001and spending that time with us remember that if you wish to address the board you need to fill out one of those little forms when you come in don't sit here for half hour then think you're going to fill out a form we try to get those uh so that they're kind of spread out by topic things like that and one more thing I had to say is I'm really not trying out for like Godfather 6 I had eye surgery and the lights absolutely have to keep these covered up so I'm not really trying to hide or anything okay let's start with a pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for
002all Michelle you do the Roll Call Miss Hamilton present Mrs Brown here miss Acton here Mrs Mitchell here miss hunt here and Mrs Fitzgerald here here we go so move so move second okay thank you very much all in favor discussion pardon me discussion I just have a question oh go ahead so so I have a question about a couple items in the cinen I didn't know if I needed to um pull them now or if we wait until later but I I want to have question about the minutes and the mtss uh that's on there I forget what the number is I don't have it in front of me so do we need to pull that now or do we pull that later we'll pull them and put them into the the discussion action
003okay yep the minutes and then the uh mtss conversation yep thank you okay so other than the minutes and the other MTS thing okay we put from consent so otherwise still approve uh Motion in second okay all in favor I opposed thank you motion passes now we're on to the superintendent report all right hey welcome to the month of November it's hard to believe we're going to be Thanksgiving a couple days and I hope everybody is able to enjoy um some time with family in whatever Traditions you celebrate um up first though we've got U Mr Baldwin Middle School athletic director uh he's going to share with us um an update on our seventh grade football team my understanding is they went undefeated Mr baldwi that fair enough make sure [Applause] we yeah absolutely and
004then use the mic please one two just wanted to U first of all thank the board for uh this opportunity to share uh about the excitement going on at Parkside with our seventh grade football program if I could uh young men if you could stand up and come join me briefly as they come up [Applause] this is just a repres small representation of the coaching staff and the young men um this is our future these uh young men have have still the test of time they they played six games this year they have uh uh been tested and they have beat Everybody by at least points we're excited about our future and I don't want be for any long but I wanted you to know that I see state championship written right here and and
005we're going to say our motto and then we're going to have our seat because they adopted a motto and it's going to carry them for the next four or five years say it nice and Loud guys what is that motto heart hustle and heart heart sets us apart thank [Applause] you thank you very much Mr Baldwin coaches students thanks for coming and sharing and we're excited to see what you guys are going to do next year um up next Miss Sandy Martin principal of Northeast Elementary school is going to share with us some of the great things happening out that way all right hey good good evening everyone this is my first time up here I love this I love that two of those kiddos are from Northeast so yes love that um good evening
006everyone tonight we're going to Showcase um some of the great things that we have going on at Northeast so I appreciate the opportunity to share with you the positive developments in our school's disciplinary practices and social emotional learning initiatives at Northeast we firmly believe in the transformative power of building relationships and the profound benefits of teaching our students essential problem solving skills so five years ago we made a strategic decision to incorporate the caring schools Community curriculum into our daily routine one notable aspect of our approach is the integration of morning circles into our school schedule these circles serve as a daily check-in with our students offering a platform to discuss any concerns within the classroom and to set expectations for the day so at this time um I would like to introduce our new
007CI teacher Mrs Robin Sparkman and she is going to hello there and she is going to do a demonstration of our morning circles and so I'd like to say that with this we've um set out a time specifically every morning at Northeast so that every teacher has the opportunity to cond conduct these morning circles and she brought some of our students in with her do you want the mic oh here do I need to turn this one off one two so welcome everyone I want to let you know we have been um really having a wonderful experience with our curriculum called caring communities it is what we use for our morning Circle um I do have third to fifth graders I have 12 students in my class we have um I've seen a tremendous amount
008of growth in my students when we talk about what can we do for another student when they're having a hard day what can we do you know something is happening at home my students are really learning the resources for things they can do so we have been practicing I would like to apologize but I have to be honest I have been over backwards staying after school numerous nights making phone calls to get our students here um we had more than this absolutely committed to coming tonight and for whatever reason they're not able to make it tonight so we're going to go with what we have um so one of the things we've been working on is what do we do if a student comes in and they've had a really bad bad morning so they
009might have missed the bus they might have not had breakfast might have somebody might have said something to them that they didn't like on the bus and so we've been talking about what can we do to help them turn their day around so I'm going to just start and we will run through what we normally do so I start out with good morning everyone I am so glad you are here today so remember we've been working on what we do when somebody is having a bad morning can anyone tell me what we use Mr Mouse for will somebody talks and the other person had to be quiet has to be quiet thank you so this is our talking piece so this is the only time you are allowed to speak in the circle is when
010you have Mr Mouse so this morning we are going to share with each other um some ideas we have so if you would turn to your partner so you two are going to face each other and we are going to quick do rock paper scissors and see who's going to go first TR all right ready go so whoever won you're going to share first okay I'll just talk into this one so you can hear me so I would say is there anything that we can ask them like is there anything I can do for you or um I'd probably just give them a little bit of space and give them a smile all right ding ding ding all right we're gonna switch now your partner is going to share with you what they would do
011I would just try to be extra nice to them all morning okay good job is there anyone in our Circle that would like to share what their partner said price would you like to share okay here price okay what did your part my partner sad she will give the person who's uh mad or sad a hug so we also like to do role playing because for some of our kids um I do teach a class of students with cognitive impairment and so we do practice things over and over and we do a lot of role playing so we're going to have one of our students come stomping in here so come on in oh no it looks like one of our students is having a bad morning so pray shared that one of the things
012we could do is give somebody a hug give somebody a hug would either of you like to share what your partner said Caleb would you he said um would somebody be mad he he fall pretty picture if he saw someone mad or upset he would draw them a really pretty picture so these are all things we've practiced in our classroom so once we are done with our Circle we typically everyone pair shares we pass this around everyone gets a chance to share and then we talked about like when Kayla came in stomping after we went around the circle and we're practicing this she has a big huge grin on her face because we all know that a lot of us start on our morning's kind of rough and we've all learned skills to turn them
013around and then when we are all done I say vamus and we all go back to our seat thank you give it up for our young actors here thank you thank you so in addition to our morning circles we have implemented restorative circles as part of our proactive discipline program students have the option to request participation or they may be referred to join a restor sorted Circle to provide you with a firsthand look at our program we were going to show you a video but we do not have we're having technical difficulty but um I would like to take this time right now to introduce you to miss Lindsay Adams affectionately known as miss a by our students right here um within five years of experience and can she has 5 years of experience in
014conducting restorative circles miss a plays a pivotal role in our school commity Community she not only facilitates restorative circles but will also deliver seal lessons to each grade level and conduct daily check-ins and checkout sessions so miss a would you like to take the floor and explain your restorative circles here I'll make room for you good evening I'd like to talk a little bit about our restorative circles so restorative practices are used to hold students accountable for and behaviors as well as focusing on restoring relationships broken by them restorative practices helps to build good relationships and a sense of community within the building um restorative is not punitive meaning it's not a punishment it does however hold those students accountable for their actions and behaviors we also focus on it's not the doer but the
015behavior or action that they're doing so meaning every day is a new day for that student depending on what happened the day before we're not punishing them from the actions from the day before are two sets of restorative questions that we have handed out cards the first um side is responding to challenging Behavior and the second side is help those that are harmed by um a behavior um action to them so the first side is what happened what were you thinking at the time what have you thought about since who's been affected by what you have done and in what way and then what do you think needs to be done to make it right so finding out a good consequence and um how to uh give them a a chance of restoring that behavior
016and restoring that relationship that was broken the second side dealing with who was harmed by the other's actions so what did you think when you realized what happened what impact has this incident had on you and others um who has been the hardest or what has been the hardest thing for you and what do you think needs to happen to make things right so at the end of the day when we're doing these circles it is um repairing it and figuring out what needs to do to make things right to make it better so we can move on and so all of our staff members have um the restorative cards in their ID so we can do um restorative practices wherever we are on the spot um and also the signs of questions are visible
017in every classroom in our building so at this time we are open for any questions that anyone may have I have a question all right is is she new are you new no how long has she been here at at Northeast I just haven't seen Northeast almost 10 years mhm oh I haven't seen her anytime when I've come you hav yeah but I'll see you next time you will glad to have you she was probably doing a circle yes so she's new to the position but she's not new to Northeast no she's a staple there not going anywhere all right hope there's no more questions thank you for your [Applause] time thank you very much all right it is also November and November for us is um we uh do a bond or excuse me
018there is a audit presentation by plant Moran so if I could invite plant Moran to come up uh we have a copy of the uh the year-end audit at our desk um we will make certain that that obviously this is online for folks and then there's a presentation up above so everybody can watch it on the screen as we go through it the floor is yours if you grab the little person with the good evening everybody thank you for having me my name is Matt Kelly I'm a partner from plant Moran and we were out here doing the audit in August for a couple weeks and here to share the results so we did spend some time with the finance committee at the end of October and really went in detail through all these reports
019but overall you had to unmodified or clean opinion which is the highest level of assurance that we can provide meaning all your books and records were in um materially correct um you will have a bunch of reports as part of your package so you have a thick one or the financial statement one so that's your basic financial statements you have you have a smaller audited report which is your single audit and we test the Child Nutrition and the education stabilization fund and then you also have a letter to the board um I would recommend if you're going to spend any time read that letter to the board read the informational sections in the back um there's a lot of new things about grants and funding and and what that looks like in the future so
020I think if you could spend time reading that I think that would be helpful so tonight we're going to walk through the graphs so this really we're going to talk really about your general fund or your major operating fund um if you do have questions as we're going through please let me know um but first I want to thank Marcus Matt Lori and the rest of the team they did a great job uh going through an audit is not easy we ask a lot of questions we dig into a lot of things but they're they're very helpful through the whole process yeah perfect so the first slide is really a summary of what we just talked about so we issued an unmodified or clean opinion to the audit financial statements that is really our own
021responsibility the financial statements are really Management's responsibility um and we're respons responsible for rendering opinion and the audit was completed in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards thing about the plan scope and timing of the audit um we did have a discussion with the board prior and sent out a letter significant accounting policies those are described in note two of your financial statements there was no transactions that occurred in a different period and there was a new Adoption of a new standard this year but it not have a significant effect on the district significant accounting estimates are that the nier's pension and OPB liabilities and the disclosures were uh neutral consistent and clear with Accounting Standards um we had no difficulties encountered during the audit we had no disagreements with management we had no audit
022adjustments this year and we did have one internal control item that was discussed with the finance committee over on page five we had no significant findings or issues we had management sign a representation letter no consultations with other accountants and then no fraud or illegal Acts were identified so now if we get into the numbers so these are as of June 30 and once again this is only the general fund so taking a look at total assets they're about 26.5 million and the majority of this related to receivables so federal federal receivables and state aid um the next largest amount was about 42% which was cash and Investments and then you had some other assets looking at liabilities the largest one 73% is really your ACR payroll liabilities so those are all the teachers that
023really get paid through August but they're accured as of the end of June next slide talks about general fund Revenue so you'll see about 61% um was state aid money so anything that happens with the state the foundation allowance and and your your pupil count that has a large effect on the district and you can tell it kind of stay the same over last year percentage wise the amount did go up a lot this year and that was due to some one-time funding provided by the state that was really just the pass through of expenses related to the pension and OPB the next largest would be your federal sources so your title one title two your Esser funding so your education stabilization funds followed by 14% related to local sources which would be property taxes
024overall Revenue was just under 80 million for the year so if we dive into some of these non- reoccurring covid funding and we've talked about this in previous years so you awarded about $27 million in total for covid and the Esser funding total expended today as of June 30 was about 26 million so you have about 11 million to spend really through the end of September next year um I know the district has a plan for this but but I think it's one thing to keep in mind you know the last couple years you've had $37 million of extra funding to have this will go away as of the end of next year I don't think we're expecting anymore um you know the district made a lot of good choices with this funding but now
025it's really thinking about what's going to happen now in the upcoming years and what does that look like and and without that funding that's been reoccurring which is 11 million this year do we have the right systems in place to to move forward jefff I don't know if you anything you wanted to add no Marcus is going to cover some of this in our amended budget next month and obviously um you know going forward but we've done this knowingly we kind of knew what we were up against with with this funding coming in and so as these Sesser funds no longer come in obviously we'll have to make certain that our budget works with the you know we'll have to balance our budget without the the use of that 11 million now we've put a
026lot of money into fund balance uh built up you know a rainy day fund and we're going to need to as a board I make sure very very clear with this the board's going to have some obligation in the coming years to control the spet so to speak we know we'll spend some of that fund balance down but um how far down it goes in any given year is going to be a significant responsibility of the board to determine um and that's that's simply going to be a a fact of life after Esser just like it was prior to Esser so that's just something that's coming up so now moving on to some of the expenses so total expenses were about 73.8 million compared to 65 Million last year so looking at instruction that makes
027up about 62% of it and then support makes up 35 so just kind of a reminder these are State classifications so the support services include guidance counselors it includes Pupil Transportation a lot of things that go directly to the students but it's really just how the the state classifies things and another way to look at this would be by object code so instead of instruction support let's look at what are we spending that on so salaries and wages and fringe benefits supplies and capital outlay um you'll notice that salaries and wages and benefits are like 71% compared to 72% last year um so the percentage stayed the same but if you'll notice the amounts actually increased um a lot over the year the way the reason the percentages are off is due to those Esser
028funding and some of the non- reoccurring that would show more in in supplies and in total so that's going to throw off the percentages but the amount still increased over over last year so now we take a look at instructional expenditures as a percent of operating expenditures so this is always a year in a re because we compare these to other other districts um and we get this information from an mde bulletin but if you look at a percentage instructional versus operating um it's about 62% % and the reason that that percentage went down is kind of what we just talked about with the Esser funding so um just depending on what buckets that fall in construction went up over last year but it's just due to the other expenditures also going up that that
029percentage is a little skewed we hop over to slide 12 so this is comparing it with other Urban peer districts again for 2022 but you'll see that Jackson really is the highest um amount just under 60 2% so if we look at the whole state it's about 61% so I would say you're right in line with all the state districts um and above some of your peers on slide 13 um so this is really a comparison of the fund balance to the state average so the state average through um 2022 was about 21% um you were just over 17 at that year and then in 23 you're about 233% just over 23% so we would expect again kind of States you know districts throughout the states kind of peing over the next couple years with
030the covid funding and that going away so I would expect that to to decrease and like Jeff mentioned just being smart about what are we spending things on going forward we had a nice influx of of money and then are we going to make those decisions going forward and all districts are going to have that that discussion and this is another way just to look at the fund balance so your yours is in the light blue and then the dark blue would be the the average um peer districts over on slide 15 so this shows the the net change in fund balance year-over-year so we had an increase in the general fund about 5.9 million in the current year bringing that fund balance up to 17 so as I mentioned your about 23 if you
031get down to 12 13 14 that's when you might have to borrow um from the state aid just due to when you receive your state funding which is near the end of October so all those expenses from September 1st through October you have to cover based on your fund balance so it's important to have that up and obviously like with covid anything can happen so it's good to prepare for that unknown um and having that fund balance and then the last slide talks about the the 2018 building and sight fund so um we did do a final Bond close out as of 6:30 so we did the final testing overall current year Revenue was just 275,000 uh mostly due to interest on that on the funds that you had total expenditures were about 7.8 million
032and total for the whole bond to date was about 88.8 and the remaining fund balance as of 630 was about 4 million which will be majority of spent over the over the current year rules around doing the Final close out as long as you're substantially complete which is about 90% or above you can do that Final close out and then spend the rest of the funds it'll still be tested each year to make sure it's in compliance so that is all I had um does anybody have any questions on that so you're going to see this item pop up later in the agenda we have to uh adopt approve this this audit uh in the month of November so um I'm going to kick plant Moran out of here if you guys don't have any
033questions for him if you do have questions I'd like to hit him up now only because he's got a little bit of a drive yet tonight if I can get him off to his holiday I will or if you do have questions besides my information is on there so you can always feel free to call or email well thank you again for the time and have have question oh Sor and that's actually for Jeff because I might forget when we get down to that part um and I've mentioned this this to you before so this won't be a surprise when we talk about in the budget how the the SRA funds are going away and you know how we're balancing and how we're you know um what we're doing to make sure that we you
034know still are able to function well do you mind um making explicit these were Sr funds and this is how we're kind of fixing it just when you have that conversation with us later on because sometimes I forget you know and it should be nice to know you know where they were and and what you know what we're covering it with now you know so what I'll again we're going to be in December we'll be bringing an amended budget and that will update um the current year and I'll next month I'll have Marcus specifically speak to Esser funds where they're going this year and recognizing how much of that will not be here next year so it'll it'll give us a scope of what we're looking at is that fair all right thank you I
035like the clarity and explanation and the colors thanks yeah and the team like Marcus and Matt and the rest of the team did a fantastic job helping us so thank you thank you so Mr does I know you walked in I want make sure I couple things um Miss Hamilton we're going to move the minutes that item 23 24 31 that will be the last action item or the second to last action item and then the power school insights and mtss um that was discussed last month that will then be the new last action item so um when we Human Resources not minutes right Human Resources oh you said minutes well I toally was wrong uh Human Resources is what so human resources and mtss all right to be clear got it thank you very
036much glad we went over that all right now it's back to you okay consent agenda yeah anybody want to make a motion to accept so move second thank you any discussion okay all in favor oppose passes thank you yeah citizens requesting to address the board we have I believe four tonight and I'd like to put you in order so that we can just you no when to come up and um I keep saying your name Denita Bentley Michael Young Jonie orelo and William Hastings in that order please good evening so you all know I usually come and just talk tonight I'm reading so bear with me dear JPS school board members we extend our gratitude for your prompt response to our letter given to you at the October board meeting your willingness to meet with
037us to discuss our concerns regarding the partnership between the school board and Educators in our district is greatly appreciated your encouragement your sorry your engagement in this dialogue demonstrates your commitment to the well-being of our educational Community during our meeting Administration provided some insights and shared some data pertaining to our district which we found to be a helpful start the dedication to understanding the intricacies of our educational system is a positive step towards fostering a stronger partnership being able to share some of our daily experiences with you felt like a good start to building the kind of relationship we hope to Foster with each of you we are pleased we were pleased that we were able to share with you some of the processes we are going through as a Northeast family to make things
038better for our students and staff the fact that our processes brought out a couple of specific asks of central Administration that we were able to share and have one immediately granted was very encouraging to us a few of the specific outcomes that have come from the work that we have been doing as a Northeast family and that have come out since our October meeting with you all Northeast staff we have a pair of training with the collaboration of the teachers and support staff a specific training topics have been identified and we are starting trainings this month a leadership the leadership team is looking at streamlining systems for improving the organization and effectiveness of communication from the office to all of the staff a new teacher Academy a multi-week training provided by the curriculum coaches for
039any new teachers in our building has been completed and continues fourth continued work as a Northeast family to identify what we can do internally to improve as well as identify what we need from central office to continue to improve things done by central office office the approval of an IST room to come to Northeast to help us with students who need a suspension but an atome suspension is not a productive consequence two keeping the refocus room that we already have to help with day-to-day opportunities for students to reset and get back to the classroom where they can be successful and three the approval to hire the social emotional interventionist at Northeast which you met this evening in light of our productive meeting we kindly request that you continue to consider the actions outlined in our
040original letter regular school visits to all the schools in the district communication with teachers throughout the district and continued comprehensive data analysis we firmly believe that your ongoing participation in these Endeavors will enable the school board to make informed decisions and policies that better serve our students and their families your active involvement is is a Cornerstone and building more responsive effective educational system together we can continue to cultivate a stronger educational Community United by the collaborative efforts of the school board the Educators and The Wider Community we look forward to furthering our partnership and working together to achieve educational Excellence for all of JPS sincerely the teachers and support staff of Northeast Elementary thank thank you appreciate that good evening um my name is Michael Young and um I'm looking at the Dei and yes
041I know we want the holidays we want to get out we have Thanksgiving we have budget matters we have all that stuff to do but we kind of can't go to sleep on Dei work it's important and I I'm I'm and we just created a position of a Dei officer I believe that's the title I think that's a very good move um but I'm wondering about accountability um accountability is something that's important and I'm wondering where is accountability for the board and for their superintendent's office and say superintendent superintendent's office where is accountability for the superintendent's office because it seems to me if the Dei officer and the Dei work if the Dei officer is accountability partner for the board or the superintendent that's going to be a very cantankerous relationship and so in order
042for that to happen the Board needs to commit to themselves their accountability partners and where are they going to hold themselves accountable and learn about their own racism because we all walk in racism we can't get away from it we can't read a book we can't read a mo watch a movie about it it's a lifelong journey and I don't mean that from a book I mean that from personal experience it's a lifelong journey for me it's something that I can't get away from it's kind of like a snake that keeps biting me in the ankle so that's what I'm wondering tonight and I don't this isn't a back and forth but I'm wondering if on the Dei page or through the Dei office or where is that accountability level for the superintendent and the
043board the board could require you can't requ require that before a school board member runs for election that they have to receive anti-racism training but you can make sure that once they are on the board that they are required at least once a year to have offered anti-racism training that's actual accountability and that's actual work towards diversity Equity inclusion from the school boards on down and the school superintendent on down to the schools so that's that's what I was wondering is where is that accountability level um um and and it was 2018 was the equity audit that's was five years ago I don't know if that's been updated I don't know if there was a plan to come back and audit again um I think that might be important to update to keep everybody on
044task and accountability to the diversity AC inclusion that JPS says that they are part of doing I think this is one of the most important things that we can do in order to train students that it is a multicultural multi-racial multi-gender world that they're going to walk in and we lie to them and do them a disservice if we don't train them on how to walk in that world thank you hi guys I missed last meeting and it's funny how many people noticed that I wasn't here and came up to me and asked where I was I um and then when I'm out and people come up to me me and say Hi how are you so when I started this work my daughter who's 19 she was in kindergarten and I started it because
045she needed an advocate and that's where my passion comes from and it's led to so much more in my career but I'm still a parent at heart um and it's kind of funny when I get notified that I was specifically not requested to do the work that I do because I am not biased at all I can be neutral I can set aside my personal um feelings about things and it's interesting that me showing up at these hearings is making it people say we don't want her to be our independent facilitator so I just wanted to bring that to your attention because that was the first for me ever and the 12 plus years that I've been doing this that I got notified that someone specifically requested me not to be their independent facilitator because
046I've never once had a bad review um and this is I've showed up at one other board meeting so it's not just you guys and I will be showing up at other board meetings because I believe in what I'm doing um on a good note I was very happy when I walked in in Northeast presentation about restorative practices and their circles sounds amazing sounds like it's being used for its intended purposes I love that kids need that um I also would like to say that say that I'm very happy with JPS mon story I've loved that school since my kids have gone there um Mr Campbell he's an amazing principal I absolutely love that man uh Miss Tanya the social worker she's been great and Mrs Fairbanks recognized that my daughter who's a kindergartner needed
047help right away and we just completed an assist meeting and it went amazing and I really appreciate them um and I like the work that's being done but I just want to say I'm still waiting for the policies to be updated to catch up to the work that's being done because when it comes down to it if the policies aren't consistent there's going to be inconsistencies there was a covid exposure in my daughter who has a heart conditions classroom and voluntary um quarantines I will always voluntarily quarantine my heart baby because she is not able to get vaccinated if she gets covid and it gets bad and she gets pneumonia that's um risking her life her doctor's policy is not to excuse voluntary quarantines I'm sorry I don't care about a doctor's policy I don't
048care about a school's policy I was lucky enough that when the principal emailed Mr Beal he excused it but I can't have the principal email the superintendent every single time they excuse my daughter so there needs to be flexibility for certain instances I mean these are things are serious and that needs to be in the policy so the district wide can know that things like this exist thank you okay um so um public comment is we know not a time for a a back and forth or a Q&A with members um of the board I might just ask a few if Mr be if you could just like give me like a head that yes or no on and up a few very basic things so well like I'll just give you an example is
049it fair to say that the DI uh the new di director reports to you as superintendent okay so there that that settles that um two issues um and these of course may have been already addressed by the board I'm addressing these to the superintendent may have been addressed by other board members um I am um I'm concerned I keep hearing reports about vandalism at northeast school out on the playing fields where people are going out they fields that are used there extensively by jacks soccer the people are going out and just just ripping the hell out of them I don't know has that I've seen that posted on social media I've seen that posted by um oh her name's escaping me the lady who does Jack soccer there's vandalism the playing fields there okay fair
050enough okay that's that's completely fine um and then one thing I'm asking not tonight um but since we're just around the corner from um the um superintendent of valuation I'm sure event which all of you are keenly looking forward to um I would be interested in in hearing um whether publicly or privately since one of the the primary um superintendent goals was improving um attendance over over the last year if to really do a detailed walkthrough of what that is is what your Baseline is what the process is how that's coming along and how that compares to the wider Baseline which is that stuff spiked way up during covid and it's kind of coming down um and my final item this is just sort of odds and sods um so over the last few years
051um and going back to the last school year I've run into um Miss Beth lorri Smith the outstanding history teacher a number of times and I think every time I talked to her and had a conversation she was very excited about a new offering that she's going to be introducing called AP this is a newer AP offering called AP human um geography and um it's just beginning right now at JPS um this yesterday was the first day of the second semester so my daughter brought this home and it was kind of fascinating as kind of I didn't didn't really get a good handle on what this was all about and just I'm just going to share some of these I thought this is interesting these are some of the um questions from the the prep
052guide um see how how many of you know this how many of you can answer this the Intensive agricultural practice of planting and harvesting the same crop more than once a year is called a Sweden b double cropping C pastoralism d intertillage e shifting agriculture um I know I flipped the answer but I'm going to keep going here's a good one China and Vietnam's dispute over the spratly islands is a a positional dispute B A territorial dispute c a resource dispute d a functional dispute e a religious dispute and I'll just throw out one more um you're you're going to love this which of the following statements best describes an application in the s-curve a graph of the Band 2 migration B graph of the growth of human population since their first population on Earth
053um I I can't even run through all these there's not enough time see the chart showing how cities associate with one another based on their population sizes so I'm I'm very glad to see uh Miss Lorie Smith who had championed this for a couple years has brought it to fruition I wasn't sure was like is this be kind of like a a warm and fuzzy kind of soft and it looks like a very a tough and I was reading online that it's actually one of the tougher courses for kids to uh pass if I can not completely run out of time here okay I had a [Music] quote can't find it but the long story short is one the is one of the tougher curriculum so thank you for supporting AP curriculum and and thank
054you for honoring the students as you did the AP kids here last month that's a very important thing to do and with that I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving thank you you too okay now we have discussion items our first discussion item 23 2437 Neola first reading Mr Beal yep um so fall update is in most of this is legal updates and I've been told we're going to get another special update to kind of keep us in line with some of the changing laws that we saw in this last legislative session um this is the first reading uh and I apologize hang on um I want to thank Miss Acton do for participating welcome to the uh policy committee it's nice to have you there um I guess what I would do just for
055today since for whatever reason I'm not pulling them up I would say if you have questions along the policies um Miss Hamilton and Miss hunt and Miss Acton do sit on that committee um but uh I know Miss Acton Dal was specifically present at our our last policy review and uh I'd ask you to go ahead and feel free to either hit me up with those questions uh you're going to see on the bottom of the policies the MCL number again these are law- driven changes so we're not um this isn't something that that we have a whole lot of say in if you see that MCL or in place of it the US number at the bottom that'll tell you very quickly that it's a law change um if you have questions along the
056way what I'd ask you to do is just hit me up before next month and I will try to make certain that we we can answer those questions at our December meeting um does anybody have any questions for me and I apologize again I I can't open it today I don't know why but my Link's not working um Mr Doby M chair uh yeah these policy changes are districtwide correct yes yeah um I believe there's been some confusion uh from some of the members of the public about like discrepancies between like school policy but just to be clear anything that we work on here is districtwide so there shouldn't be any discrepancy school to school NOP no these policies apply to all buildings without a doubt Miss Hamilton so um I know you can't pull
057it up but I know you you know you know these because you've already looked at them um we have one that says copy of online Blended learning program I was reading through it and just wondered what's the difference between what we're offering in this and what we offer at scmv is there a difference um I well first of all I don't see the policy so hold still make certain that I all right says um shall not be required and the course is being offered 15 days per school year a student may enroll in more than two virtual courses in a specific academic term semester um that requir that's for in-person learning that's for Jackson high school or Jackson Public Schools here but yes our Virtual School falls under um it is a uh it falls
058under an alternative school certificate so we have to actually apply for that um every year and that's how that apply that's out those students are able to participate virtually full-time did Dan answer your question so yes you canot scmv is a full-time virtual program this particular where it talks about two uh two classes at a time is is for in person so we have we do have students and I should correct this or make sure everybody knows this we do have hours in Jackson high where if a student wants to take a course online they they sign up and they they take that course online here in Jackson High um some of it is for credit recovery some of it is is for courses that we don't offer in person U but but that course
059catalog is rather expansive that help you out so just so for my clarity sake is different so this is different and um this is for students at like like in that in-person students who are taking online classes and they can take up to two or three yes thank you yep I apologize I just didn't have it FR me thank you anyone else and I will have again we can have a deeper dive on any of these along the way between now and next December but or next month but uh certainly if you've got questions I'll do my best now move on to Sharp Park painting project Marcus will you present the information please all right good evening so at our finance facility meeting last month we discussed paint the painting of Sharp Park so as
060we've talked about before we cannot use Bond dollars to just paint a building that's considered just general maintenance and repairs um and if you remember we went through we're starting to paint this building we started on the third floor last summer so um we're also looking at doing Shar Park as we come out of the construction there and painting all the areas that the bond did not cover or could not cover so we received a quote from Lenco who is the painter doing the bond work at Shar Park um and again we'll it'll be a similar process we'll split the that 36,000 will be split over this fiscal year and next fiscal year because the work will be done over summer between June and July with that that year changes um so again this is
061the first look and we'll we'll be coming back next month to ask for approval to begin that process of that project in the summer next year so I'm assuming you get other bids on this one we did not and it's just like at the when we did the high school painting we also did now we went for um consistency again because Lenco is the painter on site doing that Bond work as they were the painters selected for this building they were vetted through the bond process when we went through the bond process for paying or so they have been vetted just not this time around if that helps all right so again last year when we brought the high school painting project to the board um we discussed doing a floor a year um last
062year we did the third floor which which turned out amazing so again the same thing these are the same uh quote amounts that Leno provided us last year those prices are still the same and in effect so we're bringing the quote back as we had the board only approved the third floor last year so same thing we discussed during the second floor this summer at our October finance and facility meeting the 77,000 again would be split over the two fiscal year so about 38,000 this year and 38,000 on next year's budget and again we will seek approval next month for this painting project as well how how often do we have to paint I'm just curious It's like a ship that's an excellent question and sometimes it depends on the painter that you use um
063in in these areas like Shar Park if you've been been through there it hasn't been painted in a long time obviously um and you can see the difference a floor up how how much brighter it is than than the other floors and it's just time as we've gone through and updated the the buildings through the bond it's it's uh it's needed to go through and kind of do some of that maintenance and uh giving it a Fresh coat um we would expect this to last at least a decade I mean we'll have to go through and probably spot repair paint some things just as normal maintenance but doing a a refresh for the building should last us a good amount of time so we we were able to do painting in our buildings with the
064bond which is how we we we've we've worked with several painters but the one that we're currently working with the preferred vendor that we've got now Leno we've been exceptionally pleased with their work um and the quality of of what they've done um so in areas like where we're sitting right now this was a designated remodel from before and so this area the paint that you see was able to be purchased within the bond areas that are not part of that renovation so common areas hallways for example um and in Shar Park specifically or or we can talk to Jackson high in Sharp Park there's a new addition a whole new Wing that's and we we paint we put the paint in the classrooms so all of our classrooms have got a measure of new
065paint in them um the conversation then becomes what about those common areas what about the always what about and that's the pieces it because guess what you did well we just put brand new paint and then you walk down the hall and before you transition from one Stairway to the next you've moved into old paint and so that that really precipitates some of this progress or or process is let's make sure that when we do this you know we don't want to turn out half a building that doesn't look like we're intentional about it so that's the project that Marcus has been working on and I think we've seen again I'm very thankful for the board support uh certainly upstairs um and we bring it you know again you'll see it next month or here
066for second floor and then next year we're going to ask for first floor and you can see that you know our process is is pretty again we're not trying to throw all of this in one year we recognize that it's a lot of money um because this is not Bond dollars these are general fund expenditures so Marcus you want to deal with the audit report all right so as you heard from our audit firm plantant ran this evening they presented uh their findings from our most recent audit every year we are required by law to have the independent audit of our financial statement um so that for June 20 June 30th 2023 has been completed and you heard from Mr Kelly this evening presenting the results um there's a few reports like you mentioned the
067presentation he went over along with our financial statements and the letter to the board uh for your review so at this time we would recommend the audit report be received as presented motion motion to approve and support Marilyn Derek okay deliberation any discussion about the audit report hearing none all those in favor I oppose motion is carried thank you 23 2441 the solar farm Marcus once again please all right so and we've talked about this a couple times I believe we brought it to the board last month for discussion and then we also brought it to the finance committee in October um just a brief synopsis um some of our buildings are on what's called Electric Choice we were allowed to uh purchase electricity at a A reduced rate um the Cooperative group is called
068mic the Michigan schools energy Cooperative um they've recently I think we discuss this there's an opportunity there's a large solar farm being built specifically for the mysic group to benefit K through 12 schools at a fixed uh rate I think at 7 and a half cents per kilowatt hour over a 15year time period um we believe this is very beneficial for the district to participate in as we know energy costs are probably not going down there only going to go up and looking forward to Future needs of the district and one of those being how do we provide air conditioning to the rest of our district and that's going to require good amount of electricity and energy so um this opportunity came along at a good time and um there's a resolution in front of
069you tonight to agree for our mic buildings to purchase uh their electricity for that fixed rate over the next 15 years thank you motion to approve some move lip support jelanda support maryn okay yeah discussion questions yes yes so are you saying that when we do this that we're going to have air conditioning at some point is that what I'm hearing it's a project on the stay tuned but yes this in the plans for maybe a future Bond Marcus you said we are receiving a discounted rate for this um what is it currently in with us committing to years or 100% of this what would be the rate the the fixed rate that we would be looking at going forward would be that 7.5 cents per kilow hour for the next 15 years every year
070I'm not sure what our current rate is I know it's higher than 7 and. half cents and remember that whatever that rate is there's typically that increases year over-year so if it's 10 cents this year it might be 10 and a half cents next year and so on and so forth so this allows us to stay at that flat 7 and a half cents every year for the next 15 years excellent and okay just to clarify Marcus make sure that I can articulate this correctly so we purchased and we have since I've been here our electric it for most of our buildings through misik already the reason that we're bringing this before you is because misik is building a a rather extensive solar farm in jese county and um they they in order to build
071this they got to sell it to investors if you will and we're an investor we're saying yes we're going to commit to to to taking energy and so 100% of the energy that we're going to take is going to come out of the solar farm um but that's that's how we can we can receive these rates is because we know they're growing and this is how they're going to to guarantee the return on investment to their to their investors as they build the solar farm does that make sense to everybody it's a it's a really we're going to get our electricity through misic anyway when we do it this way we get a locked in rate for 15 years and as Marcus said if we can if we can hold one line steady where we
072know what our rate's going to be for the next 15 years that right there is something unheard of in in the ability to manage a budget to say I know what our fixed costs are going to be associated with the rate that's phenomenal so of anything I tip my hat to Marcus I'll make sure that you please understand the work he's done with this and just give a little bit more background last update that I received from Missi there was probably over 75 districts committed and the interest is so great they're already in works of planning a second solar farm in the future so I know what those rates will be but you know it's good to get in now when we [Music] can excellent all those in favor opposed okay the motion passes thank
073you now we are on 233 2442 2024 summer property tax lby resolution Marcus all right so every year we bring a tax res a summer tax resolution to the board and what that says is that we're allowed to collect 100% of our taxes during the summer months um this makes things a lot smoother for budgeting for to limit borrowing improve our cash flow positions so we're not waiting for January February for tax money to roll in we're receiving that over the summer months when we do not collect State AIDS so it helps fill that stop Gap in our cash flow and and limit our borrowing uh needs for the district so it'll help us save on interest costs that we don't have to pay in in in applying for state aid notes or doing other
074kind of financing second motion to approve Derek and who was second Libby was second um any discussion on this no all those in favor I opposed okay motion passes we are now on to board comments oh sorry forgot about that 2432 2432 Human Resources would you like to speak that to that I think first just point of order we probably need a motion and a second to get the discussion going is that first statement I'll make a motion to discuss Human Resources May second can do that okay so as a reminder um we've liby and myself specifically have continuously asked for exit interviews we have not gotten those um and I know you can't talk about actually I don't know that you can or can't but I wouldn't suggest that you talk about our resignations
075at this time but um I do want to understand why Anne hesterman and Karen Mitchell have left and again I'm not asking for it at this table because that's I imagine somewhat personal but I would like to understand why they left I'm hoping that we had some type of exit interview um but and I would like the details of that you mean personally like not if this not in this venue repeat that you are correct we we don't discuss Personnel issues specific at the table but we do exit interviews on every person who leaves the district um Anne hiserman was a resignation and if you want next time you're in Reynolds Hall um I think uh Miss Carter would be happy to walk you through an hesterman specific and Karen Mitchell was retirement uh that
076was a planned retirement from I mean we we've known this since August so um I don't want to have to come in for that um you can send that information to myself and Libby like I said we've been asking for exit interview you know aggregated data for a while um but I do have specific questions about them so please just go ahead and send it to me I appreciate that thank you does Jessica need a a request for specific or just go she can go ahead and set it okay good okay EXC can that be provided to the entire board please pardon me can the entire board have the information on the exit interviews absolutely usually just call and say why did Joe Blow retire or resign or whatever exactly well absolutely okay and the
077next one is oh I'm sorry all those in favor yes I think Derk I think the first motion was to discuss we probably need a motion to approve present I'd make a motion to receive the human resources report I mean I don't we're not really approving this is all administrative your purview so it's we would approve it part of the con right yeah okay so we need to do a Support also okay motion for support support support and we have deliberated or asked our questions or Dereck do you have another one no no okay all those in favor I any opposed motion carries thank you okay now we move on to's that other made 23 24 36 23 24 36 that's power school insights and mtss and I think Julie presented that last month okay
078okay I wasn't here that's why I'm not do that all right okay so we need a motion to approve so moved okay how about a second okay yep discussion so um the question on this one last month and so Jeff you can answer this question maybe now I don't know but last month we had this on the discussion um agenda under the discussion items um and so I was expecting to see it under an action item today but it was under the consent agenda I wasn't sure why that was I think it was just because of the purchase it it it wasn't really intentional to say one thing or another I think it was already discussed at last month's meeting so to move it along that's all so just um to help me understand um
079when so I've always expected discussion items to come in and as action items and I just was you know like what what's what's this doing up here um is that something that we can expect going forward that it'll always be an action item or because I like sometime to be able to have discussion on you know an an action item I like to be able to have that discussion when we do an action item you know because we're voting on it so I just was wondering I was confused why it became a consent agenda versus an action item when it was a discussion item last month just trying to understand that I was trying to understand your your concern is that we moved it from an action item up to the consent agenda and and
080we moved it from discussion to consent simply because it was a purchase that was I mean I don't I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of discussion of objection to purchasing this I didn't hear objection last month so we put it in the consent agenda to move it along um that's all it's not anything other than than that um it's a program that that we're going to use it's a program we are using and it's part of our grant funds so it's not something that we're you know again this is I I hate to say it it's kind of just more formality than not so I apologize if putting it into the consent allowed us to move the meeting Along on something that really should have again just just been a a
081done decision so so just so you know for the future when we have discussion item I like to have it come back as an action item now I don't know if there's a policy that's what I didn't know I like maybe there's a policy or something that I don't know of as to what allows that I just don't know point of order mam chair yes um I believe per uh policy uh the chair creates the agenda with the um help of the superintendent uh based on our feedback this is your agenda to bring to us but at the beginning of the meeting the approval of the agenda is our opportunity to move stuff around so if any two of us want to make a motion that's supported to move something around the agenda we can
082do that but you're correct your direction to be able to uh provide for a productive where it goes for consent doesn't really matter yeah I know okay thank you D I appreciate that okay now we're moving on to board comment no we still got sorry and I wasn't done with my comments comments yeah I wasn't done with my comments either um so just again to to reiterate when we have a discussion at I like to see it on the action item I get that we can have it moved around but just in general I'd like to see it come back on the action items um but yeah thank you okay now we're going to go through the all those in favor all those in favor I I oppose okay motion passes okay now we go
083on to board comments would like to start go ahead masb hosted their annual leadership conference last weekend and I just wanted to bring back some of the information that I received while I was there for those of you in the community that pay attention to our education bills through legislation Senate Bill is related to the teacher and administrators that are required to receive annual performance evaluations currently there are four ratings highly effective effective minimally effective or ineffective effective July 2024 the ratings will be as follows effective developing and needing support so when we we get to that point of evaluating our superintendent we will now be highly effective was taken away completely and so we only have three three ratings effective developing and needing support another bill that um captured my attention while we were
084there it is Senate Bill 463 it was passed by way of a voted um 20 to 18 and this is a bill that is requiring a student to complete FAA as a graduation requirement faf says the free application for federal student aid um this bill has been forwarded to our um house committee on education because it creates unnecessary barriers to graduation it requires the financial information to for a student to come from their parent or legal guardian so um if FAFSA has to be completed I don't know how many of you have actually gone through that document it is not easy it's not easy so if this barrier is placed on our children we will see a decrease in our students graduating one other thing that we talked about while we were there which was
085really interesting we talked about proficiency proficiency is determined by each district proficiency is determined by each district I think there's this misn more this myth that it's across the board or it's a standard proficiency definition and it's not and I just wanted to remind our community that when we talk about proficiency we're talking about the work that our students are doing how they're being assessed and how they are retaining the information so just wrap your minds around that when we're looking at graduation and our students are receiving a diploma if they are proficient they should not be failing remedial classes or taking remedial classes at a community college level so it's important that we continue to place a higher priority on the proficiency that our students are demonstrating through their assessments thank you I find
086that really interesting since when all these rankings come out in the paper you have a percentage of who's proficient so we can just decide what proficiency means by District by district oh ho okay that explains a couple questions about the some districts I questioned okay anybody want to speak next Angela I just um appreciated the presentations we saw tonight and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving so I did lunch duty at Northeast and loved it and the children are so sweet and they're telling me all kinds of stuff and then um I was was in the playground with one of the children that refused to go out and his parpro thanked me for doing that so I'm thrilled what's going on there and that there's all these supports in place so amen that's that's really good
087to know and it does make a difference kids seem to have more of an accountability to people they don't know they don't go home with you know not their mother dad or whatever excellent okay Derek thank you madam chair um just want to thank everyone for um continuing to do the work to um really make everyone believe in the hype at JPS here um welcome to uh the new hires um included in this uh report and thank you for the service for those that are uh leaving us and hope everyone has a great holiday season Libs attending the masb conference I also went was exciting and informative the classes and keynote speakers shared information that was beneficial to students parents and faculty the primary focus was what can we do as a school board to
088better ensure that our students receive the best education possible through technology Blended classrooms AI or face-to-face instruction Greg bear and Ryan Raji stated at the conference started out the conference by speaking about their book modeled on Mr Fred Rogers the TV show Mr Rogers was successful because he focused on children's curiosity in a research study done at Harvard the question was asked what did student what did students do the most between the ages of two and five what they did the most was ask questions asking questions dimin diminished as children Grew Older a way to encourage asking questions was to have an asket basket where students could put their questions on a slip of paper and the teacher could answer them they suggested doing this at board meetings too if board members were afraid to
089ask some questions some of the classes I went to were current trends in K12 technology data informed decisionmaking Basic School Finance mental health in K through 12 students artificial intelligence in the classroom diversity equity and inclusion and overseeing the superintendent that sounds like it was really a broad range of topics ICS yeah more cool current trends in K through 12 technology they talked about Blended learning were part of students where students are learning part virtually and the rest is face-to-face learning AI is this artificial intelligence students put in a sentence for example for a writing assignment AI will create a onepage paper for them in minutes questions to ask ourself as a board is do teachers now use AI in the classroom has it been successful what are the problems and benefits do we have
090a policy on it Basic School Finance is another one that I attended and we learned about different kinds of funds Debt Service funds capital projects trust funds proprietary funds and fiduciary funds we should have at least 10 to 18% of expenses in the fund balance or 5% of annual operating expenditures the state will conduct a financial review if it falls below 5% then then we're in trouble trouble if that would had were to happen the board's job is to review the budget submitted by the superintendent align finances to District goals ask questions and approve a balanced budget data informed decisionmaking um growth matters because it counts on the superintendent's evaluation it is 40% there are other categories and 75% is adequate growth each school's website is a form of Perpetual data we should have Mission
091Vision set of beliefs and statements are we preparing every student for what's next some examples of data are test scores demographics Financial enrollment graduation rates and Community Services overseeing the superintendent was next and a board and superintendent is is are involved in an institution that must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings conflict between school boards and superintendents has far-reaching implications such as weakening in the district stability and and moral increase and mor and moral and increase conflict over I don't know what I did on this one um um increases conflict over instructional goals and objectives high functioning School Board is one who functions well together and they're the ones who walk well work well with their superintendent we learned about
092what qualities this superintendent should have such as work consistently to build trust must be involved with the school board staff and Community expression expectations of the board and superintendent must be explicit they told us roles of superintendents and board and what they should be and we should always be evaluating the superintendent on a three-month basis in monitor for progress and we talked about basic cont contract language and that's what I learned okay I'll say it again what a broad range of topics that's amazing Keisha so I'm going to start tonight by thanking our Northeast uh teachers and uh support staff for and their admin as well um for coming out um and for the work that you all are doing there you know I had an opportunity to walk through uh Northeast and um and
093my bonly visits that I do um and I got to see some real life you know actions and activities that were occurring that you all are dealing with and also got to see how well you all um handled the situation with the tools that you had already been given um I'm I'm also super excited about the update that you all gave us you know um one thing that I'm a firm believer of is that those that are closest to the problem they are closest to the solution um and they're the best people to tell us how to reach those Solutions so when you know just hearing you all's report today on you you know the different things that with Central office's support um you know and they're you know uh making way for you know
094you ought to have like the teaching Academy and the you know better communication the pair train like all the things that you all are doing I'm I'm really excited for them so it's just it was just really nice to hear how you all are leading the change um while also at the same time still being consistent and coming continuing to show up um showing your courage and your commitment to JPS to our students to yourselves to our amilies um I do recognize that you know there's risks in showing up as you all do so I continue to applaud our Northeast uh folks for speaking out um about your needs you know um what we recognize is that while you can do a lot of things put things in place and that's absolutely awesome it's necessary
095there are some things that we as a board and that Central stat central office as well um can do to support you and so thank you for continuing to show up and thank you to Central staff as well well for central office for what you've done um to support them um last month uh Northeast did present a letter to the board that detailed some of their needs and the desires of how the board specifically could take action um Jeff scheduled a meeting within a week for us board members to hear um I assume that that's what the meeting was for but for us board members to be able to hear more directly from um the staff based on what he told me directly um and for us to be able to dial with you all
096um unfortunately um during the meeting we weren't able to hear um much from you all um that was a little disappointing you know because it's a very early meeting for some of us who like to get their day started at 9:00 a.m. um after working out and all the other stuff but anyways it was a very early meeting which is okay we'll do it again I will do it again trust me I will come out again but um I do wish that we could have actually had most of the meeting with you all engaging us and talking versus um being monopolized otherwise we did have three teachers though resigned from Northeast last month um one teacher this month resigned from Northeast um and this is why the the the things that you all have put
097in place while they are admirable they're necessary I'm very proud of them I recognize that there's more that we need to be doing um and so I'm I'm committed to to doing those things we know that there are you got to get at least four votes for it but just so you know you have a couple of us on here who are definitely willing to um you know do those things but you as you continue to show up and talk to us it helps us all of us better sense the need uh better understand and gives us you know opportunity to know exactly what we need to do um one of the specifics that you all asked for um and mentioned you all mentioned three things um at least on that letter I still have
098it you know but keep it you know so that I can make sure I'm paying attention to it but any was one of the immediate doables um that Northeast teachers and staff have suggested is that we visit the school um sometimes I don't know that everybody knows this I know they don't cuz people think we actually get paid to sit up here we do not I actually have a job I'm a mom to six like so I always appreciate community support and so I did have some folks in the community say hey look we looked up this information and here it is um so I'm going to share that information our board policy policy p915 um it's about school visitors it's a board policy a JPS board policy um I'm going to quote about what
099it says for board members individual board members who are interested in visiting schools or classrooms on an unofficial basis shall make the appropriate arrangements with the principal now there's more to that policy but the gist of it with regard to this doable that Northeast teachers and staff has asked regarding um board members come and visit the school without central staff and you all you all were very uh gracious and brave and telling us why you want us there by ourselves um we do have a policy that aligns with that so um expect to see me um soon I see we got some some uh name tags I don't know if you all knew that you know we needed those um but if you did that's great I'm you know that that'd be great um going
100for moving on um I have been fortunate and honored this year I have traveled like crazy I'm very grateful for it though I've been fortunate and honored to be valued by these National Schoolboard networks and or organizations over the course of this year traveling out east Midwest and down south um what's been consistent in these Progressive student focused leaders you know believing that leaders should be held accountable and educ Equity inclined spaces is that much of what I ran on and have continued to Champion and advocate for here at the board table is reflected in these spaces so um I've been affirmed uh one of the things that I was very particular about is student voice being vital to uh the board's work and a lot of the groups that I've been able like I
101said had opportunity to to sit with and be with um they also agree with that um one of the suggestions that they have is that we need a student advisor advisor committee that's directly related to the board um you know that that advises the board um it's necessary for their input I mentioned already those closest to the problem are closest to the solution and they have the answers I had someone mentioned during a conversation I have I had had some many but they said you know this this place right here is like the students jobs you know we're spending 95 hours or eight eight hours or so on our job 95 or whatever it is we're doing um and we need our job our workplace to be a place that we can come to and
102and feel good about the way they uh framed it maybe just think of it differently that wow students are spending that much time here this is kind of like their job so they're the best people to kind of help us understand what makes their job um a place that they want to be coming to um anyways so again having a student advisory to the board um directly with the board with no uh no we don't want it filtered is a necessary thing um even parent voice I've had that as well where uh different schools that have been very successful um because they've built these trusts with parents at the board table that are directly advising the board and and almost sitting with the board at times as well um that's been a a successful um
103component of their board work St parent voice um so yeah we need a a parent advisory group to the board um we do have more parently aison in the district and that's a good thing um they are employees of the district um and we we know that um sometime when you're an employee it's it's a little more difficult to speak up about things that you're seeing because you're to protect your job um so we do while that's a good thing I'm glad that we have it we do need still a parent advisory I I ran also to and to continue um to promote transparency accountabil accountability and accessibility those are my three things that I used to say transparency accountability and accessibility were very important to me they still are I'm in my travels I
104found that the most successful schools promote those same three things particularly at the board table um and with board members in schools there is a there was a a conversation that I had an opportunity to be in where um board members sometimes we talk about you know we can't have a quorum in different places right and we know that when people sit right here there's no back and forth dialogue and often times we want to be able to have that back and back and forth dialogue um there are ways we can have a community Forum as a board where we sit in a room together and uh you know have back and forth dialogue where we're not making any decisions for the board um but we are having that back and forth dialogue which I
105think will really go a long way towards and I've talked about this before a long way toward building a trust within the community um these are just some of the updates of some of the things that I have uh been able to experience in my travels a little bit more I'm almost done folks um one one edit one one uh before I forget teacher evils have changed superintendent evils have not changed but teacher evils have changed um but then but back to my notes um in my travels I've also been affirmed um interestingly enough that the state agrees with me um that we do need to be doing Equity work I was really nice to be able to hear somebody else continue to talk about it um we need to I mentioned before to have
106a a plaque here or you know a card that we ask oursel these questions before we're making decisions um so that we can make decisions that are Equity focused um you know while audit reports students singing and and Performing and the awards all these things are absolutely great we need those um facility management all these things are great they should not be the only consistent thing that we are seeing at the board table um we know that the superintendent and the board chair president um they they uh you know make these agendas for us and so they're the people who are deciding what we're seeing we never see anything about discipline you know all the things that are really mattering you know our our schools are we're we're titled something but we're also on the
107state's list right now we've got dis uh school buildings that are on the state's list we didn't get on the state's list because we had beautiful buildings that's not what puts us on the states it's these these real concerns these real data uh concerns data driven concerns you know around proficiency around you know um discipline that are driving us towards these State lists that you don't want to be on a state list that's not that's not a good thing folks um but if we were to be able to hear more of that at the board table then we probably could address those things we're not hearing those things so I'm hoping that um you know we won't just talk about the turf on the football field but we'll start talking about issues that actually um
108impact the the students education lastly I did attend the masb conference this year I was fortunate connect to connect with some other bold and courageous Schoolboard members from across the state uh they had a Saturday morning session with Rodney paage that was absolutely amazing and liby and I agree that he should be brought here for something thank you now I haven't said anything yet but except that I did have my eyes operated on I'm trying to be in cognito but I have been extremely impressed with the schools that have come in with their little people and showed us what they're doing and the the kids know what they're doing they don't have to have a lot of prompting they know how to do it know what they're doing I just think those little baby steps
109that they're taking are so important to making a major change and they're bringing the board along and they're bringing their teachers along and they're bringing their parents along and I I really enjoy that okay calendar we have November 28th it's a board work session for superintendent evaluation 5:30 at the ISD then December 19th our regular board meeting is at 5:30 back here motion to adjourn move to question I have one question how come we always in is there a reason it's kind of like when you go on a retreat you don't just go like to the holiday in you might go to laning and go to something else just to get you kind of out of your normal thought and hopefully you have different conversations with one another um I asked that a long time
110ago when I was uh in the union I said why do we always have you know go here um and I and I believe that it that it does that when you're away from home so to speak you tend to look at things a little differently sometimes you're a little more open than you'll be if you're in in this situation but um they've got a good facility and that's what we pay them for our money goes to them already so move to it discussion all in favor hi oppos thank you Chris you may now rise that