JPS Board Meeting - 06/21/22

001it's 5 45 so we will begin with the agenda for our public hearing on the 2022-23 proposed budget so i will turn it over to marcus good evening everybody everyone can hear me okay so we are here for our public hearing for the 2022-23 proposed budget for next school year i'm going to go through the presentation that we have paper copies and is linked in the agenda and to start off we will discuss the millage rates that we certified last month at our board meeting so our for our operating millage we are levying the maximum allowed 18 mils on non-homestead and commercial property our recreation millage 0.4975 mills and then our debt millage does not change we're still having the 6.2 mills that the voters have approved we just reallocated a little bit differently each

002year between the three debt issues depending on our debt schedule for that current year some of the revenue assumptions that we made in creating this budget was a budgeted pupil count of approximately 4 440 students which is about 140 ft students than we have currently this year again we won't have student enrollment information until later in the fall october november time frame our foundation allowance we've included in this budget of a 200 per fte increase from 8 700 to 8 900 per pupil again we do not have a state budget at this time so these are our guesses and assumptions that we're using to come up with this budget and we will amend those at different times throughout the year as we get final numbers in in the fall in the spring we take second

003and third looks at our budget and make amendments as necessary we also did not change the current retirement rate again due to not having the state budget so we planned that flat currently at 43.28 the next two pages give a little bit of historical data on the foundation allowance and student count over the last seven to ten years and just to give an idea of how we kind of come up with some of those assumptions so again that 200 increase in foundation allowance for fte if we go back pre-covid for the seven years prior we are averaging about 155 dollar increase so we're kind of keeping in line with that average as we plan our budget and of course we'll amend it as we get final numbers in the fall so you kind of get

004a little bit of that historical data on the next page on the student account you can see the 4440 that we're estimating at this time and how that compares with previous years you'll notice the year 2020 21 has an asterisk by it if anybody remembers during that year the first full year after the pandemic the state came up with a super blend or a special calculation to count f to e to help districts out through the pandemic which is a little different than we typically use to count students so that number that 4810 comes with an asterisk i did a little bit of research into what our numbers would have looked like if it was calculated based on um all the other years that we typically you know using the similar calculation we would have

005been about 4 600 give or take students um in 2021 if we did not have that super blend which is the way it was designed was to help districts through the pandemic and knowing that um there was students you know that the state was losing a lot more students through covet obviously michigan has been in declining enrollment for over the last decade i think figures put out by the state have it where they estimated the state has lost over 50 000 students since the start of the pandemic so which typically prior to covid the state was averaging probably about 10 to 12 student loss per year on average so that was you can see that big jump due to due to the pandemic and as you can see if we had used the regular calculation

006we would have been at 46 20 during that 2020 year this year our ft was about 45-80 so we would have been about 40 students lower than the year before in typical calculated year so pretty much in line again those are estimated numbers we'll have our final enrollment in the fall we typically budget anywhere between 140 and 160 students down just to be on the conservative side and as you can see the hard numbers that we put in throughout the years we've been averaging about a 60 to 70 ish the last few years student decline so it's kind of a worst case scenario at this point as our best guess on the expenditure side some assumptions that were used in creating this budget was an increase in the heart health insurance hard cap meaning the

007amount that the districts are allowed to cover health insurance for employees by 1.3 percent again we don't know what our health insurance rates for 2023 will be yet so we'll get those again later in the fall which will be reflected in future amendments utility rates flat increase along with that retirement rate because that's part of the state budget piece that we just don't have yet and other staff additions and other adjustments as we fill retirements and things like that so after we've used all those assumptions and and gone through all of our historical trends we're at this time proposing total general fund revenues in the amount of just over 69 million dollars and expenses just over 63 million dollars which at this point in time today would give us an increase of approximately 5.8 million

008dollars to fund balance our current projected fund balance that we're looking to end this year with is about 11.6 million dollars so we would be estimating that the end of next year and i see my data is wrong it should say 6 30 23 of 17.4 million dollar fund balance or 27.6 percent of of general fund expenditures which i included this slide last year as well the fund balance and how it's gone over the years as you can see since the pandemic our fund balances has risen dramatically with all of the funding that we've received and other things the district has done and then i've also given those kind of baseline numbers of where we would be at with a five percent fund balance and a fifteen percent fund balance um i use that five

009percent fund balance because that's the threshold that the state uses if you fall below that um it's a sign of an early warning sign for financial distress that 15 percent number is where a lot of districts like to be as a comfort comfort number for a fund balance percentage um and you can see this year and next year we plan to be above that 15 mark in creating the budget it's not just the general fund we do have other non-major revenue funds non-major funds that we service as well including food service school activity funds our debt service and our capital projects funds which include the 2018 bond building in sight the state improvement fund and all of those go into all of the proposed budgets that you're going to see tonight and i did want

010to go over some more detailed information in the next handout which is our original budget summary again the first first page you'll see there which kind of summarizes all of the different funds our general operating fund is two special revenues our debt service and capital project funds have their own columns and again you'll see that we kind of break down all the revenues by category whether they're property taxes federal money state money and our expenditures by what they are instruction or not or otherwise and then you'll see at the bottom again that 5.8 million dollar projected increase in fund balance one other item to note under the food service fund you'll see we plan on spending about a million dollars more than we plan to take in next year and again we've talked about this

011all year we have an excess fund balance in food service and the requirement by the mde is that once you reach a certain point you're required to spend down a certain amount and we've had a plan throughout the year to spend this and this this is just showing spending that excess fund balance down which will still leave us with a fairly healthy fund balance in the school fund at the end of next year on the next page this is a graph that will show where how how our district is funded and as you can see the majority of our budget are about approximately 60 comes from the state in that monthly state aid that we receive so we are very dependent on that state budget that comes out and again that's why all the assumptions

012at this time just because there is no sign state budget at this time to go off of this just kind of give you an idea you know most of our budget comes from the state and taxes accounts for about 75 percent of our annual budget i would uh skip ahead to page four next just to kind of show how some of the expenditures are broken off um and so under the 2223 proposed budget you know the biggest category of expenses are instruction and instructional support which make up about 60 76 of our proposed budget which makes sense because that is our business is instructing students and supporting them so we're showing that we're spending our dollars in the right right buckets which if you look compared to our amended budget for this year comes out

013to about 72 percent so we're looking to put even more money into the instructional portion of our budget next year which is what you want to see the next slide just breaks out those expenditures a little bit further by what type of expenditures they are whether their salaries and benefits purchase services supplies and other expenses and again salary benefits or people are the biggest part of our budget and the reason that we're here they make up a little over 75 of our expenditures and salary and benefits this year currently it's about 73 so it's in line kind of with that you have uh cost of living increases and things like that for the uh the difference in percentage there and then behind that graph just breaks out how that graph is made up by by

014what function it is whether it's elementary or secondary or special ed and that's just all the backup that goes into creating the graph on the slides before skipping ahead to page 8 we'll come to the proposed budgets for all of the other funds so you'll see the food service fund first on page eight so again you'll have our actual numbers when we wound up in 2021 our final amended projected numbers for this year and then our proposed budget for next year for that food service fund again you'll see going back to that spending down the fund balance the little over a million dollars that we'll spend in fund balance this next year per plan that we've been working on throughout the year and then the same for the other funds as well we have our

015student activity or internal account funds that students are fundraised for and use those for whatever appropriate events those fundraisers are for the debt service fund again these would be debt taxes that are collected to help pay off the bonds that we've issued over the years as you can see we have a positive or healthy fund balance in that as well and that goes 100 towards paying down the long-term debt of the district and then the capital projects fund balance which you'll see is shrinking down to almost nothing about 660 000 at the end of next year which makes sense because by the end of next year we'll be done with 98 of the bond projects and the stadium project will be done as well which is what comprises that capital projects fund so that would

016make sense that we will be almost depleted at that time and those are the two handouts that i have on the budget at this time i would open it up for any input or questions on assumptions or anything that you've seen tonight yeah if you have a question this is this is the time for questioning so sure mr hastings can i have you come up and use a mic and i i know it's a little out of formal but that way the people online can hear us otherwise i'm worried they wouldn't hear you [Music] um what my question was as i was saying um just going through the materials uh provided by mr leone and they're actually some some it's very you know there's a lot to go through but the one that really caught

017my eye is um the graph depicting the decline in the student count it's gone down approximately 25 since 2012 2013 now we all know the city of jackson is not growing in terms of population it's basically flat or stagnant i'm just wondering where where are these kids going if they're de-enrolling from jps i'm just curious what your thoughts are so our student our student count goes down about a 140 kids a year plus or minus we do see schools of choice the largest schools of choice takers from us are vandercook lake northwest and western they each account for about 600 kids each and that hasn't changed much in the last six years so those same numbers kind of have been the same every year and no one else is really changing their demo their their

018count so if i look at the county our county numbers are down uh enrollment wise and about half of the districts in the county are losing and half the kids are are half the districts are are growing two major reasons for that again um you know agreeing a greying society you know we are older i'm i use myself as an example i have five kids that went through the district and i'm not having any more you know so i'm not sure where that looks at but that's a piece of it but that doesn't that doesn't preclude the the pieces that we we do to try to offset those those enrollment declines but without a doubt we've seen that and then as marcus said we you know we estimate that the state loses is a is

019a graying state as well we lose about 10 000 students per year um as a state and then when you saw covet hit that that year it dropped by 50 000 and some of that has to do with the the census population of michigan and what that looks like i mean if we we kind of take a look at um the the aging population or michigan as an exodus state versus a growing state that would be that would be a challenge right so um and real quick follow-up since obviously uh student funding follows student enrollment i mean this is a very unusual time because okay you have your millage money and this sr3 you know gigantic money drops from the federal government are you concerned that as we move through the decade that it's going

020to be hard for you to support all the things you want to do with jps with the drop in enrollment so i'm going to say this prior to esser okay we have every year had to right-size our budget and live within our budget so if we go back we had uh one year 20 15 2015-16 i'd have to open it up again where we dipped below the five percent threshold um and then we bounced back up and have been able to stay above that five percent threshold but without a doubt this district prior to well since you can see the trend it's it's always been kind of in that four to five percent range so this is without a doubt unprecedented which is why so much of the esser dollars are flowing into fund balance

021too because that's one-time money so we know we won't get that money again tomorrow i won't get that money again next year so that's that's the reason is is we know it's going to rain so we we're saving the money for that rainy day okay thank you anybody else all right then okay we will close um this public hearing for the proposed budget um the next item on the agenda is the sr3 stakeholder hearing so we will go into that marcus thank you again uh thanks for everybody coming out for the stakeholder meeting for sr3 so again i've got a few handouts here a small presentation i'll go through some of these sheets here and then kind of explain our budget development process and again open it up for community public input as we move

022through the grant process with this so just to give everybody a little bit of history on the esser grants and we call them esr grants in the schools but sr3 which is also known as the american rescue plan was signed into law march 11 2021. it was almost 2 trillion an economic stimulus package of which 122 billion dollars of that was slated for education across the country jps's allocation out of that 122 billion was just over a little a little bit over 22 million dollars this is the third round of esser funding as you know we've had a couple of uh rounds of stimulus funding before this esther one and sr2 over the last few years um and you can see they're kind of rolling out a a year by year behind each other so

023the first round of of esser funding uh the expenditure period actually ends this month next summer the second round investor funding expenditure period will end and then sr3 runs currently through june 30th 2024 so we have a couple of years to help spend these funds one requirement that's unique to sr3 is that 20 of the funds allocated are required to go towards addressing learning loss brought on through the covet 19 pandemic and we'll go over that as i explain the budget development and what we've we've put in there so far to this point for learning loss some of the allowable uses of sr3 funds on the next page which are some of the same allowable uses that we've seen through the first few rounds of esser purchasing cleaning supplies and ppe educational technology which we've

024done a lot of those two categories with the first few rounds of esser increasing mental health supports adding instructional support for intervention or special education facility upgrades indoor air quality things like that repairing and improving facilities to reduce virus transmission addressing learning loss and continuing to employ and or hire new staff so how do we get to decide how we're going to spend the sun so you know we uh the district and all districts want to involve the communities especially with this large of an allocation of stimulus funding what jps did is we've sent out earlier in the fall back in november we sent out paper emails we sent out over six thousand paper surveys to the committee i think the district spent a little over seven thousand dollars sending those out we did put

025out mass communications through our email facebook phone robocalls and the the jps app we did these weekly starting in mid-november and ran that right right through up until almost through christmas break through mid-december we reached about 9 600 people each time we put out their mass communications digitally so that was done earlier in the fall jps submitted the initial application to accept the accept the sr3 funds in december which was the first step then we went back to the table and came up with a plan of use narrative or how we how we initially plan to use the funds or spend the funds and this is just the original submission we are able to amend this application definitely as we move along throughout the process and learn things and and stuff happens we've had budget

026initial budget development in in june this month along with our stakeholder meeting tonight right now our plan is after tonight hearing any public feedback tonight over the next few days or a week we'll be planning on submitting the grant to mde for approval within the next week or so after we collect any feedback and incorporate that into our final budget submission initially and again we're able to go back and amend this as needed as well and then hopefully our goal is to hopefully get that grant approval grant funding approval prior to the start of the school year and then we're not done after we receive our grant award notification we'll be back every six months to update the community with how how the grant is going anything that we need to amend any more input

027that comes up along the way that we might want to include until the grant is fully spent and we do plan on taking the next two school years through june of 24 to spend these funds moving on to the next page we received over almost 600 responses to all of our surveys both paper and digitally almost 500 of them came from parents and community members the rest being students staff would make up the rest of that number and more than half of the responses came from underserved populations such as special education students students identify as homeless english ell students free and reduced eligible families so that's great to see a good mix of everybody in the community responding to the surveys some of the top-ranked allowable use categories that people mention surveys that they would

028like to see jps use the funds for include delivering interventions and addressing learning loss providing sel opportunities such as council additional counseling mental health wellness opportunities and retaining staff and or hiring new staff to either maintain and or try to lower class sizes again to address learning loss and help prevent the spread of cover 19 through less kids in the class and then the last page i've just included contact email information for both myself julie and jeremy patterson so if anybody has any questions in the next week or so or anytime feel free to reach out to us with questions on esser3 and we'll be glad to get back to you so then the next piece that i would like to share with everyone is our initial budget plan and i know this might look

029a little weird or complex if you haven't looked at one of these before so i'll go over some of the major categories of what we've initially put into our our budget for submission again i mentioned that 20 requirement to address learning loss so for our allocation of 22 million dollars that comes out to a little almost almost four and a half million dollars that we're required to spend addressing learning loss some of the things that we have decided to initially put into our our budget for submission would be screening tools assessment tools to help identify those that need further interventions or one-on-one help um updating curriculum k through 12 all across the board i think out of the four and a half million dollars we're initially putting about a million and a half dollars into

030updating our curriculum across all grade levels and subjects ela math science social studies and then again looking to bring in additional staff retained staff in the special education world to help address learning loss with some of those underserved populations in the district and that would make up that 20 that four and a half million dollars addressing learning loss we've also included a line item for more pp and sanitation items and equipment as necessary again this is where that amendment process comes in so if we see that we don't need it we will look to other ways and community input and how to spend those funds also providing mental health services another asked for item in the community survey responses we're looking to outfitting sensory rooms in some of our programs and buildings to better meet

031the sel needs of our students to help keep them in school which will hopefully help stabilize increased daily attendance for students dealing with mental health and academic challenges due to the covenanting pandemic and then again the the rest of the funds as mr beal alluded to earlier going to go back into retaining and hiring staff to maintain and or lower class sizes and to go towards that fund balance to help the district continue operation for years to come so again those are the two handouts that i wanted to go over i know we've also included the complete survey results and trends from those community surveys that we sent out earlier in the year along with our initial plan of use narrative that the district came up with so again at this time i would welcome

032any community input or questions or comments on our budget development or the sr3 process so we can take that back and incorporate that into our planning yes would you mind coming up here it's a short question what exactly is a sensory room and what do you do there so when there are times that a student is feeling very upset or dysregulated and they're having trouble controlling emotions and sometimes school can just become a lot for students that um that may be autistic or just are are having big emotions that day a sensory room is a is a nice area for them to go um where there may be activities that they could do to relieve stress but it's also a very calming area for them so that it gives them an opportunity to reset to

033to calm themselves so that they can rejoin the classroom yes yep there would be they would be visiting with someone there isn't somebody that stays in in a sensory room usually um a lot of times there would be a teacher's assistant that would walk with that student or a parapro that would be in that room with them when they went uh so the real quick question that precedes my other question or questions so i'm looking at the 200 000 in supply for sanitation ppe does you're talking about doing additional air filtration does that fall under that or that is that in a different bucket or box so the i think it's a it's a hundred thousand dollars but that would be i guess it depends on the situation right we don't know if there's another

034wave you know that comes through and we have to purchase more mass or sanitizers or cleaning equipment that's kind of what that line item is there for now again we can amend this grant as needed so if covert rates don't go up first you know let's say we could take that out and reallocate those funds elsewhere as we see needed maybe we need more intervention support down the road um maybe the curriculum updates are going to cost a little bit more than we initially estimated so we'll be able to reallocate that as we move through the process and again we'll be bringing those at our six-month updates as we move through this okay and it's always good to have some flexibility and i understand that i would just offer my opinion that it kind of

035at this point when i look at the two hundred thousand dollars for uh pp and sanitation and eighty thousand dollars for um mental health services and supports i think that those numbers almost should be like flipped like that that's where the primary need is now my my opinion is a lot of mental health problems that have come from lockdowns and masking and just general you know i'm sorry they're pretty they're pretty close it's a hundred thousand at 200 i know it's a little confusing to read because it's one line item and then it totals it okay all right fair enough you're fine and just the other thing just just caught my eye is for all the curriculum updates from k through 12 that totals like about two point something like 2.2 million dollars maybe a

036little bit more i mean that's a massive expenditure per student that's like 500 per student and i'm wondering what what it is that warrants that i mean math curriculum it's really con you know competent math teachers know how to teach math it's not a wheel that gets reinvented every 10 years i just i just wonder if you could kind of explicate the need for that i mean that's that's a really big expenditure is on the curriculum yep so and again it's it's it's hard to know what exactly the curriculum will cost until we go through the process which is a very long process we'll we'll get with our curriculum teams look at everything that that we need to do to meet the state standards where our curriculum is now research testing piloting different products i

037know in a previous district and i kind of got some of these numbers um they went through a curriculum update just to replace science curriculum and this was pre pre-covet um and i think the price tag for that was almost a half a million dollars at the time and again we have that flexibility as we see these go up and down that we can make changes as needed so this is again kind of like the proposed budget this is our first best guess at what we'd like to spend the money on okay thank you hi so this is winging it too just based on these figures and information um i realize that you all have received an enormous amount of money for this coveted stuff covered pandemic which is questionable whether it was a pandemic

038or not and why the purpose for it happening but to continue to say oh we need to do this for this pandemic if if there was one it was a long time ago but i realize you have to say that to you in order to use these funds i'm just i'm just boggled and i'm going to speak later but um to use these funds why we've got to come up with a way to use the funds that really help the children increase their academic learning not all this social and i mean i know there are students who have issues that need a break room okay i'm not saying against that but i think it's becoming the norm as opposed to the exceptions and we need to be using these funds for tutors and programs that

039that encourage kids that want to learn and increase their reading ability their math skills their science the desire to be um highly employed in our societies not all this social stuff and i don't know how you can come up with that but i i think you need to come up with ways to use these funds for academic purposes not all this garbage that's being thrown at us so thank you very much i just want to know what the acronym lea is please i'm not familiar with that local education agency thank you is there any more community input or questions on anything related to the sr3 grant all right i'll give it back to angela then okay thank you marcus so at this time i will close the public hearing for the sr3 um here hearing

040so at this time i will call our meaning to order and welcome you all to our june board meeting um it's not on our agenda but what we normally do is the pledge so that's what we're gonna do now pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] mrs oxley we're ready for the roll call um miss hamilton present mrs brown mr white here miss hunt here mrs simonetti here mrs fitzgerald and mrs mitchell here okay we are on approval of the agenda so at this time i would entertain a motion for approval of the agenda i i would like to request that the um hr be pulled from the consent agenda please

041okay that's line item 21-22-140 so so we will move that to the first action item so this time i would entertain a motion for approval of the amended agenda support our motion okay thank you aaron thank you shalonda any deliberation okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries number four we are on the superintendent's report so i will pass it over to mr beale thank you very much um to start with tonight um the michigan association of school boards has awarded ms cheryl simonetti an award of distinction certificate of achievement for a level three award of distinction this is awarded upon completion of the certification levels one and two two excuse me four 200 or 300 level classes and a minimum of 208 educational credits we want to acknowledge ms simonetti

042for her work and service to the board of education and the students of jackson public schools so on behalf of masb and jackson public schools congratulations miss simonetti [Applause] lazy all right miss gian eddie uh your report for the month of june sure so this is a lot of thank yous i uh first wanted to thank all that were involved with the al glick youth football camp it was a huge success and we are grateful for what they do for our community we also had our end of the year picnic which was attended by over 600 staff members and a great time was had by all we had some really good food from our local vendors and they just really knocked it out of the park but what was even more impressive than that was

043the community outreach that we did for donations and we were able to give a little over 5 000 worth of prizes to our staff and it was a blast we got to put together baskets and tiger tickets and fire pits and just a whole bunch of things and it was really really a fun event and one of the things we learned about the end of the year picnic is what our staff wants to do is eat socialize and win so we certainly we certainly did that this year and i'd like to thank the committee that helped me work on that lois downing was a big part of the success of that along with a lot of other people jessica carter michelle oxley and rachel henry who did a lot of the work and i appreciate

044everybody who put their time in to do that it is no easy feat to do those events and it's always nerve-wracking just because we so so much want to say our appreciation and show it for our staff and that gives us a really great opportunity to do so and each staff member everybody walked away with a gift too everybody got a phone one of the lay down phone chargers a metal straw and then also a decal for their car so nobody left empty-handed but there was a lot of food and a lot of fun had so i just wanted to say thank you to our community sponsors who came through in in ways i couldn't even imagine so we did send out a thank you but i just wanted to say it here publicly because

045it was huge for us we also just on a side note our next event is august 22nd that will be our opening day and that too will be a big event for our employees and that one we see sometimes close to 800 people come to on opening day and that's august 22nd and i'd like to invite you all to that we will be doing food trucks again outside in some other events and of course a giveaway for our staff and it's always a great way to start off the year um a couple of other notes that i just wanted to make sure that i covered was that we just completed an eop training which is our emergency operation plan so consistently at jps we are working on all of our emergency procedures at every building

046our staff is introduced to a new subject each month at their staff meetings plus we work on some bigger trainings and and so yet um i think it was yesterday or the day before i can't even remember the week so long we did an emergency operation tabletop where we simulated what it would be like to have an evacuation so that was one of our practices with all of our administration and these are really important for us to do because they really talk about a lot of the things that you don't necessarily think about in an emergency all of our buildings have gone through active shooter training except for our administration building and our operations building and we are doing that next tuesday and we continually rotate through all of our schools to do that over

047the year and into next year so at least everybody gets a training once a year i cannot stress enough about how safety and security is important to jps and these trainings talk and put us through situations that make us understand all that is necessary logistically and safety wise and and we are appreciative of the partnerships that we have with our police department and our fire department when these emergencies occur and so when you see drills at school we do tornado we do fire and we do lock down drills it's imperative that we do this this is the times we are in and it is important to us that we make sure that our staff and students understand how important it is and we ask that our parents embrace it as well this is something that

048we need to do and that it is important for our staff and william has led that committee of our uh our eop committee for the last three years i think so um we look forward to continuing that work even though he's leaving us and i'm super sad he's leaving us and then lastly um i just wanted to say that as of friday at afternoon all of our students except for our summer school students will be out of school and hunt will be taking their breaks so you will see a lot of rested teachers and students all over the community please if you see a teacher thank them for the work they did this year the rest of us will not be off and we'll be getting ready for next year thank you chris up next

049in superintendent's report is the 98b benchmark assessment report and what i would do is draw your attention to to that if you follow along in the links there's a lot of information in here each school has a has a page the it shows the the we're required by law to report out where we're at in the first board meeting in february and then again no later than the last day of the school year which for us our our last day of our fiscal year is june 30. so what you will see is a breakdown of students by gender by ethnicity you'll see them by grade and it's specific to reading and math you could see the growth set aside by each um each grade and or each subject in specific reading and math so there's

050a lot there i would draw your attention to it and ask you please if you have questions mr patterson will be able to handle the secondary and i'd ask you just to reach out because again they're going through the report line by line we we'd be here all night just doing that and then miss baker will handle elementary so if you have questions please don't hesitate to email or reach out and they can walk you through those these will all be posted on our website so if you you don't have an agenda in front of you this information is out there and easily accessible and that concludes the superintendent's report for the month of june okay thank you we are on number five the consent agenda so at this time i would entertain a motion

051for approval of the amended consent agenda thank you libby thank you shlanda any deliberation okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries we are on number six citizens requesting to address the board and i have a few here um just a reminder it's there's a five minute timeline and then there's no back and forth but we appreciate your input so the first one up is amy gish but it does look nice can you hear me i said good okay this is a quote from my angelo it is only out of ignorance that people are cruel because they really don't think it will come back philosophy of the board includes quote the citizens shall be urged to bring their aspirations and concerns about the district to the attention of this body end

052quote during board comments five of you have taken time to discourage this in fact one has started stated she would like to quote argue back i don't take time to present facts so you can argue back i have been asking that matters be investigated you all have chosen not to act i continue to bring matters to you because that is the philosophy of the board regardless of who the members are regardless of your attitudes regardless of your failures to act over and over and over again it's nobody's fault but your own that you don't read or no policy your excuses have been we work full-time we don't get paid to be a school board member and you don't know what we do pitiful everyone has 24 hours in a day even the president of the

053united states if you do not have time for this service then resign don't run again you're hurting this community by taking a seat away from someone who does have the time to devote to this body to this district to this community by taking a seat away from someone who is willing to do the work you are robbing the families of our community you were elected to serve so resign don't run again this community doesn't need pitiful excuses this community is on an upswing in many areas and you have voted to create an image and protect it we live here we see beyond that false image even those who are new to the community learn those lessons quickly hunt parent mrs inman shared her experiences with you not too long ago and said some very strong

054messages that stayed with me for you likely in one ear and out the other i say that because that's your track record you're tired of hearing it but it's the truth you've heard from many different stakeholders who are telling you the same thing your reaction it's orchestrated it's pylon but it's not it's the truth and sometimes the truth hurts as i drive through the city of jackson every spring i'm always amazed to see the graduation signs in the front yards vandercook lake northwest east jackson western the list goes on and on so many of our families no longer believe in jackson public schools that makes me sad even worse as many times as teachers have encouraged district administrators to reach out to those families to find out why those families left us nobody has ever

055done so we even asked for a third neutral party to conduct exit interviews to find out why teachers have left in droves over the years pre-pandemic nobody was interested in that information either you're satisfied with the goodbyes often we hear administrators make up false reasons why these families and teachers have left and you're satisfied with the lies even when the truth comes out i didn't leave because my new school district has air conditioning as the superintendent had announced the board but it doesn't matter that math teacher is gone along with a lot of other math teachers along with a lot of other teachers i believe someone doesn't want you to know the real reasons for their departures i believe someone doesn't want you to know why our families leave and it as his supporters you're

056good with that group think no dissent five votes one way to the other two people two board members who are working hard to represent their constituents two who maintain two-way communication with them in order to serve them as an elected official should i'm proud of them your community is already benefiting from your ethical work and representing all students all families at jackson public schools other board members have tried to stand in your way and keep you from doing what you're doing but you too move forward for our families anyway while the board 5 served the pleasure of the superintendent if this weren't so i'd be addressing libby brown as board president right now the board minutes from the december 14 board minutes includes who all wanted what position angela would like to remain president shalonda

057will remain a trustee pam would be interested in vice president cheryl would like to remain treasurer aaron would be happy to serve in whatever capacity is needed libby expressed that this procedure is being done differently told that she would be the next president keisha not seeking officer position so angela got what she wanted pam got what she wanted shalonda got what she wanted aaron got what he wanted then there's libby i know the games that these people play thank you amy your time's up thank you okay next up is stephanie chizik sizzix sorry superintendent beale members of the school board i'm stephanie cezak i think you know that um retired spanish teacher from jackson high school and parkside before that et cetera et cetera the language of policy number one two three zero responsibilities of

058the superintendent states that the superintendent shall strive to achieve district goals by providing educational direction and supervision to the professional staff and support staff by acting quote as a proper model for staff and students both in and outside the district unquote because the superintendent is supposed to be modeling appropriate behavior according to policy number two one two three zero bullying and harassing are not appropriate the superintendent should be modeling all behavior that is subject to students and staff per board policy anti-harassment language appears in both student and staff board policies the superintendent should be modeling these required behaviors superintendent beal is known for bullying and harassing staff and students to the extreme those who have addressed the board by reporting the superintendent's extreme acts of bullying and harassment and intimidation are advocating for others because

059they know a good educational system cannot be managed by fear and intimidation it is not only exhausting to be on the receiving end of the superintendent superintendent's harassing and radical bullying tactics but these tactics go way beyond yelling finger-pointing and body language but as you've heard from some addressing the board there are other more damaging non-physical forms of harassment often to the severe detriment of the victims whether student parent or staff member you the board have had many individuals come forward to report such behaviors and you the board five have done nothing this not only enables the superintendent to continue this abusive behavior but this abuse has escalated to extremes because no one's restraining him this is the major reason that students and staff have been leaving the district as of late there are actually

060more resignations than new hires they have no recourse because you the board five have abandoned those duties and thus abandoned your fellow human beings if you the board five are satisfied with the way things are and it appears that you are then who knows what will happen to citizens in the path of this runaway train before it crashes and you the board are and will be held accountable food for thought thank you thank you next up is joanna perkins i'm joanna perkins retired english teacher english chair and building committee chair i'd like to preface by saying i find it really ironic that we all stand up and put our heart over our chest to pledge the allegiance when this board is so replete with corruption and inequality at the last board meeting information regarding jeff

061beale and jeremy patterson being found guilty of retaliation in a court of law all the way to the supreme court as of late was brought forth additionally information regarding jeremy being hired as a principal without the criteria of a masters and 10 years of teaching and also having a drunk driving on his record while the athletic director was fired under jps's no tolerance policy was brought forth as well even further i disclosed a quick reminder of the litany of upstanding credible victims whom have come forth regarding superintendent beale's incessant and brazen harassment retaliation and abuse of a myriad of women inquiries were made regarding what discipline would entail as it concerns superintendent beale and jeremy patterson's reprehensible behavior of retaliation now validated by the law i asked you the board how do these individuals maintain

062their employ how today i not only ask that but what how does this despicable behavior not only go undisciplined but instead rewarded as jeremy patterson has now been elevated into his brother's former position of assistant superintendent how just how as i stated in one of my previous addresses to you the board you have gone from enabling superintendent bill's brazen abuse and lawlessness to actually mimicking his lawlessness pam fitzgerald during the comment portion of the march board meeting you stated that superintendent beale inherited the kelly pennington and penny davis debacles not only was beal in his position during both but he was actually one of the main persons behind feverishly tormenting penny which he has now been found guilty of in a court of law your lies misled the remaining board who don't bother to fact

063check the board five i i mean the individuals present and watching board meetings the public and the news media by painting a very false narrative shame on you shame on you board policy states that we are to bring issues of concern to you the board yet everything brought forth during our employees and during the last four board meetings have been ignored you as a board continue to do absolutely nothing thereby making you just as guilty all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing however not only do you continue to fail at your moral and legal obligations of due diligence ever as everything being presented to you continues to go uninvestigated but several of you actually work to create false narratives supporting the evil doings and becoming evil doings your

064evil doers yourselves furthermore the district's lawyer brendan beard stated in an email to the board that it would be in quotes in your best interest not to talk to amy or joanna again board policy states that we are to bring concerns to the board yet we are being isolated from that very thing not only was jeremy hired as principal through nepotism while not pro possessing 10 years of teaching or a masters with a drunk driving on his record but currently found guilty of retaliation in a court of law but you the board have elevated him not only to assistant superintendent but he will also be assuming the role of anti-harassment compliance officer and i ask you again how is this possible let me reiterate so folks can wrap their brain around this one not only

065are superintendent beale and jeremy patterson going undisciplined for their despicable actions they are now officially guilty of in a court of law but jeremy patterson is actually being promoted into his brother's former position of assistant superintendent and he will be assuming the role of anti-compliance officer the very thing he is guilty of hmm that would be like putting harvey weinstein not putting harvey weinstein in jail and then hiring him to run the anti-sexual assault unit laughable despicable how just how is this possible then again you as a board have allowed superintendent bill to hire himself as hr director and foia coordinator so his utter lawlessness just continues and is being supported by you the board five the very individuals who have been elected to serve uphold and protect shame on you thank you consider this

066yet another whistleblower next up marcy jankovic my name is marcy jankovic i am a resident of the jackson public school district and the grandma of a second grader um one of the things i would like to bring up i brought up before which is acronyms one of the things i would like to bring up that i brought up before is acronyms i wish somewhere once in a document you would define the acronym many of us lay people don't understand them to me an lea is a law enforcement agency okay secondly i've been attending these meetings since last august it's going on almost a year now the same dead horse gets beat every meeting against superintendent beale the same things are said i don't i don't appreciate it much i would note that this board hired

067an independent investigator to investigate allegations of bullying he was he was found not to have bullied in that instance and i would suggest that sometimes bullying or harassment might be a thing in the eye of the beholder we might not all define it the same way the next thing i would like to say is crt and now i'm beating a dead horse i know so i'm not going to be doing that much more you know by now that we know crt is being implemented through social emotional learning and diversity equity and inclusion equality means everyone plays by the same rules that's objective equity is whatever some six-figure bureaucrat administrator decides it is subjective so it's evident that you're going to continue to implement this program it first came attention to the attention of the board

068last march and i've had conversations with dr linda lee tarver who is running for state board of education and i don't know if you know this wonderful woman of color not that she cares about that or i is not only a doctor in education she's a former member of the michigan civil rights commission and she expressed concerns as boards of education consider these programs that you investigate them very carefully because school districts are being sued for violating civil rights under the 1964 civil rights act you don't have to go very far to learn about that you can go right up the road to holt so you need to be aware not saying you can't hire one but please be very careful about how you craft a job description and have excellent oversight of the programs

069that are offered by a dei coordinator with their six-figure salary and their and their staff support that could be used for tutoring students instead so proceed with caution we want our funds spent on education not indoctrination or legal fees and costs and damages and we'll do our homework thank you for your attention [Applause] thank you next up is jennifer biddinger hello again thank you for allowing us to speak about our concerns um for years the humanistic anti-god theologies have been overtaking the education of our children through the public education system many chose to avoid this indoctrination by enrolling in private schools or homeschooling but now we are reaping a lawless society of adults that have no respect for authority morals or consequences for their actions and i believe that many of the excellent teachers are

070leaving because their consciences will not allow them to continue their desires to teach because of the revised curriculum based on false humanistic ideologies it's all about self self awareness self management and making decisions based on how you feel um i think i missed one but these are the three of the five competencies of seo learning the other two categories are social awareness and relationship skills stop wasting time and resources focusing on indoctrination these are children they need to be taught truth the truth is learning to love and respect others and obey your parents and your authorities listening to wise counsel and learning from our history whether it's good or bad our current media and often our schools are teaching children to disregard these truths and abide by the corrupt media that instills rebellion against parents

071against law offices officers and against the law and against anyone who questions the current administration citizens all over the country are standing up against this tyranny i hope and pray that you as our school board leaders will be able to also say that you will not be pressured into following along with the unlawful demands we the people are fed up we are we will not negotiate with domestic terrorists um and now recently we've heard of the biden administration threatening to withhold funds for food programs unless schools comply with the immoral liberal agendas outrageous punishing the children if we don't go along this ideology has become a theology for forced on all imagine if we were required to wear head coverings and pray at certain times of the day or suffer the consequences america has protections

072under the constitution that give us the freedom to make these choices as christians god has clear statements that reprove the lifesteals lifestyles of homosexuality so to force this agenda would be to violate our constitutional rights do not be a part of this mistake if this small group of citizens who do have a right to make their own choices and live their lives as they choose if they require an environment of all inclusion they must start their own public education system not infringe on the personal rights of of everyone else let me pose another situation imagine a conservative ideology where the people thought that only wearing red white and blue was acceptable for our citizens people who don't wear red light blue are offending those who hold it as a conviction schools that don't instill this

073ideology will have benefits taken away ridiculous right not to mention unconstitutional in addition this theology has everything to do with teaching human sexuality according to the revised school code which i read this kind of instruction is to be taught by teachers qualified to teach health education and with the full permission by the parents and guardians after reviewing the materials to be used teachers that are teaching this material whether by verbal or textbook instruction are not abiding by the state's code and would be subject to legal consequences and it also states that the district shall not offer this instruction unless the sex education advisory board is established so i don't know whether that exists for the jackson public schools on a personal note i myself am disgusted and many other parents grandparents and citizens that some

074teachers in our state are abusing the minds of our children with their crude images and influences we need to focus on raising the standards of education through improved reading math and science skills and using funds for this purpose not spending money on revised curriculum that promotes false doctrine teaching truth which means that god created male and female whether whether other influences try to manipulate and fuse with their ideologies do not conform the mixed gender theologies in regards to playing sports or changing bathrooms which lead to even bigger problems please stand up to protect all of our children and get back to promoting excellence in education for our future thank you i didn't think i'd get that all in so that's why i did 13 seconds to spare thank you okay uh william hastings i really

075don't have any prepared remarks uh just just a few off the cuff observations um the first two are concerning the budget so earlier this year i had some discussions with is it lois stunning okay about the laundry initiative at the school and what they needed in terms of support to go to go moving forward and she said there is a great need for the students who are doing their laundry at school to have a canvas laundry bags and i was just gonna throw this out here and it you know there's just gobs of money in that s or three and that would be like a blip so if that's just something you could consider i just let you know that we are funded through the laundry fund by donations so we have donations for those

076bags already okay and it is also at the um jackson community foundation there's a fund there as well so we take donations but we also do have some dollars already allotted from donations but thank you okay glad to hear that's fun just at the time i had the discussion it was it was a need uh the second thing is i i had a chance recently to spend uh some time in the um in the welcome center um i'm escorting i was escorting some um incoming ninth graders who are going to take who are taking their algebra test out exam and um i i was just impressed i just want to comment that it's um really taking a good look around in the wake of obviously what just happened in texas and other just horrendous horrendous

077incidents that i i think that the board current and passports and the superintendent have been very prudent in investing money in hardening the school and taking affirmative steps to keep something terrible terrible from happening and i think it's it's very it's it's very good that you have some jps or jpd officers on site and just to wrap it up i just wanted to i wish the teachers were here to thank them in person but my my daughter just concluded what i thought was an outstanding academic year which would not have been possible with outstanding teachers they were all good they're all very good um but just i mean at the top at the top of the top mrs burns ap statistics i believe she's retiring frau adams ap german i think she's taking kind of

078a senior status it's sort of retiring anyway and then at the tippy top mr shane are fabulous um almost living legend and um at the top of my list of the best of the bunch is uh mr lowe's your your your ap chemistry teacher did an absolutely outstanding job and um and uh it really helped my you know help my daughter have have an outstanding junior year which is really is the critical year when you're trying to get ready for college so thank you thank you next up is linda larry robinson and or mary good evening i'm linda larry robinson worked for the district for 32 years i've for those of you that don't know me i've worked with some of you and i've even taught one of you and i am here to i

079have a concern about student achievement i worked at northeast elementary with the retired teachers group and i thoroughly enjoyed working with the staff and the students there my concern my concern is the student ability gap in one classroom first grade second grade you can have students working at a kindergarten level and students working at a fifth grade level especially in reading and the classroom teachers really really need more support i have data to support my concern of course my data is very limited because it's only with the children that i have worked with this past year but i would be very very happy to share this data with you i also would like to know if there are any funds available for the retired teachers to get an increase in pay and also to expand

080the program feel free to contact me if i could if you have any questions or concerns i'd be happy to discuss this further with you thank you thank you okay next we are on number seven discussion items so the first one is 21-22-148 board comments so cheryl um i took this to angela as an agenda item because i had gotten some feedback from no less than a dozen community members asking whether we limit the time frame on board comments one of the people who contacted me was actually a board member in a neighboring district who said that they limit board comments to three minutes so all of these people were concerned about the length of time that is involved in board comments and angela said we could put it on for discussion if anyone felt

081the need to discuss that further any other comments just to clarify are you is are we talking about board comments at the end of the board meeting or yes it was um specific to the yeah the agenda item that is titled board comments cheryl are you proposing that we limit it to a certain time period then i'm just representing the people that contacted me and sharing their concerns about the time that's involved thank you i mean i do think we should reduce it when we're giving five minutes to the the community i think that it would be appropriate if we had the same conditions because i think some members are stating it and restating it stating it a different way and it's just going on and on i think there also should be some consideration

082about the process in which um the board members give their feedback i think typically it's at this end and then maybe the next month at the other end so if we can have like a variation of whoever feels compelled once that agenda item has been um has come up that whoever would like to initiate their comments will feel you know have that liberty to do so seems like we've done that too i think i mean i've been on since 2017 and former board presidents even before i did you know was at times start from this end of the table or randomly ask um many board members throughout the time that i've been here some have never been compelled to really have any comments um and it seems like recently we've been kind of very methodical

083about going one by one but i don't believe there's any set precedent or stone something in stone on how we have to do it all right anything else okay the next line item is 21-22-149 elementary handbooks so i will pass it over to julie we reviewed the comment pages for the elementary handbooks and we did a pretty thorough job of cleaning those up last year we didn't find any areas we were thinking that we still had pagers and the code of conduct and and that was taken out previously so um i don't we're not suggesting any changes for the elementary common handbook pages right and this is a discussion item so again um take a look at the common hand pa the the common pages you'll see the changes that are highlighted um in the

084in that template and then if you have questions you can reach out to julie and then we'll bring this back for action at our july meeting okay thank you next line item is 21-22-150 secondary handbooks so william thank you um same here each year um the secondary principles review the common pages uh mrs oxley's uh mrs oxley is gracious enough to sit in with us to kind of take notes of our discussion and and capture some of those changes all those changes have been highlighted in the attached document no action required at this time but the common pages will be presented for the approval at the july board meeting question do we know when the last time was that we updated the full handbook when's last time it's been reviewed i'm sure um each year

085um yeah each year we review the i don't know at what time the whole handbook was reviewed but each every year we are eliminating and adding new language but as far as the entire handbook i'm not sure does anybody know that i wouldn't think in my eight or nine years that the whole handbook was so we review the comment pages each year but not the full handbook the whole handbook is is reviewed i know the principles we review those even the the pages that are common to the buildings those are kind of reviewed at the building level but the common pages are we all come together and review them um so this might be for jeff i don't know um when when does the board get to review the reviews that they do when do

086we review that stuff in the main handbook that that's not board material that's that's actually school district material so the board approves the common pages because those reflect the policy changes so the board actually doesn't ever touch the the individual or the whole handbook it really is only touching the common pages pertaining to policy thank you so the um so the main book the full book it doesn't reflect uh board policy you said it it reflects the school building it re so the common pages are those pages that are approved by the board consistent with board policy the individual policies specific to a building are programmatic in in how the building is operated and no those are not those don't come before the board so the board can't hold those pages accountable is that what

087you're saying we we have no nothing to do with those pages those are not functions of the board that's correct okay thank you i would just ask of the board um if there are suggestions for changes that somehow they get to julian william early so that we can see them before we come to the july meeting i know that last year there were numerous changes suggested on the day of the meeting where we were to approve them i found that very difficult we didn't have anything in writing in front of us we didn't have anything prior to coming to this meeting for those changes and i was very uncomfortable with the way that that went down so if the board members have changes i would like to see us get them to julian william in

088advance okay thank you any other deliberation [Music] discussion okay next line item is 21-22-150 valedictorian committee proposal jeff actually i think uh jeremy and willie are going to participate in this conversation i think willie are going to take lead and mr patterson and then uh this is for discussion at this point so we're not asking for a vote uh they'll share with you the work of the committee and then uh ms pierce will be here in the month of july uh to be able to to make a recommendation for adoption all right so uh i i am standing in for mrs pierce i am a poor substitute for her but i will do my best to take into consideration and to share with you all the discussions that we had over the course of six

089meetings we had um uh mrs pierce sent out feelers to a number of different community members including students and parents and former valedictorians and and community members and we ended up with a committee of about nine folks who met regularly we ended up with six six meetings and over those course of those six meetings we took into consideration a number of different ideas um just to sort of look at the way that we came up with the valedictorian for um for graduation though the one when we walked into that conversation we knew that the 2018 policy was not well received and we also knew that the previous policy of just having a 4.0 was not necessarily um well received as well and so we tried to come up with a definition that would help to

090drive that conversation as you look at the packet or look at the handout the definition that was determined was a valedictorian as a student or students typically having the highest academic achievements of the class and we began there the work that we went through we we sent mrs mrs raymond back with a bunch of homework each meeting and we were we talked about issues of equity we looked at including the sat we talked to other districts around the county and within the essays the sec to see if our policies match what theirs looked like and whether or not we were doing things that were out of the norm we surveyed uh 4.0 students and parents of 4.0 students we've we reached out to parents that were that we felt had a um we reached out

091to parents and and students to to get their opinion on what we were on the direction that we were going with this and um and at the end of the day the policy that we landed on was uh this proposal here and i'll read it verbatim so that way the language is important so that we're all on the same page it says students must have a cumulative gpa of 4.0 for all earned credits including high school credits acquired at the middle school level middle school the retaking of a course for a better grade will not be used in computation for valedictorian independent studies will not be considered in the computation for uh selection for valedictorian additionally for the class of 2027 and that's an amendment that's an amended piece that's in your packet because it

092says 2026 and we knew that the students that were already had picked their courses we wanted to make sure that this included this did not include those students the sixth graders who had already decided on the courses that they're taking so we said we should make it valid for the class of 2027 and beyond the following must be met that uh students must take a minimum of six advanced placement dual enrolled or early college courses in any combination and we did that mainly because we knew that the trying to weight those in terms of its rigor or how they were designed was really problematic and we also wanted to make sure that we we made this an equitable practice making sure that we could give students the support they needed to to drive out to

093courses or to have courses on campus that that all students had access to all of those classes and at the end of the day those we came up with a pretty close to consensus group consensus we i think we had one or two members that were on the fence but we came up with that policy and that's what we're proposing to bring forward for you all what questions do you have i had just one why it's on the top of my mind just looking at the first paragraph just just clarification so if a student in the eighth grade takes a math course that would count as a high school credit and they do not get a 4.0 if they retake that course let's say in the ninth grade is that what that sentence means is

094that that retake will not be used in computation as valedictorian so if they get a 4.0 on the ninth grade and that same course that does not count that it doesn't as of right now okay yeah i believe that and i mean mr patterson you can you can speak to this but i believe when students take courses at the at the middle school level that are high school that have high school credits attached to them that there is a disclaimer that they have to sign to recognize that that class does count in the calculation for gpa just want to say kudos to monica pierce and the team for going back and doing their homework and uh just really seeking out people from all different levels including the middle school so i was contacted to reach

095out to students and parents and administrators and i also like the communication plan like it not waiting too late when you get to jackson high to start having this conversation and beginning this conversation with the sixth grade so when we do our orientation at the beginning of the year the communication when you're signing up for classes course syllabus and just our offerings in general to make sure everyone understands you might be in the sixth seventh or eighth grade but this is high school credit and and there's that parent guardian communication and signing off and sometimes the students opt not to take that um grade on their gpa because they want to strive to continue to do better so they do have choice in the matter if they didn't get the grade that they were looking

096for to try it again without penalty do we know who exactly was on the committee you said there were nine people yes yes can we know that yep do you want me to list the night oh i don't have a list in front of me um were you in those meetings yes do you remember some um yup willie pagett um oh my gosh uh you you calling me out on the uh um myself um uh mrs hutchinson was a was a parent um uh mrs mrs pierce cheryl ciminetti was uh she visited the first couple i mean the last couple of meetings christy dillon was a member of that that committee as well um oh i'm drawing a blank on the young man's name chat can you say it again yes shaft and duckling that

097was another member and and mike mason yeah that was another one oh yeah sam al said he was a parent of a former valedictorian as well and an instructor for us sam sam thank you and you know what their positions are no so willy packet she was a former admin here is that correct yup and she's also a grandparent of a student that's so she had a dual dual hat yeah and the the vote was anonymous so we didn't necessarily ask who who voted in which way um who is mrs mrs hutchingson yup she's a huffman husband thank you who is she she's a parent of a current current student valedictorian student or a 4.0 student yeah and dylan um who's shaft and duncan he's a uh his parent i mean he's a parent of

098a middle school student an elementary student yeah thank you mike mason is a is an educator and you said sam austin yep yep who is he he is a educator but he's also a parent of a former valedictorian thank you um one more question for you or two maybe um with the so before before we decided that they had to have these six um advanced placement or dual enrollment or early college courses and you may not have the answers jeff might did we ever have any special needs students who became valedictorian do they do they attend these you don't know that answer jeff do you know that answer i don't know that answer so do we now seem like you know maybe julia or patterson you might know dr patterson um do any of our

099special needs students take advanced placement dual enrollment or college early college courses do we know if they yeah i can answer that i do know that we have students that have that have a label of special needs that are in our dual enrolled classes and our in our ap classes okay do we know if any of that and you may not know this or not do we know if any of them have become uh valedictorians oh i don't know does anybody really concerned about um the way this has been uh uh these um minimum six because it seems like it would eliminate our special needs students um so that's one of my concerns is that you know this might eliminate our special needs students from being able to uh you know places valedictorians precious armstrong

100you said what about her she was she was on the committee yeah thank you thank you okay i have a couple of couple comments i'm thrilled we're going to have some criteria that's specific um i do hope that at least at the high school before the kids take their classes they have a counselor and i work with jill all the time i'm a liaison from jc at jackson high for the jackson county early college program and the special needs population we have many many many many students i work with who are labeled in some aspect or another so yes we have many kids in dual enrollment or jcec i'd like them to avoid the things like the short five week classes the things that would just kind of set them up for fail even if

101they were a regular age freshman let alone the elementary or actually the middle school the high school kids but i think this is a step in the right direction um for us and i think it will need to be as you know explain to the parents but i'd like to see any counselor along the way make sure the kids aren't put into something because it fits their schedule but because it's appropriate for their area a lot of kids should be taking for example english 131 and they get a brse which is pretty common for that class and they automatically can never be valedictorian i think it's important something you said jeremy i didn't know and that is that they could opt out of getting high school credit for it and then retake it in high

102school that's an exceptional idea for these kids my kids have gone through and taken you know college classes along the way and they always took it for high school and college credit together and i was always in this panic about well what if they you know bomb their their college class and so i think it's important that they're aware of that that they can take the class for school credit and not have to transfer to the high school unless the grades high enough so i'm really i'm pleased to say the least um i just have a concern about the six ap or dual enrollment classes just in that number because in the time that one student might take an ap class it takes someone three trimesters to complete an ap class another student could take

103three separate dual enrollment classes so i i think it's inequitable right there that if you look at first hour versus second hour some could be done with all of their six dual enrollment classes in two hour period where it's going to take another student six full hours at some point in time to get six ap classes does that make sense yep and i believe we had that that discussion um in regards to the the nature of how dueling road courses were set up and that you could take them during the slots and and having um having the ability to take three three courses of the course of the year but i think the reason that we landed on the the six is we looked at the opportunities during a high school career of having 18

104slots per year and saying that to to say over the course of of um your high school career you have 64 opportunities and the minimum is six is that we're looking for and at the same time we know that we were putting together um during our discussions we we kept landing on the supports and back filling the supports that we knew necessary to encourage and to support more students taking dual enrolled in ap classes at the same time that we're developing this plan so that was not divorce of those two things so that we could in fact help to encourage and see more students that we hadn't necessarily served in those courses up until this date be present in those courses but also making sure that we put together the supports to make sure that

105they once they were in those courses they could be successful so having said that or having that as a backdrop we felt like six was a was a good number that would help to differentiate and give us uh and get us close to the definition which is a student that is typically having the highest academic achievement of that class giving them a rigorous experience while they were with us i would just say i appreciate the work of the committee i think as a board collect i mean it's it's it's that's certainly important that we honor that work of the committee um and the experts who who took on that task i think the rub from the previous uh you know time this came up was more about communication i know mr patterson mentioned that i

106actually sat through the ninth grade orientation with my own son and i left out of that particular session crystal clear on what at that time that the previous committee had established i didn't walk out with any questions i had all the material that i had but the previous years as you can recall had been a little confused and i think some of the the outcry that i personally received was pretty significant which obviously caused for the delay but to regroup with the committee it sounds i recognized most of those names on the committee um and to put that in your your all hands as the true experts i'm i'm super confident with that so thank you i have a question for you um so i got distracted my son was calling me and when he

107caused three times in a row i don't know if it's an accident or something like that so i got distracted but anyways uh um how was the committee chosen do we know how those names were chosen do we know who all was uh invited um you know do we do we know that i noted that mrs pierce sent out a wide net she sent out feelers to a number of different folks so was this like do you know if these were like just individual people that she put out or was it like just you know i know that there was um conversations with with administrators and teachers at different levels asking for recommendations for folks and there was also community members that were asked because of their connection to the to the programming but then

108it was it was sent out in an email saying we'd like to have you as a part of the committee okay because i know some people have wanted to participate i wondered how much variety was on the um variety of thought was on the committee you know i wonder if it was all just kind of we all kind of think the same absolutely not no that's we that we were we were close to not having a consensus coming into this meeting because we were because the divergent thoughts in terms of how how we should define someone that has the highest academic standards and making sure that when they went through what our treatment which is jackson high school's most rigorous courses how could we determine who's who's in that who makes that that cut and

109there was just a lot of discussion a lot of discussion we probably also did you i guess i should say compare districts that look like our so i don't see them here that we um talk to neighboring districts here in the county i know a lot of them don't necessarily look like jps especially our you know racial demographics did we look at schools that have a racial demographic similar to ours we did yeah who was that those were sec schools so we looked at for instance ipsy lincoln looks a lot like us and so we looked at the other sec schools to look and see how are they determining it what we did find is there's a lot of discussion going across across this the county across the districts in the in jackson county and

110across the state as to whether or not valedictorian status is is something that they would rather value or walk away from so we're i was happy that we are embracing something that we can honor our students that have worked to work really hard to get that status thank you for answering my question currently we have we don't have an amount a certain number of students that um are recognized as valedictorians what was the conversation around that topic did we discuss how many should be considered a valedictorian or i'm smiling because that's that we began with this notion of trying to somehow winnow it down um and not have this expansive group but as the discussions happen and we looked at what does it really mean we began to understand that someone who's worked really hard

111to get this status we shouldn't be putting barriers in place to to limit that number what we should be doing is making sure that the criteria is something that we can all hold to and say that that meets the standard for what we believe is a rigorous experience and someone who has achieved the the highest standards that we can ask for thank you i do appreciate the option that students will have for ap classes dual enrollment or early college courses i think that provides them an opportunity some students are not ready to be thrust into that post-secondary experience i appreciate the consideration that was made towards that [Music] i too just want to thank the work of the committee and i think it's great that you did have special ed representation on there such as

112precious i i'm a special ed administrator and i have been for 11 years so i think it's great to consider that population and although those kids have disabilities with their iep that helps level the playing field for those kids with accommodations and services and support so i think that's great hey anything else thank you okay uh we are moving on to number eight action items so the first one will be the one that we pulled 21-22-140 human resources so first i would entertain a motion for approval of the human resource items as presented thank you pam thank you cheryl um now deliberation i just wanted to inform the community that jps continues to make an active effort to hire qualified teachers and in this month's um hr we have six new teachers three that are

113elementary teachers that are coming aboard one that will be representing our middle school population and then two teachers that will also be at our high school level of the six teachers we have one teacher that actually completed her student teaching with jackson high school there's something to be said about going through your student teaching experience and then still desiring to be a part of jps also another new hire was a parapro and a substitute teacher again just want to highlight that we have individuals that are coming to the district you know getting their feet wet if you will seeing if it's a perfect fit if it's a blend for them and they are accepting the offer to join the vikings and then as far as the recognition the resignations just wanted to also highlight that

114exit interviews continue to take place there is some discussion from the community or a misnomer or a myth that exit interviews are not happening they are happening we are collecting data and it is you know we are getting um our individuals teachers have the option to either participate in that extra interview virtually or in person i just want to bring some awareness to our community to kind of like understand what's happening when other messages are being sent thank you shlonda i just would like to ask have you seen the accident interviews how do you know that they are existing for every person that exits assistance i am not aware of every interview i'm aware of some i do not i have not had been privy to see every exit interview no i have been provided

115information and data so just to add to that we have i have specifically uh asked for uh exit interviews and jeff and i agreed to uh i think quarterly um and i'm not seeing those exit interviews um we also have mentioned that we want third-party exit interviews because again jeff is the hr you know so it's a good reason for individuals to not necessarily be completely honest not because they're dishonest individuals but it's something about speaking to uh someone that you're you know fleeing from possibly so it'd be nice if actually the exit interviews were not only occurring that we were getting the data on it and that they were third-party exit interviews so hopefully maybe we can implement that at some point trustee hamilton do you have a third party recommendation that you're making

116for these extra interviews so jeff bill is our superintendent and part of his job would be to offer us different suggestions of those third-party interviews um so that's will be part of his job and he could bring those back to the board table and then we could review those and then decide from there so it's my understanding that the exit interviews are being done by jessica carter not by jeff beale and unless an employee specifically requests to have an exit interview with mr beal he is not conducting those interviews okay any other deliberations cheryl did you have oh something did you so i did um hear from one of the teachers who is on the resignation list for this year ben burmeister and he sent me a letter which i would like to share he

117said this past week i turned in my letter of resignation to mr beal and jackson public schools this letter is to publicly thank and praise the building and district administration for jps as well to acknowledge incredible teachers and staff that are employed at jps three long years ago i was hired as a third grade teacher at northeast elementary i was already a veteran teacher in jackson county but was new to jackson public schools i did not know much about jps and the little i did know did not paint the district in a positive light whether because of test scores or student behavior and engagement etc it did not take long to realize jps was and is so much more than that kovit interrupted my first year teaching at northeast it became abundantly apparent just how

118strong our district administration was i was fortunate enough to have been involved in communication and planning for our return to learn plan jeff beale and his entire administrative team consistently put the needs of staff and students above all else i was consistently impressed with the level of communication staff received in the collaborative nature of our plan not all districts sought input from teachers counselors and administrators jps did and it was very much appreciated as we were thrown into unprecedented and unfamiliar waters of the pandemic additionally i have always been supported by my building administrators eric weatherwacks is truly the best person i have met through education when he left to accept the superintendent position at jonesville i was concerned how he could be replaced however phil van allen and sandy martin filled that void better

119than i thought possible they empowered and challenged the teaching and support staff daily to put the needs of the child first in the student second they supported and encouraged us to take risks and try new things i can say with conviction that i am a better teacher today because of the interactions i had with eric phil and sandy not every principal is cut from the same cloth i am so blessed to have worked with three administrators at northeast that truly teach treat teachers with respect and professional courtesy jackson will always hold a special place in my heart three years ago i was given the opportunity to join the teaching staff at jackson public schools these have been three of the most challenging yet rewarding years of my teaching career i have loved my time as

120a viking and had no intention of teaching anywhere else however a few weeks ago i was given the chance to teach in my home district where my two boys will attend in a couple of years additionally my new school building is less than a mile from my home despite that it was a difficult and agonizing decision to leave jps one of the reasons i joined jps was because i believed the hype three years later it's what makes it so difficult to leave jackson public schools under the guidance and leadership of jeff beale and administrators like eric weatherwax phil van allen and sandy martin is doing a lot of things right for teachers staff and most importantly students i believe in the vision mission and direction of jackson public schools and know the district is in

121good hands so i wanted to share that just to say that every resignation is not a negative thing thank you [Applause] okay thank you okay so we have a motion on the table for the hr so all those in favor say aye opposed okay motion carries next line item is 21-22-152 security cameras for jackson high school field house marcus as we move through our field house project we have come to the point to order security cameras for the building just like we've done with all of our other projects so in front of you we have a quote from presidio in the amount of twenty thousand six hundred fifty seven dollars and twelve cents this is the same vendor same type of cameras we've used throughout the district to be consistent with the rest of our

122projects so we would recommend at this time approving the quote from presidio for these cameras this does not include the installation and cabling this is just for the cameras that quote will be coming at a later date okay thank you at this time i would entertain a motion to approve the quote from presidio in the amount of twenty thousand six hundred fifty seven dollars and twelve cents as approved i mean as recommended sorry okay thank you libby thanks aaron okay any deliberation okay hearing none all those in favor say aye opposed okay motion carries next line item is 21 this is the 20-21-22-23 budget amendment marcus i know it's a little confusing this is our third budget amendment for 2021 2021-22 as you know we amend our budget three times throughout the year this is

123our final amendment as we head into our audit season where we'll wrap up the books so we have a copy of the final the overview of the final amendment for your review and we would recommend approval of the budget amendment at this time one thing to note on here at the bottom you know we've done a lot of great things around the district this year and we're still looking to add over two million dollars to our fund balance this year at this time i would entertain a motion for approval of the 2021-22-23 budget amendment as presented so thank you pam thank you cheryl any deliberation okay hearing none all those in favor say aye i opposed okay motion carries next line item is 21-22-154 the 2022-23 budget adoption marcus all right and just to continue

124from our budget hearing earlier this evening every year the board is required by law to adopt a balanced budget prior to the beginning of each fiscal year so again the proposed budget that we laid out earlier today includes our best estimate of anticipated revenues and expenditures and of course we'll amend it throughout the year as we move through that and get final information we've kind of summarized our millage rates that we talked about earlier in the evening as well and at this time we'll recommend the adoption of the proposed millage rates as well as the budget resolutions that are included in this item items packet which you've not seen until this portion okay thank you at this time i would entertain a motion for adoption of the proposed millage rate as well as the 2022-23

125budget resolutions including the general food service student activity debt service and capital projects funds as presented thank you libby thank you aaron any deliberation okay hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries oops now we are on number nine board comments are there any board comments yes i do have more comments um so just a couple things i would like clarity on what new business is how we use that you know what what that is i'd like to understand what new business is i'm just another reminder um you know that i would like to see the exit interviews as a quarterly report like we did agree on and i also would like third party recommendations um since that question was raised today thank you okay any other board comments um

126yeah so i just wanna you know you gotta you gotta take a step back and honor i think a few situations you know i came onto the board in 2017 and you know william i just wanted to thank you for the the interactions that we've always had professionally here on the board um you were a huge support to me early on and and i think your demeanor and and the way you've carried on and led in your position i it's truly appreciated um mrs jarvie was recently promoted as a as a result of jeremy's promotion so a lot of good things in jps um three principles within a year i don't know if that's been really ever mentioned but eric weatherwax's name recently came up um marty dubois and and obviously william um i think

127that's a you know a symbol of leadership for those three individuals that come out of our district within one year and um you know i don't need to address the other situations i think the vast majority of people know the horrible distraction that that is so i that's all i'll say on that i want to thank all of our teachers that really put in the hard work during this school year to offer instruction to our students i feel we still have a ways to go and i'm very optimistic that these sr3 funds will help close some of those academic gaps of the achievement gaps i am a firm believer that additional services offered to not just our students but our teachers as well to address our social emotional mental health capacity would beautify the children

128our students their experience moving forward so thank you teachers for your hard work we appreciate what you do your work is not going unnoticed thank you i just wanted to say that it was so nice all the great things that happened around the district at the end of the year that we were able to bring back like the picnics and field day was wonderful not only for my kid but i saw lots of kids having fun and smiling and i heard from other schools as well graduation was fabulous and then i just wanted to give kudos to chris and her team for that end of the year staff party i was able to make it over there for lunch and it was quite amazing so um great job and i heard from people afterwards too

129like teachers that said that that was so great that they they just felt good and it was nice going out on just a positive happy note with eating and winning and music and that was all great and then i too wanted to definitely thank the teachers and i hope they enjoy a well-deserved summer break um i'd like to thank you aaron for your comments because i'm glad that those things did not go unsaid so i echo your comments on that and also on the picnic i thought it was awesome it was a great time and you lucked out on the weather chris but um to me the one thing that really stuck out at that picnic was the camaraderie and the people i mean everyone was happy and laughing and that was the one thing

130that i would take from that picnic okay and i too wanted to say william thank you for all you've done for the district and good luck in your in your new position in addition to william good luck jeremy good luck that's no small task there's no no small shoes to fill good luck both your heads okay we are on number 10 new business there's no new business um number 11 for the calendar our next regular meeting is july 19th and then also july and it's here thank you uh michelle um and then july 26th is the filing deadline um for the november eight school board election question michelle can you add the opening day on the calendar for the next meeting thanks thank you okay we are on number 12 adjournment so i would entertain

131a motion for a tournament thank you aaron thank you cheryl any deliberation oh i'm sorry that was shalonda with a second sorry the straight line's getting me um okay any deliberation all those in favor say aye okay pose motion carries thank you for coming and have a great night you