001the regular board meeting for Caledonia Community Schools on October 18th. Thank you all for being here. Could you please rise for the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Can we have roll call please? Ask for here, Barbara Garcia? Here. Clement Isitch? Here. Morris? Here. Seydoux? White? Here. Thank you, we're going to move to four, which is our consent agenda. We have the September 20th, 2021 minutes, October 2021 personnel report, and the September 2021 payable. I move the Board of Education approve the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, can I have a second? Second. Second, Brittany. Are there any changes, questions? No. Can we have roll call please?
002Ask for yes, Barbara Garcia? Yes. Isitch? Yes. Morris? Yes. White? Yes. Motion carries. On to 5, 5A is our student representative who is not here at this time. If she comes, we will work her back into the schedule. On 5B is a presentation for district enrollment, Mr. Brees and Dr. Martin. Good evening to Board of Education, as well as audience members. I wanted to get a little bit of a sense of the schedule. I'm going to go ahead and get a little bit of a look at the schedule. I'm going to go ahead and get a little bit of a look at the schedule. I'm going to go ahead and get a little bit of a look at the schedule. I'm going to go ahead and get a little bit of a look at the
003schedule. I'm going to go ahead and get a little bit of a look at the schedule here. One second. All right. Let's see here, I did go ahead and turn it over to Dr. Graziano. Let's see here. I think she may have a little more trouble with the schedule, maybe the →1, 12th, and 12 bör ache? It's pretty hard to make a decision. we all understand that the majority of our revenue comes based on student enrollment. This chart that you see here shows us a couple things. The pointer is not working, but on the left-hand side of the chart, you'll see the student enrollment number on the side, 5300. That enrollment number on the left-hand side of the chart charts how many kids we have at the county birth rate. So if you track the
004county birth rate in the blue line, you will see that it starts to trend down. This is the trend for the entire Kent County, as well as the trend for the state. It's projected to be that way until around 2027. If you look at the purple line, you will see the historic enrollment for our school district. So we have beat the projection. So if we only relied on our students who lived in our community, we didn't have schools of choice at all, then we would probably see a significant decline of enrollment. The yellow line, the projected enrollment, this is what they were projecting us to do based on our historical trends. But you can see there's a gap there, and that is the first year that we had the impact of COVID. So you can
005see our district is now at the same level as our school district. We have shown that this is about a six-year decline. So the second year of the enrollment, and then the fifth year is kind of a beginning of the peak year. Now, the thing that's interesting about this, is that you can see our actual trend line dipped last year and you'll see that a little bit again this year. Going to the next slide, what this bar represents here, or these graphs here, is you'll see the dark purple line represent our graduating seniors for that particular year. The light purple line then represents the incoming kindergarten. So in the best-case scenario, you want to see both of the purple lines evenly matched. And we have a very clear control of permanent enrollment in our school
006district. And we're going to be testing those two lines a little bit later on. So if you look at the second year, it's very much the same. match, that means that you have some consistency. If you see one line, if the light line is larger than the dark purple line, then you have more incoming kindergarteners replacing your outgoing senior students. In this case, you can see our trend data shows that historically for the last several years, our graduating kinder, our incoming kindergarten students are generally less than the graduating seniors. What we typically see, sorry if I can go back one, what we typically see is that given the number of private parochial schools as well as charter schools in our community, this is kind of our norm. We pick up kids as they head into
007the secondary as well as other grades throughout the year. So when we looked at our cohort data, we saw that relatively we were flat. So if kids were here in high school, kindergarten last year or first grade or second, for the most part, they rolled up into the next grade level. But as you can see with the 2021, the number of kids that we had graduating and the number of replacing kindergarten kids that came in was pretty low. So another thing that we noted as a big difference, you will see in grades seven through 12 on this chart, we have full-time online enrollment. So that's a big difference. So when you take our full-time online enrollment for students, primarily this is something that is offered through the Kent Intermediate School District in the 2021 school
008year because of COVID, we offered a pre-K through 12th grade online for everyone because we knew that we would have a lot of families who either wanted to opt out because they didn't want to wear a mask or they wanted to opt out because they were afraid of COVID and the impact to their family. So this year in the 2021 school year we have 2.25, two months, two semesters mid- philosophical. It not only campus at the end of the year, we have class in the middle of Chinese New school year you'll notice that the purple line has decreased pretty significantly so the yellow line represents all of the kids who were in our online programming k8 then we go to the purple because outside of my school at Kent we don't offer anything for pre-k
009through pre-k through eighth grade for online education one reason for that you'll see in the upcoming slide or two but before we get to that last slide this one is our mobility rate so a lot of times people ask for what's your student enrollment and you can see from this chart our student enrollment really literally change every day so this represents our mobility rate but if you look at the top when you look at the fall headcount and these are the actual bodies in a seat that we count we had a difference of 81 kids between who was coming in replacing the outgoing seniors all the stuff in between we didn't really see much between our students rolling up we lost a few kids in some grade levels we gained kids in other grade levels
010when you look at a mobility chart you'll see dropout move out of state move to another public school non public school home school or unknown meaning that they can withdraw and they don't have to give us a reason so what we noted here our move to the state is a little bit different than what we did in the past so we're going to look at the outlook from another color we started moving them in the state we started planning to move this out of state and move to another public school that is actually pretty standard in our school district the schools of choice and just the mobility of people moving in and out of our community we see a lot of fluctuations so you'll notice we, had 28 kids move in from another state we
011had 24 kids move out to another state we had 120 kids come to us for we had 124 move out to another district and that's not all schools of choice when we look deeper into that number we saw the majority of those 124 were not in a district contiguous to us it kind of indicated that they moved maybe on the north side of grand rapids or the west or a couple districts away so the majority of them were truly we believe just moved to another community we did see a number of families choose non-public schools we did see a number come back from home school enrollment but that was offset by 57 more and so the net difference when you look at all of that from the first day of school to the october count
012date was 81. so why did we choose the first day of school because on the 20th and then i believe on the 18th we got notified from the kent county health department as well as the allegheny health department that we had the requirement to level and also at craft grade building when we saw that go to the next one thank you what we noted is before a couple weeks before that we only had two students who were still enrolled in our online program so we went from see if this one stays on we went from communication in the middle of the students were consistently de-enrolling the closer we got to school there was no notification of a mass requirement people were feeling pretty good and we had somewhere in the 40s then it went to
013the 20s and 10s and we ended up with two students a couple weeks before school so for staffing purposes we released all of those staff put them back in and canceled our online enrollment program and then we got notified on the 18th and we so sudden was a number of families at the secondary level who was asking for online enrollment and at the elementary levels we were seeing a number of families asking for online enrollment and it were for two different reasons some were saying at the secondary level if the rates were going up and we were not going to be able to get them back in school we were not going to be able to enforce a mask mandate they didn't feel comfortable so we did see a number of kids who left at
014the seventh grade and above who just go into some form of online education and this all started to occur within days of school because of the changes at the same time we were also hearing from a number of families who decided that they would probably either home school or send their kids to a private school because they didn't want their kids to wear a mask so not having that offering probably didn't allow us to pick up kids like we normally would have or at least in the last school year so the net effect is we were down 81 students and that is our head count numbers our final count numbers will include share time counts okay I don't know what's up with the mics tonight the share time numbers that is our service to all
015the private school students that we have. I'm going to turn it over to the next speaker. I'm going to turn it over to the next speaker. so we generally don't know that for a little while until our private schools get us all the information so that we can calculate that through the system but that comes out to be our final FTE count which in the past several years have generally been in the neighborhood of 300 plus students. additional students that will be total smaller senior class I mean the consistent trend of a larger senior class followed by a smaller incoming kindergarten class think is as we thought we as we have in previous years in the secondary level that reason is just unknown to us but a lot of times we'll see them coming out
016of private schools that only go up to a certain grade level and then are entering our secondary buildings or we will see families who homeschool but it gets a little bit more complex the older the kid gets if you try balance our numbers out and in some cases continue with our increased enrollment trends that we've seen so again we nixed our online program because we felt that we had a strong desire in our community for face-to-face education students didn't make a lot of sense for us unfortunately after the mandates came out we got more requests for online but there was no way that we could flip a switch and get ready in time for all of those kids and so then we had the and I think that was largely precipitated by the information that
017came out on August 18th and August 20th that is essentially the information of our enrolled if the green light is on but it's been cutting in and out for me all right give this a try so can we speak a little bit about our plans for online I know even before the pandemic occurred we we had interest and I think it's been accentuated but there's a lot of groundwork that needs to occur I thought you might be able to walk us through that real briefly yes jump in but essentially with us what we noticed is there's a significant difference in the online education that we provided due to Covid and a true online program and so what we're trying to do is work with families who really interested in true online education because there's a
018significant market out there and I've been in touch with a few of our neighboring districts families for years have been choosing online education a very different process since the pandemic hit the rest of us were able to go online and get work done at work It is not typical sense where people think computer, you cut it on and you see Mr. Jones, Mr. Johnson, whatever teacher that you had in the typical setting. It's a different set of teachers. It's a different pace. A lot of times you'll have different electives. So our desire is to work to build a true online education for those families who look for that unique form of public education. There is a number of those. What we didn't want to do is recreate what we did last year in the pandemic.
019That ended up being, based on the results that we saw, it was not the best for our teachers, nor was it the best for our students. We were trying to cram the same traditional teaching into an online box while teachers were still engaging kids in a face-to-face method. It was very difficult for the teachers to be able to manage both and do it well. So we are going to explore. We are going to explore online education in the future, but it is something that is going to be a slow build process. There's a lot behind the scenes to make that work. I don't know if that answered your question. Yeah, it does. Okay. Other questions? I have one more if it's okay with you. So can you compare our fall school of choice numbers from
0202019-20 school year to the fall school year? Yeah. Okay. So the school year, where do those fall for the fall, the early time? Yes. So that would still be down. And I want to say we lost around 120 total students, do you recall, Sarah? We lost a significant number of students the year that we had the full year of COVID. And what helped us is the state came up with what they called the Super Blend formula. And so that number came down. And so that number came down. And so that number came down. And the state total was down approximately 100 kids or so. And so that number came down. And so that number came down. And so that number came down. I don't know if it was a sub-total, but the state total was
021down approximately 100 kids or so. So what this number is compared to the fall of 19, I'd have to go back and look that up. But we can find that out and share it with the board in a memo. Yeah, that's fine. I will caution, though, head count is very different than final count. So a lot of times everyone wants to know, well, how many kids do you have? Well, how many kids do you have? Because we serve, really, a couple of thousand kids, I keep that number in a memo, because I can't find out how many kids are in those exactly. All right? in the private school setting we will be able to count those incremental portions of our service which will give us several hundred more in the end great thank you uh
022yes can you speak to what those services are yes so for a lot of their uh non-core elective class we either send our teachers over or we pay for their teachers so the benefit is it allows the the private schools to keep their costs down in terms of staffing and it allow us to collect more student fte so for example if we either send one of our art teachers over or we employ their art teacher and we pay them at their pay scale then that portion of the day for that one hour we get to count that student so it's prorated if you will so for all of those students that we service in that way and it might be art it might be some form of a computer class or pe or a number
023of different electives for every one of those teachers that we pay that work at a private school or every one of our teachers that we send over there to provide services or or special education will be another thing that we do we get to count a portion of that and so there's a lot of calculation with the students that we pay for that and then we get to count the students that we pay for that and then we get to add up these incremental pieces and eventually we call that fte so we might service just pulling the number we might service 4 000 kids but it will it will probably bring us maybe 300 additional full-time equivalent of students being served if that makes sense all right thank you before i go on to our
024discussion items i just want to bring up that we do have our comment cards that are meant for the public to fill out with your name and contact information for follow-up as appropriate i'm going to ask that these all be turned in by the beginning of public or by the i'm sorry by the beginning of the interested citizen public comment if you could turn them back in we have back over in the corner over there waving their hands if you could turn your cards into them if we could have those at the beginning i will then um read off like three things at a time so that we were able to keep that moving to honor everybody's time thank you we're going to move on to six discussion 2021 audit mr reese hello okay so
025it's that time of year where we have now officially completed the 2021 fiscal year so we've completed our annual audit so i'm going to briefly talk through that with you here so this was an interesting year so i just want to do some recaps because our budgets to start the year fluctuated quite a bit from ending the year so we started the year when the board adopted our budget back in june of 2020 at that time the economy was under extreme pressure we districts were being told to prepare for a 650 per pupil reduction so at that time when we adopted the budget we did realize that in that initial budget which was about 3.3 million that hit then over the summer of 2020 we worked to reduce our budget so we cut about two
026and a half million dollars during that time and then we also plan to utilize our fund balance for the remainder of that anticipated shortfall we also were pursuing different grant opportunities so we worked with our education foundation also with state and local grants as well then in the middle end of august the state held another revenue estimating conference to gain better understanding of where the economy was at the time prior to when the state needed to adopt their budget which is the end of september so out of that conference revenues came in better than expected due to the influx of the federal stimulus dollars which was great news so with that the state was able to budget and not institute that six hundred and fifty per pupil reduction that they had been talking about so
027with that the district was able to reinstate about 1.3 million of the earlier budget reductions also in the past past year we did experience over 150 fte or full-time equivalent loss in students thankfully the state implemented a one-time super blend formula and with that we didn't have to realize a full loss of that 150 which saved us just over 800 000. additionally this past year we had about 2.3 million in excess costs that we typically don't have in a year due to the pandemic and again thankfully from federal stimulus dollars as well as the other local grants that we were able to to get it helped us cover those costs and those costs included ppe technology and accessibility remote learning our online teaching mentors we had in the health care area we had a doctor
028a couple nurses um each of the buildings had a building health para some professional development and we had some additional curricular development that we needed as well so it's linked here which will be put on our district website so that 2021 budget comparison is actually a spreadsheet of numbers which i won't pull up here because you won't even be able to read it but what it is it has listed on there are 1920 audited numbers it has each of our budgets from the 2021 fiscal year and the it has our ending final audited numbers on that as well as our adopted budget for this current 21 22 fiscal year so it's all on that one document but what we did on the audited numbers we ended with 59.3 in total revenue 59.1 in total expense
029so we added 161 000 to our fund balance which brought us to 10.2 million or 17.3 percent of expenditures so this was all reviewed with our auditors our audit lead auditor came and presented to our finance committee thankfully we had a clean audit that all went well and it's always nice from the business office perspective to put one one year of books to bed and now focus on the current year and the future years coming so that is the end of the audit presentation any questions thank you very much sarah we're going to move on to 6b which is the community center construction contract with mr hess thank you upstanding work getting that down that was quite a quite an achievement by all of you so i know there's a lot of time spent so
030thank you um tim perhaps you failed to mention the lead time of steel which would also affect the time yeah one of the problems any additional questions all right thank you go ahead i just want to commend uh mental yeah it just doesn't like this is a very monumental change to do a lot of value engineering and keep us with the scope of the project in terms of the size and the space that we needed so kudos to you guys once again thank you all right we're going to move forward now um onto 6c which is our 2022 grouping administration contract thank you tim in in the larger document um there's the the scope and then the additional scope for what if and i know we are our buildings that were the elementary schools are
031all built different time periods we don't know what we're going to get into does the process we're utilizing does that hold us um i guess i should say this are we guaranteed that we're going to be able to open school with if there's a roof problem or how you know i'm getting that any additional questions all set thank you very much we're going to move on to 7 gordon superintendent report we have 7a which is curriculum and learning committee i don't know if somebody's here do they have the report for that thank you the curriculum and learning committee met on october 14th at 7 30 a.m christian shared information about the dress code change to the high school handbook regarding HAP. Additionally, she provided a summary of extended learning from summer 2021 that included the
032qualifying criteria for students, enrollment numbers, staff number, participation, and an overview of each session by grade level. The plan moving forward will be to use exit NWEA data from spring 2021 with fall NWEA data for middle school, elementary, and recovery statistics for the high school to determine extended learning and implementation effectiveness. This information will help in planning for summer 2022 extended learning opportunities. The Reproductive Health Committee has solidified the curriculum for the 2022 school year. Next steps for the committee include committee reviewing curriculum to determine which lessons topics are being taught within grade bands, solidify two different curriculum topics, and identify the best curriculum for the next year. The committee will also be meeting with board and reproductive health advisory members to share recommendations and three recommend to the board committee and then full board
033on implementation plans. 1.1, willing to wait grades 5 through 8. This is no change to the current curriculum, but expanded curriculum to the fifth grade. 1.2, Michigan model grades 9 through 12 health classes. This is also no change to curriculum, but expanded curriculum to the fifth grade. 2.3, the district's plan to expand the curriculum to the next year. This is also no change to the current curriculum, but may include expansion within the high school. Accelerated learning related to clubs, enrichment, extracurricular activities, and advanced courses throughout the district was discussed. The administrators are currently working on an inventory of all student opportunities and creating a plan to expand offerings in the upcoming years. Sarah DeVries and Daryl Kingsbury provided an overview of the Finance and Operations Committee held on October 13, 2021. Dr. Martin provided an
034overview of the Finance and Operations Committee held on October 13, 2021. Dr. Martin provided an overview of the Finance and Operations Committee held on October 13, 2021. Dr. Martin provided an overview of the Finance and Operations Committee held on October 13, 2021. Dr. Martin provided an overview and update on the historical and current enrollment status based on October's count day. The meeting adjourned at 8.30 am. Thank you. Are there any issues to be addressed? All right. Thank you. We're going to go on to 7 B, which is Finance and Operations Committee. Kim? Thank you. The Finance and Operations Committee convened last Wednesday, October 13, at 7.31 am. The Committee convened in person with one individual assembly member. The Committee convened in person with one individual assembly member. the community present mr joe verlin from gamebridge
035and company reviewed the district's annual auditing report excuse me reporting the district had a clean unmonitored audit which is impressive berlin noted that the accounting for the new federal esser funds are complicating school districts audit processes caledonia community schools fund balance increased by 161 162 dollars up from 16 in the 2019 20 school year to 17.3 during this audit period mr reese presented the committee with the year-to-date budget comparison and bridge reports for the district general fund and miscellaneous fund ms perkowski reviewed the curriculum and learning committee agenda the committee thanked ms perkowski for her time and effort in bringing the district's sex education program up to compliance standards once again executive director of operations and transportation mr matt hess and mr paul wills from plant moran cresa spoke to the new community center in
036the new duncan elementary bond projects and updated the committee on the current construction status despite inflationary pressures and other complicated issues the committee was pleased to learn the bond project remains on budget committee was briefed on appropriate steps in the sale process concerning district property parcels mr hess indicated that we are anticipating between four and 5.5 million in roofing projects scheduled to be performed during summer break he also indicated that the board of education will be asked to assist in the sale process and that the board of education will be asked to assist in the sale process and lastly the committee briefly discussed the national association of school boards request for fbi assistance at local school boards the committee questioned the district's nasb affiliation and learned no relationship exists between the two entities the meeting
037adjourned at 7 44 pm the next finance and operations committee is scheduled for wednesday november 10 at 7 30 a.m perfect thank you are there any i know that several people had asked about the national association of school boards and just wanted to make sure that that was confirmed that we do not have that direct affiliation or affiliation with them so that is how i understand yes correct thank you all right any additional questions for tim or finance committee no all right thank you very much do we have any additional board reports at this time no all right so yeah quick thing um we yeah perfect thank you we put a copy of the masb delegate handbook in the memo for the board members that meeting is set for thursday november the 11th and we
038have mr tim morris who will be serving as the representative to the delegate assembly for our school district so i think we're all set there also kudos to mr vries and the entire business department did a great job again with the audit considering all the changes and the movement backwards and forward with the state funding and then the federal effra funding that came through it was pretty outstanding to get a another clean audit so kudos to the business department for their work in that also our staff is beyond flourishing time i心ra together at hr department um a board member had inquired about our sub fill rate looking at data that we retrieved from the county we actually have the fifth highest fill rate in the county which was pretty good this is particularly a tough
039year for everyone as it relates to staffing whether that's subs bus drivers custodial maintenance and so we're certainly having our challenges but um kudos to hr um we're going a lot ahead of time we're going to try better than a lot of our counterparts of the 20 districts throughout the county wearing that upper quartile and we'll continue to look for creative ways to fill those vacancies as they come also we had sent out a press release regarding school lunch week national school lunch week and so our own Mimi Mahaney as well as Kelly Clark was able to do an interview on our behalf for the school district on the Shelly Irwin show they did a great job talking about all the wonderful extra work that our food service department has done over the summer and
040into this year providing free food for the needy in our community the groundbreaking ceremony we sent out a press release last week we have re-established the date as October 27th and we are now in the middle of the summer and we are going to be doing a press release on October 27th so a flyer was shared in the newsletter for all the school buildings as well as on our website as you recall because of the substantial increase in the cost for some of the materials for the community center we had to postpone and try to bring that cost back in line now that we feel comfortable that that cost is back in line we'll be proceeding forward with our groundbreaking ceremony on October 27th also I want to also I want to also now and
041and middle now and all that whole number all 11 11 12 as real this huge lack off number five eight seven any down have heard so it's just an opportunity for anyone and everyone to come out topics that we will briefly touch over a student achievement transportation changes which have been announced for Duncan Lake in the high school and the rationale why bond construction updates and then just general open question and response and that is all I have for the student for dr. Martin all right thank you we're going to move on to eight our action items 8a is our 2021 audit I recommend that the board approve the June 30 2021 audit as conducted by gay bridge and company may I have a second please second second by tim any additional questions on that
042can I have a roll call please ask for yes Barbara Garcia yes Clement uh Iset Morris yes White yes motion carries on to 8b which is our community center construction contract I move that the board approve Rockford construction incorporated to enter into final negotiations and sign contracts for the firms as noted in the recommended recommendation documents for the 2020 bond project slash community center we have a second second Katie any additional questions roll call please yes Barbara Garcia yes Iset Morris yes White yes motion carries on to 8c 2022 roofing administration contract I move that the board approve the superintendent to enter into final negotiations and sign a contract with the firm of structure tech for architectural and engineering services for roof replacement for the 2020 bond project maybe we have a second by Katie
043any additional questions we have roll call please ask for yes Barbara Garcia yes Iset Morris yes White yes motion carries thank you at this time we're going to move on to nine which is our public comment section I'll ask that any additional cards please be turned in in the back we have a we want to thank each of you for coming we value the opportunity to be here and we're honored to be here today we value the public participation comments should be directed only to the full board not to individual board members no personnel issues please at this time comments are asked to be limited to three minutes are we good all right thank you we will start with Melissa Van Gessel Robert and Christine Thalen I'm simply here to give the cea report in
044September cea members oh for those The CEA is the Caledonia Education Association. Members volunteer their time on a Saturday morning to be part of the Caledonia Chamber of Commerce Fall Festival. We had a lot of kids come and they were throwing bean bags at bottles that we had look like pumpkins. And a special thank you to Dr. Barbara Garcia who came over and spoke with the teachers and spent some time with us. So thank you for that. This month we actually have a scarecrow that is placed outside of Brinks Ice Cream Express. With the idea that teachers plant the seeds for the future blooming. And that will be part of the contest that goes starting yesterday until next week. We actually have a staff member here at Caledonia whose family is going through some hard
045times medically. And the CEA and teachers have really stepped up to help this family. In fact, in less than two hours there were 15 sick days donated by craft teachers. To be able to help this family through their hard time medically. We also have had other teachers in buildings donate a lot of funds to this family to help with medical expenses. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Robert and Christine Fallon, followed by Justin Nichols, and after that is Betsy Apple. Good evening. So the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that no person in the United States shall on the ground of race, color, or national origin be excluded from the United States. Thank you. And that is the only way that we can get the students to be excluded from participation in, be denied
046the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or active receiving federal financial assistance. So in July we were here, both me and my wife, and described how our entire son's classroom that was white was accused of being racist just because they were white by their teacher. And so our request was that we get some kind of proactive feedback to say how are we going to prevent this from happening again. So we've received nothing. So I don't know exactly what the venue is, but it would be nice to know that somebody at least considered it and talked about it. You can dismiss it. That's your choice. But at least it would be nice to know that something is being done. So, and then, and that really was about critical race theory and that's
047our concern that that's becoming very significant within. Many school systems, but this one's the one of particular concern for us. So then, recently in the communicator, we were reading. how now you're de-emphasizing academic excellence and meritocracy in favor of intangibles because that's what the colleges want. So you're not going to rank people one through ten or things like that. And for us, that's another red flag. That's a definite tenet of the CRT. So again, we're looking for what are we going to do to make sure that CRT doesn't become embedded into our school system and cause basic discrimination based on factors that people can't control. So that's what I'm looking for. I would like some response. I don't want to have to keep coming back. So thank you for your time. Thank you. And this
048is Justin Nichols, Betsy Appel, and then Jessica Wood. Is this on? Can you guys hear me? Yeah. Okay. Because over the last couple of weeks, I've emailed each one of you board members and the superintendent and failed to get but one response. My wife also emailed along with a few friends and colleagues, and they got the same response that I got with a few additional words and typing here and there. And the title of my email was, Just Please Respond. You guys work for us. This is our community. If you don't want to work for us, just step down. But we should be heard. This is a tough time, but we would just like some answers. It sounds like the guy right in front of me is asking for answers, too. We're asking questions, and
049nobody is responding. We email the principal. We email the teachers. Nobody will say anything. We just get a candid response from the legal team or just, you know, no response. Please respond. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Betsy Appel, then Jessica Wood, and then Christy Belmore. For months, our school told us we do not participate with teaching CRT. The gaslighting has to stop. It's time for transparency and honesty. Just because the verbiage has changed does not mean it's not CRT. Our teachers participated in a Zoom meeting on August 23rd with Dr. Kate Swalwell about inclusion in the classroom. Dr. Kate Swalwell is a part of an educational activism allies. This group promotes negotiating privilege in ways to promote security. She teaches critical race theory and social justice. She teaches oppression. Men are bad. White
050men are worse. White people have white privilege. Therefore, oppression, we oppress minorities. Celebrating diversity is deflecting from oppression. So why, if we don't teach critical race theory, would you bring in someone in our school like that? Instead of educating our children, the administration is pushing a social justice industrial complex. Our children are not people anymore. They are viewed as data and data. They are viewed as data and data. They are viewed as dollar signs. Instead of focusing on a higher education, the administration is focusing on how much money you'll get for pushing the newest progressive agenda into the classroom. Multiple times now I've been told STEM does not have anything to do with CRT. According to this FOIA right here, it does. When you have five steps according to STEM, one of them is fighting
051for justice, building a powerful mathematical argument to fight the systemic racism, or a center complex system. A center complex identity construct. Sorry, I'm going to mess this all up. Anyways, it does. Here's the proof. This is a FOIA from MI STEM, and it's full of CRT. So please don't gaslight me anymore. I'm sick of it. We have CRT in our school. We have it in TCI learning. We have it in SEL. We have it in our iReady math. We have it in my perspective. I have those books at my home. I guarantee every single parent, we have CRT in our school. Stop gaslighting us, please. It's called DEI. Fine, it's called DEI. That is CRT. SEL does nothing good for our kids. It's collecting data on our children. The administrators in the school, all you
052are worried about is getting the money for my child. My child has a name. My child is a person. So it's not about collecting data about him. He is a person. Make sure you treat him like one. Not for your dial signs, not for your millions of dollars you are pumping into our school. Thank you. This is Jessica Wood. Thank you. And then we'll have Christy Bellmore followed by Curt VanLente. Go ahead, Chris. Thank you. Thank you, school board and Superintendent Martin. We understand that this is a very hard time to be on the school board. We want to thank you for listening, but we are all asking today for a further step and that is a call for action. We know you're in a tough position right now, but we are asking you to
053advocate for our kids like we are advocating for our kids. We have talked to some of you and you agree with us. If you do not agree on what is going on but not going to take a stand, we are asking you to please step down now so that the ones that will advocate for the rights of our kids and do what is right will do so. After Governor Whitmer approved the budget, more counties rescinded the mask mandate than those who kept the order. Governor Whitmer said herself putting a mask mandate in order is unconstitutional. But somehow our county health director is constitutional without going through the judicial process and without any true scientific data on masks. And now the budget she signed some parts are unconstitutional as well. You can see why everyone is
054heated across the United States. When you allow one of your schools to have choice and not the others, credibility of what you are doing really is null and void. If Allegan can rescind their health code, I am sure with the right legal representation, Kent can too. Any experimental studies that you have, please do not take them. Any experimental studies that have been done on cloth masks show that masks are 10 to 12% effective. It is time to stop the spread of fear and unmask the truth of what really is going on. There are so many adverse effects from masks from learning to social and emotional well-being and the overall health of our children. There is no more risk than any other virus that are out there. Our kids should not be masked. There are some
055schools in our district that are having the parents sign waivers so the kids and families can have a choice. Have you asked your legal director? Have you asked your legal department about parents signing waivers that they can't sue the school if kids contract COVID or anything that can give the parents choice and advocate for us? You work with Allegan as well. As Allegan and Kent County Talking Truth, our school can have choice. Many of us have reached out to you to have dialogue and a conversation during the school board meeting, but all of our requests were denied when we asked you to speak about them at the board meeting. We are asking you to speak with us on subjects and talk with us. We are asking you to speak with us on how you feel.
056If that's what you feel. Does that help? If not, we will find a way to help. We have two more questions. One is from Kelly. If you can talk about some of the things that have happened over the last couple of years. If you can speak on social media, be sure to do that. If not, please do so. That's my goal. It's been a long time. Thank you. The question that I can answer. Thank you. My eight-year-old son summed it up best that Mom, I have a hard time breathing in my mask. It is like it stops me from taking my full breath. I get really hot and feel like someone is putting their hand over my mouth. There are millions of kids that feel the same way or other ways that negatively impacts them.
057asking why do you want youthful kids to feel like they can't fully breathe? Why do you feel this is okay? Our kids can go into Meijer or any store or go to any sports games without a mask, but you are asking them to sit hours at a time in a mask. This is not healthy. We have a great community, so many parents working together, and so many great teachers. We love our kids more than anything, and we will keep fighting for what is right. We are asking all board members to speak with us afterwards. Have a respectful conversation with us. Also, if you feel the voice is not heard, please speak to me afterwards. There are a whole group of us concerned parents that feel you and want your voice to be heard. Enough is
058enough. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Christy Belmar followed by Kurt, and then Melissa Owens. Hi there. I am here to simply request for more updates and more information about the before and after school care, when that's going to potentially be open and staffed. I think we've had some very good feedback on that. I think that's really important. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to make sure that if someone needs more information to know how to plan for even weeks ahead of time, I just ask for more updates, whatever that might be. Thank you. Thank you. Kurt, then Melissa Owens, and Amy Sutherland. I got bored one day and just read the teacher's contract that's online, and I couldn't find anything on there about Kent
059County Health Department deputies or enforcing Kent County Health Department's ban on school care. rules I didn't see anything in their contract or in rules and regulations for teachers their job description there's nothing in there about that so I wonder if you're a teacher you should be getting paid to enforce Kent County Health Department rules if I was a teacher I'd ask for more money if you're good at something you should get paid for it and if you're going to enforce a rule you haven't been that's not under your contract you don't have to enforce you should get paid more to do it flush with COVID money just pay them more and if I was a teacher I wouldn't do it unless I was getting paid to do it Melissa Owens Amy Sutherland and John Brando
060hello my name is Melissa I have a sixth grader and a fourth grader in the Caledonia School District well let me tell you who I really am I am an advocate for my children and I'm an advocate for parent choice both my kids started their schooling career and young fives in the Caledonia School District when it came time for Kindergarten placement for our daughter I had to advocate her to go to Kettle Lake which was two miles from our house I had so many problems getting into into the school I eventually set up a meeting with the superintendent at that time Randy Rodriguez in order to the school district because I wanted help as an teacher this issue I am an advocate for my children it was also at this time at this meeting with
061Randy Rodriguez that I became an advocate an active advocate for a pool for Caledonia a few years later I had to set up a meeting with Dr. Martin so I could express my concern about the poor processes set in place or lack thereof when trying to get my son the speech therapy that I felt so deeply that he needed because I am a parent advocate for my children when it comes to my children and my family it is my husband and myself that know what is best for them no one knows my kids better than me no one knows what's best for my kids better than myself and my husband I am an active member in this school district I am a room parent I'm a former room parent I've attended every one of my
062children's holiday parties I've donated items I volunteer to every field day my husband and I have attended every field trip I attend walkathons I donate bottled waters to the schools I donate to Teacher Appreciation Month I donate my time and my money to these kids and this school district I want to see my kids Caledonia kids and this school district achieve and succeed I say this because I feel this deeply let parents back into the schools kids need parents back in the schools especially at the elementary schools they need to see that the schools that they're going to use are good schools We need to see that the schools and parents have good relationships because right now our kids aren't seeing this. They're only seeing mistrust. Who do our kids have to trust in their
063schools when they are forced to cover their noses and mouths with a mask when it's against their wishes, their free will, and their parents? The lack of trust between children and their parents and the schools and the school board at this point is astounding. After the Senate Bill 82 was passed and the law was set in place that the health department cannot mandate masks for minors, I sent the board an email stating this. And I had a response in the email stating, quote, our board of education has determined that we will follow the required mask mandates as presented by the health departments. So you all made a conscious choice to go against the law to follow the health department that's breaking the law. This statement tells me that you have a choice and you can
064change this. A lot of parents in this room feel this way. There are people in this community that will support you. We are a pro-tip. We are a pro-choice. We are pro-parent choice. Thank you. Thank you. I have Amy Sutherland and John Brando and Victoria Perry. Good evening. I just handed her a copy of the deprivation of rights under the color of law, as well as a copy of the constitution and also some information in regards to vaccines. I work in the healthcare industry. I come tonight with a heart of deep concern for the health and safety of our children. For the past couple of years, I've been working for the health department and the health department. I've been working for the health department for the last couple of years. I've spent countless hours reading
065and listening to expert testimony about the mRNA DNA altering experimental COVID gene therapy. I want to make sure that you're aware of the censorship of information that's taking place in our country. Any scientist or doctor who does not fall into lockstep with the government's views on COVID is censored and this should alarm all of us. This is reminiscent of Nazi Germany and communism and it's happening in our country today. Freedom of speech, freedom of press are being restricted. We're told to follow the science, but how can we follow when the highly credentialed scientists and doctors are censored, silenced and even threatened for trying to make the science known? There's a proverb which says, the first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him. No doubt we've heard all the safe and
066effective statement that was quickly pushed out, so I would like to provide you with some cross-examination. I've prepared a handout giving another perspective about the science of the coronavirus. I'm going to read it to you. Here we go. So first of all, this is a detailed guideline regarding COVID vaccines, which by the way are totally different from all childhood vaccines as they use a gene therapy technology which has never been used before in vaccines and has absolutely no long term safety data for children and young people whose vital organs are still developing, such as heart, brain and reproductive organs. I've included some of the most qualified doctors and scientists including Dr. Robert Malone, one of the inventors of mRNA vaccination who has said that no one should get the COVID vaccines because they are actually
067making the virus become worse. Dr. Mike Yadin, Ph.D., former VP of Pfizer, who has said that children are 50 times more likely to die from the vaccine than from the virus. And Dr. Ryan Cole, expert pathologist, who has described the evidence that he's seeing that vaccines are wreaking havoc on immune systems, causing permanent heart damage in healthy young males and negatively affecting fertility. Not to mention the current VAERS data, which shows over 16,000 deaths from the C-19 vaccines reported in the U.S. alone. Dr. Cole recently did an interview describing the scientific findings after very quickly receiving more than 1 million views on YouTube and Facebook. It was pulled from these platforms. He was doing nothing more than sharing the science he observed in clinical setting and the lab, and yet those who are telling us
068to follow the science are censoring vital information. This is unacceptable. Why am I sounding the alarm? Because Dr. Fauci is already wanting vaccine mandates for schoolchildren in schools. And in California and North Carolina, they've already done it. I'm asking you to be proactive. Please look at the information that I provided you and become informed so you'll have the knowledge to stand up to protect our children against dangerous mandates. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Brandow. And then Victoria Perry. My wife and I are currently raising our fourth generation Caledonia students. I want to address what we view as inconsistencies with your policies and handling of situations that occur within our district. In our experience, both the principal and superintendent, are inconsistent in how they dealt with students, parents, and the punishments handled down for infraction. I
069say this because of what happened to our son. During the last school year, our son ran out the door late one morning, unfortunately with his pocket knife in his pocket from doing chores and dealing with sick pigs the night before. As this can happen with many rural Caledonia kids. When he got on the bus, he realized he had it, along with a utility tool in his backpack. He discreetly slid the knife in the backpack, and he was seen by doing so by another student. And then that student brought it to the school's attention at the end of the day. Fast forward. During the expulsion hearing, proposing the removal of our son from school, everyone in attendance except for Dr. Martin stated that never once was our child viewed as a threat. They realized this was
070an accident and there was never any ill intentions involved. We had presented over 15 letters of reference, including letters from teachers and support staff, stating that in their professional opinion, our son needed to be treated. Thank you. And that's what we've done. Needed to be in person learning as much as he struggled with school. We came to that realization with online learning during COVID. We know a rule is broken with no ill intentions and knew a punishment was coming. But the thought of 180 day suspension never once crossed our mind and seemed a bit extreme. Given the known situation, a discovered inconsistency was the measurement of the knife in the report. The knife stated that it was stated that the knife was over three inches. And the report report said between three and four inches.
071The report said between three and an eighth and three and five eighths. Figure that out. It was later discovered the knife was measured incorrectly and the true measurement was actually under three inches. Placing the knife in a different category from that of a three inch knife deadly weapon. The staff incorrectly measured it in our opinion to meet their guidelines of a deadly weapon. After bringing this to the school board's attention, it was decided to let Dr. Martin handle this. We asked the board to look at this but were never contacted by them. Only Dr. Martin denying us. How can you even attempt to punish a kid with such blatant false information, false measurements is beyond comprehension. According to our superintendent, he gave grace to our son with a 48 day suspension. The suspension ran through
072the summer which kept him from volunteering with Cal AISO program, running the Kilt Classic, his whole football season, homecoming, FFA events and most importantly school. Dr. Martin ruled with his iron fist. We are now dealing with a kid who is not academically doing well. Go figure it doesn't take a doctor to know that you take a nonviolent kid that struggles with online learning out of person, in person learning you obviously have a struggle. As much as I hate to say Dr. Martin made it clear by his actions that he felt he was dealing with a white privileged kid. Thank you. Victoria Perry. Good evening members of the board. My name is Victoria Perry and I am a mother and a community member. Last time I was before you I came to speak to you on
073Monday. This is a big day for our community. to speak to you on math mandates and i want to extend my gratitude and appreciation for each one of you for all you have done to keep our kids and our communities safe so far i would like you to consider doing more and making a district-wide mandate to protect all of our children but i digress today i am here to discuss the severe problem that we have going on inside our school system last year my child was a victim of sexual misconduct on the playground in kindergarten kindergarten the year before that another kindergarten child at our school fell victim to sexual misconduct on the playground the actions of the kindergarteners on the playground were brushed off as childhood curiosity this year in our high school this
074past week a football player was taunting and sexually moaning at female classmates and making the girls feel unsafe at school the victims reported the incident to the coaches and the principal that boy got one hour of detention at level one offense according to the student handbook when it is written in the student handbook it is it is a sexual harassment which is a level two offense and a minimum two-day suspension so tell me why last week a girl in high school received a 10-day suspension for having pepper spray on her keychain for having an item to protect herself when she clearly feels unsafe at our schools a school where boys can be sexually threatening towards girls and get special treatment because it's a sexual offense they are on the football team i demand to know
075why our school system is allowing sexual misconduct of any form and of any age to continue to go unpunished and mishandled caledonia is further perpetuating rape culture enforcing blame and shame on females for how they dress or how they protect themselves from becoming part of the 97 percent we cannot continue to give the boys a pass because they have a bright future ahead of themselves in a football career at colleges like culver-stockton or university of findlay bring my boy andrew am i right good old boys club here at caledonia huh no we need to break this cycle of giving boys a pass from the consequences of their actions while punishing the girls for trying to protect themselves or be comfortable in what they wear at school our school system needs to change their policies on
076dress codes and the power that they play in their school system is going to be a key subject of this and shaming girls and put harsher punishments for any sexual misconduct within our walls as parents we entrust you with the safety and mental health of our children in so many ways and you are failing miserably at this one myself and other disappointment parents demand you do better for our vulnerable impressionable children while they are in your care you failed my child in kindergarten do not fail these kids now in high school and in their future make a change to our hallways make a change to make sure our hallways and playgrounds are safe for all of these kids please do better thank you thank you at this time we are going to take a five
077minute break public comment session right sir i do not have a card filled out my name is duane american citizen i don't fill out cards i'm not required to under the oma act i could do not give you my full name or address all right at this time we're going to go ahead and go to recess we did we did ask for the cards to be turned in prior to public comment starting we're going to take a recess of five minutes and then we will go into closed session please thank you yeah who's timing me under section 8k which i believe is what they've called out for their co-session coming this evening that they have the right to go into closed session for a study term if they have the right they will come back
078in the second period of time the second period will also take place we have to make sure that the parent doesn't go in by her son's name by her daughter's name vote their son along with them is usually on the student registration i know that they will come for the 30-day vibration so i would like to make a comment if there is an opportunity for students from the everybody the staff of the school board to consider security planning to address existing threats of a board in reference to a topic that every one of us here has been discussing for over 18 months now. For over a year and a half, we have discussed the virus, prophylaxis, remedies, masking, distancing, quarantine, shutdowns, remote learning, contagions, immune systems, contact tracing, on and on and on. There is
079nothing that we have not discussed about this issue. School boards hiding behind this paragraph in the OMA is probably one of the main reasons the parents in here are pissed off because you're causing harm between you and them trying to hide all of your decision-making processes. The relationship with the community has been destroyed because of this. Where is your transparency? The boards speak up. What are you trying to hide? Furthermore, all voting of this particular item that does take place in your coal session will take place here. It has to take place in an open session. So what is the difference? You're going to go in and discuss this, come back out here and vote on it. In an open session. You're going to go in and discuss this, come back out here and vote
080on it. In an open session. And we'll be waiting for that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I don't know where to go. I don't know. I was just reading. Oh, they're on the hill. Oh, true. Oh, my God. And you needed a house. Oh, did they get bought a house? Oh, yeah. I'll be just like that whenever it's next year. What? What? Oh, right. I know, thank you. It was kind of a murder. Is that the limit? Okay. Yeah, it's on here. It's on here. As for yes, Barbara Garcia? Yes. Is it? Yes. Morris? Yes. White.