001Ard trustee Rodriguez can you do the roll call please absolutely uh trusty Rodriguez is here trusty Williams trusty Williamson pres trusty Davis trusty K trusty killpatrick is is excused uh trusty mton here truste Moreno here VP Wade and president Davis here all right we have a quorum do I have a motion to approve the agenda moved support all in favor say I I any opposed okay moving forward to celebrations first up we have the 42nd annual Giants recognition of Junior Giants welcome good evening president Davis Dr Roby and other uh distinguished uh board trustees uh tonight we have with us a scholar from University Prep Academy and her principal Mrs Hill Hall I will allow her to introduce uh the The Scholar who was acknowledged as the junior giant the 42nd annual Junior uh junior
002giant uh program this year uh she along with several other students uh from grps I've received uh recognition there where they will also receive I believe a scholarship as well and so I will let Miss hillhall talk about it good evening everyone I'm so excited to share about my scholar that is here and then I'm also going to share about uh one of our other Scholars because this year we had two Junior Giants at EP our other scholar couldn't be here tonight because she's in District conference but that just shows you the footprints of our junior giants that are here so our first Junior giant that I'm introducing is Miss Kamura price um I've had the privilege of knowing Miss kamur for four years um she is her GPA is she's in the top 1%
003in our graduating class over a 4.0 she has taken seven dual enrollment courses four advancement placements and has been on honor roll ever semester every semester since n9th grade she's also one of our participants in the Michigan State uh teacher education program so we're hoping to see her here in grps if there's any HR people here you know this is our future educator here and she's also a member and officer of National Honor Society she's been for the past two years a representative for for the superintendent Council and since on her senior senior executive board um Miss kamur is just a bright light she is not a young lady that has a lot of words but she's always got a bright smile uh to give everyone and she's so very kind and we just love
004having her in our community I'd like to add that uh as a the co-chair of the Giants committee uh this is the 10th year that we've acknowledged Junior Giants and uh it's a very competitive process and uh upon reading uh many of the uh the applicants uh kamora's uh application and her her process just shot out and just jumped right off the pages as uh as so we I was very happy and proud to be in the room when I realized it was a a grps student uh that would be receiving this this acknowledgement and award great congratulations and I believe she has her brother that came with her so just want to acknowledge that her brother brother attended with her today so just he's also a scholar at EP as well all right so
005well congratulations congratulations so kamora I'm I'm also going to lift up the fact that she was also a recipient of the MLK um scholarship about a month or so ago and I don't remember what the the financial implications of that was but it just demonstrates how this young lady is shining in multiple Arenas and so we are very proud of you and know that um you will continue to just let your light SAR and do great things so congratulations again thank you thank you okay next up we have celebration of Soul recognition of our KO Creative Arts Academy scholar okay good evening Dr Roby president Davis and members of the board this celebration was so incredible uh the celebration of Soul event I was able to part participating and be an audience member of and
006when I saw our scholar and our incredible Fine Arts teacher Miss per uh I knew it had to be a board celebration so I'm going to turn it over to the school's uh incredible leader Dr Edie to tee this one up um good evening Dr Roby distinguished board members trustees um wow what can I say I have been a part of the koite family since March of 22 um I put it on everything I was never going to the elementary but these babies of mine have changed my life so Percy we are koi Creative Arts Academy I'm going to give you a snapshot for those of you who are new so KO is an international baloria primary years program you hear us say pyp a lot um but we are twofold creative arts where we
007serve our families Scholars under the disciplines of art Advanced art music advanc music or honors got a rock band we have an honors choir we have also dance honors dance we have Spanish and we have physical education well some folks ask about International baloria it's a framework which balances um the work that we do the IB crosses over and balances and aligns with our creative arts some folks think we just teach the creative arts no it's a balance they are um meshed and transdisciplinary um work but Percy Miss Perry has taught this great scholar how to become he already has it but to become bold Brave and stand on it because every single time he gets before our community it's an audition and she has ingrained that into him his little brother Cairo every one
008of our Scholars and so Miss Perry I'm not going to tell your story I want you to tell it about how our scholar was able to grace the stage with ti or around that well I have worked with the symphony with soul and celebration with soul um for well over 20 years and this year uh one of the pieces that uh the community course was doing um it needed someone to do um a part on one of the songs and the song was glory and uh so I thought of I said you know Dr Dwayne what you really need I said you need a kid from KO to do the part and I said I know just the student so he took time out of his day to come and hear Percy and right off
009the bat uh he was very impressed but not just with the with Percy's talent but with his character and how Percy was a hard worker and very manner and that's what Dr Dwayne um he saw himself in you Percy matters fat when he was a fifth grader and so when Percy got the opportunity um he just mesmerized the Community Chorus and Al also the symphony members and just how his approach was he was just very professional and that's just one of the things that I try to ingrain in students that you are always auditioning you never know who's looking at you and when you get an opportunity and then Percy made the most of that opportunity so we are so proud of Percy in this performance Percy is there anything you'd like to say about
010what it was like to go on that stage and flow those rocks so it was great having um cuz it was fun up there and it really made me exced and it made me happy that all these people came to see me and and I'm just happy I did good and I'm happy people liked it would like his parents please stand little brother [Applause] yes well Percy that is quite an accomplishment to perform in front of that many people at your age so I can tell already that you're going to go very far and I'm a music teacher so I'm sorry I missed it but I love when you perform for us um in your in your ensembles and you guys are doing a wonderful job so thank you so much thank you [Applause] okay
011moving on we do not have our scholar Representatives here tonight so we will move over the report of the scholar representatives and into public comment all right so during excuse me during public comment individuals will be invited to the podium to address the board before beginning your comment please State your full name at that time we will begin the timer allowing each individual 3 minutes to make their comment in accordance with open meetings act board members and superintendent cannot respond to public comment concerns will be brought to the attention of the appropriate staff we value your input and thank you for sharing with us um and just to know the timer is right behind vice president Wade for your reference thank you okay first up we will have Matt Marlo and then following Matt will
012be Julie McBride my name is Matt Marlo president of gr um thank you Dr Roby president Davis and distinguished board members for this opportunity tonight uh my topic was um talking about the budget so basically talking about where we've been where we are and where do we go from here um I was looking over some data as far as back from 2017 uh till 2024 and when I'm looking at mostly the general fund revenue and also general fund expenditures so money that you're taking in and also spending so back in 2017 essentially my Revenue was 197 million and then that same year we spent 199 million so basically 2 million we had to you know take take a loss there on that year and then the following year 2018 we're at we received 200 6
013million and then we spent 209 so once again we're kind of running a deficit here and then the following year 2019 we're at 2,5 million and then went he spent two 210 million of those dollars and then finally at fourth year along received 210 million and then spent 213 so for four consective years there was you know deficit spending and then 2021 comes along essentially you know we were we received 224 million and then all of a sudden we spent 216 so that's a plus side that's almost 8 million and then 2022 we didn't spend as much as we earned which was about 1.1 million and then 2023 we basically acred 265 million and only spent 248 in the general fund so that's a a whopping 16.8 million surplus and then for 2024 um took
014in 293 million and that actual fund expenditure was 274 so basically that was $18 million in a plus so I know we incuded some deficits you know negative 11 million but then on the flip side we had 43.9 million um so that's kind of shows you where we where we've been and then where we are and where do we go from here I'm curious about our expenditures you know looking at you know from 2021 we were at 216 million that was kind of what we're spending 2022 we're at 241 I know Esther was involved with that so there's going to be a little more spending and then we went to 248 million and then finally 274 million so I know the SR funds are done but I'm curious where does that put us at now
015I mean because when you look at the jumps from 2017 18 19 all the way to 24 you're seeing increments of spending increases but is that is that rational to think well we went from 216 to 241 248 and then the 274 million I'm just curious where we fall now are we going to stay at that 275 or is it going to rail you know come back down so that's just the question I was wondering so thank you for your time we appreciate it thank you Julie McBride followed by Mariah Welch Hello I'm I'm Julie McBride um I stopped attending board meetings there's not I'm down on the M but when I heard you guys were talking about the budget I guess my question is are we hiring people that are competent to do their
016job and how much are we paying them because there's been positions that have been left open for quite a while and then we get somebody that wants the position then it takes them forever to get into the position um we're sitting here in March and we finally are fully staffed in our building but we've had somebody looking at a position since September that took till January to get hired question are HR and their ability to do their job I did my job that poorly we're asked to sacrifice all the time but I don't see maybe I don't I don't I'm just down doing my job but the things that I'm asked to do because there's not money for it I see other places getting things talk about Equitable Franklin I've sat with 27 kids all
017year the solution was to move two kids out of my room to my teaching partner because she lost kids but then she just got four more kids so how is that for social emotional then I talked to other colleagues and they sit with 14 kids in their classroom 17 kids in their classroom and I'm held to the same standard and I'm at the same pay just because I can doesn't mean I should and just because the kids can learn in that environment doesn't mean they should have to there should not be a whole seal committee because we're not hiring and retaining teachers because you're spending millions of dollars for recruitment I'll tell you recruitment treat us well and we recruit Mariah Welch followed by Wendy Winston hello so I am Mariah Welch I'm a seventh
018and eth grade English teacher at CA Frost um and this is my dream job um and it's not just a job for me it's a calling I feel an undeniable PLL to serve my community as a teacher I come from a family of Educators then married into one and I've seen firsthand the profound impact an educator can have on a student's life there's no price tag on the value and joy this work brings me every day but there is a price on Healthcare housing car repairs and child care and I am the bread winner for a family of four and I've watched my ability to support them decline every year that I've worked at grps the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that Michigan's cost of living Rose 3.5% from 2023 to 2024 factor in
019Rising healthcare costs and the fact that grps pays significantly less than any other Kent County District including Godwin Heights which offered me a job a month after I started at Frost where I would be making $111,000 more now a 1.5% raise is just an insult to our profession but this isn't just about data this is personal I'm a master's educated published poet and accomplished College instructor and a sixth year teacher though grps says that I'm only in my fourth year but that's a different story I have a talent for building relationships with students and families and some have even called me the parent Whisperer I'm a passionate empathetic educator and you are incredibly lucky uh to have me serving your students and this is personal cuz my daughter is on her third preschool teacher this
020year at sibl elementary but shout out sibl I love their newsletters like the principal's amazing uh this is personal because my husband is a former grps student and is back in school for social work but had to cut back to one class this semester to work more this is personal because during a breast cancer scare in November I lay awake at night thinking I cannot afford this the next day I broke down crying as soon as the sixth hour ended this is personal because literally today my husband lost his job I could continue to list how much more I'd make elsewhere but here's the thing there is nowhere else I would rather be like this is my community this is where I want so desperately to invest my time and talent and 7.5% covers this
021year's increase in health insurance 7.5% means I can pay my student loans 7.5% means I can pay my mortgage and still buy groceries 7.5% means I can start saving for the future but even more than that 7.5% means that I have less fear for my family as I care for my students 7.5% means I'm valued and appreciated for the work I do 7.5% means I'm proud of where I work so please help me be able to afford to stay [Applause] Wendy Winston hello everyone my name is Wendy Winston and thank you to all of you for serving um I just wanted to basically follow up with my colleague I actually can't say it as well as she can or did but um in 20122 and 2023 school year my health insurance premium was $58 83
022cents for the uh actually I should say I had to take a different plan which doesn't cover as much um this year and I pay $157 um a pay period so it was $58 in 2022 and it's $157 now in 2022 I had a 10% co co Insurance zero co- payment on everything $10 uh prescriptions and a $2,000 Max on Dental now I have a 3,300 deductible I have 20% Co Insurance $10 Co payment $25 telea Health $25 office coverage $50 specialist $50 Urgent Care $200 emergency room $10 five tier prescription and $1,500 uh Dental so I can show you all these numbers if you don't want numbers rattled off at you um I began teaching in TW in 2000 and since then my take-home pay has basically remained stagnant any increases in compensation have
023been negated by increased insurance premiums less medical Vision dental coverage High higher deductibles co-pays co- Insurance decreased pensions and a higher requirement for HSA investment educator compensation has not kept up with costs and of healthcare and has not kept up with costs and Healthcare inflation leading to Educators having to pay an increasingly higher share of their total health insurance premiums this has a profound impact on Educators lives also often resulting in hundreds of dollars more taken out of every paycheck making it harder to make ends meet for myself themselves and their families combined with stagnant pay and additional work stress um my colleagues and other school districts are really uh experiencing a better work life balance and I'm hoping we can consider uh offering an increase in compensation to all the Educators in grps and
024final comment is Donna West good evening uh my name is Donna West I've been involved with grps since 2008 um as a parent a volunteer year a substitute teacher and then last year in 2023 I was finally hired by the district what should have been a celebration being hired by the district after working so long to be here has instead been a hardship as a seconde teacher I make less this year than I did last year due to our pay our uh cost increase of insurance I now can barely afford to put food on the table for my family yes I have a large family I have five kids three of whom are adults I still have two in this District I can go elsewhere I have a field supervisor who will look for another
025job for me if I say so I choose to be here in grps I have watched my children come through this district and I have worked hard as a dedicated sub since 2017 and then hired last year but I don't feel valued I do not feel like your priorities to valuing our teachers are actually important enough for you to keep us there was not much of a sign on bonus when I started last year was a nice little thing to start and I appreciated it but to make less this year than I did last year almost by if I do the math correctly ,000 dollar less per month is what I make this year than what I did last year that's $1,000 I make enough to put food on my table and if grocery prices
026continue to increase which I'm sure they will it'll be a bigger struggle thankfully I have a husband who also helps pay our bills if I did not there would be no way but I still choose to stick with grps I believe in the district I just wish your belief in your staff was just as much as mine was with you thank you okay moving on the next item on our agenda is the foundation report we do not have a report tonight so we will move on to our secretary's report all right excuse me I've only got a couple things um we've got upcoming committee meetings uh the ad hoc facilities committee meeting is scheduled for March 10th um at 4:30 p.m. in the library building conference room 1112 and then the finance committee meeting is
027scheduled for March 24th at 4:30 p.m. here um and the this uh administration building Auditorium that's it thank you okay our committee chair reports finance committee trusty Williams well we had our meeting on the 24th and I will keep it brief because we will be um addressing these items under our action items but I'll just give a a little brief summary um Miss cribs um gave us information with regards to the purchasing agenda she gave us a detailed breakdown with regards to our general fund balance our special revenue balance and our debt retirement um she shared a few things uh areas of concern that I'll just lift up that our um there's been increased um fees with regards to our food services um which was um which is new for us as well as um
028there are some upcoming concerns that are looming out there with regards to the um hard cap for insurance that will um can have a significant impact on our budget as well as they are working that out in Lancing but when it gets worked out that will be uh something that we will have to make sure that we're looking to accommodate in our budget because the hard cap is 80% and we would um be responsible still for that 80% despite what happens at that level so um that could uh really um increase our benefit costs there as well so um but those are just a few of the highlights um from what Miss cribs presented but these are action items later so I won't go too detailed any questions okay thank you okay moving on to
029our superintendent report good evening everyone and so we're first going to begin our um evening related to our graduation rates for the class of 2024 I'm I'm going to invite uh Mr rney Lewis up to kind of give an update and for the community overall we always receive our graduation our official graduation levels um about 9 months after graduation and so that's something that is consistent across our state as well as across our nation and that's to ensure that the records um as they are closing out the books for the previous school year are accurate and so that's why you always see a delay of um um a graduation report and so Mr Lewis I'm going to turn it over to you so good evening president Davis superintendent Roby distinguished trustees I'm going to share
030um overview of our graduation report for the class of 2024 um be more of a a big picture report um and good news so um I'll be presenting on themes three and themes six of our strategic plan so if you look at the slide that's uh displayed here you see that our graduation rate was 82.5 three which is an increase from the previous year it's a highest graduation rate that we've had within the last 10 years and so if you look at 2015 versus um 2024 you'll see a gap or closure of a gap of about 20 6.3% um so we're very happy and proud of that that number when you look at the state's average uh the state average is for this past year 2024 you got 82.8 3 we were at 82.5 three
031which is 3/10 um short of the state average um however previous year 2023 um we had um outproduced the state uh for the first time and again again if you look at where we were in 2015 versus where the state was in 2015 there's still a significant Gap so we've Clos the gap on graduation rate um over the last 10 years uh our dropout rate um is 10.37 uh this is the area we're going to continue to to work on um it's had a couple peaks in the last three years last year we're at 7.48 um and if you notice on the next slide um uh last year in 2023 we had out outpace State and dropout rate um but we still continue to to climb downward if you look at where we were in
0322015 in comparison to 2024 and then our four-year graduation rate by subgroups uh you can see there how that that plays out all students again was that were at was at 82.5 3% um our females outpaced our males and then we have the other subgroups that uh show the graduation rate percentages for the class of 2024 and then this is um Outlook by what it looks like by School uh with a state average in there as well and then our last chart shows um our cohort sizes if you notice in 2024 we've had the the highest uh Cort size since 2020 um in the last 5 years and we've had the highest number of graduates um as well um in 2024 versus the previous four years so any questions one of the things that I
033want to point out to our board is that at our next um work session we're going to dig a little bit deeper into this data and so this was just primarily um to give an overview and to announce what our graduation rates are and again they continue to climb um and take and and stay at PACE with the state although we saw a slight kind of inversion between where the district was and the state I want to make sure that people understand that the state also grew and it just grew a little bit greater than what we did but we still were able to grow year over-year and I think that's important to kind of lift that up and so we'll dig into that data a little bit more at an UPC upcoming work session
034yeah well congratulations to the district again um that's something to absolutely be proud of and thank you to all the staff who are working hard to uh produce this data um my only question is can you clarify what a cohort is is that ninth grade to 12th grade or just how many seniors so that's the number of seniors that are in the cohort for class of 2024 based on when they enroll as ninth graders until they finish in okay 12th grade thank you yeah and that fluctuates okay thank you so much wonderful thank Youk our next presentation is um related to Dean Transportation as requested by our board we are providing quarterly reports related to um Dean's work within our district and its progress related to various metrics on ontime performance as well as other
035things that the community has asked for and so we have um the Dean Brothers um here to provide a presentation and overview and so I'll turn it over to them thank you so much good evening president Davis Dr Roby distinguished members of the board thank you for the opportunity to be here again uh and share our quarterly update uh with you um with us tonight is is my brother Christopher Dean who's our director of innovation I'm Patrick Dean I serve as president of Dean Transportation uh Kevin harkes is to my right your left uh who serves as our operations director for Kent County uh Brian Thrasher who's our vice president and then Rolanda Robinson who's our assistant uh director is in in the audience along with Lee Helmer who's our Statewide operations manager so wanted
036to make sure we bring the entire Dean Team uh for the resources uh in our commitment to grps this is our sixth uh quarterly update we're very proud of uh the updates we've had and appreciate the board for uh reviewing transportation and working alongside our team we have a fantastic group of school bus drivers and bus attendants on the road every day who are committed to grps um we would welcome any one of the board members or or other community members to stop by the transportation office and we can share a tour of the office and a little bit about the operations uh we love to show off uh the work we do behind the scenes because the logistics the technology the things that go into Transportation are pretty remarkable we'd love to show you
037that in action tonight we have a presentation around our metrics that we we we've been working on for several years uh Christopher is going to cover a little bit about our electric School Bus updates which are extremely exciting uh and in Emotion Uh Kevin will cover a little bit more about operations and Brian's available for questions about any additional metrics we have so with that I'll turn it to Kevin Harkness to share our first slide a little bit about what's going on in operations excellent thank you Patrick so I'm just going to kind to go through the the bullet points here um continued inflammation of trip trip trackers so what trip tracker is it's an automated field trip system um where we're allow they put in athletic trips field trips Etc takes a lot of
038the human air out of the um past system which was all handheld paperwork spreadsheets things of that nature um this year so far um we've done just under, 1500 trips uh as of Thursday is 1434 we did 30 or 40 trips on Friday so again, 1500 trips um we continue to use the zass and here comes the bus um we continued our program rewarding Scholars their top five Scholars every month continue to get a McDonald's gift card along with our bus driver who encourages and has the most Scholars using the zpass so we just got those metrics on uh well it would have been Friday we got those metrics for the following month or this month so we'll have those cards out to them um the metrics as far as on time this quarter remained
039virtually the same they were lower but that would have to do with the weather okay so now we're reporting on January you know there were a few snow days and some Christmas break time you know staggered in there so but overall the metrics from this year are up above the metrics for last year at the same time frame so again continued Improvement on ontime metrics um reimagine project We are continuing to work with the district uh Lucas who's who's back there you guys probably all know Lucas well um he continues to work with our team um if not daily at least weekly on different plans what we need we've talked to Architects and different things about planning School Bus loops and parking lots and different things for pickups and drop offs so we do that
040all the time and um the the last thing we have um is the feedback the timely feedback um that we get we have an online form that you guys have probably seen or used now and it that's what this graph is you can see at the beginning of the year um in August we were averaging about 4 5 to 50 calls a week and most of those were beginning of the school year calls hey you know my student moved or what's my bus time things of that nature and as you can see those calls have dramatically went down to where we're averaging well last week we had zero okay most most weeks it's around one or two calls and many of those calls the last few weeks have been um I'm new to grps which
041is a wonderful thing for you guys um what do I need to do to get my scholar on a bus and so obviously we handle those accordingly so that's kind of an operations update as I alluded to the on Time Performance as you can see we're pretty steady right around the 93 to is percent um every every month you know that that's what we're getting to school again slightly down for for January versus December but as a comparative to last year we're up and again that had you're always going to see that in the winter months when you have you know slow weather and winter delays and again it's you know 1.4% is with the number of students that's not a huge hug huge drop off so and then the last thing I want to
042talk about are some of our engagement opportunities and again some of these are very similar to what you have but again we want to you know definitely promote them our transportation advisory committee um we meet up here coming I believe Friday will be our next meeting but that is a group of parents and some um people from Dean obviously some administrators who have gotten together and we talk about Transportation the good the bad the ugly what you know whatever it may be what we need to do to fix it and that has been magnificent there com some a lot of good discussion and a lot of um things have turned around because of those those group of parents and you know school officials that we've worked with um transportation forums we've we honestly um don't
043have one I believe right now in the books because we had one in October 29th and we had one person attend which is wonderful that's telling us um you know that hopefully we're doing something right and people are are starting to see that you know there's changes happening um online feedback forms that's part of that graph that I showed you just a few minutes go that's what that alludes to and then the support of the transportation technology um the one thing I want to hit on are the cameras we had alluded that we were putting cameras in the buses and I can assure you those are done we have 10 camera systems on the bus ready to go um I am work currently working with Lucas to get a process in place by whereby the
044district can request video in in the chain of command that that goes through internally um I think we have a pretty good plan in place we just need to talk to the cabinet or whomever at the appropriate time and Lucas is working through that but once we get through that step um we'll start using them I mean they're there they're ready they're functioning we can watch livetime video we can do everything so um know good stuff with that and the other thing that um is part of the on time is last year we measured um what we call Double Up runs where if we didn't have enough St half we would send a bus out to school have them go do their thing come back and get another scho I can proudly say this year
045we have had a grand total of zero zero doubled up runs our staffing is some of the best Staffing that we've had in quite some time um we're able to cover all of our field trips we're able to cover all of the runs you know the last three or four weeks have been challenging on days we did have to send some office staff because of illness and sickness but I mean there's not much we can do about that but when people are healthy we're doing a very good job with that so with that I'll turn it over to Chris yeah thank you I'm pleased this evening uh to provide an update regarding electric school buses for grps a quick uh summary of how this all comes together electric school buses uh it's it's quite an
046expensive Endeavor the primary method to make this happen for districts Across the Nation is through grant funding for grps we have two sources of grant funding one is a federal program through the clean School Bus program and the second is a state of Michigan Grant uh when you add those up together we have just over $6.6 million of funding the project itself uh we're estimating to be uh just between that 6.6 and7 million we're working hard every single day to close that Gap so the project itself is as cost neutral as possible um there's a lot of unknowns in the world right now about Grand funding and opportunities and things uh you may ask that question but I i' take the opportunity to share up to this point um there's a lot of wh ifs
047there's not a lot of formal information that we've been provided uh that would change our course so we are working steadily on behalf of grps and our our I I'd summarize that as that steady continuing to educate ourselves work hard towards the goal of deploying these electric school buses uh on the slide there's an overall timeline right now we're continuing to work almost daily with Consumers Energy on infrastructure upgrades to the lot um without getting too far into the weeds they're going to perform some upgrades through their power my fleet program which is awesome because that means it comes at zero cost to the district so they'll upgrade the infrastructure and then from there we'll be able to work with the electrician to install everything that's required for the buses um all the outlets all
048the uh Chargers everything that's required to make that go and so really we expect and it's our plan that kind of the the shovels in the ground the Chargers installed those sorts of things will happen mainly in the summertime where it makes most sense uh where operations is a little slower and we have more opportunity to do that on the lot and as of right now our best estimate is that we continue to hope for and plan that uh our first electric school buses will be on the ground here in Grand Rapids sometime in quarter 4 um like I said there's a lot of unknowns and that certainly impacts the vendors who are making electric school buses so we have our eye on on that and um we'll continue to update you in in the
049district as more information becomes available but certainly um we have our heads down we're working hard we believe it's it's still a steady project moving forward and we're excited about what the future holds for the electric school buses here in Grand Rapids and as Kevin alluded to um we have we also have a lot of exciting things going on with our Technologies he covered the cameras pretty well uh but we're excited to confirm that uh at last uh update uh we presented that we'd be installing 10 10 systems on uh buses throughout the district and we've completed that it's exciting these are the Next Generation state-of-the-art systems that allow for remote Diagnostics remote viewing live view things that uh aren't possible with kind of historical systems so we're very pleased to have those systems deployed
050on 10 buses and are working through the procedural items as it relates to pulling video chain of command those sorts of items kind of going at the same time of that we're also uh in in the midst of evaluating on school bus tablets so essentially looking at how can we take our our current processes pen and paper processes driver directions uh passenger manifests those sorts of things how can we digitize that uh the the most appropriate method to do that and aid aid in the drivers uh are tablets there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes I think you could generally summ summarize it as kind of it style tasks and how this information so we're getting to the tail end of evaluating uh really three primary vendors that appear to be feasible for
051the school buses and so I hope that we'll be able to wrap that up in in the next few weeks and here this spring start installing the physical Hardware on the buses getting feedback from our drivers really starting to work on the uh kind of in the weeds uh items on the school buses so pretty exciting uh adventures with electric school buses as well as improving our onboard Technologies and that goes over and above uh I'm pleased to share that you know grps has one of the most advanced uh technology offering in the state of Michigan for school buses with both School Bus tracking as well as uh scholar tracking via zpass this is going to take it to a new level and we're excited to uh do this on behalf of the district and
052present to you the the results and the options so thank you for for your time and look forward to questions thank you Chris one of the other things I wanted to add that the board had asked at at one of our last meetings was some of the changes that the state did with respect to Illegal passing of school buses one of the biggest things that we've seen in our industry is is motorists just ignoring our red lights is a very serious uh safety concern for not only um the the student The Scholar uh for their safety but also our drivers and other uh citizens on on the road and so the state approved a law that allows school districts to place um cameras actually it's always been allowed to place cameras on the outside of
053school bus but now it can be used for more enforcement mechanisms within the state of Michigan there's a revenue component to it that goes back through the school district we have recently met with several vendors uh and continue on our path to uh have the best uh technology partner and vendor to support uh the future of what that law looks like in our state for our students so we're very excited about where it's headed um and uh we should have more information in the coming months as we finalize there's even some webinars uh the MD M map groups MBO groups are putting out there this week uh related to the technology so lots of quick advancement here within our our student transportation industry so wanted to share that as a followup to some of the
054questions we got um at our last our last presentation and then finally uh as we as the the seasons start to change and we start to feel a little bit of spring uh Now's the Time where we're we're going to be heavily recruiting school bus drivers not that we ever stop um but as the seasons change um we are going to be continuing to recruit great folks to join our transportation team whether it's to drive a route every day um or uh drive a field trip Kevin mentioned our staffing at the highest it's been um in many many years um we have a great group of of Subs that help us out uh when their schedule allows and then we've got a great group that are are at work every day so we have opportunities
055for any uh Community member that's interested in supporting grps uh through being a school bus driver uh don't need any experience and we're excited to train so we'll be starting that here in the next couple months um so that we have staff ready to go for the fall already we're already planning for next school year uh in transportation so again thank you on behalf of the entire Dean Transportation team for the board's uh support and engagement and we welcome any questions the board has one question go ahead trusty Rodriguez thank you it's so official um thank you for being here we appreciate these uh these updates for sure and I as as a board member that's been you know here now going on three years I really appreciate how far this relationship has come truly
056and honestly um I I see the commitment there I see you you know your work ethic and and in these presentations and and the results that we see with our families and such um so I just want to say I appreciate that um as far as as the cameras go on the buses um so you have 10 school buses equipped with cameras um I guess what is the plan for installing them on all the buses or or how long are you trying to um wait and see how it pans out to to possibly add more absolutely so our uh vision for this batch is a beta test from now until the end of the school year with the hopes that the systems and processes can be put in place there's a lot of data there's
057a lot of process there's fura uh pieces there's there's student record pieces that we need to work on uh to make sure that that uh it's in compliance with the school district so that's what the work will be doing this year uh with the hope and goal obviously at the direction of the administration AB board for a fuller deployment in the future uh including discussions about next year okay thank you so much y trusty Wade the tablets are they um going to replace the zass or will that still be in addition yeah so that's exactly it's a great question because those are things we're evaluating of um you know what additional features can there be are there ways we can do quote unquote the zass better with cards and are there alternatives to that um
058I can't say for sure it's going to replace if anything I think our goal is that it would supplement and only make uh our current offerings better you know I I did have sorry I did have a question about the the zass I know sometimes as we get started on things right they get you know it's exciting right and everyone's like all right we're for sure going to use it and then they don't right it just happens um what is the what is kind of the average use of zp passes currently for for our students or families I think the um the utilization is fairly low uh amongst the the ridership um it it is difficult because it's an inherent issue with these systems the student has to have a card to swipe to to
059make this system work so uh we work hard uh with our driving staff to remind folks and encourage them hey bring your card um we absolutely are equipped we can reprint cards we can get people set up if folks are reaching out that hey I lost my card or I I need a new one or hey I've never been a part of it and I want to be we're responding to those individuals but anything we can do to to promote uh both zpass as well as here comes the bus those are a awesome offerings that benefit the transportation department the scholars their families um so we continue to try to promote both and let folks know hey they're here for your benefit we work hard to make sure they're there useful functioning properly and and
060we'd love if more people used both of them I would too thank could you explain how it benef sorry I don't know if this could you explain how it benefits on your end because as a parent I track my kids with their little watches or whatever so I don't use it but if I knew that there was a benefit in other ways yeah so absolutely so um certainly it's verification of a student formally boarding and and unloading from the bus itself it provides the parent some opportunities to receive receive some notifications if they wish so there's some convenience there but also it provides some formal records for us to easily go back on and look electronically uh when that student boarded and and departed the bus um I would also say that the parent themselves
061hopefully the goal is that they have the information in their device or via their device to potentially answer a question that historically they may call the transportation department about where's my bus did I get here what time did it get here those sorts of things if it's running late um we have been doing a much better job and they're working hard to consistently send messages through the app provide additional ways to communicate with with parents so we really feel like it puts some information into the scholars hands or the the the guardian of the scholar that traditionally they may need to call the office about if those technology options weren't available okay thank you I'll go quick um regarding the exterior Traffic Safety cameras are you guys starting to think about a timeline of when
062these might be able to get implemented and we could see them on some buses yeah great question so uh Chris and I can both cover this um so uh there are emerging technology Partners um now that the law has been passed there's one uh big technology partner that's more prominent in the state than others um and so we're making sure that we align with the best technology partner for the long term uh so we're in that process right now I anticip ipate that we'll be beta testing some some systems here fairly soon uh with larger deployment um next year um once once we get kind of established one of the things that we do need to figure out um in more detail is with the district the funds for enforcement flow back through the district
063um and then those funds pay for the camera systems or upgrades so there is some Co components that the administration and Dean have to work out with respect to that funding piece of it um it's not a mandate uh in the State uh but it does allow for the the use of these cameras for enforcement which had historically not been admissible in court or or potentially not as not as strong in court I guess I should say it that way so okay thank you DAV yeah I'm hoping you can touch on each of these quickly but it sounds like you have four technology roll outs like coming and they're all going to be like starting as test can you just explain like how you're picking or how you're thinking through which ones are going to
064go where uh in terms of um you got the you got the electric buses you have the security cameras for people running through the stop lights you got the tablets and then you got the cameras like how are you picking which ones go where yeah I think they're um you know they're all somewhat uh able to move forward um independent of one another I think the first of all with our our current infrastructure for our technology our bus tracking and our our student tracking V z pass that provides the foundation through which we're evaluating how do we improve that system and and make tablets useful so tablets themselves the primary concern is how does it integrate with the entire infrastructure that already exists um electric school buses themselves um it'll look and and feel like
065a yellow school bus on the outside many folks may not even know it's an electric school bus until you you get up next to it and there's literally no engine and no noise um our technology will run the same on a electric School Bus as it would on a diesel a gas or propane so really that that is kind of independent of the onboard technology and then finally as Pat alluded to um with the new legislation passed regarding stop arm cameras anytime you have a new um technology come to Market there's many many vendors that come to the space along with it so part of what we're working so hard with is evaluating at a very deep level um who can be Su who we feel can be successful in the long term and provides
066the most most benefit to the district the most important goal is the best technology to reduce individuals from passing our red lights that's what it's about is making school bus transportation safer that's our primary goal and the technology um that comes along with it is important to make sure we're we're addressing that so I would say there's there's a lot going on at once but they're kind of each in their own Silo if you will so they all can kind of continue at once um towards the final product and just to add the deployment of the cameras the current cameras a tent system what we did is we sat down as a team and we looked at Southwest Northeast we looked at all the quadrants then we looked at special ed General Ed and then
067we looked at High School versus or not high school I should say Middle School versus Elementary and then we had two or three uh camera systems kind of left over if you will and we said all right where do we have the most trouble and we hit we put them on those particular buses so we tried to get a a very good demographic as far as give I guess everyone an equal opportunity to be viewed if you if you want to look at it that way so that's how we did it and we just did that as internally as our own transportation team great thank you yep I do have one question as well um what I'm noticing families are running into now um is a lot of um bus switches and then changing of
068times so that's been kind of hard to manage um can you talk a little bit about why that might happen and I know that's hard to track but that really is part of the pickup drop off timeliness there is a very very good reason that you're probably noticing that probably the past three to four weeks or family saying that that is from the Michigan State Police inspections so Michigan State Police every year have to inspect our entire fleet legally so they have been at Grand Rapids Union operation and they come in and they take 20 buses or thereabouts a day may maybe 15 but whatever they get to and they inspect them what does that mean if the State Police pull your bus we have to put a sub bus in and we they might
069not give us as much notice as we'd love to have and with a fleet as our size that leads to quick uhoh bus 17's now bus 19 and then we try to communicate and send all the messages out but that changes some of the times and it changes the buses you should notice dramatically a a dramatic Improvement on that coming up because State Police inspections ended last week so that that would be for the last four weeks and again we know it we know it we realize it there's nothing that we can do about it other than just try to communicate um to the best of our ability so that that's that's the reason why and you use a zpass for so if it's oh we use the here comes the bus would be the
070best tool for that where we what we'll do is we'll know like if your bus is going to be 10 minutes late we can have there's a messaging system on it so we'll put in there hey bus 17 got switched to bus 19 bus 19 is running 5 minutes late or you know whatever the the message may be that's the best tool we also use the school's rooc call system which uh um you know is not our favorite tool but it works um so with between those two things that those are how we communicate with the parents and that's the time switching too is that same thing okay corre correct and again hopefully again with us inspections done there should be a tremendous Improvement upon that you're welcome um with regards to that is there
071any um communication that goes out to parents in advance to say hey we're going through this inspection you may see this change um is there something that forewarns the parents about that that this could possibly happen I guess if this is something that happens annually if it is not happening maybe we can prepare families in advance next year to say hey look for these potential changes as we go through inspection watch your emails closely ore you know even say hey this is a great time to really tap into zass and those things I think that's that's great we we definitely acknowledge we we could do more of that um uh inspections are random so we don't have for a warning when uh inspections will happen previously they've been in the summertime uh this year they
072were in the winter time so that's part of the State Police process um but given that and given it multiple weeks uh thank you for that we will we will do a better job of that next year thank you okay I do not see any other questions thank you so much for coming and giving us that upate thank you guys very much you that concludes my reports for this evening thanks okay moving on to our action items um bylaw 11 180 committee's presentation of first reading do I have a motion to support the or to move forward with the first reading report any comments questions okay all all in favor say I I any opposed okay moving on to the purchasing agenda any questions or comments do I have a motion to approve the purchasing
073agenda so moved rep all in favor say I I any opposed okay purchasing agenda moves forward and moving on to adoption of budget amendment one general fund motion to approve adoption of uh budget amendment one for the general fund do I have support I'll second okay all in favor say I I I any opposed okay adoption of budget amendment one general fund moves forward adoption of budget amendment one special Revenue fund moved all in favor say I I any opposed okay adoption of budget amendment one special Revenue fund moves forward adoption of budget amendment One debt retirement fund do I have a motion so moved second all in favor say I I any opposed okay adoption of budget amendment One debt retirement fund moves forward do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda
074so moved support all in favor say I I any opposed okay consent agenda moves forward all right right next on our agenda is um president announcements the only announcement I well I have a couple announcements tonight if you have not turned the homework from The Retreat into Julie please make sure you do that tonight if at all possible because it will really help our work move forward and also tomorrow night we have our first coffee with the board for the year at Cook Arts Center from 6:00 to 7:30 so we would love to see um as many members of the community there it will be a very informal event where you can ask questions of board members or share any um anything about the district with us so we do have four board members that
075will be there and we would love to see you out there um and moving on to public comment for non-agenda items I have D Jones followed by Jolene Andrew all right once again as a reminder during public comment individuals will be given three minutes uh to make their public comment uh before beginning your comment please State your full name again in accordance with the open meetings act board members and superintendent and superintendent cannot respond to public comment thank you how you doing everybody I'm D Jones Pastor entrepreneur and Visionary uh I have a handout that I'm passing you guys so the first picture that you see is I would just at the uh a conference the African-American conference on Friday I had the largest room if you see that picture the kids were so full
076in the room that they were sitting on the ledge I had every single room filled at GRCC it was a lot of students uh students that go to grps and I'm very very excited for you guys to see that also is attached is the uh letter that I got from the president of uh the economic Forum from the uh United Nations so I'm very excited to be able to show you guys the cool stuff that I'm doing uh and the impact that I've had because there is a lot of um things also if you guys seen uh Donald Trump just also just announced that they're going to be creating a a federal uh crypto reserve and uh I spoke to you guys about crypto I spoke to all of these students all of these African-American
077students about digital Finance digital literacy and I know that this is going to have an impact I know some people don't like him but I know this legislation that he's and the things that he's doing with these executive orders can actually benefit our community our society if people actually utilize these things uh properly so I'm very excited to be able to present this stuff to you um also uh I'm just very excited to be able to speak to y'all again to just partner with the school district to be able to give back uh I got some uh gaming chairs from steel case I was able to give one to a kid that uh in the youth Justice influence Esports league but when I do these Esports activations with you guys uh Ste case will be
078bringing me a $520 chair that I'll be giv to one of the students that I feel it's the best engaged I'm going to not going to give it to the kid who's has the best highest score and gets uh one of the ,000 prizes but I'm going to give it to the kids that's really engaged and really cares and passionate about gaming cuz it's expensive chair and I want to be able to give it to somebody that cares about the opportunities that I'm offering uh so I'm just very excited to be able to give back to the community to Pioneer to lead I also want you guys to like I said be a part of the uh first Regional finals that we have for Esports that we're going to have I also forgot another document
079but I actually got um some papers from the Michigan state treasury so they were actually at the divorce place I know that there's 20 billion in the State Treasury and I've actually spoke to our state treasury so I know the Divine that this can bring and I know the billions in Revenue when me speaking to the United Nations I already have my plane ticket book so I'm very serious about this and I'm very excited and know that I can lead and I can bring economic boost to our city our County our school district and I plan to pour a lot of funding into our community into our school district so please please please guys uh I had somebody uh named Danielle James who does stories for M live contact you guys to be able to
080kind of get the story out there cuz I already spoke about crypto and all these other things I know that's the state largest publication so it can be a huge story for us thank you Jolene [Music] Andrews and Miss Turin can you pronounce your name for me again because I always mispronounce it I'm so sorry Salin ter ran okay thank you Jolene Andrew Southwest Elementary when the gr contract was settled two and a half years ago the agreement was that the district would work towards more equity and planning time for elementary teachers in 2.5 years no progress has been made I'm not holding out hope that progress will be made in the upcoming negotiations as most of the solutions to providing more planning time would require money and employees and the district will be all
081too quick to say that they don't have the money to hire more people yet suspiciously they have the money for any for many other things as evidenced by purchasing agendas and they certainly have enough money to move around as evidenced by the budget amendment tonight until recently if I went on a field trip and I missed a break and my planning time and my lunch I was compensated for that now the district is saying field trips are not an eligible reason for this type of compensation my grade level participated in the immerse program at the Grand Rapids public museum where we went to the museum each day 5 days in a row I did not ask to be paid for the amount of time it took me to fill out the application for the program
082I did not ask to be paid for the training I had to take over the summer to participate in the program I did not ask to be paid for the time I spent meeting with Museum staff to plan our field trip however the teachers on my team did ask to be plan to be paid for missing our morning breaks and our lunches I was approved and a couple weeks later my co-worker was denied Equity however um oh I'm sorry I don't understand how this can be denied as the contract States each Elementary teacher should have a duty-free break not to exceed 15 minutes each morning and afternoon we didn't get a break we were busy supervising our students it also States each employee shall have a 40-minute duty-free lunch period we don't have duty-free lunches
083on field trips we're passing out food we're escorting students to the bathroom we're conversing with our students HR doesn't seem to understand that this means it's not duty-free they seem to be focused on whether or not we actually got to eat our lunch while there are field trips where I have not had time to eat my lunch that's not the point the contract States it should be duty-free if eating lunch with my students is such a privilege as HR has told um the gr then I would like to propose a sign up for Franklin Franklin campus staff to spend their lunch time attending field trips to eat lunch with my students we are about to go on a field trip required by the district I have no say in what day or what time I
084will miss my dutyfree lunch and I will miss 48 minutes of my precious planning time for the week I do not see a logical reason why I should not be compensated for this but I already fear the amount of planning time I will spend fighting to get compensated the district is going to continue to say that they're short on cash when in reality they are mismanaging the money in this case they are having their employees spend time denying our requests and going round and round with us as to what the contract says we're entitled to just for your frame of reference a Mis break is worth $625 and a m lunch is worth $16.75 we're constantly telling you that raise and more planning time would leave to staff retention but an easy an even easier
085way to retain staff is to not make us fight to be compensated for what the contract says we should be compensated for I feel like I'm being punished for going above and beyond to get my students these opportunities when we make public comment we're told to go through the proper channels the proper channels are broken please fix the proper channels thank you sayin Teran good evening my name is s Tron um I am a high school teacher at Gras monory um and I just completed three and a half years teaching here um I'm short so maybe it'll be a little bit easier but imagine me as the seventh grader um in 2020 August 2021 okay um to start the year I have three Middle School teachers one of them is brand new and I heard
086there was a new math teacher in the high school nineish months later I'm at the end of my seventh grade year and I just said goodbye to one of my middle school teachers the assistant principal and the youth Advocate I start my e8th grade year we have a new assistant principal but no replacement for the middle school teacher or the youth Advocate at the end of the end of November um we got a new aor specialist to replace the youth Advocate but we never replaced the middle school teacher so we just had about 30 to 32 students in each of the classrooms that year at the end of the year I said goodbye to another one of my middle school teachers and the only one that is left now is the one that was there
087when I that also started when I started seventh grade also we have a social worker that I never saw again after this year final um finally moving uh it's my eighth grade year now or nth grade I'm sorry freshman in high school um there's a new social worker but neither the Middle School teachers um that had left since I started seventh grade were replaced um is only been the one certified teacher in a long-term sub with K12 Elevate I'm finishing my nth grade year and I had to say goodbye to more people the English teacher and the only Middle School teacher that was left both of them are now gone I never saw the new social worker or my PE teacher again I also spent the last two days of my school year worrying about
088whether my behavior specialist would be turning the next be returning the next year because she was just informed that her position was no longer available started my 10th grade year they replaced two of the three Middle School teachers teachers um and still have one long-term sub I thought that the behavior specialist had gotten the position back but she also left we did get a new youth Advocate Advocate to replace her in October which was great but also in October our counselor quit um at the end of December we did get a long-term sub for a counselor but then the mental health therapist and the science teacher quit I then we did get replacements for the science teacher but never the mental health therapist and we did get a new social worker who then quit two
089weeks later we're here today I have seen a major turnover in this school and it's not fair to the kids there's no consistency and honestly my school isn't even one of the worst in your District okay that completes our public comment moving on to superintendent's comments okay board member comments um I'll start with truste Williams will you come about yeah M too I'll move on to trusty Williamson no comment tonight trusty Davis no comment um truste Moreno um I just uh want to uplift our two Scholars that we saw today uh I just so cool it's so cool I just wish that was them honestly uh so I just want to keep uplifting them trusty Williams yes I wanted to um shout out um was it kamur and uh Percy for representing um the district
090um so so well I appreciate that I want to thank everybody for being out here with us know you can be other places but we appreciate you coming to share with us and then um really just want to um uplift the all the people um that has been working with Dean to get us some improvement we um I I remember it was such a Hot Topic here for so long and to know that um the intentionality is working and I I look forward to how we can even continue to improve upon um the uh the experience our young people get riding our buses and these new electric buses that are coming online as well trusty Melton yeah if you guys have not been in an elementary school during March's reading month I would encourage you
091to do that I spent a day on the roof of our building one year being shot to the moon and all sorts of fun things happen I think I wrote a donkey one year at Harrison Park um go and read so each of the schools I I think at least most of the schools have sign up so I just encourage people in the audience as well as you guys to take some time and and get into at least an elementary school maybe not secondary too St Ras you do say it like with an accent okay um yeah no I I also want to uplift the scholars that were here with with their Great accomplishments um I was a little uh jealous of Percy with ti right there I've been loving TI since I was a
092kid and I actually didn't recognize him with his hair long because I always had the shaved head you know cap kind of to the side TI but um no yeah so so great things are happening in GPS um again Dean Transportation I appreciate uh the work that you have all put in um you know we we strive to be the best and no one's ever going to do anything perfect but but I see the work that you're doing and I appreciate it um teachers I I hear you um I as a former grps employee myself I you know I don't want to say it's just a grps problem it's a systemic problem um I think education is very undervalued in this country um however I'm not the board member for the entire country right I'm
093the board member for grps and so I I want to say that I you know I support you all um and I know that working in the classroom work in a school building is some it's some tough work right and I still work as a support staff member at another District but um you know the work is still the same right so I just want to thank you all for expressing um your needs and I think you know it's our duty as board members to to listen to those needs as well um and just know that that I have heard you and am acknowledging you um as best as I can right now um yeah and that's all I got for today um I'm grateful that this meeting has been one of our shorter ones
094uh in recent times so that's all I got VP Wade yeah thank you all for coming out and sticking around um shout out to the scholars I had the pleasure and privilege of being at both of those events and I was so proud and I got flashy thinged at the um Symphony because we're not supposed to record but I said this my baby up here I'm recording him and um yeah so they kept flashy thinging me so I didn't care and um thank you to uh Dean for all the work that you do it's it's not many bus companies that and not a whole lot of options and I just appreciate that you don't take that for granted and um I appreciate the work that you guys do in the in the updates and I'm
095proud of the updates that we're getting lately um from the um attendance record uh data that we received to the graduation rise grps is really On The Rise and I'm so proud to be a part of um watching this this um District um go and grow to our teachers I am a um administrator and I hire and I pay over 25 um Educators um yearly and I work to pay them what they are worth and so um I I value your comments and I value your um the work that you all do I think no one in this room does not value the work that you guys do and um we see I know I see firsthand with a with a building full of three zero to five the work that our teachers doing how
096much they actually should earn is it it is it's valuable work and you never get paid enough um so um monetary um compensation on top of that how else do we value our teachers and show them that they're valued and that's something that I wrestle with all of the time and I hope our district um you know I know that our district Works to show show you all that too and I'm just hoping that we get to a better place every year with our staff so um thank you thank you thank you for the work that you do and thank you to our district for continuing to try to get to a better place with our teachers and our entire District staff actually um and I'm also thank you thankful that this meeting is ending
097a little earlier than but I also I'm I'm I'm on a lot of list for reading Sarah so I want to uplift what she said to get out and read um I got a whole lot of books if you want to you know get some from me I'd love to share okay I do not have any additional comments tonight so our meeting is ATT returned thanks