001What you're doing? 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. Roll call. Secretary Rristitch. Tonight we are missing members Wagner and Patruchia. Thank you. Approval of the agenda. Unless there are objections to the agenda. Uh the agenda will be approved as printed. Public uh comment on action items. We will now take public comment on any action items that will be voted on this evening. I don't have any green cards up here. Is there any public comment on action items? Items that we'll be voting on this evening. There'll be another opportunity at the end for uh general public
002comments. Okay. Seeing none, uh we'll move on to the consent agenda. Unless there are objections, the consent agenda will be approved as presented. Question. Um I have one question and I was hoping to get this out before, but I didn't get a chance to. Um, one of the things I noticed in uh the ledger is that we are paying Oakland County Road Commission, I think it was around $500 for fixing signals. Um, I just wanted to if we could follow up on that because I don't understand why we're paying the county. Um, my understanding is usually they're supposed to do that work, but I may be a misunderstanding, especially being new. Um so if we could just follow up on that. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. So that's noted. We'll follow up on the on
003the inquiry uh by um board trustee McGregor. All right. So any objections to the consent agenda? Okay. All right. The question is noted. Thank you. Uh next we uh have information items. Uh starting with the superintendent uh Holly information item on PBL. Good evening board. Tonight I am very excited to introduce to you Miss Ashley Back and uh two of our rockstar school craft uh students and they are going to talk to us about a PBL project that they've been working on. Um and and I'm interested to see how sharks and salmon work together. So here they go. Hi, I'm Ashley Beck. I teach third grade at Schoolcraft Elementary. Come down here. Come down here. Um and these are two of my amazing students. Hi, I'm Addie. And I'm Emily. Up a little bit. Good.
004Here we go. All right. So, this is our Salmon in the Classroom project. Um, sorry, I'm nervous. Uh, Salmon in the Classroom program is run through the DNR. Um, I saw an article about it one day and knew I had to do it. So, I applied. I was accepted and started fundraising immediately. Um, I missed the grant opportunities through the Waterford Foundation, but that did not stop me. I reached out to family and friends on Facebook and they I think barely two weeks um made helped us reach our goal. Um I wanted to support local businesses. So I reached out to Highland Tropical to purchase all of our supplies. They donated items as well as helped us get our water cycled and ready for our salmon eggs. Um our tank was set up and cycled
005in no October. And by November I took a field trip to Lake St. Clair Metrop Park. I learned all about salmon and other natural and invasive species in order to receive my permit for the salmon. I left with a small cooler. Inside was a Ziploc bag full of salmon eggs, 150 of them, and our adventure began. Um, these are some of our virtual field trips that we've been utilizing through the DNR. I used them a lot in COVID and we came back to them now. Um, this one is our first one. It was about fins, tails, and scales. We learned about the life cycles and survival skills of different animals and plants in Michigan. And this was our second field trip. We um took a tour of Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery, and this is
006where our salmon eggs came from. We learned about um the food we feed our fish. That's the picture down low. And we also compared the salmon life cycle with other fish and animals around Michigan. Now I'm going to hand it over to Emily to give us some details about our curriculum. Unfortunately, we lost about 12 fish because some of their inherited traits made it hard for them to survive. We had one fish that didn't grow like the others. We called it a cinnamon well because its spine didn't grow correctly. We also had a set of twins that shared a yolk sack. They were not strong enough to to survive, but it was fun to observe them as they grew to the Alvin stage of life. see if you can spot them in the video at
007the end of our presentation. Good job, M. And these are some more of the topics that we're going to cover in our next unit closer to our release date. The next few slides showcase our students um observing the fish along the way. Even during the egg stage, there was much to observe. We needed to remove any eggs that were white in color because they were not viable and would add waste to our water, making ammonia rise and put our healthy eggs at risk. And now Add's going to tell us some more. To make our salmon to make sure our salmon stay healthy, we need to monitor the water quality in our salmon tank. This means we check to make sure water temperature is 52° and ammonia levels stay low. If these numbers go up, our
008fish could get sick. So, we do a water change to remove any waste. We have to keep um the circles indicate some of our water parameters, the range they need to stay in. And our students who test the water that week report their findings out on our giant class chart at the bottom. And then from there, our students take those and put them in their journal. If something needs to be corrected in our tank, we talk about it, make a plan, and drop the steps we're going to do to correct them. Um, and Emily's going to tell you a little more about that. Our journals cook salmon inherit traits from their parents, like their colors, sizes, and health. In our salmon journals, we track how the salmon's appearance and behavior change as they grow through
009each stage of their life cycle. Um, there was so many people who donated and just heard about our project and they wanted to stay updated. So, I decided to start a blog that the students would help me contribute to to keep everyone informed. Um, and then one day I had another crazy idea and I ran it by my class because I was just unsure how to update people rather than just posting. So, this is where Addy and Emily and another student took charge and they made a new station style um update and I g they wrote their own scripts. They recorded the videos and they did such an amazing job and you can check it out on our salmon squad.blog website. Next year um after we release the fish in the river, we have the
010opportunity to have a sea lampray in our tank. They're an invasive species and um this will give us just one more look at a life cycle to study. Go ahead, Eddie. All organisms like salmon have unique life cycles that help them grow and develop. Since November, we have observed and journaled how the salmon changed from tiny eggs to Alvin, fry, and part. You will see the different stages in the following video. Can you spot the twins? Let's see what Oh, no. Well, that's okay. We can just not do that video. Oh, no. Oh, it's okay. It will work. That's all right. That's okay. Make sure Make sure to send us the video. Yes, I will. Absolutely. Yep. It just showcases um what seemed like a slow transition, the quick um impacts in between. Um we
011had a twin set in there and it was really cool. So, um you want to go ahead and out. Thanks. Go ahead. Uh we'll be releasing the fish on May 6th. Um we're still deciding on a location. I have to get it finalized next week over break. Um, but thank you so much for allowing us to showcase our awesome project and we hope you can enjoy uh join us on the release date in May. So, uh, questions, comments from board members. Dr. Vich, um, Miss Back, Addie, Emily, thank you so much. This is so amazing. I want to hear a little bit about the release of these. So, if you raise 120 salmon, what in the world is this going to look like? Oh, it's going to be fun. Load them in five gallon buckets
012with air bubblers to keep them alive. Um, I'm looking at an Ann Arbor lo uh Auburn Hills location. Um, we will meet there. Every student's going to have a small bucket. I'm going to be scooping fish in a bucket. We're going to get in the river and release them. It's going to be a whole class celebration with parents and everybody. So, we're really excited for that. Amazing. Anybody else questions, comments? Board member McGregor, I just wanted to say great job. Thank you. So, good job. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I just wanted to say thank you to um Emily and Add's uh parents and family for for bringing them here to share this uh this really amazing project. and and Miss back, thank you so much for spearheading this. This is this is incredible. When
013I saw this on Facebook, I said, "This is going I can't wait to hear about this at a board meeting." Yes. And here we are. Thank you so much. So, uh question. Uh so, um send us that video. So, we'd love to see the the actual video. Um and then, so it was 150 salmon eggs. So, how how many actually came to fruition? We're at about 120 now. Um we've had some trait issues. Um, we panicked that we were doing something wrong and then we found out it was some salmon, some of the parent salmon. We didn't we got some eggs that weren't great, so they didn't make it. So, we lost some fish here and there, but yep, we're sitting at about 120 right now. So, and then you're going to release them. I
014see. So, you have a release date here. And then you said it's going to be in Auburn Hills or or I work in Auburn Hills. I have to go check it out, make sure. And I have to um check with my the person through the DNR, make sure everything's good. So, Okay. It all has to be like legit and everything. Amazon. Yeah. It has to be approved through the DNR and everything. Okay. Y Okay. Excellent. So, I'll email you all, let you know where you can come if you want to join us. Yeah. And and also if um you take pictures, send that to us, too. That would be great for those of us who aren't able to go. So, we'll do. Thank you. Good job. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thanks. All right, moving
015on to the agenda. Uh, the next agenda item is enrollment campaign. Miss Davis Okay. And just so everyone's aware, we've actually been kind of following Ashley's project and we did do some video filming originally um when they first got the eggs, but then we decided it would be more fun to see the end result. And so we we plan on attending that um that release and doing a classroom 60 on that particular thing that that she's doing. So good evening board. Thank you for having me here tonight. My name is Sarah Davis and I'm the director of communications and community relations for Waterford School District and I'm here tonight to present the today's student tomorrow's leader enrollment campaign for the 2526 school year. Um, as a reminder, Waterford School District is schools of choice, meaning
016that school meaning that students can live outside of district boundaries only for junior kindergarten, preschool, kindergarten, and for our STEM Academy. For grades 1 through 12, a student has to live within Waterford School District boundaries to attend. Because of this, our our campaign focuses on four different audience groups that we try to hit when we're uh when we're advertising. But just as a side note, I wanted to point out too as we're looking through this for almost I would say 99% of our ads, we use our own students in them. I really believe it's important to do this. I believe it helps the community better connect with the messaging that we're putting out there. And so that's just a really important priority for the communications office. But back to those audiences. So you'll see that
017we target junior kindergarten and kindergarten schools of cha schools of choice. So again, that's both inside and outside of Waterford. The STEM Academy, that application is currently open through April 4th. That's for 9th and 12th graders. Again, not just only for our Waterford students, but students from all over Oakland County can attend that. Then we have the first through 12th graders that live in Waterford. And again, um, for something like that, I think when we talk about enrollment campaigns, we tend to focus on who we can bring in from the outside, but it's really important to focus on those that live within our community that for whatever reason may not be attending our school district. And so, we want to make sure we market to those individuals as well. And then preschool Stansky has always
018been an important part of our enrollment campaign, but in the last year, it's become increasingly critical for two main reasons. one, we have this amazing new $30 million preschool that we would be remiss if we were not just advertising night and day, right? And then the state of Michigan has also approved free preschool for all four-year-olds. And so we want to make sure that people in our community know that that is something that they can get at Spansky Early Childhood Center as well. So within these four main audiences, we do three main types of advertising is how I've kind of categorized it. So, first is digital and that's where I believe the majority of our families are at, especially when you're talking about those Stansky junior kindergarten and kindergarten families because those are younger parents.
019And so to do a lot of that, we team up with Metro Parent. And the first campaign we run with them is known as targeted digital. Um, and these are ads that appear based on zip code and other parameters that we set with Metro parents. So an example could be the ad targets parents living in Waterford Township with 3 to 5 year olds and those people those parents would then see Stansky early childhood ads on their phones and computers. We have an English ad, but we also do a Spanish ad for that particular campaign. One thing that was interesting last year, we we just tried the Spanish ad and it was actually our best performing campaign. So, we knew that there was a particular niche market for that and we've increased that this year. So
020far for 2025 and keep in mind it's still early. The campaign started in February and it goes through August. So, we have seen 116,000 digital ad impressions. We've had a click-through rate of.3 32% which the average is usually 0.1% and 371 clicks to the website. The other campaign that we run through Metro Parent are Google search ads. So again, we supply Metro Parent with zip codes we're targeting as well as keywords that we want to target. So a parent goes on Google, they search early childhood or free preschool. If they live in the zip codes we're targeting, our ads will come up. So for those ads so far, 304 clicks to the website, the main search terms that we've given them that are getting attention are Stansky, Waterford School District Enrollment, and Stupansky Early Childhood
021Center. The the biggest zip codes getting getting the most hits, Waterford Township, Pontiac, and West Bloomfield. In addition to Metro Parent, we all do we do a lot of other digital items. So we have our internal newsletters. These are the newsletters our principles send out or our WSD connect that has an audience of over 10,000 people. Um, also external community publications such as this Waterford community education booklet or utilizing Waterford Township's newsletter that they send out. We do a variety of digital ads through the Oakland Press. For the three weeks leading up to I'm sorry, probably the week leading up to today, we had what are called high impact ads running on the Oakland Press website. And today, because today is kindergarten roundup podcast commercials, we put as much advertising into the podcast as we
022can. Uh website promotions. Something new that we tried this year was on Stansky's website, we had a popup come up. So, as soon as you went to that web page, you were told exactly how to register. You couldn't avoid it. So that was something new we wanted to do this year. Social media. Reflecting back on those four audiences I talked about earlier within my office, we run four different social media campaigns for paid advertising, also targeting those four audiences. There's also something called organic posting which is us just simply posting to the Waterford School District Facebook page and that targets the people following that page with enrollment information. Tomorrow we will have an eblast going out through the Chamber of Commerce. So that hits up our business community. We'll probably do a couple more of
023those. Channel 22, we made a new Today's Student Tomorrow's Leader video this year. Thanks to our Riverside and Havlin students for helping us with that. So that's it for digital. The next method would be print and signage. So it can be a little bit harder to predict your rate of return with print and signage, but I I still just believe it's really important for putting a positive image out there about the school district. And so we still do a great deal of this. Um, one way that we do every year is through the postcard. Um, this is sent out the first week of February to about 2,000 parents. Any parent in Waterford Township with the three to fiveyear-old and extending in two miles in each direction receives this postcard. Through the Oakland Press, we um
024we are on the back cover of the choices in education booklet. The one on the left was last year's one on the right will be this year's. Um this is a booklet that comes out in the spring explaining top education choices to parents all throughout Oakland County. And so you bet we want to be in that. It's kind of a unique opportunity that came about this year was um as the Detroit Lions made it into the playoffs, the Oakland Press began selling ads to run with your favorite Detroit Lions player. And so we took advantage of it. We did the Stansky early childhood ad and we had plans to do another one, but they lost. Um, but I just wanted to put this out there because this is an example of how important it is
025to have plans for marketing, but to also be able to adjust as different things are coming. If you see something that comes out that could get better engagement or is more popular with the population at that time, um, we like to remain open to those kind of ideas. And I sure hope that we can do something like this next year. Our banners, they're up right now. Unfortunately, they will be taken down tomorrow. Um, again, they were up for the past three weeks because kindergarten roundup is tonight. Um, don't worry though, there will be some up in May featuring our high school students. After those are taken down, we then put them throughout the community for all of the different summer events. So, they will be at the summer concert series. They will be at Movie
026Palooa, which will be at M this year. And so, we really try to make use of these banners for for all year long. And then we are doing a billboard again this year. The top one is what we'll be running. Um I believe it's April 21st. It comes out in the same location we've been using on M59 near exit 39. And uh it's up for about a month. So, and we appreciate Mari Lzattosis for taking our pictures. She's a Waterford School District alumni and always likes helping us out. Last the the last tactic we kind of use would be community presence. So, if you're there, you're there. And if you're not, you're not right. So, we really believe in getting out, having people see us, having people know that we're engaging with the community. We
027do this through a couple of different ways. Enrollment booths at our Stansky Early Childhood Center, family fun nights, starting early, trying to get those students when they're young so they stay in the school district. Um, our central enrollment office is holding extended enrollment hours. In fact, they are doing that tonight and several other key dates throughout the spring and I'm sure the summer as well to support working families. Various community events all summer long, again, summer concert series. A few weeks ago, we were at fireworks and flannels. Just really making sure that we're out there. And when we are out there, of course, we're giving away plenty of swag. Um, every enrollment season, you might not know, but we make 600 swag bags, and we make sure that those are spread out throughout the entire
028community. In fact, um, myself and a couple of Stupansky teachers were at the library this past Wednesday, and we did three-year-old story time, handed out some Stupansky bags to those students. So, that's just one example of that. Other than that, um, through the summer, we will continue doing the same things. Something that's interesting to note, when we looked our analytics from last year, there was a bigger spike in activity on our website right after the Fourth of July holiday. And so traditional thinking for enrollment is kind of okay up until the end of the school year. Then we go really hard in August, but kind of take a break through that July. But we're not going to do that anymore because we're seeing right after that holiday, people are going on our website and they're
029looking for information. So, we will be advertising all summer long. That is all that I have. If anyone has any questions, I'm here to answer them. Thank you. Any questions from board members? Do you have you have a theory about why why things tick up after July 4th? Time to think about school. Think about school. Okay. Yeah. They get that big family vacation out of the way probably and they're starting to think about what's happening next, I guess. I don't really know, but we'll take advantage of it. Yeah. So, I had a question. Um, so the um I know you said the Google ads, so that's that's cool. You guys run it by zip code. So, then do we do the same thing for Facebook ads? Yep. Okay. Yep. We put in all kinds of
030different parameters, ages that we're targeting, um, parents, you know, ages, maybe their interests, as well as zip codes. Okay. And then I I know we use our own students, you said, you know, 99% of the time. And I noticed that cuz even like the two up there from graduation, they're all students on here. Yeah, they like the two that we had that you know, we got the big banner over at the uh the the admin building. Um I saw them at graduation. I think they both were speakers. So that's cool cuz I remember when I first got on the board, they we didn't do that. we use like generic like it was you know and it's so much more personal with that with our own students that it adds that touch and um you know
031make it a lot more lively. So that's awesome. And then the postcards we're doing that that's cool and we're targeting it, right? Yes. Mailing I think is is huge. It's like uh you know the digital is great and stuff like that but everybody gets their mail still. Yep. Yep. We're still doing that. So that's a tried and true. And you know, for using our own students, it does take a little extra work, but I think the I think the payoff is worth it. You know, we had a photo session with those seniors that will be on the billboard. And so, we have so many great photos that from that that or not just for the billboard, but I'm excited to use all school year long. So, anybody else? Any other board members? Thank you. All
032right. Thank you. You moving on. Uh, school bus leases 2026. Super assistant superintendent uh Hilderbrandt. Good evening trustees. Um, we have two differentformational items related to school bus leases. The first one deals with the 2026 buses. We have three 54 passenger with orthopedic lift special education bus leases that are due, our current leases are due to expire at the end of March of 2026. So, this is early, but we're anticipating some supply chain delays. So, we're asking and just letting you know that we're going to be putting forth a recommendation. The RFP has been issued with the parameters bumperto-bumper. They can be gas or diesel. um just a standard replacement, not addition to the fleet, just replacing ones that we currently have. Do I have any questions? So, um Oh, any questions? Any board members
033interested? Um so, I know the I know it doesn't seem like we're there yet, but the electric bus thing, um I know that's been happening in districts. Some districts were getting grants for it. um those kinds of things. Um any thoughts on that or or we anywhere on that? So, there are some electric uh grant opportunities for buses. There's infrastructure needs that come along if you were to consider adding electric buses into your fleet. There are some there's some grant support that might go along with that. There's a lot of uh you know, at my previous district, I looked into this and we did some research. We, you know, met with Hulra, had some conversations. The infrastructure costs, even with support, the needs that you have to have in your bus garage in terms of
034full garage and the ability to recharge the batteries, it is substantial. In addition, then your garage fleet mechanics need to be trained and have that expertise. Currently with our fleet, we have multiple different uh vendors or types of buses that our mechanics are currently already providing support for. We have diesel and propane buses. So, that would just add more complexity, I don't necessarily think that that would be a great choice for Waterford at this moment in time. While it's an admirable effort for electric and to try to save our planet, what it would cost us to do with the footprint of where our garage is at and what we'd have to do, I think it's really cost prohibited. Yeah, I think that was kind of where it was last time where it was just so
035many pieces to it with having the EV stations and um all the nuances and things. So, um good to know though for that update on that. So, okay. Any any other questions? Oh, go ahead, President McGregor. Okay, so I see uh diesel or gasoline either. Um, sorry, that's a little close. Uh, is there any preference written into our contract? Are we just going with either or? So, we have actually three different fuel tanks at our transportation garage right now. So, we can accommodate propane, we can accommodate diesel, or we can accommodate unled. So, we didn't want to be prohibited in the results that are turned in on the bids. Okay. And so, it could be open to either the diesel or the unled. We're trying to steer a little bit away from the propane. That
036makes sense. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Now, who negotiated that unlimited miles? I wish I had that on my lease. That's pretty sweet. All right. Anybody else? Okay. Um, move on. Uh, school bus leases 2025. So, we have this is our second RFP. Coincidentally, we have five other buses that are due to um our current lease on these will expire in July. And so, these are not as um they're not the special education with the lift. We have two 54 passenger special education buses without the lift. And then we have two 77 passenger uh buses. Same thing, unlimited miles, standard replacement, not adding to our place, our fleet, but actually just replacing lease buses that we currently have. Any questions? Any questions? All right. Thank you. Um, moving on. Uh, partial roof replacement. uh assistant
037superintendent Elderbrandt. And so I have Sid Tippet here with me as well. So we have three partial roof replacements that we're planning for this upcoming summer and I don't know Sid if you want me to run with it or Okay, I'll let you do it. Hello. Um for those of you that don't know me, um my name is Sydney Tippet, director of maintenance operations. This is my second year uh in this position. I've been working for Waterford Schools for approximately 25 years. Um here to talk about the partial roof replacements. Um so what we're looking at is three different buildings. M Ketarine and Crra. Uh we'll just start with the biggest which is Mott. So that scope looks like about 40,000 square ft of roof replacement. The main section is uh the gym or the
038aux gym rather. Uh we'd be replacing that one. uh the surrounding track and then the track around the new gym as well uh I'm sorry the hallway around the the gym and then also the PAC lobbies uh well lobby there's three sections to that so that will be uh the big uh undertaking for M ketaring uh we will be doing the cafeteria uh I have a small section by the 300 wing uh a small section by the pool and then the PAC lobby as well so match what you would have over at Mott. The only difference would be is that over at Katarine, we just had uh had to have an emergency roof repair uh that I'm sure people are aware of. Um mother nature wasn't too helpful uh this this summer. I mean this
039winter. Uh so uh that portion was planned as part of this, but obviously we we took it out of out of this. And then there's uh crary. So that section is the 400 wing and the lifetracks area. Uh this section actually was something that we bid out as an alternate several years past. Um when we went for the uh business services section, uh we did a bunch of different alternates for that section because for the crater because there's a lot of needs over there for several different reasons, we didn't do it, but once again, uh this cold snap really really took it under, you know, it's control and it's it's in dire need. So those are the three sections. Um why are we doing this? Well, all all these areas are leaking one way or
040the other, right? So, I have patches, we have repairs, all different all different things to try to get us through into the summer. Um, also too, we had a district-wide uh roof assessment that took place in 2020 and 2021. It laid out like a 10-year plan, right? Evaluated all the roofs, said where it was. Uh, these roofs fall in line with this plan on top of them leaking. So that's, you know, something that helps guide my hand when deciding what to do here. Um, and then as far as the companies, so we have, you know, when we send this out, we have a mandatory walkthrough. When we did the walkthrough, I had six to seven different companies. So I was excited about that. Uh, but we only saw that a few uh actually bid on
041it. Um, all three bids were won by Royal Roofing. Uh this is a company that uh has worked in the district before. So they have done uh roof replacements from previous bonds for uh the media center roofs um for about three or four different schools. They also are a company that I use I use several different companies for patches and repairs throughout the years um throughout the summer and uh and through the school year which I've been doing now obviously. Um and then I also asked uh Barton Malow if they had any you know recommendations on said they just replaced some roofs in Utica schools so they recommend them and then of course our um roof consultant they did um their due diligence and asked the references and those all came back positive as well.
042Where did they do you said they did the roofs where Yeah. So was Melo said they did them where they did them in Udica schools. Oh okay. Yep. They also did work for Boomfield Hills. I'm familiar with Royal Roofing. Yes. And so, um, you know, uh, looking at the totals for this, um, as you can see, uh, they were low in all of them. Uh, the thing that, of course, the one that stood out was Mott High School. If you can see that the, uh, we had two bids, Newton Crane Roofing and Royal Roofing, and they were approximately a million dollar difference, right? So, of course, that's a, it's a flag. So, I asked SM as they do their post bid to, you know, obviously inquire about that. What we found out was that Newton
043Crane, they had um they bid this out in anticipation of trying to get this roof for 2026. Um and so they're anticipating large um increase in pricing. So they incorporated that into this. So um of course then of course Royal was asked, you know, do you feel comfortable at this price? You you see where they're at? And they said absolutely. So between being a company that we've used before um someone that uh basically they said that they are able to accommodate this schedule. So all three roofs being done in the summertime. Um that was uh you know I'm I'm excited and happy that we have a a quality company that that put this. So that's uh it's in a nutshell any questions? Questions from board members comments. I see um in the bids that these
044include performance and payment bonds. We've had a lot of conversations in Waterford community recently about performance and payment bonds. Um can you talk a little bit about what what all that entails? Well, so you know when we all of the bids have to come with a certain amount of bond, right? So um and they it comes down to if once the roof is completed, right, it's evaluated has to go through all the punch list items and everything there. if something is not up to, you know, standard or something that we don't believe is is what's, you know, they have this bond to go ahead and be able to recoup. So part of that is is you and your staff uh in collaboration probably with the representatives go through to make sure that it is up
045to uh our our our expectations and needs and if not we have recourse to make sure they are correct and part of uh so uh our roof consultants uh part of their jobs they they go ahead and they do uh evaluations themselves. So they have I I want to say five to six different times that we pay for them to go out during the whole process and continue to look at them. Then they also they do the punch list and then and once the punch list is finished they look at it again and make sure everything's more or less serves as our quality assurance. Absolutely. Yep. Notice um when I look at uh so you pointed out the million-dollar difference at my high school and uh Ketering's like 260,000. It it's the the same reason
046right so it's the the other one in query it's $75,000 difference. So Royal is is cheaper than Newton. Um we've used Royal. Have we ever used Newton? Oh yeah. Yes. Uh Newton Crane was the company that actually did uh the business services section at Crater that I just spoke about. So both have experience in the district. Uh and then um Okay. Yeah. But you're saying Royal and Newton the difference was one was bidding in 2025, one was bidding in 2026. Right. So significant difference. And then um you said Royal has been been used in Udica and Bloomfield, correct? Okay. Two two goodsiz districts, especially Utica. It's huge. Um and um so with the roof, like looking at the map, um the different areas that that we're doing. So uh all those other areas, they don't
047need it now, right? So or they've been replaced or Yeah. So every when you looking at that map, you'll see the numbers, right, that are associated. So every section of the roof is given a number and through that evaluation um that was done, the assessment that I spoke of a few years ago. Um they're given a grade essentially, right? And so that grade's based off of how long they think the roof can last. And so we're at this time for these sections that are numbered. Thank you. No, I just had two questions. So, I don't see anything that looks structural here. I just want to confirm I'm understanding that correctly. Right. Right. Okay. The second is um how old are our current roofs? Like in looking at the warranty here, do we expect that? I'm
048sure that they're probably going to be around longer than we have a warranty. We want we want that, right? That's what we shoot for. So, um you know, all of these roofs are built up tar roofs. So, they're built either in the '90s. the the um I would say the the newest right uh would be like the PAC area which was like around 2002 was when it was built. So they're over 20 years old. Okay. Thank you. And really quick I just wanted to to mention here that um these dollars do come from our 2020 bond. We're always quick to um uh thank our our really generous and supportive community for for giving us those dollars to be able to make these really essential upgrades and improvements. Thank you. Appreciate it. Uh, next up is
049the fiber network maintenance super uh, assistant superintendent Helderbrandt. Good evening again. So, in 2017, we did our fiber network for the district and we have we had an independent assessment done. There's some repairs that are necessary. Coincidentally, there is an -ate timeline that we were close up against that we're eligible for, which is why we were doing this as at this point in time and why we have the bed. So, we're seeking to take care of the fiber network needs, have them be replaced, and have them be funded primarily with -ate funding and then a small portion will come from the general fund. Questions? Yeah. Could could you explain to me um so it says um with a three three-year contract at 125 and a half thousand base bid per year for the purpose of
050fiber. Why is the contract um sort of broken up for that? I think it's how they're planning to time it out. So I'd have to dive into the details. Elizabeth uh ran with us. She's at McCall tonight. Yep. But I believe that it's the timing of the plan and that's why it's over the three years. So, not so much a question, but thank you for being proactive with that because that's huge. That's a lot of money that we can save with that. So, thank you. All right. Thank you. Moving on. Uh, new business. Uh, Treasure Danghue. Superintendent's recommendation 52-24-25 Abestus Abatement Pierce Middle School. It is recommended that the board of education award a contract to Trust Thermal Abatement in the amount of $67,500 for asbestous abatement at Pierce Middle School. The funding source is
051the 2020 bond. I so move support. The motion has been moved and supported. Are there any comments or questions? McGregor, just quick one. Have we worked with this company before um or recently? I know I have experience with Press Thermal at Bloomfield Hills and I believe that we've used them at Waterford as well. So, yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Motion passes. Uh 5. Treasure Donahghue. Superintendent's recommendation 53-24-25, the fiber network maintenance. It is recommended that the board award a contract to AMCOM in the amount of $376,500 with a three-year contract at $125,500 base bid per year for the purposes of fiber fiber maintenance. Funding source is the general fund and -ate. I so move support. Motion has been moved and supported. All those
052in favor or are there any comments or questions? No comments or questions. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Motion passes. 5. Moving down to the agenda. Down the agenda, uh, public comment on non-action items. So, we will now take public comment on non-action items. I don't have any green cards up here, but if somebody's bring that up, head on up to the podium. Thank you very much. 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. Lastly, participants may speak only once on the same topic and are asked to avoid statements that are personally directed, abusive, or obscene. Greetings. Oh gosh, that's a really sensitive mic. Greetings.
053My name is Jake Vanlon. Uh, I was a resident of West Bloomfield and went to Wald Lake Consolidated Schools and I started a business that provides tutoring and afterchool programs to kids in Oakland County, Washington County, uh, Wayne and Mcome. We're called Empowerment Education. Um, I'm a biomedical scientist, graduated from Oakland University, and I design all of our science and engineering curriculum. Uh, Nolan, his real name is James, but he goes by Nolan, is an international lawyer, certified teacher, and has a, uh, he is a candidate, soon to be, PhD in global education and a, uh, Prairie graduate. though. Yes. Um we care about this community and we really really noticed that some of the offerings at community ed could be a little more diverse. It's not as a um an attack or anything like
054that, but we would love to uh work with you guys to diversify some of your offerings. I'll just talk about four of our offerings that have crosscurricular and uh pretty incredible results in other districts. Um I've worked with Birmingham public schools. We're doing summer camps in Lake Oran. We work with Monasuri schools in Washington County and they have renewed all of their contracts with us for the past three seasons. So um we have a program called slime to enzymes in which kids learn to make slime obviously and they don't have to play with it at home which the parents love. Um but as a biologist and a chemist I think of everything in terms of biochemistry. Slimes are polymers, proteins are polymers, DNA are polymers. Um, we actually extract DNA from a couple of plants.
055It's not dangerous, I promise. And we extract chlorophyll and they use that chlorophyll to make their own glow-in-the-dark UV slime. Um, we also have kitchen kids. We have a community partner that's actually a business in Waterford, Cooper's Dish. They are fantastic if you haven't tried them. Um, it just teaches nutrition, tool safety, life skills, practical chemistry. I inject some of that into every curriculum, I think. Um, we also have the wonderful world of cardboard which uh is about building whatever you can dream out of cardboard. We teach measurement. Uh, we teach tool safety again and we have cut proof gloves and we indemnify all the schools that we work with to make sure that you guys don't have any issue with that. Um, and it teaches teamwork. We have the kids work in teams and
056naturally as a result of teamwork the kids get to work on conflict resolution as well. Uh, my favorites are our summer programs which are basically summer samplers. We have Inventioneers Camp, which has a theme park design, no combustion rockets, DC motors module, and Eureka Science Explorers, which is DNA extraction, glow-in-the-dark slime, and molecular gastronomy. They make their own jello caviar, which is really fun. We also have bilingual instructors, which kind of brings me back to Miss Davis's uh comments about the enrollment campaign being really successful with Spanish speakers. Um, we provide those free of charge. We run an ESL school in Pontiac, but currently due to federal action, a lot of our students are more comfortable in virtual. Uh we are also starting an afterchool program. Uh it is award-winning and we're really really excited
057about that. Uh in the First Presbyterian Church in Pontiac, I recently moved to Waterford from Birmingham to be closer to this community. That's probably about it, right? Thank you for my time. Right at three minutes. Good job. Thank you. Any other uh public comments this evening? Moving on. Um board of education reports. Are there any board of education reports this evening? Member Donahue. Uh yes. At the last Drayton Plains Nature Center meeting, they were talking about two different things that were coming up. Uh Earth Day celebration and nature hikes on Saturday, April 19th. They're going to be doing free guided nature hikes uh on that Saturday at 10:30 and at 1:30 and free nature crafts inside from 11:30 to 1:30. And uh I'll hand this over to um Megan so that maybe she can put
058that out or post that out. Also along with that was a garlic mustard invasive species pull. Uh that's on Friday, May 9th from 9 to 12. They are looking for volunteers and it's they're asking learn how to identify garlic mustard and how to carefully remove this invasive species to reduce seed spread. That was a lot to say. Um come prepared to go off the trails with closed towed shoes, long sleeves, pants and gloves, bottled water and granola bar snack will be provided. Um so again this is all through Waterford Parks and Wreck and the Drayton Plains Nature Center. Any other board of education reports? Oh, McGregor. Um, so we had government relations committee yesterday with a training on advocating for students. So I have some slides and I'll send those out to the board. There
059is a lot of good information in there in terms of understanding the structure and how to advocate. Member Mist. Yeah. Really quick, I just wanted to uh I know a lot of our spring sports are starting up um and I think the M girls soccer kicked off tonight. So, just wanted to wish everyone a good luck. Um, thanks to our counselors and administrators for a successful college and career expo earlier in the week. Um, and I just want to shout out the orchestra program over at Pierce. Um, about a week and a half ago, seventh grade orchestra competed in their festival. Um, and the seventh grade orchestra um earned top marks across all categories. And this is my first time witnessing this and um, it is it is quite the competition. So this is um
060the they have three pieces that they need to practice and they practice practice and you have three judges. It is professionally recorded. They are given feedback right there. They move to a room where then they have to do site reading. So a song they've never seen before. Judges, a bunch of eager and anxious parent eyes. I'm watching them and they just uh they performed so beautifully. Um, so congrats to our seventh grade orchestra and to our whole orchestra program over there at Pierce and to Miss Natalie House who just does an amazing job. So excellent. Anybody else? Oh, go ahead. I met with Waterford youth assistants last night. It's an eyeopening meeting. They do so many good things and I learned a lot from the uh liaison officer who went to the fifth graders and
061talked about shoplifting and vaping and such. and it's a wonderful program that they're doing and he's very good at what he does. Um I was very impressed. Uh there will be Uker tournaments to do some fundraising for the youth assistance program. It will be at the Elks and they start this Sunday and it's $25 at the door and I did see some information in one of our board notes so I know it's out there so take advantage if you can and go play some Uker. Yep. Go ahead. I also just wanted to thank um Judge Richard who um held uh court in our schools. Um Judge is such a an advocate um such an important member of the community. So we're thankful that um that he works with us to provide a really important experience
062for our students. So um and then I'll just uh add a few things. Um so March is reading month. Uh so I had an opportunity to go and uh speak or read to the students at Kulie Elementary uh and speak to them. Uh my book that I chose was um called we the children. So we the people talked about government, the constitution, uh the bill of rights, um the branches of government. Um shared with them experiences of being on a school board, what a school board is. I talked about some of my experiences working in government full-time. Um but it was really a good opportunity. And as you see us here, we go to these various events. So we don't just sit on this school board and have this one meeting. there's a lot of
063stuff that happens in between um and being out in the community for the eyes and ears of of the community and bringing those concerns and issues back uh here to our administration. Um the uh I I can't remember if this happened since our last board meeting, but I'll mention again uh the Let's Talk Waterford channel 7 WXYZ. They came and uh they did their first one and launched it here in Waterford over at uh Fork and Pint. um we had the opportunity to be there, myself, Miss Davis, and we spoke uh with them. Uh we didn't get on camera per se, but uh it was really a good opportunity to hear and and interact with the community. A lot of the township board members were there, a lot of community leaders. Um so it was
064really a cool event to be at and it was an honor that Waterford was chosen uh for one of those areas and um you know, it's uh continued the conversation putting Waterford on the map. So uh and believe Oh, and I also wanted to read this. This was the card that was given to us by the students that um did the salmon experiment. So for the people listening out there, the save the date card they gave us for Miss Beck's uh salmon squad is going to be on May 6th. Uh and they would love for you to join them. Uh the exact location, as she said, is still being finalized. So May 6th, if you have any questions, you can email uh back a1 uh wsdmi.org. org. So, b a c k a1 at wsdmi.org.
065I think it's an awesome thing that our kids are doing, the hands-on learning experience. Um, you know, learning in the book and all those kinds of things. They're doing the virtual uh uh the virtual field trips and then the salmon experiment. So, being said, anybody else any other reports? McGregor, I did for I did forget one. Um, select 50 was this week and I wanted to mention that because I think that's really a great award because it's not just about academics, which is mostly what these things are about, or sports. Um, it's about citizenship is a big part of that. And I think that's really important in our society that we need to teach our kids how to be good citizens. So, um, I wanted to congratulate everybody who was awarded and, uh, say thank
066you to everybody, especially the Waterford Foundation for all of the work they do. Thanks. Excellent. Okay, moving on. We'll go over, uh, to our interim superintendence report. Miss Eldridge, thank you, Vice President Torres. Um, if I can piggyback a little bit on what you said about um, the salmon, remember too that the blog can be reached at salmonquad.blog. that log and that's a great way to keep up on what's going on if you're interested. All right. Um I too had the privilege of attending the Waterford Select 50 banquet on um Monday with Susan File and Steve Wolf. Um we were there to celebrate 25 students from M 25 students from Ketarine who show scholarship, citizenship, and honor in their everyday lives. um they're voted on by their the employees at the high schools where they
067attend. And um it's always a special night because you hear such wonderful things about these kids who have so many things going on in their lives but still maintain that level of character and scholarship that you know we hold dear. So thank you very much to the Waterford Foundation for always a wonderful evening. Thanks to for our food to Michael Williams and our food service department that provided a great meal for us. Um, always a lovely event. And yes, March is reading month and you can go into any school and see the celebrations going on. Uh Havland Elementary welcomed a very special guest reader this um week and that was uh our state representative Brenda Carter who came and read to the students and then they took the opportunity to show her how our Prometheium
068boards work in the media center. Um so it was a little bit of learning on both ends uh and a great experience for them to engage with a state representative. Uh lastly, I just want to remind the community that next week is spring break. So everyone enjoy your time off and um we'll see you when we come back. Thank you. All right. Um that is uh seeing no further business, the meeting is adjourned.