001That's right. >> Less luggage. >> All right. Are we ready? Okay. The board of education meeting is called to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right, Secretary Restitch, will you please take roll call? >> President Wagner, all members are present. >> All right, we're going to move on to the approval of the agenda. Unless there are objections, the agenda will be approved as printed. Are we good? Good. All right. We are now going to move on to public comment on action items only. Is there anyone that I don't have any green cards for action items. All right. Great. And then
002we are going to move on to the consent agenda. Unless there are objections, the consent agenda will be approved as presented. Are we good? All >> good. All right. And now we are going to move on to our information items with Sarah Davis in regards to our Waterford Together Festival. >> And and Jessica >> Oh, and Miss Jessica Rristitch as well. Good afternoon board. Before we begin our more formal presentation, we have a special treat tonight. I want to welcome Las Atos, our Mexican traditional song group. In that group, we have Damian Oa Garcia and our uh Eduardo Felix, both ninth graders at Mott. We have Emmanuel Olay Garcia, a 12th grader at Mott, and Angela OA Garcia, a fifth grader at Donaldson Hills. They were one of the premier performers at the Waterford Together
003Festival and they have come here tonight to play some holiday tunes for us. So, Wake up. See, heaven Marvin see We wore baby get I will We got see we got me seeing See heaven seek. You give me People are like There is no I is not. I want to wish you a merry Christmas. I want to wish you a merry Christmas. I want to wish you a merry Christmas. I want to wish you a merry Christmas. There is no I want to wish you a merry Christmas. I want to wish you a merry Christmas. I want to wish you again. I want to wish you All right, great job. I want to share that after we posted this group's festival performance on Facebook and Instagram, their video garnered over 17,000 views and over 7,000
004engagements, which are the comments, likes, shares, things like that. And as of today is our district's second most engaged with video of all time. So, let's give them another Miss Davis, do you think we can get them down here and take a picture with the board of you over there? Is that good? >> You guys good with that? >> We're taking pictures every board meeting now >> after this. >> Yeah, you got to go down have them in the front. I got it. We need your autograph. So, >> okay. All right. One, two, three. >> Perfect. >> All right. So, on November 6, 2025, we held WSD's first ever districtwide Waterford Together Festival. The goal of the event was to celebrate the variety of cultures that are rooted deep within the WSD community. By learning
005about others, we are able to break down stereotypes and build a stronger, more inclusive community for students, staff, and families where everyone feels safe and where they belong. These characteristics are important for any school community to truly thrive. Now, we have a video to show of the event. Heat. Heat. All right, let me just get this PowerPoint up here. Okay. So, for a few years now, Donaldson Hills and Ketaring High School have already kind of been leading the way in putting on a cultural festival. Um, but some of us started to think, what could this look like as a district-wide event? And so, a committee was formed and for about a year, we began planning what is now known as the Waterford Together Festival. The committee is a combination of communications, community relations, and the
006English language development department members. It includes myself, Sarah Davis, director of communications and community relations, Jessica Rristitch, English language development consultant, Kelly Banister, communications secretary, Yammy Row Durant, parent resource assistant, McDallia Rodriguez, Donaldson Hills, parent resource assistant, Karen Walker, Grayson Mason, parent resource assistant, and Clara Rua, district family liaison. For nearly a year, we worked on putting together a festival we felt would celebrate different aspects of culture and the Waterford community. We're proud to share that when all was said and done, the festival had representation from 19 countries, 13 local community organizations, nine live performances, eight interactive language lessons, and two very tasty food trucks. So, we want to take just a moment to highlight a little um a few details from each of the different components of the festival and we're going to start
007with the cultural booths. But to do that, we first need to acknowledge the important role that our building and district family liaison played in really boosting participation for the cultural booths. So when we first um when we were ready to share the event and invite the public and try to get participation from our community um we sent out some mass communication and we did of course we got a few um early takers who signed up right away. Um, but it was really when McDalia and Yami and Karen and Clara started to make personal invitations to our students, our families, and staff that we really saw that boost in participation. And I think that makes sense. I think we can all um think about what it feels like to receive an invitation that's open to anyone,
008to a large number of people, and how different it feels when you're personally invited by a trusted person from your school community. and it's just a deeper lay uh layer of inclusion. So, just want to give a shout out to our amazing liaison for helping people feel welcome and able to participate. Um we had, as Sarah said, 18 different countries or cultures represented and um you can see those here, but what was really neat is some were students who took on um the task of preparing a visual board and hosting their table. Sometimes a couple students did it together. Sometimes it um in some instances it was a whole family who worked together and really made it a family night. And uh we also had staff members who hosted cultural tables and brought their family
009members as well. So if you think about how we came together across all of these different roles, students, teachers, staff, families, um at least I cannot think of a better description for true family engagement because everyone was creating the product that we all got to experience and learn from each other. So that was a really really special. And the next uh component we'd like to highlight are our language lessons. So, you know, when we were thinking about what do other um organizations do when they host events like this, and we hadn't heard of anyone adding a language component to it, but in Waterford, we have really um talented um parents, students, families who speak many languages. So, we decided like, oh, that's another educational layer that we can add in. Let's have some 5 to
01010 minute fun interactive language lessons. So, um, we we made a really quick, easy lesson plan template and handed it out to everyone who volunteered to be a language teacher for the evening just so they'd have a starting place. Um, we secured a classroom with a Prometheian board so they could use the board to have visuals, make the learning more sticky, make it more engaging. And then we'll just give a quick shout out to our language teachers. I'm going to go a little bit out of order here, but uh, Clara and McDallia started and ended the night with a Spanish lesson. So, two staff members also on our planning committee. Um, we had ClariS Harwood. She's an ELD teacher from uh elementary and middle school. Actually, she serves. She did an Aramaic language lesson and
011tucked in a little Assyrian dance lesson as well. Uh Sarah Andrea, one of our Spanish teachers at the elementary, she uses a lot of sign language uh when she's teaching, so she um did an American sign language lesson for us. We had uh Meredith Greer. She's a math teacher at Durant. She did a Japanese lesson and we had Amy McNeel. She's a language arts teacher at Durant and she prepared a German lesson for us. And then I'm going to circle back. I just think it's so brave. We had two students volunteer to be language teachers of the evening. So, uh, Lena and Isabelle um, taught German and then Danish and they are two of our foreign exchange students. And, um, you know, we were pretty busy on that evening, so we didn't get to see
012everything, but I was determined to check out one of the student led lessons. So I'm running down there at 7:10 just I wanted to make sure they felt supported and the chairs were full and I bust into the room and every single chair was full. There were children maybe 8 n there were staff members there were I think parents of the band and orchestra students you know they were done watching their child perform so they came in everyone was leaning forward engaged laughing and it was just like touched your heart it was very cool. All right. And then another piece of the event was the community organizations. We definitely wanted to make sure to uh include our external community as well, the community outside of the school district. By including these partners, we were able
013to extend the welcoming atmosphere of the Waterford or to the Waterford community while also providing valuable resources to the people attending the event. We'd also like to thank our sponsors for supporting the festival. Um, sorry, those are the community partners that were there. And then we had these were our four sponsors and we really I mean they committed before we even really knew how the festival would turn out and they still told us yes. And um, we just really appreciate that that kind of trust in us to put something together and it it it worked out really well. But we're very grateful to them. Um, and then as Jessica touched on, it was also really important for us to have student talent and voice included throughout the event. So, one of the ways we did
014this was by having a full agenda of live performances. We had all of our high school bands and choirs perform and we reached out and had three outside community groups um that performed as well as part of the celebration. Um, and also it's interesting to point out after the festival, we ended up deciding kind of spur of the moment to do reels of the different musical performances and those have done so tremendously well on social media, more more than we ever could have thought. Um, we had over 60,000 views total in those videos. Um, our Instagram profile saw a 406% increase in video views. Our Facebook saw a 558% increase in video views. So, these performances not only added something to the event, but they kept the conversation going after the event while still showcasing
015our students talents. And so, they were a really valuable piece of everything. Okay. So, um just a few words about our volunteers. Um we had several adults uh volunteer and students that volunteered. So, this picture shows some of our adults. So, not only the people on the planning committee, um but just other teachers and staff members who wanted to be a part of it. I'm going to switch gears and talk about the students for a moment. Oh my goodness, our students are amazing. I think we all know that. But wow, um was that reaffirmed on this evening. So in addition to um students that were maybe performing because they were part of choir or band or they were doing a culture booth um we also reached out to the different student leadership groups at each
016high school. So we had uh student council, we had a leadership class, we had the Ketering diversity union that we reached out to. Um we listed them and then we also listed individual names of all of our amazing students. But um really they made this just such a phenomenal from setup to tear down. There were so many tasks that they took on um everything from creating the playlist to the music at the entry to um announcing the performances to setting up the tables. At one point someone took the clipboard from us and the students were running the show. So it was really amazing and they deserve a lot of credit. And then here's a list of our adult volunteers. So, we had um current staff members. We had retirees that came back to help us
017with the event. Um we had um some Ketaring staff that are part uh that lead that um student group, the KDU at Kataring who came and then Jessica Voit at the end there. She was our amazing art teacher. So, if you if you were able to be there, she had like front and center a whole area just dedicated to art with um an instructional video playing and some sand art that kids could make and take home. So, really, really stellar. Okay. And then, um I guess thank you to all of you who supported us from buildings and also our district leadership. I think we saw almost everybody there. Uh it was really great to feel that support. um and Superintendent Martin who supported us from the moment that you heard about it and helped us
018promote it. So, thank you so much for that and we hope that you will all continue to support us because we'd like this to be an annual event. Um it's really showed off what makes Waterford special. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. Do we have any comments? Oh, and parents, thank you so much for bringing your your children and you did an amazing job. And how cool that you have the second most viewed video in the school district history. You should be proud of that. Thank you so much for performing tonight. Thank you. >> Um I just wanted to say that uh to the kids and the parents, you know, thank you. Um, it it was amazing to see and Waterford School District sign up. >> Yeah, language. But yeah, no, I just basically
019told them that it was it was amazing to um see them perform and for them to share, you know, our culture with the school district. And you know, it makes me proud that that was the second highest viewed uh you know, reel that we've had in the school district. And um but I think that's really cool because yet we had so many impressions and so many um views on Facebook and uh Instagram that it shows just for all of it the the openness of the Waterford School District. And when people see that, they see what we're doing in Waterford. So it was amazing. Thank you to everybody in the festival that that helped with that. And uh you know I'm I'm sorry I missed it. Um but uh if we do it next year, I'm
020definitely going to be there. >> Member Patricia, >> I can't really find John Paul because I want to go first. But yeah, it's wonderful the way we're able to tie it in. It's educational the the way we're putting it all together with the the school community, but I'd just rather sit around and have a cocktail and listen to them. But yeah, next time, you know, I'm gonna I I enjoyed it. could just sit and and listen to that. Um, so it's Thank you, >> Member McGregor. >> Um, I also just wanted to say thank you. I think this is a great program and I think it's especially important because we have so much division in our society right now. I think it's amazing that you can do something that's bringing people together and celebrating people
021and celebrating culture and that's so important and it is greatly appreciated. >> Thank you >> member Stitch. >> Yeah, I'll just uh again to echo everything my colleagues have said. This was I think top three experiences that I have had in Waterford schools. I mean and that includes my time as a student here. I mean this was uh this was just a really phenomenal event. Um I was shocked. I I assumed his first year might be a little bit, you know, No, it was packed to the gills and you had community members who were strolling, eating food from the food truck, getting a language lesson, learning about um a new culture, learning about new communities. Um I I mean it it was phenomenal and our students the way they helped to take and and really
022as as Mr. Rich said sort of took it over and ran it. It was like walking into an interactive museum. I mean the way you walked into an art exhibit, you were welcomed. There was there was music. You walked down the hall. I mean everything from from the content to the layout to the performances. It was just uh it was just quite an experience. And again, I think the the best of what public education can do. So, >> absolutely. And I will say I I'm sorry that I missed it. I I have one request next year that we don't schedule it the night of a board meeting possibly because that's made a little difficult to get there. That's my request. But I wanted to say after the festival, running into people throughout the community, I
023can't tell you how many people came up to me to tell me what an amazing event that was, how exciting it was to be there, what they learned. They they learned things about our district and and children that attend our schools that they didn't even realize, and to find out that we have what, 48 spoken languages here in our district alone. So, it was really cool to have people come up and share their experiences that I I never would have thought that. And it was such a great It was just really nice to have so many people seek me out to tell me what an amazing experience it was. And I really am sad that I missed it. So, I'm hoping next year we can do it on a day. That's >> We made a
024poor choice. Yes, we we we we >> we're going to schedule differently. >> We're we're going to schedule differently next year and and honestly, yeah, the board is going to schedule we will skip our meeting to attend your event 100%. >> You have cocktails. >> But it it's funny that that you know, memberistic brought up, you know, being growing up here too that this was really cool for him and one of his top three. It reminded me when I was a leot lion, you know, a very long time ago. We would do this every year and I would be dressed up in my grandfather's kilt at my Scotland table and it was something that was always I have such fond memories of that and I think that this is going to give these students and
025these families very fond memories of our district and we should be celebrating all of the cultures here and our diversity all the time. So, thank you. All right. Do we have any other any other comments or questions? All right, thank you again. We appreciate all of you. >> All right, we are going to move on to our athletics update with Superintendent Wolf and Shane Hines and Allison Storius. >> All right, good evening trustees. uh as we do each year, we'd like to provide you with some highlights of our fall athletic seasons and as well provide a recap of last year's athletic program. So to do that, we have Shane Hines, athletic director from Mott and Mason, as well as Alice Allison Sartorius, athletic director at Ketarine and Pierce. >> Hello. Good evening everybody. Um thank
026you for having us this evening. So, most of this is going to be a recap of last year, um, because I don't believe we did one at the end of last year. And then it will be just kind of some things that we're moving into for this year, but also a minor recap of our fall and where we're at right now with winter. So, as you can see that we have increased our student engagement and athletics. Um if you look at our chart that's provided in front of you, we have had an increase of over 70 participants overall um with a pretty significant increase in percentage of student athletes participating whether it be one season or four seasons sometimes in our athletic programming. With that we look to took a look at some retention data
027which this is a new set of data that we provided that we have not provided in the past but what happened was is we took a look at the 2023 24 students whether they're 9th grade 10th grade 11th and 12th and then we took a look at last year's overall data. And so those 9th graders from 23 24 would be 10th graders last year and now 11th graders. But this would be from last year all-encompassing from last year and then the previous year from there. So as you can see we had um the 12th graders that were outgoing. We did have an increase of 63 for the incoming freshmen because that's not apples to apples but outgoing to incoming we were increased by 63. And then from our 9inth to 10th grade, we did pick
028up an additional 32 participants. Um maybe some different programs that we offered, things like that. And then um from 10th to 11th, we did drop by 20 participants. And then 11th to 12th by three, but overall our total participants from uh in the retention data part of things from 23 to 24 was up by 72. Now the 11th and 12th grade that's typically when you start playing varsity sports is in 11th grade traditionally. So it could be you know people want the kids wanted to play the JV and the subvarsity level and then the competitiveness of varsity certain uh kids will continue and certain will take on different opportunities instead. So this would be very common but we're hoping you'll see in a couple slides from now our data right now we are projected and
029on trajectory to continue those increases. >> Um over the past about five six months we've had the opportunity to add two sports to our offerings that really are starting off as clubs that we hope uh hope to transform into varsity sports. The first one being boys volleyball which started this past spring. Uh both Mott and Ketaring fielded a varsity team that competed um with teams within the LBC. So our previous league that we were in um both teams saw a lot of success. I believe they played each other twice and they split um which is very nice. And then additionally we added girls flag football this year. Um which you didn't have an opportunity to come out. Um it was a fantastic opportunity for our girls uh to get more involved. It was a pilot
030season. um in the state of Michigan right now, they are aiming to put it in the spring. Um as athletic directors, um really around this area, it's tough for us to see the sport being in the spring with all the female sport offerings there are right now. Uh so trying to put that in the fall uh provides a lot of our teams perhaps girls lacrosse and softball not to lose numbers necessarily um and for it to be in the fall would just uh be a better fit for all of us. Um so six other OA schools we were part of that league with. It was the two Waterford schools, Lake Oran, the two Troys and Aendale. Um, Waterford Mott finished three- one and Ketaring finished two and two, I believe it was. Um, and then
031additionally to that, um, the really cool part about our flag football program, what it was, it was fully sponsored, um, in partnership with the Detroit Lions in the NFL. Um, which is a cool opportunity because I believe three of our student athletes, two from Mott, one from Ketaring, earned honors. Um, and they were promoted by the Detroit Lions social media pages. One of the things that we pride ourselves on is our scholar athletes. We do hold our kids to a pretty high standard when it comes to academics. We uh do have measures that are above and beyond what the state mandates um with rigorous checks for our student athletes, but also mentoring them with our coaches and other student athletes and our athletic department to make sure that they do stay in eligible status. So,
032as you can see, um 28 of our programs last year were above a 3.0 overall GPA with 21 above a 3.2 and 12 above a 3.5 GPA. Uh with that, 48% of the eligible varsity athletes back in our previous conference, the LVC, you qualified to be an LVC scholar athlete if you had over a 3.25 cumulative grade point average. and you had to be a sophomore varsity athlete to qualify because you don't really accumulate until your sophomore year. Um, so cumulative grade point 3.25, 48% of those varsity eligible athletes were scholar athletes for us. You'll also notice that we did have several teams who are academic allstate and we'll talk about the coaches associations in a second, but we um had Ketaring boys soccer, Mott girls soccer, Ketaring girls soccer, and M softball all academic
033all state per their coaches associations with several individual academic all-state. Now, coaches associations are completely different from one another. Cross country has different criteria than football, which has different criteria than basketball to be academic all state. whether you're an individual or a team or even for all district, all region and all state type honors for your actual participation and competitiveness in your sport. So, we want to make sure that our coaches, our varsity coaches are always compliant with their coaches association because that's how we get our student athletes recognized whether it be academics or sometimes there's character awards, um team awards, uh sportsmanship awards, but all district, all region, and all state. In order to earn a lot of those, you have to be part of your coaches association, which we definitely follow through with
034our coaches to make sure we do get honored. Um, in the past several years, far back as I can remember, our student athletes have held a 3.0 or higher overall GPA. >> Uh, while we recognize educational athletics is not about winning championships, um, it is nice to highlight those championships. Uh so over the past year uh Water Vermont boys basketball, Water Vermont girls soccer, Water Vermont boys bowling and also our United Hockey team uh claimed CH individual championships as well as Water for Vermont boys basketball claiming a district championship. And additionally something really to highlight um M boys basketball girls soccer hockey program and Ketering boys soccer had the best seasons um they've ever had in program history. Additionally, we'll see some individual accolades with sports like bowling, wrestling, and girls golf. Um, our student
035athletes work tirelessly to get to these points. And as you'll see, we sent five regional qualifiers for gymnastics, one for track at Ketering, two for Ketering wrestling, and three for M Bowl. kind of as I mentioned on the academic slide, um we do have several all district and all region selections per the coaches associations or the media groups. Sometimes there's a panel of about seven local media or sports analysts that will pick all region or all metro those types of awards as well. So we were lucky to have several um of our student athletes get recognized. We did have all state selections per coaches association and media groups from hockey, Ketaring boys soccer, Ketaring girls soccer, M boys basketball, Mott girls soccer and Ketering baseball. In addition, in our previous conference, we did have 71
036LVC allconerence athletes which are determined by the place of finish within the individual sport conference. Um, and for individual sports, how you finish in the conference championships for things like cross country and golf. uh if you finish in the top tier earning all conference and second year in a row we did have Jacobe Many who was the M boys he was a M boys basketball player that is now playing at St. Clair Community College but he was a two-time player of the year in the LVC. So taking a look at this fall, as I mentioned, we are on trajectory for increased participation. Again, we are up in fall participation. Our fall numbers are full and complete with kids that did finish the the seasons from the fall. So our fall participation was up by 37
037with our traditional sports. When you add in our participation with flag football, we increased our participation by 84 participants. Winter participation. We just got our winter rosters finalized. In the past couple weeks, we have started winter competition with a successful week of boys basketball. Hockeyy's won quite a few. Um, girls bowling at Ketering just picked up a win. Gymnastics competes this weekend. We are full we are full-blown winter sports now. And you will see that our participation is up by 27 in winter sports as well. With our high school programming, we also offer significant middle school programming. There are traditional middle school programs that many of our surrounding districts offer, which are football, boys and girls basketball, volleyball, cross country, wrestling, and track and field. However, in Waterford in the past four years or so,
038we have added additional opportunities for our students in non-traditional what we'll call middle school programs such as competitive cheer, dance, bowling, which was new last spring. We'll talk about that in a second. Swim, which is co-ed that starts right about now, and softball. We're in a partnership um with a local organization and we commenced that partnership last year with our growing middle school programs. We do have a middle school swim program that's led by our high school coaching staff and they compete in swim meets and they are co-ed. That's that's typical for any program that has a middle school swim program. Middle school cheer continues to grow and improve with a full competition schedule, often traveling alongside our high school. And brand new, last spring, our Waterford M bowling coach with the help of the
039Ketarine coaches spearheaded our middle school bowling program. And in our inaugural season in the spring, we were the divisional champs. So, um, very cool. Uh bowling is very popular in our community and we typically as long as I can remember have had state qualifiers. We were state champions not too long ago. So this is a really cool opportunity for our middle school kids to give them something else to do. And this happens to be in the spring when the bowling alleys are a little bit more open and high school bowling coaches can be a little bit more involved um because they're out of their season. So, um, we had Pearson Mason combo teams, sixth and eighth through 8th grade. >> Probably the biggest change to our athletic department, um, has been moving into the OA,
040our new, uh, league, which is the Oakland Activities Association previously in the Lakes Valley Conference. Um, we, as Allison just mentioned, we did play our first competitions within the past about week and a half, two weeks in this league. Um, we've seen a lot of success, which is nice. Um, so again, the the biggest difference with the OA compared to the LVC is the LVC is nine teams and it's all just one division. Within the OA, there's currently 23 teams. Um, which they are looking to expand even more. And it's really broken down between red, white, blue, and gold. Gold sometimes. Um, but typically it's always red, white, and blue. Um, red being the top, white being the middle, blue being the bottom. And really how that's separated is one by enrollment and two by
041professional judgment. And that professional judgment piece is really taken from previous years, your junior varsity years, um if you have a freshman level. Um so there's a couple components that go into that professional development piece. Um additionally, the cool thing about the OA is it also gives our principles and even more so our student leadership groups the opportunity to connect with other schools within Oakland County. So our student leadership group, they meet together um within the league. I believe it's about twice per semester, four times per year. And then our principal group and our athletic director groups meet once per month. And as you'll see here on these next few slides, this uh shows the division that we're in within the OA. Um I won't go through all of them, but you will notice um
042they're not all the same. So not every sport is in the red for M and not every sport for ketering is in the white. Um it is kind of split up. Um and again, this gives our student athletes a better opportunity to compete. um compete competitively year in and year out. And again, the cool thing about this is if we do have success, which I think we both intend to have success at our schools, um our teams get to move up. Um so it's an opportunity to really shoot for the sky, to be in that red division, and it's also an opportunity for some of our programs that need some rebuilding um to find that success in the bottom division. And then we just had our fall alignment meeting what a couple weeks ago and
043the beginning of November right after fall sports were pretty much complete. We were in playoffs still but we did have our fall alignment meeting as athletic directors and coaches. Coaches are invited as well. Some of our youth program and development and engagement. Um the biggest one for us in Waterford being our elementary run club which has been hugely successful the past two years. Uh we did it was on hiatus for a little bit after COVID but we did bring it back as you know last year. So if we go back into spring of 2025 we actually had a full-blown track meet with elementary kids. It was amazing. Might have been one of my favorite things I've done here in 12 years. It was cool. Um we did relay events. We had long jump. We're we're
044looking to add things um take feedback from the high school coaches and the run club coaches from last spring to potentially add a few other events so these kids find success in all different ways, shapes and forms. Um it it ran well. We had so many people involved, our coaches, our high school athletes, um our athletic department and as you can see the picture on the right, beautiful weather last spring and those are some of the award winners. We do give award winners uh for first place of the the different events. So they do uh get individualized trophies. So it very much is a competition as well. Not only just participation which was well above 250 but also um it is a competition too. So those are some of our award winners. And over on
045the left is this past fall's run club. And if you were there the weather was not cooperating very well. Uh last fall it was beautiful and amazing. Uh, but this fall we got it in. We got it in. It was cold and it was rainy, but my joke was when I was um introducing, you know, the event and stuff was welcome to outside sports in Michigan. So, you know, get a little taste of it now as a third grader if you want to continue to play. Um, but they are coached by elementary teachers and staff. And, uh, it's about a six week season with a culminating event in the fall at Hess Hathaway and in the spring, uh, going back and forth between the two high schools. last year being at Ketering, this year likely
046being at Mott for the um track meet at the very end of the spring. And our high school coaches and athletes do get involved and they go to some of the elementary schools to connect with the kids on practice days as well. Waterford parks and recck partnership also enhancing our youth development and engagement. Although we are offering some programs within Waterford which I think are on the next slide uh through Waterford athletics which are on the next slide or maybe in a slide or two from here. We are also part partnering and helping parks and wreck to build their programs as well, marketing them um facility usage and making sure that anytime we're running something that we give our information to parks and wreck and vice versa and just really connecting with them to help
047their programs become successful as well because it is a community um you know community effort to keep our kids involved. our elementary programming. Uh also last spring was our first season of safe team basketball where we separated for girls basketball. This was hugely successful and having a fifth grade daughter myself in this district at school craft. She might or might not be in that picture at the bottom there. Um uh this was the feedback was tremendous having girls separated. Um, it really gave them the ability and the chance to fall in love with the game and not feel stressed or anxious about competition. Uh, and we had a great turnout for our girls, fifth and fourth grade. And I think one school had a couple third grade graders on it just to fill their team,
048but it's primarily designed for um, fifth and fourth graders. and we really were able to hone in on girls basketball and getting that participation up at the upper elementary levels. We continue to do our boys and girls basketball clinics, our volleyball clinic or developmental league. Um we do a participation with our high school dance and cheer teams with clinics and performances. Um they usually do a one-day kind of practice and then they get to cheer or dance at a game uh with the high schoolers and they they love that. Uh we have our softball partnership still and of course youth nights at all the high school sports and our partnership with our safe team basketball in the spring. Uh feedback is one of the most important things whether it's in the classroom education as administrator
049and especially in sports. Um so as we progress through our our athletic year um getting feedback not only from our parents um our faculty our student athletes and our coaches and is one of the most important things that we can get um throughout the year. So something that we've started to do and we've done it in years past um is having those postseason meetings, having those preseason meetings and then additionally really touching base with our student athletes throughout the year to understand how is your experience? What are you liking? What are you not liking? And just cuz you're not liking it doesn't mean it's going to change necessarily. Um, but really getting an understanding and a feel for them because at the end of the day it's it's not Allison's athletic department, it's not my
050athletic department, it's not Steve's, it's not Adams, it's really a community athletic department and really trying to understand um those needs, those wants, those experiences um with all those people involved is something that we find very important. Um and additionally, our social media presence and response, I think, has really been amplified over the past year. Um this fall alone uh combined between Mott and Ketering's Instagram page um we've gone over 400,000 impressions per month um which is something that we hope to leverage with some businesses within the Waterford community to help elevate some of our fundraising efforts while also bridging that gap between community and athletics. um over the next few months um and throughout the rest of this year um one of our big pushes to get more involved with our community level um
051events whether it's parks and reccks, whether it's middle school level, whether it's elementary level, it's really a grassroots effort to help build that high school athletic program. Um additionally, we're looking to start our own student athlete advisory club. Again, getting that feedback from our student athletes, letting them be involved in some of the decision-m what they'd like to see. Um, and then also starting up a coaches committee is something that we find is going to be very valuable to uh push forward our success. >> And lastly, I always like to thank our community partners. As you know, some of our sports are off-campus. So, Lakeland Arena, our um Century Lakeland Ice Arena, our Century Bowl, um 300 bowl, uh Wonderland Lanes, Flip Stars, Hesh Hathaway Park. We have so many places that allow our kids
052to compete there. And so we're s we're very very thankful that um we have a good partnership and relationship with them because bowling wouldn't have a place to bowl if it wasn't for them allowing us to uh to use their lanes. So we do want to always thank them at these presentation make that public. Um we have our Instagrams at the bottom there. Um, and like I said, very successful week for boys basketball. And um, any questions you guys have? >> Oh, one more thing. I apologize. Um, the MA versus Ketaring boys basketball game is next Friday. Um, it is at Waterford Mott begins at about 7:15. Um, there is also a unified basketball game before that varsity game that plans to start around 6:20, 6:30. Um, again, if you haven't had the opportunity to
053come see a unified basketball game, it's something that you're going to see and you're going to say, "When's the next game?" game because you're going to want to be there to support those kids and it's something that our students also supporting those kids. Um it's a great it's a great environment, great atmosphere. It's something awesome to be a part of. So if you're out doing anything next Friday night, uh we'd love to see you guys there. >> All right. Do we have any comments or questions? Member Patricia, >> thank you very much for including parks and rack. I know it's one of them things, but it just the program needs to be built back up. Alison, you grew up in that environment. So, I mean, it just I think you guys are doing a great
054job. Uh, and it's a thankless job. Doesn't matter what you do, you're you're wrong. That's just the way it works. It's, you know, you're not happy with coaches. You're not happy with teams. It's to be able to do it as long as you have Alison, you know, I've never heard of you assaulting anyone, but I I haven't heard of it. Again, it would have been okay, I'm sure. But, uh, I want to thank you for for what you both do. It's a thankless job. Uh but someone has to do it and I appreciate you that involvement in it. Uh is Pine Country Club are they still >> Oh yes, thank you. >> Just because that's one of the things >> uh when people go out golfing in the summer, they'll go to one of the
055Oakland County parks and Pine Country Club is a is a local business that pays taxes. >> Part of their taxes they're paying goes to support the county golf programs. Uh, so it's just one of them things every time they write that check and it's tax season, they have to think like I'm paying taxes to against myself. The county parks, you know, hey, we have all this money, we can do all these different things. So, it just I I really like Pic Country Club because what they do for our students, I believe they have the if a a golfer can pretty much go up there anytime and and and golf, uh, which is just it's amazing. It's just the community. Thank you. Um the bowling clubs, all the different things that they do. So, um thank
056you. >> Are there any other comments or questions? Member Rristitch. >> Yeah. Um just to reiterate member Patricia's comments, thank you. I mean, we look we have increased participation. We have um some great scholar athletes, and I love the fact that we that um we expect our athletes to to do well in the classroom. I just love that about uh about our community, about our athletics program. We see that we have innovative um programs. I mean, again, uh Allison, you said, you know, this is a bowling is popular here. I mean, we have so many bowling alleys, so many bowlers, and um it just I think it's such a a strength of ours as a community to then have this really successful bowling program. >> Um I love the uh um the middle school swim
057team. I mean, the the the efforts and initiative at the middle school level um and our amazing partnership as Patricia said with uh uh parks and wreck, our community partners, and I was looking at the elementary run club, and I'm looking at that picture on the left, and what is probably that cold day, but that that beautiful Hesway in the background, and we have these great partnerships, these absolutely stunning facilities. Um so, so thank you for your efforts and thank you for this great presentation. >> Yeah. in the run club. I I was nervous because the weather was not good, but the amount almost all of our participants showed up and their families were there cheering on. So, um it was really cool. >> Another thing on the run club, my grandson had participated in
058it. >> He made it through, I believe. But the the top two athletes, their mother was a star athlet, you know, her two kids were just so far ahead of everybody else that it's >> she was a star academy. Now her children are here and one of her didn't. It looks like they're going to be doing very very well. >> Exciting. >> Yeah, this is Oh, sorry. Go ahead, John. Paul, you go ahead now. Yeah, I was just going to uh iterate that the numbers I'm glad to see the numbers going up because I believe there's such a great correlation between academic achievement and sports. I'm a big advocate of sports. I played you know football, track and boxing all through elementary through uh high school and um you know they they hold you to
059something. The structure, the discipline, uh the requirement of making grades, all those kinds of things. So I'm really glad to see those numbers up. I enjoy the um seeing the the different teams uh at the uh middle school. My daughter's on the Waterford United dance team. She takes it very seriously. They do their practices. They got the Pistons Classic coming up. Uh so I think those opportunities for the ele or for the uh well for the elementary kids too, like run club and the basketball and then also the middle school kids as well, then carrying that on over to the high school. So I'm really happy to see those those numbers going up because we saw them go down before. Um, and uh, yeah, I just, you know, keep up the good work and like
060Patricia said, it is a thankless job. I think I feel bad for you guys. You know, parents are hard on you. You know, they're hard on teachers, too. So, but it's that's tough, but you know, thank you for what you do. >> Yeah. And and not to reiterate everything that my colleagues have said, but I will say the opportunities, the flag football, you are right. That was so exciting. If you get a chance, you have to go to a flag football game. I think I almost came out of the bleachers at one point. Like, it was so much fun. I loved it. I think that is so amazing that we were one of the ones that gave our kids that opportunity. And it got spread not just through the county, but through the state. And
061to have the Lions promote us, that was really cool to go on to social media and here's, you know, Waterford M, Waterford Kettering, it's our girls. Morgan, you've got, you know, it was just really, really cool to see our kids and to see our schools get highlighted and I love the boys volleyball just giving our kids opportunities and like you said, you're right. It's not always about the championships. I know that's what everyone always wants, but the fact all the opportunities we have here and I think that you have done an amazing job with our social media because I follow all the pages and it seems like we're constantly like all the signing stuff that was out the last couple of days and to see like you know both Ketering and M did have amazing
062basketball games this past week and to get that information out there and for our community and for other communities to see what we offer I think hands down is so incredibly important and keep keep doing what you're doing. Seeing these participation numbers increasing is awesome. And as a as a parent of a student athlete and former student athletes, it's it's just nice. It's nice to see things growing and doing well and and to see our kids thriving. So, thank you very much. All right, member McGregor. >> Um, so I wanted to reiterate this because I think it's a very important point. I am glad that we are working with parks and wreck. I think that's incredibly important and I think that's going to build our community and that's what we want to do. That's one
063of the points of sports. Um, I also wanted to ask to consider if we're not already doing this to reach out to some of our alum because we have some amazing alum athletes. Um, I am not a sports person. I am the person in my family who's like, "Okay, whatever." My the rest of my family, they all love sports. And I still remember watching the OC goes run. And when um one of the girls went to try out for the Olympics, that was a really big deal, right? And we have those people in our community who have been a part of our school district and finding ways to bring them back and and promote that, right? Because also those athletes understand what it really takes to be an athlete. It's not just about, oh, I
064just walked onto the field and I did great, right? The important things that you learn from athletics. It's about hard work. It's about having good character. And um I mean, I still remember like Mike York growing up down the street from me. He was out there every day practicing and that's how he became good at what he was doing. Um, and I think that sends an important message to our students because it doesn't matter if it's sports or whatever else you want to do, it takes hard work. So, yeah, something to consider. Thank you. >> All right. Well, thank you so much both of you for bringing the presentation. We appreciate we are excited to see uh in the spring when we have all the numbers from this year when you come back. >> Thank
065you so much. >> Thank you. >> All right. We're going to move on to our tenative agreements with Mrs. File. Good evening board. Um I am very happy to bring present to you tonight um the um overviews of the MESPA one tenative agreement and the MESPA 3 tenative agreement. Um both of these have been ratified by their memberships and we are presenting them to you tonight um for your discernment and approval. So um I'll start with MESPO one and um discuss some of the highlights of this. Um so the MESPA 1 TA um represented a very targeted modification of the 2425 um contract with um very specific changes um in fringe benefits, educational stipens and working conditions. Karen Hildebrandt along with myself um and the association team of Lori Tunic, Cheryl Campbell, Angela Hollis, Jenny
066Jackson, Lorraine Gee, and Lannne Leonard work collaboratively to bring forth this contract that recognizes um the great work of our secretarial staff in their critical role in supporting our schools and departments. A few of the highlights, um, step increase for all eligible employees and a retention bonus for all employees in the group. Uh, the probationary period shortened uh to provide new employees quicker access to insurance and fringe benefits. The earn sick time leave act language was updated um to ensure compliance. That was a piece that we put through on every single one of the um contracts. Um next year in 2627 um there will be the option for the payroll deduction which was part of the um the formerly prohibiteds that came back in and um one elected um to do that starting next year
067which then it's an automatic payroll deduction which is it's easier for the employees. Um, new this year, we added an annual educational advancement stipen. And this recognizes um secretaries that hold degrees or equivalent certifications um bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, um, etc. And, um, um, recognizing them in a similar way that we do teachers, um, administrators in, um, the different levels of their educational advancement. Um we've also um um did a revision to um the vacation day payout for those employees hired prior to 2017. Um they had to wait a year to earn their um vacation days. And so we are doing a look back on that and as those employees retire and resign um in good standing then um they will be compensated for the days for that first year. Um and lastly, um a
068longevity pay increase for each of the three levels um for our secretaries. Any questions on MESPA one before I move on to MESPA 3? >> No, we're good. >> Okay. Okay. And um for me 3, this is our group that is comprised of our food service employees, our transportation employees, and our custodial maintenance employees. So it's a very diverse group. Um other districts have this as well, similar um collection of them. So we're not the only ones. Um but it's unique in that it's diverse and so the the um contract covers um a very wide variety of um situations. So we made again targeted changes to the um contract improving fringe benefits insurance working conditions. Karen and myself along with the association of Lorie Tunic, Heather Madigan, Sue Kitridge and Nicole D um Dy um
069work to bring forth a contract that recognizes this work of this diverse group. Um these are the um these are the backbone of the of the district, right? They get our kids here to school. They feed our kids. They make sure the environment is um um ready for our children. So, they're a they're a very unique and critical element to our our staff. Um highlights for the changes in this new contract. Again, step increase for all eligible eligible employees and a retention bonus for those um for some in the group. probationary period shortened again, quicker access to their insurance and their fringe benefits. Leave time, sick time um was uh the language was updated and all employees in this group were provided additional sick days. Um as compared to last year to ensure that we
070were in compliance with um ESTA. Um the group got an additional paid holiday. Um this aligns with all the other groups in the district. um they had additional vacation days allotted to this group. Unique to this group along with similar to MESPA 2, we expanded the healthc care insurance coverage to um that the employees both 10 and 12 month receive full family health care. Um that is really critical that has been a barrier to um for our employees. It has been a barrier for attracting and retaining um employees. So we're very happy that they will have that option. Um payroll deductions that'll be coming in 2627. Um we have aligned the overtime procedures for this for all three. They were working in unique old contract ways of how they were um whether it was um
071how overtime was calculated. So they're all three aligned which makes for a better process through the business services process as well. Um we have increased the compensation for our professional certificates um held by our skilled tradesmen. Um so this is encourages them to continue professional development in their own right for receiving for the mechanics for the uh the electrician for the um uh HVAC etc to get those certificates for our um custodial group. Longevity pay increased um on all three levels. And we also expanded the uniform allowance to these employees. We like our employees identified with Waterford um logoed um gear and um for identification purposes and so we've increased the allowance for them. >> Member Patricia, >> can we afford this? Yes, we can >> because it's I mean steps go up and if
072we don't get money again, we're in that hole that we keep digging ourselves out of. >> Yes. >> Sounds very very generous which I like. It's a great thing as long as I can afford it. Last year we had a little bubble like oh gez what do we do? >> Yes. I I appreciate that. Um we we reviewed this um with what it would take um to do this um and to provide again to position ourselves in the community in amongst the competition to make a place where we would um we could attract we could retain and um we decided that this was an investment that we needed to make in our employees and our staff. The the scales were not increased um the wage scales were not increased. So it is the same wage
073scales from 23 24. >> We can afford it. So I can like if we have a problem this year, hey, you said we could afford this. >> We Yeah, you can. You will hold me accountable. Yes. >> Yes. >> Member Danghue. >> I just want to say thank you guys for all your hard work and getting this uh together, working with the uh with the union groups to uh um help them see and show their worth. So thank you. >> Yep. Absolutely. Thank you. >> One year. These are each one year. >> Ready to start all over again then? >> You're you don't you don't you're crazy. You don't Yeah. >> Yeah. But the this we we worked extensively this year for all of the groups on um language, right? really dusting off and improving
074and getting rid of old language and and bringing them up to um uh a current day contract that really reflects our current environment >> which is nice. Now we just get more money as we get it we get so it's in the land it's cleaned up. So thank you. >> Yes, you're welcome. >> Yes, it was greatly appreciated all the hard work on on on your behalf on Karen's behalf on all of our union reps on Mary's behalf. It was, I know, painstaking at times and very frustrating at times, but we had faith that you would get it done. And I'm I'm very grateful to all of you. I'm sorry that you have to do this again. And >> we're getting really bad in our area. >> No, it was I I know it was
075a a big feat to take it on and especially battling not knowing what our funding was because the state didn't do their part in making sure that we had our budget when we should have had it. So hopefully we won't fall into that again next year. A thank you. Member McGregor. >> Um do we expect that the MESPA 3 um contract will also help with some of the busing situations that we've had in the past where we haven't um been able to get coverage that we wanted >> for attracting and re and um um hiring new bus drivers. Um, we're hoping that the um insurance piece is going to be a big driver for them. Um, because as a bus driver, as a 10-month employee, previously they were only afforded um single coverage. And so
076you think about like a single parent, right, that doesn't have the opportunity for a spouse perhaps to have insurance um from another source. this um could provide for um great great benefits for them, right? Um I'm really hoping that's going to be one of our hallmark attractions. >> Thank you. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. I mean, it's and it it goes with I mean I I I outlined the people's names. Um it goes without saying that this doesn't work unless there's great collaboration and great communication and a willingness on all parties to sit down and um um do what's best for our employees. And that's exactly what happened. >> Well, thank you. It's it's greatly greatly appreciated. >> Greatly appreciate it. Thanks. >> All right. We are going to move on to new business. I'm going
077to pass the mic over to Treasurer Danahghue. >> All right. Superintendent's recommendation 19-25-26. Resolution 31A funding optin subject to recession. Resolution 31A funding opt-in subject to recession allows Waterford School District to provisionally opt into 31A funding by the December 4th, 2025 deadline, reserving eligibility. If the litigation is unsuccessful and the privilege waiver requirement remains in effect, the opin optin will be automatically rescended. In that event, the superintendent is required to notify the MDE of the recession by the stipulated deadline of December 30th, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. in the form and manner established by the MDE. This resolution further ensures that Waterford School District can participate in 31A funding without waving any privileges until the legal challenge is resolved. It is recommended that the board of education approve resolution 31A funding optin subject to resision as
078attached. I so move >> support. All right. The motion has been moved and supported. Are there any comments or questions? Member McGregor. Um, I just think it's very important for anybody who might be watching this to understand that this means that right now there are ongoing ongoing court cases in the state and federal courts. And so this is why we're moving to have this resolution. Um, there is some question about how this funding works because it is brand new. And this means that if those uh court cases go through and they are unsuccessful, we aren't opted into something that we don't necessarily want to be opted into. That gives us the option um to receive the funding. So, I know that's already in the wording, but I think it's important to reiterate because I don't
079think most people totally understand this and we need to hear it a couple times. >> Yeah. And and to let our listening public know, 31A is not a new funding model. It's our safety and security funding. Um if you check out the Oakland Press today, there was another article and they're continually covering it. So what the state has tried to do is say in order for us to receive safety and security funding, which is critical to our schools, we would have to wave privilege. And so there's a big battle right now going on in the court system to find the language within the school budget to be unconstitutional. So it is kind of a sticky situation, but we're hopeful that this will work itself out because this is funding that we've been provided for for
080years without this caveat attached to it. So all right, are we ready to vote? All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. and motion carry 70. We're going to move on now to Secretary Restitch. >> Superintendent's recommendation 202526, School of Choice 2026 2027 resolution. It is recommended that the board of education approve the school of choice resolution presented confirming participation in school of choice for 2026 2027 school year in the junior kindergarten/ kindergarten grade level and up to 20 students grades 9 through 12 and accepted into the STEM academy based on seats available and I so move >> support. >> All right. Okay. Are there any questions or comments? All right. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Are we are you opposed to the school of choice resolution? Okay.
081So, motion carries 61. We are now going to stay with Secretary Restitch for our proposed student travel. >> Superintendent recommendation 212526 proposed student travel. It is recommended that the board of education approve the proposed international trip to Turkey February 28th through March 9th 2026 for the Waterford Kettering High School Destination Imagination Team to participate in the DI Mediterranean Invitational. And I so move >> support. >> All right. Are there any comments or questions? >> Is the board of education invited? >> I know. Wouldn't that be super fun? Are we invited, Adam? Can we be the chaperons? >> Be amazing. >> Everyone except you two that just >> Okay, >> member McGregor, >> I just wanted to say like as somebody who participated in Destination Imagination, I am so excited for these kids. this is going
082to be an amazing opportunity um to expand their mindset and to just be part of something great. So, I just I want to put that out there and I'm very excited for you guys. >> All right. Any other questions or comments? Right. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Motion carry 70. Superintendent recommendation 222526 tenative agreement MESPA 1. It is recommended that board that excuse me it is recommended that the board of education approve the attached mediated tenative agreement with MESPA 1 as ratified by its membership and I so move >> support. All right. Are there any comments or questions in regards to the MESPA one? All right. All those in favor please signify by raising your hand. Motion carry 70. >> Superintendent's recommendation 232526 tenative agreement MESPA 3. It is recommended
083that the board of education approved the attached mediative tenative agreement with MESPA 3 as ratified by its membership. I so move >> support. >> All right. Are there any questions or comments in regards to MESPA 3? All right. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Motion carries 70. And we're going to pass it over to Treasurer Donahghue. >> Superintendent's recommendation 24-25-26 wireless infrastructure -ate project. It is recommended that the board award the bid to Moss. Mass. Is that Moss? >> It's Moss. >> Moss. Oh, Moss. All right. My apologies. Let's start over. It is recommended that the board award the bid to Moss in the total amount of $28,776.83 for the wireless infrastructure replacement access points controllers and UPS's funding is the 2020 bondate ISO move >> support. All right. Are there
084any comments or questions? All right. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Motion carries 70. Recommendation 2525-26 relative to superintendent 2025 evaluation rating. I move that the board of education approve the 2025 evaluation of Adam Martin as completed on November 18th, 2025, resulting in an effective rating. Is there support? We good >> support. Support. >> All right. Do we have any questions or comments? Member McGregor. >> So, unfortunately, I couldn't be there when we did this, but I just wanted to say I am very appreciative with how things are going and um I have heard very good things in the community and from people within the school. So, thank you for what you're doing so far. You're welcome. >> All right. Any other comments or questions? And again, we did appreciate the
085great conversation we had the other night during the evaluation. Um, we are very excited and we are looking forward. Our future is definitely bright and we are excited to see all the things that you're going to do. >> I appreciate that. Happy to be here. >> Uh, the all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Motion has carried 70. Recommendation 262526 relative to OCSBA resolutions. I move that the board of education approve the two resol the two new resolutions proposed by the open county school boards association. Is there support? >> Support. >> All right. Do we have any comments or questions? Member McGregor. So, I just wanted to call attention to one of these items in particular, and that's the nonpartisan school board elections. I think that's incredibly important. um because I don't
086know that most people know this but by make if the government goes forward and making these seats partisan there are people who are automatically ruled out of these positions simply because of their work with say the federal government or because of their their job in the military things like that um there are some different exceptions in there but I think that's really important that people understand that that this is a se seat that should be open to um all people who are able to vote and um I it's one of the few things that passed at the Oakland County uh government relations committee completely unanimously and there are people from all different walks of life in there. So I think that's important to know. >> All right. Are there any other comments or questions? All
087right. Please raise please signify by raising your hand. Motion carries 70. All right, we'll move on. We are now going to move on to public comments. I do have one green card here. Please be reminded that comments are limited to three minutes in duration. Members of the public are invited to share comments. However, this is not intended to be a time for questions and answers. And lastly, participants may speak only once on the same topic and are asked to avoid statements that are personally directed, abusive, or obscene. Miss Robin McGregor, if you'd like to head to the podium. Hello, Robin McGregor. First, I'm going to talk about the taste of Waterford and fueling kids futures. Um, we started the year with 250 kids that we were feeding. At the taste that something Heather Halls had
088started, Jones Hler and myself when we did the coalition, um, that was something that was very unique and the community came out. We sold over 150 tickets. Um, our cost for the event was $50. Everything went back to the children. We raised $12,000 at night plus $3,000 from Rotary. Adam, Sarah, Susan, thank you for being there. Elizabeth, it makes a huge difference because between that time that I came and asked the board to come and to participate and today we have increased 100 children in this district. That's only three schools. Yesterday I had the opportunity of talking with Adam. Um, I have a friend who has a lot of partners in our community and we gave them three initiatives. Good fellows, feeding our other schools other than Donaldson Hills, Canudson, and uh, Riverside. And we're
089trying to get another $6,000 to give to the other schools for me meals, adopting families in adaptive programs. Also, Adam, thank you. Because this is going to be a partnership. The the request was to partner with Tony Bartella. I met with him on Tuesday um make sure Adam was on board and showing that we are a community that comes together, that it's not about partisanship, it's about people. So, thank you for being there. Thank you for making the difference. Um we're selling raffle tickets right now for Fueling Kids Futures. We're going to have to do a lot because right now it's $50,000 a year to feed our kids. $50,000 comes from the community. And for the people out in TV land, none of this comes from the school district or from the township. This comes
090from the people of the community and how they make a difference. But I have to say thank you to Sarah, to our township because they all put our signs out for the taste and those tickets went out and next year we're going to be doing it at M. We're going to be hopefully be bigger and better than it ever had. Uh, but there was not one business in this community that told me no. And Mary uh was my co-chair on this. She sold over $1,000 worth of raffle tickets. So, thank you for that. Um, the second piece I'd like to speak on is a little different. Um, it's about the parks. Um when I was at the cow meeting and people in the community there were with Oakland County um the public did not know
091anything about it being named. I went through the minutes there was never a vote on Brian Wiston or anybody else's name being part of that. And for me there's a principle that >> okay >> if you want to just finish your sentence Robin but other than that just finish 83 letters from the community. You can find them at the parks saying that they do not care if it's named anybody. They want to have the opportunity and they hope the school district and parks can come together. I spoke on this yesterday at parks. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right, we are going to move on to our board of education reports. Does anyone have a board of ed reporting? >> Nothing. Nothing specific in regards to reports out from any of the committees that I'm
092on, but I just wanted to say happy holidays to everyone going into the the Christmas break. Um, if you're visiting with friends and family, please enjoy that time and be safe out there. Well, if you're traveling, >> member Torres. >> Yeah, just real quick, um, because I know everybody wants to get to the Lions game. See Lions game, right? >> Yeah. Uh the uh this Saturday is the uh parade in Pontiac that uh en encompasses Waterford Waterford School District will have a recipient get the scholarship. So um that's always a great event. I I do plan to be there and if anybody else is coming as well. Um and then um the uh the the tree lighting was this past weekend I think it was. Uh I did go and participated with the township official
093officials. Uh they brought me up there with them. Uh so representing the Waterford School District, it was a great event for all families involved and uh we had a little issue with the tree, but it ended up so it worked out. >> Member Patricia, >> uh it's the holiday season. Happy holidays everybody. Merry Christmas and stuff, but I just I with Adam being here for a few months now, we're giving them like, hey, you're doing good. Let's keep it up and we have to get better. So, thank you for all that. But it reminded me of I don't know if I have them all but uh my superintendent I've worked for Howard Heights he come on. I wasn't fair to him. I was hard on him. He has passed away but I did have a
094chance to sit down with him uh before he had his house and uh Virginia Paul and I were over there and again I knew how he went to my church. I known him for years but I was that new board member. Oh you're doing this wrong. You're doing that wrong. I don't know what I'm doing. He did. So, I just want to say again, uh Tom Tat didn't have as much interaction with Tom. He didn't really deal with the school board. He gave us someone else to deal with it. Probably a smart good idea. Who wants to deal with us? Uh who has also since passed away, but I remember he had come back um to I think our there was some event that he' come back for, but he wasn't sure if I was
095going to be there or not, but he wore a Hawaiian shirt just you know to kind of mimic me. Uh Rob Newton, someone I still keep in contact with. He's doing real well up in Washington State. Their family has a ranch out there. He's a professor at I think he's in New Mexico. I'm not real sure. I I have to get more details from him on that stuff. Uh John Silberry, I think he's doing superintendent stuff. Uh he's wonderful. I just had a chance to I keep in contact with him because he was a good fun guy. um he had written a book about his grandfather who was a Wayne State uh athletic director and all the different things. I mean I think it was from the 20s through the 50s just it was a
096long time and some of the Wayne State athletes that had gone on gone to the Olympics that he had picked up. Uh it's a wonderful book just the way he had done it. I had a chance to see his uh Verner's collection. He has the largest burner collection in the world. I mean, he is the burner man. He's the president of Verner's club. Uh both him and his wife, his wife, the tolerance of him having the stuff and just what I've seen. He says this is just part of it. Uh it's it's kind of neat. Uh Scott Lindberg um he had some health issues, but he's doing very well. So, it's one of them things that I just want to shout out to all my past superintendent. Sorry for the grief that I have given
097you. Uh, but you probably deserve it. So, I'll be here to you. You're going to be here long long after I'm gone. I'll come up and say goodbye to you that day or something. But, yeah. But, uh, just want to say merry Christmas. And, you know, I'm thinking of a like a Charlie Brown type Christmas in his dog house. just >> I enjoyed that as a kid and I I wish we could just get back to similar times. >> Stitch >> couple things really quick. Uh again, happy holidays, merry Christmas. Um make it a good make it a great a great season, but uh I also just really quickly wanted to wish good luck to some of our middle school orchestras. Uh um there they have festival coming up this weekend. Also, I know the
098meeting for the middle school ski club has already passed, but uh it should be in your email. Check out that ski club because you can get $30 lift tickets and $30 rentals. Um so, go check out that ski club for all you middle school uh skiers out there. And uh in addition to happy holidays, go Alliance. >> All right, member McGregor. Um, I just want to say a little bit about uh yesterday I went to the uh senior citizen dinner that they put on at Ketarine and it was amazing to see this and this is something that's been going on for a while and it's it was great. It was leadership. It was student council and the chorus all together. And it was really great to see all those students there helping and and spreading
099joy. You know, that's important. We need more of that in the world right now. So, I I thought that was amazing. Um, I also wanted to mention the the taste of Waterford. And I just want to reiterate, we do have a lot of students who are in need right now. We have a lot of families who are in need. Um, if you find somebody that you know, like, please try to be open to them. Let them talk to you about what's going on. And please know that anybody at any time can call 211. Literally, just 211 on your phone, any phone, and it will take you to a number of resources that can help with whatever situation is going on. Um, I know a lot of people have a lot going on right now and
100I've recently learned that a lot of people don't know that that's there. So, please use that resource. Um, if you know somebody who doesn't know about that resource and maybe needs it, please help them. Um, I also wanted to talk about Oakland um, county school um, and our government relations committee. So, we did have the one resolution that we talked about. Um we also had the American Heart Association come and talk to us about a lot of the programs um that they are doing and they talked specifically about vaping and how smoking has significantly decreased over the last few years but vaping has significantly increased. Um and a large part of that is that students don't really understand how detrimental it can be and that it's not necessarily good. It's not like, oh, smoking was
101bad. This is this is fine. It's not good for for people. Um, and we have some more resources that we got from them. We also got some resources about um, apparently, and this is new to me, apparently there is a problem in a lot of the school facilities with people flushing vaping cartridges and it destroys the bathrooms. So, we have some resources that I will send out. Um, I haven't had a chance to do that yet. Um, but I think those were the big things. But thank you guys everyone and have a safe holiday season. Um, yeah, have a fun time. All right, I wanted to give um a couple of shoutouts and reminders. It is the it is December, so that means our fabulous high schools and middle schools will be having all of
102their holiday concerts. So check out our website to get all the dates. So you can get your tickets um also there for the both the high school concerts. Um I'd also like to give a big shout out to the Waterford M varsity dance team. They did a food drive through November and the students, the girls did an amazing job. They were able to collect enough non-p perishable donations to feed 50 local families. We they had chosen the Central United Methodist Church in Waterford as the beneficiary of the donations that they had received. Yeah, I saw your name on something when we were there, too. But so 50 local families, we were they collected enough donations and on top of that, they also collected $250 to be used towards perishable foods for those families. So that
103is just a shining example of our kids, of our students, of our community, and that's pulling together. And I will tell you, there was very cold days on the weekends that we were outside with signs and people were pulling in thinking we had a car wash, which we didn't, but it was amazing. People were so generous. We had two local businesses, Crave Nutrition and Oak Electric, that were drop off sites for the girls. And so it was really nice to also involve our community partnership. There is another event coming up that the M leadership is doing and this is also another shining example of our students and what they do to help out not just each other but all of the communities and and the local groups. And it's the Winter Wishes Festival. It's December
10417th from 5 to 7. In one night, you will help shelter animals, low-income families, senior citizens, individuals experiencing homelessness, those facing mental health challenges, and children in the hospital. They're going to be doing a community service project with different stations dedicated to the cause. There'll be a food buffet, drinks, games, and fun activities, too. So, it says, this is one of my favorite parts, be the reason someone smiles this holiday season. It's $5 to purchase a ticket to go to this event. You can find information about this on the Mont High School website. But again, these are just two shining examples of the things that our K our kids do. Our kids are continually giving back and trying to help out their community. And I think it it it speaks volumes for for what what
105our district does and and what our community does. I also would like to wish everyone a very happy holiday season. Be safe. It's going to be freezing cold. So, I'm sure our kids are turning their uh pajamas inside out and hoping that it will drop below -15 so we can have a snow day. So, Adam, you're up. That's probably coming your way. But in all seriousness, have a great holiday season, everyone. And we're going to move on now to our superintendent board reports or superintendent report. >> You guys stole a lot of what I was going to >> Yes. Sorry. I had a bad feeling. So, I was at the um the senior citizens holiday dinner last night. Trusty McGregor was there. Uh and actually I had a student uh all the students were asking
106me about snow days, so it already has begun. Uh but want to extend a a thank you to Mr. Berling Gang, the student leadership classes and student council. Um also our food service. We're preparing the food. I was able to wander around talk to a few of the uh guests that they were that were there and they were super appreciative. We had the the choir, the orchestra that were playing. They had bingo. Um, and we're giving away raffles. So, it was just a fantastic thing. Uh, also want to recognize now through December 18th, Oakland Schools is housing, uh, some of our incredible student artist work at the Oakland Schools building. So, if you want to swing by there and see some fantastic artwork, they're open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Oakland Schools
107building. Um, as Trusty Torres said, uh, Saturday is the holiday extravaganza. Um, I would like to congratulate our winner from Ketaring, um, Megan Ples. She was selected as the Fran Anderson Making a Difference Scholarship winner. Uh, Megan was chosen from over 100 entries and will earn a $5,000 scholarship that will be presented there. Uh, she gets to serve as the junior grand marshal for the parade. Um, and I'm looking forward to attending uh along with you. I think Mr. Harwood's going to be there as well. And then the last thing, just like everybody else said, um I hope everybody has a happy holiday, a merry Christmas, a happy new year, enjoy the time away. Uh it has been a blessing to work for U7 and to with and to work with all the people here
108in Waterford. Um it's been amazing. So uh thank you guys for everything. >> All right, seeing no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone.