001Good evening. This meeting is a meeting of the Board of Education and public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and it's not to be considered a public community meeting. The agenda reserves two periods for public participation and those wishing to receive a personal response from the board or superintendent should complete a public comment form available at the meeting entrance or on our website. Upon request to the superintendent, the district shall make reasonable accommodation for a person with disabilities to be able to participate in this meeting. Hope, can you please call the roll? Mr. Albert. >> Here. Mr. Bird. Here. Here. Donald. Here. Isaac. Here. Carol. Here. Superintendent O'Connell. Bridget. Here. All right. Um we have meeting minutes from our March 9th uh meeting on the Board of Education. The attached meeting minutes
002from March 9th 2026 calendar year. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the meeting minutes, please say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Uh board policy provides that the superintendent of schools shall prepare an agenda for all board meetings as directed by the president of the Board of Education. Do I have a motion? I move that the Board of Education approve the agenda as presented. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the agenda, please say I. I. Any opposed? All right. We are beginning this evening with a formal public hearing regarding policy 5207, uh which is anti-bullying. So, at this time, if there's anyone here who would like to speak only on the policy, the anti-bullying policy,
003we are available to take uh your comments at this time. Okay, seeing no one who is here to speak on the subject of anti-bullying specifically, um we will move on to our school presentations. Um tonight we have career development facilitator Caitlin Nelson and Chief Academic Officer Melody Nowak who are going to share information about our Dexter High School second career fair which took place on March 2nd. Thank you and welcome. Can I just say switch on here? Uh yes, push and hold. Yeah, there you go. Okay. All right. Perfect. Good evening. Thank you all for having me uh tonight and giving me the opportunity to speak to you. I am here to uh give you an overview of our 9th through 12th grade career fair that we uh hosted on Monday, March 2nd. Um this
004is going to uh schedule and inform you not only of the event itself, but also reflect on the impact that it had on our students. So, this year's career fair brought together our students, um our staff members, and our community members as well as our industry partners, excuse me, with one clear goal, um to help our students with their post-secondary So, our ninth grade career fair, this event was designed to give our students, our high school students, meaningful exposure to real world career pathways, helping them understand the skills, um education, training requirements, as well as personal qualities that are required across a wide range of professions. This annual fair um supports our district commitment to preparing our students for post-secondary success, and we know that means entering the college or university route, skilled trades, direct
005entry into workforce or military. So, we hosted Monday, March 2nd, this dynamic career fair that we invited a diverse range of professionals from various career fields to come and speak to our students. We had four core goals in mind. The first of being expanding their career awareness. We know that students often have um a handful of professions that they know about, but we want to expand their knowledge so they can make informed decisions. So, this spirit fair helps them uh see the possibilities that they may not have previously considered. Um we also wanted to connect learning to real world application. So, we had asked our speakers to highlight the skills that they're learning in the classroom, as well as our Dexter Learner Profile competencies, and how those translate to workplace success. So, now they start
006to see the value in what they're learning and how that is going to assist them um for life after high school. We also want to continue to build community partnerships. Um this fair does strengthen our relationships with our community partners, our industry partners, as well as our parents. Um and this is going to help create future opportunities for our students through job shadowing, internship, mentorship, um and employment. It also helps us build um a diverse range of potential guest speakers that will help not only our ninth through 12th graders, but any students at any grade level. So, if we have a classroom teacher that's working on a unit, um and they're looking for a guest speaker, they can contact me and I can connect them with the most appropriate persons to visit their class. That
007has most likely been volunteer background checked because for us we are because they attended our fair. An overview of the event. This was a morning event, so a half-day morning event. Um there was approximately 1,000 students in attendance spanning grades 9 through 12. We had 100 different presenters um that morning that represented all of the career clusters that we see in our Michigan career cluster framework. This is not a fluid event where students walk through different booths and tables. This is a structured event. So, students selected three sessions, three 35-minute sessions that they wish to rotate through based on their interests. Some of the highlights, uh we had an aviation panel, military panel, FBI special agent, bomb technician, sports neurologist, forensic scientist, journeyman pipe fitter, principal cloud architect for digitally baseball, and many more. Some
008of the improvements that we made, so the enhancements and improvements we made came from feedback that we received last year. And one of the um big feedbacks that we did get was that students wanted more context what they were signing up for. So, this year we had asked all of our participants to submit um a short biography as well as daily list of responsibilities, and then we compiled that into a document that our students received and were able to review before making their selections. We also introduced four specialized panels. We had an aviation, military, um legal, and nursing panel. These panels were facilitated and moderated by a staff member. We have to have a certified staff staff member in all of our sessions. I created moderator scripts with specific questions for the panelists and their
009specialties, and the staff member ensured that the flow and the structure of the session was smooth as well as student engagement. Um the panel also allowed students to explore all different types of specialties within those high interest career fields and gain exposure from various perspectives as well as multiple career journeys. We also coordinated duplicate careers. So, we had a few two physical therapists, two pediatric surgeons, two registered dieticians. Instead of only inviting one to participate, we wanted to invite both of them. We wanted to also be efficient with our time and our space. So, I had reached out to those participants and asked if they would be willing to coordinate their efforts for shared presentation time. Every single one of them was willing to do so. Most chose to coordinate together and present as a
010mini panel. Um this was great for our students to see and very valuable because now they see that they're modeling that collaboration. Um and this also created a richer discussion and really enhanced they enhanced each other's discussions. Um the feedback from this was very positive and um in fact most of the people that I was working with and the two of us already knew each other anyway, so it actually flowed very well. Another improvement was within our student selections form. So, both Kimmy and I worked very closely together to improve the selection form. Students were submitting a Google form, but we wanted to make it as efficient as possible. So, in the back end of the form we were able to code maximum occupancy controls. So, once we had a list of our speakers, I
011was able to assign them different spaces and then create decide what the maximum capacity would be for that space. So, for a classroom size the maximum capacity would be 30 students. For the one of the music rooms, we decided 60 was the maximum. So, as students selected their sessions, the availability of that session would decrease in real time. Once it reached maximum capacity, it would close out and then a student had to make another selection. If we had a speaker cancel, on my end of the form we could delete them from the form and then it would once you execute those changes, it would automatically redistribute those students into available sessions. This was very time efficient last year. There was a lot of hand moving the balance. So, this was wonderful and Bo and all
012of his technological knowledge has been very very uh he's been an amazing partner to work with on this. And we have some ideas for next year which I will share hopefully in the fall. The next few slides are going to showcase our student feedback as well as pictures that Ms. Melanie McIntyre took the morning of the event. So, the question that these quotes pulled from was within the student surveys that they were submitted after the event concluded in advisory. And the question was, "What was your biggest takeaway from the event?" These are our 12th graders. So, this was our aviation panel that was located at the CPA. One senior said, "I had a presenter for what I committed to do next year and I absolutely loved it and it confirmed that I committed to to
013the right choice." Um another said, "Don't wait around for opportunities, make your own." This is uh from the question of overall, "How would you rate the quality of the presentations?" This is a student sample size of 79 seniors. So, 49% said excellent, 45% said good, 5% said fair. Our 11th graders. This is a picture of our FBI bomb technician and that is a student in suit. He allowed our students to try it on. Um one junior said, "Based on my experience with the career fair, I learned a ton about a career I have interest in and potentially found my dream job." And another said, "Not all career paths are linear and some people go through a lot of things before they find their passion." Here we have a sample size of 118 11th graders. 37%
014said excellent, 52% said good, 8% or uh excuse me, fair and then 1% poor. Of all of the students that submitted their surveys, two students did say poor. I met with those two to understand a little bit more about their experience. Um the morning of the event, we had one very late cancellation and a few no shows. Unfortunately, one of the students that rated it four had two of their three sessions that did not show up. So, when that happened, we had staff members located in those spaces, and they all had a master document of where all of the speakers were located and their room numbers as well as all of the students' schedules. So, we allowed those students to then pick where they wanted to go. So, every student did rotate through a session.
015Um I have some more um feedback that I will give you on that in a few slides of how we plan on minimizing that next year. Um and then the other student that rated it four said that he felt as though he wished it was more interactive. He felt as though they were just talking to them or at them, and he wished that it was a little more engaging, which I also will touch on in this slide here shortly. 10th grade student feedback. This is uh our military panel, and that's our strength and conditioning coach there in the corner, Coach Chris Whitaker, uh who was moderating that panel. The nursing board was amazing, and the structure was very good. And then another sophomore said, "I learned that working in education is definitely what I want
016to do." This is a sample size of 154 10th graders, and 32% said excellent, 59% said good, and 8% said poor or fair. And our ninth graders. So, this picture is of our electrician located in Mr. Ivan's woodshop room. I learned all the ways to become a pilot, their salary, sacrifices they have to make, and the experiences they get. There are also many possible jobs in aviation, they all pay well, and they need more people to become pilots. And then another, "I learned that the military is a job with many benefits and has many misconceptions." So, 159 of our ninth graders said that the of were ex- 33% said excellent, 59% said good, and 6% said fair. Some overall student quotes, talk to people, create a network, this could land you a great job. It's
017okay to fail and make mistakes and to not be so hard on yourself. And graphic arts is definitely in my future and I'm I'm inspired to start creating. This is a picture of Mr. Joshua New, who is a visual artist. He brought a lot of his work for students to look at. Um one of his most notable pieces is he created an album cover for the band Mumford & Sons. Um students really enjoyed rotating through them. And then some overall student feedback. So this is a a sample size of 517 students, so roughly 50% of our student body. 36% said excellent, 55% said good, 7% said fair, and 0.6% said poor. Our speaker feedback. Loved the time sessions, was perfect. Also check-in was much easier this year. I was extremely impressed by how organized and
018well-run this event was. Looking forward to participating in future years. And keep encouraging participation and engagement from the students. We had some great discussions in my sessions. 70% of our speakers felt as though the experience was excellent, 26% said good, and then two speakers thought it was fair. Um this was due to limited AV capabilities. Those two presenters uh would have preferred to present a slideshow, and unfortunately not all of our spaces supported that. So we have added that to the list of considerations and improvements for next year. And our outcomes. So this slide is going to highlight how the outcomes of our event directly support the core goals that we set at the beginning of the planning process. So students engaged in the career exploration by interacting with professionals across multiple industries and gaining
019uh exposure to real pathways that they may not have considered before. We strengthen our educational pathways by helping students understand the training, the education and certifications, and the post-secondary options that are connected to each career. Our partnerships as well as uh our partner our participation local organizations reinforce our community engagement as well as networking opportunities. Um they allow students to build those early connections with employers, community partners, and industry experts. And then finally, our skills development and learner profile connection. Our students had an opportunity not only to learn about the skills, but also practice the skills. They're practicing communication. They're practicing professionalism. They're working on their curiosity. And they're learning about these skills that are essential for success after high school. Our considerations for next year, I would like to uh provide a participant meeting
020a month prior to the event. I believe that email is such an incredible efficient way to communicate, but I think that face-to-face touchpoint is very important. It could also help minimize those last-minute cancellations as well as no-shows. Um this is an opportunity for us to get in front of our participants and um essentially review the goals of the day, help clarify questions by you know, clarifying questions and answers, as well as um making sure that we have our materials on track. Um my thoughts are to provide an evening time in our CPA um sometime a month before the event. Um another idea, but I think would be easy to execute, would be quick activities tied to each presentation. This seems to be the feedback from last year and this year. We have about 30 minutes
021of advisory time before sessions begin and approximately 30 minutes after sessions conclude. We could potentially shave off a little advisory time before and after to extend our session time to allow for um an activity. And it needs to make sense for the career. So, it could be a brief mock interview for the career, um a scenario or problem that students have to solve, um a what would you do challenge, a quick skill demonstration, um speakers could bring in a piece of equipment or a tool um that is safe and hands-on. Students could really start to see that work uh come to life, visualize the work. So, this is where that participant meeting could also come in handy. So, if someone has a question on what they could do, we could meet and I could help
022support. But, I think this will really elevate this experience for our students. Um another uh consideration would be benchmarks within the feedback surveys. We need to have context tied to what these ratings mean so respondents understand what they're evaluating. So, what does excellent mean? Means to me might not mean excellent to you. So, making sure that we do have these benchmarks within our forms so that way we can have a consistent measurement of data, have the most accurate data possible. And then the final one is a possibility for next year, if it makes sense, a student-led panel. We do not necessarily want to have the same panels every year. Um in the fall, it's this is where I would love to leverage our Schoolinks data. In the fall, that first advisory, students will be asked
023to log in to their Schoolinks platform, update their profile with any experience that they gained over the summer, but a volunteer work, and then review their goals, and then update their goals. Then we could pull that career interest data, build our career fair based on that, and then potentially build our panels from that. So, an aviation panel may not make sense next year depending on that data, but a engineering panel might. Um and then a student-led panel could potentially be a possibility if we have 11th or 12th grader knows they want to be a lawyer, and we have a legal panel. They're like, "No, without a doubt, I want to be a lawyer." And they are happy to lead that panel, meet with me, we create a script, um which would also hopefully help engage
024um student body that is rotating through the sessions. When they see a peer that is facilitating a panel, so that's a potential uh for next year. But, I do I as though having 2 years um under my belt of organizing this, I'm understanding what's working really well and barriers that are there that are barriers to success and I think that these considerations will elevate the experience for our students next year. I think that's the presentation. If you have any questions. That's great. Thank you. I I actually got to attend this year. I didn't go last year, but I liked it. It was great. I don't I obviously did the military so uh what what 95 day job they're trying to present, but military knew Oh, one question that is kind of what possibly that is
025the numbers metrics are so much it would be good last year. There's so much It's you did your work, so I appreciate that. That is one. That's that's no uh and I would agree that probably need more time because it was a lot of actually question and then a bunch of that got thrown back. I don't know if I'm going to start sessions. uh especially with the kind of coaches I sent them up. We'll walk with them like what they should have done. I can't compare them to those two. Is there any consideration kind of goes on to use to let them out? uh Try and get to what they need. They'd be hard to send them up in the past years. What can I get some of our seniors that graduate to their senior
026year to college and see what they're maybe have them early late spring when they get out of school to do some sessions to say Hey, all you engineers, all you lawyers, I'll be here for an hour 2010 explain what I learned at the Boston Bell or at Analog Devices. You know how it is. Yeah, we have not considered that, but that's that's a good idea. It'd be a different type of sessions. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And do you want to take a moment to thank Caitlin and all of your efforts with this. This is no small undertaking. This is huge. Um working with that many community partners is a big job. All of the coordination, all of the communication, and not just with our community partners who are so thankful for because they're giving
027up a day of their time and all the preparation for it, but also a lot of coordination with the students and the teachers and all of the spaces. Um this is months and months of really um detail-oriented work. So, um really want to praise Caitlin for her work on that and Bokemi who did a lot of our um behind-the-scenes coding for our new tools, and that is going to be improved um yet even more next year turning it into an app um because we want it to be as user-friendly um as possible. I should write that down. Yeah, I was going to add as well that we were able to celebrate what an incredible thing career day was. And it also keeping up with meeting with students every day, with families every day. Uh we
028have all 5th through 12th graders on school days really thinking about what they're going to do post-graduation. Uh and so, while this event takes months of planning and preparation, it was a huge event. It's those little moments, too, right? So, Caitlin did a lot behind the scenes as well that really helped us think about how we prepare our future post-graduates. We might be having a mini career day at Wiley in June. Oh, you're talking about stopping by? Yeah. So, yeah, exciting things. Exciting things. Can I make that how many presenters you had? Maybe like how many Um we had 100 that will present that day. Um we thinking about next year, we want to utilize our spaces and and I think having panels to allow more to come in um and use those spaces efficiently.
029Do we need students to have 100 to 120 choices? Not necessarily. I think it can still be rich and utilizing all of those classrooms that have AV capabilities, but this is something we'll discuss next year. We also want those session sizes to be decent size. Some sessions with the more presenters you have, the more involvement you want to have in your sessions. Um which is not necessarily always You want them to be able to engage and ask questions and not be too large, but you also don't want it to be too small. So, it's a delicate balance in figuring out where that um line is. But, I think that we have some really good ideas for next year about um how to best What is our cap and how we're going to uh maximize di-
030diversifying all the speakers coming in, but also really maximizing our spaces. So, Yeah. Last year we had 120, but we found out after last year that was too many because some of our sessions were only three students, four students. So, we reduced it from 120 um presenters to 100. And with the panels, it really did make a huge difference. So, we'll probably stick around that number. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's really great to see the uh the follow-up for year two. So, thank you for for sharing that with us. Can we keep this on? I'm sorry. Uh sure. Oh. It is now time for our public participation. Um we have two opportunities for public participation at this meeting. This opportunity, um we allow each person to have up to 5 minutes to speak depending
031on the number of speakers. Those wishing to receive a personal response from the board or superintendent must complete a public comment form available at the meeting entrance. And uh we just ask that whoever speaks let us know your name, if you're with a specific organization, um and it just allows us to keep track of who we need to get back to. So, is there anyone who would like to speak this evening? Okay. Moving on to our administrative and board updates, uh starting with the superintendent. Uh thank you, Deborah. I was able to talk for our first few weeks before we had a conversation about cell phones with three community people. Good representation from staff members, secondary school teachers, district staff. Any board members are able to join, families, parents, grandparents. We had a student town
032hall. It was really nice mix of folks from our community. It was really positive conversation. Lots of small table talk conversations, large group share outs about how our students and our staff are experiencing cell phones in our schools, and what their hopes are for us as a board needs to think about shaping policy in response to state law to limit cell phone use during instructional time. So, terrific conversation, terrific considerations for us. Definitely opportunity to follow up with high school staff, while at school to get a little more insight, a little more information to think about as we receive policy, think about potential refinement, revision, and then how we're going to adapt that as well. So, terrific conversation. Really appreciate people coming out. We have commencement coming up soon. Here to admit it is just
033around the corner. If you have not yet had a chance to please respond to Mr. Email and let them know if you're going to be there. People we all are. It was very special to our graduates to have a board member. I will send it again. You need it, no problem at all. Uh When we come back from spring break, which will be on April 7th, as a reminder the 6th that Monday is off, so we come back on the 7th. We will pretty quickly get into testing season around the district. So, 3rd grade, 11th grade have a number of state tests happening. Many of them will be participating in the M-Step assessment. In 11th grade, they'll be taking the SAT, and then what previously was called the WorkKeys, now called the WorkKeys assessment. Our
034staff has been really working hard to get these set up and prepared. I know that we had a readiness check at the high school last week. So, things look good. We should be ready to roll. There's always a little bit of anxiety with a new testing platform, but I I we'll be ready. Last week we welcomed uh several terrific candidates for the first round of our next high school principal search. Uh we were able to invite back our top candidates for a second round interview, which will occur tomorrow after school. Candidates will work through four separate groups, a students, a room of family members, a room of staff, a room of administrators. It's two-hour interview, half an hour with each group. Uh at the end of the evening we'll ask people to give positive feedback
035on our candidates and recommend their top candidates to advance to a final round interview. And that would be a sit-down with myself and some central office speakers. Uh simultaneously, Barb and I will be calling reference checks on our top candidates to make sure that we're positioned and ready to potentially make an offer to the next principal of North High School. Uh we have some terrific people returning tomorrow evening. We're excited about next year. Last Monday, enrollment for the '26-'27 school year opened up. Uh to this date, so one week, we have 132 people registered already for next year. These are students that are not currently in the school district. Uh many of them are in our young fives and kindergarten, so 121 represent young fives and kindergarten. Currently we have roughly 75 current young fives,
036so it's a nice chunk of kids moving forward. Uh we have some high school students and five students spread out among the four grade levels. Uh we also offered and had 71 qualified applicants for school choice. Uh so we were able to offer those in the last week and a half or so as well. They're starting to express their interest. Uh every year with school of choice being able to offer positions, but they have until school starts that first week to let us know if they're coming or not. Uh so there are families that are currently enrolled in the school district pre-K to school district elsewhere and they want to continue. Uh so they apply to the school of choice to do that. We also have families that are looking at opportunities for their child
037around Southeast Michigan, so they may be wanting to come to us. Sometimes they're holding off on that and the last minute. I just want to make sure we're there. Uh but the numbers look terrific. They're right on the average for us, so we're looking good projection. I know as many districts are seeing a steep loss, we're looking to be being pretty steady. A positive outlook for sure. Uh other things I wanted to share, uh update uh are I think I have almost everything. I met with Ms. Hervey and Ms. Hall today to look at their high school schedule and what they've been uh challenging in the past. They are you know, they're feeling confident in where they're at. Uh about 90% of students have a complete schedule at this point. Uh so we're hoping we're
038well ahead of schedule uh in terms of getting students access to their courses for next year. That last week's talk about summer enrollments make good time for that. So things are heading in the right direction. Feel a great confidence that whoever is happy to leave after high school is in a position to really well to Otherwise, I think I've covered my piece. You have a few items to go through later. That's great. Ryan, if community members approach us and ask us about registration for school or kindergarten and young fives, can you remind us like where we should direct people? Yeah, Hope has done a terrific job on the website putting in really the same registration process. Can be uh there's a lot of information you need. Uh so she has a complete document that walks
039parents through the exact information you need. You're also always welcome to call any of our buildings. Our office staff are terrific at walking parents through the registration uh the process. We always welcome our doors. We've had people come in and we've sat down next to them to walk through the process because we know it can be a challenge. There's a lot of information, particularly if it's your first time ever doing it. Just want to make sure you're good. Have a good Yes, Mr. President. Perfect. Thank you so much. As somebody who just registered a student this week, I will say very, very helpful. I think you're very welcome. That's your third time, right? So Third time for me, but I still I still needed the document. Wonderful. Thank you. I do not have any updates
040this week, so we will move on to our student representative. Um, go ahead, Lloyd. All right. Well, Claire can Actually, Lloyd, I'm sorry. Can you grab that microphone so that you can be set? Thank you. I'm solo this week. I think Claire is doing tennis things. Speaking of spring sports, are in full swing. Baseball, softball, lacrosse, boys and girls, girls soccer, girls tennis, track. Speaking of four students of Decatur High School went to Adidas Track Nationals in Virginia. It was sunny, it was beautiful. Whatever. Um, and girls water polo. Spring sports in full swing, they're all excelling. Um, this past March, March 9th, we had uh, our NHS committee blood drive. Very successful. I was running the snack table. Very exciting. Um, Mr. Gruder touched on it, but um, we have a student group with
041the principal hiring process. I don't know the exact details of that, but it's happening. Very happy about that. Um, Dr. Gruder Club, again, in full swing. I need to check my dates on that, but Singin' in the Rain is coming and I have heard very, very good things. Mr. Gruder also touched on this. Test Fest is coming soon. As as much as it is not exciting to take tests, I do feel as prepared as I can from the admin side of things, and I think everybody knows what they're supposed to do if they want to know what they're supposed to do. I think the resources are there. We're ready. That's after spring break. Brand new tournament this past weekend. Uh, we had one student place third in prose in their category. This is one of
042the hardest tournaments that is not state. Very, very impressive. Speaking of states, that's in a month. We don't have a tournament until then. And the team will be preparing, preparing, preparing. Um, biggest news in my opinion. Sprout Love pulled up hell senior option. If you're not familiar with sprout love, it's a research based and funded very very good thing. $2,500 in the fundraiser total. That's basically all the students that you love to see that out of NHS. Speaking of NHS, work kids are joining. This Wednesday they will have their first meeting the sophomore class and a few juniors. And April 15th will be their official induction and our senior farewell. And it's a new officers as well, which is good. Um AP testing spring break. Oh, yes, the big thing. I promised you all I
043would have a great communication line set up and great responses. Got left undelivered by people in the grand advisory. I apologize. I'm going to make it happen next time. Claire and I are a little confused, maybe a little disappointed. It's okay. Speaking of the cell phone policy hearing if you can get something in advisory, that would be something we'd like to temporarily add to the summer. Have you heard about this? Cuz obviously there was a form, but it's after school, kids get busy. Um I know Claire and I both try to make it, both kind of come up with stuff, but yeah. That's basically all I have. It's easy busy busy next week. That's great. Thank you so much. You're almost to spring break. All right, moving on to consent items this meeting. Um we
044have a personnel request for an extended leave and we have our budget report. Do I have a motion? >> I move the board of education approve the consent items in bulk. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the consent items in bulk, please say I. I. Any opposed? All right, moving on to action items this evening. Um first up we have our policies for second reading. Earlier in the meeting we had a public hearing regarding policy 5207, the anti-bullying policy as required by law. This evening's packet also include includes that policy as well as policy 5301, compulsory attendance, absenteeism, and truancy, and policy 6231.01, management of the annual budget. All three policies were approved for first reading on March 9th and are presented for final approval
045this evening. I move that the Board of Education approve policies 5301, 6231.01, and 5207 for second reading and final approval. Second We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay, as it's an action item, let's do a roll call, please. Mr. Albright Aye. Mr. Curry Aye. Mr. Sugiyama Aye. Mr. Noble Aye. Mr. Fraser Aye. Ms. Pereira Aye. All right. Uh next up is our principal hire. This evening's packet includes a resume and recommendation for William Bill Harris for the position of principal for operations. Bill has served as interim uh principal for operations since November of 2025. I move that the Board of Education approve William Harris for a probationary administrator contract starting March 16th, 2026, on level 2D of the DAA Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? You are really
046lucky to get Bill. We've known him a long time. He is a terrific educator and he's a better person. Uh he has been such an asset in short time. It's great to have him back here. I had him become trialed out in basic as a favor and he kind of fell in love with the position. We'd love to have him here, so we're looking forward to making a longer term commitment to one another. Uh Bill's already taking on a lot of work and working with a terrific team inside of here. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. I feel very honored and grateful to have the opportunity. Um if you looked at my resume and previous experiences, you know I spent a lot of time in the neighboring districts. In over the course
047of those decades, I developed a real appreciation and strong value for a strong sense of community. My wife and I and children all went to school there. Brian gave me the opportunity here to to come to Dexter and resonated right from the get-go from the very first introductions with staff and administrators uh within Dexter and felt that nationally. So, looking forward to being able to support that work and that value. I've been very impressed with the staff and uh feel incredibly welcomed by them and looking forward to the months and years to come. That's wonderful. Thank you. Um we are going to do a roll call vote since this is an action item. This is Brudely. Aye. This is Polak. Aye. This is Zado. Aye. This is Rizer. Aye. This is Squires. Aye. Mr. Osborn.
048Aye. I'll go with aye. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. All right. Up next is our condo association directors. Our packet includes an an executive summary from Superintendent Brian Bruder and a resolution to appoint CS members directors to the Dexter Town Town Center Condominium Association. Myself, Elise Bruderly, Melanie Noack, and Brian Bruder have agreed to serve in this role. I move that the Board of Education nominate Elise Bruderly, Melanie Noack, and Brian Bruder as a director to the corporation and approve the attached resolution titled action by written consent to elect directors and officers for Dexter Town Center Condominium Association. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. I'm going to have Brian just give a quick summary to make sure everyone's clear on what we're doing. >> district has So, as the district has acquired
049a wellness center and a senior center thing, uh it has been the legal guidance since the origins of this project to dissolve the under the condo association. Uh as it stands now, uh the Dexter Town Center Condo Association is a governing body to one tenant, the Dexter Community Schools. So, we are essentially governing ourselves, so the only tenant. Uh there is no financial benefit to keep the system as it is. In fact, there are additional liabilities incurred by having a condo association. The other folks that are on property have created their own condo association, so they're good. They're just fine. Uh I This will allow the three of us to become officers in the Dexter Town Center Condo Association. We will then post an annual meeting project middle of May where the only action item
050will be to dissolve said association. That will then go to the Board of Education for approval and will also go to the Michigan Department of Treasury, so they're good. Uh so, these are just legal formalities, uh but the Dexter Community Schools when this all is done will continue to own operate the wellness center and senior center. Does anyone have any questions on that? Okay. All right. We can move forward to a vote then. Does this pull up? I. It's up. I. Right here. I. Laura. I. Audrey. I. Julie. I. All right. Last up is approving series one bid package three for Wylie Elementary School. We have a pretty significant motion that needs to be made and then we will uh have a little bit of discussion about it. All right. I move that the Board
051of Education award contracts for series one bid package number three Poland demolition, asphalt place, concrete base three, general trades, roofing, aluminum and glazing, drywall and acoustical resilient flooring, hard tile, painting, plumbing and piping, mechanical controls, electrical, earthwork and site concrete. As shown in the attached recommendation letter dated March 18th, 2026 and assigned to Granger for management for a total cost not to exceed 4 million, 640,346 dollars. I'll second that. Very well. Good evening. I'll second that place. Okay, we have a motion and a second and we have Greg here from Granger to just talk us through what we're doing here. So, the bid packages that uh our bid bid package number three is the uh Wiley addition headed towards the bus loop off of Wiley. And we have a little video here that will kind
052of show you what it will look like. Uh the all the categories that uh were just read are everything except uh steel, uh security, which is door hardware and cameras, and uh the resurfacing of the shelter. Uh those three didn't have enough bidders on the bid day, so we extended the dates just to get enough bidders. Uh and those will come to the next board meeting. Uh overall, the bids are 4.6 million uh and then the remaining work about 450,000 is our estimate for those. Uh we're well under the budget for this bid package of 5.6 million dollars. Uh so, we're recommending they uh move forward. Uh these were the uh low bidders on bid day. There was one bidder retracted their bid pretty immediately after bids were opened. They had clerical errors. They called
053us right away. Um I talked it over with our CFO um and our our director and myself and and our project manager on what all the errors were and uh while we will continue to have conversations that we can uh good conscience recommend them either for ourselves or more for that company. So, we're recommending the second bidder in that category. Uh otherwise, it low bidders on their bids uh and I think if we can we can play the video and we can kind of show you what it looks like. But, generally, it's seven classrooms plus bathrooms. Uh it's pretty much what you've seen before. Uh it also includes a bathroom accessible from the outside for the playground and possible uh And I'll play architect for a second here. This is what the classroom will look
054like. That's a teaching wall uh with whiteboards that can move to help out the storage or display screen or they can just be whiteboards. Uh many of the classrooms are linked for to allow for team teaching where they can be separated with operable partitions. There are lockers in the hallway. Um this has also been worked on quite a bit with the teachers and administration at Wiley. The circles on the floor will kind of allow for different teaching spaces in the halls. Uh a lot of glass to allow for visibility for those kids working out the hallways uh to be seen from teachers in the classroom. As I mentioned, those are the bathrooms for the spaces um and then this door that you can see right around the corner here, that is very similar to Beacon
055and Anchor an accessible bathroom from outside. Uh so kids on the playground uh or after school kids at bus loop can come out there and use that restroom instead of having to go into a building. Um due to the grade change we have both a ramp and a set of stairs to go in to Wiley go into this new addition here. That's where we connect to what is currently the um you know, the back entrance basically uh bus loop grade. And as Greg mentioned, so this project had we started we thought once by time speed up to 5.6 million dollars. So on paper just looking at similar projects at the scale probably 5.6 million dollars and we worked with the architects and CTE to really design out the space. Granger then took that information and
056gave us a more accurate estimate. We truly believe the cost could be and at that time yes and actually went up by about $300,000. So we would have been happy to have a conversation should we increase the budget to come out with that extra $300,000. Greg mentioned we went out to bid and in the three different categories of 53 categories we got four plus bidders, great response. Uh of the three categories that we are not there yet, uh Granger has been working the phones, calling for many of those contractors was an issue of time. They were taking on other jobs and completing other bids. So I know that Collins, his team, and the board get additional bids even with the plug values that Greg outlined so you can catch out a pretty good estimate of
057what those three items should be. We are still well under budget on the final project and that's what we're at. So about $500,000 is the official projected budget and so the $900,000 is the estimated budget after our Uh so just a terrific team effort from Granger and CTE here. Uh and as you can see the space is not over the top, but it is beautiful. It's functional. It can support teaching and learning in a lot of ways. Our staff are super excited to get in there. Bill has been working and will continue to work on the communication plan. We'll make sure that the Wiley community, as well as the S community, understand the timelines, the availability of space during the project. Bill, I don't know if you want to add to that, but Yeah, just
058a real quickly, we just sent out some communication with regard to all of the projects at the high school. Relatively speaking, the Wiley project is much more simple. It's much more contained and so on, but we'll be crystal clear about any of the logistics with the arrival to the departure during the school day, during the year that it's under construction. Then obviously, there'll be some internal uh processes that'll develop over the course of the year when we've got a lot for 2027-2028. And Bill, Craig, Ray will be working to give all of this information both to the update on the public facing website. Make sure people understand those timelines, when project will be starting, what parts of the district will be more difficult to navigate or shut down. So, we have terrific plan and we'll
059have great communication uh network set up. Really excited to bring this project to the community. And this is probably you've already answered this one, but after you get the other two bids, like when is it anticipated that this would start? >> Uh as soon as school gets out. Uh so, our goal is this summer. We need to put in a temporary path uh right next Basically, right next to where the path is now, going from the bus loop up. That will allow us to have the room to build this safely, uh keep kids far and away, but still keep playground open all year long. So, we can build this during the school year. Uh so, we'll be doing kind of foundations and utilities over the summer. Uh so, by the time the kids are back,
060we're completely contained in a fenced-in area. Uh, playground is open, safe pathway, accessible pathway is from the bus loop to the school. Uh, so that uh, unlike high school, sorry boy, this building will really not have much of a uh, difference high school. Yeah, what that is really nice about this capital is that both parts of the building can continue to use the building as normal and we'll have the time project is not going to be crunched as those summer two-month project. This gives space. Uh, they will have a little bit more time to make sure it's done right and you can see that reflected in the bids and that the contractors have a little bit more flexibility with the schedule. Okay, that's a separate uh, meeting. They're they're able to block the noise. They
061they have to notify the teachers, right? That's the Yeah. Otherwise they can block it out. No, it's um, it's a good question. So, the the demolition portion, the loudest parts of this are where we tie into the existing building. And the heaviest part of that work is uh, what we plan to do this summer. For that we're vibrating the building, actually grading the basement portal between the two. That is the most disruptive work. Uh, the other thing that we're looking at doing is we have some re-roofing and wiring and that is very loud. People walking overhead also just shooting fasteners down into the deck right above classrooms that has to take place over the summer. So, those so uh, uh, those works we'll do just have to do uh, in the summer. The rest there
062is going to be construction noise. It's it's unavoidable. It's similar to when we built Beacon uh, right next to Anchor. We will work with the administrators. We know when there are for instance testing days coming up that we have to have quiet dismissal. If that means that people can't do work, then they just don't do work those days. We do have that in our firm in our contract documents. There are days they can't uh perform work because it's disruptive to the students. We've already started communications with those teachers that are right there, Katie and I both, in terms of making those connections so we can keep that uh communication line open about what their most extreme needs are. Our We will have a superintendent that is on-site basically full-time. They may uh run down to
063to Albert or a couple of these small projects every once in a while, but this will be their full-time job. So, they will be the contact person if something is disrupting class, they'll be the immediate uh person to to be able to stop the work and figure out a different way. What about this this displace? Is it displacing any of the playground equipment or just No, it's just open space right now. Kids hang out while waiting for the buses. Is that right? We will need to resize channel. That's like the little baseball field they play on. All right, that's the handicap basketball field. All right, that field needs to be resurfaced. All right, it is with this force ready to be resurfaced. We're able to trim a little bit from the third base line and
064just keep the third base line in to accommodate the project. So, the field will still be perfectly functional as is. It works great and it's surfaced opposed to the three businesses that have already uh otherwise, it should flood. It should flood. And it it will still be a full-size field. We're going to cut out the outfield goals further over um but we'll So, that Any more questions? Okay, let's move on voting, please. Mr. Sadler. I. Mr. Fraser. I. Mr. I. Mr. Albright. I. Mr. Shirley. I. Mr. Supple. I. Thank you very much. And I just want to note for the record, correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a question submission opportunity for anyone who has a question when they're looking at the bond website, right? So, if our community members have a specific
065question about this project, they don't even have to leave the page, they just submit their question in. Yeah, that's great. We appreciate that feature because I think that will be really helpful. All right, we do not have any discussion items on the agenda this evening, so we will move on to our second and final opportunity for public participation tonight. Is there anyone who would like to address the board? Okay. Seeing no one, uh we will move on to board comments. Does anyone have anything they want to share? I would just like to say that the bond information is very because I was at a PBC meeting and were asking about session stand at the so they were able to just go on the Zoom get right in there on my computer and show the drop
066downs and share with some other community members as well. So, thank you for that work because it's already helping to guide people and that they can digest the information. I'm sorry, I'm not sorry. Anyone have anything else? Track and field tomorrow. Yes. The sessions will not be open but I think there's some pieces of cool trucks there. So, if you want to walk around and look at the trucks at the high school. And Amy, uh Brian and I had the opportunity to attend the Washington Association of School Boards uh educational sessions about AI um and it was a really nice uh overview um looking a little bit more from a policy and governance standpoint. Um, and they left a lot of good questions that no one knows the answer to, but it's something to keep
067talking about in our community. So. Anything else? Yes. Wishing all of our staff and administrators a good little break. Students need a break. Students need to rest for task force. Um, we have information items in our packet. You will see the information sheet for student representatives that will allow us to get people a little more specific information this year that we can point to. Uh, we have our nice job notes. It's always nice to see how many, um, wonderful things that people have to say about our staff, especially the repeat, uh, the repeat notes. And we have CAB minutes from our March board meeting. We do not have a closed session planned this evening, and so with that, we may adjourn this evening. Thank you very much.