001Good evening everybody. Thank you for coming and welcome to the April 8th, 2025 school board meeting. If you could all rise for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And in the absence of our secretary and treasurer this evening, our board policy states that the vice president would take over. Since we have two, I would like to recommend that Mike take over for treasurer. And I would move that Ann Aerson serve as secretary prom. Can I have support on that? Shane. Thank you. All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? Great. Thank you. Miss Aerson, could you take attendance? Yes. President Mcdana here. Vice President Aldrid here.
002Secretary Summers absent. Treasurer Whitney absent. Trusty Gibson here. Trusty Aerson here. Trustee Campornney absent. Thank you. Any changes to the board agenda? I have none. Excellent. All right. Let's get right into our school presentations with Mrs. Ka Collins. All right. Good evening. I am just going to into our student here. Um, and so what will happen to this podium here? Um, students just be careful when you come up to the stage. There is a while you're going here. So, be mind during that. All right. So, we're going to start with Clear Lake Elementary. I'm inviting Principal Nia in front. Yep. Yep. All right, good evening. Clear Lake Elementary is very excited this evening to honor fifth grader uh Juliet Kouliari. Juliet just recently participated in uh the Oxford's Got Talent Competition and she actually took
003first prize in the art division. So, we're very excited to honor All right. Good evening. Uh, I'm Chad Boy from Daniel Axford Elementary. Thank you for having us this evening. Uh Daniel Axford would like to recognize three students for taking action. These students are part of our green team at Daniel Axford. They noticed a classroom needed guidance on the correct items to recycle when they were emptying recycle bins. They planned and implemented a lesson for that classroom so students would know how to recycle at our school. These students are Riley Mard, Monroe Lopez El and Isabelle Po. Thank you. Hello. I'm very excited to introduce you to two Lakeville students who are very principled. They have amazing attitudes. They care and stay safe. First, we have Jack Wisman. Jack is a wonderful example of what
004it means to be principal. He's always making thoughtful choices and doing the right thing. He consistently works hard, putting his forth his best effort in all that he does and approaches challenges with a positive can do attitude. Next, we have Jace Mascll. Jace truly truly truly spend spreads so much joy throughout our school. He is very flexible. He's easygoing and friendly to all. His teacher states that he does his homework every night and makes sure that he's always prepared for class. Thank you boys for being amazing. Hi, I'm Paul McDev, principal of Leonard Elementary, and I'm proud to introduce some members of our green team. Um, our sponsor, Mrs. Benman, has brought the green team back to Leonard Elementary after many years of us not having a team. and she's always been well known around
005our school as the grant writer for our school. So, combine that with the green team, we have some exciting news for this year. I'm going to let Mrs. Benjamin tell you a little bit about it. Thank you for having us here tonight to talk to you about the Green Prize Grant. Our green team was awarded from the Detroit Zoo Society. My name is Marcy Benson. I'm kindergarten teacher at Leonard Elementary and I oversee our team. We submitted our application and were notified of our honor grant which the largest one we could receive in December. Members of the Detroit Zoo came all the way to Leonard to present it. They loved our vision, which I will let these team members tell you about. They are here to represent our 33 green team members. And we are
006a school of 260 that are in second through fifth grade. I am so proud of them and all their hard work. Number one, introduce yourself first. Hi, my name is and I'm going to share with you something. When we learned of the grant opportunity, we discussed what we could do for our for our school and the local community that would make the world a greener place and bring pleasure to all Hoover. Hi, my name is Ellie Stewart and after much discussion, we had a vote and decided we would create a sensory garden and we would use as best as we could recycled and reused materials to create it. The team was on board even knowing it would be a lot of work, but we were up for the challenge. We have been planning and designing
007how it would look like and what we would plan. Hi, my name is Kennedy and we also cleared out an area in the front of the school where all of our student staff and local community will be able to enjoy it. We took it into consideration what height we should make the fence so they would be accessible to people in wheelchairs. It will have five race beds with a variety of plants with each one representing the sense. Hi, my name is Jack Hayes. There will be chines made of silver pots and pans to bang on and board feed and a board feeder along with other recycled pieces of old. They will there will be tic tac toe board made from a the trunk of a tree. We will even have a so far container made
008from a 55gallon barrel. Hi, my name is Pa and I'm going to share the last paragraph. We want to thank the Detroit Zoo Society for their faith in us and their generous their generous donation. We would also like to thank our parent volunteers who help things run smoothly at our twice monthly meetings along with our school custodian who has helped along the way. Thank you to Leonard Elementary screen. All right. Good evening. My name is Jeff Brown and I am uh happy to be the principal of Oxford Elementary School and I'm really excited to present to you some outstanding artists. Uh we have our wonderful elementary and middle school art teachers who are displaying art at Modern Marketplace, Wild and Rooted, Scots Toys, and Evergreens. And so I'm excited to share Sophia Cage and Ethan
009Yates. and unfortunately Willow Lamb who is not able to join us today. They are our current students for the month of April who have their art displayed in the community. So please give congratulations to Ethan and right there. Stop. Stop. Hello everyone. So, this past wrestling season was one to remember for three outstanding student athletes at MS. Sixth grader Carter Curtis put together an impressive 20 to5 record, capturing championships at both the Lakeland Invitational and the Oakland County Tournament. His hard work and talent on the map earned him the future star award from his coaches. A clear sign of the bright future that lies ahead in his wrestling journey. Eighth grader Elijah Wellins wrapped up the season with a strong 18-6 record and also claimed titles at the Lakeland Invitational and the Oakland County Championship.
010Elijah showed tremendous growth throughout the year and is poised for even more success as he heads into high school wrestling. Fellow eighth grader Owen Curtis turned in a dominant 20 to3 season, winning the Oakland County Championship at the 150 pound weight class. Owen's leadership and commitment did not go unnoticed as he earned the team leadership award, the outstanding eighth grader award, and a coaches award for his dedication to the program. His exceptional work ethic and passion for the sport make him a valuable addition to the high school team next season. In recognition of the rem remarkable achievements, Carter, Elijah, and Owen will have their names added to the wrestling board in the miss gym. A well-deserved honor for three wrestlers who made their mark this season. A special shout out also goes to the coaches,
011coach Katie Barnes, Yoil, Folult, and Braville for their unwavering support, guidance, and dedication in helping our student athletes reach these high achievements. Their leadership continues to shape a strong and successful wrestling program at MS. Thank you guys. Good job. Okay. Good evening everyone. My name is Brad. The pleasure of serving as the principal here at OS. I want to echo what Mrs. Con said with her opening statements. This is without uh one of the best things we do is acknowledging our kids. So, um, before we get started, I do want to acknowledge our coaches who are in attendance this evening as well. They play a huge part, um, and our student athletes lives. So, kudos to them for all that they do. First up this evening is senior Jake Champagne. Jake finishes his Oxford High
012School basketball career serving as a captain and fouryear varsity player basketball team. This past week, he was named as a first team allstate player. He is the first player in Oxford history to be named the first team. In addition, Jake exits the program as the school's all-time leading scorer with 1,591 points and the highest points per game score in Oxford history. He was named the OA white all team and was named as an OA scholar athlete. I believe coach Fed said it best. As many records as Jake broke, he was a team first kid and winning was always his first priority. He earned success with his commitment to his game. He has set the standard for future players who want to be great. No greater compliment than that. Jay, congratulations. Well done. You will be
013best. All right. Next up, we have, I believe, seven wrestlers in attendance tonight. So, Oxford wrestling had an outstanding season. They had eight wrestlers qualify for the state tournament held at Ford Field. Only 16 kids in the entire state make it to the state meet per weight class. So, it's quite an accomplishment. This will also be the fifth consecutive year for the Oxford wrestling team that they earned all academic, all state honors. So again, student athletes, well done. First up, Harmony Gonzalez. Harmony is a freshman. She was a district and regional champion. She finished this season as a state qualifier at 115 lbs with a record of 15 and two in the girls division. Harmony, congratulations. We have a very CC Frank, freshman. She had an outstanding season as well. She finished the season with
014a record of 22 and 10 and is a state qualifier at 110 lbs. CC also has a GPA of 4.07 as an outstanding student athlete. Congratulations CC. He is not attendance tonight, but he has earned his due. Freshman Landon Johnson is a freshman, but a record of 40 and 13 at 126 pounds. His dedication and hard work are what made him a a state qualifier his freshman year. Landon also has a 4.0 GPA and has a bright future. So Landon, if you're somewhere, congratulations. Junior Conor Connor Stokes is also a captain. He had a record of 32 and 12 at 144 lbs. Connor had a tremendous off season which earned him a place at the state meet this season. Connor was also recognized as academic all state this year. Congratulations Connor. Senior captain Chase Beal.
015Chase has had an outstanding student has been an outstanding student athlete all four years on the wrestling team. He finished the season with a record of 38-18 at 138 lbs and finished with 127 victories in his career. Chase has a GPA of 4.09, academic all state, and he's willing to do it in the fall. Congratulations, Chase. Next up, Gavin Lewis, Junior Captain. Gavin was a district and regional champion and placed third at this year's state meet at 113 lbs, earning him, excuse me, also being recognized as academic all state. Gavin had a record of 49 and3 this season. This is the third time Gavin Lewis has been all state for wrestling. Congratulations, Gavin. Luke Johnson is a senior captain. Luke was a regional champion and placed second at this year's state meet at 175 lbs.
016Luke had a record of 45 and5 this season and finished with a total of 166 wins in his outstanding career. Luke was also academic all state and will be playing football at Wayne State in the fall. Congratulations. Last but certainly not least, Cheyenne Frank is a junior captain. Cheyenne was a district and regional champion at 120 pounds. She's also the school's first female state champion. She went unbeaten this season and was 30 and0 by winning the state championship. She she had secured her 100th win of her career. She's also currently ranked ninth in the country. She has a GPA of 4.1 and is academic all state. Congratulations. Okay, boys swim and dive team. We have one of our student athletes in attendance this evening. However, I still think it's important to recognize those individuals who
017are not here. So, first before we get to Ian, we had a team of Torren Dable, Ian Frank, Liam Lindberg, and Steven Mus who qualified for the state in both the 200 free relay and 400 free relay. Finishing 22nd and 23rd respectively in the state. This was a super competitive field and qualifying for the state meet in both of these re relays is no easy feat. So, kudos to this team for their hard work throughout the season. Senior Ian Frank took 16th in the 50 freestyle and 14th in the 100 backstroke. Ian was also a league champion in all league swimmer this year. In addition, Ian was also named academic all state. So again, another uh student athlete getting class and congratulations. All right, I'm getting close. I promise. Alana Waltz. Sorry. Alana's on the
018girls bowling team. Alana was last year's JV state champion and followed that up with a solid season this year. She was also named to the allconerence team. At regionals, she had her best day of the se season, averaging over 193 for six games to qualify for the state finals. She did a fine job in the finals averaging a 172 and she finished 30th. She played a big role in the team's success all year. Our girls team also won the league championship in the Oakland County Championship. Team is poised to have a great season next year as all team members return next season. Alana will be a big part of that. Congratulations, Alana. Outstanding. All right, our boys state qualifying bowling team. The boys team had a solid season going 12 and three in match play
019and did a great job in tournaments all season. They saved their best to regionals where they finished second to powerhouse Davidson and qualified for the state finals. In the finals, they bowled well against 16 of the state's best teams and finished 10th. This year's team finished the season with one of the highest team averages in program history. The team is on solid ground for next season as four of the six bowlers return. The state team consists of Jacob Kimov, Nate Alexander, Dominic Kempen, Eli Wright, Matthew Vonoring, and Dominic Amway. Congratulations. Oh, there's more. Hello everyone. My name is Jordan Dennis. I am the elementary assistant principal at Oxford Virtual Academy. Tonight I'm here to honor two elementary kiddos. Um Gabriella Diaz unfortunately could not make it tonight. There is a flu running through her household.
020So, they decided to spare us of that, but we did want to make sure we took time to honor her. Um, she's being recognized for her personal growth and and perseverance. Her teachers have nominated her for just being a positive impact on the classroom climate and just being an all-around um hardworking individual who is a great role model for her peers, her colleagues, and just a a pleasure to work with. We do however have Marcelo McHugh and if you do not know Marcelo uh he's a pretty big deal and you're about to know about him. um as part of his entrepreneurship elective at our partnering location way of wisdom, Marcela McHugh among along with two of his classmates were selected out of thousands of submissions by the young innovators program to present his innovation to
021investors at the Sloan Museum of Discovering in Flint on March 24th alongside other local students. Marcelo has been ident has identified a problem that children are having with learning how to tie their shoes and he created a invention that color codes uh shoelaces that help students learn stepby step how to tie the shoes. Now the investors in the uh young innovator program uh participants took such interest that Marcelo was selected uh out of all the individuals there 10 were chosen to move on. Marcelo is one of them. So while at the young innovators event at the slow museum, Marcelo is one of 10 students chosen to move on and present his innovation at the Michigan invention convention at the Henry Ford Museum. His invention, Tide Types, will be pitched to businesses and investors at Henry
022Ford. This is quite an accomplishment for a second grader, and we look forward to witnessing his future ingenuity and cheering him on at Henry Ford. Congratulations, Marcelo. Good evening. I'm Marie Murphy. I'm the secondary assistant principal at Oxford Virtual Academy. Tonight, it is with great pride that we recognize Katie Bratton for her outstanding achievements as a piano player. Since the age of five, Katie has shown remarkable dedication and talent um where she has played in the National Federation of Music Clubs festival where she has earned two trophies. If you don't know about this festival as an it is a large nonprofit organization in the United States that promotes and supports American music performers and music education. To further her talents, Katie plays piano for their local youth group at Lake Point Church and has experienced
023her first real gig as a guest artist at the American House in Rochester. All of these experiences highlight her ability to share her musical gifts with the community. Beyond her musical talents, Katie exemplifies the qual the qualities of an exceptional student and friend at our OA learning centers. She is kind-hearted, always wears a smile, and consistently goes the extra mile in all she does. Katie, your achievements and your character inspire us all, and we are so proud to celebrate you today. Next, we are thrilled to recognize Alex Schaefer for his exceptional achievements both on and off the ice. As an outstanding hockey player for the Little Caesar's AAA team, Alex has demonstrated remarkable talent and dedication. This prestigious league is known for developing some of the best young athletes in the nation. Notably, Alex's team
024is one of only two American teams who were invited to compete in the Ontario Hockey League Showcase Cup after winning in the state championship, which is a testament to Alex's skill and perseverance to play on this prestigious team. Beyond his athletic talents, Alex is also an exemplary student at OA. His positive attitude radiates throughout our learning centers where he consistently supports and encourages his peers. One memorable instance I have of Alex was um we had this Valentine's Day celebration we were hosting and Alex took the time to play Uno with one of our fourth graders during this time. So his um he was showcasing his kindness and willingness to uplift others. Alex embodies the spirit, the spirit of sportsmanship, leadership, and compassion. We are incredibly proud to have him as a member of our community
025and look forward to seeing all the great things he will accomplish in the future. Unfortunately, Evelyn Samour cannot be here tonight. Again, she their family is also experiencing some illnesses. Um, but I would like to recognize her. She's one of our Harvard homeschool students out in Dearbornne. Um, Evelyn is a she's being recognized as um being an artist. This year she won the yearbook cover contest at her hybrid site. So, it's a testament to her incredible talent and creativity. Um, this isn't the only award that she's won. In fifth grade, she received an award for the most creative read more books poster. Um she won a uh contest in her science class for creating a sculpture of a hand. Um so that was pretty cool. Her love for art is deeply rooted in her family,
026especially with the encouragement of her mom. Um her mom has inspired her to always think outside the box and continuously strive to enhance her artistic creativity. So thank you to Evelyn as well. Good evening. My name is Altha Van Lusen and I am the proud principal of Oxford Bridges High School. Um, and I have two young ladies here tonight that I'd like to introduce you to. First is Andrea Boris. Andrea is an 11th grader with us and um she is doing wonderful. I'd like to acknowledge not only her leadership but her um role model for all the students uh at Bridges High School and just the kindness that she exudes. Her teachers say such things about her like she has grown into a much more confident and successful student um and person. She has focused
027more on what's happening in the classroom and her schoolwork reflects understanding and growth. Drea has shown steady improvement over the semester and she ensures all assignments are completed to keep her grades consistent. She is very helpful, always willing to help with um things like the therapy dog by taking him outside for a walk. We have a wonderful therapy dog by the way. Uh his name is Teddy. Anyway, um she is self motivated to complete her task often moving ahead of her scheduled dates online. So Andrea, thank you. Next is Jian Bucket. Jan is also an 11th grader. She attends ODAK in the culinary program. Um, which she is doing great in. Also, uh, Jan is a leader within the school. She's kind. She says hi to me every morning as well as the teaching staff
028when she comes in. Whether or not she has their classes, she makes sure to say good morning. Her teachers have said things like, "Jan is an excellent student. She puts forth significant effort, ask questions, and strives to improve with each assignment. She's a young, wonderful young woman who has always looked to complete assignments and task with integrity and to the best of her ability. It's been a sad fact that I do not have her in any classes this year, but she still makes sure to say hello and be kind every morning." Jan is a demanding learner. She moves at her own pace and then um needs validation to ensure she's doing things correctly. She asks for feedback and she is relentlessly correct and precise in her work. Thank you, Jana. Good evening. Hello. I'm Don
029Mascco, principal of Crossroads Day School. Congratulations to all the students receiving recognition this evening. I'd like to introduce the students receiving awards from Crossroads. And we would like to thank the board of education for this honor. These students work diligently and were selected by the crossroads staff as our students of the month. These students have gone above and beyond and are very deserving of the award. Our recipients for the last few months are Cole Mukerchie, Anthony Lefford, Jason Gazenhaver, Priscilla Cadell, and Molly Todd. I'm sorry to say these deserving students all had conflicts and are unable to be here this evening and are very disappointed they could not join us tonight. Once again, congratulations to all the students receiving recognition tonight. You are a very positive influence on to others. Keep up the good work
030and a special thank you to the board of education for this honor. Have a great evening everyone. Okay, students um and your families, you are welcome to stay for the remainder of the board meeting if you'd like. Um also, there are um cookies and water in the hallway. That's what I figured. Um thank you so much for coming. You are welcome to leave at this time. Have a good evening. Avoid leaving. Go back and grab a shirt for a student. A student ambassador shirt. You got it. down. Rachel Wait, I We knew you were good. Oh, don't be sorry. We knew you were out. Take your time if you need a minute. Fantastic. Good for you. All right. So, good evening. Thanks for your patience, everyone. I really appreciate it. Uh, again, Brad Bigell. I'm
031the principal here at Oxford High School. Um, it's been an absolute pleasure these past five months serving in this capacity. Um, I mean really from the get-go, um, we've had a wonderful staff, so supportive, um, and more than anything else, we have just wonderful students. So, it's been a great five months. Uh, before we officially get started, I wanted to just recognize a few individuals who are in the audience this evening. Assistant principles Christy Gibson Marshall, Kevin Mounds, and Kurt Noose. Our dean of students, Mitch Brooks. We have our director of OEC, Mark Suckley, and our director of CF, Lisa Buds, could not be here tonight, but I wanted to give them a special shout out. They have been instrumental in just helping me transition into this role. Um, their support, their wisdom. Um, I
032couldn't do it without them. It's a pleasure to serve with them each and every day. So, and it's assistant principal week as well. So, um, I'm extremely grateful to them. So, thank you. I have the pleasure this evening of being joined by a group of five individuals who are members of our student ambassador. There are student ambassadors for the high school. They work closely with Dr. Milligan. We are joined this evening by four seniors and one freshman. I'm going to introduce them. So, I have senior Brennham Tonkovich, senior Luke Lovely, senior Bailey Stevens, senior Emma Chamberlain, and then I have freshman Brooklyn Stokes and Troy showed up. And I have freshman Troy Meyers here this evening as well, just coming from Lacrosse. So, thank you so much for being here. So, this evening, as we
033go throughout the presentation, they're going to interject and they're going to share some student perspective um throughout the slides. I'm going to turn things over to Emma just for a brief moment. She's going to introduce some of the work that they've been doing um within their ambassador group. So, Emma. Um okay. So, I'm going to share what being student ambassador is. Being a student ambassador at Oxford High School has been a privilege to give my student voice into what our school needs to do in the future. This year is the first year working with Dr. Millian who is an amazing individual and She wants to include all members of our group with more than just us five six and um and she wants to listen and hear all the ideas that are shared. I have
034been in a similar group last year started by principal Beasley who wanted student input but Dr. Mulligan wanted to take that a step further and create a whole group and get fancy t-shirts. Um, so our goal soon here is to start this group in younger grades and classes to give their voice so we know what their school needs. Okay, there are a couple of themes in this evening's presentation that I would like to highlight in advance. Both of which have also been stressed throughout the district strategic planning process the past several months. The first and the term is also highlighted on the screen here for you is pathways. We have an an enrollment of about 1,600 students here at the high school. We know our students have a diverse set of interests and career aspirations.
035So, we want to offer multiple pathways that reflect that. So, we have courses, programs, real world and career ready options for our students. So, pathways, it's a word you're going to hear um especially at the beginning of our presentation this evening. Second, we strive to foster an environment that promotes the growth of future ready learners. So through our multiple pathways for students, we want them to be inspired and empowered learners. The goal is to provide relevant, personalized, and rigorous instruction that will help them develop lifelong skills, collaboration skills, critical thinking skills, as well as communication skills. So again, those themes just to keep an eye out for pathways and future ready learners. Okay, let's do a little a little dive into some of our some of our pathways. Advanced placement, which is also referred to
036as AP. These are college level courses. These are courses that are for 9th through 12th grade students. We offer 15 AP seated courses here at the high school. We currently have 426 students um enrolled in at least one AP course. Students who are currently in an AP course um they'll be prepping for exams, those will take place here within the next month or so. But looking at some data from last year, uh last May, 61.4% 4% of AP test takers scored a three or higher on their AP exam. Now, why is that important? We want our students to score three or higher because that earns them college credit. So, earning college credit at the high school level and especially for moms and dads, for free, right? So, it's super important. Um AP exams, the highest
037you can score is a five. So again, we're aiming for at least a three on those. Uh, next pathway, the international balorate DP program. We just finished our reauthorization visit. We like to give a special shout out to Julie Carmen who is our DP coordinator as well as our DP uh teaching staff. They did a tremendous job. They're very passionate about their work. Um, they had a wonderful evaluation visit. Um, so a special shout out to them this evening. We offer 19 IB diploma program courses here at OS. Uh similar to AP students who are diploma program uh students who are seeking that diploma program uh certification they will be prepping for those exams as well um over the course of the next month. Last year, the class of 2024, 89% of our students were
038successful in earning their IB diploma. I would like to highlight that the global average is 80.5%. That includes both international and private schools throughout the world. What's super impressive, if we were to add public schools into that, the average drops down to the low to mid60s and our students were at 89% last year. Um, I would also like to just highlight the impact on first year college retention. So, DP students the first year of college have a 98% retention rate versus the national average of 74%. In addition to that, if you look at the 4-year um graduation um window, um the DP students have a 74% um uh success rate versus 38% um nationally. So again, um our DP students do extremely well. They do very well with the universities that they apply apply for.
039We have students going to Princeton, MIT, Michigan, Duke. um they do extremely well. Next, and Mr. Suckley is in attendance tonight, we'll see how I do. Um but our OS Oxford school's early learning college, we refer to it as O6. So, it's those students who who basically take on that fifth year. They still walk with their graduating class, but they have like that fifth year of school. We currently have 268 students in the early college program at OHS. Um, and this these statistics were just amazing to me. That covers over 552 college courses, over 1,500 course credits, and our students have an average GPA of a 3.56, which is just outstanding. By the time our students finish that fifth year, they are leaving Oxford High School with 60 plus credits towards their degree, which I
040think is just an amazing opportunity for our kids. There's no place I'd rather be. This is just awesome. Um, those fifth year students are in the process of wrapping up their capstone projects that will take place the week of graduation on uh May the 14th. So, we're looking forward to that. Okay. at this time would like to bring up. Hello, my name is Brena. Um, I'm currently in the AP classes. So, my AP courses that I've been taking are AP composition and AP biology. Um, these classes have prepared me in so many different ways um for my future endeavors like my school and even my career. Um, AP composition which is taught by Mr. burden has um not only allowed me to build confidence in my writing school skills but also to just increase like
041the level of excellence of them. Um my AP biology class has prepared me for college biology classes um and provided me a really strong background in the topics providing an easier transition into my college courses. So, I really value those AP classes and have made it my goal throughout high school to take at least one a year. So, that's AP. Hi, I'm Brooklyn Stokes and I'm a freshman and OC has taught me many things. It is such a good program. It helps me with my test taking skills, note note takingaking, and my time management skills, which helps me with every one of my classes. And it's just an amazing program. I'm Bailey Stevens. I'm a senior. OSAC has the best mentors. And I want to say a special thank you to Mr. Sley that has
042always supported me and helping me with my future. That is exactly what OSAC is. OSAC helps you to learn what college really is. Like OSAC has helped me to discover what I actually want to do in college and has helped me to learn and manage time as I would do in an actual college setting. Thank you. Okay, shifting gears. CTE, career and technical education. So, this is overseen by Mrs. Buts both she is our director of our CTE programs with her and also Leslie Fleetmire who is our career navigator. They've done a tremendous amount of work. Um they're extremely passionate about career focused education. So you can see in this slide, I'm not going to go through everything, but I do want to highlight just a few things. Um, first, first semester enrollment, 77% of
043our students, I believe it was, 150 of our students um were in a CTE course. Okay, so it's extremely high. Over 250 certifications and credentials were obtained. So again, that's just remarkable for this program and just speaks to the um amount of growth that it has seen over the course of the past several years. Um the next item I'd like to highlight, I want to talk about Zello for just a minute. So Zello is the program that we use for students. Um they really go in and it's where they discover what their interests are. Um it will give them direction, guidance on their career path. So it really points them in their in the direction. So when they sit down with their counselor, they can pull up, we call it their EDP, um which is
044their educational development plan, and they can have some conversations when they're selecting courses. Um and again, it goes back to um you know, having um pathways for students in those future ready learners. It's very helpful. So 96% completion rate. The county says it at 90%, so we're exceeding that as well. So kudos to them. they're always on top of it and making sure that our students are completing their EPS. The last thing I want to highlight on this screen is the actual the very last bullet. For the first time in several years, we had what we called an elective field trip. We really wanted to give our students exposure to the building and help them gain a better understanding of some of the elective offerings that we have here at the high school. Um, so
045we had all of our eighth graders visit the last week in January and they were able to actually uh move from teacher to teacher, get exposure to the class, uh, meet the teacher. That in itself was very valuable. Um, there was 13 different um, experiences that they had that afternoon. They had lunch with us. Um, so we're looking forward to doing that again in the future. But again, before the counselor sat down with them and handed them a sheet and asked them to select courses, they now had some prior knowledge, some background um that will help them make more informative decisions when they sat down with mom and dad. And then we surveyed our students at the conclusion of that. 100% of our MS staff that came, 91% of our MS eighth graders reported having
046a better understanding the offerings here. So, it was just a tremendous experience. Something I'm so glad that we did. And now I'm going to turn things over to you and again. Hello. As a student taking uh uh one of these classes, they really connect to real life uh things you have to do in the everyday uh parts of living like financial management is one of the classes I take and it's really helped me prepare for real life. So, I'm in quite a few of the career tech education classes. Um, my workbased learning class um has given me so many opportunities to work with patients one- on- one. Um, and this opportunity has really given me the time to practice patient care and patient communication and get really comfortable with it because it's something that I'm
047going to be seeing for the rest of my life. Um, and all of these have been taught to me um through incredible educators who have really like just helped me as much as they possibly can and who really care about each individual student and it really does show. Um, my EMT class which is taught by Mr. Thor has um taught me self-confidence not only in educational aspects but in my own personal life as well. Um, he's really like built me up and made me feel very confident in my skills and interactions with others including patients. Okay. So, a commonly asked question is are we missing anyone? And so, one of the things that we always do, we look at our EDPs, we look at um some of the interests that our students have. What are
048some of those careers? And and so, how can we how can we help them? And so one of those areas that we've identified is the architecture and construction cluster. And you can see the breakdown here with uh 9th through 12th grade. We've identified 272 students who are interested in this pathway. And then you can see listed below some of the programs that fit into that cluster. Now that doesn't mean that we're going to just race into making any drastic decisions. These are just things for us to consider at this point in time. These are just in this is information for us as we start talking vision, we start making plans. Um these are things that we will sit down and look at together. So I at least wanted to make you aware of that that
049we are aware and these there will be conversations occurring in the future. We have a very robust arts program. We have some super talented students. I have a great appreciation for what they do each and every day. Um, I could not do it personally. Um, so I'm super proud of them, what they do on stage, um, the passion that they have for their craft, the amount of time, um, effort and energy that they put into being the absolute best that they can be. anytime you go to a concert, a performance, a play, um it's on full display. We have wonderful staff members who oversee it and I think they're passionate about what they do and our and that uh that sets the example. It sets the tone for the course for our kids and then
050things just uh really take off. So, we have competitions, as you all know, competitions throughout the year, marching band, dance band, orchestra, choir, jazz band. Um, our jazz band has performances out in the community. Um, I don't know if you noticed coming into the PAC lobby this evening. Uh, but last week we had our annual spring art show. Um, Mrs. Kosy and Mrs. Amansky did an outstanding job putting that together. U, but our stu students growth throughout our art program. Um, it just shined. Our band went to New York City in November. We have a Chicago trip coming up with choir and dance. Um our theater puts on a few performances um throughout the school year. Again, they just do an outstanding job. Uh we do have a student ambassador who participates in the arts
051program. She cannot be here tonight, but she wrote a statement that I would like to read. This comes from 10th grader Katie Allen. My experience with the art programs offered at OHS has been nothing short of insightful and wonderful. I took drawing class my freshman year and even though I am no Picasso, the class was a joy to be a part of and got me involved in an area that I didn't know I was missing. I've been a part of marching band, wind ensemble, and the musicals and my time has only been amazing. There is such a community where there is a shared passion and the goal is to perform well. Overall, the arts at OS are more than just another class. We have had a banner year in athletics. We have had 560 students
052and this is through March just before spring season who have participated in a state sponsored high school sport. Um, so far this year, 357 have received varsity awards, 139 multiport athletes. Um, you saw this earlier when we were recognizing our students across this the stage, but the importance of being a scholar athlete. That's why we refer to them as student athletes. You have to take care of business in the classroom if you want to be successful and have opportunities on the playing field. So that's something our coaches and under the direction of Mr. Demar that's emphasized they do a great job um having that conversation with their athletes. We had 16 senior student athletes who signed national letters of intent this year. Four league championships the county championship. Our boys soccer team went further than
053they ever had before. Um and two individual state champions with Tristan and Cheyenne this year. Just been an outstanding year. are looking forward to spring. Emma, hi again. Um, I'm Emma. I'm also a senior. Um, so I'm part of the varsity swim team here at Oxford High School. I've been swimming since I was like competitive since I was like six. Um, so being part of the team has benefited me because I'm able to accomplish goals and maintain mental and physical strength. Teammates and coaches have your back and they support you in all that you do. It builds work ethic and motivation, which is important in all parts of your life, as well as staying active, athletic, and powerful. I've committed to college from our sport of varsity swimming, and I plan on continuing to break
054my personal best throughout college. Hi, I'm Troy. Uh, being an athlete helps me be a better student. Sports have taught me discipline and time management, how to push through challenges and personal life, and just through school. and has taught me how to be balanced with sports and being a student and I just acquired skills from sports and I just use them to be a better student. Thanks so much. Okay, as we talk about clubs, I thought to myself, what pictures could I put on the club slide? And then it just got to be overwhelming. So, I thought, you know what? Let's just put up the club schedule and you can kind of get an idea of what we have going on here uh throughout the course of the week. You've seen the upper leftand corner
055there. We have over 350 students who participate in a club. A wide variety of options Monday through Friday. And again, the main takeaway for me here is we want you to be connected in this building. Um these clubs have sponsors, so there's an adult that ends up being a go-to for a lot of our kids. It's a great way to connect with other students across grade levels. Um I think too just explore your passions, your interests, things again that you might have interest in doing after you leave high school. Clubs is a great uh is a is a great pathway for that again. So I'm going to turn things over back to Brena again who's going to talk about her club experience. So for me I have been involved in HOSA. This is a medical
056club. Um, you get to do hands-on skills and compete at national and um, state conferences. Um, you also get to do different tests, which is nice because it helps you build your study skills. Um, so for me, I'm actually the public relations officer of HOSA. One of the things that I love about HOSA is it gives you the opportunity to grow and take leadership in the club. Um, Michel is um she was my workbased learning teacher as well and she's also the teacher who works with us at the club and she always makes sure that we have as many resources as we need whether or not it's textbooks or buzzers or postable which is kind of like family which is pretty fun. So um there's a lot of different opportunities to have fun meet new
057people and really just build connections. So if it weren't for clubs I don't think I would have nearly as many social skills as I do and I would not at all be as confident as I am. Thank you very Okay, next few slides we're going to look at some data. Uh this first slide that you're looking at um as you're probably aware this is the first year in quite some time that we have put back into into place an attendance exam um I guess incentive policy. Um we did it several years ago. Um we felt like after we looked at our attendance data uh for the district for some of our buildings that it was time to look at this again. And so this year uh students who were absent nine or less times in
058a class for the semester did not they were not required to take their end of semester exam. So we wanted to look at the data. I know Dr. Milligan showed this to you at VA last month but um I wanted to also speak to it just for a moment. I really want to highlight the top uh the top item. That's really what we're looking at. We really want to see a positive there because this is uh the number of students who are attending more than 90% of the time. So from the end of the year last year through March of this year, we have seen a 16% increase in in students attending school 90% um or more of the time. We want to see those bottom three graphs there. We want to see those numbers
059dip down because the idea then is it funnels up to the top. So, I will say this, and I know it's small, you can't see it. So, it actually there's a number on the blue section there. 910 students attending 90% or more of the time. That equates to 55% of our student population. We are happy with the growth, but by no means are we satisfied with that number. I believe that uh we can do more. So just some short-term goals thinking about next year continuing to increase that percentage um in five 5% increments decreasing the percentage of students attending less than 50% of the time. Um we really want to consider the role of student tardiness in our policy and so next year the plan is to continue with nine days but then to incorporate
060tardies into that. So, three tardies if you're late, that equates to one absence. So, we plan on rolling that out with our students and with our families later uh this spring. We didn't want to adjust to 9 days yet. Felt it was best. Let's give it another year. Let's look at our data. Let's let's see what it's telling us and then we can adjust accordingly at that time. Okay. And I believe you have seen this at every building that you have been at uh up to this point. So this is looking at our climate survey data from 2022 23 to 23 24. We don't have the data yet for this year. So this is looking at our highest ranking indicators over that time. So within the report they they provide you with five of your
061highest indicators so that we look at commonalities amongst those two those two years. So here are the here are three of the highest indicators um across both of those surveys. So first there's a teacher counselor or other staff member whom the student can go to for help. We've poured a lot of um time into that trusted adult survey data developing relationships with kids. the work we've been doing with restorative circles um advisory so you can see the percentages there are high which is great we want to see that that's agreed strongly a degree um OHS offers a variety of activities and courses you can see amongst all of our stakeholder groups there we're well into the 90s the last one I want to I want to highlight for a moment all students are aware of
062safety and security procedures we saw a slight increase from 2223 to 232 24 we're at 79%. That's not good enough. Uh we need to do better. I'm glad to see that it's increased. Uh but from my perspective and and sitting in this seat, we we have to see that number go up. So we need to sit down as a team, we'll continue to do that. Uh we'll pour into what we can do uh to help our students continue to feel more comfortable, more aware of those expectations within the building. Sorry. All right, the next slide. All right, switching gears. These are our lowest ranking indicators over time. So we look at this is percentage that disagree strongly. Disagree strongly disagree. So the first survey item and I believe this has been a theme throughout the
063buildings as well. discipline is enforced fairly. We as a team have had this discussion together. Why does our data look this way? Um it's difficult whenever you're sitting down and having a hard conversation with somebody, a student, a parent. A lot of times there's emotion that's involved in that. We would we would expect that. Um, I think on our end what's super important is that we continue to be crystal clear in our communication with our families and with our kids. So much of this to me is about relationships with our students, our culture within the building. Um, I look at this very much like a parent. Um, we love our kids. Um, we want what's best for them. We're going to advocate for them. But that also means there's times we have to have hard
064conversations and there's consequences and that's tough. But again, it comes back to the relationships that we have with kids and how intentional we are with developing that, which I believe is going to help flip that script a little bit. So, we will continue to work on that as a team up here at the high school. Teachers get helpful, timely feedback about student work. I am really interested to see where we end up at the end of this year. We've done a lot of work with Schooly. is our main hub where our families and our students can go to for feedback. I have a great amount of confidence in our teachers. They're doing an outstanding job dayto-day in the classroom giving our kids feedback on how they're progressing with skills and concepts. I think here um
065students in particular probably have that eye on. I want to know what I got on that assignment. How did I do on that test or that essay? And sometimes that takes time and frustration grows. Um, but I have no doubt our students are giving are getting that feedback on a day-to-day basis. It's just uh that formal grade. I want to see it um as fast as possible. So, uh and the last one, teacher successfully show students how lessons relate to life outside of school. Again, for me, we've seen a little bit of improvement from one year to the next. This goes back to what I had mentioned at the beginning of this presentation. uh the focus on pathways continuing to provide opportunities for our students and then future ready learners and I remember uh growing
066up myself sitting in a class and asking myself the question when will I ever need to use this in life and yeah you're right I might be sitting in a math class I might have a hard time figuring out when I need to know that algorithm or be how do I'm going to solve that proof uh proof um but to me it's all about the skills, the skills that we're teaching our kids in those classes. How to critically think about something, how to collaborate with my peers, how to think. Those are the skills that are transferable. That's where we need to be intentional with our kids and helping them connect those dots. And I just thought this was interesting. This is the last um uh teacher successfully show students how lessons relate to life. I
067didn't include in that last slide our other two stakeholder groups, but you can see from staff, parents, and students the bar graph. I'm very very visual person, so you can kind of see the break breakdown. It's just kind of interesting to look at. Okay, our last section this evening, points of pride. Uh so much to be proud of in this building. Uh so many wonderful things going on. Um you can see on the lefthand corner our teachers participating in uh themed Halloween day and just dressing up and having fun. Our kids I want to highlight the bottom right hand picture our robotics team. They haven't been mentioned yet this evening. Uh first place at Ketaring a few weeks ago. They qualified for nationals this past weekend. They now have a robotics field here um in
068the building which has helped tremendously. Outstanding program. Those kids work so hard. They're here every night. uh bottom left hand picture probably one of the uh my most proud moments as as a principal here in this building so far. It's our unified basketball team. Uh Mrs. Sar, Mrs. Scribner have done a tremendous job putting our unified basketball team together this year. they competed in a league um and involved our mentorship leadership kids um and students from our categorical programs and just to see how they all interacted together to see our student body support these kids um it's what it's all about. It's awesome. So I just wanted to lift that up. Definitely a point of pride for us here at OHS. Lots of other things going on in the building. We've had uh successful state
069DECA um presentations. We've had BPA um students signing letters of intent. Uh Mr. Rook, our teacher of the year. Um just been outstanding. So, at this time, I'm going to invite our ambassadors up and they are each going to provide a very brief just summary of either their um experience this year or perhaps their career as it winds down. I thank you so much for your attention this evening. Always appreciate the opportunity to present. Thank you. Um, so my point of pride is setting goals and striving to make my county and in final cuts, which I did make and it was huge for me and college to you know overall my high school experience has been filled with caring educators like Mr. Kilgore, Miss Sanders, and Mr. Gillette who all taught me kindness and compassion.
070Each of these teachers has given me the opportunity to feel comfortable and safe in the building. I'd also like to recognize Miss Gibson Marshall and Miss Buts who have made my senior year the best of my high school. Um, these women have helped me in ways that I can't even explain and they have been outlets for me to go to when I'm feeling down and celebrate the successes with me which is really just unmatched. For me being a senior, the best thing that has happened to me was having such amazing teachers that have really cared about their students both in the classroom and outside the classroom. Thank you to all my teachers for getting me to where I am today. Uh, one of my point of prides is helping others and being kind and uh,
071being a leader at the school and helping others and showing them how they can be leaders, too. One of my points of pride are football games where you get to watch the student body turn athletes. My points of pride is just being able to be super communicative to one of my to friends and I'm able to make friends all over the school. Like as a freshman, I was super nerds to come here. Now I have a bunch of friends I never known. So, and I just wanted to give our student ambassadors a special shout out. It is not easy public speaking and presenting. This is an outstanding group of kids. Um, so I thank them for their time. and they're extremely busy and they showed up tonight and their family. So, thanks guys. I appreciate
072it. Thank you so much and thank you to the ambassadors for coming. That was really excellent presentation and we appreciate you. Before Mr. Bigalow steps away, did anybody have any questions or comments? Bye. Great job, Brad. Glad you're here. Nope. I don't think so. Okay. Thanks so much. Moving into item five of our agenda tonight. We have scheduled public comment. And there is one correct. Yes. Andrea Shallot. Hello, I'm Andrea Charlotte. I'm the vice president of the Oxford Education Association. Jim was supposed to be here tonight. He told me I was allowed to tell an old joke about him, like calling him old, but I thought it would fall flat, so I'm just going to go sentimental. um but he had surgery so he couldn't be here. Um I am an Oxford teacher. I'm a
073parent of an Oxford student at Clear Lake Elementary. I am an Oxford school's alumni and just all around have a deep love for the Oxford community in general. Um, as the Oxford Education Association Vice President and the Social Studies teacher at Oxford High School, I want to take a moment to express our sincere appreciation for the school board's recent letter of support that was sent to district staff. It's incredibly uplifting to have the dedication and hard work of our district staff recognized by the school board. I'm truly proud of both our students, as we've seen some of those examples tonight, and staff for all of their positive contributions that they make on a daily basis. Um, it's easy to get caught up in the broader conversations about education both locally and nationally, which can sometimes
074overshadow the remarkable achievements happening right here in our schools every single day. And these everyday successes deserve to be celebrated and acknowledged. So again, thank you for your support and for helping to highlight all the great things that we're doing together in this district and in this community. So thank you very much on behalf of the OBA. Thank you, Andrea. All right, moving into our consent agenda. We had minutes from the March 11th meeting, uh, our bills payable and HR updates. Can I get a motion? Move to approve the consent agenda as presented and support. Shane, thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries with just barely quum. Better make sure we get all of them. All right. Next up, our superintendence report. Dr. Milligan. All right. Good evening, everyone.
075First of all, it's such an honor to represent our school district. Um, the students that we saw tonight. I'm very proud of their accomplishments. and my student ambassadors. I know they're out there eating cookies right now, but just such an amazing group of individuals and how amazing were they just standing up and and sharing their thoughts about their school experience. So, um that's the first thing I wanted to say. Um we did have a community conversation today before the board meeting. Uh we are offering another opportunity on May 13th for at Oxford Elementary uh from 6:00 to 7. I recommend tonight for us to vote for the board to vote to support moving the location and the time. So I offer that for your consideration and I encourage our community to join us for just
076casual conversation, questions, concerns. Uh, I have my entire cabinet there that can answer questions. Um, can give some insight into the work that we do to keep Oxford in a great working condition. So, I encourage everyone to attend. Oh, I don't think I have my clicker. Do I? Oh, somebody's clicking for me. That's exciting. Oh, thanks, Chrissy. We're used to having Aaron here. It's unusual not to have Aaron here. Um so go to the next slide please. Thank you. Um we are celebrating our parah professionals. Um the par profofessional appreciation day was April 2nd and I had a chance to be in some of our elementary schools who had highlighted a pair professional and just the joy on their faces when their principal recognized them was really fun to see. Um but I wanted to
077talk about a few things regarding our pair of professionals. the gratitude first and foremost for the work that they do. Um they have a significant impact on student lives and they often go outside of what their job description is. So we very much appreciate that. Um they're incredibly supportive. Uh they support students through academic guidance, emotional support, and adapting to diverse needs. such a positive impact on school communities with long lasting effects such as fostering confidence, independence, and providing opportunities for students. Um, oftentimes their contributions go unseen and and overlooked. Moments of kindness, kindness, extra preparation and emotional energy um that they invest in their work. And finally, we just want to make sure that we're celebrating the importance of their role. They are not just support staff, they are essential educators, advocates, and heroes
078in the school community. So, uh, thank you to all of our pair professionals throughout the Oxford community. We are going to have um I had mentioned previously at one of our board meetings um we were going to have two in-person three in-person uh community conversations and one virtual for our uh community members who are un unable to travel. So the we are have set a date for April 26th from 6:00 to 7:00. Again this is a virtual community conversation. Some topics we'll be discussing and sharing. The first is a safety overview and dialogue. So looking at a comprehensive what are we doing completely across the board to keep students safe? This includes um physical safety, psychological safety, virtual safety, um what programs and um protocols do we have in place? So, a really nice comprehensive
079overview of that um to help our parents better understand all the work that we do in terms of safety. We also are going to share a brief presentation on an early warning indicator system. We had a presenter a few board meetings back that talked about wanting us to have a way to identify students that if they have warning signs are how are we picking up on them? We actually have a very robust system in place and we're going to be talking about it and presenting some information about it at this virtual conversation. So the QR code is there. So is the link. I encourage you to sign up. We'll also send this out through school messenger so that um families, parents, community members can sign up as well. So I look forward to seeing everybody
080there. An update on our mass notification sound check. This is something we've been working on for some time now. The uh we have upgraded the speakers um for the sound carrying capacity so they're a lot louder. Um the re recording voice was too quiet and we couldn't hear it as well. So that is amplified significantly. Uh we also have done some specific speaker work and specifically um in the courtyards here at the high school. Mr. Bigalow talked about testing it out the other day and having people out in the courtyard and testing it. Um, and the speakers have improved significantly. Um, middle school was having some issue with their office speakers giving feedback, so they've adjusted that. Uh, a concern was that in the kitchen when staff was in the walk-in freezer and refrigerator, they
081could not hear the uh speakers, the warning indicator. So, we have actually put speakers in those walk-in uh um freezers and fridge. So, you can very much hear that throughout the building now. And then um another part of this is replacing older antennas at the middle school. This has to do with our radios. It's the older uh um antennas that have been there since the building was built, possibly. um and they're just outdated and it becomes problematic and when we're trying to use those radios. So, we're replacing those at the middle school and will be replacing those at the high school in the future. Um we had a very unfortunate electrical uh situation at the middle school which caused us to uh have to get a generator to power the entire building. um that has
082been going on for some time now at great cost. Fortunately, the our insurance uh company is uh helping us out with that. However, that hopefully is coming to a close and um we're waiting on the delivery of the transformer and uh hoping to get the recommendation for approval tonight for the board to get that um actually ordered and delivered. This will put us in compliance um with policy and state law as far as getting this transformer in and we anticipate that we will no longer have to use the generator. Uh best case scenario April 15th. So that was that. And then um never a dull moment. OEIC. We we have some pipes bust um in the uh community space and so we needed to repair those. Those have all been repaired and capped and the
083damage has been remediated. Um that is covered by insurance. The entry area at OEIC has it had always had a secure entrance and a secure vestibule. We've added two additional security doors so that the entire waiting room, if we have somebody coming in to enroll, if we have community members coming in and they want to meet, we have a secure area that they can wait for staff to come get them. And then finally, for OEIC, the kitchen remodel has started. We do have temporary walls that have been installed, and that's going to that protects the student area right there in the cafeteria. The demolition is ongoing and we're hoping that to that that is completed August of 2025. Exciting news for all of our students and parents and teachers and everyone. I think um we
084submitted waiverss. We had gone over our allotted days for snow days. Um so Oxford High School was over three days. Bridges was over three days. virtual academy as well. Crossroads was over two and then all of our uh elementary and middle schools were over one day. We did apply for a waiver and that was approved. So we do not need to make up those days. So that is very Yes. Go ahead clap. I knew that would be the most important news. All right. Um this is Mark Zuckley shared this. This is uh Oxford gives back 2025. It's uh Oxford Early College Program, OSK. Um they do an annual spring yard cleanup for elderly neighbors to help them um clean up. And there are groups of volunteers. They spend three-hour shifts at a property doing basic
085yard work. This was started in 2016. And I love how how this is 100% student driven. This is students wanting to give back to their community. So that is pretty cool. um 40 homes over two days throughout Oxford, Leonard, and Lake Oran. Uh they are looking for three to 400 volunteers to sign up. So the sign up is right there. I made it nice and big as well as the link. So um I know that the students would greatly appreciate all of our u community members, staff, families to sign up and volunteer for this really um awesome program. Uh we will hold our second strategic plan community forum um tomorrow. Uh we are holding it at Oxford Elementary School. I appreciate Principal Brown. We had to pivot kind of at the last minute because of
086the construction at OEIC. So thank you uh Principal Brown for that. And um we've put all different types of measures in place to ensure that it's um secured in a location not around students. It'll be completely separate. Uh we're going to minimize disruption. So again, I appreciate Principal Brown. It's a great space. It's a separate entrance, a parking lot up the north of the school that um our participants can park and come right in. A separate entrance. So, we're looking forward to that opportunity and get lots of feedback from the community regarding our goals, our power action, uh lots of dialogue. And I'm super excited about our ad team. Our ad team is actually facilitating the conversation. So, we practiced that tonight at our ad team meeting and they were phenomenal. So, I look forward
087to that conversation. And then after each of the strategic planning session, there's one from 1 to three and one from 6:00 to 8. Our board members have a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the strategic plan and their role in making it come come to life. How do we leverage the the different components of the strategic plan um in terms of advocacy uh actionable steps so that we are very purposeful on how we do and what we do in terms of moving the district forward. So I'm looking forward to learning alongside them and some school activities. This was Leonard Elementary Science Alive. Um, that's an armadillo all the way there to the left. And I don't know if you can see it very well, but in the middle you have that huge snake going across
088the students legs. Um, and then a chinchilla on the far right. So, giving kids a chance to really be hands on and get a sense of these different types of animals is pretty exciting. No sloth pictures. I'm so sorry team, but um great opportunities for kids to be hands-on. Uh Clear Lake, um we had the school activity at Clear Lake. Well, it was actually held, I believe, at OES, um Battle of the Books. So, I talked to principal Nimi. She was very proud of her teams. Um essentially, they are a part of this group. They all have five books that they have to read and then they go to this competition and they have to answer questions about these books. And so Clear Lake um the little crane makers got third place. Um OES team
089actually got second place. And then another team at Clear Lake, Nature Knows It All got best costume. So it sounds like a really fun, energizing event. um Principal Gwyn at Lakeville. We had a wonderful tour at Lakeville and we got a chance to meet um Buddy, their um facility dog and Principal Gwyn talked about the uh limited edition pause ticket and what a highlight that was for kids. So they receive pause tickets for um for essentially PBIS and demonstrating positive behaviors, attitudes, caring behaviors. Um and typically when no one's watching, that's when they're getting these tickets. And they absolutely love the limited edition and they are pretty cool. I kind of wanted one myself. They have different versions of them and the kids can collect them all. So, it's a wonderful motivator for kids um
090to continue to do the really good work um that they they like to do. So, and of course, Oxford High School has lots of exciting things going on as Mr. Bigalow shared um some additional pieces. So, I I know you guys have heard me talk about Mary Poppins. I'm still just in awe of the production. Well, to add to that, we have two of our actors, Tina Call and Cole Ditker, who are Sutton Foster nominees, and this is a High School Musical Theater Award. So, it's quite an honor to have them nominated. And having seen the show three times, I can tell you that they were phenomenal. So, I hope that they win. Um, you met Ian tonight. So, we had a boy swimming. Ian, um, as mentioned earlier, got a state championship, 14th place
091in the backstroke and 16th in freestyle. And then our boys, uh, 400 relay was 24th in state. So, lots of great swimming going on. Um, our DECA students, we have two state champions in DECA. We have the state champions and national qualifier for global marketing. And then we also have our state champions and national qualifiers um for which is uh Peter White, Nolan Mouser, Luke Slesac, and Max Mirand. Um so congratulations to all of those students who qualified to go to nationals. So that's pretty exciting. Uh and finally, this is our DECA group and they are headed to nationals in Florida. So, um I know that principal Bigalow had not highlighted uh all the um accomplishments of DECA, but it was it's pretty amazing what they have accomplished as well. And as he mentioned, their
092teacher is the teacher of the year for uh secondary and that is quite an accomplishment as well. So, lots of great things going on. Real quick, yes, Tanya, you mentioned the the virtual um community conversation that it's on April 26. That's a Saturday. Yeah, I think somebody mentioned that I got that date. I'm calendar challenged. I don't know if you know that. Um I think Justin was going to look. Did you look and see what date I meant? The 29th. That should have been a nine. Okay. 29th. My apologies. Yep. Tuesday. Thank you, Ann. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Millan. Milligan. I'm sorry. Were there any questions or comments? No. All right. Well, thank you very much for the update. Lots of great things happening. Moving into our board of education matters, we have Dr. Milligan
093had mentioned our May 13th meeting to be moved. Would anybody like to make a motion on that? Shane, thank you. U move to approve changing the time and location of the May 13, 2025 board meeting to Oxford Elementary School at 7 p.m. support. Mike, thank you. Any discussion? I would just like to say uh please do attend. Bring some friends. We always enjoy having our community out. So May 13th at 6:00, we will see you at Oxford Elementary School. All those in favor? I I any opposed? Motion carries. All right. In your board packet, you had quite a few field trip request. This is first reading for the five six listed. Would anybody like to go into a motion? Mike, thank you. Move to approve the first reading of the field trips as presented. Support
094Shane. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? I any opposed? Motion carries. We have another field trip. This one I believe will be asked for approval this evening. So they have come to present to us because we did not have a first reading on this one. Sales USA. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, that's the first one. Um my name is and I am career technical education and one of the co sponsors for skills program. So we are going to be participating this weekend in the state competition at skills and it is a bit different from some other organizations. This my second year part of this one in the past and typically we find out things further in advance with this organization know that the state competition is however it varies region to region and competition
095to competition. So we were into end of January into February before we even knew when competitions were going to be and who was going to be participating. So it really kind of put us behind all the place. So by the time we were able to submit it was essentially the earliest time that we could after we finally finalized who was going to go to go. So that's what happened with that opportunity. Um skills is similar to those but it's more trade focused skill focused. So you're going to things like automotive, culinary arts, things of that nature as well, media production. And the students will be competing in hands-on actual physical activities throughout the day on Saturday. So once they compete, it's about four hours to do a physical some kind of activity as specifically they
096have and then award on Sunday and there's four competitors that we have between the competitions. It is much smaller in scale because again very limited in the number of actual opportunities that they can provide. that we have here. So, I would ask that you guys would go to that before. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Before you go, were there any questions or comments on this from what you had in your packet to the presentation? Fantastic. Yeah. Okay. Uh, could I get a motion? Ann, thank you. I move to approve the OS Skills USA field trip as presented. Support Mike. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you for coming. All right. Item D, our committee updates. Uh we don't have James, but Ann, I believe
097you are going to fill in for our governance update. Um yes, we just um reviewed the the um FOYA protocols and procedures with Justin who did a really great presentation to clarify that for us and discussed some communication options that we could um possibly present to the board. I don't know if we want to wait to do that till we have more of a full group here. Um something more formal. We have another meeting coming up. We were supposed to this Friday, but we're gonna push that back due to some schedule conflicts. So, um, that was really about it. It was pretty pretty much from a a high vantage point there and and looking at being more communicative and how to clarify communication for the for the board. That's about it. Okay. Thank you. Uh
098we also did discuss possibly adding some of those communication aspects into our retreat on Saturday just as an update. Dr. Milligan and I discussed that and so just running that by the board too. We could also incorporate that as well as our evaluation. And then I did have a question. Uh if you don't know right now that's fine but I had asked that we push our meeting schedules on board book out for 3 months and Justin had mentioned that it was discussed in the governance committee meeting. Did you come to a recommendation? Not yet. Is this something we want to bring back when we have more of a a full board? We could definitely bring it back when we have the full board, but at this point it it seemed with the schedule conflicts already
099presented a month out as we were going scheduling um it seemed it would be the same issue to schedule even further out would be inviting more schedule conflicts. So we'd be rescheduling additional meetings at that point. So the the month out seemed to be far enough. Okay. No, at this point. Thank you. We can go ahead and bring that when when we have more representative of the full board, but good to know. Thank you, governance committee. All right. Did anybody have questions for governance? No. Great. Okay. Moving into policy committee. As you will see, we do have a a pretty large batch to bring you for first reading. And I just wanted to go over a couple of things. You'll see in policy 4229, we have made a 01, which means we are differing from
100what Trun has suggested and created our own policy. And I just want to thank Matt who came and presented to us on behalf of the AI committee that was formed in response to this uh policy. And he really explained a lot of the reasoning behind why they went with this. It was of course approved by Trun. So this language has all been looked over and approved and you'll notice which is the most striking part of this policy is that the generative aspect is crossed out to just include AI and the reasoning for that is that it is casting a wider net on our policy of AI. your things like chat GPT, right? Those are generative, but there there are certainly other the adaptive learning software, um some of the plagiarism detectors, the chat bots that
101don't create new content that would not be covered under the policy as it was written. And so that was their recommendation for us and the policy committee uh you know supports that. Obviously, we know this field is rapidly evolving and I think this will take us a bit further than the standard. And moving on to 3207, you'll see the change in there uh about the interest income. And that was just to keep up with our current practice of, you know, all of the funds being held in the same overall account and to some of them have, you know, $13 or $27 and and splitting that all out is very time inensive. And so that was one change. uh 3303. The recommended change from trun is that we push it to the current state bid approval
102level which is somewhere in the area of 30,520. And that is something that we receive quite frequently, you know, gifts and donations and and things like that. So, it just uh gives a bit more leeway for our admin. Uh earn sick time act. we touched on a little bit before, so you've seen this a couple of times. We've made no changes. This was all direct from Trun. Um, Miss Reed gave us a great presentation on this. And I will just note that in the future on board book, we will make sure to include these optionals. For example, you'll see that we had an option and we did insert one hour increments into that area, but it does not reflect on board books. So, I just wanted to keep you updated on that. And of course,
103if you read the 60 plus pages of our uh title N changes, we did not make a 0.01 on that. That is straight from Tron. We had a fabulous presentation from uh Mrs. Starland from Trun who went over all of the changes, how it relates to our state laws and she assured us that the way that it is written now legally complies with both our federal mandates as well as the Elliot Larson Civil Right Act here in Michigan. So we are covered on both and it is essentially our 2020 version of the policy that we are going back to. So, if anybody had questions on those policies, I'd be happy to take them. I had a quick question on the the 4229 for AI. Have we looked into what some of the other districts have
104for their policies on this? I know it is very quickly evolving. Some districts have already started to implement this into the classroom as well as um looking at ways to to incorporate that into student learning and and use of it. um like Aenddale I believe has a pretty clear policy or guideline that that makes it easier for classroom usage instead of a form to fill out every time. Is there has there been any research into other districts use of it? I know it's it's changing day by day. Yeah, I know. Yeah, you can go ahead because there there was a very robust committee and I know Inita Matt there were quite a few people on that who came to us and talked about a lot of the issues that we brought up. We had a
105lot of conversation around it. I will let Dr. Milligan finish because she was Yeah, they actually the committee actually started by going to an AI conference where other uh school districts presented what they were doing, how they were doing it, you know, the different uh concepts to consider. So absolutely they did a really robust research phase before they even started writing the policy. Please Anita would like to add sorry I just want to add a little clarifying information. So um a lot of the work that has to go into the handbook for it or like um separate from the policy essentially the policy will be broad in coverage but the um handbook developed for staff students and families will get more into the detail of best practice use of it and so on. We actually
106have our first um full district PD with Michigan Virtual who's coming out to provide professional learning for our staff this coming Friday. And then they're going to be again in district on May 7th um to start planting um the professional learning um for us and then they'll be back again in August to continue the learning with staff. So just want to add that. Awesome. Thank you. Sure. Okay. Any other questions, comments? All right. Would anybody like to make that motion? Sure. Thanks, Mike. Move to approve the first reading of policies 4229.01 3115-3115H 4105A and 5202 as presented support and thank Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Item F. We have FOYA appeals on the agenda tonight. Uh I believe there were three. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you.
107All right. So, per our policies and procedures, our policy states that we will have a procedure document created by our superintendent and that is posted on our website. We have a few options to do this evening depending on how the board would like to move. I know we do only have four, but if anybody would feel inclined to make a motion, three three would need for passing. Uh we can either wave the fee, uphold the fee, or we could issue a notice at this time to extend for 10 days bringing us to the next board meeting. So would anybody like to say anything about that? I guess my only thought is if the request is for information then we have an opportunity to discuss it and agree or disagree rather than putting it down the
108road. I think that is a policy or at least a step of the board to continue doing business without deferring anything down the road. Um I would support reviewing it and discussing it allowing these foyers to either be approved to move forward and get or or not. Um we have an opportunity to operate as a board tonight. We should do so. Okay. Any other thoughts? I would just say that uh that the the district's policy that exists is clear. I think following it is necessary and consistent for the expectation. So I don't if unless there's a discussion of changing a policy, which is not what I believe is presented today, I I don't see a reason not to uphold the policy that is in place. I I haven't seen a reason or argument otherwise. I
109haven't heard anything from the table otherwise. Okay. Just to be to be clear that the policy is separate from the procedure and so our policy does not outline what our procedures do. It our policy simply states that we will have a procedure developed by the superintendent. So just so we're not, you know, crossing wires there. Well, uh, again, we either move to wave the fee of the appeal, we can move to uphold the fee of the appeal, or we can extend for 10 days and discuss at the next. Those are if I could just say one thing. Yeah. Policy says that procedures say you officially just have to receive it today. You can take the action tonight or you do have 10 days already where you can vote at the next meeting and you can
110take an extension for additional 10 days. So you automatically have 10 days from today take the extra 10 business days and you can request an extension of additional 10 business days. So thank you. So just to mention that we could extend for 20 days essentially if that's I would make a motion I would I would make a motion to wave the fee for the requested foyers support Shane. Okay. Discussion on the motion any Shane? Yeah, I I completely understand policy and procedure and I understand protocol. Um I just think there's times where that can be a barrier uh to someone receiving information that they're requesting from us, from the board, from the district. And while I understand the slippery slope that it can go down if we wave one fee or we wave all fees
111or however this comes down, I understand where this kind of puts everybody in a possibly precarious position. Um I think in in full transparency um to our public that we serve uh I would have no issue at this time with waving the fee. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. So, just to clarify, the motion on the table is to wave the fee of the three requested foyas that we have in board book. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Ann. Thank you. Motion carries. Justin, if you could notify. Thank you. All right, moving into item nine, our equipment award, Mr. Fitzgerald. Good evening. This is the equipment that's associated with the electrical power problem we had in January with the middle school. It's the replacement transformer that goes along with it. The to get things back
112online at that building. It is um insured it's been deemed insurable by our insurance group. So the events covered but there some there things along those lines. The bigger picture is that u because of the nature of the event we're treating we're treating it like an emergency basis but we're still trying to comply with board policy and state laws. when it comes to this piece of the project and the piece specifically I'm talking about is the actual paying for the two pieces of equipment and the bid process related to that. So we think for the way we approach it through the documents here that for the board what we're asking for your approval on meets both our policy and the state and this has been the uh from the technical point of view. If we
113were not in such a situation where it's costing $25,000 a week to keep the generator situation going, we would have probably approached it differently, we might have got a better pricing on the equipment. When you balance, you know, saving $10,000 on price equipment against spending $75,000 for the 3 weeks to the four weeks or extended time to deal with it. Um it was concluded that this is in the best interest of us, the insurance organization and frankly it's going to get the middle school back online in its new normal in terms of its functioning operations sooner. So with all that said, it is a um two pieces of equipment are the ones the two of them themselves combined for about 195,000. We're requesting just under 15,000 for contingency funds because inevitably we'll come across something
114where we need some more, you know, buy another excuse of attaching equipment or something will come up. So, in order to prepare for that so we can continue to go forward and finish the project. So, the total request is for 200,000 $210,000 of authority and approval for pricing related to the transformer. It's a three-phase pad on the transformer and a a switch bolt called a bolt switch are working in unison in a new structure there. So all that said um culminating in our recommended action in terms of it is recommended to the board of education that the authorized administration provide payment to Hartwick and Electric as presented here in uh for 195,160 for the equipment and further we request up to $14,840 in contingency funds if needed for grant total authorization of $210,000. And because
115it is an emergency nation, which we're addressing it, we're also requesting that the board authorized or approved tonight in one one meeting. Um I would be happy to address any questions um around the event. We are happily if the board supports tonight. We are anticipating the district or the middle school and and the district head and that's it there. all that power back online under our new system control not being powered by a generator. Hopefully, if things go well, it should be about another week and on the outside the end of April. Um I'm going to say the end of April on the theory of underpromise, never deliver. So, but that's it. Um we are again looking for approval tonight on that. Any questions? Thank you. Do we have questions, comments? Shane, just uh question
116regarding the um 25,000 per week. What where are we at? I know I asked you earlier, but where are we at as far as an estimate of what we've spent thus far? The um for all involved from from mid January to now uh and it was a conversation we were having at the table earlier. I guess for me, we're in the neighborhood. Um, we'll be at 600,000 in that neighborhood. That's with some bills coming in. It is an enjoyable event. So, I just want to reemphasize that. But that has limits too. And I do think the sooner we get the more most cost effectively we get the situation makes the better, right? And um just to for my clarification, we do have a limit um to what our insurable event can be. But um up
117until that we should recoup or we will recoup all of the money from the insurance company minus our deductible. That's my understanding. Correct. I say that's my understanding because we are dealing with an insurance company and nothing is ever 100% in terms of concrete but that is that is what should happen. Okay. Just some clarification on the amount they get the 25,000 a week almost 2/3 of that's really related to the fuel consumption because there's a tractor trailer size generator powering that whole building and it just is pulling the fuel rapidly. Right. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Any others? I had a couple, please. Uh, you had mentioned that there was some sort of casing around the electrical wires that come from the pole to the transformer and the fact that those were not there was
118a reason behind the fire and and the breakdown. Um, of course, at the time that the building was was constructed, that wasn't necessary, but it is now. Can you tell us how many of our buildings have that or do not have that? What are we looking at? I can't tell you at this time which buildings are the same scenario. Just a quick background, the the power that comes off of Lakeville Road and runs back through the elementary up to the middle school. There's about a casing that's you typically find for about 2/3 of the distance and then it goes through what's been it's described to me always being old school, but it's very just bearing the cable on the ground. That's where the problem occurred. So, and then to answer your question, we are in
119process or soon relaunching the process of a facility assessment and condition assessment for every building and site in the district. That will be one of the things that won't be isolating which buildings are using what style and to what extent we can identify that. The reason I say to what extent is to actually find and confirm that, you have to bring out a crew that does this underground reading system that determines where it is and what it is. So, if that's something that is reasonably priced, we will actively do that. If it's expensive, we'll go through a book, a desk audit review, if you will. It's like a book review of the actual plans and the time and the years of the building were built to see if we could conclude what was the the
120process at the time. Um, like the middle school is 50 years old. So, I was actually frankly very surprised to hear that it was that even being this 50-y old building that it's just you an open rock cable. Um, I would think that's the only situation, but like the high school here is a newer facility that we should not have an issue, but depending on how difficult to determine that, we will pursue that because as you can see, it's got some big ramifications. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Uh speaking of that, the what is the life expectancy of this transformer that we're purchasing? It it's not brand new. Obviously, there was a 52- week lead time on that. So, well, let me clarify that. I think we you asked a question earlier on that I probably
121wasn't very clear on that. And um we were originally last time, but we're speaking to it. We were originally looking for either we knew or to use whatever we can find the quickest. So, the quicker we could get the we've been installing because that was to to build an exact new version of what we had in place which is outdated technology. You can still get them built new. That would take up to a year of lead time actually get that built in place. So the plan was to find what we can use on a newer equipment whether it's a used piece or a brand new piece but new stuff. We actually found a new this is a new transformer. It's much different than the one it's replacing. It's new equipment. It's got a life expectancy
122of in the same neighborhood of 50 years, but again, that's going to be dependent upon, you know, circumstances in which it's installed. This one should last at least 50 years. It's it's the setups in place, so it's going to be not having those issues. The cables are done or anything, things like that. But great, thank you. Yep. All right. Anyone else? Anybody like to make a motion? Mike, uh, just note on our it says first reading. Cross that out when you make the motion because we are approving tonight. This is not first reading. Got it. Move to approve the MS transformer equipment award as presented. Support Shane. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, John. Thank you. Did we have any unscheduled public comment for this
123evening? No. Okay. All right. Scheduled activities. As Dr. Milligan mentioned, strategic planning tomorrow afternoon and evening a session should be a great time. We hope to see so many people there. You said hundred over 100 registered. Fantastic. All right. And then we have a policy committee meeting on the 10th. We have our workshop on Saturday. No school on the 18th. And our next board meeting will be April 22nd. Was there any administrative clarification? No. Any final board comments? No. All right. Well, it is 9:09 and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody.