001the meeting of the board of education is now called to 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 indivisible with liy and justice for all like to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight and we'll get started by approving our agenda there's a motion on page two are there any changes to the agenda no there are not okay do somebody provide a motion Mr President I move that the Board of Education approved the agenda as printed thank you is there a second second thank you thank you very much all in favor of uh proceeding with the agenda as printed please say I I opposed uh motion has passed and
002we'll move along with our agenda as we had planned and we'll start as we always do with the superintendent report thank you Randy um I'm going to go a little bit out of sequence here and uh what we have in in order and I I first want to uh kind of start on a a bit of a somber note I hate to start meetings this way but uh we have lost uh over the past six weeks or so a couple members of our uh of our staff um and I and I want to just draw your attention to the two uh that I mentioned one is uh the first is Allen or Al rle um he was a custodian at angling Road Elementary School uh hired with us since uh 2017 uh he passed away
003on April 1st uh he came to us uh as I said in 2017 after retiring from a 31 year career at Deli and prior to that serving in the Marine Corps from 1970 to 1976 so after uh after his retirement he decided he wanted to do something different and and then came to us and served in that capacity uh he was a 1970 graduate of of General Motors Institute and uh a staunch MSU supporter um actually a season ticket holder to their football games for for the last couple decades so he was always a joy to be around um he loved being around students uh you could see him most every morning out at the buses uh greeting students as they were coming off the buses uh so um Al will be very much missed
004by staff there uh as well as uh his others throughout the district and leaves a void services for him were held on April 5th at Trinity Lutheran Church in Papa where he was also an elder and Usher and a member of of the choir so um he died at the age of 76 and had been married for 57 years uh to his high school sweetheart kathleene so um we wish his family the best as they continue on without him uh and then also uh the loss of Dan vastic on February 27th was uh was really devastating to all of us um Dan was not only a a tech director in his years with us but uh but much more than that many of us he was hired in 2021 as the assessment and student Information
005Systems coordinator if that's a title um instrumental in setting up a parental viewer for student uh attendance initially uh and then uh a couple years later was elevated uh to the uh director of Technology services for the district so he held that position until his passing but he was a lot more than just the position and the title that he held uh he provided technical guidance during school Renovations and construction for all those years he helped in uh build and design the district's technology infrastructure uh he oversaw District Media Services um he took the lead in during the whole redistricting process that the district went through when wayy Elementary School was taken offline and 12 Street was was open and he was intimately involved with the ported Central yearbook staff so he contributed a lot
006there but outside of the workplace he was an avid photographer if you've ever seen any of his uh photography work uh you'd be amazed that the quality and the imagination that came from that man uh and he was also uh an incredible father to his two children will and Emma and we'll be he'll be missed by many in the district um a celebration of Dan's life will take place on Saturday April 27th and that'll happen from 1: to 4:00 p.m. at the Jang Portage Community Senior Center uh there'll be a brief uh ceremony of remembrance will take place at uh 2:30 that afternoon and I know that there are more Memorial contributions that are being accepted for the uh first day shoe fund so uh that's that's where he had a passionate interest in that
007and the initial work will will go to Woodland Elementary School uh where his kids attended school there so if we could just take like just a moment of silence to uh to remember these two outstanding individuals and what they brought to orang Public Schools thank you for that and then moving to a higher note we did avert another situation due to the actions of one of our staff members and uh to tell you a little bit more about that situation I've got Eric albertis here High School principal at ported Central Elementary School who who recognize John or ped Central High School sorry saw saw Sarah out of the corner of my eye and I know that important elementary kids here no not even for a minute yeah um you don't need me to tell you
008that we work with Incredible teachers um and you also don't need me to tell you that we work with Incredible colleagues who are not teachers who without them the school wouldn't go um we're blessed to work with folks Like Pat Flynn uh who's a retired band teacher here John griesbach who worked for more than 30 years with schools and schools Insurance Carol Cutler who has been here forever and doesn't seem to leave um um and we're also blessed to have a colle bring sister named John zeser um John um is one of only two Portage police officers who have pulled me over um both times I deserved it um and uh that's true yeah um and uh we are really lucky that in his retirement John GE decided to joined us at P Central High
009School um to really help the school move um right before Spring Break um one of our young men in class collapsed um had a cardiac arrest um to this day we still don't know what led to that Cardiac Arrest perfectly normal uh healthy young man junior Here a terrific young man um and there is no question about it in my mind had John zeser not been here had his 30 years of police work um really saving many other people's lives over his career had he not been a colleague at Porto Central High School that young would that young man would have passed away that morning John was the first person on the scene um the first person with an AED um to use the AED here at Porta Central High School worship a bu to
010have to have CPR to keep that young man alive um until the EMTs and the fir folks and two em EMP docks were all here to make sure he got safely down to Bronson hospital so is very uncomfortable with all of us talking about him in front of him um but I am so grateful that Mark was thoughtful enough to invite John to be here for us to be able to tell a story to know that there's no exaggeration to say we have a young man who's alive here today going through classes doing what high school kids do um because John zeser is here at P Central High School so we are really grateful John you have to come up here now this is the place where John makes we make him feel even more
011uncomfortable by saying something to the rest of us what you said so well I wanted to meet this guy now just we're lucky that we have an AED on site that makes a huge difference I'd recommend if we not a drug related inent at all but if we could have Nar on the school it's always nice to have that too because you never know when the next time someone might need it right away but I've given CPR probably a dozen times in my life and when I was working over at Forge Department of Public Safety some those people live long enough to get to the hospital but they didn't survive and then 30 days before that I had the opportunity at a store where a lady collapsed and I was right there and and she
012survived and our students survived too so that's maybe I should have retired longer ago you know just Mak a big difference of being there you had a great team everybody came together you know our assistant principal got the AED was bringing it and we all kind of worked together it's not just me it was everybody but big difference in getting there as soon as possible and having somebody that's trained that as many people as trained makes a big difference he's doing you know he came back to school in two weeks and it's amazing that to see him and I'm so grateful that he's doing better and I'm happy for his family I'm glad we alled something that could have been very very tragic app it thanks Eric and and John as well for uh for
013your quick actions as as you say a couple of minutes makes a huge difference and for someone to have the the presence and the commonness to administer first aid as quickly as you did made a difference for that young man and his family so we appreciate everything you did and and stepping up and doing what comes naturally to you so thank you for being part of our team so those are all of the uh the the uh um extra stuff on the agenda on the superintend report and thank you for coming that and so uh the next thing that that I want to do is we have a trip planned uh well we there are some people that are planning a trip to uh to France next uh for next summer so Rachel's here to
014present that so excited um every two years about we bring group of students here central uh to France and opportunity for our kids who have uh studied in the classroom to take that outside the classroom and to apply their skills um and we went this past summer and just just to see these kids faces as they're getting to use their French in a real setting and it feel so sweet the last night I was doing room checks and a few of the girls were like crying in the hotel room like this is like you weren't lying this is a a life-changing experience I was like this is why I do this um to hear them they're like literally like you didn't see as earlier we're in the lobby in a huddle I was like whoa
015that's a scene man that's awesome um yeah so that's the kind of experience these kids have they get to experience things like no other I've been to France more than a dozen times and nothing is like the high school trip there's something so unique about that experience uh that they get to do with their classmates um the tour company we use gives them amazing opportunities to use their French uh and it's again way better than any trip that I've ever taken on my own or the ones that this company leads so it's an awesome opportunity any questions for I will just say the same thing I always say thank you for doing this these are life-changing experiences I have a child that became a Fran ofile after going in fifth grade at that time but
016ended up being a French major in college and is still in communication with people she met 25 years ago so it's so so life-altering and thanks for doing it and I and I was the high school 16-year-old who got to take the trip to Paris and then Geneva and it was life changing this one is not Gena we go to switcher I'm like oh yeah it's not on this one yeah we dabble into to switch this one as thank you Rachel thanks for being here and for taking this on yeah appreciate it my pleasure a lot of work but it's totally worth it I always tell the kids like always ask what's what's your excitement for it like I don't usually see new things I'm like seeing your face see the Eiffel Tower for the
017first time never gets old never gets old thank you thank you well next uh we have Johnny Edwards with our bond project update and he has a couple of uh special guests with him this evening as well good evening thank you superintendent bang as well as members of the board vation uh tonight's presentation is going to be a little different and uh I'm going to ask my colleague Dr KY jinius to take the lead on the special person sure thank uh good evening Board of Trustees and uh superintendent beling I do have Sarah Wagner here today with her students a couple students from Central Elementary so I'm going to actually hand it over to Mrs Wagar to introduce her students if you guys come over this way a little bit all right I'll be your
018quicker do you want to be behind or in front I didn't bring my step sool and you know I have a few of those all right maybe we'll put you right here right over here I will be to the side or to the side yeah sure why not you how's that perfect perfect and how about you here and then I'll be in this is why the right Furniture matters good pitch good evening everyone I am Sarah Wagar and I am the principal at ported Central L I have the honor of introducing two third graders here this is Miss Gabby Walters and Logan merski they are here tonight to share with you a few things from the student perspective about how we are getting ready for our new building we know that there are many steps
019that we need to take before we take the plunge and move into the new space and these are just a few of the preliminary things that we've been doing from the student side so Gabby and Logan are you ready yep he's ready okay all right Lan are you ready ready to begin I will add that all of the script is been created through the students do come come by and we ran some things through them but all of these are their words and ideas that they came up with so all right guys take it away go ahead Logan your first we now have a presentation looking into the future from our school Central Mustangs I'm wersi the age of N and this is Gabby Walters also from the age of N9 uh we have both
020first graders at Central Elementary School for now I I'm in M Duke's class and Gabby is in the Cal the timeline of Central Elementary is we get started in May of 2023 starting to come to life in October this month we can see the second floor is getting made really and it looks class the crane is lifting up really school it is really cool and I can see it happening outside my classroom finally in the fall of 2025 we will have a grand opening for our new school Logan and I will be in before you say so we had the opportunity to ask our students if they had any questions for the builders and contractors out back and so is going to introduce some of the kid questions that were submitted to the office it
021was so nice because the folks took all of our questions and provided some answers and so we'd like to give you a preview of what we learned from the builders well now we have a student with a question what will it look like this this is a picture that will show what what our new school would look like you're going to answer three questions from C the first question is why you need to the answer is the construction company O A says it's very heavy and you need to move a lot of it the second question is how many machines are working on the school the answer is there are many different of pieces of equipment and the numbers will vary throughout our project we have nine machines in total right now that's a lot
022of machines out there our last question is how do you use controls to pick up the dirt the answer is they're like Joy now this time there are many students on many questions of on just one paper here what the questions are what color will it be how do the cranes work how do you know how do you know what what do you like sorry how do you know what to do what do you like to do these questions were asked by Lanna thank you Lanna these are great questions the first answer is one the building will have many colors check out the picture to see number two the crane is designed for winch and cable to pick up to pick up and move heavy objects number three experience and training four You' like to
023work on new construction projects I got our last questions are what mach pick up the the answer is X how many constru they there are one crane five scratch hat and fours and three SEC ear our final question is what are the black pools out there for which steal columns and that which hold up the floor moov I want to thank everyone for ask me questions I'm glad to asked now I know more about construction all right we adopted a new mask cour to must prep to prepare for our building it makes us the same as middle and high schools here what her stands for help engage respect and do what's right you can see in the beginning of each one of the first one is H the second one is e the third one
024is r and the last one is D was letter spell heard first we design the lab Furniture second we install carpet and all four of our 43 classrooms to try out the new furniture the kids think the furniture is awesome excited to put it in the new school I'm excited to try it out next year than all the teachers who work so hard to all right have our school not sorry song this presentation was but done by reporters Gabby Walters and Logan walosi we something in the text box before we finish this presentation we will have our school in the fall of 2025 we want to thank everyone who has worked on on it and so hard and appreciate you for one and all our new school is up rising and upgrading thank [Music] [Applause]
025you thank you nice work today thank you for having today and thank you Mrs Wagar and everyone else for all this hard work we appreciate you taking the time having this crew up here today it a lot of fun and we hope you enjoyed that thank you thank you thank you very much we're going to be trying to incorporate uh students on a fairly regular basis throughout the project to update you and and I have to say I can't I can't let this go on without me saying something Gabby's dad Sean who's sitting over there um the first time I've seen him in in 34 years he reminded me the years um he was a student when I was high school principal up in Iona he was a student who also served on my student
026Advisory board at IA high school and he was the first class to occupy what was then a brand new building a new facility so construction is not foreign to him so to say that for being here and thanks again kids for for your presentation and Sarah as well so I would say that's definitely much better than any presentation I could have given best report ever last couple of years so this portion will be Anastasia so approximately every other board meeting that try to just incorporate a few photos this to be uh brief um the last time I showed you an area view of Central Elementary School and I like to put the floor plan next to the aerial shot so you can kind of get in uh a look at how the building is taking
027shape so this was the initial photo uh showed uh back in November of 2023 and then if we fast forward to March of 2024 here's the latest aerial shot uh which shows now that second floor is in place on the Northern side of the building uh and the southwest corner is the gymnasium you can see that the walls around the gymnasium is up and running and then the southeast corner to the right is the administrative area the library and art room and you can see how those rooms are taken shape um this is another aerial view of Central Elementary School uh looking at the uh second level on the bottom left and then the right side you'll see kind of a picture that really just zooms into the uh the entrance of the school that's
028where parking lot will be as people enter the new school and moving over to hah Hill as knows this is a staggered project so this was H Hill's initial aerial shot that we showed several years ago similar layout to Central Elementary School and that was November M of 2023 and this is what March of 2024 looks like uh if we were to take the shot today on that Northern side of the building more of the second floor is completed at this point and here's a shot uh of the school from one angle and then that on the far right you'll see more the second floor uh being l so that concludes my presentation just want to share a few pictur pies before we get into the change order budget are there any questions about destruction
029this far well I'm going to ask Anastasia to come up this next portion Anastasia work size by side by Dan rat tonight he's unable to be here tonight thanks Johnny um we're going to get started with the bond change order report um if you guys have any questions please stop me let me know we're going to start with your cover sheet you'll see that not much has really changed with this document since the last time you saw it you'll see that we have moved the funds from the change order or the um contingency line up to the actual construction cost of the bo we'll move over to the next page with our details here starting out with Central Elementary item one bulletin 6 included the relocation of The discus crate pad and fencing there was
030some stud wall clarifications um added structural appears clarified lentil bearing plate requirements and we added in some exterior wall pack lighting and then there was a little bit of miscellaneous mechanical electrical and masonary updates for a total cost of $95,400 item two which is bulletin 7 included updates to the stud wall framing tags clarifications of wall types as well as some masonary and mechanical clarifications for a total of$ 31,32 and has um affected six contractors item three which was bulletin 8 revised um window opening and blocking details there was some door hardware revisions and updates to the CMU spr hall for a total of $9,975 which affected four contractors item four which was lentil and bearing plate install cost for a total of $5,385 and that affected one contractor lastly um item five this would
031be the future Award of the following bid categories bid Category 2 asphalt paving to Michigan Paving and materials bid Category 3 Landscaping County Line nurseries and B Category 5 irrigation also to County Line nurseries for a total of 45,00 , 474 out of contingency in that item um and that was for three contractors um Central Elementary change order 3 total is $187,500 out of contingency moving on to Hill item one bulletin one included some structural updates and adjustment of the door hardware there as well um for a total cost of $ 51,1 183 this Ed seven contractors item two bulletin two um there was updates to the erass distance and toilet room revisions um this was per the state code after review um there was also some clarifications to the lentil bearing plate requirements and
032locations for a total cost of $ 56,600 item three bulletin 3 included updates to the electrical receptacle routing um adjusted those electrical circuits and there was some control joint clarifications in the masonary for a total of $7,695 and that affected eight contractors item four is an allowance that we used for some construction road around the building this included additional um temporary Road around the building for Crane and masonary um access so this was a zero cost change from contingency but we did use 97 ,50 out of one of our allowances and that was um for one contractor item five bulletin 4 there was some updates to the plumbing fixture tags um some door hardware Provisions as well as some mechanical updates for a total of 35,940 and this item um affected two contractors item six
033was an additional phase to the construction road um just kind of adding a little bit more to that to allow for access on um additional sides of the building this also used allowances for $3,663 so again zero out of um contingency there and that affected one contractor item seven was a fire alarm vendor change this was um requested during our post bids and this is the um change order for the contractor we also we held an allowance for this during our initial recommendation to the board of 25,000 um so we used the 25,000 from the allowance that we held there was an additional $29 from that item that we pulled from contingency and that affected one contractor item eight was um unsuitable soil removal we um used an allowance again for this one of $631
034the cost for this was to ha off the unsuitable soils um from creating that access Road around the building lastly item nine would be the award of the following bid categories bid Category 2 asphalt leaving re construction bid category three Landscaping two line nurseries bid category four fencing would be Justice fence bid Category 5 irrigation also two County Line nurseries bid category 22 resilient athletic flooring Great Lakes flooring specialist and mid category 23 um visual display units Platinum visual display Solutions in this case there would be an add back to contingency of $ 36,19626 are there any questions with those so yeah just a quick check in on this I mean all projects have contingencies that get used are are you comfortable that we're we're cutting into contingencies at a typical pace and you're feeling
035comfortable that we'll have enough contingency money there to to get what lies ahead yes all of the changes that we've been seeing so far are typical with where we're at with the um stage of construction yes thank you any other questions thank thank you and that I believe concludes uh our section of the agenda thank you very much Mark you're welcome move forward with board education uh and this is a report on our community survey that the board commission uh Gary gensi from um perspectives Consulting Group is here um to present the survey welcome Gary good evening trustees superintendent beang it's a pleasure to be before you and present the of the 2024 Community survey completed for public schools it was conducted just about a first two weeks of January there just after January 15th
036through the 26th of this year so you're getting the results about three months down from when we conducted the survey it was a 30 question survey the survey itself was conducted online in order to ensure the maximum participation that we could get a postcard was sent to All households in the district inviting them to take the survey with a link and a QR code that they could access the survey with as such we asked everyone to be a resident of page public schools and be at least 18 or older we received a total of 490 usable surveys some people started the survey and didn't necessarily complete it but of those who completed it we had 490 which gives us a margin of error plus or minus 4.4% in this day and agent of political polling
037you're hearing margins of error all the time in our industry we consider plus or minus 5% to be the standard so plus or minus 4.4 is actually better than that because it's a tighter Tolerance on the error margin the data was weighted and as such I need to explain just briefly that when we conduct surveys like this for school districts and we do them for districts all over the state of Michigan we have always encountered more parents taking the survey than people who have no children in the schools so when parents take the survey we know they sometimes answer questions differently than those who don't have children in the schools so when we get more parents and fewer non-parents we wait the data to make it proportional and what that means in this case is
038we waited it so that approximately 40% of the survey respondents were parents and 60% were not which reflects the Kazo County average for schools in the county which is 40% parent you receive two report documents the first one affectionately called report is 82 Pages it has a summary of all 30 questions the second one responses listing is 118 pages and includes all of the responses the differentiation here is that in the first report to keep it to 82 Pages we have selected responses to some of the questions and not all of them if you wish to read every response from every person including all the the survey respondents even with the waiting they're in that second document I want to go over a couple questions just briefly about the district as a whole the first
039one is the overall grade for Portage Public Schools they were given a choice of ab B C D and F you'll see that about one quarter of the survey respondents gave it an a 41% of B and 23% AC c as you can see there's a couple who gave it a d or an f and as such when you read the report actually find that we asked survey respondents who gave the district a Dr andf why did you give the district a Dr andf and you can read those responses in the report as you can see that was relatively few we Then followed that with a question about the academic programs here reported Public School same grading scale you'll see it graded a little higher at the a level at 33 or one out of
040every three survey respondents gave it an a about 43% of B and 14% of c and again if you look in the report you'll see for those who gave it a d or an F they were asked why they gave it that and that information is available to you as you'll know from our work previously on the surveys related to facilities including the elementary and middle school surveys in 2015 2020 and 2021 this is a question that we've asked historically do you feel Portage public schools are fiscally responsible providing three choices yes no and unsure in this case you'll see that yes was 43.8% of the survey respondents onethird were unsure and 23% said no it's important to recognize that this question has been asked historically and the results differ slightly from previous years although
041not dramatically if they said no you're not fiscally responsible then the top responses included the administration is overpaid lack of investment in teachers and pass bonds I think the first two are self-explanatory pass bonds most frequently referen the construction of a new football stadium at Portage Northern this was a bond that I believe was approved and construction was executed now seven years ago having said that it still does show up on the survey at this point one question that we asked this time that we uh wanted to get a handle on especially for the board as they look at the value of porage public schools and trying to be good custodians of the resources here when choosing to live in Portage was living in the Portage Public Schools a factory in your decision and for
042three qus of the people surveyed yes living in Portage Public Schools was a factor so we took those three quarter and we said are you happy with the decision so you made a decision to live in Portage public schools and of those who said yes three quarters of them said they were happy with that decision you'll see a couple who were unsure and a couple who said no but uh those results to that question are again very favorable for board public schools once again the board commissioned the survey to get a variety of different information and one of the things they asked about was the top three issues facing or the district must address at this time and you'll see that there's a variety of different responses there we gave them a list so in
043discussion and preparation of the survey we provided a list of about 22 different items not all of them are on this chart but there's a majority of them there quality of Education was the top issue that was named followed by teachers teaching safety curriculum and finally trust in the top five statistically here's that plus or minus four margin of error coming in play you can safely say the quality of education is the top issue would be again if we repeated the survey but if you looked at teachers teaching safety curriculum and Trust as an example that margin of er window would say that those could appear in a different order if we conducted the survey again there's enough play in that margin of air that that would be the case but as you can see
044the common theme between quality of education teachers teaching and curriculum in the top five the other thing that we explored on the survey which again is a policy governance board you develop end statements about what you believe the district's purpose and what it should be accomplishing we use the word goal on the survey and so we shared each of the five with residents one at a time so this is an example of goal number one students demonstrate continuous Improvement in the Mastery of Core Curriculum standards with results approaching or exceeding the highest performing comparable districts and having shared that we then said do you feel this is a satisfactory goal and you can see that 81% of the survey respondents said yes this is a satisfactory goal we had just under one out of 10
045say they were unsure and similar numbers say they did not feel was satisfactory again you'll find why they didn't feel it was satisfactory in the report as we did ask for responses to explain that having said that you can imagine this question being repeated four more times for goal two three four and five and so you can see the results on this chart here goal one again had 81% saying yes it was satisf Factory goal two which is the learning and Leadership skills goal had 86% saying satisfactory resilience in life goal three was 80% 87% for goal four and 83% for goal 5 so my takeaway for you is just very simply eight out of 10 residents surveyed felt that the goals that you have the end statements that you have for the district are
046satisfactory once again you can see if they disagreed on something you can see the results in the no in unsure categories within the report as we followed up with them here are the most common reasons why they did not feel that the goals were satisfactory there were some people who felt the goals should be more ambitious that there should not be a comparison to other districts that there should be more focus on academics and what that really meant was beyond the first goal for goals 23 four and five if they disagreed they felt the focus should be more primarily on goal number one they felt there were some things in the goals that they didn't perceive to be the school's responsibility to address and finally that there needed to be a focus on P Beyond
047college so those are some of the most common reasons but once again you need those in their entirety in the report then for each goal we asked a second question and we said do you feel that Porter public schools are working effectively toward accomplishing this goal and again I've put all five goals on the same chart for you so you can see what's there for goal number one academic success 45% thought yes you're working effectively toward accomplishing that goal 41% for goal two 32% for goal three 41% for goal four and 36% for goal five the takeaway from this chart is is if you add together no and unsure over half of all residents surveyed said either nope you're not working effectively toward this or they're unsure so less than half on any of the
048five recognize that you're working effectively toward it I feel I must comment only that aware of the fact that the district does have monitoring reports for each and every one of these which are documented that you review as trustees there just appears to be a disconnect with the community in the ability to to for them to pick that up from the outside what is clear some of these monitoring reports all of which appear on the website are long and they appear throughout the year so there there's certainly a challenge for someone you would have to be doing your homework to follow along if you're going to follow the monitoring reports but I would just say that there is a disconnect in the understanding that yes you are working effectively toward the five goals Al be
049at over 80% for each of the five F they were so that's Factory goals we did ask are there other goals District should have there are other end statements that should be included and there were several that were commonly named one there there was a thought that there should be goals around curriculum there were several people wanted goals around diversity equity and inclusion special education safety and student Behavior were also named once again when you read the response that's in the report you'll see more detail about these we categorize them in groups here but there's probably three or four pages of subjective other goals that appear within the report there's also within the report about 10 pages of other comments about the district it was the last question do you have any other comments you
050wish to share about 4 Public Schools it was an open-ended question you could say what you wish I would encourage you trustees to spend not only time with the report part to spend time with the responses listing I know it's a much longer read and there's lot of information there but especially the question other comments which transcends some of the topics we discuss but more often things that weren't discussed on the survey is definitely worth your time to look at so in conclusion I remind you that 490 residents did complete the survey so that you have the results of the 490 and over 80% of them felt that each of the five goals as listed were satisfactory but most residents are either unsure or don't feel public schools are working effectively for accomplishing the goals
051so I've highlighted the results of the survey and my presentation here uh in respect for your time and realizing that you do have the copy of the report I will ask is there either a question I didn't cover that you had a question about or a question anything other I could answer for you how many residents were received it received the survey so how many people actually what percentage of people actually completed the the a postcard was sent to All households in the Portage Public Schools district so in and of itself that would be somewhere I'm going to guess but Michelle's at the back 45,000 45,000 20,000 households okay use the same list that we use for the pager plus those building those neighborhoods that are outside of page but our part of page is
052District okay so is this low for reportage Public Schools as far as people filling out the survey seems like should have way more people completed there there have been previous surveys that we've done related to things like the elementary schools most recently um I would suggest that there might have been a reason especially with some of the sighting issues around the elementary schools that more people might have taken that survey 1370 took the elementary school survey 490 took this one um I would suggest that there was perhaps more publicity around that one but I would not consider this to be a low response in the sense that we are at a comfortable margin error plus or minus 4.4% I feel comfortable with the results as you see them and other than for example in the
053top issues category most of the questions are clear clearcut they they either you know they believe it's satisfactory or they haven't heard of it and the percentages are significant outside of the Mar so this survey would be considered a good representation of the district as a whole as we waited it to reflect the percentage of parents in the district yes I would incur that it is would you maybe a better way to say it when we had 1300 respondents there was more contention about things related to the elementary school projects people who were objecting to site locations and so forth people who really wanted to see a new school so people were on it it seems like things are going along really smoothly right now there aren't a lot of issues of contention so people
054don't tend to come forward when things are going well do you think that's a fair estimation or not it would be my um suggestion that that's the most likely reason why more people completed the surve 2021 this year and while that may be spoton uh if somebody gave us a deer andf you asked them why yes sir and then in the feedback it was all there yes sir so this was hard to read you had to have a thick skin right and we asked for it we asked for it we agreed we agreed if they were dnf they'd tell us why and so um so there's lots of stuff in there um and it's you know it's so anyway I if if anybody has not made it through the whole thing I would encourage it
055and I mean reading some of that you can see how some of that is miscommunication and some of this stuff is you know it's kind of Technical and but some of that stuff in there I think we can address and we just have to take a deep breath and sort through it and you know there two or three things you know I mean the the thing about we're 40 around 40 to 45% of our community says that they don't know how we're performing on some of those things yes I I'm not sure we can reduce that appreciably because people are busy and getting the information in front of them and having them digest it is is hard but we can try harder we can we can try harder to do that so and and I
056say that as chair of the owner linkage committee um I think that's something we've got to own and try try some new things I was just going to say that maybe not try harder but just try something different to get it out to people in a different way truste I will I will just suggest to you your point about the reading the report being difficult we have found that when we ask someone so why do you think Portage public schools are fiscally responsible if they said yes they're going to say all sorts of good things none of which you would change all of which are relevant all of which are important but they don't add any information you can take action on so by Design every single one of the survey questions explores either why
057somebody said no or why they were unsure and most often this brings up a tone of negativity in cases that is very difficult to read and I concur with you that it is a challenge to read through sections of the report but I hope that all of you understand that the information that's coming from this is what residents in the community believe to be the case at this time as you indicated maybe some of it is misperception but the reality of it is is that's what they think is happening at this point um such that we see this type of response in other districts and other surveys we absolutely do this is not unique Portage because once again we're asking why didn't you think we do this or why were you unsure that Portage did
058this and those by default are not positive answers so having said that I would encourage not only you but anyone else who takes a look at it to recognize that the vast majority of people for every single question didn't have a response because they believed you were fiscally responsible or were communicating well or you were grading an ABC seeing 50% or so or more in some cases of working effectively towards schools says that we have some work to do and it may be perception it may be education it may be changes that we need to make but this at least gives us a guideline to do so and when you know better you can do better so it's good that we know yeah and I'm sure we'll be having some more discussions down the way
059Gary you might even be involved in some so uh we really appreciate your work on this and presenting this tonight thank you very much thank you Mr President I appreciate the opportunity it's going to be of service to the public Board of Education I look forward to Future conversations thank thank you okay we'll move forward with our comments and communication section is there anyone no one wishes to address the board this evening so uh we'll start with uh comments from board trustees please yeah right C can I say my usual so we can for an extra two or two and a half hours for kind of a special uh Retreat today to focus on our uh 1.1 end statement I'll let other people say what they thought of it but it it I mean once
060again it was it was good spirited discussion um maybe kind of boring maybe kind of in the weeds but I think people are cles are finding it kind of exciting to debate kind of how you know how we set our goals and how we set our expectations for things going on in the district I'll say what I said earlier that in 10 years I think that's the best Retreat I've ever been to it just seemed like we made a lot of progress and we were all really focused on simplifying and that all is really good stuff so in a positive way it was an opportunity to get into the weed so to speak in a way that doesn't normally lend itself right you use the word spirited I would add very respectful and very collaborative
061mhm so I have a couple of other things um I saw and I was just trying to find it on social media so I could accurately talk about it but uh a thing that's coming to North Middle School like a guy from Top Chef or a a that kind of show jet Tilla okay jet is a uh well oh Susan's here Susan come on he's been in the district before he visited West Middle School and uh 2019 yes it's been a few years but supposed to be at North Middle um in 2020 and then the pic okay well that just looks like such a cool thing and something for kids to get really excited about that's definitely out of the ordinary so I thought that was so exciting when I saw that and I don't
062know what part you played in that but great okay well hey thanks for doing that so that's super um also just uh heads up that Portage Central Middle School is doing Beauty and the Beast this weekend and uh I've heard a little sneak peek of Gaston's song and it was amazing so if you think this is like your mother's Middle School production it is not it is really very topnotch and it's a junior production so that means it only lasts a little over an hour so you can just go and know that it's going to be short and sweet so go take your kids whatever um and then I think Randy you have the community read so I won't say anything about that I'll let you talk about it okay very good anyone else go
063ahead I would add one more brief thing but um Mark in your opening and you were talking about D bastic and some adjectives there um a couple others that into my my mind that would Dan was caling and wise very much so anyone else can I say something about Dan too sure um I probably have known Dan as long as he worked for the district so that goes back 20 years or more um I didn't know him well initially he was just someone that I saw walking around and knew he was involved in the tech stuff um but I am so glad that I had the opportunity over the past 10 years to really get to know him better and to appreciate that wisdom and that calm demeanor and really caring concern about others and
064about what's going on in the district but personal caring concern for his family and other people so um it was a gift to me to all of us I think that we had the opportunity to know Dan that way anyone else I like everyone else uh Miss Dan um Dan was always uh just a calm and calm in the face of anything you could always count on him for uh his wisdom and knowledge about a variety of subjects not just it and uh I mean the work he did to design our technology here we're going to enjoy the benefits of that for years to come so um well we miss him and uh he was a big loss to the district um the only other thing I have is the community in read I don't
065know if you had a chance to go to the event but it was uh it was it was fantastic uh attendance was really good and um rud deceptus the the author was probably the most one of the most engaging speakers I've ever heard in my life so uh I just like to give a shout out to our Librarians for uh the choice of the book this year salt to the Sea and uh the foundation and everyone else who uh sponsored the event it was is really a great thing for our students and a great thing for the community and uh with that I think that's all we have and we can move forward to the consent agenda we have just a couple items here on page 32 approval of the minutes from the March 11th
06620 24 regular business meeting and Clos session and policy revision to policy 144.5 board member ethics 0617 point3 public participation at board meetings comminate board meetings policy 9130 public complaint and policy 2521 selection of instructional materials and Equipment uh this these policies have been under discussion by the board for a number of months and uh they were uh shared with the public for the first time at our last meeting are there any exceptions to the consent agenda as presented now hearing none the consent agenda is uh approved and we'll me move to uh our next agenda item Assurance of District performance and that's monitoring report 1.3 on page 32 mark thank you um hopefully you recognize that this report is very similar to uh in format from what to what was presented previously uh a
067couple things I just want to draw your attention to uh on page uh [Music] 37 is uh our teachers are beginning to use uh this instrument called Sabers uh which is is a tool that allows them to assess the student acquisition of some of these skills um and so just like they do with academics they're looking to see where the gaps are where we need to have interventions where students uh and teachers can work better together to develop some of the the skills that are identified uh here on self-awareness uh social awareness relationship skills responsible decision making and self-management uh and then also on uh we had a professional development day last Friday uh districtwide Development Day and some of the sessions there were devoted to how teachers can embed uh teaching these skills through
068the content areas uh one in particular that uh I stopped by in for a little bit was uh through the English language arts curriculum uh just through the the texts that are chosen through activities that can occur as a result of both exploring the text and the content as well as developing some of these skills so uh this work is happening across the district uh obviously we can't do everyone at every grade level at the same time but uh we're we're focusing on some areas as we unpack these standards and get to know them so that's that's work that's that's on ongoing across the district um but also in the meantime we're looking at are there other ways we might be able to get some feedback around how these skills um are being uh Acquired
069and and kind of the the uh results of acquiring those skills and that's to look at some of the questions that we use in our student experience uh survey so on page 36 you'll you see the uh the results of that survey uh from last year uh the number of students that took the uh the survey instrument and then the four questions that we feel are are somewhat tied to these standards and uh we're right now in the in the midst of administrating administering this year's uh survey and uh so next year we'll have some data that we can start making some comparisons and and at least look at this and see how our students are doing um and how we might adjust to that so that's this year's report and uh hopefully you know
070the you'll get the idea that we we do Embrace these um they are aligned with the the state's social emotional skills and we are um working with our teachers to make sure they're embedded in our curriculum and I'll be happy to answer your questions if you have any I I would um I I would add um in this in the survey that you know we just got some results in the survey and so this is one of those areas where some people don't think that this is as important as the others and those folks would be more of the three hours kind of thing um which I have to admit at one point in my life I was kind more in that camp um and then the pandemic happened and the kids came back from
071that and we found a spike in relationship issues and kids you know and and it just as a trustee it helped me really appreciate more that schools are where kids learn how to get along with other people um and and so it it just sharpened up for me that this is really important so I appreciate appreciate everything in here and and we're definitely seeing the impact that Co had and uh you know kids being together in a in one space is different than kids learning alone so very much so we're still seeing that and uh doing what we can to address it and and I think the data that you have showed us is that right post-pandemic Spike that is now settling back in and it's looking more like it was looking pre uh pandemic
072but it takes some time and that's an important function of our schools anyone else have any questions from Mar Mar well Mark I just like to say appreciate you adding those questions to the student experience survey because this is a very hard thing to quantify and that's a that's a stab at it appreciate that and then uh just so everyone knows that this particular long-term goal that the board has for the district is that students have social emotional learning competencies including skills in self-management self-awareness social awareness relation ship skills and responsible decision making to build resilience to navigate life so uh thank you for your report sir is a good one and there's a motion on page 32 to approve it president V where I move that the Board of Education accept us presented the
073monitoring report on 1.3 NS as a reasonable interpretation and evidence of compliance with policy thank you Terry is there a second please second thank you Keith all favor please say I I opposed uh the motion passes and we'll move forward to our first first action item was the teacher and staff Appreciation Week Proclamation on page 40 president V answer I move that the Board of Education approv the teacher and staff Appreciation Week Proclamation as presented thank you Terry is there second second thank you can someone read that for please that would be honored to thank you Keith there is a strong effective free public education for all children is critical to our democracy at the national state and local level and whereas a strong Public School System makes for a strong community and whereas the
074vision of page Public Schools is to be an exceptional continuously improving learning culture with high expectations committed to all and whereas the commitment page public School's teachers and staff show to students by inspiring them to succeed academically artistically socially and athletically is essential to making the vision a reality and whereas our Educators go above and beyond for our students making a lasting contribution to their lives therefore the Board of Education of Portage Public Schools does hereby Proclaim May 6 through1 2024 as teacher and staff appreciation week and the Portage Public School district and encourages all citizens to thank Educators for their daily work adopted on this 15th day of April 2024 by the Portage Public Schools Board of Education thank you Keith any comments well I would just like to say that we just completed
075um visits of most of our school buildings and we get to see our teachers in action and we got to see some pretty amazing amazing things and I'm even more convinced that teacher and staff Appreciation Week ought to be every week because uh the work that we saw and the learning that's going on and and the dedication there is is just amazing so we just want to thank our teachers and staff for all that you do for kids we really appreciate it and with that uh all those in favor of approving the teacher and staff Appreciation Week Proclamation please say I oppose the motion passes and we'll move to our second action item which is districtwide Access Control building entrance Renovations there's a motion on page 42 Please Mr President uh I moved that the
076Board of Education approved the contract for districtwide Access Control building entrance renovations to Hall Builders of paa Michigan amount of $ 73,5 which a 10% contingency These funds will come from carryover section 997 Safety and Security funding thank you Boer second please second thank you um Johnny are you Sammy Stevens our business manager can uh can speak to this item I just wanted to remind the board that this request was sent to us electronically on March 25th and I'm not aware of any questions or issues with this proposal so thank you for taking us through it yeah not a problem so this is or good evening Board of Tres and superintendent feeling sorry um so this is actually the second bid package to a bid to a complete package or project that we have I
077brought the first bid package to you um in our meetings in February and March I believe it was so this is the second one um and this will kind of um along with the recommendation that I'll Pro um talk to you about later on um kind of wrap up our Safety and Security project that Dr Michael Pasco is working on with Dr Edwards um along with numerous others in the district um but this one will focus on Central High Northern High moorsbridge um and then the corridors at West uh middle school and it just helps um align us with those recommendations from the safety or from the security assessment that we had by SEC um back in I think it was last spring it was um so that'll just kind of bring it all together
078and finalize that piece along with our information later this evening any questions for Sammy well it was a it it was a a fun moment this weekend as I was reading the survey and there was a Verbatim comment on making the uh the access entrance to Central High a more uh secure entrance and I knew that this was coming up so um this is important stuff thank you Sammy this is something I have wondered why some of our schools were more open than otherwise and so I'm glad to see it yeah I'm glad to see this happening yeah and a lot of that is due to the state of Michigan and their funding that they've been able to provide us with and really move in that direction Dr Pasco taking the opportunity and getting us
079to where we need to be where we need to have our students safe and everything so having been a teacher who has arrived at school in the morning and had discussions with colleagues of based on recent events at that time what will we do to keep our students safe this is real Y and 100% needed completely agree thank you thank you apprciate it any other comments all those in favor of the districtwide Access Control building entrance Renovations please say I I I oppos the motion passes and we'll move forward to our first discussion item which is the PA and clock system upgrades and I think Samy is coming up again um this evening you will find a recommendation in your board packet um for a contract with Parkway electric out of Holland Michigan in the
080amount of 3 $28,000 32,37 to, which does include a 10 10 10% contingency and that is for upgrades to the public address system and clock systems at 12 Street Lake Center Central High and Northern High um these funds will come from 31aa which is another state categorical that we have um for the 23 24 fiscal year I've kind of we've kind of mentioned it in the budget amendment um they took section 797 and section 31aa and combined them together um so this will come from the 31aa funding that we will receive this year um but this contract again will allow for replacement of that PA and cl system at those four schools it'll bring them up to the same caliber as our middle schools as well as bringing them up to very very similar spe
081specs for our new elementary schools um and this bid package does have Associated fees with it with Tower pinkster in the amount of 21,500 which is under that $100,000 threshold that we will that we would have to bring to you um in the event for approval um the two high schools are expected to be completed over the summer um and then the two elementaries are expected to be completed by January of 2025 which is all within that um window of having to have those funds spent um it was competitively bid with the assistance uh from Tower pinkster we received two responses is with Parkway being the lowest bidder um and question it's probably important to remember that the buildings that you're talking about were constructed well over 10 years ago and the climate has changed
082a lot so there was no lack of responsibility when those buildings were built but things have changed to some degree that would cause us to think that we needed to upgrade so exactly and the other thing I mean technology we see how fast technology changes and so this just brings the entire District up to the same caliber the same speed and it helps us um guide those the can't think of the word that I'm looking for um but when systems reach their lifespan it's hard to find parts so with this opportunity we want to upgrade our system and make it the best it can possibly be in the event of a natural disaster or a disaster in general which I pray that we never ever see or have to experience but it just really allows
083us to be that much better and that much thank you Sammy thank you I I just like to give a shout out to Dr Pasco and Dr Edwards for thr at this project because between between what we approved in February what we just approved now and what we're being asked to approve next month uh you brought in over $1.2 million to the district and you did that by applying for the mental health and the safety uh categoricals and uh as I understand it not all districts did that and were the beneficiaries of it and uh so we want to thank you very much and I think it would be really good on our part if we could bring this one to actually tonight so we could get all this done this summary so V do
084you have a motion the first one's easy so uh would this perhaps be something on page 51 uh no it' be on page I'm and while Bo is developing the motion could someone I move that we bring this item to action second thank you all those in favor of bringing this item to action please say I I the motion is now an action item bo uh Mr President uh I moved that the Board of Education approv the contract for upgrades to the public address and clock systems at 12 Street Elementary Lake Center Elementary Central High School and Northern High School to Parkway electric of Holland Michigan in the amount of $328 372 which includes a 10% contingency these funds will come from 33a mental health and school safety State categorical funding thank you Bullis is
085there a second second all in favor please say I all I oppos the motion passes and we'll move to our next discussion item which is the Central Elementary Construction contract thank you again I'm joined by Anastasia for these next two uh recommendations the first of which is related to Central Elementary School uh this is a continuation of bids for uh construction B categories two related to ashal claming B Category 3 related to landscaping and B category five related to irrigation as we have done the majority or the heavy lifting of the bid back in the summer of 2023 these projects were not anything that needed to be Dr bid so early so now we're coming up into that time where we're getting closer to uh uh our next round of Summer work and these three
086categories uh equate to $76,000 uh amongst them the contracts awarded to Michigan Paving and materials for asphalt paving County Lin nursery for landscaping and then County Line nurseries for irrigation Anastasia I will be happy to answer any questions you might have about recommendation Johnny the timeline that we're on allows this work to be completed the summer without having to move this to action tonight you want to talk about I think the ash Paving um that one is on H Hill actually um Central they we are good on we're good okay uh and then moving over to uh to H Hill a similar recommendation uh their particular amount equates to $51,988 recommendation and that total equals to $51,988 of the asphalt so we're going to do um believe it's Street yeah so yeah so really we
087we have to break this out into phases to allow construction still access to the site while not shutting down the road completely either for residents um so with part of that we are looking to do some of that work this summer actually and then breaking out the rest into um the next summer when we complete the rest of the the es so if the board were comfortable ha Hill recommendation related to Asphalt is a higher priority um but if not we can certainly wait whatever would the board be agreeable to M I move that we move it to action is there second second all favor quick discussion just to be clear moving Central and HH Hill to action both all those in favor of moving these items to action please say I all okay we
088just need a motion to approve the Central and hhill construction contracts that'll do it I move that we move uh to approve the Central and hah Hill Construction contract nicely said is your second second great all those in favor please say I I opposed motion passes thank you very much thank you guys really put on the hard sty okay our next discussion item is purchase of decodable text and literacy Library materials you're an expert on everything it's just you know uh so in your Bo packet is another recommendation for the purchase of uh Elementary decodable texts and learning library text text so books they're not text books but they're reading books um for the total of 326 306,000 this purchase will come from sr3 federal funding um and we uh had to take this out
089for bid and we had three different sections so the first one um was awarded to uh the reading leag for the codable text their codable text um and that is 13 K through two and then uh the second one was awarded to the book bug uh just local here in Portage um for the text for the learning library and that's for grades 2 through five and then Lakeshore Learning was awarded for carts for storage of those texts because there will be hundreds and hundreds of textbooks coming in um hopefully once this uh purchase is approved um it's been I've had a lot of I've had my hands in this a lot and it's been really cool to learn about this um I was talking with uh Dr jenus and uh Dr shean this morning or
090this afternoon and they were telling me more about the purchase um just for your guys' peace of mind all the reading Specialists and Librarians have viewed the majority of these text messages um they can be used independently or in a small group setting um for example those decodable texts they come in packages of five or 20 um and then there's like a so that's how many books like are in that package of each book and there's like five or six books that are available to the student um and then there's again various books to help them understand their Core Curriculum um it will provide additional practice opportunities for the students to connect and deepen and extend their knowledge in The Core Curriculum and like I had mentioned it's all based off of their or connected
091to their course skills um this was bid through a formal bidding p uh process because it is such a large purchase um and we received nine responses which is quite large um but all of these these three vendors were chosen based off of availability and the product that they had available for them happy to answer any questions forgive my ignorance what is a decodable text I can tell you actually I'm really excited about this Kelly and I had this a good it is so for example if we're learning about the vowel are the short I sound like in pig so the I the decodable text is a set of texts that focuses on that short eye sound awesome Okay cool so think of the Bob Books that would be a very Elementary illustration of what
092they are if you ever had the Bob book for your kids working on sounding out the words instead of relying on memorizing this is what the word looks like is so important y memorizing or guessing yes because we dealt with that in our family um they're really cool being able to sound it out makes it possible to read later awesome and important with a short eye sound right of the believe me okay yeah yeah study my short eyes but I have the B books I'll bring them being able to sound out those big words that you've never seen before yeah instead of just looking at the first three letters and guessing that this is the word that it is and it makes no sense whatsoever but you're going with it uh yeah having that decodable
093practice is enormous for future reading skills and the literacy libraries or the literacy or the learning librar sorry um are additional books for them to use like if they're learning about people that change the world like we have that set you know those set few books for curriculum but this just gives them more opportunity to learn about those people that are changing the world or to learn about the animals that you know they might not learn about in Core Curriculum so it's it's really cool and it's something that um from my stand Point we've been talking about since we received sr3 funding and it's just like now it's like okay like we're moving full force and so it's been really fun to work with curriculum um and purchasing to get this purchase all together like
094we kind of Beed out a couple of times oh this is really cool like uh we were really excited also to be able to award hopefully award this to bookbug as well yes I was going to mention that I really appreciate that we're able to use the a good process and be able to support a local business I not agree with you anymore on that statement I was really excited to see that they had bided and had submitted the bid and that it was more than doable for us so great all around CL you use a lot of short eye uh thank you like when [Laughter] did thanks Sammy thank you appreciate it and I just wanted when when she was talking about the use of uh eser funds on this that just gives me
095an opportunity to thank Sammy and Paula for for really responsibly pushing us to handle those uh that influx of money uh that we reive from the federal government in a way that that um doesn't encumber us over the long term I think you've all been reading about some incidents on the other side of the state where a district is in $25 million uh of layoffs and cuts that they have to do and uh I think how we've approached that hopefully will not put us anywhere near that and you know I know that we've built up our fund balance a little bit in doing so uh because we've been able to uh offset some general expense funds with the use of eser funds uh just extends our our ability use those Esra funds over a longer
096period of time so um even though it it appears that we're building uh permanently a fund balance we are not you'll see that spending going down um you know there's a lot of Articles lately about this uh Federal this eser funding Cliff that districts will be experiencing and and there are there are probably almost a couple dozen school districts that are in a in an awkward position because they've committed to ongoing expenses from those funds so again we've 've been very careful thanks in in great part to the business department uh um you know kind of reminding us of uh taking care and how we spend our dollars so thank you for that another example of how fiscally responsible the district is yes yes thank you Marky on this one uh no I don't there
097isn't but it doesn't matter to us either don't P it okay more things to say and our last discussion item is all marks about our Neola recommended policy revisions thank you and these again are uh you've been getting a few policies over time uh this continues the update to policies and all of these are either a resented policy but mostly on the technical correction side or to address change es in the law that have come into place since uh We've adopted these policies so they're all included there there's what five policies uh one being rescinded some technical corrections to uh uh to another and then uh the prevailing wage one is a new one very specific to uh to some legislation that was passed as is the uh the language and the evaluation of the
098superintendent and uh the religious patriotic ceremony uh and observances policy those are all uh changes due to legislation that was uh that was changed and we're following attorneys and nea's recommendations to to make those changes and and one was driven by a Supreme Court case yes it was yeah yeah very um high-profile one any questions for Mark okay we've reached the end of our agenda and with that thank you to everybody and we are adjourned youy need self assessments monitoring reports thanked