001somethingies or something like that. So, it's >> this meeting of the board is now called to order. Please uh join with us and pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Like to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight. We'll get started by approving our agenda. There's a motion on page two, please. >> Mr. President, I move that the board of education approve the agenda as printed. >> Thank you, Jerry. Is there a second? >> Second. Thank you. All those in favor of approving the agenda as printed, please say I. I. Opposed. The motion passes. We'll move forward with our agenda as printed and start with the superintendence report.
002All >> right. Thank you, President Van Anworth. Uh opening our report is our bond project update by our assistant superintendent, Wes Gerver, and then joining him will be our communications manager, Michelle Carpinsky, to talk a little bit about our 2025 bond work as well. Superintendent Edwards, uh, members of the board, um, kind of, uh, go over the bond update, but before that, I just want to thank you all you guys that made it over to the, uh, Central Elementary openhouse. It was a great night. Speakers, you guys did amazing. It was a lot of fun. A lot of community presence. You can see a lot of pride in the community as they walk through the building. Um, with that being said, Herbert Hills open house is this week, Thursday the 11th, uh, at 6 PM.
003Hopefully we'll be able to see you there. Um, so with the update, I'm pleased to say both buildings, Haver Hill and Central Elementary, opened on time with our students being able to attend the first day of school and the students have been enjoying the space for the last two weeks. Uh, the excitement in the kids' eyes as they learn new procedures with the building and everything has gone really well. Um, OAK will be there for the next few months finishing up uh, punch list items, you know, things that weren't quite right that we had them redo. So, they'll be doing that for the next six months. And then the building will also go undergo uh commissioning uh by physics. It's an organization that comes in and basically plays with the building management system to make
004sure the HVAC's working as as best it possibly can. The AC, electrical, and all that stuff. It's just testing all those to make sure they are running smoothly. Uh so that's what's going on. Central and Haver Hill, I think they're going pretty good. Happy to have kids in the building and just makes the building a little more fun when you got kids in there. Uh Woodland Elementary, as you know, the building is gone. Um mass airwork is completed now. So you'll see there's still piles of dirt here and there. Uh that's because they're digging the footings and pouring the walls uh for the building to be built on. So the building's currently built uh broken into three construction phases, I like to say. There's uh the A-wing, the B-wing, and the C-wing. And they do
005that so as they do construction like they do the foundation and then they move from right now they did foundation B. Don't ask me why they started with B, but they started with B. they'll move the uh foundation will go to uh A or C next and after they leave then the brick layers will come in the masons will come in and start putting masons up. So right now they have the uh unit B is done with the foundation and the walls. So in the next week or so you'll see the masons come in start laying block on foundation B while the uh crew that does the foundation moves to unit A and then they'll kind of rotate in that circle as they go around. uh and you'll start seeing parts of the building get
006built up as they go. Um but I know it's uh it's going to be a great process. The goal is to get it uh fully enclosed and everything uh by the end of June. Hopefully we get a roof on it and then we can start the interiors. So that's kind of what they're shooting for right now. Uh but you know, you'll start seeing it coming out of the ground. It'll get exciting when you start seeing it come up. So uh yeah, that's kind of where Woodland is. Uh we do have a couple summer projects that were completed. the uh Community High Early Childhood Center. Uh they got a new roof this uh this past summer. Uh the last roof was definitely end of life for sure. Uh so it was time so they got a
007new roof replaced this summer that is complete. Uh they are and then they also getting a new boiler system in their building. Their last boiler was pretty much probably original to the building. Uh so it was definitely time for that boiler to be replaced. Uh they should be firing that thing up within the next week or so. Uh make sure all the testing, everything works out as we start approaching the cold season. This morning was not uh it didn't get cold in there. The nice thing is our buildings do maintain their heat pretty well. Uh so so they weren't cold this morning, but 41 degree day. Let's hope those don't happen too often until we get that build boiler up and running. But that should be fired up in the next week or so. Um
008and then the last thing that's going on, if you go by uh Lake Center Elementary at night, uh they're doing a lighting project there. So they're taking out all the fluorescent lights, turning them over to LED lights, and they're also putting a new lighting management system in there. Uh that's taking place after hours obviously because we don't want them in there with the kiddos interrupting their learning time. So you'll be seeing OAK's running that project. They have a construction manager on site during it all. Uh but that'll be taking place after hours throughout the uh throughout the school year until that project is done. Um that's it with the building updates. Uh we do have a November 4th bond coming up. Going to hand it over to Michelle here. her and her team have been
009working tirelessly uh on the bond material getting it ready to go out to the community as well as working trying to get the you know advertising all the cool stuff starting at the start of school year. So they've been super busy but I'm going to hand it over to Michelle to go over all the cool things that they've are putting together to get out to the community. >> Thanks. So over the summer we did um kind of trickle out some of the information about the bond but now that school's underway we're full on press push forward to really get the information out there. Um, starting with the first postcard that went out um, earlier this month to encourage people to get their um, absentee ballots and stuff. Some of the other things we have planned.
010I just have a couple images. Oh, sorry. Just a couple images to share with you. Um, just so you get a flavor for what the materials look like and everything. So, this is actually going to be uh the electronic billboard on Westnidge by Meyer. Um that'll be rotating through uh the whole month of October, right up until the the bond vote. Um you know, we're planning district extra, school newsletters, school news feeds. One of the things we're really trying to focus on is the why. I think that's really important to let the community know why we're going back for this bond. So, that's going to be very much part of what we're doing. Of course, we've um and so we've got a series of social media posts that will go out over the time. What
011we've done is we've taken the long video um that we produced with Johnny and that's on our website currently on the bond page and we've split it up into segments kind of a answering the different questions you see on the board there. And those will be social media posts. We'll have the um kind of the question. We'll have a little piece of video that answers that question. And we'll be rotating those through between now and and the vote so people have a chance. They will repeat often so people will have a chance to see them. We'll mix in there the um the entire video as well. Um we're hoping that we can get that maybe played on the big screen at football team. That was Russ's idea. So at the football game, so we're going
012to talk to the ads about that. Um, we do have a pretty robust radio um, schedule that will be going out with information about the bond that'll be on WKFR, WKO, and WIN or WIN. Um, so we think we we're going to hit all the demographics with those. Um, another postcard will go out um, midocctober, early to mid-occtober, just encouraging people to vote. And um, we will have someformational nights at the uh, new buildings for staff. so that they can come and see what those build that that maybe have not been in there already. Uh so they can come and see what what the building's all about and um and you know hopefully get people excited about you know that their building will be like that you know be similar as well. Um we're going
013to do an information table. We're planning to do an information table at the PNPC game because u we'll have little uh flyers to pass out because we figure the whole community is going to be there and so we felt that was a good place um to do that. Uh we'll do a second run of radio. So we'll do one uh in September and then another in October. Um another informational night. Uh we're planning to get Johnny on WKCO uh to do some uh live interview uh with with um Ken Lere and let's see what else. Peach Jar. And then we're going to use our text alerts system very judiciously, but we wanted to use it twice. um wants to kind of put the a push notification out on the app and through text that absentee
014voting is now underway to remind people to do that. And then we'll do a similar one the day before the election to encourage people to get out and vote the next day. Um and like I said, a lot of the the attention is going to be kind of to the why. Um we we are putting this before voters so so they kind of understand the position that we're in. So other than that, if you have any questions, I'll happy try to answer them for you. >> Not questions, but I had a couple people call me and ask and explain um that new schools didn't mean we were opening new elementary schools. It meant that we were updating the ones we had. >> Um and that was I think I went, "Oh, I didn't understand that."
015So that was cool. I was surprised at the people who didn't realize that we had um community high on there as needing additional facilities. Um a couple people when I explained that went oh then I'm definitely going to vote for this. >> Right. Right. Yeah. >> Pretty amaz that was a great turnaround to see. >> Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I would have uh you encourage people to go to our website and look at that bond video because it does a really good job of explaining kind of not only you know what we need to complete and we're using the tagline finishing the job. We want to finish the job. So um but then it also does address some of the I would call them newer things that you know we also want to address down
016the line. So I think and again the idea between trying breaking those that video apart into chunks is is so we can get that repetition and you know I went to a social media conference this summer and they said you know the average attention span on any kind of a video post is like 10 seconds. So we're trying to make sure we get the message out. You know the old adage in marketing is somebody needs to see something seven times before it'll start to sink in. So we're going to make sure that happens. I did refer them to the website and their comments were this is awesome. So, but in general it was a variation of being very impressed by the website. So, thank you for doing such an excellent job with that. >> Well,
017Kayla gets a lot of credit for the website. She does a lot of that uh visual stuff and um so make sure her as well. >> The school looked great for the ribbon cutting at Central and the community members who were in that building for the first time were just blown away. They were really impressed with what was there and uh a number of them indicated that uh they were there to see just what their money paid for and that they were anxious to vote for the next bond because they thought it the school was done really well. So they were they were pleased. So that was from numerous folks I ran into that night. So >> and of course they'll get another chance at Haver Hill Thursday night. um we'll have a similar kind
018of program and uh we're excited to show that building off as well and and to be able to show the community that while the buildings have similarities, they definitely have their unique personalities as well. We didn't want to just as Yeah, I know you've talked about a lot. We didn't want to do just the cookie cutter. So, um that's a nice thing for the community to see and understand as well as they look forward to the the additional elementarymentaries we would like to complete. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anything else? >> Uh just want to say thank you to our entire staff um for opening day and opening week. Uh we had a lot of professional development going on throughout the district. Uh we had a great speaker Joe Sanalipo uh was a national
019speaker who uh who did a great job in one hour. Uh but essentially uh we had a great kickoff and a great start to our school year. And as I kind of mentioned in my 90-day plan, my goal was to get to all the schools in the first week. And that's a three and a half day week. And so I was able to uh make a round one uh appearance at all 14 schools and have subsequently gone back to uh to get some more time in our spaces. >> Great. >> Thank you. Uh, we'll move on to our comments and communications section. And I believe we have one speaker tonight. Cat Frank is here. Welcome. >> Good evening, trustees and superintendent Edwards. I'm Cat Frank Portage, Education Association President, back again this year to share
020some more positive things our amazing educators are doing throughout the district. This week I had the chance to walk through the new Central Elementary. Last time I was there, it was just drywall being put up. Uh the building looks fantastic. Teachers were already using the common spaces and I saw lots of collaboration happening with those window walls open. It's great to see the design working so well for many of us. Over at Haberhill, Mark Hagaman said his new music room is already making a difference for students. The soundproofing and paneling have created a much more welcoming space, especially for kids with sensory sensitivities. And with the new instruments, students are able to make music together as a whole class instead of taking turns. He's seen more participation and more chances for students to engage and
021perform all together. I want to share some exciting news from world language. This year, 123 students earned the Michigan Seal of Biiteracy. 15 of them are multilingual learners who earned it based on their experiences outside the US or in multilingual homes. The other 108 earned it by reaching an intermediate mid-level proficiency, the equivalent of a five on the standard level IB exam or a four on the higher level IB exam. Families will be getting their certificates soon if they haven't already. We're really proud of these students and all the work they've done and a huge thank you to all of our world language teachers for their dedication. Lastly, I know it's on your agenda to talk about tonight in close session. I'm happy to share that our tenative agreement passed a membership vote today with
022a 96% approval rating. Having been on the bargaining team in past years, I know how much work that is. I'd like to thank both teams for their time, effort, and collaboration throughout the summer on this agreement. Thanks. Make sure I'm not giving you the tests I was grading. >> Thank you very much, Kat. Thanks for sharing that. Well, we've done it. Thank you. >> Are there any comments by board trustees this evening? >> Um, just a quick one for me. I just wanted to let the board members know that Joanna Ror who is Texas Township supervisor is going to on our behalf present a little summary of the talking points of the in support of the bond at the trustee meeting there tonight just to get people in Texas Township thinking about voting voting for
023the bond and um unfortunately their trustee meetings are the exact same nights as ours all the time. So she said well I'll I'll read something and then it'll be in our minutes. So, you just wanted to get that started. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> Real quick, Johnny, I really enjoyed the picture of you with your younger twin that was shared on social media. That was amazing to see. Um, very much fun, especially the untucked shirt on little fellow. >> Um, teachers, welcome back. I've enjoyed talking to some of the teachers as they've started the new year and it's been it's really good to talk to them. I've really enjoyed that. But um my biggest thing that I wanted to say is congrats to those who have uh received roles after auditioning for some
024of the fine arts productions that are coming out. I am very excited to attend those and see them. >> Thank you. Yes, sir. Um Randy um first um Johnny I wanted to um thank you for the opening day and the personal touch that you gave to that presentation and I thought that was >> it was touching and it was effective. So that was great. Um Cat, thank you for coming to these meetings and uh making sure what we did on some of the really positive things that your colleagues are doing and the positive things going on in the buildings. Really appreciate that. And then uh a final comment from the the central L ribbon cutting. Um what I thought was really neat was I saw at least three generations and maybe there were four generations
025of people there. So it wasn't just students and parents, but it was grandparents and I and I ran into at least one person who um in his 70s lived in the neighborhood and had to check out this community asset. So, um, people of all, um, ages were there to to see what's going on and and we, uh, you know, we we have kids that we educate and they have parents, but, um, this board exists for them and for everybody in the community schools, that includes everybody. So, it was a great night. >> Thank you. Anyone else? I'll just add I thought it was so well orchestrated that the way that I don't know if you did that Michelle or um but Johnny and Randy and Kelly and the whole thing just went together so well
026and it was really professional. So I think the community could be not just proud of the building but proud of the people that are the faces of our district. So uh good job. >> Thanks Terry. Anyone else? Okay. Um, you have a thank you at your place from Mark Benson and um, I was negligent in getting that to you in a timely manner. I I've had it since the beginning of August and I forgot to take it out of my briefcase. So, I just wanted to make that clear that he was very timely. You know, it was me that was late. So, anyway, um, we'll move on to our consent agenda. And we only have uh, minutes to approve tonight. the August 18th, 2025 special meeting, close session, and regular business meeting. Are there any
027exceptions to the consent agenda as presented? All hearing none, the consent agenda is approved, and we'll move to assurance of district performance. We have two monitoring reports tonight. The first one is 2.6, asset protection. There's a motion on page 10, please. >> Mr. President, I move that the board of education accept monitoring report 2.6. Six, asset protection as a reasonable interpretation and evidence of compliance with policy. >> Thank you, sir. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Johnny. >> Uh, thank you, President Vanthorp. This is my first opportunity to report on monitoring reports. Uh, 2.6 is our asset protection. Um, I do not want to read it in its entirety. I just want to highlight a few areas. Uh so subsection three uh it says that the superintendent shall not subject facilities and
028equipment to improper wear and tear uh or insufficient maintenance in phase 15. Just wanted to uh highlight the fact that we've saved approximately $12.6 million through our energy cost uh program, our energy uh conservation program through May of 2025. Another highlight I wanted to share is last school year when we purchased those five school buses. Uh, one of them, uh, came with air conditioning and so that was a a nice addition to our fleet for this past summer. Uh, moving over to subsection five, um, area B, it basically says the superintendent shall not make any purchase where that amount exceed five times the number of dollars over the state of Michigan. their threshold. That threshold is now approximately $30,000. A little more than that, but essentially in my interpretation, uh five times that amount raises
029uh that our threshold to $150,000 in which uh we would take extra precaution to make sure we're not above that amount. Um also in area subsection six talks about um the school district shall not allow uh intellectual property information and files to be inadequately protected from piracy, loss, theft, electronic data breach or from s suffering significant damage. One of the pieces I do want to highlight on page 19 at the top under number two our tech team under Dr. Ryan Miller has added two factor authentication now as required uh for all employees. I think that went into effect officially this past week and therefore we have some extra protections uh under student data now that we have this two-factor authentic authentification authentication also that's becoming a norm with all of our personal devices particularly around
030banking and emails as well so I wanted to highlight that. Um and then uh subsection 8 uh talks about our ratings. Uh below our report in the second area, there's a reference to our district audit. Uh our district audit is verified as of fiscal year 2024 and that information has been provided in the past through Paula Johnson and our business department. Just with the timing of this report, this may be something we consider moving back a little bit because it's kind of going back two school years instead of one. Fiscal year 25 audit will be complete in the coming months. So, that's just one that I may consider work with the board to maybe move around a little bit uh so that we're not going back two school years or two fiscal years. And then
031the last area I just wanted to represent is uh highlight is under subsection 10 on page 21. The superintendent shall not change the organization's name, logo or substantially alter its identity in the community. And so our communications team has done a great job with working to incorporate our tagline of every student every future. and the new color scheme tagline and logos was fully implemented this summer, summer 2025. Uh so that concludes my monitoring report uh for monitoring report 2.6. Any questions for Johnny? >> Sure was good report, Johnny. Um all those in favor of approving monitoring report 2.6 asset protection, please say I. opposed. Uh the motion passes and the monitoring report is approved. Uh our next monitoring report is communication is report to the board. There's a motion, please, on page 23. Mr. President,
032I move that board of education accept monitoring report 2.1 communication and support to the board as a reasonable interpretation and evidence of compliance with policy. >> Thank you, Mark. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, John. Uh I want to highlight just a couple of areas for monitoring report 210. One subsection one talks about the superintendent shall not neglect to submit monitoring report data required by the board. And I just want to highlight in my report that at our July 2025 board retreat um I spoke in the affirmative that I will keep the monitoring report schedule the same for the 2526 school year. So there will be no um you know deviations from the previously agreed upon schedule. Uh also in subsection uh five uh talks about um making sure that there um
033the superintendent shall not deny the board access to or being uninformed by a range of relevant perspectives including staff viewpoints and so on. And just over the past 12 months, uh, which obviously precedes my time as superintendent, uh, the board has been, uh, brought into, uh, uh, information related to a number of topics from food service to school safety all the way down to our budget planning for the 2526. So, just hats off to all of those who have contributed to those reports over the course of the past 12 months. And then lastly, just want to highlight one element under subsection 10 um 10 C particularly and it speaks about a report on the niche rankings. Um and I wanted to share with the board giving uh that addition to our niche ratings that um
034we will provide those niche ratings um after monitoring report one once you have an opportunity to see kind of the full picture of all the work submitted or data submitted then we'll provide that information at that time and subsequently on an annual basis. So that concludes my report for monitoring report 210. >> Any questions for Johnny? >> I just had one comment. The the policy the 2.10.2 um talking about union policies aren't being followed. And I just wanted to bring up um previously I questioned whether we were following the policies 5410 and 5112. And I just wanted to say I appreciated the conversation we had as a board a few weeks ago. I appreciate your willingness to take the time to meet with us, hear us, share your opinions. Um, so I know it's busy
035with the beginning of the school year at everything going on with your big opening day. Um, I just look forward to continuing that discussion on those policies um, in the near future as we're moving forward together. Um, so with that, I have already said I accept the monitoring report, but I just wanted to point that out as well. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? Very good. All those in favor of approving monitoring report 2.1, please say I. >> I >> opposed. Uh the motion passes. The monitoring reports approved. Next move to our requirement required action item MASB delegate assembly representative. And uh I believe I let everybody know that I was willing to do that again because I'm going to be at the fall leader. Is there anyone who'd be willing to serve as an
036alternate? >> I wish I could. I will be attending the conference but cannot be there Thursday evening. Okay. >> I will be leaving immediately following work to get up there as quickly as I can on Thursday. >> Totally understand. Totally understand. Well, very good. We'll have a motion then to approve uh me as the delegate and we won't have an alternative. Does somebody offer a motion, please? >> Sure, Mr. President. I move that the board of education certify the following delegate Randy and Torp for the 2025 Michigan Association of School Boards Delegate assembly. >> Nice job, Mary Lou. Thank you. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. All those in favor of the MASB delegate assembly representative, please say I. I. Opposed. Uh the motion passes. Uh our next action item is new
037teacher appointments and uh Brad's going to help us with that. Good evening, Superintendent Edwards, trustees. Uh, as promised last month, I am back, but next month I should not be here for this purpose. So, as I am happy to say with these, we are full with all of our teacher vacancies right now. So, um, I think we're one of the only large districts in the area that can say that. So, I'm really pleased to be able to be up here and let let you know that. Um, so bringing to you these five people here. Um I'll point out the bottom one. Um Heidi Thorp is actually returning to us. So she was previously with us at one time. Um and that's actually we got that resignation for that role uh the day before school started
038and we have that in. So kudos to Dr. Gordon and her team and and ESI for moving quickly to get that filled. And uh we'll be welcoming Miss Thorp back to the district here in a couple of weeks after she finish up what she's doing right now. So >> very good, Brad. Thanks for filling all the vacancies in such a timely manner. We appreciate it a lot. Um there's a motion, please, on page 36 to welcome these uh fine people to Portage Page. >> Mr. President, I move that the board of education approve the appointment of the following teachers for Portage Public Schools. Shannon St. Deore, healthy living teacher at North Middle School. Caroline Wildest Denison, fourth grade teacher at Amberly Elementary. Jennifer Leon, PE teacher at Kazoo Country Day School in St. Michaels. Alexis
039Keane, third grade teacher at Woodland Elementary. And Heidi Thorp, speech language pathologist at Lake Center Elementary. >> Thank you. Terry, is there a second? Please second. Thank you. All those in favor of approving the new teacher appointments, please say I. I. Opposed. The motion passes and the new teacher appointments are approved. Uh our next uh item is a dis is to discuss our collective bargaining strategy. There's a motion on page 36 to take us into clo or 38 to take us into the close session. Is there a motion please? >> Mr. President, I move the board of education move into close session to discuss collective bargaining strategy as allowed under the open meetings act 15.268 section 8C. >> Thank you Mark. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Mr. Roll call vote please.
040>> Mrs. Roar. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Crawford, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lavario, >> yes. Anor, >> yes. >> Mr. Schneider, >> yes. >> Miss Larson, >> yes. >> Dr. Stevens, >> yes. >> Uh, the motion is approved and we'll be going into close session in this room, I take it. Okay. Very good. And we expect to come out uh after close session to go back into open session to take action. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank