001got Now we're all good morning. Yeah. Is Lee on camera? Let's see if he's on. Oh yeah, there he is. I'm wishing for some that triple challenge last week. He was in trouble. Good morning. It's 8:00. I'm going to call the meeting to order and ask everyone to please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You need a motion to approve the agenda as presented. So move anything further. Okay. Nothing else shows. All right. We are at our first opportunity for citizens or delegations who would like to address the board. I did not read my script, but if anyone wants to, just a reminder that you're
002limited to three minutes and our policy states that you uh we ask that you please not use board member or staff members names and direct all comments directly to the entire board. What if I think Sant received to be read so we will go ahead and read those at this time? This letter is from Tracy Granada. Uh, I am writing as a concerned community member and parent of two elementary school children who saw the social media post in regards to a special board meeting happening on Saturday at 8 a.m. I know that the state of Michigan has approved a waiver for the school day's loss during the Northern Michigan ice storm this spring. And I know the school board has a final say to approve the wave dates. As a parent, I respectfully urge you
003to consider this decision by the state and accept the state granted waiver for these emergency closures. The storm was clearly an act of God. One no one no one could have predicted or prevented. Thankfully, the state of Michigan acknowledges this by offering districts the opportunity to wave such days. It's a chance to show understanding, flexibility, and leadership in the face of nature's disruption. While I understand there may be some concern about lost instructional time, I believe the greater loss may come from not from a few days missed of school, but pushing students and staff their past their limit during an already long and emotional draining school year. Extending the year for these missed days risk creating a disengaged, distracted, and mentally checked out school community. This could undermine any intended academic benefit. Students, teachers, and
004staff have worked hard all year, often under difficult and unpredictable conditions. Adding more days to the calendar after June 12 risk eroding the motivation, focus, and emotional well-being that there are they already stretched in. Let's not overlook the value of ending the school year on a strong and positive note. Waving these ice days sends a powerful message of empathy, balance, and trust in our school community. It honors the hard work already done during this time by our APS staff to maintain balance for the student when the students return to finish the year strong and acknowledges that learning is about quality, not just quantity. Please consider accepting the waiver from the state and allowing June 12 to stand as our final day. I believe this decision would be in the best interest of our students, teachers,
005and entire school community. Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration. Please speak louder. The next letter is from Stacy Mchuan. Can you hear me? Yes, thank you. I apologize for not submitting this before 5:00 p.m. deadline. I was unaware that I could email my concerns until just now. In fact, I wouldn't have known about the meeting at all had a friend not mentioned it. I'm writing to my express my concern about the last minute scheduling of this special meeting, particularly given the possibility that the board may consider not approving the state's recommendation to wave miss days miss during the state of emergency. Holding a meeting on such short notice, especially during a holiday weekend, raises questions about transparency and the efficient use of taxpayers resources. This decision could have been communicated and handled through
006regular channels or email without the need for a special session. The current end of school date, June 12th, already stretches the school year deep into summer. By early June, many of our students are emotionally and mentally fatigued. This year has been particularly challenging due to the natural disaster and extending the school year further would not only stress our students and families. Summer is a crucial time for families. Many have already made plans for vacations, camps, and other commitments. These moments are precious and fleeting. Children grow up fast, and we only get a limited number of summers with them. I deeply appreciate the compassion the state has shown by recommending the waiver, and I urge the board to accept it without delay. I hope this can be a straightforward decision made in the best interest of
007our students and families. Thank you for your time and consideration. Anyone else? Okay. If not, we'll move on to our uh one action item, which is the 2024 ice storm forgiveness. All right. Well, first off, thanks everyone for coming in and on such short notice. I appreciate that. Uh so I just wanted to kind of walk through the timeline that brings us here today. Um so on May 6th, Cam Kavitt's U House Bill 4345 was approved by the House of Representatives. Uh this week's the Senate on May 21st approved it. I was incorrect. I think I sent out an update saying the governor has signed it. She has not signed it as far as I know as of right now. She is fully expected to sign it. Um, so for comparison, this happened once prior
008in 2018-19. Um, does anyone remember how many snow days we used? It was 19, I think, wasn't it? Um, and so um, number one, all of those snow days happened well before March, April 1st. Um, to the point where it went through the legislature the same as this process is making its way through. But on May 10th, the governor had signed it back then. So, we are sitting at May 24th, 14 days later, still waiting for, uh, the governor's signature. Um, so with that, uh, you know, we, as soon as the Senate passed it, I reached out to the board and said, "Hey, we should probably get going on this so that we could notify our parents as soon as possible." But understand from a legislative standpoint, this is still not resolved. However, the way
009the bill is written, um there is no time frame for what we need to do um that's dictated in the law, however, for the benefit of our staff, students, families, communities. Um getting that decision out as soon as possible is most beneficial, especially since we are 14 days behind um the last time this happened. So, I just wanted to go through to some some details here. Um, oh, and so as far as, uh, scheduling the meeting, uh, we're required if it's an emergency meeting, provide 18 hours notice. And if we're not able to provide that 18 hours notice, we have to provide a justification as to why. This meeting was posted well in advance of 18 hours, not quite 24, but I'm not sure what time it actually went out. Um, but we're well within
010that. Can I interrupt you really quick? Yeah. And just to let people know, we do have quorum. at 4 and uh it was really challenging. Monica was the only one who could do all three, but we put out there a wide spectrum of dates to meet and uh today we could get four people here. Monday we could get three, Tuesday we could get three. So definitely not ideal. Thank you staff and community members for um showing up on holiday weekend. just wanted to um you know midquorum and like Dave said be as uh on timetable as we can with end of the year quickly approaching. So yeah. Okay. So uh the state provides that we have to have 180 days for students in a school year. Our uh contract uh has a surplus day of
011181 student days. The state annually provides for six snow days. Um, and then they also give you the option of applying for an additional three days beyond those. In my experience, anytime a district has asked for the one of those or all three of those days, they've been approved. So, while in a de facto you have six days, you really have up to nine days that are pretty guaranteed to be approved. So coming up to the snow to the ice storm, we had used seven days. Um our last day was February 13th prior to um the ice storm. So with that being 7 days with our surplus day of 181 days, we would only have to report six of those days to the state of Michigan. again because we have an additional student day in
012our schedule. The ice storm started on March 31st. We didn't return at school until April 9th. Um and that was a total of 7 days due to the ice storm. So for the year we had a total of 14 days that we were out due to snow days, ice storm days, um active god days. So working from that 14, if you subtract the six that we are granted, um six snow days, you subtract the three waiver days and then the one surplus day that comes out to needing to uh potentially forgive four days. And so that's what we're talking about at this point for giving four days which would extend our school year from uh first day would be Feb or uh sorry June 13th uh 14th 15th June 16th 17th and 18th. So it
013would we currently get out on a Thursday it would extend to that following Wednesday there. Again, we'd be the discussion right now is around uh forgiving uh technically all seven of the ice storm days, but it really comes down to a matter of four days above and beyond the the typical approval process. I know everyone wants to stay here a long time on a Saturday morning, so bear with me. Um so what happens if if we do uh extend the school year for those days? There is an attendance requirement on those makeup days or extension days of 60% of the student body. Typically, it's 75% on a normal day. Um, and so our senior class will not be in session and that's 7.4% of our uh student body. Subtract away families with plans, staff with
014plans, things like that. Um, we're starting not at 100% but at 100% minus 7.4% because the senior class won't be in attendance. If we don't hit 60% on any one of those four days, there is a very convoluted formula of how the state would take a financial penalty for us. So, I'll try to make this relatively um clear. So our daily payment from the state of Michigan is $210,150. So when they look at our daily rates, if they take the annual funding and then break it down by that 180 days, um it comes out to $210,150. The metric on those four days is 60% of the attendance. If we hit 60% of the attendance, no harm, no foul. If we're 3% below, so a 57% um attends on that day, they're they they prorrate. They
015take that 3% uh of the full amount and prorate it to that 60% um to then take that portion out of our daily um amount. So in other words, if you're at 57%, you still get something, but you don't get the 210,000. you get a again convoluted formula of a percentage of that total amount depending on how far it is. The farther below the larger percentage is taken out of that payment. Is that fairly accurate, Mary? And fairly understandable. The only way you would lose full $210,000 was if nobody showed up on that day. Um, but you're you're more than likely you're going to see a not hitting that 60% mark and so we would be losing those whatever percentage of that funding is. Um, so I guess I would that was a whole lot.
016Any questions on on that portion of it so far? No, I don't want to stay here any longer. Um I just my only question would be uh sitting at the governor's desk um if this is delayed or god forbid not pass what would that look like? Um so if it if it passes again there's nothing that says when we have to do this. If it doesn't pass um 2018. Yeah, I feel like it's all passed unanimously as it went through the first process and then I think there were two people who opposed it in the Senate maybe, but um so I just I just had just a couple comments just I just think this vote it's there's a lot of factors to look at in this because I mean obviously we've never really voted on
017anything like this before and you know I just I feel bad for the kids losing almost three weeks of academics. you know, I think that's quite a hit, especially when our scores are not the best. But, um, you know, I'd like to I'm actually I'd like to kind of look at even next year's calendar, too. Um, just because I know we go till I think June 10th next year, and I know you guys did vote on that already. Um, I was not on the board at that time when the vote went through, but I I'd like to spend some time actually looking at it with you, Dave, and kind of go through it and, you know, just to educate me more on some of these days that we have off and how maybe in the
018future we can look at this because we are in Northern Michigan. We have a lot of snow days, a lot of ice days. I mean, granted, apart from the disaster that happened, we do have a lot of snow days. So, but that's all. Anything else? Ready for a motion? Yeah, I'm ready for you. I move to exempt the district from the minimum number of hours and days of pupil instruction and approve the additional for given time for the period of March 31st through April 8th due to the declared state of emergency and to authorize the superintendent to complete and submit all necessary documentation to finalize the approval. Second. All in favor of hands, please. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We are second opportunity for any citizens or delegations who would like to address. Okay. Uh
019advanced planning AC's graduation on the 4th. June 8th is Alpena High School graduation. June 9th, we have uh Thunder Bay Junior High 8th grade recognition. June 10th is our APS retirement dinner at the Apex. June 23rd, our workshop meeting back here. And June 30th, our regular meeting back here. And with that, have a great weekend. Be safe and we will adjourn.