001flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible and justice for all. Roll call, please. Heather Roberts here. Amber Bracket here. William, >> here. John High Street >> here. >> Andy >> here. Mr. President, we have a >> um we have some recognition. >> Yeah. So, yeah. So, uh, kicking the year off with our, uh, superstar employee and superstar students. Um, just thought this would be a great opportunity. Um, back in December, our students compete, our tech students compete in uh, some competitions up there. And I always feel like uh, our tech students, we don't forget about you. and and I know you guys do great things when you're up there, but I thought this is a real good chance to bring you back to
002the local and let us recognize you tonight. And so, um, I'm going to turn over to Mr. Melrose. He has a certificate for you and just say a few words about you. >> So, every year Sinclair Tech, uh, they have the the Skills USA competition. Um, this was on Saturday, December 13th approximately. They had 130 students compete at 31 different events uh at the local skills USA competition held at St. Clair Tech. And the students who placed uh in the top three receive medals and they all advanced to the regional competition in February. And so we have a few of our our uh worthy students here tonight who uh did an outstanding job. And so I'm going to call you up. I'm going to hand you your certificate and if you can go around there
003and shake the hand to the board. And again, we uh we appreciate all your hard work and uh how you are representing uh Elvin High School. So, we're going to start off with Andrew Ferraro. >> First place, Bell Mashini. Gar. >> Congratulations. >> Great job. >> Good job, >> Cameron Milky for cos cosmetology aesthetics. Third place, >> Millia PTO >> for digital media technology photography. Second place, >> award. >> Congratulations. >> We have our other ones did not uh >> could not make it. So So we have Destiny Garska uh who was law and public safety crime scene. She came in third place. We had Ava Ward uh that was law and public safety crime scene investigation first place. Savannah Gernau uh digital media technology photography first place and then Ryan Yaks uh was law
004in public safety firefighting second place. So again we had a great representation from the high school. Again thank you very much for representing us. Great job. uh for a superstar employee um to be uh just a fantastic choice to start this uh this school year off not school year but calendar year off. Um Kenny Thomas uh came to us well quite a few years ago now. uh used to be one of the newbies but uh has become a veteran on our staff now and a and a leader and um just Kenny's the kind of uh kind of teacher that's here first one in the morning generally here very late at night if he's coaching if he's doing something else. Um but just uh very special teacher in terms of building relationships with kids and and
005all he does for the district. Uh, I asked Kenny's administrators to give a couple quotes about him and and a couple of his colleagues and some of the things that they said. Um, from interactions, conversations, and observation, it's obvious Kenny cares about all of his students and their needs. It shows in everything he does in his classroom. Uh, Kenny is literally one of the first people in the building each morning. Mr. Mr. Thomas goes above and beyond for social studies students as well as the groups and clubs he coaches and sponsors. Everyone knows Mr. Thomas as a wrestling coach, but he also recently uh resurrected our golf program as well as sponsoring our Chick-fil-A leadership academy. His preparation, thoughtfulness, and accountability he demands from his students are setting those kids up for great real world
006experiences. We are very lucky to have him and I certainly agree with that sentiment. Kenny's been a great person in terms of anytime there's a need in the district, he's a go-to guy um on the staff. And so Kenny, if you come on up, I really appreciate you. Congratulations. >> Congratulations. Thank you. >> The board of education recognition. >> Yeah. Board of recogni board of education recognitions. Alanite Junior Senior High School. I'm assuming that's uh that's you Colin, right? >> All right. So, we got Colin and Jack here to represent the the high school here and they're they're uh going to uh drop off for you our our tokens of appreciation and again just as a board we we thank you so much for everything you do, all your support uh all through the year.
007Uh again, it's it's it's much appreciated. It deserves more than one day. So, thank you very much. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay. And the elementary and hillside, um, we wanted to thank you for helping us grow with a small token of appreciation. But then we have Mrs. Grove here with us. Her and Mrs. Vanzingle worked hard with all of our elementary students to put together a presentation to also show our thanks. So, please enjoy. We think you'll like it. >> So, there's also um a book that's going to be coming uh for you. We uh Mrs. Van Single and I teach art in STEM. And so, we see all the students from transitional kindergarten all the way up through sixth grade. So, we kind of spoke to them a little
008bit about what your job entails as board members. And um some of them chose to write, some of them chose to make video, some of them chose to do art. So when you have your your books, you'll see that as well. So and this these were the students that chose to make a video. >> I love reading. >> I love I love recess. >> I love I love gym. >> I like my friends and my teachers. >> I love art. I love STEM. >> I love everything about school. >> I love learning. I like math. >> I like to play in the playground. >> My favorite thing at school is books. Thank you for hiring all these good teachers and custodians for um helping the school be clean. >> Thank you, Grandpa. My favorite part
009about school is the food that they make every day. >> Thank you for helping us learn and get smarter and hire the the good teachers. >> We love our school. >> My favorite thing about our school is having fun with our friends and learning about math. My favorite thing about this school is playing outside with my friends and a gym. >> Thank you for hiring fun teachers that do fun activities with us. Thank you for letting us have such a big field outside and a big gym and a wonderful building. >> Thank you for keeping my school safe and giving us healthier food options. >> Thank you for hiring new extra custodians and lunch ladies and providing money for school and school supplies. >> Thank you for providing money for programs and safety for our
010schools and for transportation to school and from school. >> I sincerely thank you for providing our school with money and lockdown drills to keep our school safe. Thank you for helping our school along the way. >> Thank you for making our school safe and helping our school team. Thank you for keeping our school safe by the playground equipment and hiring the teachers and the lunches. >> Thank you for providing good food choices and helping our community. >> Thanks, Mom. I love your cooking. Thank you for keeping the school and the kids in it safe and also thank you for fixing the problems in the school. The school has helped me grow as a person ever since I came here. >> The students and staff at Alganga and Milside Elementary would like to thank you for
011your hard work and dedication. >> Thank you. So, thank you very much. They uh it was fun to try to >> get their take on things and what we explain it in terms. >> That's pretty awesome. >> We appreciate everything that you guys do. Anybody that was uh here for a presentation today, you guys are all more than welcome to stick around and enjoy the rest of this exhilarating board meeting. Or >> you guys can go ahead and slide out >> and there's cookies. >> Oh yeah, cookies over there. >> Don't forget about a cookie on the way out. >> Never forget the cookies. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> It's still there. Yeah. >> All right. I guess we'll move on to consent agenda items. Anybody want to make a motion? I'll make a
012motion that the board of education approves all consent agenda items, including agenda, minutes, personnel items, treasurers report, and bills listed A through C. >> Support for it. Any discussion? Those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Passes. We will move on to our information items. So, we'll start off with Mr. Melrose. Well, first of all, I just uh I want to formally welcome Ella Strunk. She's uh she came to us uh to replace Mrs. Cologne uh kind after after Christmas break. We brought her in and uh she's been doing a really good job. Kind of that's a tough thing to do to come in in the middle of a year and and and pick that up, but she's she's jumped right in. She's getting a lot of support from the fellow teachers um
013from Mrs. Hanners and uh and the other administrators as well. So, we're just really happy to have her on board. um exams we had to shift. Uh they were supposed to be last week, but obviously with the the crazy weather we've had this month that uh they're now uh as of right now this this Wednesday through Friday uh will be the exams and then the the grades will come out at the end of next week. Um and also in that process, we're also finalizing right now our winter NWA uh uh testing. Uh this Wednesday, we have a group of high school and middle school students that are going to a leadership conference at uh at Lance Cruz North. Um, so it's a good opportunity for them. Uh, it's put on by Justins and and uh
014they said they should get a good experience with that working with uh other high school and middle school students from the area. Uh we have also coming up on February 25th, we have a curriculum night um that is going to kind of go again go it's open to all students uh at the junior senior high school, but it'll kind of cover again what we offer in terms of IB, dual enrollment, uh tech, bluewater middle college, all those things that it encompasses. So that'll be out on February 25th. And also, we don't have a solid date on this yet, but uh Mr. Oggov and I are going to work on this, but uh but we applied for uh an apprenticeship wall that's going to be in our athletic commons that we posted. Um we we put
015in for it and and we got a actually a grant to kind of pay for this. But it's kind of nice and it puts up all kind of pretty much what all the apprenticeships that are available or a lot of them anyways throughout the state uh that the kids can look at and again kind of really it goes right into that career and tech field with the students. Right now Mr. is actually in in Grand Rapids at a conference uh that that that kind of helps us with kind of promoting that program. And then we're looking at probably sometime in mid-March where we're going to kind of officially unveil that uh to the public and and bring that in. And again, whatever more uh uh we can present to kids uh with the opportunities beyond
016college as well, you know, is is great for the kids. So, we're excited about that. >> That's a great idea. Moms stage. Okay. So, we've had a lot of PTO events since we've gotten back from break. Mrs. Palaki will cover the daddyaughter dance, but PTO's also hosted a book fair. And um we did have to reschedu Mother Son dodgeball because we had so many snow days during the week. Enrollment was really down for it. So, we extended it a week and and we were able to have that event this past Friday. It was very well attended and um it was probably my last one run it being able to run it with Jen. So I'll have to have somebody new help out next year. So that was a really good job. She's probably you probably
017been doing it for like six or seven years, right? >> Since Avery was in third grade. >> Yeah. So freshman. >> So it runs really smooth right now and she's gonna have to train someone for me. Um also the St. Clair County Health Department came out last week to help the fifth graders um learn some a little bit about water and water testing and they will come back out and do the same thing but actually in the field once spring comes and the fifth graders will be able to test it themselves. Also, um all of our schools are going through power school training right now. Um it's a lot of different modules and that and our secretaries are taking the brunt of it but all the schools are also setting additional people when needed for
018um certain things so we can get ready for the changeover. And lastly, we are still on track with all of our midyear progress monitoring and benchmarking and plan to use the half day at Algangquin to regroup for student needs. Thank you, >> Mr. Bali. >> So, like Mrs. Estage mentioned, this month we've had a couple of great PTO events. Um, I had the opportunity to help with the PTO glow disco dance. It was very well attended and I think the theme was a hit. We had a lot of families showing up in lightup accessories and neon sparkly attire. Kind of thought we should have had a contest because some people really did it up with wigs and glasses and everything. Um, but it was great to see everyone enjoying their time together dancing and visiting
019the various stations. Not only thankful to our PTO, but we had a lot of parent and student volunteers who also helped make that event a success. We are also wrapping up our middle of the year assessments. We're excited to celebrate growth and we'll be regrouping our learners and setting some new goals for continued learning here shortly. We recently learned that Mrs. Grove, our STEM teacher, was one of 110 winners of the Mimic Foundation December Hopin to win grant prize. So, with that prize, the winners get a surprise classroom resource. So, hers is shipped and hopefully we find out what she got here shortly. Um, we also kick off the kids heart challenge this week and that's kind of a fun way for our students to learn more about heart health and they're also raising funds
020to help others through the American Heart Association. Next week, Laura Chamblas, the math consultant from Visa, will be coming in to work with our first grade team on mathematical problem solving strategies. Um, and I think that's about it for now. So, we're keeping busy despite the changes in schedules and keep pushing forward. >> Thank you. >> Um, not too much has been going on this month with us. We have been doing our best to embrace the cold days. Um, coming up with different indoor activities that we can do, although when they get to go outside, they're really loving the snow. And teachers and myself have been brainstorming new ideas for a family engagement night. It's been busy since the start of the beginning or since the beginning of the year. So, in early January, administrators
021met as a team to review K12 um English language arts. We really were looking at our data trends to discuss identifying areas of strength and need. Um we discuss discuss current initiatives and potential areas for future focus and improvement, but really getting an eye on things and how they're going. K12 um MLK day the teaching staff in Alganac all came for a full day professional learning focused on the impact of artificial int of AI on teaching and student learning um it was facilitated by Michigan virtual staff also had dedicated time to collaborate and plan around school climate and culture lessons as well that day uh recently I met with grades six through eight English language arts teachers uh for a work today and looking at think circa so their pilot is getting ready to come
022to an end. We wanted to plan instruction for the remainder of the school year. Um we look forward to the spring data and at that point we'll be sharing additional information with the board um once we get some more data on how that's all going. So, we're looking to finish out the school year with the remaining um materials in the pilot that we have and then we'll bring that information to you in the spring once we have a little bit more data on that. Uh grades 7 through 12 math teachers met after school this month and we're reviewing current pacing and the instructional resources that they're using. Several teachers have implemented um the program Mathematic um to help increase student engagement. They've reported they're seeing increased student engagement really through richer classroom discussions. So these
023are Mr. Luca and Mr. Cook, two veteran teachers, really taking a look to say, are kids talking about mathematics? Um, and so that that discussion was really great. Um, we'll continue to monitor student approve or performance through the end of the year assessments and state testing as well to see how that's going. The district profiled the graduate leadership team met um and really what they met for was to plan for communication and roll out of the initiative in the coming months. Um the the first meeting included both administration and teaching staff from all levels to kind of talk about what that project is, what it should look like, what it should encompass, and how we're going to roll out that communication not only to staff students but also community. Um and finally our we will
024be meeting at the RHA for our district mykit meeting which is school improvement um on March 4th. Once the agenda is received from Risa I'll extend an invitation to our board representatives as well. So that'll be coming. Thank you. >> Um I just have one and the uh St. County Association of School Board. The general meeting is going to be um February 19th at 5:30 dinner will be served and at 7 will be the tech tour. Um I think you you should have gotten that email request RSV. >> It's always a really nice meeting. So definitely if you can come to it. >> All right. >> You said 5:30. >> Yeah. 5:30 it starts. Yeah, just a couple things for you today. Um, might as well talk a little bit about the snow day situation.
025So, um, as I'm sure you're probably aware, the state gives a six day a lotment of snow days, act days. Um, and then beyond that, uh, there's a 3-day forgiveness waiver that you can also apply for, which we are on day eight, and that's because we had to do the one day uh, with the bomb threat um, that we missed. And that does fall under that same category of days. So, it would be a day we have to ask forgiveness for. Um, you know, it just kind of is what it is at this point. I am good. I I I just want to let you know tomorrow I'll be sending something out to the community that just kind of explains this is the aotment. We will waiver for three days of forgiveness and then beyond
026that would be makeup days. I guess if there's one saving grace to it if we did have to make up days this year we end the school year on a Wednesday right now. So if we had to go too extra, I mean it wouldn't be you're not at least looking into another week, but we also have February to get through. So >> and >> yes, we have snow days in March sometimes. >> And we have snow days in March. So um I don't know. I guess I guess if there was any saving grace, it was uh being at the conference this week, I was able to talk to a whole bunch of people from the west side of the state. They get incredibly more snow than we do. So, they're at least in a worse
027spot than us. But, uh this has been a weird year. I've never sat down at a uh January meeting before and been anywhere close to in this position, but we burned a couple days before break. And it's just been um you know, we had that one year with the Polar Forex where we missed I think 12 that year, but other than that, we've always been around four or five I feel like. But yeah, this year they're uh it's just been a rough one. So, we'll uh keep our fingers crossed and hopefully get a little bit of a break with the weather, but like I said, I will send something out to the community, too, just so they can kind of know where we're at with it. >> Do we have a Easter Monday off this
028year? >> So, we could could we cancel that? >> I mean, it's a possibility. You know, the only the only thing that's scary about those obviously is that if people are gone, we worry about making attendance on those days. But um you know that that's that's a possibility we've thought about too. Yeah. >> And it bumps up to spring break. So people >> it does this year. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Like flights booked and that kind of stuff where they can't get back in time. >> Right. Um so last week I w uh was able to attend the state soups conference in Koo. um a lot of information given about uh contract negotiations and just uh back to bargaining when there's not a lot to bargain with. Um that was a lot of the
029topics of the sessions that we were at. Um it it it was actually pretty well attended considering the weather. I think there was 540 um soups there. Uh which is always down a little bit from the fall conference, but it was still a pretty big number. Um and and I and I thought um overwhel I learned I learned a lot there. I mean it was it was good. It was some good conversations with people especially in terms of um you know AI is still a very hot topic over there and so uh actually two or three of my sessions were just about that and and really talking about um different ways to get those tools and Melissa talking about the professional development we did here and that's going to continue to be a push for
030us here in the district because um it really can make teachers jobs a lot easier if they're and have that tools and uh have that knowledge in their hands. So, uh we'll continue to push that push that out as well. >> I know the the three of us went in the fall went to several of those seminars about the AI stuff. I really learned an awful lot about it. I really did. I downloaded one called Perplexity. It's free and I'll tell you what, it is like it is really cool. It's the stuff that different things you can do with it are, >> you know, pretty interesting. >> Like students, it's going to be something they're expected to know about as they market. So, >> we have to start >> getting money from them. >> And
031then just the last thing that I had tonight was just um wanted to make sure I acknowledged uh Louie Roshan uh passed away. And if you uh know Lou is uh one of our only only people in attendance from the uh community at most of these board meetings. He generally sat back there and enjoyed the cookies and and really was uh but Lou always showed up without uh you know was a teacher here for a long time but afterwards showed up here at these meetings. Never had an agenda. never was here for anything just but to keep up on what was going on in the schools and always had a joke for you on the way out the door. So, uh yeah, community will miss him and uh certainly uh may he rest in peace.
032That's all I got. >> Okay, we'll go into our action items. Anybody want to make a motion about the budget amendment? I'll make a motion that the board of education approve the resolution for the budget amendment act number one of 2025 2026 for the general fund as presented. A complete copy of the resolution shall be attached to the original of these minutes for any discussion. Just want to say thank you and Al like, you know, just staying on top of this and always being, you know, keeping us a breast of it. We appreciate it. >> Thanks for not trying to scare us too much, but >> we'll be okay. >> Okay. >> Budget's always a fun job, you know, when things are flying high, but >> yeah. >> All right. So, any more discussion? All
033right. So, um, I'll take a combo. >> Heather Roberts, >> yes. >> Jennifer, yes. >> William, Emry, yes. >> Andrew, >> yep. >> John High Street. >> I wasn't at >> Oh, you weren't here. >> Yeah, he's substainer. I can say yes, but I I need >> Well, you can >> It's a vote of the board. You can vote. >> Yeah, you can vote because you had the the stuff. It's up to you. >> Yes. >> All right. Motion carries. >> Yes. All right. Motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. Good try. Any >> support? Support. All >> in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Good night, everyone.