Portage Public Schools Board of Education Regular Meeting - July 26, 2021

001good deal thank you there's a hell of a lot of people in the house no in the house a lot of folks there's more than we'd fit in our other meeting room we got pea over here they all decided the pel decided to mask up for some reason oh no it's interesting but yet they can i'm done talking we'll talk later yeah okay okay that's correct a lot of notre dame's speaking nobody in the sec wants to play notre dame no one nobody wants to play regularly everybody wants to play maybe for three games you know one of the three games on the league or two you know they do some pretty good schools they try to like churn but then then they play sure makes a living [Music] this meeting of the board of

002education is now called order please stand and join us in the pledge of allegiance [Applause] 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 i'd like to welcome everyone to our board meeting tonight trustees shelton harris and trusteek crowell are not here this evening and uh send their regrets and we'll start by approving our agenda are there any changes to the agenda as printed yes we have a few uh that i'd like to add if you could please add an action item number five on the awarding of audit services as one additional item and then if you could also add after closed session a post-closed session action item would be to approve a

003partial district calendar for the school year those are the only two items i have okay very good i can someone please uh present a motion please to approve the agenda as amended yes i'd like to make the motion that the board of education approved the agenda as amended thank you kurt second second thank you terry all in favor please say aye aye opposed the motion passes and we'll move forward with our revised agenda and go to the superintendent's report mark thank you randy uh the first uh first two reports are the bond project update and the bond budget update and change order summary and uh ron herron and dan rathburn i believe are here to address those two items ron and dan i think they'll be speaking from the podium in the back good evening

004board members um just want to give you a just a short brief update on construction projects the only one that i'll be talking about tonight primarily is that there are two one is the central uh campus central middle school we're still doing some punch items and some commissioning in that building and then the second item is the notatorium here on northern's campus we are scheduled to get occupancy on the 12th and things are moving moving along quite well there so we look forward to getting in that that space this fall and that's it for the construction side we also have for you in your packet uh change order number 38 and dan rathburn is going to go over the change orders with you at this time we'll start out with the um boe report um

005for change order 38 basically showing that we are not moving any funds um between projects at this point and then moving into actual change orders um we only have change orders at northern natatorium and we have four the first is to replace existing ada middle school sidewalks how to better align with the new natatorium sidewalks and that was an add of 3 399 we had also added a washout curve to the existing southeast sidewalks with a cost of 5700 and then when we were doing the parking lot we had to replace um on suitable soils found in the lot for a cost of 19 833 a and the final one was an additional emergency circuit required by the manufacturer um startup engineer for the non-diesel generator with a cost of 945 dollars and that's it

006for change orders oh sorry we have a total cost of change orders on the natatorium of 29 941 dollars any questions thank you ryan dan appreciate it um the board had a chance to tour the natatorium this evening and seeing how that's coming along one of the things that i just wanted to mention is that we do have a open house scheduled for for early september i think we'll get the details out on that but we do have a grand opening plan i think that's in conjunction with the first uh swim meet not at first it's not the first okay it's or one of the first one of the first maybe that's what i meant sun says september 7th september 17th 5 pm there will be a tour of the natatorium and the swim meet

007starts at six um there will be some ceremonial things happening before this one meet so please come thank you terry um also just a final reminder if you haven't had a chance to vote we do have a uh an election we're the only item on the ballot so the district is is asking voters to approve 175 million dollar bond project which addresses our elementary school meet needs it's the uh it's really the third phase of phases that have been uh both completed at high school level and uh nearing completion here at the middle school and pool level and athletic facilities we're able to keep the the millage rate the same as it is uh this year in the 2021 year so there will be no increase over this year in the millage rate so hopefully

008people have had that on their calendar to vote if they haven't already voted uh with absentee ballot which uh is uh is becoming quite popular in these times um the other thing i want to mention is you see the the graphic on the screen this is uh these are graphics that we'll be using throughout the course of the year and possibly beyond to celebrate our 100th year of existence as uh as a district and we want to thank the committee that's been working on on on both the logo and the activities that are being planned for uh the course of this year uh it should be an exciting year and we look forward to celebrating our 100th anniversary that's all i have in the way of uh reports randy thank you mark we'll move to

009board education then please thank you um we have uh we have a presentation for you about uh what our plans are as we start up the school year and before we get into the formal part of the presentation i have a few things i want to uh i want to cover as we have an introduction into what you'll be hearing and perhaps a little more detail into some of what uh what i'm saying i think first of all it's important to understand that these remain in many ways uncertain times as it relates to both recommendations and requirements for schools related to covid we've seen contradictory recommendations and directions from various national and state agencies and it's important that as a district we both remain diligent and flexible in the event that circumstances such as increased

010levels of new covenant cases and or increased levels of test positivity occur within kalamazoo county vaccination is currently the leading public health prevention strategy to end the covert 19 pandemic promoting vaccination can help us safely return to school in person and also allow for extracurricular activities we recognize that requiring masks at this point in time is extremely challenging and has become a significant source of polarizing frustration and anger it's apparent that many school districts around us are adopting a similar choice policy which leaves the decision to parents and families the kalamazoo county health and community service department is supportive of our approach and asks that we recommend to our families and our staff to wear a mask if the student or the employee is unvaccinated we're recommending that masks be wore indoors by all individuals

011two years and older who are not fully vaccinated masks should be worn consistently and correctly by unvaccinated individuals especially indoors and in crowded settings when physical distancing cannot be maintained the centers for disease control and prevention recommends that schools maintain at least three feet of physical distance between students within classrooms combined with indoor mask wearing by people who are not fully vaccinated to reduce risk of transmission we will do our best to keep students three feet apart from one another but cannot guarantee that that will be the case in all classrooms and other indoor spaces we are encouraging mass wearing at those times when physical distancing is not possible screening testing ventilation hand washing and respiratory etiquette staying home when sick and getting tested contact tracing in combination with quarantine and isolation and cleaning and

012disinfection are all important layers of prevention to help keep our students and staff safe students teachers and staff should stay home when they have signs of any infectious illness and be referred to their health care provider for testing and care and finally we're proud of the partnership that we have with our local public health department it remains our intention to continue to meet with them on a regular basis to ensure that we get the most current information regarding covert activity within kalamazoo county we will also continue to consult with them so that we're able to make informed decisions to assure the safe the safest environment possible so with that i'd like to call on dr pascoe mr huber and ms jensenius to uh to review our startup plans for this fall folks okay good evening

013superintendent b lang and trustees tonight we'll provide an overview of the 2122 school year startup plan we'll be sharing the following updates with you throughout the presentation we'll look at the instructional options as we return we'll look at our projected enrollment numbers as they stand right now in terms of most likely mike and kelly will look into the current county health status we'll look at our layered mitigation strategies that we'll have in place and give an update on how we're doing with our summer learning programs k through 12 and then just talk about next steps and what needs to happen from now until august so to begin you guys have all seen this graphic this fall the majority of our students will be back to in building learning five days a week engaging in our

014pps curriculum with healthy and safety layered mitigation strategies in place our teachers we utilize continue to utilize instructional strategies to meet the wide range needs of our students we know our students will have both academic and social emotional needs that we can meet our teachers core curriculum and the instructional practices that they have in place they're key in providing students the support they need to meet the grade level expectations that are set forth on top of that we'll be utilizing and continue to utilize our mtss model which is our multi-tiered system of support that's always been invaluable for us to meet the individual individual needs of all of our students and it's a central part of our work as we return this fall within that we've used the term mtss and have had some presentations

015in the past but just to review some of the key components is the universal screeners that we do a few times a year alongside our pre-tests and our local assessments within our classrooms while we've missed probably a lot of the m-step and sat data on all of our students over the last couple springs we believe that our internal assessments and our screeners give us a good handle on where our students at in terms of their academic work and their comprehension and mastery of our essential standards the tiers that we talk about in our mtss support model can always be amplified in response to the level of need that our students bring our school-wide approach to expectations of support are in there and then of course building that parent involvement and partnership within the school community

016is key in addition to in-building learning we'll also offer our k-12 virtual program these programs are designed to support students who have found success in learning virtually or they just feel like that's the best option for their family so our virtual program will operate five days a week it will be synchronous learning with our pps core curriculum taught by rpps teachers each virtual program will expect students to follow the same rules expectations as we would in in-person learning so that they can find success within that program our teachers will use the same high quality curriculum instructional strategies and we'll implement the mtss model in the virtual world as well so looking at enrollment for both virtual and building you can see up in the graphic mike's about to click here we'll see the numbers have

017gone down slightly for those requesting the full virtual option since the scheduling process started back in march so currently we're planning for 97 elementary students 31 at the middle school and 76 at the high school so those are all numbers that have been reduced since we've asked families to make a decision back in march in terms of those electing the full virtual option so just to give you a sense at the elementary level the virtual program we have six teachers allotted to the program that includes one special education teacher and at the secondary level both middle and high school we have seven fte so that's kind of chopped up through throughout middle and high school that have been assigned to the full virtual program again we will have some high school students that have blended

018schedules they have some in person as well as some virtual programming as we've presented in the past so overall our fall enrollment we're seeing a potential increase of 133 students from the previous school year so we should be close to about 8 74 students as our most likely scenario as we return so i'm now going to hand it over to mr huber mrs jencinius we're going to talk a little bit about the current health status kelly i know we'll present on the layer later mitigation strategies and we'll give an update on how we're doing with our summer learning programs thank you if you're clicking up there i appreciate that um wanted to let you know the county and state have started reporting covet numbers on a bi-weekly timeline instead of two or three times a

019week so every other week the information is being updated which is a slower pace for us to be able to respond to those numbers michigan is now aligning what they call some school thresholds to cdc numbers so on the chart that you're looking at right now we have um two columns and i'm using both languages in there so that you can kind of understand how they're looking at it all of these are available through that my safe start data and we did we tend to have links on our website uh back to that information that terminology change michigan has been using a low through e calculation but the cdc just has low moderate substantial and high as part of their vocabulary for case rates as well if as well as for percent positivity so we're

020switching those and the mdhhs and cdc also calculate new case data a little differently so you'll notice under each of those boxes the mdhhs looks at that as a seven day average per million residence per day and the cdc looks at it as weekly cases per 100 000. so there's actually a calculator on michigan's site to do the translation if you put in any number it'll give you the other one and so i've kind of taken a look at those numbers and i provide them both to you along with the status and the color that lines up with how that organization presents their information so locally our contin our community transmission rate is around 21.8 uh new cases on our seven day average and our vaccination coverage is around 61.9 percent of residents with the

021first dose and 58 and a half percent for residents who are completely vaccinated currently our building outbreaks are zero which would be um kind of obvious since we're not in person but we do have two buildings right now that are seeing a large number of students in them that would be lake center and portage northern high school where we're hosting our summer program so we did want to say we're not seeing any issues related to those two buildings although the spacing there and the number of students in the building at any time is much much lower than would be during the school year all of these indicators combined with what we're seeing including the level ratings and where we rank with cdc are pointing to us having a much lower risk of transmission and that's

022what's led us to make our currently presented guideline protocols that we have for you the mitigation strategies for the start of the year are dependent on this information and throughout the past 15 months we've been able to kind of adjust and modify as we need to based on the information at hand and we'll continue to do that we monitor that local transmission and adjust those guidelines as needed on that data and mr b lang and the rest of the superintendents in the county along with k reset stay in touch either weekly or bi-weekly with the county health department staff relative to health status and it's their partnership that's helped us develop our covid strategy all along as well as handle any particular cases that came up this is chinese thank you mike um we're looking

023now at our layered mitigation strategies going into the fall so our goal is to protect the health of students teachers and staff so in-person learning can resume as safely as possible this fall the cdc is correct vaccination is the leading public health preventative strategy and we know that not everyone is vaccinated and therefore we are layering effective mitigation strategies and so i'd like to present a few of the changes and update to our strategies for this fall the kalamazoo county health and community service department asks that we recommend to our families and staff to wear a mask if the student or employee is unvaccinated therefore we recommend but not require those who are not vaccinated to continue to mask we will continue to try to maintain a three-foot distancing between students within the classroom whenever

024possible all our classrooms receive air purifiers in the 2021 school year that will continue to be utilized we'll continue of course with hand washing and good personal hygiene we'll make sure we're encouraging that and due to cdc research that indicates a low risk for cova to spread via touching of surfaces cleaning surfaces will occur at least once per day or as needed we know sometimes we need a little bit more our traditional cleaning practices have many high-touch surfaces being cleaned more frequently students teachers and staff should stay home when they have signs of any infectious illness and be referred to their health care provider for testing and care transportation including our buses and bands continues to require masking due to cdc order for masking on all public transportation regardless of a school district decision and

025finally the kalamazoo county health and community services department is supportive of our overall approach and we continue to consult with them on a regular basis we will make any changes to our mitigation strategies in conjunction with them with that we are going to talk a little bit now about summer learning programs and this summer we had a wonderful opportunity to run our summer learning program at all three levels i'm going to speak about elementary and then mr huger is going to speak about secondary so our elementary summer learning opportunity as i presented last time was a small group tutoring session was with as little as one student and up to three students per teacher we offered 10 hours per student to build relationships and work on their academics and that elementary program ensured that learning

026is fun and engaging for our students while we are also able to establish that strong connection to essential skills for the upcoming year we offered three different two-week sessions and that third session just started today and it will end on august august 6th so here's a few stats um in session one we had 80 percent of our students invited attend their summer tutoring with an average of 84 percent attendance for the two weeks um in session two we had 86 of the 54 students invited and they had an average of 85 attendance for the two weeks and then the session three like i said starts today with 40 students that are signed up um our attendance rates were a little bit lower on the fridays which we made virtual versus face-to-face so that was a

027that was a choice we had made to try that out and see what happened but we definitely were able to see a difference in attendance using the virtual option on fridays the positives from our tutoring program were that most kids are receiving one-on-one tutoring which of course is highly effective and engaging for our students every single teacher has emphasized how great it is to work with the students in such small groups and the students love the attention we want to acknowledge the transportation department especially and being able to transport all our students in for tutoring i mean they were running buses in and out in and out and without their time support and work we would not have been able to reach all our students and get them in the buildings finally the teachers and

028the coordinators we had ben kreitz and robin lentz have gone above and beyond to make this process positive everyone has been so flexible and just able to go with the flow on a daily basis to support connecting with our students and their families i want to pass this on to mr huber who's now going to talk about middle school and high school summer learning yeah the middle school program which is held here at portage northern high school on the third floor has the small group tutoring sessions what they've done there is they've mixed that up with some project-based learning events for the students that are there the teachers creatively included a lot of number sense pre-algebra concepts vocabulary both academic and interpersonal all inside that relational environment and that's helped us build some relationships and

029what we would consider bring back onboard students who may have been learning virtually at that time i believe all but just a handful of the students are actually attending in person we made some accommodations for some students who are remote or are our students but live out of county and a few students who needed to do the instruction virtually the program has had middle school staff and teachers to help support the coordination of that i've had dan starr and heidi hively working on the coordination side and all the rest of the instructors are middle school instructors so the students are getting to see the teachers that they will see when they return and we've had teachers from all three of our middle schools participate as tutors in this they've been doing things like practical cooking

030lessons they've been constructing some robots i'm doing some academic based games and other relationship building activities the focus for the middle school has been on connecting students with staff in a positive environment and then again i just appreciate how we've been able to make this middle school program work while the attendance has been a bit lower with 78 students out of the 300 we invited attending we know that that capture of the students for those 78 has been very positive we're able to make some adjustments with it our high school program our goal there really was to recapture missing credits for students to keep them on track towards graduation especially graduating on time and with their peer group we also wanted to make sure we could re-teach and focus on those essential standards that the

031students have to know before they move to the next level it's great if we finish a course and say okay you've completed enough to finish you know a geometry now you can move on to algebra two but our goal there was make sure they had the have to know concepts embedded they could move on to that each course was really broken down into these essential standards by marking period and the content area teachers that are with them are certified in the area for their instruction especially in our core content we've had now towards the end of the season start to move a few around for some of the wrap up and closing of these credits but those teachers are focused on those standards to help guide the students through the work they can do the

032direct instruction on top of being able to work in that digital platform we did use two programs this summer the first was the smaller my city program through k reese's youth opportunities unlimited which allowed a select group of students to do some work experience and career pathway and that seems to be going well i did want to check in on that one more time this week with talking with their staff the counselors really selected those students to participate and so i do want to acknowledge the work of the k-risa team and paige daniels the director there and molly fitzhenry one of their program staff and helping make that happen for us and for welcoming reported students to be a part of that our larger summer program which are the numbers you're seeing on the screen

033is uh done a credit recovery and completion on those marking period basis we were using a digital content platform plato coupled with those in-person content area teachers and paraprofessional staff to help meet the needs the classes were scheduled to have up to 15 students in attendance but the largest i observed when walking through was around six to one and in most cases we were able to get a lot of direct instruction time to do that tutoring the large study hall space which was our media center there could hold up to 30 and i saw a lot of of that in there maybe 25 students but we had around five staff at any one time covering them including some wonderful paraprofessionals chris cook from central high and julia warner from central as well just kind of

034supporting those students in that space and so that allowed us to do a lot of that for students that maybe only needed a portion of a portion of a marking period to get done our staff were able to select the benchmarks and standards they needed to target that learning for them so the second floor at northern high has been what we've used and we appreciate mr edwards and mr herron and our custodial crew for being able to kind of get us into that space and help allow us to be in there for the duration of summer jody stoner in transportation has been wonderful the flexibility there for our bus drivers to be able to pick up and drop off students that might only need to come for five days and then they're finished with their

035work uh has definitely been a benefit and uh nate ledlow who's the director of our high school program mentioned that multiple times said hey we have to call transportation regularly and we appreciate the work that they're doing over there so also susan livingston and the chartwells food service folks have made sure that lunch and food has been provided at all of our summer learning sites for families and they've been instrumental in making sure they're ready with the nutrition they need to stay focused and at least just engaged in that and when we get down to the numbers thus far we have 216 semester course credits being issued and completed for students at our three high schools and that's just the count as of um last week i think on thursday or a little bit of

036this morning we're expecting that number to go up that is an incredible amount of work being accomplished in the summertime we never see a number like that traditionally in summer granted it's been a remarkable 15 months with us but this is what we wanted to accomplish so we really feel like we got something there a little quote from nate ledlow he thinks we should have close to 250 semester courses completed by uh by the end of summer and overall the program has been a success he comments for many students it'll be the reason they can continue their education at ported central or portage northern or at community high instead of having to find an alternate path to graduation students have been well behaved focused on getting to school each day and completing their work the

037staff has done an amazing job recognizing that most of the students participating in the program were there as a result of a really challenging situation during a really challenging school year they've responded with kindness and compassion and have worked hard getting the students the help that they need the program has been an example of what we can accomplish when multiple groups of people come together for a common goal and so we're thankful for our summer teaching staff and our summer learning coordinators and this includes teachers and prayer pros from all three high schools special educators and other support staff making this happen that's a pretty deep dig for our summer learning program to let you guys hear and to let our community uh who's watching online and in the auditorium hear how we've approached summer

038learning this year dr pascal great talk a little bit about next steps so our summer work is essential to us and so is our readiness for the upcoming school year so we understand we have a diverse set of learning needs relative to our curriculum as students return we'll continue to focus on our systems both instructionally and support for our staff and our students to have a successful 21-22 school year so i want to share some details of of how we're getting ready for 2122. so as i mentioned before our fall screeners will be utilized continue specific supports for students including acadians for reading nwa map math and reading and our seo social emotional learning screeners that we'll have in place for the for the fall we're launching a new curriculum component for our ninth grade

039reading intervention course at our three high schools it's called language live we're continuing our support of our middle school literacy programs including teacher and staff development and explicit curriculum instruction our elementary ela and math teams that continue to unpack the application of essential standards and skills trying to address the learning loss by focusing on teaching the priority standards in our core subject areas per grade level so dr sheehan jessica wood stanley courtney hoff and alongside some leed elementary teachers have been working over a year on this but have been also coming in this summer and are doing some great work and are going to do some of this work within our teach camp as well um so thanks to them for for all their time elementary reading and engagement specialists alongside our district coaches they'll

040engage in some coaching rounds with teachers to support student achievement that's going to be a new a new element this year our middle school social studies team continued integration of our curriculum equity components in our middle school lessons our virtual teachers they'll build on what we've learned they have a foundation over the last 16 months that they'll build on to improve our virtual program as we move forward continue to implement mtss we'll address our instructional strategies based off of the student achievement data that we collect and that we see over the past year and as we move into august and september most importantly a strong focus on social emotional learning supporting the whole pps community by improving our culture and climate and including mental health supports as we receive kids back and we welcome them

041back so 2122 school year it will be another challenging year we have the opportunity though to work together and overcome those challenges as they present themselves we know the city of portage and our schools are an incredible community as one excellent teachers we have amazing students and a vibrant diverse city you know as we celebrate like superintendent b lang said our 100th year of portage public schools we're optimistic that we can collectively provide the necessary supports to all our students our staff our families and our teachers we'll continue to honor our mission and vision and be a place where the future learns so that's all we have for you tonight we'd be happy to answer any questions that the board may have at this time i just want to make one additional comment to what

042we presented so far as one of the differences between last year and this year is last year there was legislation that required boards to approve a return to learn plan that legislation expired there is no current legislation that um that makes this decision part of a board decision as to what we do what we incorporate so we return back to you know our former times and under you know the operations of the district um will align with the policies that we have as a district so um unless legislation changes you'll not be required to to approve any part of this plan so sorry for that but questions well we sure appreciate the update and uh we also appreciate all the work that's underway this summer sounds like a great experience for our kids that's great

043and good news on the enrollment too is that in any particular grade or is it across the board it's it's it's scattered yeah yeah you know keep in mind obviously moving into last year we lost a few hundred students so when we say gain we're chipping away at that loss of a few hundred students in 2021 school year so we're trending back in the right direction so that's positive and let's bring in some hope in terms of the enrollment numbers i think some of those were kindergarten students we're starting to get them coming in the doors so realizing that um enrollment and getting your young ones in so we're starting to see a pocket of them coming in too that's great yeah yeah good good any other comments or questions for our presenters i just

044had a i just had a quick question um just the one concern because i know that in the presentations in the past you know kids can't make up you know they can't go virtual when they're sick and currently the the recommendation from the cdc whether you're vaccinated or not is a 10-day quarantine and i'm just concerned about potential excessive absences in these kids and i just want us to make sure we find a way that those kids are still learning because if they are required to i want them to stay home we want to encourage them to stay home but it's almost a punishment that they can't learn you know and that's really important for a lot of kids i know my kids would be mortified um you know this past year they had that

045option obviously we're moving forward i think in the right direction um you know we really want to but but i'm just i'm just concerned what's going to happen with those kids when they're out for 10 days yeah well we know high flex was was a challenge you know and we'll be the first ones to say that our teachers did an amazing job making it work because because it was what we had to do but we also picked up a lot of tools and a lot of approaches to teaching and learning and you know utilizing simple things like google classroom were ways that kids connect connected and family stayed connected as they were they were absent so even though we may be removing that high flex approach we still have a lot of strategies that will

046keep with us to help kids connect it when they're not physically in the building so rusty we definitely want to pay close attention and make sure we're keeping those things in place so that we don't lose kids as they either quarantine or they're just absent in general i think we're in a better spot actually for that situation than we were pre-coveted yeah i would just say uh much appreciation for the efforts this summer that credit recovery is is awesome just incredible and then um i think the watch word for the next year just like last year is flexibility we're starting the year in a certain situation and it is almost a sure thing that that will not be how we will end the year what we'll go through and we will be i suspect making

047adjustments as we go and we learn very good thank you okay thank you thank you thank you okay we'll move to our comments and communications section first we have comments by citizens and we have 11 citizens who would like to speak tonight i'll start by reading our guidelines for public comment board meetings first of all the board welcomes public comment at our public meetings when addressing the board please conform to these guidelines as follows sign the speaker registration form at the beginning of the meeting state your name and address limit your comments to three minutes provide a written copy of your comments and supporting documentation to the board secretary if available present your comments in a respectful and professional manner refrain from mentioning any student by name and contact the superintendent directly regarding personnel matters

048board of education members are not obligated to respond to issues raised during public comment normally such issues are referred to the superintendent for follow-up i will advise when speakers reach three minutes and we would expect you to summarize your comments and wind them up after that and we'll start with our first speaker tonight mary ellen agar welcome mary ellen agar 6024 avon street i no longer have any children in the party schools but i care about the students in our community i taught at st monica school for over 30 years and at western and kalamazoo valley for 12 years i have seen many changes in the way that we teach our classes from open classrooms the new math the chicago math no cursive writing no books because they're all on our tablets i tried to

049adjust with each change that was introduced and except for the new math which i did pretty well however asking me to teach that white kids are racist and others are not it's not something i could do i have read about the crt which is the critical race theory and discussed it with many friends and other teachers and it is kind of my understanding that portey's public schools will not be participating in this damaging program that will destroy our children for several years to come teaching the crt is not my job or wouldn't have been it wouldn't it isn't the job of other teachers my job is to educate the children and let's say science or math english social studies and other subjects if you ask who should teach their children about differences in races their

050parents have that responsibility to teach their children not teachers i'd never want to hear kids on the playground whisper are you a racist i know i'm not but she said all white people are oh geez well maybe i am i hadn't thought about jimmy being different i know that he eats different food than i do but that's just who he is he's still my friend this conversation should never take place on any of our playgrounds because of our schools buying into the crt and i personally like to thank the fordy school board for allowing me to suggest that we not take part of this program and that partake in the flavor of the month which is easy to do for education thank you marianne thank you our next speaker is jennifer gaylord hi i'm jennifer

051gaylor first i want to commend the board on their decision to provide parents with options this fall by having masks in school optional masks you are in good company with 306 other people who signed my petition to keep masks optional so again thank you however there are a few things i want to clear up i want to know what society puts children in danger to save adults are we masking and vaccinating children for the greater good are we masking and vaccinating children in order to protect adults and the elderly children fare well with covid and should not be vaccinated or masked against an illness and which does not affect them we need to prioritize our children again they've been forgotten in this pandemic and we continue to put their well-being to the wayside with these

052nonsensical mass mandates recommendations and restrictions by politicians who disobey their own rules our district should be operating at a pre-pandemic level at this point and anything else is really not acceptable the journal of american medical association just published a new study on june 30th of this year regarding masks and the level of carbon dioxide in kids the study took 45 kids ages 6 to 17 in a controlled environment to wear face masks within three minutes they found kids were inhaling carbon dioxide more than six times the acceptable limits for adults just a couple months ago there were thousands of pages of dr fauci's emails released to the media outlets under the freedom of information act this one stands out to me from dr patchy quote masks are really for infected people to prevent them from

053spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from inquiring infection the typical mask you buy in the drugstore is not really effective in keeping out the virus which is small enough to pass through material so i'm not a betting woman but if i was i would bet that most people in this room including people who support mass mandates have been to a restaurant a barbecue socializing with other families soccer games football games hey even graduations and i bet that you and your kids were not wearing masks the entire time if i went on your facebook or social media pages right now would i see gatherings of your kids mask list i probably would see i want choices for my family my choice does not impede upon your rights or freedoms

054however your choice for everyone to wear a mask does just that it infringes upon my rights and forces my kid to do something he does not want to do let's not forget there's a virtual option for those who feel less safe sending their kids to school so i noticed on social media a mask mandate petition circulating so i entertained it and by the way that petition only received half the support that mine did direct quote from the mask mandate petition children may currently be less likely to transmit the virus to one another and less likely to have serious consequences from it but the chance of complications is certainly a good bit higher than zero so that's our benchmark zero zero cases the former fda chief has said we're always going to have some level of

055spread we're not trying to get this down to zero cases a day end quote predicting infections will become endemic meaning they will remain present in the american population seasonal flu for example is an endemic respiratory illness our battle is not against the sniffles everyone it's against death and overrun hospitals three minutes jennifer i'm sorry three minutes jennifer can i summarize one last paragraph please please thank you i just hope when these politicians issue new recommendations the board remains steadfast in their decision not to mask our children hey if our president can let millions of illegal immigrants through our border who are unvaccinated we can let our kids go massive thank you thank you jennifer [Applause] our next speaker tonight is christopher sanchez welcome uh before my time starts may i raise a point of information

056please sure um one of the things that a little bit concerning for a lot of us is that across the school boards across america providing your address puts you at risk of uh being docked being targeted by extremist people so my point of information i mean are you guys requiring it or recommending it and where in the bylaws does it state that well i can't quote you the actual bylaw but it is in our bylaw and it's been a policy of the district for as long as i can remember so under these new circumstances as you guys said earlier in this hostile times political climate would you guys be okay if i didn't state my address for purposes of safety um you've written it down that's fine sir go ahead okay uh thanks thank you

057board uh for taking my um uh my statement today i i wanted to talk about division in the community uh you guys addressed it a little earlier that we're in a really uh political climate where everything is divisive and as you said portage public school is about to hit 100 years and you know it's been relatively stable through world war ii the cold war through uh the civil rights movement and it's been relatively stable because of people who are able to keep it stable through those hard times but it seems it seems that over the last couple of years the sport has decided to make what many of us believe extremist positions somebody just came up and talked to you about crt and i emailed you guys about diversity inclusion and equity which is a

058subset of crt and you said you guys are pushing uh die uh in your schools which is a subset of crt um and i don't understand how you guys either don't see that connection or you just don't know where the genesis came from but that is a subset of crt when you guys push die you are pushing a subset of crt um and i want to challenge you guys to to to really look at yourselves and say am i contributing to the divisiveness in our community and amongst individuals because uh uh d-i-e does teach people that because you're white you have privilege because you're white you might be uh unconsciously biased or unconsciously racist that is in the die literature and that is racist in and of itself attributing characteristics and attributes to a race

059based off of the color of their skin is racist that's racist you can't do that that's racist [Applause] on the flip side of that i'm a minority assuming that i need help or i can't compete with somebody because of their skin color that you guys need to help me out that's pandering and it makes me feel like i'm valued less than you because i need a head start in a race d-i-e is racist and it contributes to division in our community the second thing i want to challenge you guys to look at how you how you may be causing some division in our community is how people approach the vaccine issue whether you're vaccinated or not a lot of people who are vaccinated are looking at individuals who aren't vaccinated and assuming that that person

060who's unvaccinated is a threat to to the safety of the person who is vaccinated the existence of one human being is a threat to the person who is vaccinated we can't allow this type of language in our community we can't allow teachers to pressure people to get vaccinated or tell them that they're hurting the community if they don't get vaccinated or anything like that that's contributing to the divisiveness of this community and i just ask you guys on these you know these are two examples and there's many examples but these are two examples please go home look look up the don't take my word for it look it up yourself is die a part of crt are people's language toward unvaccinated people is that what's driving the division in our community so i just really

061implore you guys to go do that and thank you very much for your time and congratulations pps on 100 years thank you for your comments christopher our next speaker tonight is kelly sackett hello my name is kelly sackett i live at 7396 morganshire court i have two children that are currently scheduled to attend portage central high school in the fall i am one of the admin of a group the informed parents of kalamazoo and portage schools on july 10th i commented on portage public schools facebook page that portage public schools better have masking and testing procedure in place by the time before this board meeting on july 26th as many of our group also commented on that facebook post on july 12th portage public schools sent out an email stating that the current plan for

062the 2021-22 school year is to allow mass to be optional and that is if the situation changes then they will reevaluate that was this email sent out to appease us we are hearing mixed responses from various people at portage public schools and why was the letter not on official pub portage public schools letterhead michigan is in the top 10 for public schools k through 9 enrollment drop per year per the center square michigan experienced a poor a 4.13 drop in enrollment from 2019 to 2021. total enrollment nationwide is 51.1 million pupils meaning public schools lost 1.5 million pupils michigan data schools says that michigan lost roughly 62 000 pre-k through 12th grade students as many families last fall switched to private school or homeschooling michigan has lost an average of 13 000 students per year

063for the last decade but the last year almost five times that number so in 2020 they lost five times what they had lost for the past decade and that is according to the detroit free press michigan is clearly failing our kids we have many private and public schools around us who have put out official letters including madawan vicksburg schoolcraft kalamazoo christian and many more there are hundreds of them i have a list of them i've included i've brought information that i plan to share with you the bottom line is that we as parents have many choices for our children when looking at portage public schools facebook page 10 out of the last 13 posts were about the august 3rd bad proposal not once in the was there a post about this school board meeting tonight

064furthermore when you go to portagepublicschool.org it states that this meeting is in conference room 1 in the admin building 8107 mustang drive this tells me all that i need to know about you wanting to hear our voices heard thank you for your comments kelly our next speaker is rob welke hi my name is rob walk i want to thank you for allowing us to talk today i wanted to talk a little bit about what we're doing to our kids and with social distancing and mass and around this virus especially that you know i just looked while i was sitting here because i was curious about mortality rates and in 2018 2019 there was over children 0-17 that died from the flu in the last two years this according to statistics there's less than 300 that

065have died from proving we continue to our kids and penalize our kids for things that they have no control over we're not allowing them to be kids we're putting three feet between them and six feet between them and plexiglas and putting mass on them so they can't see each other my daughter is five years old she's going into kindergarten i would love for her to come to portage public schools my wife works here we believe in portage public schools we move to portage because they're good schools if she has to wear a mask i guarantee you she's not going to come here she will either be homeschooled or we are very fortunate that we can send our kids to private school i have a son who goes to private school because i would not put

066him in the school districts last year please return to normal please for the kids not for me not for anybody else allow our kids to have normalcy allow them to be kids like you were like like i was allow them to be together allow them to play allow them to hold each other's hands thank you rob our next speaker this evening is kimberly larson welcome good evening my name is kimberly i am a purge public schools graduate i'm a second generation prior schools porsche public schools graduate and my children are now third generation i'm proud of that recently michael pascoe sent an email to parents and included the statement mask will be optional for the 2021-2022 school year i applaud and approve this decision because i think it's definitely best that parents be allowed to

067make the decision that's best for their children and families when deciding if their children should wear masks at school there's a lot of controversy over that but it's their decision but now now i'm seeing emails that were sent to individual parents saying we'll still recommend that all unvaccinated individuals wear masks when out went indoors and in crowded areas and i really see that as a double standard i see a few problems here first of all students in the classrooms have been conditioned socialized you know they're used to it whatever term you describe as when the teacher says i really need you to do this they do it and it's good for the classroom management for them to do that because they're so used to it it's good so when a teacher says you're not vaccinated

068i need you to put on a mask that child is going to put on a mask and they're going to go home and when their parents say you don't need to wear a mask at school they're going to think oh but my teacher says i do and so we are setting up a situation in portage schools of teaching students that they should listen to the teacher instead of listening to the parent on a position that portage schools has said is the parent's decision so you have set up the parent's decision and then you're telling students actually no it's not because i need you to wear a mask the other thing that concerns me a lot is that you're taking a decision that's the parent's decision and you are telling those students who don't get the

069vaccine some of them because they're not able to some of them because it's a family decision and saying you are now less than in everybody else's eyes and we are going to make you wear a mask we're going to recommend aka require you to wear a mask so that everyone else knows that you are less than that you are dirty that you are germy that you will contaminate me and i don't see that as appropriate in today's society what is the first goal of anti-bias education to recognize that your culture and your family has value that where you come from and who you are has value and then we're looking at the school and saying wait a minute no you're not your family made the wrong decision and we're going to point it out to

070everybody in the school that we disagree with your parents decision and with your parents culture and that's a problem so what do we do instead i get that covet has fear a lot of people are so afraid of kovid that they put a mask on a mess it doesn't really do any good but they put it on because it makes them feel better so what do we do well i'm also a teacher so here's my thoughts on this first of all if kids have symptoms encourage them to stay home we proved last year that portage with their high flex system can have a child stay home because they have a sniffle or they have a cough that might be concerning and they can still learn and they can still receive instruction from their teachers three

071minutes let me finish real quick so as a teacher i've heard things they have a fever but i still send them to school my personal favorite yeah this child had a fever but they didn't have green snacks so i gave them tylenol and send them to school i mean come on seriously how many teachers have heard that we all have instead of saying masks instead of saying vaccines how about we just make it possible for sick kids to stay home it's simple [Applause] thank you for your comments kimberly our next speaker is terry haynes my name is terry haynes you have my address on file uh masks must never be mandated but they must never be recommended otherwise you are going to be held legally responsible for what happened i want to give myself as

072a personal example i want to give you three dates in my life december 6 2005 i had something happen to me that you'll never hear of for the rest of your life i was walking down to the basement and my stairs fell in hit my head on the wall had a permanent head injury it took two and a half years to take care of the pain to take care of the seizures that followed second date that i want to give you it was this it was april 24th of uh last year during the pandemic and i was told to wear a mask i came in ironically to that particular hospital not in this city by the way it was a c it was a city i lived in at that time but i was told

073to wear a mask and i was told and i told them i can wear masks but i can wear it only just for a little while because that's why i'm coming in i'm going to myers and within 30 minutes i'm feeling like i have to faint i almost faint i can't make it through the cash register i go out to my i go i got out to my car i take the mask off i breathe normally for 10 minutes and i and then i'm better and i can at least make it home so that's the second date that i want to give you i want to give you another date it took two and a half by two and a half years by way to take care of that problem uh the first problem uh

074the second problem it took it took six weeks i'm sorry it took six months and the reason is that i can't get in to see doctors without wearing a mask for over 15 minutes now guess what i'm apparently not a very i'm a very apparently somebody who slips and falls a lot because in april of this year i slipped fell on a doorknob and have recovered almost all of my injury effects look if you're going to require mass if you're going to recommend mass you must be held legally responsible and somehow because i can't get a doctor to see me in michigan if i don't wear a mask for over 15 minutes somehow you're going to have to transport these students that are having trouble over the state line to some other state line you're

075going to have to put them on a plane you're going to have to do something to take care of this problem this was a terrible policy you came up with and that's all i have to say [Applause] thank you terry our next speaker is jennifer oza hello thank you for hearing me tonight my name is jennifer otza i'm a resident of portage i have two kids that go to school here at northern um i i guess i'm a minority opinion tonight i'm pretty disappointed in the mass policy because i think there should be a mandatory mass policy as you probably are aware the american academy of pediatrics recommends that all unvaccinated children ages 2 and above wear masks when at school including when participating in outdoor sports where there is close contact and for indoor

076sports currently all children under 12 are not vaccinated against cobit 19. absent vaccination one of the best tools to prevent the spread of covid19 is masking by making masks optional pps has effectively given up its duty to protect the health and well-being of students especially those who cannot be vaccinated this is more true now than ever because of the delta variant which by some accounts is 1 000 times more contagious than the code 19 that we were dealing with a year ago additionally there have been some breakthroughs of even people who are fully vaccinated can get coveted some have been hospitalized and in our state i'm aware that several people have died even though they were fully vaccinated leaving the masked decision to each individual means that less than 100 percent will be masked and

077that means that the overall protection for the students is much less than if everyone is wearing masks approximately 45 percent of kalamazoo residents over 40 uh over age 16 have been fully vaccinated now the vaccine for 12 to 16 year olds hasn't been available for as long so we can say with some surety that less than 45 percent of those kids have been vaccinated and of course anyone 12 and under has not had that as a possibility um so i would ask each of you when you've gone out in our community when you've gone to the grocery store when you've gone to the restaurants have you seen 45 50 people wearing their masks and the answer is no thank you i was quiet while you were speaking i believe that is the responsibility of this

078body to protect the health of the students teachers and staff failing to mandate masks in effect is giving up on this responsibility by making masks optional you have effectively said that children some of them very young are responsible for deciding whether or not to wear a mask i think we all know that the decision of when and where to wear a mask can be complicated and can be impacted by the norms of the place do we really want young kids making that analysis who kids who are figuring out such basic things is how to get in line how to take turns and how to add making masks optional means that there is no rule or tool for teachers to use when they think a mask is appropriate this sounds like a difficult position to be

079in not only is the teacher in the position of not being supported by some thoughtful guidance from pps that they are potentially in harm's way if a coveted positive student is maskless many might say especially for students that they can avoid a massless environment by taking classes virtually however that is not much of a choice for many of us my own children they have one class that they could do virtually everything else is only offered in person and for teachers i think there's similar things most teachers have to be here three minutes jennifer thank you i suggest the better stance is that masks are mandatory and if a family does not want to use a mask that they would have the option to have virtual school thank you jennifer our next speaker is john rocha

080thank you very much my name is john rosham a resident of portage michigan actually 21 years ago i'm actually a student of portage northern high school and a little known story about me uh as an american mexican is on this stage i actually was part of and nobody knows this i was actually part of a show called the up the down staircase it was a performance we did and i was typecasted as the mexican student who didn't speak any english at all it's interesting right but you know why i was up there doing it it wasn't because i was mexican it was because i dang well was good at what i was doing i was a dang good actor on this stage and i should have done it way beyond this but i wasn't this

081is my point here at porter's northern high school i never thought i wasn't included with the people the majority of students here are white majority of them are very few are minorities i never clicked with one individual group i never thought of myself as an outcast people accepted me as a human being and that was important over the last 20 years we've seen that divide grow and now we're having these conversations about how we can try to uh pander to to people like myself other minorities mexicans like myself oh you you're not good enough we're gonna make sure you get that lead in the role or we're gonna make sure that you're you're better here so on so forth and again i implore you to look at these systems that are going on in the

082school board this is why i've asked um for the curriculum the individual curriculum because we need to know what's going on it's one thing to learn about someone teaching world war two it's another thing to learn exactly what we're teaching it's one thing to learn that in this week we're teaching about the american revolution it's another thing completely to know what is being taught about the american revolution crt 1619 project all of this stuff is hocus pocus it's been driven by divisive politics and we can't play full to it anymore when did we give up the content of one's character for the content of one's skin when did we quit that because that's what i was taught that's what my kids are taught and i never want them to be treated differently because of the

083color of their skin the content of their character and for them to work hard for what they want and finally i'll let you know this the parents behind me are not a flash in the pan they're going to be here and we're going to grow in numbers because we want to hold the board accountable for the actions that they take because these are our children's lives it's not about divisiveness it's about coming together and if you guys decide you want to take a different path that's fine because we'll be here and we'll be louder next time we understand the process we understand three people are coming up for reelection we also understand recall procedures so please understand that though we appreciate your guys presence here we're not going away this is just the beginning thank

084you guys [Applause] thank you jen our next speaker this evening is mary beth henry this letter is a collaboration between portage students parents alumni residents and community leaders we are thankful for the positive feedback we have received from pps staff opposing sb 460. we are asking that the district not only verbally oppose this bill but empower educators and administrators to contact our legislators regarding not supporting sb 460. as we continue to restructure our centennial values this is an area where we can take a stance in continuing to fight for equity in our educational system after attending or viewing the june 14th board meeting we have become aware of issues our middle school students have been facing we are thankful for the middle school teachers who spoke up and for the many others who added their

085names to that necessary statement we ask that you reference that meeting recording at the 33-minute mark if you're not aware of those concerns addressed the concerns and requests addressed not only discussed the inequities faced this past year but the barriers these educators have been facing for many years as superintendent board trustees and overseeing principals and assistant principals this is unacceptable for educators the teaching conditions they are requesting is at minimum and expectation in meeting their daily teaching needs for students who have struggled through these conditions we have failed our vision of being an exceptional continuously improving learning culture with high expectations committed to all we only hope that another school year does not pass where our students basic daily needs are not met as stakeholders these unfulfilled securities are broken promises that have been made

086to this community we look forward to hearing the action plan for addressing these concerns not only for our middle schoolers but ensuring these matters are taken care of across all pps sectors we are thankful for our educators commitment to providing quality education no matter the circumstances and will continue to stand with them until safety measures resources and necessary working conditions are met thank you [Applause] thank you mary beth our next speaker is juliette altman hello my name is juliet my address is already noted and the whatever signup sheet i'm actually a new resident to portage i moved here from kalamazoo because i have two special needs kids who were failed by kps and i have another student that is currently attending wood's edge and throughout the whole once resumed school after the shutdown has been

087massless this whole time due to his special needs but he is transitioning into portage and as a parent of two special needs kids i am concerned with the wording and the lack of clarity from the board we understand that the parents that are not in support of the masks have received certain communication from the staff and the parents that have that are in support of mask have received different communication i don't appreciate the pandering and i'm sure that they don't appreciate that either we're just asking for clarity and also none of the the statement that was sent out did not address all the other concerns that the michigan return to school plan addressed such as the testing twice weekly for unvaccinated children it also did not mentioned what the plan will be for if there

088are a close contact in case that somebody does test positive and if you're going to resume quarantining my concern with the recommendation is that you will not require but you will recommend and as a parent of two special needs kids they don't have a voice literally they do not communicate verbally their form of communication is through icons and my son is learning how to communicate with his ipad i am his advocate unfortunately i am placing my full faith my full trust in portage schools to educate him to value him as the human that he is his worth does not come by communicating verbally his worth is there because he is an amazing human i have to advocate for him and i cannot be in the room obviously at school i mean literally no child wants

089their parent in the room with them let's be honest he can't tell me that but i'm pretty sure that his attitude would change remarkably like say mom seriously you're a lot so i won't do that obviously and i respect the teachers seriously you guys have done a tremendous job this past year and i'm sorry that you don't have a contract i'm sorry that your voice isn't being heard i'm not against you and i'm not against the parents either ultimately all we want is clarity and all we want is parent choice i truly believe that you are doing as parents everybody in this room is trying to do the best that they can for their kids i own a small business as a medical interpreter and i have done so for 14 years actually sorry my

090math is wrong it's going to be 16 years when nobody else wanted to go into copic positive rooms because of the fear of the unknown i went in i took the risk because i am young and healthy my spouse is young and healthy our kids are young and healthy we didn't know what we were facing back then in march when the shutdown happened we didn't know what the risk was but having been a medical interpreter for years it's not the first pandemic that i've worked through so i figured if this is my time this is my time i will die but at least i served my spanish-speaking community i did not die but i did go into those coping rooms i'm not dismissing the reality of covid and i'm not dismissing the pain suffering and

091death because i have been in those rooms but also i have been in rooms where suicide has occurred teenage suicide whether failed attempts or unfortunately successful suicide and having to talk to the parents it sucks and i'm sorry that the kids in this era are having to deal with this as a suicide attempt survivor i am sorry that kids feel that this is the only way that their voice is being heard i know that you're in a difficult position i recognize that anything you say will be controversial i don't wish to be in your seat but i thank you for taking your time to be here i pray that you do have peace and clarity and i just ask that you provide that clarity to us as parents as staff as citizens of this community

092who are entrusting our children and generations to be educated by portage thank you juliet we have one more speaker who missed the opportunity to sign up to speak does that person wish to speak who is the person that missed the sign-up sheet please go ahead can you give us your name and address please my name is kendall gladding 2-9 i'm sorry 6328 cherrywood street i am the parent of two elementary students at amberley and i'm obviously going to discuss the unpopular opinion that masking should be required in the schools i'm not going to go into a lot of detail i'm not going to convince anybody to change their minds i'm sure it's obviously a very controversial issue i just would like to ask a few questions i know you can't answer them today but some

093things that i would like people to be thinking about and would like some answers to at some point without requiring masks for kids obviously my kids can wear masks if we ask them to but will there be enforcement i know that those who don't want maths are concerned about possibly or unvaccinated children being ridiculed ostracized in some way because we're creating groups in a situation where all kids should be treated equally we're creating artificial groups of masked and unmasked i have the same concern for my kids that if i send them to school in a mask are they gonna get teased are they gonna is there gonna be peer pressure which we know there will be peer pressure to take off the mask if they do is the teacher going to tell them to put

094it back on how is that going to be handled it just creates so much work and controversy with regards to how to maintain that environment safely will there be mask breaks will there be a focus on doing more of the schooling outdoors like there was last year amberly is a really really old building there's no air conditioning it's like 100 degrees in there in the fall in the summer air purifiers don't do a whole lot in a room where there's no circulation of the air so is there going to be any effort to do anything additional to create an environment that's safe for the kids to get the kids that do choose to wear a mask to have their mask breaks like they did last year are there going to be any considerations given to

095physical education classes or music classes last year they were brought to the rooms one person coming into each room is my understanding will the kids all be going to the same room will they be playing the recorders will they be singing full volume masked and unmasked is there consideration for how that might be handled and how that might increase the spread of covid and you know i you talked several times about layered mitigation strategies and i struggled to understand what those were from the presentation that was given because you said you're going to recommend masks which isn't a mitigation strategy you said you're going to try to maintain three feet of distance which that's not a mitigation strategy if you're not actually going to succeed at that which we know is not going to happen

096given the size of the classrooms the cleaning was said to be kind of the per usual was good enough because it's not really a surface borne illness so once a day is enough maybe we'll a little bit more high frequency surfaces clean those a little bit more and stay home if you're sick so i don't really understand what pps or the schools or the board or whoever's making the decisions is doing there's not a single mitigation strategy listed there that you all or the schools are responsible for the last questions would be what's the threshold for requiring masks what would cause you to say okay we think that we should go back to this is it going to require a mandate is it going to be if there's five percent positivity 20 positivity if there's

097an outbreak in the school will the school close down you know there's there's so many questions that you guys that there was no answers to today it was a very brief superficial discussion of what the plan is and not a lot of answers so i'm hoping that we get some more of those before we have to decide what to do in a month i had planned on sending the kids back face to face i was looking forward to it they're looking forward to it but i'm really discouraged by the limited information and the limited sense of safety i have given what i've heard thank you for fitting me in thank you all right that that ends our public comment for this evening appreciate it i i didn't get a chance i wasn't gonna comment and

098then as i was sitting here i decided i'd really like to make a comment so could you this is our last comment then sir please all right thank you sir your name and address please yeah my name is adam hykala and i'm not going to give my address as part of what i discussed as i walked in the door is that boards across the nation continue to try to say that that's your requirement for participation from the public and that is unconstitutional and unjust and i can i mean i'm not shocked in any way because i have spoken to many boards across the state of michigan school boards county boards township boards village boards because right now we are no longer in control of our government like we are to be in america and it

099says it right here i want to read you guys something to write from your own little booklet here this is what made me want to comment okay you said that the board of education meets in public for the purpose of conducting the business or the district's business it is not to be considered as a public community meeting this is not supposed to be a public meeting it says but time is provided on the agenda for public participation i've seen this problem all over the place and it stems from this on this other section of your own piece of paper here says your policy and governance says that you you're doing this uh the portage board of education has adopted a model of administrative organization called policy governance this model requires that the board operate as

100a single unit by enacting policies to guide the staff in operations and decision making which leads me to believe that you as a board have not had a descending vote in probably many years if we go back on the history is every single vote is unanimous because you have a policy that you all make your decisions not here for the public to know what you are doing but behind the scenes because i've been on boards like yours as well and i know how those decisions are made because this is the corruption not in washington dc that we as americans need to focus on but it's right here on our own schools when you have already admitted in the beginning the first things you said and talked about was misinformation how much misinformation has happened over

101the last year back and forth and changes that have happened that has happened because all of these statistics that they claim to use have been created out of this pandemic time they're using statistical data to continue to destroy america i don't know why exactly that is but boards like yours continue to allow groups like the cdc the department of health all of these bureaucratic boards that are unelected that are ultimately socialist communist boards that do a control from outside of this community you now have blown smoke up the rear end of how many of your residents and parents that are upset about masking and other things but obviously what you told them was false everything that was read as far as what's gonna happen you're gonna force masking you're gonna you're gonna force the masking

102because it is the divisive strategy that's going on in our nation today the fact that you all can sit there with a straight face it's mind-blowing and now i just found out too i figured with a school district this size you would meet twice a month because you have so much that you should be doing and working on but instead on your schedule i saw that you have four retreats a year that you all attend i as a township supervisor went to the michigan township association conference i know what happens at those conferences you get wined and dined big old parties and yeah we are cool and important you are not the rulers of the community adam three minutes you do not get to say that you cannot speak like this to you in this

103community me it is against the constitution our rights to redress the grievances with you who are elected to govern with the duty that you all are entering up thank you that ends our public comment for this evening i want to thank everybody for coming out you've certainly shown a diversity of opinions and given us a number of things to work on thank you and we're going to move on with our agenda now and move to trustee comments are there any comments from trustees this evening well randy i'll start i'll just be very clear i've never been wined and dined um by anything um i've had a few maybe uh jimmy john's type sandwiches and our retreats which are open to the public um so no it's i'm i'm saddened that our public officials of townships

104do that but i can promise i've never done that i just want to be clear thanks rusty we've never left the buildings no they're all in the building a point of information no no no any other comments from trustees okay we're going to move ahead with our consent agenda this evening we have one item on our consent agenda and that's the approval of the meeting minutes from the june 28 2021 special meeting the regular business meeting and closed session are there any exceptions to the consent agenda as presented uh hearing none the consent consent agenda is approved as presented uh we'll now move to our action items the first one is a chromebook purchase on page 30 is there a motion please yeah president van impe i move that the board of education approved as

105presented the purchase of 1400 chromebooks from inacomp tsg of michigan in the amount not to exceed and 338 dollars the proceeds for which will come from the esser covert grand funds thanks rusty's their second second thank you dan yes we actually got word from one of our vendors that they have chromebooks in stock and as that supply chain has been quite complicated during all things covic we've decided to take the available grant funds we have and purchase some more chromebooks at this time this part is insurance for us as a district but it also gives us flexibility to start phasing out some of our acer chromebooks that are no longer receiving software updates in normal classroom operations having a bit older software on a chromebook it's not a huge problem except when it comes to

106state testing the state of michigan frequently requires a more updated chromebook for their testing software to work and so this is both an insurance and a flexibility item again it's coming from grant funds so there's no impact on the general fund this vendor did bid via the state contract so no rfp was required on the part of portage and with that i'd answer any questions the board has any questions for dana should we take this to a vote all in favor of approving the chromebook purchase please say i i i opposed uh the motion passes and the chromebooks uh are on the way our next action item is fiber optic testing appliance purchase on page 34 is there a motion please uh mr president i move that the board of education authorized the purchase as

107president of a fiber optic testing appliance from graybar of grand rapids michigan in an amount not to exceed 52 783.42 cents the proceeds for which will be drawn from esther grant funds thanks bozer second second thanks terry dan yeah uh so the board is aware that via construction and planned upgrades we're adding a lot of fiber optics to the district at this point in time we do not have a way to test this fiber optic equipment in-house we always have to contact a vendor for that service we've won an appliance to do this on our own for some time but given the expense we've delayed the purchase we've actually spent time trying to find a cheaper option and or buy some equipment that's used but we haven't been able to find that yet we did

108check around and this equipment is eligible under estro grant funds so once again we're able to secure this equipment without having to go into the general fund or the remaining bond funds at this point in time so with that any questions that i can answer for all of you any questions for dan okay let's take it to a vote all those in favor of approving the fiber optic testing appliance purchase please say aye aye opposed the motion passes to purchase the fiber optic testing appliance our next action item is on page 38 it's to approve our sro agreement with the city of portage is there a motion please yes mr president i move that the board of education approved the school resource officer agreement with the city of portage for the period of july 1st

1092021 through june 30 2024 in the annual amount of one hundred eleven thousand two hundred sixty four dollars and two cents as presented thank you terry is our second second thank you very much uh i don't know if there's any discussion or anything you want to say mark just that this uh reaches the hundred thousand dollar threshold that the board requires and uh it just it fall off fell off my radar bringing this to the board when we entered into it it is a three year agreement which is uh typical of what we've done in past years and these uh it is for two uh school resource officers uh one that's uh housed primarily at the central campus and the other at the northern campus and very good the contract is there for your uh

110for your perusal any questions should we take it to action just uh appreciate the relationship with the city for those officers right okay all those in favor of approving the sro agreement please say aye aye aye opposed the motion passes and the sro agreement is approved our next action item is to approve administrative contracts there's a motion on page 46 please yes mr president i'd like to make the following motion the board of education authorized the superintendent to issue administrative contract extensions not to see beyond the june 30 2023 with additional compensation the aggro as approved by the board as part of the initial 2021-2022 budget as presented thank you there's a second second thank you mark uh this is a uh pretty much an annual uh action item that comes to the board on

111administrative contracts the dollar amounts that are shown there are incorporated into the budget this primarily allows for all of the individuals the administrators listed to to allow for their steps step increases also as required by your policies uh anyone uh earning more than a hundred thousand dollars are highlighted in bold and that's done for you there as well it does not include the the four contracts that have already been uh approved by the board but it does essentially extend contracts for one more year so they're they're these administrators are all be under a two-year contract any questions for mark okay all those in favor of approving the administrative contracts please say aye aye opposed the motion passes the administrative contracts are approved and now we have that fifth action item that we needed to add

112and that's the audit firm recommendation and uh that recommendation itself could form the basis for the motion is there a motion please yes i guess it kept falls to me right um so i'd like to make do we go right to motion yeah okay i like to make the motion the board of education extend the contract with our cpa firm redmond robinson to conduct the district audit for the fiscal years ending in june 30 21 through june 30 20 23 at the cost of 102 000 over three years um thank you in front of us is there a second second thank you is paula gonna present anything are you gonna press anything i really don't know if there's anything to present paula called me this week and said hey we need to get this through

113because our contract has run up and they're ready to start work and we didn't have something that we didn't approve it so we just need to move it forward as you can see that the fee actually this year is going to go down a little bit and it's in the realm of what we've paid the last five years it's all about the same number um so it's really a formality but we have to approve it because it's over a hundred thousand dollar threshold over three years any questions about it happy to continue with raymond robson all those in favor of approving the audit firm recommendation please say aye aye opposed the motion passes and the annual audit firm recommendation is approved the audit firm recommendation is approved uh we'll now move to our discussion items

114and the first one is the annual student furniture purchase on page 49. ron's coming up to uh address this one and the next one as well and i think these are both that's if the board is so inclined uh to move these to action after you've heard them uh that would be a welcome move so i'll let ron finish with his first it would be much appreciated uh i'm bringing to you our annual uh furniture purchase um it's a recommendation that the board approved the purchase for building furniture from holland desk and chair company in the amount of sixty one thousand thirty five dollars and one cent and that would be coming from our general fund this is our normal part of our capital outlay process that we we do every year requesting priorities from

115buildings on furniture needs you can see that from the bid tab that you have that holland furniture was the largest which is why we're bringing it to you for the 61 000 that comprises eight of our buildings for a desk and chairs so i don't know if there's any questions related to that does anybody ever problem taking this to action no i don't but ron he's one of the few items in the world that isn't held up due to the pandemic they are delayed but not held up mr president i'm moved that we make the annual student furniture purchase an action item it's sound very good thank you all those in favor of making the furniture produce purchase an action item please say i i oppose the furniture purchase is an action item now and

116we need a motion please mr president i move that the board of education approved the purchase of building furniture from holland desk and chair company in the amount of sixty one thousand thirty five dollars and one cent the funds for which will come from the 21 22 general fund budget thank you terry seconded thanks bull all those in favor of approving the annual student furniture purchase please say aye aye opposed the motion passes and the annual furniture purchase is approved our next discussion item is central high school northern high school auditorium drapery purchase yes we are recommending that the board approve the purchase of auditorium draperies for central and northern high schools from i weiss holdings in the amount of thirty four thousand eight hundred and thirteen dollars these funds would come from uh our

1172019 bond fund from proposal one and out of our unallocated contingency which is one of the reasons we want to bring this to the board's attention again um we are looking to do some refreshing in the auditoriums this is one part of that um and uh next month we'll bring um several other uh items related to the auditoriums to the board uh to to start to refresh some of the lighting some of the other things that that need attention we know that we've had our draperies for over 30 years here right now and uh they they they need replacing at this time so uh we're looking for the board to approve that any questions for ron do we have a motion please to bring this item to action yeah mr president i'd like to move

118this item to an action item second thank you all those in favor of moving the auditorium drapery purchase to an action item please say aye aye opposed the motion passes this is now an action item and uh the recommendation on page 53 could be the basis for a motion to approve mr president i'd like to make the motion that the board of education approved the purchase of the auditorium draperies for central high school and northern high school from i wise holding the amount of eight thirteen dollars this fund will come from the 2019 bond fund proposal number one unallocated contingency thank you kurt is there a second second thank you all those in favor of the auditorium drapery purchase please say aye aye opposed uh the auditorium drapery purchase is approved and i'll go to

119our last discussion president just real quick just a comment i'm sorry it just struck me was doing this but um i apologize we approved the the furniture but i was just wondering there's some furniture for central middle and community high and i was wondering if we could take some of that out of the bond funds to save the general funds because those are two buildings that are so just something i don't know if we could i just said when you're i'm sorry ron when you said the draperies were coming from the the bond funds my brain went right there for those furniture purchases i don't know if it's a big deal or not we can check into that and see if that could be applied to that if it could be applied i i would

120be rusty the acoustics in here i could not hear what you said i'm sorry so um some of the furniture being purchased are for buildings that are included in the bond funds but all the money's coming from the general fund so i'm asking if we can if there's a chance we can pull that i would i would definitely be in favor of of doing that so i don't know i just just it just caught me when you when you we talked about the drapes right sorry that's okay it is possible okay i i mean we could we could we could look at doing that okay if that's something that the board i always like to preserve as much general fund as possible so there is a another let me just say on the future enhancement

121list is another batch of furniture that will be requested for the high schools that's on our list in the future so that will be requested out of the bond funds as well so we could add this to that just a thought so i don't want to complicate it just i guess the important thing is to get this uh this order yeah i guess if we uh if we make changes we can inform you and just it's allowable yeah i want us to move forward to purchase but just just if you can move that sorry about that thanks rusty okay our last discussion is naming a facility operations policy 7250. um yeah this uh this this is an interesting one because all of a sudden there's like a flurry of of naming and it came about

122because we're trying to put some signage on a couple of buildings uh namely the stable and the uh um dog house i'm sorry the stable and dog house those um those buildings have been referred to that um for quite some period of time now and now that the uh that the stable is more visible to from the road naming that or at least putting some signage on there would be appropriate so those are two uh two facilities that that are being being asked of the board to name the other is also the that commons area that's been created between central high school and central middle school has has kind of casually been referred to as centennial plaza or centennial park sorry and so that's another naming request that's coming from the from the administrators at

123that campus also we have two other uh two other things that one you were receiving a request from from several coaches and administrators to to name a portion of the cross-country course that's at west middle school after nick hosler who was a coach that was involved in the program they want to name a hill there and dedicate a sign at the base of the hill or at the top of the hill explaining why that that has been named that way hopefully the the runners i guess if they're running they're probably not going to have a chance to read that if they're fast enough but but at least it's it commemorates an individual who has contributed to track and field and cross country in the district and then the other it's not a request that's here

124yet is the naming of the media center the the library at mooresbridge elementary school after uh lori kirshman who served as principal there and is is now deceased so the board has reserved all naming requests for itself there's not really a specific process in place for bringing recommendations to the board or how that comes to the board i think that was done intentionally so that there wasn't a specific gatekeeper that people could come to the board and make a recommendation in uh in the naming of a facility or portion of facility so this is not as clear as naming a new building after the street it's located on its you know any naming of a facility or portion of the facility so i bring these to you for your consideration um you know you have

125the i guess the opportunity to to move some of these to action or to act on them and or to take a look at do we require an additional process to solidify the naming of any of these so i'll leave it at that and so i just real quick want to just give a brief uh history of nick hassler um because nick was a coach at portage central uh but he was loved by kids at northern and central he's he's out there cheering on kids from northern as much as he was from central heavily involved in the middle school cross country programs he runs the summer camps uh without pay and and really did it he's he's dedicated his life to to to young kids his middle school he was a middle school track coach

126um and he's the assistant cross country coach but you know watching those kids follow nick around that field that track field um she's like the pied piper i mean just just kids gravitate toward him and he just encouraged it didn't matter your skill he just encouraged kids uh and just you know i know the people from northern and the people from central understand what nick did for this community for the running community and this is like really it's just a little hill and like you know people aren't going to see it running up but the kids practicing i imagine that's where a good place for kids can meet when they stretch out and you know honor nick and be reminded what a what a wonderful i mean nick talked nick was was getting treatments and

127and still coached central middle school right up to the very end of the season he was at the uh or he was at the uh central uh the regional meet helping out and uh and he passed away just a couple weeks later so everything he did he was just dedicated and he did did say that that and he was deathly ill this past year of middle school track was probably the funnest time he's had his entire life um he's just he's just a wonderful person then i know it's just a small portion and this kind of leads to the cursement thing it's almost not like you're naming a facility but it's just such a small part that people can be you know it's really nice that we can honor some of these really good people

128with just a little thing so yeah thanks rusty i see nothing controversial about these names no i did good and i didn't even tear up i'm assuming the doghouse and the stable are no brainers as far as that goes because they've been called that since they were built 15 20 years ago close it was 2002 okay so 19 years ago so i recall at the time there was a lobby to name a building after a person that was kind of shut down at that time sure but um yeah i agree with you that it's a no-brainer that those are a no-brainer you know i'm not opposed to the other ones but i'm just saying those two have been called that for as long as they've been 20 years right yeah it's just there's no record

129of any formal action taken by the board i don't believe that policy existed at the time i mean do people need another month to get comfortable with this or are folks comfortable just elevating to an action item and going well i'm assuming iran wants to get signs at least for the new the dog house and the stable right he's in the middle of getting signs made i'm assuming ron is that correct is he still here okay he's just left okay yeah i mean yeah we we would like to get that done while we're still the projects are still open we we do have it on our directional signage but we just don't have anything i think the plan is to put it on the building itself on both on each respective building right but i

130mean that's more pressing than the other two i'm assuming as far as timing goes or is that not correct it would be nice to be able to move those two forward and i think also the the the naming of hosner hill i think those are the three i know the coaches would like to have something in place for near the start of this of the season um so i know those are those are the at least the three that have a little more urgency than the others you move it yeah um do we do honestly do we want to move them all to an action item as as a singular thing uh we have what we have three of them right um the state of the dog house and hassler hill that's what we wanted

131the park the park the two tooth uh the stable the hill and the hustler can i ask a question about the park so how is it different than what's the setting here um i mean it's a i don't know if it's any different it's a more of a confined space that you know that commons area between the two schools is not as clearly defined here i mean that was pretty much designed to be a functional space with uh for students and staff mostly for students but for for also for performances and and other events um has more it's a more of a defined area than as opposed to like we have tennis courts that kind of block the pathway from here to there so if that were open it could possibly be the same sort

132of thing there was never any kind of a formal uh process i think that came about rather casually to name it that um we could have a centennial lake right now there's a big pond out there right now north pond i'm sorry i digress just a question i wasn't i wasn't debating the issue i was just curious because i haven't seen the area in its finished form so i just didn't i you know i guess from my perspective the three the stable the dog house in hazler hill would if the board feels comfortable moving those forward and then maybe if you want to do more discussion on well we haven't heard anything formally on uh on the moore's bridge naming that's not that's something that they'll be working on uh this fall um centennial park

133was was added to this but again that was uh that's something that if you want to take some more time thinking about you're certainly welcome to do that so for tonight hassler hill and the stable in the doghouse sure we'd be happy with that taking that to action okay is there a motion to do that please to bring that to action i just i i'd like to uh make the motion that we may be the naming recommendations to an action item second all in favor of bringing these naming of facilities items to action please say aye aye opposed a motion passes is there a motion please for hustler hill to stable in the doghouse i move that we name [Music] the dog house the stable and hostler hill and approve that tonight second thank you

134all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed the motion passes and the naming requests are approved glad we could get that done for hustler hill that's good nick was a great guy i got goosebumps okay um we have a motion to go into a closed session to discuss collective bargaining strategy on page 61. president van ant were i move that the board of education move into closed session for the purpose of discussing collective bargaining strategy as allowed under the open meetings act 15.268 section 8c second second barbus roll call vote please mr groupers yeah yes mr rathburn oh yes mr van antwerp yes this is navarria yes mr snyder yes oh the motion passes we'll be going in a closed session and coming back to take action on the calendar thank you we're coming

135back here going down you enough to hang around one of their what are they the flyers yes for us oh this was left was this left by one of the speakers which one there's another one too that was given to me now oh it's that woman i'm sorry it's the woman who spoke well she was said something about informed parents of kalamazoo okay we're back in open session to take action on the affirmation of the school calendar for august and september is there a motion please uh mr president i move that the district shall operate through september 2021 within the framework of the 2021-22 school calendar that reflects the board of education's current school calendar proposal thank you is there a second second second thank you any discussion all those in favor please say aye

136aye opposed uh the motion passes and the calendar for august and september is approved and with that we are adjourned thank you randy thank you you