DPSCD School Board - Regular Meeting - February 10, 2026

001Now 5:34 uh I ask the secretary to the board to call rom >> Dr. Ida Short Reverend Dr. Steve Bland Jr. >> Present >> Mr. Dr. present Dr. Iris Taylor. Madam Chair, you have a qu. Thank you. Can you please read our meeting orms? We respect the rights of all persons to participate in this public meeting of the board and kindly request that everyone engage in behavior that supports the same. In the event anyone engages in behavior that is not in support of the good, we request that you refrain from that behavior. Thank you. We're going to take a moment of silence at this time. I'll ask that we all pause for a moment of silence in remembrance of ninth grader from Central High School, Antonio Harris. >> Doris Prov, a retired teacher at Dimby

002High School. Can you guys please turn up my mic? Ron Teasley, a Northwestern High School alum and professional baseball player who also played in the Negro League. If we can just have a quick moment of silence. Thank you. If we can all stand for the presentation of the colors from the color guards of Osborne High School and the singing of the national anthems from the students of Detroit School of Arts. It's bless. bright. So galler. through the night. Where am I? >> Sing yourself. of the free and the home of God. Beautiful. >> WOW. Let our return. Let every Sing has singal. is one. Can we give another round of applause to our DSA students and our Osborne color guards >> at this time? Um, as you all know, it is Black History Month. >>

003Yes. And matter of fact, it's the hundth year of Black History Month. >> And so at this time, we are going to have a presentation from the outstanding students at the Detroit School of Arts. Let's give them a round of applause, y'all. Detroit School of Arts. Um, hello everyone. My name is uh Justin Ward. I am in the 10th grade. My m Hello. >> Hello everyone. Uh my name is Justin Ward. I am in the 10th grade. I go to Detroit School of Arts and my major is every major at Detroit School of Arts. So uh let's get into the piece that y'all are all dying to see. >> Know your history, not his story. Contrary to conspiracy theories and urban myths, Black History Month was not given to us by those who oppressed our

004existence because it is the shortest and coldest month of the year. It was initiated on February 7th, 1926 and was known then as Negro History Week. The purpose was to recognize the achievements and accomplishments of great African-Americans and to contradict the notion that black people had no history or culture. The founder of Negro History Week was Dr. Carter G. Woodson, an African-American historian, author, journalist, founder of the Association for the Study of African-American Life, and the second African-American to earn a PhD from Harvard University after Dr. Web Duboce. Dr. Woodson was also a member of the Omega Sci-Fi Fraternity and the Prince Hall Masons. Dr. Woodson chose the month of February simply because it coincided with the birthdays of two of his personal heroes. Abraham Lincoln, born February 12th, and Frederick Douglas, born February 14th.

005By the 1960s, Negro History Week, eventually became a month-long celebration, which grew in popularity among many black colleges and universities. In 1976, President Gerald Ford officially recognized February as Black History Month. On February 10th, 1976, to coincide with the bicesentennial in hopes that all Americans would seize the opportunity to recognize the two often neglected accomplishments of black Americans. In 1986, Congress officially designated February as National Black History Month. Word. >> All right. >> That's it. >> All right. >> As Africans, our history does not begin with enslavement. African peoples are as ancient as time. From the Ashanti to Zulu nations, from the Mali Empire to Kushite and East. Secret of the world. Everything here students, athletes, artists, entrepreneurs. Happy Black History Month. Hallelujah. I know. I know that I' been changed. I know. I know.

006I changed. change the angels in heaven. Change the angels in heaven. If you don't believe the angels I know. I know. I' been changed. I know. I know that I' been changed. changed the angels in heaven. If you don't follow me, follow me down to the stream. All the angels in heaven. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I' been I' been changed. I know. >> I know. I know. I know. I' been the angels in heaven. Perfect. Okay. Come. Keep your lips. Keep your lips. Keep your lips. Keep your lips. Keep your lips. Keep your lips. The time is keep your lips. Keep your lips burning. Keep your lips. Keep your lips. Keep your lips. Keep your lips. Join us. Don't be no weary weary. The time is yours. Keep yours

007up. Keep yours. The time is weary. No, don't get weary. Don't be the wor Oh, the time is drawing night. The time is drawing. The time is drawing. My name is Janiah Buckley and this is my original poem, A Song for Assada. I lay at your feet, the rusted chains you broken out of, your loosened chains, and I scrap the last fragments of vocal along your back. Your scars sizzle hot at this campfire site. I emerge my body in your external and internal confinement. And I drink the oppression you had, poisoning my senses. You lay restless in a jail cell. Cold air brushed against open flesh. But I will suppress my mouth for words get resurrected, crucified, and censored at 6 in the morning until the instruments of time killed the congruent. I have morted

008the pains of a woman. Each breath, each constructed, each hit. I've seen the death parade march through the torso of my violin strings, hitting corners of my rapture swing, moving back and forth, slowly collapsing, but never like my dreams can I swing. From skies of a charisma blue, eating, but never fulfilled until I see others full at their tables. It seems like I hold this long gooed welting hitching up. I've been assassinated by the mindset of white wine. But comrades are still imprisoned while lifting up this chain. But have you ever smelled the smell of misery? Fighters branded as criminals. The higher flower has kissed the lips of Eve as we forget how to speak. as we the own our own accompllices of our own murders. But we don't eat as rebellion. We read we

009suck the bone marrow of the white men. Matilda Shakur has been here for 60 years. Sunda Okoli has for 49 years and 22 days and Saku Odinga has for 33 years. But we are still mounded in our rebellion. Our strength flows ever on as we are criminals victimized by different slavery. But don't forget it's slavery. I have gifted you the devil seas from a sado creating life in the midst of death. I have been your savior and your ever returning dead. I've got accustomed to raping their memories. When they say no, I say yes. I am the basket of nourishment. When America gives you rocks, I am bad. Even my errors are correct. I am Cuba. I'm like a vessel bleeding out only for you to grab a bowl and drink it. Not for nourishment

010but eraser. I've been locked by the lawless. We all have. I have searched up the meaning of free but found an era. I have seen less pictures of political leaders and more of Trump. And I am scared. I am scared how death and history slips so loosely from our hands before we catch it. Thank you. Oh yeah. Woo. Come on, girl. Heat. Heat. Come on. Go. Hey. >> All right. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, boy. Audrey. Huh? Hey. My goodness. >> My goodness. Oh yeah. >> Yeah. Wow. Can we give them a standing ovation, please? Thank you so much. >> Oh yes. >> Outstanding. Lord. >> Yes. Yes. >> Outstanding. Listen, we could go home now if we didn't have board business. That was uh outstanding. And our students are absolutely amazing, which I would >>

011Yes. Let's give them another hand. >> Let's give them another hand. There we go. >> Yes. Beautiful. >> Amazing. >> All right. Thank you so much. And thank you to the leadership at that school, Principal Ren Reynolds. She's outstanding. Thank you so much. to see you back there, Mama Reynolds. All right, board. Let's get to some board business. Here we are at item number four, which is uh the approval of the agenda. Are there any suggested changes to the agenda? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? >> So move, madam chair. >> Is there a second? >> Support. >> All right. It has been moved by uh board member Bland and supported by board member Harris that we approve the dis uh the agenda. Is there any discussion? All those

012in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carried. All right. Public uh public comment registration is now closed. The time is 6:04 and we are moving on to the approval of minutes. 6.01 organizational board meeting minutes from January 13, 2026. 6.02 regular board meeting minutes from January 13, 2026. 6.03 Finance Committee meeting uh minutes from January 21st, 2026. 6.04 4 academic committee meeting minutes from January 28th and 6.05 special board meeting minutes from January 3 uh 1st. Are there any changes to the minutes that anyone would like to propose? If not, uh I'll entertain a motion to tie bar. >> So move, madam chair. >> Is there a second? >> All right. It has been moved by our vice president uh Carleta Van and supported by uh board member Harris that we

013tie bar approval of these minutes. Is there any discussion? All in favor of tieb uh of tiebarring approval of these minutes say I. >> I. Any oppose? All right. Motion carries. >> All right. Now I will entertain a motion to approve the tiebar uh minutes. >> Motion to approve Taiar. >> Is there a second? >> Support. >> All right. It has been moved by uh board member Bland and supported by vice chair vaugh that we approve the tiebar minutes. Is there any discussion? All right. All in favor of approving the tiebar minutes say I. >> I. >> Uh all do we have any opposed? All right. Motion carries. And we are now on to the chair remarks for the evening. Um first of all, good evening and it's so good to see all of you

014here and participating. Um, I hope that you guys enjoyed that Black History performance. It was outstanding. >> Outstanding. >> And, uh, >> I'm looking forward to highlighting our students even more as we get into further months into this year. So, uh, if you have ideas, send them to the board. >> Yes. >> Um, I would also just like to, uh, just encourage you all, um, throughout this month to engage with our students. Uh we have black history lessons going across the uh happening all across the district, performances, recitals. Uh plug in where you can, but you also can plug in in your living room. So encourage a kid to pick up a book, a student to pick up a book and learn a little bit about Black History Month. Uh that is uh available for

015you. And I will also say that we know studying black history at home fosters conversations, cultivates empathy, curiosity, and inclusion. Uh last month we appointed eight members to the new strategic advisory council and this diverse group represents a strong cross-section of our community including parents and guardians, educators, community leaders, business and some of our nonprofit partners. Uh their role would be to advise the district leadership on implementation and pro progress of the strategic plan. Four members will serve one uh oneyear terms and the other four will serve two-year terms. There will be quarterly meetings. I believe believe it begins in the month of March. I just want to proudly recognize the eight appointed members of the strategic advisory council. Some are here and some are not. We have uh Jeremiah Stein, Aaliyah Moore, Brandy Mitchell,

016Shereice Butler, Tafari Brent, Christina Davis, Boyd White III, and attorney Joe Johnson. Uh we thank uh each of you for your willingness to serve and contribute your experience and perspectives to this important work. across our district. Uh we continue to witness uh excellence in many forms. Uh from our spell and be champion this past weekend to several achievements in academic arts and athletics. I just want to remind all of us that our students consistently demonstrate every day what is possible when talent, opportunity, and belief come together. We are going to acknowledge in a future board member our uh spelling be champions and other champions from this past weekend, but I just want to give a shout out to all of those. Um, I would also like to acknowledge a couple board members from for some

017outstanding work. Uh, we have here uh, board member Bryant. You just recently got an award through uh, the Michigan Association Association of School Boards for being a certified level one board member. So, congratulations for that. I would also like to acknowledge uh, board member Bessie Harris uh, for your participation in career day at Palmer Park. It was also great running into you at the middle school and elementary basketball games this weekend. And of course, I have to acknowledge our faith base. I know uh uh Vice Chair Vaughn as well as Steve uh uh board member Bland. You guys have been out talking to our faith-based leaders, getting them more involved in the district. Keep up the good work and continue to uh get out in the district and and and represent the board. And uh

018let's see here. I also want to acknowledge that uh we've received numerous emails regarding several issues and I say we as a board um issues regarding the issues regarding renaissance and uh issues regarding some um other high um high level uh conversations that you guys have been want to have with the board. I just want to make a statement to say we are uh working closely with the superintendent and district staff to ensure the matter is addressed thoughtfully and appropriately and we appreciate your feedback and your concerns. And so as you email us, we do uh hear you, we read the messages and we acknowledge uh your concerns. And finally, uh I would like to note that last month marked the conclusion of our individual committee meetings. As we transition into a new governance and

019committee structure, we're going to a committee of one. Those dates will be uh are posted on our website. That means that our finance committee, academic committee, and policy committee will all be in one. And we'll all as a board hear the information at the same time. And so, uh today we will um hear from two of our committee uh leads just to give us an update on what happened last month in the committees. But moving forward, you you guys are invited to attend these sessions including upcoming study sessions or we as we are just uh making a lot of changes to ensure the efficiency of the board. And I just want to thank all of you who are here for your continued support for your unwavering commitment to our children uh here in Detroit and

020uh we are building a fine future um and we are using the school district to do that. So, uh, I am going to turn, uh, just about 90 seconds over to our treasurer, Dr. Iris Taylor, to talk to us about what happened at the finance committee. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. So, very quickly, um, for the finances, starting with DPS, uh, the scheduled debt payment for DPS was made on time without having to do any advancements from the state. Uh, the operating debt is scheduled conclude their payments by September of 2026, which will leave a remaining capital bond debt of $1.4 billion. Uh expected to be paid out by 2040 unless we're successful with the lawsuit and therefore it would be 2031. No new information regarding disposition of the lawsuit. DPSCD uh income and revenue

021both exceeded the expected budget targets. For the revenue, the uh the amount of increase was related to um uh at risk dollars that uh were awarded to the district as well as an increase in enrollment were the two primary drivers. Expenses, the two primary drivers for the overage was purchase services and um uh support and capital. uh equipment and capital primarily technology. You will hear for a recommendation from the finance committee uh the first budget amendment for the year which will increase our revenue expectations at 33 million. Uh it will also include dollars that are being allocated for the increase in security that will be allocated across the schools. We still expect to have a $62 million uh uh expense revenue over expenses, i.e. a surplus at the end of the fiscal year. And then

022lastly, uh also being recommended is a transfer from reserves to uh the capital um master plan that will include uh fencing and pavement for some of our schools as well as the building of health hubs at both Persian and Cody. Um, it will conclude the dollars necessary for the Kulic Athletic Field, uh, for the Detroit Lions Athletic Field and for uh, some uh, fiscal repairs to Charles Wright. Uh, the contracts that we reviewed are on the consent agenda. And that concludes my report. >> Thank you, Dr. Taylor. Uh, we will still also have a report from our CFO, but thanks for reporting on the committee. And then uh board secretary uh Bryant uh leading our academic committee. Um do you have a quick update on what happened at the committee meeting? >> Uh so to

023follow up to our finance chair um just to kind of home in on a few things uh as to what she spoke about with the budget. So with our security uh 10 schools will have new uh security systems installed uh and that's a pilot program. Um a lot of our funding uh increases went to the special education costs uh for hiring and staffing teachers. Uh the allocations also went for fun student activities and and attendance incentives, mentoring and expanded tutoring. And as our chair uh Taylor mentioned, uh we have the anticipated fence and paving concerns being addressed at uh multiple schools. uh and along with additional maintenance repairs and she mentioned the technology uh that's the refresh for laptops and we have a expenditure for next year's curriculum materials and that concludes my report madam

024chair. Thank you board member Bryant. Uh next we will hear from our student ambassadors giving their student report this evening we have Mr. Uh Alan Carile representing Cass Technical High School and Anthony Pete representing the Henry Ford High School. I'll turn it over to you all. >> Hello everyone. My name is Anthony Pete and I I represent Henry Ford High School. >> My name is Alan Carl and I represent the Cass Technical High School. >> And together with Ali Anderson from Persing High School, we serve as the school board student representatives. Today we'll be sharing high school updates and some information about the Rise Up Read More Challenge. High school. Starting with high school updates. At Mumford High School, the girls basketball team recently supported the unified students program. On February 6, the unified team

025competed against Osborne High School and won with a final score of 47 to 37. Mumford High School has introduced a new program, Sound Mind, Sound Body. This program provides tutoring and additional academic support for students who need assistance in specific classes. On February 5th, Mumford announced the validictorian and saludiatoran of the class of 2026. Lyanna King, a member of our district executive youth council, was named validictorian and Reagan Cross was named saludiatoran. at Henry Ford High School. I am proud to report as the representative of Henry Ford High School that since the implementation of the perfect attendance pays program, our chronic absenteeism rate has declined. As of the first week of February, 98% of our student body has been present. >> All right. I am pleased to announce that our bus pilot program has exceeded

026expectations. The original goal was to average around 40 students riding the bus. However, we are now averaging around 150 students. Moving on to Denbi. On January 8th, policing to prosperity was hosted at Denby High School and brought together students, law enforcement, and community leaders for an impactful day of learning and dialogue. We had strong representation from DPSCD police, the Detroit Police Department, Councilman Councilman Tate's office, Wayne County Commissioner an Angelica Mayberry's office, and several community organizations. Students attended from Osborne, East English Village, Denbi, and Persian high schools. The keynote speaker, Bangol Thompson, delivered a powerful message, and students participated in workshops focused on college and career readiness, mental health, leadership, and entrepreneurship. We are excited to continue the policing to prosperity sessions for this school year. Planned for March 4th at Detroit Lions Academy and

027March 5th at Henry Ford High School. Cody students continue to grow and achieve. Before winter break, each house hosted a house party during which students who earned quarter one honoral recognition were celebrated and received gift bags. These events reinforce Cody's house culture while honoring academic excellence. We also want to highlight the following achievements. The girls basketball team earned the gold gold division regular season championship. The football team was named the all state academic team by the Michigan High School football coaches association. This year marked a major milestone for Cody's band as they proudly participated in the all city band extravaganza for the first time since the program's return. Looking ahead, Cody has several impactful experiences planned this month. Judge Young Blood and her team will visit Cody on Wednesday, February 25th to engage a select

028group of students in a unique legal experience and mentorship opportunity. Also, Gentlemen's Club Men of Tomorrow will be launching at the end of February. The Rise Up Read More Challenge is a districtwide reading initiative designed to encourage students to read books that not only entertain but also inspire them to make a positive impact within their communities. This challenge is partnering with the Detroit Public Library to log a record number of reading hours both in school and at home. From February 2nd to April 5th, classes and individual students are challenged to read at least 15 minutes per day and log their reading using the Detroit Public Library Beantoalk reading application. This challenge is open to all K through2 students. Detroit's students continue to prove that they are driven, thoughtful, and full of potential. Thank you for

029your time and continuing to believe in Detroit students. >> Thank you. Another example of outstanding students in this district. Thank you both for your reports. We will now hear from our chief financial officer, Mr. Vidito to present the finance report. Uh it's all you. >> Great. Good evening, uh community and board members. This evening we're reviewing the finances through the month of December. Um as Dr. Taylor mentioned, we would continue to receive tax collections on the 13 and 18 mil operating millages. Uh you can see the amounts that were received and as Dr. Taylor said, uh the operating debt is scheduled to be fully repaid in September 2026. uh upcoming payments on the capital debt are in April and the operating debt will be this March. Overall for DPSCD again as Dr. Taylor said we

030are tracking to an overall increase in revenue as well as an increase in expenditures. Uh overall state revenue is coming ahead of forecast uh thanks to the governor's adopted budget which uh we received an increase in revenue there as well as um overall local revenue for the month was down but year-to- date is tracking ahead of schedule. On the expenditure side for the month benefit costs were slightly lower. This was a due to a timing of a reimbursement from OS Office retirement services that was received that month. Again, we still project to be on track for the end of the year. Equipment uh was higher for the month uh as Dr. Taylor mentioned with the receipt of technology um and our part of our technology refresh ongoing purchases that were coming in. As we finished

031the month of December and the end of the 2025 calendar, we ended with approximately 10 weeks of available cash. uh as we adopt budget amendment one, these cash accounts will change and will be reflected uh with the transfers to the capital projects that are proposed um in the budget. So that will be taken into account once the board adopts the budget and a corresponding budget resolutions. But we had 10 weeks of available general fund cash ending uh December. That concludes my report. >> All right. Thank you. Do we have any questions for uh Mr. Vidito? All right. Thank you, Mr. Vidito. We will file your report for auditing purposes. Uh we will now have our superintendent uh Dr. Vidy present uh recognitions and the superintendent's reports. >> Thank you, Madam President. Um Miss Wilson, our

032assistant superintendent of communications will uh recognize uh a number or some of our staff and uh a particular school uh principal, teachers, and students. Miss Wilson. >> Thank you, Dr. Viti and board president McClendon. Today's recognition is for the core value of excellence which states, "Be relentless in your pursuit of greatness. Be bold and innovate. Learn from your mistakes. Hold yourself and others to high standards." Tonight, we are proud to recognize Miss Ana McVeans, the assistant director of athletics for being named a recipient of the MHSA Women in Sports Leadership Award. This prestigious honor celebrates women who exemplify leadership, integrity, and deep commitment to advancing athletics and opportunities for our students. Anika's dedication to student athletes, her advocacy for equity and sports, and her steady leadership have made a lasting impact across our athletic programs

033and school communities. We'd like to congratulate Miss McVe Evans on this well-deserved recognition and thank her for her continued service and leadership and support of our students. Congratulations, Ana McVeans. Thank you. Our next recognition is for the core value of excellence. The students and staff of Bright Hop Career and Technical Center created a meaningful and memorable experience for students from Jerry L. White Center. Through their cosmetology and culinary hospitality programs, BrightHop students treated their peers to a special spa day, demonstrating not only technical skill, but also compassion, professionalism, and care. The Bryhop students went above and beyond to provide exceptional service. This experience exemplifies the power of career and tech education to build skills, foster empathy, and strengthen connections across our school community. Tonight, we'd like to honor the principal, Principal Moore, Instructor Still McQueen,

034and our students who are here. We invite you to this stage, and congratulations for demonstrating service and excellence. Let's give him another round of applause. Good evening. Before I um begin uh reviewing our our monthly metrics, I just wanted to I don't know if everyone fully understood the last recognition um because I think you just sort of hear what Miss Wilson is saying, maybe not really hear what she was saying, but um we recognize our Bright Hall students tonight um mainly in the uh cosmetology and and culinary program. Uh we always want to highlight the career tech programs because it's a great and unique opportunity that we offer through the district but um the teachers and the students did something special in that they invited uh the students from uh Juriel White uh many who

035have not uh been serviced the way that they did by our own students. So they received pedicures, manukur manukur uh manicures uh and and and haircuts um by our own students. So, not only was this a unique strategy to just improve and show off their skills, but it was to give service to other students that typically uh may not be exposed that to that kind of service um and uh uniqueness. So, I I just want to reiterate that you may have heard it, you may have um uh celebrated in your own way, but I just I want to again highlight our students and the unique programs that we have in DPSC. I think it it it's always I think we always strive to have all of our students interact with each other. I think that's

036certainly happening through our student leadership um u forums uh and the different um uh seminars that we're having uh throughout the district that invite staff, families, community and students to come together. Often students are not interacting with each other from different schools. So the more we do that, I think everyone grows whether it's exam school to exam school, exam, neighborhood school, application schools and and especially our ESSE um self uh contained schools. Uh many times those students are not interacting with general ed students. So uh that happens in some buildings but not all buildings. So again, thank you to the leadership at Brightoff uh our teachers, our principal and especially our students. Um so to begin the presentation uh again uh these are the same data points uh that are a part of our strategic

037plan metrics in blueprint 2027. Uh we've set very ambitious goals over the la the next um uh three years uh in order to exceed either the state average uh the city charter average or the county average depending on where we were uh when we first um adopted 2027 uh blueprint 2027. Um so as I go through these um updated metrics, some of which have already been exceeded by prior year um uh achievement and some we're obviously still striving for. Uh the board has asked uh now for study sessions. Um our first study session uh by memory is scheduled uh Tuesday uh the day after the mid winter break. I think that's uh February 21st 4th. Um and we'll be doing a deeper dive in student attendance uh which is one of which is the first

038goal uh of the uh blueprint 2027. Uh so right now our enrollment stands at 49,529 students. Um that is about 300 students higher than it was at the fall FTE. Uh in fact but since January 5th we've had an increase of about 250 K to2 students. Uh we always celebrate the increase of enrollment. Uh but we also know that we are not fully funded uh when they're not at the FTE counts. Um so right now we're in we just started the spring FTE count uh actually count days tomorrow. So we want all students to attend and in that window. Um and so 90% of funding comes from the fall count and 10% from the uh spring count. Um so uh and then there's a reimbursement process uh depending on uh how long students are in

039uh our schools. Uh our reenrollment rate uh is steady at 71%. Average daily attendance is 84%. Uh and our chronic absenteeism rate right now is 58% which is three percentage points lower than it was uh last year. Uh we do have uh most of our midyear data back. Right now K2 literacy uh proficiency is at 9% which uh again that's midyear. That certainly will grow especially with younger students as the year goes. Uh right now math proficiency K2 is at 6%. Again that will grow especially with younger children u being exposed to the standards as this school year goes. Uh right now when you look at third to seventh grade uh proficiency on the midyear uh we're at 17% uh which is predicted to be higher than where we ended last year on MSTEP and

040right now we're at 12% which is um comparable to where we ended last year. MSTEP or math proficiency is always coming in lower at midyear uh because students are not fully exposed to all the math standards uh for that grade level. Uh right now uh right now at with uh the PSAT 8th grade at midyear uh we are at uh 26% uh that's at midyear. Last year we ended the school year at 30% 8% in uh eighth grade uh PSAT proficiency which is slightly lower than where we are before where we were at the end of last year. Again to reiterate midyear data we have a whole several months to go before the end of the year. Um and then per uh 50% of our students are showing one or more year of growth at

041midyear and 52% are showing uh one or more years of growth uh in uh math. Uh right now uh social studies is not on the chart. Uh but we're at about 5% right now at midyear and at 21% in science uh which would um uh be higher than where we ended uh last year. We don't have WEDA growth because that happens at the end of the year. Uh our high school graduation rate uh for the class of 2025 uh is not officially released, but our internal systems say that we'll be at 82 or 83% uh which will be pretty close to the state average. Uh those numbers should be coming out in the next couple of weeks officially uh for DPSD in the entire state. We're at about 64% of students uh juniors and seniors

042enrolled in either IB um dual enrollment uh advanced placement um or career tech classes. Uh and then 36% of students rather 61% of those students have passed our courses. Uh based on our interim or mid-year uh student survey data, 36% of our students feel um both or uh both love, challenged and prepared. Um sometimes they might be feel loved but not challenged or not prepared. But at interim um 36% feel each loved, challenged and prepared. Um we do not uh do any interim uh staff data. We do that at the end of the year. Right now we have 28 um teacher vacancies and uh 32 support staff teacher vacancies. Right now, 90% of our teachers uh have um uh not missed more than 10 days of work. Um and our uh breakfast uh participation rate

043for students is at 40 54% slightly lower than last year. What we've done differently is re changed our breakfast menu schedule. We're also trying to offer two um uh two opportunities every morning at most schools for breakfast. So, we have an early morning breakfast and then we're doing a later breakfast maybe for those students that arrive later to increase that rate. Uh, right now we're at 80% of students eating lunch uh which is slightly higher uh than last year. Um right now we have 10 occupational therapist vacancies, six um PT vacancies, that's physical therapy. Uh we only have one speech language and pathologist uh vacancy which is a huge improvement from previous years. Um, as a reminder, when I go over ESC ancillary staff vacancies, it's a combination of full-time staff and contracted staff. Um,

044for the first time in, um, I would say my tenure, which is 10 years, about 10 years, but I would say beyond that, for the first time, DPS is over staffed with psychologists and ESC social workers. Wow. Um, and that's based on the allocation that that's based on the number of special education children we have. um and the ratio with um speech language pathologists and psychologists and again transparently that's full-time staff and contracted staff. That's the first time we've been able to say that. Um obviously the importance of this is catching up on IEP re-evaluations, initial evaluations, and catching up on providing speech services to children. Uh which all three areas uh continue to be areas of improvement. Uh right now we have five assistant principal vacancies, 11 counselor and social worker vacancies, four academic

045interventionist vacancies. We have 41 security guard vacancies, but that's because uh the board um and I uh agreed to increase the security guard allocation um by 58 um to provide more support to our schools uh just to supervise students uh throughout the day uh in the morning and and and at dismissal. Um so we are starting to uh fill those vacancies but that's a work in progress. um four prek par vacancies, six ESC paro vacancies, uh 15 contracted custodian vacancies, and 22 cafeteria um staff vacancies. um which is a bit um uh seemingly high because we staff higher uh than we're allocated uh to address FMLA uh and absences um uh throughout the district to make sure that we have overstaffed um cafeteria um so students can uh eat according to our plans. Uh that

046uh concludes the review of um our metrics. Um uh hopefully uh the weather as you have seen is warmed up. Uh hopefully we're beyond having any um days called off due to weather. Looking ahead in the forecast, I don't foresee any need to uh cancel school at this point. Um we view six weather days, but in fact it's five because we've worked with the state auditors on a uh PD day for staff. Uh that will count as a day of school. Um so we actually have um five used days and six um one more available. Um so we look to be overall in a good position not to extend the school year um in June based on the days that we've used over the last couple of weeks. Uh that concludes my presentation. Open any

047questions or concerns that the board may have. >> Uh Dr. Ida Short. Um you you mentioned that our our psychology staff is has increased and and I believe you said over staff. Is that correct? >> Can you speak at a mic Dr. Sher? Is that correct? >> We're over staffed with the psychologist. >> Yes. When I when I meant by over staff is um based on the number um of students that we have and evaluations uh we moved into an allocation model. And so that model um calls for about 105 psychologists whether full-time um or um contracted. And right now we're two over that number. So we actually have 107. Um so uh it doesn't mean we're moving into any reductions or anything. It just means that for the first time we have the the

048uh correct number of psychologists full-time and contracted uh to facilitate uh initial evaluations and re-evaluations of children. >> Okay. I have a couple more questions, Madam Chair. Um, since we have these psychologists at 107, my next question is, do we have a timeline for when the IEPs will be brought up to date? Meaning, I know we have students whose IEPs have not been done or not completed either one. So, do we have an idea of what time will all this take place and be done? that is every student who is eligible for an IEP or somebody suspects might need an IEP. When will that all be done if you have an idea? >> Yeah, obviously uh we um facilitate according to the law u whether it's an initial or re-evaluation. Uh we track that and

049I can certainly provide uh the numbers to the board. uh we are uh narrowing the gap between those evaluations that need to occur and I have previous year data to show where we where we are this year compared to previous years and and we're definitely doing a better job of fulfilling the law in and re-evaluations and initial evaluations. I appreciate that, but I still need to know if you can you I know you might not be able to do it now, but can the board be provided with the timeline because I I'm aware we're behind and I'm aware that some people have been out there trying to get the IEP done for a long long time. So, can we be given um some type of written document that would indicate when they will all be

050caught up? That's all I'm asking for. >> That's my second question. My third question is since we have so many psychologists and from my understanding from talking with staff in the past year, we do not offer group or individual therapy. So since we have so many and once we clean up the IEPs and get everything done, what is the opportunity for us to offer therapy to our children who whose IEPs are done >> uh through the chair? So yes, I can provide the board with um a breakdown of where we stand with evaluations and and the timeline to complete those. Uh as far as your second question, uh our ESC social workers are the ones that provide um support to our students, not our psychologists. Our psychologists primarily focus on the evaluation process. Um but

051uh with that said, uh we are providing um services to ESE students based on their IE um as far as therapy is concerned. So, these psychologists are primarily being used um for evaluations. >> But my question still is, and I'm asking this because we lost a black an African-American PhD neurossychologist who specializes in special ed. We lost him because he could not do therapy and that's all he wanted to do. He's been he was here pushing the paperwork. So my question still is the same. If we once we get all the paperwork done for all of our children, the psychologist can would they be able to help get the therapy whether it's group therapy andor individual therapy for the two? >> So I'm asking I know you can't tell me right now but I'm asking

052is what will be that opportunity? Will there be one >> um through the chair? I'll provide that followup in writing after I talk to staff. >> Thank you. Uh uh board member Bessie. >> Um yes, to our superintendent through the chair. Do we have the adequate amount of social workers >> uh through the chair? um based on uh for ESSE social workers. Yes, we're actually uh we have five uh additional ESSE social workers beyond uh the allocation that's created based on the number of ESSE children that we have um and the required services that they're uh entitled to through their IEP. So ESC social workers uh were not only fully staffed but we have five additional ones. Now for um general ed social workers um those are um primarily purchased by principles. Once principles um

053principles receive an allocation of counselors based on the number of students at the school after the first counselor meaning let's say they're allocated two or three based on the number after the first counselor position is filled by a counselor they have the flexibility to convert a um counselor position to a social worker position um and so that's at discretion of the principal um and so we may have um maybe four or five general ed social worker vacancies based on the conversion of counselors at the school level. >> So then I hear you saying that the first choice are counselors not social work. >> Correct. We at whether it's through the district allocation um or through the school allocation, we do not fund general ed social workers. >> Thank you, >> Dr. Short. I have to

054come back because you indicated that the social workers provide the therapy. >> And so if the social workers are providing the therapy, I don't think five social workers can provide enough therapy for this district of 49,000 kids and we have a large share. I don't know the proportion of students who are special needs, but I know it's been growing and it has increased substantially in the one year that I've been here. So, I can only encourage that we as a board hire more social workers to help our students. It's not enough to just give the IEP if we're not helping the students with the IEP to overcome whatever the issues are that they're having. We have to have some therapy provided for the kids, the students, our scholars. So, I can only encourage it to

055my board members. Thank you, Dr. Short. >> Madam Chair, >> um Dr. Short, just to clarify, we employ full-time ESSE social workers. We do not contract any ESSE social workers. I'm going to repeat, we hire, we employ currently 115 ESSE full-time social workers that provide special needs children through their IEP with services. Um, so certainly we can continue to explore an increase of general ed social workers for the general ed population. Um, but we are not only fully staffed, but we have five extra ESSE social workers to provide services for our ESSE children. >> So, when you say services, does that I've learned I have to ask very specific questions. Does that include therapy to these students? >> Yes, it's it based on the IEP, they are entitled to um counseling um therapy and that's

056provided through the ESSE social workers. >> Okay. Dr. Vidy, just a follow-up question. Does Does the district bill Medicaid for these social uh services? >> Uh, yes, we do. And uh we have a team that works uh on that in order to gain reimbursement for that. >> Okay. Uh Mon Bryant uh through the chair. Uh Dr. Can you repeat the number of vice principal vacancies and if they are if you could break them down to the high school versus K8? >> Sure. Um five and I I can look it up now or I can I can report it out later. >> So is that five high school? >> No, they're not all high school. I can tell you if you >> Okay. >> So, what what's the total >> that five was the total number?

057>> Yes. Five. >> Yeah. >> So, you you you won't have to do the the breakdown. I thought I heard the number much larger. >> No, five. Five across the entire district including um KH and high schools. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Do we have any more questions for Dr. Vy? All right. We will now have our um I'm sorry. Is there a motion to adopt the superintendent's report? >> So moved, Madam Chair. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All right. It has been moved by Vice Chair Bond and supported by uh member Bland that we adopt the superintendent's report. Is there any discussion? All in favor of adopting the superintendent report. Say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Uh we are going to move now to

058uh item 12, which is the consent agenda. I just want to remind the board that the this discussion happened in your committee meetings this past uh month and so um there were some detailed discussions um there and so now I would uh welcome a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Madam Chair, I move to >> support agenda. >> Okay. And who I'm sorry who supported it? >> Support. Okay. Uh it has been moved by uh board member uh Dr. Iris Taylor and properly supported by board member Short that we approve the consent agenda. Is there any discussion? >> All right. All in favor say I. >> I. I. >> All right. Any oppose? >> All right. Motion carries. Um it is now time for a public comment. And um Miss Moore, could you do

059two things for me? Let me know how many people we have for public comment and also read the public comment statement. Madame Chair, we have 23 showing in person for public comment, but one of those are also showing online. That's the only one we have online. So, I'm not sure which one they're doing, but I can read the public comment statement now. Members of the public are welcome to address the board and its committees during public comment. Individuals wishing to address the board must register. Once the agenda is adopted, public comment registration will close. The chair will call on individuals to address the board during the uh agenda item public comment. Please remain seated until your name is called. All comments will be limited to three minutes for one hour. The board has final discretion

060to wave the 1 hour limit and reduce the speaking time to two minutes or one minute if the hour limit is waved. The superintendent will respond to questions or concerns raised today that do not violate ethical or legal standards, confidentiality, the privacy of others, or require additional information to respond. If you need more information regarding policy and governance matters, please email the board of education at dpscd.board detroit12.org. For administrative and operational issues, please email the superintendent at nikolai detroitk12.org. To make a virtual comment that will be facilitated through a Zoom webinar. To register, use the raise your hand feature to indicate you wish to participate. Add your name, email address, and phone number and specify the topic to be discussed in the chat before registration closes. Via your com via telephone, press star 9 to

061raise your hand. The meeting administrator will select the individuals in the order received. You will remain muted until your time to speak. Thank you, Miss Moore. And with 23 people, I think we can allow for three minutes uh per person. That should take us right up to uh just about nine minutes over. And at the hour mark, we can make a vote as a as a group if we want to uh continue. So um to the mic. All right. First mic we have a a Glenn Bry and second mic we have a Eric Miller. Mics are located in the back. Uh please. So we have Glenn Bry and we have Eric Miller. >> Yes. Good evening board. Name our Lord and Savior. My name is Glenn. are being at 5%. Um my comment is this.

062It's um why haven't the teachers program that you have that is being made is it available to the parents why isn't it available to them I am very much interested in becoming an educator and to some degree resolve this problem of our students not being educated and I would like to know and have any one of your staff uh your members to assist me in getting into that program questions. Uh also I've noticed that one of your members uh this miss Bryant Monnique uh you are involved with the educational department. I would like to uh have you take my number and try to work with you in order to become a teacher. I got my clearances here too with police and state and everybody else. I've uh been accepted with the Let's Read program. I'm

063waiting for their processes uh to fulfill their requirements also. So I need some assistance in becoming a substitute teacher to help my children who's a product of Cass Technical High School. They are honored students DECA and they have went on a trip. You are doing pretty good. I give you that. But the other 95% in our social in your social studies here is not doing too well. And that's dealing with other people, other races. That's the main thing. If they're not good in sociology, socializing, then they're not good in doing business, health, or advancing in our country, in our state, and in our cities. The good thing about it, the ambassadors that one of my children is is going to different schools doing just what you said, going out King Osborne, Persian and all the

064other schools being that ambush. My son is one and he's being giftedly blessed by the school district for that for his his participation. Like I say, I got four of them. All four of them is in cast. Two of them is at the M. One is going, the other girl, she's following up the rest of them. And they're doing excellent. They're doing excellent because of the teachers that I give permission. Check this out. I give the teachers permissions so they don't lose their Holy Ghost. And I hope everybody have it. >> Thank you, uh, Mr. Glenn Bry. Uh we will address your questions at the end of public comment. Okay. So So >> yes, if you just Yes, you have somebody right there. Um we have Eric Miller and at the uh can we also

065have Alexander Nichols at the next mic. Uh Eric Miller, please go ahead with your comments. >> Thank you. Uh yes, my name is Eric Miller, uh founder of the Lawn Academy and also a director at Stellantis. Uh we are a current uh DPSCD partner for afterchool pro programming and some of the things we've done over the years uh in the last four years we work with Mary and law academy with principal Stewart uh to uh we had a three-year plan to increase the uh competency with the youth and proficiency rates. Uh we took the helped to take the school from a D to a B performance school. Uh we're now work with Henderson Academy, Dr. Harris pushing for math proficiency. Uh we're going to be working with uh Davidson Academy with Principal Coleman Coleman uh

066pushing math proficiency, Osborne uh high school working with uh the youth with workforce development and mathematics. Uh we're at the school of Mirror Grove Elementary uh with uh Principal Williams. We're able to over the last two three years take the school up 80% math proficiency or math growth, 60% ELA growth. uh the school at Mary Grove High, we work with assistant principal uh Adams uh work with the ninth graders, the incoming ninth graders on integrated mathematics and we're really excited about working with Gollightly Education Center uh with Principal Neller and we're going to be pushing for math proficiency. So the question I have is that we recently received funding from the Balma Group and also Mile uh and we want to continue the work that we're doing this summer. We're going to have approximately 380

067kids this summer, but we need a school. We need a school. We would like to rent a school from the district. We understand it's a cost and we're willing to pay that cost. Okay? We would prefer to have the school centrally located in Detroit. Um but once again, if it's not, we can make it work. Um and I I was um um um encouraged to speak with uh uh Deputy Superintendent uh Miss uh Alicia Mayweather andor uh Deputy Superintendent uh Mashan Jackson. That's over facilities. And once again, we're dedicated to uplifting our uplifting our youth and elevating our scholars. >> Right. Awesome. Thank you. Uh Mr. Miller, if you just hold on there, uh there's a uh Chhaturus Jones is going to talk to you about the next steps, >> if there are any. Um

068yep, they got you right now. Thank you so much. Uh can we have we have Alexandra Nichols and can I also have Rottney Fresh at the next mic, please? Go ahead, Miss Nichols. >> Hello. Good evening, everyone. I greet you. I'm a employee at Thood Marshall Elementary Middle School and I'm a proud graduate of Central High School and it is with that background that we have um created the Junth parade and celebration. I'm here to say that I would like to continue working with the office of face also continue working with Central High School's principal and Northwestern's principal and their alumni um to continue to provide community outreach resources for families and students. I look forward to working with the office of faith to assist in um helping us locate a co-grant marshall. And if

069anybody in here has a worthy person that they'd like to put forth, I'm all ears for that. We would also like to um have the wonderful choir and dancers from DSA that were here tonight u represent their um skill and talent during the Junth parade and celebration. And additionally this year we would like to provide all participating students that get trained as Junth ambassadors with um Junth themed workbooks and then that will be for middle and high school and also provide coloring books for elementary age students. Last year, our Junth parade and celebration committee was able to provide Central High School with the $500 scholarship um for students, provided $500 in scholarship money for Northwestern High School students as well. And we were able to train students at four schools, Central Northwestern, Cody Dery Middle

070Elementary as Junth ambassadors. We had over a thousand people to attend the opening ceremonies that took place at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church. And um those folks marched in the parade or walked or drove their cars and we ended the parade at the Joseph Walker Williams Center where we continued the celebration. And this year we're proud to say we will be providing a food court pavilion with about three or four food trucks. Uh, and we are hoping to get a sponsor for that as well. Maybe with the new food co-op, maybe with the Midtown Meyer, and also maybe with the Midtown Whole Foods. I'm just delighted to continue to work um with the school district. I'm thankful for Dr. Vidi thankful for Miss Wilson, thankful for Miss Buckman for all the support that they've given us

071in the past. And we'll continue to represent the city of Detroit and show everything that our students can do during this celebration and give to our community as Junth ambassadors. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Miss Nichols. You have uh Miss Yolanda Buckman right there to talk to you about your request for face. >> Thank you. >> All right, so we have Rodney Fresh at one mic. And can we also get Mama Melissa Redmond? You are after uh Rodney Fresh. >> Good evening, board. Dr. Vidy, um I'm actually going to start my public comment off a little bit different than probably what y'all are used to. I actually do have um a very short list of thank yous. Um first goes to Nia Jeta and assessments for meeting with the social study team on

072the last um PD day we had. Um, I do have to give a thank you to facilities. I know Mama Redmond is going to follow up with some questions for facilities, so I'm not going to steal her thunder, but um, actually addressing the concerns at CMA as far as the heat and we're making progress on um, the football field and the new gym facilities. Um, thank you board member Monnique Bryan for following up with me. Um, Dr. Dr. Vi, I saw that you met with the Southwest community um recently. Um I would like to know what came out of that meeting and where we're at as far as ICE. I know other school districts have sent um school um school staff out um how to deal with ICE and address certain situations. So I did

073see that you met with Southwest. So I was curious on what exactly came out of that meeting. Um, I feel like I'm beating a dead horse at this point when we talk about um the middle of the year assessments. I know myself and several of my colleague lost several instructional days to snow days and then lost more instructional days due to having to administer the middle of the year test. And from what I'm hearing, um, it doesn't count as as it's not heavily weighed like the end of the year course. Like if they show growth in the middle of the year, but then they regress for whatever reason in the end of the year course, um, the middle of the year growth doesn't count. So I would like clarification on that if possible. Um, sec

074or thirdly, um, technology, how is it allocated? like we do have laptops at CMA, but I know when we had the new laptop distribution, our school was only given about 200 250 to 300 new laptops. And so like my social studies department was basically giving my old colleague laptops. And so when we have a self-study curriculum where a lots of times that they have to um in the curriculum it says um have the students use this online resource or we have several like SAS online and we have the older laptop it take a while to get booted up and sometime students are able to log in sometimes they're not in put in tickets and it hasn't been out but I do wonder how adequately techn technology was to address if you have if we're given

075new laptops but it only it's only enough to cover about twothirds of our actual building population. Thank you. >> Thank you Rodney Fresh. Uh I have Mama Melissa Redmond and then to the uh after that is Mama Aaliyah Moore. Mama Redmond, please go ahead with your comments. Good afternoon, board. First, I would like to say thank you to the whole entire board. Happy um Black History Month. Thank you for letting our students rise and show their black excellence in front of us. I have a couple of questions. First, um let me just read this. Upon arrival from the state of Minnesota, Miss Idris, mother of Lamar Idris, Keith, and Kayla Whitfield, was denied enrollment at the following schools even after the schools were made aware this family was underneath the McKini Vento. >> The schools

076are Burns Elementary, John R. King, and Detroit Edison. First, I would like to ask this question. if they're a part of McKenna Venzo, how are they work? How were they denied at three schools? This parent had been trying to get her children's enrolled in DPS since de December the 3. They're currently enrolled at Paul Robersonson Malcolm X Academy because we took the students in. For one, by me hearing that, that's a red flag on Mama Redmond because that mean otherwise we can lose students to charter schools if we have three schools. That's telling our parents no. And she verbatimly the parents said to me and I asked several times before I even started speaking about this. You said you told them that you were a part of this and that and they told you no.

077in one of the schools is directly down the street from where they were at. So, somebody got to make that make sense to Mama Redmond because if we're pressing enrollment, it's no way that we should be turning students away. Also, far as CMA go, um I know you guys are doing something with the football field. Why won't there be a concession stands? They have concession stands at every other school and also at suburban schools so that if they can take our money, we need to get some of their money as well. My last thing but not least, our principal was removed and it is again at an African center school. When will our principal be back? This is the second time the second time he's been removed during Black History Month number one that is

078hurting our school student schools. And tomorrow is count day. And by the way, since we're talking about students and making sure our students rise, Dr. Vy, I'm inviting you today. Last year, I invited you to come over to read to our students for um reading month in March. It'll be great for our children at Paul Robinson Malcolm X Academy to have the superintendent of the largest school district come read to our students. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mama Redmond. Uh we'll have Aaliyah Moore and I believe it's Jiren Brown. If I am mispronouncing your name, please just correct me. I have Jiren Brown and uh Aaliyah Moore. >> Uh good evening board and uh Dr. Viti. Uh I thank you. I thank you for today's presentation for our babies. Um it just warms my heart

079to see them so much creativity and um you know it's just uh it's just inspirational but it's also sad at the same time because it's the missed opportunities that we've had over these years with the current money that's here. Um but I thank you for the change and the arrangement. Um it looks a little bit more organized. So I just appreciate the change food coming in a more welcoming environment. So, I look forward to the remainder of this year with the current leadership and just seeing where we're going. Um, as far as the presentation for both academic and um, financial meetings, committee meetings, as a stakeholder, like I said before, and I have to reiterate this all the time because of sensitivity. This is not personal work. As a stakeholder, I am this is my

080obligation. I'm bringing money to school. So it's my obligation to come listen to you all and critique it. This is not personal work because I know none of you personally. So until you truly get that out of your mind for me as well as all these other stakeholders, we will not be able to move forward. Now if it was personal literally attacks, I want to punch, kick, cuss you out. That's totally different. But language is very important. Dr. Nikolai is asking you to approve $56 million for paving, fencing, demos, health hubs. All of these things should have been done prior with the $700 million facilities plan. We have a very quiet, disengaged treasurer, Dr. Iris Taylor, Dr. Coletta Von. These are the main two players that are left that voted yes out of the$1.27 27

081billion dollar to put 700 million in facilities. But yet now you want to come back for 56 million, but it's no way that you shouldn't have demoed some of these buildings, consolidated some of our schools before y'all to Paul Robbert and Malcolm X. It makes no financial sense as a stakeholder. But language is very important because Dr. Dr. Nikolai Vidi presented this uh slides as if the committee the academic committee had already kind of oh I'm sorry the financial either way but the presentation for the first time was as if you all created this you all suggested it so when he came back to the following committee it was almost as if you all's ideas were created out of that 56 million language is very important when you talk about a a track and field

082that Cass is going to split with uh the Lions Academy. I mean, you got to be more detailed than that. And why now? And then with my last 8 seconds, the state of the schools was a total embarrassment. We had people up there sleep. And Dr. Vy, you telling us we're pacid numbers, sir. It's all about >> Thank you, Mama Leah Moore. Uh, we have is it uh Jiren Brown and can I have Marcus Walton at the uh next mic? Is it Jiren Brown? Yes. Thank you. You have the floor. Thank you. Good evening, DPSCD board members. I am here as a concerned parent of a student who competed in the recent district spelling bee and as an advocate for those who participated. What I witnessed was not a fair academic competition, but a deeply

083flawed and mismanaged event that failed several children. Despite DPS stating that the script's national spelling bee rules governed the competition and even posted a QR code at the door, those rules were repeatedly ignored in various aspects. Students were allowed to spell proper nouns without identifying capitalization, even after instructed on geographical placement under scripts rules and in a classroom written test. That would be incorrect. Students were also permitted to change the spelling of words after beginning to spell directly violating national B rules. Additionally, judges demonstrated clear deficiencies in pronunciation, definition, and usage. One judge defined the word muffler as something that keeps you warm in the winter, then used it in a sentence referring to a vehicle. These are different meanings, and that type of inconsistency clearly confused students. Also, students who had already been dismissed

084for incorrect spellings were allowed to return to the competition and given different words to spell without explanation or justification, unfairly displacing other children. Additionally, parents in the audience were visibly mouththing spellings to students on stage and no judge intervened. When this was reported, we were told it had to be caught on camera, an abdication of responsibility. Administrative failures compounded the problem. A few students were assigned same identification numbers, resulting in a student who spelled a word correctly being mistakenly removed from the stage. While he was called back up to participate, he was visibly upset after the fact. There was no enforcement of time limits causing the competition to run behind in which the third B started over an hour and 10 minutes behind schedule. And while my child advanced to the top four of the

085final B and misspelled a word due to a homophone sounding issue, I immediately appealed based on national rules. However, my appeal was denied based on the incorrect spelling given and my child was not given an alternate word. Yet another student was later reinstated for the same reason. rules were applied selectively, not consistently. After the event, I raised these concerns directly with a staff member of the literacy department and was told they could not speak to the matter because she wasn't in the room. I have submitted a detailed written letter for the official record and I am formally requesting a written response from Dr. Viti addressing these concerns. The students who participated deserve better and they also deserved an equal opportunity to rise. Thank you for listening and thank you to board president McClendon for reaching

086out ensuring my concern would be addressed. I look forward to your written response and I also look forward to a more just and transparent district B in 2027. Thank you. >> Thank you. And and u Miss Brown, we have Lynette Campbell Williams right here who can um just meet with you and we will ensure you get a response to your concerns that were emailed today. Uh we have Marcus Walton and then is uh Eddie People uh here. Marcus, please go ahead with your comment. >> Yeah, good afternoon. My name is Marcus Walton and I'm a proud member of Detroit Federation of Teachers. And as this year, as we begin to fight for our fair contract, I have to remind the school board and the superintendent to please meet the moment. And what I mean by

087that is we're dealing with a racist president of the United States of America. What are my receipts? Well, last week he on Twitter he mocked the President Barack Obama and his wife. He's also taking aim at Detroit. He's trying to take our right to vote this week. He's trying to take our bridge. It doesn't really And then they're also trying to take our humanity as African-Americans in this country. We have to meet that moment. to my students that from from CST who walked out two weeks ago as an alumni, I thank you. They stood out and walked out because of ICE. If we just sit back and act like these are normal times, we're opening the door for his insanity. We as a school board and we as a people have to stick together against

088this cuz these aren't normal times. So we can't have a normal response. We need to support our educators and more important we need to support our students who have to see a president who wants to be racist openly. He doesn't apologize for his stupidity. And how do you think our children feel is that? This time during Trump 1.0, I had a student in my room. The student was fearful the ICE agents were going to deport him. I had to tell the student, get down on his level because remember I'm at Jorio White. My students are special needs. This was a young man in a wheelchair. I had to tell him one, you're an American citizen. You have rights. I am not an agent of ICE. I'm here to protect you and your family. We need

089to have that same type of energy when we're dealing with our students. And also, we have to set the tone about things that we're not going to tolerate as a school district. And we have to put that out. Otherwise, our children are waiting for us to act. We got to meet the moment and let them know that we're here to protect them. Thank you. >> Thank you, Marcus Walton. I have Eddie People. And can I have President Leia Wilson Lumpkins uh next, please? Mr. people, please go ahead with your comment. >> Good evening. Name's Eddie People, a member of NAN. First of all, I just like to say my wife is an occupational therapist. And when the doctor asked Dr. Viti about his um social workers and she was under the assumption that he had

090the therapist that she was referring to. Well, there are all type of therapist. You got occupational therapist, physical therapist, uh speech therapist. So, that didn't say that he had the the uh therapist that she was referring to. Uh anyway, I would like to know the question that's been bothering me for a very long time is uh the $400 and some thousands a year that Dr. Vi is paid with what was it 49,000 students and they are reading on the third graders are reading on a 13% uh uh level and uh you got the superintendent in Los Angeles with approximately 600,000 students and He makes about the same as uh Dr. Viti and uh his 600,000 out of his 600,000 the third graders they read uh you got 32% of them that read uh the third

091graders that read at their level. So my question is what is it that's so difficult that Dr. Viti has to do with his uh 49,000 students that works him so hard compared to the superintendent in Los Angeles that has the 600,000. Um a couple of years ago, I don't know if Dr. Vi remember he uh he and I had a slight discussion over in the General Motors building talking about the students the significance of them having uh reading on the computers as opposed to reading with books. And I'm very very staunch believer in the fact that children need books in their hands. They need books, not being so hung up on computers. You know, you're at home, you're reading on computers. What if the power go out? Then what? You need a book in your

092hand. And nothing beats a book. And >> thank you, Mr. People. Uh we we have uh President Lquille Wilson Lumpkins. Can I call Talia Gordon to the next mic, please? President uh Wilson Lumpins, please go ahead with your comment. Thank you. Good evening, Dr. Vidy and members of the honorable school board. My name is Leia Wilson Lumpkins, and I proudly represent the more than 5,000 educators and support staff of the Detroit Federation of Teachers as their president. I rise tonight asking for two things. your visible support for our March for Education immigration town hall and your steadfast commitment at the bargaining table, not just to an early tentative agreement, competitive salaries, and benefits, but to language that affirms our members values and this district's commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and continuous improvement. First, the town

093hall. Our students are living at the intersection of education policy and immigration policy. They are watching headlines. They are hearing rhetoric. And they are walking into our classrooms every day with questions, fears, and hopes. The March for Education immigration town hall is about ensuring families and educators understand their rights, understand district procedures, and understand that DPSCD is a place of safety and learning for every child regardless of immigration status. When the district and board stand with us in that space, you send a clear message. In Detroit, we educate all children. Period. Second, negotiations. Yes, we are fighting for competitive wages and strong benefits because we must. To recruit and retain the best educators in this region, we cannot afford to fall behind surrounding districts. Stability in our workforce directly impacts student achievement. pressuring evaluators with

094a timeline when there are over 2,000 students across the state needing evaluation and approximately 64 newly credentialed special education providers and 55 new psychologists that have over 500 school districts in Michigan to choose from. Many may not choose to work here. Attempting to jam evaluators up with an unrealistic timeline for initial evaluations, three years, and providing ancillary services is causing our members to burn out tonight as we speak. Again, this round of negotiations is about more than compensation. It is about protecting the professional respect and working conditions that allow our members to do their jobs with dignity and excellence. our teachers, counselors, speech pathologists, pair professionals, food service, psychologists, and the other 40 plus job classifications that we represent. They are the engine of this district's continuous improvement. The academic gains that we have celebrated

095and the improved school culture. This is a critical moment. Our families are watching, our employees are watching, our students are watching. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. We will get the date and time of that March 4th event and we will um I believe you said March 4th. Yep. And okay, we'll we will uh ensure that the board has all the information. Thank you. All right. We have Tia Gordon at one mic and uh the next mic Fatima uh Boom if I'm saying that right. All right. Uh Talia, if you want to go or Tia, you can correct me on the pronunciation, but please go ahead with your comment. Good evening board and superintendent and members of the public. My name is Talia Gordon. I'm a taxpaying voting Detroit resident, auntie to DPSD students

096and community member who deeply values public education. I often have the privilege of note-taking at these meetings as a Detroit documenter, which means I am often paying very close attention to the way this board and this superintendent speak about, speak to, and generally treat the district students, families, teachers, other staff members, and the broader public. Today I am here to address the recent involuntary transfer of Thurkl science teacher Emma Helen Bolton and the related involuntary transfer of a third grade math teacher at man which both happened last week in the middle of the week in the middle of quarter 3 in the middle of semester 2 with only a few days notice mere weeks before eighth graders take the MSTEP the district has decided to once again destabilize Thurkl Middle School students education further it

097is my understanding that the transfer of Miss Halen Bolton was initiated immediately following her report of fraud, which she is mandated to do by the district. This action by Superintendent Bey can only be taken as a clear retaliation for Miss HB's reporting, which again she is mandated to do. Besides what I and others can say about Emma as a committed and beloved educator, community member, and friend, I will say this. No one, absolutely no one should be punished or retaliated against for following orders mandated by their job unless those orders themselves violate principles of justice, fairness, or morality, compromise their own or others safety, or comply with tyranny. Miss HB did what she was mandated to do, and my fervent hope is that the investigation resulting from her reporting will reveal and address the long-standing

098fraud and corruption in this district. The response from the district to Miss HB's reporting has a chilling effect on those who seek to hold this public body accountable. In this moment of tyranny in our country, in the highest public offices and in our streets, in our schools, we must take note of where else tyranny thrives. In the public bureaucracies that are tasked with protecting the most vulnerable among us and those who are tasked with teaching and taking care of them. Besides the fact that this forced transfer is clear retaliation, transferring Miss HB in the middle of the year is highly disruptive to students learning both at Thurkl and at man. Miss HB was the only person at Thurkl teaching middle school science. Her transfer leaves no one to teach this core subject. Thurkl has not

099had a science teacher finish out the year in six years, which reflects the district's endemic conditioning of instability, a key barrier to students well-being and learning. The third grade math teacher at MAN, who is also involuntary transferred, has a number of math degrees. And while Miss HB will surely do a fine job teaching the subject to her new students, it is unclear how this dual transfer of qualified teachers out of the roles benefits students learning. Why were two teachers teaching a core subject transferred in the middle of the quarter and semester? Why not wait? Why not give teachers more notice so that the transition can be less disruptive to students learning? What is the process by which involuntary transfers are initiated and decided? Who approves these transfers? Thank you. Uh we have Fatima Bum or

100Bum. You could correct me. And then we have uh Bridget Bile at the next mic, please. Uh Fatima, please go ahead with your comments. >> Um me, Izzy, and Abdul, we're going to go together. >> Okay, sounds good. Um we have a group, so can we adjust the time a little bit to give them a few extra minutes? Please go ahead with your comments. >> Hello everyone, my name is Fatama. I'm a student at Cass Technical High School. I'm one of the many students who had to attend school during elid because of my exam and felt a dilemma of choosing between my religious obligation and my education which caused unnecessary stress and made me feel overwhelmed. Instead of spending time with my family and friends, I was in school taking my exam and was expected

101to treat the day like any other day despite it being a very important day in my religion. As this issue was mentioned to the board before, the board has responded to this by saying that the exam dates will be rescheduled if it falls on Eid. However, it still doesn't accommodate to our need on getting Eid off. Students are still required to attend school in instead of spending time with their families and friend during our special day. We are very appreciative of the effort the board is making. We understand that this is now solely the board's decision to determine whether Eid is included on the DPSD calendar and the scheduling involves broader negotiations. However, respectfully, we respectfully ask that the board continues to advocate and work with the union responsible for these negotiations and push for

102Eid uh to be recognized as a official holiday in the school calendar. I respectfully ask that Eid gets recognized as a official um holiday. We together all of us really really want this to happen. Um thank you. Greetings everyone. Peace and blessing blessings be among us all. My name is Abdul Kawi Al Jelham. I'm a junior at Casta High School and a sophomore at Wayne County Community College. Previously, I attended schools in Dearborn and Detroit where students were given schools uh school days off for aid that allowed me to f uh fully observe our uh religious obligations without sacrificing our education. There was no conflict, no pressure and no need to choose between faith and academics. Today we are simply asking for equal treatments and equal respect for all religions. If neighboring districts like Dearborn

103and Ham Tramikar are able to recognize Eid as a uh as a school holiday, then DPSCD should be able to do the same. Eid is not just any day. It is one of the two most important holidays in Islam. A day of worship, worship, family, community, and cultural identity. It is also important to acknowledge that Eid was once placed on the school's calendar and then removed which sent a pain a painful message to Muslim students that our religious holidays are not valued in the same way as others. By recognizing a DPSC would not be taking anything away from education. Instead, it would be strengthen strengthening inclusive equity and respect. Muslim students should not be forced to choose between their faith and their future and they should not be academically penalized for practicing their beliefs. Nearly

1041/4 of the DPSCD students population is Muslim. That is a significant uh portion of students whose identities and needs deserve reci reconiggation. We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for fair treatment to be seen, respected and included. With that being said, MICD uh my student dream and I would like to invite Dr. Vidi, the board members and any uh and anyone interested, teachers, anyone interested to attend our ifar on Saturday, February 28. This will be a chance to learn more about this issue, how it affects us and what can be done to address this uh suh this issue. Uh hello everyone. My name is Izzy Rose. I'm an organizer with My Students Dream. Um and I'm also a local Detroit resident and I'm just here to support these students and uh advocate

105for the DPSCD calendar for 2027 and 2028 to include Eid. Um, for a district that values diversity and student excellence, it shouldn't be a question about adjusting the calendar to include the only Muslim holiday that falls within the school year. And when students don't get school offer Eid, they're forced to choose between missing class or shortening uh religious obligations and celebrations and limiting the time they have to celebrate their families. And then I also want to briefly come up here and once again impress the importance on the board on taking action against increased ICE presence in our neighborhoods and around our schools. Um, I know that some teachers have been having conversations with their principles about know your rights trainings. Um, and I know that some parents have approached me and other teachers about the

106possibility of know your rights trainings. I think that the district could really benefit from mandated uh consistent and formalized trainings for teachers, educators, staff, and families. Thank you so much. >> Thank you uh Fatima and Abdul. Uh we always love to hear our students advocate for themselves for things. So thank you for being here. Uh next is Bridget Vow. And then can I have Raina Simone Walker to the next mic? Bridget, if you can go ahead with your comments. >> Hi school board members and Dr. Vidy. And hello to the parents, students, teachers, and community members here tonight. Um I'm speaking as a friend of Miss Emma Howland Bolton. And as a concerned community member, I care about many students and teachers in DPSCD. Uh, I want to underscore some of the questions raised about

107Miss Howland Bolton's involuntary transfer, about thural middle school students abruptly losing their only science teacher weeks before the MSTEP exam, about man elementary school third and fifth graders losing their fourth math teacher this year to yet another involuntary transfer. Um, Dr. In emails, you stated that Miss Helen Bolton was transferred for the purpose of moving her to a fourth grade classroom. Uh, Miss Helen Bolton is teaching third and fifth grade. Um, I would like to ask, what effect do you think it has on Thural Middle School students to lose their science teacher, especially given that they don't currently have a math teacher? Is there a replacement science teacher at Thurkal? What effect do you think it has on third graders and fifth graders to lose their fourth math teacher in a row this year? Um,

108and their previous ma previous teacher was someone who had multiple degrees in math. Um, given that Miss Howland Bolton reported potential fraud um, days before her involuntary transfer, how do you explain the reason for her transfer and the timing of these events? Are you also concerned about Miss Hel Helen Bolton's report of a $750 grant for science equipment producing a bounced check? Are you looking into this? Um, from the outside, it looks like um the administration shielding um members of the administration from accountability by silencing people who are loyal to their schools, who speak out, and disregarding the really devastating impacts to children and families in the process. Um, I hope the school board members continue to press Dr. Vidy on what happens to formal reports of potential fraud um and what is going on

109in this district with involuntary transfers. Thanks. >> Thank you so much. Uh, so we have Raina Simone Walker and Lauren Creel. >> Yeah, Raina, please go ahead with your comments. >> Um, good evening Dr. activity and board members. Hi, I'm Rain Simone Walker. I attend CMA as a ninth grade ambassador and a two-time honoral student with the current GPA of 3.0. While in seventh grade, I attended my first level up high school expo and met the principal of CMA, Miss Cox. She asked me what I was looking for in high school and explained to me and my parents that it was a small but growing school. Leaving the expo, I was really moved by how good my conversation with Miss Cox and one of the former CMA students went. While as a eighth grader at

110Flicks Middle School, I went to my second level of high school expo and I went to find Miss Cox again and she remembered my name and what school I attended at the time. Miss Cox was very encouraging and supportive about what school what high schools I was considering. A few months later, I spent half the day at CMA with a student ambassador and really enjoyed my time at the school. My older sister, who just graduated, went to leadership classes and received a $25 gift card. While in high school, I went to two leadership classes and a field trip to Eastern Michigan in which I received three $25 gift cards. I will be ambassadoring the incoming nth incoming ninth graders at CMA High School. I really appreciate the $100 gift card and I think that is

111a great way to get kids to come to school. I love CMA and I believe anyone who who attends will agree. Thank you. >> We have another amazing student from our Detroit public school community district. Thank you so much. Uh Raina Simone Walker. Uh we have Lauren Creel and uh Emma Howland Bolton. I see that you're in the audience and not online, right? Okay, come on down. Um, Lauren Krill, please go ahead with your comments. >> Good evening. My name is Lauren Krill. I teach civics, economics, and personal finance at Communication and Media Arts High School. I am a proud member of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, as well as a proud resident of Detroit. As I've worked my way through the beginnings of the economics curriculum this semester, I have begun to notice a

112pattern of misalignment between the pacing of the district provided economics textbook and the econ curriculum guide. For example, the curriculum introduces ideas such as the circular economy that require an understanding of supply and demand, both lengthy concepts that take multiple days of instruction each before even explaining supply and demand in depth. As I I have also noticed some dead links within not just the econ but the civics's curriculum as well. As myself and my team have identified these issues, we have been instructed by admin to annotate the curriculum and use what works and discard what does not. Not only does this practice take time out of more productive and creative lesson planning, but I find myself struggling even after annotating to connect both the required curriculum with the districts textbook, all while properly pacing and

113scaffolding more complex ideas to my students. If we are required to follow a strict curriculum instead of being trusted to craft our own lessons based on common standards, I believe that curriculum should be polished and cohesive with the books and workbooks that we are given to use with the kids. On a separate note, I want to once again urge the district to release detailed instructions to all staff and administrators for how to respond in the case of ICE presence at or around DPSCD schools. While media coverage of ICE has diminished greatly, the threat ICE poses to the students and families in our community has not. As long as we remain uninformed and unprepared, our community remains vulnerable. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Lauren Krill. Uh, next we have Emma Holland Bolton and

114we have Michelle George at the next mic. Uh, Emma, please go ahead with your comments. >> Um, hello. Um, this is Bridget again. Emma has an inconvenient case of laryngitis and cannot speak above a whisper. So I'm also reading her statement tonight. My name is Emma Howland Bolton. I have been a proud teacher in DPSCD for the last 16 years. It has been the honor of my life to teach my students. Two weeks ago, I reported fraud to the district. One week ago, I was involuntarily transferred away from the school I have taught at for six years. Since receiving an involuntary transfer letter from HR, I have not been able to reach a single human being in that department. Despite daily calls and emails, schoolboard members regularly deflect responsibility for the state of the district

115by claiming they are only responsible for governance and day-to-day lived experiences of children languishing in what passes for a learning environment in DPSC are outside their purview. But there are people on the stage before you who voted to un to extend Vit's contract three full years before it was up. A vote of confidence he has demonstrabably not earned as under his leadership, our schools have only become less equitable. He's siloed special education students away from their siblings and gened learning communities and has report ignorance of gra reports of graft and corruption. He has prioritized funneling money out of our classrooms and into the pockets of vendors and consultants. And he lies like other people draw breath. The board refuses to hold him to account and he in turn continues to hire and protect school leaders

116who are fired from their last positions. That's governance. The primary problem in this district is that the feelings of a few highly paid adults are considered more important than the needs of all the children in the district. The reason I always start out any address to this body by talking about my students is that I actually believe that students should come first and I behave like it too. Children, and this will shock Lex Luthther over there, children are people. It's true. Many of them are small people, but they are people. And they deserve to be treated like people. Their parents deserve to be treated like people. They're teachers and social workers and bus drivers and AIS and therapists and cafeteria workers and custodians. Custodians deserve to be treated like people. Teachers build bonds with our

117students. We ask them to trust us and in return we show up for them every day. We promise to be stable, predictable, safe adults who believe in and challenge our students to do their best every day. Dr. Dr. Vidy believes rupturing those bonds and relationships has no impact on student learning. And Dr. Vid is wrong. At any point, any one of you could choose to do the right thing and put students first. You could do that today. >> Thanks, Bridget. >> Thank you. Uh, thank you so much, Emma. So, we have Michelle George and is there a Blake Al here? Michelle, please go ahead with your comments. >> Oh, okay. Good evening everyone. Good evening to the president, uh to the school board and Dr. Vidy. First of all, thank you for the wonderful talent

118of the young people. That was so good to see. Um I do want to comment. Every time I come up here and comment on something else, I have to comment on the comments. Um I want to ask the school board, I hope you all investigate if someone is retaliating against someone. I've been there before. So I hope you all will investigate if somebody report fraud alleg allegedly that you all will deal some deal with that. So I just want to make that point. Also I want to make the point that um I would like to know um Dr. Vidy I know the state of Michigan would wanted to take $2.2 million back from the school district. So I would like to know because I know as we dealing with ICE and everything this is why

119a lot of school uh young people are not coming to school. So, I do want to know about that. Um, and I am going to write the state about that as well. I also would like to know, are there schools that own that light bills are due and they're not being paid? That's another situation that I heard about with the schools. Also, I was told from a relative of mine that I guess they're called occasional therapists that they're making a decision if a parent I think that the school district do not respect a lot of our young parents, black parents. I really do because what I'm hearing is that especially at man school mn that if a parent thinks their child needs a speech class, their child don't need to look at pictures. They need

120speech. Speech is very important for our young children for human intelligence to be able to communicate. So, I'm going to get on that board with that cuz uh one of them is a relative of matter. So, I'm going to take care of that. Um but I want to know that. But nobody if a parent thinks their child needs speech, what is it to the therapist? No, they don't need this. No, they don't need that. You wouldn't do that out in the suburbs. So, I'm going to personally get involved. Not if because it's a family member because I I advocate for everyone. I do want to thank you all for dealing with some of the bullying with the what the principles were doing. I do thank you for that. I thank Miss Merryweather for assisting me

121in some situations. But right now also if a parent feels that their child needs speech, who is it to the occasional therapist to say no, they don't need it? So, I will be calling that school tomorrow with permission of the parent to deal with that because right now as we deal with a bullying president that called a former president a ape, he's talking about us too as African-Americans. So, I feel that this is a time what he meant for evil, God is going to mean for good because that's going to be part of our African-American history to let our students know you're important because you were made in God's image. So my thing is with that we need as we dealing in in this very dark time we really need to listen to our parents

122if they feel their child needs speech that's what they need. Thank you. >> Thank you Michelle George. We have Blake L and Paul Shenot. Blake uh Blake L and Paul Sha. Blake, please go ahead with your comments. >> Thank you. Uh my name is Blake Lavine. I'm a member of the community and I'm here today to to once again comment on the involuntary transfer of Miss Helen Bolton. Um, one week after participating in the district's own training um, on fraud, Miss Helen Bolton reported fraud at Thurkel and was shortly after informed that she would be that she was involuntary invol being involuntarily transferred when asking simple questions like where she would be going or when she would be transferred. Um, she was told there were no answers to those questions or that they would not

123be answered. Uh, the timing and reasoning, if there is any, seem highly suspect to me. Uh, it seems quite irregular for two teachers to be involuntarily transferred. Um, I believe this may have been in the middle of the transfer period, but seems unclear. It seems that perhaps no one really knows when the transfer period starts or ends. Uh, I would also like to bring attention to the fact that the logistics needed in order to make these transfers seem highly suspect. Uh, Miss Helen Bolton teaches 150 students in science over three grades and she's being sent to another school. Um, so who is going to teach science to these 150 students? I believe um there is a plan, a thought, an idea to hire a science teacher at Thurkal. Though in the five years that has

124not had a science teacher and that has been attempted, that has never happened. So I hope that plan comes to fruition, but it doesn't seem like it's going to happen right now. Um, this seems incredibly disruptive and unfair to the students at both and man. And and I would also like to say that um when Miss Howland Bolton uh sent an email out to the staff to let them know of her transfer and to let them know that all of the programs that she takes care of at the school need to be attended to. That's too many for me to count, but it includes the green green schoolyards program. They need to be taken over by other staff members. um you took this opportunity to just start responding to that email telling her basically that

125she should be thankful because she's finally going to be able to teach fourth grade which is what she wants but she's not teaching fourth grade so you were maybe wrong about that. Um and then you were also I mean yeah that's all I really have to say. This seems incredibly suspect and I think that everyone should be putting some amount of interest into this. That's all I have to say. >> Thank you. Uh Blake, uh we have Paul Sha and Natasha Niton. Paul, please go ahead with your comments. >> Hi, good evening. >> Good evening. >> Uh my name is Paul Chenalt. Excuse me. My name is Paul Chenalt. Uh I'm a resident in district 6 in the Midwest Hyman neighborhood. Uh the school in my neighborhood is uh Samson Weber Leadership Academy. Um I'm

126just here to thank uh some people here who've been helping the school progress uh from where it once was. Uh enrollment was pretty low and it's starting to increase and I believe a lot of this is attributed to it. Uh first off, the uh student advisory council. Uh they're doing a pretty good job over there uh along with Principal Farmer um um and his staff. Um the staff over there is uh starting to do ESL uh virtual training uh which is fantastic. Um they're also starting to have uh K through8 uh support programs and uh training for the uh teachers for um the multiling lingual students who will be coming in there whether they speak Spanish or any Arabic. Um uh they also over at Samson Weber every Tuesday um have a language development course

127which is open for pretty much everyone. Uh but it's really for uh the parents and the uh staff. Uh I myself am a resident. I don't have a child or a grandchild that attends, but uh I'm president of my community Midwest Civic Council and uh I believe that it's my duty to do these things uh youth engagement uh for our only school that we have in our neighborhood. Uh we once had about five schools standing in our neighborhood. but now we only have one and we're just trying to do everything that it takes to keep that building open. Um, I do want to send some uh flowers to some folks way uh not just because it's the week of Valentine's Day, the week of love, but just for the hard work that they've been putting

128in. um, Principal Farmer, um, um, and his staff uh, at Samson Weber, uh, Terrence Wheeler, uh, Carol Weaver, uh, Miss Mon'nique Bryant, and Shelanda Buckman. Um, there's more, uh, but those folks and the others who I haven't mentioned have been doing a phenomenal job, like I said, with keeping things together over there in Samson Weber, and we look forward to keeping the school, and we look forward to seeing another school pretty soon. Uh, thank you. I yield my time. Y'all have a good day. >> Thank you, Paul. Um, next we have Natasha Nitson and uh Sabrina Stevenson. Natasha, please go ahead with your comments. Okay, so on November 6 of 2025, my son was injured at Charles Wright Academy. I tried to talk to the principal about getting I'm sorry. I'm sorry. My baby is

129in the hospital fighting for his life because of another student giving him a concussion and the school has not done nothing. I reached out to Dr. V's office to contact him to talk to somebody. and nobody has reached out to me. My son is getting a TRA. He has a TRA now because he has respiratory failure. He has nerve damage due to a little girl shoving him into a concrete wall. I was denied a parent meeting to talk to a parent >> because they don't want to help me to understand why this child did this to my child. My son has been on and off the ventilator three times. Went nonresponsive twice. The first time it wasn't as bad as the second time because my son went without a pause for two minutes. And it's

130nothing that this school is doing to help me at all. And it's hard to get in contact with anybody. >> Especially you, Mr. Vy. It's hard to get in contact with you. I called your office not once but twice on two different days and the lady never wrote an email out to you to get in contact with me. The first time was January 1st I called and the second time was February 4th. The school don't even have the video video evidence of what happened to my son when they were supposed to save it. When an incident like this that bad happens and something can result into as bad as it has for him and he's only eight and he's autistic >> Jesus and nobody has answers for me. None. >> I'm done with this [ __ ]

131Miss Natasha. Uh we we have we will make sure you get a response from our superintendent, but right now Chief >> meeting we'll get you a meeting. Chief Ashby is right there. His chief uh she's going to meet with you and talk to you about how you can set that meeting up. Thank you. >> All right. And final public comment for today is going to be uh Sabrina Stevenson. Actually, I think we have one online. Uh Sabrina Stevenson, please go ahead with your comment. >> Uh my name is Sabrina. I have a six-year-old who goes to DPS schools. Amazing school. I love it. I'm here to talk about people who take our kids pictures. Life Touch has been with schools for over 85 years. 85 years of possibly being prayed upon. I say possibly very

132lightly. Ignorance is a bliss. It's time to pop that bubble. It's easy to say I didn't know. While I'm here to inform you of free public information, the CEO of Life Touch, Leon Black, who stepped down in 2021, has paid 62.5 million to the US Virgin Island settlement of the Jeffrey Epstein child trafficking investigation. He who also paid 158 million over several years to Epstein. He denies any wrongdoing. Of course, still the settlement exists. When he stepped down, Mark Rowan stepped in. You will think someone new. Great. No. Rowan is mentioned in the files 388 times. Black is mentioned 8,265 times. You may ask, what do Jeffrey Epstein, black, and Roman have in common? Our kids. I'm not accusing Life Touch or Shutterfly and said friends of sharing data. I'm just stating public information. So,

133I'm asking the board to discontinue their Life Touch contract. If they refuse to do so, I ask all parents to deny any pictures taken of your child because I have. I asked my daughter, "What's the most powerful weapon?" She said, "A gun." I said, "No, it's your voice." So if you if y'all won't protect our kids, we will. The pictures get 15%. The schools get 15%. Let's make it zero. It matters because it has been multiple cases of kids being physically and sexually assaulted. It's all over Facebook. It's parents that's speaking out. It's parents that's getting lawyers right now because they can't get an answer from our system. These are our children. Who going to protect them if we don't? So, I'm asking again to discontinue y'all contract with Life Touch so we can get

134some Y'all can get local photographers. Plenty of them out there. It's all public knowledge. It's free. Go get it. >> Thank you so much. Uh, I think we are at the end of public comment. Um, >> uh, Miss Drake, do we have >> Yeah. Could you give me your first name? >> Sia Edwards. >> Okay, Sia, go ahead. What's your uh, comments? >> So, I actually came up here because I was going to just be an advocate for my son um, that goes to DPS. So, I first want to say my name is Sia Edwards. I graduated from DPS Northern High School 97. I'm a current resident of Detroit, born and raised here. My son is a new DPS student. He's been in Southfield school since kindergarten. I wanted to talk about the attendance that

135you guys said you had an issue. The issue that I noticed for myself is that you guys don't offer a lot of your schools before and after school care that my son had privilege to being in Southfield School District. The other thing I noticed in in being here at this meeting, which again I only came up here to be an advocate for my son, but let me introduce myself to you guys. I am a subteer for cornerstone charter schools. I go all over from Inkster, Taylor, Detroit, East Side, West Side. I'm all over. And some of the things that some of these people have addressed are definitely some of the issues I run into every single day. One thing I didn't notice that someone on the board mentioned was your pair professionals. You can't do

136anything with a social worker without pair professionals for your IEP students. You have to have someone that's going to follow them around each day so they can report back to a social worker to tell you exactly what that student needs. We have nonverbal students in your special needs who they are not able to communicate at all. You cannot do anything with a nonverbal student without pair professionals. Let's start there. The next thing I noticed that was mentioned also in this meeting is about your teachers. I run into that same issue and I've also seen it. If anything that some of these teachers have said is absolutely true, it's absolutely a disadvantage for these students to have a teacher for a couple of months and then be without a teacher for the whole school year. I

137want to put on the table number one again is the before and after school care. There is a program called Champions. You can look it up. It is affiliated with Kinder Care. They start at 6:30 in the morning and they end at 6:30 in the evening. Um I'm also noticing that a lot of the school that my son attends does not have extracurricular activities. He was privileged to swim, music, um, violin. He also was privileged to, um, doing hockey. His school doesn't offer that. And I'm in the process of even probably taking him back out of DPS because of the fact that what I'm seeing, um, he's at a disadvantage. And I hope you guys will look into all of your schools, not just the ones they talked about today. Thank you so much for

138your comment. Uh we are done with public comment at this time. Dr. Vidia, you have a long list of uh um I guess answers or or comments. Could you um get started? >> Just as a followup to board member Bryan's question, we have four uh K8 uh AP vacancies and one high school. Um the the if I recall the first speaker talked about uh the desire to become a teacher. We have the on the rise program. Uh that's for individuals uh with a bachelor's degree and it's a competitive process uh based on the GPA. So that's the the fastest and um fastest vehicle to become a teacher. Uh if you're working in the school system and not a teacher or outside and want an accelerated process to become certified. Uh we also pay u for

139that certification uh as you work towards certification. Um a gentleman asked about leasing a building. Um I know that Mr. Jones uh I think tracked him down. Um but after all the uh demos that that we have in store will be down to 11 buildings that uh are not actively used and those buildings u could be leased. our website um under our um our facilities uh department uh does outline how you go about leasing a building. Uh that's not only for the gentleman but anyone who's interested. Um the the I was asked to talk about the conversation with Southwest leaders about ICE. Um I'll make some general comments. Um it is clear that our Southwest schools uh have lost enrollment due to uh the ICE attacks. Um uh we also have seen an increase in

140chronic absenteeism. Obviously southwest schools are where the heavier concentration of immigrant families uh attend school. Um I thought a lot about um how to respond to the question uh Mr. Fresh. And what I'm going to do is try to set up a uh teams call with you uh or DFT. Um we've talked a lot about strategies we're implementing now and a lot of strategies that we're working on. Um, but frankly publicly I'm uncomfortable stating those um just because I I think it's best for the school district uh our immigrant families not to talk openly about the strategies we're using. Uh but I do want to make it very clear to everyone in this audience, anyone listening, anyone that reads anything in the newspaper, uh we are actively working uh with Southwest leaders uh to proactively

141uh anticipate increases in ICE presence uh in Detroit. Um, we're doing this uh through individual leaders, community uh organizers and groups uh where school level staff and central office staff are working with those leaders to provide additional resources uh to uh immigrant families uh that have lost family members or are fearful of of the ICE presence. Um but I will talk specifically uh to you about that. Um as far as the midyear data uh and the uh midyear assessments uh related to social studies uh for evaluation purposes uh it's looking at the beginning of year assessment and the end of course assessment. The midyear assessment is just a check-in uh regarding how students are doing. Um, regarding laptops, based on the inventory inventory that I'm looking at, there's 347 HP Elite books and then 128

142HP Pro books. Uh, there are 397 students uh that I see enrolled at CMA. So, we have uh a large number of laptops versus students. So I think it's best um that we continue to talk to the principles to understand what's needed in addition or what's not right working with the laptop dot distribution. The end of course exam ideally should be taken during the um the regular school day and and the class of that EOCC. U but schools do structure their testing schedules differently um based on uh how long the periods are, how long the test will be, how many students are testing. Um so I I will follow up with the principal or staff will to understand the testing schedule for CMA. I'm very concerned about the um statement that a McKenna Vento student

143from Minnesota could not enroll in a school. Uh we have messaged many many times in writing and in meetings uh that uh a McKenna Vento student uh must be worked with and obviously their family u for an easy enrollment process. Uh when a student is coming out of state uh and they uh are designated as McKenna Vento, then they should be able to go to their temporary resident neighborhood uh school um and be enrolled immediately. Um so obviously the concern was named. We know the student. We know the school that that student's at. We will definitely talk to the parent to understand the experiences that the student or the parent had in enrolling um and uh make sure that uh there's accountability there uh and also an opportunity to continue to understand what the law

144states. Um I'd be more than willing to read at Paul Robersonson Malcolm X. Um I'll work on scheduling that. Um, just want to be clear that the slides for the state of schools clearly showed the district's improvement over time since the pandemic versus the state's performance. The slides demonstrate the gap that has been narrowed between the district and the state uh with improvement in at above grade level performance SAT um and attendance. Um uh the parents, uh concerns around the spelling be was noted not only in public comment but in a letter that was sent to me in the board. Uh I'll work with the staff to uh understand uh those concerns and address them in writing. Um CMA concession stand. Uh I know that the architect uh is working on different plans to uh

145try to incorporate a concession stand, but right now the concern is limited space. Uh but there is a commitment to address that. Uh uh our econ teacher talked about a misalignment between uh the curriculum and the pacing guide. Um I'm glad uh those um statements were made because we constantly are trying to work with teachers to improve the pacing guide. uh um and alignment to the curriculum. Uh that's never a perfect process. It's always a commitment for continuous improvement and we have processes to include teachers on that. Uh and we'll be sure to uh invite you uh in an improvement process. Uh there was a $2.1 million uh FTE penalty applied to the district last year uh based on the number of days that fell short of 75%. Um, it's one of our main lobbying

146efforts uh this uh session is to reverse that uh penalty, meaning I don't think we're going to be able to do much of retroactively change that penalty, but it's more about preventing that penalty from being implemented in the future uh starting this year. Uh so I have started to talk to lawmakers. Um our contracted lobbyist is working on this issue. Um and our plan is to uh be able to remove it from state law. It's been in state law for several years. Um, but MDE was not implementing the actual penalty and there were some audit uh exceptions. It was my understanding the state faced and it and the former state superintendent uh it was my understanding was a bit frustrated with PD days using uh being used for instructional days. Um so the the penalty

147was not only implemented here uh but throughout Michigan. Uh Mr. people. Uh I more than I don't know if you're still here. Um but I would I would I invite you to visit a school with me and I'm going to see I'm going to show you how our kids are actually using real books in classrooms. Um we do use laptops and students definitely read off the laptops or or the uh iPads. Uh but we have made millions of dollars in investments in curriculum with hard copy books uh that um I'd like to show you. you can pick any school and I'll attend with you and and you can see those books uh being used. Um I I am excited about the improvement that we've had in literacy, but I'm not satisfied. Uh, I will note

148that um in Los Angeles when you just, you know, when you talk about comparisons, uh, Los Angeles um, school district, 7% of their students are African-American, 70% are Hispanic, 12% are white, and only 25% qualify for free and reduced lunch based on a five-year census review. So, um, not an excuse, but comparing LA to Detroit is like comparing apples to oranges. Um um life touch. It's the first I've heard of the challenge. Uh we'll investigate uh that. Um want to be clear that many parents will ask for services. Uh sometimes a child will have an IEP, sometimes a child won't have an IEP. It's not just a matter of the parent asking, for example, for speech. that has to be identified or validated through an evaluation. Um, so oftentimes, whether they're parents in in in

149our school system or even in suburban school districts, parents obviously want more resources and support for their children. Um, everyone wants that. Uh, the challenge though is when you're talking about speech services, that has to be identified through an actual evaluation and deemed necessary. And then once that evaluation shows that and that's with um a psychologist um and and batteries of tests uh then that those services are provided. Um and there's there's been decades of challenges again not only here but throughout the country between ESSE um parents or stu parents um uh and non-ES wanting services that uh cannot be provided because the evaluation doesn't say that or the services aren't there. But I want to be clear. If you're an ESSE student and it's identified service like speech by law, you have to receive

150those services. So it's not a resource issue. It's an evaluation uh issue often. Um couple of our students talked uh about the Muslim holidays and recognizing those as days off in our calendar. Um I believe it was uh coming out of the pandemic or right before the pandemic uh we did recognize the Muslim holidays in our calendar and and what we found is uh it made us go late into mid June and late June and that calls for more days being under 75 uh% attendance. Uh it also caused um more discipline issues because our students are in school longer. It's hotter outside. Um our schools are not yet all air conditioned but they will in the next couple of years with the exception of about 12. Um so the the challenge in DPSC in recognizing

151the Muslim holidays as days off is not a will is not an issue of we don't want to recognize the days or we don't value the diversity in our school district. The challenge is is we're one of the few districts that have a fiveday mid- winter break that's actually upcoming next week. Most districts, even in Metro Detroit, only have two or three days off that week. And those same districts alo also recognize the Muslim holidays. So it creates a balance in the overall calendar and it doesn't extend the school year into uh mid or late June. Um so uh the calendar is bargained um through the uh negotiation process mainly with DFD, but all the unions are there as well. uh we'll problem solve again as we go into uh bargaining and look at the

152calendar and see if we can recognize those days and not extend the school year by maybe being creative in other ways. Um but I I want to reiterate that uh on those days um for our Muslim students those um holidays are excuse absences uh extensions should be given for exams, tests and assignments. Um uh but uh we will problem solve through the calendar. Um the the last uh issue uh I I also want to say that anyone emails me I I think you see that I email you back. Um uh if you call my office that is registered and logged and it is routed for a response. Uh obviously I don't meet with every parent that asks to meet with me. Um that would probably consume most of my schedule. Uh but everything is tracked

153that when you call or visit the office and a response is given in writing uh anytime someone calls my office or visits my office and that'll certainly be the case for the parent uh that apparently called um from Charles Wright. Um lastly uh just at a at a very high level because comments uh and questions were asked about uh the transfer of Miss Holland Bolton Bolton Holland Bolton. Uh, one, uh, the OIG did investigate, uh, the allegations of fraud, um, and that was unfounded. The IG is a separate independent department from mine and my staff as well as the boards. Uh, they also did not find, uh, evidence of retaliation uh, regarding the transfer. Um, we have 3,000 teachers in our school district. Uh, we have about 50,000 students in our school district. 35% of

154those students on any uh any year will move move into the district, move out of the district, or move school to school. Uh we've done a much better job of trying to keep um teachers at the schools that they're at. But but on any given year, on average, we transfer about a 100 teachers to and from schools based to increases and decreases in enrollment. In a district our size with the transiencies of our students, it's inevitable that that will happen. The only way we will ever get to a point where we're not transferring any students is if we definitely have more stability and and just um student movement or we dramatically overhire in schools um at the teacher level um and then maybe move uh at the end of uh each year. Uh but it's

155hard to do that with the fluctuation of enrollment um from year to year. Uh we've done a much better job and we have been conscious in trying to move teachers when we have to at the end of quarters or at the end of semesters. Um in this case uh Thurkl students at the middle school level do have a certified science teacher. Um and now man also has a certified um teacher. Uh that has been a vacancy. There was no teacher transferred out of man uh to create a position uh at man. That has been a vacancy uh for several weeks. Uh I think that concludes my um responses unless there's uh topics that I missed. >> We are good on topics. Uh board members, any questions or concerns? All right. If you feel like your

156question was not addressed, you can always reach out to the board office um as well as Dr. V's office. Uh, I'm sorry, Vice Chair, you have something. >> Madam Chair, uh, Dr. Bey, I stepped out for a moment. Did you address Mother Redmond's concern about the children that were denied enrollment? >> Yes, he did. >> Awesome. And I think Dr. Vy, it would it's important just hearing this information that we send a reminder to all of our schools. Um, just a reminder that when you have a McKenna Vento, reminding them of the process and the protocol, um, so that we're clear. Um, I think that would be helpful. And any training that we need to give staff around, um, just being informed and understanding, uh, I think is very important. So, we can do that

157next week. That'd be great. Or this week, that'd be great. All right. We are now at agenda item uh, number 14, which is close session. Uh, the chair will entertain a motion to go into close session pursuant to MCO 15.268A and C of the Michigan Open Acts, I'm sorry, open Meetings Act. Uh, one to consider personnel action at an employees request and two to discuss strategy connected with the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement. Do I have a motion to go? >> So move, madam chair. >> Okay. Support. >> Support. All right, Miss Moore, can you do a roll call for close session? >> Bessie Harris, >> support. >> Dr. Ida Short, >> I support. >> Reverend Dr. Bland, >> yes. >> Dr. Iris Taylor, >> Mon'nique Bryant, >> support. >> Bishop Dr. Vaughn, >>

158yes. >> Patrice McClendon, >> yes. Madame Chair, you have a quorum for close session. All right. a motion to return from close session. >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> It's been moved by uh Dr. Klet Van and supported by board member Harris that we return from close session. Uh next on the agenda we will have uh personnel Next on the agenda we h we have personnel action recommended by the superintendent 15.01 administrative terminations uh which are all job uh abandonments and 15.02 termination for cause. Uh are there any questions regarding the personal actions that anyone would like to propose? >> All right I'll entertain a motion to tie. So movement and chair. >> Is there a second? >> Support. >> All right. It's been moved by Bishop Kleta Bond and supported by

159uh board member uh Bland that we tie bar the administrative terminations and terminations for cause. Any discussion? All in favor of tiebarring um the approval of these minutes. Say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> All right. Motion carries. Uh now is uh I will entertain a motion to approve the tie bar personnel action. to approve tie bar. >> All right. It has been moved by board member Bland and supported by Dr. Iris Taylor that we approve the Taiar personnel actions. Is there any discussion? All in favor of approving the Taiar uh action say I. >> I. >> All right. Any oppose? All right. That motion uh carries. We are now at announcements and um I think we're going to post some announcements on our website for anyone to uh you can go to our

160website to kind of see what is up and coming. Just a reminder that the Michigan Secretary of State mobile unit will visit the following high schools from 10 to 3 for uh voter registration and first time license and state ID. That is DSA. um February 11th, Frederick Douglas and the virtual school. February 12th, Central February 26th, Renaissance March 2nd, and Northwestern March 3rd. Uh we need to say a happy birthday to our February board member, Dr. Iris Taylor. >> Happy birthday. >> Um glad to have you here. And then we have upcoming meetings. Our board study session February 24th. Our parent listing session February I'm sorry. Uh February 24th at 5:30, our committee of the whole meeting. February 26. Uh let's read is March 5th. Next faithbased is March 9th. Next board meeting is March

16110th. >> I'm sorry. >> Count day. >> Oh, and of course count day is is tomorrow. >> Tomorrow. >> It's tomorrow. So please help somebody get to school, go be a cheerleader >> and all that. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So move. >> All right. The meeting is now. Thank you. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Good night.