001Next item, please. Next item is union leadership commentary. This section of the board of education meeting is being added to further enhance the already strong commitment and longtime partnership between district administration, all bargaining units. Both instructional and non-instructional union members serve on a wide variety of standing and ad hoc committees that drive the working decision-making in the Dearborn public schools. In addition, administration meets monthly with the leadership team of all unions as well as a group meeting with union presidents. These meetings are not required but are an extension of the collaborative partnership that has long existed in the Dearborn public schools. This section will further enhance the commitment to valuing all suggestions, views, and opinions brought forth by all staff members in the district. And first we have the Dearborn Federation of School Employees with
002Mrs. Angie Laurenetti, Miss Donna Smith, and Mr. Kyle West. Did I say all your names right? Good evening, President Mosie, board members, Dr. Maliko. Thank you for having us here tonight. I am speaking on behalf of the Dearborn Federation of School Employees, the DFSE, which represents all support staff across the district. We are proud of the work we do and the positive impact we have on the students every day. My name is Kyle West. I am vice president of the DFSSE, a skilled trades leader in the district and a carpenter by trade. I am one of 19 skilled trades professionals maintaining all 34 school buildings. We also have 11 grounds crew members who maintain outside areas and handle transfers. Um together we complete over 5,100 work orders a year, not including emergencies or daily tasks.
003We take pride in keeping our schools safe and functional because we all know a well-maintained environment helps students learn. Thank you again for your time and continued support. Hello, my name is Donna Smith and I'm a union trustee for the DFSE. I started in the kitchen as a food service employee and now I work as a special education pair professional at Esso Ford High School. I love my job and I take pride in supporting students of all abilities each day. The almost 300 pair professionals in Dearborn public schools are some of the most caring and hardworking people I have ever met. I say that not just as an employee, but as a mother of a special education student in this very district. Each night I am able to sleep knowing that my daughter is in
004such loving hands and I hope other parents feel the same knowing that their child is also receiving the same loving care. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Angie Lorenzetti and I currently serve as a sergeant-at-arms for the DFSC. I've had the privilege of working in this district for over 23 years. I began my career in food service, then became a special ed parapro. Currently, I work as an instructional technician at Edel Ford High School. There are eight instructional technicians in our district, and through teamwork, each of us provides various types of support for our special ed students. My job is to assist students who may be struggling with specific subjects like math or English and tutoring them to pass their classes. Another tech will assist the student toward completion of their high
005school requirements and ultimately graduation. Throughout my journey in this district, I found my work deeply rewarding. I am passionate about the helping students discover how they learn best and supporting them in reaching their goals. My work brings me great fulfillment as a union officer. My belief is in to ensure that every student and staff member has the opportunity and support to reach their full potential. Thank you for your support and have a good evening and thank you for your Dr. Malo, you want to make a comment? Yeah, just thank you. We appreciate you coming up and Alerini and the unions. We value all of our employees and it takes all of our employees to um ensure that our students get a high quality of education. You're one of largest employers in Wayne County, over 2400
006employees. So, we appreciate the work you do and thank you uh to all our employees in the district and DFS. Thank you. Next item, please. Next um presentation is from the Dearborn Federation of Teachers and Miss Kathy Martin. [Applause] Hi, I know teacher appreciation week is over, but I would like to pass out some pins to all. Thank you. We love our teachers. Thank you, Kevin. These are free. And secondly, I want to say thank you to the support staff. Um, as a speech language pathologist, I know that um, parapros are probably my number one favorite people in the school, followed by secretaries and custodians. I have not had to deal with skilled trades, but I'm sure you guys have helped out in some way, too. So, you know, it takes a it takes a
007whole village to make everything work. Um, so I'm here to talk about uh the survey we did. If you recall, I was here last year with a similar survey and we did it again this year. So, all right. Um, I also want to take a moment um to thank everyone who made teacher appreciation special last week. I know a lot of building administrators, um, PTA and just individual families went all out to make all of our teachers feel very, very special. Um, so thank you to those people. And oh, these are the people we thank. Okay, so we're looking at member satisfaction. We This is how many people have work in the district and how long they've been here. So, as you can see, a large portion has been here 21 years or more. Um,
008no, I'm sorry. Yeah, 21 years or more. And, um, at least worked in education. I'm sorry. Give me a second. Um, and then the years in Dearborn is uh, a large portion has been here more than 21 years and years in education over 21 years as well. Um so members really value um the transparency. So first we looked at asked some questions about the union and what they what they like from the union. So over the last two weeks we invited them to take our survey and um this helps us reflect on the effectiveness of building represent of building representation and the executive board. So every building has a building rep and then you know there's the elected board. So it gives us insight as to how we are serving our members and then it
009gives us insight as to how our members are feeling in the district. Um I want to highlight the positive feedback. There's a lot who had a strong sense of pride in their work and they have a continued commitment to our students and our schools. There are several staff members who shared appreciation for their principal's leadership and support, and some reported feeling valued within their school communities. Educators were especially encouraged by recent gestures of appreciation from building administrators and families, which serve as important reminders of the impact they make each day. Survey data also provided valuable insight into how members perceive support across different levels of leadership. a strong majority 72 to 79% go here um uh felt protected and well represented by union leadership including both the executive board and the building representatives when it
010comes to building administration 64% felt supported respected and heard with an additional 27 and a half% feeling somewhat supported however perceptions of district level leadership are more mixed only 25.9 9% all right um felt supported by central office and uh just 24.1% feel the same about the board uh notably 54 to 61% of respondents reported being unsure about whether they are supported respected and heard by the central office and the board highlighting a need for greater engagement and clear communication from district leadership uh That said, the survey survey also surfaced important areas uh that need attention. Many educators feel that their professionalism is not fully recognized. Concerns were raised about micromanagement, excessive busy work, limited autonomy, and the lack of authentic staff input in decision-making processes. This these issues have contributed to feelings of frustration,
011burnout, and a sense that their expertise is underrated. Experiences with building leadership were mixed. While some educators reported strong relationships with their principles, others noted challenges related to communication, transparency, and perceived favoritism. Working conditions were another concern. Many members expressed that while they're proud to be part of the district, their job satisfaction is declining. A recurring theme in the feedback was concern over student behavior. staff shared frustration with inconsistent consequences for rule violations, chronic absenteeism, and a general lack of follow-through. In particular, there's significant concern about the lack of support for special education at the elementary level, both in terms of academic inclusion and behavior management. Additional concerns included uh the use of teacher absences to determine surplus staffing and a strong preference for absences to be treated as paid time off without requiring justification.
012Um there are some other issues that came up but I would rather discuss those privately. Um so maybe we can talk about that and uh Mr. Mle Dr. Malleo when we have our meetings. Those are some things I'll discuss. Um the feedback Oh, this is Um, the feedback's not only valuable, it's necessary. Our educators are central to the success of our students and our schools, and their voices deserve to be at the heart of our district's decision-making. We must continue working together to build a culture where teachers feel respected, supported, and empowered to do their best work. Um so right now we are one of the main things that people are here for why people turned out um is because there's a lot of concern. We're coming up at the end of the year. This
013is when surplus starts to happen and there is some fear of layoffs because of the cuts. I mean we're hoping that doesn't happen this year but we don't know what's going to happen in the future. And we now for the past year have had the ability to negotiate how layoff and surplus happens. We had that ability prior to 2012. There was some legislative changes at the state level in 2012 when that was taken out of our hands. We were no longer able to negotiate it. Last year, we were able to win that that back. And we've been doing that, negotiating with the district ever since to try to come to a more equitable way for um us to surplus uh or have layoffs. And right now uh per board policy, layoffs and surpluses tend to
014happen. There are a couple of um like they look at evaluations and those things, but usually the bottom line comes down to absences. So right now teachers are allowed to have 16, no 15 absences over the course of two years without fear of being surplused or laid off. Surplus is when you are moved either from your building or from the subject that you teach to something else to make space. And um this creates a lot of unease for a lot of teachers. Um some of you are new board members and some of you have been here before. I remember last year and at every year at the end of the year teachers come up speaking about how they were they feel unfairly surplus because of absences and many of these teachers are teachers who had
015health issues didn't qualify for FMLA um or unfortunate life circumstances. I have not yet seen a teacher who's been impacted by this who was um using sick days because they wanted to. So there are many factors that we can use to determine who gets surplused or laid off and absences many of us feel are the most ineffective things that they can use. Uh there's a list of other issues that you can look at a a teacher for and say hey for this reason we need to move you and absences are not legitimate. So, if we can look at that and come up with a more fair and reasonable and beneficial to students in schools way to determine who gets surplus and laid off instead of looking at absences. That would really help um teachers because
016we have teachers coming to school sick for fear of hitting that limit. Um and that's just not effective. Any questions? I do. Uh, okay. So, trustee Aljah and then we'll have trusty B. So, I'm trying to understand what surplus mean and how it relates to absenteeism. So, is it moving them to another school? Is this to what would it do if if somebody's has excessive absenteeism and they're considered surplus to move to another school? Is that a form of punishment? What is it? I'm just trying to understand that. I can probably clarify. So the surplus is let's just say you have a building and I'll just use building A whatever as example and let's say that for example student enrollment went down in that building and uh this year you have 21 teachers but next
017year because of the enrollment you only have 19. You you don't necessarily get laid off but because there's not enough positions left in that building you would get moved. So there needs to be a formula. um uh developed to determine prior to 13 it was it was seniority and that's how it was in the contract the law prohibited seniority in 2011 we negotiated in 13 the board at the time I'm just going to say what it was the initiative of the board there was concerns of absenteeism and s superintendent wiston going back in 200910 11 and so that's why the direction was to go into board policy in place so this policy has has been in place since 2013. It has not been used tremendous amount because we've generally had positive budgets. When I was
018HR, we had to use it between probably 2013 through 15. Uh and then maybe here or there. We haven't had to use it much at all for layoffs in about 10 years. I think that's now why we we are I don't want to negotiate in the public, but we are open-minded to alternative formulas. I know that's a factor. So, thank you. I just passing means you get transferred to another building. Yeah, it sounds like it's the first option. They're the first uh to be transferred. Correct. Well, it's kind of layoff but more moved to another building. So, what you do is for layoff, you have to look at the entire district staffing and it's evaluations that are actually it's um employee I can the policy it's got employee disciplinary evaluations. Now the evaluation ratings have
019changed. It used to be highly effective effective. So now you have effective. So it is the ratings that absences come in I believe shortly after the they come in after and then seniority is later in the certific oh certification requirements but we're open to right now it's in board policy it's been there since 2013 um we're open to you know negotiating different formulas for sure um trusty Barry had a question yes uh comments first uh seniorities we use uh Brian Wiston in uh I mean excessive absences was it's not the teachers using or the employees using the the sick days. It was teachers were just just for the heck of it were taking days off. There's a half a day instead of coming in for a half a day. They were just taking the whole
020day off. Uh I haven't looked at the contract in a minute. You mentioned earlier it's 15 days over a two-year period right now. Yes. If you have if you can take up to 15 absences over two years. Once you hit your 16th absence over two years, that's when you uh are can potentially be surplused. So the formula doesn't kick in. So anyone below 16, the absence won't be a factor for them if they're below 16 absences. It doesn't it's not one of the rating factors over a two-year period. So you would have to have number 16 for that to come into play as a factor in layoff and recall. So if I'm a surplus, sorry. So if I'm a teacher and I only used 14 days over the last two years, that doesn't come in
021play. If I'm correct, surplus or whatever, doesn't have an impact. Now the 15 days, that's that's in the contract. No, it's not in the contract. That's board policy. Board policy. In 2012, that became basically a prohibited subject where we couldn't negotiate layoff and surplus language. So, it left our that was never in the contract. Um, but then when it became board policy, that's what it became. What is in a contract? How many sick days? Uh, contractually, we are entitled to 13 sick days and two personal business days a year. And that was negotiated. And that that is part of our compensation package. So when you offer someone a job, you know, sometimes you can't offer them as much money as you can as they deserve. Then you'll say, "Okay, well, we'll give you sick days.
022We'll give you give them nonmonetary things to entice them to come." I think that's why I was trying to wrap my my head around the you negotiated for those 13 plus two days. That's where 15 came from. And I know we all know a little bit about negotiations. Uh when you negotiate, once you get something, you obviously gave something up. So, I don't want to jeopardize your, you know, your negotiations. I don't, you know, I'm a step back right now, but just keep that in mind. Uh, moving forward. I know you guys are going to be, you two are going to be talking about this. So, well, the sick days are going to stay the same. Those are those are in the contract. Yeah. What we are discussing is what criteria is used in order
023to determine who gets surplused and or laid off. I got that. And um so I I have a major health issue and I use up all my sick days and all of a sudden it's like you know one of our colleagues here something happened personal life and you have to take a couple more days. At that point you're getting penalized. If you use 16 over two years that's what I'm saying. I already used up my sick days because I was in the hospital for two and a half weeks. I used up all my sick days but then life happens and Okay. Well, if you're in a hospital for two and a half weeks, you can file for FMLA and then it bad example. So, if you qualify for FMLA, so you have to be working
024for a year to have FMLA, you couldn't have had used FMLA in the past year and you have to be a full-time employee to use FMLA. So, if you're point86.5, you cannot use FMLA. And if you have two babies in a row, you can't use FMLA twice. That was a bad example. Dr. I'm like, let's go back into the classroom where parents, both parents work, their kids are sick, they send them to the classroom, and we know how that plays out. Guess who ends up getting sick? Yep. You know, the Yeah. the teacher and eats up those. Okay. Anyways, moving forward, I'm we're looking for more information from Thank you. Trust. So, first of all, Kathy, thank you for everything you do. Thanks to all I see a bunch of teachers back there, too. Thank
025you for coming out. Uh oh. Woohoo. Yeah. Woohoo. Um I've told the story a bunch of times about how two teacher, you know, two teachers sort of changed the direction of my life and I'm 47 and I'm still talking about it. So you have much more. Huh? Yeah. Sorry. 47. I mean looking 37 but still 47. And uh so thank you for everything you do. Um so let me get this straight just so I understand. Your contract says that you get 15 well a combination of 13 six days six days and two what' you call them personal business personal business days. So that's 15 days you guys negotiated for that in lie of more money or whatever whatever and you get those per year per school year and however if you take more than 15
026days over a 2-year period it could be used against you when they start looking to surplus people. Is that what you're saying? Yes. Did I get that right? You did. Did I get that? Yes. Did I get that right? So the days that we have earned No. Okay. I get it. Yep. So, did I get that right? Correct. Okay. It's a little confusing. Did but I did I get that right? You did get it right. Okay. Thank you. Uh I have a question regarding the surveys that you've done. I know you've done the surveys before last year. Did you compare the results? Did you see improvements in some areas? We did. Um, I actually meant to do a slide. I wanted to do a slide that compared. Um, I will say that the union satisfaction
027has actually increased this year by just a couple percentage points. Um, and the satisfaction of like the building administration decreased a little bit this year. Um, and I don't remember the data for the school board and the central office administration. Was that with the similar number of participants? Because I see you put in just one slide the number who participated. I don't know if that was uh throughout the entire survey, the 378 people or and when you're comparing things, they better be apples to apples, not apples to oranges. The last survey, I believe, was a little different than this one. So, and I don't know what your numbers were. we had longer time to uh have the survey. So no, there was a slightly larger sample size. Uh however, if you look at surveys, anything
028between 20 and 25% is stat statistically significant for results. And we have about 25% respond rate on this one. So, and the way percentages work is if you have a sample size that's stat statistically significant, you assume that it's going to be the same result even if it gets bigger. But were the surveys the exact same survey? It was pretty Yeah, the questions were the same. Okay. So, uh, going back to, uh, the negotiations, um, if you were to have changes to the board policy, then we would have to change our own policy. Is that correct? Yeah. Because Okay. So, and to trustes are, this is why it's complicated because the legislature stepped in. That's why it's complicated because prior to 2011, it was in the contract. So they they were aligned with the layoff
029and recall and then basically the legislature came in and said you could not use seniority. It it could be like a later factor. So that's what's changed it now. We settled our contract prior to the legislature going back and eliminating the law. So we had the contract settled. So that's why it's now not in the contract and we're trying to negotiate on the side. And we're open. We're openminded. Like I said, we're open-minded to ideas. And I appreciate your leadership, Kathy. I'm looking forward to the 27th. We have our teacher advisory committee. And I think, you know, one real positive I see in this was you you have some comments in here that, you know, members appreciated why they stay for pay and the contracts and healthcare, which I think is a positive, you know,
030and I think we've sustained and we don't have, you know, shortages and things like that. So, we're open-minded. Uh we're always looking for things. I think, you know, when that policy was put in, it was put in at a different time and there were different things going on. So, uh, we're open-minded to some shifts and like Trusty Barry said, you know, there's things we we can, you know, on both sides and we don't want to negotiate here, but, um, it's kind of a give and take on all ends. Trustes are. So, so if so, also, if I understand this correctly, then so you guys negotiated and currently are under a contract where you get the 13 plus two days a year, right? And um this 15 days or 16 days, we'll call it is when
031you when you can be when it can be used against you in a surplus. 16 days over a 2-year period. That's a matter of board policy. Correct. Yeah. Okay. By law. So I'm sorry. It was by law because of 2011. It had to go into policy. It could not be part of the contract. Okay. Right. I understand. So but putting into the board policy, we weren't legally required to put it. We were just No, you were required by back then. We were we had to have we had to have you didn't have to have sick days as part of it though. It became board policy in determining who was surplus or laid off and the district was able to decide the criteria for surplus and Okay. Kathy, would it could are you saying or I
032guess both Kathy and Dr. Mleo, are you saying that if we wanted to as a board we could eliminate that existing board policy? Now the board has we have many policies that the board decides. That's not that's not what I ask. I mean you could eliminate any legally. Yes. Legally eliminate that board policy. Now you have you have the ability on any policies to eliminate to add to tweak. We have our process. We go through the board policy committee. Is that is is a board policy created or modified or eliminated by a majority vote? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Eventually comes to the full board. Okay. Thank you. to be continued. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Martin, for sharing. Thank you, Kevin. Next item, please. The next item just just to make actually before we move
033on to the next item, if I may, uh, if there are no objections, move up citizen participation. So, I know we started late and folks have been here for a while to address us. Sure. So, I'd like to move up citizen participation before special reports. So, if you want to read the Yes. And just to confirm, there's no other union leadership. No, you're right. I believe we only had DFSC and DFT. So, Okay, good. Thank you. All right. Citizen participation. Citizens wishing to address the board on agenda and non-aggenda items for action who are signed in by 7:10 p.m. or 10 minutes before our meeting by submitting a blue card to the board secretary may may speak at this time. The board may not be in a position to respond to non-aggenda items. Therefore, speakers
034should not anticipate an immediate response to their comments or questions. For benefit of all concern, do not mention the names of students or school district employees. Please keep your comments as brief as possible. There's a threeminut time limit on comments made to the board. Our first speaker is Aaron Tabour. Tabour. What' you say? Taber. Taber. Aaron Taber who will be speaking to us about the surplus policy. Thank you. Thank you for moving it up. I appreciate that. Uh my name is Aaron Taber. I teach nth grade English language arts at Fortson High School and I love it. I'm very happy to be here. Um, so I'm here to urge you to remove attendance as a factor in determining surplus and layoff for teachers. Um, I am personally not. Uh, I've been healthy the last two
035years, so I'm not personally worried about it right now. Um, but I have a lot of colleagues who are and they let me share some of their anecdotes. Um, I have one colleague who came in sick last week after having food poisoning because she knew that that would put her on the um on the docket for potentially being surplused. I have another colleague who has been teaching in the district for 15 years and she uh needs to uh take a personal day next week to chaperone her kids a field trip. That's going to put her on that 16 days to be surplused. I have another colleague who was surplus last year. She was in the district for 15 years and um she went through the process of getting um permission to take a religious pilgrimage
036uh to Greece for uh Christian Orthodox Easter. So she went through that entire process. She was super excited and she went to Greece. Um and then not not long after coming back, she was notified that because of that pilgrimage, she was now being surplused. Um, and then we have another colleague who was surplus last year. He was at Fordson for six years and um, he I'm being told that he was being moved. He was told he had quote impeccable attendance, but he was he was sick on one single professional development day and that uh, made him need to move schools. Uh we're talking about very dedicated teachers who know that they need to be in the classroom, who love their job, and who know that students learn when they're in the classroom. Um and uh
037we shouldn't have to choose between getting our students sick and getting our colleagues sick and uh being worried about being surplused. I think uh we're most frustrated that these days are part of our compensation package. uh they're not extra, but we've already negotiated on these days. So, it feels really frustrating to take days that have been negotiated for us and not being able to use them. Um, and we encourage uh administrators to uh deal one-on-one with the teachers that might have um excessive absences rather than dealing with uh 1,400 teachers uh and a blanket policy who are not um having excessive absences. Thank you so much. Thank you for addressing us. Next speaker. [Applause] Next speaker is Muna Mashra S to here to talk to us about surpluses and layoffs. Hello. Um my name is
038Manashra. I'm a school psychologist in um the district. Um so when uh our superintendent was in the classroom as mentioned before surplus and layoffs were based mainly on seniority and attendance was not used as a factor at all. But now surplus and layoff is mainly impacted by attendance. Um so I asked the superintendent and his leadership team if it was good enough for you when you were in the classroom then why isn't it good enough for us? If you deserve to prioritize your physical and mental health without punishment, then why don't we deserve the same? Especially in a postcoavid era. If you were able to use your benefits package without surplus being held over your heads, then why don't you think that we deserve the same? The union isn't asking for seniority to be the
039sole factor for surplus and layoff. But we are asking for attendance to no longer be a factor. We are asking the district to honor the benefits package it provides members by not having strings attached to the use of their sick days. By not continuing to use a policy that disproportionately discriminates against women and those with health issues. By leading with empathy and compassion just like you ask us to do every day for our students. We are asking you to no longer punish teachers for using their sick days because teachers need to prioritize their physical and mental health to be effective for our students. Healthy teachers means a healthy classroom environment which is students first. So I ask the district evaluate our impact not our sick days. Thank you. Thank you for Okay. Our next card
040um comes from someone who does not want to speak to the board, but I'll summarize their comments from Kirsten Stefo. Did I say that right? Yes. Do the teachers know if I said that right? Yes. Okay. The comment is as as an educator who is a parent, the limitations on how many sick days, care of family days or care of family days disproportionately affects parents of young children who need to be home when their children are sick. The next card from a a community member who does not who wants me to read it for them is from Joseph Sickener. Am I saying is that person here? Hear my I'm sorry. Sickenator. Sickenator. Okay. Sorry if I don't get the handwriting perfect. No other job counts your sick days or funerals or emergencies against you. We
041have to work harder when we're sick. We are on the front lines every day getting in contact with diseases. Give us the days that are already ours. Uh, President Mosep, that's all the cards we have. Thank you very much. Uh, we do have a section here for board followup on previous citizen participation. Trusty Barry, I guess my question is Dr. from Lake. Why I guess what would be the argument not to go back to seniority? Um I mean I can't I need to think about that and get back to you in detail. I would just say seniority um one of the reasons it was taken out was because there were other factors like evaluation and what happened historically was um I'll just say why the law changed was because um you may have had a
042more highly effective teacher um that was getting laid off because of so seniority when someone maybe was going through discipline or was like in our system a plan three teacher. So that's where that this law originated with the Michigan legislature and that's why they kind of said seniority should be a later factor. It could because it could be performance what Dearborn did at the time and hey I'm open to like I mentioned to Kathy and everyone open to changes at the time attendance I remember and it was Brian Wiston with the board that we were very concerned of attendance and that's why when did the law change the law changed in 2011 and then it changed back in 2024 last year just last year so that's why it's fresh okay so that 20 that law
043has that policy has been so when I get a phone call from a teacher earlier today and he or she claimed that we won't use seniority because the newer teachers make less money than the veteran teachers that had enough the the the money has moving forward. I mean we you know the last few years we were dealing with a teacher shortage and we were given higher up in the scale. I get that. I'm just it was historically it was there were complaints you know not from Dearborn per se but across the state of layoffs was happening to those who had gone through you know uh had multiple disciplines or and that's why discipline's a factor or they had gone and then you had a teacher that was highly affected doing a great job the kind
044of teachers that we all heard at the superintendent honors night like the teachers we have here and some of them were getting laid off and that was the time if you remember 200 you know when John Artist was here and then Brian high in and the bottom fell out. That was when layoffs were happening. The the the contract I think was also broken with the layoff pro protocol because we were literally laying off and prior to me even being HR and you might recall 120 to 130 teachers a year and we would call back because of what was in the contract with the seniority and it was written to the point where you'd have to lay off these positions to give cushion so then you could go and select at you know based on your
045seniority. So that time because of the budget being bad. The economy tanked in ' 08 09 we were looking at layoffs. The last time we probably had layoffs maybe some of you can correct may have been my last year in HR I think when you know a few uh but the budget started getting better in 15 and so we haven't had to deal with it which is why it's coming to headwind and times were different. We're open to it if it doesn't work. During co you might recall the board did put a temporary hold on this policy. So during CO the board took action under our recommendation through administration to actually to suppress that policy during COVID. It kicks back in because you know now we're back to the formula coming in this year but
046we're open to different ideas depending on the priority. I would still think that you know evaluation and performance is still important. Now the factors have changed because we no longer have the highly effective uh now it's only a three-factor. Sure. There's no doubt in my mind the last few years maybe six, seven years we've been very generous because comes our teachers but now it's understandable anxieties are high because what could happen. Correct. We know that. So yeah, that's why it's coming. I mean we always we always want to do the right thing with our teachers. So all of our employees but okay we're open-minded and I know HR has told me they're you know I don't want to negotiate in the public but we we're open-minded. Like you said it's a give and take. you
047know, there's things, you know, um, as well that we we're here ultimately to protect the students. The one thing I will just say, again, we want to protect people when they're sick. But I will just say, I go through the school improvement and I walk through the classrooms and we have we have good subs, but it it is not the same quality of instruction for our students when we go through the classrooms with the subs. Now that we have some very good subs, but overall as the shortage has occurred and the standard has it it is a detriment to our students because the great teachers that do our work when they're there uh the students are getting a higher quality of instruction which is why it was initially brought in way back. So there's two
048factors back in uh 2011 I think two one was budget but the other one was the quality of instruction. I look at the equality of instruction as a higher in my mind. I'm okay with spending extra budget but then you know making sure we have high quality teachers. we got a shortage and we that was the other complaint we get complaints with you know u now we also have paid higher for our substitutes so we're getting a little better as well so we're doing better there and I think Kathy brought the data of you know compensation is better but that is a factor when I walk through the classrooms you know um it's not the same quality and we hear from parents that say well what happened why do I have a substitute for so
049long so that's the other factor that we're dealing with I think we're open-minded we need to get to the drawing board and support our teachers but understand there's some history here as to why We we have this policy and it's been in place for many years. Sure. No, we were at the table. It's a complicated issue. I mean, we always say parents send their kids to school and they're sick. Last thing I want to see, Last thing I think we all want to see is if a teacher's not feeling well, but she's got to come in to work or he's got to come in to work. That's the last thing we want to see. So, so maybe the formula needs to change. It's it's outdated and it needs to be looked at and maybe there's
050something else that part of it. You know, we're at that time. Trustes are you have a question for one of the speakers? Yeah. Miss Taber and Miss Mush, could both of you or either of you come back up for one second? I just have a quick little follow-up question and it and I and it's going to be really quick and I can only give you like 30 seconds to answer it. So, um, please uh just answer. Why is so bad? I mean, a surplus just means you're moving to a different building. What is so bad about a surplus? Why wouldn't a teacher just so we can all hear it for the community. Why wouldn't a teacher want to be surplus? You're not getting paid. You're not going to get paid less. You're not going to
051like Why wouldn't a teacher want to be surplus and just deal with that? Well, a lot of our teachers, especially if you've been in the building for a while, you've built relationships with the families. You built relationships with um your colleagues. Um you you know, at the elementary level, there's a lot of material. There's a lot of time that you've bu you've put into your classrooms. Um and to be uprooted, it's like somebody, you know, evicting you out of your home. Like, you know, it's devastating to be to leave. You're um now like from the physical standpoint, you have to pack all that stuff up. You have to leave. But from the emotional standpoint, you've made connections with the community that's at that building, with the students and the families, and you're losing that, and
052now you're you're being moved. Um, and for it to be based on um sick days, based on using days that are in our benefits package. Sure, I get that. I just wanted to hear why it was bad. Do you have anything to add, Mr. Taber? No, not at all. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Well, Dr. Miku, you do have a direction for negotiations. um attendance is important but definitely it's something that could be negotiated with the I think there could be different formulas that you know just like what we did with the in change maybe changing orders and other ideas we can come up with together and I look forward to working with Kathy and like I said I think we've built good relationship where we work together we have different she's you know
053defending her members and we respect our teachers and we're trying like I said we have the parents and we have other and our students and I know everyone cares about the students so I think together because we have great union relationships We sit down, we talk, we brainstorm, and we solve things. And that's uh what we'll do. So,