001Good evening. And I will call the May 11th board meeting to order. and you rise for the needs of the flag of Leiance to the flag of the United States of and to the republic and one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. And if we can have a roll call, please. Secretary Fu and we do have Vice President Bowser out with our hospice situation. There you have it. >> Okay. Secretary K here. Treasure Gy >> here. >> Trusty >> here. Trusty Shan >> here. >> Trusty W >> here. He >> here. >> Thank you. We've established a forum for tonight's meeting. I would Next we have the adoption of the agenda and I would entertain a motion for as presented. >> Support. >> Any discussion? >> Having none.
002Secretary Patton? >> Yes. >> Treasure Gilmore? >> Yes. >> Justice Ser. Yes. >> Trusty Cher. >> Yes. Trusty Bullet. >> Yes. >> President Reed. Yes. Harris. That brings us to gratitudes. And I will open up the table for sharing of gratefulness. >> I am grateful for the senior celebration that we got to have for all of this. It's very fun and it was nice to be able to have the parents coming and participating and support their kids. >> Yeah, I would echo that. like my senior really enjoyed walking around to all the the different schools and just having that chance to remember everything else and to celebrate it. My point of gratitude is for you. Uh we celebrated staff appreciation week last week and each staff member got little lunch tote. um tonight. You got
003one as well uh in celebration and just appreciation for the work that you put in uh on a regular basis to help support this district and help to support our mission as we uh work hard to make sure that each one of our students has an opportunity to thrive. So, thank you so much. Your work is often times and it's greatly appreciated and we couldn't do what we do unless you were doing what you do. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, moving on. High school representatives. No offense to the audience, but I don't see any high schoolers out there. They're already in the business. Okay, moving on to send items. I would entertain a motion for as presented. >> So, support. >> Secretary Hatton. >> Yes. >> Treasure Gmore. >> Yes. >> Trusty
004Slagger. >> Yes. >> Sher, >> yes. >> Trusty Willlet, >> yes. >> President Reed, yes. Motion carries. That brings us to the portion of our meeting for district spotlight. And first up we have the Seders High School. >> Yeah. Thanks for having us. You've heard me say a few times that I've had the opportunity, the blessing to share with this group, our intent, our intent for this building, our intent for all of our students, and that is uh to make this the number one holistic school in the state of Michigan for all 1,000 of the students we are charged with guiding, mentoring, and ensuring teaching is for learning. In order for us to reach that lofty intent to make this the number one holistic school in the state for all thousand of them, we have
005to attack a couple of areas. Number one, what has been our traditional graduation rate and with that our failure percentage, in other words, the number of kids failing courses and also ensuring that all of our students are valued, seen, and respected. Tonight you're going to hear two of the ways we are purposefully intentionally reaching towards that intent to become the number one holistic school in the state. That is through our every student known initiative which you've heard about a couple of times here uh in the last year fueled by moments generic connection and also our sore time initiative this year which is intervening with that failure rate. Um, I'd also say that sometimes when you hear about every student known or even sort time, it comes across as almost like a candy and nuts. Every
006day will be Christmas type thing where everybody's happy, you know. Um but in actuality it's a covert op in which we are engaging our kids at a high relational level so that with that authentic connection we can then raise the bar of rigor and Mrs. Peyone is here to explain how ESK and our storytime initiative is doing just that. So I yield the floor to Miss P. >> Thank you. All right, imagine a predictor so strong that it could tell you if a student was five times more likely to fail a class even before their first test. So, we found that this year it's not it's in one question and it's the students perspective in their answer to that one question. It's not a test and it doesn't even necessarily have to do with their
007IQ. It has to do with their answer to the question, do I believe? So, my perception, do I believe that I have an authentic connection with a trusted adult? And that's what we dug into this year with our MTSS initiative um through every student known the student facing version. So, we've heard um before how we have the teacher facing version, how every staff member um adds a dot. Yes, we know them by name and face. Yes, we know something scholastic about them. Yes, we know something extracurricular about them. And then yes, we believe that they would reach out to us if they needed help. That can be help with life. It can be help with school. But now we get the studentf facing perspective which is really what matters mixed with our failure data and
008we can predict an an a student who answers no to that question is five times more likely to fail a class but we have interventions in place to target that. So, we want to go with that that predictor. And this year, I asked the question, is that feeling of being connected a significant predictor of passing grades? Like Mr. Simmons says, it's not candy and nuts. I like to be connected with with the students that I'm serving, but what does it give them for their future and for their education? And now we can prove it with data. Every time you see one of these black rectangles, it's going to be our student perspective. I'm going to read this quote from you from one of our high school seniors. For most of high school, I felt invisible,
009just a face in the crowd. Now, in reflection of our every student known initiative, I know I have a champion. Teachers don't just see me, they know my story. I'm not just a kid in the hallway anymore. A small moment of support, just a small moment of genuine connection. a teacher noticing, asking or listening can make an enormous difference. So that's not just a heartfelt sentiment. That is a data point and it's a very strong data point. We're going to show that tonight with our kiquare analysis. Um we looked at so our methodology was using our student questionnaire. We extracted 751 responses of connectedness yes or no to that question. um from the 2026 student survey and it's that yes or no. Do the students believe that a staff member knows them personally? And we
010used the term authentic connection and on that survey we defined it like this. A staff member knows something about my life deeper than the average person on the street. I would reach out to a staff member if I needed help. And that help doesn't have to be that clinical mental help. That's not what everybody needs. Sometimes they just need somebody to see them. That can be academic help, emotional help, um other support. We cross referenced the 751 unique student IDs from that survey with a power school and our failure rate that mindset led to these outcomes. And the statistical rigor that we applied was the kaiquare test for independence to determine can these things happen on their own in nature. would you go and see the kid who's disconnected is likely to fail. So we
011observe the disparities if they're due to chance or not with a definitive relational link and the academic status was verified by cross referencing the survey IDs with power school master roster and the subject fail report. This was only possible with our interventionist Miss Hess's data keeping. Every week she's pulling our failure rate. We've never had the ability to do this before this year with our sore intervention time. So down here, this is the the definition that we're keeping in mind. Our input is connectedness. It's measured by that response. I believe I have an authentic connection with at least one staff member. And this captures our core mission as our mental uh as our MTSS lead here. The culture and climate that we want is one of connection and belonging for our students. And the outcome
012is academic standing. And we're going to categorize this by whether a student is currently passing all subjects or appearing on that subject fail report with one or more failing grades. Our early warning indicators measure core classes, but I want to measure all classes. I don't want our students to fail any class. And that's a really, really high standard. This is our kiquare matrix where we compare connected and disconnected their answer the students perception of yes or no with their failing or passing rate. So what this shows us is 41.1% of students who are disconnected that represents the majority of our failure rate. There are some of our connected students who are failing as well, but it's significantly lower. So with this, we can identify that a student is 5.1 times greater to experience a failing
013grade if they do not have a connection. Let's represent this with that student. Quote, "What stopped me?" And in this context, the student was talking about a maladaptive coping with stress. What stopped me wasn't a big moment or some miracle. It was someone who noticed that I wasn't okay and cared enough to step in. It doesn't take much, but it takes our staff and they're incredibly good at small moments of genuine connection. And what that's building to is a lot of passing students. And now we know how to capture them when they're disconnected and we know where to identify and where to step in. And our sore time is the natural time where you're if you're pulling out a student who's failing and Miss Hess is already running that data that small group where we're
014academically stepping in is also that connection that they're making. So they're reporting higher connection through that initiative. Okay. So the disconnected status acts as a powerful lead indicator for academic struggle. And the good news is we can get ahead of it. When they lack the authentic connection with a staff member, they enter that high risk academic category. We don't have to wait for early warning indicators. I know they're early warning indicators, but sometimes they're too late. Here we can do it even earlier. So when I ran the kaiquare analysis, this is profoundly statistically significant. All we need, if you're not familiar with a kaiquare, all we needed was three with a p value of 0.05 for that to be sign statistically significant. But we were able to measure that at such a low rate. What
015we can tell from our data is the probability of this relationship being coincidental is essentially zero. What that tells us is that our students are we can move a kid when we move them from disconnected to connected they have 80% more chance of passing a class just through connection. Here's another way we represent it. We have amazing teachers and I think that's what makes this possible. It's not like connection is the only thing. we have so many good things going. We get to dig in in this way. So the data provides a high correlative evidence that when a student feels connected, their environment becomes conducive to learning. They're just opened up. And we know this. You can read m like so much research on this, but now we know it for our kids here with
016our staff here. So targeting the 209 disconnected students represents our highest impact academic intervention and that's that 80% when if we can move them from disconnected to connected from something already structurally there like sore time they can have an 80% greater chance of passing all their classes. Representing it with student voice. Sometimes just showing a little understanding or taking a moment to check in is what gives a person the strength to hold on. And then Corbin, thank you all for everything you do behind the scenes after hours. Not only teaching kids, but letting them know someone is there, letting students sit in your class during lunch or making their hour enjoyable. Connection is really adding up for us at the high school. and this environmental strategy. So the MTSS culture um team which I lead,
017that's the environment that we're going for is that culture of connection and belonging. And you can see many schools in our district moving to this model of connection and belonging. We're already there where we've been we can target these 209 students with things that already exist. And we've trained this year. We've upskilled our staff in like every student known initiative playbook and increased it. We've increased the proactive connections using tools like youth mental health first aid. And then Miss Hess has really been on top of our monitoring um where we're able to make those correlation sooner rather than later. So our question that remains is we are remaining curious about facilitating a datadriven and connected environment by asking the question how can we further integrate systems of connection while regarding anti-burnout philosophy into our systemic
018academic support. So from our educators this is not a big ask. It's just a simple small way to keep data. They can't believe how good it's going because it feels like it you should work harder at it, but really our students are noticing and it doesn't take much for kids to notice when they're cared for. So to capture in student voice, it was someone who noticed that I wasn't okay and cared enough to step in. That one act changed everything for me. For students like me, connection truly can mean the difference between giving up and finding hope. And ending on Emily here, it's awesome to know our teachers care and it means a lot to us. And now we can prove that we can move a student to 80% chance of passing if they have
019that connection. And we started with a student who felt invisible. And now that's a student that in a couple weeks is going to be walking across our stage. I really really want us to focus that connectivity isn't just a metric and it's certainly not a soft metric. It's a foundation upon which every grade, every credit and every diploma is built and census data shows us that we retain 80% of our population in Cedar Springs. Therefore, through connection, we get to build our community. I just wanted to thank you for letting us do that work. Thank you. Yeah, Diane Greor is here to give a quick operations update. >> Vic is so is coaching just so everybody knows the first game of the district soccer game at Tri County. So he sends his regards excited about
020that. Said that he plans to pull out a win for you. So see that happens. So, I track our productivity and operations a couple of different ways. The easiest way for us to do it is via work orders and scheduling requests. Another simple way for us is through vendor communications. So, be that our invoicing or just going back and forth coordinating jobs. But, I find that my camera role really tells the best story of our school year along the way. So, that's what I'm going to share a little bit with you today. Um, I've got feedback from my technology, communications, and facilities counterparts just on some of the projects we've done this year and kind of what that looks like. So, the first one from Colin and Austin that they helped us with this year
021is our radio upgrade. So, we were able to save just under a 60% overall number on all of our radios this year and get new radios at the same time. So, that's something we're really proud of. We are now not only streamlining channels and outfitting counselors and positions we couldn't afford to do before, but we're also doing all of the upgrades in house. So, we plug into the computer and we're able to rename a channel or change somebody's name or make sure that their battery is being tracked because it's dying too fast. So, that's something technologically that's really exciting for us. Um, you'll see the coaching staff passes up there that Mr. Moffett made us. Our operations team staffed every home football game this year and we're proud of that because in partnership with our
022SRO, we had some vulnerabilities last year. Our stadium receiving entry gate at the back was one big one that we addressed. And just a couple other spots that were able to have staff and make sure even if you don't have a key card access badge, we know who you are and that you're supposed to be where you're at. The upper right picture there is the CA60 filing system. So if you're familiar with board of education records, HR records, finance records, those used to be in a different method of storing than they are now. They're all now safely under lock and key at the district office. And if you've ever tried to pull one of those envelopes, I can tell you the system is just so much better than it used to be. Uh the bottom
023right is something we're pretty proud of. Those are all the certificates that the maintenance gentleman earned this year. So they're CPR AED certified. Some went above and beyond and did some deescalation training, some reunification trainings with the ISD. So just better preparation for our drills and making sure that the building is ready for our students no matter what that situation might look like. The center there is a picture of a couple of our new fountains. actually is right out in this hallway from the filter first initiative that you guys approved earlier this year. So, all of our fountains are now in place and we're working on wrapping up that grant. Stafford's working real hard on categorizing and making sure everything is exactly what Eagle wants it to look like for that project next year when
024they start auditing it. Um, this is my favorite picture of the entire presentation. 44 is the number of snow events that the maintenance team handled this year. So, they salted, they scraped, they plowed, they shoveled, they got out, they had a cup of coffee, and then they did it again. Um, we're really proud of them. Um, we're thankful for the equipment that we were given to be able to do this job and do it well. Um, the season lasted from November 26th through February 15th, and we've got a lot of people on our staff that are happy to talk to you more about that if you ever become interested. Event support is ever evolving for our department, so that could mean a lot of things for us. We did our first annual bonfire this year
025safely with city support and it was super awesome. We also did our first big screen movie on the turf just last week. So, we had a deflatable screen that our technology team was able to figure out a way to put a movie on while the sun was setting and our maintenance team was able to try and make sure that the screen stayed intact during the middle school track meet. So, just kind of some exciting new stuff for us. Um, we were able to create a podcast room this year, which we hadn't done before with old band soundboard um, for Scott and some of H's kids. And we do small things, too. They wanted me to mention the choir risers where they went through and tweaked every single one of those wheels for the concert, trying
026to make sure that the kids could just roll it out and be ready to go. So, just the things that I think are kind of fun. Um, I asked them for their favorite pictures. That's what this slide is. You got everything up here. There's a glass garage door that they fixed when a baseball went through it. There is some plastic welding they did on a slide. There's a dirty roof drain they cleaned out. Um, moving the wrestling mats. We redid the entire wrestling room this year. So, all the mats on the sides used to be sitting on the floor. We've attached them now. And then there's a welding curtain there on the bottom right we made for Cooper where he has little slots so all the kids can weld at the same time. And their
027least favorite that middle one that's curriculum sorting for summer that we do every year. So, that's just you can't everything you do. Um, along the way there's a lot of things that come up. So most of the things I've mentioned so far are work orders or things that our technology team gets through a help desk ticket. Stackard might get from a caretaker. Along the way, we decide that we're going to build a hoop house. Along the way, a tree falls and there's a baseball game that night. Uh along the way, we get to be the last push at the hill trying to make sure that we've got every single piece of usable furniture out of it. Um 500 Chromebooks show up and this department doesn't take lightly that that's technologies. We're there and we're all
028in palleting them together. So, it's kind of an exciting place to be and um yeah, we're looking forward to many more. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Right. Moving on to discussion. And first up we have financial update with mine. >> All right. You have your kind of usual items the budget yearto date budget to actual for the general fund as well as the uh through these to date bond um report through April 30th. Um any questions on any of those items? All right. A couple things to note the specific related to ongoing co court court cases. Um it sounds like the plaintiffs the uh local school districts ISDs that joined into that lawsuit they had elected to um appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court uh appeal the appeals court's decision. Um if the Supreme Court
029does not rule in their favor, then it will transition over to a federal case. Um the federal case is a little bit different than the state case. The federal case is more along the lines of this is not constitutional whereas the state is it's the language is too broad to be enforcable. So um verdict is still out. We'll see what happens. Um but as I mentioned like a lot of the districts that opted into those funds received about 30x what their initial allocation was but they have all been advised be cautious spending that money only spend your original allocation because there is potential um that if the rulings are in the favor of the plaintiffs that there might be some uh pay paybacks into the state. Also still outstanding is House Bill 1658 related to
030public act 152, the um healthc care act. Um couple of scenarios. Uh if the court rules in favor of the house, the lower court ruling would stand and the bill would have to be sent to the governor for signature. Um it is still kind of up the debate whether or not the governor would sign that given it's not only applicable to uh K12 education but it's applicable to all uh government employees, state of Michigan employees and frankly the state of Michigan doesn't have enough funds to uh support that that bill. So most likely if it hits the governor's desk, she would likely refill it in theory. But uh we do now have all three uh budget proposals for the 2627 uh state aid school uh school aid budgets. Um they're actually all quite in line
031relatively speaking. I think it's probably a pretty good bet that we'll see a $250 increase with the per pupil foundation allowance. That's um across the board. All three proposals include that. Um one thing of note is the they all three include 31A language funding still at a higher rate than the current funding is. Governor's proposal uh retains that problematic language related to waiverss of um client attorney privilege. The House uh has some new language that really kind of tries to address the state lawsuit regarding the overly broad terms that are included in that in the current language. Um so they really kind of try to narrow it down to what specific events would trigger that waiver of rights and then the Senate um eliminates the waiver of rights alto together. So most likely there will
032be some 31A funds in the upcoming school year budget. Um we'll have to take a look to see what language ultimately is passed. Um so any any questions on any of those? Um their budget negotiations will really kick off later this month. This Friday is the consensus revenue estimating conference. That's where they bring together U of M uh economists. They focus on both state and local um the state and local economy and kind of determine all right how much money do we think the state will have to fund the general purpose general fund budget? How much will we have to fund the school aid uh budget? Um school a budget's in much better shape than the general fund general purpose budget. So there likely will continue to be a pretty significant shift of higher ed
033costs that constitutionally should be in the general fund general purpose budget, but they're going to shift it into the general or school aid budget essentially reducing the amount of funds that are available through fund K12. So and obviously it's a pretty volatile uh time right now with uh various world events. So, um, we'll pro the C rack will probably be a little bit of we'll see. It's ultimately what they'll probably summarize that as their presentation. So, >> you were just saying conference. >> So, we'll we'll know more in June, but hopefully the budget will be passed prior to June October. Any questions? >> Thank you. And moving on to using district but if not he is still back. >> All right. So this is a something that ISD ask local by law ISDs have to
034have their local educational agencies review and either approve or disapprove of their annual budgets. Um so the bylaw the ISB needs to have these back by June 1st so that the ISP board can then vote and approve their budgets. So couple uh just high starting at some high level assumptions that they have built into their budgets. Uh for local revenue, they're projecting a 5% increase in property tax revenue. Um there's continued strong growth in the taxable values throughout Kent County. Uh they're projecting a 6.44% increase to taxable values, but um due to inflation that the heavy roll back will be triggered. So that's why they're not projecting a 6.44% increase in taxable revenues because the millage rate will be rolled back. So they've kind of governed it down to 5% to take into account and
035they roll back uh state aid revenue. uh their projecting a 2.5% increase in the unrestricted state operational funding uh for section 51E special ed funding 100% of the foundation allowance uh and they're using the 10,300 which would represent the $250 increase that's included in all three proposals uh as well as a 6% increase to their GSRP first student funding For investment income, they do have a pretty significant decrease in their uh interest earnings. 21.2% decrease or and that represents a $1.1 million uh decrease in their interest earnings. Uh for expenses, they have a 3% increase plus steps 3% increase. for healthcare. Um they are using the governor's um proposed Meepster rates and historically once the governor proposes those rates that is what ends up being enacted into law. So that's a pretty sure um that
036on those that those will be the rates that be moves next year. Uh then a little bit smaller items, utilities, gas and electric. They have a 5% increase and then a 10% increase to risk management and workers common. Kind of breaking down the the very the four largest budgets. Um so their total budget is $463 million. Uh the first one is general fund um which represents $95.5 million of that 463 total budgets. Um they're projecting that they will have a surplus of $348,000. um bringing their uh fund balance percentage at June 30, 2027 to uh just over 8% of current year expenditures. Um and the for the general fund a large percentage of their those funds the revenues is grant funded. So out of 96 million dollars of general fund revenue, 79 million of those
037that revenue is grant funded uh revenue. So pretty large chunk of the the general fund is based on grants that they receive. Uh by far the largest budget that they have um is their special education fund. Uh that accounts for 237.7 million of the 463. Um for this coming fiscal year, they're projecting a surplus of 4.7 million. Um that would bring their uh they do have a pretty significant uh fund balance. Um, and so they have been working on kind of uh reducing the fund balance through numerous ways. They've been transferring some funds into a uh special ed capital project fund. So they're proposing transferring $10 million into that for future uh facility updates and buildings related to special ed centerbased programs. Um, and they also are doing supplemental uh act 18 distributions to the
038local districts. So included in their budget is a $3.5 million supplemental on top of the regular act 18 distribution, an additional $3.5 million to the locals. Um, that's a slight decrease from the current year of 3.8 million. So a $300,000 decrease. Um, but still much appreciated by the local districts. Uh the next fund is the center funds center programs fund. Uh their total budget is 72.5 million. Um they this budget operates a little bit differently than the general fund and special ed. So this one is more like what our campus kids they balance the budget. But if revenues don't if revenues are less than expenditures, they will build that excess cost to the local districts. So right now they have excess cost budgeted of $3.1 million um which would then be build out to local
039districts based on the local enrollment in those programs. Um so that will be an increase for each district depending on you know if if nothing else changed and we had five students out of 100 we would and next year we have five out of 100 our excess cost would increase by about 1.7%. Or 1.7x because uh for 2526 the excess cost was uh 1.7 million. It's almost down uh for the next year's budget. Um and then the final fund I'll mention is the career tech education budget. That would be uh Brett right there, Brent. Um $46.8 million. Um they are they will be running a deficit of 1.5 million. Um but that is intentional because they currently have a fund balance of 41.6. 6 uh 41.6% of expenditure. So they are kind of deliberately spending
040down that large fund balance. Um so based on my review and uh the assumptions that they have built in my recommendation to the board would be to adopt the approval of the Pentist 26 27 budget. my questions and acting on that mean that soon enough time. >> I believe it should be on action for tonight because they need it by June 1st to um >> Oh, it's not. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to the field trip request, the 2026 summer varsity boys basketball retreat. >> So, our varsity boys basketball coach, Lee Ash, would like uh to take our team down on a canoe trip on the Asamo River. Uh the details I shared uh in an email that he had sent to Matt Mopet uh which includes the dates of the trip
041from uh June 4, Sunday, June 4 and our uh students would be returning on Tuesday afternoon, June 16. There'll be some scrimmages with Cat City and Rodana on the 14th and then this the athletes and their uh some parents uh and then Coach Ash would head up to the Assabo River. Uh they would set up camp for the night. Uh then set off in the morning of the 15th. Uh float for for the bulk of the day. Um do some dinner on campfire. uh then sleep for the night, get up on the morning of the 16th, cook breakfast on a campfire um and then finish out the trip about an hour on the river uh and then drive back down to Cedar Springs arriving sometime midafter afternoon Tuesday. Um so Mr. or Coach Ash indicated
042that we not plan on using any school vehicles at this point. Um and then any details question that we have provided times >> and experience. Oh well we didn't get how many times I've been down the board that way. Very good. All right, moving on to board policy recommendations. Let's go back to that. >> Uh, so this body of board policy recommendations we've looked at starting back from uh our March meeting. Um, so we've had multiple looks at it. Um, the the recommendation that I have is for your consideration for approval as presented unless there are further questions from the board table tonight. If so, uh we can uh table those uh indiv individual policies or we can move forward um and table the whole collection of policies that that would please the board. Um
043the recommendation that I have is that those uh policies are identified for in information only. Um unless I hear differently from the board, I would recommend that we don't take any action on those. It's not required. Those are all optional. So, uh, policy 2417, the comprehensive school health education, uh, proposal, uh, 2418, the sex education proposal, 5336, the care for students with diabetes proposal, and then, uh, 8655, the specialized transportation proposal. I would recommend that you don't that you don't uh, approve those. They're not required. Uh, they're just for information uh, in terms of the packet. But I did want to include it in the packet so that the decision would come when the board came. >> I'm so sorry. Are there any questions regarding this election of Yes. Yes. So my wonder is um
044Yes. Thank you for the information only piece of it, but my wonder is with the other state recommendations being out is that um not a given that that's an open um use for staff to use because we're not choosing to adopt that new house. You see what I'm saying? >> There's the other piece of the whole they put it out there. We're not adopting. So the message is we I would read the message is that the policy is the language that we have in policy is what it is. So we're not So there we would probably not do a launch into the new correct not because that would be a change in curriculum that you're very welcome and there's no sex advisory board that doesn't plan there's no conversation of any changes satisfa >> I
045had a question Scott just on that first one the student expression policy >> um thinking about that peaceful assemblies one and I'm only thinking about because I know we talked about it before but the FCA is before school starts, but like some of the stuff like Bing tracking school day things, those things happen during the school days. So, I don't know that it changes the intent of the policy, but if we were to, and I don't I'm not trying to buff it up here, but if we were to say um uh protests, demonstrations or political rallies, then it's very clear that some of those peaceful assemblies are school sponsored events because those would consider those might be considered peaceful assemblies. So that might take some of that gray out of it. I don't know how
046you feel about that, but it really because those peaceful assemblies are not how I would describe bring to school day, but other people might. So if if we just were clear that it was really around the the political protest type content. I don't know if how that suits you. So I know that um our attorney had recommendations around that and it was I think it's one of those situations where depending on the side upon which your position lies you could argue that most things your intention was for it to be a peaceful assembly but in reality it was not you know the conditions were such that the potential was there for it not to be peaceful. >> Yeah. you know, the example of what our June 30 event, you know, their intention was for it
047to be a peaceful assembly, um, for it to not have any type of, you know, uh, conflict whatsoever. But the reality was, even though their intention was for it to be a peaceful assembly, uh, it really it would not have been approved as it was presented. um it they would have needed to do that off campus. Even though their intent was for it to be peaceful, the the temperature in the country at the time was such that you know there were some real concerns about safety on campus of that event. Um and so while it wasn't a political rally or a protest, you know, their their position was it was just a decent assembly. So the the thing with the language as it's presented is that it's broad enough that it would cover a multitude
048of events, but it also gives us the ability to to share to to not deny or to deny that event from happening on campus because of other conditions independent of the intent of the people who were assigned. >> Yeah. No, I understand. And I just was wondering like cuz you wouldn't I wouldn't think you like for burn your tractor school but that wouldn't necessarily quantify as a peaceful assembly right that's sponsor that's just an event >> and it's got traditionally for me this policy is more things that come up that are oneoffs >> more things have tradition >> yeah a path assembly would not be a peaceful assembly >> that you know would not fall into that category the bonfire um for homecoming that would not be a peaceful assembly. Um you know peaceful assembly
049would have some type of purpose or messaging that the group was trying to promote um that typically has some social message to it or social dimension to me whether it be political or human rights or that type of thing. And I'm trying to remember the conversation. Forgive me if I not remember because I know you did a lot of work on this body you were talking for. I think some definitions you were going to put someplace else that would maybe help clarify that maybe not in the policy but was in >> Yeah. Administrative guideline. So there's a companion document um that's also included um just a sample of administrative guideline grab right. Okay. Is it possible to get I know we'd have to we don't approve the guidelines. Correct. Correct. That um would it be
050possible to get that whatever policy number that is in into this before we move forward with that so that there is a reference to it. Um I guess I see where Trend's coming from and I I tend to agree with his thoughts there. And I think when I look at policies like this I think the why now. I think we all know why the why now and then a situation that that came into play. Um my concern I think is that we talk about it being broad and I think it might be too broad. I think we know the why and we know the why now. Um, but I think we're just maybe not meeting the bar and you know when I put my thought to something or my opinion and my vote, I want
051to make sure that it's best for our district or best for our staff and our students and our community. Um, but I had people reach out that there were some concerns about the language of um promote and then provide safe and secure environment. I think that was the fourth paragraph. >> Was that in that administrative policy? >> Policy one, two, four, five, I think it's the fifth paragraph. District resources are not to be used to sponsor, endorse or promote such activities. Um, and then it goes on to say any conduct by school or district person district personnel shall only be used to maintain a safe and secure environment. There were community members that uh believe that and I kind of tend to lean this way too is as how do we define promote and if
052we're we're putting staff members into that safety I whatever that might be watching over students whatever it be securing the environment that might be looked at as a way of promotion um and so that was my concern I understand why I understand the need for the policy but I just don't love every pieces So that's where my brain is sitting on this one today. >> Sure. >> No, that's very fair. As a principal, >> yeah. >> Um I had a student who uh intentionally left my office and I was trying to convince him, hey, I need you to stay here. Um he was an eighth grade student. I could not restrain him. But I also felt obligated to keep an eye on him because I felt obligated to make sure that he was safe, that
053he wasn't going to run into the street that, you know, I couldn't control him if if he had ran into the street, then I could have restrained him. That would have been part of my obligation. But I couldn't just turn my back and walk back into the office just because he wasn't following my directions. Um he eventually left campus. We called his parents right away. He called Along Sheriff's Department. He proceeded to walk two blocks of skilled car from a local uh auto automobile uh repair center. You know there we have an obligation to provide oversight and security while students are on our campus. And so that's the purpose of that language. We wouldn't turn our bag signal. >> So when we promote the staff, we're not going to have posters. >> Sure. I I
054yeah I follow the main part of promote >> because I think there was in the path in the event there did appear to be >> okay on that and for me that's where we need a policy to start and if things progress the world changes because the world's changing faster pace than any of us realize then that action can be coming before the board but if we don't have a policy right now we've got that nebulousness and there could have been another event I was reversed that was going to be another walk out that was right in the bigger picture of the board didn't happen here. Um so for me that that's where I'm seeing just a starting point as dining policy. If we find something doesn't work for the district for for the staff.
055um you know those things can be tweaked but if you do nothing um right and then we're going to be accused of by no action you're supporting those actions and we don't know in the conversations we don't have >> yeah I and you see what you're saying I'm not sure how you would rever this because I mean I I think Scott description that example there I think is is helpful and I think just by nature of being a staff member in the building there is that level of of safety and security as you said you don't just turn your back on the student so um I don't know how I would change that though I I I think it's probably worded appropriately but I think if there is someone of concern, if you could explain
056that as as Scott did. I think the bottom line for me I I think is that we are addressing this sooner rather than later before there's another event and we have a policy in place. So the bottom line is this will happen on campus and that there's that clarity there. >> I think we're all agree on we don't want that happening on campus. I can I ask do we have we done any research on other schools that have the policy like this put in place currently. >> Yeah. There's there are no other schools that >> we're trending here >> that have this >> honestly we we're we're stepping up and saying we don't feel this is appropriate there. We're ahead of the and as we've been ahead on some other things through all these political
057things. That's what we're doing here. And when I've asked other superintendents um and even when you know our legal counsel had tried to find some other things the default message is well we can't say no because students have the right to freedom freedom of assembly but we can put some gardeners around it. We can put some paranormalities around it. We can say because you are your actions are creating an unsafe situation for others because your actions are disrupting the school environment then we can restrict that behind. And so we're just trying to provide guidelines via policy that we can turn to in the event that students do uh want to, you know, come forward and and peacefully protest or peacefully assemble, peacefully gather around a social issue. Is it possible? I don't even think I'm
058against I want a policy in place for this. I think where my concerns lie is I don't think this policy is ready. Is there a way to do an interimm policy >> that just says >> no protesting? No. >> Yeah. So then you then you're you know you got a stop and a start date, right? This this is a start. So that's exactly what you said. This can be an interim. If things change, the superintendent will bring it back to us, right? if something happens. But if you label something great and if you shorten it up, then you open up the other pieces and the attorney advised me. I presented this to our neighbor rep. He was excited about it and thought it read very well. Thought it was very appropriate and thought it was
059a great a great launching program. Will it be the same in five years? No. You know, if we have we'll learn every time we have an incident. Every time we have to apply the policy, they'll have an opportunity to learn from any gaps that we, you know, that we didn't anticipate. Um, you know, that the whole policy manual is a work in progress. We try to get better uh every day. So to clarify, this could be adapted tonight that if there additional or revision and a wording that seemed to be a better fit that it would be brought before the board again. >> Okay. Any other questions on policies or >> I'm just trying to think again just not to I I think this is good work Scott. I'm just trying to think in my
060head. Obviously I think my goal as I think about this is to keep all that political protesting stuff out of school so we can keep an education environment where kids are here to learn. So I'm trying to think under that um administrative guideline under um under kind of the provisions of how it could be considered for removal. Can you think and maybe we can't because it's just new and we've got some language there, but can we think of a scenario where we'd say it's okay, don't go to class, but instead have your voice heard on campus without supervision. I I can't think of a time where we might plan there. So on January 30, we had over 30 parents that said they supported their their students participating in a in a peaceful little battle. Okay.
061So 30 parents gave permission for their students to engage in this in this body of work or in this event. Um had those students been willing to um gather in a place like the cafeteria for a space where we could have provided some supervision um without engaging in the actual event um so that it wasn't disrupted to the the classroom environment. um that might have been something that I would consider to honor the those parents, those families who thought that that was an important thing for their child to be able to to do. Um that you know that would be one way. You know, one thing that I learned from CO, one thing I think we all learned from CO that was that we wanted to and we demonstrated as a as an entity, as
062a school district, you demonstrated as a board that as as much as the law allowed, we honored parents choices regarding masks, regarding, you know, when we when we when we said no, you have to wear a mask, it wasn't because the board said we had to wear a mask because there was a public health ruling that required us to be bad. And so we've we've really established um a desire to support and to honor the the choice the the voice of our families as much as possible. So it to me if we could do it it didn't risk disrupt the learning of others and it didn't create an unsafe situation I would consider that as as a reasonable request doesn't mean I would guarantee it or it doesn't mean I would automatically approve it but
063those two factors would have to be pleasant or present excuse me um before any approval would take place you have to be safe uh we'd have to do it in such way that it didn't disrupt the learning of others. >> Okay. No, I just Yeah, >> I was just hear voice that, >> you know, we live in a a a world in which people have different opinions on things. Um, >> I was just trying to honor that that perspective. >> I think the other piece of this too is we we are trying to move those things out out of school. >> Yeah. We don't want to interrupt the educational environment even if it's in the cafeteria, >> right? >> It's going to be a social media issue. There's going to be concern and it's going
064to be representative that we this board supported that action and I don't think that that we do that. So if we if we don't, you know, say this we're not having this during the school day, Morland Park is fully available after school. >> Yeah, that's what that that's kind of what I'm thinking about. Whenever you again I think we're saying the same thing because whatever you want it kind of looks at these are the reasons or these are reasons why we could consider a fine campus. But even if the criteria is all met and may, you know, do we do we want to be the center of a situation that's really not educational related or like I I mean I participated in peaceful stuff and had my voice heard, but I didn't ask the school
065or my employer to allow me to do it on that site. I took time off of work and I went and had my voice heard. So it seems like there's a place for that. I think it's good. I think I think that's good for our society that have people do that, but I just don't know if school is the right. That's my and I I don't think I think we're all saying it, but when I read B1, it almost looks like this is a criteria where we'd let you do it here and I don't know if that's I don't know we want it done here no matter what. I mean there was I received several emails there were several postings on social media both in favor and puppies. um you know there were voices of
066parents who said I'm grateful that my child had an opportunity to engage in this in this activity in a safe place. So this you know this graph this language is um our best effort to try and acknowledge that there are two sides to things um >> the administrative guidelines. >> Yeah. >> Yep. So the other thing about administrative guidelines who uses that the principles right so it's guidance ultimately they're going to become the council would that be true correct you're the one correct I guess what I want to make sure because I just in conversation I heard this evening good good dialogue I like the back and forth skill um it sounds like we're all kind of on the same page whether whether or not the the it's the wording of the policy. Um, and
067I think it's important to understand that just because may or may not vote negative on this one is not against there's still a need for this policy, right? It's just maybe not this one that's important to record. >> All right. Anything else about any of these policies are on the fe. Okay, let's move on then to discussion item E, the 2627 student handbook revisions for full. So, um we just you just approved this student handbook uh for campus kits at the uh at our April meeting. However, um since that meeting, we had a parent come forward wanted to participate in campus kids. Their child did not attend Cedar Springs public schools. And Campus Kids is for students who attend Cedar Springs public schools. Um and the parent suggested um that that should be a part
068of our handbook that it would have helped them um make some different plans um moving you know moving into the year. It was a different situation. The student attended GSRP here. So the great start readiness uh preschool program but actually they live in Rockford and they're planning to enroll the student in Rockford as a kindergartener. uh for the fall. So they're not they're not a Cedar Springs public schools. Um and so the parents suggestion very respectfully was that greater clarity in our handbook would have been helpful for that thing. So that's the the recommendation is just a one-s sentence change um in the in the actual language of the handbook. It simply says that Camp kids is for uh students who attend Cedar Springs public schools. Lovely. >> Any questions? >> All right. Moving on
069to item F 202526. Superintendent annual evaluation overview. >> So, no work to be done this evening. Uh I included a copy of the uh 2526 uh evaluation rubric that came off the MASB website. Mark Dobby will be coming in again to work for the board uh just like he did last year um on the June our second meeting in June. Um so he'll be sending out an email at the end of May just giving everyone some insight as to what the process may look like. But I just wanted to put it on the put it on the table uh a little bit ahead. So there'll be some survey data that you'll get um the first part of June, you'll have a a solid 3-week window to review that material. um just in order for you
070to best uh support this uh preconscious about that. All righty. Moving on to our last discussion item which is school links memorandum of understanding with ISD. So um this is not uh something that is needed for action from the board. Uh it's being shared for information. So the Kent ISD has a career prep 2030 initiative uh which is a collaborative effort to try and uh provide unified experience across the county for students in regard to your career prep. Um currently, uh districts are using a variety of tools to help uh students do planning and and preparation. Um we particularly use Naviats. Um so other uh districts use um other uh different um uh systems. The ISB is embracing a system called school links. Um if uh all districts in the county or as districts in
071the county agree to utilize the schools program then the ISD is going to be reimbursing uh the districts uh for up to half of the cost of school links which will bring our cost down. So it's a significantly lower price to use school links than what we're currently paying for that. um in talking with Ryan Barhole, he's excited the school links program really provides a more robust collection of um experiences, collection of resources and information uh than Navian. It it talks better with school and some other um student record database systems that are out there. And so this is just kind of an overview, the why behind the shift, how we'll fund the shift. um is a three-year um uh program or pre three-year term that we're signing up for. So, this particular event will
072understand will run through the end of the school year 2029. So, it covers for 26 27 27 28 and then 28 29 speed. It will really provide us with a nice flag if you like. That ends our discussion items for this evening. That moves us to the portion of our meeting with public comment where we hear from the public. If they would like to address the board for minutes, who may be listening, we would not be following up tonight, but Mr. Smith would follow up. So, we have for public comment. No one signed up. So we will go ahead and close public comment and we move on to our action items for tonight's meeting which is the gist of our existence. So um first of all I would entertain a motion to add the NISB
073budget 2627 annual budget to our action item as number 14. >> What else? the SVD number. Okay. >> 11. >> Yeah. 11 motion. Second to any discussion. Secretary, >> yes. >> Treasur. >> Yes. >> Slider. >> Yes. >> Sher. >> Yes. W. >> Yes. >> President. Yes. We could call them. Yes. All right. First up for Ashton tonight, we have our board of policy recommendations. Would you prefer I call them separately or all together? >> Okay. >> All right. So for the board policy recommendations for number one, we have board policy to be determined that student expression peaceful assembly and demonstration policy proposal. I would entertain a motion. >> Sorry. >> So for discussion, I'll just say I think the guidelines are here. Um I would say if it's politically char worst case scenario, if
074it's politically charged in nature, it could probably fall into the disruption language that's here. So I think we need a policy. Um, obviously if we have a if we have a if if this is passed and we have a demonstration that causes transformation publicly, obviously I'll think we need to revisit the policy. >> Thank you. I'll call the vote. >> Secretary Patton, >> no. Treasure Gilmore, >> yes. >> Justice Serger, >> yes. >> Trusty Shred, >> yes. >> Trusty Willlet, no. >> President Reed, yes. Motion carries. Okay, that brings us to the balance of our policies. Is there any problem if I call those together? Do we want to single one out or any >> we want to exempt those four? >> They're not here. Yeah. >> All right. I will go to law 2
075through 13 which are policy 01000 definitions 14 staff ethics 2370.01 online learning program 3120.09 volunteers 4120.09 09 volunteers uh 4210 ethics 5136 wireless communication devices 6320 purchasing of goods and services 6325 procurement uh that's 7540.09 9 on artificial intelligence, 8159 volunteers, 8402 emergency operations plan. Uh together as presented, >> thank you for that reading. >> Yeah, no problem. >> Secretary B. >> Yes. >> Treasure Gilmore. >> Yes. >> Trusty Slagger. >> Yes. >> Trusty Shner. >> Yes. >> Trusty Willlet. >> Yes. >> President Reed, yes. areas. All righty. That brings us to camp proposals and as we discussed it um anyone listening to contain I would entertain a motion for it as presented support. >> Any discussion having none secretary? >> Yes. >> Gilmore. Yes. >> Trusty Sager. >> Yes. >> Shner. >> Yes. >>
076Trusty Will. >> Yes. President Reed. Yes. Koji Pier brings us to C. The field trip request for the 2026 summer varsity boys basketball retreat. I would entertain a motion for as presented. >> Discussion having none. Secretary Hatton. >> Yes. >> Gilmore. >> Yes. >> Slider. >> Yes. >> Shockworth. >> Yes. >> Willlet, >> yes. >> President Reed, yes. Motion carries. Our last action item for tonight is action item D and it is the 10th ISD 2627 annual budget. I would entertain a motion for as presented. So >> discussion. Thank you L for the dissertation of that. All right. >> Secretary Ken. >> Yes. >> Treasury Gilmore. >> Yes. >> Trusty Slagger. >> Yes. >> Trusty Shner. Yes. Jesse Willard. >> Yes. >> President B. >> Yes. Motion carried. >> All right. That brings us to
077the communication portion of the meeting and we will have we don't have any other U meetings this month unless something emergency is comes up. But we do have graduation and those details were in the staff newsletter meeting in the front four times this week. >> 5:45. Okay. We'll have refreshments. Um and uh high school staff would love for you to come as early as you can. Um relax some time in fellowship, partake in the snacks. They'll bring your appetites. Um yeah, would be a very nice reminder of the announcement. Sorry. Wait. Anything else that I have? So, >> so for planning, we talked about that. We've got the June meeting now. two meetings in June and that before the board having nothing else before us this evening we can stand the journey at a perfect
0787:30. Thank you.