001this meeting of the board is now in session 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 so welcome everyone to our meeting this evening and we'll get started by approving our agenda are there any changes to the agenda as predicted um not any changes to the agenda i'd just like you to consider uh switching a couple items around uh there's a discussion item that should be pretty quick about a trip to uh proposed trip to uh to overseas to europe area from high school if we could add that as one of our superintendents report items and have that discussion there that'd be appreciated i'm
002sure sounds okay anyone have a problem with that okay can we have a motion please to approve our agenda as amended yes mr president i'd like to make a motion that we approve the agenda as amended versus recommended thank you curt is there a second second thank you all in favor please say aye aye opposed the motion passes and uh we'll go to our superintendent's report please great our first uh report is the bond project update so john edwards is here to give you that thank you superintendent b lang and members of the board of education not much has changed since our last board meeting due to spring break but i am happy to announce that the central uh softball dugouts that project is now complete the team has access to the field they have
003been practicing the team's first home game was rained out last week but the jv softball team will host vicksburg tomorrow at four o'clock and six o'clock so the field is ready to go there's a little small minor patch areas that they'll do for related to some other areas but the playing surfaces and the dugouts are fully accessible to the teams and then for our 2021 bond since our last meeting we've met with the haverhill building advisory team that was the second meeting we held with them to talk more about the schematic design at our next board meeting we hope to do more board education to talk about the engagement report that our architectural firm is working on and we've seen a draft of that we also want to educate the board about the design process
004and then share the work timeline of things that will happen over the next uh 12 months and then later tonight i'll come back to talk about our owner's rep as well as our surveyor services so that concludes my report tonight are there any questions from the board just a comment i happened to see several teachers from haverhill and they participated in the advisory meeting there and uh they were all thumbs up on it i really enjoyed the meetings the subject and the the fact that they could provide input into the design of that building they were all thumbs up johnny oh great well we're glad to hear that that's a that's an important uh vehicle for us to get communication and feedback from the staff and those who will be using the building um and
005i believe that tower pinkster and fielding international has done an excellent job engaging all of us from the classroom level up through administration for getting feedback for the building so we'll be getting more feedback from them as well in the times to come i mentioned we'll have more information at the uh at the may board meeting at the at the work session and with the idea that that the second meeting of the month or maybe at our retreat um talk about where are the points where the board wants to be involved in making any decisions i know we did that during the 2015 bomb there were certain places the board wanted to take action and and so as we present that information it's with an eye towards a later discussion about are there some touch
006points where the board wants to engage with the process to uh to either make the final decision or or validate what the work that we've done all right thanks thank you dr pascoe we moved up the uh discussion item here so yeah thank you set to go okay good evening superintendent beeling trustees it's been a while since we've had to report anything around policy 2340 and that's for your approval for any out of country trips but we're excited to have lucas riva here today he's a northern high school social studies teacher plans to take a group in summer 2023 to uk france belgium and germany so without further ado lucas you want to come up and provide some more details for the board for discussion all right great thank you very thank you very much
007for giving us the time um this is my 10th year teaching in portage is the first time social studies department has tried trying to get one of these trips going i know um at northern our art department has taken a couple different trips i believe italy and japan they're doing japan again this year foreign language has gone several different places spain um different spots in in um central and south america and um we felt it's time for social studies to to get on board with that and and go see some of these historical sites so um we started planning this out um pre-covet and then obviously that happened and put a put a rain to our parade so to say so um what we have uh we've we've got the the trip planned with a
008company called world strides which comes very highly recommended they they cover pretty much everything um the students pay a a fee up front their families pay the fee up front and that's pretty much all they'll have to take care of tipping is included in that there's trip insurance flights hotels meals pretty much everything is covered there we're going to be um it's a world wars trip so um it's mainly based on world war ii but there is going to be some stuff that relates to the first world war as well so we'll be flying in to london seeing some museums and things and the the landmarks um big ben houses of parliament all of that and then we'll be taking a ferry across the english channel to the normandy beaches um going to different sites
009and memorials the um um the american cemetery over there for example um then we'll be traveling to uh belgium so the bastogne region so like some battle of the bulge sort of stuff then we're going to be traveling by rail into germany northern germany and then going down to munich southern germany with uh the last two days of the trip being um the dachau concentration camp and then uh an alpine hike to hitler's summer house um which they've converted into like a restaurant and um tea house so after that it's a 10-day long trip then we'll be returning to the states where we plan on flying out of gr so it should make accommodations a little bit more reasonable we won't have to leg it to detroit or chicago in order to fly out so
010um does anybody have any questions about the trip i have plenty of extra we could go into if needed what's the interest level on a trip so um from the initial surveys that we sent out just each of the teachers like we we originally were advertising advertising like gauging interest with our sophomores and juniors and um about it's like 47 48 i believe said that knowing full well the cost of the trip that somebody said that they wanted to do it i don't think we'll actually get that many but uh it's promising seeing that that high of a number of capacity uh nope they can accommodate as many as we have the the number i believe on the the form we said somewhere between six because you need six to launch the trip but um
011a full bus load is 40. so i just anticipated we'd be close to that hopefully but they can get additional buses as needed and the if we hit 30 um by i believe the end of june if if we have 30 sign up by then then they will upgrade our trip to a private trip and we won't have to share our bus with any other travelers from other schools will there be any opportunity for scholarships um there are scholarships i'm not sure about that there is financial assistance available um if qualified they each student has a um it's it's similar to like a gofundme page created for them that they can share especially because this is something that um is going to take place as soon as school ends we've got one flex day for
012weather for um if we need to go extra for snow days but um i know with graduations that'd be a great graduation gift if it were me graduating i would love to have had somebody contribute to my trip so that's available um there are some discounts that are time-based too so if approved i'm not sure what the deadlines for those are but the sooner students sign up the more money off they have and there's also monthly payment plans available to help spread that cost out how much is it um right now i think it's current fee it's it's around fifty two hundred dollars but that includes flights to and from all of the travel all while we're there all of the buses um a certain portion of money for tipping uh the hotels are three
013and four star hotels that are centrally located in the cities we're going to instead of other travel companies which would be located further outside of the attractions where you're looking at a 45 minute to an hour and a half bus ride and to see the attractions we're going to be spending more of our time engaging with the historical sources and going through the the guided tours and things like that more learning opportunities and on the topic of learning opportunities there is world strides offers an online course after we turn after we return home from the trip the students will be able to engage in a it's not that many different things they would have to do from the way i understand it but some different online coursework options and that will get them three credit
014hours of college credit that's included with the price of the trip which makes that high price tag definitely easier to swallow for a lot of families not a question but the whole thing sounds fascinating yeah i i'm extremely excited for it and and there's a lot of excitement in the building definitely as well so how many chaperones do you need um well we already are at the point where a sizeable portion of the department wants to go on the trip and spouses of the staff members as well so as the organizer of the trip i am um entertaining offers from my staff members like you gotta go sweet in the pot a little bit like you're gonna carry my bag for me onto the plane so um yeah but we're we're having a it's a
015six to one ratio so every six students that signs up pays for another um staff member chaperone um other adults can join the trip i believe um one parent had at least one two at least one that i heard like that i was contacted by but i've heard through the grapevine a couple other parents are wanting to go along as well um and there's uh a feed upgrade because the the parents are going to be or the other adults are probably sharing a room with maybe one other person whereas the students are going to be probably four to a room and like um two king rooms king-sized bedrooms thanks for putting this thing that's great i'm jealous luke would have been able to go had we been on the original timeline i know he would
016have wanted to go so fascinated yeah and that type of industry fascinates me so these kids are going to have a lot of fun that's going to be interesting yeah i'm very much looking forward to it right um on the back end of the pandemic we're approving trips again yeah this is a cool moment excellent and um also i've asked the company my representative about like the current geopolitical climate over there dealing with russia ukraine and um none of the current trips have been impacted by what's going on at all and you've got to believe that a year and a half down the road that this will be in the rear view mirror so it's looking like as long as something doesn't go crazy with coved we should be okay i think for travel it
017sounds great and i've said this to the language teachers before but i'll say it to you these trips sometimes change kids lives and they actually point them on a trajectory for a career um that maybe they hadn't even thought of so thank you for doing that and providing you're very welcome thank you all for giving us the opportunity to teach and go to school in a district there where this is a possibility so that's great any other questions thanks lucas very good thank you very much before we move into the board education i just i just wanted to take this opportunity to thank our parents uh in particular those parents who use our school's transportation to get back and forth to school we've had a lot of interruptions this spring with a shortage of drivers
018illnesses within driving the driving ranks and and we've tried to keep that our bus routes balanced as much as possible we do have some routes that we can't eliminate just you know or closed down because of some uh transportation requirements but we're trying to balance that out um today we didn't have to cancel any routes it's been you know first time in a in a few weeks anyway but uh hopefully things will continue to get better i know jody is training some drivers as frequently as she can get them on board but that still doesn't prevent people from getting sick and others in the department driving so in addition to thanking our parents for their patience and understanding also our transportation staff who are really stepping up into roles that they don't normally have our
019mechanics are driving our office staff you know folks are driving so it's been a all-out effort to try to keep our our buses on the roads as much as we can so hopefully that and i know it's going to be a challenge this spring too with all the trips that we have for athletics and extracurriculars so we're going to i know continue ask parents to help transport but we'll do the best we can with what we have and it's it's not like we can contract with other groups to that extent because they're having the same challenges with filling their um their driving position so it's there's not an easy remedy for for what we face but um jody and her staff are doing the best they can but i just wanted to extend my thanks
020to those that are having to juggle their schedules around to make it work that's it on the report part randy thank you sir very much and uh we'll move forward with board education all right we're happy to uh to talk about a new partnership that we've created with the ymca of greater kalamazoo and kelly jensenius is here to lead that discussion and introduce you to who's here from the live thank you good evening superintendent b lang and trustees um tonight the ymca of greater kalamazoo and i are here to share with you some exciting news about a new partnership between portage public schools and the ymca this partnership is going to allow portage public schools to focus on our core mission of providing high quality education while the ymca can provide our students that before
021school and after school quality programming that they are afforded i'd like to take a moment though just to kind of go back through the evolution of curious kids and knowing that the program continues to change with the needs of our community so curious kids started back in our district as a single classroom site for adult education back in 1985. so that's how it originally kind of became to be and today curious curious kids provides a wide variety of child care starting with infants and toddlers to several different preschool options as well as our school age before and after school programming and so as i provided in your packet a little graphic so that you could start to see that our millem site alone houses up to eight different programs including before and after school programming
022for haverhill and central l students and then the rest of our before school and after school run out of six different sites um in our buildings so what what is exciting is this new chapter is that you know we're going to have some change and change is difficult but it'll be exciting because we are certain that the strong partnership alongside the y will allow us to continue to grow into those next years next 35 years and allow us to continue to support our core mission of education and with that what i'd like to do is have dave morgan the ceo and his team say a few words about the partnership as well and then we can ask and answer some questions for you guys thanks superintendent and trustee i appreciate the opportunity to uh come
023on probably the least important person of the of the y team that's actually here because corey and jim have been working on this partnership with your team for quite some time i want to just say how excited we are about this partnership um i think that uh we have had a long history of providing before and after school care in in kalamazoo county and to extend our reach and and partner with um the school district we're just really excited about that opportunity and so um i know that my staff are here if there's any questions or anything we can we can answer for you we're happy to do that but um just more than anything we're very excited any questions we could answer for you tonight could you talk a little bit about the wise
024history with before and after school programs i'm not familiar it i'm gonna actually ask corey to come on up a little bit and corey's our after-school uh specialist and um we've obviously well jim how long have you been uh we don't need to go there so so jim has been uh with us for many years running our after uh part of our after school program has elevated to our vice president of youth development and operations cory is our school age director now i'm gonna let him talk a little bit about the program and what what he's been doing and i think why we believe this partnership really uh works well because i don't i think in many cases it'll be very seamless there are going to be transitions for for parents to get used to
025and things like that as a different organization but in many ways i i know there's a lot of conversation going back forth visiting sites and a lot of commonalities already in the program so i'll let corey talk a little bit on that yeah so our main focus with our before and after school program is going to be healthy lifestyle and physical activity so while the bulk of the school day in portage public schools are going to handle that education side we're going to try to help meet the other need of the kids for you know a whole child experience throughout their day morning time and afternoon time or both lots of physical activity are included including some free play and some structured play every afternoon we will serve a healthy snack option that'll be always
026a fresh fruit or vegetable paired with whole grain meat dairy something along those lines we will offer some homework in quiet reading time and it'll be more of like a group setting versus a one-on-one tutor type activity but again the kids will have their choice they will get to choose whether they're going to work on their homework work on a book so we feel that's important as well as giving students their their choice and in some activities we will also offer steam projects periodically we've partnered with other organizations before to bring in nutrition curriculums and we're always looking to build on other community relations so this is obviously a big one we're very very excited for and to see what other resources we can bring in for the students it's great yeah it's uh it's
027not a question but i mean mark when you sent the email out letting us know i mean my reaction was it's kind of jaw-dropping i mean this is um sounds like a really good partnership relationship so looking really looking forward to this kelly can you talk about how and you how you and corey and staff are our transitioning staff that we have here to uh to the y program yeah so corey and i have been working um together to talk about their current structure and how it operates and then our current structure so our current employees will all have the opportunity to be able to work alongside um if they would like to trans transition over to the ymca um they'll be working with corey on that piece and so if you have a current
028child care worker you're already working at amberly then we would like them to seamlessly just stay right there with their students multi-site directors we're looking at that piece we have multi-site directors so they would look into multi-directing through that program as well one of the things we found is while corey doesn't have multi-site directors at the kalamazoo sites that was something that they're looking at adding in and so both programs as they're developing it into one program what what the great things that we've already been doing that they can add there or what can we add to the portage but yeah our employees all have that opportunity to move on over into the y programming um if they choose to do so and they get a ymca membership which is pretty cool too i think
029we're hoping to take as much from portages as from ourselves as we look at the transition there are some things we've learned from the program here that i think will will do us well and and we've also as being said we've already started transitioning um so we don't have currently two um what we would call site supervisors or whatever we have we have one so corey's been doing that we've hired a new behavioralist so we've been really a lot of things that uh we're already making many of these transitions already so actually the timing of this really couldn't have been much better for for us as an organization as well and we since i've been here i've been in this community for four years so one of my focus points has always been expanding our
030child care programs our early education programs all that that's really been one of my key uh areas of emphasis within my staff and our department has expanded tremendously since and in the past four years we hope to expand even further we're looking at many other partnerships right now is it you clarify this for me the actual sites will still be in our portage buildings yes thank you yes they will continue to be there the only one that will change is the millam for the haverhill and central l students they won't be going to the millem site we'll either we'll pick one of the sites we'll work together to determine a better site for them to go to so transportation will be involved yep potentially we may have them at the haverhill site if we have
03140 students there and we want to keep them there then they're not transferred over to a different building so we'll we'll be working on that one together what are the procedural changes will parents notice from what they're used to right now um yeah we do registration quite a bit differently it's all done online by the parents through our website and we're going to have several meetings between now and when families have to actually decide to sign up for our program to walk them through some of those processes and get them familiar and let them know what all is involved with that the other thing is our price structure is quite a bit different from how curious kids have been doing it we feel our structure does provide us the best opportunity to keep staffing consistent
032and ratios consistent so that will be there will be some families who benefit from ours and some who maybe have to adjust a little more than others but i think those two pieces will be some of the bigger ones that families will see safety wise procedurally we've noticed we're pretty much doing the exact same thing with checking in calling kids out you know making sure that they're walked down so all of those seem very much the same that we've been running through licensing same type of licensing um so pretty consistent there i also want to address the staffing thing a little bit too because and we as we talked about our staff because we took this next step we had to wait till we got to a certain point in this relationship a little bit
033it got far enough along but our hope is to pull in the leadership from the school age program into a lot of these decision makings as we start looking at new staff structures and things like that because we there's there's a great deal of uh educational our institutional knowledge we don't want to lose sight of it so we really um that's kind of our next transition corey's already been meeting with staff and having some group meetings now it's even some individual stuff and building on that relationship and making sure we take advantage of some great staff that's been working this district for a long time absolutely my three boys all spent a lot of years at the y pre-school in the 80s they were all woods like kids to begin with before they became angling
034road kids and so when my wife worked at the y running corporate olympics in the 80s and that was all part of the event stuff and you guys have done a great job for decades that i'm aware of so i'm happy to see that we're being involved with each other i said the same thing to jim i served on the whiteboard for seven years so and that was a long time ago i'm going to say it was between 15 and 20 years ago since i've been off the board at the y and you were there then so i'm glad you're still there to work with us and i'm looking forward to this too i think it's a great partnership and you didn't mention it but this does not affect uh tammy's uh okay correct employment
035with the district at all it kind of helps narrow the focus that that we're expecting of virtue you know the educational programs and then currently the infant toddler care programs all right well thank you we'll keep you informed and we're looking forward to this thank you all thank you thank you thank you all good thank you very much thanks kelly and i know kelly's got a run she's got something to attend to so i appreciate that that's it for that part okay we'll move to our comments and communications section are there any individuals who wish to address the board this evening i guess there are so uh we'll have our secretary celeste shelton harris read our guidelines for public comment please okay thank you the board welcomes community input at our board meetings and recognizes
036the importance of 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 may not register others to speak speakers will not will be recognized by the presiding officer and may not be called in the order in which they have signed up to speak speakers are requested to state their name address and group affiliation if available or applicable um limit comments to three minutes direct all comments to the board and not to staff or to other participants speakers may not yield any of their speaking time to others provide a written copy
037of your comments and supporting documentation to the board secretary if available present your comments in a respectful and professional manner to model the behavior expected of portage 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 community meetings board members are not obligated to respond to issues raised during public comment normally such issues are referred to or followed up by our administrators thank you celeste we have two speakers tonight and we welcome the first one sherry weber good evening superintendent and trustees i am thankful to be here my name is sheri weber i'm honored to be the mom of two young black women who both attend kalamazoo
038central high school so why am i at a portage school board meeting last week at a kps school board meeting i reminded the superintendent and trustees there that doing anti-racist work in order to advance equity and true inclusion requires taking personal responsibility for raising your awareness learning and moving to action and as i reflected on that statement i think it's also important to call out that we as a community need to take collective responsibility for anti-racist actions because all of our children's worlds don't stop at the school building that they attend my oldest daughter attends cansey half a day with kids from all over the county including portage kids she plays in symphonic strings with portage kids my youngest daughter plays sports and regularly competes against kids from portage and when they get to be
039a teenager their worlds get just keep expanding more and more all of our children are growing up in a society that's going to be increasingly diverse and different with every generation millennials are far more diverse than us gen xers were and my gen z daughters are also much more diverse and different than the millennial generation so we need to as a community help our kids not only understand this but to celebrate it much earlier in their lives school is a key component of making that happen so i'm asking you and all of the places and spaces where my children spend so much of their time including kps including kamzee including the spaces they they they share with the kids from portage school to take a collective perspective about how you can help make your school
040and the broader community more anti-racist so that all of our children feel seen and valued thank you sherry appreciate your comments our next speaker is regina nelson welcome hi my name is dr regina nelson i'm a professor in education at western michigan university and i supervise teacher candidates in portage public schools i also attend the unitarian universalist community church in portage i'm here to say thank you to the board and all those employed in the district for their work for greater equity inclusion and anti-racism in the portage public schools portage public schools has a long-standing partnership with western michigan university to prepare highly qualified teachers to work with children from diverse backgrounds i stand here with the support of many portage parents students educators and community members who are working hard on addressing equity issues
041in school discipline policies and curriculum implementation they have experienced and or witnessed the harmful effects of lessons that role-play slavery in elementary school in disproportionate disciplinary consequences for children of color this is not acceptable we are grateful that you all have demonstrated a commitment to changing these harmful practices by inviting parents to participate in the curriculum instruction council hiring a dei coordinator and providing support for three portage teachers to participate in the western michigan university k-risa racial equity cohort to become in-house trainers for their colleagues we are dedicated to making portage public schools a place where all children feel safe to do so we need a commitment from you to support our efforts to implement changes and practices and policies we are pleased to see that you are gathering input in defining equity for portage
042public schools in your value survey we urge you to go deeper and complete a comprehensive equity audit that involves all stakeholders and implement an action and accountability plan to address the equity issues we are happy to partner with you all in this important work thank you again for your time and your support thank you very much i i think i was at a dinner with you at que risa a couple of months ago i think i was at a dinner with you at que risa a couple of months ago didn't you get an award or something no i were you at the golden apple i don't know the parkway michigan university right right well it's nice to see you again thank you thanks and thanks because uh she's at the department where i am doing
043some teaching so it's good to see you thank you for being here thank you uh we'll move to uh board trustee comments everybody's just back from spring break they don't know what to say okay let's flip it to the consent agenda all right on page six we have uh several things to approve tonight uh number one is the minutes from the march 21 2022 regular business meeting and policy updates that we discussed and were presented at our last meeting are there any exceptions to the consent agenda as presented hearing none the consent agenda is approved and we'll move to our first action item this evening which is approved survey services and um is there a motion please on page 12. uh mr president i moved that the board of education approved two professional services agreements
044one for dreissingen associates for survey work at haverhill elementary and amberly elementary amount of 27 145 the second for preen or prime and new hof for survey work at central elementary school for twenty thousand five hundred dollars for a total purchase cost of forty seven thousand six hundred forty five dollars which will come from the 2021 bond thank you bozer a second second very good thank you yes sir thank you for round two tonight um as the motion has already surfaced on the floor this is a required work that must be done prior to construction we're looking at central and haverhill as our first two schools that we're designing and we chose amberly as a potential third school for design work what you'll find within this is we put out the rfp to four local
045engineering firms three of which responded as you can see in the total amounts um dry singa gave us the best quote for haverhill and amberly and then prion and newhoff gave us the best quote for central elementary we also feel comfortable with both firms based on their history and we also believe that there could be some benefit to splitting the jobs up so that the work can start and get done much more quickly and i'll be happy to answer any questions from the board this will come from our 2021 bond fund all right thank you yeah thank you again this is just straight we're splitting it basically right we're splitting the contract so dries nico's getting one and um i can't even read it yeah pri prime and newhop uh and um drazenga will get
046haverhill and amberly and bryan and new hoff will get central elementary all right thank you glad to see the project moving along yes i actually got to have a survey to get that going so yes with that uh all in favor of the surveyor services recommendation please say i i opposed the motion passes our next action item is to approve our owner representation service and services and there is a motion on page 14 please president van antwerp i moved that the board of education approved the contract with plant moran see resa pmc as a district's owner's representative for a fixed fee of one million dollars plus reimbursable expenses as outlined in the contract the funds will be drawn from the 2021 bond fund thank you terry their second thank you all right thank you again
047um plan moran has been providing some guidance for us uh through our initial phase of the rfp process for the architect as well as the cm and i explained to the board that we interviewed several firms about potential owner's rep services so we recommended plant moran to the board at the february 21st meeting and we entered into contract negotiations with them uh we engaged our attorney kirk carroll from troon and he provided us the assistance with reviewing the contractual language uh as we negotiated those terms of conditions uh the contract length is is 44 months for this project uh and the 44-month project would allow us to construct the first three elementary projects and then give us the ability to re-evaluate whether or not we want to continue with those owner rep services beyond the
04844 month we negotiated a flat fee of 1 million dollars typically a owner's rep services fee will range on a percentage base between one percent and two and a half percent so that million dollars based off of a program budget of 89 million dollars is approximately 1.1 percent uh and if we were to expand uh this owner's rep services on a percentage fee it could cost us as high as 1.75 million dollars to 4.37 uh five million dollars uh with this negotiation obviously those those savings uh gives us the ability to do more for allocation of construction projects and budgets uh i am happy tonight uh you have seen him in the in the uh in the audience tonight mr ron herron who's our former assistant superintendent of operations he will be on the plant
049moran team and uh his wealth of knowledge and familiarity with the district as well as his expertise and experience with the 2015 buying project we believe that ron will be a valuable and invaluable asset to helping us guide through this project as well as uh mr doug phillips who you've already met for other things as well and and we also want to include and remind the board and the public about plant moran's um their reputation and their history in terms of being the leading owners rep in k-12 school districts here in the state of michigan so um i would like to say that i'm happy that with the direction we're going again is just one more checks and balance with the work that we're trying to get done for the 2021 buying projects i'll be
050happy to answer any questions for the board so how hard was it to lure ron out of retirement how hard was it i think we had to take him to lunch so again ron's uh schedule will not be that of what a former what an assistant superintendent of operations with this would be his primary focus and uh obviously it's time we'll we'll determine based on our needs but we're excited to have ron ryan with us yeah i mean best of both worlds i mean expertise from outside and ron who knows us very well and has just gone through all this absolutely really nice yeah you know ron was instrumental in making sure that we formulated our initial guiding principles and uh those served us so well and you know he understands the importance of those
051and how that translates into decisions that are made out in the field when you're building buildings and making decisions about you know well the thousands of decisions that we'll have to make in the upcoming uh you know years so you're right it's a it's a win-win situation for us to be able to pull him back into the into the projects and keep him out of the field as much as possible so not that we don't welcome into the building but a lot of his work will be out in the field working with with our various folks out there that's just a great package all the way around we've got a good firm here the economics are very good and we're lucky that ron uh wanted to come back and didn't want to stay away because
052he knows how we roll so that ought to be a good good program all the way around okay i think we should approve this all in favor of approving the owner represent representation services contract we say i i opposed the motion passes and uh we're going down the road with plant moran and mr heron our last action item is our teacher and staff appreciation week proclamation is there a motion please on page 35 i would be glad to offer that question thank you okay mr prisoner offered the following motion that the board of education approved the teacher and staff appreciation week proclamation as presented is there a second second very good and we need to volunteer to read this i'll be happy to read thank you very much teacher and staff appreciation week proclamation whereas
053a 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 the vision of portage public schools is to be an exceptional continuously improving learning culture with high expectations committed to all and whereas the commitment portage public schools teachers and staff show to students by inspiring them to succeed academically artistically socially and athletically is essential to making the vision a reality therefore the board of education of portage public schools does hereby proclaim may 2nd to 6th 2022 as teacher and staff appreciation week in the portage public school district and encourages all citizens to congratulate our educators for the work they do daily to develop students today and mold successful citizens who
054will have a positive influence on our community tomorrow adopted this 11th day of april 2022 portage public schools board of education thank you terry is there any discussion only that is really a year-long thing not just a week of appreciation um having my final child graduate supported schools i mean there's a lot of great staff members that have engaged my kids on all levels uh to succeed and i'm just thankful thankful and this teacher staff appreciation week but this is a year-long thing so thanks to everybody thank you rusty and randy maybe to put a couple of extra exclamation points behind it this year with this year and last year it was it was a journey and um these are great people under normal circumstances and they have risen to the challenge and we're incredibly
055thankful that's for sure that's for sure our teachers our staff members here a real treasure for our students our parents and our community and we're so lucky that we have the staff that we do and the board is very appreciative for all you do anything else okay all those in favor of approving the teacher and staff appreciation week proclamation please say aye aye opposed uh the motion passes the proclamation is approved we've reached the end of our agenda and we are adjourned thank you