Hazel Park School District - Board of Education Meeting of the Whole - February 9th, 2026

001Call the board of education committee of the whole workshop to order February 9th at 5:30. 5:30 roll please. here. >> Here >> need a motion to approve the agenda. >> I move the board of education approve the agenda as written. >> Support. >> All right. Motion by Monica and second by Debbie. And that's not my name. >> Discussion. She's on her way, but she's not here. That's still >> That's funny. Okay. I'm sorry. Motion by April, second by Debbie. Any discussion on this agenda? >> That's my name. >> Okay. Uh, roll call. >> Yes. Becker, >> yes. >> Fox, >> yes. >> Okay, carries. Uh, now next is public uh comments. I have one person here. Anybody else wishing to speak needs to fill out a paper? There's two opportunities. Uh, the one at the

002beginning of the meeting and one uh following the meeting. Uh, and first is Faith Allen. Just state your name and address, please. Allen, 701 East Woodward Heights Boulevard, apartment 309, Hazel Park, Michigan 48030 Hazel Park Manor. I'm in the retired senior apartments for lowincome people. I'm also a political activist. I've been an activist for 10 12 years now since I retired as a nurse. So, what I wanted to talk to you about was ICE. I see you have something on the agenda about it. Um, what got me going is that I'm a walker and I also I'm a walker and I walk over by Browning. I cross the street over by that school, your school. Well, it's a charter school but under Hazel Park, guys, I guess. And it's called the Roosevelt Alternative School. And

003there's a lot of kids in there that are um undocumented immigrant. I don't know what that if they're undocumented. All I know is that they're foreign people. I mean, I don't know what they are, but they're not all just, you know, they're just foreign kids. I can see that. And I got con, you know, this whole thing starting up with ICE has got me concerned because I feel like there's no rules with ICE anymore. They're just coming in without a warrant. I mean, they're supposed to have a judicial warrant. And I know I looked up that uh Oakland County schools are going to follow um Karen McDonald's, you know, um the prosecutor helped her get elected um uh you know with ICE like um requiring visitor visitors to sign in and um make sure that

004um uh that um follows students privacy protections. You can't, you know, come in and ask for social security numbers, anything like that or um and you can't take a kid, but this is the thing, you can't take a kid out without uh having an adult or guardian be notified. And if they would do that, you would the this um the uh superintendent would have to be notified and then there would have to be a district attorney and notified. So I just want to make sure all these things are in place and that parents know, the parents know that there's a plan and it there's no like secret plan. I hope everybody knows the plan what the plan is and so the kids feel safe and secure and that's the whole point of having this. I

005mean there should be some kind of plan in place and you guys have a plan. Well, I'll sit and listen to see what the plan see what your plan is. But I was looking at what the ACLU has put down and um everything is pretty much there. I mean, pretty much follows her rules, but uh I just want to make sure that uh also I don't know if you would keep um immigration attorneys on in the office for people that need them. probably not, but I would recommend that, you know, for families that would need it on, you know, on the spot because that's a terrible thing with what's going on. And we already had somebody come through Amazon, which was, you know, that and um they're everywhere though. They're in ISIS everywhere. They're out

006in Rochester Hills by the Walmart. They're everywhere. So, I just worry about that school. But any school there's always you never know where they're going to where they're going to turn up. And even though they say police on their jackets, they're not police. They're not police. And and I don't know that people know that. Anyway, so that's all I have to say. That's it. >> You're welcome. Um personnel in business strategic plan is first presentation. >> Got it. Thank you. Good to see you all again. I'm Greg Janicki from MASB and um tonight is the opportunity for the board to provide input much like the uh community has thus far into the strategic plan. So you have in front of you the uh the survey sheet that we're going to go through this evening. Um

007it's a very old school process. Uh this is the exact same process that I have done with community and staff members already and we'll do another set of sessions tomorrow with middle school students uh community and staff as well. Um if you're looking at the sheet in front of you thinking these look like they're very familiar questions to the online survey, you are correct. These are the exact same questions. I do want us, however, to go through this in person because what I'm also going to do is capture some of your sort of color commentary behind some of this information um on the flip chart. So, what I'm going to do first, I'm just going to walk through just to refresh our memory of kind of this process and where we are and what we're

008hoping to accomplish and then we'll dive into uh the process of the input session and then I'll be out of here in uh no less than three or four hours. So, for those of you that were thinking it was a short meeting, no, I'm just kidding. We'll be out of here in a half an hour. Um, and I'll leave you to the rest of of your meeting. So, um, just wanted to refresh where we are in this process. You may recall this slide from the original presentation that I did a couple of months ago. The process is a five-step process for the strategic plan. Right now, we're in that second stage, which is gathering information from stakeholders as well as gathering data on the five comparison districts that we're also going to share. um at

009the retreat um that will move us forward uh to the next set of steps. So our goal then is by June 15th um to be presenting whoops to be presenting to you um the uh strategic plan at your June 15th meeting. The next stopping points will be April 25th. We um we had adjusted that retreat date. Um hopefully all of you board members are able to make that full day uh session. We're still scoping out locations, but it will be comfortable and we'll feed you. It'll be a great engaging day. Uh I just finished a retreat on Saturday with the Waterford School District, and it's it's just so powerful and amazing to bring a group of people together from all uh all walks to be focusing on the vision, the mission, and the beliefs of

010a community. Um it's a real powerful exercise. So, I'm really looking forward to that uh when we get there. had the retreat in the Bahamas. Can we do that? >> I think that's on the agenda item um further down which I'll leave that uh to you. We have our our our zerobased budgeting expert in in the room. Maybe maybe we can defer that to his expertise later. Um it will be comfortable and it will be easy to access. Um oh how I wish that were the case. So April 25th we have the retreat. May 12th will be an administrative staff meeting where we'll call a lot of the data that comes out from the retreat to bring that down to what are the reasonable things that the district can propose to do in the next

011um academic year. And that's really where we want to move forward with what will be what will come before the board on June 15th will be the revised vision, mission, beliefs, and goal statements for your approval. And then for referral will be those initiatives. uh the board's purview on those initiatives is largely budgeting and policymaking, right? That's your leverage in approving uh decisions on administrative activity. So that's always your uh power of leverages through the budget and the policy uh making process. So our input process uh here are the groups that um I have and we'll continue to talk to students. I spoke to the high school students a couple of weeks ago. Uh just just a fantastic group. You should be very proud of the students in Hazel Park because not just the uh

012the easy uh we don't like the food or classes are too hard, but the real real creative, innovative, um curious questions and responses. It was really quite remarkable. Tomorrow I have the pleasure of meeting with middle school students. That's always a fun group of students. Um there's no filters with the middle school students. I mentioned I already did staff and community parents. Um, I'll be doing another session um here tomorrow. The staff is at 3:30 and the community session is at 6 or 6:30. I'm I'm forgetting 6, right? 6 o'clock. I'm looking around like somebody knows that. So, um, if there's uh, one other ask I can make of you is to continue to uh, advocate and socialize not just those in-person sessions, but the online survey. So, for those that have for those that

013are not able to make the in-person sessions, we really do want to see those voices in the online survey. Uh, to date, you have 95 responses to the online survey, which for a district the size of Hazel Park is, I'd say, on trend with about a month to go, but we would hope to be closer to 200 or so survey responses when all said and done. So, please um tell your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues um to get on that survey. It's on the homepage of the the website. Very easy to access and very very quick to do. So, thank um appreciate that. Uh again, here's uh the schedule. I just went through this. The online survey, by the way, is open until March 13th. So, there's another month or so for for folks to

014participate in that. All right. So, uh, questions about the strategic planning process, uh, your involvement, community involvement, any other questions that I can answer for folks before we go into the survey. Just for the public to say that we also have a a spreadsheet out there if they're interested in participating on the 25th that as we're rounding up our people that they certainly can reach out to myself or to Jamie and we will uh look at that list as we're balancing the number of people attending. >> Right. Uh, thanks for mentioning that. The the retreat, we're hoping 30 35 individuals, a good cross-section, board members, of course, administrators, staff, but community members as well. We want to make sure that there's a good diverse group. And um the the Waterford uh retreat had three high

015school students. It's unusual, but that's uh something you may investigate as well if you have a couple of high school students that are interested. It's a it's a long day, uh 8 to 4 o'lockish, but again, we keep you fed. though. Um but uh no tanning um possible unfortunately. So we'll move on to the survey. And here's here's how I'm going to do this. Again, it's pretty old school. There's four questions. I'm going to go through each question individually. And I'm going to ask you to take just a couple of minutes to capture your thoughts on the paper. Um please, if you can just make your writing legible. I won't grade on spelling or or grammar, but I do need to be able to read it so I can transcribe it later. I'll give you

016a couple minutes to answer each question and then we'll just have a brief conversation. I'll capture some of your thoughts on the flip chart. We'll go to the next question and then we'll proceed um through the remaining uh three until again that I am um out of here. Uh all all responses are anonymous. The only thing I ask you to do at the very top of the sheet is indicate the group that you belong to. So if you can just circle school board or board of education um then I uh occasionally will aggregate responses um as well. All right. And then uh these are just always my ground rules whenever I do facilitation. Be engaged, be curious, listen for understanding. This is about me gathering um your input. So we want to make sure that

017we're listening um to each other. All right. So let's jump in. So first question is a pretty basic one on strengths of the district. And uh here I'm asking you to broaden your particular view of strengths of the district because you have a very unique view as board members and are are have privy to lots of information and uh insights that maybe not everybody has. Uh but you're also community members. You may be alumni. You may also be parents. And so as broad as you would like to talk about the strengths from academics all the way down to transportation and food, whatever you think is important, I'll give you a couple of minutes to identify those. Again, write those down and then uh we'll have a quick conversation. I'm just noticing on the sheet there's

018actually no school board is there? >> That was that that was uh right teacher administr >> other. So that was your first uh that was your first test. You've all passed. Sorry about that. All right. Um, so just want to just want to hear some thoughts from you. Um, whoever wants to start. >> One of the strengths I feel that our district has had since 1985 is our technology. our uh backbone our uh current uh director and uh our department has always been on top of the technology which allows our students to you know have uh the number one uh I don't know how to word it but um number one one way to use technology. So got >> thank you. By the way, you're not judging my handwriting either. I'm the only one that

019needs to read that later. >> We might be. >> What else? >> I I would say uh we the district does a really good job providing unique opportunities for students. Uh whether it's, you know, certain classes or, you know, career training or athletics. uh we're really diverse when it comes to the the offerings that we have for our kids and and uh more stuff keeps coming up to to you know creative ways to to involve the students. I think we're really good at that. Okay. >> Can can you mentioned career training? Can you give some other specific examples? um you know like we have wood shop and welding and then we have the programs through uh OC uh like a fire academy and there's uh all kinds of opportunities um you know if the students

020are willing to take advantage of it there. >> Great. Thank you. >> What else other strengths? >> I have um that we're data driven and our staff is phenomenal. What does it mean to be data driven? Uh, >> a lot of our decisions are based on data. That's what I think it means to be data driven. >> It's a pretty uh um pretty trendy buzzword, right? You hear a lot of organizations talking about that. So, I just wanted to understand what that meant for you. And then phenomenal staff. I never heard that before. What makes them phenomenal? >> Um, well, I have five kids who went through the district and they all turned out okay. And I attribute a lot of that to the staff. >> All right. What else? >> I think attributing to

021our staff, uh, we also have a lot of, um, uh, unique financial opportunities that come through the district. So our um central office is really dedicated to grant writing and finding funding for opportunities for staff training um staff professional development that is then rolled down to um like Debbie said very data driven and meeting the the unique needs of the students that we have here. So, our community schools, um, we have some focus on social studies, um, the science of reading, and a lot of that is coming through, um, individual opportunities or funding outside of like the traditional route. >> Thank you. Anything else? >> Uh, I was going to add to the staff too going over and beyond. Um they do go over and beyond. They come and hand out gleaners food in the

022parking lots and they work till all hours of the night. So I had that down. Also the strength is our staff and um family resources. I think we're good at um helping our families with the food and with clothing or whatever services. And we just uh started a it's called Promise Navigators where they help families directly Gotcha. All right. Our next question then is about opportunities. And I couch this as uh kind of thinking about this in two similar but different ways. One is it's uh sort of the what's broken and needs to be fixed. So simply identifying the door on the gymnasium is continually broken. We need to fix that. the parking lot needs potholes fixed, right? That sort of thing. Uh but there's also a working well would be better if opportunity here

023as as well. So as you think about some of the strengths that you may have listed, there can be what can we do to exploit to leverage that opportunity more. So broaden the way you're thinking about opportunities beyond just kind of the easy this is broken, we want to fix it, um to the what is the kind of the bigger broader opportunity. And I'll also ask and I know this is hard for boards uh to not put any financial constraints on your opportunities at this point, right? So this is about sort of green field, right? If we had opportunities, what would those look like? So I'll give you a couple of minutes to gather your thoughts and then we'll um share those out again. All right. What do we got? Opportunities. Who's got some for

024me? >> Uh, better parent involvement when it comes to disciplineing their students with helping the administrators perform that. I don't know how to actually say that, but so many times the parents are so negative that the administration can't do anything with it. Would help to have the parents on their side like it was in my day. >> Okay. Thank you. What else? >> Our buildings and our infrastructure are badly in disrepair. What um specifics can you provide there? Or are there specifics? >> Mommy, you can stick around for a couple minutes. Uh I thinking of like really recent examples, we're having to have um scans some of our roofs because of pain points that are causing damage to the buildings. Um one of our elementary schools was just closed for the day because of a

025boiler problem. Um, we had a a burst pipe in another school that caused some damage. Um, uh, we had in our high school, we're having to, uh, make some changes with doors because the the building is old and fire code has changed. >> Gotcha. >> You said you only had four hours. So, >> I understand. Well, they just the the the topic of building an infrastructure can just be a pretty large thing. So, I just wanted to see if there were some more specific things that we could put on that. So, thank you for that. Yeah. Other opportunities. >> I would say getting the students to consistently be in the classroom to come to school. >> Attendance as well. >> Yes. I know there's a tremendous amount of work that is done by the team

026here uh and it it helps but it still could be better and you know and I think that probably goes along with the parent involvement like they're in the same >> so there was the parent one comment regarding parent involvement was on sort of a disciplinary accountability side is there a different um engagement that you're speaking about on the parent side? >> No, I don't I don't know in particular. Okay. I'm just >> working together with the parents to to make sure that it's impressed upon them that they realize how important it is for their students to be in class because they can't learn if they're not there. >> Gotcha. Thank you. So I have modernized the buildings not infrastructure but making them uh up to-date uh colorful uh better uh modern furniture so it's

027a a bright cheery place to come to. >> Yeah that's it. Thank you. Well >> they touched on most of mine but I think that we need to teach the kids empathy to help with bullying issues too. So you're um you're you first raised a how to solve a thing as I heard it. So you said uh teach empathy to address bullying and so is the opportunity that there is to capture as bullying in schools. Well, bullying goes on in all schools. I don't think that we're but of course there's bullying but I think if you taught empathy you'd have a little less hopefully hopefully and and I'm sure we we do that. I mean I was in the buildings for a long time but I I don't know how else to do it but

028>> yeah in these sessions it's it's sometimes challenging to not go in your head from here's an opportunity and here's the I'm going to talk about the how. And so I'm trying to just detach those for a moment and first just talk about what the opportunity is rather than going straight into the how. Um because when you identify what the problem is, you can then open yourselves up to uh um approaches that may be uh more resource appropriate to say, right? So anyway, I just that's why I was digging a little bit there. I was curious about that. All right. What else? Other opportunities that you'd like to share? All right, let's move on to our next question then. It's a mouthful on the sheet which simply asks, well, it doesn't simply ask, but the

029simple question is the strategic plan is going to propose some changes very likely, whether it's something as significant as the vision and mission statement. or some other things and with that means change and so this is just a question that is okay there's going to be new things that will likely be changed even just think about the opportunities that you listed uh this question just asks what would get in the way of implementing any of those opportunities that you've listed in that previous question or others that you're thinking about. So, if you just take a couple of minutes and capture your, you know, what might be those barriers and some might be very unique to Hazel Park that we want to make sure that we recognize so that when we do develop the implementation piece

030of the plan, we recognize what some of the impediments to change might be. Excuse me. Thank you. All right. What do we got for barriers? >> We don't have any money. >> That was my number one. What we do have is definitely tied up away from students. >> What is it? >> Money. She said money. >> That's the most obvious barriers. >> Yeah, it it is. Yet, um I'll I'll say this that regardless of how much money any organization has, you still have to make choices with the resources that you have. So, no amount of money is going to solve the problem of not knowing what direction you want to go. That's the value of this plan is it is designed to help you make the right choices with the resources that you have, right?

031What's most impactful with the resources available to you. So yes, I I understand that. But choices is also a barrier. >> I I think also like parents and students attitude for the change. If we're making changes like on cell phones, how many um you know students and parents are going to be upset with the fact that they can't call their student when it's locked up in a bag and uh that that's you know we need the support on that for more ways than just one, >> right? Yep. People don't like change. >> No. So I think school of choice because we have a a a great deal of out of district um students and families and um they have trouble getting here sometimes with transportation and um just having buy in to what we're doing.

032If you if you don't live here, you don't have possibly the same feeling or commitment. uh you don't know your neighbor, you you've lost the really lost the community uh with school of choice I think. And then we have homeless families that's it's hard to get them involved and I think that's a barrier also the struggles that that they have. >> Thank you. Mine was making wrong choices. Like I know you said about the money it was about making choices, but like even making the wrong choice like that's been like a huge barrier for what I >> historically. >> Yes. Anything else? I had like um I burped on thinking, but that's trying to get everybody to to buy in and and go along with um like training and thinking and and get those programs

033so that everybody understands them before you implement them. >> Does that make sense? So the um is it um could I capture that as communicating the value of >> perfect communication. This can be, by the way, and this is where I get on my soap box a little bit on the value of a strategic plan is when when you can use the powerful language of this is the direction that we're going because we've listened to the community as part of this process and the community has told us this is what success looks like. You can now ask people to do lots of things when they have agreed with the future that you've painted for them and and you had invited them as being part of the input. Now, not everybody is going to go along

034easily, but you've at least um I would say lowered one of the barriers to entry, which is you didn't ask me my opinion. Um, and if you did and you then create this larger future, you can you can leverage that and it's just kind of beating that drum right consistently. We're doing this because because this is what we think is successful what you've told us. So that's the part of the value of this process um if you really um invest yourself um in it. All right, let's move on to the last question. Uh and what I want to get from you all is this. um to to help our work at the retreat, which will be in revisiting these statements, the the powerful um why do we exist, where do we want to go as

035a community, is to tap into the what do you how do you describe the ideal future future Hazel Park district? And so what I'd like you to do is just in the next 30 seconds just capture some words that describe for you what the ideal district looks like, feels like. What is it that if you said ideally, this is how I'd want to describe this district in 5 years. Here's the words I would use. So, give you 30 seconds to just capture as many of those words, phrases, um, that that speak to that. All right, shout them out. Socialize. What do you got? Give me some words. >> Uh, student driven. >> Thank you. What else? >> Proud. >> Who's proud? >> All of us. I want the community as a whole to be proud

036to be here. >> Gotcha. Thank you. What else? >> United. >> What else? >> I have successful, but we're already successful, but there's always room for improvement. So, >> so how would you describe >> scale successful? >> What is that? >> Top of the scale. Top of the top of the scale success successful. >> Gotcha. What else? >> Financially stable. >> What does financially stable allow you to be? It allows us to be innovative and forward thinking instead of reactionary. What else? >> I wanted I use the word enticing like I want people to want to come here, but it's kind of in some of those other things too. >> Got it. You want to be a destination. That's not exactly what you said, but I'll put a little words in my mouth. >> That's

037It's not quite the Bahamas, but be a close second. >> I don't know. We got almost to 30 today. >> There you go. >> Right. That's uh almost the 30°ree change from the past weekend. Is there anything else that you think it's important for me to understand that we haven't covered in these questions? um just to help move the process along or you want to make sure is reflected in part of the input that we didn't discuss tonight. >> I also wrote streamline the direction. I think sometimes since there's so many issues in society when you try and encompass them all you get lost. >> Well, if we accomplish what we're hoping with the strategic plan, it becomes a decision-making tool. Now the the challenge for you all is and I know this phrase sounds

038a little bit defeating but implementation is where strategy goes to die. So all this great work will yield great insight um hopefully powerful vision mission belief statements that you can ground your decisions around goal statements that inspire your decision making. But then it becomes up to you to to be asking the powerful questions at the board table of does this initiative or program or policy or budget expenditure actually move us towards what we've said is important to accomplish. Those are extraordinarily powerful board level questions that you can then ask if you're leveraging the work that was done in the strategic plan. But that's the that's kind of the hard work next that only you all can do. But this process gets you there, right? And so again, if we get all enough people as part

039of the stakeholders that get that input and we move the process along, you'll have something that gives you the direction, uh, that you're looking for. So, um, appreciate it. That's all I had for tonight. The I'm sure the audience is grateful to hear that I won't keep talking. You got the thumbs up. Did you take a note about the Bahamas? Um, >> I did. >> Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. There. All right. Again, thank you very much for your time. I'm going to come around right now. I'm going to grab those sheets because what I invariably do is I leave the room without actually grabbing these. So, if I can get all these. So, Jamie, thanks for the little wink reminder to All right. And again, please pass the word to friends, colleagues, neighbors. Um, and hopefully

040we'll see more folks at the session tomorrow. And I'll look forward if I don't see you before then to see you all at the retreat in April. Right. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. Next we have our facilitator, Mr. Don Soie from the School of Municipal Advisory Services. Hello everyone. Glad to see you off the snow >> here. It was a nice drive. All right. I've been very thoughtful in in coming to you tonight. Uh everything I'm bringing you is based on my 50 years of experience in school district work and I have two mentors that I've worked with for a long long time and within the last six months they gave me a couple points that really have have set me moving forward in a little different direction and that is

041to when working with any school district be part of the solution and that's really what I want to work with on you to be part of a solution and also the fact that whatever you do and if I can influence you in a positive manner it's going to affect thousands and thousands of people you're nearly 3,000 students but think of the families surrounding those students how many positive impacts that can be so those those are a couple things that I've been keeping in mind for quite some time. I've given you a packet of handout. I'm going to take you through uh we're going to go back a little bit to the site assessment. Most of this is on sustainability, how we can become stronger as you move forward and we get through all of these

042these services that we're working on. The the first one is the strategic planning. I'm so happy that you're going through that because that is one of the big big points on moving a district forward. When I would work with a group of superintendents and ask how many have strategic plans in your district, it was a very small minority. It might have been 20%. That may be getting a little better, but you're in the minority because you're going to have a new strategic plan. Zerobased budgeting is kind of the same answer. Very few use zerobased budgeting, but we've found that it is the most effective and efficient way of understanding your your accounting and your budgeting. Another point in that strategic plan was modernize your accounting. Right now, as we've worked with the business office on

043breaking down the the areas into the cost centers, we've learned that your accounting system is really hard to understand. It's really difficult. But a week ago, a little more than a week ago, the business office broke it all down. They have wonderful lists cost center by cost center. But as you look at those individual accounts, it's really hard to tell what's what's in some of these accounts because there might might be an account with $20,000 and we might not know on the surface of what's in there because it's described so generally. It doesn't say that it's nuts and bolts. It might say general supplies. So that that's a challenge for your business office and they're working on that and working with your your principles in understanding what is in each line. By the time this

044process is completed, um the leadership needs to know what's in each line. There's one account that had $300,000 in it and right away we couldn't define what was in it. So the business office is looking at that going to provide some breakdowns and work with the the principles and and other leadership on that. So that modernizing of the accounting is is important so that you can see in understandable terms what that is. I'm I'm happy with where we're at with the zerobased budgeting. We are on schedule. And if you look on the back of this, you can see the schedule, the two-page schedule. I think you've seen that before. It's coming along on schedule, and we're working toward that March 23rd day when all of the cost centers will be looking forward to having a

045conversation. We're working to make it as fun as we can. Some people get nervous over this, but there's really no reason to get nervous because it ought to be fun and it's a learning exercise learning what is in your own area. So, when we get to teaching and learning, we're going to expect to see, you know, what is it that you're proposing for the following year and what accounts are are they going to be in and a dollar figure just like no different than if you were a bank and you had branch operations. We want to hear from each branch and every elementary, junior high, etc. is going to be able to do that same thing. So, we are on target for March 23rd and then following that there's a series of weeks where that

046budget becomes worked on, continue to be worked on and coming to a balance. June 1st is an important meeting with the board of education and administrators and that'll be a joint workshop right in this room. where we'll hear from the administrators and get feedback from the board on that that budget that will be actually the superintendent's proposed budget at that point and will need to be balanced and more than balanced and you'll have a lot of well-informed administrators by the by that point in the process. The board role in this is is critical. um prim primarily the policy side. I know that you're working right now on board policies. Keep up that good works. It's it's very very important. getting a new mission and vision through your strategic plan is is critical and understanding your

047fiduciary duty as a board is is very uh important and really to understand that it it's all of the assets in the district not only the financial assets but it's everything I heard you talk about facilities there's a there's a need for facility improvements and that's all part of the fiduciary duty of the for financial health is the big one of course and that's what we want to help to help you make financial health stronger through this process. So in financial health the fund balance goal will affect the budgeting. So the budgeting that is taking place right now needs to work toward a fund balance goal. Well, to my knowledge, we don't have a fund balance goal right now. You're in a in an early warning status right now regarding fund balance. So, what we

048need to be developed is a fund balance goal. So that three years from now, you can say this is where we're at. This is where we we wanted to be. And with with that thought, let's look minute at a document from GFOA fund balance guidelines for the general fund. It's too detailed to read today and go through it, but it gives you all the reasons why you want to have this stability as a part of what you're doing going forward. And it also recommends toward the end that you maintain a minimum fund balance of two months of operating expense in reserve. Two months of operating expense in reserve. So what does that mean in terms of numbers? It means it's 16.7% of your expenditure budgets ought to be in reserve. That's fairly typical to other

049recommendations. Michigan School Business Officials provides a recommended range of 15% to 20%. So, it's it's fairly close, but again, that's a minimum because we have so many uncertainties that are hitting us all the time in school districts, more than than I've ever seen with with federal and state budget uncertainty. We need to have that fund balance where we can be relying on ourselves to make things work. So, please take a look at that GFOA, Government Finance Officers Association piece, and you'll see where they're recommending two months of operating expense in reserve. The next piece is a chart. This was put together by the House Fiscal Agency a year or two ago and you can see what the statewide fund balances are averaging. You might think, well, that's a long way away, but they've had goals

050and they knew also that times were going to be tough and when they could, they could put money away. It made it almost an average of 23% statewide fund balance. The next piece is a document that was worked on as of last Friday. This was something that I did outside of my work with you, but it was working with uh one of the top CPA firms in the state. And our conversation was the fund balance policies that are out there for public schools aren't very good and they haven't been looked at and updated for some time and they they agreed with that. They're the auditors. They're top auditors in the state and they contributed to this. I took information from about four fund balance policies, compiled this. There's also a law firm that's going to

051be working at with this because I found that law firms when they're putting together the policies for school districts, the fund balance policy is not very good or it's completely non-existent. So my strong point to you tonight is please take a look at this fund balance policy, consider it. It's had a number of eyes look at it. You can also have your auditor take a look at it and see what they think. It's been updated so that it's user friendly, more user friendly than it otherwise would. It's based on GSB statement 54 that is described here and that talked all about fund balance and how you present fund balance. So they give us a couple definitions of fund balance can be described as the cumulative effect of revenues and expenditures over time. So if you

052took your school district and went back to the very beginning, you had all your revenues and all your expenditures for all of that time. The difference would be what's left in your fund balance. So that's one look. Another look more of an accountance approach is take a look at your assets then look at your liabilities. Assets minus liabilities is your fund balance. So two two good definitions. People think about it differently but you have to have a fund balance in order to even out the uncertain nature of revenues and expenditures. The next paragraph they talk about it's a prot protection against current and future risks and economic uncertainties. It's going to help you deal with those revenue and expenditure fluctuations throughout the year. And you want to avoid disrupting academic functioning. That's the main thing

053when I'm talking about sustainability. as I was working at in the school business field for many years as I got closer to leaving that that day job how can I make this district very structurally sound so that it's going to survive from decade to decade and when I left that did happen I had a successor that took off took a after me into that role and she's following that same exact pattern so AB CDE some more ideas on why you ought to have a fund balance policy. Then they talk about various categories of fund balance and definition. That's in the J Gazsby pronouncement. What we're really working toward is the unassigned fund balance. That's the one that doesn't have other reasons to be a fund balance. And that's what helps you balance your budgets if

054you have a problem during the middle of the year. if there are surprises. So the fund balance requirement under this policy would be shown here. A minimum target level of 15%. The asterisk down below says you could say it differently. You could say a minimum of two months of general fund annual expenditures and operating transfers. And then they also mentioned the the state law, it can't fall be below the 5%. Another point that they talk about with the fund balance policies, if you get low, what do you do to replenish it? Most of them that I've seen is something like this. Ex work it back up to the recommended level over a period of three years. can't do it all in one year. You can't do it in two years, but if you set a

055target of three years, then that's that's doable. So, in Bay City, I've talked to you about Bay City before. When I was called to go there, their fund balance was heading below 5%. The superintendent greeted me at the door. By the time I left at the end of that year, it was at 10%. Did a remarkable job. But I also remember sitting there in the winter months going line by line by line and saying what's the purpose of this budget? What's the purpose of that one? And really let's understand like I just mentioned. So, I've asked Crystal and Monica to do that during these next few months, line by line by line, so that we understand what's in there and there's no excess money in there that can be so we can narrow it down

056and make sure it's it's used properly. And that may come up with some some money we're hoping. >> So, with that, um, >> sure to deficit spend because you should have a balanced budget. >> You can't go below zero. You cannot go a negative amount. And that's that's the whole point about the early warning low. They're going to tell you before you're getting to zero. That's why early warning is there. >> Now, you're a little below 5%. So, they're saying, "Okay, school district, you need to be careful and you need to get back above the 5%." So this helps to bring it with a goal. You know, as your people are working on this this process which is going quite well. They need a goal when they bring you a budget in May. You know

057what's it going to be? Is it going to be some restoration? Is it going to be staying right where it is or what? You want to get out of this place of of where you are right now and have some some growth. So yeah, the law is you can't go below zero. That's that's the law. >> Okay. >> And that's all in the Uniform Budgeting and Accounting Act. So if you look that up, Uniform Budgeting Accounting Act, it talks about there that it's also in the early warning law. part of uh the other pieces of the board look at sustainability would be succession planning. Um MSBO has been really strong on this in your business office. I think you do have a succession plan structure. I'm not seeing much succession planning uh availability in the

058other areas of the district. So I would start talking about that. What is the succession plan? Strategic abandonment. Um school districts are good at adding programs, not so good at reducing programs when when that needs to take place. So in this packet is a document we've included toward the end. It talks about right here that process and it's it's simply a series of questions will help you determine if something should be phased out or not phased out. It's under smarter school spending, which is GFOA's tool on strategic abandonment. Very few schools have this. Very few schools practice it. It's ideal for instructional areas to take a look and help evaluate whether a program is losing its effectiveness if you should look at some other alternatives. So that document, we'll be talking to administrators on that

059on Thursday. Uh it's it's hard for school districts to implement the enrollment. Uh these are some draft projections. And if you can take a look at this, it helps you with the picture of your enrollment. Here we have a on the left, a fall FTE enrollment. This was completed by Frederick Nadovich as a part of the part of the planning for for budgeting. The column to the right, fall total is your projected total for everything added together. So student wise, you're a very stable district. There are very few districts that are that stable. It's a real plus. You need to understand what's in that. So, if we go down further, we have a grade by grade breakdown and you can see the total on the far right went up.9% in this projection. So, compared to

060losing a lot of students, that's a blessing. the bottom left as we were working through with your superintendent last week and the business office. The alternative education is 781 students in it and you can see the student share and you can see how much the district gets to keep of that revenue. So taking another look on that if you look at this other on the other side which is B we've taken out the alternative ed because it if we had not done this we wouldn't realize you know this is the situation the the alternative ed shown there taking that out of the picture you go down to the grade by grade and the grade by grade it's actually a decrease of 2.2 two. So, what does this mean? It means do some careful budgeting going

061into next year that it's your grade school numbers that are going to show a slight decline, but it's the alternative ed is going up, but you don't get all the dollars for the alternative ed. I remember a presentation here by your business office and they said it's bringing in $2 million, which is is great. I mean to help you balance your budget. But if you look at the breakdown here, your general ed is 1,849 and the 781 off on the right, the yellow is the alternative ed that's not in those numbers. Is that enrollment picture? Is it understandable the way I said it? >> That's very good. I like it. That's very good. Had we not done this, I wouldn't have seen this picture. So, it it helps. >> It's nice to see that it

062has stayed so consistent. It's very consistent. >> That That's a blessing. Not Not very many districts will have that. I'm moving on on the front page and I'm almost completed. The long-term planning is important. So that the strategic planning you're doing in the fall, we're scheduled to do a long range financial projection is part of long-term planning. You're going to have a lot of good financial planning and long-term planning when this is completed. The collaboration is is critically important on all of this work. Get to know your independent auditor. I have a a sense that maybe you only talk to your auditor when he or she comes to do your audit. You ought to talk to them and and understand. You can develop a board audit committee. That's something I've always recommended. Or you can

063sit as a board and talk to your auditor. The last part is the strategic financial plan. This is what you have seen before. That's what we're we're completing started with the site assessment. It's in the zerobased budgeting and then it will be the long range financial projection. It's all of this. So with this, it ought to bring awareness and good communication and understanding of your finances as you make conscious decisions with the budgets coming up for future years. So that's all I have. I wanted to bring you the sustainability picture and I feel good that I've done that. So yes, you have a question. >> I have a few questions. >> You have what? >> I have a few questions. >> Yes. Um, so this under the March where it says grants, teaching and learning,

064student services, athletics grants, are those the cost centers >> or roughly the cost? >> Yes, they are. >> Those are the cost centers. Absolutely. >> Perfect. >> And that's they're all laid out. They're right there. Monica helped break those down into those categories. >> I just want to make sure that I was >> No, that's exactly right. >> Um, I had another question about the policy thing. >> Mhm. Um so the way this is worded this one is this this is a sample policy I'm assuming >> it's a sample policy nobody has adopted this exact one but it's a combination about four plus some good advice from a large CPA firm. So the way the the question is the way this is written um that we we are targeting a minimum balance if we drop

065below the the 15%. We're using that because it's written there. Um we wouldn't necessarily be breaking policy because we're saying this is a target and you have to sometimes >> and you're right that language needs to be careful because it's a target. You know it's not going to be a violation if you're below 15% because we can't budget exactly perfectly. So, it's going to hit a number, but 15%'s the target, >> right? So, it could be 16, it could be 13, it could be >> it could be. And there could be times when a fund balance gets too high. Then, it's time for the board to have a conversation with the superintendent and the business official. And how are we going to adjust that to get that back down to a reasonable level? There are

066a few districts that that have that problem. >> I think it's one of those. And then how did you come up with the prediction? >> Okay, that is Stanford Associates. It does that. And Amy's had long conversations with Dr. Ignado on how his methodology methodology works for that. But he uses live birth rates. He looks at all of your students that are in place now, moves them up, but looks at many, many other factors, economic factors, and I think he he was actually amazed at how many different districts your students come from in these alternative programs. So, cuz so he spent a lot of time on the alternative ed so we could all all understand that. You have anything to add to that, Amy? >> Turn my mic back on. uh you know it really

067is dealing in numbers and standard deviations and looking at uh percentages and and what which ones to think through. I had a very very long conversation. He's and he was delightful if you're a numbers person. Um but he has refined this over time and I'd be really interested to see it over the next couple years to see where that comes in. So this his first shot it based upon his historical piece and I think it's a good one. about what we see and I look forward to doing it with them again I think in the fall so that we can kind of see as that projects and that changes. >> That's what you should do every fall do and it's keep a track record of it and then you'll see how accurate it is. Generally

068he's very very accurate. Sometimes there are things that that surprise him but he he is the guy that's known all across the state more than anybody else for enrollment projections. He he's the guy. He does projection for the state of Michigan, etc. >> What's his name again? >> Dr. Fred Ignado, affiliated with he's a MSU retired ameritus professor from there. >> He's delightful. >> Okay. And I think my last question, um, this smarter school spending page, how often do you recommend you you do this? >> You know, I've had school districts that look at it and they get very afraid of it. So, I would start it in the instructional area and try it on a couple couple programs and just do it inhouse. I mean, it doesn't have to be a fanfare, but every

069year we should be looking at what should be strategically abandoned because we cannot do everything. We're expected to do so much. We need to take some things off the plate and this is just a process to do that to come up with some numerical scores on what it would look like. >> And can I tell you, we already do this every year. Every year administration sits down, they talk about what we're doing, what we can get rid of, what we might want to add, what needs to be done based upon the data. It's something we do every year. We we bring these white papers over here and we do that and address it together as a group. I mean, and you did that before I came when all the programs were cut in Hazel Park

070schools. There were all those programs that were abandoned. So, we are very cautious every year on what we add or what we can get rid of because we've never been out of deficit very long and um and so we're hoping to continue to grow but have great programs. >> That's just a formal tool that you could use and I know you've had to deal with a lot of that for a long time. Any any last questions? No. All right. Good. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Bye, Don. >> Bye. All right, moving on. Personnel uh administrative contracts. >> Yes. So, sitting in front of you are two uh changed contracts. This year when I looked at last year's contracts, there were two different sets of contracts. It appears there might have been

071some changes. Um and so I reached out to John. There will be a contract for um tenur administrators and there'll be a contract for those that maybe will just have one year. And then I'm asking for a third one for those that are not um under contract under law. We've had this conversation before is if you are not a certified administrator, they were given to you at the table. Uh if you're not, because he gave it to me yesterday, if you're not a certified administrator, you're not covered under the same contract. And so we'll be addressing that as well. You're not followed under the rules. You don't have tenure. You don't have anything like that. So, this is the time of year where we roll them. Um, if you this is the time where if

072you're removing somebody that has tenured, you would give notice in February. Uh, we don't have that intention at this point in time. So, at February, we'll bring these forward for you to sign. They are to approve. They are not extending salaries. They're extending their time. They're per per our agreement. >> Okay. uh a comment that our protocols that we renew administrative contracts in April and I think we should follow um our guidelines. >> We certainly can uh when February comes up if you don't let them go it doesn't you know you're you've already rolled them over. >> They already have another year anyway still like they have another right now. Yes. Some of them. Yes. But but by our administrative contract and we're currently in no negotiations with our central office um there's a process

073already in place. We can wait till April if the board would choose to. >> I I think we should follow that's what I learned. I took those workshops this weekend on protocols. That's like the guidelines to our bylaws and your administrative guidelines are your guidelines to policy. And I never I'm like that makes sense that protocols that's elaborating on our bylaws, how to fill vacancies, how to uh do all of those things. So, and protocols are also they're done by aid people, not just submit. So, >> are there any pros or cons to waiting until April? Like I know we're in negotiations, so does this make a difference? No, this is just an agreement to roll and unless we give you the information and even if you have this signed, if you think financially you're

074not going to have that position or there's a change at the end of the year, you can still remove them for financial purposes. That's always been the case and what we've stated, you know, all year long, >> right? >> Okay. Um, preschool academy classroom support additions. >> I'm sorry. So, we're taking that off of the agenda until April. Is that what I'm hearing? >> I didn't I heard Bab direct me to take it off. I didn't hear a decision from the board. >> So, >> we don't control the agenda. So, if it's off, it's off. >> I mean, I I agree with it. I mean, following our protocols, that's fine. I just want I just >> It's just our calendar that we agreed upon and sometimes we move it based upon when things come up.

075>> Okay. I just clarification. That's all. >> Okay. Um All right. >> Sorry. No, that's okay. Um, next is preschool academy classroom support additions. >> Yes, this is for an additional classroom at a Webster early childhood center. Uh, we are asking for a teacher and two pair professionals to open a building bridges classroom. This classroom um will have students that have been identified as needing extra support academically, social, emotionally, and behaviorally in their transition to kindergarten next year. So, we're trying to um really be proactive and take these young students and give them all the skills that we can possibly give them for a successful kindergarten year next year. >> Anybody have any questions about that? I I think it's needed. I think it's a great idea. >> Thank you, Mrs. Anybody. >> Do we

076have a cost associated with that? >> I do not. >> It it's uh it would be prorated. We can have one for you at the meeting, but it would be prrated for the remainder of the year. Um, I think the cost benefit we can't give to you because right now if these students move to kindergarten without some change skills, we're going to be adding classes next year for them given to their behavior and lack of moving forward. >> So, these are kids that are already here and we're changing classrooms for them to give them extra help. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, I have one more that just in my head >> and they are not special education students necessarily. ative students with the need to develop stronger skills in behavior and academics. >> And we

077would hope that that would stop them from becoming special education students. >> I I kind of agree with Dr. Wilcox in doing this. It gives those students a little bit more specialized reduction or attention to the from the teacher to the students because when you reduce the size then like you said it might help um mature them a little bit more. >> How many students are removing? >> Five. >> And so what's what would be left in the other classroom? >> The other classrooms there's three. either at about 16. >> I was just curious. >> That's my quick mental math. >> You did a fine job. >> Thank you. >> Would this remain a GSRP classroom just with additional supports? >> It'll be a preschool academy classroom. >> Okay. So, the change in funding happens

078behind the scenes for that then? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> We used to have something similar. It was elementary. I don't think it was ever preschool uh the elementary advantage and that's what we did and students went for like 10 weeks and then they uh transitioned back into third school. So um I think it's very beneficial for all of the students. So great idea uh oh we did that policy. So it's the second reading. We'll vote on it next week. I presume >> it's just preparation for the second reading. The second reading will be at the formal meetings just committee the whole to make sure that there aren't any additional uh last minute changes from the board to take back to Mr. Sutton. I want to make sure that we're all on the same page

079as we move forward. >> So I didn't have an opportunity to compare what was from 612 and what was from 71. I didn't have the opportunity because it's not a reading. Um, but I did notice just the changes in this document. >> All these deleted. >> Yeah, >> that just shows the changes he deleted like spaces and such is what you're showing. We gave it to you in that manner so that you could see all the changes because there was requests from the board about what changes were actually made. >> Um, but there's not there only changes were made is what you guys requested in the meeting with Mr. Sutton. >> Sorry, those the page numbers. Like I said, I didn't have an opportunity to >> Yeah, that's just the formatting. >> Deleted 19. Deleted

08019. >> Yes, that's spaces. >> Okay. Um and I would love to see I know it's last minute, but um I thought Mr. Soy's suggestion about having a a goal for a fund balance was fabulous. then we would not be breaking policy like we had that discussion with policy before about um we don't want to put a specific number in because we don't want to break it but if it's a goal and not set in stone then um I would love to see something like that in there. >> I I need to remind you that Mr. Sutton recommended not having a policy but to put it in administrative procedures and so we would pick it up there based upon uh that process and that is the practice that many school districts are moving to. Um

081and I especially um I hear what he's saying and I think we could look at that in the administrative policy administrative procedures and that's where it was recommended by the attorney firms that you have uh added. So >> or even have it in the beginning of our u uh January meeting >> as a uh you know how we do uh >> uh organization meeting is part of the organization meeting saying our goal this year is to have x amount of percentage for and and make that statement. Yes. So I I I think that's better than trying to put in the policy. >> Okay. So one more question then. Would it go in the administrative procedures or in in our in the board protocols or both? >> Well, I think that depends on we've not been

082given an opportunity to see the administrative procedures yet and so we would there's several questions that you had given to Mr. Sutton that will come back to me for the administrative procedures and so we could add that in as well there so that it's clear that we're all working on the same page about where we're going. That's I thought maybe both because it'll be ours and yours because that's a a that's a group project >> or or why don't we just make a statement and put it in our in for the organizational part of it. >> Yeah. you know, just a motion to I mean, not today, but just have a c a general motion just like we do for our organizational stuff and then we take >> recommend you also think about your protocols

083as you rewrite your protocols on this. But but I think we should wait before you make that decision to see what the administrative procedures look like with us keeping in mind all the requests that you have made and um making sure we've captured all of those and the ones that we can't then we can look at. Remember we also have to redo totally your protocol book >> uh based upon the policies and administrative procedures that are adopted. >> Okay. >> So um I had a problem that it wasn't in policy and then Mr. Sutton said if you don't reach the goal then you've broken your policy. But tonight Mr. Soie said it's a target. It's not that you have to meet it. And I said that that day when Mr. Sutton was here is that

084it just gives us something to shoot for. It doesn't mean hopefully we're going to achieve it. But I think it needs to be written somewhere. Doesn't matter to me if it's in protocols or policy. It just needs to be written that we have a target as a board. This is the money we want to achieve. So we have two months of money to run the school district. And I I think if we don't have anything there, then it looks like, you know, I don't know that we we aren't responsible and we're fiscally responsible. I think as a board to be fiscally responsible, we need to have a goal and it needs to be written somewhere. Miss Hitton, we totally agree with you and um let's look at administrative as soon as policies are written, we'll

085get administrative procedures and then if it's not in there, we can talk about how to incorporate it into the board protocols or what another step forward >> there. Well, I won't go there, but okay, that's fine. Um buildings and grounds, that's next. Carpet for the RFP for United Oaks, >> right? So, we have the RFP ready to go. It is not mandatory that we do an RFP nor put it on the Crystal the name of the piece again. Put it on >> Sigma. >> Um, we just it requires that we Sigma whatever the next ones are. Actually, the audit didn't require that as well as I further uh dug into that last week, but uh it is up on Sigma, but for here, um we will put it up there on Sigma, but really we'll

086send this out to corporate organizations to have them do an RFP on this. And so, we're exciting. I I believe that this will be done by August 1st, unlike some of the other things we won't be able to get done, but I'm pretty excited to move this forward. >> Okay. Any questions? >> Yeah, of course. Of course, I have a question. Was this one of those thing you brought like four or five things that you wanted to get RFPs for? >> Yes. So, this is one of those four or five things. >> So, are we waiting for all of them to come in to decide >> what is feasible for this year? >> No. Um, in the maybe the last meeting that you missed maybe um or and the meeting before we talked about the

087fact that there's some of the things that we'll be able to get done. So, right now, right, we approved the architect. They did the cost for those and they looked at that. The welding shop has come off. The doors are what we're going to bring forward um as well as um the bathrooms at uh web and here. And so those are the top things that we're going to be doing. Those things will not be and the grounds at invest those things won't be completed probably because we have to go through state approval. So they'll develop the RFP. We'll have to get state approval and then we'll put the RFP out. So, there's a process that we have to go through that will probably be on next year's funding. So, we'll probably use less of this

088year's funding, which is fine. We've had some repairs that will keep track on the scing fund as well as some purchase of some technology that we will do. So, that money is you don't use it or lose it. It just stays in there for the other projects. So, we're still moving forth with all these projects but welding because welding is a half a million is what it's projected to be. So, we may want to talk about that in the um after we've completed this and we have the building analysis as we develop a bond because we have again a millillage falling off that we're going to want to hit that again. So, that we'll never pass a millage if you're raising your tax. >> When is that falling off? >> I believe for the scing

089fund. >> No, no, not the scing fund. That's 29 for the I believe it's in 27. But we'll get back with you with those dates. We've given them to you guys before with what's happening where. >> Yeah, I I could go look but >> Oh, no. We'll give it much easier to ask. >> We'll give it to you. Yeah. >> Okay. Anything else? >> Okay. Uh salt purchases. This was shocking. >> Yes. As you know, you've seen it in the newspaper. You've seen it everywhere else. cities, school districts, uh, townships don't have salt and the price has been jacked up almost three times the amount. When we were on for snow days, one of the consideration was that they couldn't salt their roads because there was no salt. And so during that time, we did

090speak uh with many of you and we had to purchase it in order to get it before it was all gone. And so we really ended up getting 58 tons. I had a question about how much you use. You use about five tons per each time you go around. That that seems like a lot, but it is true. That's what it takes to do all of our school grounds and our sidewalks to properly do that. It's store it is stored behind the school. We usually collaborate with the city. We did get some from Ferndale, but everybody's out. So, everybody's struggling in the same situation. Um, however, we felt it was better. This is why you have some of the funds you do. It's better to be safe than sorry and get that salt in. Um

091and it'll be fine back u behind web um you know in that meantime >> was on the news a month ago about cities having shortages and the cost increased significantly for salt >> three times the amount. Yeah, >> it it should it's a crime that for safety that they're allowed to move that up. >> Um, you know, and gouge cities and municipalities. Um, but >> it's capitalism maybe >> finance food service proposal. >> Yes. I don't have the food service proposal done yet. I'm hoping to bring it to you at the table. I just got it last week and unfortunately there were a few other things going on last week. So, I hope if not, it'll have to be moved to March. I hope hope to have it done in two weeks. There's a lot

092of It's not just an RFP like the carpet. It's much more intense. So, I hope to have it for you at the table. >> Thank you. And we have treasury report. Crystal, >> um I'm just going to say there's no report. This is Monica's work and so if you have questions, prepare them for another time. Monica did not or Crystal did not do this report. Monica's on vacation. >> Okay. Uh, professional audit services. Well, this is for me as well. Uh, this report was given to me uh by the business office this audit. And unfortunately, what uh they gave us to advertise in the person that we got this from is $6,000. And so, all we're asking you to do is reapprove it. I'd love for you to approve it right now and make a

093motion. Um, we put it on Sigma just so that we can keep with our time frame. It's already up there. I've already sent it to our current auditor. I was given the names the other day of the uh yo and yo and um the numbers for plant mirand and we will send it to them as well and then sigma will allow it to be picked up by someone else if they so choose to do so. But those are your three main audit firms. >> So we want a motion now and not delay it. >> It would make me very happy. Um >> I make a motion that the board of education approve the RFP for professional audit services as written. support >> motion by a April support by Monica. Anybody have questions on this? I

094think it's great to get moving. So, >> thank you so much. I appreciate your flexibility. >> Roll call. >> Yes. >> Becker, >> yes. >> Fox, >> Yes. Motion carries 6 to one I mean six to zero everybody uh let's see check register and check >> I think there was just one question that I seen that you had um it was in regards to the uh fees for Kendall and I think Stephanie >> there's Julie at the end >> Julie too um so yes if $2500 $100 is not used within their um their uh annual year based on whenever they receive the card. Um there is a $25 fee. Typically I just call and get it reversed. >> Um fabulous job. All the descriptions cut down my questions considerably. Considerably. So fabulous job. >> Y

095it's a team effort because Sarah also helps and makes it detailed as well. >> Thanks Sarah. Before we do that, we have a lot less questions. No ch questions. >> Questions sent. I'm sorry. We did just >> sent an answer. >> I I know. And I didn't have her in the like five this time. Five or six maybe. >> Okay. Then we're on to other and there's three resolutions. So, I would appreciate some readers. The first one is ICE resolution. Miss Hinton, could could I give a communication regarding this before we approve it? >> Sure. >> I I want to answer anything that the community has regarding ICE procedures. All of our secretaries and staff have been given specific um details about what would happen. I'm not sharing that with you today. I mean, you

096can read it from other places, but they're given specific directions, and it does very much say call the superintendent. Um but there's other steps that they're given direction to do in the meantime that's been shared with everyone. I know I've asked principals to do this. I've done this in my own building. I've walked around, made sure that everybody has a copy of that that's going to be answering doors that are inside this building so that they're assured. I have reached out to all the schools including uh Roosevelt um which was spoken about earlier to make sure they are comfortable with those rules and procedures. Our parents were given a letter in Hazel Park schools regarding a click to a resource in order to uh go so that they can help. We can't give guidance to

097our families. um that potentially are immigrants or potentially could be uh in in a difficult situation. Um but we did give them a a a website to go to that has things in different languages and also been given them steps in order to do. Um so I just want to make sure that people are aware we've had a process in place. We just reiterated it again. Um we will continue to reiterate that. Um and thank you for giving me a moment. >> Oh, sure. Sure. you know, it's just it's just very important um to ease some of the anxiety um for the families and it's very scary for the for the children. It's really it's unfortunate what's happening, but anyway, thank you for this resolution and uh I'm glad that our people are informed of

098the the process. So, I need a reader. >> Are we voting on the resolutions today? >> Yes, please. Yep. >> I already learned that right now. The >> the ice one. >> Sure. >> Black history. >> Do you want to hit me the next one? Then we can just go back to back. >> Wait, is yours shorter than mine? >> They're all super long. >> They're about the same. >> They're all >> Yeah, I scrolled through them. They're all >> But I'm I'm really proud to be um superintendent where we are adopting a nice resolution for immigrations and custom. I did get um somebody wrote today because they read it in the attachment and the and said the ICE resolution is very good. They thought so and >> and I concur with that because all

099through the years, even the 40 years I've been around, knock on wood, um we've always been a proponent of of uh many different languages and diversity in our district. At one time we had over 68 different languages that Mr. Simano had to uh find re uh you know people for to translate because they'd come over and they would come into our our city and they would need translator. They didn't speak a bit of English and I'm still pr very proud of what the work that is happening at invest Roosevelt. They do a fabulous job. Um even one year we had one of our local uh students go there and they enjoyed the class and but they weren't Calaldian or you know they were just a regular English person. So I mean we we are lucky

100to have these diverse uh abilities in in our in our district. So >> you know I'm glad you mentioned that about Mr. Samano too. When I was community rep, we had at the in the office and at the door entrance was welcome to our school in different languages and it was in color and it was on the >> just nice that we're keeping this up and keeping you know protecting our families like we should. >> Thank you for that reminder. >> Okay, ready. Hazel Park School's Board of Education resolution regarding district practices related to immigration and customs enforcement February 2026. Whereas all children in the United States are entitled to equal access to public elementary and secondary education regardless of their or their parents actual or perceived national origin, citizenship and immigration status. And whereas

101the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, FURPA, generally prohibits school districts from providing third parties, including immigration and customs enforcement with personally identif identifiable information contained in student education records, without written parental consent, a judicial order, or a lawfully issued subpoena. And whereas Hazel Park Schools embraces its responsibility to welcome and educate all students and is committed to equity, inclusion, and providing a respectful educational experience for every student, family, and staff member. And whereas Hazelpar Schools is committed to the physical safety and emotional well-being of all students within its care and control and to ensuring that all students and district families remain welcoming and safe environments for students and their families. And whereas the presence of federal immigration enforcement personnel on district pro property for the purpose of removing students or family members or obtaining

102information regarding the students or their families may disrupt the educational environment and undermine students sense of safety and belonging. And whereas the Hazel Park School Board of Education believes it is in the best interest of students, staff, families, and the broader community to take responsible and lawful action to prevent unnecessary disruptions to the educational environment caused by immigration enforcement activities. Now, therefore, be it resolved that Hazel Park School's Board of Education directs the district to adopt and implement procedures and practices that ensure the following: Use of resources unless specifically required by law. Board members, district employees, contractors, volunteers, and representatives shall not use district resources for the purpose of detecting, investigating, or assisting in the apprehension of individuals whose only alleged violation of law relates to immigration status or lack of documentation authorizing residency in

103the United States. Number two, inquiry into immigration status. Board members, district employees, contractors, volunteers, and representatives shall refrain from inquiring about a student or family member's immigration or citizenship status. Number three, protection of student information. Board members, district employees, contractors, volunteers, and representatives shall not disclose information regarding a student or family member's immigration status to ICE or other immigration enforcement agencies unless required by law pursuant to a valid court order or subpoena or with written parental consent. Number four, access to district property. Any ICE personnel or immigration enforcement agents seeking access to district-owned or leased property must notify the superintendent or designate in advance and present proper written legal authority. All such requests shall be reviewed to ensure compliance with the applicable law prior to granting access. Number five, referrals to immigration authorities. Board members,

104district employees, contractors, volunteers, and representatives shall refrain from referring students or families to ICE or other immigration enforcement agencies regarding questions of immigration status. Number six, equal access to educational opportunities. The district shall continue to ensure that all students have full and equitable access to educational programs and services, including academic coursework, extracurricular activities, athletics, and student support services. Regardless of a student or family's immigration status, number seven, safe zone declaration. The Hazel Park School's Board of Education hereby declares the district to be a safe zone for students, meaning a place where students are supported, may learn and thrive, and may seek assistance, information, and support without fear of immigration enforcement actions that interfere with their educational experience. be further resolved. The superintendent shall ensure district staff are informed of this resolution and related procedures and

105shall report back to the board regarding implementation and compliance resolution. Oh, declared adopted February 6, 2026 for today's >> make a motion to adopt the resolution. >> So board motion by Darren, support by April. Any discussion on the resolution? Do you have to change the date? >> Yes. That would be it because it says resolution declared and adopted in February 6th. >> What's today? >> It's an upside down. >> It's just an upside down. >> We will fix it. >> Okay. Um roll call >> Yes. Motion carries 6. And now we have Black History Month resolution. All right. Um, State of Michigan Board of Education resolution, Black History Month, February 2026. Whereas since 1926, the United States has commemorated and celebrated the history, achievements, and contributions of African African-Americans, beginning with Black History Week, founded

106by historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson, and expanding into a centurylong national observance. And whereas since the nation's bsentennial in 1976, every president of the United States has issued proclamations designating the month of February as Black History Month, affirming its national significance. And whereas the 2026 national theme, a century of black history commemorations, recognizes the enduring contributions of black Americans to the economic, cultural, scientific, educational, artistic, civic, and political development of our nation. And whereas African-Americans have made and continue to make profound contributions to the strength and vitality of the Hazel Park community and Hazel Park schools, shaping our shared history and future. And whereas students of African-American heritage represent a valued and important part of the Hazel Park schools community and their identities, experiences, and voices enrich our schools. And whereas African-American educators, administrators, paraprofessionals,

107support staff, and leaders serve Hazel Park schools with dedication, professionalism, and distinction, positively impacting the lives of students each day. And whereas the board is committed to ensuring that the study of black history is not confined to one month, but is integrated meaningfully throughout the school year as part of a broader commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Hazel Park Schools Board of Education hereby proclaims February 2026 is Black History Month in Hazel Park Schools. And be it further resolved that the board encourages staff, students, and schools to honor Black History Month through instructional activities, assemblies, student research, cultural events, and community engagement, and to continue this learning throughout the school year. And be it finally resolved that the Hazel Park Schools Board of Education reaffirms its ongoing

108commitment to equity, educational excellence in the celebration of the diverse histories and contributions that strengthen our schools and communities. >> Madame President, I'd like to um make a motion to accept the Black History Month resolution as uh written. >> All right. Motion by Darren and support by Monica to approve the Black History Month resolution. Is there any discussion? >> The same thing on that one. The date needs to be changed. >> No, I think that one says the nth. >> No, it says it. My bad. >> And I would just like to say whoever wrote the resolutions did a wonderful job and thank you. I'm not sure who did it, but >> Very good. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Roll call. Miss >> Fox. >> Yes. >> Becker. >> Yes. >> Uh yes. Motion carries

109six to zero. Enhancement knowledge. Somebody do you want me to read that one, too? >> Well, I have a I have the PowerPoint that explains it. Um, it wasn't meant to be put on as uh information uh uh to approve. But if you're ready to approve it, I think that's fine. Um I would like to have an opportunity to explain the enhancement millage to you and the public. >> I think maybe we should approve it one week. You mean in two weeks? >> Yeah, I think we should approve it on Monday, but I do want to hear this, but I I was wondering I guess after I listen, it sounds to me like they want districts to give them the permission to put it on. >> So So yes, that's exactly >> Miss Hinton, President

110Hinton, you are absolutely correct that this is all you are doing is giving permission to allow the voters to vote. You're not saying whether you approve it or you you don't. But let's talk a little bit about it for those that want to come back and do that. Uh we're looking at a potential enhancement millage. All school districts will be introducing it in their districts or approving it this month or the very beginning of March um and making a decision whether it is or not. And so really what is this? An enhancement millage really helps uh facilitate the fact that the state controls the dollars that are coming in. And really what this does is we can request an enhancement millage and it's done on a countywide basis and it passes or fails on a

111countywide basis. And these dollars are collected by the ISD and they're out. There's winners and losers of that collection. Hazel Park is a winner, right? And we know that our funding is not adequate from the state, which is why you don't have a 15 to 20% fund balance is we have lots of services and things we need to give to children and yet our teachers aren't as paid as what other ones are. What this enhancement mill does is give us some extra dollars and we can make a determination on a local basis how this money is spent. So you can see that there's other school district or other counties that have enhancement millage and unfortunately those that are around us as we are very much affected by Wayne and Mcome are stealing our teachers. They're

112getting to 10 to $15,000 more per teacher and our kids deserve to get great teachers and keep them. And unfortunately the enhancement village that they were out ahead of Oakland County even though this has been a conversation out there for years we have not done it. And so it's it's now now is the time when we know that everybody is fighting for teachers um and when other school districts can give them bonuses and extra dollars. We need to get that out there for our kids, especially our children in Hazel Park schools. So the proposal is that if you vote yes, you would be just one of 28 or if you vote no, you would just be one of 28 school districts and we they take our number of individuals in our community and they would

113balance it. So it would be 1 and a half mills to be levied over the next six years. It generates us another $781 per pupil in Oakland County and then it is sent out to each school district. It would cost $150 per year on a home valued at $200,000. Um, and if this is successful, it would be started to be collected on December 2026. The timeline is that a proposal must be adopted within a 180day period of time and transmitted to Oakland schools. A majority of the CL combined membership should be satisfied um after October 3rd, but before March 31st. So, they'll take, as I said before, a total number of um our membership to determine whether we move that forward. Then, we take this to the Oakland County Board of Education, Oakland Schools Board

114of Education, and they would determine if it would move forward from there and certify this to be on a ballot proposal for Oakland County Clerk. And then Oakland Certifies, text or ballot proposal to the school district, election coordinator, and copies. The election date at this time, if approved in all these timelines, would be August 4th, 2026. This is not your support for or against. This is your support for allowing your community to have a voice on whether to say yes or no. And so, here's the challenges you can click into. So, how will this how will this impact local county? It will estimate 125.8 8 million in the first year, 129 in the second year, 132 in year three, 136 in year four, 140, 144 million. So everybody's household gets included into this that is

115eligible for having their taxes. >> When we say everybody, to be clear, we mean everybody across Oakland County. >> Everyone across it looks like 172,733 students. >> Yes. Yes. That's what our estimate is at this point in time. And how will this impact it for six years? You make a decision on your district, reduce class size, enhance wellness, improve security. We know that we have to include, we have to increase our staff salaries to be competitive. We are not keeping up with everybody else and we know we've had people turn things down because we're not paying on par with everyone else. This is just an example of West Bloomfields on how their costs are outpacing uh the increase on state aid. So we know that from the uh finance research collaborative that we're not funded

116correctly in our schools and we need to be funded differently and we feel that already with us. So, um, here it tells us we have 56,000, um, I think we probably more than economically disadvantaged, 15,188 English as a second language, 22, 591 students with special needs, and we have to continue to keep up to make sure that we're given the needs that are in place. So, it's not an endorsement. It really is just saying, do you want your voters to be able to vote? We want our community to be able to make a decision whether it's before or after. This is the same kind of vote when it came to the bond that you put out there. It wasn't your approval of the bond. It was do you want people to vote yes or no?

117Do you want to give them the opportunity to have a say in that? So, this is the same situation. So, we can see that there was a survey that was done um last year maybe while I was gone. I'm not quite sure that you can see that in all of Oakland County when they took a straw poll that over 50% want this to be put on the ballot. 28% were uninformed and um or 28% said no, 37 were uninformed, 50% were yes. Same kind of thing here. a cold call and info that moved people still 50% 37% 28%. So our encouragement to you just let the voters decide. Um you as a board don't take a motion on yes or no. You just let them decide. you will be able to give the communication individuals

118in all of our school districts will band together to do uh look at specific districts and what communication needs to take place. I know that uh MEA has stated they would hope that we would think about doing this and allowing them to come and join us with this. We know we we love our teachers and and we love our unions in Hazel Park. So, we hope that they will, if you guys choose to move this forward, that we will all vote ahead for the good of our people to get them the dollars that they need to stay and pay the increases and everything that's happening in their life, including insurance. >> I'm sure I didn't do that justice, but any questions for me? >> So, this is an Oakland schools, an ISD ballot initiative, not

119a local ballot initiative. >> That is not a local ballot initiative. This would be Oakland schools ballot initiative, but we as member districts have to approve it to move it to go forward to give it to the people >> and they need the approval of the majority of their member districts in order to place it on the ballot. >> It is not a majority of the member districts. It's a majority of the districts of the people. So depending on how big Okay. You're Yes. >> All right. So, we're going to put this on the agenda for two weeks and Okay. >> Yes. >> If you have any questions in the meantime, if you could let me know, that would be very helpful. So, I can come up here. >> Two weeks we're meeting in Monday.

120>> No school next week. >> Oh, it's mid winter break. It's mid break. That's right. >> Okay. Um, moving on to theou for Henry Ford Southeast Michigan Community Health and Hazel Park Schools. Action item. >> I move that the board of education approve the memo of understanding for Henry Ford extension and Hazel Park schools is written. >> Support. A motion by Monica. Support by April. Discussion. >> Sure. Um really our health clinic just changed hands and so we need to get this memorandum of understanding in place so that we continue to collaborate together. >> I was a question. It appears like they just changed the name or somebody bought them out and so we had to update the >> Yes. Ascension was bought out by Henry Ford. >> Okay. Um any any other questions, comments?

121>> Do we need to read this >> amendment to memorandum? >> No. Oh, thank goodness. Okay. >> Okay. Uh, roll call, please. >> Yes. >> Fox, >> Yes. Motion carries. 6. Uh, benchmark data update. >> This now becomes the Dr. Dolman show. >> Dr. I I did not promise to keep a brief, Miss Kes. Uh so thank you for giving me this opportunity. We wanted to come and give you a little bit of information about our most recent IRA testing. I'd like to make sure I highlight in the language intentional. These are midyear trends and preliminary results. As we all know, we had plenty of snowies mixed in with testing and so there was a lot of interrupted testing. we've seen some positive trends, but we know that in some cases the data may not

122exactly um show all that our students could do. So, I think it's very important to think about that as we go into this. So, um right now this data represents about 95% of our K8 students in reading. It represents 75% of nine, it's actually should be 9 through 10 students. We don't test 11 and 12. and that we have, excuse me, approximately 60 students that still need to complete the diagnostic. So, I really, really, really wanted to say that because I definitely wanted to come to give you a data update, but I'm a little uncomfortable about us making any um brief um decisions about it, whether it's working or not, or whether results are accurate or not, because we did have a lot of interrupted testing and we are still in the middle of that.

123That being said, we do have some positives to share with you. So the first graph and I believe uh you do have a copy of this. This is really results from the ACRA data. As we know we transition this year to looking at the ACRA data as a source of data. The most important thing that you need to notice on this is that all of our schools have a green coding and one or all of our grades have a green coding and one has blue. The green means they made the expected growth in all grade levels. Blue means they exceeded that. Really, our goal is to work toward more of those dots turning blue because what that means is that students are um exceeding their expected growth. >> Who is blue? Is that first grade?

124>> First grade. >> Okay, that's far away and this is black and white. So, yes, >> thanks. So uh and another thing that I think is important to note when we set these goals in the fall the proficiency benchmark was 17 currently the the benchmark the percentage that have met is at 18%. So while we would like that to be a little bit higher we have already met the goal that we set in the fall and we can look forward to more of that in the spring. So, because we're used to seeing a little bit of that IRA data, I did step back a little bit and do some comparison. And what I did was I compared uh where we were in the winter of 2025 with the winter of 2026. I'm not going to

125go through all this because again, it's a lot of data and it's late. We have a couple uh other presentations, but I do want to note a couple of things. So first of all we are seeing uh in grades one and two depending on the grade level when we compare scores from winter of 2025 to winter of 2026 we see an increase of 3 to 4% higher in tier 1. As a reminder in Ire tier 1 is where we want our students to be. That's early on or mid or above grade level. So our goal is to have students more and more students in that level. Another thing that was a real positive is that we have a 4% decrease in the percentage of students when we look at K5 altogether who are in tier

126three. And as you may recall, tier three are students who are not at grade level could be two to three grade levels below. So what we're seeing is a little bit of an increase on the top and a reduction in tier three, which is a positive. Another area that we've really been focusing on through the ARC core resources and materials isformational text and vocabulary. Um I don't know how many of you recall but uh probably four or five years ago when we went through the process of looking at that resource we spent a lot of time looking at the data and looking at what our students needed. What came out very strongly is that our students need to build academic andformational vocabulary as well as to grow informational text understanding. And they are once again

127a couple of comparisons. Uh we noticed in grades K 1 2 and 3 there were percentage increases when we compared fall or winter of 2025 to winter of 2026. Informational texters. We had a lot more in tier 1 and we also and this is a real positive saw a reduction or a decrease in the percentage of students in tier 3 onformational text and just to give you an example um let's see I'm going to give you a little bit of an example sometimes when we look at percentages it's hard to capture what that means so I also think it's good to think about student counts so for example we notice that in grade two on theformational text standards. When we compare winter of 2025 to winter of 2026, we saw an 11% increase. What that

128calculates to is, and I just have these numbers here, last year we had 41 students. Oops, sorry, wrong one. Hold on. Last year we had 32 students where they needed to be. this year it increased to 43 in the winter. So, while that doesn't seem like a lot, first of all, it was that little pumpkin testing um window and we're only talking about one grade level. So, we are seeing an increase in multiple grades in terms of how many kids are in tier one. We're also seeing a decrease and how many students are in tier three. So, for example, grade two, grade two is coming out strong this year, which is a positive. The way it worked with the decrease in terms of students struggling with vocabulary standards is that in 41 students were in

129tier 3 on vocabulary. This year it reduced to 26. So we are definitely seeing a change from winter 2025 to winter 2026. Going on to the next page, we have our middle school. So, in our middle school, we saw some really positive, strong trends and highlights in our eighth graders. This is something that's really, really important as we think about our eighth graders becoming nth graders in our high school. Once again, we are seeing an increase in the percentage of students that are able to handleformational text and we're also seeing a decrease in the percentage of students on that other end in tier three. Our sixth grade and our eighth grade saw some really, really strong growth as well. So, I don't know if you recall this, it's kind of a a tricky thing to

130understand. We talked last time in the fall about their median progress toward the typical growth goal and essentially for want of a better, you know, it's a more complex explanation, but it's kind of the middle number, the average uh number um toward their typical growth goal. At this time of the year, we want them to be at least at have accomplished about 60 to 65% of their typical growth goal. And we can see our sixth graders have already achieved on average 93% of the growth goal. And once again, that means some kids achieved much higher than that. And we had some students that may have achieved lower than that. But that's kind of the measure that I already uses to really capture, are we making a change? 8th grade on average have um gone toward

131122%. That's more than a year's growth in one in in three or four months. Last year, grades six through 8 together had made 88% toward their typical growth at this time. Now it's 91%. So you can see over time we are notching up and growing those skills. If you recall well back to when we adopted that resource and talked about the literacy changes too most change if it's foundational takes three to five years to happen. We are in year four with our literacy focus with our core as well as all the work that all of our teachers and our coaches and our principles doing as they are trying to build our students up. The next one has lots of blue purple preliminaries. The reason why I did that for the high school is because we

132only have 75% of the students tested. And so while we can look at trends, we can't really make any real decisions about whether the results are um stable or not or whether that's what we're going to see. We believe there's about 60 students that have to be tested and they will be tested probably about Wednesday or Thursday of this week. But we are seeing some positive. So, I wanted to bring that to the group, but also make known that there could be changes in what these look like. So, we only test our 9th and tth graders at the high school. We do not test our 11th and 12th graders. So, that's why you only see 9 and 10. So, first of all, when we look at their overall scores, and again, we want our students

133in tier 1. There was a 6% increase when we compare winter of 2025 to winter of 2026. We also saw, which is a real positive, at this point, a 10% decrease in their percentage of students who are in tier three. Now, those percentages could change a little bit because we have students to test, but that's still a good strong trend. In terms of tier one, that only will go up because we know how many are already in that tier one. So that number is only going to go up in terms of students that are tested. I also looked at informationational text and vocabulary standards for our secondary students as well. And once again, we see the same pattern. You can see there was a reduction in the perception of students that were in tier three

134onformational text. And I think probably all of us know when we're in school, a lot of what we do is we read narrative text. We have experience with narrative text. We do readalouds with narrative text. So kids generally have more comfort with that. That was one of the reasons why we picked our core because it is a knowledge building curriculum that really focuses not only on building skills with narrative text but also strongly builds withformational text. Uh we also see in vocabulary and this was a real positive again percentages might change a little bit but in terms of vocabulary which I will tell you is an area of need preschool all the way up to when our kids take college assessments. So, this is really exciting because sometimes when we get the results of our

135assessments, whether it's a local assessment or whether it is a state assessment, the lack of understanding of some of the vocabulary, inhibits them from accessing the text and being able to comprehend. It may not mean that they can't read the words and and they don't understand, but because sometimes they don't have some of the rich academic orformational vocabulary, they can't fully understand it. And once again, we saw a reduction in tier three. So, don't hold me to these numbers, but we are seeing some positive and again um some significant change. For example, and this is one that we can kind of rest on. When I looked at grades nine and 10 together and I looked at the number of students who were in tier one in tier one on vocabulary standards last year 47 of

136our 9th and 10th graders were in that space. This year it more almost doubled to 93. Wow. And that's the percentage of students in tier 1 which those numbers aren't going to change. So once again after 3 years you know these kiddos that are in nth and tth grade have either been experiencing our core curriculum either three or four years and that's kind of the magic change number when we have foundational change which we needed to have. So we're I'm not really going to read this in detail but I do think it's important um for us to really think about the reason why we chose that. I think I talked about that a little bit. It was a data-driven decision to make that change. I think we also saw another strong component of our core,

137was it last week or the week before when Hoover came to really present the work on writing. We don't see that necessarily reflected in these assessments because it's reading and math, but we do know it's making a difference. So, any other questions before I go on to that? I'm trying to move through this. Uh when you say the um percentage increase in tier one and percentage decrease in tier three what are you basing that on the whole number of students in those levels or are you basing it on a score? >> Well kind of both and so the percentage would be based on the number of students like for example if you know we have 20 students out of 150. So, it's going to be based on the number and that's going to give you

138the percentage. So, what I did to make those comparisons was I looked back to the winter of 2025 scores and I looked at the percentage of students who had achieved that and I compared it to the percentage of students that have reached those either tier 1 or tier three this year to say it was either 8% more or 3% less. And then what I did further was I dug into what the student counts are because a percentage and the actual count of numbers can mean very different things. I mean you could have two students um in a you know two or three a small number of students and because there's a small pool of students their percentage might look higher but we couldn't be out of seven students versus 200. Did you want to add

139anything? I just wanted to redirect just a little bit because I believe the other question really is how do you determine that they're tier 1, tier 2 or tier three. So that is uh so I ready has cut scores and those cut scores based on what standard students are mastering is how they determine whether it's a tier one, tier two and tier three. So those aren't determined by us. Those are determined by the research around IR and the norm referencing they have done. So that's and I don't the cut scores are a what they call a raw score would be a cut score and they would fall into either tier one. Tier two is that middle level and tier three is that group of students that are three or more grade levels two or three

140or more grade levels below. Thank you. So moving on to math. Um once again we have about 95% of our students in K8 who took math. I have not presented any data for the high school because we only have 63% of the students and that's just that number is not high enough even to make any trend or highlight decisions. So uh moving on once again and this is a positive for math. We know that math has been an area of need. And when we looked at the expected growth based on our ECRA and the analytics, all of our students groups, all of our grades fell within that expected growth area with 8th grade which is coming out strong both in literacy and math having the highest growth. That plus22 is about I think I just

141went maybe not that um plus.22 22 is about 6.6 away from falling into or moving up to the more than expected growth area. So, um I want to remind um the board and the community that one of the things that we did this year was we rewrote all of our math curriculum. We revised our frameworks and we developed a really comprehensive coaching, teaching, learning embedded support process for math this year. That also included putting student data in one of our powers school tools called performance matters. That tool allows our coaches, building principles, the district to look at student data and make some decisions along the way. I ready data is great but we give that fall, winter, spring. We are now collecting some very very strong foundational data in performance matters. So every time a

142teacher whether it's kindergarten all the way up to high school takes an assessment. Of course our our kindergarters are not taking assessment in performance matters or some of our secondary students are. That gives teachers actionable data. and they can give the assessment, they can see where the areas of need are by standard and then make decisions about what they're going to do to retach. So, we're kind of in the probably about month four of that. So, we are starting to see some changes. They are not as much as we're seeing with literacy, but this is only four months into it. And you know, as we have seen in all the research out there, we still have students that really have some gaps relating all the way back to those co years in math. And math

143is still across the nation the one that's hit the hardest and is still not recovered, if you will, to where it was precoid. So I think that's an important piece as we go into this. We did see again um some nice decreases in grades two and three. We saw depending on the grade level 3 to 4% decrease in the percentage of students in tier three. And once again when we start reducing that that means we're closing the learning gaps that students have. The two areas that we're really focusing on as a system are numbers and operations and algebra and algebraic thinking. So those were the two areas that I looked at when I was looking at digging down into the data. So you'll see in grades two, three, and five, we saw once again I'm

144looking at the decreases in tier three in numbers and operations. Grades 2, three, and five saw some good decrease. Remember, we want to decrease the percentage or number of students in tier three because that means we're closing that learning gap. We also saw a decrease in grades two and five on algebra and algebraic thinking. And I want to point out that fifth grade number again, just kind of like our eighth graders. You know, our eighth graders, we need to have really strong and really solid as they transition into the high school. And we're seeing that in the data. Same thing for our fifth graders. We want our fifth graders to be very strong as they start to transition into middle school. And we're starting to see some of that in those transition years um in

145uh at the junior high. And let me just say this really this information does really reflect Hazel Park Junior High. We have a a few students at Advantage in Addison, but most of this reflects the students at Hazel Park Junior High. We had a nice increase in eighth grade. Like I said, eighth grade just cruising along this year. Um, we saw an increase in the percentage of students in tier 1. And again, when I talk about an increase, it's not fall to winter. And that was intentional because of course they're going to grow from fall to winter. I went back to the winter of the same time last year to compare it to this year to ensure that we're seeing increases in the number of students and the percentage. We saw a very strong decrease

14610% decrease in the percentage of students in tier three in 8th grade in math. And then you can see we've got some strong increases and decreases uh even in seventh grade in terms of numbers and operations standards and algebra and algebraic thinking. So what we noticed with uh this data both in literacy and math when we compare our scores to winter 2025 and winter 2026 we're seeing areas of growth and we feel that's a good way to look at it because again it's not look if kids come in in the fall and we're teaching them they're going to grow for the most part. Looking back year to year helps us see that we are increasingly either decreasing the number of students in tier three or increasing the number of students in tier 1. And this

147really just reiterates the fact that this is only month four into a math focus. We know based on the work that we did with literacy that hyperfocusing on a content area with strong professional learning opportunities, opportunities for coaching, opportunities to make datadriven decisions, and opportunities for our teachers and principles to be supported. It makes a difference and we're starting to see that. And before I close up this part, I do want to make sure I re I mentioned um four people who often we don't hear a lot who are in the behind the scenes in teaching learning just doing amazing work and that is Debbie Cond. She is uh single-handedly leading leading all of the math implementation in the district K12 and that's a big undertaking. uh Sam Galpoff. I'm gonna kind of spotlight a

148little bit more when I go on to the next presentations, but I also want to make sure I recognize our K5 instructional coach Erica Rash again supporting three schools and dipping into the preschool when she can find a moment. And then uh Tina Safarian doing amazing work supporting between both the junior high and high school. I needed to shout them out. There's many people doing this work, but often they're kind of in the back in the scenes just getting the work done and supporting teachers and building principles. So, I do wanted to make sure that I recognize them. Any questions you might have about the daily presentation? >> Thank you, Dr. Dage. And also, thank you for uh mentioning those names. That does uh help make I mean it's important to recognize people. >> Anybody?

149No. Well, thank you. I guess it's secondary grading report card task force. >> Yes. So, um, as you recall, we came to the board in the fall to talk about the charting the course guide. >> Hello. This is an important >> Your phones are going to go off as well. Yes, I just did just clicked it. So, um, as you recall, one of the the things that we did was came to you in the fall with a very strong charting the course handbook for course requests and the course scheduling process as well as all the pathways at Hes Park High School. I believe uh Mr. Becker mentioned it earlier about all the pathways and the opportunities we have uh in our district. We um collectively up here as well as the high school really set

150a goal or several goals this year to make sure we really looked at the course request process, scheduling process, opportunities for our kids and tighten and streamline everything related to that. We we jumped out strong with that handbook and that's really been guiding the work that we're doing. through that work and some of the work that we're doing in powers school, we realize that there are some areas that we really need to tighten as it relates to our report cards. Uh last year we looked at K5 report cards and came up with a really strong report card revision. This year we want to move on to secondary, but instead of just looking at a report card, we'd really like to look comprehensively at our grading practices, um our our pol not really policies, our procedures

151and our guidelines related to that. um whether it's um you know our our entry into algebra at the junior high or how we get into these different pathways, we'd really like to take the next step because this is really the next step on really building a strong postsecary pathway whether it's a four-year college, a two-year college, a trade, whatever that may be. So every student who walks out of Hazen Park High School has the best opportunities as well as that pathway. The next step in that process is to really start to look at some of those procedures and practices related to grading, our GPA work, um validictorian, saludiatoran, you name it, everything. So we are strong, we are tight, and we are streamlined and we can bring the best that we can to the students

152at Hastel Park High School. to do that work. It's important to have uh teacher voice, administrator voice, special education, general education, everybody that should be in that work represented. So this memo that you see in front of you is really a proposal to convene a group starting in probably March to go into the summer to do this work. Um, the number is, I believe, either 12 or 14. I think I landed Oh, I didn't put that in there. I think it's 12 to 14. That number might seem a little bit high, but as I said, if we're looking at secondary practices, we've got to have representative from the junior high. We have to have representatives from the high school. We need our alternative high schools represented. We need special education represented. We need everybody at

153the table to do that work. So, the goal is um to bring this again for um potential approval when we meet on the 26th, I believe it is, and really move this group forward. We've got a lot of people that are waiting to do this work. We just have to have the approval of the board uh to spend the money to do that work outside of school day. Any questions about that proposal? >> I have a question. Um when will this take place out of the budget? Would some of it be this year and some of it be next year or all of it for next year's budget? >> Uh the timeline was tentative. So the timeline was March, April, May, potentially June. But it could be if if if we needed to balance that

154between this year and next year, we certainly could. >> The the concern is is if you wait till next year, then you're waiting till the following year. And um you know, you really want to have this in place for the start of the school year. And and the other question is, do we have this in our budget to be able to do this? >> We will probably have to move it to our into our budget and and move some other things. >> Do we have funds somewhere? We can find funds in our budget to to do this. >> Well, I think it's important work. We have to find the funds. >> Yeah, I I understand. Yeah. >> Just want to make sure we have the funds. >> Yes. >> I just had a really quick

155question. Sure. Under objectives, you said develop recommendations for implementation timelines and communication strategies to support staff, students, and families during transitions. What could you give me an example of a transition? >> Yes. So, that would be going from fifth grade into uh sixth grade or 8ighth grade into 9th grade. And what we're trying to do, and this is just a little off topic, but for example, with the yonder pouches, well, it's going to be implemented in junior high or high school. We met together with the yonder representatives to say how is this going to be implemented? When we get that note out to parents, it's going to be how we implementing at the junior county high school. We're trying to make sure there's a lot of systemic conversations and that we support all students and

156their families as we transition up and even out as they move into the world. >> Okay. I I am wholeheartedly for this, but I just uh I I really thank you for doing this because the report card uh is important and it's always been uh you know a work in progress it seems like and I I like the task force. I like getting everybody involved. So thank you for doing this direct kill and the presentation is good. It's really put together. Thank you. >> Anybody else? No. Thank you. your reports are always very thorough. >> Thank you. >> Uh let's see. Secondary scheduling and of course again Dr. Dolman. >> Yes. Um so first of all this is really the work of other people. I am the voice that's bringing it to you but I

157need to make sure that everybody involved in this is recognized. Um Sam Gunhoff led this work with the high school. So Sam was involved, all the administration at Hazel Park High School, the counselors at Hazel Park High School, and I don't want to forget Josh, um, you know, behind the scenes working on all the technology aspects. Again, our goal was to come out strong and say we've got an organized, it's communicated, strong course request and scheduling process because that's going to set our kids up for success. So this presentation is really a reflection of all the planning and the work that they did. So again, um I think I I talked about this, I'm not going to go into detail, but this is really our student scheduling improvement initiative. That was our goal. Um as

158we looked at what we needed to do next, we need to improve and we need to streamline and we need to get that P school course request process up and running. And you know what? It's up running and it was working this morning. Um and that was a a big a big difference. You know, we um kids still had the opportunity to work with their counselors and they will work even further and start to do some course request information on paper format. And I believe Miss Kale said to me just last week, she said, "I got the paper document home. That really sets up some of that course scheduling process which has been lacking a bit." um we need to make sure our parents are well informed about what their students are choosing or wanting

159to participate in. So uh the key components of this is structured advisory based scheduling process. Another piece that we really um set some expectations on is that every student needs to have a one-on-one conversation with their counselor. So a lot of times take a typically we get kids in we put them in front of the computer. and we said you need to pick this and that. That's really not the me best way to do this. We really need to have our counselors sitting student by student by student so they can help understand what's available pathways they might choose and really get to where they need to be and helping them make those decisions. Individual student counselor counselor meetings and then power school system alignment. So students are coming home with the paper doing the planning

160then they will go into powers school and they will log in and they will make their course request selections. The big benefit of that is one it's not manual you know you're doing you're it's in a system but that helps with everything that we have to do. For example one of the things that um Dr. Wilcox will be coming with you soon is around staffing. When you use a system like this, we can get the kids in, they select their courses and we have that data much more quick and it's more reliable than when we're doing all that by hand. And it really again helps also even with staff placement. So using powers school to its faux fullest is really helping this process move forward. We wanted to talk remind you of the foundations foundation

161which was the course handbook that is charting the course handbook that you saw last fall. And that scheduling process is very clearly outlined in that document. Course exploration supports that. The course request is the next step. The individual planning and then the schedule build. So this team wanted to make sure that you knew and the community knows that there is a very clear a very planned and a very articulated manner for which we are doing scheduling this year. And we believe that's really going to positively impact our students and our families. This is the proposed timeline for the high school. Hazel Park Junior High will follow a similar timeline, but we're tackling the high school first and then we're moving on to the junior high. I also want to note before I go through this

162that our alternative schools will still use this tool, but in some of our settings, it's a very specific way that they schedule. So, what we plan for the high school and the junior high is going to be similar. the buildings such as the alternative settings will do what's best for them, but they will still have access to using this tool. So, in early February, uh this uh the opportunity actually this really started back in January and maybe even December when the board approved to bring in power school for support training. So, we had comprehensive training for everybody that would touch scheduling scheduling in the district in January. After that, we started with the high school and we had the opportunity to bring the consultant in. So, the consultant has worked with our team twice now

163and really just kind of holding hands and helping them build what they're going to need to do core scheduling along the way. So, we appreciate the board approving that because it really made this process get up and running more quickly. um early February which they started scheduling launch an advisory. They went in every advisory class. They gave teachers all the information they needed to talk to the kids about the courses. So we really built a strong foundation in mid February families review and complete and completion of course requests. That's basically once kids go in there families will have the opportunity to go in and review that as well. in March, powers school scheduling and master schedule development. That's the stage after kids do the course request and then the final scheduling and verification of staffing

164adjustments sometime in March. So, while we had hoped to start this in January, I have to say starting in February, it's a monthly, but it is a beautiful process and the people that really put this in place and are working it have done a beautiful job. I'm just super proud of the work that they've done and I'm not going to go into detail. These are some of the scheduling tools and materials that will be shared with our students, have been shared with our families, have been shared with our staff. So there's again strong communication um from the high school administration to the counseling department down to the students and out to the parents. And then of course we did mention the system improvements with powers school with the powers school scheduler configuration the staff training

165and scheduling and the standardized scheduling workflow. The result or the hope of the result is to have a sustainable equitable and efficient scheduling process. We believe that we have achieved that. Um, and I I can't thank the team behind this enough because it was a big lift and it was done in a very short period of time starting with that postsecondary night in was it early December? I think it was early December off and coming um to this point two or 3 months later already in that scheduling process. So, uh, if the board has any questions, I'd be happy to answer any, but we just wanted to make sure you knew about this and the community knew what to expect with for their students when they are coming home with this information. >> I have

166a quick question. Um, so the students sit down and they do their own schedule. They pick courses, right? >> In a roundabout way. >> Yes, but with counseling support. >> Okay. So, that was my other question. Who helps them? Is it the counselors that are helping them with the scheduling like it used to be back in the day? Okay. >> Yes. Yes. The counselors. So, you know, we have two uh counselors in the high school. One has the first half the alphabet, the other has the second half the alphabet. So, they will be sitting down with all the students to do that. >> Yeah. Thank you. I I was just >> as well as their teachers too because the teachers sometimes support kids and say, "Hey, you might want to take this AP course or

167this um history course." >> Yeah. or come do my science class so that way you can try uh >> correct my papers for me. >> Oh, that happened to me. Sorry. >> Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you. The next thing on the agenda is our sex education advisory board. So, uh, once again, I'm the voice of this. Uh, Sam Galhof out of our teaching learning offices leading this with, um, Miss Rhonda Bradsky at the high school as well as, um, a board of parents, um, community members, students to support them in this work. So I think all of us know this is uh the sex ed advisory committee or board I should say um is required. So it's the goal is to ensure district compliance with Michigan sex education laws and there are

168updated health education standards which is going to be a line share of the work that they're doing this year. Uh the goal is to review student data, instructional practices, and curriculum materials related to health and sex education, clarify statutory requirements, including parents rights, instructional responsibilities, and educator qualifications. We are also going to conduct a standards gap analysis to identify strengths in our current curriculum and resources, um inconsistencies and missing components. So out of the gate, they really started looking very deeply at these standards and they're going to really start to compare. Here's what we were working with before. Here's what the standards are now. These are our resources currently. What might be a gap and what might we need to pull in to make sure we're either modifying our current practices or adjusting based on

169the new sex education standards. And so the ultimate goal is to really create a clear consistent standards aligned K12 health and sexual education program that supports student well-being and meets all legal requirements. So uh as required we have um parents that uh make up 50% of this board. We have a parent co-chair of district curriculum leadership. We have health educators on there. We have a community health professional on that uh board and then student representatives. We have a nice um actually the the group was a little bit smaller last year. We had I think uh four additional um it I think it was parents and um staff members potentially join. And as we always do, that information was sent out via uh communication as well as posted on our website for anyone that would like

170to be a part of that. So I'm not going to read again in detail, but again um there were some key shifts in the 2025 2025 Michigan health education standards. one skills-based instruction and practices. And the goal is really to focus on decision-m communication, boundary setting, and health literacy. Trauma-informed and developmentally appropriate instruction is more woven into the rewrite of that sexual education standards. a clear distinction between general health education um general health education, mental health, substance use safety and wellness and sex education. So again the goal the the standards were revised to make sure there was a clear distinction between those two as we are supporting and implementing those with our students. The required versus locally developed content. So there are some specific content areas such as HIV AIDS that are required versus some

171of the things that we may add as a district that we feel is important to add to that. And then the grades span structure. So it was now it is now broken down into K2 35 68 and 912. And the purpose for breaking that down is to really allow flexibility while ensuring accountability by the end of each grade span. uh the committee met once or the board met once. I need to make sure I change that should say board um and really starting to develop some short and long-term goals. So, initially the goal was to really just clarify district compliance processes for sex education again to make sure that we are aligned with what we are required and the legislation outlines to identify who teaches health and sex education at each grade level. It's really

172just I mean we know who that is but as the committee when there's parents and students on there we have to make sure that the whole committee is aware of that to inventory all current curricular materials and instructional resources to ensure that um we know what's out there what we have what we need to have and then begin a formal gap analysis which I mentioned earlier the long-term goals and that would kind of jump into 26 27 because if we do this the right way it's going going to take some time to really go through the standards, make sure we dig in, understand what they mean, and then start to understand what that means in terms of our resources and our instruction is to develop a key a clear K12 scope and sequence for health

173and sex education, align or adopt curriculum resources that meet updated standards, establish consistent professional development for educators, and create transparent parent communication and/or opt out protocols. uh the goal the committee has just started to define some success indicators to really say did we meet what this committee is supposed to be doing. So one the goal is to have documented instructional responsibilities. If we meet our success indicators, we will have centralized curriculum resources, clear parent communication and processes, and a completed gap analysis that can be shared not only with um teaching learning with cabinet, but also if the board would like to with the board to have that information. Um I'm not going to read through all these. You have the presentation. I know it's getting late. Um, I just want to make sure that um,

174the board understands that there's a lot of intentionality once again about this work. There's a strong people giving feedback with strong goals, strong targets, and strong outcomes. And I look forward to the work that they are doing. >> I I don't believe the board has a presentation, but we will upload it all of these presentations for you. >> What questions? Questions? >> Questions? >> No, we're good. Thank you. >> Nice job. Thank you. >> Next report. Wellness committee. >> What was that? >> Wellness group. >> Oh, okay. >> I will be brief. >> Um, >> so wellness did meet again last week. Uh, we're clipping right along with um the timeline that we have. While I was at a um seminar on Thursday, I stumbled across a um district and I was sitting next to

175a person you might be familiar with from Lincoln Park um and we had a nice conversation about what their um policy that one they're with Miller Johnson as well and they we I pulled up their little handbook and actually it was done really really well. So, um I showed that to the committee when we were um meeting last week and they all agreed with me that it was done really well. It it brings out some um great information about making sure that we have um opportunities for food um education for at all levels. Um you know, we're doing that with our cooking clubs um you know, the high school, the junior high, Jard. Um we sat with Brenda uh Sap who is our food service director. Um she also agreed as we went through that

176everything um you know aligns with with how Chartwells is running things. Um, so as soon as we adopt those policies and we can like really kind of start with that first part, then we can go through and start making any changes to the Hazel Park, you know, to the Hazel Park part of it. And then we'll have that. It's really almost like a little handbook um about the the wellness area. So it'll be nice to put up on our website and get us compliant with that. So >> questions any >> That was brief. Thank you. Mhm. Thank you. Uh, next is the art uh, field trip to Chicago >> and I'm I'm asking for approval for this. >> I make a motion that the board of education approve the art trip to Chicago overnight as

177presented. Support >> motion by April. Support by Monica. Discussion. >> So, yes. Um, this was brought to me last week and I said, "Oh, friends, if you want to go on this field trip, you need to get this out to me ASAP so that we can get going." So, this is a field trip, uh, Wednesday, April 1st, um, over spring break, uh, that our art teachers would raise. We're going to work on raising the money, uh, take the kids to Chicago by train, um, and visit museums and have just a fantastic opportunity to really look at the culture and history. And those of you that been to the Chicago, you know, the amount of museums there that are just spectacular within a walking distance. So, they're going to do the Art Institute of Chicago, which

178is >> wonderful. The Museum of Contemporary Art, which is fantastic as well. I would hope they go to the Bean because I think that might be the most beautiful art that they have. Um, but, uh, they were really excited and I said, "Well, you need to get this out to us." So, the estimated cost per student is $95. They have the train cost, um, uh, a bus for us to get them there, admissions to programs and lunch. Um, so that is, uh, the request. >> Just they're coming and going in the same day. >> Yes. One day, overnight at 12:34 a.m. So that's why it's >> good for them. Say that again. I'm sorry. It >> they technically it's overnight because they don't get in until 12:34 a.m. It says, >> but you have to

179prove because they're going out of state, right? Right. That's the approval we're asking for. >> Okay. Do we know roughly how many students does it say? >> Said 20. >> 20. Thank you. >> Yes. >> Yeah. The information I thought was very thorough. >> That was done by our art teachers themselves. >> Yeah. We had a lot of people participating. A lot of great spirit. >> Okay. Uh roll call. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. Motion carries 6 and we're up to grants. >> Um that was removed as we don't have any new grants for you. >> This is in my home agenda. >> Sorry. No, it's on the agenda. >> You have a great secretary that made a a new one for me and I trans. >> Madame President, may I ask that we have

180uh maybe go to the public comment next before we go into adjournment because I see there is public out there instead of making them wait. That's fine. >> Would that be okay? >> Yes, that's fine. >> So, public comment. Did any faith >> do you have anything else? Anything else? >> Oh, no. I'm just happy that we prop, you know, we have something for Isaac on paper that's, you know, just there, not, you know, not hidden or anything. And that there's a plan. That's what I >> Okay, good. Thank you. I'm glad. I'm glad that what you were aiming for. >> I just found it interesting. So that's why I decided to stay. So I wanted to hear about everything >> because I'm not, you know, I'm retired so I might, you know, so I

181don't know what the schools are really. I have a better handle on what you're doing. >> Well, this was a good experience then. >> Yeah, it is. It is. And I I'm a thing of Catholic schools, but my kids are in public schools and I believe in a strong public schools for now. I'd like to make a motion to recess and close session 8 C for strategy and negotiation session connected with the negotiation of collective bargaining agreement. >> Support. >> Okay. Motion by support. >> All in favor? All in favor? Hi. >> Hi. Don't to come back to order. I have a motion to return from close session to the regular meeting. >> A motion by Debbie and support by man and co. All in favor? >> I. >> Yes. All in favor? >> We

182I >> I didn't hear everybody. >> I I I >> Okay. >> I like that. That's kind of easy. >> Um, public comment. We already did that. Um, I don't know. Do we want comments? It's kind of late. >> I'm good. >> Okay. Motion to support third. >> Okay.