001that's what I think but other people might have not but okay this meeting of the board of education is called the order please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God individual with liberty and justice for all well thank you to all of you for being here this evening we'll get started by approving our agenda are there any changes to the agenda as presented nothing for me you have a motion please on page two I that we approve AGA is thank you Mary Lou is there a second second thank you all in favor please say I I opposed the motion passes we'll proceed with our agenda as presented and go
002where we always go to the superintendent's report well thank you um so our first item on the agenda is a bond project update and instead of having a uh the familiar face you're used to uh presenting the report we have some excited and willing students from ha Hill that will be introduced to you by uh their principal Mr Jeremy zance and uh they're going to do the presentation this evening so a little added excitement to our board meeting Jeremy well thank you very much um I would love to uh share with you how um excited we are as a Hab Hill Community and uh we had the opportunity as these four students in Mrs eie as well to go and tour the building and all of our students had their uh cameras and took pictures
003and copious notes uh so that they could present this slide deck for you um one of the things I'd like to tell you is how we decided to to select these students and so um Owen Noel Lucy and Terell all uh wrote an essay sharing why they would be a great um reporter and how they could share with our students and so after we spent some time looking through all of the essays that were written these four students were selected uh and they got to share many of the things that they're excited about so we're super excited to to have this opportunity to share why we are so excited about this beautiful building that we're about to have so without any further Ado I'd like to call up our four friends they're going to talk
004nice and loud we uh We've practiced twice on our morning announcements and all of our students had a had an amazing time hearing all of their reports so here we go hello my name is Terell and these this is some of my information about our new school I saw the main office where Miss Campbell and Miss ingressa will be sitting as well as Mr Z's office which is separate then I saw the teacher's lounge I also saw the classrooms and how they connect together because of the way we do group learning in addition there was an elevator big staircase and a and a big art I'll learn next year that it will take us students a while to get used to the way things work in the new school I'm excited about the library music
005room art room cafeteria and the mtss rooms I'm extremely excited about the gym and that all the rooms are big and the new school will have air conditioning here are some of the questions I ask myself what is the length and width of the gym it looks enormous how exciting will it be for all the students and teachers on the first day of school their jaws will drop and it will be breathtaking my name is Lucy and these are my ideas when you walk in you will see the main office and you will see Mr John's office and in the health room then if you walk out then you will library in the stairs and we will have stairs for music We we can use the stairs for music performing I'm excit I'm excited about
006the library because the the library is now small and the new library is a lot bigger so that means more books also that will be good for learning for students and teachers and the elevator can be useful for disabled people lastly the art room can be huge enough for art and for students in art projects I will want to do next year is do a book club in the hul because I love to read also we can do it after school school and we can do it in the library too next we have new furniture supplies and learning en closing our furniture is that darker than Central School lastly I will learn how to be a safety and cooperate with the new classroom hi my name is Owens my Owen hi my name is Owen
007these are my findings I found interesting and I would like to sh what I saw these are the things I was most excited to see sit sitting stairs to the the sitting stairs to the left also on the picture is's a good path to the second floor there's a TV to watch because it is in front of the library room and the library room on top of it has a TV and it's overall good way to study um there's a huge there's a huge cafeteria of fancy tables and in that cafeteria there's a quiet code to study in peace and for people who need less sound in the cafeteria there are bathrooms everywhere and there is a playground for third through fifth fifth graders in a separate one for young FES through second I'm excited
008about I'm excited about the biggest gy in the district I'm also excited about how to be a safety and these are two pictures of bathrooms well I'll learn that you I will Lear about being a safety in the new crosswalk and I will Lear my wife to school hi my name is noell and these are my ideas for the new school what I saw I saw the SED bathrooms and I saw where the new playground is going to be I saw the gym and the elevator I saw the downstairs and upstairs classrooms the last thing I saw was when the fifth grade classrooms are going to be what I'm excited about I'm excited about the new library and special rooms there is more stores in the music room the gym has a w wall and
009the all room connects with the library all of the rooms are bigger in the new school I am excited for all the rooms and the new playground but Lear next year I will learn how to get around the new school and learn how to climb up the new rock ball I will also learn how to be a safety other thing is the outside areas for library and art room there's a view of kind of forest the area there's nice furniture There are two floors there's a better view in the new school there the new playground areas the colon bus flop and the mtss so as you can see our fourth grade students did an amazing job of putting this presentation together it was through all of their hard work and curiosity uh that we were
010able to present today I would like to give Mrs eie a special thank you for her guiding hand as as these students prepared that boo does anyone have any questions for our Hornets how big is Mr Z's office is it as big as the [Laughter] gym well thank you again for this opportunity great job thank you great [Applause] job all right someone's got to follow this this and I'm going to introduce Kelly jenus who will introduce Lindsay to talk about Early Childhood [Music] programming may want to wait just a second while they empty [Music] well that's a back to follow but we're going to do our very best uh good evening superintendent beang and trustees it's my pleasure to introduce you tonight Lindsay French uh she's our new PPS director of Early Childhood she's been
011here since end of July early August um in the district for how many years has been eight eight years it seems longer um but tonight what she's going to do is guide you through our early childhood programming um as it was as it exists today and then where we're headed in the 2526 school year so without further Ado over to you welcome tonight apprciate it thank you I did not bring any students with me tonight my students are three and four and that could have been quite a presentation good evening uh superintendent feeling and trustees I'm here tonight to talk to you guys about the EXC next steps we have for Curious Kids here at Portage Public Schools as part of our early childhood programming um I want to kind of just take a moment
012and kind of dive into a little bit of the evolution of early childhood and curious kids and how that has transformed through our district I know it's been a few years since early childhood has presented at the board in the community so we'll take a little trip down memory lane just so I can bring everyone up to speed this I found on our archive this is a one of the first articles to come out in 1985 um this is when we had our initial program open and it was through our community um Adult Ed education program here at Portage um and they had one a one room classroom for all of our um students and currently what or during that time they had the students who were enrolled in that program having their own child
013and children in that program so they could receive um Quality childcare while they were completing their diploma or graduation requirements after that they transitioned from building blocks to come become what it is today curious kids and that transitioned into a infant and toddler program um vast amount of preschool programs which we'll talk about a little bit today um and then before and after care as well in 1996 the program exploded and began to serve over 1100 children throughout the district um this was in various different areas the primary area was curious kids however um within the local elementaries too there was before and after school programming as well um with that we came to 2022 that is when the needs of the community responded and there was a look for supporting our earliest learners for
014before and after care as well as summer programming so Portage public schools developed a partnership with prime time uh through the YMCA and that in a sense took over and allowed for Early Childhood uh programming for before and after care as well as summer programming in our local elementary buildings and that is still what is um occurring today in our K5 buildings So currently this is what curious kids and our early childhood programming looks like present day throughout the week we have a total of 175 children that come in and out of our doors every day um with that we have a variety of programs we have our Safe Harbor program which is our infinite toddler program our 2-year-old three-year-old and four-year-old preschool along with wraparound care and those hours of operation are from 7
015to 530 uh full-time yearround programming we also have our bright Beacon pre school and those are half day preschool options and that is for our three-year-old and our four-year-old preschool programming as well we also house speech services so we collaborate with our ESI special education department and they are housed within our uh CC building and they provide a variety of walk-in speech services um some some of you might be familiar with speech Sprouts as one of the interventions and that is for children who qualify for that program some of those students also access our preschool programs in conjunction with the spe speech services as well and then lastly we have our special education programming that's our early childhood special education uh that is a program that we have that includes um a mixed model of
016services for students to help meet all of their diverse needs through preschool programming now we're moving into what the vision is going to be looking like for moving into the next school year so as we many of you have heard about we have um the high quality prek for all that has been recently um advertised through our Portage Public School communication media as well as articles through mive and other avenues that prek forall initiative if um some of you are not familiar with that came out of Governor whitmore's um initiation to provide high quality free education and programming um to access for all of our youngest Learners in the state and under that umbrella is our gsrp program which some of you may be familiar with uh currently our gsrp programming is run through kesa
017programs um it houses our Portage public school students and it's currently at Woodland Elementary this year head start programming is also at Woodland Elementary this year and that's overseen by kesa as well so as we are transitioning and we're moving to An Early Childhood preschool focused campus to meet the needs of the community we're we going to have some vision changes here and some programming options the first option is going to be our mixed age classroom what that looks like is we have current students who aren't um who've been grandfathered in and enrolled and is a commitment we've made to those families as the district we are going to grandfather them in and provide programming for them until they reach that age of three and then can be eligible for our three-year-old preschool programming so
018we have quite a little unique uh program that we're going to be doing with that uh ly nor element or Early Child Care is also doing a program like that as well so we've been collaborating with them to um help support their vision and and bring that to light what that will look like next year we're also going to have preschool for our three-year-olds there's going to be three classrooms for our three-year-old um students um we're also going to have four four-year-old preschool classrooms and that is going to be under the gsrp prek forall initiative um and that comes also with the absorption of those program is no longer going to be at Woodland with the future construction coming and coming over into our building um so we'll be really a centralized preschool hub for
019all of Portage Early Childhood next year so with that we have um a variety of ways that we are receiving our funding and subsidy as well as tuition support for our community um our mixed stage in our preschool 3 classrooms will be tuition based as they are currently this year but we also partner with case ready fors um and families that qualify under their specific guidelines will get um subsidy and tuition assistance we've had a long-standing relationship with Casey ready fors and we plan to continue that next year um being a new administrator this year in that role they have been immensely helpful to walk alongside and support us so I'm excited to continue that relationship with them we also have students who are eligible for DHS subsidy funding that can qual help qualify and
020pay for our tuition um to help support their child care needs we're also going to have head start at our building next year now that's a federal program Federal Fred program and that's going to be still housed in our program but under the kesa umbrella meaning kesa will oversee all the Staffing the day-to-day operations um and the programming however they're going to be blended into our building and included in all of our potential activities that they could be a part of um having access to same age peers and for a majority of those students also being Portage Public School future students as well we also will continue to have our ecsc intervention programs and uh classrooms um as we currently do they will continue on in our building and um continue the models of inclusion
021work within our preschool classrooms also including their speech services and uh Speech sprouts and then we will be adopting that prek for all gsrp funding and so many of you may have seen um in the recent announce announcements that is what we're going to be doing for our four classrooms next year to utilize that gsrp guidelines and practices to support students in those programs um and that also comes with that state funding that perp allowance to help us support those programs as well and then lastly you'll see at the bottom we have prime time so as I mentioned earlier you guys are familiar that um our K5 buildings um have made that partnership in 2022 with prime time we Early Childhood of also made um a wonderful partnership with prime time and they are going
022to be providing our summer care and before and after care with our early childhood folks um starting this summer which we're pretty excited about we have 76 families currently right now that um rely on and access our before and after care as well as summer care so we needed to meet the needs of um those families in the community so we brought on this partnership to do that um which is going to be wonderful because stud students or families who participate in that and choose to enroll will then also be able to continue on choosing to enroll in that in their local uh kindergarten through fifth grade buildings and there'll be that continuity of services for our children as well funding sources uh not to uh go too deep into it but I wanted to
023at least share kind of the big three ideas of what we're doing um to allocate the appropriate funding to make this Vision come to life next year and also to support a stable budget so with our early childhood funding the first entity we're going to be using is our state funded per pupil tuition and that's through our gsrp programming that I mentioned earlier um we get a per pupil amount that we work with kesa that allocates the funds into our funding to help support each of those students in that classroom we're also going to continue our partnership like I mentioned with Casey ready for uh currently Casey ready Force provides tuition support subsidy among many other things with four-year-olds to meet the needs of other um districts in the state moving to that gsrp and
024prek for all model they are switching over and allocating those funds to support that for our three-year-old programs next year so they will be providing that same type of financial assistance as well as subsidies for all of our three-year-old families that do qualify or reach within those thresholds along with any of those families that qualify for DHS Subs as well and then lastly we're going to continue on with our tuition-based Revenue that's going to be for our current mixed age group that I mentioned earlier that is a combination of our infant and toddlers up to two years n months um as well as for our three-year-old preschool enrollment as well so what is this prek forall that I'm talking about up here uh prek forall like I mentioned earlier is part of Governor Whitmer whitmer's
025um initiative to help provide high quality education and access for all of our earliest Learners through the state of Michigan and it also oversees um our gsrp programming and funding as well that has been established in the state for several years so our goals that align and these align with our Portage Public School values and districts is to help children succeed in kindergarten we're also going to be helping our children children succeed in the past to have tuition free potential higher education with investing in our early childhood helping children form strong Partnerships with their future employers through work-based learning and through other entities like CTE and Partnerships and then addressing educational um issues at various stages of the students learning career which trust me starting at six weeks old although we are in many stages
026right now in our building and we continue to adapt and support that as the development grows we align with the prek forall and my LEAP standards those are the standards that are based on the research that are designed to help early childhood professionals recognize individual Developmental trajectories and also these standards are helped to to to designed to help a program to operate at our highest quality which we plan to continue to do as well next year here are two of my current four-year-old Scholars um that these two students are actually in a part of our halfday preschool bright beend programming um and have been part part of our programming since their early years of uh of of Early Childhood what this also means for the district is aligning with our district V vision and values
027through Portage is providing Equity so we're going to be making sure that we're utilizing those Early Childhood evidence-based standards that we are um governed to align with but also to seek and support the needs of all of our children with a full range of backgrounds and experiences through our community and then as you see below that those are the six fundamental factors of our early childhood philosophy in preschool that we will be incorporating and continue to incorporate in our evidence-based curriculum that we are currently using today and continue next year and that's through play relationships individualized learning guidance exploration and communication why invest in the benefits of Early Childhood well we're already doing it as a district and they've been doing we've been doing it for a long time and Curious Kids has been a
028very very and continues to be a successful Early Childhood Program why we want to continue to do this is we want to really enhance and robust the programming that we're having to also align with our current state standards as well as our diverse needs of our community we all know that highquality early childhood programs deliver substantial return and investment we know that by the age of five 90% of all the frontal lobe and neurop pathways are fully being developed within our children so capturing them during those pre uh pre critical Early Childhood years is really important for the trajectory of their K12 uh environment and educational journey and then alignment with our district values of the whole child I'm sure you have heard that as well but Portage Public Schools IND depts the whole child
029Early Childhood is really all about the whole child and it fits those uh five different entities that are up there that involve cognition physical social emotional language and literacy foundations to support our learners looking forward um these are our current four-year-olds right now in one of our four-year-old Safe Harbor full day programming um and this was probably take number 47 um but we we got it most we're looking in the in the current direction um so this is our current these are your future young five and kindergarteners that are entering our buildings for next year that we are getting prepared and uh working closely with for that transition but looking forward we want to just kind of share um we have as part of our early childhood team and part of the conversations with working
030with um our various um administrative members is to look into conversations about having an early childhood building as a conversation with the community and with the board as many of you have had the opportunity to come and tour with me recently um or in the past curious kids at the CC is a phenomenal building but it's a well-loved and lived building um and so with that we are continuing to address modify and amend um currently to meet all the needs of our diverse Learners um supporting all the different areas that we need um but in the future we would really like to push and support and get the support of the district as well as the community to talk about looking at a different um environment with physical structures that are going to be more
031conducive and More in alignment with our early Learners here for Portage Public Schools as well as more appropriate for their physical social emotional and adaptive needs um so that is you know something that would align with our early childhood philosophy and would be something that we would love to continue in the future and have that dream for that conversation as well lastly I want to thank you here is um Billy Graham he is our uh Portage uh fire department I believe he's the police chief um and I had the privilege of um helping uh educate his child when I was in my days at Amberly um these are our four-year-olds up here we have many Partnerships we partner really closely with our SRO officer Burleson officer Henry kite are constantly in our buildings embedded in
032our preschool classrooms and working really closely with our children so when the transition to kindergarten young fives comes there some familiar faces that they've already been working with we also work with work-based learning um our local kcop accredited um uh universities such as Western Michigan University we have three current Early Childhood interns that are working with us present day um and we continue to work with other entities such the Portage Community Center um as well as Casey ready fors and we want to continue those Rich Partnerships and continue even enhance them even more next year so without further Ado does anyone have any questions that hopefully I can answer that's an excellent report you know we don't uh review early childhood that often so it uh it was a great report to bring us all
033to dat for me this was a chart that was really helpful yeah that helped me a lot to understand everything that you're doing there um so is the is the building going to be full next year with everything we're planning for 25 26 every classroom will be filled with if we have our intended enrollment fulfilled every classroom will be utilized yeah wow are you going to have to add staff to do this or that's a great question and that was actually part of my presentation so I'm glad you asked that um all of our current staff has been promised that they have a place here at Portage um so that is the coaching and the work that I'm doing alongside with um working with our HR department and Brad and Kelly um we are going
034to um be offering positions and going through that formal interview process with our current staff um with the legislation and the changes we do have some requirements that some of our current staff do not have so they're currently participating in some of our programs right now like Talent together Michigan reconnect um and CDA apprenticeships um and then with that being said we will have to hire also an additional staff and be opening it add up to Holy hopefully help find some robust individuals that can help kind of join that Vision with us y we had a special meeting before this meeting to discuss facilities and we discussed the Curious Kids building you have a really good way with words cuz no one in our meeting described the building as well [Laughter] loved we just survived
035the neuro virus and influenza A last week so we are we are well- loved and clean and we are continuing to go um so this is exciting and I think it's it's good for our community to to move away from thinking about K through 12 and start thinking about age three through through grade 12 um I have a trivia question and maybe either you or maybe Paula but do you know like right now what percentage of Michigan's three and four year old kids have access to funded preschool because we're kind of we're inching that way and these programs are coming online I just I don't have a sense if it's 10 or 20% of them do or if it's 50% um do you have a sense I do you want me to take that one
036Paula me um yes so um part of the reason this initiative came out is there was a huge gap um postco years there was about 40 to 50% of um unidentified three and four yearolds not accessing preschool education and or any form of child care prior to their kindergarten years uh when this initi initiative came out early August of last year they've been able to increase the number so 44,000 three and four yearolds throughout the state are now accessing that so don't have percentages but I know that there has been an increase with this initiative um and then certainly there will be an increase with this having this initiative with our programming as well um but if we reach our full enrollment cap which we hope to do we could have over 176 um children
037accessing those services in our building yeah you're welcome what age Head Start classrooms are moving it's just one Head Start class AG three yeah oh okay mhm thanks Lindsay and I am I correct to say that um we're we're kind of using the the the term Early Childhood rather than curious kids we're kind of morphing into that uh descript yeah it it more closely aligns with what the programming is really going to be offering for our community and district and it more really encompasses all of our programming our speech our ESI our heads to all of those we really it is true Early Childhood programming so we're trying to be um consistent and thoughtful on that with honoring the fact that we're year 39 of being curious kids and that's been a staple and a
038landmark for many so we are transitioning to that verbiage for programming State yeah thank you right thank you for joining us toate thank you and our last uh portion of the report is a financial update from uh Director of Finance Paul Johnson good even superintendent beay and Board of Trustees I bring to you tonight A Brief financial report uh included in your board packet our numbers through the end of January the report does not reflect the budget amendment you are to approve later in the so just keep that in mind um only a few things to touch Bas on under Revenue local payments from other districts there's a variance there and we received our kesa enhancement millage payment sooner this fiscal year than what we did last year so that caused a variance uh moving
039down to expenditure area transportation uh overall costs are up and a lot of that has to do with salary and corresponding benefit uh costs in that area um moving down to child care services costs are down a little bit compared to last year and that has to do um with the staffing change Arrangement that we had with with the YMCA uh the second page of the report is laid out by object code and I've mentioned this to the board before and I think this will continue to show all the way through until the end of the year uh Capital outlay expenses up and that has still to do with those secure entryways as we work through finishing paying the pay apps associated with those projects um paid for was section 97 and 31aa funding um
040just a couple other uh information to bits for you uh we closed on our third series of the 2021 bond issue um earlier this month on February the 11th so construction can continue for our buildings without interruption and count day was February 12th and uh we will work through a process to get numbers final numbers together to sey to meet deadlines in March uh March 19th and March 26th are certification Ates and that count rolls up into to be 10% of our Blended enrollment count for next school year so just keep that in mind that's all I really have to report on tonight are there any questions thanks Pa and lastly just an update on the uh I informed you that we had a uh water main break uh recently over at Amberly El school
041um and we're we're still hoping that that conditions don't change that we can address that starting this Friday over midwinter break um the leak the the our our system seems to be handling the water that's being uh introduced into our Boiler Room so that's being handled as long as that's the case then we can wait until Friday uh we expect the uh the work to be completed over the weekend to get water testing out of the way on Monday and worst case scenario is that we may have to provide bottled water on uh on Tuesday when our students turn but we hope that we'll get clean samples by Monday night so we have to do that keep your fingers crossed for um so that doesn't get worse and we don't know the cause of it
042it's uh you know we had some extremely cold temperatures recently that may have contributed to it but uh once uh the contractor gets in there and starts looking at it we may it an answer to what happened there all right that's it for me thanks Mark we'll now move to our comments and communication section I believe we have three individuals who uh wish to address the board this evening our first speaker is Dennis kosian and teacher extraordinaire at West Middle School and tonight he's playing the part of cat Frank not very well so thank you good evening my name is Dennis Goen I live at 5139 Maple Ridge in Portage and as Randy mentioned I'm the band director and eighth grade Orchestra director at West Middle School and I'm a co- rep uh at West
043as well I'm here tonight to share some positive stories from our pea members uh that are taking place in class rooms throughout the district I'd like to begin with Kate twitchell uh Kate was recently named coach of the year uh by the Michigan High School coaches association Kate has been at the Helm of the Portage women's lacrosse program as a varsity head coach since 2015 our PPS team is composed of players from both high schools Kate teaches English and Spanish at Port Central High School and we're so proud of her and her dedication to our students next I'd like to highlight the great work Kelly baam is doing at Woodland Elementary kayle is collaborating with a retired Woodland educator and the current fifth grade team to collect plastic to be recycled through the next track
044recycling program challenge if the school is able to collect and recycle 1,000 lbs of soft uh film Plastics and packaging in a 12-month period They will receive a bench from the company this project helps to support the fifth grade ELA unit where students learn about protecting the Earth from plastic pollution in the first weeks of the program the school has collected over 140 pounds of plastic that would have ended up in a landfill on Sunday the annual ported Central High high school ib's extended essay night took place 42 IB diploma candidates presented their research essays to friends family teachers and administrators it was an awesome celebration of over a Year's work from these incredible kids thanks to everyone who attended and supported the CHS IB students uh last Tuesday my jazz band at westm school
045performed at the Central High School varsity basketball game I want to thank uh the awesome principal here Eric albertis and our new athletic director Jim schaer for allowing over 80 kids middle school kids to perform at the game uh while the game was going on the kids had a great time and it was such a cool thing for them to see what the high School environment is all about and then finally board I'd like to invite all of you uh tomorrow night to our West Middle School 7th and eighth grade band pre-festival concert it begins at 7:00 at Northern High School in the auditorium and features over 150 student musicians our 500 Plus paa members are doing amazing things in the classroom for our kids thank you for allowing me to highlight some of the
046positive things taking place here in PPS thanks for being here Dennis we appreciate that the next speaker evening is Lindsay zerber welcome in the December 9th board meeting while discussing the fifth grade book the bread winner a board member stated that they would be more concerned if the book contains sexually explicit content as this could influence children's Behavior as we have continued to research fish tank we have discovered this exact content across multiple grade levels to varying degrees in the fourth grade book The Wild Book lesson eight includes a disclaimer for teachers warning them that in this section of the book an older man makes suggestive comments towards the main character a 9-year-old girl and offers her a kiss in the Civil Rights unit for fifth grade the first three lessons discuss rape in the
047nth grade unit me myself and I a short story used this year titled a word from the distant past repeatedly uses the phrase Dreaming or loving or screwing and also States the following at the risk of sounding old we have to say it's far too easy to get porn nowadays we could drag out that first thrill the quickly glanced magazine at the news stand the elaborately planned mail order for years now it wears off in days we're glad it's less taboo how are any of these appropriate learning materials for our children in the article mental health parental rights and explicit content in public schools Doug KET aan eloquently pinpoints this issue when he says the following when concerned parents voice their objections to such content educational officials often respond with platitudes about the importance of
048inclusivity without directly addressing the explicit nature of the material they argue that these narratives are necessary claiming that the inclusion of diverse experiences justifies the explicit content he goes on to say that while literature has a responsibility to reflect Society it should do so in a manner that is age appropriate and educational not one that exploits the vulnerability of children schools should serve as safe places for learning not as repositories for Content that could confuse or distress young minds by suggesting that parents who object to materials are indifferent to their children's well-being school officials create a hostile environment for open dialogue this not only stifles parental involvement but also undermines Community engagement that is vital for Effective Education parents have every right to demand transparency in educational policies that affect their children in maners in
049matters involved ing children the voices a parent should hold more weight than the assertions of self-proclaimed experts parents should not be expected to needlessly trust the science when questionable practices are implemented in secrecy the push for inclusivity must not come at the expense of our children's innocence or well-being if as a board member stated you are here to do what is best for all students when did normalizing porn and sexually deviant Behavior become what is best for our students thank you thank you and we have a copy yes okay very good our next speaker is Bethany meder I'm Bethany musker and I stand before you this evening to discuss the deceptive way that this District handles parent requests parents can no longer make a simple request to view curriculum pieces with their child's teacher instead
050they are now forced to contact Administration and fill out forms which are not found on any District website before being allowed to view materials at the administrative offices given administration's historically slow response this is a lengthy process and by the time a parent is actually allowed to see the material the unit is over if this District stands behind the material that they are using then what justifies the secrecy certainly if you can hand it to a child then there is no reason to keep it from an adult parents should never have to navigate bureaucracy to know what their child is learning in SCH school they are first and foremost the parents responsibility and no school district ever trumps that hierarchy secondly the district is once again changing policy to make their reconsideration of materials procedures
051more secretive complaintants are no longer allowed to present before the committee but instead must submit a written or video complaint making the district's history of being one-sided even more evident how is this a proper response to correct the mistake made by the last committee when it was brought to light how obviously unbalanced it was in the classroom we are teaching children to speak out when they see a problem and work together to find a solution but instead of the district putting this into practice they continue to alienate bully and bury parental concerns under a mountain of forms and secrecy every day when parents send their children to school they are entrusting their child's be well-being to the district therefore parents have every right to know that the district is nurturing their children and asking for
052that information is not an outlandish request instead of learning from past mistakes the district is choosing to hide behind a wall of duplicity it is time this District Works to rebuild trust through open discussions you do not pro prove wisdom by doubling down on foolishness let's end the foolishness thank you thank you for your comments Bethany we have those twoo very good thank you I now move to comments by board trustees please I wanted to say um Good Luck to all the bands participating in District festivals I believe it's Wednesday for everyone and that is being hosted here at P Central for anyone who would like to attend and observe and support the bands that are performing thank you Kimberly sir oh um I'm making eye contact with Susan she's deeply involved with her device
053there try to so Susan um so thank you to you and your team and got to talk briefly to to Colin bosberg um and whenever we have an early meeting the district will provide dinner and it's it's always so well done very much appreciated Susan thank you anyone else uh couple of things um we continue to work on building a profile for our next superintendent to Aid Us in the superintendent search and I just want the community to know that the online survey is still open and it can can be completed quickly and it can be accessed on our Portage ps.org website we also have a community Forum uh set for 6 PM this Wednesday evening for community members and that meeting will be in the administration building uh the other thing at your places
054is this handout from kesa and they they did one of these for every District in the county so nine different ones but it uh shows you the ways kesa support supported students and uh I particularly think the information on Early Childhood preschool programs and the Career Connect is interesting information we have 562 PPS students enrolled Juniors and seniors in CTE so anyway just a good reference a good learning tool and then I just want to congratulate everybody who participated in the battle of the books uh teams from each Elementary School uh competed and each team had to read five books and be prepared for questions there were three rounds of questions 12 questions in each round and I want to congratulate the winner the mors bridge worm agency team and two teams tied for second
055place and that were the Amberly pige Peeps and the LeBron Bookers from 12 Street but it was it was a it was a great event it's very difficult to score and so there's some downtime waiting for the final scores and a number of the kids had posters some of them with lights and were hearing you know themselves and others on it was it was a it was a great event and uh anyway thanks to all the teachers and parents who uh made that POS ible for the kids so anyone else I like to tell you thank you for pointing this out I had missed it and um want to point out that there are 42 poor students involved in early middle college that this provides a opportunity for students to receive a certificate or a
056um associates degree both of which allow them to graduate from high school with a wage earning job uh head of household wage earning job um that you know many people say we should improve the trades this is uh but is more than just the trades with the associate degree it gives them college credits before they enter a fouryear university if should they choose to do so it is an amazing program and I'm glad to see so many have entered the program yeah I think that numberers up from previous year I believe so and I'm glad to see that because it is such an amazing program um students even receive mentorship that they meet with a mentor on a every other week week basis so that um they learn how to do college instead of just
057being thrown into college anyone else okay we'll move to our consent agenda on page seven and we have four items tonight first of February 10 2025 policy governance Retreat and Committee of the whole work session minutes second item is that we approve the June 2026 Portage Northern High School music department student trip to Ireland as was presented to us at the last meeting and that we approve the purchase of three 10 passenger vans from Tapper Ford LLC and papa Michigan for a total of $ 23,91606 the funds for which will come from the 2024 25 general fund and that was reviewed with us last week and finally that we approve as presented the sale of a parcel on the campus of Portage Northern to Mark and Beth kanig kig real estate LLC in the amount
058of $35,000 which was also discussed with this last week are there any exceptions to the consent agenda as presented one comment it wasn't last week it was last meeting I'm sorry last meeting I just want to make sure that what we're approving is what we're approving yes thank you any exceptions the consent there agenda is therefore approved our next item is on page 45 a required action item to uh vote for an masb Board of director uh as part of the masb election and uh there's a motion here we probably had to have a discussion on who we would like to support before we move forward and does anyone have any comments or preference here if not I do i' I'd like to propose that we support Tiana Harrison uh Tiana has been on the
059board of cbas of public schools for uh 11 years now she served as the KPS board president and um she's also local and she's accessible to us yes we toally agree at least four times a year at the at the county school right Officer dinners we can tell her what's wrong and ask y yep well then if uh we're in agreement on that if there could be a motion president V answer I move that the Board of Education cast its vote for candidate Tiana Harrison to represent masb region 6 in the 2025 masb board of directors election and authorizes Barb Atkinson to cast the board's vote via the online ballot provided by masb thank you Terry is there a second second thank you all in favor of uh Tiana Harrison as our representative to masb
060region 6 please say I I I opposed the motion passes and we'll now move to our action item the first action item which is uh the 2425 budget amend amendments that were presented to us at our last meeting is there a motion Please Mr President I move that the Board of Education approved the general fund budget Appropriations resolution for 20242 amended budget number one presented thank you Bo is there a second second is there any discussion or any questions Paula or Sammy covered extensively two weeks ago all within our parameters as defined by a policy we told you you did a good job then so Paula Sammy both of you I'm always impressed with your attention to detail with us thank you then all those in favor of approving the 20 2024 25 budget amendment
061please say hi I opposed bye okay anyway uh our next action item is the National School breakfast week Proclamation this is not a controversial motion if somebody could bring that motion on page 60 that would be great Mr President I moved that the Board of Education approved the National School breakfast week Proclamation as presented thank you Kimberly is there a second second thank you you know what Kimberly if you bring the motion you typically get asked to read it the proclamation well you wouldn't mind first comment that I so appreciate food that gives students the ability to concentrate while we are teaching them as teachers and even though I'm not in Portage District as a teacher I appreciate the food service that the students receive that I do teach so I assume it is similar
062also now I'll read the proclamation thank thank you for that opportunity um we not going to include what you said in the proclamation that's fine all right I still share my appreciation personally it's appropriate okay it is good okay Proclamation for National School breakfast week March 3- 7 2025 whereas it is with great respect for the accomplishments of Porter School Food Service managers servers cashiers driver personnel and substitutes that we commem March 3rd through 7th 2025 is National School breakfast week this special observance presents an excellent opportunity to emphasize research outcomes that students who eat breakfast are more alert have improved memory and problem solving skills and perform better on standardized tests we encourage all citizens to recognize the dedication and skill of our school food and service employees and whereas each day a total
063of 27 Food Service employees prepare and serve over 1,8 800 breakfasts on an average day this is in addition to ordering storing and Expediting each menu item to each location adhering to food safety sanitation and nutritional guidelines as well as giving each customer the time and consideration to listen hear and deliver what they were looking for each day fortunately we have exemplary professionals who have devoted their careers to providing highquality service to our children and staff and whereas on behalf of our young people it is a pleasure pleas to commend the women and men who accept and meet the challenges of school Food Service the observance of school breakfast week is a welcome opportunity to thank these patient caring skilled public servants those involved in this Pursuit should be very proud of their contribution to
064education now therefore be it resolved by the Board of Education that we proudly commemorate March 3 through 7th 2025 as the National School breakfast week and we commend everyone who has contributed to the successful operation of our breakfast program by working together we can make a difference in every student's life Proclaim this 24th day of February 2025 the Portage Public Schools Board of Education thank you Kimberly all in favor of approving the National School breakfast week Proclamation please say I I the motion Proclamation passes and another shout out to you Susan for other good work you and your team do we appreciate it thank you very much and now we have our final item on the agenda is revisions to uh bylaw 01 142. 7 orientation and you notice there's a few things that were
065added to this and from from what it was originally and uh one is we had to uh make reference to the fact that the masb superintendent evaluation and Raider reliability training is now required for all board members and the other thing was um The Memo from Mark from May 8th 2023 about how we handle the change order process here uh both of those things are uh valuable to new board members and then there's a a handout at your place that looks like this and this is something uh that um marked about a few years ago to help uh board members understand the difference between what is board approved and what is administrator approved and um I'd like uh you're okay to put that in this as well I think it's valuable to new board members
066so um we will uh I guess vote on this at our next meeting after Barb has a chance to uh um modify the um the bylaw so uh with that we have reached the end of our agenda and we are adjourned please turn in your uh board meeting evaluation thank you very much thank you Randy this is a great thing you know it really is it helps yeah I mean