001[Music] Good evening everybody. 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. There is time for public participation during the meeting as indicated in the agenda and upon request of the superintendent who just made reasonable accommodation for a person with disabilities to be able to participate in this meeting. Please call the role. Mr. Algre here. Arnold presly here here. Here. Um, we have meeting minutes included in our packet from the May 19th meeting. I'll move the board of education approve the attached meeting minutes from May 19th. We have a motion, a second. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the meeting minutes from May 19th say I. Any opposed? Um agenda. The
002board policy provides the superintendent that schools shall prepare an agenda for all board meetings as directed by the president of the board of education. I'll move that the board of education approve the agenda with amended two amendments. one, flip-flopping the school presentation. So, peer-to-peer class projects events first and then adding an action item number six, which is ratifying the agreement with WWDA. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the agenda as amended. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? First up then we have our school presentations and we have a presentation about our peer care. Um so in peerto career we do some kind of advocacy or inclusion project every semester. Um there was a group that started this project last semester. Um, and they've just been
003trying to build awareness um about um seizures due to um specific um uh um seizure encounters that they've had. Um and then Bel wanted to take the project over and explain a little bit and tell us. My name is Linder. I am a flight of high school and I am here to advocate for epilepsy and policy disorders. So my story is um in sixth grade I got diagnosed with JME which is a form of epilepsy and I had been having seizures about two months before I was current like diagnosed with what I currently have. Um and once I got diagnosed it came this huge like jungle confusing process of trying to figure out like what I had just found out about myself and what I was transitioning to do. And it turned into this like
004b it's life-changing obviously, but it also just made everything going on around me so much more like confusing because now I have a part of myself that I have to figure out along with everything else. But what is epilepsy? Epilepsy is a is a seizure disorder. Someone who has epilepsy is has usually had multiple seizures in their lifetime. Some have only have one, but that's usually put under a different category. Um, someone can have multiple different kinds of seizures. It's not just one type, which a lot of people misunderstand, but I personally have a tonic and tonic seizures, but there are many different kinds. And there are over 30 different types of seizures overall, and roughly 3 million adults and 47,000 children have epilepsy. epilepsy in schools. As an adolescent in Dexter schools, it can
005be very hard to go from an environment where I have a set teacher who understands my needs, my priorities, and then go to having multiple classes with multiple teachers who all I all see them all as equal and I have to somehow communicate to everyone that I have a different need than the person next to me. So, how staff can help? I think that there are multiple different ways that staff can help with this, but I know so many people have different invisible disabilities and who like have different wants or needs or requirements. And a lot of times it can be really hard to try and communicate that to a teacher, especially going into middle school and high school and having all of the different classes and the constant change. So, in the past, like
006for me at least, teachers like reaching out just like a simple email like, "Hey, how do you want me to react to this?" Like, "What could I do to help has helped a lot with me adjusting to all the change that's going on in my life?" And I think that that could help for other people. But I do understand where some students with disabilities could find this embarrassing or not be as proud as I am about it. And so I think that being more like less out about it at first and then going that's great. Thank you. Great job. This is something you've been working on all semester that to raise awareness. Yeah. What kinds of things do you guys do in class? We work with different people with who are neurody divergent have disabilities
007and it definitely brings a lot of like knowing how like inclusive Dexter is just in general but also knowing that everyone has a different need has a different like way of adapting to and it really opened my eyes to like how different I'm youn most late or late. I there were no signs of epilepsy until I was my daughter started. I was just gonna ask if you found of other students or teachers that are good resource for you. Yeah, I think there's a lot of misconceptions. A lot of people that aren't educated on think it's a a deficiency, mental deficiency or anything like that. You reached the whole game and you know someone has well so he was late yourself. So I I really feel what what you went through. I thank you for presiding.
008Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Um have one other presentation tonight. It is time for our annual retirement recognition. Oh, sorry. I I just Yeah, I I shut it off and I thought it but I guess I have to turn. Oh, he can tell me go. Go ahead and hit go and then we'll So, we pulled together some data, some little fun facts to share with you about our retirees and our employees, their years of service. So, our top three retirees this year, Diane Moran has 40 years with Dexter. Dan Henry has 36 years with Dexter and Caitc has 31 years with Dexter. The total years of service of staff celebrating landmark anniversaries, 940. We add all the years up to 510. That's a lot of years with Dexter. Total years of
009service for our retirees, 613 with an average of 23 years for each of our employees that are retiring this year. And the total years of service for all of our employees, it's 5,943 about. And I just wanted to end this with a really nice quote for all of our um staff who come to work every day to support our students. Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they could possibly be. And that was by Rita Pearson, a third generation educator and champion for students. retirement. This is Paul's last meeting on a Monday. We'll hold your chair drag Marty back up. So, all right. Last duty or his last meeting is pushing red buttons. Watch
010carefully what you have to do. Just watch carefully. No, no pressure. Oh, is it? Is it want you to forget? I just for those of us that are old enough in the room, this is how we used to change the TV channel. It was we were you channel two and then channel four you had to get up and turn for everybody who all the technology. Well, I just want to say I'll miss Craig's insight stepped into a role that was so needed at the time and although the ministry of the principal, we loved having you here. So, thank you for everything. Thank you. Last gift before he goes is the scoreboard will be started. It's going to be big. Those boxes you see are half. Yeah, that's one. The speaker itself is what's it a
011foot by 8 foot? 6 foot by 8 foot just for the speaker. Awesome. All right. Um this is our first opportunity for public participation. Each speaker is allotted a maximum of five minutes for a total of approximately 30 minutes unless otherwise notified. At this point in the meeting, those interested in making a public comment will be asked to raise their hands. So the time may be divided. Each speaker will be asked to announce their name and district of residence and indicate if they represent any organization or agency. No person may speak more than once on the same subject during a single meeting, nor yield their time to another speaker. Please know that the board does not respond to comments during the meeting and those wishing to receive a personal response from the board or superintendent
012should complete a public comment form which is available outside our meeting. Is there anyone here who would like to address the board today? Okay, we will then move on to our administrative board updates starting with the super. First thing we need to do is induct our new student board member. Come on up. All right. Ready? Repeat after me. I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this state and the Constitution of this state that I will faithfully discharge the duties. Now faithfully and I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school trustee of the office of school trustee of the district community school district of the district community school district
013according to my best according to the best um couple other updates Uh again mentioned that it's Craig's last meeting. On the agenda today is an approval of the WWBD AAM tenative agreement. Craig was the superintendent for how many days? Working staff 47 days 2013 and he negotiated the abandoned amount as they became they moved from was ite. move from a international union of operating engineers to self-represented and which meant their contract with null and void on June 30th. Craig took over as the superintendent on I wanted to negotiate a new contract before school could start. So, we uh got it. It's really kind of fitting with that. So, um and I want to thank Marty for two years of great service. Awesome job at keeping us up to date on what's going on in buildings
014and setting everything up. Great. Wish you a luck at Ohio Northern. What's your major? Uh creative writing and marketing. I knew the creative writing, but I knew it was something that would be awesome. Um bottom planning has started. So we're working on the contracts with TMP Ranger and been working with Becket Raid, but they'll work for you. We're going we're doing preliminary planning. Um going to need to set up a facility committee meeting sometime in the next several weeks just to start getting organized big pieces when we get to the contracts that we've done. That'll be a big piece. The other things that we'll have to set up is approving what the goes in each series. That's right now we're still kind of stoing out that based on market numbers, things like that. And then
015what projects will series one conceptually what projects will be in different packages, timelines, and then change order processes. Probably won't see any big projects. state approvals for quite a while. State approvals three months behind. So by the time everything's drawn up through that process. Um what we're working on right now is preliminary work like we walked the bridge and baseball softball soccer today with architects walked last week high school administrator about the addition in the front and secure access. We have we're meeting every Tuesday continue moving along. We've had two weeks. We're going as fast as we can. Most likely will be asked a vote to place or to sell bonds in late. We'll sell them in late October or early November is the kind of timeline you're looking at. You're going to have to
016vote in July or August or maybe September the latest in order to process. That'll be the first 60 to 65 million worth. Um, so we'll get that moving just to give you an update where where it's going to go. Whole lot you do a lot of planning up front, but then the rate once it passes through the so that you can say, okay, now here's how it looks. Here's how we're going to negotiate restructur. We have a certificate of occupancy as this weekend. Um they will be moving soon. We'll have a lease coming in the near future so they can move in. Um that's cruising along. It looks great. Can't wait to take your book for a tour. Um and then uh we finished school on Wednesday. Feel free to join us. We have a
017food truck rally 11:30 11:30 to 2 right outside here. Feel free to stop by. work. But it's it's really great to have the whole staff. Um want to thank both everybody here this thing every year and our so it is really nice and uh coach went today we got to witness the uh they have challenges they gave out awards strongest male exhibited winning the challenges to female the top three top three winning the female challenges. Um the top three or the top two female staff members and the top two or three male staff members they challenges they they have to hold I don't know what they call stone they hold this like 100 pound stone they had to do something where they're pulling sleds. Did you do any of the challenges? I watched a lot.
018Okay. I looked at that like stop me. Okay. There was the last one. It was something about flipping a tire and then pulling a sled. One matte was disqualified for running backwards. That I don't know. Um but anyways, they gave out our art department made actual He-Man statue holding chips and then the wood shop classes made the bases and then pulled up a giant uh smoker and chicken. It was kind of a nice little celebration. We have staff members that participate. Every one of the challenges for whatever I don't know what was which one the dig whatever that is. I don't know but they all we're doing the end of the year. This should be a nice Yeah. Perfect. Um, I just have one interesting point of note. Um, Jennifer Conlin is a representative not
019for I guess not for the city of Dexter but part of our district. Um and she was at Forum on Saturday and just gave me gave everyone there and then me later a little update on the budget process and it is kind of a mess, but it sounds like there is still some intention by some people to have a budget done by July 1. However, our budget hearing is June 23rd and we have to pass our budget regarding the weather done and I guess I just wanted to appreciate that Dr. Timus is on everybody's radar and so they all do want to always provide updates to us um to make sure that we remember that they know that this is important to our district. So, I guess we have a really good relationship with our
020state reps and senators. But there's a there's a lot going on with it and it's just going to be super interesting to see like how the money falls out. And that's my only update. Oh, and she did send me actually a giant PowerPoint um an update that she got from the Michigan Department of Education. So I will send that to distribute to everybody. It was my want to share with us. And now we will head over to our student reps and you guys can just figure out who wants to say what today. Um so obviously school ending so there's not a ton going on but um Friday drama had their gala where they announced all their officers and the place for next year. So they're doing McBth in the fall, Susical in the winter, and
021singing in the rain for the last senior spring show. So excited. Um it's very um this past weekend tennis went to states. Um it's two days, let's just say we didn't make it to the second day. Um but we made it to states and I think that's important. So hopefully we can keep going and keep with that next year. But um all the sports spring sports have done really well this year and it's great to see like people really committing like even the seniors like the last two weeks of practice or week practice. they weren't in school, so it's kind of tough for them to come out to support us, but everyone like made it last. And then, um, this past weekend, Sprout Love, one of the NHS communities that works with the cancer support
022community, um, had like spread a ton of awareness and raised a lot of money and we held a race starting at the high school, going down to quarter and coming back. Um, again, just like spread more awareness about this support community that helps families dealing with cancer. And then again, I'll jump in. Uh, you know, being an alumni is pretty cool. It was fun to graduate. Um, other than that, um, not a whole bunch has happened. Um, I don't think I updated this, but uh, lacrosse season ended uh, a week or two ago playing East Grand Rapids and uh, you know, they were a really good team, so we were expecting to lose, but they actually just ended up with state championship. So, you know what? You can't feel that bad that you lost that
023state championship. But, uh, this was like the best season I think next year's ever had. And so, I was super proud to be a part of it. Um, we had four players be in for all state and academic all state. So that's great program. Just so much to be proud of, lots to look forward to in the future. But yeah, just really looking forward to great year and I'm just grateful for my time here. I got Thank you. All right. Um so let's move on to consent. AW approved in both. We have some new hires and assistant principal the board of education approve the consent items. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the consent items and all say I. I. Any opposed? Moving on to
024action items. We have a number of them here and we are going to start tonight with our Creek Side ELA curriculum and our packet includes an executive summary regarding the adoption of a new DLA curriculum at Creekide Intermediate. Executive director instruction and representatives of the Creekide DA committee will present the curriculum. Any questions? Sure. Push the button. I'll I'll grab really excited um to share arts and letters with you um today. And before we get started, I kind of want to introduce who we have here um joining us this evening. Creekide has been so lucky to have Moren Klein join us this year. Been our de students and literacy coach and has led the Creekide team through a lot of this work. And we have Jen Sz and Christy Nuome who have piloted some of
025this work. And so they'll be able to answer some of the questions that you might have about arts and centers. Um why we did this? Well, we took a look at our data, which is where we always start when it's time to make a decision and we're doing good, but we're not doing great. So, we really wanted to take our literacy to the next level. Also, we're really working on these common curricular resources. Um Brian did a great job at our last professional development talking about um alignment, horizontal and vertical alignment. And so this is our opportunity to take a look at what we're doing and continue the work that you've seen happen um young fives through fourth grade so far. So this is our way of aligning and thankfully we had the 35J literacy
026grant to support us with this. And what we found with arts and letters is that it really was evidence-based and tiered supports and provided some refreshing practice. Thank you. Um, one of the things that the teachers and students were so excited about and they tried this out over the course of second semester, um, was student engagement. So, for example, um, in fifth grade, uh, the focus book was called 13. It's a non-fiction about the high soccer team who got caught in the cave. So, topic that really hooked a lot of kids. Um, and what's so neat about arts and letters is it includes so many different genres to study. So, um, the students also study artwork. Um, the second photo there is, um, called Ghost by Rachel Whitehead. So, and the last one is called
027Rubbing by, uh, Dohosa. And so the kids figured out over time that all of those were related to space. Um and it was just neat first time exposure for kids to be analyzing artwork. Um the Ray Bradberry poem um called All Summer in a Day was also constantly tied through to that unit and the kids were constantly making text to text connections and so on. Um the set of resources at the bottom was our sixth or our sixth grade resources. Christy Newsome did this unit. Um Budnot buddy was the main book. Um but it really took kids on a deep dive through the Great Depression and um Picture in a Nation is a book full of beautiful artwork. The kids all had a copy to reference and analyze throughout the course of the unit. Um
028then that next picture is called the migrant mother and the last one's called the Louisville flood. Um it also incorporated jazz music and the kids had to create their own scats. Um and also poems like Mother to Son by Langston Hughes. So it has a really broad brush. Um, so if you wanna as far as it being a comprehensive ELA curriculum, that means that it's tying in the reading and the writing all in one. Um, it's also got a lot of speaking and listening. The kids loved this fluency practice. The kids would um reread the same text multiple times with partners with different focuses on um on pace, on punctuation, on voice. And it was so neat to listen to the audio of so many of these kids. Christy would take them to the cafeteria
029when nobody was in there and they'd all, you know, they rehearsed all week and then they'd record themselves and submit it. And the kids had some of these Langston Hughes poems memorized after rehearsing them for a week. And um you know these are things that will be ingrained in them going forward. Um intentional assessment plan. There was a lot of reflection for the kids to do. Um there were in those learn books, the floppy skinnier books, you'll see that there are really clear rubrics and checklists. So kids understand how they're going to be assessed. Um it shows the kids lots of exemplars of, you know, at level writing and superb writing and the kids are looking at those things and piecing them apart and trying to improve upon them and find the different strengths. Um
030those learn books that the kids had really were awesome supplements to everything. And there were extra articles and all of their resources could be in one place. And what was really cool too is that this is so much pencil paper work. Um, so a lot of times, you know, kids can't find their stuff on Canvas or, you know, this was all right there for them. And, you know, there really is a focus on pencil and paper again, which students really appreciated and teachers really appreciated too. So um again assessing in all those varied areas. Um and go ahead to the next one. Take me and the next one. Um instructional design. Um the kids got to know the routine of these lessons. Um, so for example, every unit starts with a bookend and ends with
031a bookend reflecting on the same experience before there's much background knowledge and then at the end the so these book ends were neat that kids know that there are wonder lessons that go with each um unit. They are organize lessons and reveal and distill lessons. So the kids go ahead Christie they they got excited whenever they the the no lesson they knew some new tech was coming that's when the langston music problem would show up or the JS song the no lessons are going to be something new something fresh that we haven't seen so they did get to anticipate what what's today's lesson and they would know what's coming so good we interviewed we actually had pull name sticks I said who wants to be interviewed about this event and everybody body wanted to be
032interviewed. So, we pulled names and we interviewed three kids and they just jumped in on top of each other and started reciting these poems together and it was just neat to see the excitement just because this was a different organization than any previous ELA experience that we have. So, we're excited about it. On a side note, Ann Arbor is also adopting this curriculum K6, but we've communicated with them about potential um shared resources be like that too. So um here's our approximate timeline. Um we would like to submit the order July 1. Um there are digital materials currently available as part of the pilot process. They are revamping all of their digital materials and they would be available to all of our teachers July 7th. So teachers would have some summer time to start wrapping
033their heads around um what they'll be delivering the next year. The physical materials we would anticipate arriving in August. Um PD six hours of PD for the teachers before actual opening day so that we'd be ready to roll things out by September 2. In addition to it being a phenomenal interdisciplinary resource, there's a lot of excitement at the Creekide level and amongst the staff about having a common resource that they can work collaboratively. Uh because of us offering multiple pathways of gradient for a number gradient pinnacle uh summit for a number of years at Creekide. Staff haven't had the opportunity to collaborate around the curricular resource in a long time. So I know the staff have really enjoyed getting to see one another and meet one another as ELA teachers, as math teachers. Uh so
034I know there's a lot of excitement among the staff as well. Um so just to recap, um we're excited about improving student literacy skills and student engagement. Um this 35J grant has been really great as far as helping to sort of give us some momentum to get going in this direction this year. Student engagement has been off the charts. Um, like Brian said, we're excited about the horizontal alignment to finally have many colleagues to collaborate with, all doing the same thing. Um, the ELA review committee started meeting in the fall. We put together some goals and reflected on those goals throughout the process and everyone was unanimously excited to move forward in this direction. So thank you for considering question you push anything about your experience with it. just I I think I would just
035second the student engagement piece my my kiddos have been through you know we units of Sunday in the fall we pilot EL a little bit and then just the seeing them with arts and letters and how engaged and the connections they were making between the art the stories the history as readers as writers like it was so beautifully integrated into all of that it just made for a very picture of what it sounds to me like they also it touches Australian. Yeah, very much historical people. Another thing we've heard from staff that they've really appreciated is uh every publisher will tell you that their curriculum can be taught in 90 minutes or 120 minutes. It always goes over. This is intentionally designed for 60. And while we're going over, we're close. We're close. And in
036a really tight school day where we have a lot of content to cover and a lot of learning to do, I think the teachers have really appreciated the efficiency that we're in and out and kids are learning a lot in that time. So they've really been thoughtful. Uh this the pro the developer and publisher previously had another curriculum called Whit Wisdom. This is the next iteration. So they've learned and they've taken the best from Whitten Wisdom uh which has received a lot of glowing remarks and this is their newest version of arts and letters which have been trimmed down and improved. Uh Ann Arbor has loved it their opportunity to pilot and and our teachers have as well. So we're excited about what's to come. You just answer one question. How long and how large
037was the pilot? So there were four four of us that were piloting and the the plan formerly we would pursue pilots you know Christy Newsome would take curriculum A and SAS would take curriculum B and run with them both for a semester and then they both advocate for their you know um so every teacher tried both um and gave feedback on both based upon our goals from the beginning of the year. So they all got through at least one quarter of the content. So one content in multiple is public speaking this programs are speaking in front of their peers or delivering there's there's a lot of opportunities for kids to talk. I think the newest piece for us was this fluency reading where they're practicing more dramatic reading, public speaking. Our our Friday of last
038week, they had through our module, there were five fluent readings they had to practice. They had to choose one as a declination. It was a public speaking and I more than half my class had memorized their reading whether it was a poem or whatever. So they they were performing. It was very there's there's also some lessons where they're still kind of just um seminar sessions. So um kids are not super used to that yet, but they'll learn. How are you going to deal with kids reading it? I don't say embarrassed. They shouldn't be, but like uniform they might have to get a screw in. to their kids and then they might shy away. How do how do we deal with that? So may not be how you Yeah. So the the fluency piece is meant
039to be with a partner. So you're reading with the partner only and they they give you the partner gives you feedback on how to improve and just different t tips. So it's it's adjustable for differentiated for everyone. And then the performance that they do is really more individual. at the very end and they report it um for us to hear. Yeah. Um writing like is that they do in cursive or block how they want to write a big fan of Yeah. You know the states moved away from cursive is no longer a standard and we are not teaching cursive to the the same way that we once did. There are pockets of cursing being taught, but systematically we're more teaching to block handwriting as well. Uh that's one of the things we really love. We
040love that this program emphasizes putting a journal in front of kids hands and that they're putting paper or pencil to paper and actually writing out responses. Uh for so many reasons. Developmentally, we think it's important because of technology and AI. We think it's important. Uh, so we really love that there's an emphasis on kids actually creating writing that they can see, that they can touch, they can and I I I personally love that every lesson, it wasn't like we were having a reading unit, then a writing unit, and then another reading unit. This is every single lesson has a reading, a response to reading, and then a writing component. Every single lesson. And they're so beautifully interwoven. It's for you. Yes, sir. The uh you said here you did a K5 evaluation where specifically on
041K3 should be the third year of that program. Where are we? You don't have to tell me now what happened. Yeah, I'd be happy to come back and show specifically each of those programs and where we're at in K4. Uh we are seeing nice gains and nice growth in K4 as well. I think one thing that we're also excited to see as well is now that we have addressed some of the foundational concerns at K4, the ability of readers that will be coming into Creek Side. Uh Creek Side is still experiencing some students with some foundational gaps. So Moren and the team have been really working really hard to provide support intervention fill those gaps. But as we continue to see success with foundational skills, we anticipate fewer and fewer students needing more and more
042intense intervention at Creekide. uh which is definitely you already see you already start to see the gap before way down there jumped up. Yeah, we're we're I think we're on a positive trajectory game and I'd be more than happy to put something together specifically about Yeah, of course. And just one more thing as far as struggling readers and writers go. Um our special ed department is really excited about getting everybody on one page so they can support kids universally. Um, there are also specific lessons in here that are called prologues. And so what they they're pre-teaching. So for example, a teacher consultant could pre-teach a lesson that goes before lesson five, which will really help frontload things so their students are ready for those bigger concepts. And so it's very thoughtful to Yeah, it's a
043bit of a braided model. So because 35J allows us to provide support for tier one curricular resources at kindergarten through fifth grade and training for staff kindergarten through fifth grade. We had the split creek side being a fifth and sixth grade building. So staff who do teach fifth grade or are affiliated with fifth grade in any capacity will fall under the review of the grant. So we're able to charge about twothirds of the expense to the grant. Uh the other third will come uh from our fund balance that will support uh specifically sixth grade teachers and sixth grade materials. I just have one final question. Um I think this looks great and think it looks amazing. I'm glad those students are excited. I'm glad that teachers are here supporting it. That's all the kinds of
044things that I think the board wants to hear. I do just wonder if you could give us a little bit of background just in terms of contentwise what do we have now that switching from I mean there are a lot of you know great books up there I'm just when someone says hey they're not doing this book anymore it's helpful to us to just sort of have an understanding of like what we have now so we know absolutely so once upon a time was all on units of study uh when summit at the time when there was a division and some classes went Summit route. Summit had their own in-house ELA curricular resources for probably five or six years before they brought down EL education. Our fifth grade teachers taught EL education for two years.
045This last year, our sixth grade teachers taught EL education for one year. So, we were able to uh support them with that. EL education is a wellrespected, well-ranked curricular resource. We reviewed it in kindergarten through fourth grade. Uh so it it's definitely something that we considered. Uh we had teachers use it all year. We had teachers pilot it as well. The general feedback was the pace and the engagement was not what we needed nor wanted. Uh they're great titles. They're great books. They're books that kids typically enjoy. They were taking a very long time to get through some of the instructional practices. Uh so you hear Jen talk about how the reading and the writing were integrated really closely. We weren't seeing that as much with EL. Uh so one thing that Tammy and I
046had talked about when Absolutely. And teachability was a huge part as well. E is a free resource. So some of these open resources, they're not organized very well. Uh we purchased the EL books for teachers to use. There's seven different teacher manuals and each one of them says reference the other. So teachers were getting really lost and frustrated uh with materials digitally. They're not organized much better. Uh there are hundreds of PDFs that teachers have to navigate to get to what they need versus having a really thoughtfully organized book just the teacher usability. So we purchased some titles. They're great books. They're going to still live in the classrooms. Kids will read them on their independent reading time. So, no, no regret there. Uh, but I think our staff is really excited to consider the
047possibility of arts and matters. Important to note, Toby, we did survey the staff. Yep. And when we did, all staff were interested in moving forward with arts and matters. So, we do have this as a action item tonight so that I think can start preparing to purchase the materials. We are so inclined to move forward. move that the board of education opportur resource for the 2526 school year activity site for total cost of 105 second we have a motion and a second discussion but is there anything else anyone wants to talk about let's do a roll call please Mr. Hi, Mr. Arnold. Hi, Mrs. Hi. Hi. Hi. Thank you very much. Good luck. Appreciate it. Um, next up tonight we have child savings. We have 35 policies that are reviewed by the policy committee on
048April 25th and approved for first reading by the board on May 19th. consented for second treaty. We have a motion and a second to appear for final for meeting and final approval. Any discussion? Hi. Hi. Next up, we have a single policy, policy 4101, which was listed in the batch of policies that was reviewed and approved for first reading at the May 19th meeting, but it was inadvertently left out of the packet. It's the board's typical practice to present policies twice before final approval. But policy 1301, creation, amendment, and posting policies, does allow the board to adopt or amend any policy after a single reading at a regular special board meeting unless the law requires more than one reading to the policy subject matter. Because the edits to this policy were not substantive, policy chair
049has recommended that it forgo two readings and receive final approval. We did separate the motion. I'll move forward education approve policy 101 first read. It is just so you can get it one more time. It's page. Thank you for highlighting it. Sorry. I need a second. It's just yes all of them recommended by um okay we have a motion and a second any discussion um being new to the well policy committee I'm not um are we taking these changes also putting student handbook Yes. I was just wondering thinking today I assume we were the student I believe is updated annually. Okay. So we're working hard to get all the old ones resended. That'll be the next thing that comes to you guys. All the old ones getting that are duplicative. Okay. And the new ones.
050And we're trying to clean it up. So we have a clean policy. It's been a lot of work. It's been about a year and a half. We the manual itself and we've adopted an entire man. And just to clarify, the policy committee is responsible for board policy and then superintendent's responsibility to make sure the student handbook and administrative guidelines reflect the policy that we pass. Okay. So we the policy committee does not get involved. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Um, we haven't voted yet, right? Roll call, please. I Arnold. Okay. Next up is our board calendar for 2526. And students, I will just highlight that it is in the 137 137 and those are our meetings for the next calendar year. Just a question says 8 January 12th. Sorry. Well, real quick, I move the board of
051education approve the S2526 calendar. I'll second that. Oh, I because I think it's I think it's November 17th, December 8th, January 12th. So, I think whenever however columnist you just need to open it up. What is it? [Music] all yesterday. Okay. Um All right. Any other discussion or questions? Let's do a little Iran. Hi, Mr. Arnold. Hi, Mr. Hi. Okay. Um, approving MASB training. Twice each year. The board pre-approved funding, registration, and travel expenses for each trustee to attend up to six MASB classes in the next six months. This allows trustes to register in a timely manner. Trustees may request approval to take additional provided. I'll move the board of education approved funding including registration and travel costs for each board. take up the sixth MAS class between July 1 and December 31. All right,
052we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? I will just remind everyone that many of the classes are still being covered by state funds and so this is a great time especially if you have more to do. There's a summer conference August 15th, 16 something like that. Yeah. And that's I think in Lancing. So that was amazing the WWG FA agreement. I'm gonna We need to I move that the board of education ratify the agreement with the West Bus drivers and monitors association for 2528. Second. We have a motion and a second. Chris wanted to give us an update for Barbie talk. I'll do my best as you walk up. I'll talk about health insurance. So the bus driver association really small. The majority of our district belongs to MSA insurance through a consortium
053school district makes it all shield insurance. But what happens is the work with Manchester with we're able to pull all of those districts together for our utilization. The bus drivers are a smaller group. We have two or so bus drivers about half insurance. So what happens is when you have that smaller group the volatility of rates it's really a couple years rates skyrocketed so we need to provide bus drivers rates are able to thank Jess leadership be able to the bus drivers into that larger pool there's good and bad the good is large pool actually drives down to some degree to some degree. However, the structure of MESA is that if uh you opt out of insurance, you still have to take what's called dental, vision, and for this group, life insurance. So, what we're
054we're doing, we currently have bus drivers who don't take anything. So they have no insurance they're going to move to when they move to Mesa once this ratified open enrollment for start is they will end up having to choose if they opt out they still will have to pay we are going to have as a district contribute the majority majority of the cost for single one for single for the first year sort for single for what we're going to do together chart on the next page we're our contri our contribution annually based on this year's rate will be $1396 their contribution will be $10 a month but in this agreement we give them the 120 so that they're even for the first year but they're going to get a benefit they didn't have which is
055good Um the other complication is they are currently their plan year run June 30th or sorry July 1 to June 30th. The Mesa plan year runs January 1, December 31st. So we had to put together packages that allow them to get something at a low cost deductible deductible will start over again. For them it starts over July 1 and then it's going to start over again January 1. They're going to have two open enrollments. They're gonna have one this month for July one and then they're going to have another open enrollment the rest of the district in November for January. So, it's a fairly complicated transition, but it does stabilize and reduce their cost significant. like we had for um these plans and coverages are actually pretty solid and compared to their current cost. Single
056is going to save what employee contribution is $1,000 or something a year less for single. And then whole family, we do have a couple bus take whole family. Um it is 6 to10,000 less for them to get full coverage. significant drops, but it's pretty nuanced. I want to thank Christy for all her work, Jess for all her work, and Barb for all our work to get to this point. And then there's other stuff in the country. So, um, we reduced the a schedule from six steps to three. Um, to recruit and then retain our drivers and monitors. Um, and then thanks to Craig's good work in 2013, we had one language change which added um moms having uh giving birth, allowing them to have they're thrilled with the language support. Perfect. We are now moving
057on to discussing bands. Um, beginning with superintendent search. Um, today is the last day at 7 o'clock tonight that people can fill out the survey um, with folks help. It has gone out through email and it's been posted online on social media. All our students received it, our high school students. Um, we sent text. People have been given an option to the baseball game yesterday. I do not I do not have any feedback about how many people have taken it. Um, but I do know that people did start taking it right away. Um, we also had five sessions last Thursday at the high school media center um for the administration, for students, uh, two sessions for staff and one session for community members. Um and so our consultant will be pulling all of this information,
058putting together um everything we heard and bringing to us um a draft of a profile for the candidates that we that we are looking for. Um and we will have a chance to give feedback on that profile um and talk with them at our meeting later this week. Um, also we will have a timeline hopefully at the end of that night. Um, and if you did not get my email yet, I know I have just a few responses. I am trying to collect if you have dates that you know you're out of town. Um, send those to me so that we can try and start with a calendar that's relatively okay. Um, that would be great. And otherwise, we have not been we have not moved forward too far until So that's it for that
059and then we can move on to the WD CTE village resolution and I'm just going to turn it over to you to start there. So this has been about a yearong process that the district one they've done significant work with businesses um looking at the state they've received $5 million grant do a lot of this work uh they've gone through a significant amount of research um Ryan R is here at one of the meetings to uh talk about the process and talk about the research. Um the WISD board is looking to put a ballot proposal for 1 mill and for experiential learning. So it's not just a period. Um district is asked to vote and consider support. Uh we're because of our bond we're cycle other districts. Uh it's significant. We spend this district consortium
060southwest Washington and we provide programming that way but we send it straight out of general fund and it does limit our opportunity. This would open up to the polling shown that significant support was really supportive. Um so the consideration the board discusses today the presession ties in with governance initiatives too It's a national work. Yeah, we're seeing shortages. Um, you know, a lot of the trades, but the other thing we've seen, so historically what happened to offer and then in the early 2000s was this big wave for college ready. So all the states including Michigan state testing to the ACT. They moved the graduation requirements to basically college prep requirements squeezed out of the schedule all these types of courses and at the time the jobs had dried up. Now we're seeing baby boomer retiring.
061We're seeing people went to college study think that they could do anything. Um and we're seeing technology is reframing what career tech careers look like. Um, if you think about I mean my brother's and when he first started he was working diagnosing they type in the diagn what's going on with the car system check and then now they're working on electric and having to learn it's pretty tech really tech and what we see is that People can have a great career, but trying to rebuild it is not easy because finding teacher a welding instructor. Someone with certifications in welding walks out making $100,000 once a year. Why would you go into teaching if you can make over $100,000 a year at 22 years old? Um, so that's challenges that we're seeing. We have lots of
062careers and I look at automotive really good ones make 140 $150,000 a year and 19 it's really hard to find somebody who wants to go to teaching and then teaching technology is changing so fast but the funds to start these systems up are challenging too certifications are challen go back for bachelor so we have to create other models and this funding would allow us to create models CTE is really uh near and dear to my heart. This is exactly what I did in my junior and senior year in high school. I left school half a day, went to what was called time. Same same kind of deal. And I did architecture and CAD and you know did that half the day my junior senior year and it really set me up for the job market
063coming out of that. But I also had the pleasure of knowing exactly what I wanted to do. So when Chris said that, you know, the the funds would open up to earlier than junior and senior year, I think that's really valuable that kids can explore a little bit and not feel so locked in. Yes. Yes. If you're not locked in, then you are giving away some of that, you know, skills that you're going to learn IB or whatever, you know, you be giving that up. Um, so there's choices that have to be made there, but learning early on, exposing kids earlier on, I think that would be a beneficial thing. If that could bring this, if this could bring that to us, then you know that I'm very high school classes. Those are my favorite
064classes, but I do think there's a shortage understand. Yeah, that's right. We got those Right. Right. But the goal is to make it more logical instead of what every given year most likely more east side and then some like building trades makes sense to have multiple building. He's doing something highly technical on cyber security that you might only have one small Toyota is helping funds program over programming. It does allow us funding right now. It's I guess um I mean I'm I feel like I'm super supportive of many curriculums that I have in front of me because they all seem like great opportunities for kids. Um, I love the idea of introducing more for younger kids earlier to explore and understand um, sort of what's out there to go for. I guess I do want
065to recognize that this is a new tax. It is a new millillage and I have fielded many many um comments, questions and emails over the last months about our bond which is a renewal and not a change. So I guess I just want to take a minute and acknowledge that we understand this is a new task and also highlight that I think the most meaningful In case anyone's watching this later, the most meaningful graphic that I think our county needs to see is on page 167 of our packet. It is a picture of the state of Michigan by county and it it details out how much each county pays for a CT mill. And then there are two, three, six, eight, 12, 14, only 14 counties that do not have millet right now. And we
066are one of them. And I am seeing mill rates of everything from 4.1 down to about 5.6 six with a good number of the counties hovering between 0.9 and 1.3. So, I guess I just want to recognize that our county does seem to be very much in line and in the middle with what other counties are have already asked their voters for and the voters are already um and to the point that's already been made. Our authorization or recommendation resolution in support just allows it to go to the ballot and the voters ultimately get to decide. Um, but I guess I just want to be really understanding that our voters did just vote for a bond and we very much appreciate that. And I I guess I just want to understand this is a a
067difficult time for people to be making these financial decisions. I think that's a later I mean Dexter's had CT for it's and it's been in place now. a new program and I think that this broadens it for broads potentials for the students and yeah I get what you're saying you're saying but I think for alternative career path there are a lot of jobs hopefully Whoever's a good job that's concern child course. We did some posts about that. We got so much engagement from people who don't engage in anything else. They don't have kids in the district here or they grew up here. It was remarkable. They were all like, "Oh yeah, I would think it's very Do our students have some thoughts they want to chime in on? How do you think the students I
068think we see more at least in my grade like definitely college like negatively and like going into the trades like an option that they like college but certainly want to go a A lot of my friends might [Music] favorably. I do when you say like earlier like what around what grade you think we can do things elementary there are models out there early on in this exploration started sharing with the county models where you start an elementary takes time. We do some fun materials like you guys were in middle school, Mr. Simple's class. A lot of that stuff we bought in 1995. And then we started some new stuff. [Music] So it does take money be able to district the funds create some new opportunities where not necessarily a twoyear class that you can explore.
069That's where the real Awesome. Approaches, you know. what we've seen just robotics robotics with volunteers like any kids are involved because it's an opportunity but we're working on the volunteers to get it done um look at what we had in Mr. wood shop and systems of construction or just when we simply had building trades hosted here. The number of dexter was an option and when it's not when it's out of sight it's also out. Yeah. Even if the millage is restricted to postsecary, we can do take some general spending. High school. High school after school. Secondary secondary after [Music] this is something we can bring back for action in the next meeting. as always. All right, we are now to our second opportunity for public participation. Is there anyone who would like to address? Moving
070on to board comments. I know a couple years I'm not questioning trying to find teachers. Uh is that going to be it going to be we're doing okay. I'm marking that down. I mean I know but there was a time where like we're going the school year looking for a certain slot. I know what we're looking for. Okay, for we're really good spot right now. The retirees the number of retirees is but when I think back this group would have been about the second time I started and there were a lot of jobs there big wave of retirements jobs all over. Um and we all the pension system was built that if you did your 30 years that you would be eligible. So there's a big number that are el Craig's there too. Remember the
071years there were jobs everywhere. Back to comments. I would like to thank all it was so smooth. got so many compliments for, you know, you taking an ax to your speech, you take like that was that the parents were like and you guys got us out of there and we started drizzling like about the last 20 grads. Like that was great. And so I think everybody was really happy that we could course the year that we move it later to avoid the sunshine is the year that we got. But it went really well and it was just well I just just want to congratulate Greg. Thank you for all your service. Congratulations to all the retirees and our students for your principal college. I wrote down a reminder here. Um, I'm sure most of you
072have gotten email from uh something about that town town hall. Just want to bring that up. Uh, Monday, June 16th, uh, 6:00 to 7:30 at the high school and then state reps in this day. So, and if you are going, they will be for RSVP and I've heard that if you want to see it is a hot ticket. There is a need. I'm assuming you got um Okay. Um we have uh SEAB minutes uh in our information items. There is no close session and so we very much everyone