001[Music] good evening the regular order of the Richmond Board of Education will come to order before I get started this evening I have a statement I would like to read many comments were made about Mr Walmsley at the last board meeting I heard fire him or remove him Mr walsley has done nothing illegal or violated any board policy to justify removal yes I did speak out at a board meeting five years ago about my experience with Mr Walmsley asking the board to check into the administrator's concerns yes I did state that Mr Walmsley was one of the reasons I was leaving but not the only one and not the main one yes when I ran for the school board I ran out a ticket to work to remove Mr Walmsley from the district however my
002main goal was to hold him accountable and I told him that at our first meeting since I upheld the office of president of the board I have learned a lot for one there are two sides to every story I don't believe everyone knows the whole story or the other side of many actions that have been taken by Mr Wamsley second communication I asked the staff when was the last time you had a conversation with Mr Walmsley regarding a concern I challenge you to stop listening to the rumors such as Mr Wamsley holds something over my head which is why I am supporting him not true and whoever is spreading that within this District I ask you to please stop seek out the truth go to the source and have a conversation you would be amazed
003at what you might find out I have had personal conversations with past and present administrators who have stated things are better since you are on the board last year the board did a climate survey survey yes we had some negative responses about the bond covet Southern staff collaboration central office leadership increase in Pay Etc but we also had many positive responses I thoroughly enjoy working for RCS I love Richmond and have chosen to stay here I love my job the board Did a teacher retention survey several years ago which showed Richmond was very much in line with the districts around us here's just a short list of positive actions taken by Mr Walmsley he has balanced the budget every year since he has been here we have had no issues with the Auditors examining our
004procedures or records he has passed a bond that has exceptionally improved the district in many ways just look around you he works with our staff to seek out grants to help fund extra programs for our students and staff he has hired some exceptional Educators for example Renee Staples our curriculum director who has brought so many wonderful new experiences to this district for our students we have an excellent Career Technical education program that continues to grow under his leadership with the most recent edition of Dick kubar's teaching our students Auto Tech I believe that Mr Walmsley has made some changes and continues to reflect upon his actions yes he is human and will make mistakes just as we all do I will continue to work with him for the betterment of the students and staff of
005this district and if need be I will address him concerning his actions if any of our staff have concerns about Mr wansley they need to follow the chain of command reporting them we do have a whistleblower policy number 4103 protecting them from any perceived retaliation with this being said if there are issues about Mr wamsley's performance we as aboard are responsible to follow the evaluation process just as we would for any other individual in this District this means privately and not publicly the board has been trained in the evaluation tool which is part of his contract the board has also been notified that if they have any performance concerns they must immediately speak to Mr Walmsley so that he has time to address them as a board we will be following this process just want
006to thank you for listening and are there any other members here who would like to make a comment I wrote something and put something together I didn't have a printer but I put it together um so I wanted to take a moment to personally address the two main public comments that were brought up at the last meeting to summarize what I heard my perception from the community was that there's a large issue regarding the safety and comfort of all students in the district relating to the restrooms also the community felt that Mr Veritas was inappropriately asked to complete his work with the district sooner than expected in Hugh and that he was a well-respected staff member of Richmond for the last 24 years I also heard others comment regarding how they or others for those
007of you that spoke for someone else's voice felt during various practices felt regarding various practices and the inability for them to approach Administration regarding their concerns after hearing all of the comments I emailed Miss Michonne on Tuesday afternoon about noon and again on Wednesday at about 10 15 in the morning regarding both the bathroom issue as well as concerns regarding Mr Walmsley addressed having both the bathroom issue as well as the concerns regarding Mr Walmsley addressed through a scheduled special meeting so that we could sit with the seven of us and discuss these two topics at length without interrupting a regular board meeting and giving it as much time as needed to talk through three o'clock on Wednesday Miss Michonne responded to my email and indicated thank you for sharing your suggestion I'm waiting to
008hear back from one board member on their thoughts about this so actively seeking out input not just waiting for people to approach her on Friday 10 14 I received another email which stated I have spoke or heard from every board member regarding having a meeting with the board attorney there are four who do not wish to meet and three that do we will not be having a meeting with the board attorney at this time I would like to voice that I have two concerns at this point one why are we not at the very least having a special meeting scheduled where we can discuss these large issues whether it's open session if you don't believe our attorney needs to attend or a closed session for attorney-client privilege all of these people have come to voice
009their concerns and are we just going to essentially say oh we noted it we'll look into it and leave it at that move on to something else at the next meeting I feel like that's awful secondly I believe there was a very fine line possibly probably crossed then with Miss Michonne regarding the open meetings act it was stated in the email to us that I have spoke or heard from every board member I am concerned that this was that she informed us of this as she pulled every board member on an issue to make her decision to me it seems like a violation of the open meetings Act and any of us should not and cannot violate the ACT um the special meeting should be held so that every board member can publicly give their
010input in a legal way I believe that Miss Michonne violated the open meetings act and I would like to go just on the record that I don't support this decision to not look into this further either issue um in the end we should have the special meeting so the community can hear the opinions or we can meet with the attorney for client privilege to discuss the issues anyone else yeah I guess I would like to First everybody who spoke two weeks ago I just wanted to say thank you for that I it was a very late night and a lot of thought going on so I kind of did forget to say that I just wanted to get right to other things that I wanted to address about it but I want everyone to know
011that I did educate myself on the questionnaire and the everything that they did a year ago with all of the teachers and did seem like there were a lot of things in terms of employee morale definitely and putting a lack of communication amongst everybody and there was a lot of things that said administrative administrative but not specific and it to me I just I know that you guys put some things on him that he had to accomplish and he did do all of that but I would personally like another one um because it has been a whole year an interesting piece that I found in there was um how many years they had been employed and I would like to compare that now I know we had a big turnover and so I would like
012to hear from those individuals how things are and have been the past year so I'm I would like to see us start there with another something to compare apples to apples to see surely he did his things but is he maintaining that through still and to change the morale to change something so um I just want everyone to know that that's that's my take on that thank you anybody else um yeah well um first uh just a little bit off that topic I guess it was uh brought to my my attention by Speaker last meeting um that the board didn't say anything regarding the resignation of Mr bechtels I have to receive after we've received that information and I do admit I I do have to apologize for that I definitely should have commented on
013that and I should have like the first service this district and I um and I do thank him for his service to this district and I wish him well um on his future endeavors I appreciate the individual that came forward um bringing that to my attention again I apologize um secondly uh just a real short we did hear a lot a lot of things being excited about this superintendent during public coming last meeting and um now since I've been on the board which hasn't been very long this last time there has been no official complaints brought to people as far as I'm aware regarding the superintendent from a current or the current employee or a past employee that has already resigned thank you anybody else are you going to say extended I did want to
014make one comment okay um regarding we have as a matter of fact not necessarily as a board yet but I'm anticipating talking about having some kind of community Forum regarding um the issue of all students feeling safe and our bathroom areas so that has been addressed and you know that's coming up the pipe so yes and then as far as I feel very saddened by some of the comments we've heard or we did hear and have been hearing about superintendent Walmsley from staff I feel sometimes that poor morale or that feeling of stress and not being heard is not necessarily superintendent's fault I think we need to keep in mind that Common Core Curriculum had been enforced since superintendent Wamsley has been on standardized testing it's been rigorously enforced and put upon teachers grading of
015schools is an option and has been the ABCD grade of schools that is also something precious for teachers and staff the covet work is a huge trust for staff the bond work which superintendent Wamsley was directed by the community and the board to make that stress upon unfortunately all of us but it's for the benefit and also the technology change that has been going on over the last 10 years that is a huge uphill battle that we have also had to face as a district and I think some of the stress that is filled in the district are due to outside State and County restrictions and we should all be thankful that superintendent wimsley has gotten us where we are today um I'm going to speak to the statements that were made two weeks ago
016about Mr Walmsley about the complaint that was filed against him by administrators that was brought up with the situation that happened with Mr Bartels and first and foremost the situation with Mr Bartels was unfortunate but there I agree with Mrs Machan there's two sides to the story and I don't think that coming up and raking someone over the coals and just annihilating someone ever works for anybody whether it's the whole District or certain employees the investigation the board conducted an outside investigation the complaint against Mr Walmsley was found to have no merit but the board at the time felt that something we needed to do something with our administrators in Mr Walmsley to restore or do restorative practice do something that because something caused this the complaint to happen so we wanted them to be
017able to work together at that time as a board we put some things into place that we wanted Mr womsley to do and we wanted administrators to do Kyle Simmons who was on the board at the time and I went and met with Mr Bartels who was the leadership of the administrators Mr Bartels said that the administrative staff did not want to meet with Mr Walmsley didn't want to do any restorative practices he told us that we didn't want this to go this far we only wanted to talk about our issues stated to me that the former School Board president took it farther than she should have and told me that if I had been president at the time it wouldn't have gone as far as it did when in fact the administrators were given
018a chance to do something as on a informal basis or the formal basis that they went to they chose to go formal Mr Bartels told Kyle Simmons and I that he had no issues with Brian Wamsley they always talked whatever their problems were out it was others in the administrative staff who had issues so we came back to the board and um because administrators the only employee the school board has is the superintendent he's the only one we're responsible for we could not make the administrators do something to get back together and work things out only Mr Wamsley had to do that and he did it he got himself a mentor he worked and he worked very hard and he continues to work hard to make himself a better administrator if that's even the the
019right term to say so there were other administrators who came to Mr Walmsley and told him they didn't want to do the complaint they tried to you know work with him and so it's just we let's just be clear one complaint was lodged by a group of Administrators there was no merit for that complaint and we moved forward yet we come this many years later statements are made by people some people that came were fired employees disgruntled employees talked about things that happened with Mr Wamsley from years ago the one about the that Mr Walmsley didn't say hi to an employee that happened in 2017. and if we can't look and think that in 2017 if I did something to upset somebody that I can't make it better five years later God help all of
020us we talked about we named all these people that left because of Brian Walmsley some of those people one two three nine of those people were retired and all nine of them received a very very good compensation package from the Board of Education to the tune of anywhere from Thirty to forty thousand dollars when they retired three employees whose names were used Carrie blissett Lance Whitney and Pam Daly reached out to me one is Lance Whitney Lance Whitney writes it has come to my attention that my name was recently used during a board meeting first I never gave anyone my permission to use my name during a board meeting or otherwise second I was never unhappy during my employment at Richmond High School I was laid off and then offered my position back for financial
021reasons that I thought would be best for my family at the time I chose to leave it was for those reasons and those reasons only that I did not return to Richmond High School Cherry blissett left to deadly because of Brian Wamsley Pam Daly who works in the she was our pupil accounting person she did not leave because of Brian Walmsley she's even back helping Mr Walmsley during count day so if he was so horrible to work for why would she come back and help him dab dabs retired she's back working for us in the transportation department sure let me ask your cheski who was our special ed director who came to Richmond because she knew Brian to help him when we needed a special ed director she was retired came out of retirement worked
022for us and then went back into retirement Paula dauker's name was brought up that she was someone who left because of Brian mumsley you bet she did you bet she did Paula dauker was a disgrace and that's why she was removed and she sued our district and didn't win her lawsuit other people that left Veronica about outstanding art teacher at the high school Leah kagnac has replaced her and has done a tremendous job with our high school Arts students Preston trend has come to work for Richmond schools did an outstanding job as a teacher and is now in an administrative role talked about Tom Brown and James Wagner leaving they were CTE based Tom Brown left James Wagner came in and just took our CTE program to Heights that we hadn't seen in a really
023long time Brett Berg is now in that spot and he is working just as hard to keep it that way 2010 when Mr when I got back on the board sky was falling we were our finances were in terrible shape laying off teachers our enrollment was low Mr romsley came to this district and he was given a mission by the board of education at the time and he fulfilled that mission our teachers are grossly underpaid still we know that everyone that has been on this board since 2010 knows it and we have all worked really hard to move our teachers pay up and we have done that we have worked really hard at that he passed a bond issue here on the first time the first try the work he did to pass that Bond
024was unbelievable our finances are better we have a culinary program that is outstanding we have opened up a restaurant that was an idea that was given to Mr Walmsley when he first got here he worked to make that happen our robotics program that robotics room that is in this High School is unbelievable he's the person who pushed and pushed to make that happen our contracts with EMT AIS we just started something with Hoovers our stem and our steam that we are doing what we have we now have a k-6 program working to get teachers in line so we can make a K-12 program that's our future um to to the people that stood up here and made comments even some people that still work here what I say to you is Nobody's Perfect um have
025a relationship with Mr Walmsley because people that have had issues with him that if you go and you talk to him he listens to you you may not get the answer that you want but he listens to you he is a very good man not saying that Mr Bartels is not a good man but let's focus on the great things that are happening in Richmond schools and I agree with what Angela said two weeks ago our scores our math scores that's what we need to focus on we need to focus on getting our teachers help getting our test scores because the bottom line is that's where your district is judged and going through and and just doing what happened two weeks ago does not nobody any good and if you truly love this school district
026and want your children here want to work here please remember that okay we are going to continue on with our meeting please stand for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Angela can you please read our mission statement yes at Richmond Community Schools we provide a quality education that empowers students to be successful in a global community thank you roll call Deb here Sherry is absent with notice Danielle here Candace here Sandra here Margaret here and I am present we have a quorum thank you I'm looking for a motion to approve the agenda so moved we have support any discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries
027I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second all right thank you any discussion Mr Walmsley second Candace yes on the Personnel report you know we have a free resignation darling telling to Patrick was a recent custodian Empire she's left to go back to her former employer um we wish her the best uh Doug newcaster is resigned from the basketball's Coach position at the middle school other shlokowitz the middle school media or excuse me the high school media center parapro her last day was Friday new hires we have Jarrett Gill he's a 31 title 131a pair professional that is a new position this year here so we now have four of those uh positions Karen cuckoo is the fourth grade lead preschool teacher you might recall Karen was an employee last
028year Stockton came back John Nader is the middle school basketball coach Adriana Rutman is a student Advocate position um PM custodian Brandon Scheer English teacher who began today Courtney Smith and the melody whims is a special education paraprofessional and we have two appointments Kathy Campo is our Esports coach who will be starting an Esports league has talked about previously we're excited about that that ties into her programming course that she's currently teaching at the high school and then Autumn Walters has been appointed as the title one teacher her position will not start officially as a title one teacher until we have her replacement in the classroom so important I apologize for the minutes I thought I uploaded them I didn't catch it so there was a lot of minutes so I want to thank Sherry
029took minutes last week for me at both my notes so I think I captured all the minutes and that's it anybody have any questions for Mr wanza okay I'm sorry um I see wait we have an English teacher at the high school and I know there were questions at the latest meeting are you going to talk about them when you do your report or here like there's there was the the math teacher and the science teacher that was supposed to start at the high school sure the English teacher that's here is taking teachers that are teaching on their prep they're pulling them so they'll actually have with not like prep period right the science teacher is coming from another District they adored previously hired several weeks ago she officially starts on the 31st next Monday
030we had to wait for the other District to release the person the math position we we have offered a position we have not heard back from the person for the math position and right now we have Mr misco teaching math yeah we we shifted Mr Miss Mr Mr two math and taught math last year so we have a long term in in the PE so as soon as we get a math position or teacher the goal will be put Mr misco back in the P because that's um trying to get them where they want to teach is that our preference and then replace it with the math but he is certified to teach talk math last year okay uh we are still looking for another science teacher we have a teacher that is out on
031leave so um if we can find someone for science our plan is to hire the person regardless of the person coming back for science okay thank you any other questions yeah and the last um the last person I report the last meeting indicated that we had hired a bus driver we were waiting for a licensing I'm just wondering if his license is in the road he's not licensed this person has uh is starting from scratch okay so we are going through and providing the training for the person and then he goes to the ISD to complete the training there but it's literally starting from scratch because it doesn't it take like five weeks I was just gonna ask a very long time okay and then we still are we're still looking to hire an additional
032bus driver even even besides this new one correct okay okay we actually would like to hire two more bus drivers okay I actually have one question too as well do we have any feedback on how in the meantime there is uh an online program kind of being ran in the science programs the science classes while the one teacher is out on leave do we have any feedback on how that is going or working with students I I have not talked from this in full regarding I know she scheduled them and we started it last week okay um but I will follow up with that great thank you okay all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries okay the next thing on our agenda is our presentation for Title Nine on the basis of sex
033we have our district attorney Jones Starlin is going to give us a presentation this evening good evening everybody for those of you who haven't met before I'm going to be Scarlet I'm going to turn into Locker we represent over 500 school districts across the state of Michigan including Richmond we are routine Council we have 29 Attorneys at our firm that handle a variety of issues so you probably work with other attorneys not just me I am always particularly excited to work with Richmond because I graduated from Richmond schools just a couple years um we're going to be talking about Title IX tonight and uh if there are any questions from the board as I go through this and we have to answer those before you can hold them to the end and I'd be happy
034to answer at that point so I always start all of my presentations and for those of you who've seen my presentations before with our caution slide although uh what I'm saying tonight is legally accurate the Law changes quickly especially in the area that we're going to be talking about so I can't guarantee that if you pull this out in a year uh it will still be good Law stay tuned and we'll see what happens um but although I'm a lawyer and I'm talking about the law tonight this does not constitute Mutual advice Title IX is a federal statute and it's a funding statute that was enacted 50 years ago in 1972 And it basically says that if we accept any federal funding which public schools in Michigan and across the country do we can't discriminate
035on the basis of sex now Title IX the statute was enacted enacted in 1972. two years later they were implementing regulations that were enacted um and if the statute is the law the implementing regulations uh have full force and effective law but they kind of get into the nitty-gritty of how you and how you enforce the law now most people think of Title IX as uh it means that the baseball field has to look like the softball field or it's the reason that we had to change Sports Seasons in the state of Michigan about 10 years ago and that's true and that's accurate um but that phrase on the basis of sex has really kind of come into question over the last 30 or so years in terms of what's that mean initially when it
036was enacted Title IX one of its main purposes was to get girls into sports in schools we didn't see a lot of athletic opportunities for female students before them and that was certainly a byproduct of Title IX but in 1992 the Supreme Court of the United States recognized that Title IX also has a right to sue for money damages now there are some federal statutes like FERPA which protects Student Records there's not a private right of action for FERPA so if FERPA is violated you can't sue your school and get a bunch of money from that in 1992 the Supreme Court said Title IX you can recover money damages so that was the first time that that was actually recognized by the court and there were a lot of guidance documents issued over the next
037uh close to 30 years but in 2020 we got an entirely new set of Title IX regulations and most of those dealt with how we handle sexual harassment complaints in the school setting both at the K-12 level and at colleges and universities and most of what was enacted in 2020 has nothing to do with transgender students has nothing to do with bathrooms it only has to do with sexual harassment claims that happen at school and it details a very lengthy process for handling those types of complaints now earlier this year there was a notice of proposed rulemaking related to Title IX that was issued and new new regulations are now expected in the near future the comment period closed uh in September and so now they are sitting with the feds the feds will review
038all of the public comments for the Title IX regulations and I will probably be back talking to some of you and many of our other schools in the next year or so about what the new new Title IX regulation says you can see there's a lot of recent movement considering the last time before 2020 that we have regulations on Title IX 1974 and they remained unchanged for uh 46 years now the new proposed Title IX regulations as they are right now which is no guarantee as to how they might end up but they do streamline some of that process that I about in in terms of investigating sexual harassment compliance they also clearly carve out that the word the phrase on the basis of sex includes sexual orientation and gender identity so it is possible
039that we will have Federal Regulations within the next year that specifically say things like you have to allow students to use bathrooms consistent with gender identity we don't have that right now there's not a law or a regulation that says that you won't find that in the law anywhere um but I suspect you might see that in the near future it just depends on how things go so where we're at right now because as I said there's no law that specifically addresses um bathroom use but there is a requirement that schools allow students to use bathrooms consistent with gender identity and how we got there is not as easy as just saying that's what the law says you have to look at a series of cases which I'm going to walk through so Title VII
040is a different federal law and it applies in the employment context and it says that an employer can't fire you based on your membership in a protective classification and that includes because of your sex you can't be fired because you're a woman you can't be fired because you're a man you can't be fired because you're white you can't be fired because you came from another country these are all protected classifications now in 2020 there were three cases that went up to the U.S Supreme Court the name of the one that you hear about the most on the news and the name that's on the caption on the case is both doctors as Clayton County and this was a What What In the legal World we'd call a landmark Supreme Court decision because it really did
041um address an issue that the different circuits had sort of addressed most of them had but we didn't have clear Nationwide guidance now it was a 6-3 decision it was issued June 15th of 2020 and what the Supreme Court said is title VII's prohibition that says employers you can't discriminate based on sex because of somebody's sex that phrase because of sex includes discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation so that sex umbrella does include gender identity and sexual orientation and the court said it's impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex uh one of the quotes from the case from Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch an employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits her actions and
042wouldn't have questioned in members of a different sex and sex plays a necessary and understand undisguisable rule in that decision which is exactly what Title VII forbids now Title VII applies to employees it doesn't apply to students in school we can't fire students from school even though sometimes we may wish that we could um but they're not our employees they're our students so when we look at the glow stock decision and what does this mean for Title IX it's a little bit more nuanced than just saying yes this applies to schools now even before the Bostock decision the sixth circuit which Michigan is a part of and end the six circuits decisions are binding on Michigan federal courts ruled that discrimination based on failure to conform to sex stereotypes which would include a transgender person
043because they by Nature fail to conform to sex stereotypes violates Title VII so we have the bowstock decision in 2020 um but that case in the sixth circuit was from 2004. so that's been the law for 16 years before The Supreme Court issued its ruling at least in Michigan Ohio Kentucky and Tennessee which makes up the sixth circuit now following the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock we had a published decision out of the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals the fourth circuit's decisions are not binding on Michigan courts but are persuasive circuits look at each other's decisions all the time especially when they're published and this case involved a female to male transgender student named Gavin Grimm um his school had a policy initially that allowed um I don't know that they had a policy he
044requested to be able to use the boy's bathroom he identified as a male the school granted that request after several weeks the school received several parent complaints they walked it back they said you can't use this you can only use the nurse's bathroom they did eventually build a separate bathroom for him but it was far away from his hallway where his glasses were and the school passed a policy that said you have to use facilities consistent with your biological sex on your birth certificate and he sued an alleged that this violated the equal protection Clause of the Constitution and Title IX um and this bounced around the courts for several years actually when this decision was issued yeah out of high school but they still issued the decision and the court said that both the
045equal protection clause and Title IX protect transgender students from school policies that require bathroom use consistent with sex at Birth in other words if a school were to adopt a policy like that it would violate the students rights they looked at and what you'll see is a common theme as we go through some of these cases is if the student the transgender student who's being subjected to the policy demonstrates emotional harm or trauma or some sort of distress that's where a court will look and say there could be also money damages associated with this and that there is certainly harm it's not a no harm no foul type of policy you just use a different bathroom and that's frequently the case and that is something that Gavin Grimm also noted in his case and did
046ultimately Prevail although he was out of school by that point in time now if we take a little trip kind of backwards the 2016 Dodge versus the U.S Department of Education is a published sixth circuit case and in this case we had a um male to female transgender student who was 11 years old um and there was a question about whether she could use the bathroom there was a series of complaints filed included in court and with the office for civil rights the office for civil rights ordered the district to allow this student to use facilities consistent with her gender identity and the schools sought to basically not have that rule applied they wanted an injunction saying that you don't have to do that and one of the factors that Encore will look at when
047somebody's requesting an injunction and one of the important factors is the likelihood of success on the merits so a Court's going to look at okay an injunction we make Grant right now before this whole case plays out but only if we think you might ultimately win the school district and the sixth circuit set in a published decision that they were not convinced at all that the school had shown that they were likely to succeed on the merits and the court went on to say um that under settled law in this circuit which Michigan is part of sex stereotyping based on a person's gender non-conforming behavior is impermissible discrimination so you know some cases like that you don't often get to the merits because the parties end up resolving it out of court but we do
048have uh that decision on the um injunction fees now I often get the question when I'm talking about Title IX and um bathrooms facilities other issues surrounding students what about the rights of the other students because there have been cases that come up where it's not the transgender student who's suing the school it's other students who are concerned about privacy in the bathroom this is a case um this is out of the northern district of Illinois um just outside of Chicago so it's not binding out of Michigan port a Michigan court wouldn't have to follow it but again it could be persuasive and here there was a group of parents and students who challenged the school's bathroom policy the bathroom policy allowed students to use facilities consistent with gender identity there were four female students
049who alleged that they experienced embarrassment humiliation fear anxiety and stress because they had to share a bathroom with somebody who has a biological male and they saw an injunction again asking the court to say you know you can't enforce this policy and we're going to go through the full litigation this is all pre-bow stock but back in 2016 the judge in this case noted that the trend around the country was a more expansive understanding of the word sex under Title IX and that it would be inclusive of gender identity and again the court said I can't say with confidence that the plaintiffs have a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the department of education's interpretation of Title IX is not in accordance with law or entitled to deference the court went
050on to say that these individual plaintiffs even though they have alleged that they've had some sort of anxiety and humiliation and fear with using the bathroom um the court didn't believe that they had established any type of constitutional privacy or Title IX claim simply because a transgender student was permitted to use restrooms consistent with uh that students gender identity and the court went on to say that high school students don't have a constitutional right not to share restrooms or locker rooms with transgender students whose sex assigned at Birth is different for theirs and the court noted here and I think it's really important and one thing that I tell my schools is that nobody is required to share facilities with anybody else because schools often and I know that you all have make a separate
051facility available for people who are uncomfortable so if they're uncomfortable in the bathroom or locker room there are other options that have privacy that could be a single-use facility it could be a stall within a locker room [Music] um but it we're not forcing anybody to unclog in front of anybody that they're not comfortable with um the court went on to say that that having a student who is not transgender share a restroom or lock the room with a transgender student does not meet the standard of so severe pervasive and objectively offensive which is the standard under Title IX for hostile environment um that that would ultimately succeed on the mirrors so that was a case from 2016. we had another similar case in 2020 this is a published ninth circuit case so again it
052is not binding in Michigan but it is persuasive on Michigan courts and in this case the court again we have parents um a group of parents challenging the school's bathroom policy and the court said there's not a um we're not seeing any um infringement on 14th Amendment privacy rights parental rights First Amendment free exercise rights and it doesn't create actionable sex sex-based harassment under Title IX now we did get a couple of memos that came out and I've tried to stick to the law but just bear with me for a minute and I'll get to why these are important um this was back in March of 2021 so following the boat stock decision uh there was a Department of Justice memo that was issued that says that based on the text the plain language of
053Title IX which is very similar to Title VII um the Supreme Court case and other cases in this in this area uh the the Justice Department Civil Rights decision has determined that the best reading of Title IX prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex includes discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation similarly the office for civil rights issued a notice of interpretation in June of 2021 and said that relying on bo staff OCR will enforce Title IX prohibition of on discrimination on the basis of sex to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity now some of this was challenged in other states and this guidance is stayed which means it can't be enforced in 20 States at this time while they settle some things in through throughout the court
054process Michigan is not one of those states which means this guidance is still enforceable in Michigan now the office for civil rights and the Department of Justice put out a document in June of 2021 that gave some examples of the kinds of incidents that the Civil Rights Division and the office for civil rights would investigate and I know it's kind of small so the fact sheet pieces that I've pulled up here one deals with names and pronouns and the school sort of blowing off a student's request to use those names and pronouns another example is specifically on point with restrooms and requiring a student to use the nurse's office because a student's records identify her as male and the principal tells her those are just the district's policies so those are specific examples that OCR
055has said they will investigate in the event that they get a complaint and if you've ever had the chance to interact with the office for civil rights their investigations are um lengthy and very involved and I'm sure those of you who've had that experience would agree are a lot of fun now that's important because OCR typically when they come in and investigate we reach what's called a resolution agreement where we agree to change policies change practice do some things for the student if we if they've determined that we've engaged in wrongdoing and that's usually where it stops and all of the clients I work with at that point say okay yes we will do what you tell us to do but if you don't there is Authority this comes from the Justice Department's Title Nine
056legal manual and if we don't follow Title IX in the way that OCR in the department of justice has told us that we need to then they can take away our federal funding now again I don't see that happen ever because schools usually then comply when they get an order from OCR and say this is what you have to do but as you can see up there there is statutory Authority for the Department of Justice and the office for civil rights to move ahead and revoke your federal funding um so with that I don't know if there are specific questions thing that you guys wanted me to address that I didn't specifically address in that presentation are you able to read our policy and kind of I to I have read your policy um I
057was actually one of them I'll see so I'm pretty familiar with it um your policy does track what the law says and I'm not just saying that because I helped write it um but what I've told schools is whether you have a policy like Richmond has or not um your legal obligations remain the same I think that your policy is good because it puts everybody on notice of what the school's practice is a lot of schools don't have a policy on transgender students it doesn't mean that they're not bound by those same rules um it just means that maybe they aren't necessarily as transparent as you guys are in terms of how you will handle that now I know your policy speaks to working with families individually and talking to them about their needs and
058I think that's the most important piece here because I don't want any school to ever assume that somebody wants to use a particular restroom or wants to go by a particular name it's incumbent on the school to really work with the family and the student to figure out what do you need what's going to make you comfortable and then develop a plan so when a school when somebody approaches the school and says I'm a transgender student I'd like to use different pronouns I'd like to use a different name I'd like to use a different bathroom sit down with somebody who has the represent experience maybe a counselor could be a principal who has experienced in that area and develop a plan for okay who can we alert to this because if somebody sees you going
059to the other restroom they might stop you and say you're not allowed in there if they're not in the know as to why that person's using a different restroom so having those conversations with the student I think is critical about you know we would like to be able to tell your teachers otherwise they're probably going to call you by the name that's on your attendance roster or you know they might not know um and kind of sorting out all of the Kinks in that process to figure out what makes sense and to confirm with that we do not as of right now our policy does not State a form of punishment or um backlash if you will if another student were to call somebody a different pronoun we don't have that in our policy right
060correct you mean like intent healing calling a student a different pronoun that would come against them that's not actually declared so that wouldn't be in your transgender student policy that's in your hands on harassment and anti-discrimination policy so you have Title IX and then you have a separate um anti-harassment policy um I don't remember the number 5202 maybe um and those would address that type of behavior because that's not I mean it's the equivalent of name calling and we don't address that for many students or we don't uh allow that for many students attention there is intentional yes it's not if it's not each situation is addressed individually correct but if it's not intentional then there's not all we then don't go to the harassment policy there's no disability but I'm understanding if someone accidentally
061calls a student this name when they should be this way or a teacher who didn't know or reference or sat there there's no discipline now we would meet with them to get them up to speed as it's appropriate for them because they might not have known because they weren't part of the original plan from a staff member's perspective so yeah and I always talk to schools about especially I know Richmond I went here K through 12. um there are still people who called me by my maiden name and probably will for a very long time and I've been married for excited for a while so you know that's hard those habits are hard to break if you know somebody by a certain name you use a certain pronoun and as long as it's not intentional
062and people are not you know I'm doing this to make fun of you you know then it's okay A light reminder and it shouldn't be happening over and over again because that would be embarrassing to the student um but yes and that's another thing that I encourage schools to talk to the student about when you have that initial meeting like we're happy to help facilitate this conversation with your teachers and with other students or whatever you need um but you know this is a journey that you have to work with us on as well because this might be difficult for some people to remember to call you the right name and um you have to expect that somebody might slip up at some point just anybody else on the board have any questions how many
063other schools have this policy Michigan they've our version I think about 30 of our 90 policy subscribers adopted it I I know that um the majority of schools in Michigan use a different policy service and I don't have any idea in terms of numbers I know there was a Detroit user Free Press article that ran a couple weeks ago that cited some Oakland County schools that had the Neola transgender student policy which I haven't read and I don't know the exact number annual is what we used to use prior to what we did okay hey guys um do you know about their other sex education policy a lot of those other schools do they have a separate one what does that say like a real one or do they use what we use which is
064the abstinence policy um so I don't have any idea state law says you either have to teach communicable disease instruction or communicable disease instruction and sex ed and I I don't have any data on the numbers as to how many schools choose what wonders of the other okay thank you thank you very much thank you so much okay next item on our agenda is our physical 2023 budget update discussion for Mr Walmsley in your board packet you have several items so I'll start with the um kind of time with our last presentation and the Lord wants me to go further I'll start summarizing I can give you more details but I've been working with our Construction Company Ock construction and our Architects French and Associate French Associates to look at what would what are some
065options for our bathrooms that the board chooses to allocate dollars to to make some Renovations so in this process I have learned a lot in terms of from the perspective of based on the size of your building how many specific toilets you need to have how many sinks how many drinking pounds if you have urinals the ratio of urinals to toilets Etc so in your backup you'll see two two documents from French Associates and the first line in the documents is highlighted 800 students and 900 students the original plan of Richmond High School is designed for a capacity of 900 students and they take that number and they basically count all classroom spaces putting 30 students in a classroom and they calculate how many students the building can host you know as many of you
066know some classrooms are not designed for 30 students after we were looking at this documents we went back and we started looking at the actual Renovations that just occurred so for instance in the wing in the 200 hallway where the robotic Center is that in essence used to be two classrooms that are now combined into one large robotic area so the number of actual capacity of the or classroom capacity in this building is more is closer to 800 students and so that's where you see that that document so in working then with frenches in terms of what are the requirements of how many bathrooms and water coolers Etc that we have to have in drinking phones we took a map of the high school and identified all of the bathroom areas in the high school
067to create all of them to Be unisex bathroom options and you could see some very rough sketches of what it would look like it would entail again basically taking the two bathrooms in a nutshell and and knocking everything out redesigning the plumbing and the fixtures in that bathroom to be able to walk in you have all individual stalls and you have all uh common wash areas for sinks the cost to do that at Richmond High School and maintain the requirements for the a certain number of stalls Etc and drinking bomb is approximately 1.3 million dollars for Richmond High School so when I got that number I did not go any farther in looking at what we have to do at the middle school and uh Elementary where most of the classrooms do excuse me do
068have unisex bathrooms in them at the elementary school there is a wing in several Community bathrooms that we would have to be looked at so it then as we began looking what are some other options that we want to and one of the comments that was said at one of our board meetings I don't know if it was the last board meter the one before was the stall walls are not tall so if you're in a stall and you happen to be standing you could see over them now I have gone through many restrooms in this District looking at um I guess doing my research and there are some stalls that are shorter there's more gaps two three feet gaps from the ceiling to stall another option you have is if you wanted to take
069all of the Stalls out partitions and make them floor to ceiling with about a foot to six inches at the top and a foot to six inches at the bottom because now we've got to make sure we're dealing with airflow and other items um we would have to install lights in each stall because once you put the lights in the bathroom are in the common area so the light carries over into the stall area so we'd have to put lights over and now they could be surface mounted lights um the projected cost to do that would be 83 000 at the high school 000 at the middle school there are more restrooms at the middle school than at the high school and Lee Elementary School would be 68 000 so keep in mind that that's
070new stalls it's all the electrical to go back to it may be some Plum or electrical upgrades from our service panels we didn't spend a whole lot of time but these are Ballpark conservative numbers hopefully they're more on the higher end but that's what the architect and the construction manager put together forms so as you can see in the topic you would be about um if you did floor-to-ceiling partitions and I put Florida ceiling in quotes because it wouldn't be to the floor and to the ceiling exactly it's about 280 thousand dollars significantly less than completely renovating all the bathrooms so that is I believe some options that the board could look at um it could we could do nothing and keep you know the status quo now we did replace a few stalls in
071the bond early on because they needed to they were damaged they needed to be replaced so we would actually be taking them out with smaller ones if that's an option to board and any questions about the bathroom at this time before we go into the second topic on the budget yes it looks like on our presentation here you have potential unisex options would that be to add additional unisex in addition to what we already have so the two unisex would stay and basically the bathrooms were talking about it are the two bathrooms down by the auditorium right out here in this corner across the high school office four corners and the bathrooms by the gym so basically you have two doors you walk in you have a series of sinks all together and individual stalls
072around it so they're all a unisex so when you're going in to do your business you have a private and is that what this is here I guess if you can see that's what the yellow design on your drawer that's just telling you how it would be what a rendering of what it would look like in that space the majority of the cost is what you're you are you're digging into the cement redoing piping and plumbing is not cheap fixtures are not cheap this would not be if the board gave me direction to go ahead this would be something we'd have to bid just at the earliest we would start would be next summer absolute earliest possible to get any research I guess just on adding maybe an additional couple unisex bathrooms in each building
073rather than a whole overhaul we did have that conversation the if for the high school the easiest least expensive though I don't have a number for you would be to take where the old boys basketball locker room was because the plumbing is already there right now it's it's designed to be a team room or a meeting room like a conference room okay currently it's housed for we have excess supplies such as ceiling dial paint carpet tiles flooring from the bottom so that would be the area if we wanted to add additional unisex bathroom that we would look at doing because it's easiest to renovate because the plumbing is already in that General facility okay so what do you how many unisex bathrooms are you talking about do you or don't you know I don't I
074don't I did not have them drawed out because when he did the design and by lowering the building count to 800 originally on the 900 we would have had to add another bathroom and that was the area we were talking about okay is that by lowering the building count to actually look at actual classrooms that would be used for instruction to to 800 that would then allow us not to have to we can do it with the existing bathrooms and still have enough toilet fixtures water stalls Etc drinky pounds that are required you wouldn't have to break new ground you wouldn't have to but if you wanted to uh uh add a bathroom um I mean if you're looking at this and I'm just going to do a rough math these are four bathrooms if
075I divide the total just by 101.2 million divided by four you're talking 300 000. roughly a restroom area it's probably at most that but it would be more likely less because we're not putting the magnitude in there and again that's just logically going backwards solving the problem so are we are we essentially taking out the correct drinking fountains in order to accomplish some of this is that way it's all back in there we already have them the drinking mountains in the Halls we are not but you have to in the code you're looking at drinking pounds toilets sinks it's all part of to make sure we have enough so we're grandfathered in right now by not having the drinking fountains we would be fine it's the um the toilet washrooms and the sinks is what
076we would have to bring up the code to the new so minus the drinking problems I mean how much were the 13 12. well none of the drawings if you look in there none of the drawings of drinking body in the renovated roster so the drinking phones would not be touched because they don't matter correct but I I just reference it because when we're looking at this we have to stick excuse me making these Renovations we got to make sure all those comply with the rules that govern Renovations for schools and bathrooms just for clarification though we are currently in compliance with regulations yes because we haven't done runaries it's kind of like when you have a pop out of a building and you renovate it you have to bring it up to cope okay
077because we haven't touched that area we are in compliance of the code of when it was there any of the new buildings that we've added on like the additions that Lee uh the additions on the high school those are all fall into compliance with the the codes that we need to okay what can we get info can we get numbers and information I think so yeah in that area just one or two maybe if they could fit in there and then that way if there was any issue with there not being enough it gives us another place or another for our students and others yeah right yep what about a shower room a locker room the locker rooms that we are looking at that um separate from this from actually putting up stalls in the
078locker rooms I shouldn't say separate from that because right now in the high school there are eight shower heads we don't need eight shower heads in the locker rooms at the high school so if you went every other one you could actually put two stalls walls and a curtain between them to give a privacy for those that want to use the showers we don't have very many students using showers during the day after gym class so be an individual person like going into a restroom nobody would come in there and that would be the way it would be designed it's putting a wall so we are we are looking at that and Jerome from from Francis was looking at the the code some of those water spigots are shut off because we just sometimes kids
079will turn them on leave it running and go but when you turn them off and not not everyone is used at the moment but it's similar to what we did at the middle school now in the middle school we took out the official term but it was the pole showers at six to eight people stand around a pole we took those out and created six individual shower stalls with a curtain that closes so you had a private area if you chose to shower when I after the last board again before this one when I did my walk through it doesn't look like the Middle School showers are often used by middle school students after gym class the other documents that you have regarding the budget is we've been talking about you know the the revenue
080that exceeds expenses at this point and what would you like to do with them so you have two documents and I know it's online but it did print you hard copies to read so I'd like to start the one that it's stipend for all so here you have a list of every employee in the district who is a here during the day of um something about 7 30 to 3. there is another series of approximately 40 coaches advisors that are not on this list okay so in this document and it's titled stipend for all I use the number of to start off with a hundred dollars I know that was just a talking point so if you chose to do that when you add FICA and retirement into it it's approximately 23 500 of a
081cost and then you'll see on the last page what that would be for 200 300 400 500 all the way up to a thousand dollars per person if the board wanted to so it goes from basically 23.5 to 235 000 total costs the second document and I believe on your Excel sheet that's on your board packet it's the first one listed it's titled 15 per hour Dash Thirty or three percent hourly and a one percent salary Stipe the board didn't ask for this but in listening to conversations about and actually looking back at some reasons why some individuals have left sitting at the bargaining table with several groups who have made statements that I can go work at McDonald's for 14 15 an hour so this is again everybody in the district and what I
082did was I broke them into two groups salary employees and hourly employees salary and employees are highlighted in a light blue hourly employees are highlighted in a dark brown peaches color I don't know my colors here so what I did was I said all right let's look at what a hourly employee currently makes and what would it be if they are under 15 an hour what would it take to bring them up to Fifteen dollars per hour that that becomes the new starting wage in Richmond then you'll see the light peachy color or whatever the the salmon color those are individuals for hourly employees but they're currently making more than fifteen dollars an hour so I took that and I picked an arbitrary number give me any number but I did if you increased it
083three percent and you can see in the column the wage increase for every employee for some employees it's three percent for some employees it's as high as if you brought them up to Fifteen dollars an hour could be uh eleven point five eight percent raise it could be a 20 bringing everybody else but that number if the board wanted to go down that road that's a structural expense so once you put it in that becomes the expense going forward when you add FICA and retirement to it the ballpark is at the 70s 71.71 400 dollar structural cost would add if you wanted to bring everybody up to Fifteen dollars an hour and those that are at 15 and hourly employees at 15 or more a three percent increase that's what it means so that would
084become a new structural cost going forward what was that month did you say and 400 hours now some of these are we have some employees like you know like transportation we did I put an average bus run so it may list four hours but their run is 3.6 hours for a morning and afternoon so it's not exactly that number but as a ballpark when I compared their current pay to what they would be great on that same document on the right hand side you will see if you wanted to give a one percent salary this would be considered what we talked about last time as an off schedule payment one time it's not structural it's this year's expense and doesn't go away unless you put it again or doesn't come back unless you put it
085back in the budget for next year an average one percent for all salaried employees you can see the First Column is the actual one percent and the column to the far right it averages to be 640 dollars per employee on an average taking everybody who's a salaried employee what their base salary is take one percent divided by the number of those employees until 640 average total again on the last page to do a one percent for anybody on a salary would be about seventy eight thousand five hundred dollars so when you add the two numbers together you're talking a hundred and forty nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars and only the seventy one thousand is a structural expense going forward now I know the board did not talk about this and we have not but
086in looking at it um if we're trying to at least be competitive I at least think the board should should consider it I'm not saying to do it because it's significant amount of dollars but at least it it gets rid of the argument that I can go to myself but I just happened to see the sign as I drove into the board game tonight for 14 15. now all of these groups and this is the direction the board wants to go I would have to sit down with each bargaining group and we would if that's your starting point I'd have to reek as many of them have future contracts so for instance they may have a next year three percent increase which still doesn't get them to Fifteen dollars an hour I'm making some assumptions
087that if they have that in their contract for next year they're going to want that three percent on top of the 15 degrees down I'm just making I made that assumption I don't know if that would be the assumption foreign there are some groups in here that are listed that are considered um they hate the term at will employees their individual contracts so that would be easier to implement but there are many of these groups and I'll just use the Food Service as a group a collective bargaining group secretaries it's a collective bargaining group paraprofessionals are a collective party Etc same thing with the teachers and administrators on the salary side I would have to sit down with their bargaining group to negotiate that do we now and I know um as far as when
088the contracts are up like right now 100 contracts good for like for the teachers and for the administrators I know they're different but most of the contracts are good through 24 20 23 24. we have some that are 24 25. it's only about this year and next year so two more years so it would be likely to believe that we would be doing raises again next year in every contract that is settled there is a raise built into the contract for the next year and fund so if we're just changing the starting point of where they're at now and those raises continue then we have to recalculate what that cost comes from when we do the budget in the spring and for instance okay so okay so for instance in in the paraprofessional contract for
089the positions are Grant funded so regardless of what's agreed if we only can support those positions at the grants dollars are there if it drops down because the grand dollars or not unless we choose to make it make them funded in general so um I guess what I'm saying is like so if we if we decided to go with something like this like getting everybody up to 15 an hour you know and going forward that um then we would be dealing with contracts again in 2023 for an additional race and so now when you when you no no at least to the end of 20 20 23 24. yes that's the end of that school year correct some contracts yes we will be up negotiating so then and some of the like some of these
090individuals you know I mean Alex was saying they have somebody who put 13 an hour okay so then we get them up to 15 an hour now then at the end of that year 23-24 their contract says they get a three percent raise so it's three percent of that fifteen dollars correct insane so if you brought them up 15 you're absolutely right at the end of this school year so July 1 of 23 if they get three percent in their calendar it would be three percent on top of the 15. if they're if they're a bargaining unit that's through 24 25 and it says right I'm not they'll get another three percent adopted right and then and that's really the whole point of of talking about doing this that it if we're going to do
091it that way we have to be able to sustain it up those contracts set right and that that that raises in there so that's so that increases our structural amount it's not just what did we say 70 000. well it is but it will well each year every year correct yeah it's an additional every year yes yeah in my opinion I I think this was a great idea I would love to see this happen if we can afford it some of our support staff such as parapro they're so undervalued in education and they we need them tremendously fifteen dollars an hour is still not enough so I would be fine if we got them all there and if we got there three percent next year or the following year I think that that would still
092be great if we could make it yeah and I I don't I agree with that but I think you gotta you still have to keep thinking that long term what what you're doing long term I agree with it and if it's it's like the commitment that we talked about a few years ago if if money came we would increase salaries and we did it and so here to me this is the same conversation that if this is what we want to continue to still do this is the first step to doing it with knowing what's coming so just to give you the perspective this gives the board if you want to go down this road structural expenses and non-structural expenses correct correct it's still under the additional Revenue that we have correct over expenses things
093long term to keep in mind is there are some expenses that are going away that were budgeted in this budget Marquis some things that were going away right that will help offset any increases in contract to stay within the budget this will also probably help with like keeping the staff yes we the first group that we did was the one we were most desperate as an organization was Child Care finding someone to work an hour and a half in the morning and after school feels sick so you know it's challenging we did bring them up to we have more applicants and we still have some vacancies that we're covering it but we are in a better shape than we were last year when we were struggling right yeah now um there were um Transporters that
094talked about and I think even in and I just briefly looked at the survey because I just kind of got it um ah that was done not long ago that had mentioned getting um like a stipend for the classroom for supplies like yeah um and that seems like something that they would be interested I don't know what I mean is that is that something that we wouldn't be looking at that at all because we would be looking at this no I would think that would be something that we can once we get the final audited numbers that you can you can adjust because that's still that's still part of what we were talking about yeah okay all right I didn't okay because there's still those those other areas that we talked about that we can
095use all of that that's still on the table this was okay this was the really big one that we were talking about the majority of us said we wanted to do something for the staff I'm with you across the board okay so Brian I agree with what you did here I I wouldn't I really appreciate you doing this actually I I like this better than the one percent I earned a hundred dollars yeah I do too and in the end I was just looking at on that very last page for the for all yeah in order to get to that like 170 ish we would only be giving staff anywhere between five and six hundred dollars and if the average is 640 and we're spending a little bit less money in actuality I feel like
096that's from my my math numbers perspective that's totally I'd be on board with that as well I think that's a great option so I guess the question is do you want how do you want to do you want me to implement this do you want me to I guess I would need direction for the board what do you want to sleep on and put a resolution on the court next board meeting do you wanna well do we need to do a resolution yeah that sounds right because if you do I have always been fine with the board here having a conversation giving me direction because this isn't an overnight process you know I'm going to reach out to each of the bargain units and so forth um and we probably would try to pick a
097date that everything's going to start on that day from a payroll perspective um Angela's then I don't have any problem with saying that get this ball rolling yeah I don't either I'm good this would be a priority for me I agree as well okay it's the 15 that's the doc 15 and the one percent statement yes correct yes correct the only other question I have is on the one percent stipend you want to do the average so that everybody on a salary gets the same amount or do you want to do it one percent on the base cell and you can see the numbers they vary but if you average them it's about 640. I'm okay with the one percent on the base salary I think that's there's a reason why there are this like
098scale me too I'm good it's three again yeah so this is this is an addition to this is the one-time payment so we would pick we would pick a date a payroll date in some contracts they have a offset of a payment that's currently scheduled and there's several times on a specific day okay now so this isn't now um so this isn't just for classrooms so this is every employee anybody over here a salaried employee okay the majority of them are your teachers anybody in the light blue she's looking at the other it's the second part okay the average yeah this is what people would get right but the average if we take them all up is 640 right you're saying should we give everybody 640 or should these people get this and these people
099get back to them I think there's benefits for both ways one of the benefits for those which majority of the group is is teachers for those at the top who don't often get correct this helps them and compensate them for them being at the top yes okay [Music] so once you grind once you have your fingers set and we know where our final numbers are you can then come back to us and say okay this is what we have left yes and then we need to have that discussion of where where do we want to spend that piece okay all right okay cool thank you thank you any other questions from Mr bonsley no okay item number eight on our agenda is our bond update I don't have anything to report tonight okay our next
100section is public comments um as I always do since the last board meeting I received several emails one asking about the board process of reinstating a suspended student which I responded to another requesting an appeal from the board on their son's suspension which was directed to Mr Walmsley another checking about a meeting with the parents on the bathroom concerns which I responded another email with questions regarding the board meeting which both Mr walsley and I replied another regarding their concern about the superintendent it which I addressed another in support of the superintendent asking how we are helping him which I responded another from a concerned parent about the bathroom which Mr Walmsley addressed another requesting a change in our public comment procedures which I address another from a past student thanking the board for dealing
101with the challenging issues I also had some answers to some of the questions that were asked at the last board meeting from the public one was Will students and staff be penalized if they use the wrong verbiage when addressing transgender students we did hear from Mrs Starling about it but we also have board policy 5106 that states the following the district will ensure that all staff engage in reasonable and good faith efforts to address students by their students preferred name and preferred gender pronouns there is no District policy that currently States student or staff will be penalized if they use the wrong verbiage um I was also asked do we need our handbook to stake when using the bathroom the stall doors must be closed I shared this question with Mr Walmsley he will be
102working with our administrators to add the district expectation for bathroom protocol in our student handbook um I think the other ones were answered earlier so we're good on those questions at this time any member of the public May address the board please sign in at the podium and state your name you'll have three minutes to address the board are there any public comments my name is Nancy sablocki I've been a resident of Richmond sent for 21 years I was listening to the YouTube of your meeting from the last board meeting and someone who was for the transgender missing the boys using the girls bathroom whatever so there's never been an incident anywhere that has anything happened well I have family down in Loudoun County Virginia a transgender boy wearing a skirt went into the girl's
103bathroom raped and sodomized a ninth grader my niece attends that school she was a ninth grader also at the time the parents were never notified that any incident happened uh my nephew is the father of the grand niece that attends the school they heard nothing because the school board and the superintendent transferred the student to another school he proceeded to rape and sodomized two more students took me a while to find the Articles because Google doesn't seem the wanted to be people aware of this I did find this on DuckDuckGo I know it happened because I've got family members there I made a copy for the board the school high school name is Stonebridge High School Ashford Loudoun County Virginia now when the father of the student that was raped and sodomized came to a
104school board meeting ah the school board did not like him speaking up about the incident they called the police he was removed bodily from the meeting and attorney general Merrick America Garland um has called those parents domestic terrorists if you want to look that all up it all happened I have family there I know what happened and it's a tragedy everybody thinks nothing is going to happen but it has already I know it happened woe to people that think this is all right to put the boys in the girls bathrooms or whatever is wrong let them have their separate individual ones if you want to go that's fine but to have to spend all this money on changing all these bathrooms when there can be designated ones it's not fair that there's two percent transgender
105students in the schools 98 or not 98 let's cut them in half 50 are girls they shouldn't have to hold their urine or anything else until they get home because they're afraid to use the bathrooms Richmond's a good school or a country School Loudoun County is a very uh very liberal area it showed what happened there you can't cover things like this up because it's going to come to light the truth will always come to life and I don't think if you want to get students of choice to come here and they know that this is what may happen you may not even get those schools so I ask that as a grandmother that you have special bathrooms where they can use you know these ones to all things and leave the other students alone
106another 98. thank you good evening my name is Benjamin uh then the compounding my whole life um oh yeah sorry Joseph thank you uh so my reading for tonight is from the me two weeks ago if you want to play at all uh it's a Telltale called out Miss car loan who's running for state board of education for um saying that it is not rocket science to teach reading she said that is very insulting to anyone who was a public educator uh what you left out is what she's referring to he's in her the rest of that conversation she was talking about the proficiency scores in Michigan from 2010 to 2020 before and after they brought Common Core into the school system before 2010 the third grade proficiency was 75 which isn't phenomenal but it's
107not bad after 10 years so in 2020 it was at 44 percent and whether that is something that's insulting or not as an adult you have to be able to hear constructive criticism and instead of being insulted look and say is there an issue here and if there is then when you fixed it her the goal for what she was the point you're skiing at is that I'm about to return teachers to do what they're good at and take their handcuffs off because in a lot of ways adam4 has handcuffed teachers to do what they're good at and that is teach children to read She's the man she's a science whatever the second is that by speaking out the meaning you broke campaign Finance law in Michigan within 60 days of any election it is
108not legal for someone in their official capacity a selected official to and I can redirect from the law do not use City or Village funds Municipal owned office space or other property to express the advocate a vote for or against the candidates or about proposal examples to say to vote Yes or yes for vote no or support or to be the candidate and parents when board members are more interested in defeating politician they don't like than teaching your children how to read science math whatever then I would call on you to ask other people to step down in a position because they're not qualified to teach your children um the Bible says iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another and if we cannot hear from criticism and learn from it and that would be
109insulted then we have to question whether we're in a position to teach others um it's also a Department of Justice order rule five CFR 2635-704 through 705 the use of any government property including computers and internet for any partisan political activities is always prohibited and also as far as the bathrooms you can do unisex support Advanced outside but uh so that's it have a good night thank you for your time Benjamin Joseph stole some of my thunder but that's okay my name is Kelly o'donny let me write my name good evening I stand before you today as a parent and a patriot at last meeting one board member chose to use one specific definition of the word this Choice was unfortunate because it twisted the original context of a social media post and made it
110sound as though the school children were the enemies for detractors not true let me provide the most common and prolific definition for the board a patriot is a person who loves supports and defends his or her country we are not a group of Rogue parents attacking children as you insinuate it also I am concerned that there was a violation of campaign Finance law at the last board meeting a board member used her position on the board to outright oppose another candidate you need to this is the quote you need to pay attention when you're voting for the Michigan Board of Education not all of them are public school proponents and then she proceeded to call out the candidate by name I was very shocked at that time that such a public attack was even allowed
111after researching at some and obviously Joseph did a lot more than I did I believe a formal investigation should be launched to determine if these laws were broken at this point I wanted to demand that a formal investigation be launched because we as Citizens can actually launch that investigation as well with paperwork is in hand thank you [Music] foreign would you let a child manage your finances would you trust a child with a firearm unattended would you let a child plan your family vacation and pack all the necessary goods and clothing the answer to all those questions is no you would not but you think it's okay to let a child dictate which sexual orientation they feel they are and let that child use a bathroom they feel they need because they feel a certain
112way you may notice I said feel three times I want that word to resonate with you all because feeling is a state of being it doesn't exist we can all feel differently and unfortunately in life nobody cares about your feelings we're taught not to make decisions based on feelings and we have instilled in our children from the beginning that people will hurt your feelings sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never break me is it crime examine we make decisions based on facts and as I said in the last meeting it appears to be as taxpayers employ many individuals to present these facts on our district in academic successes so here's a fact for you all our country isn't run on feelings it's run as a democracy if you do not know
113what a democracy is I will explain to put simply a democracy it's control of an organization or group by the majority of its members or majority rules unfortunately the side effects of a democracy is one side is going to lose an effective losing is hurt feelings U.S taxpayer-funded officials understand the majority of the city is a gesture proposal for the universal bathrooms but still side of the minority in fear of being targeted by the accepting and loving LGBT LGBT groups which who in fact are only accepting and loving when they get what they want in Michigan the age of majority is 18 years old this is the age where a person gains control of their own actions and Affairs and becomes responsible for the decisions they make you must be 14 to start driver's training
11416 to drive 18 to join the military 18 to get a tattoo look at that you can put ink on your skin that lasts for a lifetime and you and your peers believe it's okay for a child to alter their sexual orientation as a minor where it could be literally uh excuse me it's okay for children to alter their sexual orientation as a minor whether it be literally or figuratively which unlike a bad tattoo you cannot cover up a sex change in 10 years how many of you have had a bad tattoo when you regret what you got when you were 18 when you're a legal adult think about that you regret a decision you made when you were a legal adult and you think it's okay to offer support drugs and procedures to minors
115about sexual orientation you don't think that's going to have battery for gut repercussions all this decision does is breed bad behaviors and set the state's report decision making are you let me proceed 18 to buy cigarettes and smoke 21 to buy a liquor and drink but eight years old to decide what sexual orientation you are unless as we talk about the bathrooms and making the walls higher this is a serious concern when people use the bathroom there maybe sounds involved right what if that young girl doesn't want she has a stomachache and some guys in the bathroom and she doesn't want to relieve herself because she's afraid that she might be embarrassed of the sound she's making or how are we going to police a boyfriend and girlfriend or girlfriend and girlfriend sneaking in there
116and going to town in one of the Stalls are we going to hire somebody to sit in each bathroom because you know what a high school and middle school you know how children act they'll take advantage of that I was just in this bathroom and there was a big penis drawn on the wall and everybody thought it was a layer that's the mentality of these kids they're going to take advantage of it so we need to keep that in mind thank you hi my name is Emily Granger I'm a parent and I've moved here because of this loving Community this accepting Community it's a small country community and that's why I moved here I uprooted my entire family to come here to give my children another chance a chance to be having a chance to
117be children free play like the other kid and he was the bathrooms like the other kids you say you it's not about feelings people don't have the right to feel we're taught to ignore feelings but then you turn around and you talk about how someone might feel uncomfortable because they have a bowel movement in the bathroom next to somebody else that is a feeling that is discomfort that is humility it is normal human beings we feel those emotions another one depression depression because people hold it all day because they don't want to go to the bathroom depression because they want to use the bathroom but they're afraid that other kids are going to point the finger and accidentally call them the wrong pronoun we say accidentally but it's on purpose sometimes and we let it
118go because our kids don't want to make a scene but they do want to use the bathroom but they don't and you say you don't want to have to pay tax dollars but what about paper therapy bills paying for doctor's bills because they hold it all day because they don't want to go to the bathroom here because they are afraid they're afraid of their peers the teachers the staff everyone looking at them but they want to use the bathroom just like other kids and yes there may be a few perverts but there may be a few pervert teachers a few perverts at the grocery store but you still go to the grocery store you still send your kids to school to have male coaches female coaches because that is normal you don't scrutinize everybody else
119because of a few bad apples transgender is not bad it's just people being themselves that's it thank you [Music] hi good evening my name is Caitlin Wesley I have two students at Richmond one is a senior this year and one is in seventh grade this been an emotional month for me here in Richmond and I want you to know that these people that we have here these teachers me trust them we trust them as parents as taxpayers so I implore you to really give them that respect um again there are two sides to every story with all these situations going on there everyone has the right to believe in what they want to however after last month's meeting um and I took my 24-hour rule but I guess it was more than that it was
120a couple weeks to kind of figure out where we were in this situation um I want to see Mr Bartels and I know we've all talked about him and we all have great things to say he was my teacher in kpac in 1997 and when I got to Richmond to see that familiar face to see that he loved five kids as he loved me when I was that age to joke around at theorems that I never would use in his geometry class it was really saddening the way he had to leave or I shouldn't say cattley but the way he left I guess it was really sad and I think after hearing about how so many of our teachers have felt that way that makes me sad I don't want my kids to come to
121school where people feel sad or they're upset about their job or they don't feel respected we know Happy Teachers equal happy students and I want my kids to come home I am a teacher in another district and I know the happier I am the happier my students are so I I ask you and I am begging you guys to please take a look at some of these concerns all around all the whole everything every concern that these citizens have had and parents we want our children to be happy and I go on to say even that I applaud you for looking at their pay scale look at these teachers how much they are they being paid are we competitive are we being competitive here at Richmond with the rest of Macomb County I know we're
122a smaller District we're at the Northern end of it but but what are we giving them can we look at maybe doing a retention bonus please stay with us we want you here we want these teachers here I want them here for sure I am gone all day and these are the people that I trust every day all day these are the ones that are taking care of my kids yes we know that you guys are making decisions but these are the ones who are you know helping them when they look sad are you okay these are the people I want so I ask you and I am very happy to see you guys are looking at some sort of um something to give back to them the ones who are with us um I
123also wanted you to take a look at mental health um that might be something to look into a mental health day not just for our students but for our teachers they need it they're we're burnt out I'm speaking as a teacher myself we get burnt out you all get burnt out at every job that all of us have give them a half day or something and not PD maybe just something where they get to go home and enjoy their day go grocery shopping without it being seven o'clock at night um exit interviews I think that that is really important I was on a board one time where we did exit interviews and there was a lot of information that we got from that of why are people leaving our district we're we're great people we
124have a great town I love going to the grocery store and seeing people I know you don't get that dumb further south so I I'm asking you and begging you please take a look at why are these people leaving why are they leaving it hit me hard when Mr Bartels left and some of the other teachers that my kids have had but I'm asking you please take a look at why are we losing these teachers is it money maybe it is is it respect maybe it is too we don't know but we have to ask if we can't solve anything if we don't ask I appreciate your time and I appreciate everyone else being here too for my kids as well as young foreign happy Monday I was gonna wait and kind of go laugh
125because I don't need to get up early tomorrow all right uh that was a good one for me to follow because I love the passion and the voice and uh I I watched last uh the last board meeting you know on YouTube and I honestly saw a lot of passion that from community members obviously care about their schools and and care about the people who work here and care about what's best for their kids and that's great to hear because I'll tell you there's been times over the years where we as teachers have kind of felt that there's been a little bit too much empathy maybe in the community we've been like geez while more people speak up more people Express themselves so it was good it was good to hear that um and it's
126one of the reasons I came in today uh by the way just as a little bit of an introduction for those that don't know me uh once again my name is Glenn news um I was I I'm recently retired I was hired here in 1990 after teaching four years somewhere else so I was 36 years as a teacher and a coach most of those years I've worked with five superintendent five principles and I I've been assigned to nine different classrooms I worked out of three gyms I even had an office for a year as it says the principal I've taught 14 different classes 14 different preps mainly science Health PE and yes I was also a highly effective dance instructor ready to go all right I was also honored in here if you don't know
127back in 1990 to coach football and uh real quick on that I was brought in and we were at the time listed in USA Today is having one of the longest moves and straights in the entire country we had 11 different coaches in 12 previous years since I was hit before I came and I was a coach here for 16 years before I decided to spend more time with my own family raising my own kids as much as I loved it it was time for me to concentrate more on being a father um I found out of my last 11 years here we had winning seasons eight League championships we had the only nine-year-old team in school history the only 12 and old team in school history in the semifinals and we had nine All-State
128Academic Teams out of my last 10 years we took pride in in representing Richard and doing things the right way and we had a lot of help from a lot of good people you know to do that I'm here tonight because I care I'm invested in this community even though I don't live here I'll admit that but I was here for two years when I retired last year everybody who still worked here I saw get hired I mean I was the longest tailored worker now um I think I've seen pretty much everything from the classroom to the athletic department etc etc and I came in to talk mainly about two things today and I know those of you know me are wondering there's no way he's going to do this in three minutes here you're
129probably right probably should need some help there the first thing I wanted to touch on here was the teach and retention issue uh first of all that's nothing new um when I came here in 1990 and I talked to people who I knew and trusted in the field they told me don't go there don't do it there's something wrong with that Community it's different they're having all kinds of issues well I was never going to back down to a challenge so here I came that fall the teachers were on strike out of the rough year that I came into I crossed the cricket block I was the only one to do it I was just hired in I wasn't hired in to go on Skype and for years I was pretty much ostracized by a
130lot of my colleagues for doing that but like I always tell my kids my students my athletes you know do what you believe in stand up for yourself do what's right it doesn't matter if it's popular and so that's what I did um in the late 90s excuse me going into the late 90s and early 2000s things got better financially across the state we had some pretty good contracts and then in 2007 that was the last contract for a long time we saw any raises on the on the pay scale um 2010 Kings and it was pretty much downhill from there but I've got I gotta go back before 2010 we were losing good people um you know so many quality people once again if I were to go back the saddest thing in my
131career my time here is seeing so many great people so many wonderful people so many people are so good for kids leave not because they wanted to for the most part there's different reasons different people need family reasons etc etc but most people that left left because they couldn't afford to stay this district has always been one of the if not the lowest paying school districts in the Tri-County area and I believe it still is today I checked last night and we're just a little bit uh all below New Hampshire South we're still in lowest paying District in the area so when you talk about salaries and talk about future retention there might be some other issues there might be a little bit of a toxic environment from time to time things like that but
132I'm telling you most of the people who have left have left because they couldn't afford to stay and unfortunately on their way out the door people like me would tell the Dan schweiders of the world the George hamlins of the world accenting something on and on and on I could list them off all night long we would tell them good for you we're happy for you we're happy for your family you have to do what's best for your understandings yes 33 minutes okay you got it father's fellow students I'll give them mine three minutes I have Jessica Knievel several fellow former students here many of them are current teachers here thank you I watched several former students speak last week and they inspired me and we have it's close to the 20 I believe former
133students who actually teach or work in this District uh several of them are sitting over there several of them I remember jumping on the football field after big wins helping us celebrate the fact that they were students and out here they are you know in charge of uh your sons and daughters education uh that's a great thing um so where was I talk about the money excuse me you left off with the money yeah um so okay so so 2010 uh contract came along and there were some state laws that were changed Governor Schneider came in and kind of single-handedly did a lot of damage to the teaching profession uh forcing teachers to pay for a percentage of their uh insurance which we didn't have to do before increased the amount we had to pay
134for our pensions while at the same time reducing pensions basically decreasing a lot of marketing power and at the same time the state was having some serious Financial issues and districts across the state had to make Cuts in the last time the only other time I talked at a board meeting was in 2010. one of you one of you were there at the time I believe it was just one of you and I spoke and I and I kind of pleaded to wait and see what the final numbers are going to be um let's not do anything too hasty uh the financial problems of this District should not be sold and put on the backs of the teachers and the school board was evidently a little tired of hearing that maybe after meeting and so
135there was a well-prepared uh very passionate response given to that after public comments and those words don't ring in my ears today and the word from the president at the time was nothing could be further from the truth that was 2010. nothing could be further from The Troop I don't think the events following 12 years are going to reflect their economy on that statement as I'll explain it if I can get to here but anyway that contract in 2010 cost teachers five days of pay some snow days some furlough days which are basically work for free days that's a 2.5 pay cut um annuity loss is gone which we still haven't gotten back our longevity is gone which we just got back two years ago there's a 20 scheduled beat Cut I think it's still
136at 10 percent today and then the big one all steps were frozen and for those that don't know every year teacher teaches up to step 10 in this District they get a pancreas except for Frozen that was the one that really hurt I'm not sure if you looked at the seniority list anytime lately but if you look at that from 2004 to 2012. every teacher who was hired in that time period 2004 to 12 they're all gone every one of them there's not one left there's only one left who was hired in 2012. so his steps were frozen he should be on step 10 today he's not it took um there were a few years where we got some steps back um I think it was four years until what he got half a step
137and two years after that a couple more years he got another half a step it took he was there seven years and he was at step 1.5 after seven years right that's about a 20 pay cut or excuse me that's about a twenty thousand dollar pay cut from where he should have been to where he was all right that same teacher today now there has been some good move last two years and I applaud you for that I can't help but think that the recent change in the board had something to do with that the last two years is real good movement and the teacher salaries and the teacher steps they got the five steps back I believe it was last year correct that was fantastic but uh that same teacher today should be on
138step 10. and he's not step eight and a half here at Richmond today a salary is 66 316 dollars if he was in our neighboring District at Armada his salary would be 87 100 over twenty thousand dollars more was actually offered a job there a few years ago but he's a loyal Richmond graduate like many of our Richmond people have wanted to stay home so they didn't take it right I was glad to see him get him steps and to see some improvement there that's kind of where we're at the biggest problem with all those things that imposed on us is it seemed like there wasn't a plan on when we were going to get those things back and it certainly wasn't done in a timely manner and during that time period we kind of
139felt this teachers that we were expendable yeah I'm just telling you how we felt if somebody left if somebody went to another District like many people did it was almost perceived as that's a good thing because well this place and when somebody at the bottom of the pay scale now or maybe I'm sorry um [Music] Jim Burns yeah all right coach it was a dream [Music] foreign thank you thank you sir so anyway we're we kind of made to feel like we're a little Expendable and if you left maybe we won't even replace you if you enter for Julie you know we do replace you in place you wouldn't want someone much cheaper um that hasn't worked out real well as you know now the one of the biggest problems I think you have in
140the district is anybody can leave districts are experiencing teacher shortages all over the place and as you guys know like I do there are districts who are paying signing bonuses they are paying teachers in some cases top of the scale no matter what their experience is in certain areas like math and science Etc there's districts who are paying moving expenses for people to come in there are districts who are offering retention bonuses it's just to keep the teachers they have right I mean we're having trouble filling our staff today as it is that's not just going to get worse right since there's just less teachers in college there's less teacher programs in college because there's less people going into that field so we're really going to have to get creative we have to work on
141on how ways to keep the teachers that we have uh so we don't keep the problem doesn't keep getting worse and be careful with that because as you know with schools of choice you know people can leave as well and if we're not getting the best teachers we can can't stop her classrooms the role that's going to suffer at the same time and that's just going to cause a spiral down effect here in the community I want to get back to something here though because when I look at things personally in my last 12 years of teaching I do the math and I calculate I lost two years worth of salary and that's just not from the cuts from Richmond that's also the cuts from the state because of the pension and because of the
142insurance but we when when people look at you only had a two and a half percent paid cover what are you talking about a little year after year and when your steps are frozen that adds up myself like many of my colleagues had to stop saving for our retirement for a few years and we have young kids we have families and we're trying to pay a mortgage and all of a sudden we're losing a significant amount of money inside of our salary so I just would just encourage you to please take a good look at that see what you can do you have a tremendous staff you have tremendous people who are here for right reasons and I would implore you to do what you can keep them right so you can have quality people
143in the classroom taking care of the kids that we care so much about um by the way getting back to my comment about what's ringing in my ears nothing could be further from the truth I was told in the last couple years it was good good movement but when you look at all the marketing units here at Richmond schools the teachers were the last ones to get back most of what was taken away they still haven't gotten back everything that was taken away that last year we were finally giving back the last of our furlough days or snow days one of our painless days whatever we want to call it it took me 11 years to get that back 11 years um and we were the last ones to recoup that meanwhile there were several
144there were a couple administrative contracts and there were other raises there were several superintendent contracts in there where there were significant raises and I'll tell you the most insulting one and not that those people didn't deserve to raise this because don't get me wrong but she said the teachers were last like they were just not as important so to speak there was one of those superintendent contracts one of the last ones that may have been the last one we still had furlough days we're still giving up days of pay to work for free and part of the superintendent's contract was extra vacation days extra vacation days while the staff was still under formal days I I come from a family of teachers and one of my brothers is a superintendent I like to tell them
145stories like that they don't believe me so there's no way a board in a community would let somebody get away with that it wouldn't happen we have a phrase called only in Richmond because some of the things that happened seems like they only happened here and I think a lot of that would come to an end if we respected our teachers and didn't work to hang on to them we want to show them the appreciation he deserve and I'm not talking about an occasional meaning stop in once in a while in their classroom just tell them what a great job they're doing that goes a long way we don't do it for appreciation but it helps a lot it helps a lot the other thing I wanted to talk about what was my time in
146this session hurry up a minute you have a minute I have a minute the other thing I wanted to talk about I've gotten off my notes for a little bit and I apologize for that but I really felt compelled to address the Mr Bartel situation and something I don't think any of you know because when he started here 24 years ago I kind of recruited him to come here we were actively doing that back in the day Mr Jackson got a hold of me and he said hey I got a great candidate here he's kind of wavering he's either going to come here to help me that can you give him a call so I called Keith we spent about an hour on the phone and when he hung up he said I wasn't sure
147what I was going to do but I can tell you now I'm coming to Richmond he ended up coaching with me and doing a great job he ended up being a bad teacher coaching basketball I mean he did it all right athletic director and then he became the principal over there at the middle school I can tell you this about Mr Bartels he's a man of character and integrity and we didn't always see iodine get along on some things but we respected each other because we always believed we are acting in the best interest of the students um he deserved better and I don't claim to know everything that happened that day but I do Wonder did we investigate that I mean that was pretty serious I I'm we lost two days of education I
148wasn't here but when I see things about walkouts and I see someone getting parade out you know first thing in the morning um causing disruption to the rest of the day you know what there certainly had to be a better way to do that I think we investigate that and find out exactly what happened there and what I mean by that is that we talked to everybody involved and we talked officer Davenport did we talked to the secretaries or anybody else who may have been in the area to see or hear what was happening there if not I'd have to ask the questions to why not do we not really want to know what happened that day or we don't want to deal with it we hope it just goes away quietly he deserved better
149his wonderful wife deserved better than they have to deal with the Fallout of that the rest of the day his children or in the building one of them in that particular building deserve better than the hearing about what happened to their dad that day in my opinion what happened that day was nothing more than an active vengeance it was a main spiteful app purposely embarrass somebody for the harassment planes made against them several years before if we were truly concerned about his emotional state of mind that day we wouldn't have brought him in that day we would have called them the night before we would have sent them a registered letter we wouldn't have had any issue whatsoever when we lost two days of instruction and infuriated the whole Community as a result thanks Coulda
150it should have been done differently that was either an act of Vengeance or it was an act of unconscionable unprofessionalism because if we were concerned about Mr bartel's actions that day we wouldn't have done that with students in the building we wouldn't have done that with faculty in the building if we were concerned about his reactions we would have been concerned about the health and safety everybody in that building first and nothing else but we haven't that's the beginning I would employ you to do so the last thing I'll say in 20 seconds last thing I'll say here is you know what I know you guys are going through a lot right now I know what happened to you I do pray for you and I do hope and trust that every decision you make
151will be done with what's in the best interest on the welfare and the students of this wonderful community again I'm here because I care and I know you guys are on this board because you care most of the students you have here today guess what 30 sons and daughters and former students I had I care about them and I want the best for them as I know you do as well thank you for your time my name is John Smith to hear from coach news board thank you for your comments president of Sean and the rest of Music commented as well and I can't it's hard to come behind coach deuce you can speak hearing what the board said prior to and I thank you for those comments every one of you that made comments
152for those of you where there's a question on what was said at the last meeting yes there's always a question on what what might be said and what is out there what's on the street right now is not good I've been in this community for as long if not longer than most of you that are in here from a family standpoint going way back I think there's some things true or false that need to be looked at some money needs to be spent right now possibly on some PR because it's not very good it's not good at all What I Hear with regards to how the teachers feel that's not good if they're not getting pay raises the way they need to or potentially get that increased we got to get that up and hopefully
153the last couple years as coach news has mentioned is getting there and getting them back up there but if there's 15 20 000 difference between the same person that's going over to Armada versus what's teaching here there's something wrong there that needs to needs to look at every business out there right now is trying to retain people because there's no one new coming in behind that probably is a definite fact out there if you're having a hard time finding teachers there's businesses that are having a hard time finding employees and I don't see an end to that right now in the near future you can throw 15 on the scoreboard you know try and bring them in it doesn't matter they're not they're not even applying so that's a challenge you've got to retain what
154you can you gotta look at what you have and retaining for losing what we have then we've got to go through training of new people that's a loss that's a challenge so it's a matter of trying to hold on to what you have and evaluate them there's bad blood out there with regards to you know Administration to the teaching staff to the underlying that needs to be looked at there needs to be some things taken care of and I will follow up that I did not agree I was a great friend keep our towels with what coach news said on that or Glenn said on that that needs to be looking at because it could have been handled tremendously better than the way it was it's almost it's disgraceful to an individual not the way
155they should be handled it's not the way they should be dealt with thank you thank you good evening board my name is Steve Weaver uh I'm your neighbor right up the north here I've lived here a couple decades but I do partake of all the amenities of your community and I wanted to comment just very briefly on the issue of the bathrooms and until about five minutes ago for all of human history everybody knew what a man was and what a woman was and I'm really a little tired of being buffaloed by the alpha bet Mafia trying to push everybody to count out to their agenda now let's just talk about customers let me let me make it clear that your students are your customers and the parents who decide to put those students in
156your school have a decision to make and these types of atmospheres that's just absolutely ridiculous the amounts of money out here in Vain about to change bathrooms for the the convenience of one or two people I got a unisex bathroom in my house you know we all exit one at a time and you're saying you can accommodate other Athletics see the girls while getting a different facility you expect 30 different girls to go and change in a separate locker room while you accommodate the one person that's just ideological so I really can I really urge you to consider how these social issues because whether you like it or not they're here and until just recently everybody is just scared to say anything against it I have an opinion in my lived experience should be treated
157just as real as anybody else's and I watch for these things particularly in my community which is Memphis and I'm involved with it up there three or four years ago I would have never thought in a million years this I was a former School Board member in in a prior life in the upper peninsula I was concerned about sex education then but only because Magic Johnson was trying to promote safe sex my God I would have had a heart attack and to drag me out of the room if I if I had a deal with this one after putting my three sons through school so just in closing I would really ask you to consider fairly these topics and don't spend a bunch of money on this because you know my advice now is a
158supporter public education most of my life I'm the one rap my advice to young parents now is get your kids out of schools you're not teaching a man you're not teaching them oh any decent philosophy the history of lust they don't know where we came from as a country and we certainly don't know where we're going and this fluid stuff is just a smoke screen so if you want to keep your customer base filled you want to have budget because I'm doing everything I can do to talk people out of either getting their kids out of school or send them to a school of choice where they are going to learn how to read and write and for the amount of money that the United States spent before anybody else in the world to look
159at where we stand on standards compared to other countries is shameful so I thank you for your service I know it's not an easy job and if you have here I have many friends and and uh and many acquaintances in this community and I love it and I live out here because it's a rural country community and it's where I plan to stay but I'm no longer need to be silent on these issues even if it's coming down the road here to listen to what people had to say tonight and I appreciate everybody's comments thank you my name is Christina de Blau and I you know I did speak at the last board meeting I wasn't sure if I was going to come up tonight but here I am so kind of winging out so
160big with me because there's some topics that you know are still you know really at the Forefront for me and some things that are really bothersome um you know hearing so many other parents speak and looking at our school district right now and knowing that you know there's numerous parents looking at other options that don't want their kids in this environment and I think that should really scare you because you depend on those children to be in this school whether you want to hear all of our opinions or if it's our opinion that would change something or it's right or wrong whatever you know the case may be I mean we should all be willing to hear these pieces which you have you've given us that form to do so but our voices also have
161to be heard so looking at options just like you had presented related to the bathrooms and you know exploring what you can make our children feel safe that does help me as a parent that is something that I had recommended at the last board meeting to say just come up with an option I just want my child to feel safe in this environment I don't want them holding their urine all day because they don't feel comfortable going to the bathroom whether any individuals agree with the fact they're not comfortable whether they think they shouldn't you know be in the position they're in that well they can just deal with it or why aren't they just you know okay with being in the restrooms there's dividers there's this there's that it that is her feelings or
162any other child's feelings who are also demonstrating the same feelings that my daughter has and I know it's not just my daughter but she's the one that stepped forward who's now also paying that price that I don't think anybody else here also understands and it's really a sad thing as a parent when I'm advocating for her and her Comfort level as well just like we're sitting here talking about transgender children and how we you know making sure they all feel comfortable and everybody feels safe but my child who's also being bullied right now in the school by the transgender and lgbtq community and some of it was even this past week that was done online and I know she did take it to Mrs Davenport because we did file a police report the first time
163when she was threatened to get beat up in the classroom in front of numerous other students when she was threatened and told that this person was going to show them their genitalia how then is even acceptable how that is okay and that is the person we're advocating for to be in a restroom next to other females that are uncomfortable is it is beyond me but here we are so as a parent to come in and hear you know all the different sides and our teachers that are struggling are you know knowing you know obviously from an academic standpoint we're not where we want to be you know the community is hearing so many different things about the school we've got parents talking about leaving and I don't know what the school board is going to
164do to regroup but obviously there needs to be something significant not only for our teachers hearing there's a potential for you know some type of bonus and retention for them is going to be very important but obviously they're going to need a significant bump and pay if there's a 20 000 difference compared to you know organizations that are right in the same you know conferences on us I mean they can go anywhere it's any job I work in a hospital I mean do you know how hard it is to get nurses like that's hard I'm a nurse I'm a registered nurse and I could go out of this state and go anywhere for a good amount of money I'm sure teachers can do the exact same thing so you need to keep the teachers that
165you have we don't want to lose anybody else and I want my daughter to feel safe in this school and I appreciate you looking at to make that happen and I just hope that we're able to come to an agreement for all kids to feel safe and comfortable and those that are not you know following the rules of the school are also held accountable because I don't know that that is happening the way that we think it's happening thank you um I just want to say thank you so much for looking into giving praises to the teachers and the staff that's one of my main concerns but my other concern are scores our proficiency scores after the last meeting I was floored so I did a little bit of digging are made up is 20
166points ahead of us in third grade math and English between third and eighth grade their m-step for 11th grade our scores are 29.9 those are 39.5 our SAT scores 900 State average is 959 but our maiden's got a 982. what are they doing that we're not why are they having scores double what are our scores have it makes no sense is it because all of our teachers are going to Armada to teach there is that where all of our education is going because my daughter's full of choice I can send her there so if there's still money left from your access budget I suggest you look into ways to maybe Title One some more kids maybe Pay Teachers to stay so we don't lose them because my kid is not going to stay in a
167school or 80 of the kids are failing thank you foreign [Music] have they considered the teachers lounges best rooms in that report and that's something that you've got to look into at teachers restrooms that are separate from everything else that can be looked into without costing the school an awful lot of money to make them to change as it moves because they're individual rooms every one of them and there was at least four or five or six in this school on the other matter this has nothing related to anything that's been going on tonight I'm also the president of Lincolnshire Association and I came to Brian a couple years ago uh because we've had a problem with the buses entering the front entrance off of m19 uh there have been one where they took off
168half as part of the wolf I came and talked to him about it our insurance had to cover it because something would have missed and nothing went anywhere second thing of all we put up a barrier now and that only certain size Vehicles can come through there and the bus does come through there every morning but I'm telling you they barely make it when it gets icy we do not salt the inside of our subdivision only the entrance and I'm very concerned that this year there's going to be a lot of problems when I came to you last time you made the comment to me that they cancel the appointment was not an approved vote back to uh to division if you look at the map it is an approved road now Mr Eisenhower is
169given permission to use that mode and I would like the buses to come in from the back from division go into our subdivision turn right around and go right back out the same way without entering m19 we have more problems there are six different entrances and exits right at m19 including the speedway station uh the uh shopping center next door Tim Hortons the people that have the massage thing there which is physical therapy and we have accidents there all the time and I think it's just a detriment that the bus even tries to commit off the front thank you oh foreign hi my name is Haley Fortuna I'm a proud graduate of Richmond Community Schools I attended here K-12 I graduated in 2018 and I did just want to make a comment that Richmond Community
170Schools taught me how to read write and be a inclusive individual who can accept those around me even if they look different than me or think differently than me so I want to thank Richmond for offering me that education I wasn't going to speak tonight I spoke last meeting but I sat there absolutely heartbroken to hear some of the comments that I heard again today some of the comments that we heard today we literally heard earlier in this meeting described as discrimination and harassment so I think we should set an example for our students and maybe not make those statements maybe not harass students as adults or to use discriminary discriminatory terms um for example using the wrong pronouns someone has already asked you to use intentionally that's discriminatory and that's harassment so if we
171could all just be a little bit more thoughtful and then I'm gonna redirect the attention to Richmond's mission statement at Richmond Community Schools we provide a quality education that empowers students to be successful in a global community in a global Community not everybody looks like you thinks like you and it's important that we learn how to interact with those people I went to college and we had co-ed bathrooms for showering for going to the bathroom lots of my friends had the same experience at College when I choose to go to the bathroom admire I don't know who's in there with me as a cisgendered female and I identify as such I'll confess I've used the men's bathroom Adam and cheese frozen yogurt because there was no lime I mean that that's the global community that
172we have to learn and that we should instill in our students that that's the way the world is and it's okay that people are different than you and I I'll say this again because I cannot say it enough if you are part of the lgbtq plus Community here please know you're not alone and please know that there's people here who support you they love you and they want you to feel comfortable and safe and they want you to be yourself be effortlessly yourself and I'm sorry that you have to hear some of the hate and have to observe some of the discrimination and harassment and we've just heard some examples of that tonight so with that I do want to thank the board for having such an inclusive policy I want to thank the district's
173attorney for such an elaborate and educational presentation and I want to implore the board I want to implore the whole Community myself included to continue to educate yourself on these topics if you don't know about something don't let it scare you pick up a book one of these books that people want to ban so bad pick it up and read it I think you might learn something we could all learn something we always can I can show so just continue to educate yourself on inclusion and acceptance and diversity because it is so important and this may be a country town that has its perks but our goal is to educate our students to be a part of the global community so the global Community has diversity and if you need resources if you need book
174recommendations good websites anything like that please reach out to me um I know a lot of you know who I am you can find me on Facebook um but yeah definitely reach out I can give some some tips so thank you and have a good night thank you foreign my name is Christina turkey I am not only a Richmond graduate but I am also the mother of a fourth grader in the middle school I am here to ask the board to do their best to make every bathroom in our schools single use I ask this for the safety of all students in our schools and I asked are you as a board prepared for all the situations that can happen with the current bathroom situations one in four girls one in six boys and three
175times more likely for lgbtq plus students these are the statistics for children up to the age of 17 that have been sexually assaulted or harassed now I State these because who's to say a student doesn't decide to take advantage of the current bathroom situation and assaults whether it's sexually assault or physically assault beats the ever-living out of another student excuse my language sorry and I want you all to understand that I'm not saying that this is going to be an lgbtq Plus student that does this I'm saying that a straight student takes advantage of the new Title IX policy and does this to another student it can happen to any student and I pray it does not because I personally am part of that one in four I was raped when I was 17 years
176old by a person I knew personally an emotional as you can see to this day I'm 32 years old the emotional damage that it has caused to me is unbearable and I do not want to see any of our Richmond students deal with that and I hope none of you do either so please for the sake of every student in our school district do your best to fix this bathroom problem so we do not ever have to deal with a sexual or physical assault on any of our children that's so much um so I just want to say I'm glad that you guys had the lawyer talk especially since as parents asked for her to say something but they told she told you the exact same thing we told you total nine is not machine
177case this part of your policy I'm sorry is not that you guys are using the case while it's not Michigan law it's not inviting from Michigan um the unisex bathrooms that they were talking about for Grim lawsuit it's not something that Richmond does we're inclusive in our unisex bathrooms and they're right by the boys and girls bathroom so that's our case that you guys would have to worry about being sued for but our biological female students um their rights are being trampled all over they they get told to use the unisex bathroom but you can't speak like that through transgender because you're worried about getting sued um we're just merely asking that all the kids can find somewhere safe to use the bathroom all students not just lgbtq but the cisgender all students um we're
178asking a majority of the single Unified sorry I lost my spot um I just want to add on to what somebody else brought up about this book Banning I don't want to read it because it's really disgusting but it is in our Middle School um It's The Perks of Being a Wallflower I don't know if any of you guys are aware that it's in our Middle School which is ages 9 through 13. it directly asked the kids in a chapter do you know what masturbation is I think you probably do because you're older than me but just in case I will tell you and they go on to speak of masturbation and having an orgasm and this is 9 to 13 girls so we've never stood up here asking for books to be banned but
179that is going on here I think you guys kind of need to make yourself aware of the books that we have here and also that your guys's policy that you guys are standing with it's not Michigan law and it's not writing to Michigan it's not federal law thank you [Music] good evening my name is Sherry Ernest Bijou I have my last child graduate here in 2006 and I haven't been to a board meeting since is interesting I've noticed the lawyer and all on the board has said transgender student what you're not saying is their children transgender children should never be put together I don't care who you are that's not a decision they should be able to make and the fact that you are spending money to accommodate one person or two whatever to make
180them comfortable when everybody else is freaking out I have a non-binary child is my daughter she goes by babe them I don't call her they them I call it her name she's a girl she's 34. she can make that decision she's not 12. she's not 11. she's not 10. she didn't take puberty blockers this I'm getting emotional this is upsetting to me you've seen our small town cow Towing because of money and that's what it's about you don't want to pay the fines you don't want to get sued all about the cash and it's very sad thank you okay being no further public comments we will move on in our agenda soon to superintendent and legislative update thank you uh just a reminder on the November 8th ballot initiative or the election there are two
181proposals for the community to consider one is the MISD special education bond proposal and the other is the Richmond Linux however the Smart View millage renewal we call it the last couple of meetings we've talked about obviously these benefits so just asked if you need to please consider it when you're casting your votes District update there's no legislative update that to report District update congratulations to the Richmond High School Marching Band for their performance at the msboa marching band festival at East China in one rating it's the Shaq and the band I was doing an outstanding job so congratulations to them items of interest from Lee Elementary School [Music] we had Mrs mangoni reports over 30 staff members and 500 students participated in last Friday's Trunk or Treat the Lee Elementary School had last week
182mini music shows If you recall our elementary specials program is eight weeks so our new music teacher Mrs Jones this year who started put on some eight mini music shows for parents first time trying it I think she did an outstanding job or a congratulator can't wait to see what she has planned going forward and has to improve that preschool students have been busy last week they had visits from the fire department floral safety I'm happy to report all four or gsrp sections and I said four because if you recall this year we added a fourth section are now full they're 64 students in the gsrp program and then they as I said Preschool teachers are also extremely busy this coming November 4th they will have their next professional development day on that half day
183they haven't had a professional development prior to the school started so it's their first one after school start congratulations at the middle school he's reported by Mr burkmeyer they had their student council elections were held Maddie G was his president Lilly s vice president and Alexis s his secretary fourth and fifth grade at the middle school will also have a showcase for parents again Mrs Yost is putting those on they all buildings had a great turnout for parent-teacher conferences you know the option of both in person as well as virtual allowed parents to to meet their schedules and needs the middle school has their annual pink out which is scheduled for the 27th until or excuse me PTA blue bash is coming up on the 28th this is able from the high school today kicked
184off college gear day College Awareness Week students participated by wearing various College shirts I'm trying to get kids with applications being submitted interested in their post-secondary career um they'll also be participating on the 27th with the pink out which is a fundraiser for um got a Cancer Society on the 28th they will be doing a ridge actually this Friday excuse me one of their spirit days which is the Michigan University Michigan versus Michigan State Spirit Bay and then they'll have a spirit week next week for their fall with different days next week doing some type of spirit Mondays Halloween costume but it goes through fall accessories different flannel and Denim and so forth they are starting this October which is they're requesting donations of brand new socks to the main office their goal is 500
185socks to donate to a charity last Thursday was the choir concert it was great performance congratulations to the ladies and gentlemen who performed as well as Mrs Shack hi Mrs Susan Mrs Clore regarding the choir concert as I mentioned earlier we have our new English teacher that started we have a new science teacher that starts on the 31st we're excited the teacher Cadet program which is one of our new programs this year they are heading to Saginaw Valley State University on Friday the 28th for their leaders influencing future Teachers Conference so our students will be participating in a conferencer I'll turn it over to Mrs Staples talk about instruction I would like to congratulate Mrs Staples she was appointed to the executive board at the county level for curriculum so that brings a whole new
186Global interest and expertise that we'll be bringing back so with staples so it was a busy and exciting to believe I met with the kindergarten first grade and sixth grade math teachers we work on priority standards and developing our school because he was bad in Christina and Chris fear are here so thank you guys for engaging in that work with us I thought it was a lot of fun but I'm also really you know into this kind of stuff and I even think you guys um 912 have now professional development along with two MISD math Consultants we created a vision for what we want math classes to be like here at Richmond High School we began the work of lesson planning and around developing Rich tasks and ways to increase student discourse in mathematics District
187Improvement instruction team met last week in the district improvements student support team met today to begin phase one of our continuous School Improvement cycle for this year so thank you for those members that have signed up for those committees that's it okay thank you okay next item on our agenda is items of interest from the board I'll start with Candice the board um okay so uh first I want to thank the board for choosing this on me to the um Associated school Barbie skin Associated School Board conference last weekend I took a lot of classes and learned a lot and I have to say I do want to share my biggest takeaway out of all of it which is kind of this whole whole Community taking care of everybody and the all of the classes
188it really was geared towards Global community and outcomes and curriculums and gearing our children towards leaving Richmond if you will and you know that is the primary goal I guess that all the classes that I took yet at the same time we as board members have to um follow our stakeholders and listen to our stakeholders and that can that can be such a gap um that I can see how this is can just break down and um it's a sad thing actually when you have one thing coming at you and then the expectations are something else so it is our our job to try to include everybody and I mean I guess if we had unlimited amount of funds we could maybe do that but I sometimes I I just feel like that bar is
189too high what what when our seeds expects of US versus what we can really follow through with um so that that was one thing and then um the other thing is is truly sitting here at our board meetings um the biggest thing was the 75 of what we should be talking about is curriculum not all these other things that I've been sitting here for the past two months dealing with and I really would love to get back to that aspect of of taking care of the children and the curriculum and drama every other week be nice I have a couple of shout outs that we did here one big thing from multiple communities was how Richmond fared so highly during virtual during covid and how we had only closed down for the one month and
190we were so um prepared and we even had one say that they the poor got together and said They wish they did what we did so that was a positive thing the other thing was that a lot of the schools have a policy of checking their policies every three years or Beyond and then the one class we have quite a few people confessed it was way beyond that so I know you guys do it every year so that was a little um positive thing for Richmond too that I gathered and I can't wait for election to be over so we can have our home board on here right tons of ideas for kind of maybe looking at everything um restructuring and having more policy meetings and I don't know I have so much but I'm
191going to do it little pieces at a time but again thank you to all the community members for speaking tonight too and last time I know it's not easy especially in teachers to step out and we like to hear from them okay that's it Sandy um I also attended the Michigan State Association of school board leadership conference over the weekend and we did learn a lot um and we did we talked a lot but we did learn a lot um and they did talk a lot about what like a board's responsibilities are versus like what a superintendent's responsibilities are and things like that and there's a lot there's a lot of information out there and I um I mean you can find it on the masb's website at masb.org but I mean in general basically
192a lot of information regarding the board doing policy and the superintendent is charged with administrative policy during the conference though what I did want to say they they did make it very clear and I think every every class that I was in um regarding the teacher shortage it's not just us I mean that's everywhere in Michigan as well as the bus driver shortage even the bus driver even the districts that are using third-party companies aren't struggling finding bus drivers so it's good to know I guess that we're not alone um let's see oh I do have um I also did get a lot of positive information about Richmond I don't think I got any negative information actually also heard um regarding the way that we handled covid um uh and we've heard from people that
193do the audit that says that Richmond is their favorite place to do it um so those are all good things to hear um and I think I did I did go to one uh one particular class that was a fairly lengthy um and I'm with Candace I do have a lot of things that I would love to talk about in regards to um our meetings and organization and all things things like that like things that we could change because you'd be surprised um some some districts which I think it's great that we want to listen to everybody and and that we give everybody that opportunity to some districts allowing them less time and some districts allow even only a few a few people to speak per subject um so I mean I think that it's
194that's that's an awesome thing that we do but some districts are doing that um there's a lot of other things that I think that we could talk about I love to I don't know if this is something that we do or not um but I'd love to talk about it like in a workshop type setting uh just because there's so there's so much um I don't know you know I mean there's so much from your conference yeah like as far as like um just like the way a meeting is even organized and stuff um you know and I um learned about a book too that I want to read Angela said you're never going to have a but anyways yeah I mean there's just so many so much information actually I think that it could
195be very useful um in regards to the flow of like our meetings and things like that that's really all I got thank you uh Angela um yes thank you I too attended the masb leadership conference I would like to thank the board for you know approving us to go and I'd also like to thank masb for providing such a wonderful educational experience for all of us I think we all walked away from there also being confirmed with some of the stuff we already knew and also walking away with some answers but I think more research and work I think I feel like all of us walked away thinking we have more work to do that's normal one of the great things I did here I probably took about five different classes in every single class
196everybody was surprised to hear that Richmond has increased in student enrollment and student proficiency not many other districts of course within the state have done that none that I was in with so that was great to hear I also one of the great things as Candice mentioned was 75 percent of our agenda should be talking about our students and what our students need and I would like to emphasize that for sure and then um for the most part I think I know I had one other thing but I kind of got distracted here I thought I wrote it down I can't seem to find it in my notes but yes it was a great experience and I would also like to be able to share more information in kind of an open form with the
197board and not just from our ideas that we brought back from the leadership conference but I'm sure many board members Sherry Deb and I think Margaret were not able to make it I'm sure you ladies have a wealth of knowledge to share too and some of these topics that we are you know wanting to talk on so I look forward to that also yes thank you Danielle um I went to the meeting too this weekend and I wrote down my takeaways because I didn't want to miss anything um I was only able to attend on Saturday I came up Friday night and attended all day Saturday but it was amazing I had even text everybody before I left and said thanks for sending us um got a lot of good information and a lot of
198meetings so I kind of put a little summary together of what I took away from it this last Saturday I was able to attend the annual leadership conference for school boards and their representatives from districts all over the state there were three presentations on Saturday that I attended that either directly or indirectly spoke to me while I listened and I recorded even pieces of them after then finding out that they recorded everything that's and it's available for 30 days for us to review so I think some of it would be great for you're supposed to record though um the uh we do a workshop what you call it yeah we could we could have been even though we should guess that didn't attend could still view it for 30 days it's on YouTube but it's
199locked out for conference attendees um in the first presentation um there were a few board members in three different districts that spoke regarding lgbtq plus um needs and how they address those in their schools with their sex education curriculums my understanding is Richmond teaches abstinence-only curriculum and as a result doesn't really address the topics um that these presenters were discussing obviously my kiddo's little so I haven't been to those higher levels but I did send an email to Mr Walmsley which was confirmed afterwards after the fact I personally think it might be time for us as a school board to put together some type of sex education Advisory Board which the process of who's on the board and what it involves is laid out in Michigan law so it's not something that we just arbitrarily
200decide who's going to be on the board so we can ensure we are true similar to what a couple of public comments said they were true to our mission statement that we are setting these students up to be successful in a global Community because just because what happens here we're sending you know people out to Chicago and California and all over the world and are we really preparing them for the global experiences that they might come into contact with the second presentation was similar and it I didn't think it was going to be but it ended up being similar it was a presentation by Mount Pleasant Community Schools they have begun to address many of the issues that have been brought to light in our district so they're having the same issues with lgbtq plus
201bathroom issues book Banning they literally mentioned I felt like they were talking about our last board meeting when they were presenting um and so I just I it felt nice to know that it's not just our district having these issues and literally I mean the room was packed and everybody was nodding their heads or saying me too me too me too and address um addressing the issue um so last at the end of the day there was a closing keynote speaker I really liked the one at the beginning of the day the best but I felt like the takeaway from the closing keynote speaker related more to our district um her she spoke regarding dignity and the difference between dignity and respect um dignity every is everyone's right to have and respect is as we
202all know and we have heard many a time it's something that's earned um respect is a deep feeling of admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities their qualities or their achievements where digney is dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake and to be treated ethically we have that job as a board to treat all of our stakeholders students parents grandparents and even staff with that dignity and I think we need to sometimes and I feel like everybody does at one point or another has to needs to check themselves and make sure that we're treating people with dignity all the time and that respect from each other is earned or taken away by experience chances individually okay that's what I got out of it thank
203you I'm Margaret um I have a couple things the um the community Forum brain that we have talked about before you are putting stuff together correct yeah I'm trying to convert convert confirm excuse me dates and times regarding some computer community community Forums on education regarding not only lgbtq but also racial issues limited angles limited English provision students these are issues that our district is facing as we if we grow in numbers and grow in diversity okay thank you and I think to the the sex education question which I thought was a good one because it has been a while since we've done something and we did have um all those rules we followed all those rules and who are people on those committees and and I believe Brian you're gonna you're putting something together
204so we can have a presentation yes yes okay and then I just I just might question um Daniel I'm not sure I I understand where you're coming from on your question about Deb and the meeting with the attorney but I don't know that it's a violation of the open meetings act for a school board president to ask the question you brought it up that you wanted to have a meeting with the attorney and for her to find out where everyone else stands not sure I'm just saying I don't I think that would be her job to pull pull the board and say where does everybody stand but we can look into it of course but that's just where I'm coming from that I don't know how she would know how to move forward on your
205request if she didn't but there wasn't that wasn't my request it wasn't your request it wasn't your email I mean I you did eat it okay okay all right it was my understanding it was your request but I'm just saying I don't know that that's but that's a violation but if that's something that you want the board to look into we certainly can but I just don't know how else she's going to get to know whether to move forward on something if she doesn't know that that's what the the will of the board is I understand I mean my my request was that we have I said I agreed with Candace and that we need to have a special meeting where it would be nice if our attorney could attend attend doesn't necessarily mean it's
206a closed session but that I agreed with Candace's statement that we needed to have a special meeting and that if our attorney could attend all the better because that way we have we can have a all aspects have legal ramifications and it would be important to have their two cents on the big picture as well but I just asked in general just to have a special meeting where there could be an open discussion regarding the information I had absolutely nothing to do with having a attorney client privilege specific meeting that's it I was going to read it earlier but I left it out of my YouTube I would just like address that a little bit all I did ask everyone is if they wanted a meeting yes or no I believe I can do that
207I did not violate the open meetings act if I had discussed things with people or discussed the conversation then yes I would have violated the opens meeting act I did share that with our board attorney who gave me the directive which I gave to all of you which was what also was in that email that you did not share I asked you today um have you had a meeting with Mr Walmsley and shared your concerns about what transpired and if you haven't then you haven't done your job as a board member we he has an evaluation he has a contract I shared with you that was the recommendation from our board attorney on how we should proceed so if you had a concern you should have met with him and you should have discussed it
208which then we can address during in December during the evaluation process so that goes for the whole board my other comment for this evening is um I just want to just strongly encourage people to vote we have four openings on our board so I ask that you please vote for the candidate that you feel will help our children we need to be looking at as most of the board said here our achievement our education so again I'm asking people to vote for individuals with student learning as their primary focus because the students of this District need a production a productive high functioning School Board thank you okay moving on we have two action items um the first one I'm looking for a motion for the approval of an overnight trip request a move to accept
209the recommendation of the superintendent and approve an overnight trip for the baseball program to practice in scrimmage in St Petersburg Florida from March 30th 2023 to April 6 2023 as outlined in the attached documentation do I have support support Sandy thank you any discussion all those in favor aye opposed motion carries I'm looking for a motion for the approval of the purchase of a school bus a move to accept the recommendation of the superintendent and approve the purchase of one school bus from Midwest Transit for a total knot to exceed 117 300 as outlined in the attached documentation for which funding transferred from the fiscal year 2023 general fund to the non-bond capital projects fund is authorized do I have support support from angel thank you okay well we have discussion so go ahead go
210on is this just like the schedule it's a scheduled replacement we budget one we purchase one bus every year to take our oldest one off the fleet and bring this one in we probably will not get this bus until the summer of 23. oh because it takes that it takes that long to get one okay and just as a point a couple years ago we were buying buses at ninety thousand dollars you're now at 120 000 roughly no um because we have don't we have a bus that's been sitting for a year I mean it's not getting any mileage on it so we have we have extra buses that are used either as Fair as if one's in repair getting oil changes we we use our extra buses in the routes um if we have
211a bus that breaks down we pull the extra bus if we need extra buses because we're able to run transportation for evening activities well the bus runs still going so we always have spares on hand you know if for some reason the bus breaks down the middle Road our mechanics drive a new bus out there and and keep going um when all the dust settles when we have the new bus the oldest one which is probably came in I'm guessing 12 years old at that point the largest mileage or the highest mileage of the most repairs will be taken out of the fleet so what do we do with it we usually sell it for auction got it we don't get a whole lot but it usually sells for auction I have a quick question
212so do we some of our routes obviously are shorter than others do we try to switch the buses around so that they're getting about the same mileage yes okay good so the sticker comes off for the animal right right after him okay good I was just wondering because that would definitely affect this is this is important for what the board did and putting money aside um you know when I when I started here you guys had just passed the bond and bought I think six buses in that and if you aren't replacing them you know we 10 buses is well over a million dollars they have to pay for replacing you don't want them all going at the same time so by doing at least one every year it staggers your Fleet and very proactive
213okay hopefully we can just find someone to drive them anybody else have any other questions okay this will be a roll call vote Margaret aye Angela aye Candace aye Sandy aye Danielle hi Deb I motion carries um being known for their business we will adjourn at 1009. [Music] thank you [Music]