001uh next item please the next item is Union leadership commentary I understand that I think none of them are here today is that correct so do would you still like me to read this whole paragraph or is not necessary it's unnecessary let's move on to the next item please next item is special reports uh managing grants from Miss Lor and Miss Lauren embo good evening everyone my name is Laur and Baro Ramadan muar this is uh Miss L she's going to be presenting with me today thank you for having us it sounds a little loud um we're here to talk to you about changing landscape in state and federal funding in uh Michigan Schools and how and why this method of funding is impacting us so strongly in this presentation we're going to go over
002why the mde or Michigan Department of Education is expanding its funding model to include much more grant-based funding and then we'll look at an overview of some key financial and grant-funded uh program highlights so over the past 10 years and especially since the covid-19 pandemic the Michigan Department of Education has increased increas the use of funds or Grant funds to to support ra uh Public Schools rather than relying solely on the per pupil funding model or also known as the foundation allowance for some uh to fund the majority of programs we do still receive our per pupil funding and it's important to note that all of that money is unrestricted by complimenting the foundational per per pupil funding model with strategic grants MD aims to create a more Equitable and Effective Education System tailored to
003the diverse needs of Michigan students and communities so if you'll take a look at the slide you'll see that 10 years ago in 2015 the district had 33 grants worth about 28.5 million 5 years later in 2019 2020 at the start of covid we had uh 55 grants and again about 38.5 million and uh to today we have 115 grants worth 156 a little over 156 million so as you can see that's a huge difference um and uh all of that5 Grants and um 156 million uh dollars is restricted solely to the purpose of each of those [Applause] grants um the shift to Grant funded model highlights a significant change in funding strategies as you can see as I mentioned before the per pupil funding is unrestricted by moving the funding to these restricted grants
004mde can create a more targeted uh approach to en enhancing educational opportunities allowing schools to fund programs resources and services that improve student outcomes this slide explains how it does that um they provide essential Financial Resources Beyond what's available through the traditional per pupil funding model and they ensure that the money gets where it needs to go M oh yeah are you ready Miss is gonna tell you a little bit about how that impacts the programming side um of our educational and I'll then talk about the business side the business office um in addition to the mtss alignment and the myip alignment and the Frameworks that the grants um restrict us under it's a lot of it's a lot more heavy lifting from the district and the building sides as well these opportunities come with
005some challenges and restrictions but you never say no if it aligns with our district strategic plan so some things that we've noticed an increase in is data reporting from the district level and the building level um tighter timelines within which those things have to happen um and then grants expire so you don't want to put things in place that you will eventually take away so we have to be very thoughtful about what we're using the grant money for is it sustainable when the grant uh funding expires or are there alternative ways for us to use the money and enhance the district so all of that takes people like Lauren and more uh a little more work from the admin support teams and everybody at central office exactly so as um Miss Sor mentioned there is
006much more complex budgeting process um to try and um work with those timelines of start and end dates and where will money go when it ends and how will it be paid uh we also have increased oversight um compliance requirements and uh more financial and programmatic Reporting as she mentioned so earlier we talked about why MD's been making the shift to more grant funding and we touched on the impact um on the business office the compliance and guidelines are critical for the grant recipients the schools must follow both the state and the Federal Regulations which are extensive uh regarding fund usage eligibility and Reporting and that often requires specific uh documentation Audits and maybe even site visits so all of those things have increased um the achievement and success for our goals under an increased
007Grant funded structure requires strong internal controls communication and support throughout the entire Grant process for increased accountability and outcomes considering all of this it might be easy to see why from the state or federal point of view uh this model would be attractive so for us this is a change and uh as I'm sure we've all experienced at some point in our lives change can be difficult for people but um the grant you know like liumy said Miss s said with the grant funding we have more opportunity but we also have so much more complexity um because the grants are integrated into just about every department and sometimes even cross between departments uh navigating them through the organization emphasizes why it's essential that we see each other as partners in a delicate Balancing Act to
008meet the needs of students the community and the best requirements of our funders so in conclusion effective manage management of state and federal grants is pivotal for public schools especially in Michigan's changing funding landscape as schools adapt to these challenges and opportunities ongoing advocacy and strategic planning will be essential essential for sustained success by implementing the best practices and strategically aligning grant funding with goals school districts can Max maximize the impact of Grants while ensuring Financial sustainability effective Grant Management isn't just about receiving the funds it's about ensuring those funds are wisely used to in improve student outcomes and strengthen Michigan's education system and lastly because this is a district-wide effort I really want to thank everyone involved that would be our grant um our executive directors our grant directors our grant managers um our
009operations team even um and and just everyone's working really hard at this as you can see it's um been a huge Landslide up so I just want to make sure everybody's acknowledged for that work that they're doing so on that note we'd like to just show you a couple slides that were submitted um and take a look at some of the amazing things we're doing with the grants in our district so this slide just shows you a little bit of a cross-section there's the Whole Food Service program um summer Discovery um uh some of oural and um just mental health stuff for students no it's okay it's okay they can see um in each of these slides tells a little story so I'm just going to not go into them too deeply but you know
010feel free to take a look at them um as you have time this 20 oh sorry go do back a little so the 27b grant is um the grow your own so this one addresses the teacher shortages that we're having yeah go ahead and and then um this is uh two mini grants that we got for our preschoolers and this these two grants are engaging um our families and our students much younger which we all know is critical to the flow of our system and the Student Success we've also had um Safety and Security grants there are four of them here and primarily uh we had assistance uh mapping um the district for uh if we ever did have a critical safety incident and we were able to install many more cameras and card readers
011um at doors and access points and making sure that we can see something is going on and finally uh we're going to talk about Mr is going to talk about um our Green Schools so it's a little bit of an update for some of you who have heard of the Green Schools before uh for our new board members I did give um the booklet that was put together that overviews the program so I hope you got that and take it away great so Green Schools is an example of how grant funding can really uh Foster and incre and and just improve and Empower a community so I'll go through these slides quickly and then I have some talking points uh the Green Schools is is an example of no District funding being used to support
012an initiative however District support was provided through our uh operations central office uh guidance and just support and other ways other than funding um and this is an initiative that is aligned with our strategic plan as you can see here and this is where the magic is this is where if you remember five or six years ago Green Schools we were starting to talk about it not me to Stanley Ahmed Dr choko uh it was uh a need that they agreed on that was needed in uh the Salina Community especially because there isn't a lot of Green Space there because it's essentially gridlocked by factories and they took it upon themselves to ask themselves what can we do on our campus to increase green spaces increase tree canopies put a rain Garden get the kids
013outside and so five or six years ago in partnership with Mark Andrews and some other central office employees that were dedicated to this they went out to the community they went to conferences they made Partnerships they were essentially selling this idea at the time where now you can see everybody's talking about it and everybody wants to be part of it so the hard work they put in is now paying off for anybody else who would like to take this on on their school campuses so I really want to acknowledge that because it was it was a lot of time and heart put into all of this and the magical thing is these are all the donors and some were hard to come by in the beginning some were solid Partners from day one some came
014along the way as time went on but all in all the total amount raised to this to the today is $2.7 million and I remember they started with I think a $40,000 grant for a consultant so this was really uh money raised and now with a help from Lauren as well they've been able to manage all these grants so I won't go through all these names but it's in kind donors those are our Community Partners and then bigger corporations and then also funding and the city of Dearborn I want to know has been a great partner as well especially under um the the new leadership who has uh put in place an environmental commission for the city of Dearborn and so there's like-minded people that were working with with in our own City this is
015just a little example of the exciting things happening you'll be invited in the spring to some ground making groundbreaking events that are happening um and if you haven't been there in a while there's a there's a garden there's a musical Garden there's a rain Garden being installed they've partnered with uh the Toledo Zoo to put in a prairie uh lots of donations from Home Depot in the community for trees the list goes on and on uh but it really is just what a a grant can be can be well multiple grants can lead into and how it can affect an an a school community so that ends our presentation unless you have any questions for us yes trusty how long do these grants usually last for what's the average typically a year two years yes
016um we I would say a lot of them are a year there's a good bulk of them that are crossing maybe two to three years we have just a couple that are maybe five it's impressive it's gone up from 55 to 115 and 156 million is nothing to sneeze at what do we anticipate dropping off potentially in the next year or two and in these uncertain times now are we going to be struggling again to try to um have this size of grant opportunities well so I think we all know it's kind of unpredictable um we'll have to wait and see but the process that we follow is um right about now the state starts putting some budget proposals together and Mr W feel free to jump in if you like but uh we start
017watching those budget proposals in the business office um we follow them as they change and we keep a very close eye on that so that we can do our best to anticipate what may or may not happen um I think a good example last year is we thought something would happen something else happened so it you know it as any budget it's our best guess but we are absolutely watching the state um and federal level budget processes um headlines seeing what's happening and even now starting conversations but try and just anticipate what we need to be paying attention to looking at factoring in all of that I I guess one of my concerns is is that we we are probably seeing a lot of great things coming from these grant opportunities if they are only
018the monies are only available a year or two and I do like the fact that we're being smart about that we're not trying to put that money into something that we then have to find another resource for once that Grant goes away but if we don't have other grants to replace it what what are we going to lose and are we prepared to at least um tell our community you know this is um going to suffer because those opportunities are no longer available well that's something we talk about all the time like I said we we need to choose things that are if not sustain stainable serve a purpose a specific purpose I'll give you a couple examples uh we got uh a grant for elementary at the elementary level but it had to be
019based on brain-based research and it had to be used under certain things so we decided to use that money to Pilot a couple programs that would have otherwise costed the district from their general fund um hundreds of thousands of dollars so we're we're very thoughtful about what what can use this money for where it won't affect the district or the students when it's gone we also feel confident that as grants expire others will come in and we've I I I want to see the reason we've been able to be granted all of this funding is because a lot of the expectations they have we follow uh the brain-based teaching the interventions in place our demographics also help us to qualify for some grants and that's not changing anytime soon so as a district we are
020in pretty good shape I would say to qualify for a lot of these grants and another examples 23g that's intervention um that we F faraj and the team worked on okay well where's our highest need where can we put intervention even if it's just for a couple extra years of additional intervention that we didn't have before we may not have after but we will will capitalize on that Grant for the couple years we have it so yes some things will come some things will go but like I just said maybe another Grant will will come in its place that's the tricky part with grants it's hard to to have like a five or 10 year plan with it you know and and that's that's the hard part but you know we're proud of what we're
021doing um and Lauren has been a great help with all of that as well okay thank you Dr Miko you want to add yeah can I just mention um we're very glad that Lauren's come on board and superintendents have seen this increase so there's an increased workload now the money comes to the district since for a good purpose and so managing the grants seeking out grants and our team I'm very proud of our team because we're always looking to write for another Grant um to find funding to support the Green schols Schools excuse me as an example in fact that one in January I co-presented with Dr choko and Sue Stanley they wrote The Proposal I just went to support them um at that conference because it was you know gaining track ction um as
022we see these grants come uh we need to be competitive with it but we I think the board is aware we have a very well oil machine on our budget process with Mr wall and we always say sustainable cost versus one-time cost and how do we put it into the different budget areas we were very cautious about that during the pandemic with onetime money so I think that's always in the Forefront uh when we have our budget meetings and it's always very very important what I would say this as well um you know you know obviously we're at the state level in fact I met with Senator Santana a couple weeks ago and we talked about it uh trusty MOS just about different funding and other things we meet with all our legislators and the
023state funding is critical but I will say um I'm now on the governing board for the ASA the the national superintendent Region Three which is Minnesota Iowa um Michigan um and um Nebraska I think one other State uh but one of the big concerns we're having I got a lot of virtual meetings but we met last week um we had our first in-person meeting and um the concern is at the federal level the uncertainty of what's going on and what might happen with the federal funding so districts are kind of in a wait and see I would say proudly I know Mr s's here AA my superintendent Association nationally is coming out and we are saying what on our agenda is fully support special education funding uh we believe it's not fully funded and it
024needs to be also at the federal level but there is uncertainty right now we hear the different reports so we're kind of monitoring that as well and we'll just continue to work with our legislators and advocate for funding for dear one schools and I appreciate the work Lauren's done coming on board and thank you Lise and and so what you'll see too is that it's critical she's in Tom's department but she's working collaboratively with all the instructional people and non-instructional when they they focus on different grants so it is a team function but it is very secure to me to see we have someone Lauren kind of overseeing because there's a lot of regulations and you want to make sure you don't lose funding opportunities so uh thank you great um I have a question
025on the number um as far as the Esser funds were those included in the grants or those are separate so those have concluded with the very small exception of wrapping up some uh construction projects but that has actually pretty much all been spent okay so no that is not included there except for like I said I want to say it was maybe 8,000 or something great well thank you for your thank you everyone you for the presentation next item next next we move to action items uh here we have special consideration of an action item are there any agenda items on this agenda which board members or the superintendent wish to discuss and vote on separately if there are we will exclude these from the motion below 16 needs to be pulled for a roll
026call Vote Yes it does which one any other that would like to pull or questions on okay and we have a motion to approve all items except 16 so moved support well I think he needs to read the actual yeah can it's okay I'll call for a single motion to approve all of the action items on this agenda with the exception of any items which have just been excluded from this motion by board member request well yeah you need to uh exclude number 16 so I'll move that the actions item or move that all action items except number 16 be approved okay so move support motion moved by trusty Barry support by trusty DM Barz uh can we have a roll call please uh trusty elji yes trustee de brosio yes trustee Zar yes trustee
027Barry yes truste pet LOF yes president MOS yes thank you we can go to 16 now and you can read just the summary or the recommended action yeah so just read number 16 here on the back okay the number 16 would be approval of an executive session a closed executive session on March 17th 2025 so move no that's not the correct the recommended action is to move oh sorry yeah if you can read the full thing so because you have tow of the location yeah sure so where do you want me to read that from sorry 16 just item 16 not the summary so back oh read item 16 got it okay got it page 13 got it thank you so here this is for an executive closed session we will look to move that
028an executive session be held on Monday March 17th 2025 at 6 pm at Henry Ford College administrative services and Conference Center in the cabinet conference room the purpose of the Clos session is superintendent's evaluation per section 8A of the Michigan open meetings act support motion moved by truste Barry supported by trusty pesov um no discussion so can we have a rooll call please sure trusty alji yes trusty D brosio yes truste Zar yes truste Barry yes trusty POF yes president MIP yes thank you next it I do have a question on that why did we move a separate if uh what was the purpose I believe there is a state law that we have to vote on separately oh yeah any close sessions has has to have a roll call vote thank you normally he
029wouldn't have had a but he did this time he would have just had a unanimous role for all the other items but he he did a roll callot with that too so doesn't hurt appreciate it yeah to do that it happens uh next item is discussion summary summary uh if you can read the summary Mr secretary sure so the summary the summary of the agenda action items were number one approval of warrants number am I do this the right part right okay good number two approval of green schoolyards consultant contract number three approval of an award to Just Right readers Incorporated per board report 24-1 number four approval of an award to Delta Network Services number five approval an award to shriber roofing company per board report 24-11 number six approval of an award to
030testing engineers and Consultants Incorporated per board report 24102 number seven approval of an award to Thermal netic per board report 24-13 number eight approval of an award to dwel per board report 24-104 number nine approval of change orders per board report 24 -105 numbers 10 through3 approval of non-instructional and instructional Personnel items 4 p through2 number 14 approval of a financial statement number 15 approval of the resolution for the first budget revisions for 202 2024 2025 per board report 24-11 and number 17 approval of donations great thank you next item page 14 it yeah that's fine we go memorial number four sorry what page what page of the 14 would be 14 yeah thank you this item next we have discussion items first item is policy update policy 3130 d02 placement of Administrators from mam
031alib Bazi the only change on this policy um was just to align the policy with the new law so it didn't change the content it just changed um made sure that it was aligned with the current law just update yes just an update any questions thank you okay thank you next item next item is 2024 2025 board goals from president MOS yes so um I I do have uh goals submitted by four trustees I still have three trust trees yet to submit their goals so I know things come in the way but we we can have this move to next uh next meeting to be presented I will make sure that we will have all of the goals and we will have hopefully trusty Watts with us as well um so that will be moved
032to to the next meeting to present them okay quick question is that going to be just a discussion or is it going to be a study session what do you think it will be just a discussion item okay thank you yeah okay next we move to Board of Education business first item acknowledgement of correspondents all of the correspondents that we have received I have responded to except for one which I'll plan to do that tonight and uh Dr Malo has been gracious to respond to the ones that we have forwarded to him so any other correspondents no next item please board member committee and organization reports committee we had building and site uh meeting tonight there will be in your board brief a summary of all these because it was a fairly um full agenda
033I will just do a real brief um summary of it we did the Esser construction updates you just heard that the money's already been spent it was um we used the rest of it on the Early College building over at Henry Ford um campus on the south building and the uh West building and there was a small snafu with um some of the um reporting to the state and we are required to move forward with um changing out the elevators to make them ADA Compliant for a school building so that's going to put us uh little behind in the construction process but they're I'm hoping that this will all be resolved by um fall June June July yeah um and we will be able to move students in uh the kitchen may be the last
034part that we're going to get uh occupancy um approval for because of not having elevator access uh next is we uh talked about the mechanical uh air conditioning at Howard long nen and the ha and I and um all that those are in place and they're just waiting for the weather to warm up enough so that they can run it through the test processes so um hopefully there will be no issues with those systems they're ready to go basically um we also are encountering um Heating and I don't know what that was he Heating and Cooling um aging equipment is is going to be our next issue we've got a number of schools Henry Ford O Smith um Dearborn High Brian and so for and Henry far I can name them I mean it's half
035of our schools with aging um mechanical infrastructure that are either going to have to be repaired or replaced in order to um maintain optimal um conditions inside of the buildings it also includes um ISS isues with aging out um air conditioning units that were in buildings that were put in place before 2023 so some things we're going to have to replace fully some things we can repair and buy parts for so that will continue to be one of the conversations we have when we go into the bond um needs because uh that's always going to be present a problem for us and we have to make sure that our buildings are are safe and um comfortable for our students and our staff next um our energy Bond update if you remember we bonded out with
036just a general that we were paying for to train to um save on energy costs that's all completed uh the lighting has been taken care of um so now we're just waiting to see what kind of return on our investment we're going to be getting so they're um going to to be looking at our electric bills and seeing if we're um getting the savings that we had hoped for that would pay for the bond that was put in place in order to change out all of these um lights if not train is going to have to kick in to make up the difference then uh finally we talked about um getting ready for uh the conversation about our infrastructure needs and the bond and um what we decided would be best for um the full
037board was to um try to um have a conversation with Quinn Evans who was doing the final studying on um preserving the buildings Andor the historic um significance of the buildings and rehabbing them uh for uh different opinion than the Fielding study provided for um the demo ideas they are going to be putting together some kind of format in order to uh have something of value to communicate to um our constituents in the community what we saw um LED questions from us so we thought the full board might like to interact with this um architecture group um and see what they have and offer your own opinions about what you would like to see that you think would be most useful to have in any kind of presentations that we bring out to the community
038um we will be using Byam and Fisk for the community engagement part but they will have to have um all of this information in place from the um architectural firms that we um hired to put together the study um so we're asking if you would like to um have a conversation with quinnn Evans we're thinking that um president mosip will um finalize the um plans but we're thinking that we can just do it through Zoom at your convenience of you know set up a few meeting dates and just and you don't have to come here and meet in person so that is the um and for the summer work we are going to have a partial roof replacement at Deb High I guess we didn't get around covering that at the end of the uh
039meeting and that's it so look for a better summary in board briefs thank you trusty off yeah definitely you will get a communication from myself and Dr Maliko about setting up those times to meet with the architecture teams and we'll have flexible times that we'll work for them and and for us as well uh any other reports if not next item next item is board member or superintendent commentary okay uh any trustees would like the trusty J so we were talking about uh security earlier in cyber security and I just want to share some things that I've done in the past uh in my previous roles is I always the first thing that I do is do a cyber security network assessment by a third party and that would give us um that would address
040some of our concerns to be able to see some of the vulnerabilities that AR Network have and for the board to see the result the biggest cost is not doing the assessment it's really addressing the vulnerabilities so when we did it uh you know even little small things such as the young lady mentioned uh uh the laptop did not have any drivers it would identify things that need to be updated timely uh it need to be um has a vulnerability uh things like emails we could tell them what we want to say we want to make sure our kids don't send this type of things or uh I think it's something that would give us all a peace of mind to be able to have that and it's it's common practice companies do that and
041like I said it's not costly to do that assessment it's costly to address the problems uh Dr Malo um if there are no objections uh Dr Malo can look into solicit we discuss it at cab yeah good idea uh any other commentary yeah Dr Malo just go ahead just um just a followup um from uh last meeting in president Mo mosab asked me to bring it up here and I followed up with uh truste Zar there was a request on like the coding of the students student population and we've been discussing that at cabinet and I had our it people involved and so we do have some capabilities there um and so what would happen uh trusty mosa we talked about and I think I mentioned the trusty Z in my message that we would
042put it on the next policy committee agenda where we would actually bring Sean Williams in and Bob Addie and show kind of what we can and can't do uh with it there's definitely possibilities there um and so we would bring it to the policy committee for the next meeting but we were disc we've been discussing it over the last month since the request was made president MOS have asked that we handled it this way so perfect yeah I just man yeah I just want to say thank you for uh taking that on because it's it's just so important that we have these um accurate pictures of what our student body looks like and the opportunity for everybody to identify them themselves in the way they see fit so I appreciate that I look forward to
043working um with you all on that thank you justar um next item please the next item is requests for information and or future agenda items we trust these are I would like to request that the clocks get fixed in here they still haven't been uh sprung forward an hour they don't I'm getting flashbacks to like grade when they didn't do the clock don't use oh I don't they don't so this going to stay like this for six months this clock see the clock on the wall all right it's easier that way move next any other requests all right next item pleas all right future meeting dates Monday March 17th 20 Monday Monday March 17 2025 we have a p through 12 executive session for closed and a closed session for evaluation at 6 pm at
044the administrative services and Conference Center in the cabinet conference room also on Monday March 17th 2025 we have a Henry Ford College Board of Trustees meeting at 7M at the administrative services and Conference Center in the Rosen all boardroom thank you um this meeting is adjourned