001like to call the board of education special meeting to order on July 22nd, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. I have roll call, please. >> Here, Becker >> here. >> Fortress >> present. Fox >> here. >> Leaf boys >> Here. Hson >> here. I need a approval uh for the agenda. >> I make a motion to approve the agenda as written. The board >> I have motion made by Heidi, supported by Monica to approve the agenda. Any discussion? Uh roll call, please. >> Fortress, >> yes. >> Ratique, >> yes. >> Beaton, >> yes. >> Becker, >> yes. >> Fox, >> yes. >> Le boys, >> Yes. Uh public comments. Seeing no one, we're going to move right on to our new business with our Miller Johnson policy presentation by Mr. Kevin Sutton. >> Good evening, everybody. >>
002Good evening. >> I was thinking as I was driving, making my way down 8 Mile with all of the construction and detours. If ever anybody wanted a portrait of the commitment that board service takes, tonight would be it. A beautiful night in July. >> Yes. >> To talk about policy. Um, but it is a pleasure to be here. Appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to chat with you a little bit about how we do it. Um, and I think everyone was so gracious. I got a microphone. I got a clicker. Hopefully everything will work here. I promise it is not a an onslaught of slides. I'm going to keep it relatively short. I think seven or eight. Uh, we'll give you an overview and then I'll be happy to answer any questions you all might
003have about our process and how we do it. The real question, there we go. um is how did we come to do this? Uh we are a law firm. We are an education practice group. We practice law every day representing school districts all over the state. Particular concentration here in Southeast Michigan. We didn't set out to do policy. What was happening was we were getting phone calls on a daily basis from boards from administrators saying, "Hey, we've got this policy 1522. We don't like it. Can you rewrite it for us?" Sure, no problem. Fill a couple hours, rewrite the policy, send it back, and call two months later and say, "Hey, we got this other policy 3527. We don't like this one. Can you rewrite it?" Sure, no problem. Fill a couple hours, send it
004back. We did that enough times that we said, uh, maybe there's another way. Maybe there's a better way to do this. What really are the problems that we're seeing when districts are calling, when boards are asking for support on one-offs? And what we saw, not a all-inclusive list, but generally what we would see from districts is that they had policy manuals that had maybe gotten bloated, sort of outdated. They were difficult to go back and review and keep updated. Maybe the policies they had were a little convoluted. Um, we get too many shalls and wills and musts in something and it gets hard to understand what we're supposed to do. We get difficult to follow, difficult to understand. And what I was hearing over and again from administration was these policies are really tying our
005hands as administration. I know they were created with good intent, but we're having day-to-day challenges that the policies aren't answering. The folks had services, they felt like there wasn't enough district specific focus. Uh what I call the one-sizefits-all dilemma. And so we sort of heard the same thing over and over again. And we said, "Okay, well, I think maybe we could just do this better if we started from scratch." So s if we're going to draft policy, what kind of policy and administrative regulations do we want to see as practitioners who are doing this work every single day trying to come in and help districts navigate the myriad of roadblocks, speed bumps, whatever you want to call them that we will face. Kind of saw again something similar in the language of inclusion in policy
006of language that is not necessary. And what I mean by when I say fluffy language saw a lot of sort of aspirational statements which aspirations are good, mission statements are good, vision statements are good, but concrete from a policy standpoint. What do they do? Saw a lot of uh restatements of the law and a lot of the policy manuals that we looked at. Not just we follow the Open Meetings Act, but we follow the Open Meetings Act. And now here's 19 pages of what the Open Meetings Act says, which is fine until the legislature changes one subsection of the Open Meetings Act and now all of a sudden your whole policy manual is out of compliance. And we would see a fair amount of information that really wasn't policy in policy. So the question that
007always comes when we're trying to diagnose these manuals is sort of who's to blame? You know, why did it get this way? How did it get this way? And confidently, it's no one. Nobody's really to blame. boards are trying to put everything in policy manuals that you think makes sense to give administration the support they need to run the district on a day-to-day basis. It's sort of common understanding that the thicker the manual is, the more that's in there, probably the better protected that we are. I call that the ragu pasta sauce problem. You remember the old commercial you would ask the grandma, grandma, the tomatoes in there? Yep. Is oregano in there? Yep. But she said it's all in there. Everything's in there in that one little can. That's kind of how policy feels.
008the thicker the binder is, the better it's going to be, the better we're going to feel. And again, this is a common problem that we saw across districts. So, we said, I guess if we're going to do this every day, and we're going to continue to be asked, let's try to streamline it. Let's see how we would do it if we started from scratch. And so, our objectives when we set out 10 years ago to develop a policy service as practicing attorneys, um, which got plenty of snickering and snide comments from other attorneys who thought we were nuts. We wanted to streamline things. That was our number one objective. Um, we're talking about policy. When do most people in the school community go look at policy? Generally, when they're not super pleased with something, right?
009So, if we have policy that is inaccessible in the way it is written, whether it's too long, whether it's too confusing, whether it uses a bunch of legal ease, is that helping our problem or hindering our problem? It's probably not helping, right? uh we want information that is easy to find, information that is easy to understand, and information that is applicable to our situations. And so, yes, fewer pages, less congestion, simpler descriptions, not a whole bunch of where two fours and whatnot, which attorneys love doing, right? We love that stuff, but we said we're going to keep it simple. Let's include in policy what we need to include and let's distinguish between policy and administrative regulations because everybody's got both and whether you call them administrative guidelines or operating procedures or whatever everybody's got both.
010And what I often see is there's really no if you looked at sort of those ven diagrams of the big circles the circles are totally interlocked. There's no real distinction between what is policy and what is administrative regulation. We wanted to focus on that very specifically. policy is set by the board. It is the foundational principles on which the district is built. If you think of ancient Rome, ancient Greece, the pillars in front of those old buildings, right? That's what policy is. You set that and it's got to come from the board. Administrative regulations, that's the X's and O's. That's the blocking and tackle. That's the how we're going to do it. That should be an administrative regulation. And we see way too much convolution in a lot of these policies. We wanted, if we
011were going to do this, we wanted to focus on district specific stuff, not one sizefits-all. Yes, there are a lot of similarities between public school districts. But I think it's I'll go arrogant to assume that because the policies work in Troy, they're going to work in Hazel Park, or Voke Park's got them, they're going to work here, or that they should be the same as Bloomfield or any other place, right? You are your own unique community. The legislature sought to have you have your own school district. Your policy should be reflective of your priorities, the things that you are interested in. And yes, making sure that we have everything that we need to have. Let's have flexibility. Let's meet the needs of all the stakeholders. And if we do it well, we thought we could
012probably save some trees. Okay. So, what we end up with is two documents and they're I call them PM and ARM. That's policy manual and administrative regulation manual. Those are the two things that we work with in terms of our action steps. what we do um for districts that want to work with us, we come in and we provide our baseline policy manual and our baseline administrative regulation manual. And I will tell you that usually when I walk in with these documents, I get one of two reactions. I get hallelujah, praise the Lord, it's not an 8 in binder, or I get, there's no way that something that thin can have everything that we need in it. And if it's in the latter, I want to make people converts by the time we're done making
013them understand that yes, we have everything in there that we need under the law, but we're going to focus very intentionally on what is policy, what is the blocking and tackling and the X's and O's. I won't call out a particular service, but I see a lot of their policies that are 15, 20 pages long, and I read the first paragraph and I'm like, okay, that's a policy, first paragraph. But then there's another 17 pages and it's all called policy, but it's really not. And so if we can draw that clear line, if we can draw that clear distinction, that does a lot of things. I think not only does it help us get better policy, not only do we end up with administrative regulation, then I don't hear grousing about it tying anybody's hands,
014but we're actually doing we're working it the way it's supposed to. Foundational principles, administrative regulations that give operational effect to those policies. In terms of transitioning, um, we do a what I call a workg groupoup model. Uh, typically most boards have a policy committee. Some decided to make a special work group just for policy transition purposes. And what I'm not going to do is walk in and say, "Here, we're attorneys. We drafted this. We're super smart. We put a Hazel Park logo on it. Let's call it a good day." That doesn't work. We've got to go through your policies, what you've got. Yes, I'm going to walk in with a baseline of what I think makes sense, what I think makes sense in general. Um, but we've got to spend the time to go through
015what you've got now and ask the question of why do we have this? Do we do this? Which sometimes the answer is no, we've got it. We're not doing it. Um, uh, do we want to keep doing it? Is do we need to do it? Is it required by law? Is it not required by law? Have we done it in the last 20 years? So on and so forth. And spend the time to go through and do that work. Some people call it a crosswalk. Some people call it a revision matrix. We've got policy one. This is what we're going to do with it. This is where you find it in the new manual. Got policy two. This is what's going to happen with it. This is where you're going to find it in the
016new manual. And do that for every single one of your policies. And have that crosswalk for every single one of your policies. So if the administrative team says, "Whatever happened to policy 5225? Let's pull out the matrix. 5225, we moved it to administrative regulations. This is where you can find it. Community stakeholders, board members, whoever wants to know what happened, this is where it's at. Believe it or not, we can generally do that in four to five meetings. And I promise they're not 10 hours each. Usually a couple hours because I will do all the crosswork, crosswalk and matrix work before I come and I'll give it to you several days in advance. Whatever our work group looks like, take your time. If you got I don't want to call it homework, but if you've
017got time, go through it. And then when we come, we can be very, very efficient. I am always amazed. The first meeting is always slow, slow and clunky. There's a lot of questions. By the fifth meeting, I usually have board members saying to me, "That's not a policy. That should be an administrative regulation." Fantastic. Right? So, we can do that. We want to get all of the policy set first. And again, four to five work meetings, usually work group meetings with whatever composition we come up with, but I got to get that set first. Some people say, "Well, can't you do the policy and the regs at the same time?" I mean, we could, but I want to make sure that we know what the policy is before we start creating the blocking act. Until
018you all have spoken as a board and says this is what we are, these are our foundational principles. This is what we stand for. Why should we be off drafting X's and O's? We shouldn't until we know what the policy says. So once we get that policy set over four or five meetings, usually a couple of meetings with the admin team and I've got some creative and expeditious ways we do that work. You know, obviously we want to empower those folks that are working every day with the administrative regulations in their day-to-day jobs to make sure they have an opportunity to feed to give feedback. So, all told, from beginning to finish, um, I've done it in as little as three months. I don't like doing it in as little as three months. That was
019pretty hectic, right? Five is a good number. Five is a good number to get the whole thing done and to get it done comfortably because you don't want to have a week where you have five workg groupoup meetings talking about policy. That'll be counterproductive for everybody. So, we try to space it out. Three weeks maybe in between the meetings. obviously meeting the demands of the work group and what their schedule looks like. But generally from soup to nuts, five months is a really comfortable number to get everything done. What about cost? That's always an issue, right? Or as we like to call in the business, investment. What is the investment that we take? We decided early on that we were going to do this in a flat fee structure. Why? Because I didn't want to
020do it on an hourly basis and have people in the workg groupoup meeting staring at their watch and not wanting to give feedback. I actually don't like this policy and I want to revise it, but I'm afraid if we talk for 10 more minutes, Sutton's going to charge us more. So, let's just not bring it up. We don't want to do that. So, we're going to do a flat fee. Uh flat fee for the policy manual, flat fee for the regulation uh manual for a total investment up front of 175. That includes however many meetings it takes. I've outlined six or seven. If it takes nine or 10, we'll do 9 or 10. If we get out of the 15 range, uh we probably have to have a conversation because that means we're not all
021rowing in the same direction. But generally speaking, absent some unusual circumstance, uh we're going to keep everything uh within that structure, however long it takes, however many hours it takes uh to get you online and moving forward. Uh updates, I know there are services that say, "We're going to give you an update twice a year. It's going to be January 1st and July 1st every single year." I'm always amazed that they can predict the future that way, knowing when they're going to need to give updates. We live in a, I'll say it politely, chaotic world in which there is a lot happening legally from the legislature, Congress, our Supreme Court making interpretations. Um, if you can nail it down in January 1 and July 1, that's fantastic. We're going to give you updates as you
022need. I will tell you that generally speaking, it's two or three a year. And I usually do them around the same time every year. It's generally around February and it's generally around October, but things change. actually put one out today. If you applied for through my LEAP uh to get those universal challenge funds uh for FASA, you got to have a policy that has specific language about FASA completion as a graduation requirement. You got to have in place by August 15th. So, we sent out an update so people could do that. I don't want to get locked into this artificial supply and demand of two two things on two dates. We're going to give them to you when you need them. Uh we do charge an annual update fee of 4,000. I have two asterisks
023there and the two asterisks are this. We never charge that in the year in which you make a transition. So if the board were to decide to move forward, we did a transition over the next several months. Even if it bled into 26, uh we would not charge an update fee this year. Obviously, we charge our update fees in Novemberish uh at the end of each year. We'd be looking at November of 26 to be the first time, depending on how long it took. If it took us until April to finish, we bump that out to November of 27th. The other thing, the other reason there's a second asterct there is this. $4,000 is not just um here's your updates, Godspeed. Uh $4,000 is inclusive of hosting. Uh we work with a third party vendor
024that puts all these things online. You have a dedicated URL. It's got a search algorithm, all that good stuff. It also includes the six or seven, maybe eight times you're going to call me during the school year and say, "Hey, I got a question about policy." We had a board member that went to a conference and they're interested in knowing about X or we got a memo from MDE that says we need this. Do we really need this? We don't charge for those things on an hourly basis when those calls come in. We consider them part of the annual update fee that we charge to our clients. So I want to call that I don't want to call it free attorney time, but it's attorney time that's built in uh to the annual update fee.
025And candidly, we don't cap that or track that in any sort of overly aggressive way. Oh, you've called five times, you can't call a sixth. as many times as you want and we'll make sure we address uh your questions as they come in. Two more. Um I like to talk about what the role of legal counsel is and I think first and foremost we're talking about legal counsel who's working through this process with you. We're not policy drafters by profession. We're practicing attorneys and I do think that makes a difference. Um, folks who sit in a room and write policy have one view of the world. I would say that we are on the front lines every single day with our school folks. So, we know what they're facing. We know what the challenges are.
026We're working handinhand with boards every day. And so, we are not going to come in and say, "Here's our policies. They work for you. Take them." We are not going to tell the board what its priorities should be. That's what you got elected to decide. Not me. And we are not going to craft a one-sizefits-all document. We're going to make sure that at the end of the day that the documents that get produced, the policy manual and the administrative regulation manual are uniquely as far as they should be. Uh what our role is to do is to use our experience to help you craft something that is manageable, userfriendly, legally compliant, make sure that we're integrating the board's priorities into the policies, those foundational principles that we're building. We're collaboratively provide insights. And you know,
027I started doing this job. I had a full head of hair. So, I've seen a lot of stuff over the years. I've seen boards make good choices. I've seen them make bad choices. Um, man, I feel like the last 5 years, I would have lost all of it anyways. But, um, so we try to use that experience that we're having every day as practitioners. of course to be available uh to make sure we can support whatever it is the board or the administration needs. Not only in getting you online with us, not only making a transition and getting you going, but having that be an ongoing collaborative relationship, not a hey, we did it. It's been an awesome 5 months seeing you. You're never going to see me again. We don't like that. That's not
028the way we do it. That's not the way we structure it. That's not what we want our business model to be. We're much more deliberate about it and we view this as a long-term partnership with every district with which we have the pleasure of working as uh policy providers. Representative list just of the tri county area. It's not everybody in the tri county area and it's not everybody we work with statewide but I just thought a few from the tri county area would be helpful. Um most of these districts had a policy provider um that they were desperate to get away from. Um some had policies they had created on their own 25 years ago. Uh others had done it with MASB back when MASB was in the policy business. They got out of the
029policy business because it is hard work. There's a lot that you need to keep track of and a lot you need to keep updated. So um we're pleased uh to work with these folks and several others. And I just wanted to share that that list so you had it as well. Um that was my that was my pitch that was my spiel. Um thank you for the audio support audio visual support in the back. The questions coming questions anybody no questions. >> Yeah it's very good. Yeah >> I guess I do have a question. Can you show me an example of what the policy cuz you I've heard that you have a button that you click to attach to the lock. >> Can you show like show me an example of that? >> Uh but
030I'm not connected. >> So so it's a great question but I can describe it. So, so one of the things that we have tried to do is because we saw that restatement of the law stuff all the time. And look, when there are big changes, when the law goes from being this to being this, yeah, we're going to have there's going to have to be an alert and we're have to do updates usually. And again, you got if you draft, right, little changes like that shouldn't make a huge difference. Most of the things where we were seeing policy manuals be out of compliance was they would say, "Well, we we we followed this law and now here's the law." And you know, legislators got to keep themselves busy. So every now and then there's a
031change to a semicolon or a comma or they reumber the sections. And it's not a substantive change. It's more of a typographical change. And now all of a sudden our manual is not compliant. So we we use because we have great resources in Michigan. Uh in terms of the legislative website, everything's updated in real time. It's updated every single day. We will link to a lot of the laws. So you can just so we follow the open meetings act. click the entire open meetings act is going to open. So every time there's a change to a semicolon or a subp paragraph. We don't have to go back and redo the policy. It's not just about having live links which will update themselves on their own. Uh it's about making sure you draft policy in a
032way that is of course legally compliant but isn't so beholden in the way it's written and on the page to whatever semicolon or sub paragraph the changes. And so I know that's sounds kind of vague, but there's a way to do that to focus very intentionally on what you all want the district to stand for without swimming in the deep waters of subp paragraph 14 subsection K. There is a way to do that from a drafting standpoint um that is that is more streamlined and straightforward. So, you know, there are there are those who have described our policies as being more Spartan in nature, and I don't mean that as a capital S. I mean it more as a lowercase S. So, just sort of they're a little more straightforward. They're not they're not this
033convoluted long mess. They're to the point. Uh they're succinct. And um I think we're we're not only are those the types of policies we want to work with when we go into districts. Um uh we think it makes good sense uh to have that sort of operational framework for all. I know it'd be a hell of a lot better if I could just click on the link and show you, but unfortunately I'm not I'm not >> if you want I can like I just went they're >> Oh, that's okay. >> I can show you after if you want. >> Thank I wrote myself with that too. But at one of those >> and the other thing I would say is this is is the other thing that uh and we we spent a considerable amount
034of time trying to find uh there because there's lots of folks that will do online hosting. Finding somebody who can host isn't a problem. Finding somebody who's got a good platform is a little bit trickier. So the other thing I would encourage you to do is use the search bar up top. Um if you type in the word and I'm just type in the word discipline, you're going to hit every single thing that's in the policies and administrative regulations. And then we have some districts that have other manuals up there as well, an athletic code, a student code, whatnot. You'll hit every single hit that says discipline will show up. And so the reason that's important is because again, folks generally aren't looking at policy or regulations unless they're concerned about something. That's usually how
035it works. But you don't always what you're looking for. And so you can't expect somebody to say, "Well, I know that my concern is a Title N concern, so I'm going to go look for Title N." they might use a word like harassment or discrimination and we want them to be able to find the information they're looking for without having to have a specific legal text. And so the search engine uh we're really happy with. It's very very robust and it will give you a lot of hits um based on the word choice that's used. So I think that's another aspect of our online platform that I think is really really good. >> So your online platform looks into our website. So our platform is is is independent. What they will do is they will
036provide once everything is done. Once we get all the work done, we give them everything. They will upload everything. They will check it. They will make sure all the links work and we will give you a URL. We'll say here's your URL. And your URL then you link that from your website where it says board policies and whatnot. Click on that. It's going to take you to this out. It's an outside site. We'll take you to the outside site. The beauty of that and the reason why we want to do it is we also want to make sure that we can update everything for you whenever it happens. Whenever you have changes whenever the board decides to adopt a new policy where Jamie doesn't have to get into board books and do it or update
037the you don't have to get the web master. You simply send me an email and say the board adopted all of the updates and we make all the updates for you and they're usually live within about 24 hours. We have that relationship with the hosting company uh where they take care all of that. So, we want to sort of offload that burden on the district of needing to worry about hosting, needing to worry about updating. You just need to say this is what we changed and we'll make it live in 24 hours. >> I have one more question. >> Um, so with the law changes and you have to send that to us for to for approval, the new wording of the policy based on the law change and then we just send it back
038to you and say, "Okay, we approved it. That's it. >> You make it sound so simple. Yes. Yes. And and and and so I know that one of the criticisms that was out there about another provider was that the update process was about as fun as getting a cavity filled. Okay. It was pages and pages and it would take the poor superintendent would need to sit in a conference room for eight hours and I like this one. I don't like this one. How about this one? We didn't want to do that. That doesn't make a lot of sense. Oh, by the way, when you have a streamlined product, you shouldn't have 87 changes every single time there's an update. So, the way we do it is we will send a memo. Uh the memo will
039say uh and I'm simplifying here, but policy and we will go through each section of the policy manual. We will call out what the update is. We will provide a quick narrative explanation of why we're suggesting it. If it's a legal requirement, we'll absolutely say it's a legal requirement. you don't have a choice. You got to do it. Sometimes there's things that we just see in the field. People keep asking about it. I hate to say the example out loud in case anybody's listening, but we had this one with food deliveries. I had a couple of high schools from a couple of different districts call and they say, "Uber Eats keeps showing up here. We don't have a way to tell them to buzz off. Can we have a food deliveries policy?" Sure. Cool. So,
040we drafted one. Some boards say, "Oh, no. No one's doing that here. We don't want it." Okay. So, we'll make it clear if it's mandatory or if it's optional. And then we'll give you the text, we'll give you the red line, we'll give you the addition, whatever it is. So we do that for all the sections of the policy. We do that for all the sections of the administrative regulations. And then obviously when it comes time it would come to the board through whatever process you all have with usually through a committee. Um uh if you say, "Yep, we adopt updates 1 through 10." I get a phone call. We plug in updates 1 through 10. We move on. You call and say, "We adopted update updates 1 through nine, but we didn't adopt 10.
041I'm going to plug in 1 through nine and not 10." Uh if we have questions about those updates, obviously we're available to answer them and all that other good stuff. So we want to keep it really really simple. How long is this mythical memo, Mr. Sutton? Is it an 85page memo? We generally try to keep the memo generally somewhere around 15 pages. The Title N stuff recently has made it a little more challenging because there's a lot of heft there. Uh so we've had to had to fill in a little bit more space, but try to keep it pretty simple, pretty straightforward. But again, when your policy manual is taught, when it's tight, when it's narrow, when it's specific, when it's foundational principles, we're not going to have 900 updates a year because we've kept
042it very intentionally that way uh and not here to for where to for shall, must, etc., etc. We've tried to keep it very intentionally um tight and narrow. So the update, even in this chaotic world, the update should not be that. >> Next question. Can we get a copy of this? >> Yes. >> Is there a copy of this? >> Yeah, I think uh Jamie's got a copy. >> She can send it to you. >> Thank you very much. >> And and to Jaime's credit, she asked me for it yesterday and I sent it to her about 3:30 today. So that's that's on me. That is the uh the occupational hazard sometimes. >> Okay. Anybody else? >> Thank you so much. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Sutton. >> Thank you. Good evening. Thank you.
043>> No, go enjoy that uh nice beautiful July day. >> Yeah. >> All right. Next on the agenda is our budget discussion. >> Sure. We're going to um talk a little bit about some things you requested and some additional things that we talked about. So, one uh uh was requested the GSRP budget. um we don't have copies for you. Uh so because we just got it, we've been working hard to finish some things today. So we will send that over the weekend um for you to take a look at. Do do know that there's a budget and then there's a transportation budget for GSRP that was is with the oh that is with um the ISD. This is we turn it into the ISD. The ISD allocates the GSRP budget to the school districts. So
044we will share that with you. Uh then here's some items that we came up with um that we could bid um and if we did so it would be later in the school year. Garbage mat service. The mats that you guys approved that we get and they replace the mats on a regular basis. >> The mats as in at the front doors. >> Yes. That is a service that they bring in to clean versus us cleaning them and they replace them if they're in bad shape. So we could look at that. the audit, our insurance carriers, energy, our shredding. We have big containers that we have to get rid of documents in a secure way. A set segway this year is food service. Um custodial supplies, gas. Right now we get the gas from the
045city. And uh the question was is if we went to a gas station and we had a deal with them, would it be cheaper? Could potentially. And salt, we get the salt from the city as well. If we had it delivered directly to us instead of going around, would it be cheaper or is it better to go with a larger portion and get a price? So these are the items that as we were chatting with today outside of the positions that we have when we're at the board meeting on Monday, I will put some items in front of you that um I that we think uh should go ahead and happen like the substitutes. The substitutes though will not include the substitutes that um are part of our grow your own program. So part of
046the agreement of the grant is we help pay for schools and then we keep them employed in that period of time. And so they would remain in sub positions um until they finish their program and then the hope would be we would hire them as teachers. Um but there's about four I believe uh individuals uh that are part of the grow your own program that we would keep in the sub positions while they're getting their teaching certificate. The rest of them we move as a district sub. the rest we would move to um edge of staff. Uh we also um have some numbers for the two and uh 2-year-old program working on the three. However, what we don't have is um the revenue that comes in from DHS uh to offset the cost of that
047programs and what have you. We weren't able to get that far today. So, that will come to you at a later time as well. we're not really prepared to properly um give you that cost. The cost of the teacher and a para in the 2-year-old is 80,96127. However, there's DHS revenue and then there's revenue from people that pay and um that'll happen as well. So, that are any other budget updates. Are there other items that you thought about last night that you thought I wonder about this? I don't have one right now, but what was the second thing under the audit? Matt service >> insurance and then energy. >> When you say insurance, are you talking about like general liability insurance? Are you talking about health insurance? >> No, not health insurance. Health insurance, you
048know, um we're part of Mesa and Mesa gives us those costs. The change that would happen to you uh would be based upon the state legislature and and the limits that they would uh provide or that they might change. Um, but really we could we did workman's comp in the first couple years I was here. We could go out for workman's comp again and then we could go out for all our liability policies. >> Didn't Wasn't that part of our presentation yesterday? Was all of that for the $374,000? >> No, that wasn't going out for bid for it. That was our cost for this upcoming school year. So, we would do that and we would go out to bid for the 2627 school year. >> Okay. So, that Okay, >> it's that time's gone past
049for many of these items. That would be things we would do during the year. >> I do have uh hop, skip, drive. Is there a way to get around paying that amount of money >> at all? A different service? >> Uh well, we tried a different service and we went to hop, skip, and drive because it actually provided better service than the previous one, which would take our kids to McDonald's or leave kids in places. And so that is the one that many of us are using. We certainly could look to see if there's another new one. they have to be fingerprinted and and approved uh through Lara given uh the need to transport kids. The one thing that we did talk about I think you shared was could our own buses do some of
050the Mckin Vento transportation. Um I did float that my team uh Mrs. Gresley who is the expert on that now did not think that that's probably able to do that within the period but we could always have a conversation with Gina and say here's where we have some items with this people would this work right now she didn't view that that could happen but we can sit down with Gina and look at that and um my other one is nurses we had nurses because of co money it was extra and we have the clinic at the high school so I don't know are we down to two nurses one nur >> 1.6 six nurses is what we have um of our school nurses. I wouldn't recommend getting rid of school nurses. The uh what they've
051provided and being able to be in 504 and special education minutes meetings and making sure that healthc care plans are in place and medicine and the services are better than they've ever been before. We do have some nurses that are um at not nurses, but they are health care providers, CNAs that are helping kids toileting and such. Um, I don't think that those needs because it relates to 504 and special ed are ones that we can just get rid of. Um, or we would have put that one out there, but I think that's a good conversation to have. What about I know in the past and this might be just off the wall uh the secretaries at um Webster and the sec secretary Webster and the secretary at Advantage used to only work a 10-month
052work period. Is it still necessary for them to do the 12 months? >> Um I mean it's certainly something that we can always do. However, you're enrolling kids all through the year now in Webster and you would be missing out an important detail. So that's why it's there. Um and then at Advantage, um they are helping up front with enrollment during that oneweek t time period. So when Juny's closing up and then they are s they're actually sitting up here in the front room, uh working with them on enrollment, making calls and doing paperwork. >> Good question. >> Yes, it is. We used to pay, if you don't know, we used to pay um secretaries to come in in the summertime and so this alleviated that. And one more question. Um, I know we go
053through skids and skids of paper, >> cases of it. >> The only reason why we never went out and got bulk, you know, 3,000 boxes of paper was because we had no place to store it. That probably still is the case. >> No, I don't think so. We've talked about that and um and I'm sorry, I thought I explained it better. Clearly, I didn't. That we would be more consortium purchasing. So we would pick the big things like paper, like markers. we, you know, like Staples, Crayons, all those kind of things and bid it out through the consortium at um through the ISD andor through the other companies we've used and then buy it in bulk and take away perhaps that Amazon click that people have been using to reduce those prices so it would
054come in a greater I think we could use a room that hasn't been redeveloped at Longfellow and when Jason comes around in the morning to pick up the mail >> they and they can say this building needs uh six boxes of paper. It needs uh two boxes of pencils and construction paper. Getting away from I have to fill my closets with all these things to start the school year off because and then >> then they run out halfway through the year anyways >> andor you go into to rooms. Teachers are the worst as far as hoarders and so when they get their red paper, it's their red paper that's in the room. this is my red paper versus let's just, you know, give what's what's needed at the time, but we have more if people
055need it. And sometimes you find you don't need as much as you possibly do. I did this in my last district and we found more of those little like squishy things, you know, that you make things with and cotton balls that we didn't have to order it for several years because we went through classrooms and said went into their little areas where they had all their like secret storage from all the things that they're keeping. and um and stuff goes bad too. The paper turns colors and and such. So that is something that we will put in as we can. I don't know if we'll have it in. We already are looking at the paper price from last year. Somebody else has reached out to do a comparison of the paper as well. So those
056are all kinds of things. So it's great great conversation. Yeah, we used to do that back in the day. And because I was a co-op student that would hand the stuff out and uh you know, organize all the markers and all the So, yeah. >> Oh, I think you just gave an idea. >> Well, I I did. And then I was in charge of the print shop and I would order cases of paper that would come to the print shop because I would get it right from the mill and it would be much cheaper directly from the paper company than bypassing all this other stuff. So then again the every day the mail person would come through pick up the orders and you know take it to the schools cuz he's going there anyways. They
057didn't like it because they it was heavy boxes but >> so that's why I'm just asking >> it's old school right? it works. And when you're trying to, it might not be as fast, but you got to think ahead. And um not only that, the the new school way to do it would be to have scanners and to scan the amount of boxes you have, and when you don't, you put it into FMX to reduce Y, >> you know, how much I have left so that the person that's doing it knows to reorder your items. So, if I if I bought 500 um pads of paper, um that when I get down to 50 pads of paper, I know that I have to restock and order more paper. Anybody else? No. All right. Thank you.
058Just keep on working on it. Next is portrait of a learner and strategic plan. I think that's uh Dr. Dalmich. >> Uh well, we're going to start uh strategic plan with myself and then Dr. Delmich is going to do portrait of a learner. You >> told me that >> it says strategic/portrait of a learner. So, we're going to ask you to uh just look through and I've given that PowerPoint presentation. Um, as you know, we have our four goals that we came up in my first couple years here. And the hope was to begin a strategic plan last year, but that didn't happen. And so, we need to kind of set a vision straightforward with these first four goals um with the district as they walk in. And so what we are going to do
059today is uh share with you um the goals that that we feel that we need to um put in place and see if you have some extra um steps or strategies that you would like to see. Then administrative counsel will put all the steps in to reach those goals. Then we will take them to um we will take them to our ad council on the 11th and the 12th when they return get their input and then we will present it back to you in August at the board meeting as a final uh piece about the goals that we as a district are to be focused on. Um that's this is kind of the process we've done every year. No matter which way we mix up um you know the batter of the cake, the four
060goals came out to always come out to be the same. Money, curriculum and instruction, community relations, and climate culture. We may say it differently when we write a strategic plan, but that's the way it comes out. Then Dr. Dage will talk to you about the portrait of a learner. And the portrait of a learner will look for your input and thoughts and ideas of that. And then the portrait of the learner uh will go back to the commit go back to ad council and then go back to the committee that helped to do it probably in September and then we would bring it back to you as a board in September or October for approval. After that then we would discuss about developing a new strategic plan for the 2627 school year. um which then
061out of that we would look at potentially what buildings and assessments and things do we need in our schools in order to implement that strategic plan and thus it would lead to the next point when our levies drop and we would suggest a bond. So that's kind of the process that we would do because that should come out of the strategic plan and then you'll probably have some committees out of the strategic plan and everybody would be a part of that. It is a long process. Um, but so we're going to step back and just look for this year. Here's the goals that we are suggesting. Oh, I had the clicker. I was like, why aren't they clicking for me? They normally click for me. This one. No. To the door. >> Oh, there we
062go. So our first goal right if you look up on the piece is around climate and culture. So our focus would be um around our strateure strategy would be to be fostering an equitable and inclusive learning environment. And this is really we've got items that um we would be working on this area that we would suggest but we want to bring those forth and that's just part of that goal that is what we're doing. The second one would be explan expand inclusive learning practices and we would be focusing um on UDL and our um restorative practices and all of those items that um at the building levels that we're working with. Are there other goals for climate and culture that you might like to see or have a discussion about? Can we see what the
063other ones are before we >> You absolutely can. If I can make it happen. Okay, good. I've got it down now. So, the next goal is really around resources. All right. And bottom line, the strategy that we're focusing on is ensure fiscal stability and enhance high-quality education through strategic resource optimization. So we would take part of the Terry lease report that I will send to you this weekend and we would take some of our work with the treasury and develop our steps and actions underneath there as a administrative council. So clearly this means you know you need to move your budget in the right direction so that it's supporting educational practices. The next one is community relations and provide opportunities for robust stakeholder engagement. And this would be bringing people in for completing a portrait
064of the graduate uh hopefully moving forward with a strategic plan and also getting people involved to talk about buildings and facilities as we continue to see these. So that's really working with them. The next one is effective communication and really developing and expanding our communication even more so so that we get parents uh to continue to bring their kids here to Hazel Park so that people know about the great programs and services in the community. I can tell you that I've had an opportunity to get to know my neighbors more than I ever have because they're out during the day and some of the things going on they just don't know about um because unless they're on social media and my neighbors aren't on social media. they aren't looking at our website. They're looking at
065pamphlets coming into their home or newspaper articles is the avenue. Um, and so we will continue to make sure that we develop that good communication so that people know what's happening in the schools. The last area is curriculum and instruction and this is really centered around the data that that we have been working on and that is continue to implement a K12 science of reading framework. As you know, we've been working on this for some years. It is best practice and uh we are um we we have to continue to grow that all the way through 12. We'll be moving to 11th grade. And then really look at vocabulary development. We started some vocabulary development work last year and we clearly saw some gains in that area, but we need to continue. Vocabulary is key
066for everyone's success. I'm always amazed even at the growth of some of our kids in just the work that happened this year in vocabulary. continue to work on our writing uh to make sure that narrative, informal, and um argumentative genres are done through our writing process and implement disciplinary writing across the content areas, which is something we talked about years ago and it's coming back around that writing is not just done in English class. Writing needs to be in social studies and in math and in science, in PE class and health class. That writing needs to be in every single area that you teach. Then we would focus in on math. As we know, math is going down across the country. And it's um so really it's looking at using explicit direct instruction to grow
067our math skills, uh reasoning and problem solving and algebraic thinking to also have good math discourse to be able to talk and understand the math concepts between the two about what you're doing and how you're doing and why. to implement cycles of inquiry uh looking at formative sumitative and diagnostic data to drive our instruction and math proficiency and that's done through our coaches and in the buildings and then implement the K12 math curriculum and assessments as you know you paid a teacher to work on that last year and this year is the implementing part of that uh in the classrooms and then also to look at our PSAT and SAT benchmarks to increase algebraic gradeing and problem solving strategies. Then the last area still under curriculum and instruction is student system of support. And so
068implementing cohesive student system of support. MTSS is required uh through districts through our 31A funding. If you want 31A funding, you implement it. And it's just simply best practice. We've been implementing it, but we feel that we're reaching out a little further and you'll see some uh diagrams and things that we're working on to really make that holistic. We know that school safety is a part of MTSS and so we're going to be implementing the school safety and the risk assessments and the concerns as well. And guys, I will send this all to you. You do not have to write it down. Um and so um >> I I have it printed, but for some reason I just don't have this one. >> Oh, because I left it off uh accidentally and in our meeting
069at 2:00 today, they're like, "You didn't put that on there." So I I got it up. That's why it's not there. So we are going to develop that's a one pager that you have in front of you that kind of shows what those goals are and then at as an ad council we would be developing those milestones of how we're working through that. We would welcome input of other goals and thoughts of things that you would like to see out of the district. We may have those underneath those when we develop them. We have some draft but we need to run it through uh our executive council. We would bring the detailed pieces back so that you're aware, but ask, you know, in a board meeting that you approve these in August. There might be
070some tweaks along the way. Any questions? Thoughts? Certainly. If you have some thoughts um along the way, please feel free to email them to me um or give me a call and ask about, hey, where would this be? I was wondering about this. Um because we can explain that and or add what the board's preference is. And as you know, I communicate to everybody when you communicate to me. So it'll come back out to everybody about what somebody asks or requests. >> So this is a clarification question, not really a clarification question on on this paper. These are our district goals. >> The four they are the still four goals that we have as a district. And these would be what we are asking for everybody to be working towards. That doesn't mean that we
071won't necessarily do goals. They aren't the board's goals. >> Correct. So versus versus your goals or our goals. >> That's right. But my goals would be tied to that. Our district improvement plan will be tied to that that we put in in my kit. All of that will be tied together. So, you're going to work on giving us um more details under each one of these categories. >> Yeah, that's that's kind of like what we talk about is that process that's on the ground that it's the administrator's jobs to do. Yours would be these are the big lofty goals, but we'll give you the processes that we're looking at to implement it. What we would be asking you is to >> approve the strategies. >> Yes, please. Just making sure. And we'll be working through
072this the next month as we have people coming back in from summer. And um but we would hope that when the teachers come back that we're ready to roll on this, right? Because you want to come out fresh that first day with here's where we're focused on. >> So you're looking to approve it in August. So if we have anything, we need to send it to you in the next couple weeks. >> Please. We would we would approve it at the end of August. And in the meantime, the administrators are coming back. So we would talk and make tweets to that. Make sure that what we're doing aligns with their building. Uh Dr. Dage will finish the my kip plan which is the district improvement plan that now isn't due till September. Um and this
073will all align and flow together. >> Okay. Anybody? Thank you. And now >> do portrait of the learner. This >> Yes. So we are going to switch to the portrait of the learner. And I believe all of you have the image. This was the image that was really developed and landed on with that committee. I know several board members were part of that work. So it should look familiar. What we did was looked at that in some of our administrative council meetings in the second half of the school year. Actually, it started in maybe December, January. We made a few updates to the image. Most of the updates were really just cosmetic. like there was something at the top of that image. At one point, the letters didn't seem to be balanced. So, there were
074just minor updates to the image. But what we'd really like you to see is the competencies. When they brought the competencies back, they really brought them back exactly as we wrote them. And so, I've given you a separate document. There's a bit of a table that I'll explain how it's set up really to help you see what the team the portrait of learner team landed on the final the final that we landed on as that team. There's been some work with different groups, the ad council group, cabinet groups to look at some of those things to streamline because you'll notice some of them are pretty wordy and when you have a document like a competency, you know, a lot of times districts will put that in a visual that they display or it's got to
075be easily explainable. So, what we did was we went through and tried to consolidate some of the information or where we saw repetition. For example, one of the things we really want to make sure our kiddos can do is be empathetic. Because when we went into this, one of the competencies was empathetic, but under at least two or three categories, it also said to be empathetic or empathize. So, we remove that duplication. So, we'll what we'll do here is I'll just go through each area in the first column again. That's the information that the team, the committee landed on that worked on the portrait of the learner. The second column shows some modifications if we made modifications. Some of them were fine and we left them as is. And then there is a third column.
076There's just a couple that um seem to need to be rewritten. So what our goal here is to give you an opportunity to look through those, see what some of the modifications are, and once again, if you have any minor feedback areas or updates you want us to consider to please share those with us. So that first one is adaptability. And I'll give you a few minutes to look through that. We removed one and then we modified three of them to make it a little bit more clear or concise. So I'll give you a few minutes to look at that. Are there any areas of feedback or modifications you'd like us to consider? It looks good to me. It looks like changes to make it simplified but still convey the message. You know, these are
077all the things that people came up with include that. I think it includes the message. >> I do remember in the last session of port learner that we had um the facilitator was a little bit feisty that when attempting to simplify and consolidate, we sort of pushed back a little bit and said like no, we don't want more, we want five. We're like no, we do want give us one more. Um, so it is it's nice that after all this time, >> he got what he wanted anyway. >> Oh, if only he could see us now. >> That's right. That's right. >> Okay, we can go on to conflict resolution. Now, this one was a little bit um this was the one that was most changed because you can see in the opening bullet point,
078it even restates basically restates the same thing twice. And then this is where we saw some redundancy. We want students to be empathetic. Of course, we want them to empathize, communicate effectively, but we have a competency about communicating. And then utilizing active listening was also under communication. So those were simply removed. And then the opening statement was made a little bit more simple. I'll let you have a few minutes to look at those. Any thoughts or feedback on that? I think I like it better. This the modified version. Yeah, I like everything in there. Let's hope that all of that happens. >> Mhm. >> We work on that all the time. That's right. >> That's a That's an important one. >> Yeah. >> Uh so moving on to empathy. There's only do two bullet points
079underneath that. So I'll let you take a few minutes to look at that. And that's when there was a few more changes, but it um really to make it clear, you know, when we say remain present, that's like a that's an adult way of talking. So really kind of simplified it too. We want them to act with kindness and compassion because again, we want our kids, our all of our stakeholders to really understand what this is about. I like this one. >> I mean, it was already pretty simplified, but I I liked it beforehand. I like it after. >> Okay. The next bullet point is communication. that was a little more meaty. >> I just have a really quick question on the education one. Why did we what was the reasoning behind taking out um
080using oral written and non-verbal communication skills? When we discussed it, it was really around making sure it was clear and concise. And certainly we can take that feedback back and if that, you know, if the team wants to add that back in, we certainly can take that back. We felt like that was a little bit um redundant in terms of communication is to to write and orally speak clearly written in non-verbal. Many of these documents, if you go on websites and look at these, it they're really clear. They're very concise. And so in many areas, the thinking was, let's see if there's a way to consolidate a little bit more, but still not change the communication. Just like with our goals and policies, remember with our goals and policies that you will develop a strategic
081plan out of this on how to achieve these things. And so it would be then that perhaps the goal that centers here around written language that we gave before would be up and underneath that as well as probably our reading scores and and how you're reading and learning to read. And so it's just a really different thinking. I mean, it still goes back to this is curriculum and instruction and it's community relations, right? School climate and culture. It's the same thing just rewritten in a different format in a different way. No, >> I just I just wondered what was the that because this says I want you do it all and this just says I want you to do it. I guess that was my my reasoning. >> I don't like I just wonder what
082the thought process. >> Absolutely. We appreciate your feedback. We'll make note of that. And then the final one is critical thinking. I will tell you I still feel there's a little bit of redundancy in some of the statements that we've made here but um we will have you know your feedback as well as taking this to our administrative team as well. And then back to the portrait team. You will see when we first wrote this in every single one other than one of the bullet points, we said evidence or evidence base. So again, a lot of repetitive pieces there that were removed. There is a lot of empathy in there. >> There is a lot of empathy. We We really wanted to highlight that something. >> You mean I missed another one? We I missed
083another one, Monica. >> But that was something that >> it did. It did come out as a something strong. >> Another thing is we have empathy as one of our things. And there's empathy in every Yep. Okay. Well, I think um this opportunity is really to start to gather some feedback. You have those and as always, if there's any feedback that would be sent to Dr. Wilcox and you know that would be incorporated into the work that we're doing along this way and we still have administrators to look at this and we still have the committee, the portrait of a learner committee that will come back together as well. So, thank you for taking the time and thank you for your feedback. >> Thank you. >> Um, iPad purchase uh you have in front of
084you the proposal will be vote on Monday. So, if you have questions, >> Brad is not here. >> He shared with me today that um he would have come to me. He hadn't had a chance to meet with me yet to really sit down. This is his only need. He may need some covers for some Chromebooks which we are able to come back with later. Uh so this uh was just Thank you for pointing that out someone at the table and um we'll have it on the agenda on um Monday. >> So are these iPads used in the classrooms? >> They are. >> Students, >> they're used for students and iPads are for teachers as well. >> Okay. Is this for the junior high? >> Our iPads are across the board. There's some sets of
085iPads, but the K2 for iPads and then some teacher replace the placements >> and they stay in the building. They don't go home. >> They do not go home unless the teacher takes them home, but I I don't they don't that's not really what they use. They use their computers. >> Okay. Any other questions? >> Does anybody know how long an iPad it says there at the end of life? How long does an iPad last? >> Four years. depends on their updates, right, too? And what they come out with and >> I think after three or four years, you can't update it anymore if I remember right. >> Okay. >> Kind of like a Chromebook. >> At home, I probably need a new one. You probably do. >> I'm using an old one, too, that
086has 13, >> which is way old, you know, but it does what I want it to do. So, I just let it crank until she dies. So, um, it's paid out of the syncing fund, then that will stay. >> It can be paid out of the syncing fund. Yes. >> And, and one of the problems with iPads, if you don't get the newer ones or the cuz the software changes all the time. So, it requires the newest operating system, sometimes they put an update in and then there you go. Now, you can't use that iPad because, you know, it has 14 and it needs 16 on it or whatever like that. And uh that's very frustrating because then you have to go through all the iPads and sort them out to say all right well
087we can't do that one anymore. We can't use that for K uh whatever programs that Dr. Dillage you know kids coloring or math 106 or you have to eliminate all that. So it does make it difficult. So >> Mrs. I had another piece uh if we remember that we talked about Jardon um that didn't get put on here. If I could just uh speak with the board. Sure. >> Thank you. Um, we did get a quote uh for the 7500 to get the base done at Jardon. The key is having an okay to go ahead, we would vote on it on Monday. But if Julie comes out and is able to do the lines, sooner that we can get them in to dig it out, the sooner we can get the swing installed. They did
088say to us, the swing company, if we didn't um if we went past the end of next week that they might not be able to do it because they're doing Epsilani schools playgrounds. I said we were here first. They said their their work is a lot bigger than ours. Um they don't have one's wing. They have a lot of playgrounds that they're doing in Epsilani. So um I we' just like to go ahead and get started on um unless anyone's opposed. So this is kind of the phone call where I say we it's it's not required, but it is by our process. It's $7,500. The swing needs to go in. >> What's the 75? >> You have to get the ground ready. So, there has to be certain It's like Yeah. The certain parameter by
089each side and we've got to take a tree out and then we've got to level it and then take it one foot down. Then we'll build a burn with some of that dirt. >> So, just just to be clear, you're asking for if it's okay to start the work now. >> Yes. >> And we're going to vote on it Monday. >> Make a motion to approve it now. >> Let's do it. Whatever the board wishes, >> I make a motion to approve the $7500 to cover the base cost to install the swing at Jordan. >> I'll second swing needs to go in. >> It's been a year and a half. >> Okay. Motion made by Heidi and second by Monica to get the work started to install the swing at Jardan School. Any more discussion?
090No. Uh, roll call, please. >> I'm sorry. Who was the second? >> Me. >> Monica. >> Fortress. >> Yes. >> Ret. >> Yes. >> Beaton? >> Yes. >> Becker? >> Yes. >> Leon boys? >> Yes. >> Fox? >> Yes. >> Hinton? >> Yes. >> Can we approve these laptops, too, if everybody's okay with that? as well. >> I make a motion to approve the 200 iPad um replacements at the cost of 64 thous,00 motion by Heidi support by April that we purchase the iPads at $64,800. Any discussion? I just want to say thank you for moving both of these ahead and uh kudos to Brad and Greg who got the stuff put together and got people out to bid in a very short period of time so we got it done. >> Okay, roll call,
091please. >> Fortress, >> yes. >> Beaten, >> yes. >> Becker, >> yes. >> Fox, >> yes. >> The boys, >> yes. >> Richie, >> yes. >> Hinton, >> yes. Okay, we're at public comment. Seeing no one homeless. No. Okay. >> Uh, moving on then. Board member comments and administration comments. I do. Um, so I was going to read this yesterday, but we didn't have a board comment thing on here. So, um, I want to begin by acknowledging that at times decisions can feel personal and some may act out of desire to win over others. But at what point do we stop working against each other and start working together? On Saturday night at 10 p.m., an email was sent expressed a concern about grant funed salaries saying if someone is being paid from a grant
092and their salary goes above that, then we are taking from our kids, right? However, it's important to clarify that many of these grant-f funed positions cover 50 to 100% of an employee salary. In many cases, the additional amount covered by the district is minimal. In contrast, the board is now considering spending tens of thousands of dollars on services like our policies that are already done and done so. After speaking with open schools, I learned they voted to discontinue their relationship with Truan Law, citing concerns over trust and transparency. There's a troubling pattern with them. Districts that engage Truan often find themselves also working with Alen Law Group and Don Soie. I spoke with multiple districts after our meeting with Don, including Romulus. They had previously worked with Don Soie. Despite the glowing references he provided,
093many of these districts had very negative experiences. Romulus specifically described him as dishonest, noting that he made changes without transparency and that cost ballooned very unexpectedly. In their case, they were forced to spend additional thousands of dollars just to rectify the issues that he had created. Now, we have an opportunity, which Dr. Wilcox has brought to us with Terry um at no cost to assist us in the same capacity. And yet we are still entertaining the idea of spending upwards to what he said would be $20,000 just for one month as he started. That figure is alarming especially when the same service is available through open schools for free. How can we justify concerns about taking from the kids regarding grant funed employees someone who is actively working in the district and contributing every day
094while simultaneously proposing to spend 20,000 of services on one month plus the additional months he'd be working. In our meeting in which Mr. Toby repeatedly stated he was unsure if the situation would work out, setting difficulties with the superintendent. Ironically, it's his superintendent is taking proactive steps to meet the board's request by securing someone at no cost. Our own Oklahoma schools is moving away from these external consultants due to the same concerns we're now facing. Why would we not follow suit? I understand there are many personal differences or desire for control, but the district must prioritize students over politics. We agreed to bring in outside support, but not specifically who that support should be. We owe it to our students, our staff, and our community to first try the free option offered by open schools
095before committing thousands of dollars of taxpayers money with a questionable track record. Let's come together as a board and do what's best for our students, not our individual agendas. This also kind of goes along with today um with the policies. We already have someone who has done policies who did it for free for us and it's very minimal. And then that was 175 to get new ones. So I'm just stating because someone asked about our meeting with Don Toby. There's we're saying no to raises yesterday, but we're willing to spend 175 or 20,000 in one month. And to me, that's crazy when we're not going to give raises to people who are here every single day. And we have options that are free right here at our hands. Anybody else? >> I just want to
096thank everybody for all the hard work you guys are doing. I know that a lot of long hours, a lot of hard work's going in. So, I appreciate that. Now, you took my thunder. That's all right. I did I ditto it. Yeah. >> President, and I just have a question um or followup on um Junior Vikings. I made a motion. that was tabled and that has not been resolved yet. So, will that be on next Monday's board meeting? >> Um, I talked before the meeting when I met with Dr. Kubby and suggested because I didn't go back and look at the meeting and uh what it was all about. I think it was about using facilities. So, I suggested we do it at committee of the whole cuz our agenda >> So, we have to
097wait another 30 days. Well, I think some things might be working out with some of that. Um, I guess if the board wants to put it on, we can put it on Monday. It's just a long agenda and it was three hours the other night. So, um, >> yesterday >> I can say to you that I we don't have any requests for building usage from the Junior Vikings. They removed their equipment from the school and um >> they said they were told to remove it. I went to their meeting. They said they were told to remove it and you offered them a school bus to store their equipment on. >> Well, that's not accurate. I spoke with I spoke with Ed Clobacher, the only person I spoke about and said, "What do you want to
098do with the equipment?" He asked me to keep it there for another year. I shared it with all of you. One of the suggestions that came to me is because we have a school bus that I wondered we reached out we didn't and said what about this idea that I shared with uh Mr. Clature in an email and I'm happy to forward it to you and he said thank you for thinking of the junior Vikings. We actually just thought that would be easier when you have to go to away items that you would have that we did not ask them to remove it. So, I I would hope that if we have that information that that we could give me a call and share it so that I can clarify or um I don't want
099to feel like I have to do everything in writing to uh others and then copy all of you in order to clarify my statements. But we did not tone they had to remove it. But we did give them they gave us dates originally of potential to see if the calendar was free. That was over a month ago. We've not received anything. Um, we're scheduling not scheduling anything with them because we haven't heard anything. So, a matter of fact, Mr. Fennis was going to call them and see if they intend on using the facilities. >> So, do you want it on Monday? >> Sure. Maybe. Yeah. Okay. Uh will you add it Jamie, please? Um anybody else? >> Uh no, just uh I appreciate everybody's very hard work and your meeting with us. We're trying to
100make What was that? >> I whispered to her Will Cox. Oh, >> I'm going to answer both ways. I know that Elby and I appreciate uh everybody doing that. was um a long discussion about going back to my maiden name and it was a good time as I was coming back to go through that. So, thank you for acknowledging that. Um I just want to thank everybody for their hard work. Uh we continue to have our doors open uh to try to work with the Junior Vikings uh as they send requests. Our most recent request is regarding a sled uh as you saw and uh pads. Uh we're we're looking in to see if who that was purchased by. We think we're getting close to that. Uh Mr. Patterson did some digging for us today.
101It was purchased back in 2023. We just need to see. We believe that actually the high school one was purchased maybe in 2023, but we'll see which one um that hasn't been able to poke. Uh please feel free to give me a call when you have any questions um or things that you need to know. And uh thank you for the two very long meetings and we look forward to Monday's meeting maybe going a little quicker because we went over so much yesterday. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Oh, I just will manifest. >> Sure. >> It's all been explained so it should move kind of fast on Monday. Um August 4th too. Put it in the calendar. It's a superintendent training for evaluation. Just a reminder, >> August 4th. Is that at 5:30 or is
102that at 6? >> I believe it's at 5:30. >> Yes, 5:30. Thank you. >> And and do remember that if you don't come, you can evaluate me. >> Okay. So, that's it. I have a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn.