06/15/2025 Ferndale Public Schools Regular Board Meeting

001They're going to call us to order at 7 p.m. Uh, good evening. This is a regular meeting of the Ferndale School Board of Education being held on Monday, June 16th, 2025. Our meeting is being video recorded and will be posted on the Ferndale Schools 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.burndalechools.org. If you do not have have internet access and need information, please contact the board offices at 2485868652 by Thursday of the week prior to the meeting and district staff will do their best to work with you. Item

0021.1 roll call. Miss Shepard from here. Deliver here. Kaiser here. Mner here. Turner here. President Dicki 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? Then without objection and with unanimous consent, the agenda is approved. Item two, budget hearing for 2526. Good evening. Good evening. Um so tonight as part of the budget hearing tonight we are bringing forward the L429 which is the tax rate request form that is sent to our four municipalities. Okay. Um anyhow um okay uh we discussed this at the committee of the whole meeting on um June 3rd. Uh we are looking to levy 18 mills which is what we are required to do by the state uh so that we can receive our full

003foundation. Our debt millage will be seven mills. The seven mills is based on the amount of debt that needs to be repaid. Um, the sinking fund will be levied at 1.0652. It has been rolled back by Headley, which is why it's no longer the 1.3 that was originally voted on. As the taxable value goes up, we are able to maintain this. We bring in a little over a million dollars in the scing fund. Um, we do need to keep our eye on the um on the non-h homestead mill is we may need to go out for a vote so we don't fall below the 18 mills. So, yep. So, that means that um the next um presentation is the 2526 budget assumptions. Um the 2526 original budget was discussed extensively at the committee of the

004whole meeting on June 3rd. Um just to go over some of the um budget assumptions we used um we used student enrollment of 3,122 FTE which was an increase of 7 FTE from May membership blend. The blended membership is 9010. Uh state foundation allowance increase of $392 per pupil to 10,000 even. U Miper stabilization rate 147C pass through will be 15.02 and just um the there's a lot of uncertainty with the state budget and the federal budget. So there could be reduced funding and al adult ed budget and Medicaid funding. Looking at expenditures, we used other special pay of $75,000, unemployment of $25,000. Um, there was an increase of 2.9% to the legislative insurance hard cap. The retirement rates budgeted at 29.91%. The custodial expenditures were budgeted with a $300,000 increase. Um we put an

005installment purchase of one new vehicle and the Nipster stabilization rate 147C pass through will be 115.02. Step increase for UAW is 0%. The contract does expire um on 123125. Transportation step increase is 4% ABS was a step and 2.5 cabinet and exempt was 2.5%. Um teacher step and 1% plus 5% for top step that contract expires 6:3026 secretaries there was no step but they move to group one their contract expires 6:3026 asked me step and 2% and their contract expires 6:3026 um there there is going to be one new um position in the 2526 budget it's going to be a FMS social studies procedure. Um so then the next slide is the budget by function by revenue and the total revenue is 50 million824 which is broken out by local revenue, state revenue, federal revenue

006and other. Then if you flip to the next page, it's budget by function by expenditures. total instruction um is 29.9 million which is um it's a if you look in the second column the percent of total it's 56.9% which is a little higher than um the 2425 budget um total support service is 22.2 2 million. Then if you scroll to the next page, our total expenditures are 53.3 million. Um we are um estimating that we will have more expenditures than revenue next year of 2.5 million. We are um estimating our beginning fund balance at 10.5 million. And so that would mean our estimating ending fund balance would be 7.9 million which would be about 15% of fund balance. Any questions? Thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you. That brings us to item three, acknowledgement of

007retirement, years of service and tenure. Good evening everybody. This is always a fun one. um here tonight to uh celebrate several employees and uh uh the timing was not great with summer vacation and uh some people moving into summer mode. So uh we had several people not able to attend tonight. Uh but nonetheless, we have some very honored guests with us this evening that it's my pleasure to help celebrate. Um we're tonight celebrating uh staff members who have observed years of service milestones this year. So 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, all the way up to 30 years. That's when we stopped counting. Tom May. Um and uh we also have uh some teachers recognize who achieve tenured status this year. And then finally, some honored retirees. So again, several not with us this evening.

008I will still read their names to acknowledge them. Uh but with each within each category, I'll start with the individuals who are able to make it tonight. So, uh, and by the way, if you didn't grab any cake or punch, nobody will be offended if you step out to grab some at some point because there's lots out there. Uh, so our first presentation tonight is in years of service and, uh, we are very pleased to recognize Mercy Servio for five years of service with Serendale Public Schools. Mercy is a secretary at University High School and a definite asset to the district. So congratulations. Thank you. Uh other individuals with five years of service that I'll acknowledge briefly uh Nita Abner, Sahara Zar, Denita Darden, Andrew Durkix, Cristiana Fox, Shenia Franklin, Bronson Goodsell, Bridget Gara, Casey

009Hammerly, uh Annie Harris, Stacy Manning, Tara McCormack, Megan Mallo, Alisa Msurvy, Chenica Osborne, Kesha Reed, Kirsten Riley, Miss Servio and Ashara Simmons. Anybody else? I forgot in the fiveyear category. Okay, let's do one more round of applause. Our next group is our 10-year category, and we have quite a few in this uh category. None of them here tonight, but I will acknowledge their names uh for everybody. Uh we have with 10 years of service uh this uh this month Claire Burgess, Rebecca Clark, Ian Gerzik, Heather Melnowski, Shelby Martin, Michelle Murkus, Elizabeth O'halerin, Amy Pomero, Kayla Tobin, and Glennice Tyler. 10 years of service. Oh. Oh, come on. I'm sorry. I didn't see you there. I actually have a certificate for you. Shelby Martin, come on out. Didn't see a sneak in the back door. Congratulations.

010Uh with 15 years of service. I don't think we have anybody here tonight. and anybody with 15 years. I'll run through the list. Uh we have Jackie Bareris, Danielle Cobber, Amanda Goodson, Michael Hand, Michael Huff, Kylie Ruo, Maurice Telisford, and Javon Wilson, 15 years of service. So, congratulations. 20 years. We have Kathleen Hayden, Michelle Murcus, Rachel Morrison, Patty Sanders, and Beth Yoko. Please join me in congratul I missed in that category. Trying to watch everybody as they walked in. Uh, with 25 years, we have the following. Again, I don't think anybody's here from this category. We have Ryan Dunlap, Akquila Evans, Marcus Hike, uh Scott Jeffrey, and Michelle Kesler. So, come on up. On his behalf, uh team Jeffrey Thank you. So, we had three individuals reach our 30-year threshold this year. And uh 30

011is a big milestone in education, right? And uh this year what's unusual is all three of them are from the same department. And so I will read all three of their names. One of them is here tonight. It's from the transportation department. Go transportation. Um retiree Cheryl Derky, right? Congratulations, Cheryl. Uh John Hardcup had 30 years of service. So congratulations to John. And joining us here this evening celebrating 30 years plus another milestone we have Kathleen Duran Kathle the 30. And while she's up here Kathleen Duran is also one of our retirees. Thank you for all of your service. Kathleen came to the district in July of 1995. Awesome. Long time ago. So, congratulations, Kathleen. Uh, we have another retiree present this evening that it's my pleasure to help recognize. Uh, and that is Mia

012Hall. Mia, would you come up here? Mia has served in uh many buildings across the district, most recently as a social worker at Berndale Early Childhood Center. um came to the district originally in September of 2002 and uh uh has definitely left her mark here in the district uh with her work with students and adults here. So Mia, congratulations on your retirement and uh we appreciate you. Uh and then our last retiree present and I'll announce the other names. Our last retired president tonight is Sue Sag. Sue, will you please come up? Now, everybody in the district knows Sue. Um Sue has been Sue has been working in the district as a substitute secretary and most recently this year. Um we were pleased to be a part of her last official year before retirement and

013uh uh we hope that Sue will not be a stranger going into the next school year. So, congratulations on your retirement. Other retirees that I'd just like to acknowledge really quickly who could not be here this evening, Mr. Jeremy Crrame, um, special ed teacher at Ferndale Lower. Um, yes, please. Jeremy had some kind of golf injury today or something like that. He told us, I can't remember what he said, but he's he's enjoying his retirement life. Um, and then our last retiree that I who's um Oh, Sher Derky. Sher Dery was our last retire. So, please join me right here. And then the last group that I'd like to recognize, I don't believe any of them are here this evening, but our teachers receiving tenure. Uh tenure is a big milestone in a teacher's career

014and we had five teachers who uh achieved tenure this year. Uh tenure is generally achieved after five years of service to the district. Um there's some exceptions to that but we had five teachers uh Kesha Reid, Cristiana Fox, Casey Hammerly, Megan Malo, and Bronson Good. So So would you please join me? [Applause] And we'll make sure that everybody who is not present this evening gets there. So, thank you for helping me acknowledge these uh wonderful individuals and thank you everybody for your service to all of the people who retired and years of service, we would love for you to stick around, but we're going to go through presentation. If you decide to like sneak out the door to get cake and punch and not come back, we won't be offended. Uh, that brings us to

015item four, community and schools presentation. All right, as we transition, we do have some slides we'll just plug in. Can you hear? Yeah, you ask to send it to Okay, so the microphone is for the recording. We're not going to amplify you here. Um, all right. So, as we get the slides shared, my name is Sarah Sanders and I'm here with Mile. Um, we're going to talk to you for just a few minutes, but we were asked to come here tonight to present our community school or CIS program. Um, we have not been here as long as some of the individuals just name. This is our third school year. to celebrate the partnership between organizations. Um so I will stand our chief program officer. I serve the 2019 support through um now statewide. So I've

016been working the last three years. Good evening. I'm Shannine and I've been with CIS since October. It's a pleasure to be here. I have an extensive history of working with so hopping into the education field was pretty interesting and I'm loving it. And I love my name. I'm the man CIS and community since July22. I served as a student coordinator at high school and now not yet. Okay, we'll keep going. Um yeah so um normally we start put on the screen our mission just a quick show of hands who is familiar with CIS. Okay perfect but our mission is to support our school and achievement. So we do that by providing support as you all know to students who are in school. Um we aim to find students who may be need support through our

017tier support model. We do this all in so everything we do in partnership with school leadership teachers support staff as well as district leadership and yourself. So everyone here in school. So currently we are in five schools. lower elementary, upper elementary, middle school, high school, university school. Um, we are also going next year to try and we are so excited about that. I think we're saturating the district. So very best buildings with families from all I just miss a lot of schools Michigan [Music] area. We are in our actually here in the state office. We're part of a national organization. So this is our model. I kind of started this already talking about site coordinators in Michigan. We call them student support coordinators. Those are in those five district. Um the way that our students

018operate is the first thing they do each year start where they go through and they find all the strength of the school including partnerships really map out what's already happening in the school. We pride ourselves on the active school. So we don't identify that public school leadership and then that's where we really focus our efforts. We typically set a schoolwide goal in the either behavior or work. So we use data set understanding and that goal involvement we do agree to go in so that we support the needle involves interviews focus groups surveys parents students school staff step two we then support the based on all programs. So that's what we're working with students that can just group groups different lunch budgetes and some per school and here that's what we're working on. So in each

019school we have 35 on average students that we've identified that we use some extra support for work each of those students and that either comely or not their min each of those students they enroll with that student work that Um so monitoring we are a data organization. And then step five and six model. Anyone got any questions? We'll move on and then we'll share all the schools across the state 73 numbers plus next school year 9 26 case students as well as four about 48 case students or excuse me students overall. Next slide. Uh so supports provided for 223 school year we had 9,000 plus multiple 875 small group as well as almost 5,000. our school goal achievement. As you can see, we track things such as academics, attendance, behavior, social emotional learning, which we

020track with certain policy assessment. So you can see those numbers here. These are students who are the goal and met the goal 60% attendance at 75 behavior 91%. Sorry just 223 data. Yes. Yeah, we get aggregated data at the end of each school year. So we can send over that but I think so what our school year. [Music] All right. So our first school we'll be going over tonight is elementary. Um this block just reflects some of the data points as far as basic needs resources provided as well as um tier supports. So this school has 11 tier supports for this school year. Um tier one supports, excuse me. So those are our those full school supports like she said those assemblies, field trips, etc. um 25 case management students as well as 160 combined

021tier 2 and tier three supports which are group and individual supports and 3,425 in uh basic value resources. Okay. And the highlight we have here, but in partnership with free bikes for kids, we were able to distribute 60 bikes kids elementary. The kids were absolutely thrilled and I think the parents were thrilled. It was such a nice event. Um, we also had police come out and support us and help those bikes uh to the parent cars. We also had a safety night at FA Elementary and that was both uh in person and online and it pretty much was a it's called a safety battery event sorry through hands-on activities of interactive stations and scenarios. Uh the kids were able to practice and practice how they respond to what we used to call in my time

022stranger danger long time ago. But um it was a great event and allow the kids to practice certain safety words to their parents and caregivers in the business situation. Both of them were very successful and that's some of our staff and uh the principal over at lower uh who supported us for seventh grade. Next school burn up. Our numbers for this school um 31 tier one supports 28th managed students 25 uh tier 2 and tier three supports and 14,448 in valid resources and top support categories. You can see those at the bottom. For role sports, we have life social skills, family engagement, behavior interventions, group sports, case management, behavioral interventions, life, social skills, and then individualiz I apologize. I just want to go back to one thing. What is the diagram? Because I see resource

023see, but in the blue we have uh food and in the green is clothing. It's just a chart of really just all the sports that we had for the school. We slow the donations and the community barriers every day. Um and so the that chart will show the breakdown and you'll notice that every not just the diagrams but all the numbers are very different for each school very elementary highlights where the pathway is located. They participated in a le program, many girls program uh sponsored by CIS which is huge. And we also had vision board for the kids to for the girls to kind of set some goals and you know just stuff with their what their dreams or aspirations are in life. And we also had one of our other SSC join us uh

024Tiffany Power who was over at Middle School. So they were really really happy. my super superintendent knows Tiffany very well and um it was just a magical night for the girl. We also did a literacy day of fuel that was huge. Uh we actually had a few parts to the lit day. The first gathered some volunteers which included parents. We also had some uh CIS staff come and then we also had the Ferndale Police Department join us and they actually ran to the children. Um, we provided lunch, some snacks, uh, and also what was so cool, we had youth leadership students to escort the adult volunteers to their station. So, they were that pretty nice that we had. And each gift was provided to provide them again breakfast, lunch, and gift. The second part to

025the literacy day, we had the youngsters go over to Ferndale High School and they actually watched uh the movie The Wild Robot, which paralleled with the book that they read and they were able to watch it and communicate how they felt about the movie and discuss everything about it and what have you. And the third part was we actually created robot kits with the kids uh to complement the movie and the book. So the kids love it. So they had three parts to literacy. Next we are middle school. We have clothing products and food. Of course, once you get to that middle school, you start deodorant all those things. So, we need to become 14 case manage students and 93 tier 2 and tier three support combined. And then top three supports for whole school

026attendance, behavior interventions, group supports, case management, as well as individual support. And over at Ferndale Middle School, kids were able to turn their tour tickets into some exciting prizes um through the blue light special that Mr. runs over there at Ferndale Middle School and organized by our SSC Tiffany Park and it rewards student for their positive behavior participation throughout the entire school year because they're able to buy uh different things in the store and win the walk. So that's pretty sweet. Uh on April 25th, we were able to do the Lion Heart experience where kids learned a lot through um music and they also learned a lot through visual art and how to express themselves through coming to stories and we kind of tackled bullying, self work, self-improvement, self-esteem, self-confidence, being yourself and following your

027dreams. Things that are very much important especially in middle school. Now we are moving to our high schools at Ferndale High School. We had 83 tier one sports, 20 bas 2005 tier two sports. And then also on this one we also have uh along with the hygiene products we have the school supplies. So when we did um the back to school class this year of course the students first provide schools back that as well as you know then take the lefto students throughout the school year. Um, top three supports in home school. Of course, we have attendance, enrichment, um, and college career preparation group supports. We have life and social skills in academic assistance and individualized that trend continues to be mentioned with 2,664 in high school programming. uh our FC Wallace who became main

028for our high school trip to Olivet College where students were able to tour campus get an idea of what college life is like to prep them for uh entering college. She also organized an event where kids were able to put some positive energy and express themselves on t-shirts to be creative uh mingle with other children and some lifestyle and self love and encouragement post. Right. This school final school is our most recent add-on to university high school team where we have 125 case management students and 17 tier 2 and tier three sports will pay $4,631 resources. Um as you can see in the chart we have again blue clothing hygiene products handful supplies supports that screen again see individual black sports would be face management supports black skills and vocal support. Next slide. Over at

029University High School. Uh we have Gabrielle Living who cited there. She event called Good Vibes Day party. It was actually cool. They had both seats and they had food and kids were able to express themselves and celebrate um improve attendance. We like to incentivize with the attendance. It kind of motivates students. Um the atmosphere was definitely full of energy as they had lunch, music, and fun activities. that was good and coordinated and it was a great way to recognize her efforts and keep the positive. She also coordinated another event called black which is really nice. Uh it was a celebration of food art and it also featured the high school network and show their talents through as you see on the pictures they created some paintings and uh they were the network. So that was

030pretty and Gabrielle is also an alum with university. Yes. Thank you for sharing that. Gabby is a perfect example. wanted to return and so um before we close out we can't do any of this withoutation um we saw a small I think probably my favorite It's not welcome. Thank you for that. We are open to question if there's not a lot of open question. We put our emails up there. Um has our phone call numbers as well. Super super Yeah. question. Thank you. Thank you. If I could um I'm not sure if the board has any questions, but I actually was hoping to see if any we actually have an opportunity with a number of our principles in the room. So would any of you like to um just speak very briefly about like the

031impact communities and schools has had in your buildings? I think would be wonderful for the board to understand from your perspective um the impact in your building. So not to put you on the spot but you have anything would love to hear. I mean, we're brand new um to this year, so I didn't hear a lot of it for her learning um learning their programming and and learning about our school and all of that. Um so, we met at the end of the year to really talk through how we want to target attendance um and really focus um the TIF the high school um that they support breakfast in the morning as well as um always they talk about but all I mean on the way they go back to the water provid Jones is

032a very important part of our school family. She supports staff, students, family. She's a great wealth of resources. Um she goes out and find something. If I I brainstorm stuff and I think any bit we got to work on this, she she's like, I got it. I'll take care of it. So, um she's really valuable at our school and everyone else. I think it's about um like the gaps like CI really helps me because like my social worker had full my mental health special you get these students are right on that bubble need like they're not need support here right but they really need more than what me running around the building can do. So there they're we're just getting more getting more kids involved in the referendum services outreach. Miss PR building is amazing

033with the parents. Um finding outside supports when things are not going well. Uh they have access via CIF to way more uh than just us, right? They work for male youth assistant. That's great first step. This is even even bigger outreach. Um and then for them on liter day he helped them pick the last 200 books we did our first book community this year and they didn't actually we didn't count enough to give them thank you so much for hearing to the building of the building right so we have a plan to begin school year and then there's the gap that come about all the units and they may help with attendance. Um it's hard specifically with that student in sixth grade this three team process that we have but also culture is a big

034thing in our building. Uh we talked about polite pressure that we have store raising funds. It's hard at middle school level. Uh our parents tend to be really close at the elementary level as they get older trump up a little bit. So that that helps us to bring in like they usually help us funny uh source store. Thank you guys so much for letting me put you on blast like that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. That brings us to Hey Tom. Hey everybody. How are we doing tonight? Building my data presentation. All right. Good evening once again. Uh back in April, we shared our winter data presentation uh and really tried to focus on our our school improvement process. So now that we have just wrapped up our spring assessment

035window, um we asked each of our principles to provide a few bullet points that kind of summarized and highlighted the work that uh they did between winter and spring. So each principal has uh provided one slide. They they provided an entire presentation. I took one slide from each presentation and pasted it into the spring data highlight. So at this point, we'll call up Mrs. Keith. Which one did you pick? Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Um, so points of Oh, that's not right. That's the old one. That's the old one. Uh, oh, is that the only one? I have it. Yep. Can you send it to police? You can read it. We're going to ask for more stuff. Don't worry about what's on the screen. Thank you, Mark. If you want to just to be to be

036fair, the upper one has got errors on it too. So you guys just want to read out. Y that's okay. So uh points of pride. Uh the first one is for I Ready math and I Ready was um a new assessment. So a baseline assessment that we're doing this year. uh the aim is for 100% and we reach 92% of the medium progress on the I Ready math. So some work to go a little bit to do but um have a plan for that. Um but the um we started the year with 15% on or above grade level and we ended with 56% in that same green level. And then um the best part here is that we started with 15% two or more grade levels below and then we closed that gap and ended

037up with 3%. So you know especially at a K2 level like they bloom at different no pun intended at different points right and so um so closing that gap um is really important. So um going from 15% down to three is great. Then in uh Aadian ELA we decreased the percent of well below in all grades ended the year with all grade levels at 68% or higher that were on or above grade level and um doing that while we were navigating a new um curriculum which is an important piece to know. uh social emotional learning always like to highlight some of that. 93% of our students feel that their teacher cares for them and 92% have important friendships and again at a K2 building friendships are so important and their teacher so important right blending

038those together. So so continued steps um year two with fish tanks doing some uh targeted work with literacy with that. One thing we did in the winter uh with second grade when we saw some of those scores, we had a focus group for second grades. We hope to start that earlier next year and also um see if we can work that schedule to be um for first grade as well. So, um increasing our student discourse across all uh academics, actually all areas in our school. That's a a a focus for our school to continue on. and then having our uh literacy coach really continue those coaching cycles that we're seeing that are so powerful and uh working in writing with that. Um next steps for math is we have a uh first grade instructional parah

039that works with math and uh we're going to do more targeted invent interventions, more um targeted lessons. right now she's supporting in the classroom with the core curriculum which is important but we got to fill out some we have to fill some of those holes for those students um and really excited about having the I Ready individualized pathways I think that that's really going to be supportive and support that student right where they're at and fill those holes for them as well and if we have tutoring again start that a little bit earlier So that's lower. Any questions for me? Sorry, Tom. Sorry. And the board we I will make sure that you get the updated slides um ASAP if not if not by the week. So I did paste the correct slide into the

040Google slide deck and I sent that to Miss Wright. So if we can share that out and I apologize. Who's next? Uh at this point we'll call up Miss Jeffrey for no other relations. Okay. Good evening. Of course. Can you go up a little bit more to wordy? Okay. Um, so some points of pride for us on our spring data as a building in reading, we exceeded the 100% medium progress. So 106% uh, which is great. Um, and what I was really happy about is we went from 38% fall proficiency to 55% in the spring. So, um, pretty significant. Um, growth there. Um, third grade ELA was just simply outstanding. Um though I you know awesome team but I also really have to credit the K2 building uh the letters cohort training that the district

041has been supporting um at the at the state level and here uh the work of the literacy coach has been essential in us um this is not on the slide but our um fuel fuel just finished their ninth year as a building um and our like MSTEP or MSTEP ELA has doubled in those nine So that is the efforts of of the K2 not not just the 35 billion. So I think that's important to know. Um and then also we they grew 9% in a cadence from fall to spring exceeding the myip goal of 7%. And then most importantly to me the percent of students well below in third grade specifically decreased from 31% to 19%. Uh which is evidence that our MTSS system our student success team is working. Our students are getting tiered.

042This was the first year. Thank you board for the way you allocate things. Uh that every third grader in my building that was below grade level at the beginning of the year was able to get intervention either via Americanore reading corp um or our our reading intervention as Smith Jones. So that was fantastic. Uh and this let us increase our intervention at the fourth grade level which is essential. um all grade levels of cadence we had an average of 68% at or above grade level in reading and preliminary ELA MSTEP results suggest it's unscrubbed but that we will be at or above predicted state average in ELA for all grade levels for the first time uh so we'll see how the essay rolls out but that uh all three grade levels will be either at

043or above I believe um math I ready all grade levels doubled or more their fall at or above student proficiencies so our building average was 16% % proficient to 39%. Um, and what was probably the highest moving category, which was great to see, similar to Miss Keef, um, when reading is that the two or more grade level grade levels below decreased like to very little. Um, I didn't put the numbers in there, but um, so the yellow grew significantly, which means we're meeting those um, stretch growles and and trying to move the bottom um, when they're more than two grades below grade grade level. And then stat staff culture. I think this was a winter data. I didn't think I had the spring at the time, but um, above national averages for the staff uh,

044survey in all categories. Uh, and the family survey, we were above national average in school climate, barriers to engagement, and school fit. intentionality and next steps. So with fish tank uh much like Miss Keefe uh targeted professional learning and literacy to continue the gains we have been making like when I say significant gains in the last three years I'm serious and the secondary is going to see that uh student discourse classroom observations so dedicated time to get um get our teachers in each other's rooms so to see best practice to reflect on best practice and to share best practice. uh been trying to do that. We used to do it before CO and we're now kind of subs have evened out and things are happening uh to where we can actually allow for that to

045happen again. And then uh our dedicated K3 literacy coach, Missyax, is essential. Um in math, obviously that's the area we still have a lot of way to go. Um there are gains through specific lessons via, but that would be the I Ready individualized learning program, but was very helpful this year for that. Back on track tutoring. We had over a year's growth for students in back on track and they were all below grade level if they were in that program. We are beginning some math essentials PL really focusing our PLC calendar 35 next year on math building thinking classrooms. Michelle Harris, who's outstanding math educator, longtime Ferndale teacher, uh is leading a book study we're doing this summer with six, seven teachers across grade level and leading a number of PDs next year as well

046as um currently tomorrow second day creating math look for documents uh through Oakland schools uh to help teachers get in each other's rooms and for us to see math practice and then make some changes in our instructional tier one instruction. I think that's it. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you very much. Next we have Middle School. We'll call up Mr. Brun. Good evening everyone. Yeah, thank you. I was having my phone. Thank you. Uh so uh good evening everybody. So again uh as everyone has expressed we're using iate assessment our first year using this assessment. So it's a a a a growing process as we learn to maneuver through that uh new testing and local assessment. So June 225 the goal of sixth grade through 8th grade students have reached or exceeded grade level using

047I ready. We have grown by 5% for fall benchmark. You will see we made strong gains particularly in reading. Sixth grade we had a 9% increase from fall uh from uh from fall assessment to spring. Seventh grade 48% surpass end of year goal with a 15% increase from fall to spring. 8th grade 55% uh surpass end of year goal with 18% increase from fall. By June 2025, the number of sixth grade through eighth grade students who have reached or exceeded grade level using I ready math will have grown 5% from fall benchmark. So our sixth grade 31% end of year goal. A strong gain there. plus 18% from fall to spring. Seventh grade 26% surpassing the year goal with 8% increase from fall to spring and eighth grade uh surpassing goal with plus 9% increase

048from fall. That's an area that we have to look at in our math department. There's some data to we need to dig in a little bit deeper uh as it relates to testing with though not even an excuse but is very close to taking PSAT testing as well and MSTEP and we have to take a look at that that process. Uh by June 2020 we'll move 10% of our students in the well below category as the other principles mentioned that means uh two to three grades below grade level and moving them up. We had good and strong substantial gains moving everyone up at least one to two grade levels. Um, sixth grade decreased from 53% to 38% the fall with a a decrease of negative 15% minus 15% I'm sorry. Seventh grade decreased from 46%

049to 36 down to 36% from fall to spring. Eighth grade we didn't make that much of a gain again. Decrease from 46 uh 47 to 46 fall to spring. Uh there's one more that slide that was not in there, but I just want to talk about the reading um to show you how strong that our students perform in reading. And that seems to be a thing that we're doing across the district starting down in elementary school. uh 129% uh sixth graders showed typical of over a year's growth and up to 170 76% seventh graders showed above and beyond uh growth in in so basically our entire sixth seventh grade show growth in uh a year's growth in reading and in uh seventh grade sixth grade and seventh grade but surpassed it even by much more

050so mine is shorter to the point any questions Thank you all. What do you attribute what do you attribute that growth to? Dedicated teachers, dedicated practicing. I think we're getting more in alignment working with the elementary uh elementary schools. Uh we saw it early on particularly in sixth grade. We had our sixth grade come over. You probably your data from the beginning of the year to the end. Uh, and Katie and I have had these conversations that during that transfer, if you take a look at our data, you'll see they show growth in in the winter data and in the spring and it's been pretty strong since. So, I think we're getting more in alignment uh with one another. Definitely saw some intentional like um work between principal Jeffrey and yourself with the tightening of

051the transitions, making sure you know you're at fuel, fuel is coming over to Ferndale Middle School. And I think that the more that collaboration continues, we'll continue to see there there's also strong focus in our PNC's analy data analysis, right? And we do those uh uh at least three times a month as it relates to school level once a month as it relates to district level, but those intentionally a day now focus helps us with that. We we'll see we believe coming over with the what we the experience we have coming over, we we believe we're going to increase even next year. Next up, Ferndale High School. Good evening everyone. So, I follow the directions of Eric and I said five bullets. They told me five bullets. Here's what you get. Five bullets. Okay. Um,

052one slide, five bullets. So, um, we're excited to share that in both 9th and 10th grade, we met and actually exceeded the 5% growth target in both ELA and math. Um, I didn't put the specific numbers in there, but for 9th, it was uh 7%, 10th, 9th, I'm sorry, ELA 9, it was 7% um ELA 10th 9% um 9th 9% math and 10th 10% I'm sorry, 6% uh math. Um, just how do we do that? by focusing on um building that vocabulary and conceptual knowledge um in those targeted areas or in that content area. So, you know, getting in math for them to think like mathematicians and science, you should be scientists. Um you want to go in there and you want to hear that academic language being spoken by both the teachers and the

053students and the students can actually regurgitate those phrases and and you know, connect them to the content area. Um using I Ready um to try to drive more targeted interventions. as you heard some of my other colleagues speak now um that we're getting you know a bonus this year and so hopefully although it's not great for high school because I believe they only go up to eighth grade um for but however we got kids that are performing two and three levels behind so if we can get them and put the most eighth grade content um we're we'll be able to meet them where they are. Um also just collaborating um throughout the building to strengthen those tier one targeted instructions um and providing response uh support through intervention. So what do those tier one in

054instruction pieces look like? Um we're continue to do the building think in classrooms which is to um you know we have the students thinking vertically really really focusing on productive struggle not just handing it to them but making them think through the process um continuing on the productive talk moves to build that studentto student discourse also just um feedback having our teachers provide structured feedback uh exit tickets more formative assessment um in the form of not just you know allowing the kid who always wants to be first to raise their hand, but cold calling, you know, having them pull sticks to find out who's going to answer next and, you know, pulling more kids into the lesson. And then lastly, um accountability check-ins. Um I believe that's what supported the consistency and helped um our

055students sustain growth. And that is it. Are there any questions? I have a question. Can you um clarify what you said about not being available for high school? what's not available for everyone. Although the pathways um the LL pathway individualized Yeah. individualized and so the EXL just does now now thankfully you all the district we've invested in it but what I'm saying is it doesn't have that available for 9th and 10th and 11th graders. We only test on 9th and 10th grade anyway. And as you've heard most of our data a lot of our students are falling in the two to three grade grade levels behind. So if we have ninth graders that are three grade levels behind we can definitely utilize it. So we'll be happy to have that. So, we do have it.

056Um, Il does not offer it beyond 8th grade. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Thank you. Next up, Miss Patterson from University High School. Hi, everybody. Hello. So um I presented my data a little bit different because one of the things that um we have found really really helpful since the switch to I Ready is that it not only gives you a raw score, it also translated to grade level. So um I'm super proud of the growth in grade levels that we had throughout the year. um you know when our students start started out the year and this was the first time I've been able to see like the actual grade levels where they start at and I was like oh wow you know I mean they they come to us they don't come to us

057from from FMS you know they come to us from all over the place so um you know we try to meet them where we're at and scaffold and and build and so then when I saw a big jump at winter I was like okay how much of that is that the students weren't comfortable when they took the fall right? Like they're in a new place. It's strange. You know, they don't have a relationship with the teacher yet. So, I wasn't sure what kind of growth we'd see from winter to spring, but um it it continued. So, I'm just I am super proud of our teachers and super excited about this. So, so um in nth grade math, we grew 2.46 grade levels. Uh 10th grade math, our students grew 2.27 grade levels. Um 10th grade

058reading, I'm sorry, 9th grade reading, they grew 3.08 grade levels. and 10th grade reading they grew 2.84 grade levels. Um so and and that growth was with students at the bottom and students at the top. So, I didn't have room to include this, but we went from um in reading for 9th grade, we started the year at 2% that were at or above grade level. Um that we ended at 37% that were at or above grade level. And we started the year with 80% um that were three or more grade levels behind. We ended the year at 28% three or more grade levels behind. So um really at all levels of of student ability um the the students grew. So that was really exciting. Similar things in math. Um we went from we started the

059year at 2% at or above grade level. Um and went up to 31% at or above grade level and then started the year 87% three or more grade levels behind. Um and ended the year 49% three or more grade levels behind. So um just really excited about the the growth that we saw this year. Um some of the things that drove that impact a big focus on student talk um both through the vertical whiteboarding in math, through the use of circles in the classroom, um through open seductive talk moves, just really working on um that piece of it. Um always we're in a continuous um search to make things more relevant and use pro problem based instruction um to just build that relevance and build that engagement. Um and then our teachers really do an

060outstanding job of using universal design to provide those supports to meet students where they're at but provide access still to high school level content and you know have those scaffolds in place so that our students can achieve that. Um, any questions for me? Will we be able to get the spring sense of belonging data? Yes, it was not available when I um had to submit this, but I believe it is available now. So, Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, principles. I really appreciate having each of you come here tonight to highlight the work that you and your staffs have done. um much appreciated and congratulations on on all the great work that that's been done with a great result. So that we will turn it back over. I have something. Um I

061think I think we've mentioned this in the past, but as much as we can have standardized slides for each building because we just saw five different buildings have five wildly different slides. love love love that you guys are excited in different ways about what's happening at your buildings and it's all goodness but it makes it really hard especially since the the agenda item is my kip so we we only really saw it tied to the myip goals in the middle school slides so it's hard for us to know like are things real like what's a true improvement versus our goals versus what's just we're going to highlight all the Great stuff. We're glad there's a lot of good stuff. But so, so for clarity, yeah, everything that was presented tonight was connected to their my

062kip goals. We'll do a better job of reminding you what the goals were so you can see that it was connected to the my goals, right? Yeah. It's not clear how it's connected to the my kip goals for understood. Un. And just so everybody understands, I will be processing the full spring data and and we'll be sharing the the full scope of the data. my kip and and non related in the near future. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? Thanks everybody. Thank you. All right, that brings us to item six, presentation of building dynamic plans. Good evening. Um, this is right. I sent you probably two different versions. Is this the second updated version before? It should just be named like two updated second updated. There's enough. Thank you. This one says updated. It

063should be named. It has a number two in front of it for you. Yeah, there it is at the top. 740. Yeah. Yes, ma'am. All right. So again, good evening everyone. I'm excited to be with you all today. My name is Dr. Kelly Peterson with the educated approach. So really excited to share an update with you on all the progress that has been made on the strategic plan. Um I know the principles just left, but definitely appreciate the work that they have contributed to this and I'll share a little bit more about um their work and all of the work of different stakeholder groups throughout the plan. So we'll go ahead and get started. So this uh process began in September to current. So we have been working through a seven-phase process and really excited

064again about the progress that has been made and where we are and we are almost to the finish line. Um we did this work not in isolation but the use of two groups both the strategy development team which is a mixed of uh stakeholders that really focused on where are we now and where do we want to go and then we also worked with the strategy action team which is really your leadership team. So both district leaders and principles um work together to really narrow down on how actually will we get there and so more of those detail action items. So I will go through kind of some updates with you in terms of walking you through each phase high level. Um so the first phase was around collecting outcome data. We wanted to make

065sure that we understood the current state. Before we can know where we're going, we have to understand where we are. We were assessing also the previous strategic plan. those goals, but also looking at a lot of different data sets to get again a analysis of the starting point, understanding what trends to build upon, what strengths of the district, um, and where are areas to continue to improve. We then did some stakeholder data collection. Um, this was done in the form of both interviews and focus groups as well as surveys. The focus here is really wanting to understand the experience of the current stakeholders within FPS. um what things were working, what were the experiences, what were the needs and what were the visions for the district moving forward. We were able to do that and

066have uh focus groups that had about for this stakeholder engagement 111 participants in focus groups and then 378 survey survey respondents. Um we noticed that in the beginning we had the survey open for some weeks. We weren't really getting the traction. Came back to the team to really strategize how do we get more engagement. Um and the team really stepped up and showed up. um to make sure that we got more responses in the survey. So we had 378 respondents to that survey. Some of the highlights that came from that engagement both the focus groups and interviews as well as the survey um some of the things that they stated was in terms of the strategic plan previous in terms of the goals felt like the incorporating technology is something that the district was doing

067very well um which was a previous strategic plan goal. One of the areas that elevated in terms of needing to prioritize was the increase of student achievement. When we looked at some of the attitude statements, 70% of the participants agreed that they felt a sense of belonging as part of the community, which was something to highlight as well. We utilized that information and then created a SWAT analysis as the board. you all were a part of that during a January 11th um retreat along our strategy development team who also had two dates to engage in that work. They were able to take the information collected from the outcome data as well as the stakeholder data um to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that were identified in the current state. The next slide just

068highlights really high level some of those areas. Um we have in our strengths commitment to equity. One of the things that continued to come up was having a shared language across the district and understanding of the importance of equity um as a strength. Also the continued focus of student well-being specifically amongst the elementary students where we saw some weaknesses around disparity and staff demographics and leadership representation and the difference between the student population. um some academic achievement gaps and so when we dig down and looking at the racial demographics of performance seeing some gaps there and then some inconsistencies around social emotional programming so we see the strength in terms of the student well-being and the focus in the elementary but some inconsistencies around where it's implemented in the upper grades um opportunities is around

069improving district-wide practices specifically around um having a cohesive academic expectation to increase rigor for student performance um as well intentional staff development. Um, some of the threats that were identified, just perception and mindset barriers, um, external misinformation, relying overly on social media communication as opposed to being able to go directly to the source and getting that from the district, as well as again some performance gaps and engagement issues. When we look across our racial demographics of the district, we utilize that information and with the work of the board. um then had the opportunity to go into strategy development beginning with the vision story. So once we have an idea and a snapshot of where we are, we can begin to dream outside the guardrails to decide where we want to be. That information is then

070used to develop priorities which then lead into the strategic priorities. And so boy, you all may remember the next slide uh your 2030 vision story. Some of the highle pieces that came out of that um is just in terms of successfully shifting the focus from recognizing equity as a value to actively embedding it within the daily operations. We also see that the strong academic foundation empowers our students to compete uh compete successfully for college admission and career opportunities at the local national international levels. Although there's an intentional focus on academic outcomes, we continue to value a holistic approach to education, nurturing the minds, bodies, and spirits of every student. Also, we recognize that although schools are at the center of every community, they are surrounded by other community organizations, partners, and business industries that are

071actively engaged in the success of our students and the district over all, which we see when you all have communities in school. So, continuing that piece. Um, so these are just some of the highlighted v statements from the 2030 vision statement. This was utilized to then move into the strate with the strategy action team taking the board's vision to then say what are the top achievements. We looked at the SWAT analysis to say here's where we are if we want to make this to be true in 2030. What are the things we actually need to focus on? And we doubled down in some of those areas that you see highlighted here um are the areas to continue to improve upon and build upon in or in order to reach that 2030 vision story. that was

072then utilized in the next slide to begin some draft development of strategic focus areas. Um we did a lot of note takingaking and ideation and creation around where do we need to continuously like push and focus and build upon in order to get to this 2030 vision. Um and here are some of the things um updated here where we decided that some of those focus areas would need to be. Taking that this was a snapshot of the first draft strategic priorities. You will see datadriven decisions being the flashlight for all things. The foundation being unifying our community. We also have the pillars of strategic resource allocation, relevant and responsive staff development, unified academic expectations, and engaged and empowered students. This visual was provided in both the survey and focus groups for strategy testing, which I'll

073share with you um in a moment. But this is what was utilized to put out to the stakeholders to see does this resonate. Since we did that initial stakeholder data collection, we wanted to know does this is this in response to what you said. If we focus on these in the next five five years, will we actually meet what you vision for the district? Um and then we were able to get feedback and I'll share that. Um we also utilized this to create the theory of action. The theory of action being the articulating the changes that actually have to take place in order for the district to achieve the organization's future. And so here we have the theory of action that was created based on um continued revisions but focusing on if we want to

074if starting from our current state to where we want to be. These are the areas in which we need to focus on. And so if our district establishes clear, consistent and rigorous academic expectations and instructional practices that build progressively from preK through 12th grade, ensuring continuity across classrooms, grade levels, and schools. We build a culture of continuous improvement grounded in high quality data analysis, professional learning, and shared accountability and foster inclusive environments and build intentional partnerships with families and communities that reflect shared priorities. Then our schools will deliver academically challenging, culturally responsive, and engaging instruction driven by educators who hold high expectations for every student. Collaboratively analyze data to inform decisions. And authentically engages students, families, staff, and communities in ways that reflect and honor their unique needs, voices, and strengths so that our students

075graduate prepared for college, careers, and futures defined by their own goals and thrive in a diverse, everchanging society. overcoming disparities and outcomes linked to race, ability, social, economic status or neighborhoods. So the visual I shared with you um with the pillars, we took that again to the strategy testing. We did focus groups. We held five focus groups with 40 participants and then we also received 652 survey responses on the survey as well highlighting overall there was support for these strategic pillars. The biggest piece was around simplification um and clarity in language. As you all know, sometimes in education we have educa uh ed you speak and so really making sure that we're intentional about the language that we're using for any lay person to truly understand what we are actually trying to communicate and to

076convey. Um then the the analysis was provided to our strategy action team. We were able to take that and determine based on the feedback from our stakeholders, um which things do we need to keep as is, what do we need to tweak and what do we need to overhaul to continue to refine all of the strategic priorities and focus areas. And that takes us to the next phase which was a strategy refinement. So all of that information was utilized to then refine these pillars into what we now know as acknowledg soar. Reach being an acronym. And this really focuses on acknowledging the past success and building upon the continued success of the district while also focusing on making sure that we have every eagle to soar and reaching higher. And reach stands for so there

077are five places that we would focus on in order to dive deeper and for the district to reach higher. The first is relevant and responsive staff development. Really making sure that we have growth and retention for all staff collectively to share on a shared vision for aligned high quality learning and student success. E is engaged and empowered students. Every student must consistently be present and actively engaged. We also have a accelerate academic excellence, doubling down on aligning academic expectations and instructional practices across the district to make sure that there are seamless transitions, collaboration, and high expectations. CS cultivating collective pride, building meaningful partnerships with both students, families, and communities. And lastly, H, harnessing data to drive improvement, using the data as a flashlight to eliminate what works, address what doesn't, and align the strategies from

078classroom to central office. In the strategic uh plan, there are um a couple different layers I want to provide to you. There are the strategic pillars um which is the reach acronym. These are the five four highle domains um where the efforts will be concentrated over the next five years. The next is the goal. The gold is the bold aspirational goal and aim. Then there are measures of success being the specific achievements within that goal and by when the measurable pieces and then the priorities are the key areas of focus to meet in order that we would need to do in order to meet each goal. What's not on here is more which is more eternally focused is both the strategies so the action steps that the team will actually move the work as well

079as the KPIs which are the key performance indicators and measured to um utilizing to measure the success on the way through to to meet those goals. Um and so we have relevant responsive staff development at a high level. The goal here being purposeful professional learning. Um, and thinking about the SWAT analysis, the areas to continue to build upon, really ensuring that there is professional development aligned to the areas that we want to continue to improve, which is that high quality instruction, the academic um, consistency, but also recognizing that not everyone is a teacher in the district, but there are also different roles and making sure that professional development is alo differentiated in order to proide growth for professional staff that are beyond just teachers. The next area is the engage and empowered students with the

080high level goal here being preparing students for lifelong success. Um focusing on building the social emotional piece um as well as decreasing the chronic absenteeism that we did once we looked at outcome data really seeing that really pop at the high school level and making sure that we utilize partnerships such as communities and schools to do that. Um as well as continuing to broaden the scope for students to expand beyond the classroom into different industry credentials. um as well as making sure that they also feel a sense of belonging in their school um and have an adult to go through to accelerating academic excellence. The goal here high level is implementing high quality instruction to accelerate the student learning and close opportunity gaps. We felt it necessary to make sure that not only are we

081focused on the overall achievement, but being able to specifically call out where the we have had historically marginalized and underserved students and those gaps and making sure that there are intentional strategies to address that and measures of success to continue to measure that throughout the duration of the plan. Cultivating collective pride goals here being strengthening strategic partnerships to support district priorities. Again, this is a lot of work, but one of the things that's most important is recognizing the district is not alone in moving the work. You have partners that we just saw, communities and schools and others to continue to make sure that we're intentional about making sure that they also know their role in part and we invite them in to be a part of the solution. Um, execute a unified and and purposeful

082communication strategy and continuing to strengthen family engagement. Um, one of the things we noticed in our responses is just the different response rates from different types of families across buildings, across race. um in terms of our family engaging and really being intentional about how we continue to engage the full scope of the Ferndale community. And lastly, harnessing data to drive improvement. one establishing a culture of datadriven decision-making. Um we saw that beginning to happen today um with board member Aaron bringing up the making sure that we have presentations that are truly aligned um so that you as board members can truly understand to track the progress that we want to see in this acceleration of academic performance across gaps and aligned to goals. Um ensuring uh resources match priorities again utilizing the strategic priorities and

083focus areas to align those resources to continue to move that All of that I know sounds like a lot and you're like how am I going to track that? How are we going to know if we're meeting it? Um we've also developed tools to support you in this. One of which is uh the quarterly progress report so that you all will have access to this and this being updated to provide to you um and transparently to the stakeholders um each quarter that is utilized to help you to kind of see where you are based on the goal where are we on track are we not on track but also to understand if something is actually in progress. Recognizing all of this in this five years is not going to all start tomorrow um or year

084one, but some things will actually have a scaffold approach. It may not start until year two so that you also understand why something may not be moving. But we want to make sure that we build those tools for you. So this is just a snapshot of a quarterly progress report. The other tools are also um the key performance indicator data collection so that the staff is able to continuously monitor that each quarter that then will feed into this to make it very clear about the progress being made on each of those goals. Overall, um I think a couple of things to just highlight is just the level of engagement um that has happened and this plan being representative of a lot of different voices, a lot of perspectives, experiences in the district. Um over the

085six months, we've had 151 people to be participants of the focus groups and over a thousand online survey responses. Um and so just the level of engagement and commitment from people beyond the those that get paid um but your families even your students um truly truly showed up um and shared their voices. Um we also had five strategy development team meetings as well as five strategy action team meetings and 28 in counting check-ins with your superintendent and deputy superintendent as well. Um and so very appreciative of the district um their time, your time and your stakeholders for really being able to create a collaborative process. Um and so the next slide is just the strategy development team shout out and strategy action team because they continued to show up. Um they pushed back um which

086was great. Um and they also pushed in which was also important to make sure that we had a strategic plan that is not just pretty but also is representative of act the living work um that will happen in the district. So I will stop talking see if there are any questions fantastic being able to this this piece which goes beyond just like the sort of addresses. um what's the plan to roll this out to so we have a busy summer ahead of us because the next step as Dr. Peterson mentioned is the action steps, right? So, this is great. We know we're directed, but um we feel like we're in a position for all these PD what that some what that building level PD is going to be critically important to ensure that the the

087staff has voice in like how they're going to achieve these goals. Um, so we feel pretty confident about like our district roll out but ensuring that it's very tightly aligned to how the buildings are rolling out the old system. I I was thinking actually more toward general public there's so much engagement was done which is fantastic but being able to show this is where it's going because we talk about brand and perception and like showing that like okay uh is a very that's my question. Sure. Sure. I actually have a meeting on Wednesday with um our ACT team who is like the the website kind of creators. Um and one of the things I'm going to talk about is that specifically is we we absolutely need a page dedicated not only just this is what

088we did but this is where you can find the updates because it's going to be really important like those updates. This is a dynamic plan. So when we have those opportunities to share here's how we met the mark or we didn't where can the community go to see that? Yeah. Um, so having a page dedicated on our website is going to be really important. Yeah, that was as well as Yeah. As Yes. Dashboards. Also, we're talking as well about like common places in the buildings, right? So, is it the main office where parents might be a or community members might be able to see how things are progressing, but having it in a common place in all of our buildings so that when the community is there, they can see it live and in action.

089That's another there so everybody can see uh only feedback is if we do this presentation in public can we change the pictures to represent absolutely absolutely we can get some we get some real people real pics then how much more bas but we have begun done that, right? So, like the leadership retreat that we had last last Thursday, I uh it was a Dr. Peterson kind of created a um a visual so that we as leaders can see it's very easy to just look at all of those goals and priorities and say like, "Oh my gosh, August is going to be crazy, right?" But what we were able to do is to really drill down into each individual goal because some of them you have to meet the goal by 26, 27, others 28, 29,

090right? So what must it look like on the one year it might be like we're researching versus the next year we're implementing then the following year we're going to make sure that we're adjusting and pivoting based on the implementation that we did. Right? So we now can see which goals or which priorities we must attack immediately versus which are the ones we need to begin researching. So now our next step I think as a cabinet level is like who are the owners monitors like what exactly does that look like because we of course we are all owning it right but there has to be like a point person for each of these areas to ensure that we're moving the needle off. No, I just I mean just done lots of plans. Some of them are

091terrible that I've done. Uh and just the tying this all into one area make it easy for people to sort of they're sort of picking up or down to look at how progress is going. This is really exciting too. I also will say too, I think like like you were mentioning the version that we put publicly. We we absolutely recognize that there is a lot of educator lingo in here too. So like we've been talking about one pagers and like what is a common slide deck look like for each of the buildings during PLC, you know, like all of these ways we can ensure that it is as digestible as possible but also recognizing who our audience is. Um I have a comment and a question. Um comment is the same thing that Mark just

092said. I think this work is amazing and has been such a long process and has been so collaborative of so many people in the district and I think Dr. Peterson, you've done a fantastic job. I've also participated in strategic plans that are definitely not as good as this. So I'm super looking forward. I was very excited to like see the presentation of this on the agenda today. Um and then my question is related to the agenda. Um this is kind of a newbie board member question. Sorry. Um when we don't have the presentation um in the board packet, does it get updated on the website like once we get it? So that the it's not always that way, but but we can't we absolutely have the ability to do that. It's not like just we

093we absolutely can because we want to make sure that they they know but just know also that we are planning for like a a big launch. Hey here it is this is the work right. So we can do both I think. Absolutely. Thank you. Oh maybe refresh it. I do see it. I think it should materials available to the public. Oh, no questions. Just what else? Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That brings us to item seven. Public comments. 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 include these include mail, email, phone calls, face-to-face meetings, community gatherings, public hearings, and other public meetings. We

094welcome individual and group input into the important 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 decision 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 contact information on the comment sheet to help administrators follow up with you on your comment. I will call on people who have completed the comment sheets first. Each person will have one opportunity to address the

095board for up to three minutes. Comments or questions should be directed to the board president. Vice President Kaiser will raise her hand when your time is within a few seconds of expiring. This period of public comments is for both non-aggenda items and issues that are on 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 and public. This is meant to promote fairness to staff to the staff person and the complainant. the Ferndale public schools community acts with grace ability towards one another. Please help us to maintain that tradition during public comment. Uh up first, uh Kathy Durant, I have a quiet voice. Um I

096have a weird allergy going on. I'm hoping I can get through this without coughing. So, um Kathy Duran, a transportation employee of 30 years. Uh good evening to everybody. Uh dear superintendent Camille Hibler, police Wright, President Sandra Dookie, and school board members and administrative staff. Um I'm honored to stand before you today to express my heartfelt gratitude for the opportunity to serve Burndale Schools as a bus driver for 30 years. I'm proud to have played a part in shaping young minds, keeping them safe, and contributing to the district's mission. My students and myself have shared moments that drove me crazy and filled my heart all in the same day. Never a dull moment, and I suppose that's why 30 years flew by. I wouldn't trade all the smiles, laughter, yelling, screaming, jokes, crying, spills, loose

097teeth. I had bloody noses in there, but I omitted it by uh questions, wiggling, meaningful talks, counseling 101, micromanaging 72, curious, fun, younger and older student experiences for any other career. I hope somewhere on route my students were left with something positive and meaningful while they were my passengers. I would like to thank each and every one of you for your leadership and support throughout my 30-year career. I appreciate what you do for Ferndale schools to keep it strong and would also like to extend that out to the parents too. So, thank you very much everybody. Thank you so much. And with that, I'm going home. I have a new puppy and we're hoping it's not tearing up our house. We don't want to put it in the crate. We felt bad. So, have a

098beautiful summer and thank you again for everything. All the good memories will just just always be with me. Congratulations, absolutely enjoy it. Thank you. Thank you. Eddie Sabatini, President Duki, Superintendent Hibler, Deputy Superintendent Wright, members of the board, neighbors. Good evening. Evening. Uh Eddie Sabatini, 10003 Pearson Street. Uh I'm here again uh representing a growing coalition of residents who are invested in the future of the Kulic building and property. Uh our goal is a co a collaboration with the district and preserving a community space and park with inclusive public access. Uh so I'm just here with a quick update. Um we are growing as I mentioned. We've got uh nearing 200 signatures. I think the last time I was here we were at 115 signatures. Uh we have officially secured the endorsement of the Detroit

099Bird Alliance uh which we're super uh stoked about. Um and I have a meeting with them this week to discuss some uh educational programming ideas around the chimney swifts that are uh living in the chimney. So uh I threw a bunch of ideas out at them and I probably overwhelmed them. So we're going to meet and talk about things like uh a nature walk with kids and seniors. uh the birds of Koolic or birds of Ferndale uh educational uh class or seminar maybe at the library. The timing is bad. I would have suggested the schools. Obviously, that's not the time for it right now, but we'll see. I'll more to come. I'll give you more updates. Um oh, we're working on getting the official endorsement of the Ferndale Senior Group, a very important group that

100the Kulick building was very important to. Um so, they're going to vote on it. Uh, apparently they liked my presentation, but they weren't ready to give their official endorsement, which I understand. I appreciate the due diligence. Um, uh, Miss Wright, uh, we very much look forward to participating in the facilities committee when it reconvenes. Uh, we know it's a busy summer. We've been hearing all about the amazing things that are going on. So, uh, we'll be staying tuned. Look forward to talking with you more. Um, and we appreciate your collaboration up to this point. It's been very inspiring to the community. So, thank you. Um, last uh updates uh meeting. Oh, we're meeting with the city uh city manager's office uh just to kind of gauge their priorities and encourage uh you know, conversation and

101collaboration with the district and the community. Uh and that's it. Yeah, that's it. Thank you for listening. Appreciate your service to the students and the community. Thank you. Thank you. Andrea Papovic. Hi everyone. I'm a little nervous. I feel like I'm in school. Never prepared. Um, I'm here on behalf of myself as a Ferndale resident, a substitute teacher in the city, and the Ferndale Environment and Sustain Sustainability Commission, a group busy making a difference in our community. Some of you may know we're the people who advocate um advocated for rain barrels, which led to rain barrels for residents at a discounted price. We supported native plant a native plant initiative um with the native um seed package as well as residential composted program which goes along with education on all the mentioned um subjects and

102most of that was financed through grants as well. Um we're a team that wants to help our city become more sustainable and more forward thinking and we're excited to bring that expertise and passion hopefully to our schools. Um, which brings me to my subject of composting. I know, very exciting. Um, at the PTA fair, um, where FESC um, had a table and got to meet members of our community. I was honestly excited to see kids who already know a lot about composting, not just the basics, um, of putting food scraps into a bin, but the whole life cycle, turning um, waste into rich soil. That knowledge starts at home and in our communities. and we have a wonderful opportunity here to grow. I know we have kids from outside of Ferndale who may not have

103composting within their community and this is a great chance um to show what's possible to empower all of our kids to be to become environmental leaders. We're fortunate to have a community partner like Coast Sustainability who also um was at the P uh PTA um fair um and who already works with um Royal Oak Schools which I also did a little bit substitution for. Um the schools collect food scraps co- sustainability converts it into rich soil and then sells it back to the schools at cost. the school in turn um can sell it to the community or wherever for profit which then goes back and can pay for for these bins and for the weekly pickups um at the school. I know this isn't a simple process. There's a lot of details to figure out

104and we have some obstacles to navigate, but we'd love to keep the conversation going to collaborate uh and see where we can take um this together because when we start in our schools, we're not just um shaping our community, we're shaping future generations who care about their community and their planet. So, let's put our heads and our food scraps together and see what we can grow. So, like I said, I'm just from the FSC committee. I don't know how um that partnership will look. There was a stewardship that I did see, but unfortunately, it's on hold right now. Um 10 seconds. Oh, sorry. That's on. I I don't know where we fit in, but just think about us. Like, we'll show up and you know, I'll keep talking and hopefully we can, you know, partner.

105Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else here for public comment? Great. Public comment is now closed, which brings us to uh item eight to the consent agenda. Uh item 8.1 request to approve minutes of the special meeting the whole May 5th 2025. 8.2 request to approve minutes of regular meeting May 19th 2025. 8.3 request to approve new hires resignations and transfers. 8.4 request to approve bills and accounts for May 2025. 8.5 request to approve uh Michigan Association of Superintendent and Administrators membership dues for 2526. 8.6 request to approve Michigan Association of School Boards board book contract renewal for 20 2526. 8.7 request to approve Michigan Association of School Boards membership dues for 20 2526. 8.8 8 request to approve Michigan High School Athletic Association resolution for 25 2025 2026 8.9 the request to approve

1062025 2026 cafeteria resolution resolution 8.10 10. The request to approve 2025 2026 student activity resolution. 8.11 request to approve 2025 2026 general fund original budget resolution. 8.12, the request to approve 2024 2025 general fund budget amendment to resolution. 8.13 request to approve Ferndale L4029 tax year 2025 and 8.14 request to approve millillage 2025 resolution. Does anyone wish to remove an item from the consent agenda for questions or discussions later? Seeing none, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. So moved. Moved by Lisa. Second. Seconded by Aaron. Roll call. Shepard. Crumb. Yes. Deliver. Yes. Kaiser. Yes. Wner. Yes. Turner. Yes. President Duki. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. With six yes votes, the motion passes and the consent agenda is approved. Um item nine um action items 9.1 request to approve I

107ready renewal proposal. Hello again everybody. As we talked about a couple of weeks ago, I am asking for approval of a proposal to renew our contract with I Ready for one additional year. Included with the renewal is a pilot of the personalized pathways that you heard a lot of the principles talk about tonight. So, please approve so I don't have to go back and tell them that it didn't fly. No, just kidding. Um, hopefully you you find it worthwhile. I'll entertain a motion to approve item 9.1 request to approve I ready renewal proposal. I'll move by Jonathan second. Seconded by Aaron that was I mean seconded by Lisa. Sorry. Uh any discussion on auction excited to see what comes of it. So am I roller dear? Yes. Kaiser. Yes. Monner. Yes. Turner. Yes. Yes. President

108Dinki. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. With six yes votes. Sorry. The motion passes and item 9.1 request to approve I ready renewal proposal is approved. Thank you. Thank you. Item 9.2 the request to approve true policy adoption recommendation. All right. Good evening everybody. Good evening. Uh so you uh should have been able to uh click on a link in the um in the uh request that was in the board packet. Um all of the trun policies have been um brought have been brought up today. They've been updated with the edits and the uh uh per the discussion we've had over the last several months committee the whole meeting. Uh and so we're pleased to present these to you tonight. Uh a couple notes. Remember when we go with Trune, not only do we buy their

109policies from them, we also subscribe to their policy service. And that's the real advantage of that. Um, I'm very pleased to tell you tonight that I just received the annual update um for the packet you're about to approve. So, in the next uh August or September, we get to go right back at it again. Um, we'll take a couple months off first. Um, so all the policies that you see in front of you should represent the discussions we've had both as a cabinet team and the committee of the whole meeting. Um tonight what we're requesting from the board is the full repeal um of all policies with the exception of the uh student bullying policy um which legally we have to have a public hearing on before the board can adopt that policy. So we'll

110go through that process in August um to officially adopt that particular policy. Um, as I said, I will also be bringing updates back to you. Um, and, uh, our plan right now is within the next day or two, we will have all of the new policies posted on our website, um, as Google documents as they were presented to you this evening. Our hope is that eventually we can work with board notes to publish them the same way that that our current policies are shared and that your uh, uh, board documents are shared as well. Um but for the time being, in the interest of expediency, we're going to get them up through Google Docs so that they're posted and available as required. Um so our requested action tonight is again to re uh to repeal

111all existing policies with the exception of the student bullying policy um and the two policies regarding technology acceptable use and safety which are actually just going to be considered amended. Um and then we'll come back in August for the anti-bullying policy. So, a lot of work has gone through this. Thank you for your patience and I can answer any questions everybody has. Question on process. Yes. Do we have to do two votes? One on the repeal, one on the approved or we just stood with the approved one is what I understand. Yeah. I'll entertain a motion to approve item 9.2 request to approve tune policy adoption recommendation. So moved. Moved by Aaron. Second. Seconded by David. Any discussion on the motion? Thank you for all the work. Thank you for all the work. Yes. Thank

112you. Thank you everybody. Thanks for your patience with me. Not approved yet, Tom. What if we actually vote? No. Oh, okay. Sorry. I got a little excited there. Sandra, sorry. We'll call. Yes. Mer. Yes. Yes. Ry, yes. Yes. President D. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, I got to With success votes, the motion passes in item 9.2, request to approve policy. Adoption recommendation is approved. Um, item 10, superintendent update. Question real quick. Yes, we have another item. Um, we got in our board. Sorry 9.3 didn't get 9.3 email though. That's what happened. So sorry the agenda in the email did not have 9.3 on it. That's why it's not here. So not my apologies. Item 9.3 request to approve recommendation of contract award for food service contract management. Excellent. Thank you so much board president

113and honorable board. Um this has been an arduous process. I have not been through this process before and it's completely dictated by um MDE. Um from the verbiage to the timing to approval to who attends was all dictated by the statement. So, um, although arduous, I appreciate it because it it really kept us on our toes and it also went for a really a process that is really um, integral. So, tonight I bring to you a recommendation to award a contract to Chartwells for the 2526 school year for the management of the school district's food service operations in the not to exceed amount of 1.437 437,747.118. Um this process began in May just um a month ago and um it required a pre-bid or mandatory pre-bid and walkthrough of our facilities. At that time we

114had seven companies to show up and participate in that process. In the end, five companies actually submitted uh proposals including our incumbent Chartwells um based on the evaluation um committee that convened and was representative of of myself um the other central administration as well as school leadership. um the recommendations brought to you um to award the contract to Chartwells based on um its response uh to the RFP with respect to meal participation, accessibility, the candidate for management of the contract uh for the upcoming year and integrity with respect to the operating budget and forecasting for the district. Um below you will be able to see um um the costs that were submitted by proposing for uh competitors for the food service program. Um if it were approved tonight, the district would move forward with negotiating

115a final contract with charts and execution of the contract with then being sent back to the state for uh record. Um, this contract has the ability to renew for up to 5 years or one year at a time. I'll entertain a motion to approve item 9.3, the request to approve recommendation of contract award for food service contract management. Can I actually ask a question before we vote for clarification? You can when we do the stud make sure that we're allowed to vote on it. You can do it. Let's do the move by second by a minute. Yes. So moved by Lisa. Second. Second by David. Any discussion on the motion? Yes. I just want to clarify that we are able to vote on this if it wasn't in the board packet for the email. It

116was in the board packet after it was You just didn't get it. It was in the board book. It was posted on the wall. Okay. Okay. So, it's in the it's in the posted. So, it's in post. Yeah. So, okay. I just want to make sure that when we set up on that Thursday. Okay. Friday. It was posted on Friday. Okay. Just want to clarify is because around 3:00 we received approval from NDE to submit for approval to our school. Just wanted to clarify. Yes sir. Um was the May RFPD was that dictated by the state? It was I had it a little bit earlier and just based on the review process and the availability of our consultant was changed going through this process now. We'll start in January. That's exactly where I knew where

117you were going. We will start in January. Ro Shepard Monner. Yes. Turner. Yes. Crumb. Yes. Still burn. Yes. Kaiser. Yes. President Duki. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. With six yes votes, the motion passes. And item 9.3, the request to approve recommendation of contract award for food service contract management is approved. Item 10, update. Good evening. Um so um my update include since we last met um we did conclude our final graduation for the school year with Berndale High School. Another event that I'd like to um highlight was the second grade clapout which was probably had the same amount of people as FHS's graduation. Like it was I it was wonderful. It was great to they what they did was they walked out of the second grade hallway in the back and they had

118the entire school was um on either side of the um sidewalk and then the parents and it was just such a they were just ecstatic walking down that tunnel um to see the parents and they had signs and balloons and it was just spectacular. Um, we definitely saw um that um pride, the excitement going from lower to upper. It was just a beautiful event. So, I'm definitely looking forward to next year, but excited to see so many that will be going on to upper. Um also we had our end of year lunchon where we did get a chance to highlight our um our tenure teachers, our retirees and our 5 10 15 25 and 30 um years of service awards as well. Um as well as some yummy food from Chartwell. So thank you. Um

119and um I also spoke a little bit about our um year-end retreat that was a replacement for our um principal meeting and this is the first time we've done a full day end of year retreat. Um but with the dynamic plan um with the sun setting of the scrapa department, there were so many things that we really needed time to kind of dig into before we went out for the summer. and I knew and the feedback suggested that it was extremely helpful. Um, and they were able to kind of start looking ahead to August without feeling that anxiety of, oh, I'm not sure exactly what's coming next. So, I'm really glad that we did that full day and we'll look forward to doing that in the future. Um uh the bulk of my time has

120been a large bulk of my time has been that transition planning as I'm I'm speaking of um the um the two roles that will be suns setting um as well as a department that that is effective date is June 30th so that date is coming very very fast. We just want to make sure that it is a seamless transition. Um we have been meeting Tom Shelton has been meeting um with the staff that are in that department that will be transitioning to his department and we're feeling really good about the transition. Just want to make sure that we are communicating as widely enough and as frequent enough to make sure that um building leaders, department leaders as well as our wider community are aware of this sunset and you know all that that entails and

121most importantly who do they contact in the meantime if they have a communications related question etc etc. Um so we are getting prepared. We're feeling very confident about the transition um as it stands right now. Um the final event that I do want to close out with is um we were I was very proud that uh we were able to represent Ferndale schools at the BMEA Ga Gayla. Um BMEA is originally Black Male Educators Alliance. They just changed their name to Boldly Moving Education along along change. Maybe it's not along. We may have some of the uh acronym like the letters incorrect but they made a change to their name. Um but again really looking forward to a potential partnership with this organization. Again they do support with um professional development for staff. Um they

122also this is the most important piece is that they do have a uh okay boldly moving education ahead not along. That feels much better. Um um so as I mentioned, I'm very excited about the potential partnership for our students to actually go through a cohort where our young men um can have the opportunity to get training support. The goal is to have a cohort of potential new teachers. Um they also uh will be counselors for a summer camp. Just want to note that it was so compelling that my son is actually going to be in attendance at the camp this summer. Um, and I'm just really excited about the again potential partnerships and opportunities for both our students and our staff. Um, so I will keep the board updated about that potential partnership. Um, and

123um, that concludes my update. Are there any questions? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Brings us to item 11,formational items 11.1 budget to actual report. Hello again. Hi Doug. I'm presenting the May budget to actual report. And let me just keep going. Yeah. Okay. Um It's May budget actual report. It's through May 31st. Um the we're right we're we're on track and you know the um percent remaining is close to where it was last year and um spending is on par with what we expect. Um just in the expenditures part there are still um six six payments six uh FEA pays left um for the year. Two in June, two in July, two in August. The teachers get paid out September through August. Any questions? Thank you. Thanks, John. Item 12, consideration of any pulled

124consent agenda items. We didn't have any. Item 13, our next committee of the whole, Monday, August 11th at 6 PM. Uh, item 14, our next regular board meeting is Monday, August 18th at 7 p.m. Item 15, Eagles Points of Pride. I start. [Laughter] One, two, three, shoot. Oh, one, two, three, shoot. All right. Uh, I'll go first. our um so I was a high school teacher for so long and I've been to more commencements than I can count and um going to our commencements for the first time as a new board member was really exciting and I always love them. My face always hurts by the end of the evening. Um, and going to the commencement for TCE was especially exciting. um to see uh people who took um to just hear stories of people

125who took a less traditional route um that just had uh such story journeys uh to to making such a huge achievement in their lives um was really inspirational and beautiful and um yeah I just felt really proud of our students and all the work that they had done. It was um it was really a special thing to be a part of. So just really proud of our graduates and um happy for them. Now you can go Dave. Oh, that's why I wanted to go first. You shouldn't have done. But I do have a backup. Um, personally as kind of a a rookie to this gig, I want to thank everybody in this room because not coming from the education world, um, have and will continue to have a lot of questions sometimes is just what

126these initials mean. But, you know, no, everybody in this room and and it's key and and I think I learned it in Atlanta that, you know, this is not the norm. And I appreciate the sometimes I ask stupid questions. But no, bottom line is I do really appreciate because it's needed and and like I said, I think over the past whatever months it's been um you realize that this is this is a rare thing and I appreciate it. So that's my Yeah, that was going to be mine. Yes. Oh, synergy. Got to go first. I I also have a backup. Maybe maybe it's the next person. I I know we celebrated a lot of retirees and um anniversaries today. I just wanted to shout out Miss Kathy, who's not here anymore, but she um was

127the one who spoke at public summit. Um, she was one of my kids bus drivers and she is truly the sweetest person ever. She I remember she wrote a thank you card to us one year for for Christmas gift and it was so nice and like individualized to my students and she just put so much care into her job. Um, and I know she will be missed and I wish her a wonderful retirement and I appreciate her service. I'll go next. Mine is close. Mine is thinking about the from the retirees. I was really thinking about the team that we have here that's dedicated to Fernandale and just how much intentionality is put behind our students, our district, not only our students, but our district, our staff, our community. um especially with having our first

128full year with our soup. So, just wanted to give it right shine like throw shine your way. Um just on all of your guys' hard work this year and dedication to our friend excellence. Not in plus up that a little bit, but just specifically Don Tom. I mean, you all are up here. You take 75% of your superh good job uh throwing you out there. Uh did it um and you know, I think you see just the the metrics of improvement, you know, are due to all of your your leadership. Um you know, Don, we come back in August. Hopefully, we have a budget, but I say we will. Um, and you know, I think the the dynamic plan is is going to sort of need to level up another game, right, from you know,

129how we're we're tracking and it's not just like the number, but how we're going to get to a number. So, like it's going to keep getting getting harder, but definitely appreciate like all the work that you put into this and just continuing to get better. is kind of like it's been very impressive just the amount of of work. So you did take mine and then I'm a prior. So, I want to also just shout out the Department of Student Transportation and Cab. Um, and then Cheryl Dury. I was not here for the last day. My son graduated from high school, so I was at graduation. Um, but I would have just absolutely bald. Those two ladies mean a tremendous amount to me. The entire department was moving something special. It's a small group. They're a

130tight group of people. I miss being there every day with them, which I'm contemplating moving back over there with them just to support daddy with her transition and supervising, but they really do care a lot about those kids. And today I also, it's the same thing. Today I I attended our safety summit meeting with open schools and the presenter mentioned how the school bus driver knows about the more about those kids than any of us can because that's the first person they see in the movie. They can tell you when they're hurt. They can tell you when they're sad, when they're not getting along with their friends. And it's so true because I've seen it with Miss D with her notes. She used to write Dean notes when I first started. She wrote me a

131note and she she's extremely extremely a warm-hearted woman and I'm just going to miss her and just let you know that the department is something Kathy also gave me a gift and a and a handwritten card as well. She has a very special guess I'm not we're all special. We're all special. Um, so my point of pride is, um, um, it's all already been somewhat mentioned, but, um, I wondered how I would feel at the end of my first year as superintendent. Um, and I knew what we had ahead of us, right? I knew that this was a year um, where it was unique, where we did not have a strategic plan per se in place, right? This was the year of building the strategic plan. So, one could think that it was a a

132bit of a gap um a gap year. We also had the bond ahead of us. Um who knew that we were going to have a complete and total um what I would call a um assault. Sounds aggressive, but that's what it has felt like assault on public education this year. Um, and there were a number of times where I was scared, literally scared of leading this district. Um, and I think that everyone in this room, um, from the board to the team have made me feel like I could fly. And I mean that. Not not wasn't trying to do a pun on the eagle, but it worked. Um, but no, seriously, it really I felt comfort comfortable and confident to um take the steps that I felt were necessary to keep this district um safe

133um in a lot of ways. Um, I know that it was not it was a rocky at certain times, but what I do know is that this team had my back and um I am feeling right now exactly how I hope to feel at the end of my first year and I'm so very appreciative. I'm not going to cry. That's not going to happen. But I am very appreciative. Um, and I am so looking forward to um, like you said, Mark, that just I mean just so excited about this dynamic plan and where it's going to take Ferndale schools and I continue to be honored to serve as the leader of this district. So, thank you. So, she stole mine. Um, so similarly, um, I too am thankful for the people in the room. Um,

134and I on many different levels, right? because in this room the turnover in certain places, people coming back, people new to this table, um I too am like I'm a diehard eagle with like a few of us here at this table. And so uh all of the people in this under this district are my people, right? Whether they're my kids or employee, like everyone here is family. And so for me, it's been a really rough 2025 for me, right? So, in having knowing it was Camille's first year, Felicia's first year, some board members first year was like uh I was supposed to help steer this ship and I was I was in a spot of like do I do what I need to do for me, but also need do what has know that what

135has to be done here can be done. And needless to say, I was able to do what I needed to do for me and know that things weren't going to fall through the cracks. You weren't going to run out and say you quit. Like all things are in order. So with that um I just thank you to everyone and I am truly of the if you don't work 12 months take your time and enjoy it. Um and I am not bothering anyone in the month of July. So unless you absolutely need us for something I think we should totally unplug for July just well you and I won't but everyone else will. Um, yeah.