Board of Education Study Session | Infrastructure | Jan. 5th, 2026

001Good evening everyone and happy new year. Uh this is the Dearborn Board of Education, School District of the City of Dearborn uh board study session meeting. Today is Monday, January 5th, 2025. It is 603, 2026. There you go. Happy New Year again. Uh I call this meeting to order. >> Uh roll call, please. >> Sure. Trustee Eli >> here. >> Trusty Bezi >> here. >> Trusty DRO >> here. >> Vice President Pitchkov >> here. Trusty Subah >> here. >> Trustee Zaher here. President Moser >> here. Thank you. Next item. >> Next item is the pledge of allegiance. >> Please stand if you're able to. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for

002all. All right. Uh so today's s study session is to study the infrastructure of our district and study an upcoming suggested bond. Uh so um we will begin our agenda as posted with citizen participation if any citizens would like to address us. We will also open the floor to citizens at the end of the meeting to address us if they have any questions because I do understand that sometimes things come up and citizens wants to address us after. We'll we'll give them that chance as well. So do do we have any blue cards? >> No, we don't have any blue cards at this point, Mr. President. >> Okay, we can go to the next item. >> The next item is a discussion. Item one, infrastructure needs. So at this point I'll turn it to superintendent

003suror who will do the introduction of our panel as well. >> Good evening board. Before I begin I wanted to um make a little note about trustee patchov. I think today is the first day that you are the only locally voted elected female in our city. Correct. >> It is. >> Congrat. So, if I told you earlier if they were to pick one female, they picked the right one. >> Thank you. >> Uh, allow me to introduce our guests today. Um, in front of you, you have representatives from Byron Fisk. We have Mark Fisk and Jacqueline Wayne Gite. And from Quinn Evans, we have Denise Close and Anne Dilture. And from Gilbane, we have Stephanie Corona and Amra Amro. Along with them is Tom Wall and David Mustinin and uh they're here to uh provide

004clarity, provide information, answer any questions, and really hopefully the outcome is that all board members have a better understanding to make sound decisions moving forward. >> Thank you. >> So we will begin with Mr. Wall and Mr. Mone. Good. Good evening board. Thank you so much for putting this uh together today so that we can have an opportunity to begin this very important discussion. Uh tonight uh here at this side of the table, we thought we'd start off with um just a little bit uh from uh I will turn it over to Mr. wall and he will have uh can introduce the folks from um Quinn Evans and give you a little bit of just an up overview and bring us all back up to speed. We we know there's been a lot of information

005shared with you over these past several months. And then right before the break, we shared quite a bit of information, a whole folder full of information as well. And I know there is a lot to digest there. So hopefully we'll be able to give just a little overview. Also joining me on this side of the table, representatives from Byum and Fisk, who will be able to provide a little bit of an overview too on some of the work that's been done just over the past several months in regards to um facilitating some community input and feedback. So I'll turn it over to Mr. Wall first and then we can then they wrap up, we can come back over to this side of the table. >> Good evening board. uh just for your you know review

006and for people that are listening uh we had our fielding international report that was done and completed um but we felt that with the er funds and some of the wraparound general fund that we did a lot of construction that we engaged in RFP and Quinn Evans was the selected vendor to kind of update our numbers and also look at the historical aspects in our buildings. So they completed books one, two, and three for the board and that kind of summarizes what they did along with the help of Gil Bane to kind of put a financial number to it all to kind of review what Fielding did and give us an update on our numbers. So with that, I'll turn it over to Miss Dilture and Miss Close to kind of give you a quick

007update about their engagement. >> Good evening. Um, we were here about six months ago and there are new faces and um, new ideas we know. So, we're interested in listening tonight and answering questions. Um, Denise and I are here from Quinn Evans, a firm that's been in Michigan for uh, over 40 years with offices in both Ann Arbor and Detroit. and we were brought here to the team for our work on K12 projects, but also for our work with existing buildings uh and historic buildings and understanding the costs of renovation and the value of um those buildings. So, we've teamed with Gil Bane. We have um as introduced before Stephanie Corona and Amro Amro behind us. We are working in Detroit and Ann Arbor uh with Gil Bane on several projects and we felt they

008were the right partner to come in also to help really understand the numbers uh for a project like this want to oh he is flipping sorry [laughter] flipping to see where we are in the on the slides. Um so the goals of this assessment were to understand the historic context of these buildings um and go in and understand the building conditions both from a overview of the site perspective and from a building adaptability perspective. The information had done previously very specifically on building building systems but this to look and understand much like the work we are doing for other districts. What does it take to adapt a building for the new model of 21st century schools? What are the new demands being asked of schools that were not there in the 20s, 30s, 50s when

009these schools were built? Where are the pressure points, the pain points, and what's the opportunities in these buildings? And for in each case, we looked at to understand a perspective and a cost on the buildings of what if there was a new building, a new building on the site. Is there even enough space on some of these sites to put a new building or >> Sorry, Chair Mos, can you see if they can get this on? >> Yeah. Can we get the screen shared on both TVs? >> Same screen. That's okay. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right. Um and then what's involved in a major renovation or expansion of a historic building? And then a level of renovation. Some buildings may not need as extensive work and what's the what's the cost

010and what's projected for the schools in terms of a renovation. [snorts] So based on all of that cumulative research, the priorities that we were able to define um again based on the building conditions and um projected enrollments and such uh priorities that came about from talking with principles and teachers and building engineers, safety and security, restrooms, student support spaces, infrastructure, and a lot of things on the site, things with traffic control, playgrounds, Um, and so that's that's kind of where we landed. And then we put together um a map and we prioritized all of the buildings in the district and which ones we thought were a critical priority based on the conditions we found or projected conditions um in the future and then and we ranked um all of the buildings. So we have four

011that are at a critical priority um some that are high, moderate, low. Um, and I think also within that the critical priority is not necessarily we think these need to be a new building. Um, but we think they need attention and that attention might be a new building. It might be a study to understand if that's really the right path forward. And all of that is laid out in the volume one as a summary and then more detail in the other two volumes which I know you have all seen. [snorts] Okay. Um, so now, um, we will share some information. I'll [clears throat] turn this over to, uh, Mark and he can, um, me just change presentations here. >> Sounds good. Happy New Year to the board. >> Great to be here in Dearbornne. I

012I grew up in Dearborn Heights. I hope you won't hold it against me, Chargers. But my mother was an English teacher at Fordson for several years. So great to be back here. Uh we we are Byron and Fizz Communications. We are a strategic communications firm and we we've helped numerous school districts big and small to uh research, plan and implement successful bond efforts. Uh so we are glad to be here and these are these are districts you know large like Dearborn the Detroit public school district Udica but also very small districts Baldwin community Calonia and we've done a lot of work in the public education space working with my leap on the uh prek for all program the stu the student collaborative research program. So we've got a deep deep history in public education. We're

013glad to be here and um I do want to stress that the research we're going to give an overview on I believe is one of the most comprehensive research programs we have done for a district. Uh it's very comprehensive. Um and we started very broad and got less broad and got very very specific. So I applaud you for reaching out and really listening to the community. Um the the information we have I think will allow you to say that you have a broad-based wide range series of perceptions and opinions uh about the district and about about what they want to do and the future of the school district there. It was also very unique in one other regard. This really is special. Um we did not test a specific bond proposal. We did not give

014numbers. We did not say these are the specific improvements. this is not how much it's going to cost you a month. We actually intentionally left out those specifics because we wanted to let the research go where it may go. We wanted to really listen to the community um and just bring you that information so that there was no sense that this is some way pre-ordained or there was a foregone conclusion or any of our assumptions. We let the research um pretty much go where it would. And no surprise to you, uh, the community was very blunt and very forthright about their opinions about things. Um, so with this research, if you choose, uh, to pursue a bond, an infrastructure improvement proposal, I think you'll have uh, confidence that the research behind it is quite solid

015and that you have gathered a a wide cross-section of perceptions. Let me give you kind of the key takeaways from the research. One, I believe uh without a doubt that there is an openness to a bond proposal, a school improvement proposal. Um folks feel good about Dearborn Public Schools. They view it as a pillar of the community. They see it as attracting new families and new opportunities here. People are very positive about that. They see it as increasing property value. So they they see the work you're doing matters and it improves their quality of life. However, there is a real tension that you're going to have to reckon with as you assemble this proposal, which is the financial squeeze that residents are feeling in Dearborn, especially the younger residents. This came through loud and clear.

016And that's a tension that really cannot be ignored as you begin to wrangle through and assemble the scope of the bond and which projects you pick and how much you want the voters [clears throat] to pay for this because the younger folks are feeling quite squeezed on housing. They're feeling it on utility bills. Um, and they just can't afford a whole lot more. So that's that's a tension there. I also think the third takeaway is that we need if you do decide to pursue a bond that factual accurate communication will be critical. Informing the community of what you're doing, how the money is going to be spent and what transparency measures will be in place to ensure that that taxpayer dollars which is very precious is spent wisely I think is just critical uh for

017success. And so with that uh next slide. Yes. So we talked about comprehensive. We did three pieces of research uh here and again this is very unique and very comprehensive. We started off with what we call indepth uh interviews. These were 19 45minute uh interviews almost 300 pages of transcriptions largely with government officials, education experts and community leaders. So very very high level. And these interviews kind of set up the basis for the rest of the research, the focus groups and the polling. Um, here's some things that in those in-depth interviews we were told very directly. One, Dearbornne is a special community. People are very proud to be in Dearbornne and they're optimistic about the future of Dearbornne and that the schools are very highly regarded uh despite a lot of the challenges and that

018could be multilingual challenges, income equality challenges. Um, folks really do hold the school in high regard. Again, despite the optimism, there are divides in the community and I think you're all aware of them. There's East versus West versus South, Muslim and Christian, Yemen, Lebanese, parents and non-parents. A lot of folks said, "You have to get to the non-parents." The parents know the situation, but we have to get out the word to people who are not parents in the community. They don't have the information. But the biggest divide again was on property taxes and the reluctance to pay more. And this is really an age gap. We saw that some of the older residents we talked to were much more open to paying a little bit more. And those younger folks are much more reluctant to

019paying more. Um, couple of things, modernization and HVAC upgrades, no-brainers. They see those as necessary. Just like you have to fix a roof on your house, you have to fix a roof on a school. Um, and but they in the in-depth interviews, folks wanted to see something with a little more, I guess you'd say, a little more pizzazz, career tech, something future oriented, something that looks to the future as well to get folks excited about it. But across those interviews, the the infrastructure upgrades were no-brainers. And again, this came through. We need to be accurate. We need to be factual. We need to be transparent and make sure that we're giving folks the information they need and answering the questions they have. And if we don't, folks who oppose this bond will exploit that. And

020that's just a fact that came out of those in-depth interviews. We then moved to focus groups. We did four focus groups. Um, and they were comprised of one group of younger Arabic women, younger Arabic men was another group, white seniors, and then we had white non parents of varying ages in education. And again, we started to see some similar patterns emerging in these focus groups as well. Um, optimism about Dearbornne and about the future of the city, schools being worthy of tax dollars. They want their tax dollars going to the schools. They see the schools as a pillar of the community, higher property values, secure neighborhoods. They get it. They understand if strong schools make strong communities. But again, we see younger voters much more reluctant to pay more, much more negative actually on infrastructure,

021roads, the services they get, the value for the dollars they're putting in, a lot more questions from the younger voters. This really is something different that we're seeing in research. There was a time where it was actually the older voters who were much more pessimistic, much more resistant to tax questions. that has changed really since co over the last five six years and it's actually the younger voters who are feeling like I just don't know if I can afford um an extra $100 $200. Um another thing they are vaguely aware that the district's facilities are old but they don't have a lot of specifics on that. There's not an awareness of the specifics. The one exception that we found in the focus groups is air conditioning. people are really wakening up, awakening to the fact

022that these schools get very, very hot. They're uncomfortable and if we want them to be healthy, we need a proper HVAC system. So, that did come out of those groups. And last but not least, oh, two things I should say, traffic around the schools, universally, we've got traffic issues. Either some people see it as a safety issue or an annoyance, but it did come up organically. And last but not least in the focus groups, and this was across all four groups, mental health, the growing awareness of mental health strains on students came through loud and clear in these focus groups. So, they were very open to uh new spaces for counselors and helping to support our young people who are feeling stress like never before. We then moved into the survey, the polling survey, where

023we surveyed 400 registered voters across the city. And here's what they told us. Just click it. >> Okay. So, and here you can see by the slide, 61% say Dearbornne is going in the right direction. That's pretty good feeling given everything that's going on in the economy. Um, this is largely driven by Arab resident optimism. um they believe the community is headed in the right direction and uh a lot of concern still about groceries, about insurance and cost of living but generally people are feeling good about Dearbornne and we have seen that as a nice backdrop if you decide to pursue a bond proposal. People are feeling good about the city. Next slide please. They rate Dearbornne schools higher than surrounding districts. You know, a majority of them said that Dearbornne schools are doing better

024than surrounding districts. They're very supportive of the teachers. If you decide to pursue a bond, you know, teachers are great messengers. They're great validators. They're trusted. They're viewed as non-biased and on the ground. Um, and so they are very, very good messengers. And they also said repeatedly that having good schools helps everybody. It helps us have stable neighborhoods, higher property values, attracts new families to the communities. Uh, next next slide, please. So, voters generally view the conditions of the school as good. And you can see the numbers there. 70% to 28% overall view the facilities is either excellent or good. So, what does that tell us? It says we probably have some work to do in terms of public education to give to show people um of the dire needs that some of these facilities

025have because it's not immediately aware to them and we saw that in the focus groups as well. Next slide. This is pretty good. Pretty good. We've seen this with other districts too that they the view on our financial management as a district is about 5050. Okay, that might you everybody of course wants that score to be higher, but that in terms of other schools we've worked with is pretty good, especially given the skepticism that people have in terms of how our taxpayer dollars are being spent. Next slide, please. So, we simulated again using a theoretical mill. We didn't use a specific mill, but we said, okay, would you support or oppose a hypothetical mill? And you can see we did three different exercises. So the first two uh pillars are the initial vote. We gave

026them no information. We just said would you theoretically support a millillage? And you can see 61 to 34 yes to no. Again these are with no specifics, nothing just would you support one to help do updates and improve. And your opposition is about 34%. Not not a bad place to begin with. Again, some of that support with that light blue is soft. Um, but it is a good place to start. Then we give them a series of pieces of positive information. Here are some things that we might consider addressing uh with a bond like that. And you can see that those numbers then go up to 7423. So this is after some positive information, real basic stuff about infrastructure and career tech and different things that you might fund. In fairness and balance, you always

027like to do a little what we call a stress test because if you just give positive information, you get kind of a glass is half full uh look at what's happening with the proposal. So, we did test um I guess you call it a negative message against the bond which talked about the high taxes in the city that we've been taxed enough already, the school should live within its means. After that you do see some support shift away 69 and 29 but still even after that negative information it shows an openness for some kind of school improvement proposal. Next slide. So here's where that tension we talked about comes. These are just supporters. So when we asked them, how much would you be willing to spend, 71% picked the lowest funding option or they refused

028all options entirely. And we gave it to them two different ways. We said we did it as a yearly amount and we did it as a monthly amount. And in both cases, there are some marginal difference. They're probably a little better to frame it as a monthly cost than a yearly cost. But you can see that even the strong supporters gravitate to the lowest cost option of $300 a year or $25 a month. So that to me speaks to that again financial tension that is in the community among the most important priorities for updates. We see infrastructure as number one. This is your roofs. This is your bathrooms. This is your floors. Kind of your meat and potato upgrades. No one disagrees with that. That's a kind of a no-brainer in terms of the research

029part of it. And then the second piece which leapt out is this skilled trades. If we can give young people use the bond to give people skills, hands-on education, skilled trades, certifications, again preparing them for the jobs of the future. This really was a winner too in terms of priorities there. And third would be again your HVAC. There's other priorities there. We tested special ed security. Those are all good, too. But in terms of your top three or four, it's really your infrastructure, your career, tech, and skill trades, and then it's your HVAC. Next slide. We tested several what we call messages or convincing statements on why you would support a theoretical proposal. And most of them really centered around the economy, jobs in our community. the by far the the the two top messages,

030the most convincing reasons to support the bond was that it was preparing kids for the jobs of the future, giving them skills that they need to go out there and compete and get jobs. And that includes hands-on education in the skilled trades. And the second most compelling message was it's for everyone that if you improve the schools, it helps everybody in the community. It helps us with higher property values. Um, so those are definitely good messages and I think you have a a suite of possible messages if you choose to pursue a bond. So couple key takeaways finally just to wrap up. Make it about classrooms. Make it about the kids and the impact on kids. people understand kids are our future and [clears throat] they want this to be about the kids and the

031impact on kids as opposed to uh administrators and that whatever actions you choose, let's make them tangible. Let's make them measurable. Let's make them understandable. Folks are very skeptical about how their tax dollars are being spent so the more transparent it could be. Several people suggested, for example, could we put just factual information on a government website like the city website uh for example came up as an idea. They just want factual information on the bond and I think that's going to be uh very helpful. In addition, we did ask them, would you prefer a smaller bond, even if we had to come back to you later to do the rest of the improvements now and build on that success, or would you prefer to a big bond? And most people did say, "We would

032prefer a smaller millage, come back to us later for the rest of the urgent repairs." So, >> do you have specific numbers on that or as far as big versus small bond? >> Uh, we did not test that. We we tested theoretically a bigger kind of do it all approach. >> I see. >> Versus break up the bond into pieces. And they they clearly wanted to break it up into pieces. >> And that was upon our direction. We did not want to uh as Mark pointed out, we did not want to imply that there was a done deal out there already, right? That the board had already decided on a dollar amount. So that's why we instructed that this survey be very open-ended to make sure that everyone knew there was no preconceived plans. >>

033Sir, >> and just to just to wrap, last thing, there is an openness to pass a bond. You have the tough work of deciding, do we do a bond? What does that bond look like? Just be aware of the financial squeeze that people are feeling. That's very real in Dearbornne and it is across the state, but it's very very pronounced in Dearbornne. And last but not least, communications, accurate, transparent, consistent, making the case for it, um using the best messengers, I think is a possible path to win. So with that, we'll take any questions. >> All right, I'll trust and then trust Zar. Okay, a couple things because [clears throat] I've been through this many times over the years. Um the me the one thing to be able to message more easily I guess to

034the community at large who is not necessarily very well um and sconced in district finances is um when you the the difference I think when people are saying we would rather rather than trying to explain a large all all oneandone bond that may expand over a 30-year period, but trying to explain to them how it would be divvied up as we progress through. And you're not all going to be hit with it at one time, but you're not all going to see results at one time. is hard for people to uh the concept of it is I also understand people maybe are more comfortable with the smaller bond because they can see whether we're actually going to do what we say we're going to do and and it can have some value and trust in

035it. Yes, they that we asked for this amount. They said they were going to use it for this. They did. Now let's move on and and get and get to the next phase. And it might be a different group of voters. more than likely it would come another a 10 or 15year um passage of time and you'd have to go through that effort again but you might have more success in in passing it. So that's just my two cents worth of understanding how people view um those large dollar figures. So that's number one. Number two, I was kind of surprised to to see the skilled trades um piece for one reason. We are a P14 district and we have Henry Ford College that does a lot of skilled trades training. We also have a have

036an absolutely phenomenal opportunity for our students during their high school experience to take advantage of that for free. So, they're getting opportunities to get a lot of that skilled training already. Um, and we are doing a major expansion over at Henry Ford College right now um to help um support that also. So, I'm wondering whether we just need to do a better job of explaining to community of what's already out there and that that's already available to them so that when we do put forward a proposal of what we would do with that money, they can see that we've already got an investment in this community that we don't have to take our resources to recommmit to at our P12 buildings, but rather that we can use it for other um efforts in the infrastructure

037um realm. So that might be something that we can would have to work on in the communication part that a lot of people are just unaware that of that um opportunity already exists for the most part and that we are giving it or they're looking for something where the kids don't have to move out of the building but get and I'm not exactly sure what they mean by skilled trades and are they talking about they want shop classes and auto shop and that back in or are they talking more in the IT arena or something. I it would be interesting to find out what they're conceiving of because a lot of the kids in this community don't seem to be trending that way anyhow. They seem to want to go on to a 4-year college

038experience and go into um a more not a manual labor type of environment. Anyhow, I'm I'm kind I was a little surprised to see that. Trusty Zaher. [clears throat] >> Um I have a few questions first. Thank you. Uh a little correction on one of the slides in the beginning when you were talking about um one of your first ones. I don't know if you have to go back to it. Anyway, you said you had interviewed Arabic people. Please. It's Arab, not Arabic. Okay. Arabic is a language. Um did you I I have a few questions just so I understand how people understood this. Did you explain and and sorry if you said any of these things, did you explain to the respondents in your surveys or your polls how long it might take before

039they see results? Like if we pass a bond, how long all this stuff is going to take? >> We did not get into that part of the discussion. >> Okay. And um to build on uh President Mos's question at the at the very end you said you had you said that people more preferred a small bond and then come back to us later rather than a big bond. How did you come to that? Did you he asked for like a number? I mean how did you come to that conclusion? Did you >> Well, we did um it's a great question if I could. We did pairing statements. I could share those with you or we said here's two possible positions and I'm I I could give you the exact wording if you want but we

040said which one is closer to your opinion do the larger bond and sort of get it all out of the way or to break it up into pieces which one's closer to your opinion and we let them score that so we kind of we gave them mutually exclusive statements and we said which one is closer to your point of view that's how we asked it >> what does that mean we let them score that I don't know what that means Well, we said which one is closer to your point of view. >> So, you didn't it wasn't a yes or no question. >> No. Statement one or statement two. >> Which one is closer to your point of view? And then what does that mean? They score. Sorry, I don't know what that means. >>

041They said they chose which of those two statements, >> right, >> were closer to their point of view. >> So, it was binary. So, they so they would say, I like this statement. Okay. So, you don't have numbers for that. >> Well, we we do have numbers for the scores. If you want me to look them up, I could get those. >> Yeah, I think that's what President that's what President Mos to see if there's a huge, >> you know, like if whether it was like 75% of them said we want a smaller bond or it's like 55%. >> I can read it to you. >> Okay, great. >> So I say uh now I'm going to read you the following pairs of statements for each one. Please tell me which comes closer to your

042point of view even if neither is exactly right. So statement one, it would be best to fund a larger millillage for 20 years to address all the critical issues in the district. Statement two, it would be best to fund a smaller millillage for 10 years even if a later second millillage would be necessary to finish addressing the critical issues in the district. >> And so it was 38 for the first statement, 56 for the second statement. Okay. >> 385. >> Does that make sense? >> So 38% said yes to the first one, 56% said yes to the second one. >> That's correct. >> Okay. >> 56 38. That's my math. Okay. So just very few didn't answer. Very few said >> some didn't answer. >> Oh, some didn't answer. Said >> I didn't know. I

043mean sometimes people say we don't know. I can't tell you. >> Um in your experience in talking to people, did they seem and I think you said this earlier, but I'm just want to double uh check. Did excuse me. Did um did the residents seem to understand pretty well the infrastructure crisis that's going on in the schools? >> I think there's a perception gap and one of the slides we showed. We asked people to rate the quality of the facilities and many of them said it was either in excellent or good condition. In fact, most people did. I think 70% said it's either good or excellent. So, I don't think they're aware of the crisis you're facing. Okay? at least based on this research. >> So, okay. So, they might not So, a lot of

044residents might not be fully aware of the infrastructure crisis, yet they were still kind of in favor of a of a bond. >> Correct. >> Okay. um when you one of the um statistics or questions you showed was that I forget how you asked it or what it looked like but something like people really want to stay in Dearbornne they they like living here. >> Um did you get into any of the factors of why did or was any you know did you get any deeper like why do they want to live here? Anecdotally, uh, people like the diversity. They like, you know, access. People talked about coffee shops and restaurants, and they like, they like being in a diverse community. They see, uh, Dearborn as a growing community. They see a lot of their

045neighboring communities, losing residents, and hollowing out in terms of schools. So, those were some of the reasons that were cited in terms of why they're feeling good about it. >> Did they cite the schools? Like did a lot of people cite the schools and the quality of school? >> Most pe most people were very positive on the schools. Yes, it was city services was I would say was a mixed bag in terms of you know roads, infrastructure. >> You talk to the mayor about that. Okay. We got nothing to do with that problem. >> Exactly. But uh the school I mean the schools came through as very positive. >> Okay. Um >> we'll come back to you. >> Yeah. >> Other questions. Let's have >> Thank you. Great question. Trusty Baz trusty. Well, thank you

046for the presentation. Uh, a couple thing I want to ask and the first question is focused on our executive team. Um, has there been any, um, enrollment study forecasted? I know, um, several years ago there was some done. And the only reason I bring that up is there's um there there's something going on with virtual schools and which would impact the the number of students in our district or out of outside the buildings. There's um a common factor right now that we are losing kids to virtual whether it's within our school, whether it's outside of our school such as Pen Foster. And I want to make sure that's That's a part of the um assessment that there is a forecast to tell us, you know, how many kids we have in virtual schools, how many

047kids are we losing kids to virtual schools outside of our district. This is something that we brought up and I don't think um we really need uh to gauge because when we do a bond for 10 years, for 20 years, for 30 years, you have to take that into consideration as you build new buildings or uh renovate or do the capacity is is really we used to be at 23,000 I think. Maybe I'm wrong. I think right now we're >> have a table of enrollment over the years. Yeah, >> David, if we can get that on the screen. But >> go ahead. >> But we're at 19,000. >> Yeah. >> And we're continuing to lose kids. So, this is really important to make the right decision is to be able to see the trend um

048of of kids attending school, physically attending schools. That that's really important. Um, and like I said, whether it's our schools and whether it's other schools or charter schools for that matter, if it's a brick and mortar. Um, so that's really important to be able to do that. As far as the capital improvement and the timeline, um I think the challenge with doing a 30 years bond and and doing the big bang is when are you going to realize and I say you I mean us uh the the actual if a building is going to be built in 20 years as a taxpayer uh you're not seeing the value. So this is going back to picking the smaller bond because people want to see values in their lifetime or you know they might not be in

049dear one. Uh so it's it's really really important to show value for anything that we propose um in and like um trustees are mentioned and infrastructure uh and you mentioned the the perception gap. I mean, we do have really some schools who are in really really bad shape and and those need to be addressed and those are the the values you're going to get right away. You're g it's going to be um you're going to see it. It's it's a realistic um impact or value. You're going to see the value right away. So, I want to make sure that the uh capital improvement timeline is u we show what we're going to do and when and not to say we're going to build a school if it's the bonus 30 years, we're going to build

050it in 25 years. That's not going to sell. Um uh last item I want to make sure it's uh uh regarding the skill trades. I know we have Henry Ford College and it's a it's a great institution, but parents want to see the the skill trade and the technical focus on technology at the high school level. Um, unless they're going to early college, that's that's a different situation. But we want to be able to to kind of abide by the time and show um that we're able to provide the skill trade, the technology at the high school level, not when they get to college or when they do dual enrollment. So I think that's the that's the the need versus what's being offered at Henry Ford. Uh last question I said last you you mentioned

051in the poll the poll you said something about Arabs and optimism. So I I want to distinguish is the optimism throughout the throughout the city or is it just throughout one group of people? I thought I heard that was said earlier. the the optimism just clarify for me was the optimism optimism from all or from a certain group >> it is from all 61% say the city's heading in the right direction that's pretty good number and that is being driven by Arab optimism when you look at the subgroups under there they're more optimistic than even the general population because we wanted to look at different groups there but it's you know I think that's very striking and I think it's a positive positive backdrop for for a possible bond. >> Yeah. And and I I

052I you know, my wish is that the optimism is across, not through a certain group, but I just wanted to get the clarification because I heard it and that was kind of like stuck in my head. Okay. Thank you, >> Trusty Bazzy. >> Thank you guys for this. This this been great information. I've been uh going over a lot of it over our our winter break. So, I appreciate all the hard work that's been put into it and you guys coming here today. Um, question when you had asked a question about conditions of our schools. Um, and there's a lot of positivity around that. Was there any um deviation between who was answering it as a parent versus a non-parent? >> I could I could look that up. It would take me a minute to

053look at that, but it it seemed when you're at 70% it would suggest that there's a that's a pretty broad perception, but I could look at parents specifically on there. It just would take me I don't know if we have that slide. >> Yeah. >> Going back to it. Just want to make sure I'm quoting it. >> Yes. Overall 7028. Um we divided the voters into areas just for better for wortheast center southeast and west. Um a little bit better in the center southeast 7425. But it it does look when you ask the questions how do you rate the conditions of the schools, buildings, athletic facilities, property and grounds owned and operated by Dearborn Public Schools. Most folks are pretty I mean their perception is they're either good or excellent. Was it do you know

054if it was divided by you know elementary parents middle and high and the reason I make that point is because from my research looking into this you know some of the older facilities that have quite a bigger need and I look at you know in the qu covance report here it's a lot of the elementary schools um is there a divide in that answer between >> parents and non-parents but even more specific you know do you have elementary kids you have middle school kids you have high school kids >> I could look at that but again when I see seven I've Again, I will get you that information followup. But when I see 70% there, there is a broad perception that they're in pretty good shape. You have to also understand that probably outside of

055the, you know, parents and teachers and things like that, most people in the community, they don't have the intricate knowledge. The one area that I think I said, I hope I did, that where that changed was on HVAC. They're just people are really getting aware of air conditioning and heating issues and plumbing issues. There's just a growing awareness. There was a time where you you didn't want to talk about air conditioning. People thought that was a some kind of a a luxury item. It's not. It's necessary for health and safety. But I can follow up and get you those numbers. >> Okay. Um you had mentioned before that a lot of the comments that you receive the city's heading in the right direction. Uh when we say that we're talking about the city of Dearborn

056or the or the school district or was it more of a broad the city? >> Yeah, we asked about the city as opposed to the state or the country, you know, you ask how are things going in Dearborn and generally speaking, folks are pretty pretty upbeat, pretty positive. >> Any other questions? >> So, we had questions for Quinn Evans. Is it time to ask now? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Sorry, I have some questions for you guys. So again going back to the elementary schools um look here it's mainly the elementary schools you know some of the recommendations assessment recommendations for the elementaryaries you know I see here uh new facility not feasible additional study needed um just kind of eyeballing it about half of them fall into one of those two categories. Um can

057you elaborate a little bit on uh why a building would get a conclusion of new facility not feasible or additional study needed? >> One of the reasons for that is the um size of the site that the um that the school is located on. And so that would lead into a bigger discussion on if the if the plan went forward and it was decided that you were building and building to have swing space and moving students to another neighborhood for a certain amount while you demolish the school that was there to build a new school. So for those and then looking at the the cost of and the need for the renovation work versus putting in a new school on there. That's where we we looked at it and from from our numbers opinion felt

058that uh it was you know not feasible to to do that at that site. On other sites, you could build on a second elementary school and then you could demolish or reuse or you could use the school there for staging if that was a if that was a discussion or something there. But I think in in those um it had to do with the site and then it had to do with looking at um what really were the needs and did it make sense to to from a feasibility dollar standpoint. um demolished a school and build new was trying to, you know, sort of bring some of those dollars in versus um sort of earlier studies that said from uh from only looking at the uh sort of educational 21st century educational, we feel we

059would want a brand new school and that that study looked at having a lot of new schools, but where is the property? for these new schools and the dollars for for new schools. >> So if a building was uh the conclusion was you know new facility not feasible are we supposed to interpret with that we should build a new building there we just don't have the land for it or uh the cost is not advantageous for us to work on this building. >> It's probably a combination of both and we could go into that more detail. um >> for which specific schools that we have that um the ones that say study are more so that there might be room on the site for a new building. The projected enrollment data that we were given

060might say that you know ideally you would add 20,000 square feet. Is that possible to fit on the existing site or not? And so those and then another one with the high schools kind of referring to what we just talked about. we know the current enrollment, but because a lot of students are taking classes off-site, do you really have that many students in the building at one time? And so that would be an additional study that we would recommend to understand if an addition is really needed or not um and is there space on the site to make that work. So the ones that say study kind of have a lot of factors that a lot of more possibilities available to them. We just weren't ready to say what the best approach would be without

061additional research. I I grow concerned with with some of these schools, you know, looking at the aging and their infrastructure and the priority assignment on them is, you know, is high. Um, and we still need, you know, we still need answers to that so that we can make an informed, you know, decision about what to do moving forward. Uh I have trusty Piscop but I do have a question right on Trusty Bazzy's point on the schools that are on the screen here that are slated for critical priority are those the four of them how Whitmore Salina Intermediate and Lori are those slated for replacements in in the report or do we have ones where we say we cannot do a replacement because of constraints. >> A little of both. >> Um do you want me

062to go through the four? >> If you can please. Yeah. >> Yeah. So for example at how we know the building is in fine shape as far as the building goes, but it's not meeting the needs of the current program there. So, it's overcrowded. The um the special needs population at that building has a lot of equipment that's causing fire hazards in the hallways and things with just storage space lacking. Um and so there's infrastructure in that regard that we would say maybe that population we would recommend has a new facility that's catered just to them. And that's why how is labeled as a critical priority. um Lowry a beautiful building but we found a lot of structural concerns um that and it's oversized for the projected enrollment numbers that we got. So that's one

063where it has a large site. there is a possibility of building a right-sized facility um as a replacement school because of the cost of repair of that large square footage that's not needed. You know, is a balancing act of would you rather repair a lot of space, put a lot of work into this building or build a new building that's right size. The the the costs were not much different for that. Um but it does need some attention quickly. So that's why it's critical Um, Whitmore Bulls is a similar situation where it's just a series of additions put on. There's some infrastructure concerns as far as um structural issues and believe it has a pool that's also um or wait I don't remember. >> Yeah. No, sorry. That one did not. We hit other elementary

064school pools and pool issues. Not >> but there are some concerns that we notice some structural um needs. So that again I don't think that one needs a new facility but I think you know it needs some updating more rapidly than some of the others and Salina in a similar situation. >> Salena is a similar situation as Wilmar. Yep. We're not recommending a new building for that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Trusty P. >> Okay. Um, we're here tonight because we know that if we want to have any ballot proposal in the near future, we we have to make some decisions. And right now I'm hearing there's still going to be a lot of questions because part of the problem is is that and this is nothing against the study done with with

065asking the community what they wanted because you were giving a set of parameters to go by. A lot of people are not aware of a dollar figure until we put it on that ballot and start moving forward with the proposal of what we're going to do with that money at basically about the same time. So, it it's kind of a hypothetical at this moment, those questions that were asked um that they were sharing their thoughts on because they're probably looking at what they've seen going on in surrounding communities and what their bond proposals have looked like, which may not be the reality of what we want to try to present moving forward necessarily. I'm not making any statement, so nobody please walk away thinking otherwise. But that being said, there's still a lot of questions

066we need to answer because we've got a couple of issues. One, people want facts. They want clarity. They want to know, okay, you're asking for this amount of money. What am I going to see for it? And right now we're kind of at an impass as to we as a board um how far we want to take this and where we want to go. And that's the conversation we're about to um embark on. But the problem is is that once we start going down a path, it's going to kind of steer that number that we're going to present and what we can do with it. And I'm a little bit concerned that we still don't have a real good do we do we know that people understand that they want everybody wants to see something

067happen at the building in their neighborhood or they don't care and they're willing to invest in a neighborhood across the city because it really has the needs and they're willing to invest in it without maybe having that kind of investment done in their neighborhood. Do we know that? And are we prepared to try to sell that? And do we have any idea about I because I've been following the bonds that have been out there in the recent um elections and it's kind of a 50/50 hit or miss, >> you know, of of what people are willing. And I do know for a fact because I've been following what was going on cuz Ann Arbor had a billion dollar bond. And when they actually started to do the work, everybody was like, "Ah, I didn't know

068that's what it was going to look like. I didn't think." And what happened was a lot of people were unaware of of the disruption to their neighborhood, to their school community, that their kids were going to have boundary changes or this or that. So, we need to get all of that information out there in order to also have a dollar figure attached to it that we know will be supported by the community. And I just want to, you know, whatever conversation we have, I think we still have a few pieces here that we are not real clear on as to whether at the end of the day when we say we're we're honoring what you're we heard you say, but this is what's going to cost and now you're going to have them pull back.

069So that that's just my cautionary tale. Okay, trustes are >> Yeah. Can can you go back to the um the map of the schools for a second? >> Yes, I can. >> Thank you so much. I just want to because I want to decipher for myself and for anybody watching. Okay. So when you say just so that we this put this into like regular language for uh people if if you say something is critical then that means at least from what I heard you say when you were talking to President Mos when you say something's critical is that also safe to say that that means like um you might be recommending that it needs to be torn down >> the the two projects on it that we're recommending that would the Lowry would be replaced

070and there's space to build a new and then move the then move the students over in terms of talking about that disruption right and what are the added costs. So that was our recommendation on that one. And then as well um for how in terms of creating a facility because that um that current facility just doesn't work for that population and um it wasn't it wasn't built to to house those kids. >> Okay. So Lori and how are are the only two that you're talking about tear downs >> on that one? Okay. And so is then and then obviously a high priority means they need a lot of work. >> Yes. >> Sorry. Sorry. Trustes are how would be >> repurposed not replaced? >> Right. The building itself would still be usable. Correct. >> That's

071not what you're saying. Doesn't need to be demoed. >> Is that what you're saying? program. The program should we're recommending a new facility, but the building >> can be repurposed for another >> could be repurposed. >> Is the land the property just like with Salan or Lowry? Is there enough property at the house um location to build on? >> You can look and double check. I mean, there is significant property there. I know that there's been work and there's work for addition to to Barry and so there's that ongoing work. Um >> Okay. So Lori is the only one that you're talking about >> demoing. >> Yes. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Or demoing all of some of the ones that are saying in high priority. We might recommend that a piece of the building

072is >> is demolished. Most of these buildings have two or three or four additions onto them. And to have a cohesive project that really makes the needed improvements, it may be some of those are recommended to get, you know, a small amount demolished and then an addition, but not that the whole building would be >> okay. That's only for Lowry. >> Okay. keep saying Larry and Lori. >> Superintendent. What is it? >> Lori. Okay. Thanks. Sorry. Sorry. >> Sorry. It's okay. So, um, uh, >> Larry Lane went to [laughter] >> You say Lowry. >> She says Lowry. >> Okay. Then it's Lori. >> No, my h my husband. >> She said Lowry, but I think she said it because they were saying, >> "Yeah, I was probably said Lowry, but probably were said because you

073probably said it because they were saying it, but it's Lori, right?" L. Well, my husband's 76 years old and he he went to Maples and to for they called it Lori. >> Yeah. No, it is. I >> It is Lori. >> It's Lori, right? Okay. [laughter] I just want to make sure I'm not I'm not wrong. Okay. All right. So, then at the end of the day then, just in like plain English, what what is the difference between these levels of priority? Is it because you're saying okay some you're you told me the critical priority might mean you're tearing down some of it might mean not high priority means you might be tearing down some of it you might so is it just a matter of money in these different priorities like what is the

074metric that makes these different especially between like high and critical like what is the metric >> some of it has to do with um the size of the building and projected enrollments and is there space available within? >> No, I'm not I'm not sorry. I'm not asking how you got to it. I'm saying what is the if something if in other words if is it enough for me to tell a taxpayer hey the difference between critical and high means the critical is going to cost a lot more money? like what is the is the metric what is the thing that makes something high or critical the difference between the two or moderate or whatever >> there's not one >> well >> yeah it's probably infra it's probably infrastructure >> it's a combination of the factors

075that we assess so I do think I do think size is part of it as we talked about how because they just need more space >> and so that was that kind of led it to the top I think you know at Lowry it's like more of um the condition of the building, the infrastructure. So they're all kind of ranked all the factors that we looked at. Um it's not just one piece. It's kind of the picture of the building of the story of the school. I know that's not as helpful as you might. >> No, it's not. This was done as a ranking >> before and looking really sort of at the building and potential not taking in the feedback from the community. Right. So this wasn't a ranking done in conjunction with those.

076These were this was a ranking done >> No, this is just you got you >> this. Yes. Right. Right. That there's layers on top of it as we tried to note on there. >> Yeah. I still sorry I'm it's maybe it maybe it's a me problem. I still don't fully understand. So [laughter] >> no it would be nice if there was a simple to say. >> Is it a me problem? >> Could I interject? >> Yeah. >> So what are the factors that you use to prioritize uh these uh schools you know with the urgency. So I heard you say structure. I heard you say capacity. What else is there that put your rank in or the priority? with the age of the building as well came into play. infrastructure is the >> it's the

077amount of infrastructure infrastructure >> in the bill does not >> yeah but I guess what I'm what I'm asking is may maybe I'm not asking it right I understand the different metrics that you guys use okay infrastructure is it is the building uh yeah too many kids we need more whatever but I'm saying >> once you come to all of that okay and you've now you've ranked it critical or uh I don't So >> this >> I get it. This is this right. I get that. But I mean once you've ranked it crit if I'm going to go talk to people about it and I said okay these guys told me that this one's critical and this one's high >> means okay so critical means like if I'm just the lay person has got a

078lot more problems >> than the high priority one which has less >> my window is broken. In the critical ones my in the in the critical priority I don't have a window. It's fallen out of my house. In the high priority, my window is broken, but it's still there in my house. It does something. In the moderate priority, it really leaks cold air around my window. It's coming in. It's not. It really should be insulated or replaced, but my window is there and >> and and functions. And then the low priority is I got new windows 10 years ago. I'm good for another, you know, >> is it fair to say for the >> that helps as a >> uh Sure. Is it fair to say for the low priority ones that we might be

079recommending at the end of the day to do very little or nothing to those buildings? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. And again, back to my first question, is it fair to say that the critical priority buildings are just uh I get it that they're the most in need, but does that also mean that they're going to need the most money that particular building? Let's per square foot or per per whatever >> or not necessarily. >> Okay. Can I can I interject a little bit because I agree it's the language can be confusing. >> Yes. Sometimes if you see critical does it mean infrastructurally speaking it it has a lower timeline a a shorter timeline >> to be sustained the way it is or is it that it's critical because the amount of needs is

080just higher than the other buildings. So how are we defining critical? Is it that if you're going to get to these building first, that's what makes them critical because their their lifespan isn't much longer. Is it that how are we how does something fit in a category >> for like Salina Intermediate is considered critical? Right? But uh new facility is not recommended. So what's critical about it? I think we need to differentiate so we can make a sound plan moving forward. Is that kind of summing up a little confusion here? >> Yeah. I mean, I want to know like >> and I think the difference between Lowry and Salina, a lot of that has to do with structural >> okay >> questions, right? to that point. So that's where that that when we look at

081the dollars on them that to build to to to renovate Salina would make sense because the bones of the building are still good. >> Okay? Whereas in Lowry, we're concerned that the bones of the building are not good and you're going to spend so much with fixes and repairs to just the structure of it. Then to renovate the inside and to have a facility that is bigger than you need and you're heating and cooling more area over the long term because you have all this space. You do not necessarily need a building that big for the projected from the 2022 numbers was the projections that we were using in our our study. And so that's I it's hard because you want what's the clear message? I understand that now the critical is >> that it's

082it's no good for the population of students that are there. And so it's it is a different >> So is there a way for us to get more clarity as to why buildings are in each category? >> Yes. >> Why they're feasible? Why they're not feasible? If we can get clarity on that because if we this is open for our interpretation. We cannot then be transparent when we're telling our constituents this is what is needed and this is why if we're unclear about it. Yeah, we can work on [clears throat] >> trusty. Let's get Trusty Baz's question first. >> So, I just wanted to um you know, we're talking about how um and the special needs population that's there. Uh just give me one second here. We got 14 classrooms that are there. We're talking

083about a new facility. I just want to be clear on something. Maybe this is just my opinion at this point. Um it doesn't necessarily have to be a new facility. It could be something that is added onto an existing facility. I know many parents that prefer their kids go to how because of the social emotional empathy that they learn there uh working with that population. So I just want to be clear here as we talk about how when we say new facility uh maybe that's not the best course of action. Maybe it would be something where we build on to that building or we move those programs uh appropriately um so that they are interacting with the general ed population as well. I think it's a benefit for the gened population and for the special

084ed population. >> Certainly, we would agree with you 100% that it could be an addition. It could be looking at a school that has um in our report we comment on a school that's new that has existing space and perhaps that can be studied and that that >> that program can go to a different location with with a renovation space of it. So, Trusty Bezi, we agree a standalone facility is not what we envision either. There needs to be in inclusive spaces for all of our students. So, a separate standalone facility is not in our vision either. >> Okay. >> And we have several properties that can be added on to that have enough land around them still. I mean, it it's not like we have nothing um available. It's just that we're limited. >>

085And I think that me So these are good questions that we're hearing and if we um and if there is any confusions among us as the board members and um then definitely we need clarification um just lessons learned from the past bond that we were trying to pass. There was a lot of um uh questions and the reason it failed because people we were not able to be clear on what we want to do and why and um even though it lost in a small number but the trust was not there to be able to sell the bond to the community and say this is what we're going to do. Lori is is an easy sell because it's an old school. It's falling apart. Um but you know with other schools we have to be

086able to say why. Is it the H track system? Is it this? Is it that? Because those are the uh factors that um you put into the how critical it is and why. So we need to make sure the information is there. So we as the board can be sold on it because it's hard to sell something if we're not sold on it and why. So, it's really critical and and uh David was in the last, you know, uh the VIP, the previous bond. Those are lessons learned for all of us and and most people are here were a part of it. We want to make sure we understand why so that we could sell the community on it. Um and it has to be factual, you know, it's like I'm not a salesperson. So,

087even that I'm not a salesperson, I have to sell it based on facts. Absolutely. Trustee, >> thank you. Um I know this was uh briefly discussed earlier, but I'm not sure that it was resolved or concluded. Um we mentioned the um facilities that are listed as uh additional studies needed. Um and I know you mentioned some questions as examples. Um were those questions ever presented to us? Do we have access to those? Um have we been working to get you those answers so we can finish these studies? Um, I guess I just want to learn more about that process. >> No, you've not been asked those questions. We're not expecting answers. Um, I think it's more so it's a bigger picture conversation. So, this is a great place to start having that, >> right? >>

088Um, I'll give an example. Um, or another example. Let's say um, Henry Ford Elementary. We all know that school is a lot of schools pushed into one. It has two cafeterias. There's a lot of um day-to-day challenges with how it's set up. Um there's a lot of room on the site. It's also has a very historic building that, you know, we don't want to tear down. It has a pool, which is one. So, there's a lot of factors involved in the conversation before we would say for sure, yes, we're going to lop off part of the building and we're going to rightsize it and and do this and that because we don't we don't think that that it's an easy straightforward answer there. There's a lot of factors involved. Um, and so the additional study

089is really a lot of conversations in that case. >> Sure. And I guess I'm just alluding to, you know, how can we kick off those conversations if it's here? um if you already have prepped um questions for each part um I just want to you know be more proactive to get that going because um we you know the rest of this is great and we're we're moving along but I don't think without that information that we can make any decision at all. So um I would appreciate that. Thank you. And a piece of the additional study is uh understanding priorities uh from the from the school from the school board in terms of uh is and the community itself. you and your community really want to do a drastic change to how the schools are

090laid out for um what in our report we call a 21st century learning which was something that came out of the the Fielding International report, right? They have one system and pedagogy on how new schools should look and be constructed. Um, and is that a priority in Dearbornne or not? Right. And then that would change the change the study on some of these in terms of what how much square footage is required, how much new we would build if we were building new. So, a piece of it is looking, you know, to understand those priorities that are put in um for all of the buildings. >> Trusty Zara and then Trust. >> Uh a quick question for Byron Fist. Do you do you guys would you recommend um uh listening sessions like public I don't

091whatever listening sessions or town halls to be conducted by us within the rules of how we do meetings and all that kind of stuff but I mean would you uh do you think that would be effective in lobbying the community um to to learn more about this and get more on board maybe once after we're all on board? >> I think I think that could be very helpful. I thinka community engagement you you can't do too much in some communities we work with you have you know superintendent and board members they do dozens of those forums out there so that there is no mistaking that here are the facts we create multiple venues for that so I I see that as an asset once you have a proposal in mind certainly and if you felt

092like you needed to do additional listening to get to that point I think that you would you know build additional goodwill and probably get more community buy in once you move into the the sales part of the effort. >> Okay. Thanks. I I do have a question on preservation uh in in relation to 21st century type of setup and I'll use an example of my um the school that I went to Salina given the the the structure the walls would you be able to make that school a 21st century because because one of the the reason I mentioned that is even though I believe in preservation but I also believe in practical use and what's best for the kids. Um it just you know some some schools could be preserved and not all of them

093could be. I mean the fortune of the worlds yes but the mindset should not be um to sacrifice what's best as we move forward. So the question on the salina as an example >> yeah we would say that yes you can take salina and that's why it's not and it's not recommended there as a as a as a new building because especially with buildings um it's actually easier with the older buildings in terms of how they are built and how their structure is to take those and to to do some exciting transformations. of those in terms of say a major renovation and you can carve out and find the spaces that you need for student collaboration. Uh which is a big part of uh creating these 21st century schools is getting more space in there

094for student breakout and student collaboration um areas. And we've been doing that uh on several projects in the Washington DC area, doing that with a project with Ann Arbor public schools right now. And so we're very optimistic about um those buildings and the the transformation that you can do so that you're not giving up on saying, "Yeah, we're keeping the building and we aren't. We can't create great learning environments." We can keep those buildings and create great learning environments. Most of them we can keep and create great learning environments for the kids. >> Is it possible to see schools in Ann Arbor and I asked that question the last time and as far as the salina of the world, the walls are very thick? Yeah, they're really and and to open them up and to

095make them um 21st century, you know, I just and I'm not a construction guy, but I see that being an issue. But if it's done in Ann Arbor, would we be able to see a school that was renovated in Ann Arbor to a 21st century? >> We have one under construction in Ann Arbor right now and we have ones completed in the Washington DC area. I don't know if Gil Bane has Yeah. >> Um >> and the Baltimore area. >> Yes. >> Sorry. >> Um in Ann Arbor, we've actually uh taken already many schools that um and created support spaces um have created collaborative learning spaces um in existing schools that were historic and non-historic. So it's very feasible and and can be done. It's not going to look like the traditional maybe plan that

096Fielding was look looking at, but it's very close to it and it achieves the same thing >> because Fielding was more focused on new schools and my understanding your you know company was came in with preservation in mind and I just don't want I really want to do what's best versus focus on one versus the other and not to push something that's not necessary. Um, so that's that just my statement. As far as a question on the focus group, I heard two focus groups, right? Did I hear the number two focus group? >> Four of them. Where were they held? And and maybe there was an announcement and I just want to know where >> they were. These were virtual >> virtual focus groups. Yes. We kind of called people together in a Zoom style

097and there was a moderator there and we asked them ran kind of ran them through a guide in that way but they were all virtual. >> Okay. All right. I thought it was in person. Sorry. Thank you. >> Was any of this done in person? >> The direct interviews were done by telephone. So the stakeholder interviews, the in-depth interviews were done uh by telephone. Those were the 45minute interviews. The focus groups were done virtually. And of course the poll was done also by telephone. Half of them were telephone. Half of the response more or less were done by text >> which is which is pretty typical. >> Go ahead. >> You know piggybacking on trustee Aljah's point about you know taking existing buildings and making them uh adequate for 21st century. Um, you know, one

098thing I've noticed going to a lot of the schools, especially, again, I'm going to focus on the elementary schools here. Um, maybe because I have three elementary school children and I've been in those schools and other ones as well. Um, you know, the classrooms are small, you know, compared to what you see now. And again, to Trusty Aljah's point, you know, those structures are built in a particular way. I would love to be able to see how they've taken, you know, a building with small classrooms and really expanded that. in the same breath, you have so many classrooms that are in there and you're still going to have the same population. Were those buildings just kept the way they were? Were additions added to them because they're going to need more classrooms? Understanding how that

099process uh works and actually being able to see it, I think would be very valuable. I would say well in terms of the middle school that we're working on an in in Ann Arbor um we could repurpose space that was underutilized. That's what we find in a lot of these buildings. There's a lot of underutilized space. Um and so part of it is finding underutilized space. The classroom size is a question or concern and where we can take those classrooms. And that's some of the work Stephanie was talking about. Where can we fit a suite for uh student support services, people who need separate offices, that's one of the big needs that came up on what we were looking at versus um you know, psychologists who work on a corner and a stage, right? Like

100I think as as they said that there's really not the um information out about the fantastic make do that your principles and your teachers are doing within these school buildings to make the spaces that they need. And um you know how can you give them really good spaces to work and educate? But the So a lot of it is looking for reorganization or underutilized spaces. You know, I think discussions on on um cafeteria and auditorium spaces, discussions on pools and what is the policy and the priority for pools within the elementary schools or are those spaces that um are are costly from a maintenance point of view and and difficult? and are those spaces that could be captured for um for you know a tech use um STEM space robotic space you know I think

101so that's from us to understand uh some priorities on places that are within the in the existing schools >> well I think you know there may be schools that have underutilization but I'm just going to use two examples here Lindberg Elementary and Henry Ford um you know Henry Ford's projected in 10 years to have 99% uh utilization with no capital improvements and right now it's at 89% and Lindberg is at 83 and going to 100%. Um, and that's why, you know, I go to my point there. If we're going to go into a school like Lindberg and make those classrooms bigger, uh, one, we still need the same amount of classrooms, and two, utilization is just going to grow, you know, and Lindberg, I believe, is one of the, you know, additional study needed. And,

102and to trustee, uh, uh, so's point, you know, I think we still have questions, you know, to to answer um, so that we can formulate, you know, a district plan. And I think it may be being clear which they were factored in in our numbers in terms of highlighting um schools like those where we are recommending additions right we're not recommending a new school but we would be recommending based on the square footage and the population we're recommending an addition or in the case of Henry Ford that's understanding use and priorities and does it make sense to do more of a new new school and repurpose the existing for another use. >> I do think that we need to start answering, you know, being able to to to have an understanding and answer those questions.

103Again, those two schools, you know, we're looking at additional study needed, high priority, but we need if we're going to take action, we need to know what we need to do. So, I think I being able to flush out the rest of these buildings and understand, you know, have recommendations with priority as you say, um I think is an important next step. Trusty, >> would it be at all helpful for us in order to move forward and and uh visualize better um a sideby-side comparison of a building that needs an assessment of needs um and the cost differential it would be to be the renovation and whatever you're proposing. versus some other option. I I'm not sure what trustee Jami is considering when he's talking um about the modernization thing if he's talking about demoing

104in a new building as opposed to preserving the building and renovating it to make it a modern 21st infrastructure interior-wise. So we've done a lot of that groundwork already. Um I think the more we were waiting to see what the report came from um byman fist to understand where the dollars are at or could be at. Um I think one of the things that might be helpful is to do an option one two three four type of thing. Mhm. >> Um, one that is if a certain dollar value is acceptable, what do you get if a another dollar value is acceptable? Vice versa. But see, this is where a little bit of the issue becomes into play. And this is where we need feedback is where's the priority because um, you know, a a bond

105at a lower amount is far different than a bond at a higher amount. And so all the things that you would love to have may not be feasible in a lower um and I think these are things that this is why we wanted to start this right to start having these conversations and to talk about where is the priority >> depending on the school. This is probably the first of a few conversations that >> and and this is what we did with the last bond proposal. We had some town halls and we had one, two, and three options and what are you willing to accept when we were trying to figure out the dollar amount? Um, and it's always because people are always caught off guard when they actually see it um in in real

106time. what what they thought it was going to cost and what it actually is going to cost is is a is a lot different. It's like going out and buying a new car now as opposed to when you and you bought a car 10 years ago and you're like my god how could it possibly be this amount. So we need to in order to give direction as to what we want to start preparing for. I think that's our next phase is trying to figure out then if pe if the numbers you got without having any numbers and people were saying I'm willing to pay 25 bucks a month as opposed to and that and that's what they could stomach so to speak then we got a lot a a long a large gap of reality

107to fill in here about what we can accomplish and what we should be focused on and what people really want us at the end of the day? Do they I'm still kind of perplexed as to whether the community is willing to accept, okay, we're just going to focus on the critical and the high priority right now and we'll we'll just not worry about these other um except for HVAC [laughter] which which we've already been dedicating a lot of uh effort with the um esper funds o over the last thank goodness we were able to um whittle away at that to some extent. Um I you know that we're going to have to find out when the boots hit the ground whether they're really willing to um invest in everything or what it is that they're

108willing to really um pay pay their uh dollars towards. You know, I I think um a few thoughts on on on what Trustee Pasov is is saying. You know, I think um a couple things. One, I want to commend our district and our teachers and our administration. I think they've done a good job with the buildings and the infrastructure that they have because we produce excellent students. Students that go to Harvard Ivy League schools, University of Michigan, they stay local and they do excellent things. And I think that's part of the perception. Our kids are doing great. Right. Um, and I think it's it's it's, you know, part of that falls into we're doing what we can with what we have, but what we're also saying is what we have. We're getting to a critical

109point and we need to make some decisions. And I think getting out into the community and educating our district on that things may be great. We're doing great with what we have because we're a great district and because we have great teachers and because we have great principles and we have all of that and we're making sure we meet our kids' needs, but we have an infrastructure problem and we need to fix it because we're going to get to a point where we're going it's going to start affecting what we can do for these kids. And I think that's a campaign that we need to do to make sure that people understand why we're saying what we're saying. Um, as I mentioned before, I have three kids in the district and I've seen their schools.

110Since I've be joined the board, I've gone to other schools and I see firsthand some of these schools, walking inside, seeing the classrooms, seeing the size of the classrooms, seeing, you know, going through these reports and seeing how all of this was built out. I think over the past 100 plus years of where we've gotten to to today, we've done the best that we can. you know, buildings built in the n in in the 1910s, 1920s after World War II, the 1940s and 50s, building on to that. And I have some things I we can go over so you can see when you visualize it, when you see it, when you experience these schools, I think you start to realize, wow, you know, we have something that we need to really work on here. Additionally,

111a lot of times we compare ourselves to other districts. We're we're an older district. You know, a lot of our of of our buildings, I'll use Lori as an example. Lori was built for the city of Fortson before it was part of Dearborn. That's how old we're talking right now. Other districts are younger than us. They have younger buildings. A lot of the buildings that we have here that say critical are elementary schools, which are older. We're not seeing that on our high schools. You know, Forson is an older school. We know that. But the other two are younger schools. They don't have as much need because they're not a building that's 100, 105, 109 years old. I think we're at an inflection point and I think we have an opportunity to say what do

112we want to do moving forward into the 21st century to best equip our students with the best infrastructure possible. Um because one we're at a point where I don't know how much long this infra this infrastructure can handle what we want for it right um and two I think our students deserve it. Um, so I mean I think I think we have a real opportunity here and I think I think if we educate our district and we educate the voters and we educate the parents and we educate the non-parents about what's going on and as we saw with some of the the the the findings, people do want to support the schools. I think if we lay out the problems that we have and we show them the opportunity that comes, I think we can

113do something really great. Well said. I I I totally agree uh that you know that infrastructure state in our district is dire and that it needs immediate attention. Um and from my experience ever since the 2019 bond is that folks when they give up some of their tax dollars, they want to see something they want to see something built. Um, one of the major reasons 2019 didn't pass is because they felt it was just fixing up or putting bandaids on older buildings that we cannot sustain. And it's very important that we um we lay down the foundation of saying if we're going to do major renovations, this is a huge transformation to each building that's going to bring it to a 21st century standard. And if we're building a brand new building, whether it's for

114um for special education next to um regular education building, this is how much it's going to cost. And I believe I asked maybe two years back of how much would it cost on average to build a middle school or an elementary right now. And I'm not sure if uh if if our experts have some numbers, especially from Galbane, as far as to build a K8 school like Lori, what what what are we looking as far as a major figure? >> I hope I hope you're ready. >> Go ahead. High schools are averaging $750 to $800 a square foot and that's before athletic fields. That's building alone for new state-of-the-art high schools. Middle schools aren't too far off from that. Elementary schools are running about $550, $600 a square foot. So when we talk about new

115buildings and we talk about the replacement of Lori, Lori's in pretty bad shape and it's almost the equivalent to build something new than to renovate and renovate with a non-efficient layout, none efficient 21st century state-of-the-art school. If you're going to spend that money, spend it on a brand new school. So when we talk about what the differences are for um critical Lori Lori is critical infrastructure- wise. So the rest of them you know you have I always say historic buildings have great bones. They were here for 100 years. They'll probably be outlast all of us and our children and our children's children. That's how well they've been put together. but they need some love to maintain that. And so, um, you know, I think that's why you'll see with a lot of the existing schools

116other than Lori, um, that, uh, you know, a renovation probably makes more sense. Um, and yes, they can be they can be, uh, done into 21st century schools. Josh, Jeremy, >> the square foot number when I was looking at the previous bond, it seemed like, and correct me if I'm wrong, the right now it's around 700 and it was more around 400. >> Um, so almost doubled. >> Yes. So in saying that in 20 years if we allocate if we did a bond for 30 years and allocated for a building to be done or completed in 20 years imagine the the square foot numbers. Um it's going to be hard to forecast what that number is going to be based on what we want to do. Uh just because the the the cost is increasing

117so high. When when you mentioned the numbers that kind of threw me back. I'm like wow. But but I understand things tripled nowadays. >> So the increase in in our construction costs really occurred since 2020. Actually occurred since 2021. We've seen a 32% increase. Well, it's actually a 45% increase in costs. 32% off of what the projections were um back in 2020. So in 2019, so in 2018, 2019, 2020, there was a projection of most schools had a projection of 3 to 4% inflation. We saw a 32% jump in inflation in two years. So will we see another 32%. I can't I can't say that, but I would hope that we've leveled off for for a while. Um but part of our issue is um you know we we just don't have people going into

118the skilled trades and it and skilled trades are high in demand. Um there's not as many out there and materials and goods are are are increasingly more. >> Yeah. And I was going to say material is also a big factor. But the reason I mention that is just to keep that in mind when we talk about a bond in long term is the cost and the forecasting for um you know for building. You know, sometimes it's easier or better to get things done early for the critical and the urgent and because you don't know what you don't know. Which may make for the argument of what the community was more in preference of of a split bond and go back and tell them, look, we're going to take care of the critical needs now, but

119we will need to address the others, but we don't know what the cost projections will be. So we, you know, that that might be a way to, you know, message that at some point because we do know, we've already seen it happen with Henry Ford College where we went out and two years later what we thought we could do with the uh money we had gotten put together wasn't going to cover what we had wanted originally to um do and we had to scale back our plans. So >> trusty Bzy, >> you know, I would say to on that point, I think, you know, I think we're hypothetically throwing out, you know, you know, doing a smaller one and then coming back later, but I think we would need to do an assessment to say,

120well, would that smaller one look like? What is that amount? Right? There are needs that are so critical here, and I'm looking at some estimates that were shared that you start adding things up and you're like, I maybe it's better just to to to go to go all out. I think we're entertaining those ideas, but I think we need we need to do that analysis to to understand um what you know how how different is a small one verse something that's that takes takes into account everything. Um a question I do have and I know it's on the agenda and I don't know if we would we're going to move to that next but I think on the agenda we had talked about talking about costs here uh associated costs. I know there's a is

121there a draft document from Gilbane about what some of this costs would would would be like for what we're talking about. >> We don't have those costs with us today because we wanted to have a better understanding of of how to structure. Um >> I mean I we could slice it and dice it 20 ways. I I wanted to make sure it was constructive. So, um, I think that's probably a followup that we need to provide based on everything we've heard today. I think it gives us a good idea of maybe what you're looking for and some information that you need to help make some better decisions. >> I do have one more question. >> Go ahead, Trusty John. I heard Ann Arbor um is being one district that you're working on. The the bond

122has been passed obviously and you're started to work. What are some of the lessons learned that would be helpful for us from based on Ann Arbor >> CO that bond was passed just before CO um so the thoughts and ideas that happened precoid changed the thoughts and ideas of moving forward um I think you know I think one of the things that they looked at is is the need to re-evaluate the program every you know 3 to five years. The importance and what was needed five years ago has shifted. Um birth rates have shifted. Uh enrollment has shifted. CTE programs becoming a a more important part have shifted. Um you know the city of pools where you know they had Olympic stars come from has shifted because pool operation is is so great they have

123to look at the operational costs. Um things have just changed and they will continue to change and evolve. The one thing I will say is that they made sure the buildings um have the ability to be flexible. So as changes happen, the spaces are flexible for the needs. And I think that's, you know, that's probably the one lesson learned. Not just Ann Arbor, but Detroit seeing the same thing. All the districts in Michigan are looking to more flexible spaces. So as uh programs change and needs change, the buildings can can change with it. the need to be transparent but also allowing for flexibility with friends if this bond is for a long period of time. So balancing that out and earlier you said you're waiting to know what our priorities are and I think we

124are trying to figure out what those are based on the scales on that graph with what makes a building determined to be high or critical or not. And I have one question were any of the buildings considered not feasible due to historical relevance? No. >> Okay. So, it might have been a consideration but not the main one. >> Yeah, the historic was a there was nothing related to the historic that would affect the feasibility in these ones. It might in terms of the final decision affect the final decision on the priorities that that um even though it's historic flower or something, there's there's reason to to not keep it. >> And then you mentioned um for more study needed, you mentioned some indicators that you [snorts] some indicators to consider. Could we have those listed

125per by building? What was your determination for more study? What should we be considering in that study before making a decision? >> Yeah, we can put together sort of why that went into the more study needed um column. And then were any of the buildings that were older not feasible to be new due to the acreage that site was on? >> That was the main focus of not feasible because to build a new building for that population >> parking and the site that you would want for a new >> facility. And that code might require you for no facility in terms of parking >> uh and site circulation. Um >> so a current building like Duval for example. >> Yes, that's >> that's what comes to mind. >> Yes. >> Um critical [snorts] or high

126pri I can't keep them straight. The high it's high priority but not feasible. Is that because of the land? It's it's landlocked. >> Yeah, a new facility is not feasible. But we do think um based on the population projections and the square footage required for this 21st century learning that the building has enough space as is. It just needs some reorganization. So, we don't need a new facility to make it work. we feel like we're confident we could that it could be possible >> um within the existing building or maybe I know that one for example has an interior space maybe that interior space is changed and some windowed space is added for you know a net >> okay >> zero >> the net zero it has 33,000 square feet and the projections we would

127say for a 21st century school you would want to build 33,000 square feet right so to take down and put up the same square footage one with current building code and your site and issues. You wouldn't want to do that um there, but you would want to look at reconfiguring that square footage. >> Thank you. >> So, can >> No, go ahead. I I just said you might. >> Okay. So, I'm just kind of kind of piggyback on that. We talked about Duval and I'm looking at the report here. Duval has a 78% utilization going to 72. So I can understand we're utilizing space and all that. But another school that falls into this is Maples. Not uh new new facility not feasible. 83% utilization jumping up to 89. Um and that one mean you

128look at the lot size. I can understand why you can't you can't doesn't seem like you could build a new building on the same property [snorts] while you do that or extend it or such. But I I think that alludes to we still have questions about these, you know, and understanding, you know, what is what is new facility not feasible for one school mean as as it is for another one. And I think that'll help, you know, inform the administration, you know, as we move forward with, you know, our suggestions about what plans a board would want put together, you know, >> and and I think we have in our report, and I was probably an error earlier in saying that that not feasible has to do with the size of the site. >> So

129that's why it's not feasible. >> So that's why they're not they're not feasible because of the size of the site. And so if you were going to do a new Deval or new maples, you really need to look for seven to 12 acres somewhere to >> so I know in the executive summary it it explains that but then that makes me look at and that that's kind of my assumption I walk into this. Okay, Maples doesn't have the size, but Maples has needs >> and the recommendation is to look at addition. Can is there a targeted small addition to take care of the growth in population again? What's the priority on the pool and that square footage at Maples? And is that targeting something? And so that's where where we could delve in very deeply

130to a specific school, which I think your community may want as you start to to sort out the the bond numbers and and the direction. >> I'm sorry to interrupt President Mos. Um I did promise uh Mark Fisk here. They do have a prior they do have another commitment later this evening. So, I did promise them that they would get out by 8. Um, if the you or any other members of the board had a question for them, I'd like wonder if we could address that at this time. >> Yeah. Any questions? >> Question. In your experience with working with schools and helping them pass successful bonds, is the approach first typically to pick an amount and then see what you can do with that amount or more of a here's what the community wants.

131This is how much it's going to cost and then working that way. >> I think you you could you could do it either way because those are linked. What you decide to pick is obviously going to impact the cost. But the typical process is starting with either a couple of specific proposals. We did not do that here. We we were intentionally not specific, but to find a specific proposal and honestly to do additional research on that proposal to gauge public interest in it to gauge how far, you know, then you're getting into this really is going to cost you x number of dollars a month. It's not theoretical anymore. It's not if this then that. So starting with a specific proposal and then doing research on that piece of it is typically the path that

132we have taken before. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Does that make sense? >> I would also say just for what it is worth that the residents, the voters, you all know this because you all talk to them all the time. They're very busy and they're in a very cluttered environment. And so you want to be accurate. You want to be factual, of course, but simplicity is the key. Um, a lot of districts, you know, they start getting into discussions about school finances and amortization tables and pie charts and you you lost. >> It's this this is about two or three very important ideas. You know, you you articulate it well. The vision for the future for our kids. It doesn't have to be. You have to have a place where all the information is, but

133simplicity is the key because folks are just they're bombarded with information and they are so busy right now. So my counsel to you if you decide to go there is keep it keep it very simple, keep it accurate and be as transparent as possible. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, I'm only going to ask these just in case, you know, Mark and his team have anything to do with these. some of the asks that we talked about throughout the meeting. One of them is the forecast enrollment. This is something that I I would like to see because the impact of virtual and and loss of students. Um, so in order for us to make a decision, and I'm not sure if um, you know, your team does that or somebody else, I I I would like

134to ask that we reach out to Ann Arbor and as a district and and gain lessons learned from them. I think this is really important because they just did it. I know they're having a lot of challenges. So, um, based on the changes, based on so many things. So that's also the capital improvement timeline which shows you know when we get to that which shows the benefit to the taxpayer um because you know if we say and and I said that earlier but I'm I'm repeating if we say in 20 years we're doing a new building that's not a benefit to somebody that might not be in Durban in 20 years they might be moving to Florida. So, we want to show the timeline, the capital improvement timeline with benefits, you know, for the taxpayers.

135Um, the only reason I brought that up before you leave, especially for the forecast of enrollment, to me, that's important with regard to capacity and and I think it impacts the high school only for the most part, but it's just something that we would want to know. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Happy New Year. Appreciate you. >> Happy New Year. >> Just want to echo that too. Um just remember right now everything is paid out of the general fund. The state does not give us any money for infrastructure. They have just now started, they just finished a study on the energy savings and infrastructures and they came up to, you know, $1.3 billion need for deer. So, just so you know, these numbers that we're talking about for

136a long-term plan are not unheard of. They've been kind of independently tested as they went through this process. They've only given a little bit of funding for this coming school year. Roughly, they would recommend maybe a million dollars for us. So just don't think the state's going to solve our infrastructure problem. So it's really a a district level decision of how they want to handle this. And obviously I don't have to mention the urgency because as things go on, anything that happens is going to get funded from the general fund which puts a pressure on our operational program. You know you have staffing models and the more highly paid the less staff you have. Lower paid the most staff. So it has to come from somewhere if we have a crisis. And as you see

137in all your board agenda items, there's always a contingency on most contracts because we don't know what's going to happen. We got to have that flexibility. Even if you make a decision that you were going to just focus on the high priority items, we got to have a contingency because some of the thing that's in a higher priority and low priority, if the boiler disappears, not much is air conditioning, but even heat is a big issue for us. You know, some of our buildings are down. Normally have two boilers. One's already down. And we've been limping along on one, but we're just one crisis away. So, I just want to make sure you understand that some of these studies that you would like to have. It's just like the decisions we make all the time

138are limited information on how we can make our decision. Some of these studies may take three, six months to do to get the community involved, get an idea out there, get feedback, remodel it. So, you can't have it all planned out. And if you wait till you have it all planned out, we're a couple years down the line. And then who knows, a couple years down the line, maybe we have a large influx of students. You know, we never know all the decisions. So, you can't be perfectly have all decisions made knowing that we can only do so much construction in a given year. You know, some of these decisions even on the high priority schools, we can't get to all of them. It's going to have to be worked on and get to that

139decision of what to do with some of those, but we got to make sure we're doing something to get this ball rolling. >> If if I could So, we do believe in the bond, but we also want to make sure we do it right. Um, and and some of the things we have to consider, you know, we've been very negligent negligent with regard to the virtual and the pen foster. the district has not done anything to, you know, we're losing kids and if we don't take that into consideration, if we're trying to expand a building, if we're trying to, you know, uh add more classrooms, um I know four kids that play in my basketball program, the RMP foster. So, we have to consider those things and and take the consent. We do believe in

140the bond. We are very supportive of the bond and we know we need the bond. Now the question is how much do we need is is is is the major question and the the timeline of when those things can be done. If it's the urgent the critical and they could be done right away you know we're in support because we do want to make sure the environment the building that we provide for our kids are the right buildings. Uh, but I also if we're looking for a large B bond, you know, I wish we would go for the Cadillacs. Like what what's the wow factor that we're trying to bring to the city? What is it that we're are we um, you know, building a building to handle our special needs kids, you know, a

141central location to do that? What are we doing that is so different from just upkeep? you know, like Lori, it it does need to be replaced, but I just don't want to go through the same process as Ann Arbor because if you talk to them, there's challenges. And so, we do believe in the bond. So, the question is the amount. The last time we did it was 244 million or 240 million. This is going to be much much bigger. It's in the billion range, you know, plus. So, I want to make sure that we don't allocate something for 20 25 years, you know, in the timeline. I want to address the needs that we need to have now and in 10 years, you know, because we don't know what's going to happen in 20 years,

14225 years. So, I just don't want it to come across that we're being um asking all these question because we don't believe in the bond because we do and we're very supportive. But there's some things and I'll say this when we did the the 2019 I think 2019 or 2021 um I was on the VIP committee and I was one of the people pushing for forcing to be increased hindsight is 2020 now for losing kids it want it's 1900 kids and I project it in the future to be 1500 kids this is my own observation at this rate with virtual schools So, you know, if you guys would have listened to me 2019, you would have added um to Fortson. So, we need to make sure that we know what our enrollment is or it's

143going to be. I don't know if it's going to take 6 months, but we need to take that into consideration or maybe talk to our lobby to talk to the state about pen foster. kids are graduating in three months >> and and that's probably it's not the only reason but a four-year degree a three-year degree can't compare with a three-month degree so there's some things out of our control is infrastructure one of the reasons students are leaving I would probably say no so although it's it'll affect the trend in population with how much space we need. Besides that, it's I I would say it's probably a separate conversation, a necessary one that's that's separate from an infrastructure conversation, >> but it's the count that we're talking. >> It is the count and also the focus

144is not on the >> sure >> on virtual and I'm not trying to sidetrack the mean, but what I'm saying is the number of kids we're losing. If Fortune is going to be >> eventually 1500 kids, right? you know, at this rate with virtual school, we need to consider that. >> Well, and and absolutely and I want I'm excited to share that um we're also looking at our CTE programs that we're adding because of that as well. We need to engage more students. We want we need to provide more programs that will keep more students in our system versus going to a virtual program. And that's another necessity of of of the bond of a potential bond. Um, so not only is it students going full-time to to virtual programs, we also have students who

145are hybrid right now that we have to consider in addition to that, you know, that are um going from one building to another. And so that affects population and that decreases it um in terms of what we need in our current building. So there's a lot of factors um that we're also weighing in as far as student trends and population. Um but yeah, so it's I understand Pen Foster is is uh I won't even call it competition because I don't think it is, but it's a reality that students are choosing for whatever reasons. I also am hopeful that and some students have come to me and said I went that route and I regret it and now what do I do? So let's hope that that trend also reverses when they realize that it's not

146providing them a successful future. >> I I don't think the trend will reverse. Just my personal opinion. We disagree. But my focus is on the population loss to our you know if we say Fortson um is going to be this number >> then there's no re reason to expand. That's the justification of expanding. There's no reason to expand if the number of kids are going to go down. Like you said, the the virtual schools discussion, that's a side item, but I don't want the district to be very dismissive of it. >> No. >> And and say it's not a competition because if we're losing our kids to uh an inferior product, >> we should care enough about doing something about it. >> Absolutely. >> To to Trusty Aim's point, just looking through all the reports

147here, and I've kind of put them together in a spreadsheet, none of the reports recommend expanding Fortson. Yeah. just renovating. >> I'm I'm just giving an example that we have to consider the the population school >> the the school population in order to be able to uh we need to forecast because in order to build it's based on the needs you know it's you know virtual schools and and charter schools and and what are we forecasting for? you know, if we're saying we're going to expand a school, even a middle school, if if the forecast doesn't um say that we need that, remember during the the previous one, there was a forecast. There was numbers in there, but I don't see it for this one. If you go into the the website, it shows you

148the 2019, the forecast, the also the population, um there's a lot of information, even population growth and so on. So I don't know if we missed it this time. >> No. No. >> So the the Quinn Evans report does have projections for 2032. >> There was projections we were given. >> We used the study that had been done in 2022. So a study previous to us was done on the projections from 2022 to 2020 2032. >> So you had had projection study done in 2022. >> That's the number I saw. Those are the numbers that we used. So your point if they're out of date, right? >> Yeah. So when I what I saw is the 2022. >> So we saw the same thing, but >> you know, we things have changed a lot and

149they're changing a lot. >> But I'm looking at a at a report here that has um projections of student population out to 2030 that we were given. Um it's it was in the file for each other from Craropper. What was that? >> Um, Dearburn City School demographics, >> but the projection was on in 2022 and they projected 2030 at that time, which is so over the last 3 four years there's been a dramatic change in you know um in a lot of things. So things have changed. So what they projected for 2020 30 is from 2020. It's like right now I >> Yeah. And you're not going to get much closer >> um data probably. [clears throat] >> Sorry. How difficult and and timewise, moneywise is it to do another projection? >> We can do

150another our student service office does enrollment projections all the time. We also work with two other companies that can do enrollment projections and we can have that done for the board again so that we can get more accurate numbers and more up-to-date numbers to see. Obviously there has been changes in enrollment in the state over the since 2020. It is a statewide uh problem of less there are less students in the state of Michigan. And for a district that has had over 30 years of enrollment growth uh to see us finally stabilizing and unfortunately losing some students to a inferior program uh is definitely a concern and something that that needs to be addressed and something that we can look at. So, I think that, you know, having a uh an up-to-date enrollment forecast done,

151we can do that. It's it's not it's not too difficult. Like I said, I will and hats off to Mr. Mure who has done them in the past. His accuracy is incredible. Um so, we can do that, but then we also do outside services uh that do enrollment projections to verify those numbers. And and just so can I I I can say that for the most part what we're talking with the infrastructure needs don't necessarily focus on the student population in each building. It's focusing on actual physical maintenance issues of these buildings and survival of these buildings um as they stand today. not necessarily a lot of additions are being um included in those conversations. So, I'm not as concerned about what the population is going to look like for Fortzson or Dearborn High because

152we're not talking about additions as much as we're talking about making sure we can renovate and sustain uh healthy buildings. And that's where the I think our priorities and focus should be when we go um out to the community. One of the things I will say that I was um that I've been hearing once again and it was kind of what the problem was with the 2019 bond to be quite frank is that people are saying you've had all this money all these years. What have you been doing with it? Why haven't you been maintaining these buildings or fixing them up and everything? You've you've got lots of money and you're not utilizing it correctly. So we once again and um Byron Fist mentioned that there's a trust issue of how we spend the money

153and people presume that if you've got a budget of yay big that you should have plenty of money to take care of boilers and roofs and all these things and they I think we need to start early before we even get the bond proposal. of once again um exposing what we've already spent money on and what the structural needs are and start getting that information out um in in a manageable way so that people can start to see the reality because clearly they weren't seeing it and they think that either everything is fine and we're asking for money for you know TV sets and whatever and and not um real physical renovations and or that we've wasted a lot of money in the past and we haven't done what we should have been doing with

154it then because they they're not there. They don't see the concrete realities inside these buildings. So if we have any way and any opportunity to start getting that message alongside of the and this is why we need um it might help curtail um that what sunk the last bond which was people who didn't believe that um we were being honest with with what we needed the money for and what we were going to do with it. I want to >> um bear with me. My gather my thoughts um or try to bring them. I think there's a disconnect here. Um there are a few disconnects here. No disrespect to anybody. I think we're we're all making good points. Um but I've I'll start with I've heard a few asks from let's say each party, the

155board administration um and from our consultants. But um you know where where are we where's our starting point? uh is a good place to start where what are our action items and how do how do all of these reports all of these considerations and factors tie into each other. I think the disconnect is when we talk about things like population or we talk about things like infrastructure or we talk about our future um or what the classroom look like. I think these all connect with each other and I think we are looking at and considering these all very individually. Um so I I'll just not to refute um you know your point right now but just to say you know population could matter if we are looking to do 21st century classrooms which include larger

156classrooms, more breakout rooms, two cafeterias instead of one. Um I think population plays a factor in determining that as part of infrastructure. No. Um so I think all these things need to be connected and I think we are just not connecting them at some point or maybe we will eventually. um like you know especially or additionally talking about schools or facilities that have additional studies needed. Um we talk about what our priorities are. What is our vision? Um if our vision and priority now change is let's say it might be changed from whenever this was last given. Um does that not change the outcome of all the other facilities as well? um and and a lot of 21st century, you know, renovation or or school um has been mentioned, but uh what does that look

157like exactly? What does that entail? Um how do we then balance priority of I need AC versus I want 21st century, etc. Um and so again, I just think at some point we need to start connecting all these dots um to make the decision or to help move along. Um as to what Mr. wall was saying earlier. Um I I do agree that you know we have some urgency but um again everything is happening in a silo and I would like somebody to help start facilitating and connecting them thoughts to go through this. >> You think it would be a good time? >> Sure. So to to trustee uh so's point um you know over the over the past couple you know over this break going over a lot of these documents I've I've come

158to the same conclusion what do we got to do to move forward right I think a lot of us are saying the same thing what do we got to do to move forward so um I've kind of just put together you know some of my thoughts into a presentation you know I'll go quickly in the beginning um we'll get to next steps uh through it but you know a lot of what we're doing is based on decisions that we've made um on these studies that we've been talking about. Um you know, where are we now? Um I don't know if we can >> Yep, we're getting it up there now. >> Okay. >> Um you know, right now we have 20 elementary and uh K8 buildings, five middle schools, three high schools, three specialty buildings,

159three administrative buildings. You can see right now 34 buildings, over 3 million square feet, almost 400 acres uh in the city of Dearborn. um in 3 years 12 of our buildings will be over 100 years old. Now to the point just because they're 100 years old doesn't necessarily mean that we have to take all these buildings down but we have work that we need to get done. Um 17 about 50% of them will be 80 years old and three nearly 3/4ers will be 70 years old. So, you know, again, I had mentioned earlier, um, Lori, um, you know, was built in 1927. Um, if you look at the news article that came out with there, and I think it's a pride point for us in here in the city of Dearborn, meeting our kids' needs.

160It had a, I believe, an orthopedic, uh, department, and they were, you know, doing work with special needs kids there and make sure they meet their needs there. And I think over a 100 years, Dearborn has done that, and we need to look forward about what we're going to do to continue to to do that. Um, you know, moving on, you can see, you know, a lot of the spaces, and I don't want to, you know, you know, go over a lot of what we've already said, but a lot of the spaces were were made for education, delivering education in the 1900s. You can see here as an example, if we can move a couple slides, the one that says Deval Elementary, you know, how, you know, peacemilled some of these buildings have been kind

161of doing what they need to do to meet those needs, right? Um, these spa these spaces initially were for the boom that came to the area with the Rouge plant and all that. We're talking about that history. That's that's where we are today from those beginnings. If we move to the next slide, you can see uh one more bowls, one of the uh buildings that have critical needs have been addressed as a critical priority. Um you can see it's peacemeal with uh 1, two, three, four, four renovations uh additions after the 1927 build. Um you know, we we're doing what we need to do to meet our district's needs, right? We move over to Lina, you'll see a similar thing there. 1921, 1927, 1951, and then most recently in 2003. Um, so what do we

162do moving forward? Right. So, if we can move over to there, right there. Um, a lot of what we have pulled together and questions that we've had and more questions that we have today kind of deal with the uh foundational instructional needs, right? So, if we can move over one slide. Um, much of that analysis has been completed. You have a note there at the bottom. We have questions today. additional needs need to be done. But some priorities that we hear from residents, like we've already said, update safety and security, modernizing uh mechanical and HVAC, equity of spaces and services provided as we grow these out, making sure that these spaces are equitable across the district. Um, as we move on, you know, the next pieces that I think we need to start to address

163is, okay, we have these infrastructure needs. How are those infrastructure needs working? Are we doing, you know, are we focusing on larger classrooms and what are those going to look like? are we having larger classrooms because we need more pushin services and a lot of times we think of a classroom and we have kids in there with a teacher but you have adults in there now too when I grew up it was me and the teacher and that's what it was now you go in there you have parapros you have coaches that come in you have you know uh a lot that happens in that classroom you need the space uh when me and trusty Aljah went uh to Lori to to see how uh uh coaching uh was being implemented you know you stand

164in there and the kids right there and I you know I cut step back and want to give them that room. You know, a lot of these rooms are tight. Um, you know, what are we going to do now when we build out this infrastructure to meet all of those needs? As we move on to in the next slide, you know, our special populations, making sure these building layouts are how part of the reason how is a problem is because you have wheelchairs in in in the hallways and you have kids coming down that are in wheelchairs or other devices. You can't have two people coming down at the same time. um even if we moved them to another school, are those buildings built to meet our current needs? Um you know, and I'm and

165I'm highlighting special needs here. If we move on to the next a little bit, I mean, we have 70 special specialized classrooms. We've made those specialized classrooms within the infrastructure of buildings that were built in the 1900s. The sizing of that, this is where my mind goes. Not only are we talking about basic infrastructure, but what are we doing to meet all of these needs for general ed and special ed? um modernized and expanding CTE. We keep hearing about that dedicated room for art and and and music. You know, we'll go to schools and if we can move to the to the next slide, art on a cart because there is no art room, right? Or uh you have you know the uh a learning coach or you know a specialty uh teacher or personnel

166that was put into a closet room because that's the room that we have you know. So I know we're talking about basic infrastructure needs and we're doing all this but what are we envisioning for the future to make sure that we are meeting the needs of these kids and if we go on to the next slide the AI revolution is here what skills do we need to make sure we we equip these kids with um we need to rethink what the careers of the future are going to be you know a lot of times we look at what do we have and what are we going to do let's open ourselves up what is the future and then do we do it within what with what we have or do we need to expand and

167do we need to build out? Do we need to build new new buildings? Simulation labs, coding and robotics, audio, video, media resources, AI powered learning. These are just suggestions, just a few things. Um, where I'm getting to this is and again this is this is my suggestion and I I'd like to to discuss this and it's it kind of piggybacks on what uh what the Fielding study has these four master plans. You know, Fielding took an approach of uh um going from keeping all the infrastructure that we have to centralizing everything, right? And there is something to be said about that. And and this kind of as you see here with these four proposals, proposal A is we keep our footprint as it is, 3.3 million square feet, over 400 acres. Um proposal B is

168do we consolidate our high school and leave our you know neighborhood, elementary and middle school uh uh uh distribution or do we do some sort of consolidation and rec configuration at the elementary and middle and keep our three high schools and specialty centers or do we consolidate on both sides? You know, I think an approach to this um if we can move to the next slide, taking those four plans, working with the administration with them to be able to put those together. Um that those times would have uh um what that new building footprint would look like um timelines uh for those budgets for those uh if we wanted to move fast, slow, you know, can we implement this in 10 years? What would that look like from a cost perspective? Can we implement this

169in 15 years? what would it look like from a cost perspective? Um that way we understand number one how these are laid out with the different options what we think is best to deliver education right or what you know what we get from um our experts in the administration um and then we review that we say your name and then we take that out to the community we get the community's feedback on that do we want to stay 100% neighborhood school system do we want to centralize our high school do we want to do some consolidation or reconfiguration of elementary and middle school what are the benefits the pros and cons you Take all of those four plans and you boil that down to one plan. Board initial approval, take that back out to the

170community, right? And I think we'll know, we're talking about selling a plan. We're taking their feedback. We're putting it into it. This is what the community wants. We don't have to sell them on something. We're taking what the community wants and putting it forward and giving them a solution for those needs. I think there is an educational piece, as we learned today, of making sure people understand what our infrastructure issues are. And I think that's has to be part of this campaign. But as you go through these steps and it's outlined here in 12 steps, we get to a point where the ballot is put out and and proposed. I think another thing we need to do um and to Mr. Wall's point here, we have to look at a timeline. We can move over

171to um uh the next slide. [clears throat] Um you know what? We can go over let's go over to two more slides proposed where the one that has the vote uh image on it. When we look at timelines, we look at when ballots can be presented to uh voters. We have November 3rd of this year. We have May 27th of next uh I'm sorry, May of 2027, November of 2027, February of 2028. I think those are timelines that we have to look at. Those are hard uh dates that we have to consider. Um, but going back to having those four plans. How do we look at a timeline and say we're going to develop four plans. We're going to make sure that they're vetted as as much as they need to be. We're going to

172bring that to the board for them to look at with these various options. Right? Then we're going to take that out to the community, have the community give their feedback on that, boil that down to one plan, have a definitive timeline of what we know we can do, how much it could cost, where it could go. and it kind of gives direction and also informs the community as we go, why we're doing what we're doing, when we're doing it, how we're doing it. Um, and I think, and I don't know if we have to, we would do that tonight or not, but I think I would like to discuss, you know, these are the dates that we have to look at and what do we need to take out to the community budget-wise, plan-wise, and

173what the community wants and hit these one of these available ballot dates. um because we go beyond that. I mean we our infrastructure is in an urgent need and we need to we need to take action. So I I suggest you know having a conversation around that you know you know the suggestion of master plan options or how we how we execute that and give direction to the administration so they can start getting to work on putting that together answering questions that we still have getting we have questions we need to answer them and then putting putting together a plan you know something where here you go here's plan A here's plan B here's plan C here's plan D here's what they look like and then what are we taking from that if it's all

174of them or some of them out to the community and boiling that down to one plan you Are we talking about you know there's doing something smaller and it could be maintenance related right it's going to be a much smaller thing or are we envisioning the future right are we envisioning the next 50 7500 years if I were to say we have 400 acres and there's no buildings what would we do for Dearborn schools to make it the this district that we want I know that's very ideal we do have 38 buildings that are there but sometimes we limit ourselves within what we have trying accomplish what we need. What do we think is best for the future and now what buildings can accomplish that? It's more of a Cadillac plan like uh Trusty Aljami

175had mentioned earlier, but I think um I think it's worth the discussion. I think it's worth the planning. Um and I think uh I think we can do it and I think we can I don't think we'll have to sell it to the residents. I think that we can put a plan together with their input and everybody will be on board. Um so I'll get off my soap box now. Thank you Trusty Baz for putting that together on the suggestions. But I I I do believe that you know with those kind of timelines we still have some I believe other time election times other than those that you put on. So um might be primaries in 2028. >> So that's the last one. February 22, 2028 a primary. >> Yeah. So, um, yeah, definitely. The

176question is we're at crossroads as far as if we want to go with the smaller bond and and just go attack the most highest priority items or whether we go for the grand idea of this is what we want to do and touch all of the buildings. Um, and And that is something that we definitely need to decide on. Obviously not tonight. Um I many of the questions that were posed today need to be answered as far as the questions about placements. Um there uh needs to be more also even if we present multiple options I believe it it is worthwhile that we present those to the community in some kind of form of getting the pulse of where can you afford because affordability is a huge thing. I mean whether here or New York

177or anywhere else um we can dream of the best buildings possible for our students, best learning spaces uh that will bring us the 21st century modern AI powered coding labs that you spoke of. But that will have to come with a price and a cost that we would have to say where is that middle point where we could say we could afford this >> but at the same time we could deliver all of these things or deliver some of these things that the residents are asking. And I will just also I hate to be cautioning again but in 2019 we we had done a lot of town halls to try to explain and give options and get feedback and it still failed because of um some misinformation, some misinterpretations of information, whatever you want to

178call it. um you can do all the best you can in thinking that you're you're getting the pulse of the community and you can still miss the mark. And I don't know how many times we can continue to go out to the community with a plan and have it miss the mark because at some point >> the message not expecting everybody to have the buy in >> for sure you will have people who will oppose anything. >> Oh 30% is a general rule. But it it has to be something that is within range that people are very comfortable with um and have a buy in. They feel like this is something that they actually >> but it's hard to it's you think you're hearing from people and you don't you're not always hearing from people,

179>> you know. You think you've hit all the >> We do >> audience. We do what we can. Yeah. Right. What is in our place? >> What is in our power? um in order to to put up a a bond like this. So, uh Superintendent Sor, do you have everything that you >> I have it all down. >> Um >> yes, and it's been recorded. >> Yes. [laughter] Um >> but I'm saying as far as to move forward, I'd like to also and this is some of ask and I'll open it up also for questions. You know, if we can get some kind of proposals together >> that we to the board to say this is what we can do with a half billion, this is what we can do with a full billion, this

180is what we could do with 1.5 billion and we gauge that priority chart as far as you know Lori will be replaced with this kind of plan or we can have a special ed facility with this plan. some kind of options associ with associated costs with numbers next to them. >> Obviously, we have already the numbers there >> and also how long that will take. Will it take 10 years, 15 years to get to that? I know we keep saying 30 years but most of the work will happen in the next 10 15 years but we will be paying for this project for 30 years similar to and previously I actually went back to the historical aspect of how did these schools come to be about and uh former trustee Bugaya told me that you

181know they at one point they were doing one building at a time, what they can afford at the time. And it might be a good idea to also look at that if if we want to say we want to just replace Lori for now and everybody in the city will take that cost to replace that school. If that is the majority, let's go that route. But I I believe everybody wants to have a piece at least to their neighborhood school. something that could be done and obviously paying attention to the most dire needs >> uh in our schools. >> I think we are on our way to being prepared for that. Every department has a needs list. I think a driving question for us is going to be what do we consider a want versus

182a need >> and does the community agree with us? Is innovation a want or do they see it as a need? Is expanded CTE a want or do they see it as a need? I would say they see it as a need now based on the feedback. So these are the questions we need to continue to ask the community. Um and I like technology, special ed, early childhood, all of these departments have a needs list that includes districtwide changes and then also individual building needs as well. So that's categorized based on what you just said. What does everybody need and is getting and then what do individual buildings need based on the recommendation of a new build or an improvement or an ASIS. So we we're ready after we get some clarity on some of

183that information that I know we'll get very soon. Um we're on our way to being prepared to propose these four proposals for you or create them. >> Trusty. So, >> um I don't know if this was implied uh superintendent interend um will we be sending out or doing another uh survey type I guess to to get these answers of a want versus a need? >> Okay. So, I think based on the survey results and the ranking of what they considered to be most important. >> Yeah. >> I would interpret that as them seeing those as needs. >> No, that's my interpretation. >> Do we use that information to create these proposals? I think we're safe to do so, >> but then go back out to the community and say, "This is what we believe we

184heard from you. Is it accurate? >> What changes do we make from here?" >> But I do feel confident we have enough information from the community to begin creating these proposals. >> Okay. And I I only ask because if if so, um I would like to use that as an opportunity. I don't know and and forgive me if it was there. Um if we had asked opinions on you know the neighborhood schools and and >> yes that's in the fielding I believe there >> and this is where maybe back to what you said trustee there's we thought we knew but we didn't know there were some very divisive questions that people felt strongly about >> and yeah you know it's it goes back to >> what are we proposing how do we rationalize it and

185how do we explain the why >> y >> okay >> and that goes Back to some of my questions re regarding historical significance. How much does that play a role? How much should it >> y >> are we to what trustee Al Jahi said are we looking in the past to plan our future? Is that the responsible thing to do? >> How much should we weigh things like that moving forward? >> Yeah. >> I think we do have a lot of background information. We have a lot of community input >> and like our data and our plans that's also changing. So yes, going back out is important. Um but I would say after we create an initial proposal, >> right? Thank you so much. >> We'll talk. Okay. >> So you few months we're good.

186>> Well, I mean on that point I'm talking about time. Well, we're talking about timeline though. >> Yeah. >> You know, there's November third up there and I have I have in the presentation here kind of >> if if that's what we're going to going to be doing. I don't know if we want to back up a couple. I didn't number these. Sorry, I don't know who's back there, but >> is it you right there? Me. >> Let's go to Let's go to timeline one. Thank you, sir. [clears throat] >> Which one? >> Timeline one. >> So, the other timelines, I think, um, the way I've envisioned it, give a lot of time for that community feedback, right? But for this one, there's a there's a key point that we have to reach. The ballot

187language has to be submitted to the state of Michigan with a ballot amount. And I correct me if I'm wrong here, uh, Tom. Uh, May is when we have to hit that for this year. Correct. >> If we want to have the state backing for their credit rating. Yes. >> Otherwise, we do encourage additional cost. We want to bond it ourselves. >> It's not a large cost for us because we're a large district, but a smaller district, it might be cost prohibitive, but for a larger district, it's not. >> The the true deadline is mid July where we have to submit it to the county to put it on the balance. >> Okay. >> If we want state credit, it adds a level of, you know, clarification. the state's going to ask for all the

188detail, but it's not required. >> Okay. So then, I mean, I think that's an important another milestone that we need to take into consideration when we're putting this together. Could we do what we what we think is best? You know, putting together, you know, uh, plan options, getting those reviewed, getting the community input, boiling it down to one, and, you know, coming down to to a budget amount all in a time where it's it's adequate to be able to get it submitted appropriately. um you know if it's if it's something that's feasible within you know timeline one fantastic um if it's not I think we have those other options but I think sooner than later I think being able to decide upon that or or see where that's pointing to would be good >> trust

189I I think um from a timeline perspective keep in mind um trusty Bzy this was discussed last year and it was pushed till this year to be on the ballot Um so we have pushed it from last year to this year um because of um some of these questions that we have and I think the preference is to do it this year if possible based on our discussions last year. Now if if it's not practical I would not want to push something that's not that's not practical. But just to give you a little historical historical background on on um the the objective was to do it this year based on um uh >> I was talking about it last year >> voter turnout, right? >> Yeah. And and I think we were we were just

190not ready at the time when we were discussing it at the end of the year. We were not ready. So um I think there's definite needs to have the bond. There's questions that needs to be um addressed and it really depend on you know the the type of bond. Is it a a small bond? Is it a big bond? >> Correct. >> And and what we want to do if it's a smaller bond and I'm not saying we don't need a big bond. I just want to do a disclaimer. Uh if it's if it's not a big bond then it's possible to do it in my opinion on the third. Um but if it's a uh you know the big bang you know where we want to do everything that we want to because a

191lot of time it's hard to go back and forth um with bonds and maybe the timing and I think Tom and David and and Lamese you know maybe the timing based on you know where we are w with the millages that plays a factor on it you know how does it impact the voters based on the millages and what we have right now versus you know so that it doesn't impact them um greatly. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Let me ask a question, Tom. And I don't mean to if you can't answer this now and we have to come back to it, I think it would be good. I'm sorry. Can we go to this one? >> Yeah. Um, so you'll see here for each of the timelines, the second bullet point, you know, I think

192another thing we have to take cons into consideration, assuming a passage at each one of those, when do the funds become available so we can start work. >> It usually takes about a month to make sure it's certified >> and then about two months after that to develop a prospectus that we actually develop talks about our current finance financial condition, what the bonds will be used for. That usually takes about 60 days to get through the legal process and then you would actually collect the money. So about a 90-day window to collect the money. >> But now so it wouldn't be dependent on when this hits summer tax bills. This would >> well normally your construction period is the summer. >> Okay. Now obviously anything we do of large scale like the plans to develop

193a new like say a new middle school will take many months and maybe they can answer better than that but you have to actually develop the whole plans you know and get it through the state which is very troublesome these days because they're very short staff to get something approved and so you're probably looking at least 18 months before you can actually start construction on a middle school. >> Okay. So 18 months from one of these dates of passage. >> Correct. >> Now it doesn't mean we couldn't do parking lots, roofs, those are much smaller and less complex, but a new school will take quite some time. >> So I think one of the questions he's kind of alluding to is so when would the taxpayer see us show up on their tax bill? >>

194Uh the tax bills are done. We submit our tax bills in May for both the summer levy and the the winter levy. Usually the cities like to have it by June 1st. Obviously we push that a little bit, but mid June is when we submit the bills to this. >> So if they if they passed a bond in November of this year, they would see it on their summer tax bill of 2027. >> Yeah. It doesn't mean that for the May election, as an example, we could do a winter levy, but most people aren't planning for that, >> right? >> Because you know, obviously a lot of people have mortgages, they have a tax growth. It would comp it would cause a lot of cash flow issues for taxpayers if you did the larger bill

195on a winter levy because we don't norally is 50/50. >> So the May so the May one they wouldn't see it on their tax bill till the following >> the other till >> well we would have >> right and we would have to modify the tax. You're going to pay more interest for the district because you're going to wait another cycle to start paying. So increase the interest cost a little bit, but it it's feasible. Yes. >> So can we safely assume timeline one assuming passage summer 27? That's the first time taxpayers will see a new >> do a November election. >> Yep. The other three would I'm assuming summer of 28, >> right? Obviously, it'd be more cost of the district, but we wouldn't want to, you know, impair the cash flow of our

196taxpayers because of the unexpected levy in the winter, >> right? >> Okay. Thank you. >> I need some clarification on the proposals like the question you asked, how am I determining needs versus wants because that'll determine scale. >> And I responded to you, I'm going to use the survey results as a needs assessment. Is that okay with you? because that's going to affect the price tags. I I need to know, are we looking at a needs proposal, but how are we defining needs? You mentioned the Cadillac model, but it's the Cadillac, the new Honda. So, there's a lot of things that we need to really clarify. Not to make it a joke, but um some or do you want two options um that are driven by price or amount? And maybe you don't want to

197answer that today, but a little more clarification with um >> well, as far as needs, >> yes, >> when you say needs, is that >> beyond safety and infrastructure, >> right? Yes. >> Is that from coming from school principles? Is that coming from school engineers? >> We have that. >> They're going to check needs for everybody. >> Well, well, that's really um if you can remind me, the way we did the feedback before was what's a need to have, what's a nice to have. So there it was categorized. We have things categorized. >> All right. >> Um so what category am I looking at? Um, >> can we assume that the Quinn Evans assessments would be the needs category >> because they they didn't they're not living in those buildings so they don't have a

198want as opposed to what they thought and then the wants would be anything outside of >> Yes. Yes. And if we look at Trusty Bazzy's pyramid, I think it helps with that. Although I would consider the whole pyramid a need, >> right? >> Some others may not. Some others may say, well, innovations and and all of that and expanded AI, that's not a need. Need is literacy and math. So, >> just some clarification would be helpful. Well, then that that's going really to the philosophy >> of what you want your educational institution to provide >> as opposed to just the physicality of the building. >> Correct. >> You are now talking about philosophically do we think all these other things are needs or wants and so that is a different question. I think it's I

199think it's the consideration what vision do we have for the future >> and at the same point if we are just going to look at maintaining our current infrastructure >> physicality yeah >> although and I think I think there was analysis that this the st sant uh um uh document kind of went through and kind of gave us an idea look if you're just looking at you know those minimums for the six years and I know that needs to be updated because we've done already some HVAC work I think >> Stantech was the ones that originally did the work in the fielding study. >> Gilbane looked at that and updated it based upon the interviews with the principles and engineers >> to kind of update it where we're at with the you know some of

200the work we've done with Esser money. So Gobain is the most recent one that we'll use to kind of evaluate that. >> But I I you know I I liked looking at that one because it looked like it's like look if you're going to address the critical needs one to two years and then up to six for you know secondary needs and you have those amounts it kind of gives you that okay we're just going to keep the buildings humming along with what they need. there's no there's no vision per se about what we're what we're doing moving forward. I I think I think there is something to be said about okay if we're looking at bare minimum that's what debt is right now we and I think I think it's worth the conversation what

201vision do we have for the future because I'll say in my in my opinion I think we need that I think we need to move forward with that I think families will want to come to Dearborn because of of that I think again we're at a critical inflection point even if we did the work you know that that does that in 10 15 years we're going to be sitting here having this conversation again. >> Well, but then the question is do the taxpayer the voters do the taxpayers want that because what our vision might be is is completely different potentially from the people who are going to be at the ballot box and I think we start with >> and they might think I'm only willing to pay for keeping the building standing. >> Yeah.

202>> And I think we put it out there and we get that feedback. But I also think we give a start we give we give a starting point with some of that vision and I think you you you we literally mockups things like that maybe other things this is what this could look like and then this is what this could look like here in Dearborn right >> um >> yeah and I think your pyramid is a instead of saying needs and wants really forget that language your pyramid is comprehensive >> it includes infrastructure safety security needs and trending >> uh educational movements ments. So we all know the trend is learner centered environments not teacher centered environments. That's where you get your flexible rooms. That's where you get your uh learning designing spaces on how

203students learn and what they need to be able to learn. So that's something I think parents would understand and students would understand. And then you know beyond that the expanded not just college uh track but career track and I think parents have said give us that we want that or residents have said that I want my and and you've said it trustee Bazy can I graduate from high school and ready ready to begin a career what do we need to do to make that happen for our students so those are needs it's also a vision um and I think I guess our task is then to explain to the voters ers why these are needs. That's our job. >> They don't necessarily know why it's a need. And when I say they, I'm generalizing. Some

204may not realize the trends that, >> you know, that we're moving towards, >> you know, um but that's our responsibility. So, if you don't mind, I think using the pyramid as our backdrop for creating these proposals would give us a nice balanced approach to um for to begin with and then moving to the community with that. >> Yeah, >> sounds good. >> With the with the assist from Trusty Bazzy, uh now you are putting it all together and and I see some dots getting connected. So, um, yes, full circle appreciated. >> I I did have one question. >> What does the tax when when the taxpayer is paid have to do when we put the the bond? I I get it. You know, it's impacting their their pocketbook. But what is there a reason for

205asking the question, when would they be taxed? to what's the dependency for choosing the date to have have it on the ballot? >> Personally, I think twofold. One, um when the funds start coming in and we make that decision, we can start getting to work on that. And I know that even some of our mills are continuing to be reduced over the next few years. Um so it lessens the impact of what uh >> people are paying. Well, the people are paying you know so I think correct me if I'm wrong 2028 or 2029 there is a line item that will be >> well 2032 when that 20 the 2003 bond would come off the books >> in 2032 >> 2032 >> 32 so it's >> also city millillage that will go off the books

206as well like sewer >> what year >> project I believe 2028 2028. So there is a reduction that's coming. >> No, I thought it was 32 and we just had one and 23 went away. So from a millillage, I don't know if there's an impact whether it's this year or next year. And you could correct me, but if you're looking at it from when the taxpayer would be built, I I still I was trying to to to figure out the dependency that you're looking at it like what's driving the choice of 20 uh sorry this year versus next year with regard to when are they being taxed >> um it's less about this year and next year and more about if it wasn't this year any of the other three plans the first time somebody's

207tax is 2020 I just wanted to understand >> so there there is no dependency to say this year versus next year if we're ready >> if I'm sorry >> if if the preparation is ready the the tax that you're asking for when are they when are the taxpayer going to be taxed is not a dependency. >> Uh I don't not necessarily. No, I do think there is an there is an advantage of some tax reduction that's happening over the next few years that I think should be articulated, but no, I don't think it's a dependency. >> Okay. I was trying to see if there's a millage expiring if there's something. >> It doesn't sound like it. There there's nothing that's driving the you know, when are people going to be taxed? There's no millage expiring

208next year to say wait till next year so it would be lower. >> Correct. >> Okay. Right. >> All right. I just want to make sure. >> I believe what's going to be driving the date is more of the amount and the amount of work that we will do if it's going to be a bigger bond as you mentioned that might drive the date further. And if I mean >> but if it is something that is smaller then then definitely within this year's range >> I think and don't don't quote me on the numbers I know that probably the 26th summer bill it's roughly 1.22 the mill that we have and then looking here it's going to reduce about 20% and then reduce even more for the next four years and then drop off. Um

209just something to keep in mind even the mills that are coming from the from the schools are are going to be reduced and eventually that particular mail will be gone. >> Correct. >> President Mos. >> Yes. >> The one thing we didn't talk about that I'd like to talk about and I agree with Mr. Bazzy is our high schools are sporting events. Our facilities are far below most high schools. >> Sure. >> Outside of our city, you can go to any of these high schools. Their complexes are up to date and that draws the attention also. So, as we go down the road, we need to think about our sporting >> athletics >> facilities. So we we have that's also been something we've been working on already. Um and not just uh high school and

210going back to CTE and then student retention. We are starting with middle school. When we think about students leaving us in high school, we need to capitalize on our middle school experience for these students. not just with making a choice when they become freshmen with where they want to attend, whether in district or out, but also um using that middle school time to build the athletic facilities and programs there and then also prect at the middle school level. >> So, that's also been something we're working on. We're excited about that. >> Thank you for that, Trusty Deio. Anything else before we conclude the session? Trusty. So, >> sorry, one more thought I'm going to throw out there. Um, this might be a request um for the upcoming proposals or if it's a little far out,

211we can wait and discuss this after, but um if we do decide to do a or if we throw out a proposal for a smaller bond, um can we also take into consideration, you know, when we would be able to take on the next phase or two phases or three phases to finish the rest of the projects? Um just so we know ahead of time. that might help factor in um timeline and and urgency. >> That's >> Is that something you want us to do now? >> No, I I think the more I thought about it, I'm like this might be a lot. So, but when we get to that discussion, don't let me forget it, please. >> Yeah, I think definitely having those options later, like disagregate what we come up with now. >>

212Yep. >> Yeah. Once we've made a first, >> let's do the big where where we're headed originally, >> we can then have >> forward that conversation on. >> Uh David. >> Yeah, thank you. Um I wanted to just kind of piggyback off of a comment that Trusty Bzie said earlier um and expand on it a little bit. um just acknowledging and appreciating uh the teachers and principles for the work they do in the buildings that we have. I think that also that's why there's a disconnect between how serious the need is and what our buildings because of the non-instructional operational staff, engineers and custodians uh our skilled trades people, our operations people. They are keeping these buildings together so that there is a seamless transition between every school day, between every seasonal change from fall

213to winter, winter to spring, spring to summer. And we don't see that. It's behind the scenes. All we see is schools functioning every [clears throat] day, open, ready for our students. And that is a credit to those non-instructional people behind the scenes keeping it going. But I'm telling you, they're reaching the breaking point. >> The the shoestrings, the duct tape, the whatever is being done to keep these things going, their innovative spirit and their innovative techniques to find parts for equipment that is no longer even made anymore. Uh these folks are finding companies that will uh manufacture and and create parts that are needed for to keep our buildings running. That's not going to go on much longer. And we are going to reach a point where schools stop functioning for weeks at a time

214and children are home for days at a time and then people won't there won't be that disconnect. then >> then for sure people go, "Oh my gosh, yes, we have a critical need." And we are doing a great job of making sure that that doesn't happen. And again, it's hats off to those folks on that other side who are making that happen. But we're pushing them to the limits. We're pushing the equipment, the schools, and the people to their limits. And the further we put this off, uh, the closer we get to reaching that critical point. >> Thank you. >> I think that's a great point. I uh I remember when we went to uh Lori Elementary, they were talking about the facilities there and you have to be such a skilled person at Lori

215and developed such high skill that Ford Motor Company was people were leaving to go work at Ford because they were they've learned so much and they were poached because of the amount of skill that those you know people need to be able to help these schools continue to come along. And I think those stories need to be put out to the to the residents. >> You know, it's a it's a great thing that they can do that, but why are we in such dire straits that that is needed and I think uh you know, I I I thank you for for bringing that up because without them, we would have significant issues. >> And I want to thank Tom and David. You know, a lot of what they've put together, a lot of what we've

216talked about, a lot of what they've brought up, they've done a lot of a lot of great work with that. So thank you >> and thank you to our partners as well for for the work they've done and for the amount of information that they supplied us to make those critical and very important decisions. Okay. Uh if there's nothing further, uh there's one last thing I'd like to do and it's not [snorts] related to infrastructure, but we are in the beginning stages of searching for a new superintendent, but I'd like your availability, my colleagues. But so the survey came and we couldn't even find a date where all of us will >> Oh, really? >> will be available. um unfortunately you know with the timelines that we have so but there is one day where

217I'll ask trustee Petkoff maybe if she can be available maybe you want to pull up your calendar uh the 8th uh this Thursday you were the only trustee besides trustes are but trustes are is not available on all days so >> okay what time on the 8th I I I >> six Okay. >> Yeah, I'll do it. >> All right. Thank you for that. Appreciate that. So, >> Thursday is [snorts] another study session for the superintendent search and we going to have what time? >> 6 o'clock. >> Okay. I think that should we have >> Yes. >> Okay. >> No, I was going to say we had a school improvement, but that's a 4:15. So, we should be fine. >> Okay. Perfect. All right. So it is 6 pm here and it will be with

218our consultant from the Michigan Leadership Institute. >> Okay, great. >> Awesome. Well, thank you everybody for joining us today. Uh the last things that I mentioned in the beginning, are there any citizens >> wanting to address us or even staff members? All right, there are none. This meeting is adjourned at 9:04. Have a good night.