001Yeah. Okay. Here we go. Jose and put it in my yard. >> All right, then. I need one. I saw that. That's true. So, so I'll be I assume we're doing roll call votes. that time. >> We just need Ari and Kim. >> Hey, Julie. Hey, Julie. Did you see Kim or Ari out there? >> Yeah. >> Hey, we're just here. You guys, that's the same thing we got in the email. They just heard a rumor that we didn't. >> So, they may have I know. Thank you. >> All right, folks. We're going to get started in just one minute. If you could please find your seats. We're going to get started in one minute. >> Thank you. I'm going to deal with that one just got ripped. But they do want to speak. All
002right, folks. Welcome to the Grand Rapids Public Schools Board of Education meeting. We welcome and appreciate your presence at this meeting of the Grand Rapids Public Schools Board of Education. We respectfully request you turn off cell phones and refrain from clapping, cheering, or making any audible comments. We invite you to make formal public comment during our designated time on either agenda items, non-aggenda items, or both. If you wish to do so, please fill out the comment card located in the entryway and submit it to the board assistant or public safety officer. Comments will be limited to 3 minutes today. and our secretary will take the role. >> All right. Trustee Kilpatrick. Trustee Melton >> here. >> Trusty Moreno >> present. >> Trusty Van Djk >> here. >> VP Wade >> present. >> Trustee Williams >>
003present. >> Trusty Williamson >> present. >> President Rodriguez >> here. >> We have a quorum. >> All right. Do we have uh a motion to approve the agenda? >> So moved. Support. >> All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any appro or any oppose? Same sign. That motion passes. All right. So, we are going to start today um with celebrations and I'm going to hand it off to Dr. Roby. >> Good evening everyone. And so, we have an exciting opportunity to give people their flowers. We have four 40year employees that we're celebrating here tonight. Each has a different role within GRPS and they will be represented by various cabinet members who will list out their accomplishments over the past 40 years. And so we'll invite them up one at a time.
004I'd like to invite Mr. Mill Atkins first who will introduce Mrs. Christina Johnson. >> Hey Mel. Good evening, uh, Superintendent Roby. There it is. There it is. Uh, President Ry Riggers and members of trustees of the board. Again, Mel Atkins, executive director of community student affairs. And I have the pleasure today of not introducing but recognizing um Christina Johnson for 40 years of service here in GRPS. Started um a few years ago in in the 80s I'm going to say in as a security officer. Um once after the security officer was a public safety officer then a compliance and training officer and a training compliance supervisor. And then the last it looks like eight just about eight years was a lieutenant. And so I want to thank um personally um Christina Johnson um for her
005services over 40 years here in GRPS. [applause] I didn't know I can speak, but since he [laughter] uh um 40 years in this district and I would say my success and I'm still not ready to go. >> So, [clears throat] if the Lord is willing, I plan to be here another 40 years because what I do, I love and that's putting our kids and our families and our staff first. I'm not here for me. I'm here for the district and the families and the students and the community and our city. Thank you for the acknowledgement and I appreciate it and thank you for your support. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> I should have stated that each um honore is receiving a commemorative um keepsake honoring their achievement and after we acknowledge all four we'll
006invite everybody up again to take pictures with the board as a a collective. Our next honore is going to be introduced by Miss Malikica Brown and she will introduce Mrs. Barbara Dodge. All right, Dr. Roby, President Rodriguez, members of the board, thank you so much for allowing me to be here. It is my privilege um to recognize Miss Barbara Dodge um for 40 years of service as an elementary school teacher. Um that means that generations and generations of children have been welcomed, have been taught, have been encouraged and corrected um and celebrated and loved under your care, Mr. Dodge. Um few professions leave a legacy as deep as teaching. And I think we know that. And few commitments speak louder than this 40 years that you've spent um with us here showing up for students
007and families. Um so thank you, Mrs. Dodge for the lives you've touched and the examples you set and some of the things. Um, she is currently a teacher at MLK. Um, and has been a teacher at Harrison Park, Frost, Congress, Henry Pada Academy from way back in the day, Muick Park, and Alger Elementary School. And so for your service, Mrs. Dodge, we appreciate you and present you with this plaque. AND AS I was reflecting on my years and what I should say, I um realized one thing. Uh I'm old. [laughter] I started at Elger before the internet. That's how old I am. >> We had one cart with a VCR and a big TV and that was what our technology was. Yeah. Um, and I thank you all for this, but I have to tell
008you, I want to thank God because he's the reason I'm here. And >> he blessed me with the ability to take part in what his plan was. >> And I got to thank my mom. Love you much. >> And my grandfather who put me through school. Um, my my two heroes, my sister Beth and my son TJ. Um, they have endured and are courageous and strong and have faith in God. And don't get me started on my grandson. Hi Dante. I love him. And to my wonderful staff, can you imagine anybody coming on the first Monday off of summer vacation [laughter] to a board meeting? Next, I'd like to invite Mrs. Kelly Green, who will introduce Mrs. Christina, Christine Black. >> Thank you so much. Good evening to Dr. Roby and President Rodriguez and the
009distinguished members of the board. Again, I'm Kelly Green, chief area instructional leader for Northwest. And I'm super excited to get to introduce Chris. Um, Chris started out as in special education and then spent 25 years in kindergarten. And if you know anything about teaching the littles, um, you know, that in of itself is something truly truly 25 years in kindergarten. She was at Madison Park Elementary. She was at Stocking Elementary. And since 2008, she's been at Kent Hills Elementary School. And again, yes, no doubt, right? Ken Hills has showed up for her. Um, you know, you think about the multi-generations of people that she has impacted. And in fact, her principal had a little quote he wanted to share too her entire career, supporting the whole child, our committees, staying late, volunteering, being a team
010player, mentoring new teachers, has had numerous student teachers who have then become educators. So she is responsible for future forward planting of teachers, loving the outdoors, and making learning very engaging. He said he gets calls all the time, parents asking, "Is Miss Black still there?" >> And of course, Miss Black, we'd like to give you the opportunity to speak to. >> Well, I would just like to say I love teaching kindergarteners and I like talking to little people. Big people make me nervous. Um, I would like to say thank you to my family cuz without them I wouldn't be here. So, thank you mom >> and dad for putting me through college and thank you Tom Katie and Matthew for putting up with your mom not being home and thank you Tom for putting up
011everything that you have put up with me. So, and thanks to all my staff and friends that I made along the way. And I love what I do and I do what I love. [applause] >> And finally this evening, I'd like to invite Mrs. Aaron Pertie to come forward to introduce Mrs. Renee Lance. [applause] Good evening, Superintendent Roby, President Rodriguez, and the board. My name is Aaron Partney. I'm the executive director for special education, and I have the privilege of introducing Miss Renee Lance to you guys. Miss Rene Renee Lance doesn't just help our littles, she also takes the staff under her wing. Um, anytime I've run into her, she always has a smile. She's always working with our special education students and staff. Um, she has worked in some amazing buildings. She's currently at
012Aberdine. She's been at campus, Elder Park Elementary, Huff Elementary, Eastern [snorts] Elementary, Mid City Center, West Middle Alternative Special Education, as well as Shiloh House. Love having you with us. >> This is not my thing to talk about. It's been a privilege. >> Thank you so much. >> And thank you to Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Dodge, Mrs. Black, and Mrs. Lance. I hope that this also exemplifies for our audience just the importance of education and this is really heart work and you can be a person of many words or few but the love for children and people shines through to stay in a profession that sometimes is not as kind to educators as it should be. So, let's again celebrate these four wonderful educators and leaders by giving them a standing ovation and we'll invite them
013to come up to take a picture. Come on. It's not All right, we ready. >> One, two, three. We'll do one more. One, two, three. Next up, we will um celebrate our spring athletic achievements. And so, I'd invite Mr. Larry Johnson as well as the athletic directors for our um programs to come forward. Three minutes, right? >> Uh good evening, President Rodriguez, Dr. Roby, Superintendent, other trustees of the board. I'm going to just take a seat here and I'll let the athletic directors uh talk about the spring accomplishments and uh some of the things we're looking forward to. I also like to to congratulate all of the uh the recipients tonight of 40 years. Uh uh Mrs. Dodge was actually the teacher of two of my kids uh at Muick Park and um I've got
014a great relationship with Miss Lance and then one the other young lady, Miss Johnson, just happened to raise all three of my kids. >> [laughter] >> But I'll but I'll turn this over to uh to these gentlemen here who would talk about uh what's going on in athletics. >> Uh good evening uh Dr. Roby, President Rodriguez, members of the board. Um Brody Larson, middle school athletic coordinator. Um some accomplishments we've had, we had a busy spring um with track and soccer and golf and tennis. Um so this year uh participation um we had touched on it at our last uh meeting as well. Um spring participation at the middle school level we are at 539 [clears throat] scholar athletes um across all sports. Um last year uh we had 516. So we're up 23 uh
015individuals across all of our sports for for the spring season. Um at the elementary level we are up to 377 scholars uh second through fifth grade and that's just track um up 27 from last year where we came in at 350 um second through fifth graders. Um so again we're looking at building continue to build these programs. um some summer opportunities that we have in place for the middle school scholar athletes. um in con um with help from the high school uh varsity coaches. Um we're we have camps uh this summer for basketball, football, soccer, softball, swimming, and volleyball um that that will be taking place um as well as tennis um at various locations uh both Ottawa and Union um led by our varsity coaches and their teams. So looking forward to uh looking
016forward to hitting the ground running again in the fall. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good evening, Dr. Roby, President Rodriguez, and members of the board. My name is Justin Walker. I am the athletic director at Union High School. Uh first foremost, thank you for the opportunity to share some of these spring accomplishments uh that Union High School was able to achieve this spring. This spring we had six allconerence athletes who earned uh first team okay conference all gold excuse me and then two athletes who received the honorable mention along with those accomplishments in all conference. Uh the MHSA has recognized the Union High School varsity Tim tennis team as one as academic all state which means they are they have one of the top 10 GPA for the entire division one uh tennis
017programs which is over 120 something tennis program. So we're in the top 10 with that along with the tennis team earning academic honors. We had five members of our varsity baseball team earning academic all-state honors as well. Um this spring we had one of our uh student athlete scholar athletes, excuse me, uh qualifying for the MHSA division one state finals in long jump. She's a junior, so we hoping that she'll be able to return next year uh and and represent us. Brody uh touched on this. Um right now um of our varsity programs we have a number of spring uh excuse me summer offerings where our scholars can be engaged in sports and conditioning as well as some nutritional and educational based activities throughout the entire summer. Uh with the help of our facilities department
018we're able to offer programming 5 days a week throughout the entire summer starting uh last week when uh during the half days going up until the first day of fall sports in uh August. Uh to wrap it up, uh one celebration carrying over from the winner, um Zire Craig is who was a member of the Lady Hawks, Red Hawks, uh varsity basketball program. She signed her letter of intent to continue her education as well as her, uh basketball career at Lake Michigan College. So, we wish her all the best. Um look forward to supporting her um as she goes on to the next step. So, I will turn it over to Mr. Harris. >> Good evening, Dr. Roby, President Rodriguez, board members, I'm Marcus Harris, Ottawa Hills High School athletic director. I would like to
019provide a brief update on our spring sports athletic pro programs and highlight some of the outstanding accomplishments of our student athletes and our coaches. Uh overall for the spring season, uh we had 13 allconerence and two honorable mention in the OK White division. Uh those sports range from soccer to softball, baseball, tennis, and track and field. Uh our track and field team had another exceptional season. Uh the boys track team captured a share of the OK White championship uh as they finished tied for first place. Uh last year our boys track team went 0 and6 in the in the division. This year they went 6 and0. And so uh most of them will be back next year. So we hoping for great things. Uh, in addition, we had 10 allconerence athletes in track, multiple athletes,
020uh, and relay teams qualified for the MHSA state finals, and then we had four student athletes that earned all state honors at the state finals track meet up in Rockford. Uh our state final qualifiers included the girls 100 meter hurdles, uh the boys 110 meter hurdles, the boys 100 and 200 meter events, uh the boys and girls 4x 100 events, the boys and girls 4x 200 events, and also the boys 4x400 events. So all those kids uh participate in the state finals at Rockford. Uh also would like to recognize a few outstanding individual accomplishments. Uh Sariah Pearson, a freshman, had an incredible track season. She finished third in the state finals in the 100 meter hurdles, uh was the regional champion this year, and also broke the Ottawa Hills school record in the event with
021a time of 14.46 seconds. >> Uh Sariah earned all state in both the 100 meters and the 4x100 meter. Uh so she's only a freshman, so we're looking for great things. Additionally, uh, Ella Coster set a new, uh, uh, Ottawa Hills High School record. Actually, bro, she broke her own record this year in the cold vault, 9 ft and 6 ines. Um, as well, uh, as far as, uh, college athletics, uh, this year, uh, we're proud to recognize that several of our student athletes, uh, will continue their athletic careers at the collegiate level, ranging from sports of football, volleyball, wrestling, cross country, and track and field. And uh Brody and Justin mentioned it too, we're now into summer and so we'll be offering a wide range of athletic offerings for our summer programs. Everything from
022the sports that I just mentioned uh which happened start started last week. Uh so in closing, I want to thank all the coaches, the student athletes, the families, the staff, and the board of education for their continued support of Ottawa Hills athletics. Thank you. Thank you so much colleagues. Is there uh is there any questions? Any comments for our athletic directors? >> Thank you for your work. >> I I want to ask um for the for the uh programming that you've got over the summer. Where can parents find that information? On our website. >> District's website. >> Just the district's website. >> Posting everything on the district website. Okay. And we're also uh working toward working with this team as they begin to evaluate and train with their coaches uh an advisory uh task force
023and committee that can begin to look at our athletics and how we become more competitive, [snorts] how we continue to retain students uh and uplift uh our athletes in this community to be uh on a competitive edge. Uh the task is to keep our gyms open, keep our pools open uh throughout the summer so our so our athletes can get more repetition inside the pool, more weightlifting, uh more nutrition, but more literacy opportunities inside the building over the summer. >> Wow. >> Excellent. >> Thank you for that. >> Yeah, >> Mr. Johnson, you just mentioned an advisory committee. Can you give a little bit more information? So we are we are now uh collecting some names of uh some of our community members who are who have a love and passion for sports uh to
024join us to just do an overall look at at our athletic program to see how can we get better uh uh without uh uh without cutting cutting the overhead expenditures without compromising our competitive edge. And so we need to have voices uh at the table uh other than ours uh to be heard and hear some of the uh some of the recommendations and ideals of our community. >> Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Yep. >> That concludes celebrations for this evening. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Roby. Next, we are going into our secretar's report. Secretary Kilpatrick. >> Yeah, happy to share. So, our finance committee meeting is scheduled on Monday, June 22nd, and that will be right here at 4:30. All right. [laughter] There's a
025city board liaison meeting happening on Tuesday, June 23rd at 4:00 um in the conference room 112 within this building. And then our ad hoc facilities committee meeting will happen again Monday, July 13th. And we're going to do that also in conference room 12 112 here in this building. >> All right. >> Is that the library? >> That's actually the library building. Sorry. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you very much. Um next we are going into our committee chair reports. We're going to hear from Treasurer Moreno for finance committee. >> Um as you can see all the items were recommended um to the board to to vote on today. Um the two specific items I want to specifically name and uplift uh are the science curriculum uh which was a newer item and so you
026can see especially on the purchasing agenda uh it's a really really long list uh coming forward um for us to to vote towards u but the science curriculum was a new curriculum uh and part of uh our longer conversation was related to process uh and so spec you know, wanting to acknowledge uh Trusty Meltton um and your questions towards it uh specifically elevating policy 7000 which talks about the process uh when we uh look at new curriculum and it gets vetted to the board uh to vote towards uh we had a really great conversation uh gratitude to Trusty Williams uh that we really need to look at updating policy 7000 uh because now we have uh an academic committee uh and really be more intentional in naming what is the process for the academic committee.
027Um the curriculum team did uh share the process of how they decide on those curriculums and how that's brought forward which is the same process that got shared to the academic committee. Um and again this is why we moved it forward since it was the same process and it felt really clear but again uh noting policy 7000 um that it needs to be more specific and aligned now that we have uh a curriculum >> uh committee. The other item uh wanting to acknowledge I just got really loud. The [laughter] other item I really want to acknowledge uh is again we're just making note of food costs. you know, costs are increasing across the board, but specifically our food costs, not only in the nutrition department, but also Houseman Field. I think we had a this
028assumption that uh Houseman Field would generate some funds. Um, but making that connection back to uh our athletic budget. >> All right. Thank you, Treasure Moreno. Colleagues, is there any other questions or comments for Treasure Moreno? All right, seeing none, we will move into our ad hoc facilities committee update. Trusty Williamson, >> thank you. We just completed our uh meeting. We did not get through all of the agenda items. So, we still have not discussed the uh recommendations for the next two properties. Um we just ran out of time, so we'll have that at a forthcoming uh facilities committee meeting and discussion around that as well as um green space in the district. um particularly in regards to Beck with but uh may elicit some others. The topics we did discuss um quick summary of
029the summer projects review um uh continued work going on on playgrounds um really excited the uh foundation working at uh uh Geraldar Ford uh this summer to to get that completed. Um and some other projects going along. I'm sure uh things we're familiar with. I know there's some carpeting projects going on. Uh so any more details please reach out. Um but that's a summary there. Uh what took up a large section of our uh discussion in our hour was um the any remaining questions regarding uh this uh stocking and Alexander proposals. Uh regarding uh stocking the committee we did recommend moving forward with uh Commonwealth's proposal uh to purchase a stocking building. Um we had discussion around this and again this is an uh this is part of our ongoing discussion we've had over um
030some time with these proposals um but looking at the uh the interest in certainty of closing as well as community alignment and preparation and experience uh experience to take on a project of the scope. So therefore the uh committee recommended the commonwealth proposal for stocking. We did not make a recommendation for Alexander. We thought it was best to to bring that full discussion to the entire board. Um, one thing we were able to elicit some more information on, uh, thanks to the district team and JLL who've been awesome through this process, um, are with in terms of one of the proposals with Alexander was regarding a lease or a sale. Um, and, uh, understanding how they, uh, came to the how how in calculating that, how you understand what are the the the income generated
031from the lease versus a sale over a period of years. So, with that proposal, the example being uh it was uh you know, they're recommending a 60-year lease. If we were to go with the lease option um with a hundred with a million dollar value, considering a 10% discount, you'd end up with a $700,000 profit. We'll have we can have more discussion as well, of course. Um uh but yes, so we got through that question. Again, that proposal um offers either a lease or a sale option. So, we wanted to explore that uh lease option. We of course we'll have some more discussion regarding that. Um but again, one thing that kind of shown through with all of the proposals uh and I and I sort of uh said this as chair is we had
032some great proposals from some great community partners across the board and I had the anxiety and maybe some others did too, maybe not, but I certainly did uh before the RFP window closed of whether we would get any proposals and the fact that we did get proposals and they were so good um it shows that there is interest and investment in our larger community and GRPS um which which um I think is fantastic. So, we had the discussion around there. Of course, we'll be uh acting on these two items later. Um and we'll we'll have some more discussion uh regarding them. >> All right. Thank you. Um Trusty Williamson, if there is any questions, I will ask that board colleagues hold that for our action items as they are coming up for the resolution sale
033of Alexander and stocking. Um, next we are moving into our superintendent report, our public safety and summer safety presentation. >> All right. So, I'm gonna invite um our chief of staff, head of safety and security, Mr. Larry Johnson, to come down. And of course, we noticed, well, I'm noticing it that it's June 20. It should be June 2026. But >> this is this year's this is this year's report. [laughter] And so as we are entering um our summer months and then also kind of just a recap of what has taken place over the 2526 school year. >> Okay. And I apologize for not switching the date. >> Okay. No worries. >> But all of our first of all uh again good evening uh trustees uh President Rodriguez Dr. Ro and to our community. Uh this
034is a quick overview of our uh of our end of year school safety and security uh programs and some of our accomplishments this year. Of course we do everything considering the uh priority scholar outcomes uh that are aligned with our strategic themes and uh of course uh the strategic themes here is meeting our holistic uh student needs and the creating a culture of trust, collaboration and stewardship. Uh we understand the importance of uh of our school safety program in this community. Uh we we believe that we have one of the best school safety departments uh in the country. And I think the data helps support that. Uh everything that we do is listed up under five phases of emergency management, prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response and recovery. And you've seen some of these slides before
035because it is embedded in the work that we do every day. And we want to continue to make sure that our officers, our principles, our leaders in the district are aware of the five phases of emergency management in the work that they do. Uh again, our framework for comprehensive school safety planning and development is around physical safety and security, the operations and emergency management, the training and preparation that we do. We train more than any other school security department in the entire country, averaging about 120 hours of training a year. uh the average training hours for a school security officer around the country is about 20 hours. Uh we we align that around culture, climate and community engagement and working with our community. Uh we have taken on the role of enlisting uh and working
036more closely uh with our mental health folks uh and our therapists. Uh so mental and behavioral health becomes an a key role for us as well as health and uh wellness and then making sure that everything we do is uh legal, ethical and moral and uh following the leadership law and policies of this district. So today, physical security uh around 450 drills that were completed. Uh we were uh I was just informed that uh we missed one fire drill uh at one building and uh one tornado drill. But all of our other drills, five fire drill, five fire drills for every building, three emergency drills for every building and two tornado drills. That is the minimum that we're required to do. We're done. And uh with the exceptions of uh uh one tornado drill and
037one fire drill that did not get done during the school year, uh our major incidents are down. Uh no guns in our building this year. Uh that is an a huge accomplishment. Uh and uh that that came with the increase that came with the increased uh the training of our staff, our security staff, even our principles who at times helped ran metal detectors. Uh the increased use of metal detectors not only at day-to-day but also in our in our schools and at events. And we continue to distribute gun lots. uh picked up another uh 2,000 gun locks from the state police and we'll continue to put them out uh uh as as many as we can. Uh we had plan to have a table here because we know a lot of people's going to be
038here tonight, so we wanted to distribute tonight, but we didn't get around to it. But we think it's very important to continue to provide uh safe gun storage to our parents in this community. Uh continue to provide the resources that we can get our hands on to help uh to help uh keep firearms out of the hands of uh uh young people in this community. It's it's uh something that touches all of us and uh our schools is just a microcosm of the community and whatever happens in our community impacts our schools. >> Yeah. >> Uh our work around camera uh projects uh just about every one of our buildings have cameras. We are very intentional on the ones that does not. Uh Brookside, North Park, Palmer, obviously those schools are are coming off our
039our books along with Aberdine. Uh but and then Zoo School, which is a building we do not own. Now, we're going to rethink uh the the empty buildings of Brookside, North Park, and Palmer. Uh because even if a building is empty, it's it's a resource that we have. It's a it's a property that we own, and we want to make sure that we have some level of protection inside those buildings uh to help us identify uh any causes of vandalism that occurs inside of the uh of the building. But all the all of our other academic uh locations uh we have either enhanced or installed uh cameras in those buildings as well as uh you know the with the installment of uh cameras on our buses. Our our kids are are making some better decisions
040knowing that uh there's a high a high probability uh that uh through investigative techniques they may be identified. Uh the access control we started a systemwide upgrade process. We begin with a with a with a a beta project at Kin Hills and we're now beginning to expand that in any buildings that we remodel or that come online. Uh it's uh our current uh card access uh system was about 50 years old. It's one of the first systems and although it's still functional uh there are some newer systems out there, new technology that gives us better data and better data and gives us opportunity to do some other things with card access in terms of managing how folks move through the building. We want to make it more uh easy and accessible and and sometimes using
041external internal uh key card systems as we create more secure uh entryways. We're going to talk about in a second here. Our critical incident mapping have we did critical incident mapping at 54 locations. We completed that mapping and now we're going back to getus uh with some of our evacuation route locations, the owners of those properties. One of the challenges with critical incident mapping is that anytime we update, remodel or rebuild a school, we have to go back and redo those 3D images uh of that building. So, that is an ongoing process. Uh but to be able to have electronic images and electronic mapping of our schools has been a huge plus with us and this really helped out when we did our evacuation routes. Uh 88 evacuation routes that we walked two for each
042schools. We personally walk every one of those routes to make sure that in the event of evacuations, our scholars, our staff can get to a a temporary uh sheltering location until they can uh be uh moved to a different uh location. We also have five reunification sites and working uh with the KISSD uh to utilize uh two of their sites in the event that we have a mass casualty in our community. And those uh those five sites although we don't identify them publicly uh we we do have five sites within our district uh in the event we have to move uh move our students typically uh we move students to an evacuation site and uh that evacuation site is always kept confidential. The reunification site when opened is publicized to the community. So we want
043our parents, our our families to come to the re reunification site rather than to an evacuation site where we not would not be able to control the uh the pedestrian or student uh traffic that's moving in and out of that site during the onset of an emergency. Our secure entryways, I mean all of our educational sites now have secured entryways. Now we're moved into another phase of that. uh currently as you go into a building uh you can get into the office but you can also get into the main hallways. So the second phase of our our entry uh secured entryway site is to with the utilization of card access is to secure the office doors so that anyone in the main office cannot get into the educational section of the building without being buzzed
044into that section of the building. our staff would have access to open from both sides of the door, uh, from the hallway side or the entry side. What we want to do is stop anyone from slipping out of that door in a busy office and that can make their way up to a teacher's classroom and have confrontation with the teacher or another staff member. We want to be able to protect our teachers upstairs, protect our students uh, within the building. And by adding that second locking system and that is industry standard now by by adding that second phase it will give us an opportunity uh to do that. Uh we are also looking at secure entryways in our non-educational sites. Uh we our focus is always where scholars are and what we do in non-educational
045buildings. Uh this building library building 4 building or food service as well as transportation is always secondary to us. Not that those employees are not important they are. Uh but we want to make sure that we protect our scholars first before we move those assets and resources into non-academic buildings. Uh our raptor our visitor management system again it's installed in most in all of our elementary, middle, and high schools. Uh but but it's get limited use. Uh Raptor is a challenge for us. uh there's a lot of resistance to use and a lot of that resistance to use is uh is dealing with uh with immigration custom enforcement concerns and concerns of who sees the data uh once a card is swiped. So, we have to continue to work with our families to continue to
046build trust that when a card is entered into a system that data is not shared with anyone and that we're not calling uh any other uh agencies on any of our families, but that is just merely a system for us to track who's in our building to make sure that if they're not if they're on a do not admit list that we can honor that do not admit list. Again, two-way radios utilized consistently across our district. We uh increased uh the number of radios. Uh we do have we are addressing some FCC FCC challenges in some of our buildings and that's simply verbiage. Uh there's certain things you can and can't say on FCC monitored uh radio stations. So, it's a training issue for our staff to get them. Uh you can't order pizza over
047the radio. That's just uh when and personal conversations over the radio. So, we're trying to clean that up. Uh, but we've had more increased uh acts for 2-way radios. Uh, expanding them into more classrooms. Uh, that is something we've never done, but it's absolutely something we'll continue to evaluate to see, uh, if they're going to be utilized, then it's it's worth the purchase. Uh, our work and the road to update our crisis man. You heard a lot about that. You saw the completion of the EOP, the emergency operations plan. Our desk reference has been completed. That's a condensed version of that. Our flip charts completed in hand and our app is ready to be launched uh any day now. Uh we just have a couple tweaks we have to work out with the app, but
048it's ready to be launched. So this this fall, this this August when our our staff is back, all of those uh those tools will be launched inside of our building with an ongoing uh continuous training opportunity uh for staff virtual and in person and uh at PLC's wherever we can go to our staff to train in terms how to use those those manuals uh we will be there. events covered. This year we covered over 2,700 events. Uh that includes athletic events, GRPS university events, and nonGRPS events. Our staff has been very busy uh throughout the school year uh and covering and and keeping our keeping our uh families and our scholars and our staff safe as they come and go uh from buildings. Um we our our staff right now is working uh about 10
049to 12 hours a day. We would love to be able to pull back on that some, but the demand to have them at locations continues to go up. And then upcoming upcoming and mandatory trainings, uh, we have to convert the district over to a standard response protocol. That is the old code red, code yellow. We have to stop using that language and go to common language or standard response protocol. The deadline for that was October 26, 2026. Uh, we made that that uh we've done that already. our entire district has been has been uh converted over transitioned over to standard response protocols. Uh there's still some lingering signs out that we'll be removing over the summer uh to make sure that the correct uh information is in the building. Uh there's also another mandate out
050there with behavior threat assessment what's called BTAM and uh we're going to be uh uh pushing all of our administrators because every building in the district has to have a BAM team by October 26th. And so working with our our our professional learning department, working with individuals, individual departments, we're going to train as many of our administrators and other staff members who want to be involved in that process so that we can be able to assess threats a little bit better and a little bit more robust without getting a lot of out of school time for our for our kids. And then reviewing our critical stress debriefers or what you would call crisis responders. and we we were busy the last uh section of our school year. Uh and so our responders was out a
051lot uh having some conversations with with our mental health department. We've used a model called the Mitchell model for many many years and we want to make sure that uh that is still a viable option for us. Is there a better model out there that may be conducive to the use here in Grand Rapids? So we want to go back and look at critical incident stretch debriefing uh number one to make sure we have enough debriefers. You can never have enough. And and number two, make sure that all those who are responding are properly trained. And then number three, review the model to make sure the Mitchell model is still relevant. Although Mitchell model is still utilized uh across the country, uh we want to make sure that our uh therapist here, our mental health
052department here is is uh still comfortable with us uh moving forward with that model. Uh summer of success. Uh we will be staffing five buildings this summer. uh our mobile patrols will be checking all of our buildings uh as we move throughout the community. Uh the uh athletic fields and you say why athletic fields? Uh we have a lot of unauthorized use and damage on our athletic fields at uh at uh Briggsfield. Considerable amount of damage of a field that we we invested significantly in. And uh we've got to go back and do some repairs because that unfortunately that field uh was uh it wasn't vandalized. it was just some unauthorized use that created some damage uh by not being able to get into the field uh had they had they leased the field or
053rented the field. We're also working with the Urban League, the city of Grand Rapids uh at Gerlar Ford on Friday and Saturday nights on a program called City Vibes. This is our third year of opening up our gyms for safe places for kids. It's not just about basketball, but it's board games. It's the literacy opportunities. It is uh it is esports. Uh there's just a multitude of things that will happen in that school. very highly supervised uh three years in a row. This will be our third year and we're looking forward to that program. And then there's several uh security trainings that we're planning this summer prior to August uh so our staff can hit the ground running uh in in August. Uh recommendations for 2026. Again, we going to look at the increase the
054use of vape detectors uh devices in our buildings. uh vape vaping appears to be uh and was a a huge increase and and so we we have a couple vape detection devices out there in a building right now. We've been testing them and we want to expand that uh to several of our schools that appear to have high numbers of vape use. Now, what that will do, it means turning up the sensitivity levels of our metal detectors, which would catch those devices at the door. And our and our goal is to connect uh our students to find out why are you self-medicating uh versus a punitive at the first. We we want to be punitive with it. We want to work with families to find out why kids are vaping and see if we can
055uh we can correct that behavior. Uh again, we want to increase the number of our drills and make sure that they're age appropriate. And what we mean by age appropriate is uh as we work with our with our young kids in uh in the elementary schools. Uh oftent times uh we're worried about uh traumatizing some kids that how we do our drills. So we want to make sure our drills are age appropriate and that then that all of our families are trauma informed on how we do these drills and making some uh just making some brief announcements that it is a drill prior to taking uh some of our young kids into a full drill. Uh we're going to again increase the use of metal detectors, host community forums for parents and community members to
056discuss their safety concerns and gather additional feedback on security practices. Increase the number of contacts uh with parent groups uh with our face with our community uh and community engagement folks. We went out with several to several of their programs this uh this uh year and we would like to be at more of their programs to engage with our parents. And then we want to partner with law enforcement and conduct what we call crime prevention through environmental design assessments for on all of our schools. We want to look at how do we continue to make our schools safe from an environmental standpoint. One example we will give is the uh Southwest Community Elementary School has a huge traffic problem and it's been a traffic problem for many many years. Uh and so how do we
057massage that traffic utilizing septek concepts uh so that we can change directionals uh aerodirectionals uh exit exit points uh to make sure that those that traffic flows better uh for our kids and our families to keep them safe so they're not uh they're not injured uh coming and going to school and then how the BOE how the board the staff can help put our strategic plans into action. Again, continue to celebrate our officers and department success. Uh join us in promoting the importance of home, school, community connections. Again, we offer you to attend if you can some of our our our trainings that we offer. Uh today we held uh we held uh a bitter bitter fold for us because today was the final day from one of our long-term security officers, Fostino Garcia. I
058think he's here today. 32 years with the district. Fino retired this year. Fino was a staple here at this campus. >> So, this was his last last week with us. Uh, and although he's been off for for a little while now, uh, his official last day was this week. So, we're going to we're going to really miss Fostino. Uh, again, a staple here, staple in Ottawa Hills, just a staple in this community. And then we celebrated uh with our security banqu with this uh just a couple hours a few hours ago uh where we announced that uh officer Brian Gordon again a 25-y year uh member here in our department was named our officer of the year this year. So we are celebrating Brian as well. >> That concludes my report and I will pause
059uh for any questions that you may have in reference to the uh to our activities over this last quarter. >> Thank you Mr. Johnson. Uh, colleagues, any questions? Trusty Williams, >> I do have a question, but I didn't see it in your presentation. And so, um, I'm wondering where we are with, um, the new cameras on the buses and the bus violations. >> I I can't speak to the bus violations. Uh, I do know I know Luke was uh, intimately involved in that project as well, but all of our cameras, all of our buses have cameras. uh we do see the increased calls uh from our parents in terms of when their kids are are uh are brought in on some disciplinary challenges uh for activities on the bus. This Saturday I came in and
060watched some video for about 3 hours on one bus uh one incident and but mom was uh pretty upset but pretty pleased after I I narrated [clears throat] her uh second by second what her kid did. So I think the bus is going to hold our kids a little bit more accountable and give our parents to understand that uh sometimes the story is not the way it came home. >> Yes. So and I appreciate that but um so the the um the safety component with regards to and that's why I thought maybe that would be with you. That's where um >> well we're we're charge in charge of still in charge of bus safety but the day-to-day operation of busing now lies in the communications office. But uh the stop arm I I cannot give
061you any data on stop arm uh violations because I'm not connected to that piece of the work. >> Okay. Thank you. But thank you uh for sharing that information about those cameras and how that's really been um impactful to um how our kids get to and from school safely. Yeah. >> Parents need to know that they're they're on the yellow buses. Their kids activities are being monitored and uh we can pull up the video. So talk to your kids. [laughter] Uh yep, treasure mod. >> Um >> uh thank you Mr. Johnson for all the great work this year for you and your team. Uh just a couple clarity you're trying to understand. Uh you mentioned major incidents are down. What what is defined as a major incident? >> Uh major incidents would be aggravated assaults.
062Uh those assaults with serious injuries, uh weapons on a school campus, um major thefts or breakins inside of a building. We've had none this year uh where we lost property. And so those would be defined as our our major even even our uh our drug uh use is our drug possession is down, vaping is up, vaping possession is up, but possession of marijuana and other other narcotics is uh down almost down to nothing. >> Yeah, that's that's really really helpful. Um and I'd love to understand more like the disparity. uh you know you mentioned um that you lead your team with 120 hours of training but the average being 20 hours uh across wherever that's a big difference to me and I I do speak I do feel like that speaks really highly of your
063intention uh especially around enforcement uh like the need to increase and always be training is really really powerful and so I really love it and just kind of curious >> uh thank you for the invitation to attend trainings definitely want to attend one or two every year. So, please send those our way. Uh, but what made you make the decision to spend so much time on 120 hours compared to that 20 hour? >> Uh, having conversations with my colleagues around the country for the last 30 years, traveling and training with other departments, um, uh, other major school districts from around the country, uh, we saw there there are no uh, restrictions or requirements in terms of training for school security officers around the country. The only two states that require it is the state of
064Texas and Virginia. uh all other states there are no requirements to be a school security officer. We wanted to be ahead of that and so many years ago we uh we implemented our school safety uh leadership academy our our FTO our field training officers uh program which Mrs. Johnson developed and we put all of our officers through that program and that amounts to with our with our start of school year training, professional learning days and and other opportunities, our officers are getting about 120 hours, anywhere from 80 to 120. But then when you survey uh other districts around the country, it's about uh it's about 20 hours. uh the only uh here in Kent County uh implementing the uh the Kent County school security officer training program in August where all security officers that work
065in Kent County come together is about a 40 40hour block in there. So we take training very serious. Some of it is repetitive. Uh we hope we never have to use it but uh I'm I'm a huge component proponent for training as well as my staff. We want to have them prepared. >> No, I I I love that so much. Uh and my last comment is around the Raptor system. Uh I I think for myself and I think this is a maybe a request to the my board colleagues around I've never experienced the raptor system and I want to make sure that we're uplifting your request. You know this if you're seeing that this is a need that we intentionally engage our our families around you know I'm really interested to maybe like walk have
066us walk through the process and have us see behind the scenes so then we can be a champion alongside you. >> Love for you to do that. Yeah. because we think it's an important tool uh that we can utilize and uh and we would like to see more use of it. >> Thank you. >> I just wanted to ask about the app. Is is this going to be a required for all staff to have it or just >> Absolutely not. Originally, we we're going to roll it out in initial for administrators. Uh and what it is, it gives uh it gives the uh emergency operations plan uh right at their fingertips. Uh and it will be optional uh from there once uh once we get the kinks worked out. will be optional from there if
067if a staff member would like to put it on their phone. >> Um, excellent presentation. Thank you so much for all the work you've done this year. Kudos to your leadership and thank you to your team. Your efforts are recognized um and appreciated. So, I also wanted to say thank you for um your distribution of gunlocks. That's that as a Mom's Demand Action volunteer hearing that is music to my ears. Thank you for that. Also, I know that your team in partnership with communications has shared information about safe storage and um to see more and more of that I think is um also uh I just want to give you kudos for that. Um thank you for uplifting the need for trust around the raptor system. Um I think just being cognizant of that is
068important for making the change we hope to see. Um, and then your trauma-informed comment about age appropriate drills is just these are things I just want to elevate and thank you for. I have a few questions now. Um, you mentioned that all buildings now have secure entryway. Is that also true of the fountain building uh at GR Monastery? >> The the fountain building at GR Monatory does not have a secure entryway, but what we because it's almost impossible to create it. What we did at Fountain is we uh we installed cameras and we hired a staff member and placed that staff member in the hallway. So once an individual is buzzed into the building, a staff member will encounter that individual immediately. Excellent. The staff member can not only see the front door but can
069see both side doors from where their workstation is located. >> Great. Thank you. I know that was a point of concern for them for the community there. So, thank you for that clarity. And then you mentioned two-way radios. Are those are educators using those or just the staff uh security staff right now? >> Uh our our administrative staff uh our security staff I believe there's some youth advocate family support uh that may be carrying them as well. Uh and then in every building in the main office we have a what we call a panic radio installed. That panic radio gives every school district direct uh contact to the Grand Rapids police just by hitting the red button. >> Okay, great. Thank you. and I would love to be invited to trainings if you could email
070the board when those happen. Thank you. >> Trusty Van Dyke, do you have any? Nope. All right. Trusty Williamson. >> Yeah. Um, thank you so much, Mr. Johnson, for the work on the updates with the crisis manual. Um, that's something I'm very excited about, as you know, and I really appreciate the diligence and and your work to make sure it's really catered to what we need here in in the district. Um could you share a little bit more what the district-wide training is going to look like for building level staff? >> Well, uh our focus our focus is going to be on behavior threat assessment. That is that is going to be highlight the focus of the training because it's a mandated training where every building must have a team. So that's an 8-hour training
071for each uh administrator, assistant principal, dean, and other designated individuals. So that is going to be the focus. We're always focusing and always training around crisis response, crisis management. But we're also going to initiate training that it deals with sections of the crisis manual and the flip chart so that it's just not a book handed to staff members. They have an opportunity to ask questions inside uh of that of that uh with that flip chart and the components within within. >> That sounds wonderful. Well, thank you so much again for all the work on that. I think that's uh just a further iteration into a lot of the work that's been going on. So, thank you. take that question one step further. So I just want to make sure that so all staff in buildings
072will I think [laughter] you said have the opportunity to train on this the new approach. Is it something that can be given as a part of their job? What I worry about is when it's an opportunity versus you know an integrated part of their paid schedule. >> We I can't personally mandate it. Uh but we've had a lot of uh the GRE has been very supportive of the flip chart. they had a committee come in and work with us on that. So, I think they're I think the G with GREA I hope I'm not misspeaking, but I think they're really going to encourage their their teams to come in and be trained. Now, the key to this is to do this during their paid hours and not outside of >> To me, that's part of
073our responsibility as a board is to ensure that that staff is paid for that training, which hasn't always been the case. So, with this shift and different language, that's something that I I can only speak for myself, but I'm very passionate about making sure that they're paid for that time. Um, I I [clears throat] do have one uh one question. So, I know that probably your safety and security team is going to be dealing with a lot more issues around cell phones now that the the cell phone law has passed here in Michigan. Um, is that something that that is uh up to our safety and security or are we leaving that to the building level to kind of create their own process for for addressing that? You know, if if you look at the
074history of cell phones here in Grand Rapids, the last thing we want to do is return uh to uh 15 20 years ago where we were suspending kids for cell phones. We do not want to get into that. >> We've had a pretty uh I would say we've had a pretty firm uh cell phone policy. Uh >> elementary kids, we say no. >> Mhm. >> Middle school, see, we see them, we hear them, we take them. And high school, we teach in response responsibility or how to use cell phones and when to use them. I don't see cell phones as being a big issue for us, but I'm going to leave that to the individual building administrator to decide how they want to implement uh the cell phone policy within their building. It is not
075something that the security team will go around and begin to police and utilize cell phones as a way to make have negative contact with students. Our guys got great relationships with kids. We want to keep it that way and we don't want cell phones to be the interrupter of those relationships. >> Absolutely. Thank you so much and thank you for your presentation. I think uh we're all really excited for the work your team is doing and just with such intentionality. So, we appreciate it. >> Thank you for your support, Dr. Roby and the rest of the board. [laughter] Thank you very much. We have a we have a uh we have a team that's excited about doing this work, very passionate about doing this work, and they want to treat every kid like it's their
076kid to get our kids home safe every day. So, thank you very much for the opportunity. >> Thank you. That concludes the superintendent's reports for this evening. Okay. >> All right. Next, we are moving into our public comment section of our agenda. Um, I will have uh Secretary Kil Secretary Kilpatrick read us into public comment. >> All right. To those of you who have signed up for public comment tonight, we thank you. Uh we know that your presence here is a reflection of your care for the students, for the staff, and for the future of GRPS. It's never our intent to stifle public comment, but we do ask that all comments are expressed in a civil manner and with due respect for the dignity and privacy of others. Please know that board members will not
077respond during public comment, but we are actively listening and taking notes, and your comments will be followed up upon in a timely manner through appropriate channels. Um, and then finally, stepping up to the podium takes courage. So whether it's your first time speaking or you've been here many times before, uh, we acknowledge the strength it takes to step forward and to speak on behalf of our community and our children. And everyone tonight will have three minutes to speak. Uh, please state your full name when you begin. And we're going to start with our student comments. And it looks like we have Matteo Reend. sentence >> and you can please correct me and I understand you kind of want to come up as a group. Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, Matteo, Rahm, Marley and Nirvon,
078you can all come up together, >> but you each get three minutes. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Hello, I am Matteo Recendes. Good evening. Uh, President Jose Rodriguez and Superintendent Roby. And I thank all for uh having us today and uh listening to us. I'm here today to negotiate with the GRPS board simply to bring to your attention over a movement from the students at City High Middle School with my crew for today simply as representatives. We are here not solely to complain but propose a detailed plan that accommodates the concerns of all. This all important issue is the USDA funded nutrition program also known as school lunch. I'm Matteo Rasandis, Rahm Jakar, Marley Kerr and Iran Pradhan are here to unify as one to describe in detail our full submission to the board of nutrition
079and the board as a whole. Why? Because no matter how much we try to fix it, our system can be broken at times. But there is a way that we can reconstruct it because we as a society, board and students can drag it out of the pit in the constraints of funding. Every attempt has failed and been acknowledged in our great pledge. We call it uh project fresh food. We don't blame the staff. We don't blame the board because uh there's no reason to blame when they're put in a situation where they might not have guidance or control. Funding is always like um can be an issue. Um, so we are here to introduce to you where the USDA meets a new approach to school lunch. Negotiating does not have to be a pain when
080it can be a unifier for all of us. Project Fresh Food isn't asking for a Michelin Kitchen. It is simply is an ask of a gradual transition to a true healthier way now portrayed by the restraints of the budget given to us. We can do this. One lean protein piece and one apple grown on a tree at a time. We have searched far and wide for sponsors and we plead for basics, not physics. Pilot programs are the goal, gradual change and not impossible range, below sugar protein bar and not rocket science. We are looking for scienceback data and not just told to be put into the infinite abyss. Just a slightly higher quality school lunch is all we're asking. I'm Mateo Recendes started this movement not as a criticism of the GRPS system as they're
081doing what they are told. But the four of us are here to be alongside you, not a source of debate. We are the middle ground between students, the federal government, and everything in between. Join us on a proposal unlike any other that students have complained about, not described. We are open to all criticism as well as praise and pride. For we thrive when unified, but apart and divide. And for what is fresh, find out what will happen. And we call it project freshman. Now we welcome Rahm Jikar with the data, evidence, and surveys. Thank you. Hello members of the board. Thank you for having me here. My name is Siri Jaker and I'm here not only to provide our evidence, data, and statistics, but to amplify the voices of other students in our school. We
082understand and respect how hard the nutrition department works every single day. They are doing the best they can with the tools they have. But the problem isn't the department, it's the system. The food we are currently served is affecting our learning, our focus, and our health. When students skip lunch or just throw it away, it becomes an academic problem, not just a problem in the cafeteria. In a small survey that we held at lunch, 70 pe 70 students said that they did not like the school lunch, but they ate it anyway because they were hungry. In a class survey that was held, around 15 people skipped the lunch that was served. In our sample, 1/4 of students skipped lunch. That means in a school of 180 students, that's 45 kids not eating just in a
083seventh grade. If almost a quarter of us aren't eating, something's clearly off. We can't learn like that. That means a total of 115 students rely on the school lunch every single day. Instead of fixing other problems, there's a major one right in front of us. We know state regulations can be an obstacle, but there are some things we can do for changes. First, we can restrict added sugars in the baiting process to be under the UFDA regulations for noticeable attention increase in class. Second, we can restrict the radius of certain renders to keep ultra processing at a low. Third, banning food dyes and sodium nitrite would be would put risks of heart disease at a minimum. Fourth, we can create a student feedback system so the district knows which meals get thrown away and which
084ones students actually finish. These changes don't break fate rules, but they don't require a new kitchen also. And they don't cost millions of dollars. They just require listening to students and choosing options that support our learning instead of hurting you. At the end of the day, 115 students rely on this launch every single day. We're not asking for something fancy. We're asking for something fair. Food that students can eat, food that keeps us focused, and food that helps us learn. Thank you. Hi, my name is Marley Kerr. I will be in eighth grade at city this fall and I'm the class of 2031 president. We I'm here to acknowledge what we understand is a huge issue or what you may think is a huge issue is the budget. But according to our research, a single
085school lunch for a single student is roughly $3.80. And there are around 13.5,000 students in Europe. Pardon me. Um, therefore, we spend about $51,300 a day, $9.2 million a year, or $18.4 million a year with breakfast and school lunches. We've seen students walking around who haven't eaten, even with tests coming up. Furthermore, Harvard has conducted stud studies proving that well-nourished students score up to 14% higher on standardized testing. And higher testing scores could attract more students, getting us more funding. And with these students feeling wellfed, it will decrease absenteeism. Also getting us more money. Districts and countries like Japan, Finland, and France have similar budgets to us, but much higher quality food. Japan specifically focuses on feeding the body and mind. Finland specifically focuses on making sure students get the nutrients they need for one-third
086of the day. And France specifically focuses on making kids feel full and well nourished. The programs they used have worked for them and they have similar budgets. Just imagine what we can do. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hello board members and thank you for all having me here. My name is Nirvan Pradan and I would like to close with a simple perspective. For a long time, students from various schools in our district have expressed a desire for high higher quality food options. As my partners have previously stated, we are not here to weather the storm, but to shift the wind. We've shown you the data. We've shown you the evidence and now it is crucial that you turn this request into a reality. All of us here know that nutrition plays a critical role
087in students health, focus, and overall well-being throughout the year. Our shared goal at GRPS is to help every single student thrive and bring out the best in themselves. To make that possible, students need the right resources which are out of their reach. Our incredible teachers and staff do everything that they can to help us in the classroom. But budget decisions such as the current 10% of the budget being put into school food are the jobs of the the nutrition department. This is the primary reason we are all we why we are bringing our request to you tonight. It is up to you to all change this matter and make a positive impact on our daily lives because as Mark Twain put it, the secret of getting ahead is getting started. We hope you start on
088this journey and turn over new leaf for student nutrition at GRPS. Thank you. >> Thank you all so much. >> Thank you. >> Next we've got Ivon Mara and on deck we've got Jane Neman. Good evening, President Rodriguez, members of the board, Superintendent Roby, and members of the community. My name is Ivon Malar, and I serve as president of Ugressp. I'm here tonight because our members are deeply concerned about the status of contract negotiations. Our current collective bargaining agreement actually expired last year. Uh we did come to a financial agreement with the district. Uh but yet despite this deadline that has come and gone, the district has not met with the union to negotiate in months. More concerning, the district has not proposed bargaining dates even though we have repeatedly asked in months. And this
089is leaving the process at a standstill. Our members come to work every day. We are committed to serving our students. We support families and we're ensuring our schools operate effectively. They deserve a good faith effort to reach an agreement that recognizes their contributions and addresses the issues impacting their work. Collective bargaining is not simply a contractual obligation. It is a commitment to collaboration and problem solving. [clears throat] That process cannot move forward when one side is not actively engaging at the table. Tonight, we are asking the board to ensure that negotiations are prioritized. We are asking for meaningful engagement, timely scheduling of bargaining sessions, and a demonstrated commitment to reaching a fair agreement before our contract well actually did expire, but again, June 30th, July 1 is a pretty big important day. And we have
090no dates in sight, no meetings in sight, even though we've repeatedly asked. Our me our members are ready to meet. We're ready to negotiate. We're ready to do the work necessary to reach a contract that benefits employees, students, and the district as a whole. The question is whether the district leadership is prepared to do the same. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> All right, Jane Neman and then Hannah Greening on Doug. >> Good evening. I'm Jay Neman, vice president and president-elect of the Grand Rapids Education Association. Madam Superintendent, good evening, President Rodriguez, members of the board. Thank you for this opportunity to address you. Um, I wanted to bring to your attention tonight what is a concern that I feel we should have regarding employment and hiring. Um, we have seen, as
091you see on the personnel report tonight, there are multiple resignations. Um, we have seen 47 teachers displaced, 25 have been placed, 22 still stand without having employment. We are hearing rumors of people being extended employment from outside the district even though there are 22 current employees without a job. Um and the concern that I have is we have seen a number of schools added to the state list on the level of we have four schools that are at the CSI level. Yep. And several that have been added to the state list at the ATS level which is the first level of tiered support. And when I look at our staffing for the district, I see that 30 over 38% of our staff this year have a year or less of experience of teaching. And with
092the multiple resignations and retirees, we are looking at having potentially half to more than half of our staff be probationary employees with two or years less or two or two years or fewer of experience in teaching. So it doesn't take a genius to see that scores going down. Could that be because we are constantly hiring new teachers and because they are not remunerated because their AWFs are refused because they are still the lowest paid in the county that they are leaving for other districts and we have become the training ground for the county. Um, it is a huge concern that we have moving forward and as we look to also opening bargaining again in January for our contract since our two two-year contract will be up next June 30th. I think this is something that
093the board and the administration should seriously consider moving forward to looking at. If we want to raise test scores, if we want to provide quality education for our students, we have to make sure that we retain the teachers we are training because they are leaving. And it is leaving us with constantly retraining people. And it takes a quality five years. It takes four years to become a tenure teacher. It takes a good five years to really get your feet under you. I would say it takes 10 to achieve mastery level. And we need master teachers in the classroom to be able to teach our students how to read, how to do math, and to be successful citizens and productive citizens in society. So, that is my address to you tonight. Um, there are other concerns
094I have to mention, but we're going to problem solve those before that before I bring them for you forward to you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next up, Hannah Greening and then Maurice Baker on deck. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Hannah Greening and I'm founder and managing broker of Fancy Real Estate, a boutique commercial brokerage here in Grand Rapids. Our clients are primarily small business owned small businesses owned by women and people of color, missionbased developers and nonprofits. I'm here tonight representing our client, the woman-owned Commonwealth Development Corporation, and their proposal to purchase Stocking Elementary for the purpose of creating familyoriented affordable housing. Uh, I want to highlight a part of Commonwealth's follow-up addendum submitted after the initial interview round. To my knowledge, it hasn't been shared in
095any public forum yet, and I think it's one of the most important pieces of the proposal. Uh, Commonwealth has heard the West Grand Neighborhood Asso or Organization's vision for their stocking hub concept and they see it as a real opportunity for partnership and not for competition. Under this structure, an estimated 3/4 of an acre to a full acre of unused property would be set aside for WGNO. To be clear about the terms, Commonwealth would offer WGNO exclusive access to that land and will neither accept nor expect any payment from them for this. This is so that WGNO can execute on a number of their initiatives. Community gardens, a picnic area, a dog park, and other open space and gathering features consistent with their vision and led by them. The one condition is that all site
096improvements stay within the state historic preservation office and National Park Service will approve so the project keeps its historic eligibility and access to historic tax credits. A preliminary site plan showing the parcel split has already been submitted. Uh it does it it does include the existing play structure and it's meant to stay flexible as GRPS and the city weighin. The result pairs highquality affordable housing with activated communitydriven outdoor space, a more impactful and more achievable community focused redevelopment than either piece alone. Beyond housing the on the proposed Commonwealth site, uh residents and community members will have on-site health care through a partnership with Katherine's Health Center, plus financial literacy programs, home ownership readiness counseling, and publicly accessible indoor community gathering space. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Maurice Baker and D Jones on
097deck. Well, [clears throat] my name is Maurice Baker. I am the uh president and board chair of West Grand Neighborhood Organization. Now, just got a couple things to say. We can have difference of opinions but what we cannot have is our own personal facts. Why do I say that? We at West Grand Neighborhood Organization, we did the leg work. We did the boots on the ground. >> The community have spoken. So what did the community say? They said, "Well, we want a head start center. We want a place where people can do education. We also want to have an establishment that could provide food, education, knowledge, all of the above. Now, what is it that they didn't say?" Well, the community, they didn't say that they wanted a 59 unit apartment complex. They didn't say
098that they wanted a 59 unit apartment complex that more likely than not could possibly house people within our that that maybe or maybe not can even afford it. Now, how are we going to tell the residents of West Grand Neighborhood Organization if just if the choice is made to go in the direction of a 59 unit covering almost 4 acres, what are we going to tell the residents about their tax increase, >> about their tax dollars? So more likely than not what you are paying today might not be what you will be paying four years from now. Now the board does talk about you know investment community. Well Westr is offering that we're offering a facility that not only will help the west side it will help all sides. So the right thing to do,
099the best thing to do, the honest thing to do in front of everybody here, in front of the news state, everybody give West Brand the opportunity to do the right thing and have this community center owned by the community, operated by the community. And yes, one could also say, well, this is the first time that they've done something like that. Well, here's the deal. Our board members and executive board members at West Grand Neighborhood Organization are entrepreneurs. >> That's time. Thank you. >> Executives at financial institutions. >> All right, D. Jones up next. Chai Benedict on deck. How y'all doing? I'm D. Jones, passion entrepreneur. I'm the chair of the Stocking Community Hub. From the beginning of the process, you guys said that you guys want a local organization, not an outside organization, to be
100able to have this building. >> Also, Miss Kim is one of your board members. She's she's a part of the Boston Square Association. They're a little organization. They're not the largest neighborhood association or organization, but they still got the Hub07 done with a little bit of staff. So don't make an excuse and tell us that we cannot do this and pull this project off when they don't have the staff. They don't even have the capacity. But they still had a vision and they achieved that vision. Not only do they have the Hub 07, they have 41 about 40 housing units. And you trying to tell people to have a banker as a president, executives, an entrepreneur that helped y'all build the infrastructure and ecosystem for esports that we can't pull this off. We gave y'all,
101y'all said that y'all had concerns about the financials. We have a million a letter of intent. We have 3.5 million for the renovations and construction. Today, I spoke to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation after we give the the senior financials, the equity, and our local contribution. They're trying to pour at least 1.5 to 3 million in grant funding. This is something that Stella has experience being able to do. We have Consumers Energy that's trying to put about 2 million into this. We have the feasibility. The the Commonwealth I heard them. We heard what they said. They not even trying to close on a building until the end of next year or the end of this year. How is that more feasible THAN WHAT WE OFFERING? We're a local community organization. How is that more feasible?
102How is a community, how is an organization that's trying to get a school the end of next year more feasible? We can purchase the school from you guys this year. We can start doing the renovations the beginning of next year. We have funding and people that are already trying to give us funding after we close the school. How do you guys not try to give us the opportunity? We seen on on Friday that you guys had a resolution to sell the the West Grand Neighbor Organization the school for 850 grand. How does that change? How do you guys put out something public for the public eye and then change your vote? How do you change that? Ask Miss Kim with her capacity and victor. Robert S. Wall got them 6 million. We have the funding
103to build our project. We have the vision. We have the passion. We have the capacity. We actually benefit our local community, not some organization that's looking to buy the school from y'all a year from now at the end of the year, 2027. How is that more feasible than what we offer right now? We are a local community organization. West Grand started off years and years and years ago, but we built housing. We actually were building housing when you guys were teenagers. West Grand was building housing around the community. We are a community pillar and you guys should hold up the integrity of what JLL said and what your facility staff is and that was to sell us the school. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right, Chai. Up next, Tatiana Spencer on deck. >>
104Hi, Chai Benedict. I was going to talk about things. I talked with the ad hoc committee, but I don't feel that is appropriate now. Um, our neighborhood has spoken about what they want. We have 291 supporters, signed supporters for our proposal. Back in 2010, I was before this body, not you specifically, but I was before this body fighting against the closure of Stockton Elementary. As a parent, I want to be able to have that opportunity to make good on our neighbors and community that lost that school back in 2010, that lost it again in 2023 because we lost a community. Those of us parents who lost that school in 2010, our our kids got shuffled everywhere. Sibly Elementary, Harrison Park. We lost our community when that school closed and then when it went reopened, the
105the boundaries had shrunk. So then we didn't have as many students and here we are. to say that an organization like West Grand Neighborhood Organization can't build a coalition of people willing to put in the work, willing to put their money where their mouths are. And the fact that you guys think that we can't do it is really telling and it's disappointing. It's disappointing as a former GRPS parent. It is disappointing as a former GRPS employee and an advocate and someone who still sits on the dream fund committee to support you guys. It is disappointing because what your process you guys created the process. GRPS created the process and you're not following your own process. So, I appreciate the time to talk, but you know, I I'm very disappointed. >> Thank you, Tatiana Spencer. I
106have Vandenberg on deck. >> Good evening. My name is Tatiana Spencer. Um, public school educator in the neighboring district. So so passionate about community, so passionate about this idea of a school community model. And I think we accomplish that through continuing with the work of the hub. I think the work that KSSN does in GRPS and does in my district, the way that wraparound services support students can be done in this new model. And maybe like the architects who created Stocking Elementary and many other schools did, we continue that in imagining new ways that we interact and we imagine new ways that we come around students and come around families. I think we have an opportunity here to build an ecosystem of support. Um, I'm sad that the first time I'm hearing about uh the
107other proposal offering space to stocking to West Grand is tonight. Um, because I think that's a misstep of like we weren't communicating already. Um, and that feels like there's a problem already there. So, I just want to address that piece that that feels wrong that that wasn't made aware to West Grand already and I'm not sure where the disconnect was. I want to say that it really matters to me that we are supporting our kids and I want kids to see like I appreciate the kids that shared tonight. Um, I love that. I'm a student council um, president and like I want my kids to do that at our board meeting next year. Um, and I think our kids need to see and our families need to see that grassroots initiatives. When we were going
108to get the proposal tonight, I was excited because I was going to be able to go to my neighbors and say, "We're going to build a community organization. Can you give me five? can you give me $10? And I was going to build it with my neighborhood walking the streets and then all of this other funding that we have. But I also thought that it would be a way for our community to see that it was coming from every single person in the neighborhood around the district that was supporting the vision because I we know that that is super powerful and something that people need to see. So, I guess I want to end with think about the community. Uh, think about the way that we come together. Um, and I want to end with
109that. >> Thank you, >> Annette Vandenberg, Duke Gray on deck. >> Good evening, trustees. President Rodriguez, Superintendent Roby, I really appreciate your time again tonight. Um, as many of you know, my name is Annette Vandenberg and I'm going to read tonight from my screen and I serve as the executive director of the West Green Neighborhood Organization. I want to begin by saying that affordable housing is very important to our community. More than 50% of our neighbors that live in the stocking neighborhood of focus live in poverty. It has been that way for a very long time. When stocking school was open, we were able to connect the pieces and help people thrive. The last two years, we have had to try to do it out of our small office space. We've done the best we
110can, but it has been difficult in the tiny space [laughter] we've had and some of you have been in there and we that's why we need more space and our partners need space. Our partners are also getting kicked out of their space. Steepletown is now moving again and this time they have to move even further away from the neighborhood into an industrial area because that's what they can afford. So it's not just about West Grand. It's not just about Annette or Chai or Maurice or bankers or institutions. It's about our community. I have worked in this community for over 10 years. I come from a very poor community and to go from Friday saying that we we have a chance to hearing tonight that three of the committee members don't feel that we're the good
111fit or the right fit. That was hard. But that's okay. I've been told no all my life. I'm a first generation college graduate. I graduated 18 out of 24 of grandchildren, which means I was the 18th grandchild on my dad's side of the family to graduate from high school against all odds. Not only did I graduate high school, I eventually got my masters because I joined the Navy. But I want other children to have other opportunities. I don't want their last chance to make something of themselves to have to be to go serve their country. I want them to be able to do that because they choose to do that. It is an honor that I got to serve my country. It's an honor that I get to be home today. It's an honor that
112I get to represent the community that is largely and disproportionately vulnerable and has the impact of white colonialism still impacting our neighbors today. People are getting tickets because they're growing native pollinating grasses. People are getting tickets because they're jaywalking. People are getting tickets for things that are just utterly stupid. But West Grand has been on the front lines for the last 50 years, fighting the system, advocating, problem solving with our neighbors. This is the first time I've heard of Commonwealth's opportunity to partner with them. I'm the executive director. My information's been out there. I appreciate the opportunity to work with him, but I also urge you to say yes to us. >> Thank you. Next, we've got Duke Gray and Katherine Forest on deck. >> Good evening. My name is Duke Gray. Thank you to
113this uh this board for your service to the community. I'm uh I have the honor of representing WGNO as their buy as agent for the proposal. Our firm was pleased to get the opportunity. When you're in commercial development, I've been doing it for 20 years. There's a few things you're looking for. You want to see that it's viable. Can they do it? If somebody says yes, you want to know that it fits with whatever the seller is trying to get done and and you want to like the people you're doing business with. And when I check those three boxes with WGNO, it I just want you to know it fits for us. First of all, viability. I I know that the board has to weigh those tensions. It has to be viable. Can they buy
114it? And will it happen if you say yes? Because I know when I was listening to ad hoc committee, that was one of their concerns. We've already proven we have the money to buy the building, the property at the price that's been agreed to in principle. So, you'll know that you'll get paid. And the cool thing is that you'd get paid relatively quickly. Our due diligence period is is relatively short for a project of this size. But that's because Salah Building Company is so experienced in this, we can move through it quickly and effectively. The good thing about a short due diligence period is it means you'll get paid sooner rather than later. And my mentor in commercial development told me deals don't get better with age. The due diligence period the Commonwealth is expecting
115is so extraordinary and so long. There's so many exit ramps off of a deal with a due diligence period that long that the likelihood of closing is suspect. With us, it's not. Now, as far as what'll happen after we have the building, we have a number of benefactors in the community. A nonprofit doesn't last 50 years through all the things that the economyy's been through in 50 years in this country without having benefactors that care. The cool thing is is because it's a collaborative effort, all the tenants that are going to be part of our process also have benefactors. So, there's going to be an amplification of fund development going on. We also have a number of people that have told us if they accept your offer, we're going to be there for it. And
116there's some of those letters are in the packet. So we are very confident that not only can we buy the building at the agreed price that we can also do the development that we've envisioned that we know the community desires, we know this board would be proud to be a part of and we know that uh your concerns while valid are also I want to reassure you can be addressed. I want to thank you for your time and again for your service and God bless. Thank you, Katherine Force and Steve. Can't read that last name. Steve, you know who you are. On deck. [clears throat] >> Uh my name is Katherine Force. I am the founder of the neighborhood food circle network. Uh I'm partnered with West Grand Neighborhood or Yeah. organization to uh help
117develop the green space at stocking hub and I sent you guys a copy of what I had to say and I don't feel like saying it again. Um I only want to point out one thing. I don't you know I wanted to talk about you know food production, food education workshops, all the things that we have to offer. Um, but I did notice that A, there's a process that's not being followed. We were told one thing that's not happening. B, this is not what we heard before. Everything that these folks said before me, I'll stand by what they said. Knows one thing. It's only the white folks on this board that said no. Thank you, Steve. Close us out, sir. >> Good evening. My name is Steve Akram. >> I'm with uh I'm with Cella
118Building Company. Um we're providing development um expertise for West Grand Neighborhood Organization >> for their reimagining of Stocking Elementary School. uh to provide exactly what the community has asked for. Um an important part of our expertise of developing and owning build buildings and designing and constructing buildings is it all comes back to the proforma. It all comes back to the bankability, the finance ability of the project. This development as reimagined stands on its own. Meaning simply put, the rents from the affordable uh housing units and the rents from the commercial uses will more than cover the building expenses and the debt service. So it will be a revolving um a revolving positive um operation that doesn't need donations. um the donations or the grants or the capital stack is required in the beginning. Um um
119but we've shown that it is financable. Um it shows that um that there are commit we have provided commitment letters from from folks uh including my company. Uh if you've seen the the updated um information that we submitted, um later on you will have an action item um to determine who you will sell uh Stocking Elementary to the board's uh real estate experts, JLL and GRPS staff uh made a recommendation to sell it to West Grand Neighborhood. The scoring rub rubric determined that West Grand Neighborhood has the highest score. West Grand Neighborhood can close on the purchase of the property as soon as 90 days based on provided commitment from lenders such as IFF. There are other great proposals being considered um also, but they rely on LITC um or other incentives. Um I talked
120to Misha who who manages the program for LITC um pretty often and they confirmed that there's um an overs subscription in those LITC programs of five to one. So if if a if a project relies on LITC know that the applications are five to uh one award. So those credits aren't guaranteed and they also may take up to three years. So in conclusion, um I just want to say West time. >> Thank you. Thank you. All right. And that is the end of our public comment section. Um, next we are moving into our action items starting with the Michigan High School Athletic Association membership resolution. Board colleagues, is there any questions or comments on this uh MHSA membership resolution? All right, seeing none, do I have a motion to approve this resolution? >> So move.
121>> Support. >> All right. All those in favor say I. I >> I any oppose? Same sign. >> That motion passes. Thank you. Next uh action item is our purchasing agenda. Uh again, is there any comments or questions on this purchasing agenda? >> Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Support. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? Same sign. That motion passes. Next up, we've got blanket purchases for the 2627 school year. Again, any questions or comments on that action item? >> Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve the approve the blanket purchase for 2627 school year? >> So moved. >> Second. >> I'm taking it. >> All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any oppose? Same sign. That
122motion passes. Next, we've got our resolution adoption of budget amendment two for the our general fund. Uh, any questions or comments? >> Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve the budget amendment two for our general fund? >> So moved, >> support. >> Yes. >> All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? Same sign. That motion passes. Next up, we have our special revenue fund adoption of budget amendment two resolution. Any questions or comments on this one? Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve? >> So moved. Support. >> All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any oppose? Same sign. Next we have our resolution adoption of budget amendment two for our debt retirement fund. Questions or comments on that one? >> Seeing none, do
123I have a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? Same sign. All right. That motion passes. Next, we've got the resolution sale of Alexander. Um, colleagues, is there any questions or comments on this resolution? Seeing none, do I have a motion for the resolution sale of Alexander? >> I move to accept the proposal for purchase from cross construction. >> Second, how many times? >> I'm sorry. We can have uh after the motion we can have discussion or I can withdraw whatever you're comfortable with. >> Yeah. Um is there is there discussion to be had on this >> agenda item? >> She does have some questions. >> If it's in order, I'll withdraw my motion until >> she's returned. >> Motion
124on the table. You can withdraw it and then if you're waiting for another board member then you already >> Yeah, we can do that. Yeah. Would you like to withdraw your motion? Okay, motion withdrawn. All right, we can do a fivem minute uh recess and we will uh be back in 5 minutes. >> Thank you. >> Give it another one, dear God. Hi. Did you just absolutely >> welcome? >> It's a hard decision. >> Okay. >> Why are you Jose? I'll pray on this. >> You and me are going to be best friends. I think we got to get it done. But like we got to go back. We really have to figure out like I'm asking for That's true. That's true. This is complicated. It's not so kind of like it's not our job
125to say whether they can give us community support and concerns. We've got both. for us to like the fact that we're not even here. We are >> because we got to be about it. That's what we're charged with. >> Say that again. >> I know. I saw you walk in. >> Yeah. >> I know it. I know it. >> You can tell >> she's coming. cold. >> You missed all our warm up. >> I know you're not cold. >> It's freezing. It's freezing in here. >> And I'm not >> Hey, it's better than the alternative. >> That's true. >> Yeah. No, but today I'm like your girl over here got >> goosebumps like this. So cold. My fingers are like no. I just washed them and I was like, "Oh my >> drove." I um
126me and my daughter been well she been trying to save gas. She work with me. >> Okay. Okay. >> She working with you guys. Well, thank y'all for taking a little break from me, but it was necessity. >> It really was. It truly was. >> You know, you have to wait for Julie. >> Yes. Yeah, we're gonna thank y'all. >> Are we gonna have discussion? >> Yes. >> Okay. Wonderful. >> Yes. >> My bad. My bad. I was breathing though. I was I was [laughter] my the cold. I wasn't thinking straight. I was out there warming up. >> Yeah. >> I'm just >> And you got your coffee, too? >> Yes, I did. When I say I was freezing, I went to the restroom. Then I went to I said I need a cup of
127coffee. It's freezing in there. >> Oh, I missed something fun. >> All right, folks. We're going to get started in just one second. We are waiting for our executive assistant who takes notes for our meeting. Are we just waiting for Julie? >> Yeah. Okay. Is Is Julie Would you check if Julie is >> want to make sure she is I just have to get off of Erica's names. Is that okay? >> I'm just going to have her go through your notes. >> Okay. All right. We're just going to keep this meeting going. Um we were uh >> bringing up resolution sale of Alexander action item 8.7. Um is there any discussion on this agenda item from our colleagues? All right, Trusty Williams. >> Yes, thank you all for waiting for [laughter] me. So um I
128I am hoping um that I feel like I've asked some questions I haven't received answers to. >> Okay. Um, and it is and the answers that like are coming is like it's not really making sense. Um, and so I feel like I need more information about it. I I think both um of the recom I would go with the recommendation. However, we do have one one of the things that we also said is important for us is the ability to keep land. That that was one of our things that we wanted as well. And there is a proposable that allows us to do that. And I'm not sure how the numbers worked out. It's some some of that that just didn't make sense to me. And I feel like there is more information needed before
129I can make a informed decision with regards to Alexander because I think both of them bring a community aspect to it. Both of them bring family housing aspect to it. I think um that either one could be very viable. However, when I look at it as if I am looking at it uh as a steward for my um not giving away uh not selling the asset that could appreciate >> has merit. And so um I need to understand that the numbers and the thinking better before I can make the most informed decision that I think um is necessary. And then if the I if you know um if the recommendation is what the recommendation is um that's fine but as far as the unpacking and full understanding I don't have that yet as to how
130we arrive there particularly with um that caveat. So that that that's my thought and I need more information. >> Colleagues, is there any other questions, comments or concerns? >> I'll defer to my colleague. Did you hear me. >> You looked as though you're going to speak. No. Oh, okay. Um, >> I am maybe not the best uh person to deliver this, so I don't want to call in anyone. So, I'll defer to President Rodriguez, but I'll again just to say what we spoke through earlier in terms of the value of lease versus sale, right? Because it kind of hinges down to that. Correct, Trusty Williams? Is you sell and there's a value to that. You lease and there's a there's a different value to that like monetary value, right? there's monetary value, but also the
131ability to keep my asset >> while I still get a financial benefit >> is important. So, when I looked at the numbers, and so that's why I say the numbers aren't adding up for me. I looked at the numbers, $60,000 over 60 60 years. That's $3.6 million. That wasn't $450,000. So, maybe I'm missing something. I don't I thought I I did go to Crescent. I thought we was pretty topnotch in math, but um so um maybe somebody can unpack that for me in a way that makes sense that we went from 60 times 60 years being $450,000. That don't make sense to me. Um but also the fact of the matter is in the end if we still retain the lane owner land ownership over 60 years, it likely has appreciated. I know the value
132of the homes in my neighborhood have increased substantially in just the last four years. I can't imagine what it would look like in 60 years. Um, and particularly with all of the development that we have going on in our downtown area, I got some questions. I I I got some questions. And if it is what it is, and if the the answers reach the same recommendation, then that's fine. But until I have those answers, I just don't feel comfortable as being a steward of this property. >> Yeah, and that makes sense. Um, and we've tried to in an imperfect way get to the bottom of that. Um, and I've appreciated um just for my other colleagues on the board, I really appreciated Trusty Williams uh intention around this and getting to this. Um, so in
133terms of and and and you'll be familiar with this and I brought this up in my committee report, but in terms of um, you know, we got to compare donuts and donuts. Um, so 2026 to 20, you know, $86 doesn't make as much sense as so we got to try and get it to 20 $26. So, as it was explained from the JLL team, if we're assuming a $1 million value, right, um, and then you you have to factor in the the discount from inflation, other things. So, assume a 10% discount over 60 years. That is where we end up with that. We end up with a 700 uh $700,000 value, >> right? >> I don't get it. >> To the property to the property. >> Yeah. And the 450 comes from a 10-year um
134yes >> projection. That's is that might not still answer, but at least >> it does not it does not and it still does not uh [clears throat] allow me to understand how if the the lease price covers our actual uh cost at that site, >> how we losing I >> I'm just saying >> how are we losing? I need to understand that and then if when I get some answers, >> yeah, >> when I get a a clear understanding of that, then I can make an informed decision. But with that sitting there, >> I don't have the I don't I don't have an answer that that makes more sense to say pick one over the other. >> So I know JLO was in your uh ad hoc facilities meeting this evening. Um, is did you
135feel that you asked the question and just didn't get the the answer you were looking for from JL? Is that something that we could invite JL and discuss at this moment? Um, >> I think they're >> they Yeah, they are here. >> I would be I I think it was answered to my satisfaction, but I'm not, you know, I am just one voice. So, I think to some of my other colleagues, including Trusty Williams. So, if she's interested, like I'm >> I'm interested. If I can get an answer today, that'd be wonderful. >> Absolutely. Would you join us up here? >> Thank you, gentlemen. >> And while they come down, I'll just I'm I know you guys know this, but just to encourage this is to me as the person who's always trying to push
136for transparency and and push for things to be raw and authentic. I just want to remind everyone this is raw and authentic. So, we started a new process. We didn't know if it would go well, but we did it all publicly. We're discussing it publicly. We are not meeting behind closed scenes to do this. So what we're doing right here is just very authentic. So I hope people know that we are absolutely following our process. Um in the end each of the two uh top bids I guess I'll say on both u projects were 0.04 and 006 points apart. So that's where this gut discernment comes in. The rubric has led us to to two great options in both sites. And this is kind of the gut check now. And you're just seeing this happen
137live time. So I'm just I want to encourage us. This is what I always hope for us to do. So, >> thanks Sarah. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you for joining us. Um, yeah. >> Um, so, okay. So, we are looking for some clarity around the Commonwealth Development Corporation proposal. >> Oh, excuse me. I'm so sorry. >> Cross cross contracting. Sorry. Um, yep. Uh could you maybe give us some clarity around um where you got those numbers for a 60,000 annual um >> or 60 years with um 60,000 annually and what where you ended up with what was 750,000 >> 700,000. >> I mean I'll defer to you guys in terms of speaking to leases versus >> sales. So this was brought up ad hoc and I just quickly did it. I'm not an
138accountant. Okay. Um although I'm a mechanical engineer so I guess I'm good at math but uh what I when you look at an income stream versus uh the a purchase price what we do is a net present value of an income stream right and so there's a couple ways of looking at an income stream from a value perspective one is net present value which I took one was a 10-year period say hey this is you know when you get past 10 years it. Most investors don't look past 10 years. What did you do? In this particular case, on the spot, I took it over 60 years and then I added in a crystal ball of a million dollars worth of value at the end of 60 years, but I don't know what that property is
139going to be worth in 60 years. I don't think there's anyone on the board is um trying to figure that out. So, what I arbitrarily picked that I used a 10% discount rate. What a discount rate is is it takes future dollars, brings it back to today's date. Right now, I arbitrarily pick 10%. Most my clients are probably in that 13 14% um on from a discount rate. So 10% is pretty conservative. And the way you get there is one is what's inflation. You talked about that way average cost of capital. So things what is capital cost? what you can do with those dollars versus today versus having those dollars 60 years. Does that kind of make sense? So you take 60 years. So if you take 60 years, 59 years, 58 years, and you
140bring those all the way back today, discounting every year by 10%. Including the million-doll what we would call residual value at the end, and take that all back today. And I did it very quickly, so I want to double check uh because I did it while we were sitting here. And that came to about uh although I do it a lot, uh it came to uh just under $700,000 of value. So that way you can compare today's value versus dollars today versus de dollars over an income stream over a period of time. >> And so great explanation breaking it down like that. But when I compare 700K over 60 years and I keep my property which can possibly appreciate over a million dollars today and my property is gone. I don't understand. >> I'm not
141sure what you're asking. I'm not understanding how the weight in the matrix was for us keeping our property cuz it again if we're talking about we're talking about a $300,000 difference but I still get to keep my land in a city that's landlocked. I'm so confused. >> I'm I'm I'm confused why that didn't have a higher weight value. >> Uh we did not determine the weight value. the weight value was determined by public school. >> Okay. So, and so that again is part of the conversation I'm trying to have to better understand because and [clears throat] I'm just I'm just uh I mean and I'm by no means an expert, but I do know that generational wealth comes from land. And if we quick to unload for 300,000 difference, I don't understand that. I I
142I it just does not I don't I don't get it. I don't get why we would unload a piece of property for a $300,000 difference that likely even if we waited would appreciate to that point. So those are my thoughts and my thinking about it. I I I do have um and I've been very clear the entire time. I think it's important to retain property ownership where we can and that a proposal came in that allowed us to do that. that that's high and it has community benefit and it has GRPS benefit all of those things. So that that would have that would have looked differently to me and so I don't know how my colleagues feel about that. That's just some of the unpacking that I really needed to understand as we um as
143as we make a decision if if we make that decision tonight. But yeah, my thoughts. >> Thank you. Um colleagues, any other thoughts or comments? >> The one thing just to um cuz I've considered the same thing as well, Trusty Williams, of do we do we retain ownership um and lease out over the long term or do we sell outright? And in I I always go back to it's a case by case situation. And with this, um, I think the the math and the situation with this particular property, it makes sense to do a sale for me because then there's also the, as I think about it, the additional administrative cost. Um, we did talk about tax costs and ad hoc. That's easily a pass through to whoever the tenant is. But in terms of
144the administrative cost, that overhead to me is enough to negate any like any of the value that we would otherwise get when we could have an immediate sale of this particular property. But that's just that's my thinking through it. >> And in in thinking about this as well, I think, you know, we we don't know what the world is going to look like in 60 years. We don't know financially what our position is going to look like in 60 years. And I I do hear benefit to both. Um and I I do trusty Williams see your desire and also I would like to you know have that added benefit of keeping land right. I think that's something you've been very consistent with and I appreciate that. I also think that GRPS is in dire financial
145straits now as we struggle to with the state to to provide us adequate um educational funding. And so thinking about $60,000 a year, you know, going down the line, right, I think has a in in in the short term, right? and we can think both long-term and short term. I think it just doesn't have the impact that I would like to see um for GRPS and and how we're trying to uh you know offset buildings for community benefit but also have some money to spend today. Um and those are just my thoughts on on the matter. Um just out of [snorts] uh understanding process and so uh with the recommendation on the resolution since we're going to be put if we move it forward and we need to wait for approval of their funding what
146happens if they don't get it >> uh for is this is for the cross >> for for Alexander >> thank you for Alexander >> who or either who wait for fun because I think both of them had money ready to go, aren't they? >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Okay. >> Okay. No. >> Well, I think those are questions that maybe um should be asked of the the parties that um you know made the proposal, but I know that one party in particular has the cash ready to go. >> No issue. Um I guess one of the questions and maybe part of the due diligence would be if it's going to be leased, how are the lenders going to consider that? are is there going to be any challenge not owning the property to get
147funding for other renovations? So, I think those are things that you're going to want to think about, >> right, and consider. >> Um, other things I think that would be worth noting is that these properties were put on the market for a reason, right? >> And, you know, enrollment is down. If you look at across the board the utilization of buildings, you're at 51%. So 49% could be improved upon. Essentially from our perspective, they're vacant. So I don't personally see the need to retain real estate. Not to say that that's a right or wrong answer, but I don't think the demand is there. looking at how things are utilized now. I think I'll just leave it that, >> right? >> Appreciate the sentiment. I I disagree respectfully, but yes, I understand. Um, so, but it's
148the board's decision. >> All right. Is there any other discussion to be had? All right. Seeing none, do I have a a motion for resolution sale of Alexander? I move that we accept the proposal for purchase from cross construction for the Alexander building. >> I think you got that right. >> Purchase. >> Sorry, >> we was just talking about the land lease there. The recommendation came forward was for Lifequest, not for cross. >> We didn't. Yeah. I mean, I stand by my motion. >> So, you're you're you're advocate We're doing both. We're doing Alexander at the moment. >> Yes. >> Correct. >> Yeah. >> The >> cross offered both to lease and to purchase >> is for cross offers purchase or purchase. >> Okay. >> I move that we accept their offer for purchase. >>
149Okay. >> Second. >> All right. We're going to do a roll call vote. Um, can I have a point of clarification? So, what I'm what I want to like be clear on your um your motion is to go against the recommendation of JLL. I just want to make sure that that's what uh and and the in the district >> to be clear. It's the district's recommendation. >> Correct. Okay. My the district's recommendation for um Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Okay, we're going to move forward with the roll call vote. >> Uh, yeah. >> President Ravi, yes. I need to recuse myself from this vote. >> Okay, >> Thank you very much, Secretary Kilpatrick. >> All right. Uh, yes. >> Trusty Melton, >> yes. Trusty Moreno, >> yes. >> Trusty Van Djk, >> yes. >> VP,
150recused. Trusty Williams, >> I'm slightly lost. >> I I want Can can I please ask a question? I'm not sure. So, we're saying that we are selling the property to the cross >> versus their lease offer. >> Yes. >> Purchase price for $1 million. >> Okay. Um so, yeah. My No. >> No. >> Trusty Williamson. Yes, >> President Rodriguez. >> Yes. >> That motion passes. >> Okay. Next, we've got the resolution sale of stocking. Do I have a motion for that? >> Discussion. Oh, sorry. >> Yep. Yep. >> Is there any discussion on this motion? >> Yes. So I um having read over the proposal with regards to um the um second recommend the second um person not the one that was recommended. >> So so be clear, >> right? >> Um I had some
151questions about the contract language. It seemed uh I think someone pretty mentioned it pretty early. A lot of offramps, a lot of uh wait till we secure our funding. uh seemed like the funding was a little bit of double dip in taxpayer dollars with buying this property yet. We received a fairly low offer. Didn't receive any information about projections about what they were earned from this particular um project as well for us to know whether or not we're getting a fair offer. Um and so I had some concerns about their the contract language that was in their proposal. um the fre again frequent offramps, delays, uh earnest monies, all of those things. It it was I had quite a few um um concerns, wonderings about that. And then additionally really um uh not even being
152clear as to um what type of housing this would be, who who is serving particularly. So, we don't need single family housing from a district standpoint, we need family housing. Um, and so I just it was a lot of things with that. And then the offer amount as well, I found um if I was going to um had concerns about that and if I was going to take a lower amount, I would be taking that from a nonprofit, not from a developer. >> My thoughts? Well, the the language in there is for mixed family housing and and community spaces and keeping the green space and working with nonprofits in the area. So, the question is for me, just for me, the management of the building itself that's really on the table. So, I yeah, I'm
153not sure what you mean by the offramps that looked different than other >> in in the proposal. It was different uh different uh points for extension requests. >> Um uh that >> could really put us in a situation where we could have been with we could have had it sold and gone with >> to somebody who's ready now >> versus someone who has two or three different extension options that we were already looking at 27 anyway. And if you can go even beyond that. >> You're talking about the 30-day extensions. Is that what you mean? Cuz I read through it and I was trying to figure out where you were. >> No, they weren't just 30-day extensions. Look like it was uh options to like >> Yeah. Let me see if I can pull it.
154>> Yeah. See right here, buyer has the right to extend closing date up to three times for 30-day periods, each with additional earnest money deposits. I'm assuming it would be in the same amount of $15,000 or I guess it's up to the up to the buyer. >> It's up to negotiations. up to negotiations. Okay. >> And then there wasn't there language in there about um waiting for funding to be secured as well or approval for different funds of pots of money that they would be applying for. >> That's correct. >> Yeah. >> Commonwealth. >> So many things. >> Is there any other thoughts, comments, questions? All right. Seeing none, do I have a motion for the resolution sale of stocking? >> I move that we sell the property of stocking to Commonwealth Development Corporation of
155America. >> Do I have a second? >> Support. >> All right. Secretary Kilpatrick, would you do a roll call vote, please? >> Kilpatrick, yes. Melton, >> yes. Mar Trusty Mareno. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Djk. >> No. >> VP Wade. >> No. >> Trustee Williams. >> No. >> Trustee Williamson. >> Yes. >> President Rodriguez. >> Yes. >> That motion passes. >> All right. Thank you. Next, we're moving into our consent agenda grouping. >> Do I have a motion to approve? Thank you, gentlemen. >> Thank you. Do you have a motion? >> So moved >> to approve the consent to hear. [laughter] >> All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. >> I. >> Any oppose? Same sign. >> All right. That motion passes. All right. Next, we have uh discussion items, board president
156announcements. Um so we've got our uh June 13th um board retreat this Saturday. Um, I am going to be sending you all an an email with the agenda. Um, and I have been asked by Ryan Associates to please bring your personal and professional calendars because we're going to be choosing all of our dates for the um uh superintendent search process uh on that date. So, we just want to make sure that as many folks uh can participate as possible. Um, and we want to make sure that every every person can participate. So, we're going to try to look at calendars to make sure that we can we can make that happen. Um, and aside from that, that is all I have for you all this evening. And I will move to superintendent comments. >> Good
157evening. I wish more people would have stayed because I think this is actually pretty exciting and very innovative. Um today we did the ribbon cutting for the um new central station child care at the rapid transit hub and it is a beautiful beautiful site. Um we are opening this fall. We expect to have about 100 um young young people from birth to age five. And this is in part, yes, it's in partnership with, of course, GRPS, um, Head Start, YMCA, WK Kellogg, and a slew of other, um, partners within our community. And what makes this so exciting is that it's at a transportation hub, which if you think about for many of our families in our community, when we talk about employment opportunities, some of the barriers for families are transportation as well as child
158care that um is safe and that young and where people feel safe and it's in the heart of our city right there. And then the secondary kind of benefit is that our young people, our GRPS scholars 17 years of age and older um may have an opportunity to work in the child care after school and so they get a little bit of um change, pocket change, but then also it's in partnership with GRCC so they can earn college credits. And so this is one of those transformational experiences. We will continue to do some marketing and advertising for this um to get ready for the launch in September. Um Trusty Van Dyke Van Dyke and I were there this um morning and it really is a beautiful space with an outdoor patio um playground, not patio,
159rooftop, rooftop playground. And I just um I'm I'm buzzed and excited for it. I wish Well, I'm not even going to say I wish I had little ones. [laughter] that that phase of life has passed. But um it is a phenomenal um opportunity and I'm just so very excited for what this means for um our families and our community. >> All right. Thank you. That's a very exciting Yeah, we can we can clap that up for that. >> Thank you, Dr. Robie, for sharing that. Um next we're going to go into board member comments. Secretary Kilpatrick, if you want to just go down the roll call. Yeah, and that would be myself and I have no comments. So, on to Trusty Meltton. >> No comments tonight. >> Trusty Mareno. >> I don't know about y'all,
160but I'm still thinking about graduations. Uh, you know, hearing our our scholars speak. Um, you know, shaking all their hands. Uh, I continue to be inspired by our young people, you know, even having the young four folks come talking about nutrition. Uh, and so it gets me really excited for a retreat and thinking about how do we continue to deeper engage with our scholars and build those relationships. I will say I was a little sad um that I didn't know as many scholars as maybe I want to. And so I I know I have my own internal goal of building those relationships. Um I was like I didn't like going to a graduation where I didn't at least know one student. Um and so I just want to continue to challenge us as we're thinking
161about community engagement. You know, how are we building those relationships? So it doesn't feel to me it felt false c celebrations. I'm still celebrating and cheering for them and their next adventures, but I want to be in relationship with them and their families. Uh that feels really important to me and I hope we can continue to foster that um into this next season. >> Thank you, Trusty Van Djk. >> Yeah. Um, just want to say fides to all four of those staff members um, who were honored tonight as well as to some the scholar athletes and coaches and their families supporting them. Um, and I know most of the West Grand folks left, but just just want to really acknowledge the work um, that they put into the engagement that went into that process. Um,
162and all of those pieces. I'm I'm hopeful that um, you know, the decision made tonight um, there there are opportunities to partner that are fruitful. Um, that was a really cool project and a really cool idea and um, I want to see more work like that, you know, whether whether it's connected to GRPS or not. I think that's those are the kind of hubs that we need to see in our communities. Um, and I just I look forward to seeing what comes next in that space. >> Thank you, >> VP Wade. Um yeah, congratulations to the lovely educators on 40 years and I hope and whatever I do for 40 years I look that good [laughter] and um I didn't know this district hired at maybe 12 because [laughter] I don't see 40 years of
163service but we appreciate it and um thank you to our safety team. I think that was an amazing presentation and the work that goes into that is far beyond those slides and I do want to acknowledge um acknowledge that and no guns this year may seem like a you know room full of clapping people like they had guns last year. We don't hear about every little thing that goes on in our schools and in schools around us either. That doesn't make the news every time a gun or a weapon is found in the school. and to be able to say that. We're not sure how many other districts or um around this country, around this city, um this county can even say that. So, I'm just really proud that that was even added to the
164presentation >> and I'm sad that it was had to be added to the presentation as well. Um, I'm a little heavy right now because I I I today I today community it didn't feel like community one. I I'm I'm a champion for community um projects for community empowerment and community centers. And I don't want our votes today to set a precedence for what what's next and what what other buildings come online and what community might see and say, "Oh, that's not what they they they heard us, but they didn't listen or they um chose uh money or homes over what what our our children and our communities need." And I hope that does not uh put out any fires out there in different communities and spaces. And like Erica said, I hope to see more
165projects like that come before us. But I also hope that we can give some of those projects a chance. So I'm I'm a little sad today about that. Um but that's all I have. Thank you for hanging with us, you guys. >> Thank you, >> Trusty Williams. >> Yes. Um, thanks again to everyone who came to share public comment with us. Um, we know your time is valuable, so we appreciate that. Want to um, congratulate um, Mrs. Johnson, Miss Dodd, Miss Black, Mrs. uh, Lance on their um, uh, just stellar careers. Um, and um, we thank you for choosing uh, making GRPS your choice. So um, uh, shout out to Mr. Johnson on the athletic advisory committee. Many of y'all know I have been saying we have got to improve our athletics. We have to
166be intentional about that and I think that's a wonderful step to be a part of that so that um we can uh restore GRPS to our glory days. So I'm excited about that. Um with regards to um the facilities and the and the sale. So I think um I what why I didn't necessarily agree and you all saw me both know but I did appreciate that there was an extension to work together an offer to say how can we include something that you wanted in what we're doing >> and I that type of partnership and collaboration is what I am hopeful will come out as we start doing um continue to look at our properties that people will say, "How can we be collaborative? How can we be intentional to work um with other community
167partners?" Because I do believe that even though one may be won the bid uh to do it today, I think that there are similarities between the top two in each or or that there could be an olive branch and extension to make this more community. So I I'm hopeful that that will happen as again that was one of the other pieces of what we were looking at is just um we were looking for partnerships and that um there is an opportunity for there to be partnerships between people who are putting in RFPs. I think that is super important and so I I'm hopeful about that even though I didn't necessarily um vote in that direction. I'm hopeful that that is something that was uplifted. >> Thank you. and Trusty Williamson. >> Yeah. And I'd like
168to agree um completely with uh Trusty Williams sentiments. Um I always think of Grand Rapids as a small town but a big city. Like there is more there's so much space and so much opportunity to do so many great things here. Um and of course we're going to continue on with this process. Um as imperfect as it is, working to improve it. Um, we're really charged as a board with long-term interest in of the district and the larger community and all the kids that are here and all the kids that are going to be here in the future. Um, and I'm really proud that everybody on this board takes that so seriously. Um, because we've had some some long conversations just about these two properties. Um, but again, even as imperfect as this process is,
169um, to Sarah Melton's point, we've been doing this all out in the open. And I think we've learned a lot from this and this is something that Trusty Williams has always reminded me of that we don't need to rush into it all and there's lessons to be learned and and we can improve it. So, um, that's really why I why I share Trusty Williams, uh, sentiments that there is a lot of opportunity for the future here and and the fires don't need to go out on some of the enthusiasm for these proposals. And if these two properties weren't the ones for maybe those proposals, certainly in the future as we look to others and other creative ways of partnering with community um, to make these things happen. Um as we also as a board um
170working with our district team to continue improving the process so that uh we have the information we need and the answers uh to our questions. We are able to efficiently ask those questions and get the information we need um and and come to a result that's uh going to continue to strengthen and improve this this small town that we all share. Thank you, >> President Rodriguez. Um, yeah, I just want to start by giving a shout out to our our 40 years of service teachers. Um, I think that is an amazing feat and I know they're continuing to to serve our our scholars um in in our schools and I think that's amazing. Um, I don't I don't know if I would ever stick with the job for 40 years. I think that like our
171generations are different that way. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but but I don't see that kind of commitment to one job nowadays. So, I just really appreciate that. Um, but yeah, also shout out to our to our uh athletes. Um, man, just to see so many so many honors. Um, so many all state academic all state I think is just really amazing to to witness. Um, and then of course our safety team, I think having the the City Vibes uh program I think is really valuable and I hope to maybe stop by. I hope I hope to see some other board members there as well. Um, I think that's so amazing in a time where, you know, some of our young ones just don't have a lot to do in the community and we
172want to have them do something um, positive and and also stay safe and, you know, kind of seen and and make sure to stay out of trouble. So, I think that's really great. Um, and again, shout out to all all of the intentionality that goes into the the safety and security team, the age appropriate drills. I was writing all these things down, secured entryways, right? Cameras on our buses. I think all of this is amazing work. Um, and I'm grateful that the so many folks were here to witness that. Um, and to the process of of, you know, uh, Alexander and stocking. This is our first time going through this process. And I've said time and time again, I'm really uh grateful and and proud of this board and and what we accomplished together. And
173I think the process is only going to get better. It's only going to get more streamlined, but I'm just grateful that we have, you know, gone through our first two properties. And so I'm excited to see what the what the rest entail. And so with that being said, we are adjourned for this evening. Thank you everyone. Yeah, >> I like this as well. >> This is today. >> Yes. I'm like knew where we was going to be at.