001Good evening. We will call the November 10th Stevens Springs public school board meeting to order. It is now 6:15 and you would rise to the meeting for the pledge of allegiance. >> I alian to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, fory and for >> Thank you. Pleaseusty Bowser >> here. Trusty Patton >> here. Trusty L >> here. >> Treasurer Gilmore excused. Secretary Slagger here. Vice President Schoffner >> here. President Ree here. Thank you. We've established a form for tonight's meeting. That brings us to the adoption of the agenda and I would entertain a motion for as support discussion. Vice President, >> yes. >> Secretary Slider, >> yes. >> Trusty L. >> Yes. >> Trusty B. >> Yes. >> Bowser. >>
002Yes. >> President Green. >> Yes. Motion carries. And that brings us to gratitudes. And I would open up a table to share >> all share one. Uh just reflecting this past couple of weeks on what we do as board members and how it's essentially gone to our job and just wanted to say thank you to all of you and especially thank you to Hayden. um being the president, it takes your time, effort, and just a lot. Uh so just thank you for all you do. >> I'm happy with that. >> Yes. So, um I this kind of a different vending, but I like picking my parking spot out there. very grateful for all the students of artwork. So I find myself, oh, I read this when I didn't come here. So I'd like to other
003seniors their parking spots. >> Um I am grateful that I learned a few things about William Shakespeare last Thursday night when I went to the high school drama production of um the life of William the works of William Shakespeare Bridge. So they went through all 37 works uh in a matter of well they did it the total show was about 1 hour and 50 minutes but they actually did a version at the end which was under a minute >> going through all of his verses in under a minute. >> Wow. >> Uh going to be honest the math major and earth science major uh came up strong uh from my chair because I really miss a lot of the jokes. Um, man, I was so impressed with the way they could deliver uh such lengthy
004dialogue. Um, and then the second later start making another joke in a different character. So, it was just outstanding cats and our students were amazing. So, grateful for that talent. I'm grateful that we had a snow snow in the forecast this morning and we forgot to have school. I don't know of anyone who canled today. Um, but I'm sure that was crossing the minds and hopes and prayers of some of our staff having students. >> Yeah. As they went to bed last night. >> All right. High school representatives I'm not seeing the audience so we'll move forward to our consent uh items are long business before the board I'm entertaining a motion for as presented >> vice president >> yes >> secretary slider >> yes >> president yes motion carries brings us to our discussion
005items and first of tonight we have a News Network Update with Riley Academy. >> Yeah. So, uh Riley is here tonight. He can come on up. Uh Riley is our reporter. Uh school news network is um uh institution run out of the Kent is um really the intent, the mission of the group is to uh publicize the great works that are happening in districts throughout Kent County. Um and there's a team of reporters who um are assigned fifth to different districts and uh we're fortunate uh that Riley is a part of our team. He does an outstanding job um really focused on the things uh that our students and staff are doing that give across the celebration. So Riley just wanted to give you a little update on uh kind of where school news network
006is and also where they're headed. I had the opportunity to serve on the superintendent's advisory board. So I had a chance to sit down with a team from Screeners Network four times a year. Um just to hear some of these ideas and visions and also help share some perspective on the district. So it's a great organization. We're grateful to have him be part of our work. So Ry >> Okay. Well, um hello. I'm Riley Kelly. Uh I, as Scott mentioned, um I cover Cedar Springs for School News Network at Kent ISD. Um he gave a good rundown there. Uh normally at these things, I asked for a quick show of hands if anybody's unfamiliar with School News Network. That sort of determines how I move forward. Do we have any Sounds like everybody is is
007familiar. All right, wonderful. That's what we love to hear. Um even so, I do have a couple flyers that I'm going to hand out that just give sort of a um a rundown. Uh so I'll pass these here and some of these here and along with them I'll include um my business card right here. So um direct contact to me if you have story ideas that you would like to share with us at school news network um feel free to contact me. Um so uh like Scott said I'm Riley. I work for School News Network. This is my third year there covering Cedar Springs as well as let's see Sparta. uh Rockford, East Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids public schools, and I think that's actually it. And um covering a lot of the bigger issue stories
008that we do as well. Um so, uh one of the things that School News Network prides itself on is a focus and an emphasis on teaching and learning and um issues in education. A little bit different from your average traditional media outlets. You don't see us at a lot of board meetings covering the nitty-gritty or responding when something bad happens. We want to take time to reflect. Um we we like to cover the positive when it's there. When the not so positive happens, we like to get the school's perspective on things. So I think that really makes stand out. Um and uh we are all um professional journalists. uh a lot of us have many many years of experience working in that that other kind of journalism that more traditional uh format. Um I myself
009for about a decade before moving to school news network I worked with Shoreline Media and the Lington Daily News up in uh Lington area. So um we at SNN are just trying to make an effort to get out into our districts since we're not at a lot of these board meetings typing away and reporting on things and we're more in the classrooms. We want to just make sure that we're familiar faces uh with the board members. So, that's what I'm here uh to do is just to introduce myself to you because as this is my third year covering Cedar Springs, it's my first time meeting many of you, though I do see a few familiar faces in the island. It's time. Um so, um yes. So, uh School News Network has actually expanded in the
010last couple years. Um the year I started 2023, uh we pivoted from uh we were just school year uh focused with a couple of part-time journalists. Now we are year round with full-time journalists working. Um and I think I wanted to share with you some of the results of that. So, um, in terms of story counts that are stories that we've written about Cedar Springs, um, in the 2021 to 2022 school year, there were 17. In the 2022 to 2023 school year, there were 15. When I started in 2023 to 2024, there were 35. Uh, so that's a big increase and I'm I'm happy about that. um about the same in 2024 2025 and so far in 2025 we've got 10 Cedar Springs stories and we're pumped to do more. I've got a few more
011on um the schedule that I'll be looking into in the coming weeks. Um and uh a few things that I wanted to share with you as well are some series that we do. Um in addition to focusing on um teaching and learning in general uh we also spotlight teachers. Uh, Rockstar teachers is a series that we do where we look at teachers who have accomplished something special. Um, why I teach is a series where we just seek to elevate the profession of teaching by talking to long-term educators about what got them into the field, what keeps them in the field, what um, challenges are they seeing, how are they overcoming those, and what would they say to people who are considering careers in education? And that's one of my favorites because as we know, you
012know, it's it's tricky to get folks in the door uh in terms of education sometimes. So, I feel like we're hopefully doing our part to make the uh profession look uh desirable to people who are in high school or in college and um reading our stories hopefully. Um a few other uh story series are Grads with Grit where we highlight a student who has graduated despite some great adversity. Those are always very popular. And then of course meet your administrators where if we have a new administrator or principal or assistant principal, we profile them. We ask them lots of fun questions. Do they like cats? Do they like dogs? What was their first concert? Those get tons of eyeballs. People love reading about those because um and I think that shows that, you know, people
013want to be connected to their schools and what's going on there. So um in addition to that, SNN has videos, podcasts, and more. Um, we are funded through the districts, through partnerships, and um, we service all of the public school districts in Kent County, uh, through the Kent ISD. And we are just excited to be here. We are trying to get our faces out there a little bit more. As I said before, and make sure that you all know who we are, what we're here, and what we're doing. So, that's pretty much all I have for you. Uh, I just wanted to give you a brief update. Do does anybody have any questions for me about School News Network or what we do? >> No, no questions, but I just want to say thank you
014for taking the time. Appreciate that. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Thank you for all the stories on the district. >> Absolutely. Yeah, we have a very good relationship with Cedar Springs. Um we love covering the district and it's just um it's a joy honestly. Um there are so many exciting things happening in the district and we look forward to continuing to highlight those. So, thank you so much for having me tonight. And if you ever have a story idea or um you hear of a teacher who does or somebody shares something interesting at one of these board meetings, feel free to um uh send me an email or give me a call. I work closely with Amy McCarthy and with uh Scott um to formulate story ideas and do planning and coordination of coverage. So, thank
015you all so much for your time. Okay, the district spotlights first. >> Correct. I'm just happy I'm going before Mr. Simmons because I know he'll give an inspiring speech. does. Um I just want to update you um Cedar View on kind of the three aspects of MTSS and where we've been and where we're going. Um and I'll start with behavior, the foundation for math and reading to be successful. We got to have behaviors under control. And we started the year um numbers wise very tough. Um our suspensions were up in September and the early part of October um which we had not seen in my four years there. Um, but what we have seen is we came together, Dan Brandt being on board. Um, we got plans in place because there was two or three
016kids that were really ramping those numbers up. We've got plans in place for them now. And since we did that four weeks ago, we have not had one suspension in school or out of school. So, the things we're doing are working for those high-f flyers. And then beyond that, the numbers are really good behavior- wise. Like just overall behavior referrals are down. um and it's the lowest October we've had in my four years there. So teachers um behavior staff, everybody's doing a great job um being there and being proactive with behaviors. Um for reading, we are really focusing on vocabulary to strengthen comprehension. Um so idea being if you don't know the words you're reading, you're not going to be able to understand what you're reading. And so that's kind of aligning our PLC work
017with MTSS. And then district goals reading wise, that's really what we focused on. Um, one of our teachers, fourth grade teachers, Gabby Kasnowitz, actually led third through fifth grade in professional development a week and a half ago. um bringing vocab activities that aligned with CKLA but then brought in some of the things that um at the lower levels that Ebley's doing that can help strengthen vocab with the words that go along with like fourth and fifth grade curriculum. So, we got really good feedback with that and we're going to keep pushing that um to build up the vocabulary and we know that'll pump up the comprehension as well. Um with math, we're doing something different this year than we've ever done. So, um, in the past, you've heard us of our win time, what I
018need time, and that was really focused more on reading. Well, this year at Cedarview, we've put in a 20 minute, um, math win time. Um, that's been great because we've had more focused tier 2 support for students. Um, but on the teacher end, they're kind of trying to figure it out. So, each classroom was like a laboratory of innovation. And now we're to the point where we're like, "All right, this is working. This is not working." Um, this is needs to go by and this may be more of the the path we're going. So, this Friday, that's the first activity we're doing for RPD is we're going to kind of share out as a group and see, hey, this teacher is doing something great. Let me talk to that person and not try to reinvent
019the wheel. So, then we can kind of get that 20-minute math segment um working well. So with reading, we're kind of just hammering the alignment. With math, we're trying something different to get some more focused instruction. And then behavior, it's working as a team to um keep the numbers where they're at after initial spike. >> So any questions? >> Yeah, I I'm just curious with the intervention on the behaviors, what what have been the most successful piece? I mean, as you mentioned, getting it as a team and uh you know are there one or two things that you would highlight as >> I think it is the ability of not only SER view but to partner with Allison Dave Brand Dan Brandt to work as a team. Um so it's not one person trying to
020do it. It's hey like these are the boots on the ground soldiers and we don't have a general telling them what to do. It's the general came saw what's going on and then worked collaboratively. So, that was for those really high flyers, that was what was the most bang for our buck. Um, and then for some of those other ones, it's just I mean, behavior is great. It's not black and white. So, it's kind of figuring out um what's working and trying new things and adjusting if it doesn't work for three weeks or six weeks and changing things up. All right. Thank you. Great job. Mr. Simmons for the high school. >> Thanks, coach. All right. My name is Todd Simmons. I'm blessed to serve in leadership here at Cedar Springs High School. Um, I
021thought Mr. Riley was an excellent segue along with coach cuz my purpose in being here tonight is to explain to you what our intent is in this building and how we intend to reach our intent but also to celebrate our champion kids and our champion practitioners. I'll start by just sharing something that our educators, my teammates, our our professionals see and hear to nauseium. It is the aforementioned intent. All right, I won't insult your intelligence. you can read what our intent is and our intent is to become that for all 1,000 of our students in this building. We quantify or qualify that intent or that culture that we seek with a few um tangible data points and it is our goal to increase our graduation rate because if you look at my school data it
022it hurts our hearts to see what our grad rate has been. um our pass rate which I'll mention later in this short presentation um our every student name every student known efficiency rate and then getting all 200 to 250 of our graduates ready to launch just to put that into uh different terms are set a little bit differently when our kids walk off that stage on that Thursday in late May on that Friday morning they have to wake up whatever time that is and say, "I'm ready to take off. I'm ready to take off wherever that may be to the job, which about last year's data point was about 48% of our kids go right to work." You know, others in that, you know, 52% go to college, trade school, tech school, military, etc. But
023they all have to launch like a rocket. So, our intent is listed. That is our intent for all thousand. Our way of getting there or how is those vision targets and listed below these three pillars. These are our pillars of professional development. This is how we are developing our professionals in order to reach that intent. Big believer that picture says a thousand words. So I'm just going to show you some photos. Okay. Um this is just from this past Saturday. This falls under that vision target of personal best. We really believe that every single one of our professionals, every single one of our students has the ability to reach their God-given personal best. We believe that. We also believe it's the highest bar you could ever set for a human. You cannot reach any higher
024than your God-given personal best. And that is our standard and it remains our standard. This is an exemplar of personal best because this past Saturday under the guidance and and we're so thankful for Mrs. Skaitma going above and beyond to provide this opportunity as a bunch of our kids went out into the woods and uh clipped a bunch of uh invasive species. I think it's called the olive I don't remember this some sort of olive tree. Um they went out there Saturday morning for about 3 hours working with uh uh these foresters from the DNR and forest service to do it. Why this is personal best is you've got kids from every single demographic, every single um group you can think of in our community. You've even got a student up there who just started
025school here last week. and two of the boys, my boy Luke and my boy Ethan, took him alongside and said, "Hey, come on. Let's go do this together." That's a great example of not only uh personal best, you know, where everybody can be successful in this culture, but it's also the culture we seek with that level of inclusivity. Next way we are going to get to our intent and create that champions culture here is through empowering. We want to empower our students. We want to empower our professionals to take ownership of this. We don't want them to rent it. We all can think back to our first apartment whether it be in college or at another point. That apartment looks a lot different than our current home. I'm sure the drywall holes can speak to
026it. We want to treat this place like we own it, not we rent it. These are just some exemplars of that. In the top left corner, under the uh guidance of Coach H, uh taking the kids over to the pickle ball court over by the old central office and getting that repainted. Bottom right, my boy B. Hayes didn't have um KCTC. He came in, he still came in in his normal time. Went right up to Mr. Revard and right up to Miss Sam and said, "Hey, what can I do for the next two hours voluntarily?" He swept floors and just helped in any way, shape, or form he could within this building. Down in the bottom left, that's an example of what happens here every first Wednesday of every month at our building leadership team,
027our BLT meetings where we empower our educators, our building leaders to lead the school. They start every meeting by having member of our student voice forum, which is kind of the student side of BLT to come in and present on what they want to see from the adults in their building. There Emerson Sambborn's presenting as a member of student voice forum to our building leadership team. Just again an exemplar of empowering our people to take ownership of their school. Next, um just an example of what we believe that a daily every day 365 a daily champion process will eventually lead to a champion result. Up in the top left corner, St. Holton, Miss Shannon Holton, working alongside two of our students up there during sore time. bottom right hand corner are uh members of our
028local boy scout troop on September 11th representing um taking ownership of that morning to make sure all that entered door one remember uh that moment in our country's history. Bottom left hand corner uh Miss Carol Neer who's in her 37th year of education spending extra time with one of our um students Charlie who needed extra help after school. We just believe that a daily champion process will eventually lead to champion results. And I'll show you some of those results we're starting to see because of said process. Um under the um we talked about soar time there. We've seeking to soar. You're aware that this year we started that here every Tuesday and Thursday and every other Wednesday. Mrs. test has been a blessing to us in that process as our academic interventionist. Um, I'll share
029some of the data that's that's occurred over these first two months of school. Down at the bottom right hand corner, one of the things that sore time has allowed us to do is get class levels together to prepare them for next steps. This is Mrs. Kooie in the bottom right hand corner presenting to our entire senior class on career readiness. The other cool cool uh positive uh unintended consequence has been what sort has opened up for our kids who don't need intervention, who don't even want extension. Extension meaning like those kids who want a little bit more time with their AP class. What it's opened up is enrichment opportunities. This bottom lefthand corner is our my side classroom, our m mildly cognitively impaired classroom where Mrs. Hall hosts a board game session during her sore
030time session so that some of our kids from other classrooms can come in and work alongside some of our myai kids which might not otherwise happen during the six hours of the day. truly a championed unintended positive consequence of sore time and I'll get into the data that sort time has led to academically as well. One of the other pillars of PD that you or one of the pillars of PD you saw was our every student loan initiative in the simplest forms. It's our goal for every one of our 10,000 kids to have at least one trusted adult in this building. That's not a nicity. That's not uh candy and nuts. We just believe that that will not only protect a lot of kids mental and emotional health but moreover or not moreover but as
031importantly could lead to incredible academic potential being met because we all know if we have a champion in our lives that's there for us no matter what we can we can have a better chance of reaching our true personal best. Okay. So we want all 1000 kids to have at least one trusted adult. It doesn't have to be a classroom educator. It could be grandma Marine in the kitchen. It could be Mr. Roard as a care team member. It could be it could be Mrs. Peyone in the office. We just need all 10,000 to have that trusted adult. On October 30th at a team PD, a bunch of minions got together, no pun intended, Minions literally got together and we charted our first segment of every student known. So you could see the chart paper
032here. It's got every all thousand of our kids including new beginnings. There's four columns. The first column is do you know the child by name and phase? Check it. Do you know the ch next column is do you know the child academically like you know they're good at math. Check it. Third column do you know something about them outside of school? I know they like to fish. I know I know I know they shot at a point. Check it. The fourth column is the column we want all thousand kids to get to as soon as possible. That column is I know that child will come to me in a time of adversity or crisis. I'll share a data point at the end of this presentation that we're pretty proud of um from last year and
033where we want to head to this year with even greater efficiency. What feeds this ESK process is Dave Stewart's work on moments of genuine connection. All of our educators, including me, we chart our MGC's, our moments of genuine connection, where we are intentional about um making sure every child on our roster is valued, seen, and heard. Here you see it, Miss Mama Ahmed out here with Kyle Gordon making sure that he feels value seed and heard going over something either academic life, extracurricular, whatever it may be, and then charting it on your MGC clipboard. That's something every one of our practitioners does, including me. Okay, there's Miss Schultz doing the same that feeds our ESK initiative. Another pillar of PD, try to speed this up, is Mr. Stewart's work that he's doing with us on
034what's called value. It's from one of his recent books. It's about ensuring that students don't see this as a pointchasing venture every day, if you know what I mean. All about the points, but rather all about the inherent value of learning. He's teaching us how to teach value. We're also doing a lot of street fairs of ped pedigogy. fancy way of saying, imagine you're at a uh you're at uh a street fair and somebody's trying to sell you hummus, right? You know what I mean? You sample the hummus, you see if you like it, you see if you buy it. At our professional development, we have different practitioners, in this case, Mr. Deosni, one of our band directors, teaching on a particular pedagogical topic. Our educators can rotate through throughout the street fair to different
035vendor stands to get what they need to get some individualized professional development so that they can grow in their craft. Trying to speed this up. Almost done. Here's just getting into some of the things some of the champion results we've seen from our process. First of all, I know we've heard about this. Last year, the state average in AP tests was 65%. Our Cedar Springs students, comprised of freshman all the way up to seniors, scored 90%. 25% above the state average. I've heard people outside of Cedar Springs say, "Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but how many kids took the test?" We had 353 AP exams proctored last year. 90% of our kids scored three or high. The state average was 65%. That's that champion process leading to champion results. Um, I got to get off
036the stage here. A couple of other things we're proud of. Um, that process has led to results. Our behavioral referrals last year, we don't have the data for this year yet. Behavioral referrals last year were down 60%. Last year, every student known um every student known percentage by the end of the year, I believe by April, every one of our 10,00 kids last year named at least one of our adults in this building as a trusted adult. That was so affirming to our educators to know that they were named by at least one child. Because for us, you know, pretty humble bunch. We don't always think kids think of us that way. That was really affirming to a lot of our educators. Almost done. MME scores last year. That's the MSTEP, the PSAT. Among the
037River Cities Alliance, Cedar Springs High School had the highest science profess proficiency in the conference, second in social studies, and second overall in average profic proficiency in ELA and math. Last year, there was $350,000 worth of scholarships awarded to that graduating class. Currently, we have 25 clubs outside of athletics open for our kids to enter into extracurriculars. Feeding back into our um sore time and how that's impacted our our failure rate last year, second semester, end of the year, 17.5% failure rate. That hurts. Currently at the end of October, we're down to a 13% failure rate. Those are just a few of the data points that kind of show along with pictures um that we we feel like our process is starting to have a result and we are starting to reach towards our intent.
038So thank you for your time. What questions do you have? >> Question. Thank you, Ray Burke. I mean, this is having three kids in high school. I can attest good stuff. >> Thank you. We just We're I tell this to people all the time for where I come from. I tell it to anybody who listen. I would put our educators up against any around any any. I'm blessed to be in our classrooms all day every day. I see, I hear, I feel, I smell, I taste what happens here on a daily basis. We are very blessed with our professionals and we're all equally blessed by the kids that we get to work alongside. Very blessed. >> All right. Thanks a lot. >> All right. Discussion items in. >> All right. A couple things to highlight
039on the the finance reports. Um the state currently October released the fiscal year 2526 threshold for competitive bids. Uh the new threshold is $31,321. So this is the threshold that is tied to the district's purchasing policy. Uh so the way the policy is written that anything that references this threshold and anything above this dollar amount required the board approver. Um and then by the state they is required that it goes out for competitive bid. So that's the new threshold going from October 1st through September 30th of 2026. Um one thing to note on the state aid membership I did transpose a number our certified accountant I I put it as 2793 that should be 29. 06 um that is within about one of what I presented uh October 27th. Um so this these numbers are
040still subject to change. Um they go through the pupil accounting audit process that the IS does. Um and then those numbers are submitted ultimately to the state. Um so these numbers will v vary a little bit plus or minus one or two um by the time you have our August 2023 state aid payment. Um one thing to note on section 31A which we have a discussion item later uh the deadline was formally extended to November 30th. So, we'll have the district districts have a little bit longer to uh make the opt in or out decision. Uh something of note, public act one uh the house bill 6058 related to the amendment to public act 152 that I presented in December of last year was the last time I presented. uh it relates to the increasing
041the hard cap amount and instead of being a a limit is now would be set as the floor. That language in House Bill 1658 has some problematic language as a benchmark that uh is noted. Issue is that benchmark doesn't exist. Um, so the House recognized that and they have elected to uh essentially not pass it on to the governor for consideration. Um, the Senate then filed a lawsuit compelling the House to pass the bill on to the governor. Recently the court of appeals ruled that the house does have to in fact they either have to pass it on to the governor or they have until uh was mid December to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court. Um so then last week the house speaker announced that they intend to in fact appeal to the Michigan
042Supreme Court. So, uh, kind of back in December or earlier this year, it seemed like House Bill uh 6058 was going to kind of die in purgatory forever. Um, and then recently they came back up. So, um, it's something for us to keep an eye on because a 10% increase to our health insurance costs would be a pretty significant uh, add to our budget. Um, and then last week or two weeks ago, Trent asked uh when I presented on the bond refinancing opportunity, he asked what the deh timeline would be. Um, so I did receive that earlier today from Baker Tilly. So if if the board would like us to look into this further, this opportunity, uh we would start providing data to Baker Tilly uh in December. At the January 12th board meeting, the
043board would a resolution um a bond authorizing the resolution would be adopted by the board. At that time, we would start preparing some draft preliminary official statements. uh there would be a due diligence call at the end of January and then on January 29th is essentially when we would have to make that decision of whether to refinance or nothing. Up till that point, the district has not incurred any costs. Um but once that decision is made, then we would request a bond uh rating. That's when uh S&P would do their ratings and that was the the 20 to $25,000 financial commitment uh that the district would then be on the hook for. Um and then if you saw the process all the way through that those funds or that 20 $25,000 fee would come out
044of being gross be part of the closing costs. So that that's the update on the um bond refinancing time. Couple of questions. Uh the threshold we need to update the policy or is that for right now the policy is written that it doesn't give a specific number and references the that it will change with any repetitive threshold about the state of Michigan. I was thinking we were smart on that but just wanted to make sure um and then the other one just to reiterate the bond refinance to us but it's projected that we would have a lot of savings to our correct uh believe those 20 about $120,000 savings needs and interested the district would capture if they went through the refinance the the razor to a point where it started to make sense to
045refinance as the rates go up there would be less of a savings if they go down we save Moving on to the first bid results, your back. >> All right, I'll pull these up for All right. So, a as a reminder, this is um this project is related to um a set of laws that were passed back in 2023 by the governor related to providing clean drinking water for all uh schools and daycare centers. Um collectively, the laws are referred to as filter first. Uh so the filter first laws uh require that all schools develop a drinking water management plan um as well as install lead reducing filters on all uh consumable fixtures. So essentially drinking fountains. So, uh, while back, uh, Vic and the team submitted a filter first grant proposal and we were
046awarded, uh, up to $186,980 to support this project. Um so believe so we because it is considered a construction project uh we're changing these fixtures that are absent a fix to the building. We did go through the bid process. Uh we had six vendors submit RFPs. Um, part of the bid process is we required each interested party to come do a walkthrough so they had a thorough understanding of what they were uh bidding the locations of all of our drinking fountains. Uh, so after going through the bid process, um, the lowest qualified bidder was Northwest Kent Mechanical. Uh, their total bid came in at $83,656. Uh so my recommendation to the board would be to uh accept Northwest Kent Mechanicals bid uh in that amount of 80 83,656. Uh we we've done a lot of
047work with um Northwest Kent throughout the bond project. Um so they're a local uh um contractor who does a lot of work with districts throughout West Michigan and throughout the state. Um, so very highly reputable and as you can see they are the the low bid. Any questions? >> This is on if you're comfortable >> and this is a reimbursement based grant. So, you know, we are awarded we can spend up to the 186,000. That's what is made available, but we would only submit to the state for that dollar amount that we actually spend. >> We don't get >> we do not receive the remaining balance >> and all of these were apples to apples all going off the correct. So, >> yeah. any if a if a vendor had a question, we then posted
048that question to all of the uh contractors that were interested so that they all have the same information. Moving on to question item E the annual summer text resolution. >> All right. This is a uh as as I just me stated this is an annual resolution that we asked board to consider. Um so this is the 100% summer tax resolution meeting. Um we asked the the cities and townships within the district to collect 100% of their tax revenues um with the summer tax levy. Uh some districts do a 5050. So you know residents would pay 50% of their property tax rel. Um, so my my neighbor is actually the new township treasurer for Oklahoma and he asked he asked me why why does schools do this? He said I'm getting these questions because obviously people
049this cash flow issue for some people and my answer is it really it comes down to the cash flow needs of the district. Um obviously between we receive our last state aid payment for the prior school year in August and we do not receive any state aid money for September the month of September. Our first state aid comes in October. So you have a one month period that you're not receiving any money from the state for your your operations. So, the 100% uh summer tax levy on the operating side allows us to kind of, you know, you don't get into a cash crunch in September. And some districts have to go out to borrow money either from the state or from a local lender. Obviously, they're not lending that money to those districts at no
050cost. They are incurring a interest uh expense when they borrow that money. So that 100% tax levying allows us to not really have to worry about that um potentially borrowing uh on the debt service side. It allows us to not have to borrow uh for the November debt service payments. Again, if we didn't do the 100%, we would have to borrow from the state through the school bond loan fund program. Again, it's not free. they charge they charge districts interest. So by doing that 100% summer tax levy uh it's really the allows for the cash flow when we're not receiving state aid and allows us to not borrow to meet our debt service obligations. All of which saves the district money. questions. >> This will be on the on action for the the next meeting.
051Um we do have to provide it to uh the treasurers um by December 31st. >> All right. Discussion item 31A opt in and opt out update. So, this is one where while there's been some um some movement in terms of direction, uh there's still more questions out there than answers in terms of what the potential implications um of this um the language as it's currently written. uh in order to receive these funds, there's $321 million available for districts to apply for access to um but in order to uh be eligible to receive that funding, uh districts would need to do two things. One, uh wave their attorney client privileges um and then also uh comply with state investigations if a mass campus and um you know the questions really the questions really are um you
052know how how could agreeing to the acceptance of these dollars impact us as a district long term. So it's it's um you know there's a a high potential risk. We really haven't had time to process through the implications of foregoing attorney client privilege, nor has it even been um verified that as district can even give up a staff member's attorney client privilege. So, there's just so many questions um swirling about the room in regard to this topic. There was a really um nice clear a clarifying article written this morning in Bridge magazine. I'll send that out to you just so we've got some awareness. Um but that came through right this afternoon. Um just helping to kind of break things down a little bit. But, you know, in the past, we've not had to um
053forego such significant um um things that we've had in the past, you know, and I don't know if they're viewed as protections as much. you know, you don't have um um you know, we would be open to investigations in the past from the state, but this is the way it's written. You know, what is a mass casualty event? Is it, you know, does it involve a sidearm or weapon? Does it involve a fight between seven people, six of whom are injured? You know, there's just so many questions out there. Um, you know, it just I think the general sentiment of of districts is if if we had more answers to our question, we would be more confident moving forward with pursuing these dollars. Um there are districts on the east side of the state that
054are indicating that they are in favor of receiving the dollars but they don't agree with the terms and conditions that the state has put upon uh these dollars the receiving of the dollars and they've also uh informed the state that they'll be filing a lawsuit um as a collection of districts. I've not heard of that happening on the west side of the state yet. Uh but it's definitely taken some getting some traction on the east side of the state. Um you know there there have just been a lot of conversations, a lot of questions as Marty shared. We do now have until the 30th of November um to make a decision. The uh tricky thing is is um the legislator is not uh scheduled to be in session um very many times between now and
055the 30th of November. So even for us to think that there's a strong likelihood that we'll have more answers I think is very I I don't know that that's that's reality. Um, so, you know, I I think what we're hearing from many of our neighboring districts, um, is that, you know, boards are taking action to, um, to to not accept the 318 funds as the regulations are currently drafted. um they're doing that now if they're comfortable or they're doing that you know they'll do it in a special meeting or a later schedule meeting you you know the boards can all always change their minds if additional uh information additional clarity comes out of May this is one of those things you know like Bonnie referenced earlier you know there's um not all legislation is good
056legislation There's a piece of legislation that's sitting out there right now that calls for an indicator to be used that doesn't even exist. And so that language is that legislation is sitting there should be transferred to the governor's desk. But even if it was transferred to the governor's desk signature, the indicator does not exist. And so it's it's really a it's a useless piece of legislation. So, um, all that being said, um, you know, there's there's nothing on for action this evening, um, which means we either call a special meeting uh, between now and the 30th. Um, I did invite you to uh board a special meeting of the board of education for a close session disciplinary hearing on the 17th uh which is one week from tonight. You know, you could take action on
057the 17th after you've had a chance to review the bridge article. I wish I had more clarity for you, but you just don't. what uh kind of bugs would be looking at or we know roughly. >> So that's the that's kind of the joke uh around circles, you know, when we're having conversation. So there's 30 $321 million available. Some have said, well, if just one district applies and receives it, they would get $321 million. That's >> that's not likely the case. uh because that'll likely do is prorate it back uh and distribute you know basically dollars similar to what we've received in the past associated with per month. And this isn't new money. This is part of that shell game that's played that was particularly played with this specific budget. um they've put pulled money
058out of uh some some areas and then created these one-time dollar opportunities that are really difficult for districts like ours to budget on a long-term basis. You know, it's difficult to have staff to add staff to support safety and security measures to ex to support student uh well-being measures if we don't know that those dollars are going to be available next year. Um because we can hire people this year, but if the dollars aren't available next year, we're going to have to say no to things in order to maintain those positions. So it it really I believe it's well intended but it is creates very messy situations you know >> are there any stipulations of how we got things right or is it >> yes >> but those would be similar to how use >>
059which that that's normal for a grant it's there's restrictions placed on how the money is used What is not normal is the you have to weigh the account >> and and it is directly the article I'll share again the art it's really directly related to the act because they're you know they've got families who are waiting you know it's been four years and there still is a an active widespread investigation to present you know that's that's giving them the answers to the question they have and then he never did those so they don't come back achieve it's advis >> uh I think yeah you will be take action either by voting yes, we are we do want to um pursue these funds or no uh we do not want to pursue these funds. >> And
060we do have some time with the special needs. All right, moving on to construction update. >> So, um, last Thursday at approximately 1:30, we received, uh, three green tickets. Uh, free green stickers. Green stickers are good stickers. Uh green stickers mean that you have occupancy for uh various buildings or whatever building you do that the inspector is there to uh approve. Um one of the green stickers was for our full storage building. So last uh that space has uh we have occupancy for it. Um and we've already moved some items into it for some storage uh for winter. Uh we also received um the green stickers for uh Beach Elementary School. So we have full occupancy for that space as well. So uh we're really excited that we were able to close the door on
061those projects. Um we did have an asking that Thursday to go through the um the wait room to see the repairs that are being done on those floors. Um, and there was progress being made. Um, but again, you got to wait for the adhesive to cure for us to really have clarity about how how to what degree those repairs are actually going to bring out the results that we're waiting for. Um, and then we also, uh, are really trying to sharpen the pencil and clarify the scope of projects that we'll be looking at for next summer. uh and we'll have a page turn on Thursday morning uh of this week which will really be an opportunity for us to go page by page through each uh each of the proposed projects to make sure that
062um what we've got designed what we've got targeted are really checking the box in terms of our last collection needs once those page turn documents are ready uh then um you know we'll be able to I give some additional updates in December in terms of getting some ideas around what direction we want to take moving forward and then on this and with many the projects or some based on feedback that you get from you and then see where see how it see our final chapter instruction instead of 26 audit presentation and we have Mike with us CPA partner. >> Welcome. >> Hi. Thank you. That was great timing. I just got in. Um, so I'm Mike Raidel. Worked on the audit for Cedar Springs this year and managed fieldwork. Um, overall I just want to
063report the process went uh very well, very smooth, and things were done very efficiently. Staff was uh very responsive in getting us all the information that we needed to to get the the whole thing kind of pulled together. Uh, so we did send a letter out to the board. It's called the governance letter. And uh, that was a a frankly a pretty boring letter. there was no comments. Uh that's where we would report any material misstatements that we found and corrected which we did not have any. Uh we had no issues with management, no difficulties, anything like that. Uh so really nothing to report there. Um on the financial statement side, I'll kind of just do a very brief highle overview of things and if there are any questions or you want me to go
064into further detail on anything, just stop me anytime and let me know. Uh but um we did implement Gazsby 101 this year. That's just some accounting lingo. Um it affected the paid time off and how that's accounted for. Uh so that transition went fairly smooth. It was a lot of work for for Motti to take care of that, but we got it done and it really uh at the end of the day did not have a material impact on the statements at all. Uh page one of the audit has our um audit opinion on there and this is a good clean audit report. it's exactly what you're looking for when you get an audit done. Uh so nothing to point out there. Uh next section is the MDNA. That's kind of a narrative format of
065the statements. Kind of goes over some highs and some lows for the year. I won't get into detail on that one. Uh but I did want to point out page 11. This is what's called the governmentwide statement of net position. And this is kind of the whole entire school lumped into one column. It's very summarized. And it's going to also show you some other things you wouldn't normally see on a monthly basis such as uh land, some pension numbers in there and uh debt numbers, things like that. Uh one item I wanted to point out on here, it's about halfway down the page in the non-current liabilities is arbitrage payable. uh that hasn't been booked historically, but this year it kind of hit that point where your interest earnings on that bond money because it's
066a tax exempt bond uh you will be getting a bill of some sort from I believe it comes from the IRS and that that'll have to be paid. So that happens every five years. I think that's how the cycle operates. So just something to be aware of uh that that bill will be coming. Um the general fund you'll see on page 14 and you'll see unassigned fund balance at the end of the year June 30, 2025 that is about $14.5 million there. And then two pages down from that on page 16 this is going to be where like the income statement is for that. Uh you'll see it increase by about $350,000 this year. Uh pretty modest increase for the year which is good. Um the 2023, excuse me, building and site bond project, you'll
067see about $15.2 million of capital outlay was spent this year continuing to spend those bond funds down. We expect that to continue this coming year, which it sounds like you just got an update on that, so I won't get into detail there. Um, the other thing that I wanted to point out, um, is typically this audit report is issued with what's called a single audit, which is specific to the federal funding. We have to look at that very detailed. Um, the federal government never got around to getting the compliance supplement completed this year, which is what tells us exactly what parts of each federal program we need to audit. So, we went based off of the draft and the school guidance said, "Well, issue it without it and then we'll wait and see what happens."
068So, we're waiting to see what happens on the single audit piece, but the rest of the audit is issued and good to go. Um, other than that, is there any questions that I can answer? Sorry, that was a lot of information really fast. There's a lot of information. Thank you for your doing all this. Yeah, happy to hear. It's kind of a boring report. >> Yeah, that speaks to my five minutes. >> Yes. All right. Well, thank you very much for having us. Yeah. Yep. Thank you. We'll see you next year. >> Okay. Discussion item I boards for consideration with. >> All right. So, um there are three items needs to be listed. So 81 is the attorney policy that is before you that is scheduled for act this evening. Uh the second item item
0698 I2 is the emergency removal and suspension emergency removal suspension and expulsion non students uh proposal. um that I I did attach two items to that. I attach the revision the original or the revision um is the second attachment. The um the revision of the revision is the first attachment. So the first attachment is um the attachment that would on on a long-term suspension of less than or equal to uh 45 days. It would require the superintendent and uh board president and police and two other trustees of the board executive uh committee would have to be in agreement that that longer term suspension was appropriate. Um the uh first revision was just the initial language, the original uh language that we shared that I shared with you. Uh and in that version two um simply
070states um you know from zero to five days. Principal can uh suspend from five to 10 days. the principal and the superintendent would need to be involved in that conversation to make sure that both of those both of those individuals were on the same page. Um the uh then length of term for those long-term suspensions between 11 and 45 days. It goes back to that original proposal and that was superintendent in consultation with another test. Um the reason why those two options are before you uh we're a committee of this this operates as a committee of affair with the board president speaking for and uh our matters. And so you know if we go with version one I think basically we're creating a a sorts of individuals who would consider these longer term uh suspension.
071Um and so you know my uh recommendation would be version two uh that obviously decision moving forward and that's not steady fraction for the city giving you some opportunities. Um and then the third bundle of information is the fall 2025 uh NEOA revisions. Um that's a larger body of proposals. Neiola presents a proposal package in the spring and then another in the fall. Uh this particular group of proposed revisions is this lengthy um because it in it includes two bundles. So the first bundle is the general overview. Just those general collection of policies that would be recommended for revision based on changes in MDE language or in state law or you know different uh different reasons um that would drive some changes minor changes to language. And then it also includes this collection of policies
072uh centered on non-discrimination. And so that would be the second group of uh policies that you will be considering for revision. Um in in board book um two documents that are helpful to me as I process the collection of revisions uh is the first attachment, the general overview attachment. And then the second attachment which is the non-discrimination rule. I believe that just gives you a quick update as to why the recommended changes are in place. None of these changes that are before you uh in either of the general overview section or the non discrimination section are uh significantly substantive. um they're really more about changes uh to legislation uh changes to uh issue department policy or changes to other policies at the state level initiative. The other collection of uh artifacts that are included in
073just that Nola policy revision uh subsection is uh some legislative updates uh that just help to support some of the recommended changes that have come out of the office. So typically we don't go through um piece by piece. This is your first look. This is a really big body of work. Uh this is why we take several months to chew and process on these revisions. Um that's why we try to do it in a bundle. Uh so that we can help keep keep the process moving along. So, I don't know if you want to break it down um maybe to if there's specific discussions on the the term proposal uh if there are specific questions or wonderings around the emergency removal suspension expulsion proposal uh or if you want to jump in any questions that
074you may have around the new uh language that's being proposed in the town of where some of those policies are 17 pages as Um and you'll you will notice too that the way the way the NEOA policy uh booklet is put together, you know, you may see the same basic policy, but in one in one location it's there for certified staff and then it might be the same policy that's listed for non-certified staff then it might list for administrators if you know. So it's not all not all the policy revisions are brand new. Sometimes they're just different location. I'll do my best to field any questions as 22 all those choices >> how works it's not like you got to find direct right >> correct so 2266 um is the non-discrimination on the basis of
075sex and education programs or activities. Um the green is new language. Um the red is language that they're uh that they were they recommend striking. So it's being replaced by the green. Um there are also several sections where you have optional language. The optional language would only apply if there's an X in the box. >> Okay? So if there's not an X in the box now, that just means that our current language does not include that section under proposed revision. We can add it, but then we'd be modifying what we currently have as far as so. And I know it can be tricky um because you see the green is that new does that mean we automatically accept it? No. Only if there's a box that's been checked out. >> So on the term one
076says for action tonight. uh did we talk to legals? Were they able to provide information on that or >> we did? Um so Marshall is not aware of any other district who has a specific set of term limits that have been self-imposed. You know, obviously talked about the four-year term or the six-year term. he was going to consult. So they have a a regularly scheduled meeting with their partnership group and so there are a group of attorneys who specifically focus on school law. He was going to bring this to the bathroom um and then report back. I don't know what day of the week. I checked the meeting was delayed last week and I don't know what day his partner group he's not aware of any language that would prevent a district from doing it.
077Um, nor is he aware of any district that's currently current. >> I talked to the K County election and said that it can be enforced if the board they have a way to track all members. file that person I mean I feel like it's pretty straightforward but um I fell on some interesting rapid closing conversation people too and I mean there are there are schools that have triple nets. Maybe not the public schools. There are actually quite a few school districts that do, you know, surprised at how that was. Um, which I was curious about because I was I was concerned particularly with private schools. I know it's different. They're not elected, but I mean that's obviously a small um but no I I I do think there is a lot of interest in this
078and just talking. So I wanted to share that too. I was surprised really just the appearance of community members. Um more in favor of Jason. What was your reasoning again? >> Just because look at society now. The reason I came up with three is because when a student comes in, usually people get involved in school. Usually that's 12 years. There's a lot of factors and go last when you have certain names of so long there becomes a certain type of per second. >> Okay. So that's that's a far cry from >> I don't know what you're fishing for >> 100% accurate and everything that you've done that you're trying to get me to say to you what you trying to get >> I'm trying to understand why why you're proposing threeear we have four president
079that's been here for so many years. I mean when I went on private tour during football game that you >> other board members that had any board member asked me to walk through the building I would have >> if I would have came up to you that night you were >> I absolutely would have. >> You would you was busy looking at students and making sure they were not sitting with parents. Correct. I was I would have gladly taken you through the building. >> Did you ask and I denied that opportunity? >> Did you ask? But so if I came out first when I asked you to go on tour >> I don't remember the details. All right. She said he said I'm not getting to it. That's why I came up with the terms.
080That way everything's clear, cut and dry. We're not getting the full corruption paper system kind of thing. Everything's fair. The community gets their voice. It's simple. It's not like I'm asking, you know, >> the community gets their voice every time they >> I don't I don't believe that there is corruption. I wanted to say that first of all. I don't I don't But >> I would say on on that if you think there is corruption, you need to submit that because we take it very seriously. submit it in writing. So we have >> I would love to please >> me what? >> So again I I I was I mean I was just surprised some of the feedback I was getting just a really good just really good healthy conversation just of advantages and disadvantages
081and actually even some students were involved in the conversation. um and there were differences of opinions and so I think there there are some advantages and disadvantages. I think some of the advantages um certainly it it can encourage more engagement in the community. Um you know whether they're apparent or not and there could be those fresh ideas 12 years is a substantial amount of time. I I think there is, you know, a disadvantage of midterm limits is you could lose some institutional knowledge and um and that's valid. Um I think I think though again 12 years is a pretty decent time. you can still be very involved with strategic planning and your curriculum and I think if you have mentoring of board members and um transition board members doing good >> what's that >> acceptance
082of board members that board members have been under >> yes I think I think there are what I had initially made and I I just I appreciated um I appreciated the discussion um on tonight so we'll be able to go through that part for me. I appreciate, you know, all the different multiple board members I all different kinds of families, shortterm nurse, longterm nurse and, you know, the main piece of the board is just being able to work together and see. All right. Anything else? more of the other. Okay, that brings us to the end of our post or of our our discussion portion of the meeting and that brings us to our close session and pursuant to the open meeting act section 8K say please plan a motion to close session. Sub. >> Sub.
083Any discussion? None. Vice President. >> Yes. >> Secretary Serger. >> Yes. Bowser. >> Yes. President. >> Yes. Motion carries. And the record show we'll be in session at 7. I'm re-recording the record show. We're going back into open session at Okay. So that brings us to public comment. Do we have any closer that we would be hearing from the public discussion? >> We do not. >> Let's show them the public comment is closed and we'll move on to our action items for this meeting. And first up we have the filter first bid award and I would entertain motion. So moved as presented for uh Northwest K mechanical for 83,656 >> any discussion >> having none vice president Sher >> yes >> secretary >> yes >> Bowser >> yes >> president yes motion carries that brings
084us to our action item Mola Board of Education policy division of P 0142.3 term limits I would entertain a motion >> or what is motion >> for clarification as presented >> as presented uh has a motion on the table so Second. Thank you. Do you have any further discussion? >> Was there question still more information? >> I don't think there's any I don't think there's anything that would prevent us. I'm sorry. Okay. So, motion discussion. So, I'll call the vote. Vice President Shner, >> no. >> Secretary Serger, >> yes. >> Uh, Trusty L, >> yes. >> Trusty Bon, >> no. >> Trusty Bowser, >> no. >> President Reed, >> no. Motion fails. Okay, that brings us to the communication portion of the meeting and I don't any communication from the public or anything to share
085and we know why so it's for planning >> two planning items >> okay >> well three planning items inboard book uh one of the attachments is that list of district events. Uh so there lot of cool things happening around the holidays. Uh if you have an open Tuesday or Thursday night, you want to come check out a concert in addition to all the athletic events that going on some meet opportunities or to see our students go to Penn State. Um we I did send an invitation out today um for a special meeting on Monday, November 17th. Uh that meeting will take place over at the administration building. Um so we'll do it in the academic services room where we had our last uh special meeting. Uh it's a discipline uh hearing. Um that will start
086at 6:00 pm. um we just have one student uh who will be bringing forward um in the disciplinary hearing. So that'll be on the 17th of November. And then our regularly scheduled meeting is on um December 8th 2025. That'll be our last meeting of the year. >> Perhaps unless we have another special meeting. Okay. All right. Very good. Having no more business before the board this evening. Thank you.