Regular Meeting of the Board of Education (October 9, 2023)

001Lancing Community I'm going to call our East laning Board of Education meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. on this October 9th evening uh Miss hore would you help us with a roll call vote please Dr Chambers present Dr Lions here miss Ferris Highland here Dr edel here Mr Martin here Mr Holbrook here our student representatives are not here this evening and Miss Leo here great uh trusty Ferris Highland would you read our mission statement please our mission statement is nurturing each child educating all students and building World Citizens Great thank you next on the agenda is the approval of the agenda is there a motion the Board of Education approved the October 9th 2023 regular meeting agenda as presented second moved by trusty lion seconded by trusty Martin is there any discussion can we just

002insert a board discussion after public comment I don't have anything specific but to just reserve a place in case there's anything to discuss is that uh trusty Lions would you consider that a friendly amendment I do all right then we will add board discussion immediately following public comment and renumber the agenda accordingly that will be item number eight okay any other discussion okay then we can move to a vote all in favor of the revised motion please indicate by saying I I any opposed the motion carries unanimously next is the approval of the minutes from two regular meetings regular meeting and a special meeting is there a motion move the Board of Education approve the minutes of the September 11th 2023 regular meeting and September 29th 2023 special meeting as presented second moved by trusty

003lions seconded by trusty edil is there any discussion okay we'll move to a vote all in favor of the motion as presented please indicate by saying I I any opposed motion carries unanimously next we move to recognition trusty Ferris Highland sure I have one item um the East Lancing School District received an mtss recognition award for efforts during the last school year um it was sent with a letter can you Dory would you mind stepping in and giving a little information on it if you have it the letter I wasn't able to open gotcha you know why they you were awarded this to put it was actually to Red seedar School um so it was just an acknowledgement and recognition for red seedar school with their um from um the Ingam ISD and mtss for

004their work around the behavioral data um with their mtss system so they were acknowledged and recognized as a building for um their behavior data and the use of the mtss process um in evaluating their data great you said it much better than I could have thank you very much and that's all I have great um are there other items of recognition from other board members of the superintendent I have one I have one that um I know at least a couple of the elementary schools I think maybe even all the ele schools have had their fun runs over the past couple of weeks and um I just know from trying to coordinate with my child the amount of work that goes into those and the parents did a phenomenal job the kids had a lot

005of fun there's some great photographs and we got new t-shirts so um I was uh I I did not personally volunteer but I know a lot of people put a lot of hours into it and uh I think that just their efforts should be commended absolutely other items okay then we will move on to the student representative report although I do not believe our student Representatives have it's a busy night with lots of activities so it happens sometimes they'll catch us up next time so we'll move to the superintendent report superintendent Leo thank you uh first just a reminder there are no classes for students this Friday October 13th uh this Friday is the first of five professional learning Fridays for St staff and no school for students and mark your calendars for the following

006days of no classes uh in addition to this Friday we have Friday November 10th Friday February 16th March 8th and April 26th also uh October is National principal month October marks the celebration of a special group of leaders in our community our school principls please help recognize these dedicated individuals who play a pivotal role in shaping the future of our students our principls work tirelessly to cultivate an environment where all students and staff can grow and Thrive and we thank you for your service to elps uh flu shot and coid booster Clinic was held last week for staff in partnership with Right Aid Pharmacy elps held a flu shot in coid booster shot clinic last Tuesday October 3rd we had over 80 staff members receive one or both of the vaccines also city of East

007L East Lancing youth commission the city of East Lancing or the east laning city council recently passed ordinance 1524 to create the youth commission a governing body that will be made up of East Lancing teens who have an interest in shaping the future of the city the youth commission is now seeking applications from among the residents and students of East Lancing who are between the ages of 14 and 18 to serve on the new commission the youth commission will consist of nine voting members each of whom will serve a one-year term the new commission once established will meet monthly to to apply for a seat on the new commission local teens must either be a resident of the city of East Lancing or attend an East Lancing school be between the ages of 14 and

00818 years old and have the consent of their parents or Guardians visit www.city ofast lansing.com youth commmission to access the application or you can go to the city's website and you can find it there and then following tonight's meeting our next meeting is two weeks from tonight October 23rd and so these updates will also be easted to families tomorrow morning great are there questions for the superintendent about the superintendent's report from board members trusty edel um do you know if our American government uh instructors uh are one aware of the youth commission and two using that for the government in action curriculum option I would have to follow up with the high school admin I do not know that American gub students any of you here they are have you guys heard about that youth

009commission at all in class okay thank you other questions or comments okay then we'll move to the consent agenda as a reminder there is no discussion on consent agenda items um is there a motion uh I move the Board of Education approves the consent agenda to include the new hire of miers Lewis as a conditional hire pending obtainment of certification second moved by trusty Holbrook seconded by trusty Edsel is there any oh there is no discussion I remind myself of that um we'll move straight to a vote all in favor of the motion as presented please indicate by saying I I I any post motion carries unanimously and I believe that we have Miss aers Lewis with us and Miss Martin if anyone would like to and anyone meaning both of you stand to the

010podium and say a few things we'd love to hear from you all right thank you Bor for your approval uh we are super excited to have Miss SS join our counseling department at McDonald Middle School we've been waiting for her uh she is joining us from the west side of the state not the country Wyoming and we're super excited to have her join our counseling department she comes to us uh graduate from MSU working on uh finishing up her uh Master's in school of counseling from Grand Valley State University um which both of our current counselors also went through the same program so they're very familiar with uh the program as well as her supervisor at gr Valley and uh she comes with us with a passion um of trauma and foreign practices and social

011emotional learning so we're excited to have her join our team at McDonald yeah I guess um Amy kind of summed it up pretty well I am currently working towards the end of my degree I'll be graduating in May of 2024 and Middle School where I've always wanted to end up so I'm really happy to be f um moving into this position and I'm glad to be back in he's Lancing awesome well we're so excited to have you part of the team several of us have middle schoolers so condolences um we aren't telling you who they are no it'll be a fun game thank you thank you so much welcome uh next on the agenda another fun thing a presentation from the glp financial group and a financial contribution it looks like if you all would

012also want to stop to the podium we'd love to hear from you good evening everybody good evening well this is part of the fun part of what we do um we've been business since 1969 okay I didn't found the company so a little bit younger than that and we give away way money to different school districts for different reasons and this year there were two $5,000 scholarships one of them is East Lancing scholarship for $5,000 which we got the big check of 5,000 there's another uh Allen Park received 5,000 for school supplies and we do other events and we are going to kick off um we just did in Troy Public Schools for a special needs class buying new equipment and toys for them and it was so much pleasure that we got out of

013seeing the joy in these kids' face that we've dedicated to do another $251,000 wow events to different schools throughout the state of Michigan uh between now and the end of the year and then we're going to do a whole new campaign uh next year it's just you know we're in the financial services business and we deal with a lot of Educators and we have a lot of clients so we see the kids and there's nothing better than seeing the looks on those kids in Troy when those kids saw those new toys it was amazing so again we're expanding the program and again we're happy to be here for the $5,000 scholarship and again we thank everybody for all your support because we know education the kids are that's what you guys are here for is

014to help those kids and every little bit helps that's right so congratulations awesome well I think yeah thank you so much first supposedly they took a video that we're supposed to show I'll be honest Nicole did the video I have not looked at it I was in it so okay if it's not good don't said it's good I didn't look at I'm sure it's great and then let's watch the video and then I we'd love to take a photo maybe afterwards yeah uh oh so far it sounds good headquartered in ferton Michigan just a few years back just prior to Co in 2019 uh we ultimately started the GP foundation so now all of those contributions and Charities really work through GP foundation and what we've done since 2019 it's been over a quarter of

015a million dollars that has gone to different things whether it's uh school scholarships for uh children of need whether it's turkey drives whether it's to support sports teams for schools uh we do all sorts of events we do Toys for Tots we do Christmas giveaways we do teacher appreciation our mission for the GP Foundation is really to give back to the educational community [Music] pry good Nicole yeah it's a pretty great video yeah by the way just if if you if you know of uh either school buildings that need help like on this with the special needs stuff just go to that and then we're gonna you know it'll be part of the program because again the the more districts we can help the better amazing all right well let's take a photo so we

016can maybe end up in the slideshow yeah okay front yeah maybe like we usually try to yeah go in here maybe guys didn't having phot noat me the you guys got to be in the front you want us to [Music] rearrange than taking off our check that's right I have the real thing yeah they can have the big one the real one yeah a little side note so Charlie lki and I hired in and Haslet together 30 years ago oh wow he just figured out a way to retire before I did um so retired move on but we taught together in Haslet for many years and hired in 30 years ago together wow yeah really special y fun fact so you were seven exactly thank you well yeah but just a little note with that

017so that um scholarship you we were told was for um classroom supplies so this Friday um as part of our PD program we're going to offer um staff coming in to if they like to just fill out a ticket like not an application or anything major but just put their name on a ticket enter it in we're going to break the $5,000 up into 10 $500 classroom U material scholarships and we'll draw two for the high school just because the larger number of Staff two for the middle school and one for each elementary school so we're going to do that as part of just a little um you know fun thing for PD Friday as people come in and they can um put in a little ticket for a drawing for that day to earn

018$500 for their classroom to spend how they'd like that's amazing yeah super cool very fun well hiring teachers sure taking checks great but everybody's here for the audit I know which is the next item on the agenda um from mayor C ceris I think is how you say it good awesome thank you so much I'll turn it over to you Brad uh good evening first like to thank the board for having me tonight to present the audited financial statements um my name is Brad Pung and I'm a manager in the audit department at mayor cison um I know mayor and uh the district has had a relationship for a number of years now um however this was my first year working on the audit for the district and I was very pleasantly surprised by the

019organization and attention to detail uh by Rich and his team um so I'm going to go through a couple or a few handful of pages from the audit audit report so if the board has their copies um I will start right on page one and um just kind of go over some of the main highlights [Music] here so starting on page one through Page Three this is our mayor cis's audit report um just a few highlights um in that second paragraph down um that is our opinion on the financial statements as a whole and I will read right from it in our opinion the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects the respective position respective financial position of the governmental activities each major fund and the aggregate remaining um that is

020a clean audit opinion that is the highest level of assurance that we can offer that's an unmodified opinion um moving down um we that uh third paragraph down the basis for opinions um that says that we conducted our audit uh with generally accepted practices uh in the United States of America that change in accounting principle uh that is a new accounting standard that was adopted this year that's gasby Number 96 uh subscription based it Arrangements um there's more information uh in note 12 regarding that um essentially all that is is um uh getting more assets and liabilities on the books of the district um dealing with uh it Arrangements um that next section down is the responsibilities of management and moving over to page three is the auditor's responsibilities for the audit I don't I

021won't read the bullet points um but uh those are our responsibilities the required supplementary information paragraph is talking about the M uh management discussion and Analysis the budget to actual Pages as well as the pension and uh other post employment benefit schedules moving over to page three the supplementary information is in regards to the schedule of expenditure of federal Awards the combining statements of non- major funds and lastly um the other reporting required by government auditing standards is a is um in reference to our um audit letter on compliance and internal controls and that letter is on pages 85 to 86 and flipping through again to page four uh this is the start of the management discussion and Analysis this is a very good explanation of the financial statements as a whole um it's a

022it's a good summary the um pages that follow are much more detailed so um I think the management discussion analysis is just a a good flip through um without all the overwhelming numbers that follow um I will move over now to page six this is the government-wide um statement of net position this is on the full acral basis of accounting meaning that uh the um Capital assets and long-term debt are recorded here um and I will just highlight a few of the major changes on here um the current and other assets decreased by $4 million in the main reason for that decrease is largely due to spending down of restricted uh cash for um Bond projects moving into the liabilities um non-current liabilities decreased about 5.6 million and again that's due to paying down uh

023long-term debt or those bonds the net other post-employment benefits liability decreased I'm sorry increased um by about 1.3 million this year and the main reason for that uh is really that number is really uh derived off of uh market performance um so that's really just a reflection of the the decline in the market value um at June 30th of this year compared to June 30th of last year the net pension liability again you you'll see a large increase there um that number is derived off a number of different factors and assumptions um but the main reason for that increase is a change in the discount rate used to calculate that value uh I'm going to scoop back up to the Deferred outflows um and I will talk about this one in conjunction with the Deferred

024inflows of resources these numbers are coming straight from the state um they and they are based off of uh actuary analysis um at some at September 30th um again so these are numbers that come right from the state of Michigan um there's more detailed there there is a much more detailed schedule of this on page 16 um if you'd like to look there as well we'll move over to page seven the next page um in that depreciation amortization expense section there you'll see a right to use subscription based it um that is the adoption of gasby 96 right there that is a a new asset on your books this year and there's also a correspond finding liability in Long in a long-term debt detail the capital outlay acquisition uh you could see the district added

025about 6.8 million of expenses into Capital assets and again that long-term obligation the decreased by about 5.6 million again paying down debt moving over to page eight um the revenues looking at the revenues um property taxes increased across the board from last year uh that's mainly due to about a 4% increase in taxable values within the district you will also see a very large decrease in investment earnings um and that is something that we have seen um at all districts across the state you will also see an increase in state sources there was about a $450 per pupil increase um which overall was about $1.7 million increase um across all state revenue sources moving down to program revenues charges for services those are up about 240,000 um and that is directly related to food sales

026um in the previous years because of coid the district was receiving reimbursements for U meal served and that was no longer the case for uh the 2023 school year um so that is the reason for the large increase uh as the food service was back to functioning as it was preo um operating grants and contributions there was a new funding source this year um through 147c um so that is it was about 3.7 million uh which is reflected there in that number moving down to the expenses um I'll touch on the instruction and the Support Services overall that went up about $1 million 2.8 of that is salary related 2.2 million of that is related to retirement again that 147c and 147 C2 and then three there was a $3 million swing in the net

027pension expense uh coming off of those uh State numbers those numbers that we get from the state uh directly related and also related to uh the discount rate as well overall the district added about 670,000 to net position I will flip now to page 18 this is the governmental balance sheet this is at the fund level which reports on the modified acral basis of accounting the district has three major funds the general fund the 2020 capital projects fund and the 2019 syncing fund also included on this page is the aggregate remaining of the non- major funds these balances are stated as of June 30th I will um I will go all the way down to the uh fund balance section the assigned fund balance for subsequent year expenditures is about 1.5 million and that is

028from the 2023 2024 board adopted budget for the amount of expenditures in excess of revenues then below that is the unassigned general fund budget overall that's about 24 25% of revenues last year this was about 28% of revenues the reason for the decrease uh is mainly due to an a large increase in that Nu numerator value which would be Revenue um so there's a large increase in Revenue driving that uh ratio down a little bit overall fund balance uh increased in that 15.5 million total fund balance is an indication of a very strong and healthy fund balance I'm now going now going to flip to page 55 the budget to actual overall the district did an excellent job budgeting they take a a conservative budget approach was taken um you can see the total revenues

029the variance with budget there the 354,000 uh the final budget to actual was within a half a percent that that variance there total expenditures was about 2.9% within the budget and at the very bottom number down there on the right hand column you could see that the district did 1 about 1.4 million better than budgeted um as far as adding to fun fun balance which resulted in adding about 819,000 to fund balance this year I will just briefly touch on page 70 regarding the Food Service fund balance now it is a nonprofit Food Service fund um so the MD did in previous years have a uh max amount of fund balance which would be 547 th000 so you could see um the fund balance of 577 th000 is slightly over that uh maximum threshold um

030but however per um MD guidance this year that is no longer a finding um there is more so just a management comment and something that they just would like to have brought up to the board uh but nothing to be concerned about there's large dollar amounts coming through uh Food Service in the previous years I will now flip to page [Applause] 81 now this is the schedule of expenditure of federal Awards these are the federal federal grants that the district received and how they were spent this year we tested the Child Nutrition cluster it's about 1.1 million and on page two we tested about we tested the education stabilization fund as well for about 200 2.5 million overall we tested about 84% of the total federal Awards and on page 85 starts our letters regarding

031some of these testings um this letter here is in regard to our report on internal control over financial reporting um there were no findings and this is a clean audit report and flipping over to page 87 is our letter on our testing of the schedule of expenditures of federal Awards again no findings on those two programs that we tested and also an unmodified opinion on each major program um overall is a very clean audit report uh with healthy financials with that that's all I have thank you thank you so much any questions there questions I've got a couple questions yeah um you mentioned on page six there was a increase of uh in the net pensions that was about a 60% increase and you mentioned that was due to a change in I think the

032way that was recognized is that right yes the discount rate changed there's a decrease in the discount rate so what would we expect to see in the next fiscal year for the net pension liability um so those are numbers that are derived off of a actuary valuation and that is done on September 30th every year um so here is as September 30th 2022 which is reflecting the 2023 financials so for next year it'll be the September 30th 2023 report I have not had time to review that okay so do not have a good answer for you as far as what I would expect to see okay I guess what I'm wondering is you know would we expect to see another huge increase like that um the other question is on page eight the instruction was

033$1 million higher Which percentage wise seemed quite a bit and you mentioned I think that was also pension related so is that was that related to the Actuarial change from page six yes yep okay yep and also another reason for those increases is you can see the large increase in revenues as well um so as the increase in revenues come you also see the increase in expenses to follow I think it's relevant to this can you explain the difference between the governmental funding there and our school budget funding that this is not really relevant to their uh ending fund balances absolutely so um these are the um government-wide statements uh on the full acral basis of accounting um so yes the fund level uh with the general fund is I guess you could um say

034it operates more on the cash basis of accounting um which has that's where you would get your I guess your fund balance numbers coming from I'm sorry I don't know if I answered that to some degree yeah one of the things that they went over in the audit with the finances that was it was less than a 1% change in the discount rate that reflected that $30 million change in our net pension liability so it could be that small of a of a fluctuation in the discount rate to show that uh that sort of change in the net liability but again these numbers are not what we use for fund balance accounting that kind of is the district day-to-day operations yeah the fund balance is definitely more day-to-day um and more short term whereas uh

035um these government wides are definitely more long-term thinking I [Music] suppose additional questions I have one more yeah go ahead that's fine um so our fund balance is about $15 million which seems pretty healthy but um when you look at other schools what is a fund b a general fund balance that you would typically see for a similar school so it's all based on that percentage of whether it be revenues or expenditures um I believe uh um MD recommends um 16 to 20% and you guys are right there in that range as well okay thank you I believe policy recommends 5 to 10 is that right rich or is it 15 to 20 10 15 is what is it I think so I think it's 15 okay thank you thank you okay thank you so

036much thank you okay and now we will transition to our professional learning program well timed since we're going to kick that off this week um assistant superintendent Glenn Mitchum and director of student Support Services Nick Hamilton have a presentation for us thank you as tempting as it is I'm not going to make any jokes about following the audit I had a whole bunch of them lined up and I'm I'm restraining myself because it is really important information it is uh the most exciting but important information so uh thank you for having me back good to see everybody here tonight uh in case you're not putting the name with the face I'm Glenn Mitchum and I have the uh wonderful privilege of being the assistant superintendent here at East Lancing here tonight with Nick Hamilton our

037director of student support services and here we're here to talk to you about the uh professional development plans for our district this coming year you probably board members remember this riveting presentation that I gave last May uh and it was it was post professional learning and I uh told you about all the new and uh well absolutely Innovative different kind of professional learning that we embarked on last year and uh we thought we would kind of switch it up this year and instead give a preview of what's to come it all kicks off this uh coming Friday as Dory talked about in her superintendent update um so this I do want you to know that this all of this that you're going to see tonight is planning that started uh back in the summer um

038we spent a lot of time on uh digging into how to spend valuable precious minutes we have with our staff to uh help in their professional learning development and when I say we it's not at all just myself and Nick there's uh a very conspicuous third person in our crew uh and Miss Leo our superintendent um we have a a blocked out thing in our calendar every week called gdn Glen Dory Nick I'm not sure how I got top billing I'm still a little still a little uncomfortable with that I'm not sure how that happened but uh we had lots of gdn time this summer and uh Dory was a huge part of that and so I invite you miss Leo to uh anything you want to add as we go uh since you you

039were deeply involved um so I'm going to just remind you or refresh your memory about last year's structure if you recall we took advantage of a pupil accounting allowance to uh use uh five days of of uh student uh time uh for professional learning uh we got that approved through the state of Michigan and our structure last year was um a little bit different for elementary as than it was for secondary elementary folks uh spent their mornings uh uh digging away in one way or another in learning our new um uh language arts program called bookworms our reading and writing program that we instituted last year and just it was just a heavy lift so they uh all of their five professional learning times that 8 to 11:30 slot they were in that training doing

040bookworms and there wasn't really any choice about that they were they were um they just really needed to do that our secondary folks um in during that morning slot had three choices they were either taking the core course um or working on the EET with Claudia Burton EET again stands for the Equity Justice assessment transformational Tool uh that we have um we have from the Justice leaders collaborative um or they took the uh social emotional learning course and although there was some Choice there for what teachers could choose they were once they were in a course they were in it for the all five sessions and that's what they did every time for all of their professional learning um after that morning slot we went to building work groups element folks had three different work

041groups that they were a part of and then the middle school and high school had 10 to 12 uh work groups that they were a part of and those work groups really were just um you know it's amazing how we in education do so much of our heavy lifting tough work uh on the backs of folks that are just doing it on a volunteer basis like after school like the you know the school Improvement committee or the uh PBIS committee it's like hey can you come after after school and plan a whole program for the school that's going to impact everybody's lives so really try to and our building work groups time give paid professional learning time to our staff and to our teachers to work on important um building functions that that affects the

042whole school top to bottom so that was uh that was our building work group time then uh the last part of our day you may recall I explained was our safe schools training these were state and board policy um required video trainings that all of our staff must do and we gave staff some Flex time to be able to do that they could actually uh Christian was super instrumental in getting those videos out to our staff ahead of time so if they wanted to do them in the summer they could and then um get out a little bit early for their because of the flex time or if not they could use that time in the afternoon to complete those required trainings so that was base the basic structure that we did last year that

043was the first time we had done that it was different from the late starts you may remember that we had uh throughout the year Wednesday late starts that I don't think anybody misses tremendously our staff is glad to see those go and uh that's what we jumped into last year so with that first try um taking that information in and then we reached out after last year and said hey uh stakeholders what did you think about this uh training and how did it go and we had lots of positive comments lot lots of love for it but there was three really important things that we pulled out of some stakeholder feedback when I say stakeholders I'm talking teachers I'm talking uh staff non-teaching staff uh public comments we heard from this uh this spot right

044here um from people in our community um and the three main things that came from that feedback was first uh folks wanted more Choice uh more selections more things to choose from and also uh more variety you know give us not just three but give us more uh several choices and our Elementary staff just said give us some Choice please let us let's uh have some um some uh you know let us be able to grab hold of our our learning and and choose what what we're most interested in also that uh uh group at the secondary level that I mentioned in the last slide um part of their time was a was a wellness learning time and it was Wellness about yourself how to take care of yourself what kind of things do you

045need to do in order to feel more alive and connected and healthy and good and so those folks got a chance to go for a walk for a little bit of the day or hang out with some other staff members and play board games and connect or uh there was some uh uh you know epic pickle ball games in our gymnasium among our staff and things to that nature uh and lots of research to support the importance of of learning how to take care of yourself and so that group got to experience that well of course once that word got out the rest of the staff were like uh yes please could I please have some Wellness time in my day uh during my professional learning so we got that message loud and clear but

046last thing that came back from our feedback was um a more tailored approach especially for our non-teaching staff we we did hit the mark pretty well with our teachers uh and their learning but boy all those other folks that are um not directly in the classroom uh working with kids their their professional learning is just as important but uh we kind of I'll be honest we were kind of pigeon ho holding them into spots and trying to you know find some greater reason why that learning was going to help them down the road and they said you know boy it'd be nice to have something more specific uh to what I do and what um what impacts me on each day of my job so so we heard those things so we we did the

047F the try last year of something new then got this feedback and then the other thing that really impacted what we're gonna what Nick's going to tell you about here in a minute was um a board work session um that occur in July you all remember that uh was with our board and our administrative team and we spent um some very dedicated time looking at our three Vision buckets as we like to call them nurturing each child Ed educating all students and building World citizens and um we we already had some goals in place that we were continuing and working on but we did a lot of refining a lot of talking and thinking um and specifying about what we really wanted to get after so if you forgive me I'm going to read these

048to you because I think they're so important um under nurturing each child our first goal is to develop and Implement a comprehensive program of social emotional learning or seal that integrates specific behavior supports for students and then our second goal under nurturing each child Implement school safety recommendations and a lot of those recommendations came from um SEC secure Educational Consultants group that we're working with of expert safety people that came and audited our buildings and gave us some really strong recommendations about how to make our schools safer under educating all students we had a goal of to increase systems of support for all Learners to be successful and then a second goal to improve instructional practices to meet the needs of all Learners so that's kind of a student Focus goal that first one and

049a teacher Focus goal that second one and then and finally under building World citizens we had three goals expand implementation of the ejat work while continuing to build capacity with staff that ejad I'll remind you is a is basically a a systemwide auditing tool to be able to make sure that our our practices are are just and Equitable they're they're looked at through an equity lens and um we're learning more and more about how to use this comprehensive tool to really run everything we do through it um and to better our practice our second goal Implement restorative practices to become part of the school culture and that third goal is to center student voice and the voices of all of our stakeholders so just to reiterate here a little bit so we've started with uh

050what we did last year learn from that right kind of do once you do things once you you get some better ideas and ways to do it we uh got feedback and heard clearly what what needed to be refined and then we looked clearly at our at our board's Direction and the goals we had under our our vision statements um so with all of those pieces of input we came up with what we feel is a was even a better plan for professional learning and we're so excited about it uh can't wait for this Friday to kick it off not g to lie a little nervous about it there's a lot of moving pieces to it but my good friend Nick's here to tell you about what that's going to look like hello again Nick

051Hamilton director of support services so uh we're going to take a look uh now kind of at the upgraded version of all this feedback and all this focus on the goals that we have so at first glance this is the 23 24 structure that we have if you're just looking it and you don't really remember what the previous Pages were it looks a lot the same right it structurally there are a lot of similarities to what we did um so there's still the five days there's still the five Fridays with no students uh that will be in the buildings that is all true start and end times are the same those were negotiated through um the contract of the ELA so that is something that is directly coming from the contract that's not changing um

052and then the safe schools changing from or the safe schools from 136 to 3 uh we got a lot of feedback from our teachers that was beneficial and uh well used time and so we kept that exactly the same now there are some things about this that I would say are pretty drastically different and so that's what I want to talk to you a little bit about um uh you guys in the audience won't see this but you guys all have a copy that is actually linked that 2.5 hour session piece is one of the documents that you have um and that is a document that was provided to all of our staff members it was sent out to them at the end of September with all of the offerings that we were going to

053offer for this school year with a description of each one of them and the days on which they are to be offered if you remember back back um to What Glenn was speaking about last year there was a total of four options so the elementary um staff definitely was kind of targeted into a single option with the secondary folks being able to choose between three uh so probably the biggest difference between the two is that two and a half hour block session in the morning this year now has 49 options for our staff members to choose from this Friday alone they have 14 options to choose from okay so um like I said I think either like a 15 or 16 page document so I'm not going to read through that whole thing but that's

054we'll we'll touch on a few of them here in just a moment um one minor tweak that we made we actually saw the benefit from the work groups in that 10:30 to 1:00 window so we expanded that a little bit and we made some minor tweaks to that based off of feedback that we got from staff uh to Glenn's point the school Improvement teams um they're just so valuable to the school uh and so having all hands on Deck there for us to be able to build those things and have Buy in with our staff with what we're doing is just so very important um and so we expanded that time a little bit within the first uh 8 to 10:30 session it it depicts that it's a two and a half hour window in

055there each group that goes to their uh you know their menu and they are in their selected course there is a one half hour block for every single staff member that's kind of scaffolded so that they could each get a wellness block within the 2 and a half hour window so if you were a teacher for example you might be in your session that you've selected from 8 to 9 but then from 9:00 to 9:30 you're headed off with a group of people to go to your Wellness session and then return back from 9:30 to 10:30 to finish up the original session so um they still get the two hours of learning in the session that they chose um the way we went about the choosing process is the document that you have was provided

056to all staff at the end of September and a survey was given to them or I guess maybe not a survey but a form for them to fill out their top three choices we attempted to accommodate for everybody getting their Top Choice um there was limits for what we could put into each session another big difference this year is we're actually bringing everybody inhouse to the high school last year we were kind of dispersed amongst the elementary buildings in the high school we felt similar to what Glenn was speaking about about the connection piece all of us being together in the same building had some like wisdom uh behind it to be able to build connections with all of our staff members um the final probably big change that I would say and then we'll

057dive a little bit more into what the options are um is really the the 10:30 to 1:00 window uh the elementaries had uh three work group sessions uh last year that filled the three buckets one in the area of teaching and learning one incl um in one in Dei we felt that uh especially based off of some of the mission uh statements that we created from our vision and from a lot of public feedback that we had gotten uh to really dive deeper into the connection between and a PBIS system that kind of transforms and gets deeper into the buildings than just surface level um so we're really um putting a lot of things in play with our new Behavior support specialist uh Paul Shanks that's going to be facilitating a lot of that learning

058and trying to work in PBIS supports where we haven't seen them before within our buildings that is kind of the overview of the structure this is the very first Friday so this Friday actually um all of the options that staff members uh could have chosen uh and so I'm going to hit a couple of these just to speak to them that you might not know uh just just so you have a sense of them so if you look at those those are really our three buckets like Glenn spoke to the nurturing each child is really thatal well-being educating all students students is the teaching and learning or the instructional practices and then the building World citizens is the Dei social justice belonging um and really when you look at this what's really nice is there's

059a lot of these that could move back and forth between because they kind of fill multiple buckets if you will um a couple of note that might be new to some of you move mindfully is something that we're bringing in uh to work with our teachers they can sign up for this session obviously um but it's to teach them how to work with students about mindfulness within the classroom it's also something that the teachers can use and reflect in their own but then also strategies that they can use within the classroom to support students another big highlight from this one if you move to the teaching and learning section is the uh collaboration meetings so uh teachers could apply for what we call a collaboration meeting and so we have a lot of like teams

060throughout our buildings that are taking that two and a half hour Block in the morning to work on things a couple examples of those um our math department at the middle school all of our teach teachers are working together to work on vertical and horizontal alignment to make sure that all of our students are getting the same instructional delivery um we also have the Middle School group of um social emotional Learners are delivering our new trails platform and so they're getting together to plan how that roll out is going to go so just using that time um as a value OPP valuable opportunity to collaborate uh and then uh one to touch on from the Dei social justice uh lens in the building World citizens is restorative practices I mentioned uh Paul Shanks just a

061moment ago um his background is in um restorative practices and I would say as a district we've used restorative practices at the administrative level this is really focused on using it within the classroom as a model to problem solve with students so more of a proactive approach um and so we're really excited about that and then this is kind of a snapshot at all of the days that we have I just wanted to give you a sense of How It's kind of broken up so all the teachers were provided each one of these days and you can kind of see this in your packet but I wanted to give you a sense of one the intentionality behind the buckets that that uh Glenn kind of spoke to but also how we broke up days so

062that there were multiple opportunities for people to sign up for a course we had some courses that everybody wanted to be a part of and we just did not have enough space for all of them and so this is a good sense of basically what we wanted to create is if you think about going to like a conference and you get kind of like the pack you know the packet of like oh man I really want to hit that first one in that first session I would love to hit this one on on day two that's really what we are trying to create here so when the teachers were given this they could kind of go through and look at okay I can't do this on day one but I'm definitely want to sign try

063to sign up for this one on the fourth day we've only done signups for the first day for right now so there that might evolve and change if we see that everybody tried to sign up for something and we only have X amount of spaces where we could still maybe be intentional to try to offer a second go around of that um of this one I I would tell you that are probably two most popular that people signed up for were the move mindfully and the AED training uh so people were really excited about those two opportunities so that is the seal offering and again like you know we won't go through all these just because it's so kind comprehensive as I said there's 49 total options and unique options that are all different from

064one another um one of the things when we were doing this and Glenn spoke to this is how we started planning this was we made a list of everybody who would be going through the training every type of staff member that we had so you would go down the list teacher specialed teacher social worker all the way down to every single staff member that we had and we cross referen this with our principles to say who are we missing who doesn't have something very specific that um they could go to um and so it's even dialed down Target into targeted into special education classrooms of very specific teachers of what they can sign up for I see on here uh perah 101 through perah 105 is listed on there it's actually we have quite a

065few people that are signed up for that course the first one is offered is just an overview of special education and so we have someone coming in just to teach about the IEP what it is how you use it you know what you would do with it so it's all of our options are actually probably more expansive than just what the title in in itself is and then last but not least um this is the um Dei social justice we do um we do have the luxury of having Claudia Burton uh in house uh one of the better decisions we made obviously and uh she obvious facilitates a lot of this and we lean quite heavily on her um to get feedback and build a lot of these things I don't want to say it's

066solely placed on your shoulders but it's nice having some like someone like that in the house that uh is well versed in this area know that day three the one two three fourth one down that's a student high school student Le professional learning for our teachers saw that and there's actually there's actually two of those opportunities day three has it and then day five has it uh that was something that we did um before coid uh and I would probably say some of the best professional development that I've ever been involved is our students telling us what we need to do better for them if if you can't get closer to the the people that you need to be hearing from I don't know how you're going to so all right so I think we

067could have gone really long with diving into that one page but that is actually the the extent uh of the learning plan so open uh both both Glen I or Dory are open for questions or wonderful questions from board members or comments I I have a couple questions go for it um so I know that one of the pieces of feedback that I remember from last year was that um our teachers in the younger grades wanted more support for bookworms and I noticed that and the materialss we have so far I know these are not final but there's not a whole lot of bookworms in there are there going to be other opportunities to support that implementation of that curriculum yeah uh they're they're a little bit hidden like the read stop right you may

068have heard of that before I have heard of that one uh that is actually is bookworms training as well I did not know that actually I I just heard I had heard of it because of my who I live with but yeah right Laura tarelli uh renowned expert in that uh category is coming uh graciously agreed to come and and teach uh from Michigan she's a professor at Michigan State so that is bookworms and one thing we didn't mention is that we do as much Choice as we want to give it's that tricky balance of choice but making sure teachers get what they absolutely have and need to have so we do have no more than two of the five required sessions um up to two could be required for any certain teaching group so

069like Elementary classroom teachers do have two sessions that they are required to attend one is a bookworms related training and the other is a uh math small group uh uh progress monitoring session okay and yeah I I knew that there were that there was support there I just wanted to make sure that it was clear to the community yeah in the in the packet that you have the the first couple Pages the red ones those are ones that are specific that a group of people like has to sign up I understand yeah and then uh the other question is a little bit just more General I think you alluded to this but the obviously one of the biggest changes we made with this most recent contract is moving from the Wednesday the halfday Wednesday professional

070development to the full day Fridays I've gotten a lot of really positive feedback from parents in the community about it uh what has the teacher and staff response been to that change uh that was one of the most positive uh feedback points that we got in our survey is that thank you for not making me come into school on a Wednesday morning learn learn learn and then just when I'm just about getting done guess what there's students in your classroom waiting for you to go teach uh it's just a tough transition to make and so they have really appreciated having the full day having the flexibility as was dory's idea of of the end of the day to be able to flex that time with the the video training that they have to do vast

071majority of them got that out of the way early so they were getting off a little bit early on a Friday afternoon which is awesome for teachers they rarely get that uh that um privilege so uh it's been a great response glad to hear that yeah Jesse Adel um so uh comment was I think I think uh you made a comment about looking at everything through an equity lens and um the ejat tool and then when you look at this you know Dei and social justice work is its own category um so I I just want to I I guess I'm asking or I think I know but um so like the building level social emotional learning and PBIS is that also looked at through an equity lens through a racial Justice lens same thing

072with you know all of the teaching and learning and all of the mental health because we know mental health can impact communities differently you know if you're poor if you're uh don't speak English any number of different ways are we looking at these all these different categories through the with the EJ tool through an equity L well I'm glad you brought that up because um and I I will admit that until we hired Claudia Burton it felt like sort of a separate thing that we were just trying to patch together and attach to we knew it was important but we didn't really know how to um make it um part of everything we do and Claudia has uh helped us come a long way on that and um so for example that PBIS Focus that

073the Elementary uh teachers are going to be doing as a Building Group in the afternoon uh not just Dori and Nick and I went to all the buildings before school to explain and kind of cast the vision for that but Claudia was with us too and helped them to see the the key components of culturally responsive uh understanding of of educating people the the other thing I want to say too you know a lot of folks have asked us when hard things happen in our schools that unfortunately happen in a lot of places you know what are you doing what are you doing to make sure that doesn't ever happen again or what are you doing to to to um you know um make it so that that kind of thing can't happen well what

074you just got done seeing is that's what we're doing you know it's it's it's not something that you can uh it where you get the biggest bang for your buck is helping everybody uh develop and and grow in those areas so that they uh very naturally have uh skills that will make every student that comes in front of them feel uh respected and and and cared for and needed so um so when people wonder what we're doing it's this is what we're doing this is what we're putting our time energy and effort towards yeah absolutely just going to add something real quick the so if you if you look back to what we did last year and answer your question about the equity work into everything else what we had at the elementary level was

075it was separated in their work groups right so you had theal group over here you have the teaching and learning group here then you have the Dei work going on over there really intentionality behind putting them all together to say everybody from our social justice team in that building needs to integrated in building our PBIS system with them right so like that's I'm not saying that's the answer to everything right but there's intentional steps like that that are being taken to then make sure there is a checks and balances because if we were to carry on what we felt with what we were doing before that's what's missing right you almost remove that group and as a part of that conversation and they should really be pushing that effort with everybody else if that makes

076a little sound I get tired of hearing the both and phrase you know people use it all the time it's a both and thing because we recognize that there are some folks I mean we have over a hundred folks in the district well over 100 who have taken the core course and have you know that 16 hours worth of um instruction that better um situates them to make decisions around PBIS around instruction but that if we uh weren't utilizing those folks Within These groups while still offering these separate offerings because we have new people in the district who haven't had any of that training so we still need to that's the build capacity piece while we take those folks who have um either participated in the core course or Beyond and infusing them in all

077the other work we're doing but I think it's a we're trying to do both at the same time because of our staff who hasn't had the core course or are new they need some of just that basic learning and uh language while integrating all those folks who have because we know if we're carrying on with a PBIS group with no folks in there who have had that learning or have um have um a social justice lens to their work the decisions that are made could be harmful and so we know that we can't separate our social justice group and say you guys work over here on social justice stuff you work on PBIS stuff because if we don't have those folks with the knowledge integrated in all of those groups uh the decisions and work

078that can be done might harm our students instead of supporting them better so it's really intentional and integrating them but still offering those capacity building you know just basic um learning opportunities for people thank [Music] you other questions um I have a question and a comment I guess the comment is um I was really happy to see the student sessions I know those have been um popular in previous years so I'm really glad to see that our students are going to be offer the opportunity to participate in these sessions um in the future on their days off I know about that to come in on days that they could be you like to share they will they're so great um so that is really cool I'm also really happy to see um the intentionality and

079you talked about how you went through different groups and really thought about what our variety of needs might be you can see that on here like with the AED training is one example of that like it hasn't gotten a lot of popular public attention but it certainly is a critical need we've for lots of reasons um you know there there is a need here for um not critical not public attention as if an issue here in East Lancing but generally an issue attending to like people who need a who who we should we should all have this kind of training right or the opportunity for it so it's a really great example of you know maybe not something that we would think about to be offered in professional learning but I appreciate having it on

080here so um those are the two comments and I guess though with that though the the flip side is with so many choices and so many streams how are we creating some alignment and kind of like roping all this together and putting a bow on what where we're going as a you know as a group how are you thinking about that I and Dory can pipe in too but I I would say that you see some of that by trying to group these under our three uh Vision buckets as we're calling them and it's really one of those things that boy it you know if I if if people didn't care about choice and people didn't want to have autonomy then we just say all right everybody's doing this this this and here's here's your

081cycle and and get it done but uh you just lose so much when when you force people's hand into things that they don't maybe aren't as comfortable with but they're still picking something that's related and and similar and so we're hoping they'll we'll gain traction that way with as a district thank you I think too one of the things I mean we only offered registration for the first session like we're going to do it one at a time so that if New Opportunities or you know needs come up we can add those on um you know we had one come up a couple weeks ago we we realized we were spending um more Claudia than us but all of us spending time talking with folks about um our religious and cultural calendar our holiday calendar

082and so we thought okay so we have this calendar and you can look at it and see dates but if you don't know what those mean or how those impact the students who celebrate or acknowledge and recognize those days um it's only partially helpful so we've reached out to our local Interfaith clergy group and they're willing to come in and offer a like a how to better understand you know our cult religious and cultural holiday calendar um on two of our sessions so kind of just to responding to what we're hearing from people and what some of the questions are coming up or what some of the issues come up that then we can say okay we we have this calendar we're not utilizing it to its fullest because people don't understand the impact of

083some of these days and so um trying to get better in front of that by educating folks you know is just another thing we can do and we can do that I think as if we you know we had some staff who said I just want to pick all five of mine we're like no they're not picking all five right now we need to do one at a time for our own sanity first but second so that you know folks we can get some feedback too from the first round and we can see what people want like we know what needs to be offered again just based on some of the uh replies and some of the offerings that were chosen by many folks and I we should while we're sitting here give credit to

084Cindy Horan for bringing us move mindfully because I can very vividly uh good or bad remember sitting in the auditorium and uh hearing about it so um that's how that came to us is just you know from learning from our community too awesome adjusting as we go I was just say if they picked all five they're all going to want to change them no going to say they think they want to pick all five we already got changes from registration one so yeah I can't even imagine the rest yeah so sorry oh I was just going to say we yeah are adjusting as we go I mean to your point Tera the AED CPR course we thought yeah that'd be a good thing to have you know maybe we'll get 10 12 people hope we

085get enough to to to fill it and it had 71 right around people wanted it yeah yeah we had to some people even registered for it were who are another required course I think it got down to 59 once we took them out so we're I'm talking with them tomorrow we're going to adjust that to be able to offer it uh and a more down the road so well over the summer just as a side note we had um a doctoral candidate come from Kinesiology from the College of Education at MSU who uh I guess I met with her and she's potentially going to come talk to the policy committee but specifically talking about the importance of AED and CPR training and you know wanting to understand what lanting was doing with this and I'll

086be certainly reaching back out to her to let her know that we're offering this training I'm sure she'll be super excited to see that we're taking a proactive approach so the fire department has been a great partner they coming sending paramedics to do our training so the East Lancing fire it's also a good opportunity just to partner with our local fire agency yeah and and do you know if they do that on a regular basis for community members or is it you know this one just kind of blossomed out of some communication where they wanted to use our building for something and then they kind of said hey if you ever need anything we're like well by the way um don't ever say that to us cuz we'll take you up on it and uh

087so we did and they were just so gracious and saying yeah we'll come do it we'll send more people and um so that's kind of how this came about um but I don't know if they do or not awesome outside of this okay final comments questions well thank you so much for this comprehensive presentation we appreciate it have a lot of fun on Friday wa um okay we are going to transition into public comment um I'm going to read our statement here in just a second but just for those who may not be familiar with the process there are these blue forms in the back of the room in the little tray if you want to give public comment we welcome you to do so just fill this form out and you can give it

088to miss hore and she'll make sure that it gets to me um the statement that I read is this is the opportunity to address the board speakers are to confine their remarks to 5 minutes if if a speaker requires more than 5 minutes after all other persons who have requested to speak during this part of the meeting have spoken that speaker will be allowed additional time the superintendent or other District staff may comment to clear up or avoid significant misunderstandings um the first form I have tonight is on the topic of equity from Brad loots thank you um I know tonight is there's going to be some tough work tonight and it's not a night we take lightly go moving forward with one of the agenda items um my fear is we're going to be

089back here again and again and again and I think we need to do an investment and do an equity audit in this District um as a parent in the district of both white and brown children I can see the vast differences in how both those sets of kids are treated in this District um walking in the building tonight I hit the um handicap entrance to open the door and guess what that door was locked and so we have a lot of blind spots in our district and we're not going to move forward until we have somebody come in from outside and take a look at it for us we're not going to get a good Equity policy and I applaud all the work going on in the um education sessions but there's things we need

090to Target so that we're not back here again putting out fires we need to take care of the root cause of what's going on in our district and we are diverse but we are not Equitable and I will continue to say that and we need to care for all our students and we're not doing a good job of that thank you thank you Mr loots uh next I have Union update from Mr ponton welcome sir welcome to the imperfect human a reality TV show where we are all the lead characters as events have unfolded during the past few weeks since a teacher was accused of using harsh language toward a student many of us have been more than willing to broadcast our own imperfections I want to take a few minutes to try to set

091the record as straight as possible in an atmosphere where facts and due process have too often been sacrificed Dennis petrovich has served this district for 30 years he's volunteered countless hours outside the classroom in maintaining our facilities and working with student athletes he has consistently displayed remarkable dedication to this District seeing that things are done correctly on many levels but as one of the stars of tonight's episode Dennis is an imperfect human he is however not the demon he has been portrayed on in social media and even in this very boardroom I've sat here and listened to people who perhaps due to their own imperfections had berated him and shown very little interest in the truth if your only source of information about Dennis is what we have said in this room or on social

092media you'd have to believe he runs around all day shouting the nword at students and that has never happened in the incident last spring due to his imperfections he did use the n-word in addressing a situation between students in his attempt to diffuse that situation he exhibited poor judgment in using that inflammatory word but it was not in any way at any time directed at any student instead of learning the context of this incident Dennis was demonized he paid his price for his mistake last spring and this summer before returning to school prepared to do the job he loved so much now we can and do criticize Dennis's judgment and we can criticize his choices without endorsing the tactics used to demonize him this fall he raised his voice trying to get some misbehaving students

093to come to order at no time during his exchanges with students did he use any racial slurs or exhibit any racist Behavior because the child he was addressing is black does not make Dennis a racist it makes him a frustrated teacher who is having trouble getting students to come to order welcome to middle school but to listen to people talking here a couple of Fridays ago you would think once again Dennis was running around calling his students the n-word every five minutes that never happened people on social media have accused him of being racist toward them when he was their football coach here's a fact Dennis has never coached football I'm a strong believer in community involvement in our schools been part of it all my life I applaud the spirit of groups who want

094to make our schools better diverse input from a wide range of stakeholders makes us all better teachers administrators and yeah even parents unless of course that input is Tainted by a disregard for the truth we saw it when we sat here and listened to people playing fast and loose with the truth during Ashley Schwarz Beck's hiring meeting with people accusing her of misconduct at East Lancing from a time before she even worked here the loudest voices are rarely the most well informed too of often in our imperfections we think that if the volume is high enough and the outrage is turned up a notch we don't have to actually be honest about what we know and what we don't know and that pattern has played out far too often in the last year so I'm

095here to ask two things first let's make sure we Accord to teachers at least the same amount of respect for due process that we're demanding in our for our students let's dedicate ourselves to finding common ground in solving problems even if that means turning down the volume and doing the hard work of actually knowing something before we start making demands and accusations secondly let's not let a 30-year career be evaluated in an atmosphere when the loudest voices aren't particularly well informed in a perfect world that's how it should work but as you know our show is called the imperfect human we'll be back next week same time same channel thank you Mr ponton uh next I have Brandy Branson and I have you um twice soy oh you're hiding behind Cindy come on up and

096you can um we'll first take your comments related to school dashboards um and then your next com um I am Brandy Branson I'm here to represent uh elpat which is the East Lancing parent advocacy team and what we're looking to have occur is we ask for for it uh last year and are still waiting um for a dashboard for all of the schools within the district that can report one what's happening with their schools what's happening with discipline what's happening what are some of our success marks what does that look like we're also looking to have the principles of each School come in to the board and report if monthly or quarterly what is going on in their schools so that it's not just we're coming together in a crisis situation that the community actually

097knows what is happening with the schools what is children um should never be a surprise it is something that should be required from a district standpoint and as the board you should be more than welcome to have your principles come in and provide a report to you of what's happening in their schools it keeps you well informed it keeps the public well informed and we don't have a miscommunication or presumed miscarriage of Justice that's from an outad standpoint thank you and then did you want to proceed with your comments I believe these are okay regarding in service training am I am I the last two um these are the last forms I have oh okay um so my last comment is in regards to the district um presentation of what is being required I don't

098believe anyone ever really answered we skirted around it very well um are the sessions being looked at from an equity lens I heard no definitely everyone skirted around all of that and I'm I tried um very hard on parent perspective I'm I heard them say Claudia Claudia Claudia you have a whole team that we just hired that is on safety and health mental all of all of those things that should have been spoken of I am offended because I know who Claudia is and every time I heard that come out of their mouths I felt like you were saying we have our one black person that can speak for all minorities and that is not looking at something from an equity lens we're talking about our handicapped students our brown and black children all the

099teachers the faculty and all I could hear is Claudia you have a whole team a whole team that we brought in I as a parent am offended but it stands to reason with what we keep hearing and what seems to be the message that we're sending we had our one black Claudia who looked at all of our programs and not one person stood up here and said yes we looked at all of the programming from an equity lens unacceptable you were asked a direct question and you politically talked your way out of responding to a direct question so I'm hoping that they were looked at with an equity lens and when we move to sessions two three four and five if the first group was not looked at in that manner the rest are and

100I know as a professional when I'm given options of what I can choose to do sometimes when I have that time off I'm going to look at what may be fun or what may be interesting but there are some important topics that should be required there are some important topics that we need addressed in this District as a whole because that Mr Lut said something about that button we talked about it we talked about a simple button being able to come into the school why are we still having that conversation we should be done coming into the building to this meeting being able to hear the meeting being able to engage what happens to the people that we couldn't get the forms to work what happens to the people that can't be here for a

101reason making our district Equitable should be the goal that's it for the sheets that you have thank you okay thank you are there additional blue forms I don't have any okay this is last call for public comment you can go ahead Brandy and then we'll just get the Forum from you yeah that's fine thanks yeah okay um I I am an involved parent that was involved in all of last year's incidents um I was here for the Miss schwarzbeck um opportunity to um have a conversation and I was again involved in um I don't get involved in the social media blitz that's not my job um but what I do get involved in is making sure that we have [Music] representation and that the representation that is being given is fair okay so none of

102us were involved in all of the situation so everything we're hearing is third hand um as a parent who watch watched and read comments made inaccurately about my child I am very well aware of what happens and how people can be demonized I know for a fact when comments were made um the comments I made I won't speak to anyone else's comments um in any of the instances those are factual so for any person who was not in any involved in any of those instances I understand how the UAW works I understand how unions work I understand all of those things but if you were not ever involved in every single instance in our reality shows you might want to make sure you're accurate um we elpat it wasn't even elpat we were going to

103have a demonstration that was that was held off off um on September 29th however the students did a walk out and we did speak to students and there is a history that is there there was a history that was given students came up on their own and spoke with us so when speaking on behalf of a large group or what we perceive as a large group make sure that we're hearing the voices that matter the voices that are there every day because I stood and heard those voices on Friday I didn't ask any questions and it was this one publicized incident it was this one publicized incident and I'm sorry there were multiple incidents those children told us of multiple incidents so I've been contemplating we have that number that we use for students to

104report an incident that they hear about right well we need students to feel protected to call a number to report teachers because our students don't know that something may be wrong our students don't have a number so maybe we should start promoting that and then we would have heard a little bit more because I was appalled on Friday for the students that were walking to school that told me what what they actually heard and it didn't come from my mouth when the students came out and said fire him that was not from an adult that was nothing that was given to them that was the children coming out with handwritten signs on their notebook paper so if your students are saying that they're the ones that are directly impacted they are the ones in the

105classroom they are the ones hearing any words that are coming out of our faculty mou our faculty's mouth so they hear it directly and indirectly they see how they're treated they see the behaviors of all of us it's not unfortunately Mr pacht is the one that we that we saw right he's the one that I don't want to call it put under a microscope but those kids had a lot to say about that gentleman on that day so while we're why we're trying to find fault with social media social media is just that social media who's got the loudest voice doesn't matter who's factual are those kids that are in that classroom so if you're not talking to them I think all of us need to take a step back and not not base our

106comments based off of parent comments especially if you're not always in the rooms you're not always in the spaces thank you thank you that will conclude public comment um we will move to our amended agenda item board discussion trusty Edsel did you have a particular item no I just wanted to hold space in case anybody wanted to talk about anything okay I'm not prepared to say anything tonight okay I got a lot to say but it's not coming out in a I understand in a way I want it to right now yeah I'd like to just add one piece of clarifying information um in response to one of the uh comments one is the the very first one it's while it's not acceptable we are not L to this uh Ada accessible door and we

107had a company out all day Friday working on it they are rewiring it they're working on it it's not a blind spot for us we're well aware of it we just are still working to get it fixed but they were here all day Friday working on it so it's in progress and I would note that when in our facilities committee we have we have uh done an actual audit of all of the doors in the district and Bly has I know this is your committee tally but no pleas Billy has reported on the efforts that the district has taken to ensure that those doors are functional and remain functional um for the long term thank you for that okay uh then we will move on to board vacancy interviews um we will be interviewing all

108of the candidates who applied for the vacancy um we re received six applications and so we will um we offer the opportunity to all six for all six people to interview um and I think we have all six people here although I didn't have a chance to meet everybody before the meeting um I always want to thank everybody who applied for these openings I think that it speaks well of all of you that you're willing to step into this um important role at this time um and so obviously six people one vacancy whatever happens um as a result of this process we appreciate your willingness to serve um and we hope that you will all consider running in the next election um okay so a few points about the process I have some notes to

109make sure I hit all of these um each candidate will have about 10 minutes of time and um secretary Ferris Highland and I will kind of keep track just so that we provide um some Equity across all of the different interviews everybody has about the same amount of time um that includes both your time to answer our four questions as well as additional questions or clarifying questions from board members so just consider the length of your answers as you respond um and so also for my colleagues on the board then keep that in mind as you ask your questions and be thoughtful about um that um and then I also want to briefly address the order of candidates so the order that you see on the agenda is the order that I've received them from

110Miss hord I did not accommodate any requests regarding the order of the interviews out of fairness to all candidates which is the process we've followed in previous vacancy announcements um and then the last issue is the process from here so there are a variety of outcomes that can follow the interviews tonight after they conclude um according to state law we have 30 days to fill this vacancy from the time calendar days from the time it was announced um from the time we received the resignation and I believe we do have another regular board m board meeting scheduled before that date so we can also always call a special meeting if that becomes necessary so once the interviews are concluded tonight um a few things can happen a board member can call a motion for a

111vote for a candidate to fill the vacancy we would consider that vote there could be multiple votes for multiple people um If no candidate receives four votes um a a board m board member may vote no only because they feel like they need more time and they're not right ready that's also absolutely fine um you may need more information or or um need to consider what's been said tonight these are all acceptable outcomes um okay I think these are all of the process issues that I wanted to go over um but are there any questions about the process before we begin okay then the first person we have is Robert is it kookier awesome you know um yeah well took a stab at it yeah first thanks for uh letting me be interviewed by you

112I appreciate it um my name is Bob kukier um I have a longstanding interest in education um I was a faculty member at Michigan State University doing theoretical chemistry for more years than I want to uh account for um I won't make an auditor joke but if you want to get people on this committee I don't know if that was the best strategy uh about that too so um yes so I have two lovely daughters my wife and I have two lovely daughters they both went through the East Lancing school system from beginning to end uh they then went to very nice colleges and then have very nice professional lives so I have um something to thank the East Lancing school system for um I do have to look at the various notes because uh

113you yeah and I can I can help you so you're already answering the first question but for those in the audience who maybe don't have the questions that we clearly sent in advance um it's why are you interested in serving on the East Lancing Board of Education and then what qualifications skills attributes would you bring to the board what experience have you had in the district some details you might share include your experience volunteering attending board meetings serving on community or school councils and or supporting fundraising efforts right thanks um so um so yes so I I taught at MSU for many years in theoretical chemistry so I taught uh thermodynamics and quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics and Mathematics uh but I also taught at Glen Karen in uh the junior great books program um

114and if you don't know what that is it's a lovely program that was started a long time ago uh through the University of Chicago and it's not didactic but what it does is it has um children at all age levels read various things such as asap's fables for example if you remember perhaps The Lion and the mouse that's a great asap's fable about power structures and um you don't tell the second graders anything about you know what they should think about it but you ask them questions so as I said I taught many you know graduat in uh undergraduate courses but I must say teaching a bunch of second graders uh something like the great books was just um a great experience put it that way so um right if you want to move to

115this or are there other things you wanted to answer for the first question or did you want to move to the second question I can certainly move to the second since time is short yeah what do you believe to be the roles and responsibilities of an effective School Board member right so um so one of the things I think is important to do is to uh keep up to Snuff with uh current trends in education um uh in particular see what the national um state is and I was just looking at various pieces of information about us education and uh couple of Trends I noted um there is uh great inflation uh but a decrease in standardized test scores these are all numbers that are available um School attendance has decreased but graduation rates are

116up all those sort of things are to me very serious flags that something is not quite right with uh our educational system I'm not saying anything about the East Lancing school system these are just National numbers but things to worry about um there are these still issues of recovery from coid uh everybody knows there are these you know definite dips in all the monitors of uh success in academics uh that happened because of Co so that's something to worry about and still I mean it'll eventually resolve but to keep track of um and uh basically I think the role is to strive for Student Success and uh that also to me correlates with the teaching staff success too so you want to make sure that there's good professional development heard a lot about that just

117just few minutes ago so I'm glad to see that but that's the kinds of things that uh should be uh that the board should be worrying about so to speak thank you um next question is the board consists of seven individuals and we can only move forward um with action on something when we have a majority that said there are of course things that are individually important to us so what are two or three issues that would be important to you in your role as a board member right so mentioned zero number zero is getting more parking but uh seriously um one is um maxing maximizing each child's academic potential uh number two is instilling a moral Center in them I consider that to be like an emotional potential and I really strongly hold to

118this view those two are really connected that act academic and emotional potential just go hand in hand um I've seen it throughout my career basically um and uh I think if you make progress on that that will really reduce conflicts in the East Lancing Public School System uh and the third thing certainly is faculty development uh that would be the third important important if you will Triad great thank you uh so the next question is not so much a question as a confirmation although nothing about the last few months has been typical the average month for a school board member includes two to three board meetings one to three other school meetings possibly other community related activities in addition there's email correspondence background reading required for board and committee meetings District updates are you able

119to commit to the time required to fulfill these resp responsibilities right so I am an ameritus faculty member which means I can Goof Off as much as I want um but I actually I still have a very active research program uh it's very much oriented towards these days towards machine learning partly towards chemistry but also sure you all know about like chat GPT and the wonders of it and the downfalls of it but um I spend a lot of time doing that um so I I still have time to devote to these kinds of efforts great well we do have a couple of minutes here for additional questions from board members are there a questions I have I have a question so uh Dr kukie I know you've been in the community for a very

120long time um and full disclosure he is my neighbor um um and I'm glad that you've applied for this um in your experience over you know it sounds like 35 or 40 years with our district how what has been the mo what have been the changes you've seen both um and those can be things that you see as a positive change or things that you see as an area for improvement like what do you see individually in this District over your long of your experience in the community um I think there are some positive things that have to do with sort of the power relation um certainly when I was growing up so it's even further back you know if you said the wrong thing to the teacher that was it if your parent said

121the wrong thing to well I wouldn't even think about saying the wrong thing to the teacher so things have definitely changed in that regard and I always think about this pendulum swinging back and forth and perhaps the pendulum maybe has swung too far to the other side so I worry about that issue as um sort of something that's not so good it'd be good to keep things more in the middle that that would be my observation uh one quick question we of a little bit of time so you talked a little bit about your skills and qualifications and experiences you talked about the great books program it wasn't clear to me how recent that experience might be could you talk a little bit more about your recent um connections to the district and um either

122through volunteering or how are you currently connected to the district and what are your experiences more recently I'm really not Direct directly connected to the district um not having children in the district anymore kind of you know makes you drop off that um one of my daughters actually she teaches math in high school and works on curriculum development so we talk a lot it's a private high school you don't want to know what the tuition is there um but we talk a lot about uh developments in education so I can't say that I'm you know directly plugged in to the East Lancing school system except I mean I read the minutes and keep track that way and that's how I found out about this opportunity great thank you so much your time has expired but

123thank you so much for spending some time with us thank you uh next we have Rebecca Dean and I will use the right questions this time okay thank you um shall I just go ahead well why don't I ask you I'll officially ask you the question that way sounds good yeah sorry about that um why are you interested in serving on the East Lancing Board of Education in addition what qualifications skills and attributes would you bring to the board what experience have you had in the district some details you might share include your experience volunteering attending board meetings serving on school community councils and or supporting fundraising efforts right well thank you um so I was born and raised in East Lancing I was a a a happy Baron from Glen Karen uh and then

124I survived Hannah when it was a middle school and a lot less fun than it is now um and then I was a graduate of East Lancing um High School East Lancing was always my home I have deep uh Roots here but I was part of the 1990s Michigan diaspora right going to find someplace where there were actual jobs um however I always wanted to come back this was always my home and so a little over a year ago I had the opportunity to return for a job now my three children are all in the district I have a sixth grader an eighth grader and a 12th grader I'm just going to point out that my senior is one of the chief editors of the portrait that you all have on your so proud mama

125moment um I've only been in this district for a year so My volunteering has been you know we I I took the kids to grite Village or whatever they had a Greenfield Village last year on the fifth grade trip and things like that I've baked a bunch of cookies um but I have always been very involved in my children's education so I was on the governing board for their preschool um I was on and then ran the grants committee for their Elementary School uh I ran the teacher appreciation lunch uh various volunteer opportunities tons of fundraising uh lots of committee work I also on a professional level worked with the local teachers on enrichment programs through my job at the University so uh professionally I was a professor of anthropology in the University of Minnesota

126system but I moved into an administrative role that's focused on the assessment of student learning and the assessment of Student Success programs and so my current job which brought me home uh is as director of assessment and undergraduate education at Michigan State University so assessment is the process of gathering and interpreting data about student learning and program effective Effectiveness in order to improve programs and support students to improve learning and to be accountable to parents and taxpayers by showing that we make a difference in students lives uh I strongly Embrace msu's definition of student sex that success as a measure of how effectively the institution is supporting students rather than a measure of the inherent worth of the students themselves and that's an attitude I would bring to the school board uh I benefited profoundly

127uh from the education I received from the East Lancing Public Schools my children are benefiting now and I would like an opportunity to use my expertise uh to give back to the school district right thank you uh second question what do you believe to be the roles and responsibilities of an effective School Board member uh so I believe that the role of the board in general is is oversight uh that a board member represents um the constituents being our students our parents taxpayers and other community institutions uh and for that the all board members owe um transparency and integrity uh I believe that a good board member should be collect collaborative um I think we can see uh that teachers and staff want what is best for the students and so do parents and so

128does the community and so we should be working together not antagonistically um I think that any effective and efficient collaboration and oversight though can only come from significant knowledge of the context as an anthropologist I tend to think of that in community terms knowing the community knowing how the education system works uh as well as knowledge of the specific school system thank you um what are two or two to three issues or priorities that would be important to you in your role as a board member um so I sort of have a a big a medium and a small priority okay uh my my big concern overall is equity we've heard that a lot today um but I'm a data nerd right that's where the assessment stuff comes in um today is indigenous people's day

129right and so we probably many of us have have heard the land acknowledgement the recognition that we are on land taken through the Treaty of sagona from the OJ adaa and patami people but the acknowledgement only goes so far if we look at the actual data of Student Success in the school district it shows significant Equity gaps and that would be the focus of um of any service I gave to the school district it's a systemic problem that can't be solved by one person or one board but it's the lens with which we should be looking I think at all work on the schools so that's the big big issue uh the medium issue is and I swear to God bathrooms all right so if it wasn't clear bathrooms are a biological necessity uh for

130our children but there are in fact um a lot of restrictions on bathroom use um so the middle schools have really restrictive bathroom policies um and the high school had to close bathrooms uh because of vaping issues uh last year not all of them but you know restrict the number of bathrooms and that's something that I think um is a problem uh especially for my daughters and that I would like to work on and then the uh the small thing um one of the things I noticed when I first toured the high school um coming back here again was that we have such wonderful ways that we honor the athletes that have been through these halls and I think that's great but uh East Lancing high school has a number of really illustrous alums in

131other fields um so you know we have we have entrepreneurs and business people and we have politicians and artists and musicians um and scientists and military leaders the Surgeon General right um I think it would be wonderful as a way of showing students you know we we have focused have such a strong focus and support for students going to college I think it would be nice to show some of the other ways that our alums have uh made an impact on the world great thank you and then the last question are you up for the how are you going to manage these multiple activities with your current personal and professional responsibilities right I guess what I would say is um that I managed to get tenure and promotion to full with three small children and

132a totally unreasonable job so I now have three much more self-sufficient children and a much more manageable job so I think I will be fine got it thank you so much we have a couple minutes here for questions from board members is there a specific area where you think your skills would tie in really well uh on the board um so I mean I guess what I would say is that um I do a lot of professional development myself the presentation we saw today looking at the um the goals I actually I love that term what was it value buckets I I love that term um looking at how we align our goals um and then how we um work toward those goals and assessing the degree to which we are Meeting those goals are

133all what I do professionally and would bring that lens to the board um I we had heard earlier maybe this is not fair so it might not be a fair question but we um heard mention earlier about Equity Audits and with your background and assessment I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how Equity audits are conducted and sort of your perspective on how you would approach that here yeah I think that that um so my feeling on um issues related to equity is that we should always have those conversations in data informed ways so what I would say is that all um all Equity audits of programs should be focused on um the actual numbers that we have on Student Success which do show significant Equity gaps um but also and I would agree

134with with the speaker that um there are multiple ways to assess what is happening in classrooms but talking to students is one of the best wonderful thank you that is time perfectly done thank you so much for your time Dr Dean uh next we have Scott farver you would step forward sir I came into education as a German teacher so I'm gonna set my own timer oh that's fine I'm not gonna count I don't start counting against you till I finish reading the question that seems fair um so Dr farer why are you interested in serving on the East laning Board of Education and if you could also tell us about the qualifications skills and attributes you would bring to the board what experience you've had in the district you might also include experienc volunteering

135attending board meetings serving on school Community councils supporting fundraising efforts Etc I think my answer to that is I'm not sure um I called it reluctant citizenry rooted in love um we love this Community we came here in 2014 uh for my graduate program and we didn't know how long we were going to stay and so we were kind of hands off with some of the things not knowing how much to invest in places and people and then life just happens and so we ended up staying and we found that out a few years ago and now we are fully invested in loving this community as our forever home um that being said I don't know if you need my voice on this board um I am a white Cy male um who brings limited

136perspectives from those identities to the seats here I think that should be noted and understood as we look at some of the candidates um I'm happy to add my expertise to this uh my scholarship is rooted in um critical whiteness studies and examining racism in teacher education so I work in the department of teacher education at Michigan State University um we are really invested in this community we have three kids in these schools we have two 10th graders uh I have a kindergartener who just started school um he's loving it and it kills me that we beat that out of kids by Middle School um we've got lots of I have lots of different entry points into the education system here in East Lancing um my wife is a teacher in the in the district

137uh an elementary teacher who works super hard every day my son is a uh a student with special needs he has an IEP and so we've navigated with the help of Nick and others in the district uh the special ed process through here we've participated in community events sports clubs um I feel like we have a really good sense of the pulse of some of the district but like I said some of my identities kind of prevent me from knowing the full story of what's going on here in the district but it is rooted in love and when this opening was here um the first two times it was thought about but never jumped upon so here we are fair enough um what do you believe to be the roles and responsibilities of an effective

138School Board member I mean we heard it before and I think lots of folks have touched on it um if you're not someone that's willing to listen and be involved in the messiness of public education something that I love dearly um then this is not a place for you I don't think so I think to be a good listener to our students to our families um if you're not willing to listen to custodians and cafeteria workers either I think that's a disservice to this position um to listen to teachers community members families um I think that's first and foremost um in order to do the second thing which is to make really hard decisions for the the the hard decisions that a community um begs us to make begs you to make as a board

139um as we think about staff and families students and what's best for for everybody involved um I think the third one is one that we're maybe working on is the transparency that some other folks have mentioned like this is public education we are a board representing um you are a board representing us as a community and so trying to be transparent as possible with those decisions is super important so I appreciate the work that we've been doing towards that great what are two or three issues or priorities that would be important to you in your role as a board member yeah I think number one is to listen to be able to listen it's sometimes hard to do that um I keep thinking this is a parks and wreck episode you feel like it I've

140lived that many days but gosh if we're not really if we're not willing to listen listen to the people like what are we doing here in public education um that's one of the things uh the second one is to really continue to support the work that we're doing towards um supporting students staff Administration and everybody in in in mental health and finding ways to do that not just on paper but uh in action so that folks are are feeling the effects of those Services um and the third one comes from me being a teacher I started as a German teacher I was an elementary teacher um now I teach at at MSU um and to me one of the issues that I'm seeing right now in classrooms is just um thinking about how we can

141decrease the student teacher ratio um smaller classrooms more qualified adults in spaces more loving qualified adults in spaces um there's just too many darn kids my wife had 29 students in the fifth grade classroom last year that's too much how do you meet the needs of 29 students with one adult she loves them so much and then 28 other ones are just still there too so those are the those are my three things yeah and the last question how are you going to manage your multiple activities with your current profession personal and uh professional responsibilities we'll do it uh yeah I have a job that's I'm fortunate that has flexibility that can do that stuff uh our family has loved being part of the community and going to events going to District events and like

142I said we're now we're invested in this community in in real ways and so whether or not whatever way this goes uh we're excited to be supporting the community in real ways thank you Dr farver we have some time for questions from board members have a well just a couple of quick comments um when you said too many kids I thought you were looking at me directly um and I just your comment about being a suard white male and possibly not having something to contribute it isn't exactly how you said that um you recognize your space in the world and I appreciate that and I think that is something to contribute so um using that to work towards the goals of equity and inclusion I think is valuable I don't know how this will end

143tonight but I just wanted to make those comments I hope it's something we all think about all the time um you mentioned a couple times coming from a place of love Yeah and sometimes uh when you're on the board you have to make long-term life altering negative decisions every once in a while and so when I read that I wondered how how would you personally reconcile the challenge between coming from that place of love and knowing that sometimes in the decisions that you would be making somebody would be very heavily negatively impacted you're making me want to resend my Nom my self letter I mean that's the whole story of this thing right is making decisions that's in the best interest of the community I think about being a parent and and the ways that

144we make those same decisions um we make hard decisions all the time about our our kids um those are also rooted in love I think it would be a burden I think it would be really heavy lift to hold I think it is a heavy lift for you all to do to hear and listen to community members and to have to weigh your beliefs and your understandings of the world with what you think is best and what you're hearing is best [Music] um yeah that's a tough question questions all right Dr farver thank you so much for your time tonight thanks I have a minute and 23 seconds left so I was going to say you're doing pretty good okay uh Mr felos please if you would step to the podium sir uh thanks uh

145I'm not going to take the whole five minutes but um I'm it's clear to me that the board is not interested in me being on it I've been up here uh twice previously and I don't want to be beh Holden to this board's uh agenda or put on the sidelines um I see in the last uh couple years a lack of willingness um for people to uh try to understand others in this community and a lack of willingness to disagree respectfully I think that's declining I think um there's more disarray and I don't think there's a good trajectory um so you know my thing is I'm going to uh seek the support of the community at large in the next general election but I wish everybody here the best thanks thank you Mr Feld POS

146uh I okay we'll move to Tiffany [Applause] Matthews good evening good evening um why are you interested in serving on on the East Lancing Board of Education and if you would talk about your qualification skills attributes um and what experience you've had in the district you might share um experience volunteering attending board meetings serving on school community councils and or supporting fundraising efforts um well thank you for the opportunity to speak today um so I did not have an interest in serving on the board until the last school board meeting there was a parent who spoke and what she said was that as a School of Choice parent she didn't feel that she had any representation in the district or on the board that hit home for me because my family joined the district as

147a School of Choice family um we did not move into East laning until 2019 so for about five years my children were School of Choice children I also have a son who is currently finishing High School through graduation Alliance um I have a daughter in the 10th grade who's just a regular high school student and she's on portrait and in club clubs and I feel like I can relate to a majority of the families in the district because of my experience with my children in the district and that's what made me decide to submit a letter um I currently work for the state of Michigan I'm a financial analyst my experience um I have done governmental accounting for 12 years now I also am familiar with Audits and um financial reporting things of that nature

148um and as far as community service I am currently a member of the East Lancing parent advocacy team uh before that I was a sports bomb so my boys played football and I would help with working concessions and fundraising for the sports teams and things like that um outside of the district more football I volunteered for Lancing Kappa Express for 10 years a lot of those players are now East Lancing football players basketball players and some of the girls are cheerleaders at East Lancing um just because it was a Lancing organization kids came from everywhere um think that is it for yes it's a lot um okay so what what do you believe to be the roles and responsibilities of an effective board member I think the role of a board member is everything from

149making policy to budget to oversight and hiring um but I also believe that board members are the bridge between the school district and the community um that Community can include parents teachers staff and then obviously the community at large um I also believe that board members are advocates for the educational needs of all students in the district and that the board is the body that would hold the school district accountable for its performance thank you um and then what are two or three issues or priorities that would be important to you in your role as board member I'm laughing because I'm going to sound like a broken record so the priority for me would be an equity audit I know you guys haven't heard that tonight um I have always been proud of the diversity

150of East Lancing and the work that the board and the Administration has always done to promote diversity and inclusion um just a quick story my oldest graduated in 2020 back in oh probably 2016 when he was in eth grade there was an eighth grade field trip to the cyclotron plan and at that time all of the students in the eighth grade class could not participate because of a rule through MSU that the they had to be National citizens or I can't remember the exact word but what I do remember is a superintendent at that time amidst a lot of public outcry for pulling the field trip said that um the requirements from MSU was not in line with what we believe is a district and that was why she stood up at that time and

151cancel the field trip that diversity and that inclusion and even Equity is something that made me happy to be an East Lancing parent and I think through a equity audit we could figure out exactly where we are and what we can do better um then the results that Equity audit I would say here's the broken record could be used to create a dashboard that parents can see through the school web page and the dashboard can include metrics such as you know kids in AP classes and different breakdowns um maybe the number of special education students I'm the parent of a special education student who then moves into advanced placement classes and things like that thank you um and then the last question is just about your ability to commit to the multiple activities of being

152a school board member with your current personal and professional responsibilities how will you manage all of that so I currently do have a 9 to-5 job I work for the state but um I am lucky to work for a department that allows us to flex our schedules so my Flex day can change based on meetings or the needs of the board great okay then we have a good amount of time for questions from board members just again I'm just commenting tonight I'm not questioning um okay I was very proud of I was on the board at the time of the field trip and it was specifically students from Muslim countries that could not were not allowed into the cycl town and the long-term implication is MSU changed its policy wow yeah I didn't know that

153I I had a question and um you mentioned something about uh you believe that one of the primary responsibilities of the board is to hold the as you said I think the district accountable for its performance what are the areas of performance that you would be focused on as a board member without SE metrics I don't know um but obviously test scores obviously um my big thing is student equity and inclusion I feel that that's my purpose for being here is to promote diversity Equity inclusion and without an equity audit I wouldn't know exactly what to say to hold them accountable but the performance of The District in terms of serving all students and creating an atmosphere that all students can grow and feel like they're included is something that I would be very very

154much a g and w champion more questions okay thank you so much with thank you thank you and uh Dr Torres I believe you are up next welcome this is a hard act to follow my goodness I know everybody's hungry and tired so well we'll take a break right after this that part um so let me ask the first question I'll start the timer why are you interested in serving on the East Lancing Board of Education in addition what qualification skills attributes would you bring to the board what experience have you had in the district some details you might share include your experience volunteering attending board me meetings serving on School community councils and or supporting fundraising efforts all right so good evening and as it was noted happy indigenous people's day um interest so

155my interest in serving has to do with a genuine interest in giving back to a school environment that was instrumental in supporting my family for the last 17 years uh both of my daughters attended Marble Glen Karen when the school was a fifth and sixth grade McDonald and East laning High School we've had great experiences with um East Lancing Public School the east Lansing Public School Community for over 13 years my family was active in the music program many thanks to our regional treasure Mr rosin um and the sports programs where both of my daughters served as coaches uh my eldest daughter serving as the varsity lacrosse coach in that time I volunteered in several of the classes and the privilege of running an after school Spanish program in Glen Karen I would say that

156my interest in serving on the school board stems from these experiences as well as my commitment to ensuring that all all students are supported in their educational journey I found that my education in Michigan public schools was not welcoming I grew up in the thumb area and that school was very rough and and not very welcoming and I want to ensure that my children's positive experiences in East Lancing public schools are also those available to all students um prior to coming to East Lancing I was lead monory teacher in a public an elementary program that I started in in Albuquerque New Mexico while I was there um I also was a migrant teacher in northern Michigan I worked for the office of Migrant education in DC um I've worked closely with greater Lancing area indigenous

157and Le families through culturally supportive community events in K12 after school programming and beginning in the fall of 2022 I began to work with the High School in Detroit a predominantly black school to develop a high school program around Arts ecology so uh urban forestry and climate Justice and through these commitments I have maintained a the connection to various schools and educational settings and more importantly built relationships with families and with from diverse backgrounds um my intent has always been and continues to be to create spaces where students and parents and teachers and community members across the demographics feel supported and heard um I take a very intersectional approach to my work I look at all the I look at the multiple identities that families and students hold they aren't flat right we're not looking

158at somebody just from a racial or an ethnic perspective we're looking at abilities we're looking at sexual orientation we're looking at gender we're looking at language we're looking that socioeconomic status and on and on and on and so all of the work I do with the various schools come from comes from that Center um I have also raised over $50,000 for my out of school programming so I when I work with schools I don't expect schools to provide resources I come with resources to the schools um lastly I'm the founding member of the Michigan Association for latinx and higher education um last year we hosted our first inaugural conference last fall and the conference was focused on learning and understanding how to build supportive Pathways for Michigan's Latin Youth and higher education so I have

159um I have a lot of experiences and in my letter I did say I've also in addition to those things I didn't just go to sporting and music events although I've sat through many hours many hours freezing cold weather and also Orchestra um but I also because my background isn't I you know before I became uh my I was a preschool teacher I started out as a preschool teacher um I was certified k early uh K3 educator um and so when I came to East Lancing um I was able to volunteer half a day in my daughter's Cal or um kindergarten classroom so I'm very active I try to be as active as I can both my daughters are now graduating ating one graduated in 2016 and the other in 2020 and they're doing wonderfully

160um I also want to say that um it was very intentional that I created those experiences for my kids um and so I want to make sure that all kids because my own experience wasn't the greatest I want to make sure that I'm able to create those experiences for all kids um and through the work that I do thank you what do you believe to be the roles and responsibilities of an effective Schoolboard member so um we've and go like again I'm the last one so you've heard this many times but board members responsibilities are often to focus on the big picture we need to focus on policies to improve all student achievement school board members should not direct their time in day-to-day operational issues they're not meant to be part of the minutia of

161the school member uh board member role is in policy development and establishment policy implementation is not the responsibility of a Schoolboard member so we're really here to be be a support um and work collabor to have a collaborative working relationship with the superintendent um the responsibility for a school member is to maintain a collaborative relationship with all stakeholders which include teachers staff students and all caregivers I'm very intentional in not saying parents but saying caregivers because we have we live in a space where we have multi-generational homes right we have grandparents taking care my own parents are taking care of my sister's children because my sister is unable to at this moment so I understand the import to thinking about um families as being intergenerational the ability to work with Schoolboard members through a collaborative

162process and creating um vision and goals and effective school board members have shared values that align and support School District this school district goals which were lined laid out so well earlier um and then also to define a Clear Vision of high expectations for all the student body looking at success meaning success can mean many different things right success for one one student might not necessarily mean it looks exact for another and so again to look at the multiple identities and the multiple ways that students succeed success isn't only isn't only a GPA right um we want to have well healthy well-rounded students what are two to three issues or priorities that would be important to you in your role as a board member again broken record here we go um continue to strengthen the

163school board's commitment to Dei through a and we've we've heard this an equity lens I'm going to say intersectional lens we hear Equity Equity Equity we do not here intersectional students are not flat they have multiple identities they have they're going through difficult we don't know what it's like to be a young person right now in this time that's true I'm struggling to be a 40 something year old right but we need it's difficult and so we need to be attentive to that and think about the multiple ways that they're trying trying to navigate and negotiate this very difficult time um and so again again a commitment to Dei in creating supportive educational environments for all students faculty and staff through intentional programming and partnership development um students are our number one priority however I

164believe we need to create a and maintain a healthy work environment for faculty and staff we do need to Center students but we also need to Center the people that are taking care of them and loving them every day and I'm so glad to see that that was part of that plan um but it's important I'm an educator and I know how exhausting it can be I actually was in a classroom today um in a kindergarten Spanish Immersion classroom and I didn't know how that teacher did it I was exhausted I was only there for three hours and I was like I need a nap and a juice box um so we need to make sure that we're in this Wellness Plan that we're including in centuring faculty and staff um it's becoming increasingly necessary

165for the schools to emphasize a socio emotional and physical well-being support for all students and its faculty and staff again again um not only the teachers but the folks that are cleaning up the folks that are making sure that our buildings are welcoming in all capacities and through creating a culturally sustaining and supportive learning environment um I think this is again that's important it's heartened to see that we have those High that Matt Morales as the Director of health and safety for the district Heather Finley as dri as District mental health coordinator and Paul Shanks as a Behavioral Systems specialist but I want to maintain moving this I want to maintain this momentum moving forward and then finally and we've we've heard this before but I want to maintain strong lines of bidirectional communication with

166all stakeholders including faculty staff caregivers students in the East laning and Michigan State communities right um we are an intertwined community and it's important we've heard this over and over is we need to think about how to maintain bir directional uh communication whether it be through a dashboard or some of these other potential tools but also um to think about how we can make those tools culturally responsive um I think thinking about how to make these tools so that they come in a variety of languages and are making sure that they um are available to all community members how are you going to manage all of the things you have going on with all of the activities of a school board member um so part of my appointment I'm a faculty member at MSU um

167part of my appointment is to develop Community Partnerships and collaborations so I've worked with school districts in a variety of capacities over the 17 years 16 years that I've been here and so due to that those Partnerships my um my appointment in the University is very able is loves that I'm able to do this work and supports it fully great thank you so much have a look maybe time for one question there is one maybe there's not well I go ahead I don't want to be the one that steals the question no Mr Martin go ahead um it's it's Dr taures right yes um I I enjoyed hearing and reading about your work you said you're working in Detroit on with a school that's focused on climate Justice Outdoor Learning and urban agriculture I think

168uh so urban forestry okay um climate Justice and um so it's like steam but it's looking at it through Arts based practices and Urban Ecology okay do you and I guess my question is based on your expertise and your experience in this with this other program do you see opportunities for programs that follow those similar patterns in our district and how would you like to implement something something like that so let me tell you the reason that that that program developed was because the students asked for it and so if there was a student need if there was a student ask I would be more than help happy to help locate resources to build those programming all the programs that I've ever developed are not because of my own self-interest it but that's because it's

169been through intergenerational dialogue so dialogue with youth families in various capacities and the schools so yes if there's there's an Ask I'd be more than happy to help develop something like that along alongside the students thank you you great thank you Dr Torres uh so we have reached the end of the interviews this evening and I want to thank again all of the candidates for your time and intention and thoughtful answers to our questions and your willingness to serve in this capacity um and so I guess I would turn it over to my colleagues for discussion um and potentially Readiness for a vote or not a vote as I mentioned earlier we do not need to uh take action tonight but we can if people are interested I want to make a comment and just

170say that this was a really refreshing round of interviews and I really feel like I saw everyone's authentic self tonight and that I mean it was very moving in several areas so thank you all for coming out and throwing your hat in the ring I was just going to make the comment of wow um the candidate pool is just phenomenal and this is going to be really hard um and to thank every one of you who did come out and um you know please consider running if you if you don't get selected tonight or in two weeks uh I'll be there to help you knock doors and and uh campaign and all of that if you'll consider it um this is going to be a hard decision for for me at least yeah or we

171could just like leave leave and put I got it you four stay and wrestle will all leave and whoever comes out no not abdicating my duties here yeah I feel similarly I you know this is uh there are a lot of hard things about being a school board member this is one of them this is definitely at the top of it like this is not supposed to be our responsibility it's supposed to be the elected you know it's supposed to be electing these positions are supposed to be responsibility of the community and so um this is where we are and that's fine it's our responsibility to fill this vacancy but um it does hit heavy on my heart that um this is a responsibility that the community really should have um and for all of

172the I mean for good reason these are really excellent um folks who all and I I can't help but Echo the comments of like please run please run um when the elections roll around I don't want to be a broken record so I'll just say ditto because it's GNA be hard any is this an inappropriate time to take a a break just cuz I need a break yeah we can take a quick um we are going to close session after this but yeah okay I know but I want to have a little more discussion with okay that's fine yes we can take a brief five minute recess are we okay with that I'm just going to call it that's one of my all right yeah privilege of the chair yeah we're going to take a

173brief 5 minute recess we'll reconvene at 9:38 all right I use the rest how you feeling my yeah I [Music] he [Music] I just appreciate your time thank you I don't know is she where did Dory go you know where Dory went did she go use the restroom I don't know okay we C stud loose I noticed there was only one high school student left well you know the good new you can get your G points like in one yeah four hours oh my gosh I'm also closely monitoring a fantasy football match up I need all right you said I anyone anyone um I'll come right out and say I uh um if I were to have two top choices it would be m Matthews and Dr I don't have my glasses on Torres um

174I've I see strengths in both candidates um amazing strengths in both candidates I appreciate that um Miss Matthews brings up the issue of coming here as a schools of choice parent because I've had many parents um say to me they don't feel like they're part of the community Community if they are a parent of children who are in the district via the schools of choice and that of times children who are schools of choice um end up with a different experience than than kids who come in this District I mean I have a friend who uh actually lived in the district in an apartment building but she's 20 years out but felt she was treated differently because she lived in an apartment building versus owning a home and so there are um issues around that

175that I do believe Miss Matthews uh brings um and and so much of what Dr Tores said uh I I feel was also very important so I'm just letting everybody know where my thinking is on those candidates uh like I said I think all four candidates are very strong the four candidates who are still here in the room um bring hug huge strengths and um but that's where my thinking is right now so uh I think that if we had the candidate pool that we have here tonight back in August I would be home in bed um I also had what's that um I also had Dr Torres and Miss Matthews as um my top two candidates and one of the things I liked uh hearing from Miss Matthews about was that she was uh

176or is um several types of parent rolled into one it wasn't just um um parent of out of District kids that are doing schools of choice it was also um she has a student who's in um graduation Alliance she has another student who's doing well here um on Prem so there's a lot of breadth of experience there in the school district um which I think is really important and as we talk about sources of data and how the schools is doing I think that's invaluable schools are doing um but Dr Torres um had almost a similar type of experience but instead of inwardly facing outwardly um discussing just all this experience and not just one or two schools but schools spread across the entire state in a variety of different districts um working closely with

177those schools and when I think about the kinds of conversations that we have in policy meetings I see both of those experiences being extraordinarily valuable um so you know just a slightly different take on both of those but just great backgrounds so um I took some notes um and I I think we had a lot of obviously I think we had five tremendous candidates um I know Dr kukier because he is my nextd door neighbor um and didn't he he uh didn't even tell me he was putting himself in for this and um I know him to be an exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful person he and I would talk during the co shutdowns quite a bit and I found his approach to be thoughtful and very oriented in science and those types of things um

178he obviously um has not been involved with the district in many years um his daughters are about my age so I know that um Dr Dean brings so much useful experience to the to the district and to this community I personally one thing I think we should get started on as soon as possible is finding ways to showcase the accomplishments outside of Athletics I think that's a really neat idea something I've you know thought of before but not like consciously it's like something I just I see it all the time but I've never like put those words into my you know Consciousness so I thought that was really interesting and obviously your experience with assessment focus on assessment it's it's so important with the work we're doing uh I know Dr faver ex sort of

179I like we don't talk when we see each other because we but I know that he works with my wife and um and when his name came up in a conversation with my wife she had the very kindest things to say about him and the work he's done for the teacher education program um and uh his his priorities his commitments and you know it is it's impressive work and it's something that um it's it makes us all think but especially somebody position where I am I he he really makes you doesn't make you think um Miss Matthews a lot of people have talked about the great things Miss Matthews contribute to our district and has contributed to our district um there is a need to elevate the voices of School of Choice families um and

180we've seen that boil over at various points and then I think last year we had some you know we were talking a lot about graduation Alliance and how to make sure that they had they were part of the educational experience because in so many ways they remain a part of this community so I think that was a really that she would bring bring so many great things to the district plus the audits she she knows how to audit like the U the financial U ones um I'll be transparent my first choice is Dr Tores um I would consider everybody a great candidate I would be honored to serve with any of the other four people whose names I mentioned but um I think that her experience her approach um is something that we can all

181learn from when I asked her the question about the programming that she's supporting in Detroit the first thing she said was that it was coming from the community it wasn't something that was being dictated to the to the participants and it is this little D Democratic way of making sure that we're overseeing the district in a responsible way that I think that we we could all benefit from and I I would love to be able to do more of that uh she also said um some things that are also a good reminder about the uh the board's responsibility is a big picture responsibility and it's not always you know the the day-to-day in the myu show we're looking at the the long-term priorities the management of the district the financial position of the district and

182you know sometimes we get dragged into these issues that are important but ultimately the governance piece of what we do is big picture I love that she began her career in early childhood I think that you know I'm a former Elementary School teacher and I know that like the kids can gain so many advantages and disadvantages by the time you're five years old and I think that we've done we've prioritized Early Childhood so much since well for many years this has been we've done it for many years but we really do have great facilities and great programming for Early Childhood in our district ever since the 2017 Bond and I think that we can only improve that and I'm excited to uh to have somebody like that so um that's where I stand on this

183um I think Dr Tor is my first choice and I would say everyone else is a very close by reluctant citizen rooted in love Dr Farber is what I wrote down from your opening comments and I appreciate that so much um and so much of what you said I don't need to um repeat what others have said tonight about the um robust of our candidates and how excited I would be to serve with any of you um and it is also super awkward to talk about you know we want to be transparent but like these are real people with real contributions and to say like this is what I like about this person and this is what I like about this person is awkward and um I it's just completely uncomfortable for me and I'll

184just name that nothing about this is comfortable um what I have been thinking a lot about um from the last couple of meetings and longer than that is the um the com the comments that have been sitting with me are what we are losing um with trusty think leaving this board and her connections to our community and how important that is and what a deep loss that will be um and is on this board and I've been listening across all of the um interviews for that Community Connection and for me um Dr Torres is that her comments are what take me there are those um authentic Community connections that um we have lost with um trusty thinkink and that I I'm really thoughtful and wanting to make sure are still represented um and so while

185I wish I had uh several votes to give and I only have one that is I'm going to just focus on the positive of who my vote would go to and why with respect to all of the people whose names are on this list including Mr Feld who let me just say I don't have any I and I wish he were here so I could tell it to his face he you know he said his comments that there is a lack of willingness to discuss to disagree respectfully I wish that I wish that we could have conversations about um his disagreements but um my issue with him is not what his position on on any issues it's his already presumption that we are not going to vote for him or take his candidate candidacy seriously

186and then to walk out of the process like I would very much like to have um a constructive conversation about our different opinions on things agreeing is not the point I've said it many times um but his unwillingness to engage in a substantive process is what makes me unable to vote for him not his political beliefs that's not the point I I think tra makes a very good point about how uncomfortable this can be and [Music] um Tara herself lived through a pretty horrific um selection process to uh be put on the school board and I was not on the board at that time but watched it and it was horrifying so I'm torn about making a motion that may go down um or or not I'm still reading the the room um um and

187so I just wanted to to make that comment and and allow if these two either want to make any comments or make a motion or again I think it's reiterating everyone what everyone has said um I appreciate everyone coming out taking time um and showing interest in this really important role um I do want to say Rebecca Dr Dean uh let's talk about bathrooms um it's we laugh about it but I think it's very serious um and um and uh it's very serious because we're going through it right now so I I get it um um yeah I don't this is very weird and awkward and I don't want to go through each and every one but I just uh want to say thank you again as I said earlier um and yeah yeah again

188reiterate the respect I have for everybody in this room um for coming out um but I am willing to make a motion if we want to move ahead if I can make the motion um to nominate Dr esta Torres as um to fill uh trustey Monica Fink's seat on this board second okay there is a motion on the floor moved by trusty Ferris Highland seconded by trusty Martin is there discussion before we vote I would just point out that uh trusty edel I think um reminded us of when uh Dr Chambers was appointed to the board for the first time I was also in that pool of applicants yes you were and um and so I I was also a part of that um of that experience and um obviously Dr Chambers got the appointment

189but um I did have the opportunity to run in the next but to say that Dr Chambers got the appointment would be an understatement that it went to a whole another board meeting and oh my goodness it chaos and Mayhem so um yeah it was not pretty no additional discussion well then I would call the question all of those in favor of the motion to um present Dr arria Torres to fill the vacant position please indicate by saying I I I call well thought I was just going to we probably yeah Dr Chambers yes Dr edel yes Miss Ferris Highland yes Mr Holbrook yes Dr Lions yes Mr Martin yes motion passes unanimously Dr Tores welcome to the board and again thank you to everyone who applied um it is deeply meaningful that you are

190willing to be considered and to put yourself through this public process um we will now move into close session I'll need to take a motion related to that but just um to let folks know we will come back into open sessions so if people are wanting to come back after we do the business of moving to close session you're able to just you can hang out in the um hallway and we will move back into Open Session when assuming that you don't have to hang out in the hallway but you'd have to come back yes stay right no you can go wherever you cannot go wherever you want you do not have to stay in the hallway okay anyway is there you all know what I'm saying is there a motion related to moving into

191Clos session I move the Board of Education meet and Clos session pursuant to section 8A of the open meetings act related to a Personnel matter second moved by trusty Ferris Highland seconded by trusty Edsel I do believe we need a roll call vote on this oh it even tells me right there Dr Chambers yes Dr etel yes Miss Ferris Highland yes Mr Holbrook yes Dr Lions yes Mr Martin yes great we will now moved into Clos session in [Music] e [Music] e [Music] e [Music] he [Music] e [Music] e [Music] e [Music] he [Music] I understand still here yeah okay you're good all right well I'm going to declare us back in Open session at 10:27 p.m. thank you for your patience everybody uh we will move right into action items the first one related

192to the audited financial statements that we just heard about from manorian is there a motion I move the Board of Education accept the audited financial statements for the year ended June 30th 2023 as presented second and call that moved by trusty edil seconded by trusty Martin is there any discussion we'll move to a vote all in favor of the motion as presented please indicate by saying I I any opposed or extensions motion carries unanimously next is uh related to the 8020 hard uh versus hard cap resolution PA 152 was there a motion I move the Board of Education adopt the resolution to comply with PA 152 of 2011 as presented second moved by trusty Ferris Highland seconded by trusty edel is there I trying to get it to okay is there any discussion quick question

193this was just to basically keep doing the same thing we're doing right okay that's what I thought I remembered Noe no good [Music] questional implo yeah that's always the question I ask this is what the teachers prefer right yes okay um okay all in favor of the mo did we just we no yeah all in favor moved by trusty Ferris Highland seconded by trusty edel is there additional discussion okay all in favor of the motion please indicate by saying I I I any opposed motion carries unanimously uh next boiler beds I move the Board of Education award the following boiler bids one boiler number one heating tubes replacement to Meyers plumbing and heating Incorporated in the amount of $49,444 to pool boiler replacement to Myers plumbing and heating Incorporated for the amount of 36,700 second

194moved by trusty lion seconded by trusty no move by trusty Martin seconded by trusty Lions my goodness any discussion okay or any questions okay uh all in favor of this motion please indicate by saying I I any opposed then this carries unanimously passes uh next revised religious cultural calendar move the Board of Education adopt the revised religious and cultural calendar as presented second that was moved by trusty lion seconded by trusty Edsel was there any discussion nope just to say I love the professional development piece too that was a really great idea so thoughtful so thoughtful cuz there are some you know some items of recognition and you know some new ones that were added that I don't think that everyone will be familiar with and how lovely that people who are interested to learn

195more will have that chance so really great and maybe we can share it make it Community friendly too after the presentations and it'd be a cool share out maybe um to educate us more too oh yeah that that's a great idea okay all in favor of the motion please indicate by saying I I I any opposed motion carries unanimously and the final action this item related to the separation agreement I move that the Board of Education approves the separation agreement between Dennis petrowitz the school district of city of East Lancing and the East Lancing Education Association as presented second was moved by trusty edel I'm going to call that seconded by trusty Martin is there a discussion we will move to a vote all those in favor of the motion as presented please indicate by

196saying I I is there any opposed that motion also passes unanimously next we move to committee reports um academic check that is Trusty Lions um we met on Friday September 29th um and we discussed we had five candidates for um student a representation for the um committee and we ended up choosing three students and um Glenn was going to contact them and let them know and so they will be attending if they if they accepted they'll be attending um our next meeting which is on October 27th at 2m and that was a really short meeting so that's all we discussed at that meeting this meeting led into it yes yeah special meeting yeah was a little shorter than we expected it to be which is fine um really great student candidates yes very like we

197were we're like can we just take them all yeah um and we ended up going with three students last year we had two and so now we bumped it up to three so hopefully all three accepted seems fair three committee members three students there you go balance facilities trusty Ferris Highland we met on September 22nd um Ginger ogleby came and gave us a presentation on the updated um traffic crosswalks um on behalf of safe routes to school um she sent over some contacts to do a safety audit or a traffic audit I can't remember how it was phrased so I forwarded those on um but all in all it's been really they've been really impactful and beneficial um there's just still some other issues at McDonald um with drop off and pick up and everything

198else um let me see Billy was he scouted areas at each Elementary School for the best place to put Gardens and he actually sent those to me but I want to make sure I think that it's the proper chain of command so I think he's going to send those to the principls at each school um on what he's recommended and I'll follow up with him on that um track and tennis court hours moving forward are 7 amm to 1:00 p.m. for the track and the tennis courts have remained open um so that was kind of the update there and then we we haven't scheduled we had a November meeting scheduled have to reschedule it so the 10th doesn't work so we'll I'll email you guys tomorrow and we'll figure it out okay and tell Kelly

199that's it um Finance Jesse Edsel um Finance we basically covered in the meeting tonight the boilers the audited financial statements and we meet again October 25th at 12:30 um intergovernmental has no chair currently but we and I don't believe has yeah okay Personnel that's me we have also not met um policy trusty Ed so the biggest thing we did in our last policy meeting is all of those things that are in items of information so those are all the annual updates from trun the ones that are in items of information for our next board meeting are um almost all U edits like like minor grammatical changes um or there's the addition of the pregnant workers Fairness Act that's a new legislation that was put in and the changes to the Michigan Elliot Larson Civil Rights

200Act that that made changes to some of that we um but most of them almost all of them were cleans up some language or uh grammar in them um there are still four left that we need to discuss a little bit more at policy I I went and got some information from trun so those will be down the road and then there are two things that um we won't actually I I'll get them into items of information at some point but we won't actually vote on them one is um a an administ what do they called Administration guideline for onboarding new board members that Tara brought up um brought to policy and it's just some uh ad administrative guideline of things to do meet with the superintendent meet with the board president visit the buildings

201and so forth and so you guys will get a chance to look at that before it goes into the policy manual because it's administrative guideline we don't need to to vote on it and we're still continuing to work on a parents record request form to get the language right right um to provide the information that parents want without providing things that uh would need to be redacted or anything along those lines and I think that's about it ongoing work on the equity policy and um and then uh Tara mentioned the sudden Cardiac Arrest um whether or not we want to she talked about a little bit earlier with the uh um uh aeds and whether or not we want to uh do anything with our current policy on meeting is this week right right Wednesday

202at 10 oh yeah um the when we get these I mean I guess oh gosh I guess Kath and I are the only old heads on the Comm on the board anymore but I'm thinking back to before we went to the trune policy like we never did policy updates we never did them and so because we weren't updating our previous board policy so it is of relief that we have our policy manual is updated and continues to be updated and we are not out of compliance that makes me very happy but it is a lot of continued work so thank you for your leadership on that get some legal updates I don't know where we they' get them from them sometimes in truee law notes like referen but what they didn't do is they didn't

203like uh cross check other references that were in there you know things like that so that's why after I don't know how many years or Decades of that old policy manual like they you know referred in policy blah blah blah which was no longer there not that that number anymore so all those like um like specific references to other policies and stuff like that part weren't just big things were getting cleaned up really legislative changes or things board wanted to tackle yeah yeah that was it oops great okay um announcements I had one thing I want to say um I just want to take a minute to acknowledge and celebrate the life of Ted Lawson who died earlier today um he apparently was uh victim of gun violence while he was doing something that he's

204known for so well in our community and that was um out knocking on doors and encouraging people to to get out and vote and um I know a lot of people in this room know Ted or knew Ted and Ted's work he was a worker B he was the kind of person who didn't want to be in charge of you know he didn't want to be elected to the office or be in charge of anything he wanted to get out and organize in the community do the work he wanted to do the work and he um I was so impressed by work he did for the voters not politicians campaign I've known he's worked for a number of different political candidates over the years I also know that he's very active in the um I

205think the groceries Union um and he did a lot of work for workers rights um there have been times s when he worked at the Meyer over in Bath Township Haslet there have been times when you know maybe I go out of my way to go to that Meer hoping I run into Ted and get some gossip about something um but uh it was just a stunning loss and it's a a it's a great loss for our community and for the state of Michigan and I hope that you know that we can continue the important work he's doing or that he did in his life uh for the causes that were important to him and also do something something about the goddamn gun violence they're here tomorrow um tomorrow Glen Matt moreles and I are

206attending a gun violence syposium over at The Graduate Hotel um sponsored by the words in medical society but there's another word in there there's four words and I can't think of who it is but uh um we were invited by Dr chapen to attend um so we are attending a on violent Symposium tomorrow for a couple hours during the day good yeah thank you for those comments Chris yeah thanks Chris said um not to diminish the importance of what you just said but I also felt like when I want to just publicly although the room is not there's still thousands of people watching out um yes Rich Pew thank you so much for your diligent work in this District um and you know we consistently get these clean Audits and you get this like exceptional

207praise from them like we've never seen such a so incredible to see how you know and that's um you know I I know you'll say it's a team effort and maybe it is but also it's in large part because of um your diligence and I I appreciate the work that you do to keep us straight and narrow so thank thank you thanks Rich just kind of used to it didn't expect it now oh you said that bar okay any other announcements I hope everyone had a happy indigenous people's day I know I did and my kids did yeah so thanks all right well then I will call us a J at 10:42 p.m. oo you still have like an hour and 18 minutes of your of to celebrate a Mion