001so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] good evening i'd like to welcome everyone to the regular board meeting for um the public schools city of dearborn public schools um for august 22nd 2012 i want to thank everyone for coming out tonight and sharing your time with us i also want to just remind you if you would like to address the board during public comments please fill out a blue card you have i need you to fill those out and get them turned into mr uh mustang um as soon as possible thank you very much um we're starting please may have a roll call here he is not going to be with us this evening he watts here president macdonald here pledge of allegiance to the flag the board of education will lead the pledge of allegiance
002[Music] 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 all well done no certificates certificates are in the mail next item please superintendence update good evening everyone uh hope everyone's having a great summer before i get on to my items i just want to mention the public and to the audience we are we are going through some renovations here in the boardroom much needed after a long time i know we've had some upgrades that we need with the electronic um monitors and the desk and the audio that we're implementing so today it's not totally complete it's temporary but we're in process and i believe it'll be finished by the september board meeting so i
003just wanted to mention that to the public so i'll move on to my agenda items you start with our retirements as we do every month we want to congratulate and thank our retirees for their many years of service supporting our students so we'll start with armin ella bakoff 29 years of service susan barent over 20 years of service cheryl cook 21 years of service imagine phil lala 20 over 26 years of service joe ray greco over 34 years of service and i do have to make a mention here she was my supervising teacher at oakman in 1996 when i started my career and received my certificate so i had to make a point of congratulating her especially both my daughters yes so i just felt like i needed to do that and i was i
004did email her today she emailed me as well we have mary henson danier over 25 years of service christine leonard over 25 years of service kevin madden over 33 years of service and cheryl piske over 31 years of service again if we congratulate them and thank them for their many [Applause] [Music] and i will move on to uh non-agenda items i'm going to start with a remembrance of shirley wetmore shirley was a teacher in dearborn for 45 years retiring in 95. she passed away on july 11th at the age of 94. miss wetmore started at 10ike when it was in elementary school and moved to snow elementary where she spent a majority of her career surely touched the lives of thousands of students in dearborn and was a dedicated and caring teacher our thoughts and
005prayers go to her family and we thank her for years of service as well moving along um my second favorite event of the year comes up next week and that is the first day of school we know we'll have some excitement we know students will be excited parents will be excited we know there'll be some anxiety we know we may have some kindergarten runners that we may have to catch in the elementary schools but we'll do that and you know i can always remember my children now are my daughter going on 19 and my son's 16 but i still remember mom my wife you know the first day in kindergarten and um excitement but nervousness so i want to just uh welcome everyone back to the year and we're very excited we're going to have
006cabinet administrators as we always do out there the first day and i will be very visible in the schools over the first couple of weeks uh we invite the board if you're available joanne will send you you know the list but we will have cabinet out there and you're welcome if you're available but it is a very exciting time the only event that is my favorite is graduation other than that i say the first day of school so there was a reason i could get out of jury duty that day i would take it oh there we go unfortunately so uh another update just you know we're coming in um obviously covid we've been dealing with over the last two years this year we're starting in person we have masks as a personal choice for
007individuals whether that be staff or students and we'll continue to monitor conditions and it's something you know that we'll have mitigation as necessary but we're grateful that we're getting back to some sense of normalcy as we move forward and monitor that and we have great nurses and this is on my crisis team agenda every month for discussion and it always has been and we'll continue to monitor what's going on promote vaccine and other things that come from cdc when the cdc makes recommendations we do have to wait for the state and the county to react before it's official within the school district by law i want to mention the competitive market with staff that's going on some of you may have seen even the reports on national newscasts even yesterday there was one and you
008know the teacher shortage in different states but i think there is some hope i think we in our district right now are in pretty good shape um hr has been working really hard and our teachers and our principals to to deal with some of the vacancies we have less than last year uh the state is also making some moves i was in a meeting last week with dr rice through the new state budget there's 700 and excuse me 575 a million dollars invested and grow and grow your own teaching programs recognizing and that's a variety of things we did get some money earlier on for our teachers and we're going to continue to follow that i would also mention that the state did and it was highlighted on the national news yesterday michigan was one
009of two states that is now allowing retirees to come back there's some parameters there but that is one thing that they're going to be looking at prior you wouldn't weren't allowed or you would hurt your retirement there is a nine-month waiting period so more to come on that but that is something that the state just enacted uh recognizing the teacher shortage not only in the state but across the nation but we did have some reports that this year we had less teachers actually retiring across the nation than we did the previous year so that's a positive as well so i think we're doing well i also want to mention you know with the budget coming in it's one of the highest budgets from the state overall we're getting about additional 27 million a lot of
010that is for at risk money our per pupil allowance is now at 94.63 a lot of that money is tied to wages it's negotiated with their union contracts it is going to be one of the highest increases i've seen in one swoop if you added last year's letters of agreements all of our employees um in the next little bit will be receiving a four between a four to five percent increase across the board and that is tied to all the contracts based on the the foundation allowance so obviously our staff works hard and we're glad that they're getting compensation but there will also be money coming for you know at-risk services for students uh we have a lot of things like social workers and others we have special ed funding that's coming in from the
011state and we do have some funding for safety and security so it is one of the best budgets i've seen coming from the state it's definitely uh important for us especially as some of the uh funding will dry up from the esser fundings that we're using that is was there for the first couple of years uh we had those very large summer programs we currently won't have the the federal funding uh like we had the last two years to run a very large summer program but we will still look for funding and other things because we know it's very important but i do think that's a positive and want to tie it to our recruitment efforts as well i want to mention um school safety uh we've had many budget meetings and there's two million
012dollars allocated to the district for safety we're looking at different things not only with that but with our uh our money that's in the general fund that mr wall and i and the team have been meeting that will eventually come to the board we're looking at increasing card readers cameras at the elementary and we are going to be looking at vestibules we call them secure vestibules in all the schools some have them but some did not do not have them where they have the double door entry and we're going to be looking at implementing that across the board so those are some things that are coming forward and then the care hack system will be fully implemented other than we do have an issue not an issue but um there are two schools that we
013will not be fully operational but the pa systems will be and um you know we expect that that will be uh implemented within a couple weeks other than that the rest of schools are fully operational the three buildings that don't have students were always on the schedule to be last so they won't be installed i believe until uh later in the fall but that was always in part of the plan so i just wanted to give everyone an update there and i want to mention uh today we talked about recruitment you know the new it's exciting the new teacher orientation uh we had over 86 teachers that were in this room this morning miss faye turfy was running the meeting miss farage and others were helping and the executive directors mr martin i know the
014union was involved every year we host the teachers and the one thing i can tell them as i go there and i said you know i was in your shoes because i remember sitting there uh in 1997 at the same orientation you know some different things now but we could relate and obviously we're excited to to bring in our new teachers with the excitement i know they do a great job providing support and training through through the teacher university it's not even just so it's the first couple of days but it's ongoing throughout the year for new teachers through the program i also want to mention that cultural sensitivity training we've had additional meetings you know we've been doing that over the last couple years but we're look really looking at working with a consultant
015and we're going to be working with the state superintendent association that has a series and that's going to help us tie it heavily to our strategic plan so we have a full uh plan that will be outreach to all schools in the district and we've been having meetings we kind of have a subcommittee on that and i am directly involved in that committee and the last thing that i have i know there's been some talk and it's dr rice talked about this in my meeting um you know they had um public comment about library books at the state level it's happening in other districts and i know there's concerns we do have a process that we're going to implement to you know look at our library books um again all districts are facing this right
016now and i'm gonna call up dr gruver and mr martin we're gonna talk about the process that we have in place for you know reviews we are getting communications on all ends with differing opinions and you know concerns and we want to listen to the parents and obviously have a process in place to review materials as needed supports our media specialists i will tell you from a district perspective in this you know i think was back in june we had some um audience participation asking some questions about books that were in the media center uh from a district perspective we have added additional staffing going into this year to help with some of this work um there is conversations about some other positions and other availability to to assist our media specialist in continuing to
017do the work to ensure that what we have in our media centers we know what it is and is appropriate certainly for for our students so dr gruber good evening president mcdonald trustees and dr balako so one of the things that we are doing is tightening up some of our procedures as far as as far as oversight of the books in the district's media centers we have over a hundred thousand books in our media centers that's a lot of books we have 13 and a half media specialists that oversee that process we do have processes in place but we're looking at how we can tighten that up even more one of the first things that we're going to do is do a complete inventory that's a fairly simple procedure in which we scan the books
018on the shelves to match them with what we think we have in our destiny collection we often find that there's there are discrepancies between those two and it needs to be done on a regular basis so that's the first step in the process the second step in the process is a a media term called weeding w-e-e-d-i-n-g and that's according that's looking at books according to specific criteria that include appropriateness but also date of publication how often it's checked out all of those things um it's very important that the media specialists do the weeding in their own collections so that they know what they have in their collection so as mr martin said we have been given additional support through the from the district to support those media specialists in weeding their collections and making sure
019that what we have on the shelves is appropriate and then the third program prong of the process is really a book review process so if a book is missed and a parent a staff member or student identifies that book as needing to be reviewed for appropriateness at the level or appropriateness for the message or language or anything like that it would be brought to a book review committee which would be a district committee that is composed of some parents some teachers some administrators some media specialists and they would be responsible for reading the entire book because that's very important to look at the book at its entirety and then making a recommendation as to what should happen to that book should it be a book that should not be present in any of our media
020centers or possibly it's a book that's in our meet in our middle schools and it's more appropriate for older students so they would look at the books in their entirety and then make a recommendation moving forward for that and it would be a district committee so we're hoping that um by publicizing this by enlisting some parents as well as some other interested staff members that we can make sure that all of the books that we have in our media centers are appropriate for our students trustee barry yes uh thank you for the report uh a couple of meetings ago i asked you know what is the process of you know when the books come in is that part of the weeding process at that point so i think that we we did a board report
021on that and we put it in the board briefs um we do have an ordering process our media specialists are certified media specialists they're trained um they have master's degree in library science and there is a dearborn specific policy for ordering books that involves looking at reviews that looks at um they can't always read every book that comes out and so they look at reviews they look at a wide variety of sources sometimes they get opinions or staff ask for a particular book and then when the books are brought in they personally look at the books and do a visual scan of the book um again there's a lot of books um just for the record yes i i know it was on board brief sometimes i asked a question okay i have the information
022so the public can hear it right yeah no so there there are that is part of the book ordering process we are in the process of updating the entire media specialist handbook and making sure that all of our policies and procedures are as tight as possible as far as how we order books how we receive books how we inventory how we read and then how we undertake a book review if a book is um is questioned by anyone completely respect the process i'm very thankful to the community especially the parents who brought this to our attention i can kind of go out and live and say that you know some of the books that they're finding in you know oakland county schools are just like oh my god but uh yeah so i think we're
023going to be there's pride this is going to be things that we have to change but i think we're way better off than we're we're looking at all of those processes i appreciate that as we move forward thank you very much is there a process at the other end of the um spectrum once books are approved in the buildings and we deem them age-appropriate and they're in the right place if a parent would like their child to not be able to access certain books do we have that in place already where a parent can opt their child out we are certainly looking at that because that seems to be a good option that there could be some books that parents were uncomfortable with um one of the things is that we want to to you
024know removing a book entirely from the library takes away access from any student and there might be books that fall into a grayer category so that is what we're looking at putting in place as far as a parent being able to opt a student out and they wouldn't be able to check certain books out okay good i just want to make sure we don't want to go down that road where a ha a committee is making a decision on behalf of all students are parents for what they deem as appropriate and inappropriate and and take away the ability for students to have access to a wide variety of selection sure it is walking a fairly narrow path it is any other questions i have a question about the books that we have in the high
025schools are they all in one software system we all have we there are we have an online system called destiny that we that we purchased through the county and that's what we need to match the physical books on the shelf with our online system because that hasn't done been done in a couple of years and we want to make sure that it matches that's the first step in the process okay yes and you mentioned that um or any parent or student that want to flag a book how would they go about that process and where they can find that out so we're going to post this on the district website and on the school blogs we will have a form that the parent or whoever would like to have a book reviewed would fill out
026and then it would come and then we would schedule a date for the for the book review we have a draft of a form now okay and the my last question is there were books that were not appropriate they say on the cover so how did those slip in the cracks knowing that we do have majority of the students are minors i think that mr martin is going to talk about one of those books thanks yeah thank you trustee moses so yes we did were made aware recently of a few texts um and one of them is going to be our guinea pig so to speak and the book challenge process the title of the book is push we did talk to some concerned parents who had some other titles as well so certainly determining
027if it is in the media centers um and push was um the it goes back as far as 2005 it was purchased um or put in the forzan library but it was in all three libraries has only been checked out 26 total times over the course of time that it's been there uh last time it was checked out was in 2020 but that that title has been pulled um as we're going to go through the process so um this gives us a good opportunity to kind of test the process test the committee um we were given uh some other titles that we're looking into and trying to determine if they are uh in our libraries uh i can tell you uh firsthand from being in in the media center um that book was purchased in
0282005. i don't even know that the media specialist who's overseeing ford's and was there in 2005. so a lot of a lot of changing of hands um and we also i can just say went through a time of resource scarcity um where we didn't have a lot of hands over seeing things and clean process so dr gruver has done a a fantastic job of developing those process processes and we're looking forward to partnering with parents as they kind of help us with if a book needs review be reviewed what is that process to make sure that it's a it's appropriate for our students who have access to it so i can't i can't really tell i actually go as back as 2003. i i was at fortson our teacher uh probably i could say his
029name but well our english teacher um we read huckleberry fun finn for this for the story for mark twain and at the time as mark twain had written his novel the n-word was pretty much on every page but the teacher that teacher still teaches at porton took it on his part to actually scribble that word out of every single page so so we don't see that and put a slave instead of it so but i i could see the amount of work that you the media specialists are going to be going through and finding books that might not be appropriate probably flagging it we appreciate that thank you just as a teaching moment though sometimes the educator should explain why the that word was in the book and what it signified and what rather than
030just scribbling it out i hate to see that we start going in the direction of only things that we find acceptable to ourselves and eliminating the opportunity to have a full discussion of a variety of thoughts differences of opinion and belief systems rather than assuming that we can just erase those things that we're uncomfortable with i don't necessarily want a society that hasn't had the ability to be exposed to a variety of opinions and and positions and we have to be careful about how we present we should use it as a time to educate not a time to uh remove historical content should always be a factor too as well anyone else i have a kind of a logistical question do you have any idea what the approximately hundred thousand um titles the inventory process
031will take we believe that that the inventory process can happen pretty quickly because we can actually either train students or the media secretaries can do it because it is a simple scanning and matching to the online system the weeding process will take more time and as i said it's very important that the media specialist weed prime they are the primary weeders of their own collection so we have a flex team with the additional personnel that can go in and support that like free up the media specialist to do that work we have prioritized the media centers so that we will do them in descending order so we were going to start with the high school media centers work to middle school work down to life to elementary we're also looking at when they were last
032weeded um so that that could have a factor as well so i i anticipate it will take more than just this year to finish the weeding process so we would have in place the inventory would be done this year the weeding would be ongoing and then the book review process and the form would be available this year as well um the other thing that is important is that we don't just do this once that we have a rotating schedule for this and we haven't had that in the past and so that just because we finished doing ford since this year we need to make sure that it's on a schedule to do it again in another couple of years so that we always know where we are in this process anyone else thank you very
033much you're welcome next item please before we move on just a quick comment uh dr malaco the last meeting under uh transportation discussion uh i asked for something in the discussion i assumed that it was going to get to the request for information i should have made it clear later on the meeting but uh joanne thank you she caught that the last sentence on page nine of the minutes says that i asked for uh you know what additional costs would be to create a full-time bus driver position if we remember that discussion we're having if you take a bus driver part-time add more responsibilities what is the additional cost if that's full-time positions created okay when you get a chance sure thank you thank you absolutely recognition and acknowledgements commendations [Applause] good evening commendations to
034the drivers mechanics and dispatcher who worked over the dearborn homecoming weekend to provide shuttle service to and from the festival for many years the district has provided shuttle service for those attending homecoming but this year's event included additional shuttle stops allowing even more residents to take advantage of an easy way to enjoy homecoming our buses ran from 11 30 a.m until midnight all three days of the event and special thanks to rick sorces and his dedicated staff and transportation for their efforts to support the dearborn homecoming commendation to fortune high school football coach osama abu hassan on receiving the bill wash minority coaching fellowship with the new york jets the fellowship allows college and high school coaches to gain some nfl experience and insight by helping with training camps and other preseason activities with their
035sponsoring team commendations to fortson high school student malik ali and her mother mr reef plus dearborn high students brenna thorpe who volunteered to help the dearborn rotary club in removing trash along telegraph highway in july telegraph road in july commendations to eddie terry jr an engineer at henry ford elementary and rob baranowski the district hvac tech both men acted swiftly to ensure the safety of henry ford elementary when a gas line broke at the building over the summer mr terry recognized the sound of a ruptured gas line even before gas could be smelled in the building he contacted dte and the fire department and evacuated the few staff members in the building mr baranowski was able to access hvac controls to one by one shutdown and to one by one shut down each of the
036classroom systems and the building's main air supply fan so the fire department could enter the building and shut off the main power to avoid a possible spark and explosion much thanks that's all for com for accommodations um acknowledgments of donation donations we have one for today a donation of 480 has been offered to salina intermediate school by fazi maflahi to be used for pbis student incentives and awards thank you and lastly staff recognition technology staff i'm going to hand it over to mr bob addy because it's technology staff today and while we're waiting for mr addy to come up i just want to commend them and say thank you because he helped me over the weekend with some technical difficulties and it lingered until this morning and it was all taken care of so thank
037you very much to you and your team we got this so that's that's what the technology department's all about so uh dr malayco members of the board of education we have a tremendous uh backbone for our district's network infrastructure right here and so with me today are members of our district technology team as i mentioned before the technology team's a major part of our network back backbone and during the recent pandemic the emphasis of technology became even more important in keeping kids connected to learning this team helped us to emerge from the pandemic by making sure that kids were connected they were able to access the programs that they needed and have chromebooks in their possession we worked together with computer services to make sure that grades and attendance are recorded students are rostered in
038the classes they need to get to and that all students have access to the applications that will help them be successful global citizens working with our team we're very flexible with our scheduling and keeping students in the classes they need and as we continue to move beyond the pandemic right there our team is working towards keeping the safe secure and engaging learning environment for all students our team is made up of dedicated members that are network support analysts aka the techs network administrators technology coaches we have a district webmaster data entry specialists and two supervisors a supervisor of networks and a supervisor of computer services together our team works above and beyond the contractual hours to help our district students staff and administrators have equitable access to technology resources and really the um meet their
039needs and keeping students first and so with us today i'd like to share our dedicated member of the teams with you so we have our media services secretary ms cheryl lantern one of our network administrators mr shane robertson our district webmaster mr scott tobias our technology support analyst at the help desk miss chelsea jankowia and an outstanding tech coach who's helped at the secondary level and the true team player mr bob harrison [Applause] thank you everyone thank you before you leave can we get some photographs please absolutely anyone from the board would like to come up and good time you gotta take a step down okay thank you thank you i didn't even notice [Laughter] next item please approval of minutes approval of minutes of the following dearborn board of education meeting regular p12 meeting
040july 25th 2022 board report 22 hyphen 17 executive session closed evaluation july 25th 2022 board report 22 hyphen 18 or training session part 2 july 28 2022 for report 22 hyphen 19. make any necessary corrections and move approval of these minutes support okay i have a moved by trustee mosib and support for chester barry no i'm sorry trustee barry and then supported by trustee okay all right ambrose um are there any corrections anyone not hearing anyone or any may i please have a a roll call trustee berry yes trustee dambrosio yes trustee mozip yes bestie petrichoff yes trustee thorpe trustee watts yes president mcdonald yes