5 19 25 CAS Board Meeting

001Hey, welcome to the Monday, May 19th, 2025 board of education regular monthly meeting. Julie Loila here. Tim Tarett here. D Buunner here. Matt Monarch. Luke Kusky. Travis Neville here. Richard Pon here. Heather Lake. Would you please stand 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. The first thing on our agenda is the approval of minutes. I need a motion to approve the minutes of the April 28th, 2025 regular meeting as presented. I'll make that motion. Support motion made by Rich, supported by Travis. Tim Tarf. Yes. Debuner. Yes, Travis Neville. Yes, Richard Pon. Yes, Julie Loila. Yes. All right. Next thing on the agenda are is student of the

002month and is going to do that for us. Evening everybody. We're going to start off with Chanel Pink. Come on out here. Pretty outstanding young lady right here. She's a very friendly, hardworking, and talented student who through hard work and great effort maintains high grades and a bold high school is friendly uh I'm sorry, is a friendly face every morning who goes throughout the day with a positive attitude. She also is talented and an active member of the employee is paying treats for schoolwork with great dedication and by ensuring that she completes every assignment with her best effort high quality work. She is always seeking extra help and confirmation that her assignments are complete and correct. Through this hard work, she has earned a 3.8 GPA and is ranked in the top quarter of her

003class. Earlier this year, Chanel underwent a major back surgery that put her on a long and very painful road to recovery. She battled through severe pain to rehabilitate and able to and is able to return to school after about a month of recovery. She's a very brave and courageous girl to be able to overcome that challenge with such positive attitude, dedication to her schoolwork, and a friendly demeanor. I'm very, very proud to nominate Chanel for the student of the month. That was from Mr. Zach Wright. So, congratulations Next one's Wyatt Calhoun. All right. He was nominated by Mr. Boscowski. He said, "It is with great pride that I nominate Wyatt Calhoun as the April 2025 student of the month for his sophomore class. I've had the pleasure of teaching Wyatt in both autoshop and more

004recently in geometry. In each of these courses, Wyatt consistently demonstrates a strong work ethic and a genuine desire to learn. He actively strives to understand new material and continues to excel academically through his determination and focus. Wyatt's contributions extend well beyond the classroom. He's a dedicated member of the school's football team in the fall and also competes in the track and field teams during the spring season. In addition, Wyatt represented our school in the Michigan High School powerlifting competition where his hard work and discipline earn ear earned him a place at the state level meet. Outside of school and athletics, White is also an active member of our community. He holds a part-time job at the Dipper, where he not only provides excellent customer service, but he also, excuse me, helps train new employees, demonstrating

005leadership and responsibility at such a young age. Wyatt Calhoun is a well-rounded student who exemplifies his qualities of hard work, perseverance, and character. His dedication to academics, athletics, and community service make him an outstanding role model among his peers. For these reasons, I'm honored to nominate Wyatt as the April 2025 student of the month. This next student athlete just actually made a great play in center field right before I came out here and so she's not here. That's Miss Addie Patazic. Addison has stood on the stood out in my forensic science class this year. She has a good attitude in the class and turns in quality work. Her written answers give details and include more than just minimum information. If she misses a day of school, she is quick to ask for the miss work

006and get the assignments turned in quickly and in a timely manner. She works well with other students in the lab and uses her time wisely. Her hard work seemed to have a positive impact on others working with her. That is why I recommend her and nominate her for the student of the month. That is from Mr. Weight on [Applause] Eddie. See is Lily right here. See Lily, but this is from Miss Kite. It is my pleasure to introduce Lily Wright as the 12th grade student of the month for April. I've known Lily for three years. She has been a part of the yearbook class, taking on the role of editor in her senior year. Always with a smile to share, Lily has made me and others smile more than she will ever know. A kind

007word to share is the norm for this young lady, and it has been my pleasure to watch her grow and develop into the strong, independent individual she is today. I cannot wait to see what the future has in in store for Miss Wright. Watch out, world. Here she comes. That's right. I see here a note. It says um 8th grade honorable mention student of the month. That would be on. Well, I can tell you I welcome my day every day with us. He's an outstanding character, but I do not have anything in my packet for him. It says nominated by Mr. Deuse. So that awesome. We usually don't do eighth grade at work, but He is a great kid. If you see him in town, freshly haircut, he's looking like me now. Great kid. Great

008kid. So, thank you for mentioning that. All right. Um, next we have Inest Spotlight. Hello. Uh, Nick Kangas, social studies teacher in Vaness Academy here to do the Inesse Spotlight. Um, we do spotlight because we like to highlight our students not just for academic achievements but also for overcoming challenges of life. Uh this uh month we have Gabby Rome. You want to come on up? Uh so uh Mr. Eoy, our English teacher, wrote up a little uh thing. Here's your little all your little goodies in there. You got a shirt, a little plaque. Um so Mr. Eoy wrote a little blurb here that I'm not going to read out for all of you. During this past year, I observed an unexpected and positive trend in Gabby's classroom engagement. As the year progressed, she became more

009awake, alert, and attentive during instructional activities. She participated in class discussions and stepped into an unofficial yet influential leadership role, calling out other students to keep them on task. Quality of her classroom work improved as did the pace uh through virtual courses on Amen. This steady acceleration continued throughout her senior year, marking a notable departure from the trend towards distraction and drift, two well-known symptoms of a condition commonly referred to as senioritis. Many seniors find it difficult to resist the temptation to slack off as they approach the finish line of secondary school. I want to recognize Gabby for her determination to resist the pull of this temptation which she might have felt internally and externally. I'm sorry that I can't be there in person to commend Gabby for finishing well. I want to affirm her

010positive character qualities including personal responsibility, self-discipline, and grit. She should be proud. Well done, Gabby. Congratulations on be selected as the Inesse Academy student spotlight. Now, uh, Mr. McNeel, our math and science teacher, wanted me to add to that without Gabby, uh, there would be no model of the solar system hanging up around half of his classroom right now. So, um, and also I would like to add congratulations to you on graduating. Uh, huge, uh, awesome things for you and your life. So, congratulations. Okay, if you are here today supporting one of these uh one of the student of the month, please stand up so we can give you a hand of a round of applause for all that you have done to support them through getting to this point in their life. [Applause] Also,

011um the newspaper is here and they would like to take the students picture. So, if you wouldn't mind stepping out into the hallway, having your picture taken, then you may return here if you would like. You don't have to, but if you would like to stay, you can stay or you can just say as a get away time. Sorry. And the next thing on our um agenda is the report. And the only thing I really have is just a reminder of our meeting tomorrow 5:30 to 8:30 5:30 to 8:30. 5:30 to 8:30. Yes. The governance training. Yep. Right here in the boardroom, right? Yep. Uh Greg Janicki, who was the individual last year that led us through our strategic planning process, he will be here tomorrow to for uh first he will be working with

012our cabinet group, a majority of our administrators and a few teachers in revising our strategic plan, which is posted here on the bulletin board behind me. So, we did that a year ago with Greg's leadership. He's just coming in um and take a look at our data after a year and maybe do a little tweaks and changes. Uh Jamie has um collected a whole bunch of great data with the help of each of the building principles. So, we have a lot of data to take a look at, some perception data, um some test scores, all kinds of good stuff to kind of update our strategic plan. So, it's going to be a big day for Greg. He's driving up from Lancing and he's going to be with us from think noon to 4:00 for the

013strategic planning review and then he'll take a little break and then we'll start at 5:30 and it shouldn't take any longer than 3 hours for the government's training. Okay. So, next thing on the agenda is a superintendent report. Um, [Music] so I'd like to share some of my time here with Becky from Site Logic. Becky, if you want to come on up. I think most of you know Becky. Um, she's What is your What's your formal title? The I'm the architectural project manager at Sylogic. Architectural project manager. That's a big title. Yeah. So I'm just the project manager throughout the design process. When we have come to have the construction process, we have I partner with another construction project manager. So um we support each other and she's going to give us some updates. Uh

014you guys came into town uh last night, this morning. What was the this morning? Okay. And you have uh you have some she has some of the the site logic design team is right now going around some of the buildings looking at some stuff and uh getting ready for a busy summer this summer but even a more busy summer next summer with the East Elementary project and you're going to give us a little bit of an update. Correct. Correct. Okay. So um where we are at with there are multiple jobs in design right now with uh site logic and for the schools. Um, our biggest focus is East Elementary at the moment or I shouldn't say our biggest, but that is uh where a lot of most of the funds are going to be. Yeah,

015the lion share of the bond you guys are aware of that passed in November. Uh, the total bond was 22.5 million. Over 10 million of that is dedicated to East Elementary. So almost half uh of the of the bond. There's a lot of stuff going on in East. So y um this is cool. So, we've been working through design uh the la really last month's um last time I was here giving a presentation on the unit ventilators and our design um how we're going to help mitigate some of the issues that had happened over the winter for this school and how in the future years um that will be resolved and addressed. Uh additionally, so what I'll show you here is a short video. It's a fly through walkthrough of where we're at with the

016design for the addition on East Elementary. And then I will show you a couple other PDFs that will showcase the finishes. So, carpet and paint, really the pretty things that will be going into that school. Um, and then also just a floor plan update for everybody to look at um and discuss. Is there music with the video? No, there is not. We can get some. So, uh, this is a video too we can post. Uh, Spencer, I can work with you or we can work to figure out if we want to post this video. Yeah, if this is something that we like. Only a few people have seen this video so far. It has not been posted to the public, but um, obviously it is now. Um, but if we like it, it's something that

017we can put out on our website and and share with more folks too. I will war it's a large file, so typically the only reason those tend to be the only reasons that uh prevent any posting. Yeah. Hard to post on your website. So with that, yeah, there's no music and it is short. Um, this is just showcasing an experience as you would walk into um through our new secured entrance. So you'll have an extra door to go into that is the reception area quite quick. Um there is a secondary door that will go through um so you don't have to share. You have a hallway that looks into the existing building. So there's a fire door that we have and that's a small corridor that connects the existing building. This is going into the

018new uh flex room and learning common space. Very brief, but um what that looks like that view looked like from a floor plan view as we were coming in. Is my cursor showing up? Yeah. Okay. uh make this bigger. So you were coming in through uh we're going to be entering in through the the front side. Excuse me. Right now this is the current entrance into East Elementary. So you don't have to park on the other side. This is now going to really enter from that front um facing portion. You'll come in there. It's hard to see with this darker carpet here, this walkoff material, but you'll have a door to come into. This is the receptions that he saw. So, a nice big desk for her to work at and then two supporting desks

019behind. We have a conference room that will be available. So, there's a door here that if uh people want for parents, anyone who want to access that, they can come through that secure vestibule. And then there's a secondary door on the back for the staff to access. This is all staff space here. You have a work room. Um I believe this that is for the one of the counselors. Um so the counselor space is back there. Um we have a new nurse a dedicated nurses area in this uh new addition. Right now it is just kind of a small six feet of cabinetry space. So they will have their own nursing station with a cot and their own bathroom. Um in the learning commons. They'll have their own entrance as well, but uh we'll be

020working coming up in the next couple couple months working with the furniture vendor to really home in on what's going to be in there, the number of bookcases we have, uh what kind of flexible furniture, how that space wants to really be used from not just the architectural standpoint, so the walls, floors, ceilings, but now the furniture standpoint. bringing in everything that can uh just support those teachers and those students, giving them somewhere else to learn uh and have fun. And then on the back side, we have some new uh supportive spaces for the staff. So, new staff room, we have a mother's room, um some expanded hallways, so here for kids to, you know, line up down at the lunchroom. um updated updating all of the toilets so that they're ADA compliant so that

021anybody in the space can be able to use them. All of the classrooms will receive new toilet fixture updates to a degree. So I zoom out. Here are new preK classrooms that will be receiving the new restrooms. And here are the kindergarten classrooms. zoom into this is a new resource area. So where the existing office was that we'll be moving and in its place what we'll be doing is this is a new resource room. Uh this room in the middle is going to become a sensory room for them to utilize. They'll have their own bathroom and then we have our new title spaces and bass spaces. Uh moving up to the top, we are going to be providing we're where the stage is right now. We'll be demoing that, lowering that and creating a storage

022space to support the uh gymnasium, adding a bathroom, which will also just help when those kids need to use the bathroom. They don't have to circulate through a fire door and some of the security that they currently have to go through. So helping with some circumcision when those kids need to go to the bathroom, they're at gym. and then creating the connection point between the cafeteria and the gymnasium. the finishes for the space. You saw them uh on the floor plan and in the video, excuse me, what we're looking to have with those are really just creating a nice calm, timeless environment for these kids. So really not getting too crazy with colors, but just keeping it a nice supportive space so that the teachers can can bring in their flare or we can bring

023in a lot of artwork and letting that stand out against the architecture of the building. This is a digital version of the material palette that's labels. Um other projects we are working on currently with this is the update to the athletic fields uh the athletic track. We are um currently in the middle of design for that. We're hoping to go out for bid with that beginning of June. So working diligently with that. Uh this project for East Elementary will be looking to go out for bid kind of around September is the current timeline. Um with that we will be partnering the inverness. So um I can't remember Spencer if you have informed them but in job uh did not come in our come the bids did not come in in our favor. So we have

024decided to put a hold on that project until next summer. We are going to partner that with East Elementary Job and the goal of that really is to help bring in uh contractors from some of these bigger cities and entice them up to be able to work on these projects. So, they're going to want to bring their contractors up here, keep their guys up here for a longer time, be able to work on the bathrooms at East Elementary, and then also work on the bathroom here. Typically, when we do this, we find that the costs get driven down for mobilization. Yeah, unfortunately for Inveress, we only had one bidder, one general contractor, which wasn't very obviously doesn't doesn't put us in a position to to have people compete. Um, so that and it was um

025that the one bidder was a good maybe not was it two times higher than what we thought something like that. It was pretty pretty expensive. So, yep. by combining it with East Elementary bid uh that'll be going out in the fall. We're hoping that one company, multiple companies will bid, making it more competitive, uh driving the price of the Inesse project down. Yep. Hopefully within our budget. Um um also, is there anything going on? I know we talked about asbestous removal, uh and some other stuff this summer at East Elementary. I know the really the breaking ground of the of the of the you know when we start building walls and looking at stuff like that that's not going to happen till next summer but this summer are we still looking to do any smaller

026projects at East Elementary that they need to be aware of? We are going to be doing the asbestous removal. So working through the floor tile that needs to get re removed at the stage so that that can be just encapsulated and we don't have to factor that into our schedule. that takes about that could take anywhere from one to two weeks to have that happen. And when we're working in the school district with a very condensed construction schedule, it's nice to get some of those items out of the way. So, we'll be getting preparing for that. Um, you know, we don't have a full a set breaking ground date yet. Whoops. But really excited. We're making a lot of progress. And and I think that's something too that we've not even gotten to yet that

027probably people are going to need to wrap their minds around Deanna. um that is uh construction in the summer is is we hope it can be contained to the summer, but if you just saw the design of the front of the east elementary building, uh we're going to need to start as soon as we possibly can um and hopefully finish as quickly as we possibly can, but not not, you know, with as quality a job as we possibly, you know, can perform. So, I mean, there's a there's a small window in the summer, and it's not this summer, but next summer, right? So, we may we're going to need to once we get the the bids and we start talking with the different construction uh companies, you know, how long is this going to take

028and how can we manage school and this project going on at the same time at East Elementary? Right. Correct. That's uh I think the last time I was here we had a con we talked through some construction phasing and that's going to be coming up in the discussions this summer is as we wrap up the design of what you just saw um where we put these into construction documents we call them uh there's a constructibility and construction phasing that comes into that and where we just work through that plan of how are we going we going to build the addition first so that we can then move the ad administration area into there that will then open up some potential areas that we can maybe do some work during the fall so on so on.

029So, it's going to be very very creative work schedule. Yes, we we've talked about a couple different things, but really until we get um the bid goes out and we get a company that we can actually start talking with directly about timelines, it's highly speculative right now. It it is all we're working in the planning of it and it's with schools it's difficult because there's a distraction element that comes into play with kids and anytime we're doing anything outside windows or near them. So we are very mindful of that as we create these plans. Okay. Any questions for Becky? Becky, do you have anything else you want to share? How long are you guys sticking around for? Uh today, tomorrow? Uh we are here today. Um I believe they have moved over to the high

030school. Okay. With their pipe right now. Um we'll be here in the morning for a little bit. So and we will have some in we'll be doing some well drilling. It's called um outside the schools after school is out. June 11th is our tenative date. So, there will be some big trucks outside of the schools and what they're doing is they uh they're taking soil samples for us to understand our footings. So, if you're around out around the community and you see these big trucks outside the schools and they're they go 15 feet in the air, 15 20 30 feet in the air and then they drill down. Do you know where the samples are going to be taken? How many? And I mean, is it going to be every school or is it just

031It's outside uh outside the elementary school. also where the additions are happening outside the high school where we're going to be doing the elevator edition and then a couple samples in the athletic track. Okay. Yes. Um for East Elementary is that so everybody's going to be going in the front. Um so does that mean bus drop off and drop off is all Nope. It's going to be the relatively the same. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yep. We're still going to especially um I don't know if Diana wants to talk about that or not. That might be a little bit ahead of where we're at, but I think uh ideally it's going to be very similar to the way that it is right now. Okay. It is. Yeah, we did discuss that and how it would work

032around there. So, we we thought through we actually have a separate bus entrance. Okay. And drop off. So, I don't know if I lost the signal too much, but I in that there's actually a different door. So, the kids won't be coming out the front door. There's kind of a hidden door on the side that the kids will be able to go through. So, we'll be able to have anybody coming to pick up their kids will go through that secured entrance. It seems to be working pretty well right now, especially with the little kids, the kindergarten. And now we're going to have prek kids. We want to be able to get the the car up close to the door, which currently we can do that on each side um in particular where the prek is

033going to be. That's it's the the drop off point is not very far from the door. And that was that was strategically done that way. So, We'll have a curve in the sidewalk added, so that'll be an improvement as well. All right. Thank you, Becky. Thank you all. Did you want me to If you would like to, I've done this presentation six times now, Julie. No. Thank you, Becky. Yes, absolutely. You're more than I might go check on my engineers. Oh, okay. Sorry. It's okay. All right. Get it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I know some of you have seen this maybe once or twice. Um, this is something that we've been talking about for a month. Uh, I presented this at the curriculum committee last week. Was it last week? It's all kind of

034going together now. So, um, and I don't think all the board members are able to, um, see it, so I'm going to run through it rather quickly and then, uh, if you have any questions, feel free to ask and we can go from there. But right now, we're doing a uh, personnel review at uh, at all school districts or excuse me, all schools within our school district. Um, we feel pretty good about uh East Elementary and also with um what's going to be referred to as the intermediate school next year. Right, Ben? Where's Ben? Where you at? Is he back there? Yeah. Okay. So, um myself and a few other folks met with uh Deanna and Ben and we think we we got a lot of stuff going on, right? So, with with the uh

035the the building of the new uh East Elementary building, uh the addition of prek next year, there's going to be a lot of reorganization. We got our entire second grade moving over to what will be referred to as the intermediate school next year. We have seventh grade teachers moving over to the high school. We've been talking about that for months about seventh and eighth grade, trying to create that junior high feel along with the high school. and Marty and Ben have been doing a wonderful job uh doing all the leg work on that. Uh but now we're trying to figure out, okay, we're sharing teachers, teachers are moving here, teachers are moving there, blah blah blah. And we just had a meeting this morning, Marty, myself, and uh both counselors, and we're continuing to meet

036and work on the high school schedule is a little bit different beast. Uh if you've ever done a high school schedule before, it's not plugandplay like you could do with uh Deanna and with Ben. Um, ideally, you know, it's we're we're contractually capped at a number of students per period. And other than that, it's simple division to figure out uh lower elementary and essentially upper elementary when you're looking at teachers and sectioning. But the high school has so many offerings, right, and so many variables, it can get a little crazy. So, the first thing is I just want to um I think everybody's cognizant of the fact that we have a lot of people retiring. Uh we've talked about this since I've been here last year and this year. We have um a veteran teaching

037staff. So as some of our veterans retire, uh the question then becomes and we got all this movement going on. You really got to take very close look at your personnel to determine, okay, here's another variable we're going to throw in there, you know. So, um, and I want to thank the we have we're not only are they veteran teachers, but we're losing a lot of quality experience, too. Right? So, you're lo you're losing a lot of veteran leadership that these building principles are also trying to manage uh as well as just the the pure fact of the numbering uh portion of all of this. And by the way, I don't want to uh I would like to remind you that we're having a party, right, Liz, for the retirees. Yes, I believe the board

038members got an invitation. So, we've been doing well, we did it last year, we're going to do it again this year. I think it's real important that uh we recognize our um retiring folks when we get an opportunity to do so. And on June 5th, uh we're going to have a little lunchon for them 100 p.m. uh in the intermediates building and that'll be in the cafeteria, right, Ben? Is that right, Liz? And I know Jamie has been working with Liz on this quite a bit and if you were there last year when we did our retiree celebration and it was it was very well done. So, uh assuming that um Jamie and Liz are going to do another bangup job. We're really looking forward to celebrating with our retired folks on June 5th. What's

039that? I was going raising your hand. So, I'm going to try to just paint a picture of some of the things that we're dealing with. I I'm just going to try to give you uh some of the facts and then we can kind of try to put them all together and make sense of it all. But, um right now, uh over the winter um I think it was a January board meeting, but we had to amend our uh our budget. Right, Marlene? Was that January? Yeah. So, in January when we amended our budget, what we found is that we were overspending. And if you recall, we were overspending to the tune of approximately $1 million. So that means that when we what we plan to spend this school year, we're spending a little bit more.

040Um, and I'm not talking about revenues. I'm just talking about expenses because also with revenue, which I don't want to get too convoluted here, but revenue was also adjusted too, but right now I'm just talking about expenditures. So, we figured out in January um that hey, we we we need to we need to take a look at this. Um and right now in January, we were still at 33% surplus, which is great. We have about a $23 million budget. 33% is approximately $8 million. We have $8 million in the bank, right? It's in your savings account, just like you guys have savings accounts. The school district has a savings account. And it's pretty flush right now. 33% is great, but it's not going to be very flush very long if we continue to overspend by

041a million dollars a year. Now, if you guys recall, for those of you of those of you who were on the board, um at the end of last year, I think it was, is that right, Julie? The end of last year, we set a precedent. We set a 25% kind of threshold that we, the board, would like to have our surplus be at 25% or above, which is a which is a lofty goal. It's a good goal. It's a It's a realistic goal when you have 33%. To say, "Hey, we don't want to go under 25%." But the reality is most school districts hover in the area of 15 to 20%. So even 25%'s a little bit high, but still, hey, if that's your goal and you want to make sure that you're in good

042financial status, 25% goal is pretty good. I guess what what we never did get to talking about though is what happens if it goes under 25%. Right? Do we just yell at each other? I'm not sure. I'm not sure what we're going to do, but we we did set that threshold. So, I think at 25% that's kind of more so a warning light for all of us, like, hey, we better take a look at our budget and make sure that we're spending uh efficiently and effectively. The biggest expense we have is um staff, right? So, uh, your general budget, um, is about $15 million. Of the $23 million, of that $15 million, 85% of that goes to just staff and benefits. So, that's the biggest expense any school district has is paying for staff and

043benefits. The other problem that we have is Esser's over. And I' I'd like to congratulate whoever was involved. I know I see an older board member over there that they did a very good job in making sure that they didn't tie esser money to human resources when we were getting esser money long before I got here. Um they were doing some really smart things like doing infrastructure uh curriculum purchasing things that wouldn't have a lasting impact financially down the road. So one of the things that was very noticeable is that even though that the ESRE money is gone, we didn't tie a lot of the ESRE money to human resources and then have to shift it to the general budget. So that's a good thing. The bad thing that P we got $5.3 million over

044the course of about three and a half four years. So 5.3 money $5.3 million. I like to call it Christmas money because that was the co money. That money's gone. But if you you could do some simple math here. If we have an $8 million budget now and we got 5.3 Christmas money, you subtract that, we will really only have 12% or about 2.7 million in the bank. So because because the board and the community and the school district managed the money the way they did, which I thought was very smart, they were able to accumulate a a significant surplus, right? $8 million. But make no mistake of it, make no mistake, it was built on the back of Esser money. Right now, there are some school districts last year, Ann Arbor, who did the

045opposite, tied a lot of ESSER money to human resources, had to cut $15 million from their budget in one year. That's that's almost our entire budget, right? But they did it the bad way. I think they they tied too much of that ESR money to human resources which then were shifted to the general fund and then now they found themselves in trouble and having to make all these cuts. Well, we're not in that position yet, right? But we need we need to be concerned about overspending $1 million a year. Also, there's there seems to be some confusion about uh general fund money and bond money. Uh Becky was just here talking about bond money, right? Sometimes I get this question quite a bit. Uh well, if you're shuffling around teachers or doing this or that

046with teachers, couldn't you take that money and do some that you were going to do uh that you were going to use on the track? Can't you shift that to uh human resources or staffing and benefits? And the answer is no, because that money comes out of the general fund. The money for facilities comes out of the bond fund. The bond fund was just um you know in November was just passed and and essentially was refreshed. We extended our our taxes. We didn't increase our taxes. We just extended our taxes. And by extending our taxes with no tax increase, we were able to generate $22.5 million, but that can only be spent on facilities. We can't we can't say, "Well, you know what? I'd like to I'd like to move some of that or shift

047some of that over to staffing and benefits because that's where we seem to be losing money. You can't do that. As a matter of fact, the state um the state had to approve our our our budget. We had to come out with scope and sequence. If you guys remember that were part of that, it took us months to come up with scope and sequence because I had to go to the state. The state had to approve what we wanted to do. And then once they approved what we wanted to do, then we took it to the to the uh community um in November, right? And let them vote on it. But the state, the reason that we wanted the uh approval of the state is because if you get state approval, your interest rate is

048reduced. So we have we have a lower interest rate because our bond was approved and supported by the state. But now we got the state looking over our shoulder, too. So, that's another that's another entity that's saying make sure you spend it on what you said you were going to spend it on. So, here's some things that we we're planning and Becky was just talking about. Uh the tracks going to be replaced this fall. Inest bathroom Becky just talked about. Um East Elementary. We have some tennis court renovation stuff going on hopefully this summer. But the biggest of that 22.5 million is East Elementary, right? We're going to do some minor projects at East Elementary with an asbestous removal and some other stuff, but the majority of the construction work and the majority majority of

049the expenses will occur not this summer, but the summer of 2026. There's going to be a lot going on at East Elementary in 2026. That summer, now when I got here, we were finishing up the old bond, if you guys recall, those of you who were here. And when I was here, we did a lot of stuff um as we used up the rest of that bond money. And if you remember, there's a time limit on your bond money. You have approximately 8 years. There might be an extension a little bit. So, we were finding we found when I got here, we had bond money that we had to spend. We kind of had to spend it rather quickly. So, back then, you guys were already working on parking lots in all the buildings. You

050guys were already working on roof on multiple buildings. Um the the high school fitness center came out of bond money. The bleachers, science labs, locker rooms, all that stuff was the end of that um that that original bond um prior to the one that was approved in November. So just real quickly, we don't want to get bond money and general fund money um mixed up. So real quickly, how do we increase revenue? One of the things that concerns me the most and I've shared this with everybody who will listen to me is um our our funding is based on enrollment, right? So everybody understands that with every student that we have that wants to because of school choice, any student that wants to come to Shabboan or if they want to move their entire entire

051family into our school district, that's how we generate our revenue to run our schools. That's that's where we get the most of our money for our general fund. My understanding that this year it should be around right now I think it's $9,620. Next year it's supposed to be over 10,000 hopefully if the governor keeps her promise. So every student that we have enrolled in Shabboan multiply that by 10,000 that's where we get the majority of our revenue to run our school district. So right now we're around 1500 students right? If you multiply that by 10,000 that's $15 million that we can count on every year. The only problem with that number 1500, anybody know what the problem is with that 1500? Jamie, you should know the problem. Uh, enrollment keeps decreasing for the last 15

052years. Thank you. You have been paying attention, haven't you? That's that's incredible. It's really incredible to me that if you go back to what was the company's what? Proctor and then the hospital and the hospital closed. Ever since then, and it's not been it's not been egregious. It's not been like a real big drop one year. It's just been kind of a steady leak for 15 years. But the thing that's been consistent for 15 years is that it's gone down. Right? Matter of fact, in 2021 till now, 2025, it's gone down 100 students. 100 times 10,000, right? A million dollars. So, we need to be a little bit more. And I' I've shared this with the building principles. will they'll attest to this. They're tired of me uh saying this as well, but anything that

053we can do to draw students, we should be doing, right? I think doing some of the things that we're doing with athletic facilities, some of the the programming that we're adding, I think it's really um we want to be a destination district, which means that when people move up from middle and southern Michigan, this should be an attractive place to move, right? I want to move my family here. they got a they got the EMC program or they got a brand new prek program or they just renovated their elementary school. Any reasons that we can um kind of promote people to choose Shabboan over other uh school districts in our area uh we want to try to take advantage of that. I think all of you know that there's 10 school districts in northeastern um

054Michigan and we're the second largest one behind Gaylord. So in with that we have a lot of programming too. So, we are kind of a big dog in a, you know, uh that that should be able to um attract people that are moving up north that want to move a family and children. Um what else do we have? So, I I talked about two programs real quick and I think most of you are aware uh obviously we're adding prek next year. EMC is in its first year right now, but that those are examples. Those will will actually increase enrollment. And I know we don't talk a lot about that, but um right now I believe Deanna I can't see her, but I think she's over there. Deanna, are you there? And there she is. Um

055so right now we're looking at having two sections of prek next year. Correct. So that and it has to be capped at because it's um it's it's GSRP which is governed by the state. 32 is our max 16 per section. So we feel that right Diana we feel that we're going to have 32 next year. Yes. Thank you. Right now we have 25 as juniors in the first cohort of EMC. Um and next year these juniors will be going to seniors right and I think uh Marty and Ben you guys have already recruited the next incoming uh set of juniors and that what are we looking at there? Approximately 30 plus 30. Okay. Okay. So, as these 25 go from juniors to seniors, we got another group of sophomores, 30 of them next year that'll

056be part of EMC. So, that that program will keep building. And then the year after that, these 25 will be fifth year seniors essentially. And when they become fifth year seniors, we actually get um money for them because they're they're they're still considered high school students. So that's how um that helps subsidize the EMC program is when those students start to get in that fifth year, we we can um we can receive monies for that. So right now if we just if you just looked at these two numbers, so when they become fifth year and we get to 32, that's 57 students, you know, building these programs, bringing more students in. And you're not these aren't money makers. We're not doing this this it's it's what it's what's best for kids, first of all. um

057dual credit and prek researchbased. That's what's best for kids, but um it's also allows us to just help subsidize it, too. I don't think we're going to get rich off this or it's going to add much to our surplus, if any at all, but at least it will help pay for the teachers, we hope. So, we talked about how do you increase revenue? Well, what about expenses? Um in the recent past I showed you that list of retiring teachers. Um we just when when a teacher will retire we would just fill that position. Now through some um doing this personnel review as people are leaving and as enrollment has went down the one thing that our very intelligent principles have figured out is that maybe we don't need to hire one for one anymore. Maybe

058there's a somebody that already has a certificate that could be moved and then we could uh through attrition start reducing some of our expenses. All right. And I think right now talking with Deanna and Ben and Marty um we could eventually reduce maybe three, four, five teachers by the time this is all said and done just by moving students or moving teachers around based on numbers. So, right now, let me give you an example. Of all those retired teachers, I'm not going to tell you which one. You're going to have to guess, but one of those uh teachers, the most expensive retired teacher that we have leaving us cost the school district $165,000. Now, if we replace that teacher with a younger teacher, it would cost somewhere, is this right, Marlene? Around 87 with with

059uh salary and benefits complete package. Yeah. So, that's that's that would cut some expenses. That's one way to cut some expenses. The other way is um to have the principles ask each other, do we need to fill that position or somebody certified? And by shifting the numbers around a little bit, could we um consume that position? So, these are ways to reduce expenses in all of our we've been talking about this uh for a couple of months now. These are just the averages. On average, a teacher costs us, if you were to average out all of our teachers. Uh, on average, they cost us about $120,000 a teacher. Again, 85% of our overall budget is um staffing and benefits. 10,000 for each student that we bring in. The break even point, this is some people

060ask me, where do you come up with students? Right? So, 15 student, this isn't my number. This is just an arbitrary number that's been brought out at the time. So 15 students has been the number that ideally will pay for a teacher. So if you take a look at all of our teachers and you look at their case loads or their sections, if they all average out to be 15 or higher, then we should be in a pretty good position, right? It's when you start looking at how many classes do we have under 15 because then we're underfunding, right? We're we're spending more than we're bringing in. So and that's not a fixed number either. I think some I've had a couple questions like, well, if you have 14, does that mean the section doesn't

061run? No, that's not what that that's just it's kind of a informal guide. Uh we have classes under 15 that are going to run, right? They're anomalies, but we don't want a bunch of them, but we are going to have some for good reason run under 15, but 15 is just that kind of number. That's halfway. The maximum amount of students that can be Where'd it go? Right here. So the maximum numbers for preK 16 per for per section. For K1 classes contractually the maximum is 24. Grades 2 through 6 26. And this is tough but I was a high school teacher. I had some classes that had 32 students in it. It wasn't the greatest time in the world. But um that that's the that's in the teacher's contract. Those are the maximums. But

062right now I'm just talking about 15 just being an average. It's an informal average, kind of the break even point. Any questions about that? I'll run through these last few here real quick. Talked about that. We've talked about that. Here's what we have left. So, here's We're still We're not done. We're not done with the schedule. I met with Marty and and the counselors this morning. They still are tweaking and moving and shuffling. I think Ben and Deanna are pretty close to having a good schedule and are done almost, but I know the high school isn't. We still have opening open teaching positions right now. So, uh, we have a Woods teacher that's retired. We need to fill art, Spanish. We have a guidance counselor that's moving to AP at the, uh, intermediate building, science

063teacher, and elementary teacher. So, we still have some work to do. These positions are posted. We're collecting uh resumeumés and we'll be interviewing and hopefully at the June board meeting we'll have uh some people to recommend for hire. Does that make sense? So that's my presentation. Does anybody have any questions about what we're doing? This is something that Marty and I and the building principles talked about to be good fiduciary responsible uh leaders in our district. We should be doing a personnel review every year. It's not something you do once a year, once or only when you're losing money, right? I mean, just so just so happens that with this year we are overspending, but ideally this needs to be a part of our structure of our processes. And a matter of fact, I know

064talking with Marty this morning, this is something we probably should be be doing a couple months earlier than this. We're getting kind of late in the game. This is May. You got June. We're still looking to hire some teachers, right? I'm starting to panic a little bit, right? It's like, okay, we need to really start rolling on this, but I know we got some good applicants and I know Marty's got um some interviews set up for next week, right? Next Tuesday. So, does anybody have questions for me? All right. Thank you. Thank you, Spencer. Y Hey, so the next thing on the agenda is the curriculum committee update and uh we had a curriculum committee on meeting May 13th and we talked about uh the sex education board updates. Uh Joan Maloney shared that we

065are in good standing with the state by having the required health committee in place. He noted that districts can lose up to 10% of state funding and found to be non-compliant. Joe also reported that the sex education committee which he chairs typically meets twice a year but has convened three times this year. Our district currently uses the Michigan model for health which aligns with both state and national health education standards. And then we talked about the preschool update with uh Miss Duckton. Uh she she shared the updated elementary procedures and the family handbook that she has been developing. Enrollment has been increased from and currently stands at 22 students of the total of 33 available spots. After that, we talked about the building comprehensive needs assessment with Jamie and each building had the opportunity to

066showcase the comprehensive needs assessment they have been working on throughout the year. The state requires CNAs for the building, receiving grant funds and completing them and consider best practices for evaluating data and making informed data datadriven decisions that guide funding. These assessments will also be shared, discussed and we will gather input from the stakeholders at the incoming district improvement team meeting which was today. So that happened to the meeting was today that that discussion took place. Next she talked about perception data and process data. Jamie shared that the perception and process data to data sources that are updated annually and included in our comprehensive needs assessment. For a more detailed breakdown, you you can refer to each building through those links that are on the they're on the agenda or meeting report. Um, next we

067had a curriculum update by Jamie. She went through strategic the strategic planning website, the monitoring process, math curriculum process, ELA process, and the needs. She focused on instructional model 2 through 12, leadership coaching, MTSS, academic, continued support, PD needs, 712 BLA resources, and advanced English. Jamie shared that there has been interest in the creation of a strategic planning process monitoring website which would allow all stakeholders to monitor pro progress. She presented a draft vision of the site and we reviewed the academic portion. Jamie also reviewed the math curriculum work completed to date and provided an update on the additional work underway in ELA. As part of the curriculum development process, she identified several emerging needs for next year. um focused instructional model and evidence-based approach to support student growth on uh priority math standards. The

068model was used in a one grade level and showed promising results. uh leadership coaching to ensure fidelity of implementation. Ongoing MTSS academic support meetings to refine and adjust curriculum maps as needed. Professional development days, structured time to allow staff the time necessary to complete this work effectively and ELLL resources for grades 7 through 12. Jamie is still in the process of gathering data to inform this decision. The last thing we talked about were postings and new hires, which Spencer just covered. Any questions from the board? All right, the next thing on our agenda is um an early graduation request that we have. Everyone has gotten this uh notice in their packet. Um, we have a student who would like to graduate at the end of first se first semester of 2025, which would be in

069December. She would like to graduate at that time. Um, has everyone had a chance to go through the letter? You want me to read it? Okay. So, it says, "Dear Principal Marty Mix, I am writing this letter as a request to graduate early in December 2025 instead of May 2026. My reason for early graduation is to be able to attend Great Lakes Culinary Institute at Northwestern Michigan College in Trevor City. When the classes begin on January 10th, 2026 at CHS, the required number of credits to graduate is 22. As of right now, in my third year of high school, I have 21.5 credits. The last required credits I need to graduate are a science credit and a senior math credit. I've spoken with my guidance counselor and they have come up with a plan to

070reach out to reach the rest of these credits by the end of the first semester of my senior year. I will be taking three hours of culinary so that the half credits from the two of these hours will count as a full senior math credit. I've also been a part of the CAP jazz lab since uh my eighth grade year, which has given me the VPAA credits in place of a science class. Registration for the Great Lakes Culinary Institute is October 15, 2025. If there is a need for me to if there is a need for me to register early to satisfy all requirements for graduation, I would be happy to do so. In addition, I would like to request to take my first semester final exams in December 2025 before Christmas break in order

071to be able to attend GLCI in January right away. Please let me know when the best time is to set up a meeting with myself, my guardians to discuss any further questions or complications. So, uh she is asking to graduate early and she has the requirements met. It's up the board to um determine if they agree with that or not. Um so what I need is a motion to allow student A to graduate in December 2025 to be able to begin college classes in January 2026. And I hope I understand. I'll make that motion. Um, Travis is making that motion. I'll support. And it is supported by Deborah. Marley, I'm sorry. Are you going to have any discussion or are you good? Any questions? You want discussions? Questions. Discussions. She's good. Marty gave a thumbs

072up, right? Yeah, absolutely. She's outstanding. And and one thing that that makes her stand out, she did the entire process and had all of the things that she would need prior to even coming to us on this. She made sure that she had every every te cross and every eye dotted. She's outstanding and a heck of a good cook. We got to experience her finals first semester this year. I I just like to say too, I think we're very much in support of of Marty and and Ben at the high school. Kids are at a point in which they can graduate early. Uh there's some administration, not necessarily here, but other places that frown upon graduating early, but if a student is ready and they're ready to they got a plan to move on, I

073think that's wonderful. They still come back for prom, things like that. Graduation ceremonies, stuff like that. Any other questions? Tim Tariff, yes. Doug Buuner, yes. Travis Neville, yes. Richard Pon, yes. Julie Vila, yes. Okay. So, the next thing on our agenda is a finance, building, and grounds committee. We're just going to get that. It's going to be short since Spencer pretty much talked all about it already. Okay, we got a finance meeting buildings ground meeting on the 13th. First thing was a presentation given by FPG related to using AI tools on the website for us for data analysis usage to make the website more consumer friendly. Sort of like a chatbot, you know, you know, a question you can type in there and stuff. uh but it was just to us. So the next step

074is uh Spencer's going to be having the same presentation with all the building principles to see if they think it would be useful. It wasn't cheap. It was only $675 to get it installed. It's about 5,000 a year license maintenance thing. So I'm not sure how much usage we'll get out of it. But anyways, that's up for the building principles to decide, I guess. Uh we have a truth and taxation hearing. It's on the agenda. Uh the budget through April is reviewed. Uh one of the things with the expenses being lower than what it is with the uh incoming is that the three month salaries for the teachers will be acrewed in June. And then in June we also have to do the 2025 2025 and 2026 budget. Uh essentially as Spencer talked we uh

075we're in deficit spending. Now one thing we have to remember that the budget revenue budget revenue for 2024 was 25.2 million but actually came in 900k less after all said and done and we got through all the year end reports. We were still short on our revenues even though we had the budget. Uh we had a discussion on how to reduce operational expenses and increase revenues. See Mr. Spencer's report held the discussion on the tennis courts project possibly converting to dual usage pickle ball/tennis courts with an area for fitness equipment. A lot of discussion about the ground whether you use chopped rubber, chopped wood, whatever. Uh we need to really look at that before we progress with that. The IT server was approved in the April meeting. It has been ordered and then we have

076just found out it's also been installed and all the new cameras have been hooked up and it's working beautifully. Uh the sidewalk project at the middle school, the issue with the sidewalk project at the middle school is it's a small project and we're struggling to get architectures to even want to get involved in designing. So what we thought would be a cheap thing is starting to get kind of complicated. So, uh, Steve was going to ask site logic to, uh, quote the architecture work just as a standalone project com considering all the business we're giving them. And then we also reviewed the manager contract changes and the manager contracts have been recommended for approval. And that was it. Meaning, any questions for discussion? I'm sorry, but I can't take from audience, but if you would

077like it. No, it's fine. I was just going to ask where the what sidewalk, but so the cover the covered sidewalk along the uh middle school going back pickup. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We were all thinking throw up some aluminum things and you need to be Steve did find an architect that's um an individual local architect that would could I mean because right now when you go to some of these corporate architect firms that we deal with bigger projects they want to charge you $25,000 for a drawing which is ridiculous but we we think we found a couple local architects that would be more realistic um for this particular project. I know Steve's I don't know if you guys know but Steve's on vacation this week. Otherwise, he probably would have had some information for

078us. But I think uh I think we we'll find somebody that'll be more reasonable just slow the process. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, the next thing on the agenda is the payment of bills. Uh, I'm looking for a motion to acknowledge the payment of the regular invoices in the amount of 300 $830,643.16. I'll make that motion. Support discussion. Kim Tarta, yes. Deb Buuner, yes. Travis Neville, yes. Richard Pon, yes. Julie Loila, yes. Okay, the next thing on our agenda is the approval of the manager's contract that has been recommended by the finance committee. I need a motion to approve the three-year manager contract as recommended by the finance committee. I'll make a motion. support. Any discussion on that? Questions about the contract. Tim Tarjek, yes. Doug Buer, yes. Travis Devil, yes. Richard Pon, yes. Julie

079Loila, yes. Thank you. Okay, the next thing on our agenda is to set a date for the truth and taxation hearing. Normally, we set it at the June board meeting 15 minutes prior to our meeting. Um, I am looking for a motion to set the 202526 budget hearing for Monday, June 23rd, 2025 at 6:15. I'll make that motion. Support. Motion made by Deb, supported by Tim. Any discussion? Tim Tarte, yes. Deb Buuner, yes. Travis Neville, yes. Richard Pilon, yes. Julie Loa, yes. The next thing on the agenda is the [Music] COP resction resolution. Um, each year about this time to do this. Um, we I need a motion to designate somebody to volunteer to go to this other attachment. There you go. Who's not now? Tim did say that he would do that. So, if

080everyone is in agreement with Tim as the person. So, all right. So then I need a motion to designate Tim Tariff as the representative to the COPD electoral board vote. And we also need an alternate. I'll make that motion. I need an alternate first. Somebody Google in case Tim Kim can't go. All right. And Deb will be the alternate. Any discussion about that so far? I'll read the motion again. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. I need a motion to designate Tim Tartra as the Shboen repres representative for the COPD electoral board vote in Deb say there I don't want to say it wrong. Um as the alternate the designated representative is a is directed to cast votes on behalf of this board as follows. Um Dennis Budnick Mitchell Hints and Julie Waldro. We need that motion. I'll

081make the motion. I'll make the motion, too. We all support it. So, I So, um, Travis made it first, right? Okay. So, Travis is making the motion. I need a second. Support. Tim support. Any questions, concerns, discussion? Timarta, yes. Deb Buuner, yes. Travis Neville, yes. Richard Pon, yes. Julie Loa, yes. Okay. So, the next thing on our agenda is the COPD 202526 proposed budget resolution. We have that in front of us and we have to decide if we would like to support it or not support it. So there are two motions and you need to choose one with either the word support or disapprove. The budget is there. Um if we do not support it, we have to send to them in writing reasons why. And just because we don't support it, it does not

082mean that they will not ex accept the board the budget their budget anyway. So if you had time to look over that, if not, I don't know if you want a couple of minutes to look over a couple seconds or a little bit to look over that. They have a surplus now and they expect to maintain that surplus. Best way to put it. They're matching revenues with expenses, which is this environment good. Okay. So, I need a motion to adopt the resolution in support of the COPD 202526 proposed budget or motion to adopt the res of to adopt the resolution disapproving the COPD 202526 budget proposed budget. Okay. Make the motion to adopt the resolution in support. Okay. Motion made by Rich. I need a second. Support. Support by Travis. Any more discussion? Arlene. Tim

083Tarta? Yes. Doug Buuner? Yes. Travis Neville? Yes. Richard Keon? Yes. Julie Loila? Yes. Okay. So, the next thing on our agenda is the athletic committee update by Travis. I got this. Okay, we did uh something that we haven't done before. Spencer had a great idea to bring to invite all the varsity coaches to come to our meeting which was great. So, we got some great feedback from them. Uh people who were present uh football, girls golf, varsity volleyball, JB volleyball, cross country, girls soccer, girls basketball, wrestling, uh boys basketball, soccer. We have coaches from all those programs present. We cover the track and soccer field improvements. We are it's going to be a full rebuild on the track. We're going to go all the way down to gravel, asphalt, and then rubber on top. We're

084going to change where the start line area is. Currently, it's backwards. We're going to be starting on the other side now. So, they're passing you up from the home stands from left to right instead of right to left, which is the way it's supposed to be. Uh taskport res renovation. We talked about that briefly. earlier. Uh there are four courts there now currently. Four tennis courts. We don't have a lot of tennis players and input from the PE department as well as uh community members. Pickle ball seems to be a big deal. You you can fit I think it's four pickle ball courts per one tennis court. So we're going to at least do four. Uh and then we're looking into potentially making two of the courts. We'll keep one tennis court. So there's two.

085Then we have two left. uh talking about doing a a uh like an outdoor activity, exercise area, workout area. Again, be nice for community as well as a nice change of pace for various athletics and PE classes. Uh let's see here. The basketball hoops in the main high school gym, the game courts aren't changing, but we recently changed where the practice hoops are. We moved those uh 90°, made it a lot easier to use the gym, and evidently we didn't kind of overlooked some electrical stuff. So, that all got done finally there. Now, all of that's completely functional currently, which is good. Our current high jump mats, I guess, are pretty outdated. We had to hand cut some areas in there to out of old pads to make it so the high jump bar would

086fit and make, you know, MHSA rules. So, we're looking at buying some new high jump mats. Uh, with the renovations to the middle school gym as well as renovations to the high school, we've got to get new end mats underneath the basketball hoops. So, we've asked the um principles to look into what kind of designs they want. Athletic director as well. Anybody really wants to get some input, welcome to do it. Uh, let's see here. We put together a group email for all varsity coaches and that's very handy for things like scheduling. So if you're a football coach and you want to run your camp and it happens to be stomping right on what softball wants to do. Well, this is a good way for coaches to be able to say, "Hey guys, I'm looking

087to do this, this, and this." And other sports can jump in and say, "Hey, that's going to interfere with this." Just a good way to keep from pulling kids in two different directions, which we don't want to do. We always want to encourage kids to play multiple sports and we don't want to make it have them feel like they need to be exclusive for any reason. Then we ask the coaches, hey, in a perfect world, what are some things you'd like to have? Um, golf has a reasonable concern. You know, it's it's wet and it's cold up here in the spring. and he was talking about, hey, maybe it'd be cool to have a some indoor simulators, which turns out you don't need a real ridiculous facility. A room like this would be fine. Doesn't

088have to be a gym. Um, and we're looking at maybe doing four of them. It would help the golf team. It will also be a cool thing for PE. Like, it's a thing we could do a lot with. So, we're excited about that. I I talked to Marty about maybe looking for some spaces to put that uh cross country and track. They want internet access in the press box, which we're already planning on doing. So, that's good. Um, let's see. We're considering because we have more than We have extra buses. We have more buses than we have need for buses. We're looking at taking one of them and it's very inexpensive, like five grand, I think. And we're going to we're thinking about wrapping it with our logos and making it our athletics bus. It

089really makes a nice impression when you're pulling into another school and uh you got a bus that is, you know, it's athletics oriented, got a school colors, things like that. Kasca does it, Gring does it, a lot of schools in our area do it. Cool thing to do. Um and we probably can get that money donated. So, that'd be a neat thing. Uh we also doubled up on the idea that we all coaches all agree we want to have multiple sports per kid. Um, let's see that wrestling has been borrowing wrestling mats from Pelston. Pelston doesn't even have a wrestling program. So, we've asked them to present to the athletic committee what it would cost us to get them the mass that they need so that we can actually have what we need here. It

090sounds like that's pretty inexpensive as well. and they said, uh, again, wrestling coaches were talking about maybe launching a girls wrestling team, which would require a girls wrestling coach, which feeds into this other thing. We're looking at having a girls FAP instructor as well. So, again, kind of uh, you know, best, you know, perfect situation if we could get that to happen. But it's a thing to have on the radar if we come across somebody that could, especially with our open positions, we can find somebody who could do that, be pretty cool. Uh, I think that's about it. Yeah, we got a lot done. Again, with having the varsity coaches there, we got a lot of information. It was very helpful. That's the athletics update. Questions for Travis? Okay. So the next thing on our

091agenda policy committee is going to um policy committee met last week as well and we tackled the last big hunk of policy um the 5000s. Um, in 5106 under transgender students, uh, we had to choose make an op or a choice. Um, and we chose to go with the option allowing a case-byase basis for singleuse bathrooms andor locker rooms for these students. Um, 5201 clarified that parents must be contacted if law enforcement wants to question our students. 5203 clarified hazing as prohibited contact or conduct. Um 5206 BC and D some student discipline issues. U most of that was just some language clarification. Um, but part D was some optional language that we did adopt that says the district does not have to enroll a student that had been expelled from another district for a serious

092discipline issue. Um, on 5209 under cell phone usage, we already had the adopt uh optional language, but it came up in discussion. We weren't really clear on what current policy was um because admin is new, they just inherited these policies. So, I believe Spencer was going to talk to them about um putting together what they truly want in regard to policy and cell phones. And then as long as um a commitment is made that it is consistently enforced, whatever the policy be, that's where we're going to leave it for now because there is legislation that may change both the transgender issue and cell phone issue eventually. But to put it in place and be compliant with our needs to have policy in order, we made those decisions at this time. uh 5if 5400 or 5410.

093You have a single sheet of paper in front of you too. And um since Julie and I were the only are the only two board members that were able to be there the other day, policy came up um whether a student can walk or not walk during graduation if they're one or two credit short, one or three credit. what we currently do, they don't walk unless all of their credits are complete. But, um, this policy, if we wanted to choose, if they could do it in, you know, like a short summer session, they could walk and then receive their diploma. That would be a change to what we currently do. But, we didn't really feel like the two of us should make that decision. So I guess we're looking for some leeway or some input

094from the rest of you guys. So in so after talking with administration, they felt that um.5 credits would be uh doable for a student to do credit recovery directly after graduation and still be allowed to walk. They would not get their diploma till after they completed that course. If they didn't complete that course, they just wouldn't get it. Um also um the it does not say at discretion of the administrator but we could add that if we wanted to because there's different circumstances on why they would not you know get that you know we don't want people we don't want students to just say well it doesn't matter I can still walk you know I you know so uh that was the discussion that took place during that. I felt that it was important that

095the whole board weighed in on this and we just need a consensus. We just need an agreement. We don't need a a vote on this. We just need to know that the board would want to go with option A or keep it the way it is. One of the one of those two choices. Choices are you don't walk if your credits aren't complete. And option B would be they could be half half short. So, yes. and then get the diploma following class. I'm fine with that. I mean, it's just pageantry anyway. The graduation actually diploma is the important thing. I'm good with J. I can tell you're not. Well, okay. I guess in talking with some of the other people who work for Marty, uh it's not like they're, oh, it's April and I'm a

096half credit short. It's a right. This has been a three-year process in which they're meeting with counselors to say, "Hey, you're you're not going to get to graduate unless you step it up." And even in the even in January, they're having meetings with the students and the parents say, "You guys need to get this to graduate." And they still don't do it. And they're not going to do it the summertime either. the point the point five that I'm I'm thinking they would get would be a student like who had some kind of a medical crisis their last semester and they didn't quite get there because of that or a student who um had to move away for some unknown reason and they still went through Shboan schools and they just didn't qu like they had

097some trauma in their life or a student who um failed their final exam in one of their classes and it didn't and they and then they didn't Yes. So if we make this change, we can put it on we can put it on principles and they can decide. No, it's really Marty. I mean the question is how many you know you need 22 credits to graduate. What's the average? They got to be more than that. I mean I look at the one that we just voted on earlier where she's going I mean they're not graduating. They're just participating in Yeah. They won't get they don't get to. It's just they're just participating. But it's it's the board's choice on which way we go. Just curious. Not trying to convince you. I'd rather just leave it

098cut and dried. 22. Yeah, it's pretty well known. I think historically it's been a hard no. Correct, Marty. I mean, if you didn't have 22, you didn't have 22. And I I you know, just to reiterate what Rich is saying, um I I know Marty and Ben and the counselors talked to these kids quite a bit, like from January on. I mean, they we have a few kids that that um have have been talked to and have just said, "Well, I'm I'm okay with not graduating." you know, they're not even they're like two or three credits short, though. But I I get what Julie's saying. If there's an anomaly, like maybe the kid fails the final exam and, you know, whatever something at the end of the course is one class or.5 credit short, then

099it would be up to the discretion of the principal to determine whether or not they could they could, you know, walk or not. They would just have an empty sleeve, right? Well, then it becomes what just happened with the early graduator. Maybe that individual comes in, we pull out a pen. I'd rather add sentence here saying or whoever you know certificate or administrator recommendation but to go and add that whole other paragraph I don't know if we need to do you guys you do have the option of adding that you can use that language but also add at the discretion of the administrator definitely definitely if if he's not going to be able to say yes or no then we we can't make a change has has to be done so which way are we

100going So I'd say leave it at 22, but for those cases in which there's it's administrator discretion. Can you word it? So that it is 22, but we might make this part is no exception. The second part is right. This option A is.5. We can add at the discretion of the administrator. Are you comfortable with that, Marty? So I think something that's important to add to that, too. You could have a kid that's at 23 and a half but still is a half credit shy of graduating. They've hit the credit requirement. They may not be passing their senior math that would have to be, you know, they can fail your senior math second semester by a percent and then we still say no that kid can't log. That's I mean that's totally up to you.

101But I mean we'll happily make that on a case by case basis. Whatever you guys decide. Just another caveat to throw in there. They could have the credit number but still not have the requirement to graduate. Right. That's a good point. So we would if so if we did go with changing it to option A and we add it at the discretion of the administrator. I would say do that and just take out the half credit just like Marty's talking about there that might not apply in all situations. the the half the half credit he um there has to from what my understanding in order to make up that in credit recovery directly after high school there's a three-w week credit recovery time for students to make those courses up and well you could do

102more could you but one and a half so so what do we want to and three Yeah. Wow. So, is that credit recovery though at the discretion of the administration? No. No. All students have the option to take credit recovery after after if they don't if they're missing any credits or if they fail a class that year. They have the option to take credit recovery. Correct. If they've taken the class and failed it. If they've taken the class and failed. Yes. Not to add a class, but if they've taken the class and failed it. So, you still want the 45%. So regardless how we word it, if we make this change, Marty can still say yes or no. Yes. Whether Spence too, yeah, that's so we should put at with this at the discretion of

103the high school and the superintendent. Y Okay. Is somebody in this position right now? No. No, nobody's in that position this year. Well, that we're aware. Okay. I think it's exactly behind they're referred to our program. Okay. And I'll be honest with you, if they're failing three classes in their senior year, they're probably they know they've known about it for a while. They've also had the option at that point to go see Chris and do a lot of conversations. There's that many. So there's there's a lot of talking like there's a lot of talking before this week. So I was just thinking I have but but whatever the board decides that they want to put on there or if you want to leave that to the discretion of the administrator also. Deb, you want to

104do this? No, I was just presenting one of the things we I think I personally think it should be left as is and that we should change the option. Well, what's driving? Why are we We have to Yeah, it's just part of the policy either. Yeah, we need the attorneys policy updates. Okay. Well, I I would say if we have if we have board members that are not okay with changing it, then we shall leave the way it is. Yeah. If we have board members that are not okay with changing it, I don't want to change it then. I thought we had something driving this. That is something other than No, we we just have to go through policy that gave us the option of that of this option. They've been doing it that way

105for a long time. Now, this also matches up with the curriculum guide, correct? So yes, we make this change then we have to change other documents. Correct. Correct. Yes. That is easy. It's just type type. It's just it's all online. Since it's not critical for this year's graduation, we can always revisit this between now and next year. Well, I think if it's that crucial, I think some things quite possibly could come up that we're going to want to revisit anyways. For instance, if the guys want to make a cell phone policy change or um the next two that we talked about 5412 and 5413 was some um language on we needed to include the process we take to name our valictorian and saludiatoran or class rank which I didn't know that we do have a

106yes we have a validictorian and a salutarian. Okay. Okay. I thought we would just hit top 10 or something. So, okay. Bump that top 12 just to make top 12. Yeah. Um just that we were hoping that was possibly the way it was because some universities actually grant more scholarship money if you have the actual title of saludiator and validator. That's true. um 5420 uh we had to make a choice under sex education and we took the choice that reflects um what we currently do as presented earlier in the curriculum meeting as well. Um, under our 5707 school wellness, um, we added some optional language to address our meal charge policy. Um, talked about what the current procedure is to be sure that kids got fed and no one was actually turned away. 5710. We

107added some language to support efforts towards student suicide prevention, including the hotline phone number printed on student IDs. Um 5714 was a new policy that went to safety committee um and it has to do with threat assessment and what's our response to those threat assessments. I don't know if you guys got a chance to discuss those at safety committee, those policies we said. Yes, they did. So, they've also made a recommendation. Okay. Um, and 5715 requires us to add an additional form at enrollment that will assess our students oral health. Um and 5807 that we have a policy that says flags will be displayed in the pledge pledge allegiance recited daily. So we just didn't know for sure if that occurs in each building. So I just wanted to bring those current that is our

108current policy. Correct. So, I don't know if do one of you guys from safety want to go over the three that we sent there the policy at all. 3408 was the open carry policy. Yeah, that's the one that I'm the most familiar with and we decided that you weren't going to fix that. that came across as a policy recommendation from the attorneys that allows uh it allows open carry if you have a CPL in the school and that doesn't make sense on any level. So we said no to that. Um from the other car it would be it would if you have a CPL it would allow you to pick up well coming choice or was it the possibly add choice. I think I don't I think it was an option. Yeah. Yeah. Because we

109opted not to do it, right? So we left it the way it was. We just left it the way it was. All right. So that policy had to change, right? Okay. And the other ones would 3410 was requiring the buildings have to have an anti-opiid. Oh yeah. Naran. And then 5205 AG1 was the FBI's criminal justice information services security policy which I have no idea what that is. Smartly and they were recommended as is also. Okay. So all right. Any questions about policy? Okay. So, we have to approve these policies in order for them to become legal adopted. Adopted. So, uh I need a motion to approve policies 4205 AG1, 3408, 3410, and 5101, 58 through 5808 as recommended by the policy committee and the safety committee. I'll make that motion. Support Discussion motion made

110by Deb supported by Tim. Parch. Yes. Deb Buuner. Yes. Travis Neville. Yes. Richard Par. Yes. Julie Luhila. Yes. The next thing on the agenda is the safety committee update. Tim. We met on uh Thursday the 15th. I think it's our uh third meeting now that we've had. Um we're making progress. We had representation from uh all the principles or assistant principles and uh we had our our SRO was at this meeting and our new uh voice of the community was at the meeting who is uh Charlie Brown. He was uh he's been in the community for 30 years and has retired law enforcement and was also involved with the decisions to actions program here at uh at the academy. So he sat in on our meeting also. First thing on the agenda that came in

111was uh Spencer brought in uh a grant writer proposal and that would be Lex Pole and so I want to just pass that over to Spencer since he was Yeah, there's a uh there's a new grant out there. It's a it's the COPS grant. It's a federal grant uh $73 million um that the federal government is handing out to school districts throughout the country um for uh safety initiatives. So, a lot of the stuff that we're talking about within the safety committee that costs money, you know, we've we've uh we've done a lot of this stuff as much as we can with some of the safety money uh that Jamie provided us through was that 31A was that AA that 31 AAA money which is a small amount compared to uh what we can get

112out of this grant. But all the things that we're talking about potentially purchasing, uh, if we employ this grant writing service, uh, their their retainer is $1,500 and then they charge you a little bit to fill out a grant, uh, if indeed they find they think that the grant might be applicable for your school district. So, we don't have a grant writer. Some school districts that are bigger than us typically might have a grant writer or two. Um but um you know this would be a great opportunity to uh fill it out completely the cops grant try to go for this particular grant and I think the maximum that you can get allocated is a half a million dollars. So now this has got to be when you when you if you know if we

113move forward with this um which I recommend that we do um we have to create that budget. I I don't even know if we can come up with a half a million dollars of things but we came up with quite a list the other day. I mean, even like adding a a a construction, a door here or vestibule there. Um, you know, cameras, servers, uh, radios. We've been doing a lot of stuff and we're still doing stuff and, um, you know, half a million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to. So, uh, I would like to, uh, move forward with that. We'll get the uh application uh completed and hopefully um we can get awarded some money to help with our safety initiatives at the safety committee. You want to talk about the

114initial expense to retain them for uh so it's a $1,500 as a retainer. It's a two-year agreement and then if you uh based on the level of the work on the um uh the grant uh there's another additional fee per grant. So, for smaller grants, it's nominal. For larger grants, and and larger grants require more work, it's more. I believe for the COPS grant, it would be $6,000 for them to complete that grant for us with the opportunity to essentially get a $500,000 grant. You know, we did talk about the contracts of them and that, but is there any, you know, I'd hate to give them $6,000 to apply for a grant and then they come back, ah, sorry guys, we didn't, we weren't successful, right? Is there like, yeah, if it's not successful, you

115get some money back. I can check that out. Or, you know, you don't get paid until we're successful, right? Yeah. You only get paid if you successful. I mean, they're service look a little deeper into that. That's how psychology, right? Yeah. If they didn't if it didn't work, you got to be usually their fees are written into the grant. Yeah, that's experience. Something we'll check into. Y it's on the it's on the table anyways. Um all the all the schools are all all have their own individual safety committees at the school level and so they all reported out with some items that they're uh that they were tracking in their in their uh uh committee meetings. Um, we got reports from the high school from Marty, uh, ranging from transportation, uh, and I don't remember

116if that was that was more of a negative thing that was like traffic control and just worried about concern, right? And another, you know, realistically 80 more drop offs. So, some of this stuff is going to be I'll preface it. What ones are positive and which ones are negative? Um, the, uh, drift in the access there is a problem for security that has to be addressed. the uh the shops with the rollup doors are a problem that has to be addressed. Um one one positive thing is uh we got the server installed that's going to enable the cameras to function as uh give them the capacity so we could handle all the c cameras that we have in our system. Um uh the high school needs new and additional cameras. Um the speakers um that

117would be the audio system is uh 90% functional. And um the open lunch is also a problem. Um 7th 8th 7th through 9th is probably going to be uh avoided whereas uh the 10 through 12 would be could be accepted for a open lunch situation. Um and the radios are working well the existing radios. As far as uh middle school and intermediate school, um again the audio system, especially the exterior speakers are are a problem. Um vestibule and security entrance needs to be addressed. Um a secure office door and uh incident protocol needs to be developed. As far as uh uh the institute or the uh academy here um Inesse um first aid and CPR training was on the list. Uh cameras need adjusting and need more units. The vestibule is a problem uh at

118the entry point there by the uh you know for the school. um and the transition right here between the board of ed and the and the academy trying to come up with some sort of barrier there to prevent migration between the two areas. Um, and uh, uh, Ron Fenland brought up the idea of putting in a a gate that could be that you could lock and move allow you to still see through it, but it would prevent access, you know, traffic between the buildings. I that sounded like pretty rational, easy to accomplish uh, solution. Um and then a secure room also in the office and the office uh to a lesser degree the office uh partitioning there because it's one big big room where Chris has to conduct her business and uh so uh and

119having a room where she execute security issues. Um, I have been in contact so far with uh I have sat down twice with the uh the sheriff. Um, I've sat down once with the police chief. I've got meetings scheduled to sit down with uh Michigan State Police and um going to be sitting down with our SRO and also sitting down with the fire department and getting the uh the the law enforcement and continuing to get the first uh responders input as we move along with this. We've got a schedule, a meeting tenatively scheduled for the 19th of June where we're going to get together and try and, you know, keep the ball moving. And um that's about all I have for now. Anybody got any questions? Questions? Discussions? Oh, and I was also at a

120conference in Kalamazoo uh last week uh for three days and uh it was just it was the 2025 glass which is Great Lakes uh association for school safety and they had uh uh three days of workshops um mostly uh the attendees were uh uh educators, law enforcement, SRO's I was there uh you know and a or capacity and just a whole lot of information, you know, and it's I'm just getting up to speed on all the things that have to be considered, but some really valuable uh contacts were made there and um uh it was a first timer. This outfit is just just started. They all the people that were there that were manning it as far as their people were all there on their own nickel. So it was uh it was a pretty

121standup uh uh event to to attend. Now just want to add uh to make sure that um especially the building principles that are here on uh June 19th when we meet um what time are we starting on that? 10 a.m. 10 a.m. High school. High school. We're going to be at the high school 10 a.m. and we're going to do we talked about doing a tour of the high school and we also talked about um inviting um uh Runstrom um Jeremy Jeremy uh he led the active shooter training earlier this year and we wanted to set start um talking to him in June and July about trying to get a a continuation of that training in early August when we return. So we want to make sure that we had runstrom to the agenda we

122just talked about in the context of the city. That's it. All right. Any other questions, concerns? Okay. All right. The next thing on our agenda is public comment. Um if there's anyone who would like to address the board may do so now. Please understand that we will listen to your concerns, but we are not we will not reply to them at this time. Please know that we hear you and we take your comments into consideration. Your comments will be limited to five minutes. See? Nope. I would like to. Sorry about that. You're a little fast, Julie. Thank you. Hi, my name is Sandy Sapper DR. I am a teacher here in Shoen. And I just wanted to uh make the board aware just of some transparency issues. Um mostly in regards to our website. Uh

123that's one of the things I'd like to talk about. So I know that strong communication is part of our strategic plan and I would like to make sure that we are uh continuing to decide to keep that strong communication going. In some ways our website has become less transparent and it's not just with recent staff. Um, for example, the April minutes and April YouTube video of the board meeting were not on the website, um, including up to hours before the meeting today. And that has been a commonplace thing that I've seen over the last couple months. Um, in addition to that, some other things that are slightly problematic. Um, one, we used to, especially I know that we have internet capabilities to record our board meetings. We used to record our curriculum committee meetings and

124other meetings as well. Um, some of those meetings or all of them have been taken down off of our website. I don't know exactly the structure that they were in. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I knew know up to 2023 that was happening and it is no longer happening. So, um, just curious about that. Um, in addition, taking a look at committee meetings that are mentioned on our website. Uh, we did have a change of course with our more recent curriculum committee meeting because of course we are Memorial Day weekend coming up. That wasn't something posted on the website. So unless you were part of um Jamie's curriculum update where she did tell us the date of the meeting, you if you were a member of the public, you would

125have had no way of knowing that that was the case. Um, also safety committee dates are not posted on the website. Um, I did not any policy committee dates posted on the website. I don't know if that's something that is commonly posted either. So, just for some clarity things, hoping that some of that transparency will um be improved or continue so that if the public is interested in responding to previous board minutes, they're able to do so effectively. And I know according to the opens meeting open meetings act, people can walk into the board office and get those things. However, we have been setting it as a precedent that we are providing the public with that both with video and on our website. So, I would like to see those things continue. Um, the other

126small thing I just want to address, I heard a lot today about um staffing being an issue as far as it's 85% of our budget. Um, one thing I'd like to remind us of, of course, uh, we have different buckets of money and I understand those things, but we are here for students and, um, our staff is a very big part of that. So, when we're talking about concerns of going below the 25% threshold that we have, that's a threshold where we are in the black. Um, we in other times in our history have still maintained before ESSER funds a 12% in the black budget. So, it is able to be done without cutting staff. And so, that's something to just point out. Um, and to know that 25% if that is the board goal,

127that is a great goal. I love that goal, but that also is not at a point where we would be in a deficit spending. So, in addition to that, uh the last little thing just to mention if we are looking at places we can cut, um some ideas might be or just some things to consider, maybe we don't spend a $5,000 annual renewal for for a chatbot that is part of our website. Um or maybe consultant fees could be something that also we look to our staffing that we have. uh we have very good administration that has been put in place over the last couple years. Uh not to mention other people in key positions. So I would encourage us to look to those individuals and trust your people instead of looking to outside consultants

128to answer a lot of those questions because of course the people that work for the district and have for a long time know the district well. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other comment? Do I need the paper? Uh, you you do if you would like a response back. Okay. Can I fill it out after? Sure. Hi, I'm Christina Martin. We have uh four children at the high school in the district and I spoke at the academic um at the curriculum meeting but just want to also speak here in support of um our AP classes and I know Spencer went through the presentation but our AP classes and advanced classes and I know the minimum or or the cat maybe or the minimum be like 15 although when you're looking at certain classes such

129as English or AP there's a lot of extra work that the teachers are doing different maybe some where some other classes where they might be able to do multiple choice checking and so it might not always be 15 or um maybe a teacher has 25 in one class and maybe 10 in another. Um, I have twins in 11th, 10th grade going to 11th. Um, potentially 11 plus might not be available to them next year because I don't know if only two signed up. Mine too. Or maybe 12 signed up. Um, maybe we need to look at the 11 kids and say, "Hey, some of you really need to be in 11 plus. Maybe you're just kind of filled the paper out and your parent didn't know and maybe you're slacking a little. Maybe you need

130to be in the 11 plus." um they would like to take college English in their 12th grade year and there's not another class to really prepare them to do that. So I would struggle in their 12th grade year to send them to college English because I don't think they're going to be ready for it if we can't offer them the 11 plus. So just looking at that not with just the black and white it's got to be 15. Um and if it is black and white 15 then I would like to know next year what every class has because if it is black and white 15 then is black and white 15. So, just asking you to consider those other options and see what that looks like and what I know everything's not fair, everything's

131not equal, but a math class is different from an English class different from a science class and those things need to be considered. Thank you. Thank you. Public comment. Anybody else? Seeing none, I need a motion to um adjourn the meeting. I'll make that motion. made by Travis. All those in favor. Wait a minute.