HCS Board Meeting - 05/13/2024

001e e e [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] of the United States of America stand indivisible all righty last meeting of the school year um I would like to remind everyone to conduct themselves as adults if you feel the need to interrupt the meeting you will be asked to leave um our lovely Deputy Chuck is in the back and um he'll help us out with that and so we thank him for spending time outside of his resource officer role within um our district to be here with us tonight item 1B approval of agenda item of agenda items for discussion I move that the agenda for the May 13th 2024 regular meeting be approved motion by Mrs Coleman support by Mrs Shaw any discussion yes so I wanted to ask a question on item five so the

002superintendent evaluation for closed session I understand Mr Hughes requested one but I guess from a parliamentary procedure do we need to actually move that up into an action item to officially vote Yes or no and this in terms of approving the request so it is a um a motion that will be voted on prior to going into close session I guess in the event that it didn't pass though what would happen in the event that it didn't pass then we wouldn't CL go into close session so then doesn't it need to go in two because we are technically voting yes or no I guess that's where I was trying to understand you don't go into you don't vote to go into close session until you actually go into close session um I make a motion

003to um have a vote to keep it as an open session okay can we we need to deal with the motion on the table and then you can make an amended motion okay there's also a motion that well he asked a question correct so um last meeting um I've learned a thing or two about us dealing with the motion that's on the table before moving on to a secondary motion um but there is a motion in the packet as it pertains specifically to the close session as well okay but item five is technically a a an acknowledgement that we would be going into Clos session no it's a vote okay yep and it'll be documented as a vote thank you any further discussion um just to clarify is that vote to keep it an open

004or a closed session or just to go straight to a closed session it reads that the that we would enter into a closed session so obviously if you had um we would treat that like any other motion per se okay where we have discussion and then a a roll call vote the question um I also have is that under Clos session superintendent evaluation it says um recommended action so I I'm thinking that the action of going to a close session really hasn't been approved yet so okay until this motion passes you are correct okay so then would we have an open one if it didn't pass or or no um in theory we would not go into close session yes okay all right I have a second motion can we do okay can we deal

005with sure all right thought we did all right so let's deal um let's please act on the motion that was made by Mrs Coleman and supported by Miss Shaw and then Glenn I'll Circle back to you okay Mr goleski sorry isn't that approving the agenda though it is but we can't do a secondary motion until the motion that's on the table is actually approved or not so how do we add things to the agenda we're going to you're going to have to make a motion to amend the agenda but if you already approved the agenda how you going to do that you make a motion to amend the approved agenda okay Mr Goki um no Mr sha yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Costa yes Mr Keller no Mrs bondal I'm going to say no a

006yes question Glen you have aary Mo yes um I motion that we uh add to the discussion items um regarding um videotaping of our board meetings and ways to improve that just as a discussion topic okay a motion to add a discussion topic on video recorded by Mr goleski I'll support support by Mrs V deal any discussion um just in regard to the uh uh taping of our board meetings um we were using Zoom now we're doing a a YouTube feed but I'd also like to possibly suggest and talk about other enhancements do you have any idea of what those enhancements yes like um an additional camera um call to public camera that kind of thing do we have ideas of what those items are these are just like well in addition additional camera no

007like the integration of an additional camera like do you have a setup that you're requesting no no I'm I'm if anything I'm requesting some technical assistance with that I'd like to talk about it and then we could um have those and that we um employ here to help us out with that okay so this is a motion to add a discussion item on the video recording by Mr goleski supported by Mrs blal any discussion I just want I'm understand so Glenn you're just looking to see if we can somehow enhance this like recording like a camera or two is that something and I I don't know is that something that we I mean we're discussing it right now and we we're not going to vote on it is that something that we can take to

008Mr Usher or obviously I guess to Mr Hughes who then would pass it on to Mr Usher as far as like a cost I'm sure there's obviously a cost I mean right and that would be part of discussion too to to um perhaps maybe get some quotes for an upgrade or an improvement okay and sure that's it so this would be a 3D discuss it 3D thank you any further discussion Mr goleski yes Mrs Shaw no Mrs Coleman yes Mr Costa well I I I don't have a problem adding more cameras or things like that but to be honest I'm not comfortable adding something at this meeting that we could have had added prior so I'm a no Mr ker yes Mrs B yes and I'm a yes that motion passes that will be item

0093D Mr Goki yep item 1 C consent agenda I move that the consent agenda for the May 13th 2024 regular meeting be approved support motion by Mrs Coleman support by Mr Costa any discussion hearing none Mr Goki yes Mrs sha yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Casta yes Mr K yes Mrs wal yes and I a yes that motion passes item 1D superintendence report thank you um couple of things just the house keeping items yes just a reminder that we are YouTube streaming this so that you won't see it up on the on the screen like you did with um Zoom but it is streaming at this point in time the tech team in the back is making sure that's happening U also um the chair and the tables if you moved any chairs and tables

010When you entered this facility tonight please make sure you move everything back to where you found it uh we do have students coming first thing in the morning for AP testing and that's why it's set up the way it is so they're engaging in that work um so please do that next I we'll get up to the podium and uh every year as the board knows we establish our board goals in July and August uh those goals were passed in October by the board uh we have been putting information out all year to the public either through community life or through um our community our community update every Wednesday that I send out lots of different information that goes out to the public as well as the board gets information from me on a regular

011basis on what's Happening towards those goals so the hopes of course is that anything you see tonight you've already seen at least in theory you've seen or we've talked about it in some way shape or form so there should be nothing of a surprise to you uh but again it's evidence of effort by myself as well as all of the District staff to meet the goals that the board established so I'll walk up there and I'll talk from the podium all right just make sure this works and goes backwards and forwards all right so the finance goal uh obviously through finance committee we talked about where we wanted to be towards the end of the year probably for everybody's consideration the most important piece is the end of the year assessment piece so what I

012share with you should address the assessment component of each of our goals and most importantly the the board expects us to be financially um uh Rich making sure that our finances are in order and that we're moving forward with all of the things that we need to accomplish here in the district we've had finance committee meetings on a number of dates this year we have another one coming up I didn't put it up there to review a budget before we do budget adoption in June so we'll keep working in that direction a reminder that uh the audits are always a year out so this year's audit won't take place until later uh in the fall uh in the fall we did have the previous year audit which we did get the unmodified opinion by plant

013Moran which means it's the highest rating you can get uh from an audit company for school finance and so I thank Rachel and her team for all of that work as we thanked her earlier in the year currently we're sitting at a we should end the year at a plus 22% fund balance uh keep in mind that that was due to the Esther dollars that flowed into the district those one-time dollars we've talked many times about those dollars those dollars drop away at you know this is the last year we're using those dollars so the out years will have to take and and pay close attention to where we're going in regards to not having those one-time dollars sitting in our our funds uh balance and then we did review in February the um budget

014to actual compared to the previous year where were we and how we were doing and the board was involved in that process we did finalize uh the contract extension for food service this year that was taken care of um we felt good about that all of our employee units have their contracts in play and we've we've got all those taken care of and we continue to work through that process um we did visitations in the fall Rachel and our team we go to every building in the fall and part of that visitation is to talk about our financial picture where are we sitting what are we doing and why doing it to give our staff an opportunity to ask us questions about our our financial picture so that they're in the loop um they shouldn't

015be surprised either when we have conversations about finances in the district and then again we'll finish our audit this year we we don't anticipate any problems with our financial audit moving on to building and sight again this is what we're we we talk about building a site all of the the our buildings in transportation and Technology ology all the things that we try to accomplish to make sure that we have the environment that is conducive to learning not only for our students but also for our staff and then of course our buildings to be used by our community we've had a couple building and site meetings this year we continue to take care of the district and these are just some pictures of our awesome maintenance and uh um utility staff who get all of

016the work done that we need to taken care of throughout the year and again we appreciate them we did extend the ABA contract that's the company that is in charge of custodial services at our high school and our Middle School uh and then we take care of internally uh the district is taking care of all the other buildings in the district custodial wise had lots of refreshing environments over the last year uh we've had our our Middle School gym refinished we've added some signage around the building uh we've got the Pool opened again lots of comments from the pool uh including Mr Carousel who used to be the superintendent it's called the carousel Aquatic Center uh because he was the superintendent uh actually was a superintendent that hired me uh for high school principal at

017the time uh he called me and he was just ecstatic he's just thanking the district for our continued efforts to maintain the facilities including his pool so uh I app appreciate having that conversation with him uh lots of sidewalk work yes you see sidewalks uh that crack in heave and we constantly work on sidewalk Replacements a little bit at a time and the high school wait room was taken care of this year again thank you to a a strong thank you goes out to Frank wasney he is one of the teachers at our high school he's also as I announced last week going to be an assistant uh um ad with us next year uh he proved his Merit by organizing all that had to be organized with Matt and myself in the district to

018uh redo our wait room so I thank him I want to give him that plug uh and Matt Marino and his team as well and Rachel of course making sure that we had the money to take care of that Bond projects continue uh High School main stadium I won't read all these um I will have this posted uh this is a draft basically uh in case I have to make any changes between now and uh the June meeting but after the June meeting I'll have this posted on our website for the public to have access to um lots of work around the district with our bond projects you know we finished uh we we did the auxiliary field a year ago finished the athletic uh stadium main stadium here uh at the high school so

019that work continues we've updated our baseball softball fields we've added restrooms out there that was something we couldn't afford when we built the the new high school back in 20 2003 um and and really upgraded our softball baseball facilities and added some chillers at the middle school and in this building uh refurbish those chillers replac them and this summer you'll consider continue to see work uh this is our last year of bomb projects basically so you'll see all of the work that's being done uh some of it you probably won't see but you you will see the tennis courts uh we we're already in the process of we had a heaving tennis court on the east side of the tennis courts those courts are being replaced the rest will be refurbished uh parking lot replacement

020continues lots of roof projects so if you see people up on the roofs throughout the buildings for select roofs uh they're just being replaced and then the sinking fund we're using to do some boiler Replacements uh High School pool lighting and that is actually ahead of schedule because we could do it we did it when we had the pool shut down and then um round gym lighting will be replaced this summer so all that work will continue sinking fund the public can go on our website as as we've always said we want to keep the public um in the know of how we're spending our syncing fund dollars that's the 0. five sinking fund millage um that will come up for reelection uh renewal and and increase uh to bring back the whole next spring

021I believe 26 if I'm not mistaken so we'll have to be thinking about how we put that out to the public the board will have to be involved in that process uh but after we finish everything that we're currently doing we'll carry a balance forward and continue to do some item work that needs to be done technology department um they've had 1537 tickets this year and they've completed 98% of those tickets so I again thank our technology department I see Mr Usher and Cameron in the back thank you for the work that you're doing and the maintenance department continues to hit the tickets heavy uh completing 98.5% of all the tickets put in for maintenance work throughout the district we do have a technology just a reminder here that we do have an outlined Bond

022project schedule in for technology you see one of those tonight uh replacing some computers throughout the a couple buildings that's part of our bond technology replacement schedule uh that shouldn't be a surprise to you because that's been in place for a long time and it's a 5year rotation uh if we can make it happen of course that's always our plan um buses you know that we've been purchasing buses and then last uh board meeting you you dealt with some vehicle replacement and we continue down that road so that we have what we need to get the work done here in the district curriculum instruction this is a highlight area I think it's irrefutable as you look at this data that our students are performing which means our staff is performing and setting high expectations we

023know that the number one discriminatory factor in public education is low expectations the district continues to have high expectations for our students and we continue to have high expectations for ourselves as employees we've met a couple of times this year on curriculum issues uh I've shared this with the community um the fact is the only set of data that the district has to compare ourselves with other districts Apples to Apples is how our students perform on the MD assessments and therefore the final grades that MD gives us you'll see that all of our buildings in the last uh process for 23 all of our buildings either had an A or they met expectations which is the highest rating that uh alternative Ed program can receive and all of our buildings are universally rated in the

024new system which means that we don't need help uh if you're less than Universal there's certain situations where you have to work closely with your local Education Service Agency or you have to hire outside Consultants to come in and help you we're not a district that needs that outside help u based on how we're performing and then of course the overall uh growth index you can see it here uh always looking at improving the growth of our students and that is year-to-year growth for our students and we are always working to make sure that our students are growing and that's more important than the proficiency because when you look at a student that comes in potentially in third grade takes their first M uh uh mstep assessment they might be have entered third grade at

025a first grade level right so we have to look at what their growth is for the year and did we they grow a year during their time with us and that's what we're we're shooting for and certainly hopefully with all the interventions we have in place our students are growing even more rapidly than that and we're seeing that in our school district and we should all be proud of that continue to be have high rankings uh in different assessment or different ranking uh organizations um that that rank schools in the state of Michigan and and in the nation I've shared this again with you this should not be a surprise shared this recently from us news and World Report again our schools are doing very well um keep in mind the mstep scores are always

026a year behind our kids are still engaged in mstep testing this week as well as AP testing as I said earlier um but if we look at the last set of data you saw a lot of uh Improvement across the district again uh our kids are are showing that they're they're getting it same here with PSAT and sat for the purpose of this year we do use the smarter balance assessment and these are the benchmark assessments offered by the state of Michigan and you can see that if you look at the fall to the spring on each of these indicators you're seeing a lot of growth there which is what we want to see they take the assessment and then they take it again in the spring and we want to see that growth so

027uh this helps us to determine where we are with our groups including our subgroups of social economic disadvantaged students as well as our students that happen to have a disability so always keeping an eye on how our kids are doing and are they showing that growth online learning is not an easy thing a lot of people think well if my child just takes online classes it'll be easy it's not anybody's ever taken online class knows you have to be selfmotivated right you have to push yourself you have to sit down and do the work just like you were in school so this data just simply Compares how our students that are taking online classes whether they're taking 21 F classes at the high school where a high school student can take two online classes if

028they're requested uh our Legacy students that take online classes and our Heartland Virtual Academy students so you can see the success of these students based on the past courses District leadership team this is a group that Mr Miner uh leads throughout the district uh made up of instructional coaches and teachers and principles and the technology director and the director of special and that whole purpose of that instructional uh District leadership team is to help guide us in our professional development efforts to help us understand what building to building are doing so that we know if I'm a teacher at Village I know what they're doing over at Creekside or I know what they're doing at the middle school so you try to synchronize all that and have those conversations to make sure that one most

029importantly our staff feels like they're being heard by us that they have some say in the direction of the district and so Dave shares a a survey every year with the staff that are on that team and you can see how the staff reported in regards to uh this process Personnel goals again we've had some meetings um School of Choice continues to be an important component of the district we have to continue to look at School of Choice uh we've had lots of discussions amongst the board uh and and me with individual board members about why is it that our School of Choice might fall off why is it that we're not seeing as much um growth in the district as far as student numbers there's lots of factors but we do know this we

030have to continue to be that District that people see as a premier School of Choice School District because we do depend on those students to fill our seats right so so this just shows that you know we're off by 24 compared to last year uh I think we're getting some good numbers Mr van EPS is starting to see some good numbers coming in for school of choice for next year and uh we'll just keep working on that I shared this with the community as well just kind of give you a a reference of where do our students go when they leave the district and where do they come from um of all this data up here I thought the most important piece and I was very surprised to be honest with you I was shocked

031because the state continues to lose students to out of state but yet we left uh we had 17 students move out of state but 45 students this year came in from out of state I thought that was pretty interesting so this just kind of shows you what happens um you know you can pick whatever and I tried to just pick in this graph we I think I sent the board all of the schools were kids went to in all the districts I picked this out just because these are the districts that are close to us or these are the the programs that would be in competition with us so that's why I shared these numbers the community has seen our student perception survey data I've shared that with them I shared that with the parents

032um this is that new my student survey my student voice survey um that our students engaged in there were 107 School distri districts and what's good about this is we get some data that shares how our students are reporting they feel versus the other 107 uh school distri districts and the 58,000 students that um are 1,816 students that took the survey are compared to and we saw that in almost all instances were're a little bit higher uh on average than the rest of the state or the rest of the 107 school districts I took this information or took this survey we have to continue to look at our students uh engagement is how our students feel as far as you know are they engaged in school do they feel comfortable engaging in the learning and

033then do they belong do they belong in our school are we providing an environment where every one of our students sees themselves in the curriculum that we're teaching every one of our students feels as if though they belong in our school system regardless of their background and so we want to make sure that we continue to ensure that our students feel like they're welcome in our school district every single day with every single teacher senior exess survey uh again 83% of our students responded to the first question 88% responded to the second question and we're just looking to make sure that our students feel like um you know they they belong or 83% % said that they they feel uh that they would recommend our school district and 88% feel like they had a positive

034experience at Heartland High School our parent perception uh survey this went out earlier in the year uh shared that with the community as well the board has seen this as well and again um you know our our parents 95.4% of our parents assigned the district an A or B so the majority of our parents that certainly the ones that are taking the survey are saying that they really you know assign our schools in A or B uh again this is good data for us to know that we're on the right path staff survey is absolutely essential uh Miss Gregory took this over this year Scott usually does it Scott Van ABS but since she's going to be filling his shoes as he is retiring um and we'll say more about that at the next meeting

035for Scott um but the fact is that she'll take this over so we had a 59% uh respondent uh rate for our staff survey we saw some really good numbers here and we feel really confident that our staff feels safe they feel like you know um they're proud to be an employee in the district and those are good things our athletic survey again we want to make sure all of our programs are programs that our kids are feeling our students are feeling that they they really enjoy that they they are heard that they're having a good experience so this was information uh that Brian Hassler put together and certainly as he looks at these numbers his job is to work with his coaches to address any areas that they have concerns with new hires we've

036had quite a few new hires in the district this just shows that um including our resource officers we have Deputy uh uh schau in the back there so we have these individuals in our buildings now we always uh report student expulsions these are the students that you know when you look at our uh discipline handbook or parent student handbook it is intervention based just like academics so behavior is intervention based just like academic intervention based and part of the intervention base is when you engage in some of these behaviors on the left you're going to go to an expulsion hearing where you have to you have to explain yourself and we get opportunity to talk with you and your parents and get the parents on board with how we're going to help you be successful

037in our school district and so where most districts wouldn't do that they might suspend you for 10 days and you come back part of our re-entry process is you go through an expulsion hearing so that we can make sure we get you on the right track put some things in play and and monitor that some common discipline infractions again sharing those with the the board and the community to show that you know 891 discipline infractions you know versus you know 929 last year um I was responding to a parent in an email recently and I did a math problem and said you know if we have 5200 students 5200 students times 184 school days for students even 180 comes out to something like 936 th000 opportunities for students to misbehave right like if you think

038about that 900 36,000 opportunities for students to misbehave and we have 891 infractions that are recorded uh in these infraction areas so again our students are are doing really well diversity and Equity this is one of those areas that we didn't do a lot with this year except we kept moving forward with the status quo that we had established earlier on because as you know we're still working with the do J on what that extension agreement is going to look like U more to come on that uh it's been a year of working with them to get to a point where we know which direction we need to take to move forward but we do continue to address this issue we've done quite a bit of work continue to do quite a work with our

039um uh students and staff I won't read all this to you again it'll be posted in the board you have it in front of you um I've been working with emu I'm working with a partnership with emu to try to create an environment in which we are partnering to bring student teachers uh to our district and student teachers potentially that have different backgrounds than we're used to having right so maybe it's uh students that are a different uh racial ethnic than the the Caucasian white community that we tend to think that is here in har uh but also looking for all different types of avenues to get student teachers into the school district because we know that it's difficult to find teachers right now there's not as many students going in to teaching I happen

040to have an opportunity today with Mr van ABS Mr misker Miss Gregory and we went to the high school we have 42 uh Cadet teachers we started the cadet teaching program if you recall to try to start that process of planting the seed that teaching is a good profession and we'd love to see more teachers and more of our students get into teaching and so uh we got to go over there and interview the students the seconde students and we had a great time uh asking them questions that we would ask a normal teacher that's sitting in front of us interviewing for a position here in Heartland and wishing them the best as they pursue their their education towards teaching and of course they made four connections right now when they finish their schooling and

041there's an opening they can call one of us and say Hey you know is there a chance that I might get an interview and maybe I can get you an interview but you got to sell yourself in interview I can't give you the job right so we can have those conversations Partners in progress continues and this is one of our meetings earlier in the year uh that has been really powerful for the district and it's it's good just to know that we have the choman library the Harland Township and then um the chamber to work together to try to do things in this community that are good for everybody I put this in there just to remind uh the board that we do have this uh reason respect and responsibility lots of conversations today even

042with the students about what they think reason respect and responsibility mean as we were interviewing them we started the health and safety committee so we did establish some goals here uh in regards to how things were going in in that direction and what you wanted to see we've had some meetings this year what we've done this year we continue to address the sea C safety consultant suggestions if you recall that big report we brought a consultation company in to look at all of our buildings and say okay here are some things you can do to create a safer environment um we're pretty close to finishing that list I don't know if you remember how long that list was but there are very few things that we haven't accomplished on that list I'll pull that together

043at the end of the year and make sure I I give you that but there's very few that we haven't accomplished um address the safety concerns that came up throughout the year we've done we've trained our staff in Alys Based training we've done the modules we also trained everybody in the spring uh or in the fall everybody had training uh with help from the LMS County Sheriff Department we continue one more year of our partnership with Cheryl stock and Heartland Township on the road Patrol the district will have to decide after this next year we've got one more year on the contract how they want to approach that do we want to continue that or do we want to let that go in lie of having our own um security uh people on our campuses

044and of course we've had our resource officers and school safety officers um from what I understand from Miss Gregory um they've all said that they plan being back with us next year so that's a good thing so um we're happy to have that we've done all these things this year continue to work on uh all of our safety Miss Gregory came in the other day and said all our drills are Done Right Yay good they're done um Miss Gregory also surveyed our our new security staff and I I sent this out to the public as well 100% on everything uh every time I talked to them they'd say love Harland love Harland and I ask them the question on a regular basis if someone were to ask you are our schools safe they un every

045one of them says absolutely Harland schools is a safe environment doesn't mean something can't happen but that's how they feel and then these are just some uh things that came back from our SRO and our ssos in regards to the impact that they feel that they're having at school and again you see lots of positive comments um lots of positive comments from parents and lots of positive I had a story of a young person that uh the parent had called me last year as the school safety officer was coming online and was really concerned about her child because her child has a lot of anxiety and didn't really want a police officer there but she said my child loves our police officer absolutely loves them and talks about him goes out and plays on the

046playground throws the ball around and she's like it's been great so uh that that's a good story there and then of course we continue to um uh take care of other safety items I know that there's been a uh an ask about the stop the bleed uh that we added right here next to our aeds you'll see some legislation about making sure we have aeds available we we meet that already we have them everywhere including our outdoor venue venues we added to stop the bleed kits uh we do have to do a little bit more training on those that people are aware that they're there and that's the end of the evidence of effort report all right so thank you again for all your support as a board to make sure that we can create

047the environment that we've created for our students and staff and then of course our parents to feel comfortable sending their kids here thank you I'd like to take a moment to thank um certainly the administration the administration of each building the teachers the staff at each building for allowing us and helping us to support our goals um and a huge shout out to Rachel as well uh we posed some very difficult financial decisions this year um that I think made her squirm a little bit um appropriately so but um I appreciate you being creative and finding Creative Solutions to what we bring to the table um and then looking for improvements in those that service us you know longer term and so I just want to call that out because it's very much appreciated appreciated

048and sometimes um we've challenged you to to think way outside the box and and outside of your comfort zone and I just appreciate that moving on to vem 1e call to the public um just a reminder that you will have three minutes uh each speaker will be limited to 3 minutes at the 2 minute and 30 second Mark I will hand I will hold up my handy dandy yellow folder that just gives you a line of sight that you have 30 seconds left um I would ask that you express yourself in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy of others who may be affected by your comments I also see some little faces in the um in the audience today so just be aware that there's um there's ears here tonight

049so we will get started first up and I apologize I might um get this name wrong but Dave Van AER hello got two items on my list tonight a lot of stuff covered down the line but we take them a little at time keep them simple and short uh first item on uh my list is article 8 of The Constitution uh reminder encouragement of Education section one religion morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind schools and the means of Education shall forever be encouraged that is your mission you've all sworn an oath to uphold that Constitution hopefully you've read at least some of of it because I've met politicians who have not read any of it hear you all right first uh object up for tonight we're going to

050be discussing branding real quick uh I'm familiar with Heartland I've been on the inside been on the outside seen the good the bad I think this school has all kinds of potential so I'm seeing a little bit of negative here but I know what you guys are capable of and that's part of why I'm saying this because I'd like to see you do next level all right so branding I think it's important for you to be thinking about this when you're hiring people and when they're doing their tasks I can tell you just a little bit some of this belongs in public some not so much but when you walk into the pool you should not be seeing promotions of people from other schools as what's selling your program this should be a picture of

051someone from our school not from another school since I'm not naming names naming schools hope they maintaining privacy even though this was put in the public eye now during that time we lost an experienced coach of 14 years was replaced not successfully we lost a program during this time I don't think it's unrelated it was replaced with a new program several years later which is now promoting another school and other programs not yours your brand is important advertisement on your programs here you will notice three times that your school is mentioned and nine times that the other school that you brought in here as experts you guys have deferred your expertise to other people and that decreases the quality of your program this is the hybrid logo now that is a result of one of

052your programs that is not of our school I don't know if they want me to discuss this in front of them or not but just to show you something because I've heard the discussion here here's another hybrid logo I don't think you guys like this this is a doggle half bulldog half eagle no bull fly with a doggles not so great this stuff has been published in your periodicals and put out for all to see so when you're promoting yourselves keep in mind that one of the things these guys do is they've got signs everywhere if you want to beat them you have to do better than them all the time even in their own brochure they have more marketing on the cover of their brochure than you have product branding everywhere gra it up

053thank you no problem pretty much done need my point thank you so much for your [Applause] time Jeff Scott good evening everybody my name is Jeff Scott I'm the parent of three students within the Heartland School District and I'm a 2024 Schoolboard candidate I'm here tonight to talk once again about the superintendent evaluation process you know I've stood at this Podium several times over the last year or so and half joked that you'd much rather lock the doors and keep all the parents out in the hallway so I was only half surprised when I saw the agenda for tonight's meeting which showed that you want to go into a closed session to discuss the evaluation well you can't hide behind closed doors to discuss the fact that you have not followed followed your own protocol

054that you have adopted from the Michigan Association of school boards last year you can't lock us out to discuss the timelines you never set the dates you never agreed to the performance goals you never set the benchmarks you failed to set you can't lock us out to discuss the check points you never agreed to or the individual responsibilities that were never assigned I'm not pulling all of those out of thin air those are the protocols of the Michigan Association of school board superintendent evaluation that you adopted and speaking about the masb let's take a look at their interpretation of the open meetings act as it relates to tonight's meeting from the masb quote a school board can only go into Clos session to actually conduct the evaluation itself unquote are you performing the evaluation tonight

055the evaluation Itself by your own admission you are not let's see what else the masb has to say quote a board cannot call for a closed session in order to set or otherwise discuss the criteria upon which an administrator will be evaluated unquote the published detailed agenda for tonight's meeting literally says you are requesting a closed session to discuss not perform the evaluation again forbidden under the open meetings act as outlined by masb masb continues quote a board cannot call for a closed session simply to confer with one another in private regarding pending administrator evaluations unquote do I need to continue any school board member that votes in the affirmative tonight to enter into Clos session to discuss the superintendent evaluation is breaking the law and voting to close parents and taxpayers out of the

056process once again the open meeting Act is quite clear that voting to violate the ACT opens up the elected official the seven of you to personal liability as late as 2021 the Michigan court of appeals ruled that while public bodies may be safe from lawsuits for substantially following the OM that does not extend to individual public officials who vote to violate the ACT I know you guys would rather make up your own rules and do what you want and kick us all out and you probably will tonight but just remember you're accountable to everyone in this room and the thousands of taxpayers and parents at home you're accountable to the laws of the state of Michigan they're required that you act with transparency so I hope you do the right thing and vote no on

057going into closed session failure to conduct business finish up in front of this community is an affront to this community and we will not tolerate it thank you [Applause] Angela yber I'm Angela arber Heartland Township resident and Schoolboard candidate one of my platforms is safety and while I have several improvements for safety that I think the board should consider tonight I will focus on one that Improvement is the installation of floor locks these these are locks slipped into the floor or bottom of a door that prevent an armed Intruder from breaking the glass on a door window and reaching in to turn the handle of a door knob thus gaining access into a classroom I am an elementary school teacher in another district and my students practice dropping the lock into place in case they

058would be closest to the door in the event of an emergency at about $75 per lock floor locks are inexpensive and effective safety precautions a common brand name is nightlock deputies Todd Hawk of the Oakland County Sheriff's Office is the school resource officer training coordinator for all Oakland County Schools he supports the use of night locks he told me I was one of the First Responders to the Oxford mass murder incident I have firsthand knowledge and experience that those locks work Deputy Hawk further explained to me that the Oxford teachers had gone through Alice training through the Oakland County Sheriff's office and part of the training included how to use night locks he says when the shooting started the teachers training kicked in and they saved thousands of students and staff the combination of the

059training they received and the night loocks is the reason why so many students were unharmed since most districts in Michigan use flooor locks I assumed Heartland did and that my children were as safe as my husband and me and our workplaces then I learned Harland did not have floor locks when I emailed Mr Hughes in the board about this in February of 2023 Mr Hughes told me that locked doors are best and that floor locks go missing in 5 years of teaching in classrooms with floor locks I have not found this to be true the lock is kept secured in a plastic box on the wall so that it is accessible but protected students know it is for their safety and that it is not a toy Mr Hughes also told me that a special

060tool is needed to open doors which are floor locked which seemed to be a negative for him I think needing a special tool to access a floor locked classroom is a good thing that means an armed Intruder whose goal is to maximize damage cannot easily do do that I think our children in the staff in each classroom in Heartland schools are worth a $75 investment don't you please inst implement the installation of floor locks in Heartland classrooms I have a sample display if anyone would like to see it after the [Applause] meeting Darcy donakowski good evening my name is Darcy donakowski I am a Heartland resident and have a second grader at Lakes I'm here tonight to call to action the reading and intervention programs and the lack of data collection and Reporting and followup

061that is completed my goal here tonight is to have the current process reviewed and to develop a plan going to ensure that these kids parents and teachers are supported and set up for Success my son has received additional supports for reading since the beginning of first grade to date he is still not at the set expectations for second grade reading at the recommendations of lakas Elementary my son was tested for a learning disability and ADHD my son passed both test assessments with no diagnosis meaning my son does not have ADHD nor does he have a learning disability so I called the action why is he still not at the appropriate reading level my second grader has been pulled every day from his classroom since the beginning of first grade to receive one-on-one and small group

062assistance while I am very grateful that the District offers these supports I am very concerned on the process and success of this program when the recommendations from Lakes Elementary was presented to us parents to see if my son had any deficiencies that would interfere with his learning we acted upon it the same immediately to later be presented with a reassuring result that he was just an average second grade boy when I started to ask administrators for evaluations and checkpoints on my son's success and progress I was met with many obstacles from progress reports with minimal feedback such as small group in the commentary of his reading portion and runaround answers of no reporting is captured when I question when I requested additional explanation from the principal at Lakes Elementary it was stated and I quote

063I hope I am being clear when I explain that recordkeeping and data collections does not take place during our data meetings the principal further explained that the data collection meeting is that they discuss the students progress based on teacher observations any progress monitoring tools that may have been used by the teacher and District math and Ela assessments including the Dr none of these data collections have been provided to me in any form outside of a progress report just like any other student receives to date I have never been told if my son's interventions have changed or been altered in any way we are unaware if he will even reach the goal of second grade reading at the end of this year we are now less than two weeks away from Summer and yet another year

064has been full of interventions with no proof of success and no plan of how he will graduate from these reading interventions if the school is so quick to assess my child why are we not looking at the succession of the actual intervention programs and monitoring the progress of the children involved I hope the school board takes my concerns back as a group to see how the interventions of these student children can be tracked monitored and reported on to ensure that children involved do not continuously stay behind compared to their peers thank you for your [Applause] time Carol Hall I'll try not to cry my name is Carol Hall and I've been an educator in Harland for 25 years I have loved working in this District during my time here and I've always worked hard to

065make sure all our students feel supported regardless of their background or identities in the last year and a half my heart has been breaking for the teachers students and their family and there has been an increase in hateful comments and threats towards minority groups I have witnessed hateful and vicious comments made about students with special excuse me students with special needs these comments were offensive and damaging to all students in their families these students have the right to be part of our district and supported in a fashion that allows them to grow and know they're supported I have also seen our minority students of color be harassed and mistreated B bathrooms are being vandalized with racial slurs we as Educators and as a district have the responsibility to combat hatred at all opportunities recently lgbtq

066plus students and their families have been the targets of hateful comments and misinformation the school staff has been forced to remove any reference to Safe spaces in our classrooms lgbtq student plus students have been present in our district since it was first formed and it is our responsibility to support and protect them as we do for all our students they deserve a safe space in our schools the students W these students want and deserve to be recognized supported and accepted by their school district our most recent staff survey indicates that teachers are not happy with the current conditions and ideas being presented by members of the school board this is the lowest satisfaction rate reported since 2007 I have re recently witnessed the loss of kindness caring and compassion for students who are part of

067minority groups I urge the board to listen to the staff members and increase support for staff in the future this District should not tolerate hateful behavior and we should be working together to provide a safe and supportive environment for all our students no matter their identity My Hope for all my colleagues is to be able to weather this storm that is currently raging around you and continue to fight for our students we should combat hate misinformation and discrimination and sure ensure the school is a safe and welcoming place for all students the district and the school board are no longer protecting our most vulnerable students and you need to do better I would like to leave you with a final thought be careful who you try to marginalize as it might end up being someone

068you love thank [Applause] you Barbara tankovich thank you once again for letting me speak is the ACLU a communist or leftwing organization the only reason I'm speaking on this is because it was mentioned last month the ACLU organ ized a 9-point plan to resist established law and turn America into a network of Freedom cities that resist the vote of the American people conservative agenda the ACLU hopes to turn America demonrats Blue by forcing its liberal socialistic and communist agenda upon All America is the ACLU evil sure the ACLU has done a few good things but they're bad things far far outweigh the good they have an agenda that is anti-th to the USA this organization was started at the turn of the last century and is today perpetuated by Communists socialists who wish to destroy

069just about everything that makes our nation great only to have it remade on a communist socialist model this aim of the ACLU is anti-icer the American Civil Liberty Union is based upon a noble purpose however they often work against that very purpose due to a radical interpretation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights they are an arm of the radical left their claim of being nonpartisan is far from showing impartiality it is full of attempts to reform American society according to the ideals of liberalism for the past few decades the ACLU has been on a major Crusade to destroy Christianity in America promote fifth filth under freedom of speech and expression vigorously defend the homosexual culture of death how often these Communist goals have been implemented to promote democracy and protect your civil rights

070it's time to recognize the ACLU as the American Communist lawyers Union what the ACLU doesn't want you to know from its Inception encourag Ed political and moral Anarchy the aims and principles of its founder Roger Baldwin who wrote in 1935 that communist communism is the goal in its early days the ACLU was not shy about making known its agenda the American civil liberties Union may be definitely classified as a Communist front at least 90% of its efforts are expended on behalf of Communists who come into conflict with the law its main function is to protect Communists in their activities of force and violence in their program to overthrow the government that's exactly what we're seeing on the campuses today they don't care about H Hamas Hamas they want to destroy the [Music] USA and the

071last thing is the only way to get this changed is through Jesus Christ accepting him as your lord and savior let him change your heart this will all go away thank [Applause] you Alex yarber thank you my name is Alex yber I am a a parent I have got two sons who are graduate grates my daughter is in the ninth grade um she has spoken a couple of times in front of this board on the issue of boys being in her bathroom not a whole lot's been done about it I'm I'm just disappointed about that at the uh we've got police reports to back that up too so this these aren't this isn't misinformation as some people would like to accuse us of this is actually happened and I've got the police reports that I'll

072share with you if you like um this so really this this is not uh an effort for me to Pro promote any prompt any kind of additional action from the board because it's nothing's happening I'm I've I'm I'm frustrated with that this is really an example of a citizen who is using this forum and YouTube thank God to let the public know what's going on and that's that's my goal tonight um so it the last time my daughter spoke uh you know we've felt uncomfortable with the way that the uh the meeting went so I thought well I'm going to I'm going to fo you some information and so for the next day I I got some information and this was uh an email that Chuck Hughes sent to the rest of the board and

073I'm just going to read it to you um I followed up today where needed and wanted to put some things on the record The Narrative from many and I'm assuming that you you're talking about my daughter The Narrative from many seems to be that we have an open bathroom policy where all restrooms are available for all students regardless of circumstances I think that might be true this issue was addressed at the health and safety committee meeting on December 15 2023 and in a follow-up email to the entire board on December 19th 2023 um I never heard anything about that you have each been apprised that this is not the case in any way currently boys must use the boys's restroom and girls must use the girls restroom with the only exception being those students who

074have worked with staff to note their situation regarding their gender identity and or preferences so that is the case that is the case because if you have a situation you can be in there you could be a boy and you can be in the girl's bathroom if you have a situation whatever that is and if I'm a girl and I'm in the bathroom using it and there's a boy next to me how do I know if that boy has a situation that's not right that's not right we demand some changes the the district is Flirting With Disaster there was a case in Virginia where a boy was wearing a skirt in a girl's bathroom raped a girl they reassigned him to another school he did the exact same thing at the other school he's he's

075been he's been convicted of it so I came in tonight hoping I'd hear something about the health and Safety Committee about this topic but in fact uh probably more appropriately it's going to be the superintendent's evaluation at the end of the at the end of the meeting this is information that we don't hear about and we we'd like to have some better information coming from the board and from the district the the weekly superintendent meeting is carefully tailored to meet your needs and not the needs of the community we would like that to change thank you [Applause] Julie ohashi not here okay moving on to item 1f committee and building report starting with Mr Costa thank you Mrs GL uh um on a real quick note Mrs Connelly uh just wants to say what a

076wonderful year the hbaa and Legacy students and staff have had she's very proud of everyone uh we did have a health and safety committee meeting back in April um I know the agenda has been posted but a number of things pest the nides asbest plans radon uh water testing at Village we had a lengthy discussion about that um it was good to hear that our Livingston County Health Department and our Consultants have that water is safe that water is safe to drink and then there was again speaking um to the call of the public there was talk and conversation around restroom remodels um and what that would look like as far as at the high school going to like a single stall type of situation where there would be kind of washroom like your your

077sink in one area and then there would be closed stalls and another um we had good conversation we talked about possible costs and when that would go in uh we didn't get definitive numbers but it'd be something that I believe Mr Hughes said that we would have to reach out to the community for some type of bond or something along those lines because we would be looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars but it was something that was brought up um so that would have been our health and safety committee and uh that I would also like to say to our staff I know last week was uh teacher appreciation week I cannot say enough about how wonderful the teachers are in here in Heartland and the great things they've done um congratulations to all

078of you on a end of the year coming up um and I appreciate everything you've done I'm all set thank you Mr Keller all right thank you um just one I guess housekeeping item is it's been made I've been made aware of a rumor I guess that there's some note passing on my the board so just just Without accusing anybody because there's no video at this point to to check but just as a reminder to all of us make sure there's no notes that are being passed during the meeting um and on a positive note I just want to talk about farms unfortunately Mrs uh Cheney has decided to retire and so she's definitely going to be missed I know she's not here today but I wanted to thank her personally for her efforts and

079service to the district and the community and all the families and children here um again she will be missed congratulations to Mrs brisy also not here today but I I'm quite confident that she will make a fantastic choice as a successor for Mrs Cheney so I'm I'm happy that Mrs brisy will will carry that baton uh and she'll do a great job also like to Echo Mr K's comments about teacher appreciation thank you to all the staff I know I've met many of you in in farms and as we continue to expand our um our program visiting the the schools I look forward to having an opportunity to to work with and meet meet more of you so again thank you for all of your service uh there are several fun upcoming events as we

080close out the year for the kids I'm sure that all the kids and farms are excited for field day and beach day so enjoy those and also have a great summer break to everyone so again thanks for for uh a great school year and congratulations on all of your successes academically and also um athletically everything else so thank you for the uh staff at farms for allowing me the opportunity to to be your Advocate this year and I know we're kind of closing out the year so again thank you for that uh Safety Committee we did meet recently as Mr Costa touched on i w go into a lot of detail cuz I know part of the discussion will occur later when we talk about uh policies and things so I'll I'll table some of

081that but you know for the communities awareness yes we did have some discussion on bathroom loog room policies as well as uh some other items such as radon water asbest many other uh safety items that were um brought to the attention of of the community or by the community um so we did have some good discussions on those I guess one thing that I did want to touch on kind of for the board and I did share some information with all of you about it was um a report that was um shared by or written by eagle which is the entity that um I guess governs the health and safety um so we we're using Nova obviously as as the company and I know they've been working with the district since 1995 I guess I

082just wanted to highlight with the board that there was you know this is a peer-reviewed report that four individuals wrote it's not my personal opinions but I guess I have some concerns with some of the information that eagle wrote in the report and there was actually 13 items that they cited as either being missing from the closure report or actually had incorrect information and I guess I just have some concerns that you know on the report that was issued isn't the best foot forward by the district so I hope we can have some further discussion on that and you know I I made the request to actually participate in that meeting and look forward to further discussion on that and um guess I think that's that's all I want to have thanks Mrs blo um

083I did not have any committee meetings um but great job to the the staff and uh sadly another year is coming to a close and congratulations to the students that are graduating and uh appreciate everyone's effort thank you Mr keski uh thank you um I've had the uh Good Fortune of being able to visit U Lakes elementaries several times this school year and um I can tell you that one of the concerns that was expressed to me and this is something that um Mr Hughes you did explain pretty well in an email regarding the evaluation of class sizes teacher Personnel staff like that um we had a a parent up here talking about reading and looking for metrics and measurables and as good of a job as this District does there's always you know it's

084just a matter of ongoing continual Improvement I think one of the big issues that especially for the elementary schools um is something that we need to tackle would be class size and the number of teachers that we have and trying to keep the uh lower level classes to um more of a minimum as opposed to a maximum and I'm hoping that in the future here as uh we get through this school year as we discuss items uh during the summer that we can maybe take a good look at that and um try to see uh different ways that we can improve that I think that could definitely have an impact and an effect on on various issues that we have with some of our elementary schools so with that um uh I hope that the

085teachers had a great school year I hope they have a a great uh next year after they kind of uh readjust and and recharge over the summer um big congratulations to all of the students that are graduating this year and their plans for the future whether it involves College trade schools internships whatever um big congrats to you did it and I hope that uh you have great success in the future um so with that that's all I have thank you this sh thank you um I was the only um board member present at the building and sight committee meeting that was held last month um I know Mr Hughes already touched on a lot of the building projects that are coming up um so I won't reiterate those that we discussed in the meeting um

086the plan is to have no environment um do rate on testing in The District in December which is the time frame in which they recommended that testing be completed um so that will happen over Christmas break when students are not in their buildings um and in basically um that cost is about $14,000 and then we will go from there once we get results it'll you know be sometime in early 2025 we'll get those results so um and um I had the opportunity once once again to meet with Mr wet Village it's always fun um I have big kids it's fun to go into buildings where there are little kids um things are winding up there too for the end of the year I know field day is tomorrow um and it's always fun to see

087um Mr Stan interact with the kids there at Village and Creekside and he's always willing to show me a note he has in his pocket or show me a picture that he took of a student so it's just so heartwarming to see those um relationships are continuing to grow with um with him and he said this is definitely the favorite job he has ever had so I think that says a lot um and I think that's it but congratulations class of 2024 I say that as a board member and as a mom follow that um okay um middle cool um Mr Howton and I haven't been able to connect recently but he did send a few um updates to me um there are there's a group of creative writing pen pals at the high school

088and at the middle school that have been writing letters to each other all semester and they finally got to meet in person um just uh last week I believe um I hear it was pretty cool to see the students interacting talking about writing and just kind of being peers with each other so it's a great connection there with those creative writers um last week um at the honors night uh the Middle School honored over 230 students for their academic and other successes so it was really a great night um lots of uh happy families and proud parents um this one too um let's see the Middle School archery team took top 20 in the nation in target shooting and 3D shooting at the national archery tournament in Louisville about a week or so ago so

089congratulations to them um the let's see the next step for The Optimist International oratorical competition was also about a week ago and the Galis Yi took third place in the state district level earning a $1,000 scholarship um we're all very proud of you Nick great work and keep it up um congratulations to the middle school boys and girls track team who won the combined championship at a recent uh it's the Southeastern Michigan Showcase of track Talent it's a it's a huge track event that um I believe is about 19 years in the running um our girls took first place the boys took fourth fourth place against 22 other teams that were competing there were many impressive performances including yet another School record in the girls 400 meter dash by Hannah dep pestl U Mr Howton

090also um asked me to extend his sincere thanks on behalf of the HMS staff to our amazing pack and families for all your kindness and Gifts during uh staff appreciation or teacher appreciation week which was earlier this month um the staff certainly felt the love and they they much appreciate your efforts uh I also had the pleasure of sitting in on the senior center advisory council at the beginning of the month um with my last update I mentioned that the center had purchased a new vehicle or new to us it's a used vehicle but new to the center so you may see this new Pacifica riding around with its senior Cent senior activity center logos on the side offering transportation services to our members um Kim karski continues to do her hard work at applying

091for and securing grants uh for much needed funding locally uh through United Way and other resources she worked very hard at that um and is usually quite successful for the center um plans are underway to accommodate a much debated second pool table at the senior center so if you're a member and you're interested in playing pool they going to be trying out a second pool table table uh at least for a few months um and as always there are tons of upcoming events and many recent successful events um they have something for everybody there's a new pickle ball tournament all sorts of things going on they're going to be putting on a senior prom which I think is awesome um and then they will also be represented in the Memorial Day Parade um I did

092not attend I I didn't have it how do I want to say this there was one committee meeting that I could have attended and I was unable to because I had the pleasure of uh chaperoning the middle school band inquir field trip I have an entirely new respect for Middle School teachers I don't know how they do it I did it for about 36 hours and that was about all I could take um so congratulations to the class of 2024 um and to our teachers and staff and administration for another great school year you're in the home stretch only one more Monday thank you thank you all I will keep mine short and sweet um at Greek side we have embarked on a search for a new principal um Mr pumford has been excellent in

093filling in um in a pinch at Creekside uh and although we wish he would stay with us forever I think he might retire for real this time um and spend some time with his family uh he might miss us again and you never know come back but um we will be um conducting interviews for that over the next several weeks um to have a candidate surely identified um well beyond before uh school starts um we will be uh the top 10 students obviously in the class of 2024 uh once announced um we'll recognize them at the next board meeting um to ensure that they receive the um accolades that they deserve um with a getting out so early in May it makes it difficult to catch them while they're in school and so we'll do

094that at next board meeting um and then I just want to remind the Personnel committee um it's been a whirlwind since our last meeting but I would like you guys to debrief on the staff survey and create some action items around that as a group and then bring them back for recommendation to um to the table to the to the rest of the board um and then perhaps we can incorporate those in some our board goals U moving forward that so ends my committee and building reports moving on to item 2A leesa 2024 2025 I move that the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approves the leesa 2024 25 budget as presented support motion by Mrs Shaw support by Mr Cot any discussion um I was able to have a length conversation

095with Mr Hubert and um I support this 100% any further discussion Mr Hubert is p tabulous to talk with if anyone gets the opportunity um breaks everything down very well um any further discussion hearing none Mr galeski yes Mrs sha yes Mrs Colman yes Mr Costa yes Mr Keller yes Mrs blel yes and I'm yes yes that motion passes item 2B special education millage renewal I move that the Board of Education upon the recommend of the superintendent approves a special education millage renewal as presented support motion by Mr Costa supported by Mrs Coleman any discussion on this item I have uh just a quick question just for clarification um on the uh actual resolution item number six it states that this board desires to express its support for a uh leesa special education millage renewal

096and restoration to be voted upon on an election to be held on Tuesday November 5th so essentially I just want to clarify that the uh voting yes for this we are expressing our desire to put this out in front of the public and let them vote on it and that's all it implies correct yes correct okay thank you any further discussion talked at length with Mr H about this one as well and I support it all right hearing that Mr goleski yes Mrs Shaw yes Mrs colan yes Mr Costa yes Mr Keller yes Mrs Vil yes and I a that motion passes item 2 C leesa parent advisory committee Representatives I moved at the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the director of special education appoint Sarah Lewis and Angela Workman

097as the Heartland Consolidated Schools representatives to the leesa parent advisor committee for a threeyear term support motion by Mrs Coleman supported by Mrs sha any discussion I have a quick question um just so you could uh help us understand what is the process for selecting candidates for that position how does that happen how does that work yeah um one of these individuals I believe it's Angel Workman is currently on the committee and that expires the other person decided didn't want to continue so Mrs Lewis has also usually they're they're parents with children that have special needs and so as they're talking with Adrien and the staff they're expressing an interest to be a part of it okay yeah I was unaware of how that actually uh takes place and how those individuals actually get nominated

098for it so thank you any further discussion yeah so would a parent have an opportunity to request it in the future or I guess how does I think through um Adrian Dean okay and I would assume that they would be apparent familiar with the needs of that population okay thank you any further discussion hearing none Mr galeski yes Mrs sha yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Kasa yes Mr Keller yes Mrs bondil yes and I'm a yes that motion passes item 2D District radio upgrades I move that the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the director of operations approves the district radio upgrades as presented motion by Mrs Shaw supported by Mrs Coleman any discussion I just want to thank Mr Marino but I don't think he's here today I know had

099lots of questions for him so Matt if you're listening thank you for clarifying all those points I did have one more question for you but I guess um you know it doesn't affect my vote so I'll follow with you later thanks yeah and uh also uh I did have a a question answered by uh Mr Marino so that was uh that was good and I do understand the importance of communications um this is a big big safety item in in all honesty that's where it boils down too so thank you any further discussion hearing none Mr goleski yes Mrs sha yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Costa yes Mr CER yes Mrs Bal yes and yes that motion passes item 2E computer replacement purchase 2020 Bond I move that the Board of Education upon the recommendation

100of the superintendent and the technology director approves the computer purchase as presented support motion by Mrs Coleman supported by Mr Costa and any discussion thank you to Mr Asher for answering all the questions again appreciate it and then just one general question I think it goes for Rachel I'm guessing so um M uh Mr Usher had mentioned when we were kind of talking lease versus buy that one of the stipulations with Bond money is you cannot lease equipment is that that's correct you can't use Bond money to make lease payments okay all right thank you any further discussion hearing none Mr Google yes Mrs Shaw yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Costa yes Mr Keller yes Mrs vondal yes I'm a yes that motion passes item 3A item for discussion 2425 parent student handbook modifications one

101second me get to the pages can Scott talk real quick about it since it's a discussion ited Scott you want to talk about that thank you yeah briefly um this is a process that we have used for the past couple decades um the it starts in Earnest in January building principles uh assistant principles department heads um anyone who has um an application or information in the parent student handbook does a review uh for example this year our elementary group who we've always asked to work together uh to collaborate on the elementary handbook um did a little more extensive work uh came up with a discipline rubric uh like the high school um as did the intermediate school again to bring a little more um clarification to to the enumerated items if you will in the

102handbook uh and also more transparency for parents to see what guides decision making in terms of a disciplinary outcome uh for a violation of any one of those items so that that was a biggie uh there are some things that uh go across the board for all handbooks uh such as I removed from uh the book for Title 9 as Kate Gregory will handle that as a compliance officer um and other language on the statement of compliance in the front of the book um as you can see in your your pack of information I think it's also important that the board understands the reason why it comes to you every year is this is in essence board policy right because you're adopting the amb books so this is board policy no different than you adopt

103the high school curriculum guide that becomes board policy that's how we practice based on your approval I'm I'm missing a um a sheet but um Mrs blondal um will have some edit suggestions um to some of the language and board policy that she will get to me that I'll get to the board um as soon as possible on the item of restroom use protocol and as soon as I have that I disseminate it since as we have some conversation right and if anyone is interested in any further discussions obviously before next board meeting around that whether that's with Council or so on and so forth please just reach out to me so that I can set that up I I was kind to actually making um reach out you on this one I know this

104this the new restroom use protocol I'm just wondering if because a lot of these other ones that sound like they came out of like a committee of number of people this this did not come out of committee the correct this is something that kind of is being spearheaded by well it was presented to committee and then I uh during the health and safety committee to took what was presented at the original committee meeting after doing some work talking with that original School District um talking with Council then came it brought it back to Safety Committee it was near the end of that meeting um and so that's this is what came out of that meeting yes okay because I'm just like I know I we have a month to talk it over and have more

105conversation which is great but I'm as I as I look at it I'm just wondering it is it necessary appropriate I'm just wondering if it does does it do anything and and again I'm want to have more conversation with you and the other board members about like what they see this this does because quite frankly I'm I'm struggling with what what it does differently than what we currently have so by the for conversation and you will connect with me offline yes okay any further just um obviously you have the next 30 days so if you have edits to anything in the handbook please please get them to me like I said as soon as Michelle gets them I'll put it out so that everyone's kind of aware of the alternate language okay I do have

106a quick question y why is this policy being relegated to a handbook this is a district policy and it should be elevated to a policy level not for a handbook so we can certainly take that to consideration I think that it's probably um you know as we're we have expectations of our students I think we still need to maintain it in the handbook um because that's ultimately what we refer to from a student expectation standpoint and what's adopted I mean we adopt this handbook obviously as policy and so I don't necessarily want to remove it um I wouldn't recommend to to necessarily remove it from this even if we do something from policy standpoint well um we do have policies we do have handbooks they serve two different purposes and something this important and this

107controversial I think deserves a uh place in the policy manual that covers the entire District not just the high school or not just the high school and middle school but covers the district okay I can send that out's revisions all right sorry while we're on this subject I also wanted to just maybe this will not survive the language but I was trying to get a better understanding of the wrap around me and kind of what what is that process and you know just is there any more commentary cuz it wasn't 100% clear to me what what we would do in that setting I think from a high level I'm happy to have to work miss Mr Hugh to document something but I think from a high level that's a wraparound meeting with the school administration

108um parents family to understand the true needs of the child um and the student uh that could go well beyond what's kind of outlined in that particular area area but it also allows our administrators to dig a little bit deeper about the needs of that individual so is there like a outcome or criteria so I guess is it basically going to be used to determine eligibility is that how I um I think it would be used to determine the resources needed and then um part of this I guess we would be remiss if we didn't talk about this is um making sure that we understand the transition of bathrooms that we had discussed at safety meting committee meeting um and making sure that we had General neutral bathrooms throughout the building versus just in the

109office or in the counseling office um getting from the third floor equals Nest to the first floor and the few minutes of passing is difficult um and so I I think it would be um understanding and outlining the availability and accessibility as well okay all right item 3B new sorry I thought we were only talking about the bathroom right I had some questions on some of the other changes that Mr Vans kind of went through so sorry for the PE parent teacher conferences just as a general question how are the parents made aware that they have the opportunity to have one I guess how do how do we communicate that besides is it just in the handbook or is there I've received email from all I've always received emails from I Reed two corre two

110different buildings yeah but is there I guess is there official I get them too but I'm I'm asking is there sort of an official process or is it basically up to the teacher to to make that a make people aware of that or do we as a district say because I don't recall seeing sort of a districtwide one so but I I could have missed it so I'm just asking if we as general practice make that well I would lean on Dave or Chuck to get involved as well but at the building level uh there's a window of time um teachers are responsible for reaching out to parents uh communicating that they're available for conferencing um you know we've moved away from that designated evening and because not every parent wants to attend or perhaps

111you got greater volumes of parents at the elementary level and it makes it uh that that that 5 minute or 10 minute window a little bit um less than effective perhaps I wonder if we can put some standard verbage you know like um in the elementary level it gets sent home but in the uh middle school high school level you have to you download it from um the system and so I just wonder if we put a little note like a standard note um actually on the report card on the outline that as well like some standard verbage weekly letter they're elect beginning or something can go weekly I wonder about on the actual report card ium people are looking at that they're electronic yeah you have to again go seek them out to you

112know what I mean it's yeah I would asse that the parents that are going to seek that are downloading their child report have a a different level of effort and interest in perhaps meeting with and maybe an introductory email from principles at the beginning of the year to families that could be you know part of the bullet points that they provide to resources that are available for parent you know maybe it could be in in that introductory email I ad staff yeah I would suggest you let us um um send something to the board that says we heard you at the board meeting you want some different ways to get this out here is the selection of opportunities that we've come up with how's that sound yeah it sounds good again I bring it up

113I I personally received them so I know we do it but it it surprises me the number of comments that I get from people in the community like you're not having parent teacher conference it's like well yeah we are are you checking your emails so again just more about awareness um so that's what I wanted to ask on that one the next question I have was on the harassment changes there was a I think a request to add kind of some verbage around the doj disclosure can can you kind of clarify are we authorizing the reporting to the doj with this particular change or are is it again just public awareness I know Mr Hughes in his previous weekly reports has made people aware but with the addition to the handbook is there any significance

114to that language uh not authorizing but transparency to the parents that um a district investigation or a report of harassment may be subject to Disclosure by the US Department of Justice may not be protected by fura or Foya um so it's letting them know that that could occur uh and may not be something we uh control so with that said why are we we're putting in the handbot before we all agree to the process right isn't that putting putting it out there too soon if you if uh at the next meeting you say hey um we don't want this in here we don't have to put it in there right so you've got you got time to talk to each other and come back to the table and say we approve everything but we don't

115want that in there okay that's why I trying are we authorizing that it man we are mandating it or if it's just just a awareness to the community this came out of a number of conversation that I've had either in committee or in conversations about the work that we're doing and it basically was suggested again just like in November even though it didn't go so well in November because people came and said I I didn't do a good job sharing that it was just trying to create the awareness that if something happens we may have to report that and we just wanted to be transparent right so that's it and if you don't want us to be transparent in that way that's okay but we just trying to do that because we heard from the

116board that we might want to be transparent so if we request like on your monthly uh superintendent update or your weekly superintendent update that you could put that in there monthly just reminding parents because really the goal is to get the parents involved so that it stops right it's not to kind of put it off to the side that you know your kid's name can be given to the Department Justice it's like hey let's get involved make sure you know let your child know that their name can be given to the Department of Justice I mean I think that if we can add that to your superintendent update so that parents know that it's there and keep them reminded of it because everyone's busy and you know people forget to remind their children so that's

117what I would suggest um I have another question about dress code so I thought that there was something in here about costumes that your children are all Lord costumes on a on an off day other than and um you know something that's you know related to Dr Seuss or you know Halloween or something like that um are we did we remove that did I miss that if if something was removed it would have been it shown up as a strike through no no before like last year was wasn't that removed last year or something I mean they just the changes right but I it says that this is the current language and being moved from the old discipline rubric to so this is the current language so it's not in here so I'm just wondering

118um when that like can we add that back in is that something I can we can I would have to research that for you okay all right do you guys want to connect and then figure that out lastly on the discipline rubric you touched on I was a little confused on the elementary one it says it's a whole new one but it looked very similar I think what we have for farm so is it we're just applying the intermediate to Elementary can can you it's been re it's reformatted in the sense so the rubric itself is reformatted to look similar to what's in place at the heist secondary and and now being proposed for Farms so there is a rubric in the elementary handbook has been reformatted to look like this which you have in

119front of you so basically covering the disciplinary C atories and um you know what could be uh the outcomes for first and subsequent referrals okay thank you all right moving on to item 3B new and revised policies these were sent to us from niola um obviously if you guys have edits of the policies please get them to me so I can get them to the rest of the board for consideration um and I believe there's a summary page on the policies and what the changes are um but if you could give me any edits in the next two weeks so that I could then get them to the rest of the board that's very very helpful I would like to take a look at this 8800 the very last patriotic activities and observances they've struck

120out United States flag and Pledge of Allegiance I think I'd like to work on rewarding that to keep it in there I don't know why we would want to move that but um I can take a look at that get those edits to you m perfect I will send any edits out to the group so that everyone's aware and has a time to actually think about any proposed edits I think I can make that one the easy one you can keep that one in there I think they just Struck it because it adds the topic is patriotic activities and observances and then they talk about flags and they talk about everybody having the chance for the pledge silence so so we do all those things already so I think that's an easy one okay um

121I'd like to bring up uh policy 6350 prevailing wage yeah on that one um well it says the superintendent shall designate a prevailing wage coordinator now is this just a set of Duties that will be assigned to someone or is this a brand new position no this would be a signed to Rachel whenever we do bonds whenever we do work we have to when we accept contracts go out for bid you know we have to understand the prevailing wages issue so I would be assigning Rachel okay very good Rachel coordinator she looks thrilled Rachel is so lucky all right um sorry I want to ask about the payroll deduction so the question is would it actually require that we withhold um vies for a union even if a teacher is not part of the union

122or is but there was also a discussion of a form so I didn't know if you had to fill out the form to actually get the deduction or if it's man if we're mandating that we take the deduction so if you if you look actually if you look at the policy you can see the strikeout at the bottom of K there um so the bottom line is you can now through the um bargaining process the the association can ask us to do the payroll deduction then we'd have to bargain a system in which individuals would have to present to us that they want to be involved in that system and we couldn't just deduct without permission from the employees so but they still have to opt in essentially to to take advantage of this right

123that would be the bar bargaining we'd had to come up with bargaining language on this one just because it was a it was not permissible in the the old way with the new Peril regulations it's permissible so we have the bargain on what that would look like okay thank you any further discussion all right please please please addit in two weeks I for get them out to everyone else item three C Food Service equipment and kitchen upgrades for discussion okay so that was me um so we recently issued three separate rfps for various uh kitchen equipment throughout the high school um as well as for a walk-in uh cooler SL freezer at the high school and as well as for one at the middle school um all of the items that uh you see on

124on the list uh on the page attached um are the items that we have selected that are in the most dire need of replacement uh right now at this point um we have seven kitchens feeding 2,000 kids breakfast and lunch a day so while this looks like it's a lot of stuff this is just a drop in the Hat of the amount of inventory and equipment that we have uh throughout our district um we have a good opportunity to purchase these items uh right now with um the fund balance we have available in the Food Service fund that has built up over time uh due to all of the uh various Co relief uh free meal programs and whatnot and um we are required to spend these dollars on food service related items um so

125these these onetime uh purchases are a good way to get that uh fund balanced down uh because we are required to keep our fund balance at a at a certain level we can't be over a certain level of fund balance in our food service fund and which we are currently because of um all these $1 time so should would these be end of the year like the end of the school year purchases yeah so um unfortunately we will not get these items finished before June 30th but uh they will be included in next year's budget cycle and so next year in that budget cycle will be to the point of fund balance that we need to be um after making these purchases yes uh also as a side note we were originally going to do

126the cooler uh coolers both at the middle school and high school out of the sinking fund um but because there is funding available in the Food Service fund we're able to free up that sinking fund for um other projects and um pay for these items here out the Food Service fund uh quick question too are is this in replacement for current equipment yes okay with the exception of I believe um I have to ask Lisa but I think the pizza oven might be a different uh might be a new item but for the most part it's it's all replacing current items that have um reached under of their useful life okay and and we're not replacing something that we just got 2 years ago or anything like that this is stuff that's legitimately um in

127need of replacement yeah so these coolers um the high school was built 20 years ago so that's about how old their equipment is um so got it's coming up due to to get it replaced I I'm not certain when the when the Middle School walk-in uh was last done but it is it's on the fritz need very good r just a question I was going to ask you and you mentioned it the the comment about the federal funding requirement what what exactly do like what metric do we have to hit for the fund balance so your fund balance can't be more than three months worth of operating expenditures um last year that level was around $700,000 we were at $1.1 million the gap of about $400,000 extra which is how much this purchase essentially is

128to get that that F mail that's a federal that's a federal requirement uh finding on your audit report okay I don't want one of those no no we don't want toak break your streak of unmodified or whatever the top level is there so well this would be a hit on our federal Awards audit this is a federal program but um I will also share that this is a problem with every single School District in the state of Michigan and um because of the program that have been in place the last four years um so it's been kind of a challenge as well because everyone's trying to buy equipment right now and so it is taking longer to buy things it's taking longer to get things in it's taking longer to get things installed so um

129unfortunately we'll likely have excess fund balance again this year because of the timing of of when we can get this done but by next year next end of next year we should be in the PO thank you question on the walk-in cooler and it it was noted that one of the vendors didn't like their bid was not within scope can you talk a little bit about what didn't meet yep scope so when you bid for these items specifically with food service equipment you have to specify a certain manufacturer and a certain uh uh brand um you want XYZ brand this model this make um they did not provide a bid for that same make mod um this was a um it sounded like a French Canadian company I don't know that they really understood um

130our our specs or RFP entirely um based on some of the questions that they asked and um so they did bid um provide a bid for something far outside our scope Dimensions I don't even think were the same so okay you asked for an apple and got an orange okay got it thanks all right item 3D video capabilities Mr goes you want to K us off um yeah just um it's kind of come to my attention from looking at board meetings from other districts and such that our and this is no insult to anyone that that does this work but we really don't have as nice of a presentation or a recording as some other districts um for example one of the things that we don't have we don't have any kind of view over

131speakers for the call to public the one camera that we do have simply has the same view um all the time and I'm thinking that improvements in this wouldn't be that expensive is there a district that you that you're very impressed with very impressed with um maybe not very impressed with but yeah so somewhat impressed um looking at others there there seems to be um closer views there seems to be again too talking about call to public um just something that might even provide better audio as well um sometimes our audio kind of cuts out or it has in the past anyway I don't know if that's just the result of Zoom that we were using or if if that's our or equipment or what have you um many times the audio would would not

132capture everything so I would agree with Mr Goki and the fact that the current recordings prior to this last one I know it is hard to see the board even us and I'm assuming the camera is sitting right there right so I don't I don't know what the fix would be or the cost but I I do know that and in some cases they recordings the they struggle to hear the the public and I don't know if that's just our public is not speaking into the microphone or or what it may be but I agree that we should look into something I don't know what it cost would be or so like here on Valley in Milford like they had I watched their um board couple weeks ago and they have a good system you

133can see the speaker clearly hear them see the board members as they're speaking individually yes um so I I don't know that we have to have a cameram man but it's definitely something that is more engaging than just seeing our tiny heads and just perhaps we can task Mr H to work with Mr Usher um on kind of some options that we might have um and pull together um Mr I think is gone but um perhaps you guys can work on some options for us and then we can kind of go from there I think some other resources too could just be some fellow Partners in progress with either the library board or the Heartland Township they have different different systems systems that they're using so I can tell the library board is probably worse

134than ours that's not M I don't know that I would say that but well they sto they stopped doing video anyway the library but that was in fact I think the reason why they stopped was the fact that the quality was so poor so um well perhaps the switch to YouTube might make the audio better but ideally we could get something better for a camera I agree too so I just don't know cost or who right has on the subject of YouTube I guess I have some concerns that they may block a video or censor a video or I mean they what assurances do we have that they may not deem some content inappropriate and therefore we lose access to our own Schoolboard video do what's the guarantee that that doesn't happen do we have

135to have a separate copy hosted on our servers guess those are some other considerations I would ask for us to look into just so we so we don't lose out on our videos do you want to send any of your questions and then Mr Usher can make sure that as he's developing a new process or a new way forward that all of those can be taken into ask okay okay thanks all right item 4 a future meetings we do have a meeting on June 17th at 6:30 right here item 4B does anyone have any informational items I just want to make a comment I know one of the parents spoke about the reading um Services we provide and it's really important to me as well so hopefully that we can get something done and and

136remedy that so I appreciate that very much bringing that to our attention and and I hope that we do something to fix that as well thank you graduation is may1 31st at down at emu so those of you that have um kidos graduating or family members or you just want to see a ton of students walk across and get their diplomas it's really exciting and um we hope to see the community there supporting our graduates all right item five oh sorry July 22nd for your July meeting oh yeah does that uh so July 22nd for an organizational meeting I need everyone to check their calendars just to ensure that that actually drives with everyone's schedules if you have any um conflex if you can get me any conflex by June 1st so that we have

137time to reschedule that so you know Renee and I talked about this the reason why we picked July 22nd is because of the 4th of July week and then the busyness and trying to get the board package and everything else and uh it just seemed like it would be better to to to the 22nd to give us time did you want us to do that now because I don't have my phone with me gosh no please I don't have my calendar with me either I have 17 of them um but any conflicts please get to me by June 1st item five close session superintendent devaluation and we do have our moderator here with us as well I moved at the Board of Education upon the request of the superintendent and the recommendation of the board

138president enters into close session to discuss the superintendent evaluation support motion by M Shaw support by Mrs Coleman any discussion yeah I guess I I do want to have quick discussion I I have some concerned in reading the actual statute for for the open meetings act and it it to me it's not perfectly clear that this meeting today would actually qualify for one of the items that would afford US the opportunity to go into Clos session and I think we had a member of the community point out some of those concerns as well and so I think legally I have concerns about voting because we're not actually doing the evaluation so I I don't know Megan if you've already run this trap line or not but um well the the legal concerns around it obviously

139I've worked um and been in conversation with with our facilitator who's well aware of the process that we're planning to roll out and so perhaps he will be willing to speak more on that um and then I'm happy to get you something from through but no one had sent me any questions for legal council review I guess I don't know that it was clear that this particular would be a Clos session so I know we've had discussions about next month's meeting being closed but it it says close session item five close session super tense evaluation so I'm just and I know our MSB consultant is here so I I can't imagine that us heading into close session would violate something and he would be a part of it I mean I just speculation but I

140mean when I looked at the back session so I knew I knew tonight we were going in so well considering that in the past we haven't done things properly I think it's good that we clarify this first so can we get his input before we vote on yeah I mean that's what I I would request because I think if we actually vote on it isn't that you know I just want to make sure that we're within the law so is it possible provide some input thank you so much absolutely I apologize for putting you on the spot no worries no worries all okay so what specific concern can I address because today's meeting is not actually to have the evaluation so I'm trying to understand how this meeting to talk about the evaluation not actually

141give the evaluation how that qualifies under 8A sure in the statute so uh getting across first and foremost that I am not uh legal representation for the Michigan Association forwards um and that I'm not speaking on behalf of uh but I will tell you that we have been advised by Bri bassic who is generally considered to be one of the experts on the open meetings act from across the state that any discussion of the superintendent's evaluation if the superintendent would prefer that that b in close session has the right to ask for that close session nor to discuss his evaluation and that is what we're doing tonight uh we are not conducting the full evaluation tonight we've decided to break this into two parts so part one will be tonight where we will discuss the

142superintendent self- evaluation which is part of the evaluation process and then the second part that we'll get together and talk about in June will be your opportunity as a board to discuss your side of the evaluation process with the superintendent so we're taking that superintendent evaluation process breaking it into two parts there are some boards that do everything that we're doing tonight and in June in one meeting in close session but your board has selected as have other boards in the state to break this into two parts um so whether we do it in two parts or one part we do have that ability to go into close session to discuss superintendent evaluation I have a quick question yeah um you mentioned that the superintendent can request it correct and who approves it obviously it's

143not the board that approves it USA board will now take a vote once a motion has been offered to go into a close session USA board will then take a vote on to whether or not you want to go into that Clos session it is generally our recommendation that boards honor the request of the superintendent to go into close session to discuss his valuation um just as the superintendent would honor the request of any of his staff members to discuss their evaluation um you know in a private meeting um and so again it is not something that you have to do as a board but it is something that we recommend you honor his request to go into close session to discuss the evaluation just as you would uh you know expect any discussion of

144an evaluation perhaps in your workplace or in this workplace uh be conducted in a close session or in a private session as well so if I heard correct though according to the masb attorney it's 100% legal to have this meeting even though we're not giving the actual result to Mr H this is part of the evaluation process the evaluation process can be conducted in a close session if it is at the request the superintendent and then approved by the board I'm happy to follow up again I didn't I had no ability to follow up with that question so I can get something to um I'd happier to reach out to Brad tomorrow or at that Brad reach out to you all right any further discussion yeah I just have a question so Chuck it obviously

145requested to do this um in close session can you explain why yeah I can explain why um you as a board of education represent the people of the community Through the people you are the board no one member is more important than the whole board and because it's an evaluation just like I would with all of my charges I wouldn't evaluate them in public you're going to have some information in front of you you're going to have opportunity in the process to give me feedback from your perspective that doesn't need to be in the public you as the board represent them you've been elected to represent them you'll go behind doors and you'll have those conversations and you'll evaluate me privately like I would anybody else in the evaluation process but again this meeting isn't

146that right we're not evaluating you today right the self evaluation is part of the evaluation process we will then you guys will have 30 days or we will in theory have 30 days might be 31 days whatever it looks like to then do our own evaluation I think it's really in my opinion and everyone can disagree with me but I think giving us time to actually digest the self evaluation and each individual is probably prudent as part of this process versus trying to cram it in at one night at 8:30 p.m. to try and say okay we did an effective evaluation in a couple hours but again for me the issue is having it as a closed meeting and and whether that's legal that's the I think the question and I'm not no disrespect but

147I'm I'm not comfortable with that explanation given how it conflicts with what's on the masb website so for me I I don't okay we'll do a and you can certainly any additional discussion hearing none Mr goleski no Mr sha yes Mrs Coleman yes Mr Costa yes Mr ker no Mrs blondal have to say no for now and I'm a yes that motion passes I do want to let the public and those listening on YouTube know that we are going to shut down the YouTube um there's we don't know how long we're going to be in close session there will be no action taken after close session we will come back to just a journ so those of you who are on YouTube or in the room um I mean you're more than welcome to stay

148to watch us s during the meeting but I don't want people to stay thinking that there's anything that's going to happen afterwards um you are free to go home and for all the staff that are here um likewise please go [Music] home we're going to go down to the special conference