001Please join us and stand alsible with liberty and justice for all. here >> get a motion to adopt the agenda. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. Any opposed? We have an agenda. Okay, we will start with our first presentation from Jennifer Smith from CC Resa Career Training Education. Welcome. Good to see you again. >> Yes, thank you. Thank you for having me. Um, some of you may have heard me present before as Jennifer Branch, but that changed in October. So, I thought if Deb's last name is Smith, then that's a great last name. Anyway, um, so I am excited to be back again this year. I try to think about this year, what are some things maybe that I don't often touch on? things I always report on. So, I want to
002give you kind of a few new highlights this year or things that maybe um I haven't touched on in my presentations previously. Um these are things that you hear about every year and we're always excited about some of these events that we do. Um we have an annual college night every fall. We invite all students in grades 8 through 12 from the county and surrounding areas. We always have representation from all of our public universities, some of our trade schools, some of our um some of our milit lots of options there and that is always well attended. Um and then we had our annual career expo. Thank you again Dit Dit community. Um I don't know what we would do if we didn't have this wonderful facility to house it in. It continues to grow
003and all of you continue to accommodate. So um this year we had over 130 action booths between the indoor and outdoor spaces. Every eighth and tth grader in Clinton County uh attends this event and our industry partners love it. The kids have gotten more and more engaged. Our industry partners are more and more aware of what they need to do to keep those students attention and get them thinking about all those different careers and those pathways. So that's a wonderful event that happens in early November every year. And then this week is our annual behavioral path event which involves all of our current juniors and seniors in our countywide CTE programs. And that is a dayong career preparation workshop. They will have their resumes and cover letters reviewed. They will hear from various presenters in
004the community on um different success sessions such as how to use your social media to market yourself. Uh what not to do on your social media if you're trying to market yourself. an online job application, a LinkedIn profile, uh speed interviewing, and they have to prepare prepare a little elevator pitch of themselves and they'll present that to employers. So, a great day coming up this Thursday. That's a dayong event. Um every year in October, Jennifer Fenning, our early college and career development coordinator, takes students that are in our countywide and local district manufacturing programs. Each class gets to go to two different sites and you can see the different industry partners that we were able to visit this year. All of these events that I'm talking to you about um students can end up with
005employment opportunities through them. It might just be a chance conversation that a student one of the students that was at manufacturing day three or four years ago St. John student um struck up a conversation with the human resources director at Frank Engineering. He's been working there for a couple years since he graduated. So you never know where that job opportunity might come up. It may be a summer job. It may be an apprenticeship. It may be a job in the summers in between years of college. But there are a lot of opportunities through these career exposure events. Um we have quite a bit of work-based learning in our programming. Here's two of our programs. Um all of our programs have some work-based learning components. In fact, one of the things that I'm most proud of
006is that our students get exposure to the career and the pathway that they are studying and many times in paid placements. Um, and so our construction trades program, our year two students, we have about 15 students doing that and they're placed in paid they're placed in paid placements in those locations you see there. And then our allied health students, those year two students in the beginning of the year obtained their um CNA certification. Uh every I think it's been the past two or three years, every single student has passed the test on their first try and then they are employed. Um and you can see some of the common locations where they utilize those CNA skills. And then we have other workbased learning sites for students. Maybe they couldn't fit a CTE program in their
007high school schedule, but they have a job that's related to their area of interest. And so they want to spend part of their day working. Um and so you can see um one of the things that's worked out really great I'll I'll point out because it's our institution is students in our education early childhood program that are interested in working with special education students. They go and they're placed at our ed center and they work with those students there. So it's a great connection to get those students into careers working with students with disabilities uh right away when they're in high school. They can see what that's like. And then I have have another student to add to this PowerPoint. Mr. Lear said I could blame him, Olivia, um because he kind of gave her
008late notice uh about this opportunity. So, I didn't get her name on the PowerPoint, but I want you to hear from a couple of our students that are actually your students in our program. So, if you want to come up here, you just want to stand right here and take a minute to introduce yourself and let everyone know what made you decide to choose a CCTV program. >> My name is Olivia Moyer. I'm a senior. I'm a year and tech at CCA. Um, I work on the architecture side. There's two sides. can do either engineering or architecture. For my side, we focus on working with AutoCAD and Revit which are main certific ing in architecture at state. March I in the C series welding program as year one which I did last year I we
009learned how to weld in above head in front of you on the ground basically all types of welding as a year I'm learning how to weld harder positions so like farther up in the learning to weld pipe, so having to go all the way around without stopping. Um, as well as learning how to use machinery to help me cut metal and make my job easier. Um, as sorry, I plan on going into the 25 welders after school and This has set me like light years ahead of being able to do anything. I already have someone from the C program coming to help me apply for a position in so far. >> Um, I really I appreciate the field trips that we're able to go to. So, field trip we went to other manufacturing industry. So
010we actually got to see the manufacturing along with the program engineer the parts that they need to do to construct different. So they had to have programs for them are And we also recently went to Michigan College. So we were actually able to experience that we could go to Michigan College if we wanted to go there for our area. be honest with you. Little unorig, but my favorite part about welding class is Yeah. It's just the ability to have two completely separate components or multiple completely separate components and use them together with smarts flying everywhere. I find it to be the most fascinating interesting I think both of you have touched on this a little bit, but how has this programific We don't really get any certifications in the class, but in terms of like
011knowledge, I'm not going to have to spend more time going into a college or anything to learn how to weld because I spent the last two years of my high school career learning how to do that. So that I basically get to second or two years of my life trying to learn how to do it instead. >> Okay. And lastly, is there anything else that you would like to share with the attendance question? Another thing that I didn't usually like that we already was able to design a wrestling building for St. John's because the St. John's um head coach for wrestling wants their own fac growing so fastly. So she had her um building that he like to present to their own board at St. John's and she was able to bring in all the
012papers. She was like already able to show a job. Um, one thing I didn't really just innovation that my entire program does like right now we have a machine that can cut about inch and a half inch thick pieces of metal but it was having trouble keeping steady so it would knock the metal My instructor was like, "We need to fix this." So, he bought a pneumatic system and he just showed us all how to set up a system on the machine. And now, force it as it Any questions for these two students? >> So, how how old were you when you found out about this possible? Were you much? >> Um, so I really liked about it. My freshman year and just like students like I knew already but she said I visited when
013they had the student visited to see what it was all about. >> Since I was about six years old, I've been fascinated with just the heat and metal. Originally, I wanted to do blade, but I discovered that people don't really use swords anymore. And my mom was like, "Well, you can't really do that for a job." And during the um what is it called? >> The career expo. Yeah. Thank you. During the career expo, um I was walking around and I saw my welding instructor, now welding instructor, and all these pieces laid out. And I was like, and I was like, "What's this?" And he was like, "Oh, it's welding." And he told me about it. I was like, that's literally what I want to do, but I don't need to have it for something
014that specific. And that was basically what I was like, yep, this is what I want to do for the next rest of my life. one of the best parts of the job. We need to hear from them about what what it means to them. Um so, uh few more updates from our department and I want to touch on some of the things that they talked about as I continue through. Uh we are working really hard to make sure we're partnering with our local districts to support all students. And so this is the second year where we've had collaborative conversations where we invite special education case load managers, teachers, directors in um and then any instructors who have students from that district with an IEP or 504, we try to bring them all together so that
015they can talk um and hear here's what this student's needs are. Here's how you can help this student. And then vice versa, here's what happens in my class so that you know what it looks like when that student walks into my classroom. How can I best support them? And then additionally, we've invited districts if anybody from their team wants to come and just go into one of the classes one day. Um, and we've had a couple districts take advantage of that as well. So, it's been a nice partnership that we continue um to grow and see how we can make sure that we're supporting every student uh to the fullest. Um, every senior in Clinton County, either through efforts at CC Visa or now they've gotten so good at it, they just handle it, um,
016has a senior interview day. So, um, every student will graduate with an opportunity to have a mock interview senior. Um, we have the Capital Region Technical Early College in three of our programs because six of our level of our 11 programs have the opportunity for direct college credit either at Lansy Community College or Mid Michigan College. Um and of those three of them offer an early college option where the student is a CTE student their junior year. Their senior year about half their day are continued courses in that pathway at that college and half at their local. And then year 13 they finish up um either 60 transferable college credits, an associates degree or an industry recognized credential or any combination thereof. So it's a great opportunity um for students that want to continue in
017that program of study. to obtain those college credits at no cost to the students or families um unless they fail class and they have to pay for it the second time. Um I believe Deb um gave you copies of these couple of documents and um we talked a lot here about just you know um career teched and one things we're trying to do is make sure that all of our community understands the opportunities that are there and how these classes can be utilized in conjunction with the Michigan merit curriculum. So there's some flexibilities that the state has had in place for quite some time about how you can leverage programing um in order to fulfill the Michigan merit curriculum graduation requirements because sometimes students there's so many things they can take and it's hard to
018fit it all in their schedule and so there is some flexibility um and we don't look at it anymore like CTE or college I mean you're hearing these students talk about it is part of that plan part of that experience um in fact Olivia you're going to want to talk to Mr. Lamar because I pointed out an articulated credit option at with him that I don't think he knew about. So, right. So, um and and many colleges will give um college credit for industry certification. So, a student that has the CNA credential um they can get credit at certain colleges for that credential. So, it's definitely just part of their process. We have students that take AP and CTE or outside dual enrollment and CTE. It's not one or the other. I know that kind
019of used to be the mindset, but that is long gone. So, um, and then just as I was kind of mentioning, when students are in our programs, six out of the 11, they get direct college credit. They can use the Michigan transfer network. And, and these are hyperlinks in this PowerPoint, and they can go punch in, I got credit at LCC for CHSC 100 in my allied health class. Where does that how does that transfer into SPSU? And they can figure all that out and kind of do that. before they um go meet with the academic adviserss at the college they plan to attend. Um same thing with credentials. Um you know she's got a couple of credentials now that are industry recognized. She could see can I get some college credit for those credentials
020and then that saves uh families money and having about to have two kids in college next year. We appreciate that. So, and then there are statewide articulated credit agreements where um they take a certain CTE class in high school and they take it to a particular college and that college gives them credit for certain classes at the college because of that CTE program and the competencies that are part of it. So, we hope that our districts are taking advantage of some of these flexibilities so that students can fit these things into their schedules. Way more choices than I had many years ago in high school. So, um some data about our early college. You can see how it's grown. Um before we hired an early college coordinator five years ago, we had two students in
021computer networking. And now we have 68 students just five years later and we have three early college program options. We have representation from every single district in the county. Um and so you can see kind of that how that's grown over the years. It took us kind of a while to get students from every district represented in the early college program. And then you can see we have a good chunk of new students this year. 20 11th grade students. Um 30 students have completed it in the past five cohorts. And this is the slide that we really appreciate. This was fall of 2024. So we haven't have data yet from the next couple semesters after that when we have it, but we haven't incorporated it. 3,457 college credits. Um, and 688 weren't processed that fall.
022So, a lot of savings. Um, even at the community college level, most most classes are about $200 per credit hour. And this is our office team. Um, and so, um, all of our contact information and, um, if you have any questions, you can always reach out to us. And then I guess I would just open it up if you have any follow questions for me. >> Hey, Jennifer, you talked about the growth on there. Are you able to meet What does enrollment look like? So if a student is interested in this, are you able to accommodate them? If not, do you have empty slots available? What does that look like? >> So we do a few different things this year. I'll say I'm looking at enrollments for applications for next year. We have a couple
023of classes that are well well over booked. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to reach out to for instance um LCC because they give us instructor for our health program say can you give us another section of it um and see what we can do there and then kind of coordinate room. becomes a problem too because we don't have a tech center and part of the thinking behind that was we disperse our mill dollars to also support our local CTE because you have local CTE here at WI and we want to support that as well and so that means we can't be pouring money into a building for a tech center. So um and then if we can't um meet that demand then we might look at what are some neighboring offering
024like for students into it might be the case that it's just as you know, just as quick for them to drive to eat and recess programing as it is for them to come out to St. John's or to OD or to um well, we have one program here. So, we do try to partner with other ISDs and do a cost offset for that if we can't accommodate in our county programs. So, so far we've been our weight lists have been small, but I'm looking at next year and and I don't know what our construction trades teacher promised those students. He's retiring, so I don't know, but we've got a lot of uh students interested in So, but we always try to add a section or um you know, like I said, see if they can
025get in somewhere else around the region. >> Thank you for all that you do to support our students. >> We have great partners. Thank you. >> Okay, next we will get Winter data review update with Brian instruction. >> Thank you, Superintendent and the board. It's always an honor to meet with you. Uh this is our winter benchmark, although it doesn't feel like winter outside thankfully, right? So glad to see that um this is something that um I have presented to you since 2021 and this originally had be was part of the um state legislation that talked about benchmark funding. Um we use a product called NWA to achieve that three times a year. Other districts use a different different vendors. many. Um, this fell out of the law a couple years ago, but we thought
026it was a good and valuable thing to come before you twice a year to talk about kind of the state of achievement in the district. So, that's what we'll do tonight. Um, because this is a recurring piece here, not only for um the board and for um people both in the audience and at home. I will kind of go quickly over a few of these slides, hit the highlights, but there will be additional slides that will provide additional context when we post this to the website here. So we've talked to you extensively about what u measure of academic progress or MA testing is for NWA. So I won't spend a lot of time there. Um what our goals are and why they're at 80%. We've talked about a lot in the past. Um the way
027the NWA scores here in quintiles and the color scoring goes from red, orange, yellow, green to blue, whether that's low, low average, average, high average or high. And that of course represents um this slide here the national uh quintiles, right? So if you look at the whole of the nation when they do the study of course they say this is where kids are scoring and then we compare ourselves to this uh distribution here. Um so we also do it in bands here upside down because it matches our RTI triangles. We want kids at a solid coating in tier one. Um and so we want the top of this triangle or top of this bar to be very And so that we know that our tier one is affecting 80 85% of students and then we
028have the staff available to intervene either at a strategic or intensive intensive level um with a smaller percentage of students. One thing that I'll mention here, it's gonna it's going to mess up our data just a little bit as far as the flow of the graphs that I've been showing you. um every year and I've shown you four years in a row kind of where we look when we test 2,000 students in grades two, excuse me, K through eight in both reading and math. We looked at that kind of distribution, the pentile distribution over time. NWA did update their norms for the first time since 2020. We're now working with what they call 2025 uh norms is when they completed the study and that was done based on data of student performance in 2022 23
029in 2023 24 and that's I often talk to you about the 2020 norms being hey that was data taken from 2017 1819 and obviously when we were talking in 21 22 23 um something happened in between there that impacted learning in the whole world and so we were measuring ourselves based on preandemic uh scores Now we're measuring ourselves uh basically on postpandemic scores and that's changed things just a little bit. Um you it's been well reported you've probably seen that the national peer group performed lower overall um when NWA did their study nationally speaking a student who before the pandemic was scoring what would have been plum middle 50th percentile now under the new norm scores 56th percentile. That's a big bump in the middle of a distribution like that. So it's it's a significant
030impact. So kind of stories here is one is that um the state of uh reading and math instruction and achievement in the nation has not fared well uh since the pandemic better in dit and places like dit again this is kind of thing this is like running a seven-minute mile that placing 20th in a race in 2019 but now we're into 15th because the field got slower so you'll see a jump here um when I get to the next slide um all the from 2022 this is in reading now K8 um of where our distribution ranks and you see a jump over here um for reading in 26 and while we did make as far as I can tell I've started to dig in and try to get apples to apples comparisons compare former data
031sets to the new 2025 norms we maintained and maybe even gained a little bit but not this much right but this does represent the new normal right this is where the way students are scoring relative to their peers around the country so while um student scores suffered across the country during the pandemic. We were able to hold our ground and then even gain um some here and that's a pattern um I think we've done a nice job here in do I have a couple slides later here I think that shows that we've done an especially good job here but that's something that's played out across the country um when it comes to demographics and districts like ours um it continues to be a slow recovery for marginalized communities underresourced communities and so on and places
032like we've been able to hold ground and even gain ground here. So, like I said, that kind of it kind of seems like a cheat code or something that we jumped up that far, but that does represent the latest latest data about where our students are scoring compared to their their peers nationally. So, that's good news for us. Um, but again, we're part of the national picture, so that's something we take into consideration as well. Um, and math, similar story here. And again, as you can see, we gains again with an end size of 2,00 even a percentage point or two. We're very proud of moving students um especially in math here how we move kids in that high um performance area that blue area more and more students every year and again we have
033an unnatural jump here but it is an accurate representation of what students are performing um compared to their peers. Any questions on the national picture or how these have changed? I'm still thinking about how to depict this going forward. will probably start a new chart with these this this uh this here on the right starting the left hand side of a new longitude in the study as long as these norms are here kind of give us an apples to apples comparison over that time but I still think it's interesting to see the 2020 norms and then where we're at with 2025 any question on yes >> are you goals based on this new data you adjust >> I think we'll have to I think yeah right now we we were our goal it seemed at
034the time was to say, hey, we want 80% of students achieving in that blue, green or yellow. Um, and now that so many students are are there, I think we need to kind of crank that up, right? And this raises a lot of questions, right? We have um a third of our students in math um achieving at a national level that would be considered advanced. What are we giving enough enrichment opportunities? You know, as our district comp, you know, changes um compared to the national average, we'll have to have dialogue about what that means for us. So absolutely we'll be changing we'll be ratcheting that up. Um I think even going back to Dr. Deer when he was here I remember us in the heat of co being advised to say hey your go your
035goal should be growth you know that's what some some statewide organizations were saying just to kind of hey be realistic we're like no like this place expects um you know a high standard and that's what we're going to do. So I I would expect for us to adjust those goals. In terms of like what changes going down, >> are you offering supports to fewer kids then or you still you're not removing support from students quite yet? >> No. And that's again that's the interesting thing is because when I've done my initial kind of like where I go and it takes a while to go back and the data from say winner of 25 and apply the new norms cut scores and so on to it. We look pretty lateral and so the experience here is
036the same. We haven't experienced a huge jump here but what we can say is when we step back and look at the the last five years our students are where we were maybe even a little higher whereas the average student dropped a little bit. So that hasn't changed too much kind of kind of our calculus as far as that goes about who needs help who's receiving that help and so on. experience the live experience of a student or a teacher from year to year here from 25 to 26 um is pretty similar. Now we talk about going back to 22 all the way to 26 um you know we have had a shift we have had significantly more suits in the green and the blue and then fewer and fewer the orange and the red
037so in these core areas I'll move on uh want to talk about just really briefly these I have several that people can look at online or the board to look at later. But here's a view of our winner quintiles by building and then broken out by grade level down here. And you see once again, so the average student, excuse me, the median student at Shady Road. So we have 419 students. We took the plum, line them all up, took the plum middle student, they would be scoring in the 75th percentile nationally, which is a really uh privilege and good place to be. Um, and you see that pattern kind of throughout with some here and there, but this is shady road math for example again the median student scoring in the 70th plus percentile very
038good places to be here from an achievement standpoint so I won't go through all of them but you can kind of slide through look at the middle school look at the wood Scott that's what give a K through eight and you'll see a pretty similar story throughout there really quickly um I know I shared this kind of wly in some groups and including the the board subcommittee, but not in this group. I just want to highlight quickly. Um, every year we look at our scores um and grades three through 11 and what is publicly available in a couple of different buckets of peers. One is an MD provided bucket of peers um that's like Bill Lake, Lakeshore, Marquette, Pinkney, uh St. Joseph. And these are districts that are like us demographically, large schools, um, you
039know, relatively low rates of pre-introduced lunch, etc., etc. There's a formula that goes all into that. Um, and so we are trying to compare apples to apples here. And we when we looked at our scores from last spring in this pool of 17 schools in the ELA or evidence-based reading writing, space, the reading writing tests, whether that's SAT when we find a central tendency um we rank number one out of those 17 schools um and scores last spring that's for the reading and writing and then we find that central tendency again of those scores and there are different scores there's proficiency rates in here mixed with career and college readiness benchmarks uh we rank three out of 17 and narrow three out of 17 in our math scores so that's MSTEP PSAT8 SAT those are
040the publicly available uh pieces that we can statewide parasol. Um, quickly, we also look at buckets. We look at large greater lancing area schools as well. And in ELA and reading, we rank second of those 14 schools. Um, and in math, we happen to rank first. The first time that it's a narrow squeak by openness by this metric that I've concocted here. So the meaning here I mean we're very very close to openness and and I think statewide and even nationally Openness has a great name when it comes to some of these things and we did rank when you take the totality of our third through seventh grade MSE PSAT 8 SAT we did just barely kind of pass them and according to this metric we were the number one area that very proud of
041that um these scores um it's a team effort right these are starts with parents, starts in the home, parents who care greatly about the school experience. Um, students who who value education. Um, teachers who go above and beyond right to provide uh that education, administrators who who give the time and the focus um to do that. Our support staff is is is critical. Pair professionals who work with students in academic realms and then right through the team I get to work with specialists. It's it's very evident that not only are they working with uh teachers on a day-to-day basis um but also with our systems and I think the scores um are a team effort of all of those affioned people of course they would be very proud to be a part of the team
042here with some great success these topline numbers here one thing I I wanted to highlight before I go I'll be quick um that ge geometric mean that where I find the central tendency of a a couple different uh metrics. We've been doing this for four years now. I thought, well, what if I stack those on top of each other? What would that look like? And I see we've gone up over the years. Well, maybe other people have too. It's postpandemic bump and all that. So, we look at zoom out and look at the big picture, the kind of constellation out there. This is ELA and EBRW. So, that's that line there where it's the average over time. And you can see that we've grown since um you know an average of two percentage points there
043on those different metrics. And we've seen kind of static um no growth in the aggregate from our local peers and our statewide peers. So when I looked at that I thought well I'm going to find everybody bumped up two percentage points or thereabouts and they did not. So that's 17 schools 17 times you know around 2,000 students taking those tests right that's a big end size for us to be continue to grow where we see um you know hanging on to gains maybe I'm not trying to be negative there but we see kind of static performance there and we see growth here in the whip um here are the statewide math um assessments same story here where again I saw us go up by three and a half point three three and change um and
044thought hey that might be the story across the board when you see these 2022 to 2025 for both our local peers and school statewide bucket of peers where it's uh virtually the same. Meanwhile, we've made gains. So again, that's a credit to all the stakeholders in the district, all the people working hard to make student outcomes better. And I'm very proud once again to be a part of that team, be able to show this to you today. Um last thing I was going to show you is SAT only. So this is our college entrance exam. This is how we This is one test. You see a little bit more wave here, right? We talk about 200 students at a time, not 2,000. So in 2022, we saw a drop uh that was not uh concurrent
045with the statewide or sort of those state peer averages and local averages. And I'll give credit to Mr. Dodson, Miss Richards, all the seminar teachers, the leadership team at the high school, they really attacked that in 2024 um leading up to that test and we saw a bump in a year where the rest of the state kind of suffered. That was the first year that um we saw online testing exclusively and so a lot of people dropped And so we see a positive trend here. This is in reading for our um SAT. And then similar story here where we outperforming our peers both locally and at the state level on the math uh side of the SAT as well. So a lot of good um these are the charts I like to share, right? The
046classic hey here, right? Um but again, it's not that simple. It's the accumulation and aggregate of thousands and thousands of hours of effort from our students, parents, teachers, support staff, administrators, counselors, uh academic specialists, everybody plays a big role in in this kind of success and it's it's been fun to be a part of any questions, you know, presentation. I really appreciate you doing this. I know it's not easy. It's easier when >> I might be sick next year. >> Um, but I I really want to thank you personally. I know you say it's a team effort, but I think you're one of the unsung heroes behind the scenes that crunches the data keeps the folks focused in buildings. building obviously part of that but thank you so much. Thanks. >> Next we will go
047with our budget. a budget update tonight. The governor released her proposal back in early to midFebruary. So, I'm going to run through what that looks like. We'll translate that to district level as far as numbers go and then we'll finish up with what's next. Uh as we go through this, don't hesitate just questions as we go along. Otherwise, interested time since you're on your fourth presentation for the night. I'll move through relatively quickly. So, starting with the governor's proposal, the governor did propose a $250 per pupil foundation allowance increase for all districts. You'll see how that translates to us as we move into the next slide. The governor's also proposed some increase in funding for both at risk and special ed. However, she's changed the way that at risk is going to get calculated in
048her proposal. There's also a proposed kind of change of how special ed might be funded going forward, but that's a perspective look. That's something that she's not 26 27 year potentially the 27 28. We've seen some district numbers for what at risk might look like. the numbers that we've seen instead up a little bit, but I haven't been able to get anyone to show me how they calculated the number. I want to dive into the details to make sure that how they're calculating it will represent what our numbers will look like for next year. So, you'll see that it it's not showing up on the next slide as an actual dollar amount for us yet. Um, we might see a slight uptick, but I really want to be comfortable with the number before I start
049working them officially into our budget. The next three bullets, I'll deal with different retirement categoricals. So, the first one is the UAL rate stabilization. These are dollars that flow to the district and then we turn around, we pay the office retirement services. So, not an impact on our bottom line, but it is helping to stabilize the retirement system now and into the future. There was an elimination of employee healthcare categorical. I don't know if you recall back from the budget amendment, but this was a new categorical that we received in 2526. At the time I speculated that for 2627 our retirement rate is going to decrease. This categorical is going to go away. That's exactly what's happened. This categorical is going away, but we have seen a reduction in the retirement rate for next year.
050Unfortunately, there's not a one to one match for that. So you'll see we're actually taking a little bit of a hit when you compare the revenue loss versus the retirement expenditure decrease but it is it was kind of anticipated to happen. We just didn't know what the retirement rate is going to look like until February. And then there is also a reduction in the MERS cost offset categorical looks to be about a 9% reduction for us. And on the next slide I'll show what that translates to in dollars. The governor has proposed continued funding for mental health and school safety, but caution you that it comes with the same legal risks that we see in 2526. We'll have to wait and see what the House and Senate might do with that in their budget proposals,
051but she has carried that forward in 2627. And then she has proposed continued funding for the transportation categorical as well as free breakfast, lunch for all students. The one nice thing that I do think she's done is she's she's trying to codify the law free breakfast and lunch for all. So, as districts, we're not wondering year to year. This is something that's going to continue. There be more intentionality to it from a state budget perspective. And then finally, as I mentioned, there's a reduction in the retirement rate when looking at our 2526 numbers. So, as we we convert that to our budget currently for 2526, the district has approved a deficit of about a million7. So if nothing changes, we walk out the door on June 30th, we come back in on July 1st, that
052becomes our starting point for the 26 27 budget and then everything that I have listed below changes either positively or negatively. The bottom line impact our budget. So we have a large senior class this year. Um and so we are going to see a reduction in students. We're currently projecting that to be about 23 students year-over-year. Uh one nice thing the state put into play a couple years ago is an enrollment stabilization categorical. So, it doesn't completely mitigate the loss of students, but it does help to offset some of that cost. So, when you combine those two, we'll see about a reduction of $171,000 in that revenue combination of lost students, but getting a little bit of support from the state to help balance that out. The foundation increase at 250 per pupil is about
053a $772,000 increase to a revenue. The elimination of that retiring healthcare categorical is a reduction of about $36,000 and the reduction of that MERS offset categorical is about a $65,000 loss of some retirement categorical revenue. In the 2526 budget, we do have some off schedule payments that our staff are receiving. Removing that out of the budget is about $431,000 savings. Uh but then looking at some wage changes. Uh either those that are known because we've got contracts settled or just putting some estimates in there for wage adjustments. Right now we've got about $357,000 budgeted for 2627 for wage adjustments. And then looking at our teacher steps longevity pay changes year-over-year, there's about $418,000 increase for that line item. Shifting to the the benefit side, uh the state health insurance cap is up about 3% year-over-year.
054So, factoring that into our budget, some estimates for dental and vision, and then we have had a few staff members that have had election changes based on life events. All of that's worked into that line item that we're looking at about a $61,000 cost increase for our insurance benefits. That decrease in the retirement expense that I talked about looks to be about 263. I might be able to match that up a little bit. substantial. But again, when you look at the reduction of revenue or of expenditures of 263, but a loss of revenue of 306, you see we're upside down on really what happened at the state level with our retirement rates and those categoricals. We do have two teacher retirements currently built into this budget projection. Those positions won't be replaced. We actually late
055last week learned of a third and I believe today learned of another. So when we come back in April, we'll be able to update that line and project that out for our budget, but that's that's what we have really as of last week when I was finalizing this presentation. Uh we also have a decrease of one special about $31,000. And then we have part-time tech assistance that we worked in the budget. It was never filled. So we're moving that out of the budget as we last three line items are more operational things. Some adjustments for utilities, the property casualty. Those might be a little bit I'm still analyzing your utility costs and I'm hoping by midappril we'll have our actual cost casually increase and I can make that adjustment to be whatever actual is and
056then finally we're looking at making a small increase to our teacher sub rate for next year and a projection of what that cost will be. So when you factor all that in, right now we're looking at a deficit of just under a million4, but we we constantly talk about structurally where are we at. So we look at the next slide, we do have some one-time costs in our budget for equalization and 11t expenditures. When you back those out, where we sit today, March 9th, we're at about $473,000 deficit for next year. Obviously, our our goal and our challenge over the next couple months will be to get that number down to a place where we can something that we present that's solid for the board. Um, but that's where we stand now. As we look
057at what's next, obviously we'll continue reviewing enrollment, see if that needs to be at all. We'll continue looking at staff as we learn about stepping shift retirements and whatnot. Uh, I do want to keep on everyone's radar insurance legislation. So, House Bill 6058, uh, which bumps up the amount that districts are required to pay for health insurance. That was something that went through lane duck two lane duck sessions ago. Um procedurally the speaker of the house said the prior legislation didn't do what they needed to. So I am not compelled at the governor. Uh that's making it way through the court. So actually both the house and the Republicans and Democrats both sued each other. Um it's likely to be heard by the Supreme Court. Not sure when. But if if it gets ruled in
058the favor of how the legislation was passed in lane duck, there is potential substantial increased cost for our district the tune of probably at least $300,000. So I think it's something that we need to keep on our radar. We were hearing originally that the governor may not want to sign a bill against her desk. We're now hearing that if it hits her desk, she's likely to sign it. So mixed messages. We'll have to see where that plays out. But I really want to make sure that that stays on our radar. Um, the longer this goes in the courts, more time passes and it's hard to say like how far back will this adjustment have to go. But it is something that we definitely need to keep on our radar. Similarly, with the the litigation surrounding
059section 31A on school safety that's kind of in the court of claims at this point. We'll see what happens there. That again something we need to keep on our radar since governor has appropriated some money in her budget but kept those those same requirements in there that she did in 2526 with a budget. I always call it three legs of the school. You got the governor, the house and senate. Currently know the governors. We need to see what the house and senate come to see how similar dissimilar all these proposals are. I was at one point hearing that budgets could be released by spring break. Um I don't think that's realistic now what I'm hearing and unfortunately that just shrinks our window of time to work through a budget and really get a sense of
060where we're going directionwise obviously we'll work internally with our cabinet probably starting next month we'll schedule a with the board and then I'll provide the board information >> increase >> um just regular year-over-year increases um actually adding air conditioning into all of our buildings also driving uh that cost up. So, what I'm trying to do now is just look at our trends as we've had more and more buildings with air conditioning just to see if that number is about where we think it is or if I need to tweak that at all. But those are the two major drivers. >> Thanks, Rob. You >> present to Thank you very much members. Superend staff and guests. My name is Jeff and just provide update today. We've been working as a team for the last year with
061three board members as well as staff to go through and identify different opportunities for what could you're seeing right here. This is just a an overview of what we've been able to complete to date, what we're currently working on, what we see as our next steps in this process. So, um, when we initially started focusing on this, we wanted to look back at the past 2020 facility assessment and understand what the thoughts were, what we were able to complete 2021 bond so far, what we see as moving into the future as items that still need to be complete. So, we took all that information We engaged the district's leadership team across the district looking at just building specific as well as districtwide to see if there are any additional items for needs for consideration for
062the future. And um as a part of this we we also wanted to make sure to start assembling all this data into what financially what would be our overall estimate some of the ideas that were coming forward. And lastly, what we completed today, the district engaged their financial advisor to understand what a future bond could look like what the limitations would be and opportunities and items we're currently working on right now that are in progress on the community survey which we just finished up at the end of February. We got some initial results in um we're still going through all the data just to really understand it but right now we've had 610 respons a couple things that I was able to pull um you look at the 2021 bond question for those respondents respond
063about 72% believe that the 2021 has been success also when we looked at who took the survey 75% respondents were parents of students who are currently in that district 15% were actually staff members and 10% were students sorry 10% were members not parents or students um we're also currently working enrolling We just finely building both of those documents will help pre and we're continuing to work through this. We're also double checking budgets, making sure that the ideas that have come forth, the adjustments we've made are all in alignment with the For next steps, we're going to continue that framework. Back in September, we were able to engage our construction. They've been assisting in this planning process. Um, trying to understand which projects could take place, how that sequence, the financial implications, different series of working
064as a team to make sure that all those groupings and scenarios are all ready to go. We're also working on engaging community um in a forum coming up in the future here and finalizing the recommendation for consideration. Next slide is a capital planning timeline over just to provide you with a high level. Um currently right now community engagements have been talked about for April 14th. We've got the department of treasury meeting on June 1st. We've got a board of education. This will be the opportunity for the board of education to approve a prequalification application. So before we submit it, we want to make sure the board is in agreements and then um everything moves forward the resolution. calling the election on July 13th and then absentee voter ballots become available on the 24th and election.
065So with that um I would say that in summary process is progressing very well. Um we're currently continuing through that analysis phase and working to gather as much information as possible the right information all the key stakeholders. um continue to work through feedback to make sure that whatever's um recommendations questions and you just go real quickly assessments throughout the previous years as far as how those assessments occurred what's on that information? >> Yeah, so a facility assessment is very detailed. It takes several weeks and and literally um a team of people go building to building space to space and assess conditions, you know, simplest carpeting, case work to more detailed HVAC systems, roofs, parking lots, all of those things. Um and then they also group it by kind of life expectancy. So here are the
066things that are critical that you need to address in you know the next one to three years. Here are the things five to seven 8 to 10 and then 10 plus. And so what we did when we started the assessment for this potential uh bond that we're looking at now is you looked at the things that were kind of in that eight plus years because now we're five six years further along. So now those have shifted up into the one to five year time frame and then most bond projects that you're doing will span about five to six years. So those are the critical things that you have to make sure you address. But now there's things that maybe were 10 plus years out that are now sequencing into those other buckets of time. Um
067part of that process too is is working with building administrators, department heads, making sure things that we're not missing through that facility assessment, and then that all gets rolled up into ultimately a fairly detailed report of of the condition of our buildings. Can you just explain a little more understand also highlighting some of the speific Just make sure we're answering questions. >> All right, that concludes our presentation. We'll move on to public communication for items found on the agenda. All right, we'll close that portion of the communications. We will move on to the student report. Joshua, welcome. >> So, we got the girls varsity basketball. They won district finals against East Lancing. Uh they're going to be playing against Sturgis tonight at their first round of regionals. We're going to be starting to plan our
068spring into break week, which is going to be our underassman decorating and figuring out how we're going to celebrate spring break. Um, we got our spring sports kicking off today. A lot of triyouts going around. Our men's diving had their regionals last week and two of our divers are moving out to states next weekend. Our high school musical program is holding their first spring musical, Guys and Dolls, on March 20th and 21st. Tickets are on sale right now. Our wrestling team traveled to Ford Field for the MHSA state finals this past weekend. We got Kendrick Cook, Egan Thompson, and Tyler Bashore all qualifying for the state tournament. And Tyler Bashore, he finished seventh in the state in division 2. Our model UN team travel to Grand Rapids to compete in states. Uh our DHS band
069and choir are gearing up for their district festival competitions this week. Choir district festival is March 12th and band district festival is March 13. Our BPA is going to be traveling to Grand Rapids for their state competition this coming weekend. I know a lot of people are very excited about that. And we got our SAT preparations continuing in seminar and uh continuing with K Academy presentations that teachers have made. They're all a lot in depth and really great That's all. >> Thank you very much. Excellent report to see all that good news. >> Thank you so much. >> Okay, we will move on to the consent agenda is the recommendation by superintendent Kevin provide the board of education approved adopt accept the following items for immediate implementation appropriate action as presented. The approval of minutes
070from the regular board meeting on February 9th, 2026. Curriculum and improvement committee meeting on February 9th, 2026. Treasures report and bills for payment for the month of February 26. Treasurer reviewed and confirmed the checks a debits and the purchase card for the month of February 26. Out of state overnight student trip requests do high school quiz bowl nationals in Atlanta, Georgia May 22nd through 24th, 2026. Dit high school VEX Robotics World Championships in St. Louis on April 20th through 24th, 2026. And the 26 27 Dit salary schedules for nonaffiliated personnel. Do we have a motion? support move and support any discussion. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. Any opposent agenda? We'll move into action items. Now, the extension of administrators contracts. Recommendation by Superintendent Kevin Roit. Board of Education approve the contracts
071for principles and administrators identified in the March 4th, 2026 memo from Superintendent We did support any discussion questions or they >> Yeah, the same as they were. They're just giving them two years. So, >> okay. Any other discussion? All those in favor, please say I. >> Any opposed? Carries. Next, we will go on to Chromebooks and licenses purchases. This is a recommendation by superintendent Kevin Board of Education award the 2021 building capital project to CI from the R EMC spot bid pricing for 300 HP for G1 14inch Chromebooks with management licenses in the amount of $151,265 as discussion >> just a question what's a lift charge >> that is basically from the truck to >> literally >> question. Any other questions? >> Okay. All those in favor, please say I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries.
072Next, uh it is the Chartwell School Dining Service contract. Recommendation by Superintendent Kevin Robotic with the board of education award the contract with Chartwell School Dining Services to provide food service management services to the school district 26 27 year and authorizes the administration to execute the contract motion >> so moved move and supported any discussion all those in favor please say I motion carries >> I do just want to thank Megan and her team for all their work they do feed our students has amazing ideas that she's put forth this year to her supervisor. I think that as well. >> Did she make the movie? >> She did. >> That is amazing. >> It gets better every year. >> Yeah. And earlier this year, she did a farmer's presentation where kids come and pick their
073own fruit, things like that. And that was really, really awesome for those little kids to be able to do that. Uh next we move on to first middle school is recommendation by superintendent Kevin board of education award the 2021 building and site capital project for abatement at first early childhood center and middle school to global green service group in the amount of $57,000 or $57448 as presented and Nova Environmental Inc. have provided recommendation letters for review. Do we have a motion? move to support. Any discussion? >> All those in favor, please say I. Any oppos? Motion carries. >> Next, the bond furnishings for FECC. Recommendation by Superintendent Kevin Robotic for the 2021 building and site capital project. The board of education approved the award recommendation of 17,392.73 for the purchase of furnishings for first Early
074Childhood Center as presented. Real point has provided a recommendation letter and furniture pricing form for review. We have a motion support move and support any discussion. Okay. All those in favor please say I motion carries. Finally, bond furnishings for high school recommendation by superintendent Kevin for the 2021 building and site capital project. The board of education approved the award recommendation of $71,695.92 for the purchase of furnishings for high school as presented. Plant real point has provided recommendation letter and furniture pricing for review. We have a motion move. Any discussion? All the furniture for the high school seems to be for the corridors here tables chairs where what is that elaborate but right now you're in the high school you look on the second floor of the building they already have tables and chairs that they're
075utilizing The vision is to do something maybe a little more formal a little more intentional versus just some random chairs and stuff and so utilizing some spaces that aren't being utilized for a while. I just wonder what the corridor was where >> is that for collaborative learning like that. Yeah. The other thing other thing I just want to point out is we'll probably come to the board in April for one more budget. We want to make sure this poss one more question. What's the pneumatic lift chair? >> Just a chair. >> All right, that takes care of all of our All right. I don't know if we did, but let's try it again just in case. All right. All those in favor, please say I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. And that all of our
076public communications for items not found a shaker. >> Hello again. Um, good evening. I'm not here as a policy expert. I'm here as a parent. I've sat in meetings. I've listened to evaluations. I've worked collaboratively with staff. I've signed 504 plans in good faith, believing that what was written on the paper would actually happen in the classroom. And then I've watched it not happen. I've watched my child struggle with things that were supposed to be supported. I've watched accommodations like reminders, structured breaks, and simple proactive supports quietly disappear. I've watched my child face consequences for behavior directly tied to their disability, the same disability that qualified for protection in the first place. Yet, I've had to explain to my child why the plan the adults agreed to wasn't followed. This is not just frustrating, it's
077heartbreaking. The 504 plan is a civil rights document under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. It is meant to ensure equal access to education, not extra, not special, equal. To qualify, a district has already acknowledged that their disability substantially limits major life activities. That means support isn't optional. It's required. But what I've learned is that a plan is only as strong as accountability behind it. When accommodations aren't provided, there's usually an explanation. Someone didn't know. Someone forgot. Someone was busy. Someone thought it wasn't necessary in that moment. But my child still paid the price. They paid embarrassment. They paid anxiety. They they lost instructional time. They paid in self-esteem and I paid in countless emails, meetings, and trying to stay calm, not always successful, while advocating for something that should not require a fight. So,
078I'm asking this district to look seriously at accountability, who ensures staff actually read and understand 504 plans, who monitors implementation, who documents whether accommodations are consistently provided? What happens when a plan is ignored? What is action. How are patterns identified before harm continues? Because right now, too much of the burden falls on parents. Parents should not have to become compliance officers to protect their child's civil rights. I don't want conflict. I want consistency. I don't want apologies after the harm is done. I want systems that prevent it. I want my children and every child with a 504 plan to walk into school knowing the adults around them will will do what they agreed to do. A 504 plan with accountability is just paper. My child deserves more than paper. We will close public communication. We'll
079move on to superintendent. >> All right. Thank you. So March is our national reading month across public schools. Um our classrooms are celebrating activities and both the importance and the joy of reading. Um I did push out to the board members today if you want to sign up and read one of our elementary directly contact principal. We have a half day on March 26. District will be on spring break. Classes will resume April 6. As we talked Jeffary had talked earlier about community engagement which will happen on April 14th and 28 make sure that invited to those as well around that is to make sure we're engaging our community possible process and on Tuesday April 14th at the St. John's Auditorium we have a presentation for five of our students and I'll get more information.
080Jennifer was here earlier and we're also working on a end of the year event schedule for our board members so that you know senior night honors night things of that nature. So I'll make sure that no one and I are working on that right now. make sure the board is aware of, you know, field events, things of that nature. So, we're kind of on that so that you have something, one document that you can look at, make it a little bit easier. And that's all I have today. Any questions? We will close on board member announcements. >> Um, so I attended a Memorial Stadium discuss the policy itself and kind of what it's intended to be and what it is currently and I just wanted to discuss policy policy with some key components of the
081honor memorial one geographical stadium there just kind of and there and so it doesn't really seem to necessarily represent that geographual Anything else? All right, close announcements. I'll entertain a motion to >> adjourn. Move to support. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I.