001I'd like to call to order the regular board meeting of the Taylor School District for Wednesday, June 17th to order at 6 p.m. Moore is here. Mordarski is absent. Morris? Here. Shufelt? Here. Westphal? Here. Block is excused. And Fields? Here. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag. Thank you, we're gonna start with good news Golden Ark Masonic Lodge Mr. Pratt First, I'd like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm Rich Pratt. I'm here representing Golden Ark Masonic Lodge. Normally, we are here being recognized, but tonight we wanted to recognize three people we've been working with for the past three years, and we've had the pleasure of doing that. And that is the eSports coaches, Justin Moore, Kevin Helton, and Richard Posiak, who are hiding
002in the back row. We came into the relationship with the eSports sort of weirdly. I was here at a board meeting. I was not here for good news. But during good news, Coach Pritt was talking about the eSports program. It really struck a chord with me. He was talking about the growth of it, how many scholarships are available, how the Taylor program works, and one of the comments he made was that it is a program where a lot of the kids involved are not involved in any other extracurricular activity. I talked to Coach Rich. We had invited him to come to the lodge and talk to our members. My expectation was that our younger members would support this but actually our older members were very excited about it. One of them made the comment that
003he wished this program was available when his grandson was in school. The eSports program is probably the most accessible program we have in the district. It is two seasons, both fall and spring. They meet four days a week. So if you're doing a fall sport, you can play in the spring. If you're doing a spring sport, you can play in the fall. With it being four days a week, my son does band and drama Tuesday and Thursday. He can still do eSports Monday and Friday. Part of that making it available for the kids being there four days a week means that the coaches have to be there four days a week As a volunteer that's a lot of time being presented The other thing that makes us accessible is the cost I am paying $620
004for band that does not include renting the instruments for my high schooler and running the instrument for a middle schooler There is no cost to the students with eSports. And I say to the students because over the past five years the pricing or the cost had been pretty much absorbed by three coaches. They had been paying a lot of money out of pocket. At the first awards banquet when they were showing us the awards they got, they made the comment that we wanted to get more but this is what we could afford. And they didn't mean this is what the program could afford. It was what they could afford because they were buying these out of pocket. What really struck me about this program was the first awards banquet we went to, and we've now
005been sponsoring them for three years. I've been to all three of their awards banquets. The students we saw there were not the traditional, what I would consider, gamer kids. You had band kids, you had academics, you had athletes. I still remember one of them come running in, still in his baseball uniform, because as soon as the game was done, he came in for the banquet. What they were teaching these kids is the same teamwork and sportsmanship you would get in traditional athletics. When they were talking about the awards, both the player of the year and the most improved player, it wasn't just about scores. And when you're dealing with esports, everything is tracked. They were talking about improving their sportsmanship, their teamwork, and supporting each other. I remember one of them, it was about him
006actually stepping down from the top team to support one of the teams that was being developed. One of the things that, the first things you hear as you go through your Masonic journey is Psalm 133. Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Masonry is about taking men from different backgrounds, different faiths, coming together to improve themselves and improve the community. And that's what we are seeing with the eSports program. So what we are presenting tonight is the Edward A. Guest Award. It is the highest award that the Grand Lodge of Michigan presents to a non-Mason. It is the Edward A. Guest Masonic Award for Community Service. And it is for non-Masons who are supporting the tenets of Masonry within the community. And that is what we've been seeing
007through this eSports program with the work they're doing with these kids. Edward A. Gast was a poet, an author, a radio personality, and was the first and until 2023 only poet laureate of Michigan. He was a Mason out of Ashler Lodge in Michigan, and with all the work he did in community after he passed, the Grand Lodge of Michigan created this award in his name. I'd like to read one of his poems, which is printed on the certificate, which is, I'd like to think that when life is done, that I had filled a needed post, that here and there I paid my fare. with more than idle talk and boast, that I had taken gifts divine, the breath of life and manhood fine, and tried to use them now and then in service for my
008fellow man. So it is with great pleasure that I present these to Coach, Justin, Rich, and Catherine. You guys want to come up? We had one other thing we were going to present them, but apparently it takes longer to get custom varsity letters made than we thought. eSports varsity letters coming as well. We also have a couple of the players who would like to speak. Please do. First, can we get a picture? Yeah. We'll let you guys speak first. We'll do it up front. Hello, my name is Justin Moore Jr. And I came up here as a player representative of the eSports program and I wanted to give the player side of the entire program. As I'm going into my senior year, I'm looking for better ways to get into college to represent my education.
009And I just wanted to state out of the 15 public colleges and 30 private colleges, over 25 of them have an eSports program and are willing to give scholarships to these kids to help kids that can't afford college or that can't do physical activities like football, but they still have that passion. eSports is one of the most, if not the most accessible to any kid. And also, I just wanted to say that going into 2028, the Olympics were putting esports into one of their, I believe it's the 174th sport. And with that kind of representative going into 2028, it'd be a great opportunity for any esports players starting now to go forward. That's all I want to say. Thank you. Thank you. Just a few things I'd like to add. One of the main reasons
010I've heard that this program has not gotten funding from the district is that it is not educational. But it teaches the same kind of strategic, quick thinking that chess does, the precision and teamwork that sports do, and overall builds bonds between the students and the program. What did you say your name was I'm sorry Ryan Pratt, okay very nice to meet you and thank you for that input I think as it grows I knew nothing about eSports until I came here. So I think as it grows you can have more interest Just a quick question gentlemen, and if you want to come back up real quickly Which games do you each find most enjoyable to compete in? Me personally, I played over my three years, I've played Mario Kart, Overwatch, and Valorant. All three team
011games, very enjoyable to me. Very team driven, especially Valorant. For my first and only year so far, I have primarily played Smash Ultimate. Okay, it's another really fun game all to play sometime Thank you guys. Thank you Okay, let the record reflect that mr. Murdowski arrived at 6 o 6. Oh Are you taking pictures? Go ahead Absolutely Thank you guys again, thank you All right, let the record reflect that Mr. Murdowski arrived at 6.06. Scheduled report, sex education and health survey, Emily Graham. Thank you. I just wanted to share with the board and with our community that our district parent sex education survey will be Coming out tomorrow via parent square and then we're also going to put it on the website You are even if I block out the email addresses and make it
012so that it's anonymous. It will still only register one survey result per email address. So I noticed on your packet it shows that the email is a required question. I'm going to remove that so it's a completely anonymous survey, but it will still hold everybody to just one. survey response per email address and this is going to go out to our entire community. We have the MiFi results are rolling in and our teams are going to start looking at that. That's the student survey results that we did this spring and then once we give the parent survey a couple of weeks out there we will look at both those results and then reconvene the CIEB to decide what our next steps are. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Did the CIEB have input in
013designing these questions? No, this is a sample survey from MDE. They were able to review them at our last CIEB, but nobody had any comment at that time. Okay, does MD require this survey or is this just a sample? No, this is what MDE recommends to determine what your community wants and then the students are surveyed to determine what's happening with the student population. You take both those data sets and then the CEB uses that data to determine what decision to make for the district. Okay, thank you. Now if it goes out over Parent Square, how many parents have access to Parent Square? What's their sample size essentially? When you complete the re-enrollment, you are automatically enrolled. Your email address is enrolled in ParentSquare. But it will also be available on our website. So if
014there are community members that large that would like to fill it out, they can do that. Well, no, I've just always wondered about ParentSquare. Let's say, you know, does mom have an email? What about the grandparents? What if it's like split custody? So how many emails can be associated with a student for ParentSquare? Is there a limit? Yeah, it only goes to the custody, the parents that have custody of the children. It wouldn't go to any additional addresses. Did you not also say it was going to be on the website? Yes. So it will be available for the entire community? Yep, and the link will be able to be shared through ParentSquare, too. They could share that widely. Okay, now you did you said you were not gonna take out the first question Do you
015I have children at the following grade level? No, just those mandatory required email address I'd like to make this an anonymous survey. Okay, okay But then like I said this it will so so that if people wanted to go in there and fill out multiple surveys It will only allowed one registered email address to complete one survey So that was but I don't think we need the parent email addresses. I think we can get the information anonymously. Thank you any other questions? All right, then I will turn it over to mr. Schufelt moving on to the Discussion items and the revisions and approval of the agenda policy number zero one six six. Is there any revisions of the agenda? motion to approve the agenda All right. There's a motion by Mr. Morris to approve. There's
016no revisions. Is there a second? support by miss fields Mr. Medarski. Yes. Mr. Morris. Yes. Ms. Schufelt is a yes. Mr. Westfall. Yes. Ms. Block is excused. Ms. Fields. Yes. Ms. Moore. Yes. That passes 6-0. Back to you. Oh, I'm sorry. Taking a vacation there. The walk-in freezer cooler at Randall. Do we have, I understand Ms. Trombetta is not online? She is? Okay. Go ahead. Speak louder. We have a hard time hearing on Zoom. Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. Perfect. So I'm Jen Trombetta, the Director of Food Service. I am asking to purchase walk-in freezer and refrigerator unit for Randall Elementary using general funds in the 26-27 budget. Brando's current union was installed a long time ago, so the suppliers do not make those parts anymore, which is why I'm asking to replace
017the unit. Over the past year, we have had lots of issues with this. HVAC, Jack and Patrick came to me and said if the unit goes down again, we will not be able to fix it. So we sent out bid requests. via CoPro, which is our approved Wayne Resa bidding service. In April, we asked five companies to send us bids. We received two back, one declined. So Stafford Smith sent a bid for $28,035. They like half up front. Douglas sent a bid for $46,670. And Culinary Depot scheduled a bunch of times to come out, but then they never ended up coming out, so they declined the bid. On both bids, Taylor Schools needs to apply roofing and electrical, which Jack is aware of. We plan to coordinate this with the roofing that's being done at
018Randall. If the board approves this, we are hoping that we can have this installed mid-August before school starts. That's all. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Which one are you suggesting to go with? Oh, I'm sorry. Stafford Smith at $28,035. They're also a Michigan-based company, which means they have all their parts and all their stuff here with Michigan suppliers. Thank you. Okay. Now this this these Stuff on the financing. We're not doing that. Are we? Oh leave custom finance solutions We do not know we do not finance we do a PO we pay half up front Okay effort and then once it's fully done then we pay at the end all suppliers for food service or anything over 25,000 usually give financing options and that's up to the district, but that's not how we
019We operate here. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. I thought maybe we were, I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Any other questions? I did see a waiver dealing with the companies Stafford and Smith not accepting responsibility for unforeseen surcharges, price increases, tariffs, and other costs. Did they, do they anticipate the cost fluctuating or is that just kind of a heads up and a warning? That's just a heads up. Stafford's Fifth, we've used them a dozen times. We've never had any issue with pricing. It's usually that price. If something does come up, they are up front with us to let us know that something has changed. But I'm pretty confident that this will be the final price. Wonderful. Thank you. You're welcome. Anything else? All right, we will move on to workers' comp
020insurance renewal, buffer layer, Gallagher-Bassett. Dr. Hill. Okay, thank you. I am requesting board approval for workers' comp insurance buffer layer coverage renewal through Gallagher-Bassett in the amount of $47,036. This is a renewal with the same company, and it's our buffer layer for workers' comp. claims Thank you any questions from the board Okay, so you know then we'll move on to public comment anyone wishing to address the board regarding any item that we've already discussed Well, then just a minute Thank you for being here this evening. We value your participation and appreciate the opportunity to hear from our community Public comments will begin with those attending in person followed by our online participants In-person speakers should come to the microphone and state their name and address Online speakers should use the raise hand feature to be
021recognized Please be respectful avoid personal attacks and limit comments to three minutes so that everyone has an opportunity to speak We'll provide an assist with timekeeping So each guest will be able to monitor their own time and know what to conclude so that all who wish to speak Will have an equal opportunity to do so if you wish to speak spill out The public comment form via is that really happening? Okay The a barcode that's on the agenda if questions arise Superintendent Weger or his desk knee will work to provide answers in a timely manner Please note that comments made by individual board members do not necessarily reflect the position of the Board of Education This portion of public comment is limited to agenda items only there would be another opportunity later for general public
022comment Go ahead. The floor is yours. Thank you. Courtney Prout, 9846 Catherine. I just had a question. I may be getting ahead of myself. I just didn't know, based on the conversation about the CEAB, how does that process look? Is that something you're going to reconvene the CEAB next year? I just wondered, because I know the co-chair on the CEAB has since had a student graduate. How is all that going to play out? Is there a whole new process for that? Right. So we're going to need to have a new chairperson probably. So we'll work all that out in the summer. And then I assume that it will reconvene in the fall. And then we'll have all the data to bring to the team. Right, which will make it much easier. But then also, just
023to know, what if there's new members? Is that a possibility? I know a couple of the members that were currently on there have since pulled their students from the district, so they're no longer part of this district. So is there a spot for new members? Yeah. Okay, so it'll all be a whole new process? Yeah, we just have to talk to the board about what the will of the board is going forward, because we have a new chairperson that we're going to have to decide. So there's some things that we have to decide, especially the bylaws are partially written. So once we talk to the board, they'll make the final decision on how we're going to go forward. Okay, sounds good. And then how long is the survey going to be out for? Do you
024have a timeline for when? About two weeks. About two weeks. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? All righty then. We will move on to action items. Mr. Schufelt. Action item number one the walk-in freezer cooler for Randall Elementary It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the purchase and installation for a walk-in freezer and cooler refrigeration unit replacement for Randall Elementary School from Stanford Smith for a total cost of $28,000 is there a motion motion motion by miss fields support by mr. Morris Mr. Morris. Yes, miss you felt is a yes. Mr. Westphal. Yes Miss block is excused miss fields. Yes, miss more. Yes. Mr. Medarski. Yes that passes 6-0 Number two is the 2025-2026 budget amendment policy number 6850. Be it further resolved that no Board of Education
025member or employee of the school district shall expend any funds or obligate the expenditures of any funds except pursuant to appropriations made by the Board of Education and in keeping with the budgetary policy of the Board. changes in the amount appropriated by the board shall require approval of the board and Be it further resolved that the superintendent is hereby charged with general supervision of the execution of the budget adopted by the board and shall hold the department heads responsible for performance of their responsibilities within the amounts appropriated by the Board of Education and in keeping with the budgetary policy of the board This appropriation resolution is to take effect on June 17, 2026. Is there a motion? Motion. Motion by Ms. Moore. Is there support? Support. Support by Ms. Fields. Ms. Shufelt is a yes.
026Mr. Westphal? Yes. Ms. Block is excused. Ms. Fields? Yes. Ms. Moore? Yes. Mr. Medarski? Yes. Mr. Morris? Yes. That passes 6-0. Number three is the 2026 2027 proposed budget policy number 6850 be it further resolved that no Board of Education member or employee of the school district shall expend any funds or obligate the expenditures of any funds except pursuant to Appropriations made by the Board of Education and in keeping with the budgetary policy of the board changes in the amount appropriated by the board shall require approval of the board and be it further resolved that the Superintendent is hereby charged with general supervision of the execution of the budget adopted by the board and shall hold the department heads responsible for performance and the responsibilities within the amounts appropriated by the Board of Education And
027in keeping with the budgetary policy of the board, the appropriation resolution is to take effect on June 17th, 2026. Is there a motion? Motion. Motion by Ms. Fields. Is there support? Support. Support by Ms. Moore. Mr. Westfall? Yes. Ms. Block is excused. Ms. Fields? Yes. Ms. Moore? Yes. Mr. Madarski? No. Mr. Morris? Yes, miss you felt is a yes that passes five one Number four is the tax rate request l4029 it is recommended the Board of Education approved the 2026 tax rate request for l4029 is there a motion Motion motion by miss fields is there support? support Support by miss Moore. Miss black is excused miss fields. Yes Miss Moore. Yes. Mr. Medarski. Yes. Mr. Morris. Yes. Miss Shufelt is a yes. Mr. Westfall. Yes. That passes 6-0. Number five is the Workman Compensation Buffer
028Layer Gallagher Best Set. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the workers comp buffer layer insurance purchase for fiscal year 2026-27 from Gallagher Bassett in the amount of $47,036. Is there a motion? Motion. Motion by Ms. Moore. Is there support? Second. Support by Mr. Medarski. Ms. Fields? Yes. Ms. Moore? Yes. Mr. Medarski? Yes. Mr. Morris. Yes. Ms. Schufelt is yes. Mr. Westfall. Yes. Ms. Black is excused. That passes 6-0. Okay, move on to the agenda. Administration, district, business. The consent agenda, policy number 0166.1, policy number 6470, policy number 8640, and policy number 2304. Minutes from the regular board meeting, June 3rd, 2026. Consolidated items, payment of current bills, certified, non-certified, and administrative reports. out-of-state overnight field trips and out-of-state overnight grant funded conferences is there a motion motion motion by mr morris is
029there support support support by miss moore miss moore yes mr madarski yes mr morris yes miss you felt to say yes mr westfall yes miss block is excused miss fields yes That passes 6-0. We move on to our superintendent's report. All right. Thank you very much. I just have a couple things I want to bring forward tonight. The first one I do want to talk about. today we had in this room a committee of teachers who are willing to come in even though they are in their summer break here to give feedback for looking at ways to reanalyze and reassess what we do for grading practices as a district and this is one of those topics that's always been near and dear to my heart and when we put out the survey last fall i
030spent a lot of time reading through that whole 80 page report that we got back it just really made my day to be able to sit in that room today and work with that group and kind of see what the thought is and see what we can collaborate to do for what might be best practice going over for grades in the future so I want to thank everybody who came out and was part of that process today and like I said it's one of those things I love it keeps me in touch with what happens in our buildings and it was very good for me to have that experience today The other thing I want to say that took place today is I know it came up in public comment at our last meeting But
031we have had the job posting out we had it out for two weeks for Taylor high school principal and that posting closed last Friday We had over 30 applicants for the position and today we did our first round of interviews to start narrowing that down We wanted to make sure we had a very thorough process in place for this particular hire and I think going forward for all of our administrative position hires. So it is going to be a three-round process. First round today was kind of a screener to kind of get those numbers down to where now we have some very strong, solid candidates from there. So next week there will be a round two. It's going to be a very extensive round two where there's going to be several different panels that the
032interviewees are going to have to go before and get a variety of questions and tasks. And then the round three will be... in two weeks and that will be with myself and the cabinet level at that point but i'm really excited about this process and i think it's going to benefit us to have such a thorough process in place going forward as well the last thing i want to say is i know again i said our teachers who are willing to come in even though it's summer but i hope everybody out there is enjoying that opportunity to start enjoying that time off especially our students so that's all i have tonight Certainly hope it warms up for all of us people. It's too cold All right, where we at here? Items scheduled for the next
033agenda. I don't see anything at this point General public comment anyone wishing to address to the board about any comment anything? All right We will now open the floor for general public comment the same rules and procedures apply We will begin with in-person speakers followed by online participants. Mrs. Patts wasn't going to but you mentioned something kind of jogged my memory the meetings I know haven't looked online or anything, but are the interviews with the Candidates are they open meetings that anybody can come to for the principals? Not typically for administrative positions like that. That's usually when you're getting to superintendent level and that that they'll usually do public ones But I know they don't do that for tea. Yeah, I can't think of any I can't even think of other districts that do them
034publicly for that role. All right. Thank you. Yep Thank you. Now we board members comments Miss Snyder, do you have a comment? We're in general public comment. I know you arrived late Thank you. I just wanted to give you the opportunity. Yep. Thanks. I appreciate it. I didn't see her. If you want me to go ahead and just say, go ahead. You're ready to roll. Okay. 7287 Mayfair Street, Taylor, Michigan. I'm Lynette Snyder. I just wanted to say thank you to the school board for supporting the music program. I'm stepping down this year as the music booster board president. We have a whole new board. So I just want to say we had like a meeting and I just want to say thank you so much for supporting the music program. Like it's going to
035help our kids and families so, so much. And I just wanted to say a huge thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the feedback. I missed online did anybody nobody online okay all right board member comments I just want to touch base on what you said about today Mike the meeting with the teachers and what they want to do now that the school year is over I know that I've chatted with Emily a few times about this when you say that they want to do This for changing and making best practices, is it at every grade level? Like, what does that look like? Think we're too early to say right now today was really a lot of discussion into What do we define as the purpose of grading and who is the audience
036like who are we really but who is that grade? Actually aimed at and so it was really kind of establishing the things that set up to have a district-wide like mission and vision around grading primarily though I'm gonna say we're talking about looking at six through twelve for the most part because I think in the elementary school we have a pretty solid basis where they are in the standards based grading realm and I don't think that that's Something that we need to tweak or move around right now. You're looking more at the secondary piece. Okay, I did way early in that process Okay, well, I just wanna I'm just wondering if you guys would be open to having some of our alumni come in Emily might know where I'm going with this. But as I
037just had my son finish up his freshman year in college He is requested to present to the board and Emily about the things that our district needs to do better, especially for our 11th and 12th graders, to better prepare them for the college level. And so I don't know if that's something that you guys would be interested in allowing or even having parents come, because I know myself I have a lot of different ideas that I think would have been great to help. And he actually has some. fellow seniors from last year that also are interested in giving their inputs too so especially at the high school level So yeah, no, I'll definitely bring that up I know that when we sent out the grading our X survey prior like we did get a good
038sample of Students who did respond but you're right Those are current students not the ones who are now having a different experience now than once they graduated and we did get a good amount of parents who responded that one of the things that I kind of was take was a big takeaway for me today is although it wasn't large sample from the parents in terms of the number the amount of comments that parents had given feedback on was the largest of any of the groups so it says to me like okay the parents really want to see something different even if not every one of them responded but there was lots that they had to say in that survey results but yes definitely. It's valuable information. I know Jayden is very excited and has like
039so many different I think that's a great idea Yeah, I think we should schedule it for a future meeting if you make the motion I'd be happy to support it We just would need to add it and then pick a date and let's do it Well, I don't need to make a motion for it. He would just get added to the agenda as a as a Like to present to the board, right? All right, that was just Anything else from the board I would just like to reiterate our thanks to the Golden Ark Masonic Lodge for doing what they did and presenting those rewards to our wonderful coaches Just letting all the eSports coaches and students know that if you have concerns feel free to bring them my way I'm happy to advocate on your
040behalf. Thank you Anyone else? Okay, we'll move on to adjournment to closed session. All right Adjournment to closed session policy number zero one three seven point two pursuant to the Michigan Open Meeting Act as amended I move the Board of Education to convene in closed session to consider materials exempt from public disclosure under section 8 1 H and to consider the evaluation of employees under section 8 1 a of the Open Meeting Acts is there a motion motion motion by mr. Morris is there support Support by Ms. Fields. Mr. Madarski? Yes. Mr. Morris? Yes. Ms. Shufeltz is a yes. Mr. Westfall? Yes. Ms. Block is excused. Ms. Fields? Yes. Ms. Moore? Yes. That passes 6-0. I move the board into closed session at 6.37 p.m. Thank you. All right, let's wiggle back there. Okay, we're
041returning from closed session at 7.50 p.m. Action after closed session is our superintendent's evaluation. It is recommended the Board of Education approve the superintendent's annual evaluation with an overall rating of effective. Is there a motion? Motion by Ms. Moore. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Westfall. Mr. Morris? Yes. Ms. Shufelt is a yes. Mr. Westphal? Yes. Ms. Block is excused. Ms. Fields? Yes. Is a yes. Ms. Moore? Yes. Is a yes. Mr. Medarski is excused. That is passes five to zero. Next step is adjournment. Is there a motion for adjournment? Motion by Ms. Fields. Is there a second? Support. Support by Ms. Moore. Miss you felt as a yes, mr. Westphal Miss block is excused miss fields. Miss more. Yes. Mr. Medarski is excused. Mr. Morris That passes 5-0 the regular Board of
042Education regular board meeting is adjourned at 7 51 p.m