February 9, 2026, P 12 Board of Education Meeting

001Good evening everyone and welcome to the Derwin public school board meeting. It's Monday, February 9th and I call the meeting to order. >> Trusty Bezi here. Trusty Drojo not not present. Trustee Mosep >> here. >> Trusty Pelich >> here. >> Trusty Sub >> here. >> Trusty Zaher here. President Al Jahi >> here. >> Uh our next item is a pledge of allegiance to the flag. I see we have representatives from Lori Elementary School here with us today. Please make your way up to the podium with their assistant principal, Mr. Camel Bezi. introduce. >> Yeah, you can. >> Yep. >> Okay. Good evening everyone. We uh thank you for having Lori students, four wonderful young men. We have um Kasson Deja, Muhammad Alsad, Joseph Jawad, and Muhammad Bezi. Thank you. I aliance to the flag of

002the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Guys, we have some plaques for you here. >> For Mohamad Bazy. >> Thank you. Thank you guys. >> Thank you. Mr. President, I saw these young men before and I let them know if they messed up, they would have to all do summer school, but it sounded to me that they all did a pretty good job. >> They they did an amazing job and I want to thank the the principal over there, Miss Ununice, and Mr. Bazy, the AP, uh, who I've known for a while. Um, the, you know, my kids went to some of the schools he went to. Also, Lori is very, um, special to me since my grandkids

003go there. So, um, thank you so much for coming and doing the pledge everyone. >> Great. >> Our next item is the superintendent's update. >> Okay. Good evening everybody. We have a lot of updates today. We will begin with a moment of silence. Um, the first item here is on January 15th, a 2025 Dearborn graduate passed away suddenly. The loss of any life is sad. But when we lose a young person filled with so much potential, so much more to give, it is a reminder of how fragile life can be and how important it is to appreciate all who have touched our lives. We also experienced the passing of Ishmael Ahmed. On January 31st, Ishmael Ahmed passed away. Ish, as many of us know him as, was one of the grassroots founders of Access in

004its earliest days. He played a key role in its growth and served as a longtime executive director. The community has and will continue to benefit from his contributions in providing a voice, services, and growth. His wife, Margaret King Ahmed, was a longtime district employee of 22 years. Those who worked closely with Margaret, me being one of them, can attest to her passion and commitment to our community as well. Please take a moment of silence to remember them. Thank you. We have one retirement this month. Trisha Lash Lashchuk steam enrichment teacher is retiring after 27 years of service most re recently at HG Elementary. Her retirement is effective June 30, 2026. Okay. Last month was schoolboard appreciation month and we have two district employees who also serve on boards of education and they are Danielle Elat,

005director of safety and security and Dan Taylor, music resource teacher. Thank you both for your service in your respective communities. If there are any if there are any other staff that we are not aware of who serve on boards of education, please let us know as we'd like to recognize you as well. I'd like to next um congratulate President Al Jahi on being recognized for his level one certification. Is that correct with MESB? Yes. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> February is school counselors month. Our school counselors work with our students to provide clarity, direction, and support day in and day out. And we appreciate all of their hard work. So, thank you to all of our school counselors. February is also CTE month, career and technical education month. We currently have CTE programs that focus

006on computer programming, business academy, digital design, infoch, criminal justice, culinary arts, pre-education, construction trades, health sciences, auto tech, and welding. Dearborn schools values our CTE programs and we are committed to expanding these options for our students to prepare them for high skill and demand careers in the future. February is also Black History Month. This month provides an opportunity to reconcile with the past, pave the way for a more just future, and celebrate all the amazing figures who have taken their place in the Chronicles of Black History. More importantly, we must remember that black history is our history. It's America's history. The accomplishments and achievements of black Americans are part of the fabric that is woven into our great nation. Last month, the board asked the administration to provide options for a potential ballot proposal based

007on the information and data shared with the board. We are making great progress towards this goal and continue refining possible plans that will offer a comprehensive approach to addressing our infrastructure needs. We look forward to sharing more details with the board and public at a future date. Uh also last month, President Aljah asked for a few updates. One being regarding the school improvement plan, cyber security and work order update. We will begin with those updates now. Uh Fatmi, executive director Fatmi Faraj will approach the podium and share with us uh school improvement updates. Good evening, President Al Jahi, board trustees and members of our community. >> Good evening. Uh, I just wanted to first thank all of our teachers, administrators, and all of the support staff for all the work that they do every day

008because I know that we often pay attention to proficiency and student achievement, but we want to acknowledge all of the great work happening in our schools every single day with every single teacher. We heard about CTE from Lamese and the multiple programs that we have. We also have the secondary programs that we should celebrate as well as all of the non-academic extracurricular activities and events happening in every single school. So these are not necessarily academic factors but they do impact student learning every single day. So thank you so much and counselors being one of them. it's counselor's uh month as well. So today we're going to touch a little bit on the the path we're taking to strengthen system so that we in can improve proficiency in our schools. Uh school improvement plans, smart goals,

009district improvement plan existed uh as far as we've I can say we've all been in schools. However, um what impact student achievement are the systems that we put in place to ensure that plans are implemented with fidelity. And this is what we're going to touch on today. Uh we all are aware that Michigan reading scores lag behind most states. Uh we know that Dearborn compares favorably uh in some areas but faces similar statewide challenges and students are entering with greater needs than they've ever done in the past. specifically uh postcoid which uh we do not use an exc as an excuse but we do notice that when students are assessed when they enter preschool and kindergarten in our district they come in lagging prerequisite skills even to be able to function in school we're not

010even talking about academics there which takes us time to establish with the students uh this is a shared responsibility across the district school families and the state partners. We currently serve on state committees along with the governor's office to improve literacy in the state. Uh so we play a role in that as well. Uh as I mentioned earlier, we must acknowledge that uh we do a lot of great things in the district and we're very proud of them. Uh we implement a whole child initiative initiatives uh strong secondary and alternative programs and the school improvement process within the accountability system in the state uh changed the name from school improvement plans to continuous improvement plans focusing on the whole child meaning that we must include factors that are not academics necessarily. uh but we do

011recognize and uh with a sense of urgency that we intentionally have to boost student proficiency and college readiness. Uh our plans include goals uh that will improve both academic outcomes and non-academic conditions that directly impact learning. And these are attendance, behavior, and school climate. And these are also part of this uh this board's goals. Uh I just put here a snapshot of how we can compare to the state in terms of percentile ranking in ELA and math. In ELA we are 56 state percentile and this is two points up from uh the previous year from year to year meaning 23 24 to 2425. In math we are 72 percentile rank. So we need we should acknowledge that as well and this is based on both uh students scoring proficient and advanced proficient on MSTEP PSAT

012and SAT. Uh we also recognize that science and social studies need additional support and uh meaning specifically um a whole system support in terms of uh adopting new resources in science and social studies and we are on the on the path to doing that from elementary to middle school to high school. One of the uh factors or element that we strengthened this year is the transparency and access accessibility of data. Uh we have established a new dashboard. It's called the data dashboard. Thanks to Dr. Patterson for all of the work he put in uh to uh establish this dashboard. It is a centralized and accessible platform uh that is on the district website. It also includes every school improvement plan document that you can click and view that specific plan. Uh the SIP committee expanded

013to include board members as well and the these two increase transparency and communications with our stakeholders and the board. We we did have uh data and reports and all of the specific reports in the dashboard existed. However, they were either shared in uh by sharing with principles in folders or in meetings. Uh but the dashboard brought all of the pieces together which is um much uh provides much better accessibility for all. uh building level accountability. Again, uh all of the items we listed here have been strengthened. That team, including Lamese, Diana, uh Dan and I um have worked on this together to make sure that accountability is tangible and actionable in these plans. Uh principles revisited and re-calibrated their smart goals uh within their own plans. Strategies and activities include explicit instructions which is based

014on the science of reading making sure that every building implements an activity based on the science of reading. Uh and the plan includes a cycle of monitoring these activities evaluating them and then also uh measuring the impact. uh building admin instructional pre implements instructional walkthroughs and actionable feedback. And we had them also establish an activity within their school improvement plans that uh specifies that classroom walkthroughs are a must in order for you to see how activities are implemented and measure the impact as well. Professional development is also we worked on that to make sure it's aligned to classroom expectations. Uh there is also a structured midyear and year end evaluation of outcomes. At midyear we measure uh progress at the end of the year we examine outcomes. Uh the SIP visits and instructional walkthroughs by

015district and other administrators from different schools sign up to be with us on those visits. So principles can learn from each other and they they see what's happening in the other schools. One of the best strategies uh to improve student achievement is actually lifting good practices from different classrooms and different schools and establishing a culture of positive devian which is truly emulating what's happening in other schools. So monitoring without accountability does not change results and we know that most often programs fail because of uh fidelity of implementation or the lack of systems. So the bottom line is uh that improvement comes from strong systems and strong instruction and this has to be across the board. system means we are implementing in every classroom within a school or in every school within our district. Small gains

016and improving our systems uh should be emulated as we mentioned because these are the examples that people will trust. Teachers will trust good examples and they will build a culture of improvement. uh without fidelity even the strong plan as well as it's written it's going to fail. Uh with any plan like we said we implement the monitoring the progress evaluating strategies and adjusting if we need to based on the results. So the factors impacting student achievement and this is based on research uh curriculum and instruction how instruction is delivered and if the curriculum is delivered with clarity uh meaning that it's based on the essential standards that uh are based on the common core state standards. Uh I wanted to mention here that in many instances see taking the the resources or the curriculum to

017the students level does not help the student. We can do that when we provide extra support. But in core instruction we must teach with clarity and guarantee that every student has access to high quality curriculum and resources. So that's one thing we're focusing on. uh lesson design and delivery are uh they have the highest impact as well. Uh and that's part of curriculum and instruction. So when we think about curriculum and instruction, we should think about professional development given to teachers and how they're designing the lesson and how they're delivering the lesson. Uh one uh factor that is not necessarily within our boundaries but we can advocate for it all the time is students being read to at home and communicated with regularly to develop oral language skills. Uh students often enter preschool as I

018mentioned earlier and students who are spoken to and are engaged in conversations are read to come in uh with higher readiness skills. Uh this is these are the board goals from this last year and you can see that they are highly aligned with our work and our continuous improvement process in the district and in the individual schools. >> Any questions from the board? >> Trusty Mus. >> Thank you Dr. Ferris for this presentation. I have a question on accountability. So can you expand more on that as far as how is each building accountable for its own goals? What happens when they miss their targets or what happens when they meet or exceed their targets? >> So I heard the first part one what happens if they miss their target? >> Yeah. The building misses its

019target or misses the target. >> Okay. So we uh coach principles through developing attainable goals which is part of the smart SMART. Attainable meaning based on a trend in that specific building. How did the building uh fare for the last few years and what would be realistic and attainable for them? uh we won't go to a building that did not make any gains for the past three years and say you need to set uh a 10 points improvement in your smart goal. We we make sure that we coach them to develop a goal maybe three to five percentage points and um if they do not achieve that if we do if they do achieve of course we celebrate and we set another goal for that for the following year with increments. Mhm. >> If they

020did not, we coach principles and we coach staff. We provide support in terms of professional development. We coach principles also in terms of coaching. What would coaches because we have several support staff in each building and the support staff's main uh goal is to improve instruction in the classroom. So this is how we coach principles and uh coaches in each of the buildings. And coaches are not instructional coaches only. We have special ed resource teachers. We have English language development specialists and they all work with classroom teachers. So we target core instruction as well as uh interventions. >> That's that's great to hear. So say we gave them all the support they need and they're still lagging and they're not making their goals of the second year or third year. At one point do we

021say there needs to be core changes? >> Absolutely. We core changes meaning more intensive intervention from the district level to the building. >> Yes. >> But just like when students are lagging and they're three and four years behind, we give them more intensive intervention. We do the same in buildings where we provide additional support. >> Yeah. And then second question is you mentioned that you have even kindergarteners coming at a a level where not even academically but like as far as life skills, >> right? Um and I know we already embarked with the early learning coalition getting families um who have kids from one to four to be involved to send them to programs that are you know at the district so they can get the feel of it. What else? What else are we

022doing on that front? And what do you think we we should be doing on that front from for kids who are one to four who are not yet in our buildings? But we want to make that transition easier. >> As much as we can amplify these opportunities for parents, we can have the kids, the students who enter our schools more prepared. I would say parenting classes helps as well because we don't know for sure that the parents all understand what is it that they need to be uh doing with their students in terms of increasing those oral language skills. But I'm going to also let the expert Lamese who oversees early childhood uh contribute to that answer. >> Thank you Fod. Not nearly an expert but there's a few things that I'm excited to say

023right now. Um GSRP seats are all full. We're at capacity. Um it hasn't been that way in a while. We've been closed. So what does that tell us? We need more seats open >> to provide more opportunities for these kids. The families more than ever are seeing the need for early childhood development. And we have an amazing program. A drawback that I think every early childhood teacher would agree with me on is the state waiver for kindergarten entry. It really hurts our children when they when families have the option to start their kids at an even younger age. Um, every early childhood expert would tell you that every month matters and makes a difference. So, having the kids starting even earlier um is is hurting them in the long run. Uh, we also have programs

024like you said, we have the ELC. It's a huge initiative to partner with families. Uh you saw one event this weekend, but we also are at every city event, the farmers markets. We're trying to more than ever uh meet parents where they're at and introduce them to the district and what we have to offer. Uh we also fund parent university which is uh a program offered I believe four times a year at four different sites uh to welcome families into our buildings to partner with the teachers to learn more about how to support their children at home. These are only a few um and I as much as we have it wouldn't be enough. But I do I do feel optimistic that more and more families are seeing the need for earlier education. >> Yes.

025>> The indication being that all of we're at capacity and so we are on a positive trend I believe and we're capitalizing on that. >> Great. There are also opportunities in the public libraries that many of our parents do not take advantage to. I appreciate this platform and if community members are watching. I think it's a word of mouth the four opportunities for the parenting classes. I was just looking at the flyer. It's a great opportunity for parents as well if we can continue to spread the message that parents need to be in these sessions. Yeah, definitely. Our public library offers a lot of sessions for younger kids, >> stories that are being read to on a weekly basis, so families can take advantage of that. >> We actually held one of our ELC meetings

026at the library so that everybody on that committee can see what they have to offer and it's not it's beyond reading and I was even surprised to see what they have to offer. So, if only and I we actually one recommend one recommendation was for school PTA meetings to host their meetings there >> because they're more than willing to give those parents a tour of what they have to offer. >> Great. Thank you. >> Any other questions? I I do want to speak to this because it's um it's a committee um initiative that's very dear to me and and I want to thank Miss F for for leading it. I also want to um thank the committee members uh in the last meeting in the previous meeting. They were so engaged. They were so um

027into improving you know uh the proficiencies improving um and and engaging in the sense of ideas and talking about what we could do. So I really want to thank them. Thank Miss Father. Um I really think this is a good uh initiative. Um accountability is big. We have amazing teachers, um, administrators in in the district, but we also have, um, some, um, some challenges that we have to deal with. And some schools are performing better than others. There's a, um, grade gaps. You know, there's kids that are two, three grades behind. We have to figure out how to get these kids to where they need to be. And, um, in order to do that, we have to have goals and we have to set the expectation. without goals. Uh it's kind of um it's going

028to be the status quo. And with this way, even though initially um and I heard the word attainable, um I I don't want the group to think attainable is you know, we pick a number that's easy for them to meet. It's really based on the school, based on um you know, what the school need. But in saying that, when we say accountability, it's not to put the administrators um in a position where it's sink or swim. We want to put them in a situation where we could provide them the resource, the things that they need to get the those kids up to speed. We also need to learn from schools that are performing at a high level. We have some schools who are doing really well and so we have to ask what are you

029doing that's um um that's best practice and how we could uh do that. So um for me this is a great program. I do want to ask that um first of all commend the dashboard. I think the dashboard is an amazing uh tool but not a lot of people know about it >> and I will ask the district to publicize that to let the the community know that there is a dashboard because uh when you have something that's so that's uh that's good, you have to really market it. You have to allow people to see what's out there. Um most people don't know it exists. So, we need to do that because I I'm really impressed with Dr. Patterson um and the work that he's done. So, I I would ask that we share that

030and let the parents know because it gives you a level of details um you know from WEDA to MSTEP to I Ready to you know a lot of things I I don't know uh Miss Feder I think it's going to have um attendance and and and um absenteeism is a part of that. >> We do. Okay. So it gives you we have four tools right now and MSTEP is the only one that's shared by the state. With this tool we could see all the different tools, all the data from the different tools and parents could see it, administrator could see it, teachers could see it and it really keeps us on our toes. But you know I I think it's a really great tool. So thank you so much. >> Thank you. I just wanted

031to mention that one of the promising strategies that the district has moved into implementing is called explicit instruction and that has to do how instruction is delivered and how students are engaged. We have close to 80 uh teachers in the district who are attending the conference this summer. Nine of us attended last year and we started rolling out in the district and training teachers and principles and we have close to 80 teachers who were interested which is very exciting. We hope to see that improving and transforming instruction in the classroom and that's the only factor really that we can rely on. If instruction doesn't change where the boots are on the ground then we can't see different results. So thank you so much. >> Thank you. Okay, our next Thank you, Miss Fes. Our next

032presentation is um the cyber security update. >> Yes. >> Doc uh Bob Addie will be approaching the podium to talk more about that. >> Good evening everyone. Uh, Superintendent Stur, President Eljami, trustees, I'd like to take a couple of minutes to uh, share a little bit about the findings that we had for the third party cyber security audit that we were able to have conducted over the past summer. And really just to spend a couple of minutes to thank the team that was involved in it, including my network administrators, executive director Tom Wall, that participated in a series of interviews, evidence gathering sessions, and meeting with our auditors as well, too. So, this was a uh long period of time that we spent really going through, delving into where uh we were looking at with

033the audit. And so, we were able to get a lot of good information from this. So we had some outstanding areas where we were doing phenomenal and part of that is patching when there are vulnerabilities. We do that in the timely manner. Making sure that we manage our audits uh our audit log so we kind of know who has access why and everything like that. And then looking at our network infrastructure and how we manage when assets come into the district where they go and we have a process for all of this. So these were areas where we got 100%. Some areas that were identified that we're doing really good are with data protection, with securing and configuring our enterprise assets like our desktops, our laptops, and the software that comes with them, our access

034control management. So part of that is who gets access to what programs and what level. And so we have a way to track that. If there are any errors with that, we're able to uh follow up on that. as well as our email and web uh protections as well. The areas that were identified for improvement were our inventory and uh asset um enterprise assets. And so with that one right there, it's if someone has a laptop that they bring in that has malware that's not issued by the district, it can access the network. And so that was one of the areas that was flagged. Also having uh inventory control with software assets. We had an older program that we were using at the time and have since updated that. So I'll get to that a

035little bit more with our remedies that we've done. And then uh service provider management. So we have different vendors that require access to our network for various programs like with operations with patching various things as well too. And so one of the areas that was identified is who do we know has access? And so we've taken steps to improve that as well too. So some of the things that we've been able to do to address unauthorized access, we explored the option of port locking and looking at other options. It's very costly at this time to be able to do that and so we are kind of looking at other options with that. In terms of establishing and maintaining our software inventory, we've updated the current inventory program that we're using, which provides more accurate information

036in there, provides dates when we were purchasing the software, what version it is. And so, we've taken more steps to make that understandable in terms of where we're at with everything. And then in terms of addressing unauthorized software as part of uh the access what we've done is establish a standard uh standard tools list so that we know what everyone will have in the district so that unauthorized programs do not get installed by the network team or also eliminating any anyone else's access from installing them. We did provide training initially with our required training courses, but what we realize is helping staff uh and administrators to understand a little bit more about the risks that are out there with the different vulnerabilities. We will be updating our required course. And then finally, with the list

037of service providers, we did provide a paper update with that. So if there's ever a network emergency, we can access that and know exactly who to go to for any types of emergencies. any questions. >> Thank you. Uh thank you Mr. Audi for this presentation. I just wanted to also thank you for implementing the two-step authentication. I think that is way overdue and very much needed for now day and age of easy access to passwords and or bots being able to know what the password is and getting into systems uh and having another set of walls is necessary to block them from accessing our um assets or our electronic assets. So, but even with that, unfortunately, human error is probably you may agree the number one reason why systems get hacked and people clicking on

038things where they're not supposed to be clicking on gets the system into a compromised state. So how besides training, what else are we doing to educate staff and especially people who have privileges to access these systems of of being cognizant of those spammed emails or fishing emails that are coming through and we've had a lot with especially with students too. >> So there's there's multiple uh factors that we are taking into account. So, with student passwords, one of the things that we did over the past year is we strengthened the student password. So, we've changed them because it used to be, and I don't want to give away too much information, it used to be very easy to hack >> and so we've put systems in place. And what we're looking at doing with student

039passwords is doing a regular reset and also limiting the permissions in terms of which levels of students are able to send out external emails as well as internal emails. So that way it propagates things from being able to be sent out. We have a quarantine rule which is in effect. And so what we're able to do is when certain keywords with known types of fishing emails go out, it gets flagged into this area and we are able to identify it and uh prevent it from being released to staff or students or external uh people as well too. with our fishing simulations. We do these during the course of the year where we look at some of the um most frequent ones that are out there and try to simulate what it looks like and see

040where staff are at and then tell uh give them some of the tells that we're able to see when we see those out there. >> Okay. And one more thing, and my kids probably are going to hate me for this, but can we block YouTube shorts? >> There uh there are certain things that we are able to do with that. Absolutely. We can definitely block YouTube shorts. Now I've become the number one villain in the district. >> Go ahead. Trusty has you. >> Um um from a fishing standpoint, I know that there are some, you know, enterprise networks where they'll they'll send out um basically an an a test fishing type email and and people scored how many people it wasn't a real fishing email, but it was sent out. seems legitimate. Um, and then

041you see which employees do and don't need additional training. Do we do any of that? >> We do that. Uh, there is a site called Goofish and our web our former web master who's now the supervisor of networks uh is very proficient in creating a lot of these to make uh make them look exactly like the types of emails that we're seeing that are circulating now. Um, so much so that we have the spoofing of different email addresses, making it look like it's got our school logo in there as well, too. And so that that is something that we do. >> And be aware, Trusty Bazzy, board members get them, too. They test us as well. >> Good. >> I've had several over the years. >> Good. Any other questions? Um, um, I have a

042a comment and then um, a question. So I I know we're we seem like fishing is is one of our biggest problem right now. And what tools do we use to to prevent fishing emails? What are we using right now? >> So we have um we're uh we use Google uh Gmail and everything like that. And so we have several different factors in that. So uh as I mentioned before a little bit about the quarantine that's in there. We're able to catch a lot of those in the quarantine and also set up rules when we start to notice patterns. One of the things that I am able to do with our Google suite that we have is if something does get through and I get notified, I am able to go and retract it from

043any inboxes that it it gets sent to like that and I can do that relatively quickly because there are certain parameters that I have set up. If there was ever something that had malware that was delivered to the district, someone clicked on it, we do have a filter, and I can speak to it specifically right there, but we have endpoint detection and response with it as well too. And so that way we would be able to segment the malware away from everything else and uh be able to retract uh other things that were sent out from it. >> Yeah. The reason I ask is if you're getting a lot of efficient emails, is the tool, the Google suite, is it doing what it's what it needs to do? That's a question I'll defer to you.

044Um, second thing that I wanted to ask uh comment on, um, from a training perspective, um, you know, what to click, what not to click. Um I know right now HFC is using no before for training and we used it in the past in my previous uh uh work. So it's a it's a tool and I don't know if the trustees have seen it we're being requested to take training like left and right. So that that's something that will help um train the staff and force them to be able to to know when to click, when not to click. Um uh there's more to it, but one of the questions that I wanted to ask you, we asked you to do this assessment, >> but we also promised and said if there is any issues

045that you have or help that you need to implement some of the uh deficiencies um to let us know. We didn't want to put the burden on you. Uh is there anything that you need from the board to make our system more secure from um you know from a resource from anything? I I would definitely say there's a few things that we would like to explore. These things might be able to go into a bond based on the the cost that we have there like the knack protections would be something that secures uh us from unauthorized assets. That would be a major piece and know before as you mentioned it right there was something we actually were exploring. We want to look at there's options that districts do just with staff but we were looking

046at also being able to provide that option with students in there. There's training videos that would go well with our digital curriculum that uh media specialists are able to use that would really help them with digital citizenship, protecting their privacy and their rights. Uh that would go well with that. And so that is something that we can we definitely would want to look at towards the fall to be able to implement in addition to our regular training that we do. That way we have uh two approaches where we can reach all staff. >> Yeah, I did hear you say the bond I would not um it a long and tedious process. I would I would focus more on what's needed um and not um wait for the bond because there are some things that you

047know we we ask you to do this. We know cyber security is not something that um an IT department of our size might be able to handle. Sometimes we have to go outside and and and help with implementation and doing things. So if there's anything that you need from the board as we ask you to do the the cyber security assessment, please let us know. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. >> Thank you so much. >> I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you everyone. >> Mr. Eddie, don't go too far. If you and Mr. Andrews can please um share the work order update now. Thank you. All right, good evening everybody. Um, want to give you a quick update uh where we're at with our new maintenance request system. First, I want to start off with a

048quick recap of where we're how we got to where we're at. Um, the district uses a system called FMX. This is a system very similar to what other districts use. Um, but it's limited to how many um, district staff can use it for a few reasons. One of those reasons is licensing. we only have so many users that can use it. Um, another one is training. It's a very complex system. So, if uh the the request isn't submitted properly, it could get lost and we don't want that to happen. And then more importantly, we want all the requests, we want to promote the request to go through the building maintenance level first or building maintenance team first. So, either they can help resolve this issue first um before it needs assistance from a district trades

049or maybe even a contractor. So, but we did see a need to be able to have everybody have access to submit a request. So, with Mr. Addie's help and his team, um they created a new system that gives everybody opportunity to submit a request. Uh we s we implemented this system near the beginning of the school year and since then there's been 1,400 work orders submitted. Um and now that we're you know halfway through the school year, uh Mr. Mr. Eddie and his team also did a survey for us and we want to give you a little bit of information on that survey. Um so out of the respondents we had 209 respond. Out of the respondents about twothirds of them are aware of the system and out of those about another twothirds um have

050used the system and out of the use of the staff that have used it about 85% of them 84% 86% of them perceived it in a positive way. We have received since implementation and also with the survey some feedback where we can do better. Uh some of those are that staff they prefer to send an email to the to the building engineer. Uh some believe that the process has a little bit more time to their already busy day and there's also some lack of communication once a work order has been closed out and some of the options in the in the system are a little bit confusing or irrelevant. So, we've as we've received this feedback, we've tweaked the system. Um, we see the need for improvements. We knew there was going to be some

051improvements with the new system, but all in all, we think that it's perceived well and we're going to continue to use it and make the needed adjustments. >> Right. Any questions? >> Good. Trusty M. I >> I I just want to say great job. I mean, this is something that the union members have raised and uh you you guys got on top of it. >> Can't take any credits. Mr. Andy and his team created this. They did a great job. >> Really happy to see it. >> Yeah. >> Trusty Dazzy. >> This is a question. I'm looking at one of the comments here says it requires that it needs to be accessed on a desktop computer. Is it mobile friendly as well? If people want to where they're at, they're viewing a problem, taking a

052picture, they want to submit something right there from their phone. Staff can use this from phone as well too. Uh part of what we did is it's a workflow system. So you've got to log into the Dearborn public schools website. Primarily why it was put like that is teachers have desktops on their on their desk and everything. So that's the primary station. A lot of teachers use uh those that have Chromebooks or laptops could use those or phones as well too. >> Trust your path. when I looked at um and I'm not going to reveal which schools, but there was a handful of schools that had a much larger volume of uh utilizing this system than others. Is that only because they were enthusiastic about it or because we're really seeing a lot more issues

053at a couple of buildings as compared to others? >> I think it comes down personally from uh the feedback I received as the building engineer that's promoting it. So, >> so it's a it's a little more awareness of >> put put this through rather than because I'm wondering when you read the the critiques of people saying well I it's doesn't suit my is is that then from the other buildings who are not not necessarily uh bought into it completely. >> Well, yeah. When we implemented it, we did an email blast. Um, we also talked about it at a general admins meeting, but really what promoted this the most was the building engineers. That's in my opinion of where this was more successful at some buildings than others. >> Okay. >> Um, any other question? Oh,

054trust you. So, >> um, can you uh explain what data is coming through or what it looks like on the back end? Like, can we leverage this proactively for the future to kind of go back and track and say what types of issues we're facing? Um, what repetitive issues we're facing? um so that we can consider that for you know future budget facilities issues etc. >> Absolutely. So while we're able to get this what happens is a PDF goes out to the engineer so that they know what's specific to their building on the backend side like that we have a spreadsheet where we're able to track it by building by room by type of problem as well too. So we are able to get that information and and share that with building principles and engineers

055if they need that and Mark and his team as well. >> Awesome. >> Trusty Bassy. >> So to kind of piggy back on that is it easy to I don't know what interval we would have but be able to say hey look these are the top three top four categories where we we're getting or things you may recognize. Hey you know the older buildings are all saying about ABCDE. you know, that gives us an idea of like planning and and having I don't want to add more work, but if it's easy in the system to be able to pull those out and we know that there's a pattern of boiler trend issues or something like that, it'd be good to know >> that that's real easy to do. Uh like I say, we can toggle

056back and forth, get to the spreadsheet like that. And then if we we have a set parameter with the dates, we can kind of look at the timestamps like that and then toggle by issue like that. Very easy to do like that. When that information is requested, we could do that. Okay. So, great job. I know one of the the reason for doing this was uh staff members were um they didn't know of a process to ask for help, you know, whether it's something in their room at the the building and now we have a way to your point um we need to promote it more. I mean, we we can't rely on the engineers to be able to promote it. Um I I think a lot of times and for me if somebody goes

057to the engineer they should always request that they fill out the form so that they could track it. Um, so that's one thing. I like the question on the type of data because even for us as we go through the bond, as we go through things, uh, I actually love that question a lot because we could see some of the issues that we're struggling with at a building level, uh, whether it's infrastructure, whether it's, um, uh, anything that's hazardous to our kids. So, that's that's really important. I I do have an ask, you know, when we get the brief on a monthly basis, and I'm not asking to do on a weekly basis because we get it weekly, but on on the final week, it would be nice to show the type of data for

058building maintenance as a uh not as a dashboard, but more as um uh >> a summary of the data. That would be really good. It would give >> maybe every three months. I think quarterly would probably be just as sufficient to not >> the the data is very easy for them to see. Um and and I could see Bob and I see them shaking their head. So I'm looking for a confirmation. >> If it's easy once a month and if we say that to to the trustes comment if we see later on that it's not needed monthly and quarterly would work. But I would love for us to start um especially since we have a bond, we have other things going on. It would be nice to see some of the things that are going

059on at the the buildings. >> Absolutely. Yeah. Mr. Eddie said we can do that. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. If no other questions, I want to thank you for doing this. These are two major accomplishments that you guys did with especially Bob and this is big for the staff. So, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. We want to make sure we share these accomplishment um and and not be dismissive of them after putting a lot of work into this. So, thank you. >> Yeah, absolutely. Our pleasure. >> Thank you. >> I have only three more updates. Uh we have some great news. Uh one of our assistant principles actually was advocating for our elementary students. Well, let me pause. Uh we have a Ramadan program for lunch where we provide students

060who are fasting with a take-home lunch if they're in secondary. And one of our EPS was advocating for elementary students to also have that option. And Emmy Crusty, our food service director, was able to offer that. So we're pleased to announce that in addition to secondary, our elementary students who are fasting uh will take a take-home meal as well in Ramadan. Uh second, the Alberta Mirhead Teacher of the Year nominations are open. All of these students are going to nominate somebody. I know they are. It's open now through March 6. I encourage students at all grade levels and across all departments to take the time to recognize a teacher who has positively impacted them. Nomination forms can be completed online and the link can be found on our district website and on the Dearborn Chambers

061website. You don't know what it'll mean to a teacher to be nominated. Finally, we had our huge ELC event, Discover and Play, this last Saturday. Um, it was very well attended, was very positive. It's a true expression of what Dearborn Schools is. You had dozens of teachers volunteering their time with smiles on their faces, interacting with families. I know trustees Mosep and Sober were able to see it. You were you were you stopped by. >> I missed you. Yeah, >> I I saw you in the video, but I didn't see you there. I was the >> We were busy. >> Um >> and I know all of you would have been there had you had the chance. Um but I hope that you also felt the energy there. It was positive. It >> was amazing.

062>> It's what Dearborn Schools is day in and day out in every school. We just don't get to see that all the time because we're here. Uh but when you uh it was just so so exciting to see so many happy families and uh they received resources, activities and they made connections with our with our uh Dearborn staff and beyond. It's a collaboration with many different uh partnerships across rain county. So next month I'll be sure to share in our commendations all the teachers and staff members who were volunteering that day. And finally, a huge shout out to Chris Messer who really who really took the lead on her own this year. Last year we partnered. This year I couldn't as much and uh she really knocked it out of the park. So thank you

063to Chris. And I'm done. >> Next item. >> Uh the next I really love the rounds of applause that are happening after. I like it. >> All right. Next item is commendation recognitions and acknowledgements and starting with commendations. Okay. Good evening district members, board president, fellow trustees and our superintendent. My name is Jara Casier and I am currently a junior at Henry Ford Early College. >> And my name is Maradri also a junior at Henry Ford Early College. With that being said, let us begin with today's Commendations to malo ununice principal Muhammad Abu Sal, instructional coach Rana Alo Alawi, the ELA teaching staff and district teacher leader Maria Maria Wchek for the exceptional job hosting the Melvinale Northern Allen Park team and their superintendent to to learn how the language arts curriculum is implemented. The

064feedback from the ML meal nap superintendent coach and teachers was astounding. They were particularly impressed by the welcoming atmosphere, professionalism of the staff, and the high level of student engagement across the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade classrooms. It was noted how articulately the students explain their lessons and how effectively they amplify ELA resources are being utilized to support all learners, including our multilingual and special education students. Commendations to the winners of this year's Dearborn PTA Council Reflections Art Contest. Winners are also entered into state and national reflections competitions. This year, students from Becker, Bryant, Duval, Howard, Lindberg, Miller, Oakman, Whitmore, Ballis, and William Ford participated. The winning students will be recognized during the PTA Council's annual Founders Day dinner on March 26th. Winners include first place Jenna Harp, visual arts, Bryant Middle School. Second place,

065Mera Jalan and Louisa Jadala, film, William Ford Elementary. Third place, Ayati, visual arts, William Ford Elementary. And fourth place, photography, Lindberg Elementary. Um, for the high schools, commendation, Saran High School student, Ahmed Zo Zer. He was recognized in January at the Metro Detroit Model United Nations Conference at Wall Lake Western High School. Representing the Democratic Republic of Congo in the Security Council, Ahmed was named a consumate diplomat for embodying the spirit of the UN by influencing outcomes through intelligent discourse, compromise, and upholding decorum. >> Commendations to ESL Ford High senior Asia Shri who was recognized by the Michigan Technical University chapter of the Society of Women Engineers with with a certificate of merit. Shhatri was honored for her outstanding achievement and excellence in science and mathematics. She was nominated for the award by her counselor

066and is also a student at the Dearun Center for Math, Science, and Technology. Commendations to the Bryant Middle School student who participated in the 2026 Future City Competition sponsored by the Engineering Society of Detroit. The team earned three rewards. The best use of energy, Herbert Wink Visionary Award, and the Outstanding Food Packaging Award. Future City is a project-based learning program where students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades imagine, research, design, and build model cities of the future. This year's theme was formed to table. Participating students included Morgan Stein, Dalia Bedun, Hussein Bedun, Celia Wel, Tanya Coronado, Damas, Anne Wolski, Diana Suede, Amy Lee Salmi, Abdullah Manosad, Sophia Sass, and Ava Shab. The team sponsor is Mr. Neil Mleen. Um, thank you all for listening and acknowledging our recommendations and having us here tonight. >> Thank

067you all. >> Thank you so much, Yara and Miam. >> Next item, >> uh, our next item is approval of or sorry, employee recognition. Sorry about that. Next item is employee recognition. Good evening. Uh there's three employees we'd like to recognize this evening. I believe one of them is here, but she'd prefer to stay in the audience. Michaela Bowen. Michaela's in the blue. Michaela Michaela Bowen is a school social worker at Woodworth Middle School and this is her sixth year with Dearborn Public Schools. She is nominated for going the extra mile every single day. Her contagious passion and unwavering dedication to both students and staff make her an essential and cherished member of the Woodworth family and of the district. Thank you, Michaela. We're thankful for you. >> Non-instructional employee is Hutaf Jadala, who is

068not uh is not with us in the audience today. She is a secretary for at Henry Ford Elementary School. This is her fifth year with Dearborn Schools. She's nominated for going above and beyond. Whether she is acting as a bridge to the community, helping a student, or supporting staff, she does it with a smile. Her patience and positive attitude make a world of difference every single day. Thank you, Hutaf. Hopefully, you're watching. And our administrator of the month is uh our administrator employee is Shawn Donahghue, who I've had the pleasure of really working closely with and getting to know through my time here. Shawn is the assistant director of plant operations. >> He This is his 36th year with our district with Dearborn Schools. Thank you, Sean. And every time you see Shawn, he has

069a huge smile on his face. He's a he's a just definitely a presence full of cheer and positivity. Uh he's nominated for consistently exceeding expectations, demonstrates unwavering support to staff and administration through collaboration and avail a availability around the clock. That includes when the wind knocks out uh the power in a building or anything at the buildings go wrong or we have a flood or a water main break, Shawn is available around the clock. Shawn is committed to his responsibilities, often dedicating personal time outside of regular hours, including nights and vacation days, to ensure the buildings are prepared and functioning properly. He maintains a positive attitude, approaches tasks with gratitude, and consistently displays professional professionalism. Much gratitude for Shawn and his 36 years with Dearborn Schools. Thank you. All right. Next item is acknowledgement of

070donations. >> Yeah. >> Good evening, President Aljami and members of the board. Uh we have two donations to recognize today. The first donation is $500 has been offered to Ford High School by the Colina Foundation to be used for ESA Ford High School special education class to attend Ann Arbor hands-on museum interactum steam exhibits. The second one is for $3,000 has been offered to Cheyenne Ther School by the Detroit Lions charity to be used to support the behavior and sensory needs of our special education students at house school. Thank you very much. >> So, next item >> the next item is the approval of minutes. Um, we're looking for approval of minutes of the following Dearborn Board of Education meeting. Study session about infrastructure needs or sorry, meetings. Study session for infrastructure needs, January 5th,

0712026. Board report 25-88. Organizational meeting January 12th, 2026. Board report 25-89. Regular P12 meeting January 12th, 2026. Board report 25-90. City relations committee, January 14th, 2026. Board report 25-91 and study session of of about the superintendent search for January 26th, 2026 board report 25-92. I'm looking for an action for one of the board members to make any necessary corrections and move approval of these minutes. >> So moved. >> Support. >> So u motion by uh muzzib supported by Petlov. Um are there any correction? If not or any objections to the motion hearing none then um can we attach a unanimous roll call to this motion? >> Yes. >> All right. Motion approved. >> Next item is union leadership commentary. This section of the board of education meeting is being added to further enhance the already

072strong commitment and longtime partnership between district administration and all bargaining units. Both instructional and non-instructional union members serve on a wide variety of standing and ad hoc committees that drive the work and decision-making in the Dearborn public schools. In addition, administration meets monthly with the leadership team of all unions as well as a group meeting with union presidents. These meetings are now required but are an extension of the collaborative partnership that has long existed in the Dearborn public schools. This section will further enhance the commitment to valuing all suggestions, views, and opinions brought forth by all staff members in the district. And according to my paper here, Mr. President, we have with us tonight, Miss Kathy Martin from DFT, the Dearborn Federation of Teachers. >> Good evening. Um, I feel like I've been coming up

073here asking you all for a lot of stuff lately. Uh, December I asked you to visit the schools. Don't want you to do that. Uh, January I asked you to look at um the AI glasses. I hope you guys are looking at that. And today I'm here because of I've had conversations with people here and there, but I want to address you all as one body. um regarding what's happening at our secondary level and students leaving Dearbornne to go to an online school where they're not necessarily getting the same level of education and that's costing us students. I feel like we're very lucky in Dearbornne. Uh we don't lose our elementary kids to charter schools like some other districts have to deal with. And we have a a great you know all our most of

074our residents do attend school here but when you get to secondary high school specifically we have students who are leaving at very very young ages going to an online school getting a high school diploma in a matter of months not even a full year. and um moving forward to go on to maybe college or things in the area. Um and I know you all are also the board over another body. Um and I'm really hoping that there's something that we can start implementing here to help keep our students. I know that we can talk to legislators and we can try to get things implemented in Lancing. That's going to take a long time. if we do something here, we might be able to see faster results. And there has been talks about coming up with

075like accelerated programs so that students who want to graduate sooner are able to, but that's also something that would take a while. It's not something we're going to be able to do in the next year or two. We're losing kids every day. We need to figure out something that we can maybe do now to keep the kids that we have. Um, I know one of my ideas is is community engagement and reaching out to families directly and explaining to them the importance of high school and explaining to them that a 16-year-old taking college classes isn't the same as an 18-year-old taking college classes. Mental development, emotional maturity, uh, and those types of things. So, I really hope that this is something that we can really address and talk about and keep as many kids as

076we can because regardless of everything, we are a great school district. We offer kids a lot of things that online schools don't offer them. And I'd hate to see them leave and maybe realize, hey, you know, getting a job two years sooner than I otherwise would isn't really worth what I missed out on. So that's I I really hope that we can all address this together. >> U Trusty Zar, >> do you have Hi Kathy, thank you. Do you have any idea of what the numbers actually are? >> They they keep changing. So I don't know the actual numbers and it's hard to get I mean I think the district has that data because usually when they leave they tell them you know did you move did you wherever. So the district should have the

077actual numbers. Do you do you >> we we do >> we do we have it I don't know it offhand >> any roughly any idea like I mean >> schools they went to I believe it was a couple months ago and we had about 220 students going to the school that Miss Martin is referring to and that >> 9 through 120 from 9 through 12. >> Yes. Okay. total. Yeah. >> So over what time period? Like over the last year? >> Uh from winter of 2025. This is 26, right? Winter until fall. >> Yes. >> Okay. And what is roughly our So 220. What's roughly our 9 through 12 population? >> 4,000 more. >> Probably a little over six. >> Around 6,000 counting. >> So 200 out of six thou. I mean, I'm not trying

078to I just want to understand what the >> So, around 200, a little over 200 out of around 6,000, >> which is like three >> whatever. It's a little percentage, but I mean, >> it's a high percentage. >> Huh. >> It is. Yeah, we we have a trend and what? >> We have a trend of students going there. some regretting very few regretting going there but again earning their diploma and high school diploma does not entitle them to come back after they've earned the diploma. >> Sure. And then sorry I just have followup question. So when this has been this option has been available for them for how long? >> Long time. And you're seeing in the last few years a big jump. Okay. And um it sounded like you were you when you I

079don't want to put words in your mouth. You were we're aboard over to another institution too and you were saying hey may well sounded like sorry maybe you were saying like hey maybe if someone gets a degree like that they shouldn't be able to attend this other I mean what kind of solutions would you be suggesting other than community enga I mean community engagement is one but what other solutions might you be suggesting? Um, so this is all it's hearsay. So this is what I've heard. I don't know if it's only happening with one person or with a bunch of people, but my understanding is they're attending other institutions and they're not successful. They're failing. Um, >> the ones that are leaving our high schools to go to a virtual high school. >> No, no,

080no. The ones who are getting the online degree, >> getting the virtual degree and then they're not doing well. >> Degree, diploma. Sorry. >> Sure. >> Yes. Once they move on to other institutions, they're not doing >> they're not doing well at all. And my understanding, again, hearsay, is that they're being placed into classes, they're not taking like um entrance tests um and when they should be placed in like a remedial class, they're being placed in maybe a 100 level class instead of a 90s level class and they're not doing well. So maybe implementing more stringent I don't want to take it away from someone who that truly is their path you know but I I do believe that there's a handful of students who this works for them and I believe that there's a

081m not majority there's a number who are thinking this is just an easy way out and I can just quickly you know leapfrog everything. So I don't want to say you know black and white don't do this but maybe create another like not a hurdle for hurdle sake but a hurdle to ensure success. >> And if I could just add to that um so I truly believe that we should stop this program. It's not a matter of black and white or gray white. I I don't think they're >> uh what they offer is It's not our program. >> It's a state it's state sanctioned school. >> Well, that's what I was going to get to. Um is it's a state sanctioned um if it's accepted by, you know, Wayne County, Henry Ford or so on.

082We there's nothing that we could do to stop them. Now, we are working with state reposhhat. The mayor's helping us. Um Miss Sue has been involved. >> Dr. Malo has reached out to me and said he's willing to help. Uh so there is we're trying to get uh Senator Santana to be involved. So at the state level they could put uh guidelines on them and to prevent them. Kids are graduating in 3 months to six month. Um, I know eight kids, you know, if you if you're looking for real numbers, I know eight kids that play in uh the youth program, uh, basketball program, and I know them personally, and I know there's great kids, but to graduate in six months and four months, um, it's it's not um, it doesn't make sense. >> I

083I I wonder a couple of things, >> okay? is that um a the state has a requirement for high school graduation. You have to have this many credits in English, as this many in math. Is how are they expediting the this fast track and still meeting the state um requirements for graduation? >> So, >> and getting a diploma that's considered a legitimate diploma. So when I asked the kids, one of them said, and I quote without mentioning names, it's you could easily cheat. You could easily do things Chad GBT. It's it's not a a program that's monitored. It's not a program that uh somebody is trying to make sure you get a good education. So in this case, you graduate, you graduate, and like uh somebody said, you can't go back to high school. Once

084you get the degree, it's not like, "Okay, I realize I messed up. I I could go back." Once you get the degree, uh, you can >> and to Oh, sorry. To a little more detail, they're basically told you have to complete like these three assignments to pass this class. >> So, they call they call three assignments. >> I don't know the exact number. Yes. So, it's not semesters. It's it's just a little is you complete this work and then you've completed this class and you can go on to the next one. So it's not like you have to >> It's a scam. >> Yeah. >> It's a scam. >> Okay. Trustee. >> Thank you. Uh well, thank you President Martin for your remarks and President Jahi in previous meetings have brought this uh issue forward

085and um it's definitely offering students substandard education and once they as you mentioned get to a college they realize oh this is challenging I cannot handle this and they drop out >> that's the reality what's happening we have the that data to back it up at Henry Ford College >> uh students students who get those degrees, they have to go back and I've seen this firsthand and take so many remedial courses and they have to pay for those if the if it's not getting paid by financial aid. They're exhausting their financial aid and remedial courses for a number of years. And it's very small number of students who do get those kind of degrees end up with a bachelor's degree or even a an associates degree. So for parents out there, this is not and

086students alike, it's not a shortcut. It's it might be a shortcut for the short term, but believe it or not, you're going to struggle further down the line. Um, and I believe the major solution for this is statewide. I mean, no matter what we can do and market our programs >> and say this is what we're offering at the schools and the sports and the full high school experience that you do get, the memorable that the memories that you can reflect back on 20 years even back, 50 years back, those will not be replaced with a six-month online program. So I would like to accelerate um what we can do in our control of reaching out to legislators and seeing if they can introduce such a bill. Uh because with AI you could finish that

087course in an amount of minutes by a few >> and not have done any of the work whatsoever. >> Right? So uh that needs to be definitely addressed. But at the same time, I think we we can look at the college and take a bold move and saying those online courses or online degrees should be not accepted or at least have some ways of getting the students to test. >> I believe we are >> we do have we do have admission tests, but it just puts them at remedial courses. But you have to pass a proficiency test at least to get to um to those remedial courses >> and uh that's one way even if you're turning students away to go to other community colleges but that is within our board's control to look into

088>> uh while we're investigating that with the state. >> So thank you for raising this very important issue. >> Thank you. I just want to remind everybody though, a community college is supposed to be an open access um environment. So, starting to put up roadblocks just for this one particular um online school and we all know who it is. We've been hearing about it now for several years. We're we're all disheartened by it. The really discouraging thing is that parents have bought into it and have allowed their students to talk them into letting me do the fast track without doing the work and I'm going to get ahead. And they've really hoodwinkedked the parents into believing that this is going to not be a detriment to their child's um future and it is. So, I

089think one, we've got to partner with our parents, the PTAs. Everybody's got to get out there and alert these parents that this is not the way to go. I mean, we and then we have to get the state to shut this thing down. I mean, this is ridiculous that the state has turned a blind eye to the whole um program and is not recognizing that it it's such a big problem. So, yeah, we we really need to push the state legislature and I don't think it should take as long as I mean it if they can do things with other um scam artist uh businesses, then they ought to be able to fasttrack this if they recognize the um harm it's doing. >> Here's the issue. It's harming us far more than it's harming a

090lot of other places. Um you know, word of word of mouth spreads and >> that's why it's grown. Yes. But other places there are a lot of kids who do want to get the full high school experience who you couldn't pay them, you know, whereas our district's a little bit different >> and >> that's why we have to get get with the parents and and explain get get a stronger message out there that this is not something to be encouraged. >> So So if I um But it sounds like we're the most impacted. Almost none mentioned that they have this issue in their district. So I do believe it's reaching out to the families and to the community and also providing what the community wants us to provide based on what we can do. >>

091Yeah. And and just to add, when I reached out to the state board and to the superintendent before, uh, Glenn >> before. Yeah. >> Yeah. They've never heard of it. They've never heard of this. Uh, so it's hard to advocate for something that you've never heard of. So, >> and I had talked to Senator Santana about it, and she also hadn't heard of it until I explained it to her. >> Yeah. She didn't respond to me. So maybe I need to she was at one of my meetings. >> Trust has a question. I think you had mentioned that a lot of these kids that are doing this are trying to fasttrack so they can go to college is so a lot of these kids are collegebound or want to be collegebound. >> I don't know

092the exact numbers to be honest with you, but I mean that's what they're selling like oh I can go to school faster and get a job faster. But when you have that type of high school dipl >> I guess my question becomes what is the motivation for these kids to to to do that and what are their next steps you know if most of them are thinking I'm going to do this fast track and I'm going to start college early right that's a particular tact if there's other reasons you know understanding that too helps helps with that messaging and and explaining that's not the solution you're looking for >> one thing I heard when we were working the homecoming booth this was um it's just easier. >> Yeah, >> it's just easier. >> It's the

093easy way out. >> Mhm. >> So, >> you know, there's other factors, but uh >> just one thing if to just to add on the legislators, if we can get a letter, an official letter from the entire board since we're all in agreement >> sent to the state legislature about >> if you write it, I'll sign it. >> Um >> I will. >> Trusty Zard, do you have anything? Do I I guess my my question to take a step back if um Fatma is correct and we're more impacted by this than other school districts, then my my first question is for us to really figure out why why what's special about us or not or whatever that we're being that we have, you know, a higher percentage of our students running to these things than

094others. We're not we can't answer that tonight, but I I'd like to know why or why people why smart people think why. And um that'll probably help us better tailor some sort of solution or some sort of way to attack this problem. But um we definitely I mean obviously community engagement is always a good thing, >> but maybe that might we might learn things that tell us other things need to be answer the answer too. So maybe I don't know. I mean, I I I don't I'm not smart enough to figure out what questions you ask to find out why, but >> some of your colleagues might have an idea. >> Yeah. So, I'd like to know why. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions? I I think there's answers to the why >> and maybe

095we could take it offline because it's a it's hearsay and and I don't want to commit to that. >> Right. I've heard I've heard reasons why too, but I'm not going to. So because it's hearsay but if we just focus on it from this so so I'm not against virtual schools virtual schools if you know we offer virtual schools and if somebody it just when an institution such as this that is not credible that is not doing our kids right it's not a um as if they're a competition but I don't I strongly don't believe they're they're doing right by our kids. I feel like at the legislator level they need to be stopped or monitored. Um and I would ask so one of the asks that I have for uh Miss Su and and

096and uh the P12 the district is we have a lobbyist you know we we retain somebody to lobby for us and I already asked before we really need to ask them to advocate for us from that end because it's not about them going to a different school we're losing kids we're just our kids are being harmed so if we could ask our lobbyist if we could as Maybe is this group is a part of um retention or uh student laws maybe a committee or something to and to get the you know you have access trusty pet with the Santana uh um Alabas Fra has been very gracious and willing to help with us the mayor has contacted me and he's willing to work he contacted him through so there is traction right now we just

097need to continue the traction >> I've also addressed this with our statewide union, aft Michigan, and they didn't know anything about it either. So, it it's hard like we all need to kind of speak up because we're kind of the only voices doing it around the state. >> Okay. Well, thank you for bringing that up. It's a it's an important topic. >> All right. Next item. >> Okay. I'm not seeing just There's no other union leadership here, correct? No. >> Okay. Next item is special reports and report >> secretary. I'm sorry. Yeah. >> If I can ask that we move citizen participation since we have students who would like to address us. >> We like to send them home. If we can just switch the >> citizen participation with the special reports. >> You you

098have to ask for a vote of it's got to be a motion and a vote to change the agenda. >> Okay. Uh can we have a motion to change the student participation? I'll move that we change or we move up citizen participation ahead of special reports. >> Second. So we have a a motion and a support by uh by Mazar. Um any objection? >> Yeah, just ask all in favor. >> All in favor? >> I I >> any any >> any objection? No. >> Let's go ahead and do that. >> All right. The next item is citizen participation. and citizens wishing to address the board on agenda and non-aggenda items for action who are signed in by 7:10 p.m. or 10 minutes after the meeting by submitting a blue card to the board. Secretary may

099speak at this time. The board may not be in a position to respond to non-aggenda items. Therefore, speakers should not anticipate an immediate response to their comments or questions. For the benefit of all concern, do not mention the names of students or school district employees. Please keep your comments as brief as possible. There is a threeminut time limit on comments made to the board. Uh the first blue card I have is for Mortal Abbas. Is that right? >> Oh, >> I'm sorry. >> Alaba. >> Alba. Oh, sorry. Got it. Alaba Ali Alaba um to speak to us. Go ahead. >> So, uh before I start, who watched the game last night? >> We all did. >> The Super Bowl. >> Yeah, the Super Bowl. So uh my name is Martata Alaba and I'm speaking here

100with my teammates Mo Muhammad on Sun Faki Adil Al Jubadi and Leif Aljunabi and uh I'm I'm here on the behalf of my of the players of the sports and football team as a three-year varsity captain who has lived through the reality of this program every single day. Coach Muhammad Shayu has given more to this program than most people will ever see. He has spent countless hours away from his family to pour into us as athletes and young men. That's not something you can measure on paper, but it matters. His dedication shows in the discipline, structure, and accountability that he brings to this team. Because of him, multiple players have been put in positions to succeed on the field, in school, and outside of football as a whole. From a results standpoint, this past season

101speaks for itself. We finished the season eight and three. Two losses came early in the season, the first two games, and the last loss was to finish out our season. As a division one athlete working to earn more division one opportunities, stability is everything. College coaches view how stable a high school program is. And throughout my high school experience, I've been through several head coach changes, and that is not something a college would like for a student athlete. It affects development and opportunities for players like me who are trying to reach the next level. The reality of this is that the seniors are leading into the offseason with uncertainty. This uncertainty around our head coach has created anxiety in the locker room and distraction heading into a critical offseason. It feels one-sided and the perception

102alone has caused controversy in division, something no program needs going into a new season. As a captain, I've seen many coaching styles. I can honestly say that coach J2 puts in the most effort out of any coach I've ever seen, even person. Matter of fact, he shows up, he stays late, and he fights for his players. If he's given one more year, not only does this program continue building forward, but players like me have a real chance to earn more opportunities that stability can bring. All we're asking for is fair, fairness, transparency, and the chance to continue building something successful. Coach Jetsu has earned that chance and this program deserves it. To him, it's more than football. It's preparing young men for success that comes along with and call on the administration to stop causing

103instability and confusion. We call on the district and the athletic department to provide us with the support and encouragement than they have shown recently. Fortune is filled with pride, tradition, and legacy, and it is time we afforded the level of support from the administration, athletic department, and school district. Thank you for your time. >> Our next speaker is uh Hassan Fakir. >> How you guys doing today? Uh nice to officially meet all of you. I unfortunately was not as prepared as he was with a paper. It was kind of like a last second thing for me. But I'm going to talk about what he talked about with coach's dedication and his respect that he has for all of us. and not only us but our program. Um, I just recently moved here from California. I

104have not been here too long, but in my short amount of time that I've been here, there was I had a little situation going on with my school and my ability to pursue my athletics at the school. Um, and not one time did coach stop believing in me, stop helping me or create any sort of doubt that I will not be able to pursue athletics at my school. And from a person who's had a lot of athletic struggle through my high school career, going to three different high school in three different years from moving constantly and my unfortunately my freshman year I got hurt. That means a lot showing his hard work and dedication and how much he cared for me even though I just met him. And one one reason I also think that

105it was a bad idea to reopen a head coaching position is because you as the outside community of Dearbornne don't see what goes on inside our program. What he teaches us about respect, how to respect each other, how to how we respect him, how he respects us is hard work. Like the other day I walked into his office after all of us, our whole team, he came, we had a talk, they told us that they have reopened the position. I walked into his office and I sit down and I asked him I was like coach what do you how what do you think about this and as I was asking him this he was creating a schedule a rundown schedule what we're doing after Ramadan what we're going to do in the summertime schedule and

106I asked him I was like if they just reopen his head coach head coach position and you don't know what you're going to do why are you still working towards it and his response was because as as long as I'm here and before they kick me out I'll do everything to make sure you guys succeed and you guys have the best uh weapons you guys have to make it as far as you can. To me, that means a lot. And of course, to my teammates, it means a lot. All of us here are seniors. Hopefully looking for a big senior season. And reopening this this position creates a lot of instability like Matada said, and I don't think it would be good for our team. That's all I have for today. Thank you guys for

107your time. >> Thanks. Our next speaker is Nabil allaya president >> and all the trustees. I have a message for all of you guys and um I know we elected you uh citizen uh the community they are watching you and you have a hard job coming up superintendent the college president and the bonds. So um what I'm going to ask you each of you guys stay out of the politics see choose the best candidate for Dearborn for our city for our kids for our school. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Your clapping crowd left so sorry. >> They clapped for everyone but now they're gone. >> All right. All right, that's all the blue cards for today. Uh, Mr. President, um, back to special reports. >> Uh, before that, there is board followup, right? >>

108Sorry. Oh, board. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry, Dan. We did it twice. >> Sorry. Um, yes, board followup on citizen participation. Go ahead. >> I I I know the students left, but they they're going to watch this. I just uh aside from their talking point, I just want to commend them uh for the season that they they performed last year. I attended uh many Fortsson games. uh as somebody who went to Fortson and um obviously love uh seeing uh Friday nights and uh under the lights and seeing how they they they came up um against very tough teams, especially at the playoffs at Cast in a cold night and put up a fight. So, I I want to commend them, commend the coaches, uh commend uh all of the volunteers who are dedicating a

109lot of their time and effort to make sure that Fortson Athletics stays as a strong u mark and a strong a strong trademark um as as it has been. And um uh obviously we cannot comment on personnel matters but uh posting a position is something that we've asked to be a consistent policy for all positions uh when whenever the season ends uh for all these coaching positions. But I again the students are not here but uh I I hope that they get my message that they have this board's uh support whatever they need uh that we will get to them. uh because I I'm a huge believer in athletics. Uh I believe it builds a lot of discipline, builds character and it helps with academics that we can blend those two together and uh to

110uh Mr. Tlaya's comments uh you can take it from for me. I'm I'm here definitely for the best interest for the students and I hope that we do make the the decision in their best interest of choosing the best candidates for both positions. Thank you, >> Trusty Zar. >> Um I echo everything I or Trusty Mos said about the students. U Mr. So, to me, I always want to know and I I'm deeply appreciative of everything that you've done with us. PTA is an integral part of um what we do. So, my question is I always wonder what people say when they say keep politics out. If that means like undue influence, we all agree, keep undue influence out of all of these things. Um, but if politics means communicating with our constituents and seeing

111what they would like to see in a leader and taking that into account, um, then I believe in that sort of politics. If politics means that maybe saying um that a potential candidate or a candidates's uh involvement and history and familiarity with our community can be a factor in our assessment of them. I believe in that too. So I I always want to know what people mean when they say keep the politics. You I I just want to know what it means. If it means undue influence and corruption, of course we're all against that. if it but I do believe that we it's our responsibility to be deeply involved in our community and how they feel and what they think and um and and my own personal view is if a candidate has that kind

112of familiarity with our community and history in it that that's a factor. It's not like the deciding factor. It's not the maybe the most important factor but it's a factor and it can be a factor. So, I would love to have a conversation with you after this meeting, which I hope ends before like 10:00. That uh you know to to see what you what that means to you and are we allowed to like can he come back up and say what it means to him? Is that allowed? >> It's better not to do that. >> Better not to do that. Okay, great. So, I'd love to have a conversation with you after the mean see like what does this mean to you? Um especially since you speak on behalf of a lot a lot of

113people and a lot of people reach out to you. What does that mean? Um and uh I look forward to that conversation. >> I I think if I could speak um I I think and and I had not intended in speaking on this today, but I think we need to respect the process whether it's the president or the superintendent process. We need to allow the candidates to go through the process and fairly and based on their qualification and their credential um apply for the job. When the candidates are in front of you, this is when you could ask questions and advocate for them if you think that they provide um whether it's the community engagement, whether it's other thing, but I think we're doing a disservice when we're pushing for candidates and before the process

114starts. We we should at the college level, we have a committee of 25 people. right now is probably 21 22. We trusted them. We as a board approved that process. We approved the process and let it let people go through the process. Respect the confidentiality, the privacy. Um right now we're we're doing a lot of disservice to the college to the um to the district by interfering um by not respecting the process. We as trustees, we're being tested. Our integrity is being tested right now. Um we're going to have four new um possibly four new board members coming up for election and I'm saying this plainly and and and directly. You're being tested. If you are influenced to vote for people that you should not, then you should not be reelected. So I caution all

115of us and we have an amazing board. We have great people. You know, people might say, well, you know, you guys don't get along. We really get along. Sometime we talk for hours like me and Trusty Vazzy. It's it's not it's okay to disagree. It's okay to talk, but let the process play off. Let's not use politics. And and the word politics is let's not politic to influence board members, put pressure on them, and strong arming them to vote for certain candidates. I don't know what more I can say to you know to on on this but leave it alone allow it to go through the process trust the committee at the college and then trust the process here with the superintendent we have trustee Muzzib who's leading it so allow it to take place

116and don't discourage anybody from applying by um politicking for anyone If somebody is qualified, then they have the right to interview and they have the right to get the job. It should not have anything to do with your race, your ethnicity. I am a proud Arab American. You know, that doesn't take away from me being a proud ArabAmerican if I have somebody else who's qualified to lead our kids that's not an Arab-American. At the end of the day, who is impacted? the kids that are the one that's impacted by the type of leadership that you hire. If you hire the wrong person based on ethnicity, then you impact our kid. You did a favor for your for someone from our community, but you're impacting our kids. So, leave it alone. Allow it to go through.

117Respect the process. Respect the privacy. Um, and and just allow it to go through. Why do we have to politic for individuals or people? I really didn't want to talk about it, but I'm being very clear on it. This is my personal opinion before Mary said something. Uh this is I'm I'm talking about my personal opinion. So, thank you. The only thing I'm going to say is because the community college was brought up is the community college is not just Dearborn. The community college reflects the whole metropolitan area. It's not just us. It we draw our students from out of district which is a huge part of our financial sustainability of the community college and we rely upon the students who come from out of district. So it's not just a Dearborn community relationship. It

118belongs to the metropolitan area. That's where our students are drawn from when it comes to respect of um who you look for in leadership um at the community college. >> Thank you. Any other comments? just just to tell the public that we have a I mean we'll say it at the end of this meeting too but since we're talking about it now we have a special meeting on Thursday at the college um where I'm sure we'll have a very very lively discussion uh about these matters and other matters and so I'll save my comments for that day but I encourage everybody to attend that Thursday 6 >> 6 p.m. at the college. >> Yeah, >> thank you. And that's a good point. You know, we encourage anybody that has any feedbacks to attend the the

119session at 6 o'clock and uh we'll focus on it. We made sure we didn't bring it up to this meeting so we don't take away from it and we are taking away from it. So from our meeting today um all right, next item. >> Are you ready, Dan? >> Your time is >> next item is a special report uh on report cards from Dr. Dan Patterson. Well, good evening, President uh Eljami, board trustees. I'm here tonight to uh provide an overview of some of the changes that we plan to implement on our elementary report card next fall in card marking one. Um I'm going to give you a um a an overview of why we are updating the report card now. Talk about some of the work that we've done over the last few years

120that have led to these revisions. um go over some of the main changes that we have in the new report card and then talk about some of the work we need to do between now and October when we roll this out to our families. So, like all good organizations, it's a good idea for us to revisit our policies and practices. Our elementary report card had not been updated since 2013, so it was time for us to to take a look at it again. I'd like to say that there's nothing wrong with our current elementary report card. It's a good report card. It's just that several of the changes that we've made over the last few years and the work that we've done in terms of updating our curriculum and pacing and rubrics um have led

121us to feel that if we better the the alignment between the daily practice in our classrooms and how we're reporting that out to parents, it will help some of those conversations that we want to have between our our stakeholders. Um so that's really what's driving these these changes. Um so those recent initiatives that have kind of led up to this all kind of fall under the umbrella of what we call a guaranteed and viable curriculum. Um so the work that we've really done over the last four or five years is really trying to bring alignment to the teaching practices that we have in our district K through 12. And the whole idea is that we want to have a very um solidified and articulated program amongst all of our 34 buildings so that when kids

122either move from one building to another or as they progress from one grade to another, everything is well aligned and structured to to support them. So that work all begins with our educational standards which are learning goals given to us by the state of Michigan. um we have those in every subject K through 12 and all public schools are meant to implement those educational standards. Um so they might tell us for example in fourth grade uh sorry for in mathematics in second grade kids begin to learn place value in second grade. Um they begin to add in you know um that grade as well. um they'll learn uh negative numbers in sixth grade, but it doesn't tell us how to teach those, the curriculum that we're going to use, the order in which we teach

123them, and there's honestly a lot of standards to teach. Um so the work that we began back in 20 um 22 23 was we got teacher teams together and looked at what we call essential or priority standards. And the idea behind that is looking through our curriculum, we want to pick out those really key learning targets that we want kids to have at each grade level that set them up for success from grade to grade. Um, so we have a really unified articulated system. Um, so we've been working on that work for a few years now. We have uh for the most part finished that up. Um, we have implemented pacing guides. So, we've taken a look at our essential standards, how that looks in our curriculum, and kind of mapped out the year in

124the progression of the order that we want our students to learn um these key skills. And then last year, we also introduced common assessments, which are some um regular check-ins that we um have created uh with our teachers um to take a look at how our students are progressing on these standards throughout the year. And all of this work is done in that early release time on Tuesday where teachers get together, they look at student learning. Um, and it's all aligned around this work that we've been doing. And we've also housed all of this work in our new system called Atlas. Um, which has our pacing, essential standards, assessments. Um, it's something that the the teachers have been using this year to to house all of that work. So, we've taken the last year and

125a half to take these changes in how we are organizing our our work and trying to and we've tried to translate that into a new report card. Um, so last year in the 2024 25 school year, we sent out an open invitation to all of the elementary teachers to see if anyone was interested in piloting a new report card. Um, we um got a good group of responses back. Um, I think we had around 40 people in that steering committee that year had about 20 teachers that were implementing the new pilot report card. So, we collaboratively built report cards from young five up through fifth grade. Um, and then in card marking three, we had those teachers fill out two different report cards. So, this was a big ask on them, but they felt really

126strongly about this work. They filled out two report cards, the pilot report card and our our current report card. They met with parents. They showed them both. Um, we asked survey questions. We got feedback. Um, and overall the results were very favorable in the direction that we were moving. Um, so we decided to continue that work this year. We wanted to take time because we know that the report card is a very important tool for our family. So we did not want to rush this. Um so based on the feedback that we got last year, we implemented a second version of the report card and then we did three stakeholder meetings this last fall. We did them at Salina, William Ford and at HEG and we invited parents and their children to come um for

127like an interactive session um again showing them both report cards and asking them questions. I'd like to thank several of the board members that came to those sessions and attended. Um so again the feedback was very positive but we also got some feedback um that said some of the decisions we had made were not as popular as some of the other ones and and true to the process we took that feedback and made some further revisions to it and I'll talk about those as we as we get to those components in the report card. Um, we are currently revising the comment section and later this year as we uh get down to more of the final version, which we're very close to, then we will start sending out more information to families so we can

128get ahead of these changes and make sure everyone's ready for the fall. Uh, so I would say that there are three main changes to the to the report cards. most likely the the most important one is the changes in our reporting categories. Um so on the lefth hand side you'll see our current uh categories for language arts. Um they're rather broad overarching categories. Um and this is what you'll currently see on on the report card. Uh what we have done is we've taken our essential standard work and we have translated the reporting categories and language arts into our essential standards. So these are what we feel are the most important learning targets that kids should have in each year. Now the the standards are kind of lengthy. Um they're often several sentences. As we built

129our first report card when we tried to throw in all of the standard language, it ended up being like three or four pages long. So we ended up taking those uh that verbiage from MDE and we tried to simplify that for our families and students. And so that's what you'll see on on this slide here. Um so this particular standard is for readingformational. Uh it maps to a standard provided to us from MDE and this is one that we think is very important in third grade. The second change that we are making is the ordering of the categories that we report out to families. So in our current report card one is the highest category. um we are reversing that order and now four is going to be the higher category. There's a few reasons

130we are doing this. The original report card that we're using now as I said uh was implemented back in 2013. We used the one two three4 because that was how the MEEP reported achievement to our families as well. So it aligned with the state assessment at that time. Uh currently almost every single reporting tool that we have measures 4321. At the high school GPA are 4321. Our rubrics are 4321. Our state assessments are 4321. So really the report card is kind of in the minority of using the 1234. So we wanted to align it with a lot of the other reporting that we're doing. Uh an additional change that we're making is we are updating the comments. Um as I had said that's in progress right now. We've been sending that out to uh teachers

131uh for their input and we plan to have those revised in the next month. And with our standards being kind of simplified for families, we wanted to provide a mapping to the full standard as well as provide them with some other resources. So on the back of the report card there will be a QR code that you can scan and it will provide a lot of resources in terms of how to understand and read the report card. It'll also provide some language support and uh we could add some other tools there that we might be able to find help support our family as well. Um so those would be the three main changes that we have. So, if you put the two report cards side by side with the current changes, um they're not going

132to look visually much different. Part of that reason is we're still using the same tool to create them. The report cards are created in our student information system myar. So, there are some restraints we have in terms of the layout and the formatting and what we can include. Um so, it's still going to be a two column report card. Um four marking periods. the the layout will be pretty similar. What will change is the reporting categories. We will have a new scale. We'll have some um newer comments as well. Um so those would be the the the main changes that we are going to implement between now and next year. Uh and I would like to say that uh for those board members that were part of th those uh feedback sessions that we had

133in November, um some of the proposals that we gave to our family at that time is we had some other categories for student growth. Um that we included with the 4321. Um the feedback from parents and from students is they found that confusing. They didn't find it necessarily useful. So we decided to not implement those on the report card. Um they also did not like to have the standard number up in the front. They found that kind of visually cluttered. So we decided to move that. But we really did try to take the impact or the input from our stakeholders and put that into this final report card. Uh so where we are now is we are revising the comment section. uh we're getting additional feedback uh from principles and teachers over the next few

134months and then as I had said we're going to start ourformational campaign. Uh we have a few more months of this year. This will be rolled out I think roughly October is when we have the first card marking in the fall and the sample report cards were created outside of myar just by you know doing some word processing. So now we are putting them into our myar system and making sure that everything looks and flows the way that we would like it to. Uh and I would like to thank uh the large team that we have be a part of this over the last two years. We had quite a few teachers, instructional coach, ELDs, um and district staff be a part of this team and you know facilitate the the work over the last

135few years. Uh any questions about any of the changes that we are going to be making? >> Any questions? Trusty Bazzy. >> Um thank you for all of this. Um I think you know I I sat through one of the sessions and I see here and as a as a dad of three elementary students sometimes you get the report card and it just says spelling and you go what what do I do with it? Being more descriptive I think is is is great. I think there's an opportunity with the QR code uh that's available on there to take parents to resources one to be able to see the report card in different languages. Um have we decided on which languages that would it would be available so people can see it translated? >> Uh uh

136not at this point but I I know that we will translate it into Arabic, Spanish, uh most likely a few others. uh we are looking at our student information system to see if we can actually translate it you know within our system right now that capability isn't there but we've put in a work order with the parent company that's in California so we are looking at possibly being able to produce it in several languages right now it is only available in English we can do different um languages in our comment section but not the overall report card um but online we will be able to translate at least the outline of it in the time being until we can get that worked out. >> And then um I think again going to those additional resources,

137you know, if I if a parent has a student that had, you know, that's scoring a one, two, you know, a three and and a I'll pick math for, for example, a second grader learning addition, subtraction, and such. having resources not only explain what that is, but worksheets or things that parents can do at home. I think it's a very easy way for them to quickly get to a resource that is in line with what's happening in the classroom um that they could emphasize and work with their child at home and have that in multiple languages as well. I know it's a lot of work up front, but you know, hopefully once it's done, it's not as much later. So, I mean, if if you have a bilingual home where they understand that a student

138may be struggling and something they can help with, but you know, English may be difficult, if you have that same worksheet or that same lesson, um, and then resources where they can get addition additional ones. Um, I I think that's that's huge. Um, so I hope that's, you know, when when when parents are taken to that resource site, things like that are available. >> Um, is that the plan? >> So, yes. So we do plan to leverage that that site to provide some some resources to parents in terms of how that is going to look. Uh we're still working out some of some of those uh you know some of those details. Uh we have our uh our curriculum platform which is Atlas as I mentioned that is something that also has a a family

139and parentf facing site that we haven't implemented yet. I know that's coming down the line. So we want to make sure that any resources we do provide to parents, we do it in kind of a easy to to find way. Um so that those are things that we are looking into. We do want to try to leverage those resources. >> And then my my last question is about the comment section. I you know I remember when I was a kid and right now when I get report cards I'll go through the scores but I want to read I want to hear what teacher has to say. And you're talking about making updates there. You know one may think okay comment section just an open text box fill it in. But what's kind of what's the

140objective there and where what are we looking to do with updates with regards to that? >> So there are two ways right now that uh teachers could provide comments. We do have an open comment box and then we also are trying to update our list of comments. And in that list of comments we have several different categories that uh we're we're looking at that teachers could pull from just in terms of key you know key characteristics that we want students to have in the classroom. So when we decided to pull growth out of the scale, we thought that that's something that we could include in the comments that students are making good growth, they're putting in good effort, they're showing good um citizenship, um they're working well with others. So we have several different categories

141of of key characteristics we want students to have in that in that section. And that's what we're sending out right now to try to make sure it captures what we we think would be good feedback to provide to to families. Are these canned like predefined things that they just check off that get added or like what? >> So there will be a list of preredefined ones that they can choose from and then the there is also the open-ended comment box that teachers could write in as well. So it it will be a combination of both at this point. >> Comparing the old report card to this new one, is it does it take teachers more time to fill out? Less time, same amount of time. >> We really try to keep both of keep it

142to the same two-page format. Uh, one reason was we just wanted to make sure that it was simple and to the point. Uh, if we go beyond two pages, logistically it gets really challenging because then you need to staple. It's a lot more uh, work with that. But we also wanted to make sure that it wasn't something so long that there was just too much information there. Um, so there might be a few more standards on this report card, but we feel that right now there's a lot of translation that teachers need to do going from our essential standards into those kind of broader categories. And the whole idea is that this should align really well with what they're doing in the classroom and how they're already grading to to facilitate that process. And it

143should also provide parents with more um actionable resource because instead of just a category like readingformational text, it will show them a few areas that they might need to you know work on. So that was the goal to try to provide some more actionable information to to families. I hope I saves some time because again going back to that comment section you can go through a whole report card but sometimes almost almost as equally you know getting that feedback from a teacher about your student and hearing that and even the student reading that you know here's what my teacher is saying and how I can improve and and and that that caring that's there that time but that's time right and I know time's so precious so I hope that I hope that this new

144report card allows a little bit more time for for some more of that connection and comments with what's going on with each individual Innesota. >> Yes, definitely. And I did put all of this work we've done over the last year and a half in one document so you can see all of the artifacts and feedback. I'll have that shared with you. And it will also include our uh new and improved comments that we're getting feedback on right now. >> Go ahead. >> Um not a question, just a comment. Um I really appreciate and commend this this update. Um and I was able to attend one of the sessions at William Ford. Um and just hearing uh the amount of feedback that was given and the open conversation that was um promoted was was really nice

145to see. Um but now looking at this and remembering the feedback, there were so many of the changes that were requested by the parents um that were implemented directly. So um I also commend you for that, for listening and to actually take action on it. Um not that we listen to everything, but I think you know a lot of valid points were made and good conversations were had. So, um, top to bottom, you know, I think this is this is awesome. Thank you, >> Trusty Maz. >> Yep. I echo Trusty So's comments. I attended the Salina session and it was a lively discussion with the parents who were uh attending and um I I love the simplicity. I I think going simple is is great. Um, however, I I was really hooked on the growth

146>> metrics. We went around the world. >> I know you were torn, >> but uh definitely the growth metrics I I believe they were great indicators of how my student is doing at this time because we talked I think for 10 or 15 minutes about just progressing. What is progressing mean >> and the growth >> metric was a great um area where you see your kid is progressing if they're scoring in that category. So >> we I we can explain a little bit more. >> Sure. You like now or later? >> Yeah, we we can have definitely an offline conversation on that. But I I'm I'm very excited that we going to be bilingual as far as giving the parents the full information that they're being fed the correct information, not what their the child

147is telling >> translating. translating the total opposite sometimes. But um yeah, that definitely uh I was going to ask also about the roll out and which you do answer that we going to have anformational campaign cuz I know >> even for the most educated parents this is going to be a challenge of just the fact that we're switching the order >> is going to be huge. So, whatever uh easy to the point communication that we can make to the parents that this is coming through in the fall and telling them to educate themselves on how to read it uh and take their time this time of of of doing that uh would be would be great. And I think the last thing is that the list is missing a name. Mr. R definitely was part

148of a >> baby guys. I don't know. So, thank you for >> Dan and the team. They've been great partners and Dan took the lead this year even more. >> And thank you to Dr. Paris. >> I want to add a cohort of people that weren't mentioned. We talked with a lot of middle school students because they just experienced this report card for six years. So, we went into all the sets sacks. We showed them both report cards. It was it was great conversation. And some of the kids said, "Well, Miss Roar, if this was around back in elementary, I wouldn't have gotten in so much trouble when I got my report card." Um, and others, uh, like you said, Mr. Mosep, um, felt like the growth they had they had mixed feelings about it.

149At the end of the day, most of the comments were it made things a little more confusing to understand. >> Uh, but again, we can talk about, we can elaborate more later. >> Um, this should not be more work. It should be clear. It should be transparent. It's what our parents and students deserve. It's what our teachers deserve. Uh less interpretation um from one teacher to the other, from one parent to the other, from one student to the other. This is going to make sure parents and students really know how they're doing in every standard. Like Dr. Patterson said, "Not a blanket um grade, but specifically what are my next steps as a student, as a parent, for my child in every single area. This is the right thing to do. We're very excited about

150it and it is a learning curve like everything is and we're prepared. We've already began slideshows for different cohorts, for students, for parents, for teachers. Information has to come in different ways and we recognize that. Go ahead, Trusty Bzi. You >> you I know that you guys have already done some um you know, piloting with this. What has your What has your experience been with parents when they see the new one and understanding it? Was it as big of a learning curve or did it seem pretty self-explanatory? >> No, I I think that that overall the they were very positive. They like seeing the learning broken down into more actionable steps. Um, so that I think was all very clear from from our parents. Like overwhelmingly they they like that new format. Uh, the only

151pieces that were um less clear and that we've kind of gone back and forth were the ones that we mentioned in terms of some of the scales and and some of the growth ratings, but overall they like the transition that we're making from kind of the broader categories into the more narrow, more targeted ones. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Doesn't sound like a Thank you so much, Dan. And and um we always appreciate what you do behind the scenes. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Appreciate you. >> Thank you, Dan. >> Next item is action items. Are there any agenda items on this agenda which board members or the interim superintendent wish to discuss and vote on separately? If there are, we will exclude these from the motion

152below. So, at this time, I'm calling for a single motion to approve all of the action items on this agenda with the exception of any items which uh any board members wish to exclude. >> Any items that we want to exclude? >> So, I'm looking for So, sorry. I'm looking for a um a motion that action items numbered one through is it 12 today? >> 13. 1 through 13 be approved as recommended in this agenda unless there be any exceptions. >> So moved >> support. >> Okay. U so moved by trustee Mudzip supported by trustee Petoff. So roll call there. >> Any questions first of any >> I don't have any questions. I don't have any questions. >> Okay. Given that there's no questions, let's have a roll. >> Trusty Mos, >> yes. >> Trusty

153Bezi, >> yes. >> Trusty Pelichkov, >> yes. >> Trusty Sub, >> yes. >> Trusty Zaher, yes. President Aljahi, >> yes. >> The motion's approved. >> So, the summary of the agenda action items is as follows. Approval of warrants per board report 25-93. Number two, approval of change orders. Number three, approval of an award to Shriber Corporations and Lutz Roofing. Number four, approval of an award to A to Z Construction Group LLC and Gemini Electric Company. Number five, approval of approval of an award to Oddonnell Electric and Brenall Contractors. 6 through nine, approval of non-instructional and instructional personnel items for P through2, excuse me. Number 10, approval of a financial statement. Number 11, approval of 2026 January graduates per board report 25-101. Number 12, approval of policy updates and changes per board report 25-102. And number

15413, approval of donations. Next item is board of education business. Starting with acknowledgement of correspondence. Uh I'm reading one correspondent which is uh really just uh um an appreciation from uh Woodworth Coffee Beans Club. Um, it's an appreciation card in honor of board appreciation month. So, that's the month and from Miss Kimberly Ismael, chairwoman from Coffee Beans Club. So, thank you. Um, I don't have anything else. >> I think we all have uh >> Yeah. >> Thank you cards from students seated at our desks. >> Okay. >> Thank you to Woodworth and Mrs. Smile. Yeah. >> I'm missing mine. Okay. The next item is board member committee and organization reports >> trusty maza. So on the superintendent search front, uh our uh contractor or um search firm, Michigan Education, Michigan Education Institute, >> Michigan Leadership

155Institute, sorry, has held uh in-person listening sessions at William Ford on February 5th and held here um also a listening session at 6 p.m. of the ASC building and there is an online survey uh for all community members to fill out regarding the superintendent uh profile. Uh that survey will end on February 16th and it is available online on dearbornschools.org and also all of the Dearborn Schools social networks. I have forwarded to all of you a message from um Mr. Sylve asking about the salary range that we want to put on the job description and I wanted to um it doesn't have to be tonight but they would like some direction of putting that range. They've uh did also some research as far as the compensation that other districts other districts of our size uh

156how they compensate their superintendent where does Dearbornne fall and Dearbornne I don't know for better or worse but falls 11th of 12th place as far as compensation for the superintendent uh compared to those uh districts that were chosen based on um the size of the district. So, uh I I'd like to get to back to him uh by midweek to say this is the range that the board is comfortable with. So, I'll open the floor to uh to discussions. >> Any comments on that? And thank you for doing the extensive search or the MLI. Um, any comment on the the salary? >> I >> Go ahead, Trusty. Zar, >> I I read I read the email. Uh, Trustee Mos, I'm comfortable. I trust you. I'm comfortable with whatever recommendations you gather from people and to

157follow your lead uh on that without getting into specific numbers right here, right now, but I I trust I trust you to follow your lead on that to do what's best for all of us. >> Okay. Trusty. So, >> yeah. Outside of questions and discussion, um I guess is the is the email that provides a range is that the recommended range that we should be our starting point discussion on? Um I guess it might be easier for us to to base it off of that. Um and see if there are any changes or issues. >> Yeah, email is fine. Pier is fine. I mean, whatever v whatever methods that you feel comfortable with. Um uh obviously we it's going to be a public figure. Uh this is we we going to have that range over

158there. I asked as a follow-up question in my phone conversation with him as far as what's the best range and he said within 20 to 30,000. 30,000 is max. So um looking at the market and seeing what what other districts are compensating. There is also the idea of pay for performance. So setting the goals for the superintendent and then paying a an additional bonus. Uh there is a caveat to that is that that's not happening for all of the other employees. Um obviously they do get their merit increases but it's not like a pay per for performance job. Um so if that's something that we want to entertain but obviously uh once the job is being offered there will be a period for negotiations as far as benefits >> and other fringes that we can

159we can talk about but >> for right now we would like to get a salary range. >> Is it possible for you to give us your recommendation and then people could reply? >> I could do that. put some options and then get some feedback from everybody >> cuz when we look at it the ranges are so without going into the number they're so far >> they are far apart. Yes. >> But then they fall into the middle where it's easy to pick. So if you could send us a recommendation trust your opinion. >> Okay. >> And then if anybody has any um comment they could reply to Trusty Bazy. you know a question you know I was looking at um it's the Meno Center they have you know from 2022 they go through and they

160show salaries but you also see a wide and it's tough with the benefits piece you see a wide breath of you see you might see one salary here and another one here but then you look at the benefits and everything kind of >> it it depends on right how they've included it when they >> yeah when they >> I I just don't know that's that's my one thing about approaching that like how do the how do we approach that? What what philosophy do we follow there? >> So, Mina usually only puts up the salary, right? >> No, it's a salary, the benefits, the travel, the annuity, the insurance. >> Now, they put up that. So, okay. It's been a while since I looked at their database. >> But I do trust the research that MLI

161has provided. I checked multiple sources to see if it's accurate and they're open sources. >> Yeah. >> So um obviously our district is very unique. It has its own challenges and um you know it's not just we're comparing ourselves to others and saying oh well we'll just land in the middle. Uh but we want to make sure that we're as competitive as other districts. Um, so and obviously this is the top job and our only employee. So we want to be making sure that they receive a fair compensation. But yeah, we can definitely look at my canas now that has details on that. >> I guess my question wasn't the accuracy what MLI has put together. I'm sure it's it's accurate. It's just more kind of an idea. >> You know, you have salary, pension,

162total compensation. How do we handle that? When you do a profile, you usually just do the salary range and then the benefits are negotiated part. >> Um, so we only have to look at the salary range basically when you're thinking about it. So only look at the salary range of the other districts without incorporating if you can, you know, take that out of the equation. Okay. So, I'll I'll email some options and talk to Trusty Yarzio as well, get his feedback on that and then uh get back to Mr. Ceri once we have consensus. >> Sounds good. If I could add u the timeline for the whole process is online. So, anyone that wants to see the timeline, they could see it. It's posted on our website with the next milestone after we collect the

163the feedback as trustee Marzip said is really posting the application which I think is between February 20th and March 27th. >> Yes. >> So, but feel free to go online and look at the timeline if there's any updates with the help of trustee Musup and um you know our uh district leaders it'll be updated. Okay. Any question for trustee me? If not, is there any board member com uh committee or organization reports by anyone? >> We didn't have any committee meetings yet, but we're planning to do it now that we have committee assignments. We'll be meeting from next month. >> Okay. Next item. >> Next item is board member and inter board member and superintendent commentary. Trustee Wis I'd like just to comment on a visit that our district did to Northville schools. I know

164there was another visit to Leavonia to see what that district is doing or to those two districts are doing with their bond money and uh seeing that firsthand and looking at their we tooured the high school, the middle school, the elementary and um we witnessed a blend of projects uh projects that were from scratch touch. There were projects where they built a brand new high school, which is great. And then also the additions that they made to their existing high school are um I'm sorry, they they made a brand new middle school. Um and they made additions to their high school and also additions to their elementary. And seeing that firsthand was eye opening for me. Uh I mean just the light itself was very intriguing. Uh the students feelings in the schools and their

165um energy was outstanding. Um the furniture uh how flexible their furniture is. Obviously they brought it brand new and they invested a lot of money in it but they said it was probably the best investment when they thought it was not. of of seeing how classrooms can in a span of minutes, you know, change from a lecture hall to a meeting room. And um uh it was the student engagement there and I know they have the cell phone policy the middle school. We did I didn't see one cell phone in sight which was great to see. uh and we'd like to model that in Dearborn. But obviously Dearbornne uh we do want to look what other districts are doing the best practices but we have our own brand as well. Uh but seeing that I

166it was definitely eye opening. It was great. So I'd like to thank uh Dr. Ferris for arranging that visit to Northville and I don't know who arranged to >> Da Shaheen. But yeah, machine >> and then Mikey coordinated >> doing that to Leavonia. Um, >> yes. So, I I just wanted to say, you know, this is something that I dream of having in Dearbornne where in one of their projects, they completely gutted out the middle school, just kept the gym pretty much 20% of the middle school, left the old building, but rebuilt 75% of the entire school with a brand new building. Um, and uh our I know Dr. Fer leaned over and told me our our students deserve this and I I totally agree with that that you know with our upcoming bond our

167students deserve that kind of building that will be critical for their student success. If I could just add to to and I'm glad you mentioned it uh because we went to Leavonia at least. I know I went to Leavonia and we went to Northville but then we went to the special education center um and I was really impressed by these facilities. The childc care center um in Leavonia, the uh computer and uh technical education center which is so impressive um in Leavonia. the the high schools, the layout, the the look and feel, the modern look at the library. Um it's, you know, these kids seemed comfortable in in their environment. The sport facilities, you know, the fieldhouse, um the workout um facilities for for the athletes was just amazing. Uh so when you see that

168and and I I want to thank, you know, all those that coordinate it to to kind of get us to see is new board members to see what others have to kind of have an idea what we want especially when the bond comes um because we really our schools need to to make some major changes. Uh I was really impressed you know how these schools and and the investment they put in their schools and and some of the focus they gave you know like special education and child care they were amazing. So I I really appreciate it and thank you Trusty Muza for bringing that up. I almost forgot to mention that. So, anybody go ahead. >> So, we all know that classrooms don't teach students, teachers teach students. >> Absolutely. >> So, when we

169see what our teachers do with our students, given the boundaries and challenges they face every day, just imagine what our teachers could do in those spaces with our students. The sky's is the limit. When we win STEM challenges without a STEM room or a budget and they have banners that take up the whole space, but they have a room to fill it in, that's going to be our kids. They It already is our children. It's going to be even more of them given all of that. Um given all the opportunities. So, it's exciting. It was um we felt it. We were excited. We were Our kids deserve it. Our families deserve it. And we will get there. We will get there. We need to get there. >> I was afraid when we went to Leavonia

170that they would ask Miss Shaheen back. >> The way they were giving her so much love, I'm like, "Okay, stay away from them." So, >> um, >> can you blame them? >> No. >> Um, any anything else? >> If not, oh, go ahead, Trusty. Um I know uh Superintendent Suer mentioned um the ELC event earlier and she um you know gave credit to the the staff that attended and put in so much hard work. I was able to attend um they were again I can testify that they were all happy, smiley um you know had done the work to prepare for it and then stayed throughout the event um and interacted with everybody that came through which was uh so exciting and encouraging to see. But I think what trickles down from that was and

171we we didn't acknowledge and sometimes we don't um unintentionally was the amount of students volunteers that were there. Um and they were also just as smiley and chipper. Um and I think it's it's just a good testament to see this is what good leadership looks like. This is how to set a good example. Um so yes, I appreciate the staff for doing so. I know they work hard, but I appreciate those students for being there um and for constantly volunteering for those things. So let's make sure to get them um acknowledged as well. >> Absolutely. Okay, >> thanks for reminding me. >> And I did want to say something. I saw um Rashidita Talib um over the weekend and she was mentioning that she um advocated for us to get a grant >> uh 1.2

172million. So, shout out to her for for doing that. Uh I think it's for CTE. >> So, I I just want to mention that it's good when our politicians um and our representative look out for us. So, thank you, Rashida. Okay. >> Nothing else. Next item. >> Next item is request for information and or future agenda items. >> Go ahead. Um, so I have for uh actually for a few years before I was elected to the board and then last year when I was elected to the board, there's been an issue that's been very important to me and it's still an issue which is the demographic racial classification of students in our district in our in the myar system and this kind of stuff. I brought it up last year, but we had other challenges

173come up and we had a policy committee meeting or two about it, but never gained any traction. And I'm bringing it up again. Um I I know that since we have started counting we have we have added uh Middle East and North African as a category on the intake forms and then therefore as a category on MEAR which myar is the the sort of student the system which has the student profiles and their demographic information. Um but however, how however there has not been any campaign. So we've only been intaking students with the correct classification for a year um or less than a year really. and we have not undertaken any sort of campaign to reclassify students correctly who had for for whom let's say you've been in the schools for more than a year

174um and your classification will still be Caucasian under under my when they're not and that's because without getting into the history of it Arabameans have been mclassified as white for a very long time and now that's changing but even when it wasn't changing we had the ability to make our own classifications and we still haven't well now we've kind of done it but we haven't taken any steps to get accurate counts. So, we still have a wildly inaccurate, I mean, it's really like so inaccurate that it's not even worth looking at. Um, demographic breakdown of what our students look like. And that needs to be fixed and it needs to be aggressively addressed so that we have an accurate demographic um idea of what our student body looks like. uh because of course when you

175have that information more information is always good and when you have that information obviously you can better serve your populations. So uh I I really want to urge again the staff here um under the leadership of Superintendent Sher to take this on figure out a plan as to how you can fix the classifications of the students in myar. Um, can they do it in the schools? You know, can the principal in each school be directed? Hey, uh, classify these students correctly with your own knowledge and what you know about them. Uh, does it have to be done through the parents? If there's a way that the students can do, the schools can do it themselves, that would be great. I don't think there's any reason that they can't legally at least. So, um, we have

176to get on that cuz right now we don't know what the demographic breakdown of our students is. Therefore, we don't have some of the most important information at our hands to serve them correctly. And so, uh, I'm urging again that we do that and that we get on it quickly. Trustes are would it be advantageous >> advantageous >> to do that at the enrollment or reenrollment since we do get the the forms or we do now fill it out online to ask them that question again. Yeah. The Yes. Well, so what what what is happening is or what has happened is that so when a student enrolls the >> the first time I but it's for reoccurring students or students who are coming back. >> Yeah. But we >> we do fill out the emergency

177cards. I'm trying to recollect my memory when I did that last fall. I I don't recall the demographics question coming through. It was already prefilled probably, >> right? >> Um so it's saying maybe the district it as a catch all make that a required field as a reaffirming. They could that's one option but I think I think the most effective and quickest option because like you said so if a student is enrolling now so again only since the fall of 2025 and I can be corrected but I think I'm correct about this only since the fall of 2025 has that blue like enrollment form that a parent fills out if they come here >> included the classification of Middle Eastern North African which I would also advise changing to ArabAmerican anyway. So, but um only

178since the fall of 2025 has that option existed on that form, which means if somebody enrolled their kid before that, it wasn't there. So, they were checking white or being told to check white or maybe checking nothing. And um and then once they're enrolled, they don't have to update that information every we don't have a mechanism where they have to update that information every year. >> So maybe that's one way because the emergency card happens every year, right? So maybe that's one way. But I think the most effective way would be for it to happen in the schools and it could happen much more quickly that way. Um and maybe you can inform each parent that this is what this is what we've done. If we're wrong, let us know. >> I I don't know

179if we can do that. >> Yeah, that's the legal question. I'd have to I don't see I don't know. >> Parents have to make that change. I don't think we have Oh, just because you're an Arab American, I'll check you as an Arab American. I don't think that we can do that. Well, I don't I don't know the answer to that question. So, uh I'd like to get the answer to that question. I figure I'm assume we can figure out the answer to that question pretty quickly. Yeah. >> Um there wouldn't be any like I don't think there's any >> legal reason outside of board policy that we couldn't do that, but I don't know if there's a board policy that says that they have to be the ones to do that. So, I uh

180I'd like to get an answer to that question quickly because if it can happen in the schools, you know, the teachers, the administration of the schools, obviously, that'd be the quickest way. And then maybe you inform the parents and say, "Hey, um, you know, it's said in our records that you're white, the teachers says, you know, that's that's wrong, whatever." I mean, a lot of our staff is Arab-American. I don't know why we can't like fix it. and they can inform this the parent, hey, we've changed this classification because we've received a new category recently. We've changed the classification in the school. I if you have an objection or a problem, let us know or something like that. Um, that would be the quickest way. Hopefully, that can happen that way. If we have to

181go out to the community, we're going to because of the failure of American law and misidentification that have been going on for decades, we ended up in this situation. If we have if if the only way to do it, which I don't think it is, is that we have to go out and solicit this information from the parents of 22,000 kids, we're going to still end up with a massive undercount and it's going to take a really long time. If it can happen in the schools in some way, um then obviously that would be the best and quickest and I think most efficient way for it to happen. So, so I think the ask is really for the school to give us options and what's possible based on legality and what could be done. Also,

182we need from a system point of view does myar or the system have that capability to be able to add categories? They should, but we want to make sure that they they have that. Uh I think that's some of the questions and to give us the option trustes there. >> Yeah. So the the ne the next uh step to this so the the the in myar now the category of Middle East North African exists >> does >> yeah it's already there because they updated it last year >> ask if ArabAmerican yes or no there is a question for that >> on what >> on my star >> okay but there's still like in the schools again if >> and we've been asking that for years by the way it's not like something >> okay well

183you're it'll you'll still then you're going to still have a problem because under the racial classification, I don't know what they call it, demographics or whatever. In my star, >> look, if you have a separate question that says, "Are you Arab-American?" Yes or no, but still under the >> um ethnicity, >> the ethnicity thing, it says Caucasian, we still have a pro. We still have a sort of classification problem. So, this all needs to be cleaned up. The other thing that needs to happen, I think, in my in my view, >> is a specification after that question, which exists on the census form. Again, let me start by saying no matter what federal categories there are, we as a school district can do whatever we want in creating categories for our students as long as

184we don't delete any of the federal categories, if that makes sense. Okay? So, if there's five federal c categories and you think that you should add a sixth one because your student body is uh has a unique composition that you want to count, that ability has existed for decades for us to do and we just never did it. Okay. So, we could have done this 10 years ago. It has nothing to do with the recent pushes for a a Middle East, North African box on the census. So, and we should be specifying. So, in other words, um I would love to know I would love to get an accurate number of how many Arab-American students there are and I'd like to know how many of those Arab-American students identify as Yemeni or Lebanese or Iraqi.

185Um because again you might have all these there's no harm in getting these numbers. The federal government does it. We should do it. The federal government in 2000 we conducted census every 10 years. In 2010 the federal government conducted a census and found out there's 308 million uh and a couple more people living in America. 308 million. They counted each of them. Out of these 308 million people living in America, the federal government reported that there are 12 people, 12, not 12 million, 12 people out of the 308 million people that are from the island of Ewima. Now, how does that happen? That happens because someone checks Asian and then under Asian, please specify they write Eoima. And 12 out of 308 million people did it. What does that mean? That means you can count

186these things if you want to and you can c you can ask the right questions and you can count and there's no reason that we shouldn't have a way and we can do it through the software. We're paying for the software. We can ask them to add a little bit more. If it cost a little extra money, we'll do it. But I don't think they'll charge us any extra money. And we ask these follow-up questions. So right now there is no please specify in the myar system. So even if we had an accurate count of Arab-Americans, we wouldn't know that follow-up question. Or if someone wants to check African-American and they want to say and they want a follow-up question with specify Nigeria or whatever, we don't have any of that capability. Same thing for

187Latino, Latin American. We don't have, you know, Latin American, please specify Mexican, what we don't have any of that. So that all needs to be done and then that all needs to be we need to be aggressive because this demographics is some of the most effective information you can have in understanding how to serve your students and understanding it would be so it would be very effective right if someone comes to us and says hey we have a special need for the um Mexican population in our schools. Well right now we don't we have no idea how many Mexican kids there are in the schools. So we need to we need to be able to know these numbers so that we can know how to address these these needs. So right now we're wildly failing

188at >> if if you could recap just because of time what is it that you're asking them? So I'm asking from from our superintendent is to first find out number one are there any legal barriers for the legal or policy barriers for this the correction of these classifications to happen in the schools without having to go uh to the parents because we all know that'll just take a lot longer. Um, number two, to uh coordinate with my star to add these follow-up questions. So, ArabAmerican, please specify. Latino American, please specify. African-American, please specify. White American, please specify. Maybe we have a lot of kids that identify as Italian and we don't know. >> Maybe we have kids that are going to say, "I don't want to answer." >> That's fine. >> So, we got to

189add that check box, too, like they do. >> Sure. Right. Right now every I would I I would I would like if somebody already has under their because again that's already an option. So if somebody has unidentified or they didn't want to answer, you don't need to follow up with that kid. But I'll tell you this, every Arab kid that's qualified or sorry classified as Caucasian, somebody put that in there. So somebody classified the kid like that. So that means the kid or the parent wanted to be classified like that or they didn't know any better. But that happened. That wasn't a I don't want to be identified uh person. So that's a misidentification. So we need to fix all that. So uh the two main asks are let's find out if um >> if

190we can do it in the schools because I think that'd be the quickest way. I mean if every teacher could do it with their classes, it could be done in a few months. Um, and uh, the next question is the followup. Please specify. Just like the census does it. The census asks you, "Are you white?" 2020 census questions, go look at them. They said, "Are you white? If you're white, please specify. Uh, black, please specify. Latino, please specify." We weren't on that census yet. So, we're going to be on the 2030 census unless President Trump changes something, which is not beyond the realm of possibility. But right now, we're supposed to be as Middle East North African. But we can also change that term. We can call it Arab American if we want to. So,

191we need to be able to specify and we need to be able to uh have the um see if we can do it in in the schools. That's for now. I might have more questions or requests in the future, but that's for now. Those two questions should be able to be answered pretty easily. >> All right. Thank you so much. And I think once we get the information, then the board might have to provide their own feedback on what's needed and how we implement if we if we uh uh if we are going to implement. Okay. Um, any other requests for information or or future agenda items? >> All right. Next item. >> Future meeting dates. Monday, February 16th, 2026, HFC policy meeting, 6 p.m. at the Administrative Services and Conference Center in the Cabinet

192Conference Room. Monday, February 16th, 2026, HFC board of trustees meeting, 7 p.m. at the Administrative Services and Conference Center in the Rosal boardroom. And Monday, March 9th, P12 board meeting, 7 p.m. at the Administrative Service Center in the Frankie boardroom. And I'll add to this, which is not on this, which is Thursday, February 12th at 6 p.m. special meeting of the HFC board of trustees in the administrative services and conference center in the cabinet conference board. >> No, no, it's in the Frankie boardroom, right? >> No, this is Frank. >> No, it's Henry Ford. This is >> Oh, the Henry Ford. Yes. >> Going to be at the Rosa. Yeah. Ros. >> Yeah. So just to Oh, sorry. The Rosar sorry. So just to confir Sorry, let me correct myself just to say it again.

193We also have a meeting this Thursday, February 12th, 2026 at 6 p.m. at the Administrative Services and Conference Center in the Rosenol boardroom at HFC. That's a HFC special meeting. >> Correct. >> All right. Thank you. If nothing else, motion to adjourn. >> Support. >> All right. All in favor? I >> I >> You don't You don't need a motion to adjurnn. You just get to >> open me next if you do. >> No.