001[Music] I will call to order the December 9th meeting of the Dearborn Board of Education sorry we're late we had a prior hearing today can we have a roll call please usin Barry here Joseph Guido here Mary Lane here roxan McDonald here Amy shelles here James School Master president Adams here next item pledge of allegiance to the flag Miss Pamela Denine principal of Lindberg Elementary School will introduce students who will lead the Pledge of Allegiance right go ahead start theed the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all hi right thank you it's lindberg's pleasure to introduce Brena Thorp and Nicholas Thorp brena's in in Miss leck's room and Nick is in Mrs no's first grade room and they
002are very excited to save the pledge as you can tell um and they they uh have their they brought their mom and dad with them too which is important to know they're very involved in the Lindberg community dad is Father Vice president and mom was even co-chair of our haunted school event so the whole Thor family is very busy with Lindberg so thank you very much for having us this evening and thank you for taking the time have a good holiday break next item don't tell them that they'll think it starts tomorrow now yet feels it does it couple more days superintendent update agenda items agenda items you do see that three people are retiring with more than 20 years of service Mona adimy Smith math teacher 26 and2 years Christine faen how paraprofessional 20
003and a half years Darlene Teasley deborn interpreter technician 28 and 3/4 years service so we certainly congratulate all who are retiring but we certainly want to point those out as some people have served more in 20 years so congratulations to them then on non-agenda items the leg legislature continues to debate an expansion of the EAA uh School District uh reform school district they're still talking about mandated third grade retention and still talking about moving from a colorcoded system to something like the Florida leather letter grade system in addition they are looking at um uh Merit curriculum modifications to include some of the make it a little easier to take some of the um programs uh like technology uh programs that the Michael Barry Center type things Senate is continuing to debate the carry guns and
004no carry zones and expanding who can carry in those no carry zones and then safety drills they're looking at re uh re changing the requirements for the types of drills the number of drills that we have uh including some reporting requirements after the drills have have happened so we'll keep you posted on those Mary has a question try Lane uh superintendent Wiston I wonder if uh you have a recommendation I'm interested in the third grade no pass um legislation I'm quite bothered by it but I wonder if the superintendent Association has a stand on that our position is an opposition that wanted should be a local decision made by the local expert the teacher and administrators and as you know in Dearborn we're trying to address the problem through parental contracts talking about what we're
005going to do in schools to help students get back on track and asking the parents to join us in that partnership so again anything mandated uh from the state takes away our local flexibility and the Brain Research is pretty clear that kids develop at different ages and so a kid could be a month behind and you're going to hold them back you know a student could be a year behind and you're going to hold them back now obviously we have real concerns with that on the other hand we have concerns with kids getting high school you know reading at second grade level so of course we all have that concern and nobody wants that to to happen but I I hope that your Association is lobbying State Legislature I thought their policy was not to
006micromanage and smaller government and all that blah blah blah but uh well regardless of all that we can't even agree on a standardized test for anything much less a past fail grade it just blows my mind that that they would make that based on a test which there is a one right now that no one can even agree on I mean our Meep tests are changed from year to year to year to year so I I it's incredibly punitive to me but sorry that was my two is always moving well and it's yeah it's just punitive not not constructive I hope you're lobbying hard we are so are the school school boards the TR county allian is also I think Charter Schools everyone maybe we should start making some um maybe we should start trying
007to pass some resolutions regarding you know balanced budgets at the state level or perhaps some of their other issues that they don't seem to be spending too much time working on be here that'd be nice we could take up wolf honey it' be thank you um at the end of your I'll use next item citizen participation citizens wishing to address the board on agenda and non-agenda items for Action who are signed in by 7:10 p.m. by submitting a blue card to the secretary may speak at this time uh I have no blue cards for either agenda or non-agenda approval of minutes approval of minutes of the following Dearborn Board of Education meeting the me the regular p12 meeting of November 25th 2013 board report 13- 67 recommended action make any necessary Corrections and move approval
008of these minutes so Mo support there any changes or corrections to the minutes hearing none we will attach a unanimous affirmative roll call next item recognition and acknowledgements item a Forts and women's Jazz Ensemble performance okay always a fun time of year when we get to hear a performance you are so right good evening TI the season one of the unique features of this season is the various music that is associated with this time of year music ranges from The Nutcracker ballet to I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas tonight we have the Forts and High School women's Jazz Ensemble here to perform some holiday Classics they will be singing Carol of the Bells and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas in the latter piece Fatma shihab will be our soloist their director is Mr Matt
009Laura Mr Laura joined our Dearborn team this year and we are thrilled to have his strong musicianship at Fortson High School School interesting thing happened about 40 minutes ago I walked in and heard these women warming up and singing their piece and I commented at the end that I was really impressed with their blend and that's when I found out that a third of their group is out very ill and I told them you are unbelievable musicians to be able to adjust your blend comp in order to to compensate for that yes so you are definitely in for a treat let's welcome the four women's Jazz [Music] Ensemble to hear words of cheer from everywhere filling the honey raising sound [Music] [Laughter] [Music] seems to hear words of a cheer from everywhere fing the [Music]
010s [Music] yourself Merry Little Christmas let your heart be light from now on our TR will [Music] be Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas make the you from now on still [Music] be here we are as in olden days happy Golden Days of your faithful friends who are dear to us together de to us once more through the years we all will be together if the F alive hang a shining star upon the [Music] [Laughter] highest your very little [Music] Christmas here we are as in all days happy Golden Days of you Faithful Friends who are dear to us G here to us more through the years we all will be together if the F Al love h a sh St upon the [Music] highest and yourself Mary little Chistmas merry [Music] [Applause] Christmas that
011was lovely oh we don't want it to end amazing outstanding job that was beautiful thank you ladies very good may I make a recommendation to the students yeah uh I was in choir many years ago and I wasn't as good as you are but uh I've read I've heard uh brain research indicating that singing is one of the best things for mental health and physical health as well because of the increased airf flow so uh I hope that you're singing in the Fords and choir uh will last you a long time I was just at a concert last night and I couldn't help but kind of sing along with with the music and I hope that uh when you have occasions in the future when you feel like you need to pick me up you'll
012go back to your singing because it really does cheer you in the downest times that you have so good luck to you in the future and yes exactly it really does work good yeah good thank you thank you very much [Music] next we should start every board meeting now we all started by singing we'd be a lot happier I don't think the people in the audience be happier if I started singing But we would be always to treat next item is commendations uh Fortson High School senior Jad elh haraki will read the tonight's commendations good lots of students participating tonight good evening ladies and gentlemen uh I'm jadel haraki and I'll be reading the commendations commendations to students at ha Elementary for their efforts to collect 670 food items that will be donated to the
013Salvation Army to help those in need commendations to the students at Whitmore bows for their efforts to collect coins and donate them to Habitat for Humanity staff members will also be volunteering their time in December and January to help build houses for Habitat special thanks to third grade teacher Robin Philpot for coordinating this effort congratulations to e8th grade student Isaiah Gard who was selected the middle school student of the year by the Michigan Council of social studies isia was selected for his positive attitude and consistently helping his fellow students he was nominated by Bryant teacher Ryan pay commendations to O Smith students Kalen Bernett Lexi Schultz and Maran Ferguson for their efforts to collect more than $200 the students used the money to purchase gifts and then donated them to children in need the students
014collected returnable bottles and then threw in some of their own allowance money to purchase the gifts congratulations to deborn High School's beus yubi for making the Detroit news football Allstate dream team that means they believe he was one of the best two offensive tackles in the entire state for all divisions not only is beus an excellent football player but he has also achieved a 4.0 cumulative GPA beus yaku recently accepted a full right scholarship to play football at Northern Illinois University for the next four years congratulations to the 20 seniors at deborn high who have been awarded University of Michigan Dearborn scholarships totaling $322,000 17 additional seniors have been awarded either the Mason blue Deans and or Hen Henry p P scholarship individual scholarship winners include Matthew Enright Rasha canfer and Eric senson who have
015each been awarded a 4-year Chancellor scholarship valued at $46,000 commendations to seniors Ramy kadu Erica Mera and nor kadu who put together special Thanksgiving treat packages and delivered them to several residents at session Manor a retirement complex in Dearborn both groups of seniors shared cider donuts and enjoyable conversation during their visit congratulations to the sunit and staff involved in the successful fall production of and then there were none the cast in crew did an outstanding job performing this Agatha Christie classic commendations to the students in the Dearborn Magnet High School for their efforts to help the Detroit soup kitchen and those that stopped in for a meal each Friday the students packaged food needed at the soup kitchen and have spent time working at the facility and serving me meals commendations to the counseling staff
016at etel Fort for their efforts to host a very successful college night at the school several hundred students from all three deborn high schools and other high schools in the area attended the event that featured more than 30 colleges and universities commendations to the fors and Key Club who helped who helped out at the annual Kanas bathon the students encouraged and assisted special needs individuals during the event special thanks to forson Key Club adviser zanab commendations to the students at forsen for their generous gift of more than $720 collected during the annual trick- or treat for Unicef commendations to the students at foron high school who collected more than $5,400 canned good items all donated items will be given to the Detroit Rescue Mission to feed families in need commendations to all district art teachers
017especially Miss Kate Blair for their successful efforts to host the annual empty bowls event those attending the event purchased a ceramic Bowl made by students and enjoyed a simple meal of soup and bread all money raised at the event will benefit gleener food bank and Hyer International special thanks to all these all of the sponsors of the event including Mr Gary kulman of Park Place thank you before uh he leaves the podium I I want to talk about this young man a little bit a little while back we had a press conference on school safety and and driving and you had a dozen VIPs Sheriff you know uh the mayor uh myself Ford Executives uh AAA Executives and here this young man walks up to the podium and steals the show with his his comments
018at the news conference he did an outstanding job and because of him you may notice around our high schools and in our schools and around the parking lots there's signs about not texting and driving I can't remember exactly what what was your slogan uh stop stop the stop the text stop the re stop the Rex so you'll see that around our posted around our parking lots and in our schools so and actually if I may add something for the National Honor Society um for my senior project um we have uh uh it's called the strive for a safer driver um it's uh I'm actually we're I'm getting $2,000 from triaa to uh to hold to hold many different events so such in as assembly to um to tell the students how important it is and
019how how texting and driving is really it's it's very dangerous so quite a special young man we be going to different buildings to do this presentation yeah oh yeah of course very good yeah thank you so much thank you thank you actually in the last couple of weeks I don't know if you've noticed but in the local papers there's been uh stories about some of these donations in the Forts and can good and of those it's always good to see that in paper next item acknowledgement of donations there are two a donation of costume fabric of all types styles and colors valued to $33,000 has been offered edel for high school by Mrs Sally Victor to be used by the theater department and a donation of $3,000 has been offered to the Michael Berry prer
020campus by square one education Network to be used towards building an electrical vehicle for the ivd innov vehicle design competition so we thank both of those for making those donations possible no other any board members have any uh commendations or anything okay seeing none next item special reports item a p12 audit report Mr Weston I'd like to invite Mr barnab to uh in invite the plant Moran up to give you a report the committee did receive the report prior to the board meeting and not to steal anybody's Thunder but it's an outstanding report so well thank you and good evening and happy holidays president Adams Board of Trustees superintendent of the Year Mr Wiston we I would like to introduce our fantastic audit team of plant Moran Mrs Teresa Pollock and Mr Nate Troyer these
021are all my the previous ones from the report committee good evening thank you for having us here um as superintendent Wiston alluded to uh we are happy to present uh what is an outstanding audit report for the Dearborn Public Schools um as you're aware you're required annually to undergo an independent audit uh of the basic financial statements as well as compliance uh with Federal program regulations uh for the district so our role uh as your independent Auditors is to uh conduct the audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards essentially put your business office through the ringer and uh validate uh the significant balances uh financial statement disclosures and internal control and compliance matters as it relates to your grants so the outcome of that report is the expression of the opinion on the financial
022statements that I am pleased to report um you you have an unmodified opinion that's new terminology this year there because there has been a change in the auditing standards it used to be called unqualified um but nonetheless now it's unmodified that is still um the highest level of assurance that you can receive from an independent audit firm that we believe the financial statements are materially correct and that the presentations and accounting methods conform to uh the appropriate accounting principles and would meet all of the the state and federal regulations um in addition to the report on the basic financial statements um we with uh the federal Awards report uh we select uh programs based upon their relative size and risk profiles and compliance history uh this year the Child Nutrition cluster uh Title One cluster
023and uh title three uh clusters were uh selected as major programs for testing um we do have uh clean opinions as well relative to the compliance in those programs there is one finding that is noted in the report um but on the whole uh very positive results uh as it relates to all of the audit matters U Mr Troyer will uh run you through a quick slide presentation uh to show the financial results for the year and then we're happy to help with any questions that we we we can assist with good evening board and thank you Terry so again a couple highlights from the financial statements um starting with the the balance sheet as of June 30 2013 you can see the assets total 44 $4 million included in that was 10.5 million of
024cash and Investments as well as $29 million of receivables with the largest item being $26.4 million of state aid uh two of the 11 payments are not received until after year end which equates to about 18% of the total um the state set this up to basically assist them with their cash flow issues which then pushes that down to the school districts to have to borrow and in your case as you can see in the liabilities there's a state aid anticipation note of $1.2 million that was borrowed to assist the school with cash flow needs um that was subsequently paid in in late September in full uh the other large liability is ACR payroll and that's for wages earned prior to June 30th and paid afterwards uh to the tune of about $16 million this
025next slide looks at where the money came from this year and you can see in both years the largest piece is from the foundation allowance as well as other state sources and with 90% And 91% tied to State the state that really demonstrates the dependency on the state economy also with the largest piece being that Foundation allowance which is based on that basic formula of your Blended pupil count times your per people allowance that illustrates the schools have very little ability to significantly impact the revenue on a yearly basis next slide looks expenditures and this is by function you can see that the two largest pieces in both years are instruction and support um instruction increased one percentage point this relates to direct teacher pupil interaction support decreased from 39% to 38% and this would
026be for costs such as Library cost custodial Administration Transportation costs uh among others this next slide shows the expenditures this time by object you can see the the number one cost are people costs as schools are essentially a service industry and that's TR illustrated by 152.5 million or 88% of the expenditures being spent on salaries and fringes this next slide looks at a five year historical trend of the impact on general fund fund balance you can see that the current year had a decrease of fund balance of $2.5 million that was less than the budgeted uh decrease of $2.9 million but you can see in total for the fiveyear period we have a decrease of $2.7 million and and I think you know the takeaway is that with the the decrease of $2.5 million this
027year it's not sustainable as we're we're decreasing fund balance quickly this last slide is another slide um directed at fund balance and it looks to put a little context about around that amount as far as how much is enough um one way to to look at that is to compare it to the state average um the last stated State average which was as of 630 2012 was 10.6% of expenditures I'm sorry fund balance divided by total expenditures Dearborn as of June 30 2013 would be at 4.44% which would be below that stated that state average and also this year would be at a 5year low another way to look at that would be to say on 180 day 180 day school year that 4.4% would give you approximately seven days of operations so again just
028trying to put some context around how much that fund balance is or isn't I have a question just to in order for the state average to be 10% there must be some districts that are sitting on a pot of gold somewhere I'm I'm I question that number I mean I want to know what District 20 and 30% but it's got to be the med average I know I mean with all of the districts that are in negative positions year exclude the city of Detroit so I'm sorry and Pontiac and the like Grand because you know iner or dissolved it probably doesn't include the districts in the that are having trouble mhm I mean it it just be surprised gives us a bad perspective you know when you talk about the state average how many have
029a have such a positive fund balance that's well I know that there's 50 or 60 on the watch list so that would mean 700 and you know Michigan school business officials and the the government Finance officers of Association make recommendations about what's the appropriate level of fund balance to I mean I know what I would like us to have they always recommend you know somewhere in this 10 to 20% range um and and so you know many districts would have guarded it very closely um when the state funding was starting to diminish and made made perhaps cuts and changes sooner we were one of those districts yeah yeah well and and certainly dearborn's funding Cuts were more substantial than than many districts were with with the loss of um 20j funding and and some of
030the other special funding that you have I do agree I question that because some of the outstate small districts can't have a a large fund balance they've had Cuts substantially like the rest of us you know I can see some the government been targeting those districts I mean there's been you know potential legislation out there that would force districts to spend their their reserves before they get funding that was just a couple of years ago I mean so there have been districts that have been hesitant to keep too much and with all the cuts that have come down I mean it's I've been on the board 13 years and we there are some districts we've made severe Cuts truste School Master yeah I'd like to congratulate Sam Barta who is our Chief Financial Officer in
031effect we adopted a budget that we knew was going to be a negative budget we adopted a budget that called for a loss of $2.9 million because of a lot of things like buyouts and whatever and so this is actually good news this is $300,000 better than budgeted and when you can budget within $300,000 we hit that Target and have $176 million to play around with you've done some pretty good work so congratulations and congratulations to superintendent Wiston too that I know is very involved in this try uh you mentioned on I think page one that there were wages earned before 6:30 but they're paid out after is that uh that's a spread for some of our employees spread out over 12 months I'm assuming okay yeah the much of the in many of the
032instructional staff will elect to be paid evenly throughout the year even though their work is performed during the school year be sure I understood that did you finish your report before we get into too many questions yep yeah okay trusty McDonald you had your hand up yeah I just wanted to say also congratulations to Tam Sam and his team they did an excellent job um but regardless whatever the state average is the fact that we have 4% seems pretty good but when you bring it into terms of that 7 Days operating it's that's frightening it's not good it's not good not at all I mean it means we tend to have to borrow and pay borrowing cost to we used to have we used to have a substantial enough amount that we didn't have to
033borrow for summer pay we all know why we're here this and and we're doing well all in all I mean I don't think that we're I don't think that we're throwing money away I think that the money that we're spending are going to good you is going to good use the problem is is that we're getting strangled yes one positive thing is the voter stepped up and passed the bonds that freed up you know the burden of general fund money so that's one way that we can help our own budget without you know and that's very much appreciate have to continue to be prudent about spending and uh protect what we have and hopefully build a little bit every year absolutely a little consistency from the government would be nice to yeah predictability from the
034the government any other questions just a comment okay we used to put a lot of pressure on Dr Hughes to to put away money every year so I just wanted to kind of move that towards sorry and you know the the bad part is it takes so long to to save it and so quick to spend it it seems like I guess that's with everybody's budget that's that's the same thing but uh I remember maybe it was my second or third year on the board we had we were down to zero and we were borrowing money so it's cyclical we're right kind of right back to where we were what 15 18 years ago we were able to build it up for a while we had yeah you know another name for fund balance is
035a rainy day fund do we have weather some storms yes yes we have that's a good point but I agree with Joel we should start going that direction slowly first but we should start building it back up well it needs to be built into the budget great yeah that's but thank goodness we've been able to depend on the fund balance to pay the bills or we would be cuz borrowing is very costly I mean it's just it's just throwing money away yeah right there will be more rainy days I would like to say it's The Balancing Act though this money is given given us for the education of children and I don't want to see us scripp and saving money at the expense of the kids and taking it away from the children absolutely that
036has to be the priority thank you thank you thank you very much another job well done thank you very much well thank you very much um we also we want to recognize Mr Bara and the staff in the business office as well as we said it is not a pleasant process undergoing an audit and we did get tremendous support and had very very good results uh in in all of the tests so we do appreciate their hard work and happy holidays to all of you and thank you for the lovely music it was lovely it truly was thank you very much next item uh Item B technology update Mr Weston I invite Troy Patterson to come up to give you his annual update on where we're moving with some technology issues yeah TR good evening
037president Adams board members Mr Wiston and audience it's my pleasure to um be here tonight to provide a technology update um they told me I couldn't go for two hours so I I am going to narrow down what what it is that I'm talking about tonight and you're required to use technology that's right I am I am I've got it um this slide is a little overview of just some of the things that um the technology department is working on and I'm going to focus on a couple of things that we have to report every year and then a couple of things that are a little more fun and provide some real support to teaching and learning the first one is sipa sipa is the uh children's internet protection act and this is a reminder
038that we do follow sipa every year um and essentially what this law says is this is a federal law and this says that we must filter or block internet access for pictures that are considered obscene child pornography or anything that would be harmful to miners um last time I was here I talked a little bit about sometimes technology being the Wild Wild West and this is one of those places where we try to bring Law and Order to the Wild Wild West um we do have policies in place uh filtering and knowing what to filter and what not to filter is a very real challenge um I think we do a pretty terrific job there are always uh hiccups in the gidy up every once in a while um but overall we are able to
039provide kids with the access that they need and adults with the access that they need the next um area I'd like to bring up is Copa which is the children's online privacy protection act and um essentially this one says that we are going to make sure that um information is not collected from kids that's not appropriate and this is really focuses on um mostly students kids who are 13 and under uh but we really extend this and make sure that we are um protecting the information that's shared about kids and what kids can share uh this was first passed in 1998 has been reviewed uh every 5 years and was just recently renewed with no real change uh next up is one that we're really really happy with and this is deck um and there's
040a very specific reason that we call this deck this stands for Deerborn educational curriculum but really really it's so that I can do this one little joke and that is it's time to get all hands on very good um and and what that is is this is our view of the educational curriculum that we provide now last year we paid another another provider for to do this for us however it was something that was kind of confusing for teachers to use um and it meant that not a lot of uh teachers used it as well as it would could be we also experienced a couple week outage with it because they were not doing proper backups so what we're doing this year is instead of paying somebody else for it we've implemented our very own
041open-source solution um which means that we house it we own it we have it we control it and this is something that's still under development but I'd like to give you a quick look at this um and I have to go back this is kind of like dance I have to go backwards and sideways here um deck Works looks like this it is very clean and and straight forward teachers sign in using the same credentials that they do for their email and for signing into a computer sounds like a little thing but not having to remember another username and another password lowers the barrier def I it's a little thing but it matters yeah when they when you first look at this there's two ways of looking at the curriculum you can look at it
042by Department which works really well mostly for secondary because secondary is frequently set up that way however for elementary you can also look at it by grade level so we provide flexibility um whichever way teacher is more comfortable looking at it I'm secondary so we're going to switch back to Department uh in uh in this we've laid out each section of the courses by the way that makes sense for those courses so for example Elementary is laid out by marking period um math is laid out in a way that makes sense to Math teachers very linear one step at a time and what we have is it if they click on the course they can also click on the course description and this will bring up the pacing guide for for teachers and it's right
043there in one window that they can look at makes it very easy for the the teachers to use and it also has pacing guide this is math was pacing guide for the entire year and then pacing guide for six for just the sixth grade as well next they can take a look at the course summary what this does is this shows all the units that are part of that course and it's all tied to the common core standards so teachers don't have to go looking to another site they don't have to go outside of where they're doing the common core standards are right there tied to that unit so they are clear with with what's happening and why it is that they're teaching each distri area we also provide learning targets which are all of
044the common core standards that would be um taught and we're working with the different departments to become even more specific than the common core standards and break those down into things that are very very usable objectives by course then we have this neat little unit calendar which gives an overview of what the teacher is um addressing so you have these bars that tell you the time frame and These Bars you can click on and go directly to the that unit so it's very well self-contained here it shows the desired results uh again tied to the Common Core we can enter e um the essential questions gives you the big View and the enduring understandings and then all the resources are available for teachers right there so we're developing these with the our various curriculum groups
045um and they're doing a a a really nice job of that um and this just makes this very usable for teachers and um very very user friendly and this is something that again we are developing and we've made a lot of strides in so it is uh it's coming along it allows us to customize it to what the teachers need so that it is not something that just looks nice it's not just a great board presentation I hope but it also it also impacts students in the classroom and teachers and that's the that's the part that I'm really proud of because I think this makes it so we can communicate we can get everybody on the same page there is um one more thing that uh I want to address um and that is um
046our website um we're working on a slight redes design of our website um it's going to have a lot of commonalities if you're comfortable using our website it won't be completely different but there are going to be some substantial differences when we designed our website six years ago most people used a desktop computer to to access the web now um an awful lot of people are using these or um even more so these to um to access the website and then there's a few things that we wanted to address as well we're now providing a lot more services for parents we're providing a lot more services for students so we wanted to kind of pull those out as separate um tabs I'm going to switch back over here this is a preview this is uh
047again is still under development but one of the things that you'll see is we still the same tabs similar tabs up here um we do have the schools tab we'll go straight to schools so a lot cleaner uh a lot better organized um and then we have a parents Tab and a student tab but really what happens is this is called a responsive design and what that means is that if you're on a mobile device it's going to it's going to look a little bit different if here we go when we shrink this down you'll see that main menu switches over to a mobile menu so it becomes easier to use the same Tabs are there but they're presented in a more logical way for a smaller device so the other it just makes it
048easier for um for phone users to access and if as soon as we get large enough again it switches back to a more full-featured design and as well the other thing that we're really working on is we're making the design a little bit flatter with multiple ways of getting to the same spot because what we really want to avoid is trying to have somebody think like I think or think like the web designer thinks but rather looking at it from a variety of perspectives um we've gotten some feedback from parents from community members from Realtors to say what are you looking for and how would you think to get there so we're we're cleaning that up as well can I just uh interrupt just recently I've had two Community people one was looking for um
049policies our policies and the other was looking for U uning contract information and they couldn't find it so I dug around and you're absolutely right it takes a lot of G could be here could be there you know needs to be a little more direct for people that aren't at your level yeah well we're working it's not just my level though we're working real hard at at how we do that then one of the challenges that we face is there's so much information um and that we need to provide and so much information that we do provide it's there you just have to find yeah that and that's why we're trying to create multiple Pathways to kind of get the same way and we're really taking this from the perspective of okay I'm a parent
050what is it I would be looking for how would I like to find it um and talked to some parents and said okay and just watched how you know here's here's what you want to find how would you find it and we're watching them go through it so we can make sure we provide those links to get in where they need to be and I had someone that was looking for the contracts because they were intrigued with some of our um you know unique uh agreements and and it wasn't apparent it wasn't you know people of all kinds try to get into our website and find information trusty m down I had a parent and this was U last year but they were looking for something specific uh regarding the Collegiate Academy and I said
051I know it's there it was and I went home and I tried to find and I did it was listed under the date that that was presented or something obscure that a parent would never be able to find it that way so I'm really glad to hear that as well and we are cleaning up those programs those programs will have a separate area um we're working to kind of standardize so that all of our departments um have a consistent look and feel to it um and again just make it easier for people to find the basic information that they want and then as they delve deeper to make sense for them yeah wonderful wonderful I take a quick since we're on this detour The Detour um our our Parent Connect is that something that we
052have I mean we have a link to it but do we have control over that at all because you cannot book bookmark that page because when you come back to it all the options are gone so the only way to get to it is to go through the whole website um maybe if we can't control that maybe we should think about putting a link on the main page somewhere so that it's not um it's not completely obscure but it's very easy on a mobile device to hit something else like the student connect or you know it's um and that is one of the reasons that we have a parent Tab and Parent Connect link is going to be right there right for it's like words that are right next to each other so if you're
053not and actually the The Parent Connect and I didn't didn't show that page The Parent Connect has a big Square block because we recognize that's what most parents are are doing yeah when you're trying on the fly to find out what your kid's not doing it doesn't make it any easier when uh you can't get there it's an important piece of information for parents yeah absolutely but that is something we we can provide a link to it but that's not a website that we right have control over um I do want to note just a couple of other things um you'll see big blue button down here and this is a project that we are actually working on with the Mozilla foundation and we've actually got gotten grant money that we've worked with um big
054blue button on um and big blue button the big blue button company to develop uh HTML 5 uh um versions of their software big blue button does video conferencing so it allows us to share students to share with other students and teachers to share with students and HTML 5 is important because it allows for iPads to be used so it's um flash is something that's going away uh mobile devices do not support Flash anymore and most video conferencing software uses flash so we're a conduit for the big blue button foundation and the Mozilla Foundation to get this done so that all across the world we can use this in education um and that'll help not only our students but everybody another project that we're really working on is the Moodle Hub and we call Moodle
055iearn what we're really working on is we're working with other Educators around the state to be able to share courses online courses online materials to again to leverage some of the good things that not only we're doing in Dearborn but with other Educators from around the state um we're going to benefit because there's some excellent teachers uh that we haven't been able to bring into Dearborn and we can take advantage of some of their Knowledge and Skills um and it makes for that sharing just to be um very very simple so we're kind of part of a state initiative to work on that as well and if you'd like me to talk about the other stuff I'd be happy but I love his passion it is for technology trusty mcdonal I have a question you
056talked about uh the deck program and I love the fact that that was customized to fit our needs are there any other areas and I'm assuming that's saving us quite a bit of money are there other areas where we could find sure um you'll see Zebo listed on there Zebo is another open source sof software package that we've put on um Dearborn High School came to us and said they wanted to do a wall of fame um if you've been over there you've seen the monitor that they have running and usually digital signage is actually pretty expensive and there's maintenance fees that we have to keep up with uh instead of that we implemented Zeo absolutely free they have control of it and that's something that we can replicate in other places as well and
057we are looking at doing that um as you know as we as we move along um we've put in the the a notification system that was absolutely free so if we need to push out anything to computers that are in the district we can do it immediately um so it gives us some control over that we have by putting in Moodle uh which again we call I learn and and doing some training um Chris kenberg who's our Web Master absolutely phenomenal um he and I frequently go to schools and we just hang out for the day and we work with we provide professional development for teachers that's what they needs uh so different hours we get different teachers have different questions and they're at different points in their in their Journey on providing Blended learning
058so we're able to provide that kind of support right then and right there uh and we have all the tools in place so that teach can take advantage of that and use that I think the website is a work in progress and yeah the the website's always going to be a work in progress um you know again Wild West things change rapidly couple years ago we wouldn't really have predicted that as many people would be using mobile phones to access the web as they are now well if you could you would have made us a lot of money good um and and what's going to happen in a couple of years you know we have guesses but it's not saying we're absolutely right gu yeah well I'm I'm sure that you and and Chris kinberg
059are on top of it and always looking at the latest and the greatest seeing what works for us and I I hope that I hope that at the end of the day my passion is really for student learning the technology stuff is fun but it's a way for us to really support kids learning at the end of the day and that's where that's that's why we're doing this it's about student learning not about the technology yes ma'am that's a way to provide it and we appreciate it any other questions from the board thank you very much I wish I could come up with some of these names I think I might hang out with them and uh get some professional development myself next item action items special consideration of an action item uh there are
060two supplements 12 and 13 uh 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 we will exclude these from the motion below I believe 9 and 10 you need to do a roll call call does the bond need to be separated or can it be done does not need to be separated you want to do the resolution doesn't have to it's up to you guys don't we use have don't we have a roll call usually on expulsion yes which is 13 oh that's right Mr Barner do we need a roll call on the fond make you you would like to on the bond we do need a roll yeah I think so TR l so that's seven to
061make a comment on 9 10 and 13 so far I'm sorry I'd like to make a comment on number two and number three okay um did you want to make a comment on number eight yes I will after you vote okay just a comment you don't want to hold no so I guess we have uh 9 10 and 13 F correct right wa a minute okay please recommended action move that action items numbered 1 through 13 be approved as recommended in this agenda with the exception of 9 10 and 13 so moved support would you like to ask your questions now or mine is a question it's a comment comment so the comment is this I uh read the names of people on the Committees there are maybe two of them here and I would
062just like and I did not see any women on that committee I would just like to say but sometime that's partially my fault well I know it is because I couldn't take time off of work I was supposed to be on that I mean maybe I missed someone she sat in on one but I don't think she was a permanent member of the committee but in any case um I just want to say that generally speaking our I feel that our committees should be as diverse as possible that's the way we get the best decision making um and particularly now I don't want to throw any stones at Architects but uh and I have to be careful you know when you're at a public facility sometimes the bathrooms uh people view them differently women men
063I mean sometimes women end up waiting longer than men so um so I just think that we want have our committees as broad as possible as diverse as possible we don't put urals in the in the women's I wasn't going to I was not going to go there I wasn't sure I didn't want to be beeped out or anything but uh I mean class sex race religion I we we for the best decision for uh you know a crowd source is the best decision so as broad of uh committee as we can get and I noticed that there were no women on this committee so did this start out I just started a new job I couldn't take time off of work so and rock s was one Nei Nam but I'm just making the
064point not criticizing the commit all right I just wanted to say although that's true and it's a good point I believe the firms that were um hired a lot of them had women Associates that would be part of that yeah part of that so so there will be mhm still on the job work done and we did look for diversity among the firms that we interviewed AB as opposed to in the interviewing committee I was very pleased just as a on the side comment um at the choices uh for the Architects I'm I'm happy to see that you know we kind of split up the work a little bit we've we've had uh good results from both of these organizations and I'm sure they'll do a very good job on these projects too I'm not
065familiar with the construction firm but I trust that you guys the one that's done the work before it's just a different name different name same for okay I didn't recognize it I think Kudos should also be given to the individuals that negotiated these contracts after we decided how the work would be allocated because there was a significant discount in the amount of money that were being charged good Ahad yes and so I called them good news and bad news called them with good news that they could get the contracts if they were willing to lower their rates so we did get significant savings you tough so you're tough good for you it's our money that was the direction it's our money that's what I mean we have to watch every pen s okay that any
066other questions or comments on the items hearing none we'll attach a unanimous affirmative Ro call may I comment on number eight please I we do have Mr Greg oi here in the audience who you just approved as the new principal Stout Greg if you could come up and looks like you have some family members here we're going to want to meet I also as Greg is coming up uh he comes to us but he used to be here I think if I remember right I don't have in my notes you went to uh Bryant and derborn high and Henry hag elementary elementary so uh a long term and I think your father-in-law used to be an administrator in our district my father-in-law is uh or was Dr Art Neville okay both my parents who are
067with me are also products of Dearborn schools my my father's a Dearborn High graduate and my mom's an ETA Ford graduate I'm not sure how that happens did they'll have to share the story it happens so but I have I have my mother and father with me today rich and an my wife Christine my seventh grade son Brendan and my mother-in-law ly very perfect so thank thank you very very much uh for entrusting Stout Middle School to me um it's a responsibility they take very very seriously um you'll be be very proud of the accomplishments and the leaderships that the students there show thank you believe I read that you were also School Board member in Leonia correct oh yes yes I was and I I don't envy you any of your position um the
068last uh last seven years have not been a fun time to be a school board member so um I was I was on the board for five and a half years and uh um I I can't say I entirely miss it it's a it's a tough job especially in these times I know being a principal is kind of a really difficult position to so I think I'd rather sit on this side of the table it's kind of nice though because you have a perspective that uh where we sit and how we have to make decisions and I'm on Wayne County Association and some of the Leonia people downard and some of them I've worked with for years so good board good board thank you so we thank you and your family for being here tonight
069and with that you don't have to stay for the rest of meeting only been here for a couple hours sorry about the delay I'm going to let you normally we're much quicker at this call a meeting thank you can we return to the items we need want the summary first we still got do you want to do the summary sure okay okay item one was the approval of warrants which are items for payment by the district and have been reviewed by the administration items 2 through 4 was the approval of non-instructional and instructional Personnel items for p12 item five was the approval of the financial statement six was the approval of the appointment of principal at Stout Middle School seven the approval of sale of bonds eight was the approval of stout principal 11 was
070the approval of donations uh 12 was the approval of fifth grade social studies books and materials number nine please number nine uh recommended action move that the board approv the resolution authorizing issuance sale and delegation of 2014 building and site bonds as per board report 13- 73 some of support any questions on that item none do we have a roll call please usin Barry yes Joseph Guido yes Mary Lane yes yes roxan McDonald yes Amy yes James School Master yes president Adams yes number 10 number 10 recommended action move that the board support resolution opposing open carry firearms and schools for board report 13-7 so and support any questions or comments on that tesse lane will we be forwarding that to the places that we've mentioned I believe the uh resolution itself says where it
071will be copy yes it does and then also we had an email asking also from that was IPS an board member yes I think this actually would be a good topic to put on the website with contact information for parents to be able to contact the legislature maybe with a quick link good idea you know with some email addresses to uh blast to everyone because it's an issue that affects everyone absolutely and there are more and more districts that are taking this position so I'm proud to be one of them yes we will do that agreed uh okay roll call roll call please Usain Barry yes Joseph Guido yes Mary Lane yes roxan McDonald yes Amy shellis yes James School Master president Adams yes number 13 item 13 move that the Dearborn Board of Education
072having heard and considered the evidence in the cas case of an O Smith School student shall be permanently expelled from O Smith Middle School and the Dearborn Public School District for one year 180 days so mve support any comments or questions on this item another difficult one as always roll call please ran Barry yes Joseph quido yes Harry Lane yes roxan McDonald yes shellis yes James School Master yes president Adams yes next it discussion items none acknowledgement of Correspondence I believe we all received it was been kind of quiet I sorry whatever everybody's busy getting ready for the holidays hopefully we'll we'll catch up in January next item uh Board of Education Affairs board member committee and organization reports I know the finance committee met tonight the finance committee met you saw the results once
073again congratulations not that we lost $2.9 million but we really were yeah gained $300,000 can you appreciate that yeah any other uh just yeah um also the building and site committee met twice to hire a construction manager and two architectural firms and uh as usual everyone before us was very well qualified it was a tough decision could have been any in my opinion could have been any of the groups that presented and it's uh it's hard to watch a group put that much effort into it not be successful but there can only be one so I think uh based on it was a lot of hard work and I think one took a a half a day both of them oh yeah both of them took part of a day yeah there was a lot
074of good questions asked and and answered and I think we made a very good decision so we should see a good results uh with our bond funds sounds like the committee was very thorough trusty Lane you have a comments trusty School Master mentioned previously the finance committee and I just want to make a note that we would like to have the finance committee meet on uh the hfcc um item in the audit report so uh we'd like to do that as soon as possible so that not that we want any more meetings uh before the holidays but so that we can turn it over our responsibilities Dr Jens is here so that next year we can turn over our responsibilities and be assured that uh the new incoming finance committee is perfectly satisfied uh that
075all measures have been taken perhaps 6:00 on Monday before the board meeting would that be appropriate okay you will uh email the committee and let them know confirm that Dr jenta yes thank you very much any other reports next I board member commentary Jesse Lane um I would just like to thank superintendent Wiston for uh returning the music program um to the middle schools uh we all know that art and music is particularly important it's not mandated by the curriculum but it's mandated by uh what we know to be good good rounded education for our citizens so I'm very glad that we've been able to retain as much art and music in our schools as we have when so many other districts have cut so thank you superintendent Wiston it's something that I know that
076our community feels it's particularly important because they've appeared many many times here to uh to oppose any music cuts and and we all know that uh music education and art both uh stimulate the brain and and uh help people overall to become um good citizens so thank you for that restoration I think we all got an email from a student yes thanking this as well which I really appreciate went out of his way to to send us a cuz I think he had sent a previous email he was very concerned about not having the program so it was nice that he did email us again after it was reinstated C MCD um it had been mentioned that perhaps we could get some students uh in the higher grades who are accomplished or really enjoy Arts
077and Music to help um interest recruit recruit that's a good word the um students in younger grades has that been working they are working on that the art music staff are very good at at you not using students but utilizing thank you utilizing students uh to go out and interest other students in art and music and we just have to concentrate on that because we all can talk about how important it is but when they make their class schedule uh choices if they don't pick it it's difficult so we need to get students interested in it and we have a great new music te a music teacher from um uh snow that is taking over the program and any any of you know him know he's outstanding loves music and he'll get the program built
078so well while we're mentioning that maybe we could uh extend that to video as well so uh it is uh I did hear a student talking recently about uh the demand for sign language at Dearborn High and it's really nice to see uh students recruiting other students it's the way to fill classes it's the way to fill your shes when you move on it happens with a lot of our programs though like the very center the students go and speak and and it's good citizenship for them yeah absolutely trusty Barry you had a com like trusty Guido said that uh construction manager firms and architecture firms were all more than qualified any one of them could have taken on that job but once we got past the price we threw in there we were trying
079to find the connection to Dearborn either employees or supporting the community what have you and I think we did that very confident that with the firms that we chose so I'd like to see that superintendent I'd like to see that continue with other contracts to we awarding try to keep the tax money in Dearborn or coming back to Dearborn just uh not just on contracts I I'm always happy to see it when we hire our own as far as employees as well people with Dearborn ties uh invest more they're invested in the community and MH and these two particular firms performed well for for us in the past so sure uh it's a known commodity and that helps also um any other comments next what about wishing everyone a happy holiday you know that's a
080wonderful comment that's a great comment a lot of a lot of holidays coming there are a lot of holidays uh coming up so uh we uh we extend our best wishes to all of you for a very pleasant holiday season enjoy it next it request for information and or future agenda items I slipped you I did get three as we were sitting here from board members we'll get those slow night I know that's good any other requests seeing none next item superintendent reports just three things real quick you do have them in front of you but dearborn's Got Talent the dearborn's youth Affairs commission is announcing their spring Community event for all high school students called dearborn's Got Talent whether it's the musicians dancers singers comedians strugglers um musicians gymnasts or any other type of
081performance you're encouraged to participate a grand prize will be awarded high schools can signed up at the lunch tomorrow and Wednesday at their lunch hours at the high schools uh live auditions will be held from 2 to4 and 6 8 January 13 and 15 at etel 4 the show will be Friday ail ail 4th at the Ford and Performing Art Center for more information you can contact Romy kadu at Dearborn High Julia harder at for Fortson Celeste Holmes at etel Ford or Jackie re and the the uh this is really a driven event by students so this is completely planned for and put together by students response to bullying video contest uh we're excited to announce this year's big video contest open to all deer public school students and staff the team is looking for
082Creative videos that show how our District's core values relate to our response to bullying program it's a great opportunity for students and staff to work on creating a video that will deliver a positive message reinforcing the good work being done in our district and could even save a life because of the message so uh get those creative juices flowing and pick up those cameras and start creating your video today all videos must be submitted by Friday February 14th to Jackie r or the Communications office third and last fortson's PTSA dine and laugh scholarship event the Forts and PTA presents their first annual dine and laugh scholarship fundraising event Thursday December 19th at biblo Banquet Hall in Chase Road the event will feature comedians Amir zahar and Ron Taylor tickets are $30 and will benefit the
083Forts and PTSA scholarship fund and you all have handouts on all three of these events that were publicized that sounds like a fun event unfortunately I've got another Diner a half to go to that L that's it no other no other next item future meeting dates Monday December 16th 2013 h hfcc meeting at 700 p.m. at the Andrew mazara services and Conference Center in the Rosena boardroom at Henry Ford Community College Monday January 13th 2014 p12 Board of Education organizational meeting at 6:45 p.m. at the administrative service center in the Frank Frenchie boardroom Monday January 13 2014 p12 Board of Education meeting at 700 p.m. at the administrative service center in the Frank Frenchie boardroom and Tuesday January 21st 2014 hfcc meeting at 700 p.m. at the Andrew mazera services and Conference Center in the
084Rosena boardroom at Henry Ford Community College and you added the meeting uh next week at that's a committee meeting committee meeting okay okay happy holidays to everyone enjoy the season we're joury thank you