JPS Board Meeting - 10/18/22

001thank you it is 5 45 so I will call the meeting to order and welcome you to our October board meeting so with that we will do the Pledge of Allegiance foreign if you could do the Roll Call Miss Hamilton present Mrs Brown Mr White Miss hunt here Mrs Simonetti Mrs Fitzgerald and Mrs Mitchell here okay we are on number four approval of the agenda so at this time I would entertain a motion for approval of the agenda support okay thank you Libby thank you Shalonda any deliberation okay hearing none all those in favor say aye motion carries okay and we're on number five superintendent's report so I will pass it over to Mr Beale thank you very much and welcome to November all right almost November October it feels like November out there um

002and the reason uh I want to thank you very much for your patience is we've had several board meetings over at uh Parkside and to be able to transition back into this space we are actually hoping to complete construction here in November and so uh everybody's going aware of the books and they're about 12 000 books yet to come out our librarian is set to start but they're still doing some finishing touches on our bookcases um that needed a little bit of extra attention I remember that these are the originals so they've been around a while and as you can see as you wander through and I hope you will take a minute after the meeting um to uh to kind of visit take a walk up and down the um it's the sign back

003there says Viking Cafe it's ultimately going to be Cafe orange and that's a student-run coffee shop so it's uh it'll be tailoring to students it's a entrepreneurial class so you will see students in there they got to order it they got to make it they've got to account for all the budgeting that goes into it and sell and work the the coffee shop so coffees and smoothies and juices and bagels and so on and but it's a neat opportunity uh for our students and you'll you'll get to see what what will become as we have more and more students participate in our early college program it really will become this broader spectrum of of use and you can kind of get a feel for what our students will experience and I know we've got John

004John R Lewis families here and students we're building this for you so please take a look around enjoy yourself and and understand what's coming for for your children uh in the coming weeks um so when they get here it's going to be ready for them our Esports team is practicing so we've got a beautiful Esports lab and I'll try to open that up and let everybody see what that looks like while you're in so again just some some neat things that we have after the meeting I'd encourage you to to hang out and at least take a peek we'll get this like I said opened up here construction should be completed here by the end of um by the end of November is our plan um and then lastly um for me it you know

005obviously October is Count month and I'm very pleased to recognize that Jackson Public Schools is the fastest growing District in our County right now we we grew by about 160 students this year that's good for us budget wise I'm sure Marcus will see that in our our first amendment but we initially have you know we always plan to be down about 120 to 150 students and we've always I shouldn't say always for the last several years been down about 60 to 70 kids so this is actually going to be a nice swing for us it should be a turnaround of about 300 students better than budget so it should feel really good kind of going into the school year and I'm I'm again very happy with that that's going to conclude my portion and I'm

006going to pass this over to miss Weatherwax Jill you're up you want to show off and share out what's going on at John R Lewis [Music] all right so we have some of our top students today they are our good trouble students and a local anonymous group sponsors these shirts these students are recognized by their teachers for causing good trouble in the spirit of John R Lewis by being responsible students role models to others doing great with their school work and being excellent representatives of the school they are going to start our Portion by reciting the John R Lewis Creed on the desk when you came in is a handout that breaks down our Creed it is based on three of John R Lewis's quotes So if you didn't get to pick one of these

007up please do grab one on your way out foreign [Music] I'll make the world a better place with me is Ms Dom our steam teacher we are a steam school with a focus on science technology engineering arts and math I want to share with you in addition to our Creed our John R Lewis Viking values kindness logic inclusion Equity curiosity Independence and integrity and these students model these characteristics every day some of our points of Pride we have a highly skilled and collaborative staff we have our good trouble students and awards caught making the world a better place which is a based on John R Lewis quotes and also part of the Creed so that's part of our PBIS system they can earn those tickets um for when they're recognized by a staff member for

008making the world a better place and we fill Our Extravaganza board and it's almost filled and when it's filled then we have a celebration school-wide we also have an SEL program called character strong and there's a focus on a trait each month we're on responsibility this month and so students are nominated by their peers to be that student of the month for each of those Awards we have a behavior interventionist with a refocus room monthly family events we are known for our positive and calm environment if you visit our school and we hope that you do um we get frequent comments that people just feel good and feel calm and relaxed and in our in our beautiful building um we are piloting Orchestra classes so we have three age groups of strings classes um and

009we are like I said a steam school so I'd like to turn it over to Elita Dom AKA space teacher to tell you more um available at the desk if you didn't catch that it has some of the pictures she's going to talk about good evening as many of you many of you on the board know me but for those of you who don't my name is Elita Dom and I have been an employee of the district since 1994. 20 of those years were at the middle school Parkside I'm excited to present to you tonight our esteem program at John R Lewis and incidentally it's pretty much the same program at the Montessori Center steam stem and stream there are a lot of different programs out there all with the common goal of creating a

010culture where our students will be competitive globally as thinkers John R Lewis we have created a steam program which stands for science technology engineering arts and Mathematics students are provided with a variety of opportunities to gauge in science both in their home classrooms and in mine these include field trips outdoor exploration classroom activities and science topics across the njss elementary science standards for example in my class this week we are studying bats including life cycles traits and conservation when we think of Technology we often think of computers in the education world the working definition of technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes especially in industry in the steam classroom we apply scientific knowledge to create things such as bee habitats for local farmers in athletic equipment during the Olympics this last year

011we also do many forms of coding most of which is unplugged coding such as binary coding directional coding designing puzzles and mazes and other creative tasks and unplug coding students use their knowledge to work on computational challenges that will help them understand the concepts they will then go on to use in their coding projects students apply those skills then to code the code and go Mouse spheros Botley art Arty and Kobo the snail students were also visited by my son who taught them how to 3D print as well as 3D printing applications he shared with students some of his projects He created and students were even able to try on his Star Wars helmet and he explained the steps that went into printing it engineering is one of our students favorite things we often have

012an engineering project that complements the science topic we are studying at the time for example I've included a picture a picture of one of their engineering projects from The Last Winter Olympics as well as a design challenge to build the tallest tower to hold a ball the Pringle challenge was a favorite during one of our steam family nights last year our favorite activity though in the steam room is free play Fridays which are held during the first and third trimester every Friday you may have seen many of these pictures on our Facebook page and free play Friday students have six stations with a variety of materials to use the emphasis is on creativity these days are important because play improves the cognitive physical and social well-being of children they learn skills in communication building relationships

013perseverance and problem solving the Arts are important to our students art is a reflection of society and culture and helps us understand who we are and influence how we relate to each other in our esteemed class not only do we incorporate the visual arts but also the language arts every topic we study starts with a story these give students the opportunity to practice their listening skills as well as topics like comparing and contrasting cause and effect and fact and opinion tax topics which are important in developing reading skills as well as scientific skills we recently learned about pointillism on International dot day and the students did a great job with their pictures we have also learned about things such as optical illusion and we will soon be studying the artist O'Keefe students apply their skills

014in mathematics to create all kinds of things we have learned about shapes and patterns we explored patterns in nature as well as in art I reinforced counting in the younger grades and computation in the older grades these are some of the projects in the last slide that students used when we achieved Evergreen status in our inaugural year as a school we have already started working on achieving Evergreen status for this year as well thank you for your time tonight we are excited about what our students are doing every day at John R Lewis thank you for hosting us [Applause] all right up next Miss Julie Baker with our elementary update good evening everyone another great day to be a Viking um we've had some really exciting things happening in the last couple of months um

015kind of like to give you some highlights from September um we at Cascades are very busy implementing a new positive behavior and intervention and support program um that's what teachers spent the majority of their day yesterday doing they've also been doing some things that are being copied in other buildings right now providing some some special training for our parapros and our Tas so that they can better be involved in guided reading and small math instructional groups so that um what we've noticed is that we we added parapros in some of the classrooms and not only did the paraproles not what know what to do but some teachers are not used to having help and so they weren't quite sure what to do with the pair of Pros to really you know use their time to

016the best Advantage so um Cascades is kind of leading the way with some training that they're doing very proud of that Crescendo is also done a great job of meeting with parents she has been doing donuts with grown-ups which I think is is a cool name for for that where she she mates they do coffee they do donuts and they have a chance to meet the principal and talk about their concerns at Dibble you may have may have heard but diptacular took place a couple of weeks ago and I saw a lot of pictures of Mrs q and being dunked in the dunk tank but there's also it consists of a an obstacle course and it's a fundraising event but it really is also a community event um so some really great things happened there

017that day lots of fun to be had and they have implemented a program called spot the Dibble difference so they're tickets that are handed out to students sort of like the good trouble program at John R Lewis when they see students that are exemplifying Viking values they pass those out and recognize kids for that so it's another version of PBIS at Hunt um they're doing the Victorious Vikings program um and so it is they they focus on one specific behavior or virtue from their Matrix each month and then they um this month they're focusing on responsibility and when they see students exemplifying that students receive those tickets and they have drawings so there's a lot of fun happening there they also as as are all of our elementary buildings participating in the partnership for Success

018program with the ISD and so they focus in on looking at um asset building for our fourth and fifth grade students and so the students in fourth and fifth grade have finished their um their asset profiles and they'll use that data to determine what kind of programs could help to build the assets um in the areas that were less strong in that building so they're excited about that work Montessori um they are back in the big swing of things getting parents and families back into the building they had Parents night out they had a trunk or treat with Felicia Children's Center they are functioning or working with building Healthy Communities which is another program that is in all K-5 buildings right now and it is focusing on the health and well-being of all students and

019so they provide us with a A nutrition curriculum a um a PE curriculum and then funds so that we could do after school health and wellness programs with students so that's something that is happening in every building they're kicking it off with the coaches in each of those buildings um another thing that is interesting about Montessori is that they have some really great after school programs that have gotten started around student-specific interests and two of those are girls who run so the girls on the run sorry Girls on the Run um got started just recently and it it we're just hearing rave reviews from the girls that are involved in that getting out getting physically active and then also girls who code so we'll have some other programs coming but those are a big hit

020and our students are really getting involved with that at Northeast we had a superstar former Spartan Anthony Lonnie came to speak with students about the effects of bullying they had a wonderful Latino Family Night Celebration and they just recently had their first extravagance of the year as well so um Extravaganza is uh one of the we need when you hear about one of those happening it's a it's one of the cornerstones of a PBIS program and so it's celebrating great Behavior looks a lot like a fair but it's stopping everything for about an hour to celebrate the good behavior that happened in that building um so good things happening there they we also had some staff members that went through nurture nurturing parenting training um not just from Northeast but from several of our elementary

021schools Mr Anthony Coffey and Aaron Slater are leading that um that initiative and that training will allow the people that go through that to provide 12 weeks of training to parents that want to be part of the nurturing parenting program so it's providing some skills and some ideas for parenting building a community of of parents together to talk about what their concerns are and to get support from one another we're really looking forward to seeing the effects of that and then Northeast has a really strong parent advisory committee that has already been meeting Sharp Park I don't know if you heard about this this is another big one we do it every year but obstacle came and went and it was my first opportunity to see that they had to move their operations to the

022field next door and so people got out and did a whole bunch of mowing it was a big big operation for a lot of different groups but particularly parents so lots and lots of parents came out and made that a very special event they raised quite a bit of money which is wonderful they'll put that back into educational programs for their building um and they also if you you may have noticed if you were at the homecoming parade that there was a big group of Shark Park kids that were all walking through with their cars so lots of great things happening there a very strong PBIS happening at Sharp Park and then a practice that we see at Sharp Park that is particularly impactful is that Mrs Lusby goes through and does um weekly or

023I'm sorry monthly data walks so she goes through and she has communicated a set of look Force things that she believes are very important to the instructional practices in the building she goes through and when she sees those she writes those down and then she reports back to the buildings or to the um to the teachers about what she saw not Knox like I didn't see this in room you know 232 what she sees is what she does is she communicates back the great things that she did see that were evidence of those practices and where other people could go to watch if they were interested in implementing something similar so it's a really positive practice and and as I said it's very impactful good stuff happening there um at Lewis I don't want to

024give too much more information they told quite a bit they do have a spooky steam family night coming up soon and then um they have professional learning communities regularly with their instructional coaches and when I forgot to talk about um at Sharp Park they have band and also at Lewis they have orchestra and I and and I know that you're working with fourth and fifth grade students doing band at Sharp Park and I believe that she's got Orchestra I think it's K through five but it gives our elementary students a chance to build up skills with instruments so that when they get to Parkside it kind of gives them a little leg up so we're excited about those those programs in the Arts other things that are happening at the elementary level we're really excited

025because we have four now staff members that are trained to provide um non-violent non-violent Crisis Intervention training through CPI to JPS staff and then we had our first two classes this week so we did level two courses on October 17th Monday so we got our first group of 35 parapros and Tas that went through with two trainers that are JPS staff so Stacy polarski and assistant principal Sandy Martin provided the training and then today and tomorrow they're working with another group to do level three training with our key identified Personnel so people that would respond to a crisis in the building so they've got about 12 people that are going through that so we're very excited that we have that available and that it's our JPS team that is providing that and there's a little

026piece there that talks about we really believe that CPI AI is is very important training for every one of our staff members to have it teaches skills and de-escalation and we really believe that it will lead to a safer environment in all of our schools it'll there'll be a change in the climate and culture which will impact ultimately student achievement because our students will there'll be less of those violent outbursts and more of kids being able to regulate themselves and teachers able to help them regulate themselves when when things get hard for them so we're excited about that um we I added monthly attendance rates and we're going to start tracking that we really um we're concerned about attendance in our district we know that we can't do anything to impact the achievement of students

027or to provide for their social and emotional learning if they're not in class and so we know that we're seeing an improvement in our attendance but it's still an issue and so we want to make sure that we're going to track that with you and show you how that's going um we have some work that we're going to be doing soon around improving attendance in our district and incentivizing that so I added a section on interventions to address the learning loss there's quite a few things that are in place at the elementary level we talk about what I need time that happens three to five times a week and that is where students are provided with instruction at their specific instructional level and to meet a need that has been identified through the data that

028we've generated through our assessments so we use that assessment data to figure out what every kid needs and then we put them into groups to make sure they get those needs met lots of small group instruction that's happening and that's around reading and math and usually that happens during summer time so again that might be guided reading it might be that students need help with a certain phonemic awareness piece maybe they don't know their digraphs or something else it could also be around math but we take kids that have like needs and put them into groups and make sure that they get those needs met you'll remember the lli kits that were purchased for our buildings those are being used by teachers and by retired teachers and we're also teaching our parapros to be able

029to use those and those provide that leveled instruction to meet the needs of students in literacy we have instructional coaches in every building some buildings have too and they work with small groups of students 50 percent of their time so our lowest kids we would say that need tier three instruction or intervention we have our coaches that push in to work with those small groups of kids and they also help to instruct our parapros and our retired teachers in the interventions that they put in place for kids Lexia Core 5 and Symphony math are in place in all of our K-5 buildings and those are platforms where students get on and they work independently and they do receive instruction and new skills and it helps to fill the gaps in instruction for kids so they

030take a placement test at the very beginning it puts them at a specific level and kids continue to receive instruction and as they Master things they move to the next level but if they get stuck it Flags the teacher and then the teacher is able to provide um that intervention in a small group or to assign materials to a parapro or a retired teacher to be able to do that as well um after school tutoring will be coming up in November and summer school so any students that are identified to um they they have needs that need to be met they're functioning below grade level um those are students that will qualify for those programs and the last thing uh for tonight I'm sorry that there's so much but there's a Lago again um I

031will be working on an application to seek out 98c funding it is a grant that is meant it's being offered to address learning loss and so that opened up and it will close on November 30th but one of the things I need to do is make sure that I'm bringing that to a board meeting so I wanted to talk to you about um what we're what I'm hoping that we'll be able to fund with this so um one of the things that a lot of what we'll be looking at is professional development and one of the pieces that's very important to our K5 instruction particularly with the read by grade 3 legislation is making sure that kids can read at their instructional level and one of the pieces that we're looking at is the essential

032literacy practices for K through five and there are many different pieces of that there's what's pushed into the classroom instructional pieces there are coaching pieces for coaches and for principals and then there's also a school-wide piece so what that is is looking at all of the parts of a literacy environment and making sure that those are all in place and all of those are modules that require an investment of time it could be providing teachers and principals and others with release time so they could finish the modules in the instruction or it might be stipends after school so quite a few of the trainings that we're looking at have to do with that including learning Labs so it's learning labs are a practice where you take a group of a small group of teachers and

033coaches and you go in and You observe a lesson that's being taught and um and and it may even be a lesson that you you have helped the person develop delivering it to design and then you work on improving that instruction by providing feedback so learning more about that we want to look at providing updated classroom libraries we know that kids that have access to a variety of of really engaging literature and texts in the classroom are kids that grow up to be kids that love reading so we want to update that we're looking at updating bookroom book sets that we would use for guided reading providing guided reading for training for all teachers in parapros funding additional monthly literacy events for families looking at additional parent Liaisons for K5 buildings and funding a leader

034in me program to come back at Cascades Elementary that was an effective program and we would like to see that come back in the coming years also some things for our secondary groups looking at IXL for Jackson High School Rosetta Stone shown for secondary English language students and National Geographic textbooks for high school students so none of these are a given thing they're just going into the application but I wanted to make you aware that we were seeking it and we should have some information sometime after November 30th about whether or not we receive it are there any questions sorry names of all the stuff that you said because there was just a lot coming at us so a couple questions though Lexia and Core5 is that new to us no we've actually had Lexia

035Core5 for a long time and we love it we see some really great results from it what we've been trying to do is find something that measures up for math we might be on to it now but it's it's something we've had for a long time and we've seen good results do we have data already from it so how long have we had that um we have probably had that I'm going to say it's been at least five years okay so we probably do have data actually helping and Improvement it is what is it yes yeah we do we see good we see good results from it okay we do a couple more questions for you um so Sandy Martin you said she didn't I don't remember the name of the program that she just

036trained um what is it again it's called um non-violent Crisis Intervention training um and it's offered through CPI is the name of the company now is that at new no actually we've done non-violent Crisis Intervention training for as many people as we could get through every year we do it at different levels based on um you know the needs of the person so for a classroom teacher it's really just having them go in and learn um the the de-escalation strategies and some of the other strategies that just help to defuse the situation so that we can get kids back to it and then for others like our key personnel if we have somebody that we know is going to be responding to a violent situation they have a deeper level but we've always done it

037through the ISD and so um sometimes it's limiting because they only have a certain number of of openings so sometimes we have to wait for that but our entire admin team um Can keeps up their certification in it and we've we've been certified for years sorry about that um so it it's designed to basically help teachers in the classroom learn how to de-escalate have you been keeping data from before we had it now that we have it and seen any type of change you know benefit it is it's it is something that there is data to support it but also um it's something you don't want to not have certification in um if we have data do we have any data that says that I mean if we've had it for a while do we

038have any data that's kind of saying that you know this is kind of How It's impacting us how it's making us better do we have are we keeping that do we have that I don't I'm sure that we could find it but it's not it's not something that it's not that type of program it's certification that we keep because we want to make sure that our teachers know how to respond in those situations it's a safety piece okay this is Safety and Security right it sounds like you know that if we have some type of situation the teacher needs to de-escalate we would have information on the fact that there was a situation absolutely it helps us sorry one more time yeah and then we'd have information that says that it it worked so we

039don't have that kind of data is what you're saying other than just that it does work with us I mean that that are the teachers that go through it they have let's say that there's a student that is doing something that is an imminent danger to themselves ready to jump um or are they're hurting themselves they're hitting their head on the floor it gives us the tools to know how to hold that student safely so that they don't injure themselves or anybody else so it's it's that type of training um that is it's a it's a piece that's meant to make sure that um that we have the tools that we need to keep our kids safe thank you and I think you answered this already so how long do we have this or how

040long we've had this oh I don't know how long we've been doing it's for over a decade yeah and we don't have data showing how it's impacting us it'll be really beneficial to know you know um how well it's working you know I mean how it's impacting uh you know uh detention how it's impacting you know students behavior how it's impacting it would just be really nice to hear that yeah you know at some time thank you yeah sure and if I could just pipe in because I'm employed by the ISD it I will say it's an excellent program and even police officers around Jackson County have taken it so we offer it all over the county so yeah it's excellent thanks a quick question to um trustee Hamilton are you asking for data about

041how the teachers handle the situation are we asking for the data regarding how many children um we prevented them from being hurt or I'm just trying to understand what type of data you're asking for I just want to understand if it happened and then what we do about it and then how it impacted the classroom that type of data so we need to have that data I'm very familiar with that program obviously all the years I've been doing what I do um and it's really not so much a data driven program it's kind of like everybody getting first aid certified uh I mean CPR certified we don't keep track of how many people were choking and you know at work there's not like a data piece for a behavioral program like this um the idea

042is to get certified kind of getting a driver's license you know you get certified and that's the skill you have if God forbid you ever need it you're a safe person to be around thank you for that Pam that's that's a helpful way to kind of explain I thought that might verify yeah yeah thank you that that kind of helps it because even in when we're thinking of people about people who might you know have some type of medical situation um we can kind of track these situations occurred but because we got this training now as a result you know we're they're not dying you know I mean what in the educational sense they're not being suspended you know because we were able to de-escalate them we're having less of these situations we would have

043that kind of data just as in the medical field so that's just kind of I just kind of want to know how is it impacting us you know I mean is it working so I mean I'm certified in CPR and et cetera you know and I get it you know if my kids have some type of situation going on I can help them out and I know that they're not gonna have to go to the hospital because of it versus if I didn't have it you know right and I'd have the data to say I've been trained and so I kept them from it versus I hadn't been trained and then we were at the hospital and I would like to know how it's impacting us yeah and that you know what happened you know

044whatever I just want to know if it's working for us that's a good analogy of first aid certification that really is it's it's a tool in their toolbox to to help with those situations that sometimes we can keep them from becoming violent you know we don't know what kids are facing and sometimes we don't know we don't expect the response that we get and it's a it's a great way to help to bring the student down and be able to bring them back to class so I'll be very clear um with CPI the chunk of the training some of the some of the certification piece that's that's very important to us is the ability to talk about the proper restraint for students we do keep accurate data on every time a student is restrained or

045needs to be restrained and exactly what the the antecene was and what the outcome was and and how long it happened and what type of hold was used I mean we're we're very articulate in that rich restraint portion of CPI which is why we do this training because we want to make certain that our students are protected that that when this happens and it doesn't happen very often but when it happens it happens in a very safe fashion but as far as the de-escalation there is no data and I'll be candid with you I don't know exactly what that data would look like I understand what you're asking but our teachers they interact with students from the moment they walk into the building to the moment they walk out of the building and they're using

046these de-escalation strategies literally all day long and so it's it's not a this isn't a well I had to work and de-escalate with Julie uh type situation they use these de-escalation strategies as part of their everyday teaching it's it's a best practice and it has been something that we've used for better part of 20 years most I think most part of my entire career um and there is a huge block of national data on CPI that talks about the impact and the effects that's why it is so widely adopted I mean I you'd be hard-pressed to find a school in the state of Michigan that's not using CPI the benefit as Julie spoke was that now we have the ability to have our own trainers and so we can work with every parapro every ta

047every secretary every teacher we can we can broaden our depths of training rather than Simply Having just those key personnel and we certainly have key responders in each building but this allows for a much deeper ability for us to keep our our staff certified and provide them with a much broader range of skills I hope that answered some of your questions it does it does I'm all for de-escalation you know I much rather not see our students in detention and wherever else if our teachers can do you know de-escalation I'm all for it but I also would like to know you know how is it impacting us how is it changing us is it making us better is it working you know it's one thing for us to be training our own teachers you know

048because we got this great program going on yay but how great it is if it's not impacting us for the better if it's not making you know if our students are not if there's not a change in the data and we can't know that if there is or isn't if we're not tracking it so that's all I'm totally for it but is it helping us you know or are we wasting money I don't know thank you very much Julie I appreciate it are there any other questions for Julie awesome next up Jeremy Patterson I'm going to talk about the second year programming I thought you wanted to call me Dr Patterson there for a second but okay I'll get there I'll get there all right uh starting off with Jackson High School uh proud to

049share out and I know this has been shared on JTV uh Jackson high being the leaders and the best 143 students enrolled in the early college program this is the largest uh in the county so they are very proud to present from 9th grade students all the way through 12th grade students earning college credit through jcec a huge celebration continue to see that number climb over the years so that word is getting out uh getting back to Jackson our homecoming event was outstanding they said it was the largest amount of money since we last played Lumen Christie at a home football game so homecoming weekend brought back uh alumni that walked in the parade uh there was a football game of course uh there was an alumni band performance an alumni basketball game which I

050happened to coach in the um the stands were very full and that was something new uh you may have seen the new mascot I don't think he was at homecoming but he's here now and there was a class in 1992 they had their 30th reunion and planned it around homecoming weekend so there was just a great Vibe and a lot of orange and black going on and we won that football game too so great home homecoming activities and we have a senior Natalie Kulka she finished seventh in the state after her appearance at the mhsa golf tournament this past weekend so shout out to Natalie and the golf team at Jackson Pathways another huge celebration we have a Jackson College collaboration with the health occupations program so there are currently 15 students enrolled in this

051program again earning a certificate earning College um college credits through Health occupations and the student account is up you heard throughout the district and especially at uh Jackson Pathways they're at about 110 students and this is kind of our credit recovery program right and they have predominantly Juniors and seniors so we anticipate seeing a lot of these students graduate continuing to grow that number catching these students at Jackson Pathways 110 Juniors and seniors so they're keeping the 9th and 10th graders at Jackson high until they need this catch-up program so uh principal Lewis looks to see an increase in the number of students graduating from his program also he has 51 out of those 110 students have jobs so that's another primary purpose of the co-op program at Pathways is to get students into different

052career Pathways within the community so that's going very well from the high school level at Middle School at Parkside our German exchange program is off to a great start they've been on kind of a pause with the covet years and not traveling out of the country but they had their initial meeting and I believe there are some resources that have been secured to help families travel with the German exchange program as well as others when they come back to traveling like Julie talked a lot about we're really being intentional you know we're always hunting kids down through the count period who came back to school who didn't and will continue those practices so we have hired uh kind of an attendance liaison as well as we partner with Department of Health and Human Services with

053a success coach they call it and they again track that data of monthly attendance they do celebrations for kids who are in school as well as like tier two and tier three interventions for students who are falling behind in their attendance so we can help them to get re-engaged and find out what challenges that they may be having to get to school in regularly we instituted the AVID program at Jackson high last year I believe in Parkside this year these Avid students went on their first visit to Albion College along with the high school students so as many times we can get our middle school or younger age children our college campuses they can be exposed to what potential opportunities are there for them down the road uh tonight there's an orchestra concert at Jackson

054high so we heard a little bit about our Orchestra program and uh the the orchestra teacher is shared between Jackson high and Parkside so she's doing a fantastic job there and also getting into the elementary to recruit kids into her program so they'll be doing some Halloween tours and Elementary buildings with our Middle School and High School string students forestry Learning Center we brought back power Mondays where we try to bring in community leaders to offer words of encouragement for our students we've had John Willis speak to our students nikoya Weatherspoon Mr Anderson myself and continue to make connections with our students with Community leaders as well as their PBIS system has been in place for years and is going well same thing attendance matters prizes and celebrations when students are in school regularly South

055Central Michigan virtual number is also climbing and this is one of our interesting programs where student count is a little bit different because you don't actually see them in the building every day so there are over 400 students and climbing uh again very significant increase since they first started at the Jackson Crossing two things are happening community building with their elementary students monthly Gathering opportunities are created to build that Community amongst the elementary students we know most of us work better in person and many of our families have chosen to Virtual for that reason but we still want to build that sense of community their last trip was to meckley's flavor Fruit Farms and that was a success they're they're growing their capacity again want to not only just have students working virtually but coming

056into the building with our teachers when needed so they are growing their space and their current edition is under construction and they hope to uh finish that pretty soon so these are the updates from our secondary programs take any questions you might have a question you said attendance liaison was hired what school and can you just speak to their role yeah really secondary schools at this point in time the district really but going back to how we capture students at South Central Michigan virtual at Parkside I just have to show up once you see me you count me we're done at Four Street Learning Center it's much more time consuming so being a smaller in person staff that they have we wanted to get them some additional support to help track some of these kids

057down there's only one Mr Parker and one you know Clifton can only knock on so many doors you have to I believe count them for four consecutive weeks to uh to receive the full financial compensation for counting students there so we're starting him there as he's just coming along board and then we have some attendance policies where if we don't see students for so many days the the administrators will forward those names and that will become part of the caseload to get these students re-engaged so you know potentially they don't end up dropping out of school so starting at semv and going to where the priority needs are based on the administrator saying hey these kids are missing these are at sorry just uh on to add to her question these are this person is

058for scmv and 4th Street or no the district but these are our priority areas at this point in time so semv is our highest priority when we do our audit like who's not showing up obviously they're not showing up right so they needed more help and support so he's starting there but he's really a JPS employee just and it's somewhat of a piggyback on on both of their questions Mrs Baker and Mr Patterson both mentioned attendance being an opportunity and I I can certainly appreciate that transparency if just out of curiosity if you had to narrow it down to the most effective approach in your experience what what would it be to get kids to come out of all the various methods that we have uh I mean I would say relationships sometimes you know

059if if you're my favorite teacher in your first hour then I'm going to do whatever I have to do to get to school on time I was in a training in Lansing today and our superintendent told a story about um the kid took the city bus to school because they missed the school bus and they hadn't had anything to eat and they just made it a priority because they wanted to but sometimes there's either a teacher or that meal was there or you know somebody just reached out and called and said what can we do to help you so making it a priority I'd say at Parkside the past few years we wanted to celebrate attendance not just perfect attendance but regular celebrations about hey we see you coming to school every day you didn't

060chose to stay home or you know what have you and sometimes you find out there's some real things going home that impede them from coming to school and you try to assist them however you can thank you questions I have some questions um scmv we are bursting at the same sound like which might be a good thing maybe I don't know um why do we think all of our a lot of our students so many of our students are choosing uh that virtual it's a virtual mostly program correct or no yeah that's a that's a good question I think we've been attractive from students that are not traditionally Jackson Public School students I think they have homeschool population there uh that they have that curriculum I think um you know we've seen we've just seen

061a growth across the state in the country of online resources now that we're a one-to-one district and we've gone through this whole covert process and I saw I can do this at home uh it could work well I don't know like the number wise if students have jobs and there's other things that made it difficult for them to do brick and mortar and this is more on their time for families and students so I don't know exactly but I would say covet definitely showed them what they can and can't do um do we know how many have like children so it sounds like we're getting people who weren't in brick and mortar at all that they're coming in do we know if we're having brick and mortar students go that direction and it's the do

062we contribute at all to the fact that Kobe showed them that they can or is there another reason why they might be going over there I'd say it's all the above you know some students we see try a lot of different things okay because they haven't found what works and I can tell you that uh Mr Parker and his team have put in a lot of different interventions I'll use one intervention for example if I go to Jackson high six classes and I can't do six classes I'm falling behind and I'm failing so they've condensed that to just do one or two classes well with this support with this coach checking in monitor your progress and that seemed to be a good solution whereas it's harder to come to Jackson high and say can I

063just come for two hours you know that's not our traditional process here and they've become more of a non-traditional program in that sense I don't know what skills-based programs we have so yay to the college stuff we got going how many you say we got 143 143. do we know so even with that um our 100 sounds like 143 this is our biggest year I think that's what you just said of We're the largest in the county and I would I don't I haven't seen the numbers from the past year but we're the largest in the county do we track how successful they are in those programs they do and I don't know the rates but I know that we do it'd be nice to know you know how well students once they get into

064it you know if they're finishing it if they're coming back you know it'd be nice to know that um do we have any the same kind of so I don't know what skills-based programs we have here and you might not have this information right now um but it'd be nice to know what skills-based programs we have for our students and how well they're doing you know just just how that program might be going what a better Center maybe nope what do we have here so I know about the Christian and even that you know even Realty career center you know knowing how how they're staying there because I know we had some troubles with with those and some successes with that as well but whatever we might even have here at JPS at Jackson high

065I know that you know the career center is for our you know for us to send them but what we might have on campus as well thank you you're welcome thank you and I just real quick I'll give you the number from last spring and obviously we don't have the the current year number but last spring our jcec students passed their classes at a 91 rate that's better than I'm not kidding any freshman uh cohort in any University across the country I don't care where you're at to say that our students are competing when you look at what freshman Pass rates are on a traditional college campus and you look at what our high school students are when they're participating in these college courses our kids are doing phenomenal and we intend to continue to

066grow this program make no doubt that this is a Dollar Saver for our families if you don't see this I don't know any better way to give you a scholarship than to encourage your child to be part of our Jackson County early college they can transfer 100 of the credits transfer out of this program so up to 60 credits and they can do an associate's degree they can do a certificate program so again I we have a student in Jackson I was getting their EMS certifications so they're going to be able to walk right out of school and get a job you know in emergency services so you know and that's that's our goal with this and I'll just tell you if you're looking at what it costs to go to a traditional four-year University

067all right and and I'll use my daughter as an example she's at Wayne State University it's twenty seven thousand dollars a year if you can take two years of college off of that that's a fifty four thousand dollar scholarship gang I don't know any other better way but that's significant money that they're not borrowing and the parents aren't trying to to help cover so we we fully fund it we provide the device we cover all the textbooks as needed and the college is free up to 60 credits so if if your child's not taking advantage of it we need to have you know again and by the way Jeremy's 100 right we have about 150 kids ballpark uh this typically tends to be a junior senior 13th year program and uh so we're running just

068about 20 of our kids are doing some level of Early College that are eligible I mean we don't see as many freshmen taking college classes they the freshmen might take a an fys course a first-year student course and that might be the only course that they dip their toe into and then they might take a a second class or one or two classes their sophomore year and these would be Communications or English language or or something along those lines we really kind of enter them into the program in a soft shoe kind of way I want them to be successful so that their first experiences with college are successes and they walk across and they go before they tell me they can't do college they've already passed three classes and then we really start to

069Beef It Up in their junior senior and 13th year so I we could talk in and Jeremy will get you some information because I know that Willie's doing some really cool stuff with Henry Ford and we do some some neat stuff with our area manufacturers that being said the numbers last year how we're doing phenomenal 91 pass rate so I I anticipate that will continue to grow and the big chunk of that again I'm speaking to parents kind of out in the community is that while they're here we're still kind of like Mom on site right when freshmen go off to college to the university they don't have anybody there and they experience kind of their freedoms for the first time and so they don't that that's what trips up a lot of college freshmen

070here we get years of kind of cultivating those study habits and supports that that scaffolding to build that success like I said we start them on one or two course diet and they they become successful and then all of a sudden they understand how to pass college courses so that when they end up at the University they're much more successful I made a mistake in my report we lost yeah all my mistakes no no one was going to let you live that one down fake news thank you miss gianetti you want to bring some speed on what we got going on there's a couple things on your plate I believe yeah there's always a couple things on my plate uh first of all um thanks to everyone who has contributed with so much information I'm

071it's always thrilling to hear all that we have going on um for my part I just wanted to talk real quick about the our EOP which is our Emergency Operations procedures you know it's something that we we talk about and do something with weekly daily monthly here our next step is in August uh some of our superintendents we went to um a training with the Jackson area County Sheriff's Department on active shooter training and really had uh performed in in that conversation with them it really became obvious to me that they need to be the ones who are doing the active shooter training here at our schools so we are meeting this week with um actually November um second we are meeting with the Jackson area police department and some of our folks who are

072on our EOP committee to start to schedule those school by school because what we have found is those will be the people who respond to our issues and but know better to be trained and together and to have names and faces together if something should ever happen here it's been really important to us to build those relationships and we've done this you know both with our fire departments and the other police departments but this special training that we plan on planning with our Jackson area Police Department is going to be an integral part of another Community Partnership that we have and I'm real proud that how interesting it is that the perspective of our local law enforcement and fire departments and just everybody so willing to work together to make sure that our schools are

073safe and that we are comfortable with each other and that there are no questions to be had and that we all are on the same page and I do want to give a shout out to our Director of Finance not Finance but uh facilities which is Tad fry because he's taken a real big um interest in this working together with me on a lot of things that we've done to move things forward in the district and and as a facilities person he really knows our facilities and really has made some great Partnerships as well with our community local law enforcement and stuff like that and so there's just not one of us working on this but it is a constant subject for us as we want you to know that um just to talk about

074a couple things that we have coming up one of the most exciting things we have coming up and for me especially because I feel like we've been waiting so long to do this but uh next Wednesday at 4 45 will be the ribbon cutting for The Aquatic Center keep in mind that was scheduled for last year but because of covid crowd rules we were not allowed to have it and didn't feel it to be safe to do so we will be holding it this year at 4 45 on Wednesday outside of the pool area we'll do a ribbon cutting there there'll be about a half an hour of time for some chores and then we will move over to the AL Glick athletic center at 5 30 to do a ribbon cutting indoors there for

075that facility that we are so excited about as well and after that on conclusion of that ribbon cutting we will continue the tours until 8 pm on Wednesday night of the high school facilities so if you are a person who has been dying to see any of these facilities I encourage you to come out and join us us the entire Community is invited to see these two facilities and really get an idea of what the new areas in our high school are looking for like so that is next Wednesday everyone's invited you should have gotten your information please share that information there isn't a single person that we don't want to come so we want you all to see what the work that has been done and what we've been gifted with as well with

076the AL Glick Athletic Center additionally we were working we were trying to do this last year but again I hate to mention covid but we weren't able to have any Gatherings but one of the parts of our cohorts with our new teachers is gathering them together for some events and partly helping them to see what Jackson has to offer you know a lot of us spend most of our day making friends inside of our workplace but there's a whole world outside here in Jackson and a lot of people are moving to this area to be teachers and staff for us and so our first cohort event which we now have over 100 people who have responded will be on November 18th which is the night of the Christmas parade and so we are hosting a

077event for our new teachers both cohorts last year and this year to join us with their families so that they have a place to watch the parade for Christmas and then we're going to do a little hors d'oeuvre party for them while this is not a complete Community event the board is certainly welcome to come and meet all of our new teachers and get to know them but we thought this would be a great this is actually just his idea to get everybody together and really spend some time seeing what their families are like and then introducing them to an activity in Jackson and that's sort of what we plan on doing as much as we can with our partners here in Jackson that there is a lot to do in Jackson and if you

078can't find something to do on the weekend then you're not looking and that's all I have if anybody has any questions for me all right I'm going to be remiss I know that I saw my friend Joel Shaner up here and he is downstairs working the orchestra concert but a week from Thursday the date Michelle 27th is our Halloween concert this one and Pop Goes Eagle my absolute two favorite concerts of the Year gang it would be awesome if we could fill you know our our uh Auditorium this year it will be a special event if you've never been to to one of Joel's uh our our high school's Halloween programs they are second to none and so I would encourage you to do that we have currently 80 students 13 parents in in a

079handful of other chaperones traveling to the Tampa Bay bull formerly the Outback Bowl and they're going to be traveling December 29th through January 4th there are they're performing three times there's a national concert Festival a New Year's Eve parade and halftime show at the um at the Tampa Bay Bowl so if you're looking for what you're going to do please make sure you tune into that one you'll catch our students they have got some tremendous donations this year to help fund that and I think some of those donations are dropping the cost by as much as four hundred dollars per participant so that's huge they are still looking for some additional support So if you can reach out and support the van show up next Thursday at the concert and they will walk you through

080how to do that what a great opportunity though for our kids to be able to get traveling again and to be able to go back down and support this uh that concludes the superintendent's report for the month of October okay thank you lots of great stuff we are on number six the consent agenda so at this time I would entertain a motion for approval of the consent agenda thank you shelinda any deliberation okay all those in favor say aye opposed okay motion carries we are on number seven citizens requesting to address the board um I have a few slips here so I'll just call you up um one by one and you can sit right there and use the microphone we have a nice visual timer here you get five minutes and there's no back

081and forth but we certainly appreciate your input and have your contact information if there's any necessary follow-up so with that the first one is Peter vermouth poor move sorry Peter Bournemouth 142 West Pearl Street I want to speak to the coming election to this body the Board of Education I am not going to tell you who to vote for but I want to say that there's one candidate who's completely unqualified for this office and his name is Derek Dobies on November 6 2010 Derek Dobies left to downtown establishment with the blood alcohol level of 0.13 and T-boned the city of Jackson police car he could have killed one of our law enforcement people um I believe that anyone with a drunk driving charge should not be elected to a board of education this is my

082personal Viewpoint I hope the voters share it on November 29 2018 in a court proceeding before honorable Judge McBain here in Jackson County um which was a motion for summary judgment Derrick Dobies during cross-examination when the judge asked him a direct question after he had taken the oath to be truthful lied he said under oath I've done a diligent search of what I have on my computer and I don't have any text messages with Nikki Jolie that would be a public document a state police foyer revealed that there were multiple messages text messages with Nikki Jolie that dealt with public issues and I can list them for you if you would like or if you'd like to talk to me later um I also want to talk about Derek Dobby's judgment in putting Nikki Jolie

083in charge of the ndo when he was mayor Nikki Jolie ended up pleading no contest to a third degree arson charge where in order to simulate a hate crime she actually torched her own apartment and killed her own two dogs and three cats to get Derek Dobby selected as a mayor I also want to talk about Derek Dobby's control over the Democratic party he's on the executive committee of the Jackson County Democratic party and his right-hand man Connor wood is the chairperson they make the choices of who runs for office including the strange decision to run Maurice imhoff a 20 year old for our state legislature when this young man had threatened to shoot up his Northwestern High School Middle School and I had apparently also engaged in some things where he was showing confidential

084photographs of fellow classmates um I think this was an atrocious decision to run this young man knowing that background as they did and I think it embarrassed Governor Whitmer I think it embarrassed Dan and nessel our attorney general who had given endorsements to this person and it just shows a complete lack of judgment and a complete lack of vetting candidates from the Dobies Connor wood element we also got Connor Wood's wife Kelsey heck to run as a state senator now fortunately there was another person running Sue shank who is a very qualified person but she's from Ann Arbor it would have been nice to have a candidate from Jackson um finally I want to talk about Derek Dobby's position on the separation of church and state which is becoming a rather large issue for Boards

085of Education because of things like library books or including prayers when I was trying to stop the county of Jackson from offering a public prayer before meetings meaning the elected officials themselves not a guest Minister but the elected officials themselves a total violation of Separation the church and state Derek Dobby supported the practice Derek Dobies for all you Democratic voters out there is just like the Republicans he wants to put religion into our government and into our schools so I ask all the Democratic voters out there please in this upcoming election take those blue Dobies signs out of your front lawn and vote for someone who is qualified to serve on the board of education because Derrick Dobies is a drunk driver a perjurer and his demonstrated repeatedly poor judgment and selecting people to run

086for public office thank you thank you uh mcgrawless good evening my name is Sue McCreless I am a graduate of and a taxpayer in the JPS district and a grandmother concerned with the indoctrination of children I come to you this evening with just two points of information the first one concerns spoiled ballots if you have already voted absentee and change your mind about anything on the ballot you can go to your city or Township Clerk and ask to spoil your ballot at this point the ballot should still be identifiable as to the voter who cast the ballot the clerk will find the ballot spoil it and issue a new ballot to the voter the voter can fill in the ballot again and return it to the clerk my second Point concerns indoctrination versus parental rights

087proposal 3 is far more radical than abortion without restriction or regulation up to the point of birth the proposed amendment seeks to give the government more control over a child's decisions than the parent when it comes to abortion sterilization and or transitioning between genders what happens when parental notification by teachers or counselors or staff and consent laws disappear from the books those wishing to learn more about the pitfalls and dangers of the state raising the child instead of the parent should use the internet to research the Lieb and spawn or font of Life movement in Germany from 1935 to 1945. to raise Germany's birth rate depleted by World War one and to further their hopes of increasing pure arianism among German peoples the Nazi regime convinced unwed mothers to purposely get pregnant often with officers

088of the SS and then give up their children to the state to the Lisbon Bond schools this happened when they were still infants once in a state-run institution the children would be indoctrinated in the ways of national socialism from the earliest age and then given to the families of elite numbers members of the Third Reich to raise eventually children were kidnapped by the thousands against their parents wishes to be raised in these schools of indoctrination they were taken from Scandinavia from Poland from France by the end of World War II there were thousands of parentless children across Germany who did not know their real families the state have robbed them of their identity is that an extreme example yes but proposal three is just that extreme that's the whole point you can't look the other

089way sit this one out or worse yet vote for it because you think somehow someway some good can come from Evil thank you thank you next up Mary Crocker foreign Crocker I'm a resident of the city of Jackson and I am here to express my concern over Mr Dobies as a school board member he supported Mr imhoff knowing full well that he had been charged with terroristic threats against a school in the past and I do not feel that is an appropriate representative for a school board and I would ask that you all reconsider any kind of endorsement of Mr Dobies for the school board thank you next up Rebecca risky I am Rebecca risky I'm a mom of a kitten at the Cascades Elementary School which you've heard good things about which I do

090believe is a really good school and I want to thank you guys tonight for all your work I know being a school board member is a lot of work you guys have a huge district and as somebody who graduated from a public school I understand that there is a lot of moving parts to every single aspect of school and maintaining enrollment and everything else there's there's a lot my husband and myself are here tonight because we want to raise concern about what is happening at Cascades we discovered a week ago well we could go tomorrow that the program he was enrolled in was basically canceled um we were not given a call I've reached out to several of you to let you know and I've heard I've gotten an email back from you Mr Beals

091thank you very much for taking the time um but it's still upsetting and it I just feel the need to tell you guys tonight specifically what's going on we chose Cascades because we heard they had a young five program which was great for our little guy who is only barely five you turn five on September 2nd meaning he wasn't quite ready for kindergarten yet and he like all of us have been dealing with kova for two years we were not notified by anybody in the school that this was even being considered and then we were not even notified by anybody when it happened we found out at his conference that his connect his young five class was now kindergarten class it's astounding that there was no notification or communication out to us when we heard

092back and got a little more information basically what it sounds like to us is an over enrollment of the kindergarten program I I can't believe that we don't know what enrollment Pro numbers really are before the school program starts and and Mr Beals you did let us know that you guys take applications of for enrollment after Labor Day when school started this year August 24th I I am so upset that we don't have any real numbers that lead us to appropriately assign teachers to the classrooms and to have the right number of classrooms another thing that's really upsetting myself and my husband is that we were told that it'll just look like he went to kindergarten for two years which I'm sure is really not that big a deal but that's not what we signed

093up for we did not sign up for two years at kindergarten we signed up for young five program to be followed by kindergarten and had we wanted him to be you know doing we didn't want him to do two years of kindergarten we had we known that this was going to be an issue at the school that advertised this program that you were going to take it away put it on the chopping block without notice we would have found another solution we could have moved him to another of the JPS schools we could have also let him go to the preschool he went to last year which he absolutely adored but we wanted to start him and give him a good foundation at the public school we were hoping to move him to because it

094is in our neighborhood it is our community school we are rooted here this is where we want to send our kids to me the whole step and I don't want to say to me this whole situation was very deceptive to a parent enrolling it Cascades for the young fives it was terminated with no notice I'm asking you tonight to be better to do better fix how you enroll students don't wait and settle your enrollment numbers after school started I don't want any other parents and any other kids to go through this and I'm not saying this is such a hardship that we're going to pull our son out we're not he loves his teacher which is is so important for young kids to have that learning love and going to school is is mostly on

095those teachers and we all know that and his teacher is wonderful and we will not take him away from her we also you know have found him to have these great friendships with these little little other little kids that he's with in class the thing that's most upsetting I think when I look back at this whole situation is that for about four weeks you know He adjusted came home a little crabby and then all of a sudden after we'd settled in he came back home again crabby and telling me he didn't want to go to school and then telling me there was too many kids in this class it was too noisy and I had no idea what he was talking about I thought he was just being crazy I mean he's you know five

096I yeah I figured there was a group event at the school and it was just overwhelming for him but then I find out at his conference that in fact his classes basically doubled overnight with no notice to anybody so all I'm asking is to do better be better find a better way to handle enrollment so that way you don't do this to other kids in the future thank you thank you next up William Hastings okay foreign much needed discussion concerning ethical and unethical actions consequences and basic human decency this will be a discussion about how the powerful can sometimes treat the powerless you could say this is a discussion about social justice what I'm about to say directly concerns the professional reputation of every member of this board and the public reputation of Jackson Public

097Schools this Story begins with a young man who just two weeks ago today was publicly denounced and condemned by the governor of Michigan by the Attorney General of Michigan and the entire house Democratic caucus for offenses he committed when he was 14 years old this was a front page news story throughout Michigan and reported in National Outlets as well that's where this Story begins but it directly connects with candidate Derek Dobies and ends with you the sitting members of the school board Maurice imhoff should be in your thoughts tonight he has just experienced two of the most painful and humility publicly humiliating weeks of his life try to remember some of the lowest times you've personally experienced and please think of him with some grace and mercy in your heart at age 14 Maurice had

098gotten into some serious trouble as most Everyone Knows by now he made threats against his own school and circulated pornographic pictures of a 13 year old girl in order to demean and humiliate her there were other serious offenses as well Maurice however got three big breaks he was sentenced to probation and not jail time his second break was he was not expelled and able to finish High School despite committing multiple serious offenses the third break was the most important one he became involved with a local group called rise above rise above is run by two people whose Faith defines their lives and their mission is not just to keep kids in trouble like Maurice connected with school and stay on track to graduate but to rehabilitate troubled hearts and Broken Spirits rise above is what

099faith in action looks like Maurice worked on himself and by age 18 had earned a fresh start at age 18 however Maurice met someone who embodied an entirely different Spirit than the people rise above Maurice met Derek Dobies Derek was not interested in Maurice as a human being he was interested in him because he checked four boxes Young black male and the one that should give every single person in this room pause the fourth box he checked criminal history so when we talk sometimes here about the many black kids in Jackson who are valedictorians who are doing Advanced academic work early college or maybe their gen ed kids who have always stayed on the path and stayed out of trouble and are a credit to their community and families those kids were invisible to Derek

100they simply did not exist because they didn't check that last box did they so when Derek looked to appoint a young person excuse me as with everything else for Derek Dobies the slot on the human relations commission was a means to an end the end being to groom Maurice for elective office because after all as I said he checked some important boxes and an adult or older person with love concern and compassion in his heart would have told Maurice to get on with his life go to college work use that Fresh Start he was given to build a new life the last thing any responsible person ever would have done would be to push him into politics given what had occurred at Northwest High School terrible judgment but that's exactly what Dobies did he grew

101Maurice then hand-picked him to run as a state rep from Jackson with no opposition in the primary every step of the way he knew that there was a chance that Maurice might be exposed humiliated and broken again but Derek is a political King and Maurice was a political Pawn so he simply did not give a damn keep in mind that Derek Dobies is easily the biggest political power broker in Jackson County he has the power to hand pick his own success had the power to hand pick his own successors as a city councilman mayor as well as the power to pick the candidate for state representative this year finally this year the much older Dobies pushed the pawn forward on the board Maurice with the full backing of Mr Dobies was pushed in electoral politics

102but while imhoff's juvenile record was sealed the lips of the young girl whom he had hurt at Northwest or not Maurice was exposed publicly humiliated and politically destroyed despite all this Maurice's Mentor has been endorsed by every member of this school board save one so when you chose to endorse this individual this issue that I'm larger I'm discussing discussing has become a board issue and a JP issue do I really need J marks at my side with a big white board to sketch out for all of you the intersection of powerful and politically connected white man Derek Dobies with a vulnerable vulnerable black teenage boy barely of age raised by a single mother with few resources the failure of the board Administration to address this glaring example of inequity is deafening thank you Mr thank

103you next up Marilyn actendal good evening Maryland Acton Dowell candidate for JPS School Board so actually I do have training in the non-violence Intervention Program through CPI my former position it works I've used it a lot it's it's a really really good program I'm I'm really glad you're doing that and um one thing that I was going to just mention I'm sitting here listening to everyone's comments I don't know the acronyms so I'm kind of thinking in my brain what's PBIS and then I'm kind of missing kind of what's going on so if you could just say what the acronyms mean I think it would help a lot of people in the audience so I had something written but really Julie Baker addressed so many things I'm just so thrilled all the programs because there's

104Arts there's um I see all the things that you're doing to help raise our proficiency scores that I always address so there's an orchestra program I'm just a I'm just thrilled what you're doing here and I was going to say something too that I was in the Carnegie Library on Friday in the afternoon it was like 4 4 30 and really no one was there and I really think you could maybe take advantage of that and get children library cards it's just an amazing facility and no one really uses it it was you could hear a pin drop I mean you're supposed to anyways but so um so really I just want to continue to bring awareness to the annual education report on the JPS website because that's really going to be the score card

105to see with the all these programs if they're working and it's just right there all the results are there and Julie has been so helpful because I email her on a Sunday and she emails me back thank you I so appreciate it so um yeah I just um just want to really I'm so excited because I see right now through this meeting we're really focusing on Reading Writing and arithmetic and about proficiency scores that really make a difference because in my previous profession as a medical technologist I did have to take a board exam and if I didn't and as actually a profession professional counselor and I wouldn't have gotten a license and I wouldn't have had a job if I hadn't been proficient so I'm just really thankful thank you for everything you're doing

106I know it's a thankless job it's a lot of work but I want to be on board with you so thank you okay thank you uh next up Fred Trexler my name is Fred Trexler I'm a retired physics Professor from Spring Arbor University and Houghton University in Western New York State I want to thank you school board members for all the hard work that you do I know you have to a lot of you have to make a lot of hard decisions last month I talked to you about the problems of trying to implement some of the stuff that the New York for the I'm sorry the Michigan School Board is trying to push down on you in terms of trying to keep parents in the dark about any uh trans students and things like

107that um please for hold the highest standards of morality and ethics for Jackson Public Schools I urge you to do that and um I was going to say something about Derek Dobby's being inappropriate for school board and so many other people have stated that much better and so I'm just going to say I support Maryland Acton Dowell for a school board member I think she'd be a much better person so again thank you for the good work you're doing thank you and that concludes number seven so we are on to number eight discussion items 22-23-36 out of state conference request all right so um this is before us because our board policy requires that uh anytime we have a this is bylaw by the way zero one four four point one uh zero one seven

108five point one and conjunction with the Michigan law 381 1254. uh board member requested to attend the National School Board Association conference which is being held in Orlando Florida and uh I'll make sure I get this correct so the board of a school district or Media School District the board of directors of Public School Academy or an authority board an educational achievement Authority shall not approve payment or of an expense incurred by a board member under this section unless the board member of the following conditions are met the board by a majority vote of its members at an open meeting approves reimbursement of the specific expense before the expenses occurred and the expense is consistent with policy adopted by the board by a majority of vote of its members to that end Miss Hamilton I'll

109turn this over to you since you were the requesting board member thank you so we also have another policy in our policy stash that allows us to go to state conferences without having to have prior approval by the board the request that I'm having or requesting and making is that we just follow that policy at the state level as well we choose to our superintendent has been choosing to say no to and you have your reason why you did mention you know um because you know you can let them know your reason but um we do have a policy when it comes to conferences that um we can go to all conferences State local and National but our practice has been to only send us to State and local conferences I would like us to

110change our practice so that when Nationals come up this is in the conversation that we have to have at the table that will do the same thing we've been doing for State conferences and that is if anyone wants to go as a board member we just go like we've been doing but essentially you know there are conversations that are had at the national level that are not had at the state level I'd like to be in those conversations we are preparing our students for a National Market a global market hopefully without being in those conversations we can't prepare them we don't know what's being what conversations are being had we don't know what uh new innovative ideas are being discussed if we're not in those spaces so essentially like I said this is not a

111request simply just for this conference but just in general if if and when we choose to as board members want to get our professional development at the national level that we I don't want us to have to have this conversation at this table we should just be able to go because again the conversations that I had at the national level you're not having at the state and local level thank you um I wanted to make just a couple comments right now maybe some more later but the Atlanta Orlando conference is offered online as well as in person education protocols and laws are by State each state focuses on the needs identified for their specific area for example the educational system in Florida is completely different than what is in Maine and to put the time

112and money and effort into going to National Conference just because I think it's just being a little bit loosey-goosey with our funding and I also think that unless we have attended several local and state conferences prior to this that it wouldn't be necessary to go and discuss other people's States now there's a lot to be said for networking and Michigan has a lot of conferences for principal superintendents um Financial people but that's because not only do we have an excellent school system in Michigan but we have completely different needs completely different goals we have completely different areas of deficit so I guess I just think that going to a National Conference without going to what we have to offer already at the local and state level is really unnecessary at this point that's my thought

113I'll answer those Pam because it's because this is my request and I think it's important you know that I'm able to answer those um so I might be the um most conferenced board member in my time so in the time that I've been on the board the conferences that have been offered Statewide and locally I've been at so that's just one thing to to kind of address that point the other thing online versus in-person attendance the way that we pushed for our students to get back in person from covet because of the benefits of being in person I think speaks for why in-person conference attending is much better than online the last thing that you mentioned national conferences um so the the National Conference for 2022 which is this year was in California next year

114is in Orlando the conferences there that when they're based in a certain state the conversations and information are not based on that state national conferences bring individuals from all over the nation to a location and all of those different people the conversations that are had there again are coming from all those different locations they're not based on State on Orlando state or Florida State law or California state law or you know so um that kind of addresses just that point I just want to kind of address those three since again I'm requesting that we change this all together okay let me go ahead I'd like to state that um based on my prior experience as a teacher and looking at local conferences and state conferences and national conferences I felt that I got the most

115from national conferences because you had all these different um opinions and all different texts and and new things that you could look at programs you could bring back to your um teaching community and that's you know I can't relate to masb and and doing it there but I know looking at national conferences versus local conferences what can be you know what can be gained from going to a National Conference I think national conferences also bring National issues issues that are common towards every state in in the union so um also networking you know you're able to do that when I've attended a virtual conference as far as a state conference and it was really limited I didn't feel that I got the total experience by attending the conference virtually and I think if I had

116been there because the main thing that you gain is talking to other people getting ideas of what they've done what's worked what hasn't worked and it's an opportunity to get a lot of information in a short period of time rather than you know having to go through in-services that may take years to get that same information so I'd like to support Keisha on being able to attend the National Conference or anybody else who wants to attend the National Conference it doesn't I think that everybody that wants to should be able to attend it because I think it's invaluable thank you um I would just like to say I definitely do not think we should be spending the district's money for any board member to go out of state um I think if we were considering

117sending anyone it should be teachers and administrators who are on the front line in these buildings working with students that could bring back things so I am definitely against this so I'm aware that the National School Board Association is now allowing local board members to attend their conference which I don't think always happened in the past but that doesn't mean that we're obligated to send someone local boards are responsible to local and state legislation and we have state boards and state committees who are responsible to National legislation um so we have the Michigan Board of Education the board of the Michigan Association of school boards and I think unless one of us serves at a state level I don't think the district should be paying for us to go to a National Conference um I've

118been on this board for 10 years I am level three certified with the Michigan Association of school boards and there is still a multitude of educational opportunities available to me in Michigan I would not approve myself to go to a national conference on the district's dollar in the policy that was stated 144.1 does say that attendance at board approved conferences should be at the location closest to the district this conference that is being held in Orlando there is no schedule of events we have no listing of what educational opportunities are even going to be offered so I can't figure out how it's even attractive when you don't even know what's on the agenda and if we ever were to consider sending board members to national conferences I think that there should be criteria for being

119able to go which includes certification at the state level and coincidentally we had a policy committee meeting last week with our representative from Neola and totally unsolicited he warned us about vacations disguised as conferences in this particular conference is in Orlando on a spring break weekend I'm pretty sure that if Mr Beale went to a conference over spring break on our dollar that he would be more than criticized for that I want to answer a couple of those again because this is my request um so this idea that um you know conversations at the state level and local level are um you know sufficient for learning is is is kind of sad um we as a school board ourselves should really want to be in bigger conversations versus kind of swimming in the same pool

120um because again then we're bringing the same ideas back and if we are intentional about data and kind of looking at you know these ideas that we're bringing here how they are impacting us especially if we've been here for for five ten years or more and we're not seeing any significant changes in the areas that need change um then I think we should question ourselves why aren't we is it because possibly we are still listening to the same ideas and haven't heard anything more the other thing the idea that a National Conference that has been National for a lot longer than you know two or three years because we're talking about a National Association of school board conferences um the idea that because they have just opened their books and their you know uh just

121kind of put the information out here that this is the date and we don't have um you know our agenda aligned and set up already that that means that someone's trying to take advantage of I don't even know what you know I won't even try to uh figure you know figure out what you said with that but the idea that simply because they don't have their agenda established already means that someone's trying to I think Lucy goosey is what I heard at one time hear the table um or just to take advantage of a you know a trip now and I know that sometimes we're oftentimes we are speaking from our own experience um so for me and my mind when I go to conferences I go to conferences I don't do you know so

122I wouldn't assume that any of us who are attending a conference are going there for a uh trip because in my mind and when I go to conferences I don't do that so I know that we when we speak from our own experiences sometimes you know we kind of put that on other people um unintentioned or unfortunately but um the trip the like I said the National Conference this year was in California it was not in Florida now it's in Florida and next year is going to probably be someplace else again conversation at the national level we should as a school board want to have those conversations so that we can bring that information back so that we can make sure that we are preparing our students for a national you know reality a national

123uh so they can compete you know versus just State and locally but again you know I just wanted to answer those because you know the idea that someone would go simply for a a vacation it's a bit offensive you know and again I know that we're oftentimes going from our own personal experiences uh but that's not mines so just to clarify my issue with the agenda and the educational content not being available to us is that we have no way to know if these offerings are available closer to home that was my point in that that does make sense and we would know more um when it's time for them to release it you know um we wouldn't know at that time but this is not this is not a request based on what's available

124again you know I think we've all been to conferences enough where we know that the that bigger learning comes in those conversations that we're having and then those keynote conversations it's not in the classes that are taking place because we can get those oftentimes you know at home it's in those conversations that you have with individuals or connections that you're making um and then again like the Keynotes and Etc but just in that relationship building a lot of that you can't get that you know at the state level you just can't because it's not you know it's just it's just not National the last point that I'm going to make on this is that the the job of a school board is to hire and evaluate the superintendent set policy and oversee Financial finances it

125is not to bring back ideas for Student Success for curriculum changes things like that if you go to a National Conference would really be more Mr beale's thing because he is the head of the district um I really believe that a school board member getting that involved and let's bring back things to work and and things like that is really out of our purview and we shouldn't even consider it and that's that's directly in comp in conflict with our policies that suggest and and and inform us as school board members that when we go to conferences wherever they are that we bring back the information that we've learned we it's it's in our policy so that's directly in contradiction to it so that's really not the the only uh job of a school board member

126there's much more than what was just listed and it's actually incompetent in in conflict and a lie based on what our policy says okay uh we are moving on number nine action items 22-23-37 is Sharp Park playground and Marcus all right so sharp Park is the final playground that we have not updated yet we have a plan layout after walking through with the building principal and reached out and received a quote in the amount of 238 thousand thirty dollars and three cents from game time this will be funded from next year's budget 23 24 just with supply chain lead times and by the time it's installed we'll most likely be after July 1st which would be under next year's budget so at this time we would recommend the board approve the quote from game time

127in that amount listed above we did bring this to the finance facility committee last month as well to discuss okay thank you at this time I would entertain a motion for approval of the quote from game time in the amount of 238 thousand thirty dollars and three cents as presented thank you Libby thank you Cheryl any deliberation hearing none all those in favor say aye opposed okay motion carries next line item is 22-23-38 scmv Furniture Marcus so again we've heard about the expansion of our scrv program over at the mall we've hired additional staff and secured some temporary space for them as we look for a larger permanent space there so we are in need of furniture to accommodate the new staff and service the needs of our students we reached out to Kentwood Office

128Furniture who's provided Furniture throughout the district through our bond projects and we received a quote from them and also discussed that the furniture we're looking to purchase for this space would also work and be able to be moved to our new permanent space once we secure that so this time we would recommend the approval of the quote from Kentwood in the amount of 29 208.77 okay thank you Marcus at this time I would entertain a motion for approval of the quote from Kentwood Office Furniture in the amount of 29 208.77 as presented so support thank you Shalonda thank you Aaron any deliberation hearing none all those in favor say aye opposed okay motion carries we are on number 10 uh sport comments so this time I would open it up to any board comments um

129I have uh two actually the first one is regarding the kids that were here tonight I love it that we're through the covet thing enough to bring our our students in from different schools I loved when we did that before and it's fun to see six of my kids have gone through Jackson Public so I I know that it's out there I know things that are out there um but I really enjoy the fact that we're able to see all the different schools and they are so different and they focus on different things even locally than one another might okay my second comment has to do with um the very interesting negative discussion about one of our board candidates and I have two things I want to say about that number one why do we

130allow public comment to slam citizens during our meeting we get terrorized by people sometimes but I'm not comfortable allowing public comment to one another that's that's not okay the second thing Derek's impact on Jackson has literally turned our city around I'm fifth generation Jackson I know what it was like 200 years ago when my grandparents were we'll still talk about what's would still talk about it um as a leader he has been exemplary and we're all reaping the benefit I have made no secret of my strong support for Derek if elected I expect this level of commitment to extend the Jackson Public School Board and going back 12 years and trying to pull something out that's totally unrelated to what we're talking about and doing an open Forum that's a public board meeting has nothing

131to do with that type of thing um I didn't appreciate it I don't like it and I do very much support Derek Dobies personally not as a school board member that's it Oh by my cuff um the one thing that impressed me the most tonight Julie was your report I I really appreciate it and to me it was most evident that the data that you're collecting is then being used to create programs to solve the problems and I I really appreciate that I just want to say that thank you I'll just say that you know you can't emphasize enough of of student growth as far as as far as our head count I remember sitting here almost six years ago and we were in the early stages of planning for the bond and it was

132literally just a brainstorm session of of some of the ideas that we threw out at that time that were just seeds you know the the pool for example was just literally a thought you know all of the buildings and the things that we've done and this is just from a facility standpoint I understand there's much more that goes with student growth and and getting that head count but what came with that was facilities uh was was really this this thought that we would eventually get to this place where people would be attracted to come to Jackson Public Schools parents would be attracted to come to Jackson Public Schools and what came with the facilities was some of the staff that we've brought on some of the teachers that we've hired some of the leaders that

133are in our buildings and to see after this year's student count you know that number that we you know we took it on the chin for numerous numerous years and and dealt with all of those blows but we are certainly in the right direction um and I'm I'm super duper proud of that to start to see some of the fruits of our labor we're certainly not perfect and we certainly have a long ways to go but if you have two eyes you certainly should be able to see the progress that has been made and and ultimately that's what I signed up for on to be on this board was to for generations of Jackson Public Schools to to improve and and Propel so I know we're in I won't even entertain some of the comments

134tonight we're in that we're in that season but that's all I'll say so I just had a couple comments um I would like to see um more data just in general um when we bring our reports um you know so we got good stuff going on yay that's good you know we want it to be happening but we would like to know how it's impacting our students and we should since we have that data it should be easy to be pulled and just say this is what it was before this is what it is now whether it's good or bad you know this is how we're addressing the bad or this is you know we're going to continue on because it's good I think it'd be really I like data so I would like to

135see more data the other thing that I'm gonna say um is that I do apologize to our citizens in the audience on behalf of the board for um you are basically having comments from board members that kind of censored would like to censor what you're saying the idea around public comment time is to give you an opportunity to say whatever it is that you want to say to this board there are issues that are occurring in our city and state nation that are impacting our students and you know this time is provided for you to be able to just come and let us know what you're thinking we don't have to agree with you we don't have we can agree with you but the idea is that you can come and just have that time

136I apologize though because sometimes when someone says something that as was just said it might make you feel like you shouldn't come and say whatever it is you want to say it's really important for me that I hear whatever you're saying whether I agree with it or not so please don't let that be a reason to not come and still speak you can speak you can say whatever it is you want to say in those five minutes based on our little guidelines we have um and it is like I said it's just important to me that you not feel like you have to come and say what I want to hear in order to sit at that at that seat so like I said I do apologize for that Pam does not speak for this

137entire board neither do I even though I am still apologizing on behalf of the board for that statement Libby I'd like to thank both Julie and Jeremy for the reports that they gave I I'm always anxious to hear what's going on in the buildings and you have so many things that I couldn't even you know if you asked me to name five I would be hard-pressed because there's so much good going on so keep up the good work guys I'm looking forward to the ribbon cutting and I hope that everyone comes and I am never at a loss when people ask me why I love GPS um so thank you for your reports there's so many great things going on in every building across the district so it's great to hear and homecoming too I

138will say was great too with the parade and the game and see I'm not a sports person I didn't even know that we did we didn't win so I was going right along with it Jeremy so um all right with that we are on number 11 there's no new business number 12 is the calendar just some reminders October 26th like we talked about is the ribbon cutting um November 8 is election day so remember to get out and vote and then November 15th will be our regular board meeting um back here at the high school at 5 45. number 13 is a tournament so this time I would entertain a motion for adjournment Thank you Pam thank you slender any deliberation all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries thank you and have

139a great night