001All right, I would like to call the meeting to order. We will start with the pledge of allegiance. We could have the students lead us, please. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Christine Kmenzi here. Jennifer Ray here. Jason Zunik here. Jennifer Clip here. Cheryl Maddox Smith here. Cassidy Thomas here. Eric Smith here. And I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. Support. Okay. Motion made by Mr. Zindic, support by Mr. Smith. Um, all those in favor? I I uh moving on to the superintendence report. Thank you, Mrs. Camzy. Appreciate everybody coming out tonight and Mr. Conleton and the Marquette
002Alternative High School staff for hosting. for the superintendent report. I'm actually going to hand it over to Mr. Crumpleton for a presentation from him and his staff. Thank you. Thank you. Uh thanks all for being here. I'm not used to being miked up in this room, so I think that's all right. Uh most of you are just with us on our walk and I think that walk demonstrated what the alternative high school is, right? Through MTSS right now, we talk a lot about collective efficacy. We've been calling it for years in this building a united front. Okay. I firmly believe that uh the educators in this program hold each other accountable, help each other rise up to uh inspire and grow and have uh really strong frank conversations, right? And the love my staff has
003for each other and and I don't use that word lightly. We've been with each other for a long time. Um, it it creates magic uh in the learning environment for kids, whether that's in a chemistry classroom or a culinary arts classroom or a room where we're making quilts. So, I can talk on and on about my program. I love doing that. Right. One of the things I love is that everybody has an equal foot in this building. Whether you're the principal, whether you're a teacher, whether you're my amazing custodian, Kim Lancor, whether you're my meal provider, Hope Burch, or whether you're a student, we all are here for the same purpose, and that's for bettering ourselves, right? And we have mentors and guiders to help that. We have rules and parameters we have to play
004by, right? To make things work smoothly. But the idea is everybody has a voice to be met where they're at to, you know, reach greatness. And within that, I'm going to turn it over to my teacher. Um, one thing on our tour we didn't show, these will be for sale. We're making maple syrup this year. So, that's from our property out back. That's uh Brian Pill's classes. But um rather than me talking I I wanted you to hear from Cindy and some of the things she does in her classroom. I know Kim and Aaron and Nora, excuse me, spoke uh on our tour, but just to highlight some of the things we did. Is it okay if I talk from here? Okay. Because I can see all of you with that in that manner. I
005hate to be the guy that you got to be my in order for Yeah. In order for the video to pick it up, I've been recommended in the past. That's okay. That's okay. me to hold it. Yes. Um, so one of the things that I love here is that we all work together and I have like a lot of respect for our art teacher Erin Levali. And so I had the opportunity this year while we were reading the novel I Must Betray Youto historical fiction, great author. I had a chance to meet her at in Boston this year at the National Conference for the Teachers of English. Um, but I was inspired by some of the art that I saw our students do. and this is their lost story. So, a lot of things that
006we do with our students is we help them find who they are. We do that through our photography classes, our art classes. And so, I wanted to show you a couple of samples of the type of artists we have in our building. The second thing I want to talk about is what we do in our publishing class. Um, I looked into this when we were looking at an edex award a couple of years ago, but we are the only school in the state of Michigan who 100% gets our community to purchase ads so that we can give a free yearbook to every single student in our building. Our students just cannot afford to buy a yearbook. Uh, the yearbook is 100% made from cover to cover. I make sure that their work is is um
007presentable, but they are so creative and I will leave one behind for you to look at at your leisure, but the kids are they're dynamic in what they learn how to do. And so I love that it's student generated, community supported, and that it's a gift that the publishing class gives the kids. Lastly, I want to talk about our photography class. Uh the first year I taught photography as an elective in the school, I had my camera and that was it. So that was very um scary to just have one camera and a group of kids as our program was growing. Um over the years, we have been able to build a a studio that has over $20,000 worth of equipment. And in that class, it's not the cameras and we do it all digitally
008that is so impressive. It's the fact that the kids find a piece of themselves in their ability to create a picture that captures a moment in time forever. And if you have an opportunity on your way out, please check out the photography board. The students photographed each other. And that's a very difficult thing to do to learn not only how to be behind the camera, but how to be in front of the camera. And we really promote that with the kids to experience all aspects of a job, not just once, so that they're ready for the real world and those challenges that they have to face in putting themselves out there. So that's all I have to say. Thanks. Thank you. I just officially came to Lewitz. Um I teach the the culinary arts and
009also the math um at the school. Um but my culinary arts uh is um kind of this spearheading the 5K that is supposed to take place um this Friday. Um so the kids will all get these shirts and the real deal official uh little number thing that they'll get pinned on and a medal for completion. So, some really nice uh things. But um Travis Smith Smith from um the market algae maresa um has helped us tremendously um in getting this off the ground. So, this will be our third year doing it and it's a really very cool event to see these kids that um some of most of them have not done a 5K but to do either walk or run or whatever manner they can and help out with that um is is truly
010a really cool thing to see. So, that's happening on Friday and it's the Bob Ross run and the money goes to planting trees planting trees and the money start stays in our area. So it's for the, you know, for beautifification and things in our area. And I believe they say a tree is planted for every entry. So we'll haveund some entries. Awesome. Pretty good. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So in in closing, I just I'd really rather hear the voices. I wish I had students up here. I should have and I don't. Um but a thank you to the board, the superintendent uh Sedick for really the continued support of the program. It is essentially important that all youth have a place they feel comfortable and they feel welcome and they can be who they
011are um and and learn who they are in a safe place to do that. And we've put PA systems in, we've put cameras in. Hopefully, we're going to uh retrofit fit our college and career readiness classroom uh where we're going to hopefully work on the facade in the front to make that safer. But I'll end on the word safe. This isn't perfect. No education is this is a place where kids can come in no matter who they are, how they are, or what they are, they are safe. and to be a district that supports that with the support of Arisa. Um, thank you. That's all I got. Oh, it's serious. Thank you, Mr. Clinkton. Excuse me. For those that weren't able to join the tour, we saw some great some great programming and and new
012equipment, sewing machines, one of which was for quilts. I don't remember the special name, but it was much larger than sewing machines. I'm It's a long arm. It's a long arm. There you go. Uh salmon uh planting program with salmon that were grown from the start, right? Right. From eggs and uh and then we saw an board that Mist Valley uh brought from a conference and what was that called? The mood mood meter. Mood meter. Yes. And then down in the culinary arts program, uh, where Miss Matulowitz showed us what she had going on down there with some great equipment. From that, we were able to see the space that you'll be considering, the board will be considering tonight, the college and career readiness space. There is actually a shop in the in the garage
013out back. And that's the space they'll be referring to. And then, of course, a facade you'll see on the agenda later on. Lastly, we talked about smartboards, which are going in around the building. And I went ahead and took the opportunity to feature our new website on the Smartboard that I keep talking about. Just a quick plug on our new website that is uh I think much more modernized and you get the information that you want much easier. So anyway, thanks again Mr. Kleton and to your staff. Wonderful job. Always appreciate coming here. And that is all I have for the superintendent report. All right. Thank you guys very much for having us. Um, moving on to approving the consent agenda which would include the minutes of the committee of the whole and special meeting
014of April 7, 2025, the personnel report dated April 2025, and the financial reports of March 2025. I'll make a motion that we approve the consent agenda as presented. support. Motion made by Mrs. Clip, support by Mrs. Maddox Smith, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. All those in favor? I moving on to the student school board representatives report. Does this work? Good afternoon. Yeah. Wait 12. Okay. Um, so recently all the juniors just went did they did their SATs and all their standard based testing as well as our sophomores and freshman they did some like NMSQT stuff which is just kind of preparing them for the SAT. Um, all of our AP exams are coming up for our higher education and it's really just crunch time right now for all the students just trying to get in
015their final grades before we get in school. Um, for sports, our spring sports have started and it's it's been really tough because of the weather, but I think it we've done a really good job of like acclimating to that. I know the track team went down to Michigan State and they got an indoor or Michigan Tech and got an indoor meeting in tennis has been inside. Golf's been getting some time in like the simulators at NMU. Same as girls soccer and softball, baseball. So, that's been really good and we're excited for to start getting ice out and being able to play outside. So, two Fridays ago, um, uh, looking at the fine arts, um, the chorus, um, some selective students, um, who wanted to to, uh, to put their name in, um, did a solo
016ensemble, um, state solar ensemble, which was cool cuz it was in Marquette. And so, um, a number of groups or so or soloists um, or duets um, they sang in front of a judge, um, get adjudicated on that. And, um, I think that went well for everybody. um and all the ensembles and and everything did a really really good job and it's just great to see um such inclusion of all different types of things in our school. Um elections are coming up for student council. Um the presidential election is actually this week. It's uh voting starts tomorrow and goes through Friday. Um and then executive board will be the next week. So that is for a budsman uh liaison um secretary and treasurer um which is exciting to see all new people. Um it's of
017course sad to to say goodbye to some but um it's good to to get new people in and um upcoming um the student council has been planning um something called powder puff which Kayla can explain. Powderpuff's basically it's going to be like the girls do powderpuff for football in this fall and boys are going to do volleyball in coming up here in May and it's basically it'll just be juniors against seniors and kind of a way to kick off graduation so that'll be really fun and we're looking forward to that. Thank you all and thank you so much for having us here Mr. Fleetton and teachers that spoke. Um, I know we both um hold this school to a very, you know, we we see it as something great for this community. And thank you
018guys so much for letting us be here. And thank you. Thank you. Um, comments from the public. I don't believe we have any. Uh, so we'll move on to new business. uh consider awarding the market alternative high school renovation project to Primo Construction Incorporated as recommended. Um Mr. Sedric, do you have I don't have a lot to add other than the fact that Mr. Congest from IDI is here to answer any questions about this project. But we mentioned already this includes the renovation of the wood shop space, if you will, in the in the garage out back and the front facade, including the sidewalk and steps and then fascia on the front entrance. And while I have the mic on, I will say the next agenda item. Mr. Roberts from GEI is here to talk
019about the um boilers at Cherry Creek and Superior Hills. So, any questions for Travis though about the college and career readiness and front entrance project? Here's a quick question. Is this is the funding and I apologize if I missed it, but is this from the um um the um uh syncing fund or is this did we talk about this previously? Correct me if I'm wrong, Jim, but I Mr. Lampman, excuse me, but I believe this is coming from the capital projects fund. Our sinking fund was depleted after some of our recent projects. So, we're trying to build that back up. So, we're going to use our capital projects for this particular project. Any questions for Mr. Hongusto? I'm have no problem asking him to come up to the mic. All right. You're off the hook.
020All right. Thank you. All right. Um, so I would entertain a motion to consider awarding the market alternative high school renovations project to Primo Construction Incorporated as recommended. Make a motion to award the Marquette Alternative High School renovations project to Primo Construction as recommended. Second. Okay. Motion made by Mr. Zodnik, support by Mrs. Clip. Any further comments or questions? Hearing none. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes. uh consider awarding the Cherry Creek and Superior Hills Elementary Schools boiler replacement project as recommended. Just a little bit more. As many of you probably know, Cherry Creek and Superior Hills are essentially replications of each other and our boilers are original equipment. So that dates them 30 years or so. We've been having a lot of trouble uh with with a couple of those boilers.
021And because they're the same uh manufacturer, we decided we would go ahead and replace or recommend replace one boiler in each building. There's two in each building. So, by replacing one in each building, we have one that we can depend on. And also, we'll have parts. We'll make sure we keep the current boilers because a lot of the issues we've had are with electronic components. And I think by keeping those parts, we'll be able to hopefully uh better maintain the the existing boilers that aren't replaced. Okay. So, um I would entertain a motion to consider awarding the Cherry Creek and Spir Hills Elementary Schools boiler replacement project as recommended. I'll make a motion to consider awarding the Cherry Creek and Superior Hills Elementary School Boiler Replacement Project as recommended. Maybe I won't make a motion
022to consider it. I'll make the motion to award it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We're awarding it. Support. We have uh a motion by Mrs. Cliff, a support by Ms. Ray. Any further comments or questions? Just a question about the ERCO units that were recommended for the additional. What was the reason for um the upgraded unit? Mr. Roberts might answer this question better than I can, but we have we have experience with multiple manufacturers on boilers and I can say without giving a ton of detail that our maintenance staff has made it abundantly clear to us that they much prefer the air code over the other manufacturers and I don't want to name the other one on record but that has been made very clear. So it's a reliability. Yes, it's reliability and it takes me back
023to my earlier point about parts. I think by sticking with that manufacturer, we have probably a better chance of of being able to swap parts on the older boilers that are still existing. Thank you. Okay, any further comments or questions? Okay, hearing none. All those in favor? I Any opposed? Motion passes. Uh, moving on to board member comments. Uh, Mr. and um I just so much appreciate the tour and the chance to learn more about the alternative high school. Um I think in a general sense the public probably is not aware of all the things that you're doing to help students find their success. And what impresses me the most is the individualized attention that it sounds like students get to discover who they are and to kind of uh be uh successful in their
024own right, however that is defined. That's a hard thing to do and I appreciate all your work to make sure that these students have chance at being successful adults. Um that's huge. Thank you. Miss Thomas, thank you all for having us today. It was so fun to walk through and see what you guys have going on. I really appreciate you guys showing us around. And um I'll buy some maple syrup. Mrs. Mik Smith, thanks for having us at the alt. I love coming over here and seeing what you guys are doing. And I love the um I love the sentence you said um Crank about the kids feeling safe to pursue what they want to pursue to find out who they are. That's just such a great piece and um so needed in our community.
025So, thank you for all you're doing here. Um to our student reps, good luck on exams. We love hearing what's going on. It's the reason we're here is for y'all. Um just looking forward to uh the end of the school year. Thank you everyone. Mrs. Cliff, well um many folks in the audience already know how um special this school is to me. At the end of my daughter's eighth grade year, um it was very clear that the for a variety of reasons um she was not going to be the best fit for her was not to uh move on to the high school. Although um there's a lot obviously great about that uh facility and we were really stuck. uh we considered bringing her to uh the district I teach in um we just didn't
026know what to do but we wanted her to stay local in her district and at the time I was on the board felt like it was if at all possible for her to stay in the maps under the maps umbrella to do that but we had never considered an alternative school for our daughter that um whatever misconceptions or perceptions we had um that was not what was um I guess on the cards or what we perceived would be on the cards for you know a father who went off to MTU as an engineer who now was in finance and um you know my little liberal arts um schooling self going off to teach classical literature in several different districts. So, we were stuck and um we decided to take a chance here. Um I think
027one of the biggest misconceptions um and I'm going to toot your horn if if I can in a way that I feel like is um a little bit of a deficit. Um Mr. Smith said, you know, he doesn't think that the community really knows as much knows much about what goes on here. And I would agree. Um but there's another piece that I think kind of gets lost in the shuffle. Um I I've had people say, "Oh, for your daughter's not really in the maps district. If she goes to the alt, right?" Yes, she is. Additionally, um while a lot of our focus, um and it's the same at, uh neighboring district I teach at just because of the population, you guys do incredible things with kids who have real needs. Um they're unique learners.
028Um there's a variety of reasons why they have uh why they're at their point in their academic career that they're at. They're full of life and interesting kids. But I want to be clear that I have been very impressed with the academics that this school provides and I think that gets lost. Um, I have had it, you know, intimated that we kind of just all hold hands in Kumbaya and with maple syrup. And I can tell you I can tell you while there is some of that um she is receiving a phenomenal education at this building complete with phenomenal interventions that as somebody who did their master's work in curriculum implement implementation that was important to me and my experience is not just anecdotal I'm receiving like many parents letters from the state saying, "Hey,
029look, she scored at this level on this test and you need to get her into advanced placement." I thank you for what you do and your story is so nuanced and it's never complete, which is kind of the magical thing about it, but every single time there's a misperception, I want to somehow write the ship. This is an incredible facility that we are so lucky. I am so lucky uh but this community is so lucky to have. There is not a child and I've helped kids get into Harvard that I wouldn't say, "Hey, you know what? If you got something going on or if you're uh level of interest is here or if you're super artistic or you're very performative, maybe there's that little school up there that you should consider." So, thank you very
030much. Thank you, Mr. Knight. Um, just thank you to Mr. Crinkleton and the staff for hosting uh our meeting here tonight. I'm glad to see we're able to approve some additional work um to be completed uh at the facility. Uh good luck to those participating in the uh 5K uh race this weekend. Hoping the weather cooperates for you. Miss Ray. Um, well, thank you all and I love hearing from the students and your thought about having some of your students come and speak. I know that can always be intimidating, but some of the best I think speakers we've had um who have come to speak to us on a particular issue that they feel strongly about are the students. And I would love to hear more from the students. I think that would be incredible
031if that could be encouraged and um at all schools and all ages actually really and but I do want to you know again as everyone has said you are doing some really incredible stuff here and I've always thought outside the box when it comes to education and I homeschooled my kids until high school and because not because I didn't love public schools because I do that's why I'm on the board of ed but it just worked for us and I think there are just so many different ways of incorporating what you all do here that I would love to see more of that within our other schools and starting from a young age and how do we bring these things we've had a lot of conversation I talked to Zach's ear off the other day
032about just you know how we think outside the box when it comes to education because there's a lot of pieces that we miss when we're just solely driven on the classroom and the academics which are important but we can integrate with hands-on experience like you're doing all here along with the value of a child being valued for who they are in that moment. So, I really appreciate it. It's been really fun. Thank you. Um, moving on to board president comments. Just like to echo, thank you guys so much for having us here. It's always it's always a pleasure to be here. Um, announcements and other meetings. May 12th, uh, board meeting at the at Both Wall Cafeteria at 5:30. And then I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. Make a motion to adjurnn. Support. Okay.
033Motion made by Mr. Zudnick, support by Mr. Smith. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Listen.