001I'm going to call us to order at 7:00 p.m. This meeting is called to order at 7 p.m. This is a regular meeting of the Ferndale School Board of Education being held on Monday, October 20th. Our meeting is being video recorded and will be posted on the Ferndale School's YouTube channel. All meetings in the Ferndale schools are held in public in compliance with the Open Meetings Act. Printed documents discussed in tonight's meeting are available to the public upon request with the exception of any information protected by student or employee privacy rights. Board meeting information is posted on our website at www.ferndaleschools.org. If you do not have inter if you do not have internet access and need information, please contact the board offices at 248-5868652 by Thursday of the week prior to the meeting and district
002staff will do their best to work with you. Uh 1.1 roll call sheepard >> yes >> here >> president >> here. Thank you. Thank you. Item 1.2, approval of the agenda. After review of the agenda, are there any items that anyone wants to update? >> I would like to make an amendment to item two of striking that on the agenda. Any other changes? Uh then without objection and with unanimous consent, the agenda is approved as amended. Uh item two, public comment. This is a time for public participation in the meeting. The board of education intends for the public to have many opportunities to address the board and administration of their school district. This includes email, phone calls, face-to-face meetings, community gatherings, public hearings, and other public meetings. We welcome individual and group input into the
003important issues that confront our schools. As noted at the top of the agenda, this is a meeting of the school board open to the public. We want to provide fair and impartial guidelines for participation as required by the Open Meetings Act and to encourage transparency and equal treatment for everyone in attendance. We also recognize that an effective meeting facilitates better decisions and promotes openness by allowing more people to stay for the full length of the meeting. To meet these goals, please note the following. We ask that you identify yourself and list and list contact information on a comment sheet to help administrators follow up with you on your comment. If you do not wish to do so in writing, please identify yourself at the podium. And if you need a response, please provide contact information
004with the administrator after the meeting. Each person will have one opportunity to address the board for up to three minutes. Comments or questions should be directed to the board president. Vice President Kaiser will raise her hand within when your time is within a few seconds of expiring. This period of public comment is for both non-aggenda items and issues that are on the agenda. Public comment will end at the close of this part of the agenda. Complaints about staff should be made outside of board meetings and should follow the applicable board policy. Please contact the superintendent's office. If you have any questions regarding this item, the board cannot respond to complaints about employees in public. This is meant to promote fairness to the staff person and complain it. The Ferndale public schools community acts with great
005civility toward one another. Please help us to maintain that tradition during public comment. I have one comment sheet uh for Britney Scott. Good evening members of the board. My name is Britney Scott. Um I'm a proud Ferndale parent of a first grader and a third grader. and I'm here tonight on behalf of the Burndale PTA advocacy committee. Our committee's work centers on equity and ensuring every child can reach their full potential, values that align closely with the district's strategic plan. We know this board shares our commitment to equitable, fully funded public education, and we're grateful for your leadership on behalf of Ferndale students. The Invest in My Kids ballot initiative is a powerful opportunity to make that vision real by generating over a billion dollars in new sustainable funding for Michigan's school aid fund, supporting
006teachers, reducing class sizes, and expanding resources for our highest need students. Given the strong alignment with the district's priorities and knowing the board's existing support for equitable funding, we've shared a copy of a draft resolution and are simply asking tonight that the invest in my kids resolution be added to an upcoming meeting agenda for discussion and consideration. An endorsement from the Ferndale schools board would make a real difference. When local school boards speak up for fair and sustainable funding, it helps our community understand what's truly needed to give every child the resources to thrive. and it adds Ferndale's voice to a growing chorus of districts across Michigan calling for change. As parents, we've been out in the community collecting signatures, hundreds so far toward our goal of at least a thousand. I think we'll go
007well beyond that. Um, and we've seen school boards like Benton Harbor and the state board of education already step up to endorse this campaign. We hope Ferndale schools will join them in standing up for the resources our students deserve. Thank you for your leadership and your continued commitment to Ferndale schools. >> Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Okay, public comment is now closed. Which brings us to item four. Well, item three because we move to consent agenda. Uh item 3.1, request to approve minutes of the special meeting committed the whole Monday, September 8th, 2025. 3.2, request to approve minutes of the regular meeting Monday, September 15, 2025. Uh 3.3 Request to approve new hires, resignations, and transfers. 3.4 4 request to approve bills and accounts uh for September 2025. Does anyone wish to remove
008an item from the consent agenda for questions or discussions later? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as approve as presented. >> So moved by Lisa. >> Seconded by Jonathan. Roll call. Miss Shepard, >> yes. >> Dear, >> yes. >> Hart, yes. Kaiser, >> yes. Newman, >> yes. >> Turner, >> yes. >> President Duki, >> yes. >> Thank you. With seven yes votes, the motion passes and the consent agenda is approved. >> Brings us to item four, action items. Uh item 4.1, uh the request to approve 95 wrap proposal. >> Good evening everybody. Um, so as we talked about a couple weeks ago, actually as Miss Robinson talked about a couple of weeks ago, uh, requesting approval of a new secondary reading intervention program, 95 RAP teachers were part of the
009process is a highly recommended program, one of only three that were approved, pre-approved by the state MDE. I'm hoping that you like it as much as the teachers did. >> I'll entertain a motion to approve item 4.1 request to approve 95 wrap propo proposal. >> Moved by Jonathan. >> Second by David. Any discussion on the motion? Roll call. Miss Shepard. >> Deliver. >> Yes. >> Art. >> Yes. >> Kaiser. >> Yes. >> Newman. >> Yes. Turner, >> yes. >> Crumbai, >> yes. >> President Duk, >> yes. >> Thank you. With seven yes votes, the motion passes and item 4.1, the request to approve 95 wrap proposal is approved. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Great. This brings us to item five, the request to go into close session under the open meetings act 81H
010to consider material exempt from ex discussion or disclosure by state or federal statute specifically on attorney client privilege written legal opinion and under open meetings act section 81D to consider the purchase of parcel number 253345102. moved by Jackie because I would read it. >> Oh, then it was updated. >> Okay. Uh, so moved by Jackie. >> Second. >> Uh, seconded by Lisa. So, going to close session. Oh, roll call. Miss Shepard with >> with >> Yes. >> Who's all going to be in the >> to include Superintendent Hler? Definitely. Superintendent Wright and our attorney from >> Troom. >> Are we going to switch the board? >> And the board. Are we going to switch locations? >> Yes. >> Okay. Switch. Okay. >> All right. Did you get all that, K? >> Mhm. >> Okay. Roll
011call. >> Yes. >> Kaiser, >> yes. Newman, >> yes. >> Turner, >> Yes. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. We're coming out of close session at 802. brings us to item six, superintendent's update. Um, good evening. Um so um as mentioned at the last committee of the whole uh meeting, my superintendent updates have shifted just a bit to spotlighting um key programs, initiatives, individuals across the district um that are in progress, but great things are happening from those are beginning to happen from those programs. So, um, this evening I'd like to highlight our drone program, um, which was a new program that was brought into the district by way of, um, out of school time grants. Um, Mr. Daryl Bingham, um, was at the forefront of that project and last year we were only
012working with middle school, Ferndale Middle School and Ferndale High School. Um, this year we are excited to be able to expand that program. Um, we now have UHS students that are involved and if I'm not mistaken, we are planning to begin to go down into the elementary schools as well. Um, so we're really excited that we are able to expand um that programming. But in addition to the drone program, Mr. Bingham is also um working with Jessica Wallace um our Ferndale youth assistance um supervisor um to work with um our middle school boys for a mentor a male mentoring program which is what I wanted to highlight that is in development right now by way of the drone program. Um, my vision, if I'm being very transparent, is to have a mentoring opportunity for at
013all of our buildings for all of our students. Um, and we are definitely on the way to having that. So, we have a partnership with Pretty Brown Girls at UHS. We're also working with BMEA at UHS. So, that is our girls and our boys at that site. Um, we have um very similar programming at FHS and we're working to build that out specifically at Ferndale Middle School. So, I'm we will be focused first um on our young men um because there is already Lady Butterflies at Ferndale Middle School, which is a girls mentoring program. Um so, again, just wanted to um um the goal was to have them both um Jessica Wallace as well as Mr. Daryl Bingham at this meeting. However, um conflict, we had some scheduling conflicts and we'll look forward to having
014them at the committee of the whole meeting to be able to present out and have a full report on all of the activities, all of the growth opportunities and the um competitions that they take part in with the drone program as well as our plans for expanding fully to a mentoring program at Ferndale Middle School. So, I am very happy to answer any questions that you might have about the program, but also bearing in mind that they will be um they will also be at our next board meeting, but happy to answer any questions you may have. >> Thank you. >> Brings us to item seven,formational items 7.1, uh budget to actual report. Good evening. >> It's budget to actual for September 30th, 2025. Um, we're, let's see, three months into the new year and
015the variances are similar to the prior year. Um, nothing really. Are there any questions? Thanks, Don. Thanks, Don. Brings us to 7.2. >> I have one question. Sorry. >> Sorry. Come back to Come back, Don. [laughter] >> Um, for the school lunches that we paid for the state budget was done, we reimbured for it. >> We didn't I think >> we didn't pay. >> Yeah, it didn't hit. >> Didn't hit all right. Okay. 7.2 enrollment update. >> Good evening everybody. >> Evening. >> Good evening. >> Uh my pleasure to be here this evening to share some uh uh uh broad overview of where we're at enrollment wise across the district. And [clears throat] uh I thought it might be wise to start with the general summary. So, uh um in general, our current district-wide enrollment
016is about 50 students above what we had projected and budgeted for. Um that's very good news. >> Um we will know as as you may or may not know when we are working with enrollment in the count window, um the count even though we talked about count day, count is actually an entire month. So that's very important for people to understand. We have our enrollment, we have our students who are enrolled. Our task in October is to count as many of those students as we can. Uh for example, if a student is absent on count day, if they are absent, if they have an unexcused absence on count day, we have until October 15th to get them to return to class to actually count them. If they have an excused absence, we have until October
01730th to count them. um if they're in our enroll if they're in our TCE program, uh we have to count them each week for a four-week period because we use uh communications instead of traditional seat time to count for attendance for those. So, um we will have a good idea at the end of this month where we stand enrollment wise. Uh but things look good right now. We've been monitoring our TCE uh 2-way communications that we use for attendance there. Um, and unfortunately we do always lose some students because of that, but right now we're on track to uh meet if not exceed our enrollment uh projection in terms of what was budgeted for. Um, we've been watching. Unfortunately, when we talk about enrollment, we wish that we could say we want 12 students at
018this building and we want 17 students at that building. Um, but unfortunately it doesn't always happen that way. So um we are watching very carefully our numbers in some buildings where uh frankly we are getting close to some capacity. Um and as as we'll as I'll share a little bit later in this presentation tonight um that will probably have an impact on some of our school and choice recommendations going forward. um as we look really closely at our enrollment capacity and or excuse me our building capacity in some of our buildings particularly at our elementary schools um and again as we look forward to school choice windows uh we will uh be looking at both of those issues very closely. Um I share these uh numbers with the board each week. Um what you have
019on this slide is our current headcount that shows uh building by building grade level by grade level our what we call our headc count. Um that is our actual number of enrolled students. Um Ferndale Early Childhood Center. Uh that number is a little bit deceptive because that includes our preschool students who we do not count in our traditional count. Um, so, uh, even though those numbers are there and those numbers are solid at FECC, um, uh, that does not equate to FTE. Um, but it gives us a good glimpse of where we're at. Um, and, uh, districtwide as of count day, we had 3356 students. Uh, again, that does include FECC. Uh, and compared to where we were at this point last year, you can see the fall count 2024, um, we're in pretty good
020shape. So, uh, the next slide that I have for you tonight, um, is a little bit different glimpse at our enrollment. This is what we call our FTE. FTE stands for full-time equivalency. So, um, uh, a lot of times a student does not represent a full FTE either because part of them is in special education, part is in general education. Um, sometimes they're a less than full-time student. Um, but this is a more accurate uh, glimpse of where we're at in terms of FTE and numbers. Um, again, building by building, it goes on to the next page. Uh you can see for on that first slide our general ed projections last year when we looked at um looked at demographers numbers um a medium projection would have been 2172 for general education high would have
021been 2259 um our K12 hit 2281 um excuse me our geneds hit 2207 so in between the medium and high projections that we looked at last year um which is a strong indicator of resident Um on the following page um so the budget we set for 2526 was set use enrollment of 3120 if we count all those students which we know we won't be able to we always lose some in our count procedures this would be an increase of 51 FTE um our actual enrollment as of October October 8th 3171.56 six. Oh, sorry. Any questions so far? I know I'm going kind of fast. Okay. Um, last slide uh before I answer any questions anybody has in terms of enrollment considerations. We've already touched on some of these. Uh we know that University High School
022traditionally has a school choice window in January and uh they do have additional capacity for that. We're working on numbers for that right now. So we will be sharing a recommendation uh for a school of choice window for uh only in January. Uh TCE will continue to enroll as well. Um the biggest headline of the information I'm sharing with you tonight is that our resident enrollment continues to grow and that's a big celebration. Uh due to spacing and staffing constraints, we need to probably look at reduction school choice at the K5 level. Be talking about that more in the general trend and the um the headline that we're seeing here. Um and again we'll have a better idea and I'll look forward to sharing with the board um what that total FTE looks like once
023we've got count this month. Very brief presentation uh but I'm happy to answer any questions anybody has. I can answer it now or get back to you. I just if I could I just wanted to thank Tom publicly because this is Tom's um first stab at being over pupil accounting. Um and he has jumped right in and provided a level of leadership that that department absolutely needed. Um and I'm appreciative of your leadership and ensuring that our numbers look like how they were. Um it was a it was a lot. This was this was quite a summer. Um, and I just wanted to publicly thank you for for your leadership. >> Thanks, Tom. >> Thank you, Tom. >> Um, 8.3 guidance on Ferndale High School at Sorry, 7.3. Thanks. Guidance on Ferndale High School athletic
024[clears throat] fields. >> Good evening. Evening. >> So, previously we discussed um guide we discussed the Ferndale High School athletic fields. There were four options proposed um to the board for consideration. Um tonight um tonight I think we're clear on the considerations um on the options that have been proposed um with respect to the former uh Koolig uh center as well as the um parcels that com that combined u make up the tennis courts, athletic fields for baseball, softball, football, and track. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> 8.4 7.4. >> Sorry. Uh phase one environmental site assessment. I think that's just for a review. and then 7.5 appraisal report for the uh Jerry Kulic Center. Um similar similar this uh information was presented to the board for um information for your reviewer and for
025your >> Okay. Thank you. brings us to item eight, consideration of any pulled consent agenda items. We had none. Nine, next committee of the whole is Monday, November 3rd at 6 p.m. 10. Next regular board meeting is Monday, November 17th at 7 p.m. 11 Eagle's points of pride and comments. Um, I would like to say that I've noticed uh our recognition of our leaders um and our social media presence this month and um I've really loved seeing those. Um I think it's a really nice way to honor the extremely difficult work of being a building leader. Um, and I've enjoyed just learning a little bit more about them and I love the what you add um, Superintendent Hibler to to each of those. And so I just I appreciate that we're honoring our leaders this
026month. It's been nice to see. >> Want to specifically call out the leaders in the administration as well, but for something more specific the for what they do in these Friday night football games. Um what used to be a relaxing fun event is still except not quite the same for those administrators as what it used to be. It's a big job, big stress and uh it doesn't go unnoticed and it's greatly appreciated. not and I'll be there [laughter] PTA and PTO and as well as any ambassadors we might have on social media who advocate on behalf of the district when um questions are posted on Facebook pages or there's chatter in the community about questions related to the district. I truly appreciate the citizens who are advocating for the district and who potentially redirect our
027uh community to the right correct people to get their questions answered. And it has been um a very um I would say calm year so far this year with uh the PTA and all the members who are monitoring these sites and and speaking on our behalf. But I I truly appreciate the work that they do behind the scenes to u make us look good and and give out positive information about the district. Um, just want to say how great homecoming was. It's always just a show great event for our entire community to get together. It's never 90 degrees again [laughter] anyone. Uh, I think it sort of dampened a little bit of the turnout if people wanted to wait for candy, but um, it's just such a good event uh, particularly for the littles to
028begin to see like sort of where their future is uh, in in Ferndale. So, it's just such a great great event and you know, all the people organizing it, all the uh sport looking so great. Uh it's just just a really good point where we like [clears throat] uh are able to kind of really be the you know the community and everything. I would like to give my point of pride as a shout out actually to our new official board member Jessica and this our first board first official board meeting. So I just want to say publicly welcome to the team and we're glad to have you. So Jesse, Jessica, you can skip, but we use this time. [laughter] We use this time to uh shout out a a particular event or thing or group
029or um something you're proud of or um if it happens to be a season of where you want to give a statement about a thing, this is the time you that you would do this. >> Um I would love to thank you all for such a warm welcome. Um, and it's wonderful and beautiful to see how much you all obviously love this school district and as much as I love this community and love this school district. And I'm excited to to dig in and I will have a more eloquent [laughter] to give next time. >> Okay. So, I I want to shout out our grounds maintenance. It's only one team member. He has really taken ownership of the position. Um he's gotten to know the staff. Um surprisingly, you know, at the games I see
030him and they're working really well as a team. Um couple of the parents um came up to me to tell me how much they appreciated him because uh he sought them out to take care of the baseball field. What do you need to let me put this to bed for the season? he's really taken ownership for the position and he he is also a member of this community and I appreciate him so much and his name is I'm sorry his name is Kelly Shannon um so I would um like to also um special shout out to um uh PTO PTA at um both our elementarymentaries as well as our um high school middle school um I've had opportunity um this month to attend the walk-athon for elementary um skate night, Ferndale Middle School, Ferndale High
031School. Both events were just so incredibly fun. Um the skate night was at a different location. It was at Northland Skating Rink, so we weren't sure if the different location would be confusing, but when I pulled up the the line was wrapped around the corner, literally. Um, so I'm just very appreciative of being able to work with um an organization of parents who are so committed to providing these types of opportunities for our students. And this is a shameless plug for on Wednesday um FPS community conversations um at Ferndale High School in the nest from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. making strong eye contact with the camera there. um and would love to continue the momentum that the PTO um has begun. We we will be answering very specific questions and hopefully highlighting how to navigate
032communications, how to navigate, who to go to for what specific purposes because when we are clear about who to contact, we know that um we know that that just aids in our our our our methods of supporting our students. So, um, we're looking forward to a great turnout, um, and hope to see as many community members as possible. Um, so my shout out, uh, Lisa Stol, it's, uh, principal month. So, just want to give a recognition out to all the principles in the district, building leaders to let you know that you are appreciated. We see you. Um, and I do I did too enjoy those highlights on the um, on our social. Um, so with that brings us to item 12, the request to go into close session to discuss UAW negotiation parameters with the
033board superintendent, deputy superintendent, and Tom Shelton. >> So moved. Moved by Jackie. Second. Seconded by Lisa. Uh, roll call. Miss Shepard Kaiser. >> Yes. >> Newman. >> Yes. Turner. >> Yes. Right. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. We should just go in that room so we can >> Yep. Can we go in >> 824? >> 8:24.