Livonia Public Schools Special & Regular Meeting January 25, 2021

001good evening and welcome to the special meeting of the board of education for january 25th 2021 for those of you who are watching at home and want to follow along with this relatively short agenda you can go to our website livoniapublicschools.org highlight over the board tab and you'll see board information if you left click on that a screen will open to the lower left and it will give you new meeting agendas and you should be able to see our agenda and follow along at that point again welcome and we'll go to item one our roll call mrs bonnifield mrs acosta here this is bradford here mrs burton here mr centers here this is jarvis here mrs bronnerfield is here and president johnson here we do have a quorum thank you mrs bonnefield that takes us

002to item two administering the constitution of oath of office to medlin acosta tommy bonafield dan centers and karen bradford um how are we going to proceed with this mrs uh oakquest yes we'll begin with mrs acosta and so we would ask judge mccann to proceed with that process and we welcome mrs acosta's family to the screen as well welcome judge mccann judge mccann if you're on with us would you um please move forward with the oath of office for mrs acosta representative clemente might you be willing to fill in please until mrs until judge mccann can join us thank you i can do that hello i'm representative kara clementi and if you'll raise your right hand please madeline i madeleine acosta i'm madeline acosta do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the

003united states do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of michigan and that i will faithfully discharge and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of member of the board of education of livonia public schools a member of the board of education of livonia public schools school district wayne county michigan according to the best of my ability congratulations thank you representative clemente would you be willing to do the same for mrs bonifield yes i will what is mrs bonifa i'm trying to find her this is my first time on it's tammy bonifield okay tammy okay uh please uh raise your hand tammy i tammy bonifield i tammy bonnefield do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states do you solemnly

004swear that i will uphold the constitution of the united states and the constitution of michigan and that i will faithfully discharge and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office the duties of the office of member of the board of education of the livonia public schools of the book as a trustee of the board of education of livonia public schools school district wayne county michigan school district wayne county michigan according to the best of my ability according to the best of my abilities congratulations mrs opus i believe that judge mccann may have joined us at this time thank you judge mccann we're happy to have you here with us and we'll let you proceed that may not be working after all i can see her square on my screen but i don't see

005her yeah so thankfully uh miss representative clemente we may call on you again for mr dan centers it would be my pleasure hi dan hi kara how are you very good i dan daniel centers i daniel centers do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states do solemnly swear i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of michigan and the constitution of michigan and that i will faithfully discharge and i will faithfully discharge the duties of office the duties of office of member of the board of education of livonia public schools a member of the board of education of livonia public schools school district wayne county michigan according to the best of my abilities congratulations and mrs bradford oh dear mrs bradford four four years ago i

006got to do this and i was also taking my first oath of office so this is very exciting to do this again for you karen so raise your right hand please i karen bradford i karen bradford do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of michigan and the constitution of michigan and that i will faithfully discharge that and i will face faithfully discharge the duties of office the duties of office of member of the board of education of the livonia public schools a member of the board of education of the livonia public schools school district wayne county michigan according to the best of my abilities according to the best of my ability congratulations thank

007you thank you cara for coming out to do that for me i appreciate it and for all the others it's i think we're having some technical difficulties with judge mccann so we thank her for coming out too even though she's not on not on the camera right now but we appreciate uh both of you coming out to help us out here well you have quite a job these last couple of years so good luck everyone and i'm gonna sign off because i have another meeting to go to thank you so much you're welcome bye-bye bye kara hi karen and thank you judge mccann if you're still there all right well done uh we'll move on then to audience communication and mrs jenkins we do have one yes thank you president johnson uh we have one

008communication that's been submitted through our google form on our website uh submitted by first initial d last name lock and i'll go ahead and read that comment um i would like to thank the board of education for continuing to broadcast these meetings online and continuing to give parents access to the google document to to submit questions and statements however i am still very concerned about the return to face-to-face learning at this stage of the pandemic while the lps district is basing their decisions on guidance from the county state and federal levels i'm afraid that the picture painted by these authorities is also overly rosy i dread the situation we could be facing in february and march if michigan goes ahead with the current plan to not only have indoor gyms back open but also to

009allow restaurants to resort resume indoor dining just because we have enough icu beds today doesn't doesn't mean we're going to be so lucky then while there have been a number of encouraging developments in recent weeks including approval of two available vaccines and a return to respect for science in washington dc that does not mean we are out of the woods checking the state dashboard early this morning we still only have a bit over five percent of the population of michigan vaccinated and while the most recent concerning mutations of the coronavirus that originated in the uk and south africa seemed to be covered by this vaccine the jury still seems to be out with respect to the mutation seen in brazil it is now it is naive to assume that the uk variant is only limited

010to the handful of people identified so far in washington county there are most assuredly hundreds of other cases cases incubating right now that just have not been diagnosed yet this strain spreads more easily between people especially between children and even though the majority of children do not do seem to weather this disease well that is not an assumption we can make for every child and it is by no means an assumption we can make for the adults that the for the adults that the child might transmit the virus to at home school or elsewhere the south african variant has similar mutations and the variant first found in brazil has even more concerning mutations it will only be a matter of time before cases of these other strains show up in michigan and push our health

011care systems to its limit again i understand the plight of the of the working parents in the district who need the school to function to us who need the school to also function as a child care resource i am a widow who works full-time outside of the home more than 40 hours per week and have no one else available for backup i i also recognize that without the normal school day plus stack latchkey before and after class i would not have been able to maintain employee employment back in the day this is an impossible situation that nobody asked for at the same time i also recall that scrambling to find someone to care for a young child at the last minute is very difficult even without a global pandemic complicating matters the degree of difficulty

012has to be one or two orders of magnitude greater at this point but opening the schools back up for days to weeks only to only to have to shut them back down again forces parents to have to continually look for child care resources again where it might be easier to just have a plan in place for the rest of the school year more importantly even if parents can scramble to find a situation that works for their family at the last minute we are still exposing children and adults in the school buildings and beyond and beyond to risks from the virus thank you for having the livonia virtual option which has been a godsend for my family i wish that more parents had taken advantage of this option or had the ability to do so i

013will i would ask that the school board consider having livonia virtual as an option again for the 21 22 school year because at this point i also think it is overly optimistic to assume it will be safe to go back to normal school activities in the fall and that can completes our audience communications for this meeting thank you you're welcome we will then move on to item four our election of officers and for the benefit of the community this is the meeting our regular meeting in january when we do elect our officers for the coming year we will the process that we will use is i will open nominations one at a time for our president vice president and secretary and then we will have a motion with regard to the treasurer once i open

014the nominations for president i will take the nominations uh once there are no further on nominations i will close the nominations and we will vote at that time and we will move uh through to our treasurer so at this time i will go ahead and open uh nominations for president do we have nominations mrs bradford yes thank you president johnson um i nominate colleen burton for the position of president thank you mrs bradford are there other nominations for president seeing none i will close the nominations for president and ask mrs bonnefield to take the role thank you president johnson uh mrs bradford yes this is a coaster yes this is burton yes christopher centers yes this is jarvis yes mrs bonnifield says yes president johnson yes mrs burton is elected a president for this coming

015year congratulations mrs burton thank you it is my honor to serve this this esteemed group we appreciate and look forward to your leadership i will now open the nominations for vice president are the nominations for vice president president johnson mrs burton i nominate mark johnson for vice president of the school district thank you mrs burton are there other nominations for vice president and again just you don't have to necessarily raise your hand just spit them out i see and no further nominations for vice president so i will close those nominations and ask mrs bonnefield to take the role mrs burton yes this is the coaster yes this is bradford yes mr centers yes this is jarvis yes mrs bonnifield says yes president johnson yes mr johnson is elected vice president for the coming year thank

016you and i look forward to serving uh in that role i will now move on to election for secretary and i will open those nominations that nomination now president johnson mrs jarvis i nominate karen bradford to fill the office of secretary thank you mrs jarvis are there other nominations for secretary seeing none i will close those nominations and ask mrs bonnefield to take the role mrs jarvis yes this is acosta yes this is bradford yes this mrs burton yes mr centers yes mrs brownfield says yes president johnson yes president until the meeting's over all right all right this is uh mrs bradford you have been elected secretary for the uh the coming year congratulations thank you everybody i appreciate it will move us uh now to uh item d under recommendations and i will entertain

017a motion for the appointment of treasurer anyone i need a motion president johnson mrs jarvis move that allison smith director of finance be appointed treasurer of the livonia public schools school district until the next annual election of officers support we have a motion by mrs jarvis supported by mrs burton is there any discussion or questions from the board at this time thank you mrs smith the the job that those of us yes the school board members attended the conference over the weekend with along with mrs smith on school law and finance and uh among other cabinet members uh it gave us again a renewed appreciation for the job that's done to keeping track of finance for something as complicated as a public school district so thank you so much for your service all right we

018have a motion by mrs jarvis supported by mrs burton to appoint allison smith as treasurer mrs bonefield would you take the role mrs jarvis yes mrs burton yes i'm sorry that should have been mrs bradford mrs bradford yes mrs burton says yes yes uh mrs acosta yes centers yes mrs bronefield says yes and president johnson yes motion carries thank you again mrs smith for all your hard work my pleasure thank you all right that brings us now to uh i know five our adjournment is there any other business to be brought before this meeting this evening seeing none uh we are in adjournment uh at this meeting and we will be back in just a few minutes for our regular meeting thank you one good evening welcome to the to the regular meeting of the

019livonia public schools board of education january 25th 2021 like to welcome everyone this evening mrs bonifield will you please take the role i'm sorry old habits die hard uh mrs bradford who is our newly elected secretary uh will you please take the role i sure will thank you president burton let's take this use of the new rules all right uh mrs acosta here mrs bonifield here mr centers here mrs jarvis here mr johnson here mrs bradford says yes president burton here we have a quorum uh mrs bradford would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance yes i pledge allegiance to the united states i'm sorry we'll try again she's a little nervous i pledge allegiance to the to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it

020stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice i got it thank you like to welcome everyone to this evening's board of education meeting uh we are meeting virtually this evening each week when we are have to do this virtually we hope that it is our last i'd like to assure the public that it is very much the desire of the board of education to be meeting in person and we are pleading with the states to make it legal to do so uh we will have a resolution later on in our agenda but in case you may not hang in there until near the end of our meeting i didn't want anyone to miss that uh we would like nothing more than to be meeting in person and as soon as the uh the

021state the health and human services department and the governor give us permission to do so we assure you we will be doing so immediately if you would like to follow along with our agendas this evening they are found on our livonia public schools website if you go to the livonia livoniapublicschools.org go to the school board tab go to board meeting info highlight over new meeting agendas and you can choose the date of the meeting and follow along with our agenda and we would welcome you to do so one very important character trait that we teach our students in livonia public schools is that of respect uh a portion of what we teach our children reads every livonia public school classroom and school environment will exhibit and promote mutually respectful and supportive interactions this board of

022education takes that very seriously and our board and cabinet team are committed to treating one another with respect uh frequently we agree with one another sometimes we don't but we are committed to treating one another respectfully you have that commitment from our board of education to our public and we would ask that anyone who interacts with the board from the public would exhibit the same respect toward one another we find that the best way to teach our children is to teach but is to lead by example uh the next item on our agenda this evening is item three communications and three a is district update from the superintendent so i'm going to turn it over at this time to our superintendent um this is andrea oquist thank you so much president burton and we welcome

023all of our board members in their new offices um both our three officers as well as those who took the oath of office this evening so thank you for your commitment and dedication to our schools our students and our district so i'm going to invite mrs jenkins to share our district update presentation this evening that i'll be going through and i'm celebrating many highlights across our district this evening so to kick us off we are thrilled to share with you that we are going to be celebrating in person hopefully next month um our educators and support staff of the year so i'd like to share with you the good news um about these three remarkable individuals and then know that we will be inviting them to join us at our first in-person board meeting this

024year so i'd like to first celebrate our elementary education of the year lorraine georgino mrs georgino is a physical education teacher at both webster and cooper she has a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm um for her work with our students um it provides just engaging opportunities um in physical education um with every class she teaches so congratulations to mrs georgino our elementary educator of the year next we have our secondary educator of the year mimi higgins mimi is a special education teacher at holmes middle school also recently served in that role at stevenson high school so mimi was celebrated virtually as a surprise from her her home's colleagues we are thrilled to share her is just an exemplary example of a tremendous educator with heart and high integrity and tremendous care for the students

025with whom she works she's a valued colleague and we are very excited to welcome her next month to our board meeting to celebrate her acknowledgement of secondary educator of the year and finally our support staff member of the year pat shoehart so pat is the supervisor for food and nutrition services for livonia public schools and i know that the folks certainly around the screen know how busy that department has been since we had our closure first closure in march of 2020 she had she and her team have been hard at work at meeting the food and nutrition needs of thousands of students across our district um and many of our families she has worked tirelessly throughout the spring summer fall and uh this winter and just continues to find innovative ways to reach students and

026families in need so congratulations to pat on this well deserved honor this past week on martin luther king day while our students were home our leaders were here together we had two significant elements of our day with each of our school and district leaders we took the opportunity to both learn and grow we learned more details about the 2021 bond proposal that we have before the board this evening and an important opportunity for us to continue to grow in our diversity equity and inclusion work so one of the opening quotes to our day was faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase that quote from dr king really encapsulated for us this past year and taking each step that we have in a in a pandemic world of educating

027our children and caring for their well-being has really taken a tremendous effort on the part of so many individuals and one important element that we wanted to continue our growth and development was to really take a look at the issues around diversity equity and inclusion as you know we have a very important engagement and equity team that has been hard at work on these important elements over the past few years um we had an opportunity to dig deeply this past monday with our leaders and continue our district beliefs and our goals and intentional avenues of effort around this important work so we'll share with you a few pictures that highlight our day we had our administrators engaging with one another on individual and small group reflection i mean we now have that opportunity to bring

028that back to our engagement and equity team as we continue this important work going forward also had an opportunity to spend some time talking about our no new tax bond proposal that our board will be voting on this evening we really had an opportunity to dig deeply with our district leaders and talk about the details of the bond proposal and garner their feedback and input during this important process so we have many congratulations in order this evening i know you will be very excited to see a number of these highlights so we will be thrilled to welcome a state champion swimmer to our next board meeting mackenzie saroki is a state champion swimmer in the 100 yard breaststroke cheat with an all-american and new school record from stevenson with a time of one minute one

029sec 1.45 seconds mackenzie is has worked tremendously hard um in and out of the pool to achieve this uh tremendous goal of hers and we will be thrilled to welcome our state champion swimmer when we are together again at our next board meeting congratulations mackenzie on all of your efforts we'd like to also congratulate coach stevenson hockey coach david mitchell certainly coach mitchell is not new to being honored for his tremendous work as a leader in the field of coaching and leading our student athletes he was recently named by the national federation of state high school hockey associations michigan's coach of the year um so as we have shared before um coach mitchell is an exemplary example of an advocate for our students a leader amongst his colleagues and we are so very fortunate to

030not only have him as an educator but to have him as a caring and dedicated and you know highly effective coach in livonia public schools so we are thrilled to share this honor for him this evening and also our own lps board of education trustee mr dan centers was recently named to the michigan association of school boards board of trustees so we have been asked does that mean we lose him no the good news is the good news for us is he's still here uh the challenge for him will be he's taking on um yet another important role so thank you to trustee centers for representing um large school districts throughout the state on the michigan association of school boards and it's always great to have our staff acknowledge not only internally but externally and

031so we have some different media outlets that highlight our teachers when nominated by parents or families and so last week mary collins was named wnic's teacher of the week she is an amazing teacher at cleveland elementary who cares deeply about her students and certainly one of the things that was noted was what a kind and caring teacher she is so congratulations to mrs collins and i'm sure some of you uh saw this this uh really went uh viral on our social media but kudos to churchill high school class of 2020 anna jackman and churchill senior julia grishan for earning the top rank of eagle scout in their respective boy scout troops of 1841 and 66.95 we are so tremendously proud of their efforts and i know that you know how much work it takes um

032to earn this honor and we are so very proud of both of them so congratulations to both anna and julia well over the past two weeks we have been busy in livonia public schools certainly nothing new but we are so happy to have all of our in-person learners back at school following our pause that we have been in since mid-november so as you know january 11 we welcomed back our students in grades k through 6 as well as our special education students and this past week we were able to bring in the remainder of our students and our middle schools and high schools so we just want to share a few highlights with you from the past couple of weeks you see our learners working both independently and in small groups doing a tremendous job

033following our safety protocols and i will tell you what they have not missed a beat as you'll continue to see in these pictures they are back at work um interacting with one another following our safety protocols um and again this is an effort a collective effort on the part of so many across our staff our parent community um and certainly our students who have stepped back in and it was like they were not gone for a day and then finally we have a special video that i wanted to share with you this evening and then a few comments about this so um this is a special video message from some of our franklin high school athletes mrs jenkins is the sound coming through on that okay hold tight stacy you may need to unmute yeah

034so you couldn't hear that at all no oh still nothing no okay i'm not real sure how to fix that any suggestions mrs jenkins i'm not i don't know how to fix it but it is an important message and we do want to hear from our students on this issue so if you'd like to work on it through the meeting we do have many agenda items if at any time you think that you've got it figured out i'm happy to take a break in the agenda and uh and come back in to hear franklin students on this issue okay president burton while she does that i'd certainly um be happy to follow up on on this important message and then perhaps um when i'm done we'll be able to to play this video um but

035i wanted to take a minute to really end on this district update with a slideshow of our franklin girls basketball student athletes as it really captures um the essence of my final message this evening last friday it was announced that our winner athletes would see an extended pause on their season this time through february 21st um which normally would have been near the end of their season um in a in a quote normal year and while we know there is nothing normal about this year what we do know is that the well-being of our students is intertwined with many elements their academic learning their social emotional needs and their physical health and safety and as you know in livonia public schools we have shown an unwavering commitment to addressing the needs of our students in

036each of those areas and so that really includes this impactful decision which when it came on friday really put in front of our students an additional month of pause on competition we believe that our student athletes their coaches and our school and district leaders are willing to do the hard work they've shown us that time and time again we've done that when it comes to preparing for the return of our students to in-person learning and we've done that this past fall during our fall season of athletics our teams have prepared and planned and implemented each and every safety measure and protocol that we've asked of them we believe in them and we believe that the best thing for our students would to have the opportunity to begin their competition on february 1st as planned and

037allow us to hold one another accountable for the hard work that we know needs to be done we don't take this request lightly each day over the past 10 months there is not a leader in our district or at the state level who has not been concerned about the well-being of our students and staff they are at the forefront of our thinking and while this may only seem like one small portion of their lives as a mom of two former athletes i can tell you that these opportunities these moments mean the world to them they have worked tremendously hard to get to this point please come visit with us at eddie edgar arena the franklin competition gym the stevenson field house or the churchill court and i know our state leaders will see what our

038student athletes their coaches and administrators can and will do we ask to be entrusted with the ability to implement these stringent measures that have been designed so our students can have the opportunity to play the sport do the activity or participate in the event for which they have worked so hard believe in us because we believe in them thank you mrs oquist mrs jenkins any luck on uh giving this a try i am on with uh fred our tech support he's going to try to play the videos as a separate youtube link through the stream so and this is also i saw one suggestion that came through about uh sharing the via sharing with sound evidently that's an option i'm not familiar with it but i want to pass that on to you okay we

039can all certainly be patient for a few minutes and see if we can get that to work well we are waiting for a few moments um one thing that i did want to mention while we're in our communications section uh we did at our 6 45 meeting uh elect new officers and swear in our board members who were newly elected uh some were returning to continue their service and our news board member is madeline acosta who is joining the board for four years of service at this time we would certainly like to thank all of our board members for for this service uh it's a tremendous team to be to have the honor of working on and serving um i would like to give a shout out and a thank you also to mrs bonafield

040for continuing her service uh over a great deal of time of uh being the secretary of the board that is not an easy position to be in uh you're having to participate in the meetings as well as record all the goings-on and that's uh that can be a lot harder than it looks uh and i certainly want to thank mr mark johnson for serving as president for the last three years uh specifically over this past year everybody in every job that they do has done it with much more difficulty over this past year bar none and the school board president is certainly falls in that category mr johnson has literally responded on behalf of the board to hundreds i would venture to say into the thousands of emails at this point uh with our community

041our staff and our parents as we navigated getting our students educated to the best of our ability via uh be it virtually or in person or uh going remote back and forth a bit pivoting uh so mr johnson we would like to thank you and i would like to thank you on behalf of the board of education for representing uh the other six of us to our community uh in countless hours of communication so i would like to thank you for your service i am humbled by your kind words thank you mrs jenkins my screen moved around a bit um any luck with getting our franklin ladies on to speak to our community i'm on the phone with fred still and he's trying to figure out if he can um possibly play the youtube link

042outside of this presentation okay um there's a setting that's not i'm not sure how i can get the setting change to have the screen share okay why don't we do this as i said a moment ago we do have a number of agenda items if you can please feel free to interrupt me at any time if that video is ready to go and we will drop it in wherever we are along the course of our evening because we certainly don't okay take care of that okay i'm looking at our agenda we'll be around for a while tonight okay thank you thank you mrs oquist did you have anything else to add after the comments on athletics that was it it was just an important message that um i really wanted to share with our community

043uh this evening with our state leaders and again it's a sincere invitation and a respectful request to have that dialogue um to visit us here in livonia public schools and we are committed to doing it right and most of all we are committed to the to the students we serve thank you thank you and i know that the the parents and student athletes certainly appreciate your advocacy um those of you those of you in the community who may be listening to this message tonight uh please also whether it is on student athletics or other edu other issues as they affect education please do contact your legislators or the governor or the department of health and human services we have those links on our website they're there intentionally so that you can have ease of communicating

044uh out to those who are making decisions that do affect our local uh local school districts so if there is something that's important to you please don't hesitate to contact either the district or in many cases if it's out of our control our state folks uh to uh advocate for what's important to your family your students and and uh and your community yes i think we got it we got it okay go right ahead let's try we'll try again okay fingers crossed my teammates and i would like to express the need for contact sports to resume for our team and thousands of student athletes affected by the finances hi my name is kayla bates and i'm a livonia franklin student athlete hi i'm emily burton and i'm a new franklin student athlete hi i'm sammy

045hampton i'm a livonia franklin student athlete we want to compete we have followed all safety precautions we always wear mats have our temperature checked and sanitized as a team we take this opportunity to play seriously sports reduces depression and anxiety athletics improve mental health and physical well-being we need basketball to resume this team makes me a better student and person we are committed to following all safety guidelines we are student athletes please let contact sports start february 1st my team and michigan high school athletes are committed to holding themselves and their teammates accountable to follow kova safety protocols thank you so much to the to the franklin ladies for for presenting that information it does mean a lot to hear directly from our students and we really appreciate the effort that you've taken to put

046that message together and even the more the the effort that you and hundreds of student athletes throughout the district have taken to to participate safely and to show the adults in leadership that you can do this safely and we are behind you and we are very much desirous of having you continue to be able to play this season on time starting now mrs opus did you have anything else you'd like to add no i initially thought it would be great to have them precede my comments but i think it was even better to to have them with the final word so thank you we are so proud thank you the next item on our agenda is written communications do any board members have written communications that they would like to share at this time seeing

047none the next item on our agenda is audience communications uh we did have one audience communication in our previous meeting and mrs jenkins do we have any additional audience communications we do okay i'm going to turn it over to you okay thank you president burton we do have one audience communication that has come in for this meeting via our google uh form on our website so i'll go ahead and read that it was submitted by mike testa regarding tonight's agenda item resolution to allow lps school board to meet in person i support the board advocating and expressing their opinion to the governor and to the md hhs for this or any other matter when in-person board meetings are allowed to resume i would like to request that changes be made to improve these meetings to

048make them more accessible and inclusive specifically i would like to see all meetings streamed online and to the lps cable channel additionally the option and accommodations to participate in a meeting remotely should be available for anyone that wants to anyone would include any board member the superintendent any cabinet member any person scheduled to present to the board on a topic and or any member of the publi of the public wanting to address the board no one should have to choose between their health and safety or risk and risk comfort level to attend a school board meeting the scope of this should be all board meetings including study sessions it is in everyone's best interest to reduce the size of any public gathering when it is possible to do so the technology exists to support this

049and is now widely used with minimal issues in-person meetings with the option for those who want to participate remotely can easily be done and i believe this is the right thing to do please take advantage of this opportunity to make improvements thank you for your time thank you uh are there any other audience communications mrs jenkins no no okay alrighty uh the next item on our agenda is response to prior audience communications uh i do not have any at this time uh the next item on our agenda is item for our consent agenda and may i have a motion president burton mrs jarvis move that the board of education of the livonia public schools school district approved the following consent agenda items as recommended by the superintendent 5a minutes of the regular meeting of december

05014 do i have support on that motion support we have a motion by mrs jarvis supported by mrs bonfield good thing we know each other's voices by now are there any questions or comments on the consent agenda seeing none mrs bonafield would you please take the role on this uh motion uh mrs bradford i'm sorry it's going to take us some time to switch gears here mrs bonifield you're off the hook mrs bradford i'm sorry would you please take the role on this motion thank you president johnson uh mrs jones represent mercy burton but that's okay wow this is really going well okay mrs jarvis yes mrs bonifield yes mr centers yes mrs acosta yes mr johnson yes mrs bradford says yes president burton yes motion carries the next item on our agenda is item

0517 personnel matters first item is the appointment of middle school principal you'll bear with me for just a moment may i have a motion on this item president burton mr johnson move that the board of education of the livonia public schools school district accept the recommendation of the superintendent and appoint shannon wheeler as a middle school principal at frost middle school sport we have a motion by mr johnson supported by mr centers and sorry hang on please we're having some technical difficulties tonight i appreciate your patience mr willenborg would you be addressing this item for us tonight yes yes i will thank you miss burton it's a special and joyful evening it is although by no means a stranger to the administrative leadership team of the livonia public schools please allow me to provide a

052brief recommendation and introduction of miss shannon wheeler as the next principal of frost middle school wheeler has earned our recommendation through a process that included a review of dozens of applications and three separate rounds of interviews just as important however is the distinguished and positive record she has earned through her two decades of service in the livonia public schools ms wheeler did her student teaching as a science teacher at where else frost middle school and has worked for over 10 years as a science teacher at churchill and franklin where she was also where she also served as a science department chairperson she cut her teeth as an administrator at where else frost middle school where she served as an assistant principal for four years miss wheeler was subsequently assigned as the principal at johnson upper

053elementary school where she has served for the last year and a half in both of those administrative assignments ms wheeler poured herself into her work and interjected her boundless energy and enthusiasm to create a welcoming student-focused learning environment miss wheeler fits perfectly with the principal profile that was created through the comments and input of the frost staff she is one of the few educators who can say she has experience and insights from every level of education but her passion is to return to her home in the middle at frost our interview committee expressed confidence in miss wheeler's ability to to transitions easily into this position she can hit the ground running and she needs no learning curve her compassionate and servant style leadership will catch the wins and create synergy among the students the staff

054and the overall frost community we recommend that ms wheeler be provided this assignment at the helm of frost middle school we're excited for her opportunity to guide frost into the currents of progress and higher achievement excellent thank you so much mrs oquist did you want to add anything at this time absolutely as i shared with the board uh last friday we are thrilled to bring you the recommendation of miss wheeler to join um our administrative team in a in a new position but certainly not um at a at a home school that is new to her as mr woolenberg shared she has really come back home after starting as a teacher at frost middle school she is has really in really infused whether it's her classroom at franklin her science department chair position her role

055at frost or at johnson she is an enthusiastic educator and leader and a collaborative colleague who always stays focused on what is truly in the best interest of the children in her care she has the ability to to think both specifically for her school but she's also contributed in more widely at the district level as well um and most recently um she was an important element and presenter um in our leadership work um on diversity equity and inclusion um with our leads team last week we are thrilled to be recommending her for this position she is a mom of two lps graduates and certainly has a lens again from that of an educator a parent a leader and as mr wollenborg said one of the reasons that we are so excited about this is because

056we take very seriously um the feedback that we receive with regard to creating that profile of a leader for frost middle school and mrs wheeler checks all of those boxes we know that she is excited and we certainly match that enthusiasm to bring her into this new role so welcome thank you uh board members does anyone have any questions or comments before we take this item to a vote welcome home yes congratulations you're gonna do great thank you mrs wheeler it is wonderful to have you coming back to frost that you obviously know so very deeply uh sometimes there's a bit of a learning curve of getting into a building and learning the the people and the culture of the building and uh obviously you've you've got that down pat already so we're thrilled to

057see you coming as you said back home so that's terrific any other comments or questions president burton yes i didn't help myself could i add just one thing you certainly may jump in mr buddy thank you so much i had the so i had the really unique uh uh privilege of having partnered with both ms wheeler and mr english at frost and i just could not have asked for two more uh just stellar partners and tremendous leaders uh ms wheeler i am out of my mind excited to see the two of you partnered up for frost you're going to do unbelievable things and i'm going to be your biggest cheerleader and your biggest fan so congratulations to you absolutely would anyone else like to make questions or comments porter cabinet we'll open it up president

058all right yes mr johnson i just want to know how much input ms wheeler had to get mr abadi to move out of that position mr johnson i cheered him on any other comments seeing none mrs bradford would you please uh take the role on uh on the appointment of middle school principal shannon wheeler for frost middle school sure mr johnson yes mr centers yes mrs acosta yes mrs bonafield yes mrs jarvis yes mrs bradford says yes president burton yes motion passes congratulations mrs wheeler we're thrilled to have you thank you thank you um because it's up to you i'd like a few words if i could absolutely it's your turn thank you thank you i would really like to thank the members of the board and superintendent oak west for pointing me to this

059principal ship there really aren't words to express uh how much i love frost middle school and how excited i am to be heading back there it is home uh my my blood sweat and tears are in that building and i will tease mr phil francis because i told them you know i'm in that building from the serious gray and the navel on the walls that are in our stripes um it's just uh it's it's where i want to be it's where i spend a lot of time and uh the staff there is family to me i led that building for four years with anthony abate they were in fact probably the best four years of my career um the outpouring of support from frost in the lps community in me returning to that position has

060just been so touching uh for me to to get phone calls and text messages and they loved anthony they love him dearly but as soon as they found out he was leaving it was like okay coming back you're coming back um we were two batteries in the same engine and together it was an amazing run but they still want one of those batteries which really warms my heart um there are several people i would like to thank and i'm going to make it really quick because i know your meetings are long but i i would really um just like to express some some thanks uh to my grandparents uh both have passed on they've been gone for years but i have to tell you ben and virginia brooks um made me who i am today

061they were relentless in harassing me really to pursue an education when i didn't want you and you know now i'm working on a phd so whatever they did worked um they were amazing and i miss them very much and they would be very proud i think um they are still the loudest and most driving voices that i have in my head uh my kids raquel and gage they are proud patriot graduates um they are off the payroll they're high functioning adults which is awesome and my daughter just blessed me with a beautiful baby boy uh his first name is brooks in honor of my grandparents so that warms my heart as well i have three very dear friends there my oldest friends they've been friends of mine for years cecilia danielle and amy they have

062been my support system not only through uh interview processes but through covid19 as well thank them for their support um i have been so fortunate in my career to teach learn and lead here in lps and i would be remiss if i did not take an opportunity to thank some key players um if i were to start thanking everyone that's responsible for my journey here it would take all night i know you don't have that but i am going to point out some people that have really made a difference in my career here at lps uh the first person i'd like to thank is mr daniel willenborg he is my yoda i say that to everyone uh for 13 years i watched him leave franklin with his whole heart and if i have half the

063passion and pride for frost that mr willenborg brought to franklin high school i will have done something right in my career i had it's been a pleasure working with him um and learning from him as well and i am so excited that he's now my boss and i get to work with him some more uh dr teriel her advocacy and and her passion for providing services to our most vulnerable students have really given me the knowledge and the perseverance it takes to advocate for kids and you know their the education that they deserve and the opportunity for that education i have learned so much from working with her over the past uh several years you know that's just it's amazing you can't learn those things from from anyone else but dr terry all uh bill

064green you're just a good human my friend bill green has been so patient with me and so supportive over the last year and a half he is a tremendous support for elementary educators and he has really really helped me along the way um it's hard learning elementary was like learning a new language and bill was unbelievable in his support of me in doing that thomas traub what a great partner tom traub has helped me build johnson the climate the culture there he is a tremendous instructional leader i would not have made it uh through this last year and a half without tom so thank you mr traub if you are listening oh anthony abate six years ago when i was appointed to be the ap at frost randy leap has said i don't know if

065this is a good idea we may need to send the fire department over there to hose these two down that's a lot of energy at one holding uh he was not wrong anthony my entire career of educating is probably the only person in truth that has the same passion and enthusiasm that i have for educating students you put the two of us together and it was like catching lightning in a bottle what we were able to create at frost in four short years is pretty incredible we created a vision for that school that was positive and fun that met the needs of every student we created one frost uh and that was um you know for a building that has a gifted and talented program and a center program and an asd program in general

066education creating one family is not an easy task and we managed to do that together our staff has become a family in and of itself and i could not be more thrilled to go back to that family and continue our work and follow that vision through so thank you anthony for helping me start my administrative career and definitely providing a path for me to go back and rock it out with mr english which we are going to do and finally andrea thank you for your support thank you for your faith in me and thank you for sending me home wonderful there's thank you mrs wheeler we are thrilled to have you back in that position again we're back back in frost in your new position so welcome home we're excited to see excited to see

067all of all of your activities from here out thank you so much thank you it's hard to top that but we do have to go on with a few things on our agenda uh the next item on our agenda is teachers for approval may i have a motion please president burton this is bonafield move that the board of education of the livonia public school school district accept the recommendation of the superintendent and offer employment for the 2021 school year to the teachers listed on the attached document do we have support for this motion we have a motion by mrs bonafield supported by mr johnson our support is a bit lagging folks uh because of the the technical uh glitches here and there so thank you for your patience with us um mr pate i understand

068that you are going to be helping us with this motion that's correct go right ahead so the individuals we are presenting to the board this evening are qualified to fill these positions and have been fully vetted through our extensive interview process we are confident these teachers will perform at a high level and represent livonia public schools in a manner that is consistent with our shared vision and collective commitments these positions have been included in the 2020 budget and are in areas of need we're pleased to be recommending such a talented group of teachers and are excited to have them working with our students thank you are there questions or comments from members of the board mr batte i will just uh jump in with one question and it and i i typically do ask this

069when we're doing mid-year hires um are these two uh fill positions for retirements or folks who are taking leaves uh what's what is the situation that we have with tiring mid-year um it's uh it's a little bit of everything it's all areas of need but there's there's some retirement in there um and some um some some pieces across the board if keith has been here a little bit longer than me in the role so he might be able to speak more to that but i really think it's uh filling holes that uh um that that came up through retirement resignation that sort of thing okay most of these are retirement but we do have a couple resignations uh as well that we have filled and i believe you um last meeting in this meeting we'll

070be approving a long-term leave gotcha okay great and as you mentioned already these are already positions that are budgeted for in the school year that's correct okay thank you any other questions or comments from the board seeing none mrs bradford will you take a role take the role please on the approval of teachers sure mrs bonnifield yes mr johnson yes mrs acosta yes mr centers yes mrs jarvis yes mrs bradford says yes president burton yes thank you and that motion passes the next motion on our agenda is for teachers for tenure may i have a motion please president mr centers move that the board of education of the livonia public schools school district accept the recommendation of the superintendent acknowledge that 10-year status has been granted to the following teachers effective on their respective date

071all says salisbury january 28 2021 alexander starr january 28 2021 samuel obama's deck january 28 2021 and april will attend february 2nd 2021 support we have a motion by mr center supported by mrs bradford are there questions or comments from members of the board and mr abate would you like to address this item sure these teachers have successfully completed the district's requirements for probationary teachers including years of service evaluations overall performance as well as student growth we have carefully reviewed all of these supporting documents and based upon our review as well as the recommendation of the building principles these individuals have achieved tenure status with livonia public schools thank you any other questions or comments from the board just congratulations yes congratulations absolutely uh seeing none mrs bradford would you please take the role on

072teachers for tenure mr centers yes mrs bradford says yes mrs acosta yes mrs bonafield yes mrs jarvis yes mr johnson yes yes motion passes thank you the next item on our agenda is leaves of absence may i have a motion please president burton mrs acosta move that the board of education of the livonia public schools school district accept the recommendation of the superintendent and approve the request for a leave of absence listed below sherry fisher synacola effective february 9th 2021. support we have a motion by mrs acosta supported by mrs jervis and mr abate would you like to address the site of course yes uh you have before you the name of a staff member requesting a leave for the remainder of the 2021 school year this request is in accordance with the collective bargaining

073agreement for the staff members bargaining unit i ask that you consider approval of this request thank you are there questions or comments from members of the board seeing none mrs bradford would you please take the role on leave of absence mrs acosta yes mrs jarvis yes mrs bonafield yes mr johnson yes oops mr centers yes mrs bradford says yes president burton yes motion passes the next item on our agenda is uh resignations and that is for board information only does not require a vote the next information or the next uh item on our agenda is retirements may i have a motion please president burton mrs jarvis move that the board of education of the livonia public schools school district adopt the attached resolution of appreciation for the services rendered by darlene miller nelson scott sherburne

074john venning and diane schwarnikowski support i believe that was mr centers i heard in concert with a couple others we have a motion by mrs jarvis supported by mr centers mr bhatni tonight we bring before you four staff members who will be retiring as these members of our lps family leave the livonia public schools they take with them a combined total of 109.5 years of experience on behalf of the administration i'd like to thank these staff members for the dedicated years of service they have provided the students of livonia public schools and i ask that the board adopt the attached resolutions of appreciation for these retirees thank you are there comments or questions by members of the board congratulations wow congratulations that's a lot of years it is as and every time the uh retirements

075come up there are some folks that we are not that we don't know personally and some that have educated our own kids so this is always such a bittersweet vote i'm i'm happy for those folks who are retiring and who are going on to the next chapter of their lives and at the same time it's such a loss to see some of this uh wonderful education and such institutional knowledge walking out the door uh you folks are leaving behind some very very big shoes to fill we wish you very very well in your retirement uh we we hope that you have a wonderful next chapter and don't be a stranger uh mrs bradford would you please take the role on the retirements sure mrs jarvis yes mr centers yes mrs acosta yes mrs battlefield yes

076mr johnson yes mrs bradford says yes president burton yes motion carries the next item on our agenda is a very sad it is a sympathy resolution for the family of john walling teacher of the cognitively impaired at webster elementary school may i have a motion please president johnson mrs bradford move that the board of education of the livonia public schools school district adopt the attached sympathy resolution for the family of john whaling teacher at webster elementary school support work we have a motion by mrs bradford supported by mrs jarvis i understand dr terriel that you'll be addressing this item for us thank you president burton it is with a heavy heart that i share this sympathy resolution for john whaling to joy john's wife and emma john's daughter our thoughts and prayers are with you

077sympathy resolution for john whaling whereas the board of education was deeply saddened to hear of the untimely death of john whaling and whereas john was a valued caring and highly respected staff member in the livonia public schools school district a teacher of cognitively impaired students at webster elementary school and whereas he consistently demonstrated his outstanding dedication care and commitment to students parents and colleagues and will be greatly missed by all and whereas john whaling will always be remembered with great fondness and with a profound sense of gratitude for the immeasurable contributions he made to our school district to the students he served and to the colleagues with whom he worked and now therefore be it resolved that the board of education of the livonia public schools school district offers its deepest deepest sympathy to the

078family friends and colleagues of john whaley thank you dr terriel mrs oguist i believe you'd like to add some things i would um it it is it is hard to have um thank you dr terriel um for sharing that resolution and one of the things that we want to share with john's family is that each and every one of those words truly embodies uh john he has to be one of the kind most kind-hearted human beings you would ever meet it would be rare to see him without a smile without a positive take on what was before him without an outstretched arm to a colleague or to a student who may need him it would be rare that i would send out an all-district email and not receive a note back from john he always

079captured the essence of what was good what was good about livonia public schools about his webster wildcats about his students and truly just showed such continued grace and kindness to others we will miss him so greatly and his courageous battle we are so tremendously sad to lose him our hearts go out to his family at home and what we know to be his family at webster so thank you to our board of education for taking up this resolution we will share it with his family and uh please keep them in your hearts and prayers thank you dr terrell and mrs oquist are there any comments from the members of the board of education i did not know mr whaling personally but i happened to be in a meeting on friday afternoon when we received news

080of his passing and the sadness in the room from those who knew john was palpable it's we all have gifts that we bring and the gifts that john brought in terms of his positive spirit just seemed to permeate those who had the privilege of knowing and loving him and we are sad that that his family has such a loss and and that livonia public schools also has such a loss uh any other comments before we take the role on this item seeing none mrs bradford would you please take the role on the sympathy resolution for the family of john wheeling mrs bradford says yes mrs jarvis yes mrs acosta yes mrs bonifield yes mr centers yes mr johnson yes president burton yes the motion passes uh it does really at times when we can be

081all wrapped up in the things going on in this world it does something like this does give us pause to turn to those that you love again and make sure that you that they know that you love them the next item on our agenda is item eight instruction matters uh item a a is the reconfirmation of extended covet 19 continuity of learning plan may i have a motion please president burton mr johnson move that the board of education of the livonia public school school district reconfirmed the continuity of learning plan that was approved on september 28 2020 the plan recommends that students continue to receive instruction either through livonia virtual or in-person instruction in our schools do we have support on this item support thank you mr senders uh see here mrs o'brien would you

082like a drug to address this item for us yes thank you president burton thank you as you know it's been a month since our last reconfirmation and each month we are required to have a vote to continue to provide our students with um the plan that we voted on in september so as pr as vice president johnson stated we currently offer the choice of in-person instruction or livonia virtual and we are recommending to continue to provide those two instructional deliveries um also a part of the law is that we uh monitor our two-way communication which for our students is taking attendance both in livonia virtual and in person and um each month i uh download from my star our weekly attendance average and um so i'll just share with you just the week of december

0837th our average we are remote at that time was december 14th it was 96.5 uh our first week back january 4th we were still remote we were down a little bit 95 um the week of january 11th our secondaries were still remote and our elementaries were in person we are 94.6 and last week our average attendance rate was 95 with everyone back in person except for the students who are in livonia virtual so each month we we vote to recon firm the plan that we set forth in september thank you mrs o'brien are there questions or comments from members of the board president burton yes mr johnson uh mrs o'brien do we have any um information or indication as to how long we are going to continue to have this on our agenda on a

084monthly basis my expectation is for this the whole school year until unless i hear otherwise from the state of michigan i believe it will be for the 2021 school year all right thank you any other questions or comments and again as has been said before we are we are readdressing this every month because it's a requirement from the state of michigan um what i do appreciate about this plan uh is that it does give folks choices um i appreciate the livonia public schools has been able to give our students choices throughout the year uh and i am very very proud that many districts in our surrounding area have looked to livonia uh since this summer and and early fall and certainly up through now when when other districts were were going back for the very

085first time uh march first that uh superintendent opus and our cabinet team received calls and and correspondence from many different districts uh asking for our guidance on how to do this um so i'm i'm very proud of livoni public schools and the success that we've had uh navigating through this truly unprecedented year i'd like to thank for that all of our staff all of our parents all of our students it has not been easy on anybody and that that goes without saying uh but but we do need it when we're when we need to stop and address this item again and look at it again we do need to stop and say thank you to everybody for the efforts that we have all been putting in together to try to make this as successful as

086possible any other comments on this item seeing them mrs branford will you please take the role on the reconfirmation of the extent extended covet 19 continuity of learning plan mr johnson yes mr centers yes mrs acosta yes mrs bonafield yes mrs jarvis yes mrs bradford says yes president burton yes motion passes thank you mrs bradford uh the next item on our agenda is item 8b limited out of district schools of choice for 2022. may i have a motion please president burton mrs bonfield moved at the board of education of the livonia public schools school district accept the recommendation of the superintendent to participate in limited schools of choice under section 105 and 105 c for the 2021 2022 school year openings to include no more than 185 seats in kindergarten through eighth grade in five

087seats in each global ed in cappa at ninth grade only for the total of up to 195 students support we have a motion by mrs bonnefield support and mr mcdonald i believe you'll be helping us out with this motion uh thank you president burton this is the same recommendation the 185 feet seats in k-8 and 10 seats five each in global ad and kappa that we have made the last two school years so this would be the third consecutive year in which we would be making our recommendation in this manner it does offer us the most flexibility when we are assigning students to schools in grade levels uh if approved we would be opening our uh window from february 25th through march 26th that is the 30-day window that we would maximumly use mr mcdonald

088can you repeat the dates of that again sure february 25th through march 26th thank you are there questions or comments from the board of education this along with everything else that's on the agenda today uh you may not be hearing the amount of conversation about it because we've discussed it at at least two if not more meetings before it got to today's vote um and uh as you said mr mcdonald this is the same number of uh of spots that we have offered for the past two years this will be the third year we've offered this that is correct okay and i know last year we wound up we offered 185 spots and even in the midst of coving we wound up filling a little bit over a hundred spots is that correct right at

089100. okay alrighty um i don't believe i have any other questions for this anybody any other questions or comments before we take a vote on this item seeing none uh mrs bradford would you please uh take the role on the limited out of district schools of choice for 2021 2022 mrs bonnifield yes mrs bradford says yes mrs acosta yes mr centers yes mrs jarvis yes mr johnson yes president burton yes motion passes the next item on our agenda is item nine business matters and 9a is the resolution to approve ballot language for the 2021 bond proposal may i have a motion president mr centers move that the board of education of the livonia public schools school district adopt the attached resolution in support of a special election on may 4th 2021 for a 186 million

090dollar bonds proposal for facility upgrades technology improving playgrounds and athletic facilities purchasing school buses and improving property sites for livonia public schools support mr centers i'm not certain if i was the only one who had your voice cutting out there for a moment uh mine cut out would you mind repeating the last sentence of that uh of that motion for us in case it cut out for anyone at home certainly actually i'm sorry it looks like it's all one sentence i apologize that's fine move that the board of education education of the livonia public schools school district atop adopt the attached resolution in support of a special election on may 4th 2021 for a 186 million dollar bond proposal for facility upgrades technology improving playgrounds in athletic facilities purchasing school buses and improving property sites

091for livonia public schools and we had support on that was it mrs jarvis that i had heard yes thank you and mrs oakless were you the one who's going to be addressing this item for us i'm sorry i will get us started and then i'll turn it over to mrs smith and mr francis and we will tag team it together as we have for the past several several months terrific thank you we are very excited to be at this point with you this evening as you know we have had the opportunity over the past several months um to have extended dialogue on this important topic um what we are sharing with you this evening is a very abbreviated um presentation we spent quite a bit of time not only last week but the past several

092months discussing this topic but especially last week we had an extended presentation and quite a bit of discussion and dialogue questions from our board of education and the opportunity to really dig deeply into each aspect of what we're going to share with you this evening so what our community would see tonight is really just a very high level summary of information and we would certainly recommend because as you know we keep all of those prior committee meetings um available on our website um this would be an excellent meeting to go back and take time to watch that particular portion um so i just wanted to preface what we share with you this evening because we know this is a very important topic a very impactful one for our district um and so certainly we wanted

093to assure our community that we provided much more extensive information over our past meetings and this evening we'll be sharing a summary of that but of course welcome any questions that you may have mrs smith thank you that i will pull up the presentation make sure let's make sure everybody can see that before i get started oh i'm sorry i'm not trying to print it okay to start us off tonight we wanted to take you back to really where uh this started and that was with our 10-year facility plan whoops and our 10-year facility plan was created uh before the passage of our 2013 bond and it continues to be updated um two times a year it's something mr francis works with our owners wrap plant marine cress on and what you see before you

094is just a summary sheet of the different buildings but behind each building is a lot of detail broken into items such as paving roof ceilings plumbing systems doors flooring windows lockers playgrounds utilities heating and electrical and really the list goes on but it was through this 10-year facility assessment that we identified the needs that were across the district and what prompted us to go for our bond in 2013. so um in 2013 we took a proposal to the community and they uh did approve 195 million dollar bond we're so grateful for their support and all the things that we were able to accomplish through that bond we were able to do uh safety and security upgrades including our secure vestibules brand new performing arts centers and at churchill a total takedown and redo of their

095performing arts center a lot of information technology facility improvements we were able to purchase new buses and maintenance equipment as well as furniture and instructional equipment and it was back during the creation of that 2013 bond and when we identified the projects we recognized that there was going to be some projects that would not fit within the scope of the budget of the 2013 bond and we knew that we'd have to come back and address those in the future and in one of our slides we'll get to that um but that's really what kind of kicked off this item that we're bringing for you for a vote tonight um again it started back in 2013 as we were preparing for the 2013 bond it continued in 2019 when we were looking at going back to

096the community for a sinking fund and when we were bringing that proposal we also recognized that the thinking fund levy wasn't going to be sufficient enough to address all the needs that were recognized in our facility assessment in 2020 we really started digging into it and had a lot of internal meetings and we started formal conversations with the board at both study sessions and committee meetings throughout november and december those continued on into 2021 where we continued this discussion at uh the study session this month as well as the community meeting and as ms oak was shared we definitely encourage any community members that might not have had a chance to watch those to go back in particular to last week's committee meeting where we do go into a lot of detail of what led

097up to this request for a 2021 bond when we look at our 10-year facility assessment we break it into different categories uh based on the timing of those projects the first is the zero to three years uh needs that should be addressed in the next zero to three projects for the next four to six years and then projects for the next seven to ten years when we look at the projects that we have identified needing to be completed in the next six years and we add in technology we're looking at an overall need of about 239 million dollars over the next six years and we do uh bring in roughly seven million dollars a year through our sinking fund so thankfully we can use that to address some of those needs but that still does

098leave us with 197 million dollars worth of additional funding that's needed that can't be supported through the sinking fund or through the general fund and it's uh with that in mind that we have this really exciting opportunity that i will turn it over to andre and she'll share more with you thanks so much so one of the things that we've really uh considered very carefully are these three elements um along with with many others but really um we wanted to encapsulate these three we have a window of opportunity for a no new taxes bond issue this may in 2021 and it has been essential for our board of education and our district administration throughout this past year in this pandemic to not only stay laser focused on the needs before us each and every day

099again on the health and well-being of our students and of our staff in meeting their educational social emotional and food and nutrition needs we also knew that at some point in time we would we would be moving forward and coming out of the pandemic and so we have continuously kept one eye on the future um and certainly always looking forward to looking what our district needs would be not only tomorrow or next week or next month but next year and several years from now um thus the establishment of our 10-year long-term facility plan that has really served as the foundation from which we have worked as we look at our sinking fund as well as this request for a new bond issue we have this window of opportunity for a no new taxes bond issue

100at this point in time and it is an opportunity to truly reinvest in our schools which is a significant opportunity for our entire community this window of opportunity would not be present in august or november or next year we have an opportunity as we have debt rolling off prior bond debt to take advantage of this window in may um to request a 20-year term 186 million dollar bond issue without any increase in taxes so this was something from as we've looked at this over the past um two years in detail um taking a look at where our bond levy where our tax levy is at this point in time and our ability to maintain that consistently for our community without asking for any additional dollars any new dollars but being able to still reinvest in

101our schools and in our community we feel confident doing this and we take this very seriously because of our district's long-standing history as being exceptional fiscal stewards one of the things that we have collectively worked on is really that consistent and steady growth of our district fund balance um to a reasonable and appropriate place we are now certainly well within and at the at the end the top end of the msbo recommended fund balance limit that limit but uh what we're encouraged to be with a 20 fund balance then has provided financial stability that has allowed us to continue to add resources in our schools and in our classrooms that financial stability has also earned us a strong bond rating and also the highest rating on our district audits in fact this is something that

102is carefully reviewed on a regular basis um and through that review we were able to recently um take advantage of historically low interest rates and refund our recent um or our last uh bond debt resulting in the taxpayer savings of over 15 million dollars so again um while we would have had an opportunity to look at a no new taxes request that might have exceeded the 20-year term and garnered additional funds for the district we felt that the recommendation of a 20-year term was really both very reasonable it met the needs before us but it also maintained a focus on that strong fiscal stewardship and finally we are always continuously reviewing uh what is happening in our neighboring communities um it is essential that our district remain a destination district um for families and for

103our staff um the recruitment and retention of both students and staff is essential livonia is a leader and we believe in the importance of growth innovation and excellence and so we believe on that bringing forth this opportunity to again reinvest in our students and in our schools without putting any additional tax burden on our community is truly an opportunity we do not want to see pass by therefore we bring this recommendation to you this evening i'd like to highlight um just some of the projects that would be completed with this bond issue i'm going to put these into three separate categories one is really taking a look at addressing the remaining projects from our initial needs assessment that was done prior to the 2013 bond issue so as you saw in one of the slides

104that mrs smith shared we made commitments to our community and we kept those commitments um the board of education identified the projects that would be completed we were able to do that and indeed we were able to do even more um because of that strong fiscal stewardship we knew going into that that we would not be able to do everything on that facility assessment needs list some of the highlights of the work that we want to do moving forward is really looking at redesigning and reimagining our media centers otherwise known as our school libraries and creating collaborative interactive learning spaces for our students and for our staff to be able to work together in these in these um in these important areas in our school that will allow us to really take advantage of that

105space um and the expertise of our media specialists and the ingenuity of our students to really take a look at what a 21st century media center would need to include and how it can support learning for our students we still have in our schools kitchens original to the schools 50 to 60 years old and we would need we really are at the point where we need to go in and do some updates uh in our kitchens in our serving lines it is a really essential necessity at this point one other aspect that was certainly discussed quite often as we went forward with the 2013 bond but unfortunately it just was not attainable at the time with regard to both the initial and ongoing costs related to it is the addition of air conditioning in all

106of our classrooms labs and offices it may be a surprise to some in our community to know that the majority of our classrooms and our learning spaces are not air-conditioned so we would be looking to enhance the air quality of of our hvac systems in our classrooms as well as add air conditioning this will allow us not only to have learning environments which are certainly more conducive for the students in our staff each and every day but it also gives us flexibility um to look at programming um to utilize at different times of the year including the summer months something we are not able to do at this point in time finally another uh significant portion of that budgeted allocation for this section are really facility improvements across the board so many of the things

107that mrs smith um identified in though that long facility assessment we have that highlighted for every classroom every um washroom every hallway on in every roof and doorway i'm in each of our schools those facility improvements are need to continue and that is a big portion of the remaining projects we would like to address the second set really focuses on some long-term facility plan needs specifically in the areas of technology athletics furniture and instructional equipment a continue our replacement cycle of school buses and maintenance equipment as well as some additional security enhancements for our schools and some additional resources at our elementary playgrounds the investment i'm going to point out specifically in technology we certainly had a significant investment in our 2013 bond and also through our most recent uh bond or i'm sorry our

108most recent sinking fund as you know um the the useful life of technology um turns over much more rapidly than that of a a desk or a chair even a textbook and so we are seeing the need to begin that replacement cycle of that technology we were able to purchase um with our prior bond issue and also think future forward to what the needs are both for instructional technology for students and staff in the classroom as well as again our media centers our collaborative work areas um in throughout our schools finally um we have really um enjoyed the initial opportunity to begin thinking um innovatively and uh again thinking about the future to explore opportunities to really continue that educational excellence which is a hallmark of our district and thinking about the needs of our

109students both now and in the future and so one of the areas that we want to continue to support is our stem pathway of learning we utilize what is considered to be the gold standard of curriculum for the stem pathway which is project lead the way we have infused that into our middle school and high school curriculum offerings we would like to continue to support those and see those grow and see that stem pathway as a clear path both in computer science and engineering for our students who are interested in that we also want to find a permanent home for our tremendous robotics teams both at the middle school and the high school level we have great pride in the work that they do and believe that there are some tremendous partnerships to be had

110in order to support those efforts and i'm going to hop down to the last item on there before i come back to the early childhood center and talk about additional programming and opportunities at our livonia career technical center we have award-winning cte programs that are currently the focus of interest for many hundreds of students across our three high schools as well as accessed by students through cooperative agreements from neighboring high schools we know that that need for having our students be both college and career ready taking a look at the additional areas of focus that we can support is something we're very much looking forward to doing with this bond issue should it be supported by our community and finally we look to create a state-of-the-art joyful and welcoming early childhood center so we can

111continue to begin that partnership early with our community as our students come into both child care and preschool we are so proud of the integration of our ecp early childhood special education program with our general education preschool programs and the synergy that has been created amongst all of our classrooms in our early childhood programs we would like to see the opportunity for those offerings continue to grow and to be able to provide for our community all of their early childhood needs so those are just some of the highlights of the projects both from our long-term facility needs assessment as well as an identification of some growing needs that continue to exist within our school community one of again one of the most important elements of this is to be able to bring forward the need

112to continue to grow reinvest and innovate as a school district we certainly cannot um sit idly by as we see those needs continue to grow both within our schools um and our district as a whole we want to continue to be that destination district for students and for staff and to be able to do that without um requesting any additional tax dollars from our community is an opportunity that we think provides a tremendous win-win for both our schools and our students as well as our school community thank you mrs oakley mrs smith do we have questions or comments from board members and again this is one of the items that we discussed at length uh as was mentioned uh at our committee at the whole meeting last week so uh for the public that's tuning

113in right now you may not get the level of questions that you would expect on something like this know that we have been discussing it for for several months now and in great detail uh in our meeting last week um that being said are there questions uh or comments from board members or things that you would like especially for the public to know in case they didn't tune in last week president burton yes mr johnson um and i'm not sure if this is uh directed at mrs smith or mrs oquist uh but we talk about the 10-year facility plan if a community member wanted to to see that is that available online to review i'll answer that actually and we don't have that it is a massive report it is multiple tabs a tab for

114every building with many many items on it it's actually something that is continually updated as ms smith said it is not posted um it is really an internal item it is for the facilities and operations department we work in tandem with our owner's rep plant marian cressa and it is something that that we have at the ready for the board i can't emphasize enough and i know that mrs noquist and mrs smith both mentioned it but the the the upkeep of that document is a a large task when we sit you know sit down to do it but it's something that i was fortunate enough to inherit because it was began before the 2013 bond it is an incredible tool and and my intention is that someone in the future will inherit it because it

115gives us the ability to keep tabs on all of our conditions across all of our facilities so that we can properly inform the board of opportunities like this that we've brought with regard to the uh the 2021 bond proposal but no it's not really a public document we don't really publicize all of our our types of facility items it's really an internal document okay president your vice president johnson if there's a particular item on which a community member has a question we would certainly invite them to contact uh mr francis and you know if there's if there's a particular school or a particular area um it's something where we would certainly invite them to to come in and have some dialogue on that and we could certainly share information from there but it is uh

116again meant to be an internal um document for us to utilize thank you that's all mrs burns okay questions or comments from other board members i will jump in then um the the most exciting thing for me and it's been stated but i don't think it can be stated enough is that this is a no new dollar no new tax dollars bond uh if we have the opportunity right now to continue to address these building needs that we have and to look at some very needed upgrades um in terms of new offerings such as the state-of-the-art early childhood center an expansion of our career technical program uh we if we have the opportunity to do this and not cost anymore and not uh pass any additional costs onto our taxpayers this is a win-win for

117our community for our students for our staff um i just think this is a fabulous opportunity um i think it is important to take advantage of this opportunity in may because it is the only time that we can can go out and and have this be a no new tax dollars uh situation for our for our community so i thank you uh to our cabinet team to mrs smith and and the rest of our team for uh keeping their eye on the ball with this um another opera another reason that this is such a fabulous time to go out for this is the interest rates are so low um that it's that we'll get much more uh bang for our buck for for the dollars that we are able to collect so um i think

118it's a wonderful opportunity and if folks would like more detail on it we discussed it for a great length of time at our last meeting so you can go to our committee of the whole meeting which is on our website and take a look at the the deeper discussion uh at that time mrs opus and i certainly wanted to assure on the community that what we shared last week and this week will certainly not be all that they hear of it um once the board has an opportunity to take action we will have a very robust informational campaign uh to share with our community and that will begin tomorrow so we will have a tremendous amount of information that we will push out and share to our community there will also be a dedicated section

119on our website where we have detailed information about the bond issue about the projects um and that will be uh ongoing work going forward uh until may 4th so there will be certainly many many opportunities um to become informed about this but this is uh this this would begin uh once the board takes formal action uh this evening okay great and again the reason we're going out in may on this is if we waited until august or november it would no longer be a no new tax situation we would lose the opportunity uh to go out and and to garner that within without it have it costing any additional money to our taxpayers any other questions or comments from board members on this item mrs bradford thank you president burton um can anybody speak to

120um the question that maybe our community might ask about uh going out for a bond uh this certainly isn't back to back but since we did a 2013 bond and now that we're doing a 20 21 bond um are there other neighboring districts that have done this same bond seeking seeking bonds within certain amount of years yep that was definitely something that we took a look for as we were preparing for this opportunity and we shared last week a number of districts and a few that i'll highlight for you tonight one being novi community schools a neighboring district they went for a bond in 2014 and then again in 2019 we also see in plymouth canton they went for a bond in 2013 the same year that we did and they actually went for a

121bond in 2019 and then i'll point out south lyon who went in 2015 and then went out again in 2020 so we're definitely seeing a shift i think uh historically you know you might have seen a longer gap between bonds but this is uh definitely the trend that we see and it's definitely helping to school districts be able to address the facility needs it helps ensure that our general fund dollars as much of them as much of our general fund dollars can stay in the classroom for instructional purposes and yet we can still again have this reinvestment in our facilities that allow us to enhance programs and whatnot so definitely something that we see a trend uh when we look at our neighboring districts thank you and i also just wanted to thank everybody for

122all their hard work on the the bond and in the presentation of it i think it's great that one slide shows uh what what we want to finish from the last bond into what we're looking to do to enhance and then in our future what we want to do in the future so it kind of lays it out really well laid out on what we plan to do and um i do feel that uh our community our lps community has done a great job we in fiscals being fiscally responsible in our last bond so hopefully our community will see the value in this i think it's a it's a great opportunity for us i'm fully in support of it and i look forward to all of the um extra new possibly robotics having a home

123and some stem things in the future so this is a win-win and i'm hopeful that our community will support it also other comments from board members one thing that we uh that we learned when we went out for the 2013 bond um was we went to our community and asked a lot of questions about what do you need in before you would consider something along this line and we heard one resounding message which is our community is asking what do we need why do we need it and how much is it going to cost so we are fully prepared with this uh with an informational campaign about what's needed which uh we're not asking for chandeliers or crazy things but we're asking to continue to maintain uh our buildings um continue to reinvest in in

124the improvements that we started in um and add some things that we know that our students and our communities need such as the early childhood center and expanded career technical center uh offerings but uh what do we need why do we need it and how much is it gonna cost and if it's going to cost zero additional dollars over what we've been paying before again i think it's a real win for our community any other questions or comments on this item seeing none mrs bradford would you please take the role on the resolution to approve ballot language for the 2021 bond proposal sure uh mr centers yes mrs jarvis yes mrs acosta yes um mrs bonifield yes mr johnson yes mrs bradford says yes president burton yes the motion passes the next item that we

125have is item 10 hearing from board members and we have item a which is resolution to allow lps school board to meet in person may i have a motion please president johns president burton mrs bradford um we'll get it right eventually oh funny move that the board of education of the livonia public schools school district adopt the attached resolution to request that the governor of michigan and the michigan department of health and human services allow school boards the option to meet either virtually or in person effective immediately support we have a motion by mrs bradford supported by mrs acosta and mrs bradford would you please read the resolution that accompanies this motion yes we'll give you a minute to pop over to it thank you resolution to permit school boards to meet in person whereas

126school districts have been strongly encouraged to begin offering in-person instruction by march 1st and each local school board has the responsibility to make that ultimate decision for their school district and whereas livonia public schools has worked diligently to prepare for and implement the return to face-to-face learning for all students in grades pre-k k-12 and post-secondary and whereas all students and staff are permitted by the state of michigan and the michigan department of health and human services to attend school in person and whereas members of school boards are the only individuals within their school districts who are not permitted to meet in person and whereas it is extremely difficult for school boards that are required to meet virtually to make the decision that students and staff will meet and work in person as it sends a

127mixed message to our community and staff and whereas the livonia public schools board of education wishes to meet in person as soon as possible and has strong health and safety mitigation measures in place for such meetings that are consistent with measures taken for all other school classes and activities now therefore be it resolved that the livonia public schools board of education requests that the michigan department of health and human services and the governor of the state of michigan allow school boards to have the option to meet either virtually or in person beginning immediately in order to lead by example when bringing students and staff back to in-person learning thank you mrs bradford uh the resolution summarizes the situation that our board of education and every board of education in the state of michigan finds themselves

128uh at this time uh we have been encouraged to uh make the decision to make sure that our students and staff have the opportunity to meet in person for in-person learning by march 1st and school boards are required to make that ultimate decision as to whether or not that will happen with a strong encouragement from the governor and the state of michigan to make that happen uh at the same time the school board is the only entity within a school district the seven individuals on the board that's the only entity that are not legally allowed to meet in person this is i believe it's an oversight i'd like to believe it's an oversight and i'm going to give folks the benefit of the doubt that we just fall under the group of other public meetings

129uh but it makes it very difficult uh for the board to make the decision to have everyone else be working in person and learning in person or at least having that opportunity if we don't also have the opportunity to lead by example the livonia public schools board of education is very desirous to be meeting in person we would be in person tonight if we were legally allowed to do so however we are also serious about following the law uh therefore we are asking the health department of health and human services to afford the seven school board members the same privilege that we are affording our fourteen thousand students and our two thousand staff members which is to have the opportunity if that's what they chose to meet in person we are supportive of other school

130districts that may wish to continue meeting virtually that's perfectly fine we are just asking to have for the for the michigan department of health and human services and the governor of the state of michigan to permit school boards if they so choose to meet in person are there questions or comments from other school board members on this issue president burt mr johnson i just wanted to thank you for taking the initiative uh to bring this about i think it's extremely important as you said that if if we're voting or bringing our students back face to face it's inconsistent that seven board members who can socially distance in a board room cannot meet so again i i appreciate and thank you for your efforts in this regard thank you i appreciate that any other questions or

131comments on this issue nope seeing none mrs bradford will you please take the role on the resolution to allow lps school board to meet in person mrs bradford says yes mrs acosta yes mrs bonafield yes mr centers yes mrs jarvis yes mr johnson yes president burton yes the motion carries we will see that that motion is sent to the uh michigan department of health and human services to governor whitmer's office and uh it has also been requested by the michigan association of school boards uh that we send this uh to them because they have had other districts requesting sample language to do the same and they've asked our permission to do that um this is a document by all of us do we have agreement amongst our board to go ahead and send it to

132masb also i'm seeing lots of head snotting okay and it is a public document at this point so okay we will make sure that gets done thank you uh the next item on our agenda is item 10 b approval for board members to take nasb classes may i have a motion please president burton mrs acosta move that the board of education of the livonia public schools school district approved that board trustees take virtual classes offered by the michigan association of school boards february 19th through the 21st of 2021 as shown below for a total cost of 810 dollars madeleine acosta two hundred and seventy dollars tammy bonnefield 180 liz jarvis 180 and mark johnson 180 support i heard a chorus there of support uh i believe i heard heard that from mrs bradford first and

133uh we have a motion by mrs acosta supported by mrs bradford and mrs uh opus would you like to address this item to the board thank you so much president burton um as you know we value the opportunity for our board of education members um to continue their leadership and professional growth and development we have benefited greatly from having a board of education that is highly trained and has had extensive opportunities to learn and grow both through the michigan association of school boards their courses as well as the opportunity to meet with other representatives from districts across our state to be able to share documents such as those you just referenced as well as discuss current laws and legislation that guide our direction so as well as board policy bbbc requires approval of the expenditure

134prior to expending those dollars so we are required to bring that forward to the board of education we certainly support and appreciate the the time and effort each of our board members give in attending these workshops thank you are there questions or comments from the board on this issue seeing none mrs bradford would you please take the role on the approval of board members to take nasb classes mrs acosta yes mrs bradford says yes um mrs bonifield yes mr centers yes mrs jarvis yes mr johnson yes president burton yes motion passes the last item on our agenda this evening is item 10c hearing from board members at this time i'd like to open it up to any board members who have anything that they would like to share with our board cabinet or our community

135anybody alrighty um i would like to just take a moment again to uh to welcome madeline acosta to our board as our newest board member uh to thank all of our colleagues for their service again thank mr johnson for your service for the last three years as president especially this last year when when you spent an enormous amount of time uh on behalf of the board of education and it is very appreciated um i'd like to thank our uh our entire lps community our students who have uh reached out to the board on several occasions uh with with their concerns both to be in person both and to be virtual uh our parents who've done the same are staff members um getting through this pandemic has not been easy on anybody in any uh industry

136or any type of work that they're in and certainly education has been hit hard in terms of the difficulty of finding a good way to educate students through this craziness i would like to just extend my sincere thanks to everyone involved all of our staff members our students our parents uh for their flexibility i'd like to thank our administrative team for their leadership um there have been many many weekends when i know our administrators have worked throughout the weekend trying to make certain that we are ready for the next thing that's hitting us uh monday morning or that had hit friday right before everyone walked out the door uh so thank you to the entire lps community for making livonia public schools continue to be a beacon of excellence and a district that other districts

137turn to to say how do you do this we need to do what you're doing in our own districts around you so thank you very much to everyone for for getting through this pandemic together the light is at the end of the tunnel just hang in there a little while longer thank you folks anybody else have anything to add this evening no seeing none uh we are adjourned have a nice evening folks and thank you for those of you who are tuned in you