001call to order the regular meeting of the Fox Community Schools Board of Education. If you could all please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please here love here. Here, Mrs. Green here. Mr. Here, here you are. Here we will proceed. This meeting is a meeting of the board of education in public for the purpose of conducting the school district business. It is not to be considered a public community hearing. There is a time for public participation during the meeting indicated in agenda items three and nine. Item two is approval of the consent agenda. May I have a motion, please? I move that the board
002of education approves the consent agenda as presented. Support motions made supported. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? Motion carried. Thank you. Item three is the first opportunity for citizens to address the board. Again, you are given two opportunities to address the board for this item. Item 3.1, your request to address the board on any topic that's on tonight's agenda, which is displayed behind me. And then under item nine, you're welcome to address the board on any topic. When making top when making comments, please state your name and address, bring your comments here to the board president. Each person may speak for up to two minutes. and for established procedures. The board will not respond to questions or interact with the speaker during public comment. Although we may refer the
003matter to our administration for followup, you check in please and see if anybody has signed up. Great. Thank you very much. And again under item nine, anyone welcome to address the board on any topic. Item four is our superintendent update. Dr. Ryan. Thank you, President E. Good evening, community. Um, first point of order, the district's going to be hosting a community collaboration event here in the boardroom next Tuesday, April 22nd. This will bring together dozens of community organizations and services to talk and learn about each other and to see where resources can be shared and services further can be enhanced. So, we're looking forward to that. Nice way to kind of cross and make sure our, you know, community and looking at opportunities to support one another. Additionally, um CHS drama club will present their
004spring presentation of Clue uh from the classic board game. Uh next weekend, our senior goal card members, those listening this evening, you're invited to a sneak preview next Wednesday, April 23rd, right after school. Uh Clarkson Youth Assistance Recognition Night is Thursday, April 24th at Clarkson High School. For those you have not attended, this is a great opportunity to recognize students that aren't always recognized. Um it has a very positive message that night and is a great connector between youth assistance which runs between the Clarkston courts and the um county and the school district and it really is a nice event really supporting and focusing on kids, all kids. Uh finally, our senior student events uh begin at the end of this month. We're already there with senior awards night and Wednesday, April 30th at CHS.
005And uh with uh the weather breaking today for at least the next 20 maybe less 12 hours, we're going to have spring. Apparently, we're going to revert back to a mix of winter spring tomorrow and then hopefully we're going to be on our way into the next couple weeks and the warmer weather. So, I know I speak for all of our kids and our teachers and our staff as a whole that we're excited with the transition coming in spring and new beginnings and fresh starts and uh we're looking for a very strong finish to this wonderful school year. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Dr. Ryan. Any questions for Dr. We'll move on. There are no presentation items tonight, so we'll move directly into our action items. Item 6.1 is approval of personnel changes. They have
006a motion. I move that board of education approves the personnel changes as listed on the attached sheets. Support made supportive. Any questions for Mr. Luca or comments? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Item 6.2 2 is approval of the Lightseed Digital Insight program. May I have a motion, please? I move that the board of education approves the purchase agreement for Lightseed Digital Insight for a three-year term on a total cost of $78,750 as presented. Is there support? Supported. Dr. Ryan, could you just give a little background on this? Absolutely. And this evening I have a special guest who has a special jacket he brought for just this evening. Mr. Kevin Emmens who is intimately attached. He's not only prepared to give you a
007quick um summary but also answer any questions that we have this even being together. Thank you President Ene members of the board. Uh something that has come up this year in order to ensure that we are meeting all of our requirements for three federal laws related to privacy of data and student data. Those are Furpa, Copa, and SIPA. We have to now analyze any types of online thirdparty tools that want to have access to students information, whether it be their name, their email address, or connect to their drive to share resources that students are creating in their classrooms. Um, as we've started to work with subject area coordinators, we realized that task is much bigger than we originally anticipated. And so, Miss Banzac and I have looked out a couple of different tools to help
008us manage this system. We were able to do a demo run of the insight tool from light speeded that basically installs a monitor on our devices to see what is sharing data in and out for related to again student use. Uh we were quite surprised to see that after a month of analyzing it, there was over 1,000 different apps that is collecting and sending data. Some of them are ones we already know about and use like Google Drive, Gmail, things of that nature. other ones were ones we did not know that were collecting data, sending data and then we have to systematically analyze each one to see is it something that is district approved curriculum and if so I want to make sure that we're doing everything in our power to ensure that that data
009is safe and uh this platform will constantly monitor that information to let us know if there's any new things that for example if a teacher goes to a conference and workshop and learns about a great tool and wants to start using it with students that we know that it's in use and that we and support them and make sure that they have everything that they need while also protecting student privacy and data. Uh this tool will also let us know if the vendors of these have signed a national uh pledge to keep student privacy secure and if they have not that saves us some time in gathering that cuz if they have not then we have to individually with every vendor get a data privacy agreement signed both our district and to them. And then
010furthermore, this platform will also make it easy for us to share our list of district approved technology vendors that have a data privacy agreement right to our district website for transparency. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Certainly. Any other questions about the platform? For Mr. Mrs. Blow. Um, it says here in the packet that this will ensure uh our investment for all district educational technology. Um, how will it do that? For example, we've already found that there's about um a dozen or so teachers that are utilizing a platform that they're paying either out of their own pocket or out of department funds to use this. It's a great tool. By going to a district model, we can probably save the district money by buying a package for the entire district and provide that software to all teachers.
011Plus, we can identify tools that we have been paying for that teachers aren't using anymore. So, we're hopeful that we can find those tools that while five, six, seven years ago were great at the time, we're still paying, but no one finds it useful and we can shut that down. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah, President need Thank you, President Ne. Um, I'm just curious. This sounds to me like one of those subscription apps that tells you all the subscriptions that you have. Um, and my curiosity lands in the fact that I wonder I'd like a presentation in the future. Let's put it this way on the technology safeguards that we have in the district to ensure that we don't have a tremend or or maybe so that we do have a tremendous amount of
012overlap. Uh I I don't honestly know which way I want to say that whether we should have no overlap or whether we should have reasonable overlap of certain proprietary systems to monitor emails, to monitor privacy, to monitor data, to monitor apps that we might be using in that sense. So, I'm curious too since this comes out of the general fund. Is this something that was on the um horizon or is this something new that has come to you and did we budget for it initially? This is something that is new that has come to our attention that is something we have to make sure we're protecting especially our kids that are under 13, but definitely all of our students that are under 18. Um and is something that we want to be able to pay
013for out of our department's funds which would then come for from the general fund. So, we've earmarked out of our own budget from the technology portion of the general fund the cost for this annually um because we feel like the amount of time invested to gather this information. I've spent probably 3 or 4 months starting to gather the information and I only was able to identify about 200 apps in working with curriculum teams and working with vendors whereas in 30 days it already found over a thousand. So, we feel like the amount of resources it's going to provide for the cost is well worth the investment. Thank you very much. Certainly other questions questions or comments. Uh in regards to the student safety, but in regards to the student safety, are we monitoring for any
014potential threats or anything like that constantly? We have uh several different platforms that monitor that. Um, most notably the one that you might be thinking of as Gaggle, which is constantly monitoring what students write, whether it's in an email or a a search or a document to see if there's anything that might be a threat to self or a threat to others um or of a concerning nature and topic, which then immediately gets analyzed by a trained individual and then gets escalated if necessary up to our administrators. So that's the biggest one. But we also have a few other platforms that are constantly trying to block inappropriate things from getting to students or then identify if something is questionable that we have a team that analyzes. Mr. Carter, we even have it at the level
015right now with the call center that gaggle that monitors it. They believe it's like an imminent threat. We even created a pathway directly to Oakland County Sheriff's, which sounds easy, but when you're in a different part, you're in Connecticut and you're trying to dial 911 in Oakland County, it's it was quite a bit more challenging I anticipated, but they get that. And then ones that are either borderline, I and some other administrators, we literally evaluate. I made a call last night to a family that I saw something I didn't that I was concerned about. So, it's it's literally like a team effort in 24 hours a day. But there's quite a few people bringing Mr. Evans in a capacity to kind of overlook and oversee a lot of these elements um I think is is
016absolutely critical to our mission and uh I appreciate what you've been able to bring to the table. Thank you. Any further comments? Thank you very much. Certainly appreciate it. Seeing nothing further, all those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Item 6.3 is the approval of Chromebooks and Chromebook curtain purchases for our shared service partner. May I have a motion, please? I move that the board of education approves the purchase of 120 Chromebooks, Google licenses, and four Chromebook carts in the amount of $33,642 as part of our shared services agreement as presented. Support. Motion's made and supported. Any comments or questions? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Item 6.4 is the approval
017of furniture and glass board purchases for another shared service partner school. May I have a motion, please? I move that the board of education approves the purchase of furniture and glass boards in the amount of 59,000 $437.90 as part of our shared service agreement as presented. Motions may be supported. Any questions or comments on this? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Item 6.4. McCoy is the second reading of various policies. May I have a motion, please? I move that the board of education approves the changes to policy 31208 employment of personnel for co-curricular extracurricular activities. Support motion being supported. Mr. McInness, do you want to make your comments on this? Yeah. Um the this policy and the next policy both um have to
018do with the forthcoming requirement of individuals who serve as high school athletic coaches to be certified in CPR and the use of AEDs uh beginning with the 2025 2526 school year. Um this has been brought forth for first reading and I've received no feedback. I will say that while I don't know the date, Clarkson has long held had AED units at our Clarkson high school. Um I specifically remember back when my kids were in school the use of it one day. Um so um I actually think we were frankly leading the trend on this many many years ago. I believe we got them from the Rochester Foundation based on a family who had had an unfortunate situation and the family provided AEDs to school districts. So interesting. Thank you. Any comments or questions on this
019policy? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving policy 31208, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Policy 5340, student acts. May I have a motion? I move the board of education approves the policy changes to 5340 as presented. support being supported. Mr. Can you give a quick summary of this please? And this one also is uh regarding student accidents. It's basically falls under the same category as ensuring that um um athletic staff have uh CPR and AED training. Any questions or comments for policy? Thank you, Mr. McInness. Seeing no further comment, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Item 6.6 is the resolution regarding the 2022 bond series 2. I have a motion, please. I move the board of education approves the
020attached resolution authorizing the issuance and delegating the sale of CCS 2022 school building and site bond series 2 as presented. Motions may be supported. This will be the final series of bonds under the 2022 bond. Mrs. Rogers is here. Is there any questions? Are there any questions or comments on the motion? This is low. Um, I was just hoping just for the public, I did ask this question earlier in the day, but just kind of for the public in layman's terms what exactly we're doing with these bonds and if you think this is a good time to uh with the market volatility, if this is the best time to do it or if it would serve as better to wait a month or two. um just kind of discuss that. Well, the sale won't be
021until July 15th. That's the plan right now to sell them on July 15th. Um right now we're just working on what the experts tell us and that's where they designed it right now. That's our UNB bond underwriter chose July 15th as our date and then um our RJ from PFM is the one that ran the schedules and that's what they decided on. Okay. And can you just run through the process of what exactly we're doing with the bonds? Like Well, it's the part of the 2022 bond. We've already done one series. Now we're doing the second series, which is the remaining of the funds. It's up to what 125 million is about what we'll get from this sale. And it's basically for the junior high to finish the designing of the junior high. And I
022can add a little bit even uh insight onto that for a conversation early just for our community public is that when you get a bond uh initiative approved by your community for specific items in this case building a junior high, uh air conditioning, all the things that we wanted to do with it. Um there's requirements within the bonds in terms of how you spend them and the number of years you have to be able to do the work relative to the useful life of whatever you're building and that um when you issue bonds you do them in in chunks to where you can actually complete the work that needs to be done and then you can break them in what they call series. So you might have the first couple years worth of work and
023that could be series one and you try to space out the total number in this case of millions of dollars to be able to cover the projects. And then as you start to near completion of those projects or you start to plan ahead because we spel sell the bonds in July, we're actually going to be looking at the revenue kind of later in the year. So it's really anticipation of projects that they're going to be looking at probably pulling into the summer and fall um that we're going to be working on getting nods from a which is always good. And then you really want to space it out to to determine we didn't know based on how the progress was going to go if we needed to do two or three series uh worth of
024bonds to space the work. In this case uh the confidence of Mr. Goodman and O and GMBB is that we're likely be able to condense all of it within two series and then looking at overall the bond market as Miss Rogers referred to we look at the experts and overall trends and what they look for is signs of imminent crisis type thing and remember crisis when it comes to bonds is not always a bad thing. Uh the old adage is when things are really uncertain people flee to bonds. Right now judging just by watching the news every day I wouldn't call it the most stable time in American history. So financially looking at you know how markets and everything are doing. Um so I would anticipate that you know up through July that we're going
025to be able to probably be very successful in selling those bonds. Um buyers are very um specific in looking at like Moody's ratings and other things from school districts to try to make on who they want to add to their portfolio. Our community should also know that these bonds are tax exempt. you know, they're kind of municipal and when a large hedge fund that might have hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bonds that they purchased, including equities maybe in the stock market, too. I'm probably providing too much information, but from there, um, they look at having some regular bonds or bond funds, and they like to have a certain margin of those to be municipal because they could be critical in a time where they're worried about paying taxes on other investments
026they have. So, on the whole, um, I feel pretty good about not only the the fact that we're going to condense this, it means we're really getting after the work and be able to do things and the markets being able to support that we're not worried about being able to pay for the projects or falling behind in the overall contingencies, which we're not. And, uh, we're in really good shape. So, hopefully in addition to what Miss Miss Rogers said, that answers your question and gives good. I think the only thing I would add is the term is three to five years that the series has to be spent. you have to have it um spent within the five years. There's a three-year term and then there's a fiveyear and that's why we do a second
027series because we couldn't get it all spent if we would have did it all so we did it in two series. So this is the thank you president need I'd like to know and I apologize for not asking this question so that more information can be held had available but I'm fine with it being brought up later. One, I want to know if we're going to have a board meeting before this July 15th date where we get to hear from R.J. his analysis of the projections that he initially gave us and the projections that he thinks he's going into the market with and what we look like we're going to be able to capture and whether we're in a more positive light than his initial projections. We always have taken a very conservative approach to
028it or whether we're break even or I I'd like some feeling as to and it's really not about what today or tomorrow's market is saying to us. I would ask this just as a normal kind of followup to say with this series two what did we spend in the first series? What's our balance? What we're going to go for? What's the projection that we initially gave to the community and where does this projection lie in regards to finishing the high school not only on time but on budget and all the other things that we might be able to get done. We can certainly get our Yeah, I don't think that'll be a problem at all. And this this recommendation is coming from him. So, he'll be able to kind of give you a full rundown
029on He loves to talk about bonds. I mean, I can ask him if he come to the next board meeting if that would help. Yeah, we'll work that out. Maybe that's too early. Maybe the June board meeting if you want it closer to the July 15th sale. Probably closer to now than that gives everybody the kind of peace of mind to know that as it goes into I mean I don't have any concern. I just want to lay the numbers out for the community because when we came for this bond in the amount that it is, you know, we had to ask people to trust us that we were we're taking a conservative eye to this that we were doing our due diligence. And I just want to close that loop in and make sure
030the community knows that our consistent projections from the professionals that we hired to do the work in support of our bonds over these years continues to show that we're doing the work of the community. And what we said we're going to do, we're getting it done. Thanks. And just so everybody remembers this, we do have a bond committee with Mr. Meyer and Mr. Dean. They meet on a regular basis and they review the progress of construction and where we are in terms of budgets, bond issues and all those items as well and they can weigh in on anything they want to say but we are monitoring that on a regular basis. That was one of our goals and we have certainly done that going forward. Thank you Dr. Ryan for for your dissertation and found
031Mrs. McInness is might it make sense to do it after the July sale so that instead of guessing at what the bonds are priced at, we could look at the sort of actual numbers at that point to say, "Hey, this is what we thought." I just want to because I think if we do it between now and then, it's it's truly an estimation. You know, once we price the bonds and sell them, it's actual. And that I think will inform the board more than another estimation. Yep. That's fine, too. Okay. And that is we have done that in the past. We've always brought in a team after it's all happened because usually at that point then we're asking you to approve a purchase agreement. So I'll you want me to do that then? So that
032would be later. How about this? I'm going to I'll put it on park the side for just temporary for conversation. I'll bring it back to our leadership group. We can take polling behind the scenes and where the board like to go and people have a chance to think about it and we'll go from there. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you Mr. E. Thanks. Any other questions on the resolution or comments? Thank you, M. Rogers. I'm sorry, Dr. No, I was just saying thank you, Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. This requires a roll call vote. Mrs. Mlean, can you please go Mr. Yes. Mrs. Mrs. Yes. Mr. Clark? Yes. Mrs. Love? Yes. Mrs. Yes. M. Yes. Thank you. That leads into the next two items which are bond related. Item 6.7 is approval of the Clarkston
033Junior High School large menu audio and visual systems. May I have a motion please? I move that the board of education approves the contract for advanced lighting and sound in the amount of $179,000 and an additional 10% construction contingency in the amount of $17,900 for a total of $196,900. Support motion state and supported. Any questions or comments on the motion? Uh this evening also we have Mr. Joe Bretton who came all the way to be able to field any any questions or concerns you might have. If you want to you can come up to the podium if you'd like. And absolutely. Thanks for being here this evening. No problem. Uh I'm Joe Brenton by the way. Uh project manager for the Clarkston bond project. So, I've been working on the junior high and then all
034of the other HAC projects. So, just a background. Um, the so the large venue AB is the main gymnasium. We have the fitness room that's in phase 2 as well as the aux gym and that involves the speakers, projectors and all the control systems for those areas. And this is the procurement and install of that. So this first phase will be the main gym and then next phase will be the ox gym and fitness room getting these similar components. So we bought it in one batch so everything will be the same when we introduce the staff to the materials. Excellent. Any questions or comments? Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Seeing none. All those in favor please signify by saying I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Good. Thank you. Next item with regard to the junior
035high item 6.8 is approval of the bulletins three and eight. May I have a motion, please? I move that the board of education approves the construction change orders for Johnson and Suns bulletin number three in the amount of $156,392. and for commercial contracting corporation bulletin number eight in the amount of 138,597 your support supported Dr. Ryan, anything else to say? Nope. If any questions again, we still have Mr. R available if any. Any questions or comments? Well, I'm just wondering are these uh change orders due to the recent water that we had back there that No. No. Yeah. So, yeah, the water part we're all set with. Um, this is mainly for Johnson Suns is the site work contractor, but this was in regards to water mane relocation. We added some sanitary lines that had
036to get approved by Eagle, which is the uh county's um I should say they go through all the drawings after we submit to the state and then Eagle goes through and so this came back. They had us change some stuff and that's where this came from. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Item 6.9 is the approval of purchase agreement for four new school buses. May I have a motion, please? I motion that the board of education approve the bid to purchase four new school buses from Midwest Transit in the amount of $585,40 as presented. Um motions made in support. Dr. Ryan a little bit. Yeah, sure. This evening I have Mr. Lceto
037in place of Mr. Goodman who's prepped with him to give kind of an overall view. Yep. Yep. This is to purchase four additional 77 passenger buses. Um we need these buses. There were there's a number of times where we're not able to transport due to for athletics or for field trips and this will give us the the amount of buses that we need so we won't have to borrow. Sometimes we borrow from Holly. They've been a good partner to us, but that's not always feasible. So, um, we're very fortunate to have enough bus drivers to even cover all these runs. Was there also an element related to kind of supporting that division between the middle school and between the buildings on it? Was that going to make it a little bit easier? Yeah, there's some
038shuttles, too. And that's really what by providing these shuttles, it's it's preventing us from being able to do any field trips or the athletics. So there's been a lot of times where we anticipated having buses um to do um a field trip or athletics and we've had to cancel at the last minute because if one thing happens to our buses, we have to prioritize the shuttles. I also applaud in recent Mr. Lito working with transportation for the internal efficiency that we can uh transport more students more economically for different opportunities during the day for the school district. So I think this is all right in line of it. Thank you m Mr. Lucia. Are we just straight up paying for these? We are, but there's We're going to do an installment payment the same as
039we've had in the past where they'll probably have a buyback. Got it. Thank you, Mr. Um, that's along the lines of my question because don't we traditionally have like a like a five-year lease for buses? It's not technically a lease. We technically we do installment payments and then there's an agreement where they buy it back from us. So, it is very similar to a lease, but but it's not technically a lease. But it's the same. We're not doing it here or we are. Are we doing the same thing with these? The same S. Go ahead, Mary Beth. At this point, we're just asking you to approve the bus purchase and then I will go out to the attorney's room and we'll go out probably this week or next week out for a bid on the
040interest rate. Then we'll choose a bank and then we'll historically we just bring it back to you at that point and then you approve the resolution for the IPA and that'll be in a few months after we get an interest rate and all that. Okay. But right now, we're just asking you that we can buy the buses so we could start the process. And we definitely need four. We can't go two for now and two next year. Just it is a lot of money. Like a half a million dollars from the general fund. And yeah, it it is. No, we we spent a lot of time evaluating this. We feel like this is this is where we need to be to be efficient. There there won't be buses um sitting there with with this with
041the four and we won't have to make any cuts in any other areas from the general fund to accommodate this. No, we're looking at the budget right now. Is this just the season that we're in right now for the totality when we we think we can definitely absorb this. There there's definitely a gap right now in the services we're providing to our families with the transportation and we feel this would fix it. Um but we are taking this into account as we're balancing you know as we head into the next year. Mr. Clark um with these new buses these are going to also be used to pick up students for school not just field trips like are we going to add more bus routes for students that aren't getting picked up? Well right now we
042don't have any students that aren't getting picked up. Um, we're we're constantly your students are not being picked up. Okay. I I'd have to dig in to dig into that. I don't know what what sub you live in. Um, we live in close to so elementary. the older kids in our sub picked up a lot. We were a lot of families are actually asking for support in our Okay, Mr. Lucia, I can jump in. I got a little background information on that. I have been contacted by a couple parents that wanted a review and they're going through the process right now. The elementary students, as far as my understanding of it, we're not being picked up. It was related to the distance between the school because we have like a minimum distance you have to
043be actually more than the minimum distance to then qualify that we can do bus runs to. We can always change that. This will not affect that. The older kids because they're going to the secondary buildings um further away outside the neighborhood are receiving the full transportation piece. But he is correct. There are um several parents that were looking for some reviews recently. So Sure. that makes sense. Yep. No, that makes perfect sense. This will not like affect that directly. this way. I heard that there was going to be we had to go to putting six sixth grade through 12th grade when we had a shortage of drivers and we've worked back from that and now we're in a good spot where that isn't happening. I think we might have one run left that that's still
044happening. Um but that would be it. But that makes perfect sense what Dr. Ryan said. there is a um a gap and if elementary is not getting picked up in secondary is that makes that makes sense with our policy. Any other comments or questions? One item that you mentioned earlier and I think you'll see we do have a full complement of bus drivers which is unusual for county school district. So that's to you and your department. Yeah. Thank you. The need for buses. That's a good thing. So any other comments or questions? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Item 6.10 is the approval of whiteboard purchases for another shared service. May I have a motion, please? I move that
045the board of education approves the purchase of 98 glass whiteboards in the amount of 35,2775 cents as part of our shared services as presented. Support motions may be supported. Any comments or questions? Seeing none, all those in favor please seek the court by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Item 6.11 is approval of a resolution regarding full and permanent funding of IDA. May I have a motion, please? I move that the board of education approves the resolution calling for full and permanent IDA funding as presented. Support. Motion's made and supported. IDA means the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Dr. Ryan, can you give us just a quick summary of this item? Absolutely. over the history of uh special education mandates that have been coming forth from both the federal and state governments,
046um school districts across the country and across the state of Michigan have been struggling to provide services that match the funding. U we've never been in a position to get full funding for the requirements and the mandates that have been on school districts. Uh, but we've managed to find a balance right now. And right now, the idea funding that we receive from the federal government is in a neighborhood of $2 million a year to support our students with special needs. And we feel like it's critical. We would like to see a full funding, which would probably be three or four million, but the two is definitely helps us make ends meet with respect to these programs and services. as relates to right now this uh concern that's um brewing in terms of future funding and
047the stability of that funding coming for the federal government. This is nothing new. I'll say that make sure that's clear. This is nothing new. We've always tried to make sure our pushes Mr. Hyer and other board members who have gone to Washington DC have always represented Clarkston and school districts to push for that federal funding to support these programs. Uh but right now I think there's a little bit influx as uh how these services and payments are made moving from one governmental area to the other. And I think our big drive here to put it in layman's straight up terms to our communities. We want to make sure that we want to continue to have those funds. We don't want them to get lost in the shuffle and we want to make sure that we're
048heard that please you know be special in terms of the consideration that is required to continue these funds heading to school districts across the country. Thank you Dr. And we did make a minor modification to the resolution as well that ID communicated to or Miss McClan communicated to us earlier today. So any questions or comments on the resolution? Mr. The two bills referenced are from last Congress. So is there updated bills that were introduced this Congress? As far as I know, there have not been. I think this is a proactive move in front where the funding conversation left off on those bills as we anticipate further um amendments or changes to the funding structure and the priority list as it's deemed by the federal government. We would just want to make sure that the powers
049that be right now here that this is important. So, so I think we should potentially just add introduce and pass in that last line, you know, with equivalent to that. You would indicate those are from the 118th Congress just to keep our numbers because those numbers could be something else this Congress. Okay, that's fair. Just a little cleanup. Thank you, Mr. Excellent catch. So with that understanding for for a modification of the resolution to reference the introduction of similar bills, any other comments or questions? Mrs. Law, I just have a comment about research has consistently showed that increased education funding positively affects academic performance. Well, I do agree with that for Clarkston. Unfortunately, I think we are in the minority uh in our state because the more money we are getting more money every year
050in our state and academic performance does continue to decline. So, I'm going to support this resolution because we're referring to Clarkston, but I just want to say that I think we're doing better than most districts in the state with that. Thank you, M. Any other comments or questions? Along those lines, it might make it even more powerful if we strike the word research and say Clarkston Community Schools history has consistently shown. I would love that, but I didn't want to be too meaty. So, it's all right. I like it. I think both those comments are great additions to the resolution. Okay. Okay. Who made the motion to deputy did you as a friendly amendment do you approve this modification resolution? I do. Do I have to say and the support support who supported it? Uh
051Elizabeth. Yes. Yes. With those amendments to the uh resolution. Any other comments question? Okay. Mrs. Mclane, can you please call the role on this? Mrs. Eden, yes. Mrs. Love, yes. Mr. Clark, yes. Mrs. Dennis, yes. Mrs. Green, yes. Mr. Hire, yes. Mr. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. That concludes our action items. We have one report item. Two of our board members attended the annual conference of the National School Board Association, and that would be Mrs. Crane and Mrs. McGinness and I believe Mrs. McGinness is going to give us a summary report of the conference. Yeah. So earlier yesterday, I don't lose my days here. I provided President Ne a um a thorough detailed um synopsis of the classes that I took and the general sessions that Mrs. Crane and myself both took. Um I have
052to say that I think this was probably the best national conference I've ever gone to. I thought the um I thought we selected some really great classes and we did not duplicate ourselves. We never in in any class did we sit together. Um so we really broaden our the opportunities of what we could hear out there. One of the things I want really want to say about going to national because it's somewhat new to us is that um and we kind of said this to a MASB member who was at conference um is that while MASB conference is really great we can learn from our own colleagues here in the state when we go to national conference we learn from 49 different states or we have the opportunity and I know that there are many
053states that currently are not part of NSBA but the diverse amount of um idea ideas that come at the national level are are far more diverse than what we hear at at state level. Um I tried to focus on um and found it was quite interesting that there were a lot of student representatives in attendance at this conference and um there um they were almost in every single class I was in. uh they spoke passionately about their role as a board member and the work that they do in supporting their district board. Bless you. Um one class that I one class I went to early on was called um from the classroom to the White House studentdriven board policy. I mean this was right up that alley. And I'm telling you this presentation knocked my
054socks off. This was a presentation from a school district in Denver, Colorado where the students didn't feel that their concerns about climate um and their their environment, sustainability of their environment in the in the mountains as they are uh were being heard. So they spoke loud and clear and there I provided in this document which I think that can be provided during the week review links to their website that is just tremendous amount of work. there. Um they ended up hiring a sustainability director who is one of the top 50 women leaders in Denver. The students themselves went to the White House and met uh or I'm sorry, Vice President Harris came to the school district and met these students based on the work that they did. And also the sustainability director then ended up
055got uh asked to come to the White House because of the work that they did. Um so that to me was just mind-blowing. Um We attended general session with Melissa Stockwell, who was the first um um person serving in the army that was um a soldier to lose her limb and how she became a worldrenowned athlete and how she persevered through those um limitations that she that some may have thought she had. Um, Pendergrass 8th grade superintendent student council was another achieving greatness together through student student leadership. Again, another class on student leadership in Arizona. Um, they're statewide school of choice. You can get a get transportation to the school you want to go to, you can go. No restrictions. And um so there is a very large push in school districts to make themselves
056unique so that they can not only retain their students but they can have more students come to their district. Well, Pendergrass, which is in the um Phoenix area, has a prek to eighth grade um conglomerate of schools, which about 8,300 students, K through prek through 8. and they nominate uh five students from each of their 12 buildings to be interviewed, be just a a rigorous uh review schedule to then only two of them get selected to be on the superintendent student council. And these students travel all over the United States and the I'm waiting for them to send me. So they videotaped the entire presentation. at a panel of four students, four eighth grade students, the superintendent who and um they they put it on like a um game show kind of. So they um
057interviewed the superintendent, but then the students would say, "Well, the superintendent Cruz, may I talk about?" And they would interject and they would say, "Oh, you missed this." And it was just so well done. These students were so well rehearsed. This group ended up being in another class later on in the week where they um are using vacant rooms in their school district for um small um startup companies through the coll collaboration with the chamber of commerce. And so they're interjecting the students work and the students ability to provide support to these small ch startups in collaboration. uh and it was just really they're they're breaking even. They're not making money out of it, but what they have is a collaboration between students in entrepreneurialship and small business entrepreneurs and the chamber of commerce. It
058was really pretty cool. So, each of these um classes that I went to, I provided you the presentation documents that were part of the um and some YouTube videos of them. Um and let's see what else I want to say here. Again, another one um ready life a life ready students building durable skills for an AIdriven future was another very very uh well um put together class regarding soft skills and employable skills and how they're working with students to achieve these um through project set and um as soon as I get the video from Pendergrass and share it with you, I'm sure you're all going to just be blown away by what these students it. Um, I'll leave something for Stephanie. Oh, I got to say the final thing. The Bacon Brothers. Okay. The Bacon
059Brothers. Like, there were a lot of people there. Of course, not our my age who didn't know who the Bacon Brothers were, didn't know what Foot Loose was, didn't know Kevin Bacon. So, here's Kevin Bacon and his brother, older brother, Michael. So, Michael is nine years older than Kevin. And in between the two of them is four sisters. And Kevin Bacon told a really nice um tribute to his mother who was his preschool teacher who would take him to school with her each morning and how there was no wrote curriculum. There were just things and there was no right or wrong to anything that they did. They just created things. and um he attributes what she instilled in him in taking you know cardboard boxes with a wooden stick and there's your drums and whatever
060the case may be. It was just a very warm and inspiring story he told about his his family and and and Michael himself who is now a professor of music who I know enough about music and arpeggio and all this other stuff to go whoa he's way over me but it was really really cool. Well, here I am in the airport and I'm don't have pre-TSA pre-check and I'm standing in line and I look up and who's standing right next to me but Michael Bacon and I'm like I I really wanted to do a sale selfie. I really did but I thought you know I can't out him in the middle of this airport. So I said, "Hi, Mr. Bacon." He turns around and he looks at me and I I had a schoolboard shirt
061on. A shirt that said had an abbreviation that was a schoolboard shirt. I said, "I'm a schoolboard trustee." And he says, "Ah." So the next thing I know, we start talking and uh he says, "Where are you from?" I said, "Music." He said, "Ah, his father got a scholarship to Cranbrook." So I had to do a little bit of Wikipedia after I got home to find out what was going on. But his father was a famous architect and he got a scholarship to go to Cranbrook. So uh it was really very inspiring their story of how they lived in this very small house and their parents were you know how that how committed they were to their education and how the foundation of their education inspired who they are today. Um so that was the
062my acclaim to fame there to be in line next to Michael Bacon and TSA. So thank you. Thank you Mr. Anything to Ed? uh very little. Um you did a great job. Thanks. Um I will just say that uh to add on to what Mrs. McInness said, uh we both agreed that uh there's great value in going to national and I would like to just remind our public um and our board that Michigan is one of two states that are in both CASPA and NSBA. Is that correct? So, I think next year when we're looking at the conferences, it would behoove us to look at both nationals at CASPA and MSBA and decide which one is a better fit. Um, but Mrs. McInness and I, like she said, split up throughout the clinic sessions and
063had a really hard time choosing. Uh, but we decided to kind of focus in on what we as a board have been talking about lately. She focused on a lot of student representation. I focused a lot on community engagement and school safety. So we were able to do that together at the sessions. So we've both found it a great value. So thank you. Thank you. And Mrs. Beas gave me a great detailed summary and we can put a we can review and anybody else that wants it can just email me before that. So thank you very much. You're welcome. Passion shown right through. Yeah. Thanks. It's good. Any questions or comments for our board members? We have enough discussion items tonight. Item nine. This is the second opportunity for citizens to address the board. So,
064is there anybody in the audience that's still here that would like to address the board at any time? Information items. Our next board of education meetings meeting, excuse me, is a week from tonight at 6 p.m. will be a closed session regarding the superintendent evaluation and possibly some other items. Monday, April 28th, we have a workshop meeting regarding secondary math at 6 p.m. Item 10.2, we have a secondary art show reception. Thursday, April 24th at 5:00 p.m. here in the administration building. Item 10.3, the Clarksman Early Youth Assistant Youth Recognition Awards are also Thursday, April 24th, 2025 at 7 p.m. in the Clarksman High School Performing Arts Center. Item 10.4, the floor. We have an elementary art show reception Thursday, April 1st, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. for the administration building. That concludes our information item.
065Any other items for the board? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to return. I move to support. Motions made and supported to return. All those in favor, please take the vote by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you everybody. Thank you.