001Okay. We're going to call our special budget hearing to order. Our regular meeting will follow at the conclusion of this, but we will welcome Rob Spaldo superintendent to the floor. Welcome Rob. Good evening. So tonight we're going to run through the 2526 budget. So you'll see the general fund, our special revenue funds, which is community ad, food service, and then student activities. So a lot of the information, most of the information you've seen on the general fund is items that we saw in May change, but obviously in the room as part of the public hearing, I'm going to run through that, make sure that we cover everything. And then just to note, our budget is based on the governor's proposal. Uh so the Senate has voted there subcommittee and the house kind of sort of
002has a proposal that our budget is based upon governor. So that's what I'm going to focus on. I'm not going to focus on the center of the house slides since our budget is based there. So when we look as reference at the governor's proposal, the governor did propose a $392 foundation allowance for all districts. The governor did also propose an increase in overall funding for both at risk and special education categoricals. However, at our level, we're not expecting to see any increase in those categorical for next year. The governor did propose an elimination of what's known as a retirement cost offset um related again to retirement with the the or retirement system. What's unique about this is for the 2425 year we were given these funds in lie of a foundation increase and we were
003told at the time that although these were only one-time funds next year we would see a retirement expenditure decrease that would more or less match that lost revenue. Unfortunately, what you're going to see when we get into the numbers side of things is that we got a mismatch in the revenue that was reduced um and the expenditures that we had reduced and that that amount is around $400,000. So, not insignificant and it's basically contributing to the structural deficit that we have. So, I think it's important to note that line and the impact that that has the ripple effect through our budget. The governor did recognize and and the Senate and the House have also recognized that this was a problem. They did put a new categorical in play related to retirement. Unfortunately, even with those
004dollars, that's still contributing about a $400,000 gap. Finally, with um really the next five bullet points, these are all continued uh funding items within our budget that have been inflated in some cases for a number of years, in some cases more recently. So, uh the remaining retirement categoricals are funded with the governor's proposal. We've got continued funding for early literacy and vocational education categorical. The big one is the mental health and school safety categorical that has continued to be funded in the governor's proposal as well as the transportation categorical. And then not tied to the general fund but with our food service fund funding provide free breakfast and lunch for all students. And then finally just to mention that the reduction in the retirement rate is part of the governor's proposal but it's not the
005level that we were expecting to see. Again, by way of reference, there's the Senate and House proposals. So, we take kind of the proposal that the governor has put uh out there for us to consider and translate that to us. Here's really what we're looking at. So, we've got a 2425 board approved deficit. That becomes our starting point for the 2526 year. That's at a million 588 with the governor's proposal. The foundation increase of 392 will add about a million2 in additional revenue. However, the elimination of the cost offset was a million one out of the budget. And then if you look at that increase below it on the employee healthcare, that's $172,000. So you're looking at just shy of a million dollar of lost revenue. If you jump down a few line items, decrease
006for retirement expense, you see that's only $546,000. That's creating that $400,000 gap. And you're going to see on the next slide that's really why we've got a structural deficit that we need to address off of that challenge in a short window of time. try to basically close a significant discrepancy that we were not anticipating. Uh the line items under those categoricals for retirement are really our salary and benefit changes. So the off schedule stipens that we have, our regular wage adjustments, our teacher steps, and obviously our insurance changes. And then below the retirement expense are some operational increases that we've got for utilities, our property casualty insurance, and then our teacher substitute costs. And the bottom two lines relate to staffing and adjustments and modifications we've made there. So we have nine staff retirements, resations,
007and reconfigurations with some savings baked into our budget for that as a way of recalling what those are. It's the assistant principal retirement high school. It's the configuration of our tech director and communications coordinator. We have three teachers that have retired. Uh, one position is not being replaced and then we have four special ed positions through resignations and those positions are not being replaced as well. And then finally, we have in this budget the addition of a halftime special education teacher. Good news is last week we heard from the ISD that they're going to be providing us with some one-time funding. And so that position is ultimately going to be a full-time position. I just time to work that into this budget local amendment. But I just wanted everybody to know if you see out
008there fulltime position. It's really stepping this one up from halfime to full time because of some funding we got at the model. So you take all that into account, we're looking at about a million7 deficit. However, as we talked really since February, we've got some one time items that are in that budget. So when you back those out structurally, we have a $337,000 deficit. Again, we have a mismatch in our retirement revenues uh and our retirement expenditures, we would have a balanced budget. But unfortunately, we're still trying to whittle down that $337,000 to get us to something a little more balanced. So, as we look at this in a little bit different format, ultimately the format that gets approved tonight, uh our revenues that were approved back in December by the board about 41.6 million.
009We're currently projecting revenue for 2526 at about 40.6 million, which is a decrease in total revenue of just over a million dollars. And as we break that down by our components revenue, we've got state, federal, and and other. Our state revenue is actually down about $473,000. That takes into account the foundation increase as well as the two retirement line items, but we also have some categoricals that were one time that are also coming off the books. The good news with those is that the expenditures are also coming off the books. Uh so it's a net zero impact of the bottom line. We just have to reflect the loss of both revenue and expenditures. The largest within that is the textbooks that were adopted by the board about a year and a half ago for the
010wonders curriculum that was paid for with one of those categoricals. Jumping out of the federal revenue, we've got a $91,000 decrease there. That's the removal of the last of our ESSER, in this case, the 11T component of our ESSER funds received from the federal government. Uh good news again here is that that paid for the federal summer school program. ran last August. So the revenue comes off similar expenditures. So it's in that zero bottom line impact. And then you'll see that with our transfers and others is this has a zero impact to the bottom line. So it's reflecting some things that happened this past year. So we did an installment purchase agreement for the buses that we purchased this past summer. So we removed the proceeds that we received from that transaction. Obviously we removed
011the purchase side of the the buses. And then we also had the sale of two buses this past year. We generated $40,000 of revenue. We used that to purchase another Chevy Traverse to help with some of our smaller trips. I always think of G uh and some of the transitional program. We do special ed up at the high school. Two ways that we utilize those traverses that we we have now two of those. And then finally, there's a $7,000 increase in our vocational education revenue from the ISD. Uh this is also uh kind of matched with some increased expenditures. In this case, we've got some additional tuition that we're paying next year. And so the ISD has has covered the cost through revenues that we've received. On the expenditure side, about 43.2 million is what
012was approved in December. We're currently projecting about 42.3 with 2526 initial budget of a reduction of about $900,000 in total expenditures. And I'm not going to run through this laundry list. all the things that we talked about on the previous slides, but this just summarizes them all in one place for us. So, when we take everything that we've talked about, this is ultimately the format that the board will approve tonight. You can see if you look at total revenues, it's the 40.6 million. You look at total expenditures about $42.3 million and we've got that deficit of about a million7. We're projecting that we'll start the 25 26 year fund balance wise just under 8 million and we're projecting to end about 6.2 2 million or about 14.7%. But as we've been careful to talk about
013the last few years, there's a little bit more of the story on fund balance. Uh so the top part I'm not going to rehash. That's just the the deficit to our structural imbalance. But it's important to look at the fund balance side of things because we've been assigning fund balance to cover some positions that we were able to in essence create when we received our federal dollars a few years ago. Uh that was an assistant principal position at the high school. The specialists, three specialists, now and then some pair of professionals that have helped out through that program. So, two of those positions have officially been worked into the budget. The other ones were using assigned fund balance to pay for those positions until that assigned fund balance runs out. And we're hoping that as
014we close out the June 30th uh 2425 year, uh we will have about million2 still left in assigned fund balance. We're looking to use about a half million dollars this year. So we'll still as we close out the 25 26 year have a little over 700,000. Actually hoping that'll be higher than that as we close out next year. And that will allow us to keep those positions in play for at least another year and a half, hopefully two years when all is said and done. Uh and so then as you break out our unreserved and our assigned fund balance, that 6.2 million breaks out as as follows. So five and a half million or about 13% is unreserved and about 700,000 or about 1.7% is assigned. So that's a lot that's a general fund. We
015shift to the community ed fund. It's a lot simpler. Sorry. One question. Absolutely. Um is there any potential with student growth in our population that looks like it could happen this year? Does that change these numbers at all or is the potential growth built into? Yeah, potential growth is built in. So we're looking to probably be about flat enrollment wise this year and next year with our preliminary uh kind of counts. What we really do need to watch is next year. We have a bubble class um that's going to be current seniors. That's 30 to 40 students higher um than most of our other class sizes. So we're going to potentially have a a natural reduction of of kind of our for students as we look at the 26 27 year unless we have some
016growth at other levels between now and next year. But for next year we're looking to be flat enrollment. So it could y with the community ed budget. Um, not a lot of change there. We've got some increases to our kids child care rates built in. Uh, just to note on that. That's the first uh or second uh increase that we've done since 2021. So, we really try to hold the line as best we can there. But just to be able to make sure we're matching our expenditures. We've got that built in. And then similarly with preschool, we've got some increased rates for our preschool program, which again is only the second increase we've done to those rates since the 2021 year. So, as we look at the community ed budget, you'll see that 9 76,000
017total revenue projected for next year with just over a million of total expenditures. Slight deficit of about $26,000 in our community budget, but we're still predicting to have about $572,000 of fund balance as we end the year. So, we're in a really strong position with our community fund balance and fund overall. We look at food service, uh we're continuing to uh budget for free breakfast and lunch for all students. That was a state initiative with 232 year, we still do need to set meal prices. Uh so no increases to those, but if the student wanted to purchase an extra meal or a second lunch or breakfast, we have to have those those prices set. And there's actually a tool the federal government required us to go through to see if we have to increase those
018prices and we don't need to do that for 256. Uh and then finally, we do have some capital outlay continue with our food service budget to make sure that we're staying up to date on equipment and needs program. with food service budget. It is a balanced budget about a million480 of both revenues and expenditures and we're projecting an ending fund balance of just over $400,000. And then finally, our student school activity fund budget. Uh this is one that's relatively new that we've had to budget for came about because of an accounting standard change about five years ago. Uh it's really more form over substance. It doesn't change anything we do dayto day, but we have to reflect the revenue and expenditure within those activity funds. As you look historically, we really covered right around $800,000
019both revenue and expenditures since this accounting standard came into play. So you'll see there's no change in either from 2426. It's balanced and we're looking to have about $759,000 in that fund as we close out 2526 year. So that would concludes the presentation. The Another thing that I need to note as part of the public hearing is that our tax levies proposed for next year. It's 18 mills on operating and 10 mills for debt which is the same as what we except for maybe one question. No question before we clear Open up public communication for questions on the budget. Going once. Okay. I will entertain a motion for adjournment for the budget. All those in favor, please say I. Okay. We are journ. Now we will move on to our regular meeting for June. Call
020that to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Angelina Barnes here here. John here. Brad here. Great. I will entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. Moved. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. Any opposed? We have an agenda. Uh first we will go with our presentations and we will welcome our athletic director Mike Bryant to talk about high school Mike. Hi thanks for having me. Um other than the the role of dad there is no other title that I take more pride in than being the athletic director here. So um thank you for having me. I want to thank uh Kevin and Rob
021um from central office Matt Dodson uh high school principal and then obviously for trusting me to to do this job. I I have a a lot of us in the district all work together, but I I feel like I work extremely close with just about everybody in the district from um technology to transportation to facilities uh even to principles uh and some of our other buildings because that's where our athletic facilities are. So um maintenance and grounds um central office HR. So, thank you. Um, just to move along, not a lot of change here. Um, our enrollment last year was 951. Um, we are, uh, 955 this past year. Um, still class A, still in the blue division. Nothing has changed there. Um, we do, uh, over the years continue to host more and more
022athletic events. We're, um, approaching 300 over the course of the year. Um, again, were leaders in the area among uh hosting MHSA tournament events and then we have uh we hosted 12 of our own invitationals. This is just a breakdown uh by season. Um the number of athletic programs that we have, teams, the coaches that our athletic department is responsible for uh and then the number of student athletes um and then if you were just wondering uh whether or not we're increasing or decreasing, those numbers are there as well. So overall we uh oversee uh 27 athletic programs, 47 teams, 75 uh coaches that were responsible for coaching and uh about 867 student athletes. Um I would be remissed if I did not um acknowledge and thank my counterpart in this whole process. Our athletic
023department is 1.5 of us uh in the office and Shauna Bole uh I will say is a game changer in terms of allowing us what we do with that we have um in terms of social media graphics, the website, registering student athletes, making sure that um not only that we're keeping up with what the MHSA requires, but that we're really one step ahead in terms of health and safety of our student athletes. So, uh Shauna Bole is, like I said, a difference maker for for us. Uh this is really just kind of a cohort, so you can kind of see where everyone's at. And this this negative one is from this year's senior group from their junior year to their senior year. So, it's not the number of seniors, it's that cohort. So, um you
024know, last year we actually had quite a bit of red, which was good. That was our our numbers were increasing. But if you look at that, I think the natural progression, we have freshman teams, then JB. As you get to to varsity, now really you're competing with three other grades. Um so, there are our totals in terms of class size, male and female student athletes. uh again still hovering right around 60% of our student body that uh participates in uh in athletics. We also like to look at the number of three sport, two sport and one sport student athletes. Um so those numbers are there. Again I I think you know the school of our size the level of athletic teams that we have it really is uh more difficult to to be a multi-sport
025student athlete. That's what we push. Our coaches understand that. Our coaches do a great job of sharing student athlete. We had this year probably uh six student athletes that were multi-sport student athletes in the same season. Um so obviously our coaches um try to remove the student athletes so that the student athletes not caught in between but our coaches work extremely well together. Our average GPA for student athletes is a 3.64. Um the average GPA for the high school is uh 3.36. last year that was about 3.5. So, um again really not only are they talented on the on the respective athletic uh fields, but uh very bright as well. Um last year was our first year. We had over 300. We had 308 student athletes that earned academic all league. This year we're up
026to 322. Um I just used 3.5 as the cutoff. Uh I'm sorry. Um 3.5 is academic all. So if you're a student athlete 3.5 or a varsity ladder, you uh earn academic all league. So 73% three out of four of our student athletes are earning academic all league. And then I just arbitrar uh used three 3 point almost 90% of our student athletes. Um and I'm very deliberate uh with our coaches with our students um referring to them as student athletes. they understand the academic responsibility uh that comes with uh playing athletics have to win uh by grade you can kind of see and and I think it's this is the only one uh this spring sport is the only one of all these numbers that actually went down so you would think maybe that
027as they get older classes become more difficult uh GPA might a little bit but um again just I think kudos goes to to our uh parents and and the support that they have in the community, um our administration and and our teachers. Uh some of our athletic achievements, uh we won six league championships this year, four in the fall, two in the winter, eight MHSA championships, four district, and four regionals. Uh in terms of the league championship, cross country won their first um league championship since 2020. Volleyball won their first since 2021. Football won a league championship for the first time since 2022. And then boys soccer for the first time uh since 2023. In the winter, girls basketball won their third consecutive league championship and boys swim and dive won their sixth uh league
028championship. In terms of the MHSA, uh football won their uh division three district eighth and nine years. football division, three regional championships, six and seven years. Volleyball won their third consecutive district and um cross country won their first regional. Uh they qualified for states the last couple of years, but they actually won uh the regional this year, first time since 2019. Winter sports, girls basketball won their third consecutive district championship and their first regional championship since 2019. Uh this spring, um it's always um a good day when my finish line gets moved because that means our athletic teams are still competing. Um soccer won their regional uh last week. They played in the state semi-finals tomorrow. Um should they win that, they'll they'll play for a state championship on Friday. So um no problem moving
029the finish line for me when our our teams are still competing. So uh they won their third consecutive district championship and then recently just their second consecutive regional. Uh the league um honors 10 of our um scholar athletes. Uh in order to do that, it's based on GPA, but you must letter have two varsity letters your senior year. So there are five of our 10. Uh this year it was hosted by Hlet High School. Um so the league hosted 210 scholar athletes. Uh again, all of the visual like the graphics that Shauna Shauna is the the mastermind be behind that. So, um I I I know that the kids appreciate it. We reach out to them. Uh they share with us pictures and then she compiles those and we put those out on our socials.
030Uh athlete of the year. Um those were our six finalists. We we announce kind of our male and female athlete of the year finalist. Three male, three female. And then um this year uh male athlete of the year was Elliot Lner. He's continuing his career at Grand Valley State University. I'm sorry, Michigan Technological University as quarterback. Uh but again, he was a three sport student athlete. Uh and then Mattie Ule is continuing her basketball career at Grand Valley State University, another three sport student athlete. Um still trying to figure out what the sweet spot is in terms of um signing days. We want to recognize that division and division two uh student athletes have a specific day as set by the NCA on when they need to sign. So we want to be respectful of
031that and their families and and getting together. So this year we actually ran three um signing days. We ran one in the fall, we ran one in February, and then we won we run one with the entire class uh in May. Uh 21 student athletes are have the opportunity to continue their academics and athletics at the collegiate level. Their average GPA again extremely bright 3.7 of those 21 and six of the 21 have above a 4 point um GPA. Some um athletic accolades. Uh we did have a wrestling state champion this year. That was the first time um since 2017. Lucas McFarland won it in in 2017. So Trenton Bayore finished his senior season 55 and one uh won the state championship at 38 pounds. Coach Buyers is here. Um, in case you didn't recognize
032him there on so, uh, congratulations to, uh, Trend and his family and Coach Pyers and his staff. Also, um, a mark that stood for 46 years, uh, Tara Cern senior surpassed our all-time leading scorer. Um, and that's kind of the again something I don't take lightly to have the historical perspective. Um, uh, Kelly that surpassed Kelly Robinson. Um Kelly Robinson's previous mark was uh 1165. Kelly obviously played at Ohio State, so Tara just surpassed that. Um for the second time in school history, we had two,000 point scorers reach the thousand point milestone in the same season. Uh on the left, that happened this year. That's head coach Bill McCullen. Terra Karns on the left, Mattie Ule on the right. Uh and then on the On the right hand side, that's Casey Lachland and Jason Kger.
033They actually both scored a thousand points career-wise on the same night uh their senior year in 1996. Uh and they're pictured there with head coach Jim Leky. Um you probably have seen on social media that um we had a contract with Under Armour. Uh we're moving to Nike and that will begin on July 1st. Um I know it may not seem like a big deal to others outside. It is a big deal to our kids. Um, and it's not a wholesale. We get all new Nike uniforms. Um, just so that you guys know, we will continue to implement those Nikes, understanding that, uh, we're going to continue to use our existing Under Armour uniforms until it's our turn in a cycle to, uh, replenish those uniforms. But, um, it really is a beneficial both ways,
034um, for for the district and and us using Nike. Uh, Bill McCullen, uh, head girls basketball coach, was just inducted into the, uh, basketball coaches association of Michigan Hall of Fame. He was one of four coaches, one of three high school coaches that were just inducted in October. This year, uh, working with, uh, the director of curriculum, uh, Mr. Decker uh we started an intro to sports officiating course and this was one way to kind of combat uh the shortage of officials. So now we're offering that as an independent study in the high school where uh this year we had 48 uh students that participated in that program. Uh we offered eight sports to each of our nine weeks for a total date. Uh when they're done with that, they are MHSA registered in both
035of those sports. So, this is something that uh you know immediately when kids graduate or not even graduate because they're underassman um they can go out and start working youth levels, get that experience and it's it's money in their pocket. So, uh that was successful and um we were uh DIT was one of four schools to have uh former retired or retired NBA official Gary Zalinsky uh do an encourt uh demonstration. So, um we had that class at that time ancore clinic uh with Gary. Also, um obviously the the the forefront of what we do is the health and safety of of our student athletes. The MHSA knew this year required u athletic departments to have emergency action plans on file. And so we do have those. Our coaches have those. Um and we took
036that a step further. Uh we were able to get funding for uh AEDs. We actually purchased 13 AEDs. so that each one of our athletic teams have one during their in season. So, uh during the fall, our fall teams turn those in, then we redistribute those back to our winter uh teams. Um in the last 10 years in public high schools, 51 lives have been saved uh by the use of AED. So, that's an average of 5.1. Um this past year there was a hockey uh student athlete in Gaylord um that went down on the ice and uh his life was saved because of the use of the ad. So this travels with teams uh throughout their entire season at practice on the bus should anything happen on the bus bus driver. Um and the
037other the reason that that we really pushed for this is I don't know when our team travels to another school that there's going to be an athletic trainer there that we know where their AEDs are. Uh and then we purch red, not to be confused with any of our navy and black uh backpacks. So, um stands out. Yeah, it does. It does. Um and then just some athletic improvements. And I know that you guys are all well aware of this um because you guys are are the ones that are approving and supporting it, but um really want to uh thank you because being in on these meetings and looking at the facilities and been to having been to facilities throughout the state, we are doing it right. And so, um, I know there might be
038some questions and second guessing, but I I appreciate it. We're we're going about it the right way. Um, you know, I I know we've done some upgrades at soccer, obviously, our our uh multi-use memorial stadium. Um, this year we just added streaming to our pool area. So, now our boys and girls uh swim and dive teams, those families can also uh that aren't here are able to stream those events. We have that at the stadium and we also have that in the gymnasium. Uh new bleachers which have have been uh incredible just from a a labor standpoint in terms of railings. That was really kind of the big hiccup before. Uh we did spend a little bit of money because we didn't have a baseball field this year. So we've invested a little bit on
039our freshman field and now that really is another serviceable JV field and um so it's just another facility that we have. We did um turf on the infield or I'm sorry sod not turf. We added sod in the infield and then we added permanent fence in the outfield. Um soccer is continuing u to invest in their facilities. Um they've added this uh side here on the lefth hand side which is still under construction. Other uh facility improvements. This is softball as you know. Um the black fencing I think is is very classy. Looks really sharp. Um, we've added a new back stop here at softball padding uh back stop. We uh added some fencing and netting in front of both dugouts. The softball program uh purchased the windcreen in the back. We just installed this
040the day a couple of days before our softball district that we hosted a new scoreboard any which now matches baseball. Uh and then the softball booster club um added some other um traditional all state on our press. So, you know, and it and it's it really does take a full team effort. I know our business office has been great to work with, but uh some of this partnership like with the fencing at Freshman Field that was done by our youth program. Um some of our high high school booster clubs and then uh the DWIT booster club has also um you know, we've all come together to to come up with the funds to improve our facilities. Um this is uh the uh locker room out at the stadium. hard to believe that those are the
041same uh locker rooms and I think you you guys are aware of that donation that we received. Um so obviously primarily used by the football team in the fall but in the spring that's also used by both boys and girls lacrosse as well as our track teams. Um the the speaker that we added at the stadium is a night and day difference. Um we have an onfield microphone that our officials use. So now they're communicating to spectators and to the press box if they need it. Um we've purchased uh flags for each one of our league schools that we have available. And then um maintenance uh Rick Co and his staff uh installed these play clocks which are visible. It's not a uh national federation uh rule, but there's only a handful of schools that
042have that and certainly that probably can be the path that uh the MHSA and the NFHS will go down. Uh so we're kind of one step ahead there. So uh that is it uh from an athletic standpoint. I'll answer any questions, but again want to thank you for uh your continued support. So is there going to be is the speaker on the side closest to the concession stand on the other side next? Is that where there is? So there is one shooting forward and one on the concourse. Um, and so, uh, it's interesting because when no one's out there, it seems really loud and then you put 4,000 people out there and it's not quite as loud. So, we do have the ability to turn that up. But, um, you know, our band, whoever does
043the the PA uh, for for the band at halftime, our old system, they had to yell into the microphone. So, now when they yell into the microphone, it's it's that that much more loud, you know? So, uh, they can talk to it, but it it really is a big difference. Next question. Do you for for facilities, do you have like a running wish list of things that that I mean, if you had an infinite amount of dollars that you would do? Absolutely. Is that what's communicated with the youth programs as well? I know they're always looking at, hey, my kids gonna be out on the baseball field one day or whatever. Yeah. And we've worked with within the the the there's a a committee within the that's working on the bond and so I've shared
044some of those you know and I will say that while some of the what I would say would tangible uh realistic goals might be pie in the sky for community members and and um you know because maybe the question is they're not going to have access to that but by having these new facilities it's going to free up u usage in other buildings where now our community can access You know, it's like if if one of our sports teams is using the high school gym, that's three courts that are being used. Now, if we have a different facility or or a team that's using that now, that's three courts that are freed up. And just hear, you know, we need more green space. We need more space. I mean, it just it's a constant. And
045those are big dollar items, but I also know the associations, the youth associations are willing to do whatever they can and they've been great. Again, that's that's the partnership. community and those youth programs and parents and they're they're a lot of those facilities, those are parents that are volunteering their time because they want to give back and and support their kids. So, we're really fortunate in that sense. Thank you. I was curious with the switch from the Under Armour to the Nike contract, was cost the driver behind that or like did our old contract get discontinued? So, we were under a five-year contract and we were really looking at kind of what um we would get in return um some of the product Um, you know, obviously the the concern with Nike is it takes
046a little bit longer, but I think the product is better. Um, there was a little more financial incentive to that. Um, and then um, you know, Under Armour, uh, once we had signed that contract, they really kind of were moving the target a little bit. And so there I think there's just from a contract standpoint, a little more stability with Nike. Okay. And and I think kids and coaches uh, we're were pushing more toward the Nike side as well. Okay. Thank you for your work for all it's great to see all the success very lucky to have incredible music and arts programs academics obviously and athletics too. Okay, up next, benchmark assessments for grades K through eight, welcome. Thanks for having me. Um, the last two months I've presented after very impressive presentation last month
047was the Herby. I had a follow. I know. And then obviously our athletic program and the incomparable Mike Bry very impressive as well. But we do have some impressive news here tonight. Uh I know this is a um presentation I've given for four or five years now um for our spring benchmark. For a while there were during uh the global pandemic this was required um of us to set goals based on our benchmarking. The state began paying for them. The state luckily for us for now is still funding uh this and that's been a boom to our bottom line I guess because it's not cheap. Um when we talk about NWA there's other vendors out there but we go with NWA. But the statuto requirement to set goals um is no longer there. So I
048don't have to report on that, break it out by different uh breakdowns, demographics and so on. But we have continued uh to set goals. Um again uh following that great presentation about athletics in the academic realm are very competitive as well. So all along I remember even back to Dr. Deer when he was here um rather than set just kind of like hey we'll show growth we wanted to set you know kind of stretch goals and I think some of that's paying off here. So quickly here, um, again, what our NWA nor dorms look like as far as the low in the red, low average, average, high average, and high. Those are the five quintiles and how they're labeled nationally by NWA. That's what it looks like kind of the nation. Um, I'm going to
049show you kind of our K8 aggregate. Again, NWA is a test we take three times a year. It measures how students are are responding to instruction based on the common core state standards. Um, and we give that K8 in both reading and math three times a year. And here we have again four springs on top of each other just like in the in the winter when I showed you the four winter scores. And you'll see that trend line. When we started this, we said, hey, we want to be 80% average, high average, or high. Meaning that hey, if kids are at least close to accessing grade level content at that 80% mark, that puts us right in that sweet spot. Our research tells us that if we can intervene in intensive and strategic ways with
050only one of our students, that's a proper alignment. That's a proper ratio that we can move forward with a healthy core um curriculum offering. So, we said, hey, let's take that um 8020 kind of model and that that'll be our goal. And I'm happy to report to you K8 this about 2,000 students that for the first we surpassed that goal. We actually have 81% of our students um at or above that average or better threshold um nationally speaking here in reading. So that looks like here again kind of zoomed in to give us the the kind of dynamic kind of difference here u with about 2,000 students tested each time that equals about 120 students. Um so you can think of about four or five classrooms full of kids who are at benchmark basically. um
051now versus four years ago. And there's a litany of reasons for that. I mean, obviously, that was the heat of the pandemic, right? And we didn't really track this as much. We had NW before we didn't track it in quite this way. But I think this represents a lot of effort by teachers, principles, pair pros, our specialists have been key in this. all of our data review processes that we continued through the pandemic that other area schools just had to I don't blame them for various reasons had to kind of drop a lot of them pick back up maybe this year but we continued those processes um adopted a new curriculum I think in a very systemic and appropriate way and I think kind of all those efforts combined and led to this um and
052this is a very again we we talk about this is what the nation looks like this is what we look like in the improvement we made the I'm very proud to stand before you um and share that. So, proud moment here. Um in math, uh we have a good looking graph. I'm going to share again. I didn't kind of like underline uh math as much. NWA told us there's anomaly in the data. Um they changed the algorithm for test item selection last uh year and that caused kind of normal scores in the fall, normal scores in the winter, and then spring, true to its name, like was like three or four points higher. than it should have been on on the actual assessment. So, they're correcting that over the summer. Next year, we're going to
053have a 2025 dorms document, but you see that jump um that was expected um here. But if we even see the last this year, this spring and last spring should be apples to apples. We see an increase and uh they're even in the blue for the students who are well above kind of the grade level. Um you know, and on and on. that is actually an increase year on year even with that kind of apples to apples um with the kind of like tainted view there unfortunately. So NWA promises the next year with a new norms study that they've been conducting nationally that will smooth out um but again we can see that even in math we maintain year on year here um I won't go through all of these I'll just maybe show you
054a couple um I'll skip down had some good scores here I have this available posted online all the buildings um K through eight both in reading and math we have the achievement scores um right here we have uh Herbison Woods math has been a focus um for for that staff very proud of them you can see that right now and again these numbers are a bit skewed right but still we have the median student in the 73rd percentile uh building wide and then in the in grade four we have the median student so the plum middle student there's 2 29 there. If we took about the 115th student kind of in rank order, they would be sitting in the 81st percentile nationally. So that's pretty impressive. Even with the bump, say that was the 75th
055percentile or something. I mean, it's still really good. And again, you can see here, fourth grade has been a focus. They really focus on their their math scores, their math performance. Half of those uh students of those about 115 students there are sitting in the well above grade level there. So, tip my hat to the fourth grade. We've had a lot a lot of tough conversations over the past few years about curricular alignment and some different practices. Uh Mrs. Newton and now Mrs. Ormsby have been integral to kind of supporting those efforts and I just wanted to highlight one subject here in one building u here. So that's kind of again we're cutting these down. We've talked about these for years and years about all the different pieces we use. Um this is shorter than
056normal getting these down to maybe five or 10 minutes. So that's the of that presentation. Any questions about our benchmarks? I always say this, but thank you. I love this presentation. I appreciate it. So, thank you for doing this. One question is is there any way to do comparison to similar districts to ours like I mean does NWA provide that data in any way that we can look at demographically similar districts? The only way we can that I'm aware of that we can access NWA scores if we like coordinate directly with other districts. That's right. And I didn't again I was trying to pair this right down for time tonight, but in the past um I've done MSE is is uh publicly available and so is SAT and so I've taken both and I'll be
057pricing those big massive tables right where we rank you know first 17 of the state's peer districts like Madawan and Marquette and all those different districts that are about our size about our demographics and we're right there with Hasllet and Alchemist in our area for big schools kind of you take a take a grade level and they'll be open is first and one then we're one but we're right there neck and neck with those but NWA fortunately we can't see those district by district comparisons. Do you think your colleagues have released that? Would you be willing to do this? I would in fact uh we haven't done a few years. I know that we were um under contract but a company named Idex a years ago and they connected us. I think it was um
058Byron Center L and somebody else in the Grand Rapids area. we did some kind of trading and sharing of that stuff but um I don't I found MSP kind of gives us a basic parameter for that but certainly I would share it's always nice good news at the end of the year so congratulations to you to our teachers administrators hard work pays off awesome so I'll pivot now it's okay with you to our EPS comprehensive advisory team or chat. This is the combination of our wellness committee and our sex advisory board. Um talk about that really briefly. We combined the two this year. Several area schools have done this um and it's going to allow a more holistic approach to wellness um to combine the sex advisory board and the wellness committee. We are required
059by board policy state statute to have a lot of the same people at the table. So rather than call two separate meetings and kind of um go from there, we decided to kind of combine forces and have this comprehensive team streamlining efforts there. Wellness committee that's ongoing right now. We'll be getting um some markups to you very soon on uh recommendations for our first reading of a of a um recommendations for revisions of our policy. Um that's been going on all spring and sex advisory board uh meets you now as the chap. They establish program goals and objectives, review and recommend materials and methods, and evaluate, measure, and report on the attainment of program goals and objectives. We did a survey a few years ago. I think you saw um sexed has been taught in
060reproductive health um for 30 plus years. Um and as of 2021 when I gave the survey last that was provided by our um guidance from our specialists at Eat Resa, I think that we had 95% approval rating as far as like you know the question do you think that we should be um operating sexed program here in appropriate grade levels etc etc and I think 95% of respondents and parents said yes and then our reproductive health teachers reporting 99% opt in so it's even higher than that when it comes down to like do you want us to teach this to your child because there's lots of constraints about notice and different kind of you know warning for this and we only have about 1% or less of students opt out so this is a program
061that has a lot of support um traditionally and currently in our community. Um and so the uh this this board matched the chat team met this year and has a couple of recommendations. Um under state law and board policy, we have to have two public hearings uh two weeks apart um at least and that works out this month. So we'll have our first tonight and then again on the 23rd and the second meeting um here in June. Um the first one and you all have copies of this. There are copies available on the back for the public if anyone wants it. Um we have two materials that we are asking the board to approve for HIV. Um our current HIV lessons this and this is the one piece that every school in the state under
062state statute is required to teach. Um so even school districts that don't have a sex ed don't teach sex are required by law to teach about HIV. Um our approved pieces are a bit out of date and so we are asking for ones um that are more um with the times talk about current treatments. I think the current pieces we have um approved talk about HIV a little bit as a death sentence. Those type of things that you know that were thought of in the '90s and we know that's really changed and so we would like to get current on those pieces um in our courses there. The second piece again this is uh just for a public hearing and review tonight. board action will be needed until um second meeting in June. The second
063piece is that the the chat the comprehensive health um team is asking that two lessons from the uh purpose and woods curriculum be approved that have already been approved have gone through the whole piece and were approved in um be approved for teaching at the high school level to students with cognitive impairments and there are things about like bodily autonomy, what's happening with my body, things that are appropriate um students at that level in those special education programs and that we would have a a trained um health teacher with approved curriculum then do some mini lessons with those students as a refresher as they get old and tend to be more more vulnerable and need that information at that time. So these are the two recommendations. What questions do we have on this? So those
064students especially would get it twice. Well potentially I think potentially they may or may depending on the case may or may not may not have got it in fifth grade. Um but we think that u basically the teacher who works with those students and the health teacher of the high school Jaylor met and thought these two lessons would be most appropriate most timely for those students at where they're at in their life at this point in high school. But it would only be given if it's developmentally appropriate. Correct. And all the same stipulations apply where we have notice periods. Parents can always um review the curriculum and it's an opt in situation where students have to like parents have positively opt into that and obviously if a parent did not want their student in that
065just like any other of our programs they would not [Music] question it from this public I just wanted to have show support for updating our sex education. Um I think it's really important to keep that up to date and I kind of surprised that it's not an annual thing. Um so any type of support I can give to stay up to date on that type of curriculum is really necessary. I think as we learn more, it's important to pass that on to our students because they're going to be using learning that via social media or incorrect information from peers and it would be nice for us to stay up to date so that we're not having to play catch up with kids. Um, the other thing I had was just a request about bullying policies.
066Um, my student had the the worst year. Um, he ended up ending the school year early because bullying was getting so bad and escalating to the point of him getting shoved, called things. Um, shoved into his locker, picked on. Um, he had such severe anxiety. He was having panic attacks and hyperventilation before school and every every person I talked to was lovely and they they met the best but when it comes down to it his review was why do I have to spend so much time in these anti-bullying things where the school tells me there's a zero tolerance policy and time after time after time it falls on him to have to provide a time and a space in which something happened. Talk about why he doesn't think it was a misunderstanding and in the
067end him missing out on school for the last two weeks that impacted his class. Um I just don't know what to tell him. I mean we did everything we could. met with the vice principal. We talked to teachers at parent teacher conferences and in the end he still wasn't safe at school. So I don't know what can be done but I would really really appreciate it because I don't want to take my kid to public school. I like that he's part of the community. I moved around a lot when I was growing up and that I lost that sense of community because of that and I don't want the same to happen to him. But he'd rather not leave the house. Um, probably the last thing I'll say is he had dyed his hair green
068after a secret anime character and by February it's still in his hair and he asked us to cut his hair just so maybe he can look normal and he won't be able to get picked on as much. It didn't work. But it breaks my heart that he had to change something about himself that really helped him feel like an individual and celebrate what he likes of anime and the onus of reporting the bullying, proving the bullying, identifying who it was. He asked for mediation with specific individuals and it was up to them whether or not to opt in and they did not. He got to the point where he was spending time in the Zenen, but he was told that it's inappropriate for more than 10 minutes and for a kid who stayed home because
069he's hyperventilating to the point where he's asking me, "Mom, mom, why can't you help me? I can't breathe." him being told you had 10 minutes, it's been enough is not okay. So, thank you. All right, we will skip through the student report for this one and move on to our consent agenda. Recommendation by Superintendent Kevin that the board of education approve, adopt and accept the following items for immediate implementation appropriate action as presented. The approval of minutes from the regular meeting of May 12th 25 special meeting May 12th 25 finance committee meeting May 22nd 25 policy committee meeting May 27th 25 treasurers reports and bills for payment for the month of May 2025. Treasure has to confirm the checks. AC step is in the purchase card for the month of May 2025. Professional hires Joel
070Jolink for our DIT high school assistant principal and Liam Breen to high school and middle school assistant band director. Um items for annual approval including the 25 Michigan High School Athletic Association membership, a property tax levy of 18 mills and 10 mills as referenced in the budget hearing, tenure recommendation for 15 teachers and an outofstate overnight field trip high school to central Europe and the Holocaust history. Do we have support discussion? Yeah. So Joel Joel Link is here today. He is our new assistant principal at the high school. Welcome. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say I. Any opposed? Motion carries. move on to action. Okay, we will start with the budget. It is the recommendation by assistant superintendent Rob Spolo and Superintendent Kevin Robotic and Board of
071Education adopt the following budgets for the 2526 fiscal year for Dick Public Schools. the general fund, the community education fund, the food service fund, and the student school activity funds. All referenced in tonight's budget hearing. Do I have a motion? Move the support. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. Any oppose? Motion carries. Next, we will move on to student handbooks. is a recommendation by Superintendent Kevin Roard of Education adopt the Dit Public Schools K12 student handbook, the code of conduct, the transportation handbook, athletic handbook, Shaffy Road Elementary School Handbook, Scott Elementary School Handbook, Herb Woods Elementary School Handbook, Dit Middle School Handbook, Dit High School Handbook, and the release agreements as presented. Do we have a motion? So support move and support. Any discussion? No, the discipline. It's like it just deletes
072it offers originally age appropriate. There is a spot discipline guide. Um and so So it must be it begins with the discipline chart and that's all being deleted and I'm just wondering for the replacing it with um that has been in the handbook for quite some time and over the years after living analyzing it. It is a more friendly way than the district handbook, but there's some contradictions. And so the district handbook already assigns discipline on a tiered system for K5 and then developmentally appropriate all the way through grade 12. It just seemed like it was um a conflict because they didn't align. So the things that are in here are still in the district and we still follow that. We didn't want to confuse our stakeholders and because depending on where they look, they
073might see some different. So the what is filling that is we're just overall district and policies. That's correct. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's all. Any other discussion? All those in favor, please say I. Any oppose? Motion carries. Okay, moving on now to a first reading of policies. The recommendation by the board policy committee that the board of education approve the following policies for first reading as presented. Policy 0131.1 bylaws and policies 2340 field and other district sponsored trips 5320 immunization 5350 student suicide and 8320 personnel files. We have a motion. support and support. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. We'll close action items and we will move on to public communications for items not found on the agenda. Seeing none, we'll close public communication and move
074on to superintendent report. All right. Well, thank you. First of all, I'd like to thank Dwight Hans here for attending the bannual election. Uh congratulations to Stacy Wilson and Thank you for the unanimous re-election series. I did send a congrats to them. So, super excited about that. Bond work has already begun as you can tell. So, Rob, thank you for all your work on that and the committee and so forth. But, yeah, there's work being done at Shady, the middle school. Um, we got some athletics with the basketball being done and so forth. But if there's ever any questions, just send that out to us, but there's a lot of work being done at Shady Elementary and then the middle school as well. Yes, I just had one other thing. Um, I did want to
075just say congratulations to all of our teaching staff for for earning your tenure. It's a significant milestone. takes a lot of hard work and dedication and so I want to thank them for that and just thank you for all that they do every day. Um, next I would like to thank Mike Bry for all of his work with athletics and just the tremendous um work that he does day in and day out to keep our athletics a top notch. Brian Deker, thank you for your tremendous work for um your instructional leadership. I want to thank our building principles and our teachers for your instructional leadership as you can see from our results today. Uh just a tremendous share and tremendous amount of work from a lot of people in this room. So thank you. Thank
076you. Any questions? Yes. I I maybe missed it but like how often is this sex ed curriculum reviewed? So I believe policy is Brian you can help me with this but I think every two years you have to at least take a look at it and besides that anything if there are any changes it has to go from the curriculum committee to the board of education pretty set. Yes. Yes. Okay. So and we have to have two public hearings. If we're going to change anything we have to have a first public hearing and a second public hearing. So that allows the uh community to provide feedback and so forth to the board. You can review it anytime, but it has to be reviewed at least every other year. Yeah. And then like I said, any
077changes, if there's any proposed changes, those have to come through the public hearing process. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the report. We'll move on to any board member announcements. Not necessarily announcement, just a request. I know there were a couple of things in here that didn't come with information. There were documents with them just if at all possible I would love to have stuff there wasn't anything I'm on the committee and I know what we talked about but there wasn't any material for the high school athletics um a copy of I love all the statistics and stuff in there and if we can get them after that's great too it's really helpful to have those It's good. I just look happy. Anyone else? I just want to briefly echo Kevin's comments all our teachers,
078administrators on a great school year overall. But I'm also Thank you. It's the end of your first year. You've done a great job and we really appreciate just the positive influence you have on our community and our students and our team as well. So, it's been great working with you from my perspective. Thank you. The third graders thought it was pretty cool that you went in the duct tank. Pretty good deal. All right. Anything else from anybody? All right. A motion to adjurnn. work.