9/22/2020 Ferndale Public Schools Board Meeting

001nation being held monday september 21st 2020 via zoom in accordance with governor which whitmer's executive order uh allowing for such during the pandemic the meeting is called to order at 703 pm roll call miss shepard heart here abraham here for mueller let's see here here o'donnell here president davidson here thank you thank you item 1.2 the pledge of the pledge of allegiance i will lead us in the pledge 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 do any board members have any amendments uh or changes they would like to make to the agenda i don't all right um the agenda uh

002will be approved as it as its uh stands and that takes us to item uh two point uh item two the ferndale student representatives from uhs and uh ferndale high school so uh janae would you like to address the board good evening everyone good evening my name is janae ingram and i am the senior board representative for university high school and i'm just here to let you know a few things that's been going on on our school this month which s has not left the current circumstances of our work into school groups and clubs although there are many ways to continue dungeons and dragons and chess club virtually the school has still made a way for a few of the other clubs newspaper club for example will meet every monday at 3 p.m over a

003google meet starting september 14th to discuss the monthly article submissions our club will meet every monday at 3pm as well starting september 28th to discuss a potential socially distanced art supply pickup to allow the students to create artwork from home via zoom or google meet nhs will hold their first meeting of the school year september 30th at 12 p.m to discuss how volunteer hours will be handled this year with the conditions that we are currently in our volleyball team is having their first high school game this season tomorrow tuesday september 22nd 2020 at toronto high school i know how happy this worst teams are to be allowed to the opportunity to continue the season and although i'm unable to attend the game tomorrow i'm wishing our volleyball team good luck i was also unable to

004attend the popsicle with principal's event this past friday which was the 18th from 12 to 2 but i heard it was a blast teachers and administrators were in attendance and got chance to meet some new and returning students and families we also gave away sunglasses because uhs is just that cool similar to the pop-up event this friday there will be a homecoming pop-up for all uh students on saturday october 10th 2020. there will be more info about this pop-up event in the following weeks student council has also been working on organizing events that will allow the community to be safe while also allowing students to enjoy themselves they've come up with the idea to start a virtual workshop for all students but also aimed at new incoming students the virtual workshop will resemble something like

005a mentorship ability it will allow students to receive advice from other students and build bonds with people that they have not met i know personally i was really nervous when i first started high school so i cannot imagine how my first few weeks of freshman year would have went um virtually it's really hard to form bonds and make friendships like this so i feel like that would be really helpful also similar to the virtual workshop the student council is also starting a student tutoring group like the workshop the tutoring will be peer-to-peer work but academically focused instead of social level work and um that's all i have to share for today but if anyone has any questions i can answer them for you did you say that the art club you're looking for supplies or

006no no not looking for supplies just trying to figure out how a socially distant art supply pickup will work oh okay i see yeah so um any students interested we're trying to plan a day for us to come up to the school and pick up our supplies so that we can work on um google meets together okay and you're gonna do your projects and then how would you display them we have a section in our google classroom that we can insert different artworks inside of but i think that you have to be inside of the google classroom to see the artwork so for the school to see i'm not sure how that worked yet oh okay all right thank you you're welcome thank you thank you janae thank you and is kai with us hi

007yes i'm here hi kai would you like to address the board um i actually um i can't find my google um drive right now my my doc i had uh sorry i've been having a really it is it is okay why don't you just tell us how the school year's going so far for you well um for me it's been a little rough to um be completely honest but um i'm hoping that it picks up from here and i have very um supportive teachers so that's good and i've been reaching out to them i've seen a lot of um kids go to the school for socially distanced learning using the wi-fi and i think that's a very good thing to have and provide for students here but um yeah it's still a bit of an

008adjustment for a lot of students i've heard i've been talking to um upper and liking lower class they're having a little bit of a hard time still keeping up but um we're hanging in there i think yeah kai thank you uh thank you for sharing off the cuff without your notes it's um it's been such an adjustment for so many so many students and staff as well i'm glad to hear that you have really supportive teachers and hope that you can lean on them heavily to make the best of our situation right now yeah thank you thank you all right well that will take us to item three on the agenda uh the presentation from uh uh gmb architects and clark construction regarding our 2020 broad bond project updates well welcome tom from gmb tom

009you have to help me with the pronunciation of your last name please uh underground van der green okay kind of like kind of like green the color all right tom is one of our architects uh with gmb we also have uh doris you know i've i've never pronounced your last name either i gross i assume yep you got it don't get it all right and uh and then becky timberlake from um clark construction are here with us so i'll share my screen time um the purpose of today's kind of to give you a little bit of of a sneak peek on some of the bond work that's taking place obviously we're still very early on um in the design phase so things will change but we want to at least allow the community to kind

010of see and the board to see kind of the direction that we're headed in you know with with construction things come out of you know come up that are unexpected sometimes while you're going through this but um so things aren't finalized i want to i want that to be kept in mind that that schematics or these are really rough drawings uh and and we're still working through with each building on kind of finalizing the designs so i'm going to share my screen and pull up the playbook all right um are you able to pull it up or am i pulling it up yeah i'll pull it up you want to make sure no zoom bombers so okay sorry perfect perfect just say next slide yeah next slide yeah oh like no okay all right the

011first couple slides here are just simple things just kind of explaining the process to everybody um we work through a pretty standard process of industry where you have a programming phase where you develop what what are you going to build uh develop the criteria that everybody wants to see in the project and you work through schematic design where you do some sketches design development works on all the systems in a building and more detail and then it gets into the construction documents we're preparing things that can be bid and you move into the construction that follow-up we are kind of in the second and third phase of this stuff and most the project as donya was saying so we're a little early in the process but we wanted to yeah just kind of get it

012out you can see where we're headed uh next slide this slide you can look at on your own if you want just has more it's the same kind of concept just show some of the details and some of the milestones that come in some of those phases all right next slide actually the next two slides we're going to come back to um becky is going to go through these two slides with you uh after we go through the projects she's going to kind of give you a sense of schedule and budget where all the projects are so this slide represents a little bit of the guiding principles we've been developing with your administration your design teams things that hopefully help us understand what's important to ferndale with these projects the things that should guide us

013in all the projects just real simply you can read those yourselves but some things that we've been requested to to follow through on um and all these projects starting to create district standards so that we start to get some coherence in all your buildings and things are done where it looks like yeah there's a standard and things we're doing regularly in the district number two promoting equity amongst all the different students in the in the district and helping them have collaborative environments that are appropriate for all of their needs three is is is focusing on student needs so that everything we're doing is basically enhancing student-focused spaces these spaces are for students and making sure they're the best for their needs not necessarily adult needs but more what's what's important for the students um and

014four and five kind of tie together a little bit but making sure the projects are sustainable um energy efficient so that is we're renovating your projects they reduce operational costs and make them you know less less expensive to run kind of a thing and five kind of ties into that a little bit with materials and making sure that things are are durable and a low maintenance in terms of an upkeep um this is a little bit of a living document it will it may grow a little bit as more things become evident that are very important from the district but these are important to just to kind of give us guiding principles on the things that we're working on all right next slide uh basically early childhood center be the first component i'll talk about

015we go to the next slide and you'll see the floor plan basically of the building in the far left um well first let me tell you the early childhood center has two major phases for it throughout the bond we're in the first phase right now which is primarily dealing with security at the building there's another phase which will come in subsequent years in the bond in a later series which deals with the remaining funds for renovation and things this first phase is only uh what was necessary for the the renovation of security the bottom left-hand corner is you know your office we're going to renovate that space um and one of the things we're looking at is trying to make again some of those standards and so in every office we're looking at creating a

016secure buzz in process where people are are worked through a buzzer to let them into the office into a secure suite every visitor will be controlled so that you're entering into the office through a controlled sequence adding additional windows in there so the the receptionist and the staff in the office can monitor people approaching the building important security component and then working that the office area has the needed things for visitors the work areas and conferencing are all up front and that suite can control visitors not needing to bring them into the building uh unless they're part of a teaching environment also when we're going through this we're going to be branding those entries so they feel unique to ferndale and that every building in the district as we start touching those offices has that

017flare and we're again very early on that developing what that might look like but hopefully every office has sort of a ferndale brand to it in the work on this we did pull the conference room down in that area we are moving a few offices the middle of the plan shows kind of that orange area we're moving some of the student services offices over there so we had the ability to bring some of the conferencing etc up front and then in that that sequence as well we were able to move some of the sensory rooms back into the building which allowed us to also gain one additional classroom for this building which will hopefully help with some future needs that's the basic scope again there were things adjusting primarily to create that secure entry the

018next slide should show um i think an image of the desk and again this as daniel was saying is very early the the plans are a little more developed and we're in about the middle of the process there this desk is just starting to be some of those more visual details we're working on um but again very early was one of the first things we we only looked at at once with your team but again it's looking at creating a brand and so what you're seeing here is the reception desk that has a feature wall development logo and maybe the building name on it some wood developing potentially wraps into the ceiling etc very early on but trying to create that unique brand and then in the reception desk even potentially some some awesome imagery

019of ferns we're thinking of as we're you know some of you were talking about uh potentially some natural inlays in that in that desk very early but just some of the thoughts that might be a part of that and again you can see a little bit of the image showing increased visibility more glass to allow for the safety of seeing who's approaching the building um this image would be similar to the other buildings we'll look at we only look at it once today uh but it's this kind of of a field that would be in each each entry and that should lead to the next slide which moves us to fuel building and the next slide will show us a little bit of the plan for that this is an overall plan just give you

020a little bit of a sense of of of the building we are again this building has about four different phases for it right now we're in the phase that's doing dealing with security again at the secure entry creating that new secure entry and then the majority of the interior renovation all happening in this phase so we're hitting this building fairly substantially right now with the work that's slated for in the bond there'll be a follow-up phase in subsequent years for paving renewal and then some classroom furnishings in another phase and then the final phase for this building will be in addition for a stem space so the piece we're working on right now again is is uh very similar to the discussion i had with you at early childhood center is creating a new secure

021entry the office is in the same location but going to be fairly substantially remodeled and renovated again the same buzzed in sequence controlled entry of visitors needing to come into the office and having you know no access to the building unless they're released receptionists move to the front so they have good vision of the entry and people approaching and developing that work area and conferencing in that secure suite again the same branding will occur uh to make that uh a ferndale feel as you walk into that uh that main office this project also has an enhanced entry canopy and we'll get to that in a minute here i want to show you some images but that canopy will be uh creating a little more of a grand uh feeling of an entry a little more

022uh uh the entry right now is fairly low and dark and we're going to increase the visibility of that inside the building a lot of stuff going on and cuts on a few of the major things the art music areas are going to have some upgrades with finishes the cafeteria is going to be adjusted to to reduce the acoustical it's very loud space to get some acoustical treatment uh there's some restroom renovations throughout the building the gym will be renovated with some flooring upgrades and some new bleachers we're going to try to get some light window light into the space then we're going to add some lockers in the classroom areas there's a not enough lockers for the student use uh there's some new roofing on the building for the most part uh the entire

023building it's a mechanical systems upgrade new fire alarm system uh and then the staff work room uh lounge upgrades with some finishes in there and then some miscellaneous doors etc throughout the building we're also looking to potentially outside uh bring into this phase of some of the playground renovations upgrade of some of the equipment and a new monument sign out by the road which identifies the building that's a kind of a broad brush of the scope uh for this building for this phase so the next slide slider two we have we'll show you the entry that we're looking at developing a new a new entry canopy there the existing canopy is about um oh it comes down about two or three of those windows lower we're going to take the canopy off it's very dark

024it wraps around the building i'm still going to have enough canopy substantive size for kids to be under it if they need to wait for parents picking them up but pulling it back so there's a little more light in there raising it up getting all new glass into that media center component potentially some new window shades up on the top sun shading new logo building name and then creating all those columns with some cast stone base and brick columns more of a traditional feels right now they're just kind of a metal post the next slide shows you a similar view just a little more straight on and then we're gonna as you can see the building at the end the doors into there will be the secure entry you'll walk into those doors and you'll

025be forced into the office that whole security sequence we're gonna raise that up as well inside there so the roof will be raised over that to create a little bit of more of a grand entry uh something that that is a little bit updated contemporary wise in terms of some look as well i think we have one or two more slides this is a slide looking what it would look like if you're coming out of the building the new entry looking out that canopy towards the the drop-off parking area and then the next slide is a image of potentially at night we're looking at putting some nice linear lights in the canopy to give it a good glow and a nice look at night i think that is it for fuel this is just an

026image of the high school the high school project um the next slide will show us the plan the high school is broken into many many projects there's almost one uh almost every year for the entire bond the first project that's part of this series that we're working on is the pool area remodeling the renovations so that component the the one component is the very south pool is going to be maintained as a competition pool space that space is going to get again this is a little more conceptual than the others i'll tell you because this one is staggered a little bit and becky will get into that when she explains the schedule for you uh fuel and early childhood center are a little bit ahead of schedule this one is following a little bit behind

027so these drawings are even a little more conceptual but uh the basic intent of the south pole is a total renovation of that for a competition pool uh space we're going to be replacing all the tile finishes in the in the pool itself and on the deck giving some new starting blocks new timing systems sound system new scoreboard lane lines a lot of those finishes all redone in that pool including the seating uh mezzanine with some new seating and upgrades so that feels refreshed throughout so that space will look quite a bit different when we get done in it to the left of it currently there's one locker room that serves as south pool and one locker room that serves the north pole we're going to adjust that so that there are two locker rooms

028since we're going to have one pole that they both those gets all renovated inside their new lockers and finishes etc but both those locker rooms then will have access to the south pool that we'll be maintaining excuse me then the north pole is going to be totally adjusted we're going to fill that pool in and create one floor area where that pool was we're going to renovate that to become a student fitness area kind of a student activities a very multi-purpose kind of a space for heavy physical activity we're going to have the first two bays starting from the left are gonna be primarily fitness equipment uh more of the weights and things for training equipment and building body strength in the middle bay we're looking at a putting in a turf area for training

029um and and some more running and ropes kind of things on on this artificial turf component then the right two bays of that that space the idea is that would be a more of a resilient floor giving you some multi-purpose use for any kinds of of running activities um soft on the feet whether it might be aerobics wrestling mats can be rolled out in that space a lot of different kind of activity to the right so those are the three components that that space will be developed to have and then we're going to fill in the mezzanine that's kind of that aqua color uh where the seating is currently for that north pole and that will be created to be a mezzanine for uh cardio equipment uh be up in that in that area that's

030open to this this multi-purpose space fitness area below uh but but have a view down in into there from that mezzanine there will be that little orangish uh burnt area on the top we'll have some mechanical equipment some storage for all this this equipment needs and then a couple of restrooms uh to serve immediate needs out of the fitness area as well then up above that burnt area burnt orange area which is kind of that the dashed line show you that it's called your corrective gym i think right now um it's primarily where wrestling i believe occurs we're going to renovate that space entirely to be kind of a student collaboration learning lab and we're hoping we'll show you some images the goal will be to get some windows into there it's a very um

031solid structure that whole thing if you're familiar with it is built out of of cast in place reinforced concrete and so it's not going to be an easy task but we're looking at getting some windows in there to look down from that corrective gym area which will now be a learning lab into that fitness area some of our images will show you that so i think the next slide down you will show us an image we have a few images kind of showing you different yeah you can skip this slide this is just a more of a same thing um of a floor plan so this image is looking from the side that would be the floor that has um the multi-purpose flooring where mats could be rolled out it's more of that that matte

032area and we're looking back towards the entry on the other side what you're seeing is a screen there's been a request to put a screen in there a fold up screen a drop down screen that would divide that so if there was heavy activity on this side then the other side where the turf is you can just see a little bit of it to the right there a person standing on the turf working with something equipment and then the other side would be the equipment as well that those two areas would be on the other side of that screen just in case there was some separation needed then on the top left there you're seeing cardio equipment on that mezzanine i was describing in the very background are the two windows that we're hoping to

033get out of that new collaboration space that will look down into this space um create a very yeah very new and exciting feel for this space to be very very different than what is in there right now in that old pool next couple slides just show some different angles of looking there this would be standing up on the on the mezzanine where the cardio equipment is looking down uh just a conceptual idea of some of the equipment that might be on that space uh there'll be a stair and an elevator lift up to this space from uh the stuff to the left you're seeing would be that multipurpose space that fitness area the next slide a little more of a close up on that that matte area looking towards the left is the mezzanine seeing

034the turf just beyond there we're looking at having some uh you know some educational components in there as well this is a view inside that learning lab which would be the second floor that is actually because the pool is two stories basically uh this will be a multi-purpose kind of a learning lab for the students and it will look hopefully those windows we're looking at would look down into that pool area the next slide this would be an image looking from the mezzanine if i was standing on the mezzanine looking back towards the entry into this fitness area shows those two windows that would connect to that um that collaborative learning lab up above the next slide is um we just actually talked about this for the first time in the last meeting again very

035very conceptual but an example of where we're starting to develop the monument sign we're putting in this phase a monument sign at the road for the upper elementary and uh the idea is that it has to the left we're showing something that will be developed as a standard uh ferndale logo and and again a brand for out of some cast stone and brick that would be the same in every building other than the building name and then to the right a digital uh display board that could be operated from the office to send messages again very very early in this discussion but we want you to see we were just working on that and again hopefully those will be the same uh same sign other than the building name and the building address for every

036building where we put in the new monument sign then that's the end of these i believe daniel the next slide is the end the last thing i did needed to touch on for you was the the new lower elementary that we're working on that process is underway um that's been very exciting your your team has been a lot of fun to work with um we are just in the very very beginning stages of that process we're in that programming phase defining what this elementary should be what should it have what are the components of it what are the spaces uh quality of those spaces so we're the very initial stages of that we've gone through some some 21st century educational discussions these are the trends that are out there in new schools which of these

037are appropriate to ferndale which things should we include we've had some of that initial discussion and then we took that on some tours and we've toured for the last month month and a half six different buildings across the state and looked at different examples of way people are doing it everybody does it a little different but getting some sense of what other districts are doing in new elementary especially lower elementary and we've we've finished that up actually just last week and then friday we had a review of all those buildings with your design team and got a sense of what are the things you saw that you liked and didn't like what's appropriate for ferndale so we're developing um that kind of a of a program list and then the next three weeks or so

038we're going to meeting be meeting with some of your departments if you would call that of your elementary some of the program leaders and digging into those with them individually of the criteria they think specifics that ought to be in in the uh in the new elementary and then we'll be working soon after that to prioritize that and come up with a written program that defines this is what we're building so we're kind of in the middle of that process exciting but that'll go on for at least another month yet i think donya that's all the things we need to touch on obviously there are questions we can go back but that's all the stuff i had we should go back to i'm sorry the the two slides on schedule i know becky was going

039to give us a little bit of a of explanation of that yes good evening and thank you tom the presentation was wonderful so just a touch on schedule tom went through fuel in early childhood upper elementary school and you could see that we were slightly ahead in the renovations or the design process of those we've actually gotten a set of drawings called schematic design we put an estimate to it we are tracking through the first design phase on budget on those two projects we are scheduled to get the design development drawings um this week and we will do another estimate just to make sure that through the design development and the things that have been added we're still tracking on budget and then we'll do a final um estimate right before we go out to

040bid which we will go out for bids in november um just to make sure that our bids are you know reflective of where our estimate is coming in and then we will be in the bidding and procurement phase from november for fuel and ecc all the way through june and then the construction the renovation on those projects will take place in the summer time so we'll start as soon as the kids um head off for summer vacation and we'll have those renovations wrapped up before they return before the staff staff returns um for the school year of 21. and the high school pool renovations that we just looked at are slightly behind we are actually just received the schematic design drawings last week so we are into our first estimate for that phase to see

041where we're tracking on budget and from there we'll you know either continue forward or maybe make some decisions based on where the estimate comes in um we will plan on bidding that project out after a couple more design estimates in february march time frame will be in the bidding and procurement phase and we will start the fitness center construction in like september october we will work on that construction through the school year having that ready for the summer time and then we will start the existing pool the competition pool renovations um sometime in march when the pool is done being used so that we can turn that back over early august for the next um swim season so that is all and this is just a little bit more detail on um kind of when

042we're getting the schematic design and design development drawings for each bid pack of the first two bid packs and then when we'll be going out to bid likely be coming to the board meeting in probably january or december for the first bid pack contract award recommendations are there any questions i just want to add a couple things first thing is that the new elementary the initial plan is to start that project sometime in the fall of 2021. uh we didn't really touch on that the other thing i wanted to mention is when tom was talking about upper elementary originally we were supposed to redo all the parking lots as part of this first phase but you know as part of the fluid design process we meet every week and we look at what would be

043best for our district and what's best for these projects and we looked at the parking lots they're actually not in very bad shape at this moment they you know they have a few more years of life left in them and the thought is uh twofold one is right now we're in the design phase finalizing the documents we have a strategic plan that requests that we review the safety of the drop off and pick up of the students at that building and so we really want to wait till we're back in swing uh and have students in in person uh so that we can do a full analysis of that so that we can make good decisions and incorporate that into the final design the second thing actually there's three components the second thing is we're

044not exactly sure where that stem lab edition is going to go we don't want to redo the parking lots and then realize that that stem lab would be in a perfect spot where we just put in a new parking lot or a renovated parking lot and the the last thing is um our thought process is we're doing a lot of major renovations inside that building we're gonna have a lot of heavy equipment out there this summer why put in a new lot just to have it beat up with the new with the construction equipment so that was just one of the things that uh we thought would be better to put off to a later date and then if we lump that together with other parking lots from other buildings we'll be able to get

045better pricing on the lot so just just one of the things that goes into like the design process on a weekly basis sorry that's it thanks jamie thank you gmb and uh clark we're very excited and um the elementary build is going to be obviously one of the more significant projects and diana keith and her team have been meeting regularly with us um staff members have been joining in on those school tours and then as tom mentioned in the next two weeks we're going to be meeting with each department whether it's fine arts phys ed technology classroom you know classroom setup formation kindergarten teachers to understand how their needs are different um but that's going to be the the next big big chunk of work any questions while we have them with us is there

046going to be uh the hvac is okay i know that's a big conversation with covet how is the hvac and the are you asking if it's going to be renovated well i guess are are they good enough for what the you know what the situation is right now with kovid and to return and will they be good enough and will they be renovated in the future as well yes yeah they will be renovated in the future currently we we had our control contractor uh put in a system where we're able to go by building and increase the outside air flow into the buildings um we can do that very quickly and adjust it as needed so that we can maintain temperatures in the building obviously as the days get colder uh you know we'll have

047to scale that back a little bit but our goal is to try and bring in the maximum amount of fresh air the other thing is we're also working to secure merv 13 filters as long as our equipment can handle them there's a long lead on those so all the districts have put in order so that's what we're working towards right now and they the equipment will be um completely renovated uh at upper elementary we are putting all new classroom vertical unit ventilators in and the majority of the rooftop units are being replaced so that will be taken into account that project and that equipment is part of this first phase at fuel are there are there any [Music] questions from the board or comments uh regarding what's been presented here from gmb and clark uh

048not for me but it looks great i'm uh i'm happy to hear about an additional uh classroom in the fecc that sounds uh sounds great at adding some more capacity to our early our early childhood center well thank you very much uh tom and becky and jamie as well thank you we appreciate the all the work that uh your companies are doing with our districts to make sure that um the the students needs are going to be met in a really exciting and um forward-thinking and fiscally responsible way so it's it's really good work and we're uh it's going great so thank you thank you that brings us to item three public comment in our uh on our agenda tonight this is a time for public participation in the in the meeting the board of

049education intends for the public to have many opportunities to address the board and administration of the school district these include emails and phone calls face-to-face meetings um uh various types of community meetings i just lost my my uh i just lost what i was reading from hold on uh we welcome individual group input into the important issues that confront our schools um as noted uh in the agenda this is a meeting of the school board open to the public who want to provide fair and impartial guidelines for participation as required by the open meetings act and to encourage transparency and equal treatment for everyone in attendance we also recognize that an effective meeting facilitates better decisions it promotes openness by allowing more people to stay for the full length of the meeting to meet these

050goals please note the following we ask that you identify yourself and um contact uh the district if you would like follow up on your comments um you're welcome to contact uh dr bazi's assistant kimberly shepard um at kimberly.shepard at ferndaleschools.org um each person will have the opportunity opportunity to address the board for up to three minutes comments or questions should be directed uh to the board president and um sandra as the vice president i think he will uh give an indication to speakers when they are nearing completion of their three minutes the period of public comment is for both non-agenda items and issues that are on the agenda public comments will close at the end of this part of the agenda in the event that the number of people wishing to comment requires longer than

05130 minutes public comment will be temporarily postponed after 30 minutes and time will be added to the end of the meeting for those who do not 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 complaintants the ferndale public schools community acts with great civility toward one another please help us to maintain that tradition during public comment so if you would like to address the board please um unmute yourself and introduce yourself and uh take turns can i go certainly okay so i'm kat senefells um i'm a seventh

052grader at fms obviously and i just have a question why didn't you guys ask us what we wanted to do for school why'd you ask the parent because we're the ones going to school not the parents so we don't um we don't uh this is typically public comment it's not a public discussion um [Music] but uh dr bazie would you like to comment yeah okay i'm gonna follow up with you i'll give you a call uh tomorrow and follow up with your question i will just quickly say that same type of survey we sent to parents on the return to school we sent to students so but we'll work on that we are working on another survey for the future like that will include both parents families as well as students so i'll give you

053a call tomorrow and follow up a little bit more in detail because it's a student i you know i i have to i have to respond okay um thank you and one more thing we're also at a level four so we're legally allowed to go back to school thank you thank you cat okay i guess i can go is that all right i'm jordan all right um i'm jody burger i wrote what i'm gonna say so i don't wander too much i'm i'm a talker so i want to make sure i kept in my minutes um i'm a parent of a seventh grader at ferndale middle school um a parent volunteer since 2009 and a substitute teacher at frindle high school for the past two years i'm also a member of the ferndale diversity committee

054this is his first year and i was just really surprised by the sudden news i heard at the f uh the finn meeting through the public library the other day um that there was a new albeit a wonderful uh wonderful sounding equity um development team i guess that's what it's called but this was the first time i had heard of it and this is something i'm really into this is my my passion um i'm a veteran english teacher and i've developed and implemented multicultural anti-racist social justice curriculum and extracurricular activities at avondale school district for close to 30 years um i i have retired a couple years ago but it's still my passion i spent much of this past summer delving into black lives matter curriculum that was offered by black lives matter and other

055black voices to make me a better teacher and a better person so um i guess i was it was odd hearing about this team but not hearing about how anybody interested could go about being part of it now i'm busy i'm not saying me but i'm just saying i didn't hear anything about it being open for anybody it was just a shock it was all new and also there's a team of members um so i have uh questions for the board the um the diversity committee was and the equity development team is a board initiative and um i was just wondering what is the purpose of the equity development team and do you have a mission and goals for the equity development team and if not how long do you anticipate it will take to

056develop them you see i i'm concerned that this new team will fall prey to the spinning wheels and quicksand slow death like committee that um there's a reason why i don't like the word or even being on a committee quite frankly um and we knew that as a diversity committee we knew that and i'm happy that we did get some things done but the first couple of years we had a really nice wonderful consultant from oakland schools helping meetings but there definitely was more talk than action and i'm really worried that this new team will fall paid to the same um i um let's see i lost my place um so yeah going back to what we did get to do our favorite was our community film and conversation that the diversity committee committee hosted

057um at the high school auditorium when we watched the hit you give it was it was a very moving multi-generational time it was amazing um uh also uh we have been looking at data and diversity in the curriculum and this is a big passion of mine so you have 20 seconds left okay so i just want to make sure with the death of george floyd all the momentum that things don't fizzle out and i'm really worried that another committee when we already have the committee that's been working and i you know there's got to be some sort of teamwork or something don't let phil out um i feel like it's now or never with the momentum of what's happening and i i expect to see change thank you thank you jody can i speak absolutely

058am i able to share on my screen or or no no okay uh hi i'm alex muller i'm a parent of a six and four-year-old in the ferndale school system and i wanted to bring the topic of online safety and computer literacy and our primary grades to the board today um i was able to access a variety of let's say r-rated images through my second graders ferndale schools google account um the kids google account settings are controlled by the district to the point that i as a parent cannot add my own parental settings or block websites that i find inappropriate they do employ google safe search which attempts to block explicit content from web searches and youtube but um just because something isn't recognized as explicit by an algorithm doesn't mean that it's safe for

059young children to access many of the links that the school and individual teachers are providing particularly in places like bitmoji classrooms and weebly sites are outside of approved apps within clever these often have links that go to websites that collect personal information that don't necessarily follow the child children's online privacy protection act and they link out from ads to places like amazon there is not a built-in ad blocker on their google accounts and my child has asked twice for a credit card already this school year after being prompted by websites that he arrived at via links provided by school you are allowing access for young children to the internet largely unsupervised by an adult in the same room without a full understanding of risks or adequate adequate protections or education in place i was extremely

060dismayed to hear that there's no media teacher this year according to your own media curriculum at the end of second grade children's should know how to use a mouse and keyboard how to be safe online and how to use the computer for research among other things yet you have no one to teach these skills in a year where all students are on the computer all day things like keyboarding and typing use muscle memory that needs to be taught early in 2020 to not have a media teacher or be incorporating these skills into a curriculum is frankly crazy to me yes excuse me these kids are digital natives but they still need to be explicitly taught these key skills that will make them successful and keep them safe in a digital world my requests today are

061twofold number one the district needs to take restrictions on google accounts or allow parents to set their own controls on the accounts above and beyond what the district has in place and number two the schools must institute at the very least a digital and computer literacy essential class once a week preferably with a dedicated media teacher thank you alex can i speak yes hi everybody uh my name is lisa hawk and i've got um two kids in the district i'm gonna start a timer here just to watch myself um first of all i know it's um controversial but i'm very grateful that the district's gone virtual this year i'm very grateful that um our kids are getting into a routine i think a lot of schools are going to have to send their kids home

062in a couple weeks um so thank you i say that while knowing it's very hard for students and for many families i'm a member of the ferndale diversity committee and i've been involved in the committee since its founding four years ago and i salute the board's statement on racism as a health crisis and i salute anything that is aimed at improving the inequitable conditions that still exist in this district like jody i was quite surprised as were many others that an equity development team would be formed without input from a group of people that has with the superintendent support and the board support developed a mission statement general goals smart goals and has achieved many things over the years we've collected data about numbers of blacks and white students affected by disciplinary measures data about

063numbers of black and white students in the montessori program and in the honors program we've made changes to the volunteer forum for schools it clarifies the vetting process and um ensures that the superintendent automatically calls all caregiver whose records are of concern we've requested updates on dei initiatives um from all the buildings in the district we've provided extensive edits to the district's new code of conduct we never heard back whether those were implemented or not because of overwhelming evidence indicating that honors programs favor white students we encouraged and supported the development of more pathways into the honors program um we provided suggestions for curricular changes we established a traditions and holidays observances project since some of our most important work has involved asking difficult questions and engaging in difficult conversations we are wondering what the

064role is of the board and the district administration within this new committee and to what extent it will be allowed to ask difficult questions to what extent will we be allowed to continue to ask the questions we've been asking and we're also wondering whether there will be members on the equity development team who have the independence to challenge the superintendent and the board on difficult issues um the only way that we can move forward is to continue to have very difficult conversations thank you very much crystal brock parent volunteer substitute teacher coding club creator i am also on the diversity equity and inclusion team i am also pt vice vice president pta vice president of upper elementary i wear mini hats um mini so how do you currently envision the purpose of the front bill

065diversity committee are there any specific district goals that apply to the work of both groups and what are those specific goals how do you envision the relationship between the two groups and now even though i said i would i wouldn't really lend my heart voice to these conversations anymore i am i am also an alumni of ferndale public schools um and i was a very proud alumni of ferndale public schools you're looking at a person who was a sct volleyball um i did track i started in junior high our first newspaper i have many many many firsts and again like i said i've worn many many many many hats for this district and encountering students um was this made when i heard about a couple of things i was gonna play with one student she

066let me know what she thought about what happened to the theater department i come to be a part of an interview team that student had some pretty you know questions and different things they had to say about the theater department um and it kind of saddened me and some other things said to me as well so when a call was made for those to help with diversity equity and inclusion and be the objective i in the objective voice we put our necks on the line no matter the risk no matter the conversations no matter the difficulty we decided to do that and to be that so to i think leave out an entire group and when i say group i don't just mean the diversity equity and inclusion committee i mean the community as well

067um i can imagine being a person who's pto or pta and there's like a whole list that you know that you've been planning with your team of courageous conversations and mr o'donnell i was very dismayed when i heard that you thought that we have not been actionable do you know how hard it is and i'm thankful that everyone is virtual because that gave me a broader reach i am part of the parent advocacy team if you have not been able to tell so some of my words are minus some of my words aren't mine but again i speak from an objective voice and objective i no matter what no matter friendships no matter anything um i'm going to be real about it so it was dismayed when you didn't think we were actionable when that

068comment came from somebody that said that this team is going to be more actionable um from reaching out to parents having conversations with parents having conversations with a parent today to find out about uhs um it's not easy to get those survey it's not easy to get those survey numbers to increase there's been tons of outreach tons of outreach especially from the parent advocacy team especially from the parent advocacy team um and uh and i'll leave this last bit i know that uh uhs was not possibly part of the bond but i'm a little dismayed that they're not part of the plan is there gonna be any renovations and i guess i'll have to email in regards to that any renovations to uhs because those clients look awesome if i was a student i would

069love some of those renovations and to those students you are amazing trust us trust me us parents are you know kai um whoever else was on who spoke you guys are doing amazing jobs we are also adjusting to this too and i am with alex on a lot of that in regards to um when you've been the one to teach media or do anything like that because when you're teaching your child everything including the computer including all of that including reading writing and i am thankful and she knows who i'm talking to for the additional help that i have received thank you crystal may i speak certainly my name is jasmine kose i am a junior representative for uhs and i have two ideas for food for thoughts so one of them when i was

070speaking to some of the new freshmen and sophomores and transfer students they were thinking about um traveling outside of either the state or besides wayne state so with our school we are very highly connected with wayne state we are in partnership with them but also i believe there's more out here for students to see so educationally broadening their visions i believe that it would be a nice idea to try to get them outside of what they're comfortable with that these are not their only options um a lot of them said they did think about going to other schools because they provided those options so i thought this would be a good idea to present to you guys and also second on workshops so as janae had mentioned us doing that with the um freshmen and

071the incoming students i'm also a part of the student council and nhs so seeing their ideas and different point of views i believe workshops for us as a community could work as well i do see how workshops have affected other groups such as the board of education and i would like to see that more within the community and that concludes what i have for tonight thank you jazlyn anybody else like to address the board tonight all right well uh that will end public comment for this board meeting um [Music] um i'm sure we'll be following up with quite a few people um i just like would like to say that uh the diversity committee has um been an invaluable uh voice within our school district and i expect that that's uh going to continue um

072has been a very active body and um has contributed a lot to our our district um through formal involvement and the strategic planning process and all kinds of things with the strategic plan being really getting off the ground and the um the resolution the anti-racist resolution also uh getting off the ground um i think the the idea the hope is that the uh equity task force will continue to involve the voice of the diversity committee it's the equity task force is largely going to be um driven uh [Music] through uh the administration because we've charged the superintendent and her staff with um really making really actionable changes so i understand the concern that um [Music] that there'll be more talk or the of talk and not action but i i want to assure the community

073that the equity task force is about action and really um um elevating the district's work in terms of making those changes that um the the board has charged the superintendent and her staff with doing so um the community the diversity community and the community at large will be invited to attend um i believe it's being envisioned just having like quarterly meetings where the community is invited uh to participate to um to hear what the equity task force is doing um to engage in discussion and collaboration and give feedback so um i'm hopeful that that uh equity task force is going to take the work that the district is doing and uh and really and really drive it it seems the district has done a lot of work uh the the diversity committee has done a

074lot of work but this is a this is a structure that's gonna make sure that it happens um so um and that's what the board is expecting from uh the administration as that gets off the ground like just uh just to take one minute of the time just to um share some information i think what caused some of the confusion was the name of the committee making it seem like it's another committee that doesn't work in partnership with the diversity committee much like schools have improvement team right the district did pass the resolution as well as the strategic plan that was created by community members a representative sample of community members so when that resolution came out with with very direct goals very direct kind of directives as well as the strategic plan those are

075those are charges that employees of the district have to make sure that those things are delivered so we're a small small school district and so they're right the work of equity can't fall on one person's shoulder so if we want to see curricular changes we have to work with curriculum and instruction if we want to see discipline processes change we have to work with school administrators so it's it made it sound like it's an outside group when when that's not the case it's internal staff members working on the directives that have been charged right the board said we we direct the superintendent to do x y and z so although we value community input and community volunteers it's as staff members it is it is our duty to make sure that we come through on

076these goals and and that's our intention to do so the the at-large meetings will be open to everybody um this information was first shared at a public board meeting at our committee of the whole so it wasn't at the fenn network and again it's still in very exploratory stages like we are just starting so um you know could we have shared that earlier yes you know in hindsight obviously so that it it wouldn't have come as a surprise um but we'll we'll discuss it more you know with the diversity committee we're meeting on 9 30 and i'll work with the committee members who i've worked side by side over the past three years we'll continue to have that dialogue um to clear up any issues but one thing i want to make clear is it

077will be open when we need feedback and input um it will be open to everybody so again i don't want to get in a back and forth and generally i don't we don't comment but i just want to make sure we'll be sure to connect okay that will take us to item 5 the consent agenda 5.1 the request to approve minutes of the special meeting from august 6 2020 item 5.2 the request to approve minutes of the regular meeting of august 17th 2020. item 5.3 the request to approve bills and accounts for the month of august and item 5.4 the request to approve resignations leave of absences and new hires do any board members have any items they would wish to pull from the consent agenda seeing none uh the consent agenda will stand as

078it is roll call miss shepard did somebody make a motion oh yeah moe i'm sorry is there a motion to move the consent agenda i move moved by jackie in second seconded by sandra roll call miss shepherd okay thank you yes dookie yes heart yes abraham yes latash yes o'donnell yes president davidson yes thank you thank you with six yes votes the consent agenda is approved that takes us to uh sec item uh the action agenda items for the night item 6.1 the request to approve the committee of the whole meeting schedule for the 2020 2021 school year so mike these are the dates that um have been proposed for the committee of the whole schedule for this year uh generally at the september meet september meeting we officially approve those dates so that they're

079available to the public they will go on virtually until otherwise noted is there a motion to uh is there a motion to approve the committee of the whole meeting schedule for the 2020-2021 school year our move moved by sandra seconded by jen any um questions or discussion all right scene none roll call miss shepard art yes abraham yes yes o'donnell yes dukey yes president davidson yes thank you with six yes votes the committee of the whole schedule for 2020 2021 is approved which brings us to item 6.2 the request to approve music first the adoption and purchase of music first mr jameson we're going to send it off to you um what information does the board need i'm sorry we should we should it's it's a lot different when i can't just talk to you

080at the copy room like usual so background just a summary of what we went over last week and then the final you know final recommendation absolutely so like we discussed last week uh obviously you know not in a virtual environment we're concerned about having the additional content that most um most teachers have in terms of the content provided through um accelerate that's what it's called right um and so we reached out and said you know see between that issue and just the fact that what we normally do in a performance-based classroom we can't do as much we were hoping for some additional support to give us some additional tools to be able to go in more non-performance areas dealing with sight reading and ear training and music theory as well as a particularly powerful tool

081of the the soundtrack digital audio workstation which should facilitate a lot of online collaboration for small ensembles of the students as well as potentially i don't know if it works that well with 40 or 50 students but theoretically it might be possible to use that as well to do some of those virtual performances as well without having to do all the audio and video editing i i don't know if that works but that's the the very very short version of what music first will allow us to do um in this virtual environment and and be some extra tools if we end up being back to persons like in face-to-face second semester depending on how that all plays out is there a motion to approve the adoption and purchase of music first moved by jen second

082and seconded by jim any uh questions or discussion i feel like we got a lot of info last week so comfortable looking forward to hearing the violin again in the house [Music] roll call miss shepherd abraham yes latash yes odano yes spooky she's on mute dookie now your head yes okay i'll go back to her um heart uh yes president davidson yes is sandra still on you she's there's an emergency at home she's gonna have to leave the meeting okay thank you thank you bye with five yes votes the uh request to approve uh music first uh adoption purchase is approved thank you thank you um that takes us to item 6.3 the request to approve the instrument bid package [Music] selection okay uh good evening on september 3rd we released our music bid the

083bids were due back to us september 16th we received five bids one was for band instruments only two of the bids were for all instruments both band and orchestra and two bids were for orchestra instruments only of our band of the bids that related to the band instruments our highest bid was from from i i probably won't pronounce this right you could help me elon um volkman um was the highest bid at forty three thousand six hundred and thirty dollars for banned instruments um woodward and brass um their bid was 42 184 although they did not bid on all instruments there were eight instrument eight band instruments that they did not bid on so if they had bid on all um they would have been the highest bid um and then our lowest bid was

084actually washington um when we looked at their big closely they had bid on um [Music] we had put in two alternatives for bass clarinets they actually included in their bid both um of the alternate so of the alternative so once we took um one of them out washington was the lowest bid at 41 000 842.85 for the banned instruments so we are recommending um after elin um eland and his um other music teachers have uh reviewed the bid they felt that these instruments um were appropriate for what they were looking for and of a quality that they were looking for and so we are recommending that we select washington to res um to purchase the banned instruments um we also we then received um four bids of our bids four of them included orchestra instruments

085um the highest of those bids was uh you know see if i get this correct baroque um at 14 375. um the next highest bid was char at 14 volklin at twelve thousand five sixty six eighty nine in washington was the lowest at eleven thousand and four seventeen when we um released our bid though we um as part of the bid we did stipulate that we would not necessarily take the low speed um there are some other things especially in this covet environment that we were looking at including the possibility of delivery of the instruments um in a timely manner um as well as a type of instrument so i'm going to turn it over to elon to discuss um the orchestra instruments right so i'll just share with the board in general and and

086nancy i kind of alluded to this is that i actually sent her a list of i think about 15 different vendors 12 to 15 different vendors and we only got five back that's a reflection of just the current environment right now um that for example none of the michigan based vendors bid and many others outside of michigan as well because their cash flow is so low right now they simply can't afford to to place a bid and then have to wait potentially months for the manufacturer to deliver the instruments and then not with ferndale but some places tend to wait another several months before the district pays the vendor um and so that would be a significant cash flow issue for a lot of companies so a lot of a lot of them did not

087we're not able to bid at any rate i think the the question that as it at hand here specifically with with washington it was an easy thing because they were the lowest bid they were they bid exactly the insurance we were looking for open and shut the char gets a little more complicated because we are recommending that we go with the third i guess but the third highest bidder which is obviously not necessarily the norm rationale for that is the two that bidders the two vendors that came in lower were both offering sherlin roth instruments which are largely mass manufactured instruments basically and because one of the things with string instruments and i know some of the people on the board have string instrument playing kids you know that they have to be professionally set

088up once they're manufactured um they can't just go straight to to the player or to the kid whereas band instruments generally can orchestra instruments need to be professionally set up bridges readjusted after they get shipped so on and so forth and the the vendors that came in lower are not really known string vendors whereas shah is arguably shar is the biggest and the best string vendor probably in the u.s they just happen to be based here in michigan which is a nice bonus so we're still kind of doing business locally um they are both vendor and manufacturer whereas with the other two vendors shirlen roth is the manufacturer and then either volk wines or washington's music is the vendor and we really don't know what kind of servers we get if there's any problem with

089those instruments if we're at leshar we do we literally can call our contact up and say hey we've got a concern with this instrument we need to get it fixed and they would be able to address that so we feel even though it's more money we feel very very confident that going with shar is the safer bet in terms of making sure that we're good stewards of potential bond money and taxpayer money happy to answer more specific questions but that's the broad stroke of why we're recommending shah versus the two little bitters i appreciate that explanation thank you absolutely is there a motion to approve the instrument bid package still selection any other comments or questions just a comment just appreciate that uh you took your time out elan to come here and explain it

090to us thank you absolutely that's the gig no problem yeah i appreciate the detailed explanations usually too dale too detailed when it comes to me seems good uh roll call miss shepard for mueller yes latash yes o'donnell yes heart yes abraham yes president davidson yes thank you thank you with six yes votes the request to approve the instrument bid package uh package selection is passed that takes us to item 6.4 the request to approve the reduction in abm custodial staffing uh yeah we talked about this at the committee the whole last week but since the start of the pandemic we've been on abm's been unable to maintain uh the quantity of custodial support that's needed per contract uh they're supposed to maintain 24 and a quarter ftes of custodial support and um so each month

091we have to ask them for certified payroll and go through the whole process and we don't we're not always in agreement but we settle with them on what the credit should be we're not paying for services we're not getting um so now that we have our learning labs we we're gonna set the number of custodial staff that they need to maintain by contract and also what our monthly credit would be so we work with our attorneys at troon to develop amendment number one which will set it at 16 ftes until the end of the learning labs when we come back to in-person instruction then they will be required to go back up to full staffing so we're asking the board to approve the superintendent to negotiate amendment one with abm and again to be just

092as a reminder from last week our hope would be to be fully staffed um it's due to employment issues right now the workforce is is is depleted for um workers in this in this trade so again we would we're just doing this to mitigate us having to go back and ask for a refund every month um so i don't want i don't want anyone to think that we're actively trying to reduce custodial it's we since the pandemic began we haven't been able to be staffed so jamie's spending hours on the weekend reconciling their payroll for us to be able to get the money back that they owe us this will just take that out of out of the table and then if they're fully stabbed they they get to keep proportionally what they're what they

093deserve is there a motion to approve the reduction in abm custodial staffing i move moved by jackie second seconded by anna any other uh other questions for discussion [Music] i just have a comment um just to back up what he had said i will say that in troy we if we're having the exact same problem and uh they actually had parents come out and they were like uh i don't know marching around the board office they were mad about something and the uh the custodial staff went out there and was handing out applications for employment saying if you're so mad we really need some people to work for us which i thought was really appropriate because they were mad because you know we haven't posted an appropriate cleaning schedule yet but they are having so

094much trouble hiring people so it just backs up what you're saying right now i just wanted to reinforce that okay roll call miss shepherd natash yes o'donnell yes heart yes abraham yes carmiller yes president davidson yes thank you thank you with six yes votes the uh request to approve the reduction in abm custodial staffing is uh approved is uh passed which leads us to item 6.5 the request to approve the adoption and purchase of cte pathways for marketing business administration and engineering courses good evening everyone hopefully you're having a good night so far thanks for for addressing or allowing me to address you with with the proposal the proposal for ct pathways and the following proposal for marketing textbooks they're they're separate amounts uh because they're the money will come from different pots uh the

095the marketing books will come from the vocational funds whereas the ct pathways purchase will if approved will come from the covid funds but they're they're really kind of tied together just a little bit of quick background in order to stay in compliance with michigan cte regulations our marketing textbook has to be within five years from the date of copyright and and the current book wasn't so charlotte oliver the ferndale high school marketing teacher did a textbook search last year and came up with burrows as the best option and then part of that textbook search process uncovered cte pathways which gives the teacher accessed over 150 online textbook resources so in the in the current environment that we're in with remote learning it kind of seemed like a logical addition to the the marketing book program

096so then kind of as we got started with the 2020 school year we realized that university high school did not have a current marketing textbook at all they were using teacher teacher-created resources for 100 of their curriculum so i come to you asking for approval to purchase two classroom sets of burroughs marketing and 200 licenses of cte pathways which will allow students and teachers access to online resources for marketing business and engineering courses at both university high school and ferndale high school they're they're on the agendas two separate um items but he did the presentation for both of them at once which you know which is is good tom every now and then okay so these are these are agenda we'll do a agenda item uh 6.5 first is there a mesh a motion to

097approve the adoption and purchase of cte pathways for marketing business administration and engineering courses i have a question actually before we move to approve sure um go ahead did we use the rubric that we've used in the past that midwest equity has provided when we review curriculum just to ensure that we're equitable in the textbooks that we choose no i don't believe that that the rubric was applied to this so we will we'll table this until next month and we will use the rubric appreciate it thank you all right so uh thank you for that question jackie thank you agenda item 6.5 will be uh table and will be re-reviewed and agenda item 6.6 will then be tabled i mean uh yeah tabled for review as well that brings us to action agenda item 6.7

098the request to approve the ferndale public schools extended covet 19 learning plan overview all right with the recent legislation that came out from governor whitmer schools have to re-certify their their learning plan monthly as a way to re-evaluate whether to return to in-person instruction or virtual learning so each month we'll have to recertify a plan as well as send it to the state of michigan some things that they want us to ensure that we have in our ecol plan is educational goals which is different than the first plan that we submitted so to have specific goals as it relates to um a benchmark assessment that's why as you can see we're starting the process of nwea testing with with students to meet the requirements of the recent legislation also the legislation also asks us to

099include things like assurances in terms of how we're delivering technology to students how we're ensuring that students have wireless accessibility and things of that nature so the plan that we're resubmitting looks very familiar to the plan that we submitted back in september in addition i'm sorry back in august in addition to the educational goals i'm going to let uh johanna marekna speak to this a little bit okay good evening um daniel are you going to pull it up on the screen or do you want me to i i can pull it up yeah okay um so like that uh like uh dania mentioned um we need to recertify as a district once a month um with assurances and with educational goals [Music] and assess our ability to reopen on a monthly basis so what we

100have is our ecall plan our extended covid learning plan we have included assurances that we will benchmark assess our students as is required that how we will be delivering virtual instruction um you can keep going down please and how we are going to consult with our nurses who've been provided by oakland schools um so our plan includes a learning plan narrative that describes what we what we've done so far and that we've decided to go virtual or remote currently um and then the following parts focus on the plan with an emphasis on equity for our students while supporting our staff um the next part of it is about our educational goals and our quality evidence-based assessment practices we as we read through this it says we believe data can provide guidance for adjusting curriculum and

101instructional practices across grade levels schools and districts however we will not use benchmark assessment data to make high-stakes instructional decisions about individual student learning because we know that students are under stress from covet experiences and we don't want to make high-stakes decisions on data that may be skewed because of students individual experiences we will however if you keep going down use that as part of a powerful practice to make sure that we provide each student with what they do need our goals will be based on the nwea requirements for the ecall are that uh we have benchmark data for k through eight students so our k through eight students will uh have an a performance goal in reading and ela goals and to improve from fall to spring same thing for mathematics improvement from fall

102to spring for all students um this will also help um as a side note with the pa 306 which is a law related to third grade reading so that will give us some data for that as well the next part is how we will instruct students our modes of instruction the two links that are linked there are the same documents that the board approved at the first meeting so there's a link to our preparedness and response plan and then also a link to all the internal district logistics and how how we're providing that instruction um so we're planning for virtual instruction uh there's some discussion of what we did to plan for virtual instruction and a little bit of a narrative about how we develop learning support labs during the building closure period uh the

103next part of the plan is about our academic standards definitely focusing on social emotional learning and then going up maslow's hierarchy from there of basic needs for students assessment and grading uh we have a system for delivering summative assessments formative assessments feedback for students those grades are available to parents legal guardians on mystar so this portion of the plan is not particularly different from how we normally communicate grades to students through our student management system mystar similarly to when we are in the buildings we are there's an expectation for all teachers that they have current grades that they inform parents and guardians if there are any concerns regarding a student's grade um and finally that we will send out report cards to parents at the end of each marking period like we normally do regarding

104our technology plan we have two parts of it most of it is written in our preparedness and response plan and our return to learn logistics as you know we've passed out thousands of computers or of chromebooks to students we've provided internet access codes at the board suggestion and we have also provided learning labs for students who need the time in school with support to complete their work as well as to have access to wi-fi in the schools so our technology plan um is focused on making sure that every student has access and every student has the equipment that they need in order to be able to successfully complete those lessons for our students with identified special needs um our special ed students are coming into our buildings for services um so that's a little different

105than for the rest of the population it's to meet the needs of those students individually um they are we are required to provide them a free and appropriate education so we are doing that by making sure that we have them uh in the buildings receiving those services that are in their ieps and for some of them they're 504s um so um our special needs students will continue to come to the buildings and attend learning labs as well the next part [Music] okay um we have addressed in the preparedness and response plan the needs of our vulnerable population of our early childhood students dual enrollment ep courses um how we're making sure that students can get to those experiences power we're also monitoring the fact that we may be closed but other programs may reopen and

106so we have contingency plans to make sure that we'll still be able to bus students to those programs we expect that probably some of the many programs that we participate in might open at different rates so we have plans in place for students to receive transportation for all of those and the support that they need for those um i think that's about it the other two linked documents are the ones that you already saw at the last board meeting from now on the process will be that we recertify this plan with any changes that we need um and the re-certification process requires that we provide the state with board comments related to returning to school from the previous meeting so we'll collect the comments from tonight that were related to returning to school in person

107and then also uh we'll we'll be showing you the attendance data for students at the next meeting for the recertification process and that those will be two of the new components that will continue on then until the e-calls are no longer required by the state there any questions that i can answer um are the um is this the uh extended coveted learning plan certifications due even if we return to all in-person instruction so that's a good question uh currently the guidance is um that they are due until further notice i suspect that there there will be a point at which we don't have to do them anymore but i don't know what that point is yet and oakland schools has not provided guidance on that yet is it tied at all to the state of

108emergency declared by the governor or is it just open-ended right now it's just open-ended um it's strange because all of the different like rating systems they don't really match each other from different agencies um and this one doesn't really either it's just kind of this open-ended edict to turn in these things every month um but i i suspect when most schools are back in session in person they'll end this but i don't have any real evidence for that so that's just what i think will happen you know as i think as we start to head into october we're going to see some uh neighboring districts start to phase back into in person um my husband has like a regular flu and people got wind at work and it started a rumor that he you know

109that that said don't come stay away and he's like i just have a sore throat like i'm not so it's going to be very difficult with flu season to delineate but i think at the same time depending you know the open health department on friday did give us a metrics as well as kind of a flow chart of how do schools decide if they return to in-person learning i think as we see um neighboring districts go back it's it's going to be a conversation that we're going you know that we're going to have to continuously revisit um the same way as as with other subjects have come up when other other uh schools have returned to certain activities so i think it's something we have to be ready for um one thing that that we're

110looking into but we we're not at that point still to i still feel it's really premature but at some point it will be to resurvey everyone and see where everyone's feeling and comfort based on the data as well so more to come on that in the next couple weeks in terms of how do we how do we test the water and see where everyone's comfort level is at i did right before the meeting today i was reading an article that just came out and i think it's a bridge magazine or bridgemichigan.com that talked about the number of k-12 covid cases tripling in the two weeks to three weeks and of course the university is going up by 60 so agreed that's my one comment for tonight i'm canceled spring break coming back to uh infect

111each other who canceled spring break university of michigan and a bunch of other universities across the country actually we're gonna have a vaccine in like three weeks yeah i think um i just want to uh you know encourage i know you're paying close attention and as a board member um encourage uh dr bezzy in the administration to pay attention to what what data might be coming from schools that have reopened and um the ones that the ones that have not experienced covet outbreaks and the ones that have and what each of them has you know to the extent that you're able to gather it what what's what each of those um what those successful and quote-unquote unsuccessful districts have done um because i think that'll be important information as we uh create a plan for

112eventually going back i don't know you guys if you guys have all seen this but have you seen the state of michigan is releasing on a weekly basis the number of coveted cases in k-12 buildings i'm sure admin has um i thought that was interesting to to track it and watch what's going on yeah we've been we've been watching public schools and private schools because they're behaving very differently with their returns the data's a little tricky with the private schools because they're not necessarily reporting them the same way um but you know we have lots of contacts at private schools so we're definitely um keeping an eye on on how that's working and not working for different buildings and districts is there a motion uh to approve ferndale public schools extended kovid 19 learning plan

113overview i move moved by jackie seconded by uh i think nan was first roll call miss shepard odano yes hart yes abraham yes her mueller yes latash president davidson yes thank you with six yes votes item 6.7 the um ferndale school's extended cobit 19 learning plan overview is approved which brings us to section 7 of the agenda informational items 7.1 investment statement nancy you want me to take this or do you got it oh you can go ahead or if you want me to whatever no this is this is yours you're the money person 53 oh all you okay um so if you remember uh back in the late spring we uh put forth a proposal to have my life manage the investments that uh of the money that we received for the 2020 bond

114so they went forward in august and made um the first series of investments um based on what um our preliminary draw schedule so this is just the first statement um that we've received um showing those investments and showing where they place those dollars for us so basically it's a it's a easy way for us to make a little bit of interest off the money while we're waiting to actually execute some of the bond projects very safe yeah i was just going to say this is just a parking place until uh we start paying out on bond projects right correct yeah correct we've used a little bit of the money but that's all it was all for the preliminary work um the auditor's work the underwriter the attorneys those types of things just on on getting

115the sale of the bonds all right all right item 7.2 the budget to actual report again each uh month nancy provides this uh to us as sorry i have to get provides us the budget to actual report again just a check and balance on on spending at this point um [Music] a little bit of variance were a little bit behind on spending as it relates to last year which is which is expected with the buildings being empty for a large portion of the day or at a really reduced capacity uh there is some variance that that nancy does explain um but things are looking things are looking good in terms of ensuring that we're not overspending at this point in the school year news from lansing it looks relatively good as as long as they

116don't pull a switcheroo like they did in the spring where you took a cup but you got the money and that was just a um it was it was a mess um to say the least but hopefully right now the the word is that we will not be facing cuts for this year um so if you can remember we we budgeted for 350 per pupil loss and starting with a deficit of about 1.2 million that would that would completely be washed out if we were actually um in fact not cut at all so let's hope that by the we have to have a budget what's the date by dancing we have to have one by october first yeah so by october 1st we'll know for sure um because that's when they're required by law to

117get us a budget but let's continue to put the pressure on our representatives and senators which we have great ones and senator moss and representative wittenberg to ensure that there's no no cuts to public education all right thank you nancy that takes us to item eight consideration of any pulled consent agenda items of which there were none our next special board meeting is a committee of a whole meeting and it's scheduled for october 5th 2020 and our next regular board meeting is monday october 19 2020. that brings us to the eagles points of pride for this month i'll go first can you guys hear me yes jackie okay um so first i just want to extend my condolences and well wishes to our neighboring district oak park high school for the students who were tragically

118killed um and injured seriously in the car accident just sending well wishes like i said in condolences to the families and the students and the staff and the whole community over in oak park um and second i just want to say even though it was a short window i know that the student athletes have appreciated the opportunity to play their sports in the fall my son is on the tennis team and i can even see the mood change in him being able to just get out get some fresh air interact with his uh classmates and his fellow teammates and it's really done a lot from my child so i can imagine that many of the other students have benefited from having this short window just to be outside and even indoor activities just being safe

119and socially distancing thank you jackie i'll go my as a uh as a first year third grade teacher i am feeling the crushing stress of teaching in this new environment and just trying so hard to connect with our students in a way and i can hear stories from my own son and from the other kids and man our teachers they are working so hard and they are doing such a good job and i am just incredibly impressed and in awe i always have been by how wonderful they are so if you anyone who's listening here has a chance right your t your kids teacher a love letter tell them that you appreciate them it will do so much to bully their spirits that's awesome i i'd be happy to go next um yeah i just

120wanted to share uh what jackie said about condolences to oak park and my heart was happy when i saw that uh you saw that in the news about the uh that uh fatal car accident um and also i just want to uh um apologize that uh my inarticulate phrasing uh about um action items that uh that the equity task force would work on versus other things um that was uh really just my you know my way of thinking about uh the board's work too because we actually don't do anything uh we don't actually take any direct action ourselves on anything that happens in the school district we're always acting through others and you know we obviously provide input and make decisions but we do not uh we do not do things do the work of

121the district ourselves so um just we just wanted to clarify that i had to find my own mute button i can go next um so i think we're starting my kids since week four of school and i kind of want to piggyback on what nan said is seeing this in action now for going into our fourth week i just have to say how impressed and thankful i am that the kids have a schedule that they follow every single day having two freshmen this year they get up they do their brain body activity they take the dog's never had so many walks but they're getting outside they're moving um then they're ready for their class at 10 and they they're on it i'm just so impressed that they have a schedule that they can follow that's

122easy they can make it through the day they're doing their homework they're following up with their teachers and having an easy to monitor schedule is just really making this a workable workable school year so again just thank you for an impressive plan that's actually working as best as it can for these kids and i hear talk to other people from other districts and they're having a really rough time right now so seeing the kids actually work it and thrive and they understand even if we went back to school right now it wouldn't be the same but this is this is not so bad it's pretty good they they like it so again thanks to all the teachers and administrators and everyone that's making this actually work for the kids that's my thanks i've had the

123opportunity um over the last couple weeks to be in colorado um upper michigan um staying with people who have close ties to florida and i've listened to some of the problems that they've been facing trying to teach their kids and i just am very thankful every day that i live in ferndale and that we have and maybe it is because it's a small district and we can tweak things as as we go but we sure do seem to be able to address the needs of kids a whole lot better than the districts that i've been reading about listening to the news about um over the last three weeks that i've been out of state and or out state listening listening to it's it's been it's been nice to say gosh we don't have that problem

124in ferndale gosh we have all of our kids have access to the internet gosh our kids all have some kind of device we don't have that problem so i know i sound annoying to the people that do have those problems but we don't i'm happy for that so thank you ferndale yeah as my point of pride i just like to acknowledge all the um all the continued hard work uh from the administration and the teachers and uh to reflect similarly to what jen said um [Music] you know my kids my kids have taken really well to having a schedule and um even the sixth grader i couldn't believe it when she said she liked all our teachers right off the bat um so it's uh it's impressive uh when kids over electronically i think and

125um and start to develop a relationship uh that quickly um so uh i recognize that it's there's a there's a great variance and that this is a continued struggle for a lot of uh a lot of families and it's not that we don't have our struggles um as a family uh um sharing space as we uh try to uh you know work and learn um within the earshot of each other so um i just uh you know i'm grateful for all the uh families and students that are giving it their very best effort to make it work and like i said at the beginning grateful for the continued work of the administration and teachers so i i echo um what jackie said i i did speak with oak park superintendent and and offered our condolences

126this weekend um student loss of life is is you know no parent should have to uh bury their child and certainly they're in our thoughts um during this difficult time so i i echo everyone's statement on the staff administrators community everybody really working hard during a um you know an odd way you know a new way though uh there's certainly some new aspects of online learning that will certainly keep that have been beneficial to students but certainly um you know um thankful to the staff and the hard work that really is is everyone's doing everything that they can to make this as smooth as possible for for our families so um thank you today and then my shout out is proud aunt my my nephew is 20 years old and and has his first interview

127for medical school and my sister raised him as a single parent and um to see how happy she was today you know via facetime as he told us all at the same time um i have to give them he told me not to say anything but i figured my family won't hear it in ferndale so you guys say anything but i i'm i'm too excited for him not not to share wait they're not watching the zoom uh recordings uh i know some uncles who watch him every now and then because i'll get a comment here and there but i don't think i don't think my nephew is at 20 years old probably not oh i hope not me too all right well thank you all and with that our meeting tonight is adjourned at 901

128pm all right good night i forgot to say that i deleted my facebook account so i didn't unfriend anybody in particular but uh i can't justify having being monetized in service of uh the facebook corporation yeah understood sure enough goodnight everyone good night