001and for the Pledge of Allegiance I'd pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God an indivisible with liberty and justice me and Lara can you just note board members and administrators present thank you okay in court in front of you you have an agenda I know Wendy you have some additions to add so under reports which is number six I would like to add the special education resource room needs f committees process for reviewing the heist School library book genderqueer and then uh school resource officer and school safety update important are there any other additions or anything to add okay and then can I have a motion to approve the agenda is amended with the um e f and g
002added under number six reports motion so I'll support all of those passes 6-0 next up is find the consent agenda um so that's the approval of the meeting minutes from April 17 2023 um April 24th 23 special board meeting okay sorry yeah okay um so the consent agenda is the approval of meeting minutes April 17 2023 regular meeting April 24th 2023 special meeting and May 1st 2023 Committee of the whole the approval of accounts payable in the amount of three million one hundred eight thousand one hundred seventy three dollars and 40 cents for the month of April 2023 and approval of the treasures report dated April 30th 2023 with a balance of 19 million 193.80 and then next is the approval of new hires transfers resignations yeah so I know back there I know back
003there somewhere is Miss Amy Pratt Amy can you stand on up uh we went through a process as you know to interview two interviews the first one was with some administrators just trying to go through the top uh applications and then we had three individuals who then interviewed with middle school students staff administrators and parents and we have chosen Ms Amy Pratt for the new Middle School principal position congratulations Amy thank you so Amy has spent a lot of time already over at the middle school she also was here Friday helping out the high school while Lindsay was uh and Brian were away so we appreciate how much she's just jumped right in and then you'll see a couple more retirements Betsy Russell is a sixth grade science teacher seventh grade she'll be retiring at
004the end of this year and also Julie Moss who is the a kindergarten teacher over at the primary school so we'll be celebrating them as well as Shayna at the end of the year celebration um okay um so Borg you have a board action request could I have a motion to approve the consent agenda I'm not sure to agree with his agenda as presented I support in Lara ropalvo please yes Simmons yes horsey yes hello yes shoe yes Walker yes motion carries six zero okay and next up oh thank you so just in case everybody doesn't know if you wish to speak there is the yellow sign up sheet out there um so just to go over because I know there are some new people here um this meeting is a meeting of the Board
005of Education in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public community meeting there is a time for public participation during the meeting is indicated on the agenda so that's where we're at now under reports it we're a community input there is also at the end of the meeting a second time for public participation but you can only speak on a topic one time just so you're aware you have three minutes to speak and I'll just call people up to the seat here if you'd like to speak or the signed up here um thank you and first up is Karen sorry I'm not sure if the last name is Owens thank you and then just while you did save your name here in your relationship to
006the district if you can my name is Karen Owens and my children attend GA schools and we live in the district out of respect for the board's time and effort I am one voice sharing for many in favor of removing the book genderqueer from the school library I would like to ask all those who agree with me to raise their hand now our reasons May differ but we do all agree that this book contains images that are developmentally inappropriate for this age group there are books that are appropriate that can replace it on the Shelf our children need parents and a community that loves them enough not to put adult literature in their hands thank you Karen next up is Marcy Barber hi everybody it's been a while since I've been in this hot seat
007sorry um Marcy Barber I have a first grader a fifth grader and a seventh grader here in the district I um I own the home that I live in here in the district and a rental property in the district um I just wanted to talk to you all about the book genderqueer um I read the book cover to cover I hope that all of you have if you're making a decision on a book that you read it cover to cover not just look at a few select passages um I would personally be okay with my seventh grader having that book available to him I would even be okay with my fifth grader having that book available to him and if my first grader happened to get his hands on it it would generate a discussion
008you know about the book I have bought a book on bodies that is highly recommended for elementary school children and some of the um illustrations in the book that I bought that was intended for you know 10 and under or 10 and over I've got two books um have illustrations similar in nature um so I'm okay with the illustrations um I think that the illustrations the content um are all age-appropriate for kids that are in this building um I think that we are at risk of marginalizing um a group of students who are at high risk for Mental Health crisis and I think that we should consider that in our decision to keep the book and lastly there are books on all of these shelves in this room that describe in words similar things um
009and I personally don't think that it matters whether it's an illustration or whether it's words and I would not get rid of any of those books I think that literature is here for for anybody to enjoy and we should all be happy that kids are reading thank you Marcy next up is Carol is it Keto hi my name is Carol Kita I'm from Olivet my granddaughter goes to your preschool my daughter and son-in-law live here in Galesburg I'm the former technology director coordinator from Olivet schools I was in the position for 20 years the point that I'd like to make about the books because I really don't agree with the content I did read the the book genderqueer as a as a tech person the words some of the words that are in that book
010would never pass your filter the federal government requires for you to get your funding through USF that the internet needs to be filtered children's internet protection act we call it cepa through USF e-rate you guys are probably familiar with that your ISD probably does the submission forms for you now um so my point is not only this book and it's not just your school in my personal opinion if the federal government thinks it's important that we protect children from pornography and certain words things that they need to be protected from that the school districts in the state and the federal government should be going hand in hand and if it can't pass your filter it shouldn't be on the Shelf that's my humble opinion so just wanted to make that point thank you I know
011I know being a board member is not always easy yeah thank you Carol okay next up under reports is truancy update yes so you know that no you can come on if you do um you know that last year we got started with the initiative but we really have dug in harder this year and we've accomplished a lot thanks to Hillary and Jeff Hillary has kind of taking the reins for the Eastern service area and Jeff has been right there you know helping out and all of them they're going to share that data with you tonight and um so we're pretty excited about just this first Year's results foreign to save some time I did go ahead and put all of our stats on there so you can look at those as we go through
012it here but we continued our bi-weekly meetings this year and um with our attendance meets different building so Jeff Russell kind of heads up the primary and then we have a middle school team and a high school team Jill zantz comes with us or comes with me to all of the meetings across the district so these are our numbers for this school year um so when it says linked that would be when we link with um like 31 and 6 counseling like the grants for Striker Johnson um something new that we did this year is we had um we did a lot of building level meetings that we brought the parents to the table and the kids and kind of went through what are your barriers what can we help support you in getting the
013students to school and then um if we didn't feel like we had enough success with those um we ended up bringing them to Wendy's office here um and kind of had more Minds come to the table so we would have perhaps a 31 and 6 Counselor come to the table um CPS or DHHS Beyond gel principal social worker social worker yep so we tried to bring everybody in to kind of support the conversation and go through that so that comes off as one of our new initiatives for the school year um that was district-wide you can kind of see we broke it down by the primary the middle school and the high school um so we did like a lot of the summer home visits last summer which we talked about in the fall we
014plan to do them again this year um we didn't probably have as many going on through the school year but that's because if a parent's communicating with us and we're having that open conversation and dialogue we don't go out to the home right that's more like we can't get a hold of them in the summer we go out to see the kids and you know build those relationships so we'll be doing that again this summer kind of beefing up our our home visit packets get Jeff in the kitchen making some cookies and I don't think um so uh one of the other things we did at um the new counseling secretary Amber couch she is calling all of our tier three kids every morning I'm calling and talking to the parents every morning that they're
015not coming into school so it gives that Personal Touch that accountability it's super helpful for all of us that are running around trying to do a bunch of things for her to be able to be that extra layer on there since we do not do robocalls in the district so um there's the truancy trolley I'll throw that out there so Jeff Russell and I and Brian and a bunch of us will go pick up kids in the morning if they miss their bus we try not to be like always available for it but we try to be we do we are so that's what that indicates um we've got the teachers and staff in the buildings I'm writing kind of generic letters home this Summer that I'm gonna drop in the mail just at random
016times this summer just touching base with these kids and wishing them a good summer um can't wait to see you in the fall that kind of stuff that we'll be sending out so yeah everything else is kind of listed in here so I don't want to take up any more of your your time unless you have any questions for us well after that sure stand up to the table um when we did a large superintendent meeting right kind of that oops sorry so we brought two families um to the table um where they had to meet with the superintendent we had all of the others at the table as well so yeah families do understand this is kind of like we're here for you we'll we'll figure out the barriers and we all got to
017get on the same page to get these kids to school and get an education one didn't work out so well um and so I I know that he was referred then to um Jerry jansma to hearing and then the other family we met with recently and highly successful there were lots of barriers that were keeping kids from coming to school and we came up with some very clever I think ideas so when you hear about the Trinity trial they were talking about families who really have difficulty getting their kids to school this isn't just someone sleeping in right it's more than that so kudos to the team and one year they've really championed this process and I know we're going to grow from here and the other superintendents in the Eastern service area are looking
018forward to those great things as well thank you thank you foreign says the curriculum and instruction report good evening everybody it's so nice to see you all um this month so in my board report there's two different things that I want to highlight for you tonight um one of them is Talent together um very excited about this this is Michigan's attempt at really trying to focus on the field of education and in terms of recruitment so I gave you a little bit of detail um but we this is a program that's open to any Michigan resident with that minimum has a high school diploma and a strong interest in becoming an educator we've had two paraprofessionals from our district already apply and are in the waiting game the application Phase closes June 30th and this
019is also for para Educators who have an Associates that don't yet have a bachelor's this is for high school students that'll soon graduate and want to be a teacher there's a lot of different Pathways the things I want to highlight in this program is that during this you get an income and so they talked about how it'll be somewhere between a paraprofessional and a first-year teacher but then they also get benefits which is awesome so those of us that have been in the field for a while um what an awesome opportunity for people trying to grow and be a teacher so I wanted to highlight that it's open to community members as well I have the information and you can just reach out to me and I can pass on some of that information to
020you so that's pretty exciting and then the other big thing we it is May summer as we joke it's as busy as December but without the parties and the cookies but we are in the midst of spring testing all of those windows are starting to close and our next steps is to really hold some of those date reviews with staff members so that we can reflect on our instruction from this year and then do some forward-facing planning for next year so that's we're in the midst of testing season so that's all I have [Applause] Teresa okay next up under reports is the band update multi-purpose fence all right and then we have Dean here and I think Ben is here somewhere right all right then in case we have questions Ben is from Tower Dean
021is from triangle and as you know we we got the bids in uh we looked at some of the prices and we needed to spend a little bit more more time looking into those to make sure that we were on uh but not over budget and so we've achieved great things putting all of our heads together so Gene I think you're gonna handle the presentation and Denny and Ben help us answer any questions okay yep you received the bid package in your packet so you saw that thank you is this the same thing I'm giving up right here that was one of the pages but not the rest of it and this is for the multi you have the rest of it right here yeah if you have them these are the bids so that
022we can begin to move forward with um approving those bids and starting to look at Construction in August together all right so actually is this better talking to the microphone probably sure it might just stand that sounds good all right so I got two sheets here the the first one is the overview and the summary of everything that's included in the multi-purpose Edition um just some a summary of the overall project it is the addition off the back of the gym we bid that out on April 13th we got all the bits together we did our posted interviews um really it's just an interview with all the contractors to go through make sure they have everything that we wanted them to have in the scope um and so you can see on that on the
023package there's the list of contractors that we're looking to award um I think really there's only one contractor on there that we had to skip the low due to a specification issue but the rest of those are the low contractors that came in the bid it gives you a little bit of a summary of what each of those contractors has included in their scope many of those are self-explanatory the only one that kind of adds a few other things in there would be your Carpenter General trades put some equipment in their scope to furnish and install so you have that list of contractors the total amounts on the proposed contract amounts and then on our summary page we have a list of allowances that were included that the owner is to hold for example reworking
024a gas line is through consumers that needs to be done to get our gas line around the building other things just included that we want to make sure the owner has and is covered for additional items if they're needed um the other things that are spelled out on here is our GCS for construction um a design contingency construction contingency and an owner contingency as we move forward into um the multi-purpose Edition um other than that we've been going through um with the district at the last board meeting just going through the phasing of the document or the phasing of the building construction starting in August with the addition and then going through renovations at the wrestling room and the existing weight room and and coordinating that with District Operations over there so so is it
025okay Dean if we just kind of show so where it says notes and comments you can see some of them where we didn't accept them so so those are places where we felt that we could remove the item without in any way taking away from the scope of the project or making sure that all of the groups that we had said we'd give them spaces and do better buy they are still met so just an example if you wanted to know that um so one of the of this picture one of them was we were going to do a two-story uh Edition storage area off of the multi-purpose and with you know face towards the baseball softball fields in the new track and you know it was kind of a luxury it was something we
026thought about later and as we looked at the prices that came in talked with Frank we really felt that you know that wasn't necessary we could just go down to one and that you know one level saved us you know quite a bit of dollars and so those are the kinds of decisions we went through as we um and then we were going to bring this to you at the special board meeting but we really had to take a little bit longer look at some of these just to make sure that we didn't compromise what we had um shared with the voters that our whole goal was to do really make this multi-purpose um Denny or Ben so where it says not accepted that is something scaled back correct um is that correct when you
027when we say not accepted so let's let's just go let's just go to the very first one that I see there's a swap acoustical deck for standard deck not accepted means that staying in the project oh okay so these are most of these things are things that we wanted to just take a look at if we had to take them out of the project to make sure we were within budget so they would be a credit coming back um for some sort of design feature um and we wanted to take a look at what the value of that was so for this example the acoustical deck is going to make it so there's less Echo it's acoustically um I don't know acceptable if we take that out it was something that we reviewed and we
028said hey we take this out of the project and the Acoustics are terrible it's not something you can just throw back in the project yeah so we kept that that savings potential Savings in the project because it's not something that we can't go in later essentially put back in like a piece of equipment or something else like that and then if you look under o42 you'll see that that's where that second floor was taken out you'll see it multiple times because it involves different contractors but and so that's one that's approved thank you Dean for the correction that we did approve to remove that so that there'd be some fun saved yep so you can see that that was a credit to bring money back into our budget that was approved okay and thank goodness
029because I was worried cooling was getting removed that was on the table and when you assured us that that was not going to be accepted thank you but we had a look at it because we had to look at everything we put it all on the table this all works out is that just dead space then are we like planning on doing something in that storage area that's all bacon yep so writing the way you probably saw it during the special board meeting is there was a it's almost like a column that went all the way up to the ceiling that was going to have additional storage on this on the mezzanine space that was a concrete deck up there and then you were gonna have to on the bottom part you might have had
030like a 15 foot ceiling width you get up to the top and you're gonna have another 15 feet of ceiling space um now we bring it down we've just got one floor we were going to have heating on the second floor too we were going to have a lot of the ship's ladder was expensive to steal to get that extra space was pretty expensive quite a bit of savings with um steel and Masonry yeah so it'll calm down um and just the the price per square footage for that storage space the more you look at it the more you see how much you were paying the premium to get two levels of storage so before you would have seen it higher and now it's been brought down it's a little higher the first floor to
031my correct then so there's a little bit more height for storage but just not a full second floor because it was a lot of sense to remove those extra costs you always like storage but that was an easy easy decision and it really doesn't affect too much architecturally of how the whole building looks foreign yeah so some of the others you know we looked at the I'm not going to get the right the transparency windows to the left and the right then what's the right name for that um yeah polycarbonate sandwich balls all right what's called the transcription yeah um you know could we have taken those out and saved money yes um but uh you know the idea of building out a you know almost a gym size area without natural light just did
032not seem for the long term to be in the best interest and I only share that to assure you that we really did we spent a couple of good meetings really going through and then um you know been doing some rework with the pictures and triangle doing the work with the costs and so I feel like we've gotten to a very very good package that we want to recommend you approved tonight Denny do you have anything to add no just the part that was not accepted I'm glad you guys are okay now most of those say not acceptable but as an another example from Dean here under General trades there was a pretty large one that is accepted towards the end so I think that's an example of the contractor saying hey if this happens
033we could give back in this case twenty thousand dollars to the project so that says accepted by the recommendation from it see them in the AE okay indeed if you want to explain how that happened with the equipment that's the equivalent sharing you can put them in Sharing Insurance yeah there was there was an insurance policy that they were covering um that we really didn't need them to cover and and so we we were able to scale that back and still be covered under what our contract says and what the district wants us to hold so that's just a good example it's in budget it's a good thing we've got it in line and I guess I can I can go over the summary sheet because the some of the comparisons on there get a
034little a little confusing so with the original Bond budget when we compare the difference we were originally 300 and 400 budget for the projected Bond Bond Budget on the left um we went to 348 under budget but from the last meetings I think you guys know that we were trying to keep this well under budget to fund other decisions that we made earlier on so it was really keeping that enough under budget to where we would feel comfortable moving forward with Turf and making those decisions early on knowing that we could keep to this number and you will also recall that we have them we've talked really hard about how we could afford a new bathroom in the preschool room that is handicap accessible it's not cheap it's about thirty two thousand dollars so we
035really are hoping that you know the savings can help us do that Philip and I have been talking we are getting a lot of um you know that we have old buses that we're going to get three is it possible that there would be some funds to get a fourth bus which is allowed just because then it does save the general fund money and we need more buses today than you know a couple years from now so which would you know take more time so we'll go back over that as of July 4th we'll be taking a look at the contingency funds for both the primary school and the athletic field and we'll have a better sense of where we are because by that time most things should have been you know discovered if something
036was not going to go right there's only been a couple of things that we've discovered so it's been amazing so then we'll be able to come back to you the only other thing I want to mention is that um just beginning conversations about the old field and what we might choose to do about that it's not urgent because we've got quite a while before we won't be using it but just thinking about how it might get used for youth working with Frank as to what would be the things that we have to maintain versus others that we won't and I'm just you know sharing that because we're just starting to think very very early conversation any other questions for Dean or Ben for this project it's gonna be the it's going to be the finish
037line for it all so yeah thank you very much I'll hang in Next Step under reports is e the special education resource room needs thank you so I mentioned this in my update to you um we um we they the team has been visiting some kiddos both in our district and those who are at um other districts in specialized programs but we'll be coming back to GA and we are finding a need that I'm going to have Lindsay Smeltzer talk about this evening Lindsay will be taking on the special ed supervisor rule for next year and Jen's going to spend more time in Climax so they've been working together on this one and also with Sean thank you Wendy so we have come to the point where we have found a need for an intensive
038resource room an intensive resource room is for students with a higher level of need at this point the space that we're looking at is an empty special education preschool classroom that's currently used by our speech Sprouts OT and other services and those small group services will be moved to another space adequate which will have more space because of the addition right now we're looking at a caseload of six students at this time with one teacher and two paraprofessionals as a minimum some of the needs of these students are daily living skills such as help with eating routines toileting washing hands academic needs such as counting identifying shapes numbers and letters and letter sounds none of these students can be left unsupervised throughout our building they'll need someone with them all of the time Behavior seen
039by these students some of these students projected for this classroom include crying yelling disrobing clearing tables tipping chairs refusal to comply limited alertness hitting kicking and biting which is why we need a higher level of Staff with a smaller number of students to really help with that the goal of this classroom is to have our students in general education as much as possible so even though this is an intensive resource room we want to be able to help them be around their same age peers as much as possible and really work on those skills to get them in the Gen Ed setting but in order to do that we need to have a one-on-one staff member with them again that's the reason for the higher number of staff with a lower number of students um
040kind of in conclusion the addition of this classroom is necessary to ensure that all of our students are receiving their free appropriate public education in their least restrictive environment those are big words that we use in special education we are legally responsible for providing education to these students and we have to figure out the best way to do that um and the classroom will allow students to progress through the curriculum at their individual Pace their individual levels while still affording them the opportunity to gain appropriate social skills and have access to peers of the same age in general education uh we did research while other districts are doing in eastern service area and so just kind of a picture of that for you guys is Comstock currently has two teachers and two paraprofessionals professionals with
04112 students at their Elementary level parchment has one teacher with six pairs and 13 students and they go out into Jenna with a one-to-one ratio which is why they have that high level of para support Gull Lake has a cap of 12 students in a classroom one teacher and one paraprofessional at this this time they do have two openings for additional pairs if they were unable to fill and they are currently our lowest paid paraprofessionals in the area so it's hard for them to fill climax cats only has just a regular resource room at this time so that's kind of a comparison to our area any other questions what would these kids do in general at kids that like go would they go to specials with them yeah so we look at the individual students
042strengths and so they may go out into a special um that's a lot of times where they it's easier for them to access some kids might be able to do um some independent work systems that we'll put in place in the room with their peers um so basically work that's at their level they can maintain their behavior and work through that so that they kind of get that same feel of their classroom peers they may do like a morning routine with them it just can regular classroom everything this would just be an alternative when they would be in this room yet to get their academic support or social emotional support so it's really individualized to those individual students needs I think to Jessica's question they you know the teacher that we hire that's the teacher
043of record and then as they find each individual student and what their capacity is maybe their full capacity at first is just lunch and recess right so it will really depend they're different ages different grade levels and you know because we are required to provide Faith um as I think there's one of them in third grade we'll have to begin looking at what we do at the middle school level because we need [Music] to uh have those kids be able to go up to middle school and have a program because it is required by law that they have peers of their age and so um but this is a piece of the Continuum that is missing in our at least in our side of the county probably even in some others and so it's important
044that we do this there'll be how many kids six seven yeah so I just have a quick question where are the kids currently um we have some coming back to us from off-site programs currently that have exceeded the expectations of those programs and really are fit for a more local setting but they need this kind of intensive level this in between that doesn't exist right now as Wendy said and then we have a couple of kids that are Pre-K level attending a classroom that's not located in our district that are coming back to us at the kindergarten level and then we do have a couple of students that we're currently making work and servicing with our current model that would benefit from this because they're lower academically functioning I feel like this would really helped
045too like when you have I feel like this would really help too like when um kids move in to our district and you don't know where they fall in my experience yeah this really gives us more options and allows us to help them move through that Continuum rather than making bigger decisions and it keeps them in-house so that always makes things easier for students and staff a lot of details details thank you Jennifer Lindsay okay next up under reports is f committee's process for reviewing the high school library book genderqueer try not to tip it over um okay so I kept you fairly advised right as to where we've gone but I I do want to pause and do that one more time so before spring break several complaints came in about the images in
046the genderqueer book just before spring break Lindsay checked the book out um as I had not seen it I wasn't aware of it and so I said let me you know look at the book and see you know what the complaints are about I had parents send me pictures and all that kind of good stuff so um and then it was um after spring break that um well it was over spring break that I had talked to public radio and shared with them that we would be putting a committee together to review the book and that's exactly what we've done as you recall because of the content of the book The images I should say I did ask Teresa King to invite three of our parents who are on our reproductive health committee we had
047a high school English teacher all of the media center Clerks of which there are three our curriculum director Lindsey Newton the high school principal and myself and I think I got them everybody so um we met twice first date but it was April 18th and you know I commend the group because each time we met it was very civil we could come to very good understandings passion yes definitely civil and respectful so the first time we met we went through questions that come out of board policies and they were as follows so what is our purpose being very clear that our purpose was this book only um and that the images the question was are the images developmentally appropriate for kids in our high school library we talked about and brainstormed together what are the
048strengths of the book we then listed out the concerns of the book we talked about what is a slippery slope we also asked are there other options than taking it off the shelf and then we said what questions do we still want answered um and I we had about three or four of those and so then we adjourned and our second meeting was May 3rd so at that meeting I brought forth some of the answers to the questions one of the questions that was asked of Jared our high school media specialist was are there other books out there that speak to the non-binary youth those struggling with it or that experience like this one as a memoir and he did create a list so we have that we know that we're going to improve our
049processes for how we bring controversial books into the district and so and I've shared with you that lots of other districts in Kent County in particular has come up with some great processes they've helped their locals and so we'll be taking a look at that over the summer so the list is there but the approval process Etc won't be until fall and there were some questions about um you know the the legal code the Supreme Court rulings all of that we shared some of that back with the group again I think we discussed Pros cons and all the above options we went through it all again and then the committee made motions and that is what you'll be speaking about when you go into closed session the attorney has provided an opinion letter and she'll
050be available while we're in closed session so I think I covered it all foreign I do have a quick question um so do we have any current books available for non-binary or we have a list that we can look at to get um so what yeah um when I asked him that question before spring break he said yes I have not you know looked at that book specifically yeah okay next up under reports is G um security resource officer and school safety update Sheriff's Department I have a draft of a contract that we are putting together to bring on a school resource officer in the fall and split that person with climax Scots we have three buildings they have two and if you recall there are safety funds both this year as well as next
051year while we don't have the state budget yet sub two of the proposals I think by the governor and the Senate might be the house no I think it's the Senate would allow safety funds to also cover school resource officers we have talked about this at the table frequently and we all feel that I that it would be a nice addition this person would get trained this summer there are three individuals that be getting school resource officer trained one for Comstock one for Gull Lake and then one for GA so I we are going to get this off to climax Scott superintendent we'll then check with Troon make sure that they feel comfortable with the agreement and then we'll get it out to you to review really hoping we can get it approved in the
052June board meeting and the person would come on board in the fall the next next school year so that's one um oh and I just want to mention that so the cost of the resource officer we pay for the nine months and then they don't take vacation during the school year they take their vacations in the summer so the county kind of eats that part they do provide the car obviously they provide the training but um evening events Etc all of that is up to the locals to decide when do we want them in evening events so the intention isn't for this person to be an officer right it is really about building those relationships today the high school had an assembly about the opioid addiction um so I mean those are the kinds of
053topics that we also want to be bringing to kids and and at the same time of course this person will help us with security and that goes to my second topic we will be again with the school safety dollars that have come out of the state of Michigan for districts we're going to be joining the safe program we're going to be actually Contracting with I just want to make sure I get the right name it's called secure education Consultants he was actually on the news uh the evening that Michigan state had the unfortunate event he was one of the individuals interviewed because of the program that he's developed he's our former fbis undercover I mean these are people who really know security so we will get a consultant and there are several pieces that we
054will get it will be getting trained in I'll just name a couple of them de-escalation training so if there was an adult who came into an office like a parent or someone and just was really you know revved up our secretaries others would know some skills about how to de-escalate those situations obviously critical incident response training some of those with scenarios we have our staff who's already done behavioral threat assessments so we won't need that piece of it but table top training is going to be a biggie and if you want more information but I can tell you that tabletop training is more of a discussion based session they simulate critical incidents it's led by a consultant from SEC and you know from the different scenarios we go through them we clarify roles like who
055does what in these situations and this is really for administrators and other staff that each building chooses to be a part of that team and that'll begin in August before school starts we are hoping to get on their calendar so that one of the days that the staff are back we do do a training with the entire staff so more to come Frank's kind of my in charge guy but you know we've met with them I think it's it's going to be a great opportunity for us to get moving faster and be feeling better you know about the fall and then if we bring on the school resource officer at the same time it just makes it more powerful and strong so um yeah so I just wanted to share those two things thank you
056okay next up under seven is business items for discussion um first step is the monthly budget discussion I you have a financial statement a budget comparison in your packet through the end of April which is 10 months for our fiscal year we're fast approaching the fiscal year um there's no new items to highlight there I've got some notes that have been on there for a couple of months related to timing of receiving some additional state aid um one thing to note you'll see on the expenditures near the bottom of the list of the expenditures it's function two eight X it's just it's just Central it's Support Services it's broad ranging in that category but mostly what we have budget there's non-instructional technology so software that is used district-wide both the KK Risa for our Technology
057support services that's all included there that is slightly over budget at this point in time and that's related to some software that was added there's also some training on power school that's included in there so we'll talk more about that as we amend the budget for the last time and we'll present that Committee of the whole meeting in June but happy to answer questions if there are already camp aign Thank You Phillip next up under business items for discussion is the multi-purpose bids um see under business items for discussion is Merit pay for professional staff so if you recall we had this conversation last December that we have um or policy and administrative guidelines that I believe will be included in your packet and this is the time where we typically vote then for the
058performance pay that you have set up for staff for those of you who may not be familiar this is a now a legal requirement that um evaluations and Effectiveness ratings are somewhat tied to data and that there is a performance pay tied to it as well and currently it's four hundred dollars the board did not choose to change that when we had discussions if you recall we're still wanting to know where the budget's going to be it is my recommendation that 400 in Merit pay is given to each of our professional staff and that's what you have before you thank you okay next up under business items for discussion is the K Resa election okay so we talked about this at the either last meeting or the cow um so it's set up I'm the
059one going for the kid resell election to um vote it's what it's every two years I think um a second the very last one okay thank you yeah the people that works sorry just a minute so I do know I'll go over this that I'm selected as the one to go and vote um and then Jessica you're the alternate if for some reason I can't go um but yeah that's yeah are you looking for the names yes skip malls and Randy Benny and Corbin okay thank you Randy okay yeah so yeah it's basically giving me permission to when I go to vote for um skip Knowles Randy vaniantorp they're both current board members they're the only ones running again so there's no not picking in between people really so um we'll just later on in
060the boat um to give us permission to vote on the board speak app for Skip and Randy okay and then next up under the business items for discussion is the key Visa general fund budget resolution can you speak to that please but there is a memo uh from Scott Thomas who's um uh at care research so it's being presented because it's state law that Intermediate School Districts present their general fund budgets for the new year to the constituent districts within their service area and it needs to be voted on you know it you're voting no doesn't mean it's not going to move forward but you are entitled to review it and either approve it or disapprovement and you have that from your packet as well all the ways in which it ends up you know
061what are the pieces of those budgets okay and generally I mean it's in the it's in the memo but I think the the budget is increasing by about two percent both on the revenue side and the expenditure side um it does show a slight um uh operating deficit for the years putting the fund balance at about 14 of total operating expenditures and just so you know this is the general fund budget okay resale also has a special fund but excuse me special education budget that is separate but the general fund budget is what you're thank you yeah and basically we're just voting for the resolution um stating that we basically give our support behind it um next up is eight Communications this is the second part where there's public participation um you can speak to
062anything um so we have three minutes um same as before um Eric Curtis all right hello everybody um I'm gonna speak as a teacher first and then I've got two I forgot to put the other one on I'm sorry the other Union um related issue um so this is my 23rd year teaching high school English and I've taught a lot of different books I've challenged my kids with a lot of different books and my number one my number one job is to keep them safe and to make them feel protected honored and respected and that is all of my students gay straight whatever black white okay we have all those students in our high school it's my job to keep all of them safe um my concern is if you ban this book what's next
063I teach a book that has the n-word 242 times is that next is that okay so I don't know I just I get the concern I guess my relation to it is like I have a daughter who's 11. if I take her to the movies I don't take her to the R-rated movies it's not appropriate for her she's not that old she's not that age but I'm not gonna go and tell somebody else well you can't take your kid to that R-rated movie or we can't have R-rated movies because my child doesn't want to be exposed to R-rated movies so I think we need to be very careful about what message we're sending and what we're doing and how that's going to impact the high school students so I haven't heard a lot of the
064parents from our district talk about high school students we're talking about young adults that that I teach right now that in a year are going to be on a college campus treated as an adult being exposed to a lot of things that they're not exposed here union-wise um custodial is a disaster I know we're switching it is disrespectful the condition of our classrooms right now if you're a working professional you would not work in our classrooms right now it's disgusting our floors are not swept my floor has not been mopped in two weeks I currently have a spill of red pop that's been there for three days I had a teacher from the Middle School over the weekend text me pictures of bloody Kleenex that was left all over their floor so what are they
065supposed to do in that situation are they supposed to clean those up are um student bathrooms I know I don't know about the primary but the Middle School in high school haven't been cleaned in like over a week we had paper wides in the boys bathroom that um Lindsay got right on top of when we told her they'd been there for over a week we had Middle School teachers cleaning student bathrooms that should not be happening thank you can I just ask you no question about the multi-purpose room you mentioned Acoustics I didn't I'm sorry I didn't realize there was a second spot do you want to add me on there um I just can't ask questions sorry I didn't realize there was a second comment so Penny soon um the question about the multi-purpose
066room is just I I thought I heard him say something about the acoustical decking and my question is is was the design part of the bid did they use the sound engineer do they use a sound architect to check into that because if you're going to use it for drama robotics or anything where you may want it to not sound very fuzzy and echoing there that's a super expensive process if you do it on the back end because we're doing it right now at my office so it's definitely one of those things I was just curious if that's already been included or something we'd have to Circle back on when we find out it's not just the decking that's needed for the space so just a quick we can't answer questions yeah we can't answer
067questions at this point but yeah one day I'll get back with you on that okay so I'll finish this and I'll give it back okay um so at this point um can I have a motion to go into closed session for attorney client privilege I'll make emotions okay um I'll approve all opposed okay so um so we're gonna be going into closed session for a little bit if you want to go outside and wait as soon as we're done with closed session we'll open the door back up um then everybody can come back in at that point okay so radical session thank you all for being patient um we're at 10 business items for decision um first item under decision is the multi-purpose bid approval I'll support Clark can you do a real couple please
068yes oh yes yes well yes Walker yes yes yes motion passes seven zero foreign and next up under decision is the review of the educational material in high school library could I have a motion please um I'll make a motion to remove the both genderqueer due to several sexual explicit um images that are uneducated or that are education no unsuitable for the school I'll support discussion this is not an easy choice for any of us to make I will tell you depending on our board's decision today I would like to hold everyone accountable including our board severely accountable to educate our staff on all the pronouns and what's appropriate and not appropriate and what makes what makes sense and it trickled down to our students on what those pronouns mean and what what it values
069um prior to reading this book I didn't quite understand all of the pronouns that were used correctly I did not I don't judge people that way I'm fine with everyone everyone's a clear person in my book I don't care if you're what your sexual orientation or or no sexual orientation would be and that's what I I got from this it's not meant to be in my eyes about sex it's actually the opposite but the image is unfortunately take away from that and it's difficult having that so in my eyes I feel if we educate everyone to that degree because it's necessary and educate our students it's extremely necessary so we all can have a clear deception of what that means kind of piggyback on what she's saying um I would like to see us step
070up and do our best from a District's perspective to support our community as well that um yeah we have an amazing club that started we do we do but I'm just saying just to expand out all of those things and really you know and as like I've said to some other people in this room is you know both of my children they do identify as straight and they but they have some of these confusions as well so I think it's very important to educate all of our students so um it's unfortunate this book is if you've read the book it's actually amazing um outside of the pictures you know that's kind of what we've all kind of thought is the content is wonderful but the pictures bring a different level to those who are just
071kind of glancing through um my struggle with Banning this book is that I have to remember that my job as a board member is to represent all of our students and my feeling is if we be in this we don't represent all of our students yes there's a few pictures that I agree are probably sexually explicit but it doesn't in my mind allow me to ban a book completely when I know there are students who need to read it if it were we were putting in place a age limit R-rated movies you have to be 17 right so let's put an age limit on it I'd be okay with that I won't I'm just not comfortable because I represent all of our students not just a few that and I I have friends here who
072feel differently and that's hard but I have to do what's right as a board member and as a board member I'm here for all of our students not just my kids friends my friends all of them so I'm also here for all of our kids um most of us have read this book if not all of us um I think that it was educational I just don't believe that it belongs in the high school's library um I think that um Diana tucked isn't the Galesburg Library I think if kids need this book there are other ways for them to get the book um there's a list of books inside here there are other books in our library for this population of students that this would help some kind of typical foreign [Music] so I just
073wrote something because it's better for me to write something put it down and read it versus um trying to think of my feet here so um first I would like to start by thinking superintendent Summers for developing the process for the committee and putting the committee together um I feel that developing a process is very important because processes help to keep things consistent I also appreciate the time and work the committee members have spent coming up with a recommendation for the Board of Education regarding genderqueer I trust that there was much dialogue and respective opinions I did purchase and re-gender queer I felt it was important to read the book and gain context I think the book was written very well and I think representation matters in this book represents the non-binary community I think
074it is important to have books that our kids can relate to representation matters because when students see themselves being represented it helps to shape how they see themselves genderqueer opened my eyes to the non-binary community I thought I had an understanding but I clearly did not and I appreciate what I was able to learn from the book I hope I can now be a better advocate for the non-binary community I am conflicted about some of the sexual images in the book and I understand the importance to the author but I do feel this also limits the age range of the reader there are two things that I reflected on after reading genderqueer the first is the importance of representation for students in our school and the second is whether the images are developmentally appropriate for
075students in Galesburg Augusta High School I also think it is important to have books available to represent all students and are available within the community and our school library okay any other discussion can you do roll call vote please no well yes Simmons no shoot yes over guard yes yes motion carries five to two and I just quick one to say um thank you for the committee um thank you board members this was one of them that was a very tough decision and I appreciate everybody's input and value added so thank you okay next up is C Merit pays for professional staff foreign motion please I'll make a motion to approve the 400 Merit performance pay as per post I'll support okay um any discussion in regards to the voting I believe I should abstained
076through a conflict of interest that's correct um any discussion I would say I'm excited and I'm happy for the teachers that do an excellent job to earn it and look forward to how it'll shape with the future differentiation of the elements as well horsey yes well yes you were saying yes Simmons yes shoot yes Walker yes passes six to one abstention okay and next up is K Lisa election can I get the motion please I'll make a motion to approve the resolution um to the June 5th biennial election selecting skip Knowles and Randy vaniantourt for the campus County regional service area portable Education Health support um any discussion roll call vote please shoot yes of course yes well yes over there yes yes Walker yes motion carries seven zero next up is the K Resa
077general fund budget resolution um motion to approve budget the residence foreign could I have a motion to approve the key research general fund budget resolution we have the entire resolution in front of us I'll make a motion to approve the K research general fund budget relative the presentation of support any discussion roll call vote please well yes yes yes yes soccer yes motion carries seven zero okay next up under Communications number 11 is board comments I say I'm proud of everybody here we had a very challenging situation and I I still wasn't sure what I was going to do until very last second I flipped out 100 different times so I just want to say I'm proud of everybody here so I hope to see a lot of you at the awards ceremony on Wednesday
078and then there's also the Gales where Augusta Foundation scholarships Awards Thursday night I think at 5 30. I'm looking forward to that um I had the privilege of going on the senior trip and being their class advisor and I think we have 39 students go this year which is uh I think of record um but everyone was had by everybody it's just such a great group of students that's graduating this year they're all very well behaved I just want to say thank you to Afghan for last week's teacher appreciation I had the pleasure of being able to help at the high school on Friday and the amongst the smiles and thank yous and it was amazing from the teachers when really we're the ones that are thanking them so kudos to Afghan was very well
079known can I go back to Jessica so after you planning to pass out the AAP scholarships or do you want me to do yeah absolutely okay I just have a couple of things and I see Amy left but I just wanted to congratulate Amy Pratt um welcome her to the Administration staff Middle School principal um last but definitely not least um teacher appreciation week was last week staff appreciation you know just thank you to all of our amazing staff teachers you do an amazing job every day we appreciate you thank you I I say a teacher impacted my life tremendously and I would not be who I am or where I am today without a teacher so um you know just thank you and know that you guys are making differences in kids life separate
080day um and I get to think my mom was a high school math teacher for years so I didn't get her math Gene but you know I I got a lot of extra help at least but no just thank you to staff teachers appreciate you and next up superintendent update well you've covered a lot of mine um yes the celebration at 9 00 a.m a big assembly um and then after the community school Foundation awards from 5 30 to 6 30 then the high school band culminating band concert is at seven so we got there's a lot going on this week remember that business and finance is the 24th that committee meets at 5 30. uh Lara's going to put together these dates again for you graduation the second um 30 we're meeting here and
081that the cow is the fifth so again she'll get these all to you but 5 30 is the walk through the bill the primary and the field and then 6 30 of course is the cow and that's when we'll be going through the um the budget for this year final budget for this year then the um uh looking at the projected budget for next year um we're still hoping that we'll hear something before and know where we're really going to be before we have to take that final vote in June um and then um today we had Jordan West and Karina Nick they were both they both signed their commitment letters to play tennis one to Olivet and the other to Adrian um Albion I don't know Albion I know and um and then we
082have several others and it's happening on Wednesday so very very exciting for our seniors there's a lot going on for them and I too thank you for you know the deliberation and the honest conversation that's how we make decisions as a team so I appreciate how difficult that was um oh the last one was that we had an athletic field fundraising group um meeting last week um it wasn't there wasn't very many of us it was a small group what we did talk about was that um what we'd like to raise money for are the play Clocks some landscaping and then as you recall we'll still need some type of a barn for storing some of the track stuff that can be left out um outside versus having to be inside so those were kind
083of the three biggies um we didn't take you know next steps yet so because those are the pieces that seem to come to the top um feeling like we can get some things donated and others that we may you know have to approach some folks who might want to be one of those advertisers that you know me to start at the mid or I guess it's a limit but a certain number so no decisions made it was just really a first conversation meeting interns it's 9 16.