001i move we accept the consent agenda thank you amy is there a second okay all right so we have a motion by amy a second by wes is there any um discussion on any of the minutes or the financial report hearing none will take a vote all those in favor say aye hi oppose same sign all right thank you and then on to our first opportunity for public comment mike i don't believe there's any at this time is that correct okay there will be another opportunity thank you and we will move into jeff's report all right good evening everyone um as you can see it's hopefully i won't go through all of it uh word for word um i continue to meet with the health department although it has kind of i want to say
002slowed down but um it's not weekly every other week at this point which is actually good news i think one of the only cautionary things that we continue to talk about is even though more and more people are getting the vaccines that it's not to take a pause and everything is back to normal because it won't be for a while so that continues to be their message masks will be in place and will continue as is for the remainder of the school year i met with the benji county safety group tiffany um may have some comment on that as well a district leadership meeting has met and we will meet again tomorrow and then i have a tba superintendent's meeting this coming friday i'm also going to make a road trip to glen lake and
003spend some time with their elementary principal which is really a six and uh their high school principal and also meet with john hoover their superintendent just to kind of get some thoughts and ideas and see what's happening there and and share some of that information it's always nice to see another district to pick up some new ideas and share what we're doing as well our district leadership team as i said has met uh we will meet again tomorrow uh we pull up have pulled a lot of information from our last february uh pd day lots of good conversation once again we talked last time about the my kip process is looking at the whole child not just the academic side of things and actually a really good time to look at the whole child from
004the socio economic aspects the social emotional aspects as well as the academic and working with kids to get back on pace so we'll have more information after tomorrow's meeting we'll set some district goals some building goals look at strategies to meet those goals and then we'll be back with another report i will be meeting with the policy committee at some point fairly soon probably not before spring break but we will look at another policy update and i'll get some information out to that group as well foundation meeting has met and i'm happy to report there was a new scholarship available to our students um through the foundation in honor of jim bazelle who jim bissell is a long time uh educator in frankfurt he's in our hall of fame as an educator he's still in
005the community and doing all kinds of great things bond resolution passage we'll talk about that at 10.2 of our of our board business that is to work with pfm paul daughter and also to work with jeff soles from troon law to get everything in place to sell the bonds for series 3. our vaccination clinic update our last one was march 5th there were over 540 people vaccinated on that day i was happy to as a district to provide a time and a place to to be able to use our our facility we'll have another one on the 26th of march that will be the second shot of another series that started on last friday it was actually a new series and then it was finishing up a prior series with the second shot so it
006was a very busy place um hats off again to the health department uh for those of you who have gone through that process it runs really really smoothly it is unbelievable how well that works and i know uh some of you at least one of the board members has volunteered um thank you for that amy and we we've been uh it's just a really cool thing to watch our food pantry this was unbelievable project by a number of people and matt may speak to this in his report as well chris hollenbach jamie smith and i know there are others that have been involved with this uh once again we live in a remarkable community a remarkable area um when i put in the board packet we had received 4741 in donations when i checked the
007mail today we're over 8 000 so it's really amazing the place we live it's a great opportunity for our kids and it's very needed the second page of the report talks about the fall data comparison that um i think aubry had asked me to to gather up and put some of that there probably the biggest difference are a number in title students from 2019 to 2020 a lot of other things are pretty constant honestly the free and reduced lunch is probably a little less for 2020 than we had expected part of that is i don't think people were filling the forms out as diligently because at this point in time all of our students are eating for free but we do need that data and jenna does as good a job as she can trying
008to get people to fill those forms out and then our february count day we didn't change much um february our last one was 4 58 and for february 2020 it was 4 55 in 2019 458 to 455 not much of a drop and then our forestry project for those of you who've noticed driving out m115 uh frank is icons has been very busy uh working with kim ross from a district forester for benzene grand traverse and leelanau counties to go through and look at those two plots of land we have and do some smart conservation there are a lot of bad things that were happening in that forestry project with invasive species so they've gone in and cleaned those trees out and this spring working with tim resonates there'll be over six thousand new plantings
009going in there so it's just not a straight clear cut and they're gonna go ahead and try to refurbish that forest and over time get it to be back and be healthier one thing it does do it does provide some revenue for us to a two and a half thirty six thousand dollars which is nice so we'll determine how we use those funds as we move forward uh a school counselor license update i've been in conversation with patty roth that's also on the second page uh patty is in the process of working on getting her limited license professional counseling degree or license excuse me upgraded to a licensed professional counselor in order to do that she needs 100 hours of supervised instruction and also 3 hours 3 000 hours of work experience so we have
010contracted with renee bayet to oversee that project and oversee her hours as a mentor and provide that opportunity for her to move forward to a licensed professional counselor and for our district that is very helpful it not only increases her skill sets but it also allows us to do some things with that 31n grant that makes it easier for all of us uh we are picking up part of the cost for that uh it for renee supervision and then patty has agreed to pick up a portion of that as well also the school board workshop erin and i have been in conversation quite a bit on trying to figure out how to do this where to do this the best way to do this and we're kind of holding our breath i guess to see
011where the next order puts us i think workshops are a lot more efficient and probably work better if it can be face-to-face and we'll see where that lands and then with on that comment this could very well be our last virtual meeting as a school board it will depend on what the next order says as of late in april we'll have a face-to-face meeting and i've been working with mike tysworth on actually mike has been working with me because that's his expertise on how to stream those meetings and provide an environment that fulfills the the mandate of the law that there's still some gathering limitations we think but we still have to be able to stream that if necessary so we're working through that and as we get closer to that new order we'll have
012it in line for determining where our next meeting would be so i'll pause there for a moment before i dive into the true law notes there are questions amy um so i love thanks for putting those fall count data in there and can we also um at some point put in like what the numbers of school of choice and then also a retention rate i mean how many of the like meaning like how many of the students are returning students versus like we lost some to another district and we gained new ones sure i could give you a ballpark number right now of our schools of choice which right i believe don't quote me but i think we're somewhere in the area of 43 percent of our districts and schools of choice and typically i
013would have to go back and look but i would say pretty confidently that once those students decide to stay here enroll here they stay here they become our students unless they leave the the area completely now that does change and we get some back and some leave but historically um the number of schools of choice has gone up dramatically but also those students do choose to stay i can get definitive numbers later on awesome thank you everyone i think you had a question well i just want to comment a couple things um so matt olsen from the isd is going to be helping to facilitate uh jeff's evaluation he and i were supposed to have a meeting last friday but he had a family emergency so we're now rescheduled to meet a week from today
014the 15th so um once he and i meet then you know we'll i'll get something out to the board about scheduling um to do that but it won't be certainly won't be before spring break but we'll try to get it wrapped up by the end of um april or the early part of may at the latest and um just wanted to mention i know we're trying to limit um non-student and staff traffic in the buildings but to the board if you haven't had a chance to see the food pantry it's really impressive and i would encourage you guys to maybe make an appointment with jeff or matt or somebody to to get in and just take a look at it because it's really really a neat thing um and then i also just really quick
015jeff wanted to mention that um for the past several years i've represented the board frankfurt well the school district on the frankfort chamber of commerce foundation and that organization has officially been dissolved and it's in the final process right now but all of the monies that the foundation had which was started out and a few years ago there was a couple hundred thousand dollars have all been dispersed um to many wonderful community projects and i've you know reported on those over time as we've done those disbursements there was just a small amount of money left and um the board voted to give the little bit that was left to the lighthouse project the frankfurt lighthouse which is through the city of frankfort so it's undetermined at this point exactly how much money that will be
016because there are some expenses involved in dissolving the organization and so basically how we worded the final motion was to um after all expenses were paid any remaining funds would be disbursed to the lighthouse project so um it'll be probably at least 15 it's not a lot of money like fifteen hundred dollars but could be more but um and then there was some money line item money that will that's going to the chamber of commerce um that was already sort of their money anyway it was just the foundation was the holding account for it and those are for things like take a kid fishing the fireworks um the wall project the tile wall project down at the turnaround so um but anyway that of that organization is um has done some great works but it's
017no longer in existence so that's the so it's it's off the the um the listing of committees as well so when you see that in the packet but uh that's all i had jeff thanks okay thank you any other questions oh stephanie's got a question i don't have a question just a just a comment as well uh like aaron said the food pantry is really impressive and i um thank you to those who were involved in making that happen question yes what the and the food pantry is amazing so hats off um just i wanted to ask questions does patty uh spend any time in the um elementary school or is it all in the high school high school seven through 12. and we have lucy kidder who we contract with central wellness who does
018a really nice job and she is now full-time at the elementary which has been really helpful because she used to try to bounce back and forth so we try to get people in one spot thank you any other questions before i move to law notes just one quick comment to piggyback off what aaron said about the committees those that was updated list in your packet and if you have questions either let me know and i can get that to era or either way some of those committees don't happen real often but they're there in case we need them okay true law notes um a lot of this continues to be about other items because this is written across the board for not only schools but but for a number of areas but one thing it
019does do is it focus a lot of times on special education because of it's just a lot of information and a lot of different areas that we have to be aware of the extended school year year in for covid what that is is students with disabilities that's in some cases have extended year summer plans school plans and what they basically have said just because of coba doesn't necessarily mean that's an esy extended summer year program so you still have to go by what that iep says which is something we are very aware of uh mdhss as i said earlier even though even though some more vaccines are coming out and so forth really nothing has changed regarding masks that is still there and we will continue um to do that also there's some questions on
020uh contin bargaining agreements and if we're up to speed with those uh we are um as i move through the packet one one item that talks about um bullying and so forth unfortunately has to do with student suicide on page but but the message that matt and i and anne talk about a lot is making sure that if we have concerns with our students that we we act on those concerns and make sure we're communicating with families and so forth and this situation uh the communication broke down which caused them some problems there's also a do not rest resuscitate legislation that's now enacted um as of april after april fourth actually that has to do with um having things in files to our knowledge we don't have anything like that in our in our district
021at this point for students would have to have that notice in their file um really not a lot of other things one is debt service on page 29 and just so you're aware we work with paul stoddard at pfm and work with jeff soules at troon to make sure all of our bonding and all of those pieces of information are correct and make sure we're up to speed with those that's really all there is in the law notes unless something struck you that you'd like to make mention of as you were reading through those okay if not then that'll conclude my superintendent's report unless there are further questions thank you jeff so the next item on the agenda is the extended covid learning plan yeah thank you uh this this has not changed i do
022want to make note just for clarification it's not even a clarification i just think it's important to know that we have been face to face or offered facebook in the district since we came back in january and and the reason i make that statement is there's some things that are coming forward with some esser funds and so forth that the last thing i read that districts have to provide a face-to-face learning option uh which we are fine with i just wanted to make note of that uh for the board the plan has not changed we did have a few kids coming back from virtual students um probably as many as eight to ten i'd have to look again but some are coming back for the remainder of the year and hopefully that will continue but
023as far as the report nothing has changed unless people have questions with that and we'll have to certify that in a business item like we do every month correct i will make further comments excuse me eric our two-way communication numbers have been really really good and hats off to the staff that are really working diligently to communicate with those virtual students so that is that has been a really good month with that um and like i said hats off to those people that are really trying to make this work so thank you thank you mike do we have any um public comment regarding the covert learning plan let me check here thank you no we don't okay thank you all right so we'll move into reports and discussion and the first one is um junior
024high drama season with carrie and rob eldridge and i apologize i don't look at carrie and robert's job our meeting today so thank you for attending and giving us a report on the drama program as different as it is yes exactly thank you for letting me speak we wanted to talk about both the junior high and the senior drama program because we've done a season for each of them now because we had to be virtual we needed to really rack our brains about how we were going to do that because a lot of drama is the kids wanting to form a group and and have that cohesive unit but what we chose to do was to create a monologue competition and i got mr towsley's permission and we contacted all of the schools in the
025tba isd and what i learned was not everybody has a drama program like i would say 50 at least did not have a drama program which was a big surprise to me but we did reach out to other schools about joining and then we worked with the junior high first and then the high school and we you know when we reached out to other schools several of them were interested ultimately um glenn lake is the only one that sent in monologues but it's just been a tough season like we probably had seven or eight um fifth or seventh and eighth graders join and eight high school drama students join and not everybody submitted a video which is totally fine because sometimes kids have high anxiety and so they'll just join to be part of the
026group but i was really proud of our kids they learned totally different skills for screen time versus a stage because on a stage you have to throw your voice to the back of the room but when you're doing screen acting you you act very closely and you get to use those nuances in your face that that we all do when we're talking to someone face to face so i would say it was a really good season the students were really positive about it and mr tysworth has told me that he's going to be able to put a link to the students monologues on our drama page under the school website so that's really exciting and we haven't judged the competition yet with glenn lake um we're waiting on one student who i would say he
027has more anxiety than most but he was super brave and said he wanted to do his monologue and he broke his arm on the day that we were scheduled to record it so on his completion our season will be done and the other thing i wanted to let you know is that the lakeside shakespeare has reached out to our drama program as well as to some english teachers at the high school and they would like to do a two-day workshop for shakespeare for our students and also i think they're working with one or two of the teachers about helping them with their curriculum so i just wanted to give an update that it was a different season it was still a fun season it wasn't as um as team-building as face-to-face would be but i
028think i think we learned some really valuable skills so i'm thank you frankfurt for having a drama program thank you carrie for the update and also for finding a way to to keep the drama students engaged during covid i think that will definitely be impactful next year you know they won't feel like they've completely they're completely detached from the program so it was a nice way to to keep them engaged during this strange time that we're we're in did you have um zoom meetings with like did you guys do we did we did together yep we did what we're doing now we did google zoom meetings and at the end just trying to keep that creative sense of unity they taught me how to play a game called among us which was pretty fun um
029and you have to use some acting skills in it a little bit so that was kind of fun but yeah we did zoom meetings and i know for the kids it was just like another zoom meeting so i really appreciated them doing it and we just tried to make it fun and we're hoping i think until we get this herd immunity so we can all get back to face to face i think we'll probably do like maybe an acting radio show for the the spring performance just until we can get back on the stage together yeah fun yeah thank you thank you and speaking of um stage well performance the um our uh neighbors across the county benzies um musical starts this week and they have five performances i think don't quote me but they're
030doing three i think this weekend and then next weekend friday saturday and they are allowing i think 300 people in the auditorium they're doing beauty and the beast so if you'd like to encourage the drama students maybe to go over and support the benzene students absolutely great thank you you can call the office i think for tickets i haven't purchased any myself but i think that's how it's working so thank you thank you yeah but does anybody have any questions for carrie all right thank you carrie all right next we have a finance committee report with julie hi everybody um the finance committee we met thursday march 4th at 7 am in the high school library first thing we talked about we are expecting more money from the covet relief fund to be coming when
031that is coming or how much is not known at this time but we do know that have to be spent by june 30th of 2022. um we talked about a new part-time bus driver we were discussing that because the full-time um bus driver we have is going to be reducing his hours the board will have a resolution today concerning that matter and we talked about how we're always continuing to look for bus drivers as they seem kind of hard to come by we had a series 3 bond update the board will be seeing a resolution today to sell the series three bonds and we started conversations about how those monies might be spent um those fun funds if approved tonight which will be available this summer the committee talked about a potential timeline for a
032new bond proposal to be taken to the community and we ended up deciding to aim for november 2021 or may 2022 and we had some discussion as to how if approved those funds might be spent the next meeting is thursday april 8th at 7 am in the high school library thank you julie does anybody have any questions for the finance committee all right the next item is the technology report all right i think i got all my buttons pushed and i'm ready to roll um just a brief report um we are currently implementing some coding uh robots at the elementary school um those were funded partly by panther parents in a grant that received a couple years ago and it kind of was slow to take off because of the the cobit stuff and not
033having computer classes this year but um we're slowly implementing that and we're trying it out with a group of sixth graders during their study hall in the uh in the gym so it's a great location and uh lots of space to spread out and then we're gonna move that coding to our virtual students and let them have a go at it as well speaking of panther parents and virtual um panther parents is also supporting a an activity we did this this past week uh students got to write books from a place called story jumper and then that that website allows you to purchase your kids books in a hard copy so and the parents approve that so that we'll be able to get each kid a book that um that they wrote themselves so that'll
034be nice and then lastly um just to mention for our district social media accounts that we have going right now we finally surpassed 1 000 followers so every time we post um we have the potential of reaching those thousand people that are following us and we have about 700 people on instagram right now that are following so we'll continue to promote the district and utilize that to get information out because communication is the key as mr towsley knows if they don't get the right information everybody suffers from that so it's good that we can get the information right from our district out to the public using that but other than that that is it for now everything else is running pretty smooth glad to hear it thank you does anybody have any questions for mike
035all right thank you what was that sorry i thought i heard something um next up is our sro report with tiffany can you hear me yes okay um my work computer doesn't have a camera i'm not hiding i just don't have that accessory on there um so it's been a while since i've been here so thank you for having me back um we've had an odd school year um especially as an sro i've still even when kids weren't in school i was able to see the kids outside of school when they were walking around town or whether i pulled them over while they were driving thankfully i haven't pulled your kids anyone here over but um with covant i've had to kind of think and talk with jeff miller um about different ways of doing
036things um compared to how we normally would do um so we've been in contact and reached out to different agencies so our local fire department we've talked to them or i've talked to them about doing spring training with the fire department so possibly taking the kids over to the fire department or bringing a couple of fire trucks over um so they can interact with them we did that with the preschool kids and they liked that a lot and i think if we go with our older kids that they could do more a little more educational portions so seeing the lights and the sirens and the cool hoses that we have i've also spoken with msp they have a couple different things that they do they have a trailer um and this trailer is more so
037for parental awareness when it comes to kids and drugs um it's a trailer that looks like a bedroom and they would have you go in and they'd say find find where your kid would hide something or where do you think your child would hide this and so you would look around and see if you could find the vape or the weed whatever they have hidden and then you'd educate the parent and then the child on drugs and awareness and different things they also have the drunk driving trailer with the goggles and the carts that the kids can use so we can expose them from what they think it's like so what they can really see and experience that firsthand without actually getting drunk um and then we've also been in contact with the coast guard
038and we've talked with them about water safety boat safety and then safety at the pier i don't know if you remember a couple months ago we had a tourist a 12 year old child get washed off the pier and he drowned and unfortunately passed away um and so that kind of spiked up our interest because a lot of our kids are by the water in the summer and so we just want to get them aware of what to look for and how to save themselves and a way to save another person without harming themselves while doing that so those are some of the ideas that we've come up with to stay covered safe by being spread out um while still getting that education to the kids um like jeff said jeff miller and i and
039him um got together and we talked about our emergency action plan and jeff was really working he kind of took over um and that made that his baby and i've been working with him and part of it he's got a couple things that he needs to finalize excuse me for the reunification portion um and then he would send it over to me and then i would add or adjust what would be applied for frankfurt um being that if we reunify at the church locally or at the football field depending on what school we're at um they were able to apply that a couple weeks ago when at the elementary school room and manistee um and it worked out really well for them so they were able to do that firsthand and figure out the kinks
040and make that better i've also gotten in contact with our emergency management director to see what paperwork she has and what's missing and to make sure everything that she has is update updated and then whatever we need from her for us is updated as well so um the jeff's and i talked and um we're gonna get a copy of the emergency action plan within the first week of april and have that so you guys can look it over and talk about that um we've done each school has done at least one lockdown drill um the first couple of drills were canceled whether it be because of the school or closing for covayd or the the state closing the school because of covid um but fortunately enough we were able to get in and do one
041drill um the high schools um had a couple kinks with a substitute teacher not fully understanding that the boot goes back right away um but it was good practice and then the elementary school it was good practice for the kids and the teachers who felt a little bit uncomfortable or they kind of forgot what it was like and what it sounded like it was good for them to see that it's not really loud it's not scary and i had one of our msp troopers come he was he's the head of the school resource officers for msp and he kind of oversees all of us and we all work together he came and um he had gone to a couple of benzies drills and he was talking about what they do at benzie and how we'd
042like to keep it as much of it uniform as possible because if there is an incident we have officers from benzene and state troopers um coming so if they know what's happening in benzie is the same as what's happening in frankfurt there's no confusion and everyone knows what to do so there's a couple things um like having possibly the cards the red yellow and green cards for the teachers i'm using a walkie-talkie to say that there is a drill we were trying to figure out how if kids were outside at recess or for gym they couldn't hear the alarm they couldn't hear the lockdown alarm from outside so we were talking about that and then the reunification process and then speaking with benzie bus as well for them to come and bus our kids if
043our bus drivers aren't available at that moment um and so we've been in contact with them and then i made sure because it had been a while to check with the teachers beforehand um before the drill to make sure that they didn't have any questions and then i could remind them about something if they did um and then after the drill to see if something had happened a lot a lot of the kids had a lot of what if this happens or what if that goes and so i'm trying to distinguish what the the the questions at the moment were not the what if questions um they um did pretty good um and so that was really nice um i'm in the process of talking with a couple teachers to get in and do some
044lessons whether it be at the high school for vaping awareness or at the elementary school i know our preschool has asked and i've been there for first responders or firefighters they had questions for all of that so that's something that i'm trying to get into um but covet was holding us back in the beginning um i also spoke with um tina allen who works for strategic solutions northwest and she's kind of in charge of youth homelessness and i had a meeting with her and jeff miller um and a couple other people and they said that they have material for teachers and office staff with resources there's a website with links to different places if there is a child that is homeless at that time with resources that they can have if they need to find
045a home right away we talked about how many kids were actually homeless in comfort they said that our numbers um are the most recent numbers and it's about 71 kids now that doesn't mean that they're living on the street but it's um the mckinney mental law um as a child living with somebody else that isn't their parent um then they're technically an unaccompanied minor in the eyes of the state so it's um even if they're like living with their grandparents while their parent is in jail they're still considered an unaccompanied minor so that's they fall into the homelessness um it's not what you think when you see them in a tent on the side of the road it's the couchsurfing um kids so um uh we have resources for that um we're working on um
046we talked about the resources for officers in the county because not all our kids live in frankfort when they go to people's houses for different calls they can see if the living situation for the child isn't good they'd be able to provide those kind of resources or have that information that they can give to the parent um or the child depending on their age and that the age range is um between i want to say it was 16 to 24 years old so um they it's not just minors under 18. they go up a little bit more um and then i know they talked about the student pantry that the school is doing that's also a resource that we talked about in offering kids help in that way um some goals that i had um
047is for sure like i said getting into the classroom a little bit more um but still being cautious of coving and trying to figure out each teacher's a little their comfort level as far as that can be different um then i want to make sure that we get the drills all set and uniform at all within the whole county and that the teachers are comfortable to do them if anything were to happen they know how to react right away and they don't have to think about it they can just react and be calm and collected um and then i'd like to um there's not much of this year left but within this year and then next year be able to also find more support for students um a lot of the trends that i've been
048seeing um are i think we all know is mental health with our students they are very much struggling in that area i have teachers at both the high school and the elementary school tell me that they've called refer to centra for help for kids or i've called centra and referred children um or cps to get that kind of help um we have um they did there's an up north um what was it called up north prevention that was it um and this was a cool statistic where they went through and they it was for the youth tobacco act and it requires each state to enforce the law prohibiting the sales and distribution of tobacco and so they had kids go through in each county and go through and try to buy it if the person
049was going to sell it at the gas station the kid would say oh i forgot my money and they would leave the sale rate in benzie county for 2020 was zero percent so i thought that was um great kind of hard to believe but it is really good information um so hopefully our numbers stay down this year as well um and then we have also our benzie area youth initiative that i'm working with in as well as jeff miller and we talk about the different types of drugs that are within the county and what they see different ways to prevent that we talk about the myfi survey that the schools do um different prevention plans and surveys that we are going to offer to schools and students when we talked about a survey that we
050sent out and then anti-vaping um distributions um at the moment for the older kids and hopefully not i i'm not hoping that they don't i just our younger kids i don't hope i ever have to talk to them about that so that's where we're at right now thank you tiffany thank you anybody have any questions for tiffany on anything that she covered or anything else all right so um the next item on the agenda was the discussion of the superintendent's evaluation but as i mentioned earlier my meeting with matt wilson didn't happen on friday so um i don't have an update on that at this time anything else you want to add to that jeff or no i don't i don't think it's really to add i think in the past we've scheduled board workshops
051to work through some of that process as far as my evaluation and i would suspect we'll do that again um and hopefully we can do that face to face right as i said earlier i just think it's a better meeting that way that's the goal for sure so thank you all right next item is the elementary school principals report with ann hi everybody um we've had a busy and productive month at the elementary school um we had a very good professional development day on the 15th where we use specific protocols to really dig into our data and give us a picture of what was going on in our building and then we came up with a two important goals for things that we want to work on these are not complete smart goals yet because
052we haven't completed with a date on them but we're continuing to talk about these um goals one is for math fluency really helping students know their math facts because math facts are the gateway into all other mathematical ability and then also to work on having a specific writing instruction in every grade and we know that specific writing is being taught in every grade but we don't necessarily see the follow-through from that um from grade to grade so we really want to have something that is going to be comprehensive in scope and something that will spiral with each grade so we know that students are getting the writing instruction that they want and so we had a really good productive day that day where we broke we started in upper elementary and lower elementary groups people
053looked at their own data then they shared their data with the larger group then we brought the two groups together and developed our two building goals uh parent teacher conferences uh were last week and continuing into this week and all of our teachers were of targeting the bottom 30 in their classroom for google me conferences and then otherwise they were giving all parents a phone call email or text message just to let um them know how their students were doing and our teachers are really good at communicating with their parents all the time and so many of the parents have been in almost daily uh conversation with our teachers um we had our chance assembly on the 15th and we did focus on celebrating differences and talking about being respectful and understanding of other people's
054ideas and differences we had a chapter book challenge and we read 244 books in five weeks these are chapter books and we had one student who read 17 books in five weeks a fourth grade student um and sue hammond has been in charge of this we're starting we started our new one this today on monday and it will go through april 9th so with spring break in there i can't wait to see how many books we read um we read during that time we had prizes for our top readers in different grades and then we had a celebratory treat for everybody in our building for just pulling together and reading so much we celebrated read across america day this year we did something called stop drop and read where we just made announcements three times
055during the day and had everybody pre-k all the way through sixth grade stop and read and it was a beautiful sound in our building because there was nothing going on um kindergarteners were being read a story because of course they're still a little bit new to this game but we were reading across the building and it was silent i went into some classrooms teachers were reading with their kids it was really a special day we ended our nordic rocks cross-country skiing thanks to beth major for making that happen grades it was actually grades three through five and they um would come every week and our kids learned to ski on our playground in cross-country ski and they really seem to have a lot of fun it's not easy and they were learning something that was
056uncomfortable for some of them but they all indicated that they wanted to continue next year with some of the other skiing organizations that bath sponsors we started a coin drive for our panther pantry and that's running through march 12th we celebrated with a pajama day so we had everybody in pajamas and they were bringing all of their little bags of coins we also had a lot of food delivered to the building and so our preschoolers walked a big wagon full of food over on thursday last week and we have a group of first graders who are bringing the food over and so they got to see what the panther pantry was like um and it was just a really nice opportunity on thursday we had a tornado drill tuesday last week tuesday was a busy
057day last week and um we did very well we hadn't had one really effectively for three years because we missed them last spring and so some of our kids had never participated in one before and so we had some learning to do officer wright was there and she gave us feedback but overall we did very well and we'll be having another one this spring i know that the finance committee authorized this and and jeff brought it to you um we have been able to utilize some substitute aids this spring so that we're creating extra intervention help in our classrooms one of the things the teachers said that they had really struggled with this year was not having help to do interventions for students because of not being able to have volunteers so we now have
058two people in our building one is in our building five days a week one is there three days a week and they are going into classrooms and helping with interventions so they're working one-on-one with students who need extra help they might be working with a small group they might be sitting in the hallway helping a student or listening to a student do some reading aloud there are a lot of different ways that we're using them for uh interventions but we're so excited we're so thrilled to have extra help in our building to help us bring some of our students who are struggling up and one of the teachers mentioned at our staff meeting last week that already it has really felt good to be able to start something and finish it because we're able to
059differentiate the help in the classroom so that's a really positive thing so thank you finance committee and thank you jeff for making that happen a busy busy month with ieps child study team meetings champs staff and elementary leadership team meetings we've just been busy jeff and i met with amber wilson to begin planning for preschool for next year they are starting their enrollment drive and they are getting lots of phone calls we're also working with kindergarten we're starting our kindergarten phone calls and contacts and planning uh what our different kindergarten roundup will be again this year i am busy doing a lot of formal evaluation or observations and doing the pre and post observation meetings that takes a lot of time but i really get to see great things in the classroom i will have
060all of them completed if everything works out the way i plan by the 17th of this month um we have upcoming art elements week and if you aren't aware of what art elements week is that's a week where we have basically a spirit week for all things related to art color texture so monday will be no color monday where we'll be wearing white or gray or black we'll have texture tuesday which is furs and fleece and velvet and animal prints and all kinds of fun things we'll have wacky art elements wednesday where you just get to mix all of your colors and textures together we'll have cool colors thursday which are your more calming colors and then friday we will have color wheel friday and every grade has been assigned a color or you can
061wear rainbows and let me just tell you elementary school we already have so many rainbows and unicorns with rainbows it's going to be a colorful friday that friday before spring break starts and i have an elementary leadership team meeting on wednesday and so we're really going to have a down a deep dig in planning for what summer school might look like at frankfurt elementary so sorry for the longer report do you have any questions and i have a clarifier yeah my clarifier is this just for the board um the way we work this through with using our coveted money and our esther money these are not new hires um these are not permanent hires at all these are we looked at our substitute teacher list our substitute aid list and we have brought these people
062in as needed and paid them at that rate uh but but nothing continues after this school year so these are not new hires um and i think i did say at the beginning substitutes yeah but i just wanted to clarify that only because when we talk about a lot of people coming in i'd want to make sure the board knew that these are not hires we're treating them as substitute employees um using our code for money and can i just add to that an additional clarification that no decisions for the district are made at the committee level so the finance committee didn't approve that or that that's not how the committee work happens there's discussions but anything that needs to be decided for the district is always brought to the board for a vote so
063yeah yeah and it's just just as a clarifier um because a lot of times working through the process um those weren't brought because they weren't new hires you know i try to explain as much as i can and honestly i'm not sure if we had that discussion um we may have but it would just work with other districts and it was like we have the money we have at this point in time they're substitute employees and we just really wanted to get it moving so but thank you for the twitter fire that's good to know and i'm ready to board to know that those are not new lawyers i'm sorry no problem no problem all right any other questions for anne thank you anne and we will move into the junior senior high report with
064matt hi everybody um got a few things to touch on i know a number of them were covered by uh jeff and mike and ann and um officer wright so i'm just gonna i'll put up my uh my principal report so you can take a peek at it uh if you guys see my screen okay i get a yay from anybody no yeah no no can you see it jeff yes okay great thanks um so my report for march um everybody had a copy of this scent but uh just want to go through just a number of items and i'll try to be somewhat brief and then if you guys have questions you can let me know uh as was mentioned earlier uh by anne and jeff um we really had a positive day for
065a pd day with staff really discussed a lot about closing the gap for some of our kids with remote that fell behind during remote and or the pandemic in the spring and that's going to continue to be a big building goal for us along with kind of the the care of our our students as far as social emotionally and that's been brought up probably through four times in this meeting and we're really trying to have some supports in place and find a way to not only help those kids catch up but also make sure that uh you know they're they're feeling good when they're at school and have some supports in place inside and outside of school um the ctc virtual tours this year we had to do things differently to visit the career tech
066center most of you know because we've had kids through school that we try to send our sophomores up to visit the careertech center and kind of talk about programs and fee they'd pick two or three and then tour them this year we did virtual tours with the isd and they went really well miss roth helped facilitate this and we had all the kids in the cafeteria um they had picked three in advance and then they did some real live virtual uh terrain of the the program that they were interested in and so for the covid uh era i think this was a big hit and found a way for us to at least put some of this information in front of our students and uh so really commend uh pat lamb and his group up
067there at the isd for making sure that this was put in front of us so i just want to make sure the board was aware of that a testing update we're still preparing for spring testing moving forward with that the federal mandates stated that they were not going to create any waivers for the states with regards to testing so we're moving forward april 13th is our big test day our juniors will be taking the sat and then we'll have our 10th graders taking uh their psat and then 8th 9th we'll have the psaat as well um and so there'll be more information coming out on that just wanted to give you that testing date um the 11th graders test for three days they'll test 13th 14th and 15th the rest of the students just test
068out one day but it's a big day for us we have to work out logistics making sure we have testers six feet apart uh normally though we have them three feet apart but we'll have to have them six feet apart for this testing cycle so lots of challenges ahead but uh you know we're we're going to take them on and move forward this is a big discussion item amongst isd uh principles and um that's our topic at next week's meeting uh when we all get back together virtually today was senior day at uh crystal mountain and not senior as in senior citizen but senior day is an opportunity for our seniors to get together so we were really excited um thanks to crystal mountain for helping uh facilitate this make it happen our seniors were
069excited to do something as a group this has been a rough road for them all the way from ninth tenth grade all the way to now with regards to trips and extra things so we were happy to create at least a small token of appreciation it wasn't the senior trip but it was an opportunity to have some fun together uh in an outdoor venue um still taking our um coveted precautions and and all those things so we're excited about creating some opportunities and memories for those seniors and we're hoping to to have some more events similar as we move into spring and nicer weather and a chance to get outside especially with some of the new um coveted lifting of restrictions etc so but number one our safety still remains up front and center as
070our priority but but we were excited to have some of these things available and uh staff response was great too where they were excited for the kids to get out there so um looking forward to end of the year discussions about some other items as well uh struggling student conferences so as opposed to parent-teacher conferences at in our building much like ann's doing with the struggling 30 percent across her building we're doing the same if you haven't received an invite from one of our teachers that's probably a good sign because we're trying to dedicate our our spring time to really reaching out to those students who are struggling and trying to problem-solve how to get them caught up and or um you know at least put in contact our parents uh within our guardians with
071our teachers so that's on wednesday we do have some teachers that have been scheduling those uh throughout the week um you know depending on the parents availability so i just didn't want anybody to think that hey we didn't get an invite to parent-teacher conferences that's because we're also we're really trying to target those students uh who are failing and or you know have a low d right now and uh and get those parents in contact with teachers um covent updates quarantines attendance panther virtual i know we've already had a few comments on these um are we're working hard with our attendance policy we're doing corrective action plans uh we're sending letters home we're trying to be proactive with regards to making sure our kids are here on a daily basis we've been very fortunate with
072our quarantines um knock on wood since the last week of january um we've only had one student quarantined in the last four weeks um which is just incredible so we're hoping to keep that going um kids are doing a great job with their mass and uh and um social distancing and we're hoping that they're doing the same uh out in public as well our panther virtual continues to uh to move forward just a huge shout out to to mike tysworth and emily stevenson haley levine um kathy and um russo and kristen pencil um and julie nerd they're doing a really nice job uh do with their 2a communications along with our mentors our teachers that are acting as mentors as well margaret's doing a great job coordinating the two-way communication as well so there's a
073lot of work that goes into that and i just want to make sure that we give them a shout for those students who are still um involved with the with the um panther virtual jeff mentioned it earlier and it was touched on a number of times our food pantry great response from the community from staff from parents um also moving forward you know we're looking at these donations as they come in and how we can expand to meet the needs of our kids and we'll try to get a bigger report for you at the april meeting but uh what a project this has been and i'm just really excited about not only the student involvement with it but also on the community getting involved as well all right i'm gonna stop right there for any
074questions um you know then before i go to the rest uh just to see if anybody has any questions up to this point you know going through those first four or five items does anybody have a question okay perfect all right we'll go back to sharing here um sport update some of you guys were interested in some of this information finals we had two state qualifier skiers that did an outstanding job representing uh the frankfurt benzie ski team i'm really proud of them and and how they did so congrats as they wrapped up their season um we are there are going to be girls and boys tournaments for basketball girls basketball districts are on the uh 22nd 24 26 you can see in there um and unlike past years they're actually all in the same
075week uh so there'll be six straight days of boys and girls uh district basketball games um music is hosting our girls um our onekima's hosting the boys and then the next week they'll follow with regionals um in quarters and then finals and all that stuff uh wrestling um that's that's also coming up districts and regionals um districts are the 19th and then regionals are the 26th so and you also notice those dates are right around spring breaks and um there's not a whole lot you know we we have with regards to saying that but that's just how things are are panning out so um coaches and players are working with their parents and try to try to plan accordingly for that it's glad that everybody's playing but of course sometimes it doesn't fit in great
076with plans and spring breaks etc so our staff continues work on their installs and their growth plans i'm getting in classrooms and seeing some teachers they're doing a great job especially you know with all the changes um kristen pencil will be offering s.a.t prep classes we touch face today she doesn't have those dates and times because everybody's schedules are pretty scattered right now not only with govind but also with kids starting to do a little bit more outside of the school day so we're trying to figure out a way to do that virtually so we can touch on as many kids as possible uh band concert is a go this is big news um we have been meeting with uh mr ties uh excuse me mr towsley excuse me and uh in the band um
077looking at how to go forward and and find a day mr joslin has been really receptive on how to make a covered safe um concert that we would allow maybe parents to attend uh and then stream uh the rest live and a number of schools have done this uh here in the in the late winter early spring we're we have a couple models we're looking at spacing us out making sure you know we don't have big crowds and things like that but uh we're excited that uh we're gonna be able to have a band concert here in the spring and uh and make it happen so there'll be restricted spectators but again we'll be able to stream it um live through facebook and get it to as many people as want to see it i
078put on here some art awards uh golden key and silver key um out of grand rapids uh miss harvey does a great job of your submitting our kids uh we did have two kids even in the pandemic and this covered era that did a great job receiving some awards so congrats to maggie and clover they'll have some stuff in the in the paper i think next week probably and uh so you know these are some things that uh are still going on kind of behind the scenes and you know we want to get some of those kids um some of those congrats especially without a whole lot going on uh social media cyber bullying discussion with uh i've been talking with um our school resource officer with tiffany uh and then we used to bring
079in on a yearly basis the state police officer pritchard would come in and talk to our kids uh last year we had the pandemic so we didn't we didn't have that um you know we've had a lot of discussions recently tiffany and i with regards to social media proper use cyberbullying some of those things so you know we're still going to want to try to partner with the state police and get in and talk to as many kids as possible in the past years we've done this i think sixth seventh and eighth uh and at the ninth grade level and now so we're going to try to find that find out logistically how we can do that so we can reach as many kids as possible the key for us is trying to be proactive
080i mean we have a lot of kids that are you know struggling a little bit with you know not being able to see friends as much as they have in the past and or um you know how to how they can hide a little bit behind the social media so we're we're trying to educate but also talk to them about what's appropriate and what's not um so that's something that'll be down the road we're hoping to get something in by the end of the year and i'll be in more discussions with tiffany on that uh summer school discussions they continue to happen um it's we're going to offer it it's just going to maybe look different than it has in the past this is going to take a next two months to kind of develop
081we have more students that need to make up classes than have in the past and so we're going to try to be really creative about how to make sure we're not just getting them credit but also providing instruction for them so we can you know continue their learning and at the same time make sure that they get valuable credit so they can be on track for graduation and that's at the junior high and high school level as well spring break you see the dates and that's on your calendars and then a senior parent meeting uh actually i'm gonna add that right now while we're watching but that's april 19th i'm going to get some information out had to work with dave jackson to find a date that worked and try to do by that date
082we're hoping to know exactly what our spring stuff will look like what we can do for graduation what we can do maybe you know to help celebrate the end of the year for our seniors and uh so we're hoping to have some more information about that date that's it for now anybody has any questions happy to answer them and as ann mentioned earlier uh the uh preschool bringing over the um uh the stuff was incredible uh when they brought over their stuff for the pantry these little i mean three-year-olds carrying these cans and then they had a big wagon and it was really cute so um and i and you know again a shout out to a couple of our students um who helped paint the pantry and uh you know get it in the
083position where it's at uh frank i can help with the shelving and uh it's quite a it's quite a setup in there and we're really excited so that's it if anybody has questions let me know thank you matt any questions all right so that concludes uh reports and we will move into our business items the first one is the reconfirmation of the extended cope at 19 learning plan thank you as you know each month as i mentioned earlier in the superintendent's report we need to continue to do this i and once again our plan has not changed and just another note that we do offer face-to-face learning and we do have more students coming back um almost every week so hopefully that will increase and get kicked back into school here so with that said
084uh it's the recommendation the superintendent to reconfirm the extended clothing 19 learning plan um for march of 2021 meaning we're just going to continue as is i'll make that motion thank you stephanie there a second thank you katie do a motion by stephanie and the second by katie any questions or discussion again there were no changes since last we approved this last month okay do a voice vote all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed me hearing no opposition the motion passes and then the next item business item is the approval of the resolution to sell the bonds for series three from our 2015 bond proposal yep uh we are wrapping up this bond proposal as as you know it was sold in three series this will be the third series and as i
085mentioned earlier we'll be working with pfm to publish uh and sell the bonds in the competitive marketplace for series 3 of the 2015 bond and then also be working with uh jeff soules uh once this is approved jeff is from true he's our bond attorney and there'll be lots of signatures and lots of paperwork that barb and i will be working on barb is really helpful with this as well and i'll need to contact era and aubry to figure out a way to get signatures uh for all of that information so i won't go into a lot of detail but really what what you are doing is approving the resolution that that gives the board gives us permission to work with um pfm to sell the bonds at a total of 990 000 that is
086the series three amount of money that will be available and used for projects throughout the district and this would be our series three bond costs i'm sorry our series three of our 2015 bond there is lots of information here that be honest with you that's why we have bond attorneys to make sure we do this correctly um there's some things in here as far as some of the um other addendums um is i've again i've given this to you only so you can see what parts of the process my directions from jeff soles is don't do anything with exhibits that's just for boards information once it's a once this is approved then i'll work with job to complete the exhibits and by by approving the resolution that allows me to complete the exhibits as well
087uh with jeff seoul so that's really the information as i said we're in series three and some other things we need to do such as working with jeff to make because it is virtual there's some things we have to make sure such as snapshots of our agendas and so forth our virtual postings um but really what i'm recommending is that we approve the attached resolution regarding the selling of the bonds and we can add there um aubry 4 series 3. and i'll contact uh you guys to help me with signatures once i put all the piles of paper together and have you come inside there thank you jeff so with the addition of um 4 series 3 at the end of the resolution would somebody like to make that motion i'll make that motion thank
088you wes for a second i'll second it thank you julie all right we have a motion by wes and a second by julie there any questions or discussion and this is the final series of this of the 2015 bond so these are the last that we sell for this for our 2015 bond proposal right here i would suggest you do a roll call yeah i was planning on it i assume so just a reminder all right hearing no discussion we'll move to a vote uh wes yes my vote is yes katie yes aubry yes amy yes stephanie yes and julie yes all right thank you so the motion passes and uh jeff just let us know i'll be yeah i'll be in contact once we get everything in order hopefully it'll be a one-stop signage
089signing party perfect okay very exciting we've been able to do a lot of really wonderful things to um with the school with um both buildings with the the bond so um be a nice conclusion to wrap up the last of these projects yeah thank you and then oh sorry go ahead the last business item that we have oh i'm sorry two more uh the next one is the approval of the part-time bus driver hire yeah this was also mentioned uh earlier in the finance reporting thank you julie in talking with frank eikins regarding our bus driver needs we are fortunate that eric boomer has completed all the required training to become a certified bus driver eric is a graduate of frankfort high school and continues to call benzie county's home which is wonderful for us
090as he really wants to be involved with our district and it gives us some continuity as we move forward so it's my recommendation of the supreme of myself superintendent and transportation director frank eikins the district enters into an employment contract with eric boomer and just to note it does say the title is part time at this point but we suspect over time it would most likely move the full time of all things work out and um eric is comfortable and we're comfortable with him but at this time you're approving a part-time bus driver hire so i'll make that motion but i'd like to add at the end enter into employment contract with eric boomer as a part-time bus driver thank you is there a second a second thank you stephanie so we have a motion
091and a second is there any discussion hearing down we'll do a roll call vote as this is a higher uh julie yeah stephanie yes amy yes aubry yes sorry that's all right katie yeah i thought it is yes and wes yes thank you and congratulations jeff to you and uh frank for um finding a bus driver thank you and i i will also just make mention that brady leotard our new hire of custodians doing a really really nice job he is also going to work start the process of becoming a certified bus driver as well give this little extra little extra oomph that we need with our drivers spring sports is going to get busy as well so we'll work through that as we go many districts are challenged with hiring running nope sorry last
092one it's approval of the assistant varsity baseball coach correct um i've worked with dave jackson and our newly hired varsity baseball coach travis trim um and they met when i'm sorry i need a correction on on the spelling my mistake i apologize if john eno eno with the s is gone and offered him the position of assistant varsity baseball coach john does have some experience with our players as he served as a non-paid assistant for the past two seasons demonstrating his desire to be involved with our baseball program it's the recommendation of the superintendent and athletic director dave jackson that john eno is hired as the frankfurt high school assistant varsity baseball coach someone like to make that motion i'll make that motion thank you wes for a second a second thank you katie we
093have a motion in a second there any discussion regarding the hire of john eno for the assistant varsity baseball coach hearing none will do a roll call vote wes yes i voted yes katie aubry yes thank you amy yes stephanie yes and julie yes all right um great well that concludes our business items for this evening and that takes us to our final opportunity for public comment mike is there anybody uh waiting for people no there's no public comment okay well our next uh regular school board meeting will be monday april 12th at 7 p.m location or format to be determined let's see sounds good and we are adjourned at 8 21 pm thank you all for your time this evening happy birthday king ah thank you tomorrow thank you everyone have a good day
094last days of my 40s you