001I like this raspberry jalapeno jelly and it is so good. [Music] I love peanut butter. All right. like to call the committee of the whole meeting to order on September 15th on this beautiful evening at 5:30 p.m. and welcome everybody here tonight to the Hazard Board meeting. Um I'm sorry committee of the whole there's so many uh titles on anyway rolloff >> here >> present >> here I need a motion to approve the agenda >> I make a motion to approve the agenda as written support >> motion by Heidi and support by Monica to approve the agenda as written. Are there any comments? Okay, hearing none. Roll call, please. >> Yes. >> Becker, >> Yes. Um, moving on to public comment. Seeing none, I'm not going to read the little um paragraph about public comment.
002um somebody joins us later in the meeting for the second time um I can review it then. Um the first thing is uh financial report and I just want to say a few things. Mr. Don Soie um has been here to review our uh department and he's with I remember Roshelle but not her last name. >> Ali and so they're going to give a report. Don has a long history. Um he is the um CPA and uh CFO let me look it's a long title school municipal advisory services BC and um he's written many articles for the Michigan Association of School Board Administrations the Lancing Journal he comes highly recommended by Department of Education and so he's going to give us a review of uh his findings when he's was here. >> Thank you very
003much. We appreciate it. Glad to be here. Beautiful day today. Give you a little background on the firm. I've been in the business for 52 years. Started in the CPA world 52 years ago and then I became a business official at Shaw Public Schools for 34 years. Love the job. It was great. Then I formed my own CPA firm as well as municipal advisory. As far as I know, it's the only CPA firm in the state is dedicated solely to public schools and long-term projections budget process in finding scarce CFOs. So with that, um, I'd also tell you that your district is virtually the same size as the district I was in for 34 years. It started with four students and now it's it's under 3,000. So I'm very familiar with this this size of
004district. The report, uh, you're going to have a copy of it in a little bit. I'm going to talk for a while and then we're going to look at some more details. The report is prepared as an aid for you in decision making going forward. The tone and approach is to be part of the solution. I want to help you solve challenges moving forward and it's based on research and proven national best practices. I'm going to bring you all kinds of documentation and background and experience. I did 27 interviews. They're conversations. I call them conversations. Um I'm amazed at how happy people are to be associated with your school district. The community and the the school district are one. Um and we know that because of that relationships matter to the entire community. We need
005to see everybody come together and work together. the business office staffing. I am absolutely thrilled you have this young team. Uh Monica and Crystal had good conversations with them. Their credentials and past background is really good. I think they're going to be able to do some great things for you going forward. some of what we're talking about today. Uh we've dealt with the same situation about about a half dozen districts. Um Bay City is is one. Lans Cruz Quan Tinesville in Wisconsin. I'm going to talk about that a little bit more. So in the report, and you're going to have this all in writing. I'm giving you the overview right now. We're going to get into details in a minute, but the over overview for immediate implementation, I have four recommendations. And the first recommendation
006is develop systems to enhance collaboration. Much of our obser observation is that strategic planning and budget process is centralized and does not include a wide range of input. There are areas that are in need of modernization using current best practices. So the first point there district strategic planning should be refocused to include the community employees and board of education in the development of a 3 to 5year strategic plan. An independent facilitator should be contracted that will include a community survey and a wide range of independent input resulting in an updated vision, mission, and strategic plan. The board of ed should be involved in discussions in selecting an independent facilitator with action by the board. The new plan should contain a significant message on financial position and the role that sound management can play in student
007achievement. There often times I'll look at a strategic plan and they don't mention finance. It's a problem because finance is one is is what is going to allow you to present to students and be the best school district district you can possibly be. I also have it in here an exhibit on governance standards from MASB. We're going to talk about that a little bit. The second big point is budget development and monitoring uh must be redesigned to include annual grassroots budget input by installing a collaborative zerobased budgeting system where all district budgets are developed with the input of school leadership and employees. Zerobased budgeting requires each department to reset and request new budgets annually. In conversations with district personnel, we observe that principles, supervisors, and much of central office have not been involved in budget
008development and were never informed of what their budgets are. They also were never informed of the current status as they go through the budget year. budgets are not being monitored uh by buildings or departments because they don't know what they are and they haven't been able to look them up. So, financially the district has been somewhat flying blind and are unable to view and understand the current budget to actual status. So, budget to actual status is a term you'll hear us talk about. When we look at the budget, we want to know month by month what is what is the actual at the end of a given month, second month, third month and how much funding do you have left in that particular line item. So that budget to actual is something that ought to
009be transparent to all of the leadership and and the board. So that was uh budget development and monitoring. Uh the next big point is moni modernize district financial systems so that principles and supervisors have real time lookup access to their school or department line by line budgets and year-to-ate expenditures to include salaries, benefits, purchase services, supplies, and equipment. The real-time access is currently available to the district through your current software according to Oakland schools. It just hasn't been installed or implemented for wide use internally with the principles. Modernizing the software will be one of the first steps in moving your budgeting system to a zerobased budgeting system which will involve all principles and supervisors. modernizing the financial reporting systems. We'll start by breaking up the general fund budget into cost centers so it's manageable. Instead
010of 5,500 lines, we're break it up into pieces that are really related to buildings. Another cost center might be transportation. Another might be custodial and maintenance. So, we'll probably have 20 or so cost centers that the budget will be broken up into and be able to be managed with real-time lookup ability. The other uh piece under this recommendation one is facilities planning using a community-based feasibility study helps to provide various viewpoints on facility improvements with community input and buyin. We know that when we're working on facility improvements, we need to bring the community in. They need to be a part of the planning um along with your construction manager. And every 10 years, you know, this is really some of the fiduciary responsibility of the board to to make sure that this is going to
011happen. every 10 years you ought to be looking at a an in-depth study of your facilities because just like a house you have to be doing things. Um the district I was in it was decades and decades when I got there. Finally we started bond issues working and we were on a track of every 10 years working working on bond issues. But there's a science to it and I' got some of that noted later in one of the exhibits. Recommendation two is monitor and address the district's structural shortfall going forward as a part of the new zerobased budget process using a long range financial projection. All future budgets must and I have that capitalized must be balanced and begin to restore the financial health of the district. A budget forecast of three to five years
012is desired. So looking back on your structural shortfall, it's been ongoing and started the year ended June 30th, 23. You had more revenues, more expenditures than revenues by 1.2 million. The following year ended June 30th, 2024, you had more expenditures than revenues by 4.9 million. Then the year ended June 30th, 2025 is still up for debate. But it what was uh submitted to the board was $1.3 million more expenditures than revenues. And then for the year we're in now, June 30th, 2026, more expenditures than revenues of 1,78,000. And I know there's been some work done since that then that helped narrow that, but it's not really known until the audit is completed, you know, what that shortfall will be for the year ended June 30th, 2025. And it may affect the succeeding year, but you
013have a pattern of a structural shortfall that needs to be addressed immediately, cannot continue or your fund balance will be will be deficit. And right right now you're bordering on a deficit fund balance. We we won't know if that's the case until the audit is completed. Adding to that, we have great uncertainty in state and federal funding. Every school district um we talked about that few minutes ago and it's just just difficult. It's so difficult for school districts because we we don't know. They're they're all apart. There's no consensus. Ordinarily by now we would have had a a consensus on on where they're heading and and actually a budget. So once the funding is settled by the state and when the district's audit for June 30th, 2025 is concluded, it'll be known if the above
014figures are accurate and whether the district's fund balance is in deficit and whether a deficit elimination plan will be necessary according to the Michigan Department of Education. So right now you're under the monitoring of the Michigan Department of Education and depending on whether your year end is is deficit and going forward um you may need to prepare a deficit elimin elimination plan. That has yet to be seen. And Chadik who who runs that department is is very patient. and he's been very kind with you and he he wants to wait until the audit is completed to see where you stand on your fund balance. But assuming your fund balance is positive, you will then still be referred back to the Michigan Department of Treasury because your trajectory of fund balance is heading less than 5%.
015It's unlikely that even if you get a little positive at the end of last year that it's going to go up. There's going to be significant work on your budget that will be required to make that balance. If a deficit elimination plan is required, MDE recommends the use of conservative pupil counts going forward. They're either going to have you do a three-year projection or a 5-year conservative foundation allowances. and that the administration, union leaders, board members, and others be involved in the plan development for the deficit elimination plan. So, that's the process. I' I've I've been through it, but it's it takes it takes a lot of work and conversation and coming to consensus on how we going to get out of this this situation that we find ourselves in. It's all doable. Recommendation three,
016implement a strategic financial plan which will address all of the considerations that I just talked about and will focus the district on sustainability. Sustainability will be the the goal moving forward. So when I mentioned the word strategic financial plan, I'm going to show you more about that later. It includes a site assessment which is this going to conclude that tonight. convening and facilitating a financial leadership team. That would be a next step. Establishing and training the district, the entire district for utilizing collaborative budgeting, which is zerobased. And then a year from now, doing a long range financial projection. The strategic thinking in all of this will be driven by smarter goals, and I'm going to tell you more about that. But it will require the board action to proceed with these next steps if that's
017what you desire to do. And at the very last document in this um manual that you're going to receive, it has the letter of agreement to proceed if you choose to go forward with zerobased budgeting and a long range financial projection. Recommendation four is reassess business office leadership roles to permit the business office leadership to concentrate on sustainability and finance issues. We want them focused on sustainability and finance rather than custodial maintenance and transportation issues. If they're focused on those latter issues, there'll be signific significant distraction from their major responsibility of financial management. So I have some recommendations on restructuring the the job descriptions for the top two leaders in the finance office that uh relieves them of custodial maintenance and transportation issues. Then I have another section here uh for implementation within 6 months.
018Those were immediate. Those four recommendations were for immediate implementation and they're they're doable. I've I've done them in in other districts and worked with them and they're all possible. But within six six months, we look to see enhanced transparency of district decision making with the use of additional metrics and more discussion to develop greater trusting relationships. Research from GFOA and Deote demonstrates the value of open communication and trust building practices. You're going to hear me talk about GFOA. That's Government Finance Officers Association out of Chicago. They cover the United States and Canada. It's the top research organization in my view for public schools and municipalities. Deote is one of the largest accounting firms in the world. A tool that they bring to us is financial planning and analysis. An abbreviation is FPNA. It's a newer
019tool that includes activities which support an organization's health. Use of the tool in the development of new decision metrics for the board and administrators should be considered. I have some additional reference books and materials I'd like you to consider that are listed in the manual. Consideration B. Um this is the consideration section. Consider consider district perceptions on financial foundations for thriving communities. We're going to look at that tool in a minute. We have the tool and I had this with the conversations we had with with the personnel was developed by GFO. A tool that assists school districts and municipalities to measure where they stand on five pillars of me measurement. We held the one-on-one conversations and people were very open and communicated very well from the representative leadership. So this is on a scale of
0200 to five with five being high. The results for the district are these. Number one, pillar one, establish a long-term vision. It's at 3.1 out of a scale of five. Pillar two, build trust in open communications. It's at 2.9 out of a scale up to five. Pillar three, use collective decisionmaking. 3.9. Pillar four, create clear rules. 3.3. Pillar five, treat everyone fairly. 3.2. That summary is not an evaluation but it provides you with some areas of opportunity for moving forward. Consideration C update and formalize the documentation of human resource and financial systems. Um this whole discussion was was as much about human resources and finance as as as everything else because those two departments are so important to to work together and the sense is that they are working together. They are they are communicating
021but there new things that they need to communicate about. And some of what we heard from almost everybody is we want more rules. We want to know you know how we're supposed to do things. They don't want to make mistakes. they they want it ripe and you know with the turnover you've had in your district just like like every district those rules kind of go by the wayside and they they need to be put down in writing again. So that that's one of the one of the big considerations you should look at and it should include cross trainining. Um if somebody can't do payroll cuz they're gone or they're ill, who's who's scheduled for that? And I know you do have some discussion going on that to correct that succession planning. If if something happens
022to Monica, who's going to be there working on that and who's third? And and same with HR and other other operations in the district. additional considerations uh are beyond that in the report and um most of those are practices I would like to see in every school district. May not be specific to yours, but they're for every district. It's an inventory. I'm going to ask Michelle to pass out the report while I'm going to continue to talk about a couple of the districts we worked with. You have a wonderful district, a wonderful community, and what we're presenting tonight should be viewed as an investment going forward in allowing you to be proactive in managing the district's resources. So, I mentioned three districts that that we worked with. My one of my first significant clients in
023zerobased budgeting was Bay City Public Schools, brand new superintendent coming in um some years ago. He got there and he received a letter from Treasury that said, "Guess what? Your fund balance is headed below 5%." So, he was very concerned, invited me to come in and meet. He actually held the door open as I I walked in the in the building. And um starting then we developed a relationship that helped correct a lot of things that had been let go for a long long time and open up the transparency to everything budget. Uh we started the zerobased budget process but he also started a strategic plan with MASB coming in and having really good conversation. So with that we had the strategic plan going. We started to work on looking at that budget that looked
024upside down and we actually spent time line by line by line. Why is this budget here? Uh what's the purpose of this account? And by the end of the year instead of a deficit fund balance he had a 10% fund balance. By the end of the second year, he had a 15% fund balance. So, it worked great, but it's because everybody worked together. They knew they were in trouble. They had to had to turn it around. >> Japanese district. >> Mhm. Yep. The next uh large district was Lance Cruz, but I'm I'm going to talk about the one that I I worked with last year, Mccoan Tinesville in Wisconsin. I try not to do much work out of state, but I did get a zerobased budgeting assignment over there, and they were desperate because their
025funding in Wisconsin was actually less generous than it than it is in in Michigan. and they were going to be in desperate straits. And this was a school district that was a very wealthy district. It was a proud school district, beautiful facilities, but because of the funding structure, they had to go for what they called a referendum and they had to prove that their budget figures were right to the community. So, they announced we're going to do zerobased budgeting and that's uh what they did. And it it took probably from October through through June to to to get that done and we got it done. They restored trust with the community and the community felt good, a very highly educated community and they passed the referendum. So, but without the process, it may not have
026happened. And then Lance Cruz um a number of years ago I I was met the superintendent there at at the time he was interested in doing this. It it took a couple years to get that set up for uh the zerobased budgeting process. Um but we got it done. It's it's a district right now of 10,400 students in Mcome County. It was the largest district I worked with on zerobased budgeting. When I got to the district, I was happy to find Michelle, who had a background on zerobased budgeting in her former life as a hospital accountant and administrator. So, she was ready and willing to translate that to zerobased budgeting to Lance Cruz. I'm going to ask uh Michelle to talk for a short while and tell us about her experience and you know what
027it meant to the principles, what it what it meant to the district and the formality of looking at a sustainable operation. >> So for us, as Jen mentioned, I'm used to doing that. Hospitals, hate to say that it's easier, but you start with your volume. You you know, you predict what, you know, how many uh stances you're going to do and all that. And then that drives obviously your supplies and your labor and you you move on here. It's not so easy because as of right now you don't even know what you're going to get from the state. Um I had started implementing um kind of like why portion of the zerobased budget for the ancillary departments. So for operations, technology, curriculum, because what we were finding is we were having as many districts in
028financial trouble, but all of a sudden you see maintenance contracts going up and they're like, "Well, I don't have enough budget." Well, well, how come? So, we started doing that technology software that's, you know, they go to renew and in the middle of the year and it's a 30% increase and where are we finding the money? So, we did that. But when we engaged with Dan, we were able to take everything a step further. for our buildings. We had 17 buildings. They were all getting a budget. They always saw what they got. They had monthly reporting. Um but it was based on per pupil allocation based on the fall account. So elementary got a certain dollar amount, middle school and and high school. Um but that even then it they kind of knew what they
029got, but it was like, you know, you start seeing things coming out of supplies that was really purchase services. Well, why? Well, because that's where I had the money. And it's like, well, you didn't plan for it. So, we started working with, you know, with Don um with the uh principles um as well and we just expanded it in the ancillary area. But what happened with the principles is they started talking to the teachers and the parapros. Well, what do you need? And the first year, I have to tell you, we did pie in the sky. Tell us what you need. you know, if this if we had unlimited dollars and everyone's like, why are we wasting our time doing that if you don't have it? But the idea is for when we have our
030presentation, the superintendent and the other cabinet members knew what they were looking at, knew what they wanted, and then you have to align that with your strategic plan. For us, that was a challenge because our plan was outdated. So, it was a little bit harder to do that, but we eventually got there. But everyone presented in front of the superintendent and cabinet. They felt heard. And then of course you have a lot and because we had dwindling B dollars. We hadn't had a bond since uh 2010. So it was well overdue. We were running out of that. So we started spending general fund money on um replacements, bus replacements and things like that. And so you've got the now transportation competing for the same dollar technology is the same dollar that the high school principal
031is because they need money for their art room or they need a kil or they need etc etc. So we went through that whole process of presentations and then we had a committee with a representative from each level along with cabinet and the superintendent and we just nailed it out. We just sat there, we talked, we had Don was there for several of those. It's like what is important? what's going to happen. And I have to say the principles, while it was a lot of work, they felt heard. Um, and everyone got a little bit of something that first round. We found elementary aids were needed at the elementary school for behavior issues because the teachers were overwhelmed and the principal had all these kids in the office. Well, here they had an aid that
032uh would help them like, you know, just I hate to say a professional break taker, but you know, bring a kid out, talk with them, get them going, things like that. In the in the secondaries, it was supervisory aids. They needed more aids in the hallway to help prevent, you know, things that happened at high school and middle schools in the hallway. Um, you know, technology was able to explain to us why their software costs were going up. So, it was just a good communication. It was a collaborative uh process and when we went to the second year it was a lot easier cuz they all knew and actually we designed some forms I think and hopefully you're still using them that a lot of it's just on Excel and they just you know do
033their notations on Excel and then they prioritize it you know what is a need what is a wish you know what's a priority and then you take your priorities okay you know and you just kind of line them up and yet everyone doesn't get what they need but they were heard and that was really important and involving the teachers and Donnie even conducted a um meeting inviting um the rest of the employees to come. So, you know, I think that might have been a Zoom meeting at the time because I think it was right after co um but you know, you had food service staff even though their budget's different, they wanted to be heard. And then you you know, you had some drivers, you had some custodial people because they were concerned about you
034know, the aging bus fleet, the um aging buildings and you know, what are they going to get out of it? So in the end, yes, it it it worked really well for us and, you know, we continued to do it and each year we kind of fine-tuned it a little bit better that it wasn't as much as work, but everyone seemed happy because they at least felt accountable and our our uh building administrators, all our uh departments always got a budget to actual every single month. They knew exactly where they were. they had access to the real time on all they could do a purchase inquiry they could do an account inquiry and know at any given time where their budget is at and so that's really important too for a tool for them to
035be able to manage their budget >> so my world when I was a school business official our administrators became to expect this budget discussion and they look forward to it because they knew they could get input and they could affect their own world. It's the only way that they could rather than being told what your budget is, which the majority of school districts in the state roll over budgets and the people are told what their budgets are and there there's a lack of ownership with all of that. What we provide with this process is all of the forms. Because if if I said to a business official, just get this started, there wouldn't be any place to go to get the forms. They'd have to develop all the forms. There is there's no college instruction
036on zerobased budgeting that I have ever found. There's no formal instruction anywhere. So, we've developed this and we're happy to work with one district per year. that that's all we can do cuz it's it's a significant process. Um, we have good backup. GFOA developed best practices in school budgeting and I gave Monica the assignment to get these. She ordered them. I don't know if she's read them yet. And then A Better Way to Budget by Nate Levenson, which goes together with GFOA best practices. And this is all about why the principles ought to be involved in how they can contribute. And then the second book, um, Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools by Nate Levenson. So, all of that is is really good, uh, reading material. You could do a book study on those. I'd like to
037turn I'm going to not spend as much time on this. Page 14. Um, this is going back to the recommendations and talking about a little bit more detail that helps you understand the strategic plan can have a significant impact on bringing community and stakeholders together. Should be an effort that includes a broad range of input and has the board of ed involved in selection of a facilitator, participating in the input process and receiving periodic reports since the plan. once the plan is completed. So, I've been involved in a lot of strategic plans. Those that are successful get periodic reports back to the board, probably quarterly. I'm a vision chair. I'm the vision chair for Southwest Michigan Rotary and I'm in charge of doing strategic plans with clubs and we've embedded in that. You've got to
038bring a report back quarterly to the board. MESB uh describes uh this process as one of the board's main roles in adopting the the mission and vision through a strategic plan. And this is right below there is directly from MASB at the bottom of 14. Why do you want to set these goals all about district mission and vision etc. On the next page, GFOA does research. They have a major report on rethinking strategic planning. And there's the link right there. But this was their conclusion on why you should do it. You need to accept uncertainty. There's uncertainty out there more than ever on everything we do. Define the problem before the solution. provide a focus on introducing constraints and develop a rolling planning process. This is the main thing out of this study, a rolling
039planning process. So, you will come up with a strategic plan one year. Year two, you got to look at it again because things have changed a lot. So, you might have to roll some things. Year three, roll some things. By roll, I mean revise and adapt to the changing conditions that are out there. Make sure it's collaborative. Make sure it's fair. So, please take a look at that. 3 to 5ear plan is what what's recommended. Board of Education must be involved to take action on the selection. My recommendation uh in this consideration in this recommendation part is to have some bids come in. One from MASB, one from Michigan Leadership Institute. I've used both of them. They're both good. There might be somebody else out there. Next page 16, budget development and monitoring. The budget
040that you adopt is the most important document that the district is going to adopt annually because it really defines what you're going to be doing. MESB defines the budget is that it reflects the student achievement goals of the district with curriculum driving the budget discussion. And then of course they do more re study rethinking budget GFA's rethinking budget and they're they broke broke down the whole budget piece into three big pieces. the planning you know how are we going to articulate what our future is and some of that will come from the strategic planning but it comes from the zerobased budget process itself and then the actual budgeting which starts in January February or March and once it's completed then the monitoring and reporting so what what you're very very weak on right now is
041monitoring and reporting if you had the monitoring and reporting you may not be having this conversation. Uh take a look at that website. You can see the whole report. It's it's really good. Why do we need to rethink budgeting? Page 17. Uh local governments have long relied on incremental line item budgeting where last year's budget becomes next year's budget with changes around the margin. So in other words, they take last year's and say, "Well, what do we need next year?" And it kind of is the same. Nobody asked the question in rollover budget, what's the basis of that number? Nobody asked the question, what do you need? If you just roll over, you have no new thinking. You don't have your goals or your mission incorporated. So that's what this does. Rethinking budget and their
042research research supports all of that. The bottom of this page uh is is a graphic that we've prepared in in in my firm. This is how we we break it down. Uh it's in planning we call it budget development goals and decision-m parameters. This is what we we do in November, December. and we define all of these categories that are listed there for your district. Page 18, the the definition, if you need to repeat this to somebody, here's zero base versus rollover budgeting. Rollover budgeting is historical patterns. Page 19, uh the levels of collaboration. I like to see some input from teachers in building support. Principles and supervisors need to absolutely be involved. They become the the foundation of this discussion. The superintendent and central office receive from the principles and supervisors their input and
043their budget request. And then it comes to the board and the community. We involved the board at the beginning of this process in helping to develop those budget development goals and decision-making parameters. We also check in during this process. So the board is not involved in the process dayto day, but you'll know what the goals are going forward and you'll have periodic information coming. Page 20. um my language on on why a recommended budget system, proactive, transparent, user-friendly data, cost centers, everything that I just talked about. We we come up with various levels of service and that's shown on the next page. Um we break the budget request down into the mustd do, the should do, and the wishes. So at Lance Cruz, they went off on a little different path than we had seen
044in others. Their principles in each building decided we want to do that for the whole building. And they included personnel. Remember that? >> And that really wasn't our structure, but it was really great. And I actually carried that forward to the the following district. It helps you reassess your priorities. The bottom of page 21, this creates a climate of a culture of change. Principles supervisors become responsible and accountable. Spending is tied to district goals. And one major point that I emphasize all the way through this, every budget dollar has to have a job. So, if I pull up a supply account in, let's say, transportation, I'm going to ask you ask what's the job of that that account? What's it supposed to do? And if nobody knows, the account goes away. We did that a
045lot in Bay City cuz nobody had any history and knew what what that whole budget outlook looked like. Page 22, a comparison between rollover and zerobase budgeting. On the right, zero base is a clean slate. Examines all activities, new approaches. Page 23 up at the top, smarter school spending and best practices in school district budgeting is largely this, but this graphic shows all of the audiences up above that that need to be involved. And it brings the academic and the finance person together real well in this process more than ever. And you go along this path and you're basing it on smarter goals starting off and you create a strategic financial plan at the end. The last section on this page, Michigan budgeting law, uniform budgeting and accounting act. You can look up this this
046law down there. It requires that school districts and mun municipalities adopt a balanced budget. Superintendent is the chief administrative officer of the school district and shall have the final responsibility for budget preparation presentation to the legislative body and the control of expenditures. So even though Monica is here, it's Amy that really is in charge of developing that and making sure that that that is balanced. Uh Monica is the right hand that is going to bring this all together and and make it work. On page 24, modernizing district financial systems. If you look up Milwaukee public schools just within the last couple weeks, they had horrible financial system problems, very large district, and they talked about modernizing. They feel that they did modernize him. They got them up to today's standards. And they talked a lot
047about budget to actual. You know, what is the budget? How we do into actual and the implementation of those lookout lookup screens will be critical for you. Here's the facilities planning that I I mentioned um earlier. Um there's there's a toolkit exhibit O if you want to go way to the back. Exhibit O um is something that my firm developed over the years for working with bond issues, developing feasibility studies. And there it is, exhibit all. We talk about that more another time. Page 25, recommendation two, monitor and address the district shortfall, structural shortfall. Um, you have a 5,560 line detailed budget. The zerobased budgeting will look at all of that, help to address that shortfall and get rid of those negative trajectories. Page 26, reasons fund balance is important. It's hard to articulate to
048a lot of people why should we have a fund balance? You're starting to to yawn because you I mentioned fund balance. I'm sorry I had to do that. But fund balance is not everybody's language. And um but here's why you need it. It's critical to an operation. Those are all the reasons. 27 we had early warning law 10 years ago. The governor signed that July 1. And it really is a good thing. But it says if your fund balance starts to dip below 5% you have to do certain things. And here's more of the law later that most of what I've talked about the 5% and the projections you need to make. Page 28 potential for fiscal stress. That's where the the state treasurer gets involved in even if you don't have a deficit elimination
049plan requirement. you'll still have the potential for fiscal distress which will need to be worked with and corrected. Um so what is a good fund balance? Here they are listed the recommendations out there. MSBO 15 to 20% GFOA 2 months of operating expense. That's about the same as G as Michigan school business officials. I'm recommending 20% because we have so much uncertainty out there today for school districts. we'd feel much more comfortable when our revenue we have no idea what it's going to be going forward. There's an example fund balance policy exhibit J. I'm not going to go to that but it it's a whole page should review with your auditor. Is this what you want to adopt? The new policy services that attorneys bring to you do not have that in there. You've got
050you got to have a fund balance policy. Recommendation three, we talked about the strategic financial plan. This is a little bit more on it. It has these three ingredients. The business services site assessment which is this right now. Collaborative budgeting, the zerobased budgeting, and the long range financial projection. Off on the right, I talked about smarter goals. I didn't tell you what they were. They're specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound, engaging, and resourced. And I looked at your district. If we were going to put all that together for a strategic financial plan, this is what it would look like month by month by month. And the who is off on the left who would be responsible. The uh business official is is involved a lot. The superintendent is involved. The administrators are involved all the
051way through. And then the what, the when, and the resources. I could spend an hour talking about that, but I'm not going to. It's up to you to decide if you want to proceed with that. Moving forward, page 30. Reassess business office leadership roles for success. I mentioned this this earlier. Uh I'm afraid your job description for your your top finance officer is too overloaded. Um I talked with Michelle earlier today and she had the same situation. She had uh finance and operations and then it was determined she could not handle operations all at the same time. It was going to drain too much of her time and that she needed to concentrate on operations. And because you are having some fiscal stress right now, that's what I'm recommending for you that that job description
052be modified. And those detailed job descriptions are later exhibits A through D. Then the consideration enhance the transparency. Um, more information on that. I think you're on the right track. You have strong new leadership in the business office. I'm really happy about that. There's the financial planning and analysis on page 32 that I mentioned to you. Here are some more reading materials. The four factors of trust, more research, and then the consideration, the financial foundation's framework. Uh if you go quickly to exhibit E, this is the framework and this was how we talked about these various pillars about the the long-term vision, the trust, collective decision making, clear rules, etc. On the back is more detail. This is one of my favorite documents from GFOA. I get really excited when I see that document. update
053and document the HR and financial systems. I'm going to quickly go through the rest of this and see if we have some time for question. Page 35, this is financial best practices. This is topics for consideration. These are long-term things. The budget to actual needs to be ingrained long-term. Um the business evaluation summary prepared by Terry Les from Oakland schools is really well written that needs to be implemented. And just one small do not note for everybody in this district date all district doc do documents a lot of documents I saw I didn't find dates um page 36 operate a fully active purchasing system and I think you should look at that whole purchase uh policy once this is installed with budgeting and people know what what their budgets are everything needs to be approved
054by the business office through the business office and even those items that are going through payroll, reimbursed through payroll must be reimbursed, must be approved. Page 38, assistant superintendent for business must be intricatally involved in contract negotiations. When I had that job, I would not let the negotiators out of my sight because I was responsible for keeping that fund balance up. I even had to negotiate with the superintendents and tell them, "No, you can't do that." Uh so it takes that strong business almost autonomous business department that's going to help keep this district solvent. Uh the business office should sign off on final hiring. Shouldn't be any hiring without the business office knowing about it and know where it is in the budget. Continue training and ongoing education. This district is really good about providing
055allowing people to get trained and get their certification. There's cross trainining at the bottom that we talked about. Need a lot more work on that. Page 38. Clearly communicate with employees on where the district stands financially and provide suggested talking points for their understanding. I have found that when districts understand where you're at, where you're headed, they're going to help you solve the problem. and you need to have them involved in that that discussion. Page 40, HR, not a lot on HR, but you know the procedures again and date all all district documents. These are a collection of best practices. I'm not going to go through those, but you should look at them cuz they've it took years to collect those and I think they're really good. Page 48. Finance and HR have been inundated
056with new regulations, new laws, new rules, and this is just probably not all of it, but it's a good start to give you an idea of how overwhelming it is to deal with all of this. The most recent on page 49, the section 147, MIPER state aid accounting. There are superintendents that lost their jobs because that accounting was not handled properly. some right in this area for the section 147 human resources some of the new challenges that they have to deal with page 51 the business office structure I've already talked about that the cross trainining page 52 human resource structure collaborative meet with the finance office and discuss those budget to actuals page 53 there are a lot of revenue sources available to school districts sometimes we don't access them and we don't access them
057timely. This is the latest list that I could put together. Uh page 54 under audit and internal control. Review the uniform budgeting and accounting act. Make sure that you're complying with it. Understand internal controls and consider forming a board audit committee. I'm also at the b middle of this page a consideration that a board finance committee board finance subcommittee meet three times per year with agendas prepared and facilitated by the assistant superintendent of business. That person actually runs the meeting, but it gets good conversation from the board, gets you to understand, you know, what we're having to deal with uh in in the business office. Page 55. This is from the auditing world. Formation of a a board audit committee. Um I did this in one district that I was interim superintendent and and it
058it was very helpful. It allowed the board committee to talk directly with the auditor and in advance of the audit and have some conversation so that you can have that direct link with the auditor. Page 56 uh board policy um fund balance is critical. The purchasing policy should be reooked. financial planning analysis, the MASB governance standards. Go, please go to exhibit H for one minute. This was so well written. And if you go to page four of that, guiding principles of the the board of education, that's the board. And then on page six, individual board member governance standards. Has anybody seen this this before? It was out a few years ago. You remember it? Okay. >> You forgot? >> It's great if the board can adopt it because you ought to discuss it and have
059MSB if you need to monitor that a little bit. But it's a great document for the board focusing less on transactional detail and more on strategic issues um rather than time spent on individual purchases. Look at the the bigger picture. Uh I have a recommended board financial summary. It's exhibit. It gives a little more detail and a little more history than yours. I'm not going to go over it right now. Collective bargaining 57 um page 57 recommend a contract review of current agreements by legal counsel should be practiced regularly. Those are the big dollars in your district. Assistant superintendent should be integral to the negotiations. Something on collective bargaining. Consider a process that includes long long range financial projection. You don't have one now cuz you don't know where you are at the moment. But
060once you have that long range projection, that can be a part of discussion on collective bargaining. Here are some metrics at the bottom of page 57. If you don't have these, it's really they're really critical for negotiations. What does 1% cost? How will it fit into the entire district? Can you afford it? It might be 2%. Whatever the percent is. And there are there the other things you should know. sustainability. Uh I'm all about sustainability. Page 60, conduct a conversation with your community. If you do an independent uh strategic plan with independent facilitator, reaching out to the community, community is a part of that is is critical. Seven tenants of sustainability. This is what I've developed over the years. If you're having trouble balancing your budget, I would go to this right now. GFOA, Fiscal
061First Aid Resource Center. There's lots of ideas on budget balancing. There's the the website in practice amending your budget. As soon as you know that there's a material deviation, it's really hard right now because we don't know what the state aid is. We don't know what a lot of things are. But as soon as you know there's a deviation, um, district points of pride, you got a lot of points of pride. People love this district. They love this community. Um, there they are. But when I ask the potent, what are the potential single points of failure that could happen? You know, every entity is going to have potential single points of failure. One thing can affect everybody. Here is what they said. Going on to exhibit A. I am almost completed here. Exhibit A. All
062the issues that accounting office and finance office has to take care of are listed here. Um, and a lot of those are embedded in Monica and Crystal and their jobs and the other folks in your office. But all of these have to fit into the four employees that you have right now. And this is kind of written for a commercial business because it has treasury. But we have so many challenges here. The uh exhibit B is the the rewritten job description that I'm recommending for the assistant superintendent of business actually changing the title to business and taking off operations. As I said, that happened in your district. tell us what that situation was, Michelle, if you would. >> So, we um got a new superintendent and we were having, as many districts at that time,
063challenges with our financial position and operation takes. That's where you get the call because the bus is late or something happened on the bus and they escalate, you know, the parents the call and then you're as an assistant superintendent, you're taking the call and it just it started taking up a lot of time and then there were issues with building and then they're calling, you know, the principles were calling me. So a lot of my time was being directed to how to manage that area and really what we needed to focus my expertise was finance and we wanted along with my director to focus on our operations because we didn't want to lose any of that because if you're not paying attention to what's happening in the business office in your church then internal controls
064go by the wayside things there's more ripe for misappropriation. So, we just needed to to kind of move ops out of my wheelhouse and and it went over to HR for a while and I think it eventually ended up going to the superintendent. >> And truth be known, our business officials in Michigan aren't necessarily trained for operations. It's a whole different uh ball game. Uh I want them focused on finance so that you can be stable. You have two or three years of digging this out right now. That's going to be full-time setting up modern systems getting you on the right track. So, we're we're almost to the end. I'll take some some questions. Exhibit P is if you want to go forward with zerobased budgeting, there's service B. It's it's the letter of engagement.
065It's an addendum to the letter of engagement that was adopted to start this process. And that describes everything that we would do getting that zerobased budgeting going. And then a little further along is service C, the long range financial projection training. And that would take approval. It's dated today. It would have to be completed a week from today if you want to proceed because we need to know if you're going to wish to have those services. So with that, we did a lot of talking. I probably should have stopped and asked for some questions, but what can I help the board with on questions? >> Information. I'm glad you're giving us week to decide. Um, so if we do plan on moving forward, is there an estimated cost for the services to do the zerobased
066budgeting and to finish the process? >> I look back on a couple of the the clients. Um, this district may be totally different than those. It's an hourly rate. It's based on an hourly rate. So, the hourly rate is going to govern, but for zerobased budget, I think it would be 35,000. And for the long range financial projection, I think it'll be another 16,000, bringing it up to a total of 51,000 to get you through this tough time. And if you compare that to your total budget, your $61 million budget, that's onetenth of 1%. Not 1%, it's onetenth of 1%. So do you question is do you want to spend onetenth of 1% to fix this and have a long range projection that a year and a half from now you'll be happy with? Can
067you explain to me um how the process would work with working with the ISD? Would you prefer that the ISD come to you and work collaborately with you? And because my fear is there's going to be too many hands in the process. So how would that can you tell me how that might work with >> Well, we'll we'll certainly >> with the ISD. We'll we'll communicate with them but generally in the budget development in the training of zerobased budgeting the ISTD is not very much involved. It was involved somewhat in Bay City and we had some some meetings there because they were responsible for some of the funding but our firm would would take the leadership in organizing all of that communication. So there's there's not a lot with the ISTD. So, so but there
068I mean I guess you talked about mon modernizing the computer systems. So it's all departmentalized. Wouldn't the ISB be involved in that? >> Well, they would. Terry will help the business office and set that up. So I don't think it's it's going to be that ownorous. They >> So you'll be working parallel and not overlapping. >> The ISD would be working directly with the business office. So we would have a conversation with Terry Les and and Monica and say, "How can we get this going?" Maybe you've already had that conversation. You probably have. So she's probably way ahead of us. It's nothing to be nothing to worry about cuz it will just happen if you decide to go this route. >> My fear is that it's going to be said, "Well, the ISD said this,
069well Don will be said this, and the ISD said this. Well, Donby said this." That's kind of what I'm avoid I would like to try to avoid. So I'm trying to understand how you would be working. >> Well, I you know I I saw Terry Les's writing on the evaluation. It it was really good and it has a lot of what we we have in here. I had a conversation with her and it went really well. I have no concern over that not working. I would love for the board to give an opportunity since we didn't have a time ahead of time, which often happens with the superintendent to sit down to talk about some of the things that have already started or some of the things that maybe we didn't know about are already
070happening in approval processes to kind of clarify so that as I speak with Beth um that we can look at the whole picture of both pieces as you're talking about position bud or zerobased budgeting tier talked about going to position based then to zero we've seen a lot of so that we can have that conversation about pros and cons as we're doing this one. >> So, position budgeting, Terry said, don't do it now. It's it's too hard. Um, but in the process we have right now, we look at every single account in your budget and we determine how many employees are in there, FTEES. That's going to be right in the document. That helps our discussion. So we're we're really looking at position budgeting while we're going through the zerobased budgeting. We're looking at the
071numbers and the positions. So when we look at the salaries and benefits, that's how we control those salaries and benefits by the number of positions that are in each category. >> But again, it seems like you're working and Terry's Miss Les is working and it seems like they're overlapping. How are you going to bring those together if we decide to move forward with you? We just have a talk once once I hear the >> and I guess I just trying to understand how the relationship with the ISD the work you're completing and our business office is going to look like cuz what I don't want to do is overwhelm our business office with well Terry said to do this and Don said to do this I'm not sure where to go. I don't want to
072leave them at that place of unknown. >> Does that make sense? >> No. I I hear what you're saying. In in in most situations, the ISD has a relatively minor role. The main thing we need the ISD for is helping with getting this account structure up and running. Um once that's done, the ISD is pretty much pretty much done with the process. If you're good with now, that is if you're going to have us do the zero base, we will need to have cooperation and we will need to have through communication and listening and following. So that's all part of the original agreement that we have. We have to have all of that. So I'm I'm just saying that the the rule relatively minor after we get started. I think by Yeah, I was just
073going to say that um right now working on Terry and not having um John's report yet, Terry and I look at what was logical for us to start with and you know what pieces we would start working on. And so Terry is very flexible and I think would be more than willing to work um you know with Don or or work around that. And I think Terry is really critical in this process because she knows the system and she's working on the same system. So she will know how to implement some of these things. Um we're already working on cleaning up our account string coding so that um we can get reports ran or you know everybody can run their own reports. Um so we're we're working on some of the things already that that
074Don has recommended. So, I think it would really just be a matter of coordinating myself, Terry, and Don that, you know, what we need from Terry. She's not going to give us more than what we need cuz she's got other people's working. >> Yeah. She's she got a full-time job, not not this district. >> Yeah. But she's been really helpful and and just on our terms, so I think it would just be a conversation um with Terry and Don and myself. >> And don't forget Crystal is really got to be a critical piece of this. She's needs to be your right hand and she needs to be in all of our discussions. When we're at Lon's Cruz, the the business manager, was that her title? >> Director of business was right there with us on
075everything and she helped all of the details so you don't get overwhelmed with the numbers too much and we have to some somebody else do that and that would be Crystal in this district. >> Um, and on that note, I wanted to mention Crystal is not here tonight. Um she's has a final exam so she's kind of got the background at home but just make sure she gets a report. We wish you luck with your exam. >> Did that answer your question? >> Yes. >> Is that just interject just for a second? When I was the SIS manager, student information system manager, um we utilize open schools for the guidance and reporting and and they were always very helpful, very accommodating. Um, of course, they had the districts, but um they were there when we
076needed them to explain the system, how it worked. Then also I had a consultant that I was working with late at night and she would come up with some ideas and then I would go back to open schools. I mean the two of them you know we we all three of us work together to get the job done and that's the way open schools works. Um that they're there for us. They're there for Oakland schools is you know our Oakland schools in a sense and um you know they've always been very helpful. They have a great reputation in the state, one of the best in the state, and they have the best people there. So, I don't anticipate any >> issue with Oakland schools. I think they just want to help you solve it, but
077they don't want to run your district. >> No, they can't do it. They just can't. >> I guess and then I have one more question. When would you want to start process of the zerobased budgeting? Well, >> you said that you wanted to have it completed by I thought I read in here January 31st. >> Well, that's when the principles start. >> Okay. >> Oh, that no that's that's the U strategic plan. Strategic plan. >> The principles will start and that's in the in the small print. The uh financial strategic plan strategic financial plan. It goes through June. >> You're right. So it starts in October and goes through June. So we would have discussions >> at the mostly the business office level for some time. So when would you start the zerobased budgeting process
078and get >> Well, that's that's all part of it. The discussions with the business office and once we get our feet on the ground, we convene that financial team that we would well some people from this this room right here and we we would talk through how we're going to proceed with this. But the the initial discussions will start with Monica and Crystal and get an understanding. Uh we want to be their best friends. We want to take as much pressure off them as possible. One business official where we installed this said this was actually easier than other things because we provided all the forms. Michelle is going to be available to help with this process as well because she's done it recently in her capacity as director assistant superintendent in Lance Cruz. So I
079plan to have Michelle in a fair amount of the detail particularly when we get to the budget part and working with principles. I was going to ask for a role. So, how often would or shall be here? >> It depends. We'd have to schedule that. We don't have it scheduled. >> Um, on some of the basic planning, probably in there, but when when the principles are involved, probably almost every time the principles are involved. Madame President, if I could ask maybe putting on the agenda um for you to ask the superintendent to put on the agenda to uh change the title of our director of finance and then come up with some sort of plan of how the rest of the title um how we can fulfill that with an employee. So that's taken away
080cuz that to me it's going to have to happen. >> It's already been removed. It was removed from Jason in the final year. And if you look at the organizational chart, all of those positions already fall to me. Monica, as I shared with you, has no responsibility for that at this time. And then the hope would be if that's appropriate that we would slowly move that back on. But it currently she she doesn't have transportation business or any of that on her plate and has not since I've been back. I've handled it all. >> So yes. >> Yes. And you know what it was? I handled more than that when I first started, but we have Greg and we've been moving Greg along to handle some of those things that maybe Jason did before. So
081to give um him more leadership as well information to know >> when you get started on a bond issue campaign, it may be time where you have some other professional help, a different position that is facilities transportation related because in other districts this size that would often be the case. So the superintendent doesn't end up doing all of that. It's too much. >> And we do have a director of buildings and grounds. >> So that's where we're talking about building his capacity and things that maybe he weren't he wasn't that leadership. And we have a director of transportation which will be doing over. So giving them more growth and leadership too as well. >> Right. And their their job descriptions are important. You know what are what are their what are they supposed to be
082doing? What's what's the outcome? You mentioned that you work at an hourly rate. What is that hourly? >> 245. >> I'm sorry. >> 245. Thank you. >> That's in the original uh document, the engagement letter that you would have seen at some point earlier. >> And both is 245 an hour for either one. >> No, Michelle is 125. >> Thank you. She's included in the 55,000, right? Would you say 51 51 51? She will read. Anybody have anything else? I think it's a great report. I'm It's very detailed. It's nice. It gives good direction. >> So professional I think it's very very important. >> Thank you. >> I have a quick question. So these recommendations that's not for you to do. That's for us to do on our own. >> No, the recommendations are for
083the district. >> Correct. >> Yeah, that's for the district. the the the recommendations are the the main ones and then we have those that are to be implemented 6 months. Those are less timely >> and some of those you have we have in our plans and you talk about you just have to decide as a board if that's how you want to continue with AASA and those kind of things as well. That needs that bears a conversation which is why I asked to have a conversation Thank you for coming out. I saw a lot of work. >> Thank you. >> And I cannot resist out read this. >> And there's a lot of details. So, please take a look. >> Okay. Thank you. >> President put this on the agenda for next Monday to vote
084on. We plan on moving forward the agenda. Sure. Thank you. Thank you again. Nice meeting everybody. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next under on business is the district improvement plan. Yes. So uh for the district improvement plan and the strategic plan, we brought it to you uh last month and and asked, you know, we reviewed it and asked if you had some specific ideas. If you remember, our district improvement plan comes off of the strategic plan and the strategic plan um has the strategies. Your strategic plan goals are the area of finance, curriculum, instruction, community relations, and school climate and culture. that hasn't changed for quite a while. We hope to do that second semester. Uh but um our strategies are up and underneath that we are working to focus on moving forward and
085and so we wanted to see if there were any additional questions um from the board. This is all done collaboratively with the administrators um in the spring and they give input from their dis their um building leadership teams. Did that Mr. Mr. Sylvie just say that we should use a third party and we should be involved in the strategic plan. Is this the same strategic plan that he was talking about in >> Okay. So that we did do a strategic plan and we utilize Susan Klene and >> I can't remember her name but I'm seeing her. She's at Oakland schools now and they came or at Oakland University they came to us from Oakland schools and that that is exactly what it is. But what's up and underneath here is really not you approving the
086strategic plan the board already approved several years ago and many years we asked for the board to do it again and you didn't want to and we kept the same goals. So the goals are what's up here. That's the strategic plan. What we have up underneath that we bring to all of you are the strategies to implement those goals. If you remember, we talked about we would have done the strategic plan last year, second semester after we finished the portrait of the graduate. I think this board is going to have to decide, do you want to finish the portrait of a graduate work? And then from there, you bring in a third party or we could do it ourselves. Third party, it's always easier to be two miles away to be the expert, but you
087can bring AASA in. you can bring MASB to collaborate that around the portrait of a learner. So these are strategies that we've developed with the administrators. If you remember, you developed those, we developed the items up and underneath. Then the district improvement plan aligns with the strategic plan strategy. >> So this isn't a strategic plan. It's a strategy plan. >> This is a strategic plan that has been adopted. the strategies are how we go about it and we've brought it to you every year and then I used to give you quarterly updates but the board found that overwhelming if you remember correctly those of you who have been with us during this time we utilize we gave those we can go back and look at them we gave them quarterly on what we were doing
088on all of these items I would like to finish that portrait of a graduate though we already spent money on it >> me too >> and I would love to finish it was it was a lot of fun collaborating with everybody and I would love to see finished. >> We had a lot of community input and so um yes and and it has been on the agenda since last last fall to do a strategic plan and then it would lead into an evaluation of what you would like to see done with your buildings because we will have a drop in um mills again in a couple years. So all of that was the plan uh moving forward. So what I meant to say with you, I mentioned putting portrait of a learner under o September
089and you said you'd put on the calendar under October. It's not on the new calendar for tonight. You didn't add portrait of a learner. So it would go on the board calendar because that's not a yearly thing. But the date that we had picked I think that we I'm looking at you as Jamie. Yeah. we had we had looked at is October 9th given the fact that we'll be and I remember we talked briefly about looking at October 9th and sending a letter out and the strategic plan okay for a number of years when we did our board self- evvaluation Julie Cosminsky and Debbie Stair they were our facilitators and they said that we needed a new strategic plan >> and Penny that just did the training for your evaluation said We knew we need
090a new strategic plan. And now he said we need a new strategic plan >> and we agree >> and we have this this is not involving the community. This is not what a strategic plan that these people are talking about. When you have a strategic plan, you get buy in from people like when he explained about zerobased budgeting, people have input. They have a voice and they'll go out and sell it. They'll go out and sell it. Then you use their idea. >> President, we agree 100%. We've been saying we need a strategic plan. It would have been done last year at second semester. We can go back to the meetings. This is an update of the strategies that we're doing with the concern current goals that are in there. We have to have a
091place of working for this year of things that our administration are. But yes, we agree about a strategic plan after the portrait of a graduate student. >> I get it. We're just misunderstanding that there's two strategic plans and uh >> you'll >> that this is the this is I know this is old this is towards academics there's a lot of academics in the in the strategic so our hope would be there'll be a new one and this one will go away and you'll rebrand it and you'll do all those things once the the we redo it again second semester >> and the my kip also >> my kip is your district improvement plan that you see up there and that >> district improvement plan on my page. >> Yes. Okay. >> Yes. On page 15
092of his report, it's clearly states that new 3 to 5 year strategic plan with a completion date of January 31st. You're talking spring. This report is telling us the 31st of January. You couldn't get it done by the 31st of January given the fact that you need to do the portrait of a learner. Then you have to do an RFP. I think he talked about a financial report. I it is it would be impossible to get a whole group together and get that completed by January. You might get a start on it, but it took us 3 to 4 months last time to do a group. >> Yeah, I think we just need to talk about it. Um it's a lot of conversation more. I think we need both. We do need to do portrait
093of Lauren. We start paying for it, but Mr. So doesn't know our scheduling that that's on the table and so I think we just need to like reschedu some of it and have a goal that we're going to do it. >> Mhm. on on the documentation that we have it says draft revise strategic action plan and then within that document it says strategy one is that I mean >> that's what this the administration develops in collaboration with the ad council and they've done it with their teachers to go back up and underneath so if you look here in that the climate and cultures hazel park schools will provide a unified system of support that's what's up there. That's what you guys approved. We're bringing to you the strategies that we're working on during the school
094year. Okay. >> Then and it would have been in a if we had done a new strategic plan, this would what you would see for year 25 26 26 27 27 28. But since we haven't done new goals and don't have a strategic plan, we once again brought to you what we'd be working. So we had a focus. >> So you have >> Yes. Right. >> Okay. All right. Just making sure. I'll make sure I see them. What's the vision? I think we're talking around each other, but it really is the same thing. >> Yeah. Just a little bit on those. How the new business we have, uh, personnel bookkeeper. Yes. So, one of the goals um uh one of the pieces from Terry Le is that we can't have our business office focus on
095the big plan like he was saying when they're having to reconcile the books and they're having to um uh make adjustments that they need to focus on the big picture. And so, this was one of her recommendations and we're bringing it to you for your consideration. um she gave a job description and her original stuff to us that's up in your folders that I shared with you. Um and so we're recommending that we bring a bookkeeper into the fold um in order to allow them for more planning, especially if you're going to have them re continue to reclassify and then do zerobased at the same time. This will give them more time to be able to facilitate getting done what they need. >> This is her recommendation, correct? >> Yes, it is. >> Okay. because
096it says staffing and structure consider hiring an accounting secretary which we had already done at the our last meeting to support timely reconciliation financial reporting and budget monitoring um maintain and then I'm skipping one it says maintain current staff level levels at minimum can I um I need to recorrect that that we did not hire a secretary we actually removed the secretary and Ryan was doing some of those rec reconciliations for us and when we talked with Terry. She recommended the addition of bookkeeper and actually sent this to us. So if this is from Terry specifically okay then we hired a secretary accounts payable person. >> No miss coons I think that the person that you're referring to the secretary from last month was um the technology secretary was the approval secretary from last month
097>> and prior to that we >> I saw a job description for a secretary and accounts payable person. Am I we moved the accounts Since when our when our old accounts payable person decided to stay home with her family, uh that position opened and we had a person apply and we approved that a couple of months ago. But that is not um what this position is to reconcile. That's just using the old accounts payable and clarifying that she would do some secretarial work because u Monica no longer has a secretary. Greg does not either because that position supported Greg and Jamie has taken on all of the secretarial work from uh Ryan. It used to be Chris Love. So that position is the same. This is a bookkeeper to reconcil to do reconciliation of the
098books that um uh the accounts payable does not do that. Okay. Then I guess I need a new job description for everybody if I'm if you want because this is everything in here is just it's it's to me things that Crystal normally does. So what's Crystal going to be doing if these duties are taken away from her? >> So I guess well you know what I would recommend is that before the board does anything you take an opportunity to talk to Terry Les and hear from her because these were her recommendations as well. So you can hear both parties and how it intermingles very closely together with the whole conversation. And this was a recommendation. She spoke with Bev about it when Bev and Bev you met um about the need for this as well
099so that they have more time with the amount of grants. The other option is having a grant coordinator. Um we live on grants and so um Crystal does a lot of that grant coordination as well. Um, it is a lot of work for all of them and they're here way past the the normal 40 hours because of the amount of work that they have to do in the small district. >> I was going to suggest have Terry come here and give a report like he just did. Yes. >> So that's perfect. >> I think we need to hear her. I heard her. I think everybody should hear. >> I I think that will help hear the very much similarities and then that's why I said it would be helpful to talk as well with him
100so that we could talk about the pieces that we already have planned in this. And I'm not sure he ever we never had that conversation, his evaluation. We talked about culture and climate and um stressors and those kind of things. We didn't get a chance to ask questions and say, "Oh, no, no. Um I I do all of those things. She doesn't. Here's" and and bring that together. So, I do think that if he would extend his time a little bit and allow us to bring Terry in and then we have another conversation would be helpful or we could utilize a special board meeting for that. Okay. Anything else on bookkeeper? We'll move on to pair professional. Uh this position is uh new pair professional at United Elementary. Uh as the continued need for students
101coming in the district is being exhibited, uh we are just asking for this position to be added over at that school. I just want to add also I know that uh trustee Lefrobo asked about the numbers. We have been moving peer professionals this round as students are moving around and um one of the things that I said we would supply for the October time frame and I talked with President Hinton was an update about where that staffing is because we have certified staff that we didn't fill and we also have pure professionals that have been moved so that the board can have an accurate setting of where those staffing positions are. Is this a onetoone or will they work at large? >> Yes. Yes. And both. Um so this is actually an additional position. We've
102had some moveins um from outside of the district from different districts, but they are Hazel Park residents now. And they do have a one-on-one peer professional written into their IEP as a current need. So we have to fulfill our obligation as we accept their IEP. Okay. Anything else? Anybody? >> And if we don't, then we don't get our money, right? >> We don't get in violation of big trouble. >> Trouble. >> We get our money, but we probably would lose some money in the meantime financially. >> Yeah. >> When we get sued. >> All right. >> Which we're not going to. >> Yes. >> No. >> Policy Wellness Committee. I think that's Miss Kes. >> That is me. So, um I've given you guys a step-by-step timeline for the wellness committee um for the this
103year. It looks like this isn't >> it's just single page. It's two-sided single page. Um and I just wanted to provide you guys with an update of where we are. So, I have posted the call for volunteers. I had um 13 people from the um community volunteer and then several internal people volunteer as well. Um so that community that committee is being formed. Um I have a letter drafted to get out to these people to schedule our first meeting for next week. Um and then if you look at the September 2025, so next week we would do things um like reviewing our old wellness policy which was tied to Miola um assign roles for the participants and then draft our meeting calendar so that we can make sure that everybody is uh you know available
104for these meetings. Um, I've already identified where the MDE and USDA requirements are and we have a wellness policy assessment tool. Um, being that we're moving policies to Miller Johnson, I went ahead and pulled some current wellness policies from districts that are using them right now so that we could help, you know, potentially use them as a uh template since, you know, we're no longer with Niola. Uh, and that's kind of like our September plan. Um, and then as you look through, this is just took a monthly, it would be a monthly meeting with the committee members, and we've moved through with the deliverables being in June as the full wellness policy um, being completely updated. >> Questions? Anybody? >> It's a nice report. I >> I have a question. Is there um, I don't
105see anything about board members. as a board member. >> I think the letter went out to everybody. They went out a complete blast to the community and board members. I didn't have any board members answer on the form that they wanted to be part of it. So, >> it's not a requirement, but if someone would like to join, I'd be happy to have one of you. >> I didn't know the difference with the parent and the board. So, I was like, um, >> do you want us arena? >> Mr. Fox, if you'd like me to put you on the list, I'm happy to. Our first meeting will be meeting next Thursday from 4:00 to 5:00. It's 5:10 schedule right now. Okay. >> Yeah, >> we'll send you in. >> And it's going to be uh
106virtual, so it should be easy to participate in. Yeah. >> I'm sorry. I must have missed that one. >> Are all the meetings virtual? >> That's sort of the plan at this point. Um because of the community members and I just want to make sure that they're available. um once I you know see who participates and comes I'd like to try and schedule some of the meetings maybe a little earlier in the day maybe a little later in the evening in case people have fluctuating schedules so that anyone who wants to participate can can participate. I know it's really hard with with um community members making sure that the meeting time works for all of them. Um but there were some really great um people who applied, you know, a registered nurse, some coaches, uh
107parents, grandparents. So it was a nice uh collection of community members that that replied to this is I mean 13 is pretty I thought it was pretty nice people wanted to do this. >> You don't mind being on my 85 in TV, do you? Um, I you might mind me being on your screen, but if that's what you desire, I'll keep everybody on my 15in screen. >> That's a nice group. 13 people. That's awesome. >> You might want to have a 14, but >> now 14. >> Well, you have 14. That's right. Sorry. Good point. >> A better number. Thank you. Okay, >> Junior High roof repair buildings and grounds. So, um, as we've been talking, we've been having some struggle with our roof, um, one of our newest roofs at the junior high. And
108so, this is the highest amount of a proposal. Um, I asked Greg to get a couple more. One of the reasons why is because this company that we have here, uh, would not make it the same color as the roof is. And so, he has somebody else coming out that's able to make the color the same. So, um, this would be a not to exceed. Um I think the other individual is coming out this week. So that's why we are not to exceeding this and it'll have this is the lowest bid we have now and hopefully we'll have something lower. >> Can you say the amount? >> Uh 7,000 >> 875. >> Thank you. >> Yep. I really appreciate Greg has been fantastic about going out there and getting multiple bids and really balancing that
109work. >> That's such a high roof. It's like how can you see the difference? It's a different color. It has to be right in the right spot for >> I don't know. It would just I don't know. It seems like it needs to match. >> Oh, I agree. It's just kind of weird that it's so high. You can tell. Are we going to talk about these other things as resolution custodian and who keep going? >> Oh, yeah. We do have to talk about all of those. >> Yes. >> So, um we uh Mr. Zern was our asbestous uh person designate and you have to have the designated person. So, Greg, um, who else? Jamie. Um, >> uh, Ryan. Ryan. Thank you, Jamie. >> Uh, Ray. >> Yep. Cuz Jamie organized it. >> We have, >>
110I believe, right? >> Okay. So, we have several people that got the full training to identify asbestous. Greg will be our identified person. That means every 6 months he will go through and document the fact that he's looked at the areas that we have asbestous and make sure that it hasn't been disturbed. If it's been disturbed, then you call Nova out to look at it. And Nova comes every year out for a reinspection as well. So, we've signed the contract. I think it was $1,500 to have them to come out once a year. That's been taken care of. And we now everybody trained. So on Monday, I'll ask you to uh approve the resolution for um Greg to be in charge of the asbestous. >> Any questions? >> Will the other names be also on
111there? >> No, just you just have one person that's in charge of it all. >> We'll have to read the resolution. >> Yes, we'll have to read the resolution. You might want to practice. >> I'll practice or I'll just pass it to my friend. >> I got you. >> If it's okay, I'll keep going. Uh so um we have a request for an additional custodian at Longfellow. Um the person would not be full-time. So the purpose of this individual would be when there are things in the evening at Longfellow, they would be there. So for example, in November, so we would wait till we get to that point. Wrestling will start at Longfellow. And so that individual would be there, they'd be available, they'd be doing any cleaning that might have happened from during the
112day. um that it will be a full-time position from like 11 to 8. If there's nobody at Longfellow, then they will go out and help. There is not a day that goes by that we don't have several people out or somebody injured. And so we have cleaning and work that has to be done. This person can go and do extra things at the high school. They can do uh things here if they need to. Wherever um the open position is, you have two substitutes currently that we keep employed that try to fill those positions. We often have to send our maintenance people to go in because we have so many people out. So this would give them a little more flexibility as well and keep Longfellow covered in those evenings. >> We couldn't make one
113of those substitutes the custodian like offer it first or >> Well, they he certainly can. You'd be approving a position. We wouldn't want to get rid of our two substitutes because um we need those people. One kind of works in the morning and one works in the evening. So we might be able to put two during the day then when kids are present and and then this person is in the evening to support might what might not have been filled in the afternoon. >> Is there people currently in Longfellow building during the day? Not at this point in time. We have not finished Longfellow. There's some pieces that need to be done. Then we will do a tour for you guys and for the administration. Then we will make a determination about a a building
114opening maybe with the community and such so that they can come in and see the building as well. I'm um next Monday. Am I t I going with the Neighborville Park District or that Neighborville the Hazel Park Park District? I believe we are going >> I believe it is >> next Monday I'm touring um the Hazel Park Park District. A couple weeks ago I toured the Ferndale Park District. Um and then we will have Oakland County Health and other individuals starting to utilize the building as well. But we will have a plan to to you before that's finished before we do it. >> So when do you anticipate the the it being like a grand opening? Let's say. >> Oh, I am not sure yet, but the Vikings might be in it before the grand
115opening. Correct. I think January we would have a grand opening. So we other pieces were behind a few months planning. Um and so I would think January at the latest. But once we get some of this stuff done and um the audit done, then we will all sit down and look at um a proposed schedule to President Hinton to bring to the board. Now, since this custodian's part-time at Longfellow, would part of his salary fall under the community grant? >> No. This is not written into the community schools grant and it wouldn't necessarily be part-time at Lawnfellow. On the days that somebody's in there, let's say Monday through Thursday they have wrestling, somebody would be there. If they canceled, they would be off in another school helping to facilitate that. On Fridays, they would work
116in another school. when it opens to the public. >> Um, is that would that be mostly like would we have to have another custodian for the daytime there or most of the stuff would be >> even that um right now Jason knows in his job description if there's an emergency over there during the day. Greg said that he's informed her that he would go over. It's a little easier to leave here sometimes. He would go over and support that. um we would keep going and hopefully we'll find some additional grants to fund more things there and you know perhaps we can find a grant for the custodians but right now we don't have any. >> No, I'm just wondering because would most of the stuff that takes place there be in the evening and we
117wouldn't have to have someone there during the day. >> I think it would be yes there would it could happen in both spots but I think cleaning doesn't have to necessarily happen during the day. that can happen if the Vikings are there and then they're cleaning up the spots of the buildings and um we'll have to play it by air and see how often that's actually needed. >> Okay. Center. Um I sent you beautiful pictures today of Hoover. I apologize for that. We were trying to get them to you uh earlier. And in your packet is the proposal um for doing this. It is 13,569. Um, if you can see, this is something that we've been talking about for about 3 years. Um, and Debbiey's like, "Please take down." It is hanging. It is a
118mess. And it should have been done. It just never rose to the top before. And it is to the top of ours. And I believe when Wland comes, it might be important to have that looking nice and having that back up on the wall. So hopefully he might think about fixing it. or Darren had a great idea the other day that I haven't floated and that is take it all the way down and then mail it to him and see if he will finish it in Florida. So, um we're going to we're going to or in Hawaii. He's in Hawaii now, right? We're going to we're going to try some different ideas. I thought that was a great idea. Um and so maybe we won't attach that. We'll get that painted back there and have
119it at least tacked up for when he comes and see if we can't talk him into finishing it for us and then framing it up at Hoover. That's our plan. I hope he's not watching it. >> I know this code is just to remove the um wallpaper, but I did notice in the pictures that they have a sofa that's pretty beat up and torn up. >> I was kind of surprised to see that. >> Um is could we look at maybe getting a couple pieces of furniture for >> Oh, I think they would love for the board to approve a couple pieces of furniture. How about we next do a not to exceed and let's kind of look around and see what cost might be and give them the opportunity their building leadership team to
120pick it. >> Yeah, that looked really biohazardy. >> In regards to that seen some things. >> I was concerned by the fact that that you know all the community walks in there and if they see the like what we saw it's like whoa what is going on here? They're not taking care of the place. I mean that's the first thought which is totally false. you know, there might be some extra furniture in another building or whatever. No. >> Um, what I can say is that again, our allocations to to do buildings, right? We did the high school because we had a grant and we were able to access a grant. We don't have a a lot of extra dollars for doing that. We can set an allocation and say we're going to do this much.
121Um, and then we just have to focus on making sure that, you know, that might be our building of focus this year is that Hoover is we're going to spiff up their media center. But then that's part of the buildings and grounds three-year plan that's coming in November. Well, we're going to have to talk about how those plans are going to come in place now. Uh if Don Soie comes in here so that we can plan all of that out again and bring a recommendation of timelines to the board because we don't want to be overdoing. That's why again we'd like to have a conversation so I can understand the process and we can come back and talk about ours. Okay, moving on. Finance audit update. I think that's me. Um, the auditors were out
122uh over the last two weeks and um everything so far is going really well. Uh there's no they'll always have recommendations, but there's no findings or anything of concern uh to this point. Yeah, just do if I can do a cartwheel, I will. Yeah. >> Um, we were a little delayed in getting them some information and part of it was just trying to find both workp papers on Jason or or Matt's computers, but then we got to the point where we found reports and had no idea where to get them out of business plus. Um, we had several people at Oakland schools working through that to tell us which reports they were. Um so I made the request to open schools that when we download a report into Excel that it either put the report
123name is the tab name in Excel or that it inserts that in the report. Um so with some delays and um they were really understanding with that um they will be back out Monday and Tuesday of next week to finish their testing. >> Next week they're going to finish their testing. Yes. Okay. And it was just um most of the people are at a conference in Chicago this week and um they it was just a matter of their scheduling, but they should be able to finish that up in those two days. >> So, are we going to have the audit done beforehand then? October. >> It'll take a little time to go through their levels of review. Um but we would have some I would say solid preliminary numbers. to go on with that. Very
124good. Nice. Very good to hear that. Um, next is quarterly flow through me as well. Questions? Anybody? Go ahead, Monica. Uh, something uh is Crystal and I were looking at the reports and um I'm not sure if you saw the final for um 25 school year. So, if not, we'll make sure we >> It's in their pack. >> Oh, it is in there. Okay. Uh so something that initially when I looked at this I thought looked made it a little confusing because the revenues don't match the expenses and there's prior year revenue in there. So what we discussed today is that we're going to make a a program code that says prior year revenue and everything else will be the same in the coding. But that way when you look at the report you can
125see current year revenue against current year expenses and the prior year revenue will be detailed separately. Uh I I think that'll just make this a lot easier to look at because I can tell you that um on both the coalition and uh the DFC grant our revenue for 25 does equal the expenses but just hard to see that with the way the reports are are generated. So that's one of the things we'll be working on. Questions? This is what we're looking at, right? Yes. What it's at your table is is June 30th as opposed to the quarterly one. So at your table was what uh Trusty Lefrono requested today or last night. She requested June 30th and that's what's at your table. And what's in your packet is the first quarter reports as requested every
126quarter. >> Okay. Um, I guess under I don't know. I I don't I'm sure this is a computerenerated report, but like when it says budget, it's like budget as of when? Actuals as of when? I mean, I know it says as of June 30th up on top, but is that the budget as of June 30th or is that the original budget? I guess and I think Don Sylvie mentioned it that things aren't labeled and dated very effectively in his report. Is there a way to add more detail to the heading so we know kind of what we're looking at? >> Uh I'm not sure we can exactly with this cuz this is a system generated report. >> Okay. You can't like I know when I do reports sometimes I download them to Excel, I add
127stuff to them. >> We're attempting to try not to do that. I think what would be better is you requesting what you're looking for and us seeing if we can have Oakland schools generate a report uh for us so that we're not and that's one of the things Terry suggested. We need to learn how to work inside the system versus downloading uploading again. I used to download and upload all the time when I did it and that was one of her specifics. I don't do it. >> Yeah. Um Heidi, just for your information, um it says WB budget, which is the working budget. So that would always be the last approved budget. Um, not that that takes away the need for clarification on that, but um, >> yeah, but shouldn't we always the budget shouldn't
128the budget always be the original budget? It's the last one approved. So, it's the I know, but we should always be working with the original budget and we make amendments to the budget, but we should always kind of >> I think that's a conversation to to have. Maybe that's something that you can talk with Terry and Don about. You have your original. They're going to be way off. So, if we worked with this year's budget, you have your original and then we amend in October. That's your new budget. And then you want to amend again in January, that's your new budget because that original budget for us is going to be so far off. >> I understand amending it, but I mean there should be like our original budget, the amended budget, and then we
129have that print out for you monthly that we used to do. Um, so we could I I think I know what you're talking about. He has an example in in his book that I saw that is very much like what we used to give. It has your first budget, your amended budget, what have you, but chunked differently and maybe we can see if we can run that report for just these account items. I think that's what you're asking. >> I I looked through his report. It looks a lot like what you're talking about. I didn't I went through his report but very quickly. So >> I just uh this is what you requested. I hope that we can build upon the other things that you request. We do want to make it as easy as
130just writing a report for them uh because we don't want to give them more work as we're trying to clean up items. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Anybody else? >> No. All right. Finance plan. Okay. Um, I believe you have a packet. Sorry, it didn't uh upload very um but it will look something like this but without my scribbles. >> Yes. Well, it's on our >> Yes, it's on the table. We apologize for not getting that uploaded. I think it looks pretty good. >> Yeah, it is uploaded. It just looks weird. >> Upload looks weird. Oh, I changed the formatting for writing it. >> So, what I did with this, and this is not entirely complete, but I picked the pieces that Terry suggested we work on and get started on and give you a little
131bit of an update with that. And then in there, there were some um maybe notes on some extra or additional pieces that uh we had been working on as well. Um, I at the time didn't put everything in here from Terry's recommendation list because um, it was late at night and I we I knew we needed to get it uploaded, but also I didn't know if this would be the format that we would be using. So, um, I think the plan would be to the right of this to put to line up what Don's recommendations were and then, you know, we can kind of respond to both of them. And there's so many parallels that I think that would be helpful for that. So, um, right now we're just looking at Terry's recommendations and then
132what we have been working on related to those. >> I'm sorry. Um, Brad, we have a live mic somewhere. It might be in there. We hear noise. >> We hear scratching going on. >> Yeah, like we have a rat. >> Yes, that was what I was >> say. I'm just going to not hear the whole conversation. I think I have a right. I don't think that should be the case. So, I'm sorry. [Music] >> Um, in the the middle between Terry's recommendations and my response, there's a column and you'll see some purple X's. Those were the items that she and I discussed and said where we would be starting at. So, um there are some things in there that we haven't formally started, but perhaps, um Crystal and I have already been working on some
133things with that. Um I can prepare a more inclusive update for you for the board meeting next week if you'd like. So these are the quarterly reports and our hope had been then we would add a line item for Don soie and look at the intersections of what was in the same piece to talk about where we are. I I would hope that maybe we can wait maybe till next month before you try to do a report in the next 4 days given the audit. >> I wasn't going to add Dan in on that. I just was going to make it more complete than our a series. I agree. >> We can make >> that was nice though. We had this good. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> I I believe when we went back through
134our notes, those were the things that you were asking for quarterly updates on. If there was something else, if you would please let us know so that we can make sure for the next quarter, we have everything included in there. We went back to look through our notes to make sure we were hitting them. [Music] >> Okay, good. Um, winter sports. Yes. So, uh, we had some questions. I hope that you receive those answers. So, these are the requests that, uh, Mr. Clennis has, uh, gathered for the winter sports. Uh, it's important to do that now so that we can make sure that we have those items in time when those sports go. And then in January, we'll have things ready for you this spring sports. Obviously, we're hoping that we will have a three-year
135plan at some point this year on rotating those um what we're doing, where, when, and why. Um, but do know that a three-year plan is only as good as the wear on the uniforms that we perhaps might have to make some changes as we go through that due to falls being lost and um uniforms being lost or you know holes in them as well. >> I just had one question. Um I wholeheartedly believe that tumbling is needed, but did we get just one code or do we get multiple? Cuz $4,700 is a lot. >> Um I'm not sure what the tumbling is for that. I had asked Chuck and didn't get that answer back. So, let me get that for you before next week. I wasn't sure if that's tumbling lessons or if that's tumbling
136mats. So, um I think we just missed each other today. I have to tell you that I didn't have a second uh today. There was a lot going on. I thought it was a full moon and um but I did send it to and I didn't get an answer back, but I will get an answer and I will send it. >> I was thinking it was stunk doubles. Tumbling stunt doubles. >> I thought it was tumbling. >> I had it assumed it was for the competition portion of it. It's having someone come in and do >> That's what I thought. I just >> No, I've never had that on our bill. It's always happened. But I'm going to double check what it was. I had texted him and I just >> I guess this is
137just adding on to my question. >> When my daughter did cheer, we had to fund raise for Temple. >> Yes. >> So, how much is this? Are we requiring basketball cheerleading and then to do a fundraiser? They're not fundraising for these things. They're fundraising for other items that they want to add. So, if they want to add another jersey or if they want to add like a a a larger device like one year I think baseball did for a gun, that's what they're fundraising for. These are the basics that we feel that Chuck feels are is the district's responsibility for. >> But we made football fundrais for their your football uniforms. No, actually the approval that you did was that we would fund them and at that meeting and so they have not fundraised at
138all for those jerseys because we went back several times because there was some conversation with the head coach uh with me that it was recommended but I think your motion then is that you would purchase them, not that you would partially purchase. >> Can we get some um backgrounds on this when the last time we purchased uniforms were? >> Yes, we it is on we did it all for you questions um all that today. all the questions that were answered as a team together. >> Have a chance to >> I can't imagine why. >> Um, but we did we answered all those for you. And if those aren't good enough, so at the junior high, junior high basketball was eight years ago for girls. They've been sharing with the boys uniforms for basketball. Um, boys
139basketball has been eight years. High school varsity boys two years ago, varsity girls two years ago, but they are boys uniforms, so we're handing them down. high school cop chair. The warm-ups are staying. >> Can you repeat that? >> Yes. >> The we had boys uniforms and we >> the girls were wearing boys uniforms so they had to put shirts underneath them. >> They were really ill-fitting and uncomfortable for them >> because they weren't purchased as girls. They were purchased as boys. Um I wasn't here during that season. I just know that right before that we had them purchase shirts underneath to go underneath them because they had the long um underarm. >> So they're going down to what length of fresh? >> So they're moving down. Yes. And then high school cop chair, the
140warm-ups are stained up and they do not have enough that were purchased 3 years ago. Where's the uniform cycle? We pass old uniforms down to the sub varsity teams if they are in good condition to do so. We also will work to show a three-year plans from athletics. And then what is the budget for the season and the year for the athletic department? 3,000 budget for 2025 junior high volleyball. Um junior high girls and boys basketball budget for 2025 is 7,000. budget for compar 2025. We did not have a plan for that. High school basketball after giving their uniforms down to JV is 4,000 for the budget and you have this sent to you in your email so you can click on any attachments that you need. >> Can we see what we did historically
141for tumbling? Cuz faith was in tumbling, correct? >> And we paid for it. Maybe we had to fund raise. >> We have not paid for years for that. Uh, starting back with Stacy, I think, but we will go double check and confirm that they they've had a person come in because I was shocked to see >> $10 a week or they had to fund raise. >> Yeah. >> And they and we had to drive them someplace. They didn't come here. >> They've been coming here quite some time. >> No, when we when Faith first was in it, we had to we went someplace else. >> Yes, we did. And then >> they came here too. >> And then they came here. Yeah. After the >> We probably have some good individuals to talk to about
142what they recollect for that time period. they might not want to remember, but we can then talk about uh with the current SH coaches what happened last year and then what happened uh we can ask reach out to Stacy what happened to them. >> The other three sports haven't replied or they don't need >> this is all he said he needs for winter. >> Okay. >> All right. How will we know? Uh yes, we have the huddle that we purchased last year and the conversation for huddle was um let me get to the right page. Sorry. Um you're on my to get to the right spot. Thank you. Um maybe I'm going to get to maybe I might need yours to get to the right spot. It's a I asked how many times was this
143utilized by our teams for review for improvement of the team and the response was after every every home game coaches will break down film and then have sessions with their respective teams to go over it. It was one of the most more valuable tools created to help coaches and student athletes. And then I asked is there any other reason the team would need this? and then and the responses coaches can easily share video notes and comments with their team which helps bridge communication gaps. The platform also acts as a centralized easily accessible repository for all team videos which eliminate the need to manage files individually. It also helps our student athletes in recruiting and allowing them to create highlight reels for college coaches providing them with a direct way to showcase their skills and accomplishments.
144Finally, parents can stay connected by accessing game videos to share. >> Can I tell you that um last year uh in the first part of the year, I would take a picture of the huddle and send it to Jimmy just to continue to to ramp on him a little bit. Like, look at all the school districts that have huddle. Look at all the school districts that have huddle. You remember I would send you text messages of the huddle cameras last year? I got the >> It sounds like you >> got the screen. >> I think they use them for for also recruiting if they like recruiters are there and they want some some feeds and stuff. >> I know that the kids can make like their own like >> highlight reels. >> Yes. Yes. And
145it also does the um >> it charts for the coaches the plays as well. Now we did get feedback this weekend when I was at the uh painting of the parking spots that the last huddle from the last game was very fuzzy and so I do think that we need to get out there ahead of the games and make sure that it is you know cleaned and uh you know there's not something on it. So, I did speak with um Chuck and Chris about making sure that we are really looking at that football field, but we also have them in the large gym and small gym as well. Okay, next is monthly financial report. Any questions? I have a lot. You got them all answered. See, I don't want to reanswer. Ask If if you
146do, we'll say answered in the paper. >> Yeah, if you want to ask yours. >> Debbie knows what she asked. She I hear too. They printed out. Um I if I have questions, I'll just come back. I'll go over Debbiey's. I don't want to waste time here. >> There was nothing major. Moving on to other grants. >> Okay, super excited. Um, you know, there was questions about the 22i. This is uh school transportation funding and there was an amendment for I think like $94 that we got extra than the year before. This comes in state aid. I think they look at what's left over and make adjustments, but we've been trying to give you every single thing as requested that we're getting funding for. So, that's that just offsets transportation cost for general ed. I
147was also asked, do we have a cost um for um transporting um web? And I feel like we did that somewhere in the last several months and it my head hurts trying to think about it, but I will be stepping back and having that conversation with Gina and we'll get it to you shortly. >> I can go back and look, too. I don't I don't remember, but maybe it was there because we did a lot of information. >> Yes. So, I think it might but I will go back and relook at that and get that to you. So that's a followup I have and it's actually in my weekly notes to follow up >> the career readiness budget plan. Um you know uh Dr. Ditch has taken over career readiness. I don't know if you
148want to speak to that. Thank you. So career readiness is an allocation that we receive from the ISD every year. It is not something that we fund. It's funded by grants um through the ISD. And essentially the career readiness is um meeting the requirements that we have opportunities for students to think about be exposed and experience different career pathways. And the budget is basically set as you see on the back of that memo that we have career readiness leads at elementary, junior high, and high school. And those career readiness leads are essentially uh tasked with making sure that all the things that we say we're going to implement in our budget are implemented. We also support our junior high and high school counselors that support Zello. Zello is a platform that allows students to perform
149and explore different career pathways. In addition to that, we have some dollars allocated for purchase services with oversight and that would be allocation of dollars toward my salary andor Sam Galp House who is working and supporting that piece. And then the last piece is supplies and materials. We have an allocation for supplies and materials and again various STEMbased tools that we might want to put in uh media centers. We can look into additional tools you might want to put in our CTE courses. We can also look at uh expanding out some of the books and resources students would utilize. This is a preliminary budget. The allocation is allocation $41,660. For the most part, those things are pretty standard in terms of what we're going to be doing. The only things that we might change a
150little bit would be the resources and materials. We may transition some of that to some field trips and some other funding pieces, but essentially this is our allocation. We're bringing this forward just so you are aware of this and we're certainly happy to uh bring any information back at a later time to talk about what we do in the district to support career readiness. >> I have question. Can you explain to me what career readiness allocation is? >> So essentially it is we are required by the state to provide career readiness activities and as many things that we do in the state there's dollars that go to the ISD and then ISD is responsible for giving those dollars to districts and that allocation of that budget amount every year. I think that was the amount
151that we got in 25 2425. It'll be the amount that we get this year and it will also be the amount that we get in 2627. >> So this is isn't coming out of our funding. It's coming out of the ISD funding. That's why just cuz it's not a grant. So >> it is I I want to clarify when you say that the is the state gets funding then they allocate it to the ISD. The ISD takes a portion off for their administrative oversight and then they keep some of it for their funding and then they flow them to the districts with allocation. So it is absolutely a grant from the state but it doesn't flow through. >> Well the word grant is not there. So I was just trying to see where the >>
152So does each district get the same set amount? >> No they do not get the same set amount. >> Okay. >> What is the amount so the public can hear? $41,660. >> Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Anyone? No. Right. The next grant 54D. >> Dr. Papazi, would you like to explain 54D? Would you like me to? >> I would like you to. >> 54D is a birth to three uh grant that we've received for a very long period of time. Uh we uh do a total salary sitting in there. This year it's Julian Clark that's there. It's a total benefit. of 100 254. This as well flows from the state down to the ISD through into Hazel Park >> and it's how much? >> 1,000 100,254. >> It is salary and benefit of a staff
153member. >> Is this early on? >> This is early on. Yes. I'm sorry I said birth to three early on. Yes. >> All right. uh 2026 fresh fruit and vegetable program. >> So uh we were awarded with the fresh fruit and vegetable program. We've been lucky to get this for several years. Our expected uh award is $49,000 and this helps us to just continue to serve those fresh fruits and vegetables in the buildings. >> Does this go to the um food and service? Does this go to them to >> It goes to us. It doesn't go to them, but then they expend it and utilize it. So, yes. So, it it'll be in the food service budget, but they don't get allocations of it. It they spend it. They spend the grant. >> Isn't this
154one of the grants they they're looking at to get rid of? >> No, this one is not. >> This one was This was just allocated to us. Maybe in the future, but not right now. I'd like to put another item on if we can that we'll ask to approve at the next uh board meeting and that is the 39 school districts were awarded the read fund for innovative literacy programs and Hazel Park was one of those 39 fund >> what was that >> what fund >> uh it is the innovative literacy programs and we will receive uh we just found out today well actually we found out over the weekend but we were waiting we will receive um1 $187,500 which will support literacy services at the junior high and add another MTSS teacher to support.
155And so we will be bringing the request to hire an MTSS teacher um from this grant. It's um we're super excited. We should be very honored at our teaching and learning department to get this grant. Um what will happen is then we will compete for next year to get over $350,000 from the grant for the next school year. And if we are the top three performers, we can access up to a half a million dollars next summer. So I think Julie had been asking for another MTSS person. We're like, we can't. We knew we had written for this. And so when I talked to her this afternoon after a very long day, she was so excited and she said, we will win that half a million dollars next summer. So >> I believe her too.
156>> Yes. look for some uh good improvement to continue with that uh um the middle school model that we are working on and really digging in uh with our students and kudos to Dr. Domic who did some pretty long writing of this um to get this in in a short period of time. We turned it around very fast. So kudos Dr. Ditch again. >> This is two months in a row that we've got really substantial literacy grants then, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. 35 and 35. Okay. >> And I again um I know that people sometimes look at the scores and say that is not what we're seeing, but you need to remember that we have many school districts in those or many uh programs in our scores, but we are continually showing growth um
157where um that's a struggle all across the state. And so um we have been doing the science of breeding and so we are being mentioned and notorized for that work that we're doing. And kudos to Dr. Pazian and um Dr. Dage as well. So >> just just for clarification for me now we receive the grants then we draw down the money from the grants and some some probably just give us the money some don't. >> But this is through the state. So this will be a draw down. >> Okay. So, we will hire the position and then um once we get it all the items in there, which we already have it in there, then then Crystal will do the drawing. That's that conversation. Yeah, >> we now do monthly draw downs as opposed to
158that wasn't being done before, which was probably part of the issue, but that takes a lot of time every month to run it and to >> up. That was going to be my question. Crystal is doing those and that's why a bookkeeper could be helpful because she's busy doing and working the grants. And I remember um oh who worked with Dan? Um Josie Josie took over a lot of the grants back then, >> right? And so we write which is not often happens often that especially with the amount of grants. You have a grant writer, but we split that grant routing up um into all of us. Now doc um Mrs. Gresley has been able to write some grants. Uh Dr. Pazian has been writing some grants. Dr. Dumage and I still write grants. And
159so we split all those up and then Crystal happens to meet with all of us over all these grants to make sure that the finance are aligned. And then Monica's been working to make sure that we have line item budgets for each of those grant differently than have been in the past. >> And and aligned you mean um drawing down the money, making sure that she's she's like running the show with the grants after we >> award. She's running the finances, we're running the show. So for example, there will be a line item specifically for the MTSS teacher and an accounting code that'll go specifically for that. So then she can run a report and then put it in monthly so that we get those dollars back >> and that so if we get audited
160then the auditors will see that this money yes it did go to this line item to the right. >> Yes. And that is position budgeting. >> All right. Thank you. >> That is not aligned in our books right now. It's going to take some time. >> Right. Yeah. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify. >> Thanks for that. All right, next is Playlapse. >> Speaking of running the show, should I speak? >> Absolutely. Um, so as part of the community schools, um, and as part of my position, I look for lowcost or sometimes no cost, um, afternoon and enrichment activities to give a hook to kids that, um, uh, might not come to school except for they want to do drama. Well, Playlets is one of those things. Michigan Stage has been um a partner
161to us um several times over the summer and um what we are asking for is it'll be in um the three elementaryaries and the junior high uh 12week program one day a week in each um it is three teaching artists and at the end on December 8th and December 9th there will be um a show a program for people to I know one is on a board meeting night, but it's 3:30 to 5:00. I was going to change that and I thought, okay, it's not during the board meeting. So, December 8th is the junior high performance and December 9th is the elementary performance. >> I just got a question. Sure. Um >> I see that there's one community rep on on as the program partners. Why isn't the elementary ones involved in it? All of
162them are. >> Oh, they're just not listed as they're not listed. >> They're listed on this that was with the packet. >> It's got all the different >> No. Is she saying that one promise navigators on here, but not the other two? >> Yeah. For the elementary schools, there's >> there's they're they're all they I that was probably my phoba. Um all three elementaryaries and the junior high. So, >> they're all involved in it. >> Yes. >> Okay. I just wanted to make sure cuz they >> each of them are are overseeing it at their buildings. >> How many days a week did you say? >> It's one day a week uh for an hour and a half. So it starts in the elementary 3:30 to 5 and at the junior high it's 3:15 or
1633:10 to 5. Um, so we get they they go down to the cafeteria, they get a snack and that's where the promise navigators come in, they get take and then we have to take attendance um uh so I can see who's coming and then we're you know it's data >> and then they go off. Is it limited to the number of students that can participate? Um they are upwards of well 15 as many as 20 if we want to push it but honestly we're having you know we put the word out and they haven't United Oaks is full web is full. The other two schools not so much yet but we are recruiting. >> Okay. Um, I it's funny that you this to us because over this weekend I was at a football game and
164I was talking to somebody there and she runs a not I don't think it's Michigan stage play labs but it's a different one >> and we were talking about it and she was saying that kids have such a hard time making eye to eye contact and public speaking because of co and they were so isolated that they have a hard time communicating. So I think this is a really good thing. I appreciate it. >> Good work. >> I think this would be fun. >> Oh yeah, they love it. >> They love it. All these after school programming, we don't have the money we did before, but we do still have they have loved it from that to the radio to I mean all of that has been really great for our kids. >> We also
165have secured a partnership with Detroit Zoo. It's a no cost to us and they they will come in. I do have a staff member that needs to come with them, but so that's another afterchool activity. I know teachers have stepped up and are interested in doing some afterchool enrichment activities. So stuff that our kids might not have the opportunity to do except for this grant and these opportunities. It's pretty wonderful. >> Yeah. >> If the zoo happens to bring in snakes, Mrs. Hinton loves snakes. >> Oh yeah, >> I'm out. >> It's a I'm not visiting. >> This this time it's birds. >> Okay, >> that's even worse. I would prefer snakes over birds. Thank you. >> All right. Good. That's that's great. Um Cespian High School uh festival trip. >> Thank you. I apologize
166that in your packet you did not receive this. Um it was the second page of the memo that was given to us. Um this is another uh great thing. Our drama program has just uh grown right by leaps and bounds and every year it's better. I think I shared with President Hitten that um I was there last week and um I walked around the corner and I thought, "Who is here?" And here are all of our dramas in little tables and they are being self-directed by an individual directing the rest of them. And I stopped over like, "Hey, what are you doing? We're talking about hair and makeup." And then she looks at me and says, "Move on." You know, and I was like, "They are just" and I heard him say, I'm like, "All
167right, we have to be prepared when we go in to talk." One of the things that we do for band is we don't ever bring to you every year the band uh events that they're going to. My hope would be is that you would approve this as an annual event that our kids attend on a yearly basis. Um it's the same thing as going to a yearly band pieces. This is their big event where they get to go and they get to show off and receive awards and go together. And I know that we've had several kids get scholarships. And so while we can bring it on a yearly basis, I'm just asking that we just assume that this is part while we have a drama club, this is part of what drama does. So
168that that's my suggestion to you. It is a cost of about $5,925. There's 12 to 15 students, two to three chaperones with them because they're running around. Uh they do stay uh the night um Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night because it is a long event. And so it also includes uh food provided them um as well. The registration is about 2250 and it's about 25 $2,600 for their overnights and their food. >> Where's it at? >> Lancing. >> Nice. >> So, I had the same question last year. My my problem is is we don't know where we stand right now. I'm not opposed to them going, but we don't pay for dance to go. And this is a club, too. We don't pay for dance to go to their nationals. We don't pay
169for band to go overnight. I don't I don't ever recall seeing something like that. >> Not now. They used to, but not now. Yes. >> Bands used to fund raise and fundraises and they have a booster club and they use their booster club for most of their items. I would like to see the them at least contribute a portion of this if each student could raise a hundred bucks or something to go towards this. That's how I'm I and I'm not opposed to them going they can go but for sure but I don't know necessarily if the district should cover this entire cost. >> So this is taking place I see the date >> December And so, um, that would leave them October, November to fund raise each individually for that. Um, I mean, so
170it's the will of the board. I just >> fundraising is challenging, isn't it? I mean, tell me >> because you can't sell candy in the school. >> No, you cannot. >> You can't sell the cozy nuts. >> They they You can sell stuff. It's not that challenging. >> They could do a bottle drive. if they could do something. I just want I would like to see something. >> So, they can sell candy in the school? >> No, they cannot sell candy outside of the school. >> They can sell it outside of the school. >> Oh, okay. >> They could come up with a fundraiser. We certainly can speak with them about that. Um I just worry that that maybe we should consider that they can sell pumpkins. They can I mean there's all different kinds
171of fundraisers out there. >> We don't want to take moms from Jardon. >> Well, well, Jardon doesn't have moms this year. That's another story. So, >> we had this discussion last year. recall this discussion that other groups raise some of the money and they could sell flowers or carnations the night of the play for a dollar. We used to sell them for a dollar, but they wouldn't raise tons of money. Maybe they do sell flowers at the play. >> Hopefully they they sell $100 worth. >> I don't know. We could look to see what's already what is in their activity fund. I don't I was very very >> That's a great saying that. I'm sure he could come up with something to offset some of this cost. >> Sounds like they need a booster. >>
172Doesn't hurt to ask. >> We had um >> I don't think they're going to get a booster club. I think it makes sense to have somebody. We just have one great big booster club for the high school. >> We had a mom. We had a garden club and they took care of the courtyard roses and the flowers out in front and that mom would come after school and sell cupcakes with a couple kids. So that I'm not talking hundreds of dollars, but it's an effort towards the can drive. Oh my gosh, the money they make on one day collection of cans is amazing. Absolutely amazing. But anyway, um so could you give me um as the board have a agreement with what I need to go back and try to talk with them about before
173we get this in packet on Thursday? I would like to see at least a minimum of $100 per ch per student attending. >> So, you would like them to offset $1,500 of this? >> Yeah. I mean, I just want to see them. >> I've got to go out to cans if they need them. >> I do too. >> 10 cents at a time. We'll we will um have a conversation with them and get back with you next week as we're doing a snowball. >> Thank you. Uh would we then approve that if a yearly they do a 100 that we go ahead and approve this for a yearly basis so they can plan on this and plan on fundraising on a yearly basis? >> Yeah. I mean I think they should fund raise and then
174we would as much as they possibly can and we would subsidize the rest if needed. I mean we don't pay we don't pay for the um Washington trip for the eighth graders, do we? We approve them to go, but we don't pay for the trip. No, and that's a huge benefit for them, too. The the board can certainly make the decision how they'd like to do this. This is just our drama club and the one activity that they go to, and they may be able to give $100 each out of their funds from selling tickets. I I again, I don't have the activity account balances here, but we can take a look at that as well. >> Then they can have plans in the future about what the expectations are. Okay. Power school agreement with
175Oakland schools. >> So we're 18 of the 28 school districts are on power school at Oakland schools. And so they have agreed to uh hire one person to help facilitate the 18 school districts on the connection for power school. And so this is um under I think under $5,000. I'm just bringing this to you so that you can um take a look at it and be aware of it as we sign this agreement. It is much like we have for um you know B+ and our B+ system uh uh trustee LeBron boys that these are the things that Oakland schools does right like they hold the piece for this. They're be they're going to be beginning to develop a power school consortium because we have more people on P school than we do on AR.
176It's about time. >> I I said where I didn't print that, but now I know why because it was 100 page. It wasn't 100 pages, but it was really long. So, I didn't print it. >> I did read through it. I just didn't print it. >> Is there a hope that this will come with a cost savings if it sort of purchased it? >> Yeah. 17 >> mass. >> Um I would hope that what we will see is a lot of the work that Josh who is very talented and Brad who has supported him have put into it that the collaboration will grow. Right now there's a a group of a PUG group that you see people you see our people go to to look at that. This will finally have the ISD grab it
177like they do my star. So it'll make it better for state reporting. It'll make it better for other items that uh then you have a a systemic way about doing things versus 18 school districts kind of doing it themselves. >> So answer to your question is yes. It will be cheaper as more districts climb on board cuz that's the way it happened with the the um the other stuff. >> There's power in bulk pricing. >> I didn't mean that. >> I'm just trying to help. >> Good time to discuss >> language line. >> Yes, I'm coming back to the board to discuss language line. As uh you may recall back in February, we looked at this and talked about the importance of having this opportunity to uh satisfy some requirements for title 3 and those
178requirements really specifically state or lay out that we are required in any important communication to provide that communication and language that's accessible or comfortable for our parents. So that is outlined in title 3 and the district does receive title 3 funds. In addition to that, when the state came in last September to do an on-site review, it was not an audit, but an on-site review, which they did in every district in Oakland County, one of the things that they cited was while we had a language access plan in place, it was not strong enough. So, one of the things that we talked about was bringing this forward so we can ensure that whether it's a teacher doing conferences or we need to call home because the student is sick and it's hard to communicate with
179the parent that we have instant access. Because of some of the complexities last spring, we really did not use it at all. I mean, literally zero. So, what we're really hoping is that we can look back into that pilot this for the next 8 or 9 months. uh this is when there would be more use to it because we do have teachers that need to use it but principles that need to use it while frequently um if we have a student that has an IEP and they need a an interpreter Dr. housing goes through a service that has trained interpreters that really understand how to navigate an IEP. That's a different piece. But we also sometimes have situations where we may have a student who is engaging in some sort of behavior where we have
180a disciplined conversation, something that doesn't need a trained person. This service allows instant ondemand service. So, you know, that situation happens, we can call in the service. We can communicate in a language that's comfortable for that parent and move that forward. We do believe that this is really important to again satisfying some of those title three requirements, not maybe, but must because we we are obligated if we have those funds to satisfy those. So, what we're hoping to do is expand it. Back in February, it was agreed to do approximately $1,000 per month and it was approved for $6,000. Because we're asking to do the full year or through June, we're asking to expand that top number to 9,000 with um clear monitoring as we discussed before with the pilot. So, we're just coming back
181and hoping that we can move this forward. It is critical to supporting your families and we think it's very important for our staff members who I will be honest with you sometimes feel at a loss because they're trying the best that they can to communicate. But if you have a parent that really has limited English, we need to give them this opportunity to live into our obligations to support our families. >> Okay. So since we didn't use it starting in February, we didn't spend the $6,000. So So it's an additional 3,000 but for a longer period of time. Correct. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? >> No. Just a request to see if we can take a fivem minute break. >> Done. >> I make a motion. I make a motion to take a fiveminut
182break. I say second. >> You're welcome to use my bathroom. >> All in favor? >> I got one down the hall and there's snacks there, too. Do >> you have another butter? I do. No, I'm good. I got >> told me three times it was time to stand up. My mic's on. >> I would like to make a motion that we get back to order. >> Second. Back to order. >> Favor. >> Okay. Quaver music renewal. So, this is uh really part of the yearly curriculums. As you may recall, I tried to do my best to aggregate everything back in June. We knew there would be a few outstanding items that we need to bring forward. And since this one is over the 5,000 mark, I'm just bringing this forward. This tool is utilized by
183our uh music teachers K8 and it really supplements the curricular resources that they have. And there also is a studentf facing component to this as well. Last year was the year one implementation and I received a lot of positive feedback from our music teachers and you know often with our electives you know we we spend lots of dollars on books for ELA math materials and a lot of times things like that and so sometimes we don't put quite as much into electives and I think this is really important to continue to support those electives. Plus like I said we have a lot of positive feedback. So, this is really just a yearly renewal to support K5 as well as the junior high. >> Anybody have any questions for Dr. Donald? >> Thank you. >> Hi.
184Sorry. Sorry. Really quickly, the renewal fees would be paid in December. Is that when we got it last year? >> Yes, it was actually they're actually due in January, but we wanted to make sure we brought things these things forward to keep everything organized and consolidated. So, we won't pay until December. I just couldn't remember when we I remember voting for it. I just couldn't remember when. >> Yes, the renewal is actually January. >> Okay. >> Or it's it expires in January. >> Uh summer school in incentive OSBOT. >> So our elementary students, 105 elementary students earned the right or earned the incentive of an OSBOT. Um that meant that they were in school at least 75% of the time over the summer. Um and um I'm I know they're probably eager to get them.
185>> That's fantastic. >> Yeah, it's it was both 75% >> junior high and the elementary did a a really good job. I just want to Can you just confirm that I just want to confirm to the public that this is all grant fund dollars that are from Bulmer in the summer discovery. So um these next two items are at no cost. They are part of the incentives of of us being partners in the summer discovery which is pretty exciting. Which is the next thing that comes up if I may talk. Um, additionally, I for anyone that attended summer school, anyone, um, we were able to secure Scholastic books and of course they're at, um, levels from elementary to 8th grade and above cuz some some kids read read above that. So, we were able to
186order um a lot of books that I'm eager to give out um not only to the kids that had 75% but anyone that um went to summer school. We are going to offer some books too. >> Very nice. >> Again, funded >> and this is for them to take home. The books are theirs. >> Yeah. Awesome. Very nice. So, one of the the goals is to build a home library. There's so much research out there about making sure that kids have their own home library. So, I know since community schools came into my life, that's one of the things we give away books every chance we get. >> Okay. 99 grant-f funded social studies material resources. So, this grant actually was secured last year and we brought it to the board. I don't expect uh
187the board to recall that, but that was another competitive grant the district um wrote for and was received. It was really on expanding and enriching our social studies programming to support uh students learning about a lot of diverse uh cultures and having those different experiences and really living into and expanding our socialist curriculum. So this budget, the total budget for this grant is 81,000. That budget was already brought to the board, but these particular items are over that 5,000 mark. So we're bringing it back for that final approval um to move forward and expend out the grant by the end of this month. So the first one is um uh not to exceed amount for 20,000 for resources and materials. And the wonderful thing about this is this really impacts kindergarten all the way up
188through our secondary. So this grant really allowed us to take our current curricular units which were re reritten last year, expand those curricular units um with a lot of support, some from our teachers as well as some from some of the team at Oakland University and deepen the experiences and opportunities and materials kids have access to. So this is again a not to exceed amount for various textbooks and books to support our curricular areas in social studies. And Dr. Dodge, this needs to be expended by the end of the month. Yes. September 30th. Yep. >> Very nice. Thank you. very much too. >> Okay. >> So, in addition to those dollars for materials and resources, it is also important that we build the capacity of our educators and we have the opportunity for up to
189five staff members to travel to Washington to go to the national social studies conference. uh Miss Gell has been to this conference in the past and feels that it's very beneficial and again will help our educators expand their capacity and really live into and really understand how to effectively teach the curriculum that's been there. >> So are these teachers that go to the conferences? Are they administrators teachers? >> Yes, it's teachers. Thank you for asking. >> Is it junior high, high school? Is it all grade levels or so? Our goal is to spread it out. We definitely feel that this is better centered around secondary, but we want to give at least one elementary person that opportunity as well. and with Sam's work um sidebyside work with the social district who feel it's important that
190she travel with them because she's really helping to guide and deepen the work around social studies and and we are very excited and will be very excited to come in uh November and talk about the growth that we saw in social studies this year which you we haven't seen before and it was directly due to the rewritten curriculum and the deepening of those experiences that we're giving to students So it'll be five in total. Uh Sam Galhoff as the curriculum coordinator to guide that thinking is at the conference and then as I said at least one elementary and then we'll talk through the balance between the other three across secondary. Uh if if I may add uh there was one additional board memo that didn't get in here and it is for the teaching diverse
191histories grant. So again, it's grant funded, but we had um some partnership with open Oakland University and they helped us write the curricular units. It was a powerful experience because we had K12 educators and higher education coming together to write curriculum. >> Awesome. >> So in total, the amount that we're paying them, and again, this is totally grant funded. It all comes out of the 99 grant and so there is no impact to the district's general fund. It would be in total for $8,100. That memo will come forth next Monday, but it's part of that same grant. So my apologies that I didn't get that book. >> I'm sorry. How much was the the um the conference? >> The conference is 10,75 as an estimate. Dr. Donald, when that came to Oakland University, the last
192one? Yes. Okay. >> And what was the total amount of the grant? I I know you said I just >> uh 81,000 >> uh and we we expended some of it last year, too. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, the total was in the grant was >> I just need an estimate. That's fine. >> It's uh that's fabulous. >> $81,111. >> Okay. Thank you. That's That's fabulous. Lots of good news here tonight. Is it elevation? The elevation. >> Yes. Dr. Dage again. >> Is is it is I was writing a lot of word problems. So, uh, Elevation is essentially a piece of software. It's a dashboard, a tool that really supports the work that our English language learner teachers, our ELEL staff use to support the implementation of the program. It helps us monitor and track.
193It helps us keep records that are uh pretty detailed. In title three, there are a number of different things that we need to track and ensure that we have in place for the title three grant as well as for any of the state requirements around our second language learners. In addition to that, it also supports professional learning opportunities for our teachers. One of the reasons why we looked to elevation was because it is very specifically designed to support EEL teachers in effectively implementing and progress monitoring our students. This was actually recommended and not not because they were um getting a benefit from it, but when the state came in and they pointed out some things that we could streamline or do a little better on, they mentioned that several districts use this to help support
194recordkeeping strong data analysis and training. And I know that was that was one of the questions um trusted boys had. I'm sorry, not trustee. My apologies. >> You can say trustee. No, that's okay. I'm sorry, Mr. President. So, essentially, um, this was one they recommended to ensure that we were in compliance with everything that we need to be in compliance with. And I know a question came was you have other platforms. Why this platform for EL? Well, one of the reasons is, as I mentioned, it's very targeted. And this allows our EL teachers who we have, you know, it's really the not enough EL teachers for the amount of kids that we need to service. This makes sure that they're not spending time tracking things in spreadsheets and this document and that spreadsheet that they
195have something that's streamlined that allows them to get their work done quickly and easily and stay focused on students. In the past 2 years, there's been a significant increase in the requirements at the state level for the number of hours our EL teachers need to service students. So, this allows them to do their work quickly so they can service students. So, the goal is to be able to use section $41, which we used last year, but as we all know, we're in a part of the state where those funds may not be available. I believe, have we heard any real guidance on section 41? >> No. Or 31 uh title 3 immigrant. And I was going to bring this up with all of these EL discussions. And M, you asked about the the dollars for
196them. The state sent a memo and I thought I uploaded if not I will this week but that really said even though the federal government is reducing the obligations ours have not changed. It's still in our law. So these will be some of the the things that no matter what you're going to have to take out of the pot to do for kids. So um we're we're mandated to have programs and services in place. An additional piece too that did not get in the memo is that um about 75% of the students in our district are at invest and just like we deal with other things like subject or I ready they would pay a portion of this and it probably based on the numbers they would be responsible for about 70 75% give or
197take depending on the numbers of this total fee because they utilize this as well. Anybody comments, questions? No, thank you very much. Epic math initiative year two participation. Another great opportunity for Hazel Park. Uh this is year two of a program that open schools is implementing to support specifically increases in math in grades 4 through six. And last year they reached out to the district to offer this service. And essentially what this does is it provides an opportunity for our district to work with a consultant. And that consultant was actually here today um to do some work with us and to also provide opportunities for our staff to be trained as well as earn stipens for some of the programs and work that they might do. So I know there was a question about is
198there a fee from the district? Do we get money from the ISD? The answer is no. The money essentially comes through the services they offer. So, it's a great opportunity. We have gained a lot even through last year. Um, that person was sidebyside working with our coordinator, even giving some feedback in the curriculum that she was writing. We had teachers trained in something called math recovery free of charge to the district. And we also had opportunities to go to PD free of charge to this district. So no money exchanged but a lot of support and services from the district from the ISD. Thank you buddy. Very good. Great news board goals. Any comments? Okay. hearing none. Board calendar. Any questions on that calendar? We did make some corrections. Um, and I'm sure if we look
199hard enough, there's probably some other things that need to move. So, if there's some items that you'd like, uh, let me know. Um, I think we're in a good starting point. >> Yes. >> Is this a fluid document? We don't vote on this, do we? it usually is in your board protocol handbook and so we've made some adjustments and changed the way it looks including my evaluation and such. So, um I mean that's really up to the board of education and President Hinton to determine if you want it here next week, but you would vote on your goals. >> Okay. Uh first aid kits for this. >> So, this isn't uh um any approval. These are the first aid kits that the nurses have voted to have. I think it's 15 of them. And um
200we've only been able to get five cuz they're um >> expensive. >> Well, no, no, no. They're just not there. You can't get them. And so we will be ordering these for each and every one. Um the coaches were utilizing the bags that we provided for the first time last year um as first aid kits and then I believe the pool does have their own first aid on top of that. So this is what they look like. They'll be refilled yearly by the nurses just like they do the larger bags and make sure that everybody has what they need. >> Will everything fall out? >> I'm not opening it. I Well, oh, I thought you Oh, don't open it. You're going to make it fall out. >> Everything's going to fall out. >> I know.
201>> Awesome. >> Little pockets. Okay. Wasn't quite what I had in mind. I had in mind like a backpack, but this is what uh the athletic director and the nurses picked out. So >> that's what we're getting. >> Is that a nylon material? Looks like a nylon. >> Yes. So they'll have one with them at all times when >> they're that'll be assigned to them during the season and then they turn it back in. It'll be refilled for the next people for the next season. >> Yes. Nice. >> How much is one of those? >> 36. >> Yeah. Was it Was it very expensive? It's next. >> So, it's under 500, I believe. >> Uh, transportation is next. So, this is really a conversation. Um, we continue to hear about individuals that have trouble getting
202their kids to school. And just the other day, a parent, uh, a grandparent who got her two children talked about the 10 blocks that they have to go to school. And I asked Gina, I said, "Could we add um the other elementarymentaries to the bus to get transportation to the other elementary schools because it has made a difference?" And there's about 25 kids at Web who are riding the bus. Um she thought she could add one more school. And so I wanted to bring up the idea of adding United Oaks to that. They have a big catchment area that individuals are coming from and I would love to see that that we take one more step in making sure that our kids um have uh secure transportation. Um there's been a lot of individuals recently
203I've heard losing their cars. You know, someone was crying the other day, my car's been taken away from me. um you know so I think this would be one more help and even if we get 20 more kids to school at United Oaks we've got 20 more kids that are coming on a regular basis and it's safe transportation to school's >> as a reminder at web we allowed individuals to drop now at any bus stop um I don't think we've um talked about the transportation enough out there for everybody there might be more people that are like oh I don't even know that it's there but I would like to see us add United Oaks and then we can see how that works works and if that increases attendance at United Oaks as well. So
204I didn't write a memo for it. I just kind of wanted to put it out there for conversations. We wouldn't need any more bus drivers and we wouldn't need a bus to add United into the mix. >> So there's no additional cost. >> No additional cost. Just Hoover would be left out at this point in time. >> Would there be a a minute cost because we have to pay the bus driver? >> No, we already have a bus driver. We already have the bus drivers. We have We have the buses. We have it might be a little bit of gas cost because you're going to another spot but they're going >> Oh, so it' be the same bus. >> Same bus. Okay. >> Add stops. They would drop at one and then drop at the
205other. >> Okay. I didn't get that part. >> And and you also in our teachers contract. So, thank you for making me think. Would there be a small part? Uh the in the teachers contract there is a person assigned to be the bus supervisor when those kids get off the bus and come in. So, we would have to add one of those T9s as well. Is that just a stipend? >> Yes, just a stipen. I don't remember what it was. 500 sits in my head every morning. Those kids got to the bus. It's very minimal for the work they do. >> Okay. And there's no way to fit Hoover into this. >> She said she couldn't do all three. So maybe we can do >> United Oaks and then >> then maybe in the fall
206we could or in the summer we can relook at it. We can talk about whether we could add someone on with the current buses. >> Can we maybe just get like a a map of the city and just outline where these kids are? You know, like >> So, what areas? United Oaks. What areas? >> We can show you what the area is. Um, it's not like the olden days. Can I tell you in my previous job, I actually took a big board and put the map of the city on and put pins where every single student lived. Of course, there was only 871. And then I developed the bus routes and we had four different buses for that. >> No, just like the geographical area. >> Oh, we have that. >> What comprises United Oak
207students? What where does because I saw the web kids and they were coming all the way from 8 mile. I was like, "Wow, that's really Web District. I didn't realize they came that far far south." They ask to come and so we can do that zones for you, but they asked to go to different spots. And so the bus route for web is only in the web busing zone. The bus stops for United Oaks would only be in the United Oaks busing zone. And if you end up at a stop because you're going to United Oaks at one of the farthest stops, that's fine. But we wouldn't make a stop outside of the United Oaks. I can ask her to draw that for you. I'd love to be able to start this before in November,
208maybe, or >> before it gets cold. Yeah, >> my concern is the cold. So, I'll see what you can do in the week. I don't know if we can have it for you on Monday. >> So, United Oak student couldn't get dropped at a web bus stop. >> Well, they might be able to because it's the same bus. They may be able to get on at United Oaks and go to web. I don't see why we wouldn't do that. Or >> depending on the a web student at United Oaks, I don't know how that bus route would go, right? It would have to be only one or the other could probably do it because you take the routes and then I could ask her. She's the mastermind of this, not me. >> We'll bring more
209information. So, if you're willing to bring that so we could announce that, I would love to be able to do that. >> I would like to see it. I know it's been really beneficial at web. I mean, I've just heard parents talk about it anecdotally, so I can only imagine that it would do the same at UL. I just the only my issue is I don't like of um the quality of the webs the Hoover students. I don't like that cuz you're doing it for two but you're not doing it for the one. >> Yeah. I just think we have to step by step. Now listen, if you want to do it, I could ask her what that would take to do all three and try to bring that to you. But I think it
210might include adding another bus perhaps. I didn't ask that question. She just said at the current structure I have, I could do one more school. And it felt like Hoover is the bigger c or United Oaks is the bigger catchment than the Hoover area is. Um because it's a bigger school and it has more kids. >> I'd love to do all three%. >> I think something is still better than nothing. I agree that I wish it was all three, but >> I just think even with the um for the longest time, you know, like United Oaks had the community rep and Web and Hoover did it. It just you can do one or the other. We have over 300 kids at United Oaks and a smaller number at Hoover. And so that is the only
211reason to try to grab as many kids as possible that might potentially get on the bus. >> 350 or more. Yeah. All right. Summer school, summer programming update. That's >> Was it you? >> I wrote the memo up, but I'm going to say Miss Gresley really spent a lot of time doing this. So, do you want me to talk through or would you >> underneath here as I'm looking are the medal for the handbook provisions and this handbook? That's why it's not there. So, we could do this on Monday if you so choose and just talk about the handbook revisions. >> Oh, I think that's a good idea. >> Going to Z. When I was reading, I thought that that could be some involved talk there. So, >> we could do it at the beginning
212of the agenda. We won't have the kids coming. We'll have them in October. So, we could have a little committee report there. >> I'm sorry about that. I just That's okay. We'd be happy to tag team Carla and I. >> Y >> but we do have the handbook revisions that much. >> Yes. So um one um I'm looking at the memo. I know it should not be 4 386 and 1231. Obviously that's an error there. Um those are the pages that were updated. So as you recall we um made some revisions and came back. It was probably in June um that we came back with some revisions and brought them to the board. And I know that there was a follow-up email from a for a couple of additional revisions and those have been made
213and um essentially what those are is on page four. Um I had been trying to consolidate so I did remove some names out. I had removed um the board of education, no disrespect to the board of education. I was just trying to streamline and I had removed the names of the principles and you know based on feedback which was important feedback that was added back in. So, I added the uh board of education names, the central office names, and put the it wasn't it's not a big change, but I added it back in. So, I highlighted in red. One of the other things that is updated in here that is not highlighted in red is that um I don't know how closely you're following this, but the Cleveland Office of the Office of Civil Rights
214is no longer open. There's only one office in the United States that's handling um civil rights complaints, and that's the Denver office. So that's added in here as well. Uh in addition to that, there were a couple minor changes on page uh 12. I know that um there was a request to make sure that the introduction to the personal um technology devices was shifted and adjusted because it made better sense to be in a different order. So that change was made. In addition to that, on page 31, I need to go back down here quickly. Page 31. I'm just trying to get through this quickly. Thank you for your patience. Page 31. Originally, a while back, um there was a missing number of credits for alternative schools. That was added, I believe, when it was
215approved, but I don't know if it was highlighted. So, that's updated. And then there is one final update on page 38 that just clarifies that while there are a number of different guidelines related to any actions that may happen, if um there's some discipline in the schools, if a student is making some decisions and we need to take um action, we just added a line that says the administrative team retains the flexibility to tailor responses to student behavior based on individual ual student needs. So that was just a further clarification for families who may be needing that. So those are the updates in the handbook. That's a lot of work. Thank you. No questions. Perfect. Thank you. [Music] I have a question. >> Too late. You already answer the questions. >> Okay. I'll ask Moving
216on. >> It's fine. You you got to be fast that way about this one. >> The latchy handbook. >> That's all. >> Did you forget your question? >> No, you told me too late. >> I just wanted Did you mention the latch key handbook one and I missed it? >> No, that's the next one. >> Oh, okay. It It was the same memo twice. Sorry. Okay, go ahead. So the latch key handbook essentially we're bringing this forward to make sure that it's in your pants but there was really really literally only one or two changes and it was really around names of individuals. So essentially the handbook is the same as it was last year. Everything had uh we spent a significant amount of time rewriting and realigning all the last handbook last year. So
217this was really just some updates on dates and names. >> This is all first reading, right? We have to do first reading and then second reading or just >> policy. So at the next meeting we will just approve it. >> Oh thank you. >> But you're welcome to read the 100page student handbook. >> Listen I want to remind us that we 10 years ago we didn't have any of these handbooks. This is made tremendous amount of work by all the departments. So kudos session. >> Okay. Close session. >> Mrs. Hinton. There is no reason that we have to have it tonight. If you would like to have it at the next meeting, you guys keep looking at the clock. We can do it tonight or we can do it at the next meeting. >> Is
218there an estimated time on how long it's going to be? Depend on how long you want to talk. >> Debbie, >> I promise. I'll just say you missed it. Um >> really the next meeting shouldn't be all that long because the next meeting won't meeting and we shouldn't have all this discussion. >> You just what do you think? >> I say let it go for the next meeting. >> I don't have the next meeting. >> A motion that we move it to our next meeting next Wednesday. >> Support. Can we do it maybe at the beginning of the next meeting so we're not >> pushing it away again? >> Yeah, we can't push it though. >> Okay. >> You know what? But that that would then cause the community to wait. Um so it depends
219on however you want it. But then the community is going to have to wait for you to go in close session. And this is not a decision-m piece. This is a conversation for guidance. >> So we can decide tomorrow. >> You sure can. >> Yes. I'll put it on my list. Yes, you can. >> All right. All right. Motion. Oh, any comments? >> My comments are for all next week. Schools are up and rolling. I'm telling you, I've been busy, busy, busy. Um, okay. Motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjourn. >> Second roll call. >> Oh, roll call. >> We roll call. What? >> To move the proposition. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. Now motion to motion to >> second. All in favor. Yes. >> Thank you everyone for all your hard work.