Richmond Community Schools Board of Education Meeting on December 8, 2025

001[music] starting our regular board meeting at 7:00. Uh, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Sandy, if you could please read our mission and vision statement and take role. Our mission statement is at Richmond Community Schools, we provide a quality education that empowers students to be successful in global community. And our vision statement is um I'm sorry to foster a culture of academic excellence, creativity, character, ensuring that all students are prepared for success in an everanging world. And I will do roll. Board member Cunningham >> here. >> Board member Gillis >> here. >> Board member Bashan >> here. >> Board member Styer >>

002here. >> Board member Sutton >> here. >> Board member Telto >> here. >> And board member Fortuna. I am here. We have a quorum. And we also have our state representative here with us, Kelsey McNamera and Elizabeth Schaefer, but it'll be a little bit late tonight. >> Thank you. Looking for a motion to approve our agenda. >> So move. >> I'll give it to Candace. Um any discussion >> just for the board. Um you should receive in front of you. I uploaded to the packet a [snorts] revised action sheet for letter uh eight the last one. Um, I forgot to change the title on that. There was no content changed in it. And then in front of you have the budget amendment, the actual AS400 printout and the summary that Tammy will be presenting tonight.

003There's no action on that tonight. Um, just as a hard copy so you can look at it. >> Any discussion? This will be a roll call vote. Margaret >> I. >> Candace. >> Hi. >> Sandy. >> Hi. >> Raymond. >> Hi. >> Sarah. >> Hi. >> Danielle, >> hi. I vote I. Motion carries. I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> So moved. >> Support. >> Thank you. U Mr. Blumsley. Hey, in your board packet you have the personnel report. Uh Nadia Brown AMC PM childcare is for a new hire. And then there's an appointment of Mrs. Hayes uh for the Lego assisted club um at the elementary school. We have questions regarding the 1124 uh board meeting minutes and you also have the district headcount and the November claims and accounts.

004Again, no questions. >> Any questions? This will be a roll call vote. Margaret >> I. >> Sandy. >> Hi. >> Candace. >> Hi. >> Raymond. I >> Sarah. >> Hi, >> Danielle. >> Hi. >> I vote I. Motion carries. Next item on our agenda is our student recognition for their holiday cards. >> Okay. So, Mrs. Suspaniac's going to join me tonight, but tonight we celebrate the creativity of our Richmond uh students. Uh this is probably our fourth year doing it. Every year it's kind of evolved and there's been more and more applications. But we work with our art teachers and ask them to work with students who are interested in submitting art designs. um members of the central office and other members of the organization who don't always directly work with kids uh do the

005voting on it. I believe we had three tithes this year. Cindy, am I correct on that? So, there was >> um a lot of going back and forth trying to find one winner for every grade level. Uh these cards along with my holiday message will get mailed out to all the families in the house or in the district. Um so, it's a random card that you may get. So, you may get your own, you may get a different one if you're one of the recipients here tonight. Um, so with that, I'm going to ask Mrs. Cismaniac to help me. Uh, we're going to call the students up. When your name is called, if you come up and get a certificate, in the envelope that I have is extra cards of yours that are being mailed

006out, so you give them to family and friends. Uh, and then if you come have a seat over there, uh, Miss Mitchell Agnum will kind of get us in a group to take a picture. And then students, you're welcome to take your artwork that's on display home with you after the uh presentation. So with that, we'll start with >> All right. So we have first up Cameron Schwarz [applause] for first grade. Isabelle McDermad, [applause] second grade, Merrick Turnis. [applause] And next, Audrey will check. [applause] Fourth grade, Macy McDonald. [applause] And fifth grade, Charlotte Paul. [applause] Sixth grade, Poppy Kwinsky. [applause] Seventh grade, Kenzie Wixand. [applause] Eighth grade, we have Brianna Hoover. >> [applause] >> Ninth grade, Aerilyn Primo. [applause] 10th grade, Kelsey Mro. [applause] 11th grade, Isabella Campbell. [applause] and 12th grade Frankie Collins. [applause]

007So if the board would like to join us for a photo there and if there's any principles you would like to welcome >> I'd love to join this [laughter] be a little hard. I think I'm very [laughter] serious. to sleep. >> I'm just Okay. [applause] I know. That's hard. Okay. Next item on our agenda is our proposed overnight extended trip request to Michigan with Mrs. Shack. This is Sh. This is the Grand Rapids one. >> All right. So, I came to you about uh what two years ago now saying that a really special musician here at Richmond and uh she made it into the All State band in an eighth grader. This will be like a once in a-lifetime event. Um but here we are. Year three. Uh Claire Reinhardt. She auditioned in October and

008uh she earned her spot into the 2026 All State band for the third year in a row um AT [applause] this once again a huge honor. It's really exciting for me as a director and to just to see her grow um as a musician and um she um you know you add up all the the people who auditioned on clarinet and I think I said this last time too is you know between 150 and 200 people audition for 24 spots and she's number nine. So um again it's just an awesome accomplishment. Um so we're looking to go to Grand Rapids again to the Michigan Music Conference. Um, it's a three-day event in January. Um, I think you guys have all the information. Believe in front of you. We do. >> Okay. Um, and, um, uh,

009she'll have two days rehearsal and give a performance on Saturday the 24th um, in the boss hall this coming year. Question for the board. Not just a congratulations. What a great opportunity. >> Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> Just so the board knows, there's three presentations and three actions tonight because of the holidays back so they could uh begin the planning. >> Okay. Next item on our agenda is another proposed overnight extended trip. Um let's check back. I'm g have Mr. Lton join me on this one because we're going to be teaming [clears throat] this event. Um so we are looking next fall to take um our band in choir on an extended trip um this time to New York City. A couple years ago we went to Chicago and uh

010ready to try something a little bit bigger um as we travel with our students. Um, so we're looking at the dates there. November 18th through the 22nd. We'll be leaving Wednesday night, traveling overnight via school bus or not school bus, the charter bus uh through the night to New York. Um there is quite a bit on the agenda. It's just jam-packed. Um some of the curricular events would be going to two Broadway um productions. Um also um doing a clinic [clears throat] with some um uh doing a clinic with uh like um Broadway musicians where we would play sing um as part of that. Uh that's a really neat experience. Sometimes you even get to depending on what clinic they slot you in, you actually like meet some of these musicians and and singers. We

011met the um the uh those guys from the line came Yeah, scars people. Anyway, so like we met some guy and they got to uh they got, you know, the students got to ask questions. We met with Phantom one time when we traveled. So like you just don't know who who you're going to get when you go to the clinics and things like that. Um we'll also take the students to see some of the museums. Nashville City Museum, uh 911 museum is [snorts] that as well. It's a fantastic experience for all the students. be able to go and experience something that's outside of rural Michigan. As much as we love it here, it's awesome place to be able to experience something that's a little grand and be able to see these awesome shows and be

012able to experience stuff like the N museum in there. That's that's one like a huge thing for a lot of these kids to be able to see something that looks amazing. Um, and along with all the other be stuff like that. So, I think that's the biggest takeaway is not only that educational pull, but also being able to see all these wonderful things that has to offer. Do >> you guys happen to know what Broadway um >> Yeah. Anyone have any questions? >> How many kids are you going to take, do you think? >> For the price that's listed, it minimum of 40 and then a bus holds 55 adults. Thanks for all the choir high school choir. >> I would go with you. >> I've done it once before. >> I got to say

013like seeing like the cities on a bus is the way to go. [laughter] >> On a tour bus and they'll take you around and and and battle traffic for you is the way to go. >> Okay. >> And you'll be doing some fundraising. >> Oh yeah. Yep. So, our boosters are currently in the works to fund raise. We've already been fundraising since we went to Chicago. We've been, you know, thinking about what the next step is going to be and um doing some fundraisers to put towards this trip and then continue for the next year. >> Awesome. >> Okay. Any questions? Any other questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. >> Okay. Next item on our agenda is our proposed overnight extended trip request from Mr. I I come to you for the 44th time

014seeking permission to overnight trip. We're leaving on Friday morning 8th and coming back on Sunday May 10th. We'll be staying together Lord and we're playing west sorry pray west on Friday night and pray on Saturday and then we do team bond all Saturday afternoon it's a fantastic time it's good just love it we get along the team get all together just between parents dad no parents nor let a kid distract we just to achieve things any questions >> it's Really? Your 44th time? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Not 44th time. That's awesome. 44th time. Yes. I This is my 48th year. >> Anyone have any questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Next item on our agenda is our MHSCA coach of the year, Mr. Trent. >> Yeah. So, um, coach didn't know that I was

015doing this. I don't know if he picked it up reading the Oh, yes. Mr. W. Oh, okay. Well, >> the birth of the bubbling. >> Oh, it's okay. So, I'm going to invite Coach uh Stewart back up um because this fall, Coach Stewart was inducted into the and I know everybody in education loves acronyms. So MHSCA um which is the Michigan High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame um here in 2025. He is a member of a 14 coach class um and we are very very proud of what he's done like he just said with the 48th years with softball obviously the awesome run um we had this year. Um, and I just I the more I'm around coach Stewart and I and I talk to him and pick his brain on stuff, the more

016I come away with um bunch of great things I want to implement everywhere. Um, so just just a little bit about the MHSCA. It kind of oversees all of the other um sports specific coaches associations. Um, so I know he's he's won the coach of the year award a couple times in softball. um this kind of oversees all of those sports. And just another another um inductee this year was um Jim Fish who's the superintendent in the volleyball cup coach up in North Branch. Um so again, it really speaks to the caliber of coaches that are receiving these honors. So I'm I'm very proud to present this to coach tonight. comes with goods. [laughter] I didn't see any money in the back. We can talk about that later. [laughter] >> Thank you very much. Congratulation,

017coach. Okay, next item on our agenda is our BWAC sportsmanship summit. Mr. Trump. >> Yep. Um and tonight I'm joined by Jake Hill. Um Jake attended the sportsmanship summit. Um and Jake also serves as the president of our student athlete advisory council. Um so a little bit about what we did. This is the the second year really bringing this back for the league. There was a couple years we didn't do it. Last year we took a group up to Elmont. Um this year we we had the opportunity to host. Um and I I was really happy with how with how everything went. Um, as you can see, each school brought eight students, four females and four males. Um, we we had the opportunity, they had breakfast, they were able to mingle a little bit. Um,

018we brought them in. We had a quick welcome address. Um, and then our keynote speaker last year, um, Elmont brought in Brad Bush, who's an executive director of the, uh, MHSA talked a lot about officiating, um, why some of the official shortages, some of the ways that kids can get involved with that. Um, this year we took a little bit different approach. One of the things we've we've talked about at the the state level and among athletic directors and it's something that kind of gets overlooked is life after athletics. Um so how you transition from being a high school or a college athlete into working a 9 to5 usually or what is it 7:30? Um, no, but you know, how do you take what you all these skills that you spent so many years building

019and honing in these relationships and how do you transition that into a career? Um, so we were we were able to have um his name's Darren. He's actually my cousin. Um, but Darren Hunucker is the um, executive director for programming for Mayhem Athlete, which provides CrossFit training programming for hundreds of gyms across the world. Um, he's traveled all over the world. He's done um, he's spoken at different conventions. He's competed as an athlete. Um, but rewinding all of that, he was a a two sport athlete at Kpack High School. Um, so just down the road. And again, one of those guys that after high school, how do I find something to use all of these skills that I've built? So, he really talked to the kids about how to maximize their time in high school

020and then look for those different opportunities um to use those skills in sports. And I I feel like that went went really well. um the next one. And um I'm super proud of Jake. Um I asked him if he wanted to do it and he didn't have a ton of reservations that he showed me, but Jake got up and he spoke to the entire group um about what our student athlete advisory council does, um the benefits we've seen of it here in the high school and what we could see the benefits of doing this leaguewide. Um, so I was I was super proud of him for that. Um, and I'll let him talk a little bit more about his experience after we kind of go through the rest of the agenda. Um, so after Jake

021spoke, then we we broke the kids out into groups. Uh, we had eight different groups, so two kids from each school. So we were able to mix them up with a different athletic director. Um and we started, you know, a lot gave the kids some prompts to share what their school does that they think is special. Um so we talked, you know, different rivalries, different ways they do pep assemblies, different spirit days, different themes in student sections, just different things they do to get the kids thinking, you know, what else can we do to add to that game day experience. Um then the next step in those scenario, we gave them we called them sportsmanship scenarios. So, kind of, hey, this this is going on and we talked about where's the line? So, are we

022crossing the line here? Are we getting close to the line? And it really got to some good discussions. Um, some things that I thought of in that as an athletic director, like, oh yeah, that'd be no big deal. And they're like, yeah, that's kind of a big deal for us. Um, so getting everybody to kind of think in that role or get them thinking just outside of the student section or them on the court at games, you know, how are you what are your actions conveying to those people sitting next to you? You know, you and your friends are all in the student section, but across the aisle is a a mom and and some elementary age kids. Um so getting them to think about that and then um what we also did is through

023that us athletic directors talked and we we kind of like doing that kind of an activity. So I created a Google doc that as different scenarios pop up throughout the year for each of us athletic directors. We can throw that in and make that a topic for the next year's conversation. Um, and then the last one we were going to do, we were going to do a a hey fan sportsmanship um, video and then talking to some of the guys in the group, we thought it would be better to take that format and with the changes coming in the league for next year, take that and instead of doing one this year, do it as like a new V new a new day in the BWAC as the league changes a little bit. So, um,

024and yeah, I mean I, um, just a couple thank yous before I let Jake talk from the student side of it, but huge thank you to Cynthia, um, who did a ton of coordinating for it, making sure breakfast and lunch and all of that was there and having to deal with me super stressed out that week because it was also homecoming week. [clears throat] Um, and Brian as well helping coordinate and plan a lot of that. Eric and Ian ran the tech. Um, and Jacob was kind of another, hey, I need that. Please run down to get that or that. Um, so a huge thank you to you guys for that as well. But, um, I brought Jake to speak kind of on the student side and what they they've seen coming out of that.

025Okay. Um, so to piggy back off of that sportsmanship summit, I guess the way that we see it as a way to connect with students from a different school, you know, cuz obviously we're playing like our MA down the road, you want to beat them really bad, but you got to be careful what you're saying. So, it's nice to see kind of like what they consider offensive. Like I think what what was one of them? Fara. I don't even know that was offensive, but they all thought it was. But uh so it's just a way to interact with different schools and we see it we think that every other BWAC school could use a sack because they all need some some students to represent the student body and then it's a very important way to

026get more student involvement in our sports cuz since co the numbers and participation are dropping and with a sack you can discuss ways to build those numbers back up hopefully boost the programs. >> So Jake, do do not all the schools have one in the BWAC? >> So no, >> it so um and we we talked about it I think a couple meetings ago, but the athlete advisory council was something I brought in. I was on it in college. >> I didn't realize they didn't not everyone >> Yeah. And I and I've talked to different ads about getting things started and kind of getting Jake up there and putting a student face to it is hopefully getting some of those conversations going in those other those other schools. And then, you know, once if we

027get more people doing it, it helps to make it a little bit better because then we can bounce ideas off of it instead of us coming up with everything on our own sometimes. >> So, Preston referenced some changes in the league. If you had if you haven't heard, Alvin Act is moving to the back next school year. So, right now in the BWAC, uh we have um applications open for people to submit um and be considered to join the BWAC. So, that will be um coming down the pipe in terms of that. But I think one of the things that I that I that I really love about the BWAC conference compared to what I've experienced in others is this is just this is really beyond just athletics. is about teaching students sportsmanship and and

028what to do as Preston said beyond high school. Um we as a BWAC have done the art exhibit. Um we try to coordinate um I know Molly's been having conversations with the band directors about trying to do some type of honors BWAC band to get that going competition. So it's really about bringing the league together and showcasing all of our student talent. So it's it's really a great league to be a part of. I thank Preston and all the students. Um it was a great day. How many kids are in our council? >> Um, I'd say about 20 and it it the tough part is I'd say about 20 because you know membership at each meeting is a little bit different because it's after school. So we're but we're trying to balance it with away

029events and practices and whatnot. So we try to represent when we sat down last year and looked at okay who do we want to invite. We looked at you know what kids in each group are kind of leaders in their groups but also some of them cover like Jake covers three different sports. So he can speak for soccer, he can speak for basketball, he can speak for golf. Um so things like that >> and how do we get how do we get kids? We a lot of it's conversations I have with the students about, you know, as one group goes out who might be kids we want to look at. I let I give them a lot of input. Um and then I reach out to our coaches too and say, "Hey, who are some

030of the leaders on your teams?" They don't always a lot of times I try not to get all seniors in it because I'm only going to have them for a year. So we there are a lot of freshman that we bring in or sophomores we bring in. We have any other questions? Thank you both very much for speaking tonight. Okay, next item on our agenda is our middle school high school course catalog. So in your backup you should have the full document. Um but also in the um cover sheet you have a bulleted list of the changes that were made kind of page by page item by item there. Um so that's probably the easiest thing to reference for the most part. Um, so with the guide, if we go through, I would say kind

031of the overall gist is for the most part a lot of clean up. Just, you know, we kind of crossing our tees, dotting our eyes, making sure everything was um just kind of consistent throughout places where language had changed maybe over the course of years and it didn't get updated all the different sections of the course guide. So that I would say that's the most of it. It's been just very simple um kind of cleanup changes. Um, of course you also had approved um several new courses for the middle school at our last meeting. So those have been added and then anywhere that an update was needed, you know, to list that or what else it might um be part of. So all of those changes are made and um we did include so you

032know that there's opportunity for classes to pilot um before they're up for full approval. Last year, we did not put them in the course guide, but there were um some kind of miscommunications for students not understanding that those were an opportunity of a class they could take that year. So, those are noted in the guide, but they're very clearly indicated as a pilot class and, you know, up for approval next school year, but we just wanted to do that to make sure they had a fair chance for students to understand those are classes they can actually take next school year. So, I'd say that's kind of the overview of um the biggest changes. Um and then a few things at the high school level. Um, so of course our traditional updating of the school year,

033the school staffing you'll see on the first couple pages. Um, of course the table of contents will be updated once everything is finalized to match page to page. Um, rising list of courses offered to include any of those newly approved courses. So those get listed out there for each grade level. So again, the green sections would be all of the places where that's pretty much those new classes that were approved last time and the different grades they're available for. Uh and then again, when we get down to the high school section, we jump right into middle school there. Um so one change that you'll see throughout. Um previously, um we had a kind of disclaimer for every single class throughout the entire guide, um that would indicate if the course was offered virtually, which almost

034always it is. We'll see a few examples where the nature of the course it wouldn't be. Um but rather than having that as its own line under each one, we just um have a little section um that comes at the beginning that says you know as a district we are not formally and generally offering virtual programming. Um oh yes here it is that little disclaimer. So this just kind of stands for the whole section rather than having it as its own line. Um so again we do see there noted that um for the middle school there are three classes advanced PE strength and conditioning and video productions um that would not be able to work as a virtual course um just based on the nature of what's going on in those classes and the materials

035the students would need access to um if they were not here in the school building. So that is um wouldn't really say an addition but it is just a difference of putting it in one place rather than you know under each um separate course. Uh going on from there I said you'll see that red strike through on every single one. So um that's kind of repetitive there. page 24 sick here. >> Sorry [laughter] nervous. >> Okay. Um so this section is where again so one of the classes that was approved was the creative technology course at the middle school. And so as a reminder, that is a class that took pieces of um computer tech uh computer programming, web design, and uh there's one other one. I'll remember it when we scroll by it. Um

036that um so they took pieces of each of those and made that year-long creative tech class rather than three separate classes. They get that little bit and piece of each of them through the creative technology classes. So that's why those ones have been removed but the key concepts were just moved into creative technology multimedia development that's yep so that multimedia development would be part of that as well as um video production is the same web design also part of creative Next one, page 30. >> 30. Yep. Okay. So, here is the theater class. So, the changes that came with the theater class. So, the class that was currently running at the middle school for theater, we've adjusted that name to be introduction to theater so that there's a differentiation between the two. So, the new

037class that was approved is theater and that's the should be the next one. And the previous or current class is intro to theater now. So kind of that scaffolding to include that big class. Then we have on page 39 we will see the newly approved STEM and agriculture class. And so that's the course description that came right out of the document that was approved by the board last month. Page 43. We're going to be getting into the high school now. So, we again information is going to be largely the same. We reordered some things. There was if you kind of went through the document before, it got to be rather repetitive. There was kind of the same information in different places because it got past stretched out and spread out in different ways. So, if

038we had we found where areas where was like, oh, we already read this. We already saw this. This was already somewhere. we might have reordered things or found out of the three places where it was located before, which one place did it make the most sense just to kind of streamline and simplify the document. So, some things are in different orders. Again, this chart gets updated every year to indicate the new credit requirements. Um, and then the list below. Um, there's not very much change. Um, science there, we really don't have science. Um, that's not something we've had for years to have like where we have math credits. um uh allow math uh related credits. We have for math. That's common. Typically, you don't see that in science anymore. We haven't offered that. So, I

039think it was just something that didn't get deleted back when it stopped happening. So, we cleaned that up. Um we have the guitar class. It was just kind of missing out of that vocational list. Uh again, I'm sure an oversight from the past. So, we made sure to include that and just change the wording to CTE because that is the wording we use. Got rid of information for 2025. CPR. Again, CPR still exists. It is still required for us to um give basic CPR instruction to our students in either their health or PE class, which for students are required to take. Um it it didn't really it's not its own class, right? Everything else on that list was its own class. So CPR still happens. It just it's not its own class. It's not its

040own entity. It's not something that students do outside of that health or PE class. So that would be something would be in the course description for those classes, but it doesn't need to be its own standalone. We didn't want it to be confusing and have people think their child is going to be taking a CPR class. It's not its own class. Um, and again, that strikeout that's there is information that was somewhere else. So, it just was moved [clears throat] um to one place or the other. Um, we did add and just again it's just really wording to clarify that that junior year the students do have to take the MSTEP uh and SAT um as part of their graduation requirements. So, just um again clarifying that. Um I think we had somewhere else where

041talked about the 40 hours of community service. So that got added here where we were talking about it. Um and again the red strikeout is going to be seen somewhere else. It was duplicated in the document. Um the scheduling requirements um again not anything majorly different just kind of clarifying some pieces. Uh previously the EDP had like its own section and so we sort of can made that more concise. basically matches what the middle school section looked like. So theirs was all in one page like you're seeing here. So we made the high school section match the the middle school section. These are outdated. So obviously we still talk about and have career pathways through CTE, but these Q&As are again they're outdated. Um these are not the descriptures that are used. And there are

042also many more. I'm sure Miss could probably tell us how many um total pathways we have now. I 17 and I think we had you know six or so eight on here. Um to add 17 seemed a bit much for our course guide. Certainly we those are things we talk about with the students and their counselor shares those pieces of information with them. But this particular information was again out of date. So it was either remove it or add all 17 but they change very frequently. Um so we thought it was best just to be able to make that more open-ended. Uh and this would be the match um that we saw before. So just like the middle school, the high school classes will not individually talk about if it's offered virtually or not. So

043it has the overall disclaimer that as a district that is not a mode of education that we're offering typically unless there was a documented reason and also lists the classes that would not be applicable for virtual. So AIS culinary the education CTE courses emergency medical classes TV and broadcasting and writing for publication yearbook. So pretty much CT and yearbook are the two that didn't quite fit that parameter. And just the name change on art um I think it was previously introduction um to basic design. So just a clean up on that to help students understand better what it actually is. is truly an introduction to all those future art classes. They get a little taste of a little bit of everything. And so we thought that would help them make an informed decision as they

044were choosing classes. Um the high school teachers had a chance during one of our um first PDJ days just to go through what was previously there and there, you know, were specific programs maybe that were used, little tweaks here and there. Um so again, this one, Miss, um Shannon wanted to make sure that we included print making um for drawing ones. So just little changes. Um, again, it's nothing is actually really changing with the curriculum. It was just sort of making this document match the reality in their classroom. Um, and so here is where we again kind of took out pieces that were redundant related to CTE. Um, so kind of just cleaned up and simplified the language that was there. So the same general sense of what we would want to share with students

045and families but just a little bit more concise. Um so this is what we have as far as that Richmond for those career pathway. So instead of just having the generic ones that are just out there across the state, this is truly what a student in our district could look at as a career pathway um essentially. And so you kind of see if they were looking at business, what would that look like across um you know a several year plan or high school plan. So um that would be that piece. Um AIS this is the year three of AIS and so that is now all of the courses have the opportunity for an um in internship at the end um as a final piece of their CT pathway. Um so again we didn't need to

046have AIS as its own. We have a separate section now that explains all of those internship opportunities including um you'll see this little addition at the end of most of the CTE classes. So they each have um that opportunity for student leadership development. So whatever the appropriate method of that development is. So this particular one would be an option to have the student be part of DECA for that leadership development and part of an organization. So again, you can see that added to most of the CTE programs if it was not previously there. Um, again, just cleaning up the those descriptions to better match what reality is in the classroom. Here's one of our pilot classes. So hopefully all goes well and you will see a full um proposal for this course um next year

047around this time next year. Um, definitely this is one that's been highly talked about. The students have expressed interest. the teacher has um been able to share the applicable um you know forward opportunities for students that do take cyber security. It's definitely one of those trending areas right now. So we are excited to be able to offer that to the students and see how that goes for them. Um culinary uh we are adding that um culinary 2 course um for students that have already fully completed culinary one. And so this is that idea of the students that would truly run um the cafe. And so there will be students that already that it'll help hit the ground running right away. Um again, pilot course for this year, but we have um good high hopes that

048it will catch on and be the appropriate way to stack those colony courses. So now it takes several months. It's usually gosh, what month are we usually at when the cafe is able to open about March? Because you have so many pieces of learning and those foundational pieces that those students have to get before we can really open the doors to the public safely and and um properly. This would allow it to happen much much sooner because it would be students who had that last year. They're ready to hit the ground running coming in. So, it'll really open up that um subject area. and just changing clarifying in that language of those descriptors. Still course revisions for most of the CD classes but yeah not changing the actual content. So this one would just be

049again. So there are a few classes that have not run for several years. They have been on the course selection sheets for students um but have not had enough students select them to where the class has had enough students to run the class. Um so in conversation with the high school team, we thought to sort of streamline things a little bit, we would look at a rotating schedule of some of those classes. So, we would still like to keep, you know, creative writing, contemporary thought, popular literature, and those classes um available for the future. We're not saying that we want to remove them from being approved in the future, but we would like to kind of rotate them to streamline what classes are offered at what time. And again, hopefully that will encourage students to

050take them again in the future because it hasn't been offered for a while. It'll be something fresh and something new um even though it's a class that we have potentially offered in the past. Um and writing for publication newspaper again hasn't um hasn't run in a long time and unfortunately you know that's kind of one of those dying um career fields that realistically um again unless it was revamped [clears throat] to be something that was more digital formatted we probably wouldn't see that again just an updating. So the English courses were all updated to better match our new status curriculum that was implemented. So those ones um moved in that direction. Again, you'll see these strikethroughs are those classes that we saw up above that were crossed out for this year. And this is just

051a description of our intervention classes. They are not changing um per se. There was some language about prerequisites in there, but if you look at the actual um if you scroll just a little bit, Brian, at the beginning, it's it explains in the intro how students are selected to be put into these classes. So, we did not think it needed to be listed under every single one because it's there as the introduction. Um this is a little bit of a new concept. So, we are looking at adding um again as a pilot this year, AP pre-calculus. And so, with that addition, it kind of opens up those potential upper um classman math classes that they can take. So, we have a new pathway, if you will, of math um courses. So, you have kind of

052the traditional one, a student who's just taking those typical algebra, geometry, algebra 2, and then a math related course. And then pathway two is more what we've seen in the past of where you see a student who starts to move into that honors track because they maybe took algebra um as a student or you know were able to gain access into that pathway three would really be even a step beyond that. So students that are truly going to go deep into a math related field and have opportunities to take multiple AP courses. And so again, adding that AP pre-calculus opens that pathway up to even branch into two and pathway three where they could keep on that uh calculus, pre-calculus and calculus track. Or if that wasn't their plan, they could still do trigonometry and

053also they'd be pre-calculus later or another math related course. So really a lot of options and opportunities for students to have the right pathway that will work for their plans. through the music classes. I think we just it we didn't have it noted in all of them that they all met the BPA um requirement. Um so it's again an oversight that we made sure to include that in all of the ones where it should have been. Again, these sections are just matching things that we've already talked about section to section. One of the classes we talked about rotating We've updated the heading of this section. Um it it didn't really have a heading. It just sort of blended from the previous pages to this page. Um and again mirroring more closely what the middle school

054section had. We gave it its own heading. So you kind of move from course listings into this new piece of the course catalog. So that's why it does have a heading. Now this is where the information about community services listed that you saw stricken out above. It's just in this location. Um these online classes are the ones that we do offer for high school students. Not not the virtual teaching but the true Michigan virtual online classes that are offered have been in the past [clears throat] changes for dual enrollment. those all the same am and the language on the form for workbased learning. So again, this would go back into those internship pieces like AIS for example, um that we saw in the course guide before, but now would be eligible for really any of

055the pathways. So the form is just updated to match the correct language of workbased learning. Um that's how the students would be able to get their hours for for those programs. just updating the date so that they matched across the line there. This form is a permission slip that's used for one class only. So rather than having it be here, it will be available on the school website and then that way if there was another class in the future, they would have access to it and could use it. If we have other classes that use film as a foundation or an anchor of their course, um we wouldn't have to go in and update the form per se. It would just be a form like a field trip form or other forms that we have

056available. I will if there are questions I will also we have miss and miss available as well. Any specific questions? Uh I got one question uh regarding the um the virtual learning program. It specifically states that it would primarily just be for medical reasons. Uh would or could we add a a something that offer something more broad? I guess if we had like another COVID type of scenario. >> Sure. Absolutely. I mean if we got back into a situation where as a whole all you know wholesale we would have to adjust back to virtual that we would be in a situation adjusting so many things and and absolutely this would be a piece of it. Um at this point though we are kind of trying to operate in you know using this as if everything

057was as it is right now kind of traditional right this is you know this year next school year barring any major pandemic um you know that would be the only type of offering but if we did come into we all could not be physically in school together anymore. That would be kind of an addendum that we would include and we absolutely we would cross that bridge if we had to. Um but you know again as things are running as normal quote unquote that we wouldn't typically offer it anymore. So, >> so the the reason why we took it out and put that statement in there, often times when people are reading this, they're assuming we are offering a virtual option for families. And about two, it might even be three years now, we started getting

058about two years, we started getting out of the business of virtual and going back to in person precoid and just using the virtual option as the as it's stated right now as a um an option for people with a medical condition um doctor. So we wanted to make sure there wasn't any confusion that we are offering virtual for a student who doesn't have a medical condition other than with the Michigan virtual be through that process. >> Okay. Yeah. I was I was just wondering if if we're if we're deciding on it now if that's something that could just be added in now so that we wouldn't have to do it later on in the event that it would even come up. So just like a disclaimer that if we if we were forced obviously word

059it nicely but if we were forced into a situation where we had to be you know could not meet physically in person that we could presume virtual. >> Yeah that's possible. >> The only challenge and I don't mean to be pushing but the only challenge we have on that is when we go virtual from the state perspective they usually set the rules that we have to play by if you will. So when we were in virtual during co there was a lot of depending on how virtual you were whether you were synchronous or asynchronous you had different sets of rules you had to play by. So just making up a statement that if >> we'd have to include something we have to follow the pupil accounting rules in order credit for that that virtual assignment.

060>> Okay. >> Other questions. So this will come back to the board on Jan as you see on there on January 27th which is your next formative you'll you'll officially approve the meeting scheduled in January at the organizational meeting assuming it's the same schedule January 27th for approval. So if you have any questions between now and then that or see something let Billy know and so we can address it make the um corrections or or fixes >> and I'll do a quick sneak peek since I since Miss and Mr. Gibson are here and they I don't think they will be next time. So we I should have had this time but you'll you'll see it in um January. Well, another piece that we're adding this year is an elementary course guide. So we've never had

061that before. Elementary a little bit different. Of course, students aren't picking a variety of classes. You know, they're getting their teacher and then they have the same specials that each student gets. They all have the same ones on their rotation. But we did put together a course guide that in detail describes what their curriculums are, what each of those specials um covers and um it's a really I mean it's a very thorough document. Definitely very proud of what the team is putting together has put together with that. Um so we will also bring that to you for your approval. So just kind of a sneak peek on that. We're very excited to be able to share that next. >> Okay. So, so that I'm understanding and hearing you correctly. So, there's there's a course guide

062that we're going to be that's going to be presented that wasn't part of this packet that we're going to be voting on the next session. >> It will be an additional, but it will it's much different than this. So, it'll be a much simpler process. We've never had one before. And again, it's not um it's really just a description of what's there. It's not any new courses. It's not any um you know, it's not any changes of courses. We truly just took a snapshot ultimately of what's at the elementary currently um and put it to paper and made a nice uh nice document to share out. So, we will certainly bring that to you. We want the board to be able to see that. Um but like I said, it's not adding, changing, deleting anything

063from the current curriculum that exists. It's just a great document to share what exists. So to clarify, it would be a presentation and then an action item for board approval over two meetings. >> So the presentation might be in January. The action would be first meeting or it might be February. But this is this is often often asked of parents when they're registering kids. And so um again, kudos to the elementary team for putting this together. Um um >> it's one of those things like why don't we have this? It's good to have. >> Yeah. It's looking really great. >> Good. Thank you very much. I'd like to also thank our staff, our administration for putting this together. I know how much work it is. Okay. Next item on our agenda is um we're going

064to go into a close session. So, I'm looking for a motion to go into close session. >> Pursuant to MCL15.268 268 section 8H of the Michigan Open Meetings Act. I move that the board of education go into close session for the purpose of considering material exempt from discussion or disclosure by state of federal statute support. >> Thank you. Um any discussion this will be a roll call vote. >> Hi. >> Uh Sarah, >> hi. >> Danielle, >> hi. >> Sandy, >> hi. Uh Raymond >> I. >> Candace. >> Hi. >> I vote I. Motion carries. We're going to the board office. Okay. Uh for our people audience, we will be finishing our meeting once we return. Okay. Next item on our agenda is our litigation against social media. Mr. Palms. >> Okay. Um this is

065um there is a collection of school districts across the state that have are process file a lawsuit regarding cost associated social media. Um and this is similar to um the power school that was uh joined with us topic. It's different than we voted on. Um there's a time frame that we have to be uh let them know that we want to join and be part of this. So this particular one is to help reimburse districts for costs associated with the stuff that they're dealing. So for instance, social one of the costs that we have is gaggle which is a yearly cost which monitors social media. It's the uh thrillshare website that's used for posting things. It's the time that uh that we're dealing with outside social media stuff that's brought in the administrators uh time

066and so forth that is a way of uh if we win would allow them to um there'll be a dollar value that the district would um receive out. So what's it for you tonight is do you want to be part of this social media litigation? Again, it's it's again very similar to powerful attorney representing. There's a list of districts in your packet in Michigan that enjoy um [clears throat] >> 148, >> pardon, >> 148. >> Yes, that was as of that date that that was sent to me. There could be more that have that have joined on. Um some that are in in our area that have decided, but um I think the crux for me in in recommending this is [clears throat] Yeah, there's a time that if if if litigation goes through that

067we're going to have to gather stuff like we are doing the power schools. Um probably identify what cost we're probably running um discipline reports, figure out what what students we dealt with, how much time we deal with it. We pull our gaggle bill, all of our social media software systems that we put in place to try to prevent and block nothing's 100%. Um so again this is a similar that lawsuit is the costs are all coming out is the top of the lawsuit the settlement attorney. This one's through O'Reilly Renilio which is one of our attorneys. We generally use them for student disciplines and um we've done like board workshops in the past especially when we have new board members uh where the previous one was through trim law. That's basically trying to provide you

068with all the backup. There's a couple things that the districts who have joined reports that have come out from the US Surge General. There's again the list of districts that have joined. Um, so this is just asking the question, does the district want to be part of this lawsuit? >> Ryan, can I ask a question? >> Yep. When it says the district pays only if financial recovery is awarded, is that a percentage of what's awarded or is that a set fee, could we at all owe them more than what would be awarded? >> No. And the conversation, if the award is $100 million, the attorney's cost off that and the remaining dollars are divided by the district that so would not owe more or owe them anything. It's going to come off the top. So,

069>> okay. >> Yeah. It sound like the only cost that we would incur would be like secretarial type >> just getting like when we did the powers content once we sent the resolutions the board is was opting they sent us a list of things that we needed to begin capturing so we didn't lose most of the stuff we don't have because we weren't affected. >> But there are some things that we have that we captured and we're saving. This would be similar. They'll probably say, "Okay, what do you uh what cost do you think you've incurred because of social media activities that affected the school that would normally this >> can you opt out at any time if down the road you don't want to do it? Is that a different >> There is a

070you're not committed up until that settlement. You're not committed. You can you can >> opt out is the easiest. >> Yeah. >> Okay. you can you can decline the uh and in the uh the documentation you provided for members it states that the uh that will designate a district official to work with the legal team. I'm assuming that's going to be our legal representative [cough] for this particular one. would be um the interim superintendent and it probably be our Eric our IT person because we probably have to do Cami's probably going to be involved from the finance end. What bills have we paid associated? We'd be looking at the function code of those bills paid for it and associated. Okay, we have this system because we have we have these social media involved in our

071school district. Oh, so yeah there would be designated like for the powers school Sarah and I uh the people accounting person sat in we had it there we all kind of went through the list and divvied up who's responsible for for capturing a [snorts] similar process would take place here >> okay thank you anyone else have any other questions thank you next item on our agenda is our educator on loan program billing Okay. So, we have a great opportunity um coming to us from the MCOME ISD through the 35A grant, which is one of the ones that funnels through the ISD and then they're able to share out services to the local districts um with that money. So, I believe it started 16 years ago um or somewhere around it. So quite a few years

072ago really started the educator on loan um program and the name kind of came from it used it started as there would be MCOMED employees that they would then allow to go out to districts and serve as early literacy coaches on fed literacy and math. Um but that person was a MCOME ISD employee and then the district was kind of borrowing them. They would you know help them loan them out. Since um its inception, the program has changed and now when the ISD is able to offer a district an educator alone, that teacher educator um early literary coach is ultimately what they become. Um they are an employee of the district of their home district. Um I mean it could be someone that already is an employee that shifts into this position or it could

073be hiring outside and and bringing somebody new in. Um but as far as the um what the IC does is they provide um $125,000 toward that person's salary. So in many cases that could be the full salary or very very close to that person's full salary with including benefits >> salary and benefits. >> Um and so um we are so they've always kind of started with their most atrisisk schools in the county. So, um it's just over time they've had enough carryover. These grants um have increased in how much they're receiving as the county. And so this year they were able to offer Richmond um the chance to have an educator alone. So which again would be having someone that is a district employee in the capacity of an early literacy coach. So that would

074be a K5 literacy coach. You can think similarly in a lot of ways to our instructional coaches. Keeping in mind they are K5. there, every subject area, they're kind of helping wherever they need to. Um, this person would have a much more narrow scope. Um, it would have to be K5 only and it actually could go prek um if you take that back. So, they could help at um prek levels as well. Um, but it has to be literacy and they would be working um with teachers, but very very targeted at our students that need um heavy intervention. A lot of this room um would come into play with like the um dyslexia laws, different things like that. this person would sort of be our go-to in the district for changes like that. Um when

075we think about like read by grade three and and all of those things of that nature, this would be the person who's sort of the build the district expert on all of those areas. So um the first year of the agreement is a lot of training. So the ISD provides very extensive training um in a number of early literacy um programs and initiatives and um resources strategies so that that person is able to bring them back and implement them across the district and train all of the teachers um in that. Um they do have a number of again because they are paying that person's salary ultimately for the most part a number of check-ins where they would have to go back and kind of report on how it's going um if we're seeing progress being

076made um with those changes that they're implementing and with the pieces that they're bringing in. Um as of right now, again, obviously this is based on uh grant funding. Um, the ISD can guarantee that this that they have funding. If funding was cut off tomorrow with the carryover that they have, they would be able to carry on their current number of coaches, including the new ones invited this year through um the end of next school year, so the 26 27th school year. Um, but again, unless funding was cut drastically, they have every intention and expectation that this would continue. Like I said, it's been going for many, many years now, and they've continued to be able to grow it. They haven't been having to reduce. Um, so we, again, like I said, we have that

077opportunity this year to um potentially uh have that role filled for our district and then again covered um most fully by the ISD. Um and so we would like to move forward with that opportunity. So basically the process right now is we have a posting out there um see internal candidates um who would be applying there's interest there >> we requested applications by the end of the day yesterday Sunday um but it is still >> so at that point we do we look at the internal candidate the current teacher that we need in the classroom and at the same time we've got to look at back filling filling that position um for the win-win on this if if the um funding does go away. The person that we have has when you look at the

078extensive training that they're going to they're it's an asset to our district regardless of whether um they're in this position that would be great to keep them in it, but uh they're going to get a lot of training. The uh the downside, if you will, is the current teacher and and and it's more likely going to be a current teacher. We got a back. >> The plus side is we've had a lot of we've done a lot more student teachers, newer teachers. We have some really good student teachers who are ending their their time. That would be I mean we would hire them in a hard that's got some really good ones. >> Yes, that is definitely good timing. I got I got [cough and clears throat] >> Go right. Y All right. Sorry. Um

079so you mentioned that the the position would be employees of the district. So but you also mentioned that um they would be receiving grant funding. So I'm I'm just looking to clarify is is that position still paid for by grants or by the school. >> So basically what Sorry. What basically what's going to happen is we continue paying the person and then we invoice the IST and they reimburse us that person's expenses up to $125. So their their payroll, their benefits, their healthcare, their retirement costs, all that that total cost for that person, we continue to pay and we get a reimbursement from the ISTD. >> Okay. Okay. And is that on an annual basis or >> generally the ISD when they when they bill us or we bill them they generally it's usually twice

080a year like we duel or not dual uh early >> early college and international academy we get a semester bill and then we get a June bill. So they generally issue now on this particular one I'm not 100% sure if it's but generally the ISC does a semester 1 semester 2 bill. Okay. And then uh um when would this start? Because in the memorandum agreement that was sent out, the information said it would start during the 2526 school year. That would be this year, right? >> Yep. So, we would hope to be able to start it um as early as possible in the second semester. So, in um you know, which would begin January 5th for us. Um they did reach out to us a little after the school year started. Typically, they try to

081get the people in place for the start of the school year. Um but you know, as you know, we didn't have a budget right away as we started the year and that impacted um the ISD as well. So they weren't able to add any new folks until the school year had already been underway. Um and so again, we wanted to make sure we took our time with this um and and had everything kind of planned in place before we knew it was the right thing for us to move ahead on. And so now that it seems like the pieces have fallen into place as far as how we could backfill everything, um we feel comfortable to move ahead in that way now. And like I said, hopefully have somebody in um in early January. >>

082Okay. And then how many you said that you guys recently posted open positions. How many positions are we looking to fill? >> It's just for one. We have just uh the option of one person. >> Okay. And then um so far as parroes I I think we we had this discussion previously months ago about the um the educators on loan and I think we touched on that. I don't remember what came out of that conversation but I I thought I remember something about would would this position replace a a parapro in some nature? Well, there's a couple programs here that this position, this program is would replace a teacher that's currently in the classroom who would take on this role and we would hire that person that uh whether it's a new teacher or someone

083else in to replace it. There are programs out there where we have um pair of pros who were able to if they were far enough I think they have an associates degree could get their teaching certificate and their certification in special ed and it's all 100% paid >> that's a grow your own thing that's a grow your own world that's a different program than what this is [snorts] >> this is they have to be a teacher um >> certified elementary um K you know ability to teach K5 teacher certified teacher for elementary grade levels >> and this is strictly for the literacy. >> Yes, they would. Yep. So again the focus of this particular one that we've been offered is for literacy. Yeah. >> Okay. Okay. And then in the uh further to the the

084documentation says the roles and responsibilities of the participating district would be to uh allow oversight and direction of educator on loan by the MISD assistant superintendent for instruction or chief academic officer in partnership with district designate. Um so what does that exactly mean? >> So kind of the rest of the contract. So in my mind I kind of look at that as that's why that one is first. So that person the um chief academic officer at the ISD uh would be their direction is for this person to do the remainder of that agreement. Right? So they are going to participate in the um the different trainings. Right? So I'm looking at the last bullet point on that page. The the designate of the assistant superintendent there of curriculum would be sending out someone to do

085an observation of that person um a half day every six weeks. So we would agree that we would allow them to come in and do that observation of our educator on loan. Um again that list of trainings uh that's on the next page and again it is a variety like I said that first year it's a lot of training that they offer and provide our our uh literacy coach. So that would be the expectation is that they would under the direction of the MISD they would attend and we would allow them to attend all of those trainings. Um and again as you look down the rest of the responsibilities those are all laid out by the MIST and so the expectation is that we would uh monitor that our person in that role is following

086those expectations. >> Think think of it this way. The grant says we're trying to build literacy fluency among our kids and we need teachers trained in X Y and Z. The ISD is the fiduciary of the grant. So, in order for us to get the money, we have to commit. The person that we pick is going to go to those trainings and do it and take what they've learned back to the classroom. And we're just agreeing that yes, [clears throat] we're committing to that and we're going to that person going to do it. The ISC, as Billy said, we're allowing them every six weeks if you want to come in to make sure the person is doing what they're supposed to be doing, we have no issue with that because we're we're in agreement that

087this training and this stuff is is critical for our staff. No, that that that gives me a little bit clearer understanding of what that means. Um, and so when when we're talking about the hiring position, you had mentioned, you know, there there may be several several educators within the district already that may be interested in this position. Um, is there a requirement to hire inside or from within or could that be to like an open? Uh it is posted in both ways. It is posted internally and externally. >> I I will say Billy and I and the administrators, Jennifer and and Heidi particularly, we've had conversation variety and there are some good people within our district that would be perfect for this job who have the ability to not only take what they're going to

088get and go with it, but also influence in a positive way their colleagues and instruction in the classroom. And an important piece to remember with this is it's not right, it's not just a teacher in the classroom, but it is another adult working with the adults. And so having those relationships already built is a huge advantage. Um, you know, when you're working with with peers in that way um because they they would still be part of the REA. They would still be a peer to the teachers. Again, much like our instructional coaches currently are. Um, but again, having those relationships is such a helpful piece um if we're able to. Okay. So, you said the uh the announcements closed on Sunday. Did Did you get a chance to to kind of sneak peek or preview

089who applied? >> We did. So, this is kind of a hard. So, we had two we did have two external candidates apply. Um, one was qualified, one was not exactly meeting the qualifications that we would need. Um, I've had conversation with two of our teachers who are very interested. They've asked me questions. Um, I know that they would like to apply, but they did not put their application in on time. So, as we said, we did request that it was done by midnight yesterday, but it is still open. So, I have not had a chance today to follow up with um those individuals that have reached out to me previously um to ask questions and clarifying uh you know, comments about the posting. Um but I'm very confident that they are still interested and not

090sure you know, what delayed them. Um, so I will follow up with them to make sure that they understood, you know, that they did need to get that application in to be fully recognized. >> And and that posted, just so you're clear, like kind of minimum 7 days. Doesn't mean that we can't keep it longer. >> That was the seven days. >> And and I'm not going to speak for the two individuals or the ones we've talked about, but I can only speculate when someone's choosing to leave the classroom to go into this role, that's a big decision. Um and so they want to make sure you know they know part of the um you know the the stuff ahead of time was the the unions agreeing that we have this option which is part

091of procedural stuff which we have um they're all on board and very supportive of this. So I think it would be our best interest and what we'd like is to really see if those people that have had conversation we really would like more of them to see it and like and like like Brian said I think it's just that fear now right where we haven't gone with that conversation is to to say you know you might be worried that you're leaving your classroom right you've built these relationships but that we have seen some of those great um student teachers that we have in place and they might not realize that right so there's I think there's some things where they might be nervous and so like I said I definitely want to reach out make

092sure they understand that you know it is a great opportunity if if they really are interested. So um I think we will and again we were kind of trying to keep that deadline tight like I said we're hopeful that we can get this up and and move in by January. So we wanted to be able to potentially do some interviews before we left for break. Um I'm still hopeful that we can get there but um we will kind of see how those conversations go right now. >> So Billy after So, we know the funds or funds could be through next year. >> What happens if there aren't any funds? Do they go back into the classroom? >> Yeah. So, and if we were, you know, if we were in a situation not to be able

093to continue, right, we'd see looking at seniority and those kind of things if we had to move somebody because of that. >> And if the grant ends, are we committed to keeping this position as a district? We can >> unfortunately ended. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. You have one more question. If um can the teachers if a teacher accepts this, can they back out if they get into it and they say, "This really isn't for me. I missed the classroom or are they committed for a certain?" >> So, they're committed for the year. Um so, for us to be, you know, kind of prorated this school year. Um if you know, if it just didn't turn out and and it really was not the right fit, I think what would happen is we would just wouldn't be

094eligible to get the reimbursement. So, we'd be out that money um if we put them back into the classroom would be the repercussion of that. So we might as a district just say >> that I think the is you're committing to this year and a half that we know the position is going to be there because the funding is there. >> I'd like that better. >> So Brian, you know I'm cautious about any grants. Um but first what struck me was what makes us at risk. Every district in the county like I said I think we are the second to last or third to last district in the county that didn't already have one. So they start with their most at risk of students. So low poverty rate, low test scores, those you know those

095are their main um target factors. And so they would have started with the districts within the county like I said 16 years ago that were those you know top you know schools that had concerns in those areas and they had them 16 years ago and so now they have enough funds to continue to add them to more and more and more districts. So I mean if money was good every district in the county would have an would have an early literacy coach because they can fund it and you always have students who could stand to improve their reading. So it's not saying that we are at risk, >> but at risk is a broad term from perspective. They look at free reduced lunch rates and >> they look at our third grade reading. >> We're

096not at risk when you look at the spectrum of third grade compared to the other we're not at risk. >> But we have students who are not proficient. We have families who are free to use lunch. So because we have that we're eligible. It took us 16 years to get to be eligible. >> Yeah, that was my comment. It took us 16, look at the other side of it. It took us 16 years to get to the top of the list, you know. So, there's >> that many districts that they've already taken under their correct before us. >> And some are just like I said, it could be ELA and math. Some have, if a district has five elementary schools, they might have one in every elementary school. So, we're we're not near the top

097of that risk list at all. Nowhere close. >> This was this was I'll be honest. This was a shock for me that we got asked. >> Yeah. >> And they they just And there are some districts who've turned it down and have funded it internally through other sources because they didn't they wanted to do their own system, >> right? >> Um for us to create our own. The IC does really good stuff. Let's just let's use what they're doing in training. They they provide all the training. you don't have to coordinate that but sending the people to the the training on that date. >> So um I know the paperwork says educator on this isn't the actual grant in which we're receiving this isn't the grant ISD yeah the ISD receives the 35A grant funding

098and with that they are able to provide this opportunity to the districts of Mcome County. The ISD gets the grant. >> Correct. >> We don't have to adhere to the grant. They do. >> Correct. We're not being held to whatever the grant. >> No, we just have to agree to this agreement. This agreement. This would be the extent of what we're agreeing to >> and the finances go towards the um salary and benefit >> salary benefits by your retirement. So the total cost. So if the individual that's coming out is let's say their total cost is when you look at health care retirement cost all that stuff 130,000 we're only getting 125 generally unless you've been here 30 plus years and you still have a full family our teachers are >> and so there's no

099gathering of information from any of the atrisisk students of any sort No, what they're doing is they're they're taking the training >> and implementing that in the classroom. So, if it's a if it's a researchbased way on how to teach kids phonics or reading, we want to learn it and implement it if it's not already done. >> Right. And so, as far as >> So, no children, no child is attached to as an at risk for anything. He's not getting that. >> No. Nope, that is not pertaining to this at all. Um, like I said, they do have to provide data updates. Yes, the literacy data monitoring of the student progress. But again, that would not be down to the student level. It would just be in April, our students, just like we see with

100MSP. In April, the students took this uh reading check and they were at 50% proficient. We took it again in May and as an average, we were 60% proficient. It's that >> it's really just the assessing of that. >> It's the aggregate rather down to the scale. Yeah, if they did ever in the future require something down to the student, would parents have an option to opt out of it? >> Definitely. Right. And again, it's it's really what they're already doing in their classroom. This person is just coaching to make sure the teachers are doing it to the best they possibly can. Um, but absolutely. I mean, if there was something different that came out, again, if they can't really, if we're agreeing to it, they wouldn't change it mid year. So, if next year

101they had a new agreement and it changed, we would bring it to you again. And if we weren't comfortable then we could you know not agree to it in a future year. >> And I would just say this ISD ever agreed to that. >> We can check if we have been the lone soldier fighting the state not sending student data. >> But you're right now questions. Okay. Now do we have to vote any of that anywhere with the process? There does there doesn't need to be a board votes. Part of it was just what you're going to get is replacing the down effect on one. We don't have that piece yet and that will come to you whether it's an email from me or after the new year an email to say here's where we're

102at in this. Um obviously we want to make sure we have the best transition of teacher if it is an internal teacher leaving and the teacher coming that there's a transition that those parents of those students are notified. We will keep you updated on it, but it's a it is a reimbursement. It's an extra cost to us. >> I I'm sorry. I got one last question. >> Um have have the teachers in the district already been um had this program brought to them and what are their thoughts on it? I mean, so the posting was out there and the um kind of as Sarah sent the posting out, she in the email included kind of a description of generally what it is, you know, what that role would be. Um so they've seen it in

103that way. Um again, so from that, we've had those a couple conversations where we had the teachers that were very interested in it, right, and very interested in participating in that. Um, and like I said, it's really very similar in so many ways to our current instructional coaches, which we know our teachers very much appreciate and um, you know, I have have had really great success with working with our current coaches. So, it's really adding that it's it's adding another type of coach. This particular one would be again focused in a smaller area that K5 literacy, but it will function in very much the same way as the teachers are used to operating with our current instructional coaches. So again, we've had very positive feedback and reviews from that. So um you know, I think

104the teachers are going to see it as a very very similar role and support system from this new role. >> Right. Okay. But but it hasn't been presented to them as hey, what are your thoughts about having you know the um educator on >> in their classroom? Well, it's been presented to the union leadership to get a LOA on that they're supportive of of doing this program and then we would we presented it in terms of as Billy said the the notification. Here's what we have. We have a chance to get this educator on grant. Here's what they're going to do. If you're interested, apply or let us know. And that's where we've had some that have had question. But collectively we didn't ask individual teachers yes or no. We had to start with the

105union leadership who represents them saying would you agree to this Lloyd that we have this teacher kind of stepping out of the classroom and if the funding goes back or goes away they go back into the classroom that is then approved and and they agree to that. >> And another piece where again like Brian said it hasn't been that direct question of yes or no. Um but we have um the last couple of professional developments for the elementary school have been very heavily early literacy focused. They've really been receiving some great training through NWA. Um again that's for the entire teaching staff at the elementary school and they have raved about this training. I mean they are they were really eager to continue with that early literacy learning as as the adults as the teachers

106in the room. So I think again also knowing that they are really excited and really you know interested in continuing to pursue our growth in that area. It this is exactly in line with that. I mean this gives them another avenue of just deep expertise and support and something you know again that area is an area that they are very excited to be pursuing. So um like I said without having the direct question based on you know where we're going it does seem to me to make very good sense that this is a good fit. They're already they're already used to having >> coaches. >> So this is just to me to me this is just another resource for them >> to help coach. >> It says implementing an instructional delivery model based on frequent

107use of formative screening and diagnostic tools known as multi-ter system of support to determine individual progress for student. Could you just give me an example? So that's what so we have the status um ELA curriculum right and so within the status curriculum there are at least weekly if not beyond weekly sometimes you know daily checks so those are those formative checks so that's already built into the curriculum so to answer that part of the question what a teacher would be able to do with some of this additional knowledge and support from a literacy coach who then goes out to the ISTD and does some deeper level training okay well I gave the kids this quiz on Tuesday and they have a bigger quiz or the test Friday as that teacher, what can I do with

108that data? How can I use my quiz um scores and the feedback from the students that I got on Tuesday to change my instruction to make sure that by Friday when the big test comes, they're ready? And so that person would really be able to help them dig into that data. Was the question written poorly? Was it, oh, we ran out of time that day when we got to the part that's in question three? So again, it's what's already there. It's just giving them a deeper look and and just more tools to be able to do more with what we already have. Um and then we also do have our diagnostic um uh tools within that. So that's the curriculum piece with formative, but our students um we know they're using this year and so

109that gives us um it can give us very up to-date ratings on where they are and what their growth is. And so we would continue to use that. And again same similarly with the formative assessments this uh literacy coach would be able to kind of dig deeper into those reports that are available through EXL which our students are already taking and again just take it to that next level they're already spending to me that's so important because we are having the students spend time doing some of these assessments but if we're not taking that next step to then do something different and change the plan to help them continue and improve kind of wasting our time. Um, and to me, this really leverages that to be able to let all of our teachers know what

110do I do? This is what the data tells me. What do I do next? What's that next step I should take? And this will get them there. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Okay, thank you very much. Okay, next item. Next item on our agenda is our interim superintendent discussion. So, uh, last week, um, I met with, uh, Ryan and Billy and we talked about, okay, uh, where is our pay going? Where do we need to go from here? So, our first step and the first document I want you to take a look at is the one where Billy kind of went through her job duties. Um, and it's >> Do they have that money? I don't have it, but I didn't in my Thank you. I had it up and then it went

111up. >> Oh, okay. Got it. Okay. So, if you look at this document, Billy put this together for us. And what it shows you what it shows you is that the first column shows you the duties that she will have to still continue doing um as far as curriculum's concerned. So these are curriculum jobs that she will still be doing while she is also going to be doing the superintendent duties. Um the second column would be duties that we would share with our administrative uh support that we're going to put in place or our curriculum assistant in place there. So she would be sharing it, maybe she would be overseeing it. And then the third column is duties that we could give to our >> [clears throat] >> uh person that we're going to put

112in place there to help her out during the six-month period. So are there any questions on on what you can see there in that piece or anything you want to ask Billy at this point? >> One question. >> Yes. >> So you're not considered the curriculum assistant right now. You're the curriculum. So interim curriculum assistant feels like the wrong terminology because she's not the interim curriculum assistant. She's the interim curricular curriculum director. So a lot of the roles that I think in my mind make a director different than like the space assistant would be a lot of those more administrative duties. So, I will continue to carry, as you can see in that first column, all of the um building administrator evaluations and oversight of that um as well as the other department that I

113currently oversee and provide evaluations for, which would be the special education, um the IT and the instructional coaches. So, I will continue all of that. So, that's a big piece of that directorship that this person will not carry. Um again if you look through anything that really involves um having a district level person with like the logging credentials to be so for instance for our grant system nexus um Tammy and I are the two level fives for the district. We have that top level access. I would maintain that. I would not give that over to that person. Um so that's really the difference is those really higher level administrative functions will stay with me and so this person won't have any of those. So because of that, that was the reason why we made the

114change in the title. We wanted it to be clear that they weren't going to be um you know overseeing those pieces. They're really assisting me as I continue to oversee those but have a lot more on my plate. >> So is that enough for the assistant to do in a in a week still though taking all of what you do what you're keeping away? Yeah, I feel like so >> did we give her other things >> a piece that you so everything I don't want to say I mean this is obviously it seems very simplified right but I tried to take like a broad stroke of everything that I typically do or would be expected to do over the course of like second semester is kind of where I tried to focus when this position

115would be available um a column that you don't have but that I do have kind of that exists is what they would continue to do so if this person is you know somebody that Again, if we're looking at moving an instructional coach into that position in theory, then what pieces of their current role would they continue? So much like I would have now the new superintendent positions that are new to me and I'd have those shared duties and then they kind of on the back ends they have the shared duties the new curriculum duties and also they're carrying on of what so for instance I mean again as you kind of get into it but if that person is already having mentor you know people that they're mentoring I would expect them to continue that

116if they're already in the middle of a coaching cycle that's going to continue if they have a PLC group within the district that they are the lead PLC facilitator they'll continue that work. So, it's kind of it's both ends of the spectrum there. >> Okay, that helps. Thank you. >> Any other questions on that piece? So with that in mind, uh we sat down and we developed um possible payment or a stipen. And one of the we we looked and we I know we talked about a daily rate, but then um I had gotten a hold of MASB uh just to get some input and thought about this piece and they suggested have we done anything past practice. So we did um when Mr. Wsley took over or did um our personnel piece. We gave

117him a stipen. We didn't consider a daily rate. So, we sat down. We looked at and you'll have that in the the chart like um there's two of them. There's the one one's for Billy there. Um you'll see how many days there were in there. uh things we had to consider is that she's not only going to be doing the superintendent job, but she's going to be about 50% is what we're looking at. She's going to have to keep curriculum wise. Um she also uh something we have to consider is that what maybe it wouldn't be considered normal is we're going to if we vote on it whatever we've agreed we're going to work on the bond. So that has additional pieces and additional hours that she would not anybody would not normally have. So

118th those were pieces we all looked to come up with the figure that we have on here. So if you look up at the top of of hers, you'll see on the right hand side up there in the yellow part, it shows a stipen of $18,000. >> So what's this form then? >> This form um Mr. Well, we have like two different numbers. I guess I got confused. >> Okay. Sorry. >> So, you have one that looks kind of like this. >> Yeah. >> This is a summary of the form. So, on the top part, you'll see if I was here all year. >> This is just payroll. This isn't like a benefits and all that, but this would be the salary all year. Second line of that top part is Billy. And the third

119line is the instructional coach. The second part, since I'm here half of the year, you wouldn't be paying my salary in the other half of the year. That's why it's zeroed out. In Billy's case, the first half, there's 13132 days that she would be paid at her current rate as director of [snorts] curriculum. And then on the flip side, the 128 days, which is the second half as the interim superintendent, that will be that rate. That number that's there is shown on this breakdown how I how we got to that number when when I just did the calculation was done. And the third person was moving an instructional coach to be the interim assistant. So when you add up the three half of my salary Billy's half of hers the interim superintendent the stipen the

120instructional coach and then the interim curriculum assistant. it nets there's a savings which I mean because you're you're saving on my my salary not paying the other half the year. So that's what this second part that's why you see that summary of a summary. What we try to do is give you here's kind of the 30,000 foot. >> These are the details for the interim superintendent and the interim um um >> so that that's where the the pieces come. And so in that um process um you'll see there's a letter of agreement if I'm speaking out turn just to that you know if we're going to if we're looking at moving and looking at what's least disruptive to the organization that's been Billy and the conversation that Deb's had with that and um moving an

121instructional coach um into that position. Um, if we did that, the EA's position is this person is no longer a member of EA. So, we had to get that worked out, the details. So, basically, they're allowing them to leave the unit for 6 months and then becoming next year, they would come back to their previous position once the board approves a permanent superintendent and and so kind of undoes the down effect. >> And we're not replacing the instructional coach for the rest of the year. So and that again this is like the pieces fell together I mean more perfectly than we can imagine right we got that opportunity for this educator alone so we have a second coach that we could have join us they focus on the K3 but that would free up the

122other instructional coach to focus more on the upper grade level and again even though like I said as I'm thinking of the whole thing okay but then we have a teacher who we have to replace like I said we [snorts] have these great intern teachers right now so it really truly allows us to maintain what we are doing this year almost seamlessly. Yeah. Um you know both in practice and financially >> and then really come July 1 or next school year basically have the two instructional coaches back plus >> right >> the internal bonus continue. >> Right. So my only concern is that the the load that this instructional coach is only taking kind of like half of your >> but we're paying her the full difference as if she was fulfilling your whole goal.

123>> So a big thing to keep in mind is on the teacher end she would have been done June 5th um would be her teacher contract would end and this contract extends her through the end of um June. So when we look at that breakdown of her additional almost half or actually a little more than half of what she's getting paid difference is coming from that month of June. Um so you know we're extending her work calendar by a full month. >> So June 5th would normally be her last day. >> She's working one two three basically three and a half long weeks. >> But she's going from 83,000 to 122. >> That's you got to look at it's prorated. That's pro. But if you look at the daily rate of that teacher currently, >>

124okay, >> you see the daily rate there on the left side, >> which for that >> this one where you have the teacher schedule on the left side. >> Yep. >> And then on the right side, you have the interim curriculum assistant. >> Both start with a full salary. So if you look at the left side in the purple at the bottom in this particular example, it's 36,000 for the first semester. And then you look at the the other which there are um 129 days. Again, the the initially the thought was could it just be an EA member and keep. But when they do it that way, they're they're doing whatever their time is, 7 7:35 to 2:45. There's limited. They maybe the union did not want it to be part of their membership. But

125if it is at that point, then we got to got to post it. You got to pick and you got to go through the whole process. So they rather agree to have her leave, have this opportunity, and then we issue a contract, which is similar to what Billy has, which would be the action you'd have tonight. say, "Okay, take this contract," but it's going to be a prrated amount. It's not going to be that full amount. It's going to be for the days it actually work. So, when you actually look at the per day amount, >> the per day amount, it's really on a per day amount, you're talking 50 $20 more a day, per day amount. >> But, okay. So, let me just make sure I got this right. If she stayed in her

126current spot, she would end up making 83,000 for the year, >> right? >> Yes. the whole year of the teacher working 184 days. >> And then if she took this role, worked an extra three and a half weeks, she ends up with 97 >> because it's program. >> No, no, it's at the bottom, it's 60. >> You add the teacher the whole year. Yeah. Yes. When you add the teacher and this, it's a total of 95. >> So for three and a half weeks, she's making the 14,000 extra. >> But there's evening activities. >> Well, and I wondered and that was my >> It's not a teacher day. >> Yeah. uh from a a seven-hour day. It's it's Billy's day. >> Well, and that was on my list of questions. Um even for for the

127superintendent spot, I don't know cuz you do you are taking on a lot of >> like you're taking on his whole job and then you're keeping >> So, how many hours a day does that equate to? >> Right. So, right. I mean, and you going to be here 16 hours a day. I mean, a lot. But again, that's where that comes in is I need to know that I have that that person that's available, right? because there will be times when I can't be in two places when I need to be at once and then I can rely on her to do that and if it's in the evening it's in the evening and so it's it's you know a little bit hard to say for sure like you said we have it on paper

128but what does that look like in reality so I think we're just trying to be as prepared as possible to make sure we can you know that we don't have a situation where oh no like we are stuck and and we need somebody to do this and we don't have them and I think this will allow us to like I said my the my top priority from the beginning was how do we just keep our momentum going. How do we not let anyone else in the organization feel these little speed bumps and you know along the way? Um I'm sure it will be tricky but um I think this plan allows that and so I think this is just making sure this this you know compensation level allows us to ensure we can do that

129and and guarantee that that she could be there >> cuz that's what I had. I had evening functions >> like we have awards. >> What would she do? >> Um like awards ceremonies. But you got you got round up coordinated roundup that's the building to adjunk it. There is a piece that Billy >> I say Billy would have done that. >> Correct. That's something it could be the the the cal meetings which is the curriculum meetings. Billy would be normally going this person would go. >> So she'd have to be at work all day and then still be expected to stay >> there. There would be just just >> like new teacher academy for instance is you know it's little by little but it adds up but surely right. So yeah, >> and I think

130I mean we didn't I don't know what's on here. We we looked at breaking it down like we were paying her hourly and all these things. It wouldn't especially when you got down to that daily rate for those extra weeks in June. It wasn't it wasn't wildly different, but this was a clean >> the different the difference on the teacher. So if she were to stay a teacher, technically by contract, and I know a lot of teachers do not do this because they they give a lot, but technically by contract, if she worked beyond that day, we'd have to pay workshop rate and the man the management of that time slip. I mean, >> it would be it would be very >> that was an idea we ran with for a while and it was

131like and we started talking about all the different things like, "Oh my gosh, that would be a night. I mean, and it would add up, like I said, it would add up to where we are anyway." Um, so right maybe >> the difference the difference and and we have on the non-union side >> is they really don't have a work. We try to balance it. We all try to do but I can tell you Sarah's been here late at night. Tammy's been here late at night. Billy's been here late at night. We've [laughter] done it. There's not a necessarily a defined where when you're dealing with a bargaining unit, the wages hours work are defined as you know in that contract. And then if you go beyond it, you got to compensate. >> And so

132we looked at, okay, our our goal was again, my two cents is I I was just giving my two cents of the process. >> The ultimate goal is to have it through June 30th. So that as you guys go through the process to hire the next superintendent with hopefully an effective date of July one. It gets the ship stay in the course for six months. >> But normally her current contract goes until the last day of school. >> Correct. >> Yeah. And the goal would be when we do hire the position, they would take all of assuming that it was vacant. Basically, if it were vacant for next year and we were hiring someone, they would be taking on all of those responsibilities. >> Like the whole domino effect would undo and be right on.

133Okay. Yep. Just want to make sure you got it. >> And what I I do I again for what it's worth for the board and I know this is a big decision and and going forward the the process and the thought has been how do you maintain the good things going on >> right now? And I think as Billy said, they'll speed up and we're gonna have them. And just knowing that Billy needs to keep her pulse on certain things and identifying those these are the things such [clears throat] as grants. I mean, when you're talking Nexus, there's a there's a partnership between Billy and Tammy that's got to work from a budgetary perspective. I I would not feel comfortable just turning that over and letting the person who's here just figure it out. And

134you're on your own. We would help them, but there's still got to be some oversight. I think that's the balance that Billy was trying to create. And these are the duties. they still want to keep because it's important to keep. >> Okay. So, a third part to all of this and I'm going to pass it over to Billy is who would be that person that would take her part of her duties. So, Billy, >> so we've kind of, you know, we kind of touched and hinted around it obviously at this point because it's it's all wrapped into that big conversation. But, um, you know, when I I currently work very closely with our two instructional coaches. They are somebody that's part of my team. I hold regular meetings with them, as I do with the

135administrators, don't get me wrong. Um, but they have that, like Brian said, that pulse on the entire district. They are very, very involved in our curriculum initiatives, K12. Um, and so Jessica Schluber is, you know, has been in that role and well, has been in our district for many years and has been successful in this role for the last several years. Um, and again, just from my my work with her, my time with her, seeing how she handles um, pushing out curriculum initiatives, how she handles meeting groups of teachers and training groups of teachers. Um, I feel very confident that she is a staff member that would be able to take on what we have in that middle shared column. Um, you know, her and I work well together as far as, you know, kind

136of being able to pick up those pieces. And again, like Sarah said, it could get messy, you know, like, okay, I all of a sudden had to do something and, you know, I think she could easily go with the flow and pick up those pieces along the way as things e and flow throughout these six months. Um, and again it she was someone that I had in the back of my mind initially and then when it just sort of it like I said it couldn't have been the better situation of like, oh, and we have the opportunity for reimbursement for a full coach in the district. Well, that that answers that. Oh, we have the opportunity to bring in potentially one of our intern teachers with that field. I was like everything it allows like

137I said I don't feel like the organization will feel a negative impact by allowing Jesse to move into this position to assist in the curriculum office um because of those again that domino effect of how we can backfill everything like I said in a way that doesn't cost us financially and still provides love and support that our um teachers are accustomed to having. Do we don't we have another instructional coach already also? >> We do. Um so she's been in the role in that particular role less time than Jessica and in the district less time than Jessica. Um and Jessica has tended to have more of the full scope K12 initiative whereas um Miss Rman other one has tended to be um a little bit more secondary specific. follow this year. Again, different. Their office

138is located in the elementary, so everyone's kind of getting a a little bit of a different um you know, sense of what their roles and duties are just because of their location, which is helpful. Um but again, I think just based on more so the experience that she has with enrichment, she felt like the the better fit. >> Will she feel a little bit of this though? Will she have to pick more? Miss Rman or Miss um you >> um well she'll have like I like we said so she'll have that >> that's again part of that right why we're offering her that statement because she will still carry a number of instructional duties so anything instructional post duties any major projects the folks that she mentors any of those things that I wouldn't want

139to change midstream um she'll continue with but we'll have the benefit of having that early literacy coach who can spend a lot of time with our our lower uh grade level teachers which again will free up Miss Ratman to focus more on the upper level teachers. So it should balance out when we have everybody in place in that way. Any other questions before we move on? >> Okay. Thank you. >> Can I just Oops. >> If it would be >> Yep. the okay with the board if we just go out of order for a minute and allow our girls to do their student board reports so maybe they could get home. >> I have I'm not going to bed. >> Is that good? Thank you, >> ladies. >> Okay, ladies. >> The band concert or

140Oh, this is for high school. So, there's a band concert Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium. There's a choir concert Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the auditorium. And the Blue Dog Cafe is now selling holiday cookies. So, go support our culinary arts program by placing an order today. The Devil's Den will be open for holiday shopping on Wednesday and Thursday of next week from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Right. The middle school's got a lot going on. So, last week, students in the fourth and fifth grade music mini had their concert in the evening, and much of it was holiday themed. Students along with third grade music mini put on an amazing show and we thank Miss Smith for all her hard work. Fifth through eighth grade students had the second presentation in the

141cyber safe school series. Mr. Norm Gibson was there on December 1st and talk to students about safety when using the internet. This week our band and choir students are preparing for their holiday shows. Monday, December 15th is the choir concert and Tuesday, December 16th is the band concert. We are looking forward to both. Tuesday, December 9th begins our annual Battle of the Bays. Students will decorate their lockers for the holidays and the school will look like a Christmas extravaganza. Special judges will make their final decision on December 15th and the winning grade will be announced at Missly on December 19th. On Friday, December 12th, girls basketball will be be participating in Moon Beams for Sweet Dreams at Royal Oak Bulmont. This is a voluntary event and the students will caravan with their families in the

142hospital. This is a very moving event and we're so proud of our girls for giving their time to spread some cheer to the youngest and bravest patients. Final exams will be held next week on December 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th. Other classes will have projects due as their final assessments for the semester. We know our students are working hard to prepare for their success. >> Liz, what day was movie? >> Um, I think they said the 12th. >> Which was that? >> The moon. this Friday. Our preschoolers put on a spectacular Christmas concert this year, filled the auditorium with holiday cheer and big smile. Families packed the room to support our young performers, and the turnout from our community was amazing. Getting up in front of a large audience is no small task, and we

143are incredibly proud of them. We want to thank our amazing preschool staff for their dedication in preparing the students and to our families for the ongoing support. Moments like these remind us of the special community we have here at Lean. We're so proud of our preschoolers and the growth they've shown so far this year. Athletics. Thursday the boys basketball team scored their first win of the season in an exciting game against Brain City. League games start to begin tomorrow as they travel to Gale. They'll only open their season today at home against Armada. Girls basketball will tip their season off at home on Wednesday against Mary'sville. Also, congratulations to seventh and eighth grade girls basketball teams for each completing season sweeps over made up with wins on the road last week. This weekend was busy

144for the high school wrestling team. On Saturday, they hosted JB Invitational. On Sunday, they hosted the first annual Richmond Girls Wrestling Invitational. There were over 90 athletes who competed on either day, and both events went very smoothly. A huge thank you to all the parents and volunteers that helped put on the events. We wish everyone a very happy holiday season and a wonderful new year. >> Any questions for our ladies? >> Thank you both. Thanks for staying this long. >> Okay, we're going to go back to our agenda. We're on 9D bond application. Mr. Wson. Okay. So, uh, next Wednesday, um, we have a 10:00 meeting scheduled, what's called a preliminary qualification call. Um, if you recall, we've been talking about the in November, we talked about the the bond and how it did not

145pass in November, several reasons, etc. for that. And so, the direction that I was given was to begin preparing for a uh another chance, if you will, to go back to the Rotary in May. So, in order to do that, you have to have what's called the preliminary qualification with Michigan Department of Treasury. That involves um obviously the Department of Treasury. It involves uh district representatives, our uh construction uh contractors, our architects, the um financial PFM uh representatives for the district. So, we are we have been working on that. The application is due to Treasury by Friday. uh so we can review it on the call on Wednesday. What will happen after that call is the treasury may or may not give we'd like you to change some things or maybe reorder things in the

146document and so forth. [clears throat] Once that's been done, then it will come to the board at a special meeting on the 18th uh where the board will actually decide whether you want to send the application to treasury. uh and that's scheduled for the 6:30 meeting on uh December 18th. Assuming the board does that, then that that will go to Treasury. They'll have 30 basically 3 weeks to four weeks to review it and they'll have to they'll send you a letter saying yes, you've been approved to go to to the voters for a bond. And then on January 27th would be a vote of the board to authorize language to put on the bond. very similar process what we did last May June and then ultimately get it to the elections clerk. So what you

147have in your packet are um some updates to what is needed for the preliminary qualification. The bond application the actual scope of work did not change but since May when we started this for the November there has been some things that have evolved and changed. So for instance um you'll see first of all the enrollment projection. Um it's again it's the same company that use it. In generally on this one there are some remember there are five different ways they look at it. So there are some methods that just did not have us as large of an increase. And part of that is because when you do an enrollment projection you look back five years to see what your enrollment was. When we did the first one three three years ago, we captured that time

148period precoid and COVID. If you remember during CO, we were the only district in Mcome County that actually increased enrollment. Okay. So now you fast forward to the second enrollment projection which was done for the November bond. You're now getting those blips, if you will, off the the average. And so when we get to this one, those pre-COVID are now off the average range. So when you look at that enrollment projection report, method 4 consistently has been the enrollment projection and the numbers that actually came in has been pretty consistently accurate for Richmond schools that still shows an enrollment increase. Okay. And again there's a description of how methods one's calculated, how methods two, basically methods five is an average of all the methods. So the enrollment projection is showing increase. It doesn't show as

149much. But I think the key on this when you look at it is you have to look at the grade bands. And when you start looking at that kindergarten through third grade moving into middle school in particular, there's growth in the middle school again. and we have no rooms to put the kids other than raising class sizes. That's the that would be the most immediate. We'd have to be real creative in that aspect. And then as you extrapolate that data and go out a couple more years as those kids hit high school, you're going to see an increase in high school. So that's the first I don't want to say it's a change but an update to the application that will get submitted because it will have new numbers uh new enrollment numbers. The second

150thing um you'll see a document from PFM in the November bond. It was based the assumptions were made back in May when we went for the PQR and the a bond application. There was interest rates assumptions what the market was at that time etc. The interest rates have changed from when we started this process to where they would be for May, which actually yields for a no increase bond an estimated about $380,000 more in funds than what we were in November. Now, this is assuming that the bond is approved in May and the the bills or the the bonds are actually sold in a probably a July August time frame. So, they're looking at interest rates and so forth. So, that's number one, one change on the financial because interest rates have dropped. So, we

151are paying less in interest for the bond which yields us more money to do capital projects. The other piece is looking at the again the finances of where we are in the market. The interest rate the 20 the November bond was set to be sold in two series paid out over 22 years. This is the same dollar value no increase but it pays it earlier in 20 years. So when you look at the enrollment charts that are earned at the enrollment the payment charts that are in that we can actually pay more on the interested capital and get the bond paid off two years sooner based again based on the interest at the time when this would sell which is a different rate than what they would have sold for invest item um that you'll

152see in the application or the the backup is documents from a that 380,000 was put in furnishings at the moment. That would be something that, you know, depending on, you know, there is contingency money built in. So, it addresses um um potential rising costs or things that are unknown when you start, you know, building an addition on. There might be something in the ground that's not marked. Um so, right now it's listed there, but that's money that could be moved within the scope of the bond. The other aspect that we were able to do is move the elementary. When you look at the sheet on the elementary, even on the summary sheet move, um, of the $10 million scheduled for the elementary, 6.7 could be done in series 1. So, the kitchen addition and the,

153uh, parking lots over can be moved to be done earlier than what we originally planned in the November bond. Again, it's looking at what our current debt rate is, how we paying it down, what the interest rate. Again, all of these documents are payched for what our principal and interest would be all has to be submitted as part of the uh application. So, I want to just point out basically those I'm going to call it the four things. The enrollment projection is updated. The uh the finances in terms of the interest is we're paying less on interest which would yield more money. And then the scope of the project, all of it's the exact same. The only difference is there's 360,000 that is in line item right now for furnishings which we anticipated using a

154lot of existing furnishings. It would help as we looking four years out for that that last phase that we might need to replace and we could shorten the or move the elementary editions to be done sooner. So this is what's going to be submitted on Friday to treasury. We'll have our applicate our PQR meeting on Wednesday the 10th. If anybody would like to be part of that, it's 10 o'clock in my office. We do it a Zoom meeting. You're more than welcome to join us. Um >> 10:00 on uh December 17th, which is Wednesday from that meeting, they may or may at the last meeting, they asked us to make two changes. Put the map of the building before this screen so that when the person's reviewing the application, it made sense. um and there's

155something minor blind there's two chain they made them and then that's the application that um will be submitted. So the intent is that u we go through the PTR meeting on the 18th you have the meeting where you actually approve the application to send to treasury which is going to be very almost identical to what you approved last May but it would just be with updated enrollment numbers updated uh payments or principal and interest numbers and then uh moving some of the stuff from series 2 to series one um in the >> So is that a that would be kind of like perk then, right? The the loan would be paid off two years sooner. >> It's it's a selling point because it's not I mean it's two years less that we're paying on it

156to drop. Um again, if interest rates continue to drop when we actually go sell the bond, you might have even a lower rate and that's what we've done in in the past. uh but this is rated is based on current market and where the trend is on interest rates in the financial circuit if you will but yes that's a selling point. Um and there are some if you remember when we started when we did this process we had here is what we were looking for and there was there was often times more expenses than what the bond could yield. We kind of had that if if it's allowable, we could do these, but we didn't change any of the scope of the bond. I just wanted to point out the board its place in that

157furnishings. Um, so if you compare the last application to this one, you're going to see a 350 $360,000 line item difference. That's where it's at. Anybody have any questions? Okay, thank you. Okay, next item on our agenda is our fiscal year 2026 budget amendment number one. Tammy, is that you? >> That's Tammy. Before Tammy starts, I'm going to get up there. I'll pull up the screen. >> Um, I want to just point out a couple things you have in front of you. And Ray, we did upload it to the website today. So, you have to use copies of it electronically um to be able to pull up. There should be two. One is the very thick document. It's all the ASN numbers. And then the second is a summary. That's the screen. That's what I'm

158going to put up on the screen that Tammy's going to talk to you about. But I think before we go through um what the budget you have in front of you shows that we are using 277,000 of our fund balance in that to balance the budget, if you will. Um and there's a there's a reason for that. I put some of the items kind of one time that came up or that we're doing. Um, there's still a lot of unknowns in this budget and I just wanted to I want to share some things and show you and the listening audience. So, I'm going to share the screen, right? So, it it shows up on yours. Just give me a second. >> Okay. Cuz I'm I'm looking at the file and I I showed that the

159uh agenda item 09-2 FY 2026 budget amendment number one was updated 3 hours ago. >> That's the one we just uploaded that I printed copies and gave to the board tonight. Okay. >> And then there was a one that had the ASN numbers that um Timmy, did you put that up? Did you put that up today or Friday? >> It was up this morning. >> It was up there. That was up there this morning, but it wasn't in the original document when we sent it out. I sent it out on third when Sydney sent the link on Thursday. It wasn't in that original document. >> It's two and three. >> That one's hundreds of pages. gets to 122 pages and it's >> E3 is the summary. E2 is all the ASN. So if you want

160to look specifically I I'd recommend looking at the summary but I wanted to I wanted to show you um first share screen. This is why this there's still a lot of unknowns in this budget. So, I'm gonna go over here a second here. I'm going to show you the current state aid uh fiscal report. What this is is this is a report that every 25th of the month when we get our state aid payment, the state sends this or we usually get it a little bit ahead of time, but we know what the deposit's going to be from the state. And in this particular report, they said they're going to deposit into our account $1.6 million. That current No, the am Yeah. $1.6 million, the current amount. And it's for these grants obligation, the proposal

161a obligation 31A at risk transportation. And so we use these reports to show to build the budget. This is kind of the state confirming these are the dollars that we're going to get get. As you look at this, this is what we know. I want to show you what the state aid report looked like last August, which is when we got our last state aid payment for last year. You can see on this one there's many more categoricals that are added. In fact, it actually goes to page two. And all this is a public document. You can just search uh 202425 state aid fiscal payment. You can see every district's on state a payment. So what we're dealing with here is we're still making assumptions on the budget that we don't know how it's going

162to shake out in the legislature or once the legislators have now passed the budget how it's implemented in the department. One of them that are most recent is going to be 31A. We don't even know what that number is going to be. All right. But what's more disturbing is you may have heard in the budget that we gave schools$10,000 what's our fiscal >> $10,50 great per pupil increase. You need to remember last year we did not get a per pupil increase and they gave us some one-time money to help offset our retirement costs. This is what we know in our retirement costs. Now, last year we got 2.6 million in helping the retirement costs. This year we're anticipated to get $2.1 million. We had lost almost $500,000 in revenue from the state to deal with

163our retirement cost. So when you put it on the front end of a per pupil and you didn't give us the per pupil last year increase and you're throwing it this year, you taking these one time now away. It's almost a wash in what we got from the state. So this is um key just to keep in mind that when people say, "Yeah, but you got $10,500 pupil, but you took $500,000 away from us out the back door." So when I when I give you this budget on the and Tammy going to present you the two 20 27 I am I am not worried at this point and and in order I'm worried for coming forward. We have worked very closely together. We've looked at what actual costs were. We've gone through line items. Uh

164there's still some assumptions in there and I um like I said I I anticipate this to even be lower when all of this up. But when I saw this, this just blows my mind. And we all heard the legislators all promoting you got $10,50 per pupil. Again, remember some of these costs, some schools got a per pupil increase last year that don't have these costs. That's the challenge. So, with that, um, I'm going to pull up the summary sheet that you have now in front of you, um, that Tammy is going to go over. And so, this will show you how we actually finish, what the budget was approved last June, that's June 23rd, 25, and the proposed budget amendment for the first uh, uh, amendment for the FY26. I mean, you just tell me

165when you want me to scroll. >> Okay. Well, we'll start with revenues. They always come first. Um, the columns on there, you have the 2425 actual. To me, it's helpful to see what we did last year. Um, so then we also have the 2526 original budget, the proposed amendment to 2526. Then there's a change column and that change column compares the first amendment to the original budget. So, under general fund, uh, you can see for 2425 we had 22.8 8 million. Now we're at our original budget was 23 just over 23 not quite 23.1 million and our first amendment we're at just under 23.5 million. So it shows we're getting increase at 410,000. The biggest chunk of that is in local revenues and that's because of the formula the state uses with property taxes and

166what we get in state aid because our tax values increased. We're getting more money in taxes. I'm sorry, local tax collections. That's offset. When they do that, then we lose the other part of it from the state, so they don't pay us as much. Um, so our foundation did go up a couple hundred,000, but our special ed dollars went down. And as Brian mentioned, all those categories went down. We netted $37,000 decrease in state revenues. Under federal revenues, the biggest change is we had some er funds that are we've exhausted. That was about 33,000 that we had in 2425 we do not have any longer. Those are gone. Um and then we also had a reduction in our title one funding. Our inner district sources includes both the MCOME ISD enhancement village and the MCOME

167ISD specialed village. So the enhancement village was approved in 2020. This is our sixth year of 10 years that that was approved for. Um and then in our special ed millage, we get an allocation. They they usually team that up with our IDA allocation. So they kind of go together. So you can see there's a slight increase in our inner district sources from Mcome ISD. And we have transfers and modifications. So that includes money that comes from other funds. So from our food service, we charge in direct costs that gets paid from food service transferred into the general fund. that number has gone up um because of the Michigan free meals program. So we get more meals served to all kids. Our costs are higher. We get more indirect costs into the general fund. So

168that increases to about 70,000. And then a year ago when we do our transfer and set aside money into the non-bond capital projects fund, we put in money for new curriculum because when we did the um electives courses, we ended up with two years worth of um purchases. We made some in 2425, made some in 2526. to prepare for 25.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.26. We sent in an additional $92,000 from into from the general fund into the capital projects fund non-bond. Now, we're spending that money this year. So, there's a transfer going to happen from the non-bond capital projects fund to the general fund. And that's where you see that $107,000 increase. >> I'm going to add two things. You need to break these down. Gabby just said it. Six years into a 10-year bond. if that currently we

169get just under a little over $900,000 for the MISD enhancing village when we started it was42450 something like that so as property values have gone up we've gotten more and more money in four years less than four years they're going to come back to this community and say will you renew it and if it's not renewed it will be well over a million dollars that will be gone in revenue in and that's just ment a UDICA chip valley that has a lot more that that's something to watch. The second thing, please watch Speaker Hall. The next phase of the legislature, his focus on property tax reform. Any reform to property tax is going to affect our revenue. And if they aren't backfilling it with some way, that's going to go down. And I don't think

170anybody in the state from the average person doesn't want their property tax to go down. But if they aren't backfilling it as we thought they were going to do with the whole education fund and um with the the whole 500,000 in the retirement just two things to watch the second and it's supposed to come out that's going to be the focus next term um >> one that you've been talking I saw someone talking about no property tax keep it on your radar as those two item um >> because they're as people get their taxes particularly summer tax bills they're going to see these costs on there. So, just two things that are going to affect our revenue. Okay, Danny, >> any questions on the revenues? >> Real quick, this the taxes that we receive, do

171we get them like summer and winter like like how we pay them two times a year? >> How frequently do we >> If you look at your tax bill, your summer tax bill is probably a bit larger than your winter tax bill. School taxes are all on the summer tax bill. And you >> So you guys get it, we get it, the school gets it one time a year. >> One time a year. >> And the reason why we do that is because we don't get a state aid payment in September, >> right? >> And that first one's ours. So we go almost 60 days from our August 25th to October 25th with no state aid payments. By getting the revenue now, it helps make payroll and our cash flow. some districts borrow money to

172make. >> Yeah, >> we used to >> and there are some districts that opt to split it. >> We don't because we need that to start up. >> It just from cash. >> It is it really is a good thing for the districts to not have to borrow because you're paying interest costs then have to borrow. So, it really ultimately saves us a lot. Um so, looking at starting I go through elementary um expenditures and it's kind of going to be the same for middle school and high school. You'll notice the salary changes and benefit changes. Those are all primarily from people shifting, moving. Um I don't know that we created any new positions. >> We have new people in position because we had people leave, retired, >> etc. But yeah, >> but remember when

173we passed the original bond, we did not um incorporate contract increases into that. We just continued last year's. So now we have to make that adjustment. So that's why you'll see all those changes in salaries and benefits throughout the buildings all through elementary, middle school, high school. Um if you look at purchase services, you'll notice a decrease there. Those are those um building subs that we're no longer having. Reducing that budget because we be saving some money on that. um you'll see supplies have increased on the three buildings and that's primarily the textbooks that year two of those um alternate courses or the elective courses. So our elementary went from uh 2.2 million 979 to just over like not quite 3.1 million in expenditures. Um middle school very similar story. Um you had your staffing

174adjustments um non-grant we had some aids parents that we've paid out of grants and that's a different function code. So when we stop using the grants when we reduce our title one we have to pay those aids now through the general fund. So that shifts them from the title one area up to the building level. So elementary middle school especially and again subteer change. Um in this case we increased it by 20,000. That was mostly because we were a bit under and we've had some long-term subs that we've needed to fill. Supplies. Same thing, textbook replacement. So we go from 3.5 million to 3.8 million in expenditures for the middle school high school. Similar story, subteer change, staffing adjustments, textbook replacement. We go from just under 2.7 million to 2,712. Uh preschool, there's a change

175there. You'll notice um an increase of 38,000 overall. Preschool is the primarily the GSRP program. We've increased our enrollment in GSRP by I think we're up 17 students, but we have slots for three more that we have to that could be filled. Our budget is based on filling those three slots. Um, so we've had staffing changes. Uh, we've increased our purchase services. They're going to buy some more Hatch software. So, we have that updated software and more stations available for the kids for 11,000 increase. And then um so total preschool expenditures go from 755,000 to 793,000. You'll notice a big change in summer school. Both summer school's been funded by grants. The 23G grant is expiring. The 45A grant is expiring. The 23 B1 and B2 grants have expired. So we really have little left

176from those grants to fund summer school. Most of that funding is all related to ESER and the ARP and getting getting students caught up. that is now used up well most of those funds we double a little um and that leaves us a decrease of about 61,000. So overall our basic programs go from 10,25 to 10,438 an increase of 412 special education similar staffing adjustments bringing it up to contract language. Um you can see again there's an increase in purchase services. That's pretty much the subs again for people who are going to be out on long-term lease. >> Just to add that we've had we had some long terms, we had staff, special staff resign. We had some long-term subs in those position. We have some contracted services for speech and language moving from virtual

177to a contracted in person. That those dollars are virtual. Don't speak to language fun but >> so when you get to title one at risk this is our what we call function 125 that is primarily all title and at risk funding. So you can see there's the decrease there again that's those title one dollars decreasing and those people with salary costs where we've maintained the positions but shifted them off into the buildings. So we go from title one 715,000 to 591,000 under vocad. This is an area that we'll need to adjust further. Um we don't yet have solid numbers on what all of our vocad funding is going to be and what we have to spend in vocad. So we've got all the positions filled. They but there's they'll really count that towards um improving

178instruction. That's what we really need to spend the dollars on and that is purchase services, supplies and capital outlay. So those items, the staffing is solid, but those items may change as we get that information on the funding which we don't have just >> and literally last week as Tammy was finalizing this on Friday, we got a notice of the state that okay, this is your 61A. >> Yes. >> So that's going to come in that's going to have to come in as we continue getting this number. So, so you're talking about the the the CTE programs that we have, the the money that comes down to for those programs for supplies and stuff for those programs that that didn't come yet at the start of the school year. That's what you're saying. >> Correct.

179We're running them, but we haven't got what we >> the state has to send us how much we need to spend on the staffing improvement or um improvement costs. And although we got the staff and budgeted, we don't know if we have can purchase less and purchase services or if we need to purchase more. Okay, we know that as we get those numbers. >> Okay, >> like a good example, the culinary arts program. Part of those dollars help offset that program. We're not not doing the program. So, we're still having expenses. It's got it's the back filling after the fact. >> Okay. >> Which is why I started off with that August versus now. It's a night and day difference. >> Okay. And it's it's getting count information sent out to the state and then

180once the state gets it then they have to give you that proponent. So we wait but it will have that. Um so basically under vocad we are pretty much personnel changes savings of about 28,000. Um o overall instructional expenditures go from 12 just under 12.7 million to just over 15 million. Um supporting services those are our guidance services. Again those are the staffing adjustments costs um based on contract language. >> And that one just you have someone who's who moved into the position who may they have made more than the previous person. That's why the adjustment. >> Um on the next page, you got health services. Um that reduction is the expired 97J grant. That was for um software that we were purchasing for student mental health [clears throat] >> student behavior and interventions. So

181yes, that was a reduction of grant money that um that grant also. So health services goes from 57,700 to 30,75. Psychological changes, there were no real no changes there. Speech and aiology services, that's our speech teachers. We adjusted for staffing. Um so at the end of last year, we didn't have two full positions. We're back to two full positions. Plus based on counts, we have to do some um outsourcing contracting to help with that to cover all that. So that was we have 47310 for outsourcing if we need all edge services for students from a like contracted service company that we've been working with and then there's a new one I guess we're talking about and then the salary changes for going from less than two FTE to two social work again staffing changes to

182bring us up to contract language teacher consultants and staffing adjustments and we needed additional help to um cover all of our TC case load requirements. And we have um one teacher we brought back who had retired and is working part-time. So that's an increase in cost there. No real changes other under other under people's services. That's mostly our schedule B stuff those positions. That's the robotics grant as well. We don't have a final robotics grant. Again, we have the salaries in place, but we don't know how much money we're getting in robotics for 99H. Um, total pupil support services. We're at 1,ion292 to start the year, and we are now at 1,556. Improvement of instruction, those are where we send our teaching staff or bring in people to do professional development. Um, you'll notice change

183and decrease throughout. We had 35J money, which was for literacy for training. We had tester 3 that we used some money for training. Those are both gone. Um, so those are why you see all those cuts in the staffing chain there, improvement of instruction. Library again just adjusting for we still have the three people working in the media center. So the only changes are just the contract obligations. Technology same type of thing. Although we did have someone who um stopped being cashed in with insurance and taking insurance. So you'll see a big increase of 12,000 in insurance for that department under supervision of instruction. Here's another piece of the GSRP change. Um you can see an increase of 93,000 and that is we have always had the um special ed director in there, the curriculum

184director in that in that category that function code. Now we also have the GSRP supervisor. So when the GSRP enrollment goes up and we have more kids, there's more supervision required for GSRP. So that is our dean of students at the elementary school. So we've increased the allocation of the dean of students into the supervision of instructional staff which is covered by the GSRP. Does that make sense? So you'll see a difference when we get down to the opposite of principal. Um academic assessment that again is part of the grant change that decrease to 12,950. Um board of education the increase of 17,000. There's three things. There's a superintendent search added to the budget. There is an increase in our audit cost and an increase in a slight increase in marketing for bond for me.

185Under executive administration, you can see cost reduction and this is just reflecting the superintendent retirement at the end of the month. So total general administration goes from 524 to 433,000. And here's where you can see a decrease. Although we increased the contract obligations for paying benefits, then we shifted some of that dean of dean of student costs over from the elementary dean of students into the GSRP. And that decreases brings us to a $43,000 increase overall. Business office um also same type of thing. Contract obligations shows increases in the salaries and benefits. Then when you get down to other business services, there's a line that has a $29,000 increase that really is an increase for the election cost for running a November election and running a spring election. So total business services goes from 656,000

186roughly to just over 702,000. Operations and maintenance, that's our the leaning grounds basically. Um again, paying benefits are adjusted as as part of the contract. We did reduce um building repairs. So when you look under purchase services, you see a $91,000 reduction. That is from last year. We had the middle school gym repair in there. Even though insurance covered all of the deductible, we still had to pay the expense. So it shows up in our budget as an expenditure. So this is where we're taking that up. Hopefully won't have to fix the gym again. And then under supplies, we reduced um costs for some miscellaneous supplies and hardware for tools. Um we just have not spent our whole budget in the last 5 years. So we reduce that to match more of what our actual

187spending is. So it decreases our operations and maintenance by 87,666. Security services. That's still those bus monitors. We'll pay the buildings. It's we still plan on using 31A money even though we don't know how much we're going to get. So we just incorporated um the paying requirements based on package. >> So this would be the other thing that I'd want you to put on your radar that if the legal goes against us and we I I'm before one of my last steps would be to opt out 31A based on the resolution you pass. Keep in mind basically four months five months of costs have already been incurred. And again, assuming as we've talked that we would kind of weather this year and reset going into next year, but this is the other area that you'd

188want to just keep your pulse on. >> Going on to the next page. >> So So real quick, so that covers the security monitors, but not necessarily the SRO. >> The the SRO is in the purchase service line. I know. >> Okay. Okay. Officer. >> Yes. Yes, it's in the purchase service line. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Question. People transportation is our next area. You will see some decreases there. Um again, we adjusted for salary and benefit obligations from the contract, but we also decreased a position. We had a dispatcher and we do that. So, that decreased there's some decrease reflected there. Um we decreased supplies. Basically, our fuel cost is one of those areas of the budget that we've, you know, fuel costs have stayed low. We keep expecting them to go

189up and go up and they have not. So, based on looking at the prior years, we decreased that by 1989. So, it dropped our overall transportation expenditures by under support services communications. Um, that's where our newsletter is. We used to put part of our cost of newsletter when we had a newspaper. Um, our newsletter is paid for just by general fund. There's no newspaper. So that increase of 30,200 is reflected there. >> Is this also where the bond communications were? So the cost that we had for the last bond and we also built it a dollar value for the May bond so that there it's budgeted for it. Um, >> so we budgeted the newsletter and those costs related to marketing the bond and getting information out from the bond. Yes. under support purchase, I'm

190sorry, support services staff personnel. This is our HR um office. Our HR had a couple changes. One was well, we have a new HR director who has a different benefit package. So, you can see that the health benefits increased as well as we hired a secretary for the HR department that is built just to that department costed just to that department. So, that increased that 42,800 roughly. And then under support services, people accounting. Again, there's a personnel change, new person in different benefit package. So that's why you can see a different difference in the 22,99 in cost, which brought us down from 1458 791 to 123719 in the HR department. That includes a lot of peak professional development, not so teachers go under improvement of instruction, which is a 221 function code. when you get

191to administrators and non-eing staff, that goes under the HR department. So, it isn't just HR department cost. It's also professional development for people outside of the teaching positions. Under athletic activities, um we you'll notice an increase in capital outlays, the biggest change, and that was a cobalt pads that were taken off in the wind and got ruined. So we receive money from insurance for everything that are deductible and this cost that you'll see in there is the cost of savings. So that's kind of a one time thing that will probably change in administration budget >> and we've been monitoring the um officials because their rates have been going up. So we've increased it one year from 77 we started this year with 89. We kind of bumped it up a little because the cost of

192getting efficient keeps going up and up because they're hard to get. >> Apparently it's hard to get them. So they who sets their pay you know >> um >> are they MHSA and we pay it through Arbiter >> they go through arbit so Arbiter is a >> third party where they sign up with Arbiter and then we can book them through Arbiter pay them through Arbiter and then we have some that are outside that are the local people especially for track you know track and field events where they're all local people some of the volleyball people we have a big volleyball tournament here we pay them directly instead of through our program and we set that rate but it's again it's hard to get people so the cost keeps going up. So total supporting services

193on the bottom of that page. We go from 9,873 to 9,97 increase just under 100,000. Community education and grants. Not a big change there. Um just buying more supplies. And again, most of this is grant funded. Whatever is funded by the grants, we get um custodian and care child care. Um again, staffing cost adjustments. And I think we've decreased um about 11,000 12,000 in salary, but that is for when we do a budget, we do this fully staffed and so we've had some openings this year transition. Um so we have some gaps. So we expect that that cost will be closer to 95,000 than 107. >> But if we were fully staffed all year, no issues, it's 106,000. to keep everything total staff. >> So our total latch key they call it down to 155

194to 987. Uh welfare activities that was money for homeless grant which was the MP ARP another one of those um er um COVID related grants that expired. So we use that by nonpublic school services. These are required services under title one and IDA. So we take them out of whether it's speech or TC or teacher. Um we take them out of those accounts and we have to prompt for them as non-public schools because they go to St. Ladies Mercedes to provide services and we're required to do that under IDA and title one. So we're going from 497 down to 35,17 and part of that is the title one grant decrease. So total community services goes from 235,000 to 23,000. It decrease to 32,000 under facilities acquisition. We're almost there. One more page. Facilities acquisition and

195construction. Um GSRP again, additional students, additional funding. So, we have room in the budget for GSRP to replace some um equipment that is getting old to repair some equipment that is old but is still salvageable and then perhaps add some other equipment. And we will know what we want to do when we know if we get those other three positions done because it's we get about 10,000 change per student. So, talking about $30,000 if we don't fill the three seats that we have open. So, you don't want to spend that money until you know we have those two kids. And I know they're working out. I think they had one or two students that were just waiting on the parents. We don't know what's happen. [laughter] >> So, that increased from 30,000 to 81,000. And

196then outgoing transfers hasn't changed. We're still budgeting to put in bus replacement of 150, turf replacement of 52,000, laptop replacement of 80,400, computer replacement of 40,000, happy years 30,000, file service 50,000. That was our base 402400. Last year we also transferred that new curriculum piece of 92,440 and we've kept that in the budget 494840. We talk about whether we want to change that down the road, but that's what we have in this budget as an amendment. all number. [laughter] >> So on the last page, it shows our general fund expenditures for 2425 was 22,700,000. Um our original budget was 23.3 million and now we're at 23,769, which is an overall increase from the original to the amendment of 453,000. The bottom line, uh last year we added $43,000 to our fund balance. the our original

197budget was using 234,000 and now it's increasing it to as Brian mentioned earlier 277,000 >> and just when we started the 25 budget FY we started in June of 24 saying we're 230 240 250 and again as the evolution comes not I am not panicked by this at all because this is just the normal e and flow and when you look at your fund balance and the rate we are still very healthy fiscally responsible district. >> We have 3.8 million right now in fund balance and we take it if we use all 277,000 we take the 3,578 which is still 15.23% of our revenues fund balance divided by revenues. And if you take out the unrestricted revenues or take out the restricted revenues and just use restricted, which means take out federal grants, state grants,

198we're still at 20.72%. >> I'm sorry. >> 500,000 on the uh retirement. Think of where we were were >> um and and I use the term walnut internally. We know we we there are budgets that we are we try to be very conservative so that we don't have oh what do we do now panic um there are some of those that that Billy and Tammy and I have talked about as far as future but um we're tighter than we were last year based on what we know today on the revenue side >> we still don't know bilingual education um we have an estimate based on this is what we got last year and what they projected we would get this year but we don't have a final number that we're still looking at how we're

199going to spend that whether we have someone hired to to spend that money or you know using software whatever that might be. So that is one area we would look at. Um fast is the the grant to get everybody to fill out fast. Well, we're not real sure we don't have we don't have any money available but apparently there's some out there. So we get some of that you would adjust for that. And then I already know we have workers comp budgeted at a certain dollar amount and what we're actually paying for workers comp insurance. we're paying more than we budgeted. So have some signals there. So there, as Brian says, moments. Um we try to get it right and then of course soon as you look at something else, it's like it's not in

200there, but get it. And I think that what I can I feel confident leaving the district and the board is the budget. Those one time that we talked about the election are built into this budget. So you don't have to figure out where you're going to pay for that. The superintendent search, yeah, we put those numbers. They're they're in this budget. >> So that was our >> So if I guess are there any questions that anybody has on it? >> So I guess my question to you is do you want me to bring this back for approval at the special meeting on the 18th and be done with it for the holiday? >> That's what I would >> and then that meeting we have two items. The bond and and >> the approval of this.

201So if you have any questions between now and the 18th, give us a call at Tammy and I will get the answers to you. >> Thank you very much. >> Next item on our agenda is blue demo raves. So Margaret, I'm going to start with you. >> Okay. Um I have a couple. Um, first just to let everyone know, uh, we had our annual Sy's Kids Ugly Sweater uh, fundraiser Saturday night at the Cook Hotel and we raised $4,600. It was a big night. Uh, most we've raised so far in our 12 years. Uh, just want to thank uh, Dave and Cheryl Goslin who own the Cook Hotel who allow us to come in and and host our fundraiser there. all the staff that came out and supported us. Uh we had a really good

202crowd, lots of new people there Saturday night. Um we are serving 40 families and about a hundred kids and uh with the possibility that um there are a couple more families in the last week that have come forward that they are looking for help. Um, and I just want to recognize our social workers, Samantha Perry, Ariah Spencer, Nicole Craft, and Darby Smith. They work really hard, not just during this time of year to help our families, but what they do each and every day with our families, our students, and the work that we do. Um, very, very proud and blessed to be able to have them and and what they give to our school district. So, um, a rave a rave to them. We're very lucky to have them on our staff. Um, my other

203rave, I was at the bank the other day and I had a parent come up to me that wanted to tell me all about um, our high school counselor, Christy Crarampton. Uh, her son is a senior going into trades and uh, just all of the things that uh, Mrs. Crarampton is doing to help her son um get information about what he needs to do with with trades and um more information that they ever thought there was possible uh in that field. And um they're just she's just very excited um for that help. you know, for her son not being a collegebound kid, but being able to have that support from the counselor. Uh, so I thought it was important to share that uh for someone um who has been critical of our high school counseling

204office for a long time, it it's really nice to hear someone singing praises about our counseling office. And the parent also mentioned they were part of our CTE summit that we had as well and they were part of the culinary area of it and just complimented Miss Zabbo and being here and watching all of that go on that that was a pretty great event as well. So I just wanted to share that. >> That's it. Thank you Danielle. >> I'm also uh Candace. Um yes, I just a couple. Um I would like to thank Tammy for her presentation tonight. I know a lot of time and effort put into that. Thank you. Uh I would also like to um give a shout out to our current superintendent, Brian Wley, for um all your hard work

205and thank you for everything that you've done and um getting us prepared for your departure and all the steps that you're taking to make sure that we're okay. And um that's not just for me, but for my family. We saw you on 32 Mile in Maine this weekend. You're always working. You're like the hardest worker ever. So, just want to thank you for all that you've done. >> You good? >> Yep. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Reagan. >> Uh, yeah. I want to give a shout out to all the unsung heroes behind the scenes that are posting all of the uh the wonderful things that the students, teachers, and staff are accomplishing on on the Richmond's social media page, Facebook there. Um, it's a pleasure to be able to keep up with some of the stuff

206that's going on throughout the district uh because of what's being posted on that page. There's a lot of positive things out there and I just want to give a shout out to whoever it is that's that's putting all that information and putting it out there. >> Thank you, Sandy. >> Uh just just a shout out to all of the artists that uh were selected for the Christmas cards and um especially our own Kelsey obviously. Um they all look really looked really great. I think they took them all mostly. But um I'm [clears throat] excited to see which one I get. Sarah, >> no. >> Okay. Now, I just want to finish off. Um, the Christmas cards have been mailed, so watch your mail. Um, I want to thank our volunteers who helped get them all

207out. Uh, Pat, and I have no clue. >> Veritz. Okay. Sue Tucker, Terry Spanis, and Karen Johnson who helped prepare the holiday cards this year. Your time, care, and cheerful spirit made an enormous enormous difference. Because of your hard work, our district is able to share joy, connection, and appreciation with so many people during this special season. We're grateful for your kindness, your teamwork, and the heart you bring to our school community. We couldn't have done it without you. So, thank you for spreading Christmas cheer. And that's mine. Okay. Next item on our agenda is we don't have students, so it'll be superintendent legislative update. >> I have no federal updates that affect Richmond, which is a good thing. And um the legislators have been on vacation Thanksgiving recently, so I have no state updates

208for me. So as far as the district, um uh kudos to um Mrs. Thornberg, Mrs. Pastian, Mrs. Varela, Mr. Knight, um Sarah and overseeing it. Uh we had our audit on December 5th, last Friday. Generally, they take 10% of the population, but they liked us and wanted to take 15% of our population at the middle school and the audit went wonderfully. So, um I know it was a lot of hard work getting at me, double checking, make sure everything's there, but it was um an outstanding preparation for the audit. So, thank you to those uh ladies. Um you heard last week um from our student rep the um preschool concert was last Wednesday and opportunity to go to it. Um it was phenomenal. It was a place was packed. They were lined up on the

209sides. Um what I really enjoyed I want to give out to student Lula and Ella because they uh these are four year olds who had were responsible for introducing the songs before the kids sang. So they came up to the podium and uh did it very confidently. I give them credit. They took a risk and it was paid off. Um they did start to get a little too comfortable and add lip again and throw a we love you grandpa or hello. [laughter] It was really cute and the place was was packed. It was absolutely packed. Last Thursday we had you heard our K 3 through five music program with Mrs. Smith. Unbelievable. But we had fifth graders playing ukuleles. We had fourth graders playing recorders and third graders dancing and doing all all different types

210of songs and genres. And what I really appreciated most is um she touched on a lot of the holidays to help kids understand why people celebrate different holidays. And it was really a a great event um for them. Uh this coming Friday is our K2 uh during the school mini session because they're ending their 8week binning blocks. Um so that will be coming this week. Uh the high [snorts] school holiday band concert is tomorrow. Uh the middle school band concert is next Tuesday the 16th. Both of them are 7 o'clock in the auditorium. Uh the high school choir concert is this Wednesday. Cross our fingers with weather. Uh and our middle school choir concert is next Monday. So if you're looking for some holiday, uh joy and music the next four couple days you have

211uh some great music and I'm really looking forward to it. Um this Saturday, uh Richmond is partnering with the Richmond Lions Club. So if you'd like to join us or if you want to come help volunteer too, Breakfast with Santa is at Lee Elementary School. Previously it's been held at St. Pete's. We're hosting it this year. Our food service department is preparing the the the breakfast. Uh scrambled eggs andor pancakes, turkey sausages, um fruit cup, milk juices, and so forth. Um looking forward, we're anticipating about 400 people to serve um that night. So um thanks to everybody who's helping put together from our custodians who will be setting up Friday with me. Billy was part of that conversation. Preston has been part of that. Dar's been part of that. So, I'm really looking forward to

212it. Um, it's a good way of showcasing our our school and our students and I think we're going to have an increase because it's it's often times seen as a school event. So, we may have more of our families joining on that. Um, just to remind our families, uh, you heard it. This coming week, next week, 17th, 18th, 19th is the end of our first semester. If you recall, our calendar changed. So, we're ending semester 1 before the holiday break. So final exams will be for those that are taking final exams will be next Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Uh so when we come back or when they come back after the first of the year, we'll start semester 2. Um I do want to extend a warm welcome and and warm wishes for uh holidays to

213our families. Um I hope the the cards you get in the mail put a smile on your face. Um we should be very proud of the staff and the community that we live in. been very generous and supportive of each other especially in times of needs. So I wish everybody a safe and joyful holiday and then I will uh just leave with this. Um this is my official last regular board meeting. Um so I do want to extend a thankful um heartful gratitude to this board, the students and community. Um you've given me an opportunity um 12 years ago that um I'm very thankful for and I never look back at it. And so it's been a privilege serving as the superintendent. So I look forward to being, as you said, Ray, watching the social

214media, seeing where the district goes, uh um where I'm leaving off, and they can pick up, keep going. So it's exciting. So that's it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh can I This is a real quick question. >> Yes. >> Um do you know if it costs anything for the band in your concert? I meant to ask the girls. I forgot. Um or if they're doing a food drive or anything to get in. >> There's It's $5. I just got to say it's 5, >> but you can get tickets there because they separated them this year. It's not a full house. Well, I shouldn't say that, but it's less. >> Yeah, they separate the middle school and high school. So, it's not one band. >> Normally, you go it's all in one. They're standing and

215>> Yeah. Last year it was it was packed. So, um I know the ticket booths themselves are open nights. Okay. >> So, you can actually get tickets. >> Thank you. >> Good. Good. Okay. Um items of interest from the board. So, I'm going to start tonight. Um as Mr. Wsley just said, this is his last official um regular board meeting. So, I I kind of wrote up a little thing here that I would like to share and read. Um on behalf of the board of education, I want to take this moment to recognize and honor our superintendent, Mr. Brian Wsley, as he is preparing to retire at the end of this month. Mr. Mr. Wsley has led this district with exceptional integrity, vision, and dedication. Over the course of his tenure, he has guided us

216through challenges such as COVID, celebrated our successes such as our state championship esports team, and consistently kept students at the center of every decision. He has improved our instructional programming. During his time, we've started several new CTE programs, culinary arts, teacher, cadet, EMT, radio broadcasting. We went from no laptops to oneon-one for our students. Um, we have new state-of-the-art early childhood program. Um, and these are just a few of the the opportunities that will benefit our students for many, many years to come. His leadership has strengthened our schools physically. He has implemented one bond and was instrumental in getting another passed. These bonds updated our facilities and provided opportunities to expand our current programs such as our K12 STEM wing and even the turf on the football field. And here's my funny. Let's talk about

217the signs. There is no reason you cannot find your way around our property. Our grounds with the trees, the roundabout, the parking lots, the benches are all an an envy of many other districts. Communication has been a priority for Mr. Wamsley. He has reinstated the district-wide newsletter, introduced the annual state of the district, developed a modernized and a userfriendly website and social media presence on Facebook, and as a board member, I can assure you we always talk about transparency when communicating with the public. Financially, Richmond Community Schools has consistently earned the highest possible budget rating from independent auditors under Mr. to Wsley's management. He has successfully negotiated multi-year contracts with our bargaining units and wages have increased, creating a stable workforce. He brought back inhouse our food service staff, our custodians and bus drivers. He's

218built strong partnerships with families, staff, and our broader community such as the city of Richmond, our Lennox EMS, our Richmond Rotary, Richmond lines. These partnerships were rooted in transparency, collaboration, and trust. Perhaps most importantly, Superintendent Wsley has modeled what it means to lead with heart. He has been a champion for educators and an advocate for equity for all students in our district. His legacy will live on in the programs he initiated, the teams he empowered, and the culture of excellence he helped shape. On behalf of the entire board of education, we extend our deepest gratitude for his years of service and the lasting impact he has made in our district. We wish him a retirement filled with health, happiness, and a well-deserved rest. May he'll get some sleep. Uh please join me in thanking our

219superintendent, Brian Wsley, for his extraordinary leadership and in celebrating his remarkable career. >> [applause] >> Okay, Sarah. Um, Danielle, you want me to follow that? >> I'm sorry. I'm good. >> No. Okay, Sandy, I'll follow it. Um, just real quickly, I want to also send this is a personal thank you um to you, Brian. I know that I've shared this story with you, but um you know, I just knew that you were going to be a great superintendent um when you took a meeting with a freshman in the summertime about a theater department. Um, you know, I just and and all these kids in your office at that time just with you probably had so many other way bigger issues um that you were dealing with. I appreciate that on a personal level. Um, I

220know that she does. That's a great memory that she has. And, um, I just that doesn't happen. And so, I do appreciate you. Uh, you're at everything, all the time. I see you around all the time at all these events. And I think um, so thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. >> Candace. Um, nope. I already said what I >> Margaret. >> Yeah. Um, Tracy Bartell, Bridget Smith, Deian Hill, Jeff Twit, Andy Odkerk, Rob Reindell, and myself. Seven very different people who 12 years ago took a chance on Brian Wsley. Um, Brian came to Richmond uh with no experience, had never been a superintendent, but we took a chance on him. And when we were when we were looking for a superintendent and what kind of person did we want and

221and when when you survey um your employees and community and all that, you wanted somebody with with visibility. And uh our teaching staff wanted a superintendent who knew their name. Um the previous superintendent walked around and and didn't know people. Um couldn't tell you who who you were and um we certainly got that. Um Brian Wamsley can't walk anywhere in this district that people don't know who he is. You can walk into buildings with Brian Wsley and students know who he is. you can go to football games, plays, whatever, and kids are talking to Mr. Wsley. Um, when Brian came here, board members, we were so concerned because we were losing students to Armea because our administration at the time thought it was a really good idea to Arma had their great math and science

222academy and they thought it was a really great idea. let's let our kids go down the road there and get their math and science because it was just such a great idea. And so there our kids went. And then it was shocking when not only did they go to the math and science academy, but my god, they started going to our mated to school. And as a board, we had board members who lived in subdivision and they were the only people on their block who actually sent their kids to Richmond. And because of Brian Welmsley's leadership and belief that we had really great teachers here that could teach math and science just as good as how they did down down the road. That has turned completely around. Kids have come back. Kids are not going

223down the road anymore. And people are choosing when they come to to move in here, they're not choosing to go to Armenia. That's because of his leadership and saying to people this is a great place um monetarily moneywise what he has done and given us the chance to just have great things. Deb mentioned all the programs that we've created. We could sit here as a board every year doing our budget. We know exactly what money is sitting there in front of us. what we can do. Brian's very conservative, but by God, we never in his 12 years here have ever once thought, "Wow, is is he going to be right? Are we going to be a million dollar in debt?" Hell no. Ever. Are we going to be $500,000 in debt? No. He He gives

224us He educates us. We are better board members because of his leadership. Our district is in great shape because of his leadership, his community involvement. Deb, you are right. What he does with the Rotary, the uh the the Lions Club, the Richmond Education Foundation, we we have been in existence for 12 years and our bylaws say the superintendent has to be part of the group. And the superintendent's part was created as kind of just a figurehead, if you will. Well, when Brian Walms is your superintendent, he's not your figure head in your group. He's jumped right in and he has made us be as successful as we are and given us the ability to do great things for the students here. um his professionalism, the integrity that he has, and he has met with awful

225things in this district. He has been treated horribly as a person. He has been just demeaned so many times in his career here. [clears throat] But every time he bounced back and he stayed with us and he continued to do great work for us because he believed in this district. He believed in our kids and he knew that everything he was doing was the right thing to do. And he knew that his goal was to make our district better. And some of those people that left us that caused him the the stress and the harm, you know, some of those people left for reasons that were very very valid on why they had to go. And I just I am thankful that he stayed here with us and that he overcame a lot of things

226and still continue to do great work. I have it has been an honor to sit on this board with you all these 12 years and we have had our moments and um some have been not pretty. Um but I knew that every decision you wanted to have happen even though you always wanted your 70 vote. Um that every decision that was made you wanted what was best. And I knew that you knew that everything I was trying to do, I wanted what's best for this district, too. So, thank you. Um, you have left us way better than when you walked through this door 12 years ago. Thank you so much. Um, I wish you and Tanya just so much happiness in your retirement. Um, just thank you for all you gave to Richie >> Brandon.

227>> Yeah. So, I'd like to address something that took place during our last board meeting on 24 November. Uh, during that meeting, the board discussed and and talked about whether or not we'd opt into the 31A and and if so, in what capacity. And uh when the the discussion was nearing the end, it came to almost the end. Uh vice president Telto then addressed me directly. Uh she regarded an email that I had sent to the board and superintendent on the topic earlier that day. Uh she went on to falsely claim that in my email I told board members that I did not want them to waste money on safety and mental health stuff. Uh after I denied that allegation, uh Vice President Toto then went went on to ask me if I wanted her

228to read my email, which I responded by, you know, telling her that that's what she felt she needed to do. Didn't ask her to read it, but she felt it necessary to do so. And she took out her phone and read it aloud to the public. You know, the email that I had sent to the superintendent, to the fellow board member, Sarah. And uh even after reading my email, which clearly stated nothing remotely close to what she had claimed it contained, she continued to badger me, asking me multiple times to clarify my words when they were right in front of her in black and white. Her questions were asked and then answered. And and I felt there was no need for her to continue with that same question. I feel that Vice President Telto purposely

229badgered me and attempted to discredit me to the public. She misrepresented me openly to this board. the public and the district stakeholders. She falsely claimed that I didn't want us, the board, to waste money on safety and mental health stuff. I believe that her actions were inconsistent with how a board member should act. And I ask that Vice President Dohill provide a public apology not only to myself, but to the board and more importantly to the district stakeholders. >> Thank you. Well, Michan, I I wasn't fit. and I had my thing with Mr. Wsley, but I was going to address what happened at the last meeting as well as part of my items of interest. >> You had an opportunity to give it. >> Yes, but you >> Yeah, I saw her say I've got

230one more. >> Okay, then I apologize. I missed it. Please go ahead. >> No, that's all right. Um well I what I'll say Rey is that my word my word of saying that you wasting money that that might have been something [clears throat] I shouldn't have said in the fact that that was my interpretation of what you said. But what I want to clarify for the uh administrators of the truth and transparency page that to the public that um it was a personal email. It was not a personal email way. It was an email directed to the board about business that was going to be conducted that night at the board table about a vote we were having. and the Mr. Walmsley answered, Mrs. Michon got in and answered. And I am a believer that

231we should not engage in any kind of conversation about business that's happening at the board table that to be transparent, we should be discussing it at the table. And the reason that I asked about your email was because we had been talking for the last couple months about the constitutionality of the 31A stuff. And in your email when you started with you didn't want to support if there's the constitutionality and yep we're all in agreement and then you brought in about the mental health part of it and you said if we if we can't if we're spending money on buying shelves and all of that. I was trying to bring that into the conversation because we hadn't even been talking about that and we were going to vote on it. That's what I was trying

232to do. And contrary to what the truth and transparency page, it had nothing to do gotcha. I'm not gotcha anything. I asked you about your email and your response was almost like you didn't like my email like you were questioning not understanding what I meant and that's when I said would you like me to read it to you? You're right. You never said in there that it was a waste of money. That was my interpretation of what you said. So yes, you did not say it was a waste of money. My interpretation. But I had every right to ask you about that. You were talking bird business in an email. >> Okay. >> So, I'm I'm I'm simply asking for an apology for misrepresenting me. >> I not I didn't misrepresent you. I just said

233I used the word waste money. That was my interpretation of what you said. I didn't misrepresent you. I read your email. The email was your words. I didn't misrepresent you. Were those your words? >> So during that meeting, >> were those words your words that I read from the email? >> Referenced the email and you said in that email that you had sent us, you told us that you did not want us to waste money on safety and uh the mental health. Pause. Is that correct? >> Yes. Yes. I said, "No, it wasn't correct." >> Yes. >> So, had you not read my email to validate that it was not correct, then it would be open for the public to believe that what you're saying I said would be true. And that was not the

234case. So, you misrepresented what I I said. >> No, I didn't misrepresent what you said. I interpreted what you said. You didn't like the word waste. that I said you didn't like the fact that I used the word waste you ab that's what I had said >> I didn't misrepresent you Ray I didn't >> you don't you didn't want to you didn't want to vote you you didn't want to vote for you didn't want to spend the money you made the reference if we can spend money on shelving we can at least spend the $20,000 for the school resource officer. So when in fact your vote that you voted that night when you voted no, Ray, in essence you were voting against the money for the school resource officer and the mental health stuff. It's

235exactly what your no vote was. >> Okay. It's it's clear that you're not finding any fault in what you said. Um, and that there's no apology to be had here. >> Well, yeah, I'm not apologizing. I said to you, I interpreted that you said was wasting money. I read your words. >> Did you Did you interpreted that incorrectly for what I actually said in the email? >> No, it's my interpretation of what you said. How is that incorrect? It's my interpretation >> because you addressed me directly saying, "Isn't that what you said?" >> It's my interpretation of what you said. >> Okay. I mean, we can go back. Listen, guys. I'm sorry, Doug, but we can go back and forth all night. It's almost midnight. >> Yep. >> And I Let's move on. >> Okay.

236Next item on our agenda is public comments. Since the last board meeting, the board received an email from a high school parent concerned with the treatment her daughter was receiving in the building. This email was forwarded on to Mr. Wsley. Um, a meeting was scheduled for today. Um, there were no public comments that needed addressing from the last board meeting. At this time, any member of the public will have three minutes to address the board. Please sign in and state your name. If you wish a followup, please provide contact information on the public comment sheet. Are there any public comments? Okay, being no public comments, we will proceed to our action item. Looking for a motion for the approval of an overnight extended student trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Motion to accept the recommendation of

237the superintendent approve the overnight extended trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan on January 21st through the 24th of 2026 as presented at the December 8, 2026 board of education meeting and outlined in the attached documentation. >> Thank you. Any discussion? It's >> the 21st. >> I said the 21st through the 24th. >> Oh, I thought I heard 23rd. That's okay. >> Okay. Uh, any discussion? Okay. This is a roll call vote. Sandy, >> I Sarah. Danielle, >> hi. >> Raymond, >> I >> Candace >> I, >> Margaret, >> I vote I. Motion carries. I'm looking for a motion for the approval of an overnight extended student trip to New York City, New York. >> Accept the recommendation of the superintendent and approve the overnight extended trip to New York City, New York on November 18th to

23822nd, 2026 as presented at the December 8th, 2026 board of education meeting and outlined in the attached documentation. >> December 8, 2025 board of education meeting. >> I'm correct all this. Oh, okay. >> I just read it as written. Sorry. I supported it then. >> You supported it, Margaret. Okay. Any discussion? >> So, roll call vote. Sarah, >> hi. >> Margaret, >> hi. >> Candace, >> hi. >> Sandy, >> I. >> Raymond, >> I. >> Danielle, >> I vote I. Motion carries. I'm looking for a motion for an overnight extended trip to Gaylord, Michigan. I motion to accept the recommendation of superintendent approved the overnight extended shortly, Michigan on May 9th through 10th, 2026 and presented at the December 8, 2025 board of education meeting and outlined in the attached documentation. >> I got Sarah

239on it. Any discussion? So roll call vote. Sandy >> I. >> Sarah. >> Danielle. >> Hi. >> Raymond >> I. >> Margaret >> I. >> Candace. >> Hi. I vote I. Motion carries. I'm looking for a motion for the approval of a three-year contract for the non-union and exempt employees. >> I move to accept the recommendation of the superintendent and approve three-year contract extensions for non-union and exempt employees as outlined in the attached documentation. Support. >> Do we have any discussion? It's a roll call vote. Margaret >> I. >> Sandy. >> I. Candace. >> Hi. >> Raymond. >> Hi. >> Sarah. I >> Danielle >> I vote I motion carries. I'm looking for a motion for the approval of a resolution authorizing litigation against the social media companies. >> I motion to accept the recommendation

240of the superintendent and approve the resolution authorizing litigation against social media companies as outlined in the attached documentation >> support. Thank you. Uh any discussion? So roll call vote. Candace >> I. >> Sandy >> I. Sarah, >> hi. >> Raymond, >> hi. >> Uh, Danielle, >> hi. >> Margaret, >> hi. >> I vote I. Motion carries. >> I'm looking for a motion for the approval of the interim superintendent appointment. I move to appoint Billy Cispaniac as the interim superintendent [cough] meeting January 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2026 as outlined in the attached documentation board. >> Uh, any discussion? Uh, couple things real quick. Um, one, I just I just want to express the my disagreement with the fact that this position, the interim position wasn't uh openly publicized uh for anything or for anyone

241at any time. Um and and though I have no doubt that she's a great candidate um at this point and and I'll ask by a show of hands of anybody else on the board if they've actually seen her resume qualifications and certifications. I've seen a lot of emails recently that there's a lot of district employees providing support and that's great and and I think Billy is great also but I I feel that this process wasn't handled correctly and that um it wasn't openly publish published and um nobody else had an opportunity to apply for it and that the public didn't have a hand in providing any questions either. And I >> and and so that's that's where I'm at because I I haven't seen a resume or any qualifications or certifications, but yet we're we're

242going to vote her in. >> And so I would ask you, you can vote however you want. I just you'll have your vote. Well, I I would just like to say even though I do feel like I agree maybe the process about going about it wasn't dubbed maybe the way I would have liked Deb and I have talked practically about that. I do think at the end we got the right person and seeing the recommendations by three different unions and just their support 100%. Even though I think the process could have been improved at the end I think we got the right person. So, I I'm >> okay. Any other discussion? >> I would just like to very much thank Billy for um wanting to step in and lead us through this uh little short

243period of time um to keep us keep us afloat and keep the the great things going. So, uh appreciate it very very much [cough] >> and good luck dearly with all of us. Any [laughter] other discussion? >> You know it's true. >> This is a roll call vote. >> Okay. Margaret >> I. >> Candace. >> I. >> Sandy. >> I. >> Raymond. >> Nay. >> Sarah. >> Hi. >> Danielle. >> I vote I. Motion carries. Okay. I'm looking for a motion for the approval of a contract for interim curriculum assistant. I move to approve the contract for Jessica Sllay Huber as the interim curriculum assistant beginning January 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2026 is outlined in the attached documentation. Do I have support? >> Support. >> Thank you. Any discussion? Okay, this a roll

244call vote. Margaret >> I. >> Sandy, >> I. >> Candace, >> I. >> Raymond, >> I. Sarah >> I >> Danielle >> I vote I motion carries looking for the approval of a mediation settlement agreement [clears throat] anyone um I move to accept the recommendation of the superintendent and approve the mediation settlement agreement as outlined in the attached documentation. Do I have support? It's the same thing, right? >> Yeah, I think. >> Do I have support? >> Okay. Being no support, I'll >> Okay. Sarah just said she will support it. >> Okay. Um, any discussion? Okay. This a roll call vote. Margaret >> I. Uh Sarah, >> hi >> Candace. >> Hi >> Sandy. >> Nay. >> Uh Raymond. >> N >> Danielle. I >> I vote nay. Motion carries. No further business. The board

245will adjourn at 11:53. Thank you guys. I know this was a long one. >> [music]