001all right welcome everyone tonight's Board of Education meeting is order please stand for the pledge of allegiance of Al 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 welcome everyone thank you so much for being here tonight secretary JN would you please take roll call all members are present except for member Wagner colleagues moving on now to the approval of the agenda unless there are objections the agenda will be approved as printed okay excellent let's now move on to our public comments on action items so those are items that we'll be voting on what I have here is a green card for a non action item so we'll be taking that a little bit later in
002our meeting is there anyone who'd like to address the board tonight on action items um and if there anyone who would like to address the board uh Miss Roberts has our green cards okay excellent thank you everyone colleagues on to the consent agenda unless there are objections the consent agenda is approved as presented very good all right colleagues now we're on to information items and first up is we're going to welcome the Waterford Community Coalition up to our Podium and we also have looks like a goodie bag here for us so welcome you too if yep do we want to do here or the podium oh the podium it doesn't matter it's uh totally up to you too hello can you hear me awesome um I'd just like to take a minute to introduce myself
003my name is Amy Kennedy and I am from The Waterford Community Coalition and now I'll hand it over to Debbie and I'm Debbie wz I'm the director of The Waterford Community Coalition so some of you might already have known about the Coalition there's been a Coalition in the area um the Coalition for youth for many years run by Heather Halls who we love dearly and miss very much um I also run on the Novi Community Coalition and um when I heard that the Waterford one had dissolved because of lack of leadership when Heather was unable to run it anymore um I was really sad about it because I grew up in Waterford want to Waterford schools so um we decided to bring it back and um we officially May 2022 um our official name is
004Waterford Community Co Coalition so we're pretty much the same entity um there's 21 coalitions around Oakland County and different school districts we are having a called The Alliance of coalitions for healthy communities and we are a nonprofit organization um and we look at you know our own unique um Community um we strive to help all citizens um not just the youth but we want to help everyone in Waterford and we feel like it really does take a community in a village to help raise our kids so we do strive to uh reduce substance use disorders and promote mental health wellness and how we do that is through um creative strategies and programs and you do have a folder um in your little bag that does have some information it does list all um some different
005programs that we currently are offering um I don't have time to go over all of them but I do want to say real quick if anyone has any questions or want to know more they see something I don't really know what this is please reach out love to sit down with you and talk to you a little more in length um but basically we are looking at reducing risk factors and promoting those protective factors building um resilience in our community and we do that um with the prevention framework we are looking at building parental uh resilience building that emotional competence in both parents and children and everyone all ages um we provide support especially in time of need and um a lot of that education and awareness on um brain development you know what are
006you know kids should and should be doing and a lot of parenting skills stuff like that um we do really fun creative programs like our Florest therapy walk we have a home visiting program where we actually go into the home and we help parents with parenting skills and reducing any of those barriers we do a lot with the senior center um we've been really um helping them out with um preventive um uh measures keeping their prescriptions safe we just did a Naran training there uh we're going to be doing thriving through the holiday there we do partner with the school on U we'll be having our shop with the hero coming up which is a great event um Heather love that one and so we are keeping up with her passion for sure and we
007are working on that last year we did over 100 kids it was amazing event um but we also do like um we have a children and change program at Schoolcraft um for children that have gone through a significant change it's like a 12we program uh working on emotions and learning on how to cope healthy um we do um we're going to be doing a girls empowerment program at Meson middle school after school um for our teenage girls working with stress coping relationship ship Social Media stuff like that we do all kinds of different education for parents and substance shoes you know what are the current trends we have a mock team bedroom we like again we have Nar can training we actually hand out tangible items we have detera bags we have lock boxes we're
008really trying to promote keeping the Vapes and our marijuana our Edibles our prescriptions out of the hands of Youth so we distribute and everything we do is free these really nice lock boxes for people to keep their stuff locked up and out of um you know the hands of our youth we do um alcohol tabs that you can put around your alcohol bottles um lots of Education what are the current trends stuff like that um we actually even do these coping toolboxes which are really cool so when um all ages but it started off with kids when you're feeling these um big emotions you don't know how to handle it or regulate you want to go to that first thing to make you feel better so we actually have a box that has all these
009scientific evidence-based strategies inside you um breathing which is which is really popular um and we do hand out we have these little breathing necklaces that we actually Mass produce on our 3D printer but it actually helps to slow down your breathing so you can think more clearly um and it's actually even helping with people to reduce or or quit vaping um but in these coping tool boxes we'll have Bubbles and journals and coloring books and stress balls and fidgets stuff like that so when they're feeling these big emotions they can go right to their coping box and start to learn that self-regulation and start to learn what works for them and and doesn't work for them um and we're even doing it for adults and seniors um stuff like that we um we are funded
010through our umbrella through the alliance um of Coalition Val communities and Oakland Community Health Network we do get some funding from them we were just recently awarded we applied for the nationally acclaimed um drug free community Grant and we were awarded it we're super excited that's actually $125,000 a year for 5 years after the 5 years we can apply for again 6 through 10 so we can have that up to 10 years so it's a significant amount of money that we are bringing into the Waterford Community to help with prevention programs um we also do get some little um grants like through prevention Network that um is housing our forest Therapy Program we just did a forest therapy walk last night at the Dron Plains Nature Center um beautiful out it didn't rain on us
011it was gorgeous we're just really produced um promoting Wellness mental health relaxing you know learning how to cope in healthy ways um and um what else am I forgetting I know inform the bottom if you want to reach out to us um again we base everything on what the community needs so we need to hear from people you know everyone in here too we want to hear from everyone what are you seeing what do you think the community needs you know and then we work together how can we implement this now so um we really are constantly we're an open door we want to hear from everyone um even if it's just your voice if you want to help us you know Implement something that's great but we really want to hear from everyone all
012the different sectors in the community because everyone's seeing a little bit differently but we really want to waterford's a great place and we want to keep it going and we really want to make it U really healthy and um thriving if if I can point out too that Debbie has been working with our administrators through Lisa Eldridge and her team um because they know what the needs are at the buildings and so that partnership is critically important and Deb you've been doing a nice job with that so thank you thank you yeah we appreciate the the support and anything you know we can do we are here that's what we're here we're very passionate about it we have our reasons why we're involved with this I was in education for over 10 years but I
013I love this this piece of it because it's it's really something that's needed right now so miss am thank you so much it's so nice to hear about uh sort of U all the wonderful programming that the um waterf for WCC is offering um really wonderful colleagues do you have any comments or questions yes member southernland I just want to Echo president comments U I am so thrilled to meet both of you I have actually heard your names many times and I know I can hear the passion in your voice just looking over the materials that you provided us um and that you shared with us at the podium tonight it's absolutely incredible we love that you're here to help our community and I know the school's happy to partner with you and honestly community
014members and school as volunteers so I I will be reaching out to see we used to volunteer all the time for the Coalition I know there's a lot of us in this room that used to do that and and um I don't know if you ever need help but I I what you do is is so important and it matters and uh to have that collaboration with the school district is is integral to a a a thriving community so thank you so much for all that you do for our kids thank you and yes please do Reach Out Heather's got some really big shoes for us to fill so we're working hard and you know um on that but getting um just a community involved is super important like you said yeah member pcia that
015member Tes please um you mentioned you get a a grant for 125,000 is that money just for Waterford not for the no that's just for Waterford that's just ours but does that mean you're aren't going to be doing fundraisers like the food thing that I really enjoyed we can we can do fundraisers and actually we will be doing a fundraiser you'll be hearing more about it we're actually going to be doing a fundraiser and setting up a memorial for Heather um in in some kind of bench or statue with a and a scholarship so we are looking at doing a fundraiser for that um but right now um with in in our ability to obtain those grants um we we have enough money right now to carry all our programs everything we do is for
016free that's what it looks like that just a taste water for I enjoyed that I know it was a fundraiser I don't care just I enjoy so thank you remember Tes U the um the girls empowerment after school program at Mason that caught my eye could you tell me more about that sure it's um it's a great program I it's volunteer program um I'm working with um roica Isaac on it when she heard about it I was at curriculum night and a couple of the parents came up to me and were talking to me and saying like J for girls like you know my daughter's having a lot of relationship issues and stuff like that so um I do do this program I've done it um at um Clarkston middle school and sash Middle School
017quite a bit and we just kind of meet we get to know each other we do talk about what stress looks like what does it not look like a lot of kids say I have major anxiety but when we start talking about it they don't know the difference that a lot of that stress is good for them you know prepares them to study harder work harder um so we we kind of talk about the difference and we talk about coping skills but we really talk about relationships all relationships whether it's their parents their friends but what does a good friend look like you know boundaries um being honest you know we do a lot of self-reflection um we do talk a lot about social media and um the effects that that social media has on
018us even when they say that um they're not comparing themselves their brain is actually still comparing themselves um so I try to get them to limit that watch who they're talking to and not talking to the sites and we just kind of build their self-esteem a bit and we talk a lot about that and um and kindness and trying to promote them to be kind to each other and um reach out to safe you know adults that they can talk to it's been an awesome program it's like a six week after school program if they do it at Mason um would it also be open to pierce kids yeah yeah it could be um it might be difficult with the timing I don't know getting Pierce there but we could set up one and do
019it at Pierce too so this it's like six weeks long we're going to do it on a Wednesday um right after school um but then we can set up a either another date or after that's done we could set one up at Piers for sure thank you any other comments or questions for your colleagues I just want to add relative to the Grant I know that Heather and her team worked on getting that Grant I think three years in a row if not four and it was a tremendous application process and they got denied every time so Kudos wonderful we're so happy I know she's celebrating I know that's just a a really big deal so nice work on that as well thank you yes we're very very blessed and it takes people sometimes 10
020years and don't get it so yeah we are very fortunate well actually we're just so excited that you you you showed up tonight and we're able to give us a little bit of information I think it's just indicative of um having you here and a supportive board and just seeing all the wonderful work that you do of the importance of these kind of Partnerships within our school district and please come back because we love to hear any time like anyone wants to meet more oneon-one I mean we are open we are here um I'm um no longer I'm going to be leaving Nova and actually being here in Waterford fulltime so um EXC I I am leaving Novi with a heavy heart but well we're glad you we're glad you'll be here so thank you
021thank you Miss thank you Miss Debbie thank you so little round of applause this is great right well thank you again let's now welcome up um this is Dixon to talk about our overnight and extended student trip to Germany and Austria thank you I am so pleased to be before you this evening to bring another educational opportunity for our students we are fortunate enough for our curriculum to provide exposure to our students of a variety of world languages students are exposed to the culture the language the geography the people of a of a variety of places around the world we're fortunate enough to extend that Educational Opportunity outside the boundaries of the classroom and across the world this evening one of our own Mr Jason Frank a teacher at ketering teacher of world language and
022English language arts will be presenting a proposal to you for an overnight extended trip to Germany and Austria Mr Frank uhk thank you Mrs Dion for that lovely introduction I appreciate that uh first of all I'd like to say I've been a water resident since 2000 I've been teaching at ketering for 27 years uh my daughter is a sophomore at ketering uh this is my home and uh as I was telling uh Mr Donahue I love living in Waterford I love teaching in Waterford and I wouldn't send my child here if I didn't feel so passionately about what we do as a community and as a school board and a school district so thank you uh for what for what you provide us so uh good evening and thank you thank you for having me
023and um welcoming here to um welcoming me welcoming me here this evening um it's my pleasure to be here tonight to talk to you about another wonderful travel opportunity um for our students and I thank you uh for your support and I'm also asking for your permission to travel uh Waterford school district has enjoyed uh working with in a partnership with World strides for several years not only with our eighth grade trips to Washington DC uh we had a trip to France in Spain several years ago with our Spanish department and this would be should I be given permission our sixth trip uh to Europe for the German Department um our intinerary uh includes uh 11 days and 10 nights we start in the capital city of Berlin where students will be exposed to postor
024War II history and Cold War history will have a visit to the Rog the German Parliament building uh they'll visit the Brandenburg gate uh they'll see remnants of the Berlin Wall uh at the Berlin Wall students will learn about uh citizens of Berlin who try to escape we learn their stories and in those various places where the students uh are are at we tell the stories of those people who try to escape um so we do a lot of inclass classroom like activities but out in the city uh we'll also in Berlin have a chance to visit um the Olympic Center um host uh where where the where the Germans hosted the 19 36 Olympics where Jesse Owens won several uh Gold Member uh gold uh medals uh from there uh we travel by coach
025uh to the city of Munich where we continue our conversation on World War II uh we visit the concentration camp at Doo very very powerful experience for our students every time I've taken kids uh to DHA have always been impressed a by what they've learned in our community about uh those events but the their emotional sense of awareness when they when they experience a place like that uh also a meic we are just the foothills of the Alps actually we'll visit the the fairy tale castles of King LC II uh and from there we travel to salsburg a home of the family fun trap uh many of you may know that the The Sound of Music was filmed in the city of salsburg it's also the home of Mozart we'll visit Mozart's birth house as
026well and then we finally concluded our tour in the Imperial capital of Vienna uh Vienna was the capital of the hapsburg empire for over 400 years and it's very much an imperial capital today and students will have a chance to see some of those Royal palaces uh see works of art for example the Kiss by Gustaf Clint one of my favorite pieces and so it is an educational Whirlwind opportunity um for for the price of $5,700 approximately uh depending on uh when students in roll and so on uh students uh will enjoy three and fourstar hotels that are centrally located full breakfast and dinner every day air travel uh round trip including um land travel so the motor coach Subways buses and so on uh entrance fees to all museums uh paid private tours for
027the local guides we'll have with us on staff 247 a fully bilingual uh member of world strides tour group um and uh included in our package is the uh full protection insurance package which uh really came in handy uh during the co period that will allow families to luxury should they need to cancel to recoup just about all of their investment um and so those are the offerings that world stride is providing and I hope that you take that under consideration uh and I'm happy to answer any questions should there be any first off thank you Mr Frank for being here and thank you thank you for your commitment to Waterford schools everyone knows Mr Frank so uh we're so happy to have you here and to be able to talk about this so remember
028Tes um this is awesome I just love to see that I think it was one of the the greatest ways of learning is actually doing and having that experience to to to do this in high school I think is just amazing for our kids and the opportunity that we can do this again now um is is awesome uh I know World strides my remembering from my daughter did the DC trip I was really impressed with them you know I've heard good things uh so I'm confident about that the rate at about 56 5700 so we'll families be able to make payments towards that over periods of time or is that how does that work yes so um as soon as it should should a permission be granted we will hold a parental meeting and then
029open up the application process and generally the final payment will be due uh around February or March of the travel year so February or March of 20 25 and so uh parents will be able to make uh monthly payments if they choose uh they'll also be given a variety of payment um methods through World strides so that would lock them in then right and it could um so right now um the earlier students and families lock into these types of programs the lower the price and so once we lock in uh that will that will be the price there are some things that are not included in the costs such as gratuities uh for the guys and the bus drivers but once families uh do enroll I'll share that number with families and then for
030convenience sake uh we'll wrap it into the price so that I never have to handle gratuities a world strides will take care of that on our behalf yeah because I I know the pricings are going up I I heard a term for the first time recently it was called uh Revenge traveling where it's now 40% more to travel than it was um you know before the pandemic and that people now are traveling because they couldn't for years so now everybody's wanting to go so prices are going high so locking in that rate I think is would be a good thing we can do that and then and then I saw somewhere in here where you guys had the breakdown about there's like a cost and there's like a $200 fee or they call it like
031a travel scholarship or something but I don't know if there's ever anything we if that's a thing but I know like with the DC trip sometimes sometimes kids that can't afford it you know they offer like a scholarship you know in each school or something and is that something we do World strides offers a scholarship opportunities through their programming uh I do offer opportunities uh to work with parents should they choose to do fundraising um I do not have the experience to start fundraising programming I'm happy to assist those uh who do uh the the numbers you're mentioning uh refer to an early uh welcome scholarship and an early enrollment savings I've been working closely with World stride since 2012 and I'm in the process of um asking them to to extend that as long
032as possible because we're waiting uh for the final decision and the final vote and that takes time and so um as it states in your in your packet that that fee that we're talking about is through November the 2nd um but I'm asking them to to delay that as much as we can can to give you the the period you need to to make your decisions thank you uh M Don uh Jason we've talked kind of about the agenda and and going and what the kids are going to be seeing but overall what's the why what's the reason for for going and doing this type of travel yeah um well I grew up in Oakland County and I I had a great upbringing and I thought I knew it all in high school not like
033many high school kidss do uh but when I went to Europe on my first high school trip it had Unleashed a passion in me that changed the total trajectory of my life not only did I become a world language teacher I'm a passionate traveler and travel allows us allows one to not only take in other cultures and benefit and learn from other peoples but it forces us to examine ourselves uh Through The Eyes of other cultures and that's something I try to do in the world language class class room to get my students to think about themselves as others May perceive them from a different point of view and travel brings people closer together and we're trying to Break Down The Walls that separate us travel can bring people together and see that we're more
034similar um than many people believe so I'm really hoping to extend what we're doing in our community classrooms to the greater world memb sou and then M Mr Frank I just uh as a community we owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude because you go on your own time and I think if I'm looking through this I think there was at least 11 trips that you've done um over time through our school system and um providing this truly profound learning opportunity for our kids uh is is one of the greatest gifts that we could ever give a student to to see the world as you said through a different perspective different eyes being able to I I was just in Dao actually in January is the first time I actually been to that particular concentration
035camp and I've read a million books about World War II and there is nothing that touches you like walking in the same place walking through the gates seeing where they slept and where they go there's so much it is so profound and and you feel it instead of just learning about it you actually internalize it and and as you said you can you start to see the world differently and I think that is just an amazing opportunity I know it's expensive and the fact that you're giving students almost a two-year lead time so that they can raise money if they need to work and you know so that those that really do want to participate in this amazing opportunity um you know have some time to to try to make that happen and uh as
036well as the grants and other opportunities so I just want to thank you I know you've been in front of us many many times over these past many years and and it is truly an amazing amazing opportunity that you give our kids so thank you thank you for what you do and um a tremendous learning opportunity and and I just we just owe you a debt of gratitude I appreciate that thank you very much that's very kind and I really do enjoy very much what I do uh I I think of those students as my own kid um and I try to care for them in such a way and this is just an ension of that I want to provide not only for my personal child but for my children in my classroom I
037want to provide all I can thank you thank you again I I believe in these travel things I think they're wonderful my oldest son did the trip to Spain he still talks about it was just it was it was good times uh I've had an exchange student from Peru uh I had a couple I think there were young men Terry how were the kids from Germany you remember early 20 a couple young men for a week or two um and it was it was very interesting uh they had throw time to our country and they spent some time at our house but one of the things that again I don't know how we can do it you probably don't want it but to enjoy the food and the culture and the food is beer they
038make the best beer in Germany why we we should be able we have to be able to take a inside something but I would if the 18 these it's okay so not I'm not asking for the schools uh but it's for to go there you're 18 I think the drinking age over there is 16 for beero we're we're not going there but it's part of their culture to to go there and not experience the whole culture uh the young men that I had here uh they hated our beer they just oh this terrible and again I've I've had imported beers that I enjoy but to have them fresh to have that opportunity I wish we had some way of signing off other than it's a hassle for you because not everyone can do that and
039it's all but it isn't all tastes great less feeling it's beer is is is part of the culture part of the food uh and I I would I would love for the opportunity for someday if they do that I'm going so again I I prefer trips that have palm trees uh but I would do this one if if we could you know and maybe this trip could be something that inspired them for more European travel in their own Futures and they can enjoy the very same things that you're talking about cuz you're not wrong it is part of Germanic culture but um for my sanity and to keep what it would be prer uh not to not to do that okay sorry maybe seem to make maybe this points to the need for a board
040uh trip to Germany World stri sign me up right I think it's a wonderful idea we should go first to make sure that it's say that's right [Laughter] any other comments or questions for Mr Frank thank you thank you yeah so very exciting thank you so much um thank you so and are we uh serious question are we okay with that November 2nd deadline um I mentioned the world strides that you have uh a routine in place where you hear information and then you uh the month later you make your decision so I'm hoping they can extend us the price but I I have no guarantee so do I don't know yeah do do you want us to take action tonight we can think we can modify and make a motion later if that would
041be helpful in the process certainly don't want to be the reason were a positive answer that yes how the board feels about that me to make make the meeting okay I I agree I I would I would like to make a motion that we add an action item to the agenda um do it anytime we can make motion any time that we add an action item to the agenda after superintendent's recommendation in prior to consideration of certain purchases to review and vote on the proposal for overnight extended student trip to Austria and Germany I would support that thank you colleagues the motion to take or to amend the agenda um adding a new business item to approve the proposal for um the overnight Excursion to Germany um has been moved in supported Alex comments or
042questions I just have a question so you feel comfortable with everything presented to us tonight cuz I'm looking at I don't want to rush something this big because you know these are our kids they're going to another country and we know what's out there in the world um but I if everything in this packet I was able to look through before the the meeting is everything that we need to know I'm I'm comfortable moving forward with the vote there's nothing else that would come up or any other issues well um I done my due diligence I've traveled with World strides before and um and gotten all the documentation that the school board has requested in previous uh opportunities as you know everything is uncertain our original trip was uh for 2020 Our World War II
043tour of Europe was scheduled for 2020 uh Co happened and uh and then the war in the Ukraine happened and I talked to parents and I asked parents how do you feel about uh going to Europe and this was um March of uh [Music] 21 and they weren't they they did not feel feel safe so immediately we postponed it World strides was more than gracious to postpone it yet another year and some families had to make choices to leave the trip but that did a low opportunities for new families to join the trip um so I feel confident in my research and in the information I'm providing for you this evening yeah so nothing would change between now and the next meeting um I mean I feel comfortable with everything you're very experienced I saw
044all the trips you've gone on and listened to you tonight so I mean I feel comfortable and real quick if we can actually revisit this because right now the motion just to right I just want to make clear that that we don't take this lighthearted that we absolutely as a board you know these are our kids we're sending them to another country just we want to obviously though make it feasible for them to go sure thank you m and I believe it's always a case with uh with this organization and any travel organization that if for some reason one of the countries that you're traveling to ends up on the US's do not travel list it's immediately yeah I mean it's covered and the insurance covers it and correct correct no harm no fall yes
045and World strides Sayes have an extensive uh policy for a student for example that um needs to be medically lifted home or have a parent uh brought to Europe uh to to meet the needs of their child that that's done at World str's expense uh but being a a Community member a teacher a father father of a student I have no interest in taking my child on a trip that I'm not I'm not comfortable with thank you thank you colle any other comments or questions regarding the proposed amendment to the agenda this evening okay so all those in favor of amending the agenda to bring to new business the proposal for overnight extended student trip to Germany please signify raising your hand than you motion carries 60 we will uh take that up when we
046come to new business thank you Mr Frank thank you colleagues okay let's now welcome up assistant superintendent Hela um for our information item on our food and nutrition services and I believe director Mr Williams as well good evening everyone welcome um before I begin I want to start with an exercise um so if it resonates with you I need you to raise your hand if it doesn't don't participate okay I didn't study you didn't you don't need to study right and you should raise your hand on everyone I don't okay so how many of us ate breakfast today raise your hand lunch dinner okay so according to the U according to USDA there's M over 9 million kids that go hungry on a daily basis in the US so just put that in perspective how
047many 9 million my name is Michael Williams I'm the food service director for waterf school district and this is our food service update we're going to talk about our participation and the numbers that we're accumulating because of our participation we're also going to talk about our menu and the new items that we we've implemented on our menu I want to shine the light on my staff for making it happen also we're going to talk about our Outreach and how we communicate with our parents our staff and our students and lastly we'll talk about our impactful projects that we have going on first I'd like to talk about participation by the numbers um as you all know we are running a program uh it's called Michigan school meals that allows us to provide meals at no
048cost to the students both breakfast and lunch and with that comes with a new document it's called the uh education benefit form that takes place of the free and reduced application um as you can see we've received over 4,000 applications today and that number is Big because that that application helps fund some of our grants like Title One and 31a below that um I had compared I have a comparison of the past three years years including the current year of September the first month and as you can see with breakfast our numbers are consistent because we have been running Universal breakfast which again allows us to run um uh allows us to have the kids eat breakfast for free but if you look to the right you can see that the lunch numbers tell a
049different store so the first year in comparison we were still in what is that 212 2 we were still in Co which means we were allowed to provide meals at no cost the second year 222 oh sorry yeah 2223 lunch you can see that we had a major drop off and that's because it was our first year out of Co and we resorted back into the regular nslp lunch program which means that we went to free reduce and full pay okay and uh the last year which is the current year is what we're most proud of because it tells a story yes in comparison with the first year we are providing meals at no cost but as you can see the numbers are different which means our participation is increasing and I attest that to
050one our menu menu options our brand new menu options the quality of our food and the consistent staff if you look below those are meal counts by the year and if you look at the current year if we continue on our trajectory we would outpace the past two years what's cooking everybody wants to know what's cooking right um so these are a few of our new menu options that we've implemented this actually between last year and this year and I have to say that the kids absolutely love them my staff loves cooking it and again participation in the number show so first we have our wing W water for Wing Wednesday and that's our own rendition of Buffalo Wild Wings and it's by far the busiest day of the school week okay um number two
051we make fresh breakfast sandwiches in our secondaries every morning and the kids absolutely love them three is an elementary school favorite it's the chicken and waffles and the kids line up and they go up for seconds and thirds if they could and four is a lot of the administrators favorite too um it's the sugarfree frozen yogurts that we have at the second secondar before I start this I want to say by that without my staff there's no me okay and these are pictures of some not all of my staff and these are the people who make it happen every day um we have 18 locations 70 staff members and we serve over 9,000 Ms a day my staff loves what they do they do it with a passion and their main mission is to make
052sure that they provide our our students with the most nutritious meal on a daily basis our Outreach we have different Avenues and providing information and reaching out to parents staff and students one that I'd like to talk about tonight is our student lunch surveys and what that consists of is we pick two to three new menu options and we take samples to the secondaries and have the students try them at lunchtime and in real time they're allowed to vote using iPads and uh via Survey Monkey and vote on what menu option they would like to see on the next month's menu uh the reason I think that this is important why I love it so much is because one it involves the students and it gives the students Pride that they get to actually take
053part in what they're eating and what what we've been seeing is that because they have so much pride in picking what they get to eat they participate in our lunch program more um and that's what we're all about making sure that all of our kids eat but not only that making sure that we have what they want to eat uh impactful projects we have some um very important projects going on and that will go on um in the future but one that I like to touch on is one that we actually had installed last year at the beginning of last year and that's our new combination ovens in the secondaries not only do they cook our food at a faster rate to make sure that we're getting our kids through the lines and they don't
054have to wait so they can have more time to eat their food it actually uh Cooks the food at a better uh it makes the food a better taste and better tasting and add a better quality um these combination ovens Steam have the ability to steam air fry bake and smoke and trust me we've been using it all okay and the food quality has skyrocketed and not only um from suggestions and um commentation from the students but our staff have been partaken in ordering we have a um staff lunch order form and the staff has been GI raving about everything we have to offer to as well one impact I wouldn't call it a project but it's a thing that we were were looking to do in January since it's board appreciation month is invite
055you guys to one of our schools Rob I know you're coming I know is invite you guys to one of our schools for lunch um it'll probably be on a chicken and waffles day so you guys can see how that is um we don't have as far as the date of the time or anything like that but we we we would be proud to to welcome you guys to one of the school so you can try out the lunch speak with the students even speak with my staff so you guys can see exactly what we do and how we love what we do okay um and in conclusion I want to say that our students are our future and the reason this is near and dear to my heart and I I'm speaking for my
056staff's heart because I talk to them every day it's because we know that one way that we can empower our students is to make sure that we provide them the fuel they need to get through their day whether it's academically or athletically um and it starts in the schools it's it's at home but they're at school with us from morning until the afternoon and we have to make sure that we're providing them the fuel they need to get through that day and one thing that I want all of us to think about when we're sitting at the table next time and we want to complain because it's a meal we don't want or we're complaining about who cooked it or how it SM smells just remember revert back to what I started with at the
057beginning of my presentation about those 9 million kids on a daily basis who don't even have anything to complain about thank you do you guys oh do you guys have any questions colleagues what questions we have for Mr Williams M Johnson you know I just want to say we're so thankful to have you in our district never have I seen somebody speak so passionately about food and about our kids and actually what they want cuz you know so many times I know that I would pay for lunch my kids would come home and they'd be in the pantry I'm like well didn't you eat at school and they're like n it was gross I didn't like it and you know and clearly they love it everything up there looked delicious so thank you so much
058I mean you just contribute to our high test higher test scores and and you know our kids and we really appreciate it appreciate yeah UMES I I agree that um the food and the nutrition is such a huge huge part I think that's one of the things the pandemic taught us was that you know one of the first things that we did as a district was how are we going to feed kids you know I think we uh I think we got out about 400,000 meals in that year um drive-through setups and volunteers and Food Service workers and cuz it was you know those 9 million kids you know some of them live here in Waterford correct and we had to figure out how we're going to get a meals so uh but I I
059do I I really appreciate um the work that you're doing while you were speaking I pulled the menu up here um and I think it's so cool I can look and my kids going to eat fruit cup uh in the morning for breakfast you know and my daughter she's not one you know to eat in the morning you know trying to get her to eat a bowl of cereal but then when she gets to school she's hungry and there's that option you know she can and a lot of times she says you know the L the the line's long you know that's a good thing cuz all these kids are eating yeah we working on ways to expedite the lines and make sure that the kids get through fast too but she yeah and she
060she enjoys the food and she's I think she eats it lunch at school just about every day she's a picky eater so yeah cuz I even told my wife I said we're not making it doesn't seem like we're making lunches anymore you know but I mean you have a vast array of food you have it's accessible the menu to the families we can look it right up you have it separated by stansky the elementaries the middle schools the high schools as a parent you can jump right on and look um and it's such a a huge part of the educational process like member Joslin said you know this is this is what's helping our kids get their academics they're filling their belly and they're able to learn correct so thank you for what you're doing
061and thank you for being so passionate about about this appreciate it thank you m Patria I'm just about all not having turkey you there's coming so November coming in November yes okay the chicken nuggets sample those uh the sauce that you made it is wonderful November November thank you sir bring my name can we put it out when it is let Megan know uh just make sure you get a special it'll be at the board special type of like hey it's today thank you no problem I'm excited wow hungry now thank you for everything Mr Williams we really app we really appreciate your hard work but we also just appreciate it when you show up and let us know about all the great things happening in service department thank you thank you thank you we
062appreciate it all right okay we're now going to move on colleagues to our Esser update and welcome up assistant superintendent Ela and we have a little handout a couple slides here in front of us um on [Applause] [Music] this thank you very much for allowing us to speak about our Esser program the reason that we present um is because the guidelines require an update on the district's plan for using the grant funds at a public meeting every 6 months the last time we did do this update was April and before that was actually March so we don't have to wait 6 months it just depends on our schedule but in this case it has been 6 months and we want to bring this up so we have to present this whether we changed the plan
063or not our plan has not changed so everybody's aware of that we are still using the guidelines and the um categories that we set up that was a result of our strategic plan which had input from all of our stakeholders so I'm going to um have our Director of Finance Amy dagenhart actually take it over and talk in a little bit more detail because we don't have to present how we've been spending the money but I think that is always a good uh update for our board and our community me Community how we've been spending okay um the first slide is um the Esser 2 so um Esser is the um Elementary and secondary school emergency relief funding so that's what all those letters stand for um sr2 um was actually after sr1 we have
064three of them we have multiple other um grants that fall into this category um but Sr 2 was $4.4 Million okay Sr 2 with the tidings amendment allowed us to spend this through September 30th of 2023 okay so the grant period is over um you did have um an additional three months to um actually um commit well you had to commit the funds by September 30th but you had an additional 3 months to actually um cut the check for them um we are we do not have to worry about that um Sr 2 has been completed um so you can see the different categories that we've talked about several times um so when we look at um sr2 we're looking at retention of Highly qualified teaching staff um we're looking at purchasing supplies and um
065indoor air quality and sanitation uh we're looking at continuity of services so keeping those services that we need um for the school district um maintaining operations um implementing evidence-based activities addressing learning loss and providing School leaders resources um that they need along with planning implementing summer learning activities so all of those things um factor into sr2 and when I talk about those different things we are looking at um permanent guest teachers in our building buildings we're looking at teacher interns we're looking at DM incentives um we're looking at Dei and um problem-based learning we're looking at um uh social studies materials we're looking at into reading which you know you had approved quite some time ago now it seems like um nurses and cost for Camp wsd so you'll see all of those numbers down
066there the last thing is an indirect cost all grants um not all federal grants but most federal grants allow you an IND indirect cost rate Asser also allowed you an indirect cost rate and you'll see that down at the bottom the $96,000 that is for all of those things that are not charged directly to the grant but are a cost of doing grant work so for instance you know cutting the accounts payable check cutting the payroll checks um all of those things that there's a piece of but you can't quantify as exactly being charged to the grant so that's what that $96,000 is down at the bottom the next slide is sr3 and it go ahead Joan question you sure can I I I know we're leaving Sr 2 forever now so yes um just
067I'm not sure if there's a way to know but what portion if any of these services is uh permanent guest teachers or the planning implementing of Summer learning activities these kinds of things what portion are now were previously covered and are now being absorbed by general fund dollars we do have a list of those items um that would be ongoing expenses um that we will have to look at for um being brought into the general fund um things like which we've talked about before um into reading you know that was a six-year um uh contract and so when we brought that forward um that was four years that were going to be um included with user and a lot of these things you'll see on the next slide too so they're they're being moved into
068Sr 3 so just so you know when it comes to in into reading into literature that we did those six years we did build that into the general fund budget for those out out years for things like the permanent guests um Subs we do have some but we have been talking about consistently that we're going to go back to what we had preco so that that is on our list of a recurring cost that we cannot continue so we've had that conversation so we have a surprisingly short list because as you've been saying since we started we really need to make sure we're very careful about our recurring costs so we have a very short list to that where we're having that conversation so for one example nurse nurses we started with multiple we're down
069to one we have decided that this was a very good opportunity for the district to continue because they help with plans of care and training but we've also found another funding source for them we can put them in our 31a bucket we also have some one-time grants that we're going to be using for the nurse as they go so we are looking at those options as well because we have a few other other funding sources that we can extend these but we are very aware of the few that we have that are recurring and we're having those conversations constantly a can we continue them in another funding source or B do we have to discontinue them so yes no so many of these things were just absolutely stellar and some of them were really specific
070to the pandemic whereas some of them so so I recognize that truly that any of it is hard but I appreciate that you have a list and that you're looking at it it's I think really important to our to our general fund and to our sustainability going forward so thank you so much sr3 um is a little over $10 million um you can see here um on this slide that there is spent to date and there is encumbered or allocated um you can see up at the top that the spent and um encumbered and allocated is totaled and what is available um still out of the essr grant sr3 grant um again this grant with the tidings Amendment goes through September 30th of 2024 um so there is a basically an additional year on this
071grant of Esser um you can see again the um buckets that we're talking about are um adding learning loss this grant um had some additional strings attached to it and so you had to spend at least 20% uh on addressing learning loss okay so over $2 million on addressing learning loss um you'll see there um the curriculum goes towards that Lexia success maker power up uh the new dream box that we just talked about recently um and Camp wsd you can see in some of these other categories too that um some of these things could be um used towards learning loss also um when we're looking at um uh the math curriculum and the Spanish curriculum um and science materials for you know our elementaries middles and highs so all of those things could also
072be um in that addressing learning loss but we've um currently put them in to providing um School leaders resources um for added needs to address needs excuse me um and and you will see too that there are things that went from Sr 2 and they will continue on in Sr 3 so just like we talked about the nurses um we also have items in sr3 such as the safe behavioral interventionists um that you'll see are on the encumbered um Cal column and the reason for that is because we have had different funding for some of these things so as we've talked about before with the funding that has come from the state and the funding that has come from the feds just in different areas um and the county we have had to um move
073things around and um amend the plan a little bit as as we go um so we have the Oakland County Mental Health grant that was a two-year Grant $175,000 each year um so last year and this year 23 24 um and then we've had some other grants um which um there were six of actually um that were uh done as of 9:30 of 2023 and those are the 23b grants um those 23b grants um were for credit recovery before and after school and um summer school then there was also the 98c grant which was also for before and after school and addressing learning loss such as um uh summer programming and um what was the last one um oh that was that was the um 323 BS the 98c and sr2 totaling $6.1 million um
074that was um expended by uh September 30th 2023 you can see also on sr3 there is still you know purchase of um supplies for wipes and sanitizers and different things like that um um there's also purchase of educational technology um Chromebooks calculators which we talked about um Google workspace and illuminate um if you have any questions there any questions remember southernland sorry that's okay um first of all congratulations on being done with and S one right so I forget how much was sr1 that was 1 million one million so not not a big deal yeah but that one came super happy to have it but this one's 10 million so I know it is a big deal it's just oneth of the big deal that this one is so um relative to sr3 I and
075I'm sorry I'm trying to remember that we had to have it all spent but we don't have to have all the invoices in until 2024 so we have to have our plan in and approved by September 30th but they do allow you if you let's say you order Chromebooks and they don't come in until October that acceptable but if it comes in in January tough you're out of luck so anything that we're doing which we've been very fortunate that we haven't had to take take that into consideration but they're making they're very clear that you can allocate have it approved and then it has to be um actually purchased B received by December 31st December 31st of this year no 24 for us or so if it was as 9:30 2024 deadline is that we
076what's the difference between the deadline we just passed on sr3 and the one that we will have 11 months from now so so there are two different grants and each Grant does allow us to go to the December of that calendar year so let's say we hadn't hadn't actually received everything that we intended in sr2 we could pay it out through December but we did receive everything we did not have anything hanging out after September that we had to pay for so we didn't have to worry about that same thing with sr3 we have to allocate it have it approved by September 30th so example if we have like I said we had Chromebooks that we wanted to spend they didn't come in before December we can't go and take that Chromebook money and spend
077it on something else so that's where yes it it's great that they allow us to have that Latitude but we don't feel that's something we ever want to risk because what if they cancel the order because they just can't get it in so we're making sure everything that we can do is received and um paid for or paid slightly after so September 30th so if we had people's being paid through September 30th we could then pay them the next month and that would be okay because they were included to pay anything that they earned through the end of September so we're talking of 2024 we're talking yes so S 3 has goes through December 24 Sr 2 technically through the um December of 23 so so so it was my understanding we have one just
078over a million dollars not yet spent encumbered or allocated correct that does not have to be done by the September 23 correct it's by September 24 correct what had to be done by September 23 that was sr2 but it says like S 3 93023 correct but Sr 2 if you look with the tidings Amendment if you continue on it goes through 9 24 so it used to be 23 and then they gave us another year they immediately threw in the tidings Amendment as soon as they approved these they immediately threw in a Tidings Amendment and said you can spend it for one more year well we have to watch that um and we have to be aware of that deadline but from a standpoint of us spending it getting amendments getting approvals it's moot but
079we have to that's something we still have to track for Grant purposes okay okay it's very strange they gave you two deadlines back to back we since the tidings amendment is new um we this is not something we've had before um we all were asking because MD was saying oh you have the tidings on this we're all like hands up like what is the Tiding amend and they said that was something they immediately put in as soon as they approved these they gave everybody another year by this amendment so that that made us feel good but we had a lot of things that we wanted to be sure about it and understand for example our Gans which is the the grant U award notices have 923 for eser 3 as the due date so again
080you're you're going okay and they're like well we have to do that cuz that's what the FED say but you have one more year to spend it so it's been a Lear learning curve for all of us on how different this was I expect that we'll never never utter the word Tidings Amendment again after Sesser 3 is done um but for now it is part of the guidance for this and so there's no concern with the one million that's and you I'm sure have a plan we have several plans we're just leaving it out there rather than allocating it because we know that we went through very carefully with our plan allocated amounts for it we update those amounts as we go along so for example we have used more um permanent guest teachers than
081we had originally allocated so some of that million will be allocated to them we have science that we're still looking at there might be a chance that we need some of that and then the indirect that Amy was talking about with us or two we have that option we prefer not to use indirect for example we have the right to do indirect for idea we prefer just to spend it right out because that's just money that the general fund is spending if we do the indirect so it was just another way to use money and get that to the district so we're not losing any advantages understand that it's just all so complex and um yeah we're we're sure going to miss these Esser dollars going forward but so appreciate all the work that went
082all of the accounting Associated to all three of those Esser funds is extraordinary yes it was it's it's a lot especially with um on top of everything else the number of account numbers just alone that that have to be built by function and object it's unbelievable yep so the last slide is um where we were um with sr2 so when we um brought this the last time in April our goal was to be spent by um June 30th of 2023 we only had that last 96,000 and at the time we even said we thought there might be about $100,000 between July and September that we would need to spend that 96,000 in indirect was for that um so as you can see here on the first line sr2 is um completely um funded and requested
083and complete uh the SR 3 you'll see on here wsds goal our goal is to spend by September 30th 2024 the committed funds have to be by September 30th 2024 but again we also can go through payments to be completed by December 31st of 2024 and the reason that our goals changed between Sr 2 and sr3 is because sr3 um there are some things that we are using for curriculum that we want to be able to expense that July 1 through that September 30 of 2024 because that is the 2425 school year y perfect colleagues any comments or questions regarding rsr super Lindberg um both of you have been so eloquent I just want to share with the board and with our community we appreciate all of the grant funds and all of this but
084as uh member southernland mentioned the hours and the late nights that have been spent by this entire team but also led by Sandy and Amy has been incredible because as this money's come at us we've experienced the me mde changing game plans Midstream and also as more grants have come at us uh have been provided opportunity we've wanted to maximize each one so it means we move things around so it has been an incredible team effort to do that uh I think it's been an incredible investment for our community and then on the other side as we know we will have to make adjustments we will not have these types of funds going forward but that's why we try to make one-time Investments with as much of these dollars as we could that would pay
085dividends for years to come thank you other comments or questions M Tes is there any um talk at all about a replacement of Esser funds um because it just seems like there was so much that good that we were able to do with this and the pandemic caused so much Havoc that has been within our educational communities for years to come I can I can speak to that in a legislative meeting we had oh it might have been last February uh we were told by a congresswoman to not expect these kind of dollars anytime Again In Our Lifetime I'm just quoting her I won't say who it was but to answer your question I don't think so the only thing that we have um heard Rumblings about um is that maybe an extension to the
086timeline um for sr3 but I haven't heard much about that since yeah we heard that initially because some people were spend spending it on construction projects and of course that is very difficult to get going and get done we have chosen not to do those kind of projects we are fortunate to have a 2020 bond to do those projects in so we have made sure that we will be spent out by next year so we had already planned that out initially so we're in really good shape with that now would we turn down extra money no we certainly have more needs that we could fund with it but we're not expecting it anymore now with the State we have a lot of categor girls that they've been doing the last couple years and we know
087that not all of those categor girls have been spent out because not everybody's been able like the 98c is a great example we had Deb Cooper go in and put that application in and she did an excellent job and we went from 30,000 to 300,000 because people weren't able to get in there so we expect that we may have a few categoricals that continue on but they're not going to be big dollar amounts so the extension would only qualify for people who haven't spent all their money then correct which wouldn't be apply to us because we're correct correct now it yeah we've like I said we've really spent out all our money the only thing that would be great if they wanted to add to it we could pay the additional curriculum that we're paying
088out of the general fund in the future um yeah I just I feel like that there's just so much more still ground to to make up for the pandemic but thank you other one uh so we've had an influx of 15 .4 million just in Esser funds alone which we now will no longer have I know you mentioned a short list if we have an opportunity to maybe even just an email on what that looks like it would be really helpful to know because I know some of the things are safe coordinator some of those things were the the guest teachers I I can recognize what they are just from verbiage that have been so intrical to our everyday life and um that we've been paying for with e Esser dollars so I'd really like
089to understand what this means for our general fund yes so our our short list also includes options for other funding the safe team is a great example um where we thought we might have to reduce the number again uh we've had a couple things going on one is uh our 31a money I believe it was 3.5 a couple years ago we just got our October state aid it is 5 5.3 million we will be able to absorb that maybe they were dyslexic but don't tell them so and on top of that we have the Oakland County that's paying for 2 years of part of it and then we have the 31a categoric goal for last year and this year so we have these funding streams that allow us to continue with the safe team that
090is one excellent example that we are thrilled that we don't have to make that hard choice but yes we have the list we'll tell you where we think that we could do it um I always keep using permanent guest Subs because that is one of the hardest ones that we don't necess have another one but we are looking at different options uh Amy and I have been troubleshooting uh very various different ways and then we're going to check and see if they're allowable so that we can take advantage of some of of um flexibility with some of these grants to be able to do these a couple years longer appreciate thank you so much just really quick I just want to Echo superintendent lber and thank you for your hard work I mean member Torres
091talked about and member Southerland there's so much money and we take a look at the list that those monies have allowed us to to make investments in and they have changed I mean they have allowed us to make really transformative Investments um they've helped us to Pivot towards what we want to do next all of these reflect our values as exemplified in our strategic plan um and then just the I mean the sheer work that you see here is just um um I can't wrap my head around it um that's that's why you two are there and uh we just thank you so much for that um the importance of this I I don't think can be um overstated so thank you thank you thank you thank you very much all right thank you colleagues
092all right let's bring Mrs Davis up for a presentation of awards welcome hello good evening Board of Education and good evening to the rest of our listening office or I'm sorry audience my name is Sarah Davis and I am the director of communications and community relations here at Waterford School District I am here today because I'm pleased to announce that my team has won 10 10 State and national awards thank you before I go into further detail about that I would like to introduce my team who is hidden throughout the room here we win the RAF back there Kelly banister wait Kelly I'm gonna embarrass her a little bit um Jane as you know is back in the other room hiding uh videotaping this meeting as we speak Chris Chris Berling game could not be
093here tonight but of course is also an integral part of our team as our web master um so I'm just going to go through some of the details of these Awards the first group of awards that we received sorry I wanted to move this forward was um from the Michigan school public relations Association otherwise known as mpra and this group focuses on training and resources for school Communications leaders throughout the state of Michigan so we competed for these awards at the state level I'm pleased to announce that we received three Awards of Merit the first one was in the audio podcasting category for our wsd voice podcast the second was in the video category for our wsd Spotlight 2023 teacher of the year video and the third was in the marketing materials category for our
094gorgeous kindergarten booklet and I would like to point out that several different departments really helped us with that booklet and provided cont content for that which was a key part of our enrollment campaign this past year we then received two Awards of Excellence at the state level the first one was in the diversity equity and inclusion category for what I am calling our inclusive phography catalog refresh project and I will talk about that project a little bit more later on our second Excellence award was in the social media category for our alumni Spotlight profile that we do and I'm just going to touch on that real briefly um this alumni Spotlight series one runs approximately once a month and in it we profile one of our alumni pretty simple but it involves constant Outreach and
095relationship building with our alumni while also ensuring we're portraying a variety of alumni with not only diverse backgrounds but representing A diversity in post High School career paths so although this project may look easy there's actually a lot of careful and planning and intention put into it and we already have a pretty robust social media program so to receive recognition for an additional social media program that we're doing was very much appreciated so that's it for the state Awards uh the next Awards we received were from the national school public relations Association otherwise known as npra they are the umbrella group group of the state chapters and they also provide training and resources to school public relations uh leaders but throughout the United States and Canada so we competed for these Awards on the national
096level our first winner was our new curriculum Investments video video we received an honorable mention in the Publications and digital media in-house video category and again shout out to our ccul own department and helped us worked with us very closely on this we all know they're doing tremendous work in that department and we were honored to even be part of creating a video that highlighted those efforts we then received an Excellence award in the Publications and digital media podcasting audio category for our wsd voice podcast so you'll remember that it was also a merit winner at the state level so two awards for our wsd voice podcast this year just is a quick Refresher uh the podcast is now in its third season has well over a th engagements is syndicated on two local radio
097stations and is available on seven different platforms unlike most podcasts we also have a video component to this podcast where we're able to help our our our viewers see the topic that we're talking about firsthand so here's a recent clip where Scott went out to the high schools and interview some of our link crew students this is from our latest episode talk to us a little bit about the most effective strategies in connecting with our new freshman our ninth graders um for freshman orientation especially the first day of school we have a series of events that we always do in each classroom each kid uh we take them around a tour of the school which really helps them and I think like the the activities that make them moving and like like we have one
098that we throw a ball around that one's just fun and makes you laugh and everyone has a good time with that one all right so next I will talk about the three programs that we won golden achievement awards for so for all the programs that I just mentioned in order to receive awards for those we had to prove that they had great content and great engagement for the golden Achievement Award we had to prove that as well but we also had to Showcase how it wrapped into the district's mission and vision so we had to show an element of strategy in these projects to do this we had to prove that we followed what is known in uh public relations circles as rpai which stands for research planning implementation and evaluation plus provide data and
099examples to back up our submission I'd also like to mention that we were the only School District in the state to receive three of these Awards just two other school districts from Michigan Dearborn and Troy each received one our [Laughter] first our first golden achievement winner is the Waterford y a video series that you you well know that provides firsthand testimonies from wsd employees and stakeholders about why Waterford school district is a great place to work and develop as a professional so we're going to just play our most recent example where we partnered with Township supervisor Gary Wall who spoke about Waterford Township because it's important for us to Showcase two prospective employees while living in Waterford Township is a great [Music] thing hello I'm Gary Wall Waterford Township supervisor also a l Waterford Township
100Waterford is the most populated Township at all Oakland County the fifth most viated Township in the state we have a big draw with our 34 Lakes for recreation for people to come in and one thing I hear people say all the time what is it about laford Township once people move there they never leave and again it's that type of a community whatever you want they've got it they said we have beautiful lakefront homes we have we have starter homes we have everything that you would ever need and not to mention I said a top night school distri and only Jay knows the secret of where that Drone footage was was that um okay our second golden achievement winner is our enrollment campaign today's student tomorrow's leader just some quick highlights from that campaign is
101our partnership with Metro parent our social media and Google ads our updated print and website materials and of course our in-person events that allow us to better engage with the community I'd also like to mention that the success of this campaign is is hinged on the collaboration of with several different departments Central enrollment has been absolutely key in showing up and doing the work when it needs done Computer Services provides all the tech support we need for the events English language development dep Department provides interpreters um sweet reads has generously added us to their schedule and of course we have worked extensively with Andrea Bratton at stansky to be part of her highly successful family engagement nights as well as ad iing to those families all of these components added together have now created an
102award-winning enrollment campaign for waterf school district you and last uh the third project what I'm calling our inclusive photography catalog refresh project won the third gold and achievement you'll recall this won an Excellence award at the state level so two awards for this one was a big way winner this year and I'm just going to talk about this project really briefly here um there you go so when I started here in 2021 due to Co in the past two years prior either being virtual school or students wearing masks the amount of usable photos we had of our students was almost nothing and you can't do good communication work without good photography these days photos are involved in everything so we knew that this project of updating this photo catalog was sorely needed we decided that
103um while we were going to do this we were going to make sure the picture taking was very intentional and that we would obtain photographs that accurately portray the makeup of our student body so that pictures were you when pictures were used for district promotion we were creating an environment where all students felt welcomed we searched for a local photographer and we found Mario Tois who I think most of you know she stood out because her photography is amazing and even better she's an alumni of wsd and I think we should probably profile her in the alumni Spotlight soon once we secured Mari we reached out to a variety of buildings and programs principles that we thought would adequately portray our student and staff population and asked them to sign up for a three-hour time
104slot where we would come in with Mari and take photos of the students and staff and for the next several months that's what we did took photos after the pictures were taken we sent them back to the principles to ensure that none of our students were on the do not photograph list before we used them then we divided them up into a variety of categories so that they're easier to find when we need them I'd like to stop here for a second and really acknowledge again the program leaders and the principles who worked with us on this even though we told them we would not be disruptive when we came to school the bottom online is when you go into a school to try to take pictures you're going to be a little bit destructive
105and also I know it took extra time to come through the Do Not photograph so we appreciate that collaboration as well to this day our new collection is divided into approximately 30 categories such as playground technology math class and has over 2500 photos that showcase our amazing and diverse students in both General and special education settings we captured learning in the classroom as well as staff and student culture since we've completed this project the photos have been used to help our department accurately showcase our students in dozens of projects which you you've seen a few here everything from Flyers hiring promotions social media posts videos website Community presentations that Scott has done and of course our inspired Waterford welcome wall at query that we started as well now that we have the solid base of
106pictures Community a brochure we will continue to use staff talents to keep the catalog update ongoing and our plan is to continue to use these photos in as many projects as possible so that is it for our 10 State and national awards I'd like to Circle back real quick and again thank Jane Kelly and Chris for their tireless work ethic and attention to detail on these projects we are a small But Mighty team and I hope that they all feel proud tonight I'd also like to point out that it will be difficult for us to win these Awards if there wasn't already great work going on in this district for us to promote the videos produced podcast topics discussed in social media content created are all highlights of what other departments are doing so we
107thank you for that collaboration again thank you for your support for allowing us to come up here and and to Showcase what we're doing and for your support all the other times as well we thank you very [Applause] much it's amazing work Mrs Davis colleagues comments or questions member Tores um I saw you had lime wire up there so can I can I listen to the uh wsd podcast online wire okay on YouTube yeah if it's it was one of the apps is that talking yeah I saw the the app on there cuz I have that on my phone so convenience is easy and driving and just on apps up there it's on there okay good and then um so the the pictures I love it um so we just they just we're allowed to
108take pictures and use them they just is we don't have to have the parents sign a waiver right it's just we did that's what we went through after we took all these pictures and made sure that all of these students had signed do not were they're allowed to be on them okay so that's what I saying is it opt out or opt in thing so it's um they I think they have to app out okay so then we could take pictures of kids and we just had to make sure they're not on a do not photograph which is probably not a lot of kids right yes there's more that are you know that allow it than don't but we still need to check but I think that's great I mean I think that's allows us
109to tell the story of our district the diversity of our district the real students of our district you know and I think it's it's awesome that we're able to do that and have all these photos of our kids MH you southernland uh holy cow absolutely incredible Stellar work uh to you Sarah Jane Kelly and Chris Burling game and when you say small But Mighty uh big emphasis on the mighty and on the small I mean so few people but doing absolutely incredible work your presentation was so spot-on perfect because you highlight that you're showcasing what other groups are doing you did I mean just such a beautiful job of letting us see the the beautiful content of the work that allowed you to receive these 10 Awards uh we as a district could not be
110more proud of the work that you're doing and and of the work that you're showcasing because it's uh it's a story I know our our colleague Kristen she's not here but it's one of the things she's like we've got to say more great things about Waterford we've got and it's so true and and you have gotten that word out in so many amazing different venues and ways in every possible social media you know I your your content is just absolutely stellar and so I just I I'm gushing I'm sorry I just am so proud of the work that you've done and we are so lucky uh to have water for word being showcased in the way that it deserves by you and your staff so thank you so much thank you sir I didn't I
111I guess I never thought that you'd need a photo catalog um but it makes perfect sense and these pictures are just stunning in in both their their kind of Simplicity but what's happening there is just it's amazing and you can see you can see the wonderful experiences our students are having in our schools the dedication of our staff and teachers all of the extracurricular opportunities I mean from the swimming and the wrestling the wrestling pictures is full of drama with the Shadows it's just um amazing so I'm so glad that you have these and I'm so glad that we get to see them and all that you're uh you're putting out and helping us tell tell our story so thank you thank you I'm so sorry just a followup I forgot to thank Mari as
112well I know the photography that went and I know she doesn't technically work our district but she is everywhere in Waterford and there are just outstanding photos as well and and to all the students and teachers and staff members that were part of it those are just amazing amazing so thank you for coordinating that thank you to Mari thanks and I'd like to point out the athletic photos are from uh Jeff with jdn photography and he does the athletic piece of the of the photos and he does a stellar job as well colleagues any other comments or questions here regarding are 10 Awards 10 uh member of chucha please I would like to thank the board uh it was just a few years ago we didn't have this we didn't have a PR person you
113know again we have the money we've been able to find it uh but without you know the the the us up here I guess to be able to sell it so uh thank you it's not about us but for my my fellow board members thank you for allowing this us to have yeah thank you you know that we can do this it's not food but it's still pretty good I think I can't offer any free food after this or anything you can but the awards afterwards I think Rob makes a good point though cuz I know when Scott came on this was one of the things that he was selling the board on and I wasn't fully on board with it um and I said all right well you know we were going to try
114it for a year and then the pandemic happened and we realized how important information was to get the word out and so I think like Rob saying we found a way to make it you know continue on and I think it's such a huge important piece that we needed um so yeah I think it's it's fantastic and you know thank you Scott for really you know thinking that through when you came on as superintendent and the board for supporting it and all the hard work of our staff so and probably it's probably important to mention um just the size of our incoming kindergarten classes I me we're seeing we're seeing this work pay off because uh I mean it's hard to cut through all the noise on social media and that we encounter on our
115phones and so it has to be focused and targeted and intentional and a great story um and we're seeing that we're seeing that pay out so and people are hearing about it too I was contacted by a National Communications magazine who had heard about our campaign and wanted to learn more about our Waterford welcome days and our Outreach to the community and so he did an interview about that so I'll share that article with you and it's out it won't be till winter time but thank you again Sirah thank you again well okay all right excellent okay colleagues we're on to um information item F so this is our 2425 School of Choice resolution so colleagues included in tonight's packet is the proposed 2425 School of Choice resolution for review there is no change to
116the resolution which would permit the acceptance of applications for JK and kindergarten and up to 20 students entering grades 9 through 12 and accepted into the Waterford STEM Academy through the application process so recommendation will be presented for board approval on November 16th if members have questions prior to our next regular meeting please feel free of course to reach out to superintendent any comments or questions comment member um so I know there's not a huge appetite for school choice um students you know amongst this board there hasn't historically but yeah I just would challenge us to think outside the box a little bit I I know we're before we didn't Ed to have those spaces open for the STEM Academy which I don't know that we always fill them up but I think that's a
117good thing that we offer it um and just in other ways that we could try to get more students and and the opportunity to get a Waterford education I know all of the school districts that surround us have have a more open plan um and you know I think about like with with Waterford right we have a portion of our community that is is not our school district and you know maybe that's something we could do where Waterford students that that live in a different School District but are in the boundaries of Waterford Township that we open space for them you know I know that that happens um but something that would allow us to have more students from other that would choose us from other districts to to come and get that Waterford education
118we have so much to offer as we see but I just wanted to throw that out there we don't have to debate it or talk about it we can discuss it in between but I just wanted to be said that I would like to see something more added that would allow us to you know provide an opportunity to more students to come into Waterford School District thank you any other comments questions EXC okay let's uh welcome back up assistant superintendent Ela talk a little bit about some generators thank you very much I am joined by Elizabeth kie who is our director of instructional service and Technology to talk about the generators that we are asking you to approve at the next board meeting so it is hard to F follow Sarah with a generator conversation
119but we will so the generator bid um which includes covert If You Don't Know cover is our main Hub which runs our district-wide servers including key infrastructure such as phones security elements in our technology systems the generator currently located at covert helps to maintain these systems as well as the hfac within that space the reason we have an HB within that space is to ensure the equipment does not overheat during a power outage the current generator at this location at covert has reached its end of life and its capacity as you know we have added multiple servers over the last couple of years to run all of these systems as we add those that adds to the generator the generator is quite old and it is at end of life so that is one reason
120why we're coming bringing this as an ination in addition we are looking to add generators to our high schools for the purpose of keeping vital Communications working when there is a power outage we're only right now looking at mat and ketering um because we know those particular buildings are utilized a lot more after after school hours as well as on the weekends so we want to make sure we keep those Communications open if something was needed we will eventually potentially look at expanding this but that's where we're looking at going now and we know at cover we need to replace that the funding source for this would come out of the 2020 Bond and it is part of our plan within that Coles comments questions member Southerland do we have an estimate of costs and
121when will bids be going out and when will we have an opportunity to see so bids will be going out shortly uh we do not have an estimate I don't remember when we were looking at it initially I believe that we're probably looking at 200,000 for the high schools and more for covert because of the size of that generator we we did an initial estimate of doing all the schools it was way too high so we really pulled back and said what do we have to to do we knew we had to do covert but we also wanted to do a couple of the schools we are looking at other funding sources to expand that we have new categoricals from the state so we're looking at expanding that and getting more schools to have emergency
122generators um is there a an understanding of what will be covered when power goes out like I don't even know how often power has gone out in the high schools during a school day I don't think it's very often just wonder the the need for a generator and you can help us understand that so the power doesn't go out very often but the problem is when it does go out we lose phones that is critical for contacting parents and contacting central office contacting Transportation if we need to make changes and have students go home early and such so we're finding that that that reason alone is what we really want to do these generation they are only powered enough for the communication so we are not getting enough to do anything more than that it
123is not so it's only going to power phones correct yes it's only supposed to do that so um we are not getting this is not a whole building generator at all those are over a million dollars we certainly cannot Factor those in we are doing it so that we still have the ability to communicate within the building and without the building so that is basically what these generators are for I I'm what do I know I I know a whole house generator runs depending on square footage and so forth around $2,000 this is $200,000 so a 100 times more why for just running phones would it be so expensive do you want to answer that I can try so what reason is because these would be commercial grade um they would also be set up
124to house essentially our phone system runs out of our technical closet so we have to keep those servers up so it would also be running that technical closet to keep the phone servers running um that was one reason why like candy shared we looked at a full building it would cost us over a million dollars there is no way we can do that but we know there are critical points if a power outage is experienced at a building that phones will turn off so we want to make sure we have that vital Communication open especially at our high schools so for the bids that went out did we have some assistance some technical assistance in ensuring that we had the the right things going out for bid in terms of yep so we've worked with
125Burton mow Burton Malo is working through the bid process just like they would with any bond project so Paul twig with them and Carla we've worked through that very specifically as well as with French and Associates for the design so we've actually have a electrical engineer that we work with that has actually looked at exactly what we need so that we are putting these generators out as exactly what we need not more not less so she actually goes and looks at how much power is required and how much power is Dr drawn and um make sure that the generators are just for that um because like you said you could really go a lot bigger we don't need bigger we need just those communication and the servers associated with it we don't need more so
126that that was one thing that she had done for us and she she's been working with us with for example with stansky and things like that to also make sure that we're us doing the best use of Electric electrical electricity in there and not overdoing anything that we need in there so she was part this whole project as well it just seems really expensive for a backup for phones I mean that's for something that we may or may not need in a given year and and I understand that when we need it we need it I do it's just $200,000 is again a 100 times what you pay for a whole house and we're just doing the phones it just I'm having a hard time but I don't know what commercial costs so I'm I'm
127just asking the questions and making sure that when we and what we'll do is we'll get you some more specifics about the technical aspect and compare it to what a a house would do because the needs that we need for a building are much higher even though in our minds it's like it's phones I mean how many but when we're talking about the number of phones that we have in a building I know that when we had one of our elementaries go down it we lost phones we lost the ability to communicate people were using cell phones we were having to use walkie-talkies it was very inconvenient at a time that we felt there wasn't an emergency or anything thank goodness but we really felt in the dark with that and it was very frustrating
128for our staff so that's why we wanted to do it at the high school see how that works we know that we have a lot of activities 24/7 in the high schools and on the weekends and this will be very helpful when we have power outages that may only last a couple hours but very crucial to what we're doing so that was it that was why we started with covert we started with looking at the whole as a safety issue and now we we've just had to back it off because of the share cost of it um but with covert I think it was a matter matter of what we saw is that really is the backbone to all of our technology so if covert goes down and no other building is out of power
129we don't have power we don't that I totally understand I just want to make sure I understand what problem we're trying to solve correct with the $200,000 investment at each of the high schools so that that part I really do want to ask a few more questions about so just how often does that happen what happens when you know I I mean people do all have cell phones is so the only thing I can think of is automated calls that would go out so we can talk more offline I I just want to make sure I understand what problem we're trying to solve sounds good thank you thanks I just want to confirm these are the gas generators right correct yeah so if the power goes out then it automatically flips yes somebody at my
130work just built a house and to put those in is 12 Grand in a house and it doesn't run everything in the house I mean I just I just did quotes and it was 2,000 for us I mean I just did it because we don't have one in our neighbors all did it and anyway so I guess it depends on square footage and what you want but yeah I understand I yeah yeah so I do expect the covert one to be more expensive because we are doing more HVAC equipment what we found out this summer when we had the power adage we we were going through a very hot spell that our current equipment just could not keep up with with the generator so we know that that will be a bigger piece than for
131the schools because we are trying to do more equipment on it as a building principal who just had the power go out uh last week due to a uh a back uh finding an undocumented power line um in my uh Middle School um yeah I absolutely uh support this and the need for these because uh you know got 900 kids in that building we've got uh 40 some classrooms and about 135 phones and so the the the power supply that's needed for the amount of phones plus the PA system and as it even says in here it's the cooling systems for the servers that run that that's a huge that's the big draw right that and so um yeah I absolutely understand the the understanding and the need for getting that size of a generator
132um for each of those buildings and then obviously larger for Co Center because that's the that's the brain for everything right there so um yeah it's it's a needed item absolutely especially I can't imagine even at the high schools how much larger those are right and you what you just shared is perfect um running that HVAC system is one of the high points that will run off that um we know when at covert this summer when everything went down in that hatot spell and we had no power there we ran into some issues um and things once you have servers that are overheating you can have a major catastrophic event and we never want to be there um and this will help prevent that and that's the big thing is because right away when the
133power goes out everyone wants information immediately all of those teachers all the staff members are looking for something from the main office and so to be able to have that communication is vital for good planning y other comments or questions colleagues okay very good thank you both thank you okay so colle that colleagues that takes us to the end of our information items tonight we're going to move on to new business and um we've amended the agenda for the Germanic culture study way to be uh new business superintendence recommendations it will come after it'll be 32b so secretary josin will read that second under new business this evening so okay let's move on now um secretary Joslin new business superintendent recommendation superintendent recommendation 32- 23-24 policy updates volume 36 number 1 and 2 at the
134October 5th 2023 Cal meeting Wayne Wright Neola associate facilitated the first reading and discussion of proposed policy changes in volume 36 number one and two it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the proposed revisions as presented I so move support thank you colleagues the motion has been moved and supported Comer questions and again I I I said to Meg we didn't need to have the big print the big printed off version here um cuz when we did talk about it I think there were minimal I think one of the only recommendations was a typo it fcks a typo um but if there are questions about things we talked about we can certainly pull it up um electronically and talk about those but from our conversation I don't remember if there was anything other
135than that corrected typo question all those in favor please signify by raising your hand thank you motion carries 60 secretary johnon superintendent recommendation 32 B- 23-24 it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the propose the proposal for the June 19th through June 30th 2025 Germanic cultures study abroad opportunity organized by World strides and supervised by Mr Jason Frank I so move support thank you motion has been moved and supported any comments or questions regarding the geric culture study bro okay all those in favor please five R in your hand thank you the motion carries six we look forward to hearing all about it Mr Frank thank you so much thank you very much and thank you colleagues for for being open to take action on that quickly this evening okay we're now going
136to move on to consideration of certain purchases Treasurer suland thank you president R uh superintendent's recommendation 33- 23-24 security camera system bid it is recommended that the Board of Education award the security camera system portion of the bid to amcom telecommunications Incorporated for a total of $245,100 this includes the base bid of $242,000 alternate number one of $2,400 and alternate number two of $750 it is further recommended that the Board of Education award the server portion of the bid to precidio networked Solutions Group LLC in the amount of $779 40 this pricing is from RC state of Michigan Cooperative the funds for this purchase are in the section 97 flat 2022 23 and 31 aa2324 categorical grants and is so move support thank you the motion for a security camera system bid has been moved
137and supported any comments or questions member puchia have we used this company before is this who's put in our other systems will this tie in with our yes we have used amcom before for um security um cameras and yes so this will work with our existing system car thanks for being here any other comments or questions regarding member Southerland what does the timeline look like for the installation of these so um this will be as soon as we uh have the approval from the board we will issue the PO the servers um I think the and Miss coochie might know what the timeline is on the servers but yeah we're going to start this process we've already been talking to vendors so that they're aware that we want to start this process immediately we know
138where we want the extra cameras we've been talking about this for a while now so as soon as it goes we're starting the process so it will start immediately and as soon as we can get the cameras we will be installing them and what is the total number of cameras so right now I believe we have about 50 going in but we went ahead and made sure that we got unit pricing and that that we knew that we'd have um a percentage more because we had the original I want to say there was probably 30 to 40 original ones that we knew we wanted to add and then we've added some since then we've um we've been assured that the servers are in stock so as soon as we get the order processed they will
139be shipped and so the the servers are these recorded and retained for a certain amount of time yes so the when we were starting to look at increasing the number of cameras we had we looked at the servers and what we found is that the servers were end of life first of all second of all for the additional cameras we want we really needed more servers and that was really why we had to do the bid the cameras we probably could have done it piece meal building by building if we wanted to do that but when the servers were over 30,000 a piece at that point we're like we have to do a bid we might as well do a bid we'll have it done we'll have the pricing we can move forward with it
140um so yes that's going to help us because as you imagine video there's a lot of um server space that's used in that thank you and uh I think it was maybe in our information first time we talk about this also stems from our recommend ation uh from our um audit last year correct correct and we've actually we have the ones that they recommended which was really probably a handful at the most but as we were going through we realized that there was additional ones we wanted like playground areas cafeteria and then we've had a couple where we realized there's a few hallways that aren't adequately covered so we're going to add to that so we've added to the list that the security but it was really an impetus to us start the whole conversation
141again so just to just to reiterate so Folks at home are following along we conducted a security audit I think about a year ago year and a half March 2022 it's only been a year wow okay um and one of the recommendations came out of that was really do a close Deep dive into our security system the cameras camera placement Etc so this follows what is the section 97 flat categorical that because they had b c and d they called the first one flat it it's something I've never heard before but MD wanted to keep it different from the other four three other categoricals that they had so they just called it flat so it's an MD relative to Safety and Security was that so this is actually from 2223 they created four different kinds
142of Grants regarding security 97 was the General one which allowed us to do training and um equipment and cameras and things like that and then one of the others was to pay for the assessment so we had already started that process so this just enabled us to pay for a grant instead of the general fund which was great but it also enabled us to get a little bit of a jump however we had to wait till basically almost um spring to get actually get guidance on 97 we had an idea of some of the things we could spend on it but not all of them so once we finally got the guidance then we were then we started saying we really need to do the bid for the cameras because we know that was our
143biggest piece but then um we looked at the servers and that added to the whole process so so is the 31 AA that's the new one so what they did is they had a 31a which was just mental health and then they had the 97 which was Security in the new year they combined them into one and just called it 31aa okay so so we split it between the mental health and security and the new year thank you colleages any other comments or questions all those in favor please signify by raising your hand thank you the motion carries 6 treasure sub thank you superintendent's recommendation 34- 23-24 Waterford M High School site Improvement bid it is recommended that the Board of Education award The Waterford M High School site Improvement based bid to the biders
144and amounts below it is further recommended that the board approve alternate number one with the bidder and the amount below the total amount of the base bid and alternate number one is $3,294 265 I so move support thank you the motion has been moved and supported comments or questions there good all sorry can you can you just give me a summary again I'm looking I know it's new lighting the parking lot I think more for the listening public and trying to because that's just a lot of money 3.3 million it's all relative to the parking lot in the lighting of the parking lot is that correct correct so we're redoing the student parking lot in the Bus Loop that is on the Pontiac um Lakeside no changes to design like we did with the um
145katarine um new site but we're also doing new lighting that's always a great opportunity when you're doing a parking lot to redo the lighting but we're also looking at the West lot which is behind the school we're doing we're redoing that as well we are redoing some of the um space that's at the South End where our special ed students go in we have a new uh drive and a few parking spots to ensure their safety when they're getting into the building because we have that buses go by that right there we have um a gate that is preventing people from getting into the West lot which is behind it when we're not needing it so I don't I think yeah and then we're adding that Bus Loop off of the pan Lake for the
146special education that was yeah we're doing that and then um we're also on the North Lot we're um crack repairing the cracks and filling and then we're resaling the whole parking lot area so and what is the funding source is this all coming out of 2020 Bond correct this is all 2020 bond this is as we have budgeted thank you and there are new sidewalks too of course all anytime you have a parking lot you're getting new sidewalks along the parking lot comments questions all those in favor please signify by raising your hand thank you motion carries 60 Treasurer southernland thank you super superintendent recommendation 35-23 d24 Waterford M High School Improvement bid it is recommended that the Board of Education award The Waterford M High School site Improvement base bid to the biders and
147amounts below the total amount of the base bid with the allowance is 2, 39,2 183 funds for these bids are in the 2020 Bond and ISO move support thank you the motion's been moved and supported comments or questions please okay all those in favor please signify by raising your hand thank you the motion carries 6 Z treasure superintendent recommendation 36-23 d24 stepansky ECC abatement bid it is recommended that the Board of Education award The stansky Early Childhood Center abatement bid to Quality Environmental Services Incorporated in the amount of 159,00 647 and I so moved support thank you colleagues the motion's been moved and supported comments or questions please treasure or souland have we used uh quality environmental services for Aus abatement before that's that they're contracted through Nova yeah Nova is who we use Nova
148is overseeing is overseeing this there there are environmental contractor they have worked with quality before and they support the work that they've done so thank you other comments or questions all those in favor please signify by raising your hand thank you motion carries 60 Treasurer Southerland superintendent recommendation 37-23 d24 stansky Early Childhood um Center dismantling bid it is recommended that the Board of Education award The stansky Early Childhood Center dismantling bid to International Construction incorpor at in the amount of $27,700 dismantling the current stansky ECC and building the new ECC was part of the 2020 Bond approved by voters on August 4th 2020 removing the old building will allow for the completion of the parking lot this work is scheduled for the spring of 2024 the funds for this purchase are in the 2020 Bond
149and I so move support support thank you colleagues motion has been moved and supported comments or questions treasure Southern thank you have we used international construction before as part of yes they actually de demolished a village that's what I thought yes y so very familiar with tus please um so how long will it take to dismantle it so the timeline goes from April 8th to June 15th of 2024 to June P do we have a date that we're going to have a Williams Lake day is a former uh person that went there I guess for people to go in and to look at it before we start with the yeah we have not set a date yet but it is on our schedule to set a date thinking maybe March because it would still be
150nice to have it while the school is being used as a school and you can get the flavor of how it's being used right now again I don't know if we have many things in there to auction off running at the other Village uh and that would be that opportunity also correct uh actually tomorrow morning we have our first meeting to talk about the timeline we're using anything inside the building that kind of process that that was my other question um is there uh like any memorabilia or anything sometimes when we close when we shut these buildings down you know people say oh I wanted that or there was a you know a slide or thing on a wall that that they made when they were little or their kid did is that something that
151we offer that's that you know for the community to look at or to reach out to us on well that'll be part of our conversations what makes sense many times when we've done this what we do is we get bricks from the building and then when people ask for them we just give them a brick and that seems to be the most popular thing because a lot of the Interior decor decorations Decor those kind of things that are part of a classroom we'll take with us but that will be part of the whole conversation so we will add that to our list to make sure that if there's something that we think would be of interest to the community at large that we don't need in the new building that will add it I feel
152like every time when we do a building like that I get uh messages from people say hey did I get in the building and you know my kid made this or that and it's on the wall and so that would be nice okay thank you other comments or questions regarding the dismantling of stepansky okay all those in favor please signify by raising your hand thank you motion carries 6 that was what thank you Sandy thank you very much thank you okay colleagues we're not going to move on to public comments on non-action items this evening I have two in front of me um let's welcome up please miss Robin McGregor Mr McGregor again uh you're you're well versed in this um so please be reminded that comments are limited to 3 minutes in duration members
153of 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 in our course ask to avoid statements that are personally directed abusive or welcome Mr burer thank you um it was great hearing all the wonderful things about our district um I've been coming to the board meetings I missed the last televised one for being on vacation theum is still an issue uh we have a thousand signatures I've talked with the road commission I've met with them one of their suggestions is to get 51% of that neighborhood which is 374 houses and they will close off the edge at the end of the street I don't think the district wants that we're trying to come up
154with a solution so please help us find a a good medium to help the community and also to help the school district I've been back there where it says no cut throughs but as people are driving through at 30 miles hour through the school parking lot they really don't read the sign the the community is asking for the the fence just to be closed when there is no school activity they're not asking for the buses to stop they're not asking for any of those things they dealt with all the construction this summer and for the previous Summers this has been open for six years Liv do water for most of my life when I went to school at ketering it wasn't open we have a lot less students I would hope in the near future
155with all these great marketing pieces that we are going to have more students so Scott can we work together in making this happen please I believe our district really wants to make a difference for the community and we have six agent about five mon or six well we have Bond issues that are proving to make a difference for our community Let's help these people have a solution to their problems so that we're not having this conflict because I love talking or coming to the board meeting but I don't like having to talk about this as much I like talking about things thank you thank you m McGregor okay thank you so much again let's welcome up Terry Sutton hello misson hi welcome thank you thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Terry
156Sutton I'm the secretary and the school leaon for the Waterford Good Fellows um I believe that we didn't have as much participation with the Good Fellas last year as we had in previous years and I know that there's a lot of new members on the board and within the school district so I just kind of want to give a real quick summary of who are we we are Community Based organization whose mission is to make sure that no family goes without a Christmas we service only those families who go and attend Watford schools no matter where they live um we collect donations from the community at the Christmas tree lighting uh local businesses agree to be drop off as well as Town Hall does um other service organizations help us out we're looking for donations
157through the schools of nonp perishable uh candidates um anybody who wants to donate toys or gift cards in the denomination of about $10 each allows us to spread them through the families within the district we traditionally pick up can goes from the schools on the day before our giveaway um families can sign up through the Waterford Good Fellows Facebook page and we encourage them to do so there's a 4-day window that's uh 26th to the 30th of November there's a big note at the top of our page any questions can be answered by email through again for Goodfellows gmail.com um information on the Facebook page applications to each family each household only has to fill out one application you do not need to be a member of the good fellow page to fill that out
158it just has to be a school district family all the information is on there we will then respond to them with an email of the date and time and a number pickup number for when they come to pick up their items pick up is at the um CI building or Parks and Rec building on Williams Lake Road it will be on the 16th Saturday December 16th um on the 15th of December we will be going to the schools and picking up canards we are hoping that we can count on the board support as well as staff members and the school district Personnel to encourage people to sign up for it you don't have to have children you can be a senior citizen in the community as as well um and I'm happy to answer any
159questions through the email Waterford Goodfellows gmail.com a lot of them can be addressed just by reading the Facebook page thank you for your time thank you so much Miss Sutton so so glad you share that information with us and um again we've had some we're so lucky here in waterf have such amazing Community partner so we do have as good a turnout last year so I just kind of want to get the word out I want everybody to share the information if they would please and again the resources that they can can get the information from perfect perfect thank you thank you so much again anyone with questions Waterford Goodfellows gmail.com okay colleagues let's move on now to our Board of Education reports are there any board reports this evening member Jo I'm the only
160one that ever has board reports all right youth assistance this weekend is the annual Battle of the badges so please come and donate your shoes uh on Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. it will be the police department versus the fire department they will be located right next to the fire station um off of Crescent Lake Road so come and pick your favorite or you know bring an even amount and divide them between the two which is what I usually do the Waterford youth assistant third annual pumpkin contest decorating contest is going to start here pretty quick uh you need to email a picture of your carved or painted pumpkin to the Waterford youth assistant this is on their page I uh screenshotted this before um earlier today so you can go on there
161and find out all this information everything needs to be into them by November 1st they extended it this year because they ended it early last year and I said well if it's warm some people won't get their pumpkin till like I mean Halloween's I think on Saturday this year so some people won't get their Sunday Tuesday Tuesday yeah so people probably won't get their pumpkin till like Saturday or Sunday so they have different categories kindergarten through third grade fourth grade through fifth grade 6th through 8th and 9 through 12th so I'm anxious to see some of our art students uh do some cool pumpkins and they will will get a $25 gift card if they win uh again youth assistance is still collecting shoes we are almost there this is our fourth annual event if
162you cannot go to the battle of the badges this weekend you can drop your shoes off at crave nutrition on Pontiac Lake Road Michigan United Credit Union on Pontiac Lake Road or Dixie Highway recovered Chiropractic um which is across the street from Kroger St Andrew episcopia Church Waterford Chamber of Commerce Waterford Parks and wreck Central United Methodist Church Waterford Senior Center and the Waterford Township office there's a box right out here in the hallway so that's all I got thank you m Johns you're really good at the board updates I'm the only one that ever has them it's it's I don't understand why that is but what other board of education rep do we have this evening just really quick uh member Donna Hugh and I are going to be headed to the masb conference
163next month and um they we'll share some information they have for the delegates delegates convention in case anyone wants to sort of read those with the masb is working on and offer any input um really quick wanted to shout out for the ELD department and our our wonderful staff over there at Donaldson tonight they're having the Hispanic heritage celebration night um I got a couple pictures and a couple videos of mariachi bands and the great food they're having over there so it's really wonderful event so that's it for me any other board reports this evening okay superintendent Lindberg thank you president rage in recognition of America's safe schools week which takes place this week Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald is visiting with our County students and uh she gave us a call and wanted to
164visit with our students so today we had the pleasure of welcoming her to Mason Middle School to visit some of our e8th grade social Studies classes she shared some of the work that she is doing as prosecutor to keep kids safe both inside and outside of school we appreciate her time and I enjoyed visiting with her and sharing some of the initiatives we're doing to keep our students and staff safe as well Kings band choirs and Orchestra performed haunting harmonies on Wednesday evening but mod High School is still up scheduled a host a trunk and treat event on October 25th at 5:30 with the Hol Spooktacular concert to follow at 700 p.m. that's next Wednesday at 5:30 these community events not only showcase our incredible performing ARS programs and our talented students but they get
165everyone excited for Halloween now following ad in a month or two later the holiday Extravaganza announced that Waterford High School seniors have a chance to win a $5,000 scholarship by submitting an essay about how they have made a difference in their Community the Fran Anderson Legacy fund will award four at four $5,000 scholarships to one student in Waterford White Lake Pontiac and Auburn Hills the deadline is November 1st and the scholarship recipient uh for their Community will be awarded the Junior Grand Marshall for the holiday Extravaganza parade in downtown Pontiac on December 2nd visit holiday extravaganza.' for more information thank you thank you superintendent Lindberg um thank you everyone for being here tonight thank you colleagues and thank you to our Central adman staff seeing no further business tonight's meeting is adjourned thank you everybody