001all right well good evening everyone this is a regular meeting of the ferndale schools board of education being held monday october 19th 2020 being held virtually um via video conferencing because of the uh pandemic this meeting is being 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 www.ferndaleschools.org if you do not have internet access need information please contact the board offices at 248-586-8652 by thursday of the week prior to the meeting and the district staff will do their best to work with you
002this meeting is called the order at 7 03 p.m roll call miss shepherd dukey here heart here abraham here for mueller latosh here odano here president davidson here thank you thank you all right i'll lead the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all that takes us to item 1.3 the approval of the agenda does any board member have any amendments they would like to make to the agenda tonight seeing none the agenda will be approved as it is that takes us to um item two for the night the ferndale student representatives is janae with us from university high school yes i am welcome hello good evening everyone my
003name is johnny ingram and i'm the senior board representative for the um for university high school and i'm just here to let you know a few things that have been going on around my school this month so on october 5th the uhs newspaper club released our first newsletter of the year some of the articles included and the included in the soaring eagle were informative historical pieces poems and current events our virtual spirit week was held on the week of october 4th participation was taken through changing our profile pictures during the class video calls turning on our cameras making instagram posts and entering photos daily in a google form i really enjoyed the spirit weekdays and i feel like it was a fun way to keep the students engaged in school activities during these times our
004homecoming pop-up event was october 10th and it was lots of fun with foods homecoming court announcements costumes and swag bags students were also given the opportunity to dress up in school appropriate halloween costumes if they wanted to do so the 2020 national honor society induction on october 13th was held outside of the school and was streamed on facebook live the event was very nice and i'd just like to say congratulations to our new uhs members nhs members i'm sorry there was a great turnout in moderate weather that allowed the event to go very smoothly seniors took the s.a.t on october 14th at uhs the test was taken socially distanced throughout the classrooms in our school we provided a light breakfast food um and snacks during our break although the test was not taken the way
005we expected in the beginning of our high school careers it was still nice to see so many students show up to take the test some upcoming events happening in our school this month are um our volleyball senior night for class of 2021 is october 26th for our freshman they'll be taking the psat on october 28th and the next day our sophomores will be taking the psat 10 on october 29th and on friday october 30th we will have a trunk or treat event from 12 to 2 p.m for all students staff and families at our school and that's all i have to share i'll take any questions that anyone has anything to ask me when is the um trunk or treat it is october 30th oh i'm sorry 12 to 2. thank you welcome okay thank
006you that's all i have to share today all right thank you so much anae is uh kai walker with us from ferndale high school yes i am here welcome i hope everyone is doing well tonight um this is what i have to share going on currently at fhs just to um double check can you guys still hear me yes okay so this month is october and it is college month at fhs which means that our seniors have three goals set for this month the first one is apply to at least one college apply to fafsa and apply for at least one scholarship and this entire month is wrapped around juniors and senior students at fhs they have the opportunity to meet with college reps the entire month of october through um zoom zoom on like
007online and google me and zoom upperclassmen need to make sure to continuously check their emails throughout the month so that way they aren't missing out on these opportunities on october 2nd um 12th graders had their first opportunity to meet with wayne state representatives via zoom also a reminder that ap students at fhs have until the 25th of october to sign up for all ap classes in the college board and our counselors are really emphasizing that even if you are not participating in ap testing you should still join the class online october 9th we had our materials pick up and we got to meet our new principal ms isaac who is a wonderful person and a great help um october 14th we had picture id retakes and senior formal photos and we also had the sat
008and like hs a live snack was provided and majority of the kids that i talked to they said that they felt pretty good about the sat test taking and um they didn't think it was as bad as they thought it was going to be october 14th and 15th were our parent teachers conferences as well october 29th the united states assembly and students leading students are planning an efficient fall outdoor pop-up event um details are still being formalized and coming out but i personally am excited to get reconnected with fhs staff and students and i'm really glad that this pop-up event is happening um each month there will be an item giveaway to fhs students some of the items are masks water bottles and other other items that will be given away to students for the
009rest of the school year and in an effort to keep in contact with students and make it impossible to hide the eagle plate i'll see also all seniors gowns we bought and there will be another photo opportunity this upcoming spring for retakes on senior photo that is all i have for tonight and if anyone has any questions please let me know well kai thank you for a thorough um represent representation of the things that have been happening at the high school this past month you're welcome anytime and that will take us to agenda item 3 the presentation of the superintendent's excellence award awards all right good evening everyone today we're here to actually um recognize three individuals it's been a long time since our last superintendent excellence award and so with our staff we had
010a number of of wonderful submissions and um kim shepard one of my colleagues can attest that it was very difficult to choose so today we have three from the elementary middle and high school level that will be recognizing for their excellent work both inside and outside of the classroom each of them nominated by a staff member who really captured the essence of the submission so i'm going to share a few words from each of the teachers that nominated each of the students zena morrow was nominated by miss ganska zetta is a fourth grade student at fuel elementary some of misganska's submission includes zetta is truly an amazing student and person she is creative kind seeks out academic challenges and is incredibly helpful she's motivated and so much more if if seda notices a classmate friend
011struggling she is there she always has a positive spin to put any situation in a positive light and help so many people obviously remote learning can be a struggle for everyone but zetta is resilient time and time again she's engaged every day she has restated lessons in her own words helped others see lessons through a different perspective and many students have learned a lot from her i know i can rely on her and she truly is an absolute jet so a lot of things about zetta fourth grade student at fuel she's a hard worker and she's incredibly understanding and setta it is a pleasure to have you as a student at ferndale upper elementary and it's with great honor that we recognize you for the superintendent's excellence award so if everyone can give zeta a
012round of applause virtually and then zetta and family if you want to say a few words just unmute yourself or miss ganska if you're on just unmute yourself and feel free to say everything thanks how are you doing with the virtual instructions zetta good good all right well we're really proud of you thank you all right we will move to our uh second student dionne murray was nominated by miss elaine sold diane is an eighth grade student at ferndale middle school some of mrs sold's submission includes dion sets an example for other students and her commitment to academic achievement she is enrolled in rigorous courses including the avid elective beyond citizenship is noteworthy as her academic achievements she is always kind in her words and actions she listens to others contributes meaningfully to every conversation
013in which she participates she is a joy to teach and is on the path to greatness zetta is also a member of the njhs student council and orchestra she is an example to all of us as someone who is committed to hard work and personal excellence all her teachers say the same thing including mr turner who said dion is a motivated kind mature self-starter miss forum also concurs with the nomination so dionne was not only nominated by missal but many many other teachers i coined the same sentiments as miss soul dan you're on a path to greatness and we appreciate all the great that you do at ferndale middle school it's impactful not only to other students but the adults as well so we thank you for doing great work and motivating us as well
014to do better so that we can make a path for you to take the lead one day when when it's time for us to retire it's with great honor that we honor you with the superintendent's excellence award as well virtual round yeah thanks thank you everybody deanna miss sold if you'd like to say a few words are you guys talking i'll go first thank you for showing up every day you're the best you know i think you're the best but now everybody knows you're the best honey good job thank you so much i um really i'm really happy that you nominated me for this award and um and you know virtual school has been a little bit difficult but i've been getting through it and i'm really thankful and i will graciously accept this award
015all right we'll keep it up dan again thank you for all you do all right and then our last uh recipient for this month is someone that that most of us are familiar with have we are recognizing who was nominated by miss lauren thomas and the entire science team at university high school right so i'm going to share some words from miss thomas jazlyn is an extraordinary student with a wonderful disposition and drive to constantly further herself and inspire those around her the science team is nominating her for her leadership hard work ability and determination her dedication to helping other students her family and the courage to take new opportunities and challenges is something that we all admire jaz jazlyn is a part of the national honors society she tutors students in grades t i'm
016sorry two through ten she's also the recipient of the future author award one thing that was mentioned in her submission that i personally got to see was she performed her poetry at the black excellence ceremony at uhs and she literally um shut down the event i don't i i the reaction from the audience the students it was a performance um that really moved everyone who witnessed it and and i was really glad to be able to to see it jazlyn is constantly putting others um before herself while also pushing herself to the maximum she also serves obviously as a student board representative um all that with ensuring that she has excellent grades participates uh jazlyn you are a a role model to us all in in showing that we can achieve anything that we put
017our minds to and then the self the selflessness that you have to really go above and beyond in everything you do so it's again with great honor that we recognize jazlyn uh kohl's this month as well for the superintendent's excellence award jazlyn if you'd like to say a few words or any other uhs team that is here i want to say thank you for everything i don't know if my science teaches the science department is here but thank you for this award i am very humbled by all the support and the comments and all of the above thank you so much um virtual learner has at the beginning it was a different type of challenge you know trying to stay up to date and get into a routine and schedule but all the teachers are
018very helpful at uhs and thank you for helping me with my education um mrs thomas is here congratulations jazlyn number one uh mrs thomas is here but uh she's not able to speak right now she had a previously scheduled dental appointment so i'm gonna just say a few words um and i actually i haven't gotten to see jazlyn in a while because uh she's in the early college program as well and it was interesting earlier in the year in the semester uh she was having some struggles with technology and we went over all sorts of options and you know uh like danya said her tenacity really impacted me because she was determined that she was going to catch up in this course she needed a laptop um and you know we talked about the options
019maybe potentially dropping but she was determined and we reached out to all sorts of people and uh we were able to come up with a laptop from her and she's been super productive and she hasn't needed me for anything lately so i don't get to see her as much anymore but i mean everything that danya said i mean her performance at the black excellence celebration just the type of student that she's been conscious and aware always looking to improve and impact others i can't say enough about miss kohl's congratulations we're very honored to have you at uhs thank you so much mr garner i'm just reading the chat lauren if you'd like to speak the the floor is yours all right well again congratulations jazlyn all right congratulations all students uh for being recognized this
020month with the superintendent's excellence award that takes us to item four on the agenda the building presentation and this uh first presentation of the year we um welcome jennifer getty from casa hi everybody um i think dania's going to share the screen for us that has my presentation um i know that this is a long meeting so this is going to be brief for those of you who may not be familiar with casa we are a consortium program we serve seven different school districts students come to their home high school in the morning and then they right now go via zoom to casa in the afternoon and ferndale is one of our two biggest sending districts another thing to note is that our teachers also come from our sending districts and we have quite a
021few fantastic teachers who split their time between burndale and casa and we're very happy and privileged to have them so tonight i would just like to run through for you the steps that we've taken to support our students during this remote learning which are very similar to what i'm sure you all have seen at ferndale oh and i've lost my screen do you see the casa screen i i shared it with everyone i did and now it's completely black hit the escape button i am oh escape escape escape i'll try and reshare it okay i don't know if it's just me i can see it oh it must be my computer oh no sorry let me uh it might be mine maybe i can join you guys by phone and see it hopefully gonna one
022more time okay i don't know this computer was working all day it's kind of plugged in yeah can you see the presentation off your phone and then just tell me next slide yep you bet that's what i'm trying to pull up right now okay so sorry my phone is doing its thing ah technology okay so anyway when um let's try next slide i'll see if i can do this as well as i can from memory um so over the summer we once we realized that um we were going to be doing the virtual learning we got together an ad hoc tech team and it was four teachers who got together on their own time and they really worked hard to think about what our teachers would need to make it as good as possible and
023what our students would need to be seeing from our teachers as well so we were able to get our teachers laptops we had not bought computers for our teachers in the past five years and so here i'm trying to join you by phone so we got laptops for everybody and then we um also let them take home their monitors from the classroom so they could have two screens going on at once which a lot of people really like our teachers developed a google classroom full of resources to share with one another for best practices and we are going every meeting that we have staff meeting we share a different uh digital platform that people are using to continue learning how to do this and we've also been able to make many laptops available for students
024whose home districts might not have those resources next slide oh and this is just a screenshot of the google classroom resources that tracy varish ferndale teacher also was very instrumental in putting together it goes on for pages and pages next on the left is just a picture of miss winnum our dance teacher also a ferndale teacher and we spent quite a long time setting up her technology so she could teach from our dance studio and so that when she moved right the kids would move right which seems like an easy thing but the way the mirroring work it actually took quite a while to figure out we got it nailed down we also sent home all sorts of materials for our students so they could be actively participating from home next um each of those
025boxes on the those desks and the rulers were filled with enough equipment for our ap physics students to run a whole quarters worth of experiments at home so it had everything they needed for the kids to really actively participate at home in ap physics and we had quite a few other teachers do similar things next uh in late september we asked the students uh how's it going and we asked them in the format of stop start and continue what should we stop doing remotely what should we start doing and what should we keep on doing next uh so these were some of the answers and you know as you can see there's some of them are a little predictable don't give too much homework uh you know stop making us have our cameras on and
026so forth um and some were really great suggestions about having official office hours particularly for casa um and giving assignments farther in advance but overwhelmingly and i was surprised and very proud the kids were very responsive and they they said continue doing what you're doing you're doing a great job so that was great next okay um our digital classroom next so i just took some i had my teachers take some screenshots just to show you the different ways in which they're interacting with students if you haven't had a chance so our ap environmental science class they're able to continue doing tree studies they do the trees in their backyard or down the street or maybe in a local park so they're really trying to use their environment that is around them to keep studying next
027and we are you know encouraging the students to use the resources that they have in their homes so this is our japanese class writing their japanese letters and their materials that they could find around their houses next okay and this is a padlet which is another platform and as you can see you can get a lot of kids participating all at the same time it's a very it's an easy but very effective way to engage all kids in a classroom okay next oh and we also are using interactive lab notebooks in a couple of our science classes that the kids are finding very useful and easy to share with their teacher and with one another next and this i i think this is a little impressive this is the list of uh digital resources that
028are actually in use right now at casa and this represents a pretty big learning curve for many of our teachers and on top of this teachers are also learning new student management systems like schoology and canvas on top of the new things they're trying to implement in their remote teaching so next um we were also as was mentioned earlier we're doing some pop-ups so we took the art class or the art class met at cranbrook to sketch and draw and take some pictures on a beautiful day next and it's just another pretty picture next so big on everybody's minds is uh what are we going to do about face-to-face instruction and we're kind of waiting to get the votes from our two biggest school districts if when we return to face-to-face instruction we will be
029following all the protocols that are followed at our home schools ferndale provides our building support and custodial support and they've been doing a fantastic job we do have kids in the building right now for various programs and they're doing a great job keeping everything clean and sanitized we have plenty of ppe to go around we have thermometers we check everyone as they come through the door we have the screening questions and so forth so it looks very similar to the things that you might see at ferndale schools so once we hear from our two biggest school districts cert what their plans are for certain we will share out our plans for face-to-face instruction or to continue remotely till second semester um and hopefully we'll have that all nailed down uh at the end of the
030week so next um we had three retirements this spring uh and which was a sad to say goodbye to some of our teachers but understandable um and we have one more possible retirement in december our student numbers are a little lower this year because scheduling was very difficult this spring so we did not replace those teachers to try to keep costs reasonable i do want to take a minute and give a big shout out to ferndale teacher sean whitton um as you can see one of our teachers who recently retired one of his most popular classes was plagues and pandemics and it was popular even before we start stuck ourselves in the middle of a pandemic so i had this brainstorm in the middle of the night and i thought you know we could teach
031plagues and pandemics from a social studies perspective so i called up sean whitton and i said hey can you how do you feel about taking on this class and uh with you know a few days preparation i just tossed him in and the students are loving it and he's doing a fantastic job so that's exciting next uh in our student survey we also asked them since we've had some retirements and we're looking to have new classes what kind of classes might they like to see going forward so this was these are some of the results from that next um so we're thinking about uh we've had a lot of requests for more classes about money and finance um of course it's very big in the news right now uh very prevalent and sensitive topics and
032racism in the united states and around the world and also along with that would be current events and world religions so these are some things that we're thinking about implementing and offering for next year i also recently had a request for a sort of a preview to law or pre-law kind of class so we'll work on developing those as well okay next um and of course a big concern is how we are all holding up during this so we've been working with counselors from all of our sending schools and big shout out to counselors at the ferndale high school kim ellis and kathy wiley they're phenomenal we have a student advisory committee and we have put together two events we had a socially distanced outdoor cider and donut party a couple weeks ago which was
033a big hit and we'll be having spirit week the last week in october possibly with a movie night next um oh next that's just our flyer and you can see some pictures we had a gorgeous day and we had quite a few kids turn out they played frisbee and bocce and giant jenga and hung around and had a really great time next and so that's our schedule for our spirit week right now we're in a hot debate whether or not we show hocus pocus or coraline for a movie night so we'll let you know people want to know so and that's what i have for you for today thank you any questions for miss gabby well miss debbie we really appreciate you joining us tonight and uh we appreciate hearing about all the good things
034that continue at casa even amidst our current situation and we're thankful for all the work that you do with the students from our district well thanks very much i really appreciate um coming to talk to you all this evening thank you um so that will uh take us to item five on the agenda the fall enrollment update with mr good hello everybody i hope everybody uh is having a good evening uh all in all enrollment um for from where we could be uh due to the pandemic is actually incredibly strong all things considered next slide so our grand total ft of where we're at as of count day which was a couple weeks ago is 3021 and some change that is again it's a really strong number we were at about 31 20 last year
035um so a little bit higher but uh our average over the past three or four years has been right around 3000 some years we're a little bit below some years we're a little bit above so all things considered with the pandemic to be kind of where our yearly average has been over the past three or four years is incredibly encouraging next slide this is just the numbers at lower uh the only real thing to take note of is the lower than normal kindergarten number only 141 i do anticipate that number climbing as we uh return to the classroom eventually whenever that happens uh either later this year or next year all of our indicators are earlier be you know pre-pandemic in january and february which we typically measure with uh you know number of inquiries
036we get from families new families as well as numbers at our kindergarten open house indicated that we were going to have somewhere uh north of 180 students you know even close to 200 maybe even a little above that it is a little bit lower than we would like to see next slide upper elementary again pretty strong numbers right about where they were last year next slide verndale middle school again right about where they were last year a little bit lower than last year but they did have a big class which you'll see on the next slide uh that matriculated up from eighth grade to ninth grade it was replaced by a smaller it was like a 190 student class that moved up to ninth grade and as you can see the sixth graders that kind
037of replace them are only 157 so you lose a big class you replace it with a small class that's what kind of makes the the numbers drop a little bit next slide uh you can see the high school uh numbers about 694 which again is a little bit lower than we'd like to see um but good strong ninth grade class you see almost 200 students so it is by far the biggest class in the school um and uh that's that's a really encouraging sign for for future enrollment as well next slide uh great work i saw david gardner on the call earlier by david and his team over at uhs patti scope um they do an amazing job and you know as you can see uh you know i think it was like four years
038ago when we had a freshman class of like 85 and we were worried uh now you can look at four years later that class has grown up to 103. uh they're in 12th grade now and you can see you know 9th 10th and 11th grade have all been you know monster classes for uhs so to be above you know 480 in a pandemic year where recruiting was was extremely limited um you know due to the lack of in-person events that uhs normally attends again just a testament to david and his team and just a fantastic job next slide tcec uh is at 363 right now now we normally typically see some some loss over their account period because their account period is a little bit different than than the rest of the district um we
039will see where they end up but they start at 363. same thing with st paul that's a shared time partnership program we have 42 fte is a little bit high right now it's about double what they had last year so i do expect that to come down as that gets figured out as well but for now that's that's what it's calculating at and then the early on special education fte we get from the early childhood center is 13.35 next slide you can see it all adds up to about 3021 for right now i do think we'll end up a little below 3 000 i don't know where that is and again that's just from the number at st paul's going to come down a little bit and um the tcec as you know they potentially
040could lose some students that count as well but um still all things considered an incredibly strong number and again just uh for the board in any citizens that are watching um the the count number this year as far as how we get paid from the state due to the pandemic is going to be 75 percent is all based off of last year's first semester count uh which was like 31 20 uh which was one of our strongest years or our strongest years since i've been here and since 2014 at least um as in only 25 for this year so even though we're down off of last year we're still right about where our average is and again we get the benefit of having a big count number last year uh during the pandemic i i
041can take any questions that you have right thank you very much thank you uh mr good and um that will take us to item six on the agenda public comment uh this is the 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 the school district these include emails and phone calls and in better times face-to-face meetings and community gatherings and such we in uh we welcome individual and group input into the important issues that confront our schools like we said at the beginning uh this is a meeting 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
042and equal treatment for everyone in attendance we also recognize that an effective meeting facilitates better decisions and promotes openness by allowing more people to stay for the full length of the meeting to meet these goals please note the following we ask that you identify yourself and if you would uh like to be contacted please email dr bazzy's assistant kimberly.shepherd at ferndaleschools.org if you would like a response uh please note that this this is the opportunity for public comment that um this is the opportunity for the public to share and as the meeting goes on um if you have more comments or questions about subject matter that is shared please contact the district and the district will respond each person has one opportunity to address the board for up to three minutes three minutes uh sandra
043duke our vice president will give you a warning if you're approaching the three-minute limit the public comments are for both non-agenda and agenda items uh the public comments are going to close uh at this part of the agenda in the event that public comments require more than 30 minutes we'll suspend it and we will add time to the end of the meeting for those that didn't get a chance to speak complaints about staff should be made outside of board meetings and should follow the applicable board policy please contact the superintendent's office if you have any questions regarding this item the board cannot respond to complaints about employees in public this is meant to promote fairness to the staff person and the complainant and finally the frienddale public schools community acts with great civility toward one
044another so we appreciate um that you help us maintain that tradition during public comment so if you'd like to address the board just please unmute yourself and introduce yourself and go ahead good evening everyone my name is jasmine koz i am the junior representative for you university high school um i want to bring to the boy's attention today about the collaboration within our school so we have a high number of freshmen and we also have a lot of people just coming in and do not know each other because of the pandemic so during like student council and different clubs i've been participating in we've been trying to come up with ideas to get everybody to collaborate get to know one another but we're kind of having a hard time you know finding which ones or
045which ways we can go about doing that going along the lines of the pandemic and the rules that we cannot be one-on-one so um i believe some type of like workshops or something will be able to help us but i think for all of us to be able to communicate not only with the people within our school but other schools like university high school and ferndale high school combining with something throughout the spandemouth that would be safe you know social distance or however we could do that and that's all i have to present for tonight thank you jazlyn are you taking comments on um the extended learning plan right now or is you're going to do that later during that part of the agenda well we are taking that now okay i would just like
046to say um i would like to see us stay remote until the end of the semester um i know for my daughter she's gotten into a routine and i think a lot of the kids probably have and the teachers have and to change that now it would take at least two weeks for the kids to get back into a routine into school like it does at the beginning of the school year and to do that in the middle of a semester kind of messes with the consistency there of their learning um i also feel that you know we all know the cases are on the rise and uh to go back to school and then um an outbreak happens and we gotta bring them back out again that consistency is lost and i would like
047to see us just go through this semester and hopefully get back into face to face at the beginning of the next semester in mid-january i'd also like to say thank you to the board to our administration and to all our teachers you're doing a fantastic job i don't envy you what you have these decisions you have to make um but i do believe that you're doing everything honestly transparently and with the most concern for our kids and our community thank you oh this is maybe reinke i have a 10th grader at the high school sorry thank you miss ranky okay i thought someone else is going to go so diversity my name is crystal brock i have uh one at fecc another one at now lower so diversity equity and inclusion committee parent advocacy initiative
048of a town hall regarding the montessori program met and we will be sending final question slash information asked soon other parent initiatives are underway and preparing to meet soon as well um and i'm kind of with jazlyn on this this is something that i noticed um that most of the voices showing up to meetings are voices from like fhs fms elementaries uh but not many from uhs talking about parents who aren't employees so like regarding the equity school improvement team there are non-um team there are not employee voices from fhs fms and the elementaries to give additional feedback but again not non-employee parental voices of uhs so it doesn't seem well just keeping everything fair and equitable to me that would be a conscious decision just thinking all voices to the table of adding um
049a non-employee parental voice to give that additional feedback from uhs so i'm with jazlyn of adding all voices to the table and all communications being open on both sides good luck with that all right uh thank you miss brock oh sorry go ahead am i did i miss public comment no you're right in the middle of it okay hi i'm susan burt and i have a high schooler and i just wanted to comment on a couple things the the direct instruction i'm finding is not sufficient for my high schooler the number of hours of direct instruction um and i called around a couple different districts and i talked to a couple different people in other districts and it seems to be that our school including detroit public schools um our district is at the lowest
050end that i found um in terms of direct instructional hours so i'd like to board to consider raising it um and i have a couple options for you of course you'll come up with your own but other schools do 90 minute blocks although some of that i understand is you know work working time but they're also being coached during the working time like okay class do number three now or whatever um that sort of thing so it's not completely independent um although some of it is and so i think that's one option um and other another option i know this district seems to focus a lot on math and language arts although all subjects are important certainly but if you were only going to focus on increasing 90 minute blocks to just math in la
051that would still help and then lastly school on friday i know the idea was to clean the whole building on freddy but you know my son went to the remote learning lab there was less than 10 kids there i don't know that the whole school needs to be shut down for an entire day to clean the whole school for less than 10 kids when other districts are able to be open and i know lake orion's completely open um since the beginning of the year and i talked to a friend there and she said it's been going pretty well um she said the middle school was shut down once for three days because of some outbreak i don't know what their procedures are quite frankly but um that's it that's been it so far the kids
052are there in person every day and she said they have about four hours of a direct instruction per class per week but it's really more like three and a half because of you know talking or whatnot once the kids settle down it's it's not at the level of four it's about three and a half per class so with our school district offering two hours a week of direct instruction for class it just seems inadequate it's inadequate for my learner put it that way so if the board doesn't consider changes i'd like to know what are you okay if the thank you if the board doesn't consider changes i'd like to know what will you do for my student um thank you oh and i'd like to see in school class i would but you know
053i'm with you know it is what it is thank you thank you miss burr hi my name is elizabeth devine um i have a fourth grader at upper um i wanted to put in my vote too that like just my voice we heard that i would like to stay remote as long as possible but uh more to talk about like concerns about when we do choose to go back and what that looks like that there is a full and complete plan that we understand the reasons why that's well explained and that there's still a virtual option that's reasonable um i have a kid both in ferndale and then my stepdaughter's in royal oak and like royal oak voted to send kids back in november and gave parents like five days notice um well to make
054a decision to go to virtual academy or back in person and it was very sudden and fast and there was such an uproar over parents they came up with a third option in which they're having teachers do both in person they're doing a split day as well as kids remoting in so you can choose to be remote which i imagine is very difficult on teachers and i can't imagine and in talking with other ferndale parents as many of us who don't want to go back and want to stay safe and stay home and keep our kids home as much as possible are concerned as well as parents that want to go back we would rather probably even if it meant switching teachers like be have an option for virtual learning with a live teacher even
055if it meant switching teachers um to stay home and have the option to not send our kids to school if we didn't feel like it was safe versus being switched to a virtual academy where we're not interacting or having live classroom time and that way a teachers who are in class can teach in class and the teachers who can teach virtually can teach virtually and teachers would have the option of staying virtual if they feel like it's best for their safety and teachers who are want to return to class could return to in-person classes and considering some option like that that's just my public comment i guess what are the options and all right thank you mr vine hi can i go sorry okay hi i'm erin mulner um you know me now um i
056have a student at fecc and at lower um i just wanted to advocate for getting the kids back in school i think as a parent who um maybe is comfortable with a little bit of a higher i guess i'll say risk tolerance i don't feel like it's a strong risk to be in school so um that changes if it really feels like a risk tolerance or not to me but um i guess as a parent who who would like to see my children back in school um and i think it's extremely detrimental to students particularly in k-5 to be out of school um it's detrimental to you know families health to their mental health to their economics to you know kids not having enough food to eat i mean um there's so many risks to
057being out of school that can't be tallied nicely and easily by a media report and can't be counted like a case count um that i think that because of that we lose sight of the fact that they are really risks they are dangers that we are putting by keeping kids out of school we are potentially harming them and i think we really need to balance that with the potential risk of covid if we bring them back to in-person learning um i know that new york which is the largest new york city is the largest school district in the country um they've gone back to school and have seen really good success they have a testing strategy which i think is an important component of it but i think there are ways to do it and
058i think we're really learning ways to go back to school and mitigate risk and we do have a couple months of data now from both the united states where we don't have cases under control all over um to other parts of the world where they do have a better handle on it um i think we're getting lots of ideas and data now that we should be using to inform um the goal of getting our kids back in school i i don't necessarily feel as a parent that we have a strong goal of getting our kids back in school in person um or at least that's not the impression that i'm getting so um i would really like that to be the goal and i would like to be very clear at every meeting how are
059we trying to reach this goal to get our kids back in school particularly k-5 i think there are different considerations also for older students um and i would also like to see some differentiation there like um to prioritize getting the youngest learners back for that social emotional that was a little bit of a rant thank you for your time thank you miss molnar i saw the screen just tick up to 15. did somebody just join uh we're in the middle of public comment if anybody would like to uh address the board um if nobody wants else wants to i'm sorry i don't know if you were taking names or if it was just a kind of a random thing oh yeah just unmute yourself and introduce yourself okay my name is emily murray and i
060have a third grader and a sixth grader and um we would prefer to stay remote we're really happy with the decisions that ferndale's made i'm hoping that we at least stay remote for uh the whole first semester um my biggest concern and i've said this before i just wanted to kind of uh re-emphasize it um kind of with what elizabeth said was that i'm concerned about the plan once there is a choice when some kids go back i'd want to keep my kids virtual but if it meant what she didn't say is what i'm going to say if it means that my third grader in particular has to switch his teacher i would probably send him and i feel like i'd be sending him into a dangerous situation to keep his teacher so i'm a
061little worried about that um but he loves his teacher we love his teacher and they have a great um relationship i feel right now and i think for uh especially k to five to switch teachers is going to be a huge setback when they get restarted again from what i understand berkeley is looking at going back and their all their teachers are going to change basically everybody and i think that's kind of crazy at this point in the year um i have a lot of concerns about my sixth grader too because he has seven teachers but i honestly just can't even fathom how that would work but um my biggest concern i mean my sixth grader i feel is more adaptable than my third grader so i'm just kind of wanting to throw that out
062there that changing teachers i think is is going to be a a huge setback for some kids that's really all i wanted to say thank you miss murray would anybody else like to address the board hi everybody my name is rachel i have a um my i have a student at for no lower i would just really like to um see more from the board and it's and i'm not sure if it's going on and available it's just i haven't came across it so far um it's just more fact based um logic and reasoning as to how the board is deciding that we don't go back um and and vice versa if we stay out and stay virtual or we go back um it felt very arbitrary over the summer as to how the decisions
063were made it just seemed like it was each board members um you know personal opinion it didn't feel very fact-based um you know based on cases or you know at that time i know it was it was very different we didn't have comparisons to make um now that we have other school districts going back um they're tracking you know the cases and quote unquote outbreaks at um the different schools i just really like to see a breakdown of that um so it just doesn't feel like so arbitrary and just people's personal opinion of what um you know thousands of children should be doing so i just would really like to see that in the future that's all i have thank you thank you rachel anybody else if so unmute yourself and go right ahead all
064right we will close public comment um thank you all and um we will be discussing our um current coven 19 learning plan in a few minutes that moves us to section seven of the agenda the consent agenda uh consent uh does anybody have any items they would like to remove from the consent agenda um see none um they will uh consent agenda will stand as it is and um the uh the consent agenda tonight is item one the request to approve minutes of the special meeting from september 14 2020 to the request to approve minutes of greg at the regular meeting from september 21st 2020 three requests to approve bills and accounts for the month of september for the request to approve resignations uh leave of absences and new hires and five requests to approve
065the head start director's report and continuation grant application is there a motion to move the consent agenda moved by jim second seconded by sandra roll call ms shepherd dukey yes heart yes abraham abraham yes latash yes odano o'donnell oh i can barely hear you and president davidson yes thank you thank you with uh six uh yes votes the consent agenda is approved that brings us to uh section eight the action agenda items 8.1 the request to approve the adoption and purchase of cte pathways for marketing business administration and it just went away from my screen when you did that dr bazzy hold on i'm sorry that's okay i was i was i was improvising here let's see um [Music] the request to approve the adoption purchase of cte pathways for marketing business administration and engineering
066courses so i'll hand it off to mr tom mace thank you dr bazi good evening everyone so last month we brought the proposal for cte pathways for marketing business administration and engineering courses for ferndale high school and university high school we were asked to complete the equity rubric so we did that and we submitted that in the board packet with so many online programs it was it was a challenge to to get through all of them and instead of going through all of them individually i worked with the marketing reps from cengage and we went through the rubric together and really we we evaluated the marketing book that we're going to ask for in item 8.2 along with all of the other programs that we would be accessing through the cte pathways program together hopefully
067you had a chance to look at the rubric and you can see that most of the the components are strongly agree or agree for the products that we are asking you to approve we also looked at a couple of other books and between last meeting and and tonight i did the equity rubric on a glencoe marketing book and uh the the cte pathways from cengage in the marketing book from cengage exceeded the scores significantly there were many uh zeros and ones on the glencoe book as compared to the twos and threes and the cengage products any questions on on the rubric or on the proposals which have not changed from last month i don't have any questions but thank you for taking the time to do the rubric just to you know assess the the
068bias or potential bias in the materials that we're asking to be approved tonight as well as those that you you know had looked at and saw a big difference so that you know just goes to show that the rubric does potentially you know call out some areas where there are some biases in the textbooks so thanks tom for doing that absolutely you're welcome having used some having used textbooks from the other publisher teachers have had their suspicions but it's nice to actually go through a rubric and know for sure that there are those biases so that's thank you tom you're welcome thank you all right um is there a motion to approve the request uh for the adoption and purchase of the cte pathways for marketing business administration and engineering courses i move moved by
069jackie seconded by anna any other questions roll call miss shepherd yes abraham yes latash yes o'donnell yes spooky yes president davidson yes thank you thank you with six yes votes the request to approve the purchase of the cte pathways for marketing business administration engineering courses is approved it takes us to agenda item 8.2 the request to approve the adoption and purchase of the borough fowler fifth edition marketing textbook all right thank you once again um so the the marketing textbook by berlin fowler is a cengage product so the equity rubric that that we just looked at for the cte pathways would also apply to to this textbook this is a brand new textbook actually has a 2020 publication date we'd be looking at one classroom set for university high school and one classroom set for
070ferndale high school plus all of the teacher supplementals if approved questions uh just outgoing what uh jackie and anna said i appreciate you um evaluating this curriculum through that rubric my pleasure is there a motion to approve the adoption and purchase of the borough fowler 5th edition but you can eat it if you want to is there a motion i'll move move by jackie thank you second seconded by anna any other question or comment roll call miss shepard anna i mean i'm sorry abraham yes latash yes o'donnell yes dookie yes yes president davidson yes thank you thank you the uh with six yes votes the uh adoption and purchase of the bureau of fowler fifth edition marketing textbook is approved that takes us to action agenda item 8.3 the extended covet 19 learning plan the
071october reconfirmation hearing so as discussed um uh you know obviously we've heard a lot of on both sides in terms of public comment i just want to remind everyone that the board back in august did approve a virtual plan that took us virtual through the end of first semester there's really not been much wavering as it as it related to that obviously we are evaluating the situation at every board meeting there's some conversation about when to safely return students and staff to school so that conversation is ongoing because ultimately we serve our community and and will continue to listen um i just want to reiterate that the decision to go um virtual was not arbitrary uh 220 000 americans have have lost their lives in worldwide that number is even obviously bigger it's with student
072and staff safety i'd also like to say that unfortunately there's no perfect plan obviously i think we all can agree that students belong in person in terms of relationships in terms of in-person teaching and learning it can never be replicated fully in a virtual setting with that being said though i am extremely uh proud of the staff and administrators for putting together a plan that really was based on the research in terms of screen time that was based on what's best for students and really looked at what's the optimal learning environment in a in an unoptimal situation right so i wish there was a way we could um you know ease everybody's concerns but our families brought up valid points in terms of when you do return then what you know what impact does that
073have and there will be impact and there will be an opportunity call us for every decision that we make there will be some impact and so those are things that i promise you we we've we're writing down uh we will consider but the the plan has been clear and the board made a decision based on student safety and um you know with with 95 percent of districts in oakland county and probably 95 in wayne county and in washington county i assure you it's not a decision that that local school boards take lightly and and was made out of uh it was made based on data it was made based on keeping every single student life and and staff life safe so the recertification is is a bypass of recent legislation that you know requires school
074boards to recertify the plan every month at a public board meeting johanna marekna our assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction is going to take us through the approval process for the plan but also share some data from our recent community survey as well as staff and student survey um okay good evening uh can you hear me yes okay great my mic was not working earlier so i'm glad to see that restarting my computer fix that um so every month um we're required to do a reconfirmation meeting and hearing um the form that you see on the screen right now is an overview of the data that's required for reconfirming the plan that we currently are using any changes that we make to that plan are noted on here and you'll see in the first box right
075now our only changes are that we're offering additional learning lab spots for students who who want them or parents who want them so we continually open up our lab spaces to more and more students the second part or third part i suppose is um just comments from the last board meeting specifically regarding um our return to in-school instruction and so we've collected the ones from tonight which we'll put on the november extended learning plan reconfirmation meeting at the bottom you'll see our two-way interaction rates this is our remote way of taking attendance with students the county has put together a a different way to pull the data from my star and ashley and keisha reed have worked together to ensure that we have that data available for tonight so you'll see that we actually have
076really really great two-way interaction rates in the district for our weekly averages um it's a little bit of a different way of taking attendance but that's what's required uh right now is the two-way interaction i have a question um the uh so with these two a interaction is this the percentage that have at least that have two or more uh two-way interactions um it's it's the um percentage that have two or more or have attended class um in person yeah okay great thanks so it's that definition that's in the uh that's in the return to yes yep that's where it comes from yeah um so in addition to this as part of our um reconfirmation meeting um we do have some data to show you um so dania if you could pull up yep all
077right um okay so uh the next slide we'll just do a little bit of a data review um we surveyed as you know many of you received the survey yourself uh we surveyed the community um to ask about their perceptions and their satisfaction with the current plan um we got a really great response rate this was a little bit earlier we actually ended up with over a thousand responses um but i had already submitted this for the board packet but so we we've received over a thousand um family responses uh they were very representative of the different grades throughout the district so lots of parents from lots of different grades and lots of different schools uh really a tremendous response rate we usually don't get that kind of a response rate so people people are
078interested and as you can see on the next slide the blue and the red parts are people who are very satisfied or satisfied with the current plan this is a an enormous percentage to to receive on um really on any kind of a survey so our community is happy with what we're doing right now uh overall um there are some neutrals uh in there and there's a a small dissatisfied uh sliver and then an almost um a tiny very dissatisfied so that's the overall feeling and the percentage numbers did not change significantly with the additional responses um that we got after this was submitted we have uh we surveyed on if students are attending learning labs 90 of our students are not attending learning labs even though those are open for all students um at
079this point um next slide please and then we asked um questions um things like i am concerned about my child's safety and they're they're cut off here but i can tell you what they say i'm concerned about my child's safety i'm concerned about my child not having enough instruction um and they're actually in the notes which i'm not running right now but all of those um for the most part people responded yep right down there so how well um do the following uh so i am concerned about the impact of coven 19 on my child's ability to socialize i am concerned with my child becoming infected with covid19 i am concerned about the other impacts of covet 19. so people are concerned um about various aspects of returning to school and about their child's social
080emotional development however despite that the response rate for uh satisfaction was extremely high so i think that really speaks to um to this the nature of this pandemic people are worried but they are also satisfied on the next slide we have some data from the county every week the county gives data to schools um this is the last one this is from the 14th and you can see uh red arrows are bad green arrows are good there's a there's a lot of red arrows right now for confirmed cases for probable cases for the averages going up the numbers of deaths going up and what that trend looks like so so right now the data are not are not great for improving situations um that's changed in the last couple weeks compared to what it was
081even just two weeks ago there's there's a lot more red arrows than there were um so that's some data just for you to take in and take a look at i'm just saying if they've posted this week's yet but i doubt it they usually post it every wednesday um that's the way that's the last one yeah so from the parent and family and staff and student surveys this was kind of an overall takeaway away 70 percent of our families want to stay virtual 30 percent want to come in person it actually isn't that much different from our staff where 80 percent want to stay virtual and 20 percent want to come in person where we do have a differences with students um 55 percent of them want to stay virtual 45 percent want to come
082back so our students half of them do want to come back to school um so that's kind of an over an overall view of the data okay next slide please so um using this data we sort of came up with two potential possibilities continue with our current plan we have a high satisfaction rate we have responsive building administrators um safety of students and staff and then a january date which was previously communicated by the board um and that for um seventy percent of our community and eighty percent of our staff is is working um so that's a large majority of the community so that's sort of one idea um the second idea would be to continue with our current plan but we think uh logistically that we would be able to offer one to two
083elementary sections in person while continuing to maintain our robust online synchronous instruction for um for our students who are in that program um in terms of what that would mean we would definitely can ensure that students wear masks that they hand wash they use sanitizer that they have individual desks but we would not be able to ensure for those one to two sections of elementary students that they had social distancing or that they had cohorted lunches so this would be kind of um this plan would speak to that 20 to 30 percent of the community that wants their kids the elementary level that wants their kids back in school while maintaining the exact same current plan for um the 70 to 80 percent that would like to remain virtual it is a possibility but you
084saw in the previous slide that the data's not not encouraging either so that's kind of where we're at with with the current data so on the next slide um this was sort of projection data um and you can see that the first graders are a little bit of an anomaly but once we got the rest of this the data that came in after we made the presentation for the um for the packet it normalized so we're looking at around two sections k through five of kids that want the parents to families that want their students to be in the buildings and then the rest do not the rest would like to continue to remain virtual next slide please so with that we're we're wondering um where where the board would like us to head some
085input um looking at the data um do we you know do we want to look at the january return date um continued for elementary and secondary do you want to wait till next month and maybe see what the data may bring next month um do we want to look at the possibility of those couple sections of elementary coming back sooner than january what is the board's thinking with all of with all that information and and we don't have to have an answer to it right yeah um it's just that's just kind of uh just something to think on but if you have ideas um certainly we can hear them so we can sort of fit them into uh a plan um but we can also discuss it at the next committee of the whole it's
086a lot it's it's a lot to take in that's kind of where we're at now and either way you know with with uh second semester really right around the corner we really have to think about how do we transition students uh back to school when it's safe and in what manner like what's the model going forward is it just you know that's the the options that we really want to look at is it all students coming back at once is it cohorts is it a b days is it half days we believe we have um we'll be able to accommodate multiple plans but we really want to figure out what's optimal for our families a strong want to see synchronous instruction continue even when we return to school and that's really the challenge right because
087if all the teachers are back in the classroom and they're doing half days to ensure social distancing well then you would hire staff we would have to hire staff which would mean a change in teacher which you know which bring about those things um but i think the message is loud and clear that synchronous instruction that they would like to see families would like to see that continued in some capacity so our thinking is to build a plan that even second semester of the district decides to come back to in person that we're still able to facilitate live synchronous instruction um even the second semester and so the board can share their thoughts but it's something also um if the board pleases we can revisit at the committee of the whole and share more direction
088uh to us we're we're ready uh for any plan um but we just want to make sure that um we had time to look at the data to ask the questions and then we'll move forward with guidance i wanted to add to that is our data um is not the same as the surrounding some of the surrounding communities around us it's actually sort of the opposite so the plans that that we're thinking of really reflect the data that we have in our community not what other districts around us are doing where 80 of their families would like to return we don't have that data so we believe that our plan needs to needs to fit the data that we have rather than what somebody else is doing um so it's gonna be um excuse me
089a unique solution um but we're prepared to make a unique solution that matches what our community wants so i just wanted to uh have a couple of things to share first um i appreciate the people that you know that do want to make sure that the board is clear about how we make decisions um uh i appreciate that i don't just seek uh confirmation of our decisions when i'm making the next round um so i want to acknowledge that and and uh and also just to build on something that uh dr bazi said uh about taking student safety into consideration i think uh it certainly weighed on me taking staff safety into consideration so um in summer and now when it does appear that children may have reduced especially younger children may have reduced risk
090for infection that um obviously they are not taught uh and served by uh other they're taught by adults who do have of various ages that do have not only risk of uh infection but serious illness uh as a result of of coping so that is also part of our of our risk assessment um where we look at not only the probability uh as best we can judge it because it's not precisely quantifiable but the probability of a bad event on one hand and then the magnitude of that event and certainly uh death and lifelong illness is a significant magnitude to weigh um at the same time i think over the summer we we also weighed the social emotional risks of students not being in school and and uh those are also not uh insignificant this
091time around um so as we continue to look at this decision i certainly do want to visit it um again at the committee of the whole meeting um i am interested in knowing uh although the satisfaction numbers are uh are good um you know there's a sizable percentage uh to me as a as a board member in the uh neutral to dissatisfied range that i'd want to know more about what uh you know i don't know if we can uh reach out or or uh a sample in a focus group or something to learn a little bit more about those opinions but um uh some specific things that they would like to see because they may be very different elements of dissatisfaction it could be uh you know they want to stay virtual but they
092want more direct instruction time like we heard tonight so if we can um feasibly reach out to uh some of that group of people um i think it's important to sort of take that into consideration in making the next round of decision and then also because uh in the app of solid data that uh erroring on the on the uh side of safety and being cautious about making the reopening decision and making sure that we can stick with it is important um you know i think at the next committee of the whole just getting that updated case information and seeing where michigan and southeast michigan in particular uh is um i think we have to look at wayne county too if we can get their numbers because we do have a significant number of wayne
093county students in our district [Music] that would be helpful two other helpful data elements for me anyway daniel we do have um some of that in the survey um there's an open-ended response so we can probably go through that and and pull that some of that definitely yes yeah and jim we do have our principals taking a look at those results and if there's immediate needs they're going through and then following up with the family so every building principle will then result in and if there are things like my technology is not working sometimes things like this get into the survey then they're fed up with it okay great yeah can we also look at some of the dissatisfaction that some of the parents have and if that could be alleviated by having the learning
094labs used more frequently i'm kind of surprised that there's so little usage of the learning labs um and i don't know if there's a way to make it appear less scary or if it's just not easy to access or what what's going on with that we've actually had some feedback on the learning labs um and and one of the things that we're hearing is i i don't want my kid to sit at school on a computer i want them back with their teacher in the classroom um so that's that's one of the the pieces of feedback that we've gotten okay we're learning labs from from a subset but it's it's not reflective of all of it okay and is the learning lab only um sitting on a computer only online activity um at the secondary
095level at the elementary level there are some play works um coaching sessions some recess sessions that happen for the elementary students right but but yeah i mean they were designed as a way for students who don't have access and don't have some of the um maybe don't have a quiet workspace perhaps don't have access to food to have all of those things while accessing the virtual learning okay and as far as there had been talk about um pop-up sessions are those um meeting some of the social emotional uh needs of the kids or is that not as robust as it might be or we have to do a better job at highlighting those we've had over 50 but just i mean everyone's been busy that we don't you know we have to find more time
096to kind of put the put the good stuff in front of the board but we've had over i think the last time i checked we had over 50 it's probably over 60 by now and johanna can speak to that a little bit more in depth and there are so oh i'm sorry go ahead um there have been pop-up events at at every level um preschool through high school um there are a variety of types of events some of them are academic some of them are social some of them are related to some specific piece of content um so there's been a huge variety of pop-up events um the i guess the difference between that and a sustained interaction on a regular basis is that the pop-ups really are exactly what they sound like a one-time
097or maybe two-time event rather than um an ongoing right okay yeah and we have a lot of in person in terms of special education services right at the elementary the complexity we will look to ideas of how we can make the the learning labs more robust at the the secondary the problem is is again interventions at elementary is is a little bit um less complex to do because they you have a teacher who teaches all content areas in that grade level and i'm a math teacher and if i was supporting the academics at the learning lab and you told me to do chemistry the students would be more effective than i would be assisting right so there's that complexity of how many staff but i think there are ways that if this continues on longer
098that we can at least during the break times ensure that there's academic support during the learning labs even at the secondary level so brainstorm and bring back some ideas to the committee of the whole meeting okay i just uh you know i want to acknowledge that uh there are a number of um unique difficult situations that our families are experiencing we hear about them period periodically as a as a board and obviously this the staff and i um you know i don't take those things lightly because um like you said earlier dr bazi there's nothing better than uh in-person instruction and [Music] i really would like to return to in-person instruction as soon as possible when it's the uh we have data that supports it and it's the will of the families and students in
099the district and i you know i'm supportive and the numbers those arrows took a red turn uh this week unfortunately um they had been trending uh green um so i mean that certainly gives us pause but um i think it's as it's been referenced we know that um the numbers have been uh the numbers of infection the infection rate has been less for younger children and we also know that they are um they probably struggle the most with uh screen time and the lack of face-to-face learning so when it is feasible i'm um supportive of ideas that would uh phase younger students in first when it's feasible and it's the will of those families i breathe um i'll just echo what mike said i think it does make sense considering all the factors that we
100consider how we can best phase in when it's possible um given that the risk factors and also that the special needs of the younger kids i know even at my tender age i have a hard time sitting in front of the computer all day so i know they're having a rough time um but i do have significant concerns about the the numbers and the increase and i want to make sure that when we do return we do so um carefully and cautiously and try and consider the best interests of of everyone involved um and also while we're moving towards that plan of returning to school also see what we can do to tweak the amazing program that we already have and this and the schedule to see if there's any ways we can kind of
101incorporate some of the comments that we've heard today and we've heard over the last few weeks as well i mean i agree i am um want to definitely um potentially consider option two but there's too many other varying factors to give a hundred percent agreement behind it so i'd rather us take more time to discuss this in more detail at the next meeting do you have anything to add sandra you want me to tell you that i agree with everything everyone has said um if so it's not no no i mean i do agree with everything that everyone else has said um i also want us to be you know mindful of the data that we see um and so i like jim not only worry about our students but i also have like i
102worry about our staff because our students are you know on the younger end of the spectrum are more resilient but if our staff aren't well to teach our kids then we're doing our kids a disservice so i'm looking forward to talking about it with more data at community hall i get a little concerned when i hear that we are looking towards november and december which we haven't even gotten into the hardest part of the year and it may end up being nothing november and december but it also may turn out to be as bad as what they've been talking about so i think that we do need to look at um the medical aspect the scientific information that we can get a hold of we also have to look at um the disproportionate effect that
103this has on people of color and the effects of coping so there's a lot that we have to be looking at and that michigan is not going in a good direction right now so we do have a lot of a lot of reading to do all right dr bazil i think we will obviously uh we uh we know that you and your uh the administration will continue to uh steadfastly pay attention to and and observe data and consider all these factors as we um you know as we consider when returned to school yeah we will gather all the requests and have that information ready for the committee of the whole meeting to continue those discussions um as as was discussed evaluate what we're doing what we're doing moving forward and come up with some some
104different ideas for the board to consider is there a motion to uh approve the extended cobit 19 learning plan uh for the act for october moved by jen and seconded by okay anna roll call miss shepard natash yes yes abraham yes president davidson yes thank you thank you uh with six yes votes the uh extended covet 19 learning plan for october is approved that takes us to action agenda item 8.4 the request to approve district classroom furniture purchase we talked about this in our last committee the whole we're trying to get our buildings ready for uh second semester in person learning uh one of the things that we identified with the principals was the concern that a lot of our classrooms have tables um and we can't properly socially distance the students so what we're
105looking for is 15 classrooms of furniture at university high school six classrooms at the high school at ferndale high school and then a majority of the classrooms at lower elementary we're looking to buy individual student desks for those rooms this is a federal grant it's the federal chronovirus relief grant that's going to actually provide the funding for this uh we have been working with our furniture consultant the principals to and also looking at our strategic plan um so that we're trying to find model furniture that will work well for coronavirus for the social distancing but also after our pandemic's over this is nice movable furniture that they'll be able to use to once again when the students are able to collaborate we can push them together and form islands learning islands and whatnot so what
106we're looking for is an approval of uh furniture um these these were all purchased through the remc and aepa bids uh so it does meet our purchasing guidelines um so we're looking for an award of a hundred and eighty thousand seven hundred and forty five dollars and seventy five cents to school specialty for this furniture and once again it is provided by that federal grant any questions one thing to mention is i know it seems like you know a lot of money to spend on um hopefully thinking let's say this time next year or back to some normalcy the role it's the virus isn't simply going to go away so to have furniture that can be socially distant is important for example at university high school most of the furniture is long tables so that
107students are sitting really one next to another there's some pictures including kind of some different variations of furniture in which jamie worked with each principal to identify and kind of some of the movable furniture i'm sorry it's really small to see but it's kind of these types of desks that can still allow for facilitate kind of collaborative learning but also allow for the distance to take place so um they thought a lot about sustainability and ensuring that it's something that can be utilized after but as jamie mentioned all of these purchases will be made with covid relief dollars and not general fund expenditures and i just wanted to mention too the manufacturer has committed to having that furniture to us by the end of december and these are installed prices they have a um installation
108company that comes in and places them in all the furniture in all the classrooms and moves the old furniture out and everything for us too questions comments from the board thanks for putting this together it makes a lot of sense to do this with the uh available grant funds no problem so um that that i know jamie we've talked about this the remc process [Music] is a process that i that looks at multiple bids correct yeah it's a collaboration with the state majority of the school districts use it but basically they bid out all types of whether it's computers furniture any kind of school supplies uh they bid out statewide so that all the schools can can take advantage of that uh bulk uh purchasing price so we all get the economies of scale is
109there a motion to approve the district classroom furniture purchase i move moved by jackie and seconded by jim we'll call miss shepherd o'donnell yes lukey yes heart yes abraham latash yes president davidson yes thank you with six yes votes the uh district classroom furniture purchase is approved that moves us to action agenda item 8.5 the request to approve the agreement for kara's act distribution between oakland county and ferndale public schools we've received oakland county received 28 million dollars in in cares act funding that's been distributed to the local school districts based on free and reduced rates student population staff population what this is is ferndale at the county level will receive a total of six hundred and forty one thousand two hundred and twelve dollars which is an increase of about two hundred and eight
110thousand dollars um than what was expected in order to receive those funds we have to enter in an agreement with oakland county that kind of describes our responsibilities and their responsibilities as it relates to the covid fund nancy jump in at any time to my understanding the you know there's about 430 000 that really is the oversight is a little bit more lacks and then about 208 000 of the funding will have to you know give the reasoning and ensure that we're not supplanting um versus you know general fund expenditures meaning that we're not kind of double dipping on spending the funds on things that we would normally spend in a specific school year uh so this agreement just allows us to collect uh those funds um and the board will have to approve this
111in order for us to receive those if i missed anything nancy uh feel free to jump in no you are correct in what you said um the federal government is authorizing up to 500 a student um that they will not require um i'll say very detailed explanation or um backup although we are keeping very detailed explanation and backup on everything um any money over the 500 they're gonna require um a little bit more um support um that 500 um it also takes into consideration the money we we have directly received um through the state and from the federal government so the 350 a student um and then the 12 a student that we've already received so if you um subtract those two amounts from the 500. that's the amount that we do not have to
112have um really strong support um as they're calling it but but we still do receive more than that so because of our um students that are economically disadvantaged and some other factors we will receive be receiving over 500 in total with all the funds um that we're getting so it was very um it was really uh nice uh that the county is um able to give us this money and again this money is required to be spent um again by december 31st so um they have given a little leeway in some of the grants that um as long as we've entered into a contract for it and we don't actually have to have um the goods in-house but we're hoping to get as many in-house as possible thank you nancy i appreciate that other questions
113are you able to find out what you could spend that money on um you know that the typical types of things ppe staffing as it relates to kobit for example um if if jamie is spending significant time related to covid we're allowed to take a portion of his salary technology supplies for students to learn in the virtual environment anything that's required for us to navigate the situation that we're in due to coven so any expense that we have as it relates to us being in this particular situation we're allowed to internet devices as you saw with casa sending home like materials and manipulatives all of that type of stuff so testing and people to do testing not sat testing yes i believe that if you hired like a healthcare professional you would be able to
114utilize funds to to pay for that correct and buying the actual covent test i believe that would be allowable nancy's the my is the gatekeeper in terms of you know compliance with grants she keeps us um not you know make sure that we don't get in trouble um see any have you heard of any districts purchasing uh covet tests i have not um heard of any districts that are doing that um mostly technology it's furniture it's the pp e that we need um you know the instruments that we just recently purchased so that our students do not have to share instruments um as they currently do um all the pp e required for instruments and for um our vocal um students um as daniel said any time any of our um staff has spent jamie
115johanna tom they've spent a great deal of their summer um getting us ready getting the buildings ready in jamie's case and getting us ready to go online with our um teachers and students so um that we can pay for the teachers the the day that they spent um learning how to use school out or um learning how to use their um online system um those types of things that we can charge to it right now yeah no if we were to do be able to do this if we were to get test kits and personnel to administer tests we would be on the cutting edge we would be leading edge and in order to have a good um system of bringing staff and students back that i think is what we're gonna i wouldn't be
116surprised if that isn't what would be uh next possibly but i think i just think it would be an interesting thing to look into and to see if we could push for it for teachers at least to be able to get um when they come back to get regular testing i i agree with you anna i'm just curious how much that would cost and if that would be something that would be a maybe a cares act too yeah i i don't know but i think it would be definitely um position doctors are talking about it now as something that should be available for athletic teams that are going back to high school um student you know high school students and parents or um teachers obviously not the little ones but um it would just be
117it would be interesting no i definitely agree i just would like to know how much it cost because i don't know if 600 grand would would cover it but i i'm right there with you and i'm looking forward to the federal government giving us some more money so we can do that i i'd want to see the uh i'd want to see us partner with county health department to do that we'd also probably have to increase our liability insurance and all those ancillary costs um and i think they have the capacity and the ability and the and the technical expertise to do it absolutely those nose swabs go pretty deep yeah yeah at least for the rapid test they do they do but it's doable i think the issue though is that um the the
118the health department's guidance um unless you're a first-line um exposure they're really not recommending testing at this point unless you are you know first in line um and and the rapid test uh reliability is is isn't that good you know and then getting into we we've had many athletes who have have said that they've uh been exposed or even students who come to the learning lab and sometimes when we've asked you know can you get testing to ensure that you know that there's that we need to know for certain um there's been some resistance to that and in terms of families wanting to be tested so this would have to be something that you know we'd have to be sure that parents and families um you know were on board and then as they mentioned
119i i hate to say cost like we can always find a way around sometimes in terms of cost but a lot of these grant dollars have expiring dates of 12 30 which that after december 30th we're going to see limited funding in terms as it relates to care karex dollars um and then as it relates to our school budget yes the the original budget we have is is very promising and that we're not going to receive cuts but we could still face a negative supplemental which means that you know mid to end year depending on how the economy is doing they could come back and further cut us so i i do we do tend to take a conservative approach but there's unknowns on this this year and and we just we need to be
120cautiously optimistic cross our fingers maybe we'll have a national plan in place sooner rather than later maybe okay is there a motion to approve the agreement for kerasic distribution between oakland county and ferndale public schools i'll move moved by jen second executed by anna roll call miss shepherd santa excuse me yes spooky yes her yes abraham yes latash yes president davidson yes thank you thank you with uh six yes votes the agreement for kerasiak distribution between the oakland county and ferndale public schools is approved that brings us to action agenda item 8.6 request to approve the resolution authorizing the 20 20 20 20 21 refunding bonds both the tax exempt and the taxable series nancy okay so we have the opportunity to refund uh two series of our bonds the 2011 and 2012 as well
121as a portion or a portion or all of the loan that we have with the state of michigan um as part of the michigan school revolving fund um we discussed this two weeks ago at the committee of the whole um this will um while it will not provide savings to the district per se it will provide savings to our um to our families our constituents in our district uh so this is a really great opportunity um there is two there's one resolution authorizing this there will be two separate series because the refunding of the 2011 bonds in the 2012 bonds that will be those will be sold as uh non-taxable bonds um the um when we refund the loan from the state of michigan that will be a taxable bond because when the state funds
122that to us they do that with taxable bonds so because they do it with taxable bonds the bonds we issue to refund it has to be taxable so there's two there'll be two issuances an a and a b uh taxable and non-taxable so we are asking uh that the board approved the refunding of the 2011-2012 bonds along with the portion or all of the school bond loan fund loan any questions or uh no questions thank you for going through this thoroughly at the committee of the whole meeting makes sense to do even though there's a lot of words is there a motion to approve the resolution authorizing the 2021 refunding bonds no move moved by jim now second consecutive by jackie any other questions or comments roll call miss shepherd nikki yes her yes abraham
123yes latash yes odano yes president davidson yes thank you thank you with 60s votes the resolution authorizing the 2021 refunding bonds is approved that brings us to item 8.7 the request to approve the fall neola volume 35 number one update this is our second read so at the last committee of the whole meeting we went through this page by page and um a lot of the policies that are being approved are to you know meet law requirements in terms of language nothing structurally different in terms of that there was some updates as it relates to facility security that allows us to use different types of of locked devices of you know a lockdown situation and then policy to uh as it relates to protective facial coverings to require that students wear face coverings as it
124relates to pandemics and and covet 19. so again nothing nothing too crazy in here just you know expected changes and in the board packet it shows um clearly what's been adjusted as a result of those discussions in the last committee of the whole meeting questions i appreciate the board's uh um detail look into this and of course your work uh dr bazi preparing to take us through this each time that we do it is there a motion to approve the fall neola volume 35 number one update second read i move moved by sandra is there a second a second seconded by jackie it was jim yeah jen excuse me i said sorry i i hesitated for a second i saw you blink jackie um okay uh roll call miss shepherd bart yeah abraham yes latash
125yes o'donnell yes dookie yes president davidson yes thank you thank you with six yes votes the uh fall neola volume 35 number one update second read is approved and uh that brings us to item 8.8 to request to approve the resolution policy waiver the amendment update so if you remember a few months ago the board approved a policy waiver as it related to the governor's executive order there was a number of executive orders that that were in contrast to some of our policy as it as it relates to how schools generally function with the latest supreme court ruling in michigan the executive orders are kind of now [Music] not enforceable and so the policy needs to be updated to reflect applicable state and local government orders so as you saw mdhhs machine department health and
126human services put out a lot of guidance and and mandatory orders out um outside of the executive order to ensure that we'd still be able to operate um under the the essence of the executive orders um the same thing we we saw recently the open meetings act was legislatively amended so that we could continue meeting in a virtual format so as you see in red it shows you from the last time you approved it to now what has changed and again all it does is remove reference to the executive orders and and changes now um where we where we get that guidance to be able to um deviate from any existing policy that we have questions sounds good is there a motion to approve the resolution policy waiver amendment update i'm moved by sandra oh
127second and seconded by jackie roll call miss shepherd abraham yes latash yes odano yes lukey yes heart yes president davidson yes thank you thank you with six yes votes the resolution policy waiver amendment update is approved that brings us to action agenda item 8.9 the request to approve hazard pay for covet 19. so i'm going to hand this off to teresa volcano one thing that i'd like to point out is nancy i don't know the exact figure off the top of my head but covet related funding we have roughly is it 1.6 or 1.9 million total i know we've expended a lot of it but what was our total um let's see we have 204 000 in gear we have a little over a million in our cares money we have 38 000 in cares
128money we have 361 000 and then we have the money we just received from the county um the six hundred and forty one thousand okay yeah i just wanted to make it clear that as we discussed hazard paid that the amount of total funding was you know in excess of okay so teresa i'll hand it off to you okay so um i had a chance to meet with each of our bargaining groups to talk about hazard pay this was something that was raised at the beginning of the year um and we were able to talk with each group and kind of work through some you know amounts that we thought were reasonable and depending on the position type and the number of days that they were required to be on site uh the hours that
129they were working in different things so this recommendation um from you know agreements with each of the groups is presented today this would be for anyone who had that was required to report on site if they had 100 virtual schedule they would not be entitled to the hazard pay so every group did express their appreciation for this they were very thankful that we were coming to talk with them and um felt like these amounts were you know appropriate so we bring it to the board for approval just to clarify there are um letters of agreement with with each of the bargaining units over this because this this was you know bargained but due to the amount um we would you know we would need board approval thank you any questions or comments just to thank
130you for putting this together the board you know the board brought this up to us at the the beginning of the school year and um we know that it was important to you for us to um show thanks to the people who are you know putting themselves obviously at risk and um i think theresa she has to move she has to meet with a lot of different bargaining groups to to come to agreements with and she took the time to um discuss and work this out with each of the union leadership and i thank them too for being accessible and allowing us to get this done in a fairly quick time frame is there a motion to approve the hazard pay for copa19 i move moved by sandra i think that was anna yeah seconded
131by anna roll call miss shepherd natash yes o'donnell yes spooky yes er yes abraham yes president davidson yes thank you thank you with six yes votes the hazard pay is approved that brings us to action agenda item 8.10 the request to approve the superintendent's goals for the 2020-2021 school year can we add advancing the slides as one of the goals for this year oh i'm sorry oh you did you're fine i don't know i felt like i was waiting for the vote i apologize um all right so this uh at the at the last committee of the whole meeting in closed session we we discussed the superintendent evaluation and and the goals that uh the board would like to see um during the 2020 2021 school year um the goals are centered around the strategic
132plan and board resolution implement oversight obviously related to the covid19 pandemic and return to to learn implementation and management we also are in the midst of of various bond projects that include the design of a brand new ferndale lower elementary school as well as significant work at the high school pool area fuel and fecc and then um administrator growth and coaching we have a number of of new administrators in the district to continue to facilitate uh their growth and leadership and support them as uh they become more acclimated with the ferdale family as as well as existing uh administrators and then the last goal is centered around student growth and achievement which um obviously is important to us but is is a law that's in every educator's evaluation we will then have a mid-year check-in
133in february with the summative evaluation in may questions i appreciate the dialogue that we had preparing this at our previous meeting yeah i was similarly going to add uh that we um we talked about this at length and uh these goals uh seem to make sense for our school year both um what the district is doing uh with a fairly recent strategic plan and equity and obviously coveid is there a motion to approve the superintendent's goals for the 2020-2021 school year i'll move moved by jen and second a second seconded by sandra any other uh questions or comments roll call miss shepherd spooky yes yes abraham yes yes i mean yes president davidson yes thank you thank you with six yes votes the uh superintendent's goals for the 2020 2021 school year are approved which
134brings us to agenda item 9 the information items budget to actual report again each month nancy prepares this for us it allows us to monitor our spending month to month in our various [Music] budget budget areas so basically we've caught up on our spending this time last year we were about 87 percent remaining of the budget we are at about 85.91 um nancy has explained the variance for example if you look under federal revenue it's quite a big variance but if we go to letter b it explains that the district received 1.93 million from the corona virus relief grant in current year so that's why you're seeing that changed because we we've seen a lot more come in to that particular area again the variance is explained um we're still um you know within normal
135spending patterns that we would see this year and ultimately are going to see some savings due to being in a virtual format all right any um [Music] questions thank you nancy and donya that uh takes us to agenda item 10 there were no pulled consent to agenda items so item 11 the eagles points of pride for comments for this month of october i'll go first um i just want to give a shout out to all our staff and families who are doing the best they can and uh these current unprecedented times like we're all we know and um that everyone is doing the best they can and we um acknowledge that and appreciate it i'm happy to go next um i just want to uh express my gratitude uh and pride for the work that
136johanna has done and uh and all of our staff in terms of executing the the learning plan uh you don't get uh six percent engagement uh over the those first few weeks of the school year just by uh happenstance that's reflective of a lot of planning and hard work and i appreciate it i think i might get booted out again soon with my internet um i just wanted to give a quick shout out and thank you to the um the high school staff i think i was a little scared about the conferences and they went amazingly well this week so i just want to um thank everyone for for being there and doing that and giving us the updates on the conferences so many thanks i wanted to thank the high school representatives to the
137school board i didn't realize how much i missed hearing about normal high school kid activities until they started talking about normal high school kid activities um thank you girls for letting us know what was going on [Music] and making me feel like times are normal a little bit thanks a lot um i too want to just express my appreciation for the teachers the administrators staff and even our families for adapting and adjusting and making the best of the situation given such a horrible situation that we're all in and you know just really showing that you know through the survey and the results that there is appreciation for the fact that we are um online and i know it's tough for families but we really um have to keep in mind the seriousness of this pandemic
138and i just appreciate everyone for being civil throughout all of it i think i meant to mention earlier and didn't that if um individual families have any um unique issues related to how your um students are able to engage right now please please reach out to your uh if not your teachers your your building principles and uh and just let them know what your particular situation is because they're working hard to accommodate the needs of families i just want to uh similar to what's already been said as well give a give my uh gratitude for um the really clear and um organized and confident direction that um that i know my students have received from their teachers [Music] i asked one of my uh one of my kids what they're learning yesterday or the day
139before and she went class by class and told me exactly what she's learning in every class and um i felt you know i felt pretty good about that so um kudos to all the people um administration and obviously teachers that have put us in a place where kids are still learning despite this remote operation hey well i i have tackled what everybody said uh johanna tom central office cabinet have has teachers principals have really uh been been working very diligently um to do the best to to meet the needs of our community i understand the frustrations and and the want to get back to school i also understand the want to stay in a virtual setting i i assure the community that we're listening we're going to continue to try and meet your needs individually
140and as the board president mr davidson said if there's specific things please please reach out uh to your teacher principal to myself there's always something we can do to help um and we will get through this trust me i can't wait till kids are back in the building and this will pass eventually i do think the community for their understanding their compassion and the great civility that we have in having these discussions i've i've um feel very lucky to to work and serve ferndale it's a special place um and i know that everyone wants what's best for kids and that will continue to guide guide us as we move forward all right well thank you all and uh thank you members of the community parents and staff that have spent your evening with us this
141meeting will be adjourned at 9 31 pm