001Call the Hazel Park Board of Education meeting to order at 5:31 on this 20th day of March, 2025. And we have roll call here. Becker here. Forress present. Fox here. Here. Here. Here. Need a motion for the agenda. I move the board of education approve the agenda with moving full session after public comments and before um new business. Support. A motion by Heidi to move close session first and second by Debbie. Any discussion? My only discussion is that I do see some people from our community here that might not want to sit through close session that we might want to hear them. I think public comment is Oh, are you giving public comment first? Okay. Okay. Any further discussion? And I have a roll call. Fortress, yes. Leaf boys, yes. Beaten, yes. Becker, yes. Fox,
002yes. Rati, yes. Hinton, yes. Uh, public comments. Uh, you have three minutes. Please state your name and address. Oh, five minute. Oh, we made that change. Jennifer Jackson, thank you for the correction. Brad's on it. [Music] You don't have to endure me as long this time. Um, my name is Jennifer Jackson. I live at 139 West Robert Avenue. Um, I would just like to share some things that I've experienced in my life. Um, and this is information to just kind of cover something that has happened in my life. Um, in the state of Michigan, employers are prohibited from retaliating against employees for engaging in protected activities such as reporting discrimination or whistleblowing or for participating in investigations or legal proceedings. Michigan law also protects employees who are associated with someone who engaged in protected activity
003such as being associated with someone who reports discrimination, harassment or illegal activity. According to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, retaliation is the most frequently alleged basis of discrimination in the federal sector and the most common discrimination finding in federal sector cases. Participating in a complaint process is protected from retaliation under all circumstances. Other acts to oppose discrimination are protected as long as the employee was acting on a reasonable belief that something in the workplace may violate laws, even if they did not use legal terminology to describe it. Depending on facts, retaliation may be reprimand the employee or give a performance evaluation that is lower than it should be. transfer an employee to to a less desira desirable position. Increase scrutiny. Treat a family member negatively. For example, cancel a contract with a person's spouse.
004Make the person's work more difficult. For example, punishing an employee for filing a complaint by purposefully changing their work schedule to conflict with family responsibilities. Termination of the employee. There are consequences for retaliation. Reinstatement. Employers who violate anti-retaliation laws may be required to reinstate the employee for their position without loss of seniority. Back pay. Employees may be entitled to two times the amount of lost backay plus interest. Compensation for damages. Employees may also be entitled to compensation for any special damages and other relief necessary to make them whole. I've noticed employees speaking at meetings and they have commented on a number of issues facing our district. Many and times many times employees are told to keep their heads down and it is encouraging to hear people raise their voices. Anyway, usually in onboarding and annual
005employee trainings, you cover the typical workplace safety and hot and button issues that protect the district. I just want some of you to know that there are employment laws that protect you, too. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak? Okay, seeing no one, we need a motion to adjourn to close session. I move that the board of education recess to close session under 81H to consider material exempt from discussion or disclosure by state and federal or federal law attorney client privilege. Support Motion made by Heidi for to journ to close session. Second by Debbie. Uh roll call. No. Can we have discussion first? Oh, discussion. Sorry. Um so just two things about that. The first is that um I do understand that the attorney that is representing the board of
006education is here um to provide us with an update and that is because the full board has not received an update um either from the attorney nor through the board. on behalf of the attorney since January the 27th. Um, part of that is to be the invoices that are from his law firm. Um, and I would like to discuss whether or not those are going to be talked about in the close session. Um, they are public finance uh discussions. I believe that the invoices and what is in those uh currently I believe we only have invoices dated through February 13th uh which is still well over a month ago be discussed in an open session. Um, and then more importantly and rather on topic, uh, the board of education did receive an email at 4:05
007p.m. um, from an employee, Ryan Boss, um, who was concerned that there was a disciplinary measure that was going to be discussed in the close session, that her discipline had been predetermined. And if we are going to discuss that in a closed session, um does that need to be separated from the issue of Mr. Gardner and Truan Law Firm updating us on the investigation into the paid administrative leave of Dr. Krooppy or will that be considered a portion of that session as well? I think I would like to answer that. Um I think it's our turn. I don't I would like Excuse me. It is not your It's not your turn. here talking about me. I would like to move that I would like to request a close session to discuss the employee discipline related
008to myself pursuant to the open meetings act section 812 which allows for a close session to address personal matters. So um April if you want to proceed you can read all those truin bills because that's public knowledge. I announced it last what last week what the bill was. So feel free and tell the public what we've paid. Well I there's no secret from the public. Go ahead. No there is no secret from the public. That's why I was asking if we are going to discuss those particular. Why are we talking there about it when it's public knowledge? Well that's what I'm asking. Are we going to talk about an open session? That was the question. Yes. Go ahead. Oh okay then I will. What do you think I'm saying? Um, so we do to date
009we have three invoices from the Truin Law Firm. If if I'm understanding that correctly, there is, like I said, this is through February 13th. I don't know if we've received another one after that. We have not. Okay. So, to date, we've paid the $2,500 retainer. Um, there is an initial bill uh for professional services. What date was that retainer? uh January 2nd. When was that paid? Because that was supposed to be amended because that's not the correct bill. Um it looks like it was paid on January 14th after we voted for it. Correct. I This is just the check status. I have no idea. That would probably be a question. I don't know if anybody from finance is I believe that's the case. Thank you. Yeah, I it's the $2,500. I that's just the original
010one. Um the second invoice which is for services uh from January 9th through January 23rd is $2,747. Uh what that is is five correspondences regarding a board matter. Um and these are just phone calls, correct? Review of documents. uh correspondence exchanged with board presidents, preparation um and research of documents and travel. Um because this is the 23rd, this is prior to um the meeting where Dr. Griffy was placed on paid administrative leave. And then we do have a third invoice dated February 27th uh for $3,2656 uh for services that were rendered from January 24th through February 18th. I'm sorry, I said the 13th earlier and it's February 18th. Um, again, the majority of them being phone conversations uh regarding board matters, uh, travel is travel and attending board meetings, preparation of documents, and preparation of
011information responses. Um, going through it quickly, it looks like 12 correspondence exchanges regarding board matters. Um, and again, it's possible that we will talk about this when we enter into the close session. Um, what those board matters were. I'm hoping that we can get an update on them because we don't currently have them. Um and then if we can get even an estimate of the expenses that have been incurred from February 18th through March third March 20th also and then that does we haven't seen anything from the Allen log group either. We have not received any right. So we have also incurred pretty significant expenses because per the resolution we are paying the Allen Law Group $250 an hour to conduct the investigation. And again, I'm assuming that the the contents of the closed session
012will be updates on the discussions regarding those board matters because we are unsure of what they are. Anybody else? We have a motion on the floor. Yes. Well, we do have a motion on the floor, but I also um I mean our attorney is here. Perhaps he can give us some guidance because we also have a request from an employee to enter into a close session uh to discuss her own personnel matters. So, do we need to I don't think that's why we're going into close session. Do you know why we're going into close session? Well, for I'm I'm assuming because what we asked for the close session for was for an update from our attorney regarding the investigation and the paid administrative leave of Dr. Krooppy. But if we are going to go into
013close session for multiple reasons or if we are going to be receiving anything additional from our attorney, I we do have we do have a request from an employee who has provided us with written notice that she is concerned about retaliatory discipline. So, I mean certainly those can both be closed sessions, but I'm wondering if we need to have two separate motions in order to um Can you satisfy this? Good evening. Uh I'd like to just respond briefly. Currently, we have a motion on the floor under section 81H to go into close session and essentially that matter has to be resolved. But the second item has been a request that's come from the public to have a closed session under section 8 section section 81A of the open meetings act. That would be the board's
014decision to make after you address the first item. Okay. So they're kind of like two separate items and again it's up to the board whether they decide to have that addressed at this meeting or another meeting is truly in the discretion of the board. Do we have the option of going into a closed session coming back to the table open and then closing again on the request of the public/personnel? You can do basically I'm asking can we get them both taken care of today so that we don't have to keep doing this? Yes. Yes you can. Uh again, you can do the first close session under section 81H. Then the board can decide to amend the agenda and add that item to the agenda, vote on it under section 81A of the open meetings act.
015So that's how it can be done all in one day or one meeting that is. I mean I'm hoping that one meeting equals one day. So I'll I'll take what you said it. Yes. Yes. So there's a motion on the floor. Motion on the floor to go into close session. So we need roll call. Fortress, yes. Leon boys, yes. Beaton, yes. Becker, yes. Fox, yes. Rati, yes. Hinton, yes. meeting back to order. I move that the board of education reenter open session. [Music] Okay. A motion made by April, second by Monica to call the meeting back to order. Any discussion? Roll call. Yes. Yes. Becker, yes. Yes. Yes. Boy, yes. Yes. Uh, new business. District councilform informationational item. Do you want me to do this? I'm sending out. No, go ahead. Okay. the information. I
016move the uh board of education approve the appointment of Allen Law Group to investigate alleged board policy violations involving board matters. The board also approved approves the Allen Law Group's $250 per hour rate to perform the factf finding investigation with a cap of $7,500. Support. Okay. A motion is made to hire the Allen law firm to investigate uh complaints against board made by Heidi. Second by Monica. Any discussion? No. No. Roll call. Fortress. Yes. Ratit. Yes. Beaten. Yes. Becker. Yes. Fox. Yes. Leaf boys. Yes. Hinton. Yes. Okay. We have district councilformational. We just did that. What? No. Oh, we went to the other thing first, right? I asked for this to be on here because the uh contract for administrators of end in um the end of to renew is the end of March. There
017is a process the revised school code 3801229 section 129 of the revised school code gives an administrator uh there's a process of notice uh they have a right to meet with the board um our inconsole uh I I want to keep our inconsole um attorney didn't it When he moved to interim, that title stopped. Was that when he moved to interim ad that title of in council stopped for us? Well, no, I think he was still doing work as a council. I think he was split 50/50 or he was still doing the foyer request and council. I'm not quite sure how that memo read. Maybe we have to remember that. I swore it said that the in council was no longer as interimm AD. So then um that's why he was still getting paid though
018because he was doing foyer requests. He was getting paid way more than most ads in the area and I think he was still title n and discipline. He needed all of those. I I guess my concern is we are already paying so many lawyers already. We have our own the school has our own. like why do we need to pay a very nice just under 200,000 with benefits to another lawyer? Well, since it'sformational, we can't vote on it tonight, but it's um I think he needs a new job description. I think you need some additional items put on there. Uh we don't have anybody to oversee Camp Hazelwoods. Um there's building permits, there's uh transportation, there's things that I'm sure have not been put onto Monica Papazian and um he could help. We need to
019revise and repair our policies, our school district policies. I'm not going to request to we get brand new ones because of the cost. Um, however, we're told that we have a lot of money. So, um, I think there's good reason that he stay on. I don't recall seeing anything that he wouldn't have a job that he wouldn't be that do do that part, which he has been doing. He did it just a week or two ago. He's doing foyer right now uh for several foyers that he's gotten. So, he has been doing the job and I think that he should stay. Um, when we're cutting, I don't see anybody else getting cuts. So, that's my thing. So, what do we mean we don't see anybody else getting cuts? Who's whose jobs getting cut? Oh, okay.
020So, are we given that it is almost the end of March, are we going to then approve the formation of a new position with a new title and a new job description that includes legal counsel as well as buildings, grounds, pol like yeah, you know, the the other list of things that you had sort of mentioned. So, is it similar to the shift from in-house counsel to interim athletic director where one sort of pauses and another one takes its place? Um, o only because I know that the end of March is coming soon. So, we're we're running out of time to make the choice of is this the job? Is it a different job? Is it ending one and starting another? Like what what is the process for transfer? I there's like a couple variables
021that are involved in moving over. I hadn't thought of any title. I just was thinking extra or different responsibilities. Okay. and in and coming new to this, I would like to have time to go back to see when he was hired, you know, in the minutes and that because I I want to have a clear understanding why that this person was brought in and um like uh Monica was stating, you know, what was his role, what was, you know, and then when he was hired for the interim, what was the process there? What was discussed? So, I would like to have some time to review the meetings to see to to for me as somebody who wasn't here to be able to uh review that and maybe we could put this on our committee as
022a whole agenda so we can discuss it more. Um, you know, um, we're missing the deadline. So, and since it'sformational, um, I don't know, but we didn't follow the process of the revised school code. when you're dismissing an administrator. So if if that half of that job was dismissed, I think that we miss some of what the law requires us to do, you're dismissing half of an administrator's job without it coming before the board. So I think you should just stay due to not doing it. We didn't do it correctly. And um I I'm in favor. We can do committee of the whole. We can vote on it at that time. But he was not dismissed from the job correctly cuz I mean I would personally like to see us have an attorney sitting here
023at the board level to make sure that the motions and everything is correctly done because in witnessing previous Isn't that why we pay him as our board attorney? What's that? Isn't that why we're paying him to be our board attorney? He is but he doesn't attend every board meeting. I would like to see used to have one that attended every board meeting. But if we have him attend every board meeting as opposed to spending $200,000, it would probably still be cheaper. It also I think we're talking about two different things because if we're keeping someone as in-house counsel for the district, they represent the school district, not the board of education. Like Mr. Gardner and Truan Law Firm does not. They represent the board, not that's not true. Any attorney that the board the board
024is actually the employer, right? So he does report any attorney reports to the board. I remember Mr. Conire both. If I may, I remember Mr. Conand who sat on this board with Mr. Gibson and and all the older people for all these years and then when he retired came Mr. Patterson because Mr. Patterson was part of that and Mr. Patterson sat up here at the board level for a few years and he would catch certain things that were not catched when there was not a an attorney. Yeah. Um like when you guys, you know, the la like the last couple of years and I think it would have saved a lot of um a lot of uh confusion if we did have somebody that would sit up here and say that's not the law, you
025can't do that. Um, I would feel better and I think it would help bring us all together if we had somebody like um the lawyer up here sitting here and uh helping us through some of these things, especially now, especially with what you know with all the changes in the world that's happening. I think that we should do that. But that's just my personal opinion. I think we should bring it back to the committee. let the new guys check it out, see the preview the uh the other videos and and let's see what was actually done and what was his purpose when he was hired as an attorney and just my that's just my opinion. Any attorney that we have represents the board. Uh Clark Hill John Garrick represents the board first. Um Jimmy Patterson,
026Mr. Patterson represents the board first. is taxpayer money and the board is elected by the people and so any attorney we pay represents the board before the superintendent or this or the district. So, okay. Then is there an option within the revised school code to extend the contract for a specific period of time that would then give us time to review make the res make the recommendation and then vote? I especially given this is March 20th and we will not be together again until after hopefully. I was just thinking and does he have a does he have a contract with the school? How long's his contract? That's what we I don't know if anybody can get their hands on the I believe it's a two-year contract. They're meeting minutes from They're two-year contracts starting. Do
027you know hand when two years effective? When didn't we just have Well, that wouldn't account for when you switch to interim. He's just interim. That's only it was until June 30th of 2025. That was what our thing was for the insurance position. Correct. And then I believe if I read correctly, it was like 90-day notice you had to give someone if you were not bringing them back. While we have Mr. Gardner, can you answer? Is there a way to wait or are we violating? So, under section 1229, there are what's called administrators that fall under the revised school code. And essentially what we're talking about are school administrators that fall under section 1229. If this individual is just an if he's not a school administrator and he's just an attorney director, then he may not
028be what's called a section 1229 administrator where you got to give 90 days notice. And if you don't give the 90 days notice, then the contract just kicks over for another year. So then what you have to look at is his contract. Does this contract have language that says it's governed by section 1229? If it does, then we got to comply and meet that 90-day deadline and all the actions. It's got to be consideration of non-renewal, which is has to be done before March 31. And then you got to actually non-renew the contract. If the contract language doesn't address section 1229, then you may be able to look at the language and either terminate the contract or not. But it's going to be really covered by what's in that contract. So that's what you got
029to look at. The language in the contract will cover it. And if you have to call a special meeting to address that matter, you can. It's still time. It's remember 18 hours notice. So it's not over. Uh, today's March 20th, but the idea is you I would do my I'd do my research. I'd have the superintendent look into the contract, see what it says, and if it says section 1229, then we got to go by that standard. If it doesn't, he might be uh he might be just governed where you can say, well, you can uh exit at the end of the year with based on a reason. With section 12 and 29, you can only non-renew for a reason, whether that's restructuring or but it's got to be a not arbitrary and capriccious reason.
030So, it's got to be like you said, restructuring, budget reasons, those sorts of things or just performance. So, you got to just you can't just say, "Hey, we're just going to non-renew." You got to you got to have like reasons in a resolution and it's got to be done at a board meeting. So, got to be a board action. If there's no board action, the contract just kicks over. But here, this is like a athletic director slash like uh council position might not even be a section 1229 administrator. So that might not apply. So that's why you got to look at the contract is what I would say. I'm sorry I gave you a long answer, but kind of get into the Thank you. That's a good answer. Thank you. So Dr. Frost, I'm on
031it. I need to get the contract staffing analysis. Um, you know, we were going to discuss this in a couple weeks, but this gave us an opportunity to get the um plan, which was very interesting. They do a lot. I thought that was a lot of money, but when I see everything that they do, um, President Hinton, do you have a timeline in to have this person or the contract? No, no, no. I we'll get we'll have that tomorrow. Okay. um for the uh staffing analysis. No, not really. And any findings from this wouldn't happen until next year, maybe even late next year. It's just a heads up. Uh there's a lot of governmental cuts coming. Um it's kind of like a pre-preparation thing. It's not anything that would that I could say was going
032to happen like now. Okay. Thank you. So, we don't we're not deciding on this now because I'm just concerned with us just doing another legal thing with this is kind of interesting. They tell us where we're fat and ways to trim. So, I think just like train came and did that presentation on the energy. This is similar to the same thing where but it's just the staffing in our district and how we as a district can save money and where we need to spend money if so I think yes it is money spent but I think it's also money that can re be recouped. I'm just hoping we can wait till maybe after all of our other big things right now are closed out. Are we going to wait and then have all this government
033stuff happen and then be in a situation where we can't do anything? I rather see it done sooner rather than later and see where our district stands. I just have a concern with spending $45,000 right now. Yeah, but we were talking about train and they're doing the same thing. [Music] It's being proactive, right? Um before you get into a jam. Um so I would I I like the proposal. Um one, I think I would be more comfortable if we weren't calling it staffing analysis because it's I mean that's minimizing. It's much much deeper than that. Correct. It is. Um, second, I can part of me agrees with Heidi's point that it is proactive and it is this, but looking at some of the things that they are um digging into uh with um a per
034people cost from MDE, comparative special education cost and staffing analysis, transportation, um student services, feasibility strategy, ies. I mean, a lot of these are very up in the air right now, and I while I don't necessarily want to punt it indefinitely, uh I think that we probably have a 30 or so days before we start getting a lot of clarification and bulletins coming from MDE about people spending um what special education funding is going to look like, where they're starting to trim. I think I would like to give us at least a little bit of time for their interpretation on what changes coming from the federal level might be before we move forward and then have to take a step backwards. I don't think it's a forever down the line, but I would like to
035see it a little bit down the line just given where we are currently. I mean where we not this board of education but education as a whole is currently and that we understand where some of that money is going to flow through and what MDE's priorities or changes are going to be before we pay somebody to look at the today picture because it well I think they're going to I don't think any of us disagree that the a year from now picture is going to look very different than the today picture. Yeah. And I think that they would take that into consideration. Agree. I just would worry that it would be difficult to take the unknown into consideration. That's all. So this says it takes 14 to 16 weeks. So given that time frame, we
036weren't looking to do anything about the results for next year anyways. Correct. Right. But that's the same time the budget comes in. So at least we can have a you know see where the budget sits and where this sits and where we need to expand and where we need to you know there's a list of districts that they've done that we and just about everybody in county we can vote on this in in May and June or not at all but you could call some board members we see them at Oakland schools at the dinners and ask them if they thought it was worth it. Yeah, investigate it. Investigate it more. I mean my personal take if you want to hear my personal take is that I feel that we have enough administrators who are
037very very um capable. Dr. Dillage, Dr. Petazion, I always mess up your name. I'm sorry. Uh Carla Griezley on the the principles at the at each level. We've been through this before in the past. Um, our administrators know what's going on in the schools. They know how many kids they can teach. They know how many rooms there are in each building. They know what kind of furniture we have. I feel that we should let them do their work and let them help us through this and and you know with the guidance of the the interim or superintendent and and do it that way. That's just my personal I think there is ways um in the past Oakland schools got involved with scheduling. we had too many teachers at the high school. So, they had to
038figure out the right schedule and because they didn't know the um you know the the um we didn't know the um the computer system that well for scheduling and I mean maybe that could be the now that they're doing power school that's different. So maybe somebody from P school could help us or maybe even another somebody from another district could say, "Yeah, you've you've got these kids scheduled this way and you should have it this way and this will save you eight teachers." Or, you know, um I just think that we should let the good people here at the central office uh take care of business and uh and just do it that way. Um yeah, that's just my opinion. Sorry. Okay, it'll come up. Well, we can pro we can bring it back at
039committee of the whole and put it to rest. I would kind of like to see what they have to say because it is kind of like train. They come in and tell us where we can save money and where we need to expand programs like so I'd like to hear what they have to say. I think the catch with train is that that was free. It was a sales pitch. It was free. This is in order to have to pay the $35,000. Don't We're paying them the bond. There's nothing free cuz we're still paying um on the other company that did the review uh 10 years ago energy review. We're still paying I saw in the budget um we don't have much left to pay, but we've been paying on that for 20 years. So,
040right. So, when was it like a sales pitch to renew? When is the last time we did one of these? At least 5 years ago. I've not seen one since I've been on the board. those gas people that come around your house and they want to sell you this gas and instead of going with DTE and you go with this company and then you get messed up. That just we were mandated to do it with the deficit because when when you're in deficit they want to know if you can close buildings and how can you save money etc etc. So we were mandated to do it by the state and then I think we did it when was that 2015? I think we did it maybe 5 years later. It's been a while. Maybe 7
041years ago, we did it again and that's when we found out we had $36 million worth of repairs in the second right round. Um, so it's been a little bit of time since we've done it officially. I don't know, Mr. John Davids went through the buildings for uh the bond, but we didn't get any 30 page report. No. Uh with details has a report that we can get our hands on. You have a report? No, I wonder if he does. Oh, and two weeks ago we were given a job description that said athletic director. Now it throws the word activities director in there. Um, we just paid agreed to pay somebody extra money to do some high school sports or high school activities. So, I don't know why it says activities athletic director. remembering back
042I think that there were I don't know what what the wording of the title was but we had discussed activities being at the elementary level um especially as it related to community schools and family engagement and activity opportunities um because there was a question about um I forget where it said elementary 26 under 26 26 it is grow and manage youth sports programs at the elementary level that that was mentioned as the activities. So I have a question. So at this says position type. Is that what you're going by for the title? Because down below it says Haz Park School District is seeking applicants for the position of Hazel Park athletic director. So I'm confused. Oh yeah. Okay. It says two different things. Yeah. I think the position type is where it stands in the
043uh computer system and and where you can look it up on the on the website sort of that menu like butterflies down too. Yeah, exactly. So, but in the in the body of it, it says Hazel Park athletic director because I was a little bit confused there for a second.