001yes [Music] this meeting of the board of education is now called 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 liberty and justice for all welcome we want to thank all of you for being here tonight we'll get started our agenda are there any changes to the agenda as presented [Music] is there a motion then please to approve sure Mr President I'd like to make the following motion the Board of Education agenda has printed thank you sir thank you all those in favor of approving the agenda as presented please say aye aye opposed uh we'll move forward with our agenda as planned and start like what's new
002with the superintendents report thank you Randy our uh first part of this is the bond project update and the Edwards is here to present uh that for you the foremost good evening I'll just move a little bit you can see a couple photos I want to flash on the screen uh first I want to start with a 2015 Bond and just let you know that we're still coordinating our inspections we made it to the pole barns at North at the northern campus that we will be on site this week work with contractor to look at any punch list items for our 2021 Bond on the screen I want to share with you just a few photos of our Gallery wall we had approximately 175 parents students and community members who joined the principals and the
003design team to learn more about our design and as well as construction the responses were overwhelmingly positive from everyone and I just like to show you just a couple goals f yes it's all right again this here is a slide with one of our interior designers and that's what they call a palette some of the samples that we're looking at for the schools this one I believe is particularly Central Elementary School but this was a huge hit among the kids of all people I think this served as a good deterrent while the parents were looking at the awards the students were playing with a lot of the figures you see on that screen so if you want to share that particular photo here's another photo of you can see the parents in line going around
004the gallery walk the images cutie and 3D hmm again here's another image of many of the students playing with many of the Fabrics metallics uh gentleman Mr Hamm there is also engaged with the students as well here's just another look Tom Stanek with a parent talking and looking at the campus overview one of the most fascinating stories of this night among many was a couple who was who saw the existing Central Elementary come up and they were excited to see the new project as it's underway so that was pretty fascinating and again that was a overwhelmingly positive feedback from students parents as well as family members we also did a more intimate presentation for the staff at both schools and we were able to show them the changes that we've Incorporated in the designs from
005last spring up until today we reviewed within what we've heard and then we showed them how their ideas and feedback have been incorporated into the designs and again the staff were also positive about the direction we're headed with the designs just a couple other areas um December 7th we heard we held our seventh design development meeting that meeting we discussed the landscape architecture overall floor plans and we reviewed the main offices in both locations our next design development meeting is Monday December 19th finally we also had a bid for some easement work at Haverhill there's an easement on the property that has to be relocated we plan to bring a recommendation to the board next month we also put out a bid for commissioning Services while that service is below the board threshold we will
006also bring more information about commissioning to the board next month as well that concludes my presentation I'll be happy to answer any questions from the board well Jenny I ran into some folks that live near Haverhill whose children attended Haverhill years ago and they were thrilled to be invited to this event because they still live in the neighborhood and we're interested in what was going on and they couldn't have been more pleased with the design and how helpful everyone was at the event with answering their questions and the other thing they said is they're so glad that we decided to keep Haverhill in the neighborhood oh great well that's really that was a good move to invite neighbors as well good Johnny I just say it lowers my anxiety with the more input that is
007received so I think you could use them and listening to lots of different project moves on yes various opinions and all of which we've tried to work with themes of what we heard consistently to try to prioritize those in the designs in great for us appreciate that um the second item uh of the report is uh just some comments I'd like to make around some recent items of uh somewhat controversial viewed by some as Educators it's important for us to recognize that sometimes our students have something to teach us I've experienced that as I've met with my student Advisory Board and that's certainly been the case this year with Portage Northern High Schools sexuality Alliance the GSA student Club last spring students in the club along with their Club advisors initiated a grant writing project
008which has since generated some attention and unfortunately much misinformation so I want to take a few minutes as part of my report this evening to help set that record straight Public Schools especially at the high schools have any number of clubs and organizations that are considered extracurricular activities these groups approved by School administration and my policy our educational in nature the goal of the GSA is to work towards creating a more accepting environment for all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity they do this through education support social action and advocacy under that purpose it seemed reasonable to them to apply for a competitive Grant from an organization called it gets better project that project is to support their peers and to educate students and adults about some of the issues and challenges faced
009by their lgbtq classmates the letter awarding them one uh ten thousand dollars for their project to establish the transgender affirming closet at Portage Northern was as much of a surprise to them as it was to their advisors and School administration even as discussions discussions continued about the appropriateness of such a resource and high school setting as discussions about the intent and purpose of the grant contending into this fall students administrators advisors and others came together and concluded that a richer use of the time and resources would be to expand the use of the grant dollars to create a resource room where any student in any need could go to have access to any clothing shoes backpacks and the like that they may need due to financial or other hardships the students and advisors took this
010new vision it gets better project that was the granting organization and the granting organization agreed to the new scope project will go forward as a resource for students in need with the objective of being available in the fall of 2023. the following points are important for everyone to understand this was a teachable moment the students taught adults about their care and concern for their fellow students the adults had the opportunity to share with students a lesson about following process as well as Community standards and compromise secondly through respectful thoughtful negotiations and compromise students will be helping to provide everyday basic and essential needs and items for students in need third point parents of the students involved in the project were engaged in the level they desired to be engaged in there was no secret agenda
011no effort to hide the project from anyone as portage Public Schools strive to fulfill our commit commitment to equity which is to be an inclusive environment providing each individual access to resources and opportunities for success I want to applaud our students living those values and and for their Ingenuity hard work and ability to write and receive a grant in the amount of ten thousand dollars it certainly shows their commitment to equity and inclusion and to make PPS a welcoming environment I also applaud them for the maturity to understand that not everyone is at the same place in their journey of understanding equity and their flexibility and willingness to compromise to make this project accessible to all students I also applaud our administrators advisors and staff who help facilitate the process in a way that guides
012our students in a respectful and affirming way let's see uh any of my comments on that one hopefully if you have any questions board members I'm happy to answer those for you thank you so that's all for the report thanks Mark I'll move to our next agenda item which is board education presentation of monetary report 1.1 Elementary Student Success thank you and Dr jensenius is here to uh to present that report yeah good evening for trustees and superintendent beeling for tonight to present monitoring report one to you for the elementary data science so this slide here should be look very familiar um this is our second year of organizing by high school we presented Dr Pasco presented that to you in October in November he had presented the Middle School data now here in December
013I'm going to present you the elementary school date the overview we'll do an overview of the assessments for utilizing monitoring report one one some data highlights and then some next steps that we're even working on so with that I'm going to look back just a little bit to remind everyone of where we've been because it's really important considering just kind of the flexibility that we've had through the past couple years 2019 was our last spring testing cycle pre-pandemic with State accountability and comparable District data being reported so that's it's a really important year to remember that spring of 2020 and their early stages of covet the state of Michigan did suspend all Statewide testing and we also suspended all of our internal screeners so we are lacking some of that data there as we all
014recall there was no State accountability or expected results from any district in Michigan so in 2021 the state expected us to assess students using the PSAT and sat spring assessments at the middle and high school level the state did inform us that there would be no participation accountability at that point on these assessments meaning not all were expected to meet that 95 participation rate so we've got some interesting data there uh school report cards were then adjusted accordingly with that and then in Spring of 2022 we are right back to where we were at Spring 2019 with State accountability scores being reported and school report cards so you're going to see some comparison 2019 to the 2022 data as we move forward so with that as a reminder at elementary level we use the acadians
015for our literacy screener young fives through fifth grade it does not have the comparable District data fast bridge is the screener that we're using for math young fives through fifth grade again no District comparable data there but when we get into m-step math Ela science and social studies we do have that comparable data so that is able to to take a look at that um and so as we start into this we're going to start with acadians and we start to take a look at the acadians trends here and in this particular area we're looking at third grade only and then that oral reading fluency okay so as we know with acadians just a little background it makes it easier for us to detect from kindergarten through sixth grade students who are at risk for
016early reading difficulties for us to be able to provide that timely support and prevention third grade is a key year for us to take a look at what we want to know where our students are at in terms of the rural reading fluency they start reading right we start getting some flow there this and know that oral reading fluency really is that measure of advanced phonics word attack skills come in there accurate and fluent reading of connected text and reading comprehension so kids start putting it all together if we look at the pre-pandemic data there from the 1819 end of year we have 74 percent of third graders were meeting Benchmark compared to the 2021 where we were at 71 meeting Benchmark and then when we look at the 21-22 year we were at 60
017percent our 68 sorry meeting Benchmark so we do see a small decline there as we've been moving along this five-year Trend but we want to just kind of point that out at this third grade piece here and we can talk more about that and what we're doing there the work so now come becomes the most confusing graph of all time um just so everybody's aware this is one I have to practice on quite a bit so this side begins to show how cohorts of students all right the same group of students when they were in second grade through fourth grade perform so as you go across the scrap you start to see this year's seventh graders that class of 2028 the this year's class of 2029 which are sixth graders and then the class of
0182030 fifth graders so they're graduating class so you can start to see them go across there so when they were in second grade where the seventh graders were when they were in third grade where they were in fourth grade and we use this data to start comparing that Elementary data piece so let me see if my fancy blocks yes come on so when you look at this in particular so those current sixth graders um I'm sorry the class of 20 29 the current sixth graders and those current fifth graders let me make sure I'm reading this right getting it right we had a drop due to the pandemic in the sixth grade in those fifth grade classes you can start to see that in that cohort so that where it's outlined in red the fourth
019grade with the sixth graders you see that cohort they are 70 and then you see the fourth from third to fourth grade there you start to see that happening as well so as you go across I'm going to drop due to the pandemic from Sixth and fifth grade classes but you start to see the fifth graders the class of 20 30 start to bounce back so looking up there you see that they were at 72 percent in third grade and then they jumped up in fourth grade that's 76 so we are seeing that cohort start to move up a little bit um now what we're looking at remember is this is just the oral reading fluency and this is one component of the overall composite score so this is just a per one slice of
020the performance of acadians that we start looking at for our kids and so again we're looking at pandemic pre-pandemic post pandemic and then we're going to start talking about our action steps and things that we're putting into place that are going to help support this work that we need to do for our kids so it's a very confusing graph it does help us to start seeing what's happening over time there look at our next one and we're going to now look at some m-step and now we're going to look at fifth grade so this is m-step bla in 2022 and so this is where we have our comparator districts that we can start looking at um so the vertical axis represents the percent of students proficient in which we see that 59 of all students
021fifth grade students tested in Portage Public Schools met the Benchmark in ela so when you look at our comparator schools or districts that places us fourth among them and in 2019 as a comparison so we were going back to that 2019 we ranked third at 67 percent proficient so if you take a look at the graph across the horizontal axis you'll see our comparator districts listed and so the state is on the far right so now you can start digging into it a little bit more as you move along the horizontal axis from left to right just like in the middle school and high school the increase increasing percent of students that receive free and reduced lunch is which is our measure of economically disadvantaged so from left to right you start to see a
022lower percentage or a greater percentage so if we want if you want to jot those down I know Dr Pasco get these to you as well but if we want to look at those percentages for our comparators uh percent that are free and reduced so Hudsonville at this grade level was 21 brain reduced then z-lim was at 27 Portage is at 30. Huron Valley was at 33 percent Granville at 40 percent Midland is 42 percent Traverse City was 42 and Grand Blanc was 46 so you start to think that those percentages are now we take a look at when we start looking at our this group of our economically disadvantaged get same data we had a total of 621 fifth graders take the assessment last spring in which 185 or 30 percent were considered economically
023disadvantaged in this graph the vertical axis represents the percent of students proficient in which we see that 38 percent of our economically disadvantaged students tested where profession or excuse me we're proficient in ela and so we rank seventh among our comparator communities and in 2019 we ranked six with 38 proficient as well so so again we've seen that that same data there in those years of 38 percent well we're going to look at um right in the red rectangle we went from I think a green diamond to a reference to kind of highlight that um we're looking at our race and ethnicity scores for Portage public schools for three groups so we have our white our black African-American and then our other than white a reminder is that our black and African-American students are included
024in the other white category as well as when the state runs this information so when there is a low number of students assessed in any particular grouping of students data may not be publicly available this leads us to having a smaller set of information which is not appropriate to compare and results would not be reliable so you'll start seeing like in Hudsonville they don't have certain groups represented there are black African-American students they do not have groups available there because that number was too small to report the state overall showed that 18 percent of black African-American students were proficient in ela and 27 percent were proficient in Portage public schools in 2019 Portage public schools have 15 percent of our black and African-American students proficient okay so that's the beater there now we go into
025math and we're going to talk a lot about math today um so when we start looking at math moving into this we see that 37 percent of Port of public schools fifth grade students were deem proficient which places us tied for fifth grade among our favorable communities bless you in the spring of 2019 we ranked fourth at 53 proficient um when we start looking at this now this is presenting of the data but some of us I think it's important to to remember these students were our third graders when the pandemic began they lost all end of year there were greater skills and practice and then that spotty instruction came about due to that combination of face-to-face virtual for quarantining so we had a lot of things happening there in that fourth and fifth grade
026year and what we know about math very skilled based so third fourth fifth grade we go from we really are putting a lot more pieces together for them we're learning how to multiply divide fractions multi-step problems takes a lot of teacher based instruction consistent instruction with mathematics and so I think that's important to know something I was just reading the other day so when we think about reading reading tends to be more influenced by parents and what happens at home where as math we start to see it's more directly affected by what is taught at school so think about your own children he's like go read a book let's read a book together let's do this together we see more of that we probably have more of that happening at homes than we did necessarily
027let's do some fractions today um so you know tends to happen so we're going to look at a little bit more so our economically disadvantaged students on the m-step math show that 17 percent of our 185 students are persistent which puts us in eighth place among our comparative communities as we saw with the high school and middle school data math performance has been negatively impacted the most over the pandemic and in 2019 we ranked fifth with 26 percent proficient and what we're really seeing here is Nationwide is that students who have the least ground to lose lost the most and while that pandemic affected all students it did not affect them completely we're just not seeing that equal distribution there of being kids being affected so our students who are economically disadvantaged got hit the
028hardest I'm starting to see here but we got lots of things in place we're going to keep working so when we start now looking at the data showed that six percent here of our black African-American students were proficient according to Public Schools was at seven percent of our 44 black African-American students amongst the eight elementary schools in 2019 Portage public schools had four percent of our black African-American students perfect so this again is data that we are working on and we continue to focus in on which takes me to the most important part what are we doing what are some action steps and I'm going to spend a bit of time on this part um so as you can see we're not where we need to be for our students we are however diligently working
029on providing all teachers and students what they need to be successful as we move forward I'm going to point I'm going to point out a few highlights from our continuous Improvement plan at the elementary level and so as we navigate this process we're continually adjusting the as the data is collected and analyzed so that we're responding to the real-time needs of our students so just because we have a plan we're not just going to you know go through that we're really looking at where our kids are analyzing the data seeing where we need to make those tweaks and changes so last year we rolled out our priority standards so really looking at what is the most important thing to really focus on it doesn't mean we don't do all the other standards but what are
030those priority standards and how are we making sure every single student has those under their belt and this year we are more focused on the full implementation and in-depth learning of each of those through the professional development opportunities during professional development day so our teachers really need to know and understand what they're teaching and those standards so we're providing great intense learning around those standards and we are not done with this work we are taking our time with it we're really digging into it and making sure they have what they need to teach it this past summer our work around proficiency scales is the next step in that process so a proficiency skill is tied tightly to a priority standard and it really what it does it informs a student and the teacher but really
031the student where they're at in their learning and what their next steps may be in order to continue on that Learning Journey so think of a ladder right they're climbing up this ladder like what do I need next to be successful here as teachers are shifting their focus and trying new strategies and approaches focused on the priority standards there's a level of support that's available through coaches so we're layering in our reading Specialists are doing more coaching our engagement Specialists are doing more coaching we're providing those instructional coaches to come in and say how can we help support you in this work through the PD so then the professional development teachers are receiving is provided by District level coaches allowing that smooth transition back to being supported in the building to reinforce that learning so
032there's you know there's the research around coaching like a professional development you know you go you get a PD five percent of it is what people retain you go and you layer it with coaching 95 of it goes and it's able to stay within that building so coaching is a really key component of making sure that our teachers have what they need to keep kids moving forward so this level of support is key and teachers not feeling alone or isolated in their work and that's especially for our newer features to the profession we want to make sure they have what they need to stay tied into this to this work and keeping them here we know this level of support mentoring is key and we want to continue to do that so another piece I
033want to add on is reflecting on the data in the current research we see a path forward let utilizing letters training I don't know if you've heard about letters training but letter stands for language Essentials for teachers of reading and spelling so this is for teachers to provide a deeper understanding of literacy and language skills ultimately the training will equip teachers with essential skills to master the fundamentals of reading so I talked about acadians early those early skills that we need to know how to teach that's where this comes in so the fundamental skills of reading of writing of language instruction required to apply and transform student learning so far we have over 130 teachers engaged in this work primarily at the K3 level and that does include some of our teachers that are through
034the ESI and currently we are building the system utilizing the mde grant to continue to add PPS teachers to the offered cohorts so they keep offering cohorts and we're able to continue to provide that training alongside that this is very intensive training I think it's over a hundred yeah I'm going to say 160 hours worth of training that they're able to re receive and we'll talk more about this in January of the fact that it is having that teachers are saying about the training while it's intense they are just really enjoying it so um and this is really starting to build that strong foundation for our students in literacy so this is a really important piece of our work so as we've also reflected in researched in the area of mathematics so let's talk a
035little about math we identified the need for to better understand the formative assessment process so in order to do this we've partnered with Fame which stands for the formative assessment for Michigan Educators again provided through mde we have started this process in math by identifying and training three facilitators per Elementary building and these facilitators are being supported by a district level instructional coach Jessica Wynn Stanley and then the fame Regional lead this focus on the formative assessment process has been shown to improve student learning increase student involvement and help teachers be more reflective of student understandings and identifying barriers to learn learning through the use of the formative assessment process in Math teachers will be able to use the data to identify skills needed while also accelerating that learning so a lot of that research
036coming out now around learning loss is really about how do we accelerate the learning we don't re we don't go back we say what are the we need to formally assess what's missing let's fill in those gaps and let's accelerate that learning because if we keep going back we're going to keep seeing that Gap go like this so we have to accelerate the learning in order to keep it moving forward and close that Gap and that's how formative assessment is going to help us with that process and training so another area that we'll be training teachers is Through Math recovery it is an ongoing professional development opportunity that impacts the way Educators think about student numeracy learning Educators learn to design Implement and analyze mathematics instruction based on individual student learning research-based diagnostic assessments learning
037progressions high quality instructional tools help participants increase student understanding and achievement and we currently have 24K through 12 ESI Educators participating in this training and we look forward to adding an additional cohort of teachers in February so as you can see we're starting to layer in more and more of this training to support our students and finally I would say we're adding that position of the coordinator of school and mental health initiatives while allow us to as was stated build that system that provides connected and support for all and will reduce that stigma and barriers to mental health treatment and then create that community in which everyone can have their needs met and we know that if our kids don't have their needs met there then it's really hard to learn we have all that
038together so our students feeling connected so they're learning and then we can have that learning happen um myself Dr Pasco Dr Sheehan Jessica Wynn Stanley Courtney Huff we have been going out to each of our buildings and meeting with the building leadership teams to talk about their continuous Improvement plans and actions we're spending about three hours with each team each time we go out and it's been a really great partnership collaborating alongside those building teams talking about the work that they're doing to have impact there with not only their students but all of portage so it's it's been a really it's been really powerful for all of us to do that and we started that right at Thanksgiving break right around that time and we'll be finishing up right before we leave for winter break
039we'll compile all that information really take a look at the work that we're doing in each individual building how it impacts the overall District continuous Improvement plan and make some adjustments there's that real-time data like what are our buildings saying they need what their student populations how can we help best support that so that has been like I said really good so all this to say we are continued on our focus on tier one classroom instruction we really want to provide our students with what they need to be successful by the time they graduate that's our goal we need to make sure that they have what they need by the time of graduate and our job at elementary is to get those foundational skills sharpened ready to go we may have had a row bump
040there with that pandemic but we're really focused on making sure we can forward so I appreciate your time and listening in and I can answer any questions for you if you'd like I have a problem yeah of course I want to thank you for the graph that you have that you 've indicated yeah my favorite Graphics yes but it's absolutely helpful because otherwise when we look at the thing that for example third grade in in one year and another year and another year we're not talking about the same groups yeah it's a different group of kids so this helps to explain that a question regarding um the math part yes I know that we have uh reading specialists roll the coaching so our yeah so our reading Specialists have are turning more into like literacy
041coaching and our engagement Specialists are really coaching more around like students engagement supporting that making sure we're up and running and then our Fame facilitators while they're not in their coaching per se but they're working kind of on the outside of it like what is formative assessment let's talk about it and so Jessica when Stanley is going and meeting with those coaches uh and through their plcs or specialized time and they talk about those things and then they go and they support one another so we're looking at we felt that that's what we could do now with every you know an elementary teacher they teach every single subject so there's this balance of making sure we have the right things in place so so we we have a quasi website that helps to pull it
042together so when we look at the data for the district then it is my understanding that each building takes its own information so now we're no longer looking at statistics we're looking at actual students and who are struggling and they are getting that support that they need are the pull outs so when we look at that it will just depend right so if we're seeing especially in math right now if we're seeing that you know more than half of our class doesn't have a concept that's no longer a pull out we need to be in that classroom with that class doing make seeing what is the missing piece doing that quick accelerated reteach on that to give them the skill to move into that into the next level of learning but if we do see
043some students that are going to need more individualized support then we still have that ability to do that yes we still have kids that do come out but we like to push into we want to in in that classroom thank you absolutely I have a question and I don't know if it's did we do any research on the districts that shut down less than what we shut down shut down versus and it was hard to tell too like some like I would even say last year was interesting for us we were in but the number of times we shut down our number of buildings our classrooms went down there was so much discrepancy happening even from building the building here so yeah it's I have a daughter-in-law that teaches Zealand Public okay okay so I
044know they were you know teaches fourth grade okay and that they were shut down less than we were over the three years right and their numbers are better than ours and um so I'm just curious if we have done any analysis of what the process across the state you'd think the state would want to know that as far as a quantitative you know how many days was this District shut versus this and I mean were they in person or not in person and it you know I know that's above all of our paper it would be nice to know it would be interesting to see that data I'm sure somebody's doing that as their dissertation at some point right well the other part of that is though even though we were open for elementary students
045that doesn't mean all elementary students were attending in person so you got that other factor that that whole year kids had the option of being kept home by their parents and so that factors into all of it too yeah and we would quarantine a class yes or then we were quarantined tickets like it was it was very building yeah yeah a lot of interesting data and subs and all that kind of thing too with teachers out sick or with their own sick kids so lots of inconsistencies that make it very very difficult and now we're able to at least what we can use with formative assessment with these assessments and screeners is start pinpointing those particular areas so that we can do the right work and move it forward for these kids so Kelly um
046great presentation this is one of the three most important we get Elementary and Middle School school that will be each year um and then you know give us all of it you give us the good and you give us the sometimes not so good and I'm just just to compare I was reflecting the rankings we saw here tonight versus some of the high school rankings we've seen where we will still show up as like number two um on the comparators last and down here we have more six sevens and eights which that causes the gut instead of taking I can sense it that's the impact on you and I and I I sense um Clint's concern I sense urgency um and for me it's especially when we see those lower scores with the economic uh
047disadvantaged kids and with the black American groups and I know sometimes I mean those I know have jumped around because there are lower sample sizes so they they're more they jump up a little bit more yeah yeah but when you see them down there it's it just it causes a tightening um of the gut so it's so you came tonight fully prepared I did yes um and you know with the plan so you know you get you get our encouragement um our appreciation I mean it kind of sounds like this is the all hands on deck and we gotta okay we gotta and I think it's work isn't this work is what we started even you know a few years ago being able to say what is the consistent work we need to do this
048whole unpacking of the priority standards and what we didn't do is just jump and grab at something we're staying in the process and really digging deeper instead of saying uh oh like let's quickly respond to different things we're really being consistent in knowing what is going to have a difference but it's going to take time to make that difference but it's important and you showed us one piece of data that is is good which is a little bit of the bounce back we're seeing we're starting in that cold war so well I'm super proud of all our teachers and all the hard work they put in every day because they're the ones making that difference and they're the ones who are gonna you know make it happen so thank you you made a great point
049of how families and and caregivers can help at home regarding reading and literacy are there some like a math night for parents or something like that because math is not the same as it was it is so um you know so I mean are there like math nights for parents or caregivers or families just to at least help them us feel more comfortable in trying to help because we could you know it's very easy to try to help and you have the students say that's not how we do it right yes that's always a great one right as a parent you're like Okay um like ask your dad um so I would say yes like for example Central I'll just had one I think it was a week or so ago they just had a
050family math night so I know our buildings too are getting back into the routine of having those special nights and being able to connect with families and and doing that work um but yeah I think some it was just Central just had one I think maybe I think 80 families show up which is good right so we're really being really intentional about those nights too and how do we make sure that we can't get more is connected to that good work thanks thank you okay we'll move to our comments and Communications section are there any citizens which who wish to address the board this evening if you have two this evening we'll start by um having our secretary read our guidelines for public comment for the very last time Ford welcomes can recognizes the importance
051of allowing members of the public to express themselves on District matters to permit fair and orderly public expression please conform to these guidelines when addressing the board attendees must register their intention to speak during the public participation portion of the meeting by completing the speaker registration form at the beginning of the meeting individuals that register others to speak speakers will be recognized by the presiding officer and make that called in the order in which they have to make speakers are requested to State their name address and group affiliation if applicable limit comments to three minutes direct all comments to the board and not to staff or other participants experience may not yield any of their speaking time to others provide a written copy of your comments and supporting documentation to the secretary present your comments
052in a respectful Behavior expected of course students refrain from mentioning any student by name contact the superintendent directly regarding Personnel matters Board of Education meetings are held for the purpose of conducting the business of the school district and are not considered to be the community meetings board members are not obligated to respond to issues raised during public comment only such issues are referred to or followed up on by our administrators thank you Celeste our first Speaker tonight is Emily and I'm sorry can you pronounce your life especially going to decline I just my voice was already reflected in the superintendent's comments so I'm happy to I'll just decline so I'm not redundant thank you very much for coming our next speaker is Eddie Shank welcome thank you I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you
053today um I am not you know I appreciate um Mr revealing that you shared a statement about the GSA gender affirming closet I feel that a portion of it was certainly Spin and those who read the foia and the application materials could certainly see that there's contempt for parents within the original plan for the project but I'm not actually here to talk about that today I'm going to talk about something that is related however on October 21st an article was published on M live where the district made an official statement through the communications director that content that can be considered pornographic does not exist in Portage School libraries however according to research done by a local program that researches age inappropriate content in schools PPS provides access to 319 books that have questionable content the
054books are rated on a scale of zero to five which rates violence hate profanity drug and alcohol use and sexual content on the scale of four includes explicit sexual nudity including sexual organs in the state of arousal obscene references to sexual activities including anal oral and vaginal sex a five is a book with explicit references to aberrant sexual activities including rape sex with animals or a word I can't pronounce when I'm speaking in front of a group of people abuse within Portage schools there are 88 books accessible to Children which are rated a four or above some of these books are available through co-ops and other libraries there are 23 books rated for or above that are physically present at Northern High School and Central High School and Middle School these include books such as
055push which provides a first person account seven-year-old girl who describes what it smells and tastes like to be forced to suck on her father's penis and lick her mother's vagina and sold which is a story about a girl sold into sex trafficking and provides detailed descriptions of sexual encounters between children and adult men this list only covers the catalogs libraries there's currently no way to know what is in the uncataloged libraries of classrooms why would the district say in an official statement to the media that you have no pornographic material found in your libraries when you have this if there are no pornographic materials here then your library catalogs are grossly out of order or if your library catalog is accurate as it is required to be then the public statement that there is no
056point here is in my opinion an example of the district's communication to the public not so need to match what is happening behind closed doors you as you are fully aware are charged to oversee the free and appropriate education of Portage children and as I wholeheartedly presume that none of you are groomers I expect that you would want to have this addressed and rectified in a timely manner in keeping the public informed so in my short time with you today I do have a recommendation also I have documentation if you're interested in it to support everything I've shared tonight as a remedy I recommend a solution that does not involve book Banning I recommend an opt-in system where books that have a three to five rating are not allowed in classroom libraries and are held
057behind the counter at school-wide libraries parents who want to have their children have access to instructions on how to rape their relatives can inform the school in writing that they would like their children to have access to this material and other children can be saved from encountering this destructive content offered to them by adults who are supposed to be keeping them safe while teaching them how to read write and do math I understand that there's parental concern about the gender affirming closet and a perception by some parents that that has been secretive or withheld from them and I would say given what has been found in this research regarding Library content and the official statement that's been made by the district that none of it exists here I do think that parents have a reason
058to be concerned and the more of these things that come up the more it's difficult for the public to have trust that there aren't things that are being intentionally hidden so I understand this is a difficult topic to discuss but I really do appreciate the opportunity to share it with you okay do you have a copy of your remarks I do yes and I also have an electronic spreadsheet that contains references to all of the books in question I know I mentioned 300 and some books many of those are rated a one two a three or you know some so parental advisory but not necessarily inappropriate for kids just something that maybe parents want to know that there's a difficult topic but these four and five books I mean I I refrain from Reading direct
059quotes from them but some of them are very violent um and so I don't have that electronically available with me today but I certainly could email it to you if you'd be interested if you could make sure all your materials get to our board secretary Barb Backus and that would be great certainly thank you hey that's the end of our public comment for this evening um are there any comments from board trustees I'd like to save that top I enjoyed participating in the retreat earlier this evening it really brings things in into Focus as to what we do I just want to say that thank you for my ability it's good to have you there so nice anyone else I'd like to thank Keith and celestens this is their official last meeting for being part
060of the board and [Music] um it's been pleasure serving with you guys it's been an honor to serve yes and thank you to everybody for all the tutoring and camaraderie along the way let go Kurtz you've been with us for just two years but we've appreciated your expertise and your measured thought on things and just leadership thanks for that Celeste most of us have known for quite a long time in a number of different venues I guess I'll say I've known you as a parent of a classmate of one of my children a teacher one of their principals and I remember the day that you came to the informational meeting about running for the board and all of us just snapped to attention like oh my gosh really you were excited about that so it's
061been a great pleasure to serve with you you have brought a perspective to our board that nobody else has and we needed that and so thank you and as to you and all the other things that you're and keep in touch with us because we enjoy our time together yeah I would I would Echo incredible service to the community as a trustee and before that you know as a principal and as my kids Middle School principal so so appreciated um and Keith uh you came in we're up to speed so fast um you're so level-headed and thoughtful and community-minded um it's been an honor and I hope you still get to work with each other on Portage Education Foundation another organization that does good things for the community and then you know Mark and you're
062opening comments uh what struck me is your willingness to listen to students and I really appreciate your personal efforts and the district's efforts to listen to you know especially the high school students young adults have things to say um and I I feel that we we're listening to them and we should so much appreciation for that thanks bolt and I'll just uh reiterate what everybody else has said enjoyed working with both of you on the board and um appreciate your service and all the contributions you made to the success of the board and I want to let you know that you know a little later in the Gen in the agenda here we have some honorary resolutions that will uh express our feelings and uh greater detail anything else from Workshop theme towards Northern collage
063Friday night and Saturday afternoon if you haven't gotten your ticket already get one I just like to say that the Portage Central High School band collage last Wednesday night was just incredible I just wanted to give a shout out to the performers and uh certainly uh Brian van Tolo Renee Flynn and Allison Patrick and the concert ended with uh episode Wallach and Duck game Sarajevo the David Foster version I just brought the house down so it's on YouTube if you get a chance to see it it was incredible um I have a note here from a Noni Knight that she asked me to read this evening she says my family and I want to thank the school board the many deer proposal committee members and the Portage Community for their caring and persistence and renaming
064the Portage Central football field McKinley Knight field my beloved husband coach Knight would be both humbled and honored he would have been the first to acknowledge all the supporters it took to make Portage Central Mustangs synonymous with success that would include all the assistant coaches and their wives the hundreds of players and their parents and grandparents the students who came out to cheer their team on to Victory the cheerleaders the football booster club members the band and band parents the other sports coaches and assistants the medical staff headed by Dr William Kavanaugh and his wife Jenny for over 48 years the men who held down the markers through all kinds of weather the Press Box announcers and spotters the sports news writers the team bus drivers the teaching staff the six superintendents five principles five
065athletic directors and their secretaries the lunchroom ladies who wore their team shirts on game day the police officers and Emergency Medical Teams the custodians and custodians and field maintenance crew the ticket takers and yes even the referees this was the community that worked together so we could say Portage Central where only your best is good enough a very heartfelt thank you from Noni Knight and five children and five grandchildren so we appreciated receiving that it was very nice I also want to thank Tom Vance and Nick Miley for all the work they did on the 100th anniversary publication for the district and now Nick who graduated from Portage Central in 2022 has completed his work on the Centennial anthology of Portage public schools 1922-2022 and details will be forthcoming and how you can get a
066copy of that of that publication so just a lot of thanks to Tom and Nick for all the work they did to highlight the history of the district and finally I just want to let everybody know that I've had multiple people of tell me that they are so pleased that Marianne Joynt is the new coordinator of mental health initiatives she's uh she gets rave reviews for her work and that will certainly assist us with reaching our long-term goal of resilient children so we're very pleased about that and I've heard only good things so I believe that's all I have thank you set agenda on page 34. tonight we have two items minutes from the November 21st 2022 special and regular business meeting and November 21 2020 session minutes and finally to authorize an increase to
067the amount of the district's contribution to health savings accounts for all administrators to match the required amount of deductible increase as mandated from the Internal Revenue Service there any exceptions to the consent agenda as presented hearing none the consent agenda is approved and we'll move to an action item which is schools of choice program on page 43 is there a motion please president then answer if I move that the Board of Education approved participation in Section 105 schools of choice program effective with the 2023-24 school year and making Necessary revisions to operations policy 5113 schools of choice program as presented thank you Terry is our second thank you Celeste mark um yes hopefully you had a chance to uh to take a look at the background information and recall some of the previous conversations that
068we've had on this topic um basically the school's a choice program there are two sections of the law that allow us to collect state aid for students attending from from outside of the district that's 105 which is being brought to you tonight and that's for for students who live in districts that are in K Risa basically the Kalamazoo County service agency and 105 C which extends basically the same exact language but applies to Stu school districts students who live outside of K Risa in some of the adjoining contiguous uh continuous districts so we've been a participant in 105c now for over 10 years and I want to continue doing that but also I would like to participate in 105 beginning with the 2324 school year we do have a guiding policy on the 5113 which
069right now is written only to recognize 105 C so that policy would need to be adjusted to to accept 105 students if the board approves this like I said we've had significant discussion on this as we've talked about enrollment enrollment Trends some of the transfer requests the pupil accounting requirements a number of years ago the district within Kalamazoo County had an agreement that we would not entertain 105 students conditions throughout the county have since changed it's the Kalamazoo Promise is now in place which has helped students who wish to remain in Kalamazoo schools so a lot of most of the schools in Kalamazoo County now have gone to 105. We are one of the I think two or three remaining that do not participate in that so the in order to streamline our procedures and
070to be not not put ourselves in a position we might be accused of discriminating who who comes in and who doesn't um is is behind why we want to go to this um we do have I listed some numbers here for you uh um that we have approximately 646 in ISD students now who participate through our release program those students would transition into the 105 program so we would not be required to get an annual release which in some cases have been very difficult for us to obtain because it takes time to do that parents are left hanging out there with uh without the permission from their home District to to release them to attend schools even though many of them have never been to another District but find themselves some some have moved from
071Portage into another district and therefore need to get a release from that District so it's it's really a cumbersome process the way it is right now and we want to streamline that so the the key difference between the way we're doing it now and 105 is that students once they're accepted will stay here until they graduate and that is the same courtesy that's extended to students who are here under 105 C so we would be consistent with all of our programs we've had internal discussion with our building level leaders and everyone understands and approves of this move so Mark practically it means we're a school of choice in Kalamazoo County correct okay and if somebody wants to come they don't have to get a release from whatever other District they geographically they're in correct and
072Mark we still do have discretion say no to turn the spigot down we have the right to determine how many openings we have in the district we have the right to assign which schools those students can come into so their acceptance is to Portage Public Schools the building assignment is dependent on what the enrollment is you have space so we can annually make a decision to not participate with at certain buildings or certain programs but as far as there are fewer reasons to deny attendance and that's specified in the in-law so Mark if if somebody say has been expelled from another District how would that be flushed out expelled students by law cannot be cannot attend public schools in the state of Michigan so if they've been expelled and not reinstated by through the process
073that are outlined by law then they cannot attend school here so we still have the opportunity in limited circumstances to to to know and understand the background of disciplinary action that the students have had and if they've been suspended or expelled do not have to accept those students within certain parameters and again I'd have to read the law exactly how that's written yeah it seemed like this is really a non-controversial thing at this point maybe 15 years ago but at this point sorry yeah any other questions [Music] okay all those in favor of approving a school is a choice program please say I I opposed uh the motion passes in the schools program is approved our next action item is to approve three honorary resolutions on page 49 is there a motion please right I
074hope this isn't going to die for lack of emotion right now I'll do the honors here uh Mr President I'm at the Board of Education approve the resolutions in recognition and appreciation for Celeste Shelton Harris Keith Crowell and Rusty Rathburn as presented second thank you so we have these resolutions prepared and they need to be read and Terry is going to read Celeste resolution and recognition and appreciation of distinguished service by Dr Celeste Shelton Harris whereas Dr Celeste Shelton Harris began her career with Portage public schools on August 22nd 1986 and served the district until her retirement on June 30 2014 a total of 28 years of service during her career with the district Celeste served as a language arts and gifted and talented teacher at North Middle School assistant principal at Central High School
075North Middle School and principal of North Middle School whereas as an employee Celeste earned the respect of Staff Administration board members parents students a community and Beyond because of her dedication compassion knowledge conscientiousness professionalism high moral and ethical standards care and passion as an educator and as a leader and as such she has enhanced the lives of thousands and the reputation of the district whereas celeste's passion for serving the children community and District continued Beyond retirement I know December 4th 2014 Celeste was elected to the Portage Public Schools Board of Education and served on the board from January 2015 through December 2022 for a total of eight years whereas during her board service Celeste was elected to the office of board secretary in January 2015 and was re-elected to that office each year thereafter she
076served in that capacity with the utmost Fidelity integrity and professionals Celeste has attended more than 184 board meetings served on the board's audit committee policy committee facilities committee and volunteered to serve as a board member liaison on other groups including the curriculum and instruction Council and District values team Celeste has served graciously tirelessly with the utmost care and compassion even through the most trying of times including the covid-19 pandemic she also served during times of celebration for our district and Community including passage of the 2015 Bond and passage of the 175 million 725 thousand dollar elementary schools and district-wide improvements bond proposal excuse me in whereas Celeste was awarded the level one certified board member award from the Michigan Association of school Awards now therefore be it resolved that the Portage Public Schools Board of
077Education acknowledges and extends its gratitude to Dr Celeste Shelton Harris for her long distinguished her distinguished service and contributions to The District staff students and community and to the Board of Education be it further resolved that this resolution is saved in the permanent minutes of the Portage Public Schools Board of Education and a copy is given to Dr Celeste Shelton Harris adopted on this 12th day of December 2022 according to Public Schools Board of Education Randy van antwer president Terry noveria vice president Celeste Shelton Harris secretary Keith Kroll trustee Kurt drapper's trustee Bo Snyder trustee and Mark bieling superintendent thank you Terry congratulations foreign [Applause] service will be run by Kurt droppers for Keith Kroll thank you this resolution and recognition appreciation of distinguished service for Keith Kroll whereas Pete Crow was appointed the school
078board of Education January 4th 2021 to fill a vaccine created by the death of custody Glenn Wilson and served on the board through December of 2022 for a total of nearly two years whereas during this his board service cases attended 40 board meetings served on the board of owners Lincoln and the audit committee and he continues to serve as a member of the Portage Education Foundation whereas a board member he has served graciously tirelessly with the utmost care and compassion even though the most trying of times include the covid-19 pandemic he's also served during times of celebration for our district and Community including the passage of the 175 million 725 000 Elementary School and district-wide Improvement bond proposal in August of 2021 Keith has provided invaluable Insight perspective and guidance to the Board of Education
079now therefore be it resolved that the Portage Public School Board of Education acknowledges extend its gratitude to Cape Crowell for his dedication and service to The District staff students community and to the Board of Education be it further resolved that this resolution is saved in the permanent minutes of the Portage Public School Board of Education and a copy is given to Keith Kroll adopted on this day the 12th of December 2022 Portage Public Schools Board of Education Randy van Edward president Terry noveria vice president Celeste Dr Celeste Shelton Harris secretary Keith Kroll trustee Kurt droppers trustee Bo Snyder trustee and Mark B Lang superintendent thank you [Applause] and our final resolution will be right by tonight yeah um thank you Randy I'm pleased to read this uh this is the resolution in recognition and appreciation
080of distinguished service by my friend Rusty Rathburn whereas Rusty wrath elected to the Portage Public Schools Board of Education on May 6 2008 and served on the board from July 2008 through November 21 2022 for a total of almost 14 and a half years and with four superintendents Marshall Wells Rick Perry Rob Olson and Mark B Lang whereas during his board service Rusty attended over 320 board meetings served on the board's facilities committee as chair as a legislative board liaison and as a board liaison on the Portage athletic foundation and lended an ear to the needs of the community whereas Rusty has served graciously tirelessly with the utmost care and compassion even through the most trying of times including the covid-19 pandemic he also served during times of celebration for our district and Community including
081passage of the 2015 Bond and passage of the 175 725 175 million 725 thousand dollar elementary schools and district-wide improvements bond proposal in August 2021 where as Rusty completed board member certification through the Michigan Association of school boards now therefore be it resolved that the ported Public Schools Board of Education acknowledges and extends its gratitude to Rusty rasper for his distinguished service and contributions to The District staff students and Community into the Board of Education please be at further resolved that this resolution is saved in the permanent minutes of the Portage Public Schools Board of Education and a copy is given to Rusty Rathburn adopted this 12th day of December 2022 Portland Public Schools Board of Education signed by the people look at this time thank you hello [Applause] [Music] for your service um are
082there any other discussion items or is there any other discussion around this item others in favor of approving the honorary resolutions for Dr Celeste Shelton Harris Rusty Rathburn please say aye aye opposed motion has passed the honorary resolutions are approved I will now move to our next discussion item which is a board vacancy application review as everyone knows Rusty Rathburn resigned on November 22nd and it's up to the board of education to fill that vacancy um our actions are governed by our bylaw 0-142.5 vacancies and that bylaw requires that the vacancy be filled by the board using the following procedure the board president through public announcer in the news media shall make known the vacancy has occurred and those persons interested in being concerned for the appointment should complete an application and I deliver that
083by the deadline established by the board normally 14 days which we did follow 14 days after the announcement of the vacancy at this meeting the full board or a committee approved by the board shall meet in public session to screen applications to determine which candidate should be considered for appointment if there is a strong preferred candidate who emerges through the screening process the full board May select that individual to appoint through its deliberation and vote with the strongly preferred candidate does not emerge through its deliberation the board shall select candidates to be interviewed in public session so to start this off I want to just thank everyone who applied for the position who filled out the application we received a total of 28 which I believe is the largest number we have ever received for
084a vacant position so those names are all listed on the board in the back in alphabetical order and um we were going to start this process by each trustee indicating uh their preferred candidate of out of three that they've each selected and Michelle will be could be putting marks by those names all three so I don't know who would like to start but Michelle is ready I can start I mean I want to also say seven people were unbelievable that applied for this and um and I was appointed eight years ago and I wouldn't have made this cut okay these people that have all applied yeah I'm really really good people and it was hard to you know we were tasked to bring it down to three so um my three um are Parker Crutchfield
085Jennifer Phillips rep and Ian Hamilton just say those three stood out for you well I mean they all okay I can't remember h there you go and then yeah left I'm trying to I can't see who Jennifer all right so um they all have advanced degrees in education I mean uh Jennifer was the Provost at Western Michigan University um and so that's the number two position at the University and um Parker is at the medical school and Ian's an attorney and so all very professional people that all are and there's probably and more that are very deserving in the group and but those were my three that I picked thank you Kurt let's go down the road sure all right so my three are uh also Jennifer rep um followed by Tim Earl and Ian
086Hamilton um really I can Echo the same things on uh Jennifer rep that uh Kurt did Ian Hamilton I've gotten to know she is along with her husband has opened up a law firm on Oakland Drive and they it's very impressive she's impressive so I have her in there and then Tim Earl has had a very productive profile in this community working on a different community actions and I think he would be a solid School Board member as well thank you Keith okay my three choices are uh Liang Zhang he brings a diversity as well as a perspective uh Advanced has terminal degree in Neuroscience from U of M she has been involved with Moore's Bridge so so she has a child currently in the school system um Dr Ali Barnes I um he has
087he has been involved with the district as well and been involved as a coach with Northern High School in swimming and Diving he has high standards and I just admire him as an individual and my third one is in Hamilton who have had an opportunity to meet she has two little ones uh in the district and she I echoed some of the comments that have already been given and I think all three of them just stood out for me are you going or I'm going okay um my choices are Lee Adams uh lee actually applied for a board seat at the time that Keith was appointed and I recall Lee as being our second choice at that time he is employed by the up John Institute and has kids in the district I guess I'll
088back up a little bit I wanted to say that during the course of the time that I've been on the board we've had some really great representation in terms of diversity of skills and competencies Rusty Rathburn is a person that's pretty impossible to replace he's a guy that grew up in this community went to school here graduated from Portage schools he's a small business owner was deeply invested in the education and success of his own children as well as lots of other kids that came alongside his kids and he knows everybody imported so he he just had an extremely broad reach so my point about the competencies is I'm impressed by people's educational achievements and their their professional achievements I'm also impressed by the people who are parents who have been deeply involved in school
089per se but those things alone don't bring you to the point of being a good board member It's a combination of a lot of things one of the things that I value most is involvement in the community your reach in the community that you can talk to many people that they know you they recognize you and you will listen to them so board service was was a Top Choice that swayed me among those other areas so that being said um Lee works for upjohn institute and he had some other accent excellent credentials my second choice is Ian Hamilton man she hits all the boxes and um just I have gotten to know her too and just think she brings all kinds of credibility excellent credentials broad Community experience on boards and other organization and she
090also represents a diverse Viewpoint that none of the rest of us have and that's really important and then my third choice is Ellen winter and I have known Ellen for many years she's a retired educator also has a unique perspective as a involved in special ed which is something that we have not had represented and then she has some uh unique personal uh stories that I won't get into but that give her a view that again none of us have and many people don't have so those are my choices steering Randy I couldn't quite follow your instructions exactly located so sometimes I struggle getting to three um my number one choice would be Ian Hamilton and you know she put herself out there as a candidate and so I just got a lot of exposure
091to what she stands for um and so by virtue of that the extremely comfortable secondly I had number two would be Tim Earl um and I've gotten to know a little bit about about Tim and just what he stands for um and then the third place I had about half the roster in third place right and I say that and as and as you all are ticking some of these names off that just have one next to them I just had them in this big group that is like this this person would be well qualified and you know to your comments these are really really good candles people I mean lots of community experience community board experience you know different city advisory groups boards and Public Library service and all these just so um I
092I would just say no I do not have a third name I mean my my third name would be it's pretty pretty much all those that have tick marks next to them and two different letters added to it so I just I admit I couldn't quite get there but um a lot of confidence in the top two very good boss thank you um yeah my three candidates um the first is is Cami free camel and free um she's a West Middle School Parent and Amberly School parent she has served on ptos ptsos she's involved with girls on the run Cub Scouts just a real big supporter of Portage public schools and um works very hard and would just be a I think a really good board member she's just a hard worker and an advocate
093for the district and I just believe she would she would do a good job I also landed on Parker Crutchfield um had a number of board and Leadership positions he works for the striker School of Medicine he teaches ethics and Leadership and he said in his application that he Embraces disagreement so he knows how to work through that and um and like like Cami fried crutchfields also have children in Portage public schools which is is important and then my third is Ian Hamilton and uh you know she's a mom she has two children at Portage Public Schools one thing about her is she graduated from Okemos public schools and Okemos public schools a very good school district so she knows what good education is certainly on she served on a number of local boards and
094she brings us a diverse Viewpoint that we we need on our board and she indicated in her application that she would bring a different perspective while remaining respectful to those who disagree with her so I just think she'd make a very strong board member she was also she also received the fourth highest number of votes in the last election almost 8 000 votes and like someone said before she put herself out there and did the work to get elected so those are those those are my reasons for those three so according to our bylaw as if there's a strongly preferred candidate who emerges from the screening process we could select that candidate or we can interview candidates so we have a strongly preferred candidate I believe I think so so I don't know that we
095need to go through an interview process to do this where's the board on this comfortable moving ahead proceed Julie how do you do that we even need a motion to bring the appointment to action and then answered by move that we bring the item to action appointment of to fill a vacancy of a trustee thank you Teresa second excellent all those in favor of moving this ahead of my action please say aye aye aye opposed the motion passes is there a motion to appoint uh Ian Hamilton to the vacancy Mr President I would like to make the motion that uh the board of Portage Public Schools uh a point in Hamilton to build the vacancy spot effective foreign [Applause] [Music] on behalf of the board to thank all of our employees for all the great
096work you're doing for kids and so wish you a Merry Christmas a happy Hanukkah and happy holidays thank you very much thanks for being here oh