001Okay, we'll call tonight's meeting to order. Please stand and join us in the pledge of the flag. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Starter, can you please call the role? Barnes Carpenter here. Hansman. Red here. John here. Wever here we have four. Thank you, sir. All right. Do we have a motion to adopt the agenda? Support. Move to support. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. We have an agenda. First order of business is a recognition for evil skull. Where is he? Is he with us or should he come back? All right. I'm going to skip that and come back to it.
002Is that okay with you? Okay, great. All right, we're going to move on to our presentations then. And first we have Elaine Blake, Mid High School, Family and Consumer Science. We're here. Welcome. You can go wherever you want. Yep. Wait, do I I'm sorry. I've not done this before. Yeah, you can. It's If you're not There's no microphone. Do I need a microphone or I can advance if you want to go there? Um or you can take the microphone with you right now, Lane, to the podium and then we'll just bring it back. Let's just do that. So take the whole take the whole space. Oh, there. Can everybody hear me? This is better. Hi everyone. Thanks to the board for letting me come talk about my amazing program at DIT High School. My name
003is Elaine Blake. I'm the family consumer science teacher at DIT High School. I have been at DIT for the last 10 years. I can't believe it's been a decade. I did my student teaching actually at Dit Junior High in 2004 with Barb Parsons and um just had an amazing time and always tried to get back. So glad to be back after doing a short stint at Kron High School for 11 years. And I did bring one of my FCCLA members today to support me in talking about our um FCCLA program as well. So here are the courses that I offer. I know a lot of times people ask like what do you teach? And that's a really really difficult question to answer because it's such a large umbrella of content that do high school what
004we tend to do is break it down into these courses. Um but school districts throughout the state can break them down however they would like. Um do high school supports our nutrition and foods programs, our parenting programs, our personal living skills program, and our family studies program. And if you see the numbers that are next to the courses, um those are the grade levels that we offer those courses to. So nutrition and foods one um is 9th through 12th as well as personal living. Nutrition and foods 2 is 10th through 12th, parenting and child development as well. And then our family studies program or course is for upper classman 11th and 12th graders. So just a little bit about our parenting program. So, if you've ever seen um students walking around town or campus with
005the robot babies, that's me. Um those babies. Uh the the parenting program really tries to to help students understand not only like the preparation that it takes to be a parent, but it also explores their own their own family situations as well. Right. So, when we're looking at the childc care skills and the the interactions that we have with children, we try to give the students some like realw world hands-on experiences with the simulators and through things like baby day and toddler day where we bring in actual children to the classroom for the students to observe. So, it's pretty fun. I have some pictures. So, you might notice the gentleman in the center there, that is our guidance counselor and his baby boy. Um he brought him his baby for a baby day last semester.
006Um we also have a group of of students holding their baby think it over simulators in the in the in the car seats. Uh we have another couple of students down here in the corner. They are the lower corner demonstrating how to change a diaper. We also do like how to swaddle, how to bathe, and all of those different skills that you might need to know to take care for a child, take care of a child. Nutrition and foods one is probably our most popular course especially with the boys. Um I actually right now I have well last quarter I had two sections of nutrition and foods one and I think one section had 20 boys and eight girls. So it's it's awesome. when we get um a lot of variety of students and in
007that class we really try to focus on the dietary habits the um USD guidelines for my plate and how to prepare and cook healthy meals. One thing that we've kind of gotten away from in the area of nutrition and I don't know how long how much you've been following with the USDA guidelines but we've really gotten away from calorie counting. Um what we've seen in the past with a heavy concentration on calorie counting as a form of weight control is that we've seen that calorie counting actually put students at risk of things like anorexia and bulimia. So we've been moving away from calorie counting and moving more now into eating the whole plate which is the my plate. And I feel like that strategy has been really good for kids because now they don't feel
008the pressure, right? The pressure isn't there to necessarily have to pick all the calories that are the right calories and the wrong calories cuz it's really just eating the whole plate. You might notice some students here of teachers, we do knife cutting skills. You might find that kind of interesting. Um they're in this corner up here. They're actually cutting flour. And that's how we start is just by cutting piles of flour. And that's just to see if they can cut straight. You'd be very surprised. Some cut straight. I'm also looking at how they hold the knife. Um, there is technique and knife holding. Um, especially if they plan on going into nutrition and foods too where there are more knife cutting skills in that class. Um, we also do homemade pizzas. We do quesadillas. A
009lot of the foods that teens would normally enjoy eating and then we make all those things from scratch which is really fun for them. Nutrition and foods 2 is a newer class that we've been offering. um it does expand on the skills from nutrition and foods one but but what we do in there is is more of what we do in there is focus on international cuisine. So we really try to weave in if you will um other cultures from all over the world. So we do global global foods um and you'd be you'd laugh. So I want to talk about this basic dining etiquette unit that I do. So we in this basic dining etiquette um so through the global foods recipes and presentations we do um so we have like six labs and
010each lab does a recipe from a different culture. So through the lab design and through the presentation, students are required to like do place settings for the where does the fork go? Where does the knife go and the spoon? And you'd be very surprised, right, how many students just they just don't know where to place the knife, the spoon, and the fork. Just it's not something that they do in their normal daily lives. So it's it's fun to see them learn these things and carry those on into into different jobs. And um I had a student that got a job as a um banquet server and the head came back and said, "Oh, Mrs. Blake, thank you for teaching proper, you know, knife and and spoon settings because we we did that in my job."
011And I thought that was pretty cool. This these are some pictures from that class. We do a mother sauces lesson, which is really awesome. They do a bashimal sauce and they make a homemade mac and cheese, which was really really fun. Um, oh, cheese grers. I think 99% of the students had never used a cheese grater. They didn't had never even seen one. So, that was a surprise for me. I'm teaching them how to use a cheese grater safely, which was kind of scary. Um, but they they did they did a good job. Um, I had a gentleman, Brian. He came in from Z Hankle and Zo sorry I can't Zilling Zilling and Hankle um knife company and they did a whole presentation on knives which was absolutely incredible. Um yeah the kids really like
012that. Personal living is I call it my catchall class. It's my adulting class. What are the things that you're going to need to know when you get out of high school? Um, we cover everything from stress techniques, stress relief techniques, mental health, um, apartment searching, car buying, how to find a roommate, um, how to pick out a roommate, um, how to, you know, what college would you like to go to, do career development. It's a whole smorgish board of different skills that we learned in that class. These are some projects um, that some students have done in the past. I just pulled out of one of my Google folders. Um, so what I instead of teaching the students the skill of the car maintenance and the plain plumbing and the um basic um consumer rights
013and responsibilities, I actually have them do it. So they each pick a topic, they research it, they create a presentation and an activity. They have to also create a handout that will go home with the rest of the class that I compile and put together and then they teach it. So, these are just a few of the projects that students have done in the past. Um, the basic cooking skills and kitchen safety. Uh, the girls down there just showed the class how to cook a scrambled egg. Um, we some basic car maintenance. Um, the students, they taught us how to check the tire pressure with a tire pressure gauge, how to check to see if there's oil in your car, how to check the windshield wiper fluid. Um, I had one group do a basic
014consumer legal rights and responsibilities presentation. So, what do you do if you get evicted, what do you do if you feel like your rights are being violated at an apartment complex or if you're driving down the road? So, that one was actually really insightful and I actually learned a lot as well from that one. This one down here, I had a student do basic laundry care. So, we got out the ironing board, got out the iron, and he taught us how to iron simple things like pants, collared shirts, and and garments. And then also did a garment um presentation on what the little different symbols mean on the tag, right? We all see those tags, we wonder, what does that mean? What does that mean? And that was awesome because what he sent home with
015the students was a whole list of all the different um all the different little um you know little things and what they meant. Um I can't say it's one thing because there's so many different ones. So that was a fun lesson as well. My last class um that I'd like to talk about is family studies. This is by 11th and 12th graders. This class is more theory based. Um, I do have a lot of students that take this class that at some point mention that they'd like to go into some sort of family studies um um program in college. So, counseling, therapy, psychology, MFT, um even nursing, healthcare, and those types of programs. And it's just a a really well-rounded class on relationships. How do people form relationships? How do we keep relationships healthy? And
016how do we see patterns in relationships? and how to set boundaries. So, this class starts with a basic Bronford Bunner's ecological systems theory. I know kind of boring, but as a nerd, family studies nerd, I love this stuff. Um, so you might have seen Bronford Mutter's ecological systems theory before. Um, and that's where we start. We look at healthy relationships. I have a picture with the red flags there. What are red flags, right? How do we avoid them? if you know what I'm talking about. Um, how to fight fair. Um, the genog project is a very large part of the class where we look at our family patterns. Um, genogs are used widely in all sorts of industry. Doctors use them, um, nurse practitioners use them, therapists use them. They're a really good tool to
017look at not only like family history, but also family patterns and all sorts of different variables of that. It's pretty cool. and partner selection, too. Hopefully, they learn how to pick partners that are healthy. All right, FCCLA, so this is some of the ending to this. Um, so FCCLA, you might see us wearing our our hoodies here, stands for family, career, and community leaders of America. It is the CTSO for FCS um, education. So, we're business professionals of America or the business teachers have have BPA, business professionals of America. Family Consumer Scientist, FCCLA. FCCLA is a or national organization and our sole purpose is the community. So, community service and more more focused on children, families, and um and volunteering and careers in family studies. These are my babies right here. This year, we had
018over 50 members this year, which was awesome. Um, I was able to take a group to Western Michigan University, uh, to a career conference, um, which by the way, Western Michigan University offers up to $30,000 for any student that's interested in becoming an FCS educator. So, spread the word. Um, that money is not being spent. It's sitting there. So, spread the word. Some of the projects that we have been really proud of are the Halloween safety presentations that we do at Shady Road Elementary. We've been doing this program for several years and it just is so fun for the high schoolers. Did you do the Halloween safety program? Yeah, I'll show in a second. We also do the hygiene products in the bathrooms at the high school and the academic wing, which has been very
019popular. Uh we do childcare events. We just actually did one on Saturday. We did our spring childcare event. We did a whole Easter egg hunt with kids from across the community. We do a fall, winter, and spring childcare event. Kind of like a date night for mom and dad type of um event. We also do lots of volunteer childcare for whoever, whatever, whenever. So, if you need volunteers for child care, reach out. Um I got your back. We also do some monthly advocacy, monthly advocacy um bulletin boards, which I'll show you in just a minute here. And then we just collaborate with all sorts of organizations around the greater Lancing area. The last one, the major one being the oncology department. You might have seen the Facebook posts and the flyers out there um for
020blankets for the oncology patients there. And we raised 80 blankets, which was awesome. So, here's our FCCLA Halloween presentations. The high schoolers dress up and then we just talk about basic safety stuff. What is a safe costume? What is an unsafe costume? What is safe candy? What is unsafe candy? What's a safe house to go to? What's an unsafe house to go to? And the kids just love it. Here's one of our childcare events. This was at the winter time. We did a winter drop and shop and the kids just have a blast. So, every month we do an advocacy bul bulletin board outside my classroom. Um, you might notice or recognize this girl here, um, Lee UTIP. Um, but we do suicide prevention month. This one was for the veterans and military families. And
021we've done childhood cancer, black history, mental health awareness, and child abuse prevention, which is actually this month. Thank you. Are there any questions? Would you want to say something? Um, I just wish that I joined the club sooner. Me, too. Why? Um, I don't know. I just really enjoy it and just doing those childcare events and helping the community. Yeah. I think my students are the best. Like really, I love them. They're just so amazing. So, do you have any questions for me or comments? Do you do you check when you teach these classes what students go on to in college or or postsecary careers, whether it's maybe culinary arts or family services? What does that look like? And is this kind of an intro to that for most of them, like you said? You
022know, that's a really good question because a majority of the data that I get of the students that leave my program is because I have a relationship with them. So, I have I don't do any social media with current students. I only allow it after they graduate. Um, so after they graduate, I do allow them to add me as a friend on social media. And I can't count how many students I have had that have become teachers. I know we have teachers here at the at Shavey and Scott that went through my parenting program. I have students that work at Little Panthers that have gone through my program and kids that have gone through my program. Um, Corona was the same way. I mean, I had, I think, three or four former students become teachers
023at Krona High School, or it's not Kronite High School, at Krono Elementary. None of them really want to become high school teachers for some reason. I don't know why. I'm working on them, though, because I'm going to need a replacement someday. But, and I have had students become social workers. I've actually had several students come back and be guest speakers in my classroom that were my previous students that have became social workers, therapists. Um, I don't think I've had anyone go into culinary. No, Bella. I lie. She works at People's Kitchen. Bella Groatzi, I don't know if you remember her. She is actually a pastry chef at People's Kitchen. I just flew by my Facebook page the other day. So, yeah, it's pretty cool stuff. Any questions? I I think I need that nutrition and
024foods, too. I was here before you were, but I took a lot of those classes and they didn't have nutrition and foods, too, yet. Angelina and I were just saying I think we both need Everybody wants to take nutrition foods too and what they all come up to me when can I get into that class I'm like going to have to the counselors yeah it's great and we just added that class a couple of years ago because we felt the need for another class because we had so many kids taking nutrition and foods one it's just and it's such a good class like besides the food part just the information because I am so passionate about it. Um the information is so easy to teach because it's so fun to teach and it's constantly changing,
025right? So yeah, it's a really fun class and there's a lot of particular things you wouldn't think to do. I had to explain the other day, you know. Oh yeah. On cell phone call, how to take apart the blender and clean it because we wanted to blend but we didn't know we had to clean it, right? Take out the seal. Take out the seal and undo the bottom and wash it out. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean it's surprising and it's not the fault of parents. It's just there's there's they're busy. These are the kids that are in sports. They're have a job. They are they're never home, right? So, you know, I get it. A lot of these kids just don't have time to get into the kitchen. So, my very first assignment for them
026is to get in the kitchen. Like, I don't care what you do. I don't care if you pour yourself a cup of water and cook yourself an egg or make some ramen or whatever. Just get in the kitchen. Look through your cabinets. Look through your cupboards. Find your measuring tools. Just know where they're at least at. And for a lot of kids, it's the first time they've gone looking for those things in their kitchens. And that's rewarding, right, when they come back and they're like, "Oh, Mrs. Blake, I made the, you know, the recipe that we did this week over the weekend for my parents and they loved it and I'm making it every week now." And, you know, it's it's those things that make my job super easy. Those experiences for kids. Yeah. I
027think it's a great program. I'm glad that you're you're doing it and I appreciate you coming to share it with us. I think that's really valuable. And you're all welcome at any time to come in and just hang out. Come see what I do. Come sit and hang out with the kids, help with the foods class, come to the child development class. Um, it's really fun. We have a really good time. Super proud of it and I'm very thankful for the support I get from my admin as well. So, yeah, I guess I'm wondering is this a core state requirement in terms of this or this is pure elective? This is why I love my job. All of my classes are electives. Okay. And they're all VPAA credit as well, so kids can gain an
028art credit through all five of my classes. Great. Yep. Thank you. Well, I just want to thank you too firstly for for expanding this program the way that you have and your vision for it and and the opportunities that you're providing kids that they might not have other places or in other educational institutions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. And just so you know, there's so much more we could be doing. By the way, there's more there's more courses we could be teaching. I'm just saying like there's more courses, there's more content, there's more, you know, there's fashion, textiles, sewing, um, teacher cadet, right? Education, careers, um, tourism, hospitality, like the there's really so many things that a family consumer science teacher can do. Um, but we're unicorns. I mean, we're hard to find.
029We just don't exist anymore. Although the programs are starving for teachers. So, you know, I'm trying to get my students to at least look into it because we really I mean, we're we're here and it's really important stuff and I really appreciate your kind words because I I I agree. So, thank you. Thank you both. Yeah. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, we will move on to our next presentation for Rob who always has to follow awesomeness. So, sorry about that. You're not awesome. You have a good update for us tonight. I'm out of here. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. My job is always to bring the room back down after the presentations, unfortunately. All right. So, it's been a couple months since we did a budget update. We really didn't have anything for March, so we we skipped
030the March board meeting. And there hasn't been a lot of information, but I do want to go back through the governor's proposal just as a refresher. I want to talk about what the house put out as their proposal, although it's not really a formal proposal as you'll see. Talk about what it means for us and a couple of changes locally um at at the district level, budget-wise, and then talk about next steps and certainly ask questions along the way, and I'll be happy to answer those. So, real quick with the governor's proposal, again, back in February, the governor proposed a $392 a pupil foundation allowance for all districts. That would put us at $10,000 per pupil. I think that's for the governor a very monumental number to be able to get to and she worked
031hard to do that. The governor's proposal does have an overall increase in funding for at risk and special education. However, I don't think there'll be any increased dollars for us locally. Um, with the special ed, it's really more to allow districts to receive the folk funding that um, they need per law. And then with the at risk funding, just some of the changes that have hit the last couple of years, uh, we probably would have taken a hit and hopefully won't take a hit with our at risk going into next year, but I'm hoping this at least keeps us kind of held harmless year-over-year. One of the biggest changes is um if you remember from 2425 there was a new retirement categorical that was put in and we received it but we didn't get a
032foundation allowance increase and we were told as part of the budget process that these were onetime dollars but when the funding was pulled the retirement rate would dip at a like amount so it would be a costneutral move. Unfortunately what we've seen is that's not the case. When we get into the numbers side of things, there's actually about a $400,000 gap between the lost revenue and the retirement rate decrease. And honestly, that's what's um created some challenges with us being able to get to a balanced budget as we look at the 25 26 year. Um so, a lot of things that went into that. They made some other legislative changes that really made that challenging for that rate to reduce as they said it would. Uh but unfortunately, it's creating just some budget pressures for
033us as we navigate through that. Is this other districts as well facing that? All districts are facing it. Yep. Um different degrees depending on um where their dollar amounts were. It's somewhat district specific based on their payroll size in comparison to the state, but it's a problem for every district. There's there's a sizable gap uh across all districts because of that. A good question. Um the governor did recognize this, so she added in that's that fourth bullet point, another uh retirement categorical. uh it was to help offset some of that loss, but even with that, we're still looking at about a $400,000 gap. She's also said this is one-time funding. I think that her hope is the rate will reduce a little bit more. We kind of had a blip, but unfortunately with the crazy
034activity of the market and how actuarily uh numbers are determined. I don't know if that's going to be the case. Uh so there's the risk that we would lose this funding next year would not see any additional uh decline in the retirement rate uh creating another in an additional budget burden going into the 26 27 year. Won't go in the rest of really the rest of bullet points. It's just highlighting continuation of categoricals that we've had for the last several years and then that that talk of the retirement rate decrease. As we shift gears to the House preliminary proposal, um I call it kind of not a real full-blown proposal because they only end up allocating 75% of the total dollars available in the school a fund. And when they released this budget, they said
035that they're calling it a stop gap in case a full school a budget cannot get passed. Um it's kind of curious wording. I think there's some political undertones to why uh they've released this. Um but the reality is that we're very early in the budget process. Uh although school districts with a July one fiscal start date would love to have budgets done earlier, uh the state budget year doesn't start till October 1st. So we really have about a six-month window to get the budget done. Um so again, I think there's there's more to the story as to why they released this. But the problem is there's such gaps in and what they didn't fund that you really can't call it a full-blown budget. It's it's impossible to budget off of these numbers. And you'll see
036why as we go through the the different line items. Uh so a little bit different than the governor. They've proposed a $417 for people foundation increase. That's $25 more than what the governor proposed. Um they did continue funding for special ed. Like the governor, they eliminated that uh Mipers categorical, which is a reduction, as you'll see on the next slide, of over a million dollars of revenue. uh they did add in the health care categorical uh and then they continued funding for the other retirement categoricals and our mental health and school safety categorical. However, they did provide funding for at risk uh for us just by way of comparison. That's almost $700,000. Uh they didn't provide funding for the transportation categorical. That's about a quarter of a million dollars for us. They didn't provide funding
037for free breakfast and lunch programs for students, which is about a million dollars worth of revenue. Um, and then there's several other categoricals that they they didn't fund. So, that's where it's it's challenging to be able to budget off of this because the swings would be w just wild and and the cuts that you'd have to make um potentially devastating. And at the end of the day, they're not going to not fund at risk. So, again, uh, for your information, know that it's out there, but I expect at some point they'll put out a formal full budget presentation. I think what they're really waiting for is to see what the Senate does. Uh, and I'm hearing the Senate, although was supposed to release a budget around spring break. What I'm hearing now is the end
038of April is when they might be re releasing their budget. So, we'll have to see on that. I'm also hearing some rumblings at the revenue estimating conference in May. They can't settle on a date. Um, as we know, that's one of the last pieces they typically need before they really put final numbers together for the school a budget. So, we just we're dealing with some interesting timelines and just some interesting political pieces at play. Um, but that's where we're at with the house budget. As we now localize this to our district specifically, our 2425 board approved deficit was about a million6. Uh, the foundation increase is at 392. It generates about a million two of revenue, but that categorical, that MR's categorical reducing that takes a million one off the off the books in revenue.
039Uh the healthcare categorical does add 172,000. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to jump down a little bit. When you look at the decrease for retirement expense, that's only 546,000. So we lost a million one of revenue. We pick up another 172. We pick up a little over a half million in the retirement rate decrease. That's that $400,000 gap that I'm talking about. Beyond that, we're looking at uh contractual cost adjustments for wages, benefits, those types of things. and then some of our operational um increases that we we know we'll have with utilities, our property casualty, and our substitute cost. Um the bottom line is new from what you would have seen in February. So since February, we've had five staff uh retirements or resumations. Three of those positions we're not replacing.
040Uh so there is a savings there of about $246,000. So right now we've got a deficit of about a million7 almost a million8. But keep in mind that structurally we have three items in our budget that that aren't continuing beyond the 25 26 year. Those are listed there. So structurally right now we're dealing with a budget deficit of about $400,000. And that's what hopefully between now and June we can work to reduce that. I don't know that we'll get it to zero. My hope, fingers crossed, is that we might be able to get that between maybe $150 and $200,000. But we'll have to see just how things shake out here over the next couple of months. Any questions on the budget as far as the numbers go? You mentioned a couple of positions that had
041resignations or retirements that were not replacing. Is that work getting absorbed by like existing staff or work that didn't need to be replaced? Yep. Did need to be replaced just based on numbers. Okay. Yes. Yep. Good question. Thanks. So Rob, you probably will talk to us maybe about what's next. It's kind of silly, you know, and see right now. What are you hearing from MSBO or others on when is this going to be done? You know, I was a policy forum a few weeks ago. The governor was there. She still thinks they'll get done by the July 1st deadline. I don't know if that's realistic. So, what what are you hearing in terms of September? Okay. So, another one of these we're going to go right up to the deadline. I think so. I I
042I do. I just I think what's challenging right now is when you talk to people at MASB or MSBO, there's just no information coming out from downtown. But everyone says don't expect that the budget will get done by June. And then as we all know once you get into summer they have very few legislative sessions. So it's it's likely going to be September. I just think that there's there's just a lot at play right now. I would love to find that I'm wrong and that it moves quickly, but when they can't even settle on a revenue estimating conference date, there's just going to be a lot of I think just a lot of behind thes scenes work that needs to get done to to get a budget done. I mean it's just I mean that's
043just the school aid fund budget. Bills have been passed, right? So it was a two or three. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So if I was betting I would bet September. Yeah. Thanks Rob. Uh really appreciate the information and you know it just furthers the concern. We're looking at a $400,000 deficit potentially that we're looking to resolve. I think back in November I had sent um a written request about the marching band and funding it. Um I know Mr. Norman as band director of our competitive marching band program uh has been working for several years to try and uh make sure that it's adequately staffed and that we have the resources to continue the excellence for which they're competing now uh because there are struggles you know we have carriers that are broken and and instruments
044and all sorts of needs in that program um when we look and compare ourselves to other and competitive districts. And so, um, I know that he was looking in order to even continue having bands camp as he does and the help sessions and to be a competitive band at all next year. Um, that he has been looking for another full-time staff person. Um, and so back in November, I had asked about, you know, what's being done to do that? What's the timing, the process? How will we address that? Because if he's not supported burning out, he leaves, um, this program won't recover. So, can you talk a little bit about our ability to address that and and what that might look like? Yeah, and I might I'll defer a little bit to Superintendent ID as
045well because I know there's been conversations. Um, we're actually meeting tomorrow to have some additional conversations about um scheduling in general at the high school, but but marching band and band a little more specifics. But I don't know if there's anything more you want to Yeah, I think we've been in continued conversations with the administration team and with the union on like what can we do? You know, um obviously we got to follow the budget to a certain degree, but we want to make sure that um that are being supported that there's somebody there who just we're kind of trying to look at all schedules, not just the high school, but also middle school and making sure that all of that is connected. So, um we've got to find some room. Um, and so we
046can't, we're not looking at just FT, but what can we do is, uh, because we're still going to have some, my guess is we'll still have some people that either retire or decide to move on in some sort of fashion. Um, and so as we receive that information, we're working together as a team to be able to figure out the best way to do that. So, we understand the importance of it. Um, and we're we're definitely not just pushing it aside. They're having conversations kind of behind the scenes and we continue to do that. We have a meeting tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have more clarity tomorrow as we have more clarity. I'll definitely bring material to the board. So, but we know how important it is and we know um we want we want the marching
047band and the whole program to function at a very high level. We continue to do so. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, John. Yeah, thank you. The what's next we pretty much covered, but we'll do an update in May. Um, and we had finance committee last week. We'll probably one or two more before we get to June and then ultimately approval of the budget at our our first June meeting. So, we appreciate everything you and your team are to have all the scenarios play out as best we can. So, thank you. Thanks. Thank you. All right, we will move on to public communication for items found on the agenda. Okay, we will close public communication for this portion of the meeting and we'll move on to our state report with fresh hour. Okay. Hi
048everyone, I'm Kate. I'm a senior at the high school. Um so now with spring break over, it's like full speed ahead to the end of the year. It feels like there's just so much happening. So a few of the things is that top 10 was recently announced. Um, these are the top 10 GPA ranked students in our class, which is actually top 12 this year, which is super exciting. There's a tie at six and a tie at 10. So, you know, that happens. Um, and they have their congratulatory breakfast on April 24th and this is with all the other Clinton County students. Um, which is super exciting and like Molly and I will be there. So, woohoo. Uh, also we have prom after that. Uh, this year it's at a new venue. It's called the
049venue. It's in the Lancing Mall. Um, and post afterwards will be hosted at Zapone XL which is right next to it which I think students are really happy about that because it takes away another level of like oh we have to go here and then we have to go here and you know makes it less complicated. Um also on May 1st we have decision day. This is when students can wear their college or career apparel or whatever they're doing next year. Um and then they get a little pennant that they can sign and then post it on the banner in the comments. It's just a way to like see where everyone's going, know what's happening. Um, I currently run the decision date Instagram account for our class. So, people are constantly sending in like, I'm
050going here, this is my major, blah blah blah. So, that's also like an exciting thing that people just get to celebrate with each other. Um, we also have our student athlete signing day on May 4th in the gym. Um, it's awesome to celebrate the students and how hard they've worked throughout the high school to get to play at the next level. Then, finally, seniors last day is May 16th. Obviously, this is packed with fun last celebrations such as the riding to school tradition and different like non-car options. Um, there's the cookout in the parking lot and then we all have our senior teachers that we wear together. So, those are some exciting things that are coming up. And there's like 24 days left of school, which is crazy. So, for seniors at least. Um, yeah.
051And then I also wanted to mention that um earlier this year when you guys had the opportunity to come in my yard to school, I was in nutrition and foods as a link. So it could have been you could have gone, but that's opportunity. I think I'm on the schedule. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm on the schedule in a couple of weeks. You can come with me. I'll send you the date. I'll learn how to use a night. That's that and that's all I have today. Thank you. Appreciate it. May I ask Kate a quick question? Yeah, thank you. Um, so you mentioned decision date K on May 1st and kind of wearing the apparel and signing the pennant. Do you know in terms of our students who um have chosen trades or alternative career
052paths or um are doing something, you know, different with their future? Is there something that they can do for that or Yes, that option is still out there for them. They can wear like if they're going to Douglas J perhaps, like they'd wear that shirt and then they'd have the same sort of pennant and then that could post on there. And that's same with the Instagram account like people have sent in I'm going to be a realtor at this school or you know so it's like we just try to be inclusive. Perfect. Love that. Thank you so much for sharing. Great report. Thanks for what you do. Thank you. All right. We will move on to the consent agenda. It is a recommendation by Superintendent Kevin Robik. The board of education approve adopt accept the
053following items for immediate implementation and appropriate action as presented. The approval of minutes from the regular meeting of March 10th, 2025. Curriculum and improvement committee meeting March 10th, 2025. Finance committee from April 9th, 2025. Treasurers report the bill's confirmation for payment for the month of March, 2025. The treasure has reviewed the checks. AC debits and the purchase card for the month of March. Professional hiring. Andrea Santini, Dit Middle School social studies teacher. Indeed, out of state overnight field trips for Dit Middle School 8th grade students to Washington DC and Gettysburg and DIT high school quiz bowl team to Atlanta, Georgia. Do we have a motion? So moved. Second, moved and supported. Any discussion? I just want to I'm super excited that Andrea joined Det family. So, thank you. Thank you for being here. Anything that
054you would you would like to say is I'm just really honored to have been hired and uh grateful to be here. We've been in district for seven years and we've loved our children's experience so far and I'm happy to be a part of that experience now. So, thank you. Welcome. Welcome to the team. Great to have you. I have a child in your class. Oh, you do. He has given very high reviews of you. That's good. You're stepping into some big shoes. I am. I know. I mean, he's still there, but yes, still there. But there's a lot of love and acceptance that Buff makes available and it's so amazing. I had older child including sixth grade had Bofa. So Wesley is greatly enjoying and is is appreciating that you're filling those shoes. Great to
055hear. Good job hit the ground running. Appreciate you. All right. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Move on to action items now. Uh first it is the recommendation by the board of education uh by Kevin super superintendent Kevin Maidik that the board of education adopt the schools of choice resolution for the following grades for the 2526 school year kindergarten through 8th grade limited and 9th through 12th grade zero as presented. Do we have a motion? So move support. Okay. Moved and supported. Any discussion? Can you remind me what limited means? Somebody what we have done in the past is and you can correct me if I'm wrong is we will take students by school of choice to fill in gaps in these particular grade levels based
056on sections. So if there are five extra spots say in a first grade section five five students will go into that to round out the classroom. Is that correct? Is that Yeah. So like otherwise you would be adding maybe you would add five students and you'd have to hire a whole another teacher just for those other five students. So, but we won't know like you couldn't particularly look at like third grade when we limited what that actually means in terms of numbers. We usually go by like what was second grade the pri prior year, what does those numbers look like up to third grade and then we base it upon that. So, if there's 10, you know, openings for that many sections. So, we have we're going to be right around 250 kids is what
057we're trying to do that. Okay. Approximately. Should they remain for future years or do they have to apply each year? No, they Yeah, once they are accepted as a school of choice student and they're with us. Okay. And that counts for siblings too, right? So if somebody gets accepted, the sibling would would be able to start kindergarten say Yeah. Deb can probably at least that's how I've always done it. Like siblings are part of that scenario. So if you are a seventh grade student, you're accepted a school choice student and there's a third grade kiddo, we're going to accept that as long as there's space available, right? Occasionally we cannot bring that sibling in, but usually it's the next year once things kind of settle down, but the limited does mean we can take either
058one or 100. It gives us that flexibility, but we do have to take one student. Okay. Thanks. That's helpful. Okay. So I do have a question just clarification as you look at the the school of choice and tuition report the numbers they're there for kindergarten through second is that I just want to make sure I'm understanding that is that slots that we're allowing for school choice to fill for those grades. I'm sorry that was for this current year we had we had those are those reflective of this number and that was how many slots were offered to students. Okay for 24 25. Sure. But they would move up. Yes. So yeah they stay with us. Yes. So we're looking at last year's numbers are limited from anywhere in kindergarten through 8th grade range from 0
059to 23 across various grade levels. Yeah. It's just a significant number for kindergarten. Yeah. I noticed that too. Yeah. That's I would say that's pretty through future years. Yeah, that's pretty typical of most districts. That's where you're going to get most your students. Some I imagine could be low birth years too. Yeah. Yeah. Some classes are which, let's be honest, across the whole state of Michigan is low birth years right now. So, all right. Any other further discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Move on to the next is a recommendation by Superintendent Kevin Robotic that the board of education adopt the 2526 tuition resolution as presented. Do we have a motion? Support. Great. Uh moved and seconded. Any discussion on that resolution? Give a little background what
060our tuition program. Yeah. So that's mostly for the high school 9 through 12 and um so we don't do school of choice at that level. We just do tuition based. So they have to apply and they pay a small fee but they also have to get a release district which you don't have to do in school of choice. Exactly. Okay. Is this fee different than it was last year? I swear it was a dollar at one point. So it was a dollar at one point but I believe it went to 50 last year and that's what we have done this year. Pupil accounting our pupil accounting last year required us to then raise it to 50 because they were doing a different multiplier last year and so previous years it was $1, but then pupil
061accounting informed us of the multiplier had changed. So then we did 50 in order to recoup a portion of that FTE that we potentially would have lost. Any other discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any oppose? Motion carries. Moving on. For the 2026 DIT high school commencement date is the recommendation by Superintendent Kevin Oid. Board of Education set the 26th DIT High School commencement ceremony for Sunday, May 31st, 2026 at 2 p.m. in the Dit High School gymnasium. Do we have a motion? So moved. Move to supported. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor, please say I. Any oppose? We have a graduation date. Okay. Next is the CC Resa Special Education Parent Advisory Committee. Recommendation by Superintendent Kevin Robotic that the board of education approve Dominic Palone to serve as the
062Dit Public Schools parent representative on the CC Resusa special education parent advisory commission. Do we have a motion? Support. Okay, move supported. Any discussion? Again, like the Santinis alone. Great. Do it. Thank you, Dominic. We appreciate you doing for taking this on. Thank you. Uh any other discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Last action item we have is our dining service contract is a recommendation by superintendent Kevin Robotic that the board of education award the contract with Chartwell School dining services to provide food service management services to the school district for the 202526 year and authorizes the administration to execute the contract. Do we have a motion? Support. Move in support. Any discussion? Are we still sharing the team with these things? Yeah, Rob, are we moving away
063from the shared director? Are we staying with that? We're staying with the shared model, but we actually brought on an additional staff um because of the with the free breakfast and lunch for all. There's a lot more demands. Um so, but we're continuing with the shared model with with the actual director. Great. Okay. Thank you. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Next we have public communications for items not found on the agenda. I see none. Okay, we will close public communications and move on to the superintendent reports. Yeah. So, first of all, we're in that fun uh assessment season. So, just want to remind families that, you know, the kids are going to be extra tired as they're balancing their testing during the day and their extracurricular
064activities. And so appreciate the support. Good superintendent will tell you please make sure that they get good rest and um and uh just have that balance routine. They'll be very supportive as we want them to do their very best. Mr. Hanselman has notified us that he will um be resigning from his position as a board member. Um I would like to say something really beautiful and wonderful to him, but he's not here. Uh but I will say that you know I'm thankful for his integrity, his dedication and unwavering commitment to our student staff and entire DWIT community. Uh we are honored to have him and uh you know he'll be big shoes to fill in. So uh this is something the board may want to talk about tonight as far as next steps. Good. Uh
065yeah, first I would just like to, you know, extend our thanks to Jason Hansman who's been a great board member and a great friend to all of us. And Jason and I came on this board one month apart and served together for a decade. And so he became a very close friend and confident of mine. And so personally, I will I will drastically and sincerely miss sitting next to him into the future. Um but I want to thank him for his service. Every decision Jason made was always with the best interest of our students in mind. And that is how you do this job. uh he did it the right way and I just want to thank him again for his service and wish him well. I understand his decision. I don't agree with his
066decision but uh I respect it. So I will I will leave it there and and wish him well and if any anybody else wants to comment do that we can go right into it. All right. So the plan is you know we we are required by state law to fill a vacancy within 30 days after receiving notice. We received notice today. We do have a meeting coming up in two weeks and so the plan will be to get um kind of an application out there and a job posting for any interested folks to to review and to submit their materials and the deadline will probably be Friday of next week. We will work that out. Um and then we will be meeting the following Monday to select candidates for a potential interview. And those interviews
067will likely take place at our regularly scheduled meeting on the second Monday in May. So that gives us uh four weeks from today and we'll uh make sure that we comply with the 30-day rule. If we do not appoint someone within 30 days, the uh CC RSA has the ability to do that and so we would like to be able to do that on our own. So that will be our process pending uh board member schedules. Of course, we'll make sure we have quorums of both of those and that people will be here to vote. So that could change based on board member availability, but that is the plan as of right now. All right. Any question any questions for anybody on that? I know some of us have been through it a few times
068in ter I know we've done this in the past. Do we have questions standard questions that we've used before? Do those need to be approved? We do and we can talk about those questions as well at the meeting in two weeks to figure that out. Yeah, that's a good question. Can Deb can you find those questions for us and forward them to us? Good question. Anything else? comments. Okay. Yeah. I al also want to thank um President Trump just for your continued um you know looking through MASB. you have now become a level one certified board member board and you have some other things that you've done as far as your leadership and I thank you for continuing to go through to learn the things you need to and build your leadership as you continue
069on. So I appreciate that. I know it's extra time. It's time away from your family and the fact that you're investing um in yourself so that you can be dedicated to our community. I appreciate that. Oh, well, so I had asked before that we add to our agenda a moment or opportunity at the end for uh board members to comment or uh raise issues that have been raised with them in the community. Um, I just wanted to acknowledge that I did receive uh several parent emails as the rest of the board probably did on the uh transportation issue with our bus driver. Um, and some questions and trust that you were responding to those and handling those. Um, as well as um some concerns about uh an IEP for a specific child that I saw
070you scheduled something for. So, appreciate that and appreciate you handling those. I just want to make sure that people who submit those know that, you know, we see those and are referring those to be appropriate and um appointed individual to handle within the district. So, yeah. And I do try to I at least try to respond to everybody and let them know that I afford it to the proper person. So, if they don't hear from us, it'll get to the right I've noticed that. I really appreciate that you do that. I think that's great that Yeah. But I share that. I do not want people to feel like they're not being heard or listened to. Sometimes when we're contacted, as most people know, it doesn't rise to our level or it's not an issue that
071we would handle. So, we make sure we get or it's not something we're allowed to handle, right? Yes. Very true. Yeah. And I try to answer as much as I can and then try to connect with phone calls if I can. Um, obviously share as much information that I can. If it's confidential or whatnot, then I can, but I do the very best to be a good listener and make sure that, you know, I'm following through. And on that front, I just wanted to note too like we do receive things sometimes that um ultimately if they if they were to escalate through say an appeal process or um the district policies and procedures um board members wouldn't or shouldn't be involved in them at the lower levels uh because we may serve as an overall
072you know appeal body or um a decision maker at the ultimate end of a matter. So that's important too that we maintain that isolation. President Trump is doing a great job. Yeah. I I just I think that's a good thing to just let people know to if you don't know how how what the system does and how it should work particularly with hiring or firing or evaluating of personnel. That is not our job. So I just want to be very clear on that. That is Kevin's job and his team's job. Our job is to hire, fire and evaluate this guy and that's it. We have more than that. We have one employee. everybody everybody else is not our employee no more than so I just I I I know that that can be confusing is
073that people think that we have the authority to to bring someone on hiring them or to let somebody go. We do not have that authority. So I just um you know that is a misconception a lot of times with folks. So we just want to make that clear that up as best we can. I had a question. Um you were discussing the bus driver. No. Well, sorry. This is our first meeting. Yes, you're technically not allowed to announce it, but I will I will allow it. Okay. I was gonna say I know we just broke the rules, but our first meeting. We didn't know this topic was going to be discussed. Um I had a speech prepared today to give kind of the opposite side of what's going on with the bus driver. Um our
074child was on that bus 17 in the incident that happened. Um and bus driver showed up at the bus stop Friday afternoon. Um, and I don't know if he was trying to gather support or or what he was doing. Um, and I was waiting to see. I thought he was gonna show up tonight and I was going to be a counterargument against that. Um, since it wasn't a topic on a thing, we're like, "Okay, well, we'll just sit tight, but sorry. I think it was raised." No. And at any time when you 10 future meetings, so on the agenda where we have the public communications Friday is not on the agenda, that is the perfect time to be able to express any of those concerns moving forward. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. And if
075you have remarks you'd like us to see, you're more than welcome to submit those written or you can email them to us as well. I have it written in my pocket. If you guys want it after the meeting, I can. Sure. We'll happily take you. Anything else for any board members? And we'll make sure that something on the agenda as well. Anything else for any other members? Okay. So, I guess I will read this. You know, let's wait. Not a problem. All right. All right. Then I will entertain a motion for adjournment. So move. All right. All those in favor? We are journed.