001We started our meetings earlier today. We are now reconvening at action item two on the agenda if you have one which is approval of the consent agenda. May I have a motion please? >> Mr. Board of Education approves the consent agenda as presented. support. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Uh, motion carries. Item three is the citizens request to address the board. Miss Nag, would you please look for me? You are given two opportunities to address the board. Under item 3.1, you can request to address the board about any topic that's on tonight's agenda. Under item nine, you are welcome to address the board on any topic. Seeing nobody here, we will move on to action it or item number four, which is the superintendent update. Dr. Ryan, >>
002thank you. Madam President, uh community, this evening, I have a couple great ones to share with you. Uh updates and some wonderful things going on in Clarkston right now uh that you might not see in the headlines of the uh Oakland press, but means so much to our little town. First of all, I want to give a shout out to Kelly Catateral, sixth grade science teacher at Sashbell Middle School. Uh she's been selected from a highly competitive pool to participate in a shipboard science immersion program this summer. As part of the experience, she'll spend a week aboard an EPA res research vessel called the Lake Guardian on Lake Superior. And she's going to be working along other scientists and doing real action research that she's going to bring back to her her kids and classes
003in the next year. We're really excited for in her selection. We also I'm pleased to announce that uh for national junior uh high school outstanding student achievement award from the OA that one of our student leaders has received national recognition for an outstanding achievement. Avery Fiser has been selected as rep repres recipient excuse me of the national junior honor society outstanding achievement award. Um this honor recognizes Avery's commitment to scholarship, leadership, service, character and citizenship. It's a huge recognition. Um, as far as some of the other things we have coming up, I'm excited for April 20th through May 7th, we're going to be hosting our district-wide art show. Um, for those of you who've been here in the past, we literally um have student works from one side of the board office all the way
004up to our early childhood center and we try to recognize almost every student as part of our art program. It's a great uh evening and uh for refreshments and be able to kind of see student work and it's something that we really celebrate here in Clarkson with the arts. Um the CHS drama club, whistle stop, our drama club will be performing whistle stop and April 24th and 25th. Um had heard from our student board members and wanted to make sure that I do a really solid uh shout out to our students in the performing arts. Uh you can buy tickets in advance and at the door. It's going to be a great strobe for the spring. Uh we also have international night and I invite our entire community to attend this on April 30th from
0055 to 8:00 p.m. at the high school. Uh really it's a night especially if you don't want to cook dinner that night. For me and the kids, we like to come up. You get all sorts of international flavors of food. You get different types of uh national dances and all sorts of different culture, a lot of hands-on things for the kids and your students to do. And I'd really encourage you to come up to the high school to take part of it. uh not only do you get that international flavor, but you see a lot of our students in the high school that are actively involved and and helping uh push this uh international understanding, which is awesome. Uh athletics, our spring uh sports seasons are getting underway. It's only a week or two in
006and our students hopefully have noticed that seems like spring has sprung here in Clarkston and we see practices and kids really going after it in track and all the other sports. Uh finally and not so fun is uh to announce to make sure everybody in the community knows that this week is our state testing week. Um it's the first of a couple weeks that we do for MSTEP. We also have the SAT and um different assessments that we really kind of gauge the project process and uh how our students are doing in Clarkston. Um so anticipating some tired kiddos uh by the end of the week and some tired teachers as we get that done as well. So, a lot obviously going on here in Clarkston and uh we're very excited to to see everybody
007here tonight. My last one before I turn the mic back over. I'm super excited to have our Battle of the Book winners and we're going to get to recognize them uh and their feats directly here at the meeting tonight. So, it's very exciting. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Ryan. Which brings us right into item five, our presentation item, which is Battle of the Books. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us here this evening. I'm Sharon J. I'm the one that has the privilege and the honor of working with the students at elementary school um level for Battle of the Book. So, I'm so excited that you made this invitation to be here and our reading Tonight we have seven books that we read. Um, escape from Mr. Lemonello's library,
008lost in NYC, out of darkness and ensures consist of a variety of different genres. Graphic novels. >> Ah, there we go. Did you all hear me? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Um, some of our books are fiction. Some of them are graphic novels, biographies. We try to choose a variety of different books that we read each year. Um, and I work with the CIDL. I work with Springfield Township Library as well. So, the librarians and I um are the ones that are part of the committee for choosing our books for our elementary students. And it's a program that lasts three months. We start in December and then we end about the second week, first week of March. And the process we go through it, it's for fourth and fifth grades and our students can
009choose to be a part of a team and they get to choose their own numbers and they have to find a coach. Um, and part of what they do is they um are reading the seven books and they're competing with the knowledge of those seven books. This year we had 958 students eligible to participate in the battle program. So, we had a 53% participation from our fourth and fifth graders, 115 teams, 507 students, and 158 coaches. What I'm super proud of, over the last four years, we've had 211 students from elementary go through this battle program, and we had a 456 team. So, pretty excited about that. There we go. Seven books, three to five students per team. They have a coach and I have Mrs. Landry here this evening. She is the coach for
010this amazing team that's standing next to me. These this team, this coach is one example of what we have throughout all seven of our elementarymentaries. They have a contest for team best team name, a contest for best team costume, and then to get to the championship, we have mock battles. So, they learn how to participate in an actual battle. They go through a building battle. Some of our teams or some of our buildings, we had 25 teams at Bailey Lake Elementary. We had quite a few. We had 22 at Independence Elementary. So, we have a plethora of of teams at each building. The top two teams from the building battle, they then go on to the championship battle. This year, we took um an extra team. Normally, we only take 14, but we took a
01115 team because we had a tie that we could not break at a school. um community outreach, very important part of this program, working collaboratively with the public libraries, but also working with friends of the libraries. They're the ones that help us provide um prizes for our students. And then we also work with local businesses. This year we chose Peppermint Village and they gave some free ice cream to our participants at the championship battle this year. We also work with our authors and our illustrators. So this year we were able to put 15 signed copies in the hands of our students for prizes. Um which was amazing. Normally we don't get that many. And then we had a special um announcement from Ivar Thor who lived in Iceland. He's the one that wrote Stranded. So
012it was nice. He gave us a video message um for us. Who I have with me today are the page punchers. They are from Independence Elementary. I'm going to let them introduce themselves. Come on up, guys. Hi, I'm Charles Landry. I'm Joseph Landry. >> I'm Sterling Pereira. I'm Alexander Norman. And they have the privilege of having this beautiful trophy. And we kind of treat it like it's our it's our Stanley Cup. So when they got it, they could take it home for a night and spend take it home with them for the evening and then roundroin between the whole team. So you can show that up nice and proud. Can we give them a huge round of applause? Thank you guys. This is one example. There's lots of kids behind them who participated in this
013and every student that participated in this program is a winner. That's the that's the message that's the most important to me is that they're reading and that they're having fun and that they're all winners simply because they decided to say yes to be a part of the Battle of the Book program. Our second place team was from Clarkston Elementary, the Cliffhanger Crew. Not only did they win second place in the championship battle, but they also won best team name. You can see them hanging off the gym um rock wall there with all their books. The Book Sharks, third place winners from Springfield Plains Elementary. Our book Babies from Clarkston Elementary. They won for best team costume. And yes, they kept talking about how they drool all over those books. They were having a ball with
014that one. This is just an example of some of our other teams that we had. They either won first place or second place at their building battle. They might have won team costume or they may have won for team name. So, just want to shout out to Books Aoy from Bailey Lake, the book Cooks from Independence, Grim Readers from Andersonville, the book banners from Clarks Denell, and yes, they are running out of CIL stealing those books, the rich readers from Springfield Plains, the Sesame Street readers from North Sash, Rainbow Readers from Pineob, and talk about reading from Andersonville. Last but not least, the book boxers from Pine Knob. My parents will send me notes and say thank you. These are two examples of battle coaches who just wanted to say thank you. My my child
015would not be reading if it wasn't for this program. And the fact that we've had over a 4-year period, 2,000 kids come through this program. If there's just one child that walks away with reading, picking up any book for pleasure after battle, that's a success for me. That's a win. I think that's that's what we're striving for. We are so fortunate here in Clarkston because we have you see Mrs. Landry. She is one example and we also have a parent from Independence here as well who was also one of my battle um coaches. If we didn't have the support in this district for literacy like we do, this program wouldn't be nearly as successful. It's not only parents that are are a key piece to it. It's our teachers. It's our principles. It's our media
016texts. We have so many people that are involved in this program that it can't I'm not the only person that can do this. I'm just the person that gets to have the privilege of hosting this program, but it takes a wealth of of us to to do this. So, I just want to give a huge round of applause to all the people who have been involved in it. Thank you. Yeah, this was um I coached the same team last year. Um same exact students, but they had a different name. They were the Professor Penguins last year, and they changed it up. And I actually helped coach um my son who's now a senior and he did it in fourth and fifth grade and he actually his team won at the middle school back right before
017co um but it's created such great memories for them. um back in, you know, back right before co um my son who is a senior still, you know, just cherishes that time that he spent with his friends doing the battle of the books. And so it's fun to be able to do that with these boys and we appreciate this program and we appreciate you for running it. >> It's my my privilege. >> Thank you so much for having us here this evening. I can't thank you enough for your support. I can't thank the community, our staff, our administrators. Thank you so much for all that you do for this program and for our students in this district. >> Bring the boys back up if anyone has any questions or comments. Boys, would you guys mind
018>> coming back up for us? Plus, we want to shake your hand and we have a gift for you. And I really want to see that trophy a little closer. So, if you guys could just stand there. I want to see if anyone up here has any questions for you guys. If you guys would be okay with that. >> Yep. Good. >> Mrs. McInness. Yes, Madam President. I'd like to know what a battle looks like. Could you explain what takes place during a battle? >> During the battle, there are two rounds in total. Each team answers a variety of questions from each book. Each each question gives one point. There are also tiebreers if any team ties with another team. >> Do you as a team come up with each answer or does one person
019come up with an answer? >> The teams decide on their answer together. >> And are the answers concrete answers or are they interpretive questions? answers >> concrete. >> Okay. >> Representative Pants, do you have a question? >> Yeah. So, I believe you mentioned I think this was like in one of the first slides that was it 983 eligible students. >> 958. Yes. >> 958 eligible students and 53 50% of those actually participated. >> Uh so what are the eligibility requirements to participate? to want to say yes and be willing to read some books. That's it. That's all they need to do. And then have a Yeah, they have to be a fourth or fifth. But then to find a coach and our media techs play a key role for us because if these boys couldn't
020find a coach, then our media techs and our teachers step in and help them find a coach. Sometimes we have a team, no coach. Sometimes we have a coach and no team. So, we try to do what we can to make sure that we have enough people for coaches and for teams. >> All right. Thank you. >> Does anyone else up here have any questions or comments? >> Which one of you guys came up with your name this year and your costume? >> Who came up with your name and your costume? >> Mrs. Landry did. >> Mrs. Landry. >> I love it. I actually love it. I would love if you guys could come on up here and maybe shake our hand and very very proud to have you guys come up tonight. >> Well
021done. Congratulations. >> Well done. And this is for you. >> Congratulations. >> Great job. >> Congratulations. Can I see the trophy? I just want to see it. >> Nice job. >> Yeah, it's really cool. So, where is it going to live? >> It lives at the ho the school that hosts. >> Okay. Yeah. So awesome. It's been years. >> Congratulations. >> My pleasure. Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. Thank you so much. >> Absolutely. >> That's cool. That's really cool. >> I like that. >> We can take a quick two-minute recess if people don't wish to stay for the rest of the meeting. But if you'd like to, we can move on. So it will not bother us if you guys >> Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Uh we
022will move on now to our action items. Um action item 6.1 is approval of personnel changes. Can I have a motion, please? I move the board of education approves personnel changes as listed on the attached sheets as presented. >> Support. >> Motion made supported. All those in fa are there any questions or discussion on those? >> No. Seeing none. All those in favor please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Item 6.2 is approval of the elementary halfday start timeou. May I have a motion please? I move that the board of education approves the memorandum of the understanding between Clarkston Community Schools and the Clarkson Education Association regarding elementary school start times and half-day dismissal as presented. >> Support motion may be supported. Is there any question or discussion on this? I know
023we've talked about it. This will move all of our seven elementaryaries to the same start time. Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Item 6.3.1 is a motion for a limited enrollment for young fives through 12th grade. The 202627 school year is attached. May I have a motion, please? I move that the board of education approves the resolution authorizing the limited open enrollment of young 5 kindergarten through 12th grade students for the 2026 27 school year as presented support motion has been made and supported. Is there any discussion or questions on this? >> I'd just like to reiterate I think that we need less school of choice and not more. And I I appreciate the administration taking the board's input and crafting this proposal that fits uh
024more in line with what we are thinking and gives us an option to potentially grow the next item that we're going to act on the selective program school of choice. So I'm interested to work with the administration to see what the results of this are and craft a better proposal in the future. Uh, I would agree with that, Mr. Hire. Thank you. I think this is going to work well into kind of a marketing program and hopefully getting people into some of our more specialized programs that we are so incredibly proud of. So, any more? Okay. Uh, we need a roll call vote on this. Mrs. Allen, >> Mrs. Egan, Miss McGinness, >> yes. >> Mr. Ne, >> yes. Mr. Hyer, >> yes. >> Mr. Clark, >> yes. >> Mrs. Love, no. >> Mrs. Crane,
025yes. >> Motion carries. Item 6.3.2 is for an unlimited motion for unlimited enrollment in the CSM tech program, the IB DL IB program, career immersions program, construction tech program, and RVS grades K12 and Renaissance High School. May I have a motion, please? >> I move that the board of education approves the resolutions authorizing the unlimited open enrollment for the CSM Techch Academy, international balora diploma program, career immersion programs, construction technology program, online and blended learning and renaissance high school for the 2026 27 school year as presented. support. >> Motion has been made and supported. Are there any questions or comments on this? >> Yes. Mrs. Love, >> is this the same that we've been doing every year? >> Yes. >> Okay. And it's supposed to say grades then graces, I'm assuming. >> Oh, so it's
026just >> Oh, yes. Under Renaissance High School grades 9 through 12. Do we need to amend that? Okay. >> No. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. >> Yes, I see that. Okay. Is there anything else? Seeing none, I need a roll call vote on this. Mrs. Allen, >> Mr. Clark, >> yes. >> Mrs. Love, >> yes. Mrs. Egan. >> Mr. Hire, >> yes. >> Miss McGinness, >> yes. >> Mr. Ne, >> yes. >> Mrs. Crane, >> yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Item 6.4 Four is approval of a construction change order for Clarkson High School. May I have a motion, please? >> I move the board of education approves the construction change order for Bumbler mechanical in the amount of $282,1 as presented. >> Support. >> Motion made and supported. Are there any questions or comments on
027this? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries. Item 6.5 is approval of the network electronics support renewals. May I have a motion, please? >> I approve the -ray project to Delta Networks in the amount of 272 thou 272,45245. the estimated total cost to the district inclusive of the post discount rate eligible portions and all ineligible costs of $155,89.39 support >> motion made and supported. Is are there any comments or questions on this? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Item 6.6 Six is approval of financial software purchase. May I have a motion, please? >> I move that the board of education approves the purchase of the new schools open software for annual cost of $94,752 and the
028initial cost of $54,300 totaling $149,52 as presented. >> Support. >> Thank you. Motion has been made and supported. Are there any questions or comments? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Item 6.7 is approval of the 2627 Chartwells food service agreement. May I have a motion, please? >> I move that the board of education approves the Chartwell's food service contract renewal for the 2026 27 school year. >> Support. Motion made and supported. Are there any questions or comments on this? >> Madame President. >> Yes, Mr. >> I'd just like to make a comment of how appreciative I am of our uh faculty and our staff who are providing our food services for our students. I think the quality of our food has definitely improved over the
029years, especially under Chartwell. And I would just want them to know as a management organization that they provide the services to us of um that we greatly appreciate their services to to our students. I would concur with that and I think they know that uh when Mr. Hire and I were at a conference recently, we were in the exhibit exhibitor hall and they were pulling Mr. Hire to talk to other people to try and get him to tell how happy we are with them. So I we I agree with you. I think we talk about it often and I don't know that we can talk about it enough so I would appreci I agree. Um, okay. All those in favor please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. >> Item 6.8 is approval
030of the Chromebook purchase for Shared Time Partner School. May I have a motion, please? >> I move that the board of education approves the purchase of 120 Chromebooks in the amount of $38,136 as part of our shared services agreement. as presented. >> Support. >> Motion has been made and supported. Are there any questions or comments on this? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries. Thank you. Uh those are all of our action items. Item seven is our report items. And I would love to hear an update from our student representatives, Mr. McNottton. Well, Clarkston students have continued to, sorry, have continued to work on and accomplished some great things this month. Uh, Dr. Ryan already mentioned um that we're taking the standardized testing this week.
031So, sophomores have the PSATs and juniors have the SATs at the high school. Um, and I've noticed that the people around me have been working really hard to to study for those tests and try to get the best score they can. So, um, I think that's something good to mention. and he also mentioned the the play Whistle Stop, but I would definitely encourage everyone who can go to see it, both to support the students that are performing the play, but also it's just a really good experience. Um, every time I've went, I've really enjoyed it. So, um, so that's something that I would recommend. It's on April 24th and 25th. Uh, Team Rush, Clarkson High School's robotics team were undefeated at their recent Leavonia district competition and they won the tournament. Uh, they also won
032the first impact award, which is given to teams that make a positive impact on their community. Um I know that that's regarded as the highest award that they can receive at a given competition. So um that is something that they're really proud of being able to make an impact in their community. Um they go to the state championships on April 16th through 18th at Sagen Valley State University. Um Carsten High School students recently published the spring edition of their digital newspaper. It's new this year. It's called Paw Prints. Um so there's been there was the the winter edition and now um the the spring edition was just published. It's full of interviews with staff and students and it's good for students I think to get an early experience in journalism. It's really good practice in
033writing but also just in interviewing people. Um and I think that reading it would be something very good both to learn about our school and to see the work that are that Clarkson students are doing. Um you can read the spring edition on Clarkson's website. And to current uh Clarkson High School sophomores, um there's going to be an email going out shortly about applying to be the junior student representative to the board of education. So, um, Representative Pon will be graduating this year and we need a new junior representative. So, um, we're looking forward to to improve the program and to continue the program. So, um, we encourage any sophomores that are interested in applying to definitely apply and to um to I guess look at this opportunity to provide input from the students perspectives
034across Clarkson High School. And I would definitely encourage anyone who who wants to to make sure to apply for that. >> Thank you. To I think to add to that, I would like to thank both of you for all you've done this very first year. Um and while we will miss you, Representative Pon, I'm looking forward to working with you, Mr. McNotton, next year with the new representative to do exactly that. will start earlier and we'll be able to hopefully maybe during the summer set some goals that are specific to this program and see what we can do to realize those. So, I'm very much looking forward to that. And just um for the rest of my board, Mr. Call is sending that email out to sophomores today or tomorrow and asking for an April
03524th deadline to get that application back. So we should definitely have that um student chose student um will be chosen by the end of the year. So um item eight is discussion item uh the COSBA national conference report. I was able to go on behalf of Clarkston. Um Mr. Hire was there on behalf of MASB. Um, I went to the pre-conference day and I did two and a half days of the actual conference and it was, as you guys all know from these conferences, they're jam-packed. It was a lot of keynote addresses, a lot of there were at least four um, concurrent breakout learning sessions a day, and I tried to mostly go to ones that centered on student representation. I wanted to get ideas on how to better that program for us. And I
036also went to a lot of programs on AI uh cuz I know that's something as a board that we've been talking a lot about and how to um use that responsibly in our schools. Um the one that I remember the most however had nothing to do with either of those things. It was actually I thought of you a lot Mrs. Love when I was in there. It was it was called bridging the divide building relationships beyond party lines and using that in advocacy and how especially when we go to DC to advocate or when we're advocating in any generation or any capacity um party lines really shouldn't play a part in it and we all should come from a place of our shared outcomes that we want and when you put aside the idea that
037you're trying to win an argument and just really work with the person to further your goals together. That's when you'll build the relationship and do the best thing for the students. So, it was actually it was a really great um session. It was put on by the Ohio Association of School Boards um people. So, I really enjoyed that. I thank the district for allowing us to do that. It was a really great experience. So, um item nine, citizen comments. Seeing none, we'll move on. Item 10 is our information items. A our next board of education meeting is on Monday, April 27th. Uh starting at 5:00, we will be doing a workshop meeting on Clarkston Community Schools core values. And item 11, we will be leaving the table and going back in here and finishing our
038workshop session. So, thank you.