JPS Board Meeting - 02/18/25

001e e e [Music] good evening good evening welcome welcome to our February Jackson Public School Board monthly meeting it is an honor to see all these beautiful faces all the students hello thank you for being here for those of you that are interested in speaking during public comment tonight if you would please grab one of those half sheets in the back and fill that out make its way up here to the front if we get more than 10 citizens wanting to address the board we will reduce reduce the time right now is 5 minutes we will reduce it to 3 minutes at this time we'll stand and do the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible

002and jusice thank you at this time we'll turn the meeting over to Michelle axley for roll call please uh Miss Hamilton present Mrs simet here miss Acton here Mr ready Miss sharp here Mr does and Miss hunt here we have the agenda in front of us at this time I would like to entertain a motion to approve the agenda so moved real quick um I I need to make one minor adjustment um under the um let me get down here the 2025 2026 budget update you'll find in your board packet there are two um separation agreements one for um the teaching staff and one for our administrative staff um obviously as we consider budget reductions in all areas um I've added one labeled nonunit and you should have a copy of that it's exactly the

003same document as what you've seen in the other ones um accordingly so it's the same dollar amount we could talk about it when we get there but one change to the to the agenda Marilyn you w to amend your I make a motion to approve the agenda as as amend yes as amended thank you Mr does any um any deliberation all in favor I anyone oppose motion carries move down to superintendent report Jeff thank you very much um and I am thrilled to be able to welcome uh JPS monor Center uh Mr principal Bradley Jane and his crew of amazing students and teachers uh parents thank you very much for sharing your children with us and Mr Jane I'm not sure who's going to kick off your presentation but I'll turn it over to you

004and let you kind of direct traffic from there absolutely good evening members of the school board and the Jackson Community my name is Bradley Jane and I have had the privilege of serving as the principal of the JPS monor Center that has been nurturing curious independent and compassionate learners for nearly 10 years monor education is rooted in the belief that children learn best when they are actively engaged in the learning process it emphasizes Independence self-direction and a Hands-On approach to learning research has shown that monor students Excel academically and socially developing strong problem solving skills and a lifelong love of learning our students Thrive academically because the monor method allows for individualized learning children get to move at their own pace ensuring that they Master foundational Concepts before advancing this results and a deeper understanding

005of the material and a higher academic achievement additionally our focus on social and emotional development helps children build strong interpersonal skills empathy and confidence our students regularly show improvements in their problem solving and critical thinking abilities for example last year Madison worthy demonstrated significant progress in both math and language arts by utilizing the monor approach to learning thank you Mrs kagin additionally our parents satisfaction rate is consistently high with over 90% of our parents reporting satisfaction with the monor approach in our school our school emphasizes a strong Community involvement we regularly host family workshops and invite parents to actively participate in their children's learning this approach not only strengthens our school Community but also ensures our children receive consistent support both at school and at at home moreover our diverse classroom settings encourage students to

006learn from each other's backgrounds and perspectives fostering a culture of inclusion like many schools we Face challenges related to budget shortfalls but we continue to find innovative ways to overcome them we would greatly appreciate your continued support and providing the necessary resources to further enhance the monor experience for our students at this time I would invite the board and cabinet to stand and join us for a walking tour of our monor classroom students go ahead teachers you may get started just as if you were in your own environment feel free to interact with them on the floor I'm just going to continue to talk as we walk around the monor classroom is a unique and child- center learning environment that promotes Independence curiosity and a love for learning in a monory setting children are encouraged

007to take an active role in their education with teachers acting as guides rather than traditional instructors as you can see it's very much Hands-On we have Cosmic exploration over here with seven and Doug zyla over here is working on the trinomial Cube Malaya and Anna are doing sensorial tactile working with coffee crushing eggshells Mrs chout is working with Adeline on the pink series and the stairs jav over here is multiplying in first grade Bryson is building his word sentences followed by the pictures and then writing the sentences after he forms them Mrs Fairbanks is working with a group of first graders we have Delila LC and rayin and they are doing some Writers Workshop in a small group setting Fiona is working on geometric shapes and finding the perimeter and area of different objects Elana

008and Mrs kagin are working on different mathematical fact families Liliana is working on dividing by decimals and we have Ava and wayin working on colors in Spanish and English good job we have Roman Darby and Noel counting in English and in Spanish and then we have Laura and Murphy working with Senora Rosio writing fres and espanol I as you can see the environment is all child centered they're not direct instruction with an adult talking to them at the front of the room it's very individualized at their own pace we'll continue just for a few more minutes see7 you're a natural that's probably true all right if we can have the board members finish their last group and then if teachers and students want to start packing up our materials you're going to see as they

009pack up the materials respect for the materials themselves and the environment which builds self-esteem and pride oh I missed a group we have Mari and M and miles working on hundreds thousands and tens places I got all right wrap up that last lesson last conversation thank you Doug and seven for taking care of the materials notice as the boys fold the materials that they learn how to fold in five different ways as part of the monor method all right let's start packing up Monas unfortunately we have a time limit I wish we could I'd be all for it come see us this is us every day come see us [Music] yep they finish cleaning up I'll just read a little bit more the classroom is structured to allow children to take charge of their learning

010children are free to choose their activities and work at their own pace promoting self-direction and Independence you're going to see mixed age groups in our classrooms three age spans in every classroom it's important they encourage peer learning where the older children Mentor the younger ones and everyone benefits we have a respect for the child which is a core principle of minosaur Education every child brings their own experiences their own ideas their own traditions and beliefs into the classroom and the teacher works as a guide to elicit those responses teachers observe and guide children based on their needs interests and developmental stage as you watch the children carry them everything is two-handed and intentional all of our manipulatives are found in nature you'll see lots of wood and glass and different things like that that promotes

011environment there's a focus on life skills monor's classrooms focus a strong emphasis on practical life skills they engage in activities like pouring sweeping and buttoning which help build motor skills concentration and a sense of accomplishment go to your parents again either way yep the monu philosophy emphasizes the development of social skills empathy and peaceful conflict resolution I'll say that again peaceful conflict resolution when you put groups of people together conflict is natural it's teaching the students and the children how to peacefully maneuver the conflict and come to an agreement in conclusion our monor school is committed to developing well-rounded independent Learners who are prepared for Success both academically and socially we truly appreciate the board's support in making this possible and look forward to working together to improve and grow thank you for your time

012and attention and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have thank you everybody and thank you students and families the children have sewn hearts for the board so they'll bring them up to you guys if you haven't gotten one yet uh but that's part of the Practical life skills the children learn how to sew and bake and clean thank you very much awesome and thank you very much Mr Jane thank you again to uh thank you again to our parents for sharing your children with us we we desperately appreciate them and uh love what they're learning how much fun is that so thank you very much for the update uh up next um yeah it up next will be Chris gianetti uh and she's going to give us a quick uh rundown as we

013begin the process for a 20 uh 25 2026 Bond um Chris is going to kind of wrap us up around the 2018 conversation so Chris if you would sir first of all thanks to the monor uh staff and uh Mr Bradley Jane and all of students and parents for bringing your kids out here there is nothing more enjoyable than watching them learn so thank you very much and be safe getting home I'm just going to do a quick recap here for anyone who uh has any questions about the bond or just some thoughts that may have come up after our bond committee meeting or in general in the audience um in 201 actually 16 is when we had started the work for our 2018 um Bond and and I can't can you help me move

014this forward and so we had started that work um in 2016 went to the community did a bond development committee and the committee came back and said you're not going big enough so we ramped we got together and in 2017 we started the work for the 2018 Bond um when I was researching all the things that we had done there were so many videos that we had put together of where we started to where we had gotten to and it was really interesting how much time and energy was put in to pass that Bond and how many different people were a part of it just to give you a little recap we um milled to get 50 uh $87 million in our bond projects over time we were able to get $5.6 million in um

015bond interest during that time and they gave us a total of a little bit more than $92 million to um spread across the district and the plans that we had um a couple other good things happened to us that were sort of interesting in that the um we were heading the budget to for a million dollars or so to demo Frost but through a a partnership and a an agreement with the Jackson County ISD we sold it to them for a dollar which saved us a million dollars to use towards our other projects um and as you can see that campus now with the brand new Cascades and um the Jackson County ISD has turned into a really beautiful modern um area uh making that neighborhood look really wonderful we also had budgeted to demo

016TA Wilson that was going to cost is about $1.7 million and we did not have to do that we sold that to the city for $150,000 Additionally the old monzor which was at the Amy fth building um the John George home had approached us and asked us if we would be interesting and interested in selling that building and at the time because one of our focuses was to re um fix the footprint of our district we just had too many buildings we were also going to close Bennett but we didn't need to do that we moved the wonderful monzor program over to Bennett along with the Felician Sisters and that 150 uh went that from TA Wilson went towards some lighting um on the street of Wildwood out in front of Jackson high that was

017desperately needed and then the 322 went through uh various other projects including the extra 10 million that we received outside of the bond from um um alick for the um the the field that he's built out there so that that Recreation Area is just the athletic um Center is just amazing so that's kind of some of the things that were happened while we were in the midst of the bond which were really wonderful for us and then um one of the things I just wanted to charact uh just one before that um was to let you know what Bond dollars can uh what what our focus of the 2018 Bond was like I said it was to right size the district and um footprint which made us we needed to downsize the amount of buildings

018that we had facilities are costly and they never don't need work right so we went through and decided with our bond development committee what what makes sense for Jackson Public Schools and what we could do to downsize but also reinvigorate what we had um we uh paid a lot of attention and and have followed through with Safety and Security and Safety and Security isn't just about all our lockdown buttons and our safe vestibules it goes throughout the entire district with doors and other sa Safety and Security um measures that we have put in and over time the more things that um the state of Michigan requires that we have when it comes to uh Safety and Security and we have a full-fledged EOP committee which is emergency operation procedures that meets monthly to make sure

019that we are meeting all the goals and expectations from our staff and the state of Michigan to keep our schools safe um we also Focus very much on uh 21st Lear learning furniture for all students um every one of our classrooms was touched with brand new furniture um they were each classroom was touched with 21st century technology and each student is one to one um also during that uh time frame we also did do some infrastructure needs for all the buildings one of the the chimney outside of the high school was falling apart and we had no choice but to concentrate on that and some other infrastructure issues too when it comes to the bond um money I get this we hear this all the time like why can't you just have a bond and

020pay teacher salaries or pay for some of the just the everyday things like curriculum Bond dollars are not meant to be used for that that's you know something that has to come out of our our budget ourselves but what we can do for with Bond dollars is new construction remodeling we can purchase buses we can develop a site like much like we did for Cascades to build the new uh the building um technology for use can be part of the bond um infrastructure um things that that need as you if you came to our bond development committee or or have seen any of the information there are things that are 1 to three years that have to be done in every building and keep in mind we have seven Elementary buildings a middle school and

021a high school and while we do have a couple of new buildings most of our buildings have an average age of 70 some years old so they are old right and so it there's always going to be infrastructure needs what we can't use it for is up there such as salaries and benefits supplies training operating expense repairs and maintenance so there's a very big difference between infrastru structure and repairs and maintenance and we also cannot buy any software with Bond dollars so having said that as we go into this 2025 Bond um we just wanted to highlight some of the amazing work that was done and we're just going to go through some of these photos so you can see um what work that we did in the elementaries so Cascades Elementary was from the

022ground up that is a brand new Elementary School we're very proud of that school it's a beautiful looking building um and uh houses on a lot of our students who really enjoy the new atmosphere we also um put in the bright colors in all of our schools and uh and the decorating theme along with the Safety and Security in every building like I said every entryway is now considered safe and secure we put in a lot of collaboration area into the Cascades Elementary there's one at each end of the hallway for collaboration for students um with the bright colors and you can see the furniture they get to sit on that we didn't sit on I'm sure moving forward uh we did a lot of work with dible as you may remember Dibble did have

023um basically trailers out back U mobile classrooms as you might say for years we were able to put on an addition to get rid of those and revamp much of the school if almost all of it um with new brighter um Arch just brighter design and a new set safety security along with the same collaboration rooms that you'll see at Cascades all of our schools have these collaboration rooms for the students gather um this is some of the new furniture that we put in in every build in every building every classroom and our media centers many of our media centers were revamped a lot were revamped to be moved from like at Hunt we move the media center and the office we switch places with those to make it more safe and secure here at

024dble it did get a a facelift this is Hunt's new entrance so the Hunt's Elementary entrance was where the library used to be when you first walked in we switched that around for Safety and Security um sit issues and made that more visible when you first come in the school we were add able to add a large collaboration room right off of the front vestibule as well as um new furniture um in that right classroom this is John R Lewis I happen to love this building it used to be the old Lincoln building it was closed for quite a few years we re open this with a with just a whole new footprint a beautiful brand new school um with new again here's their um one of their classrooms a New Media Center this while

025not technically new from the ground up the renovations were significant to change the entire footprint and look of this school it is a wonderfully beautiful school and and um all very just just really um welcoming to our students Jeremy got one job well I'll just keep talking as we go here we will um this this is also the brand new hallway I'm just telling you that the renovation in this building was amazing considering what um shape it was in when we started with IT Tech maybe you could help us out more of their classrooms and the renovations in there this is their brand new cafeteria space which doubles as their gym as well and now we move to sh Park sh Park was one was the last to get its Renovations done and probably one

026of the longest Renovations that we did but this school has been revamped into a beautiful space along with it a large addition and there was a lot of structural and infrastructure issu that we had to fix with this building in order to add on and also revamp what we did but Shar Park also received all brand new furniture Shar Park Academy um we did revamp parking as much as we could that is a landlock space um but we I think we've got every space in there that we can Middle School at Parkside we changed the entire entryway for Safety and Security and has moved off to the side now so that it is not a loan it was a lone standing building um and turned those into collaboration areas and now we have a brand

027new Welcome Center that's very opening for students and staff and has our Safety and Security procedures very well um in there we did re uh remodel the entire uh Media Center um this is a great space that we hold lots of meetings in the community likes to use his space as well as us um lots of comfortable position situations of sitting here are some of the classroom uh photos with a new classroom uh chairs for this age group which changes as they get older obviously at the Middle School at Parkside and then they did get a renovated uh cafeteria space which changed the way they do lunches um and and interact with their students and moved along the kitchen in a much more efficient way this is right off of the media center so that

028whole area is brand new and very welcoming for our students and of course Jackson high there was a lot of renovation um done here just recently as well as you can see um we renovated this Media Center our whole new entrance is amazing as as it is um and that is the entrance over by the pool the brand new pool um we also did a brand new entryway into the school district into the school itself which is um under the safe and secure protocols that we have as you can see in here this is a fully renovated space if you look towards the back there is the cafe that we've added Orange Cafe for coffee here in this building um there it is and then we re renovated the old pool to use as a

029new space um and updated a lot of our other um areas this is down by the brand new pool it has all new uh uh concession stands and bathrooms and showers and really is a beautiful entrance way this is the actual entrance way to Jackson Public which as you can see has a vestibule and a security entrance before they can get anywhere with into the building and finally the pool so while there were a lot of Renovations done to every building if you ever would like to see one please don't hesitate to contact me and I can take you on a tour of any of our buildings but what we do want you to walk away with is knowing and understanding what Bond dollars can be used for and what they can't be used for

030and also um the work that can be done when we put our our ourselves in our community together towards working towards one goal and that understanding that our buildings still need infrastructure they are old and they will continue to need that and if we don't if we don't pass a bond it comes out of our regular budget and that does affect what we're able to do for our students so I thank you all for being interested and um supportive of a bond and I look forward to where this 2025 Bond goes to thank you awesome anybody have any questions for Chris before we move on some really good stuff Miss Hamilton um I have a couple questions um so one I you know since being on the board um I've had opportunity to go through

031um the schools on my tours that I've usually do um I had been doing I'm unable to do now but had been doing bonly um and as mentioned the spaces are absolutely beautiful um I love the the bright colors the chairs the the the diverse seating arrangements um opport or options that the students have um absolutely you know really love what the bond dollars have did in those spaces um and I appreciate you also uh making it clear to the community um What bond dollars can be used for and what they can't be used for and the why bonds are requested I think it might be and I think we probably did this during the bond conversation but it might be of benefit for um uh oh I just lost my thought it'll come back

032to me anyways though um the other the questions though that I had for you were um the funds that we sold TA Wilson and Amy F and also and this might be two different ones you tell me because they might be the same or they might be different the funds that we got from that and then the uh interest money from that bond is the are the interest funds also only allowed to be used under the bond allowed or are those and same thing for the TA Wilson like I don't know if that's two separate questions so interest earned on the bond proceeds they'd have the same allowable uses as the actual Bond proceeds okay so they cannot be used for all the other correct so it's the same we keep those funds segregated with

033the rest of the bond proceeds um and then I'm sorry I forgot your the TA Wilson funds um the the sale of those two schools are those like Bond dollars or are those fun monies like if we were to do that again in the future could we you know what's the expens um so the the proceeds from the sale those two buildings can be used for whatever whatever purpose I believe good to know do we have an idea around how much the pool itself um cost us in that Bond how much that uh cost us I can pull that out for you the way that we have it the pool is lumped in with the rest of the high school Renovations but I could if you want I could get you that for you roughly

034do you have any any rough idea of how much uh I mean I would imagine it's a part of the Welcome Center and all that kind of maybe I don't know there it's hard to find where that line is right where it changes um so two million 3 million 20 million I I think the pool ballpark was about 13 million ballpark perfect that's good thank you that's what I wanted to if I if my other question comes back out let you know but um I did want to just highlight this word because I think it's nice 21st Century Furniture i' like that for our school so just just want to say that and thank you and Miss Hamilton we did use so so one of the things you saw when the interest comes in those

035dollars allow us to every project as we've moved through the bond from the the first building to the last building um has been given an allowance and we kind of a lot and float that allowance along which is how we end up at the end of our bond uh under budget or or on budget uh even though some projects cost more than what they originally were expect out so the pool is a perfect example if you were to go back with a pool I want to pretend and then it's going to be ballpark I think was $12 million was how much we had budgeted for the pool and by the time you get the the concrete and the you know each of the bids come in and it comes in a million dollars more and

036you go my gosh where we going to find a million dollars and that's when you find Opportunities like with fraud where you go okay we've got a million dollars in the budget sit over here to to destroy a building to take this building down perhaps if we could sell that building um to the ISD which is why when we sold it for a dollar everybody said Jee you sold a building for a whole dollar I didn't sell a building for a dollar we sold a building for a million dollars because that million dollars that we had in that project was design got transferred over the pool and helped us balance the budget on the pool project so that's how we that's how we kind of managed that budget as we move through in each project

037whether it was Parkside or or Sharp Park um whether it was Dibble or hunt any of them as we've come online has an allowance that kind of goes with it and then once we've either either met that budget or or we're under budget or over budget the the money's from the other projects kind of fold into that and that's where the money from we didn't have any money budgeted for um for Bennett like like Chris said it was an empty building we were looking at as as a potential to close that building um when we looked at the sale of of the monory building to the John George home the 330,000 that that became dollars we were able to use on this other project to be able to renovate Bennett to be able to do

038the things we needed to do over at Bennett and those are those are kind of how those dollars flowed out into those BR Bond projects so the same thing with TA Wilson when we sold TA Wilson to the city uh it saved the dollars that we had in the renovation now you can use those dollars just like general fund dollars we chose to use those dollars as the bond dollars that we've been using to be able to kind of backfill and and keep our bond under budget or on budget so that as we had budg budgeted money to destroy or take down parts of TA Wilson we were able to save those dollars and then take the sale price and reinvest those dollars into the bond that allows those projects to carry over and go

039farther does that make sense and we also on the um website we consistently P publish a monthly Bond uh Ledger as you would say so you can see what was budgeted for and some don't move because the projects haven't started yet but one of the most important things is is that we didn't start and say oo sorry you guys we couldn't get to you like there was a definite plan for every school and that money was already allotted and so if some things had to be taken off a project that was already done to ensure that we didn't slate another school well and that was the and we're able to come back and close those pieces up so so not everything I mean there's always a wish list right but at the end of the

040day we could go back and do more of those wish list items and that's that's really how we've managed that project from start to finish so I remembered um the other thing I think that we've been told that um you know when we're seeking a bond these monies are coming from folks property taxes or whatever but the rate is not changing for this new bond is that so that's part of what we're asking the bond Development Committee to do you want us to raise the millage do you want us to keep it where it is where there be no change to your taxes and so that will be the decision of the bond development committee as we start planning for what we want to do obviously we afraid the Mills we get more money but

041does it make sense that we just continue with what we're doing at leaving it the Mills where they are so so that will come up in our next Bond development committee and I think I think that will be explained and understood in a way that makes sense for everybody but you know either no tax raise we get this amount of money this s certainly half Mill Mill this will continue on the money size that we get but we also have to be you know I think we have to think about in what we did before too was you know how much can the community um absorb and you know that's where we really want to know what how we get the Buy in from the community and the support sorry I just want to um

042clarify because I think it's really good information for the community to have regardless of there's always going to be meals that are coming from our property taxes am I correct on that at this point yes okay and and that that money if we don't change it we're still going to get something which we can do something with if we vote the bond bond in yes otherwise it'll just go you know the Mills will keep going down till the bonds are paid off if we do not pass a bond but because we're going back for the bond we just want to extend the Mills that we have right now and hopefully that that's the direction of the bond development committee okay so if we extend it without raising it it won't feel perhaps maybe like too

043much more but we also have the option to raise it as well I just think that's good information for the community to know you're already we're already now this is not kha saying we should take the bond or not just so you know this is just me trying to make sure we understand what's going on if we say yes to the bond without raising it we're already paying into bond funds which means that whatever we're currently paying out of our taxes for our houses it'll just keep going so we can that's one option we can say yes don't raise it we can say yes to it period let's get it which was not a raise or yes to it let's raise it as well which means that there'll be more money coming out of your

044your your um milles which out out of our taxes okay I want to make sure that we're clear on that and and we provide all of that information too if we decide to raise it a mill or a half a m what does that mean in your taxes based on your um property so um but no raise does give us a significant amount of money to do quite a bit with and and would not affect taxpayers at this point in an increase and then don't forget thank you very much Kesha you are correct don't forget though that last may we actually dropped the the millage rate by a quarter point so we went from 6.2 down to 5.95 so I believe currently the bond committee is debating exactly what you had you just said Kesha

045hold it at 5.95 no increase um and that will allow us to again go back and Tackle more of those infrastructure needs right um and then there is also obviously the the conversation about do you do you restore that quarter Mill that we cut it last year and I don't know which direction the bond committee will go those are pieces that anticipate they'll bring before this group um in the May board meeting or in in May um but there's so there's lots of work to be done um and I think that that's that's a real piece for everybody to understand is you know you go Jeff well we just had this Bond and we did all of these things why do we need another one and as you know we heard earlier the the buildings

046are are old and so if you think about those areas that are critical need those first tier we got to get this done because the roofs are falling part and they won't go any further today so those critical tier one things we that were critical tier one back in 2016 2017 2018 we did those then you have tier two we did most of those then you have tier three and that's those have become tier one for us today so you know it's 10 years later so you have different roofs that need to be done and you have different you know situations your boilers are 10 years older your controls are 10 years older and and it's hard because a lot of the stuff while we sit in a beautiful full renovated space um and Miss

047Hamilton you talked about it we have new furniture for every teacher every student every classroom we have new devices that we're able to do with the bond um there's a lot of stuff that you don't see because it's buried in the walls it's the it's it's that's really where a lot of the dollars end up going people don't realize is it's it's what's hidden behind the drywall that costs the the most and so um you know we see that in every project and so it's not as if you can you can say well we'll only focus on Jackson high or we'll only focus on well we just did Cascades we'll only focus on one building because every building's got needs and every building is going to have needs again in seven to 10 years by

048the way that's kind of the average cycle if you kind of go back and look at JPS we've been doing this for a long time it's about every seven to 10 years we're going to have to have a conversation about a bond because that's how Michigan funds School infrastructure uh is through the bond projects the bond campaigns if you go to other states they have Capital project funds that the state controls in Michigan it's all handled through the bond and so we end up back before the voters talking about what do you want for your local districts um there is we had good conversation last week unfortunately it was um you know socked in by the weather and we look forward to some more and by the way we have a couple of dates coming

049up and I don't want to get them wrong uh we'll get them posted there's a couple of dates end of um March beginning of of April where we're going to be out in the community do two Community conversations around this so that the bond committee can share and entertain feedback and talk about what they've seen and what their directions are to really kind of get that feedback from our community as well so another opportunity for that long before they come and and make their proposal uh to the uh to the board sorry I really don't want to blabber the point y'all but I just want to make sure that we're clear we have options right we can say no bond we can say yes to keep the bond the same or we can say yes

050to raise the bond I just wanted us to know that that we have all those options okay that's it for now all right perfect are there any other questions for Miss janetti all right thank you very much I appreciate that um all right we are on to uh oh my gosh our final partnership District Benchmark Review Julie Baker lots of work uh surrounding partnership and again we kind of reported out on some of this because there's been a lot of positives uh to share out on this project and so I will let you kick that one off so I gave you sort of um a little bit of a summary last month um this is the official partnership District Benchmark Review summary that's coming from um the office of partnership District so I wanted to

051kind of walk through it with you um and look at uh what the finding was and uh what their what their suggestions the recommendations were for us so if you look at the first page um our status determination was that we are on on track and we discussed that last time but that's um you know we we out of all of our indicators and um if you turn to page two and three sorry about that um you'll see the review table that we looked at um and out of all of these indicators there was only one that we did not meet and that was reducing the days of absence due to out of school suspension so that is one that we still have to work on so if you look on the um on page

052three you could see that there are different types of benchmarks there are process benchmarks there are local outcome benchmarks and state assessment benchmarks we met all of the state assessment and local outcome benchmarks it was just one of those process benchmarks which was the suspensions but otherwise they they um the office of partnership districts found us on track on page four um if you look at the top you can see the change from 2022 to 2024 with regard to um we've talked about how every building receives an index score every year they have sort of a report card um and so John R Lewis in increased their score their Benchmark score or I'm sorry their index score by 01 percentage points that has to happen two years in a row um so you could see

053at the top the difference between 2022 and 2024 and then it lists the exit criteria so this is what we're working towards just with regard to John R Lewis um so they in order to exit CSI or comprehensive support status um they need to no longer meet those entrance criteria which are that they're at the bottom 5% on the Michigan school index um and for John R Lewis that is the exit criteria um because they're not a high school um and then the second thing is they need to improve their proficiency in math and Ela for two years on those State assessments so we've already got one year under our belts um and so that that's what we'll be working on for this this coming um assessment season um at the bottom of page four

054there is context that was that was presented at our Benchmark meeting um and some of the things that were successes that were mentioned in our report was that each building has a parent Lea on and those parent liaison are providing parent Cafe trainings um we are implementing uh districtwide mtss multi-tier systems of support and ewms um throughout the district and we demonstrated that we understand um how necessary and Paramount that implementation is um that we are undergoing mtss professional learning and training um in that we' have developed a teaming structure that includes mtss core team so we've got a small group of people that have uh we have uh representation from all levels and um most of our buildings on that core team we have a district implementation team that has uh members from all

055buildings and all types of employees or all employee groups um building level teams and then transitioning um building level impact coaches so we've got um those mtss coaches which are really important to that and then also that we have attendance ESS coaches in all of our buildings so um looking down at the middle of page five you can see where there's recommendations um and so the collaborative recommendations from all of our partners that means um there's three partners that we're looking at the office of partnership districts the ISD and from Jackson Public Schools um are looking at the continued implementation of building level mtss and ewms the the development and uh use of a communication plan around mtss continued professional learning um maintaining the mtss coordinator and building um mtss coach positions and then um

056training in our new tool Power School analytics and insights for everyone um continue to identify and address inequity and resources and access for students um in the resources in buildings um continue to Garner a voice and engage all stakeholders and district and building Improvement efforts that's parent student staff in the community um make decisions rooted in the JPS mission and vision complete a root cause analysis of that suspension data so digging in deeper to that and then refining strategies and activities um that will address that and help to um bring those numbers down and then um professional learning in culturally responsive leadership and instructional best practices and then using the funds that come along with our identification as a partnership District which is uh Regional assistant Grant and the section 21h funds um to continue

057to implement that and so there's a few um when we look at our attendance coaches those they're they're funded with um that those funds so um that is those are the findings um that we received in our final summary are there any questions yes um um this this this report um is it accessible online for the community or is it able to be I don't know if we've got it online yet or not but we we can definitely make sure that it is that might be beneficial for them to be able to see how far we've come and what we've been doing and you know um the one place that I see that we didn't meet ever um during this time was um regard with regard to days of absence for uh suspension what's the

058what what what trends did we recognize as to why that wasn't uh reduced um we I think I think a lot of it has to do with some of the um some of the trauma that we're seeing with students and um so we are what we've been doing is we've been working with PBIS um with our students we um have increased the number of behavior interventionists um and we are looking at we're we're putting together a plan for um very consistent approaches in across all of our buildings to address that so thank you that's and that's the primary one just trauma that we're recognizing trauma we've seen a lot of um behavioral changes with our students and I think that we've been watching the news we're seeing it across the country and so just dealing

059with um some of it is a return to school after covid for students that really weren't you know doing preschool and some of these other things it's taken us a long time for our younger students to come back and really understand how to do school um and so there's some of that and then there is there's some there's some trauma associated with just the way that the world is right now and um things that happen around Co so and are we seeing an increase in suspensions or is it kind of holding steady or I think we're seeing um some good a good Trend this year um so we're seeing in buildings where we saw an uptick last year we're seeing a wonderful decrease in that um and then we've got um a couple of buildings

060where you know we're still working on it we haven't we're still fighting a good fight and we're finding supports for students sometimes it is a one student edit time thing you really um you could put things in place and they'll work for one student and they have absolutely no impact they're they're not supportive for another and so um there are enough students that we are we have to take our time to sit down around the table and problem solve each student and try something and see if it works and if it doesn't we come back um and that's sometimes it's very challenging but our staff is really committed to doing the work and supporting our kids so I'm a mom to six and uh the diversity among my own six babies who have the same

061parents um you know that makes sense that you know you got 4,000 plus so the the the the the uh diverse approaches that we are taking to our students is important so I'm thankful that you all are doing that thank you for answering my questions thank you anyone else thank you for your time all right and uh Jeremy I think uh you get 98b right yes sir all right all all right you all have access to the district um Jackson Public Schools section 98b Benchmark assessment progress report so here we are 2024 2025 school year you have a link to elementary middle school high school and virtual programs the 98b report Michigan is a requirement for school districts to demonstrate that they have goals and that they are striving towards achieving those academic goals um

062making progress towards those goals is something that we're going to Showcase so there's three checkpoints during the school year kind of a pre-conference in the middle of the year um where am I coming into the school uh this is our midy year or mid um school year checkin how am I doing progressing towards those goals before we get to the end of the school year we want to know are we head in the right direction or do we need to make some um changes and then finally at the end of the year we'll report back out to you again in June about how each building did we're going to look at breakdown of results by grade level uh student demographics as well as mode of instruction so the majority of our Learners are obviously in

063person where some of the students at um SCV are hybrid and um again specifically the goals uh what are they um our elementary schools are using I ready for the first time this school year so that's new uh previous last year's results were based on nwaa which semv Middle School at Parkside continue to use and then the high school programs kind of tell a story uh with regards to grade promotion obviously we want our ninth graders becoming 10th 10th 11th all the way through up till graduation so high school is broken down by content area so you'll see um we kind of compared last year's first trimester to this year's first trimester in English math science and social studies and so that is the gist of the data that you're going to see I'd love

064to try to answer any questions that you might have um and again you will see this um now or required to report out this uh midyear report this is a part of the students goal so they understand where they are with their learning this is a part of our teacher goal so they understand the goals and objectives that they have for their classroom and their mod of instruction as well as our building Administration and then of course District so everybody's got a little bit of skin in the game to um understand the Target and to achieve the target the best that we can and so again the midyear inquiry is about not did they make a full year progress in a half year's time but did they make a half Year's progress from the beginning

065of the school year till now and then again we'll report back out to you in June about that full year from fall to Spring if the students were with us for that extended period of time in the same building any questions just about the goals how often or how frequent are the students do we revisit those goals with each student yeah spec specifically to this assessment Julie can probably speak a little bit better towards I ready because I'm not as fluent but with uh um nwaa okay there's specific uh areas there there's a number right and we're trying to help our students make sense of that number on the Continuum there's a number for where I am okay that's personal to me and there's a number specific to where should I be in sixth grade

066or seventh grade or high school so it's it's good to know that I'm making growth based on where I came in and then also indicator for the student I might have made some gains but I've still got some more work to do to get to be ready for algebra in the ninth grade and so the teachers will help the students make sense of um the number and then also what are the skills that are associated with the number because when I say hey Mom I got 200 on my RIT score like that doesn't mean much to you but the teachers will help the students understand where they are on that Continuum of instruction and so the teachers take what we call like big rocks or power standards okay these are the core things that we

067need to teach in sixth grade science in seventh grade math and Etc across their content areas to make sure the students um get those big ticket items so they can move the instructional needle about where they came in and then understand again the goal setting will be personalized and individualized for each student even though a classroom might look very diverse with some high performing students and some students maybe with learning disabilities and everybody in between did I explain that okay yes and so accountability we hear individuals say they just pass my student along who has who's accountable to the teachers to ensure that they are meeting that individual goal for that child yeah so I explained a little bit about everybody's got some skin in the game because it is part of the teacher accountability

068like my expectation of our teachers is that our students will make one year's growth and one year's time okay not perfect okay so I don't expect everybody's going to be 100% all right that'd be amazing that'd be highly effective or effective or whatever you want to call it um and there's some other factors that contribute to that right what does the attendance look like because if you're not present it's hard to achieve those goals well some students make a year and a half or two years growth some students make a little bit less so that's the accountability piece that the teachers will report out on as well as the teachers will report to the parents parent teacher conferences in multiple times through the year about how their child is learning and what their goals are

069and about if they do these things right you're in school every day you're paying attention you're completing your homework assignments you're taking these quizzes and assessments we'll get you there but I want to just frame again that all of our students just because they're in the sixth grade doesn't mean they're in the sixth grade okay some come in behind some come in ahead and everybody else in between so it's it's a very delicate act and teaching a diverse group of students um but there are enrichment opportunities for kids to go ahead we have a lot of uh virtual platforms where kids can uh work on we call it in the elementary wi time um what I need and so there's a specific point in time in a class where we're differentiating our struction to meet

070the diverse needs of our students in the classroom and so there's an accountability for the teacher because it's a part of the evaluation process but it it takes everyone right when everybody's aiming towards these goals and primarily on this spreadsheet we're talking about reading and math so even for the fizzed teacher even for the music educator even for some of the Encore teachers they still have a part of this reading goal to help our students to be successful it doesn't all just fall on one person are we seeing increase parent involvement and after they receive this information they're they're attending the parent teacher conferences and teachers are sharing this information what does that look like after those meetings so I think it's helping our parents to understand how they can help their children at home

071uh because it's confusing right I did not grow up with nwaa what is a 200 grit score what is RTI stand for what does wi stand for we get that here and so I think our schools are doing a good job where they're um explaining to our teacher one what are we doing in the classroom two ensuring that the student understands what they're supposed to be doing in the class we regularly look for what am I supposed to be doing today how do I know when I'm doing a good job and then if we can partner with a parent to continue to enhance that at home um are we having conversations about what homework might look like are we having conversations about what are we reading and are we reading for fluency comprehension and um

072completing assignments to the best of our abilities and what do we do when we don't know what to do um how do we help our parents to understand how the school can further support um um Extended Learning times so we have after school programs we have summer school programs and we have kind of onetoone support when applicable thank you I'm a couple question couple questions for you and um plug so maybe just one question is this also available online or no um so no this um NWA is not accessible to the families at home and so it's kind of a secure kind of thing because um I don't know who might take the test if I don't have teacher control over the results the results there you go no no so are the results accessible

073online oh like this report that you gave us yes there is a parent portal okay perfect thank you the next question question and plug and uh Julie this might be you but we have school Improvement meeting so I know that when I've come to the school Improvement meetings you all have dived really deep into explaining all of this very very well you know all the acronyms and all the stuff so if we're kind of lost a little bit right now I want to put a plug in that during the school Improvement meetings which I know we have I think one in March so the community is and I would appreciate if you give them the date when you get it soon during this meeting but um the community everyone's welcome to come to those School

074Improvement meetings um and they dive into this information deeper but also School Improvement that's the name of the meeting because that's the design for it and you all's voices and and perspectives and ideologies and Etc are very welcome in those spaces but again I just want to put a plug in that you know this information and other information is dived in very deep um and we welcome your attendance in those spaces it's March something I don't know when March 5th March 5th here in this building at 5:30 I think is it 5 5:30 5:30 March 5th School Improvement meeting you all are all welcome M Miss Hamilton I'm sorry that's not an open meeting that that's not actually a public meeting oh I was told it was what what what changed no the school Improvement

075is work that we do internal we publish that we share it out here but that's not and I apologize because I I you could be talking about two different things but our our school our district school Improvement and our building School Improvement those are works that we do in house so the M March 5th School improvement district meeting that's here for the public is not for the public it's not a public meeting that's is that representatives from each of our buildings and then we have board members that have come and we have representatives from each of our employee groups we' had community members here as well did that change they were invited so they just need to come come for how do they get an invitation what happens because because I was told that they

076were able to come do they just need to reach out for an invitation what happens so each each building should have parents as part of their school Improvement individual process and that feeds the district school Improvement committee to connect with if you're if you're if you're a parent and you're involved in your dist You're Building School Improvement committee you may be part of the district school Improvement so so I thank you I do know that that's changed because I was told otherwise I don't like that just so we know but if you want to be a part of that reach out to your school Improvement committee see if you can get on that committee so that you can become part of the bigger committee yeah what we did we have our parent Lea son and

077we've asked them to really go out and try to invite some parents to come with them was that part of their job when they when they came on a year or two ago we added that because we figured that we we weren't getting represented from every building we invited a whole lot of parents um and we didn't have some of them come because they had conflicts and things like that um but we we so we that was one of the things that we've asked our parently aison to do is to really see if they could cultivate some relationships with parents and bring them with them yeah because I remember when I first started that it was definitely open to the public that's what I was told but okay now we know that they changed the

078process you know just connect with them folks you should be at the school Improvement meetings thank you Jeremy thank you um I really appreciate the fact that each school has individualized benchmarks I think that's important and then I just to clarify on the data that we're looking at these percentages are percent growth not percent proficient so when we see a zero it just means that there was no change in that time period not that 0% were proficient correct yes that would indicate that at that particular area that there was not a half Year's growth obtained by whatever students are represented in that area you're welcome Mr Patterson can I just ask a clarification about the high school grades so we have letter grades is there a uniform across the content or excuse me across the

079core areas of formative summative so that these grades are do they do like a 70 30% to calculate an A B C D are those consistent across grade levels are they consistent across it changes by Department okay because sometimes a final exam might have a different weight um and even programming too so Pathways might look a little bit different than Jackson High School um but yes there definitely is a blend um but I wouldn't say that it's consistent that it's 7030 from One content area to another all right yeah thanks you're welcome I um Kisha thank you um I know we discuss a lot of reports here is there any central location where you put them online the 98b which is what he's talking about tonight or today tonight um there is actually a spot

080where um what you see the what you've got in your report there that um I I we could call it like a landing page that has a link for each of the schools where that landing page is kept it's right on our website um I don't know if there's and then we also uh you'll see our annual education reports those were posted today as well I I got a small suggestion um if I I know we have uh recordings of our board meeting on YouTube every single one of them similarly if we can have a a link board meeting link where we can post this links that we the reports we discuss here it would be easy for a lot of folks in the community to access because there's so many people out there who

081care about Jackson Public Schools yeah so many so we want to make it easy for them to access these reports you know so if we can make the central location one Place hyperlink boom we got all the info thank you for the feedback that's a good idea thank you thank you Mr Patterson I have one follow-up question kind of evolved from um Cheryl's question she ask about the percentage of growth or percentage of proficiency who defines proficiency and what is our District's definition okay so relative to high school the proficiency would be measurement of the standards and the assessments that were given in each content area and so it's just essentially becomes your letter grade right so did you get a 60% or 70% or 80% of ABCD that's the feedback they were given by

082the Conta expert their teacher and so at the high school level that's what they're looking at which is different than wa because this is a normalized kind of a standard assessment where students are just compared to themselves but they're compared to every other student who takes this assessment so that's the difference between nwaa and then our local assessments which our secondary programs give to offer credit based on again the Michigan Merit curriculum in each content area does that answer the question it does yes I was in a at a training and someone from MD made mention that each district defines proficiency so just wanted to clarify that for the community thank you thank you all right um that concludes the superintendent report for the month of February and I will pass this on uh back

083to you Miss hunt for the consent to at this time we will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda make a motion to approve the consent agenda support thank you Marilyn thank you Cheryl any deliberation all in favor I any opposed motion carries we will now move to Citizens requesting to address the board we have eight that have submitted a slip you still have time to do so given the fact that it is not 10 you will each have five minutes to share your concern concerns or to speak first up is Joanie okay I have a lot to say I haven't been to several board meetings because I needed to take a break but the first thing I want to say because I don't want it to get cut off is that policy that

084I've been coming to the board for about two and a half years now still hasn't been updated so my daughter didn't get to walk for graduation and she had a 504 plan that allowed her to walk for graduation or allowed her to have extra time she finished her classes at the end of June and she was not permitted to walk for graduation because of that policy I don't have the number in front of me but those who are working on it know which policy I'm referring to um the next thing I want to address is I want to say that our schools are made up of the students teachers and staff they're the most important people for our schools our students love the staff and the teachers you guys saw with the Monas School my

085daughter was one of them out there and all the staff and teachers they're like family to us it's absolutely amazing so when we're looking at a budget deficit and we're looking at making Cuts I would highly nudge the administration to look at the efficiency of how they're set up and look at where the loow hanging fruits are for one is Mr Beal's second contract that extra pay that he's getting and we have someone in place to be doing those duties another thing is looking at whether all of the people who are in the administration are actually needed because that's where the high dollars are with that being said um I want to point out that selling the building for a dollar wasn't actually selling it for a million and $1 if you sold it for

086$50,000 you would still have that million dollars of available of the bond funds to use and then you would have 50 $50,000 extra so in doing that you had a dollar extra it wasn't sold for 1 million in one um the money that was made from the buildings that were sold could be used towards operational things but they were chose to be used towards the bond stuff which we have Bond money that can only be spent a certain way uh a pool for $13 million I would look at ways to try to generate some funds from it open it to the public charge $5 per visit that's something that this school is Central the community would love to be able to go swimming especially at indoor pool during the winter I know when you said

087pool my daughter got super excited and I had to tell her it's just for the high schoolers um couple of things that were said about enrichment activities and after school program I was informed that my daughter's after school program is ending due to the budget so I think that's a misnomer and my kids have always used after school program when my one daughter was a was not able to handle that long of a day I paid $3,000 in tutoring that's not something that is available to most of this community I'm still paying it off because I had to take out a loan for it so those after school programs are very important um as for the district Improvement meetings I'm interested to know how many board members are present because if there's more than three

088it has to be a public meeting and then when I look in the past I've seen that they've always been public meetings so that was interesting to me [Music] um the other thing was about the suspension data and that it hasn't gone down and I can tell you that a lot of that is Administration issues I know one family whose son was suspended mid October and they didn't get to the meeting to discuss whether he should be suspended or not until in December he didn't return to school until mid December that's out of school suspension I don't know if they counted it because his suspension was improper but when he returned to school he had to have recovery credits because he's in high school he's in a senior year so he missed out on his

089classes he had to make up classes for something that he shouldn't have been suspended the other thing with suspensions I'm curious to know how many students are sent to the virtual school instead of being suspended because that's an option I've seen offered to many many families and I'm in the community families come and talk to me because of my profession uh I see that there's someone who does restored practices that receives a paycheck and we're talking about behavior in adventurist the kids that I know that get in trouble they're not doing restorative practices they get talked to and then they get sent out it's the same thing you can't call it restorative practices and then not do restorative practices I'm trained in restorative practices I've been trained for a very long time um trauma informed

090I hear that there's training going on but we have people right here in the community that do that type of training why are we paying all this extra money for this training when we have people in the community who train in adverse childhood experiences it's offered through the nonprofit Network it's offered through family and services restorative practices there's a a nonprofit organization here that does restorative practices does peace circles does when there's a disagreement does that kind of restorative practices I just see a lot of wasteful money being spent and I think you guys need to look really hard at those low hanging fruits um and that's all I have to say thank you thank you Joanie Cheryl bendett good evening board um I wanted to speak out in regard to the upcoming resolution on

091affirming Jackson Public Schools as a welcoming District District to all students which appears to include illegal aliens the United States allows about 1 million vetted people to enter our country legally each year which in my mind is both generous and kind but as much as we all have good hearts and we want to help people no one country can recklessly take in people by the millions without financially breaking its back and significantly hurting its people people one must also consider the negative economic and future sustenance impact on the on the country that is losing their citizenry the harm goes both ways American citizens can't afford to lose jobs to millions of illegal aliens who are willing to work for almost nothing with government taxpayer subsidies or through our endless taxes to pay the multitude of

092expenses to support housing food medical Scholastic and daily living requirements those who enter our country illegally are breaking the very laws that we have in place now to protect our citizens from the harms noted above which doesn't even cover the drugs and the violence that we've had to endure federal law title 8 us code 1324 trii in regard to bringing in and harboring aliens reads as follows knowing or in Reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to entered or remains in the United States in violation of law conceals Harbors or Shields from detection or attempts to conceal Harbor or shield from detection such alien in any place including any building or any means of of Transportation shall be punished as provided in subparagraph B if you read about the penalties they are

093quite substantial including both fines and years of imprisonment I believe the intent of this resolution to include illegal aliens which could unwittingly put the people who sign it in legal Jeopardy illegal immigration was one of the top reasons that brought out the Jackson County residents in people from across the state to vote in the last election people and families are angry at being hurt and taken advantage of illegal immigration has to be stopped and remedied thank you thank you Cheryl Chris Davis good evening board it's been a couple months since I've been here um I just want to start by saying those the meetings that uh Mr Patterson was speaking about I've been in with my kids at Hunt school and they are very informative and help us understand where we need to help them

094um at home to improve um and thank you Chris for clarifying the use of bond dollars versus operational dollars um that's going to be something I think as we start knocking on doors the spring and summer uh it's going to be a huge educational piece that we're going to need to make make sure that we are pushing so people understand the differences there um and speaking of that as JPS faces some difficult financial decisions I encourage this new board to thoughtfully review the contract options for the extra duty pay the superintendent beill is receiving I will suggest that this review be conducted by an independent party to ensure accurate options are presented Mr Beal as the leader of this District I ask you to consider the importance of a teacher in the classroom and whether

095forgoing your extra duty pay to potentially save even one teacher spot might better support our students a teacher's presence directly impacts Student Success when teachers go beyond their contracts purchasing classroom supplies organizing trips to mol or volunteering for family nights they do so because they are passionate about Student Success and they don't get extra duty pay for that I think it's important to recognize that dedication and to reflect on how we as a district can prioritize students in all financial decisions and I'd also like to uh Express support for the resolution of firman JPS as a welcome District to all all students um recently there has been reports of students using the fear of ice as a form of bullying and while we know that bullying is an ongoing challenge we sat in disappointment with

096how the last board handled bullying within their own ranks and we are hopeful that this new board will take a stronger leadership role in addressing bullying throughout our school not only amongst yourself but throughout our school Community it's important to show the community that supporting a safe and respectful environment for all students is JPS is top priority each morning I notice that there is uh East Jackson school buses picking up several children within our city limits dozens uh primarily down by the shelter and that raises some questions about why families are choosing to send their students to other districts and why those districts are accommodating those requests and so I think addressing some of these concerns can help uh JPS uh be the preferred choice for families in our community thank you thank you Chris

097tiia good evening uh board my name is Leticia albaran I'm founder of Jackson Hispanic heritage festival and founder of no nonprofit which translates to our community it's a nonprofit excuse me it's a nonprofit dedicated to the Hispanic Latino community that provides resource allocation and connection in Jackson I am here to Advocate and support the resolution being proposed of JPS being a welcoming district for all students and these are the reasons why as one professional colleague to another we are all in positions of of influence we are all here in these types of positions because of something that fueled us to get us to this point that can be a variety of aspects love for our community love for advocacy of all students dedication to accountability and transparency and many other reasons only each of us

098know I firmly believe that this resolution will allow students and families to feel safe and secure by the district they send their children to and feel an allyship which is pivotal when you desire involvement from certain communities again as professional colleagues in these types of spaces we know how Aces adverse childhood experiences can affect a child in the most crucial and critical time of their development and have La longlasting effects long into adulthood this resolution calls for providing every child with the opportunity to have a chance at a better future which is the main goal for everyone who was in education school should be safe for all students despite their background without interruption and traumatic experiences the JPS motto is where Community comes together is it not and there is no better example of proving

099that by having a resolution such as this one as a school board it is one of many responsibilities to create policies and resolutions that are just and fair to the staff students and Community as a whole the community that you all serve as elected board officials your motto at its core is about creating and maintaining Community for all with that everyone has to be acknowledged seen advocated for and protected I say this from the most sincerest part of my heart take a moment to reflect how the passing of this resolution can positively affect the livelihood of many many people in your district and create safe spaces for parents and students alike to continue to just simply live such as you and your families do when I say living I don't mean just breathing I mean

100being able to go to your child's basketball game their um speech debate swimming meet things like that I feel like every child every parent should feel the accomplishment and pride of seeing their student do those things we all know being an involved parent is part of the formula for raising and creating independent and contributing members to society and again this resolution supports that you're allowing parent to simply just live this subject matter is important to the Hispanic Latino Community all we ask for is empathy which is a trait we teach all our children and loved ones to possess because yes we may all be in the same room but we all have different experiences and barriers and what truly makes your motto of where Community comes together is when the board is demonstrating that we

101can meet in the middle together by resolutions like these use your influence with an empathy lens we all are just like you we have families we love and that we want to be there for too thank you for your [Applause] time thank you letia Gina hey thingss thank you I wanted to talk about an item that's on the agenda um having Youth added to the JPS School Board I believe that there is value in student voices but some careful consideration needs to take place first students often lack the necessary experience long-term perspective and professional expertise required to make complex decisions about budgeting policies and curriculum development School boards must navigate Legal Financial and administrative matters that demand a deep understanding of governance which students may not yet possess second there is a risk of conflicts

102of interest students May be influenc it may be influenced by their personal experiences or peer pressure rather than making impartial decisions that benefit the entire District their perspectives while valuable might be too focused on immediate concerns rather than long-term educational strategies additionally student board members May struggle with the demands of their role balancing schoolwork extracurricular activities and personal responsibilities is already challenging and adding the weight of board duties could lead to stress and ineffective participation ultimately I do think student voices are important they can be incorporated through advisory roles surveys or student councils rather than granting them direct decision-making power on a school board thank you thank you J William Hastings oops my timer going okay good evening board I trust everyone had a very refreshing and renewing President's Day I'm here tonight primarily to

103comment on the proposal under discussion items um entitled uh resolution affirming JPS as a welcoming District to all students which is a quite a bit of a euphemism um so to get down to Brass tax what this resolution would do is is it states pretty clearly it states that Jackson Public Schools will not provide assistance to the U us Immigration and Customs Enforcement and further resolves uh well it's demanding that the federal government and thhs honor a previous memorandum versus the current policy uh under the current Administration so essentially it's advocating for lawlessness now that might be fun yeah that might be fun that might be games and people might be giggling from the cheap seats but the reality is and I had a chance to speak briefly with Mr Leon before the meeting is

104that the um JPS receives about $4 million in federal funding every year now this is the post covid post arpa post Esser number it's like the Baseline number it's been significantly higher so in endorsing this policy as well as in in in the um the very ill- fated di policy that was passed by this uh board last fall not quite the same board because we have new faces um you are directly endangering this Federal funding so $4 million would work out to about $1,000 not quite but almost $1,000 per student um you are just in the kind of let's just say patty cake phases of dealing with a $4 million show shortfall you're going to get down to the the nitty-gritty and it's going to be painful for everyone for every person because a lot

105of of a lot of that the eser money was spent on um on new hires to make up for learning loss Etc so it's going to be people and people who've committed JPS we're going to Bear the Brun to that very hard very hard stuff so I'm I I before you vote on this I think very carefully if you're going to undergo the regimen of dealing with $4 million in budget cuts only to move on to the next $4 million in federal budget cuts assuming there isn't a let's just say um judicial or penalty phase of this that would affect all of you as board members personally um if you missed the testimony that was given about may maybe of last year by a former federal judge about the uh the legal responsibility of people

106advocating on school boards for legal acts you might want to go back and check that out but the thing is as the Bible to paraphrase the Bible uh the $4.3 million that the second $4 million you lose is would only be the beginning of Sorrows because that level of budget cuts after a first level budget cuts would be cutting right down into muscle cutting right down into bone that's going to cut right into extracurriculars it's going to cut into academics it's going to cut into Athletics it's going to cut into tutoring it is going to see your um uh student to teacher ratios uh Skyrocket it's going to create huge problems so I think it's very realistic to think that um you're going to see an exodus of student students and if you were to

107lose even just 5% of your students each of whom gets approximately 12,000 about $2,350 in funding that's another $3 million you'd have to look at so we've gone from 4 million to 8 million to 11 million in very short order um which brings us to and I'm glad um M Jedi was here is here who knows I don't know she's here in spirit which is all I care about um uh speaking about the upcoming millage um so as the old saying goes figures don't lie but Liars figure but looking at the the couple previous votes so this District came to the voters of this District in 2018 with a huge ask they asked for 90 million for new buildings and Renovations and they got a huge resounding o uh political endorsement from the public which

108went 61% for that millage 61% for new taxes okay new spending new millage a huge huge endorsement of JPS if we fast forward however to the last millage vote that was um on the ballot in August of 2024 that passed by only 51% big difference between 61% and 51% if you pursue these policies if you continue to pursue these policies you are gravely Gravely endangering the likelihood of your proposed millage in passing in August or later this year thank you thank you William Janie Janie Brown hi thank you for letting me speak um now that we have a department of government efficiency that is going through government waste line by line and saving the taxpayers billions today the total is 110 billion and it keeps going up they dismantled the US aid United States agency

109for International Development which paid for Dei in America schools and overseas do you think we should be paying schools to spread racism and hurt our children 1. million to advance Dei in suburbia's workplaces 70 million for Dei musical in Ireland 47,000 for transgender Opera in Colombia 32,000 for transgender comic books in Peru 2 million for sex changes in lgbtq activism in Guatemala 6 million to fund tourism in Egypt over 100,000 went to feed the Al Qaeda fighters in Syria aund hundreds of millions to fund the irrigation Canal's farming equipment and fertilizer used to support the heroin production in Afghanistan those are just a few this list goes on and on we all know that these programs are money laundering schemes but it ends now and with a hundred more Geniuses on the Doge team and

110people in the Washington District searching on their computers for attorneys offshore bank accounts and Realtors to sell their houses it's quite clear what has happened this isn't going to be settled in the local courts because this is called treason and we all know what the punishment for that is so if this school has gotten any funds from us Aid those 100 plus men will find it don't worry it went through this Channel or that channel they have all the receipts they also funded found that there are 394 million SSI recipients in the United States when our country only has 33 34 million citizens they also uncovered over 25 million people ages 100 years and up in SSI database some older than the Constitution also Tim bersett States Taliban who hates America receives 40 million a

111week from taxpayers this isn't hidden news it is out there on the internet you are just being told about it because Trump isn't playing anymore thank you very much thank you Aven Johnson so talking about youth representation but stating that immigrants don't work is an incompetent statement as statistics show immigrants significantly contribute to the workforce actually if the U the US economy would shrink by four 434 billion in the event that undocumented immigrants were remove so anyway relevant to the school board not the Taliban um I recently read a novel called the truth We Hold by kamla Harris and it's it recalls her being a child and it's sitting in she's sitting in the back of her of the room while her mother attended meetings and Community Gatherings and she wasn't in charge um she

112wasn't the decision maker but she watched she listened and she understood something that too many in power ignore the people most impacted by decision should have the voice in making them and yet here we are deciding policies that affect students without a single student in this room with the power to speak on the equal footing so I'm proposing that there's a creation of a student ambassador um a student who will sit with the board engage in discussion ask questions and pro provide a perspective that has been missing from these conversations for far too long uh Michigan law allows this as long as they're not voting the law states again only the student Representatives cannot vote they cannot um but nowhere does it say they cannot speak they canot cannot engage and they cannot help shape

113the decisions that would find their education um an individual came up here earlier discussing conflicts of interest um everybody has conflicts of interest that's why you recuse yourself um she was talking about competency um I don't know if I know it's a new um elected officials my name is Avon I'm the youngest person to ever be SW worn in on a board in the city of Jackson so I think I'm more than competent um about managing classes I go to school actually an hour early to attend Jas ban I take High School courses but I'm still on a board and I still show up here every day discussing these issues and there's no question about my time management or my competency or my ability to be impartial or my ability to follow parliamentarian rules so

114anyway um in 2019 a study by the national school boards Association found that districts with student representation on boards reported a 15% increase in student engagement in schoolwide decisionmaking these schools also saw a 12% decrease in discipline incidents because when students feel heard they are more invested in following policies they have a voice in shaping in um Maryland their their student it's a county their student member of the board um has been an official role since 1978 over the years their student Representatives have helped pass policies that directly improve student life including securing $1.2 million in mental health resources and successfully um advocating for revised grading policies that make sure there is fairness for all students um New York City the largest school district in the country introduced student Representatives on its Advisory Board and

115a result worth um a 22 2022 report from the NYC Department of Education found that student involvement in governance led to a 20% increase in student trust in their Administration and schools with student input saw higher graduation rates and lower Dropout rates compared to those without so these are not theories these are facts these are numbers and this is proof that when students are giving a seat at the table schools get better so I will close with this I don't want to go back to um the story from the truth We Hold by kamla Harris um so kamla Harris sat in those rooms as a child watching decisions being made without her voice but she did not said quietly she learned she stepped up and when the time came she made sure that no one

116could ignore that because it does not take a fancy degree or a fancy title to stand up and represent your community students deserve representation we deserve a voice and if we are not given a seat at the table we'll bring our own thank you thank you Avan that that concludes our citizens requesting to address the board at this time on the agenda we will move toward our discussion items we have nine discussion items I encourage everyone to stay to hear the board discuss these items first on the agenda is 24- 25-48 JHS summer painting Marcus please all right thank you um so over the last couple couple of years um sure everyone's noticed that we've gone through and started painting this building starting with the top floor third floor last year we did the second

117floor um this year we were looking at skipping the first floor and moving to the ground floor which is a little larger and more visible however after discussing at the facility and finance committee meeting we're looking at limiting the scope or doing it a little differently in light of our budget considerations and we still want to get the work done but taking a um a slower approach to it um so we worked with our painters and obtained a quote to start with the hallways and staircases on the ground floor at a price of $ 39,2 25 which would be split over both this fiscal year and the next fiscal Year's budget as we've done the last few years just for a reference the second and third floors were about 75,000 a floor so we're looking

118to still get some of the work done um and do it a little bit bit slower and and um uh to help with the budget um so again no action tonight this is uh for discussion it'll be our recommendation next month to come back to look to paint the hallways on the ground floor any discussion any questions Marilyn this comes at a general fund yes yeah correct this would be some of those maintenance costs that okay thank you um the condition of the hallways um I don't know if they're you know how you describe it based on like maybe a percentage or or whatever I'm not sure how you would do that but the condition of the hall is this something that has to be done um or can this wait I'm concerned about the

119budget cuts um 39,000 is roughly at least one salary um and I understand you said we're spreading this out over a couple years but could this be something that we waited because it sounds like this is something that we could do with Bond money if we wanted to no okay but still could this what's the condition of the the the uh what is it hallways and stairs yep the corridors and and the stairways so you know part of the reason that we did decide to look into doing this a few years ago is there's a lot of varas in this building that we did touch with the bond right and part of that including updating the paint right um and what we've been doing is trying to go through all the classrooms and the corridors

120and matching that work to the bond work that was done so the school has a uniform look throughout can it wait that's I mean it could um you know we do have to address it at some point um you know that's that's going to be the board's decision so I'm hearing you say the bond funds that we used were you know that we used to update the structure and stuff we did not use those to paint anything which is why we can't use bond funds to paint this stuff is that correct nope so if we renovate a space so for instance the The Welcome Center downstairs right so new construction got new paint even this from the media center we remodeled it we were allowed to paint it because it was a renovated space okay

121so we weren't renovating the hallways or the classrooms in in their their footprint for example we added Furniture but um so we can't use Bond dollars to go back and paint those that's considered just a everyday maintenance item that you would have to do up keep on your own okay good to know thank you any other discussion president uh is this just is it a reduction or is it staggering out the rest of the contract for over longer period time staggering out and we're not under contract with the painters um so it's staggering it out and you know if this was like the last two years we'd bring a quote to do the entire ground floor classrooms stairways corridors all of it right um so we're just looking at staggering instead of doing a floor

122every year maybe the ground floor takes two summers and you know so on so until we can get you know better manag and get a get a hold on what the future looks like with State budgets and things like that um it made sense at our facility meeting to at least uh look at continuing the work but at a a slower Pace yeah uh I had the opportunity to walk through some of the hall with the superintendent this afternoon um that were painted by the same contractor I mean they do great work but I hear what you're saying any more discussion all right next discussion item 24-25 d 49 bus purchase markets please all right so as part of our EV bus transition that the district went through over the last few years um we

123kept just a small bare minimum number of of diesel buses for some of our field trips and things that are out of town where there's just not either EV or propane infrastructure to refuel buses if we're going to play games you know on the other side of the state or up north or wherever it is so we do need to have a um you know an inventory of those the other types of buses to get us around um they are you know as they age and need maintenance um you know we were on a replacement schedule with the bond to continually update our Fleet um this would be looking to purchase a used diesel bus like we've we've done throughout the district um and this is an expense that um we were purchasing buses through

124the bond program we do have a few extra Bond so this purchase would come out of those bond funds not the general fund um again we're going to be coming next month for a recommendation to approve this we did discuss this at the facility and finance meeting a couple of weeks ago um so we'd be looking to purchase an off leas bus from Holland which would be the um same kind of thing we've been doing the last several years any discussion trusty Hamilton um so for clarity um we have extra bond funds um we can the this is an allowable uh expense under those funds um um and we're considering using those funds for this purchase um and we cannot use bond funds for teacher salaries that's really for the community I just want to

125keep reiterating that thank you if there's no other discussion on that item we will move forward to 24 - 25-50 nonunit salary schedule Jeff and Marcus will give some context yep we'll go ahead and start um so this is the same salary schedule for the nonunit folks that aren't under a collective bargaining agreement that we typically bring every year these are two-year contracts so last year the board would have approved uh salaries for both this year and 2526 so every year we add that second year on um you can see the schedule in there um these include the same we'll call them cost of living increases to salary and and and their annuities um again we discussed this in the finance and facility committee meeting and the total increase for everything for next year is

12696,5 um so again no action of this meeting will'll be coming back next week after dis or next month after discussion to look for approval for this and and I'm just going to add again um this is the same it's the same Cola increase that you see across the board minus a couple of positions that uh we set very clear targets for um you know I talked with with Miss Crump specifically and and said I I need you to get your admin search she achieved that back in November um and so you know obviously we're honoring that recognizing that there's a budget crisis recognizing that there's a budget conversation um later on this evening you know again I added it to the agenda um we have separation agreements um potential for teachers and administrators um

127we certainly know that there's going to be a need to do a reduction um not just in um in in in those areas but in our non-unit areas as well um I think I've predicted a reduction in in my office staff of about $175,000 um but that's any any opportunity for us to be able to reduce the budget through a buyout or or a separation agreement saves those those costs in perpetuities so you don't end up seeing those salaries I I don't know who the cut will be at this time anymore than I know who the cut will be as far as teachers or administrators today I can only talk and and we'll get down to that but I wanted to make certain that everybody understood that yes we're making a proposal to to to

128recognize the the the commitments we've already made um but we are also not deaf to the fact that U we are going to have to make budget cuts and and so we'll be looking at what that looks like um with Staffing you know coming forward trusty Acton um so I was just curious under success coach secondary it's it says partial r a gr Grant funded so can you just explain like what's that mean like how much of the salary is that sure um I don't have the exact figure but that position is partially Grant funded that is the r is a regional assistant Grant that's through uh Title One um the ISD is the Fiscal Agent so we're recipient a subrecipient of that through the ISD um I know every year they meet with Julian

129Jeremy and some other folks to go over uh what their plans are for the coming year we receive our allocation and it gets divied up um so we're able to fund certain positions either fully or partially um again I don't have the exact breakout for that position um but then the rest of that salary would be funded through the general fund and again some of those Grant funded positions if the grant runs out you know then we have to make those decisions if we're able to afford those positions so so how about the um the next one it says 21h is fully funded 21h is that partnership grant that you heard Julie talk about earlier tonight um that's a three-year grant that we're in year two of so one more year and then um those

130Grant funds will go away and potentially those positions with them and then the 31a what was that again 31a is a state Grant through our mde it's uh 31a section 31a or helps with students um it helps supplement it's state supplemental funding to the federal Title One Grant okay and then um that 31 AA is that some type of security so that's a newer one that's uh Safety and Security and mental health um okay objectives yep okay super thank you trusty Hamilton okay a couple questions for you um and I don't know how many of our community have a pack so I'm asking this question for that reason non-unit salary folks will you just uh say again who those folks are so that would be anyone not covered by collective bargaining agreement so not teachers

131secretaries not Paris not t it would be a lot of the administration and some other positions throughout the district like those Grant funded positions they just don't naturally fall into one of those other groups I guess thank you and does nonunit can you all hear him okay it LO slow to me just so you you know your voice is low um do are these covered by unions is that what nonunit means that they're not covered by unions or they are or okay so there's no Union uh they none of these folks are in a bargaining Group which is hence the name non unit everybody has their own individual contracts reflecting this information okay that answers my question on um the other question I would have had so um I if you all don't have a

132an agenda those of you out there it looks like um if we were to uh vote this in next month that the increase to the district would be about $96,000 96,5 um and it sounds like Jeff is saying did you say something regard to that I feel like you just said something about that well we will be R sizing the budget in an area that we'll be talking about um you know as so I've talked to all of the associations and about what the reductions will look like and we're taking conversations and comments back and forth in areas naturally that you'll hear about about are Jeff we should take a look at non-unit positions we should take a look at and much like we've heard tonight there are everybody's got ideas about where we should

133be reducing and we listen to all of those ideas it doesn't mean that we can act on every one of them but do I anticipate that there will be reductions in Reynolds Hall without a doubt do I anticipate that there'll be reductions in this non-unit without a doubt now some of these positions are Grant funded and so they're probably not going to go away this year but next year you know when the grants run out yeah you're probably going to see those positions go away or else the district's going to have a different conversation about do we spend our general fund dollars to carry those forward um and so those are the tough conversations so yes um I believe that you will see Cuts in those areas if you ask me today who they are

134or what positions I can't answer that again there's a process for that and we'll have to take a look at how we consolidate those positions how we consolidate those duties how we how we do that moving forward um any more than I could tell you which Administration might be reduced or which teacher might be reduced today I couldn't get I think sorry I think my question uh got lost forgive me um maybe I wasn't clear and I'll just rephrase it um and and actually I'll just ask a different one because I think I you know all right the um the the 2% increases that it sounds like we said we're on a schedule here so it sounds like this was a promise before or understand how that goes we we've done the the 2% 1%

135that that Cola raise that's been the standard for all all non-unit administrators for for quite some time that's just a cola raise it's your cost of living so we do this every couple years or whatever actually we we kind of do it every year so as Marcus indicated the contracts that you're seeing which you're going to be asked to vote on is going to be into 26 27 because we've already approved 2425 and they have one more year left on their contract 2526 2526 is already approved or we vote on that you voted on that last year okay so they they always have two years in front of them okay and so this is simply talking about that two years now that won't apply once the grant funds go away if Grant funds go away

136that's a different conversation okay that makes sense that's helpful um it doesn't sound like just for my own sake Clarity sake it doesn't sound like we have to um approve this next month because we don't have any unions to to fight with um and that this is something that could significant will significantly impact our budget and this is just thing that we need to be aware of thank you any other discussion we will move on to 24- 25- 51 strategic plan over the past four years of been on the board I have asked the question why is it that JPS does not have a strategic plan the answer often given was we set goals for the superintendent each year during my hours of professional development I came to learn and better understand that there is

137benefit to having a strategic plan it is not synonymous to individual goals when overseeing the district it is a clear and concise road map for an organization for a municipality for many legislative groups it defines the long-term goals for our district for a 3 to 5e period it is databased and stakeholder driven it tracks our progress and provides a framework for responding to challenges and opportunities and certainly with the understanding of prioritizing our identified needs I am entertaining a discussion ton tonight for the board to consider as we move forward with reimagining what Jackson Public School Board looks like our district our goals transparency accountability changing the trajectory of our district that we imagine reimagine the successful outcomes that a strategic plan could provide there is a process that would involve implementation of a strategic

138plan we do have access to the Michigan Association a school board who would be willing to come and facilitate providing understanding about the value of having a strategic plan essentially it will become our Focus point it would be my hope is that we um come to a consensus on this it will be a standing agenda item so that we could have Insight on those updates that are happening monthly I think that's it for me is there any other discussion on strategic plan from the board so I'm totally in favor of this I actually took a course CBA 251 District strategic planning and goal setting and and is a three to five year plan and it totally makes sense we would make sure that the community knew what we were doing and it as a board

139it helps us to assess progress towards our priorities you there's benchmarks there and it just provides a framework by which to solve major problems and so I I and it would be open um everyone would see it and everyone could see where we're going with us this school board so I'm totally in favor of of implementing this trusty Hamilton um so this is a question um for um Jeff I would imagine um for Jeff um what's been our reason for not having a strategic plan prior to now well there's first of all there's no requirement for having a strategic plan and JPS has not had a strategic plan um um well period and and part of that reason is is because the Strategic plan is um the direction that the district has taken is rests

140within the superintendent the board hires the superintendent to enact that Vision um it's hard of the reason that this district has had such tremendous longevity in their superintendence um I will tell you the average superintendency in the state of Michigan is less than three years and so when you see um when you see opportunity for uh when you see boards trust in their superintendent they tend to stick around longer this board's had or this district has had two superintendents over 25 years there's very few districts in the state of Michigan that can manage that and so um but to miss Hunt's conversation there's there's a lot of benefits and and Pros to a strategic plan we simply haven't because the board and the district has moved um according to in the last 10 years 11

141years it's it's moved in accordance with my um leadership and we meet every year and set the goals specific to what we want to work on based on my evaluation it's not saying it's right or wrong it's simply the way we have done things and again like I said there's no legal obligation to do a strategic plan there's no it is simply something that's a possibility or an option um you know I miss hunt and I had an opportunity to have a conversation about this last week and and she's not incorrect it certainly helps provide a a transition when superintendant move on what happens if a superintendent transitions or leaves the district it provides a road map or some guidance for an incoming superintendent so they know which way to go which which way is

142east and at the same time Mo you know boards hire superintendents based on their vision for the district so it can go both ways and there's there's know I I I will tell you I don't know that there's a right or wrong answer I will tell you that JPS is not um and we've the district has benefited uh tremendously from a um from from a a sense of security a sense of of longevity within the superintendent ranks and again that's not something you can have or see around the county it's not something you can see around the state again when you see the average superintendency is less than three years that takes a toll on on the the system because if you're churning through superintendent and by the way when I say the average is

143less than three you consider a lot of folks like me who' have been here 11 and you go okay well that means there's a lot of people that are there less than a year or less than two it really kind of shifts the balance so I hope that answers your question it does uh one more question for you though um what's been the what's the relation of su strategic plan to superintendent goals how would you you know uh identify that because I'm hearing you say that um because we've had you as a superintendent for you know this long time and uh supposedly the board is trusting in your leadership um that that's one of the reasons why we have chosen not to do a um a uh a strategic plan um I know that you

144give your goals every year each year um is that is that one reason why we haven't done strategic plans because you've been given goals what's the relation to goals to to strategic plans that that that has been you know the practice or whatever well what would happen moving if if you were to adopt a Str strategic plan and again it's a process just so you know I'm not talking about moving forward I kind of want understand you know backward was that was that part of the reason why because you know the the trust in you is that the goals kind of like the idea of the strategy plan in essence the superintendent is the the the direction for the district because the the you hear me saying superintendent goals right the board hires the superintendent

145you set the goals we set the goals based on my evaluation so every year we do an evaluation and we set those goals based on the direction the board wants me to move or move the district in based on so they were never intended to be a strategic plan that was not the idea is that correct is that what I'm hearing well it depends on how you answer that question okay that's good no that's that's just helpful I just wanted to um to better understand this so um what I think is interesting and good is that you know and this is really for my colleagues um here at the board table you know we're having these conversations supposedly um it's really good if we're having these conversations at the board table so that you all

146can hear them um if you've been paying attention to the board for any length of time then you know for a for a minimum of four years since I've been on the board I've literally been asking about a strategic plan and one of my conversations that I've had um and statements that I've made is that we are like a ship in an ocean without a without a plan we have no idea where we're going because we don't have a strategic plan so if we're having those conversations in in silence you know or behind closed doors it's not benefiting you all as the community or us at the board table because we're not sharing that information but I'm it's good that it's at the board table now um this is a good thing because we do

147need a strategic plan obviously I would be very much in uh support of it because like I said I've been asking for for legit four years um but again um I want to see us as a board um have direction and you know even having a community come in and and and say look this is the direction we want to take our students in this these are the things we want to see you know some of the things I would love for us to see is skill traits on campus and some of those things can be talked about in a strategic plan we could talk about what that looks like or whatever among other things right so um so absolutely I would be in support of it the other thing that I think that we

148should be more uh proactive about um and this is why I was asking Jeff about his superintendent goals is that um those superintendent goals they they they should be aligning so if we're thinking about creating a strategic plan those goals should align with that we've here to for operated where Jeff brings his goals to us and you have newspaper articles where you see me questioning those goals and resisting those goals because they have not been smarty they have not been uh you know measurable and and specific and that all the different things because those are the types of things that that I talk about right but if we're going to create a strategic plan I feel like we should also be intentional about the goals that he's bringing to the table um and and making

149sure that we are aligning them with the Strategic plan as well because again they they've we haven't done that here to we just let him kind of present something like he said is based on his um uh you know evaluation and all those things are questionable but regardless my point is I definitely think yes to a strategic plan but we also should couple that with making sure that his goals um align with those truste Simonetti thank you so I certainly welcome the Ed education about a strategic plan in the educational realm I'm not familiar with any strategic plans in education I know I've requested samples but I've not seen any I am familiar with the Strategic plan in the health care setting and I think it's helpful um so I would welcome the education and

150the steps that it would take to look at that um I will say though that since Mr Beal's tenure the last 11 years I do not believe that Mr Beal or this board has ever said no to a strategic plan um that hasn't happened no one has said no so I would welcome that piece I'll just let you know that for for me it's been you know denied each time Cheryl I have um as promised I will make sure that you get those copies I have um reached out to several surrounding districts and they have provided me with samples of their strategic plan so I will um distribute that through board correspondence and make sure that we all have the opportunity to look at that and then just to give um give you a little

151bit more context about what it would look like we when we say stakeholders the the community would be a part of this process right because it's not just our vision we're servicing we're here to serve our community so our community will be a part of this process that masb individual will come and facilitate a 8 to 5 p.m. Retreat where we all have the opportunity to share feedback ideas understanding our personal visions and see how we can come to a consensus on that becoming or evolving into the district's building um vision and then the implementation would come back and we would discuss after uh analysis has been completed and then we would have to as a board approve that um that strategic plan so it's not just ideas that we're going to throw out it

152is a process that we need to consider any other discussion moving on to discussion item 24-25 -52 Committee of the whole another matter that we have talked about in the past four years that I have been um here at the table so the committee of the whole is a procedure mechanism used to allow for more informal and efficient discussion or constructive debate on a variety of issues by discussing and addressing potential concerns beforehand and the committee of the whole will help streamline the decision-making process before presenting it to the board at a regularly scheduled meeting for a vote we still would have to adhere to the open meetings act those requirements we will still give notice there would be no agenda it no action items at the time that we are meeting as a committee

153of the whole it would minimize the time spent on individual Comm committee meetings currently we have the finance committee we have the policy committee and so that would give us an opportunity in those settings to bring that information and again all of us hearing that information collectively and having that constructive debate certainly we have to um take into consideration the feasibility of adding another monthly meeting so again looking at our availability our scheduling and that for some may be a barrier but again something that we could would consider if we move forward as a board to discuss the committee of the whole any other discussion absolutely um so another thing that I've been talking about for four years at the table you know here across the mic so you all could hear me saying it

154another plug for my colleagues you know it'd be good to share these discussions with all of us um but I would definitely be in support of a committee of the whole um we don't you might notice at the table often have uh uh productive uh conversation and the committee of the whole type meeting could allow for that discussion to take place um at least in the previous administration the push to get out of meetings quickly keep them down to one and a half to two hours um was very present in a lot of the comments that were being made by that former board president um the whole would allow us to you know obviously set some time aside to then discuss all these things um without time constraints the other thing is that we'd all

155be on the same uh have be having the same information at the same time as Miss uh hunt mentioned the uh you know finance and pH facilities committee the policy committee like we could decide which of those committees are all a part of that conversation and all again be on the same ta same page um with this information allowing for a good you know good debate and conversation around that my biggest concern um with the committee of the whole is ensuring that we all can come to the meeting um I do work out of town now you know um all of us have jobs I think most of us do um and uh I would not want us to create a time that uh is a barrier for any of us um because I think

156it would be important because if we were to Design This Then That essentially says that likely those committees that we sit on would fall into this um and if we're not allowed to if we don't if we're not intentional about making sure that we all can uh fit into that time then I think that would be a disservice to us so I would definitely be in support of it again as long as we are intentional about ensuring that everybody's time works thank you any other discussion so again I've never been involved in a group that operated with the committee of the whole so I don't have any experience in that um so my assumption though is that this committee would work through agenda items and then if so it would seem like you would have

157to have you have to do it like in less than a week of this meeting and just working out the whole Logistics of the agenda and having the materials and all of that um would be my first question um I I've had some conversations with uh some of the other board members about how we can uh get out of uh this room and out into uh some of the other schools um to engage in more in-depth conversations I think if we want to refer to it as a committee of the whole for that purpose I think that's great um you know it's it's great to be able to be in this room for our official board meetings uh have access to all the technology that this room affords us to be able to broadcast and

158uh replay everything on YouTube uh that's great uh but there were a number of different uh events last year uh where we were able to uh as a board uh get into some of the schools uh have some of the principles and administrators uh take us on a tour of those facilities and engage with some of the teachers um and some of the students for that matter and I think that was really great um I would love to see uh this become more of that um getting out of more of a formal setting uh getting to the schools um uh you know once a month uh to get to a different School uh do a tour of that school um talk with the um administrators teachers um maybe some of the students and work on

159uh some of the issues and and how we can take some of the discussion items um off of this agenda um and put it onto that um and balance out some of the time um in some of the meetings I think that might be great and I've seen kind of Committees of the whole work on some of the uh longer term items uh that come up for discussion uh frankly some of the other school districts have um their Committee of the whole be like their bond committee um where they meet to talk about some of the long-term uh aspects of uh their bond campaigns and um uh that stuff so um certainly in support of it uh how we would set it up and um what that work would look like I think is a

160discussion of the board but um i' support something along this line so um another school district does this and it he said it worked out really well and I I would be really in favor of this to be able to have more discussion time thank you I would also be hugely in favor of this I think the more time to discuss and uh reflect on what others have to say the better can make more informed decisions and uh make better better decisions for everyone on the whole when it comes time thank you yes that yep the more the better simple the more discussions obviously is is for the betterment of GPS so I'm in favor and again we am pleased to hear the support I know today is not an action item but it's good

161to know that um we are we all want better we want more and we want to achieve a higher level of growth for our district so so looking forward to um this coming back next month for action there's no more discussion we'll move on to the next discussion item 24- 25- 53 the masb spring Institute the Michigan Association of school board Institute is taking place May 2nd through the 4th in maai Island currently Marilyn has um agreed to represent this board um I will be representing as a board of directors for the masb I will be attending as well really just wanted to bring that to the focus because I think it's important when we go to these um training opportunities not only does it give us common language but it um Fosters that shared

162understanding we're all receiving the same information by the same people um trained facilitators and with that information we are able to engage in those Rich dialogues for our district there is opportunity for someone else from the board to go so if that is the case please um reach out to Michelle for interest my goal as the super as the um president I think is value that we as a board achieve at least the level one certification there are nine different CBA courses that we are able to take and the basic um governance um how parliamentary uh procedures are conducted I think it's there's value in all of us understanding what we're doing what we were elected to do and those classes will provide that information for us any discussion yes um help me understand representing

163the board what what what does that mean would you like to go it's no I just want to understand what that means yep just going just from the district there's normally you know when we go to those institutes there are individuals trustees that go not the whole board that goes we are all able to go but I just said because no one is talking about it I wanted to bring it to the Forefront not just as an announcement but to encourage participation okay cuz I think the process has been that um Michelle sends us an email or we send her one when we hear about it and she lets us know that you know uh masb you know the registration is open the representation through me because I'm like you know when did we decide

164that only a couple people can go but I appreciate you uh clarifying that any of us that want to go can go um so thank you for that I do have a question though um board development I'm I'm really wondering around um but budget cuts and this might be for you Jeff um when we have budget cuts looming is this the first time that this district has done that has had budget cuts zoing like this no we okay that's that that answers me just to know what good because the next question is what I really want to get to um in the past when we've had budget cuts um was there any type of um discussion around professional development is there like a you know we're going to limit it or not like I just

165want to know if that's been a thing or not so with regard to the board or no not the board just in general so we we pay for our professional development through title two grants so those dollars are the the professional development is Grant funded so the answer to that question is probably no we're required by law to provide five days of professional development um so we we have to do that anyway that's guaranteed what we're going to do now we we can divvy up how much it costs or what we use or if we're bringing in a speaker Etc but those those are all Grant funded dollars so they have to be approved in the Consolidated app that's good to know um I just was wondering because again you know um not again but

166I also do highly support um masb for different reasons um not maybe all the same reasons um but I do support us attending those meetings but I also wanted to know as good stewards of of our resources you know should we be considering um you know how many of us how much money we're using for board development you know um just in general I just wanted to know that but um I'm glad that you also um Miss hunt clarified that uh any of us can go I think that's important um you know because I do think we should go thank you just just a real quick followup we budget um about $112,000 every year for um for board trainings and so um right now there's approximately I don't know a little over 6,000 in the

167account and that covers it's 2500 for this conference um and so that'll cover about two and a half and and Miss hunt gets a discount her conference is paid for because because she's a board of directors so that's how we got funds what I would recommend is if you're going to have this conversation it's a great one to have take a look at next year when we talk about the budget and go okay we've got 12,000 in the in the fund how do we want to spend it because again not everybody can do everything I mean if we try to send everybody to this to this particular conference at $2,500 a piece we would more than spend our our allotted budget for for and we can set that budget but we need to understand kind

168of what that would be and and again my my thought is is hey look if we've got $2,000 or $2,500 per person how do you want to spend it and and at the end when we get down to this conference is in May if there's dollars left over how do we want to allocate those dollars um that's that's a perfect conversation Great lead in thank you very much yeah one one last question Michelle I didn't miss an email about that did IB send it out okay thank you any other discussion discussion item 24- 25-54 youth representation at board meetings I'll begin no discussion so far go ahead I'm in favor of having student representation at board meetings I think the more that we can Elevate student voice the more authentic we can make our discussions

169around what they are actually experiencing in their day-to-day lives in the classrooms that we're serving elevating student voices well researched and positive outcomes for student achievement I won't uh mention them all um but there's there's many many many many many many um the thing that I want to make sure that we talk about is that these things only really matter and only are impactful if it's authentic representation so there will be some Logistics involved in what this looks like um as Aven said um Michigan law says that students can be on a board but they cannot vote so we need to make sure that when we put this in place that it's it's meaningful um so um just a couple of things to make sure that uh we as board members are putting into place

170um some guard rails for how this works and how we truly and authentically honor student Insight trusty Hamilton um was that the um SOA did you put this on the agenda is that the the the like the summary that you wanted to give us or was it was there something was there a summary for this or was it just I have additional information so basically um as many of you know I am um an advocate for youth voices and um as I was researching the validity of of this request um yes Michigan legally allows student representation at school boards but again they are not allowed to vote students however they bring to us their valid opinions knowledge ideas and experiences for dayto day as a board we have this 50 foot view so we see

171things from this high level we're we're looking down interesting our Board of um our building administrators to provide that information back up to us so that we can consider that information for developing and creating policies in addition to that they also have um a ear and eyes to their peers right what what they're dealing with on a day-to-day basis the attitudes the culture the climate I think the issue came up about or the it was made mention about bullying they're in those spaces where they are if not on the receiving end of bullying or witnessing other students that have been bullied and that's just example to use in this moment the bottom line is students on school boards can help schools save money um with helping us understand initiatives that we should consider to provide

172to our individual buildings they also have a relationship with teachers that we as vard um members do not have we strive to connect without having with our teachers um administrators faculty staff however their daytoday six hours is spent connecting and building those relationships with those adults in their lives I think it's important that we have some consideration to here what our youth have to say this is their education everyone representing here today have achieved many different titles and initials after their names but these are students that are aspiring to be great to change their environment and if we don't take the time to to listen I think we're fell in them so I am in strong support of student representation trusty Hamilton yes so um another thing that I've been uh promoting for four years

173um some questions though or some comments about this um obviously yes I would absolutely be in support of student voices at the board table like I said I've been advocating for this out loud for four years you all have heard me say that um say this um but the thing I think would be beneficial to the board is to consider some different models that are out there um you know at after just five years on the board this is the fifth year for me I'm sitting through some masb many SB masb classes um you know I've heard numerous examples around student representation um on boards because again it's been an interest of mine um same thing for the Strategic plan same thing for the committee of the whole you know um you sit in those

174meetings and you're listening to other uh Schoolboard members from across the nation and ideally you're getting ideas that's kind of part of the idea why we go to these meetings um so that we can then bring that information back so you know it's surprising if we're are if we're uh new to this information but regardless I have heard several different models that are out there um and some of the questions that I would love one I don't want us to get bogg down in the details too much but I also don't want us to rush into creating this without um examining what this could look like so that we can as Elena mentioned have authentic engagement with our students so some of the questions that I would um want us to make sure that we

175are asking is how are we choosing which students will represent which students would be sitting as advisers to the board or whatever we and choose to call it at some point you know are we assigning different board members different uh communities or or schools Across the Nation um that do this they sometimes have one board member that's assigned to these students so that they can then help them with the you know parliamentary uh stuff and and just all the things like you know all the things that um uh that could be beneficial kind of like a mentor to these uh these these students um another thing that I would love for us to um ensure is that um again how are they Chosen and then we're um ensuring that this is available to all students

176I don't want us just choosing from AP students you know what I mean um I would love to make sure that all students are being given this opportunity and then another thing I think that would be really beneficial because again like I said I've been thinking about this for the past four years is how are we tying this potentially to their Civics and their um you know uh history classes you know what I mean how are we giving them credits for serving on the board because I think that would be an incentive um and then obviously there's some partnership with the history uh Department potentially but different different schools do this Across the Nation and I think it's obviously a huge opportunity um but I would love for us to ensure that whatever we end

177up doing that we put the the due Dil diligence in to ensure that it's impactful that it's effective um and that again very much important to me that this is just not open to you know those students who are going to say what we want them to say we want to be able to hear from everybody and so we want to make sure it's open to all the students so those are some of the thoughts that I have so obviously yes I'm in full support but I just want to make sure that we um that we do our due diligence to ensure that it's effective and impactful and I think some different models will be really helpful perhaps next month thank you trusty Simonetti um so obviously everything that we do revolves around students and

178student voice is important um we were presented with a proposal um from a student that I have some issues with that I would like to voice so the first one was that the student would be appointed by the board president um we were all elected by our constituents and if we put a student here I would like to see that student elected by their constituents um I don't think nothing personal to you Miss hunt but I don't know how a board president knows the student body to be able to appoint a representative um and certainly um not a self-appointed person um it was suggested that it be a four-year term I definitely do not agree with a four-year term I think all means all and everyone should have an opportunity to partic participate in the

179process um and then also as far as you know providing comments and discussion all that but it was suggested that the student be allowed to make motions and I don't agree with that I don't know if you're a non-voting member how you could make motions it would be like any one of you in the public making a motion that we would have to vote on so I would not agree with that I think it needs a lot of leg work to develop but I think it has potential thank you any other discussion so um I agree with Cheryl I think her um ideas are valid I just was thinking it there would be a real rigorous selection process and that all of us would have to agree with it so it could even be like

180um they'd have to write something composition or something yeah presentation so that's so thank you thank you trusty dolis uh superintendent Beal do we have student councils at Parkside and JH high are they staffed by like a teacher or an advisor I am a a a fan of student engagement um probably most of us were engaged um growing up in our Educational Systems I was on the student council uh executive board um student Senate in college so on and so forth um and big proponent of student engagement um I think that um I have concerns about appointing a individual Ambassador um and uh the the um limiting the student voice to to one individual that's arbitrarily selected by uh four of us up here and there's um more than that but that's what it takes

181to get a majority um and uh that's not to diminish anybody's voice um or try to dissuade them uh from giving input to this board because I think the most important table that we have here is that one um and uh the tables uh that we all join in our communities I always say that um you know these are business meetings these are probably some of the worst opportunities uh for engagement uh directly with the um with the students with the staff uh with the administrators um but I I do think that the board can do more to engage uh with the student population itself um frankly I think because we have uh student councils and student governments um already that exist at the high schools in middle schools in Middle School it would behoove

182us to take advantage of those um since they already have advisors uh we should go to them um they're already elected they're already chosen by their peers uh within their school systems and if we're having Committee of the whole meetings and engaging in loose dialogue um maybe one of those meetings we can set up and uh go to those student bodies uh and listen to them on a uh somewhat frequent basis um and incorporate that feedback into you know whatever policy or administrative decisions we want to make but I think going to them uh ensures that it's not uh ensures that it's authentic um that we're not uh you know appointing a token student to um be here and uh for for the for the visibility or um Aesthetics of it uh but that we're

183actually going into the schools uh meeting with those student bodies uh and listening to them so I would encourage us to to con consider something like that um and and maybe engage in them with some meaningful um in meaningful way uh whether asking those student bodies to give a state of the students report or something like that and having giving giving those student governments a project to work on I think would be um an impactful way to do it my opinion I I I 100% agree with Derek um myself was part of uh when I was studying at MSU I was uh representing representing business school so I think you're 100 person right on this we need to go to them sit in their meetings and listen to them the first thing as a board

184members know we got to do is listen listen listen and listen to those guys like at Parkside they do have student council and Jackson high I'm pretty sure they have student government here so yeah one of those meetings just us showing up there means a lot for them and means a lot for us um point of information um we president um I I think we it sounds like we might have two different um maybe two different conversations going on but help me understand if we do or don't um I realized that we did get some email some of us got an email around a proposal um for represent presentation or of some sort at the board um is this related to that or was this separate from that this this on the agenda tonight this

185is related to that okay so this was this was directly related to that and we were looking at using that structure that they were presented or no this was just coming this was related to that email and presented to the board for discussion okay that's helpful okay that's that that's helpful because I thought that would that we weren't discussing that but that's very helpful um to understand that but again we are not deciding on uh any of structure right now that's not per se the the structure that we've decided that that's what it's going to be um at any point at this point anyway we're now making a decision tonight really just wanted to hear from each board member are you um for against for yeah are you in support of it thank you you're

186welcome I'm sure I'd move that we' take a brief recess five minutes anybody support support I this time we'll take a 5 minute recess thank you all for continuing to stay e e e we are going to reconvene believe everyone is back all right discussion item 24-25 NOP yes 25-55 resolution affirming JPS as a welcoming District to all students I think it's important to who explicitly state that JPS remains steadfast and it's commitment to safeguard our students and ensuring their privacy all students all students have a right to experience a welcome a welcoming and safe learning environment environment where they Thrive feel psychologically safe emotionally safe and able to internalize the information that they are learning from their instructors we currently have um our EOP where emergency operation procedures in place that directly aligns with

187how we handle a situation if ever faced want to be clear that we do understand there is law that we need to um abide by and because of that law we have an obligation to ensure the safety of all students any discussion absolutely so um when I put this on the agenda a week or so ago um it was because I had been listening to my community um um today there was a protest um in front of Representative walberg's office um the title of it was protect the Department of Education to safeguard America's democracy um several of us myself there was a a letter that went around from um School members across the state of Michigan who signed on to this letter which we delivered to representative walberg's uh office this afternoon again the title

188of that being protect the Department of Education to safeguard Amer democracy um myself I signed on along with u about 70 other school board members from across the N the state the state of Michigan um Miss hunt signed on to that um I was told uh Derek Dolby signed on to that and Elena sharp also signed on to that um in that letter it again talks about uh the department of education's uh attempts to uh be rolled back um to be dismantled um and the push for for um the communities pushed to uh you know rep wallberg to um protect the Department of Education to protect the Civil Rights um that are listed in the Department of Education um and do his duty to protect education um so again like I said when I put

189this on the agenda a couple weeks ago it was because I was listening to my community many of you all you know you've been following me long enough and you heard me say those closest to the problem are closest to the Sol solution but furthest from the resources in power I really do believe that when we come together as a community it looks like us coming together as a community um the the concerns that um impact me as an African-American woman don't always impact um my white sisters that are sitting you know in spaces but um you know the concerns that that that impact my biracial child um I have six of them um that sit at JPS they don't always um reflect the concerns of our immigrant communities right but as a district that

190is coming together um protecting all of us should be important to us so like I said I've been listening to the Immigrant Community um and our Brown brothers and sisters because I'm not uh you know a member of the community that would be uh impacted by um the concern um that this resolution addresses yet um what I do is I believe in coming together as a community I believe in listening to the concerns that they have and recognizing that um as we were um out there protesting to rep Wahlberg because he has the power and the position that he's in to uh at least vote in a way that ensures uh that democracy is protected we here at this board table also have that power here for Jackson Public Schools so you all have followed

191me long enough some of you to know that I usually don't come to the table without um facts and data and information you know so that I can make sure that what I'm presenting is appropriate as Miss hunt just stated um we have these eops emergency operating procedures now some of you all who may be familiar with what emergency operating procedures are a lot of times they are protected information because for example if we had a school shooter we wouldn't want them to know the schematics of the building right we don't want them to know how we are you know how our building set up so we might protect that information um a community that's coming together and affirming and ensuring um individuals in our community who are a part of us that hey look

192we have your back that's not a protect that should not be protected information right it should be information that's easily had so when I'm listening to my community and I say my because um when you truly believe that we are all one when you recognize that we are interdependent of each other then you recognize that it's my community just like I'm impacted by things need you all to come and speak up for me at times and people and and the issues that are concerned directly to me this community they need us to speak up at times so when I'm listening to them some of the concerns that they have and and letia um the chair president of uh you know I'm GNA get it wrong but the Hispanic Festival and our community I'mma have to

193say it the English way but the chair and president of executive director of that organization she said it very well this is important to that community so I've been like I said doing my due diligence to ensure that I am bringing forward accurate information and accurate concerns and over 60 families I'm in contact with through their leader have said hey look this is a concern for us we want to know that when we send our babies to school that we are going to be protected now this is a thing um the goal for me with this resolution is that we address the specific need of this community I'm not so much concerned about wording as I am about around impact right so if a resolution affirming JPS as a welcoming District to all students is

194something that this board couldn't get around I do hope that they can get around um the concern and that is that our immigrant Community recognizes and understand and knows and is assured of the EOP procedures that we may or may not have that says we are going to protect you as much as we can right we all know you know as law-abiding citizens who are sitting at this table we all are concerned about ensuring that we that we uh obey the law so if the law when the law since the law says that we do have some jurisdiction we do have some options we do have some say over how we do or don't uh protect our immigrant Community that's what I'm hoping that this board would do that we will recognize that unless we

195have a um a a a a warrant that's signed by a federal or state judge um that's not just a an administrator of of ice but that is signed by a state judge or or a federal judge at that point when we we have to obey that's when we obey but until that point up until that point you're safe here if that's what our community needs and that's what I'm hearing my our community needs they need to know that they're going to be safe when their babies come to school they need to know that they don't have to take drastic measures um here you know very soon in the in in the near future to stop coming to school to not I appreciate even Leticia mentioning that you know um the ability to live to

196be able to come to the uh to to their students events and to feel safe enough to come to those events I hadn't considered that you know because again that's not part of my own concerns right but I appreciate her saying that because if that's what we need to I'm sorry when we do that we are we are protecting all those things so um again my concern with this resolution um one is that we pass it but two that we don't get stuck on the words and this Etc but that we focus on the need and that and that need if I'm hearing correctly which I think I am is that they be assured um that they will be protected as much as they can be protected and right now the law says without a

197um without a warrant that's signed by a federal or state judge you know up until that point we have some some some some some uh some say so and so that's what I'm hoping that this board will um consider and and then choose to pass uh next month when we come back thank you trusty Hamilton any other discussion yes um so first when you look at the title of this resolution being a welcoming District it immediately implies that we are not welcoming um I believe that we have the policies in place to cover these issues um and on this document that we have there are a few areas that I have concerns about um and I think you do have to get stuck on the words because this document says Jackson Public Schools will not

198provide assistance to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the enforcement of federal civil immigration law I would not pass something that is telling our staff to break the law and to not comply I I don't agree with that at all um and so I'm not sure what benefit this resolution does for us and I'm more concerned about the unintended consequen um the last two paragraphs I have concerns about that um establishing policies appropriate that reflect the commitment of JPS I I think that's already done and then to set a time frame that in the next 60 days the superintendent shall ABC I mean what if he doesn't and what I I I don't agree with that last paragraph that is dictating what the superintendent and the district will do in a given time frame

199so um I believe we are welcoming I don't know what signing this resolution is going to do for us um and I have issues with the document thank you trusty Simonetti trusty Acton please so words have meanings and I believe that we are a welcoming School District so I just want to um I have an issue exactly with what Miss simti was talking about I even underlined it um the very last paragraph where it says be it further resolved the board advocates for the continued implementation of the Department of Homeland Security issued memorandum CLE titled guidelines for enforcement actions in or near protected areas which as of October 2021 instructs officers to refrain from taking enforcement actions at or near locations or protected areas so what happened January 20th of 2025 is the Trump Administration

200rescinded this he updated they updated designated sensitive areas and issued a new directive so this is this is wrong and so um on February 11th from the masb we were given an immigration guide it was an updated one from um February 6 20 of 2025 from the National School Board Association and this is where I'm getting some of this information so some of this has to be updated um the third pair gra um that's that's no longer true um and then I really have to talk about um superintendent Beal in the last two paragraphs he did address a lot of these things already um it was an email dated to us January 29th of 2025 and he did talk about the eops all being implemented we were given at we were shown what they were

201but of course as um Kish was saying we you know it's not to be you know Kisha was not give it to people because you know we have to keep that you know no one should know that but the last paragraph also I think that that again has already been taken care of through an email that we received and I just wanted to reiterate and um that the US Supreme Court's Landmark decision and pler versus DA established the principle that undocumented children have the constitutional right under the equal protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to receive a free public education from kindergarten to the 12th grade it's a constitutional mandate that must be adhered to by all schools regardless of community sentiment or political positions so ice is in itself a law enforcement agency and

202and we need to follow our board policies and our EOP procedures and dealing with you know these things and Ice agents do need a specific type of Warrant or express permission to enter areas that are not usually open to the public and that again they need a Judicial warrant a Judicial warrants issued by a judge both state and federal judges can sign off on judicial warrants so that I'm I'm not opposed to a resolution I just think it needs to be accurate and Leti letisia thank you so much I thought what you said was wonderful and I got your heart and I I I'm with you on this whole thing so thank you I just want to say that this is really closely aligned with a document from the National Education Association called a excuse

203me called a safe Zone resolution where it takes some of the wording that we're finding some concern with and um addresses some of that including things like um some frequently asked questions such as can I refuse directives from law enforcement no a safe Zone resolution does not provide um immunity should you decline to obey directives from law enforcement so I'm wondering if we can find some um some common ground on both sending a message not for us but for our community that I'm you know I'm all for telling if if we need to say that you're welcome as many times as we need to say it like I want to say it because I want students to feel like they're safe and they can't learn until they feel safe period end of story so if

204that's what we need to do that's what I want to do um if we need to call a safe Z resolution so that um so that we're all comfortable with the wording um but the sentiment is still there I think that's something that we could do I'd be happy to share this with anyone who wants it thank you any more discussion yes yes were you going to go D no no okay yeah um so so I just want to mention that um we are not a welcome dist so again the importance to me of this uh uh resolution um when I say not getting caught up in the wording um is around the whole like I said welcoming uh Elena just mentioned a safe Zone um whatever it needs to be called you know um

205as long as the meat of it is there um and so part of that is in under you know and you know just being able to fully read um The Proposal the resolution that's been uh presented and you know this uh now if you all have copies of it you'll see that the fifth one one two 3 four five fifth paragraph does state that we will not provide it says now therefore it's the first now therefore sentence being resolved JPS will not provide assistance to the US uh Immigration and Customs Enforcement I mean at the very bottom of that sentence that paragraph rather it says except in the rare instance in which JPS is provided with a valid warrant so um again you know um not getting caught up in uh you know wording that

206doesn't matter but absolutely we want to read fully what's been put in there um over the time that we've been allotted you know we got this on Friday at minimum and today's Tuesday um and then you know not give a a partial statement that then uh you know could help invoke fear or or whatever else or or incompetence or something in the community but yeah the proposal is the resolution is designed to again at the point that we have to obey and Marilyn you shared a little bit of this information with law because there is a warrant absolutely none of us are trying to break the law but up until that point I want to address as well this we are not a welcoming District the the concern and this is why I I live

207by this statement that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution but often furthest from the resources in power if I come to you as a person and say I don't feel welcome in this space then you have to believe what I'm saying now you can choose not to you can continue to say it's welcoming it's welcoming is welcoming but if I'm tell you that's not what I'm feeling from this space and if I sitting in this space as a decision maker want to fully represent your concerns and your needs and I probably should be paying attention to what you're saying and actually believing you now I get that you know it can be painful for us to hear that hey I don't feel welcome here I I get that you know I

208mean it sometime it can be painful when we have constructive criticism uh laid at our feet but again sitting in this space one you've got to be able to take the Heat or else get out the kitchen you know what I'm saying or and then at the same time again because you're representing this District take the Heat or else get out the kitchen you know what I mean so if they're if they're not feeling welcome then we want to make sure that we are um changing our way so that you didn't that you didn't that you then do feel welcome the last thing that I'll mention is that um if you're not addressed this community then it's not yeah if so if again um as Miss hunt already mentioned we have these eops emergency operating

209procedures um that we have and as mentioned as well by uh Cheryl here that you know it's the 60-day thing so Miss hunt mentioned that we have operating procedures around this already currently we have a plan right um so the 60-day uh issue would be really null and void because we have a current plan okay that could then be just created into a policy um at the passing of this resolution the concern for this community is the know we know you don't know that doesn't give me any safety if I'm on that side of the table and have absolutely no idea what's happening to me or my child when I come to the school and again that's why I talked about the schematics that most eops that are you know you don't want to have

210anybody know about what that that EOP plan is is because you're trying to protect some protected information that you know uh somebody else could who could harm us could get a hold to knowing that you're G to be safe is not protected information so us knowing what's going on or what the plan that we have does not help this community that does not feel welcome so I just want to highlight that that again um I hope that we don't get caught up in the wording yes if we to change it to Safe Zone by all means but let's make sure that we understand the meat of it that one we're not saying that we're not going to disobey a a law or or a judicially signed who said that judicially signed warrant but that we

211are also going to protect this community and we're going to let them know this is what we're doing thank you trusty Hamilton trusty dois please uh I just had a question for trusty Hamilton you said uh we got this on Friday was that it was sent to the whole board or did someone send it to you so this uh our board packet actually I think got what uh Michelle when did you s that was that Wednesday was it Thursday when do we get it it was in the board packet okay Friday thank you that's where it was yep thank you okay thank you um it was in the board packet yeah I just didn't I didn't know if uh that meant that like someone else had drafted this and sent it to you um I

212appreciate the clarification and and I'll Echo um the comments made to Leticia um for work in the community when I was mayor um we uh during covid um a lot of people were struggling and we did a um food box program uh called Farmers uh to families it was put in place by the USDA uh ironic one of the uh departments that is uh subject to um subject to cuts um that actually is helping to feed our students now but uh as we were passing out those food boxes uh we recognize a large number of families uh that uh didn't want to share their information um didn't want to share their names um those that would uh come and grab boxes uh for others in the community uh I think because the same sort of

213fear um that we're seeing now and the same sort of discussion that we're having of uh people not wanting to give uh their information to uh you know government actors that are trying to help um in a really uh challenging time uh for families and uh more specifically for our immigrant population um uh out of fear of what might happen so I can I can totally understand the concern and the need to express um through in a in a compass way uh what we the steps that we are taking uh for those families that may feel some of the same fears uh right now I will Echo some of the comments uh about the resolution in particular um I do think words matter um to maybe save some of the discussion for the next conversation

214if we pick this up again I think the one two three four fifth paragraph uh talking about a valid valid warrant um you know frankly I think words matter because my reading of this would make this less would uh cause our processes to be less protective uh than they actually currently are uh there are there's a there's a difference between administrative warrants and judicial warrants uh my understanding is that we currently ask for judicial warrants uh so a lawyer would probably read this and read valot warrant uh to include an administrative warrant which is a warrant that is uh administratively approved within uh uh immigration and custom enforcement so I do think words matter I also think that syntax matters uh take a look at the fifth paragraph it says now there be it resolved

215Jackson Public Schools will not provide assistance to the US immigration Customs Enforcement in the enforcement of federal civil immigration law period that is not a comma it's a period uh I think that the second sentence following that that ice won't be permitted on ph facilities properties Personnel students except in instances of a valid warrant which could be read as an administrative or J judicial warrant that is a separate sentence talking about access to facilities the first sentence still holding true that uh even if someone I'm just thinking of the teachers uh if we give access to any law enforcement entity uh ice included with a valid judicial warrant in this case we would be directing the administration to to uh not provide any assistance even in the course of executing that warrant opening doors I

216mean I could I could uh see a lot of different concerns um that administrators uh Educators uh those that work within our schools could have in trying to interpret the intent of this um having said all that uh I do think that us communicating about our process and procedures uh to the extent that we can is important uh to show that we are welcoming accepting uh inclusive uh school system Community is important uh uh immigration status uh set aside I think that that is important for individuals to know uh all parents alike that uh if someone tries to get on a bus uh in a uniform that they're not just going to be allowed access to that bus because people are weird um and people will uh try to gain access and and frankly I'm

217I'm pretty impressed when I read the eops about the steps that this district has already taken um and has already thought through uh to basically Elevate all of those cases uh almost from from bus drivers to um School administrators to to anyone that's trying to gain access to our students to our uh build uh school buildings uh basically almost in every case all the way up uh to the superintendent directly um it made me feel uh comfortable and confident as a parent uh as a school board member and I think that us uh talking about that um and maybe not necessarily through a resolution uh again like some of the conversations that we've had before going to the community and uh having engaging in like a conversation uh and talking about uh some of the

218concerns that are there and coming to you uh probably is the most impactful thing that we can do uh more so than uh you know debating uh the this syntax onor resolution but hearing directly from you guys and then going and talking to the community uh about that and uh in a I think productive way talking about our uh our EOP and our our processes so that's what I have to say on that go ahead Jeff um so just a couple things uh not not necessarily specific to this resolution all right this is a position statement for the board um we have policy in place and this doesn't propose to amend any of our policies uh I'm going to share this out there because I think it's important to know no law enforcement agent no

219matter what we've got a great relationship with local law enforcement with state law enforcement no law enforcement agent is allowed access to our students without a Judicial warrant we already have processes in place and and we have done a lot of training around that I will tell you um because it's I can't predict this back when we had the first term um you know there were there were safe zones if you will that that were considered and and we reached out to ice back then and we had conversations and we were assured that ice is not coming to our schools we've reached out to ice again um in recent weeks and I can't promise you that what I can tell you is that in no school in the United States has this happened um we

220have as a district reached out to our students to their families um just kind of share a real quick statistic because it's it's really important so that people can understand we're working very hard and and there's not a lot I can do to say I'm going to make everybody feel safe with regards to to ice or if law enforcement can come in I I can't promise you that they won't I can't break the law if they do um but um in October when I looked at our our Hispanic Community or our latinx community um we had an 89% attendance rate so in other words on any given day 89% of our our our community was was in in attendance and in January um 87% of our community was in attendance and you're going well Jeff

221that's a two a 2% drop um real quick just kind of put that in perspective it's about five students and those students didn't stop coming to school it's it's flu season so they missed more days and on but they were still coming to school now we have reached out and one of the things we've done is our parent liaison in every building have been communicating our El staff have been communicating Kelly's office has been communicating with our with the parents of our students about what we're doing to try to help and make certain that the folks feel comfortable and welcome and safe when they're here and I recognize it's it's a very uncertain time and I am not unempathetic to that um so please understand that we do take this very seriously I try not

222to give everything away in our EOP because candidly we're planning for when it's a sub secretary during lunch in the building principles not in the building it's not going to happen at a convenient time it's going to happen when we have the least trained staff there and I don't want to create a false sense of security I don't want to promise something we can't deliver I don't want people to go well Jeff said we're going to be safe when I can't promise that if they come with a Judicial warrant there's not much we can do and I and I cannot encourage our staff to break the law they they they would be held responsible for obstruction of justice if they do that uh We've consulted with lots of lawyers we've been to trainings on this

223ourselves so I want to make certain that the people in in our community do understand we are actively having this conversation and have been for months now um and and and we're working with our our students and our parents to make certain that they understand um what we do the I don't want to create confusion though for our staff and so when we talk about words matter I don't want our staff to interpret this and to dereck's point on the syntax that we will not cooperate hold still because we all have political differences out there and you might find somebody that says we will not cooperate means I'm going to put my I can't encourage somebody to break the law and I can't they would be held primitively liable so I can't promise that we

224should do that what I will tell you is that there's a process to make certain that nobody comes into our building without that judicial warrant I wish I had more that I could offer you on this one I wish I could tell you that ice isn't going to come I can't and I've talked with Chris Simpson I've talked with local law enforcement I've talked with our County our state and this is the same process that we did back in 2016 you know was we we've been through this before when I tell you is we work very hard to to communicate with our staff and our students and our parents and it's not just not just me saying it into a microphone again our parently a are going out our El folks are going out um

225and again like I said Kelly's office has been doing quite a bit to to help message us and we've seen the results we're not seeing massive absenteeism we're not seeing folks staying home or avoiding coming to school because they're because of this but we're not toned deaf to the fact that that these concerns are real very real um to our community so I I share that with you as much as I can thank you Jeff any more discussion on this item hearing n we will move forward with 24-25 d56 our 2025 26 budget update Jeff want to start this conversation for us Place yep I will all right um lots of questions that we call this i' I've heard it I've heard it called a hundred different things I've heard it called a financial crisis

226I've heard it called we're broke and we're out of money and I've heard it called fiscal mismanagement I've heard it called a dozen different things let me be very blunt I have said this same story for years this message is not new this message was delivered and again go back and check the tape right every year we adop the budget go back and check our June budget I said it then too JPS amends our budget multiple times a year we do this intentionally so that we can keep track of where we're going it's not required we adopt our budget in June that is required uh and we have to amend it again in June that's also required but we amend our budget in December so we can keep track of how we're doing we amend

227it again in March so we can again kind of hone that in so we always know where we're at we get our best prediction because a lot of the stuff that we do in June is based on predictions we don't know sometimes and in this case we don't know what our our state Foundation allowance is going to be we don't know what our federal money is going to be we don't know what our student Count's going to be so we make predictions into the future um last June we predicted a budget of um that was a deficit of 4.1 million plus or minus and um we anticipate that we would be receiving um money from the state in regard in in the form of foundation allowance increase and and we had some pretty good precedent

228to set that on we had a Governor's budget who said I want to give you some extra dollars we had the house budget that said we want to give you extra dollars we had the Senate budget said we want to give you extra dollars so when we had all three branches of government saying we want to give you extra dollars we felt pretty confident that we were going to get a couple extra dollars well we didn't in in in July they passed a budget with no Foundation allowance increase um and that immediately kind of said our budget from from June is not quite where we're going to be now Marcus and I work every year to kind of work at that budget to trim that budget down um and we predicted back in June I

229said listen we're pretty confident that we're 4.1 right now but we think we can get this thing down under three and by the way that number is significant to me because I have been telling the board as we've been saving we've got $20 million in our rainy day fund we didn't have that when I started here we had $2.4 million in the rainy day fund and we were borrowing from the state to make payroll and and by the way when you borrow you got to pay the interest and you got to pay it back the same year you borrow it so they just take it out of your monthly check um so when we started adding to the fund balance we saw these eser dollars coming in this is Grant funds and so it shouldn't

230be a surprise that when the grant funds run out we as a district have to decide either we're going to spend our fund balance our general fund dollars to extend those positions or we're going to have to reduce those grant-funded positions um we said it earlier today when we looked at some of the other Grant funded positions that's a reality in our world now I've told the board we need to get to a balanced budget and if you'd have listened to me back in June or heard the the story back in June it was this I think we can get our deficit under three million and that's $3 million but next year we need to get our deficit we can only we could dip three million this year we can dip 2 million the following

231year and we can dip 1 million the year after that meaning we can dip about6 million of that $20 million if we dip more than that we tend to fall below that threshold and put ourselves In Harm's Way where we could end up having to borrow again and and it's funny because 20 million sounds like a lot of money and it is but it can go away just like that I was talking with members from the ja and they said Jee we had a year we were $14 million the wrong way and a lot of folks remember us having conversations about pay freezes and contracts that didn't get settled and so we're TR nobody here is talking about a pay freeze but we do have to rightsize our budget and we have spent those covid

232dollars over the years providing supports for our staff our students our families and as the co have run out we've extended that now we can't extend it indefinitely because when the the savings that we we buried it in the backyard well we're going to spend that money and we can't save it forever because it's going to get dwindled down but as we chew through it we're going to have to and I've said this the board is going to have the responsibility of controlling the spet they're going to control how fast the money flows out of that spet how fast do we flow that money out of the fund balance in December I we we we amended our budget and we're not we're not narrowing the Gap Marcus and I in our efforts aren't able to

233get that I I'm telling you right now I don't think we can get it down to three million I just don't and so I'm predicting we're probably going to dip that $4 million well that means next year we're starting out 4 million in the red next year so we're going to are going to eat through four million this year and we're going to already start next year four million in the whole well that's not 6 million over three years that's 8 million in two and that puts us below the threshold and that means that the lift we've got to do next year is heavier now I have very real concerns not just when I talk state budget when I talk with state legislators I have very real concerns when we see what's going on on

234a national level we saw an increase in our health care costs this year by 133% that's a bigger number than we'd seen in previous in a number of previous years it's not the biggest number we've seen but it's it's bigger than we've seen in previous years and and you know what that's that's a significant expense to us um and so when we start to talk about reducing our staff and that's we're 85% of our budget goes to staff so when we have to talk about reducing I'm sorry everybody it is going to be a staff staff conversation it's a heavy lift it is something I am all too familiar with and when we did it in 2020 if you want to know who made all the phone calls I did I very much take this

235personally so when we do this it's not it's not Cavalier it's very much with intention and so when I bring to the board in December hey I'm concerned and you should be too it's not because we didn't know about this back in June and when the budget passed on the on from the state in July that I didn't mention it in July because we did so the fact that we're talking about it today is not news it's not new and we're not in a financial crisis we have $20 million we can afford we can absorb this hit but we can't do it indefinitely so we better figure life out now we've been kind of carrying this along I shared this with the board I'll share it with with everybody here today um our student numbers

236our the foundation allowance that we get is based on ftes full-time students that we have and our number is 4855 and it's been 4855 for a couple years now um we've grown that when when I got here was 4,400 and we' we've grown that but that doesn't mean we're growing in our brick and mortar students those students who walk in this Hall okay um in fact like the rest of the state and the rest of the county those for lack of any other term those butts and seats have gone down those brick and mortar students have gone down we've seen growth in our Virtual School we've also seen growth in our um parochial program and people don't realize what this looks like when I arrived here in Jackson in 2014 we had 200 FTE 200

237Foundation allowance that we were receiving through our Partnerships with our local pario with with Lum and Christie and St Mary's and so on so when students take elective courses in those course in those schools we provide the the funds for that teacher and we receive a small sliver of pie for that kid for that hour um and all of those add up I'm not trying to get lost in the minutia here we're adding to the income side of it as well because we know we can't control birth rates and population so um today we receive a little more than 600 FTE through shared time programming we've been very aggressive at this in the last four years we don't just service and when we tried when I got here to move into Lancing and it was

238a struggle now we service students everywhere from Grand Rapids to Oakland County in a similar program and those those students that were servicing those FTE that were grabbing help to support programming right here in Jackson high and in every school around the the district but we've got about 3,800 students in District and and about a thousand that aren't in District the difference is we're staffed like we were back in 2020 so Jackson high as an example has about 970 kids Plus or minus on any given day um and that includes Pathways we're staffed like we were back in 2019 when we had 1200 kids in Jackson high well you can't pay for 1,00 or staff for 1,200 if you've only got 975 and Parks side's the same way we had 800 and we're staffed for

239800 and we've got 760 in Parkside now we're addressing the the FTE because we keep going out and grabbing more more FTE in the proo program and next year we'll gain that we'll grow in that again we're allowed to grow 10% every year and the prediction is we'll be able to grow every year for the next several years and sooner or later that will outpace the the the shrinking population we see here um so it's been very intentional the fact that we're going to do budget cuts folks is also very intentional it's not that we're broke it's not that there's a financial crisis this is me pushing an emergency button that says if we don't do this today it's going to be harder tomorrow nobody wants to talk about budget cuts nobody wants to talk

240about the fact that we're going to lose folks that's a fact of life that's coming um kind of how I I do this we set up kind of numbers assigned to Any Given group we look at our our population our teaching population and we're a more senior population we're more than well roughly half of our teaching popul ation sits at the very top of the pay scale now we've done a lot in the past we've done some recruiting and some signing bonuses to bring on new teachers because we know that more and more teachers my age are going to retire and there are less and less kids coming through college so we've been kind of stacking the deck we've been kind of putting more in the pantry to make certain that we were ready for

241for when these times come but but but our pay scale right now is topheavy and that's not a knock against those people that are making the it's a fairly bargained contract and nothing in this conversation for balancing the budget says that we want to put a pay freeze out there that we intend to cut programming that I intend to close a building I'll make certain everybody hears me I'm not talking about closing a building but we do have to rightsize our budget we do have to live within our means which means we have to staff accordingly okay so you staff to the number of students that you have makes sense if you were sitting hiring employees employes to do a job you would hire the number of employees to meet the number of students you

242have or the the need that you had in front of you and that's what we're going to do um kind of ballparking what cuts might look like um if we're trying to get to a approximately $4.1 million and in all candidness we probably ought to plan a little bit deeper than that not that we will end up there but we we probably need to because again we're going to be back cutting next year make sure everybody hears me we'll balance the budget but we're going to be right back at this next year and this is again not new I became an administrator in 2003 from 2003 to 2019 I cut every year and that's not well that's just Jeff doing that that is a model that every superintendent in the state could tell you that

243they've experienced um things get more expensive and the money doesn't grow proportionately um so so we're up against that I'm anticipating that we will need to um cut and I'm going to say this the right way um 35 teaching positions now everybody's going holy smokes Jeff that seems like a lot not I'm hoping we don't actually have to cut 35 next month we're going to come back with an amended budget and that's going to have a hopefully a slightly better number than the 4.1 and we'll have to get to that but when we cut the 35 positions we're going to have to rehire some of those some of those are going to be positions we can't get rid of in other words you're a special education teacher maybe you're an El teacher maybe you're uh

244an art teacher or you're you're you've got some specialty certificate that we can't do without or we're required by law to provide some of those people will have to come back um and life happens in Jackson all the time um I think we're going to have to cut about half a dozen administrators you heard earlier today well you guys are topheavy in administration we've been promoting a lot of young administrators because again why I want to give experience to Young administrators because I know that veteran administrators folks again my age are going to retire we better have somebody to back fill behind them when they do who've got some experience to do that um but we're up against the budget and we're going to have to have a conversation about what that looks like and

245these are by the way administrative positions that we didn't have and 2019 preo money so some of that's going to be conversations we're going to have to talk about U we're going to have to reduce my staff we have to reduce central office administration again not a not a conversation we we're not going to have we have to talk about the non-unit folks and the positions there not conversations we're not going to have I'm anticipating um about four secretarial positions I'm anticipating 10 to 15 a pro positions we cannot cut Tas uh those are special ed AIDS those are required by law to have so um as much fun as it might say we reduce everywhere those positions are protected I won't be able to reduce those and the hard part when we talk about

246budget is I still don't know what insurance rates are going to do next year the governor came out with a nice budget that said we're going to increase I want to give everybody $392 per pupil next year I'm going to increase that to 10 grand now last year she said 245 or 50 and we didn't get that so she could say 10 grand a day we may or may not get it I don't know and this house will come out with their budget and the Senate will come out with their budget do I think we'll go two years in a row without a freeze no but I lived in 2001 when we lost $492 per student when they took it away so they can give with one and take with the other which is a

247little bit about what's going to happen this year so I'm GNA give you guys $392 per pupil there's also going to be an increase in our retirement rate that increase is going to approximate to about $235 per people so that that 392 we're getting we're not really getting 392 we're already going to get 235 less than that so we hear about cuts it in the department of Ed we hear predictions and then I've got to base my budget on I mean I'm predicting into the future on variables that we we don't know and won't know until next fall fall when we see what's our at risk funds look like when we see how much is our title Grant and we are concerned that title dollars could be reduced um when you hear um you know

248that the department of Ed is is is on The Chopping Block I'm not as concerned that the department of Ed is going to be cut but boy they could be decimated the reason I say that it's hard to say they're going to be cut is because that would take 60 votes and I don't think that that they've got that to be able to do it's not a simple majority to cut it but they could decimate it they could go in there and cut the B the funding for it or the budget or put restrictions or strings or Ties on it and we have to be prepared for that um I'm prepared right now to talk about a 25% reduction um in our title funds and do I think we'll see that no but that's what

249they're talking about nationally so it's what I've got to be thinking about um I am very concerned and everybody should be too when you want to know what goes into my budget planning um about um Federal block grants to States so you heard Marcus earlier talk about 31a and 31aa all right those are at risk funds that come to the state those are state level grants that we get or grants for safety and mental health well where do you think the dollars come from for those grants they come in the form of block grants that go to the states so if the funding for those grants aren't fully funded at the state level from the federal government well that's going to trickle down and it could cause reductions in those grants to us as well

250um and I I have to be prepared for that as well and my advice to the board and that's all this is I'm preparing a budget plan and I'm going to show the board we have to reduce our staffing reduce our overhead and you can't do it all by trying to reduce the electric bill I still got to turn the lights you can't do it all by trying to reduce the heat bill we still got to heat the buildings and maybe we get a mild winter maybe we don't we've done a lot to offset some of those costs we've gone out and got new buses $7.3 million in Grants what's that going to do for us it's going to reduce our maintenance cost on those fleets it does not mean we don't buy buses as

251you heard earlier we're going we're debating buying a diesel bus fortunately we've got a not a lot we've got a little bit of leftover in our our um Bond dollars that we can use to buy buses because that's one of the things we said we would do back when we passed this so we can spend some of those dollars to help us out we can't stop and to Kesha's point we can't stop painting all together right like we got paint on two floors to go well let's stop let's not do it anymore what you would do is you devalue discount the paint that you've already done because by the time you got back to it that would have already started to wear out again um so you're going to have to continue there's always going

252to be maintenance there's going to be roof repairs that we're going to have to do there's going to be boiler repairs we're have to do we're going to have emergencies like we had over the summer with the flood at Parkside where we have insurance but there's money that's coming out of our pocket beyond the insurance just to keep us there I am going to recommend that we make reductions in staff uh the numbers you just kind of heard me speak to now uh I am hoping to soften that blow um I am going to recommend and it's on the agenda tonight uh three proposals to uh offer incentives to buy out some of those senior contracts um because if we're able to buy out senior contracts even if we have to replace the teacher and

253I'm going to use a number that's rough but if we've got an $80,000 teacher salary-wise and we can replace them with a $50,000 salary even if we're paying 15 grand in a buyout that saves us still 15 $1,000 and everybody's going well Jeff 15,000 um seems like a lot of money and it is but we're going to pay $10,000 to everybody that we lay off in unemployment costs so it's yeah it's there but this is an investment to try to reduce those costs not just in the current year and next year but into perpetuity so if I have folks who say yes I'll take the buyout that's one less person I got to lay off that's one less that that's then them saying I'll voluntarily step out and if I if if they voluntarily step

254out um I may have to replace some of those people like I said but it's one less cut that I got to make I'm hoping when I said 35 I'm hoping that the real number is 10 15 maybe depending on on numbers I'm hoping when I say I got to relay off six administrators I'm hoping that that you know it might be three not because I want to lay off any of them I don't have any administrators I don't like I have any teachers I don't like um and there's a very rigorous process that we go through to do this there are some timelines that the Board needs to know about and I've outlined those in an email to you last week and I'll share them with everybody today in order for us to offer

255a buyout the constituents the the parties that would receive that have to have 30 days to review that language then consult their attorneys they can cult consult their Union representation and then after that they have 7 days to resend it okay so if we move forward on this tonight then the people the the the staff who could participate would have between now and the March meeting to determine if they were going to participate or not then and at the March meeting we would approve those separation agreements and they would have then seven additional days to resend that separation that gets us to roughly the end of March and that's important to to us because timelines start to kick in our administrators are the very first group that gets notified why are they the first group

256that gets notified well Mr cof is sitting in the back and he's president of that group and he could probably tell you they've got a March one deadline in their contract and by the way that kind of follows state law that says we have to notify them uh 90 days before the end of their contract which in this case is March 1 so in order for us to be able to notify administrators impacted by Cuts we need D today if we're going to give them any options otherwise we will not be able to give them notice in the month of April M Madam president yes yes are are you done with the budget update I am can I give two more things and I'll stop I promise it sounded like you were moving into the

257action item I promise I'll keep it a little bit short um notice for teachers will be the of the year um I'm and secretaries the same way so I am proposing those three things as part of my budget my budget plan to reduce it is not anything that's out of the ordinary and by the way again if we don't make decisions for this year I promise you it's $8 million next year so that's that's that's it if anybody's got questions on the budget or how we got here I was asked when did we first know that we had a budget crisis and I said well the board voted on this back in June so we kind of knew what we were up against back in June and we knew in July that we were going

258to be in the P more because we didn't get the foundation allowance so we've known about this and this isn't something that's been a secret and by the way the 321 the the dip this year dip next year and and and kind of do that through attrition that's that's a very workable plan and it was something we had talked about for a number of years but it's accelerated now because the the variables in the community have changed what's happening with our state and with our federal government have changed those variables I'm sorry it's more urgent today but that's my best advice and the board can take it as they would so yes I am that concludes my budget presentation if if you guys have questions I'm happy to try to answer them so Jeff just

259just for clarification um you merged 22-25 d56 the budget update with 24- 2557 with the voluntary Severance proposal um close what I did with the severance proposal is part of my I was told to bring a plan okay so the severance proposal is part of my plan to reduce the number of actual layoffs that we have to do so part of my plan is that are those separation agreements those those um that's part of the plan because otherwise the numbers get really big for layoffs and I'm trying to minimize that all right that's one additional question so for you mentioned 2003 to 2019 Cuts were made every year were any of those cuts voluntary um no no most of the time they were well yes and no lots of it was done through um lots

260of it was done through uh oh attrition but but yes sometimes you know we simply didn't have Staffing to to be able to offer something or we had reduced numbers in any given course so sometimes the answer to that question is yes we did reduce um based on enrollment based on who signed up for what courses things along those lines so the answer to that question is yes we cut sometimes um the last heavy lift we had was 2020 Co hit and we cut I want to say 20 30 positions and I don't have the right number today so don't quote me on that but we we did the same back then it wasn't as deep but we're not a little bit heavier right now so we cut in 2020 and then the incentive pay

261that was offered to new hires that was that was Co money eser money that that came afterwards that came afterwards and that was again we know that there's a teacher shortage we needed to hire younger teachers we better grab them up because the colleges aren't producing them I mean I hate to break it to you there's just not enough of them coming through college to feed the beast not just JPS Statewide so kind of predicting into the future that we're going to have more retirees than ability to hire Replacements we kind of stock the cover any other discussion yes trusty hamon um so I'll I'll um Jeff you given a lot of information so the um questions that I'm ask I'm going ask that you keep them the answers brief because I think a lot

262of the information might have been in there um you mentioned um if we don't cut 4 million this year it'll be 8 million yes next year um and then you also mentioned the 321 can you kind of differentiate between that or help me understand that better yeah so the original plan and and you you've had it in your emails you saw it last again last June and we've talked about it multiple times throughout the years was we anticipated dipping three million this year we anticipated that through attrition we could dip two million next year and we anticipated that through attrition we would again reduce our staffing and not hire to backfill um and reduce that to 1 million but that after 3 years we needed to be balanced and that's if we spent $6 million

263321 right well we're going to spend better than four million in the first year so it's going to be and and by the way when we when we know we're over budget by four million this year that's what we start at next year we're already $4 million over budget next year so we've spent four this year and we better figure out how you know and we're going to spend four next year so we're already ate the wrong long way when we can only give up six over three years because the expectation is that um one we're going to cut these potentially we'll cut 4 million this year and then next year as you mentioned because we're going to be cutting again but the expectation is that we'll have to cut again another four that's where

264the eight is coming from my goal is to say my My Hope and I say hope because I don't know this budget I don't know what's going to happen at the federal level My Hope Is that we do the heavy lifting right now and that we don't necessarily have to cut for next year no don't anticipate we will have to cut four next year we if we do our work if we do our work now we will not have to cut four next year that's helpful cuz that you know but please be mindful that we we don't want to really fall below about 14 13 million that's helpful I just needed to it sounded like a little bit of Hyperbole and it thank you for clarifying that it was but it's helpful also you you

265already stated as well that there's the potential that we're going to have to cut um obviously whatever we're going to do this year there's a high potential that we'll have to do something next year but it may or may not be whatever okay so Bey that's helpful um so I do want to just um you know clarify because you know we've been having these conversations uh at this table and um you know we've been reading our emails and asking questions and whatever um you know uh sometimes I feel like my intelligence is being attacked when we make statements like um you know to think that we could reduce the uh budget cuts uh based on the uh level of lighting or the the amount of lighting that we have or whether or not we uh

266paint uh you know hallways um it feels disrespectful um because again we're doing our due diligence and and and asking all these questions is very important to understanding um all the different ways that we can uh save on our budget right um what I'm not hearing which I think is important um in this community you know at this board table is we're talking about all these different ways that we're going to have to cut we're not talking about um where I'm not hearing us talk about you know the double the extra duty pay that's also being uh you know uh garnered and used by the superintendent of this board table so if we're going to be talking about all the cuts all the different ways that the cuts and things can can happen all the

267different things the the admin that are going to be uh going away and the extra admin and all the building like all the different things should be discussed but again you know um us as at this board table asking all the questions is important so that we can know where and how and what can and can't be cut okay glad you no I'm not done yet Jeff I'm not done yet okay the next thing I want to mention um and ask a question and please just answer this question and you know not something else um I hearing that um we're going to have to potentially cut some positions and then bring those positions back help me understand again I'm I'm asking you to keep this very brief because I have other questions and it's 10

268o'clock right now um we're going to have to cut POS positions and then bring those positions back help me understand why we would cut them and then bring them back I just want to understand that real briefly probably I I I'll Al and I may have misspoke with that and it's not that folks may take May opt to take the buyout that we will have to replace because they have certifications that we can't do with without okay question for you on that thank you that was a very good answer very brief too I appreciate that um is the potential that we wouldn't offer so so I'm wondering you know um and because we're bringing you know sometime when you are getting rid of you know you're laying folks off and bringing them back and or

269whatever um sometimes that bring back it it little cost a little bit more that may or may not be an issue for us to have to necessarily be concerned about but is there the uh the the idea or the the plan that why would we even offer these people those uh layouts is that a thing are we considering that no because so we we've we've got a threshold and I'll use the teachers and we we put a threshold that says you got to be at uh 81,500 that that TOP Step and everybody who's in that step because what do we want to do we want to close we want to reduce our our employee costs again I said if we have we turn an $80,000 salary into a $50,000 salary um but I can't discriminate

270or cherry-pick folks within that salary range and go well you can have it but you can't even though they have special um specialized training or specialized specializations okay because but they'll they'll come after us and they'll say well you're getting me for agism you're getting me forck things that that answ that question for me thank you I I'm G keep going just because like I said it's 10 o'clock um okay so we got this plan you're talking about the um the the heaviness the the top heaviness we have of our uh extra admin that we've had and that you know uh because of uh this idea around trying to give them some extra um uh you know um ability to move up whatever some of that's been why you've been adding to these the spaces

271my question for that around that is um is there a plan you know because in my mind um when we are trying to advance uh folks and and help them do better and get better and whatever and and grow in their jobs that we don't always necessarily have to do that with a you know a fat paycheck and a and a different title we can you know let them do some job shadowing for a while we could we could do it in other ways um so my concern with that and the question in there is that um in the future because obviously this is you know some issues that are likely to continue we're at 900 students hopefully you'll get all this with what I'm saying we're at 900 students in one school and we're

272staffed for 1,200 like type thing um it sounds like we've been at there for at least a couple years or so is the plan that in the future should the desire be to advance folks and we don't necessarily have the student number to uh justify that that advancement is the plan to do something different you know I mean is the plan to ensure that okay we only have 900 students we're going to make sure that we stay staff down to that number and I'm using 900 because you use that number it's a plan we say staff down to that number so that we're not facing these types of cuts in those types of areas in one day and also to still figure out ways to advance folks that you know uh they need to be

273Advanced well so so two things it's not that we necessarily always employed folks just for advancement we were certainly stocking the cupboard but um I'll use a building like Northeast we heard last year several times Northeast is was really struggling at the beginning of the year so we hired extra staff and they they have two principles they have two behavior interventionists and and we we we threw staff at that building left and right at the beginning of the year um and and Elementary land you wouldn't get a second principal until you were at 500 now that building at the beginning of the year was 500 527 made sense right by the end of the year um they're at 427 students shifted around the district um and currently there most of our buildings are going to

274end up somewhere in the neighborhood of about 350 to 370 um maybe 300 um but but the reality is that's a one principal building not a two principal building now why do we have two principles in those buildings today Cascades or Northeast because it's hard because we recognize the challenges coming out of covid so we've been putting supports in place to help teachers whether it's extra parapros whether it's extra um principles whether it's extra Behavior interventions things along those lines to to help scaffold underneath the backfill the the needs for covid well we're we're going to run out of the funds that we were using to do that with what what I think I'm hearing from you Jeff is that you know if the need like that presents itself in the future then we'll probably

275have to do what we have to do in the future to address the need okay that's that's helpful the last question I have for you is um I'm hearing that we can absorb um this this this uh budget shortfall this year but we cannot do it indefinitely you know I think you I think I quoted you almost perfectly on that that's accurate um what happens just help me know you know because I like to be knowing all my options what happens if we say okay you know we're not going to do any Cuts this year we're going to wait till next year what what what happens all right so we're going to we're going to eat $4 million this year so our fund balance is going to turn from 20 to 16 and then next

276year we're going to have to cut all $4 million because we're already 4 million a whole we're going to have to cut all $4 million before the start of the school year because if you try to do it in December we'll have already spent six months of the salary out and so any cut that you do in December is only half the value of of what you're trying to save so if you cut a $100,000 salary in December you've already spent 50 of it so you're really only going to save 50 so the problem with that conversation is is that you you try to cut four million next year um well you've cut you've already ate eat eating 4 million this year and next year you're going to have to do it before the start

277of school year so we're all you're we're going to do it anyway um but and presumably the but we have time cost increase as well well there' be less time because candidly those folks would not have the advantages of having a summer to look for work they wouldn't have the advantages of of the opportunity to go find other employment they wouldn't we we we doing this so that in the most Humane possible that's helpful um if we say we didn't cut until 2026 the end of 26 where we at we're 25 right now so the end of this fall is going to be 25 26 say we didn't make any Cuts until next march what does that look like well so let's pretend that all things are equal let's just pretend that that all the

278state funding comes through and we don't lose money from the federal government we don't lose money from the state government we don't have excessive increases and we're able to hold our student count so if we're able to kind of meet all those variables and we dip 4.1 this year and 4.1 next year we're below the 15% threshold and we could have to borrow then to make oper AAL cost so the way that works is um our business office fills out a grant with the state paperwork with the state in June they they Advance US money we're going to pay interest on that and we're going to they're going to then take that money back out of our monthly check so think about like garnishing our wages if you will thank you Jeff that's very helpful

279all right um Miss Hamilton you brought up my my extra duty pay you mind if I Advance I'd just like to move to close discussion on 24 25 20 56 you don't mind if I'm if I do respond do you Derek I wouldn't thank you trusty Hamilton second anyone oppose to that motion all in favor I motion motion motion carries we're going to move to the action item just for clarity before we proceed item all of these items are coming back next month action items are not those are up right now no I'm talking about the ones that we just discussed the discussion items discussion will be back okay so the action items okay so this is our one and only action item for tonight have masb board of directors Madame President just to um

280get uh a motion on the board for 24 2557 I will move uh that the superintendent uh to approve of the superintendent offering the voluntary Severance packages to Jaa uh jpaa um and what is this nonunit nonunit one um and execute the necessary releases as presented support any discussion yes I have a question the um these uh proposals that are going to be offered to teachers um we have a list that we have in our email as far as um how Cuts could potentially happen among teachers um what's the difference between what we have right now that you'll be offering them and that is that one and the same or is there a difference this will impact how many people get cut so the number of so if you've got again I'll use the the

281number if you've got 35 teaching positions I don't anticipate that I'll have to lay off 35 teachers I'm anticipating a number of them will participate in this program and that will reduce the number of people that we actually have to me I'm going use the term pink flip you know just to kind of because I think it's a a common term um the pink slips basically that folks would get in my mind just for clarity pink slips are you know not voluntary am I correct that this is not a pink slip basically the list that we have in our uh email those will be pink slips this is not this is to reduce that number okay that's helpful thank you sorry um I just want for clarity sake these are all I just for you

282all really this is voluntary that we're voting on right now these are not the ones that are just going to come down the pike you know I mean these are the ones that they're going to be offered do you want to do you not I just want you all to know why I'm going vote the way I'mma vote any other discussion on the voluntary Severance proposal trusty I I'm just for clarification I'm noticing in the specific to the Jaa there is no number value and I I just want to make right I just so we're are we offering a specific amount because it's not but it's not in this document correct but in the I'm just saying for the Jaa specific one that number unless I'm missing it I'm not seeing it wasn't provided so

283I'm just clarifying that 15,000 is the number and that's the same number for all three okay and could you specify all three groups for the community please JP all three groups the Jaa the jpsa and all of our non-unit folks then friendly friendly amendment to my own motion uh to clarify that the uh resignation agreement to read 15,000 for Jaa jpaa and the nonunit second motion a second second yeah kha was a second discussion any further discussion I'll I'll just add you know these numbers when I hear 35 teaching positions possibly a dozen administrators four secretaries 10 to 15 par Pros uh I'll just focus on the teachers position you know so teachers are the nucleus to our education system and I hear this tossed around quite frequently Co has impacted our students academic Journey

284that's important for us to keep top of mind because 35 positions that may include teachers alone will impact the Journey of our student populace to not know In This Moment how many will say yes I'm walking it's concerning for me personally with making a decision in this moment so I just want to say that there's some uncertainty regarding the um the number of teachers if we're experiencing a teacher shortage we have to say that it's a teacher shortage and to offer this to some teachers and then maybe hire some more when you take out our experience our longstanding type of salary teachers you're also taking away experience do I understand the math and the numbers associated with bringing in younger teachers newly hired teachers and a different ha scale for them to begin that scale

285or that um that step increase a understand that however to take away experience is taking away the compassion the empathy and the patience and the strategies that some of our teachers can and will should be able to continue providing to our student population so um I do have some concerns with the amount of teachers that we are looking to to let go or to cut in order to rightsize our our budget and just to go back Jeff you you didn't say much about the extra duty pay but for the community we do have a HR Director Jessica has been in this position correct me if I'm wrong since 2022 and fulfilling those responsibilities the question has been asked to Jeff is Jessica adequately trained and prepared to do this without of order Madame President we're

286on the voluntary separation agreement correct y this goes yes I'm going to add to that yes thank you because this involves deeply rooted in this is if we add the S pay proposal an Administration is part of that Jeff is an administrator okay but again back to the voluntary separation agreement is what we're voting on so I'm just trying to keep us on track here thank you so I just want to be mindful of the decisions that we are um making today but I wanted to go back to that because it's important that we not just peruse over that when we're talking about budget and Severance proposals that aligns with the decisions that we're about to make so we have a motion we have a second any other discussion on this item trusty do I'll

287just say I'll be voting in support of it I think that um it's it's uh difficult uh covid We've we've been through a lot uh with covid and the stressors that uh that is provided um teachers and Educators have lived for uh decades with uh cuts from the state um uh unions have lived with an all out assault um on uh collective bargaining rights um you know teachers included uh from the state and uh at times the federal government and now uh kind of in uh after the most recent election uh there's a lot of um chaos uncertainty and stress um um generally speaking and also directed uh at the education Community um public education more specifically uh and I think that there's a lot of different factors that are um you know unfortunately putting

288us in the situation that we are with the expiration of some of our eser funds uh the co dollars um student population things like that that we have to make some tough uh decisions I actually think that um thinking about ways in which we can amicably uh part with some of our great teachers and offering them uh something if they choose uh choose to resign or um follow a different pathway I think is is a good start to this um you know instead of just getting out the red pen and um you know flashing uh frankly Jeff spoke a lot about um right sizing the budget and anticipating uh different funding streams or lack thereof and I think part of it is we just don't know I mean we know the position that we're in

289now but uh every day it's I mean there was probably a whole day uh where you were just responding uh to board members and staff about uh uh the Federal funding free um I mean that uh you know probably won't happen um but uh I think there is a cost to just the chaos uh as well um cost of of you having to respond to that instead of you know working on uh everything else that we put on your play and um there's a cost to to that in the education Community with our teachers and just with the uh mental health I think of uh the teachers that and Educators that are are here with us so um you know unfortunately we're in this position but I think that this is um probably the best

290first step that we can take uh to figure out a a way to um a balanced budget any other discussion all right so we we have a support disc I'm sorry just in honor of Vice President does I just want to clarify that we have a motion and an amendment so we need to vote on the amendment first and then the amended motion I did that just for you Derek can you clarify what the amendment is can you clarify what the amendment is there can you clarify your amended motion please in your language I will uh I will withdraw my motion and make a um New Motion um to authorize the superintendent to offer the voluntary Severance packages to the Jaa jpsa uh and the non-unit agreement resignation agreements uh with the sum of $115,000

291for the lumpsum payments motion and second all in favor or do we want to do a roll call I any opposed no I didn't I'm a no I'm a no than thank you all right our next agenda item Madame President I will move uh that the board direct the superintendent to cast the board's vote for the board of seven directors region 7 for guo Lopez second G Lopez second a motion and a second has been made any discussion um personally I would vote for uh Jack tsey from the Eaton County based on his statement and his resume and I would vote for uh Corey mlin based on his uh statement and his uh information that he shared but you know I'll just vote no on this one though but Cor Choice yep so at this

292point the motion and second is for GMO and all of those in favor of GMO yes I anyone opposed no noos three opposed motion carries board comments board comments I'll just say thank you thank you all for sticking with us for so many hours tonight thank you thank you I would like to say thank you for my son being here representing sh Park Academy what do you owe him for taking your notes for you is the true nonpartisan he clap for every comment come up with your number uh I want to say thank you to everyone who's um made public comment sent out emails I will say on certain things um you know you think one way and then um somebody helps you think about it another way um specifically I'm thinking about our resolution

293to be welcoming I can't remember the words but just having several people explain it to me differently um and thinking about basically like what what is the best way to keep keep you safe and we so appreciate that because we don't know so keep them coming please um both in public comment and um approach us via email or however you feel most comfortable thank you trusty Acton so I just wanted to say how pleased I am by the um how the students are um working and making progress by the district Benchmark Review and for all the kids that came out from the montauri center with their parents and teachers it was delightful I loved it and they were so tative and so engaging I was like oh my gosh so yay um I think that

294this was a very heavy agenda I think that we as a board did a great job on every single agenda item I think we discussed we listened we paid attention I I think we did a great job um I especially like the superintendent report the monor students with Mr Jane the the bond update The Benchmark reports um I think we did a great job regardless of how late it is thank you any other comments trusty D this is really cool uh thank you to the monor um it's kind of hard to fit in my pocket on a keychain but I'll find a spot for it and um just want to thank the Educators the teachers the teachers union uh for all of the work uh that you have done and we'll do uh in the

295months ahead with some difficult decisions so thank you I want to thank everyone that came out tonight and for those of you that have stayed and we encourage you to come back next month where all of these discussion items um should be on there as an action item where we have to make some informed decisions on how to move our district forward Rich journ support support meeting is a journ