001next item please mas B conference report be brief I promise you what's up yo you're wet you saw your left I'm gonna go ahead and get started down we recently went to the 2019 mas B which stands for Michigan Association of school boards for those who are to wear their annual Leadership Conference a was held in Traverse City while I was at the conference I presented who's sitting at your educational table empowering students to lead I presented this with Denis Charles and I want to thank de Nina and they didn't see her here today okay but I wanted to thank her I she always shows such poisson professionalism and I really enjoyed working with her our presentation covered basic information about our schools programs students population demographics as well as our mission our vision our
002strategic plan and I also want to give some kudos to fot may Faraj and her team one of the things that we talked about we talked about the vision the mission and I shared this strategic plan the small version the handheld version which i think is a terrific summary I shared it with the audience and I believe everyone in the audience took a picture of it and I even had a couple copies that people asked me if they could have my copy they were thrilled with it and they wanted to bring those concept back to their districts great job we also discussed superintendent malaika's vision of creating a student Advisory Council and how that vision came to fruition which directly led to including students voices at our board table and I want to thank a
003man saying up and all the students for the hard work that they do in their dedication as well we shared with the the value of those voices and how they can develop superintendent student advisory councils in their own district we received a lot of excellent feedback in the conference I even had several people come through up to me during the conference two days of the conference and say they attended that session and they get some valuable information for it from it the only complaint or negative comment that we received and I agree wholeheartedly is that people said that they would have liked to heard from hear from the students so Denise and denene and I had a conversation about that and if we are invited to share on that present as that subject again in
004another presentation we would like to include some of the ssac students and to be involved the overreaching theme of the Leadership Conference was socio social emotional learning and supporting and educating the whole child the keynote speakers included dr. Nicky Odom Yoder he's a director of policy at castle which is collaborative for academic social and emotional learning also dr. bill pink president of Grand Rapids Community College was a keynote speaker he did a fine job but I think that our own college president Russ CAV Aluna would be an excellent speaker and I might add their name to the list for next year and perhaps they could speak on as well as superintendent Malenko on partnerships with between colleges and Pete while I think that would be a good idea so I'm just letting you guys know
005that I might throw that out as a suggestion another keynote speaker was Josh Snyder he's author and founder of millennial and employment engagement he was very entertaining and engaging anybody interested in that type of information I do suggest you look up Josh Snyder excellent speaker I intended several sessions I'm gonna give you a rundown on just a couple of them adverse childhood experiences also known as aces was one that I spent I attended and that talked about the health of the whole child in their well-being aces is an acronym that's for the adverse child experiences and they include such experiences as abuse violence neglect death or incarceration of a parent as well as other traumatic events that have negative and lifelong love long lasting effects on a child's health and well-being and the negative effects
006of aces are cumulative and they also certainly negatively affect a child's education data first high school and Beyond was a course that I took and because it was a data course there's a lot of information I'm not gonna get into it but I did get a couple of copies of their the presentation that was given and it's very interesting anybody interested in data presentation information on high school and beyond let me know I'd be glad to share that with you and I'm only gonna touch on one other class that I took and that was get on board as school board members we all rely on MASB as a valuable resource and in 2018 mas be much there get on board campaign and that was to help recruit more civic minded and student focused individuals to
007run for school boards and MASB has also provided some excellent information for those who are considering a school board run they have a toolkit which includes a candidate's guide to school board elections indicators of effective boards and board members overview of open meetings act roles and responsibilities of school board members and there's also some some really helpful videos on topics such as campaign finance laws and filing to become a school board member so this year will be an unusual year for our district because we have four seats up for November's election so I'm very pleased to see that mas be included this information in this valuable resource and I encourage anyone that is interested or even possibly thinking of running for position in November's election to go on mas B's website and get on board
008Thanks thank you [Applause] I will try to be as brief as possible as well so mas we actually had a mobile application where they were posting updates at the same time at the conference which was great so the first day I actually attended the policy training CBA 102 and it was very very informative and then another day I attended another class on an open meeting act which was also i opening for me and very very informative things that i found very interesting was from a presentation and again more work for the state of michigan and the united states where they were talking about how Michigan students performed unfortunately yet below average levels at the NAEP relative ranking which usually random students all over this country and the state take this exam as well as in
009other countries and they compare students how well they do in math and how well they do in reading and the u.s. actually was in 28th place in in reading fourth grade reading 24th in math 27th in reading and for eighth grade and 34th in math for eighth grade so now that's so much really kind of great good news too to see doctor built pink he's I believe the president of Grand Rapids Community College he said that Michigan needs 175,000 new University grads and a hundred and twenty six thousand certificate and associate grads by 2022 and that's he said there's no way we can meet meet that with the current graduates so that means for the years to come there are so many different opportunities for people to be enrolled in college and universities and they're
010there so many opportunities there I attended the presentation by miss I don't want to miss her yeah Jackie heart she is the current president of Ferndale public schools public school school board and also Dania Dania bezzie or dr. Danny Abasi she's the superintendent for in their public schools and they talked about why diversity equity and inclusion matters and their presentation was excellent they talked about how Ferndale Public Schools was very segregated that they had students who have low social economics going to one school and others go into the more affluent students go into another school and that was pre 2016 and they did the strategic planning and they actually are now bussing more students because they want to increase diversity so they actually increased added more students who have low socio economics and added students
011again from Ferndale going back to Oak Park and they're saying that this model actually works that they're actually standardized exams even went better they're the less infractions by their students diversity does wonders and obviously were very blessed to have that in Dearborn and it's it's worthwhile to look at what Ferndale is doing as well and learn from them on that aspect it was it was very very I found that presentation to be very meaningful and very powerful and then on social-emotional learning is another concept that was kind of the theme and the buzz at the conference and it says here social-emotional learning is a great model that's why I said we know that our students learn differently and we can't put them in a box so SEL is a powerful tool not only for students
012and that's where they focus more it actually helps adults as well and teachers or support staff it's a powerful model is I believe that we're implementing in our district and we need to continue to look at it there were also legislators who came and spoke senator the from Traverse City forget his name she man yeah when Schmidt spoke there and there were also to a representative Erin and another representative who spoke about and they went at length about the algebra two requirement and how some were four and some where opposed and it was it was very interesting discussion I talked to both of them at the end to representative Erin and to who was actually a former teacher and to Senator Schmidt and they vowed to work at Lisa and a third read by third
013grade law and revisited this next session and they said that then governor Snyder had this as one of his plans and hopefully governor winters definitely against the retention clause and that's what we're all memory as educators and school board members were against is that retention clause needs to be removed so it was it was an amazing conference I think my colleagues and it was a great one to be there and to learn a lot from other network with other school board members and hopefully get them on board to to talk to their legislators as well as we do with our representatives so it was great thank you in terms of the shortest presentation I'm gonna have this one in the bag besides some of the things that already been talked about we also took part
014in the delegate assembly which was an opportunity to be a part of a group of maybe 300 400 different school board members from across the state approving different items that the Michigan Association of School Boards was asking us to vote on so that was an interesting experience you've already heard about some of the general sessions that we went to I'll add my piece where we had the senators and the representatives talking to us about education and I came away from it just thinking that I don't see any movement forward on the education front they're both they're all very firm in their position they'll say the right thing but I don't see any meeting really happening between this these differing sides some of the different breakout sessions that I attended too and I've already passed some
015information along to different people within our district about this one was the career exploration tools and we had already started this conversation at a board meeting I believe back in September October so I wanted to go in and get more information about the different tools that are available and then I spoke with miss Peterson and once I got back it talks about some of the different options that they had mentioned there also attended a breakout session where they talked about the different professions what is it what is the state of Michigan think is going to be in high demand over the next five and 10 years what is going to be the high-paying salaries so where are the needs going to be the greatest and I also attended a session regarding ballot issues for school
016districts millage a--'s and and bonds and things like that this conference was right after the November election so it was very timely just to be able to go and talk to people from across the state as to what have been some of their experiences what can we get tripped up on to help us when it comes time to talk to the voters again and I'll close with this if you remember that snowstorm that he hit back in November it hit Traverse City where this conference was before it hit here so we drove up into a snowstorm it looked really really pretty there in Traverse City especially knowing that when you got back to southeast Michigan you were going to be away from it except for trustee McDonald who didn't make it to her November meeting
017because she was still stuck on the roads coming back from Traverse City so it was a good conference it was also good to have three of us there I don't think we're going to it would always be nice to have all of us attending some of these conferences but it is good to not be the the lone wolf so to speak attending the conference for the whole board but to be able to have a couple people that you know there and then be able to reach out to other other board members we were we were intentionally coordinating to make sure that we were casting white men thank you thank you very much next item please citizen participation citizens wishing to address the board on agenda non agenda items for action who are signed in by
018710 by submitting a blue card to the secretary may speak at this time board may not be in a position to respond to non-agenda items therefore speakers should not anticipate an immediate response to their comments or questions for the benefit of all concerned do not mention the names of school students or school district employees please keep your comments as brief as possible board president reserves the right to limit times we have one blue card today from a mr. Fadi Dana mr. Fadi Dana who is visiting from abroad and would like to speak about introducing an invention that will boost inclusion of visually impaired students enabling them to learn and access scientific tactile graphics in with with audibly okay I have Kim my name is Fadi Donna like I said I have come from Lebanon to
019fight for a patent application I'm a visual communication and wayfinding special orientation professional I was working with trying to develop talking Maps because I'm a wayfinding specialist and I ended up by creating a utility such an enable the the conversion of visual and readable documents and compilation of documents into a interactive browsing audio graphic audio audio compilations with tactile tactile graphics I'm not trying to promote any software I'm not promoting any hardware any normal of the shelf tablets or iPad would work it I will be producing the tactile graphics on regular normal paper no need for special embossing for the trial matrix because it is high definition graphics it's not Brian the conventional bright crafting it will allow the students the blind student it will give them the opportunity of equal opportunity of sitting in
020the same class along with side by side with sighted students and be able to grasp or to encounter any scientific material like biology like chemistry like any type of curriculum that requires a graphic support like and transcription would be audibly it will not be with right now the beauty of the system is that the hardcopy is a universal so the same hard copy of the compilation can be so can be provided to multilingual to make to all the countries because the transcription of this document is only it's not alphanumerical is only a numerical which is the most common character with from 0 to 9 among all internationally so even the French English German Latin they use the Latin letters but the Braille in in French is different than the Braille in English is different than
021the Braille in Spanish different than the Braille in German so the common is 0 to 9 and this book is you would be international so it can be used by all the countries around the world all the languages because the soft copy which is a normal mobile application it's the software mobile application it right now it is static static because it will be either the text would be in English or in French or the language a numeric alphanumeric and the software and the device itself with the voice-over and the setup selected language it will speak up the informations associated with the graphics but later on it would be a dynamic in such a way that it can be connected directly to Google Translate and in real time it can get the English translated to any
022languages and spoken directly this I believe shall foster the inclusion which is one of the pillars toward fostering the sustainable education I been in Saudi Arabia for the last 10 years I was at King Saud University as a consultant for visual communication and with this new era of transformation toward the vision 2020 30 they are trying to get into the sustainable environment sustainable environment would be anything between a country from a country until a smaller classroom and one of the pillars is inclusion and this is what I'm trying to do I'm not saying like I said not a software I'm not selling a hardware I'm proposing a partnership to get engaged with the Dearborne school public school board toward the pioneering the first model or pilot of trend converting any book from any class into
023a tactile audibly compilation and later on to be emulated in other counties in other states and probably it should be it should become a national achievement two years ago I was invited by the American printing house for the blind you know if you don't mind I've been very very generous you look at my time but what you're presenting I was trying to figure out where you're going with this what you're presenting it's probably a good idea to contact the administration run it by them provided with information then they will bring it I met I miss ad yeah this is not the forum here to again may be talking about a partnership or what-have-you so I mean thank you for the education again it was very very valuable information but my strong recommendation is contact the
024superintendent's office okay go from there okay get the information then I'll provide it to a scale of a discussion thank you very much thank you for the chance okay thank you very much um I seen you know the next item please special action item special consideration of an action item are there any agenda items on this agenda which board members or the superintendent we should to discuss and vote on separately if there are we will explode these exclude these from the motion people oh gee Patrick off I don't need to hold but I do want to make a comment on item number three three okay anybody else okay as far as the looks going through the motions on the two okay that questions there's just a question okay with Jacob and the supplements the filling
025of non-instructional vacancies this is the board report 1980 nothing's getting pulled I guess he's talking about seven seven seven six I mean are all personnel yep all of them together no no just questions about like what how effective these are it says effective so do the lease especially for the student services liaisons through these individuals start immediately again let's wait till the motion on the table yes that the questions I don't think there's any items can be pulled secretary nothing that means okay so a motion to have proof [Music] move that action items number 112 with supplements be approved as recommended in this agenda with no exceptions today 12 is that correctly the supplements so moved support we have a motion support that's going to discussion trustee moseub yeah just a question on those pair
026of pros are those immediate then they may start right away the district student services liaison position okay they're all effective pending board approval tomorrow one of them is effective two of them are effective tomorrow but that doesn't mean that they'll switch buildings because those two are internal and already working in the district so we have them work it out the principals so that's a smoother transition and one buildings not left stranded on there without some some time the third one will be effective next August because that candidate is overseas in a contract and will be back in town by that time our plan for that building is to have a substitute liaison so that building will get services the substitute liaison has experienced with us has actually retired we just got word that that's not
027going to be an option but I have a plan being I've been kind of thinking about it well we're sitting here as well other ideas so our plan is to make sure that they're all covered but the permanent one for one of the buildings will be in in August and and how many how many student liaisons we have it at so forth there's different types of liaisons so I'm not sure but I could find student services student services there's only one per building that's currently vacant right it's currently vacant yes so just the background is that last year when we did the budget reductions two of three of those positions those people were retiring and so we eliminated that position those three positions as a part of budget reductions because we felt that it was
028too less human beings that we were going to be impacting layoffs because they were they were they were just retiring at that time and then that was one of this was one of the first things we put back on at the budget when enrollment met the projections and we knew we had the funding so this was the first one of the first items were putting back on that was removed last year the pacaya add to that that idea of the KY actually came from the principles initially when we went through a process last spring because they didn't come from it from us from central office but then they also realized the need so they said that if the budget did come was a little better could we get that position back that was something they
029wanted back sooner rather than later our count came in and I know we had our Finance Committee meeting today our budget was more stable once Lansing got got their act together sort of speak and so we were able to restore those positions yeah I remember this conversation that we this is not the same position as the student-parent building level one no no so this one's a little bit different this one works with the students with the students absolutely but also sometimes in the summer they'll be pending student issues that we haven't come and sometimes the evening when there's a meeting a board appeal with the board they'll come in at that time they're also servicing the middle schools which previously that position did not have that on the Job Description to service the middle schools
030it's that position they're spread thin okay just ignore the question I didn't have a question I had a comment on three three three is in regards to the adult IDI tutoring that got defeated earl earlier in november to a tie boat and the hope was at that time by by some board members that if we put it back out to bid we'd have a better options i'm disappointed to see that our options weren't improved by having a new bid placed we not only only saved a few thousand dollars with this bid amount from the low bid of that last time we also are giving it to somebody who's in out-of-state business there they're based in Arizona they will have some local component to fulfill the contract but there are also an unknown entity so we
031didn't we didn't accomplish I believe what had been hoped for by the way the vote went in November and I'm I just would like to be reassured that for future direction that when we have these kinds of concerns and I understand that the timing looked bad from that perspective but quite frankly I think the unanticipated consequence of not putting that contract through could have left us in a more vulnerable position we we had students who didn't get tutored for the last semester so they lost out that last year now we have a vendor so to speak who were who's an unknown so we're going to have to go into this kind of blind as to what kind of quality and effectiveness we're going to have hopefully they'll be wonderful and they'll they'll be effective and
032produce the results but quite frankly I think that because there was a concern in November people kind of did a knee-jerk response to it and hoped that we would get some kind of improved results with a new bit and we didn't we got two people who who put in a bid this go-round and they both look like they're not from this state so we're not contributing to our local economy quite frankly except for the tutors that they may employ here and we know who these tutors are going to be and from where so quite frankly I just hope that in the future when those kinds of decisions are being made at the table on how to vote on something that things are thought through to make sure that we take the advice of the people
033that we've hired to do these RFPs and look very carefully and cautiously before we reject something out of hand so that's all I wanted to say I'm just giving my two cents for thank you I also wanted to comment on number three but I'll wait till trustee Lane you get some more I just like to ask dr. Malenko and I see mrs. carisi here if we can have a report at the end of the semester and we can have some good metrics for evaluating this was better or worse I also want to comment on that nobody was looking I I don't think anybody was looking for improved results we had different thoughts on the process I'm not gonna speak on anybody else's what they were thinking I mean they're here at the table they can
034you know librarian what they were thinking I was looking at at the cost I don't remember what it was but it wasn't that big of a difference what we pay our teachers per hour I was presenting other options and I know this is time-sensitive right now there are students who understand already missed out on tutoring okay so I am gonna vote YES on this moving forward but part of the evaluation I would like to see maybe some something teachers are willing to do this work I would love to see that if it's not you know we had para pros in the classrooms if that's not an option we have to go this way yeah please provide us with you know is it working and we have some great leadership but we watching these these folks
035so I myself was now looking for improved results and asked for improved results timing was bad I keep hearing that it was on Facebook timing was bad none of that mattered to me man what mattered to me is we have some great teachers in this district and if that's an option that's something I would support trustee Mo's event yeah I just heard this item I as I recall my comments were it was totally financial I just thought and perhaps I was wrong in this and that perhaps if we we need to really meet our our budget and if we had fifty thousand dollars and the bid was way high I know it's eight thousand dollars that's still a thousand dollars so this company to be unknown in the twitters I do believe that they're physically
036here in Michigan so we will be able to evaluate them I don't I don't agree that they the students who were expecting this tutoring missed out because this was in November so it was only a month so I'm wishing the best for the vendors I know mr. wall was mentioning many vendors who actually reached out to him and perhaps they did not put in a full bed and only two did so it is what it is so sometimes you know we here make our decisions based on the information that was provided and I thought from financials fifty eight thousand dollars and asking our professional what was our budget fifty thousand dollars that's why I voted the way I voted that time so and I was hoping that the same vendors would apply again knowing now
037the number unfortunately but except that that taints the taints the bid process once they know what the what the camp is that's that's not even a it was very unfortunate but that was the situation and that was strictly why I voted the way I voted so I it was very unfortunate but I'm wishing as my colleague trustee Petroff mentioned that we wish the new vendor we welcome them we want to support them succeed it wouldn't be successful and we evaluate them at the end and we see how well they did and if if they did a great job but they perhaps may redo I will renew this contract and based on the terms that we have or if they don't then we put this up for another bit next time around thank you mr. walz
038is this company based out of Detroit do they have a Detroit office maybe that's what I saw okay is there any other discussion or questions any other I don't there are there any objections of the motion on the table No hearing none dan will go ahead and attach unanimous roll call vote to the motion next item please summary of agenda action items one approval of warrants to approval of financial institutions designation and practices per board report 1977 three approval of contract to one-to-one tutoring for five approval of change order six through nine approval of non instructional and instructional personnel items for P 1210 an approval of financial statement 11 approval of transportation supervisor 12 approval of donations thank you I'd like to give dr. Malenko an opportunity to introduce our new employee Thank You president
039Barry I appreciate that I'd like to call up Jodi Marshall the new transportation supervisor to come and address the board let's give her a big round of applause we cleared the room for you so much easier so I say Happy New Year um thank you very much your superintendent to the board and and all the administrators I appreciate this opportunity I'm very excited to get started and excited to be part of Dearborn schools family thank you local board thank you next item please discussion item 30 minute time limit limit policy updates policy 3131 reduction recall of teachers and guidelines 6605 crowdfunding did I skip something I was doing sarcasm 30 minutes we don't we don't want 30 minutes 30 minutes just just a brief report the the policy committee met last last year we discussed
040updating this policy there are three minor changes we went through the layoffs and recall process last year which identified some areas that needed a little bit further clarification we work did work with the with the Union to come up with with the recommended changes one of the changes that was necessary was identifying the recall rights to teachers probationary teachers that are being laid off and it's basically the changes we're giving them the same recall rights they have the four years right to recall into their positions back into their positions the the second change affected the attendance criteria if you missed more than 16 days of unexcused absences meaning no FMLA protections then you are subject to recall regardless of your performance evaluations so those teachers that are highly affected could still be subject to either
041surplus or layoffs based on attendance and then the third that's not including not including FMLA it's you can't you can't use federally protected time and then the the last change was was an update to realign the criteria for layoffs with regards to absences or whether you're on what under the under the district contract would collective are our collective bargaining agreement if you were on a attendance improvement plan that criteria was was adjusted one way and this will be back up for vote prioritization include highly effective than effective or is it just random drop no it is it is it is based on performance it is based on performance and as it has been in the past the one change was there's a highly effective that had higher absences meaning more than 16 they are included
042with the effective teachers so they they lose a little bit of protection if they have a high number of absences thank you thank you very much