't win so anyways that's all I wanted to say thank

066you couple of things um I'm going to highlight Village first uh they had their annual fund run it raised well over $33,000 um which was a stretch goal for Village so um those of you who don't 35 she said 355 all right um those of you who those of you who don't um know Mr wreck is actually a very good sport when it comes to our fun run so not only on the day of did every student participating get to Silly String him um where he's probably still recovering from those Burns of Silly String um he also sleeps on the roof of our school as a means of getting our students to um reach their goals and so Mr wreck will be sleeping on the roof and he does sleep on the roof the entire

067night it's really great for kids they bring him snacks um he probably has an overload of candy we hope that this year it maybe he'll get one of these 70° days um but I do just want to shout out because it is a huge undertaking I know all of our elementaries a fun run but uh it's always nice to see and the village PTO coordinated um matching shirts for each class and it was just a really great um it was a really great event they transitioned their fundr run from actually the spring to the fall um again this year which uh you know I think raised more than they ever imagined and um just huge shout out to them the second thing is uh Village did also participate in um some of the Heartland Art

068Walk um in the scholarship opportunity to give to that and um we're able to vote for our own children as well Village kids students um that were participated in the art walk and so um I know one uh Village kiddo is displayed right at the big red house in the village and so um it was just a really cool opportunity to to highlight those folks and um and it it's just a great Village is a great place to be um and I'm sad that as a as a parent this is my last year um I do want to call out really quickly um obviously there will be some transitions on the board but um as it pertains to the doj agreement Mr goleski and Mrs Coleman will actually be representing the board um in any

069of the training and subsequent um design of any materials that might be um established and so I do want to call that out um because all of this will be funneled through our Dei committee which um we're obviously going to have to switch around some membership just due to some changes we want some consistent participation um but those two will will take um we'll head down with our Administration our teachers um and be a part of that Journey as well so I did want to call that out and Greg covered finance committee so I think we're good there if anyone wants to Deep dive into any of these reports that they reviewed with us in detail happy to do that um and that so ends my report we're going to go on to item 2

070a out of the country trip I move that the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approves the trip to Ecuador in 2026 as presented support motion by Mrs Coleman supported by Mr Costa any discussion I had already pointed this out to Renee so she knows but an hour copy of the agenda and I think on the minutes from the last meeting it said out of County instead of out of country so she's going to make that correction Ecuador is very far out of our County any additional discussion Mr goaly yes Mrs Shaw yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Keller yes Mr Costa yes Mrs blondal yes and I'm a yes that motion passes item 2 b 2 425 HTS District goals I move that the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the

071board president approves the 20242 District goals as presented support motion by Mrs Shaw supported by Mr Costa any discussion I do want to just point out for the team that obviously as the Dei committee sees fit we might have to Pivot um some of the goals just around that um work uh but I will leave it to my colleagues that sit on that committee to make any recomend recomendations to the board if we need to make any midyear pivots um come December January area hearing no further discussion MREs no just just a quick comment I'm just very happy to hear in the U uh setting of goals we have some actual quantitative uh goals here that are um I think it's a very good start and I think as time goes on there's definitely things

072that we can tweak and we can at least with these form a few baselines and make improvements upon them next year so I'm happy to see that thank you Mr goleski yes Mrs Shaw yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Keller yes Mr Costa yes Mrs blondal yes I'm a yes that motion passes item 2C superintendent contract I move that the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the board president approves a super intendent contract as presented support motion by Mrs Mr Costa support by Mrs Coleman any discussion yeah I just wanted to um add a little bit to I think what was discussed a little bit last month for this particular item I I appreciate Megan you getting some legal clarification and I guess for those that weren't here hasn't seen the the previous meeting I

073guess the so the question sort of surrounded the it's section 4A of the contract that previously stated that we needed to vote um if we wanted to extend by March 30th and I had some questions kind of around the validity of that just kind of maintaining the spirit of the contract and uh just to clarify based on what the legal uh opinion that we received is essentially the assessment was correct in that it in order to um extend the contract we did need to do it by March 30th however since we have now graduated to the next school year we still have by March of 2025 in essence to renew the contract so essentially the way I understand it from Thun is that we've renewed this contract kind of six months early as opposed to

074waiting until March to do it so I know that's going to be different with the new contract because it does now call out something that's more relevant to our time frame which is July but I do I I just wanted to make sure the Public's aware of that and that's I guess all I wanted to kind of highlight so thanks and I do want to point out in members of the board receiv received that crosswalk that I did but we had some components um salary components in policy salary components in contract and it made it incredibly difficult to understand what what all of the components were so we we pulled all of them forward um so that it's transparent it's it's up front nothing is necessarily in it it could be in policy but it's

075all represented now here um again didn't change any of the terms carried those over provided that crosswalk um Greg did point something out hris I just human resources information system for those of you that didn't catch that um from from where we pulled the salary so I just want to be upfront with that he um in in the automotive world that's not terminology that he uses so just wanted to point that out yeah and I just wanted to add so um I feel like well Mr C and I shouldn't be voting on a contract when we're not going to be sitting here so that's going to dict vote okay the other uh because the new board sorry I should have clarified because a new board is coming in and um I just feel like it

076wouldn't be my role at this moment well I any further discussion I was just going to say um oh sorry Glen did you want to go no no go ahead go ahead I'm just you know well I am gonna participate in the vote because I'm I'm up here okay I just want to make sure you're going to vote um but having this and I know Mrs Shaw mentioned at the last meeting we had conversation uh having a superintendent around for several years shows stability and it shows it's they positives from from Administration to teachers to student growth so I I you know the fact that we can secure Mr Hughes and and keep him around for for more years I think is important because you look at all these other districts that superintendents are coming

077and going and then you have principls coming and going and teachers coming and going and everybody knows kids want stability adults want stability too so I I think it's important that we we have that here in Harland that's all Mr gesi just to chime in um the one thing about this uh contract in the very first paragraph it talks about uh the board employees administrator for four years and I think three years is stable enough and I even mentioned this prior uh in another meeting that I really can't look at a contract that's more than three years it's it's only fair to the teachers to the admin and uh the other employees of the district so I uh I cannot buy into the four-year concept any further discussion hearing none Mr goleski no Mrs sha

078yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Keller no Mr Costa yes Mrs blondal no and I'm a yes that motion passes item 2D Heartland Consolidated School administrators Association Master agreement I move that the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the assistant superintendent of personnel approves the HCS administrators Association Master agreement as presented support motion by Mrs Coleman support by Mrs Shaw discussion yeah I can start um so with the contract you know I think we've again keep beating a dead horse here but the district's doing very well financially we want to obviously keep the district you know on that right trajectory and you know maintain viability for all the teachers the students and and the rest of the staff I think you know kind of going through through the the contract and I

079appreciate Mr Hughes sitting down with me to kind of walk through a lot of the questions that I had so um I can kind of spare the rest of the team the the bulk of them but one thing that kind of struck out or stood out rather to me was that nowhere in this contract do we have anything that would allow the district to sort of reopen the discussion of contract in the event of an unforeseen Financial issue and I guess you know as my role as with as the treasurer and also kind of in the spirit of how we already have um in the teachers contracts we have stuff that talks about maintaining you know I think it's called the formula if I'm not mistaken which takes to consideration the fund balance academic outcomes

080things like that and I didn't see that in here and so while I may be okay with most of the items in here I think that's a very important piece that we that was overlooked or just not included in this contract so for me I would like to see the the team go back and talk through that um and Mr Keller did Mr Keller and I had a discussion last week um and I did reach out to some of the team to understand it's without being at the table it's hard to understand what concessions are made what concessions are not made because although we read it as it is today um I think that there was concessions made in other Arenas around where they landed today um obviously they came with an ask that ask

081is negotiated and so I I trust that those processes are in place I will say that you know Greg I think your comment to me was certainly in that three-year where we see the fund balance kind of starting to dip off and Rachel keeps us well apprised of that um you know it looks like we would be renegotiating prior to that time anyways and perhaps that's something that you can that we can push forward but this was negotiated in good faith where there was concessions made that I think are important to recognize if I can just make a comment just to add to Mr Keller's concern um we've just heard from our accounting team that um state of Michigan Harland enrollment is declining and there may be sooner than later some very tough decisions that

082may need to be made and to not have that ability to reopen something I think is a is a bit of concern the one thing I don't want because I I know this is going to get turned around a few months back we voted on a raise for our administrative team and everyone up here is very happy with our administrative team and we want to support the administrative team but there are some issues within a contract that may need to be ironed out a little bit more than what they are and I I don't want to depending upon the vote have any kind of uh feedback regarding oh well look they don't care about our administrative staff that is not true but I do have cons some concerns that Mr Keller brought up regarding what

083this says and how it says it any additional discussion yeah I just want to give an opinion so um I'll support if you guys want to join a union I'm not a union supporter because I'm an automotive and I've seen the destruction that's come about with the contracts that they've negotiated um it's not public knowledge yet but there's a lot of things going on and and all of the uh areas that the union had negotiated large pay increases and things lot of those jobs are going away very quickly um so I think that in my opinion unions are not there to help you they're there to control you which is evidenced by um one of the speakers who said that they tell you who to vote for they encourage you to vote for specific people

084um I'm not an advocate for being controlled by a somebody that I pay but if you guys want to do that I'll support you um and and again there's you know there's some concerns but if this is what you guys want I'll I'll vote for it the contract is is thank you thank you Mrs BND so I I just real quick wanted to mention again know you mentioned this already Megan how this was negotiated in good faith with our Administration and our our administrators and you you know you can spin it any way you want but the fact of the matter is they've brought this to us it's been agreed upon by our Administration we have a phenomenal set of Administrators here and again School culture is important they set the tone for their buildings

085they set the tone for their students their teachers and for us not to do this is is in my opinion a slap in the face to them because everything they do for for our staff and our kids and again we have a phenomenal group here I I think it it does send a message depending on how you vote it truly does that's all I've got to say I just want to add one more thing so in article 9A there is a reference to policy 1410 which based on I know we that's later in the agenda but the the folks covered by this contract no longer utilize 14 10 so I think again I I'm not trying to send a negative message to our admin team but I'm just looking at black and white contract and

086take into consideration all stakeholders which includes our great admin team our great teachers our taxpayers everybody who lives in the community I have to look at all stakeholders not just one so forgive me if I don't vote in favor but it's because I want to make sure the contract that's in place is the best for the long-term viability of the District which again if there's no District this contract means nothing to anybody because you have no place to come work so but again with 9A it I think we have a a conflicting reference that talks about policy 1410 and appendix a and I think we need to remove the reference to policy 1410 otherwise we've created a conflict if we ever change Mr Hugh is that something that you can address for the bo I've

087already addressed it Greg you said with me the other today I told you I'd get with the H the the union I talked with Tom uh their president he agreed so we can strike anything we can strike are established in policy 1410 so you'll be adopting this document that says administrative salaries C appendix a period thank you I I know we talked about it but the copy that I have still showed it so I wasn't clear if it made its way into the actual final version so it would be established by established by appendex a yep okay correct okay all right Mr goleski no Mrs Shaw yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Keller no Mr Costa yes Mrs bondil yes I'm a yes that motion passes item 2E revised policy 1410 which is the administrative salary

088structure in 14101 which is compensation and Longevity I moved at the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approves revised policies 1410 and 14101 as presented support support motion by Mrs Coleman supported by Mr Costa any discussion yep I'm going to be a broken record again and I think there was some previous language in there that that talked about the the formula it doesn't have to say formula but I I would again like to see that implemented into this policy both 1410 and 14101 I also think there's a little bit of an inconsistency on the when we talk about PTO days it's the second to last sentence um it says a maximum of three consecutive days being be used without superintendent approval that's different than what's in the administrator contract so I want

089to make sure that our administrative team gets the same benefit that the rest of the staff does so I think it it needs to match two or we need to increase it to three in the actual contract for the admin team that is correct I um I think we need to uh match that up first so just food for thought here for discussion do we think though that um perhaps the building component of leadership might be different than some of these leadership positions so I'm thinking out loud that you know if we have a a principle out for three consecutive days that's likely going to be something that we should have visibility to an a plan for coverage for whereas you know some of these others might it might be a little bit different but

090when you're in charge of an entire building um that's where my thought process is is it's a little bit different get what I'm saying yeah that's that's what we thought um again uh you know I can be gone and I got people to cover me on a regular basis as an elementary principal they don't so that was the thinking process certainly if the board wanted it to be consistent with the other one I can make it too and I don't think anybody's going to block at that nobody's going to I just want to make sure we have coverage plans and our buildings if someone's off that there's a clear delineation for staff of who's in charge and Mak decision something need to be made so anyway and Greg do you just want the formula stated

091out is that what you're saying he he wants request the two what you said you're talking about the formula or the PTO the the amount of days that you can be consecutive without no no no no no your first comment sorry the formula comment yeah so it was previously in there but it got taken out because I I you know it's not in the new contract that was presented so I'm assuming that's why it was removed but again for kind of the same reason that I felt it should be in there for the the administrative contract I think it needs to stay in this policy can I point out Greg underneath um on 1410 uh under director of Technology steps it shall be at the discretion of the Board of Education upon the recommendation superintendent

092to modify the recommendation as needed to be fiscally prudent and we've used that language all these years that we were P fiscally prudent for instance last year the formula would have potentially been like uh above 4% if I'm not mistaken Rachel or 3.98 and we didn't do that because fiscally prudent said let's keep it in the same realm as everybody else including our teachers so we kept it and we didn't go there and then under 14101 I believe there's the same thing in there uh will will annually review for market value so we've tried to cover those without necessarily stipulating the formula as it used to exist so are you saying that it would cover that concern I think so yep so then there would be a difference between 9410 and there will be yeah

093absolutely yep so I I I mean I guess in the spirit of equity I would think we would want everybody to have the same terms and conditions um and then one other thing I think just more of a typo I believe the 14101 footnote one it re I think that should be removed now because it's referring to the director of community headed which I think now falls under 14 10 actually um what that refers to is Matt um Matt's uh director of operations and transportation he is on 14101 however the one indicates his compensation shall be at the same rate as the Director of um Community Education which is over on 1410 so it's just a reference um those are what those reference marks mean just so you can double check cross reference I also

094have another question so given that these two policies are so connected um I just want to make sure we have a process in place that when one gets brought forward for any updates say in next year or anything that it comes as a package because they they refer and and go back and forth and so I just want to make sure we have a mechanism in place to do that because what I would hate to do is update one not update the other and so on and so forth and so just as long as we can live link it back or do what we need to do the only time this uh 14101 would come by itself is if we're adding a position for instance if we added the accountant position well we would just

095be adding that position so that's the only time they would come separate okay any further discussion hearing none Mr galeski no Mrs Shaw yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Keller no Mr Costa yes Mrs bondil yes and I'm a yes that motion passes item 2f 92724 Foya of fee appeal I move that the Board of Education denies the Foya appeal received on 927 2024 and affirms the Foya coordinator's determination of the initial estimated fee itemization submitted on 924 2024 support motion by Mrs Shaw supported by Mrs Coleman any discussion hearing none um no I'd I have some uh this this foyer and this fee for approximately a th000 sheets um is probably um 20 plus times the cost of a group that came in and foed all of my emails which amounted to about 20,000 documents

096and that was just over $500 Mr goleski have you seen the chart that I asked the team to create which one no there was a concern brought forward in regards to that and so I asked them to standardized V um so there's a chart that they follow and dependent and and so that's very clear um and I can have Mr Hugh send you the chart um it might actually be in our email because so that we can be very clear that this is where it falls this is where this Falls and so after that concern was brought forward I think you or somebody else brought I think maybe Mrs bondal brought that forward to me well um for the sake of uh Equity here I uh I think there should be a substantial discount to

097the charge for these documents um I you know $1,300 versus $500 and some for significantly less documents I mean it's great that we came up with a a chart and on a way to do this but um this this shows very um I want to say extreme bias in my opinion in terms of who's requesting it in terms of the people that request things and uh I I just can't get over this yeah i' I'd like to make a comment as well so I feel that there's a lot of uh conversation surrounding all of this um and I think that we should take this opportunity to be transparent um I was a parent before I got on the board I was foing things um it felt to me as a parent at the time that

098uh me asking for things um started to get annoying or they didn't want me to have it so charges did come through um for things like that and I just feel like this is an opportunity for us as a board to be transparent with the community um because I don't think it's it's not being done in Malice I think it's being done because there's a lot of people that want answers this is their way of looking for answers we should be an open book we should Supply the community um with that transparency that I know some board members are you know running on and and ran on um and I feel that we should support this this Community member and provide him um with the documents that he's asking for with a heck of a

099lot lower price than this can speak to that please go ahead all right thank you for letting me speak to that um first of all let me read this specifically uh first of all um the estimate is based on this sentence if you read the Foya copies of all email correspondents originating from board members or HCS staff in preparation for closed session now we have 500 staff members I don't know we've been working with the doj for a year prior to close session working with our attorneys and giving them stuff I can't sit here as the superintendent nor Renee as a for Creator and guess what staff I should look into since one time at this board table I actually was handed information surprised not handed to me prior to the meeting by both the

100person that foed it and a board member and because we didn't do our D due diligence and look at everything what I gave this particular person an opportunity to do is to recraft the Foya on specifically who do they want us to look for and what specific dates do they want us to look for and no redaction and new foyer was presented so I would say Michelle that we did our best not to interpret but to read the Foya as presented and if you're going to say all HCS staff then it takes and we narrowed it down from a half an hour search for each staff member to a 15minute search for each staff member of our technology department looking just to make sure for the past year because we went a year back because

101we we didn't have a date range just to make sure there was nothing missed so that we wouldn't be sitting at this table and surprised once again that we didn't do our due diligence and search for the fo information requested so I don't think it's fair to say that the district in any way shape or form is being mean or not very nice too the person foing Mr Scott had an opportunity to recraft his foyer for what he was looking for that's that's all I can tell you so I guess let me ask a question so we know who was in closed session right we know the individuals in the closed session so uh maybe we can provide him with the the name of the individuals that were in the closed session so that he

102knows so that if he rewrites it he can just include those people because I don't think that 500 people put in any kind of comment on the closed session right it was a closed session we know who was there we know he was given that opportunity to revise and he has not correct okay so again I'm asking sorry may I finish um Can Can we provide him with the individuals that were in the in the Clos session so that he can revise his his statement because I think like you know all encompassing just like when you and I close session he's talking about the one where we were in with the doj the full board no it wasn't the full board no I don't it wasn't the full board it was the the one he

103wants was when I think it was just us the doj if I'm not mistaken no this CL session this was the full close session then I misunderstood so with the full board yeah I mean yeah like okay so the full board was in there but we also had under other individuals right Travis was in there there was other people in there with us can we just give him the list and say these are the people that were in the closed session because I think that like you know when you say like any and all I think it's just to make sure that nothing's missed but we know intuitively like we know that like there's you know teachers that were out there that you know you're staff that that didn't have any input to the closed

104session right we know that I'm happy to provide the list of individuals in the closed session but then that's going to have to be a re well right and I think as Mr Hughes pointed out right like we don't want another situation where oops look what you missed I think that they're just reading it as is and providing what was asked for he's been given an opportunity to revise and he hasn't yet which I we all know that he should and he he could and we would get what he's looking for but to make sure that we are doing the proper job to sub to fulfill a Foye request as requested it says all employees so I'm happy to submit that I don't yeah I mean a pretty B right like anybody and and I

105guess at the end of the day if if if there's somebody that maybe we don't know about that had input with the Clos session you know that's just it's just a a statement he's trying to like capture everybody I for one want to be transparent so whatever it can take whatever he wants I want to give I want to provide that to him I think it's important for us to show the community how much we support transparency and I understand where you're coming from that it is a it is a big blanket statement but let's work with him and and you know did you know I think that the other thing was is that the way that it was um I guess presented back to him wasn't there something missing or like the the foyer

106coordinator or something like again I'm going by memory because I didn't read through this again but I thought it was that he had a problem that it was the response wasn't it wasn't there an issue with the response he had a response that a for coordinator was not specifically named um and so we changed that and we made sure that we named the foyer coordinator okay so you did provide a response with the fo okay so send emails this is that's where I'm coming from with all this I want to be transparent I I just don't still can't make sense of the fact that for 20,000 sheets of paper involving my emails we charge somebody $500 I that to me is um I have to think that because of who the requesters are I think

107there has to be some sort of uh favoritism here because this this amount is way drastic way far more drastic than uh what it should be Mr goleski what would you s so there was a concern brought forward and I I want to I'm sorry Michelle I'm calling you out because I think it was a discussion with you and I so I said hey we need a standard process it needs to be we need to build like one of us who has no idea about any like about how this process and how Mr Usher might search this and we need a clear process so I guess my ask of you is to just go through that process with the team when you have the opportunity if you have suggestions to change it happy to do

108that but I think that if we find an issue we have to fix it in a standard way yeah um I'm just kind of amazed that there wasn't the question of all the people that may be involved with my emails and yet we printed off 20,000 copies I I I'm just not comfortable with that any further discussion hearing none Mr goleski no Mrs Shaw yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Keller no no Mr Costa yes Mrs blondal no I'm a yes that motion passes Michelle I'll get you that list though okay item 2G Furniture purchase at the high school with 2020 Bond dollars I move that the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the director of operations approves the high school Furniture purchase as presented support motion by Mrs Coleman supported by

109Mr Costa any discussion hearing none Mr goleski yes Mr Shaw yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Keller yes Mr Costa yes Mrs blondel yes and I'm a yes that motion passes item 3A the high school cooling tower SL exterior door replacement I'm going to ask Matt to come up and talk about both of these um obviously we had a problem with the High School uh cool system 2 years ago knock on wood not this year um but the cooling tower is now what uh 20 3 years old age of the building yeah so yeah so it needs to it's uh rusting out so Matt want you to talk about that yep so the high school Chiller uses is a water cool Chiller so it uses water to cool itself which is the cooling tower that sits

110on the roof uh that is original to the building we've gotten some good life out of it we did a repair of roughly oh don't quote me on it but probably about $50,000 uh back in 2017 2018 to extend its life um but that is underwater all the time so water's constantly flowing through it and water causes damage so here we are um it is currently working it is currently doing its job but is starting to leak so we want to uh get ahead of the cooling season for 2025 and get this installed as soon as possible so um we are going to use thermal netics hopefully um they are a company that we've worked very well with and have provided great service under our Cooperative purchasing program which meets all their requirements for uh

111the state and so we're looking to go that route any questions on the cooling tower is this the the pipe that we had an issue with just oh no completely different so next time if you're on the back of the high school we receiving is if you look up you're going to see two big large vessels that's those yep so um question so you've already picked a supplier do you have competitive quotes like were you able to negotiate anything The Cooperative satisfies that so it's already been pre-bid or uh actually bid and so it takes care of that situation what the multiple quotes or theot oh it's already been through a bidding process and who who vets all that information um sourcewell who is our Cooperative program so we pay sourcewell to review all the

112data is that how it works we enter into the cooperative and pay a portion to be in the Cooperative correct okay you how much I don't know does that work like we have we have a Cooperative that means that we use them so that there's always like a built-in discount is that what that is there's a Cooperative which goes through the bidding process that then there is a level of discount correct and Rachel might be able to speak more so to that than I can but yeah it's essentially a multiple different products ranging from you know office supplies to Furniture to cooling towers apparently which I didn't realize was part of the uh Cooperative purchasing agreement but they are they are they are pre-bid and and um you're getting the discount because you're buying in

113bulk like a uh you're part of a bul contract so they're they're able to offer more competitive pricing sourcewell in particular we do not pay a fee to be a part of um Omni we don't pay a fee to be a part of uh what's the new one uh oh gosh my deal we do pay a fee my deal we do pay a fee but it's like a $130 a year so they collect the bids they vet everything and then they say this is who you're going to use no this is this is who's available oh this okay I understand that this available we go different routes based on what product we want to put in we're looking to put in the same product that's currently there a BAC uh cooling tower there's many different

114manufacturers we could look at but this is one that we look to put in because it fits uh our current setup okay and you guys are comfortable and you've you've whatever knowledge you have of cooling towers like it seems like a reasonable cost it does it does Howell just did the same process last year for their their cooling tower you Benchmark theirs by um I did not a slightly different size it was for their middle school um our high school is much larger so there's a little smaller you're saying Y and then it was also last year and as you guys are well aware prices continue to increase though but it does seem pretty reasonable okay okay thank you hey Matt question so through the bidding service are the would the specs all be the

115same from a warranty standpoint so like the manufacturers warranty are they same regardless of what unit you settle on or choose no they might be a little bit different but then we run into cost issues with a different type of unit so BAC usually has the same warranty if they sold it to a howl or a Brighton or a Heartland type situation um but in terms of manufacturer might be a little different if it was a Marley Tower versus BAC Tower so do we know what it I didn't see it if I missed it my apologies top I saw there was a a 30-day labor yeah usually worksmanship warranty so if we're installing this thing in March which is what it looked like you planning to do then effectively by the time that thing starts

116it's already out of warranty we're going to start actually probably April first is is the plan the high school does need cooling we'll have a chance to thing before it it's on the install for the company but usually it's a year warranty on the equipment in case there's breakdown or something like that but any questions on the tower uh exterior doors oh yeah someone is just curious is it the same brand that we currently have yes it is okay yep so all the all the piping lines up and all that stuff so we're not really having to go too crazy in the Boiler Room refitting things and moving things around we won't have to bring cooling trucks in I hope not that that was a that was interesting all right um exterior doors uh same

117I think it's the same item but we're looking to continue our practice of replacing extra doors and keeping up on that um so we don't get to a point where we have to do a whole bunch all at months and so uh the list I think was provided in the the bo agenda but going around and doing two or three doors at every building um the doors that have glass do include our safety glass that we've been putting in and updating our our buildings uh School guard glass which is uh unbreakable um and like at the high school for example uh the bus doors that's one of the ones being selected uh that really does need to be replaced it gets used very heavily every day so can I ask what uh um what expectancy

118you have for uh life for these new doors is that guaranteed just some degree or uh not in a school nothing's guaranteed with a school unfortunately um you know some of these doors are still pretty original the buildings over at lakes and Farms so we've gotten good life out of those um some of the doors at the high school are starting to fail just because of wear and tear and and the population that's at that building um estimated at least 20 years on these doors if not longer depending on wear and tear um but we've you know our maintenance guys have done a great job but some of the closers are the problem areas that you know get used very heavily or or doors get kicked or that type of thing so but uh we

119did select the low bidder we did vet them they are uh very good at what they do and and we feel very confident in Daniel's glass to provide that service so awesome okay thank you thank you cool thanks man any additional questions on this um obviously reach out to Matt before the next board meeting item 4A future meetings our next meeting is November 18th 2024 at 6:30 p.m. right here in the um Heartland educational support service center item 4B any informational items I'll just put one out there just um wanted to acknowledge that there was a new student LE chapter uh Turning Point USA so if there are any staff out there that would like to be uh a sponsor I think it would be a great opportunity I know that they're already they've already

120started the club but it's after school as opposed to during the school hours and I think there'd be a great opportunity to increase the participation so if there's any staff that are willing to support that that would be great I have one more thing um I was remiss I usually well I've done it several times but I haven't in a couple board meetings um in the US over 350,000 children are missing we don't hear about it in the schools we don't we don't do anything to educate the children of trafficking or you know stranger danger anymore like we used to maybe we do and I'm just not familiar with it um but I just feel like if there's one child missing we shouldn't stop talking about it and there's over 350,000 children missing in the

121United States so I just want to bring that to everyone's attention thank you Michelle I think if you have um I'll talk to you offline but I think you know it's if this is something that we can integrate into to something that we do um perhaps we can talk about what that looks like I would love that I would I would love that okay okay thanks any additional informational items before I go um I do want to just let the public know that we've kicked off our Heartland adoptive family program um you guys will hear this from me at nauseum um until after the holiday season but uh we support somewhere between 350 to 400 um children right here in our district um every year and so whether you and your family U Want to

122adopt a family or maybe your business or your church group or whatever that may be um there's also several drives around the district so anything from toilet paper and paper towel to shampoo and conditioner to cleaning supplies um and um if if you have any questions on that or want to be a part of that uh want to get more involved please reach out to me we look for as many volunteers as as we can possibly get it takes an army to pull this off and um you know we just want to support the children through the holiday season and and Christmas is a tough one for them so all right this meeting is adjourned at 8:14 e