001is i just i oh so [Applause] yes um god oh [Laughter] no [Applause] foreign [Applause] is somehow thank you company [Applause] hello oh low yeah okay [Music] [Applause] screen [Music] oh god right foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] make sure [Applause] [Music] make sure your computers and phones are silent i forgot did you hear make sure your computers and your phones are silent um yeah i might sound silent no my computer really makes any noise [Music] yeah so i'll put this on if i have to sneeze [Music] but i don't think i will it's just been like a little bit of pollen but now that it's getting colder at night i think it's better wine yeah when it started to get cold i started sleeping with my window nice it is [Music] brought
002the room down that was nice so just waiting for simon right good evening we'll call the beanie to order thank you everyone that was nice and orderly in a minute early i appreciate that before we proceed with our agenda let me just address a couple of housekeeping items since we're in a new venue tonight i would like to clarify the mask policy at tonight's meeting because i did receive several questions about it over the weekend the oakland county health department's emergency health order does not apply to public meetings choosing to wear a mask tonight is an individual decision i move the board meeting to this larger venue to allow for additional spacing to ensure everyone's comfort meeting agendas and sign up sheets for public comment are located on tables at the entrances to this room
003this is also where a copy of the bylaw related to public comment is posted if you wish to address the board on an agenda item please be sure to sign up before we get to item three because the sign up sheets will be collected at that time you will still be able to sign up throughout the meeting to address the board on any topic at item nine additional sign up sheets will be available at those same tables throughout the meeting speakers will be limited to those who follow the correct procedure so please fill out the sign up sheet as directed and with that we'll begin the meeting with the pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god
004indivisible with the liberty and justice for all [Music] mrs mclean may i have a roll call please here this is crane here mrs mcginnis here is catalina mr meyer here here vice president needs sends his apologies he had an unavoidable work conflict tonight and is unable to be here this meeting is a meeting of the board of education in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business it is not to be considered a public community hearing there is time for public participation during the meeting as indicated in agenda items three and nine and number two is approval of the consent agenda may i have a motion please i move that the board of education approves the consent agenda as presented support all in favor say aye aye any opposed the motion carries item
005three citizens request to address the board you are given two opportunities to address the board under item 3.1 you can request to address the board about any topic that is on tonight's agenda under item 9 you are welcome to address the board on any topic when making comments please state your name and address and direct your comments to mrs kellyhorst president each person may speak for up to two minutes per established procedures the board will not respond to questions or interact with the speaker during public comment and i believe i have two assistants who are going to go retrieve sign-in sheets for me i can't see into the booth so i don't remember who was going to do that for me so while that is happening uh let me just say that i want to
006reiterate that calling out individuals in this forum is inappropriate and personal attacks will not be tolerated anyone who engages in criticism of and or a personal attack on an individual whether by name or any other identification will be stopped and prevented from doing so please keep your remarks and your attention directed up here to the board we have two microphones in the audience tonight for public comment one is located here at the front of the house they call this house right i'm told and one is at the front of the mezzanine i don't know if you can see it right here at the top of the stairs they call that house left so whatever microphone you prefer to use as closest to you is fine when i call your name oh sorry so we need
007to pause for a moment while mrs mclean goes and retrieves those sheets i just need to see if anyone has signed up to speak during the agenda so i know to stop and pause when we get to that agenda item [Applause] and please remember that if you wish to wait until item nine you can step out certainly and sign up on those sheets at any time during the meeting up to the point we get to item nine so there are still additional sheets out on those tables thank you mrs mclean okay okay so i only have one citizen who is actually asked to speak on an agenda item mrs hempton when we get to the strategic plan i will call you up whichever microphone you prefer and so far everyone else that's on this list
008falls under item nine [Applause] [Music] so now we'll move on to item four superintendent update dr ryan thank you president horse good evening welcome everyone to the high school this fine night as your superintendent of schools i'm proud and honored to report as we're starting into our second week of school that after touring our hallways our classrooms and across the great buildings of this district now thinking that we're in our third year of dealing with a global pandemic and the effects that have still as we see affecting our operations and the way that we want to conduct school i'm excited and proud to report though that compared over the last three years right now we're functioning at the highest level that we have since almost the beginning of the pandemic as i got through elementary
009and kindergarten first second and third grade classrooms routines are intact students are learning students are engaging students are smiling and really putting away in school that they haven't had an opportunity over the last two years and that carries all the way up through our high school this is one of the best starts given everybody in this room should be able to grasp their personal struggles that they've had but in school to the credit of our staff to the credit of our students and to the credit of our families we're off and running to a wonderful start of school and although over the last week and a half we've had recorded upwards of uh 25 positive cases of covid in our schools operationally we're still very strong and that we are working with the health department
010to do contact tracing this year it's different our community should know and continue to hear from our school and from me then previous uh year that we had nurses from the oakland county health division that were actually embedded in our school district this year they're doing it separated where we report to the health department positive cases and then health department personnel inform families and it's a direct contact with them and under advisement of their family doctor it's a little bit of a different protocol this year but so far it's working fairly well in terms of our total number of students that are being quarantined with respect to also coming up covet positive we're going to continue to press through and i'm excited to see what this school year is going to be able to produce
011because i see the resilience in our students and our staff and i see the resilience in our families and i know this is going to be a year that no one can predict exactly from start to finish how it's going to unfold but i feel a strong sense of high morale and readiness along with our students with our staff to take any challenge in front of them and to that i'm really appreciative on the spirit decor with our clarkson community schools the transcends from our board of education all the way to every last parapro custodian and everyone attached to our uh organization has been extremely strong and extremely focused on kids so i want to report that as a whole that we're off and i will hopefully be able to continue to provide reports throughout
012this year of the status and this evening we're also going to give a little more expansive explanation and a presentation on the state of technology obviously over the last two years it's gone leaps and bounds in terms of our ability to use technology many different formats that we haven't before and also with an update this evening on our strategic plan which we're even every other challenge aside we're still advancing on and we want to make sure that our community understands the elements that we're working on that we're focusing on and elements that we're expecting to accomplish and gain ground through this year so lastly kind of on a positive note athletics is in full swing in clarkston if you've been able to get out drive by one of our fields or venues you know that
013this friday hopefully make sure i have the exact time we're having the third annual community community ed family tailgate at this facility 5 pm prior to the uh varsity football game so again i appreciate everybody in their attendance this evening and look forward strong meeting tonight thank you president thank you so much dr ryan we'll move on to our presentation items we have two tonight uh item 5.1 is a technology update and we will bring up angela harrison and laurie banazzak and they're going to be over here and our audience members should be able to see the presentation on the screen above us [Music] good evening um lori couldn't make it tonight can you hear me oh well mrs seaman can we make sure that this microphone over here is on hello here we go
014thank you very much okay lori couldn't make it tonight um so i'm going to do this solo we really wanted to come to you tonight to talk about technology since the passing of the bond in 2016 we have implemented a lot of technology and so we just want to come and give you an update on that so for as long as i can remember we have talked about uh transparent technology that we want our technology to be transparent to the classroom to be a teaching tool so that teachers just move about their their day and they use technology and they put it away and and everything just kind of works together and they don't really have to think about it you know they don't have to think about if it's working or not working that
015everything just kind of gels together and thanks to the bond and the technology that we've implemented we are able to to make technology transparent to um to our teachers in order to make technology transparent there's a lot of work that now has to go in on the back end we have installed a lot of systems to make technology transparent so that teachers don't have to worry about it in the classroom but what that means for us is that we have to work on these systems on the back end we have to update students we do rostering we do different things so that when a teacher is teaching typing club or we video or different things that they're teaching the students names are already there and and they just move on and so we do that
016on the back end we have over 50 systems now that range from mission critical to just basic applications that the technology department supports in the mission of operations of the district and teaching and learning so this next little slide here really kind of shows you that a lot of the things that we do the infrastructure from our switches to our wireless to our back-end systems the back-end applications that run our district teaching and learning all of these are kind of behind the scenes to what happens in the classroom so these systems take a lot of support we have a technology department that is myself a network technician a computer technician and a help desk technician that really kind of support the infrastructure the technical aspects of these systems and um different things like that and
017then we have instructional technology that supports teachers in the classroom and how do we use all of this technology that we purchased i don't know you know sometimes you hear about these districts that have purchased a lot of technology and you know after four or five years somebody comes along and they find it all in boxes because nobody really knew how to implement it nobody knew how to use it and clarkson has implemented instructional technologists along with laurie banzat who is the administrator of structural technology to help teachers in the classroom with their technology they help them brainstorm how to implement their technology they help them um sorry i need to move this here they help them brainstorm how to implement their technology and um they do the edtech um and so as we have
018moved along for teachers to stop asking you know what's wrong with my technology how do i fix this how do i fix that they started asking hey how do i do this how do i how do i do different things with technology and our group of instructional technologists are always there to help them so this model that we're using is forward thinking and necessary if we truly want to integrate technology into curriculum so some examples of the things that our i.t support our synergy student information system our our i.t support our teachers and helping them use their grade book create their learning feedback documents all of the different things that go on in synergy so there was an update to synergy uh just this year that made the gradebook look different and you know so
019how do our teachers start to use this gradebook and and use it in a different way and while the while everything looks different and our instructional technologists are there to help and assist our teachers so it wasn't that long ago that we used to have teachers technology savvy teachers on their planning time they would help they would help teachers with synergy and gradebook and things like that but they could only help them on their planning time they could only help them when they had time to do it but with the instructional technologists they are able to help our teachers use the technology that we have purchased another example is when we purchased uh goguardian for filtering and for our students when we went to the one-to-one so goguardian has a feature in it called goguardian
020teacher and goguardian teacher when our students were away and at home gave our teachers the ability to see the screens of all of the students that they were teaching even though they were all in different locations and areas and so the goguardian teacher you know we had kind of talked about it uh behind the scenes and we were like okay you know we're going virtual everything is kind of crazy we're not really sure what's happening this is just something that we don't want to put on the teachers plates we don't want to add something extra to them in in addition to getting these virtual classrooms up and running but the instructional technologists started getting some questions about it and so they would come to me and they would say hey you know can we give
021this teacher goguardian teacher and can we kind of start to do this and we'll test it out and we'll create some instructions and we'll do some things and i said sure you know so we started kind of rolling it out by word of mouth and our teachers now are saying they use it say it's a game changer for them and so without the instructional technologists we would not have been able to get off the ground with that as fast as as we were able to do that when the district shut down due to covid the it's brainstormed solutions for virtual classrooms accessing windows content from chromebooks supporting google meets and zoom and getting them up and running in google classroom and see saw they help support m-step and other testing initiatives so the i.t is
022pushing to the classrooms to help students learn how do they take a test on a chromebook so there's the students have to not only know the content of a test but when you think of your littles and they have a chromebook in front of them and now they need to read a question over here while they're scrolling something over here they need to be taught how to use those tools that are within the program of m-step the calculators and the different things like that and also how to maneuver around through those screens to be able to use it and our it's are great at going in and helping those students with that we also have a fabulous group of media techs our media techs we have one per building and they're technically halftime technology because
023they also run the media centers in our buildings but they're the first level of support for our families and they're the first level of support for our teaching staff our media techs are hard workers and when we went to one to one our media techs our it's our media specialists they all stepped up to get these devices in and unboxed and out to students and in their hands and and check them in and so i wanted to give you kind of a visual of the 8 000 devices that we collected over the summer so if you remember in the spring everything kind of shut down and we were just in a hurry to get devices out in kids hands and so we had asked the community if you had a device you know please use
024it if you if you didn't come get one and so we had 2500 devices that went out to families and then we made the decision to go one to one because it looked like this was not going to end and students needed to be able to learn and and we needed to be able to pivot quickly um for teaching and learning so we now have just over 8 000 devices between ipads and chromebooks that are student devices for one to one our media techs and media specialists and it's collected all of those devices over the summer to wipe them check them over make sure that you know that they were good make sure that they didn't need fixing fix anything that needed to be fixed to prepare those devices for the school year so 8
025000 devices is 48 pallets that holds 166 devices if you laid these devices into end they would stretch out for over a mile and a half if you stack these devices into a tower they would be taller than the sears tower to the tip so the sears tower comes in at 1729 feet and we have about two thousand feet of chromebooks in addition to preparing the one-to-one devices for the start of the school year each summer our team of media techs and media specialists and instructional follow the cleaning crews in the buildings to plug in technology and make sure every classroom is set up and ready to go before the teachers come in we also were able to hire a technology administrative assistant this year because supporting all of the 8 000 devices that we'd
026use for one-to-one um takes a lot of work and we repaired over 900 devices over the school year with you know just various problems that is pretty typical if you look at any one-to-one implementation in most of the districts around the country 10 percent breakage and devices is pretty pretty normal so [Music] so we were able to hire this technology administrative assistant she worked with the the company that handled our repairs she sent devices back we handed out loaners we switched out devices we had about 225 devices that could not be repaired that we had to replace and we had to replace about 500 chargers over the course of the year so if you if you recall when everything started happening really fast in the spring and like i said we wanted to get those
027devices in student hands we didn't ask the parents to sign anything we didn't ask them to sign up for anything or to you know sign up for any kind of insurance or anything like that this year we decided you know it really made sense for us to create these student handbooks just so that everybody kind of knows what's expected we implemented kind of a self insured insurance where for twenty dollars a device you sign up and you get you know your first repair replacement is is covered and then it kind of goes on from there we looked at a lot of different insurance programs we felt that a lot of them were really expensive we felt that a lot of them were really just more than we wanted to ask our parents to to have
028to implement um and so this is what we're doing this year and we're going to try it out we're going to see if it works and hopefully we're going to continue that so the next thing that i want to talk about is cyber security so last year wall lake schools was hit with a ransomware attack and um it was ugly and so i received a copy of an email that they had sent out and they had said you know they were sent out they were hit by this ransomware attack and all of their servers were shut down and they actually had to push back the start of their school because they couldn't access their technology their building controls just it hit everything from their student information system to to everything and they had mentioned that
029they had they had some cyber security insurance and that they had some people that were you know come out lawyers different things that were covered by this insurance and i kind of panicked and i was thinking wow uh i better make sure we have this insurance right so so i checked and and we did have it through set seg but set seg came in and said hey you know what we're paying out a lot of money on these cyber security issues with school districts and it's costing us a lot of money to bring in all of these professionals for these ransomwares and so we want you to implement some security measures in order to keep your rider and in order to keep your deductibles low so they had sent out a nine question uh questionnaire
030to talk about you know the different security features um when all of this kind of hit we implemented an air gap backup system so this air gap backup system takes a copy of our backups and then disconnects itself from the server so that if a ransomware attack comes in they can't hit those backups and we would hopefully be able to recover from that faster so they want us to implement things like two-factor authentication they want us to implement phishing testing where our staff would receive an email that would say hey this is angela harrison the administrator of technology check out this really cool link that i want to send you and you know if they clicked on the link then it would take them to another screen that would say okay this was a fishing
031test and here's why this said angela harrison hotmail.com and here here are the different things that you know show that this was a fishing example so we have to kind of look into this and and this is another system or systems that we're going to put on the back end that's going to be you know in the bottom of that iceberg that we're going to need to implement and manage in support of security and so and it is important you know the the district it is a business you know we're a multi-million dollar business we have a lot of staff and we have a lot of students and we have a lot of data that needs to be protected and um so the uh two-factor authentication we're going to kind of start rolling that out
032we're going to roll that out with administrators first and then we'll start rolling it out to our teachers we have to do all this we have about a year to implement it seg wanted districts to start implementing these things before the next time that we had to re-up our insurance and so every district in just about every district in oakland county is looking to implement these security measures and that's that's what i have today thank you so much trustees are there any questions or comments for mrs harrison ms zeegan i just have a question about the self-insurance that we're using have we been effectively covering our costs done with that twenty dollars per device from each family that purchases we just started that this year [Music] so as we implemented the one-to-one last year we
033had some bond devices that we purchased through the bond and and we purchased a warranty with all of our devices and we can only buy a three-year warranty so so we had bond devices and then we had the new devices that we purchased to help fill in for one to one so we also had some older devices that were kind of coming off warranty and so last year we filled in really a lot with those so those 900 devices that needed to be repaired we used some of those older devices as loner devices and then as the new ones came back you know we gave them back to the students and the 225 devices that could not be replaced the district covered those we paid for those so now moving forward um we're going to
034start seeing how that goes so um like i said you you figure about a 10 percent you know break fix rate um what what will eventually happen is as we're purchasing these um chromebooks we purchase them within with the warranty the warranty is an additional fifty dollars per device so we're going to continue to purchase our devices with warranty because that helps with our warranty provider to be able to get these devices quickly turned around once these devices start coming off of warranty and they are nearing the end of life we will have to start looking at a company to help us repair these devices i have looked into several districts you know i know graham blank they do all of their own repair in-house and but they have certified their staff to do that
035and they've hired you know some staff to take care of that and they have a person that does nothing but order parts and repair chromebooks did that answer your question well i'm just curious are we really covering our costs right now that's so right now we haven't had to send any back okay um so we're still in the process of actually handing devices out to students um we started that i think last this this week i think we started that um i think that we that we will i think that that the twenty dollars um will probably generate uh about a hundred thousand dollars maybe maybe a little bit more and we'll be able to um cover our repairs and cover our replacements and cover the um the um charging cords uh that's a big
036one they just they get damaged you know when they're in their kids they get damaged they get lost um you know and the and they're about thirty to forty dollars a piece you know so so that's a big big ticket item and it doesn't seem like it should be but mrs egan i think as as we go through this process um there's so many unknowns right you know my theory would be that the longer kids have devices and the more they learn about how to care for them the less repairs we're going to have and and so you know it was new obviously kids aren't used to lugging them back and forth or how to take care of them and and so there's a lot going on we don't know how many families are going
037to buy the insurance i mean it's brand new this year we don't know how many devices are gonna need to be replaced but i know mrs harrison has gone through in detail a comparison of all the other districts and all the options and and we we the dr ryan and mrs harrison has made the best decision you know for how we can proceed and i think as a board and as we're allocating resources it's definitely something that we want to pay attention to because i know we have a desire to maintain the one-to-one going forward and all the options that afford us and it is going to be a partnership with our families of of how we make that work and and i think that's going to continue to evolve you know this is this
038is a model where certainly when we buy the warranty we have to send the device off to get fixed you know we have other options to repair devices as well that have different costs to them probably different reliabilities to them so i think over the next probably two or three years this is going to be an ever evolving area which i think is why we needed the administrative assistant in this position because somebody needs to manage this and manage the data and get to know what the run rates are on these items and i i think we're in great shape now i'm i'm excited for the school year all the kids are getting their devices i think they got them last week and they're starting to use them in class and i think it's going
039to be great for the educational program that we have and i'm thankful that we can support such a large infrastructure with such limited resources and that's something that we're going to have to continue to work together on i mean i'm so thankful that our our collection of different positions and staff members have really worked together to keep a hugely complex system up and running and not just up and running but really taking it to the next level of demonstrating and integrating and and really putting technology into the curriculum you know whereas you know when we're i don't know if we still have the class because it's been a while since i've had it but you know the curriculum needs to drive the technology is sort of technology 101 for school board members and and i
040think we're definitely at a place where the curriculum is driving the program and how does the the technology improve that you know how do we make it better how do we leverage it and i think we've done a great job having been through several bond issues um i would say you know we're getting better every time and we've done much better in this one with technology than we have in previous because we've had these positions and we've had the outside expertise so i think we're we're really solid in terms of our footprint going forward and it's exciting to see teachers because i mean we know how hard teachers work right i mean they have a maybe they have a planning hour maybe they don't depending on where they're at and what the demands are how
041are they supposed to figure out how to use this device that changes every few years and somehow make it do good things for their kids right that's just unrealistic of them when we're also asking them to enter comments on learning feedback documents and spend more time with families and you know be great at what they do and constantly learn new techniques and so i think having somebody to come in and say hey why don't you try this this might work in this case you know i think whether it's technology or some of the the math and literacy things i think that's a really good model for us so that's a long-winded way of saying i don't think it's going to cover the cost right now but we'll see how it goes based on where we're
042headed with this but i think we're really positioned well i think mrs harrison for putting all the extra work in because um i asked about 9 000 questions on this topic and she had great answers for every single one of them any other questions for mrs harrison so and trustees remember one of our priorities for the year was to um you know help steward the update of our facilities and technology master plan and so i think you know we think of this maybe as step one is just understanding sort of the explosion of technology and how it's used in our district both to support learning and just run our operation as you said our multi-million dollar very complex business that we help oversee so that was kind of the purpose of getting right i think
043the big thing was um it's this is the first year that we're doing this so we base that twenty dollars based on what we thought our repair costs were last year yes yes we we based it on a number of factors we based it on what we believe that our cost was what we felt was affordable to families especially you know when if you look at families they have four or five kids um you know just trying to balance all of that for everyone right okay thank you you're welcome all right thank you very much move on to our second presentation of the night 5.2 is our strategic plan update and we have mrs mahoney and mrs puzio good evening president horse dr ryan and our board of education i'm very excited um to speak
044to the strategic plan um and share with you what we're focusing on this year i just wanted to reflect back on the year of 2018-19 is when a large group of us met several times throughout this school year as a incredible think tank in looking at our our district and putting this plan together we developed it we brought it to the teaching and learning council this was board approved in the spring of 2019 and we launched in the fall of 2019 and what's beautiful in these pictures is that we see our early childhood representation we see esl we see subject area coordinators principals central office administration and i think since this day of launching this we've been very proud of the strategic plan there are two things that truly drive our strategic plan and i
045wanted to put that in front of you once again tonight and that is our mission in our vision statements and so just to bring to light our mission statement once again is that clarkson community schools creates a learning environment where students staff and our families are challenged healthy engaged safe and supported and our vision statement clearly states that students are well prepared for a future that excites them and believe that they can achieve their dreams this is what clarkson community schools wants for each and every one of our students so tonight i want to talk about our 10 goals that are created surrounding four pillars these 10 goals have not changed and our four pillars focus on whole person development and for whatever reason when we put this plan together they were always in purple
046all right so i'm going to kind of stick with that color tonight when we talk about whole person development there were three goals there we look at foundational and academic skills we also have our three goals that we've stuck to and anything related to foundation and academic skills we decided was going to be green our orange student focused learning and we had two goals there and our last pillar future pathways we stuck with blue and we have two goals there and so these goals aren't always achieved in one year it takes time and our strategic plan was developed through the year 2025. knowing that we had one full year of covet i'm wondering if we should extend that one year but we can talk about that but what we developed were strategies within these goals
047and strategies are action steps that we can do as a system to help achieve these goals when we looked at all the strategies that we've put in place we found that three focus areas emerged it really centered around our well-being our community and academics and so tonight i want to focus on those three areas and you'll see that tonight well-being community and academic if we look at the first goal within whole person we see we will improve the overall well-being of staff students and families and let's take our second goal in student-focused learning we will develop meaningful relationships among students staff and families and so we decided that that's related to well-being and so sometimes these pillars cross over one another again i just want to emphasize it takes time to achieve these goals and
048so sometimes you're going to see that these strategies are extended over one year because it does take that time so we are now in year three launching this into the fall of 2019 and this is year three of our strategic plan and i want to begin focusing just on the elementary division so you'll see two strategies there you'll see green and orange again green focusing on foundation and academic skills and our orange focusing on student-focused learning you're also going to see tonight within these circles sometimes there's a double band around a circle and we wanted to communicate that that meant this is new this year so the green strategy the implement programs of developing social emotional learning that is a new strategy this year where the other provide opportunities to create connections between staff and
049students which will support and enhance learning throughout a child's educational experience that is a continued strategy so what is the impact around these two strategies what systemic and cultural shifts might these strategies can contribute to the first growth in our understanding of the power of relationships connections across all settings we know that relationships remain the number one factor in helping our students achieve when i say all settings this includes bus drivers cafeteria our aides our teaching staff etc a second bullet there increased consistency in our knowledge and understanding of trauma restorative approaches mindfulness aspects of social emotional learning and addressing bullying for all staff this does require high effective professional learning as we embrace this we want to increase consistency in our application of implementation of our strategies and programs putting our learning into action
050and then to ensure that our schools are safe equitable in an inclusive learning environment for all we talk about activities these are the action steps within these strategies that we can put in place our first is we want to continue our trauma-informed champions with dr jim henry we started this work with dr jim henry he is from western michigan university he is the co-founder of the children's trauma assessment center and he led us in exploring some social emotional learning as well this is how students can manage their emotions because sometimes it does interfere with their learning and concentration we've looked at leader in me second steps and even zones of regulation implement social emotional coach and interventions we're very proud to say that we have a social emotional coach at the elementary division servicing all
051seven elementaries and we also have interventionists serving at our title buildings we also look at implementation of restorative approach for conflicts and consequences we're also looking at mindfulness application this is tools that help children to be able to be present in the classroom whether they're breathing activities even just sitting up straight even really paying attention to our senses and finally the outcomes this is the evidence the anecdotal observations these are the measurables how do we know that we are being successful and so what we hope to see in outcomes for these two strategies is an increase in staff knowledge around trauma-informed practices this can be observed or increased in number of classrooms that have a safe space for students this also can be observed a decrease in number of classroom behaviors that are making it
052to the office this can be documented in an increase in number of students that feel connected to adults and this can be known through a student survey i like to now go to community and as you'll see these are three purple circles so this is whole person development and this is a continuation from the year previous so we want to continue and expand successful community partnerships to support well-being we want to address the needs of each person's healthiest self their emotional physical environmental and social wellness and disease prevention and we want to communicate current resources and programs clearly to our stakeholders the impact all people feel safe healthy engaged safe supported in our community we want to continue to increase our capacity to understand the specific needs of our community its diverse groups and members
053of our most vulnerable populations we want to build trust among our staff and students collective responsibility and reliability for one another being culturally responsive in our partnerships we want staff gaining a greater understanding of cultural competencies and respect cultural competencies refer to the ability to understand to appreciate and interact with people from cultures or belief systems that are different from our own we want to ensure that members of our school and greater community have the opportunity to take advantage of our resources we want to expand on current programs and partnerships which have been successful we've had partnerships with medical business social services support programs etc and we want to strengthen and deepen partnerships with various community organizations for example we've had partnerships with local churches we've had real talk from the high school on church
054campuses they've provided mentors they provided food for our children and students in our schools what are some activities around these three strategies we want to continue partnership with easter seals we want to examine partnerships with cmg that's the clarkson medical group with health clinics we want to expand lafontaine pack of dogs we're very excited to bring on our fourth dog very soon she will serve at the early childhood center it's making a great impact in terms of helping our kids we have the leo project which is the literacy essential of oakland this is focusing on literacy but we are focused on family engagement the implementation of equity and inclusion coordinator this is one hour release time for our coordinator to help our staff understand the needs and cultures of our student population so we can
055be responsive in helping to support and teach all of our students resources for parents on our website hap well-being program for staff hap provides newsletters promoting healthy habits webinars to our staff and focuses on well-being and our community has even provided food for staff and it's been a beautiful piece just to support our teachers and our staff as we move forward so what are the outcomes that we hope to see we hope to see an increase in utilizing website for our resources this can be found through user data we hope to increase the number of visitors and community members that are signed up for our school clinics this can be documented increased participation in family engagement in school related activities we can document this increased community partnerships again we can document this in our free
056and reduced participation we can utilize a survey our free and reduced services does provide even support in athletics for our secondary college entries and other resources that can benefit our families and at the elementary the last area of focus i would like to speak to is academic so we want to empower instructional staff to use effective practices ensuring student growth that's a continuation we have a new blue future pathways continuous development for curriculum integration based on student interests and workplace trends and then a new also in orange student-focused learning identify what constitutes mastery learning looking at impact increasing technology integration with learning as a meaningful instructional tool and i think angela spoke very well to this utilization of coaches and interventionists for academic growth and success we have math coaches literacy coaches math interventionists and
057literacy interventionists all certified teachers in all seven of our elementary schools we have started the professional learning with these teachers to grow our skills in tier one and tier two instructional levels tier one is referring to meeting students needs within our classrooms this is where our coaches coach our teachers in tier two for the level of students who need additional supports this can happen within the classroom sometimes right from our teachers and also our interventionists and sometimes it's a pull-out support structure as well we want to continue to work together to meet the needs of all our students rather than separate entities within our district and more opportunities of career awareness and interests at the elementary level so our activities surround us with creating and implementing an mtss process this is a multi-tiered system of
058supports this is how we look at data to see how our children are performing and we make decisions to either change it up or do we keep on going and it shows how students are performing we want a development of teacher strategies and units of study this is integrated learning we've taken a long look and we continue to work on integrated learning so how does science relate to a writing unit and so if we can power up and and blend those two subjects together it's very beneficial i think for kids as well as our teachers implement academic support that's skill gap instruction and opportunities for enrichment using assessments to determine individual needs again that speaks right to mtss our staff continues learning and growing and leader in me our subject area coordinators plan professional learning
059with our data administrator on effective plc's that is focused around data and we're even going to implement a career day for our elementary students to see what they're interested in and what they feel they're good at this is what we hope to see in our outcomes is an increased staff knowledge of key standards in content areas this can be done through a survey but our pacing guides our subject area coordinators at the elementary level have done an incredible job in looking at pacing guides with key standards that are evident these are the must do's that kids have to know within each content area at every grade level to increase a number of students proficient in these key standards this is through assessment to increase in grade level pscs using guided questions that guide our conversations
060to examine data again documentation an increase in cohesiveness of supports provided based on a process documentation as well as observation and an increase in students recognizing their interests and their passions through observation and now i'd like to transition to our secondary division i'd like to focus on the well-being to implement programs for developing social emotional learning this is a new strategy within foundation on academic skills at the secondary level and our purple is a continuation continue and implement programs and policies to prevent abuse bullying violence and social exclusion build social connections and promote positive mental and emotional health so again starting with impact increased collaboration among colleagues and addressing these issues increase in a common understanding of how these issues impact students and how they impact student learning a consolidation of resources on where to
061go when we receive information on students related to these issues where to go we have social workers administration is it an immediate parent contact is it a break room is it a counselor we want to make sure that that happens growth in our understanding of the power of relationships and connections across all settings increased consistency in our knowledge and understanding of trauma restorative approaches and addressing bullying for all staff and then an increased consistency in our application and implementation of our strategies and programs to ensure that our schools are safe equitable and inclusive learning environments for all and staff gaining a greater understanding of cultural competencies and respect and again that's the ability to understand appreciate and interact with people from cultures or belief systems that are different from our own and so what activities
062do we want to put in place around these strategies again we want to refer to dr jim henry and come back with our trauma informed champion work these were represented groups from every building they were social workers administration counselor teacher leaders that led the work in the professional learning around trauma informed restorative practices professional learning and implementation restorative practices is about the safety for all connection within our communities and a process for responding when incidences arise professional learning from the international institute of restorative practices just occurred this week and where we talk about with kids what happened what were the impacts not only to yourself but to others and how we can make plans moving forward we want to put in place resources for our parents that are on the website and we want to
063be thoughtful in our lesson design for pause this is a time allotted at sashabal middle school wolf time it's time allotted at the junior high as well as the high school and community forums is the time allotted at renaissance high school that we can think about mindfulness we can think about social emotional learning help our students and this is what we hope to see increase student understanding of these issues and this can be held through a student survey as well as observation increase in staff knowledge around trauma-informed practice this can be observed an increase in places in buildings that are safe they are a safe space for students this can be observed we want to decrease the number of classroom behaviors that make it to the office this is documentation we want to increase in
064the number of students feeling connected to our adults this is a student survey we want to see an increase in our growth mindset in understanding students and their behaviors a survey and also we can observe we want to increase in our common language used to describe explain observe student behavior and interactions this can be observed we want to increase authentic connections in our relationships and this can be observed at the secondary level i'd like to focus on this area-focused community and we have three they are all in purple and they are focused on whole person development and they're in extension so to continue and expand successful community partnerships to support well-being to address the needs of each person's healthiest self emotional physical environmental and social wellness and disease prevention and communicate current resources and programs
065clearly to our stakeholders so the impact all people feel safe healthy engaged safe supported in our community it's going right back to our mission statement continuing to increase our capacity to understand the specific needs of our community understanding students that come from poverty that come from trauma recognizing their diverse groups and members of our more vulnerable populations once again we want to build trust we want to have a collective responsibility and reliability for one another we want to be culturally responsive in our partnerships we want to ensure that members of our school and greater community has the opportunity to take advantage of our resources to expand on current programs and partnerships we have been successful again going back to the medical business social services support programs that we've had we want to strengthen and deepen
066partnerships with various civic and religious organizations activities that we'd like to see let's continue and expand partnerships with easter seals let's examine partnerships with our clarkton medical group with health clinics expand lafontaine pack of dogs let's get therapy dogs at the secondary level implement equity and inclusion coordinator again just like at the elementary we have a coordinator with one hour release time to help our staff understand the needs and cultures of our student population so we can be responsive in helping to support and teach all of our students to increase family engagement resources for parents on our website we'd like our parents to access that again our hap well-being program for staff and again let's feed our secondary people the outcomes that we would like to see is to increase in utilizing the website for
067resources so again going back to the user data to increase the number of visitors and community members signed up for the school clinics this can be documented to increase participation in family engagement and school-related activities this can go back to documentation increased community partnerships documentation and again our free and reduced participation there's so many valuable resources within that and we'd like to utilize a survey and our last piece is academic so there's lots of circles here we have two green to orange to blue some are new and some are in extension so to create curriculum consistency at the secondary level aligning our philosophy practice and use of data student-focused learning identify essential curriculum and clarify how students demonstrate mastery learning in our future pathways something that's new develop a framework for collecting analyzing and responding
068to student interest perception and outlook data and to develop staff to respond to student interests so we think about impact for these six circles these six strategies consistent and meaningful learning experience within our instruction and curriculum consistent use of data in order to make decisions programming responsive to the career interests of students and aligning it within our system and the district is responsive to changes in patterns based on career shifts in employment we look at the activities that we'd like to see and put in place create and implement our mtss process our multi-tiered system of support a sub-category of this is the continued work with our database decision making secondary team where we've started a conversation around data and how we make decisions create a career readiness leadership team that's going to enhance our system
069and career readiness for all our students and our subject area coordinators they design professional learning with plcs to identify ways and practices for identifying mastery of content and the outcomes that we would like to see the evidence is the increased staff knowledge of essential curriculum in our content areas survey the increase in shared understanding of what student mastery is survey to increase in course level professional learning communities using guided questions that guide our conversations to examine data documentation an increase in cohesiveness of supports provided based on a process documentation and observation the strategic plan requires teamwork i don't think anyone can can do these strategies and put these strategies in place achieve these goals without all of us together this is an all staff endeavor including central office administrators our teachers and our support structures
070i think we have to remind ourselves that we have to remain flexible and we have to continue to reflect i think you heard tonight a lot of focus on data it's really important that we see how our kids are performing how are they doing and then we adjust and we continue to move forward i want to thank you for allowing me to share the strategic plan i'm excited for this year and the possibilities that are ahead for our students our staff and our families thank you great thank you so much mrs mahoney there's a lot there's a lot to unpack there i know and so i think i'm just going to go down the row and see uh what questions or conversation we want to have with the board and then i'll invite mrs hampton
071up who had asked to address the board on the strategic plan but mrs mcginnis why don't i start with you and we can just go down the road i mean i know there's a lot to unpack here in terms of the work of the district this year i guess the biggest thing i'd like to say is a trained school board trustee with over 14 years of experience data is the key to how we move our children down the academic spectrum and the focus and continuation of seeking and using data to make informed decisions is a key to our academic achievement and thank you nancy go ahead mrs crane yes thank you thank you very much for this very thoughtful presentation for all you've done i think we all know the last 18 months especially have
072not been easy but even before that so much work went into this and so much just cohesive everybody working together i'm glad you brought up adding another year that's been something i've been thinking about so i was going to bring it up so i think we should move forward and talk about that and i was very happy to see a couple of the additions in the circles here because they're things that have already been on my mind so again thank you i thought it was well done mr hire i had a few thoughts that i don't think we want to dive in tonight but as we look for toward the end of the school year i think we want to circle back to a few things and one of those is within the current usda
073framework that we're dealing with i wonder how that free and reduced participation affects things and how the regulations you know kind of hit us there i mean that's a data point we want to look at something that i know we're ultra careful in both observation and our data is to make sure that you know we're taking care of the families that need to be taken care of and we use that as a data point here which i think is a great one obviously that's skewed given our current environment what we're dealing with so i'm just interested in observations as we get toward the end of the school year how we deal with that and think about that and then i wonder process wise we've got a great strategic plan here and historically the strategic plan
074has related to our district and school improvement plans and driven some of the state required work and as we discussed it seems like ages ago as just a couple months ago i think you know the the mda has this new michigan continuous improvement process and i think as we get toward the end of the school year and maybe start next school year that comes into play more so i'm interested in and i think as a board we're interested in looking at how the the transition takes place there ultimately driven by the strategic plan and what that means uh as it comes to some of the state requirements that ultimately this will drive because obviously consistency is key and and then as we've we've approved our system of supports again it seems like a long time
075ago but it was just you know just a few months ago um you know i think it's really important as we look at you know how many years this goes and and what the consistency here is the the longer we can stick with our plan i think the better the results and outcomes are and so we looked at some data that that sort of drew us into that plan and i'm really interested in looking at the data as we continue to measure at the end of this school year and as we get into next school year you know what those outcomes are because i think it's going to be really important as a board um that you know we're responsible for a community that we're spending these resources wisely and showing showing the appropriate impacts
076on students and so i think you know obviously that all comes from this strategic plan and i just i'm gonna over the next few years i'm gonna continue to remind us that we want to look at that and and prove that out and i think you know if if there's a flaw in education um it's that we we potentially abandon something too soon or get off to something new and i think we've got some really data and research based things that we're looking at here and i want to encourage us to to really stick with it stay the course as the data shows um and so i i appreciate where we're at the fact that we've survived the pandemic certainly i i think that slowed us down um you know i i don't know that
077we've abandoned anything in in the course of dramatically changing up our program and i think that speaks to the robustness and flexibility of what we put together i think flexibility is a word that uh you know maybe that's a new core value for clarkson schools here as we go forward because we want to be able to turn on a dime and and meet the needs of our staff and our students in our community and and that's something that i i think we've done as good as we possibly can and something we're going to continue to do more and as i as i think about the last almost two years now you know if i if i rewound and i thought what what could we do differently like what do we know now that we could
078have done differently than like i don't really have anything else on that list um and and that means i think that that we did as good of a job as we could then and it still proves proves true now so i think the focus that we have on our students um is is the right place to be focused and i think i'm looking forward to continuing the path that we're on thank you mr heyer i think the the when i see words like student mastery and proficiency those were the things that really jumped out at me and i know one of our priorities and i felt like it was one that almost all seven of us really um highlighted uh back in july was you know the idea of measuring and tracking academic growth and
079i think a lot of that came out of the significant investment that we made in that system of supports but really a lot of the i'd say some of the significant changes that we made over the course really of the last year in terms of some curriculum um that we felt like was going to have a longer term impact overall in advancing some students and moving some students along academically and so those are some things i think that as far as the agenda planning team goes and as the administration goes that we need to be very purposeful um in always bringing that back to the board and making sure that very regularly as as you um as the administration has that data as often as you have it to bring it back to the board
080and share it because i think that clearly was one of the top priorities that we had for the year was was to keep an eye on that so i those those were the words that really jumped out at me um that idea of mastery and proficiency and so making sure that that stays on our agenda throughout the course of not only this year but in in the coming years as well yes catalina all right thank you um first i just want to say thank you for this presentation i can tell a lot of time and effort went into it coming off of the pandemic my biggest concern is the well-being and social emotional state of our students and our staff and to see this still implemented in our strategic plan with some new things makes
081me excited um i being an educator myself in the data i'm very data driven and i understand how data works so i'm interested to see you know in the next few years implementing this this well-being and the social emotional stuff of our strategic plan where we start from and where we're going to finish in 2025 or if we do extend to 2026 which i am indefinitely i'm in support of that after coming off of the you know 2021 school year so i'm just it's exciting that we are you know we're back we're fairly normal and we can go back to putting this back into place thank you mrs egan i would concur with a lot of the comments already made so i don't want to restate them but thank you mrs mahoney certainly data driven
082decision making is important to us and i also hope that we we don't get a little too um hung up on some of the data because we've got about 18 24 months here to really uh we just you know it's hard to really say what can we measure over the last 18 months but i like the fact that we're focusing on the career supports for our kids because at the end of the day that's what we're really trying to do is get them through through 12 actually pre-k through 12 and make them ready for the world out there i loved hearing about the integration of writing and science and the technology and that we're making these tools transparent so that it's just it's just a way of life for the kids um and i'm just
083grateful that we're we're getting back to normal um so thank you again for your presentation a couple things i would add it's kind of called the clarkson advantage is most districts that i associate with when we start looking at items in a strategic plan it's more of a flowery thing it seems to be done every several years than kind of put on a shelf i really feel like the team has done a really good job with support collaboration the board to really add some meat onto those bones and really try to look for some tangible outcomes that can be relatable to actually affecting why we're all here which is for students the other thing that i observe and i really feel very proud to be part of the process is that it really is a
084way to unite the entire district a lot of districts have it where their buildings have different goals that are kind of focused on different items even between elementary and secondary but between the buildings themselves one nice part of clarkson i think right now that we have is there's unity there's unity and focus of our elementary and what we're working on the focus areas and how we're trying to get student outcomes improved and that transcends all the way up not only connecting into the secondary buildings but those outcomes as you heard eventually our goal is not just to create high school seniors right our goal is really to create individuals that are ready for the world as they move past clarkson high school whatever challenges they have you know that training that developed starts in kindergarten
085and it goes all the way through and it's a complete team effort of all those integral parts you can break those elements that you heard in strategic plan into different strategies in different areas and i think it makes sense in understanding to look at them as pillars but eventually those pillars really blend together into one experience that students have and that's the part that really kind of takes and eventually has to also translate not for kids but what happens in that relationship between our teachers and in classrooms and for our kids to be able to kind of dream more as they go through the program getting ready for their next steps so i appreciate miss mahoney the work you put into this and i really think throughout the year we'll be able to give updates
086and i'm one that really likes to see that tangible that data although you don't have to focus data is not everything right uh you definitely need to kind of help guide the ship and wait waypoints to really kind of describe and give us a good sense of where we're at and where we're going so thank you thank you thank you very much and we had one citizen one citizen who had requested to address the board on the strategic plan kimberly hempton mrs hempton if you'll state your name and address and you'll have two minutes good evening president heyer board of education my name is kimberly hempton my address is 6380 walden woods drive clarkston michigan and i think that i would first like to say in response to the conversation that you've just held that
087in each google meet i was fortunate enough to sit alongside one of my children this past school year i saw elements of that plan alive and well so i don't know that we're just back i think it's been ongoing and our educators are a tremendous tribute to that i've been a proud member of this community since 1995 and the activities and outcomes have impacted all of our children here but particularly my three children we use a lot of acronyms in education and i've observed some confusion recently about some of them responsive teaching specifically culturally responsive teaching as defined by zorretta hammond is not only about who is sitting directly in front of us or next to us in our classrooms but also in the larger global context as mr ryan just pointed out dr ryan
088i applaud the district's commitment to this work and for continuing to build on the traditions of excellence here excellence is being a globally ready contributor excellence is caring for others excellence is perspective seeking understanding others and what it means to other and most importantly continuing to do better when that occurs please continue to support our administrators and educators in this room and outside of this room that continue to stretch all of our children on their learning journeys i applaud each of you here today and thank you for continuing to outgrow yourselves again and again in the name of our children and the children that all of our kids will interface with all over this world thank you for your comment all right we'll move on to action items item 6.1 is approval of personnel changes
089may i have a motion please i move that the board of education approves the personnel changes as listed on the attached sheets support any questions or discussion from the board hearing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed the motion carries item 6.2 is approval of office furnishings purchase for andersonville elementary pine knob elementary and sashaband middle school may i have a motion please i moved the board of education approved furniture purchases to area incorporated in the amount of 49 611.77 as presented support there any questions or discussion from the board hearing none all in favor say aye aye the opposed the motion carries item 6.3 is approval of certification of delegates for the michigan association of school board delegate assembly may i have a motion please i move that the board of education
090decide if they wish to designate delegates and alternates to the 2021 masb delegate assembly and submit those names electronically support so trustees as you know the annual masb convention is coming up in november and based on our student enrollment we're entitled to have up to four voting delegates and four alternates which of course is funny math is there aren't eight of us but um i guess this is just depending on on your own travel plans it's um thursday evening at 6 p.m and so i just wanted to throw that out there for whoever is intending to be there already on thursday night if we want to send any voting delegates so i will be all right mrs egan i know i will be as well i will be there i will be there i will
091be there all right so we have five of us so does anyone want to just be an alternate then i'll be an alternate okay that's fine well that's easy enough okay so we have mr hyre uh mrs egan mrs mcginnis and mrs horst and mrs crane will be our alternate and we might as well designate mr need as an alternate as well are we i'm not certain he's going to be there thursday night but we can i guess we can catalina i i will be coming up friday we have the spots oh yeah but you won't be there right so i won't be there so just in case okay there's no harm so mrs crane would you accept a friendly amendment to insert the names into your motion yes do i have to say it
092all again no no you can just say you accept the friendly amendments support the friendly amendment thank you okay so all in favor say aye aye any opposed okay thank you the motion carries easy enough item seven is report items there are none item eight is discussion items there are none tonight item nine is citizen comments uh citizens are welcome to address the board on any topic at this point on the agenda so i have a list here already of citizens who had signed up previously when we were back at item three and so mrs mclean has the list of citizens who have signed up during the course of the meeting thank you very much very good okay so ladies and gentlemen just to remind you we have two microphones one right down here one
093up there on the mezzanine and i think we are familiar with the procedures by now when i call your name and i'll probably just call a couple at a time just so you can be on deck so to speak and know which microphone you want to head to if you'll please state your name and address and you'll have two minutes we'll start with nicole braden and then janice hubble great and maybe give a wave if you're in the back so i know where to look hello i'm up here thank you very much um good evening it's really wonderful to see so many engaged community members tonight but i wanted to approach the board i'm sorry name and address please i apologize my name is nicole braden i live on marmora in independence township i wanted
094to approach the board and dr ryan tonight to thank them for their continued support of equity and inclusion i'm a mom of two kids with disabilities two very different disabilities and equity inclusion has been part of our dialogue since my boy started school years ago the teachers occupational therapists physical therapists school psychologists and other support staff have been a huge part of both my kids educational journey parenthood is hard enough but raising kids with disability has its extra challenges there's a team-like mentality to get kids like mine to the finish line which is graduation clarkson community schools have always been awesome teammates since the beginning thank you again for always striving to provide the best education to all students here in clarkson i grew up in clarkston and the biggest conflict i remember as a
095kid was when clarkston junior high wolves played sasha about junior high school about junior high cougars i don't know if anyone remembers that that stuff that is ripping through our community right now is breaking my heart we are a strong community and we are better than this our children are watching us to see how we resolve these conflicts and we are failing them revisiting our respect code was the best move for our community and i appreciate dr ryan's leadership to remind us how we should be treating one another thank you again for the opportunity to speak tonight thank you so much for your comment hi i'm janice hubel and i live on shannon lane in clarkston i want to express my appreciation and support to you the school board and you dr ryan and all
096of the clarkston teachers and staff my son attended 13 years in clarkston schools he had many great experiences of course there were a few bumps in the road but we worked through those along with the school staff as we went along in his later years as he continued on his journey of self-discovery he realized he was transgender his father and i had a difficult time with this initially didn't fully understand it very open in general to the lgbt community but when it's your own child and it's transgender sometimes it can feel a little bit different than just saying i'm gay um but looking back there were so many signs throughout his childhood from the time he was a preschooler and for anybody who questions that he might have been influenced or indoctrinated or whatever words
097you want to use if any of you know my child you could vouch for me that he is a very and has always been a very independent minded person that independence is killing me a little bit right now because he's off at college and i'm not hearing from him often enough because of that independence if not for diversity equity and inclusion taking place in clarkston schools my son may not be on this earth today instead i'm proud to say he's now a thriving freshman at a university of michigan with a bright future and so much to offer the world just as god intended thank you for your comment next we have mary herzenstein and then andrea i'm sorry could you not hear me mary hurston steele and then andrea johnson sorry sorry about the delay
098yeah i couldn't hear you all right sorry about that that's all right hi i'm mary hersensteil i live in big lake in davisburg president horace members of the school board and dr ryan i attended school not far from here in heren valley we had family in clarkson and they always thought it was a great town the town seemed friendly and had lots of community activities and i was happy to find a home where my kids could attend clarkson schools something is changing though it's sort of like a dystopian novel where people begin to turn against each other to find reasons everywhere to mistrust their neighbors their schools and their local leaders to ask parents and students to turn in teachers to heckle or mock their neighbors at public meetings this is clarkston we're c-town this
099is not us or who we want to be we ask our children to follow rules about social engagement and decorum and we should hold ourselves to the same standards i thank dr ryan for his encoura for his letter encouraging respect moving on from that i want to repeat what i said at the last meeting i support diversity equity and inclusion in our schools i'm not the only one who feels this way there are many parents with the same concerns about the disrespect shown to our teachers and they want diversity equity and inclusion coordinators in our clarkson schools in fact many of them are here tonight to stand up to say they agree not all of them will be speaking tonight but we stand together to support the teachers we stand together to support the teachers
100the school board dr ryan and diversity equity and inclusion thank you for letting us speak tonight thank you for your comments andrea johnson okay we'll move on uh is it going and then mark green can you hear me i can please state your name and address and you have two minutes thank you i'm going yard i live in woodland estate in clarkston thank you president president horst the board dr ryan i've lived in clarkson for many years now my children were schooled here i'm not a politician and i'm not an activist and despite my accent i believe in american dreams and equal opportunity earlier this year our district announced an equity plan our superintendent described it as one of the largest changes in clarkson schools in the last 50 years the plan includes a subtle
101departure from the belief that every child is provided an equal school opportunity and we've also seen recently that dei teacher training has quietly started in our schools i'd like to share a few thoughts why was there no meaningful public dialogue surrounding the equity plan and two weeks after revealing the plan the board approved it seven to zero why so rushed why has information about dei teacher training been so hard to obtain this board meeting is a rare chance to hear the full community voice why only allow us two minutes to speak i am a member of the group called clarkston parents united i joined the group so you could hear our voices and hopefully listen to our superintendent did send a letter recently titled supporting a culture of respect in the letter our group is
102described by dr ryan these individuals seem to want to deny us opportunities to to respectfully and constructively have dialogue by supporting a national narrative that seeks to fracture teacher parent trust it's simply not true our group wants transparency and constructive dialogue i need five seconds thank you for your comments thank you for your comments thank you two minutes [Applause] mark greene thank you mr green and then doug jenkins mark green bridge lake road president horse the board dr ryan i want to address the wildly popular clarkston parent united woke incident report this report was created to monitor crt and dei showing up in the class which you promised would not happen created as a place for parents to report if indeed it did happen room number teacher name and a place to download supporting evidence
103was required we had no intentions on forward any of these reports to you unless they were 100 percent factual and had supporting evidence in the email you sent to the teachers two days prior to the parent email you stated to the teachers that you were not going to entertain any of these reports here's the problem with that dr ryan instructed us to do what we did not only did he tell us to report to him when crt dei showed up in the class he told us to make it public he challenged us to do so dr ryan's exact words recorded at the august 9th board meeting if you see what you fear then report it to me and make it public because i am putting that challenge out there his words and we did exactly
104what he told us to do a little about clarkston parents united we currently have 450 members that are well organized we meet and we communicate privately we have hundreds of children right now in the schools that have instructed what to look for they're watching paying attention and reporting to parents lastly clarkston parents united is growing rapidly we are informed we are angry and we are very dug in and not going anywhere and we will hold all of you accountable if you continue the path of indoctrinating our children with highly flawed and destructive liberal ideology thanks for inviting me to speak thank you for your comment sucks being short doug jenkins um oh cursed ridge in clarkston um first of all i'd like to say congratulations to the lady out back i didn't i don't remember
105your name but having a transgender son my eldest son zach came out gay last year um he's getting married next year to his partner matt so i understand your situation and personally i think it's the parents responsibility to help them not the schools with that being said i want to discuss um dr ryan's um two emails he sent last week one of the teachers and one of the parents um the uh clerkston parents united are in a group of radical parents okay um we believe in diversity we believe in equality okay but we don't believe in the way you're going to promote it let me give you an example i'm part of the group you called me a radical myself and my wife have raised five kids in clarkston four have already graduated over the
106last 16 years and one's in school right now we love this school you not one of you have heard anything negative from my wife or myself before the last couple months about the school district about the teachers who we have a lot of friends with and who we love okay you've heard nothing from us negative so to say we're radical and all of a sudden doug jenkins all of a sudden has time on his hands so let's go harass the school board let's harass the schools it's just a ridiculous notion okay what we're upset about is the agenda you're pushing and we've had meetings dr ryan is you know we've had private meetings and what have you and we believe what we're being told is now what what's what's happening and that's why we're upset
107and that's why as mark stated we're not going anywhere and the only way to get this done and accomplished is communication on both sides and everybody being upfront and actually honest with each other thank you thank you for your comments [Music] next we have christy giampatroni and then rebel molina hi i'm christy giampatroni good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak count your address 15 walden road clarkston conflict confrontation and disagreements these three have been stirring more intensely lately within our community in our schools but does this surprise us why should it we parents have been faced with an overwhelmingly huge giant a dragon if i might say equity crt and dei is his name he rides with great force and power he reigns and comes through high places of power comes through the
108federal government to the state the local government to our schools and institutions of all sorts so let's not shake our heads as if we don't see it it's here equity we've allowed it for years he's grown and it's so big we can't ignore it equity crt and dei is not as it seems he's subtle he lies he deceives so what do you expect parents to do what would you do if you were facing a giant would you surrender or would you fight to save your children from being indoctrinated we are fighting an ideology an idol we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers in high places if we come across intense asking questions frustrated persistent it's because we are in pursuit to seek the truth we will not bow down to
109crt we will stop these ideologies the ideology is a giant this is not going to be pretty it hasn't been the past few weeks there may be some things said misunderstandings sparks flying disagreements and confrontations but we're not a perfect human race but our hearts and our purpose is sure we're not against people personally but we are against the ideology we want to defend our faith we want to defend our freedom we want to defend our community that we love and defend our children thank you for your comments thank you so much for your comments next we have rebel molina hello my name is rebel molina i live on horseshoe circle in clarkston michigan i would like to advocate for diversity equity and inclusion within the clarkston school district and my household alone several different
110cultures nationalities races ability levels and religions are represented i have four children with disabilities and i moved here to afford them a good education never did i imagine that this move would expose my children to the type of racism ignorance and hatred nor did i believe that i would have to fight for them to retain the rights already established through idea 504 the 504 rehabilitation act and several supreme court rulings witnessing the behavior of parents on social media and in person has illuminated for me how now more than ever dei measures must be taken each of my children attending the school here has unique educational needs requiring teachers who are educated on how to provide instruction to a diverse population when teachers receive diversity training they also gain empowerment when they receive proper contextual knowledge
111related to the culture and skill sets required to meet their students educational needs the students thrive one of my children is a burn survivor an amputee and an english language learner i appreciate the equity measures that are implemented within the district to ensure her access to the general education curriculum and allow her to experience the appropriate education i have another daughter who is severely autistic we moved from a district that required students with her educational needs to be bussed out of my community in order to receive an education in a center-based facility effectively separating her from the students within the general education population and her peers because of the inclusion measures implemented in this district my daughter receives her education in the least restrictive environment within her peer community when my family members might i'm
112sorry well my family members represent a few different populations you appreciate your comments next we have steve whittington and then tyra blanks mr whittington yes ma'am okay thank you good afternoon can you hear me with the mask still on yes she'll state your name and address two minutes thank you oh thank you my name is steven whittington and i live at uh on deerwood road in clarkston michigan i am a clarkston alum i highly value education i owe all of my successes to the quality education i received from clarkston schools this district equipped me to succeed and that is why my family moved back here when we had kids to provide them that same opportunity we have currently we have recently heard people complain about dubious influences coming into clarkson's curriculum and i'm here to
113say that i simply don't see it my boys attend independence elementary i look at the things that they bring home i listen to the comments they have about their classroom activities i engage with the staff the materials spot on i consider everything i have seen to be essential the staff are remarkably caring professional and brave my kids are learning to be kind empathetic thoughtful citizens and it is a direct result of these amazing teachers the fact is teachers have been placed in an impossible position there are the front lines of covid while walking a tightrope between political views we are demanding more and more from our teachers while affording them less and less respect well i'm here to say every educator that we have encountered has been nothing short of wonderful they are exemplary and
114set the bar for other institutions we are lucky to have them i was pleased to read dr ryan's email emphasizing his support for educators and i am proud to live in a school district that prioritizes education and opportunity for all of its students thanks [Applause] [Music] thank you [Applause] good evening my name is tyra blinks my pronouns are she her and i live on langley drive in clarkson michigan we are aca a firm celebrate advocate we are a non-profit organization based in clarkston created by parents of color in the clarkson community school district we want a healthier environment for people of color and other marginalized groups that experience systemic discrimination we affirm our stories in a safe space we uplift families through celebrations and encouragement we advocate for change where we see a reimagined education
115structure inclusive of our children's differences to the families of color and the lgbtq plus communities we are here for you meet us afterwards to learn more about us you can also follow us on our socials facebook instagram and twitter we are aca we will affirm celebrate and advocate for all of our families of color in clarkson community schools [Applause] [Music] hello i'm matt darge and i live on medford road in ann arbor michigan good evening president horst i graduated from sanchez 2015 and i now work in addiction treatment in ann arbor having heard a little about the curriculum over the past few weeks i regret that dei was not part of my experience in clarkson community schools just as i wish that my time at public school had taught me about doing taxes and fixing
116my car i wish that i had learned i know right i wish respectfully with people who are different from me that would have aided my transition into college and into the modern working world because here's the reality every corner of this country is growing increasingly diverse no matter where ccs's students end up they will be put in contact with people of every race gender and sexual orientation and these people deserve respect just like everyone else so this community i feel owes its students the opportunity to learn now about diversity equity and inclusion because they will need to understand these concepts for their personal and professional lives i think this is something everyone in the room can see the benefit of no matter which party or ideology they support to conclude i will quote ccs's vision
117statement it states that the district strives to make students well prepared for a future that excites them simply put if ccs's students do not learn about diversity equity and inclusion then they will not be well prepared for the future that awaits them after graduation this is why i am firmly in favor of ccs's dei curriculum in favor of constructive dialogue about these issues and against the harassment of educators who are seeing this initiative through thank you for your time thank you uh next we have brooks lamb buddany and then jason nolan hello president horace and the board my name is brook zambuni i live on marmora and clarkston i am not someone who's comfortable with public speaking but recent disturbing events in our school community have prompted me to come here today first of all
118i want to say thank you to you and the board for your tireless efforts during an extremely difficult time your work is truly valued and appreciated i want to also say thank you to dr ryan for your recent message to the community it was necessary and appreciated and most importantly i want to say thank you to all the teachers and staff who have worked tirelessly tirelessly during extremely challenging years i have no doubt there are many out there like me not especially vocal not inclined to come up and speak in front of a crowd but are who who are truly grateful for all you have done for our children lastly i want to express my support for any initiatives that support diversity equity and inclusion in our schools i'm sure the majority of clarkson families
119understand that this is not critical race theory many of us work for corporations that embrace such initiatives these are corporations that many of our communities children will work uh you know we'll work at some day corporations have these initiatives because it is recognized that when people feel a sense of belonging when they feel they aren't excluded they perform better and the company has better performance who wouldn't want that for our community's children to be able to feel a sense of belonging in their daily lives to not feel excluded and to enable them to have a successful school career i certainly want that for all of our children and i believe that most of the community does as well thank you for your time thank you for your comments i'm jason nolan i live at 5573
120birch grove lane in independence township uh president horse fellow school board members dr ryan and everyone in attendance i've lived in clarkson for 21 years and all three of my children attended and graduated from clarkson community schools the quality of education they received while students at ccs was excellent ccs is one of the gems of this community and let's all try to remember that last year and this year been extraordinarily challenging for all of the stakeholders in ccs coronavirus pandemic created a cascade of challenges for everyone when the epilogue when the epilogue is written on this time i'm sure there'll be much reflection and likely second guessing about decisions that were made and perhaps ways that things should have been done differently the one thing i ask all the stakeholders to remember is why you
121are here in the first place our kids the students students are here to learn and be nurtured in an environment that values them supports them and challenges them the board administration the teachers and support staff and us parents community members are all tasked with supporting that outcome we have the same goal we are on the same team and here in clarkson more often than not it's a winning team does that mean we have to agree on everything no for example you're hearing tonight there are real concerns about among some parents regarding how diversity equity inclusion initiatives will be implemented among teachers staff and students dr ryan i'm sure you have tried to make this communication but i'm asking you to redouble your efforts to communicate as clearly as often about why and how these initiatives
122will manifest here in clarkson no one likes change and i think there's a natural tendency amongst many to say if it ain't broke don't fix it i think that's where a lot of the parents and community are at they see di efforts as a solution looking for a problem you need to address some of those fears and assure parents that their fear is while real will not come to pass and let's not dismiss it this year is entirely unfounded we see in some universities in large companies thank you mr nolan sorry i have to stop you thank you so much appreciate your comments darryl biales and then roseanne ward daryl b alice holds say brook road grand blank michigan good evening president horace and members of the board of education my name is daryl b
123alice and i'm the president of the clarkson education association and a proud teacher at clarkson high school i stand before you tonight on behalf of the over 500 members of the cea to say thank you for what you do and for serving in what lately seems to be a very thankless position this last year and a half has not been easy for anyone in our society this pandemic has thrown many curveballs at all of us as public educators through all of the ups downs and emotional moments your ccs staff many of whom you see in the audience tonight continued to persevere and do right by our students we adapted we modified we rolled with all the changes mandates and unforeseen circumstances that the virus the state legislature and others have placed upon us all while
124delivering the quality education to our students that clarkson is known for this constant state of flux was and still is exhausting for everyone our administration and you our board of education stood with us through it all you treated us like professionals and provided us with the support we needed to continue to do the great things we have always done for our students over the last year and a half i've never been more proud to call myself a clarkson teacher or an employee of this district and so i feel like i needed to attend this meeting tonight along with a great many of my colleagues to return that support that you have given us over the years i want you to know that your employees support you and our district administration as we all move our
125district forward in providing a quality public education to all of our students and in providing equitable resources to help all of our learners reach their full potential we are doing great things here in this district please don't doubt that again thank you and we support you you for your comments roseanne ward and then david meyer hello i'm roseanne ward sorry yes i know it's quite a quite a crew to follow isn't it my address um is 40 21 ardsley um dr ryan i would like to address you first and i'm just really just saying something that i feel from the heart the letter that you sent out this this is direct quote denies us an opportunity for respectful and constructive dialogue by supporting a national narrative dr ryan these are your community members these are
126this is not a national narrative obviously if there's this many people that have been going to your school board meetings in school board they're very concerned about what's going on they have the right they have the right folks to share and the bottom line is by you saying this public shaming you obviously did exactly what you accused these very people of is public shaming the teachers please don't address dr ryan please address the board as a whole i'm sorry i appreciate that it was his letter though so i know it wasn't yours and you understand okay so the board if the words public shaming then dealt directly with those folks sitting in this audience right now and that disturbs me as well i am all for diversity taught for 35 years in a school that
127that had 60 different languages this is not a joke folks this is a community that is very concerned they want honesty they want transparency they want to be part of the process of gei that's what they want and i don't see this happening at the school board meeting on august 9th you directly challenged us to bring those concerns that we had regarding dei being taught in the classroom to you and we were supposed to publicly respond to it i wrote those notes down so i hope you guys are understanding that when that letter went out it just didn't go out to a group in facebook it went out into the entire community it caused more divisiveness more confusion and more distrust and that disturbs me you are all responsible for that letter yeah thank you
128very much for your comment i'm david meyer i'm a clarkson community schools board candidate and i live at 10548 whitby court in clarkston last august we were told our students would have an opportunity for in-person learning two weeks before school started you went back on your work since that moment i have become an advocate for our children's in-person learning and you have made one thing resoundingly clear you're not listening over the last year many parents have voiced their concerns over a far-ranging set of issues from masks covet testing quarantine crt dei sel or whatever it's called this week and you have made one thing resoundingly clear you're not listening just recently despite a year of questions concerns meetings phone calls and emails you used your email list to disrespect and publicly shame a group of
129concerned parents in an email that called for the end of just that behavior i will waste no more time talking to a group on their lofty post who choose not to listen to their constituents instead i will address the only ones in the room who will listen my name is david meyer and i'm running for the clarkson community school board if elected next year i will do everything i can to make sure all that changes these are clarkson this is you were to address the board i'm addressing you you are not addressing these are clarkson community schools you may continue to address us please do not turn around and address these are clarkston community schools our community deserves to be heard our community should decide if they want to wear a mask our community should
130decide if they want to attend school in person our community should decide our community should be heard i hear you i will stand with you i will stand for you thank you i'm david meyer clarkson candidate for work is dan i'm sorry i cannot thank you crew sorry about that and then keith mcguire after that how y'all doing today my name is dan krug uh i just moved here on august 28th with my family we have three young kids um my biggest concern is take your address please and then i'm sorry huron parkway in clarkston thank you um so my biggest concern is the crt critical race theory i think there's a wrong perspective on what everybody thinks it is they're using martin luther king as as a reason why it's a good thing when
131in actuality martin luther king was totally opposite of that uh critical race theory is actually block chain so in groups what are we doing right now united states of america we're putting everybody in groups and that's what crt does if you want to follow a leader martin luther king i suggest that we go individually learn each other and then we can start developing character and like you said dr sean ryan you said we're not just creating seniors right we want individuals to go out in the world so therefore i i'm opposed to any kind of crt i say we follow dr martin luther king and that's it all right thank you so much for your comment keith mcguire and then brad mcewing mr mcguire okay brad mcewen hi there my name is brad mckeon i
132live off sasha bay here in clarkson um after last board meeting mr ryan and mr nead took some time to talk to several folks that stuck around after and i approached along with doug jenkins and mark green i had two questions for mr ryan one has anyone been hired as a dei coordinator in clarkston and two if so where when and who did their training mr ryan answered no to the first question nobody has been hired as a dei coordinator we pointed out that both d smith and ryan eisley both teachers in the district claim to be exactly that on their linkedin page then mr ryan backpedaled a bit so now it's really only a stipend kind of thing like being a coach but it wasn't really a full-time job not exactly transparent nor truthful
133mr mcewan i said at the beginning we weren't going to be calling out individuals second question was about training and the lead member of this board looked me in the eye and said he hadn't had any training that he knew of mr mcewan yes i said we weren't going to be calling individuals by name or any other identifiable means if you have specific concerns about dr ryan you are happy to email me but we are not going to have that discussion here in this forum if those are the crux of your comments i'm sorry that they're they're concluded it seems weird to hire somebody they're concluded it seems weird to hire someone for a job that they have no training they are concluded thank you very much there they're concluded please shut off the microphone
134thank you so much thank you alex matisse i'm alex um address is stone valley bluff clocks to michigan i'm here to read a statement from my sister 2017 or 2012 carson alum dear ryan members of the board uh president horst i'm writing you today to voice my unequivocal support of parsons dei initiatives when i was a student at clarkston frankly i was unhappy suffering from mental illness bullying in a general sense that i didn't belong just by my family's strong community presence made for a difficult adolescence i found a refuge in my teachers that saw that i was different the teachers that i knew how to acknowledge understand and work with my neurodivergent mind they were equipped and willing to support all students they were my saving grace today i'm an educator myself i'm award-winning
135educator recipient of a governor's service award from wisconsin's governor tony evers an award that i credit in large part to my education i received here at clarkston but the education would not have been the same had it not been for my teachers freedom to implement plans that not only supported me as a unique individual but exposed me to the richness of life beyond clarkston many of my teachers at clarkston pushed me to understand more deeply than nuances of race and class dynamics of gender inequity of justice and rightness the world over it had not been for them my students now milwaukee would not have half the teacher they have today they would not have the teacher they deserve do not take away from your future teachers community members and leaders the essential and necessary opportunity
136to expand their world view also some personal comments last time i was in front of this board i was accepting a senior scholar award in i didn't really want to see you guys after i graduated and i'm saddened and i have to be here today to voice support for clarkson's di initiatives i think it's long overdue i also didn't get that one really stunted my growth because i went to college and if i could go back i would have loved to have a di education in high school thank you isaac [Applause] veronica isaac and then desiree leon okay desiree leone clarkston michigan we are really done with the way that the superintendent and the school board has insisted on manipulating the truth clarkson's parents united have been parents who have sought out the board through
137emails one-on-one meetings and as a group instead of honest transparency the school board and sean ryan have chosen deceit and victimhood the lies stop here the curriculum has already been tampered with the denial of crt dei being in it is refuted the more the the board is modeling the very lesson we are take are asking to be kept out of our school training our school staff training curriculum and our children's minds the name of this lesson is projection to accuse others of the very things you are doing is a gaslighting tactic and a means to demand false empathy projection is specifically used in marxism critical race theory diversity equity inclusion lgbtqia plus through title ix 2020 updates and in social emotional learning creating a space for that piece of projecting negative emotions through leading assumptions
138and suggestions movies and video subliminal messaging propaganda and thought practices of anticipation leads to a garden of negative habits and actions this in itself is a wrong practice and it's in our classrooms for a few years the worst part you are preying on miners miners that alone is enough grounds to initiate an immediate recall please please please please thank you for your comments our last two speakers are daniel krug and zoe forbes please please we've had a very respectful evening let's finish on a high note thank you oh it fell off i will not break the equipment has been very gracious to have us in her theater tonight and we're hoping for a good performance come come the winter right so all right my name is daniel krug i'm a long time uh resident in
139clarkston been here for over 20 years have a business here you just hit your address for me and then i'll hit the buzzer yep it's um i'm in stonewall farms clarkston michigan i want to address well first i want to say thank you for all your hard work i know you guys are trying to do well for the kids but i am a little bit concerned about a few things and i want to speak to this the part of our cloaks clarkson's community schools website which is the student growth and well-being segment of the site i i was kind of shocked i i went on the site today i looked at the departments then went to the student growth and well-being i scrolled down it's interesting because when i first looked at it the opening
140dialogue is actually quite nice and then it it hosts a bunch of different sites that help people partnership against drug free ki or for drug free kids not my kids inspiring positive growth suicide prevention hotline these are all great things and then it gets down to almost the bottom where you click on it gets better project i'm a little bit concerned about that i mean i i am i believe in jesus christ i believe in the fact that um we need to love each other there's no question about that but when it comes to what i want our kids to be taught from a moral standpoint that's that's the parents job and and i was noticing in the curriculum agenda that when you talked about inclusion what was conspicuously absent were the parents you know
141you talked about family but you know what in in the grand scheme of things everybody in the earth is on the family i'm talking about the parental family and the kids morally i just don't believe what we're what we're promoting to the kids is really going to help them long term and make them healthy let the parents be the moral guides of the kids and take that promotion off the website thank you so much for your comment and finally tonight we have zoe forbes my name is zoe forbes and my address is 6984 woodland court i'm actually a senior at clarkson high school i'd like to address the board about our teachers the teachers of clarkson school district are hardworking and kind individuals who have put their lives into helping the younger generation grow and
142become the foundation of the future and might i add in fact i do not feel preyed on but loved and supported with all times and moments of my my being in clarkston with the criticism and hateful messages being directed at our district's teacher it breaks my heart thinking about how they must feel dealing with the pressures of kovid these crazy years we've felt and now this i will refer back to the idea of creating a safe and successful environment for all the students as talked about in the strategic plan i also want to add there is no hidden agenda the agenda is clear and written out for people like me i'm trans non-binary and i use they them pronouns i'm also i also identify as gay meaning i'm attracted to women and other non-binary folks
143self-discovery helps me be feel better in my own skin and have the mental health to be where i am in my academics without the support of my teachers and the support of the staff at ccs i don't know where i would be right now and i don't know if i'd be able to be standing here talking to you right now being able to see this representation and knowing that i'm safe and validated and other students like me are safe and validated is crucial to having a successful community pride isn't political and flying pride flags and classrooms shouldn't be deemed as a political act nor should teachers be punished for it and no one is being discluded through the push for inclusion thank you for your time thank you zoe for your comment we certainly appreciate
144all the citizens who came here tonight to attend the meeting appreciate the change of venue and everyone who uh who spoke to us tonight and shared their views we'll move on to information items our next board meeting is scheduled for monday october 11th at 7 pm um i don't know yet where we'll be let's just stay tuned and we'll make that announcement item 11 is adjournment may i have a motion please i move to adjourn support all in favor say aye aye opposed we are adjourned thank you [Music] you